It's all going to collapse whether we want it to or not.

[Subdivisions]

In response to backwoodsbob's post http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=9599014&mesg_id=9599014">here, I've decided this is too important not to make it an OP.

Try to keep in mind while reading this post that there is no proven scalable replacement for crude oil that is drawn directly from the earth and contains the energy density inherent in petroleum. And even if there were a replacement either developed or discovered that could replace oil, there is not enough time left to make the transition, especially when it comes to plastics and transportation fuel. Also, there is not enough accessible oil left on the planet to fuel such a transition to its fruition. The BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is the best high-profile evidence that all the easy (and cheap) oil is gone and oil companies are having to go to much greater effort and risk to find and produce enough oil to keep things going.

Energy expert Robert Rapier of The Oil Drum explains the challenges and the current energy crisis in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjOFCegjoik

Moving on...

Oil is the lifeblood and feedstock of the global economy, which cannot grow without an ever-increasing supply. Oil is essential in industrial processes and transportation. World crude oil production has been flat to declining since 2005 and will soon begin an irreversible decline that will destroy civilization as we know it. It's already happening all around us.

http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-11-11/iea-acknowledges-peak-oil

If you go to the executive summary of the 2009 International Energy Agency World Energy Outlook, and search for "peak oil", your browser will come up empty. The whole subject was so beneath the dignity of a serious energy agency that they didn't even bother mentioning it.

However, yesterday, the 2010 IEA World Energy Outlook became available. And if you repeat the exercise in that executive summary, you will come upon a section titled:

Will peak oil be a guest or the spectre at the feast?

Followed by an explicit discussion of the whole question. The IEA's position is summarized in the graph above - conventional crude oil production has already peaked in 2006! Suddenly, the subject of impending peak has gone from not worthy of discussion to in the past already! (Ed. Note: Those of us who follow the situation with oil have known this for 2 years now.)

...snip...

Here is the IEA's latest report:
http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/">International Energy Agency World Energy Outlook 2010

http://www.princeton.edu/hubbert/current-events.html

"Crude oil output reaches an undulating plateau of around 68-69 mb/d, by 2020, but never regains its all-time peak of 70mb/day reached in 2006." —
http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/">International Energy Agency World Energy Outlook 2010

Make that 2005; then we're talking about the same planet. The implied IEA message is that the peak happened several years ago and the world didn't come to an end. Wayminnit. We are in the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression and we don't know whether we can ever restore our earlier prosperity. My interpretation is that the 2008 crude oil price, $147 per barrel, shattered the global economy. The "invisible hand" of economics became the invisible fist, pounding down the world economic growth to match the limitations of crude oil production.

...snip...

Now, let's look as this a little closer...

"Crude oil output reaches an undulating plateau of around 68-69 mb/d, by 2020, BUT NEVER REGAINS ITS ALL-TIME PEAK OF 70MB/DAY REACHED IN 2006." —http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/">International Energy Agency World Energy Outlook 2010

Here is a graph of World Oil Production:


Do you see an undulating plateau in this graph? Do you know that those of us in the peak oil community have been using the term "undulating plateau" for years? Now the IEA finally acknowledges it! Also, the quote above says we'll reach the UP by 2020 while stating that peak oil has already passed!

BTW, that spike in 2008 was made possible by oil at $147 per barrel, which popped the housing bubble, which in turn caused a world-wide depression that is nowhere near it's bottom. Also in 2008 the EIA, the U.S. energy reporting agency, attempted to obfuscate stagnant global oil production by including "all liguids" into the crude oil production numbers, artificially contributing to the spike that year. And now that actual crude oil production decline is too great, not even padding the numbers is working anymore.

And then there's the issues of EROEI and "net energy" and the Export Land Model.

Taken all together, the picture presents a very different future than the one most people are expecting.

"So there you have it," says Kevin Drum of http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/11/chart-day-peak-oil">Mother Jones. "Peak (conventional) oil has come and gone — though the IEA does still implausibly think that conventional production will basically plateau for the next 25 years. This is a remarkable coincidence, but I guess it's progress of a sort. At least peak oil is no longer just a mad conspiracy theory."

[Ozymanithrax]

1. Did the Mayans know...2012 is coming.

It does appear that we are in for hell.

If for no other reason that we use a lot of oil to grow food, from fertilizer to transportation.

Perhaps a bronze age style collapse of civilization is in the cards.

[Subdivisions]

3. 2012 will be a non-event. For the Mayans 2012 was simply the date

when the current age will end and a new age will begin. There is nothing to indicate that the Mayans expected it to be an apocalyptic event.

Besides, 2012 is too soon for this. The approximate date to begin feeling the hardcore effects of crude oil decline will be closer to 2017 or 2018. It is estimated that by 2037 all U.S. net oil supplies, including those from imports, will be exhausted. So we still have about three decades of oil left but there will be less and less and it will cost more and more as the years come and go.
This decline in the availability of oil will be accompanied by a corresponding decline of civilization.

[TexasObserver]

16. Yes, indeed. Like a calendar ending.

Do we think the world ends when Dec 31st shows up? Or when a decade, or century ends?

The Mayan understood cycles of astronomic events. Astrology and astronomy are tied together, but one is superstition and myth while the other is science. They believed the events had religious powers, while not fully understanding the science involved. They knew of the repetitiveness and predictability of celestial events, but not the science behind it.

The world is not going to end in 2012, and neither are "end of world" prophesies.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

7. Compare what it costs to grow meat vs plants and you will see how

truly expensive meat is.

[earthside]

11. Posh.

It also requires an immense expenditure of oil/money to grow enough grains, vegetables and fruits to feed just the U.S. population of 330 million people. Grass-fed beef, for instance, would be fairly equal to the cost of growing non-meat.

Trying to lay-off peak oil on folks eating hamburgers is, well, pretty simplistic.

[Ozymanithrax]

12. Most of the irrigation in the U.S. is managed through oil powered...

pumps.

A lot of farming areas will be lost.

[defendandprotect]

19. Business uses 80% of our water .... and GW will create more heat, more drought ....

and when it does rain -- which will be more frequently -- it will pour!

Isn't some of the irrigation also done with salt water which is very harmful

to the soil?


Presumably if the military can talk about solar planes -- we can envision

solar powered irrigation systems --

what we need to do is NATIONALIZE the oil industry and move those private

interests which block advancement and new discoveries out of the way --

no private interests should have a control over our natural resources!!

We need to stop burning fossil fuels!

[customerserviceguy]

33. Yes, but it makes the vegans feel especially holy

Any religious minority needs that to justify its nonconformity with the prevailing belief system.

[JVS]

37. What's the holding capacity of our agricultural land for grass fed beef?

[Viva_La_Revolution]

53. It can take almost zero oil and money

but only if enough of us are willing to go back to farming.. way back, before oil. It's tough work, but it's going to be necessary.

[defendandprotect]

18. We're getting 2 hots days now for every cold one ...

by 2050 there will be 20 hot days for every cold one according to what

I heard at the GW hearings yesterday via C-span ....

In between -- comes 2025 -- think anyone will be cooking animals when we

have 10 hot days for every one, perhaps?

Will they then eat raw animals?

On the other hand, what will be left of vegetation?

What is so shocking is how many are unwilling to act to save the planet simply

by moving to a vegetarian diet!

I wonder if they will even bother to save themselves or if they understand the

connection?



:)

[KamaAina]

28. We're not even sure that it is 2012.

Based on more recent readings of the Mayan calendar, it could be 2062. Or 2112. Which would please Rush no end. The band, I mean, not the fascist pig. :-)

[Subdivisions]

36. 2112! Sweet! A RUSH reference! n/t

[jancantor]

2. And a personal computer will never need more than 640k of RAM

and early in the 20th century, the patent office was obsolete because everything of value had already been invented, and...

It never ceases to fail how the alleged experts, who are in fact myopic as fuck, fail to see the amazing adaptability and igenuity of mankind. This has happened over and over again throughout history. We don't need whale oil any more for our street lamps. That crisis was averted, too. Iow, these people have NO vision. Imnsho, 30 or 40 yrs from now we will look back and laugh at the primitiveness of using fossil fuels for most of our energy.

[Subdivisions]

4. I hope you're right. But there is nothing currently on the horizon. n/t

[defendandprotect]

24. Not only primitive, but suicidal ... GW will now bring temps of 2 hots days for every one day ....

by 2050 -- according to one witness at House hearings the other day/C-span

there will be 20 hot days for every 1 cold day --

What does that mean for 2025 --?? 10 hots days for every 1 cold day?

No telling how this will all compound --

Capitalism is suicidal in its exploitation of nature and humanity.

It's usually not about "no vision" -- it is usually about those private interests

who control our natural resources preventing anything else from supplanting them.

We need to NATIONALIZE the oil industry -- should have been done during FDR's reign --

JFK ran on a Dem Platform which called for NATIONALIZING oil industry --

While capitalism has profited -- the planet has suffered --

that connection has to begin to become clear to everyone!!

[customerserviceguy]

34. I remember the population bomb

Back there in 1970, we were supposed to be in absolute total collapse by 1990 or 2000, for sure. Yes, it sucks to live in many parts of the world in 2010, but those are the parts where it's always sucked.

[JackRiddler]

39. That's a sweet faith in technology you have there...

and it may turn out that alternatives to easy sweet crude spewing from the ground will be developed and implemented without a transitional period of disasters. But you have no reason to believe that based on what is currently known. It's a faith. A gamble. Either way, it doesn't change the need and logic to act NOW to adopt efficiencies, eliminate pointless consumption (No. 1: War), and implement the sustainable renewable alternatives in the largest possible way. If you're not for shifting the war budget to development of new energies, you're in a fantasy land.

[jeanpalmer]

45. And people had faith that the housing market

would never collapse, that the dotcom bubble wouldn't burst, and that the financial system built up over decades couldn't collapse in just days. We know what happened there. People's belief in the capability to solve peak oil painlessly strikes me as a similar belief.

[JackRiddler]

51. Agreed, but this is much worse, really.

Faith in the housing bubble was a consensus act knowing that it was never going to last but would inflate the market allowing opportunities to get rich, by various actors who hoped they'd be in cash in time.

Faith in low-pain unspecificied solutions to oil depletion because "humans always come up with an answer, we are just that fucking ingenius" is far worse for denial and amounts to suicide.

[kenny blankenship]

5. Even if the level of production could stay constant for decades

that is not enough to provide for growth in the global economy. Economic growth is essentially exchangeable as a term for the growth of energy utilization. Our economic activity level circa 2006 or 2007 prior to the Great Financial Crash required the highest level of world oil production yet seen, which is a level that is unlikely to be exceeded for anything but the briefest of exceptions. Maybe there will be a blip in production that resets the record for a year or two. But in any case it looks clear that the rising trend of oil production that tops out at 2005-2006 is over. When you have drained a critical resource by ever your increasing usage of it, so that you can see plainly that there will never be as much of it to use again in the future, embracing efficiency measures may be necessary for you, but they will probably prove to be of marginal use.

Unless a substitute for petroleum-as-energy (as opposed to petroleum-as-raw-material) is brought online in a hurry, we are in for a world of hurt.

[Subdivisions]

8. Couldn't have said it better, kenny. And it is simply amazing and frightening when

you filter current events through the energy prism. When you know about this, everything makes much more sense. Do you know what I'm saying?

[Eddie Haskell]

25. Yep.

Crystal clear. It almost makes things justifiable.

[defendandprotect]

20. The major point is Global Warming ... we cannot continue to burn fossil fuels ...!!!

And those private interests who have controlled and profitted from our

natural resources have to be moved out -- we have to NATIONALIZE the oil

industry.

There's been an obvious alliance, for instance, between the oil industry and

the car manufacturers -- 42 mph highway -- we had those cars in the 1960's!!

[L0oniX]

6. OK class... What is the definition of "finite resources"?

2nd: Explain how the idea of sustainable growth works with those finite resources.

Deniers might as well be republicans for the stupidity of denying the inevitable. Best we could do is to quickly change to what the Europeans have been doing for transportation. We can't continue to be so heavily dependent on oil energy in all its forms nor can we continue to be the world police.

[Subdivisions]

9. Kick: President Obama Acknowledges End Of Easy Oil

Includes video of President Obama: http://petroapocalypse.com/2010/05/29/president-obama-acknowledges-end-of-easy-oil/

Edited to add:

President Obama Once Again Acknowledges Premise of Peak Oil
http://petroapocalypse.com/2010/06/17/president-once-again-acknowledges-premise-of-peak-oil/

[StarsInHerHair]

10. tell that to the Romans, tell that to the Sumerians, the Aztecs,

they had alot of 'civilization as we know it'.
what is vital NOW is that we lock in oil that will be guaranteed to become plant fertilizer, guaranteed to be used to extract metal we need in the future, when we might not have any oil left to run the machines to get the needed metals. We need to quit using plastic medicine bottles, plastic toasters-a new material or an old material like bamboo for med bottles, wooden plates instead of plastic, mandatory cafe standards that money can't buy away. In old movies they used dried fluffy grasslike stuff instead of bubblewrap-it worked quite well since we have china & glass from the 1920s 1930s 1940s & even 1890s.

Trouble is if these changes are voluntary they will fail-they must be mandated. This of course will have ALL the Rightwing foaming at the mouth, the Progressives would have to stand their ground regardless of the histrionics of the Right. Again, I'd replay on a loop, all the times Faux & the Right have been dead wrong, off by 180 degrees, endlessly.

[XemaSab]

15. Cellulose and excelsior

You should come play with us in the environment/energy forum. :D

[XemaSab]

13. From e/e the other day:

Or, not to put too fine a point on it:

[Subdivisions]

14. Bwaahahahaha! Excellent! lol... n/t

[defendandprotect]

22. And, of course, our OCCUPATIONS in the ME are only coincidental to this .... !!???

:evilgrin:

[defendandprotect]

17. Every reason to expect there to be oceans of alternatives .... once pressure from

those who already own and control our natural resources are moved out of the way --

We need to NATIONALIZE the oil industry -- no private interests should be controlling

our natural resources ---

and we should have stopped burning fossil fuels 60 years ago -- if not 100 years ago!

Germany has an electric car -- goes almost 400 miles before it needs recharging --

recharges in 6 minutes!

We have cars being sold here in America with a high of 42 mpg on highways -- we had that

in the 1960's!! What we've had is a criminal alliance between the private oil industry

and the automobile manufacturers!

We have Global Warming getting ready to turn the planet to toast -- and Obama is addressing

hand jive at our airports -- all of it is nonsense!!

[Spider Jerusalem]

23. Where do you think the energy comes from?

Electric cars? Where does electricity come from? Most of it is from coal-fired plants, coal is subject to the same ultimate decline as crude oil. And making people drive more fuel efficient cars doesn't change the fact that they're still using oil and it's still going to run out. It just gives you some breathing room.

[Subdivisions]

26. Study: Coal production to peak in 2011

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/work-connect/will-coal-supplies-peak-in-2011.html

[defendandprotect]

29. What too many do not understand is the pressure that private interests ....

have put against any advancements away from burning fossil fuels --

there's been an obvious alliance between oil industry and car manufacturers to

limit mpg -- capitalism is suicidal in its exploitation of nature and humans!


We could have stopped this in the 1930's -- the 1960's -- JFK ran on a Dem Platform

which called for NATIONALIZING the oil industry!

Amazing how much confidence people still have in the elites and corporations!!!

[defendandprotect]

27. Solar batteries -- Again, if you understand GW, we have to stop burning fossil fuels ....

We could also STOP throwing petroleum all over our soil as "fertilizer" --

In fact, the MIC is talking about solar airplanes! War has to be our first consideration!!

[Eddie Haskell]

21. IMO, the #1 post in DU history.

No one wants to believe it, but you've laid it out in black and white. We're witnessing the end of cheap energy and economic growth. I expect gas prices to increase dramatically and soon. $5/g by 2012.

[Truth2Tell]

44. you're declaring a #1 post in DU history

and you've been here 11 days? :shrug:

[Eddie Haskell]

48. I've been here a long, long time.

I've read DU since its inception. I just like to study things before I make a comment.

You may know me by another name. Try searching Robin Cook, Enoch W. Fischer, and the University of Michigan. Perhaps you've read my manifesto.

[Eddie Haskell]

49. I said it was my opinion

Being new, am I not entitled to an opinion? WTF!

[readmoreoften]

30. It's not going to "collapse." Capitalism never "collapses". Collapse is just another excuse for

primitive accumulation (privatization of the commons.)

It won't collapse. It will become a more brutal authoritarian and classed society until there is a fight back. Waiting is little more than (1) organizing or (2) wasting time.

[L0oniX]

31. *

[readmoreoften]

43. Why exactly is calling to organize "having blinders on"?

That doesn't make any sense.

[GliderGuider]

32. It very much depends on your definition of "collapse"

From one point of view the Roman empire never "collapsed" either, it just became brutal, authoritarian, fragmented and much, much smaller.

Privatization of the commons has been the underpinning of modern civilization for at least 10,000 years, and this relates just as much to energy resources as it does to land or money. The global economic system that we have created is one that pumps money and power away from the poor and powerless at the periphery and towards the rich and powerful at the center. Given that we can't change the underpinnings of the system (God knows we've tried, and every attempt has failed), the human experiment with civilization will continue to remain vulnerable to periodic collapses. This has happened to many societies before ours, typically because of some combination of resource shortages coupled with excessive complexity.

In our case the diminishing marginal return on complexity has become obvious (think of TSA pat-downs and government bureaucracy in general). While the resource limitations we face with respect to fossil fuels have yet to fully penetrate the popular consciousness, the inevitability and imminence of Peak Oil and the social disturbances that it will entrain have been obvious to those in the Peak Oil community since just after the turn of the millennium.

The big problem is that it's not just Peak Oil we're facing. It's a whole panoply of interlocking problems:

• Rainfall disruptions due to global warming that affect the global food supply;
  
• Acidification of the oceans that makes it hard for creatures at the bottom of the food chain to even form shells;
  
• The imminent loss of 90% of the world's fisheries due to over-harvesting;
  
• The loss of soil fertility world-wide;
  
• The loss of fresh water supplies, whether from aquifers or glacial melts;
  
• The poisoning of water supplies with toxins ranging from heavy metals to xenoestrogens;
  
• The loss of biodiversity, both in terms of outright species extinctions and the shrinking genomes of "useful" farm species.

Taken together, these problems coalesce into a predicament that may not be soluble - at least if, as a solution, we propose to try and return our current civilization to some stable "antebellum" state. Regardless of how clever we may be, we are in for an extended period of major disruptions as our civilization resets to a new local minimum on our global fitness landscape.

[Subdivisions]

35. Brilliant! I am honored that you took a moment to comment here GliderGuider.

Anyone who wants a broader understanding of the challenges we face should visit your website at http://www.paulchefurka.ca/

[readmoreoften]

42. But capitalism is global and the Roman Empire was finite and conquered.

It was also conquered by Northern tribes. There are no Northern tribes and there is only a "global system." There is no outside. The "collapse" of the capitalist system is often characterized as a hardscrabble but egalitarian "new horizon" where the ruling class will somehow disappear. It seems like people are almost craving it, to be honest.

I don't see that happening. If by "collapse" you mean a brutal, totalitarian market regime where the little remaining unpolluted land and water is controlled by a cabal of global capitalists, freedoms are suspended, disasters occur daily, and human life is reduced to the bare minimum, then we're on the same page.

If you're argument is that the ruling class is going down with the ship, I disagree. The only way the economic structure is going to "collapse" is if we take it over through mass strikes and reorganization of production.

In other words, the cure is not going to happen by "entropy"...

[nashville_brook]

50. +1

[Juche]

38. We waste a ton of oil in this society

That is my problem with peak oil doomsday predictions. The reality is our economy has been based on cheap, abundant oil for decades. As a result we've never had to make due with less oil. There is tons of fat that can be cut from our oil use that will limit our lifestyle, but will not kill anyone.

But most oil isn't used for life/death issues. About half is used for personal transportation where everyone has a car. Only about 2-3% is used for agriculture (about the same as is used for RVs, ATVs, boats, etc).

Rail and barges can be substituted for semis. Carpools/motorcycles/buses for personal cars. coal for manufacturing where petroleum would be used. Cars run on natural gas (which will not run out anytime soon), compressed air, etc.

World war 2 saw severe natural resource shortages (far more severe and unplanned than what peak oil will throw at us), but society didn't collapse. People's lifestyles took a hit, but civilization marched on.

Not only that but in WW2 nations were promoting each other's destruction. During peak oil nations will be working together on solutions to natural resource shortages.

Plus our capacity for innovation is far better in 2010 than it was in 1943.

IMO, the worst thing that will happen is people will be forced to carpool and take the bus for a while, and shipping might take longer (since there will be fewer semis transporting goods and more shipping via rail and boat), and maybe production costs might go up on some goods that will need substitutes for oil to make them (coal, natural gas, etc) while innovators look for affordable ways to power personal transportation more cheaply using other energy sources.

But it won't kill us.

[Subdivisions]

40. All very good points, Juche. And this, despite ample resistance, is why I haven't

given up trying to bring attention to the issue here on DU. The only way there will be any chance that people do what you suggest and cut the waste is for more people to know about it.

Thank you for your comments. :hi:

[Subdivisions]

41. Peak Oil: why the Pentagon is pessimistic [EXCLUSIVE] (From Nov. 18)

http://petrole.blog.lemonde.fr/2010/11/18/peak-oil-why-the-pentagon-is-pessimistic-exclusive/

...snip...

In the Joint Operating Environment 2008 report and JOE2010 , one can read:

“By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 MBD.”

10 million barrels per day is approximately the equivalent daily production of Saudi Arabia.

If in 2015, in satisfying the world’s energy demand, there was really a gap equivalent to the Saudi production, the years to come would promise to be extremely delicate with effects spread throughout the world, affecting the economy, politics, and, especially, the military forces.

...snip...


This entire article is a very good read on military awareness of Peak Oil.

http://petrole.blog.lemonde.fr/2010/11/18/peak-oil-why-the-pentagon-is-pessimistic-exclusive/


For more, check out my other posts on the topic. Search username subdivisions and keywords "peak oil".

[jeanpalmer]

46. Quantitative easing can solve peak oil

Print the money and the product will develop.

[Jamastiene]

47. The collapse is happening faster than we can

think and invent our way out of this mess. Our society frowns on imagination. Just look at the art/music/science programs. Those are the first things cut in schools and in government. Every facet of our society is geared toward money money money. Nothing else matters. Live fast, makes lots of money, buy more stuff than we can ever use, consume, consume, consume, then die. That is how our society is structured.

Imagination has been practically bred out of us by now. Why does that matter? Imagination and thinking outside the box are going to be what it will take to come up with real solutions that might get us out of this mess. The problem is our society has stamped out as much imagination/thinking outside the box as it possibly can. You are ridiculed if you want to invent something. You are berated if you think differently in our homogeneous society.

Encouraging the generations to come to think differently than we did is going to be hard. It is hard to teach what was basically beaten, stomped, berated, ridiculed, de-funded, and bred out of us. We cannot teach what we do not know. No one knows how to think outside the box any more. No one alive can remember how to go about doing that because we have been bred to consume consume consume and nothing more. No one pays us to think. Thinking is bad. Thinking is the antithesis of our society's motto.

Why has no one invented running tracks and running shoes that can generate electricity and store it? Why has no one figured out a way to hook a treadmill up so that it can store some of that movement/work into stored energy? Why are car tires still made of crap when they could be made of something else that could generate and store small amounts of electricity as the cars move along the roads? Why hasn't anyone figured out how to hook football players up in such a way that all their practicing and playing generates stored energy? Why is it that all the energy we, ourselves, as people, generate by our own movements and actions from day to day goes to waste? We do not harness our own energy. We do not use it effectively or wisely.

Why? We have no imagination and never think outside of our rigid, oppressive, dead end system. We cannot use the same logic to get out of this mess that we used to get into this mess.

Creativity is dead. The human brain is dead. We are devolving. We have now been bred to NOT think.

That is the biggest problem. It is not that our problem is unsolvable. It is that we have waited so long to bother trying and continually discouraged the very thing needed to solve the problem.

[jaybeat]

52. Yes. We've waited too long. That's the problem simply from an energy standpoint, too.

While I agree with your broader description of the problem in terms of imagination, simply from an energy standpoint, the principle is the same.

Even IF we had the political ability to immediately mount a WW2 or Man-on-the-Moon scaled effort to develop alternative energy sources and technologies, we've waited too long. What energy will we use to fuel our development of alternatives? What we have available today. And what we have today won't "run out"--it will just get more and more expensive to extract, at the same time that demand (through population growth and economic growth) is also going up. So you have decreasing supply, increasing cost and increasing demand all combining for a supply and demand rocket from hell.

So all the alternative (*and* conservation) measures that cost money (aka energy) to develop to where they could replace (some) oil, will all start costing even MORE money (energy) to bring on line. If we had done this in the '70s (hi Jimmy!), and made a national commitment to be oil-independent in, say 40 years, we'd be only 5 years away from that goal. But now, insulating the attic of our kids' school (which requires gas or diesel for the contractors trucks, the semis that ship the insulation from the factory, etc.) is going to be competing for the remaining oil with shipping food from California (or Chile), electronics from China, and workers from their so-called affordable suburban houses in the ex-urbs.

Honestly, I'm not a complete "doomer." But I do read http://www.theoildrum.com/">The Oil Drum, and every time someone tries to outline a non-doomer scenario, a whole bunch of very smart people come up with a whole lot of very convincing arguments against donning those rose-colored glasses.

[Hydra]

54. This is a problem of binary thinking

1. Why do we want growth in the first place?

Answer: We don't. Every place birth control is readily available and baby-making isn't pushed, we have negative population growth. Consumerism and growth is artificially pushed.

2. Cars didn't run on crude oil to begin with. Hemp oil and plastic. 'Nuff said.

3. Oil for fertilizer makes no sense when we have a surplus of cow manure. Nor does poisoning our water. It makes sense to Dow's profit margins, though...

Keeping these things in mind, it's not oil or lack thereof that is killing us- it's capitalism. Pursuit of "profit" is somehow leading us to the pursuit of suicide.

Wanna survive? Change the system. Otherwise, deal with the fallout.