Life After The Oil Crash

[MacG]

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Index.html

Read this, this is very interesting.


Even the Saudis are aware of the situation. They have a saying that goes, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet airplane. His son will ride a camel."

More Importantly:
READ ALL 5 PAGES FIRST

[Nuts]

I read it, I read it again. I see lots of predictions and lots of explanations. Then I went to search for this information from independent sources, and amazingly enough nobody is talking about it. It's rather a self fullfilling prophecy. "You won't see anyone talking about the invasion of Earth because they're too afraid to talk about it." Yeah, ok.

Not to mention this guy is using a "supposedly" serious problem to platform his political views on Iraq, the Patriot Act and many other liberal cornerstones of idiocy. If you have a point to make, do it, then let the facts stand on their own merit, but instead the author chose to link peak oil to every single ill of society. This is very telling of not only his political ideology but his mental state as well.

The article itself is rather alarming, but since I have no way of validating the truth, it leads me to believe this is in the same category as global warming; an event that has some truth, yet is constantly overblown as a political tool.

[MacG]

I did a search and I got these links. I didn't full review them.
http://www.peakoil.net/
http://www.hubbertpeak.com/
http://dieoff.org/
http://energycrisis.org/de/lecture.html

ANd so on...
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=peak+oil

[Crion]

I read it, I read it again. I see lots of predictions and lots of explanations. Then I went to search for this information from independent sources, and amazingly enough nobody is talking about it. It's rather a self fullfilling prophecy. "You won't see anyone talking about the invasion of Earth because they're too afraid to talk about it." Yeah, ok.

The independent sources exist. Did you even click on his links? Simply because you don't like or are afraid of his reasoning doesn't mean he hasn't verified his basic facts. Here are some of the independent sources:

Michael Meacher, UK Environment Minister from 1997 to 2003 (http://www.energycrisis.com/uk/planNow.htm) - Contends that current international foreign policy is shaping itself around impending Peak Oil, predicted to occur at 2020.
Richard C. Duncan, Ph.D.1 (http://www.dieoff.org/page224.htm) - Explains the relationship between the Olduvai Gorge and Peak Oil.
Oil Depletion Analysis Centre - Articles Table (http://www.odac-info.org/articles/articles.htm) - Provides roughly fifty articles of similar tone and implication for your perusal.

Now, you may disagree with him, but he's not alone.

Not to mention this guy is using a "supposedly" serious problem to platform his political views on Iraq, the Patriot Act and many other liberal cornerstones of idiocy. If you have a point to make, do it, then let the facts stand on their own merit, but instead the author chose to link peak oil to every single ill of society. This is very telling of not only his political ideology but his mental state as well.

What? He demonstrates, sanely and clearly, that all of modern human society is dependent upon the use of cheap oil. He then points out all the problems that will occur when this crash happens. He then point-by-point disproves alternative energy sources as being useful in this situation, due to their reliance on oil for mass production. THEN he does what you find uncomfortable: point out that the current political leaders, who have ties to the industries most affected by this crisis, have been preparing for it. Not liking the way things will turn out (and this is a question of time now) is no excuse to close your eyes.

The article itself is rather alarming, but since I have no way of validating the truth, it leads me to believe this is in the same category as global warming; an event that has some truth, yet is constantly overblown as a political tool.

Curiously, it has not been overblown. It has really not even been mentioned, except on news sources not controlled by the big five news companies. Strange, no? Well, not really, when you consider their corporate ties.

There are some dark days ahead if things keep on going the way they have been.

[TheDarkCaller]

Pity, I was looking forward to growing up and having a good life.

Sounds a bit defeatist, but I have no doubt that humanity will ignore the energy crisis (Whether oil 'peaks' tomorrow or in twenty years) until it's too late - no one likes extra costs or change, it's basic business and human nature. Just part of us, that's all. Rather distressing, and depressing, but that's life for ya.

Then again, if you really look around, you'll find that there are roughly 100 things that are going to kill us within the next 100 years, and the majority of them are actually disturbingly scientifically founded. Stock up on the Viagra and NoDoze and kick it till the end of the world's what I've got to say.

=/

Beyond that, highly distressing article, and too scary to even consider checking his sources. Blegh

[MacG]

Or stock up barrels of oil now. ;)

http://www.house.gov/writerep/
WRITE UR CONGRESS PERSON NOW!
Or join your local savage gang before the crash and start bringing up ur anarchy. Just kidding... Don't!!

http://news.google.com/news?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&q=Forecast+of+Rising+Oil+Demand&sa=N&tab=wn
Read the article:
Forecast of Rising Oil Demand Challenges Tired Saudi Fields
NY Times says Saudi Oil is declining. Demands are increasing.
http://www6.arabnews.com/?page=6&section=0&article=40151&d=26&m=2&y=2004

Simmons is known for two seemingly contradictory things: He’s a staunch supporter of George W. Bush and his policies, and is probably the only outspoken insider to talk openly about Peak Oil. His presentation focused on what he called the “Saudi Oil Miracle,” and whether it has - you guessed it - peaked.
His greatest worry hovers around the Saudi energy ‘miracle.’ “The entire world assumes Saudi Arabia can carry everyone’s energy needs on its back. But if this turns out not to work, there is no ‘Plan B.’ And if conventional wisdom is wrong, the world faces a giant energy crisis.”

[Nuts]

The independent sources exist. Did you even click on his links? Simply because you don't like or are afraid of his reasoning doesn't mean he hasn't verified his basic facts.

What has he verified, a theory? There are plenty of doomsday theories, some have come and gone, some are persistent. Just look at the furor created over global warming, a theory that has as many naysayers as it does champions. Yet nobody has conclusively proven it to be true. I haven't said this isn't true, simply that it has no concrete evidence, so I am left to wonder.

Now, you may disagree with him, but he's not alone.

Neither are global warming activists, they even have presidential candidates running on their platforms (i.e. Nader). Again, I'm not saying this isn't true, simply that it warrants some more consensus before we all start stocking up on cans of beans.


What? He demonstrates, sanely and clearly, that all of modern human society is dependent upon the use of cheap oil. He then points out all the problems that will occur when this crash happens. He then point-by-point disproves alternative energy sources as being useful in this situation, due to their reliance on oil for mass production. THEN he does what you find uncomfortable: point out that the current political leaders, who have ties to the industries most affected by this crisis, have been preparing for it. Not liking the way things will turn out (and this is a question of time now) is no excuse to close your eyes.

Explain to me how the Patriot Act or jobless claims affect peak oil. If he had stopped short of unrelated politics, I might have actually taken him a bit more seriously, but instead he sounds like one of many conspiracy theorists on the net whom link everything to the big evil government. It's a senario I've seen much too often. I'm not closing my eyes Crion, I am simply doubting this mans credibility. He has an answer for everything, and the answer is doom, doom and more doom. Not a single bit of optimism anywhere, which isn't a rational mindset for any human, no matter what the situation.

Curiously, it has not been overblown. It has really not even been mentioned, except on news sources not controlled by the big five news companies. Strange, no? Well, not really, when you consider their corporate ties.

Crap Crion, please tell me you really don't believe the conspiracy theories, do you? The 300 mile per gallon carburetors and the cars that run on water, oh wait, how about the cars that run on household trash, yeah! All of these inventions were supposedly hushed by the big bad oil conglomerates, uh huh, ok.

There are some dark days ahead if things keep on going the way they have been.

Assumption.

[Lucifer_Hawk]

that article is kuwazy, talk about some real interesting stuff. And these arguments we got going back and forth are even more interesting, keep it up :)

[TheDarkCaller]

*Pokes*

Claiming that news sources don't print things that can damage their vested interests isn't an assumption that conspiracy nuts are correct, but rather, that they are just being logical businesses. If I owned a 10% share in Keloggs, I would NOT begin telling people in my newspaper that really, breakfast wasn't all that important of a meal. Regardless of the truth held in that statement, my first concern is my business's health and continued profit.

Past that, the theory's viability? Well, it's certainly scientifically feasible - any extractable resource can follow a bell curve in production - one can create a miniature model of said resource stockpiles with a simplified extraction method and show that much. The fact that new oil isn't going to be created anytime soon is no less true, nor is the fact that our demand for oil can only increase in the near future. It IS an essential part of human life at the moment, and, more than likely, will remain so for quite some time, so the bacterial growth analogy, while simple, holds up surprisingly well. The most advanced extraction techniques in the world can only acquire so much of a dwindling supply, in the end.

When that supply dwindles dangerously is what one has to question this author on: his own assertion that oil production can vary over the years makes his argument that oil production has dropped slightly for three years in a row makes his doomsday predictions of a peak in 2000 much less gut-wrenchingly horrific to me, for instance. It's tough to pinpoint exactly the world's exactly oil supply, much less how much of it has been drilled thus far. As such, whether his predictions for the shortage are spot-on for 20 years too early is deeply in question.

And his ties to everything in the world. . . well. . . the majority of his assumptions are logical on a lot of levels, though they require capitalist and survivalist instincts to run higher than normally seen AND for big business and the gov't to believe this theory whole-heartedly. Certainly, anything from Enron to Vietnam illustrates that such powers aren't above acting for their own good without letting the populous know, and they can be surprisingly effective and disguising their efforts for a good long while. While the Patriot Act is certainly a stretch (Considering it looks more like the legistlation passed after Columbine - reactionary - than a concerted, long-term effort), unemployment can certainly be affected by a drop in the oil industry - it is VERY clear that the industry affects all areas of human life heavily, and thus, though peak oil may not be the problem at the moment, the aforementioned slight production drops have likely indeed had some, if very small, effects on the global economy. Other factors, too, have influenced it, but the author's basic beliefs aren't so far off-base.

Simply put, I think he presents a more viable-than-most conspiracy theory. With global warming, it's rather easy to see the amazing amount of over-estimation and bad research regarding the hole over the Arctic, but in this case, the level of deterioration can be amazingly hard to put your finger on. Global warming will be a slow process, and you can be certain that when people's homes in Nevada start flooding, the reaction will be very heavy indeed. However, in the scenario presented for an Oil Crash, the real reasons behind it may not be revealed or even discovered until we are deep into the recession, simply because so many factors can be attributed to economic slow-down. The process of filtering back through a string of failing companies and products to their one common ground, oil, could take ages in and of itself.

And, I believe I have already covered alternative solutions pretty well in my last post - forget each having its own large set of disadvantages, human apathy alone can and will shut down their ability to abet any coming energy crisis VERY well.

[MacG]

I believe we will feel the effects before we run out of oil. When oil prices are raised higher and higher, everything will be effected, and we will know right then, that we better change. I've seen Gas prices up to 2.50 over here, if it hits 3 dollars, I will probably think we better start doing something.

[Nuts]

Explain this to me please.

When the subject of Russia's oil development is posed, the answer is, and I paraphrase, "Russia is gearing up to protect their oil with a nuclear arsenal." When just the other day, the big 3 Russian oil companies announces plans to offer oil to Europe and America in the coming years. This isn't very telling of a country that is on the verge of protectionism.

[MacG]

Even tho I think their military build was is to protect itself from those rebellions (Ch.... something), Russia isn't in my opinion hogging any Oil from anyone, rather it is giving oil to lots of buyers. Building pipelines to China and another japanese pipeline funded.

[Nuts]

That rather flies in the face of this supposed "peak oil" situation, doesn't it?

Mind you, I'm not saying that this isn't possible, only that we shouldn't take it for gospel. Instead it should be considered as theory, not fact as this author would have you believe.

[MacG]

It does feel like it is coming tho. look at this:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4363659/

[Dark_Magneto]

Unfortunately, peak oil is a reality. Even president Bush's energy advisor is warning about it. CNN is also saying (http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/10/02/global.warming/) that global warming doomsday scenarios will never come to be because oil and gas are going to run out.

Here is an independent analysis of the situation (http://home.entouch.net/dmd/Future_oil_supply.htm) from Glenn Morton, an acquaintence of mine that happens to be an expert geologist that deals with oil research.

Now if you bothered to read all of that, it equals 'some bad', and soon.

Rbigniew Brzezinski wrote a book in 1997 titled "The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives". I highly recommend you check it out. In this book, he details how the energy crisis from oil depletion will cause the U.S. to have to pursue military action in Eurasia because Eurasia controls 3/4 of the worlds natural wealth and whoever controls that region controls the world economy.

He also goes on to say that such an effort would be highly unpopular unless some major event happened that would garnish support for such a war. Something on the order of Pearl Harbor would have to occur to implement such an imperial mobilization for Eurasia. September 11'th was the necessary pretext for such war.

In this book, he had a map of where the word's next conflict was going to be and if you look at it it is exactly where we are at right now.

Iraq was a war of necessity, and it isn't going to stop there. Syria (http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=/ForeignBureaus/archive/200401/FOR20040123b.html) is next on the hit list in the war on *ahem* "terror" *cough* that will result in multibillion dollar reconstruction contracts for Haliburton and trillions of gallons of oil for the U.S.

Now I know I'm probably going to be called some conspiracy nutball for the second half of this post if not the first as well and people will undoubtably be calling me crazy and saying stuff is beyond the realm of possibility.

Funny how they never say how crazy it is when it makes front-page news and dominates the headlines though.

[Sambo83]

his own assertion that oil production can vary over the years makes his argument that oil production has dropped slightly for three years in a row makes his doomsday predictions of a peak in 2000 much less gut-wrenchingly horrific to me, for instance.Oil production has dropped for hte last 3 years in a row because OPEC decided to cut production. It has absolutely nothing to do with how much oil is left or how rapidly it can be extracted.

And his ties to everything in the world. . . well. . . the majority of his assumptions are logical on a lot of levels, though they require capitalist and survivalist instincts to run higher than normally seen AND for big business and the gov't to believe this theory whole-heartedly.Giving women "reproductive rights" has absolutely nothing to do with "peak oil" or the "catastrophy" that will follow. He's simply using an appeal to force argument for his political idealogy throughout the site.

Certainly, anything from Enron to Vietnam illustrates that such powers aren't above acting for their own good without letting the populous know, and they can be surprisingly effective and disguising their efforts for a good long while.Enron only operated below the radar for so long because Janet Reno was probably the 2nd worst Attorney General the USA has ever seen.

Other factors, too, have influenced it, but the author's basic beliefs aren't so far off-base.The fact that you agree with the author's ideology doesn't detract from the idea that his site is clearly nothing more than a shallow facade. I mean, I could make a website that talked about an asteroid potentially colliding with the earth and then say that because of this we should oppose gay marriage. The two issues are completely and utterly unrelated, and this is exactly what the author has attempted to do with his site.

When the subject of Russia's oil development is posed, the answer is, and I paraphrase, "Russia is gearing up to protect their oil with a nuclear arsenal." When just the other day, the big 3 Russian oil companies announces plans to offer oil to Europe and America in the coming years. This isn't very telling of a country that is on the verge of protectionism.This is because Russian scientists have known for 50 years the true nature of oil and have, because of this, been able to increase oil production steadily while the rest of the world, operating under dated and most-likely incorrect theories have seen production decline.

Furthermore, "peak oil" has been thoroughly debunked to my satisfaction: http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr52.html

[hammocksleeper]

Hey Sambo didn't know you had a presence here.

Well my two cents: As long as 30 years ago people have been saying that the production (forget about OPEC) of oil was going to top out and we would start running out of resources. Well people are still saying this, yet we now have more known oil reserves now than we did 30 years ago (reserves in this context meaning it's in the ground, we discovered it and have not yet tapped it). So basically we keep saying that we are going to run out of oil, yet at the same time we keep finding more and more of it in the ground. I'm not saying that the supply of oil is infinite, but I am saying that the problem is greatly exaggerated.

[ChaosZon]

http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr59.html
http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr52.html

Complete and utter trashing of "peak oil" and other such ridiculous hysteria-filled epherema. And before you start whining, Dave is one of the most idiotic self-righteous liberals I have ever had the pleasure of talking to. His response to my objection of his placing side-by-side pictures of a Nazi rally and a police line at the Democratic convention in LA in 2000 was "I was there, you weren't," after which I provided about two dozen links directly contradicting his claims of "fascist lite" which he didn't feel the need to respond to for some reason.

[singo]

Pretty worrying, it seems to me that growth in nuclear power is the only serious alternative, but could oil not be synthesised from carbon and hydrogen (expensive i no but looking at the alternatives) and i live in england and would love to see "gas" prices as low as $5.00 per gallon but anyway....food for thought

[hammocksleeper]

Pretty worrying, it seems to me that growth in nuclear power is the only serious alternative, but could oil not be synthesised from carbon and hydrogen (expensive i no but looking at the alternatives) and i live in england and would love to see "gas" prices as low as $5.00 per gallon but anyway....food for thought
Ha, yeah you guys have "petrol" so expensive over there. We Americans really don't understand how cheap our gas is compared to other places. I've been around Europe and I know what it's like