[mos6507]

I came across this news article today, in FastCompany of all places, and I'm thinking to myself, what will it really look like when peak oil the term is mainstream? How will we know when it's mainstream?

I've been seeing peak oil editorials in business-related rags for some time. It seems that the investment sector has bought onto it, although it seems oftentimes that the only reason they've bought onto it is the idea they can make a killing somewhere along the lines. So that whole conflict of interest issue has prevented me from seeing this development as being that significant.

But there is also the issue of tone. Despite a strong strain of industry pushback in the editoral pages of major business-related rags, global warming, by and large, is treated as a closed issue by the press.

The debate then shifts to what to do about it.

Articles like this one seem to be moving in a similar direction, that peak oil may be moving beyond the starting gates of if it's real, to reporting on "the scramble" that various parties are already engaged in to cope with it.

The Honda thing where they linked to doomers would be similar, as would the Exxon story on the front page of the WSJ, etc...

What's blowing my mind about all this is how blase' this mainstreaming process is.

There isn't a lot of linkage between an admission of peak oil, and, let's say, the end of globalization, mega-capitalism, or malthusian die-offs. It's almost like people are engaging in that Shortonsense fantasy that even though we're facing what the doomers said was gonna happen, what we swore up and down wasn't gonna happen, that since we haven't hit bottom yet, it won't really be that bad, and so we're deluding ourselves with the idea that "the market" can respond in sync with geology and this will go by with more of a whimper than a bang.

What do you think?

[Sixstrings]

For me, the "peak oil has gone mainstream" moment was that Doom Prophets show on History channel. That was first time I've heard peak oil mentioned on the teevee, and discussed at length.

That Fast Company article.. just the headline sounds like doomer news, not mainstream:

Solar Power Comes to Saudi Arabia in a Big Way as Peak Oil Looms

Interesting how fast that can happen.. to go from not talking about it all to peak oil being assumed like everybody knew it. Maybe it was the wikileaks that turned the tide.

Content of your article is interesting.. basically the oil's runnin out so Saudi Arabia switching over to solar panel power, wants to be an exporter.

Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi has already made it clear that he wants his country's level of solar output to match oil exports, though in terms of action the world is still left waiting. The country has more sun than oil, which means the desert nation could become the world's top exporter of power, just as it is the leader in oil.

[mos6507]

Interesting how fast that can happen.. to go from not talking about it all to peak oil being assumed like everybody knew it. Maybe it was the wikileaks that turned the tide.

I really thought Earth2100 would be that moment, but it aired right around the time oil prices tanked and people just hit the snooze bar for 2 years.

It totally is like those scenes in comedies where the peon feeds an idea to the executive over and over again and finally the executive repeats the idea and says "Glad I thought of it!"

There is going to be a lot of collective amnesia about all of the denials leading up to this.

I swear the only reason people are warming up to the idea is the mental buffering they are doing about consequences.

If they can decouple an admission of peak oil with an admission of the consequences of peak oil that doom prophets like Ruppert so often talk about, then it's easier for them to concede it.

Similarly, AGW denialists saying "yeah, the climate is changing, but we can adapt. Just put houses on stilts."

It's that clinging to the notion that BAU will persist, that as long as we don't have this overnight fast-crash, the center will hold. The stone age didn't end for a lack of stones.

So the debate shifts from whether or not peak oil is real to what we here argue about, which is what we can and/or should do about it, in which most denialists fall into the drill baby drill and technofix camp and the powerdowners and malthusians are marginalized still.

It's kind of like embrace and extend. BAU can learn to embrace peak oil if it can sell the concept as merely a speedbump on the road to progress, even though all the experts worth listening to agree that BAU is hosed.

[gollum]

I was listening to an interview with Robert Hirsch on Financial Sense News Hour yesterday, he seemed to think it may take sever "oil shocks" before people see reality. He tried to very hard to not sound alarmist, which scares the hell out of me. His opinion is that when the authorities do fess up all hell is going to break loose.

[cualcrees]

I was listening to an interview with Robert Hirsch on Financial Sense News Hour yesterday, he seemed to think it may take sever "oil shocks" before people see reality. He tried to very hard to not sound alarmist, which scares the hell out of me. His opinion is that when the authorities do fess up all hell is going to break loose.

Got link?

[gollum]

http://www.financialsense.com/search/no ... t%20hirsch

I'm not sure which interview it was but here is a bunch he has done on the show. I got it on a podcast.....

[gollum]

http://www.financialsense.com/financial ... nd-reality

I think it's this one....

[cualcrees]

http://www.financialsense.com/financial-sense-newshour/big-picture/2011/01/29/03/robert-hirsch-nicole-foss/oil-myths-and-reality

I think it's this one....

Thanks a lot! I'll check it out!

[TheDude]

Robert L Hirsch on the Financial Sense News Hour.

Drill Baby Drill, open up ANWR, sanctions, massive midterm election turnovers, no end of vitriol from your Becks and Limbaughs, huge bump in sales of non petroleum vehicles, calls for seizing oilfields.

[Ludi]

BAU can learn to embrace peak oil if it can sell the concept as merely a speedbump on the road to progress, even though all the experts worth listening to agree that BAU is hosed.

You got it. There's no other way of life so this one is immortal.

[Pops]

The Tipping Point paper made a case that general acceptance would lead the money people to the ultimate musical chairs endgame with massive divestment in growth and a scramble for basic resources like cropland and water and other commodities. I assume that would not be orderly and once started it might happen really quick, much faster than J6p could hope to adjust to.

This is really the SHTF scenario and one that scares me from time to time if I get up on the wrong side of the bed. It's also why I carp and rant about doing something before the herd gets the scent.


Probably what is more likely is the money people will slowly try to move away from energy intense business such as they've been doing in the first world since the 70's and at an even more accelerated rate since the '90s. I don't think they necessarily were thinking of PO in going for the lower labor cost overseas but as it turns out, they may have actually done the US a favor by reducing the percentage of our economy reliant on heavy industry. ?

At any rate, as THE DUDE so wisely said, J6p will grouse about hippies and A-rabs and do nothing different until forced which is the reason I think this is the more likely scenario. There will continue to be consumers who believe the problem is A) trumped up, B) temporary and/or C) not applicable to them. We see that attitude here on this board and in the comments section of any story about PO.

There will continue to be profit making opportunities from people who won't negotiate about their lifestyle - it's the new spin on the old farmer joke:
What will you do with your lottery winnings?

Keep denying till it's all gone I guess...

[ian807]

It looks like long gas lines. It looks like $25 a gallon, or higher and nobody fills the whole tank.

It looks like $15 dollar loaves of bread.

It looks like store shelves that are almost bare, of almost everything but the bare necessities.

It looks like people on bikes, or walking.

It looks like a lot of ragged, dirty clothing.

It looks like unrepaired streets, broken water mains that never get fixed, garbage that doesn't get picked up, fires that don't get put out. It smells like smoke and decay.

It looks like a lot of people out of work, wondering what happened. It looks like Brazil, or Mexico or Zimbabwe.

It looks poor. Really poor.

[Pops]

just to get off topic, what happens if gas doesn't go to $25, what happens if it stays around $5 but the number of people who can afford $5 a gallon just gets smaller and smaller?

[lper100km]

A precursor is an increasing number of articles in the MSM about PO, like this one in the Globe and Mail yesterday. I haven't seen it referenced elsewhere on this board. I think it merits recognition.

http://tinyurl.com/48qkcqo

The contents won’t come as a surprise to many here, but it is confirmation of a sort of the suspicions of obfuscations around Saudi oil reserves and production capability.

380 comments on the article is a relatively high number, any one of which would not have been out of place on this board.

[sparky]

.
You know what mainstream Peak Oil looks like when the mass media mention it as a given
when discussing anything else .

There of course cannot be any linkage between having always know it and having done nothing much about it .

In fact one could think that the "save the planet from evil CO2" is a convenient political line to sell to the electorate for accounting for any restrictions .

Feel good ," it's to save the planet " sound better than " there is no solutions "

the conspirationist among us might think ex VP Cheyney did his bit for planing a future

[sparky]

.

meanwhile , petroleum products have a wobble

http://www.economist.com/blogs/newsbook ... ics_prices

[bratticus]

It looks like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc7rOW7vNIc

[bratticus]

How will we know when it's mainstream?

When Tim O'Reilly tweets about wikileaks confirming it.
http://twitter.com/timoreilly (1,442,971 followers)

http://twitter.com/#!/timoreilly/status ... 6266972160

[crude_intentions]

What does peak oil becoming mainstream LOOK like?

Angry very very angry.

[Outcast_Searcher]

I was listening to an interview with Robert Hirsch on Financial Sense News Hour yesterday, he seemed to think it may take sever "oil shocks" before people see reality. He tried to very hard to not sound alarmist, which scares the hell out of me. His opinion is that when the authorities do fess up all hell is going to break loose.

(Highlight in text in quote above is mine, for emphasis).

I guess it depends on how you define "oil shock". For example, was the summer of 2008 an oil shock?

If so, then I'd say we had THREE oil shocks in the 70's, with gas lines, stagflation, decreasing real income, and fear that Japan would end up owning most of America as "fun" side-effects.

I remember thinking in about 1979, in the middle of oil shock number three, roughly: "OK. THAT'S ENOUGH. I'm convinced this is now a trend and we need to start doing something proactive about it. I'd support an escalating gasoline tax in the U.S. of perhaps a dime added each year, to provide an economic incentive to move us away from using so much oil -- at a gradual enough rate to avoid vaporizing the economy.

Almost NONE of the American populace liked that idea at ALL -- and here, 30+ years later, here we are, nearly bankrupt and with NO meaningful solutions. AND NO MEANINGFUL PLANS FOR SOLUTIONS from our wondrous government.

I'm not sure what it will take to GET people to "see reality", but it apparently will need to be severe and fairly sustained.