Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?

Oil-Finder

Be honest!

Lighthouse · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Mar 02, 2006 Posts: 1458

why would anyone want peakoil to happen? Just think at all the hardship which will come when we reach the peak.

Unfortunately its not important what we want.

I't will happen regardless if we want it or not ...
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Oil-Finder

seldom_seen · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Apr 12, 2005 Posts: 1980

I read the quote you put forth, and I see someone who looks forward not to PO, but the end of mass consumerism, cheap chinese goods, and big box stores. That sounds like a pretty rational and healthy desire to me...do you disagree?

Don't worry, it's normal to project your fear and uncertainty around PO on to the messenger. It happens around here all the time. You're starting to hatch from your cocoon of denial. A fledgling moth, with a new set of wings. It feels awkward at first. Just take baby steps at first and try to understand what other people are trying to say.

mos6507

I don't want a dieoff to happen but I want enough of a peak or edge of a peak to happen in order to economically pressure people to get off of oil, since nobody seems to want to do it purely for environmental reasons. So I'm somewhere in between a yes and a no. The big question is how much pressure will be enough pressure to get people to change. If you are cynical enough, a dieoff is exactly what it's going to take. But since that's likely to take you or me along with the others, I don't think that's exactly something to wish for.

Grifter

I want endless growth in a finite world.

I want corporations to grow and improve the environment.

I want us to grow our energy infrastructure and use technology to make it all clean and nice.

I want to drive my car where and when I want and I want to have heated water and a heated house at the flick of a switch without worrying about the cost.

But you can't always get what you want Sad

Tanada

Hell no, I want cheap and easy energy slaves to be availible to myself and all my neighbors and their kids to the nth generation.

What I want is irrelevant, which is something I learned as a small child. A lot of people have not learned this lesson and will not understand why they can not have what they want when they want it and as often as they want it. That is going to make for some incredibly painful times for many modern people, and I hope they don't loose controll to the point of starting resource wars and/or nuclear genocide wars.
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as one breath is known to produce a life-long addiction to the gas, which addiction invariably ends in death.--Isaac Asimov

bl00k

NO! I don't want Peak Oil to happen. I want either to find more oil to quintuple our current reserves but rather for us to find another liquid energy comparable to oil which is clean and infinite.

Anyone who *wants* PO to happen is pretty crazy, in my opinion. Anyone wanting PO to happen would be fine with the death of billions humans in the worst case. Overshoot or not, that is not acceptable. I can feel a sense of superiority from people who look down on 'cornucopians'. As if they are less of human beings and it's fine for them to die. Anyone who wants human beings to, again, live in balance with the earth has got it right, in my opinion. Without balance, everything will end someday. But wouldn't it be great if the world right now, would be balanced? I mean, sure there are billions of people who live terrible lives compared to ours, but would they rather be dead than live crappy?

I care nothing about the earth. The earth doesn't even know we are here. The time humans live the earth is, in earth-time, about a second or so. The earth can't be 'polluted'. 'Polluted' just refers to livability of the earth for humans. Everything certain people say what 'harms the earth', just means 'harms the conditions under which humans have to live'. The earth is fine. Fine before we came, it's fine right now, and will be fine after we leave.

I do care about the people close to me. And therefor, i do not want PO to happen. I'm hooked on this life. Razz

EnergyUnlimited · Fusion Joined: May 15, 2006 Posts: 3123

EnergyUnlimited · Fusion Joined: May 15, 2006 Posts: 3123

Andrew_S · Intermediate Crude Joined: Jan 09, 2005 Posts: 683

whereagles

Snowstorm

I voted yes. Why? Because as bad as PO happening will be, it will be better than PO not happening, we'd hit another natural limit eventually, but the longer the growth economy goes on the worse the result will be. More global warming, more depletion of the carrying capacity of the land, etc. No amount of trying will make growth and the consumer economy sustainable, where our energy can make a difference if enough people are involved is softening the impacts of the decline, a la David Holmgren's book.

Concerned · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Sep 23, 2004 Posts: 1536

I voted yes.

We have the technology and the wherewithal to change.

- We can use solar and other alternatives like wind. Microwave technology from space would be amazing.
- We can use modern safer nuclear reactor designs as well as the breeder reactors they are working on making commercially viable.
- We can work less hours like the French do and hunter gatherers of old did.
- We can recycle and build things so that they last and not simply throw away to be replaced every 5 years.
- We can share this rich sustainable life with all mankind. e.g. nano solar is now cost competitive with coal. When it scales up it will provide clean energy for all humanity.

What can we do collectively if we stop breeding and move our military budgets to cutting edge energy technology?

You can take the pessimistic view or the optimistic view. I think humans will change in ways that will surprise people. Sure it might take a few wars, bird flu and population reduction (die off) but I can see a better world. Mind you I could also see a much worse world but you got to hope for the best, it's not like the current world situation is all peachy.
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Concerned · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Sep 23, 2004 Posts: 1536