Oily

It looks like sky-high oil prices and solid evidence of growing future demand from Asia aren't spurring new oil production. Instead, non-OPEC production has been flat with some countries slipping, and even the Saudis are turning cautious in their statements about future production. It's almost as if a prudent country would be taking steps to try to reduce the extent to which so many of its citizens rely on so much driving to go about their daily business. After all, as people are very aware it can be incredibly inconvenient -- or even impossible -- to change these kind of habits over the short-run, which makes it vitally necessary to start laying the groundwork for alternative ways of getting around and relating to your surroundings as soon as possible.

Alternatively, we could hope that biofuels somehow ride to the rescue and try not to worry too much about the food riots.

Photo by Flickr user Marine Photo Bank used under a Creative Commons license

Comments

The US Energy Information Agency www.eia.doe.gov/ipm/t11d.xls (MS Excel spreadsheet) has May 2005 as the peak. My estimate for December 2005 was a casualty of Hurricane Katrina, but notice that the winning month moved back in time, not forward.

http://www.princeton.edu/hubbert/current-events-08-02.html

Drive carefully and rarely.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | April 15, 2008 9:59 AM

"Oil in the ground" estimates are an entire division within the intelligence community. Numerous academic papers, trade publications and commentary by those with contacts in the government flatly state whatever you hear from OPEC nations and other producers is likely inflated or otherwise manipulated. Political and trade considerations mean you have to lie regarding your assets. I have a feeling the well is going to run dry sooner than the players want anyone to know. Don't look for the Saudis or anyone else to ride to the rescue on crude production. There's 200 million vehicles in this country consuming gasoline, diesel and jet fuel that need to average double or triple their current fuel mileage pronto or poopy on the fan comes visiting.

Posted by steve duncan | April 15, 2008 10:03 AM

Matt,
As oil prices continue to rise, the market will adjust. Demand for fuel efficient vehicles will rise, etc. Companies will make adjustments-they won't just sit and wait for the government to act, that's too much risk for them to bear.

Posted by jamie | April 15, 2008 10:17 AM

"It's almost as if a prudent country would be taking steps to try to reduce the extent to which so many of its citizens rely on so much driving to go about their daily business."

Okay, but I want you city folk to stop ordering so much stuff that needs to be trucked in. And turn off all those lights, will you? Where I live, we don't have street lights and all the houses go dark around 10-11 p.m. to cut back on electricity use. Think how much energy we'd save if all the millions of people in the city went home at 10 p.m. and went to sleep.

Posted by Helter | April 15, 2008 10:24 AM

Companies will make adjustments-they won't just sit and wait for the government to act, that's too much risk for them to bear.

Or they'll go looking for tax breaks for SUV type vehicles.

Posted by daveNYC | April 15, 2008 10:31 AM

As oil prices continue to rise, the market will adjust.

Ah, yes, that beloved market. It might have been nice if the market hadn't decided to build out massive amounts of new far-suburban development in recent years, despite this clearly-foreseeable change in oil supply being on the way.

A lot will depend on how quickly the prices spike. If we go to, say, $8 gallon over the space of a few months, then there won't be much time for anything to adjust. If we do it over the next four years it'll be less of a shock, though still painful. Given the inelasticity of energy demand, I wouldn't bet on it taking four years.

Posted by jimBOB | April 15, 2008 10:38 AM

The USGS just finished it's survey of the Bakken oil field in North Dakota, Montana and Saskatchewan and concluded it holds 4.5 billion barrels of oil recoverable with today's technology. This makes it the biggest oil discovery in US history.

http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=843988

Posted by Dave | April 15, 2008 10:38 AM

As oil prices continue to rise, the market will adjust

Let's return to the words of Ken Deffeyes, shall we?

Results from the Econ 101 feedbacks are not kicking in rapidly.

1. Chevron announced a $15 billion buyback of company stock. Are they out of useful investment opportunities? I have a fantasy that Chevron's last employee will sell their last barrel of oil to buy back their last share of stock. Poof!
2. Certainly smaller and more expensive oilfields are coming into production. However, a truism about oil – dating from 1955 – states that most of the rewards come from the giant oilfields.
3. I count Canadian tar sand production as crude oil. Unfortunately, expanding the production is slowed by the shortage of natural gas, water, and personnel.
4. Michael Economides stated that research investment in the petroleum industry is the smallest of any major industry.
5. Student enrollment in petroleum geology, exploration geophysics, and petroleum engineering is vanishingly small in US universities. Petronas, the Malaysian national oil company, has their own university training future personnel.

Missing from both lists is the possibility of a profound global economic depression. The price of oil would then drop because nobody could afford it. World oil production would likely decrease. It makes little difference whether the trigger for the recession is mortgage defaults, food prices, or oil prices; it's still the same depression. The rising costs of food and energy are testing the limits, tickling the dragon's tail, finding out what it takes to bring on a Greater Depression. I hope the experiment fails and we don't get into a downward spiral.

In another post at his site ("From Hubbert's Peak") Deffeyes recommends paying petroleum engineers more than brain surgeons. I haven't heard whether oil companies have taken his advice.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | April 15, 2008 10:40 AM

eh, investment will increase as prices rise. it's expensive to start up new oil exploration, so you aren't seeing that much of it now, but eventually the higher prices will make it worth it.
conversely, consumers will demand more fuel-efficient cars-you may have seen the ads on TV.

Posted by jamie | April 15, 2008 10:50 AM

...and try not to worry too much about the food riots.

Chevron's New Ad Campaign: "Do people turn into Soylent Green? People Do."

Posted by Jemand von Niemand | April 15, 2008 10:54 AM

The market will certainly respond, but we may not like its responses. Anyone remember what happened in Britain during their gas shortages a few years back?

Posted by freddiemac | April 15, 2008 10:54 AM

The USGS just finished it's survey of the Bakken oil field in North Dakota, Montana and Saskatchewan and concluded it holds 4.5 billion barrels of oil recoverable with today's technology. This makes it the biggest oil discovery in US history.

Yahoo! Another 150 days supply for the USA, or 37 days for the world!

Posted by Njorl | April 15, 2008 10:55 AM

"Student enrollment in petroleum geology, exploration geophysics, and petroleum engineering is vanishingly small in US universities. Petronas, the Malaysian national oil company, has their own university training future personnel."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Too bad many geology and earth sciences high school students transition to college thinking there is a legitimate debate as to whether all that oil is under 7000 year old rocks or 70 million year old rocks. Some even think we just need to pray for more oil and God will bequeath his annointed nation with the stuff. Faith based energy policy. Yeah, that's the ticket!

Posted by steve duncan | April 15, 2008 10:59 AM

"The market responds" is a cross between rhetorical nonsense and undertaker blandishments.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | April 15, 2008 11:04 AM

As an interested-but-ignorant bystander in this debate, I want to say it really kind of sucks that the discussion on this topic--both on this blog and elsewhere--pretty much excludes any positions between the two extremes of Pollyanna-ish free-marketry and sci-fi catastrophization.

Posted by James Gary | April 15, 2008 11:05 AM

It's worth noting that if you want a pure electric car right now, you can have one, and not for an enormous amount of money. Moreover, it's a car that will take you 60-100 miles a day without a recharge, charges on home current, and functions exactly like a conventional car..in fact, it *is* a conventional car, because companies doing custom jobs, or semi-production jobs, use "gliders" conventional cars without drivetrains, in which to install the electric drivetrain and power supply.

These guys provide complete conversion kits and plans, and these systems do work. Get a good mechanic to do your conversion and you have a pure electric for cheap:

http://www.electroauto.com/

These guys do conversions. Featured in "who Killed the Electric Car." Based on available information, these guys are very good at custom conversion of gliders:

http://leftcoastelectric.com/index.php

The high end of electric conversion. 65K gets you a state-of-the-art electric conversion of a Scion xB. Tom Hanks has one:

http://www.acpropulsion.com/

Higher up the price-chain, this company has been doing conversions for years, in high-end repro bodies, using Porsche Boxter chassis. Very cool:

http://www.worldclassexotics.com/

Electric cars won't save the planet, nor us, but massive conversion to electrics might give us some cushion of time to try to work our way out of this terrible, if not apocalyptic, mess we've gotten ourselves into in just one century.

What is it? 70-80% of our fossil fuel consumption goes for transportation? We could cut that enormously by using electric cars for commuter transport.

If you want to get an early start, against the day when spot-shortages begin--because they will, sooner than later--one of these companies can make you a solid electric car.

Now, if only Toyota would get off its corporate ass and make a pure electric...

Posted by LL | April 15, 2008 11:06 AM

The writing is on the wall, but "The End of Happy Motoring is Here" is not something anybody wants to read and cognitive dissonance will take care of the rest. There is a strong sentiment in this country that driving is as natural as breathing and as important. If Jesus didn't make enough oil for everybody to drive everywhere for all eternity, then why does the suburban lifestyle seem like the inevitable pinnacle of human achievement? A lot of people really and truly believe the automobile and the lifestyle it allows is a gift of Providence.

Posted by roboticghost | April 15, 2008 11:16 AM

Alrighty, JDavis. YOU are a business that relies heavily on oil to make its products. Say, the airlines, or concrete, whatever. What will you do, now that oil is getting more expensive? You'll sit still and keep raising your prices? No, you will look for ways to use oil more efficiently.
Same thing for someone looking for a new car. You see the gas prices getting higher and higher. SUVs may start to look less attractive.
I know, Econ 101 is very difficult. It's complex. Hard to accept.

Posted by jamie | April 15, 2008 11:20 AM

"Moreover, it's a car that will take you 60-100 miles a day without a recharge, charges on home current, and functions exactly like a conventional car."

Not objecting here, but have a question. What is the power consumption on the recharge? I think I'm up to 12 cents per KW/hr or something. Also, what's the difference in emissions between a modern auto and a coal-fired plant on a miles traveled basis?

Posted by Helter | April 15, 2008 11:27 AM

"YOU are a business that relies heavily on oil to make its products. Say, the airlines, or concrete, whatever. What will you do, now that oil is getting more expensive?"

I believe the correct answer is declare bankruptcy. Or possibly merger, if it is legal. Hello airline monopolies.

Also, one should ask if higher gas prices will affect wholesale inflation or consumer spending (the answer is yes). Guten tag, stagflation.

Posted by freddiemac | April 15, 2008 11:29 AM

YOU are a business that relies heavily on oil to make its products.

And I talk, walk, and make little JDavises. I'm a damn marvel. Almost as versatile as a 3D printer.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | April 15, 2008 11:36 AM

Econ 101 is very difficult. It's complex. Hard to accept.

Back in the 80s the market responded exactly as you stated, greater efficiency led to a correction in prices and so forth. Then oil was a commodity and behaved like one with supply and demand shaking hands and sorting things out. However, when demand for something eclipses supply by a given order of magnitude, the market itself changes and what was once a commodity becomes a luxury. It's the difference between selling mud and selling diamonds; except we haven't spent the last 60 years building an entire society centered around cheap, readily available diamonds.

Posted by roboticghost | April 15, 2008 11:40 AM

Jamie, what if gas suddenly increases to $10 a gallon. Tell us, how will you 'adjust' and use oil more 'efficiently'. Tell us how you can do it in a matter of weeks to keep the nation's trucking and distribution infrastructure operative.

Posted by seebach | April 15, 2008 11:50 AM

Jamie, what if gas suddenly increases to $10 a gallon. Tell us, how will you 'adjust' and use oil more 'efficiently'. Tell us how you can do it in a matter of weeks to keep the nation's trucking and distribution infrastructure operative.

Posted by seebach | April 15, 2008 11:51 AM

Seebach, that seems unlikely-what event could increase gas permanently to $10 a gallon? maybe if a third of global oil production suddenly (and permanently) went off-line? how do you foresee that happening? and if it is a possibility, what on earth could we do to prepare for it? (I assume the US would release all of the SPR to deal with a short-term spike like that while the economy adjusted).
Roboticghost, I agree with you that there will be some pain associated with the long-term shift away from cheap oil. I just think that the market is more competent to deal with that pain efficiently than the government is. (now, warming is a different issue, and maybe we need a carbon tax for that)

Posted by jamie | April 15, 2008 11:58 AM

It takes a while to get new techniques up to speed and sufficient infrastructure to scale it. For example, Exxon and Chevron are exploring in situ shale oil recovery. However, the technology and expertise just sat there because prices fell like a rock in the 80s. After pissing away those investments last time oil prices were high, the companies are gun shy. It's not going to be without cost, but there's still plenty of fossil fuels in different forms. We'll have to deal with pain until the infrastructure gets online.

In the internet age, where financial services and technology firms respond in hours, days and weeks, we sometime forget that tradition heavy industries move in months and years (and sometimes a decade or more).

Posted by Mo | April 15, 2008 12:02 PM

I think we should explode the population of the US by bringing in tens of millions of fecund immigrants and illegal aliens and use up natural resources--oil, water, farmland--as fast as possible. Let's get it over with so our children don't suffer the disappointment of expectations.

Hummer drivers are not the only ones unwilling to face reality.

America in 1960 with a population of 160 million was a major petroleum exporter. There were 3 billion people in the world then. Exploding 3rd worlder birth rates and end of much childhood mortality has driven US population to 300 million, global to 6.7 billion, with the US in 2050 population going to 438 million unless something is done to close our Borders and stop taking in refugees - as the world goes to 9.4 billion in 2050.

All the talk of "exciting alternate energy that could one day provide enough energy for 15 million Americans!!" is a pathetic joke in light of those numbers. Biofuels, running cars on food, are past a joke, since they will ultimately start killing people lacking the food production we once had.

Club of Rome and Malthus appear to becoming vindicated as we have too many people - and the pollyannish cheers of how capitalism and "high tech" will always find cheap substitutes to assure unlimited prosperity and population explosion stand revealed as lies. Gore-approved lightbulbs that save enough electricity to add another 500,000 customers if greenies continue to oppose any new power plants? Another fucking joke if we add 138 million more people.

Time to stop fucking around. Crash program to develop coal and nuclear. Global measures like China's one child policy to turn population growth back to 3 billion or so sustainable people on Earth. Close the US as a "relief valve" for the political and economic troubles that has 3 billion people now seeking admission into the 8 countries left on the planet that still accept "wretched refuse from other's teeming shores".

******************
Yahoo! Another 150 days supply for the USA, or 37 days for the world!
Posted by Njorl

That is a rather stupid attitude that greenie Lefties have - that in a shortage, any solution or alleviation should be avoided because "it isn't able to solve the problem on it's own". Utterly predictable when ANWAR comes up that someone will lecture that drilling there is "unacceptable" because it will not solve the oil shortage on it's own.

Akin to having a famine and oppose 1000 farmers adding crops on marginal land because "it isn't sustainable, and each new crop on marginal land only adds a few days food supply."

Posted by Chris Ford | April 15, 2008 12:05 PM

Seebach, that seems unlikely-what event could increase gas permanently to $10 a gallon? maybe if a third of global oil production suddenly (and permanently) went off-line? how do you foresee that happening?
Posted by jamie | April 15, 2008 11:58 AM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Oh, maybe Bush dropping a tactical nuke or two on Iran? Israel barging in to join the fun. A U.S. aircraft carrier sunk in the Strait of Hormuz. Then we get to $10.00 a gallon for gas. Pretty simple.

Posted by steve duncan | April 15, 2008 12:08 PM

I just think that the market is more competent to deal with that pain efficiently than the government is.

Probably true in many ways, but there is no realizable short term profit in long term infrastructure building. That's why private companies don't maintain highways and pay Marines. It isn't profitable. Necessary, but not profitable. There can be plenty of room for entrepreneurship in dealing with the energy crisis, but building railways and so forth really is out of scope for modern industry. The last time private business did anything like this, back in the day, land was cheap, labor was virtually free, and they used a lot of public dollars anyway.

Posted by roboticghost | April 15, 2008 12:39 PM

---------------
The USGS just finished it's survey of the Bakken oil field in North Dakota, Montana and Saskatchewan and concluded it holds 4.5 billion barrels of oil recoverable with today's technology. This makes it the biggest oil discovery in US history.

Yahoo! Another 150 days supply for the USA, or 37 days for the world!
----------------

I make it 220 days for the US and 55 for the world (so I agree):

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_oil_con-energy-oil-consumption

People just have no idea of the seriousness of this problem. No idea at all.

Posted by Chris Dornan | April 15, 2008 12:49 PM

I assume those of you who are Peak Oil alarmists have loaded up on oil company stocks; I don't even share your fears, but that hasn't stopped me from getting a nice return over the last year in a couple of oil company stocks and the royalty trust BP Prudhoe Bay (BPT) (at least these oil plays have more than made up for the money I'm down from investing in John Edwards's company, Fortress Investments).

Although I'm bullish on oil in the short-to-medium term, I'm confident prices will moderate in the longer term. High prices are leading to a boom in hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and pure electric cars (e.g., the Chevy Volt, the Tesla Roadster, etc.) -- ArvinMeritor is even working on a diesel-electric hybrid commercial truck. High prices are also spurring energy exploration (that is, in countries that allow this sort of thing). Brazil's Petrobras, for example, which last year announced the discovery of the huge Tupi oil field off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, just announced the discovery of the even larger Carioca field, which may hold ten billion barrels of oil. There's more where that came from.

Posted by Fred | April 15, 2008 12:53 PM

"Probably true in many ways, but there is no realizable short term profit in long term infrastructure building. That's why private companies don't maintain highways and pay Marines."

Private companies don't pay Marines because that's the role of the Navy Department. In any discussion of the proper role of government, bringing up the military is a straw man: no one this side of anarchists disagrees that funding the military is a necessary and proper role of the government.

Private companies do maintain highways and other infrastructure. See, for example, Australia's powerhouse Macquarie, which leases and maintains some toll roads in the U.S., and maintains a lot more infrastructure around the world (power stations, airports, etc.). This is a lot more common in Europe than here.

Posted by Fred | April 15, 2008 1:06 PM

The incentive for oil producers to grow supply has been there for 3 years: fast rising prices. This shows how that is working out ...

Posted by Save and Conserve | April 15, 2008 1:09 PM

There's nothing "alarmist" (or "sci-fi") about Peak Oil. There's a fixed amount of oil to be gotten. Like the young woman in the story with Churchill|Shaw|whomever, we're just dickering about price. One oil production survey (which I've cited), shows a peak in production in 2005. Fred cites recent oil field discoveries. Great. But oil field discoveries have lags from development to production. Extraction isn't instantaneous or at whim.

By all means, put the exploration tuning fork against every rock on the planet, and develop hybrids and alternate sources of energy and transportation. And, if you're a smarty, invest in oil companies. Today's "obscene" profits are just a hint of the booty in store.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | April 15, 2008 1:19 PM

Save and Conserve,

When you are planning enormously expensive, high-tech engineering projects that will take years to come on line (such as attempting to pump oil from miles below the ocean floor), today's prices are less meaningful to your planning than your projection of prices over the longer term. With these sorts of projects, oil companies use their long-term trend estimates of oil prices to determine if they are feasible. They generally aren't determining feasibility by assuming $100+ oil; instead, they are looking for projects that will be feasible with $60 oil. Oil companies remember the oil bust of the 1990s, when oil was at $10 per barrel.

Maybe Rep. Henry Waxman can encourage ChevronTexaco and other U.S. oil companies to build these projects faster, by hauling their engineers in front of Congress and berating them (meanwhile, doing nothing to open more U.S. territory to energy exploration).

Posted by Fred | April 15, 2008 1:23 PM

Yahoo! Another 150 days supply for the USA, or 37 days for the world! Posted by Njorl

That is a rather stupid attitude that greenie Lefties have - that in a shortage, any solution or alleviation should be avoided because "it isn't able to solve the problem on it's own". Utterly predictable when ANWAR comes up that someone will lecture that drilling there is "unacceptable" because it will not solve the oil shortage on it's own.
chris ford

No chris, it is not stupid. When completely inadequate solutions are proposed, they distract from the accurate perception of the problem. When we go much longer than 150 days between finding 150 day supplies of oil, those finds are no longer a meaningful part of meeting our energy needs. I'm sure this find will make some people a lot of money and bring some measure of prosperity to the area. That's about it. This "greenie leftie" has been arguing for meaningful solutions like nuclear power and more research into fusion reactors for twenty-six years. I hate to see issues like ANWR with its insignificant oil reserves and insignificant environmental damage dominating discourse.

Posted by Njorl | April 15, 2008 2:07 PM

The only reason ANWAR became a great cause, given its insignificance as you put it, is fanatical opposition by environmentalists to further oil, gas, coal, and nuclear development in favor of down the road magical solutions that turn out to have far worse impact themselves:

"Ethanol! Ethanol! The clean fuel that also starves surplus 3rd worlders and chops down 2% of remaining global rain forest every year@!!"

To me, any oil source that makes us 5 to 10% less dependent on Arab oil for the next 30 years while we make a transition from oil and hydrocarbon enabled heavy transportation use by the masses here and abroad makes sense, and is hardly an insignificant thing.

We might have more areas of agreement than disagreement, as I worked years in the nuclear industry. But - we need oil, we cannot effect an instantaneous switch, and we face 3 billion more people in the world and 138 million more in the USA unless things change drastically.....And "exciting alternate energy" and conservation fail to cover but a small fraction of that population growth let alone get 2008 population levels less dependent on hydrocarbons.

To me, global warming is way down the list of global crisis we face.

1. A gathering crisis as global stability dissolves and war becomes common again, triggered by resource constraints, rise of fanaticism. Very different than past wars, when a conquered human population was seen as an asset rather than useless mouths occupying arable land and water the conquerer's own surplus people need to survive...

2. Difficulty maintain our standard of living and way of life unless we plan large new significant power plants and develop new hydrocarbon sources as we go through a 30-40 year transition to develop sustainable energy and reduce global population as Europe and China are now doing on a regional basis. How we make that transition without economic collapse and mass famine (The Green Revolution that boosted agricultural productivity 245% between 1950 and 1980 is fueled, fetrtilized, and irrigated by hydrocarbon using products that "exciting wind and solar" power cannot replace, even if they were adequate in quantity.

3. Avert mass species extinction as 3 billion people move onto and wreck the habitant that remaining wild plant and animal specied depend on. Conservation, facing a geometric population rise, is a joke as conservation gains even in relatively slow-growing America are eaten away by growing numbers of people that add 27 barrels of new oil demand for every barrel conservation saves.

4. Somewhere in the future after all those other crisis have hit, global warming may still be a probrem...

Posted by Chris Ford | April 15, 2008 3:21 PM

Helter,

Excellent question. On an all in "mine to wheels" basis an electric vehicle running on pure coal fuel is equivalent to carbon emmisions from a 30 mpg gasoline vehicle. You can do the calcs yourself at the slick online app from Daimler found here. Of course the generation mix in the US is about 50% coal with all of the other fuels being less carbon intensive, so 30 mpg equivalent is pretty much the floor.

Posted by John Sterling | April 15, 2008 4:23 PM

Before people start pushing the panic button here, we need to consider the fact that oil and its derivatives are now well above market prices due to two related factors: instability in the Middle East and the growth of yet another speculatuive financial bubble, this time in commodities. Back in the late 70s and early 80s we saw what Middle Eastern instability can do to oil prices as a result of the Iranian revolution and the Iran-Iraq War. Today of course it's largely America's fault that markets are demanding a large secuity premium for each future barrel of oil it bets on. Secondly, as the housing bubble collapses there's a new bubble growing in commodities (the get-rich-quick crowd has to have some new ponzi scheme to play at), above all in oil. And like the housing bubble it too will collpase in time-- bubbles always do. Indeed, we had a foretaste of this in late 2006 when an arcane financial regulation change temporarily collapsed the oil futures market and gasoline fell precipitously down to the low $2/gal range (still almost twice what it had been at the start of the decade, just to keep the Peak Oil groupies happy). Additionally at that same time it was widely expected that America would soon be reducing its presence in Iraq, lowering the security premium. If (and this is a big if) we get serious about leaving Iraq (and leaving Iran alone) and if we prick the commodities bubble, gasoline should fall back to around $2.50/gal and stay there, with fluctuations, for the immediate future.

By the way the poster who suggests that oil suppliers have a motive for exaggerating their supplies has it exactly backwards: it's far more in their interest to publicly underestimate those supplies as low-ball estimates will drive up the price to their benefit.

Posted by JonF | April 15, 2008 5:06 PM

Chris Ford: I might agree with you on your alarm about such things if I felt that population growth was going to continue unabated. That is not, from my point of view, the case. The trends, globally and nationally, are of a steady levelling off and even decline. The right wingers click their tongues at prosperous Europe and Japan who are experiencing population declines due to lowered birthrates. Even without the draconian Chinese one child policy the Asian states that are improving their economies are seeing significant drop offs in birth rates.

The truth of the matter is that as you liberalize a society socially and economically you start decreasing all the incentives to have large families. Economically children stop being the only investmet to ensure you're cared for in old age. Socially the education of women, ending of stigmatizing of childless tendencies and elimination of the old traditional moores (breed breed breed) all encourage having only enough children for replacement or even less.

Personally I think the future is rosy. Iraq and the middle east in general is the dark pit of despair but the world is doing pretty well over all. No more MAD right now, no more great powers doing their interminable wars. Economies are developing, people are less impoverished than ever before. Birth rates are dropping. Frankly on a macro-global scale I'd say things are doing okay. If we can get reasonable about energy we should be able to weather the hump of population growth and start naturally and non-coercively achieving global population levels where people can live happily and comfortably without wrecking the planet.

Posted by Minnesota | April 15, 2008 5:25 PM

There are only two possible outcomes here:

1) You chimps are in the shits, and will kill each other off for the shrinking number of bananas. We Transhumans watch the fun, as long as technology keeps progressing in the areas we are concerned about. Keeping you from killing us accidentally or stopping technology progress is all we care about.

2) You - or we Transhumans - get your heads out of your asses and do what's necessary to avoid the problem at least long enough for us Transhumans to get the tech we need to do it for you, whether you like it or not.

So I really don't give a shit about Peak Oil, global warming, or any of that other "apocalyptic" crap that always turns out - unfortunately - to be less than "apocalyptic".

But once we get the tech we want, you chimps are really going to have to make some hard decisions.

I agree with Minnesota that things aren't as bad as they look - except that I disagree with Minnesota in that you chimps will probably TRY to make things as bad as they look.

Humans always - ALWAYS - make the worst choice in any situation - the one guaranteed to torpedo what it is you were trying to do. It's hardwired into your chimp brains for some reason. "Nature's way of eliminating the stupid", apparently.

If there's any validity in the argument that mankind has exceeded the carrying capacity of the Earth (and I'm not saying there is), maybe mankind's seeming increasing stupidity is evolution's way of creating some "die-back."

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 15, 2008 8:04 PM

Chris Ford, find the contradiction:
That is a rather stupid attitude that greenie Lefties have - that in a shortage, any solution or alleviation should be avoided because "it isn't able to solve the problem on it's own".
vs.
All the talk of "exciting alternate energy that could one day provide enough energy for 15 million Americans!!" is a pathetic joke in light of those numbers.

The truth is cheap oil is a dead end. We're gonna need to develop solar, wind, tide, geothermal, and (gag) nuclear.

Posted by Gus | April 15, 2008 9:33 PM