How then, do we move backwards? How does a society, with most of the people having no clue of future events, move from being dependent on a vast and intertwined network of goods and services produced by the indigenous people of whereever, to a local resource and renewable energy based society, and do so in the timeframe available (20-30 years using the most liberal extimates, 10-20 with resonable estimates, 5-10 with worst case scenarios), all the while prices on everything increasing, world politics getting more militaristic, governments continuously reducing civil liberties, shortages of goods on the market and weather patterns resembling bad Hollywood movies?
I'm an INTP, learned about oil running out by the year 2000, when I was in high school back in 1975. Got married, had 3 kids, now with 2 grandkids, was distracted for 20 years, got divorced, life went on, then a few years ago saw a write-up on Deffeyes book caught my eye, I thought, OMG, I thought the Saudi's have unlimited oil for at least 100 years. If Deffeyes is right this will mean the end of our world as we know it. Found Matt's site a year ago.
Sometimes I'm in denial, even tonight, maybe the new Mexican fields will save us, and maybe there is more undiscovered fields like it elsewhere. But my heart tells me no, and that more oil discovered only delays and excacerbates the coming trouble. My friends say I think too much, but that's what we INTP's do. Cheers.
*Pan to webcam showing archaen in a dark room surrounded by three computers, a fridge full of soda, and thirty tabs open on his firefox browser*
Hah, right on. Although I moved from soda to tea quite a while ago.
I also think that such heavy computer use has had a detrimental effect on my vision, ~60/20 and "floaters".
I first found out about peak oil back in 2001, through reading a book from 1997 called "Geodestinies" by a retired geology professor, Walter Youngquist. Soon afterward, I began researching the topic further (I'm a freelance writer and former academic, and I practically *live* in the library). Around the same time, I found Richard Heinberg's MuseLetter website, which I was originally referred to because of his political writings. That led me to William Catton's book "Overshoot" which taught me about carrying capacity, and it just snowballed from there.
When I read Geodestinies, I was stunned and alarmed, but it all made perfect sense. I couldn't believe that this information wasn't widely publicized. I knew the implications would be enormous, and I kept thinking, "someone has GOT to get this information out to the general public!"
I kept on researching. Next I read Thom Hartmann's book "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight," and got copies for whoever I thought would read it. Since I had been following Heinberg's work, I was eagerly awaiting the publication of his book "The Party's Over" in April 2002, and I went to the bookstore the day it was released to get a copy, then devoured it in a single day.
I subscribed to the RunningOnEmpty e-mail lists for a short time, read through dieoff.org., etc. I was obsessed with finding every tidbit of information I could find.
For the first year or two, I felt like one in a million. Few people took me seriously when I mentioned PO, yet it seemed to me that it should be the foremost topic on everyone's minds!
Fortunately, the folks in my little tribe all seem to be on pretty much the same page now, and we're now in the midst of forming a small homestead and learning all we can about gardening, rainwater collection, greywater treatment, defense, etc.
I guess I always knew that fossil fuels would not last the 21st century. I remember my Grandad, a geologist, telling me when I was a kid in the early 90's that known supplies of oil only last 20-40 years. I kinda understood even then that without oil we would have a hell lot of trouble when it came to transportation, cars etc. I remember talking to my friends sometimes about how as oil supplies were depleted, we would gradually have to ration oil for more essential purposes and phase out the personal automobile.
Regarding peak oil as such, I probably heard about I think in 2003, cant remember exactly when. Read Jay Hanson's website and some newsletters by Campbell and also some stuff by skeptics such as Michael Lynch. But back then I used to think of Peak oil somewhat as say global warming, not immediate, but rather something that might happen say 15 - 20 years down the line and not probably a catastrophic event. But I spent a lot of time studying peak oil in the summer of 2004, mainly I think because of the spike in prices, and realized that the situation might be more serious than I originally thought. I still dont think that Peak Oil is necessarily a catastrophie, although we humans are quite capable of making it one.
Joined: Jun 28, 2005 Posts: 39 Location: Oil Patch
Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 1:33 pm Post subject:
The first time that I remember being impressed by what the loss of fossil fuels would bring was in a college course in 1977. At that time energy issues were in the forefront following the embargo and resulting stagflation. Upon graduating into an economy that was still in trouble in 1979 I was pretty much forced into the South Louisiana oilfields. Otherwise I would be homeless and indeed you can say that I was at the time. As a mudlogger (read Cambells book if you want to know what a mudlogger is) I knew pretty much what the discovery ratio of the wells that I was working on. I decided that the future was alternative energy. To save you a long story 25 years later my life has been a series of working in alternative energy when I can and oil exploration/drilling when I have to.
I first read of the concept of "peak oil" as is discussed on this board was in a Scientific American article authored by Colin Cambell in 1998. Although I was not familiar with the concept of Hubberts Peak, I was more than familiar with the concept of depletion. I was to meet Mr. Cambell later that year at a seminar in Denver. I expressed to him that what he had written had confirmed my beliefs that I had had for almost 2 decades.
I still work in the oil field in fact I am at a location as I type this. I dont work in alternatives as much as I would like to, although I still have a few contacts that let me know how things are going. We are so far behind the eight ball in energy that it is difficult to see how we are going to get through it.
First of all, it was wonderful to read this thread. Thanks for resurrecting it. It remind quite a lot about an AA meeting when people tell how they discovered that they were addicts. Well, lets join the circle:
I was 16 in 1973 and understood then that we were acting like madmen in relation to oil. I got hold of an old DC wind turbine and put it up at our off grid summer house charging two lead-acid accs powering a couple of reading lamps. Remained a dissident for long, but society finally chewed and swallowed me when I got kids. All the usual memes got the better part of me for some 20 years, and it was terribly lonly to be a dissident in those days.
About two years ago I was either spit out or crawled out and quickly started to regain my old shape, and made this absolutely wonderful discovery that I was not alone anymore! Thanks all of you!
I first learned of the concept as an undergrad in the early seventies. My Petroleum Geology prof was in the audience when King Hubbert presented his findings to the AAPG. He noted that everyone in the audience thought Hubbert was nuts, but gradually all came around to figuring out he was right. One of my grad thesis supervisors worked for Hubbert at the Shell research center and had some interesting stories to tell about his insight. By the way most who know of Hubbert don't realize that his greater contributions in science were in the fields of rock mechanics and the understanding of pore pressure phenomena. I think at the time the Houston Shell Research center was the earth science equivalent of Princeton's Center for Advanced Learning (home of Einstein, Openheimer, Goedel, Mandelbrot etc.).
Anyways back to topic.....I found the whole concept of depleting resources quite interesting and over the next 30 years began to think more and more about it as I noted that the exploration discoveries and new exploration areas available were gradually dwindling. Over the past 5 or so years I've spent some time trying to understand Yet to be Found numbers for many basins around the world. When Simmons started to make public his proclaimations about Aramco and then the others came out of the woodwork I was relieved to think I wasn't insane and that many of the patterns I had noted were recognized by others.
Given my scientific background I am more interested in the concept of Peak Oil....when it will hit in various places etc. than I am in what will happen after. Like Simmons I expect that somehow we will muddle along. If I'm wrong....well so be it.
Posted: Fri Nov 25, 2005 10:06 am Post subject: Re: How did you find out about peak oil?
Bumpity bump bump bump _________________ "When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F Roberts.
Joined: Aug 14, 2005 Posts: 766 Location: Dead civilization walking
Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2005 11:50 pm Post subject: Re: How did you find out about peak oil?
Knew it was going to happen 25 years ago at the age of 10. My grandfather and I used to discuss history, philosophy, economics, politics' ecology and whatever while sitting by the fireplace up in the desert. Paul Ehrlich's book and the Club of Rome's pronouncements were still recent history then.
Went to school. Travelled the continent. Went to grad school. Travelled the world. Travelled it again. Started buying rental properties & getting a reason to read the business section instead of the comics. Saw the twin towers fall & got Chomsky's version, Dubbya's version & everyone elses version- pipelines were mentioned quite a bit-made a mental note "sumpthin's not right here". Never forgot Paul Ehrlich. Made a fortune in real estate. Taught "Man & Env't" classes in local colleges for a few years & fed the students the standard textbook and USGS crap about 2030. Wondered why real estate was so overpriced in coastal So Cal. Did research as to why- ran across Oil shocks, 1973, Volker, Inflation, Greenspan, 9-11, recession, treasuries etc etc etc. Stumbled across Mi ke Ru pper t's book in early '05 courtesy of a conspiracy nut on a Ferrari forum. Read it cover to cover. Said "holy sheeeeyit!" and "EUREKA!" and found fromthe wilderness.com & po.com from there. Spent a year doing research & read most of the books that Kunstler and everyone else here read & said "holy sheeeeyit!" a whole lot while lurking on PO.com and hunting for all those organic gardening books that my grandmother had from the 1970s.
Joined: Jan 14, 2006 Posts: 62 Location: Perth, Western Australia
Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2006 9:22 am Post subject: Re: How did you find out about peak oil?
December 13, 2005: I found out about Peak oil from reading this post on Metafilter about Richard Rainwater. The article in Fortune is no longer accessible via that link, but it very pointedly mentioned LATOC, which I had to c&p to go and look at - so my curiosity was definitely piqued. After reading LATOC, I was shellshocked and mentioned it on my blog - and it got a handful of not particularly worried responses, along the lines of "oh dear, I didn't realise... oh well, I'm off to do something else now"...
I however, can't stop thinking about it, and have continued researching and thus find myself - here!
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