Lots of people would have to go and work in the fields though right? Not that Im against it but there would have to be a substantial labour shift wouldn't there?

What gross delusions people live under! Everyone agrees that the rest of the world is phucked. But when it comes to your own little corner, we are alright, in fact we will do better! For the Americans its gun-toting bravado that will protect them. The Wild West, The Alamo etc. For the UK, its "I'm alright Jack", spirit of the Blitz, Francis Drake.

I am not convinced by the illogical arguments of my compatriots. Why don't people get it? If we are phucked we are all phucked. That does not mean everyone else will be phucked, but not [substitute your local community].

No that isn't what anyone is saying. What we are saying is that the UK won't be worse than much of the rest of the world. Everywhere is in trouble, Leaf seems to think the UK will be particularly badly hit. I on the other hand don't think the UK do worse, don't think we'll be much better but sure we won't be much worse.

Untrue. I think there are a number of countries that will avoid the very worst of PO. These are Canada, Western Europe, US (unless civil war), Australia and maybe parts of South America. There will still be "die off"(population reduction) , but I think it will be more gradual. The countries I think of that will fast die off are China, India, South East Asia, Japan , and probably most of Africa.



This is far too simplistic , are you telling me the British, or Americans or Canadians will be as screwed as your average Ethiopian post peak?. Some will surely do better than others, that I am certain!

PB

Oh yes, if oil supply went from 100% to 0% instantly then yes, we would be exctinct very quickly ! But this isn't the scenario, peak oil is reduced availability and more expensive over decades , not none at all within years.

The food industry will always remain our biggest industry, and will be the last industry not receive the fuel it requires. But this is a long way into the future, as it uses a poultry 1.4m tonnes(DTI figures) of oil and 1bcm of gas per year. And once the oil has completely gone , maybe the population would of dropped and what alternaitve energy we can develop will help keep agriculture going.(GTL, coal to diesal , CBM gas, etc etc)



If it came to that yes, the Channel tunnel could be closed at either end very easily. This wasn't where I was coming from. I was more coming from a trade perspective and maybe some EU cooperation. France , Germany , Spain and even Italy have huge agricultural surplus capacity. This could be moved around by rail via the chunnel or by sea.



Very true, but then as fuel restricts international trade, the development of trade and manafacturing inter EU will find itself with an opportunity!



I agree. But then the US has its advantages. Ironically I think the US would be one of the better places to be post peak because of the low population density and the amount of arable land and fossil fuels. The only thing that gives the US a handicap is this lack of socialist tendancy(as you describe) and the amount of guns!

PB

Just to post this dataset again, probably one of the most useful things I've found, carbon fuel use by economic sector, so you can see what will be most and least affected.

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/s ... ?vlnk=5690

'Twould Be nice to think so, but keep in mind no matter how well a country itself is set up for PO transition, that dosen't protect it from invasion by those not so well off. (Thinking here along the lines of USA invading other countries to preserve it's so called "way of life"). It already happened in Iraq. What's to stop it elsewhere?

Err.. the lack of oil... the military are certainly going to find it limits the opportunities to use their energy-intensive method of "resource gathering".

Was I being called delusional? I don't think I am.

Britain is neither the best, nor the worst place to face PO: like many other countries it has advantages and disadvantages, but the place I have *chosen* to face this crisis, after some considerable thought and an opportunity to go to New Zealand, is here, with my fellow countrypeople, of whatever ethnic origin, because whatever comes, this is my home, and quite frankly, I'd rather face this problem...which I think is going to be bad, in the company of my fellow Brits. The seafaring analogies were not chosen at random, because anybody who chooses to go sailing in the North Sea for ...pleasure(?) has to have a certain amount of gumption, and there are still plenty of British people who do that.

National mythologies are not delusions. They are part of the fabric of our psyche. And like King Arthur under the Hill, waiting to be reawakened.



(Err, sorry, subtitles for the hard of understanding, that last sentence is a metaphor)

I am in agreement that some places will be relatively better off, especially if you consider this just from an energy standpoint -- which, of course, is mainly what we're concerned about here.

We'll just have to wait and see how people respond nationally and locally. It's far easier to predict aspects of this that can be quantified. As far as how people and economies will react when it is realized that the capitalist growth model is no longer operative -- we have no way of predicting that. We all realize that this is somewhat of a house of cards.

Some sections of our economy here in the states are extremely sensitive to even rumors of possible trouble down the road: stock/housing markets, financial institutions. The collapse of the housing bubble here could set off a chain reaction that's very unpredictalbe in the face of other looming issues such as PO. Are we looking at a perfect storm where many of these elements converge within a short period of time? Housing bubble bursts --> stock market reacts by tanking --> people withdraw money from banks which start to collapse when their real estate loans become worthless --> wordwide flu epidemic kills 100 million people --> Saudis announce they have been pumping from stored reserves for 2 years and can no longer maintain output at elevated levels ... how does a capitalist economy react when it's underpinings have been demolished? People are so clueless; we have no way of knowing how they will react when they realize the psychological world they thought they were living in with the American Dream Machine was really only a chimera?

--

Yes, I lived in Houston for 10 years. Without AC it would not be a happy place at all.

I made the above post after watching The Day After. I had seen it back in the 80s but managed to run across a cheap copy, so I thought I would see how it affected me after all these years.

Just as a reminder, that is the film that deals with a nuclear attack on the US -- it focuses on the 2 warheads detonated over Kansas City, Kansas and KC, Missouri. It is a good study in how a populace might react to a sudden overwhelming shock of that nature: one minute going about your normal life; the next moment Hell has descended to the earth.

The scenes of the nuclear attack itself are just appalling. I sat in wide-eyed, semi-shock through most of the film. I heard the President's lame speech about how we delivered a killing blow to the enemy and how we must pull together as a nation and rebuild. How ridiculous that sounded with tens of millions dead and the remainder with radiation sickness.

At the end of film is a written statement that the events depicted are most likely much less severe than would be the case in the event of an actual full scale nuclear attack against the US.

When this film was shown in the US, Sec of State George Shultz (I believe that's correct) went on natiional TV to explain that people were just seeing a work of fiction ... no danger existed and people should not be concerned.

I think when we speak here of the deaths of 4/5s of the human race, we can scarcely imagine the horror of the actual experience. The fact that it may be played out over the span of several decades makes it less shocking I suppose. Some of us may be in a relatively protected area and we'll get to watch the worst of it on TV. These are depressing times, no?

Yes, really depressing times.

Sorry, my bad!

Going back to the thread topic, is one of the reasons that the UK's oil production declining so quickly because the wells are offshore?

Is it easier to acheive a slower decline of a well/field if it is onshore?

Anyone have any information (if this is the case) why offshore wells decline faster?

Just thought I'd ask...

PB