Peak Oil Doomers annoy the shit out of me.

[Odin2005]

They seem to think that a modern technological society is impossible without oil and "we must prepare to return to an agricultural society". The lack of imagination these people have is very, very sad.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

[enki23]

1. necessity is also the mother of mass suffering and dying.

i'm not a fan of everyone trying to live off the land homesteader style. but that doesn't mean we aren't in serious trouble. sufficiently workable techno fixes are to be hoped for, but not really to be expected.

[Odin2005]

7. Of course, I didn't deny that we are in deep shit.

I just think that once we emerge from the deep shit the result will be a high-tech, post-oil society.

[greyl]

9. Is that thought based on evidence, faith, hope... ? nt

[Odin2005]

10. One can't predict the future, only speculate.

[greyl]

11. Is your speculation based on evidence, faith, hope... ?

As to not being able to predict the future, I think I disagree, though I'm not sure if you meant it in a general way or not.
It is possible to predict the future to varying degrees of success in some circumstances.

[skepticscott]

2. The real problem is not

that it's impossible to have a high standard of living without oil, but that the necessary transitions from oil to other forms of energy will come too slow, citizen apathy and the reluctance of politicians to deal with problems before they become crises being what they are.

[Odin2005]

6. Point taken.

IMO the technology is nearly there, it is the will that is not.

[cleanhippie]

3. Interesting.

I am one that feel we have passed "peak oil". I do not think that we need to return to an agricultural society, but at the rate we are going with the development of new energy sources, where are we headed?
I think the technology DOES exist, but there is still too much money to be made from oil, so that technology is being oppressed until the last possible moment.

[Warpy]

4. I think some people are more frightened of inconvenience

than they are of anything else, including death. They're terrified they'll have to learn new things and find new ways of doing all the old things.

Hey, guys! It's not as bad as it looks, really! Think of it as an adventure rather than a pain in the ass forced upon you by people you don't like and you'll start looking forward to the changes.

Of course, the real hit is going to be in agriculture unless we can get rid of the DEA and start growing industrial hemp for the oil as well as the pulp for paper. Bio diesel is going to be the way to go for farming as well as long distant transportation and hemp is one way to do it.

[Odin2005]

5. What she said!

:)

[TZ]

14. Judging by the reistance I see at work to a new database..

from fairly intelligent people, you make some really good points. Its about fear of having to do things differently

[charlie]

8. A lot of them have had their brains baked by that Kunstler idiot

I've never seen anyone relish dystopian porn like he does. The dude's a doom pervert.

This year Canadian tar sands became the US's largest single foreign source of oil. It wasn't long ago there were only a few proof-of-concept installations and general doubt that mining tar could be scaled up into a viable enterprise. Now, a fifth of our oil comes from an entirely new source. Which condemns poor Kunstler to yet more years of blue balls.

[laconicsax]

12. I thought "Mad Max" was a documentary.

You mean I don't need to worry about running into Lord Humungus anytime soon?

[rrneck]

13. I think we'll get it done

but the road between here and there runs through some serious socioeconomic upheaval.

We can live well with less, but rebuilding the global economy around living with less will make a lot of people, uh, cranky. I wouldn't be surprised if the coming transition makes World War II look like a snowball fight.