oswald622 wrote:
i have noticed this as well. the bush administration fostered a healthy atmosphere of paranoia and hurricane katrina kept us riveted. the financial crisis changed the focus a bit, and now that obama is honeymooning, the price of oil is low, and the realization that the world has not ended seeps in, all the manic energy has evaporated from this place.
i keep dropping in to see if anything interesting is going on, and nope, nothing is. oil and gas prices will surely spike again before long, but i became more skeptical of peak oil when i saw several sources predict the collapse back to $50 a barrel - all from a tinfoil, market manipulation perspective.
crisis upon crisis will pour on, no doubt, and doomerism in general still seems to make sense, but i'm not convinced that natural oil depletion (or global warming, for that matter) will topple modern civilization in the way many of us have imagined.
There are several things to be learned from all this.
1) Peak means the highest point. If you had peak money, it means you have the maximum money, you are not poor. A decline takes time.
2) $80 oil is not low, especially in a big recession. Oil will go higher, with or without speculation.
3) T. Boone Pickens MIGHT be right about natural gas mitigating peak oil. If it lasts a hundred years that would probably be enough time for alternatives to be developed, even IF people are as stupid as I think they are.
4) IF a large component of $80 oil is speculative now (and that's debateable given the money chasing stocks prices up recently), expect economic recovery in the future to be equivalent to "demand creation" of oil and more than enough to make up for any drop in speculation.
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