Hi George,

I think people like to have some idea that there are better ways to respond, some positive actions one might take and that society, in general, might take - and that all is not lost. In fact, if we actually manage to absorb the truth, there's quite a bit we can do.

Meanwhile,

re: "When trying to convince someone, ask him/her: why the oil companies have not invested in new refineries?"

My understanding is that the oil companies have invested in new refinery *capacity*, and that this equates to new refineries, which are not built due to the permitting process. No links.

In other words, I'd check with TODers who are familiar with this topic.

Tell people that in one TOD survey, 81% of the participants believe Peak Oil already happened, is happening now, or will happen before 2013.

I know what you're getting to but there are flawless counter arguments to this statement of yours. This is the same as saying "80% of the participants in an Intelligent Design site survey believed that God exists".

The power of denial overwhelms logic. I spent 2 hours talking about peak oil, population and even played a few 'parts' of some of my favourite documentaries (Life at the end of the Empire, A Crude Awakening (and even the light-headed, "dumbed down" Story Of Stuff)). But you know what happened at the end? Besides a sore throat after all the talking, everybody went back to talking about the best mortgage plan.

I didn't know about peak oil when I was born. Nor did it seem such a big 'threat' when I got to know about it (for I immediately only associated 'cars' with petroleum than 'food'). It takes patience to tell people... and more than that, it takes slow, digestable amounts of information to be fed to them periodically to create awareness).

I have another idea: A set of simple to understand posters. On the lines of "Did you know how much of the food we eat needs petroleum? 100 gms of food needs 1. X volume for fertilizer 2. X volume for pesticides 3. X volume for labour 4. X volume for irrigation 5. X volume for transport 6. X volume for storage - Total: Y volumes"

Game to do this? :)