Unfortunately, I've been rather busy with other things over the past few months and I'm not as up to date with the issues as I once was. I'd greatly appreciate any constructive criticism and additions to my current list of questions (obviously I won't be sending all of these at once, nor, with any luck, will there just be one email).
I should note that I'm trying not to be alarmist so I'm not written off before the discussion can even begin, I've made that mistake before.
Peak Oil Questions wrote:Are you aware of "Peak Oil"?
Peak Oil as defined as the point in time when the maximum rate of global conventional petroleum production is reached, followed by a terminal decline in production.
Do you agree with the concept of peak oil? When do you foresee peak oil occurring? Do you expect to see the production rate plateau, drop slowly, or fall precipitously? How might these different scenarios affect the global economy?
What do you believe will be the repercussions of peak oil? To be more specific, are you worried about the global economic effects of peak oil? How severe do you imagine those effects to be? How might different countries and regions of the world be affected by and respond/react to peak oil? Do you think we will see a worldwide recession or even depression? Some more pessimistic scenarios describe a depression as bad or even worse than the Great Depression; do you find this to be a likely scenario? An even more drastic scenario describes the collapse of global industrial civilization and a resulting die-off - would you write this off as a crackpot doomsday theory?
How do you expect the global economy to recover from the fallout of peak oil? Can/will it recover? How long will the recovery take and what cost (economic, environmental, social, etc.) will it entail? Do you believe technology will come to the rescue? Can we afford to sit back and wait for a technological answer?
Do you imagine wars will be fought over peak oil? Are wars already being fought over peak oil (e.g. Afghanistan and Iraq)? Where might the divisions between countries and allies be drawn?
What do you think can/should be done to mitigate the effects of peak oil? How long and how much will these efforts cost? What kind of political will and cooperation will be required to put these efforts into effect? Can peak oil be dealt with without worsening global warming and further damaging the environment (e.g. through burning more coal and aggressively extracting more bitumen). If the answer to peak oil involves slowing/shrinking the economy and reducing consumption in order to become sustainable, will business/governments/people/etc. agree to it? Is it possible to voluntarily give up what we've come to expect for granted in the developed world? Would the developing world ever agree to give up it's dreams of a first world economy and lifestyle in order to avoid catastrophe?
Why does it appear as if peak oil is not being taken seriously by governments and the media (as compared to global warming for example)? Can OPEC countries be trusted to have a plan to deal with peak oil? Will OPEC countries alert the rest of the world to dwindling petroleum production and reserves?
Presumably, even if OPEC countries are not being upfront with regards to their reserves, the intelligence agencies of the world powers would be able to obtain the necessary information needed to forecast the date of peak oil. If this is the case and governments appear not to have begun any crash programs to prepare for peak oil, would this suggest that peak oil is more than a few decades from now? Or perhaps the intelligence agencies have not recognized the significance of their data and/or have not reported it to government officials. Even more worrying, the intelligence agencies may have reported their data and analyses to government officials but the officials are too incompetent to act on it.
