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301 comments on Dr Deffeyes defines a date

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Leanan on February 13, 2006 - 10:54am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I suspect Deffeyes doesn't think we're in for a slow squeeze.  He thinks it will be a cliff.  The Olduvai Theory, basically.  The problem isn't really oil production, it's how individuals and nations will respond to energy scarcity.
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xuewen on February 13, 2006 - 7:10pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Of course the problem with using Hubbert Linearisation to predict global oil production past the peak is that the global peak may be qualitatively different to regional peaks, precisely because societal response will be qualitatively different.

When regions peak, you can just import more oil from other regions, which is what we've been doing up until now. The result is a more or less symmetrical curve in regional production.

When global production peaks, the physical reality of oil shortage and the psychological (and therefore economic) impacts are likely to be entirely different.

We really are sailing into uncharted waters. What happens next is anyone's guess.

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Oil CEO on February 14, 2006 - 1:30pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
This is correct. A sometimes overlooked point.
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scorned by the cockroach on February 13, 2006 - 9:23pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Hmmm, maybe Deffeyes is circumspectly opining that the worlds oh so magnificent leaders will just simply find the Curt LeMay solution to problems too irresistable in the post-PO world.

For those who weren't here, Strategic Air Commander General Curtis LeMay strongly advocated using nukes to bomb North Vietnam back into the stone age.

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step back on February 13, 2006 - 9:44pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Now you're making me feel really old by suggesting that many here don't remeber who "General Curtis D. LeMay" was and many may not have seen "Doctor Strangelove", the movie.

You're probably right. Yeeh Hah!  Yeeh Hah! (love that scene ---with "till we meet again" as the musical backdrop-- brings back memories of a time when the world was less crowded, 50%)

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SocraticGadfly on February 14, 2006 - 12:31am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
For the LeMay types in our government, they need to remember the following:

  1. Bombers aren't folks on the ground who can actually run oil wells, and people on the ground can get shot up, kidnapped, etc. by angry natives.

  2. Armies, navies (to a fair degree) and air forces still run on petroleum. The "just around the corner" nuclear powered aircraft of the 1950s is wayyy around the corner. Three-quarters or more of gasoline in a mechanized unit in Iraq is used to move -- gasoline to the actual mechanized vehicles.

In other words, we're highest up the hillside, so we've got the farthest to fall.
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Oil CEO on February 14, 2006 - 1:43am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
You guys are getting things slightly twisted. In Dr. Strangelove, George C. Scott plays a character named General 'Buck' Turgidson who has been rumoured to have been based on General Curtis LeMay.

In real life, Curtis LeMay was a person who was based on another person - a clone if you will. The real thing was Sir Arthur 'Bomber' Harris.

Ahmadinejad, keep talking pal - Hell Awaits.

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Don Sailorman on February 14, 2006 - 11:28am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Oil CEO,
You got that exactly right. Just watched "Dr. Strangelove" again, for about the twenty-second time, last night. In huge letters the claim is made that none of the characters represent anybody living or dead. Yeah, right.

Now, what about the mad scientist in the wheel chair? Somebody said he was supposed to be Herman Kahn, but that is nonsense, because the guy with the circular slide rule is clearly a Nazi, and Kahn (loved that guy!) was Jewish. So who is he?

Did you catch the name of our President? Merkin Muffley. You know what a merkin is? Holy Smokes, that film is so funny and has so many inside jokes.

Also I have heard that somebody was the prototype for Colonel Bat Guano, but the stories are unconvincing.

Where is Peter Sellers, now that we need?

Oh, and how Bomber Harris would like to have a go at Iran . . . . He'd have them back to the dark ages in a week.

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step back on February 14, 2006 - 12:29pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Zeh Pink Panter iz now dizguised as Steve Martin.

Oh oh.
Are we the old farts remeniscing (sp?) about the good old days? Say it ain't so.

Then again they don't make movies with embedded wit in them like Dr. Strangelove/Peter Sellers anymore. It's part of the dumbing down of America. Instead we get Harrison Ford single handedly (at age 55?) fighting off a bunch of buff hoodlums while in his zoot suit and winning the Firewall fight. Now that is some deep blues.

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Don Sailorman on February 14, 2006 - 1:08pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Don't knock Harrison Ford. I sometimes dress up like Indiana Jones for Halloween and have been asked for autographs by people who think that I'm H.F. I think he is about 64 years old, and I am eagerly waiting for Indiana 4.

Old movies are bettter.

Take a look at "A Day at the Races" for wit and a concealed (scathing) criticism of wealth concentration and racism.

Watch "You Can't Take it With You" for an explicit rejection of materialism, hilariously effective criticism of the F.B.I.,and get this: Our Hero opts out of banking to go back to graduate school and learn how to do what? To get the solar energy out of grass. Date? 1936, though I could be off by a year.

Maybe audiences are getting dumber, and that is why we are getting dumber movies.

Why watch new movies? Except that "Match Point" is great as social criticism and "Syrianna" gives some hint of how things go in Saudi Arabia.

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step back on February 14, 2006 - 9:51pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Thanks. Match Point was a more disturbing version of the Talented Mr. Ripley.
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CmdrPhil on February 14, 2006 - 9:52pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
When did Sellers finish "Being There", 1978?  That wasn't too long ago, eh?  Today's young ones might be interested in finding out how the totally incompetent get into business mangagement, then go on to the White House.  Of course, that could never happen in real life, and most certainly not in our enlightened age.
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Gets IT on February 14, 2006 - 5:16am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Its diesel.
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301 comments on Dr Deffeyes defines a date

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