The Oil Drum

I feel the need to bring you an interview with Trilby Lundberg of the Lundberg Survey that's on CNN right now. The link to the interview is here. (Hat tip to TOD reader damac as well. Thanks.)

Q: As far as conservation, what are the trends you are seeing?

A: I'm hoping that consumers will see through the rhetoric about consuming less, demanding less, as faulty. It is not a given that consuming less will be good for our economy or for our personal freedom. It is not even established for our environment that we [should] deprive ourselves of gasoline for our personal mobility as well our commerce. And to suppose that it is good to do that, and pretend that we have consensus and put our heads together to deprive ourselves of this great product that makes the country go around, commercially and individually, I think is flawed. I'm hoping consumers and voters will see through that and be able to ignore some of the most extreme suggestions.

I think that there has been friendly as well as unfriendly brainwashing taking place. And when I say friendly and unfriendly, I'm talking about decades of extremist views that have now achieved mainstream acceptance. And the No. 1 item among those affecting current oil politics in Washington is the boogeyman, also known as global warming.

I don't accept it as established fact, nor do I accept that it would be caused by petroleum consumption, nor do I accept that the human species should not affect its environment. So even if it were someday to be shown to have some small effect on the environment, I see no crime. In fact, taking into account the many, many millions of people around the world that envy our way of life, it would seem more humanitarian to wish them the kind of plentiful petroleum products and vehicles ... that we enjoy ... to lift themselves out of [a] backward, poor way of life.

This is the person the media relies upon to discuss gasoline prices and supply?! As tempted as I am to say something else smart or clever here, instead, I will just let her statement speak for itself.

Well here I am sat by the tele, waiting for the BBC show, If the Oil Runs Out, the facts upon which they base it being given here.

Pause while 3,550,000 barrels of oil are consumed, (the show mentions that) and what did I think?

Well I could begin by suggesting they had the wrong buttons on the drill bit, but that would be a bit facetious. In a very small nutshell, it tracks a family during the time that the first well is drilled in ANWR, (in 2016) at the same time that President Chavez in Venezuela pulls his country out of OPEC, and that Saudi and China get together to do a goods for oil swop. Oil prices rise and the consequences are transiently illustrated through the impact on the family (losing job, long gas lines, food prices up, aspirin (an oil product) out of stock, and the like). The well is being drilled in the purported last hope for oil. And it does not find the 250 m of oil that was anticipated. But seven months later they are through the crisis and into another world.

...and that word is pab·u·lum, a noun; here are some definitions:

1. plant or animal food: a source of nourishment in an easily absorbable liquid, especially the nutrient intake of plants and lower animals
2. unsatisfying intellectual material: material whose intellectual content is thin, trite, bland, or generally unsatisfying (literary)

That was the word that immediately came to mind after I watched "We Were Warned" this evening. Some other thoughts under the fold.

The program (updated link) CNN Presents: We Were Warned: Tomorrow's Oil Crisis will air this Saturday at 8pm and 11pm EDT and again Sunday at 8pm and 11pm EDT.  The program will also air on CNN International on Saturday and Sunday as well (the times vary by locale, please check this site for the airing time in your country).

A brief comment if I may: [climbs on soapbox]The meme is developing, it is slowly and secularly becoming a part of the American consciousness, you can almost feel it. This is the time to share these ideas with the people you care about and help them learn something about these problems. Use these opportunities.[/climbs off soapbox]

Linked under the fold is something Leanan found on the Education portion of CNN, including a brief summary and a grade school classroom lesson about the production.

CNN's The Situation Room anticipates airing a story about Congressman Roscoe Bartlett and peak oil in conjunction with releasing some results from a new poll about energy today at approximately 4:30 pm Eastern.

Update [2006-3-15 20:16:22 by Prof. Goose]:Here's a .torrent of the video (.torrent and .rm warning).

Update [2006-3-15 19:57:57 by Prof. Goose]:Here's an .mp3 of today's segment (audio only, .mp3 warning) with Rep. Bartlett.

Here's Congressman Bartlett's one-hour Speech about peak oil quoting from a September 2005 Army Corps of Engineers report (pdf warning) he requested recently and that was posted yesterday on his website.  The report was marked "approved for public release distribution is unlimited".  Congressman Bartlett also discusses a new energy initiative sponsored by the Department of Defense.

Here's a link to the OilCrash movie site. Also, there was this item you may have missed from The Hill. (scroll to the Bartlett section...)