The article activity on SlashDot is more spread out than it used to be. A large portion of the hits occurred more than 12 hours after the story was posted. The main link in the article also pointed to the TFOT article/nterview with a lot of redirects coming back from there today. Which I would interpret as people actually reading the TFOT article.

consider a different idea for the blackballing, perhaps denial. or unfamiliarity with any of the subjects. Who even knows what/where/who/when Ghawar is when its submitted, titles mean alot.(my opinion of digg is 12-20 year olds in terms of 'emotional intelligence' with some more mature individuals trying to cut the cheese)

my suggestion is, "LARGEST OIL FIELD, GHAWAR, IN COLLAPSE"

there is a difference between 'selling' a point and convincing people.

When world exports start to drop significantly, the nations at the front of the line will get their minimum needs met (they will cut back as well, but at a pace that their societies can accept). The nations at the back of the line will just have to do without.

So far, the nations at the back of the line are all 3rd World nations without strong exports. But Uncle Sam is next in line.

Today, we sell $2 for every $3 we buy and we export paper and ownership of US based assets to cover the rest. Basically the reverse for China.

China is working diligently to expand export markets in oil exporting nations (I remember reading that over a half million Chinese are working in Angola on a variety of development projects).

China will get what they want FIRST post-Peak Oil, as will the other strong exporters that have goods and services the oil exporters want in quantity. The USA will have to make do with what is left over (how many barrels of oil for Hollywood movies, Boeing a/c, wheat (no corn), and Microsoft licenses ?).

So we should build a non-oil transportation alternative ASAP, convert to VERY fuel efficient cars ASAP, expand bicycling lanes and parking ASAP, etc. to make what little oil we can buy post-Peak Oil go as far as possible.

The very *LAST* thing I would worry about is the United States conserving too much !

Best Hopes for Rational Planning,

Alan

Why would higher gas taxes (particularly if other taxes were reduced as an offset) trigger a recession ?

Alan

...while it is expensive, it would seem to benefit US (at least in the short term) to encourage the building of separate refineries as opposed to simply expanding existing ones.

Given the implications of Stuart's essay yesterday. It seems likely that we will soon see less that 85 million barrels per day. So why ramp up? In that scenario, refinery capacity going forward will not be an issue.

The other elephant in the room is this... the domestic auto industry is already past peak. Sales stink. Chrysler was just sold. Ford will be next. Why chase that trend with refineries?

If you take a refinery down for maintenance, does it almost certainly guarantee that the entire refinery is down?

No. In fact, you almost never - and I would say probably never with a large refinery - take the entire refinery down. A small refinery, yes. But a large one with multiple versions of everything, no. Capacity will be diminished during the turnarounds, but not taken all the way down.

Incidentally, I just now saw your post. I guess I must have replied to someone else as you were writing this one, because my search of "[n" never showed this one as a new post. I don't know if there is a way around that, but I don't like the fact that when I write a response, everything is marked as read when I post the response (that is all the posts that were being written and were completed before I finished mine).

That's all from me for today.

No new refinery has been built in the U.S. since 1976.

The oldest operational refinery in the U.S. was built in 1881 in Bradford, PA.

A number of refineries were aged and corroded. Unscheduled maintenance, fires, and scheduled maintenance when they had down time for switching from making more heating oil to making more gasoline and back again in the autumn has meant that demand is outstripping supply.

A number of nations; especially Russia and China have seen car sales grow rapidly. It may take about 15 years to build a refinery in some areas due to legal and environmental issues and lengthy construction contracts. There may be enough oil left in the world to last for years, there is not enough gasoline to keep prices low today.

With rumors of an imminent peak of oil production by 2015; companies might be reluctant to build new refineries.

Because of free market economies if there is gasoline in storage for sale in Europe and someone in Asia wants it, it might be sold and put in a special products tanker and moved. This drives the price up as people realize the inventories were shrinking and they had hoarding instinct. If prices stay high, refinery capacity expansion might eventually fill the gap if demand does not grow too fast. There are 100-200 fields in the North Sea of 10-20 million barrels a piece. All of these do not equal one Buzzard field and that was one of the largest discovery in the North Sea of the past decade. The North Sea is a micro-oilfield region compared to the world, yet the world is finite and what happened in small areas will eventually show up as a global trend.

Usually gasoline inventories should be building in the spring, this year the build was coming late and the summer driving season begins June 1. The hurricane season will offically begin the same time. There has been one named storm in the US Atlantic so far this year. If driving demand drops due to high prices the inventories might build and prices stabilize or eventually drop. The world has the lowest global gasoline inventories in the past 16 years. It is not as easy as send a tanker to the Persian Gulf and fill up with gasoline when gasoline consumption was up in OPEC nations as well.

I have always been charmed by the humility of Warren Buffet, a trait apparently shared by Mr. Munger. Humility is, IMHO, a good trait in investing.

I bought RRs earlier (a different set than Berkshire Hathaway) and have done quite well. Florida East Coast RR was just bought out, so I need to figure what to do with my money.

One advantage to BH ownership (especially when >50%, BN-SF is only ~10%) is a long term profits focus vs. short term. Something beneficial to the nation and economy as a whole. BN-SF goes through the area served by an electric utility alos owned by BH. OTOH, BH are NOT engineers, but financial guys. I am hoping ...

Best Hopes,

Alan

As noted a couple of days ago in a Drumbeat, I have been impressed with the Apple Mac Mini (dual core Intel, choice of 1.6 or 1.8 GHz). Laptop technology in a compact form and power consumption in the 25 to 40 watt range (per blogs).

Can be operated under Windows (both Apple & 3rd party software AFAIK) and Linux.

6.5" rounded square, 2" high. Auxiliary drive (ANY ATA 3.5" drive) can be mounted in Firewire connected inclosure (6.5" rounded square) for extra storage capacity.

I would grid connect PV (perhaps and/or small wind turbine) and buy largest UPS available# (potentially several). Minimize power use (corded keyboards & mice, turn off Airport). In an extended blackout, turn off connection to grid and have PV/wind feed batteries. Wind would keep the all night drain on the batteries from happening.

# You do NOT need maximum watts drawdown, but maximum amp-hours. I might get a smaller UPS (with a 12 V lead acid battery) and attach an Optima yellow or blue top battery/ies in parallel.
Best Hopes,

Alan

That's one way of creating a portion of US demand destruction, albeit not a nice coordinated way.

Certainly.
What you are describing here it seems is a kind of death by a thousand cuts to the US economy with fuel prices being one element. The slow, deliberate but uncoordinated elimination of the employment of the least affluent will be working it's way up. The unhappy progression is that while many have all the money (and energy) they can burn the subtle fact seemingly escapes notice until later on. In this pyramid scheme the viability of the whole depends on the survival of the majority.

My gut tells me we'll continue to feed this foreign land orientated war machine even as the homeland goes belly-up. Now that's short-sighted!

Mine too. TPTB will be in a position to prioritize. I see the producer world of energy having a long hand-out line of higher to lower priority users extending from the source to the last consumer. These include the extractor, the export consumer and his military, the 'protector's' military, the import country's government, agricultural production and transportation, and then finally the (optional) domestic consumer.

(Just what is a steady state resource and economic based world like? Now try imagining getting there if we haven't any real ideas as to what it means.)

We'd maybe start by doing triage. It might be noted if the typical present consumer of a product has a high degree of disposable income or not. What is the least productive and unessential product that is the most vulnerable to high fuel prices. (perhaps the junk food industry as a thought)

And on the other end what is the most essential and the least vulnerable to fuel costs. (perhaps locally grown produce) What steps can be taken to convert an unsupportable sector over to some more useful function? (unused motel space to workers quarters)(snack food production to local whole food processing) I think this will be happening de facto as failing businesses are either abandoned or taken over by new ideas. Will it take us to 'steady state'? We seem to be going to 'lower state' like it or not.
Since the proactive solution approach is not dominant then a more adaptive one may be our best shot.

Hence, we'll continue to unquestionably genuflect before the holy shrine of the 'free-market' medicine of creeping oil prices (and all it's other betrayals of our long term prospects).

IMHO, this "market" reliance has usurped all our better senses while positing that the seven deadly sins will help promote and provide for Heaven on earth.

Very powerful stuff. And true. The essence of peak oil, and what the market thinkers don't seem to realize, is how buoyed up every process has been by the unseen, nearly free, energy extravaganza of the past. The limited dispersal of this lifeblood in the future will mean myriad formerly successful business models will utterly crumble.
The synergy of collapsing consumerism coupled with surging energy costs to the producer will catch so many endeavors by surprise.

Have to acknowledge your conclusion that the natural selection process we will undergo will not be pretty. Also unfortunately the 'market based faith' probably has a ways to run yet.

As many folks begin to see futility in the growth based economy they will begin independently to take steps to build something more sustainable. There certainly will be alternatives tried. This new paradigm will not be utopia but hopefully it'll be better than living off the ruins of our consumer way of life!

Just what is a steady state resourse and economic based world like? Now try imagining getting there if we haven't any real ideas as to what it means

Interesting question. One thing I am certain of: "steady state" need not imply "static and unchanging". Creativity and discovery can continue to enrich our world and improve our quality of life, even given an unchanging level of resource utilization.

I am also certain that efficiency and productivity and conservation must become supremely important; these will be the primary values around which all economic and social and cultural activity must be oriented. Note that if a creative way is invented to do more with less, then this creates a surplus that becomes available to use to do something else that previously was not possible. Such gains (call it economic growth if you will) will be hard won, but not impossible to realize.

It follows from these premises that such a steady-state society/economy must be predicated on the elimination and avoidance of waste in all of its forms. The circle must be closed and everything recycled. Nothing must be produced or bought unless it is really truly needed; much modern marketing and advertising would become an utterly antithetical practice in such a society. Everything that is built must be super durable and repairable -- no more throwaway junk. Needless to say, anything that uses any form of energy must be as efficient as possible, and energy-using things must be kept as minimal as possible.

Avoidance of waste also means putting everything and everyone to their best productive use. How can inputs of scarce resources for the maintenance of grass lawns be justified when those yards could be put to more productive use growing fruits or vegetables? How can we afford for any able-bodied or able-minded person to just sit idle when there are socially or economically useful tasks to which they could be employed? Even if the value added by such work is minimal, and even if the pay for such work is therefore less than a living wage and must be supplemented, it would still make sense to engage such people to produce whatever added value that they can. Retirees and unemployed people sitting at home and doing nothing would thus become a distant memory in such a society.

There would still be banking and finance in such a steady state economy, but in a very different and probably much reduced form. A steady-state economy implies a steady state money supply; both inflation and deflation of the money supply must be prevented to avoid introducing distorting market signals into the economy. With a steady state money supply, the scope for returns on investment through either capital gains or interest would be considerably lower than what we presently experience. There would still be a positive rate of interest, because all productive assets -- incuding money -- would necessarilly have to have a rental value to assure maximum productive allocation and to avoid waste. In such an economy, if sufficiently complex, there is still plenty of room for a wide range of financial intermediation. I am less sure how much scope would remain for what is essentially speculation. In a steady state economy I would imagine that risk premiums would be considerably higher than what we work with today.

The above is by no means a complete outline of what a steady-state economy would look like, but I believe that these things are pretty much essential and inevitable.

How we get from here to there - that's another question!

Last summer they didn't bother siphoning - too many cars have locks on the fuel doors and anti-siphon devices in the filler neck.

Instead what they were doing is punching a hole in the bottom of the tank and sucking the fuel out - I guess they have some homebuilt gizmo that can do this in a somewhat inconspicuous manner. My recollection was that they were mainly going after big vehicles - ones with big fuel tanks. My little 15 gallons isn't of interest to them when there are bigger fish in the sea.

Of course at some point not that long from now we'll have to start talking about heating oil. It is not quite as big a deal as it used to be, but the refineries are going to eventually have to stop going full throttle out on the gasoline and start working on heating oil inventories.

20 days is not much cushion---it counts gasoline in product pipelines and barges/railcars, tankers, etc. We are very close to "just in time" for gasoline. The MBA's have been trying for this for years, to sweat out any surplus so as to not tie up cash in inventories, and they have succeeded in reducing the days of supply needed by about 40% over the past 25 years. We will have shortages, and they will cause some needed "demand destruction." They may also start some hoarding, which if it spreads, will compound the shortages. Last time, in the 1970s, the effect of the hoarding was hard to overestimate. Half a gas tank==say six gallons times 200 million vehicles is a lot of oil--about 30 million barrels, or about 4 days of supply. nearly a 20% drop from where we are in inventories. I am very glad I have a TDI too. This is going to be a 'Clusterf#ck' to kick off Kuntsler"s long emergency.

Tomorrow's Petroleum Inventory report holds a lot of weight. If it does not show a substantial uptick in gasoline inventories, I think we can seriously be nervous for this summer and beyond.

I think people might make the connection more readily if the price increase was steady and constant, rather than up and down.

People were starting to change after the Katrina spike. Sales of trucks and SUVs dropped, even in Texas. Used Priuses were selling for more than new ones. In my office, people started to carpool (some drive an hour each way to work, so it really helps). Others quit and took jobs with a shorter commute, or switched to departments located nearer their homes.

Now the prices are back up where they were in the Katrina days, but no one is making changes. They're used to the high prices, or they're assuming they'll go back down again, like they did before.

Tragedy of the Commons strikes again.

Labor is worth so much more than gasoline. If they pay 4.00 for a gallon of gas, drive faster, and get in an extra 15 min of work, they more than made up that gallon of gas.

And once gas is worth more than labor, life will be really bad.

I've been noticing the opposite around here (Monterey, CA). While it was once the case that driving 65 on the freeway would have me passing no one and being passed by everyone, I now find (on those infrequent occasions when I do it) that there are quite a number driving at or below the speed limit.

Off topic...the attitude problem will be solved when medical maryjane becomes available and the black market doubles. With a depression coming....I hardly find this without history's ryhme. When was prohibition repealed? Oh that's right four years after TSHTF. Gen Xr's any my generation are starting to find the nobs of power....

That would be perfect for us! We're just about to buy some woodland near Fryeburg, (and live in P-land) and I want some rail-access not too far away!

The poll? It'll change. Not soon enough, but at least the railbed is still intact (AFAIK).. the track looks pretty weathered, but I think the whole Right Of Way has been preserved, and so I'm glad it didn't just get swept into a hike-bike trail.. With luck, it can be adjacent hike-bike and rail.. don't know if that's possible.

Bob Fiske

Wow.. here's a recent story on it. Thanks for the heads up, k3.

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/local/070408trains.html
"Re-establishing rail service has been endorsed by Gov. John Baldacci. And last week, the Legislature approved a $295 million borrowing package that includes $110 million for transportation projects, including $13.52 million for passenger and freight rail service.
Of that, $1.25 million would go to the Mountain Division line to help fund projects, including an engineering study and renovation of a two-mile stretch of track between south Windham and Westbrook."

... "Who wouldn't want to ride the train to Fryeburg to the Fryeburg Fair and not be tied up on (Route) 302?" Standish Town Councilor Louis Stack said.

Stack said communities from Portland to Fryeburg could benefit from the train. Companies in Portland could benefit from a commuter line for employees, while industries in western Maine could use the line to ship lumber, granite or other goods.

Diamond said the engineering study would assess the condition of the tracks, bridges and culverts along the line and list what improvements would be needed to handle trains.
"Not to have a pun here, but I think it's on the right track," Diamond said. "

.. Now to get Alan Drake's proposals for electrification to some of these people!

Best Hopes for Good Regional Infrastructure!

Bob Fiske

The themes from my recent campaign for Governor are turning up all over. This commuter rail, university buses going public, publicizing "private spaces", GrowSmart is shrinking, the Governor even considering replacing the National Guard. [I can't claim credit for all of this in Maine, but think of myself as part of the wave.] There is a simple and coherent communitarian political platform in peak oil relocalization. Rail, community gardens and order the Guard home. I'd urge everyone to consider running for major office - not to win this time necessarily, but to open up discussion about what must be done.

Alan Drake for Governor of LA. The media rank-and-file will be helpful; they know how bad the situation is. An uncharismatic and unknown geek like myself gets 25% of the vote in Maine. That's both leverage and a lot of fun. And hey, we're On The Beach; nothing to lose.

cfm in Gray, ME

Gee, how did a smaller and MUCH poorer United States of America manage to build (with truly primitive technology) subways in it's largest cities (see NYC for some) and streetcars in 500 cities and towns in twenty years ? (1897-1916)

They were on the right side of the resource depletion curve.

Also, it's far easier to build new infrastructure than retrofit the existing.

Alan: The automobile alternative at the time was subpar or non-existent. Very little work has been devoted to high mpg autos so far. IMHO, most suburbanites will drive literally ANY type of automobile (e.g. 60 hp, 100 mpg)before they will resort to public transit. Suburbia will be the first shoe to drop, but first there will be a wave of high mpg autos purchased (IMO).

Gee, how did a smaller and MUCH poorer United States of America manage to build (with truly primitive technology) subways in it's largest cities (see NYC for some) and streetcars in 500 cities and towns in twenty years ? (1897-1916)

Because back then the politicians were merely venal. There was a competitive press back then, and no TV yet, so the newspapers had to actually compete for readership with muckraking editorials and investigative journalism. The politician's feet were held to the fire sufficiently to assure that at least occasionally they actually had to get something done, graft and kickbacks notwithstanding.

Today, our political system is even more broken than our transportation system. That's what will really do us in. If we had any chance at all of having even halfway effective political leadership, then I am certain that all of the good stuff that you and I would like to see come into play might have half a chance of actually happening. FEMA @ NOLA post-Katrina is a better indicator of what we can actually expect. It didn't have to be that way, but it is that way.

Maybe our public transportation could use a standard design book from some place that already uses public transportation successfully?

Gee, how did a smaller and MUCH poorer United States of America manage to build (with truly primitive technology) subways in it's largest cities (see NYC for some) and streetcars in 500 cities and towns in twenty years ? (1897-1916)

Let's count a few ways.

(1) Labor was practically free. The stories the folks in my grandparent's generation used to tell described what was for many nothing less than a harrowing living hell.

(2) Laboring was dangerous, see (1). Hardly anybody ever became a millionaire over an injury or even a death. The regulations that have made it far safer have also driven costs beyond the sky.

(3) The enormous taxes and health care costs we have now did not exist yet. If you were injured to the point of becoming a vegetable, you simply died, rather than being sustained indefinitely by the forced labor (perhaps realized in the form of taxes) of a dozen others. So the agencies doing the building paid only once for an hour's work, not twice or thrice as they must now.

(4) Life expectancy was far shorter - and retirement was often later, none of that retire-at-45 stuff enjoyed by today's lavishly coddled transit workers. The sort of pension overhead that's sinking San Diego did not exist yet, reinforcing (3).

(5) Transit vehicles were far simpler. Far fewer regulations of every sort. No requirement that every streetcar be a rolling ADA-approved hospital ward or that every bus have a hugely expensive kneeling mechanism requiring constant repairs and jamming with ice every winter - indeed some of the remaining museum pieces call for some considerable agility to board or to get off.

(6) Transit stations were far simpler and more compact, for similar reasons. Last time I saw something on the subject, NYC was installing ADA elevators at over $10 million a pop, and that isn't even a down payment on all the other nonsense.

(7) Far less conflict with existing infrastructure. The eighty years of corrupt fooling around with the Second Avenue Subway mean that if ever gets built, it will have to be jammed into an underground space that has grown far more crowded and breakable.

(8) [edit] Those builders were competing with horses and some bicycles, cars were not substantial competition yet. So they had the shiny new widget. And anything that reduced horse manure and the now-unimaginable vast disease-bearing swarms of flies and bugs would have been eagerly welcomed.

It's just not 100 years ago any more. We simply can't do what we did 100 years ago if we must adhere to today's regulations and standards. Which is why, for example, hardly anybody in their right mind proposes subway any more, it's almost all "light rail" or something of the sort. (Which, on existing ROW, may then get you into issues of train horns blasting all day and all night, courtesy of our good buddy and former DOT honcho Federico Pena.)

I guess they are going to abolish the laws of economics with these moves.

Should be a popular move. They might as well abolish such inconveniences as the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics while they are at it. That would be most helpful.

;-)

I know there are things people can do (in the vein of ELP), but how many people really will do this on their own.

I think most would, given a strong enough price signal.

How many people have the luxury of switching offices to be closer to home?

I think most people could cut down on their commutes if they had do. Either take a different job, or move closer in. Or carpool. If the economic incentive is there, they do it.

Yes, it is not that America has a particularly sub-par national IQ. It is just that we carry a double burden. Not only do we have the same 50% below average IQ population that everyone has, we also have a very large percentage of our above-average IQ population that has been grossly undereducated (or perhaps mis-educated or mal-educated would be better words for it).

Many countries consider it to be a major national challenge of primary importance to make the most of what little intellectual capital they have. The US makes as little as possible of the the great amounts of intellectual capital that we might have potentially had.

A table of national IQ (amongst other things) can be found here

Some selected figures

Iran:84
Greece:92
Canada:97
Spain:97
France:98
US: 98
UK: 100
Italy:102
Germany:102
Japan:105
South Korea:106

make of that what you will. Theory goes that those regional groupings that had to fight to survive over pre-history tend to evolve slightly higher intelligences.

Here's my chance to toss in a little experimental effort I made last week. Has to do with intelligence and education and TOD concerns all at once.

Some middle school students, reputedly the brightest of them, came out to my place for a little exposure to the oil depletion problem. I did so with a game. Some of them I sat on a bench and labeled consumers- home, transport, farm, etc. Each got a cottage cheese container to hold their oil demand. They were instructed to dribble out their oil (water)at a proper consumption rate.

Another kid got a big bucket labeled REFINERY, with a lot of oil (water) in it, and was instructed to mete it out fairly to the clamoring consumers.

Another hard working kid got to be the oil company. His job was to run to the nearest well, take its contents to the refinery, run back to the next well, farther away, to get the next cheese container, and so on. Each well was not only farther away, but held less oil, and what was held kept getting muddier and muddier, so toward the end, there was nought but mud in the well, and that a hell of a long way from the refinery.

And, worst, the number of consumers in each category kept getting bigger.

Things got frantic fast. Lots of noise, complaints of scarcity, dirty oil, absence of service, the whole thing that TOD loves to gripe and warn about. The kids really got into it.

After the final collapse into that famous gorge, and I was able to restore sanity and composure and collect all the dirty cottage cheese containers, we talked about it. Turns out they got the idea very well indeed. The game was a complete success. AND they understood that they were seeing a real world problem that was going to bite them hard and fast.

BUT, here's the rub. nary a one of them had even a faint feeble thought of what to do about it! Not even a cliche-nothing. I asked how many were thinking of becoming engineers or scientists- not a one! And not one knew what heated the water they used in their house. And their parents averaged about 100 lbs overweight, and every car was a SUV. Nobody carpooled.

That's it, folks.

IN this vein I just bought the politically incorrect guide to american history. I haven't started it yet, but has anyone read it? Any comments?

Bart,

Now you want to decide what is important and what has quality, but without having the guts to implicitly tell Leanan that she doesn't do that well enough?

I applaud Leanan for not making those judgment calls, at least not all the time. Issues need discussion. You can't keep using the term conspiracy theory ad infinitum, if only because that's what peak oil is as well, to many.

Here's Naomi Wolf talking about America on the road to fascism.

The link to peak oil is abundantly clear, so is she lacking quality or importance?

Where do you draw that line? Kurt Vonnegut acceptable? And why draw that line for others? You seem to think it's your job to define good stuff. What's that? More articles on ethanol? Electric cars? Tramlines? Isn't that all just a narrow view of the repercussions of the energy issues you wish to discuss?

There seem to be people who don't feel that those things will be the answer to the peak, that entirely different things await, of the not so pretty kind.

I didn't say I didn't sift the articles. I just don't sift them by the criteria Darwinian would like.

It's better for the news gatekeeper to take a straightforward stand and let us know what it is.

I'm afraid it's pretty arbitrary. Some days are slower news days than others, and some days I have more time to search for news. I do see the DrumBeat as survey of what people are talking about in energy-related matters, but that doesn't mean all views and sources are equally represented.

I guess I'd say the two axes are interest and importance. As determined by me, of course. I do think it's important to keep an eye on the fringes, and no, I don't worry that people will think we're nuts. They already think we are nuts. As long as we have Dieoff.org, FTW, LATOC, etc. on the sidebar, there's no sense in trying to pretend to be mainstream.

If my criteria were quality and freshness, well, I'd have to leave out most of the political articles. ;-)

Your logic has stretch marks, tate. Comma,

There are wee bits of truth; (semicolon) but the idea that kids who 'would' have been aborted are then going to become predominantly 'criminals', and have any measurable effect on crime rates is kind of bizarre.

I'm pro-choice, but come on.. (period period)

Depends on what the global carrying capacity really is, and whether or not we've already overshot it.

Bald assertion. No facts. Ignores data contradicting the assertion. I assume we will simply have to agree to disagree, especially since there are large bodies of data that contradict both this statement and your other assertion that the earth seems to be doing "quite well" with a population of 6.5 billion.

Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett

Oh, I'm sure that's true. But I think the bottom line is that using less energy means using less of everything else -- not what people generally want to hear. Particularly those who are accustomed to driving to the corner store for a carton of ice cream or a six-pack of beer.

I suspect a lot of our fear towards minorities, the opposite sex, and the poor would slowly fade away though, as interaction with each of these groups increases.

I hope you are right, but I very much fear the opposite will happen. When resources are tight, societies split along their fault lines. In our society, that would be race.