<The forecasting record of CERA and other commentators The Oil Drum DrumBeat: December 13, 2006>

29 comments on Some Predictions from the Time when Today Was the Future of Oil

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realist on December 12, 2006 - 11:44pm Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
Seems like Yergin saw this coming much earlier than the rest of us.

Perhaps he realized the lure of the American lifestyle and the resulting importance of the US military securing mideast oil. Since the majority of the American public would never go for this solution, he created a private disinformation campaign funded by the oil industry.

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expat on December 13, 2006 - 5:56am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
A lot of people saw this coming 30 years ago - it is just that most of them had other interests to attend to.

'The future is now' was a wonderful expression from George Allen during his coaching stint for the Washington Redskins - he cared about winning, and was willing to sacrifice future trades for immediate results.

But the expression is even more relevant for what America forgot - the future of 1976 is pretty much today, 2006 - a highly unstable Middle East, with American soldiers being used to secure oil supplies, and an American society which took essentially no concrete actions in terms of efficiency/conservation or changing how it lived.

And ExxonMobil making a cool $40 billion in profits, with a Secretary of State that had an oil tanker named after her, with a failed oil man as President, and a Vice President paid deferred compensation for his service to an oil services company.

Quite honestly, most people in 1976 would not have found 2006 all that much a parody really - they pretty much believed then that giant oil companies owned the political system. As for environmental degradation - no surprise there either, by the way.

The real mystery is why it continued so long in North America until people finally saw what the American Dream would mean for them, personally, and not merely their children or grandchildren.

Personally, I find it fitting the baby boom will get to live in the nest it so thoroughly fouled, instead of enjoying the party without cleaning up.

How is that Arctic ice melting going, by the way? The one that wasn't scheduled until sometime around 2040? And how is the schedule looking for oil deliveries from Saudi Arabia, which will be ramping up to 12 mbpd any day now, after the oil market is no longer so flooded.

The future is now. Have fun.

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Alfred on December 13, 2006 - 1:11pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

You are absolutely correct Expat. Around 1976, I bought the detailed version of "Dynamics of Growth in a Finite World" (ISBN 0262131420) which is more familiar as the World3 model.

At that time, I was really keen on System Dynamics and the modeling language DYNAMO which this piece of research is based on. I carted it back to Tehran (it is big) and a few years later had to abandon it to the mullahs. I doubt if they read it. Anyway, the end of the world is good news to some of them - they are so similar to some Americans.

The point that I am trying to make is that we are going pretty close, I guess, to what they postulated in 1974 to general ridicule. It is funny how people turn off when the news are unfavourable.

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Hugo Chavez on December 15, 2006 - 6:05am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Yes, I think so. Yergin is an expert on oil. People like to associate him with their negative view of CERA here. Almost none of them have read "The Prize."

Any who have would know that he clearly has a grasp of peak-issues. And was writing about them at least 20 years before people had heard of Deffeyes.

Yergin understands oil. Most peak-oil advocates are clowns. I'm not saying this to be mean. It is just the case. Heading Out hasn't even read his book. He writes about some video. It's crazy.

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Buckler on December 15, 2006 - 8:52pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
The video is based on Yergin's book and done in cooperation with Yergin and PBS.  8 parts, total 6 hours+ I believe.  I've read the book and seen the video and there are a few interviews in the video that aren't in the book, but are based on the same material.  
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Heading Out on December 17, 2006 - 7:13pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Um! Not wishing to argue, but which of his books am I not supposed to have read?  I would point out that it is hard to find specific quotes from a book if you haven't read at least some of it, and in most cases I have, at some stage, read almost all.
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29 comments on Some Predictions from the Time when Today Was the Future of Oil

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