Peak Oil In The Past For Sure

According to the World Energy Congress, B.C. has "the greatest wind power potential in the world", and unfortunately we have one of the worst governments in the world. Most of the wind is coming directly from the Parliament buildings.

There is a lot of garbage in that article that would take too long to refute, so I'll just refute the overall theme easily enough. The author believes that scarcity of a useful resource is somehow a very good thing - this assertion is ludicrous. Scarcity of a resource rarely leads to human beings coming together to make friendly agreements on how the remainder should be used - it leads to competitive conflicts, to dream otherwise is ridiculous. Does this author live all by himself in an ivory tower perhaps? because he/she knows very little about humans.

What you are seeing is nature in action. There is no more powerful force in the world.

It is human greed going against nature that is the problem.

Oil is a finite resource, and yes, conflict will be the result of ever growing shortages, but that is man's fault, not nature's.

Let nature take its course, it always does.



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"Arrogance in Politics is unacceptable"
Jim Callaghan
Minden, Ontario
705-286-1860
www.misterc.ca

Anon, in the author's analogy of cheap oil usage being akin to a drinking binge, he says that there WILL be a hangover. I think you're looking at the next 20 or so years and realizing that there will be confrontation and likely millions, if not billions will die. But the author is looking beyond that to a time when human population can stabilize at a sustainable level.

Current population growth trends, which have been tied directly to oil production for the last hundred or so years (with about a 3 or 4 year lag), are unsustainable. We're following an exponential growth curve and, as the term "globalisation" might suggest, we are doing so within a system of finite resources. While animal species die out, and forests are levelled, we are pushing this planet to the extremity of its potential capacity.

The end of the oil age can annihilate as much as 5 billion of the 6 billion people on this planet, depending on the reactions of major world players like the US, Russia, China, and India (although I'll admit it's hard to make these estimates). If it goes to nuclear war, we could be talking a full 6 billion. But if we're fortunate and half the population survives - a good 3 billion people - the persistence of the knowledge of global limits will stick within the global consciousness for a long time. This means that people will stop seeing the brazillian jungle as an oil resource, and start appreciating it for its sustainable functionality: a carbon dioxide sinkhole (not to mention the shear beauty of biodiversity.

As oil runs short, transportation prices will skyrocket, pushing the prices of consumer goods to unaffordable levels. People will struggle to make ends meet on simple products like food and clothing. Jobs will be lost as production facilities go out of business. And we will be faced with the worst economic depression in human history - one that will make us beg for the likes of the Great Depression. And that's without even considering climate change, for we're on the verge of having low-laying cities and entire countries flooded over completely, widespread drought, the extinction of many animals and plant species, and possibly the collapse of the entire global ecosystem as biodiversity is undermined.

But if we survive - and that's a mighty big "if" - we will have learned an extremely valueable lesson. We will understand the concept of global limits. We will know that forestry isn't simply about weighing the costs of extraction versus the price of wood; we will know that it's also about the value of a forest's ability to manufacture oxygen on a global level. And it is through this lesson that we will come to terms with our planet as a whole and work in cooperation with one another. We have tried competition, and it simply does not work. Today, the short term outlook may be darkening, for it is the dusk of oil and competition. But tomorrow can be bright, as the dawn of cooperation and the birth of true sustainability. Lets just hope we make it that far.

-KY

Oops... forgot to sign in there. That Anon post under the signature -KY was mine, of course.

-KY

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Kory Yamashita

"What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Kory, <br><br> "Current population growth trends, which have been tied directly to oil production for the last hundred or so years" <br><br> This statement is not correct factually. <br><br> Population growth (excluding immigration) of almost all 'developed' countries has been negative for the last three or four decades. In the same time oil consumption has doubled. <br><br>

A very useful website with respect to world oil supply is: <br><br> http://www.hubbertpeak.com/

Ray, I said oil PRODUCTION is tied to population levels. The difference between the production and consumption is subtle in this case, but it paints a global picture rather than a national one. Look at the raw data for yourself. With few variances, global oil production drove global population growth with a 3 or 4 year lag. I'm not making this up. Look at the data yourself. The graphs are disturbingly similar. And even more so if you take into account the concept that the oil production has peaked and population growth will continue for 3 or 4 years more before it follows the peak. By that time, oil production per capita will be so low (it's been shrinking since the 70's) that there will be economic collapse. Already the system is overburdened by annual tax cuts to stimulate the economy. The infrastructure of many countries, Canada included, is being undermined by this false stimulus of the economy - one that isn't sustainable in the long term.

But like I said above, the way in which population grows or shrinks in the future is dependent more on how we react than on oil production. I just hope we can move away from oil before we use so much we collapse the global ecosystem. In a 2001 New International article (from the issue called "Mired in Crude"), it says that if you look at the amount of carbon being released in the atmosphere, approximately 3/4 of known oil must stay in the ground to avoid collapse. That figure kinda scares the hell outta me, because I think we've already used more than 1/4. But maybe that 3/4 figure includes coal too.

-KY

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Kory Yamashita

"What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Kory check out the link I posted after the message you responded to. <br><br> Oil production will peak in the next few years and <b>has been increasing</b> since the 1970s. <br><br> Population has also been increasing in the same time span but if the 2 are <b>causally</b> related would have to be established. <br><br> I don't think it can be linked in this way. <br><br> Oil is mainly consumed in the developed countries (with negative population growth rates) and now China (with a population which hasn't been growing much for decades.

http://wheat.usu.edu/courses/USU1350/Ha ... 0Exam1.htm

and I quote:

Which of the following statements about US “Conventional” agriculture is true.
A. It is relatively unchanged in the last 100 years.
B. It utilizes a large portion of the petroleum used in the US.
C. It has resulted in higher prices for most agricultural products.
D. It trades petroleum calories for food calories.
E. None of the above.

Answer is "D".

We will starve when cheap oil is no more.