The RGR rebuttal to PowerSwitch users thread.

[postie]

If petrol was £20 a gallon I'd still buy it to run my chainsaw and rotavator, because even at that price it would be good value for the work done by it.

I wouldn't put it in my car to visit the supermarket, but there wouldn't be anything on the shelves anyway.

This is the thing RGR doesn't get. Or he does if he thinks there are untold trillions of barrels left to recover. (and yes there are... but they aint at the same price the previous trillions were to recover.)

Yes, we can run chainsaws and rotavators, cos it's still a cost benefit.. rather than expending the hours and energy digging. On a cost for energy basis.

But.. this is the thing and I aint saying anything a Peak Oiler.. for want of a better word ... would say. We can't just have it.. oil.. for rotavators, even at a huge cost. If oil went to £5 a litre.. and you consider how many people in the UK commute, then when does your job become un-economically un-tenable due to the cost of getting to work?

if that happens.. when do useful cogs fall out of the machine? When does the machine break down?

That's why it isn't a personal choice of choosing less fuel hungry vehicle.. it's about when people can't do..stuff. Cos of the huge price.

hey RGR.. argue that and back it up.

[UndercoverElephant]

If petrol was £20 a gallon I'd still buy it to run my chainsaw and rotavator, because even at that price it would be good value for the work done by it.

I wouldn't put it in my car to visit the supermarket, but there wouldn't be anything on the shelves anyway.

This is the thing RGR doesn't get. Or he does if he thinks there are untold trillions of barrels left to recover. (and yes there are... but they aint at the same price the previous trillions were to recover.)

Yes, we can run chainsaws and rotavators, cos it's still a cost benefit.. rather than expending the hours and energy digging. On a cost for energy basis.

But.. this is the thing and I aint saying anything a Peak Oiler.. for want of a better word ... would say. We can't just have it.. oil.. for rotavators, even at a huge cost. If oil went to £5 a litre.. and you consider how many people in the UK commute, then when does your job become un-economically un-tenable due to the cost of getting to work?

if that happens.. when do useful cogs fall out of the machine? When does the machine break down?

That's why it isn't a personal choice of choosing less fuel hungry vehicle.. it's about when people can't do..stuff. Cos of the huge price.

hey RGR.. argue that and back it up.

The price doesn't have to be that huge. From the point of view of many people in the poorer parts of the world today, a 30% rise in the cost of food and oil IS huge - fatally so. And the poor people make up the bulk of the population. Put this another way - die-off in the poor parts of the world will be well underway before the main cogs start falling off the industrialised world machine, simply because of the relatively small proportion of our income we still spend on food and energy compared to most people outside the developed world. We are thinking about having to choose between rotovators and cars in the future; two or three billion at the bottom of the wealth pyramid are praying food prices don't go any higher because they are already being dragged back down into abject poverty with prices where they are today.

[JohnB]

At the moment I can walk half a mile to the only local petrol station for miles to buy petrol for our chainsaws. The garage also has a shop selling mostly junk food. It's hardly likely to survive if fuel is too expensive for vehicles. So where would the petrol come from?

Presumably there would be some sort of distribution system, if subsidised diesel is available to farmers so they can keep playing with their huge toys.

[JavaScriptDonkey]

I've been enjoying lurking here for a while, particularly the cut and thrust between RGR and the usual players. However I started to get curious about RGR so I decided that Google was my friend and set about a little simple digging.

Seems the username RGR is famous throughout the PO blogosphere;

The OilAge worked out an RGR user had multiple acounts.

An RGR turns up on Peak Oil Bebunked Blog as ReserveGrowthRulez

RGR goes back to 2008 on Petroleum Forum

and turns up on Malthusia as well.

Seems RGR is a busy username posting pretty much the same stuff everywhere it turns up and sometimes allegedly under multiple user accounts.

The IPs publicly associated with his account on 'The Oil Age' run back to a small family run US oil company in Ohio which can be discovered via Google should you have the desire.

Not that I would suggest that all the RGR/Lashay/Steve/MikeB users are one and the same person, I just note that they seem to hold the same views.

Sorry if this isn't news but I thought it important to at least add some weight to RGR's claim to be employed in the oil industry.

[UndercoverElephant]

Why is this person still allowed to post here???

Multiple other forums have banned him, he is clearly a troll of trollific proportions, and he adds nothing to the debate.

Here too:

http://www.usmessageboard.com/energy/14 ... ia-11.html

This person/group are clearly on a mission to troll the entire peak oil cybersphere...

[RGR]

[quote="postie"]

[RGR]

[quote="UndercoverElephant"]

[RGR]

[quote="JavaScriptDonkey"]

[JavaScriptDonkey]

Come on java...admit it....you are a 240lb lesbian, right? Your dad ran a pipeline once, right? The standard Pavlovian response of ban and censor is strong in you, I can feel it. Join us Gnomore....

Nope, I really am just a random lurker here who happens to have a passing familiarity with finding patterns and an ability to use Google. I was slightly bored and had a spare 5 minutes.

Thanks for the confirmation that all those user names are controlled by you though, I wouldn't want to be accused of throwing falsehoods around.

I have no connection at all with the oil industry or this (or any other) blog. I'm a little under 240lb and I'm only not a lesbian on account of being male. I suppose I tick all the other lesbian check boxes though if that's your fantasy.

I have no views at all on what you may or may not have posted elsewhere and I also don't have any firm beliefs about PO other than that it is an eventual certainty on our finite planet and that it is probably better to plan for than to ignore.

[RGR]

[quote="JavaScriptDonkey"]

[JavaScriptDonkey]

Thanks for the confirmation that all those user names are controlled by you though, I wouldn't want to be accused of throwing falsehoods around.

Now Java/Gnomore, why do you have to go ruin a good thing? I certainly said no such thing, and such an obvious lack of reading comprehension is the hallmark of the standard run-of-the-mill peaker.

Perhaps with so many identities you have trouble remembering what you wrote?

I was ReserveGrowthRulz WAY before I was RGR

One of Shannys fascist mods banned me

I was banned from po.com

I'm not sure why you think I'm called Gnomore? Guilty projection?

[Keepz]

And still not a single link, or anything else, to anything, whatsoever, anywhere about why Peak Oil isn't going to happen in our lifespan.

How is anybody to "prove" that something is not going to happen, when that "something" is so nebulous and ill-defined?

Let's get this out of the way - RGR does not think that oil is an infinite commodity. Nobody at all thinks that oil is an infinite commodity. If the Peak Oil proposition is simply that oil is not an infinite commodity, then it is a triviality.

He says that people can and should alter their lifestyles if they don't like the price of oil. What's so bad about that?

Where he seems to differ from many Powerswitchers is that he does not think that this is a disastrous and impossible proposition which can only be achieved through some external power taking control of and completely re-engineering every aspect of everybody's lives. On the contrary, it is already happening. Everybody, everywhere, throughout the ages, has always adapted their lifestyle according to the circumstances in which they find themselves - and if those circumstances change some of them sit around making up acronyms such as "TEOTWAWKI" and others adapt and get on with it.

As for the end of the world as we know it, that's happened already. It happens constantly, for the world changes constantly and that change doesn't go backwards. Do you think you'd recognise the world today if you'd been just transported into it from, say, 1980?

What exactly is it then that you want him to "prove"?

[Catweazle]

Let's get this out of the way - RGR does not think that oil is an infinite commodity. Nobody at all thinks that oil is an infinite commodity. If the Peak Oil proposition is simply that oil is not an infinite commodity, then it is a triviality.

He says that people can and should alter their lifestyles if they don't like the price of oil. What's so bad about that?

I don't think many people would argue with that, although some people might consider living without reliable mains electricity or central heating to be an inconvenience.

Where he seems to differ from many Powerswitchers is that he does not think that this is a disastrous and impossible proposition which can only be achieved through some external power taking control of and completely re-engineering every aspect of everybody's lives. On the contrary, it is already happening. Everybody, everywhere, throughout the ages, has always adapted their lifestyle according to the circumstances in which they find themselves

The trouble with living in the steep phase of what looks like an exponential population and energy consumption graph is that nobody "through the ages" has ever done it before. Nobody knows if it can be done, and many people aren't aware they should be trying.

RGR and his ilk present the case that everybody wants to hear, that everything's going to be fine, don't worry, technology will save us. I believe that this message is wrong, more than that I believe it is criminally negligent.

[RGR]

[quote="JavaScriptDonkey"][

[RGR]

[quote="Catweazle"]