shortonsense:
"Seriously, pretending to win an argument which ISN'T an argument doesn't work for me...lets get on with the real work...now that peak oil is over, and we've seen how powerful the forces of modern demand destruction are, lets get with the program reinforcing what is obviously a wonderful thing...non consumption!"
See, this site is called PEAK OIL. Not POST- PEAK OIL, or AFTER PEAK OIL, but PEAK OIL.
Just a few years ago, people on this site were struggling in anguish over how to even talk about Peak Oil. Then the talk moved on to how to get the mass media to talk about Peak Oil. Many many people complained about how hard it was to get the theory accepted seriously.
I soon came to the conclusion, a bit like you, that the actual date and time is not important. How to prepare for it, and what life and society is like after it, is more important than the event itself.
With the global economic break down, this proves to be correct. But the site remains, the people who started posting on here a few years before you, remember well the feeling of illuminated isolation, that feeling of being alone in a world that just didn't get it. Every time some big wig related to the world of petroleum exploration or production hinted he or she might have an inkling of the seriousness of Peak Oil, we jumped up and down excitedly. As the theory and the problems it presents gradually came on to the political radar, we felt relief: at last, decision makers are starting to wake up.
For those of us who have waited for a long time for anybody in any position of influence to actually say something serious related to Peak Oil, these words come too late. There's a kind of deflated feeling of: "Pfffft. Why didn't the wanker acknowledge it while we still had time to do something properly?" Coming from him, back in 2005, this statement would have been extremely important.
In just two years, the whole focus of long standing forum members has changed: we no longer talk about how to break the news to nearest and dearest, or how to make a presentation to a local organisation. The idea of oil depletion is fairly well disseminated, with or without the Peak Oil explanation.
The total lack of interest or surprise this statement has generated here is testament to the fact that Peak Oil, the event, the date and time, the actual pinpointing of the start of global oil production decline, is no longer the important point it was. That's really all I wanted to confirm.
In July 2007 I wrote:
"Talking about Peak Oil is stultifyingly boring. The only thing everybody should be talking about it reducing consumption, period.
"How many of us believe the Peak has already passed? Isn't it obvious that once it has passed (and it is exceedingly difficult to determine exactly when that 'moment' will/has, be/been) it just becomes another piece of information, like 'man landed on the moon', which has no use?
If the peak has not already passed, it certainly looks right now as though we're into that undulating plateau with price volatility and frenetic activity on every related front: stock exchange, inflation, political policy and debate, Peak will cause. So what does it matter? Knowing about Peak Oil is a nerdy little bit of information to add to a list of superiority-enhancing info. Notice how many people go glass eyed when you mention it. It is unecessary information. What would be the reaction/point of a national newspaper headline: POINT OF PEAK OIL REACHED!"
Peak Oil Forum Discussion
