Has anyone hear on DU read "The Party's Over" by Richard Heinberg?

[TennesseeWalker]

I just finished reading it. It's about oil, war and the end of the industrial era. It seems rather prophetic, and is a very easy read for a very serious work. I recommend it highly, and would love to know what anyone else who has read it has to say.

[DrPepper]

1. I Have

I totally agree. It's a great overview of the "peak oil" subject, especially when supplemented with the resources available on the net.

Before I really began to read on this subjects, I was living under two false impressions:

1. Oil production can grow until it runs out.
2. Alternative energy sources can substitute fairly easily given some investment in technology, higher prices in fossil fuels, and time.

Fact is, oil production is a curve, this is a fact of nature. And, alternative energy sources, while sexy, are no where NEAR where they need to be to take over, both in terms of technological potential and implementation.

[TennesseeWalker]

3. Yes, that's how I understood it as well.

He argues that we have to form a less complex society based on partnerships and sustainable living. He also predicts that peak oil will be reached between 2006 and 2015. This is a MUCH more serious issues than anyone realizes. This war is about oil, all right, and it's also about the entire infrastructure on which our society is built. If the petroleum geologists are correct in their assessments of the end of cheap energy, we have some VERY SERIOUS problems to address, and very little time in which to do it. Thus, the Iraq war comes about as a result of the Cheney Energy Task Force report, in a last ditch attempt to continue to promote a consumer based society.

Kind of "buying time" for the have your cake and eat it too lifestyle. Also, it could represent a deep fear among those who actually recognize that this is a problem, and this resource grab is simply their response to the threat of the end of the industrial age and the age of increasing societal complexity.

I hope we don't have to wait for a complete collapse of society in order to reform our current behavior. But we will need people like Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, Ralph Nader, Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich, etc....we'll need a few Pat Buchanans along the way, too...time to stop behaving like we're not all in this together.

The corporations are in denial, and the truth is that most Americans are as well. Oil was never going to last forever. Time to prepare. Are you an ant or a grasshopper?

[bpilgrim]

6. and that would explain the blair and our own spinless dems position PNAC

"we were RIGHT to 'go into' Iraq" blah, blah, blah...

i suppose though that it could be argued and won that OIL is our 'civilization's' 'life blood' and therefore is a vital interest that must be under our control :crazy:

whatever it is they are afraid of it certainly does not bode well for our future...

should the dems force the DEBATE? 'oil is vital to our survival' and therfore justifys invasion to secure our access :shrug:

i just hate feeling like i know i will have to live in a time when a nuclear weapon or WORSE will likely be used deliberitly :scared:

well, i think we should force the debate to get folks to actually 'THINK' about the COST of the 'New World Order' of preventive and aggressive war that we are apparently embracing post 911



peace

peace

[DrPepper]

10. On Dean

Since I'm a Dean supporter, I think I'll make a couple of comments on him.

He's pro-ethanol. From what I can tell it is a loser from a scientific point of view. It takes more energy to create than you get out. I hope this stance is just a way to try to win Iowa.

Environmentalism. Like it or not, we will be drilling in protected areas very soon, at least for natural gas. I don't care if the president is Ralph Nader, we will be drilling when those gas prices reach $10 and don't go down. Canada already has declining natural gas production and we import 14-16% of our natural gas from them I think.

On the other hand, we should be building wind turbines like there is no tomorrow. I expect there will be a draft, but not for the military. We'll have a national service draft to get this country on alternative energy resources. Actually, we may not need a draft because so many people will be out of work.

[TennesseeWalker]

12. Heinberg addresses Ethanol in the book.

Says it would take a cornfield as big as the USA to make enough ethanol to fuel our current fleet of autos. Guys, I think this is the real deal. This is why everything is happening the way it is. We've got to start asking the tough questions and stop fiddling around with wedge issues. Support someone who understands energy resources and sustainability. NOW.

[TennesseeWalker]

13. We'll need a new New Deal

and smaller communities, that don't travel as much. Air travel will cease for all but the mega-wealthy, and so will car traffic. Globalization will cease. We'll actually "regress" to the family units and villages of the young America.

As terrifying as all this sounds, we have an opportunity to form a society that values ideas and spirituality over money. We must prevent the chaos of a quick collapse, though. Very dangerous times ahead. A nearly 7 billion world population will collapse on itself very quickly once the point of Peak Oil has passed. The economy will tank and never return to it's "good old days" levels. In short, we will not be able to pay for anything anymore. We must prepare for this inevitability.

[Minstrel Boy]

2. Bought it a few weeks ago

and hope to get to it soon.

A few months ago, I read online Richard Duncan's paper "The Peak of World Oil Production and the Road to the Olduvai Gorge," and it opened my eyes to what oil means to the industrialized world and how quickly we're running out of it.

[TennesseeWalker]

4. I don't agree that we're going all the way back to the Stone Age, though.

There are enough folks that realize the problem. We'll survive. It's just a question of how bad it gets before it gets better.

[TennesseeWalker]

5. Referring to the Duncan position, not Heinberg's.

eom

[Minstrel Boy]

8. I don't think so either

but I'm afraid it's going to get pretty bad.

Much more needs to be done to prepare for a world without oil. When production begins its steep decline, civilization is in for a shock.

[Friar]

9. during the plague

Feudal lords just bolted their castles or fled to their summer palaces instead of addressing the root causes of the disease (it was more poor sanitation and the artificial poverty, ignorance and superstion imposed on the "peasant" population than rats and fleas). I think the new feudal lords are preparing to do the same thing. It didn't work in the 14th century and it won't work now, but these arrogant bastards are the same in any century.

[izzie]

7. I think it has been out their for a long while.

I recall the talk on it in college. You have to know that 10 % of the world(if we are that much) can not use 90 % of the worlds goods.How are you going to stop that 90 % from taking Western society over? We can not keep them out now and every Western type country is having the same trouble but Japan. Oil lets us live this way, that is cheap oil does.DC knows this better than we. They have all those think tanks that just do this stuff. We have been in the middle of a revolution for years and as with the industrial revolution they did not know it until their world has changed.Ours is going to change and I do not think we can last in a society that Bush and Co. want. One for himself and that is all that counts is going down the drain. It will come down to it takes a village, I think. And that village is going to have to be world wide. My thinking on this any how. The thing is I will not be here to have to live it and who wants to give up this nice easy life the Western people have?

[DrPepper]

11. Wind NIMBY

Here's another prediction. The Kennedy's and other rich Cape Cod'ers will look like FOOLS in a few years for trying to prevent the creation of wind turbines.

[izzie]

14. They look good to me. Lots of countries are using them.

Why don't we? I live in a mother-in-law apt. next to a large house 2 1/2 baths, 4 bed rooms, 6 other rooms, barn for horses and this apt and 3 car garage. Lights run 300 a month. That is awful. My daughter lives in a co-op part of state. They run power tools all the time and their bill is always under 50 a month. We are 20 miles apart. By the way I do think Bush 1 is in that co-op part, as it is in same town as my daughter. I lived in Alaska and the lights were city owned and I paid way way under Maine s cost. This would be a great way to go.