THE "Telling Others About Peak Oil" Thread pt 2 (merged)

[tb]

I just finished reading posts on fark.com regarding an article Matt Savinar wrote.

Basically, most of the posters villified Matt without offering any logic to refute whatever it was he wrote- in semiliterate prose shot through with invective and profanities.

Kenneth Deffeys wrote in his book Hubbert's Peak that only about 100,000 people on the planet could do something useful with Thermodynamics. If what I read on the fark website represents the mass of humanity, I have to agree with him. Folks, we are at the cusp of the greatest challenge we humans have ever faced, and only a bare chemical trace of us even understand the problem, let alone do anything about it. The rest either deny it of shout down those who try to point out truth.

I think the human race is fatally unready for what is about to happen over the course of the next two decades, making things far worse than necessary as a result. May God help us. Please.

[Guest]

When I take a close look at what our political and corporate leaders are doing, and how the rest of us are willing to keep burning our fuel like there's no tomorrow, I wonder if "May God help us" is as appropriate as "May God forgive us".

[Chichis]

What's more astonishing is the number of people who admit not even RTFA (read the f*ing article). They won't even consider looking about something that promises the end of their luxurious way of life, let alone accept it as true. It doesn't matter though, those that deny it the most will die the fastest.

[MadScientist]

1. "die-off" is a necessary evil. An energy solution which vaults our population to 20 billion over the next 30 years would be worse in the long run.

2. Since #1 is true, quit worrying about the sheep and get your ass in gear. You cant sit in your lazy boy and theorize about how society could possibly save you. THEY OBVIOUSLY DONT GIVE A SHIT.



my personal conversations about peak oil to friends/family end up something like this: "Well, Billybob says theres lots of oil left and hes a electrician so dont worry about it. Besides, Im SURE they'll figure something out before anything bad happens. Now if youll kindly stfu I need to get back to the game/race."
Still, Ive been passing my now-worn national geographic around. Some people say they read the article.../shrug.

[Guest]

Hello, I am new here. Much of what un-informed people do and say reminds me of the Star Trek movie where they go back for the humpback whales. Spock remarks that "it is not logical to hunt a species to it's extinction", whereupon the marine biologist says, "Whoever said the human species was logical?"

I find about 10% of people will even listen to me, and they tend to be among the educated. I live here in the East Texas oil fields(which are 80% depleted), and one geologist told me we haven't found 1% of all the oil that's out there. He has never heard of Hubbert, or Oil Peak, or much less the end of industrial cilivization. But there are some who know what's going on, but they are few and far between.

[Guest]

I can tell why people dont want to listen to this stuff because it is make believe. I just read "Life After The Crash" come on this was like reading some late night Si-Fi book. You guys can't really believe this stuff!
This site is crazy, come you guys are talking about eating each other for God's sake.
I was a bit interested in oil depletion after the National Geographic article but after further study I find many flaws with it, anouther Y2K senerio.
Guys relax!!!! Keep working and don't forfit your retirement, buy the SUV, enjoy yourself, don't be moving to some outback place because of this.

[Chichis]

There are some parallels between Y2K and peak oil.

Y2K was REAL. It was a real problem and it actually happened, costing a lot of money. It wasn't fake, a hoax, or any of that. However, it also wasn't the world-ending disaster that a lot of people thought it would be. It was a minor ecomomic setback for a bunch of companies, and it never really worked it's way into the economy at large

Peak Oil is REAL. It's a real problem and it's either happening now or is going to happen within the next 5 years. It's not fake, a hoax, or any of that. It hasn't happened yet, but a lot of people have made really good educated guesses as to what's going to happen. This time, it isn't the doomsayers who are saying we're going to have real big problems. It's people like Matt Simmons, energy advisor to our president, who are saying we're going to have real big problems.

I need to stress that regardless of how bad it gets at its worst (this point is definitly up for debate), at it's BEST it's going to mean a complete change in everyone's life. This change has no possibility of being comfortable for you as an individual. It will be very uncomfortable, and possibly deadly.

If you think that Peak Oil is a hoax, then you need to read more. A lot of the people on these forums are skeptics, we aren't your average doomsayer apocolypse buff types. We're people who have read about peak oil, thought about it, and realized that this is the real deal. This time it's not going to be resolved by the machinery of technological progress. This time it's for REAL. Yes, we CAN really believe all this stuff. We believe it because it's backed by cold, hard facts. We believe it because it's real. This isn't some crazy UFO theory or something out there like that. This is real, and if you're not convinced then make your way to the gas station, check the prices, and then CONVINCE YOURSELF. If you don't accept the truth and start preparing for the future, you're as good as dead.

[MattSavinar]

The "Life After the OIl Crash" does indeed read like some "late night sci fi flick."

You know what?

I was just reading in this book about this guy named "Hitler" and this group of people called "Nazis"

The book said they killed 6 million innocent people, plunged the whole world into war. They did so, amongst other reasons, because they wanted to control much of the world's energy supply. This war only ended when some scientists invented this weapon capable of incinertating whole cities in mere seconds.

I can't believe anybody would believe such garbage. I mean really, whoever wrote that book has watched way too many sci fi/war movies.

Because any sane person would know that type of thing would never happen in the real world.

Just think of all the stupid, naive people who took those "nazis" seriously and tried to stop them! Probably the same type of people who buy into this whole "peak oil" garbage.

=)

Matt
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net

[MattSavinar]

Regarding Fark:

Getting "farked" may be the single best thing that has happened to Peak Oil.

My site was only getting 1,500 visits a day prior to being farked. Got farked on Feb 11th.

In 48 hours, I got 110,000 visits.

After that I got invited on Coast to Coast. Say what you will about the show, it does go out to 500 radio stations.

After that, they had Heinberg on a month later. A month after that, they had Ruppert on. Ruppert is going to be back on in a week or two.

It wasn't until after that that all the peak oil articles started popping up in the mainstream media.

I think what happend is this:

The issue had been simmering as a result of the work of people like Heinberg, Ruppert, etc. . .

Then Fark hit my site.

That got me onto C2C, which meant tons of people got to hear about the issue. And then they got to hear again when Heinberg and Ruppert where on.

Lots of people in the mainstream media listen to C2C to find out what the "next big thing" is. Having 3 Peak Oil guests on in such a short period of time probably convinced a lot of folks "Hey, we need to start covering this - there seems to be a growing concern/interest."

So in some weird way, Fark might be more responsbile for getting Peak Oil out into the mainstream than anything else!

Life is weird.

Matt

[Aaron]

I can tell why people dont want to listen to this stuff because it is make believe.

http://www.peakoil.net/images/ExxonMobil2004Feb_6.jpg

[Chichis]

BTW that graph is right out of the ExxonMobile investor yearly report thing.

[sheilach]

I cannot beleive how STUPID and INGNORANT most people are, they believe in impossible things, evil spirits, devils, gods, fairys, ghosts and endless energy.
They believe we have lots of capped oil wells just waiting for the prices to get high enough to open the taps, they believe that there's lots of oil deep deep under the ground, they believe there is a car engine that runs on water but the oil companies bought up the patent to keep it from being developed, they believe in IMPOSSIBLE THINGS!

Perhaps it's best to let the ingorent,stupid masses to bask in their superstitions while we prepare for the worse.

Then when the crunch hits, they will be the first to freeze in the dark while praying to their "gods" to save them.

This winter could be a tough one with natural gas declining while the stupid "leaders" believe that all those natural gas generators they ordered before checking on the availability of natural gas will be keeping them warm and lit up--fat chance dumbo.

I fear there will be a lot of north easteners freezing in the dark this winter.

It's discouraging when you read in the World almanac how much we depend upon fossil fuel to generate electricity.Canada has been madly drilling more gas wells but so far has only been able to keep the "supply" steady, but for how much longer?

Most people are unawhere that renewable energy can only meet a fraction of our energy use and that there is NO substitute for all the things oil can be used for especialy in our energy intensive agraculture, the most INefficiant in the world.

The solution isn't to "pray", it's to prepare as best you can for a life without oil.

load up your shotguns and sharpen your shovels, it's gonna get nasty!

Sheila from Harbor Oregon

[MattSavinar]

Shelia,

What are you so worried about?

If people would just accept Jesus, they would be saved when the rapture comes.

Likewise, if people would just invest more money into technology, they would be saved when the zero point energy generator comes online.

Matt

[PalatineCreator]

I fear there will be a lot of north easteners freezing in the dark this winter.

It that starts happening, how many of them will start burning everything in sight?

If you remember from the movie Terminator, in the future televisions are used as firepits.

If there's a heat wave this summer, we could expect to see the economy get shut down according to Matt Simmons, CEO of the world's largest Energy Investment Bank, Simmons & Company International.

http://www.oilcrash.com/blackout.htm

SIMMONS: Someone?s going to be left holding the bag big time. If natural gas consumption surges in ten days of excessive heat then it would require almost a complete shutdown of industrial consumption to compensate and protect the grid. As I have been reporting for years now, there isn?t going to be enough gas to run those plants, let alone new ones.

FTW: You mean shut down the economy for ten days to keep people from cooking?
SIMMONS: Yes.

No doubt this winter will be worse. I'd like to say that I was fully prepared for the worse, but at least I'm relatively young and strong and can chop apart most anything that can burn with an axe. Will that me enough? If there aren't any houses in the area with heat, chances are I won't be the only one burning everything in sight. If I do make it, I think it will because I found others to work together with me to keep warm.

[Aldert]

Wow, that ExxonMobil 2004 report is very disturbing.
A couple quotes:

"By 2020, we expect that the world will require about 40 % more energy than today."

"... the world would consume about 30 million additional barrels of oil-equivalent energy per day, close to the amount used by western Europe today."

"The outlook for wind and solar energy is for double-digit growth, based on both continued public subsidies and technological advances. However, because they start from a very small base, their combined contribution to total energy supplies is likely to still be less than 0.5 percent in 2020."

"..the conventional recoverable liquids resource base is estimated to be about 3 trillion barrels of oil"
[I thought it was 2 trillion.. ?? Commends, insights?]


Comment on the chart:
"..the industry will likely need to add some 100 million oil-equivalent barrels per day by 2015 to meet demand - an amount close to 80 percent of today's producion levels."

"Developing reliable, affordable supplies to meet this energy demand will be an enormous challenge."

Remember, all of this stuff is coming from no one other then Exxon

[Aaron]

"..the conventional recoverable liquids resource base is estimated to be about 3 trillion barrels of oil"
[I thought it was 2 trillion.. ?? Commends, insights?]

I believe that tar sands and shale are the difference. The USGS includes these "heavy oils" in it's estimates.

[Aldert]

Ehm nope. They talk about an additional 4.3 trillion reserve of unconventional oil, seperate of the 3 trillion number.

[Aaron]

Yup you're right...

It's the undiscovered oil that's included.

Thanks

http://pubs.usgs.gov/dds/dds-060/ESpt5.html#Figure1

[Chichis]

If I recall correctly, they don't give a precise gameplan for how they will bridge this gigantor shortfall. They just say "we have to work hard".