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Whither The Oil Drum?
Posted by Nate Hagens on October 4, 2009 - 11:00am in The Oil Drum: Campfire
Topic: Miscellaneous
A few short years ago, in 2005 when I started contributing here, it seemed that people could generally be partitioned into 3 main groups regarding their views about Peak Oil. By far the smallest group were those calling for a near term (<2012) peak in global oil production. A larger, and definitively more vocal and deeper pocketed group (including IHS, CERA, most Wall St. firms and energy agencies) were in the "peak oil is not real" or "peak oil is post 2020 at a minimum" camps. But by far the largest % of the population were oblivious to these debates on oils peak, unaware of the possibility and/or importance of a potential peak and decline in our socioeconomic hemoglobin.
As such, those in the smallest camp, irrespective of age, social status, political affiliation, demographics, education, objectives, or sexual preference, united together in a collective effort to raise the analytical alarm bells about the possibility and implications of a near term peak. There were occasional tangential discussions such as renewable energy technologies, relocalization, psychology of consumption, finance and geopolitics, but by and large the focus centered on Peak date (and post peak decline rates), which were topics most of the Peak Oil tribe could agree on within certain parameters. We were all on the same team.
Fast forward to Q4 2009, and the landscape has changed considerably. The % of people acknowledging at least the possibility that we are already passed the peak in global oil production has markedly increased (though is still a minority overall). However, though most of the 'early peakers' (the small pink circle above) remain in that camp, 4+ years of analysis and insights have created a vast disparity of world views, beliefs and objectives within this once homogenous group. Slow collapse, fast collapse, catabolic collapse; renewable energy to the rescue; conservation and efficiency champions; human extinction let me count the days; powerdown, drill baby drill, retreat to steady state economy, World War III, Mad Max, the dawn of space based energy, lets just party and enjoy ourselves, etc. - the list of differing views is a long one.
I would argue that within the "Peak Oil is likely past tense" group, there are four main camps with respect to our likely future trajectory. 1) The "renewable energy" contingent, who generally subscribe to the belief that solar based flows will eventually replace fossil fuels in a somewhat seamless transition and that Peak Oil is probably a good thing with respect to the environment, 2) The energy technologists, who believe that even in face of near term peak, that better drilling, seismic, and recovery techniques combined with increases in unconventional fuels will keep us roughly on a business as usual path, 3) The End of Growth group - who think we have overshot resource limits (not just energy) and must generally powerdown to some cocktail of both more sustainable means and aspirations and 4)the human species meets Reindeer Island group (The dieoff crowd) - that some large proportion (possibly all) of humankind will perish due to biological tenets based on fact that we are akin to a plague species, our rapaciousness trumps our ingenuity and ability to plan for future...essentially humans are not smarter than yeast. These world views have some small overlap but are largely mutually exclusive, though the numbers of people in each is vastly different (I suspect the hard collapse/dieoff group is the smallest). There are of course some other viewpoints not represented above.
Nestled within each of these groups are objectives that differ both in timing and in scope. Some of have no objective other than continuing to ride the wave of current dopamine - searching the internet for unexpected reward, reacting daily but having no particular long horizon concern or plan. Others care only about a more comfortable next 5-10 years. Others have a longer term horizon, and care about the world of their children in 10-30 years. Still others (rarer) care about what this planet might look like 100 or 1000 or 100,000 years hence. Too, voicing ones objective and concerns does not always equate to the truth. A great many eloquent writers and speakers might not be eloquent doers. Actions speak louder than words. It takes all kinds, etc.
For myself, I continue to view the future as a probability distribution, which includes a non-zero possibility for each of the above scenarios, and also some % chance of both business as usual continuation and of World War III trajectory, etc. I change my opinion about these things without even realizing it as I incorporate new understanding or new events come to light. My time spent here over the years has significantly improved my understanding of the various emergent properties of different disciplines accompanying global overshoot. I'm quite certain that there are some themes out there that will emerge in next few years that I am oblivious to, however, I have been frustrated that so many of the things we have talked about on this site are coming to pass, yet so little has been accomplished in mitigation.
In the face of this backdrop, I find myself with increasing occasion questioning the role and focus of resource depletion outreach, both via blogging and at conferences, etc. It is my opinion that we have enough knowledge (by far) to be making serious social changes, yet few of any importance seem to be occurring. (In fact, most changes that ARE being made are for the worse, buying us some small short term comforts at cost of greater ultimate declines in standard of living and environmental conditions.) How can this tribe, brought together with a common purpose of educating policymakers about peaking in oil production, continue forward: a)when what we were purporting to educate about has already happened, b) when our constituents now have widely disparate views about the future, c) when for the forseeable future fossil fuel decline rates are likely to be trumped by currency/central bank and financial outcomes and d) and as will be discussed below, when our efforts might only have outsized impact under unlikely scenarios?
WHAT ARE WE DOING AND WHY?
Here is how my mind is coming to terms with these questions.
Ahead of this months ASPO conference and amidst the 4 and 5 year anniversary of this site, I've tried to step back and assess what we've done, what we're doing and where we're going. On the one hand, this has become one of the 'go to websites' for news and information broadly related to energy and resource depletion. Whether by 1% or 30%, TOD was instrumental in accelerating discussion and awareness of depletion issues in international conversations from 2005-2008 - to what extent and to what ends we'll never know. On the other hand, I doubt in 2005 that many of us imagined we would still be writing and hanging out here in 2009-2010. Perhaps we thought that public awareness of the central truths regarding Peak Oil would obviate the need for armchair analysts to share data and perspective for free on the internet. Perhaps we didn't think that far ahead. In any case, I am virtually certain I won't be blogging 4 years hence (if for no other reason than my elbow will be permanently in the shape of a right angle).
As readers here are aware, I don't remotely believe that Peak Oil caused the credit crisis, the seeds of which started a generation ago. Though the financial crisis was largely (but not totally) ignored within the peak oil community until after the fact, its onset was arguably the largest reason that peak oil is cemented in the past due to: lack of price signals bringing on new supply, highlighting the non-viability of low EROI (high cost) projects, and implied smaller differential between natural and observed decline on existing fields in production. However, oil depletion, irrespective of causal chain, will be now be a permanent constraint on global society from here forward. But many other subjects will increasingly become more important: water and other non-energy inputs, social equity, geopolitics, fiat/biophysical relationships, energy technology, human aspirations, complex systems, etc. Put simply, these discussions will never again be just about oil (not that they ever really were). However, those efforting change on these issues will need accurate information on reserves, costs, and depletion more than ever before. As such we face both a dramatically larger tribe, and a smaller one at the same time.
I would hypothesize that each of us participating in the online muckraking/analysis sphere spends time on their websites of choice for some of the following reasons: 1)to increase our own social capital (through either social recognition or through an increase in our own understanding of a complex situation which will then in turn improve ours and our families future), 2) because we are puzzle solvers (meaning it's fun/meaningful to figure all this out, 3) because we want to make a difference to steer society away from making poor long term choices, and 4) being right. I would guess that all of TOD staff and most who hang out have done so for some combination of the above. My fear is that we, the analysts, are neither advocates, nor doers, generally speaking, which means we put stuff up continually in subtle hope that someone at a higher level will incorporate and implement it. To what end, we don't know. My gut feel is that a plurality of TOD staff fall under the number 2) above, and that increases in social status and/or societal transformation due to our work are only externalities of our passion for puzzle solving. I suppose things could be worse...;-)
Putting it all together
As usual, this essay represents my own musings, and is not reflective of the philosophy or objectives of anyone else on staff, but as one of the senior contributors to this site, I've begun to ask myself the purpose of a peak oil movement, in a post-peak environment where financial issues are likely to dominate for the forseeable future, objectives and beliefs about the future are increasingly disparate, and synthesis of information is only as good as ones understanding of the weakest link (ergo - there is TOO much information for most people if not everyone). Furthermore, our ability to plan and change for the long term diminishes in negative correlation with how badly real time events erode. As such, in my view the highest leverage lies in the integration and subsequent implementation of systems analysis. What is needed is a 2010 version of Limits to Growth that not only improves on the 1970s natural resource type model, but integrates two new layers: knowledge on human demand/neuroscience and the current status of our economic/financial system, into a holistic scientific project that can be used for serious and urgent global policy change. Perhaps a site like this could be a public forum to discuss and hone in on aspects of such a project. I don't know. I must admit I've learned as much from the relatively uneducated on this site than from those with stellar resumes. In the end we're all in this together.
Finally, I think 'Peak Oil' has eponymously outlived its usefulness. Too many now associate doom, gloom and fundamentalism when they hear those 2 words. Though doom and gloom may possibly be the end reality of Peak Oil, such an immediate emotive reaction can't be productive among people of influence. As such, the energy community, and broader natural resource paradigm change movement probably needs to rebrand the whole discussion. Peak Oil is not only past, but it's terminology is passe.
CAMPFIRE QUESTIONS
1. Is it worth it for this website to continue? And if so in what direction? And why?
2. How can those interested in these issues continue to share/compare and synergize when knowledge of an increasing array of topics becomes necessary?
3. How can 'Peak Oil' be reframed?
Any other comments welcomed.
My answers:
1. It is absolutely essential that this website continue. People need to read up on the opinions of specialists and those who actually know what the hec is going on, especially when the situation worsens and more people are receptive to necessary information.
2. I ask that you write up some content for a non-specialist and innumerate audience. I have a 3-in-1 type of degree in Electrical, Mechanical and Computer Engineering, and even I often have to strain my mind to chew and digest some of the information presented here.
3. "Passe" it might certainly be for those who have been immersed in the problem for years. But I'll guess that over 90% of all people (perhaps even 90% of governments around the world) still don't know what Peak Oil is. They only understand the prices at the pump and the availability of jobs, goods and services.
Re your #2 - We have discussed this on and off for years. I think the problem is that we, TOD staff, are just not well-suited to communicating with a non-specialist innumerate audience. People who have those skills tend to be people who don't understand the article they're supposed to be "translating."
We have tried (notably in some of Gail's posts), but I fear communicating with Main St. is outside our bailiwick.
This goes to show what kind of masochists we are, as we relentlessly try to convey what we understand to a wider audience. I spent the entire Saturday morning crafting a post comparing the popping of popcorn to the Hubbert discovery peak profile, hoping against hope that this would be the ultimate killer analogy, one that would light a bulb over everyone's head.
http://mobjectivist.blogspot.com/2009/10/popcorn-popping-as-discovery.html
Yet even though this is about as basic an idea as one can come up with, I bet instead of lighting a bulb, it will sail over most people's heads. When I was working out the math I came across this quote:
This was written no more than 5 years ago. If it took that long to for people to discover how long it takes a popcorn kernel to pop, we've got a lot of work to do. Of course, I am always game :)
WHT, surely you jest. Everyone's head? If everyone had a EE degree then they just might have a chance of understanding what you wrote. For instance:
Yeah, that lit a bulb over my head all right. And that bulb said "what the hell is this guy talking about? I don't mean to be either sarcastic or mean WHT, but surely you must realize than only a very tiny fraction of everyone has even the slightest clue as to what the hell you are talking about.
Ron P.
IME, that's the biggest barrier in technical writing: often, the tech types are completely unaware of how incomprehensible they are. That is, they don't even know there's a problem, or are unaware of how big the problem is. They often think they are good at communicating with "normal folk," while the normal folk see it quite differently.
And we on TOD staff are not immune.
Thanks to you and Ron both. I appreciate the honesty.
Yet we have to remember that this is a two-way street that we are engaged in. The tiny fraction that includes me also needs to be here to understand other posts coming out of TOD. As a case in point, there was a recent post called "Mind-sized Hubbert" by Ugo Bardi describing a Lotka-Volterra model that motivated my own post. I could understand his equations and what he was getting at. Yet there was a large problem, as his model was completely misguided and ultimately wrong. If people reading TOD actually believe that we understand oil depletion by the contents of that post, we have a serious credibility problem. It is perhaps better to be inscrutable than wrong at this point. A few dedicated people need to cross-check the stuff.
So it looks like the stage of where I am at, I am trying to write for an intuitive non-technical audience through the use of analogies, but I balance that with enough information that the technical types can grasp. Ultimately, a scientific argument has to be reproducible for it to be called science, and unless I place some technical details in the post, no one will be able to reproduce the argument. Since Bardi included enough of the model details in his post, I could reproduce it and call him on the problems with the approach. I also supplied him with some data that he could check his theory with. That is essentially the way that knowledge advances, as the discussion ebbs and flows. If TOD contains just a few people willing to duke the technical details out, that is generally all it takes.
On my own blog, which has been active and dedicated to peak oil for longer than TOD has been around, the content has changed significantly. For the first couple of years I was posting daily with many rehashed arguments from other sources. Then I gradually started to do the more in-depth modeling posts and my productivity dropped way down. It has gotten to the point that I get lucky if I can get one post per month out. It is entirely possible that you can get stymied down some investigative path and bang your head for long periods of time. Perhaps the moral is that what you get out of some argument, is equal to the amount of effort you put into it. I had spent some time on Lotka-Volterra models, so that when Bardi produced his post, I was primed and ready to respond.
It will be interesting if we can get an analogy that will take. Predator-Prey is definitely out. What do people think about the popcorn popping analogy?
I don't like the popcorn popping analogy. I don't see the connection to peak oil at all, really.
I like the popcorn analogy, but I think the qualitative aspects will be more important to most than the quantitative analysis. Right now we're in the middle of the fast-popping zone -- so fast you can hardly discern individual pops, and there is no way to know if the bag is 1/4, 1/2, or 3/4 popped. Keep going much longer though, and the smell will make it obvious that this party is about over.
I have enough math hours to have a math minor on top of an engineering degree, but that was a long time ago. I can follow the math but I couldn't devise it anymore. I appreciate that those who focus on that skill set do so, and that provides a necessary quantitative and theoretical basis for what is happening in the empirical world. It certainly helps with the "prediction" side of the problem.
So, use your nifty algorithms to draw up some nice explanation/prediction graphs and devise cogent relationships between contributing factors and I'll be right there with you. If you want input on which regression method should be used to refine the second decimal point of your exponential decay rate, you're on your own!
Excellent, Thanks for the insight. You gave me a great idea in regards to an explanation graph.
As I said in the post, there are three levels of learning a new concept: the enactive, iconic, and symbolic. Among the reasons for doing analogies is to embrace the tactile intuition that we get from experiencing something (watching popcorn pop is the enactive), and hearing stories like yours about smelling the popcorn evokes emotion and shared experiences (i.e. the iconic portion). The last bit is coming up with symbologies, which represents the true analogy, and graphing the concept is a big part of this.
These are really right/left brain concepts I am exploring here.
WHT, I would suggest that historical analogy can be a simple but powerful argument for a general audience. This is used effectively by some of the TOD "peak oil overview" presentations, in which the production history of the U.S. is shown to graphically illustrate the up-and-down nature of resource extraction. Once that point is made, extrapolating to the notion of a worldwide peak is a relatively minor step.
This is reasonable, unfortunately the quantitative part is not there. This means we lose any depletion management numbers, except for some heuristic extrapolation from the USA. Cornucupians will try to attack this approach as relying too much on rank empiricism.
I think the best historical analogy we've ever used here at TOD for peak anything is the whale oil story...
The whale story ultimately fails as a great analogy solely for the fact that whales reproduce and the population recovered somewhat. If whales actually went extinct, it would work as a "running out of" example, yet even that is not accurate.
It also reinforces the possibility that an economically exchangeable resource for oil exists. Since petroleum replaced whale oil, the argument would stand that something better will replace oil.
fair points both. however, I know that when I use the whale oil story in class with the entire historical context they get the dynamics (and I emphasize that there is no substitutability, etc.)
I emphasize that there is no substitutability
Prof Goose, this is a bit off-topic, but...I can't stand it. Again - why do you think that wind/solar electricity can't replace oil?
They don't lubricate very well.
Cheers
Lubrication is small enough that it can be replaced with oils synthesized from biomass.
Heck, liquid hydrocarbons can be synthesized from electricity and atmospheric CO2 right now - it's expensive ( roughly $10/gallon), but doable.
Here's a discussion of conventional synthetic motor oil - you begin to see how it can be synthesized from almost any hydrocarbon stock,including biomass: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_oil
It also reinforces the possibility that an economically exchangeable resource for oil exists. Since petroleum replaced whale oil, the argument would stand that something better will replace oil.
WHT, this is a bit off-topic, but...I can't stand it. Again - why do you think that wind/solar electricity can't replace oil?
It can't fly airplanes, for one.
Unless perhaps everyone travels by hot-air balloons.
That's true.
But in the larger picture, air travel isn't important enough to say that oil can't be replaced, right?
Further:
1) air transport is only about 5M B/day
2) at least 60% of air travel is recreational, so the current 5M B/day could fall to 2M B/day, and not affect "commerce as usual"
3) oil production can maintain a level of 10M B/day for 100 years or more
4) kerosene (jet fuel) could be replaced by existing tech over time, even though it would be annoying and expensive - existing tech includes hydrogen, or synthetic fuel - fuel can be synthesized from electricity and atmospheric CO2 even now - it's expensive ( roughly $10/gallon), but doable
5) in 100 years we're likely to have new energy storage tech
6) even if we don't, the combination of higher efficiency air travel, synthetic fuel and high efficiency PV would work pretty well, albeit at a cost per seat-mile that might be, say, twice what it is now.
2M B/day, and not affect "commerce as usual"...............
What a load of tripe.
And what do you think would have happened to the economy to drop air travel use by 3M B/day?
What would be the cost of business travel if passenger occupation dropped by two thirds?
Do you expect airlines would carry on commerce as usual?
What would happen to the tourism industry along with the myriad of supporting roles by other industries and businesses?
Point 3 is as pointless, useless, meaningless and ridiculous a statement you have ever made, I'll trump it and say it can maintain 20M B/day for 200 years or more......so what.
Points 4,5,6 are as naive as ......edit and deleted too nasty.
And what do you think would have happened to the economy to drop air travel use by 3M B/day?
I agree - such a drop isn't likely any time soon. I was addressing a long-term perspective.
What would be the cost of business travel if passenger occupation dropped by two thirds?
Actually, business travel subsidizes recreational travel, so business costs might fall. Air travel has relatively low overhead (no rail or roads to maintain), so air travel could shrink quite a lot with relatively little impact on economies of scale.
Nick, I suspect many here will not reply seriously to your question because they will think you must be a bit of an etc.
However, here goes from one to another, so to speak.
At present, wind and solar constitute an utterly piddling proportion of energy supply. It could be ~sort-of~ argued that that could be vastly scaled up in future years if people just had the vision. Well, putting aside the fact that they won't have the vision...
Firstly that vast scaling up has not yet happened. Things rarely work out as easy as expected. That vast scaling up would require a huge redeployment and retraining of the people to carry it out. It would require a massive investment/ commitment of lots of money and personnel resources. It would require the conversion/replacement of millions of costly machines that are currently oil-powered, along with establishing the alternative supply infrastructures. Again masses of people would have to be retrained in the new tech.
All that might be fine except that there is an ongoing crisis of credit. People and governments can barely afford just ticking over let alone this major investment to replace a setup that has resulted from decades of prior investment.
Add to that the problem of urgency. It's no good envisioning what might be possible for 20 years' time if meanwhile the system has a cash-flow (energy-flow) failure beforehand. And the issue of now is how to substitute for the decline of several percent p.a. from right now.
I don't see that as remotely possible and I'm rather obviously far from the only one here. I think it therefore rests with yourself, to make a case that there is some credible substitution scenario.
You might want to include in it some consideration of the fact of the USK government/s supporting of manufacture of yet more ff-autos, rather than reduction of dependency.
[PS--ccpo's nit about lubrication was merely a piss-take undeserving of a reply and it might be best if you delete your reply to it.]
At present, wind and solar constitute an utterly piddling proportion of energy supply.
Not really. Wind is 2% of US electricity, and 40% of new generation (8.5GW last year).
that vast scaling up has not yet happened.
It has, actually. Wind is very much a large-scale thing now. Growing to, say, 25GW per year would be no big deal.
That vast scaling up would require a huge redeployment and retraining of the people to carry it out.
Not really. We're talking manufacturing and construction. We have plenty of well-trained unemployed in both areas.
It would require the conversion/replacement of millions of costly machines that are currently oil-powered
Manufacturing is mostly electrically powered. The diesel required for the transportation and installation is pretty trivial.
People and governments can barely afford just ticking over let alone this major investment to replace a setup that has resulted from decades of prior investment.
Utilities have good cash flow, and wind has the advantage of very short lead times. Besides, the original question was: "Is there a good substitute for oil?". Whether we're going to have total financial collapse due to bad social structures is a separate question (not that that's likely).
It's no good envisioning what might be possible for 20 years' time if meanwhile the system has a cash-flow (energy-flow) failure beforehand.
For better or worse, we have plenty of coal and natural gas to get us through an electrical generation transition. As far as oil goes, we can easily reduce non-commercial travel (solo commuting, especially) enough to reduce oil consumption by 25%. Commercial travel (trucks and ships) can reduce their consumption overnight by large percentages, just by slowing down. We really don't have a physical shortage of BTUs.
nd the issue of now is how to substitute for the decline of several percent p.a. from right now.
There's no sign of decline yet. We're on an extended plateau, which may last another 3-5 years. After that..things will get harder. Still, there will be more than enough oil to fuel the really essential things.
I don't see that as remotely possible and I'm rather obviously far from the only one here. I think it therefore rests with yourself, to make a case that there is some credible substitution scenario.
The idea that there is no substitute is very much the non-mainstream idea. Nevertheless, I'm happy to make that case: see http://energyfaq.blogspot.com/2008/09/can-everything-be-electrified.html
You might want to include in it some consideration of the fact of the USK government/s supporting of manufacture of yet more ff-autos, rather than reduction of dependency.
The US is pushing it's car industry towards electrification - see articles on the Chevy Volt, money going to other EVs like the Tesla.
ccpo's nit about lubrication ... undeserving of a reply
Good thought. I edited my reply to be purely informational. Even the silliest of comments is a education opportunity for lurkers...
Thanks Nick for taking this trouble to reply. I think best if I just say I (and obviously some others here) don't find much persuasiveness in those rejoinders, and leave it at that for now. (Hopefully a more suitable page will come up before long.)
Well, please feel free to leave comments on my blog. I'd be delighted to have this conversation there, at as much length as you'd like.
One of the reasons I blog, and comment here, is to fine-tune my understanding of what's going on, and I appreciate your and other's responses very much.
I don't like the popcorn anology, as near as I can understand it, because I don't think it is accurate. Your curve still looks like the standard bell curve. I think this is highly inaccurate. I believe we are well past 50 percent depletion. Take Russia for instance.
19 percent and growing! How can a decline rate that high be growing? Easy, in order to keep production rate high they are just punching a lot more holes in their old reservoirs and sucking the oil out a lot faster. This keeps production up but increases the decline rate from all other wells in the same reservoir. This will mean that when Russian oil does start to decline, it will plunge like a rock in a pond.
And this very same thing is happening in most other old reservoirs, especially OPEC reservoirs. Saudi Arabia has decreased their decline rate from an average of 8 percent to 2 percent simply by sucking harder on their old reservoirs.
And theis is why the peak oil curve will look like a shark fin, not the standard bell curve. This will become apparent to the world by no later than 2012.
Ron P.
I lost you with my argument because you are on the production side of the equation. The popcorn popping is only analogizing the process of discovery. I realize that you know that the two processes are distinct but for some reason this point didn't come across.
The basic analogy is this: all the reservoirs lying beneath the surface of the earth are kernels ready to pop. We supply various rates of effort and the reservoirs supply varying degrees of resistance to be discovered. Those represent the internal variations of the popcorn kernels and the external variations of the shells. I find it amazing that there exists that much variation in popcorn such that you get what amounts to the drawn out Logistic curve of a popping time histogram. And we apparently take this for granted everytime we pop corn.
The key take-home message is the fact that no one recognizes that this variation is even more striking in oil discovery than it is with popcorn popping. You think that popcorn kernels are homogeneous? Well, just think of the varying geology, societal technologies, etc. The only thing consistent that ties it together is an overall accelerating rate of effort. Yet, no one wants to analyze the Hubbert discovery peak this way (except for me, that is, IMHO).
Not to say that production doesn't figure into the discussion. But that is a job for the oil shock model, which has some other more appropriate analogies.
WHT
I think your popcorn analogy is good enough to run with. I guess I have been hanging around TOD long enough to have a least a little bit of a clue about discovery peak issues. Even so, this analogy helps.
Thanks, and the graft on accelerating effort would be of interest
So true Leanan. As you are aware, several days ago I prompted readers to post their stories/metaphors about peak oil. This sort of thing typically brings on the chiding from, as I called them, the "pocket protector" crowd. A few posted thoughtful and enlightening metaphors. It takes time and work to create a story that resonates, to create a compelling vision. I grew up on the mantra that ideas are a dime a dozen, it's the follow through that counts. In 2005, after attending the first ASPO-USA conference, I was inspired to take action and do everything I could think of (including running for U.S. Congress) to raise the awareness of this issue among my elected peers. Leaving Denver in 2005, I believed that others were equally inspired and the word would spread like wild-fire. Since then I have spent a great deal of time trying to understand why this fire is choked of fuel.
TOD is largely an echo-chamber--albeit one I have enjoyed immensely. I hope it continues but I also hope it does so with an audience that wants to share the "doing" rather than just the conversation. Nate has taken us beyond the technical discussions of peak oil, to consider the human element. How can we implement that understanding as we attempt to move more people from the spectator stands to the playing field.
The first snow of the season is falling here in Mammoth Lakes. I'm not ready to hang up my hiking boots just yet because the fall (aptly named) is unpredictable. The TOD team is especially needed during these unpredictable times and those of us who feel a kinship here need to ask ourselves what value WE can add to its continued success. My thanks to everyone who has added value to my understanding and knowledge.
With that I will close with an example of a communication tool that is better suited to reaching the "normal folk." http://vimeo.com/6823943
The problem with science and particularly scientific theories on this level is that you need a controlled experiment to test against. Unfortunately, we are in the middle of the biggest controlled experiment known to mankind, and ultimately the only controlled experiment available to test the hypothesis is the one we are in.
Therefore one way to convince people is to use metaphors and analogies of other controlled experiments and compare the trajectories of those against the observations of our own oil depletion path.
I think the video is good but it doesn't help as a management tool as much as a model would. For example, a model with a good analogy can be used directly as a depletion management tool. It could actually be used for prediction and possible outcomes. This could help shape policy. Since have impressive experience in politics, of course you realize the importance of policy in politics. ;)
Well, maybe, but I dunno..."normal folk" don't go to the Corcoran...never mind whether they even have ready access to something like it...they're too busy shuttling their kids to the endless sports meets, or, if the kids are grown up and gone, they're maybe going to football games or (in summer) the cabin up north, or, if they're really poor, they're staying home...
Worse still, according to the video, the picture show appears to be little more than an artistically self-indulgent exercise in equating large scale with iniquity and doom. One perhaps supposes the desired alternative to be, as usual, some sort of mythological ancient agricultural landscape where everything is done on a small scale, in order that the viewer should see it as "humanized", meaning in part that the dirty bits, rampant disease, starvation, and so on, should fall neatly out of the frame. Alas, it just seems so hopelessly fatuous in the face of a population of seven billion and rising with no end in sight. Wherever and whenever populations become large and dense, we seem to encounter large scale.
Indeed, we encountered large scale millennia before the arrival of 'fossil fuels' in the modern sense. So even a stack of emotionalized photographs tall enough to to use as a space-elevator might be unlikely to make it go away. And we should be careful what we wish for - concepts such as "capping global carbon emissions", for example, will become meaningless should global social structures become severely compromised or break down.
My favorite analogy to explain "why" would be a Slurpee analogy.
The first half of a Slurpee is easy to drink as the juice comes right through your straw. We could even share it with someone else with two straws. Eventually the easy to get juice declines, and the ice starts to pack together. There is still plenty of juice, we just have a harder time drinking it. We have to shake the drink up a bit, or poke the straw in multiple times, or stir it, or blow into the straw to break up the ice, or just wait till it melts. It comes out slower no matter what we do, and the juice we unlock is not as tasty as the first juice when we first got the Slurpee.
Very good analogy for some of the details such as reserve growth and secondary recovery. The next issue is how to extend that from the qualitative to the quantitative.
Sorry, joining the conversation late.
Debbie, your request strikes me as no different than people who are looking for the silver bullet that will solve the energy problem itself.
Isn't it possible that changing a societal conversation is really hard especially when there are so many physical structures that support the current one? (i.e. the gasoline is still coming out of the pumps, 401k statements pull people toward a growth economy, etc.)
We could have a wonderful analogy and the distribution and action problems would still be there: how to get it in front of enough people, how to burst the bubble that protects people from understanding it, then how to motivate them to actually do something when they finally do get it.
Getting peak oil widely known will never happen in time and likely never will happen. Wishing it is some other way is like complaining that the basketball hoop is too high or the football field has too many yards. A football field has 100 yards, not one yard more or less. Since those are the rules of the game, the only fulfilling option is not to fight that but instead to embrace it and have fun playing the game as it is constructed.
Not to mention that the shamans who are the ones who have the power to cast magic spells and foretell the rosy future are using all of their powers to conjure up the everlasting growth is good, growth will continue mantra.
Greenspan predicts economic growth to hit 3 percent or higher
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/04/u.s.economy/index.html
There is a picture of Alan Greenspan (worth a look) that reminds me of the Wizard Saruman from Tolkein's Trilogy. The one power Saruman does not lose after his fall is his silver tongue.
Too bad Saruman wasn't the US cental banker, at least he would have made sense.
Greenspan was an incomprehensible hack. I don't know who is worse, him or his toady Bernanke.
I am trying to promote the sharing of ideas. I don't care how hard it is. There is too much moaning and groaning here.
obviously, what you guys need is a two-tier system: scientific explanations for the techies and to stay credible with science, and a translation section for the non-techies.
for instance, what are you really trying to say with the popcorn analogy? for an intuitive understanding, for a non-techy, it has to be both simple and intuitive:
I submit that what you are trying to say with the popcorn analogy is two things:
1. The production of oil starts with a few slow "pops", or finds, then speeds up to a peak where there are so many "pops" they run together, then it slows back down to a few "pops" or finds, every once in a while, until there are no more, or if you keep waiting for more, you spoil the batch.
2. Those last few "pops" don't mean that there's a big peak coming again, they're just small pops.
This works because a) most people think in analogies and b) most people are very familiar with popcorn
You just can't get into detail with analogies, because a) that's not what they're for[analogies are to produce insight, insight has to do with overall process, not detail] and b) no analogy holds up when you get into detail.
I hope that explanation helps you geeks.... :-)
I prefer the mound of dirt or haystack full of basketballs, baseballs and marbles. What you gonna find first? Could be any of the three. But which are you gonna finish finding first? Basketballs, by a wide margin. Next? The vast majority of the baseballs, also by a fair margin, though the actual last field or two to be found might be baseballs. Marbles last.
Make it beach balls in a pile of dirt on the beach... whatever. The nice thing is, it's the same action: digging for something buried. Hell, make it buried treasure. Cannons and treasure chests, cannon balls and goblets then ingots.
Whatever.
Cheers
Yes, that is the best analogy for oil finds.
But it doesn't really bear out. Deffeyes did a study of the size ordering in his earlier book and didn't find much variation. It is perhaps a second-order effect.
The obvious thing is that no one ends up searching for the large fields first -- they find what they find. Of course, the cross-section for larger fields is larger but how does it operationally manifest itself?
The population distribution of cities in the USA maps very well to the size distribution of reservoirs.
Now imagine that you were flying overhead in an airplane and you were searching for cities out the window. I dare say that you would spot all cities of size at least 1000 on first glance. Hence, if you look at the correspondence to oil reservoir sizes, you could then presume that you might also find lots of the medium and up size reservoirs. Once you get those, all the smaller reservoirs don't amount to much cumulative volume in the end.
So I contend that the size analogy is not the best approach. It doesn't hurt to push that, but you can safely ignore it and you still get a good conservative estimate just by using the dispersive discovery (popcorn) model.
I read your response about the popcorn and your critique here. In both cases, "Huh?" was the overriding response. The analogies aren't for you, they're for us.
Trust us when we tell you, simple us good. I don't need to know jack poop about Dispersive Discovery to understand Peak Oil. Point out finding fields is like the frequency of popcorn popping or the liklihood of finding various sizes of needles in a haystack and I know all I need to. I know we've probably found all those basketballs and a lot of baseballs and are in deep doo-doo.
Cheers
There is another factor and that is that the analogies are essentially random search while the real world i.e. the cities and the oil fields are going to be searched according to geographic features (rivers and other reasons to expect large populations for cities) and geologic (reasons to expect oil to be there).
So cities and oil fields won't be searched for randomly. I know that people don't search for oil randomly and the city example you gave I am not sure if you based on a random search or not but if so it is not a fair comparison.
The different sized balls in a sand pile is pure random so other than being a good physical analog it also may not be the best process analog.
All math aside the best we can have is a correlation that could in the city example be very coincidental but in the sand pile example at least the physical comparison makes sense.
On another note.
It would be very interesting if anyone could come up with a guess for how much undiscovered oil might be lurking in Iraq.
I understand that it has never really been fully surveyed.
Neither Phoenix or Las Vegas are where one would expect cities to be, much less 5% to 6% of the US population.
Alan
touche but if you followed the aqueducts?
Granted they are man made but still a clue.
How do you come up with 5-6%???
The coasts are where I would expect to find people and low and behold that is where most are including the great lakes so I don't know where you are coming from except the outliers you mention.
Edit: I miss-interpreted your comment. I see now you meant that at least 5-6% of the population is in Phoenix and vegas and not at all where you would expect based on geography.
But my response here is still valid just not a direct answer to you.
Your response is valid, but irrelevant when discussing outreach to the general public. They simply don't need to understand the explicit point you seem to think is important. All the lay person needs to understand is that most, if not all, of the easy oil has been found. From these simple analogies they can also understand receding horizons because it should be obvious that having one operation with many rigs is more cost effective than having many operations and many rigs.
It simply doesn't matter if they understand the dispersive part. To top it off, many lay people would end up just as confused by the full popcorn analogy as the actual technical explanation.
Besides, dispersive is kind of handled by gravity if you stick with the haystack instead of dirt: most b-balls, baseballs and marbles will predictably be on the floor, being much heavier than the straw.
Cheers
If you Google "Finding Needles in a Haystack" you get a nice analogy in the top 5.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2712
I have worked on these analogies quite a bit, primarily to verify the math but also to get people to think about the subject.
The large vs small field size issue was discussed on a Dispersive Discovery post
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3287#comment-269887
Note that finding large fields first does not empirically hold, as it is pretty much randomized. Why somebody wants to push what amounts to at best a second-order effect as the principal cause, I don't know why. I guess I am just pointing out the inconvenient truth.
OK. I stand corrected it looks like no matter how the searches are conducted the finds follow the same trend. Interesting.
Kind of like Jed Klampit exploration.
Probably makes sense - even large fields are small in relation to the Earth's land area, and offer few clues to their existence. It appears that in more recent decades the Actual moved a little closer to the Large Fields First line, which might be the influence of newer technologies. Seems like a small movement for all of that - still not much better than poking holes at random.
Deffeyes used the analogy of throwing darts at a dartboard.
I suppose speaking like a caveman works wonders with a segment of the population.
Us no understand what you talk.
I tend not to trust people who turn a typo into a lack of intelligence. It takes a degree of meanness.
Cheers
OK, I am sorry. Typos are hard to detect when you speak in a colloquialism.
Leanan,
I am a loyal member of your "non-specialist innumerate audience". I have read TOD almost daily since the early days. I wanted to become Stuart's first groupie.
I have a masters in biology but sometimes I can't follow the more technical discussions. Peak oil interests me less than "the way forward" -- how a technological society will at least attempt to find replacements for fossil fuels.
I also am kind of a big picture guy and get turned off by the more doom and gloom posts on collapse (I have read Diamond's book.) I like posts about steady state economics.
I also find the Drumbeats less interesting. I use to read every one of them. How about breaking them down by topics: Peak Oil, Alt. Energy, Sustainability, Eco-Economics, The Oil field techie stuff, etc.
I love TOD. Maybe a re-purposing is in order, as Nate suggests. "Post Peak Oil Drum"
I love the forum and the wonderful characters from WesTexas and WebHubbleTelescope and Darwinian and Darwinian and let us not forget totoneila -- No novel has a richer cast of characters, and I mean that in the most positive sense.
If you have a masters in biology, I would say you are definitely not among the non-specialist innumerate audience.
I second this idea...
lilith
Leanan,
I too,am a member of your non-specialist innumerate Main Street audience.I find frequent posts that I can't fully comprehend,but I plow through them anyway.
The impact you and the Oil Drum have had on my family and presumeably others by extension is immeasureable.
At considerable financial risk,we completely re-ordered our lives.Three generations (5 of us) sold two homes,left jobs,moved to a temperate climate,consolidated into one home,shed an automomile,initiated gardening/food production,began walking/biking/busing to about 70% of destinations...initiating a long term process of reducing consumption.
Certainly at times you must feel as though you you are on a thankless mission,well don't.Untold thousands have grown and learned because of your efforts.
I thank you profoundly.
I agree with this... I have some issues with/critiques of TOD, but mostly I have benefited from this site and the work and discussions of everyone here. Many thanks to all.
lilith
Yup.
Not as drastical changes as yours, and not exclusively because of TOD, but, I am now a member of a budding ecovillage and will consider moving there with my family when we start to build houses.
Have you discussed pairing a techie and a non-specialist? The latter could write up what he/she understands; the technie could critique; together they might both learn something and we all could benefit.
lilith
Do we then need a 'Public Oil Drum', staffed by people--ranging from primary school teachers to moonlighting PR professionals--who ARE gifted at coming up with analogies and illustrations that regular folks can understand.
And let's remember, folks, how difficult it is for ANYONE to influence the course of affairs in the USA, let alone the planet. Look at Obama's struggle to introduce the most commonsensical modifications to policies and practices that are doing incalculable harm to the country.
As I clearly stated in my early weeks on TOD, I came here to have an impact (then 2% to 3% probability of success), make connections and use TOD as a whetstone for ideas. So far, better than expected results.
My focus has evolved to creating a "Green Hirsch Report", written with gov't sponsorship and with major groups (Sierra Club. League of American Bicyclists) and major corporations co-authoring selected chapters. All modeled by the Millennium Institute to show the interconnected economic, energy, environmental and national security results of better policies.
There are policies that benefit every macro social goal and this is not well known. it is my hope that the sponsorship and results will raise the profile so that it can serve as a blueprint when our energy and economic policy shifts from complacency to panic.
TOD has served me well so far, and I hope that it will do so in the future.
Best Hopes,
Alan
This is a resource that needs to be nurtured and cultivated.
It is a reference point of sanity in a chaos of story and myth.
Alan's Electric Rail advocacy and the regular appearance of other "BB's" that we can consider employing are the anchor points that keep me interested in TOD.
The fact that it has a fairly mature conversation across a range of people from quite different backgrounds is also a point that I can hang a lot of hope and encouragement on.
I think TOD is the "LOOK BEFORE YOU.." site for me.. and I have to take care of any leaping I do someplace else. But part of that looking involves hearing about the leaps others have been taking.
I can see how it seems to be spinning the same laundry again and again, which must feel futile to many.. I think the repetition might be also seen as 'checking and rechecking', though, a kind of discipline that keeps the drumbeat going, keeps a response available for the opposing drumbeats of MISinformation that must be countered, and keeps at the ready for when 'something gives'.. wax-on, wax-off.. it's almost a training regimen. (or Chop Wood, Carry Charts and Graphs)
That said, there would be value in regularly challenging and reinventing the goals and the means, as Nate has done here. Scientifically Appropriate. But at the moment, I don't have any new suggestions for 'where to take it from here'.
I do have my old suggestion, which is to see if we, the members can assist the Mods in a project to methodically (or randomly..) sift through the mass of old material in order to sort the various types of offerings into a really accessible database/help system/wiki of some sort.. to put in 15-30 minutes at a time searching out valuable nuggets on a given topic and reformat it so that the body of experience is presented in a bit more continuity by subject/theme.
Best to all, and great thanks to Nate, Leanan, PG, HO and SuperG! (and whoever else I missed and dissed)
Bob Fiske
This is a great idea. May I add, how about organizing an introductory page, where people new to the issues can get a quick overview, and links to in-depth material on specific topics?
lilith
There are some links to intro at the top of the front page. Perhaps they could be made more prominent.
As a former website/blog editor, I totally understand your questions.
1. You probably see falling readership numbers (oil prices being down, media focus on energy dissipating)
2. You are probably starting to think that all the issues have already been discussed
3. Costs in terms of time/money are VERY significant, and at one point, the question is valid; is it worth going forward in this direction?
As a long-time reader of this website (even in the first version), and most prominent sites (energybulletin.net, etc), I think that it is very important that this site be kept alive; it serves me as a references on countless subjects, as well as broadening awareness within the peak oil community.
I think in a weird way, some people are disappointed that the "imminent collapse" due to peak oil didn't occur as fast as they predicted. I, on the other hand, believe that very significant changes are on the short and medium-term horizon, on the energy side, as well as the economic side, as both are very tightly connected.
I see the oil drum as a reference for thinkers, managers and deciders that will have to face tough decisions faster than they think. I think that this economic depression is much larger than most of us would like to believe, and that in the future, we will live in a much less globalized world (lower entropy). The oil drum could be a cristallizing spot where local communities could share experiences on rebuilding a lower energy world.
I know that sometimes, as website editors, we get pretty lonely, and just see torrents of anonymous IP addresses and get very little positive reinforcement - no money, no pat on the back, no awards. It is a very humbling experience, but I must say this is my idea of a fantastic site; the way I would have built it if I had the time/skill... Keep up the good work, we support you. If the site is in need of funding or other things, just state the needs, and there will be a wide response, I'm sure.
Just my $0.02, for what it's worth.
-oligarchie
Ok thanks - that is worthwhile feedback. I really don't want this thread to devolve to pats on TOD back, but do want to maintain open eyes about our purpose, potential impact and real world events. There are some who have devoted a large chunk of their personal lives here - I want to remain vigilant against perpetually contemplating our navel, unless we come out and acknowledge we are navel contemplators in which case it's OK....;-)
There are likely going to be some changes ahead here. My inclination, as it has been from the start, is to go with the flow and what feels right. But that is kind of my personality so I don't want to overly influence the sites future with my own cavalier philosophy.
Nate, our job is now to
(1) show statistical evidence that peak oil has happened
(2) have emergency solutions ready in our drawers, which will be adopted when the big surprise comes for those who either don't care, are in denial or otherwise unaware of peak oil.
I am trying to do both on my web site
http://www.crudeoilpeak.com
We have now to consider a scenario in which the financial and economic system continues to depress demand for oil in such a way that we are just staying under the oil-geological curve, resulting in low(er) oil prices UNTIL we hit the minimum operational levels for a global economy.
India and China are wildcards difficult to assess.
Depending on what the "big surprise" is, I question whether there are any such emergency solutions that are going to be much help to those who have not already done some learning and preparing. I think we have to concentrate on that learning and preparing, and the discussions on this site contributes to that by being a tool/resource for that learning task. The site can also be used as a test-paper to assess which of our friends, family and acquaintances aren't going to make it.
The economic crisis has overshadowed the peak oil crisis, and blogs have sprung up focusing exclusively on economic issues. This has no doubt drawn away some of the readership of The Oil Drum. Even I (a member of this blog for over 3 years) find myself spending more time reading economic blogs than this one. I admit that I haven't posted on TOD for quite awhile, though I've continued reading.
The Oil Drum is really a crucial resource, and it would be an enormous pity if it were to disappear. Of all the blogs I read that allow user comments, this is still by far the most intelligent one. Though there are exceptions, the readership here is very well informed, and I am seriously impressed by the quality of the discourse. I certainly hope that it continues. I am not sure how this blog is financed - bandwidth isn't free, but charging readers for access would kill the discussion. Web sites depending on advertising revenues are all hurting as the economic crisis cuts into that source of funding. Just as the peak oil crisis itself, I don't have an answer for that dilemma.
best regards,
Robert
speaking of economics, my spouse is inventing something that will make solar energy much more practical for making electricity. I've searched for financial help to develop it. the government hasn't had budget for anything that's new technology since 2006. They aren't helping small businesses or anything that's actually new. so we are going to start small, making 1000 watt generators from 10 watt solar panels....
Sounds like a nice trick. Feel free to post details if you like.
Sounds like a concentrator. This is a good way to fry a panel from excessive heat. You really need direct sunlight, a good tracking system and special cells with a well-designed cooling system to make this work. It does work, though; the Deep Space One probe powered its systems and its ion drive from a concentrating PV system using gallium arsenide cells.
GaAs = expensive.
Without getting into the physics, the fact that GaAs works great as a laser source means that it can also absorb lots of light and take a beating. A laser can require a lot of power and if it is defect-free, it won't break down.
So it makes sense that the space guys used GaAs. They only had to pay for one after all :)
They get 40% efficiency now, but in space you can radiate the concentrated heat off the dark side of the panel as well. At $10K per launched lb of weight it's easy to afford the best cells!
brilliantly on nate. u'r head, & heart are in this one.
i am a doer. my goal in coming here[besides desiring to 'being smart enough to run w/ u big dogs'] was as u say in no.1.
i feel sad as i start to reflect on;
1.?? TOD has given me the reasoning to seriously change the trajectory of our family's life. no other website had enough credibility for me to 'hang my hat' on the info presented. it has been very very sobering re the future we face.
i was involved 1 yr. locally re PO then came to the conclusion this was wasted time/energy & things were going to be much worse than anyone would talk about.
even moreso recently i think the river de-Nile is wider, & deeper than i accepted[my own denial]; & can't be crossed until people are in crisis.
so yes i think tod should at least refine it's mission to the newly aware PO concerned[not that is not it's primary focus now], but not attempt to affect public policy in direct or indirect ways.
2.this addresses a failure of our specialization society; & i think is one of tod's best traits- how- more staff diversity maybe[oh wait - a hedge fund manager, actuary,....]
3.energy scarcity.
It must feel sometimes as though we're just going round in circles on this site. How many times and ways do we have to say the same thing? But the value for me is in large part the intelligent and far-ranging comments which follow posts. It's one thing to know the problems, but quite another to know what to do about them, and this tends to get thrashed out in the comments.
Responding effectively to Peal Oil is a damn difficult thing to do. But I've been helped by the discussions here to grope my way forward on this, and I can see some progress starting to happen in my remote corner of the world. I helped organise a meeting in our town the other day at which two of our Shire councillors and a former politician now involved in setting up an alternative energy co-op were present. Our main speaker was a high executive officer at our local Shire who is fully versed in the real issues. All these people are now aware of what's at stake and are in a position to do something about it. Without The Oil Drum this meeting would not have happened.
Yes TOD will change, posters will disappear and new voices will come along. But we still need it now!
Hello Nate,
1. Is it worth it for this website to continue? And if so in what direction? And why?
Yep. TOD should blog as long as possible to help push Peak Outreach to any interested. Why? IMO, to help assert some measure of Optimal Overshoot Decline so we can potentially shoot the gap between a Jay Hanson Thermo/Gene fast-crash and Archdruid Greer's Catabolic Grind.
2. How can those interested in these issues continue to share/compare and synergize when knowledge of an increasing array of topics becomes necessary?
IMO, the WWWeb is excellent for broad scale info flows, possible synergisms, and consensus building. Recall back in 2007 when we all contributed to the Ghawar analysis spear-headed by SS, Euan, F_F, etc.
3. How can 'Peak Oil' be reframed?
As Westexas has said before, in regards to Alan's ideas: "Let's work to not make it as bad as it could be." This thinking could be extended to many other Peak Everything concerns. Again, consider reframing towards Optimal Overshoot Decline.
Some other poster said once: "It will take all of us, working together all the time."
Hell, we humans have got nothing better to do than to try and bring this possibility to fruition, at every possible level.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Spider_web_with_dew_d...
Yeast never try building webs. Thus, grape juice into wine. Maybe we humans can do a little better IF "We remember When the Music..." --Harry Chapin.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
watch that latter optimism bob; messes w/ u'r tagline!!!
Toto;
That line you reference might have been William McDonough's
"It will take ALL of us, and it will take FOREVER. But isn't that the point?"
in
'From Cradle to Cradle, remaking the way we make things'
Bob
I stand with Bob on these questions, particularly on the practical matter of helping us all to shoot the rapids safely between Jay's and John Michael's forebodings, if we can.
Incidentally, I think that that's what John Michael is trying to promote too. He doesn't want his own worst-case vision to happen just because we didn't understand enough, and didn't try hard enough. TOD continues -- vigorously -- to help to forestall those failures, it seems to me.
Well, I've been a TODer for over 3 1/2 years and lurked before that. In fact, I left another forum where I was a mod because of the intelligent, civil discussions here.
I've never had any illusions that TOD would change the world. However, it is a place where I could/can share, either directly or indirectly, with like-minded people. This inspite of the fact that a am a active, doomer. I think the reason we can share, regardless of our differences, is because of the civility; no one tries to put the other person down simply because they have a different perspective.
I like TOD the way it is and, I especially value the efforts of Leanan. I don't know how she does it day after day much less have time to post. We cover a variety of difficult topics. I can't ask any more.
Todd
This site has been invaluable.
As an average bloke (average IQ, father of three, living in mainstream and all the rest), I get the impression more and more of my fellow Joes and Janes are beginning to think a bit more about the years ahead, about what's in store for their kids. But few connect resource depletion and exponential growth.
Further, I would think the numbers of Average Joes and Janes who stumble across sites such as TOD - then be struck by lightening! (for me, it was an Al Bartlett presentation) - would be pretty small. Less than one per cent?
To be honest, I have no idea how much more oil remains to be recovered, whether polar bears will thrive again, whether our city's dam levels will vastly improve. But I do get the basic math of Limits to Growth. How much is enough?
I agree the "doom and gloom" approach is inappropriate. I guess all I can hope for is that our leaders pick up the batten when limits get a little more obvious.
Regards, Matt B
So, go ahead and write your book, Nate. It's probably about time and I would expect it to do quite well.
On the other hand, I stopped writing my blog before the word blog was invented. My reason being that I had said everything I had to say and couldn't stomach repeating myself any longer.
Anyone who thinks TOD has affected, will affect, or can affect public policy I think is sadly mistaken. However, I'm sure the TOD community has made significant impacts on individual policy, mostly good. It's a group of pretty smart people. I read doomer porn mostly for entertainment. I read TOD to learn things.
Excellent point; I've been thinking along those lines as well. Those who really run this country (and I don't mean the Obama administration - they're just executive managers) are pursuing their own agenda to further the interests of their class. TOD is thinking in terms of our collective interests. But, yes, your contribution has been and continues to be invaluable to individuals.
lilith
The value of the Oil Drum is not for the edification of our dysfunctional respective governments but rather as a true clearinghouse of current evolving reality (energy statements,etc.) with commentary. Any solutions that may or may not appear would most likely be from the resolve of individuals influenced or at least sub government entities.
In a world where policy goals, if they could ever be agreed upon, are watered down 90% before being put into place will never do the job of redirecting policy away from BAU. It took nearly forty years of observing government to come to this conclusion. I never said I was a quick study.
With a BS degree in geology I am still illiterate in regards to the more technical aspects discussed.
I understand the concepts but not the proofs. Fortunately, I just drop down to the next comment to see if the more literate bought the argument.
I do have a very functional BS meter built in and this web site turns it on for me. Just don't let them lie to me, that's your job.
"Anyone who thinks TOD has affected, will affect, or can affect public policy I think is sadly mistaken. However, I'm sure the TOD community has made significant impacts on individual policy, mostly good. It's a group of pretty smart people. I read doomer porn mostly for entertainment. I read TOD to learn things."
TOD has affected public policy at EU and UN CBD level by making information about biofuels available and readable that otherwise would have been very difficult to find.
Excellent musing. I've made it no secret that I think Nate's stuff represents the razor edge of understanding these interacting systems - well enough, hopefully, to actually DO activism on them.
If activism is even the word I should use. I'd be called an activist by some due to my results, but only a relatively small part of what I've done over the last 3 or so decades would be recognized as such while I'm doing it. Things can be steered in the real world, and the most leverage is in the grey area between bottom-up approaches and top-down approaches.
Pardon any typos or sentence fragments, and definitely the rambly length, I'm recovering from an odd reaction to a steroid shot. But I can't "not comment" on a topic this close to my own musings.
TOD is a wonderful site, and I'm glad I ran across it. Emotionally, I hope it continues, but I wouldn't presume to give advice. Because nothing of the sort really "continues", it evolves and meanders in the process of becoming what it will be.
An enormous amount of human energy goes into trying to hold volunteer/activist entities/collaborations together. They start with a general enough goal that there is great focused energy; but initial success brings so many contextual changes that the entity changes. A greater and greater percentage of time is spent arguing over just what the heck the focus and methods should be, and this causes heavy attrition among the thinkers who first pulled it together, who tend to increasingly be supplanted by those of a more administrative bent. Those who care passionately are at a competitive disadvantage, because they experience heavy stress over conflicts that the admin types thrive on. At this point the entity either disbands and crumbles, splits into two or a dozen separate groups, or if it has achieved a stable income stream under a given name, simply becomes an administrative organization which funds enough stuff to plausibly be the "same" entitity, though of course it isn't.
This is "old news" to those who have worked in such groups, but it may not be obvious to all.
I'm not talking about TOD specifically, but about a general human dynamic which many others have observed. I lived through it in the growth of Greenpeace from selling t-shirts in '75 to owning fleets (and not on the periphery), and have seen it a lot more often than that. Fer'instance, if you look at David Brower's career, he'd start groups, ride them until he was forced out, and then start another one. The seeming inevitability of this has certainly caused me to structure organizations and programs differently than I formerly did.
With regard to educating the world about peak oil, I have yet to sell myself a rationale for yelling "theater" in a crowded fire. Oh, it "feels" right to me - to tell as many people as possible all I know. It would be odd if it felt otherwise, since I evolved for tribal life as much as anyone else.
Yet thirty+ years on the front lines working to alter real-world situations has given me great respect for planned stepwise strategies based on changing the probabilities of specific large-scale outcomes. And one of the things I came to realize is that control of information is crucial. The timing, sequence, and substance need to be crafted for a specific context.
So for instance, to the question "can Peak Oil be reframed", my answer is "heavens yes". And it probably should be. But an archived public blog is simply not the place for planning it. I take some scorn for statements like this, but anyone who has ever reframed, via stepwise strategy, a concept in world culture would agree. It's a delicate business, not because it's some machiavellian personal bent of mine but for deep reasons having to do with the way ideas propagate and culture changes. (To those familiar with self-organized criticality and the ricepile experiment, I'd draw parallels. The criticality landscape can be known, and the result of a given perturbation predicted, but only if those in the peanut gallery aren't throwing rice at the experiment randomly.)
Moreover, for the "scattering" reasons discussed above, "reframing" of a concept by a large poorly-controlled group is kind of a terrible idea to try. It needs to be done abruptly, properly, with its feet of clay well hidden, and steered to where it needs to go by a core of folks who know exactly what they're doing.
I kinda hope TOD will continue, since I enjoy the group of people it has brought together. But I'll be leaving it pretty soon and only coming back sporadically. There are a number of posters here I'd have gotten in personal touch with if they had contact information in their profiles, but I respect that most prefer not to.
I think the "eclectic cross-discipline real-time peer review" is a wonderful sieve for reality and I hope it continues here. It's habit-forming enough that hopefully it will. And to generally answer the question
The concept of "satisficing" may apply. One doesn't need to know everything about everything; just to have a good science and logic grounding and a sense for how things fit together. I've often felt like Tainter's declining returns on investment in complexity apply to human expertise, and have consciously prevented myself from specializing too much in any area. I'd suggest that being a sophisticated generalist is a good place to be, and reading TOD comments would be a great way to produce more of them. Indeed, producing and honing sophisticated generalists wouldn't be a bad achievement for a website.
cheers
You offer lots of good insights.
With peak oil, we are moving in the direction of what is happening--so there is change, but based on what is happening short and long term. Those that made forecasts based only on the geology of oil are finding that the situation is more complex.
Different ones of us have different views of what is happening going forward. The challenge can be how to accommodate diverse views, especially when each feels fairly strongly about what we see as our own view of the future. I can see how groups might splinter, especially if some with one view feel a need to enforce their view on the rest. How can different views be accommodated, except with someone who has more of an administrative bent in charge, rather than a crusader?
How different views can be accommodated? Putting them together in free discourse as here. In any ideological conflict I try to analyse with the other(s) quite what facts or reasonings or values we agree on and which we disagree on. For instance I was just now at the supermarket queue talking to the woman in front about her having studied the Welsh language which is compulsory in schools (in Wales). I suggested it would be more useful to learn one of the languages of a great culture such as German or Russian. In this case at the end of the day the controversy boiled down to an arbitrary value judgement of whether one held more value in preserving the Welsh culture or in extending ones's horizons via the German/Russian etc. Hilariously I then showed her some rose-hips I had picked on the way there, and she had not a clue what they were. So much for the education system preserving our traditional culture!
Your question seems to be, where do you go once you have arrived at where you were going. It seems almost certain that Peak Oil is now history. The ranks of the nay sayers are thinning, and and increasing number of the deserters are quietly jumping onboard the PO wagon - or at least stepping out of the way. Of course even as they grudgingly acknowledge the peaking or soon to peak production of conventional oil, many are now insisting that PO will be effectively mitigated through the development of non conventional oil, renewable sources of energy and ever improving technology. Perhaps the new role of TOD is threefold; maintain awareness of the post peak process, shine an objective light on proposed substitutes for conventional energy and cover viable options for post peak life.
Yes, I think you are right. I kind of feel that to a large extent, our job here is done. We were all about predicting when the peak would be, and now it's the rear-view mirror.
Though not really because everyone's jumping on the peak oil bandwagon. Rather, because the economic crisis will mean no one cares about peak oil. They'll blame the lack of financing/price signals to support new production, and not geology.
I do think that if we continue, we should consider a new format, and a new name. "The Oil Drum" really isn't a name suited to a site devoted to, say, alternative energy. As it is, a lot of people assume we're an oil industry lobbying group, because of our name.
Another problem is that the staff really isn't suited to covering alternative energy or post-peak living. We are heavy on oil-industry types. Then there's the climate change issue. It's going to be tough to continue to finesse that once we move past oil production.
The staff of TOD was united around the idea of a near-term peak, but outside of that, our diversity makes it hard to cover things like post-peak living.
Leanan --
First, I echo an earlier commenter's thanks for all the time you put in compiling the Drumbeat. It's one of my major sources of news.
Second, while The Oil Drum might not be the best name, I'd have to say that the site is more about oil than alternative energy, and that's not a bad thing. There are a lot of alt-energy sites out there, and most of them don't have any feel for the scale that's needed. It's really about oil, the cubic mile of oil per year, the energy density of oil, how we've gotten into this predicament, and how hard it will be to get out.
It takes oil-industry types to give the right perspective. The timing of the peak, and the fact that the site was set up to deal with a near-term peak, seems irrelevant to me.
I think the site has more diversity for discussions of post-peak living than any other I've seen. It's certainly a place where discussions of subsistance farming, guns'n'ammo, and community can coexist. Mostly with civility. Amazing, really.
The civility takes more work than most people ever realize.
Considering that much of what will transpire in the next twenty years might well be unprecedented in human experience... who would be better suited to covering it? Many of the people here learned what they know while riding the curve to the top... they'll learn on the way down, too, and will remain both knowledgeable and a valuable asset to readers like me.
The real question is...are they interested in covering it? They have to be, because they are doing this for free, taking away time from career and family to do it.
I knew you read this, but I never recall seeing you comment. Put a smile on my face, it did.
Name change The Oil Drum - Past Peak Oil
It seems that most people on the site now feel confident that we are past peak, easy to get oil, if true then adding Post Peak Oil could clarify this change.
the main focus then becomes decline rates, energy return on energy invested, price points...
Maybe "The Terra Preta charcoal retort drum"? Another use for that old oil drum.
Leanan, that is a well thought out post. Probably because you live it. Preaching to the choir can be frustrating, in part because of some of what Nate has said. I have separately posted a similiar question to a sustainability group. "We understand the problem, but what are you doing personally and in the areas of public activism and education to change things?"
Personally, although I do try to view the site daily, I just don't have the time to even read everything. I try to get the jist of most threads and then move on unless it is really of interest to me or something I might be doing.
I do disagree, to some extent, with the first part of your post:
"Yes, I think you are right. I kind of feel that to a large extent, our job here is done. We were all about predicting when the peak would be, and now it's the rear-view mirror.
Though not really because everyone's jumping on the peak oil bandwagon. Rather, because the economic crisis will mean no one cares about peak oil. They'll blame the lack of financing/price signals to support new production, and not geology."
I see things moving along kind of like we are seeing right now, when we, as a species, could be making a transition to another paradigm, but we are not doing it. We have the opportunity to move in a different direction, but that is not going to happen any time soon. The "have-nots" are going to continue to want to be "haves" and right now that is China and India. As we move toward a geologic peak, noting that there will be many more crises which will delay recognition fo the peak oil crisis by the great unwashed masses (and I apologize to Blackie Sherrod fans for stealing his term I read so frequently when growing up, for the few who might recognize his name), but an increasing number of people will gradually recognize what the world is facing. As such, I do think that the TOD effort is worth continuing, with many pats on the various backs to those who keep up the hard work from those of us who wish we had the time to help.
I personally have made a lot of changes, some starting before I ever read my first Drumbeat about 4 years ago, long before my first post. Some originated as a matter of earlier lifestyle changes, but some were in direct response to TOD / DB information, both from the staff and the rest of the people I have seen on here.
I will continue to follow the discussion no matter what the name is. I live the depletion scenario, and have been fooled by geologic interpretation and the dream that we can improve yields draamatically with technology. The most of what we do every single day in the field was developed before 1935, and I am serious. Beam type pumping units, the same rod-connected pumps, mud drilling, cable tools, oil/watr/gas separation methods, well treatment, etc. have been improved with changes in materials, but were in common use before 1935, and still are. Of course, directional drilling, staged fracs, exploration technology,submersible pumps,downhole drill motors, etc. are newer, but production is still close to the same. Everybody knows what is coming in the field. We just try to prevent the inevitable from happening to us.
Please keep up the good work in whatever form.
That may be a good thing. Blogs where learned individuals don't agree on key points are much more useful than blogs where they always do. Forces the readers to think more.
Perhaps, but in our case, it's become somewhat paralyzing. It's hard to bring in new blood when the staff can't agree on what direction we should take.
Your comment:
Perhaps the new role of TOD is threefold; maintain awareness of the post peak process, shine an objective light on proposed substitutes for conventional energy and cover viable options for post peak life.
I believe is an excellent track for this website to head. Now that a sufficient number of people are beginning to consider that PO is real, the critical question becomes... What do we do now to help insure that our kids and their kids will have a reasonable quality of life? What does the path from here to there look like? What is a realistic vision for a sustainable future? These questions and the question that come from them could keep many people engaged for many years.
Zev
Hi Nate,
I think oil drum has a unique role. It provides a platform for intelligent debate with a minimum of noise compared with other websites.
However, it think there are now too many article writers that agree that we are doomed and I think you need to attract more of the mainstream folks, legislative aides, mover/shakers types, etc that don't think peak oil is a top priority.
Why not invite some guest posts from non-peak oil folks that are influential? It might spark some great debates. Would some folks from DOE be up for the challenge? Or local/state govt? How about the backers of the $6.7B natural gas pipeline that goes from Colorado to Ohio. What do they think?
I would also like to hear from a few high school class presidents or undergrads that are movers/shakers. Do young people get it?
I am not a mover/shaker, but most undergrads understand there is a problem with respect to energy. Then again, I am an engineering student and don't come in contact with non-engineering students very often so I don't know about the rest of the undergrads.
CAMPFIRE QUESTIONS
#1: ABSOLUTELY it must continue. More than ever we need to have deep analytic work that the Oil Drum has provided. We need to know the numbers and the reasons behind them. I think there needs to be very little change in direction. There is already a good mix between analysis, opinion, and raw news. We need all three to continue to understand the problem that we are facing.
#2: I think that will happened, has happened, is happening, elsewhere. It need not happen on the Oil Drum, though it does through many articles and comments. If people want an increasing array of topics they will ask for them. If the contributors of the Oil Drum feel they need to bring up other topics, then they should. It will be a benefit, not an impediment to the website and the community as a whole.
#3: How can 'Peak Oil' be reframed?
Well, while many, if not most, think Peak Oil has passed, I don't think it is time to retire it. We will still need confirmation and to ensure continuity we should use the same term. Lets not fall into the "It's the Green House Effect, no it's Global Warming, no it's Climate Change" trap. Peak Oil is peak oil. If you want to reframe it then keep it to its technical roots of when oil production can no longer increase. If you are looking for a new term to describe what happens next, then maybe call it Downslope Economics or something equally esoteric... it doesn't really matter what it is called... we all know what we're talking about.
I think we need a place where we can discuss what is going on, in as fact-based way as possible.
We are going to have a diversity of opinions on these issues. I think over time (and it could move faster or slower as events unfold) there will be more and more clustering toward one or two of these views.
I am not sure there is really a way of reframing the issue that will really be helpful to what we are trying to do. In a way, I expect if we look back in a few years, we will see a very major issue turns out to be peak credit, brought on by resource limits, particularly peak oil. But this is not going to be an issue that is popular with many readers, because it doesn't fit in neatly with geology. It also means that "peak oil" is not likely to get "credit" for the problems it is causing, and oil prices will never go very high. So this will be only one of many ways of thinking about peak oil.
The by-line for TOD is
"Discussions about energy and our future".
This is a wide church; really, the future doesn't exist; it is a result of the present. The present is defined within the constraints and freedoms of (largely) oil and gas, and the technologies caused by/enabled by oil and gas.
As the 'ground' morphs and shifts to constrained oil products, so the daily reality changes, so the psychological 'impingement'on fears, hopes, plans, dreams changes. Thinking takes 'account'. Investment is shifted as a result. Some are ahead of 'a future fore-cast' (Jerome a Paris). France, in general.
Some will be smashed over the head with the speed of change, the lack of preparedness.
This flux compels us to discuss. I look for 'answers' and for insights. The most wide boundary thinkers appear here ('Infinite Possibilities' was one). The best logicians. The best real-life experience.
The function of TOD - post peak - is discussion. Nutting it out, as Nate said.
The blog not only informs: it challenges.
It changes mental sets.
It extends.
It is not a 'seer', altho' there are seer-like aspects. It is a tool for grappling with changing reality.
To that extent - past the shock factor and denial - it is a tool for mental health.
Everything is influence.
Lorenzo
Lurker here for 2-3 years. Finally registered for this post.
1. TOD is invaluable. It's the only site I've found that integrates, energy, environment, and economics. AGW sites don't all understand that FF consumption won't continue for the next 100 years. The economists haven't figured out that FF energy is why everything has been getting better since the 1840s. I don't see any need for change. TOD is unique.
2. Synergy happens. The posters and commenters have knowledge of a hell of a lot of topics: geology (duh), transportation, alternative energy, etc. And I get advice on gardening. What's not to like?
3. Peak Oil is a subset of Limits to Growth, which is the framing no one has wanted to hear since the 70s. I have felt like we're living on borrowed time since I waited in gas lines in 1973. I don't know how to frame the subject so people get it. Among the engineers and environmental scientists where I work, I'd be surprised if even 10% are thinking about limits. Keep pushing, don't worry about framing, it's not a dead topic, it's not even understood by the professionals who should know better.
Hello Waterplanner,
Thxs for un-lurking, then joining the discussion==>Welcome [same for any other new-posters & newbies]. If your TOD-name is an indication of your career, then I hope you can post a lot more expert discussion about water & sewage topics going forward, as I feel this already is/will be a huge global concern. IMO, these are the two most worrisome quotes Ever:
"Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting."
"Water flows uphill towards money."
Sitting in the dark is no problem compared to starvation & dehydration. Please add whatever info you can in the future. Thxs!
I liked your diagram showing the 4 types of peak oilers. My guess is that the particular quadrant one falls in is influenced by many factors, mostly not about the actual 'facts' (ie emotional issues, politics, etc). A consequence of this is that a general site such as this can fall prey to becoming an arguing ground between the pessimists and the optimists about who is more right. There have been a couple of posts where I've given up reading the comments because of that...
However, I think that by and large this site has avoided that pitfall and instead offers a broad spread of views, information, and discussions about the energy future. My suggestion for the future direction of the site is to focus on possibilities for bringing about improvements in the probable future scenarios. Many people ask 'what can I do?' and even if the answer is 'not much', this site seems to be better placed than almost any other forum to be able to bring forward and develop possibilities for positive action.
I'm probably in one of the 'hopeful' categories of thinking that when things get really bad that people will bite the bullet and take what action needs to be taken (and I understand the doomer arguments against this being adequate). So I think that it is worthwhile to start thinking about a lower-energy future and how that can be navigated both personally and by society. Even doomers who foresee collapse probably have an interest in saving something good from the mess. How do you ensure that? In all cases, the time to be making preparations - whether personally, on a local level, or at a national / global level - is now.
A website like this obviously has no direct influence, but by providing a resource for both individuals searching for 'what can I do?" and for activists/researchers who are looking for ideas and proposals for action, it can offer some real help as we navigate the coming oil depletion.
There are actually 5 types of peak oilers. The missing one is the one that is still trying to get a handle on the situation and figuring out ways to manage depletion. I certainly do not belong exclusively to any of those groups listed -- at least I don't recall writing or being an advocate for any one of those agendas.
1) The "renewable energy" contingent -- I will criticize this as necessary, RE ethanol and semiconductor technology as that is my advanced degree
2) The energy technologists -- I criticize this as necessary, RE batteries, ultra-water, and see #1
3) The dieoff crowd -- I don't write about this
4) The End of Growth group -- Saying we are ending growth is akin to saying we are "running out of oil" -- and we know how much people on TOD hate that phrase :)
So the fifth category stresses that we are neither running out of oil or running out of growth. This may sound mealy-mouthed and wishy-washy but depletion management will be the key policy mechanism in the near term.
I am perhaps a group of one. Anyone want to join?
Though you did not exactly say it, I take it that your group is the missing one you mention. No, unless you are talking about one's individual efforts to save yourself and your family, I do not care to join your group. Suppose you did figure out how to manage depletion? Fat chance. ;-) However suppose you did what would you do with this information? Would you post it on your blog? Or perhaps you would go downtown and start shouting the good news to everyone? Get my point?
I have been deeply studying the situation for almost ten years WHT, and I think I have a handle on the situation. (See my last reply to your popcorn analogy.) I have tracked oil production from every nation for many years and I think I have as good a handle on the situation as anyone. The collapse of oil production is only a very few years away. Making matters much worse will be the hording by exporting nations once they realize what is happening. They have theirs and no one else is getting it by golly!
Yes, unfortunately I am a member of the dieoff crowd. Not just because of peak oil, but that will be a major part of it. An abundance of fossil energy brought about an abundance of food that enabled the population to explode. It had to collapse sooner or later. Once the population made that hockey stick turn up, the end result was as much as written in stone.
Ron P.
Makes sense. I respect your opinion but I usually do not engage in the same comment threads as you.
My answers (from a "lurker" who reads TOD daily, but hasn't spoken up yet)
1. Would anybody ever argue that if TOD went away, its departure would move us closer to a solution to the PO problem ? I didn't think so. TOD is a rational island in a sea of dogmatic assertions.
2. First of all, "knowledge of an increasing array of topics" is an inevitable part of the problem. Hubbert could summarize all of his all his knowledge of PO in a single graph. We have thought about it more and are much closer to it, so unavoidably, we need to bring in a wider range of expertise. I think I could make a case that we need much more expertise in a much wider range of topics - that we are too narrow on the techy stuff. That being said, I admit I still find myself neglecting some topics that I personally am not skilled in, or just don't care about. But I am becoming more familiar with the "Big Picture" questions. And that, I suspect, is a common pattern - getting the Big Picture and as many pieces of the details as possible.
3. I do not see the need to "reframe" Peak Oil. To what - some warm fuzzy politically correct name ? Yes, we have a scary message - deal with it. We have finally achieved some "market awareness" of our "brand" - why throw that away? If people dismiss us as cranks, etc,, they are not potential "customers" in the first place.
Nate postulated four motives for TODers, and guessed that most of us fall in the second category - "figuring out the puzzle". For me, that is wrong - I have better things to do with my time than solve puzzles. Motives 1) protect my family and 3) maybe find some way to steer our society in general to a better path dominate.
Finally, Nate asked about future directions for TOD and as long as I'm breaking out of "lurking" anyway, a few thoughts. If we believe our own message, then we need to be relocalizing. I'd like to see:
- some discussion of what actions look feasible at the local level. If there were 10 / 100 / 1000 TODer's in the same city / suburb / rural area, what could they reasonably hope to accomplish? Would they work through the political system ? go to the city council / county board of supervisors and say "We're from TOD and we're here to help. ;-) We think you need a {fill in the blanks} and we want to work on it". What could be done outside of the political system - education, growing food locally, installing solar cells on some critical structure, say, a fire station ?
- a way for people to build a TOD local network. This was discussed previously in terms of face-to-face contacts. I'd suggest some anonymous "get acquainted" opportunities first - I'm probably not comfortable walking into a strange home, not knowing who I'll see there. I would like to see the TOD staff (in their copious spare time ;-) ), set up facilities to permit people to chat by area. I envision 50 "chat areas", one for each state. People could post on the chat area for the state they live in their specific area within the state, (e.g. "north suburban Denver"), a little about themselves, and what they'd like to do locally. When a group of people within a state decided that they wanted to be a permanent TOD-subgroup, they could petition the TOD staff to set up a chat area for that group, under the state chat area (e.g., the north-suburban-Denver subgroup to support PO-aware candidates for political office).
This seems to me to be one possible answer to Nate's "whither TOD" questions.
Norman
For me specifically, at this time in my life, TOD has allowed me to get involved in a way that works for me. The DB articles, and other posts, serve to shape my thinking and are often a springboard for the articles I write in my own blog and two others I contribute to - my form of activism, if you will.
I would miss it very much.
I agree with relocalizing, but then the local Transition initiatives come to mind - a lot of the same issues and discussions, but in a solution-oriented way. New initiatives are popping up every week or so these days.
Of course, the discussions online are interesting in a different way - because of the input of regulars with viewpoints you just can't find in a single town - I think we come to a better understanding of reality as it surrounds us. The power of this community is in this solid understanding, that each of us then takes to our lives, where hopefully we have found a way to be activists.
It sounds like the issue at the editors' level is different - perhaps of wanting to start with some "action" oriented posts, except not enough editors agreeing on any one "action" (?).
But is it useful for TOD to chronicle the path of oil production declines? Should TOD continue to take the daily pulse of the media/country's discussion on the topics? - I think yes.
TOD lacks direction; too many different voices many of whom seem
poorly informed.
There is a lack of analysis and people can't prioritize.
Peak oil is first about resource depletion, not the environment or human nature.
Political discussions, economic speculation and science fiction should be discouraged.
JMHO
???, as opposed to which blog? Can you name a standard-bearer?
I was perusing the Wilmott site, and they have ridiculous papers on concepts such as negative probabilities and other insane, impractical theories. Aren't we kind of grounded in reality, a place that people can present the bean-counting and deep data mining.
I disagree, WHT.
There are a lot of summary graphs extrapolating dire predictions but that's about it.
Then there's the rather weird mathematical speculations (guess which ones) which are almost always poorly deduced/explained.
This site should raise basic energy literacy (with regular pop quizzes). TODers should be able to clearly explain the issues to the public.
TOD should be an energy education site first.
Just My Humble Opinion.
I have a thick skin, so if you are referring to me that is OK, but I have a feeling it is someone else. If the latter is the case, you have a point and I will agree that we have no peer-reviewed filter for quality. Yet, even the yearly American Physical Society meeting includes abstracts from the most hare-brained theories around. If you pay your membership dues, you get to submit an abstract.
I wonder if any of those have ever panned out? Even a blind pig will find an acorn.
There are but even more so there are endless refusals by some to accept simple mathematical explanations why their pet technologies aren't a very good idea...
Peak oil is first about resource depletion, not the environment or human nature
Awful hard get those items separated on the threshing floor isn't it?
If the environment didn't limit the resources we humans have been naturally inclined to use up there would be no resource depletion.
JMHO (the H is for honest right, otherwise most here shouldn't be using it)
To the main post: 'The Oil Drum' title may work better as a post peak name than you imagine. I've spent significant time in AK villages where old oil drums have been recycled to about any use they could handle, not the least of which was as burn barrels where worthless or even dangerous clutter were incinerated to make room for something of more use...and of course drums have be proclaiming the news over distance for a long long time, as it seems certain this site's founders were well aware.
I appreciate the oil drum analogy. The other good one is the leaky drum sitting on it side. It appeals to the environmentalists who would quickly disabuse themselves of the notion that TOD is a corporatist site if we used that as a logo.
That is the gravatar icon I have used for years, the discarded oil can.
The leaky drum icon works for me WHT,
the stuff is going away and we aren't doing much or a job husbanding what is left--hard to say that more succintly
(cool old oil can gravatar by the way, brings back youthful memories of wantonly pouring cheap generic oil through worn-out clunkers).
...and though the math generally sails by me (once upon a time I may have mostly followed it) I can often get enough out of the explanations and the hashing out it gets on this forum to make sense of what the modelers are trying to do
majorian
1)If you don't like the campfire post don't read them
2)I feel that ecology, mindset issues and future speculation are a intrinsic part of the issue
3)Somewhat weak main focus, sure, more analysis, better priorization, better informed info, would be an improvement so step forward and help make it happen...
TOD is a unique educational and communication resource.
Peak Oil awareness is by no means widely-enough spread through the population, and the political leadership doesn't seem to 'get it', and therefore, the mission is nowhere near complete.
I am not certain that the year of Peak Oil is in our rear-view mirror. I think it may be, but I am not certain. The delineations between conventional oil. C+C, natural gas liquids, tar sands, heavy oil, deep-water oil, reserves vs. flow rates, demand destruction, above-ground factors, the possibility of grand strategy market manipulations, etc. make the peak determination somewhat challenging. If the Peak of conventional oil was ~2005, then it is very important to continue to build an irrefutable case to document that fact and then to spread this awareness far and wide.
I like the component conversations about alt energy, sustainable living, limits to growth/resource and sinks depletion, global climate change, population overshoot, and the linkage between credit/finance/economies, war, and resource depletion, etc.
Drumbeat is a great compilation of news about these topics.
Keep up the great work.
If you need to bring in some money, you could add some on-site advertising for products and services which may appeal to TOD readership as long as such advertising does not corrupt the editorial freedom of expression...although I anticipate getting some blow-back for this suggestion, given some of the points of view espousing a return to hunter-gatherer living, or at least a simple Amish living...but, web site hosting and people's time are not usually free for a great length of time.
I'm home with the flu looking for things to do, so I might as well have a go at this one, too. I'm a woman, by the way, so you're hearing a feminine perspective here.
Places like TOD will become increasingly important in the years of crisis ahead. We will need places where people can learn about and develop energetic frameworks and mental models to help them make sense out of chaos. The public is remarkably obtuse--my freshmen students don't know what brownouts are, don't know where their heat comes from when they twiddle the thermostat, and wouldn't know a policy if it slapped them in the face. We're in trouble here.
I have not posted here much previously because of the endless fascinationhere at TOD with supply graphs, and also because of the blog format which creates discussions based on the moderators' questions. This is a problem. A wise man once said, It's not the answers that science finds so much as the questions that science asks. And instead of asking questions about how to cope with descent, previously the focus here was generally on supply of oil. I viewed the endless supply graphs posted here over the last five years as a form of bargaining by engineers. I figured that that was about as emotive a picture as I was going to see out of engineering types; endless big sad faces :((((( stretched across the x-axes of graph after graph.
The problem of moderator-driven discussions in a blog format can be illustrated by something in the narrative above. I'm not sure why you stated it here, Nate, but it serves as a good example.
As readers here are aware, I don't remotely believe that Peak Oil caused the credit crisis, the seeds of which started a generation ago. Though the financial crisis was largely (but not totally) ignored within the peak oil community until after the fact, its onset was arguably the largest reason that peak oil is cemented in the past . . . .
We're headed into an unknown future. While it's great that you state your biases up front, Nate (I disagree violently, by the way). every comment made as a directional guide in the narrative takes a supposedly intelligent group of responders down a sometimes narrow focused path that may not be their interest or concern or issue. It also suggests a degree of desire for control that reflects, what? Anxiety? At the heart of descriptive studies and social science lies qualitative investigation. In order to find a path in this grand social experiment we are running here called peak oil, let us not use just the reductionist, deductive, quantitative approach which leads to reductionist science. We need to use a variety of broad, inductive approaches that allow a bottom-up consensus to form, in a similar dynamic to that of community organizing and/or relocalization. Explore some of the techniques described below, and use them here at TOD?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualitative_research
I used to check in here about every 6 months. I'd see more endless frowny face curves and would check back out again. In the last 6 months, I've stuck around to read. What I see in the past 6 months here is people at TOD and in society at large are coming out of their shock and denial of this problem, and starting to try to figure out what to do. Your campfire offerings are particularly helpful. Yes, a lot of us who have seen this come and post here are analytical types, which does not make us the best movers and shakers in the social sciences and policy arenas. You need to attract those types, which will mean a different format, or more attention to which questions you ask. There are massive policy issues and energetic education campaigns to be started, and TOD is just coming into its own with the role it can play there.
You're doing a great job, all of you. Don't forget to honor your own feelings about all of this, and even to role model by stating those biases too. I think that one of the most important problems here at TOD is how to break through the denial, deal with the anger, the depression, and the bargaining in ourselves and in others. Recognize and honor the feelings, so that we can work on accepting the predicament and figuring out how to deal with it, rather than looking for a problem to fix, as Greer so aptly puts it.
Regarding the qualitative research that you mention, it encompasses this:
Isn't that kind of what we do? A big ball of detective work built on top of often bottom-up models. Have you seen some of Joules Burn's posts on Saudi Arabia? This is all social sciences because we are looking at the most opaque and guarded of societies -- that of OPEC and also of the most profitable corporations in the world.
Does anybody else even do this besides lone rangers such as Laherrere and a few others, and even they occasionally post on TOD. It seems like the corner is marketed. We may be quixotic in this quest, but it certainly is interesting and challenging.
So I suppose your point is that we can apply this same technique to somehow motivate policy?
I qualitatively get what you are driving at so I guess that is the end of the discussion :)
We have considered this. But we are engineering and science geeks. We (for the most part) don't really have the skills, aptitude or connections to reach out to "movers and shakers" (nor the desire to acquire them, I suspect).
And it will be a very different format if we choose that route. I think we would have to become more like RealClimate. Only a few articles a month, comments heavily moderated. Movers and shakers aren't going to want to be associated with this site if we're discussing things like dieoff, doomsteads, and the collapse of civilization.
Yup, the "movers and shakers" are losing legitimacy faster than the banks. You're right, we don't need them, in fact they're more likely to have a negative impact and are therefore totally undesirable. They no longer have any importance to our future.
I guess the other point that comes to mind is that as things stand now, this site functions in two different roles. One is essentially represented by the front page articles.
The other is almost more like what other websites call "forums" where users comment and interact with each other. Which in general also require moderators, but in this instance the moderators function like referees to enforce rules about civility and so forth. I guess what I am wondering is whether it would make sense to try and formally split these two roles. The main site would still have the front page articles, and have moderated on-topic comments of one sort or another.
Forums wouldn't need to actually be directly or formally associated with TOD. They could be hosted anywhere by anyone with sufficient bandwidth once someone had a set of rules, and a small group of moderators set up. If the forums were a part of TOD website, then a disclaimer at the top would make sense to say that "the comments posted here do not represent the opinions of the editors...".
Once you had forums set up somewhere, then you could in theory become a lot more strict regarding comments in TOD and restrict them to things like article citations for other things in the news that might be relevant, or to direct comments related to the articles cited. In most cases the discussions that take place in DrumBeat could just as easily be done from within a set of forums. And for that matter a moderator at TOD could just close off discussions that were wandering with the statement "Take it to the forums". I am tempted to say that comment posting would die off a lot once forums became available. You could email a link to a front-page story to a "mover-and-shaker" and not worry about them reading all kinds of kookiness the comments.
I briefly thought about the concept of shutting off comments entirely at TOD, which from a technical standpoint you could do quite easily of course. The problem is that this would shut out some of the other developments that are of interest. Although I suppose if the forums were formally associated with TOD, that the editors could watch for interesting things in the forums, and request a front-pagable article whenever something sufficiently interesting came up.
The major problems with having forums is that moderation would be a pain. Would you have separate sub-forums for doomers and non-doomers? Moderation would involve a lot of trying to keep posts in the appropriate sections so as to avoid flame wars..
This is something that has come up off and on for years. We actually did turn off comments on the DrumBeat for a short while.
I don't think there's much interest in setting up forums or a message board. As you note, that would take a lot of moderation. Plus, there are other peak oil message boards. (PeakOil.com, LATOC, etc.) Why do we need to be a message board, when that need is already being filled?
LATOC is great if you are a doomer. If you aren't, then not so much..
I wasn't aware of forums at PeakOil.com.
If there already are forum(s) that meet the needs of everyone who is interested in the subject, then as you say there isn't much point in re-inventing the wheel.
If you wash your hands of moderating discussions, then ultimately the community building aspect will migrate to forums somewhere or another. The leaner and meaner TOD could focus on occasional scholarly articles..
Shutting off comments entirely has other problems. People may have a relevant question for the author. Perhaps those could be sent by email rather than posting the question.
No perfect solutions...
PeakOil.com's main offering is its forums. That's its reason for existence.
For awhile, they had "Doomers Only," "Moderates Only," and "Cornucopians Only" forums, but I think they have eliminated them.
Hmmm, should the Oil Drum die?
I guess if that's how you view your product, that is what the outcome will be.
Not that long ago the president was complaining about how the bloggers were ... disagreeing with him, basically. (He was trying to defend a shrinking and centralized mainstream news publishing business.) The bottom line is that the president reads some blogs and people on his staff read blogs and administrators read blogs and their families read the blogs. People do read the damned things.
It's the marketplace of ideas. The question is whether the Oil Drum product is now dated. Of course it is. Time marches on, so what? Francis Fukuyama famously predicted "The End of History and the Last Man". He wuz wrong and so it goes here. The Oil Drum? The Energy Drum. Old Coke, 'Classic' Coke. It's all coke, everything, in the end it's all just more and more coke. We all outlive our usefulness. The best thing to do is age gracefully and buy a second Rolls Royce.
The world is in a policy gap. The ideas of the past 100 years have also outlived their usefulness. At the same time, they have long to run before the credibility resource is used up. Policy straddles both sides of this zeitgeist. Does this mean the old ideas don't pretend things don't change? The world has had an energy shortage for a long time. What does that mean? It means if there were four or five more Saudi Arabias right now, there would never have been an 'economic crisis' or economic crises. Unfortunately, there is no 'alternate universe' with plenty of oil to use as a control. We don't - we cannot - know. This is a special kind of ignorance, one that presupposes that all possible outcomes conform to the fundamental posturings of decades past. Since there can only be 'one' outcome that demands 'one' policy trigger, the arguments are sealed before they begin. The 'Peak Oilers' are on the outside of this marketplace of singleness of outcomes.
No wonder the PO'ers question their own relevance.
On the policy side of the gap, the establishment has been repeating itself ever since the end of World War Two! Economic policy of today derives from the causes/effects of the 'Knickerbocker Trust money panic' of 1907!
The bromides and speculations that have propped up policy have yet to be unmasked. Nate sez, "I don't remotely believe that Peak Oil caused the credit crisis, the seeds of which started a generation ago." I disagree, but so what? What if I'm right and Nate is wrong? There is no pot o' gold at the end of that rainbow. In the end, the problem solves itself. As will all the energy and resource problems. What the traders in this particular market place are left with is the ability to discount their own products.
Why should they? Context is everything except when it's not! Offering a version of the truth is not selling out.
Since the current establishment does not understand the problem, they cannot conceive of solutions. Who, then. will provide insights and solutions? Certainly not the current (failed) establishment. The energy shortage unmasked will provide opportunities for those who can reframe the old issues in new ways. This is the way the world works at cycle turning points. Since none are alive who can remember the last major turning the nature of these things is not understood. We are breaking new ground/we are living this turning just like all the other turnings so far. Thousands of them, probably.
The largest task of all lies in the future, to create a new narrative, one that doesn't include destroying nature for a few pieces of silver, wrapped in a banner of 'Progress'. Maybe an Oil Drummers will come up with this or maybe just the ordinary type of drummer or no drummer at all, but it will be done.
We have considered this. But we are engineering and science geeks. We (for the most part) don't really have the skills, aptitude or connections to reach out to "movers and shakers" (nor the desire to acquire them, I suspect). And it will be a very different format if we choose that route.
The center cannot hold; the movers and shakers of today are likely to end up in Paraguay. The movers and shakers of tomorrow (and I'm hoping I mean the short-term tomorrow here) will not have the specialized skills, aptitude, or connections that the ones today have. They will be generalists, with more regional or local connections, with less focus on efficiency, control, and predictability, but more abilities to create systems that are adaptive, flexible, persistent, and sustainable in the face of massive change. So who's to say who the movers and shakers of tomorrow will be? There are currently no specialists for descent. The voices that are evolving are often local, and are of necessity arising out of many different walks of life. These people that arise from the wreckage will certainly be people that I wouldn't mind talking to or shaking hands with, unlike our current crop of "leaders." And it's out of cauldrons of change such as this one that such leaders arise. People are feeling very vulnerable right now, whether they are aware of it or not. And for the first time in 40 years, people are open to listening to the problems of energy desent, and are ready for voices to fill the void.
TOD is suffering from the same problem that is facing the rest of society; too much complexity in the face of energy descent. From a pragmatic perspective, the heavily moderated blog format is energy intensive and requires specialists focused on your specialized goals and topics. You will probably have to adapt the format to some more self-organized format requiring less energy inputs. And I see TOD and other peak oil websites as a metaphor for succession. The internet has been a massively growing system, with urban flight out of old habitats, into newer digs in the suburbs of peak oil, as the system expanded and specialized into subniches for peak oil. So where's TOD in that geography? What are you specialized goals? As we lose urban centers in this metaphor, does TOD remain in the urban center, or move out to the suburbs, or become the trendy New Urban settler or hie off to rural local woodlands? Well, I'm not sure. Perhaps your niche has been to announce peak oil to the main stream media. I'd say that that goal is, at this point, either met for some of the media, and you might as well give up with the rest, who are all carefully corporate-controlled. So what's your new, generalist, relocalized, descent niche? In the short term, what is the internet equivalent of a mature, climax forest, and how do you fit in?
I think we would have to become more like RealClimate. Only a few articles a month, comments heavily moderated. Movers and shakers aren't going to want to be associated with this site if we're discussing things like dieoff, doomsteads, and the collapse of civilization.In a lower energy world we will probably see less freedom, less equality, and less information exchange. So that development may be the type of change we see on the internet in sites like this. It will be interesting to watch. Self-organization works, and you've got to trust it and let it happen.
1.The site is priceless but as some others have commented the rationale may need to change somewhat as peak oil is now in the rear view mirror.Maybe the focus will eventually be on renewable energy or ecology or the intersection of science,engineering,and economics.
My personal pov is that the comments meatgrinder is what makes the site so good-I could find most of the content of the articles easily enough, but as a skeptical reader and sometimes writer, I know how easy it is for an author to subtly shape his reader's views by choice of word, phrase, and emphasis.
Here I don't have to go looking for the other side of the story-the audience participation is the best I have ever seen anywhere in terms of variety and sophistication and I generally come away from reading each piece feeling satisfied that I have at least a good layman's understanding of the topic, right ,left, and center.
No matter how the site evolves,if the quality of the audience as indicated by the comments can be preserved it will always be a leading light.
2.The biggest problem the site has now in terms of attracting a general audience is (my personal opinion)that the typical person who might visit the site is not capable of absorbing the contents-I am probably about as well educated in the basic sciences as the typical regular visitor and at times I get bogged down in some of the more technical arguments,especially if they involve several steps of higher level math-it's been three DECADES plus since I have had any need of math beyond basic algebra.
The new economics such as Nate's specialty are frustrating because I seem to be dropping in on junior and senior level lectures without having learned the freshman and sophomore level basics starting with terms and definitions.Some things make perfect sense, others are????
Maybe it would be possible for the site to create and archive basic lessons in some of the newer fields if volunteers can be found to write them up.A good second choice might be to try to find links leading to elementary or basic level explainations of the subjects under discussion and post them with each article.This might enable a few more curious people to follow the arguments.
I don't think in the end however that the site can remain true to the philosophy of INFORMED discussion and appeal to the general public-it must remain the province of a thinking elite or it might as well shut down.
The staff will just have to keep the content at a level accessible to the current audience-any of the engineers could leave me scrarching my head with thier first sentence if not held throttled back to the basics by the editors, ditto the physicians, the geologists, etc.Maybe there could be another set of threads for them , labelled "for the pros only".They might really enjoy that and it might attract a new audience willing to share thier expertise on a less technical level with the rest of us on occasion.
3.Reframing peak oil brings to mind the old 4H motto, part of which goes "better days thru better ways".
I tend to be rather pessimistic about the near term meaning the next few decades but I believe there is a substantial chance that future generations can enjoy dignified, rich , and satisfying lives, even in an energy and resource constrained world.Furthermore all that is necessary to bring about a new world order enabling these better ways and days is an informed public-of course THAT is a tall order indeed.
Bad news sells but an upbeat out front message attracts followers-if some one can think of a good name and motto it should focus people's attention on the future in terms of decades(-the length of time it takes to raise kids,etc) and a total quality of life experience.
This would lead into the site having a broad mix of environmental,engineering,health , political,and other issues, the goal being to help the visitor see the big picture in all it's complexity.
i think the oil drum is a valuable resource, i would not change anything EXCEPT, like someone mentioned, have some guests, experts, guru's give an interview on their take with peak oil, and have a Q and A with the readership afterwards. other than that, i like to hear other persons perspective. I amy not reply as often as before, but i still follow the oil drum. The best place to discuss oil and gas issues, besides, it has the best and most qualified group of readers and posters. Civil in it's discussion, entertaining, and enlightning.
oil and natgas may have dropped in price, but there is a reason for that, the world's people continues to grow in population, resources are only so big, the oil may be valuable but isn't getting cheaper. i mean do the math. something has to give, but not TOD!
this site has been of immeasurable service to me and others, it has really cracked my coconut.
If there is another site out there that brings together such a diverse group of folk and can have (for the most part) civil discourse about the most important topics facing we monkeys, please point me to it.
that said, everything dies, that's not bad, just sad
I think this sentence does a good job of describing what I have called the "rationale problem" with blunderbuss information dumps and crisis blogging generally. As I noted in my earlier comment, it feels right to get information and spread it out immediately to anyone who will listen. This is a central tenet of most human culture, and for small groups and local issues it's generally a decent default mechanism for assuring that the information is incorporated into the collective and dealt with somehow.
However, it doesn't work well with large numbers of people or complicated information. It's a shame, but it just doesn't. That's not to say it's a bad thing to do, but it's not necessary an unallayed good thing.
Moreover, information can be used for any agenda. In a hypothetical world with 50% forward-thinking altruists and 50% immediate-reward hedonists, one would expect information to be used 50/50 to advance these ends. The real world and real people are more nuanced of course, but it's rather a leap of faith that putting it all out there will necessarily cause more good things to happen than bad.
It reminds me, in the yawning few minutes before I head bedward, of the "underpants gnomes" business plan of the cartoon South Park. These hardworking little folks collect underpants for profit, but have no particular mechanism in mind, just an abiding faith that some mechanism will kick in when they have enough underpants.
This is in NO WAY a dig against TOD, which is a wonderful resource and ongoing creation. It's just my agreement that blogging (even brilliant blogging), in and of itself, may or may not accomplish hoped-for goals. Influencing things toward specific ends is a very different process.
TOD is a superb site, one of the few I look at and the only one I post to. It needs no justification. But if some of us might wish to accomplish specific things, we should put our heads together and get to it.
Greenish, Re your concern about whether the good/bad ratio may be 50/50 or worse. In my experience there tends to be a certain remarkable correlation within the human race, even though it is far from a 100% correlation (or 1.00 in technospeak). On the one hand there are the self-serving, competitive, authoritarians, on the other hand there are the problem-solving, creative, co-operative types (evident here). The authoritarians cannot see the world in terms of true/false but only in terms of powerful/weak, us/them, convenient/inconvenient. The authoritarians are further handicapped by a specific delusion. They major in such "kingly" subjects as politics, economics, and law, whereas the creative people major in "pleb" subjects such as physics, chemistry or the arts. From an early age they are totally stuck with the idea that just as physicists and chemists are ruled by politicians, financiers, and lawyers, so physics and chemistry are subservient to politics and economics.
For these reasons you could ram TOD down the throats of the authoritarians all century and yet they would never understand the reality (cf Galileo etc). The enlightenment available from this site is consequently something from which the unworthily-motivated are strongly filtered out by their own mental characteristics.
1. Is it worth it for this website to continue? And if so in what direction? And why?
2. How can those interested in these issues continue to share/compare and synergize when knowledge of an increasing array of topics becomes necessary?
3. How can 'Peak Oil' be reframed?
Oh dear, what a Totally Wimpy Wet Blog.
DO NOT ASSUME!
DO NOT GIVE UP!!
PEAK OIL IS NOT IN THE REAR VIEW MIRROR OF THE GENERAL PUBLIC, IT MAY NEVER HAVE BEEN IN THEIR LINE OF SITE TO BEGIN WITH!!!
And
ONCE PEAK OIL HITS THE ECONOMY, IT STAYS HIT FOR EVER, LIKE PERMENANTLY, MAN. AND IT HASN’T YET HIT THE GLOBAL ECONOMY.
I apologise for shouting.
1. Yes it is worthwhile to continue this website, and in the same direction.
Why?
Just because the economy is presently in the tank does not mean that sooner or later it will not recover, that demand will not rebound, that prices will not rise again, but that we will be closer to the real breakdown, not in absolute oil production but in oil exports from the swing producers.
And that there will be no magical technological fix.
You cannot immediately and directly affect public policy.
Changing direction is like altering course on a super-tanker.
But because once you let up, the anti-peak oil forces, economists and cornucopians will come back and win – until the next time.
You have to keep hammering away.
This is a hugely useful resource that covers a variety of related energy subjects, including
1. Costs, benefits and technical and environmental risks of CO2 sequestration for EOR and / or,
2. Carbon Credits as a feel-good Ponzi Scheme,
3. Unconventional gas resources, and that gas shales in thee Horn River have knocked the Mackenzie Pipeline Project on the head yet again for another 10 to 25 years,
4. The ongoing debunking of ethanol,
5. The possibility of natural gas as an electricity energy supply plug for a generation,
6. Emphasis on renewables that are scalable and work,
7. Identification and emphasis of renewables that are non-scalable and will not supply the extremely large amounts of petroleum energy that Western and Developing Nations’ economies require,
8. How do deal with lowered economic expectations and the resulting political unrest,
9. The realisation that it will be necessary to be collectively environmentally responsible, not individually green,
10. A discussion of how economies can have their infrastructures reconstructed away from oil products for transportation to … what?
11. The realisation that it will take a minimum of two generations to carry these public works out, and that it will be incomplete,
12. And how to pay for the public works that will be required.
I am an old, old man, old enough to remember food and petrol rationing …. It was no fun. And this time there will be no “bright sunny uplands”.
My answer remains the same as it was before it was even asked for. Since shortly after I first found this place, I have been advocating the discussion turning to solutions and activism. I am sure that the urgings of myself and others helped give birth to this very forum, the Campfire.
The answer to your question lies in the past: You provide a need. That is what happened with TOD from its inception till now, it is what is happening with Campfire and it is the only truly useful thing to be done with it in the future.
The Energy Bulletin, by contrast to TOD, beat you to the punch in first expanding their offerings beyond the energy world and then joining up with the Post Carbon Institute. The problem with the EB is the overall lower level of discussion on that site. Simply put, not intending any offense, and allowing that the following is merely one man's opinion, it is the overall level of scholarship, objectivity, comment and comments from the peanut gallery that have made TOD a tool of real utility to people beyond TOD staff. It is something that is unique to this site among the PO-related spaces on the internet. Thus, there is still a role to play for TOD.
There are, as alluded above, plenty of sites that discuss solutions, but there are few that could successfully tackle vetting the various solutions. While that is somewhat inherently what occurs here as energy sources are vetted, a focused approach to solutions rather than debating the whether and when of PO could transform TOD into a leading website for change.
A site where options are honestly and objectively vetted is needed. There are a million opinions out there, but no one place where they are sussed out. Peer reviewed, if you will. Post Carbon has a view. EB has a view. R. Rapier has a view. Name a PO, Climate Change, "Limits" or "Collapse" author or activist and you find a view. It's all so much noise until someone somewhere starts pinning things down.
A lot of the heavy lifting has been done in terms of technical analysis of energy systems and their viabilities, depletion, decline, resource constraints, etc. What is needed now is analysis of what might reasonably work to get us through the next century or so.
Some questions to be covered:
1. Is there really a difference in the urgency of PO vs. AGW? (Hint: not likely.)
2. What solutions, be they BBs or bombs, work for both?
3. Which are bad for one or the other, but serve as a viable bridge?
4. Given the answers to the above, what outcomes are most likely (remembering your probability distributions)?
5. What is the end-goal, preferred outcome, inevitable outcome or necessary outcome? That is, what do we want the world to look like at the other end of the century/bottleneck/crisis vs. what must it look like to maintain societal coherence vs. what it will look like regardless of what we do? Catabolic, fast collapse, transition or BAU?
The first step in your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to draft a policy position as a staff that states the minimally agreed upon view of PO, AGW, resource limits and growth limits. This statement would, I should think, minimally state something like:
I would suggest a pithier statement should you choose to follow this advice. (I'll not be holding my breath.)
Hell, pithier just popped into my head:
At least, that's the way I see it.
Cheers
superb suggestions
Not gonna happen. As you are no doubt aware, the staff of the TOD do not all agree that global warming is happening, let alone universally accept AGW. This is a big reason I have doubts about how we can continue in a post-peak world. AGW is the elephant in the room; we continue as a site only because we are studiously ignoring it.
Doesn't studiously ignoring it create a major blind spot ?
If the focus of TOD is to move more into the realm of solutions, particularly by applying scientific and systems analysis thinking, can the equation ever be given credibility if one of the largest variables is excluded ?
While I'm sure no-one here wants to see the "great debate" occupy pages and pages of space, at some point, isn't denial the biggest problem we are dealing with, whether it is PO, AGW, resource depletion or population growth ?
I realize I'm asking more than answering, but maybe this is the reason sites don't become main-stream - they become pidgeon-holed into a particular viewpoint, thereby attracting mainly people with the same viewpoint - people with other views move on elsewhere.
As I've said on other posts, survival is about diversity and adaptation.
That is my point. There is undoubtedly need for a site about what comes after peak oil. But we may not be the people to do it.
Then, I would say you have to keep doing what you do best, the best way you know how. Maybe a spin-off could be created in a similar way to Campfire - TOD:Solutions. Maybe some folks here would step up and volunteer to help. I do agree with ccpo, in the above post, that a certain set of governing principles would have to be put in place so as folks could get on with the business of planning and solving, rather than debating the validity.
EDIT: We used to have a term in software consulting called "Analysis Paralysis" - folks purchasing or implementing software would spend so much time trying to analyse down to the nth degree which solution/package was best that they effectively ended up doing nothing (which actually suited some folks).
It seems strangely ironic to me that science geeks who read the evidence for peak oil well before the rest, somehow seem to miss the equally compelling evidence for AGW. This seems to imply that either they are not willing to admit that PO is not the be all and end all or they are poor evaluators of scientific evidence.
Peak oil is seemingly more apparent to reductionist analysis.
This has to be one of the great paradoxes of this site.
I was not aware of this divide. Perhaps the people that do not accept AGW should leave. There is no chance of crafting viable paths without addressng all variables.
What if it's the opposite, and it's those who are skeptical of AGW who stay?
So far as I know, this site, TOD proper, is the core site. So far as I know, the primary anti-AGW folk are at TOD: Europe. Being the pragmatic fellow that I am, I don't see why TOD: Europe can't re-brand itself and go their merry way and leave TOD to do what it has always done best: deal with facts and reality.
As I have pointed out too many times to count, there is literally no scientific support for the idea AGW is not happening now, and quickly. It is a perverse thing to deny it given this simple truth. And, yes, it is a truth. I've yet to have my challenge met: show me one, just ONE, anti-AGW paper published in a real scientific journal that has not only been published and passed peer review, but stood up to subsequent analysis and responses from climate scientists.
Such an animal doesn't exist.
Mearns, et al., have a lot of explaining to do given this simple fact. Again, not opinion, fact.
If this site is to move to solutions assessment, then dead weight will need to be jettisoned. It is the way of things. At any rate, the output of persons who cannot support their positions in any way, yet hold to them in spite of the facts in front of them, is dubious at best.
I would invite them to take TOD: Europe, re-brand and keep on keeping on. I, and I am sure other readers, would have no problem with their energy-related posts linked here, or used as main posts, just so long as their untenable denialism is dismissed with.
But, hey, I'm a simple man. I say, if it needs to be done, it must be done. Egos, ideologies and hurt feelings? Well, too damned bad. These are serious times.
Cheers
It's my impression that TOD:Europe group are the ones who are most enthusiastic about keeping the site going. So whatever happens, I don't expect them to be jettisoned. They're the ones with the energy right now.
Ha-ha-ha!!
Doesn't it figure? Just another sign of the apocalypse: the insightful burn out, the blinded stumble on. The Pied Piper must be having a good laugh.
Cheers
I read an AGW risk analysis scenario somewhere that went something like this :-
There are 2 options with AGW :-
It is happening
It is not happening
There are 2 choices of action :-
We can do something
We can do nothing
Putting these scenarios together in various combinations, what approach is the least risk ?
1. It is happening and we do something - we may save the biosphere from complete collapse
2. It is not happening and we do something - at least we will have cleaned up the environment for future generations
3. It is happening and we do nothing - we are in very deep trouble
4. It is not happening and we do nothing - well, nothing happens
Clearly we need to avoid #3 at all costs.
We only have a one in 4 chance of #4.
#1 and #2 result in something good happening.
Conclusion : Better risk management strategy to do something rather than than nothing.
Then I will follow the leav(d)ers.
It would really be a shame if TOD became a AGW denialist site. But as an American in 2009 I'm used to things I once cared about being corrupted.
ccpo's declaration draft:
My suggested revisions:
I don't think TOD is drowning in hyper-debate about AGW. I think we should cement those other foundations that we do agree on and leave the AGW question to solidify of its own volition and timing.
I further think that it is a most valuable feature of TOD that it does "waste time" on debating the diverging views. In my involvement in political spheres one of the great tragedies has been cliques of people only talking with their fellow cliquists and heavy walls of misunderstanding and ignorance growing up between them. Other fora already exist for those with this or that commitment. If you favour my preferred strategy of lifeboats/energyarks/relocation rather than relocalisation, then perhaps best you build on my primitive efforts at www.energyark.blogspot.com. But meanwhile TOD has its different importance.
[PS--my substituting TOD community for TOD staff is not intended to detract from the credit due to the staff, just the site wouldn't amount to half as much without the other commenters here.
Sure. Go ahead. Commit group suicide.
Cheers
Just for clarification, I didn't mean we should leave the process of AGW to carry on, just we should not explicitly outlaw its discussion here. We aren't dead yet so what's the suicide?
I slightly misunderstood your point, but in the end my response was on target. I was trying to imply that leaving the AGW debate to itself sort of inherently implies there is a debate when there is not. Give the rate of change indicated in the most recent reports from the research, wasting time on a debate that is one in fantasy only is a suicidal action.
If a parent comes to me and tells me to teach language using rote methods, I smile and tell them thanks, but no thanks, and do what is effective and useful.
Denialists are cute, but dangerous. Feeding them by hand is suicidal.
Cheers
It's hard to draw a line, though, if what's intended is outreach. A huge percentage of the world's populace believes the show is being run by invisible supernatural beings, and that their personal deaths won't necessarily impair their social lives. AGW denial in an educated person is silly except as a dissonance-damping mechanism for those who don't like its implications, but it's hardly unique.
1. Is it worth it for this website to continue? And if so in what direction? And why?
That depends on whether running this website is worth it to you, Nate, and those on the TOD staff. As to direction, that is for you to decide but from where I sit, the constant harping at policy makers is a clear failure.
You have known Jay Hanson for some time yet your actions indicate that you disagree with his assessment. You can say what you want but actions speak louder than words and the effort that you have put in here to public policy advocacy is pretty clear. Yet it has not worked, exactly as Jay indicated. Food for thought?
2. How can those interested in these issues continue to share/compare and synergize when knowledge of an increasing array of topics becomes necessary?
Why do they need to share and synergize? There are only two useful reasons for doing that - (1) because you think you can actually have an impact, which has already been shown by the last four years as a vain, false, and wasted hope, or (2) because you intend to actively prepare for the end of civilization regardless of the thinking of those who think otherwise. The third reason people do this, for the simple dopamine rush, does not strike me as "useful" but it may be the strongest. You, and most of those who post here regularly, are addicts, addicted to the positive feedback that TOD gives you on this topic.
3. How can 'Peak Oil' be reframed?
It doesn't need to be reframed. It's been stated. Either the theory is reasonably correct and useful or it is not. Evidence strongly suggests that it is correct and that we are or have already experienced the near term peak. So what else do you want, egg in your beer?
You have a choice. You can continue to play policy outreach games in the hopes of an even bigger dopamine hit that probably will never come or you can refocus your efforts. Refocused efforts can include:
1. Shut down TOD and move on with your (the staff's) life (lives).
2. Refocus TOD to some other objective more consistent with your (the staff's) world view(s).
I don't see any other options, Nate. You know where I sit. Barring some major breakthrough in science, which always remains a possibility, no matter how small, the probability continues to grow, in my opinion, that technological civilization is going to fail catastrophically in this century. You can tilt at windmills trying to stop it or you can act as a focal point for whatever must come afterwards. My bet is that the tilting at windmills will continue in some form.
Thanks for popping in Greyzone.
Have you read Jays writings lately? He says he's more optimistic than he's been in a decade because of reading Thuman Arnold, Avner Offer and some of the social critics of early 20th century. The fact that many of these social/economic disconnects were sussed out generations ago has introduced a sliver of sunshine to his view. He admits it is not a genetic done deal that we off our species into the abyss. (still, I don't gather he is 'very' optimistic)
What do we have other than cultural evolution to offset our nastier tendencies? Nothing - that is our only chance. We have the scientific knowledge to know why we continue to bonk our heads against the same business as usual walls - special interests are profiting from it and so are preventing us from doing anything to switch strategies. It’s special interests overriding the common interest at heart of these issues. I think the genetic bias to “crisis manage” a social pathology (overconsumption, fouling our nests) is equivalent to a genetic bias to “profit from” a social pathology – the only difference being the context.
The bottom line is that some (many) readers and citizens aware of these issues are first and foremost worried about personally making it through the bottleneck - others (fewer) are looking at a longer horizon, whether doing so is genetically maladaptive or not is an open question. In some senses tilting at windmills for these folks is a placeholder until some more focused strategy becomes clear. I agree there is non-zero possibility that such a moment never comes.
Disparate futures and disparate objectives - in many ways the discussions here have been (civil) microcosms of post peak reality. I understand the bigger picture much better than I did a few years ago - in some ways its darker but in others brighter. More colorful for sure.
Your 2 final suggestions are exactly where I (personally) now sit as well, and have for some time.
Nate,
This is sort of OT but since you mentioned genetics, I think you'd find Philip Wylie's 1951 book The Disappearance interesting. It's one I re-read every year or so.
Todd
Never heard of it. but will order. you've had many good recommendations over the years.
That is probably the biggest translation of abstract marker capital to real capital that I've made - I don't have enough to build a fortress but have been building one hell of a library (I now have several thousand books - where to put them is becoming an issue).
Cultures rarely evolve, Nate. Look at what Tainter teaches us. Cultures collapse, leaving the humans behind to forge a new culture. Cultural change occurs. I'm not sure yet that I'd call it evolution. The changes in the United States have been largely simply accommodations to technology but the US today is the same expansionist nation that it was when it was still a set of British colonies.
I see downstream possibilities for homo sapiens but not for the current civilization. If it does find a (temporary) answer to resource depletion, it will simply continue it's growth as usual paradigm until it gets hit again. In my opinion, change will only come when the growth as usual crowd are fatally proven wrong. And the longer this takes, the further down the downslope we end up before something maybe positive can occur. Remember, the change in response to the failure of growth could be as catastrophic as growth so there's not even a guarantee that we'll get a positive result even then.
The odds don't look terribly good.
TOD is unique, excellent, and should continue.
I read a lot of books and monitor about 45 blogs and 20 podcasts. Most of the authors are intelligent and expert in their fields yet it amazes me how few people understand the complete picture. One person understands the financial crisis but does not believe in limits to growth. Another gets peak oil but does not believe in climate change. Another likes renewable energy but has no clue about feasibility or costs. Another worries about food security but is not worried about population growth. Another understands the evils of The Fed but does not worry about government deficits. TOD is the only place I've found with a tribe that understands the big picture.
TOD may not have moved society (yet) but it has helped me a lot. I find solace in knowing that a few members of our species are not stupid or insane. And based on what I've learned from TOD I have drastically cut my consumption and am planning to buy a farm.
Could TOD improve? Yes.
1) More emphasis on constructive actions. As each idea is hashed out and accepted by the TOD tribe it should be moved to a "cooked and ready to eat" list. Then each of us could do our little part to push our leaders and neighbors in a positive direction.
2) Open up a forum organized by broad topics and/or geographic location so that we can help each other protect our families and our communities. Put strict rules in place from the get go to keep out the nuts and fringe topics.
Reframe Peak Oil? Yes. How about "Peak Consumption" or "Peak Growth".
But there seems to be a lack of a mechanism for determining such acceptance. That seems to me one of TOD's greatest needs for improvement, that there can be a huge long discussion but the only way to discern any conclusions is to read through all the comments with an attentive mind.
To fix this, I would suggest a slight change of format. After say five days, the editors post a special comment designated as the "Conclusions Comment", attempting to summarise the main points and conclusions, while noting any non-consensus. Commenters could still follow up with challenges to the reasonableness of that Conclusions Comment. Post authors would rarely be the best person to compose such a conclusion. Sometimes two alternative conclusions might be best. I am sure the editors have the wits to passably judge each circumstance as it comes.
Such a feature could be a very valuable enhancement for those such as myself who struggle to keep up with all the good content here.
1. Is it worth it? Look at it this way: The emergence of so many splinter groups out of that original basic trio, is evidence the subject has and continues to be digested by enough people to reflect the many perspectives represented by the populace. That's a good thing, is definitely a good thing and I'm sure TOD has played an important role in that process.
2. Maybe by having individuals specialize in gaining knowledge of specific aspects, then bringing them all together to share that knowledge.
3. 'Peak Oil' is just that, and if people don't like the term then that means they don't like the message -- Tough. They need to live with the term no matter how hard it is to digest. My two cents is don't change the term or attempt to soften the blow to those that cannot handle the truth. Are these really the questions I was asked here to answer - phone calls and foot lockers? No, actually we're all here on TOD we exchange information and opinions on Peak Oil.
It is my intent to best understand each and -EVERY- aspect of this issue. Even if the "PEAK OIL" its self proves to be a "farce" [I do not believe it will] It is important for "everyone" to understand this MASSIVELY fundamental item, that powers/moves the global economy known as "oil".
I use info here, to attempt to "forecast" Geo-political "events". IE: how each gov/"block" will act, -/+ re-act within their own understanding of their own "Geo-political strategies". How each knew "discovery" of oil, changes the "game" or does not change the "game" depending on the difficulty of extraction.
For example, Eurasia is now a VERY "hot place" in the diplomacy "realm",
because it's one of the last BIG "easy to get" oil/LNG games on Earth... OUTSIDE of Africa. And given the famine/drought and international arms deals effecting African Geo-politics... I think the people IN Eurasia, are going to have a few "bad days". ESP regarding Nagorno-Karabakh so that Nabucco can be built. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabucco_pipeline
Could I FIND the same EXACT oil Production #'s some place else? Perhaps... but for SURE I doubt I could gain an understanding of "EVERYTHING" it takes to remove oil out of the places where new "reserves" have been "found". In such RICH detail, in a ONE STOP, place.
In the end: We want to LIMIT the damage to MANKIND and the planet EARTH , when the time of transition comes. ALL OF US have the BEST intentions. We want to SAVE LIFE , be it human life, or plant life, or animal life. We all want to save life. Wile at the same time, understanding, we cant save everything.... and need to plan ahead for what we can save.
Today, 40 MILLION people JUST in East Africa risk STARVATION
www.fews.net Wile El-Niño + drought played the "larger" part, [this year] it can not be denied that the price spike in oil also played a role in food costs rising in 06/07/08/09+.
NO DOUBT, millions of people in east Africa starving to death, will resort in some sort of political violence: "The Coming Food Coups - January 2009" http://www.twq.com/09winter/docs/09jan_NatsiosDoley.pdf
Thus, have Geo-political "fall out", and MASSIVE global economic "fall out".
For example: Is anyone here willing to say Oil and agriculture are NOT related?
If Egypt collapsed cus of "food riots" cus the price of wheat goes too high, cus farmers across the globe could not get loans, to cover the loses in the collapse in the global dairy milk industry... that caused "feed" providers to go under, that caused the farms to go into foreclosure, that then caused the price of Wheat to go up...
Boat Piracy takes over the Suez Canal... What happens to oil prices then?
Regardless of IF these events happen.... Our world, based on Oil consumption is NOT SUSTAINABLE. And it should be noted, that in my [short] time here, I have not yet seen 1 article or post, regarding potential impacts/damage to supply in the event of a "extremist attack". Be it left wing "tree huggers" or right wing "religious nuts".
Surely, people who pay so much attention to oil, must have SOME logistical mitigation plans for such events? Other then to pray/hope for the Arctic to melt faster? A Pandora's box in and of itself!
REGARDLESS of WHEN we peak the GREATEST threat we face, as a globe is "nut cases" attacking the oil sector, in effort to undermine a government, in the world. Or, an attempt to "end mankind to save the planet"
The Info I gather here, helps me to understand ALL that is involved in production and delivery capacity, as well as the what/where "could go wrongs", might happen. So that I might better understand and explain to others, and plan for, geo-political events, and actions, in re-action to such events.
This site, helps save lives, in ALL sorts of ways.
NO ONE HERE, has bad intentions. WE ALL, want to help make things better. The info here, helps us do that. This site, informs us, we inform people, that then influence local, national, and geo-political GRAND-policy and GRAND-strategy.
Today, we may be the smaller voices, warning of potential threats that come.
By default, it then falls upon -ALL- of us to think harder, and never accept failure.
If we are ALL wrong, we are a group of well intentioned "silly people" who got things wrong.
If we are RIGHT... then it falls upon us, to be the better part of humanity.
1. Is it worth it for this website to continue? In my opinion absolutely and unequivocally YES. I come to Peak Oil via an introduction from the most doomer-ish clan (Savinar, Kunstler et al.). It is only here that I find a breadth and depth of knowledge and analysis, combined with civility and an equal amount of sensible suggestions and discussion in the comments section that gives me a realistic view of the many many issues that are now, or will be upcoming. It matters not a jot to me the TOD may be preaching to the converted - the converted still and in the future want to be kept up to date and informed on what we know to be happening and what we can maybe expect for the future. TOD's direction may well need to change as The Peak comes into clearer perspective in the rear view mirror. Change in what direction? I don't know. Minds immeasurably superior to mine may be better able to shine a light on that. As to the why, I can only restate that part of being Peak Oil aware, for me at any rate, is to remain informed, and regardless of whether or not TOD IS preaching to the converted, there is not a better site (that I have found at any rate) anywhere on the web for information and discussion of that information.
2. I think that ways can be found to evolve as time passes. That is pretty well in the nature of things. Maybe as the upcoming crisis starts to show its form a few more experts in the necessary topics will present themselves and hopefully contribute to TOD. The caveat to that is not to let the site become hopelessly subdivided and fragmented. Its present one-ness is part of its strength for me.
3. How can Peak Oil be reframed? Peak Oil is Peak Oil. It is either already here or is coming very close to where you live very soon. Nate talks of the majority of the population still not being Peak Oil aware. I may be callous but let it be so. I personally have chosen to make huge changes to my life in response to my knowledge of Peak Oil. I know not whether those changes will benefit either me or any of my children/grandchildren that may chose to take advantage of that. I have made the change. I cannot and would not presume to dictate to them their course of action. Up to them. I don't even know (how can we?) whether my changes will even put me at an advantage in terms of lifestyle and/or survival should things get real bad real quick. I can only hope they will. My take on the global politics of Peak Oil is that the politicians know it is coming, but that they also know that having to say to their prospective electors "Hey guys and gals, it is going to get really bad really soon" is not going to get them elected. Where I originate from in the UK the official stance of the government is that Peak Oil is not going to be a problem for decades. And yet there is an All Party Group on Peak Oil and Gas. Out of 645 MPs TWENTY FIVE are members. Pretty well backs up Nate's figures!
That's a pretty long post for me - just my tuppence worth.
YES
Why?
Because "Peak Oil" is about as effective a message carrier as is "Public Option" when talking about the Health Care mess.
Nobody but us cultists hears a message when the code words, "Peak Oil" are muttered.
Contrast that with how well the "Climate Change" people have fared with their alliterated moniker.
Changed to what though?
Now there is a tough egg to crack.
How can a complex issue like Population Bomb, Economic Expectations Bomb and Oil Production Bomb be squeezed into 2 or three catchy words?
________________________________
The ERROI of Our Ways (TEOW)
GEE WIGS (Great Economic Expectations Without (perpetually) Increasing Global Supplies)
___________ (your catchy phrase here)
The Energy Pyramid? I think that encapsulates oil's role in driving us to new heights of socioeconomic complexity, if only for a brief time in human history.
Hi TubaPlayer,
If you're in London, you might be interested to come along to the next meeting of the APPGOPO which is open to the public (see here for details)
I plan to go along, and also to write to my own MP in the meantime to encourage her to attend.
Tuba, Re your mentioning the MPs and the APGOPO. My first chink intro to peak oil was five years ago. I was at the local pub with John Hemming the founder of APPGwhatsit and mentioned my hostility to cars. At which he pointed out the idea that the fuel was running out anyway. Before I could have time to do any follow-up of that I was immediately afterwards paralysed by a harassment conspiracy, plus lying judges and homelessness from which I am only just emerging 4 yrs on (www.2020housing.co.uk). Meanwhile John Hemming has become an MP and founded his APPGo which not surprisingly is going nowhere, with himself becoming just another of the clueless timewasters. He's a self-made millionaire and such people tend to develop delusions of having more judgement and understanding than they actually do.
Whereabouts are you in UK?, I'm in Birmingham/Westmids.
www.energyark.blogspot.com
Hi Robin,
As I said above, I was thinking of going along to one of their events with the aim of generally finding out what happens and whether the APPGOPO is just a talking shop or whether they actually do anything. Your opinion seems to be the former (which is pretty much borne out by a reply I received from one of Hemming's researchers when I enquired about it). Do you have any opinions on how it could be made better or do you think there is simply no place for it?
I have also made an appointment to see my own MP to find out how receptive she is to these ideas.
Given my low expectations it will not surprise you to learn that I have also joined the local Transition group... I have read about your EnergyArks and accept many of the criticisms of TT but am still inclined to start there and see how it goes. I certainly don't expect to remain in this area long term.
TOD has certainly stood the test of time in my shifting blog list over the past 2 + years since I joined the internet (slow starter). Yes, there is Too Much Information for me at times, but I don't have to read it all. So,
1 Absolutely worth continuing the website. I like the name Drumbeat. We are all marching to our own beat: oil, gas, renewables, collapse etc
2 Knowledge doesn't seem to bring transformation, but conversation in all it's forms is,to me, one of the most worthwhile and stimulating human activities. It makes the difference between living and surviving. There is of course a fine line between too much information, conversation and chatter....Maybe the site is too big and could be split into smaller specific focus groups?
3 How to get "common sense" problems, like living off finite resource capital, net energy issues, and waste production across when centuries of education still fails to convince millions that the world wasn't created by god 4004 BC. I say it can't be about trying to persuade or convince anyone about anything. Just have the information and let it be found and discussed.
Change is inevitable. People move away, move on, return etc. The contributors to TOD do a great job. If I had something more than a comment to make, this site is where I'd try to say it. That's all.
Keep on Keepin' On.
TOD: Keep on following your intuition for as long as you can stand it, please.
For me you are a great source of information and ideas. You help me determine the 'rightness' of my own thinking among that of the rest of my society.
I do admit to pulling back a little from advocacy of 'the cause' to simply working harder to save my own skin. A kind of growing awareness that Darwin will take the hindmost, and its my duty to make sure my family is not back there when it all hits the fan.
I have become more accepting of the fact that there are many people I cannot change no matter how many 'facts' I hit them with. So I tend to be more inclined to simply put the facts in front of them from time to time, and leave it for them to reflect on. If they don't react that is their loss. Next!
So I continue to register the content of TOD, and to disseminate the juicy bits as opportunity permits. But in the mean time; I'm busy making my own 'other arrangements'.
Keep up the good work. Thank you.
Nigel
I would just like to say that I have absolutely nothing to do with the oil industry, I'm a film director's agent/digital strategist in a well known film director's worldwide production company but I do enjoy dipping into this great blog through my reader. Please keep going but I have one pleading, begging request and that is can you make your posts much, much shorter! I never have the time to read all your long posts. Get your point across, short and punchy please, then your right angled arm can take more of a rest. If you have longer posts, link to them. I would share more of your posts to my 10K odd twitter following and my friendfeed and facebook audiences if they were short, rich paragraphs, with contextual images or video. Otherwise keep up the good work.
We are aware of this issue, and have been trying. Blogs just aren't suited for long posts.
But we're not that good at being pithy, and the ideas we're trying to convey often take a lot of verbiage. File this under "not good at communicating with Main St."
Oh, funny. S/He's in the business of film directing so obviously a child of the movies. Oldfarmermac I'm guessing is not -- IIRC mentioned once that he's read possibly thousands of books. Look at the average length of Oldfarmermac's comments. I recently ditched television and took up book reading and now find myself more inclined to digest longer posts like Oldfarmermac's.
Good topic for down the road. Sometimes I scan DB's just to see what's new; other times I read everything. The depth of discussion on TOD is a huge asset precisely because it isn't boiled down to 5th grade sound bites.
Non technical people tend to rely more on other communication forms, such as tone of voice and body language, etc. Well, we all do that (in fact it is my most natural mode too), but when there is actually something specific to communicate, i.e. there is actual meaning in the words, then these forms are inappropriate. I've run into this time and again at work when dealing with management and marketing types - in reality they do not read the words, they are only scanning for "feeling" and emotion. Long text can actually annoy them. We've got one of those now in my company, and it turns out we have to say the same things over and over, because he is not listening to or reading the words.
Sure, it's important to avoid being verbose, and one should put enough thought into a comment so that it contains the relevant information and not much more. But by this point in my life I could give a crap if people are too lazy to read and comprehend the text of what I write - and that is what it is: lazy. I'm fully capable of all the non-verbal, emotive stuff, but I choose to use written communications, sometimes long, for those times where I am trying to impart information. And if the recipient is not interested in reading the words, well too bad then.
It's the same thing here - there are often long posts on topics that do not interest me that much or that I don't have time for. So I don't read them, but that does not mean the post is too long.
Agree
Edit for concise then precise
Example:
Film director's agent/digital strategist with no oil industry experience who enjoys this blog.
Comment - please be more concise, short to the point, I have a 10K twitter group and would link more if shorter, more images and video
thanks
This conflicts with one of the major contributions of TOD, which is in-depth analysis. We can't please everyone.
I am personally trying to distill the main point of every post I write into an abstract or executive summary. You can stop reading there if you like.
this is the best site of them all, and is the kind of linking that will be needed. Don't let it go ( happy to help) but let it morph. Keep the name, and the site, just let the discussions flow.
This is where I come every day, to reassure myself I'm not a solo nutter in a world of folk who, by and large, don't know, care or think. I appreciate some of the intellects, and enjoy scrolling down to my favourite names with their comments. I've learned heaps, and it's a great resource for spreading the word.
I understand burnout, but every day brings us closer to a major social change and if some of you feel like your expertise is not aimed at the 'afterwards', there are a lot of us pretty comfortable down that road. I rather suspect, though, that you are the kind of folks who don't stop thinking just because the goalposts shift......
Nate,
I find this site exceptional for the quality and depth of information it provides, both from the articles and the detailed discussions that follow. It has certainly helped me understand the implications for Peak Oil and the wider Limits to Growth. I have made a number of changes to my lifestyle and the way I operate at work as a result and I would feel a real sense of loss if it were to disappear
Limits to Growth require a fundamental change in culture. This brings a set of problems that are rarely experienced by people, so people have few references on how it should work. It is very hard to answer the question “Does this feel right?” when you are going through something for the first time.
I am not an expert on Culture Change by a long way, but I was fortunate to work with some people who did this for a living. The key points from what I remember were:
1. You need a burning platform to get people started
2. Leaders need to model the new future before anyone will follow
3. Successful culture change can take up to 10 years (it is also worth having a look at the S-Curves of infections / technology adoption to see just how slow the change is at the start e.g. the charts on Page 5 of this paper http://www.santafe.edu/research/publications/workingpapers/00-01-002.pdf )
Based on a sample size of 1, my guess is that many of the readers have only recently (say last 1-2 years) understood the scale of the problem (i.e. the burning platform). I would also guess that most of the readers are people who are particularly good at seeing the wider picture and the interrelatedness of the problems, so what looks like a major forest fire to us only looks like a tiny smouldering match to the general public. This makes your work at the Oil Drum still hugely relevant to make sure people understand just how big the burning platform is.
My question for you is what would you like from us that will help you keep your motivation and enthusiasm going?
One possibility is to set up a weekly post to allow us to share what we have been doing. You could model it on Sharon Astyk’s Independence Days http://sharonastyk.com/2009/04/28/independence-days-challenge-year-two/ . The idea is that change doesn’t happen overnight, so you need to make small steps every week that slowly make you independent of the current Business as Usual. This could provide a forum to show how much of a difference TOD is making (no matter how small).
Thoughts on the headings would be:
Personal change (seems a bit small for the aspirations of TOD, but it may help with “modelling the way” and allow people to get started on the journey):
Set up a clothes line in the garage so we can use our tumble dryer less. Saving = 5 kWh per day = 500 kWh per year = 7% reduction in electricity usage.
1st Aniversary of cycling to work – 70 miles per week, 3,000+ miles per year = saving of 250 litres of fuel / year.
Finished planting 5 apple trees
Community change
Nothing to report as I find this part very hard
Corporate change (may be difficult to go into details because of confidentiality issues)
Set up forum at work to discuss strategy implications of Limits to Growth (didn’t call it that, but as I do most of the posting I have been able to steer the conversations, and there are many references to articles from TOD)
Completed strategy study that recommends a major shift of our resources towards the rail industry – actually I was only partially involved, but the rationale for the change pulled heavily from the Limits to Growth consequences and I introduced this to the team.
Political change
Again, nothing to report as this another area I find hard
As to the question should the OilDrum continue?
Where an earth else would I direct people to who want to know more about oil supply and the problems we face?
Should TOD continue? I've been a reader for a couple of years and it is the best place on the internet for energy analysis. Please don't stop. It is massively valuable.
I would like to add my voice to those who would hate to see TOD go away. I am not an engineer, and don't always read all of the technical articles, but I do feel that this site gives an excellent summary of the interrelated problems of energy, economics,and the environment.
I infrequently post, and don't even visit the site as much as I used to, partly because I feel like I have a reasonable grasp on the problems now, from following things more closely a while back, and partly because I am busy doing the things I have been inspired to try to do by my reading here. It takes more time to develop a garden, commute by bike, hang out the laundry, cook real food, etc, than to continue living a maximally energy consuming lifestyle.
I believe it was Ghandi who said something like: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they get angry, and then they join you." I'm not quite sure where the distribution of the general population would fall along a bar graph of these 4 stances, but I think one thing that sites like TOD have contributed to is some shift there. I have been modestly involved locally in attempts to advocate alternative transportation and local foods (currently trying to get small flocks of hens allowed in town), and there really has been a change. A few years ago, a coworker laughed at our bike advocacy, saying "no one uses a bike in this town," but now he tells me of all the places he goes on his bike, and the paper and other local forums are full of complaints about too many bicycles on the road! Similarly, when we started doing a Local Harvest Supper at our UU Church, it was mostly about education, even 4 years ago, with a pretty enlightened audience. Now we feel like there's not much more educating we have to do. The awareness of local food issues is huge, helped in large part by books like The Omnivore's Dilemma and the White House garden.
So, yes, the economic situation has clouded the energy picture, and distracted from Peak Oil, but the problem hasn't gone away, and it is critical to have resources like this site to serve as references for people who are just becoming aware of what a complicated set of interrelated problems we face, and as a resource/discussion site/reality check/support group for those who have accepted the situation, and are struggling with what to do next.
Thanks for the hours and hours editors and contributors put in, and especially for the high quality of the site.
"Should TOD continue?" This is an oasis that people can reach to find out what the real energy issues are (whither the moment or the future). More people learn every day, and the continuing stream of information helps the newly aware put the puzzle pieces together.
"What should TOD evolve to?" IMO, five main thrusts;
A. Oil production forecasting (continue)
B. Energy News (Drumbeat is fantastic, Leanan is a keeper)
C. Psychology of demand (you've started this, but it is necessary for us to understand cognitive motivation, consumer behavior, etc out in the open)
D. Impact scenarios (Risks must be understood in the light of day, though in a thoughtful manner)
C. Mitigations/Transitions (What can be [and is being] done by individuals, communities, provinces/states, and nations? This should be a large new area. "Local" was a start, re-energize it in a wider scope.)
I also don't think TOD needs to publish everyday, or at least not 9 times per week. Reducing the perceived need to get a column out every day should exponentially reduce the stress induced by such a standing policy.
Will makes a good point, as usual. I for one cannot imagine the effort that goes into keeping this site open. It takes a long time just to read through all the comments on any given article. Fewer key posts might not reduce the site's volume much, if any, over time as more who visit would be able to at least read more of the posts. Finding the right balance would, of course, not be any easier if fewer key posts were decided upon.
Then again the content must maintain a certain level of freshness and the editors may have long ago discovered that the current level is the minimum that works. Well I didn't add much but length, sorry.
I accept that "Peak oil is in the past" but society has not noticed yet, and if it has ever occurred to 'them' well, obviously someone in government recognizes the problem and is planning for it.
I know this analogy sucks, but somehow I picture those Japanese soldiers that didn't know WWII had ended. But in this case, there are just a few soldiers that found out and the rest are continuing the good fight.
We may not have educated the general public but I have started on my lifeboat in a small town in a region that may not suffer too much from catastrophic climate chaos or roving packs of zombies. I know I'm too late, but everyone has to have a goal.
I try to be subversive, however; the cycling club in this town has gone from 60 to 130 members in the past two years, and I have no other obvious solution to any of these problems above getting on your bike whenever possible.
Bryan
I totally understand your feelings as I ran a similar blog (just not nearly this good)and have been posting on a similar forum for years, both in Hungary (as far as cyberspace has a location anyway...). Your questions are valid, as understandable is the underlying tone. I had the very same feelings, summarized as follows: "If I can't achieve anything, is it worth it to continue?"
However, asking your readership will give you false feedback, Nate. Your readerships is with you because for some reason they feel it is woth it for them. Asking them whether it makes sense to continue makes no sense. Naturally, they will give you the same answer someone more often tan occasionally drinking a few beers would give you if you asked them if it makes sense to sell beer at all. (And reading this site is free... also not the best of feedbacks in our world.)
You have to decide what you really are doing, e.g.:
1) digesting science
2) doing science
3) teaching science
4) telling a few people about science
5) having a conversation of science
6) other
And what you are doing it for:
a) educating people in general
b) having a good time
c) forming groups
d) working out action plans
e) helping yourself to understand the issues more thoroughly
f) other
Now. Imagine you are about organizing a journey.
If you want to get from point A to point B, you have to answer the following:
1) where point A is
2) where point B is
3) means of transportation, time required, etc.
Without knowing where point A or point B is, it makes no sense talking about a journey.
The peak oil debate was originally about point B. I.e.: it said that we are in A.D. 2003 (point A) and peak oil comes in A.D. 2010 (point B), adn befre getting there we should do this and that. As it seems, we are through pont B now, and in the current situation we can say we had peak oil in 2008 (point A), we have (say) 22 more years to act (timeframe) and we should do this or that. So the question is how you define point B.
Nate, defining point B is essential. In other words: you have to have a goal. It's great that we know we are past peak oil (point A). But if we are to talk about how to transition to a different society (journey), we really have to fix point B. Of course I understand we may be at error while defining a point in the future. But that's what all policies do. Defining a point (however uncertain even though more certain than any other particular point) and designing accordingly.
For the whole discussion to have any real-life relevance, you have to set in stone point A and point B -- then you can talk about means of transport (the journey). Not defining any points... you have nothing.
As for your questions:
1. Is it worth it for this website to continue? Yes.
1.a And if so in what direction? That's up to the editors to decide. Do not ask people knowing less abput possible direnctions than yourself.
1.b And why? Because it is an important discussion. (And fun.)
2. How can those interested in these issues continue to share/compare and synergize when knowledge of an increasing array of topics becomes necessary?
You have long outgrown the blog format. You should have a bulletin board AND the blog, and let the community organize themselves. You can go by region/profession/outreach... give the crowd the tools and see if/how they react.
3. How can 'Peak Oil' be reframed?
That's a tough one. As for myself I've always talked about energy and resource shortages, not peak oil. You can also talk about the shrinking pie and how present mechanisms are unable to distribute in times of scarcity. You can talk about the importance of regional solutions and decentralizing the system. I basically don't know though.
You have a point. The feedback here is definitely skewed by selection bias.
I agree that we should probably be more focused. The problem is that we cannot agree on anything aside from a near-term peak in oil production (possibly already in the rear-view mirror). On our staff there are people who believe the collapse of civilization is imminent and unstoppable, people who believe BAU can more or less continue forever with alternate energy, and everything in between. We have people who support coal and nukes, and people vehemently opposed. We have people who believe global warming is a bigger threat than peak oil, and people who don't think it exists. We have people who want this blog to grow ever bigger and try to influence the movers and shakers, and others who think we should scale back, and let other blogs do the things we're not good at.
Perhaps that's why Nate asked the question. It's true that the people replying are the ones who care, and also that they are unaware of the costs of maintaining this site. But we're not sure where we're going, so why not ask our visitors what they want? It doesn't mean we can accommodate them, but asking doesn't hurt, and might help.
Sure, ask them if you think it makes sense. But AFTER having asked them you still have to decide on your own. Regardless of my answers to any questions, it seems unlikely that I'll get the admin password by tomorrow, right? And when you guys decide, you have to agree on a point B.
Point A is agreed on (more or less anyway): Peak oil is 'now' give or take a few years. Because it is agreed on, we cannot really talk about it in an entertaining manner any more, can we? So for this discussion to continue, we have to have a different question (not about the timing of peak). And that qustion is:
NOW WHAT?
This is the time to fix a point B, and since there are several editors, you have to fix a point B that the vast majority of editors agree on. (I.e.: with the supply of oil dwindling, it makes sense to mitigate the liquid fuel problem.) Agreeing on a point B is essential, but naturally, the more people agree on something, the less differing from public consensus the agreed-on-thing is, hence the less sense it makes to agree on it.
The toughest but most important task is to agree on a point B. Only then can you start discussing how to get there. And when discussing that, I think you'll arrive at my earlier questions, i.e.: why do you do it and who do you do it for.
I know it's tough. I can only hope you'll do better than I have, as the blog I ran is off-line. But you people are greater in number and are better at what you do than I am. And I can assure you that it is actually worse not (even) blogging about it.
On a sidenote: I'd be glad to help you guys, just don't really know how. And you cannot escape the making up your minds part anyway. At any rate, let me know if I can help.
Maybe not, but OTOH, maybe you'll have some ideas that haven't occurred to the staff.
As for agreeing on Point B...I think that is impossible.
Why is that? What are you (we) agree on? We agree that peak oil is an important phenomenon having a great impact on BAU, and that peak oil is in the 2005-2011 timeframe, most likely in 2008. Of course there are differing views like memmel (2000 natural pak) or Lynch, but we mostly agree on the timing of peak.
I can see there is no agreement on what this peak means and how we should mitigate it as a whole. To what extent can/will we use coal (per climate change), whether we should downsize, the role and possible impact of technology , etc.). However, I'm sure there are a few things the editors can agree on. For example:
1) not having enough oil causes a liquid fuel problem
2) changing transportation will be an issue
3) the possible role of nat gas
4) the possible role of electric cars
5) the role of planning (remember the marimekko we saw in a post recently?)
----------
6) how much oil will we lose per year (i.e. the shape of downslope)
7) other components of the all liquids palette (heavy, tar, shale, biofuels, etc.)
8) the eroei discussions
9) any discussions about gas and coal (as there is concensus that oil has reached a peak, what about other FFs)
10) efficiency and the energy intensity of GDP
I think if you fail to agree on a point B, this site is done. You will not be able to talk about any journey (i.e.: now what) without agreeing on the topic you are asking this very quesiotn about. So the question of defining point B is as follows:
Peak oil is here. NOW WHAT?
Others have raised this point (notably Bart of EB). There really is nothing we can all agree on. And you are right. If we can't agree on point B, there's no reason for the site to continue. Perhaps it would be best to put TOD on hiatus, and spawn some spinoff sites where people who do have a shared vision and can agree on various point Bs can continue.
I see.
Well, this being the case, I think you should've asked these questions a lot sooner. I have a growing feeling that the outcome is already decided in your minds (at the very least) and having this coming out - talk it over session is just assuring yourselves that you tried everything. (Which is btw true, only in a defferent sense.)
So I have no more questions or suggestions. I understand. I went down this road myself. I had hopes you guys will be different in this regard (as well). But it's natural to be human.
Thanks a lot for your efforts and use your time and resources the best way YOU think YOU should.
No, nothing has been decided, really. What I said is how I see it, that's all.
When I said that none of us agree on anything, I meant it. That includes the future of the site and whether it should continue as is, continue in different form, or be put on hiatus.
OK.
Now what? ;)
Real life marches on, the internet stuff comes and goes. Internet's a life form, in its own way.
Why is a destination that important? Who will ever have the answers? Isn't that what we are stuck with now? One size (answer) fits all?
One thing you might want to consider is to create a discussion forum, either to supplement (or supplant) the current layout style.
There are lots of discussion fora that have tens of thousands of members, such as the Fender Guitar forum. These are managable and have spaces for different topics. TOD can periodically publish important articles as it does already, leaving out the need to craft pieces every day.
The drumbeat could be rotated to different staff so that it isn't such a burden on Leanan. I suspect Google provides most of the data sets here; maybe posting drumbeats could be auctioned to members, here.
Another way to add 'functionality' is to charge a membership fee. 10 bucks isn't a lot of change and would add some funds for server space, etc.
The way I look at it, there is little public awareness of resource issues outside a relatively small group. Most of the economist profession, design profession, agriculture profession, public policy decision makers, industry and commerce, banking and finance are all around the bend on this. Is it Oil Drum's job to add light? Yes ... and ...
No, circumstances will do the job, the longer it takes, the harder it will be on the managers, their butts are in the sling. When events cause the lightbulbs to illuminate over the heads of individuals, there will be a need for information. TOD is a bit ahead of its time right now, and the time will eventually catch up.
Also, peak oil happened a long time ago. TOD has been effective during that time, now is not the time to exit as things are getting interesting.
The outcome is not decided.
Leanans and your discussion are at heart of the issue.
This was not a 'coming out' post - I wrote it off the cuff yesterday afternoon as more of a catharsis. And of course there is a 'selection bias' with the responders. If I was a beer drinker I certainly would urge the brewmeisters to continue at all costs!
So many of the things we discuss are in the nether region of science and intuition. (the 'falsifiable' aspect won't be 'known' until it would be too late to act). But that is what our society faces - we desperately need science to guide our decisions, but science on many of these issues won't be settled in time.
Underlying it all is my belief that what separates us from other animals is the unproven (at this scale) possibility of cultural evolution. We know that we use far more energy and resources than is necessary, not only for survival but even for an enjoyable, meaningful existence - whether we get to the lower footprint era by choice is an open question. What would be the precursors of paradigm change/cultural evolution? 1) smart people, 2)civically engaged people (as opposed to sociopaths), 3) a medium where they can meet and interact, 4) a catalyst. So SOME place like The Oil Drum will/must exist.
Great. Here are a few suggestios then:
If I were you, I'd break up this site, and let the editors contribute to the sections they don't have problems with. The whole blogring (umbrealla) would act as a holding, with perhaps a shared logo and similar readership, but without the need that the editors agree on everything or should be involved in everything.
Let each subsite evolve and see what you get. Involvement of readers and making them contribute is important, too. Give them (us) the tools first, and let's see what we (can) use them for.
Why don't you do that? You could ask TOD to one of the sites under the umbrella.
I'm not sure you weren't sarcastic here, but I can see where you are coming from either way. It's plenty of work, yes. Easier said than done. Why didn't I do that?
First of all, most of the things I know about these issues I learned here. Secondly, although I'm not afraid of math and statistics in general, I'm not remotely close to the wizzardry WHT, Khebab, Stuart&al do easily. Moreover, English is not my first language... All in all: I felt I simply don't know enough about these issues and I should learn instead of trying to contribute despite the fact that I have read a lot in the last 3 years. I just felt it wasn't right to try organizing something others are a lot more capable of doing in my opinion.
If the existence of the site is in question however... I think I should at least try contributing.
I wasn't being sarcastic. But I do think that we are facing a Tainterian problem here. We need to simplify, not get more complex.
If a solution requires more work - more complexity - it is probably not going to work. Nobody has any more time to give. We could of course bring in more people, but as Tainter points out, that creates as many problems as it solves. The new people must be supervised/coordinated among. If we get paid help, that's another job someone has to do - payroll, taxes, etc. It's the equivalent of a larger bureaucracy.
OTOH, if it's a solution where non-staff memebers take on more control/responsibility...they can do that anyway, without the permission of the staff. Want to set up peak oil forums independent from TOD? Do it. Want a peak oil wiki? Organize it. The staff doesn't have time, and there's no need for the staff to be involved.
You have a point. (More, actually.) I rest my case.
As you all well know, starting up a meaningful site and managing it is a major effort, but you have already succeeded. In business terms, you're past the start-up phase, and you will forever be among the more successful sites in the blogosphere.
A wiki or forum that is associated with The Oil Drum has a good chance of hitting critical mass. A standalone wiki or forum is likely to die during birth. Many esoteric topics get a fair reading and solid critique here that would go unread on the vast barren plains of Googledom.
You have respect. You have influence. You have name recognition. In an odd way you have POWER. It would be a shame to see that shrivel; it would be superb to see it leveraged to greater impact.
Have you tried doing any audience-contribution efforts besides the polls and more directed than the Campfires? A lower bar to participation than a full article might gather some interesting results - there is no shortage of opinion and knowledge here, and boy do people like to hear themselves talk! Is there a way for you to divvy up the onerous part while retaining the creative/control aspects?
Re Eastender's proposed changes, IF IT AIN'T BROKE DON'T FIX IT. There are any number of BBs, forums, position-taking sites, whatever. Not one of which compare with this.
Re Eastender's point about needing to agree the Point B to which we wish to travel: The most important task at the moment is working out what the likely Point Bs are. We need a unified, continuing, TOD to do that.
Eastender, although some of your ideas are very good, I don’t like TOD to become too fragmented and outsourced to more specialized sites. I have tons of such sites bookmarked in my browser, but over the last year or so I come almost exclusively to TOD for my daily ‘medicine’. I anticipate unpredictable theme posts, one day they can be heavily technical, and the other day – a great Campfire blog! Or mix of both. I like them being spontaneous (or at least feel like it) and not being combed, sorted out, marked and tagged until it feels like an automated warehouse system. Sorry if I didn’t express myself clear enough.
Despite my posts further up thread, the simple fact is, the fertility of the site is in no small part due to the disagreements, for they engender debate. There's rarely much debate where all agree, right?
Then perhaps the answer is as simple as officially opening up the discussion to any an all issues related to surviving this mess. Whereas the policy has been to mostly avoid climate issues, maybe now it is time to embrace those, too, for example.
Let the differences work for you by not ignoring them, but letting them fertilize the discussion further.
Cheers
Let the differences work for you by ... letting them fertilize the discussion further.
I strongly agree.
TOD has a good light to heat ratio :-)
Best Hopes fro Good Discussion,
Alan
I agree - the key thing is that a site like this helps to catalyse effects - both with individuals and within communities - that can lead to change. Even if half the population has lower than average intelligence, I think humans are smarter than yeast. But to be sure it requires some individuals and groups to actually be thinking and talking about (and doing) new ways of going about things before there is any hope of long term survival.
Underlying it all is my belief that what separates us from other animals is the unproven (at this scale) possibility of cultural evolution.
I quite agree, Nate, there is that possibility and I wrote on TOD some time ago that a dog has a dog culture and a cat a cat's culture, all very limited. Yet cultural variation in humans seems great and a real ace as far as a survival trait. ... right up there and likely better than the development of the opposable thumb for use with the Blackberry. If we agree on that I do not see that TOD will not adapt and if there is any luck to be had in that adaptation, maybe what w