Said by Anti_Elvis:
The earth produces more energy in a day from solar/tidal/wind than..all the fossil fuels that have ever existed on earth.

Perhaps 1 or 2 months of sunlight exceed the energy content of all the fossil fuels that ever existed on Earth. If fissionable and fusionable materials, such as Uranium and Deuterium, are included, I think Sun delivers about 10,000 times more energy over the next 4 billion years. Sun is definitely the primary energy source.

solar constant: 1353 W/m²
mean radius of Earth: 6.378 * 10⁶ m
World energy consumption in 2005: ~500 EJ = ~5 * 10²⁰ J
The estimates of remaining worldwide energy resources vary, with the remaining fossil fuels totaling an estimated 0.4 YJ = 4 * 10²³ J

Earth receives: 1.7291 * 10¹⁷ W

During 1 day Earth receives: 1.49 * 10 ²² J

When man IS forced to adapt or "die", he will.

First of all this is based on the false premise of what has been will always be.

Second, the history of life on this planet is replete with examples of highly adaptable organisms that actually died when the circumstances permitting their survival either changed drastically or ceased to exist altogether.

It seems you assume that the smart ass little primates that we are are exempt from the basic laws of thermodynamics. Humans seem to believe we will forever be able to outwit nature due to our technological and cultural ingenuity.

Despite that assumption, there is nothing that actually supports this.

All of the schemes for extracting and producing energy, be they fossil or alternative, don't amount to a hill of beans if you can't produce and distribute enough food to adequately feed the continuously growing population of the world. So whether you accept this fact or not, there are currently massive die offs already happening due to starvation in various parts of the world.
Those people are *NOT* adapting.

Of course if by "Adapt" you mean come up with a plan to voluntarily and drastically reduce the human population of the world I would love to hear your thoughts on how that might be achieved.

Every technological solution that allows more people to live on a planet of finite resources, will only compound and delay the problem. There is nothing that I have seen in any culture currently existing that indicates we understand the need to completely end growth now. So there is absolutely no doubt that the laws of nature will therefore limit the so called adaptability of man.

Best wishes for a sustainable human culture.

I think the problem with many people who say that "technology" will allow us to overcome Peak Oil, or that Peak Oil cannot happen because we will "adapt" is one of unsaid (or even unconscious) assumptions.

I believe the assumption of people that say Peak Oil will be overcome or even say that Peak Oil will not happen is that life will go on (but without us humans), or that people will adapt (but without many people less) or that we will find a replacement (there will be no choice since there will be no more of the stuff).

I think that when many people say that Peak Oil will be a catastrophe, they mean to say that adaptation (yes, we most probably will adapt) will be extremely painful and that many will not make it.

So, yes, if we *want* those wind turbine, we *can* get them. Now, will we want them in time to be capable of building them or are we going to wait until we need to shed half of Earth's population before we can build alternatives?

See? it's not that we "can't", it's just that many people actually want the most of us to be able to continue living and actually think that people dying *is* a catastrophe.

Anti_Elvis,

I don't think the problem is one of not being 'bathed in energy' but one of society being entirely addicted to more extreme/concentrated and easily accesible (high EROEI) forms of it. To use an analogy its a little like saying a crack cocaine user could simply start eating all the coca leaves in the forest as there are literally tonnes of them out there...

What we need is a plan to get us from 'A' to 'B' -a transition plan. Unfortunatley the main issue at the moment is not that we don't have a plan, but everyone thinks we are heading towards destination 'C'.

[Edit]In response to FMagyar I would say that I do not believe it is in the fundamental nature of any species to "end growth" be it organic (yeast) or a higher form (man) -we rush towards consuming all...

Nick.