To a certain extent I agree with the fact that there are some VERY nasty potential consequences of PO, and reading a thread about these may not be the best intro for a newie, BUT:
a) I know when I go to a new forum I pretty much never look at 'intro' and 'newbie' threads - they tend to be a bit dull so I tend to dive straight into the main forums. For people like me a newbie thread would have no effect at all!
and
b) The danger of a 'softly softly' first thread is that people may read it and think, 'oh, not much to worry about really then,' and never come back for that reason!
In the end, the WWW is a big place, and you are never going to please everyone. I think the Powerswitch boards are the best balanced of any that I've come across on this subject - don't fix what ain't broke!
P/S Forums - a little negative feedback
Moderators: Peak Moderation, Site Administrators
Thats the beauty of freedom of choice. I prefer the jumping in at the deep end. Why is my view wrong? I don't think yours is wrong, reason being thats what you believe in.fishertrop wrote:My point was not that PO has some potentially VERY bleak effects, it was that in order to get certains types of people to take it seriously, to look at it in depth, you have to pave the way - jumping stright to lifeaftertheoilcrash.com doesn't work for eveyone.
People who HAVE taken PO seriously and done a lot of research, have become well informed, can choose to skoff at the nay-sayers who may be in for a rather rude awaking in the long run, but does that help us collectively in the UK ?
IMO the UK would be best served by everyone getting to grips with the whole of the subject in a sensible and factual way - my original post was discussing how best this might be achieved (and how turn-off might be avoided).
Explanation: If we were in the 70's yes the we can go softly, softly, we have much time. Learn to swim as such.
We are though in the Naughties and according to quite a number of experts we are at Peak Oil now, or will be in 2 to 7 years, thus not much time. Hard hitting issues need raising and raising fast. There isn't enough time to learn to swim, we've fallen overboard, its either sink or swim!
Now for me there's always going to be Optimists and Pessimists. I enjoy reading The Optimists, I wouldn't dream of wanting to take their views out of the equation. For me if we look at bot views, then we are "Struggling with dealing with reality" as reality always brings both sides of the coin.
What we need to do is "get on", thats the key to raising Awareness. If this forum became one of flames, I would then leave.
Like I say I like to read both sides. I also like to get on with others. I am a Pessimist!
Enjoy yourself with the time remaining, I've decided I'm going to.
My memory of the 70s was that it seemed pretty important then to reduce our dependance on fossil fuels and halt the growing wastefulness, but then Thatcher arrived and gave us the 80s and 90s...wayne72 wrote:
If we were in the 70's yes the we can go softly, softly, we have much time.
Too bad cos back in the 70s standards were 'lower', ie less decadent, and change was much easier. I think the reason a lot of people find the concept of change pre/post peak oil difficult to take on board is that they don't know or have forgotten how to live more simply. In cities that have had prolonged power cuts in recent years it hasn't been the old people who could't cope but the young, the ones who have no idea how to live without a fridge/air conditioning/heating at the flick of a switch.
I guess one of my big frustrations with the whole peak oil thing is that it isn't new news. Of course I totally understand the shock individuals suffer when it suddenly hits home as real and I guess there are two main responses - duvet diving/frantic hamster wheel activity, or a total change to one's dreams and aspirations. The trouble is, denial and frantic business growth has been the response for decades.