<DrumBeat: September 26, 2007The Oil DrumThis Week in Petroleum 9-26-07>

257 comments on ...To Grandmother's House We Go: Peak Oil Is Here

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Fractional_Flow on September 26, 2007 - 10:21am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top

A well written piece.

FF

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Oilcanboyd on September 26, 2007 - 5:13pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Yes indeed a well written paper. However on the mention of food, you forgot one important factor everyone is forgetting. A paper was written on "Assessing Terrestrial Ecosystem Sustainability" by Mohan K Wali et al at Ohio State U in Nature & Resources Oct-Dec 1999 pg 21. And it states:

As temperature rises, photosynthetic activity in plants increases until the temperature reaches 20 C. The rate of photosynthesis then plateaus until the temperature hits 35 C , where upon it begins to decline until at 40 deg C photosynthesis ceases entirely. Since we here in southern ontario Canada live in the heart of corn and diary farming, it will be interesting to see the fall harvest crop reciepts and volumes.

On a personal note, we planted 40 peaches and cream corn stalks and watered(rain barrels) religiously every night and only harvested 15 cobs of corn. Every plant in the garden didn't to good except the carrots and the spinach. Yet we have smashed record high temps all summer 32 - 38 C.

20C 68F
35C 95F
40C 104F

increase, plateau, decline, familiar words?
Regards
OCB

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dpatek on September 26, 2007 - 11:12pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

There are some awesome wineries in Ontario. My husband and I spent a few days in Niagara on the Lake and toured some of the wineries. I was stunned at how good the wines are!

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bboeri on September 27, 2007 - 9:34pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Interesting about the corn and spinach. I have a very intensive garden plot in Washington DC; I'd have rain barrels (but they don't work in a drought).

This year I had lots of spinach and almost no corn. No peaches from my two super dwarf peach trees although I'm not sure if that was due to the heat, lack of water, or lack of bees.

I've heard others (500 miles north in New England) with similar stories.

Bob in DC
~live sustainably~

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Scotjen61 on September 26, 2007 - 5:42pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Great post.

I remember my grandpa once telling me when I was a kid, that he hadn't even seen money until he was about 15 years old. I remember asking him about that and realized that he lived on a farm, they did not pay income or property tax in 1890. He did not have electricity, no telephones, no cable TV. The heating they did was from chopping wood, and the water they got was from a hand pumped well. They kept pigs and no cattle. They had no cars, no tractors. Their plows were pulled with horses. They kept seed stock and no fertilizers except manure from the pigs. They grew potatoes and roots for winter. They kept the animals and killed them as they needed meat. No refrigeration. They cut blocks of ice for cooling, they had root cellars. What need of money did they have. The parents for sawmills, milling or whatever. But think of the bartering they must have done then.

So, its back to grandmothers house. Sort of like the Saudi proverb. My grandfather rode a camel, I drove in a car, my son flies airplanes. His son will ride a camel.

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seismobob on September 26, 2007 - 10:01pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Thank you I tried to say this to FF, but I will comment on the other posts.

True that photosynthesis has temperature curve, it also has a CO2 curve. I for one, am less worried about global warming (the Cretaceous had 2500+ ppm in its atmosphere and the world continued), and along the east coast of the US is a strand line (old beach) which lies 30 feet above present sea level and it was formed within the past million years. I don't think there is much threat of Canada experiencing, like Dallas, TX, did, 69 straight days above 100 C.
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/Oilcrisis.htm

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Valuethinker on September 28, 2007 - 9:21am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

then you're wrong.

The Arctic regions of the planet are heating much faster than the equator, just as the models predict.

Canada will get hotter. And fast. If Chicago can have weeks at 100 *Fahrenheit* (-- which is what I presume you meant, not 100 C?), then so can Toronto.

I think the Cretaceous number is not relevant to the debate. Human beings weren't alive in the Cretaceous, and we don't know what the surface temperature was. The Permian Extinction took place at c. 1000ppm. There's enough sub-permafrost methane out there to do it again.

30' on the sea level looks like something that might be achieved in the next 50-100 years-- some suggestion even faster. The data from Greenland is absolutely shocking, and so is what the British Antarctic Survey is coming back with.

But in a sense it's irrelevant, because it's the storm surges which are going to be the real threat. that and the mass extinctions.

The Colony Bee disorder is reminding us just how dependent we are on an intricate web of life, that we do not fully understand.

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seismobob on September 29, 2007 - 10:18pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I am wrong about what? I said the world is heating up. I think you would agree with that.

I am not wrong about the Suffolk Strandline

"The Suffolk strandline at 20-30 ft altitude, extends
discontinuously from New Jersey to the eastern Gulf coast, with a
mapped extent, including gaps of at least 800 mi. The plain
extending eastward from it is covered with sediments (Cape May
formation, Pamlico formation) containing a marine fauna recording
temperatures higher than those of today. At. At four localities
these sediments overlie a zone of rooted tree stumps (cypress and
cedar), showing that the Suffolk sea was preceded by a sea level
lower than the Suffolk and possibly lower than that of today.
Radiocarbon dates on wood from two of these localities imply that
the pre-Suffolk low sea level antedates the last major glacial
maximum."~Richard Foster Flint, Glacial and Pleistocene Geology,
(New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1957), p. 266,267

The Cretaceous (not to mention the early Tertiary) is relevant because it shows that the world's biosphere will handle that kind of CO2. I am not wrong about it having an extremely high CO2 content of the atmosphere. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/99/12/7836

I would also point this out:

" The first evidence of C4 biomass
being a significant part of local ecosystems in the Old World
is about 7 to 8 my. Carbonates from preserved paleosols in
Africa, Asia, and Europe older than 8 my have del 13 C values
from about 10 to 12 permil. Figure 7 and table 2 show that
there are compatible with a maximum P(CO2) level of about 700
ppmV." Thure E. Cerling, "Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere:
Evidence from Cenozoic and Mesozoic Paleosols," American
Journal of Science, 291(1991):377-400, p. 394
P(CO2)
Miocene Pakistan <700
Miocene E. Africa <400
Eocene Wyoming <600
L. Cretaceous Texas 2500-3300
Spain 1600-2600
U. Triassic/
l. Jurassic New Haven 2000-3000
New Haven 2500-4200
Fundy Rift 3000-6000
Thure E. Cerling, "Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere: Evidence
from Cenozoic and Mesozoic Paleosols," American Journal of
Science, 291(1991):377-400, p. 394

The problem is that people don't know geologic history very well. They think the Roman Empire is old and everything relevant has happened during that time frame.

Today, Canadians are the largest per capita energy users on earth. A warmer Canada will make them more energy efficient.

I agree that we are dependent upon the intricate web of life which we do not understand. But it is interesting that you seem to implicitely believe that you do understand it because you are making predictions of what will happen. If we truly don't understand it, we can't make predictions. One can't have it both ways.

As to storm surges, when I was living in China and my wife still here in the US, we had a terrible hurricane season in 2005. I moved back in 2006 expecting a continuation of bad hurricanes. They aren't here.

One of my worries about this sight is a phenomenon I dubbed Morton's Demon (google it). It is a form of group think. It can fool one into beleiving almost anything. I worry that by reading the oil drum I am falling into a different form of group think. But, since numbers are semi-objective, and I can't get the energy numbers to work, I believe Peak oil is a problem. I am less worried about global warming, which is happening and which is at least partly due to human activities.

Many here will scream that I am a warming denier (akin to a holocaust denier). Group think denies others the right to be wrong so those who scream are affected by group think. Truth will allow someone to differ because truth knows that it will win in the end. This will be my last response on the topic of global warming.

http://home.entouch.net/dmd/Oilcrisis.htm

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