[onlooker]

I ask this question because I think we all feel a sense of helplessness before the intractable problems affecting everyone around the world. I have noticed some are more into their own preparations and welfare and others more interested in changing peoples minds and still other seem simply content to point out certain facts that need to be highlighted. So my question pertains to what do others feel about the effect PO has had on the general populace. I went recently to another doomer site and it had very few people logged on. I believe that individual actions are fine for one and one's loved ones but will not move one iota the vast populace. On the other hand perhaps ideas sufficiently well thought out and convincing can move many to change their ways. We need the great majority of people to change their ways not just some. I know the more pragmatic and pessimistic will scoff at this notion. But if any chance exists of adapting to the tremendous changes ahead as well as mitigating perhaps some of the worst effects it lies in everyone being on board. So what are views of others?

[KaiserJeep]

The ecosystem dies around us and has been dying at an increasing rate since 1800 AD. The presence of 7.3 Billion humans is not a problem that can be avoided, ignored, minimized, or worked around. Each will struggle for individual survival and that of their own family/clan/tribe.

The Earth's ecology crashes, a new species reaches the apex position a few million years after that, when there are again deposits of fossil hydrocarbons to support their own population overshoot. Perhaps the apex species of the Jurassic was a raptor, with a philosophy and breadth of knowledge that surpasses human civilization. It did not save them, and nothing saves the humans on Earth.

One slender possibility for preserving the human species: leave the Earth.

What PO.com did for me is to unify the various themes I have been obsessed with in my life: Ecological damage, overpopulation, resource depletion, space travel, and (lastly and relatively lately) fossil fuel exhaustion.

[onlooker]

I think I have been pretty consistent on this site as a doomer. Yet I am not ready to give up on trying to wake others. I hear Pstar, I hear you Gary yet a part of me feels that it is better to the know the truth then not too. Whether that will make one iota of difference in the trajectory of mankind probably not but it might in terms of allowing us to not become extinct. In the past global warming has led to mass extinction events yet we have our intelligence and technology to perhaps cheat extinction. We have acted reprehensibly towards the Earth and each other yet I feel it is my duty to sound the alarm for as long as I can as I know their is goodness in our hearts from seeing it in others and in myself. Or else guys I would not bother to be here.

[Sixstrings]

Is it actually a settled question, that peak oil is even a problem right now?

What about boom and bust cycles, recessions and depressions, that have been going on all through history? Maybe those were constraints-related, but people just always broke out of the bottle neck..

Oil is at record low prices. There's all that shale, tar sands.. alts energy..

Where is the lack of energy?

I'm not being a troll about this, I'm just, as always, interested in the truth. If one thinks that a problem is caused by (a) when really it is caused by (b), then just believing it is caused by (a) doesn't actually help anything.

So that's why I can't just "believe in" peak oil, even though that would be the appropriate thing to be believing in, on a peak oil forum. It's like with the totality of climate change end-of-the-world stuff, I'd really LIKE to be totally on board about it. Same with peak oil. But I'm just not there, gut level, with what I see going on with all the energy there is available.

[careinke]

One slender possibility for preserving the human species: leave the Earth.

What PO.com did for me is to unify the various themes I have been obsessed with in my life: Ecological damage, overpopulation, resource depletion, space travel, and (lastly and relatively lately) fossil fuel exhaustion.

KJ,
I agree, we have totally messed things up here on earth, maybe even to the point of our own extinction. We took a productive, regenerative ecosystem, and are basically killing it.

What I can't figure out, is why you believe we can create our own ecosystem in space. So far the only thing we have been able to grow and eat in space is some lettuce. Of course it wasn't sustainable, but hey if we can grow some lettuce, a space eco system should be a piece of cake.

It seems to me repairing our own ecosystem would be a lot easier than creating a whole new ecosystem in space. Or even building a lifeboat (hidden of course) on earth would still be easier than in space.

[Ibon]

Peak oil and related human overshoot is playing out independent of any of our life spans and many of us were anticipating the consequences to have already manifested. The knowledge has given many of us a profound sense of understanding of how fragile is our civilization. And this has altered how we consume and choices of where we live and how to educate our children. It is somewhat of a defensive strategy of living life, knowing instabilities are baked into the cake and preparing for them. It takes courage to acknowledge that we are all culpable as individuals in contributing to degrading our planet earth. It takes even more courage and fortitude to then know this and not go down a pessimistic road of hopelessness.

Take a moment and put yourselves in the shoes of the young emerging generations. They will see that our generation, the baby boomers, did nothing to address the consequences of human overshoot. And on top of that we are now whining and telling them that their lives will suffer the consequences. If I was a young millennial hearing this from an older baby boomer I would want to say this,,, " Your generation did nothing and now your whining that our lives will be miserable. Screw You , I wont buy into your self entitled whining bullshit pessimistic narrative that our lives our fxxked"

We know the bottle neck we are heading for. We know there will be a weeding out and correction of overshoot. We know that our planet and biosphere will be degraded and that we will cause extinctions. We know there will likely be resource wars and climate change refugees and massive movements of displaced people from coastal areas, etc.

But I also suspect that we vastly underestimate our cultural response once consequences really set in. For every imagined horror we will see humanity adapt and continue to thrive. The same with our biosphere. There will be ecological degradation and loss of species but there will be surprising resiliency and adaptation as well.

Folks, to be a member of the generation that caused human overshoot and to then exit whining about how horrible it will be for our descendants is about the most cowardly, weak, pathetic and undignified orientation you can have. It says a lot more about your character than it does about the real consequences coming our way.

[ROCKMAN]

"Oil is at record low prices. There's all that shale, tar sands.. alts energy.."

There's all that tar sand and shale oil production because of $90+ oil prices. Same reason the alts got a push. And now oil prices have fallen and hundreds of the rigs that were drilling the shales have gone idle and new tar sand projects have been cancelled.

So yes: record low oil prices now due to record high prices that caused increased production while damaging the global economy. A rather simple dynamic to appreciate IMHO.

[Ibon]

Folks, to be a member of the generation that caused human overshoot and to then exit whining about how horrible it will be for our descendants is about the most cowardly, weak, pathetic and undignified orientation you can have. It says a lot more about your character than it does about the real consequences coming our way.

Just to be clear, I am saying this to myself as much as anyone else. We need to face our dire straits with optimistic courage. Not optimistic denial, but courage. The least we can do for those who will follow and inherit.

[onlooker]

I am glad you made this post Ibon, because it reflects mine to some degree in the sense of advocating a message of hope combined with a sounding of the alarm bells. Sounding the alarm bells is about hope also because hopefully that is what will create a mass wave of popular uprising that will demand change and at that point we will be on the way to adapting to the consequences. For the consequences have already arrived for most on the planet. Oh and for Rockman my fault I was not clear enough PO as in Peak Oil website not Peak Oil.