Several months ago, I wondered if the media’s fascination with peak oil, which crested in the mid-2000s, had ended. A big concern of many in the energy/sustainability nexus had found expression in popular culture and in visuals like this: But now the zeitgeist has flipped, from crude awakening to crude abundance, thanks to advances in…Continue Reading…
Jeremy Grantham is a fascinating dude. He is a highly successful capitalist who blames capitalism for killing the planet. If you’re familiar with this “connoisseur of [market] bubbles,” as the New York Times referred to him in a profile, it’s probably due to his increasingly Malthusian outlook. In 2011, he warned that “accelerated demand” from developing countries was depleting the…Continue Reading…
It wasn’t that long ago that peak oil was on everybody’s minds. The basic scenario: Global energy demand would soon outstrip the world’s oil supply. Some of the more feverish types believe this will lead to a civilizational breakdown and a post-apocalyptic Mad Max landscape. Peak oil anxieties first penetrated mainstream media in the mid-2000s,…Continue Reading…
A weekend WSJ excerpt from Daniel Yergin’s highly anticipated new book (published later this week) takes direct aim at the peak oil argument. We’ve heard this song before, Yergin says: This is actually the fifth time in modern history that we’ve seen widespread fear that the world was running out of oil. The first was…Continue Reading…
Gail the Actuary, who often writes about peak oil and resource scarcity issues at The Oil Drum, makes the case here that we’re on borrowed time. But unlike Jeremy Grantham, she doesn’t think we can do anything about it: There is no real solution to our predicament. Even if a cheap liquid fuel could be found…Continue Reading…
There is a profile of the world’s smartest and richest Malthusian in this Sunday’s NYT magazine that carries a headline he surely finds galling: Can Jeremy Grantham Profit from Ecological Mayhem? If you know anything about Grantham, then you know he wants to save the environment and civilization from ecological mayhem. As I wrote in this post…Continue Reading…
Charlie Petit at Science Tracker has a confession. He doesn’t think he’s the only one, either: A lot of science journalists who cover energy issues have probably gone through an infatuation stage, and then break-up, with a seductive actor: Peak Oil. It appeals to any reporter trying to cover a beat where numbers and natural…Continue Reading…
With great pithy I tried to caution people not to get so bubbly over the supposed wiki/peak oil revelations. I suppose if I can’t get my three year old to listen to me, why should anyone else? Fortunately, there is somebody much more learned and well-placed than me on the case. Maybe he’ll have better…Continue Reading…
There’s some fuel for peak oilers. An Oil Drum reader wisely reminds that context is necessary.
The uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt continue to be a fascinating ink blot. Peak oil is now another instigator being thrown into the volatile mix. (It’s not clear to me if declining oil reserves would count as as trigger or underlying cause.) As Andrew Revkin noted earlier this week, “everyone with an agenda seems to…Continue Reading…