Joined: May 20, 2008 Posts: 404 Location: I have a whole ward
Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 4:59 pm Post subject: Re: Any middle grounders here?
Count me in this group. I am a Panglossian! LOL
I do believe Peak Oil is real and it is imminent. I do think we could be in for another Great Depression. But it would not neccesarily be due to peak oil, but because of other stupid things we did as a society.
There have been so many end time groups that have predicted our dismise throughout history.........and we are still here. I could not say that it is beyond the realm of possibility that someone, somewhere may come up with another energy source as good as or even better than oil. Maybe not likely, but not impossible.
Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 7:11 pm Post subject: Re: Any middle grounders here?
allenwrench wrote:
Well, really our forum makes no demands on the beliefs of its membership. It has no requirements to believe or not believe in peak oil. It does not specify the level of doomerism or lack thereof within the group. This forum is for anyone interested in the ramifications of crude depletion, so of course we will have all sorts of people here.
Maybe extreme views do not corollate with age, but I believe that a lot of the extreme views here comes from young people that speak before thinking. And if they do think before speaking, they do not have the practical living experience to temper their views.
Would be interested in the number of young doomers compared to older doomers here and match the age to their extremism.
You're right, it makes no demands. Maybe it's my selective perception, but it seems like the most vocal, however, are those who believe "die off" is self-evident, and will automatically discredit any alternative energy solution as "not enough" or "too little, too late." I'm generalizing big time here. The attitude that the rest of the world is dumb and blind ("zombies") and this little forum community has seen the light is quite cultish, however. When I was a member of my religious group, it just seemed SO OBVIOUS that it was the right one, and when I spent time proselytizing my beliefs, I just didn't get why people couldn't understand it, because it made so much sense. Ignorant people in my former religion would even go so far as to say, "The Pope KNOWS our religion's true, but he's just too afraid of the consequences if he admits it!" which is strikingly similar to the whole, "Pickens/Gore/MSNBC/Bush/OPEC/whoever KNOWS about Peak Oil, they're all but admitting it, they're quaking in their boots but just can't admit it."
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this proves any of the doomers are wrong, but the similarities are fascinating. It does tend to keep me out of the dogmatic doomer mindset, however, since I see many of the same pitfalls as dogmatic religion.
I'm not sure about age, though. I once had someone explain 9-11 conspiracy theorists in this way to me: It's a bell curve (a peak curve!) in terms of education, centering on the college years. High school students will just accept the party line. College students are newly branded individualists who are suddenly learning to be free thinkers and are more likely to reject the standard explanation and form their own (conspiracy) theories. MS, PhS, MD, etc. then become less likely to accept the conspiracy theories.
It seems like an attractive theory, but who knows if it's true. In terms of doomerism, there is no way to get an accurate cross section of age or education on a random, anonymous internet message forum.
Where will the supply come from to overcome declines in 2011? Maybe Brazil will have some big projects coming online to balance things out; but we're only three years out, and these things take time, which seems to be true of many of these big supply projects, whether oil or automobiles. People expect everything on demand, including catastrophe.
Moderate leaning towards Doom myself. The behavior of our politicians this year doesn't make me the slightest bit more optimistic, and when shortages appear they won't go away - reverses in declines never rebound to their original level except in the case of political factors, and we haven't taken any major breaks in global consumption. People simply refuse to stop and consider how central oil has been to modern industrial society - and I'd consider that mindset much more cultish than that of the peak oil crowd, who are by and large simply blunt realists, with a proven track record so far, by the way. _________________ Cogito, ergo non satis bibivi
I'm just gonna find a cash machine.
Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 8:45 pm Post subject: Re: Any middle grounders here?
Moderate here, but mainly because we don't know how the masses will adapt and what the politicians will do.
I tend to have some small hope because there are people already planning for a simpler lifestyle and others who are moving away from sources of waste like SUVs. Does that mean I think things will get better before they get worse? Not a chance.
I do see the World economy crashing, energy and food shortages and a lengthy recession. This will decrease the population World-wide, which will make it easier to gradually come out of the harsh times ahead. Either way it won't be an easy time and it will depend upon the powers that be and the people who elect them. Done wastefully or selfishly, it might end up being more on the doomer side of things.
Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 8:55 pm Post subject: Re: Any middle grounders here?
TheDude wrote:
Where will the supply come from to overcome declines in 2011? Maybe Brazil will have some big projects coming online to balance things out; but we're only three years out, and these things take time, which seems to be true of many of these big supply projects, whether oil or automobiles. People expect everything on demand, including catastrophe.
Moderate leaning towards Doom myself. The behavior of our politicians this year doesn't make me the slightest bit more optimistic, and when shortages appear they won't go away - reverses in declines never rebound to their original level except in the case of political factors, and we haven't taken any major breaks in global consumption. People simply refuse to stop and consider how central oil has been to modern industrial society - and I'd consider that mindset much more cultish than that of the peak oil crowd, who are by and large simply blunt realists, with a proven track record so far, by the way.
Keep in mind that the wheels of change have already started turning. I'd swear that 75% of the commercials (not just car commercials) I hear bring up gas prices somehow. This topic is on people's minds. There are commercials for massive discounts on SUVs. Toyota can't produce Priuses fast enough, and is now building a plant in the US. 3 years from now some adjustments will have been made to offset what's already happening; we aren't going to teleport there, and the declines won't happen overnight. I'm probably oversimplifying, but to me it seems like the doomer mindset assumes precipitous, sudden, unforeseen drops in production, combined with no change to the status quo (demand, usage, conservation, etc.) in order to correct for shortages.
Honestly, I'm glad the doomers do what they do because I think they're helping bring the tipping point about even faster.
Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 9:31 pm Post subject: Re: Any middle grounders here?
Moderate here. I cooked up some reasonably detailed models of the demand destruction we're likely to see across different major countries in the world (using both ASPO and Simmons/OilDrum projections.)
Under these scenarios, global use declines to 79% (ASPO) or 58% (Ace) of current use by 2020. Assume U.S. use declines faster as we are a net importer, say to 68%/48% due to oil importation, structural weaknesses, and greater demand elasticity (i.e. inefficiency.)
Let's look at the critical sectors that would have to fail, in order of survival importance. Agricultural equipment and fertilizer take up 3% of current usage. Trucking takes up 12.7%, but certainly not all of that is critical to food supply. Construction (of food distribution, electrical plants, vehicles, etc.) takes 1.9%. Heat and hot water take 5%. Asphault takes 3%, Water Freight 2.5%, Rail Freight 2%.
Add it all together and even assuming no efficiency gains in these sectors (which is of course likely) it adds up to just 30.1% of the current oil supply - i.e. we can just about cover it with what we're pumping now.
But it's not all sunshine and roses. Some sectors have to get downsized pretty significantly to make the math work, particularly personal transport and air travel. Demand destruction in these other sectors is serious enough that it's hard to imagine all of it coming from efficiency gains. That means price signals will have to be bad enough for people to give up their daily commute so they can eat. It means some nasty recessions in the pipeline.
Sizeable production from 2nd-gen biofuels up to the sustainable projected level of 20-30% of daily use helps *a lot* with this issue when plugged into these models. However, it's tough to project more than a 1-2 mbd contribution before 2015. Thus 2010-2015 is emerging as a critical period, though it seems like bottom-up projections on the oil drum are showing much smaller declines out through 2015 than predicted by the models.
I also see oil depletion being a major problem causing tension on the world stage, with oil exporters and rapidly developing countries consuming ever more oil in the face of global declines, forcing importers (read: U.S./OECD) into steeper consumption declines that cause recessions. The least developing countries are going to lose out, and there could be a lot of civil instability. I think being a member of the urban poor in a third-world country is just about the worst position you could have in this crisis.
In the end, I think that what conclusions you draw about the fate of society come back to what you think about people. This is what I perceive to be the core doomer argument: people are inherently bad or have become soft and greedy and violent and evil in the modern consumer driven state. Thus they will not pull together and put down their weapons at a time like this, and so resource wars will be launched and society will break down in social disorder after a few hard recessions. At the end the evil overconsuming humans will learn their lesson, get what they deserved, etc.
Personally, I think that people are if anything less bad than they were in ages past (serfdom, slavery, religious rigidity, a massive death rate from wars, etc.) I think a slow-moving, clearly perceptible crisis will bring out the best in most people. I feel more sure about a quick response (that admittedly should have been about 5 years ago) than ever, given the rapid reaction the wider culture, venture capitalists, etc., are having to soaring oil prices.
BTW, my modeling spreadsheet (Excel format) is available if anyone wants to play with the numbers.
Joined: Aug 26, 2005 Posts: 393 Location: Windy City No Longer
Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 10:12 pm Post subject: Re: Any middle grounders here?
jtmorgan61 wrote:
In the end, I think that what conclusions you draw about the fate of society come back to what you think about people. This is what I perceive to be the core doomer argument: people are inherently bad or have become soft and greedy and violent and evil in the modern consumer driven state. Thus they will not pull together and put down their weapons at a time like this, and so resource wars will be launched and society will break down in social disorder after a few hard recessions. At the end the evil overconsuming humans will learn their lesson, get what they deserved, etc.
Personally, I think that people are if anything less bad than they were in ages past (serfdom, slavery, religious rigidity, a massive death rate from wars, etc.) I think a slow-moving, clearly perceptible crisis will bring out the best in most people. I feel more sure about a quick response (that admittedly should have been about 5 years ago) than ever, given the rapid reaction the wider culture, venture capitalists, etc., are having to soaring oil prices.
As a young history major I took a couple of classes in Roman history. Recently, I've been reading a lot about late Rome and the Byzantine Empire. Add in a little Jared Diamond and (next up) Tainter and I'm beginning to piece together a pretty good future history based on some historical antecedents. I don't have a timeline for events, but agree with much of your assessment.
This is going to be a slow moving crisis - a real frog boiler. As we slide down the curve, the system will adapt to keep itself going. Society is an adaptive mechanism after all. Thus, barring a REAL Black Swan event, like an EMP or nuclear attack (god forbid), we're in for a slow decline punctuated by periodic slips and climbs back up. For instance, at some point, we'll ration fuel based on industry/need. That will buy some time, but then that won't work. As we add complexity, governments will grow more authoritarian to manage scarcity and deal with crises. The accrual of wealth in fewer and fewer hands will continue. As these people find ways to slip through taxation nets, the lower/middle class will become more heavily taxed. As transport costs increase, some technologies will simply slip away for lack of replacement parts and people. There will be a long series of financial crises. The current one will be fairly mild, comparatively. The big one will come in a couple years. I haven't figured out when/how the urban/rural dynamic will play out yet though.
I don't think our slide will take centuries a la Rome. It will be much shorter, measured in a scant few decades. How far down we slide will depend on our initial responses. As you said, the critical period looks to be 2010-2015.
On the other hand, I could be totally wrong! Maybe we ARE different than every other civilization. I don't have a lock on knowledge. Maybe some smart guy will invent a way to make solar/wind cheap. I doubt it. In fact, I REALLY doubt it, but until I know for sure I'll keep a hand in as many futures as possible. _________________ TANSTAAFL
Joined: Jul 15, 2008 Posts: 34 Location: Daegu, South Korea
Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 10:17 pm Post subject: Re: Any middle grounders here?
I consider myself to be sort of a middle-grounder. I think there are people on this forum that would classify me as a cornicopian (sp?) (I'm just going by the comments such as me and "my kind" will all be dead soon, etc.) but in the world at large people consider me to be a bit of a doomer. My family and friends think that I've lost my mind and I can see myself becoming a bit of a social outcast in the near future. They don't want to hear what I have to say so when I talk about PO they change the subject or roll their eyes.
But I think that this forum is not representative of the general public, which is unfortunate really because so many people are unaware of peak oil and its related issues. I think there needs to be more information available to the public, because you can easily avoid PO if you don't want to hear about it. It's much harder to avoid the irrelevant doings of celebrities like Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, etc., which are all over TV and Internet, and that's a really sad statement about our society I think.
I do think that our standard of living here in the Western world is going to change, and it's going to be a difficult adjustment for most people, but I still think there's a chance that we can avoid the level of catastrophe predicted by the Cannibalism Enthusiasts around here.
I already posted something to this effect yesterday, but I will eat many things, such as insects, before I eat people. I am a sort of vegetarian (I try, but it's very hard to avoid meat in Korea, so I just choose vegetarian dishes whenever possible). I have yet to meet a Korean vegetarian, it's just not a trend here. My reasons for avoiding meat are environmental; I read somewhere that if we stop grazing our McCows on arable land, we could feed many more people by growing vegetable crops, and the land wouldn't be turned into desert by the grazing. I think that an increase in vegetarianism, or at least if people committed to, say, cutting their meat intake in half, it would help the food crisis. Of course, nobody will ever agree to that ... sigh.
I also read that, according to the Canadian Cancer Society, the average Canadian eats three times as much meat as what is recommended for a healthy diet, so I think that cutting back on the fatty red meats would be good for us Westerners in so many ways (I don't know the data for Americans, but I'm assuming it's similar, and obesity is slightly more prevalent in America than in Canada).
But eating insects is one possible scenario, and preferable to cannibalism ... think about it! They're plentiful, full of protein and non-fatty, and harvesting them would do zero damage to the environment. People in many parts of the world are already eating insects. Here in Korea a popular snack among the schoolchildren is bondegi (not sure if that's spelled correctly), which is some kind of boiled larva dish. I haven't tried it because it smells awful, but the kids love it!
Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 10:43 pm Post subject: Re: Any middle grounders here?
I will be a Moderate here if we can get real change in the White House this Nov,, but if things stay the same then I will be a Doomer,, the 2 knuckle heads that are in the news everyday, McCain and Oboma are not the correct change..
215,000 people are added to this world every day and that number is growing.. [that in itself is a big problem], where will the oil, food, water, etc all come from just to keep up with population growth,, 7 billion by 2015................
Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 11:55 pm Post subject: Re: Any middle grounders here?
The explosive growth of petroleum based industrial civilization was anything but moderate. It was hells bells, balls to the wall, exponential growth on roids.
There was no middle ground on the way up. I don't see any middle ground on the way down.
Joined: Apr 06, 2006 Posts: 2959 Location: 3 miles NW of Champoeg, Republic of Cascadia
Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 12:15 am Post subject: Re: Any middle grounders here?
jtmorgan61 wrote:
Add it all together and even assuming no efficiency gains in these sectors (which is of course likely) it adds up to just 30.1% of the current oil supply - i.e. we can just about cover it with what we're pumping now.
Assuming they can continue to function under such a stringent rationing scheme. The ongoing theft of fuel is an alarming bit of news.
Quote:
But it's not all sunshine and roses. Some sectors have to get downsized pretty significantly to make the math work, particularly personal transport and air travel. Demand destruction in these other sectors is serious enough that it's hard to imagine all of it coming from efficiency gains. That means price signals will have to be bad enough for people to give up their daily commute so they can eat. It means some nasty recessions in the pipeline.
One of my big concerns is whether there'll be much of any capital to funnel into any kind of projects, whether CTL, efficiency, EVs, renewables, given how central driving is to growth in the first place:
GDP has taken the lead somewhat recently, owing to online commerce and telecommuting. But in the face of rationing will anyone bother to pay for an end table off eBay, or for the services of a homebody graphic designer? And will the internet continue to function in the first place? _________________ Cogito, ergo non satis bibivi
I'm just gonna find a cash machine.
Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 1:26 am Post subject: Re: Any middle grounders here?
Interfector wrote:
By that I mean, anyone who believes that the era of cheap oil is over, and that life will probably get steadily tougher for the majority of people, but doesn't think that we'll be resorting to cannibalism to survive within a decade, but that could be a potential scenario in the future if the right action isn't taken now.
Yup "middle grounder" is an apt description of my outlook. For quite a while now I've seen so much potential in the USA to become so much more efficent with our environment and our economy.
I've been looking at and been interested with the global warming problem since about 1989 or there abouts when I read hanson report at university, and about that time also started reading the literature on old king hubbert. I've also been reading the worldwatch reports since the early 1990's
and was somewhat pessmistic over the long term viability of ever increasing global human civilization, becasue many trends pointed toward massive resource mismanagement and technology not up to the challange of addressing global demend, but over the past few years with a self taught understanding of economics, and the now with the public conversion of T. Boon Pickens toward stuff like wind energy, I think the public is now ready for a new social outlook based less on consumption and self. Therefore I think cannibalism to survive is much less likely because ironicly enough of the realitive suddeness of the constraction of the US economy due to the subprime loans, and increase in gas prices...
This is not to say there will be local conflicts, but what I think is going to happen is a pulling together of society like what happened in the USA during the 1930's depresion, and what happened in cuba during their "special" period.
When I was in cuba, a few years ago I had a chance to talk to various people about some of the problems there, and was kinda surprised to find out that during the special period, people there did try and work together. Afterward I did some reading about moral during the battle of london blitz, and the moral of germans when the 8th air force was fire bombing many german cities, in both cases moral of the people under attack somewhat increased, because they were able to focus on an enemy. Same thing was seen here in the USA after 9/11 people do rally together when they can focus on an enemy.
Hate and fear can be uses as constructive motivating force, much more so than sound reasoning. For example I've known about the problem of global warming and peak oil now for about 20 years, but I discovered these topics, cause I'm a bookworm geek by nature. When I tried to tell people about the potental problems of global warming and peak oil, 99.9% of the people in the past were too self absorbed and distracted by toys produced in a consumer society. Now that problems have comeup in the economy and the environment, people are now more interested in finding solutions.
I have no doubt there is going to be anger and denial about problems with global warming and peak oil, but now that the manifistations of mismanagement of the economy and the environment are too big to ignore, the general public will eventually pull ogether and solve these big issues... _________________ "I'm 100% sure that unsustainable conspicuous consumption of natural basic resources will eventually lead to a proverbial hell on earth for those people who get stuck with the mismanagement mess of mankind not being stewards of the environment!"
Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 2:23 am Post subject: Re: Any middle grounders here?
benzoil wrote:
Maybe some smart guy will invent a way to make solar/wind cheap. I doubt it. In fact, I REALLY doubt it, but until I know for sure I'll keep a hand in as many futures as possible.
Wind at 8c/kWh is getting close to coal (5c/kWh) and will get over the top with any credible emissions scheme. GE is planning for wind to be more than 50% of new U.S. installations by 2012. Wind is by some estimates on track to make up 15-20% of the U.S. and even Chinese markets by 2020. Grid maximum might be 30% with a few simple improvements to make a smarter grid. Still need a better storage system though. Utilities are taking a small price hit now for price security later.
Solar thermal is probably around 12-15c/kWh now. If prices can be brought down to 8c/kWh by scaling one or another of the designs then it could explode. No energy storage issues either. We could run our civilization on 12c/kWh power if we had to, and with gas peaking in the next decade and coal plants blocked in many places and nuclear being no cheaper, we may have to.
Biomass, it's not clear to me whether we can get a good source (algae, switchgrass?) or have to settle for the 20-30% of current use we could do with waste products. Nor is it clear what the best output is (syngas, fischer-tropsch for oil, ethanol?) Still, the difference between 5 mbd and 10 mbd in 2030 here in the U.S. would be pretty substantial, and it seems like this is where all the VC capital is going right now. Some of the designs look pretty competitive at $100 oil, heck even thermal depolymerization is competitive at $100 oil.
CherBear1983 wrote:
My reasons for avoiding meat are environmental; I read somewhere that if we stop grazing our McCows on arable land, we could feed many more people by growing vegetable crops, and the land wouldn't be turned into desert by the grazing. I think that an increase in vegetarianism, or at least if people committed to, say, cutting their meat intake in half, it would help the food crisis. Of course, nobody will ever agree to that ... sigh.
It seems likely that the meat industry is going to be significantly downsized in the first world. It takes 7 pounds of corn to produce 1 pound of beef. 18% of U.S. agricultural land goes to feed grain production. In developing countries, the appetite for meat is still growing.
Last edited by jtmorgan61 on Thu Jul 24, 2008 2:32 am; edited 1 time in total
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