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19 comments on A little snippet that may not be as good as it sounds

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CmdrPhil on November 7, 2005 - 8:22pm Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
Looks like the Wall Street Journal is alarmed by their interpretation of the latest IEA document.  Their coverage used the following title and byline:  "IEA Urges Global Changes in Oil Use:   Watchdog's Stark Warning To Trim Dependency Comes With Higher Price Forecast".  The first sentence of the article further paints the tone of the article:  "The International Energy Agency, in an unusually stark call for change that reflects rising anxiety over future energy supplies, urged the industrialized world to start weaning itself off oil."

The WSJ in particular picked up on concern that so much of the forecast increased production comes from so few countries which have a history of frequent large production disruptions.

Large organizations such as the IEA don't change their outlook on a dime.  If the IEA is like most large bureaucracies, even if most of the rank and file were convinced that peak oil was imminent conservative elements at the top would be slow to shift the message they were sending out to the world.

I think there has been a huge shift in the IEA position in the last several years.  They seem to be furiously back peddling away from their complete denial of a peak in oil production before 2030 to a position that on the surface is not incompatible with their former projections, but which increasingly supports some of the basic elements of the peak oil argument:  that non-OPEC production is nearing a peak (or plateau?), that most future growth has to come from OPEC and the Middle East OPEC states in particular, and perhaps we shouldn't be so trusting that those few states will really step up to the plate.

I think it's significant that the WSJ is giving the IEA report an alarming spin and noting that the report is a big break from past assessments, especially given the financial press' tendency to assume the cornucopian viewpoint without question.

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george in vermont on November 8, 2005 - 9:38am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
This could be a watershed moment -- only a few weeks ago in the WSJ's new weekend edition, they editorialized about "The Bottomless Well", adding "shale oil" and the Alberta tar sands to the worldwide supply of oil.

I sent them a letter debunking their arguments, borrowing from Heinberg and throwing in a shot at the folly of the expected hydrogen economy, but surprise, surprise, the only letter they printed about that story was one that suggested that ANWR not be counted as a single year's equivalent to US consumption, but as x million barrels per year over a certain number of years.

No news to you folks but I believe that Wall Street in particular has a lot to fear from Peak Oil. The impact on the stock market could be devastating. My personal view is that PO won't result in the end of the world, but the end of the middle class.

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step back on November 8, 2005 - 4:23pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
The era of "middle class" ended long ago, when dad lost his factory job and mom had to go to work to "supplement" the declining real income.
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george in vermont on November 8, 2005 - 4:32pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Perhaps you're right and that was the "peak" of the middle class. But I suspect we have a long way to go. Wealth will be concentrated among a small number of people (as it mostly is today anyway), and the rest of us will be back serving as low-paid and low-class servants, farmers, lumberjacks, boatmen and milkmen. If we're lucky.
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Donal on November 8, 2005 - 5:02pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Time to watch Masterpiece Theatre and brush up on my hat-tipping and groveling.

Seriously though, I agree that the loss of high-paying, blue collar jobs overseas has already hurt the middle class, but I also suspect that high-paying, white collar jobs, like mine, are going to be scarcer in a post-peak world.

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george in vermont on November 8, 2005 - 5:14pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Study with an expert and watch Anthony Hopkins in Remains of the Day!

With less energy supporting our society, we will lose a layer or two of complexity in our economy, and complexity is what gave rise to the populous white-collar class.

I'm already experiencing what this will be like myself. I'm a former globe-trotting, big city corporate communications manager now living in rural Vermont. It's quite a change. A lot of the people around here are very self-sufficient, and get by on very little compared to city and suburban folks.

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