Ethical To Raise A Child Today?

[Psycho Smiley]

Well, as far as arable land goes, the CIA Factbook has the following:

US: 1,650,000 sq. km.
UK: 56,000 sq. km.
Can: 415,000 sq. km.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I'd presume that's talking about farmland used for industrial agriculture. There's plenty of land in the UK, at least, that is wasted by being private property like gardens, nature reserves or gov't sites (the MoD owning more land than anyone else).

[TithonusSyndrome]

Well, as far as arable land goes, the CIA Factbook has the following:

US: 1,650,000 sq. km.
UK: 56,000 sq. km.
Can: 415,000 sq. km.

I may be no expert, but it seems like our existing population will be more than adequate to use that land and live off of it without too much dieoff. I'm not convinced that I need to be pumping 'em out for the Fatherland just yet.

[Admiral Valdemar]

This assumes PO is happening now or the near future. What's Canada's birth rate? If it's significant for a First World nation and PO happens in our optimistic timeline a couple of decades off, you may have a few million more people to contend with.

[Aaron]

This assumes PO is happening now or the near future. What's Canada's birth rate? If it's significant for a First World nation and PO happens in our optimistic timeline a couple of decades off, you may have a few million more people to contend with.

Canada has barely any population growth to speak of. In fact we have to let people immigrate to Canada to maintain any growth at all.

[Aaron]

From the CIA World Fact Book:

Population Growth Rate
0.88% (2006 est.)

Birth Rate
10.78 births/1,000 population (2006 est.)

Death Rate
7.8 deaths/1,000 population (2006 est.)

Net migration rate
5.85 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2006 est.)

[Aaron]

Damn! Figures above for Canada.

[Knife]

What an odd question. Even if the economy crashes and peak oil runs amoke, there will still be a civilization for mankind. May not be the one we know but it'll be there. So why would it be unethical not to continue the species?

[Singular Intellect]

I know I sure as hell don't want to bring kids into this world. When it comes to the idea of raising kids in today's world, I'm extremely pessimistic. The enormous and difficult finicial burden, dangers and responsibility are just overwhelmingly daunting.

[Admiral Valdemar]

What an odd question. Even if the economy crashes and peak oil runs amoke, there will still be a civilization for mankind. May not be the one we know but it'll be there. So why would it be unethical not to continue the species?

It's a question directed at whether you think it's right to bring a child up in a time when that transition is taking place. The end result will be a lifestyle like that of the pre-industrial age, but with obviously some technology surviving on more limited energy sources.

It's the shift from ever growing global economy with an obese, overly complacent society to one that is a world away from where we are that makes it more of an issue. Like I say, if the event took place 18 years from now, then your kid would be an adult and likely well educated, so as to deal with any issues that come his or her way. If you had a toddler, though, you have a different predicament.

It's be imperative after the fact to make sure the educated people are breeding and passing on their knowledge, else you see, as we fear now, a resurgence of the dark age mentality of God fearing, Luddite bigots.

[Darth Wong]

I know I sure as hell don't want to bring kids into this world. When it comes to the idea of raising kids in today's world, I'm extremely pessimistic. The enormous and difficult finicial burden, dangers and responsibility are just overwhelmingly daunting.

Your personal cowardice and fear of responsibility are not ethical reasons not to have children.

[Darth Wong]

Well, as far as arable land goes, the CIA Factbook has the following:

US: 1,650,000 sq. km.
UK: 56,000 sq. km.
Can: 415,000 sq. km.

Global warming will probably increase Canada's arable land significantly by 2050

[Knife]

It's a question directed at whether you think it's right to bring a child up in a time when that transition is taking place.

Perhaps I'm oversimplifying this; but exactly when was there a time without some sort of transition? If you take history at roughly twenty year intervals (to corespond with each generation) you'd probably find some sort of great looming change in the wind.

And while I believe is a couple doesn't want to have kids, your call; to sit and say- looming desaster! is a bit self centered. And even if a massive world changing event for the worst is on it's way, then keeping the human race going is pretty damn ethical since how can there be human ethics without the human race.

The end result will be a lifestyle like that of the pre-industrial age, but with obviously some technology surviving on more limited energy sources.

If you say so, I'm hardly an expert on this particular matter.

It's the shift from ever growing global economy with an obese, overly complacent society to one that is a world away from where we are that makes it more of an issue. Like I say, if the event took place 18 years from now, then your kid would be an adult and likely well educated, so as to deal with any issues that come his or her way. If you had a toddler, though, you have a different predicament.

It's be imperative after the fact to make sure the educated people are breeding and passing on their knowledge, else you see, as we fear now, a resurgence of the dark age mentality of God fearing, Luddite bigots.

Meh, large masses of stupid people are always a concern no matter what else is going on in the world.

[Singular Intellect]

I know I sure as hell don't want to bring kids into this world. When it comes to the idea of raising kids in today's world, I'm extremely pessimistic. The enormous and difficult finicial burden, dangers and responsibility are just overwhelmingly daunting.

Your personal cowardice and fear of responsibility are not ethical reasons not to have children.

I find it rather interesting you label lack of interest in parenthood cowardice and 'fear of responsbility'.

Regardless, you'll notice I did point out dangers as one of the primary reasons for that lack of interest, hence the ethical aspect of it.

[Darth Servo]

I know I sure as hell don't want to bring kids into this world. When it comes to the idea of raising kids in today's world, I'm extremely pessimistic. The enormous and difficult finicial burden, dangers and responsibility are just overwhelmingly daunting.

Your personal cowardice and fear of responsibility are not ethical reasons not to have children.

I find it rather interesting you label lack of interest in parenthood cowardice and 'fear of responsbility'.

You DID cite "responsibility" as one of your reasons not to have kids. So either you fear responsibility or you're IRresponsible. Mike was just choosing the more charitable option. Be grateful.

[Rawtooth]

Admiral, if you are concerned with bringing a child into this world, why not adopt instead? They are already here regardless of your own actions, and you would still enjoy the benefits of raising a child.

[Darth Wong]

I know I sure as hell don't want to bring kids into this world. When it comes to the idea of raising kids in today's world, I'm extremely pessimistic. The enormous and difficult finicial burden, dangers and responsibility are just overwhelmingly daunting.

Your personal cowardice and fear of responsibility are not ethical reasons not to have children.

I find it rather interesting you label lack of interest in parenthood cowardice and 'fear of responsbility'.

I label your post as "fear of responsibility". You state right up-front that you find it "overwhelmingly daunting", moron.

Regardless, you'll notice I did point out dangers as one of the primary reasons for that lack of interest, hence the ethical aspect of it.

The idea that you should not create X because then X would then be exposed to unspecified risks is idiotic. By that logic, one should never create or do anything.

[Dargos]

Every generation has asked this question. There hasn't been a time when perspective parents have not asked "Should we really have kids when things look so bleak for the future?" If fear of the future was a valid reason not to have kids, the human race would have died out a long time ago.

[His Divine Shadow]

I'm quite optimistic. Global warming won't badly affect Finland even with massive raises in sea levels from what I've seen. Our climate can take increased temps easily. We are building nuclear power plants and will probably build more. Oh and we can have lots of guns in this blessed country, so my children are going to be able to defend themselves incase shit hits the fan. Mark my words.

And we got the deep-country living to fall back on, my grandfather was an old-time farmer and I went with him as a kid, taking cows out for foraging in fields in the forrest and what-not. We got a family farm thats now mostly unused but hey if things really shit themselves maybe we can start over as a family farm.

[Sikon]

Regarding the opening post, I could see being concerned about whether having children is ethical if they were doomed to starvation, but that isn't the case. There will not be collapse of modern industrial civilization, although temporary economic suffering for a number of years is likely.

I will illustrate for the U.S. here:

To have some idea what peak oil does to the energy supply, one can look at this graph for total energy usage, all usage from electricity to transportation:



Of the petroleum, about 60% is imported, with about 20% of the total energy supply coming from imported oil.

Domestic production of oil tends to decrease over a timeframe of months and years, not disappearing overnight. Natural gas and coal have environmental problems and will run out eventually, yet they will not fully disappear at the particular time of peak oil, such as there being a couple hundred years of coal reserves at the current consumption rate. Of course, I would rather that there was a switch away from fossil fuels starting before peak oil, but I am just observing that modern civilization is not doomed to utter destruction. Not all fossil fuels will run out simultaneously, helping provide some transition time.

In other words, the graph above implicitly illustrates how peak oil would decrease the energy supply yet most of the energy supply would remain during those years.

In the case of the U.S., current energy consumption per person is around double that of a number of other industrialized countries. Compared to basic needs, there is such a "surplus" in the current energy supply that cutbacks by a number of percent would be survivable. People cut unnecessary energy use if forced to do so by enormous price rises or by rationing of electricity and gasoline, by turning off air conditioning, by carpooling, and by many other measures possible when one considers how much energy usage today isn't strictly required.

Mechanized agriculture will continue, which consumes only 1.7% of the energy supply, and there will not be starvation (not in the U.S.):

Agriculture consumes energy both directly as fuel or electricity to power farm activities and indirectly in the fertilizers and chemicals produced off-farm. In 2002 (the latest data available), direct energy consumption in the U.S. agricultural sector comprised only 1.1 percent of the 98 quadrillion BTU’s of total direct energy consumed in the U.S. Indirect energy consumption by agriculture was about 0.6 quadrillion BTU’s.

Source.

After the initial years of economic trouble, there would be more production of alternative fuels.

Consider history. In 1938, Germany consumed 44 million barrels of oil with 60% imported. In 1943, Germany's oil supply included 36 million barrels of oil synthetically produced. In other words, they accomplished a conversion to primarily synthetic fuel in those few years, even despite the limits of 1940s technology and despite fighting the war at the same time:

Even though Germany’s 1938 oil consumption of little more than 44 million barrels was considerably less than Great Britain’s 76 million barrels, Russia’s 183 million barrels, and the one billion barrels used by the United States, in wartime Germany’s needs for an adequate supply of liquid fuel would be absolutely essential for successful military operations on the ground and, even more so, in the air.1
[...]
<snipping discussion of the limited quantities of oil Germany obtained through its military expansion>
[...]
Even with the addition of the Romanian deliveries, overland oil imports after 1939 could not make up for the loss of overseas shipments. In order to become less dependent on outside sources, the Germans undertook a sizable expansion program of their own meager domestic oil pumping. Before the annexation of Austria in 1938, oil fields in Germany were concentrated in northwestern Germany. After 1938, the Austrian oil fields were available also, and the expansion of crude oil output was chiefly effected there. Primarily as a result of this expansion, Germany’s domestic output of crude oil increased from approximately 3.8 million barrels in 1938 to almost 12 million barrels in 1944.10 Yet the production of domestic crude oil never equaled in any way the levels attained by Germany’s other major supplier of oil, the synthetic fuel plants.
[...]
[Coal is converted] into [carbon monoxide] gas which is mixed with hydrogen. By placing this mixture in contact ovens and adding certain catalysts, oil molecules are formed. Further treatment of this primary substance generates fuel, chiefly diesel oil.

Coking and distillation extracted oils and tars from coal, and additional cracking refined them into gasoline. The Fischer-Tropsch process and a fourth method, the hydrogenation process, changed coal directly into gasoline. As coal is a hydrocarbon containing little hydrogen and gasoline is a hydrocarbon with a high hydrogen content, the problem consisted of attaching hydrogen molecules to coal, thereby liquefying it. This was the basis of the hydrogenation process, which required high temperatures and high pressures. By 1933, this method had been thoroughly tested and was ready for large-scale practical application.

[...]
Still, between 1938 and 1943, synthetic fuel output underwent a respectable growth from 10 million barrels to 36 million. The percentage of synthetic fuels compared to the yield from all sources grew from 22 percent to more than 50 percent by 1943. The total oil supplies available from all sources for the same period rose from 45 million barrels in 1938 to 71 million barrels in 1943.27

In spite of shortages and other difficulties, production and supply, although never reaching the amounts contemplated by Göring, presented no serious problems until the spring of 1944.28 This was accomplished by giving no claimant, including the armed forces, all of the fuel that he needed. A good example is the ruthless reduction in the allocation for civilian passenger cars. The only people permitted to operate a motor vehicle were doctors, midwives, policemen, and high government and party officials. Their total allocation was only 450,000 barrels per year. German agriculture was allotted 1.7 million barrels of fuel per year for 1941 and 1942. The farmers actually required more fuel in 1942 than in 1941 because so many horses had been requisitioned for the armed forces that it was necessary to operate more tractors.

In the spring of 1942, the Agency for Generators was established to effectuate the conversion of vehicles from liquid to solid fuels.29 A conversion to such fuels as wood chips, anthracite coal, lignite coal, coke, gas, and peat moss was expected to yield substantial savings in gasoline. During 1942, the saving amounted to 5 million barrels, and in 1943 it reached 8.2 million barrels.30 Thousands of cars and trucks were converted and equipped with devices shaped like water heaters, which graced trunks and truck beds.

[...]
At the peak of their synthetic fuel production in 1943, when half of their economy and their armed forces ran on synthetic fuel, the Germans produced 36,212,400 barrels of fuel a year.

Source.

Obviously, Germany in WWII had vastly more economic troubles than the loss of most imported oil alone, such as the Allied bombing that destroyed enough cities and industry to cause their synthetic fuel production to be less later in the war. Yet the preceding illustrates how an industrial civilization does not tend to just die out when suffering a decrease in oil imports, rather implementing countermeasures.

There's better technology now than there was 60 years ago.

Producing gasoline from coal is environmentally undesirable and not a good choice in the long-term. It would be much better if fuels were instead produced in the zero-net-emissions system using nuclear power that I described before. But coal liquidation is the default method for producing synthetic gasoline that is probable to be implemented in event of peak oil in the near future.

Even plastics will not disappear. I have discussed how plastics can be synthesized without oil before but adding a reference here may help illustrate that such is possible:

SAE Technical Papers
Title: In Situ Production of High Density Polyethylene and Other Useful Materials on Mars
Document Number: 2005-01-2776

[...]
This paper describes the use of physical chemical technologies to produce high-density polyethylene for use as structural/construction materials from Mars atmospheric carbon dioxide. The formation of polyethylene from Mars carbon dioxide is based on the use of the Sabatier and modified Fischer Tropsch reactions.[...]

Plastics are produced from oil today because it is cheapest, not because it is the only way.

The point of all of the preceding is not to dispute that peak oil could cause much economic depression. There should have been a switch away from fossil fuel dependence long before, for multiple reasons, as I have argued many times before. But it is not the case that the future coming of peak oil makes someone having children unethical, not in the U.S. anyway.

Overall, human civilization will survive and recover the fuel losses with alternative fuels in time.

As for other countries, certainly the situation can vary depending upon what country one is talking about, especially since there are some countries where there is malnutrition and starvation even today. However, most industrialized countries have much surplus energy consumption compared to absolutely critical needs like agriculture (such as only 1% of the world energy supply used in nitrogen-based fertilizer production), not headed for starvation even when oil imports start decreasing.

It is perfectly ethical for people to have children now, if they will raise them well. Even with peak oil, most people born in industrialized countries today have a lot more to look forward to than the bulk of people throughout history.

**************

Since I am using current data in the preceding discussion, a question might be if the figures would be much different by the time of peak oil.

However, the peak oil timeframe appears to be the relatively near future, as opposed to the distant future. While the far right part of the following graph is the creator's guess at the future, the rest is historical data that shows when oil production in various countries peaked in the past, a fate that will sooner or later happen with all oil-producing countries:



Oil prices have gone up in recent history with no indication of a return ever to the levels of a decade ago:



Overall, it looks likely that world peak oil either has started or will start within a moderate number of years as opposed to being many decades away. Peak oil is when production stops rising, starts slowly decreasing, and prices start rising up and up until alternative fuels enter the market.

Besides, it isn't oil production by itself that directly matters quite so much as the situation of supply versus demand that affects prices. The rapid growth in China and India suggests the relative shortage of oil will only increase in the future.

So data on the current energy supply may still be fairly relevant by the time of peak oil troubles.

[Sikon]

EDIT: I forgot to give the link for the polyethylene paper, but the abstract is here. The ability to produce ethylene (as needed for polyethylene plastic) through Fischer Tropsch variants has been known for a long time, but this just provides a random example of an online reference.

[His Divine Shadow]

In the spring of 1942, the Agency for Generators was established to
effectuate the conversion of vehicles from liquid to solid fuels.29 A
conversion to such fuels as wood chips, anthracite coal, lignite coal,
coke, gas, and peat moss was expected to yield substantial savings in
gasoline. During 1942, the saving amounted to 5 million barrels, and in
1943 it reached 8.2 million barrels.30 Thousands of cars and trucks
were converted and equipped with devices shaped like water heaters,
which graced trunks and truck beds.

I rememeber scenes like this from series and movies depicting life in the WW2 era. Gengas it was colloquially called in swedish.

[Lonestar]

<snip>

I was wondering why AV was hanging onto "Peak oil" so much as a sign of the times, as if assuming that one day we're going to have all the "cheap" petroleum products needed to maintain our society, and the very next day, without a clear warning of date and time, we will run out and there would be bedlam.

I mean, as oil dries up (not "disappears suddenly") wouldn't we naturally be shifting away from such energy sources?

Didn't America run out of it's primary energy source(wood) during the late 19th century, and yet managed to smoothly transition to fossil fuels without any economic impact?

[R. U. Serious]

I think the question should be turned around: The kind of people that actually do ask themselves whether it's ethical - they should be considering whether it is ethical for them to not have children. If we assume that someone who asks that question has at least a basic amount of intelligence and at least some education/knowledge about the issues that humanity is wrestling with, then deciding not to have children may likely mean to leave the remainder of humanity worse off. Future people/children are not just consumers where the interest should be in "having" them at a time where they can consume much at each cheap prices - that's got nothing to do with ethics.
Future people/children are the "deciders", the ones that are going to have to confront the existing problems and their actions may well have more and more influence the farther into the future you are looking. Not raising responsible children means skewing the makeup of society for the worse.

I also find it doubtful on what kind of "utility" you are basing your decision on. It seems like your worried about the happiness of the children, though there is nothing to suggest that future generations might lead less happy lifes, simply because the have not the same access to financial well-being, cheap oil etc. Look at any of the studies done on happiness, like for example this snippet: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3157570.stm and you'll see that humans are amazingly adaptive and will find happiness in very different ways, according to the circumstances.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Regarding the opening post, I could see being concerned about whether having children is ethical if they were doomed to starvation, but that isn't the case. There will not be collapse of modern industrial civilization, although temporary economic suffering for a number of years is likely.

I will illustrate for the U.S. here:

To have some idea what peak oil does to the energy supply, one can look at this graph for total energy usage, all usage from electricity to transportation:



Of the petroleum, about 60% is imported, with about 20% of the total energy supply coming from imported oil.

Domestic production of oil tends to decrease over a timeframe of months and years, not disappearing overnight. Natural gas and coal have environmental problems and will run out eventually, yet they will not fully disappear at the particular time of peak oil, such as there being a couple hundred years of coal reserves at the current consumption rate. Of course, I would rather that there was a switch away from fossil fuels starting before peak oil, but I am just observing that modern civilization is not doomed to utter destruction. Not all fossil fuels will run out simultaneously, helping provide some transition time.

In other words, the graph above implicitly illustrates how peak oil would decrease the energy supply yet most of the energy supply would remain during those years.

In the case of the U.S., current energy consumption per person is around double that of a number of other industrialized countries. Compared to basic needs, there is such a "surplus" in the current energy supply that cutbacks by a number of percent would be survivable. People cut unnecessary energy use if forced to do so by enormous price rises or by rationing of electricity and gasoline, by turning off air conditioning, by carpooling, and by many other measures possible when one considers how much energy usage today isn't strictly required.

Mechanized agriculture will continue, which consumes only 1.7% of the energy supply, and there will not be starvation (not in the U.S.):

Agriculture consumes energy both directly as fuel or electricity to power farm activities and indirectly in the fertilizers and chemicals produced off-farm. In 2002 (the latest data available), direct energy consumption in the U.S. agricultural sector comprised only 1.1 percent of the 98 quadrillion BTU’s of total direct energy consumed in the U.S. Indirect energy consumption by agriculture was about 0.6 quadrillion BTU’s.

Source.

After the initial years of economic trouble, there would be more production of alternative fuels.

You assume the economy survives the initial months of going over the peak. The US economy as it stands now is on shaky ground with many fearing a strike on Iran which is pushing oil prices to a record this year already. When it comes to the point that no more cheap oil exists globally, then those fears are compounded and it gets worse as drop-off continues.

Additionally, it's been shown during the crises of the '70s that the demand was inelastic and the market made no attempt whatsoever at replacing their oil with alternative sources which are still massively underfunded. The free market system is sorely equipped for dealing with such a marked transition as expected. It will not be a gentle lowering in prices and supply, especially when in the '70s a 5% loss in supply caused a 400% increase in price which was only alleviated by the finding of the last elephant sized fields and the US buddying with non-OPEC suppliers, the UK also had just brought the North Sea facilities onstream which are now peaked.

Consider history. In 1938, Germany consumed 44 million barrels of oil with 60% imported. In 1943, Germany's oil supply included 36 million barrels of oil synthetically produced. In other words, they accomplished a conversion to primarily synthetic fuel in those few years, even despite the limits of 1940s technology and despite fighting the war at the same time:

Even though Germany’s 1938 oil consumption of little more than 44 million barrels was considerably less than Great Britain’s 76 million barrels, Russia’s 183 million barrels, and the one billion barrels used by the United States, in wartime Germany’s needs for an adequate supply of liquid fuel would be absolutely essential for successful military operations on the ground and, even more so, in the air.1
[...]
<snipping discussion of the limited quantities of oil Germany obtained through its military expansion>
[...]
Even with the addition of the Romanian deliveries, overland oil imports after 1939 could not make up for the loss of overseas shipments. In order to become less dependent on outside sources, the Germans undertook a sizable expansion program of their own meager domestic oil pumping. Before the annexation of Austria in 1938, oil fields in Germany were concentrated in northwestern Germany. After 1938, the Austrian oil fields were available also, and the expansion of crude oil output was chiefly effected there. Primarily as a result of this expansion, Germany’s domestic output of crude oil increased from approximately 3.8 million barrels in 1938 to almost 12 million barrels in 1944.10 Yet the production of domestic crude oil never equaled in any way the levels attained by Germany’s other major supplier of oil, the synthetic fuel plants.
[...]
[Coal is converted] into [carbon monoxide] gas which is mixed with hydrogen. By placing this mixture in contact ovens and adding certain catalysts, oil molecules are formed. Further treatment of this primary substance generates fuel, chiefly diesel oil.

Coking and distillation extracted oils and tars from coal, and additional cracking refined them into gasoline. The Fischer-Tropsch process and a fourth method, the hydrogenation process, changed coal directly into gasoline. As coal is a hydrocarbon containing little hydrogen and gasoline is a hydrocarbon with a high hydrogen content, the problem consisted of attaching hydrogen molecules to coal, thereby liquefying it. This was the basis of the hydrogenation process, which required high temperatures and high pressures. By 1933, this method had been thoroughly tested and was ready for large-scale practical application.

All of which is great, until you remember that Germany had horrible energy shortages, hence Operation Blau and the failure of such campaigns which led to the Sixth Army being stranded outside Stalingrad. If this is an ideal situation to you, especially given Nazi Germany is nowhere near 21st century Earth, then by all means believe the growth economy will not stagnate.

[...]
Still, between 1938 and 1943, synthetic fuel output underwent a respectable growth from 10 million barrels to 36 million. The percentage of synthetic fuels compared to the yield from all sources grew from 22 percent to more than 50 percent by 1943. The total oil supplies available from all sources for the same period rose from 45 million barrels in 1938 to 71 million barrels in 1943.27

In spite of shortages and other difficulties, production and supply, although never reaching the amounts contemplated by Göring, presented no serious problems until the spring of 1944.28 This was accomplished by giving no claimant, including the armed forces, all of the fuel that he needed. A good example is the ruthless reduction in the allocation for civilian passenger cars. The only people permitted to operate a motor vehicle were doctors, midwives, policemen, and high government and party officials. Their total allocation was only 450,000 barrels per year. German agriculture was allotted 1.7 million barrels of fuel per year for 1941 and 1942. The farmers actually required more fuel in 1942 than in 1941 because so many horses had been requisitioned for the armed forces that it was necessary to operate more tractors.

In the spring of 1942, the Agency for Generators was established to effectuate the conversion of vehicles from liquid to solid fuels.29 A conversion to such fuels as wood chips, anthracite coal, lignite coal, coke, gas, and peat moss was expected to yield substantial savings in gasoline. During 1942, the saving amounted to 5 million barrels, and in 1943 it reached 8.2 million barrels.30 Thousands of cars and trucks were converted and equipped with devices shaped like water heaters, which graced trunks and truck beds.

[...]
At the peak of their synthetic fuel production in 1943, when half of their economy and their armed forces ran on synthetic fuel, the Germans produced 36,212,400 barrels of fuel a year.

Source.

Obviously, Germany in WWII had vastly more economic troubles than the loss of most imported oil alone, such as the Allied bombing that destroyed enough cities and industry to cause their synthetic fuel production to be less later in the war. Yet the preceding illustrates how an industrial civilization does not tend to just die out when suffering a decrease in oil imports, rather implementing countermeasures.

There's better technology now than there was 60 years ago.

Producing gasoline from coal is environmentally undesirable and not a good choice in the long-term. It would be much better if fuels were instead produced in the zero-net-emissions system using nuclear power that I described before. But coal liquidation is the default method for producing synthetic gasoline that is probable to be implemented in event of peak oil in the near future. [/quote]

It is incredibly dirty and the FDA openly opposes such coal gasification given the environmental risks. So now you're basically adding to global warming and forcing people to work with highly toxic products that get into the local environment too. Then there's the fact that China is building a non CCS coal fired plant every two weeks and still cannot meet demand.

Even plastics will not disappear. I have discussed how plastics can be synthesized without oil before but adding a reference here may help illustrate that such is possible:

SAE Technical Papers
Title: In Situ Production of High Density Polyethylene and Other Useful Materials on Mars
Document Number: 2005-01-2776

[...]
This paper describes the use of physical chemical technologies to produce high-density polyethylene for use as structural/construction materials from Mars atmospheric carbon dioxide. The formation of polyethylene from Mars carbon dioxide is based on the use of the Sabatier and modified Fischer Tropsch reactions.[...]

Plastics are produced from oil today because it is cheapest, not because it is the only way.

The point of all of the preceding is not to dispute that peak oil could cause much economic depression. There should have been a switch away from fossil fuel dependence long before, for multiple reasons, as I have argued many times before. But it is not the case that the future coming of peak oil makes someone having children unethical, not in the U.S. anyway.

Overall, human civilization will survive and recover the fuel losses with alternative fuels in time.

As for other countries, certainly the situation can vary depending upon what country one is talking about, especially since there are some countries where there is malnutrition and starvation even today. However, most industrialized countries have much surplus energy consumption compared to absolutely critical needs like agriculture (such as only 1% of the world energy supply used in nitrogen-based fertilizer production), not headed for starvation even when oil imports start decreasing.

It is perfectly ethical for people to have children now, if they will raise them well. Even with peak oil, most people born in industrialized countries today have a lot more to look forward to than the bulk of people throughout history.

**************

Ignoring the ethnical question for a moment, no one said that oil would disappear, nor plastics, nor medicines nor such likes. What will happen is that demand will outstrip supply, which alone is enough to topple the largest economy in the world thanks to the way the US has been creating money over the years (which is strained by house prices, health-care and other issues without the need for PO, all of which can cause a '29 level depression by themselves).

Alternatives exist, but they are simply not going to meet demand, which is the whole basis for PO, not that we won't have energy. The world's oil shale and tar sand productions may reach 4 mbd by 2030, if we're lucky. Given we're just about meeting the demand of 85 mbd now and we're expected to rise to 120 mbd globally by 2010, this isn't a good safety margin at all. You also have to have the infrastructure to do coal gasification, something that is really only in place within more coal oriented nations like China given the environmental problems with coal powerplants and that oil has none of the transportation problems that LNG and coal have.

I won't even go into bio-fuels, which are a big white elephant and hydrogen, as stated, is not an energy source.

Since I am using current data in the preceding discussion, a question might be if the figures would be much different by the time of peak oil.

However, the peak oil timeframe appears to be the relatively near future, as opposed to the distant future. While the far right part of the following graph is the creator's guess at the future, the rest is historical data that shows when oil production in various countries peaked in the past, a fate that will sooner or later happen with all oil-producing countries:



Oil prices have gone up in recent history with no indication of a return ever to the levels of a decade ago:



Overall, it looks likely that world peak oil either has started or will start within a moderate number of years as opposed to being many decades away. Peak oil is when production stops rising, starts slowly decreasing, and prices start rising up and up until alternative fuels enter the market.

Besides, it isn't oil production by itself that directly matters quite so much as the situation of supply versus demand that affects prices. The rapid growth in China and India suggests the relative shortage of oil will only increase in the future.

So data on the current energy supply may still be fairly relevant by the time of peak oil troubles.

This is what I question, because while you raise good points, it's the scale and market that need to take note. At no time has the free market made any real major advances on replacing oil, instead, only looking at ways to find even more fields to the point of companies merging just to increase their reserve numbers (or if you're OPEC, you simply lie about reserves).

The production of oil derivatives from coal gasification is doable, as Nazi Germany showed, however, we should be starting this now, since the transition will not be as leisurely as some have forecast using previous energy crises.

As an aside, some of your numbers may be less than fruitful. The EIA, for instance, have admitted cooking their books before:

These adjustments to the estimates are based on non-technical considerations that support domestic supply growth to the levels necessary to meet projected demand levels. (EIA, Annual Energy Outlook 1998, p.17)

Such arguments for a bright, energy optimistic future are not even espoused by Dr. Odell or the USGS, who predicted the US would have sufficient internal energy supplies of oil for the 22nd century! When one inflates their oil reserves with "paper oil" that is simply wishful thinking, you can't take them seriously anymore. These people are essentially telling their investors that they can meet demand without major capital investment (look at Jack-2 for what a lie this is for such a meagre EROEI factor) and so, again, we have the companies refusing to adequately look at alternative sources of energy, which will have to have vast infrastructure already in place for when the peak is passed just to keep supply in line with demand. Then there are those that'd welcome such high prices, and focus on this rather than take it as a sign to get out of Dodge and move on to another means of surviving, as Chevron keeps trying to tell us, since we're apparently being too greedy even for them in Big Oil. There are means to counter the decrease in supply, but they are nowhere near being implemented because they are not economically viable, at least on such a scale, to be brought onstream. And you're not building these coal gasification plants, wind turbines, nuke plants or converting cars to hybrids without using oil already. If oil is at a premium, good luck trying to siphon that resource into these areas without depriving the rest of society of a great deal.

If all of this was pre-emptively implemented a decade or two ago, then you may just have the alternative sources to off-set increasing demand and stop it eating into reserves that are already dwindling within the OECD (the US facing an import situation this coming driving season with around .8 mb being brought in from reserves of petroleum in the EU thanks to the recent refinery fires across the US). The key problem here is upscaling these alternatives, which are nowhere near meeting demand increase year-on-year, nevermind replacing oil loss, and the incentive for this action, which is also lacking. Too many people mare looking at bio-fuels, for instance, which even if they had the facilities to supply the whole of the US, means the US has now lost all of its corn and similar crops to the fuel, plastic and related industries. Again, the meagre returns on invested energy with regards to cellulose based alternatives means there is a huge energy deficit still (16% of the populace can drive and use plastic since a tonne of corn is around 450 litres of bio-fuel). You also have to have the cars to run this stuff, which, as a PR piece yesterday showed at the White House, will mean the best we can get today is 50% of manufactured cars able to run E85, for instance, by 2012. So what of the tens of millions on the road already? They're not magically going to run on alternatives overnight, and to replace them costs a lot of oil, around 20 barrels per vehicle on average. Not economical at all.