How would you present Peak Oil to the public constructively?

[Straha]

I have a friendly challenge for the peak oil crowd here.

The most common criticism I find towards the public from those who advocate the imminence of Peak Oil is that no one will listen to them, and that people are in essence sticking their own heads in the sand. The problem which the peak oilers seem to fail to realize is that people and scientific institutes have been screaming for about a century now that Oil was on the decline and that in “the next 20 years” we'd be out of oil (going back to the turn of the 20th century, and earlier.) Screaming at them again louder and louder that “You're a pack of morons, and if we don't start changing fast you'll bring us all down together” is going to be about as effective as the proverbial boy crying wolf. My disagreements with with the Peak Oil hypothesis aside what I am asking for here is not proof of Peak Oil, rather a way to inform people about the hypothesis in a constructive manner. That is, in a way that will actually have a chance of spurring societal change. (And please, no 'Society is made up of rampant fools and this would cause such a change in their lifestyle they'd never accept it.' That both ignores some serious historical precedent against just that and is simply giving up without even trying to fight.) So, how would you?

[Illuminatus Primus]

I have a friendly challenge for the peak oil crowd here.

The most common criticism I find towards the public from those who advocate the imminence of Peak Oil is that no one will listen to them, and that people are in essence sticking their own heads in the sand. The problem which the peak oilers seem to fail to realize is that people and scientific institutes have been screaming for about a century now that Oil was on the decline and that in “the next 20 years” we'd be out of oil (going back to the turn of the 20th century, and earlier.) Screaming at them again louder and louder that “You're a pack of morons, and if we don't start changing fast you'll bring us all down together” is going to be about as effective as the proverbial boy crying wolf. My disagreements with with the Peak Oil hypothesis aside what I am asking for here is not proof of Peak Oil, rather a way to inform people about the hypothesis in a constructive manner. That is, in a way that will actually have a chance of spurring societal change. (And please, no 'Society is made up of rampant fools and this would cause such a change in their lifestyle they'd never accept it.' That both ignores some serious historical precedent against just that and is simply giving up without even trying to fight.) So, how would you?

I've never seen adequate evidence by any of the Crying Wolf crowd that anyone reputable or important in media previously has misrepresented Hubbart's Peak theory WRT global production in the 2000-2010 range. The fact that people did not understand that this never meant that oil would be out by the range nor that their logic "it hasn't come to pass, therefore we never should worry about it" is totally flawed can hardly be laid at the feet of those who won't to raise public awareness. The big problem is people are poorly educated and becoming less educated, and that the 21st Century's sustainability crisis is Outside Context Problem with respect to modern America's culture of conspicuous consumption, entertainment saturation, and fixation with the mirages of endless growth and opportunity. Its simply totally off the map with respect to the average American's worldview, so its discarded to avoid upsetting the phantasm.

And I ask, with global conventional oil discoveries peaking forty years ago, production failing to rise year after year, massive growth and impending growth in demand, and culture and politics of near-zero mitigation effort whatsoever, how we will avoid major complications (dramatically exceeding the 1970's oil crisis and stagflation in duration, nature, and severity, and that's according to your Department of Energy in 2005)?

[J]

Start small and try to build up from the bottom. Discuss the issue of Peak Oil amongst friends & family, and people who have a higher chance of being sympathetic to the cause such as conservationists and other environmentally conscious groups. As more people are made aware of the issues, more options & actions become available in dealing with the upcoming difficulties.

Barring something dramatic like say, half the leaders of OPEC holding a press conference to announce that they are indeed out of oil, and you're all going to be in a world of hurt, there's little chance of a top-down policy change. The change starts at the bottom, with myself and many others like me, along with all the authors & activists who have written on the subject of Peak Oil.

[Surlethe]

Well, you present it slowly. I'm optimistic, so I happen to think that the reason there is no widespread change going on is because nobody's heard of it. So when you present it to a given audience, you present it slowly and carefully, building up Hubbert's theory and then revealing the fact that oil production peaked in the 1960s, net reserve changes hit zero about 1982, oil company exploration is decreasing despite price increases, and the magic OPEC reserve estimates.

Presenting and convincing your audience of the economic effects is trickier, I think, because it's far more difficult to predict the behavior of an economic system than it is to predict that of a geological system. You also have to take that slowly and hammer in how much the economy depends on oil.

[Zixinus]

I don't have much experience raising awareness, but I have some ideas: You can start off about oil reserves, and how difficult it is to get to them. There are wars after it, there are mayor political play involved for the worse and that is solely done for oil. I once read that everybody in the White House is sick of the Middle East. And there are problems like oil shortages, especially in war. USA could gain a bit if it became less dependent on oil, so there is some patriotism-rubbing there.

There is also the fact that a significant portion of oil is (for me) wasted in heat power plants. If all these power plants were replaced or retrofitted (if you can) with nuclear, gas price would decrease. I'm sure people would like that.

[Straha]

I've never seen adequate evidence by any of the Crying Wolf crowd that anyone reputable or important in media previously has misrepresented Hubbart's Peak theory WRT global production in the 2000-2010 range.

Nobody needs to misrepresent Hubbart's theory, if you look over the past hundred years we have almost always had government agencies (Including, as you put it, my Department of Energy) and what passed for futurists warning that the end of the oil supply was "imminent in the next ten-twenty years." When they have been so consistently wrong time and time and time again why should the public listen to the same organization's/groups now?

[Big Phil]

One of the reasons why Peak Oil is not widespread is that these gloom and doom scenarios never pan out. In 1865 William Stanley Jevons wrote a book called The Coal Question, predicting similar gloom and doom scenarios. He argued (in his book)

"it is useless the think of substituting any other kind of fuel for coal." "... some day our coal seams [may] be found emptied to the bottom, and swept clean like a coal-cellar. Our fires and furnaces ... suddenly extinguished, and cold and darkness ... left to reign over a depopulated country."

Sound at all familiar? As it turned out, we still have shitloads of coal, but the switch over to oil made the question of coal supply largely irrelevant.

I don't doubt that we could eventually run out of coal and petroleum, but I also don't doubt that before that ever becomes a problem we'll have switched to another source of energy, perhaps the much derided solar power ("it'll never supply enough energy for our needs."), nuclear, hydrogen, wave power, etc.

Here's a link to an older Economist article discussing (in very brief) how people have innovated and found new forms of energy
http://www.economist.com/diversions/mil ... _ID=347214

[Illuminatus Primus]

Those previous scares were due to technological and scientific unsophistication that prevented the discovery of existing deposits. Our science will not reveal any more petroleum finds on the scale necessary to keep up with world demand growths. That's data, as opposed to these "feelings" people are resorting to. World conventional petroleum discovery peaked in the 1960s and no amount of technology and desire to free ourselves from foreign oil has conjured magic reserves under the North American continent. Production has declined since the 1970s and will continue to do so. Quite frankly, most people's blaise feeling that these things "just work themselves out" is because an educated class worked them out for them in spite of their lack of interest and they just think they work themselves out. Even if technology conjures up new reserves at this point they will not prevent crude peaking, and unconventional and highly-difficult-to-extract reserves in marginal areas have been pointed out to not be real replacements for existing consumption, because we will get less energy returned on the energy invested (EROEI) than we did with older reserves. So its less useful as an energy source and less economically favorable for development. This is called the receding horizon. Its increasingly harder to meet needs and projected demands with less and less useful resources. Maybe we'll develop high-yield, cheap fusion, and peak deuterium (to say nothing of peak protium), is really far away, dodging the bullet. But then you shift the issue to a new nonrenewable resource. Is it not obvious that endless growth is not possible and pursuing it is dooming some of your descendants to a very dark situation?

Not to mention, The Coal Question did not project hard dates, it simply predicted that the industrial society is not sustainable without those nonrenewable resources, and that's keeping today's lights on at the expense of your descendent's. The Coal Question is exactly correct, it just predated the knowledge of other fossil fuels and was one hundred and fifty years off. What kind of logic is it that if a problem doesn't happen within a simple human timeframe, than its not a problem??

Again, "our society hasn't undergone a critical resource crunch resulting in growth contraction before" is not exactly a profound point - its obvious since we're here blathering about it. The conclusion that its not a possibility we should not prepare for or look to anticipate is neither prudent nor rational. Its akin to me concluding that since I've never died before I will never die and should not take precautions to not die.

There are societies which have undergone those crunches, and you don't hear about them being part of our cultural experiences because Easter Island, the Maya, etc. all underwent catastrophic die-downs and dissolution before other cultures.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Nobody needs to misrepresent Hubbart's theory, if you look over the past hundred years we have almost always had government agencies (Including, as you put it, my Department of Energy) and what passed for futurists warning that the end of the oil supply was "imminent in the next ten-twenty years." When they have been so consistently wrong time and time and time again why should the public listen to the same organization's/groups now?

And your shred of evidence that the DOE/Hubbart/Peakists ever claimed anything other than production would peak in the neighborhood of 2000? Simply repeating yourself does not pass for proof here. Quite frankly, everything I've heard has just shown that in the 1970s the American public was warned of a production peak in the near post-2000 timeframe, which will probably come true given inflated OPEC and oil industry reserves, exploding demand, and forty years of steadily declining discoveries. They were told what would happen, and because things didn't get immediately worse or within brief human timeframes, cornicopianism is completely rationally founded? Is this really what passes for reason on this board now?

To say nothing of the fact that premature past estimates may have been (but I don't know, since you haven't demonstrated a shred of evidence) - how the hell is that evidence that peak will not come, or will not have significant economic consequences? The public should listen to people with the scientific expertise and information necessary to make reasoned conclusions. The rational default is not to conclude the scientists are always going to be wrong, and that oil production will never peak, and that there will be no consequences. "Peak was off by ten-fifteen years! Therefore oil will last forever! Praise Providence!"

[Big Phil]

Snip

You know, every time I read one of your posts I'm always left wondering what exactly you said and what the point is. In four paragraphs all you seem to have said is "won't somebody please think of the children!" Your entire argument is one giant red herring:

My statement (paraphrased) - As cheap oil begins to run out, other sources of energy will begin to pick up.

Your response - You're wrong! We're running out of oil! Exploiting resources is bad! We're all gonna die!

Like I said, I don't doubt that we're running out of cheap oil and need to find an alternative; I just don't accept that the demise of cheap oil means global cataclysm. I also have a bit more confidence than do you in humanity's ability to develop new sources of energy, preferably ones that are less finite than petroleum.

[Guardsman Bass]

Snip

You know, every time I read one of your posts I'm always left wondering what exactly you said and what the point is. In four paragraphs all you seem to have said is "won't somebody please think of the children!" Your entire argument is one giant red herring:

My statement (paraphrased) - As cheap oil begins to run out, other sources of energy will begin to pick up.

Your response - You're wrong! We're running out of oil! Exploiting resources is bad! We're all gonna die!

Like I said, I don't doubt that we're running out of cheap oil and need to find an alternative; I just don't accept that the demise of cheap oil means global cataclysm. I also have a bit more confidence than do you in humanity's ability to develop new sources of energy, preferably ones that are less finite than petroleum.

Caricature much? He pointed out that, if we are facing the peak now, or in the near future, then you won't have the time to get any of the grand replacements like alternative fuels (including hydrogen), or alternative power (like solar) into substituting for even a significant fraction of our transportation and power infrastructure, never mind actually replacing it. It takes considerable time to build the infrastructure to service a large quantity of alternative fuels (what did the Hirsch Report and Joe Romm say; 10-15 years just to get hydrogen to even be a significant percentage of the transportation market), and without that infrastructure, all the profit incentive in the world won't create a substitution that will avoid serious economic problems.

To use a better example, when the 1973 oil crisis hit, it took time for any of the proposals to compensate for the sudden high prices of fuel, so we got stuck with stagflation and gas shortages for the time being.

[Guardsman Bass]

To add onto that, I don't think humanity's ability to create new energy sources is in question. It's just that you have to actually have the infrastructure to use it, and in a market environment it has to be profitable and attractive to investors as well (hence why the hydrogen economy, aside from the technical limitations, is taking an eternity to get off the ground).

So, in other words, if you get screwed with a fuel shortage before you have the ability to make a switch, that usually causes economic problems, including, if the 1973 crisis is any indication, nasty economic problems like stagflation that screw with traditional views on how money should work.

[Gigaliel]

...
My statement (paraphrased) - As cheap oil begins to run out, other sources of energy will begin to pick up.

Your response - You're wrong! We're running out of oil! Exploiting resources is bad! We're all gonna die!

Like I said, I don't doubt that we're running out of cheap oil and need to find an alternative; I just don't accept that the demise of cheap oil means global cataclysm. I also have a bit more confidence than do you in humanity's ability to develop new sources of energy, preferably ones that are less finite than petroleum.

Um, do you have any ideas on what resources they would be? During every energy transitions all the options were on the table, ran out of wood so we started using that nasty coal, let's use gas derived from petroleum (which was mainly used for lighting at this point) in the newly invented internal combustion engine to power transport instead of electric(coal) rail.

There is no breakthrough on the horizon to replace gasoline which CONTRIBUTES energy to our society. Hydrogen is a method of storing energy, you will need to increase the number of power plants in the U.S. by 30% if you wish do that. And then the power plants must be built to supply exponential demand growth.

Or you could use one of the many synthetic bio fuels. All of these take up a ludicrous amount of cropland. Only one, not tried a mass scale mind you so still somewhat unknown, could do it with only 9% of our fields.

Of course, that 9% must continue to increase with demand as well, so have fun with that.

Peak Oil is really just one of the main peaks in supplies that Earth will face in the future. Earth is limited, demand is not. Ergo, there is a problem.

[Singular Intellect]

I'd do the opposite, actually. I'd argue passionately (although dishonestly) about how oil will never run out, because it's well established any particular resource is always infinite in supply. I'd try to do so in such a plain and obviously ridiculas way that it makes people seriously reconsider the notion there isn't actually a potential for peak oil and running out of it. Those who actually buy that bullshit you wouldn't be able to convince anyhow...

[Big Phil]

Snip

You know, every time I read one of your posts I'm always left wondering what exactly you said and what the point is. In four paragraphs all you seem to have said is "won't somebody please think of the children!" Your entire argument is one giant red herring:

My statement (paraphrased) - As cheap oil begins to run out, other sources of energy will begin to pick up.

Your response - You're wrong! We're running out of oil! Exploiting resources is bad! We're all gonna die!

Like I said, I don't doubt that we're running out of cheap oil and need to find an alternative; I just don't accept that the demise of cheap oil means global cataclysm. I also have a bit more confidence than do you in humanity's ability to develop new sources of energy, preferably ones that are less finite than petroleum.

Caricature much? He pointed out that, if we are facing the peak now, or in the near future, then you won't have the time to get any of the grand replacements like alternative fuels (including hydrogen), or alternative power (like solar) into substituting for even a significant fraction of our transportation and power infrastructure, never mind actually replacing it. It takes considerable time to build the infrastructure to service a large quantity of alternative fuels (what did the Hirsch Report and Joe Romm say; 10-15 years just to get hydrogen to even be a significant percentage of the transportation market), and without that infrastructure, all the profit incentive in the world won't create a substitution that will avoid serious economic problems.

To use a better example, when the 1973 oil crisis hit, it took time for any of the proposals to compensate for the sudden high prices of fuel, so we got stuck with stagflation and gas shortages for the time being.

You make a good point, but this scenario assumes that all of a sudden oil is either gone or in extremely short supply, and the idea that oil supplies disappear almost overnight is ludicrous. If the price of oil continues to go up as the demand increases, with supply remaining stagnant or declining, there will be serious economic repercussions. Under this scenario, oil will be diverted from luxury to critical uses; i.e., oil will be used for manufacturing, mass transit, shipping etc., and not for personal automobiles and heating. That means an economic recession or perhaps depression at the worst, and in the meantime society begins adjusting to alternative energy sources. That's more than a little different from a massive die off of civilization.

[Big Phil]

I should have put this in the previous post, but what I'm getting at is folks who scream PEAK OIL and predict the end of Western civilization as a result get written off as lunatics. Environmentalism is in much the same boat; folks who scream about Force 5 hurricanes every other week, massive flooding in West Virginia, and massive die offs of humanity as the climate changes are viewed as lunatics.

If you want folks to take you at all serious you should probably talk about peak oil in the same terms as you would if you want people to take you seriously about environmentalism - how can you conserve, how can you reduce your impact on the environment, what's the economic benefit of carpooling, riding the bus/train, or bicycle, etc.?

[Darth Wong]

You make a good point, but this scenario assumes that all of a sudden oil is either gone or in extremely short supply, and the idea that oil supplies disappear almost overnight is ludicrous. If the price of oil continues to go up as the demand increases, with supply remaining stagnant or declining, there will be serious economic repercussions. Under this scenario, oil will be diverted from luxury to critical uses; i.e., oil will be used for manufacturing, mass transit, shipping etc., and not for personal automobiles and heating. That means an economic recession or perhaps depression at the worst, and in the meantime society begins adjusting to alternative energy sources. That's more than a little different from a massive die off of civilization.

It is perhaps an artifact of our anomalous recent material success that we have allowed ourselves to forget that a severe economic downturn does historically tend to cause a significant die-off. Not of the entire civilization, but certainly of its less fortunate members.

[Stark]

Question: has anyone looked at a graph of gas prices, with inflation accounted for, over the last 50 years? If it shows prices steadily rising, that would be something rather simple to point someone to, and show how the extrapolation of those prices could get hairy in the near future.

It's amusing that although average people tend to complain about rising fuel prices, simply saying 'you know it's going to keep going up, and probably faster as time goes by right?' gets you blank looks. Prices go up, boo hiss, but they don't extend that into the future and imagine what it would do to their way of life.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I should have put this in the previous post, but what I'm getting at is folks who scream PEAK OIL and predict the end of Western civilization as a result get written off as lunatics. Environmentalism is in much the same boat; folks who scream about Force 5 hurricanes every other week, massive flooding in West Virginia, and massive die offs of humanity as the climate changes are viewed as lunatics.

It is nowhere written, other than Americans' obscene feelings of personal entitlement to - probably God-given - material wealth and prosperity, that our story will end a happy one. The idea that progress is a march across history unopposed is a conceit and not a particularly educated one.

Anyway. I never said that peak oil would be the end of Western civilization. But your own government has not given us long, and claims it will be twenty years with severe liquid fuel deficits without mitigation.

If you want folks to take you at all serious you should probably talk about peak oil in the same terms as you would if you want people to take you seriously about environmentalism - how can you conserve, how can you reduce your impact on the environment, what's the economic benefit of carpooling, riding the bus/train, or bicycle, etc.?

[Illuminatus Primus]

You make a good point, but this scenario assumes that all of a sudden oil is either gone or in extremely short supply, and the idea that oil supplies disappear almost overnight is ludicrous. If the price of oil continues to go up as the demand increases, with supply remaining stagnant or declining, there will be serious economic repercussions. Under this scenario, oil will be diverted from luxury to critical uses; i.e., oil will be used for manufacturing, mass transit, shipping etc., and not for personal automobiles and heating. That means an economic recession or perhaps depression at the worst, and in the meantime society begins adjusting to alternative energy sources. That's more than a little different from a massive die off of civilization.

And what do people in the marginal economic regions, like Africa, do without high yield varieties, oil-based fertilizers and pesticides, and Western subsidies. They're going to starve. Maybe they don't "count" as civilization to you, but they do to me.

And sorry, but in the U.S. Southwest and Southeast, use of petroleum for personal automobile transport is not a luxury use. There is no substitute for their transportation infrastructure, and this is ignoring the huge demands liquid fuel deficits will place on the electrical infrastructure. Huge swathes of the American landscape was developed under the premise oil and gas would be cheap forever, and represent an enormous economic misappropriation. What do you think the American economy is based on? Finance industries - which will be cockslapped by GDP falls - and suburban development and services - which will soon be uneconomical to maintain. That infrastructure will not be maintainable without cheap oil. Land values will plummet breathtakingly even in your scenario. You think people will keep propping up the bubble if they can't afford to commute (much less heat or cool) their McMansions on the edges of the America's conurbations?

[Big Phil]

Anyway. I never said that peak oil would be the end of Western civilization. But your own government has not given us long, and claims it will be twenty years with severe liquid fuel deficits without mitigation.

Really, and you just mentioned the following for what, the sake of history? If you're not arguing that peak oil means massive die-offs, then why include this statement in your post?

There are societies which have undergone those crunches, and you don't hear about them being part of our cultural experiences because Easter Island, the Maya, etc. all underwent catastrophic die-downs and dissolution before other cultures.

[Big Phil]

You make a good point, but this scenario assumes that all of a sudden oil is either gone or in extremely short supply, and the idea that oil supplies disappear almost overnight is ludicrous. If the price of oil continues to go up as the demand increases, with supply remaining stagnant or declining, there will be serious economic repercussions. Under this scenario, oil will be diverted from luxury to critical uses; i.e., oil will be used for manufacturing, mass transit, shipping etc., and not for personal automobiles and heating. That means an economic recession or perhaps depression at the worst, and in the meantime society begins adjusting to alternative energy sources. That's more than a little different from a massive die off of civilization.

And what do people in the marginal economic regions, like Africa, do without high yield varieties, oil-based fertilizers and pesticides, and Western subsidies. They're going to starve. Maybe they don't "count" as civilization to you, but they do to me.

And sorry, but in the U.S. Southwest and Southeast, use of petroleum for personal automobile transport is not a luxury use. There is no substitute for their transportation infrastructure, and this is ignoring the huge demands liquid fuel deficits will place on the electrical infrastructure. Huge swathes of the American landscape was developed under the premise oil and gas would be cheap forever, and represent an enormous economic misappropriation. What do you think the American economy is based on? Finance industries - which will be cockslapped by GDP falls - and suburban development and services - which will soon be uneconomical to maintain. That infrastructure will not be maintainable without cheap oil. Land values will plummet breathtakingly even in your scenario. You think people will keep propping up the bubble if they can't afford to commute (much less heat or cool) their McMansions on the edges of the America's conurbations?

I didn't have faith in your ability to pull it off, but you managed to prove me wrong again. An appeal to emotion ("Won't somebody please think about Africa!") and not one, but two strawmen of my post (bolded).

[Darth Wong]

I didn't have faith in your ability to pull it off, but you managed to prove me wrong again. An appeal to emotion ("Won't somebody please think about Africa!") and not one, but two strawmen of my post (bolded).

What the fuck are you smoking? He's not allowed to mention the current ongoing population die-off in Africa without being accused of an appeal to emotion? How the fuck is it an Appeal to Emotion fallacy to point out that people are in fact currently dying off in Africa? Certain facts are now considered to be emotions?

[Big Phil]

I didn't have faith in your ability to pull it off, but you managed to prove me wrong again. An appeal to emotion ("Won't somebody please think about Africa!") and not one, but two strawmen of my post (bolded).

What the fuck are you smoking? He's not allowed to mention the current ongoing population die-off in Africa without being accused of an appeal to emotion? How the fuck is it an Appeal to Emotion fallacy to point out that people are in fact currently dying off in Africa? Certain facts are now considered to be emotions?

Since A) I never even mentioned Africa in a post, never mind said I don't count Africa as civilization, and B) specifically said peak oil will result in a recession or depression, I'm not sure exactly what his point is. He's accusing me of not caring about black people and saying nothing will happen to the economy, which is pure strawman.

[Darth Wong]

Since A) I never even mentioned Africa in a post, never mind said I don't count Africa as civilization, and B) specifically said peak oil will result in a recession or depression, I'm not sure exactly what his point is.

His point was that you can't snort and say there will be no significant human civilization die-off as a result of a major global economic crisis.

He's accusing me of not caring about black people and saying nothing will happen to the economy, which is pure strawman.

Funny ... a minute ago you were saying that it was an Appeal to Emotion, and now (because you didn't put your point in quite the same words he did) you're calling it a Strawman. I wonder which fallacy name you'll pick out of a hat next.