<UPDATED: The Oil Market's Historic Swing to Continuous Contango--Has Peak Oil "Tipped"? The Oil Drum Oilwatch Monthly - May 2008>

43 comments on Peak Oil - Whom to Believe? Part 1 - There's Plenty of Oil, CERAiously

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jorn on May 21, 2008 - 12:44pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I would phrase number 5 and number 6 differently. Also why should you stop the pleasure of consuming? Saving energy can be a lot of fun! For example if you use your bicycle every day you can afford to buy a really nice bike.

1. Move closer to work
2. Commute by bike
3. Go shopping by bike (except for furniture etc.)
4. Eat less meat (like once a week at most)
5. Cut the size of your living space
6. Limit children to 2 (this still leads to a reduction of the population)
7. Use energy saving appliances (and use smaller ones and use them less often)

My experience is that people are blaming politicians that everything gets more expensive. Politicians blame oil companies that they did not invest enough into oil exploration. Nobody wants to admit, that we just have to consume less oil and that the real problem is that oil is still too cheap.

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geek7 on May 21, 2008 - 2:51pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

"Nobody wants to admit, that we just have to consume less oil..."

We will consume less oil whether we "admit that we have to", or not. And the people who come out of the coming genetic bottleneck, may or may not be genetically disposed to a different mind set than we have going into it.

Perhaps some of us are enlightened enough to see ways that our behavior should be changed to fit our reduced resources, but how can this enlightened view be spread to all mankind in the time available? And what are the details of this enlightened view? Just having fewer children will leave the world to the offspring of the unenlightened.

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FiniteQuantity on May 21, 2008 - 4:15pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Nice to see population growth at least made each list.

If people are going to commute by bike (which is a good idea) there needs to be a shift in how urban planners do their dirty deeds in America. We can't have centralized commercial and industrial areas and sprawling residential areas and have many people biking to work. Start intermingling the two to the greatest extent possible.

And biking to work also requires a change in the idea of a bike lane. Painting a stripe down the side of a street doesn't cut it. Put a curb where the stripe is or put the bike lane on the other side of the sidewalk. Anything less just leads to bicycling tragedies.

You also will need more mass transit in the future. If we had been smart, around 1970 we would have faced the music and started building high speed rail. Instead, in cities like Portland and San Jose, we belatedly decided to use 100-year-old abandoned technology - trolley cars.

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dtbks on May 21, 2008 - 11:15pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

All we need is another idiot spouting crap. Let me put it in caps so you don't miss it: THE SAFEST PLACE FOR A CYCLIST IS IN THE STREET CYCLING WITH THE FLOW OF TRAFFIC. I'm not making that up. The statistics backing up that statement may be found on the late Sheldon Brown's website (RIP). Sorry, but I've long since lost the link. But put "Sheldon Brown" into google and that will take you to his website. Ferret out the stats for yourself. Compared to cycling in the street with the flow of traffic, cycling on a bicycle path leaves you between 1.4 and 1.8 times more likely (depending on the study) to have an accident. Cycling on the sidewalk with the traffic raises your accident probability to around 2. On the sidewalk against the traffic, you're around 4 times more likely to have an accident.

You might ask yourself "why this counterintuitive statistic?" Well, first you have to understand that "strike from behind" accidents almost never happen. The stats. show that only 8% of car-bicycle accidents are the "strike from behind" variety. However, 80+% of car-bicycle accidents happen at intersections. (BTW, I'm quoting police-reported accident stats here.) Obviously you don't ride a bicycle regularly because every serious bicycle commuter knows this intuitively: The more visible you are, the less likely you are going to be struck by a car. Hence the safest place is IN THE ROAD in the traffic. Cycling on the sidewalk, or on a bicycle path that is not officially part of the road, simply removes you physically from the road and psychologically from the motorists' awareness. As I mentioned, most accidents happen at intersections. If the motorist hasn't seen you, you are more likely to be struck.

So please stop spreading unsubstantiated lies which will result in more bicycle accidents and cyclist deaths. The best sort of bike lane is in fact, a painted lane in the street with NO CURB OR BARRIER separating you from the cars. It forces motorists to be aware of your presence, which in turn, lowers the chance that you are going to get into an accident. If you haven't heard the cognitive mechanism that underpins this, search for "inattention blindness," or type '"Daniel Simons" gorilla video' into google and check it out.

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m005e on May 21, 2008 - 5:01pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I saw a posting today by West Texas distilling a news report of SUV's loosing heaps on trade-in value and some dealers actually refusing to take them (SUV's) for trade-in on new purchases.
So, why not poke congress to develop some sort of legislation whereby a person can write off the value ( need to use something like 80% of sale price perhaps since the value is dropping so ) of an auto that they can't sale and can't afford to drive. I guess the irs would have to take possession of the vehicle and I have no idea what they'd do with it. Transform it into oil well rigs perhaps. Or make bunkers to protect themselves from the auto insurance companies, tire mfg, and all the other auto related folks who'd be after their hide.

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43 comments on Peak Oil - Whom to Believe? Part 1 - There's Plenty of Oil, CERAiously

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