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Reports bring various doomy and gloomy predictions

Posted at 1:52 PM on 22 Oct 2007

Indeed, the depressing reports come fast and furious. German-based Energy Watch Group says the world has already reached peak oil, and predicts that production will now fall by 7 percent a year. The Worldwatch Institute suggests that 21 cities that will have populations of 8 million or more by 2015 are highly vulnerable to havoc wreaked by rising seas. The comprehensive "The U.S. Economic Impacts of Climate Change and the Costs of Inaction" suggests that the U.S. faces hundreds of billions of dollars in weather-related damages in coming years if it doesn't get crackin' on climate-change mitigation. And an informal office poll suggests that no one got laid last night. Will the dry spell never end?

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Comments: (5 comments)

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seven percent solution

my ~~research~~ futzing around on the web shows that the "7%" number was probably in error.

(that was an olde movie reference!)

by odograph at 11:28 AM on 23 Oct 2007

3 out of 4...

Okay, most of those, I totally agree, suck.

(Yeah, no one at my office got laid last night, either. We could start an interoffice support group, but in my experience, that sort of thing doesn't usually go well. It mostly distracts from work and causes meaningless drama. Also, I don't work in an office.)

But how, exactly, is peak oil a bad thing? Call me an ignorant hippie, but if there's less oil, won't people, y'know... Burn less oil? And doesn't that lead to a drop in greenhouse gas emissions? Someone fill me in on what I'm missing, but this is starting to sound suspiciously like a good thing.

by Pathos at 8:30 PM on 23 Oct 2007

peak oil goodness

I might be enough of a hippie to agree, Pathos. The thing is, if we are kind hippies we want a smooth transition, and not gunfights at gas stations.

The rate of transition is pretty much up in the air at this point, but the "half by 2030" number used in the upstream EWG report might not be so bad ... for hippies. Plenty of time to tune up everyone's bicycles.

(I was going to studiously avoid the last 2 lines ... but I am reminded of a cartoon from Whole Earth years ago. It showed two futures, techno-bliss and hippie-nirvana. In the hippie future people were all riding bikes, and the sign in the park said "love-in today, 2:00 PM".)

by odograph at 7:38 AM on 24 Oct 2007

Call me an ignorant hippie

Don't forget stinky.

As odo likes to point out, predicting the socio-econo-politico- implications of peak oil is problematic. True dat.

But having just seen Jim Hanson, live in concert, one of the main factors for mitigating GW that he harped on is the urgent need to put a price on carbon. Strikes me that as the global petroleum supply and demand curves shoot past each other like fighter jets in an air show, the price-o-petro is bound to rise significantly. That sounds like a good thing to me, assuming you believe in all this climate-change stuff.

That said, Hanson was also adamant that coal is where the real issue lies. And if we react to petro shortage by substituting coal-based liquid fuels....

by gmunger at 9:53 AM on 24 Oct 2007
[ Parent ]

*grin*

Alright, so no to liquid coal. I think we can just about all get behind that.

Other than that, rock on with the peak oil. Here's hoping production costs soar, and the oil companies generously pass those savings on to the consumer.

by Pathos at 1:52 PM on 24 Oct 2007

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