[lorenzo]

Peak Oil is a very good concept, in the sense that it helps to open fascinating new lines of thought on important topics such as the relation between capital and environmental governance, between politics and the exploitation of natural resources, between ideology and ecology.

Peak Oil acts as a mytheme: an empty signifier around which everybody can dream up its own reality, and imagine a new future (whether bright or dark).

As such, Peak Oil is extremely useful for debates about times ahead, and about the social and economic choices we need to make.

But still, let us deconstruct it a bit, in a way that lacks elegance. The poll above asks you to indicate which elements are most present when you think of "Peak Oil". Is it "reality" (as in the technical stuff about oil depletion), is it "ideology" (in the sense that one wishes to obtain a new ideal and Peak Oil may serve to those ends), is it "rêverie" as in something that makes you dream about the future, or is it merely "rhetorics", a playful element of language that is used to set a tone in a discourse?

I am just curious to know how much self-reflection there is amongst people who think or talk about "Peak Oil".

[mos6507]

This is a personal poll, right?

For me I guess it's reverie in the sense that most of my waking hours are spent in a haze, pondering in the future, kind of deer in the headlights, and I have to drag myself through daily rituals.

[Nano]

I am just curious to know how much self-reflection there is amongst people who think or talk about "Peak Oil".

Hi lorenzo, been awhile since i responded to a post of yours.

My idea around peak oil is mostly 100% technical. Peak oil is simply the beginning of the end of the (essentially) free energy and c.q. resources that have made the modern world possible in so many ways.

Furthermore, a lot of things will change, because the significance of cheap oil is not understood at all by 99% of even the developed world population, and because the people that *do* understand it are mostly working *against* the interest of the common good, and richly lining their pockets in the process. (See the current scandal around Tony Blair, for instance.) Typical.

My definition of Peak Oil would be: "The thingy that is shortly going to totally humiliate and pummel that other thingy which we all call 'modern civilisation', which is so full of itself it would be funny if it wasn't so bloody tragic and disheartening.

[americandream]

Capitalism has nothing to do with modernity.
It's a ponzi scheme arrangement of civil rules of engagement.

I am just curious to know how much self-reflection there is amongst people who think or talk about "Peak Oil".

Hi lorenzo, been awhile since i responded to a post of yours.

My idea around peak oil is mostly 100% technical. Peak oil is simply the beginning of the end of the (essentially) free energy and c.q. resources that have made the modern world possible in so many ways.

Furthermore, a lot of things will change, because the significance of cheap oil is not understood at all by 99% of even the developed world population, and because the people that *do* understand it are mostly working *against* the interest of the common good, and richly lining their pockets in the process. (See the current scandal around Tony Blair, for instance.) Typical.

My definition of Peak Oil would be: "The thingy that is shortly going to totally humiliate and pummel that other thingy which we all call 'modern civilisation', which is so full of itself it would be funny if it wasn't so bloody tragic and disheartening.

[Nano]

Capitalism has nothing to do with modernity.
It's a ponzi scheme arrangement of civil rules of engagement.

The ponzi scheme element is clear enough, but we allow it to happen because we believe we also profit from this scheme. We believe that technology and time are enough to manage economic development under capitalism. This is technotriumphalism, which will be pummeled and humiliated due to peak oil. In the zero growth economy, capitalism will be strongly challenged, but only once it is clear to all that technology under capitalism does *not* in fact make it straighforward to pick up and sustain growth-for-all after peak oil.

[Carlhole]

Peak Oil can only be a real phenomenon because either (1) oil is finite and must eventually decline, or (2) demand for oil will peak due to the development of alternatives. But Doomerism interprets the idea of peak oil as an utter certainty that the world will eventually run out of cheap energy and thus civilization (and population) MUST collapse.

But such a prediction can not be made with any certainty at all because the world's possible futures are so fantastically chaotic (in the sense of Chaos Theory). You cannot KNOW for certain that there will not be energy developments such as a LIFE (fusion) reactor, or that oil derived from coal or shale or oil sands will NEVER be economical, or that nanotechnology will not yield thin film solar technologies, or that many other energy developments will never be successful. You can only dream that there will never be alternatives.

One has to have a BELIEF (or a yearning) about the possibility of the crumbling of industrial civilization or a mass, global die-off. I've called this certainty a 'juvenile fantasy' in previous posts. You call it a reverie.

[mos6507]

This continued assertion that doomerism is really nothing but some sort of cognitive bias is merely a facet of denial, IMHO. You have to take a broad "limits to growth" perspective, not just look at peak oil in isolation.

Progress is threatened from too many angles. Peak oil is only ONE. The odds of all of them being solves are slim to none. Even with fusion, you're left with having to geoengineer the planet back to stability, which would probably require rapidly (trees and biochar are not fast enough) "unburning" all the unsequestered carbon from 200+ years of fossil fuel use with a portion of the surplus energy that fusion grants us. Even if you did that, you'd have to find a stable form for that carbon. The coal and oil was stable. Concentrated CO2 like what they are working on for clean coal, is not. We're liable to turn our aquifers into soda water if we screw that up. And then if you do that, and somehow prevent most of the worst of the mass extinction taking place, you'll still be left with a species that will continue to attempt to convert all available biomass into human bodies. So it's possible we could kick the can down the road a bit, but we're just not going to avoid collapse and head to the stars. It's techno-fantasy.

[bromius]

Peak Oil can only be a real phenomenon because either (1) oil is finite and must eventually decline, or (2) demand for oil will peak due to the development of alternatives. But Doomerism interprets the idea of peak oil as an utter certainty that the world will eventually run out of cheap energy and thus civilization (and population) MUST collapse.

But such a prediction can not be made with any certainty at all because the world's possible futures are so fantastically chaotic (in the sense of Chaos Theory). You cannot KNOW for certain that there will not be energy developments such as a LIFE (fusion) reactor, or that oil derived from coal or shale or oil sands will NEVER be economical, or that nanotechnology will not yield thin film solar technologies, or that many other energy developments will never be successful. You can only dream that there will never be alternatives.

One has to have a BELIEF (or a yearning) about the possibility of the crumbling of industrial civilization or a mass, global die-off. I've called this certainty a 'juvenile fantasy' in previous posts. You call it a reverie.

Peak oil is more than a technological problem. Even it if was, arguing things will be OK because technology that does not exist, and may not ever exist (Chaos is a cruel mistress) is a dangerous attitude for society to adopt because it will only encourage complacency. The classic, "don't worry, someone will figure it out," line.

The core of this thing is behavioral. As a society we seem to be incapable of asking hard questions and making the right decision based on the answer. Most people seem to fail when it comes to questions like, "Should I have another kid?", "Should I buy the house with an extra thousand square feet?", "Should I take that job I have to commute another 20 miles to?

Gains in technology will ultimately mean little unless there is corresponding improvement in the choices we all make. We don't need nuclear fusion to decide to have fewer children. We don't need thin film solar panels to decide to stop driving to the mall to buy imported crap we don't really need anyway.