Peak Oil : Armageddon : The End Times : Rapture

[burythehatchet]

I believe that all knowledge that can be known has been known.

I believe that there it is not a coincidence that we are undergoing this incredible societal transformation, while simultaneously, the world's oil supply has peaked.

I believe that governments are being starved, weapons are being accumulated by the powerful, and the weapons held by the people possessing the oil are being dismantled.

A few large corporations will soon become the defacto governors of our lives. Their authority will be based entirely upon their control of the oil.

I believe that this will be the last form of government before mankind either perishes or "resets".

The religious fanatics understand this as well, at a sub-conscious and instinctual level. Their prism says its because Jesus is coming. Fine. This is because it is the opium that will calm the people during the end times.

Don't expect gas prices to EVER go down. You may want to lose your Hummer.

Invest in a really durable bike.

I have only shared with you my perception of what I believe is the tip of the iceberg. The real issue is so deep that it renders all else we talk about, politically speaking, to be inconsequential.


On edit I'm including my recommendation to :toast: and :beer:

[salinen]

1. Bring it on

Reset the conscience of humanity.

[burythehatchet]

2. Not just our conscience Salinen

but our standard of living as well. If you are among those that make it - I wish you good luck with your farm

:)

[still_one]

3. Question

How come a few years back it was reported that Saudi Arabia has enough oil to serve the world for the next 300 years?

Something does not add up...

[DuctapeFatwa]

5. It's not that there will be no oil, just that only the very wealthy will

be able to afford it.

[still_one]

11. Saudi Arabia

has about 1 trillion barrels of oil. That does not count the oil in Siberia, and other places. As I said before, that should last around 300 years, assuming nothing is done.

Here is what is being done:

1. Toyota and Honda are the leaders in hybrid technology. Those cars get 40 to 50 miles per gallon.

2. Within the next 5 years they will be incorporating that technology in there entire fleet.

3. In about 10 years fuel cells will become more common, not only for automobiles, but for powering houses, and businesses. Both American and foreign companies are working on that technology.

The new technologies will proceed faster if the price of oil goes up to fast.

If you include the untapped resources of Russia and China, you will have more than enough time to implement these technologies.

Incidently, one thing great about the Toyota hybrids, is that when you stop at a light, the internal combustion engine shuts completely down, and you are running completely on electric power. You do not have to plug the car in, and it save tremendous energy, and is emits almost zero pollution.

IT WILL AND IS HAPPENNING

[burythehatchet]

12. My friend

All life runs on oil - cars a little teeny part of it. Populations are growing.

In one of the great papers out there, the author compares our situation to a petri dish with bacteria in it. There is only one generation of reproduction between the time that the nutrient is 50 % gone, and the death of the entire culture (no pun intendid)

[still_one]

15. Here is what I am saying

Hydrogen Fuel cells will not just power cars, they will power everything.

In addition, with all alternative sources such as wind, solar, etc.

and time to implement the technology, it will happen

No matter what Bush does to retard alternative sources he will lose.

[bpilgrim]

16. it's not just BUSH

unfortunately...

peace

[burythehatchet]

18. that's right bpilgrim

BushCo is the smokescreen. Watch my left hand very closely....

[bpilgrim]

20. nice sig

:hi:

"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." Socrates

[still_one]

21. The world is made up

of more people of good-will than those who are not. Unfortunately, it is the leaders that don't have the best intentions who seem to control the show, but throughout human existence good always overcomes evil. Most people have the same needs, wants and desires.

Remeber what Rodney King said,

"Why can't we just all get along", of course that was easy for him to say, he had just won a multi-million dollar verdict...

[brokensymmetry]

26. Hydrogen, you say?

But from whence will this hydrogen come?

Even if we build enough nuclear plants to do the job, the costs are staggering. Solar? Those costs are even worse.

The problem is that the price of energy, in whatever form, will go up a lot. That makes transportation expensive. It makes growing food expensive. And when food and transportation are dear, some will starve. The only problem with that is, those who starve seem unwilling to do it quietly - sometimes resulting in wars and other unpleasantness.

If you're right, then we've nothing to worry about. But if you're not right...

[StClone]

35. This is why

Globalization may be an already outmoded Economic force for the next decade/

[arcos]

38. about Hydrogen Fuel cells...

"Hydrogen

Hydrogen accounts for 0.01% of global energy. It is not a true replacement for fossil fuels for the following reasons:

1. Hydrogen is currently manufactured from methane gas. It takes more energy to create it than the hydrogen actually provides. It is therefore an energy “carrier” not a source.

2. Liquid hydrogen occupies four to eleven times the bulk of equivalent gasoline or diesel.

3. Existing vehicles and aircraft and existing distribution systems are not suited to it.

4. Hydrogen cannot be used to manufacture plastics or fertilizer.

"Hydrogen Fuel Cells" should be called "Hydrogen Fool Cells." The "Hydrogen Economy" is a complete and utter hoax. Dr. Jorg Wing, a representative of the auto giant Daimler/Chrysler made this clear at the Paris Peak Oil Conference when he explained that his company did not view hydrogen as a viable alternative to petroleum-based engines.

He stated that fuel cell vehicles would never amount to significant market share. Hydrogen was ruled out as a solution because of intensive costs of production, inherent energy inefficiencies, lack of infrastructure, and practical difficulties such as the extreme cost and difficulty of storage. "

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/PageTwo.html

[Kitsune]

48. Hydrogen fuel cells aren't feasible.

It takes energy to force the energy into the hydrogen, so when you use the hydrogen energy you're operating in an energy deficit; you're putting in more energy than you're getting out.

[DuctapeFatwa]

17. lifeaftertheoilcrash.net

This guy does a pretty good job of explaining it, much better than I can.

[LiberalPersona]

42. Peak oil

I was not aware of this because I have only recently gotten interested in politics. I went through the site and I am disturbed to the core. This is the most frightening thing I have ever read and I'm going to have a hard time living the next years of my life wondering when this is going to happen.

[Zookeeper]

54. Welcome to DU, Shiru!

When you get too freaked-out, visit the DU Lounge, answer a silly poll and laugh! :)

[arcos]

37. Read this please...

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/10/02/global.warming/

[hatrack]

57. Your number for Saudi reserves is about four times too high

This is from the Department of Energy, noted for its generally optimistic estimates on proven reserves.

They credit the Saudis with about 261 billion barrels: please see

http://www.eia.doe.gov/aer/txt/ptb1104.html

for further information.

[homelandpunk]

4. Then share the real issue

rather than the tip of the iceberg. Believe me, I won't laugh or ridicule or put a tinfoil hat icon on a mocking reply. Share.

[burythehatchet]

13. If I had a clue as to what the reprecussions would be

I'd be happy to share my clue.

The fact is that too few people are engaged in this discussion.

[brokensymmetry]

49. Speaking of repercussions...

I wonder if you'd be interested in starting a brainstorming thread in the meeting room, or perhaps the energy/environment room?

A lot of us live in the city on a postage stamp sized lot, and have to commute to get to work. The issue is big, and not easily solved...

For me, riding a bike 10 miles each way to work - especially in 100 degree heat in the summer - might do me a lot of good...if it didn't kill me first!

[democratreformed]

27. Please visit the site mentioned above: www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net

Lots of info there. For the record, I disagree with the original poster on this thread on several things, not the least of which that all knowledge is already known. The situation is serious, however, if we don't begin to plan.

[burythehatchet]

36. That statement is more of a spiritual insight

Its just a pet belief of mine that our collective story is known to all of us at a level of consciousness that we are not often able to access.

[democratreformed]

39. Ah, I understand

Oh, and, looking back over your post again, I agree with everything else. It was the knowledge thing that got me. But, I understand your meaning now.

[hang a left]

6. There is absolutely no other explanation.

I believe you are correct. I have witnessed the total and complete overtaking of our government by crazy people. We have watched them squander our country's wealth. We have witnessed two wars that had nothing to do with terrorists, outside this country anyway. We are experiencing the beginning of the end. It is time to love our fellow man, and try each day to make those lives that we come into contact with somehow better and brighter. To spend as much time as we can with our children and those that we love. To make ammends to those we have hurt, and forgive those that have hurt us. It is time to live each day as if it were our last. I don't think that there will be many more years left, if that.

[pscot]

7. When the rapture comes

can I have your AK47?

[burythehatchet]

14. Don't have one...never touched a gun in my 43 years

[donsu]

50. there is a song out with lyrics about AK47s

part of it goes like this: "AK47s -- when you have to kill every mother fucker in the room, is the very best thing."

it is a protest song.

[billyskank]

52. That's a line of Samuel L. Jackson's

in the film Jackie Brown IIRC.

[Deja Q]

8. I wonder what the authors will have Jesus say this time...

1970 years ago, the world was violent and ugly, hence Jesus starting to talk the hippie talk that got him nailed up by the Romans.

What's El Jeez gonna say this time?!

We know the Bible has been "mistranslated" in the past. (I'm trying to be polite here, what I want to say in place of "mistranslated" is a bit antagonistic for even me). It's going to be again in the future.

I just relax by saying America is the new Sodom and Gomorrah. It was destroyed because its inhabitants were greedy and unkind to each other. (some "mistranslators" rewrote it, saying the city was full of horny homosexuals... :eyes: ) And look at America - the pinnacle of greed and unkindness as exhibited by those in power.

[burythehatchet]

10. Neat analysis

[meow mix]

9. prices may go down again

still some good years to enjoy, and appreciate things.
like..
going to work, having a computer, going dancing, and drinking hawiian punch vodkas in the parking lot.

im glad i got to see it! pretty amazing =)

anyways,
as to the prices..
(war spoils, were rich!)
"Iraq Starts Oil Exports At Khor Al-Amaya"
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/dowjones/20040227/bs_dowjones/200402271334000792

and..
"OPEC will study output decision if high oil prices continue"
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040228/ts_afp/uae_opec_oil_040228192852

[ex_jew]

19. Iraq's oil

if fully exploited, would carry the world FOUR YEARS at current rates of consumption. Better look farther for hopeful signs !

[wuushew]

23. I need numbers..I hope you are incorrect

I keep hearing how Iraq is the not too distanct second largest source of reserves. If Iraq can only last four years how the hell is Saudi Arabia supposed to prop up the world for another twenty?

[democratreformed]

25. Some say that it won't n/t

[hatrack]

59. Simple answer - it can't

Check out this very interesting story from last week's NYT regarding the doubts now surrounding Saudi reserves and production:

[burythehatchet]

24. Is the four year estimate

assuming that it was supplying the world's entire demand?

[ex_jew]

41. Yes, that's correct.

I wish I could give you a reference - perhaps it will come to me.

[tobius]

22. forget your lithium today? nt

[terisel]

28. Right wing Scares

I have lived through many phony right wing crises. In the 1960s it was lifeboat ethics-the world population was going to explode. There weren't enough resources for everyone-we had to decide who was going to have to be thrown out of the life boats.
Well the population has grown and we haven't had to through people out of the lifeboats to save ourselves.
In fact world population seems to be leveling off. Lately the UN has begun to think about the prospect of under-population.

In the seventies it was the oil shortage. They had everyone at the universities attending emergency meetings about planning for the grim future when the oil would have to be severely rationed.

The fact is that oil companies took advantage of the oil-producing cartel's raise in price to make windfall profits.
My father worked for an oil company then. He told me that loaded tankers were being held offshore outside NY harbor while the "shortage" raised prices at the pump.

There were people who died in fiery accidents then because they were so scared of not being able to get gasoline, they hoarded it in the trunks of their cars.

I thought about that during the fake California energy crisis, when a little girl died in a traffic accident when the traffic lights were blacked out.

The high oil prices in the 70s went down eventually--all the better to kill the alternative fuel research that had begun. The urgent meetings dwindled and people turned their attention elsewhere.

The scare tactics bring the thieves short-term advantage.
The "social security is going broke" is another scare tactic.

Did you know that Amish farms are more productive than corporate mechanized farms ? Something to think about.

We live on a great planet with vast resources and we are clever animals with the ability to figure out solutions to our problems.

I think one of our biggest problems is that some of us are inordinately greedy and bloodthirsty-and tend to seek power and abuse the rest of us. We don't have a resource problem. We have a people problem-and that is what we have to address.

[JCMach1]

30. Precisely

[burythehatchet]

32. Pretty substantial 1st post!!

welcome to DU

I think you're right on the money. It is a (few) people problem. The problem is compounded by the facts that:

they have the big guns

they have the ability to kill

they have a plan

they believe that he who dies with the most toys - wins.

[wuushew]

33. But social security is going broke

How is Bush going to fix that?

[terisel]

34. Article on social security not a crisis

Here is an interesting article on US Newswire on social security.

Doesn't seem to be an unsolvable problem for clever animals like us.

-- Bob Weiner, former chief of staff of the House Aging Committee under Claude Pepper (D-Miami), asserts that "Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's testimony today calling for reduced social security benefits is rash and wrong and based on an incorrect myth of a Social Security deficit." Weiner points out that "the Trust Fund is solvent for 39 years -- the trustees even added a year to the projected solvency last year --

<http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=145-02252004>

[sendero]

47. It's not often.....

.... that I agree with a newbie :) Welcome to DU!

While peak oil will be disruptive, it will not be the end of the world. Whether it is hydrogen or some other as yet untapped idea, necessity has always been the mother of invention and it always will.

The only thing that makes me concerned for life as we know it is nuclear war. Now *that* could be an apocolypse.

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

29. how depressing.

woe ! woe!

[pacifictiger]

31. Peak oil is not such a bad thing

New environmentally sustainable methods of generating energy will be devised and mother earth will be able to nurse herself back to health from all the oil induced pollution. Politicians that are hand in glove with perpetual war profiteering from the backs of thir constituents, can be exposed if the will of enough people is there. But first the people have to get over the fearmongering brainwashing that armageddon is "god's" will.

[Az]

40. A bike?

Its gonna take more than a bike. Reach out and touch something. You probably just touched an oil based product. The loss of oil means the loss of a huge portion of our production capacity. Most of our medical equipment is utterly dependent on oil. A bike is the least of our problems.

[burythehatchet]

44. I hear ya

but as deadly serious as this subject is, I have a need to throw out just a little humor/sarcasm

:)

[camero]

43. About the rapture

It's been said that there would be a falling away of the church (which means that the church would no longer pay attention to Jesus' teachings) before there is a rapture.

Eerie, isn't it?

[burythehatchet]

45. Yes indeed

I've not read the Christian religious texts but what you cite certainly fits in with the scenario.

Come to think of it, I guess you mean that this is happening right now...duh.

[camero]

46. It's what I was alluding to, yeah :)

I probably won't make it but I have a bike. :) Your post is spot on I believe. The "reset" may be that the greedy and power-hungry will be discredited and people will stop following them.

It's my hope anyway. They can have all the weapons in the world but they still need others to use those weapons. With the rate of desertions in Iraq I think we may be starting to see this.

[donsu]

51. meanwhile the world's glacers are melting at an alarming rate and

they are finding artifacts, older then any found anywhere in the world, where the glacers have melted. the glacers will be mostly melted in not many yrs.

which will come first? no oil, or the breakdown of the environment.
place your bets -

[tobius]

53. "the glacers will be mostly melted in not many yrs." --?

hadn't heard that, link please.

Oh, by the way those artifacts you mentioned, does that mean if the glaciers do melt that lots of people could then live there?

[burythehatchet]

55. I think I remember that the most devastating effect of melting ice caps

is the contraction of land mass - pair that with the growing 3rd world pop...

[tobius]

58. I remember that too. but think of all the land mass freed up where man

used to live!

[HydroAddict]

56. Okay, Now Everybody!

"Always look on buright si-ude of lu-ife" ...do, da do, dadoo dadoo dadoo...