Soothing Voices

[Being Frank]

In the early 70's I was working in Transport Planning, using computers to model possible transport/land use patterns in 2001 and 2011. I was well aware that the US had peaked and that Hubbert had suggested all the cheap stuff would be gone in 30 years or so. It seemed madness to me that all the world's wealth( I have never for one moment thought wealth had anything to do with money) would be used up constructing a living arrangement which couldn't even be maintained let alone used by the time I was meant to retire. All my ( much older) colleagues assured me that They would never let that happen a new power source would be found, new batteries developed etc. etc..

Within 10 years I had become well aware of "thermal limits to growth"(Fuel's Paradise, Penguin, Peter Chapman,1975) and possible massive changes to global climate. The science seemed sound yet everyone I spoke to said not to worry They would never let that happen.

Now European culture looks set to disappear; sunk beneath a very young, forceful,energetic tsunami and I am told not to worry,everything is under control They would never let that happen.

Personally I stopped listening to the Soothing Voices over 40 years ago and as far as our muslim brothers go take the view that the new boss will be much like the old boss.

[clv101]

Inconvenient truth about those soothing voices is that, so far, they've tended to be right! I have Peter Chapman's 1975 excellent book here, look at figure 38 on page 139; a high and low oil projection for UK. The low projections peaks in the early 1980s at about 180 million tonnes per year and reaches zero(!) around 2004. The high scenario peaks only a few years later at around 240 million tonnes, falling to zero 2012. Of course he didn't know about Piper Alpha. He also projects ever increasing demand, exponentially!

The peak turned out to be 1999 and decline far slower in that today we're still extracting some 50 million tonnes and last year extraction rates actually increased for the first time in ages. On demand - well that also peaked a decade ago and has gradually declined.

Globally it's quite incredible to see extraction over 90 million barrels per day with prices below $50 for the last couple of years. This is more, for less than even the most soothing voices just a decade ago.

I'm a lot more wary than I used to be of dismissing those soothing voices.
Sure, in the long term we're screwed, but somehow that day of reckoning keeps being postponed.

[biffvernon]

I have Peter Chapman's 1975 excellent book here,

Ah, that's what happened to my copy.

But we can all read this:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=OHz ... se&f=false

[kenneal - lagger]

That is one of the dozen or so books that I read at that time, of which I have only six left in my bookcase. I must have loaned the rest and not got them back.