Precisely, which is why I am perplexed that Doug would say on KPFA Radio this morning that 'peak oil is the wrong thing to worry about, rather we should be worry about pollution', or words to that effect - seems like a false dichotomy. In fact peakolistas are saying (among other things) that peak oil provides a pratical rationale to promote not only alternative energy use methods, but to re-assess the worlds' entire industrial model. Oil determines almost every aspect of modern industrial life - food production, plastics, etc. - its much more than about how much we drive or how much its costs to fill the tanks of our SUVs or the increasingly common V6 engines for sedans.
Joe W.
>From: Tom Walker <timework at telus.net>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>To: l b o <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
>Subject: [lbo-talk] Peak Oil or Oil Bubble?
>Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2005 08:15:54 -0700
>
>Wojtek wrote,
>
>>As I understand, "peak" is not just the supply-side phenomenon, but above
>>all, the demand-side one. You may have a peak effect when supply grows
>>slower than demand.
>
>
>Yes peak oil is really about the dynamicism of supply, demand and price not
>simply about barrels of oil in the ground. Why Syncrude talks about the oil
>sands supplying world energy needs for 15 years, two questions need to be
>asked: 1. is that constant needs based on current demand? and 2. Is that
>gross or net supply? If the answers are current needs and/or gross supply
>then the claim is sheer hucksterism because it takes more energy to produce
>synthetic crude from bitumen.
>
>Another anomaly in this debate is that many, on both sides, assume that
>"peak oil" is a bad thing. It's not. Consuming petroleum is not inherently
>a good thing. That doesn't mean peak oil necessarily a good thing, but it
>could be. If governments adopted true-cost life-cycle pricing for petroleum
>and planned and implemented a transition from high energy dependency to
>social economy, that would actually INITIATE a beneficial version peak oil.
>So peak oil doesn't have to be doom and gloom and it doesn't have to be the
>accidental collision of market factors and geological facts.
>
>In fact, several decades ago when M. King Hubbard was introducing the
>notion of world peak oil, he pointed out the potentially postive aspect of
>it. Peak oil is only a doom and gloom scenario for those who are wedded to
>the notion that perpetual compound annual growth of Gross Domestic Product
>is the only and best way to provide for human needs. This in spite of the
>fact that such growth over the past 30 or 35 years has proven the opposite
>-- human needs are sacrificed to economic growth. The economy keeps growing
>and the quality of life for the majority declines, people work longer
>hours, they buy more stuff but are no happier. This is what my friend John
>de Graaf calls Affluenza and part of the cure for Affluenza is actively
>peaking the oil, not just sitting around, wringing hands worrying about
>whether it will peak or not.
>
>A funny thing happens when I read the mitigation reports that have been
>prepared recently for the US Department of Energy and for the International
>Energy Association. A lot of the mitigation strategies that they suggest
>are things that would be worth doing anyway. Worth doing anyway. In other
>words, the prospect of peak oil might "force" us to do things that are good
>for us and will make our lives better. In other words, we would have to
>have our cake and eat it too. Horrors! Not that! Anything but that!
>
>Relax, "realists", the fact that the DOE and the IEA are commissioning
>mitigation studies doesn't imply that the peak is upon us. What it
>suggests, though, is that it is not only a motley of conspiracy theorists,
>new age catastrophists and oil industry self-promoters who take the matter
>seriously.
>
>The Sandwichman
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