[argyle]

I don't want it to happen, in my lifetime or that of my children/grandchildren. There is going to be a lot of suffering with this.. So while we are choosing, I rather have a different change.. In that humanity (in some way or another) reaches a higher level of (self-)awareness. I feel that humanity is this bully kid on school that tramples everyone, exploits everyone and anything.. it's time for it to grow up out of it's "childish"/"macho" behaviour as a species and civilisation.

[Lore]

I don't want it to happen, in my lifetime or that of my children/grandchildren. There is going to be a lot of suffering with this.. So while we are choosing, I rather have a different change.. In that humanity (in some way or another) reaches a higher level of (self-)awareness. I feel that humanity is this bully kid on school that tramples everyone, exploits everyone and anything.. it's time for it to grow up out of it's "childish"/"macho" behaviour as a species and civilisation.

That's obviously easier said then done. Why not just accept the fact that it's just the way the human species is wired. There was no guarantee that just because we came along that we were anymore immune then any other life form on the planet from extinction.

[furrybill]

I'd like to see it happen ASAP. The sooner billions of us die off the better the rest of the biosphere will be.

Unfortunately that isn't going to be the case. It's going to be a long slow slog into the next Dark Ages and though plenty of humans will die the rest of the planet will suffer immeasurably in the process.

[argyle]

I don't want it to happen, in my lifetime or that of my children/grandchildren. There is going to be a lot of suffering with this.. So while we are choosing, I rather have a different change.. In that humanity (in some way or another) reaches a higher level of (self-)awareness. I feel that humanity is this bully kid on school that tramples everyone, exploits everyone and anything.. it's time for it to grow up out of it's "childish"/"macho" behaviour as a species and civilisation.

That's obviously easier said then done. Why not just accept the fact that it's just the way the human species is wired. There was no guarantee that just because we came along that we were anymore immune then any other life form on the planet from extinction.

True.. but the topic is 'do you WANT PO to happen". So, no.. I don't WANT it to happen.. it's not our choice anyway.. but if I "could" chose.. I wouldn't chose PO to happen, but something more positive..

[Ibon]

So, no.. I don't WANT it to happen.. it's not our choice anyway.. but if I "could" chose.. I wouldn't chose PO to happen, but something more positive..

There is no free lunch way to get to the positive. The positive will only come through the hardship that results when the energy that feeds the current paradigm is constrained.

The fossil fuel age has made princes and princesses of us all.. socialized into believing that our wants are deserved and available without the grist of the mill.

[ROCKMAN]

Stepping back for moment from the question of wanting PO to happen or not, perhaps it may be more pertinent to ask how one feels now that it is happening. Ignoring views of Mad Max days and huge die offs it might be easier just to look at what has happened in the last 8 or 9 years. During that time of rapidly increasing oil prices I’ve estimated the US citizens have spent at least $1.3 trillion more on oil than had prices stayed where they were. Granted the recession came about by factors other than surging oil prices although those increases may have spurred some of those other factors like the housing bust. If you take the author’s estimate as correct than the ripple effect of energy pricing along with the other factors took a total of $16 trillion away from the economy’s wealth. From:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/ ... story.html

“American households have rebuilt less than half of the wealth lost during the recession, leaving them without the spending power to fuel a robust economic recovery. From the peak of the boom to the bottom of the bust, households watched a total of $16 trillion in wealth disappear amid sinking stock prices and the rubble of the real estate market. Since then, Americans have only been able to recapture 45 percent of that amount on average.”

So the pain appears to still be with us. Perhaps the question should be how happy is one today with the effects of the POD that has led to long term unemployment and underemployment of millions, $trillion of tax dollars spent on efforts to stabilize oil exporting region, the great many thousands of lives lost in the process and all the other negatives we are facing now. Granted how one feels about such developments will be skewed by where they are personally today. I suspect few posting here have lost their job due to the POD so we may not represent a good sampling. Maybe even no one here has gotten a nice folded American flag to place on the mantle. But most have probably contributed to the tax roles as well as chipped in at the gas pump. OTOH a very few here have benefited greatly from the POD.

As been said before: sacrifice is easy…as long as it’s someone else doing the sacrificing. Wanting something terrible to happen isn’t too difficult as long as one doesn’t see themselves as part of the collateral damage. As we all know the “point man” strategy works well…for everyone but the point man.

[h2]

it's odd posting a question like this as greece, italy, spain, teeter on the brink of major depression, 3rd world countries have rolling blackouts as the norm, because they simply cannot afford the prices that peak oil/carbon fuels are forcing via the supply/demand dynamic. It's kind of like asking if you want it to snow in the middle of a snowstorm, it is snowing, nothing we do is going to stop it at this point, and saying it's not snowing isn't going to make the snow stop.

Any doubt I had about peak oil already being here was removed over the last year as the mainstream media began to blindly repeat the blather put out by wallstreet firms pumping up tight oil/gas stocks as the smart guys are pulling out, classic bubble dynamics there, but the way the mainstream media keeps repeating the mantra of the demise of 'peak oil', as if geology has ended and oil costs the $5 a barrel the Economist magazine predicted some time back, without any actual facts, and ignoring totally the actual shortage of all affordable oil fuels globally now, here, in the present, which is the definition of peak oil, ie, cheap oil grows scarce, leaving only the crud that was considered not worth extracting due to high costs, previously. As noted, look at what people are doing, not what they say, and what they are doing is paying up to 120 a barrel (brent) for crude, year in and year out, while frantically rolling out every gigawatt of solar / wind they can put online, actions speak louder than words, and those actions tell me that we're now well into peak oil, and that climate change is far worse than we'd imagined, as every long term worst case scenario is eclipsed by short term events that prove those earlier guesses to have been far too optimistic.

I'd like people globally to get smart and start acting rationally, but that's not going to happen, so that's like wishing a shooting star, or a herd of unicorns, would fix all our problems, we have to work with what we have at hand, generally stubborn, kind of dumb, but at times energetic, people, aka some large brained apes burning stuff up because they can, just clever enough to do it, but not quite clever enough to grasp what they are doing to their ecosystem in the process. And a system designed from the ground up to grow endlessly as it's core premise, something that is already starting to fail across the globe now, not tomorrow, with no actual plan b in place.

I actually envy the young, they get to live through a big chunk of this process, and see what evolves and devolves and fails and succeeds, it will be very interesting times, a good place to watch how cultures adapt and adjust, or fail to do so through stupidity, greed, and hubris, the classic elements that we've been warned about over the millenia.

As they say, party on.

[Lore]

Well put h2, the message should be loud and clear for those that would listen. Although, in the future, the question may be will the living envy the dead?

[SeaGypsy]

An eloquent new poster indeed. The dumb masses deserve better don't they (we)?

[Arthur75]

What is amazing (even though not that surprising) these days, is that we are both at peak oil and probably also at a kind of maximum dissonance between "official information/previsions/propaganda" and objectiv realities, as the dotted lines below clearly show for instance :

[John_A]

I'd like to see it happen ASAP. The sooner billions of us die off the better the rest of the biosphere will be.

Who said all the fast crash anti-human survivalists had fled peak oil! Kill, die, suffer,now we're rolling! Next up, discussions on cannibalism, how the next world war can be kicked off, and some excellent instructions on booby trapping the doomstead against the mutant zombie bikers!

[John_A]

What is amazing (even though not that surprising) these days, is that we are both at peak oil and probably also at a kind of maximum dissonance between "official information/previsions/propaganda" and objectiv realities, as the dotted lines below clearly show for instance :

Rockman's POD concept would basically say that such graphs aren't really needed, because the date of the happening isn't as important as the things which aren't on that graph. Like price, which were more earth shattering back in the 70's then now yet only shows up as a little blip on the graph provided.

[Arthur75]

Thks for your participation Johnny-a, you're a funny one, cute !

[John_A]

Thks for your participation Johnny-a, you're a funny one, cute !

Well, when an industry professional like Rock shows up and tells us that the fascination with the exact timing of this thing isn't worth as much as some might wish, it is reasonable to act on that expert guidance.

[Arthur75]

You forget a little thing, you are not Rock and what you said has nothing to do with his point, basically, or what he calls the POD.

Seems to me you don't understand what these graphs represent.

[Newbie Wants Info]

So far, no one has assured me that the world's radioactive material can be safely stored or that exposed material will not cause widespread physiological damage to the world's animal species in the event that peak oil or similar upheavels occur.

Thus, I do not want peak oil to happen, and there is no way that anyone other than a genocidal maniac could want peak oil to happen, unless they have information that I don't.

[Arthur75]

Thus, I do not want peak oil to happen, and there is no way that anyone other than a genocidal maniac could want peak oil to happen, unless they have information that I don't.

Peak oil is not an event in the sense you assume, it is happening right now, it has happened on a per capita basis around 1980, current crisis IS peak oil crisis, and alas only the beginning.

[Beery1]

Thus, I do not want peak oil to happen, and there is no way that anyone other than a genocidal maniac could want peak oil to happen, unless they have information that I don't.

So you think that entirely annihilating all life on Earth through a runaway greenhouse effect is a more attractive option?
In my opinion, we're far too late to avoid some form of genocide, at least in terms of older people dying earlier and poverty-stricken regions being struck by famine and mass starvations. The question is only how to make the coming genocide as limited as possible.

You're pretending that Peak Oil is a genocidal maniac's dream when it's actually the best case scenario left to us. In my view, only a genocidal maniac could want peak oil NOT to happen. Peak Oil is humanity's only hope for long-term survival.

[Newbie Wants Info]

Arthur; Thanks for the info.

Beery: I can't picture global warming annhilating all life on Earth. Global warming has thus far proven itself to be much less of a threat than scaremongers would have us to believe. As each year goes by, as the temperature does not get hotter but stays the same or even cools, the more it appears to me and many other people that the risks of climate change have been overblown.

Nuclear radiation on the other hand, I can picture that annhilating or irreparably destroying many species.

No one has convinced me that world government have done anything to isolate their radioactive material from the biosphere in response immedieate economic or social upheavel. If a collapse from peak oil occurred it would be the worst nightmare you could possibly imagine. If there was no radioactive material, no cadium, no mercury, no large amounts of other assorted toxins just laying around in our nations.

A collapse would definitely not be beneficial for life on Earth.

Think of all the animals that would be killed by poachers looking to feed themselves when agricultural food is no longer available. There are more humans than ever with more guns than ever, that's going to lead to massive extinction of species. At the very least it would cause genetic harm.

There's also going to be massive amounts of rape, cannibalism, murder, etc. How can that be good for humanity? It will probably do untold amounts of harm to our gene pool.

What about wildfires from all the people looking to keep themselves warm? If you play with fire you eventually get burned -- when millions or billions of people switch from indoor heating to burning wood you better believe the forests and the cities are going to get burned. That can't be good for the environment.

A collapse is an easy and quick way out in daydream fantasy but if you examine it more critically you will see it as a dead end.

[davep]

Can we try to stay on topic?