Ok, so you were another person who had a latent awareness of peak oil. The knowledge was stored on the brain's long term memory but not accessed for a long time, until it became personal and immediate. So, this does make me think that almost everyone has known about peak oil, at least since the 1960s. But society collectively chose denial and passivity, rather than taking timely steps to mitigate the inevitable transition. There was no grand conspiracy to hide the truth. We choose our own doom.



Sad but true. Even scientists. Circa 1980 I had a research proposal criticised because what I proposed "had never been done before". I bit my tongue and restrained myself from saying that doing new things is what researchers are supposed to do. The following year I bailed from research.

Well, to be fair, quality information about oil depletion has not be very easy to find until recently. Even open minded people will not understand the problem if they are not introduced to it.

I know that the Earth will someday be hit by an asteroid, but I am not preparing for that. The odds favor my living out the rest of my life without having to surf an asteroid-induced-tsunami. If oil supply problems were still far enough in the future that they would late in my lifetime or after, I would not be very concerned. I think most people fall into that camp.

Once they become aware, we will face the problem that most people are not really going to be able to fathom the ramifications.

I guess the urban life has two drawbacks that distance people from reality:
1) There is a lot of "background noise", distractions.
2) One is divorced from nature.
Most people live in cities now. My mother, who was raised on a farm has a very different view of the world than city bred people. She can ignore the distractions and see the natural world the way it is.

Congrats on taking the red pill and starting to pay attention! Note, in the pre-industrial era, live theatre did quite well. It will still do well when the energy hog plasma screen TVs go dark.

I grew up in the middle of an almond orchard in N. California. I played in the local creek. I love nature. It was hard living in Chicago; forest preserves only go so far. In my current location, there are several streams flowing through the neighborhood with a little bit of 'nature'. If you pay attention, you can find ducks and ducklings swimming down them in the spring.


I'm hoping so. I still have my theater books and anthologies of plays. Sadly, when I gave up theater to make money as a legal secretary, I gave away my collection of theater relevant items (clothes, shoes, props). Oh, well. I just have to remember that in Shakespeare's day, they told a story with 12 entrances and a spear.

I've known for years that industrial civilization was headed for destruction based simply on its complete disregard for ecological limits.

When I learned about PO early this year my response was "Holy Sh*t! This is it! This is the big one!"

I was born in '65, I remember the oil shocks of the '70s, the power cuts, North Sea coming on line and the miners strike of the 80s. I always believed the world was over populated and it was in the 90s I heard that oil would run out in '2030'. It was a couple of years ago I then found out about peak theory.

I'm 30 years old and had never, ever contemplated energy before last year. I didn't often go to school, left school young and started full time work at 15 (not because I found it difficult - I was bored and often in trouble!).

From there I worked really, really hard, nose to the grindstone, not often stopping to poke my head up for air, except to catch a movie, a party or two or to shop. I know that sounds terrible - I look back and cringe!

It wasn't until I had my son that I really stopped to take a breath and think about the world, and it's future (in the context of what would it be like for him). And now here I am.....

ditto

As an interesting point, as a geology undergraduate at Cambridge in the 1990s, the idea of peak oil was never mentioned. It was possible to infer that oil was getting harder to find - my tutor had made his money in Iran in the 1960s, when you could find multi-billion barrel fields from a bit of surface mapping; we were looking at much smaller fields found with full wave equation seismic migration. But the subject was never quantified. So I would guess that even those who work in the field would have to find out about the subject independantly.

I work in telecomms now. It's one oil substitute.. Telecommuting is one way of reducing oil demand that does not require major investment; it's actually cheaper than commuting now; it's just a culture thing.

But on a wider scale; the idea of modern society is that in many fields you have to trust the experts in charge to tell the truth. You cannot go around finding everything out from first principals for yourself, because you have a finite lifespan.

The problem with the above has been one of free market fundamentalism; the idea that experts, usually but not always in the employ of the government, can decide the best direction for certan vital industries (Food, Energy, Land management, Transport, Water) was discarded and replaced with the idea that 'The market knows best'.

Trade and markets can, of course, do some great things, introducing new technologies, new consumer products, making things cheaper and more widely available, etc - capitalism in itself should not be dismissed outright. But free market systems by definition strongly discount the future, and this can and does cause serious problems with fundamental industries such as those above.

Which means that a lot of people just asume that 'Someone will do Something', without realising that this 'someone' is no longer there. Should things get to the stage of physical rationing and shortages, I strongly suspect that the idea of leaving it to the market will vanish like the morning dew. We shall see.

I am another one who read The Limits to Growth back in the 80's...amongst other things. For my part, I have alway lived a Voluntary Simplicity-oriented lifestyle based upon the notion that you can't have unlimited growth in a finite system...you can make a limited amount of technological adjustments to utilize resources more effectively, but that's about all. A good deal of my musical/recording career has been dedicated to trying to get that very message across...to little or no avail.

The actual phrase Peak Oil was something I only heard about 3 or 4 years ago, but it came as no surprise whatsoever. Nor did any of the possible implications.



Well sure...that's human nature. We are a creature with a myriad "design flaws"...denial and the ability to be complacent up to crisis point is part and parcel of who we are.

Kinda sucks, doesn't it?

I don't agree with that. I think you are projecting your own viewpoint. Is it too hard to believe that poeple are simply ignorant of such topics? Just because you know about it and think it is important, why should that mean that other people "must know about it"? It is you that appear to have had an exceptional background and awareness, please do not make that assumption of everyone else.

In fact I throw the question back at you. Did you just assume that everyone has the same background, education, and critical thinking that you have? Anyone who has studied history knows that the general populace want circuses and bread - provided they are entertained, they don't care about big issues. The Middle Class presume they are different, but they are not really. They drink wine instead of beer, and play golf instead of pool.

So I what want to know - what were you thinking, to be so naive and misguided about what everyone else thinks? You claim to have the ability to know how to reason - it seems to have let you down in this case. Perhaps you are less smart than you think?

Most people don't. They are too busy dealing with day to day life and its assorted problems to be getting all thoughtful about the ultimate destination of the western lifestyle. You assume what you need will be available, because it always has and if at some time it isn't then someone will find an alternative or they will just work their way around it. It's only people with time on their hands and a more critical way of thinking who are interested in weighing consequences.

Its just being human. We're a short-sighted species.

I am 41. What was I thinking? Honestly, of course having some science background I knew that one day fossil fuels would 'run out', but I always thought of it as some time 'way out there' and that by that time renewables would be 'ready' to replace what was missing. And this from someone with a BS in geology/chemistry! For me it was never denial; it was simply a case of never having investigating this particular issue thoroughly, including the simple details like energy density of fossil vs. alternatives, despite being a very inquisitive person.

I had been growingly aware over the last few years simply by looking around me with open eyes that the world is clearly going downhill - youth (with exceptions) becoming more and more imbecilic, roads getting more and more congested, leaf blowers multiplying, technology continuing to advance while life gets more complicated, not simpler. I travelled to Peru and found people with very little, who clearly led happier and more balanced lives and enjoyed much greater community than most first world northern-hemispherers.

I also recognized from my own experiences and others that major parts of our system are by and large a sham and more harmful than helpful to peoples well-being on balance - health care (drugs, surgery and vaccinations), food processing (turning harmful crap not designed for humans into tasty morsels), mutual funds (fees, managed funds that underperform the market). In that context, finally discovering PO this summer (I selected 2005 in the poll), there was no shock - just a little new awareness.

this is a stunning observation.
i had never thought about this problem in such crystal clear terms before.
"free market" (this is a very misleading term) economics and finance are all about trashing (discounting) the future.

can anyone refute this?


i agree totally.