Stories tagged with "future"

Fibber McGee, Molly, and Your Energy Future

Posted by Prof. Goose on June 27, 2009 - 12:15pm in The Oil Drum: Campfire
Topic: Sociology/Psychology
Tags: energy transition, future, propaganda, rationing [list all tags]

This is a post by Debbie Cook; Debbie is the former Mayor of Huntington Beach and a former congressional candidate. She currently serves as a board member of ASPO-USA and Post Carbon Institute.

Several weeks ago at the Harmony Festival in Santa Rosa, California, Richard Heinberg told a audience member not to hold her vision of the future too tightly. Sound advice that I wrote on a scrap of paper and put in my pocket. This past week his words came back to me as I found myself in a two hour conversation with two peak oil aware friends who wanted to discuss the future. One friend had decided he was going to immigrate with his sister to New Zealand. Having recently returned from New Zealand I could certainly understand the attraction. But I (who am often accused of being a doomer) suggested he consider many scenarios when thinking about the energy transition and reminded him of Mark Twain’s words, there’s so much people know that ain’t so.

We tend to seek information that confirms our beliefs rather than looking for that which contradicts it. It is our tendency to be more sure the less we know, and less sure, the more we know.

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Creating a Post-Peak Future Worth Living Into

Posted by Gail the Actuary on October 29, 2008 - 10:06am
Topic: Sociology/Psychology
Tags: future, leader, original, peak oil, role [list all tags]

This is a guest post by André Angelantoni, known on TOD as aangel. He is co-founder of PostPeakLiving.com and co-founder of Post Carbon Marin, his community's effort to prepare for peak oil, and a former executive coach and business consultant. He wrote this article to give people one way to navigate through the forced transition to a post peak world we are all going to experience.

The future most people are living into is beginning to disappear. The financial crisis threw the first punch, but oil depletion will deliver the knockout blow. The moment people realize that the society they have known their whole life can no longer function the same way without the energy provided by oil, it will become glaringly apparent that the future will be very, very different. It’s not just that we will no longer have fresh food flown in from around the world. Some of the fundamental assumptions held by people living in the rich countries will no longer hold:

  • many jobs that have never existed before will once again no longer exist
  • retirement, a phenomenon only a century old, will disappear
  • accumulating “wealth” will be out of reach for most people
  • most children will no longer be able to attend institutions of higher education
  • diseases and conditions that are easily treated now will once again claim lives

Once a person has realized that these and many more futures will no longer exist, they will ask themselves the following question: If the future I’ve lived with my whole life will not longer occur, what will my future be?

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Jamais Cascio: Finding a Little Comfort Fifteen Minutes into the Future

Posted by Prof. Goose on May 22, 2008 - 1:15am
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: depletion, future, jamais cascio, resource crisis [list all tags]

After a day like today--I feel like I have been on a herky-jerky roller coaster for ten hours straight--I think we need some comforting thoughts. Jamais Cascio, someone I respect greatly, obliges:

http://www.openthefuture.com/2008/05/fifteen_minutes_into_the_futur.html

My thoughts under the fold.

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Interview with Jean Laherrère

Posted by Luis de Sousa on August 4, 2007 - 10:25am in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: coal, coal bed methane, future, interview, jean laherrère, natural gas, offshore coal, oil [list all tags]


Jean Laherrère kindly agreed to give an interview to TOD:E by e-mail. For several years he was virtually the sole researcher modelling Coal depletion in the same vein it is done for Oil and Gas. Despite being considerably different from the common sense of limitless Coal, his forecasts were this year confirmed by several studies and reports. TOD:E got some comments on this matter as so on the general Fossil Fuels depletion picture and our future beyond them.

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From the Editor's Desk: Peak Oil, Heretical Thought, Complexity, and the Future of The Oil Drum

Posted by Prof. Goose on November 11, 2006 - 11:32am
Topic: Sociology/Psychology
Tags: future, futurists, heretics, jamais cascio, jerry michalski, leif utne [list all tags]

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the direction of The Oil Drum. Much of my thinking on this set of ideas has been brought about by some soul-searching, trying to understand the problems we face as a community, and then figuring out how to "positively push the future." My thoughts under the fold.

[editor's note, by Prof. Goose] If you haven't done so yet, check out this podcast of the Jerry Michalski interview that was one of the forces prompting this post.

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