Climate Denialism, Climate Fatalism and Porter Ranch

[robertpaulsen]

I wanted to post my latest blog entry on climate news but wasn't sure which forum would be best. Hope this works here.

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Climate Denialism, Climate Fatalism and Porter Ranch: Confronting the Inevitability of the Carbon Crisis

Peak Oil happened 10 years ago according to the International Energy Agency. I no longer mention Peak Oil (that's a peak in global conventional crude production, to be precise) in my description of this site because the technological advancements in fracking have punted the full ramifications downfield by at least a decade or two. This in spite of President Obama's attempts to emphasize renewable energy use; proving that when you employ an "All-of-the-Above Energy Strategy" - dirty beats clean in the marketplace for liquid fuel consumption. This will continue to be the case even after the shale bubble pops, which looks like what's happening now, and after US shale oil production peaks, which may occur as soon as 2020, according to the US Energy Department. Look for coal to make a comeback (along with the Fischer-Tropsch coal-to-oil liquefaction process popularized by the Nazis) sometime in the 2030s or 40s at the latest. That's regardless of whether it's a Democratic administration insisting that the coal is "clean" or a Republican insisting coal production should skyrocket regardless of environmental ramifications because of China, the Middle East, or whatever "other" is timely for a reactionary to demonize.

Bottom line: this means a peak in total liquid fuel production probably won't occur until sometime close to the mid-21st century. This is not good news. Delaying the inevitable peak through an increased reliance on non-conventional fossil fuels only intensifies the overall consequences, both economically in terms of demand permanently outstripping an irreversibly declining supply, and environmentally in terms of carbon (oil, shale, coal) consumption increasing greenhouse gas emissions to the point global warming becomes severe enough to diminish food production, among other disasters. They are flip sides of the same coin that should be simultaneously referenced as the Carbon Crisis in referring to the predicament human civilization finds itself in. I've been saying that for over two years now; I even did an annual update in 2013 and 2014.

I decided to stop doing an annual update - partially because of my terrible history in maintaining any kind of annual update on this blog (like UNDER THE RUG or Krampus of the Year), but also because I think it's better to report news as it occurs, rather than compile it for reporting en masse near the end of the year. It's not as though there was a shortage of developments in the worsening of the Carbon Crisis in 2015. But at some point, the enormity of climatological abnormalities happening either necessitates a universal awakening within civilization or a universal shutdown of civilization. True existential threats trump denial every time.

So why am I writing this blog entry, since we clearly haven't reached that point yet? Because I want to explore the sociological phenomenon of climate denial through a prism I've grown extremely comfortable looking through: conspiracy theory. Interestingly, there are two diametrically opposed theories positing a cover-up of the truth about global warming:

1) The truth about global warming is being covered up because the United Nations, through the backing of such pro-eugenic wealthy elitists as David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger and Bill Gates, is using this phony story, propagated by paid scientists and a compliant mainstream media, as an excuse to cull the world's population and institute totalitarian control by removing property rights via Agenda 21 and instituting a technocracy economy where carbon consumption is rationed through global policing.

2) The truth about global warming is being covered up because human industrial civilization has already burned enough greenhouse gasses to drive humanity to extinction, so to avoid spreading panic the mainstream media sells the worst effects as possibly happening, but in decades or hundreds of years, and mainstream scientists are soft-pedalling the immediacy of self-reinforcing feedback loops from clathrates and permafrost melt sending massive amounts of methane into the atmosphere, which could happen within the next decade or two.

more at link...

http://americanjudas.blogspot.com/2016/01/climate-denialism-climate-fatalism-and.html

I realize most of you probably feel the way I do and reject climate denial, but I'm curious what people think of Guy McPherson and his take on how bad global warming is.

[immoderate]

1. Climate denial requires *fundamentalism* of some kind.

Many of the deniers I encounter are Libertarian types, and therefore I classify them as market fundamentalists. They can't tolerate anything that contradicts market purity.

I usually present them with two pretty much undeniable facts. That CO₂ is a greenhouse gas, and, that humans have increased its atmospheric presence by 40% in the industrial era. Given those two, I ask deniers how the logical imperative of "the atmosphere will heat up" is avoidable. How can it not get warmer?

(I know there are whole industries built on the systematic presentation of denials. I have been slapping them down for years. Keeps me young. )

--imm

[robertpaulsen]

4. Excellent point.

The denier I highlighted, James Corbett, probably qualifies as a market fundamentalist. I know I've seen videos where he promoted agorism. While that is probably a branch of libertarianism with an ethos more moral than say, the Koch brothers, whom Corbett hates, it's still a branch that bows down before the Almighty Market like it's a fucking temple. So, yeah, fundamentalism precludes the possibility of dealing with a force of nature that cares not what god you worship.

[GliderGuider]

2. As most people on this board probably know, I'm a fatalist.

I buy McPherson's evidence. I think the charge that he looks only at positive feedback loops is a red herring, for the simple reason that there are no significant negative feedback loops that I'm aware of that could counterbalance the accelerating forcing.

While I buy his evidence, I don't buy his "human extinction by 2030" conclusion. Humans are far more resilient than he seems to give us credit for, and climate conditions will continue to be wildly variable across the planet for quite a while, unless the clathrate gun has already been fired.

There are two factors that seal my fatalism.

The first is the broad spectrum of tipping points we're facing, both in the global land/water ecology and the global economy. Dying and over-fished oceans, the slowing AMOC, biodiversity loss (aka the Sixth Great Extinction), deforestation, desertification, the loss of fresh water and soil fertility, the increasing destabilization of the world's trade and finance systems, the social problem of refugees. The list encompasses everything that is needed to keep the world as we know it from collapsing around our ears.

The second factor is that we are not changing our collective behaviour on any of these issues, in any way that's commensurate with the scale and speed of the crisis.

So while I think we may have more than 30 years until the last Homo not-so-sapiens shuffles off this mortal coil, I am convinced (as I have been for the last decade) that we will do nothing that will slow down the disintegration of life on this planet. We can argue until the cows all go to heaven over what we might do, but I don't think we actually will. Any efforts we make, even once the crisis is severe enough to get people to take it seriously, will be far too little ... and far too late.

[robertpaulsen]

6. "unless the clathrate gun has already been fired" - too true.

I also don't buy the 2030 extinction conclusion partly because of how adaptable human beings are but also because I'm not sure if the jet stream slowdown is proof positive of the clathrate gun firing as Malcolm Light and Guy McPherson say. But if we start experiencing summers with periods of ice-free Arctic, then I would say we've probably fired it by that point.

Your second factor nails it. We will not change our collective behavior. The planet will change it for us. Or as George Carlin said, "The planet isn't going anywhere. We are! We're going away! Pack your shit, folks!"

[kristopher]

3. The OP is completely divorced from reality.

Peak oil mythology is as whacked out as climate denial.

[happyslug]

8. Peak Oil is alive and well, just the date is in dispute, even OPEC say Peak Oil will hit.

OPEC says Peak Oil will hit in 2030, no one believes them but that is the position OPEC is taking and has been taking since the 1980s.

Before I start, lets me explain one aspect of Peak Oil people tend to forget, it is NOT the end of oil production, it is the point where about 1/2 of all RECOVERABLE oil in earth have been pumped. If Peak Oil hit in 2004, that means it took us 140 years to get to that point and it is expected to take another 140 years to get to the point where oil is no long pumped. Production will slowly decease over time (with some massive increase when peak oil hits). If peak oil as in 2005, then what oil we produced in 2020 will equal what we produced in 1990 (15 years in the future, 15 years in the past). What we used in 1970 will be the same what we will be able to pump in 2040, 35 years before peak and 35 years after peak).

Now some counties will see a more dramatic drop in usage, for example the US will see more drop in usage then Central Africa, for the US used more oil in 1970 then Central Africa did in 1970, but come 2040 Central Africa will be willing to spend more money on the oil it will need then will the US for the oil will be from transportation of goods not for people to go to and from work and as such more cost effective and as such they are willing to pay more.

Thus peak oil is NOT the end of oil usage, just the half way point, something people tend to forget.

As to Peak Oil itself, the main problem with peak oil is when will it hit? When Peak oil hit the US in 1969, no one really noticed till the Arab oil embargo of 1973. Why? Other sources of oil replaced the dropping US oil production thus till OPEC raise the price from 35 cents a gallon to 70 cents a gallon no one in the US every really cared that the US had become a net oil importer.

As stated above it appears Conventional Oil peaked in 2004, and Saudi Arabia lost its control over oil prices (Something it had done since 1974). Saudi Arabia tried to keep the price down starting in 2002 but failed. In 2008 the US, for the first time ever, saw a DROP in total oil usage, that combined with massive reopening of old wells AND the opening of oil fields previously believe to expensive to drill lead to a surplus of oil and the current drop in oil prices.

Unless, someone is controlling the price of an energy source (Standard oil did this from the 1860s till WWI, the Texas Railroad Commission did this from the 1920s till 1969, and Saudi Arabia did it from 1974 till 2002), energy prices are know to go up and down on a frequent basis. You see this in the coal industry, for it had no one who controlled the price of coal. The price slowly raises as demand increases, in response to this increase in price, more and more producers of coal enters the market, then you hit a point where people refuse to buy more coal for the price has gone to high, this leads to a rapid decline in price as supply exceeds demands. High Cost producers of coal drop out of the market and this continues till you reach a point low cost producers of coal close down. This results in a shortage of coal and an increase demand and an increase in price. You thus re-start the who process all over again.

When you have someone controlling price, generally by controlling production, these ups and down tend to be less frequent and less server as to top price and bottom price. Economists have studies this for years and determined that people given a choice between over all low price (but with high peaks) and a overall higher prices, but no high peaks of bottoms, prefer the latter. This is how Standard Oil formed its monopoly in the 1800s, it offered a stable price no matter what anyone else was charging. People preferred the stable price then the overall lower prices of Standard's competitors but with high price spikes. Standard oil thus set oil price by setting how much oil it will pump for decades. If the price was to high, production was increased, if the price was to low, production was cut.

Standard Oil lost its monopoly of oil in 1912 when two things happened, first the US government ruled it was an illegal monopoly and ordered Standard oil broken up, and Gulf Oil financed the drilling of Texas oil, ending Standard oil control over oil production.

This free market did not last long, the Texas Railroad Commission, which had been given the power to control how much oil could be pumped by anyone in Texas, starting in the 1920s set Texas Oil Production to maintain a stable price. If the price was to low, production was permitted to increase, if the price was to high, production was cut (Yes the same thing that Standard oil had done before 1912). The Texas Railroad Commission did not permit full oil production in Texas till 1969 (Except during WWII) for such full production would have drive the price of oil to low.

In 1969 Texas went into full oil production mode. Thus signing to the world that Texas could no longer set world wide oil prices. No one seems to have seen the signs so blunder on till the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973. The effect of that embargo was frightening not only to the West by the House of Saud. The House of Saud realized it controlled the price of oil, but that included keeping its main ally, the United States happy. Thus the House of Saud left the price of oil DROP in the 1970s, not to what it was in early 1973, but a steady drop. Then the Iran revolution took place and that included a HUGE increase in insurance for tankers operating in the Persian Gulf. Since almost all of the Oil of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran went through that Gulf, the price of oil skyrocketed. Then as the Revolution rolled into the Iran-Iraq War, the House of Saud slowly reduced the price of oil (This reduction in price was also affected by the introduction of Alaskan North Slope Oil, North Sea Oil and a similar field in Siberia). This produced the oil glut of the 1980s.

Notice, the pattern, it is similar to what happens with coal. The demand for oil increases, producers of oil increase production (Texas Railroad Commission permitting full oil production in Texas oil fields), then the price drops as other sources of oil enters the market place (The North Slope, the North Sea and the Siberia oil Fields). As the new sources enters the market, supply exceeds demand and you get an oil glut, as in the 1980s. The House of Saud did stabilized the price of oil in the late 1980s (The House of Saud did it the old fashioned way, Thatcher had been expanding North Sea Oil production by always cutting the price of North Sea Oil, finally the House of Saud said enough was enough, and dropped they price BELOW the cost to produce North Sea oil, this lasted about three months and then the House of Saud increased their price and Thatcher having learned her lesson followed suit).

Anyway, that was the situation when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989 and with it most Russian Oil production. The House of Saud increased its own production to compensate and when Saddam Moved into Kuwait and the US sent its own forces to drive him out, the House of Saud again increased oil production to keep the world price of oil stable.

The House of Saud continued to do this till about 2002, when during the invasion of Iraq problems set in and the House of Saud could NOT increase production enough to keep oil prices low. Demand exceeded supply, even as Saudi Arabia ended up producing more oil then anyone thought it could produce. Putin also reintroduced Russian Oil into the World Market, as did Iraq after Saddam was removed. None of these moves were able to check the price of oil. AS the price of oil went up, the two oil fields, known since the 1930s, but viewed as high cost fields, became profitable and Fracking for oil started. The US government also redefined what the US defined as an oil asset for accounting purposes (i.e. the older conservative rule, used since the 1930s, was replaced by a boarder definition of an oil asset, thus oil fields were carried on the books at a higher value then they had been in the past).

All of this permitted massive opening of marginal oil fields in the US. This increased the amount of oil. At first these were "Real" oil fields, field between Louisiana and Cuba. These fields were the main increased in oil production after 2002, they received little publicity for the major oil companies controlled them. What did hit the news the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota (known since 1951) and Eagle Ford fields in Texas (known since the 1930s as part of the much more profitable East Texas oil fields) finally became profitable:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakken_Formation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_Ford_Group

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Texas_Oil_Field

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian_Basin_(North_America)

Other similar fields were looked into, but quickly found not to have oil, or so little oil that even at $100 a barrel NOT worth drilling. These fields lead to all types of hype of the US becoming a net Oil Exporter, but that is NOT going to happen, given the reduction in drilling in the above fields AND the tendency for them to go dry in five years (unlike older wells in the East Texas oil fields, many are still producing 70 years after they were drilled).

Please note most of the older wells in Texas as "Seeper" wells, wells whose main production was decades ago, but it is still profitable to go to these old wells once a month or so, and run a pump, During the time period when the pump is NOT working, the oil is permitted to seep into these wells, till you get enough to pump. Water is often pumped into other wells to force the oil into the wells which can still be pumped (this is to increase oil production, oil floats on water). In fact Texas itself became an net oil importer around 2000, importing more oil for its own use, then it was shipping out of state. That was reversed by the huge increase in fracking, but it tells you how low the conventional wells in Texas were producing.

Anyway, remember my story about coal and price changes. You are seeing the same thing with oil. When Conventional oil peaked around 2004, the price of oil was already going up. Peak oil feed into that price increase. By 2008 the price had risen to a level that people were actually no longer driving, thus reducing the demand for oil. That along with increase exports out of Iraq and Saudi Arabia finally exporting its heavy sour oil, thus increasing overall oil production while Saudi Arabia's production of Sweet light oil started to fall.

"Sweet Oil" is easy to convert into gasoline, diesel and other refined oil products, it was the main oil exported by Saudi Arabia for decades (Libya had the Sweetest and lightest oil and thus could charge a premium over what Saudi Arabia oil went for)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_crude_oil

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sour_crude_oil

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_crude_oil

The EIA defines Light oil as:

Light gas oils: Liquid petroleum distillates heavier than naphtha, with an approximate boiling range from 401 degrees to 650 degrees Fahrenheit.

http://www.eia.gov/tools/glossary/index.cfm?id=L

The EIA defines Heavy oil as:

Heavy gas oil: Petroleum distillates with an approximate boiling range from 651 degrees Fahrenheit to 1000 degrees Fahrenheit.

http://www.eia.gov/tools/glossary/index.cfm?id=H

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_crude_oil

Naphtha: A generic term applied to a refined or partially refined petroleum fraction with an approximate boiling range between 122 degrees and 400 degrees Fahrenheit

http://www.eia.gov/tools/glossary/index.cfm?id=N

It appears, heavy oil tendency NOT to flow caused Saudi Arabia a lot of headaches to get it into production. Venezuela oil is primarily of Sour Heavy Oil.

Thus everything hit in 2008, the price reached a point that some people stop driving, the war if Iraq and Afghanistan slowed down do to the US Election (no one wanted a debacle to occur during the election, so activities were cut back), the heavy oil from Saudi Arabia was coming on line, Iraq was getting its production on line, Iran, while sanctioned, the Sanctions never affected its oil exports, and Russia had reversed its huge drop in oil production in the 1990s to again become the second largest exporter of oil in the world.

With increase oil production in oil, all of these lead to oil glut and the decline in price. That the US Economy has NOT recovered from the 2008 recession had kept the demand side on oil down. It is like a low time in the Coal business, everything is working against any reversal of the drop in price for no one controls the price of oil.

Come 2017 (and some say late 2016) oil experts are expecting the price to reverse, for most of the fracking wells already drilled will be dry and given not that many new ones have been drilled in the last two to three years, production from those fields will drop. Mexican oil production is expected to continue to drop, Britain has been a net oil importer since 1999 (through still exports Natural Gas from the North Sea), Russia has admitted it expects its oil production to decline, slowly for Russia did not go into Frack Oil fields. Indonesia is now a net oil importer and China has been a net oil importer since 1986.

http://www.indexmundi.com/energy.aspx?country=cn&product=oil&graph=imports

Now, Saudi Arabia has indicated it wants to return to some sort of control on the price of oil, but whats help in that regard from the #2 oil exporter, Russia. Putin has seen Saudi Arabia try to move into what he considers his oil customers and appears NOT be willing to deal with Saudi Arabia in that regard (that he is fighting Saudi Supported forces in Syria is also a factor in his refusal).

Thus no one controls the price of oil, a sign that we have long pass peak oil for no one single producer of oil can set the price of oil. That is both good and bad. It is good that during times of low demand (as has been the case since 2008) you see low oil prices. The bad side is you will get less oil pumped as the price declines and sooner or later you will hit a point where Demand exceeds Supply and the price will sky rocket again.

Right now, all of the pressure is to produce oil despite the drop in demand. Those who can afford to shut down production are doing so. Those that can not are minimizing their losses b pumping all they can (If you an NOT maximize profits, you minimize costs). Given the high cost of fracking wells, those kept on pumping even as they lost money on the oil they pumped.

The high cost was drilling the well, when the well was drilled, on paper the well should have made a profit, but then the price of oil dropped and the price the oil was sold for was more then the cost of pumping the oil, but NOT the cost of drilling the well. Since the wells was a sunk cost, the driller absorb that cost and then sold the oil as long as the price was over their price to pump, ignoring the cost of drilling. This has driven the price of oil down as low as it is.

The problem with that scenario is the low price of oil made sure the oil drillers would stop drilling more wells. No drilling, no sunk costs, no losses. The oil drillers believed that the wells they were drilling would be profitable once the price of oil reversed. This appears to be the attitude of well drillers after 2008, for the price of oil dropped like a rock that year, and then recovered, but it as a short recovery and finally by 2015 the Well Drillers finally accepted that fact that the price of oil will stay low and thus any well they drill would lose money. Given this fact, the driller finally stopped drilling wells in 2015 (this delay was also do to the nature of the Contracts for the right to drill, most required the well to be drilled within a certain period, or the right to drill would be lost AND the driller had to pay the land owner for any losses the land owner suffered do to the delay in drilling, thus again to minimize loss the wells were drilled, but no new contracts were signed, or if they were did not require drilling within a set time period).

As peak oil sets in, you will see this pattern over and over again. Prices go up for demand for oil will exceed the supply, then you will see marginal oil wells opening up, and that includes the Fracking wells. This increase in oil production will continue till the price peaks for the price gets so high and people stop buying oil as more and more marginal supplies of oil enters the market. This will lead to a decline in price, along with more and more producers getting out of the market as the price drops below they cost of production. This drop will continue till so many producers of oil had quit the market that demand exceeds supply and the price starts to go up.

I just do NOT see a return to the price stability of 1860s till 2002. That price stability (With brief periods of price instability) was the result of someone being able to control the price of oil and keep it stable. No one is in the position to do that today. No one can cut production if world wide production is to high and then increase it if the production is not enough. Russia and Saudi Arabia could do it together, but I do not see them doing it until Syria is resolved (and

I suspect much of the present drop in price is the Russia is seeing a repeat of the fall of the Soviet Union in Saudi Arabia, you are seeing a generation change, till now, the sons of King Saud I had run Saudi Arabia, but his grandsons are moving into positions of power. In the 1980s the people who knew Stalin had run the Soviet Union since Stalin's death, but were slowly dying off and being replaced by the Gorbachevs and Yeltsins of people who NEVER meet Stalin. That generation change was a leading cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union for you no longer had the cohesion of people who had dealt with the dictator that set up the post WWII Soviet Union but a new generation who had they own ideas. That is very similar to what is happening in Saudi Arabia today, those sons of King Saud I who lived with him, are now dying off and being replaced by King Saud's Grandsons and Great Grandsons. I suspect the Russians see what happened to the Soviet Union when a similar change in generation occurred is happening in Saudi Arabia. The Russians sees the similarities and thus do NOT trust the House of Saud to retain control of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia may actually break up like the Old Soviet Union did (with the main oil field going with the Shiites of Arabia who are the people who dominate that part of Saudi Arabia).

Just a comment, that the laws of Supply and Demand did NOT end with Peak Oil, those rules will still apply during Peak oil. Financial games (which has been accused when it comes to many of the fracking wells and their companies) are another sign that Peak oil has arrived (Financial games in the sense, total oil is being used to justify wells, instead of total RECOVERABLE oil, a much lower number). Infighting among producers will increase during Peak Oil as each producer realize the best way to increase market share is to take over someone else's energy supply (One of the reason for the War is Syria is both Qatar and Saudi Arabia want to be the exclusive shipper of Natural Gas to Europe as does Iran. Iran and Qatar share a huge Natural Gas Field and the best way to ship natural gas is by pipeline. Qatar and Saudi Arabia wants it to go via Saudi Arabia to Syria to Turkey to Europe. Iran wants its pipeline to go via Iran, Iraq, SYRIA and either Turkey OR Cyprus and Greece to Europe (Iran seems to prefer Cyprus and Greece, but are willing to ship via Turkey if Turkey would back them instead of Qatar and Saudi Arabia).

This fight over natural gas pipeline routes would NOT occur unless all three countries see Peak Oil hitting and hitting them hard for all three are dependent on oil exports. The Saudi move into Yemen appears more to do with infighting within the House of Saud (i.e. who wants to show he is more Sunni then someone else, a similar situation was seen in the 1970s and 1980s in the Soviet Union, many third generation communists wanted to show how much more communist they were then someone else, thus the Soviet Intervention into Afghanistan).

I can bring up other things that indicate Peak Oil is a factor, for example the recent US Navy and Air Force efforts to adopt "Green fuel", while that sources trendy and shows a concern about global warming, why, when the Military use of fossil fuel is NOT covered by ANY of the agreements involving Global warming? i.e. why research alternatives sources of fuel, if oil is NOT a concern? The Answer is simple, fuel is a concern for the military but they do not want to admit to Peak Oil for to many people think Peal Oil is like Global Warming, something that will occur long in the future and not affect them.

Please note even OPEC accepts Peak Oil, the only dispute is when it will occur. OPEC says 2030 NOT 2004. Thus the real argument about Peak Oil is when it will occur NOT that is will not occur. AS you can see from above, I accept 2004 as the date for Peak Oil, after that date you see an increase in sour heavy oil and other similar substances as Light Sweet oil declines in production. Some of these other sources have been known for years and will come into production every time the price of oil goes up, but then out of production when the price drops. That is what you saw after 2004, this is NOT sustainable in the long run, sooner or later you will see prices go back up (and that looks to be 2017 right now) and as the prices go up more and more marginal sources of oil will enter the market. Then you will see demand drop and a price drop. These may take 10 years or more to run from one peak to the next, but that is the wave of the future and it is the result of Peak Oil.

[kristopher]

9. "Peak Oil" is bunk

It came into being as a Mad Max cult and there is remains no matter how much the doomsayers promoting the crap dress it up with links, charts and other pseudoscience.

There is legitimate economic discussion about energy sources and there is "Peak Oil" discussion. The two are not to be confused.

[pscot]

5. The President has been soft-pedaling

the immediacy of the crisis as well. I like alternative 1. It has a certain style. And it's plausible if rich guys are as smart as they think they are. I like it but I don't believe it. Events will overwhelm their nefarious plots. Number 2 seems more likely. In that case, Western Civilization, effectively the only civilization we have, is circling the drain right now. Even if we survive as a species, we'll never get back to where we are now. Having the plans for a centrifuge isn't worth to folks banging rocks together for a living. They'll put the plans in a tabernacle and worship them. We can safely assume that governments have contingency plans and the military surely does. My neighbors have plans too. People do seem to sublimate denial into a variety of conspiracy theories. That's why fatalism doesn't work well for me. It's going to take a while for this to play out, and I think it's important to stay alert to whatever possibilities arise.

[robertpaulsen]

10. Contingency plans concern me, especially regarding the military.

If our civilization truly reaches a point where it "circling down the drain" as you say, then I am definitely concerned about exactly what plans the military has for maintaining domestic order. And if a Rethug is in the White House, I'm concerned about those plans being outsourced to some nefarious PMC. Definitely something to stay alert about.

[GliderGuider]

7. One minor point: Peak Oil didn't actually happen.

I was a PO true believer from 2004 to 2009 (the "plateau years&quot as well. But the EIA numbers probably don't lie. Global crude oil production recovered and began to climb again in 2009, and hasn't looked back. PO is a nice theory, but there's no evidence that we've reached geological limits on recovery volumes.



Civilization may start crumbling shortly, but Peak Oil isn't likely to be a big player in the process. My money is on crop failures and economic collapse.

[robertpaulsen]

11. The EIA is a pretty reliable source.

I had been going with IEA for my report, but admittedly it was an old report. I agree, Peak Oil probably won't be a big player in the process of civilization crumbling. I do see a peak in total liquid fuel coinciding at a time when civilization is on the precipice; this would just reinforce the fact that our economic paradigm won't allow civilization to fix itself when the natural world (global warming) imposes itself on the artificial world (money).