The very first time that I ever heard something of Peak oil was back in 1994 and I was in the 4th grade. We used to get these little science magazines and there was a very small section that said oil would probably run out in 100 years... When I told my parents about this they did not believe me. I then forgot about it for a while until one day I came across the link to LATOC on a message board called LUE. This was in late 2004 and I have been here since.

Great responses by many. I don't want to duplicate anything that has already been said.

Well, for one, I belonged to the camp who thought a combination of technology and conservation might buy enough time until an alternative was developed as to engineer a smooth transition from one source of fuel to another. I guess I was quite naive, but I sat through those social studies classes in the 1970's when the world looked pretty bleak and we watched a lot of films about environmental degradation. After the first oil supply shock a lot of measures were taken. How was I supposed to know they would only be temporary and that soon the over-consumption would begin in earnest?



But, by the way, who said anything about cheap? Our problem has been cheap energy all along so that there has been little incentive to conserve it, use less and search for alternatives. This is what disturbs me most about the average peak oiler. They understand nothing of the economics of a post-peak oil world and they are indoctrinated by a few sources of disinformation, which has discredited the peak oil as a geoplogical fact movement from entering the mainstream.

No one said alternatives have to be cheaper or as efficient. An alternative can be sub-standard to what you have now. Or more expensive. Expensive is in any case relative. If I remember all those books in the 1970's like, 'The Great Depression of the 1970s' there was a lot of histeria surrounding capital markets and how the house of cards was ultimately unsustainable (sound familar), and those arguments have not gone away. They have found new followers in the peak oil movement and their belief in petrol-euros.

So I guess in answer as well to your question, if the proponents get the facts wrong, the economics wrong, the finance wrong; if they do not know where we are or how markets actually work; then their predictions of where we are going are also going to be wrong. But they cannot accept this. Therefore, for the uninitiated one can be forgiven for dismissing the peak oil as a geological fact because its proponents do not understand the economy today and how it works, so they cannot understand the economy post-peak oil either. If they shout too loudly about the economics then who is going to listen to their arguments surrounding the geology?

That does not excuse my lack of knowledge on the technical aspects of peak oil and the search for alternatives, but the whole movement has been discredited by some of its shrillest proponents who use it as cover to denounce everyting they dislike about 'the system'. If you have been listening to the same arguments continuously for 30-years you tend to tune them out and write their other opinions off, too.

I remember when I was around 8 or 9 years old (1978-79) I had the distinct feeling that I would not live to see the year 2000. At the time I felt a wrongness about the world we lived in, but I could not pin point the cause. But in hindsight it was probably more to do with picking up on the concern the adults around me had for oil shortages and the cold war, although I didn't comprehend it that way then. I dreamed of a new age where technology would rescue us from the dead end we were heading for. I developed a fascination for all things that represented technology and was thus attracted to engineering.

Over the years I guess I became more and more captivated by the technologies that made mankind the most influential species on the planet. The prospect of travelling the galaxy or evolving into a digital being was something I truly believed in. On my 30th birthday (year 2000) I was terrified at the though that I should not be here. ... still, even as a supposedly rational adult. At this point I was so accustom to just having faith in all that we (humanity) have become I quickly suppressed these resurfaced feelings and got on with life.

But the concern for the future was always there lurking in the back of my mind. My instincts told me that the excessive and wasteful ways of humanity are wrong and delusional ... I continued to have faith in technology. I transferred some of that fear into a mitigation plan with my career and pursued higher and higher technologies such as fuel cell development. This was ultimately a huge let down as most technology has none of the fantastic saviour qualities I envisaged. In reality it is purely and simply driven by short term thinking and commercial opportunities.... a subset of the pervading "fear and greed' forces that dictate the global markets.

In the last 12 years I have been from job to job with this 'sort of' restlessness and background feeling of futility in what I have committed to. My ‘work to live’ mindset was taking over and becoming ever more defiled by being stuck in a cubicle writing meaningless reports on meaningless products only to be reviewed by nuffy bosses, criticised and ignored. I typically developed indifference and the desire to move on… to keep searching

Imagine my horror when the peak oil phenomenon was revealed to me in a presentation by the executive general manager of the company I'd just started with this year in July. Immediately all the background feelings and instincts lurking came rushing into my consciousness. From that point on I have been obsessively seeking every bit of information to prove, disprove and most of all, prepare for what I have now accepted as an imminent and foreboding truth.

It was both like a slap in the face... an abrupt awakening and complete shattering of my long held faith in technology for the future. I am presently going through what I can only describe as analogous to grieving or mourning for the future I had envisaged for myself and my children.

I know I will ultimately adapt... (or die.. sooner or later I don't know). But I am now committed to a new future.. One that I will try to enjoy with my family, to the best of my abilities, every day that I walk the earth.

good post. thanks.

Way to many flat tires posting, here is a joke I posted last week..

NEOCON-The Barrel is half full, I bought a SUV

PEAK OILER- The Barrel is half empty, I bought a Hybrid

SOMEONE WITH A CO-DEPENDENT PERSONALITY FINDING OUT ABOUT PEAKOIL-It doesn't matter what kind of car I end up with, I really am very disapointed in the Barrel. I expected The barrel to capable of more. I had a plan and you the barrel let me down. I am also disapointed with the oil companies and politicians, like the barrel they were also capable of more but let me down.

Thank you, Praire Mule, for reminding people that there IS more than two options to most scenarios, this one in particular! It WOULD take a fellow Okie to do it, too. When I moved to Oklahoma from California in 2000 in a kind of 'reverse grapes of wrath' move (Mom was born in Durant, tho.), I spent my first winter here during the bad 'holiday ice storm' of 00/01 in a small town, and found that during a time of crisis, at least here anyways, people DO band together and try to find ways to help one another. I was very impressed. It was a big difference from when I was near enough to ground zero to be pretty shaken up by the Northridge quake, and lived in a city, but aside from my family, still felt alone. So I don't know if it is the state or being in a small town that made the difference, but either way, it did bring home how right my decision had been to move.

I am 39 years old, and like many others, grew up under the shadow of the bomb. The only 'education' I ever remember receiving while growing up that would come even close to teaching about peak oil was one of those 'schoolhouse rock' videos about energy.

My Dad had worked most of his life as a gas tester for a natural gas plant, and when that cartoon would come on, would just roll his eyes, and tell me that there was nothing to worry about, because there was plenty of oil, so I thought nothing further about it until this year, when another message board site I go to had a thread about peak oil, and I was so curious that I did some googling, and now here I am.

I am convinced that peak oil is very real, and that we are running out of time very quickly, and that the days of cheap affordable oil will be ending soon. I have had discussions with my Dad about this since I learned about this a few months ago, and am amazed sometimes at the paradox that is my Dad.

On the one hand, he says that yes, we will eventually run out of oil, but that time is many decades away, and not to worry about it. On the other hand, a year after I moved to OK, he did too, and now lives on a place with ten acres, three horses, and is planting dozens of fruit trees. When I ask him, he says that is his retirement to do as he sees fit, but I know it is more than that when he lets things slip, like asking how much food I have stored up, and letting me know he actually has a gun in the house, when he has never before in his life had a weapon, and is pretty liberal in most of his thinking. And when I try to figure out what is going on in his head, the only thing I can come up with is that he realizes how real the major change we are about to experience is, and yet he doesn't want to talk about it or even think about it at a certain level, I guess.

Now me, while I have PTSD symptoms, I do like to face my fears head on when I can, and when they are something I can actually DO something about like in this instance, then I do what I can, when I can. I do have some food stored up, some bleach, and plan on getting some large containers of water too. Next spring I plan on starting my first garden, and hopefully the shit won't hit the fan this coming year, because I have always had a 'black thumb', and only the fact that I finally managed to not only keep alive but have thriving an indoor plant, and the necessity of learning to grow my own food if needs be to live on have made me decide to give it a shot, but I would be mightily surprised if I got anything near the effort I am going to put into it this spring back out of this garden. But that's okay, the year after that I hopefully do better as I might have learned from some of my mistakes.

I'm also trying to educate myself as much as I can, both on peak oil, and on practical matters like how to be more self sufficient..not just gardening, but I want to learn how to make my own small traps, and even though I swore I would never do it again if I didn't have to (and there have been a few times I HAVE had too, like being in the presence of somene having a heart attack, at a hunting accident, and being first to drive by at a car wreck, stuff like that), being a medic is something I am, and again, will do what I can, when I can.

I can see a point possibly arising in the future when that might be more in demand than in has been since I got out of the Army, so part of my 'education' is also going to be getting caught up on any advances there have been in the past decade in first aid techniques, and also getting whatever medical supplies I can on hand as well. I already have a few boxes of bandages (long story, heh) and next is getting a lot of rubbing alcohol and hyrdrogen peroxide, as they are relatively cheap and I can get a lot of them for not a lot of money.

For me, doing what I can, when I can, and trying not to worry about the rest isn't just a motto, it's a lifestyle, and how I manage to cope, especially after the shock of realizing about peak oil, and the frustration of realizing how few people WANT to realize.

Micro, good topic there.

Having read page 1 so far, I may as well at least answer the question.

I read Limits to Growth and all the rest of it in highschool. I knew that if we didn't have a massive sustainability shift, we'd be screwed and done for. I thought there was a chance we could make it.

Fast forward to 1983 or 84, when Reagan's EPA issued its very first report stating that climate change was a real threat that had to be faced immediately. I ordered a copy from EPA (this being before the age of internet and downloadable PDFs:-), read it, and saw the shit hitting the fan if we didn't clean up our act in the next ten years or so.

Fast forward to 2000. The overwhelming fact that the new President was not someone who recognized climate change and had a decent science background, but someone who denied climate change was real and was allied with people who rejected science -the method as well as the details- utterly. I remember thinking quite clearly: We are now well and truly screwed. Shift mode into Asimov's Foundation strategy: preserve what can be preserved through the inevitable decline & fall, and do whatever's possible to shorten the period of the dark ages.

At that point it appeared that climate change would get us before we ran out of oil. Water would be the first major shortage; agricultural patterns would shift; overshoot & collapse mode would set in; and then would come the slow steady decline punctuated by the occasional catastrophe.

I learned about PO as such a year or two ago, and got on this board pretty quickly thereafter.

Right now it seems that the metaphorical horsemen of apocalypse are racing toward the finish-line to see who gets there first.

At this point it appears that Plague will win, with avian flu on the near horizon. Followed by sharp recession, followed by oil shortages (the pandemic is hardly expected to take the world down to sustainable population), followed by increasingly severe climate impacts; each of these increasing the likelihood of resource wars, each of these contributing to the overall destructive synergy.

So once again, for me it's back to the Azimov's Foundation strategy. Buy land, build community, preserve knowledge, do what we can for others, and spread memes that will reduce the duration and severity of the dark age.

I was aware about the fact that oil resources are finite well into my childhood. I was only dimly aware that they were supposed to be finished by 2020 or such time. I vaguely remembered somebody saying that the problem wasn't when we run out of oil, but when it becomes too expensive. So, by the time I started reading about peak oil, it all fell into place. However, when I answered the poll, I replied 2004, which is when I learned about the concept, after googling on this issue one lazy afternoon when I was wondering: "If they're making such a mess in Iraq, maybe it's about now when oil starts being a problem."

I believe most people answered when they learned the expression "peak oil", not the first time they learned oil depletion could be an issue.

Excellent question.

I just turned 28 this month. Years ago my shop teacher ( car repair and carpentry) mentioned the concept of oil as a finite resource. I must have been 14 at the time, i'm fuzzy on the year. I understood what he said, but I guess I never thought of it as reality. (like the way death for a young person is real, but seems unreal)
Between 1999-2000 I felt a deep unease spured on by the constant and horrific events I saw in the news. Remember the sinking of the Japanese fishing boat in Pearl harbor? That is roughly the time I began to read and learn news events as a hobby. Npr (nation public radio, is now a favorite of mine) I would never have bothered with it pre 2000. the first time I truly became aware of the peak oil idea was after katrina. someone posted a link to a peakoil website in a forum in regards to katrina. I had hoped my uneasy feeling was just that, a feeling. It has grown into the sensation that something is very, very wrong.
I do not have the education of some people on this board. Only high school and a little college. I had dreamed of finishing college. having a good job and a family. That is abstract to me now. In reality I belive I am facing a lifetime of hardship.

Wow, great postings by everyone.

I'm 33. As far as I can tell, the year 2000 was the last happy year of my life. While I have always been a cynical pessimist when it comes to humanity's future, and had been heavily into world events and politics in college, I was lulled to sleep by the prosperous nineties. The evolution of humanity, while full of reversals and frustrating moments, seemed to be nevertheless heading in a positive direction. While I wasn't really aware of the proximity of resource depletion, I've known since a very young age that the world was horribly overpopulated, and it guided a lot of my decisions: to not have children, to act ecologically, and to reduce my own footprint as much as possible. Nevertheless, like many I drifted through the nineties and into the millenium more or less asleep.

For me, and I suspect a lot of others, the re-awakening came on 9/11/2001 like a dash of cold water to the face. I realized how out-of-touch I'd become with the world around me, and vowed never to be broadsided by events like that again. I began religiously listening to the news and reading blogs. Things in the world seemed to be getting progressively worse, but all the bad vibes and foreboding I felt I simply put down to living during a "bad time", and that things would improve with the 2004 election and a new administration.

Of course, we all know what happened in November 2004. I, like many other progressives, got yet another face-slapping, and a free lesson in how willing others are to deliberately ignore the facts if they conflict with their world view. I was plunged into a deep depression, and I stopped seeking out news for a few months.

I couldn't stay away from current events too long, however, and by last February I was back to cruising the blogs and absorbing news more frequently than ever. I remember catching a show on peak oil on the NPR show "On Point", but its ramifications didn't really register for some reason (I can't remember who the guest was, as I wasn't obsessed with the topic at the time).

It was in a comment on the Eschaton blog, I believe, where I first saw a reference to Matt S's LATOC site. I followed the link, and the rabbit hole finally opened beneath me. I needed to know more; for better or worse, the next source I picked up was Jim Kunstler TLE. From there it's a familiar story, I'm sure: the obsession with learning all things Peak, the passage through the various stages of Peak Oil Grief, and finding this board and my niche in the PO community.

I've reached an equilibrium now, and pretty much concur with gg3's appraisal of the situation above. I can accept that (a) the coming crises are inevitable, and knowing about them earlier would not have prevented them; (b) while it is more of a curse than a blessing to be forewarned of this (who likes being Cassandra?), I'd still rather be depressed than ignorant, and (c) what's coming will eventually be beneficial to all the speicies on this planet. Since nobody can say with certainty exactly how this will play out, I'll attempt to be as adaptable as I can, and accept that I and my family could perish in the coming trials. I'm going to try to powerdown quietly, while enjoying what luxuries I've been lucky enough to have had access to while I still can.

So in answer to the question, "why didn't I realize this sooner", it really is a matter of the truth not penetrating. My "discovery" of Peak Oil didn't really happen until this year, even though I "woke up again" in 2001. So I think that there may be a lot more people out there who have this vague sense that something isn't right with the world, but for whatever reason haven't yet made the link to PO.

I'm also sure that there are many who actually have learned about PO, but have denied it and blocked it out because they can't deal with the coming changes associated it. Perhaps this is even why it took me so long to "find out" about PO, even with my doomerish tendencies; perhaps one's subconscious filters such world-changing concepts out as a defense mechanism, and doesn't allow understanding to fully occur until one's mind can deal with it?

In 2000 I still believed what I read in the newspapers.

Micro, The television age has a lot to do with deterioration of analytical ability. Kids getting a poor education, in the past, could at least be redeemed by reading on their own, or being exposed to a social sphere where others were reading and conveying what they'd learned to them.

Many people grasp problems intuitively, which is great, but their ability to mentally slow information down, force it through a linear spigot, and go through it very carefully, just isn't there.

Our intuition can also be used against us. "Felt" knowledge, and information gleaned from impression is a propagandist's playground.

There is simply no balance left. The outer world is reflecting the neglected parts of our own minds, and corporate control, which helped to create this mental disequillibrium, benefit from it. If people get a feeling of unreality today, this is no doubt why.

I completely agree that anyone over a certain age who hasn't thought seriously about finite resources just might not be able to think. They may simply be creatures that respond vaguely to vague impressions, on automatic pilot, living quite literally, the dream. Is this what the American dream means? If it does, it's gone global too.

I remember learning in school during the 1980's that oil was a finite resource and we were going to run out one day. However, the talk was all about solar powered cars and such. I basically got the idea that smart people were working on the problem and technology would save us in the end allowing life to continue as normal. So why worry, right?

The 80's were also a time that we discused things like the national debt and how it was out of control. But smart people said that debts and deficits don't matter as long as you can grow your economy. So why worry, right?

So I didn't really pay much attention to things like the economy and energy. I just lived my life until spring of 2005. I was upset at that time about the gas prices having gone up so much, so I did a little research on the internet to find out what was going on. I came across Matt's wonderful LATOC site and it woke me up to the real world.

I no longer believe that technology is going to save the day and I know that our economy and way of life is screwed. I now connect most news stories and how they relate to peak oil. Amazing how you see the big picture once learning about this, huh? The war on terror and the Patriot Act and all that other stuff the goverment is doing is because of peak oil. They are gettig ready for the resource wars and the social chaos thats sure to come.

So anyways I think Matt for waking me up to the real world. I can't believe I was so blind to things.

Wow, that is just incredible. Is the company reorganizing to deal with peak issues? Where can I send my resume?

gg3 have you already posted a full description of this strategy?