Bradley Novicoff of Dangerous Minds writes about Collapse, a new documentary by Chris Smith (American Movie, The Yes Men) about impending global doom, which Variety called "an intellectual horror movie" that's "unnervingly persuasive much of the time, and merely riveting when it's not."
From Apple's Trailer site:
Americans generally like to hear good news. They like to believe that a new President will right old wrongs, that clean energy will replace dirty oil, and that fresh thinking will set the economy straight. American pundits tend to restrain their pessimism and to hope for the best. But is anyone prepared for the worst? Michael Ruppert is a different kind of American. He predicted the current financial crisis in his self-published newsletter "From the Wilderness" at a time when most Wall Street and Washington analysts were still in denial.The Coming Collapse With Michael RuppertSitting in a room that looks like a bunker, Ruppert recounts his career as a radical thinker and spells out the crises he sees ahead. He draws upon the same news reports and data available to any Internet user, but he applies a unique interpretation. He is especially passionate over the issue of "peak oil," the concern raised by scientists since the 1970s that the world will eventually run out of fossil fuel. While other experts debate this issue in measured tones, Ruppert doesn't hold back at sounding an alarm. He portrays a future that resembles apocalyptic science fiction. Listening to his rapid flow of opinions, the viewer is likely to question some of the rhetoric as paranoid or deluded; and to sway back and forth on what to make of the extremism. Smith lets viewers form their own judgments.
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ooooh Art Bell and Alex Jones made a movie? cool!
Sorry, but as oil runs out (10, 100 years, who knows when?),alternative energy prices will fall in line with what people can afford. What good is a supply when people demand but cannot pay?
unicorns please.
I suspect he is spot on. Unless an alternative to oil is in place before peak oil hits, the game is over. Try to imagine 20 dollar a gallon gas, and the effect that would have on society. Economic collapse, apocalyptic starvation in developed countries let alone the developing world, and an inability to convert to an alternative source ever because the alternatives need a functioning economy to be put in place are all completely possible. And the current estimates of when peak oil will hit depend on the honesty of the figures provided by folks like our good friends the Saudis, who have a large economic incentive to lie about new reserves. If they have been systemically exaggerating new oil reserves for the last couple of decades (inconceivable!) peak oil could be, oh, now.
Oil won't disappear overnight. It will gradually become more scarce and more expensive, until it reaches the prices of the alternatives that will replace it. Energy will likely get more expensive, then steadily less so. I am persuaded that peak oil is pretty much upon us, just not that it will be the apocolypse.
I have been feeding my neighbors in preparation for this, they are starting to look tasty firm with a good marbling of fat. I hope they don't read this post,,,
all alternative sources are highly dependent on oil in one way or another at this point.
I suspect that we'll extract enough petroleum from tar/oil sands to feed our addiction for a while yet, and damn the environmental damage:
Athabasca Oil Sands
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athabasca_Oil_Sands
Orinoco Belt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orinoco_Belt
Why, if we'd only have the sense to bring our troops home from the Middle East ... maybe we could afford to occupy some country closer to home.
This isn't strictly on-topic to Peak Oil, but speaking of invading Canada, see also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Plan_Red
Peak Oil is just one of the many axes that Ruppert grinds. More interesting, I think, are his assertions about the CIA, drugs, and money laundering:
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/ssci.shtml
The gradual slope on the other side of peak oil relies on the data on new reserves being accurate, and that producing countries haven't been pumping it out as fast as they can sink new wells while not actually finding the new reserves they have been reporting. Saudi Arabia, whose oil production under international treaties is directly tied to how many new reserves they find has been reporting exactly as many new reserves found as the oil they have been selling for many years now, with no form of auditing to ensure the accuracy of their reports. If the new reserves found are significantly less than what they have been reporting, the other side of the oil peak isn't a gradual slope, it's a cliff. We're playing a very dangerous game here.
I do not believe that the question is if oil will vanish over night, the question is whether oil prices will rocket to an unsustainable price long enough for our oil-based society to completely shit itself.
-- MrJM
it's nice to see people so trusting that when oil runs out there will be an alternative for replacement.
wind,solar, tidal and geothermal may eventually meet our domestic needs, but what will aeroplanes and ships use, batteries?
even the batteries for our cars will require massive industry to produce, and so far the only conceivable source able to supply industry enough power is nuclear, and then there's the problem of waste disposal with that option, let alone the toxicity of battery waste.
it's not enough to hope that when it's needed something else will come along to save the day. we all need to use less now, and lobby the necessary political offices to treat the problem as critical and to divert money away from where it's being wasted currently, to fund massive research into solving the problem before (as jim put it) "the whole sh*thouse goes up in flames.
alright! alriight!"
Oil is a naturally occurring byproduct of our planet. It is not a "fossil fuel", that is, something produced by dead organisms. This is one of the truths that is not told to the public. Why tell them the truth when the lie allows one to profit endlessly and, at the same time, fear-monger about impending doom related to fuel shortages and the nonsensical peak oil argument.
While I do think that we will face a global meltdown of one sort or the other soon, I am not going to allow Mike Ruppert to lead the chants toward a peak oil style meltdown. He's just helping rich people become more rich.
@redpiller#11
Could you further explain what it is you mean by oil not coming from fossil fuels. Right now it's unclear what you mean by it being "a naturally occurring byproduct" of the planet. Are you making the point that oil is not in fact finite?
The fundamental issue is not the price of oil (or the price of any form of energy for that matter), it is energy return on energy invested (EROEI)- meaning if it takes a barrel of oil's worth of energy to extract a barrel of oil, the price of that barrel of oil is meainingless. There is no energy gain, so there is no reason to extract the barrel of oil. The energy accounting will always (eventually) trump monetary accounting.
How will alternative energy prices fall much? The technology relies on relatively rare elements and the it shows no possible breakthoughs for any forseeable future. Also, as long as the human population grows and the worlds poor demand US levels of consumption no sceheme will ever keep up with it for food, energy, etc.
Hoping for some magic technology to bail us out is like hoping for the second coming of Christ to save us.
I tend to see Ruppert's POV as informed largely by his experience as a police officer. Many of the cops I know take a very dim view of human beings in any large number. Whether that's a fair assessment or not, I can't say, but its a mindset my friends and family in law enforcement take quite a bit. My Godfather predicted "blood on the streets" if Bush was re-elected.
Future-casting is dicey business, and suffers as much from the observer effect as anything else. Ruppert, and others like him, talking fear can create fear. And fearful people don't make good decisions.
I'm 30 and within my lifetime I know that air-travel is going to get more expensive, but living off the grid will get a lot cheaper. Certain cities and areas are going to suffer from the effects of climatic change, and resource depletion. I've never worked at a job I couldn't get to easily by public transit or bike. Trying to live a sustainable life, mindful of the pitfalls and perils that could come isn't a new thing. If anything, it's a return to sanity after a drunken night out high on cheap oil.
Yes, my neighbors could go wodwo and start trying to feast on me and mine in an orgy of violence and apocalyptic wrath straight out of a Romero film. But I can only control myself and my decisions. Getting more people to be aware of that is more important than fear-mongering and conspiracy dithering.
If abiogenesis is correct and there is some massive untapped source of deep oil out there, how do you explain the fact that despite increases in efforts and expenditures to find new reserves and much better technology to do so new oil discovery has been steadily decreasing for the last half century? Have they been lying about that as well?
Didn't we hit peak oil in 1979, and then again in 1995(ish), and again a couple of years ago? and then again in 2012. It really just acts a way to divide the people, and keep them from resolving the problem together as a community.
Clarence Wurley put it best, "It's better to have a gun and not need it, than to need a gun and not have it."
Without oil, things will change, and the structures we exist in will change pretty dramatically. Perhaps the fall of American Democracy, or global boundaries, or your neighbors Elm tree, none of us can truly tell. Not even the big guy behind the curtain who's rubbing hand hands together maniacally.
But the underlying point is this... Be self sufficient, self dependable, self defendable and you won't have to worry about the world going to pot.
Peak oil is a pretty lame apocalyptic nightmare scenario.
Easy peak oil solutions:
A) We can use nuclear power, and wait a few thousands years before peak-Thorium, peak-Uranium, etc.
B) We can convert coal to petroleum (although that is particularly nasty when it comes to CO2 emissions) and wait 100 years for peak-anthracite.
Neither are up for consideration right now, because we are nowhere near peak oil yet.
I have thought about peak oil for years. Everything in every supermarket was brought there by diesel trucks, and when the price of diesel goes up, so does the cost of canned corn. And when that happens we will find our backyard and community gardens suddenly empty one morning. And then the one positive-- all our cities will be completely free from delicious rats and pigeons.
How do we really know how much oil is underground? It's all semi-educated guesswork.
Yeah, I've heard this before. . . maybe coal (which often has visible dead plant matter in it) is also a naturally occurring byproduct of our planet unrelated to dead organisms. The abiogenic theory of petroleum is more about wishful thinking and conspiracy theory than science, but even if petroleum were formed by something other than biomass, the Earth is not infinite, so the question remains: are we using oil up faster than it is being created underground through whatever natural processes you prefer?
I love these so called "prophets". "Everything we said was going to happen is happening right now." I only have one thing to say about these self proclaimed "experts".....why aren't they putting their money where there mouths are? So he predicted the current economic crisis? If that was the case why didn't he take advantage of his prescient knowledge? Why didn't he profit enormously from it as did a few hedge funds who saw the mortgage meltdown coming? Anyone who knows what their talking about doesn't spend their time putting together dramatic movie trailers trying to sensationalize their predictions. They remain in the background, unknown, extremely wealthy and always one step ahead of the game without broadcasting their views. This guys trying to leverage his career as a journalist. He's not an investor, trader or economist nor should he be given any credence when he brags about his so called predictions. All he had to do was short 100 S&P futures contracts before this mess with the help of his crystal ball and he'd be retired on an island if he wanted.
Interesting point, Desmo. That's probably true, but maybe he didn't have enough money to short stocks in the first place. A lot of smart people are terrible when it comes to personal finance.
Oil is a naturally occurring byproduct of our planet. It is not a "fossil fuel", that is, something produced by dead organisms.
Can you provide some credible citations for that extraordinary claim?
Abiogenic petroleum origin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin
Talk page for same, lots of damning criticism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Abiogenic_petroleum_origin
I think that the abiogenesis theory is probably worthless at best, perhaps an outright deliberate fraud.
In any case, ill lich #17 and others make a good point -- even if abiogenesis is true, the question remains: is petroleum being produced fast enough to replace what we're extracting? Sure doesn't look that way to me.
I'm pretty sure that someone with a crystal ball would be living on a mountaintop, not an island.
nah, that whole global warming thing is a lie to get the riff-raff off the islands and away from the beaches
I hear what you're saying Mark. But you have to be suspicious. The industry is exploding with "experts" who make all their money writing books and selling seminars to people telling them how it's done and the way things really are. Ironically these people don't make a dime actually practicing what they preach. They get rich from the naive and others looking for guidance. You have to tune them out and have a logical business plan in place.
Regarding the money issue there is always a way. For example you can easily open up a futures account with as little as $500 with many smaller brokers and the leverage provided is enormous. It's a great way to blow out your account in a day but if you're so sure about what the future holds it's a very viable option available to anyone with a very modest amount of cash.
I just don't buy these guys who sit on the side lines and then decide to toot their horns after the fact.
So I wonder if he's positioning himself financially on the eve of this impending global meltdown? The only thing being postioned is this film/documentary.
Not another campaigning American documentary! I'm getting sick of seeing these things - not all documentaries need to be 'big' issues and be handled without any subtlety whatsoever.
Even though the issues are really worthy, the way the makers over-compensate to get the audiences attention is really annoying. Important issues rarely equals a great film. I'll hold a stopwatch before this film resorts to emotive schmaltz over making a comprehensive arguments proven by facts. This sort of thing gives the environmental movement a bad name.
Step away from the ISSUES.
Leave them to the BBC - Ha!
Many people who saw this coming are indeed sitting pretty. I have a friend who's sitting on a mountain in Italy right now as a result. My own gold and silver investments haven't done too badly. (If you bought silver last fall, you've nearly doubled your money.)
Others saw it but stayed out of the market because they (rightfully) understood that many of the market players are corrupt. Being right about general economic principles doesn't really help you unless you're enough of an insider to know exactly who's paying off whom. It's one thing to know that Lehman and AIG are making bad bets, it's another thing entirely to know which of the two will get bailed out, and which will be left to fail. There are many banks paying out bonuses today that are walking dead, and would be dead if the law was being enforced evenly.
Add to that the fact that people who are generally cautious enough to be worried about this kind of thing are not exactly the type to be levering themselves up. It's the reverse of the reason that people who win the lottery are often bad with money - if they were good with money, they wouldn't have been playing the lottery. But that means they won't win big either. Don't look to your big winners and losers to find people with accurate vision, look to the ones who made modest bets and ended up comfortable while everyone else is starving.
@jockmac 22 (#18)
"Didn't we hit peak oil in 1979, and then again in 1995(ish), and again a couple of years ago? and then again in 2012"
US oil reserves peaked in the 70's, now we're talking about world reserves.
Having not seen the film I can tell you it is nothing but balderdash.
Well, he seems to have been right on the money about Afghanistan.
The abiogenic petroleum Wiki is a good start, although it doesn't go far enough. Their is a lot of anecdotal evidence of oil companies capping their drills so that only a certain amount of oil is put into distribution. I live in northern Canada around the big oil patches and talking to the guys in the patch, the problem isn't lack of reserves, but the companies are only interested in taking a certain amount out.
I realize this isn't a very convincing claim, but let me just start there. Anecdotal evidence only goes so far.
The theory holds that petroleum is natural product of planetary chemistry and was likely deposited at the earth's inception or generated by some little known chemical process deep within the earth. This is obviously in opposition to the "fossil" origin of petroleum. The abiogenic theory explains the process of petroleum production from the upwelling of and condensation of methane from deep within the Earth's mantle.
It is claimed that this accounts for some of the often ignored properties of petroleum (presence of helium being one example). This is a controversial theory given that petroleum producers likely want to maintain the belief that their product is "rare" and deserves a high price. In the extreme, the promoted "fossil" theory of petroleum has brought about the eugenic "Peak Oil" movement which has co-opted much of green, environmentalist and primitivism movements with the goal of necessitating a "mass die-off" for the "betterment" of elites.
One man who took this theory, started by the Russian scientists mentioned in the Wiki, was Thomas Gold. You can find an analysis of his work here - http://tinyurl.com/yl7voqm
He was not afraid to tackle controversy as a scientist. He was one of the original developers of the Steady State theory of the Universe along with Hoyle and Bondi. He also believed that the earth's rotational axis is unstable over time and that these changes can be due to changes in the earth's distribution of mass which could be brought on by glaciers, upwelling of mountains or meteor impacts. He also believed in theory of panspermia and that bacterial life could exist within some of the planets as well as within comets. All of this along with his above mentioned views on abiogenic petroleum must have made him quite a thorn in the side of the establishment.
Also, one interesting paper written by Gold is his theory of earthquakes. Of all of his controversial theories, this one seems to be touched upon the least - at least from what I have seen. In a prior paper, Gold describes how oil and gas fields are often associated with earthquake laden zones. A good example of this is the Indonesian island arc and the petroleum deposits that overlay this zone.
In a newsletter by Dave McGowan (http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr71.html), he shows that this relationship between petroleum and earthquakes holds true for California as well. So what do we make of the fact that we find petroleum and natural gas in earthquake zones? Thomas Gold hypothesizes that in some cases earthquakes may be caused to the movement of large gas volumes below the surface of the earth, particularly methane gas.
Their is obviously a lot of opposition to this idea because of who stands to lose, financially and even politically, from a public acknowledgment that oil is not in short supply. You see, government tax on car gas is calculated as a percentage of gas price. The higher the government-linked oil companies push the gas price, the more money is sequestered into government coffers. And we all know that this peak oil nonsense started Bush and his oil cronies were in office.
Also, scientists who want any kind of money for research are not going to be getting any if they decide they want to research the merits of abiogenic petroleum. You may brand me a conspiracy nut for thinking all this, but the fact is that money and power will always be able to silence the truth, even more so now that power is in the hands of so few.
Did we really go through this many comments and have no one mention that The Onion is quoted in the trailer?
And we all know that this peak oil nonsense started Bush and his oil cronies were in office.
You are so far from reality here you're not even wrong.
redpiller,
Credible citations. Not nutjob conspiracy newsletters.
Holocaust mentioned in the first sentence of the trailer. You may now safely disregard this entire video. I fear for internal combustion engines, not the human race, we're as tough as cockroaches and hostas combined.
Too bad the reviewer at the Apple website didn't understand peak oil. It's not "running out" of oil but that the costs of obtaining new oil keep rising until the energy input>energy output (energy defined both thermodynamically and indirectly by economic activities).
I've been following Ruppert for many years and he's been pretty spot on not only regarding oil and gold but many other global and national issues. Sometimes he's been a bit ahead in his predictions but better to be prepared. I wish I'd had the wherewithal to become more financially prepared given the lead time I've had, but I am thankful for the psychological preparation I've at had at least. Coming to know that the future won't be like I was brought up to believe in the propagandized great industrialist era of American/world history has been a shock akin to the stages of grief. And like those stages, I've come to finally accept and prepare as best I can for the future that seems to be unfolding. It's the death of an ideology, and our society as a whole is still full of people in total denial.
While I may not entirely agree with what he says, the cinematography in that single clip is incredible.
I apologize for being off topic, I'm a film geek.
So this guy predicted that the real-estate bubble would burst? That's the source of his cred? Holy shit, stop the presses, it's Nostra-damn-damus for the twenty-first century, here to tell us when the shit's really going down. Paul Krugman would send you his Nobel but no fuel for those FedEx planes, so sorry, we'll find an extra-big chocolate coin for you, and after you're done with the candy you can make a little hat out of the foil.
Look. We've been through this before with James Howard Kunstler's Clusterfuck Nation, making fun of all those nerds who think that silly-ass things like "renewable fuels" and "hybrid vehicles" and so forth will ever work, and won't you feel like a right prat when Helter Skelter comes down on your ass? Thus, you have gems like this entry from April that discusses H1N1 in terms of "If the flu is the real deal, it will surely drive a stake through the faintly-beating heart of that invalid global economy", and advises "It would not be such a bad idea now to lay in supplies of beans, brown rice, cooking oil, onions, and toilet paper." I am, of course, reading this just as supplies of the vaccine are starting to be administered around here in fly-over country. How's that brown rice, Jim?
Do we still have the chance for a Grim Meathook Future (™ Warren Ellis)? Sure. Is oil probably in limited and shrinking supply? You bet. Will we be able to carry on business as usual indefinitely, or even for more than a couple of generations? I doubt it. Are we fucked beyond our ability to change the situation for the better? The experience of the eradication of the Black Plague, smallpox, and polio, survival of the Great Depression and defeat of Nazi Germany, and the decline and breakup of Creed all tend to make a better argument than the fulminations of Frothy McRantystein.
In the greedy, short-term view ... what if I burn two barrels of your oil to pump up one gallon of my oil ...? "After I'm dead the world can go to Hell, but until then I need to eat your flesh," or something like that.
So when is this supposed to happen? 2012? I had no idea the Myans were such expert geophysicists and petroleum engineers.
Seriously, way too many Chicken Littles, all warning me about the rain of acorns about to strike. I've hit overload, and I just don't give a damn anymore.
You answered your own question desmo ... he's primarily a journalist not an investor. He probably did buy gold and make some money, but not everyone's prime motivation in life is making more money than his neighbors. When your research shows that something is very likely going to happen, profiting from that knowledge isn't always easy, even when you're right.
@ Mark and Desmo
I've been following Ruppert since when he was talking about drug money before 9/11 fame, read his book, newsletter, seen him talk. The key to understanding why he's not investing in the stock market in the manner suggested by Desmo and playing the games he writes about is because he is aware that these games actually hurt real people and in fact, whole communities.
I agree with Karl Jones when he says
"Peak Oil is just one of the many axes that Ruppert grinds. More interesting, I think, are his assertions about the CIA, drugs, and money laundering:
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/ssci.shtml"
Ruppert has a brilliant breakdown of the reality of black market money's inevitable, unavoidable symbiosis with the mainstream economy.
While we all have our eccentricities and weak points, Mike Ruppert is an exceedingly bright individual who is personally offended by the darker aspects of our economy that tend to go hand in hand with the get-rich-quick-and-at-all-costs strategy that is somehow still viewed as respectable.
All I'm saying is that if oil starts as something else, and it takes a long time to turn from something else into oil, then shouldn't there be a lot of that something else, somewhere out there? And shouldn't it be slowly turning into oil? Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm sure I am oversimplifying, but when I made this point to my 4th grade science teacher, all I got was "No, there's only so much oil and that's it". Poo.
I have to disagree with you here. If he really did have this accurate foresight into the econoclasm why not invest in a manner that demonstrated the accuracy of his predictions? No need to fly off to a chalet on a private jet, he could have donated all his profits to charity and still been seen as the most accurate forecaster of the era.
FTW (heh) seems to be of the ilk that predicts every disaster and then, when one of them invariably does occur takes credit. That's an old bit of flim-flam that psychics have been pulling off for years.
If I said that in the next five years there will be massive unrest in the middle east, outbreaks of exotic new illnesses, economic turmoil in Europe and acts of domestic terrorism both here and abroad I'd likely be proven right. Of course, I'd be "right" about almost any given 5 year span in recent history. Pepper in the latest boogeyman (Al-Queda, Swine Flu, Mortgage Crisis) and you can run a very tidy business selling panic.
Telling people they are doomed is old hat. Freaking people out into buying bug-out bags and big ol' guns isn't productive.
How about getting people excited about dealing with things right now? Make the world better rather than brood anxiously on the possibility of collapse.
Sorry to go on at length, but this kind of negative doomsaying is so profligate these days and, to me at least, it's causing a sense of paralysis among too many people.
And shouldn't it be slowly turning into oil?
Slowly. It takes millions of years to turn into oil. We've used up tens of millions of years' worth of production in a century.
re: Halloween Jack / #40
Right. On.
Seriously folks, this isn't the first time we've heard about EROI and Hubbert peak. If this were 1998, or even 2002, it might be mind-blowing news. Hell, my mind was a little bit blown the first time I read any of Kunstler's stuff. Then I read his Y2K oeuvre.
Please, please look at a variety of sources and not just The Oil Drum/Bulk Ammo/Amish-furnishings sites before you start going all tough-internet-deliverer-of-bad-news on us.
While this looks like another fine bit of pseudo-reality docu-trauma by the wonderfully talented Chris Smith (seriously, American Movie is one of the greatest films of the last 20 years), his protagonist's main fault seems to be the misunderstanding that world events happen in a vacuum. Citing after panic-inducing citing portray issues like peak oil as singular events, absent of all the other forces in the world that will rush to fill and surround it when it actually goes down.
I'm not saying we aren't in for some rough times ahead - indeed I think we are, but it will likely be more complicated, expensive and bizarre than Uncle McCrackpot can imagine.
Well yes, more oil is being made today. The fact is that is that we're pumping it out waaay faster than plants and animals are decaying and becoming oil. To put it another way, your fact is correctly, but completely irrelevant.
Sadly, anonymous is right: it's all about EROEI. The EROEI for oil is ridiculously disproportionate in almost all cases. It's the crackrock of energy sources. Alternative energies' EROEIs are way lower: a mild buzz if you will. There's just no replacement yet, and none in sight. We've burned through our petroleum-based inheritance in just a century, and there's no alternative that we can switch to while maintaining our current energy consumption: a simple, damning fact.
The brown rice is looking good to me. Better than ashes, salt tears, or my own blood.
The world has been facing "certain doom" since before writing existed. That doesn't rule it out 100%, but it also doesn't help to lend any credence to those kind of claims.
When we run out of oil we'll do the same thing we always do in the face of difficultly - adapt. There were plenty of people on bikes, in carpools, and in buses running on woodgas during World War II (because there are examples of people managing with no or little oil). We change to meet the circumstances - that is the one thing that human beings are so good at.
Something being no fun and a pain in the ass is a long way from the total and irrevocable collapse of society. Still, bad news is the only kind of news that sells.
I'm siding with Halloween Jack on this one. His comment about Creed sealed the deal.
The US Navy is currently developing all-electric ships:
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2007/November/Pages/All-Electric2453.aspx
Electric-lift planes, while still in the realm of science fiction, are nonetheless plausible:
"They saw the plane as it swooped. They saw it clearly by the eerie blue glow around its repulsors, gulping vast quantities of air into electrical fields so fierce that were a man to put his arm incautiously within their shining ring he would withdraw a stump after mere seconds."
- John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider
http://vx.netlux.org/lib/mjb01.html
all I can say is that if the apocolypse comes because of something as pathetic and mediocre as oil or the economy, then we deserve it
1) We most likly can replace oil by something else or a combination of something else.
2) If we can not there is vast amount of methane and coaline on Titan who can easily repalce oil.
3) We can scoop Hydrogen from Jupiter and this will give us a virtually infinite supply of combustible and oxygen can be recycled.
4) What worry me though is the decay of human social skills who are becoming more and more selfish and greedy until we possibly got a world war III. This is my real concern.
I am very sure that if we stick together we are going to be fine.
Sorry, but I've got to call out your bit of whistling-past-the-graveyard humbuggery:
If your lesson from, say, WWII is that Nazi Germany was ultimately defeated, then I'd say you're maybe looking too much at the "end" of the narrative. Millions died. Millions more were wounded, displaced, traumatized. Entire political regimes collapsed. Cities burned. Etc. No doubt humans would survive the Peak Oil–Olduvai Cliff slide, but if your examples for this survival are WWII and How The Germans Lost To Teh Good Guyz, you're really not looking at the more interesting (read "nightmarishly chilling") parts of your own historical examples.
Peak oil and other resource depletion issues present the very real possibility that we'd go from postindustrial info-age nanotech levels to hunter-gatherer status in a generation or two: add a dieback of hundreds of millions to all those lights winking out. An extreme worst-case scenario, sure, but that's not survival in any reasonable shape or form. Even the sunnier predictions contain mass, and massively deleterious changes, with a whole lotta death and bloodshed: WWIII maybe? Either way, the "world" as we know it would "end," just like the "world ended" during 1939–45.
sounds like he has anxiety issues
peak oil isn't the only threat we face. polpulation explosion, decreasing arable farmland due to rising oceans, loss of glacial meltwater, droughts, will increase famines, wars, mass exoduses in Asia like we've seen in Africa recently. Years ago they figured the earth could support 7 billion people, max. With less fresh water and arable land, less. Figure polluted oceans with declining fish populations, much less. What's the world population now?, 6.3 billion? It was 4.2 in 1970. We're f***ed. I don't tell my kids that the world is their oyster,(they don't like oysters anyways), i tell them they're screwed. I taught my girls how to fire a gun. Is there hope?, sure. Is it gonna get better before it gets worse?, hell yes.
Oh, and peak oil will be a slope down. Any single well really only has a max 50% recovery rate, new technologies will increase that to 70%. Add in the way more expensive to pump deep water discoveries, and the thawing artic opening up to us....We'll be able to adapt if we act now. Praise Obama for his continued uphill battle in the face of oil prices that fell to 40 to 78 bucks a barrel for renewables resources. There's plenty of wind in the midwest, sun in the south, geothermal in the rockies. all we need is a good grid to move it around to our biggest population centers.
biofuels and hydrogen?? how about nat gas? solar sails? lower air flight demand due to high speed rail systems?there's all kinds of alternatives. there's even bioplastics now.
Your godfather may have predicted "blood on the streets" with a re-election of Bush, but that would be largely baseless and a due to a lack of understanding of people. How would his re-election directly effect the population at large? It wouldn't. However, putting the means for living out of reach for the majority will have an effect.