Very thought provoking piece:

andyh · Post by **andyh** » 06 Apr 2006, 21:48

best I have read for some time:

http://www.patternliteracy.com/apocalypse,not.html

snow hope · Post by **snow hope** » 06 Apr 2006, 22:33

Hmmmm, a few things I disagree with there, but I hope it is as rosy a picture as he paints.

He forgot the bit at the very end that said, "And perhaps we might not!"

andyh · Post by **andyh** » 06 Apr 2006, 22:37

well yes there are some questionable assertions, but also some interesting stuff to mull over - after all we cant let the dark side of the force have all the big battalions

MacG · Post by **MacG** » 07 Apr 2006, 08:47

Just the same speculative stuff as the doomers are into. I think that the complexities and interdependencies make predictions impossible and that we are in for a couple of surprises.

WolfattheDoor · Post by **WolfattheDoor** » 07 Apr 2006, 12:11

Those who have understood the Hubbert Curve know that it is a theoretical curve and real production will only follow it if there are no external interferences. That is why the US-48 is possibly the only country which follows it pretty accurately. Nobody expects World consumption to be that close.

Really though, the only important thing to know about the HC is that, when approximately half of the ultimate is out, production will begin to decline and there is nothing you can do about it. Economics can alter the slope of the decline but not reverse it (except for brief periods). This has not been disproven.

As for being a Just-in-Time species, the united, massive, all-out world action that we see to stop climate change (with Bush valiantly leading the efforts) certainly makes me feel happier.

SILVERHARP2 · Post by **SILVERHARP2** » 07 Apr 2006, 13:01

I like the upbeat ending my only issues with the assumptions are

If the peak extends , the depletion will be more severe on the other side, and as the population will only act post peak the timeframe will be compressed

The pop of the planet is double that of 1965, and the number of western type consumers has more then doubled, so the revisit to 1965 oil levels won?t be as pleasant, maybe he assumes the US will have enough oil and the rest of the world can go hang

Post by **clv101** » 07 Apr 2006, 13:17

Just had a quick skim... interesting points but also some significant mistakes like this graph:

The dip - was the Piper Alpha explosion and the Hubert peak drawn is wrong since it's area isn't equal to the URR.

They note, correctly, that per-capita use has begun to drop world-wide, and they leap to the conclusion that this can only mean we?re headed back to the Stone Age: Less oil per person must be just like less food or money per person, so civilization is going to end, this sloppy thinking goes. However, US oil consumption per capita has declined substantially since 1979 and we?ve got more toys than ever.

I would suggest that food per person has indeed been falling since the 1980's and Americans only have more toys than ever since they are now being made elsewhere - with other people's oil.

Estimates project that in 2040, production will have slipped to 12 billion barrels?back to 1965 levels. To descend to that point would require a drop in consumption of 2.2% per year for 35 years. Can we do this? I think so. From 1973 to 1975, and again from 1979 to 1983, consumption fell by roughly this much per year.

We had a recession in the mid 70's and the early 80's - to say that a 2.2% decline is okay is to say that a 35 year recession is also okay - great!

I also think it's wrong to compare peak oil, global warming, aquifer depletion and soil loss to recent disasters such as:

A series of Class 4 and 5 hurricanes, the eruption of Mount St. Helens, years of surging inflation, a stock market crash, two major earthquakes in California, huge floods, September 11, a stolen election or two, multi-state blackouts, the destruction of New Orleans...

And suggest we survived those so we can service the former. Peak oil, global warming, aquifer depletion and soil loss are vastly more far reaching and long lasting that anything we've recently survived - they are completely different types of problems.

Good effort but I think if that's the optimists argument the pessimists are closer to the mark.

rs · Post by rs » 07 Apr 2006, 15:43

And possibly the biggest challenge of all:

"Perhaps we can lose our small-minded obsession with getting and spending, and finally grow into maturity as a species."

Don't think I'm going to bother trying to pick holes in that one.

isenhand · Post by **isenhand** » 08 Apr 2006, 08:28

It stuck me that this guy has a total misunderstanding of what the Hubert peak actually is. It is really a generalisation and not specific to any one oil field. Of cause if you look at the statistic they go up and they go down and there are a number of factors that cause that to be so but the underling trend is that oil production reaches a maximum then declines.

Bandidoz · Post by **Bandidoz** » 09 Apr 2006, 19:30

In Engineering terms the article is "hand-waving". Lots of pros and cons with little in the way of numbers to demonstrate how (in)significant each issue is. It reminds me of people who say "1Gb has been found off Brazil" which sounds like an awfully big handwave in the positive direction, not realising that only equates to 12 days of current global demand, what I call an insignificant significant (i.e. sounds significant but it really isn't).

In short, the article is grossly over-optimistic.