And the subtext of that graphic is "don't worry, be happy" there's plenty out there and more where that came from and somebody will figure out how to tap it out, so just be happy.
Just what the cornucopians want to hear so they can tell us the American lifestyle is not negotiable and keep on with business as usual.
I have been reading Kevin Phillips about late stage empires and I rather doubt we are capable of the clarity Rickover shows, who lived at a time of Peak Empire.
The grandchildren of peak empire just want to suck their thumbs, hold on to whatever serves as blanky, and just be happy. Make big bad peak everything go away.
When a presidential candidate mocks the other one for a serious energy conservation recomendation and wants to enter his wife in a Miss Buffalo Chip topless contest...I'd say we are in full descent.

"In response to the graphic reference at the end of your post, I assume that the inference is that of an overlooked salvation, that an ample, sweet, ripe fruit is dangling right in front of us and we fail to see it."

I would argue that I did not intend to infer that it is "dangling right in front of us" in the way you are saying. But it is in front of us. Whether we are clever enough to scale it and use to anywhere near it's potential is the question that remains unanswered.

As for the "copious amounts of oil" required to devolop and exploit solar power (and other renewables such as wind, geothermal, tide, etc.), "copious" is a relative term. We burn "copious" amounts of oil with no hope of a return. How much oil has been used in the construction of Beijing roads and skyscrapers in the last ten years?

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/06/som_skyscrapers/image/cwtc_beiji...

http://www.nancyliu.com/images/beijing_Night-time.jpg

Or Dubai?

http://www.tourismzone.com/photos/middleeast/united-arab-emirates/dubai/...

http://www.funonthenet.in/images/stories/forwards/dubai%20projects/Burj%...

Manmade islands create the map of the world:
http://guide.theemiratesnetwork.com/living/dubai/images/the_world/the_wo...

Manmade islands palm:
http://funkyuncensored.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/dubai-palm-island.jpg

http://homesgofast.com/UserFiles/dubai-property.jpg

"Copious" amounts of oil, steel, aluminum, concrete, coppoer,glass, and other resources are used all over the world everyday for projects that offer no hope of energy return, only the assurance of more energy consumption. "Copious" amounts of money are also poured into these projects. It is fascinating that financing and materials can be found for these often questionable projects, but is always short for renewable energy production.

My point in using the illustration was this: When people tell you that we only have "X" amount of barrels, BTU's, kilowatts, Joules, or whatever way you want to measure it of energy left, and then we are "out", it's all over, it's done, civilization is finished, and THEN claim the supoport of "physics" to make these claims, I know they are most certainly not correct, and I don't care what value is assigned to "X".

It is with great sadness and discomfort that I have seen people using almost any "fact" they want to use, and then claiming science and physics support these so called "facts". It is known that many people will not bother to question these "facts" if science is invoked, or may not even know how to begin to question them. It is preying on the scientific illiteracy of the public.

I make my living at this time by employment in the market and media survey business. I assure you that if you showed most people the illustration I used at the end of my post, they simply would not believe it. They have been told for years that alternative energy, especially solar, is "pie in the sky", "marginal" and far too expensive to ever be useful. I have heard folks right her on this board attempt to ridicule and humiliate anyone who discusses alternatives with comparisons to "getting methane from the moon of Saturn". We are now teaching our children in peak oil presentations that alternatives are a "myth". It causes us to question why such a relentless attack on alternative programs is felt to be needed at a time when the cost of extracting oil and gas is going nowhere but up?

So be it. But I still have the ability to ask questions, to check underlying assumptions. I am sure not going to destroy my mind and my investments with unwarrented assumptions that cannot be proven in any way. Yes, we face a crisis, yes we need to change and no, the changes are not being made fast enough.

But some of the attacks on the alternatives are utterly outragous. Right here on this string for example cjwirth says:

"No, I'm scared too, because I know what the impacts of oil depletion will look like and that alternative energies policies will accelerate oil depletion and demonstrate that humans are not smarter than yeast."

With the exception of biofuels such as ethanol, I ask for any evidence that alternative energies increase oil depletion. ANY.

I will not become a defeatist and destroy my own health and my ability to enjoy life based on such nonsense (and I do not fault cj, what he is saying is said so often that has become mantra that no one even bothers to question), and I question the wisdom of anyone who does.

RC

ccpo says "So, I find your analysis typically shallow as it lies on a base of caricatures of real issues."

I can only ask, and I will let you be the judge, do you feel that my "caricatures" of many peoples views was a greater caricature than Gail the Actuary's portrayal of the views of many Americans that I was replying to?

I have great respect for Gail. Based on my reading of her material, she has a mind like a steel trap, clever and smart. But in this case, I felt compelled to answer in defense of the American people and the American culture at large.

There is a point at which the continual attacks on everything the American culture, and in fact much of Western culture has been built around will be answered.

It is fascinating to see that in every nation that the possibility of living a materially better and more comfortable life with more variety of experience is offered, the opportunity is taken up with great zeal. It is the Americans however who are portrayed as "greedy" and ignorant, as some type of materialistic yahoos for taking advantage of what technology and economic development have offered them.

Yes, we have many excesses, some of them almost idiotic if you really look at them. But are we more prone to excess than the human race at large? Are we more prone to believe that with effort and planning we can continue to live well than humans at large? Are we more prone to walk away from our "traditions" when offered the goodies that modernism brings than humans at large? I would say these points are very arguable.

On the issue of fractional banking, fiat money, etc., you ask, "If you feel that the fiat/fractional banking system is a source of many of our problems, why would you support it?"

Simple: Because it has supported me, and it has supported hundreds of millions of people in the developed countries in achieving a standard of living unheard of in human history.

I have known people who had "no faith" in investing, in financial planning, in economics all my life. These people are now into middle age or older, and they are bitter and angry. How is it that the system seems to have worked for those who did invest, who did plan, who did diversify? They now see their old classmates and friends taking vacations, living well, and worrying far less about every one penny move in gasoline prices. These people did not as you say "support" the core tenets of the economic system or the ideas of prudent investment and planning, so now the system does not support them. Now they want to feel bitter and picked upon. It was their choice.

Economics is a social science. If you want to extract the advantage from it, you must study it and make sound choices based upon what you learn. The same is true with opera, with art, with NFL Football and with culture in general, and with any other pursuit that is "fiat" and man made. Almost all human activities except maybe sex and death are man made. Our ability to enhance everything we do by way of "fiat" activities is what makes us human. We even try to find ways to dress sex up. In the physical reality, a whore, a princess or a supermodel all function exactly the same. It is culture, the attachment of "fiat" cultural values that make one experience more valued or thrilling than the other.

It is o.k. to laugh at "fiat" currency. Just don't be angry when you see your friends who accepted the value of culturally valued money going on vacations, living in comfortable homes, going out with high maintainence women and wearing nice clothes and jewels that look anything but "fiat". :-)

RC

I'll go you one better: I think we can reduce it to a tenth or less of waht we use today. But can is not will, and there are those who will get very nasty if you try to persuade them to drop at all, let alone 2/3.

Your argument works against you, actually. It shows that the ELP plan CAN work and SHOULD be the way of things - and will be if we wish to survive. This is what many a doomer actually thinks needs to happen and will happen.

Cheers