The Oil Drum

None of us knows the future and no one can say what will happen for certain. I have never said that everything will work out fine. Just that it is one of the options on the table and to pretend that you have a 100% assurance of the future is wrong.

My point is that the repetition of "doom is here and we deserve it" is not part of an analytical discussion, but instead a semi-religious obsessive masturbation. I see the doom fundamentalists as being the same as other fundamentalists. I can't prove that God won't call us all back or that Mother Nature won't destroy us all in a righteous fit of passion. Religious fundamentalists would bring their preconceptions to this site and rant on regardless of facts. The same is true of doom fundamentalists.

Stuart Staniford, Lou Grinzo, Halfin and others have lifted their voices above the din of doom on many occasions to say that there are a wide number of paths forward and that we can't know what the future holds. The framework that I see most likely is an extended peak that causes price increases resulting in the development of a lifestyle that accommodates the new reality - this would most likely be a combination of new energy sources, changed use of the ones we have and a more efficient use of energy inputs. I might be wrong - in fact I probably am. The future won't be tied down.

I believe that the doom mongers are doom mongers first and peak oilers second. In my view, they have reverse engineered the end of capitalism, which is their ultimate goal, and are today calling it peak oil. Tomorrow they will doom monger elsewhere under another name.  

For the record, I have never claimed that doom is off the table. Just that we don't know. I do find it entertaining to every once in a while say "Everything may just work out", because it is heresy to the doom obsessive faction.

Powerdown, to my mind is rebranded popular Marxism. We can argue forever about the merits of collectivism of various sorts. I don't see any clear pathway to powerdown aside from one forced on an unwilling public by forces of nature or an authoritarian government. I hope and believe man will successfully resist either.