trancedfarmer, I think you are on the right track. It's too bad you're only going to get ridiculed here with that kind of thinking.

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Originally posted by trancedfarmer The fears of man do not equal the innate abilities he posesses... to be impartially appreciative of each manifestation of his surrounding experience, leaving only an honest reflection of his original desire for tranquility and simplistic adoration for the world he indeed lives and breathes in. This of course is accomplished by any individual that chooses to live in such a manor... but this way of life is not experienced by those who fail to tend a well kept garden, but rather piss away their moment and live in the shadows of their own mind. Many religions offer this noble advice. "Become, as you once were, a child again."

Well, here I don't agree. No matter how true this may be, who are you to judge people? What you are saying, is it your own experience or are you just repeating what others have said? Help yourself, before you can help others.

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Originally posted by nrjizer People have seen well scripted senarios in which Mexico and Canada ally and invade the U.S. from both borders.

Nooo our precious plan utterly ruined...

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Originally posted by AnotherWay83 now this shit is just plain scary. normally u'd read stuff like this on doomsday paranormal sites, but The Guardian definitely has more credibility so i think its worth a read. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/inte...1153513,00.html · Secret report warns of rioting and nuclear war · Britain will be 'Siberian' in less than 20 years · Threat to the world is greater than terrorism

This just reeks of National Enquirer, as in oh look, lets SHOCK the public to GET attention.

Britain, Siberian in 20 years, I'll remember that in 2024, not, cause it aint gonna happen. And if it does, well I'll be a monkey's uncle.

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Originally posted by NeoPhono That's not really the case from the latest I've read. LINK Besides, much of his book talks about the rationale of environmental and political groups acting in the way they do, as well as their tactics. I recommend the book for this reason alone. I would venture to say there are just as many scientists out there that will recommend as condem what he is preaching. It is much easier for the pro-environment crowd to be heard because of so many environmental groups supporting them (along with media tendencies). To me it seems that most of the people that don't like what he has to say are the ones who find their work under his examination. After all, how would you feel if someone came along and tried to bash your life's work, you'd probably try to discredit them, I'd assume. Regardless, I'd still say read the book. If you don't want to believe what he's saying (he's very convicing and thorough), then just read it to get another viewpoint. ...

Lomborg's book - and practically every other piece of research he has been doing - has been criticized not only by those whose hypothesises he refutes, but also by fully trained staticians (which Lomborg is not). The problem with his science is that he fails to define the classifications and utilities he uses. Things such as "vegetated areas" may include anything from brushland to rain forest in parts of his research, and in others it means something else. The monetary values of non-monetary substances (e.g. a squaremile of forest) which he uses are derived from subjective estimates or based on conditions which cannot be said to be universally satisfied.
If you are familiar with sensitivity analysis you know that even small variations in problem parameters can have drastic effects on the deduced conclusions. Therefore his conclusions shouldn't be taken as truth.

I agree with you that we shouldn't buy any doomsday theory coming our way as truth neither, but Lomborg's book is a bad counter argument - even if it might provide for a provocative and joyful read.

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Sweet. Another doomsday report. There hasn't been one on this forum for quite a while. Actually, I've been waiting and waiting for somebody to bring up the Peak Oil doomsday theory but nobody's jumped on it yet. Where are all the tin foil hatters? You guys are slacking!

I dont mean to be argumentative, but the oil supply is going to run out. I dont know about it being a doomsday theory though.

The site linked to refers to Hubberts Peak. Its not some made up theory.

A few years ago I did a lot of research on what I should invest my money in, and I came up with three areas; energy generation, oil and health care.

The reason I chose Oil is because it is a straight out fact that the oil supply will run out sometime this century. The only thing in question is when which largely depends on the level of increase in pconsumption. So their will be a peak in production probably in the next 20 years and then its all downhill. A few short generalizations about oil as a commodity


1) there has been no major blockbuster oil field discovered since the 1970's

2) demand for oil, irrespective of improvements in technology which make vehicles more fuel efficient must increase as millions of Chinese and Indians will get motor vehicles.

3) oil substitutes are by and large rubbish, shale oil etc are not very productive compared to oil itself

4)there may well be vast supplies of oil still in the ground BUT the cost of extracting oil is not always the same. It is cheapest to get oil from the ground, in places like Arabia, more expensive to get it out of the permafrost of Siberia and even more expensive to get it from the ocean. It costs energy to extract the oil and many discoveries are not worthwhile to extract.

5) oil exploration is horendously expensive which means whichever company strikes oil in a sizeable quantity becomes an instant takeover target for the big fish in the oil industry Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil, Chevron Texaco etc. It is easier to buy a company that finds oil than to drill for it yourself. The big players all accept that oil is a finite resource which is why they merger and acquisition activity is constant in the oil industry. Also they all have alternative fuel research projects because they realize that oil is going to run out one day.

http://ogj.pennnet.com/forum/displa...685&SiteIDs=OGJ

This site has a good running argument about the peak oil theory, a lot of the geologists stuff is beyond me, but it gives a good indication that peak oil is a serious issue in the oil community.

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Originally posted by Arbiter As far as I know, the report was only a contingency plan. They don't actually expect any of those things to happen. And that's good, because if they did, they'd be dangerously underqualified. Oh, wait...

I think it's a military forecast not a contingency.

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Originally posted by Cyrus King i listen to trance becuase it is beautifully composed like a classical piece of music.... but with beats in it...

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Originally posted by Magnetonium I hardly if ever acknowledge sarcasm from a person I dont know because I ran into serious problems on an undisclosed buying website before.

TrancedFarmer, Rupert:

Just to clarify, I don't doubt at all the validity of the long run theory of peak oil and Hubbert's peak. As abundant as oil may be, it IS a non-renewable fossil fuel. That entire part I don't disagree with at all. THe part I disagree with are the estimations of 5 billion dead, the collapse of society as we know it, blah blah blah ... esentially it's taking science in one dimension and attempting prophesize in a manner that is almost ludicrous.

That particular theory is grounded in the presumption that adaptation is impossible, trends are unstoppable/immovable, technology is stagnant, and ultimately, our reliance upon oil is soooo entrenched that the predicted chain of events is inevitable. In such a scenario then YES perhaps we would see the case for an apocalyptic society. However, using simple economics and fincance, we can see why this would never happen:

(By the way, I stole this graph from another forum)



Today, at quantity "Qa", the supply of oil is such that the price of oil, Poil is lower than the price of alternative fuels Pa. Obviously, this is why we use oil instead of the alternatives.

At some point in the (very distant, not in many generations) future, the remaining supply of oil will be such that, at the quantity demanded "Qb", the price of alternatives will be the same as the price of oil. At this point, the drive towards using alternatives would make sense.

At all quantites beyond that, the alternatives will be cheaper than oil. This includes other methods such as shale oil which rupert did mention, however, there are quite a number of alternatives as well. The primary reason WHY there has been no significant drive towards alternative fuels is because oil is SO cheap! There's no NEED to develop fully fucntioning alternatives. If anybody is old enough to remember the 70's oil shocks (i'm not one of them) the market adapted to accomadate the available resources. The population did not just die off in the event of cataclysmic fuel shortages ...

Just as we've not run out of wood or whale blubber for fuel, no reasonable person can seriously believe we will ever "run out" of oil since the prohibitive costs under a capitalistic system will FORCE the market to adopt cheaper, more efficient alternatives. And EVERYONE will see the oil shortage coming and the shortage will be extremely gradual. It's not like the Saudis are going to look down in their wells one day and panic as they have a gallon of oil left. As demand increases and reserves decrease, the futures market will accurately price the impending shortage of oil.
This is one simplistic argument out of many for why I consider the peak oil "doomsday" theory to be without proper merit but if anybody would like to discuss the issue further I would be happy to oblige .

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Last edited by occrider on Feb-25-2004 at 17:28

Occrider,

Thanks for posting that, I was actually about to post something similar. The idea that we will simply run out of oil and be "screwed" is very pessimistic in my opinion because it totally disregaurds our ability to adapt and innovate. To think that, when and if the time comes our oil supply runs out, we would not be able to convert our energy needs before large scale die-offs occur is pretty silly. As you said, the reason we have not made a switch to renewable resources, or even much of a concerted effort is the cost factor. When it costs your average Joe more to fill up his tank then to buy and use an electric or similarly powered car, you'll see the change. Until then, oil is king.

well i'm glad that the climate change will destory us before the oil markets collapse and make us kill us all. Of course, scientist say in 4 more years a commet the size of California will crash into the ocean, and if that won't killed us the volcanos will all simotaneusly explode the world over for no reason, which they predict will happen for some reaon in 2021. Failing that of course, Jesus is supposed to come back to earth and bring armagedon with him (who said Jesus doesn't love you?!) around 2042. In 2034 of course all computers will go haywire as the timestamp code creates the real Y2k bug and government collapsed, followed by nuclear warhead launching as a new spectator sport where the better who predicts which nation can launch more nukes at the other doubles his money in 2065. Oh I forgot to mention that aliens al'a Independence Day have been tracked on a course towards earth and will arrive exactly January 27th, 2073 for harvet day. What fun!

I for one am glad to live in such a day in age, what an action packed future I have forward to look to. This is gonna be better then any movie!

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