Civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon.

[Annorax]

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/ http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/SecondPage.html I felt sick after reading this, if this is true I fell really sick. oh well. one day protons will decay and matter will turn back into radiation, nothing beats that I guess. talk about WAKING UP!!!!

[Howie]

Originally posted by Annorax http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/ http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/SecondPage.html I felt sick after reading this, if this is true I fell really sick. oh well. one day protons will decay and matter will turn back into radiation, nothing beats that I guess. * talk about WAKING UP!!!! One thing we have to remember is that the end of the world as been coming since it began. Figuratively and literally speaking. Every generation has their own end of the world. I hope that does not come true. And I do feel that are resources are limited as well as our Fiat. It makes you really question putting money into retirement accounts and such. Will we be here to see it. Our economic structure can only ride high for so long. I try to look at the glass half full...though it is hard!

[Annorax]

[quote] One thing we have to remember is that the end of the world as been coming since it began. Figuratively and literally speaking. Every generation has their own end of the world. I hope that does not come true. And I do feel that are resources are limited as well as our Fiat. It makes you really question putting money into retirement accounts and such. Will we be here to see it. Our economic structure can only ride high for so long. I try to look at the glass half full...though it is hard! Howetzer, I know what you mean. Anything that has a beginning must also carry with it an end. That which is truly timeless has no beginning and no end. In a sense, of course our ‘earth’ will END. 10 billion years from now it will be fried crispy from the sun going red giant. And in a sense, our own ‘subjective’ world is also coming to an end. I’m 20, and if I expect to live to 80, then that end will come in approx 60 years or so. But THIS is different. Growing up as a kid I was always taught that each generation is and should be better than the last. I believed naively that living standards would always go up no matter what. Everything has an end, but I just didn’t expect THIS one coming so fast so quick. It makes me feel that my parents had it better, how unlucky that the prime of earth was but a short 50 years. I can always live in my dreams.

[Howie]

Is the source reliable? If this is in fact true, it is unnerving to say the least. I have however seen this speculated from one end to the other. One source will come out and say there are regions below some ocean levels, Saudi Arabia, and the yucatan Peninsula as well as Alaska have boutiful surplus. The process used to scan for oil seems to be a little off, if you will. Either way the way growth in proceeding we have to realize that our outsourcing will overcome our resourcing at some point. I believe we need to find alternatives to energy efficiency and production. Solar, wind, grains etc.

[Annorax]

The site claims that it has been quoted in Congress by Congressman Roscoe Bartlett (Republican, Maryland) speaking to US House of Rep. Approximately 30 minutes into his presentation, Representative Bartlett stated: What now? Where do we go now? One observer, Matt Savinar, who has thoroughly researched the options, and this is not the most optimistic assessment, by the way, but may be somewhat realistic, he starts out by saying, Dear Readers, civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon. This is not the wacky proclamation of a doomsday cult, apocalypse Bible sect or conspiracy theory society. Rather, it is the scientific conclusion of the best-paid, most widely respected geologists, physicists and investment bankers in the world. These are rational, professional, conservative individuals who are absolutely terrified by the phenomenon known as global peak oil." Later, Congressmean Bartlett concluded by saying: Is there any reason to remain optimistic or hopeful? Let me go back to Matt Savinar, that not-too-optimistic journalist. "If what you mean is there any way technology or the market or brilliant scientists or comprehensive government programs are going to hold things together or solve this for me or allow for business to continue as usual, the answer is no. On the other hand, if what you really mean is is there any way that I still can have a happy, fulfilling life, in spite of some clearly grim facts, the answer is yes. But it is going to require a lot of work, a lot of adjustments, and probably a bit of good fortune on your part.'' full transcript of Represtentative Bartlett's presentation (video recording): http://www.energybulletin.net/5080.html I know its a LONG article, but if you read the whole thing it really all starts to make sense. (but not in a good way)

[Sortilegio]

Dude, you are worring over nothing, I live in a country wich has one of the biggest reserves today in the world, and I'm telling you that is not going to happen any time soon, the declines on wich that document speaks fails to mention alot of the political stress that had to do with it, most cause of the USs explotion of the oil, one thing you have to understand is that it is a business as much as it is a resource, and it has to be controled and calculated on its use and sell, if wars over oil blast like: israel, iran, saudi arabia, kuwait, irak, etc. the oil production of those countries, even although they have a treaty(check the OPEP), changes into a new benefactor who pursues its individual expences, and business exchanges. Its a valuable resource, and it is a limited one, so in sorts to speak, it depends alot on whos hands it is on, but for that there also exists treatys wich are very scaled to the use of this resource, ofcourse if its overlooked, and violated, sold just for money and not for the actual real need, then it changes everything, if countries get invaded for this pourpose, violating the use and demand of oil, then the scales won't favor everyone, and specially the earth. So if you are really worried, then next time you use a car just for a joy ride, think about it, the next time someone invades a culture, protest, etc.

[Neruo]

Nah, just america is screwed. Cars can drive on palm oil. Nuclear energy and solar engery will be able to make fuel cells or hydrogen to keep cars and such driving. Caring about the evironment is stupid, we are going to burn the oil all up anyway. America just by far the most. Becouse america is an asshole. Good thing they are getting owned the most when the oil runs short. Europe and asia will cope.

[Annorax]

1. Pesticides are made from oil; 2. Commercial fertilizers are made from ammonia, which is made from natural gas, which will peak about 10 years after oil peaks; Without Pesticides and fertilizers our world can only support at most 1 billion people, that means 5 billion people will have to die! our population is aritifically inflated and cannot sustain itself once cheap oil energy has been used up!!!! 3. With the exception of a few experimental prototypes, all farming implements such as tractors and trailers are constructed and powered using oil; 4. Food storage systems such as refrigerators are manufactured in oil-powered plants, distributed across oil-powered transportation networks and usually run on electricity, which most often comes from natural gas or coal; 5. In the US, the average piece of food is transported almost 1,500 miles before it gets to your plate. In Canada, the average piece of food is transported 5,000 miles from where it is produced to where it is consumed. In short, people gobble oil like two-legged SUVs. The numbers don't get any prettier if we scrap the fuel cells and go with straight hydrogen. According to a recent article in Nature, entitled "Hydrogen Economy Looks Out of Reach:" Converting every vehicle in the United States to hydrogen power would demand so much electricity that the country would need enough wind turbines to cover half of California or 1,000 extra nuclear power stations. As mentioned previously, solar, wind, or nuclear energy can be used to "crack" hydrogen from water via a process known as electrolysis. The electrolysis process is a simple one, but unfortunately it consumes more energy than it produces. This has nothing to do with the costs and everything to do with the immutable laws of thermodynamics. Nuclear energy requires uranium, which is problematic because uranium will soon be in short supply. Uranium supply issues aside, nuclear energy (like solar and wind) is not an economically or energetically feasible transportation fuel. Put simply, you can't power your car with a nuclear reactor in the trunk. Biofuels such as biodiesel, ethanol, methanol etc. are great, but only in small doses. Biofuels are all grown with massive fossil fuel inputs (pesticides and fertilizers) and suffer from horribly low, sometimes negative, EROEIs. The production of ethanol, for instance, requires six units of energy to produce just one. That means it consumes more energy than it produces and thus will only serve to compound our energy deficit. The coal supply is not as great as many assume. Even a 50-75 year supply of coal is not as much as it sounds because coal production, like oil production, will peak long before the total supply is exhausted. Were we to liquefy a large portion of our coal endowment in order to produce synthetic oil, coal production would likely peak within 2 decades. In short, the US has built it's entire infrastructure and way of life under the assumption oil would always be cheap and plentiful. To put this in context, you must remember that estimates of the long-term carrying capacity of Earth with relatively optimistic assumptions about consumption, technologies, and equity (A x T), are in the vicinity of two billion people. Today's population cannot be sustained on the 'interest' generated by natural ecosystems, but is consuming its vast supply of natural capital -- especially deep, rich agricultural soils, 'fossil' groundwater, and biodiversity -- accumulated over centuries to eons. In some places soils, which are generated on a time scale of centimeters per century are disappearing at rates of centimeters per year. Some aquifers are being depleted at dozens of times their recharge rates, and we have embarked on the greatest extinction episode in 65 million years The sudden -- and surprising -- end of the fossil fuel age will stun everyone -- and kill billions. Once the truth is told about gas and oil (it's just a matter of time), your life will change forever. Envision a world where freezing, starving people burn everything combustible -- everything from forests (releasing CO2; destroying topsoil and species); to garbage dumps (releasing dioxins, PCBs, and heavy metals); to people (by waging nuclear, biological, chemical, and conventional war); and you have seen the future. additional note: While the Middle East countries find themselves targets in the "war on terror", China, Russia, and Latin America find themselves targets in the recently declared and much more expansive "war on tyranny." Whereas the "war on terror" is really a war for control of the world's oil reserves, this newly declared "war on tyranny" is really a war for control of the world's oil distribution and transportation chokepoints. This type of large-scale, long-term warfare will likely require a massive expansion of the military draft. It's probably not a coincidence that the director of the Selective Service recently gave a presentation to Congress in which he recommended the military draft be extended to both genders, ages 18-35. The strategy - as distasteful as it may be - is characterized by a Machiavellian logic. Given the thermodynamic deficiencies of the alternatives to oil, the complexity of a large scale switch to these new sources of energy, and the wrenching economic and social effects of a declining energy supply, you can see why our leaders view force as the only viable way to deal with the coming crisis.

[Sortilegio]

If you belive everything you read then I think thats your problem. If you analize that text it is very much like terroristic, it is mostly lies and boring of fear of loss of material life , Its more stupid even that it mentions Machiavelo, being this tipes of text and terroristic views that change masses opinions on things in other to achive a goal like war. The US goverment has been the biggest cause of all oil depletion, the US goverment has never showed in all this years, and specially now, any interest in oil that pursues a logical demand exchange, but has always been wasting it for money. Your source of this is mostly crap, and pointed towards terrorizing the reader, as it seems has worked for you, but if you are just worried that in the future your materialistic life will change, then you won't learn nothing. Find diferent sources, study a bit the wars that have been going on for the last 40 years, and then reason what you are reading, instead of believing that in the future most people are going to die because there is no oil.

[InTheMoment]

So it was a bad idea to buy (rather than lease) my stretch Hummer?

[Neruo]

Originally posted by InTheMoment So it was a bad idea to buy (rather than lease) my stretch Hummer? Nah, I am sure that when the oil runs out china has grown that much in population you can just hire a few chins to pull your strech hummer, for a buck a day.

[dudesuperior]

Stop being to pessimistic! We will find an alternative energy source sooner or later, and if we don't then 5 billion people die, and we can resume with resources we have http://www.bible.ca/pre-date-setters.htm The end is coming, be happy And I wouldn't believe eveything that this article says. It simply puts up a big front by saying 'Deal With Reality or Reality Will Deal With You' and 'Civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon', while much of it's arguement is opinion, and clearly VERY bias, leaving out all the information that goes against the writer's own opinion and message. I'm sure much of this could be disarmed with regard to an equally bias but opposite view point of this topic. But the resources are definitely going to run out. We've got to learn to stop bumming the oil fields dry and use something else.

[wombing]

its hard to know what to make of peak oil. i have a very intelligent friend (who is solidly against unbased conspiracy theories or general bullshit) who swears by it, and thinks the world economy will crash within the next 20 years. from what i've seen, there will eventually be a major change in the way the world operates as a result of oil depletion. chances are it will cause suffering, but in the end it will probably be very beneficial. thin out the world population, force us to find renewable, sustainable energy sources and fully integrate them into societies, perhaps make some arrogant shitheads realize they don't know everything, etc. oil is the lifeblood of the industrial-military structure. perhaps 'peak oil' will be the greatest catastrophe and greatest blessing of the modern age all in one...time will tell

[stormcrow]

peak oil could be bad and its outright ignorant to think that this way of life (the western consumer culture) is gonna last forever but i think soil erosion is going to be detrimental to civilization. 10 million hectares (almost 37,000 square miles) of land is becoming unarable a year due to soil erosion caused by overgrazing ,deforestation, rain, etc. Over the past 40 years, 30 percent of the world's arable land has become unproductive. But the number of mouths to feed just keeps going up. I personally want civilization to collapse. I mean millions of years of evolution has lead most of our species to staring at a glowing box when we get off work?

[Maria92]

Without Pesticides and fertilizers our world can only support at most 1 billion people, that means 5 billion people will have to die! our population is aritifically inflated and cannot sustain itself once cheap oil energy has been used up!!!! 5 out of 6 people I meet piss me the fuck off. Good riddance. ...in all reality, standard economics dictates that we will never drill the last barrel of oil. As it becomes more and more scarce, the price will inflate and alternatives will start to look damn appealing. At most, we're going to cause irreparable harm to the environment via global warming. If anything is going to kill off 5 billion people, it's going to be massive floods and severe droughts brought about from climate change. Pesticides can be manufactured from the essential oils derived from rosemary and other herbs. Fertilizers can be made from seaweed. These options cost more at the moment, but if they become more popular, you can bet on kelp nurseries and oregano farms. We've shown that unmodified diesel engines will run on either filtered vegetable oil or hydrogen pumped directly into the carburetor. Electrolysis may take in more energy than it puts out, but if what you're aiming to do is convert one renewable source of energy into another that can be transported elsewhere, it isn't that bad an option. Run electrolysis plants on the solar energy of the Sahara Desert, then ship it to Greenland. Solar energy is already cheaper than nuclear. I wouldn't be surprised if fields of solar panels start going up before too long. Ethanol has been a lost cause in America since day one. In countries where sugarcane grows like grass, it actually is more efficient to produce and use biofuels. War has been ongoing since the dawn of man. We're still here, aren't we? The only thing I would be concerned about is a mass epidemic of a nasty and very lethal virus. We really don't have the infrastructure to take care of something like that, and I doubt we will anytime soon. Something like that could easily wipe out a few hundred million people, potentially even billions.

[stormcrow]

5 out of 6 people I meet piss me the fuck off. Good riddance. ...in all reality, standard economics dictates that we will never drill the last barrel of oil. As it becomes more and more scarce, the price will inflate and alternatives will start to look damn appealing. At most, we're going to cause irreparable harm to the environment via global warming. If anything is going to kill off 5 billion people, it's going to be massive floods and severe droughts brought about from climate change. Pesticides can be manufactured from the essential oils derived from rosemary and other herbs. Fertilizers can be made from seaweed. These options cost more at the moment, but if they become more popular, you can bet on kelp nurseries and oregano farms. We've shown that unmodified diesel engines will run on either filtered vegetable oil or hydrogen pumped directly into the carburetor. Electrolysis may take in more energy than it puts out, but if what you're aiming to do is convert one renewable source of energy into another that can be transported elsewhere, it isn't that bad an option. Run electrolysis plants on the solar energy of the Sahara Desert, then ship it to Greenland. Solar energy is already cheaper than nuclear. I wouldn't be surprised if fields of solar panels start going up before too long. Ethanol has been a lost cause in America since day one. In countries where sugarcane grows like grass, it actually is more efficient to produce and use biofuels. War has been ongoing since the dawn of man. We're still here, aren't we? The only thing I would be concerned about is a mass epidemic of a nasty and very lethal virus. We really don't have the infrastructure to take care of something like that, and I doubt we will anytime soon. Something like that could easily wipe out a few hundred million people, potentially even billions. I agree we are already finding and implementing alternatives for oil. btw you mentioned viruses? "Erosion increases the amount of dust carried by wind, which not only acts as an abrasive and air pollutant but also carries about 20 human infectious disease organisms, including anthrax and tuberculosis."www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/03/060322141021.htm

[Thatperson]

While we may cope with peak oil, we've got peak gas and peak uranium. So we'll be 99% dependant on renewables, which is quite doable within the time frame we have. The other thing is peak metals. ‘Peak metal’ problems loom, warns scientist - The National Newspaper Before reading I hadn't even considered the consequences that would have on the production of renewables, so many 99% isn't so achievable.

[dajo]

Omg, we went back in time. Also: Consumerism 'doomed', investment forum told - Times Online

[Spartiate]

We already have what we need to replace internal combustion engines and petroleum-based power plants. All we need is to find a replacement for plastics.

[Epic Altruist]

From the site: By 2010, predicts Leggett, democracy will be on the run . . . economic hardship will bring out the worst in people. Fascists will rise, feeding on the anger of the newly poor and whipping up support. These new rulers will find the tools of repression -- emergency laws, prison camps, a relaxed attitude toward torture -- already in place, courtesy of the war on terror. Considering we are not at this point yet,I imagine the predictions on the site are at least very pessimist.

[Xei]

Epic necrooo. Considering we are not at this point yet,I imagine the predictions on the site are at least very pessimist. You kind of are though. A relaxed attitude to torture was created in the Bush era. Large prison camps are being constructed. I don't know if you have any emergency laws yet. And many families are in dire straits. ...in all reality, standard economics dictates that we will never drill the last barrel of oil. As it becomes more and more scarce, the price will inflate and alternatives will start to look damn appealing. At most, we're going to cause irreparable harm to the environment via global warming. There's no reason standard economics should work for the optimum benefit of humanity. The entire economic system is based on the axiom of cheap energy and materials, so to use that system to make predictions about what would happen without such resources is flawed. The main concern is that it takes too long to implement the structures you talk about, which are essentially about changing the entire economy of society. These things don't happen quickly. When oil production starts to fall, it will do so at an exponentially increasing rate. It could only take a couple of years between the fall being noticed and economic collapses. Economics does not trump physics. I think mankind is inherently resourceful and may in time overcome this, but I am fairly certain there are going to be extremely hard times not so far along the road before (if) things recover. There are various signs that the beginning of these events is upon us. The peak in prices in 2008 was a huge event, the likes of which had never been seen before. It's only two years on and oil prices are already shooting back up. This behaviour is very unsettling. It looks very much like demand has exceeded supply and we're seeing the start of large amounts of volatility in the markets; different culprits are being named for the economic situation, but I think the underlying one could be being overlooked. The fact of the matter is that ever since mankind discovered a seemingly limitless supply of energy, the population model has directly corresponded to an infinite-resource model, that is to say, exponential growth. Oil is an amazing substance; essentially fossilised sunlight built up over millions of years. It has a remarkable energy density. When it runs out, I think it's an untenable assumption to say that we'll find something else. The population of Earth may simply be too high; and, as any transition that takes place will clearly not take a lifetime to do so, this would imply mass starvation. A lot of your ideas are based on replacing fertilisers, pesticides, and fuel with biological alternatives. The obvious problem is that if you need food, the last thing you want to do is change your field from wheat to something else in the hope of boosting wheat production. When the oil runs low, the food runs low. Are we going to start planting biofuel crops then, displacing arable land? Electrolysis has never been about generating energy; it's just a form of battery. You can essentially ignore it. But where is all of this energy coming from to power transport? Countries don't have any excess power-generating infrastructure, and it takes a good decade to build more from scratch. And who built all of these hydrogen cells anyway? And using what surplus energy? This is the thing; it's a quantitative problem, not qualitative. And that's why nobody can be completely sure what'll happen.