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Does the clock account for the effect of the end of cheap oil?
RBG
#31 – I don’t think there’ll be much of that.
It not only doesn’t in to account new reserves found it doesn’t take into account reserves that we don’t have the technology to get to yet.
I didnt see China’s massive oil reserves mentioned…
We should severely raise taxes on fuel. This would precipitate the push to economy and give us the money instead of a bunch of oil billionaires.
#35 – smartalix,
I couldn’t agree with you more. I just have to say though that we must first end the subsidies for oil before we can even think of a vice tax, of a sort, to cover the externalized costs of it.
We won’t run out of oil – the planet manufactures oil at a relatively consistent rate. The problem is of course we are using it faster than Mother Earth can replenish it.
We need to implement ALL of the alternative fuel options we have, particularly wind and solar, and get our transportation systems off of oil as much as possible. We need to preserve oil for plastic manufacture and so forth, not waste it all on transport.
#26 – Besides, why not plan on having no oil now rather then when the last drop hits the garage floor and nothing has been implemented yet, bad idea.
Why not plan? Because there is no immediate profit to be had in planning for the future. If it doesn’t buy a new summer home and Porsche for some rich exec and his trophy wife, then we ain’t gonna see it.
Of course we are going to run out of oil. Despite all the shortsighted and self serving prognostication that oil lasts forever, logic dictates that oil is finite. How finite is what we don’t know. We could assume it will last 1000 years and do nothing, or we could plan on running out soon and be wrong, but have a snappy new energy source and maybe a cleaner planet in the bargain.
But fuck me… I’m obviously just a commie hippy nutbag, so let’s not do that.
Do you suppose all that oil, inside the earth where all the continental plates moving about scraping off opne another, was actually there for a reason? Is the lack of oil going to begin massive internal erosion and heat buildup from friction? The earth begins to implode slowly where the greatest erosion is?
Well, no… I don’t suppose that… But Best Buy has The Core on sale for 6.99 this week. I considered buying it until I remember in a split second that it was the worst piece of shit I’ve ever witnessed on film.
>>I call bs. In 1980 no one credible was claiming we would run out of oil in 10 years.
Not BS – You’re right, though – it wasn’t anyone credible – it was our government schools. Fairfax, Co. VA. They brought in this huge ‘computer’ to tell us the cost of gas over the next X years. It was going to be something like $20/gallon by 1987 (or some such nonsense). To be truthful, (it was 30 years ago) it may have just been ‘we’d effectively be out of oil’ basically, the message they were sending across (which hasn’t changed) is the fear-message that: Society will cease to function because of this.
Soon after, gas prices dropped back down and we went onto the new death of civilization: Nuclear energy. We were all going to die from either cancer (radiation) or nuclear war.
The baseline to all of this is that there always has been and always will be people telling us (and we telling ourselves in some cases) that the end is near because of (name your crap-problem of the day). It (the end of the world crap) just doesn’t happen.
>>Besides, why not plan on having no oil now rather then when the last drop hits the garage floor and nothing has been implemented yet, bad idea.
You don’t have to plan. That’s the beauty of the free market. It’ll will naturally fill the void. It always has. Eventually you (or your descendents) will make the decision to buy into some new mode of transportation that won’t run on oil.
Really, if you want to ‘plan for the future of no oil’ then you can do so today by hunting down an electric car and plugging it in each night or by simply riding your bike to work (move closer to work if you have to). You really don’t *have* to buy oil – it’s just cheap and convenient and leads to an overall better life for us all.
#5 – the cheering thing is that there are preliminary drills indicating the possibility of incredible new reserves.
37 – exactly. The correct response is finding an alternative way to power the lifestyle, not cut back the lifestyle.
>> I call bs. In 1980 no one credible was claiming we would run out of oil in 10 years.
Not BS but the credibility was kind of my point. No one credible… It was our government schools. To tell you the truth, it may have been “Oil would be so expensive that no one could buy it” by 1990, but the effect was the same: All of us would suffer and society would stop because we’d (effectively) run out.
There are so may scare/panic tactics that have been used of the years. The oceans were supposed to be depleated of fish about 7 years ago. We were all supposed to die in the 1980s from a nuclear war. Society was supposed to end in the year 2000 because of the Y2K bug. We’re always right on the cusp of everything falling apart but it never does – things get better but people complain more.
Others say just four years away . . .
http://hugg.com/story/Scientists-Say-Four-Years-to-Peak-Oil/
#40 – This “lifestyle” that you seem pretty privileged to be living is not something that you are entitled to… and frankly if you are boo hoo’ing that a future generation of vehicles might be somewhat more efficient than a Sherman tank, well, your sobs fall on deaf ears.
By the way – nice to see you today 🙂
#a bunch of posts – I don’t know what schools of the coming apocalypse you guys attended when you were young, but I missed out of the doomsday prophesy lessons of global chaos and societal collapse.
It’s shame too. I was really disillusioned when I became an adult and discovered we lived in global chaos and societal collapse.
#43 – I was born a human being. It is my/our destiny/duty to control the Earth not merely live there.
I want more efficiency – just can’t sacrifice the important parts to get there: can’t be smaller, less powerful or cost more. Not allowed to reduce the number of miles driven. Within those constraints I’m all for alternate/more efficient energy sources.
Oh yeah, if the price of fuel chain reacts to increase the price of beer, we might as well all give it up.
As far as chaos goes, I’ve been reading SF for 35+ years and even the old Golden Age authors were predicting most of what we’re now seeing, and much more clearly than anything Nostradamus ever wrote. I’ve always known it was all going to crap out in my lifetime. (It’s why I’m so cheerful 😉 )
gee, when I was in grammar school…(in the 60’s) we were told that by the time I graduated from high school the whole country would have converted to the METRIC system. The only thing that really metric in high school and college was in the portions of illegal drugs sold (except POT which was sold by the “lid”, whatever amount that was). So, schools are NOT credible sources of information.
Meanwhile, so, in the 50’s cities were given $$$$$ mega bucks to tear out mass transit, commuter railroads, and many were (Los Angeles, the largest example). Where is the $$ going to come to put them back? We have a failing infrastructure (railroads and ships) to transport product instead of trucks. Our food is grown in South America, and elsewhere, instead of this country (large tract homes have taken out huge swaths of former farmland). Meat processing is centralized in one of a few midwestern states (and Idaho for the West Coast) and the carcasses shipped (pre cut) to distribution. Many communities don’t even have a local butcher anymore.
Food that is grown in this country is mostly grown on large, giant corporate farms, using huge amounts of fertilizers, pesticides, and reliant on machinery to work the fields. The little boutique farmers are far between and too few.
So, tell me, how exactly are we going to survive if food costs rise another 100 or 200 or 500 percent? What about if the food distribution system in this country is unable to purchase enough fuel? What do we have to fall back on?
We’re not so good at long term planning in this country…. if it didn’t happen yesterday, we just don’t react.
I, for one, am concerned. Not about driving around in an SUV, not about finding fuel at any cost, but about keeping my family fed if prices keep going up.
Meetsy – I advocate revolution…
OhFor,
NO..
Lets DEMAND they fix everything they broke.
Lets treat them,as PUBLIC citizians, and Popular ones, such as the Stars of holywood…
Bring on the Poparotzi,
I want Every moment of there Lives, Day, Nite, showers, swimming pool, dinners, Working and NOT, on the front page.
I want them Tagged, Bagged, and Gaged from getting ANY special interest money…I want Every Skeliton OUT of the closet and Dancing.
I want Their WHOLE past, to flash in front of their EYE’s Everyday, for the REST of their lives.
UNTIL they get it FIXED.
#47 – Who is they?
WE are Americans. It’s OUR responsibility.
For the Republicans out there, let’s call it PERSONAL responsibility.
The statistical deception, linear assumptions, and selective facts that make this clock so obviously false and misleading, are identical to the politically motivated bullshit behind human induced global warming. But there’s money to be made and votes to be won with Al Gore’s mush, so keep the media circus rolling along.
ECA, As I have stated before, it sounds as if you may have some intelligent points to make. However, they truly fail to get through in your posts. Your spelling and nearly random capitalization are more reminiscent of a Nigerian 419 scam email than an intelligent blog post. I really do understand that English may be difficult on both spelling and grammar. Still though, your points would be made far more effectively if you’d type them into Microsoft Word or some other word processor first and checked spelling and grammar.
robocop2, Thanks. I was worried that you might actually attempt to back up your point with some fact or link. Instead, you chose to simply call the facts you don’t personally like bullshit. I’d suggest trying scholar.google.com to search for real data in support of your points.
To the best of my knowledge, many have criticized Al Gore’s film. However, the only fact I’ve heard contradicted is the 20 feet of sea level rise. Humorously, when I went to check on this, remembering that this claim was the claim for what would happen if/when the entire Greenland ice sheet melted. The funny bit was that he was indeed incorrect. In that situation, the sea level rise would be 23 feet.
So, if you are indeed interested in the type of truth that can be backed up by numerous peer reviewed scientific articles, I’d suggest checking a book called The Weathermakers. All of the details in the book have footnotes to the science articles referenced. It’s a wonderful conglomeration of real science into a single albeit slow and depressing read. Here’s a link for the paperback version.
http://www.bestwebbuys.com/9780802142924
#51, Scott, at first I thought you were you referring to “The Weathermakers” by Ben Bova. It was a pretty good read, if you like Bova.
http://tinyurl.com/3clu8x
I think a larger problem will be when we run out of Tungsten for light bulbs. There’s a very limited supply of that, and yet there is no light bulb recycling plan to recover the burned out filaments. In a few decades, they’ll be mining the landfills for all the old bulbs. Of course, as they’ll all be broken by then, it will be like looking for a needle in a hay stack. At least when the oil really does start to run out, they can devise substitutes. But Tungsten has no substitute. Unless we’re willing to go back to using the “carbonized threat” of Edison’s day.
Meanwhile, this oil depletion scare should raise the obvious question as to why are fuel wasting exhibition sports like NASCAR increasing their franchises around the country? Shouldn’t such “sports” be curtained? It seems like anything that makes its backers millions, gets an automatic waver from environmental concerns. NASCAR’s main purpose is to promote the use of high octane fuels. Since such races aren’t as practical using ethanol or electric storage cell vehicles. They can be just as fast. But not as long on endurance.
Check out the movie “Who Killed the Electric Car” at your library or video rental store. It will show you how to best reduce the use of Oil to fuel our transportation needs. But it’s not what Al Gore wants you to know about. Maybe we should ask why that is? Because he has millions in Oil stock.
So his solutions will never be “green” enough to matter, if it means eliminating the use of petrolium fuels in cars.
53, dont Curtail Nascar, CHANGE it.
Limit the amount of gas for the sport, OPEn the fuel types.
#53 – Glenn Edward,
We probably need tungsten for a lot of things. It has very interesting properties in terms of its strength, weight, and rigidity.
However, we do not need it for light bulbs. We should not be using tungsten lighting anymore. In the short term, we need to switch to compact fluorescent bulbs, which must be properly disposed of due to mercury in them. In the medium term, we will probably switch to LEDs.
#54 – Glenn Edward,
Who Killed the Electric Car is a great documentary. I was very impressed with it and depressed with the chain of events and decisions people made.
However, what makes you think Gore is against electric vehicles? Has he said anything bad about them? Is it possible that he hadn’t heard the story before, as I hadn’t, when he made his documentary? I think giving people benefit of the doubt, especially in cases where they have not said anything on the subject, is very much in parallel with this country’s “innocent until proven guilty” philosophy.
So, let me know if you’ve heard him discourage the use and construction of electric vehicles. And, please cite a source.
On NASCAR, given street vehicles like the Tesla, it’s surprising that they aren’t going electric for the better acceleration characteristics. All it would take to make electric cars popular is one electric stock or formula 1 race car that wins. I bet it could be done. This car is a bit short on top speed for a race car, but is not designed as such.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Roadster
http://www.teslamotors.com/
Gore’s family owns Occidental Petroleum, a gift from Armand Hammer to his father. This is why Ralph Nader did so well, as Gore was getting protests from activists upset about Occidental drilling on tribal lands and in the oceans. Not sure why you would want to switch to CFLs short term, as it would make the medium term LED switch take longer while people wait for CFLs to burn out.
#57 – MikeN,
Actually that doesn’t answer any of the questions I asked. But, here’s the info on OXY from wikipedia.
Occidental’s coal interests were represented for many years by attorney and former U.S. Senator Albert Gore, Sr., among others. Gore, who had a long-time close friendship with Hammer, became the head of its subsidiary Island Creek Coal Company upon his election loss in the Senate. Much of Oxy’s coal and phosphate production was from Tennessee, the state Gore represented in the Senate, and Gore owned shares of stock in the company. Because the stock passed to his estate after his death, his son and executor at the time, former Vice President Albert Gore, Jr. received much criticism from environmentalists. However, Al Gore Jr. did not exercise control over the stock, which was eventually sold when the estate closed.
So again, what has Gore said against electric cars?
As for CFLs, I’m not concerned about the amount of time for CFL -> LED. I think the difference between halogen or incandescent lighting and CFL is so much greater than the difference between CFL and LED will be that the savings is well worth it. We don’t have a lot of time on our hands.
Ths scary thing here isn’t the oil supply.
It’s that people look at something as laughable as this ‘clock’ and think it represents something that is true.
What is true is that there are people in the world who realize the value of controlling the supply and distribution of energy. And they’ll do anything to get control. Even tell lies, hard as that may be to believe.
That’s why Al Gore is so damn scary. His agenda is about politics and control- taking things away from you.
It’s *not* about scientific fact.
The fact is that there’s oil all over the place, and more being found everyday.