Peak Oil: Hell or Blessing in Disguise?

http://www.macleans.ca/business/economy/article.jsp?content=20080528_21002_21002

"After cheap oil
Soaring energy costs are about to change everything
JASON KIRBY AND COLIN CAMPBELL | May 28, 2008 |


Back in the 1990s, when Osama bin Laden was still giving interviews to journalists and didn't have a $50-million bounty on his head, one of his biggest grievances with the West was over the price of oil. At around US$30 a barrel, it was far too cheap, he reasoned. The Western world was ruthlessly bleeding the Middle East by not paying fair market value for oil. It had to be stopped. A more appropriate price? At least US$100 a barrel, he once said, maybe even US$200.
Mission accomplished. Suddenly a world in which oil costs well over US$100 a barrel isn't just the dream of a terrorist bent on destroying the United States and its allies. It is reality. Oil recently hit US$135 a barrel, more than double where it was a year ago. And the once unimaginable prospect of oil at US$200 a barrel is gaining currency among the world's most respected oil watchers. Jeff Rubin, chief economist with CIBC World Markets, predicts oil will rocket to that level by 2012. Goldman Sachs figures we'll get there even sooner. Other analysts, meanwhile, have begun to float more startling figures, of oil at US$250, even US$300 a barrel.

The world is now facing an oil crisis few predicted and even fewer are prepared for. It's impossible to understate how crucial cheap oil has become to our way of life. It's shaped how we get our food, what we buy, where we live, how we work, and the way we play. Cheap oil opened up the world to millions of travellers via discount airlines, allowed thousands to buy their first homes in sprawling suburbs, and enabled consumers to get their hands on ever cheaper goods, shipped just in time, from around the globe. Now economists say all of that is at risk. Exactly how the end of cheap oil will change our lives is still far from clear. But change them it will, in profound and dramatic ways. If the price of oil continues to climb to US$200 a barrel, it won't just be that people will have to drive a little bit less or skip the family trip to Disneyland. Across the board the cost of living will explode, not just for luxuries but basic necessities as well. To hear some experts tell it, we're headed for nothing short of Oilmageddon. At the very least, they say, the age of plenty is over. "

While that may sound really terrible, what kinds of consequences would such changes have to our society? Here's how the end of oil can become a new beginning for mankind (don't worry, I will keep it short):

1) More exercise, better health: people will get out of their cars and start walking! Maybe the fat couch potatoes will also survive through that and become healthy. Certainly a good thing
2) Less pollution: no more ridiulous amounts of cars polluting the world. Less airplanes polluting. And so forth.
3) New ways of producing energy: creative ways of producing low-pollution energy will become more and more popular. Investors will want to cash in on that! (Hurray!)
4) Creation of self-sustainable communities: because people will be less able to move long distances, all food will likely be produced in the communities they are sold. This will require us to develop symbiotic ways to live in urban areas that are more healthy and rural at the same time. Tricky.... but possible.
5) Much better values: because of the above, our values will change. We will become less consumerist and enjoy more the company of each other. We may even care less about TV and families will spend more time together.

 

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First of all you have been bought and paid for since day one. Second of all when a business gets to a certain level and involves more than a few push carts they work together. They can set prices to whatever they want, release whatever oprducts they want and there is not a damn thing you can say about it. And is if 'they' are gonna tell you the truth. Get a grip, This belong in pseudoscience.

 

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You make no sense whatsoever. You do realize that, right?

 

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it is designed to make you actually think. all these mega corporations in a specific product line are run by the same people. you think they fight amongst eachother over stupid shit like a bunch of imbeciles? forget it. And like i said- you only know what they want you to know.

 

#2 and #3 seems plausible, but the others are kinda far-fetched. I think that the drop in amount of oil will be gradual enough to where it will not effect society too much because technology will be able to replace gas, or at least partially replace it. We wont run out of oil too soon.

 

It will be very good for rich nations who live in a state of unhealthy excess...and VERY bad for poor nations who live on the edge of survival.

 

Peak oil is a lie. The reason people believe it is because they have been lied to many times over by people who don't know better, ie news stations who report what big business tells them to report. Don't believe peak oil until a reporter who is qualified and honest actually investigates the story and reports independently of what the oil cartels say.

 

You moron, the oil cartels had been denying peak oil until now...Get your story straight first...

 

Who's to say that if the oil really does run out, we won't just start using coal again?

I know coal-fired airplanes is a bit of a stretch, but you never know.

 

"A bit" of a stretch?

 

The world is currently producing 85.9 million bpd.

"Peak Oil Theory is garbage as far as we're concerned." -- Robert Esser

 

It's not the end of oil it's the end of cheap oil. I agree oil prices where a bid low in the past but really look at thte countries who export oil. All the wealth goes to a extremly limited part of the population, most of those countries spend extremly little on health plans public educations and other general public uses. I honnestly find that altough the prices where low 1/5 of the price wouldn't have been all that bad the rich would still be rich (altough they wouldn't make as many islands and have 50 wives) and the poor would be yust as poor because their goverment didn't give a rats ass abouth then. (Hey perhaps they would even be a little bid less oppresed altough that probably yust wishfull thinking)

 

So? You are too stupid to realize that a number like this by itself is worthless without comparison to another number....

Not to mention quoting an unknown idiot as an expert....

 

I hate to break the news but.... most people here are completely blind and deaf to the truth...:shrug:

 

No, YOU don't understand! An idiot said it, therefore it MUST be true!!!!!!

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For practical purposes, they are the same. Literally speaking we will never run out of oil because we will stop drilling for it long time before it runs out and we will leave a shitload of it in the ground in hard to reach places....

So it is really just semantics....

 

you guys will all be stuffed but we will be fine

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We have enough LNG surplies to last more than 50 years if EVERYTHING in Australia was converted to LNG

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I wasn't talking about the oil cartels. What they say is always taken with a grain of salt by the media. I'm referring to tree huggers and scare mongers who have been saying 'the sky is falling' for years..