[Sixstrings]

"Climate Change" is a catch-all, nobody denies fundamental climate change. But lots of people have a problem with a part of it (aspects of AGW, is the Doom another 100 years off, whether mitigation is even possible, is cap and trade a scam that won't help, etc. etc.).

Peak Oil Doom is more straightforward, you're either hip to it or you're not. Maybe the peak oil issue is easier precisely because nobody out there is proposing big governmental mitigation efforts.

This thread isn't meant to be an AGW debate thread, I'm just curious where everyone stands and this is a chance for lurkers to have their say without getting flogged by 20 people. Another topic for discussion could be how peak oil relates to climate change mitigation -- do you even have to worry about emissions in a "world made by hand?"

EDIT: had to edit the poll to add a cornie option, don't think anyone voted yet.

[vision-master]

Well 6, a few years back this site mainly focused on peakoil, now the AGW ppl have taken a pretty strong stance, almost as if they are 'paid shills' to infiltrate this site. I say this bc 'they' speak as if they are all knowing. Peakoil is really an easy concept, while AGW is easly debateable and does not take into consideration cyclic earth changes, our sun and maybe even the milky way - like the great dark rift. Also we have below the biosphere such as ocean currents, volcanos and so on.

[Daniel_Plainview]

PO DOOM = I'm 100% on board that the nature, timing, and extent of doom will be catastrophic for modern civilization; in particular, the house-of-cards ponzi infrastructure of modern capitalism depends principally (entirely) on the availability of cheap oil for growth; when cheap oil vanishes, the house-of-cards collapses. What happens thereafter I cannot say.

AGW DOOM = I'm about 90% certain that it's already too late to stop catastrophic global warming, and that any discussion of mitigation efforts is a waste of time. However, I'm uncertain about how/when AGW will unfold beyond generalizations of drought, famine, acidic oceans, etc.

[IsThisRealLife]

I'm on board that the good old days are coming to an end, but the term "doom" bothers me. I don't think one given day we'll have a doom scenario and the next day it's WTSHTF and TEOLAWKI.

[Arthur75]

I'm on with the two of them, but took the train from the PO side, always had questions with respect to oil, really got in the concept of peak in 2004 or 5.
Regarding AGW, used to be doubtful but mostly took the thing as info, then went through a "strong skeptical period" I think 2 or 3 years ago, noticing that people like Jean Laherrère also had very strong doubt. What "bought me in" back was realizing that the increase of atmospheric CO2 since the industrial revolution is around 33%, and that we are of course at the origin of this increase (isotopes testing but also the simple fact that we know we have burnt so much hydrocarbons). So although I'm still not that interested or knowledgable in the details and models of climate science, it is clear to me that human activity has the scale to mess up with the climate (and the earth in general, but for that eyes are sufficient).

[sparky]

.
I would agree withisthisreallife ,
Doom is a strong word
climate is one of the many worries , so is pollution , resources depletion and overpopulation
some of those problems interact with each others
could fossil carbone depletion make any cap and trade irrelevant ?
would a warming result in desertification or a wetter climate ?

but in the whole of human history , things tends to go pearshape abruptly
all the underlying problems tend to come out at the same time
that's the real risk

[mos6507]

"I'm on board that the good old days are coming to an end, but the term "doom" bothers me. I don't think one given day we'll have a doom scenario and the next day it's WTSHTF and TEOLAWKI."

It will be in a TSHTF or TEOTWAWKI state within our lifetimes for sure. Even in my most wildly optimistic scenario, it will certainly catch up to my daughter. That's doomy enough for me to call it doom. Doom because it's completely life-altering, dream-shattering, grief-inducing, and worst of all, not-recoverable by us or future generations, unlike the great depression, WWII, fall of Rome, etc... There is no "and this too shall pass" to comfort us, because we're facing more than losing the Xbox and American Idol, but a mass extinction event. I mean, if that's not doomy enough to be considered doom, because it doesn't happen fast enough for us ADD-riddled humans, then we really do deserve to boil in the pot.

Sol had all the Soylent Green he could eat and still his quality of life sucked so much that he shuffled off to the euthanasia center to die while looking at old movies of what used to be a verdant world. That's probably the best we can hope for in the future the way things are headed.

[Ludi]

Peak oil will almost certainly lead to human population die-off (if not extinction) as will climate change. I am not as confident about the resiliency of our culture as some folks here. I'm pretty much 100% doomer on both po and climate change fronts. I don't expect either of these crises to be sudden worldwide events, but rather, painfully and inexorably increasing in effect as each year passes.

[scas]

Like Sir David King and James Lovelock says, by 2100 only the Arctic and Antarctic will be habitable, and a few small 'oases' around the world. There are many crises - water depletion, resource depletion, topsoil depletion, fishery depletion, biodiversity reduction, population explosion, rampant AIDS and new disease, etc. Climate change will cause a convergence of them all, and peak energy will reduce our ability to respond.

In essence, the ship is sinking. How we handle the die-off will determine whether or not any humans survive. We can survive a 6 degree rise in temperature. We can survive massive plagues and famines. And if we continue to burn fossil fuels after the climate has switched to a hot state, we will commit everything to extinction.

But we can also engage in unrestricted nuclear war in a scramble for habitable regions.
And we can also stagnate the oceans and bring about a hydrogen sulfide extinction within centuries.
And we can kill, eat, and burn everything around the world trying to survive. Rapa Nui style.

So, how we handle the next 50 years determines whether a technological civilization continues, or whether we're reduced to hunter-cannibal tribes in a dieing world.

[vision-master]

See the zig zag line to the right, that's where we are today.

[ian807]

It's complicated.

Theoretically we have 30 - 35 years of conventional oil left. In reality, resource nationalism, oil price feedback, wars, terrorism and supply chain disruption due to economic problems will effectively limit supply much sooner. We probably have 20 years of commonly available, if expensive, hydrocarbon liquid fuels left at most.

So what happens then, when airline contrails no longer occur, coal can neither be dug nor transported and burned in large quantities, and cars are simply not an option for most? The atmospheric CO2 injection rate starts decreasing rapidly and we have a declining rate of greenhouse effect from CO2.

So it's a race. If CO2 decline happens before oceanic methane clathrates are released, northern methane from the Tiaga and Canada is released and Lake Kivu in Africa stays quiet, then I'd say our chances of avoiding extreme climate change are high. If the methane release starts in earnest however, then yes, we're in for some trouble. I'd expect the equator to be essentially uninhabitable for centuries.

That said, there will be winners and losers with climate change. Greenland and Iceland can expect a renaissance. Russia and Canada will suddenly be gifted with long growing seasons and a huge amount of arable land. Other effects are less predictable. New deserts may form. Current deserts like the Sahel may become jungle once again. We simply can't predict this.

[peripato]

The way I see it - the only thing worse than peak oil induced collapse is runaway global warming. Because if we don't crash soon industrialisation will just continue apace, further polluting the atmosphere.

[Loki]

I believe in both theories and that both will have catastrophic consequences. PO I think will likely be the most immediate threat. It will probably lead to long-term economic decline in our lifetimes, though not the "piles of bodies" some people here think. I think this may have already started.

AGW is clearly the greater threat, but on a longer time scale. Not sure that there will be significant impacts in my lifetime (next 30 years or so), but I think by the end of the century there will be no doubt whatsoever that climate change is a catastrophic, and probably irreversible, phenomenon. Maybe not as bad as Lovelock thinks, but bad enough.

Unfortunately in the next few decades industrial society will respond to peak oil by burning everything it can get its grubby little hands on (liquified coal, tar sands, etc.), thereby accelerating AGW. Nasty feedback mechanism.

[vision-master]

It's time for a climate change cycle, but has nothing to do with burning fossil fuels. It's far bigger than that.

[Sixstrings]

So.. 30% of respondents are peak oil doomers but have climate change doubts. This is a peak oil forum, in fact it's even called "Peakoil.com."

Is this 30% still welcome around here? Can they stay, but only if they keep quiet on climate change?

[hillsidedigger]

Both and both the result of overconsumption by an overpopulation

with extreme and critical consequences within just a few years, less than a decade.

[SilentRunning]

The powers that be have successfully suppressed meaningful discussion of both issues in the USA. It's amazing what a few million dollars flushed into some PR agencies can do.

[vtsnowedin]

As usual none of the pole options are an exact fit but it is the nature of the beast when you try to digest complex problems into just a few lines. Peak oil is definitely going to happen but I'm not sure of the level of chaos that will result. And at the same time the climate is obviously changing but the degree of that change and the proportion of it that is attributed to human activity is often grossly overstated. Both problems are offshoots of the real problem which is the population bomb. Remove that and the other two fade away.
I find it amusing that more then a few here think that capitalism is the root of the problem and switching over to a socialist or communist government would improve the outcome going forward.

[Plantagenet]

Agree 90% with vtsnowedin (Hoo-RAY!) except I think current climate change is mostly anthropogenic superimposed over a lesser amount of naturally occurring climate change.

[Sixstrings]

I'm on with the two of them, but took the train from the PO side, always had questions with respect to oil, really got in the concept of peak in 2004 or 5.
Regarding AGW, used to be doubtful but mostly took the thing as info, then went through a "strong skeptical period" I think 2 or 3 years ago, noticing that people like Jean Laherrère also had very strong doubt. What "bought me in" back was realizing that the increase of atmospheric CO2 since the industrial revolution is around 33%, and that we are of course at the origin of this increase (isotopes testing but also the simple fact that we know we have burnt so much hydrocarbons). So although I'm still not that interested or knowledgable in the details and models of climate science, it is clear to me that human activity has the scale to mess up with the climate (and the earth in general, but for that eyes are sufficient).

I really like this post. You're obviously someone who's taken the issue seriously, and yet you've gone through periods of doubt. Lots of other good posts in this thread too.

Overall though, I don't see peak oil talked about much insofar as how it changes AGW mitigation. What I wonder about is how some can hold both views simultaneously, that peak oil doom is imminent and yet they still think massive government programs are needed to mitigate climate change doom.

If you accept the one, how do you support the other? In the peak oil doom scenario, there won't be any massive government programs of any kind, much less climate change reversal. And more to the point, Kunstler's "world by hand" is the ultimate emissions reduction program -- neither carbon taxes nor cap and trade can touch peak oil.