The Star series hasn't sounded the warning of the implications of Peak Oil. It still promotes the message of 'go back to sleep, someone will take care of it when they decide, to get around to it.'
The question of time of Peak Oil has been raised in the Running on Empty discussion group.
My feeling is 2004 as it would appear Saudi Arabia has peaked - then as Matt Simmons comments the world has. Oil production is on the downside as demand is on the upside. When these charts are placed on top of each other - the result does not look good.
From the group, here is someone's commentary on the Peak date:
"Most of the predictions we are looking at don't factor in the exploding demand for oil from China and India. That is why I think that peak will be this year or at the latest in 2005. All of the oil producers except Saudi are pumpin gas fast as they can. We don't know about Saudi, but they very well could be too. If that is the case, we are probably at peak now; if not, we may have a year or two. I can't possibly see how it can be much longer than that.
I doubt if we will know when we are at peak. Everything said on this site and elsewhere says we won't know we were at peak until a year or two later.
I think that oil prices will bounce around a lot around the peak. They are doing that now. Thet will react to every rumor, good or bad. Each price spike will ber a little higher than the previous one. People will continue there wasteful habits, thinking this is just another temporary thing like all the others were. A lot of third world nations will be getting priced out of the market which will keep the supply going here in the United States. Airlines, which are already having financial problems, will be one of the first industries to go under. The country will go into a recession as people are having to spend more and more of their income on food, transportation and utilities. The recession, which will be world wide will take some of the pressure off peak and may give us a little slack for a year or two. Prices may even come down a bit for awhile.
I don't think the world will ever get over this recession, but will eventually slide into a world depression. Somewhere in 4 or 5 years, people will begin to realize this is for real and we will never have cheap oil again. Then panic will set in. The stock market will have already crashed, but it will go down to the point that people are almost giving stock away. The stock market may remain for a few more years, but most people will have abandoned their interest in it even though they own worthless stock.
By this time, there will be massive unemployment, food riots, gas riots and just riots in general. The government will declare maritial law and activate the national guard if they are not all in the middle east somewhere. Hopefully, some of the smaller communities will begin working to bring a subsistence level of life to their community. People still living in the cities will be starving to death and mass epidemics will happen.
Where we go from this point is hard to guess. Even getting to this point will depend a lot on how governments act. If our country continues its aggressive ways, things may fall apart a lot quicker. We may end up in a nuclear holocaust. If Bush is reelected, he may choose to aid his rich friends and let the rest of the country go to hell. What Kerry would do is anybody's guess.
I think there is a good chance this presidential election will be the last in this country. I think the situation will be bad enough in four years that whoever is in office will delay the elections indefinetely.
Jack in NE Tennessee"
Perhaps a tad pessimistc but I too find it hard to be optimisic on this crisis. Mainstream coverage is rather benign to the issue.
Realistically speaking, the ellasticity in the system - the 1 Mmpd spare capacity will likely disappear by 2008. At this point, oil shortages will occur and the long overdue "wake up call", will be sounded.
We will have no one to blame but ourselves and our young children will rightly blame us.
In Ontario, the government wants to spend $100 million for infrastructure upgades over 30 years.
The infrastucture plans take in to account that what life is like now will be the same in 30 years. In will not happen this way! They have no clue that we won't be driving cars in 30 years!
But as far as the food issue goes... remember how the supermarkets took a while to be re-stocked after the August blackout or 2003. Next time they may not be so easily restocked.
No more 3,000 mile Ceasar Salads from the Central Valley of California.
I am buying seeds :wink:
"The world's history is the world's judgement."
Even greater, since they belong to the Citizens of Québec, in some odd way