The Oil Drum

"Of course the only true problem is GROWTH in a finite environment!"

Maybe, but at the end of the day, that's biting off more than I can chew.

If I ruled by fiat, and everyone would obey my command to cease fornication (because after all, birth control pills require energy to make!), then maybe growth would cease.....but since I don't and everyone won't, it's a bit of a moot point, isn't it?  Growth, like change, has probably been going on too damm long....but nobody knows how to make either one stop.

You say, "99.98% of the posts are about, when THIS particular Peak Oil will happen, brainstorming about technical "solutions" by mostly technologically ILLITERATES.  That's actually not a bad overview.  I have learned a couple of things since I came here:

1.  Everybody's a damm physicist!  I didn't know we had so may physics genuises in the country, until every other post I read ended every debate about all the things that could not be done (half of them already being done somewhere) with the flat and knowing assertion, "the physics proves it" or "it's in the physics"....that second one has the cool resigned detachment of the old Bruce Hornsby song..."That's just the way it is....some things will never change.....", and then he takes the counter point, "but don't you believe it..."   I prefer to take the counterpoint.

2.  Despite the fact that no one knows exactly how much oil and gas there is, or exactly how to define it, everybody knows to the day when we are going to peak!  Astounding that!  Both the optimists and the pessimists have this in common!  Even the Dan Yergin's, despite having no idea whatsoever how much gas and oil is actually out there, completely relient on other people's word, says, we have plenty for the next decade!  While the pessimists like Deffeyes who says that HL (Hubbert Linearization) is holy writ, even though Hubbert Linearization is based entirely on known URR (Ultimate Recoverable Reserves) when confronted on lack of any real knowledge of world URR by anybody, he changes gears and says, "Well, it's production that counts, reserves mean nothing!  You can't pull up to the pump and fill up you car with reserves!"  What do the optimists and the pessimists have in common?  Despite having no idea how much is there, and what exactly counts  (crude oil, all liquids, which of course makes nat gas interchangable with crude oil....despite another poster on TOD who recently shut his ears "hear no evil" fashion, "I have heard too much about bottled gas, there seems to be bottled gas everywhere!"...yep, the world is a confusing place!

3.  Despite everyone, EVERYONE saying "peak is not "running out!", when they talk you can hear they all have a mental picture of running out, right to the last drop!
   

Someone says "perhaps we can build windmills", they reply, "that takes oil" as though there won't be a pint left!  Someone says, "perhaps we can build electric cars", they reply "that will take oil to produce them and the batteries".....what, won't there even be a few gallon?"  Medication?  "Big dieoff is coming, medication takes oil."  Now, exactly how many tons of the oil consumed in the world, exactly what percent of the total tonnage goes to production of medication?  (I am leaving aside the fact that many medicines and chemicals are made with natural gas processing for the moment, I love it when people on here will scream about how oil is used to make fertilizer!  Well, actually, it's natural gas....but back to the point....)  You mean that if we reduce the waste burning of crude oil, there still won't be even enough for medicines that actually use it in their production?
You mean if everyone drove a 2 cylinder tin box like a Citreon 2CV, we would still run clear out, and be as Deffeyes says, "Stone age by 2030", or thereabouts?  Does "Peak Oil" really mean a Fred Flintstone world?

The view of the world is sometimes childlike....growth is the problem, tell them to stop!  and they will.....Technology?  Go home and tell you daddy technology is BAD!  It is a BAD THING!!  If he is trying to develop technology, he is a BAD MAN!   Don't let him fool you, and say it's efficient, it is still technology, and will use energy, and we will be OUT, it's BAD!  He is an evil DENIER!  Life in the U.S., it is a BAD THING!!  It must stop, many must die!  Then some will go on and do the right thing....with no TECHNOLOGY, the BAD thing that messed up the world!!

As you say, not so bad, entertaining at least, or at least it would be if it were not so sad, and the problem is far too serous, too complex, too much in need of sophisticated acceptance of real ideas, real modern maturity.

We are not as much paying the price for wasted energy, we are paying the greater price, as we knew we someday would, for wasted talent, preperation, mental ability to design, to concieve of more than yes/no, and to think in terms of multiple, interlocking options and confluent ideas.  We are frankly stumbling in the dark, blind but hoping to pass ourselves off as "seers" who will lead the "ILLITERATES", the "screaming monkeys" and the "sheepies" out of the dark.  Such are the terms we use to win over our disciples.  That alone should tell you volumes.

Roger Conner  known to you as ThatsItImout