cycleric

I don't know about you, but the more I read about peak oil, the more frightened I get. https://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

I tried this type of thread in DeviantArt's politics forum, only to hear some fierce opposition and denial. What are some of your thoughts? Is it a big deal? Can we survive it? What, besides bicycling, will it take?

Platy

I wouldn't write off living car free, living car-lite, and bicycling as key parts of the solution. If you're concerned about peak oil, it makes a lot of sense to spend some time reading this forum.

gerv 

I think you'll find most posters in LCF to be very receptive to the idea. From my perspective, many events in the last decade point to a possible shortage of petroleum products in the near-term. My thought is that the Iraq war is all about supply and control, but I guess other have their own take on it.

As for our survival as a species, I suspect it will take more than Peak Oil to destroy us. I just read that Portugal is now supplying more than 40% of its domestic electrical energy needs from solar and wind sources. In many other countries, plans are being developed to work through this event.

The worst reaction to Peak Oil is the fear/denial syndrome that you see so much of in the US. I don't know why... perhaps you have to deny the inevitable for a while before you start thinking about a Plan B. Just don't wait too long.

roughrider504

Too bad we as a world didn't know that the supply of petroleum would end like this. Now we know, but it's a bit too late.

bragi

I'm worried that demand will permanently outstrip supply in a few years (2012 seems like a good guess), and that this will wreak havoc on the world economy for a good while. But it's not the end of the world, either. In the long run, it may even be a good thing. (e.g., lowered emissions, if we don't freak out and revert to coal.)

sykerocker 

Except that it hasn't ended. And it's not going to END: i.e. We wake up tomorrow with the gas stations empty, nothing in the pipeline, no tankers crossing the Atlantic, nothing being pumped out of the ground in Saudi Arabia or anywhere else.

What you're going to see is a long term deterioration in the situation, with society begrudgingly adapting to it. And life will continue on. Maybe not as easily as we're living now, but even if we were forced to drop back to a, say, roughly 1850's existence (highly doubtful - and we certainly wouldn't be losing the intervening 160 years of knowledge, it would just be too difficult to keep producing those products) isn't necessarily a disaster. For starters, it would finally shut up all those d****d pop singers.

Just think, life without American Idol and having to hear about Britney Spears. Can we shut off the oil now, please?

timmhaan

there is more oil to be dragged out of the earth... tar sands in canada, ANWR, coastal areas, etc.

what concerns me is that the "easy" oil will be gone and we'll start opening up federally protected lands to get to what's there. once you open that door then you can never close it again.

roseskunk

i'm amish. what's peak oil?

Bikepacker67

Hey!
What the hell are you doing on the internet?!

wahoonc

Must have an air or white gas powered laptop

Aaron

wahoonc

This is pretty much my take too. But...FWIW I don't think the solutions are going to come from the government level, it is going to come from the people at the grass roots level. People like ourselves that have made lifestyle choices to simplify our lives and other changes. In my case we have been banking money for the last several years (going to move that to something more stable shortly) we own everything free and clear including our 40 acres. Added some fruit and nut trees last year, chickens are going in this year along with expanding the garden. Also the gardens are more or less organic. We have talked about doing some bio-diesel to keep a tractor and generator running if necessary. It is going to come down to small community groups doing what it takes to survive the economic down turn/fall.

Aaron

bragi

They stuck a copper rod into a chicken, a zinc rod into a cow, hooked them both to an iPhone that a tourist had left behind, and voila!

bragi

What I don't understand is, why do we keep using oil as fuel? It's much more useful as a component of, well, most things, including paved roads, computers, fertilizer (ok, natural gas in this case), pvc pipe, rain gear, etc. Oil as a source for those things is going to be a lot harder to replace, so we should really start saving the oil that's left to make them, rather than just pumpinig it into the atmosphere as fast as we can. I mean, let's face it: to a certain extent, bicycles depend on the same infrastructure and industrial pipeline as everything else, and a large proportion of the whole ediface is made of oil. If oil goes away completely, bicycles become much less viable.

wahoonc

Oil isn't going to go away completely...just become bloody expensive. Seen any gold plated, diamond encrusted bikes lately

Bikes are actually a very small user of oil in the production sequence compared to say a Hummer

Eventually people may wake up and realize what is going on with Peak Oil...or then again they might not. As I pointed out the goverment isn't going to be able to help. Read up on the fall of the Soviet Union, I really do think we are headed that way and oil depletion and soaring oil prices, along with an over extended US government are going to lead the way.



Aaron

Machka 

Nope ... not at all concerned.

Newspaperguy

Several years ago, I started to make some lifestyle changes to cut my oil consumption at the consumer level. I'm now living about as car light as I can at present. Rising pump prices are a slight annoyance but nothing more.

On a broader level, transportation of people and goods depends on oil. As the price increases and as the supply becomes more difficult to acquire, it will affect us on a rather fundamental level. Many of the items we require on a day to day basis are brought in from elsewhere. Rising fuel prices will reflect in higher prices on the shelves.

charly17201

Because everyone has this NIMBY attitude - nuclear AND wind power. And if you'll be honest, you'll see that most people today don't give a rat's a** about anyone but themselves.

Solutions from the government? Except for the military, name ONE thing the government does well? It sure as heck isn't health care - and never will be. It ain't Social Security - the biggest Ponzy scheme ever. Congress is a joke. Welfare - pay people not to work. The most convoluted tax system ever imaginable. And the education system...... to damn busy being PC to learn anything worth while.

The question you should ask yourself is - 'Can I survive it?' I can. I can walk out my door with a pack on my back and not turn back. I can survive regardless of whether society does or does not survive. And no, I'm not a 'survivalist nut case'. But I am self-reliant. I put money in the bank every week. I don't have any credit cards, loans or debts. I sure as hell ain't rich, but I don't spend more than I have or can afford for anything.

Cyclaholic

Aware of? yes.
Concerned? no.

Actually, I find the promise of a pre-oil type of lifestyle quite comforting for some reason.

sykerocker 

Yeah, but it still takes some form of modern technology to build a bicycle. There's this little matter of tyres and tubes - I believe oil is somehow involved in the manufacturing process. Bottom line: A bicycle is not the route back to that wonderful, theoretical simplified society. The reason the practical safety bicycle wasn't really in production until around 1885 is that the technology hadn't caught up with the dream until then. And that's well into the modern industrial age.

As to the Hummer - be greatful we have them around. I don't know what environmentalists would do for cheap shots if they didn't exist.

coldfeet

The first people to sound the alarm did so about 30 years ago, predictably, they were shouted down.
It is going to cause upheavals, how big, how extensive and exactly what kind, I cannot predict.
Some places are going to get ugly, OK, uglier than they already are. Some places that don't expect
ugly, are going to get an unpleasant surprise. Hope y'all are going to be OK.

Machka 

Is this whole peak oil thing (and "coming darkness", and other gloom and doom stuff) in the news in the US or something? I had to look it up to find out what the deal is ... no one is talking about it here. Anyway, the bit I did find about it indicates that we'll all be retired or dead or something before there could be any sort of concern. And it also indicates that we already went through something like this in the 1970s, and survived just fine.

donnamb 

Between peak oil and the impending economic crisis, I'm pretty darned concerned.

Trucker_JDub

I don't fit into this part of the forum. Like a lot of people I don't understand how someone in my living situation could ever get by with out a car. Personally until about 30 seconds ago I thought a lot of the views expressed here where way out of sync with my way of thinking (But hay, I kept it to myself). After reading the above quote I'm on your side. I have seen the light. There is hope yet, a reason to go on if you will. </hijack>

Abneycat

Moderately concerned. I simply hope that humanity has enough sanity left not to degrade into a circus act of desperate, enraged monsters fighting for the remains like end-of-the-line junkies.

wahoonc

That is a plausibly scenario...I was in Mobile, Alabama after Katrina came through, for the most part people were fairly civil, but there were several instances of "gas pump rage" and the police had to be called to keep order. And this was just a spot shortage.

Aaron