NYT says peak oil "almost certainly correct"
Posted by Stuart Staniford on March 1, 2006 - 3:00am
Was browsing the NYT on a short break from work tonight when I was amazed to discover a long op-ed by Robert Semple Jr, associate editor of the Times Editorial Board, on peak oil. Unfortunately, it's behind the Times Select paywall, so the rest of you will have to make do with a few fair use quotations:
When President Bush declared in his 2006 State of the Union address that America must cure its "addiction to oil," he framed his case largely in terms of national security -- the need to liberate the country from of its dependence on volatile and in some cases hostile nations for much of its energy. He failed to mention two other good reasons to sober up. Both are at least as pressing as national security. One is global warming...
The second reason is just as unsettling, and is only starting to get the attention it deserves. The Age of Oil -- 100-plus years of astonishing economic growth made possible by cheap, abundant oil -- could be ending without our really being aware of it. Oil is a finite commodity. At some point even the vast reservoirs of Saudi Arabia will run dry. But before that happens there will come a day when oil production "peaks," when demand overtakes supply (and never looks back), resulting in large and possibly catastrophic price increases that could make today's $60-a-barrel oil look like chump change. Unless, of course, we begin to develop substitutes for oil. Or begin to live more abstemiously. Or both. The concept of peak oil has not been widely written about. But people are talking about it now. It deserves a careful look -- largely because it is almost certainly correct.
So there you have it. The NYT editorial board is on record that peak oil is "almost certainly correct". They are a little fuzzy on the timing still:
When will oil peak? At least one maverick geologist says it already has. Others say 10 years from now. A few actually say never. The latest official projections from the Energy Information Administration put the peak at 2037, or 2047 -- depending, of course, on how much of the stuff is out there and how fast we intend to use it up. But even that relatively late date does not give us much time to adjust to a world without cheap, abundant oil.But hey, let's give them another six months: they'll almost certainly catch up. Indeed one striking feature of the editorial was it quoted all the right experts and books - they've clearly been doing their homework.
So, our respectability just went up about six notches...
“To be thrown upon one's own resources, is to be cast into the very lap of fortune; for our faculties then undergo a development and display an energy of which they were previously unsusceptible.”
—Benjamin Franklin
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Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
I'm actually gearing down my tech equipment in light of Deffeye's "stone age by 2025" prediction. I've been practicing using chalk to draw hubbert curves on the sidewalk in front of my apartment in preparation for the time when I do my site updates on the wall of a cave.
Best,
Matt
Don't forget fire by friction, chipping flint into spearpoints, small animals snares, berry wine, and bark canoes.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
All the news that's fit to suppress and delay before printing-- Your NYT serving you and your community.
Wonder what Uncle Tom Friedman will say about all this?
Matt discusses an obscure reference from Jeff Gerth [of the NYT], to an old article by Seymour Hersh, published in the NYT on March 4,1979 that reviewed the 1974 closed Senate Hearings done in "Executive Session". The Senators grilled some of the World's top oil executives. All info essentially buried because the world was riveted on Nixon's Watergate. I am convinced the top NYT editors have kept this 'Greatest Story Never Told' buried till just recently.
Same with the Oil companies: Ever since Hubbert's Bombshell was confirmed in early '70s--Don't you think they thought about the World's Peak? They could have started WillYouJoinUs.com a long time ago! At the very least, they could have asked the Press to help get the word out.
Pres. Carter knew what was up, and he tried to get all Americans onboard. Reagan quickly put the kibosh to that idea.
I feel that if all the independents like Campbell, Laherre, Simmons, Deffeyes, et al, had not diligently dug for years, most of what we know now would still be buried. My two cents.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
<rant>
Re: "deserve all the acclaim they can get..."
Of course they do. Not the point. Matt Savinar has been outfront for a long time now. Defcon 1.
Maybe it's just ego, but when we do this stuff at TOD, I like to see it recognized for its quality in addition to what other good websites have provided in taking the lead in the past.... I know that TOD is relatively new in the world but still we've been around for a while now.
I think TOD offers up a valuable, honest and often technical kind of discussion that can not be found almost anywhere else on the web about peak oil. End of story. If some people (including the NY Times) can't figure that out, then they are just mediocre journalists. I believe--though I can't prove it--that our regular readers include Heinberg, Kunstler, Pickens, Raintree and many other "influential people" who lurk here but don't contribute. When I introduced myself to the local Boulder Relocalization Group, all I had to say was "Hi, I'm Dave from The Oil Drum". They knew who I was. They read (and still do) the website everyday. And many people who I met at ASPO-USA in Denver back in November read it too. Jesus, at this point Stuart is actually getting famous for the interesting, obscure but very illuminating posts he does. Hell, I even get the occasional e-mail.
Point is, I don't like it that TOD is neglected by some guy at the NY Times because he hasn't done his homework. Screw him.
</rant>
Relax. Whenever I go gasoline syphoning, I scrawl "The Oil Drum was here." onto the bumbers. So the time when the Times links to your site in a tiny sidebar will come sooner than later.
Thus far, my site has only gotten three visits from the Times link and two of those were from me testing the link.
Best,
Matt
No need to worry about TOD exposure. This site is so cross linked to the other sites that people will get here as a second or third link. The people that are inquisitive and scientific minded will stay and browse the details. The others will go back to the other sites for an easy summary of what they should do.
You can't force people to accept hard truths, only expose them to it.
You have done your part well. Give yourself a pat on the back and wait for the knowledge stored here to filter out.
Not this hombre. I'm here solely to increase my inclusive fitness.
BEst,
Matt
Is it because the site is so good that other people should read it thus making their lives better by better preparing for post peak?
Is it that you want more posters here to learn more stuff from?
Is it that TOD readers are somehow cooler?
Does it generate a 'tribal algorithm' feel-good camaraderie like a fraternity, or a club, or a sports team might?
Something else?
Any reason is valid, if we choose to feel that way, its because we like it, which is OK. Just interesting to think about the 'why' sometimes.
Hm, sounds like one of those DUETs (Deep Universal Eternal Truths) that Don Sailorman is always flogging ;)-
http://select.nytimes.com/membercenter/ts_extraform.html
Although, I guess you have to have Times Select to do it.
But if anybody here is looking to build a mass movement on a process that, even in the best case scenario, promises the deaths of billions due to war, starvation, and global wide cascading systems failures, you're brain has picked the wrong issue on which to pursue its Machiavellian desires.
This ain't the issue that is going to make you famous beyond a very tiny niche of people who attend relocalization meetings and perhaps the occassional billionaire Texas investor.
You're not going to get rich, famous, or be better liked as a result of being able to explain how cascading systems failures now all but guarantee catastrophe. One of the reasons I've largely stopped giving public talks about this (unless I'm getting paid) is that the message boils dow to this:
"Hey folks, the bad news is 3-to-6 billion of us are going to die. The good news is this is a great opportunity to start that vegetable garden you've always wanted!"
If you convey the facts honestly, that's what ends up being the message, even if you don't state it directly. So it's not the issue on which to pin your hopes at being popular.
I hope that isn't taken the wrong way.
Right now, I posit that less than 1 out of 100 people could explain to you what "peak oil" is. I doubt it will EVER get to beyond 2-to-3 out of 100. People are just going to blame their favorite scapegoat as the shit hits the fan. That's what millions of years of evolution has produced, sadly. In the past, we'd go kill somebody and take their stuff. That's pretty much how we're going to attempt to solve this too.
Best,
Matt
That's my point. If they mentioned TOD but not me I would have been upset too. But I have a lot of my social and financial capital invested in this. So my thinking would be:
"if they didn't mention me, I might be doing something wrong and if I am doing something wrong, book/dvd/newsletter purchases are going to drop and then my chances of purchasing the off-the-grid Ecobunker with the harem on some tropical island are shot to shit."
Most folks, including the posters here and elswhere are not thinking along these lines. They aren't selling anything and/or they are posting anonymously so they stand to gain no social capital from this in the real world.
So if you're doing just for the heck of it, then great. I post on some baseball boards even though I don't stand to gain socially or finanically from it. But if, in the back of my head, I was I'd need to reevaluate my strategies for inclusive fitness.
If you're doing in hopes of expanding your territory beyond a tiny niche of society, then maybe there are other issues which would provide a higher personal EROEI if that makes sense.
It's a Machiavellian way of looking at things, but the world's a Machiavellian place.
BEst,
Matt
If I want to read your stuff I can go to your web site. I prefer to read the insightful analyses of Dave, Stuart, HO, PG and the many commenters here. TOD is consistently one of the highest quality blog discussion boards I have found. I am worried that if you come here peddling your LATOC scenarios that TOD will fall into the same navel-gazing disasturbation that afflicts so many Peak Oil sites, especially yours. If you are looking for new victims to infect with your message of despair and hopelessness, I hope you will look elsewhere.
]. Population growth will be checked, one way or another, because we are running through our all our resources like a crack-addict on payday. Even strong conservation measures cannot win against our burgeoning mouths, faces, and grabbing hands.
Yet perhaps peak fossil fuels will be the impetus we need to get our sustainable house in order, but I stronly fear our momentum has already sent us past the point of no return(in terms of climate change, at the very least).
Well this chimp could back to his corner of the cage and start flinging monkey poo at you as you seem to be doing here. Fortunately, I have evolved past the territorial instincts you express here.
I want you to notice something: there are alpha males on TOD such as Stuart, PG, Dave, West Texas, and others. You, my friend, are at best a beta. Why is that?
Well, the alpha's like Stuart understand that a bit of sparring between among the alpha's is good for the overall management of the cage and the health of whole chimp clan. The sparring done here harpens the instincts for when we do battle with the cornucopian chimps who would like to invade our territory and take our females.
Your inability to understand this is why I suspect will remain a a beta for the rest of your days.
True alphas can spar to sharpen their skills without actually attacking each other. It's actually somewhat of cooperative and rather sophisticated exercise when you think about it.
Ask the alpha males here at the TOD (PG) and they will tell you I routinely toss leafy branches (links to TOD stoires) to them from my side of the cage. If the alpha's subscribed to your thinking, I'd stay on my side of the cage and they'd stay on their side. That, in the end, would lower our ability to defend against the cornacopian chimps who we now have on the run as evidenced by the recent NY Times article. Soon, we shall have their females too.
Of the 46 posts, I think probably 30 of those were in one thread where I and the alpha Stuart sparred over whether our predicament will descend into a giant contest of global poo-flinging or transition into more cooparative cage management. If anything, I suspect that attracted more chimps to this side of the cage as everybody likes to see a bit of sparring between alpha-males.
The other posts were me cracking jokes, so I don't see how that plays into your accusations.
Remember Halfin: the chimp who flings monkey poo at his fellow chimps ends up with poo all over him.
Anyways, have fun being a beta!
Best,
Matt
You've got my vote for quote of the year Matt. I suggest selling T-shirts and coffee mugs with the above words in neon font.
"In the past, we'd go kill somebody and take their stuff."
Yes, though we can be quite a cooperative species - the catch is that our Enviroment of Evolutionary Adaptedness was that of small groups, where, like the TV show Cheers, everyone knew your name. Once populations go beyond that, the trouble really begins.
We're FANTASTIC at cooperating within our own tribe in order to kill other tribes
That's Human History 101 for you. (Tragically)
I supposse this can be channelled into positive action. Mabye we could cooperate between TOD, LATOC, Po.com and do a board invasion of some cornocopian discussion board.
Best,
Matt
I started a peak oil site back in October 2003 (if you do a Spanish language search for "peak oil", Crisis Energética would come in first position). I am a technical journalist (IT) and I did that because I always have felt the need of communicating with others, specially when there's something important to say. In our forums, we have a thread called "New users, introduce yourselves here", almost everyone contributing to that thread there thanks the founders and users of the site saying things like "I was feeling alone, I thought I was nuts!, I needed to find people with the same concerns as yours". Of course it helps being the largest peak oil site in Spanish (English continues to be a barrier for a lot of Spanish Internet users).
Our visitors base is smaller than TOD or LATOC (btw, thanks again Mat, you're sending us lots of users), but our site has, as today, 1829 registered users (the majority of them doesn't contribute, but I suppose they find useful to receive the daily digest), and our forums have already passed the 20K messages mark.
I know we could do "better" than that, in the sense of getting more traffic and visitors (we hover between 2k and 4,5k unique daily users), but we have chosen not to go over the board with the issue (being a self taught journalist helps a bit also). Before starting the site, I went to see a geology professor from my local university, he's the only Spanish member of ASPO, and a frequent contributor to the main Spanish newspapers (when they let him). He gave me a very good advise, very similar to something I have read today here at TOD (thanks NC):
So that's the way we do it, perhaps is slower, but the people who finally come aboard and contribute are the best ones. And I think TOD is that kind of site also (well, I think TOD surpasses us in many aspects!).
Lucky I. Just another million bucks today.
Thank you for a good job.
Andrei.
So, Andrei, as a Russian oil industry 'insider', can you give us any more information about the state of Russian oil production now and in the near-term future?
It's be interesting to see how the NY Times article increases traffic on the PO sites. Will this be an inflection point?
Thank about it this way: I get the task of filtering out the crazies.
Best,
Matt
If it's not listed, it must have been intentionally left out. Maybe they didn't want links that were too scientific/technical.
- ASPO - peakoil.net
- LAOC
- peakoil.org
- hubbertpeak.com
- Wikipedia
- peakoil.com
...47. TOD NYC
ASPO come is first if I search: "peak oil"
Maybe I'm behind the times.
The oddities of google will never cease to amaze me.
Did their homework? Well, OK then! A little fuzzy on the timing? Yeah, I'd say so. How did they define the peak? I don't agree with Deffeyes that we hit 50% Qt on December 16th and that's that. There is more oil to get out of the ground from EOR (especially CO2 injection) but that's hardly the point is it? Given even an overall 4% depletion rate on existing production/mature fields, which I think is conservative at this point, the peak is this
It is that day/month that daily production in terms of millions of barrels per day reaches its maximum ± 1 or 2% and never rises above that level again.
This is the undulating plateau and who cares about the rest? And a good case can be made that we are there. Suppose we continue at current levels for the next 2 or 3 years and never exceed them within the percentages I cite above? What happens then? Others will tell us, mirabile dictu, that available supply will exceed demand and there will spare capacity, a glut. Is that going to happen? Of course not. This is peak oil. I'll make my prediction. Never above 87/mbpd (all liquids). And with all the current and pending oil shocks, I'd be surprised if the world ever makes that. Where the oil is and where the people are consuming it at high rates are entirely two different things aren't they? And, to be simple about this, the producers and the consumers don't overall like each other very much, do they? Aside from the decline rates from old fields, lack of new discoveries, the miracles of recovery technologies, etc.
Enough said.
So while I agree with you that the Times is not sending a strong "true" signal, I think this might be part of an acceleration.
I've actually slowed my expectations recently. I was thinking it might be ten years before Americans really start to deal with this (waiting basically until gasoline prices jump outside their current growth curve).
So how will it go, fast or slow?
I don't know ... I've only had half a cup of coffee.
I don't know if the editorial writers at the Times read the magazine, probably not ...
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/12/18/153011/19
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/8/20/194828/608
http://www.theoildrum.com/classic/2005/08/peak-oil-breaking-news-in-nyt-this.html
but, there's something more poignant about an associate editor taking this on from the ol' grey lady...
But I really have to wonder about the Times. Are these senior editors really now just catching on to the possibility of peak oil?
I'm an editor of a small magazine in rural Colorado. I've been writing about this scenario for what ... more than two years now?
As to your question, I don't know. It's a good point.
The Semple op-ed piece does indeed reference the Peter Maas article in the New York Times.
http://www.petermaass.com/core.cfm?p=1&mag=124&magtype=1
"I guess between this and the mention in Fortune, my street cred as some sort of anti-system rebel is shot to shit. Oh well."
Best,
Matt
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
I have the facemask, leather pants, and gas-syphoning equipment ready to go.
My hope is the shit hits the fan before I turn 30 in 2.5 years. That way I'll still be young, strong, and swift enough to be able to rip solar panels off roofs and haul ass back to my post-oil lair before the homeowning hippie geezers who make up the bulk of our movement know what hit them.
I told Jay that if I ever find myself in Kona, "its on bitch."
To inclusive fitness!,
Matt
Warning, my panels are electrified.
They go into a special high voltage mode when they detect criminal criminal lawyers lurking about. Sawed-off spring-door shotguns are hidden behind every panel. Also, vicious dog on premises. A word to the wise wards off lawsuits and pin striped suits. :-)
Best,
Matt
In individual battle, age and treachery MAY beat youth and skill, but speaking genetically, the future belongs to the young--Always has, always will! In the long run, Nature is on your side. Old farts like me are just marking time. Peak-Body&Mind eventually catches everyone.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
When I got in Fortune, I called my friend and said, "I'm in Fortune Magazine, bitch!"
Tried that with NY Times, but it doesn't have the same ring.
Best,
Matt
Best,
Matt
Anyone get the early morning edition of the NYT? I am wondering if this will be an op-ed in print as well...
The WSJ editorial pages probably won't come around for a while, but they'll talk about it a lot more as a result of this.
The NYT editorial is certainly a major milestone. Any guesses when these milestones are reached?
I checked on that. It looks like they'd be lucky to get 10 billion barrels out of that field.
I don't think that's going to cut it ...
Interesting....and yet (??)
If you take out the hurricanes, the price really has not moved upward all that much. I know I know, back in the days of the Wild Billery Hill show, you could bottom fish oil and gas (and gasoline) at half the price, but, if you take into consideration the collapse of oil/gas prices (and thusly investment) in the late 1980's, early 1990's, and factor the long view by inflation, it's just not shown any sign that the big market players get it.
In the U.S. South (KY, TN, AL) we are paying generally a $2.15 to $2.25 price on gasoline. Remember, this is pickup truck, motor home power boat country....that price is causing NO ONE to even consider conserving...h#ll, beer has went up that much in the last 15 years!
If the emergency is just around the corner, we have to admit this: The price signal is broken. Why?
Part of the issue seems to be perception: Everybody has been led to believe that one morning after gassing up the ole' SUV, you would get out of bed and BANG!!, THERE IT WOULD BE PEAK!! Every newpaper would be shouting it in the headlines, CNN would be reporting it like a terror attack ("Well, Bill, it seems as though peak struck about 9:20AM this morning...and Washington is calling an emergency meeting with the EU to plan a coordinated reaction..."
Energy is MUCH more complex than that. Let's take the 1970 lower U.S. peak as an example. There were no headlines, no one (not even the inside players) knew it had happened). It is an astounding fact of history that it was not even admitted official until 1979, and the Secretary of Energy STILL qualified his remarks, "It looks like the United States MAY HAVE peaked in about in 1970." (!!) Nine years later and IT COULD STILL BE DEBATED (among some flat earthers, it is still debated!!
What we saw in the 1970's in the U.S. we are now seeing on a global scale...multi peaks depending on what is being measured, almost silent efficiency gains in some places, and "fuel switching" both current and planned on a massive scale.
Fuel switching to what? In the 1970's, we had natural gas. We still do, but not near enough. The LNG proposal is one attempt at trying to partially switch out, as is the GTL (gas to liquids), CTL (coal to liquids), bio-fuel, and back and forth between coal and gas.
But that's only for the big players, you say. No, not really. In my home area of Kentucky, in a decently insulated house, I know of several friends who have backed off the natural gas heat, and went to Walmart and bought a few "space heaters". "These things are miracles!" The proclaim as they talk about the money they save on gas....not realizing that they are essentially "fuel switching" to buy time.
It can get very complicated. At one plant in Illinois, they are refitting an old fertilizer plant to liquify coal, to make synthetic gas, that will then be used to make synthetic nitrogen fertilizer...to grow corn to make ethanol (!!!)
So we are seeing the multi peaks of a giant mountainscape: Peak light sweet crude (almost a certainty now), peak heavy crude oil (possbly close at hand), peak non-OPEC (a big maybe, depending on Russia, West Africa, deepwater drilling and arctic drilling), peak OPEC (?), (Simmons says very soon, but hard to prove and define), peak all liquids, peak natural gas in North America (but not yet the world), and now with coal to liquids, gas to liquids, gas to fertilizer and even coal to fertilizer (and then to corn?) and fuel switching, how would you define it, "peak easy switchables"?
Peak? When, where, and of what? We have not even began to get deeply into the "unconventionals, tar sand, a switch by use of natural gas, oil shales, possibly a switch by way of nuclear power plants, more variety of bio fuels (pond scum, landfill gas, microbial methane production, and sewer gas (to fertilizer, to compressed natural gas, to fertilizer to corn to ethanol?) This is the complex game of today that will only get more complex tomorrow, and makes trying to guess the peak a fool's game.
Trust the human race to go through the whole periodic table of elements in their quest to maintain this lifestyle...don't be investing in horse drawn buggies and ox carts just yet.
you touched a few issues, generalized
and i guess all in all accomplished what
TOD is best used for....
emotional tissue paper...dry you eyes.
having read TOD for a while and as with most
other issues of reality,
It all becomes very redundant....
web sites are always dominated by a few individuals
that eventually drive out all intelligence capable
of expotential growth..... translation - garner what you can
but, cut the crap.... no one knows jack. But, some body
is surely paying, somewhere for this wonderful life.
makes me think that a persons body/being
is all you get
and it (also) peaks with time...
how long has mankind known that?
And still .... can't stop it...
the big circle of life?
again... pretty redundant stuff....
can't change the world
if you can't change yourself
save the planet... unplug the computer
and plant a tree... sheesh... but then again
NY don't you have a senator named Clinton?
When do , have we hit...
Hubbberts curve for peak BUSH ...Clinton ???
politics....redundant....
Love.... Peak LOVE.... Huuummnn
sheesh....
Think I'll just go fishing... wait..
the fish are dead.
O.k just sit in the boat... wait...
the water's gone
just roll my eyes back in my head.
ah... thats better.
redundant!!!!
pray??? works for me.
In 1979 it was still possible for a rational person to think that the North Slope production might offset the post-1970 decline in the lower 48, with some to spare. If it had, there would have been a (small) new US peak.
Yes - they have us increasing production for the next 10 years, followed by a decline.
I think you are more correct in the exact details of the alchemy on what they are doing, I was speaking from my memory of looking at the design and did not bother to go back and look at all the steps, because I was only trying to make my central point, that coal, gas oil, fertilizer. liqiuids, solids and vapors are now being viewed as interchangable, one being changed into another, all you need is money!
It will still have exactly the effect I predicted: Real world "peak" anything will get harder to prove has ever happened, and when, and of what.
We still may have to look for a new name other than "Peak OIl", which now effectively tells us nothing.
You know, that's EXACTLY the kind of event that would get some media coverage.
It seems to me that a press release and press kit that contains the relevent (and jucy) quotes, and maybe even ready-to-publish text, pictures, audio and video might get picked up for coverage on the 8th.
A Special Editorial Feature by GEORGE PAZIK Editor & Publisher, Fishing Facts, November 1976
Excerpt:
The preprinted version of Hubbert's paper distributed at the March 7, 1956 American Petroleum Institute meeting in San Antonio, Texas had the following statements:
"According to the best currently available information, the production of petroleum and natural gas on a world scale will probably pass its climax within the order of a half a century (i.e., 2006), while for both the United States and for Texas, the peaks of production may be expected to occur within the next 10 or 15 years. (i.e., 1966 to 1971)
"Assuming this prognosis is not seriously in error, it raises grave policy questions with regard to the future of the petroleum industry. It need not be emphasized that there is a vast difference between the running of an industry whose annual production can be counted on to increase on the average 5 to 10 percent per year and one whose output can be depended upon to decline at that rate. Yet, in terms of the production of natural gas and crude oil, this appears to be what the petroleum industry in the United States is facing."
(When the paper was published, after Shell Oil Company censors had finished with it, the statement above was deleted and replaced with the following: "the culmination for petroleum and natural gas in both the United States and Texas should occur within the next few decades.")
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Dammit. I get the electronic download edition (essentially a pdf of the dead tree edition), and this editorial doesn't appear there - it is online only. There is a little blurb telling people to go online, but I wonder how many people have bothered to register for times-select.
Still, I'd much rather see this addition to the conversation by Semple than not have it.
http://www.russiaprofile.org/politics/2006/2/6/3211.wbp
Interview with Russian Minister of Industry and Energy Viktor Khristenko
("The Need for Energy Dialogue")
Thomas Rymer, Russia Profile
Russian Minister of Industry and Energy Viktor Khristenko:
"One important point is that the longer we delay making this decision (encouraging frontier oil exploration via tax breaks), the harder it will be to feel the effectiveness of the measure taken: the structure of the country's reserves will continue to get worse and Russia could end up facing a real collapse in oil production."
Russia is walking a fine line: needs non-Russian investors for fossil fuel development funds, but investors need Russia to prove it can be classified as a 'reliable supplier'; not a wildcatter drilling for geo-political advantage. The old what came first dilemma of the egg & chicken.
I think they are still trying to recover credibility from the recent Ukraine shutdown, and only KGB and certain other intel orgs would know who really blew up the Georgian natgas pipes about a month ago. I imagine there were some bloody corpses in the winter snow over that event, but we will not be informed. The energy game is not for the meek.
The upcoming G8 conference will be quite a show, especially if new geo-political events related to energy happen between now and July.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
For example, in contrast to all the kudos PO sites heap on Cuba for surviving their crisis, look at this article (which the 7-11 clerk was reading this morning) in the conservative Washington Times:
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20060228-100357-6473r.htm
The best advice I can give most people is to spend $10 at www.urbansurvival.com to buy a little booklet called "How to live on $10,000 (or less) per year." It's on the left hand side of the website. His #1 recommendation is to arrange your life so that you don't need a car. (I have no affiliation with the website.)
In addition, I would strongly advise parents against going into debt to pay for a college education in a '"soft" major. Today, the majority of Americans live off the discretionary income of other Americans. In a post-Peak Oil world, we are going to see a massive transformation from an economy focused on meeting "wants" to an economy focused on meeting "needs."
Consider some recent statistics (I think for 2004): number of law school graduates in the US, 43,000; number of petroleum engineering graduates in the US, 230.
In discussing this topic with a lot of upper income parents, they prevailing response is "Well there will still be a need for policy makers." Translation: it's okay for someone else's kid to work in agriculture, in the coal mines, in the oil fields, in auto repair, etc, but their "little darlings" will be magically exempt. I don't think so. Government, notwithstanding its ability to tax us to death, is going to be forced to downsize as a matter of necessity.
You do not want to subsidize a college education that will result in your kid being a net consumer of basic goods and services (especially food & energy).
You do want to consider subsidizing a college education that will result in your kid being a net PRODUCER--what a radical concept--of basic goods and services (especially food & energy).
The folks I can't stand to talk to are the 18 year olds college kids. Reason being, most are being herded into a VERY tragic path by their parents who are operating from a playbook that worked 25-50 years ago. The
What they don't know is that by 25 years old, they're going to have $50,000 in debt and no realistic way to pay it off. Most of there parents have NO idea how much things have changed for 25 year olds in the last 25 years.
I tell all 18 year olds to check out the discussion board over at http://www.quarterlifecrisis.com to see what they're in for in 4-10 years if they listen to their well-intentioned but tragically uninformed parens. On that board, don't know about peak oil over there, but they are dealing with the consequences, even if they don't know it.
Best,
Matt
I'm in the "parents" part of the herd and thus know other parents who are not only PO-deniers (I'm kook in the crowd) but also refuse to listen to their 18-30 year olds.
The big factor the Boomer parents of today don't get is that world population went from 3 Billion in 1960's (our time) to 6.5 Billion today (more than double!!!). The best and brightest from all over the world fight to get into the USA.
Competition for everything has gone up as a square of the population bomb function.
Want to get into a good college in USA?
--- You better have a GPA of 4.2 or higher
---- AND lots of extra-curricular pluses
Want to get a good job?
--- You better be in the top 10% of that school that is filled with all high schoolers who had 4.2 GPA or higher.
Want to become an engineer and work in America?
--You must be insane. Change your major to psychology, seek self help.
Want to become a lawyer?
--You better have some niche market in mind, like petro maritime law because general practitioners are a dime a dozen, and even that price quote is high.
Want to become a doctor?
--Just sign your soul away to the HMO's. They will tell you how to breathe and when. Sleep is a non-negotiable deal killer. You sleep, you weep.
Gun dealers and gasoline bootleggers should do well in the emerging global markets.
Sad.
Credentials may not be as big a deal in the post-carbon age as they are now. You may be able to do what you want without the degree...and the debt.
I remember many a great teacher that fotune brought my way.
I never dwell over the meaningless parchment.
(Some great teachers do not teach for a living, do not work in a university. It may be someone who mentors you at work, takes you under their wing and shows you how to fly. Do not judge the teacher by his or her lack of professorial outer garments. But do appreciate what they gave you and pass it forward.)
...Just a reality check here...but weren't there Universities and Colleges before the first oil wells were ever drilled in the 1800's?
Sheeesh...we have got to get a grip....
The question is whether a college degree will be worth going into massive debt, not whether colleges will continue to exist post-peak.
The problem is that millions of these kids are going to be heading off to colleges confident that the Great American Way of Life--with a 4,000 square foot home, three Hummers and three above average kids--is an entitlement.
Even with Peak Oil, the Baby Boom Echo kids would be facing severe economic problems because of the debt load that we are leaving them. With Peak Oil, it's hard to overemphasize how tough it is going to be for them. Perhaps the best advice is to suggest that they learn organic farming.
If I'd listened more to my parents when I was growing up, I'd know a lot more about cooking, sewing, farming, carpentry, etc., than I do.
In a more general sense, for those of us who feel that Peak Oil means Peak Food, the shift towards humanities type majors seems unwise. How many of those trained in Film Criticism can grow a carrot?
Best,
Matt
http://www.census.gov/statab/www/minihs.html
Looking at census figures, even by 1900, only 6.4% graduated High School, and 36% of HS graduates achieved a college degree. That's only about 2%.
Though the percentage of HS graduates grew to 47.4% in 1945, the percentage that went on to college steadily dropped to 11%. Only 5% got degrees.
The GI Bill led to a 1949 surge of 59% graduating HS and 40% of those getting degrees, up to 23% of the population.
In 2000, 71% graduated HS, and 48% of those earned a bachelors. That's about a third.
So, if I'm reading the stats correctly, in the 1800s, less than one in fifty might complete college. Currently one in three does so.
Post-peak, how many will be able to afford college?
It is said that necessity is the mother of invention. This crisis will spur a great deal of innovation. There seems to be a lot of people cheering for a big die off. Not me. I am going to be writing a lot of code.
Then there's Tainter's "declining marginal returns." The End of Science is real. There's still much to be discovered, but it takes more and more resources to gain less and less benefit.
In the early days of science, it was possible for individuals without much education or equipment to make great discoveries. It's nearly impossible now. Even people who are highly educated, well-connected, and well-funded contribute only "islands of trivia in a sea of minutiae."
As Tainter puts it:
Complexity has an energy cost - one that is already getting harder and harder to pay. In the post-carbon age, it may be impossible.
So I think you'll need a different explanation for why 18th century England began the industrial revolution, where the Romans did not. It appears that the Romans failed to exhaust their timber resources sufficiently to require them to up their coal use enough to need to mine deep enough that they would be forced to invent the steam engine to pump out the mines. Or something like that...That is the reason Europe did not collapse long ago, and that is the reason the next collapse will be a global one. A "powerdown" is impossible in the current political climate.
I agree, Leanan. The other thing is that most of what we call "technology" now either consists of ways of using cheap fossil fuels, or depends on such ways. Take away the fossil fuels, or make them very expensive, and our current process of technological invention doesn't even have a clue about what to do next, in virtually any area. It's not just a matter of lots of people having time to sit around and think stuff up. It's rather that fossil fuels turned a lot of things into new low-hanging fruit over the last two hundred years.
The world actually had less fossil fuel at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution than it did during the Roman empire. (How could it be otherwise? They aren't being made any more, oil leaks naturally, and e.g. the Chinese were using coal.) The difference between the first century CE and the eighteenth was not the amount of fossil fuel on earth, it's what we had learned to do.
We've learned to get wind and nuclear power for a few cents per kWh. We've learned how to hybridize Asian grasses to yield up to 60 tons/hectare of biomass. We'll get through this.
I do not grok the idea that a culture destroying die-off is inevitable, it seems like some kind of death wish. I have never understood such, its as hard to understand as suicidal people.
What do you mean by "we" keemosabi?
(That's a punch line to a racist lone ranger joke, never mind.)
The question is who is this "we" who has all this incredible knowledge --and more imporatntly, "ability"?
The general populace knows not of PO.
The general populace knows not of thermodynamics.
Even most of the leaders of our massive herds know not of any of these things.
What they do "know" is that the Invisible Hand always provides.
What they do "know" is to stay at the front end of the stampeding herd and to scream, "stay the course". That makes them "leaders".
"Die-off" is about the day that the Invisible Hand changes its mind and decides to no longer provide us with all that we were born to deserve. "Die-off" is about the day that our linearly growing technical "ability" fails to keep up with our exponentially growing population and there is no longer enough food to go around, enough energy, enough medicine to go around.
Let me put it in simpler terms for you:
Got bird flu vaccine?
Lots of people know lots of things. I meet them everywhere. Very few of them decide on policies but most of them could do more then they do if there is a need. This makes me optimistical. I am not alone in knowing things, there is no critical secret. And there seem to be less consensus then a decade or two or three ago. But I am still to young to have first hand knowledge.
Technical ability is not growing in a linear way. The biggest problem is to get everyone to use the most suited and best available technology or at least a fairly good one. This will fail in different regions due to conflicts, cultural reasons and indeed leadership stupidity. If this leads to millions or whole countries dying it is a tragedy but not the end of civilization and our knowledge.
My impression of the die-off argument is that it is supposed to be a modern version of a harmageddon that brings down civilization. Manny who talk about it seem to refer to it as something we deserve for our sins.
I do not remember the joke you refer to.
Thanks for reading the old post.
I was focusing more on the claim to incredible human "ability"
Too many of us (IMHO) think we humans can do all these incredible things once we merely think of it.
It's sort of a "Captain Pickard syndrome" from Star Trek (Gen II).
You know: where the captain of the space vessel mutters, "Make it so" and whalla, the holographically gifted crew of the Enterprise takes care of all the details; especially that obedient Scottish engineer, Scotty who is always fibbing about the finite limits of his latest technology because, after all we know how those nerd engineers are, always being too conservative:
Too often we live in the holodeck fantasy of a Star Trek world.
But you do have a point. In the smallest possible personal micro scale I do myself figure I can easily do a lot of things but I do not truly know untill I have done them. Sometimes something that I thought was easy was indeed hard, like some math or using a labyrinthine CAD program. Try and try again, for me it often helps to read the same subject with both english and swedish books and then try again. If things go well for me I have building a small house as the next major personal project. It is probably a fairly common mistake to think you can do more then you actually are able to do.
I think it helps if you try to solve problems in different ways starting from different point of view and this can surely also work in a macro scale. Its probably very good to have variations in culture and ways to work. The only people who are truly doomed are those who do not learn from trying and others works, a lifetime is far too short to do all mistakes and successes on your own, as an individual or a subculture.
Let me explain the joke, because it has links to some DUETs (Deep Universal Eternal Truths).
"Keemosabi" is a corruption of the Spanish words, "Que me sabe?" which translates to "What do I know?"
But these words are being used ironically. How do I know this? Because the origin comes from an old radio (and comic book and later TV) series called "The Lone Ranger." The Lone Ranger is a cowboy who wears a mask and rides a white horse, named Silver. He is a Hero who fights and always defeats The Forces of Evil, and furthermore he is a humanitarian who loads his sixguns with silver bullets, because he so seldom has to shoot that he can afford the precious metal. However, as with so many great heroes, he is not especially smart. The smart one is his Indian (that is, Native American) sidekick, Tonto, who does not speak much English and is much happier with his lines of Spanish wit. (Think Don Quixote and Sancho Panza; I suspect they were the original models; Sancho is smarter and saner than Don Quixote, who has had his brain seriously damaged from reading too many romantic novels.) Anyway, when the Lone Ranger is in an impossible situation and about to be defeated by the Overwhelming Forces of Evil, Tonto saves the day. It is his job. Because he belongs to a despised ethnic group, he survives in part be pretending to be humble, but everybody knows he is the smart one who has to save his friend The Hero, who has a pure heart but is not too strong in the intellect department.
BTW, I believe that courage (together with justice and what the Greeks called by a word translated as "temperance"), or "virtue" in the Aristotelian sense, is far more important than intellectual power in solving problems.
beaten up a lot:
"Tonto, you go to town."
"You go to hell, kimosabe!"
In regard to suicide, it typically results from severe depression that, in turn, is linked to a serious imbalance in brain chemistry.
One of the things I find most disheartening about modern society is the huge and rapid increase in clinical depression (and suicide) that is found.
In Jamaica, almost nobody commits suicide because depression is almost unknown. In Iceland there is a low suicide rate, while genetically similar people in your own country and neighboring ones have high rates of suicide and depression. The reasons for these cultural differences are complex. For example, the fact that Icelanders eat large quantitities of fish (far more than Swedes) may be part of the explanation for healthier brain chemistry. But Icelanders also read a great deal, don't watch much TV, and from the small sample that I know seem to be remarkably happy and confident people.
Three of my friends have killed themselves, and so this topic is not only of academic interest to me. There was nothing I could do to help them, nothing that psychotherapy or antidepressant drugs could do either. One was a very close friend.
Nothing personal, but that's a pile of horse shit.
I work in the invention business (from a number of different angles). Inventions don't mushroom out of some abstract "necessity". Very often, inventors struggle for many years.
It only appears to the lay public as if inventions show up just in time, when needed-- this being because no one would give inventor the time of day until a viable commercial use for the invention was understood to exist and some businessman fronted the money. Do you know the story of the Xerox machine? They laughed at Carlson when he proposed to replace 10 cents-a-sheet carbon paper with a machine that costs $10,000.
We have a great "necessity" right now for an affordable replacement for oil. So where are all the inventions that of "necessity" will automatically arise from the fog to save our day?
However, it's very hard to say in advance how easy or hard a given problem will be. They're all easy after they're solved, but many a start-up has gone under because the problem was harder than it looked.
In Information Technology there is incredible momentum. Kurzweil documents decades of exponential growth in "The Singularity Is Near". IT is less energy dependant than your (above posters) comments suggest. Do not discount the incredible advances of technology and widespread education.
This crisis will concentrate people's efforts. The idea of having one computer left in some monastery that is the last remnant of the ancient knowledge is quaint but is not going to happen. I am betting on the creativity of a highly motivated global community to find solutions which will reduce the impact and preserve some new modernity. There is little leverage in working alone, growing your own food.
I don't. I just don't think either of those are sustainable without cheap, abundant energy.
Yes, but in energy technology we are still using the same sources we used a century ago. All the advnaces in solar nanotech and other fancy new stuff still contribute less than a tiny fraction of our overall supply.
"This crisis will concentrate people's efforts . . . "
In figuring out how to better kill each other, I would argue. AGain, compare the defense budget to the renewable energy tech budget.
"I am betting on the creativity of a highly motivated global community to find solutions . . . "
I'd call a genetically modified bomb a pretty "creative" solution to the oil supply problem:
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0910-15.htm
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0120,baard,24752,1.html
http://www.navdanya.org/articles/terminator_tech.htm
http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/4065.asp
When you consider the extremely tribalistic nature of our history, that seems to be the type of creative solution we are likey to gravitate towards to.
Best,
Matt
What global community?
PO is now.
You are highly motivated.
Please start innovating.
Of course, I'm teasing you here.
Innovation doesn't come that easy. Often it is an accidental confluence of what appear to be unrelated ideas and someone smart enough to recognize how to merge the ideas together to come up with something improved (so-called "combination" inventions).
In your case, if I may make a suggestion, I suggest you study up on the genetic aspects:
http://www.visioncircle.org/archive/004840.html
It's the one thing almost everybody (except Jay) refuses to look at. I suspect the reason is that once you understand it, you cannot remain optimistic about society's chances of getting through this peacefully and rationally.
Being pessimistic generall makes you less popular than an otherwise equally positioned person who exudes optimism. Thus the pessimist is less inclusivley fit than the optimist. Thus, folk's brains have an incentive not to come to an understanding of the genetic problem.
I share this with you because I find intelligent people's reactions to the genetic aspect of this extremely fascinating.
Best,
Matt
Best,
Matt
Assume that two fundamental "genetic sets" (strains of people) exist in a tribe of primitive people. Each group is represented by ten pairs. Further assume that this tribe loses 30% of its population every twenty years due to war, disease, and famine.
Members of gene set #1 are intelligent, honest, and forward looking. The mating pairs in this set only have two children and limit personal consumption because they know the tribe is over carrying capacity (many die of starvation every twenty years). After 20 years, this set has 20 adults + 20 children = 40 members.
Members of gene set #2 are stupid, corrupt, chronic liars, and only care about the present. The mating pairs in this set consume ten times as many resources as the first group and have an average of ten children before the females die. After 20 years, this set has 10 adults (females dead) + 100 children = 110 members.
A famine kills 30% of the tribe. Now, set # 1 has only 28 members, while set # 2 has 77 members. The tribe now has total of 105 members. The fraction of gene set #1 will continue to shrink till it dies out.
What kind of people will be selected? Obviously, it's people who are stupid, corrupt, chronic liars and only care about the present. The ancestors of everyone alive today was selected by a process something like the one described above.
In particular your example here has a huge problem: since humanity has almost everywhere for almost all of our evolution been resource limited and subject to occasional episodes of drought, starvation, etc, why didn't the chronic liars outbreed the honest folks long ago?
There are likely to be profound effects that arise because of differential investment in children. If one family has two children and another has ten, well the first family can invest a lot more time and effort in their two children, than the second family in each of the ten. So now the two children are securely attached to the parents let's say (are you familiar with the attachment theory due to Bowlby, Ainsworth, etc, at all?), while the ten children have insecure attachments. Attachment status is strongly correlated with cognitive development. So the two children are smarter coming into school (there is an inverse statistical association between IQ and family size). Not only that, the parents can help them with homework, guide them away from drugs, etc, etc far more than the ten children. So the two children have a higher chance of becoming high status professional members of society. The ten children have a higher risk of behavior problems, criminality, etc, and ending up as low status members of society. Now, when the 30% cull arrives, do you think that high status and low status members of society have equal chances? Clearly not, right? We all know that when trouble hits society, the poor and the weak are at enhanced risk.
So it's much more complex than you suggest. It's not actually obvious which strategy will work better.
(I personally suspect that this kind of reasoning is why all human societies appear to go through a demographic transition as they develop. Since that seems to be universal, I speculate there is a biological basis for it, even though it seems counter-intuitive - a naive Darwinian analysis would suggest that individuals in resource-rich developed societies should take advantage of their opportunities and have lots of children. But without exception industrial societies have fewer childen than developing societies. I speculate that the reason is that most of us are wired not to have more children than we can keep at a comparable or better social status to our own. It takes far more investment to get a child to the point of success in a developed society than an agricultural one. (This also may be related to why hunter-gatherer tribes typically self-regulate their population which I believe is considered an open problem in population biology - Jason Bradford could educate us if he's around).
Generally I suspect that societies consist of a range of different strategies that form some kind of more-or-less stable solution to the propagation equations. I'm not a biologist but I understand it's even possible for multiple strategies to be carried by one individual and then have the early environment select amongst them via gene regulation (and indeed this may be what's going on with the different styles of emotional attachment).
I think they did. Note the multiple religions where the proponents insist God told them to slaughter those of other religions. Now, those saying that usually sincerely believed that God told them to do it. Their sincerity is what allowwed them to be convincing liars. That's been going on for at least 10,000 years, probably way, way longer.
"If one family has two children and another has ten, well the first family can invest a lot more time and effort in their two children, than the second family in each of the ten. . . . So the two children have a higher chance of becoming high status professional members of society."
Which family has more children to fight wars, eg go kill the other family? In human prehistory, that would have been more of a determining factor for than sending the two kids to the caveman equivalent of an IT, business, or liberal arts degree. Consider the following:
If each of the 10 kids also have 10 kids, that's 100 grandkids for family A.
If each of the 2 kids only has 2 kids, that's 4 grandkids for family B.
So when the time comes for the grandkids' generations to fight over diminshing resources, which family is going to kill off which family?
Stuart, again lets talk realistically here. It's 100 to 4. Somebody is going to get their asses kicked and my money is on Family A wiping out Family B unles Family B manages to develop advanced killing technologies.
If Family A (the one with the 100 grandkids) wins, then nature has selected for the family more likley to overpopulate the environment.
If Family B (the one with 4 grandkids) wins, then nature has selected for the family more likley to developed advanced killing technologies.
Is it any wonder that the clash of civilizations boils down to a "war that will not end in our lifetimes" between 1 billion low-tech Muslims and 350 million high-tech Westerners (mostly Judeo-Christian)? Obviously, that's a gross oversimplification of the state of world affairs, but it's essentially accurate from the 30,000 foot view.
"Evolution selects for the bad guys." Which is another way of repeating what most of us society already knows which is , "the nice guys finish last."
If nature selected for the nice, sustainable guys, Bin Laden and George Bush wouldn't be in charge of the world these days.
Best,
Matt
P.S.
BTW, I don't think it's a coincidence that our society is moving towards rolling back reproductive rights just as we're going to need more soliders to fight oil wars. I don't think that's being planned centrally anywhere, it's just the way human societies naturally organize themselves when they collectively sense a need to fight over resources.
I couldn't agree less. Evolution has been selecting AWAY from the bad guys, away from aggression. Aggression may have been a desirable trait 30,000 years ago in helping to cope with the savage, wild world. But as society has developed, aggressive behaviour has been ostracized. The jails are full of bad people and many bad people die at an early age. You can't pass on your DNA when you're dead, or when you're in the slammer.
Those who may think humanity is not evolving should consider how social norms are changing the gene pool.
"The Economy" is not an anthromorphic entity.
"The Market" is not an anthromorphic entity.
and by the same token,
"Evolution" is not an anthromorphic entity.
It doesn't "select" anything.
It doesn't have a brain.
It doesn't have a goal.
Here is the basic equation:
- {Father genes} + {Mother genes}= {Baby with random mix}
- IF Baby dies before reproductive age or is infertile
THEN Baby's random mix of genes is deselected3. Else Baby becomes one of Father or Mother. GOTO step 1
//end of algorithm
Note that there are no input parameters for "bad" person. "good" person, "aggressive' person, etc.
That's whay a man whose name is synonmous with "the terminator", a fictional killing machine from the future, is in charge of the 5th biggest economy in the world and made tens of millions of dollars from pretending to kill people.
It's also why George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are in charge of the most powerful nation in the world, I take it?
Don't take this one personally, but get a clue.
"The jails are full of bad people . . ."
The jails are full of drug addicts. The vast majority of whome are there for low level crimes of drug possesion or sales under $40.
I worked at the San Francisco Public Defender's office all through law school. PD's handle 90% of criminal cases. 90% of our cases were for possession or sales of small amounts of drugs, usually under $40 bucks worth.
Best,
Matt
You ever hear of "Halliburton"?
Best,
Matt
I think we need to recognize that we have won over elite opinion. If we are going to lead we now need to turn to what we do about it.
Think about IT. There are countless incredible opportunities to rearchitect society so that we do not need to travel so much. Why should most people travel to work?
The way I see it, peak oil is a problem because it limits our ability to solve other problems. Given enough energy, we can solve anything. When the problem is energy...that's when TSHTF.
How to pay for it? Some estimate that we will pay as much as two trillion dollars for the war in Iraq, which is arguably the main element of Bush's energy strategy. One way to raise money would be to impose a $2-3 per gallon gas tax, like they have in Europe. Or mandate really ambitious fuel efficiency standards. Sell war bonds. Draft people and companies into the effort. Think of all the technology we developed in WWII.
We still have cheap energy and will for some time as production plateaus. Sometime in the next few years people will panic as the reality becomes unavoidable. Many people will feel seriously misled by the cornucopians. We should have some really serious options on the table. The free market will make many of the investments that we need if we create the right positive and negative incentives. Think of what private industry did in WWII.
Free? market if ...
Don't you see the contradiction in the one sentence? How can the market be "free" if it needs all its puppet strings pulled by so called "incentives"?
I don't doubt that for a minute. During the Great Depression, the wealthy bought up gold, land, jewelry, etc., for pennies on the dollar. I'm sure they'll do it again.
The difference will be that the gap between the haves and the have-nots will widen into a chasm. The rich will be very few, but very wealthy. The poor will be legion. The middle class will be largely extinct.
I am completely convinced that some form of modern life will survive and prosper. The world will be radically different than today's world of cheap energy. But, I predict that it will not uniformly regress to some former state of primitive agrarianism.
We may be lucky to end up with agrarianism in some areas.
Seriously, why?
In weapons development.
As evidence, just look at the defense budget versus the renewable energy budget. Sure, once things get "bad enough" maybe the ratio between those two figures will beging to reverse itself, but I doubt it.
(Somewhat of a carry over from our debate on the other thread, I realize)
Best,
Matt
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0910-15.htm
That's just one example I'm not optimistic about where this is heading. It may be easier or more energetically profitable for those in charge to simply wipe out the people who live on the resources rather than come up with new ways of doing things. Remember, our way of life is non-negotiable.
Best,
Matt
As we have multiple crises we're facing, I ask, "How many of these ideas did you think of when you were hungry, freezing, wet, and suffering from some horrible stomach flu?"
BEst,
Matt
I see you are very hung up on genetics.
Do you have any biochemistry background?
Know this, in Silicon Valley where I live we have concentrated pools of boy genius and girl genius (often both with degrees from MIT). You would think that boy genius plus girl genius equals baby genius. But not so!!!
In Silicon Valley we have high rate of autistic children.
Why?
Because genius and and mentally deranged are divided by a fine line. Too much of a good thing is too much. The same genes that make some people highly introspective, sensitive and thoughtful can also make them too introspective (autistic) and too sensitive.
Genetics is a crap shoot. And the outcome is random.
So the math goes like this:
Genius + Genius = Random
Moron + Moron = Random
Remember our original equation:
Ape + Ape = human progenetor
Personally, I think religion is much more of a controller on whether we have a cooperative society versus a self-centered, war lord society.
best --step back and see the fuller picture
This reminds me of a fairly recent report that showed that the more religious a country, the more repressive the government.
Mother I.Q. 180
Sons and daughters, average I.Q. 115 or thereabouts.
Why?
Regression to the mean.
I have seen this over and over and over again in the children of Nobel Laureates and other VSP (Very Smart People) that I know. With few exceptions, they are disappointed in their children. The exceptions tend to be population geneticists and others who understand regression to the mean.
If we got rid of the union and bureaucratic BS and just made a diploma mean something, the limits on college enrollments wouldn't matter. We'd probably be better for it.
As for Leanan, you don't need a degree to invent something. Some of the best inventors I've met grew up as farm kids and would be inventing if you did anything short of throwing them in a cell; university education helps back the practice with theory and insights, but education can happen with or without schooling.
I have this exact dilemma right now. One kid at UK university doing chemistry(so who knows) One kid yet to go
(or maybe not). PO has got me questioning the validity of
kids investing in a degree. Leaving university with £15k
of debt seems increasingly pointless when you consider that 30%+ of UK Kids now graduate. Grad salaries are falling in most categories. A lot of degrees are frankly a waste of time and merely serve to keep kids off the street for a few years more. Also, the kids are quickly working it out for themselves. We have debased the degree to an irrelavence. These kids will wake up and realise the debt is not worth it and the idea of slogging themselves to death to pay college fees, mortgages, the government pay roll and pensioners is not something they will want to do.
Just throw PO into this and watch the mutiny.
I'm not too happy msyelf, but I have a comparitively sophisticated understanding of what is going on so I know there is nothing to blame but basic human nature. But most are just going to pick a scapegoat for the economic uraveling.
Best,
Matt
It has always been my impression that the US military is the most progressive organization that I have worked with. I know that that strikes most people as paradoxical; how can the prototypical authoritarian and hierarchical organization be labelled as progressive? Yet, I stand by it. The military operates as a meritocracy to a greater exent than the two petrochemical companies I have worked for. And while it's easy and common for Americans to self-segregate in their social and family networks, military people, especially on deployment, do not have that luxury. The result, in my opinion, is a group that values diversity and teamwork to its core.
Maybe one of the benefits I can bring to TOD is a glimplse into the real world of the people of our military. What I know and have experienced first hand is generally a surprise to those who have never served. Nothing mysterious or nefarious, just plain folks who are very talented and intelligent. And very serious about getting the job done.
A college degree is a prerequisite to become an officer. Having been enlisted and an officer, I'd recommend the officer corps. One of the lessons I have personally embraced is that the troops eat first. Always. Period. Full stop. As a leader, the care and quality of life of your subordinates is absolutely and unequivocably job number one. This has helped me in all other endeavors as I try to make sure that my personal wants and needs come after satisfying the needs of those I'm responsible for.
Now....Marine Corps or another branch? Say, the Air Farce (ahem..Force..sorry, little typing slip). That's a very personal choice and should not be taken lightly. Each branch has a unique culture. All services are very professional at what they do, but becoming a Marine is a lifestyle choice. Once a Marine, always a Marine.
I just don't see how becoming an even more militaristic world is going to help anyone on on this planet, though I certainly wish the chickenhawks running the U.S. had more than Zero first-hand experience with the reality of war...
I too have 20+yo son with similar leanings (my vote doesn't count, why bother?)
But I think you make a fatal mistake in thinking that intelligence counters the "danger of it being channeled into right-wing (or other) authoritarian movements"
None of us are immune!
We are all irrational lemmings and Karl Rove can bend us like waxed noses any time he wants to. You have no idea of where the next mind twisting attack is coming from. The element of surprise is on his side. Is it going to be more "terrrrorists' or "bird flus" or "Iranian nuke nuts"? Anything to scare you and throw you fairly off balance. Your belief in the superiority of your own "intelligence" (and that of your 20yo son, I'm sure he is high IQ as is his mother) is your greatest weak point and blind spot.
P.S. I'm not immune either. We are all frail and fallible human critters. The best defense is to accept this deniable truth and repeat it to ourselves every day.
Need proof the government is involved in brain control?
Swim into here if you dare.
:-)
I got a whopping 21 visits today from the times link. Two of those were me testing the link, I bet half of the rest were from long time LATOC, TOD, PO.com etc readers saying, "let me see, did they really link to these people?"
Best,
Matt
My pet dog loves "attention".
--that reminds me, time for our mutual hunt (aka the "walk"). bye.
Monte
Hey, Matt! How goes it?
Give credit where credit is due. How many people here caught the Times' Business section interview with the Chairman and CEO of AutoNation(and former CEO of Mercedes Benz North America)?
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/25/business/25interview.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=prin t
This wasn't even behind a paywall.
C'mon Stuart, you can't be leaving all this stuff to Dave and Goose. You need to look up from those spreadsheets once in a while and smell the roses. You need to read more.
Think about taking on some more help with the news. There's too much of it out there for two people to handle. I would suggest Leanan, Jack, Halfin, Lou Grinzo, and Sunlight.
I dunno. There's nothing wrong with TOD as it is. There's a lot of peak oil sites, including some devoted wholly and solely to peak oil related news. I like the general geekiness of TOD. It's different.
I disagree. Moreover, I don't think it's necessarily a good thing to be the "Google" of the (peak) oil world.
I've seen it time and again. With rising traffic comes a declining signal-to-noise ratio. In addition, the average Joe cannot follow the technical arguments here, and doesn't really want to. As it is, we have people complaining about all the charts and graphs.
Google aims at the lowest common denominator. TOD does not. And I hope it never will.
Very well stated. Kudos.
http://www.energybulletin.net/13368.html
What has actually been published in print in the op-ed section, today, is an Exxon-Mobil op-ad declaring that peak is nowhere in sight.
I've read the article anyway, and to the uninitiated it still sounds like global warming articles from the 80s "Some wacky guys think we have a problem, but really the smart, sensible guys think the problem is way, waaaaay off. So keep driving them thar Hummers folks!"
Ruppert's analysis of the article on his website said it all...lots of information missing from the article. I mean, the USGS says there's lots more oil, but if so...where is it??? And how many years will it take to bring online? And how much further down the decline curves in the world will we be? Anyway, you guys know the drill.
It's not clear to me whether opinion journalism or page one reporting will be more important for getting the word out through the MSM. Probably some mix of both.
Here's a Scientific American editorial response to Exxon's peak oil ad:
http://blog.sciam.com/index.php?title=facing_the_facts_on_oil&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
Thanks for the link to SciAm. In the SciAm article, there was a link to a recent piece by Simmons full of pithy quotes that might be of use to Stuart in his precis of the peak oil phenomenon...
*http://www.worldoil.com/Magazine/MAGAZINE_DETAIL.asp?ART_ID=2794&MONTH_YEAR=Feb-2006*
*http://www.worldoil.com/Magazine/MAGAZINE_DETAIL.asp?ART_ID=2794&MONTH_YEAR=Feb-2006
ExxonMobil ran a quarter page ad on the Editorial Page attacking Peak Oil head on. This is presumably in response to yesterday's NYT editorial regarding Peak Oil.
They quote the USGS estimate of 3.3 trillion barrels of conventional remaining oil reserves. They go on to say, "Conservative estimates of heavy oil and shale oil pus the total resource well over four trillion barrels. To put these amounts in perspective, consider this: Since the dawn of human history, we have used a total of about one trillion barrels of oil."
Anyone else find it odd that the biggest oil company in the world is using USGS reserve estimates rather than their own? I think that Saudi Arabia is doing the same thing.
In any case, I think that their primary motivation in attacking Peak Oil is to try to escape punitive taxation, i.e, they are going to assert that they need every dollar of cash flow in order to bring on the production from the trillions of barrels of remaining oil reserves.
Using Hubbert Linearization (HL), Deffeyes thinks we have one trillion barrels of conventional oil left.
Actual cumulative Lower 48 oil production from 1971 to 2004 was about 97% of what HL predicted it would be--using ONLY 1970 and earlier production data to predict future production. Today, the world is where the Lower 48 was at in the early Seventies.
Re: ExxonMobil 3/2/06 Anti-Peak Oil Ad in NYT
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win"
Only one more step to go!
They're proud of their ads and put them all on their website.
http://exxonmobil.com/Corporate/Files/Corporate/OpEd_peakoil.pdf
/Start of details of complaint
Lee Raymond, CEO of Exxon Mobile, either knew or should have known about a very high profile advertisement placed by Exxon Mobile in the New York Times on March 2, 2006, page A29. The advertisement violates securities regulations in at least one way cited below.
The advertisement seeks to refute the imminence of an all-time peak and subsequent decline of oil production. It says, among other things,
- "oil production shows no sign of a peak"
- "a peak will not occur this year, next year or for decades to come"
- "peak production is nowhere in sight"
An obvious inference from this prominent advertisement is that Exxon Mobil has reasons consistent with SEC rules on claims for future performance to believe that Exxon Mobil's oil production will not peak for "decades to come". In other words, Exxon Mobil's advertisement, by obvious inference, claims that Exxon Mobil's oil production will increase generally for "decades to come".I have searched Exxon Mobil's recent quarterly and annual reports for information or claims in support of such a claim, and have not found it. Without immediate prominent public clarification or citation of existing documentation for this claim by Exxon Mobil, this advertisement must be considered to be in violation of Rule 10b-5(b): "To make any untrue statement of a material fact or to omit to state a material fact necessary in order to make the statements made, in the light of the circumstances under which they were made, not misleading"
/End of details of complaint
Also there is the fuzzy definition of peak itself. When they say "peak", do they mean the same thing as when you say "peak"? What is their definition of "oil production"? Does it include converstion of tar sands into liquid? Is that part of "production"? What about CTL? Do you see how fuzzy everything gets as you examine their fuzzy words up close?
Go to this slide show and read it
You'll have a better "picture" of what is involved