...and this is why the timing of Peak Oil and -by definition- knowleddge of remaining reserves is so important to know because presently to a country the world is operating in "there's plenty of transition time left" mode...

If it where not, if it where known that shortly this chain (in your analogy) would wrap so tightly it would strangle the dog we would be putting a much bigger chunk of remaining resources into finding 'an answer' (if one exists...)

Nick.

had the dog's chain ended up in a noose - the learning curve would have been much steeper.
That said - I think Peak Oil (and more) will act as that very noose from now on ... and into eternity...

You know, there seem to be two Michael Lynches to pick from the in the petroleum pundit pits:

Our boy:

EnergySEER, STRATEGIC ENERGY & ECONOMIC RESEARCH Inc., SEER

And this old duffer:

Michael Lynch - Consultant - Michael E. Lynch - GLG

FYI. Confused me at first.

I like our ML. What spunk! We'll literally drown in the black stuff! Go to sleep!

To extend your analogy we still don't know if the chain is being reeled in fast or slow.

Collapse would occur if the dog makes the mistake of lunging forward during a period when the chain
is slack but gets reeled in rapidly breaking the dogs neck.

Again as you say unfair to the canine world and more applicable to human action as a group but
by expanding to include a variation in the rate the chain is reeled in you can see some very
nasty scenarios are possible. This variation can be because of rapid geologic depletion or because of
above ground factors but the key point is we probably won't see the chain reeled in at a steady slow pace.

When I was a kid we had a big, fast German Shepard that liked to chase cars. He would often be on a chain attached to an iron ring in the stone wall of the house. When a noisy truck would go by, he would run at full speed until he ran out of slack, whereupon the chain would yank his head up and his back feet would fly forward under him, and he would fall in a pile. He did this over and over - he knew where the chain stopped but did not care. Every now and then the choker chain would break and he'd be off.

There is no point to this story.

Kloza blames crowd mentality not fundamentals (I trust this guy, his predictions are not perfect but he freely admits that any price prediction is something of a crapshoot):

I believe this is the year of unsustainable rallies - - whether it be in oil, equities, or real estate. We’ll go higher in the next few weeks - - perhaps to $2.20-$2.30 gal - - but there is too much additional refinery and crude production capacity to prevent markets from slipping back into a slog.

It seems like we are getting to summer "blend" time.

Oil companies can't put in the cheap short-chain molecules that evaporate rapidly--instead must save them for when the weather is cooler. Reduces gasoline supply and increases cost of available supply.

Gasoline prices are increasing because its demand has been more robust than other fuel products in 2009. Gasoline demand has been down just ~1-2% most of the year so far, while diesel and propane demand are down closer to 10%. So, while crude oil is near record storage levels at 375 million barrels, gasoline storage is just a bit higher than usual. Gasoline appears poised to rise another 10 cents (above $2.30 nationally) unless some bad economic news sends all fuel prices down again in the next couple weeks.

I posted
some more detailed thoughts on this last Thursday.

Onwards,

Dennis

But why is regular going up faster than the price of crude?

Simple - in order to make a profit from every barrel of crude.

Crude and gasoline are two different products linked only by the fact that one is made from the other - the cost of the crude is not the only cost when making the gasoline. Supply and demand of both crude and gasoline are balanced by price but there is no reason that both prices should move by the same %.

At the moment a portion of every barrel of crude can't be sold as refined product so has to go into storage for happier times - I wonder what happens when the market manipulation by OPEC and storage permitting this is full? - presumably demand will fall some more?

And the price of diesel has just dropped below that of gasoline again!

Note to self - get diesel pickup going again.

Shunyata,

If you think discreet data points describe climate, then you either don't understand climate or don't understand trends. If you mean to say discreet data that are accurate are necessary, then I'm sure we all agree. That is not what you mean, though, is it?

An analogy is pointillist painting. Stand too close, you're looking at weather. Stand far enough back, you're looking at climate. Stand midway, you're you: confused.

The key to all this is the (intentional?) confusion of trends vs. data. From Merriam-Webster:

3: the general movement over time of a statistically detectable change.

The key word is general (vs. absolute.) This allows that the absolute direction at any given point might be other than directly in line with the trend. Thus, when we talk about 2008 being one of the ten warmest on record, we can understand that 2008 temperatures pulled the overall trend upward, not downward, because it was warmer than thousands of others.

To illustrate: If you draw a trend line from 1998 through 2008, you will see a downward slope. If, however, you draw that same line from 1997 through 2008, you will see an upward trend. In fact, any point chosen from 1997 (through 2008) or before will show an upward trend. Only one year ten or more years before 2008 will fail to do this: 1998. And that is why I tend to dismiss those who can't understand trends, or pretend not to.

Now, trends do reverse, but we can't know they have for a very long time. The time periods are so long as to not be useful for discussion unless we have reason. That is, supporting evidence. The problem with denialists is that they deny the evidence as well as the analysis. (Which is, of course, how you can identify them.)

With Anthropogenically-driven Climate Change (ACC), the supporting evidence is overwhelming. From GHG emissions increasing to glaciers receding to waters and air warming to changes in habitat ranges to changes in breeding cycles to movements of the jet streams.... it's absolutely overwhelming. There is nothing of import that I know of that would support a reversal of trend.

There is, however, some usefulness in noting a short-term change in data points making up the trend, or the noise, and that is that climate and human time scales are different. A cooling on the order of The Little Ice Age undoubtedly would have impacts that would be quite difficult for some people. Having a clue such a thing was coming might, indeed, be useful. But that doesn't change the long-term trend. At the end of the day, the long-term trend must be dealt with, and it must be prepared for with greater weight than the short-term deviation because the stakes are so much higher.

I'd like to head back to 2008 temps because they are actually a perfect sample of the dangers we face from looking at short-term trends or data points.

First, you must know what Arctic Amplification is. Any reader who does not should take a detour and google that. Basically, it's the canary in the coal mine. The idea is that the Arctic is more susceptible to rises in temperature. Also, the role of the Arctic in moderating temperature is so important, that changes in it's ability to do so are very, very important.

To temps. 2008 was a "cool" year for one reason and one reason only: La Nina. If not for the upwelling of cold water in the Eastern Pacific, 2008 might well have set new records, or at least come close. The near-record melt in the Arctic last summer illustrates this, and is our key to understanding how **unimportant** the 2008 data point really is. The temperatures in the Arctic were above the reference temps by up to 2C.

It's not that there was no warming, it's that there was a localized transfer of colder water to the surface that masked the warming. And the warming was in the worst possible place, the Arctic.

So, Shunyata, when you talk about short-term trends, you are talking GIGO. It means nothing at all unless there are many tens, hundreds or thousands of other data points supporting it.

Let me put a fine point on this: The Younger Dryas was a 1,000 return to the fridge. Not the freezer, but definitely the fridge. But it was still embedded in a long-term warming trend.

Go figure.

Cheers

And for weather and climate you can always use one of my conjectures about complex systems.

Complex systems close to a dramatic state change tend to lie about their situation in the sense that a further small change in the variables will bring about a dramatic change in the system.
The straw that broke the camels back the grain of sand that caused the sand pile to collapse etc.

This is because tenuous energy like concepts enter into complex systems such as feedback loops stress and strain and in the case of climate a real increase in the amount of heat.

The distribution of both real energy and what we could call energy management pathways is itself complex.

Science tries to take this sort of system and using noisy data extract general trends assuming a slow variation while the underlying system is probably better modeled as a set of variable timed fairly fast transition events.

However even though you can and should question the timing and scale of changes from climate models I'd argue that if they consistently produced and upward trend then they are valid predictors of the overall direction of the system even though they are probably awful predictors of the particular time evolution of the actual system and probably even worse at predicting the magnitude of changes.

Expectation of minimal changes based on previous experience is not scientifically correct and is a useless argument. A safe assumption is that the complex system is becoming more strained and that it will transition to release this strain we can expect some of these transitions to have a big impact even though we can't reliably predict them.

Thats all you need to know to realize that climate change is and important problem and we probably should stop forcing the system via emission of C02. We don't need any more accuracy than this to make a policy decision certainly better numbers are good but they simply are not required.

As and aside Peak Oil is the same it does not matter when peak oil arrives the underlying model is sound so lets switch off oil.

Toil, I was not questioning tha ability of Lester to change, I really don't care, nor do I care how mallable John Gray is. My point was that human nature will not change.

Evolution is about adaptation. Objectively it can be described as change. Human beings are not some god-like unchanging and unchangeable entity.

Over evolutionary time Homo sapiens will undoubtly change. But that is a change in the species. Individuals do not change their nature during their lifetime, only the next generation and generations thereafter will show change because of natural selection. The survivors will adapt as one generation follows another but this generation's human nature will not change. I thout that point was very implicit in my original post.

We must change. It's a good thing we have deeply ingrained cooperative instincts, democratising mass communications technology, a religious-spiritual drive guided by the human capacity for self-reflective consciousness, and a plethora of small and large opportunities to pursue meaningful change.

Good Lord, where to start? What we must do and what we will do are two entirely different things. Homo sapiens, like all other species, will always look out for number one. We do not have deeply ingrained cooperative instincts. Where on earth did you get that idea? We have a genetic adaptation to cooperate within our tribe but not with other tribes. We have always competeted with other tribes and will continue to do so.

The rest of that sentence is nothing but feel good mumbo-jumbo. Religious-spiritual drive, self-reflective consciousness, and a plethora of whatever...give me a break!

Ron P.

Evolution is about adaptation.

Yes, but that's only part of the story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution

The basis of evolution is the genes that are passed on from generation to generation; these produce an organism's inherited traits. These traits vary within populations, with organisms showing heritable differences (variation) in their traits. Evolution itself is the product of two opposing forces: processes that constantly introduce variation, and processes that make variants become more common or rare. New variation arises in two main ways: either from mutations in genes, or from the transfer of genes between populations and between species. In species that reproduce sexually, new combinations of genes are also produced by genetic recombination, which can increase variation between organisms.

Two major mechanisms determine which variants will become more common or rare in a population. The first is natural selection, a process that causes helpful traits (those that increase the chance of survival and reproduction) to become more common in a population and causes harmful traits to become more rare. This occurs because individuals with advantageous traits are more likely to reproduce, meaning that more individuals in the next generation will inherit these traits.[2][3] Over many generations, adaptations occur through a combination of successive, small, random changes in traits, and natural selection of the variants best-suited for their environment.[4] The second major mechanism driving evolution is genetic drift, an independent process that produces random changes in the frequency of traits in a population. Genetic drift results from the role that chance plays in whether a given trait will be passed on as individuals survive and reproduce.

See Irish Elk or Giant Deer (Megaloceros giganteus)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Elk

Sometimes species can become extinct when changing environmental pressures make their adaptations maladaptive.

But Ron, you of all people know fully well that we WILL change. Either we will go extinct (a big change) or we will spawn a new, better adapted species. What it has to be adapted to is the big question, isn't it?

George, I was talking about this generation not changing. And it will not. What happens, due to natural selection, over the next few generations is another matter. But that will be long after the crash.

Human nature, in this generation, is already firmly set in our genes and it will not change. When Lester, or anyone else for that matter says; "Here is what we must do" I just shake my head. We will not do a damn thing to prevent the coming global economic collapse. We will not do a damn thing about peak oil. Events shape our lives not dire warnings concerning the future. When something happens we will take action but the horse will already be out of the barn.

Ron P.

The key issue, if you're assuming the change has to be genetically-evolutionary, is that evolutionary variations is either driven be selection pressure or random (because there's no significant selction pressure on that particular kind of variation). Will there ever be a context giving selection pressure that benefits long term sustainability planning? I can't conceive of such a circumstance (which may be a failure of imagination, of course).

I tend to pin my hopes on the way that almost all human beings have minds which are very influencable to follow group behaviour (if the influence is structured in a way to avoids triggereing their strong belief systems). If we can get to a position where the "rules of economics" favour long-term sustainability and violating them is viewed morally/ethically/whatever-term-you-prefer like robbing a bank (ie, most people don't just think that robbing a bank is illegal, but that it's "wrong" even though more abstact but similar actions are viewed as more of a question of what the precise rules are and whether those rules should be obeyed), then hopefully the tendency to conformity will stop most people moving away from that position. Of course the huge question is whether we can get there from where we are now, which I'm not too optimistic about.

A small example of change. Now I kind of covet a bigger woodshed, after digging firewood out of the snow and ice all this winter is seems like a good idea. Not very long ago I would have just called up our local lumber supply and ordered some pressure treated posts, some 2x6's and 2x10's and rented a post hole auger and been right to it. Just fine for right now, but I got to thinking about when I first moved to the land and had no money, nothing at all.

I'm opening up more land for future planting "down back" and have some really tall straight spruces in the way, way to much shade so they need to go. SO I shifted gears, went hunting for my old peeling spud and now have 2 of the six posts I need cut, peeled and drying. Took some hunting but found my recipe for homemade wood preservative (Boric Acid and Propylene Glycol). So the peeled posts will dry through the summer and get treated in the fall. By that time I'll have the post holes dug, a little at a time through the summer.

One of the neighbors, I drive by on the way to work, has put his little saw mill back into operation, pretty much just as a hobby thing and his big problem is raw material. So about 4 of the big pines I have are coming down as well to feed his mill and I'll get "real" 2x6's and boarding boards as my part of the deal.

Outcome is the same, a new and bigger wood shed but give some thought to the mental change to get there, just a small example of what we will all need to do.

Don in Maine

This is not to say we will change, but just that we are not being constrained by human nature. There is every reason to think we could engineer a better environment for ourselves. We may not but there is that tiny ray of hope.

Limits to Growth came out in 1972. A few people saw the light and started explaining to the world "what we must do". We did nothing. We (the world) have not done one dame thing to stop the catastrophe predicted in Limits to Growth. And we will not because too many people would have to make sacrifices, sacrifices they are not willing to make. Why?

There will always be people like Julian Simon and Bjorn Lomborg who tell us that we do not really need to do anything that things will get better and better. We hear different arguments and unless you are well versed in the discipline being discussed, you will believe the one who paints the brightest picture and gives us the most hope, it is just human nature!

In order to save the world we will do exactly what we have done for the last forty years, absolutely nothing. We will do nothing because the vast majority of people do not believe anything need be done. They believe Tupi proves there is no peak oil problem or that ethanol will power our cars and we can just keep on driving as usual.

People, in general, refuse to believe in the coming collapse because it is simply in their nature to do so. That is what I mean by us being constrained by human nature. You can deny it all you wish but denying it will not cause the world to spring into action and take action to prevent the collapse.

And Warren, if you really we are not being constrained by human nature, just try explaining peak oil, or the coming economic collapse to the next 20 people you meet. Then tell us what their reaction was and then I will explain, again, why they behaved in such a manner.

Ron P.

I wonder where the Great Depression is on that.

Gecko:

Is that a green shoot just ahead of that plunging blue line? Or is that only an optimistic speck on my monitor?

It's the banking crap that ticks me off. I suppose it's a sign of how bad things really are, that even the Democrats are siding with the banks over the people.

When I lived in the UK I lived near an old Roman town. Once the Romans had left (or were evicted) the local inhabitants (probably Saxons) dismantled the town stone by stone, filled in the fresh water wells and warned people away from the place with skulls stuck on wooden poles. As far as they were concerned Roman civilisation was nothing more than a curse.

To dismantle a Roman town must have been a great deal of work and took quite some time to achieve with the relatively small population of the time. Their commitment to eradicating the source of the curse and preventing its return was quite remarkable.

I doubt there will be any restraint once the future again echoes the past.

Dilbert:

Dilbert: If we lease a machine from you, how can we be sure you’ll stay in business to service it?
Vendor: How can we be sure you’ll have enough money to pay the lease?

Dilbert: You could check our financials.
Vendor: I’m pretty sure your financials are as fraudulent as ours.

Dilbert: Good point--Maybe we could ask trusted third parties to vouch for us. Do you trust any third parties?
Vendor: Not since my financial advisor put my retirements savings in a Ponzi scheme and had an affair with my wife.

AND THUS ENDED CAPITALISM
Dilbert: Well, we tried.
Vendor: Maybe I could grow food in my car.

I think the Volt is a PR stunt to keep investors from abandoning GM, but the idea that we somehow need so much power is stupid. A 40hp VW bug works just fine, and we could certainly make something that would outperform that very easily now. We could crank out inexpensive, small 4dr vehicles with 40hp that got great mileage very easily. My old 1300cc Fiat had 67hp, and that was way more than it needed to perform the required duties of transportation. My Hyundai has something like 88hp - it would work fine with half that. Of course, that assumes you are not towing around a complete 2nd electric drivetrain and energy storage system, and the required structure to support it.

How about you first document this underestimation of yours?

Did you not read what I said?

4C is within the error bar for the traditional sensitivity estimate. 5C and 6C aren't.

Irrelevant.

Assuming that sensitivity is 4C or lower is reckless but asserting it is higher requires conclusive evidence.

No, it doesn't. That's why it's an assertion and not a fact. Besides, you have eyes, don't you? The evidence is, frankly, overwhelming.

The models are riddled with assumptions unrelated to sensitivity anyway.

Irrelevant.

The data coverage and quality are poor as well.

Bull.

Occam's razor isn't used to divine the source of a divergence when evidence is lacking.

Evidence is not lacking: Virtually all the models are right (trend is up), but also wrong thus far (serious underestimation of observed phenomena). Already said that.

The "The models suck!" argument is a waste of our time.

Cheers

I was at a talk yesterday by the heads of the Energy and Resources Group at Berkeley (John Holdren was/is a member of that group).

They emphasized that our natural systems are "chock full" of positive feedback loops and that more recent sensitivity estimates run as high as 7 degrees C for a doubling of CO2. It could still be just 1.5 degrees C, but the range is very large when one accounts for all the feedback loops.

I think Rutledge took a great first step.

I disagree. He's not a climate scientist at all. They have talked on RealClimate about the dangers of even untrained climate scientists using GCMs. Had he left his paper with the coal section and then asked for others to follow up with GCM modeling, I'd agree.

Remember: his response wrt why he chose 3C was that it was what the IPCC used. Not a very robust reason given research since and the fact IPCC sensitivities are based on work that is thirty years old.

Another reason he gave was that inputting the data took time. Let me show my ignorance: if the data is already there and input for the 3C run, is it that much trouble to change just the sensitivity and run it again? (I've downloaded MAGICC. If I can figure it out, I'll let you know.)

Further, he's been presenting his paper at various places. I know of no caveats he's uttered thus far.

Much like the question of oil reserves, there's an easy answer: Rutledge can run his data at 4, 5 and 6 and let us know how it turns out.

In his shoes, I'd be eager to do so.

Cheers

I think Rutledge took a great first step. He brought up the issue of limited coal supplies and then worked it through to the end using 1 model. Pretty amazing for a side project.

Agreed. I think it's wise simply to say, "this is the result of the model used in the third IPCC." If in the future he works with a climate modeler he likely would have access to different models and the result would be different (probably worse).

Climate change isn't going away as a problem even with these downward resource revisions, in my view.

Intuition can be developed with complex science, such as getting experience with graphing strange attractors in phase space, examining the Mandelbrot and Julia sets, and modeling systems of differential equations at critical points of inflection and bifurcation.

In Venezuela sugar and coffee are listed as staple items and their price is controlled. When rumor spreads that the government will raise the price cap of coffee the regular grounds disappear off the shelf. Someone (not farmers and probably not grocery store owners) cuts off the supply until the price rises. Then they release the product and make a tidy profit as everyone rushes out to restock their cupboard.

I don't really mind with coffee. Sure I get really drowsy and dull for a few days, but its probably good for me to reduce y caffeine addiction. Sugar can be avoided. Milk and meat can be substituted.

But it really, really sucks when they do it with toilet paper. Its too bulky to store in decent quantities in a small apartment. The stores run out of napkins and paper towels too. You end up with the options of baby wipes (moist), newspaper (scratchy), rags (sometimes scratchy, run out fast) or cotton balls (way too tiny). I won't begin to describe the unhappiness my backside suffers.

If I ever find a decent alternative I will be pleased. (And will post the information)