Name the Top Doomers, the Big Boys, the Leading Lights...

Jenab6

...of Doomerism. Name the original thinkers, the clearest expositors for the layman, the best-known, the most outspoken Peak Oil Ph.D.s & other experts.

Here's a partial list of names.

Richard C. Duncan
Garrett Hardin
William Stanton
William Catton
David Price
Jay Hanson
Matt Savinar
Montequest

Add more more worthy names, as they occur to you. We can use them to Googling up more though-provoking doomer stuff that we haven't read yet.

Categories for awards.
Best doomerish essay.
Best doomerish book.
Best doomerish website.
Best doomerish web forum moderator - I vote for Monte.
Best phrased doomerish understatement - my vote goes to David Price for "Some kind of adjustment is inevitable."

Add more categories, too, and suggest who deserves to win. The prime things to look for are phrases and paragraphs that don't say "Oh God! We're all going to die!" but that's what YOU start thinking as you read the implications of what is written.

Finally, let's figure out what to call these awards. Bear in mind that Oscar and Grammy are already taken and trademarked.

Jerry Abbott

KillTheHumans

Jenab6

GreyGhost · Heavy Crude Joined: Aug 31, 2005 Posts: 112

Are we living in the same universe? I'm surprised your initial list did not include:

Colin Campbell
James Kunstler
Richard Heinberg
Matthew Simmons
Michael C. Ruppert
Kenneth Deffeyes

I've been interested in peak oil for years, but don't know half the names on your list.

The idea of making celebrities out of these people is a little strange, because that's not the reason they are saying the things they are saying (I hope). But still it may be a good thing to promote those who are best at delivering the information, to help it get delivered.

Concerned · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Sep 23, 2004 Posts: 1553

dinopello

Tom Whipple.

steam_cannon · Expert Joined: Dec 28, 2006 Posts: 2559 Location: MA

Can we nominate fictional characters? Very Happy

4dsc · Tar Sands Joined: Apr 03, 2005 Posts: 31

When I see someone use the term doomer or the likes, I see a person who's not interested in discussing the issue. But rather I see a person who more interested in launching ad hominon's. I often wonder why they are not able to discuss issues like adults.

steam_cannon · Expert Joined: Dec 28, 2006 Posts: 2559 Location: MA

PhebaAndThePilgrim

Good day from Pheba, from the farm:
Good morning. Pilgrim is outside working on the farm. I am here at the computer being lazy.
I have given this a bit of thought and I think there is more than one level of a "Doomer". I am a doomer. I arrived at being a doomer from several years of research and mental angst.
First and foremost I am not wringing my hands at glee at the prospect at the coming downfall.
I am deeply saddened. It has taken a few years to come to terms with everything and have it all sink in.
I worry about my kids and grandkids.
There is a block of doomers that do look at this with glee.
Somehow the message of Derrick Jensen has become skewed.
While I believe Jensen wants it to come down, I do not believe he is happy about it. He also seems to carry a burden of sadness that has turned into acceptance that life as we know it must come to an end.
The basic laws of physics and mathematics demand it.
that being said, it sure doesn't mean a person should be happy about it. I believe it is the gleeful doomers that turn people off.

I have a good girlfriend. We were talking about this just yesterday.
I told her that my daughter recently told me that I was a negative person. Her statement hurt my feelings. My daughter doesn't understand how much research I have done. I did not elaborate because I did not want to alienate her, or worry her.
I did tell my girlfriend. My girlfriend said that she would not call me negative, she says I am one of the most "critical" persons she has ever met.
I told her that I do not criticize people. She said I was misunderstanding what she meant by the word critical. She means that I critique situations looking for the truth or falseness of the situation.
She said that if more people were as critical as I was, that we would not be in the mess we were in.
I still do not fully understand what she meant. I have always thought that critical meant one thing and critique meant another.
So, are we doomers?, critical thinkers?, negative thinkers?, etc.
Exactly what are we? Maybe we are a bit of all of the above, and there is a variation within all of us, depending on our mindset on a particular day, and depending on how far we are on the journey of discovery.
On some days I try to steer completely free from the reality of Peak Oil, overpopulation, resource depletion, global warming, etc. etc.
Most of the time it just keeps getting pushed in my face.
Recently I have started something new, and I just can't help it.
When I am out in traffic, or out in the world, or looking at our beautiful farm, I just keep telling myself, and saying out loud:

This can't end. it's too big, too powerful. Somewhere, someway, the powers that be, just won't let all of this end.
The Home Depots, Wal-Marts, sellers, buyers, consumers, etc. just will not let this end.
There will always be cars, we will always drive, there will always be plenty of food, fertilizer, and 5 billion people will not have to die of starvation.
I started my research back in 1995. I came into acceptance in about 2003. Now I am trying to go back into some form of denial.
Labels are a dangerous thing. I call myself a doomer, but I wonder what I really am.

More important: what am I evolving into?

I used to be a born again Christian. Now I am a total atheist.
We grow, we change, we deny, we learn.
I guess I'll just sign myself:
Pheba, from the farm.

PhebaAndThePilgrim

Good day from Pheba, from the farm:
From a female perspective, the best, scariest doomer book I have ever read is:
"The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood.
The film with Robert Duvall has a happier ending, but the book is brutal.
Best doomer book from a physics standpoint is:
"Entropy" by Jeremy Rifkin.
Best doomer book from an oil person:
a tie between Matt Simmons, "Twilight in the Desert", and "Hubbert's Peak" by Deffeyes.
Best all round doomer peak oil book is:
"The Party's Over" by Richard Heinberg. His revised version is better because he corrected some math errors on ethanol production.
Best doomer book on pollution and the environment:
Earth Odyssey by Mark Hertsgaard
Best doomer book on starvation:
"Hungry Ghosts; Mao's Secret Famine" by Jasper Becker.
Best apocalyptic doomer fiction (I have read) "The Road" by McCarthy
Best doomer book on food and population:
"The Stork and the Plow" by Ehrlich
Best Best doomer book containing conspiracy theories:
"Crossing the Rubicon" by Ruppert
Funniest doomer books "End Time Visions by Abanes, and
Apocalypse Now.
Best doomer book concerning the military and peak oil: I have read quite a few of them, and still keep referring back to just two:
Oil, Power and Empire by Everest, and Resource Wars by Klare.
"Blood of the Earth" by Dilip Hiro comes in third.

Pheba.

dorlomin · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Aug 05, 2007 Posts: 1142

James Lovelock, E.O. Wilson, John Gray and Jared Diamond are all eloquent and thought provoking writers who have in one way or another a doomerish outlook.

TheDude

For the opposing team: Cornucopians: A Guide for the Perplexed

Thanks for the list Pheba - the book on the Great Leap Forward looks intriguing.

Haven't read The Coming Resource Wars but Blood and Oil was great.
_________________
Cogito, ergo non satis bibivi
C'mon man, who're you gonna believe?

KillTheHumans

Jenab6

Okay, then. I have the following names, which we might consider to be nominees for some kind of Doom Award.

Richard C. Duncan
Garrett Hardin
William Stanton
William Catton
David Price
Jay Hanson
Colin Campbell
James Kunstler
Richard Heinberg
Matthew Simmons
Michael C. Ruppert
Kenneth Deffeyes
Thomas Malthus
Tom Whipple
M. King Hubbert

What's the best, most doomerishly delicious, serendipitously horror-or-glee provoking (depending on whether you're a misanthropist or not) essay or book written by each of these fellows? (Required: information presented must be reasonably accurate, not tabloid scare-fare.) We can let that book or essay be their entry in one of several doom categories for which an award should be made.