People Of Earth: Prepare For Economic Disaster

zappahey

Conrad wrote: »

Electric cars and other devices can use electricity from Nuclear or sustainable sources.
Get over it, oil is just a little phase - say 300 years in a Human story that could last 3 trillion years (taking into account the time when we need to leave Earth).

Not wishing to get too close to the tin foil hatters, but it's not just about transport and making stuff move.

Take a look around you and figure out which products are manufactured using oil based products. Plastics, paints, wood treatments and so on. If the doom mongers are even half right then much of life will change significantly.

gagahouse

zappahey wrote: »

Not wishing to get too close to the tin foil hatters, but it's not just about transport and making stuff move.

Take a look around you and figure out which products are manufactured using oil based products. Plastics, paints, wood treatments and so on. If the doom mongers are even half right then much of life will change significantly.

Yes, agricultural fertilizer which allows us to grow vast quantities of food is one. It's a vital input into many goods, many not so easily solved by substituting oil for uranium or solar power.

Sapphire

The thing that is most scary for me is the massive and uncontrolled rise in the worldwide population, and the implications of that on the planet's natural resources and ecology. It's something that will have negative implications for us all.

purch

Do you have a source for this?

I could dig out some old CC statements.

They are up in the Attic somewhere :eek:


P.S. Your chart thingie is in "today's" Dollars (although they don't specify which today they mean)

PeterZ_2

B_Blank wrote: »

As for oil, we are alot less reliant on oil now than we were even 30 years ago, and this process of moving away from oil is now in full swing in europe, and even in the US to some extent.

We are not moving away from oil anywhere near fast enough. The FITs are about to be reduced which will slow down the take up of renewables. The UK is in massive debt and we cant afford to build nuclear power stations.

We are still massively reliant on oil - its not just petrol for your car, its food, pharma, chemicals, plastics - our whole world.

I still believe the UK is well placed to ride this storm out, we just need the political will to make it happen. People are becoming much more aware of the problems we face.

PeterZ_2

Sapphire wrote: »

The thing that is most scary for me is the massive and uncontrolled rise in the worldwide population, and the implications of that on the planet's natural resources and ecology. It's something that will have negative implications for us all.

Uncontrolled population growth is the root cause of all our problems. With a smaller population we would not have to worry about peak oil (or peak anything) and there would likely be a lot less conflict.

Blacklight

World of Warcraft servers down again Asheron?

grimsalve

The real world ended at the end of 1999 due to the Millenium Bug - we are now all living in The Matrix :dance:

ash28

EdgEy wrote: »

I don't really understand the American situation wrt petrol ("gas") prices.
So in the 70's it was around $2/gal. Now it's around $3.50.
Isn't that just regular old inflation? It's not even doubled in 40 years.

US petrol prices have been all over the place - in the 1970s it was probably the "oil shock" - as it was here.

I've not lived in the US but have been a regular visitor for about 20 years - in the 1990s I had to and work there for a few months - once I had been I decided we would go on holiday to Florida and while we were planning the trip I remember OH saying we would need to factor in petrol cost based on the amount of travelling we were planning - I told him we wouldn't need to consider the cost as it would be insignificant in the scheme of things - unlike here. And it was insignificant - we could fill up a full size car for less than $13 it was about 70c a gallon - it was amazing. He couldn't get over it.

We go to California as our best friends live there and Florida because we like it on the coast - we go once or twice a year.

Our friends in California tell us that petrol is around $4 there at the moment.- when we visited last year it was less than $3.

When we visited Florida in October last year it was about $2.60. We first noticed petrol hitting the $2 mark more or less consitently around 2005/6 and since then anything between $1.60 and $3.50. They did have the spike in 2008 just like here when oil hit $147 a barrel.

Though your chart does say in today's dollar - so it's not the prices actually paid at the time.