On Fri, 18 Apr 2008, Robert Wrubel wrote:
> > [The world growth number is the interesting addition to the argument
> > -- I didn't realize it had increased so enormously.]
>
> Michael: are you saying this adds weight to the argument, or it's just
> a sneaky way of supporting a questionable theory?
It changes the argument -- now it's no longer about peaks about but rates of change -- and about two rates of change, not one. On this version, we could be 100 years from the peak and still in trouble. And conversely, if they reconverge or go the other way, we're back in the slack. It's a spread you can monitor. So obviates any need to fight about arcane details, extrapolations and guesses about the future.
And it's also dynamic -- it might well be that we'll looked peaked for 10 years, but after prices have stabilized that long at that high, new technologies will come on line, etc. -- the whole anti-peak argument.
I guess rather than neo-peakism the term should be changed from "peak" to something like "strapped" -- you could be it, and then not it, and then be it again at several plateaus.
Michael