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Articles : Sci-TechGeorge W. Bush and Peak Oil: Beyond Incompetence
While it would be difficult to create an airtight legal case for impeaching George W. Bush based on his ignoring the very real threat posed by Peak Oil, nevertheless I believe that his actions—and inaction—in this regard constitute dereliction of duty on an unprecedented scale.
It is part of the job of leaders to foresee problems and either steer around them or prepare for them. A head of state is analogous to the captain of a ship, who is responsible not only for keeping his vessel on course but also for avoiding hazards such as storms and icebergs. Some problems are not foreseeable; others are. A ship’s captain who loses his vessel to a freak “perfect storm” may be blameless, but one who steers his passenger liner directly into a foggy ice field, having no sonar or radar, is worse than a fool: he is criminally negligent.
The argument I will make, in brief, is this:
Peak Oil is foreseeable.
The consequences are also foreseeable and are likely to be ruinous.
The Bush administration has been repeatedly warned.
Actions could be taken to reduce the impact, but the longer those actions are delayed, the worse the impact will be.
The administration, rather than taking steps to mitigate these looming catastrophic impacts, has instead done things that can only worsen them.
Let us go through these points one by one.
Is Peak Oil Foreseeable?
Peak Oil—the point at which the rate of global production of petroleum begins its inevitable historic decline—is a subject of growing public interest. The basic concept is derived from experience: during the past century-and-a-half all older oil wells have been observed to peak and decline in output. The same has been noted with entire oilfields, and with the collective oil endowment of whole nations. Indeed, most oil-producing nations have already seen their output enter terminal decline. Few informed observers doubt that the rate of oil production for the world in total will reach a maximum at some point and then slowly wane.
The science of Peak Oil was worked out in the 1950s by veteran geophysicist M. King Hubbert, who successfully used his method to predict the U.S. peak (1970). Declassified CIA documents show that by the late 1970s the Agency was using similar methods to forecast the Soviet Union’s oil peak.1
We do not know exactly when the global peak will occur, but it will almost certainly happen within the period between now and 2035.
Considering the importance of the peaking event, the range of uncertainty regarding its timing is disturbing. If the peak were to occur within the next five years, our national economy would be unable to adjust quickly enough to avert calamity (as we will discuss below), while a peak 30 years from now would present a much greater opportunity for adaptation.
Though there is continuing controversy over the question of when the peak will happen, there is strong evidence for concluding that it may come sooner rather than later, and that the world may already have entered the peaking period. Signs of a near-term peak include the fact that global rates of oil discovery have been falling since the early 1960s—as has been confirmed by ExxonMobil. Declining discovery rates represent a well-established trend and cannot be said to be the result merely of transient factors. In 2005, according to IHS Energy Inc., a total of 4.5 billion barrels of oil were discovered in new fields, while 30 billion barrels of oil were extracted and used worldwide. Thus, currently only about one barrel of oil is being discovered for every six extracted.2
Until now, the global oil industry has been able to replace depleted reserves on a yearly basis, mostly by re-estimating the size of existing fields. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in a recent publication, “Statements on Energy,” describes the situation this way:
In the last 10–15 years, two-thirds of the increases in reserves of conventional oil have been based on increased estimates of recovery from existing fields and only one-third on discovery of new fields. In this way, a balance has been achieved between growth in reserves and production. This can’t continue. 50% of the present oil production comes from giant fields and very few such fields have been found in recent years.3
The 100 or so giant and super-giant fields that are collectively responsible for about half of current world production were all discovered in the 1940s, ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s and most are now going into decline. These days, exploration turns up only much smaller fields that deplete relatively quickly.
Chris Skrebowski, editor of Petroleum Review and author of the study “Oil Field Megaprojects,” notes that “90% of known reserves are in production,” and that “as much as 70% of the world’s producing oil fields are now in decline” with decline rates averaging between four and six percent per year.4
Thus, while the U.S. Department of Energy predicts that world oil production will increase over the next 20 years from 85 million barrels per day (Mb/d) to 120 Mb/d in order to meet anticipated demand, a growing chorus of petroleum geologists and other energy analysts warns that such levels of production will never be seen.
A French report from the Economics, Industry & Finance Ministry, “The Oil Industry 2004,” took a careful look at future supply issues, forecasting a possible peak in world production as early as 2013.5
Ford Motor Company Executive Vice President Mark Fields, in his keynote address in October, 2005 at the Society of Automotive Engineers’ “Global Leadership Conference at the Greenbrier,” noted the seven most serious challenges to his industry, one of which was that “oil production is peaking.”6 Volvo motor company has for several years acknowledged in its company literature that a global oil production peak is likely by 2015.7
Legendary petroleum geologist T. Boone Pickens, who started his career in the early 1950s as a roughneck in oilfields in Oklahoma and Texas and went on to co-found Mesa Petroleum and Petroleum Exploration, told the 11th National Clean Cities conference in May, 2005 that “Global oil [production] is 84 million barrels [a day]. I don’t believe you can get it any more than 84 million barrels. . . . I think they are on decline in the biggest oil fields in the world today and I know what it’s like once you turn the corner and start declining, it’s a treadmill that you just can’t keep up with.”8
Royal Dutch Shell Chief Executive Jeroen Van Der Veer has said, “My view is that ‘easy’ oil has probably passed its peak.”9
J. Robinson West, founder and chairman of PFC Energy, one of Washington’s most influential international energy consulting firms, and a former Assistant Secretary of the Interior in the Reagan Administration, predicts that the “tipping point” when global supply of oil ceases to grow could arrive in 2015.10
Veteran petroleum geologist Henry Groppe, a Houston-based independent analyst who began his career in 1945 and who is today a consultant to global corporations as well as to nations, said in 2005 that “Total crude oil production may have peaked this year, or perhaps will peak next year.”11
Matthew Simmons, founder of Simmons & Company International energy investment bank, has been perhaps the most outspoken of oil analysts and investors regarding Peak Oil. A consultant to the Cheney Energy Policy Development Group that met in secret in 2001, he is the author if Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy (Wiley, 2005). Simmons has concluded, on the basis of his study of technical papers from the Society of Petroleum Engineers, that Saudi Arabian oil production is close to its maximum, and that world oil production is also therefore close to its peak.
On March 1, 2006 The New York Times published an editorial by Robert Semple, Associate Editor of the Editorial Page for the Times since 1998, in which he wrote, “The concept of peak oil has not been widely written about. But people are talking about it now. It deserves a careful look—largely because it is almost certainly correct.”12
In short, the science behind Peak Oil is well established, and, while there is some disagreement about exactly when the global peak will arrive, there can be no excuse at this stage for ignoring the problem.
Does the Administration Know About Peak Oil?
The New York Times knows about Peak Oil, but does the president? On this point the evidence is conclusive.
First of all, agencies within the government clearly understand the problem, and therefore relevant information must be readily available to the chief executive if he wishes to have it.
Explicit warnings of Peak Oil have started to turn up in official U.S. government literature. For example, a paper prepared for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers titled “Energy Trends and Implications for U.S. Army Installations” (Sept., 2005) includes the following tidbit:
The supply of oil will remain fairly stable in the very near term, but oil prices will steadily increase as world production approaches its peak. The doubling of oil prices in the past couple of years is not an anomaly, but a picture of the future. Peak oil is at hand. . . .13
Then there is the following from the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Deputy Assistant Secretary for Petroleum Reserves, Office of Naval Petroleum and Oil Shale Reserves, dated March 2004:
The disparity between increasing production and declining reserves can have only one outcome: a practical supply limit will be reached and future supply to meet conventional oil demand will not be available. The question is when peak production will occur and what will be its ramifications. Whether the peak occurs sooner or later is a matter of relative urgency. . . . In spite of projections for growth of non-OPEC supply, it appears that non-OPEC and non-Former Soviet Union countries have peaked and are currently declining. The production cycle of countries . . . and the cumulative quantities produced reasonably follow Hubbert’s model. . . . The Nation must start now to respond to peaking global oil production to offset adverse economic and national security impacts.14
And then there is the 2005 Report, “Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management,” commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy, about which we will have more to say below.15
If none of this is specific enough (in fairness, we cannot expect George W. Bush to spend his evenings poring over obscure Army Corps of Engineers studies), we have the fact that Representative Roscoe Bartlett, Republican from Maryland’s sixth district—who has made many speeches about Peak Oil on the floor of Congress—has spent thirty minutes in private conversation with the president explaining the science of Peak Oil and seeking to convey the enormity of the problem.16
But what if Bush wasn’t able to understand what Bartlett was telling him? After all, Bartlett has a Ph.D. in physics; perhaps he was using words that were too big, or concepts too abstruse for our president to grasp.
Even if that were the case, we have evidence that Bush’s second-in-command, vice president Cheney, understands Peak Oil; given time, Cheney could surely make the concept comprehensible to his superior. In a speech in 1999 (while he was still CEO of Halliburton Corporation, the giant oil services company) to the Petroleum Institute in London, Cheney pointed out that
By some estimates there will be an average of two per cent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead along with conservatively a three per cent natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day.17
This is a fair statement of the depletion dilemma: 50 million barrels per day is almost five times the current output of Saudi Arabia.
Finally there is the fact that is that Bush and Cheney are themselves former oilmen: their inside knowledge of the industry should give them enhanced insight into the problem of Peak Oil. Some would say that these officials’ former ties to the petroleum industry imply a conflict of interest (they have been accused of giving perks to oil companies, even to Halliburton—perish the thought!). However, some of the most outspoken authorities on Peak Oil are retired petroleum geologists or engineers who have spent decades working for oil companies. Having former industry insiders in public office today could be good, if they used their technical knowledge to benefit the country by warning of the consequences of continued oil dependency. But, as we will see below, there is no evidence that the particular former oilmen currently occupying the highest offices in the land are doing any such thing—at least not genuinely or effectively.
In sum, while it is impossible to say whether Mr. Bush understands Peak Oil, no one could credibly argue that that he simply hasn’t heard about it.
How Serious Is the Threat?
Addressing this question requires some speculation: the peaking of global oil production is an event that has never occurred before. However, we need not speculate baselessly; for guidance we have a U.S. government-funded study that could hardly be more relevant—“The Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management,” prepared by Science Applications International (SAIC) for the U.S. Department of Energy, released in February 2005. The project leader for the study was Robert L. Hirsch, who has had a distinguished career in formulating energy policy. The report on the study will hereinafter be referred to as “The Hirsch Report.”
The first paragraph of the Hirsch Report’s Executive Summary states:
The peaking of world oil production presents the U.S. and the world with an unprecedented risk management problem. As peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand sides, but to have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of peaking.18
As the Hirsch Report explains in detail, due to our systemic dependence on oil for transportation, agriculture, and the production of plastics and chemicals, every sector of society will be impacted.
The Hirsch Report effectively undermines the standard free-market argument that oil depletion poses no serious problem, now or later, because as oil becomes scarcer the price will rise until demand is reduced commensurate with supply; meanwhile, higher prices will stimulate more exploration, the development of alternative fuels, and the more efficient use of remaining quantities. While it is true that rising prices will do all of these things, we have no assurance that the effects will be sufficient to avert severe, protracted economic, social, and political disruptions.
First, price increases may or may not stimulate more exploration, or do so sufficiently or productively. During the early 20th century, more exploration resulted in more oil being discovered. However, in recent decades, expanded exploration efforts have turned up fewer and fewer finds. It is difficult to avoid the obvious conclusion that there simply isn’t much oil left to discover.
Higher prices for oil will also no doubt spur new investment in alternative fuels. But the time required to produce substantial quantities of alternative fuels will be considerable, given the volume of our national transportation fuel consumption. Moreover the amount of investment required will be immense. And it would be unrealistic to expect most alternatives to fully or even substantially replace oil at any level of investment, and even with decades of effort, given practical, physical constraints to their development.
Higher prices will also no doubt spur efficiency measures, but the most productive of these will likewise require time and investment. For example, raising the fuel efficiency of the U.S. auto fleet would require years for industry retooling and more years for consumers to trade in their current vehicles for more-efficient replacements.
James Schlesinger, who served as CIA director in the Nixon administration, defense secretary in the Nixon and Ford administrations, and energy secretary in the Carter administration, in November, 2005 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee urged lawmakers to begin preparing for declining oil supplies and increasing prices in the coming decades. “We are faced with the possibility of a major economic shock and the political unrest that would ensue,” he said.19
Schlesinger was far from overstating the threat. In fact, it would be no exaggeration to view Peak Oil as potentially representing the economic, social, and political impact of a hundred Katrinas. And that impact will not subside in a few days’ or years’ time: once global oil production has peaked, the energy shortfalls for transportation and agriculture will be ongoing, relentless, and cumulative.
What Should the Administration Be Doing?
Responsible and competent people who have studied the problem of Peak Oil, (including Robert Hirsch and his colleagues) agree that efforts will be needed to create alternative sources of energy, to reduce demand for oil through heightened energy efficiency, and to redesign entire systems (including both cities and the rural agricultural economy) to operate with less petroleum.
The Hirsch Report’s methodology involved the examination of three scenarios:
Scenario I assumed that action is not initiated until peaking occurs.
Scenario II assumed that action is initiated 10 years before peaking.
Scenario III assumed action is initiated 20 years before peaking.
In all three scenarios, the Hirsch study assumed a “crash program” scale of effort (that is, all the resources of government and industry are marshalled to the tasks of creating supplies of alternative fuels and reducing demand through efficiency measures). The study found that, due to the time required to start efforts and the scale of mitigation required, Scenario I will result in at least 20 years of fuel shortfalls. With 10 years of preparation, a 10-year shortfall is likely. And with 20 years of advance mitigation effort, there is “the possibility” of averting fuel shortages altogether. The Report also concludes that “Early mitigation will almost certainly be less expensive than delayed mitigation.”20
In other words, if global Peak Oil is 20 years away or fewer, or we believe it might be, then we must begin immediately with a full-scale effort to address the problem.
Most Americans would understandably prefer to solve the dilemma simply by switching to alternative fuels, thus enabling them to maintain their current habits. But, as we have already noted, there are problems with that strategy.
Biofuels (ethanol, wood methanol, and biodiesel) require land area for production and are plagued by the problem of low net-energy yields. According to the calculations of Jeffrey Dukes of the University of Massachusetts, over a hundred tons of ancient plant matter are concentrated in every gallon of gasoline we use today.21 Granted, modern methods of biofuels production are more efficient than nature’s slow means of producing crude oil, but still this analysis should give us pause: trying to replace a substantial fraction of our 20 million barrels per day of national oil consumption with biofuels could potentially overwhelm an agricultural system already destroying topsoil and drawing down ancient aquifers unsustainably.
It is possible to produce liquid transportation fuels from coal and natural gas. However, natural gas is itself a problematic fuel in North America (domestic production peaked in 2001), and coal—a low-quality hydrocarbon—would present a host of environmental and practical quandaries if we tried to increase mining sufficiently to replace a significant proportion of our oil budget. In the end, coal is likewise a depleting fossil fuel: while it is often said that we have hundreds of years’ worth of the stuff, that assumes current rates of consumption and ignores variable quality; assuming dramatic increases in consumption (for oil replacement) and taking into account the fact that much coal offers a low energy yield, those centuries shrink to a very few decades.22
Which brings us to the strategies of conservation, efficiency, and curtailment. These clearly present the best opportunities, though efforts along these lines will eventually require significant changes in Americans’ habits and expectations.
Our automobiles could be made much more fuel-efficient, though this will require government leadership via higher CAFE standards. But over the long term automobiles and trucks simply aren’t good options for transportation, given their inherent energy inefficiency. Thus the nation will need a much-expanded freight and passenger rail system. Our cities, most of which have been designed for the automobile, need to be made more neighborhood-oriented and walkable, and provided with light-rail transit systems. Meanwhile agricultural production must be freed, as quickly and completely as possible, from fossil-fuel inputs. All of these efforts will require substantial investment and many years of work.
If, as the Hirsch Report tells us, the market will be incapable of shifting investment incentives quickly enough away from the old oil-based, energy-guzzling energy infrastructure and toward the new alternatives-based, super-efficient one, then government will have to lead the way through a sustained commitment of effort on a wartime scale. The estimated one to three trillion dollars consumed so far in the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, had they been spent instead on domestic energy security, would probably have represented an appropriate level and rate of funds allocation.
What Has the Administration Done?
Before examining what Bush and Cheney have done (and not done), we should in fairness note that previous administrations are far from blameless. During the Clinton–Gore years, imports of oil increased while CAFE standards languished. However, in a court of law the incompetence or even criminality of others is seldom a viable defense for one’s own culpable actions.
That said, in light of the threat and the needed effort, what has the current president actually accomplished?
First of all, the administration effectively buried the Hirsch Report. For many months it was available only on a high school web site, then on the Project Censored site; only toward the end of 2005 did it appear on a Department of Energy site. There has been no public mention whatever of the Report by any official in the Executive Branch. Thus the administration has sought not to respond to warnings of approaching crisis, but simply to muffle the warnings.
During the past six years, funding for renewable energy programs and for energy efficiency has not increased substantially. Meanwhile the administration has consistently sought to remove subsidies for the nation’s passenger rail system, Amtrak, while continuing to support immense subsidies for highways.
To be sure, Bush has occasionally spoken about the need for an energy policy, as in a speech to the nation in April 2005:
First, we must better use technology to become better conservers of energy. And secondly, we must find innovative and environmentally sensitive ways to make the most of our existing energy resources, including oil, natural gas, coal and safe, clean nuclear power. Third, we must develop promising new sources of energy, such as hydrogen, ethanol or bio-diesel. Fourth, we must help growing energy consumers overseas, like China and India, apply new technologies to use energy more efficiently and reduce global demand of fossil fuels.23
I would disagree with a few of these suggestions, but over all this is not a bad summary of what actually needs to happen. But talk is cheap, and talk that accomplishes next to nothing is, in this situation, a criminally negligent diversion and waste of time. The words just quoted were spoken in the context of the president’s promotion of an energy bill that actually did very little except to increase tax breaks to the fossil fuel industry.
In his 2006 State of the Union address, Bush said that the U.S. is “addicted to oil,” and put forward the goal of reducing oil imports from the Middle East. The next day his staff backpedaled, saying that this goal was only an “example.”24
Five years into the Bush administration, the nation is more dependent on imported oil than ever before. It is facing an impending energy crisis that a government-funded study says will be “unprecedented” in scope and consequences. And needed preparation efforts are nowhere to be seen.
Given all this, how will impeachment help? While it would be justified as a punishment for ineptitude or criminality, impeachment will not materially assist the nation to deal with Peak Oil unless current officials are replaced with ones who understand the problem and who are prepared to implement policies that radically shift America’s priorities in terms of energy, transportation, urban infrastructure, and agriculture. Looking out over the current political landscape in Washington, it is difficult to identify who those new officials might be. Nevertheless, it would help the nation to start now with a clean slate, and with a popular mandate for the new team of leaders to move rapidly to achieve energy security.
Notes:
1. See discussion of this topic in my book Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post Carbon World (New Society, 2004), pp. 40–41.
2. IHS discovery numbers are proprietary and costly, and so cannot be referenced directly; however this 4.5 billion-barrel figure was confirmed in personal correspondence by Chris Skrebowski, editor of Petroleum Review.
3. “Statements on Oil” Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Energy Committee. (17 Oct. 2005) http://www.energybulletin.net/9824.html (accessed 17 Jan., 2006)
4. Chris Skrebowski, “Prices Set Firm, Despite Massive New Capacity,” Petroleum Review, October 2005.
5. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4077802.stm (accessed 13 March, 2006)
6. http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/10/ford_exec_oil_p.html (accessed 13 March, 2006)
7. Future Fuels reportf (PDF) (accessed 13 March, 2006)
8. Michael DesLauriers, “Famed Oil Tycoon Sounds Off on Peak Oil, Resource Investor, 23 June, 2005 (accessed 13 March, 2006)
9. Jeroen Van Der Veer, “Vision for Meeting Energy Needs Beyond Oil,” Financial Times"
10. Global Energy Markets (PDF) (accessed 13 March, 2006)
11. Michael DesLauriers, “Oil Forecasting Legend Discusses Peak Oil, Share Prices,” Resource Investor, 19 October, 2005 (accessed 13 March, 2006)
12. Robert B. Semple, Jr., The End of Oil, The New York Times, 1 March, 2006 (accessed 13 March, 2006)
13. Adam Fenderson and Bart Anderson, “US Army: Peak Oil and the Army’s Future,” Energy Bulletin 13 March, 2006 (accessed 13 March, 2006)
14. “Strategic Significance of America’s Shale Oil Resource,” Vol. 1, “Assessment of Strategic Issues,” Office of Deputy Assistant Secretary for Petroleum Reserves, Office of Naval Petroleum and Oil Shale Reserves, U.S. Department of Energy, March 2004 .
15. Robert L. Hirsch, et al., “The Peaking of World Oil Produciton: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management,” February 2005. http://www.projectcensored.org/newsflash/the_hirsch_report.pdf (PDF) (accessed 13 March, 2006)
16. “Congressman Bartlett Discusses Peak Oil with President Bush,” staff, Energy Bulletin, 29 June, 2005 http://www.energybulletin.net/7024.html (accessed 13, March, 2006)
17. http://www.energybulletin.net/559.html (accessed 13 March, 2006)
18. Hirsch, op. cit.
19. http://www.senate.gov/~foreign/testimony/2005/SchlesingerTestimony051116.pdf (PDF) (accessed 13 March, 2006)
20. Hirsch, op. cit.
21. “Price of Gas,” ScienCentral News, 28 July, 2005, http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?article_id=218392605&cat=all (accessed 13 March, 2006)
22. Gregson Vaux, “The Peak in US Coal Production,” From the Wilderness, 27 May, 2004 http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/052504_coal_peak.html (accessed 13 March, 2006)
23. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/04/20050428-9.html (accessed 13 March, 2006)
24. http://www.whitehouse.gov/stateoftheunion/2006/index.html (accessed 13 March, 2006)
Richard Heinberg is the author of two of the most essential books in the Peak Oil canon, The Party’s Over and Powerdown as well as a forthcoming small book to introduce the Depletion Protocol to a wide audience. This article is the April 2006 edition (#168) of Heinberg’s MuseLetter series (to subscribe go here).
For permission to republish this essay, please contact him at rheinberg@igc.org.
Editor’s note: This article was written as a chapter to be published in a forthcoming book by Project Censored titled The Case for Impeachment of Bush and Cheney, Seven Stories Press, Summer 2006.
Thanks to Sisyphus for the head’s up.
Posted by anthony
Anthony Lappé is GNN's Executive Editor. He's written for The New York Times, Details, New York, Paper, The Fader and Vice, among many others. He has worked as a producer for MTV and Fuse. He is the co-author of GNN's True Lies and the producer of their Iraq doc,...
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I don’t think Peak Oil can be handled while there are powerful capitalist-imperialist forces dominating the world. At the same time, we may be well past Peak Water, Peak Health and a Peak Environment. With all this catching up to do, Peak Oil has even less chance of being handled effectively for mankind. It’s time to begin a normal, healthy, realistic process of simply imagining a whole range of truly radical solutions. Other options include projecting providential forms of relief and taking a fatalistic attitude> that is, in both of these cases, just basically carrying on with the status quo. Thanks to the myth of sisyphus for the the reminders.
And the Old Order Amish will be laughing all the way to the watering trough.
I’m waiting for the way-out-there naysayers Like John Kaminski, who think Peak Oil is a “hoax” put together by “The Jews”, to come slithering up from whatever bowels they languish in screaming “abiotic oil, abiotic oil!!” Sheesh. What piffle!
Anyhoooooooo…Heinberg is a sharp cat. He’s been the most effective so far in teaching people about this issue.
But Lot08 is right. So long as Big Oil is one of the dominant industries, nothing will change until them themselves develop, build, and run the new energy source, if ever.
Bush already has his alibi.
“It’s hard work…”
Besides …
THE REAL problem remains.
Too many fucking people.
Population growth and capitalism are conjoined twins.
chuck – I’m waiting for the way-out-there naysayers Like John Kaminski, who think Peak Oil is a “hoax” put together by “The Jews”, to come slithering up from whatever bowels they languish in screaming “abiotic oil, abiotic oil!!” Sheesh
Those people are tenacious and funny – in a dog-humping-a-pillow kind of way.
AS2 – THE REAL problem remains . . . Too many fucking people
Yep, the elephant in the room.
Koyaanisqatsi is a very instructive film to show people if you want to convey that idea.
“But Lot08 is right. So long as Big Oil is one of the dominant industries, nothing will change until them themselves develop, build, and run the new energy source, if ever.”
....or we take out big oil/capitalists…..
or we take out big oil/capitalists
Good luck on that, guy. I won’t hold my breath.
....not with that attitude….
seriously, how’s anything going to ever change? asking pretty please? these people are ruthless, lets NOT be the good germans.
double
I think Bush is truly aware of this, and as such he has the “fuck’em, I’m safe” attitude, becos lets be honest, this wont be THE END, but just worst that the 30s, and if someone was safe during those times was the kind of people like Bush.
Anyways, as I said before, PeakOil may be a bitch, but a new and better energy source (even if oil wasnt running out) would be a bitch too, at least for the US. Since the 80s the only thing keeping that country together is petrodollar, nothing else. This currency only works if: people keeps using oil and nothing else and saudis and OPEC keep selling oil only in dollars.
So basically even if the peakoil aftermath nevers happens (that’s is, becos some dude comes with an alternative fuel) the Us is fucked.
Too many fucking people.
Dude please! that is sooo 60s doomerish shit…
The problem is that 5% of the population (you KNOW what 5%) consumes more than 25% of the worlds energy, 35% of the resources and makes 30% of the garbage and polution.
With this kind of senseless behaviour you dont need “Too many fucking people.”...
No HyperT, a major part of the problem really is too many fucking people – US residents and others. Remember that it isn’t just about cars, suburbs, and electric heating/cooling. Food (and to a lesser degree water) for burgeoning cities worldwide is reliant on cheap abundant energy. How the fuck would Tokyo, or Hong Kong, or Lagos, or Mexico City feed their residents without cheap energy to grow it on sponge-land or ship it long distances? It’s not like there is enough arable land surrounding or in any of the mega-cities – and what there is has mostly been fucked through monoculture, development, and the unforeseen repurcussions of the “green revolution.”
You are as fucked, if not more so, than I am if shit really hits the fan.
btw hyperT, you might like this – The End of Civilization
As for too many people, the earth can definitely sustain six and half billion people, if six and half billion people acted in a remotely sustainable fashion.
As for peak oil, it is not the when the peak will occur that is the significant factor, it’s how fast oil prices will escalate after the peak. If new technology slows down the rate of increase, then alternative fuels will be brought online as they come to compete with oil. As the article mentions, there is strong reason to believe “a smooth market force transition” will not occur. However, this should have been it’s focus. Driving home the point that the “peak” will eventually occur accomplishes little. I don’t really see a point of arguing with people that are working under the assumption that a finite resource will last an infinite amount of time. So incapable of reason such people must be that either they will not be persuaded, or they will not do anything worthwhile if they are persuaded.
As for Bush and America in general, I don’t even pretent to have a clue what they’re up to anymore.
While it might be nice to fantasize that the Earth can sustain 6.5 billion people, I challenge you do do the math.
13,000 people die daily from starvation, and it’s not a distribution problem. 2 billion people are malnourished. Global fisheries and fresh water supplies are both down about 20%, and healthy topsoil is pretty much non-existant. 4 billion people don’t have ready access to clean water or sanitation. The Earth is becoming more toxic due to the waste it’s expected to hold from those 6.5 billion people.
The green revolution of the 1940s gave us a four-fold increase in crop yields due to fossil fuel inputs in fertilizer, pesticides, and herbicides. After petro-collapse, this will no longer be possible, so expect those starvation numbers to quadruple.
Sustainability is about balancing population, consumption, and waste assimilation. If you look at all the variables, the Earth could sustainably meet the needs of about 2 billion, if they adopt post-carbon energy useage patterns and rebuild population centers along the lines of Richard Register’s Ecocities.
I really can’t buy into this argument until there is efficiency and distribution. It is so distorted right now, how can you tell how many people can be supported? 2 billion if steak and caviar are on the menu.
As for too many people, the earth can definitely sustain six and half billion people, if six and half billion people acted in a remotely sustainable fashion.
Only if the people were capable of photosynthesis and willing to cannibalize eachother. In those cases I think it would be quite possible.
Sustain is not the point. Even discos and bars have capacity rules. Jared Diamond, in Guns, Germs and Steel presents a brilliant look at the history of the human race on earth. He notes that all of the Americas got developed with several millions of people only. People kept spreading out and opening up new areas rather than increasing density. He makes a case for the natural way being spread out with a lot of space, even though that was not exactly what he had set out to do. The question thus becomes one of desirablity, not sustainability. That is, can a global society be agreed upon by people everywhere that can maximize the best conditions possible for each new born?
What’s desirable is not what’s real. Desirable for who – those who decide to kill the other 4 billion off?
You people talk like humans are the only creature on the planet and as if we need nothing else to survive. I hope you people get bird flu.
Funny how the rules are strictly enforced when it comes to deleting blogs and users that say something the least bit “dangerous” but when it comes to Anthony and posting articles the rules are ignored outright.
Asset A02185 Posted By anthony
Richard Heinberg is the author of two of the most essential books in the Peak Oil canon, The Party’s Over and Powerdown as well as a forthcoming small book to introduce the Depletion Protocol to a wide audience. This article is the April 2006 edition (#168) of Heinberg’s MuseLetter series (to subscribe go here).
For permission to republish this essay, please contact him at rheinberg@igc.org
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In the late 1970’s then President Jimmy Carter commissioned a study done by the CIA that estimated the earth’s carrying capacity to be between 12 and 15 billion people. Global population just recently surpassed 6.5 billion. If the entire land area of the State of Texas was turned into a giant suburb, the entire population of the planet could theoretically be Texans. Comparatively speaking, things really aren’t so bad.
Kissinger has said a few times: there isn’t necessarily an energy problem; there’s a population problem. This follows exactly with the Malthusian thinking of the Rockefeller family with whom he is closely associated. The Bush family slant toward eugenics overlaps nicely with their thinking too.
Kissinger, as a man who still advises the highest figures in the corporate world and in government; as a man who consults with the owners of the biggest oil corporations and with senior bureaucrats in intelligence; as a former foreign policy kingpin and black ops nut who has directly or indirectly been involved with the destruction of untold lives; and as a longtime CFR/Bilderberg grand-cha-cha… maybe you might want to listen to Kissinger.
Maybe you might want to include the too-apocalyptic-to-talk-about possibility that Peak Oil is a tolerable method to gradually control the global population, as well as being a crisis loaded with hidden opportunities. Possibly, “letting Peak Oil happen” will…
1. cull the Earth of a billion souls in the Third World (mostly starved and sickened children), and do a much finer job of exterminating them than the bullets fired in Vietnam, or Angola, Central America, or in Iraq, East Timor, whatever…
2. cull a percentage of the so-called ‘weakest’ of the poor from the so-called advanced nations; most others would just be put to work to earn their keep.
3. transfer far more wealth to the upper classes, and make oil and other resources (which they own as shareholders) skyrocket in price. Good trickledown too for us crumb-pickers.
4. make the nations who host the oil-owners (America, Britain, etc.) more influential. Whereas everyone else will depend on them that much more. Imperialism at its best.
5. justify an authoritarian state, which uses a firm hand to keep order. People will want it.
6. justify global re-organization. Let the emergency happen, and then as the people demand a solution, the elite can offer it.
Oil will not actually dry up into nothing. It probably will just get more scarce. The Advanced nations will carry on, guarding the lumpsum, but the carrying capacity for the developing world might just tank by 30%. If you’re a Dr. Strangelove who has been a big part in the virtual murder of millions, would you be ‘scared’ to let hundred of millions die? Is that ultra-sinister possibility something we can just laugh away?
It would be easy to justify in the future because such a crisis would generate more war, and it would be easy to blame the ‘nutbags’ outside the empire’s edge.
12 – 15 sounds excessive to me. Fennec’s right – there’s other animals that need habitat. But right now at 6.5, utopia can still be in reach. Yeah, our lifestyles will have to change to something more natural and tribal – something we’ll probably like better.
Global Report 2000 also states with clarity that which needs to be done in the 1980’s and 1990’s to have the world on a path to not destroying the planet and being able to prevent population from ever reaching 12 to 15 billion. That number was a high limit, not a goal.
This is the depressing part and plays more to the situation Continuity outlines.
Unfortunately, the major global powers squandered their resources on the continuing cold war and unsustainable economic expansion. Most of the should do’s were ignored, and now we’ve clearly overshot in terms any sort of soft landing.
“we’ve clearly overshot in terms any sort of soft landing.”
Yes, but I’m sure you’ll agree that sustainability is still worth working towards.
As for impeachment, which is what this article is about, I’m all for it. As for George W. Bush’s culpability in the situation, it’s minimal. His father George H. W. Bush, certainly understood Peak Oil. He was director of the CIA when the Global Report 2000 was commissioned by Carter and probably was aware of the creation of the Department Of Energy in 1977.
When George H. W. Bush later was President and had a chance to depose Saddam with the world’s blessing and less resistance from the people of Iraq, they opted instead for no fly zones and 12 years of economic sanctions to prevent further development of Iraqi oil production and limited exports.
This was done largely to insure return on heavy investments in North Sea oil fields and to guarantee Saudi pre-eminence within OPEC.
Now George W. Bush is left with a much bigger mess, because his father, without a doubt one of, if not the most influential and connected person in human history made the decision some 30 years ago that the “American way of life was not negotiable”.
But he’s not the President anymore, so let’s all get together and bag shrub.
Chickenma1, Personally, absolutely. As a country, it’s not a goal. It’s not even in the top ten. At least not in terms of what we envision. Remember the Mother Earth News by Rodale Press. Used to find it everywhere. Sadly, we’ve been lulled into a false sense of security by cheap and plentiful energy, and though the complaining and the pinch is beginning, oil will have to hit $80.00 a barrel to be as expensive as it was in the tight markets of the 1970’s.
Again I think Continuity’s Kissinger model is far more likely. Look at where the investment has been. Building and maintaining a lone superpower military, a huge prison infrastructure and militarizing the police forces. What’s been spent on sustainable energy pales in comparison. The politicians, knowing full well this was coming, wouldn’t so much as demand higher CAFE standards on the automotive industry throughout the 90’s.
The investments have been made for the crash, not the soft landing. I’m not one to advocate pessimism in this regard, but I am enough of a realist to admit that we aren’t going to impeach Bush and suddenly turn this around, unless people truly wake up to just how dangerous and bad this will become.
Shit, I guess you’re right.
Even the social psychology has changed for the worse.
Think “Survivor”. That’s not let’s all share responsibility and do our part. It’s more like musical chairs or dodge ball.
Voted off the island is a bummer, how do you get voted off the planet?
I would say that nuclear power is the best way to go. It is clean, efficient, renewable, and somewhat cheap. The risk of a huge explosion is greatly exaggerated. This is the only form of energy that can support us all. However, millions of cars, factories, and machines will have to be replaced. Like you said, the only way that we can get started on nuclear power is if we start now. When we only have a few months to get the entire population new cars, get all of the farms new machinery, and get new processing equipment for all of the factories, the whole world will shut down. People will have no way to grow enough food for our huge population, we will have no way to drive to a store to buy it. If we don’t start building new power plants and making new transportation then we will all be back on horses riding steam engine trains and hand-picking peas in each of our little yards.
If we don’t start building new power plants and making new transportation then we will all be back on horses riding steam engine trains and hand-picking peas in each of our little yards.
Sometimes no Peace,
related – general 9-11 live chat ok to talk about anything
http://www.lfchosting.com/sportsfem/peace/chat.html
Then again, speaking in very general terms, only two broad issues have directly increased the price of oil in the last 5 years…
1. Speculation and hype regarding crises in and around oil-producing nations — everyone from Venezuela, Nigeria, Russia, to the Gulf nations, and even the Gulf of Mexico.
2. The emergence of developing nations which demand more oil & gas to generate more trade goods, fuel their automobiles, and gas up their armoured tanks. To being honest, China doesn’t desperately require oil and gas to survive, but it wants oil & gas to keep up its trade surplus, fuel up its growing fleet of cars, tanks, airplanes, and subs. It wants to be energy self-sufficient and to fuel its super power aspirations: two interlocking goals.
As for the effects of Peak Oil (or price increases) on America —- so far nothing , aside from the positive gains of moving money from all over the world to the American financial centres, getting rich people richer.
continuity – only two broad issues have directly increased the price of oil in the last 5 years
1. Speculation and hype regarding crises in and around oil-producing nations—everyone from Venezuela, Nigeria, Russia, to the Gulf nations, and even the Gulf of Mexico
2. The emergence of developing nations which demand more oil & gas to generate more trade goods, fuel their automobiles, and gas up their armoured tanks. To being honest, China doesn’t desperately require oil and gas to survive, but it wants oil & gas to keep up its trade surplus, fuel up its growing fleet of cars, tanks, airplanes, and subs. It wants to be energy self-sufficient and to fuel its super power aspirations: two interlocking goals
As for the effects of Peak Oil (or price increases) on America—- so far nothing , aside from the positive gains of moving money from all over the world to the American financial centres, getting rich people richer
I’d totally call bullshit if this argument was not a rewriting of the effects of peak oil that nearly every prognosticator on the topic has brought up. You are merely switching cause and effect. And actually, only one broad issue has directly increased the price of oil – demand.
When you say “speculation and hype” in point 1 it makes it sound as though the crises aren’t real and don’t have anything to do with the fact that a limited, and currently vital, resource is tight in terms of supply and that the traders know this. Why would a trader overpay for commodities futures if the price isn’t going to go up based on increased demand? There is no swing production anymore – demand is outstripping supply so any disruption is sure to drive prices up. This same “speculation and hype” you mention is simply a poor way to describe the complex situations happening currently in Nigeria, or the Sudan, or other regions; tensions over Iran; the aftermath of Katrina; and various oil region production declines from Burgan to the North Sea. These are real crises that often cut into production – and there is no surplus sitting around to make up for it.
Point 2 merely reiterates the demand side of peak oil. Yes, if demand weren’t growing, for whatever reason, there would be a far more slight increase in price and oil revenues for the players involved. Peak oil would not come as quickly if the demand were decreased, the reason for the demand is irrelevant. There may be more ability to contract than some folks take into account in their predictions, but that doesn’t alter geological facts.
And you are right on the lack of serious effects on the US so far, but this is, in Kunstler’s phrase, a “long emergency,” or a crisis without end. The US will see it’s share of problems soon enough – $70/barrel is coming back soon and the housing market is set to shit itself.
George H. W. Bush and Peak Oil: Beyond Incompetence
Poppy’s fingerprints are all over this one.
Sometimes no Peace
What’s your name? Whose your daddy?
So what’s the plan?
It’s not…....
Peace,