While I havn’t researched this subject as thoroughly as some “peak-oilers,” I do know that there are sustainable alternatives that can be brought into the economy right now, but most people aren’t aware of what they are, let alone that they could potentially replace certain aspects of our unsustainable economy. It’s best to start with what’s already available and work from there, rather than wait for the market to eventually drive oil prices up while letting the cards fall where they may.

I resonate much more with trying to focus on building “systems of infrastructure to support a sustainable decentralized energy supply network.” Though, for biodiesel, I would have to advocate for more of a thorough investigation of it’s sustainability; provided that tractors and transporting are involved, plus fertilizers and pesticides are generally made from finite fossil fuel resources. I would advocate switching to open-minded organic farming methods, not only because it’s more sustainably produced, but we have quite a crisis right now with our top soil loss.

I also would advocate more of a decentralized local economic system. Global food swaps simply do not make sense, period. We should grow what food can be grown as close to home as possible. Local food should become the bulk of our edible consumption, while long-distance food should be scattered throughout our weekly/monthly intake. We should ban California potatoes in Maine because we’re already a potato growing state. There was a UK study done showing that all of the ingredients in a typical sunday lunch traveled a sum total of 26,234 miles from farm to table!

If that isn’t enough to worry about, what about global warming? We should reduce the amount of greenhouse gas and smog we’re releasing into the atmosphere. Scientists are now seeing that as global dimming, global warming, global climate change, constant toxification of environments, extermination of species, introduced foreign species, over-plundering and more, is leading us to a possible world-wide ecological crash. The whole ecological system is so intertwined with itself that elimination of wolves in certain areas can wipe out trees! Global Dimming (soot and pollution in the clouds that turn clouds into mirrors) has been cooling Earth, hiding the true effects of global warming. Many scientists have recalculated their models of global warming and claim a 10 degree rise in global temperature by 2100, rather than the previous projection of 2-5 degrees. If the world gets 10 degrees warmer, the oceans will begin to release 10,000 billion tons of frozen methane hydrates from the ocean which is a greenhouse gas 8 times stronger than carbon dioxide.

The point being, there are a million devastating dire-consequence situations and reasons I could muster up to convince people to switch to a conserving and eventually sustainable society, but ill cut it short. Now with the go-ahead that Bush gave just a few days ago of conserving energy, shouldn’t government officials start doing their job? Ride a bike to your office, I don’t care if it’s cold; I go all winter without a vehicle… Start using your vocal cords for something useful and start encouraging people to make these changes with their market dollars. I don’t care if some of these unsustainable companies have pampered you with money. Money is a voting system and can lead society down multiple paths, either sustainable or unsustainable, moral or immoral. Advocate local food publicly, make sure the new companies know local food is important and that the president wants us to reduce our energy overconsumption where and whenever possible. Start doing your job and make a racket. I’m tired of people being incredibly over-complacent with much of our completely unsustainable society… We shouldn’t be pumping billions of tons of toxic chemicals straight into our air just to manufacture a bunch of cheap crappy plastic toys. I don’t care if it makes kids happy and creates jobs, a completely irreversibly destroyed world within 100 years will NOT make future generations happy! We have to change our entire economic structure, and we have to do it NOW!!!!

How bad do things have to get before we start speaking out? Every motherÂ’s breast milk in the world is contaminated with dioxin. How close does it have to get before we realize we donÂ’t have anything left to lose? When the salmon are gone? Ok, well thatÂ’s fine, but they canÂ’t take the redwoods. Well, ok, they canÂ’t take clean air. We draw a line in the sand and say they canÂ’t cross it. Well, ok you canÂ’t cross this one and ok now you canÂ’t cross that one. Well, ok you can have all my clothes. Well, you can rape me but you canÂ’t make me say I like it. Ok, IÂ’ll say I like it but you canÂ’t cut off my foot. Ok, just donÂ’t cut off my other foot.

Need I say more?

I think he holds some misunderstandings about what “peak oil” means. The piece reads like the intention is to debunk the notion that oil “production curves have already peaked, or will peak soon”. But then the piece goes on to insist that the “false assumptions” peak oil is based on largely derive from ignorance of “viable alternatives to oil”, massive under-sea supplies, and the like.

But doesn’t the whole premise of the piece — the value of Iraq’s oil in the first place (80 billion barrels, not hundreds of billions) — rest on its scarcity derived from world peak & decline of conventional oil?? That’s the resource for which “near-term” peaking is, I believe, imminent — CERA notwithstanding. If the alternatives to conventional oil were easy enough to bring on line, the value to US hegemonists of taking Iraq would be diminished.

Every depletable resource PEAKS IN RATE OF USE. We can debate the time this will occur for various resources. But it WILL occur.

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