I think the hour could have been better spent just replaying the video of Pres. Carter's Sweater Speech-- it would have informed more, and prodded greater numbers of the unwashed masses to google Peak Oil.

Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ  Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

Agree about the documentary.  Though I think "Pablum" is the right word.  It's soft, bland food for babies.  When you're weaning a baby, you don't start out by serving him atomic Buffalo wings.  

I liked We Were Warned because it simplifies and softens the issues.  People who are not already peak oilers or leaning in that direction aren't likely to sit through two hours.  One hour is a good length for a peak oil introduction.  And the average American is not going to buy, say, Kunstler's warnings of pirates raiding Seattle and people who can't pay their credit card debt being forced into work camps.  And their eyes will glaze over if you show them Bartlett's charts and graphs.  

Kind of odd that they didn't mention "peak oil" though.  Obviously, it was cut out, since it was in the preview shown Wednesday.

I wonder if the version that airs at 4am ET will be any different?  It's the "classroom edition," without commercials.  Will there be added material?

I have mixed feelings over watching that piece on CNN (I even convinced a pal to watch it with me on a Saturday night - wow!)

Given the immediency of the problem, on one hand it's a positive thing that CNN is highlighting that a major crisis could happen without too much urging, given the inelasticity of supply. After all, the point is to work towards a new model of society that's less dependant on petroleum. So if it takes the boogeyman of terrorism to scare people towards that, then whatever - by hook or by crook.

But there were some big problems in my view with the approach they took.

1. No mention of the catchphrase term "Peak Oil," though it was implied heavily by Simmons. This is important, if only from a branding point of view. The Roscoe Barlett interview earlier this week was actually more explicit here.

2. Converse to how I started this post, the problem was couched in terms of terrorists attacks/natural disasters, repeated throughout the show. Obvious to anyone here, ultimately such a very plausible event is indicative of the problem, but not the real problem itself. Terrorist attacks are certainly a major X factor in the whole discussion we have here, but any TODer can spot that they put overemphasis on that problem. Which is a scary, scary way to approach it, because it just perpetuates a myopic, jingoistic "The Ay-rabs are stealin' my doggone oil!" view on the situation, and that's the LAST place the world needs to head.

3. My biggest beef fundamentally though was to explain the problem in the first twenty minutes, and then spend the next forty addressing only the supply side of the issue! Never mind not considering the EROEI of the tar sands, ethanol, or hydrogen. I never in a million years expected them to explore that. It's just too dire for a MSM audience to absorb all in one go - let them chew over the terrorist/hurricane fear for a while.

cue dramatic music...montage of panic

"The Terrorist scenario would be crippling...but there are people out there already preparing for an America running on less oil just in case the Peak Oil theorists are right..."

cue shot of organic garden/eco-village/local green lefty

...and then go into what THEY are doing, even if Red State America laughs (right now) at these bunch of hippies? One segment on THAT Frank!!! On the demand side!!!

Having worked in journalism before, I know in a microcosmic way what it's like to get a 100% honest story published when you're supported by advertisers who might not like what you are writing. So maybe this was the best story Sesno could get onto Saturday prime time CNN - a "if it bleeds it leads" razzle-dazzle storyline to narrate his documentary.

If so, he's done a...well service of a sort, but I think if he's reading this site and others (which I think he is) he knows full well it was woefully inadequate to addressing the real problem.

I'd like to add that even my superficially versed friend who watched it with me (I showed him E.O.S.) commented that "they aren't really talking about the problem, just a bunch of terrorist stuff." Which I found encouraging, in that even he could see the flaws in this program.

Do I have a lack of urgency here though...?

Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Sponsored by the USDOE Energy Information Administration and the National
Association of State Energy Officials

Oil, Gasoline, and Transportation Fuels Supplies and Prices:
What's Coming this Summer for Consumers and the U.S. Economy?

The U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration (EIA), and the
National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO) invite you to participate
in the 2006 Summer Fuels Outlook Conference.  This supply and demand forecast
event will be on April 11, 2006, from 8:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. at the Hotel
Washington, 515 15th Street, NW, Washington, DC.

Global oil supply uncertainty, high demand for transportation fuels, tightened
crude oil and gasoline inventory may increase the potential for
supply/distribution problems this summer. Minor perturbations in the distribution
system can cause price volatility with potential surges in prices in localized
regions.

To help inform the energy community about the current situation, this half-day
conference will include EIA's April 2006 Short-Term Energy Outlook along with
presentations by industry representatives, energy experts, and State officials
who will discuss the world oil outlook, gasoline supplies, as well as fuel and
refining issues.

Presentations include:

- Summer Transportation Fuels Outlook.  EIA Administrator, Guy Caruso, will
present EIA;s latest Short-Term Energy Outlook, which will focus o the supply,
demand and price outlook for transportation fuels in anticipation of the summer
driving season.    

- Global Markets Overview.   Edward L. Morse, Executive Advisor, Hess Energy
Trading, will review recent global oil supply/demand/inventory patterns and their
drivers with an eye to what lies ahead for consumers this summer and beyond.
Since recovery from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, oil markets have been pushed and
pulled by offsetting factors, resulting in mixed signals and outlooks.

- Transitioning to Ultra-Low Sulfur Diesel Fuel. Our speaker will focus on the
implications of the EPA requirement that refiners produce highway diesel fuel
that reduces sulfur content to a maximum of 15 parts per million starting June 1,
2006. The impact on the diesel market of supplying fuel to meet the new
standards, as well as the affects on vehicle fuel efficiency, will be covered.

- Phasing out MTBE from the Gasoline Supply. Our speaker will review the market
implications resulting from the rapid change from MTBE- to ethanol-blended. Will
there be strains in ethanol supply and distribution, increasing the potential for
price volatility this summer?

- The Geopolitics of Energy. Stephen Gallogly, Director of the Office of
International Energy and Commodity Policy at the U.S. Department of State, will
address the key issues in selected countries of the world that may cause
challenges in the near future for oil markets.  Among the countries to be
highlighted:  Nigeria, Iran, Venezuela, and Iraq, and the underlying situation in
each as well as the implications for oil markets this summer.

Registration information and the agenda will be posted shortly at:
http://www.naseo.org/

Obviously his experts weren't reading ours about 3 years ago (eg Matt S) about North Sea heading for peak & decline!

Or the following on the belief in markets:
:The hon. Gentleman asks what Government are doing. The one thing that the Government should not do is interfere in the market. The days when our energy was provided by state monopolies were bad for the consumer, bad for the energy supply situation and bad for the country."

If we are as close to the brink as Simmons, Deffeyes, Skrebowski and company think we are (and I havent seen convincing evidence to contradict this), gentle steps wont cut it in the end.

It's like playfully punching someone and then following it up with a sucker punch to the gut. The end result is the same, only you have fewer options (and less time) to respond to.

The concept of peak oil is:

• Complex and technical

• Threatening, leading to denial. We know that too much fear reduces communication effectiveness.

• Invokes cognitive dissonance: the ready availability of oil products seemingly contradicts talk of shortage. You may say we're running out, but every station has every grade of gas, and I can buy all I want. Who should I believe-you, or my own experience?

• Violates my world view: I am accustomed to plentiful energy, and nothing leads me to expect much will change.

• Suffers from low source credibility: we don't yet have any big, mainstream spokespersons who are significant and believable voices on the PO issue. Our spokespeople are generally viewed as fringe, and the silence of others is taken as agreement that "they" haven't informed us of a problem.

• Interference effects: cornucopian messages, or the promise of a hydrogen economy, can block PO messages.

• Zero public policy support

"The poll, which was released Wednesday afternoon, also indicates that roughly three out of four Americans -- 77 percent -- fear the supply of oil will not be able to keep up with global demand. Three in 10 said they believe the world will run short of oil within the next 25 years."

The challenge now is to explain Peak Oil is real, it's now, it's permanent--and here's what you need to do.

My second thought was that northern Alberta would be a lot easier to occupy than those hornet nests in the Middle East ...

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0603/17/acd.02.html

I have no clue what to do with a torrent.  I would have to go out on the web to find a tool/client/whatever to watch it with or something.

The problem I had with the program was the presentation of a hypothetical terrorist attack/cat 5 hurricane in the context of a documentary describing our energy conundrum.  Certainly, it added drama, but unfortunately, it muddied the message.  It would be a shame for the uninitiated to come away from this program thinking we'll be ok if we can just avoid another major hurricane or terrorist attack.

I was initially put off by the traditional event-driven opening to the show (hurricanes, terrorists) rather than a depletion argument.

And then too, when the transition was made from the small Brazilian GM car running ethanol, to the large GM SUVs being pitched here, I thought the fuel economy issue was somewhat hidden.

But by the end of the show I had come around.  I think the show had a good pace and trajectory, and ended up with a good closing sentiment that ... hey, we should really do something.

On a personal note, I have been scoffing at GM in the blogs about their yellow gas cap campaign.  I've been suggesting that all they want to do is sell you an Avalanche, which will probably only get 10 mpg on E85 anyway.  I was therefore amused to see the E85 Avalanche introduction inserted into the show.  My scoffing apparently has not been that unfair ... they really do want that as their solution or contribution to the peak oil problem.  You may have also noticed the GM guy (CEO?) saying that his SUVs will matter more than a bunch of little hybrids ...

I would have liked something more explicit about the sustainability of large cars, but they did hit the points.  Maybe they even went too far, from the standpoint of their advertisers ;-)

We are asking the people in the MSM to tell the American people to stop buying the very things that indirectly pay the salaries in the MSM.  This is why efficiency and alternative fuels are such popular topics.  They allow the MSM to pretend to be taking a socially responsible stance, i.e., calling for greater mandated energy efficiency.  The implied message is that we can still drive our Urban Assault Vehicles (UAV's) to and from our $500,000 mortgages, but they will be hybrid UAV's going to and from more energy efficient mortgages.  

The only thing that will change American consumers' behavior is price.  We can act now with a carrot and stick approach--scrap the payroll tax and replace it with a fossil fuel tax--or market forces will do it for us before too much longer.

In regard to our friends in the MSM, they have a choice--they can continue trying to help sell a few more suburban mortgages and UAV's, or they can tell the truth to the American people about the finite nature of our energy resources.  To paraphrase Winston Churchill, they can now choose between the status quo and their integrity, but soon they will have neither the status quo nor their integrity.  

I tried not to look too self-satisfied as I spent $20 for my 8 gallons ;-)

I think current prices have to be sinking in ... or to reapeat that bit from "Irrational Exuperance:"

"Understanding the factors that precipitate market moves is doubly difficult because the timing of the major market events tends not to be lined up well with the timing of precipitating factors. The precipitating factors often tend to be medium-term trends that catch the public's attention only after they have been in place for a long time."

First, using the hurricane/terrorism scenario places the blame for oil shortages on the weather and oil shocks (in this case from Al-Qaeda). Hurricanes are considered acts of God and terrorism is the boogyman. Constantly provoking fear of terrorism is probably why George Bush is still president (outside of some vote fraud in Ohio). So, this scenario has nothing whatsoever to do with oil depletion, the discovery curve and the fact that the "low hanging fruit" has all been picked.

Other Excerpts

From Beynond Petroleum
BROWN: There is plenty of oil and plenty of gas in the world. There is no crisis. There is no impending doom.

JOHN FELLOMY, INDUSTRY ECONOMIST: The fact of the matter is we could drill our way into oil independence. There's over 100 billion barrels of oil that we believe have not been found in the United States. But we're not allowed to go for it.

SESNO (voice-over): There may be 100 years of oil here, but that big market just south of the border, the United States, may find that location isn't everything, that Canada has its own interests.

A proposed pipeline could take these resources to Canada's west coast for export elsewhere. Among the pipeline's backers, the People's Republic of China, anxious to get access to all the oil it can as fast as it can....

China and Iran announce a deal. Iranian oil in exchange for more Chinese nuclear technology. Both countries insist it's for peaceful purposes. The scenes for this, some years ago.

China, with its 1.3 billion people and east of an economy, is shopping the world for oil. It's now the world's second largest consumer of oil behind the U.S., and its aspirations are as big as its population.

"We're dwarfed by these gigantic trucks, the biggest in the world. They haul 400 tons at a time. The tires alone cost $40,000 each."

Wow, I mean like, you know, that's really impressive, dude.

At least there's this

STREIF: Well, out here we're looking for what we would call big fields. And we would say a big field is 100 million barrels of oil.

SESNO: That may sound like a lot, but it's small compared to the world's really big fields which contain billions of barrels. That's billion with a "B." But we need every drop we can get. And at today's prices, there's money to be made.

Now, I know Peak Oil is a complex subject having been studying it for some time now. But how hard is it really to explain that we use more than we discover, discoveries peaked in the 1960's, we depend on existing giant fields that now in decline, demand continues to rise, etc. These are simple things to explain.

PG, you say pabulum, "unsatisfying intellectual material: material whose intellectual content is thin, trite, bland, or generally unsatisfying". Words that come to mind for me are deceptive and prevaricate.

The ethanol plant in Brazil indicated that it could produce enough ethanol for 11,000 cars a day.  It showed fields of sugar cane around it as far as the horizon.  The suburban community/ school district that I live in has a population of over 35,000 and no doubt about that number of vehicles.  Just the visual effect makes it look like it would be impossible to produce enough ethanol from farmland around us for our needs.

The monster dump trucks used for the tar sands in Canada that run 24/7.  The tires were said to cost $40,000 each.  The thought struck me that replacement tires for oil at $60/b may be closer to 60K once all the energy costs get factored in.  Can one say that each tire represents an energy investment of about 60b of oil?

Then there is the matter of replacement/repair
cost to society, as the environment becomes
more hostile to just living, (hail stones the
size of cricket balls, tornadoes) let alone trying to
carry out technically advanced extraction in
difficult locations. We have a long way to go
before the return on investment becomes
negative, but it is neverheless dropping
incrementally every day that passes. We are
using more and more energy in futile attempts to
hold our current position. It really is
fascinating.

I wouldn't be so sure about Joe Schmo.

I  tried to explain PO to dozens of well-educated people, and I only got discussions about how many angels dance over a pin. Then, I dropped some advices to a friend, typical Joe sixpack, a taxi driver who barely finished secondary school, and he grasped the whole topic with all the most subtle implications in fifteen minutes.
He understood what I didn't explain too, like population drop, city hordes, lack of food, everything. He's now buying a farm.

So, I think it's not a question of being Joe Schmo: if you are capable of lateral thinking, if you're not totally brainwashed, if you are open minded then you can fully take the responsability in your hands. But if you are educated, a full believer in science, in progressive newspapers ("they didn't mention it!") then you're fu**ed.

Just my 2 cents.

The important next step will be harder for people to fully grasp--and that is understanding this shortage is dynamic and not static.  That is, once we are on the downslope of the peak, there will be an ever-dwindling amount of oil--so results from conservation and alteratives must be constantly increasing to make up for a constantly decreasing supply of petroleum.  This, I think, is just hard for people to conceptualize, but once they understand it, they understand it.

As a commenter above, though, said, the trouble is we don't have time to ease people into this.

The stock market, the ticker tape of our hallucinated economy, is too vulnerable to the truth for the corporate media to let out a bubble-popping phrase like "peak oil" or that our happy-go-lucky petroleum fired world is coming to an end.

I saw V is for Vendetta last night, and it is great fun. In it you see the media hacks mouthing the latest talking points handed down from the head of government and you can't help wondering when we here in the US will get fed up with right-wing lies passed through the right wing noise machine also known as the media. (It clearly has not been left-wing for over a decade, if ever.)

Most people hate to think that bad things can happen to their country and that a dictator might rise and take away their rights (at least not without a good reason --i.e. terrorism -- not that that is a valid justification). People who point out the increasingly fascist tendencies of the current administration are attacked as nuts or simply ignored -- pretty much the same thing that happened in the 1930s when a certain man fed upon the fears of the German populace.

No, the CNN broadcast should be examined for what it does do. And those in this forum who have indicated the insistent finger-pointing at China and the villification of weather, for God's sake, are probably dead on.

Do not look at the man behind the curtain. His name is Physics, and his word is law.

- Oil Shock
http://www.theviewfromthepeak.com

And from my 11 year old son as we watched the helicopter flight out to the deep sea oil drilling ship in the Gulf:
   "Don't you need a lot of oil to operate one of those rigs?"

  The thought I woke up with regarding CNN's program (having only read the responses to it.. didn't see it yet), was that I have to wonder if the Climatology Community and the National Security junkies were also as concerned that this show put such a light emphasis on ~Their~ respective legs of the Impending-Disaster-Stool.

  It is pretty immense, the potential of any combination of these three standing threats;
  (Terrorism/Climate Events/Energy Falloff) to throw us into turmoil, let alone any single one of them doing more than enough damage on its own.

  I'm not even SURE that any or all of these will happen as devastatingly as is so often promised by some posters on this blog, but I'm here to keep my thoughts engaged on what preparations we can make at Local, National, and Global levels to try and weather some of these storms to what degree we can.  The thought that we can be at least taking some precautions to develop better emergency plans, local food, power and water options, and Civic designs to get people working as soon as something pops (Instead of waiting for Washington to eventually Award Halliburton the Contract to bring in underpaid foreign laborers, while just-unemployed locals get to sit around and watch..)

Bob

http://www.savefile.com/files/6771735

This is a plain ol' download, not a torrent. It's about 40 Mb.