I don't do much writing about peak oil here. It's horrifically depressing, for one thing, and for another I doubt I could add to the comprehensive work being done at the Oil Drum and elsewhere. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
If you're like me and you only tune in to the issue occasionally, check out the latest from Michael Klare over at TomDispatch: "Tough oil on tap." It's a nice, fairly concise roundup of the latest reports and news from the peak oil world. And yeah, it's depressing. Here's the conclusion:
Read from this perspective, the recent reports from pillars of the Big- Oil/wealthy-nation establishment suggest that the basic logic of peak-oil theory is on the mark and hard times are ahead when it comes to global oil-and-gas sufficiency. Both reports claim that with just the right menu of corrective policies and an unrealistic streak of pure luck -- as in no set of major Katrina-like hurricanes barreling into oil fields or refineries, no new wars in Middle Eastern oil producing areas, no political collapse in Nigeria -- we can somehow stagger through to 2012 and maybe just beyond without a global economic meltdown. But in an era of tough oil, the odds tip toward tough luck as well. Buckle your seatbelt. Fill up that gas tank soon. The future is likely to be a bumpy ride toward cliff's edge.
Yippee!
The violent twilight of oil and a strategy to expose it
Comments
View as Flat
odograph Posted 3:02 am
17 Aug 2007
No need for me to rehash what is covered very thoroughly in that book link treatment ... but humans are very bad at prediction, especially about the future.
While the concept of "a peak" follows very smoothly from the geology, the nature of the downslope, or the technological and societal responses which will appear in response to it do not.
So, humans fall very easily into predicting a future based on, fundamentally, their own view of human nature. It's a mug's game. You can predict anything but you cannot, ever, rationally, assign a probability to your prediction.
Knowing that, we have to be fluid, prepared, responsive to any number of futures that come down the pike. That means, certainly, that we should prepare for "tighter" energy supplies even if we cannot specify the exact "tightness."
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odograph Posted 3:08 am
17 Aug 2007
You may come to a similar conclusion, but if you are rigorous, you'll have to abandon some of the "skips" and "jumps" in Peak Oil logic.
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:13 am
17 Aug 2007
The high cost of gasoline has had no negative impact on me or my family. We have doubled our gas mileage with the Prius and have achieved a ten fold increase from my Cherokee by replacing ten mile single occupancy trips in it with a fun as hell hybrid electric bike. To date, we are greatly outstripping rising energy costs.
Forget the fact that we live in an urban area where almost everything we need is a mile or two from our front door, and that our commutes to work are short or few in number.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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odograph Posted 3:17 am
17 Aug 2007
That's just careful throttle control though, none of that crazy drafting stuff.
(But really our changing of the future is just one reason for why we are bad ... it is even, in the case of Wall Street an excuse, without proof, for why we are so often wrong.)
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odograph Posted 3:18 am
17 Aug 2007
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Sean Casten Posted 3:19 am
17 Aug 2007
This doesn't say anything about the misplaced bell curves or bad statistics that Taleb (rightly) laments in the black swan, although it is in many ways synergistic, since it implies that anyone betting on oil prices moving forward should expect a lot more "black swans" in their data, because we can expect not only a lot more high prices for oil, but also a lot more low ones (such is the nature of volatility).
In any event, take a look at the details of what peak oil says. The forward projection is not - except in the very long run - one of rising prices as much as it is one of rising volatility.
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odograph Posted 3:26 am
17 Aug 2007
But certainly you will admit that is not the only image bound to "Peak Oil." Many are much more detailed and concrete than that. It's often about "Life after the oil crash" and etc. It is even, sometimes, about building "lifeboat communities" to survive the downfall of western civ.
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odograph Posted 3:29 am
17 Aug 2007
"The future is likely to be a bumpy ride toward cliff's edge."
I don't suppose that was the sort of peak oil prediction you were rising to defend?
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David Roberts Posted 4:06 am
17 Aug 2007
I choose to learn from smart commenters instead!
grist.org
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JMG Posted 4:12 am
17 Aug 2007
I've followed your touting of Black Swan for a while, and I've got it on my list, but I think I've got enough of the gist from your many posts and the reviews to ask this question: other than that we should all read The Black Swan, where should we be putting our energies?
I have no problem granting that our prediction heuristics are poor, and that they are at their worst when predicting the behavior of multi-variable systems (and the world economy and its dependence on cheap oil is the ultra complex system).
But I get a very anodyne message from your posts on The Black Swan -- a message that, should the consequences of peak oil be more severe than predicted, will have proven to be quite costly.
A few decades ago, a number of us were talking about the "no regrets" strategy for dealing with climate: we could grant that the science wasn't conclusive and still say that, even so, there were a host of opportunities to reduce GHG emissions while saving money, improving health, and bettering society, and even if it turned out that humans weren't the cause of the problem, we'd still be better off all the way around. (Alas, we're well past the point where our response can be all of the "no regrets" variety.)
I see response to probable peak oil in very much the same light -- regardless of whether all the monsters in the parade of horribles conjured up by peak oil doomsters actually exist (and there's no way to know), there are myriad opportunities to reduce our dependence on oil without entering into a fatal embrace of coal, opportunities that will improve our economic, social, and physical health, and reduce climate stress, all while preparing for a more chaotic, hotter climate.
So we're barely evolved from monkeys and we're not great at prediction--that tells me that, in addition to making erroneous predictions that things will be doomy, we're also capable of making erroneous predictions that all will be well, and that things will just work out (for all existing societies, they always have). That is, while we can acknowledge the limits of our predictive abilities, we have to be careful to note that this problem has more than two sides--i.e., not only could we get lucky, and not only could we wind up enjoying breakthroughs now unimaginable, but things could also be much worse than we predict, and there could be completely unknown variables that could break against us as well.
So I guess the question is, armed as you are with THE book, what should we be doing with respect to the possibility that easy/cheap oil is or soon will peak?
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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odograph Posted 4:12 am
17 Aug 2007
Both reports claim that with just the right menu of corrective policies and an unrealistic streak of pure luck -- as in no set of major Katrina-like hurricanes barreling into oil fields or refineries, no new wars in Middle Eastern oil producing areas, no political collapse in Nigeria -- we can somehow stagger through to 2012 and maybe just beyond without a global economic meltdown.
This kind of sentence gives us a visceral tingle. It is a thrill-ride of a sentence. It is a disaster movie in miniature.
But let's step back and identify its key assertion ... that it would take not just planning, but also "an unrealistic streak of pure luck" in order to avoid "a global economic meltdown."
That is both an extreme prediction and a very confident one. Not the sort of thing The Black Swan would lead us to trust even with seemingly strong backing or mathematics behind it.
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odograph Posted 4:16 am
17 Aug 2007
Or Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert, on how our expectations for the future betray us time and again.
Or this time magazine article on how we miss-understand risks.
The last is most accessible because it is right there on-line.
(I've actually referred to these, and probably others, in gristmill before now.)
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Jason D Scorse Posted 4:19 am
17 Aug 2007
And someday there will be less in the ground? Another amazing fact.
Now can we get on with serious policy discussions.....
I teach environmental economics and blog at http://www.voicesofreason.info.
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odograph Posted 4:24 am
17 Aug 2007
After that, do what you can, to make the world a better place.
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Jon Rynn Posted 4:25 am
17 Aug 2007
So, very simply, fossil fuels will eventually run out. How they run out is not really the issue here, the important issue is that they will run out. Therefore, a society based on fossil fuels will collapse. therefore, the society has to be reconfigured to do without fossil fuels, and "all" the phenomenon of peak oil does is add another reason why we have to move away from fossil fuels, the second -- twin -- reason being global warming.
Why is global warming a twin to peak oil? Because, as in any ecosystem, you have a problem of the adequacy of a source of materials/energy and the sink where the outputs of the processing goes, peak oil being a source problem and global warming (and pollution) being a sink problem. they are both two sides of the same coin (I learned of the source/sink terminology from "limits of growth").
So we have to imagine a society without fossil fuels. Warning: a plug is coming! I am writing a series of articles at SanderResearch.com called "Singing the Nation Electric" (you can find them here ) in which I try to map out a fuel-free future; but I think that we should be talking about, in addition to controlling carbon emissions, the larger question of doing without fossil (and bio) fuels. that is the problem in front of us, black swans or not.
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Biodiversivist Posted 4:27 am
17 Aug 2007
Other examples of good governance directing the free market:
Not putting tariffs against Japanese hybrids to stimulate our own car industry.
Not making hybrid electric bicycles illegal (although they are illegal on bike trails in King County).
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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odograph Posted 4:30 am
17 Aug 2007
What is the "model" for post-peak downslope?
Because what happens to us hinges on that unknown number.
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JMG Posted 4:37 am
17 Aug 2007
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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Biodiversivist Posted 4:41 am
17 Aug 2007
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Jon Rynn Posted 4:46 am
17 Aug 2007
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caniscandida Posted 4:48 am
17 Aug 2007
No wonder DR is depressed.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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Sam Wells Posted 5:18 am
17 Aug 2007
Peak oil is unrelated to electrical demand to the extent that distillates (bunker C residual oil) is not commonly used to make electricity; coal, natural gas, nuke, and nowadays wind (yay!) are.
It's been a while but transportation fuels only are maybe 5 percent of the GHG inventory if I remember, a little more if you add the refineries. So when one talks about "peak oil" you're not talking big-time GHG interaction. When peak oil occurs and bottlenecks are created in the system, transportation could come to a halt.
But we'll have a whole bunch of electricity still, right?
Oh, gotcha, didn't I?
sammie
Onward through the fog
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Biodiversivist Posted 5:29 am
17 Aug 2007
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Sam Wells Posted 6:00 am
17 Aug 2007
But if Peak Oil does happen, who would be hurt? That will be silly citizens like you and me. The Political Administrative Defense Districts (PADD) require an ample amount of crude to be stored for times of emergency or war. PADD 4A down by Louisiana and East Texas have most of the juice, including very large natural gas holdings in salt domes.
The President and the DOE "own" this vast amount of hydrocarbons. Sometimes they can lend it to the spot refinery market but the bulk fuel has to be replaced at substantial cost. There is not enough in PADD 4A to fight both Peak Oil and a major war, so this should be interesting. Just remember, you can't fight a war with coal anymore, like in 1812. sam
Onward through the fog
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Jon Rynn Posted 6:06 am
17 Aug 2007
Residential: 342
Commercial:286
Industrial: 459
Transportation:534
This is from the table, Total Energy-Related Carbon Dioxide Emissions by End-Use Sector, and the Electric Power Sector, by Fuel Type, 1949-2005, I believe from the following website (I will find it shortly): http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/flash/flash.html
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JMG Posted 6:09 am
17 Aug 2007
And it's game over at that point.
Don't think for a minute that we're any smarter than the folks who denuded Easter Island. The incredible longing for biofuels that fills page after page of comments here and elsewhere and the anger at those who question the wisdom of a biofuels "solution" is just a hint of what's to come.
Addicts don't make smart choices generally, and almost never do they make smart choices when their fix is late. We are firmly addicted to cheap liquid fuels, and I'd say the chances of us not lunging to replace them with CTL is very slim even on a good day.
Just consider how angry people get here when the destructiveness of jet travel is discussed and the need to forgo it and eventually ration it severely. Now multiply that by 1000 for when people are clinging to their steering wheels and their investments in the carburban life.
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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Jon Rynn Posted 6:11 am
17 Aug 2007
Commercial: 1046
Industrial: 1669
Transportation: 1965
That's preliminary 2006, EIA, million metric tons, from http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/flash/flash.html, page 15
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Jon Rynn Posted 6:23 am
17 Aug 2007
So, for carbon, it's
residential, 21%
commercial, 18%
industrial, 28%
transportation, 33%
D'oh!
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odograph Posted 6:30 am
17 Aug 2007
Both reports claim that with just the right menu of corrective policies and an unrealistic streak of pure luck -- as in no set of major Katrina-like hurricanes barreling into oil fields or refineries, no new wars in Middle Eastern oil producing areas, no political collapse in Nigeria -- we can somehow stagger through to 2012 and maybe just beyond without a global economic meltdown.
Certainly you can say oil use will be "down" after a "peak" (that is a near tautology anyway).
But what does that say about a prediction that we need "an unrealistic streak of pure luck" to head off "a global economic meltdown?"
You don't actually answer that.
BTW, how many actually read the Time piece?
On the first page we have this:
We pride ourselves on being the only species that understands the concept of risk, yet we have a confounding habit of worrying about mere possibilities while ignoring probabilities, building barricades against perceived dangers while leaving ourselves exposed to real ones.
That's what I'm talking about. We worry about mere possibilities of "global economic meltdown" while ignoring simpler and more tangible issues ... like the collapse of our ocean fisheries.
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Jon Rynn Posted 7:03 am
17 Aug 2007
The problem here is time frames. The Time article talks mostly about immediate risks -- and by the way, 44,000 people killed in car accidents a year is a case of almost total social denial -- but anyway, I digress. Hundreds and thousands of concerned individuals and institutions from around the world are trying to figure out global trends from a morass of information. Humans have gotten to the point were they can bring down the biosphere. We're all doing our best to figure out what are the biggest risks, and which aren't.
For instance, I'm not nearly as worried about terrorism as I am about global warming, peak oil, and ecosystem destruction, even though I lived in NYC on 9/11. I'm not as worried about avian flu,etc. In a way, it's a triage situation. There are all kinds of possible calamities. So, as sentient, rational beings, and through discussion,we try to figure out what are the biggest risks, and in fact, a large part of the conversation is exactly the problem of which risks are bigger. people who come to Grist are probably convinced that environmental problems are high on the agenda. Most of Bush's base are much more worried about terrorism; indeed, even the perceived voters for the Democratic nominees seem to be more interested in other issues, since global warming hardly ever comes up, much less peak oil, and CNN showed a video they tossed out on the last debate that had to do with mass extinction.
So, how do we go about calculating global, systemic risks? I would stand with the three I put forward, global warming, peak oil,and ecosystem destruction -- and actually, there is a fourth, the eventual meltdown of the American economy because of the decline of manufacturing, but that's another discussion.
As to whether Klare can see clearly into the future, who knows? You can bet, thought, that if oil supplies start to seize up, there will be massive economic dislocations. Again, it could take a year, it could take ten -- although I doubt it -- you never know, but the time to plan to prevent it is now, before the shit hits the fan.
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Jon Rynn Posted 7:15 am
17 Aug 2007
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Biodiversivist Posted 7:15 am
17 Aug 2007
Jon,
I saw Sam's error but didn't bother to correct it since the magnitude isn't relative to our point that peak liquid fuel will hit first, affecting primarily the cost of transport. My family is a demonstration that the transport problem may be more manageable than some think, and we could do a lot more with an ultralight plug-in hybrid, better and safer bike trails, a more carbon neutral source for electricity, and so on. This is my favorite chart:
http://home.comcast.net/~russ676/photo/graphicenergygrid.jpg
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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odograph Posted 7:30 am
17 Aug 2007
a) peak oil will end western civilization, or
b) peak oil is not a problem.
When I argue that peak oil is a risk, but one with unknown probability, you toggle between "a" and "b" trying to categorize me.
And sadly when peak oil as presented at gristmill, it has to be presented as "a" or "b."
Or perhaps a glancing middle ground position (similar to my own) is taken, as if to support "a" or "b" as the ultimate destination.
The truth is, we don't know. And if you are strong enough in your convictions, you can say that without sliding to "a" or "b" as your endpoint.
(But don't tell me "we don't know, therefore 'a'" because that proves you haven't been listening.)
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Biodiversivist Posted 7:37 am
17 Aug 2007
Remember when billions of people were going to starve to death by now thanks to our rapid population growth? What if we had reacted to that as the more radical people wanted? That concern also kicked off the survivalist movement which waned but is now firing up again.
By sounding the alarm, people like the Ehrlich's created a meme that nipped, or at least for now, avoided that disaster. Fertility rates started dropping, researchers looking for money and glory found ways to grow lots of food fast, the economists got busy in hindsight creating theories to explain the past but never the future :) Prius sales are a hopeful sign that a new meme is taking hold and new battery technology is a hopeful sign that researchers are channeling their efforts as they did for agriculture.
So, don't relax our efforts, but don't get panicky either.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Biodiversivist Posted 7:43 am
17 Aug 2007
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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JMG Posted 7:55 am
17 Aug 2007
While we can't assign a historical probability to the likelihood of peak oil because we've not experienced it yet, all except the abiotic oil idiots would agree that the probability tends to 1.0 as the analytical timeframe is extended. (Earth is finite; even if the earth were entirely made of oil, that amount of oil is finite; when a finite supply meets ever-increasing demand, a production curve results, where once the peak is past, flows cannot be maintained.)
So, over some period, the two components of risk (risk presented by any outcome is probability of occurrence times severity of consequence) resolve into one, and the argument is only about the severity of consequence.
Odo rejects the binary view that s/he claims others adopt (Pangloss vs. the Doomers) and insists that only those who, like s/he, has the courage to say "we don't know" -- but this comes after previously stating that we shouldn't worry about "fuzzy problems far away" -- implying a degree of certainty about the severity AND a knowledge that these problems are "far away."
As for Western civilization, like Gandhi, I think it would be a wonderful thing; I certainly don't think peak oil will cause its end (though I can't say the same about what happens if, because of peak oil, we swallow the poisoned pill of coal-to-liquids ... but then it seems likely that ALL civilizations will struggle to survive runaway climate destabilization in that case).
As near as I can tell, Odo, what you are saying is "Don't worry, be happy" -- tend to one's own health and be content to deal with the problems of the day and leave tomorrow's worries until tomorrow, we don't know what peak oil will cause so why fret about it.
If that's not what you are saying, I wish you would be clear about it; that is, please restate YOUR prescription for action (if any) rather than just slamming Pangloss and the Doomers.
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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odograph Posted 8:02 am
17 Aug 2007
After that, do what you can, to make the world a better place.
... after that, do what you can, to make the world a better place.
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Delay And Deny Posted 8:05 am
17 Aug 2007
Oil is abiotic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin
Hydrocarbons are the stuff the Universe is made of...
John Bailo
Sutext:
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JMG Posted 8:08 am
17 Aug 2007
Again, given the certainty of the occurrence of peak oil and the uncertainty about the consequence, what do you advise we do to make the world a better place vis a vis that particular threat?
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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Jon Rynn Posted 8:18 am
17 Aug 2007
I still second JMG's question, what is to be done? What is your ranking the problems within the triage situation that we have right now?
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odograph Posted 8:18 am
17 Aug 2007
The problem with V.P. Cheney's "1% rule" is that we don't have resources to apply it to each and every possibility:
"Even if there's just a 1 percent chance of the unimaginable coming due, act as if it is a certainty. It's not about 'our analysis,' as Cheney said. It's about 'our response.' ... Justified or not, fact-based or not, 'our response' is what matters. As to 'evidence,' the bar was set so low that the word itself almost didn't apply."
I guess my response to that is humility. I don't know which risk should really get the 1% rule applied - and I know they can't all be. So I try to live a moderate, responsible, and happy life ... and do a little to make the world a better place.
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odograph Posted 8:20 am
17 Aug 2007
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Sam Wells Posted 8:37 am
17 Aug 2007
I would invite any of you so-called experts to examine the EPA Greenhouse Gas inventories which includes all sources of CO2 within the US, including biogenic and geogenic sources, and taking into consideration all GHG including methane, nitrous, and other compounds as expressed as CO2 equivalents. You're looking at the small picture and I'm looking at the larger one.
I suspect that none of you have spent over a dozen years in the science and have no clue as to what you are saying, other than the policy suits your mood, and you choose to become acerbic and vindictive when the occasion arises. Have fun and I mean no harm, other than you should launch your virtual Scud missiles when truly needed. /sam
Onward through the fog
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Biodiversivist Posted 8:39 am
17 Aug 2007
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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odograph Posted 8:49 am
17 Aug 2007
Peak oil, but failing that global warming, but failing that it saves me money. It doesn't "need" more that the last, most basic, to work.
In an uncertain world one purchase that can cover multiple (uncertain) threats ... what a deal.
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JMG Posted 8:58 am
17 Aug 2007
What about oceans collapse, bird flu, earthquakes, terrorism, tidal waves, global warming, stock market collapse, meteors, cancer, ... ?
Well, let's see:
Earthquakes, tidal waves, and meteors are clearly independent of human intervention or control. (Though how we locate cities and infrastructure has a lot to do with the costs of quakes and tidal waves.)
But, of the rest, all are greatly dependent on one thing: population pressure and how we employ (or avoid) use of energy.
Our appetite for seafoods would be of for less import if not for diesel powered ships with multiple mile trawls and factory/cannery ships; bird flu would be a small problem save for gobbleization, which is 100% dependent on energy; Condi Rice notes that most of the terrorism in the world today results from the political disruptions created by energy; global warming is to energy use what light is to a flame; the incidence of cancer is greatly (though not entirely) influenced by the body burden of pollutant exposure, which is directly proportional to energy use; and market collapse is perhaps the MOST likely and MOST well understood/predictable consequence of peak oil, as our economies struggle to adopt to a new regime (where energy, the ultimate basis of all wealth) becomes progressively more scarce rather than more abundant.
In other words, by listing off things one could worry about, you've really made the point that declining availability of energy underlays most of the most fearsome problems we face; and, as I've said above, the most diabolical part of it all is that the easiest solution to the pain of reduced energy availability is the ONE thing we cannot do (turn to coal). It's like giving a man in the middle of the desert a thermos of liquid marked "POISON"--we may just go crazy enough to drink it anyway.
So what, operationally, does "humility" look like? I read your posts here and at Rapier's blog but, if I want to adopt your strategy, other than zinging "peakers" for claiming to know the future (and not reading the Black Swan), what should I do?
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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odograph Posted 10:02 am
17 Aug 2007
But as far as asking me for my one thing, or even my short list:
Does there have to be one? Or is it sufficient, and healthy, for us all to chip away at the problems around us?
Last year I slashed my energy footprint and supported alt-energy groups. This year I've done more to support the establishment of ocean reserves.
Do I have to say that's best for everyone? Or even stress that I might choose another focus next year?
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Jon Rynn Posted 10:23 am
17 Aug 2007
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Jon Rynn Posted 10:52 am
17 Aug 2007
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JMG Posted 5:34 pm
17 Aug 2007
While it is certainly healthy and honorable to chip away at the problems around us, I must say that (since you asked) on the whole, it appears to be insufficient, because what are apparently multiple problems around us are, instead, multiple symptoms of a greater problem, to wit, our failure to think systemically about energy, its use, and its consequences.
Thinking about energy issues one by one is like trying to cut off each head of the hydra at a time -- while cutting off each one causes others to sprout.
You don't have to agree with this analysis, or adopt it, just like you don't have to specify what others should do.
But, given that there are those who see society's failure to prepare for energy transition and runaway climate destabilization as one of "the problems around us," your message is ambiguous and, sometimes, seems to boil down to nothing more than "Your fears are likely overblown, humans are very bad at predicting and tend to overconcentrate on unlikely bad outcomes --- so relax."
In other words, you seem to counsel that, before responding to problems, we should wait until those problems are full-blown and undeniable by all; after all, the Irish saying goes "Worry is like paying interest on a debt you may not owe." So (you appear to say) relax, chip away at whatever problems catch your interest and seem important, and let the future sort itself out.
There are many settings where that's good advice -- but not all. Risk is a product of two factors: likelihood and severity, not just likelihood. The more dire the consequences, the more attention should be paid to addressing the risk.
Given the tremendous cost of decarbonizing our energy systems while, at the same time, trying to feed a world in severe population overshoot, while at the same time trying to preserve some biodiversity, the earlier one can start, the better. Yes, catastrophic outcomes are possible, even if we can't know for sure their probability.
But your message appears to be that anyone who looks to the worst case scenario to gauge the appropriate response is guilty of catastrophizing and is simply enjoying disaster porn.
Tell me, do you want to fly on the plane or live near the nuclear plant designed by the guy who has your attitude about risk? Doesn't the fact that we're bad at prediction argue for taking greater measures rather than fewer?
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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odograph Posted 11:16 pm
17 Aug 2007
We can see that, sadly, in JMG's response to me. I have argued for efficiency, and action "now" again and again in these pages. I've talked about hybrids, and appliances, and lighting, and low-power computers. I'm a member of the American Solar Energy Society. I've done weeks "without taking the car out" and riding by bicycle or walking. I've extolled the League of American Bicyclists and suggested that others might join.
... but JMG illustrates an interesting linkage. If I cannot also buy into dark predictions, he must return again and again to me being a do-nothing Pollyanna.
He says, just above:
"Tell me, do you want to fly on the plane or live near the nuclear plant designed by the guy who has your attitude about risk? Doesn't the fact that we're bad at prediction argue for taking greater measures rather than fewer?"
I think the correct answer to that is, WTF?
(Sadly, I think this linkage is common in "Peak Oil" and that's why I actually stay away from Peak Oil sites. If you don't believe the doom, they don't want you, and they can't believe that you are helping.)
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Dave Cohen Posted 7:27 am
18 Aug 2007
Give me a break.
Dave
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odograph Posted 7:35 pm
18 Aug 2007
Most recently I said The Black Swan, and Stubling on Happiness, is that "we" filter our histories. That is one of the things that should give "us" humility about "our" present world-view, as well as our predictions about the future.
After all those "we" and "our" and "humanity" (not to mention "humility") do we get an answer to the big picture? What can you document about "our" true strengths in predicting far futures?
But we don't get that, just another ad hominem attack. What do you think that says?
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odograph Posted 8:28 pm
18 Aug 2007
There's an interesting chapter on when "more data" does or does not improve our analysis.
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odograph Posted 8:44 pm
18 Aug 2007
CRUDE OIL - Uncertainty about Future Oil Supply Makes It Important to Develop a Strategy for
Addressing a Peak and Decline in Oil Production
Isn't it fair to say that the GAO title says pretty much the same thing as my theme above?
From that report:
Most studies estimate that oil production will peak sometime between now and 2040. This range of estimates is wide because the timing of the peak depends on multiple, uncertain factors that will help determine how quickly the oil remaining in the ground is used, including the amount of oil still in the ground; how much of that oil can ultimately be produced given technological, cost, and environmental challenges as well as potentially unfavorable political and investment conditions in some countries where oil is located; and future global demand for oil. Demand for oil will, in turn, be influenced by global economic growth and may be affected by government policies on the environment and climate change and consumer choices about conservation.
So gentle reader, think about those uncertainties when someone tells you about "a global economic meltdown" (as in the opening article).
And acknowledge certainly that the uncertainty surrounds a risk - though "blink" style, we all really know that we should reduce our energy consumption (if not for peak oil, for global warming, if not for global warming for simple economics).
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Jon Rynn Posted 1:28 am
19 Aug 2007
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odograph Posted 1:47 am
19 Aug 2007
I live out in California where people have worried about a bubble ... certainly since I first bought in 1986. There was one solid dip, with 5 years of "negative price growth" in the mid-nineties. We look to be entering something like that again.
Some people worried publicly about prices, and as the crescendo certainly more and more people called it a bubble.
I think Taleb would ask us to look back at the data though to see how far in the future our predictions ran, and to monitor how good they proved to be about the length and depth of this downturn.
Did anyone, say 5 or 10 years ago, call this date? Did they call the ultimate extent of "negative price growth?" Duration?
You might think I'm setting a high bar with those questions, but again think about what I am opposing - it isn't "peak oil" as a concept. Instead it is the binding of peak oil to very specific (and often very negative) long-term predictions.
If (big if) we could do things like call a real-estate crash with specificity fat in advance (a) no one would get caught out while flipping, and (b) we probably wouldn't have the crash in the first place.
(Taleb would caution us not to create a "retrospective narrative" in which we listen only to those predictions that proved correct.)
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Jon Rynn Posted 2:22 am
19 Aug 2007
or as you say above, "the binding of peak oil to very specific (and often very negative) long-term predictions". In other words, is peak oil really so bad? Particularly from the point of view of the biosphere of the planet? I think a decent answer deserves a full post, which I will prepare (assuming a cooperative 3 and 6 year old), but does that sound like a better formulation of what we are arguing about here?
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odograph Posted 2:43 am
19 Aug 2007
Most Americans have tremendous opportunities to lower their costs while reducing greenhouse emissions and fossil fuel demands. (European and Japanese per-capita levels should be reasonable goals.)
There are a thousand little ways forward. Did you see the bill-pay study at Scientific American?
Some 53 percent of all U.S. households (61 million) now do their banking online; nearly half of those also pay their bills via computer. But the report says that a whopping 16.5 million trees, roughly 2.3 million tons of wood, could be spared annually in the unlikely event that all U.S. households made the switch to paperless payments. Such a move would also reduce fuel consumption by 26 million BTUs, enough energy to provide residential power to a city the size of San Francisco for a year.
So easy, and probably with most checking accounts free these days?
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Biodiversivist Posted 7:03 am
19 Aug 2007
Give this man a plug-in hybrid and bike with trailer and watch the energy use halve again.
Sunflower is another poster child, for those who choose a rural life.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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odograph Posted 9:27 am
19 Aug 2007
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