PowerSwitch

Hello fellow realists!

I have recently read a couple of books, "Power Down" etc and am convinced that Peak Oil is either imminent or past.

As a science teacher my students have often groaned at my comments regarding the oil induced population explosion.... but until now the doom & gloom predictions have been easily brushed aside. The message I gave (last year) was therefore tempered by the fact that the end of the oil was not yet percieved an imminent problem! Pity this year's students!

Yet this brings me to another problem. I find myself still tempering the message to friends... afterall many folk have no concept of just how dependent we are on oil - so I don't drive the message to its conclusion.

So folks... How do you get the message out to folk around you without being regarded as a total nutter???

Sally

Ps Anyone else in N.Ireland????

I've been thinking alot about this recently...I'd like a way of getting the message across as easy and quickly as possible without sounding like a nutter and with a few hard facts throw in for good measure. Something you can tell an average person in the street which'll make them stop and think.

Sally wrote:H

So folks... How do you get the message out to folk around you without being regarded as a total nutter???

With out being regarded as a total nutter? Does it count if people think you are a nutter anyway?

Actually, I have been think a but about this this week and so far my conclusion has been not to tell them!

People pay more attention to things that they work out for themselves. So maybe a strategy would centre around provoking their curiosity?

I find a successful approach is to engage in conversations about climate change and the need for relocalisation with green-types and socialists (who naturally suspect governments of going to war for oil). If I commiserate with their views and then add on what I know about oil starting to run out, and how we might have to switch back to coal in a big way (with all the CO2 issues that will bring), I usually get a receptive response.

It doesn't really work to unilaterally start out banging on about oil, but because of the nature of the stuff you can pretty much link it to any issue that anyone with the slightest conscience or disagreement with the prevailing neoliberal economic approach might be concerned about.

A quick release of enlightenment into their brainpan and then make your excuses. Let them ponder awhile...

People pay more attention to things that they work out for themselves. So maybe a strategy would centre around provoking their curiosity?

A quick release of enlightenment into their brainpan and then make your excuses. Let them ponder awhile...

Yup.. basically this has been my strategy. Makes sense on a teaching front too.

With out being regarded as a total nutter? Does it count if people think you are a nutter anyway?

I may already be in this category too - but not over peakoil. Well not yet!

Hi Sally, welcome onboard.

I am from N Ireland - just outside Belfast.

To answer your question I think it depends a lot on your audience. If it is to your students, then I would say what age are they and be careful how hard a message you drive home.

If it is to adults, then as said above, people with environmental concerns might be driven by the increased use of coal (CO2 implications) to become interested. If they are social climbers (aren't we all to a degree) then money may be the issue - increased prices of oil and all associated products (just about everything then!) could interest them. If it is young adults you could maybe link it to the crazy state of the current world - the fighting in various counties can often be linked to oil....

The planting of a seed is a good idea - must try that more. Will try to think of some more....

I know that I dwell on the subject far too much and think that I am probably at my most useful when I use the information I have learned to do something positive (like not posting on and looking on this forum too much!).

I have been thinking about various comments made recently about this place not being anywhere near as popular as other forums; most people are not interested in the doom and gloom.

My conclusion to getting the message across therefore is don't go there with the doom and gloom, what ever you do, be positive.

One problem with this site also is that it is particularly anonymous so:



This is me camping, shown with my oldest (of 3) children, Louis.

Nice to "see" you Pippa and Louis.

That is a nice touch to make it more personal.

I note the big glass of wine in your hand - essential to cope with PO!

snow hope wrote:I note the big glass of wine in your hand - essential to cope with PO!

So.............is the glass half full, or half empty?

I find myself partially agreeing with everyone who has posted a reply here.
I think your approach partly has to depend on your audience and upon your stamina (it gets exhausting trying to convince people who don't want to be convinced) and whether you care whether you are perceived as a nutter and / or a doom and gloomer.
I have had many discussions on this subject too (particularly with Newmac who favours the "hard sell" approach"! He just kept banging on and on about it until I was fully on board! ).
I find that people who are generally liberal, socially and environmentally conscious and who generally like or at least respect you as a person, as Tess suggested, are a receptive audience when you link in Peak Oil.
Talking to people who are not interested in these things tends to get you nowhere and rapidly becomes depressing (why won't they listen? humanity is doomed etc), but I find that even with these people if you point out a few of the consequences of peak oil to them personally (financial being a big one) perhaps by showing them links to mainstream media coverage of peak oil, rising energy, food etc prices they often become a bit more interested. A friend I told about peak oil a year ago said she'd never heard about it before and came up with the old argument that if it was such a problem the government, oil co's or media would have told us about it I spoke to her again recently and she said as soon as we'd had that conversation she noticed more and more that peak oil and its consequences were being talked about everywhere, she just hadn't paid attention before.
So I also quite like taking the spam approach with some people. I send them links to every peak oil related story or article I find (several a day) and even if they don't read them the fact that there is so much being said about it all the time filters through that perhaps there is a problem and perhaps they should do something about it.
The what to do about it then becomes the difficult bit...

Pippa wrote:So.............is the glass half full, or half empty?

Neither - it's twice as big as it's supposed to be

Bandidoz wrote:

Pippa wrote:So.............is the glass half full, or half empty?

Neither - it's twice as big as it's supposed to be

Brilliant... How have I been involved with Peak Oil for so long without ever hearing that before!

Pippa - that glass looks.........








ready for a top-up.

This could be heading for deep water.

Pippa wrote:This is me camping, shown with my oldest (of 3) children, Louis.

Maybe we should start a new thread so we can post up some pics - I'd love to know what everyone looks like If someone dares me I'll go first (well, 2nd after Pippa obviously).

[Edit: And there's not much else going on in the world of PO as oil travels back down to $45 a barrel...knew I shouldn't have sold up ]