Piqued
We are fucked.This won't be resolved by energy-efficient lightbulbs, by clean coal or by using ethanol. It won't be resolved at all. We needed serious action a decade ago, at least, and we used the Americans' being fuckheads as an excuse to do nothing much of anything.
The question is going to be asked, sooner or later, and I think it's one that has been asked and answered already by some on the right: can we afford to be moral if it will cost our lifestyle to do so?
Because, I think, if we do not fight for oil, we are going to have to give up a lot.
The question whether it was all that wise to put all our eggs in a basket that demanded constant growth is easily answered. The problem is that those who had the right answer had too small a voice, and came over as Cassandras. Incredibly, on the edge of the abyss, they still do.
posted by Dr Zen @ 10:23 am
16 Comments:
That's nice.
Next up:
C L I C K
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Okay,
Father Luke
boots sez:
"...if we do not fight for oil, we are going to have to give up a lot."
Yeah, I really miss that TV (not!). Really miss those new cars (not!) and being accepted by all the other impressive folks (not!). Really miss sitting in a cubicle being told what to do (not!).
Fucksake. I pitched as much of civilization as I could several years ago. At the start, I had to run a gasoline generator 24x7 in order to stay warm and run the lights and computer. Now I still have to run the thing 2-3 hours a day, but I'm not close to done yet. When I add solar I expect to have the power I need and maybe a little excess, when I add wind we'll be talking surplus. Maybe I'll find some way to make oil from the excess energy, no clues here.
If everybody was working his ass off trying to find ways of doing with nothing but what's freely available, maybe one of us fucktards would luck out and come up with something.
You go along with the herd, 'sokay with me. You go ahead and fight for oil, I find the stuff messy and a general PITA all the way around, I'll work on other approaches, learn how to use what is all around me to some advantage.
You'll need to sack your morality and vote for the fight-for-oil people. Here in the US that's already been done and nothing I could do to prevent it, this being a republic instead of a democracy and me not being an elector.
Down there in AU you should be coming into summertime Zen, izzat right? Been to the beach yet? Smoked any pot at sunset?
Worry. Worry. Worry.
You think the fall of civilization would be a big deal, I'd like to see the fucking thing gone but I'm in no hurry, have a bit more preparation to do.
Take a joint to the beach and watch the sunset. It won't make there be more oil, but you'll give less of a fuck. You'll probably be at the bottom of an asteroid crater before they stop playing games with oil, or dead of a worry-disease.
Find me a brontosaurus with an ulcer, that'll keep you out of trouble for a while.
This particular worry comes and goes, and always the market stresses add an increment of technology or another oil reserve and off we go on another spin around. Oh, but they also add a war here and there. Mankind's relentless wars over resources. Well, I don't know what capitalism vs socialism or democracy vs imperialism could ever have to do with changing that. Maybe boots has it right and though I don't plan to move up into the foothills, I have considered shifting the end of my career into that fuel cell consortium they have going on downriver a bit. Too bad they're not hiring. What, no money in it? Fancy that.
Don, you are wrong. It's not a worry that "comes and goes". It's one that the oil companies have lobbied hard to keep quiet. But those in the know, which as usual you are not, aren't fooled. Peak oil is real. It's hard to predict exactly when it will come because it's one of those things you can only be sure about when it's already happened. But you should be aware that there is not "another oil reserve". There has been no major find in decades.
Dude, if you can't see what difference it would make if we didn't prioritise profit, well, what is the point of discussing this with a fool like you?
It's amazing, when I stop to think, how often you've insulted me outright, not for being a fool, of course, but for being too fool to see things Zen's way. As is often the case you miss my point. The WORRY is cyclical. Doomsayers have been proven wrong time and time again. The worry's resolution, this time, next time, last time, doesn't require a major new oil field (though there are new ones made, of some scale or other, e.g.) , but a confluence of same with technology and a shifting market (we can hope, the public seeming to be aware finally, to some extent, thanks in part ironically to Toyota). Personally I hope we don't have to go to Colorado shale, or even the North Slope, but they're there.
Why would the oil companies lobby to keep oil's scarcity quiet? It's to their advantage that the public accept $90/bbl, and it is scarcity that makes such a price. Anyway, Big Oil will be Big Something Else once the economy shifts over. There's no use dreaming they'll go away. They will adapt, and their power to control the price of energy technology lets them decide when we adapt too. This sort of control by big industry actually transcends any discussion of profit vs any other motive.
Why would they lobby hard to keep it quiet?
They have shares.
What intrigues me is who funded the analysis in the first place, and then pushed hard to get it public? Who stands to benefit from it? FoE? Greenpeace? LGMFM ?
boots sez:
The worry is cyclical all right, and I imagine there's manipulation involved. Watch the stocks and what you'll see is that alternative energy companies start making some progress, they become the hot thing, then golly for some reason oil prices go down and nobody cares about alternative energy anymore, their research kind of starves for a while. Once enough damage has been done oil prices start back up.
Whatever, maybe those so rich we never hear of them aren't really doing anything for their own benefit, maybe Murphy just loves them to pieces. Oh, wait a minute, Murphy loves the little guy, that's it.
I'm still using too much gasoline. Too busy at present to do much about it, but that'll happen by and by. But for less than the local power company wanted to hook me up to their grid and allow me to reap the privileges of their fiat rate increases, I have my own power system that does the job and it's only subject to my own power outages, not their rate increases and not terrorist grid demolition teams, etc.
I got better things to worry about here. If something is on the nightly news, follow the money.
It is not cyclical. The price will not go down, other than short-term fluctuation.
They must really lie to you Yanks. You just don't get it.
Oil is not endless. One day it ends. Water too. One day there just isn't enough. Then we all start killing each other.
Your zero-sum outlook tells you this. The problem with me is I'm an optimist who believes in human creativity. I don't deny the manipulation boots avers to. But it's only possible because oil is still plentiful enough to allow it. When it is not, the alternatives will get capitalized, and we'll all remain as enslaved to the big system, neither much more nor less, as we are today. Small war is good for business but big war is not. You'll see. Barring a mad nuclear state or two with delusions of apocalypse, we'll be all right.
I've been thinking about this issue in the back of my mind while I was working today, and I think the report and publication can only have been funded by the oil companies themselves. Nobody else can benefit from it, since there is no alternative energy business all set up and waiting to get a slice of the pie. This report paves the way for oil companies to increase the market prices, while at the same time getting assistance and protection from the governments. I think, far from investors pulling out of oil companies in a panic, the smart money will be creeping in as shareholders realise this is yet another ploy to keep the price per barrel high.
Get your bicycles out. You do have bicycles out in Oz, don't you?
I'd agree with the above. We're not fucked in the sense that we're all going to suffer a horrific depression and resources war. But we are fucked in the sense that the oil companies are too smart by half in knowing how to manipulate the market such that profits will be maximized for a very long time. Sneaking in a price-lowering, however explained, is a good way to prevent alternatives from coming to maturity. Meanwhile, yes, wars are fostered by this sort of thing that people like me only really support when caught up in the Fear, as I admit I was, and could be again, depending on events. Yes, I'd love to have an electric car, real public transpo, and nuke or other domestic-supply plants powering it all.
Don, we are already having a resources war. What teh fuck do you think America's policy in the middle east is all about?
And Sopwith, no. Just no. You are very wrong. I'm just not in the mood for educating the clueless today. Sorry. You'll have to rethink on your own. Let's just say that oil companies do not need to pretend oil is running out to manipulate the price of oil. A cursory glance at the 1970s should make that clear.
I'm just not in the mood for
educating the clueless today.
Buy ya a drink.
Course mine'll have
to be lickerless.
- -
Cheers,
Father Luke
boots sez:
zen wrote, "It is not cyclical. The price will not go down, other than short-term fluctuation."
'the fuck you think "cyclical" means anyway besides fluctuations of a cyclical nature? The worry is cyclical, people get all fretted up then they move on then come back later.
The oil is what it is. I've heard various theories. I even read about some Russian study that said it was being produced by the earth or some shit.
"What teh fuck do you think America's policy in the middle east is all about?"
What it's all about is the rich who are in power are making the most from their power. I've even heard the theory that 9/11 was a CIA black bag operation intended to open the middle-east to invasion.
Fucksake there's no way to tell for sure. Some things don't merit worry.
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