Why not reach out to someone on peak oil today? Photo: Linzi-Maia Clark via Flickr.
It’s a scary world for us peak oilers, isn’t it?
The mainstream media wants nothing to do with us and is more interested in suggesting deus ex machina ideas that can allow us to have our cake and eat it too. The signs are all around us — food prices, gas prices, the conflict in Libya. But nobody knows, and nobody cares. At least that’s how it seems.
But I would argue that people are beginning to sharpen up just a bit. They haven’t put the pieces together and discovered peak oil, but they know something’s up. Of course we get the usual range of scapegoats, from Obama to speculators. People seem happy enough to blame them.
We get rid of Obama and the speculators and the problem will be all fixed, right?
It’s not Obama and it’s not speculators
Well, any peak oiler will tell you that this has nothing to do with Obama and that this would be happening regardless of who happened to be in the White House. And while oil is indeed a speculative market, hitting around $70 a barrel will bring new oil to the market due to increased incentives for cheap oil.
When doesn’t that happen? When you peak.
There’s an adage I always remember when something like this happens: “People are not fools forever.” We know that peak oil is being deliberately brushed away from the political discussion and media, since it doesn’t help anyone financially or politically to report that we are indeed in an oil crisis.
But we also know that we’ll eventually have to deal with it because there’s simply no other option. I think people are going to be more open to the topic of peak oil as their lifestyle is impacted as a result.
All in all, I think we should recognize that we are not alone. People will eventually wake up to the topic of energy depletion. We should continue talking about peak oil, because we know that it won’t go away if we don’t. And who knows, maybe there’s someone concerned about it now who feels as if he or she has one to talk to. You could make a big difference to that person.
Perhaps in reality, there are more of us than we think.
– Dylan Greene
About Dylan Greene
Mr. Greene, I’d like to hear some personal anecdotes on how you’ve been able to talk to peak oil with the people around you, not just preaching to the converted, but others who have no predisposition to believe this stuff.
To me, personal success stories along these lines resonate more than directives to reach out.
That’s a very good point. I’ll scrounge up some personal anecdotes for my next article. I often do discuss peak oil with a lot of people.
I’ve been following the peak oil issue closely for 7 years. I bought the proposition wholeheartedly & each year expected the predicted peak to kick in. I listened to the Gurus of Peak predict the coming apocalypse. But I’m getting nervous that perhaps the emperor has no clothes.
There is still no definitive evidence of this peak. The oil is still flowing at the pumps. The critical thing for me is that the only perceptable peak is in price and I wonder if this is what it is really all about.
A manufactured scarcity to inflate prices and thereby profits: a common strategy in capitalism. I’m worried that we’ve been duped & that somehow there is still plenty of oil and we are a long way off the mythical peak. Perhaps we don’t understand how this stuff is created. Perhaps it isn’t millions of years of ancient sunlight at all.
I understand your concern, but keep a few things in mind:
Peaking doesn’t mean “Running out”. When you cross over the peak, oil becomes more expensive because it’s increasingly harder and harder to get.
There is indeed evidence for the peak. IEA says we peaked in 2006. I think we honestly peaked in 2005, but that’s neither here nor there. Point is, if you check EnergyBulletin, if you check ASPO USA, you will find it. Even if you observe oil industry activity (Going to energy-poor tar sands, deepwater, etc.) The Transition Handbook offers some strong points as well, and it would be good to search through it. I would list some links, but I think you know where to go.
If scarcity were manufactured, that would bring new oil to market. Competitors have a motivation to supply cheap oil in that case. Making a commodity like oil artificially scarce is financial suicide. No one has brought new oil to market. No one.
You’re also hinting at the notion that oil is abiotic. This has been widely discredited due to the inability to find new wells using this method.
Sadly, if there was one point I agreed with you on, it’s that the Peak Oil movement still clings to this notion of apocalypse. I do not believe this to be the case, beyond that I don’t know what will happen. I don’t know why making the worst case scenario statement is somehow more comforting than just admitting “I don’t know”, but we’ll see where that goes.
Great piece, Dylan. There is an incredibly simple way to see the effect of peak oil on prices – rather than think of oil production as a curve, just assume that it is flat. Now, realize that the current global gdp is the maximum that is physically possible, given burning every drop produced (which is the case). Now, see that if you want to increase your local economic activity, in order to get the oil required, you have to outbid another user, hence the price rise.