Horrifying.
I wish he weren't so articulate at voicing my darkest fears.

I have been reading history for years, and nowhere have I come across a large civilization that has successfully navigated resource depletion. But if you look at things on a local level, then it becomes pretty clear that people will survive. What is lost is that thin veneer of civilization. History is replete, on every continent, with the rise and fall of various empires and societies.

Things are different today because of a single thing - petroleum. This resource has been the enabler of every single device we consider "modern technology". It has been the enabler of our world's first global society. We are all aware, instantaneously aware, of what transpires anywhere on earth for the first time in history.

It's not just Peak Oil, it's the whole overshoot dilemma beginning to catch up with us - PO is just the first to grab our modern way of life by the throat.

David Delaney is an acquaintance and a former employer of mine. When I became interested in Peak Oil a while ago, Google searches turned up his articles. He is one of the smartest, more realistic people I know, and is among the least intellectually compromising. He has my utmost respect for his thorougness and rigour.  He's seen this catastrophe coming for four years now, and has been diligently refining his comprehension of the issues over that time.

As the article demonstrates, he is deeply pessimistic. I believe his pessimism is well founded, and share it myself. He is firmly convinced that the human species is in overshoot, that a die-off is coming, that there is nothing we can do to avoid it, and that denial of this understanding is nothing more than comforting delusion. I agree with him.

I also agree with him that die-off will affect only about 80% or 90% of the species, and that the remaining 10% to 20% will be able to survive if they are in the right circumstances. The problem is to determine what those survivable circumstances are, and if you aren't in them to determine how to get there.

One thing he doesn't mention in his article is the time-line. This is largely determined by oil, of course. From conversations with him, coupled with my own research, I am convinced that the industrial societies are about five years (ten at the outside) away from the first undeniable evidence of collapse. In fact, the first signal - high and unstable fuel prices - are with us already.

The whole notion of obershoot/dieoff sucks and is very uncomfortable to contemplate on a personal level. Delaney frankly says that this understanding has wrecked his life. But if our civilization does not listen to its Cassandras - the Dave Delaneys, Colin Campbells, Matthew Simmons, James Kunstlers, Matt Savinars, Ken Deffeyes etc. - we will all be screwed, instead of just 85% of us.

I've considered this whole die-off issue as well.  Ive' read Overshoot and Collapse this or that.  I've had problems with industrial society for a long time, and have mentioned on other boards my reading of Huxley's Island years ago.  I drive through a city like Los Angeles and I think "what a bloody mess."  And as a student of Buddhism, I'm quite familiar with and readily accept the concept of impermanence and suffering.  With that in mind, I do have to ask:  why does the idea of die-off wreck Delaney's life?  Is he so self-important?  Does he consider his species so important?  And this idea that one must take steps to preserve the self:  that's nothing more than what got us into this mess in the first place, at least from several perspectives.

The idea that an individual needs to propagate his/her genes, his/her name (one of the most idiotic concepts I've come across) by winning the "overshoot lottery" etc is just plain self-serving, self-important, and pathetic in my mind. Yet that's what I'm commonly hearing: "Humans are in overshoot, there are too many of us, and I'VE GOT TO SAVE MYSELF AND MY FAMILY."  Can't you agree there is something just a little pathetic about this.

And let's face it, the reason Delaney doesn't give a date or timeline is because he doesn't know.  He's got a feeling, I'm sure.  Jevon was stockpiling for the end of the coal age oh so long ago. His feeling didn't pan out for at least a hundred years after his death.  Lot of good that stockpiling did.

Does this mean we don't have problems?  Of course not.  But the self-serving whining and moaning and pittying for self and species that I come across when dealing with the issue of peak oil is rather nauseating at times.  It's like a car crash, I suppose: people are obsessed with the morbid.

Propagate is what species do.  They expand until the environment puts brakes on them.  Humans are trickier than other species.  But evolution no doubt leads invariably down a planetary path like the one humans have taken.  What humans are doing is no different than other species, only on a broader scale.  And certainly no different than what mother nature has done time and time again--asteroids, volcanoes, ice ages, and the likes.

So with that in mind, I'm just baffled when I hear people who read about peak oil and then start moaning and blathering about their livelihoods, their kids, etc etc etc.  I have two kids.  I'm in the same boat as everyone else.  But the common response--"woe is me" and "I've got to build a lifeboat" is annoying.

Prof. Goose:  As I recall, you have been pretty hard on Kuntsler.  But Delaney is saying much the same thing.  Can you say more?  Do you find Delaney's arguments more pursuasive and less vitriolic?  Do you disagree with him and are posting him as a FYI kinda post?

The Delaney article comes from a special 9/2005 edition of Proceedings of the Canadian Club of Rome related to oil. They are good academic conference paper treatments of the peak oil issue, with references. The entire proceedings is available as a 28 page pdf:

http://www.cacor.ca/Proceed-Sep%2005.pdf

Well worth a read.

Chicken Little is often ostracized for saying "The Sky Is Falling!"

From Delaney:

Important psychological barriers stand in the way of understanding that dreams must be canceled and replaced by much more modest ambitions. The psychological barriers cannot be overcome by agreeing that the dreams are not threatened, but tacit agreement is implied when the taboo against "alarmism" is respected. Only epiphany or a shocking and credible threat will overcome those barriers. Epiphany is too rare to produce social change. That leaves the shocking and credible threat. Who, other than a few marginalized academics and some isolated commentators, would explain the overshoot trap to the public?

In these words we find the major impediment to acknowledgement of probable collapse.

In my view, TOD is a community based on the idea that peak oil means we're in Big Trouble if we don't change our ways of living pretty damn quick. But I have also seen a typical mode of reaction here, echoing the predictable responses in the MSM, that spells trouble for the person who does not adhere to the taboo against alarmism. I suppose you can argue that alarmism does no good but soft-pedaling the truth doesn't work either.

Damn. Just when I'd come to terms with what peak oil is. Now I'm back to die-off.

Whenever I read the die-off scenarios, I'm not so scared for myself. If I don't survive, well, I don't survive. So if these guys are right, then the question always returns to whether—knowing what we know—people should be having babies or not. Do we really want to bring children into the world if we have to raise them in the world that's Kunstler's or Delaney's worst nightmare (if we can even keep them alive at all)?

Some people would say that the world will go on—you might as well try to make your child a survivor in the new society. I'm not sure I agree.

(Oh, and yes, I'm totally serious about this, but to answer this question, you have to assume the scenario in which these guys are right.)

From 1939-41 there was a debate in the US about joining the UK in the war. FDR wanted to but the overwhelming majority of Americans opposed him. Some even publiclly sided with Hitler. It took the Japanese attacks on Hawaii and the Phillipines to bring to the serious changes in attitude and behavior which eventually led to victory. This is an example of what Al Gore called threshold politics. Things have to get very bad for the public to change its preference for a devil may care attitude and vote out the people who denied there was a problem.

Sorry, but I just can't resist the temptation!

Here is an interesting link:

http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/

TRE. Yours is an interesting view from someone who inhabits Peak Oil related forums.  What is your interest in the subject? Who's attitude do you admire?

I am genuinely interested.

I keep considering the petri dish with its trapped bacteria population, or the deer on St. Matthew Island. Why do some people think those examples are any different than humans on the planet?

Oh, sure we are much smarter than the bacteria or deer, yet still, as many contributors as there are now on TOD, how many of us are actually able to make a serious change to the direction of MANKIND? If those contributors in the 'hopelessly optimistic' category wish to remind us that the earth has no trouble to accommodate near 8 billion people, fine. What about the next person after 8 billion, is that then too many?

The driving point in David Delaney's article seems to be that we will continue on the unchecked growth plan until something stops this trend. As an example, this morning CNN had a special report detailing India's plan for growth, about how India will join the developed world. They sited the difficulties with establishing and maintaining enough energy to fuel the plan, but left us thinking that solutions will be found, as growth is the only plan. The cold hard fact is that at some point, the threshold will be reached, and the way down to a lower level can not be pretty.

With respect to casting aside the automobiles, I just do not see it happening voluntarily. I'm trying to determine what level the price of fuel must reach before the average well paid worker has to leave the car at home and find a new way to work. The alternative has to be available and be cheaper than the car and this is not always the case. The option to bike to work long distances in a snow covered winter are grim.

Is it realistic to think that huge numbers of people will quit their jobs (because the commute is not possible) or that people will just stop buying the latest gadgets because they know that such frivolous purchases are taxing on the planets resources?

Far too many people that I discuss the topics of resource depletion and overshoot with now view me as a freak. I am not extreme at all in my viewpoint, only certain that we as humans are making far too big an impact as our numbers grow. So few talk about reduction of their personal footprin. The lifelong effort has been to get this far, have this much, how many people wish give it up? I often wonder about the Easter Islanders, there must have been members of the society that discussed, just as we do, that the resources where disappearing. Is mass human momentum so great that it sweeps away the voices that stand to warn?

When viewpoints like JD's debunking are presented, anyone who is not completely convinced that serious trouble lies ahead will reach out and grab onto the alterative view. After all the debunked or highly optimistic views allows life to continue just as it has in the past. No need to change, no need to do with less. No need to prepare for something that is somewhere in the future, that will change our life in some way, but how and how much is not predictable.

I think the main issue is social, almost religious in nature. I may take flak for this, but...

I believe a big part of the problem is lack of respect and concern for our lands and peoples, both of which devolved from the monetary system and elimination of the natural "commons". American Native culture had the "commons" instilled in them, and a trading system rather than money. Other cultures have similar traits and histories.

Without an established belief that the land is our mutual home and "commons", and in the face of gathering wealth to 'succeed' financially, we have stripped the planet. It continues today, with the singular driver of "profit" - every redneck in the world will mine his property if he thinks he can make a buck and have more "stuff" to make his life easier. In "modern society", hard physical work is actually frowned upon. Financial slavery of the poor is accepted, their poverty used against them, dangling the bait of becoming "rich" just out of most people's reach. I got caught in the trap, and played this game for a decade. It's the only game in town. The only way to win is not to play.

It may be that the catastrophe we are driving towards is not only inevitable, but necessary to force humans, as a species, to rethink their socio-economic structure. This can only happen in a vacuum, and only in a world where there is time to share, converse and think. Maybe the collapse is the required vacuum and a slide backwards is the driver to build something better, more sustainable, and more equitable for all. Maybe, just maybe, if things fall apart hard enough, humans will remember and learn from this big mistake.

I cannot imagine, try as I might, that our current civilization will institute the necessary societal changes to get to a sustainable socio-economic model. The current system must come down before we can build a better one. Money has to be rethought, because accumulating wealth is the source of resource depletion, inequality, and exponential growth. Ownership of land and resources also has to be retooled, as this also allows wealth to accumulate, which causes resource depletion in the current system.

Neither of these "evils" can change without collapse - the paradigm shift required is simply too massive for most people to fathom, and the inertia of our current society is too great to change direction.

Niven and Pournelle must have shared our reading list...

The peaking of world oil production is a geological phenomenon. Oil is limited resource that depletes. This is one thing. Another is that after the peak oil will available but the production will decrease but still remain at very significant level 50 years from now. It is difficult to see this as a catastrophic event.

For the economy and living standards the most important thing will be the total world energy production. This will not peak at the same time as oil but will peak because natural gas and coal (nuclear, too) are dpleting resources. This might make the Peak Oil a non-event and so we can continue this discussion after that for some time. The Peak Oil and Peak Energy will have a great impact but it might take some time before all the consequences are seen. People will adapt to them because they have no choice.

If you have ever seen those late-stage stripper wells pumping you will believe the Peak Oil. No doubt about that. But it is also a fact they go on pumping, every year a little less, but they pump. The "Limits of Growth" of the Club of Rome was a very important book. They have absolutely right: there are really limits for the economic and population growth. But I doubt their overshoot model.

Complete collapses of larger civilizations are in fact very rare in history. Diamond found some very small societies in exceptional environments to prove his point. Besides, the Easter Island civilzation did not collapse. First Europeans observed  a sustainable, helthy society. The Europeans destroyed it afterwards nearly completely. The Norse in Greenland did not intend to build a self-sustainable society. Norwegians never had a taboo against eating fish. But the sea in Greenland freezes in winter but not in Norway. Nobody was a fool. They didn't destroy their own societies. The Roman Empire did collapse but not the European civilization. It only relocalized and localized. The Dark Ages were not so dark after all. The Mayan urban kingdoms did collapse under a very strong environmental stress (exceptional drought they didn't cause). But the Mayans still live there.  

Human populations don't increase uncontrallably. Most societies have had elaborate social and cultural systems and practical ways to keep population stable. Rapid population growth is connected to fossile fuels use. There has been and still are rational economic reasons behind the population growth.

"Limits of Growth" gets overshoot because it doesn't have a main limiting resource that could steer the growth curve. If we look carefully we can see that energy is the underlying resource that enables the use of other resources. It is not food or water that sets the limit, it is energy. But the energy follows a Hubbert curve and prevents real overshooting.

We can know something about what happens in an energy crisis observing societies that have experienced it. I have seen societies in deep economic collapse (Belarus and Ukraine 1992, Romania a little later). The reality is just gray. We could really see the fuel shortage: the countries stood still, literally. Very little traffic. But it was not an end of their world.

I agree with those who remind that it is no point in associating one's favorite catastrophe scenario and survival scheme with the Peak Oil. It is far more interesting to use those facts we know and that experince there is for constructing a realistic picture of what will be ahead.    

OK - my 2 cents, FWIW.

Just make money perishable. Expiration dates. Use it or lose it. Use a graduating scale if you want to. Put digital timer in it - anything! But make hanging on to it difficult and awkward so that it circulates. Forget interest altogether, unless you charge interest for HOLDING money, by depreciating the value. Make turning it in to the bank a way of temporarily halting the depreciation, which allows one to accumulate something, but not for long.

The purpose of money is to facilitate exchange in commercial transactions. No more, no less. What we have now is all out pursuit of money, as in the case of Magnus Redlin. He simply wants to make money. Why? To buy stuff or to accumulate power over others are the only real reasons, which are resource depletion and wage slavery when you extrapolate them. No offense intended Magnus, but you stated your position.

So, will that work? Has anybody run that dog out to the end of its leash?

TI -

Go have a read about Liebigs Law. Populations do increase until they meet resource depletion - as we are heading today. Our haphazard and laissez faire application of technology has simply steepend our curve.

Your strength is your weakness. The stronger you become the more you think you can achieve anything and the more you forget who you are and where do you come from.
I've always thought that the greatest problem of humanity is that it is the strongest species on Earth... should there be a threat, a predator that keeps homo sapiens restricted in his ambitions to prove that he is something independent and more important than the life and the nature it came from, we would have never fell into the overshoot trap. Problem is that we are too fast and too smart - we managed to develop much faster than the biosphere could evolve to produce "antigens" for the human virus. This I think could explain why we could not detect any signals from any extraterestrial intelligence from space - if the timeframe in which an intelligent life can exhaust the natural capital of its ecosystem (after development of the radio) is in the same range as ours  - around 100 years, then say 100 years devided by 14 000 000 000 years of Universe, this makes 0.7 E-08... and if say each 100th star system is developing intelligent life (very optimistical estimate to my mind) - so out of 14 billion stars only one can have intelligence at certain moment of time. Or only 7 in our Galaxy. Much too sad.

TI -

"It's causes are not biological but mostly economic"

Well, that is crap - dude, we are all biological, and we caused the population increase because our species harnessed a new energy source. ANY biological organism would exhibit the same increase in growth provided other resources did not limit expansion. It is one of the key forces in evolution - the species that mutates to consume an abundant or unused ecological resource thrives - until. One cannot blame our current situation on a science based on something man-made (economics) in the first place - if you don't get this, then understand it is ALL about biology, and go read Liebig!!

"Few species have this overshooting and collapse pattern."

Every single organism has this exact pattern - each organism expands in population within it's ecosystem until a limit to it's growth is reached. This is a key factor in species survival!!

I'll stop there, because it's fairly obvious you have limited background on this. But just tossing out crap like this pisses me off immensely.