[Quinny]

about peak oil?

In another recent post, someone stated that it was regularly mentioned in mainstream news media.

I rarely see a mention, and if so it's a fleeting mention.

So when you first mention Peak Oil to someone what percentage already were aware of the subject.

I have mentioned it to people in all walks of life, and no one had even heard of it!

[green_achers]

Hard to know, I don't usually use the term, "peak oil."

[Narz]

I'd walk up to random people in Philadelphia or NYC and ask them (conducting a survey) but it's just not my personality. Unless of course someone wants to pay me to do so. Then I'd happily poll 1,000 people.

[Niagara]

None.

They still don't know.

[SeaGypsy]

I'm a peak oil pain. I have been telling everyone whether they are interested or not; for several years.
In Australia most have heard the term but have no real idea of the ramifications.
In SE Asia I am yet to meet anyone who knows anything about it.
About 99% believe a tech fix will fill the energy gap as it opens; despite there being nothing statisticly to back this attitude up.
1st stage Kubler-Ross.
Denial. BAU

[JJ]

I'm a peak oil pain. I have been telling everyone whether they are interested or not; for several years.
In Australia most have heard the term but have no real idea of the ramifications.
In SE Asia I am yet to meet anyone who knows anything about it.
About 99% believe a tech fix will fill the energy gap as it opens; despite there being nothing statisticly to back this attitude up.
1st stage Kubler-Ross.
Denial. BAU

I give up. I went into a shop on our square the other day (she sells silver). Got my silver. Was talking to the counterworker about the economy. The owner threw me out of the store "get on down the road with you, we can't do any business here with that negative talk, got out of my shop now, blah blah blah.". I thanked her for the silver and left. (there wasn't anyone else in the store). Her husband came into the produce department where I work a couple of days ago and told me I deserved to be thrown out of her shop, thats all political bullshit, I shouldn't believe any of it, etc. Then he came in yesterday and literally cussed me out because he didn't like the quality of the bananas (but I merely responded thats funny, the ones I bought were fine). My boss was standing nearby and started laughing. he said I've gotten several complaints about you, the people say you know, Jay used to be so nice, I've known him ten years, but now he's getting really scary. He also said I've been in this town for thirty two years. Don't try to talk to these people, they won't believe anything. They don't want to know anything.

So i suppose they are about to get a big wakeup call.

PS Bing says don't waste your time talking to Americans. They're stupid and they won't believe anything unless it happens to them.

[TWilliam]

PS Bing says don't waste your time talking to Americans. They're stupid and they won't believe anything unless it happens to them.

Meh. 90% of those still won't believe it...

[cipi604]

The only person that knew pretty much about it was a 19 years old girl from Montreal.Super bright girl, one in a billion. The rest of the people , if they heard about it, they believe in technical fixes 'no doubt about it'. In Europe pretty much the same thing. I've been called 'schizophrenic' by my ex girlfriend, and 'nuts but interesting' by my actual one. Not even my family believes it.
I don't like to be a doomer, and peak-oil it's not a hobby. I just deal with the facts.

[katkinkate]

I don't talk about it any more. The only person who'd heard about it before I mentioned it was my brother and he seems to agree with the principle intellectually, but is in denial re. consequences and timing. He's a climate change denialist as well and has bought a nice little block of land in a coastal town to build his retirement home on. He'll be lucky if the sea hasn't claimed it by the time he's old/rich enough to retire.

[Roy]

I don't talk about it any more

This.

No one, not engineers, oil workers, analysts -- nobody. Trying to inform friends and loved ones when I first learned about it -- my PO evangelical phase -- was an epic fail.

Until one day my father in law emailed me a link to Matt Savinar's site, out of the blue in 2006. I had never mentioned it to him and he evidently found it on his own, just as I had.

Some friends totally dissociated with me. My mom thought (at the time) that I had gone crazy. At least she admitted to me last summer that many of things I had discussed with her were starting to make sense in her mind and she was noticing things lining up with some of my doomerish predictions from 04 (which were not my own, just parroting what I had read).

The person that matters most to me is my wife, and thank whatever deity you believe in, she got it. Our natural aptitudes are complimentary and we are both working toward more self sufficiency and building a network of people who are into local food, growing food, and who can get things done. We don't talk specifically about PO. We just stick to the general health benefits of naturally raised food, and disaster preparedness DIY type stuff. A lot of people are receptive to those ideas whereas they will shut you out if you say the taboo words of PO or doom. Weird.

JJ's wife is right. Most people don't want to know.

[AirlinePilot]

Very few folks I bring this up with are aware. probably less than 10%. Most times its met with negativity, denial, and techno/cornucopian beliefs.

[davep]

My Dad and my step-Mum were aware of this before me. But I learnt about it on my own. I always wondered why my Dad was looking at alternative energy in the seventies, and why he bought a small-holding in the nineties (he had been looking for one for a long time previously with my Mum, but she didn't really want to know - then they split up).

It's pretty cool having that kind of influence from your Dad. It means you can cross the line to the doomstead more easily. Kids don't learn from parental words, but from parental deeds.

He worked in the petro-chemical industry from the sixties as a draughtsman.

[americandream]

I don't talk about it any more. The only person who'd heard about it before I mentioned it was my brother and he seems to agree with the principle intellectually, but is in denial re. consequences and timing. He's a climate change denialist as well and has bought a nice little block of land in a coastal town to build his retirement home on. He'll be lucky if the sea hasn't claimed it by the time he's old/rich enough to retire.

I can't see a single aussie truly making the sacrifices necessary to accommodate peak oil even if there was wide spread awareness of the subject. Nor any other nationality for that matter so I'm not picking on you guys. But lets be up front, Australians are up there cheerleading the Chinese soz you can sell them your commodties. Saving the planet from anything remotely dystopian is pretty much at the bottom of your collective to do wish-list I reckon.

[Pops]

We don't talk specifically about PO. We just stick to the general health benefits of naturally raised food, and disaster preparedness DIY type stuff. A lot of people are receptive to those ideas whereas they will shut you out if you say the taboo words of PO or doom. Weird.

If you think about it for just a second, you gotta agree talking about doom probably wouldn't rate very high on the acceptable small talk scale for much of the population.

But we are right there with you guys, Roy. When people think of oil they think of cars and really cars are the least of worries. About the best someone can do I think is lead by example and wean themselves from all the crap we produce from oil.

[americandream]

We don't talk specifically about PO. We just stick to the general health benefits of naturally raised food, and disaster preparedness DIY type stuff. A lot of people are receptive to those ideas whereas they will shut you out if you say the taboo words of PO or doom. Weird.

If you think about it for just a second, you gotta agree talking about doom probably wouldn't rate very high on the acceptable small talk scale for much of the population.

But we are right there with you guys, Roy. When people think of oil they think of cars and really cars are the least of worries. About the best someone can do I think is lead by example and wean themselves from all the crap we produce from oil.

Example. Whose gonna be taking notice of some anti-social dropout when there's all those ads on tv to watch.

[Quinny]

I made a mistake with the categories with a lack of granularity at the lower end, but I think the results still illustrate the point that the topic is not heavily covered in mainstream press and media as stated by some.

[Quinny]

I can't understand why it isn't discussed more, and despite my reluctance to accept conspiracy theories, it is almost like the topic is suppressed.

Having said that, the nature of the press is headlines, not in depth analysis and discussion.

Petrol is back up to 108.9 p per litre at some places round here, there wasn't a peep from the press when it passed £1. Whats that translate to in dollars / gallon?

[Pops]

The media publishes what gets ratings - look at the timeline at the top of this search:
http://news.google.com/archivesearch?um ... %22&cf=all

Heh, it's lower now than at THE peak!

[Pretorian]

I remember odd looks I was getting when I was saying to my classmates that there are will be no pensions for us as oil and NG will run out by then. It was late 80s-90s. I haven't heard a word about peakoil at the time.