Never mind the details, suffice it to say that in my department, my mention of peak oil was scoffed at a year ago. Even lately, as I've mentioned again, the response is blank stares.

I actually had a real success yesterday. I took one of my former colleagues out to lunch and we had a nice chit chat about this and that. We talked about blogging and I showed him my energy blog and asked him if he had ever heard of peak oil. Vaguely he said he had. I then gave him a whirlwind tour of the topic in 30 minutes. I capped it off with the export land model as I understand it and before I was 2 minutes into the explanation he interrupted and said: "... that means that the declines for us would be experienced faster than a geological peak." He completely understood.

I showed him TOD and he started clicking through Stuart's or Khebab's recent posts about production ... intensely looking at the graphs. I mentioned ELP, he got it too. He said "Send me the TOD link."

I also mentioned doomer pr0n and cornucopians ... "where do you sit?" I told him on the fence!

There was plenty of time for everybody to get out, but many of the passengers wouldn't move.

Lovelock often makes a creative interpretation of the facts to support his theories, but this time what he says is a mockery of the truth.

The fuel-fed fire rapidly developed to engulf the left wing by the time the plane had come to a stop, and smoke quickly spread into the passenger compartment. There were problems opening exit hatches, during the delay many passengers were overcome by smoke. Other passengers pushing to get out blocked aisles and exit ways. In later years, some survivors admitted they pushed passengers out of the way, climbing over them in a desperate scramble to escape. With a cabin filled with dense toxic smoke, it is certainly not obvious how to get out.

The passengers were only told to remain seated while the place was still moving, and before the crew realised the extent of the fire and the need to evacuate. As soon as it came to a stop, they were told to evacuate.

In short, there was very little time to get out, and if anything there was an unruly scramble. The idea that passengers sat passively as they were told and therefore died is complete rubbish. This is the complete opposite of what Lovelock claims.

dupe