Peak Oil: What are the Facts?

[Eddie Dane]

Someone cheer me up.

this might help:

CONFESSIONS OF AN EX-DOOMER

 

[jargon buster]

att timhau

ahem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is_the_glass_half_empty_or_half_full?

 

[timhau]

att timhau

ahem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is_the_glass_half_empty_or_half_full?

Well, it's obviously half full, but... IT'S GOING TO RUN OUT SOON!1!!

 

[jargon buster]

IT'S GOING TO RUN OUT SOON!1

Not in the next 50 years , which is pretty much where I came in

and very likely go out....

 

[drkitten]

By the way have you noticed how its, only now that adults are worrying about how their children are going to cope when there gone?

No, I try not to notice things that aren't true.

The idea that you should leave the world a better place for your descendants is hardly novel or radical; ever see the Cathedral of Chartres? The Middle Ages were notorious for starting multi-generation building projects because they wanted to make the world a better place in a way they'd never see.

 

[talkie toaster]

Someone cheer me up.

I say I say I say,

-My wife's gone to Northern Italy
-Genoa?
-I should think so, We've been married for 20 years.​

Hope that helps.

 

[MRC_Hans]

*cough*

Survivorship is bleak for those who didn't survive, but it made us, for better or worse, what we are now. If some guys, a few million years back in the opening Great Rift Valley, had not abandoned the dwindling trees and braved survival on the open plains (or whatever exactly happened), we would not just be still living in the trees, we would not even be here.

Survivorship bias is the essence of evolution.

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

Considering the rapid growth of the Automobile fleet in China and India or other nations and the lack of enough newly discovered oil deposits. might make Peak oil coming closer a lot faster than some expect here.
we are still behind with proper alternatives.

I never said a lot of people would not have to give up their new shiny toys. However, certain parts of China is going to run our of road space before they run out of fuel. Many distances in central Beijing are already covered quicker on foot than in a car, if you have courage and agility.

Hans

 

[jargon buster]

No, I try not to notice things that aren't true.

Do you remember your parents or grandparents ever saying to you,"I want to make sure the world is a better place for you to live in"?

The idea that you should leave the world a better place for your descendants is hardly novel or radical; ever see the Cathedral of Chartres? The Middle Ages were notorious for starting multi-generation building projects because they wanted to make the world a better place in a way they'd never see.

Maybe they just wanted to give people something to do.
A bit like a "folly".

 

[drkitten]

Do you remember your parents or grandparents ever saying to you,"I want to make sure the world is a better place for you to live in"?

Yes.

Maybe they just wanted to give people something to do.

 

[drkitten]

Survivorship is bleak for those who didn't survive, but it made us, for better or worse, what we are now. If some guys, a few million years back in the opening Great Rift Valley, had not abandoned the dwindling trees and braved survival on the open plains (or whatever exactly happened), we would not just be still living in the trees, we would not even be here.

Right. But the point is that just because we have survived doesn't mean we will. There could well have been herds of apatosaurus wandering over the plains and telling their babies that "survivorship is what made us what we are."

 

[jargon buster]

But the point is that just because we have survived doesn't mean we will.

thats your point, not THE point.

 

[drkitten]

thats your point, not THE point.

Actually, no, but thank you for playing. It's the point of timhau's citation of survivor bias in response to MRC_Hans's claim that humanity has always come out of challenges successfully.

 

[jargon buster]

It's the point of timhau's citation of survivor bias in response to MRC_Hans's claim that humanity has always come out of challenges successfully.

I think its down to timhau to state what his point is rather than your interpretation of what you believe his point to be

 

[timhau]

I think its down to timhau to state what his point is rather than your interpretation of what you believe his point to be

That was pretty much my point: we are umpteen-zillion-and-o in species-endangering challenges so far, which is very encouraging -- but at umpteen-zillion-and-one, we lose.

 

[Horatius]

Survivorship is bleak for those who didn't survive, but it made us, for better or worse, what we are now. If some guys, a few million years back in the opening Great Rift Valley, had not abandoned the dwindling trees and braved survival on the open plains (or whatever exactly happened), we would not just be still living in the trees, we would not even be here.

Survivorship bias is the essence of evolution.

Hans

Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo--which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn't a stupendous badass was dead.

http://www.sffworld.com/authors/s/stephenson_neal/excerpts/cryptonomicon1.html

 

[drkitten]

I think its down to timhau to state what his point is rather than your interpretation of what you believe his point to be

Well, he's just stated that my interpretation was correct.

So I'm happy standing by it.

 

[timhau]

Frankly, I didn't really anticipate another way of interpreting it. That's what survivor bias is.

 

[jargon buster]

So I'm happy standing by it.

well now we are all happy
I will continue to live my life to the full and not give a rats ass about saving energy and oil and you can sweat and fret about if there's going to be enough for your decedents to use.

 

[Nosi]

I'm worried that we're not going to develop and invest in the necessary technology and infrastructure in time. Creating enough nuclear plants or solar farms to supply a reasonable fraction of our current energy needs, not to mention future ones, will cost billions if not trillions, and take twenty years or more.

Putting it off will not make it any cheaper or faster, and in fact is likely to make it slower and more expensive. Basically, the economic pain will be real, but we have it in our power to make the pain greater or lesser by suitable planning.

I fear that there are a lot of people who are simply happy to push the economic pain just beyond their life expectancy. And our children will not than us for that.

Ummm what about the bacteria George?