Global financial system implosion begins

[free spirit]

There has been around a 45% increase in inflation adjusted fuel prices in the 25 years from 1989-2004 in the UK, but the fuel efficiency of new cars... well actually I can't seem to find the exact data, but I'm pretty sure that the like for like fuel efficiency of new cars went up by more than 45% in that 25 year period, meaning the cost per mile would have reduced as people bought more efficient cars.

actually I'm not sure this was quite true, as from checking a few different models it looks like some of the engine efficiency gains in that period were offset by increases in the weight of the cars or more gadgets in the cars or something.

But this would have largely been offset by the increase in disposable incomes in that period that's slowed dramatically in the last few years.

Either way, the growth in vehicle miles between the late 70s and late 80s when these theories were developed was around double the rate in the 90s as the fuel price escalator took effect in the UK, and it's basically levelled off from 2000-2010 and looks to now be falling, although it's too early to know for sure if this is a long term trend or just the effect of the recession + high fuel prices.

Compare that with the US, and it's pretty obvious what impact the fuel taxes in the UK have had on total vehicle miles, as the rate of increase in the US stayed virtually the same from the 70's through to 2004, before suffering a dramatic reversal as the rapid change in the oil price too affect.

 

[ymu]

I don't think it is. The relevance of the Feynman quote to this thread is the way that FM was talking about economic forces as if they were like physical laws. They are not. And they are not anything like climate science either. Economic outcomes are the result of a complex interplay between human minds. As such, it is impossible to separate them out from the workings of our minds. It is impossible to have an amoral economic theory, for instance, because economic outcomes are affected by morality. That's not true about physics or climate science.

That isn't to dismiss economics as worthless, but it does set certain limits on the kinds of things that you can say – and arguments that you can prove - in economics. And as I said, in the context of this thread at the time of that question coming up, it was relevant. I would argue that many of the worst mistakes in economics have come from treating it as if it could be a hard science - that mythical 'rational man', for instance, in whose name so many rotten theories and worthless mathematical formulae were created.

Coming back on this, partly as an excuse to post this, which is a nice explanation of the recent IMF report which (politely) panned Osborne's economic ideas and rediscovered the fact that austerity is self-defeating in a slump:

The IMF and the end of austerity

Governments have always understood that in a slump, cuts would have damaging effects on the wider economy. Nevertheless they consider these effects to be small relative to the greater good of restoring the public finances to order. So they called on us to accept austerity and “tough choices”, and argued that “we are all in this together”. Indeed previously the IMF themselves supported this course of action as necessary and effective.


However IMF economists have now shown that the damaging effect of austerity is far more severe than they previously advised. As the opponents of cuts argued all along, austerity has gravely damaged economies, tipped some countries into recession and intensified recession in others. (The IMF analysis also shows that some countries - most notably Germany - entirely avoided austerity and increased spending, i.e. they adopted expansionary policies.)

I don't think the problems in economics have come about primarily because it was mistaken for a hard science. Chemicals act differently under different circumstances too. Krugman has written some great essays on economic history and what went wrong, and frequently holds people to account for predictions that failed to materialise because their models are just plain wrong (the big one recently being runaway inflation due to QE).

It'd be a lot more accurate to say that the problems in economics came about because economists were not thinking like scientists, or perhaps behaving like lab scientists. Lots of neat theory with too little checking that it applied in the real world.

The weakness in economics became fatal when Thatcher and Reagan appeared on the scene, adopted Friedman's ideas wholesale and it became impossible to get a wonk job without being an acolyte. Chicago and other universities stopped teaching Keynes at all, and so produced a generation of economists of whom many had never even heard of the theories they'd need to understand this crisis.

 

[Falcon]

I see you're intent on actually avoiding having to clarify your position on that specific statement though, but I hope it's been noted by anyone interested that you've failed to back up your statement with hard data.

You were provided with three independent sources of data, each counterfactual to your claim that the energy supply can still grow.

1. On EROEI, you were provided with a link to "Searching For a Miracle: Net Energy Limits & The Fate Of Industrial Society" (Heinberg 2009). Heinberg is an authoritive author in the field of energy analysis, publishing under the International Forum Globalisation, an international research, education and activism institute comprising leading scholars,economists and activists. I made the study and report, and its fully referenced data available to you in downloadable form. I provide it again here (PDF). It surveys each of the major candidate energy groups (oil, coal, gas, hydropower, nuclear, biomass, windpower, PV, active solar thermal, passive solar thermal, geothermal, waste, ethanol, biodiesel, tar sand, oil shale, tidal power and wave energy) and evaluates each against nine key criteria: monetary cost, dependence on additional resource, environmental impact, renewability, scale of contribution, resource location, reliability, energy density (gravimetric, volumetric and areal), transportability, and EROEI. It provides detailed, fully referenced data on each of those metrics. From its introduction: "The scale of denial is breathtaking. For as Heinberg’s analysis makes depressingly clear, there will be NO combination of alternative energy solutions that might enable the long term continuation of economic growth, or of industrial societies in their present form and scale."

I'm indifferent as to whether you agree or not, to your manufactured confusion between net and gross energy quantities, and to your manufactured confusion about timescales. I'm inviting the interested reader to compare your accusation that you were not provided hard data with the data you have been supplied with, and to consider your motives for claiming dissatisfaction.

2. On primary energy depletion rate, you were provided a reference to "World Energy Outlook 2008", published by the International Energy Authority - an authoritative institution comprising leading scholars and economists, constituted by the European Goverments to undertake research and policy advice in global energy. I have given detailed quotations and references to the relevant data previously (e.g. in this post), and extensive graphs throughout this post derived from this data applied to IHS CERA (another authoritative energy institute) data e.g.

I'm indifferent as to whether you agree or not. I'm inviting the interested reader to compare your accusation that you were not provided hard data with the data you have been supplied with, and to consider your motives for claiming dissatisfaction.

3. On climate change, you were provided with a reference to a Guardian article (link), which in turn reproduces detailed statistics from the International Energy Authority's "World Energy Outlook 2011" e.g. If the world is to stay below 2C of warming, which scientists regard as the limit of safety, then emissions must be held to no more than 450 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; the level is currently around 390ppm. But the world's existing infrastructure is already producing 80% of that "carbon budget", according to the IEA's analysis, published on Wednesday. This gives an ever-narrowing gap in which to reform the global economy on to a low-carbon footing. If current trends continue, and we go on building high-carbon energy generation, then by 2015 at least 90% of the available "carbon budget" will be swallowed up by our energy and industrial infrastructure. By 2017, there will be no room for manoeuvre at all – the whole of the carbon budget will be spoken for, according to the IEA's calculations. And you were provided with a link to The Carbon Tracker Initiative's award wining report, "Unburnable Carbon: Are the world's financial markets carrying a carbon bubble" (PDF), showing in detail how we can burn only 565GtCO2 of the 2,795 GtCO2 contained in the proven reserves owned by private and public companies and governments - 20%.

I'm indifferent as to whether you agree or not. I'm inviting the interested reader to compare your accusation that you were not provided hard data with the data you have been supplied with, and to consider your motives for claiming dissatisfaction.

I am calling your sophistry and I don't expect you to embarass yourself with further claims that you have not been provided with hard data. I hope that puts an end to wasting the interested reader's time on this futile line of defence. I'll deal with your other howlers separately, to ensure you can't skip past the tricky bits.

 

[Falcon]

I'm not questioning the fact that EROI has fallen, and continues to fall, I'm picking you up on that one specific statement because you're stating it as fact when you've obviously not got the data needed to support it. Specifically I'm questioning you on whether the falls in EROI in the energy supply chain are yet sufficient to be of more significance than the annual rises in primary energy supply, and you've failed to supply any data that comes anywhere close to conclusively supporting your position.

Specifically, you are constructing a straw man. What has been said is that:

(1) the energy supply is dominated by hydrocarbon (60%) and, in the case of the gobal transportation process critical to the industrial manufacturing system, liquid hydrocarbon (90%)
(2) the supply of liquid hydrocarbon is constrained by physical supply factors
(3) the combustion of all hydrocarbons is constrained by emissions disposal factors
(4) the gap between demand (flat or growing) and physical- and combustion-constrained supply establishes a non-negotiable, time bound substitute demand schedule
(5) there are no substitutes of equivalent EROEI in this timescale

Therefore, the energy supply must contract within the timescale imposed by (2) and (3).

The fact that available substitutes are of significantly lower EROEI merely compounds the problem - the actual role of EROEI is minor in my argument. I am required only to demonstrate that there are none of equivalent EROEI, and you have accepted that.

The material components of my argument are (2) and (3) - the ones you have - understandably - avoided.

 

[Falcon]

I think such statements are a load of bollocks, as we're already well passed the point of avoiding irreversible climate change, we're just on the slippery slope now of determining how bad that climate change is going to be.

And now we get to the heart of the problem with your analysis. You have replaced the complex, non-linear system that is our climate system with a linear box with a volume control as your primary mental model for engaging with this topic. "If it's 450ppm we get 20% of 'nasty'. If it's 480ppm, we get 30% of 'nasty'".

No, we are not "on the slippery slope now of determining how bad that climate change is going to be". The system comprises a series of positive feedback loops. That means, once they are engaged, they sustain and amplify themselves. There is no "slippery slope" in positive feedback. There is no "volume control". There is an "on/off switch". There is "OK/nasty".

You've acknowledged we are beyond the point of avoiding irreversible climate change. We know that positive feedback loops are being engaged. We do not know the number of those loops, their mechanisms, or the point at which they become self sustaining. We don't need to - the existence of only one is sufficient, and there is no way to discover that information without triggering them, and no way of controlling them once self sustaining.

The Precautionary Principle requires us therefore to act as if they were already triggered, since the cost of being wrong about them not being triggered if they have been triggered greatly exceeds the cost of being wrong about them being triggered if they haven't.

Therefore there is no basis to argue (as you appear to be doing) that there is some hydrocarbon emissions budget which is larger than the one quantified by leading authorities on the subject within which you can bring about some transformation in our energy system. In any case, an argument that the proper energy target is the one that gets the transformation done rather than the one which preserves the integrity of our climate is interesting - right up to the point of loss of integrity of the climate. Which is to say - not interesting at all, in a non-linear system comprising positive feedback loops.

Your argument, now you've explained it, is founded on an incorrect mental model of climate change and there is simply nowhere for it to go.

 

[Crispy]

Specifically, you are constructing a straw man. What has been said is that:

(1) the energy supply is dominated by hydrocarbon (60%) and, in the case of the gobal transportation process critical to the industrial manufacturing system, liquid hydrocarbon (90%)
(2) the supply of liquid hydrocarbon is constrained by physical supply factors
(3) the combustion of all hydrocarbons is constrained by emissions disposal factors
(4) the gap between demand (flat or growing) and physical- and combustion-constrained supply establishes a non-negotiable, time bound substitute demand schedule
(5) there are no substitutes of equivalent EROEI in this timescale

Therefore, the energy supply must contract within the timescale imposed by (2) and (3).

The fact that available substitutes are of significantly lower EROEI merely compounds the problem - the actual role of EROEI is minor in my argument. I am required only to demonstrate that there are none of equivalent EROEI, and you have accepted that.

The material components of my argument are (2) and (3) - the ones you have - understandably - avoided.

I don't think any of us could disagree with any of that, it's just that most of the time you say "now" instead of "within the timescale imposed by physical supply" which may be now, or it may be decades hence.

I personally don't think combustion of hydrocarbons is constrained by emissions disposal factors because the people doing the combustion feel that the combustion itself is more important than the effect of the resulting emissions.

 

[Falcon]

I don't think any of us could disagree with any of that, it's just that most of the time you say "now" instead of "within the timescale imposed by physical supply" which may be now, or it may be decades hence.

I suspect this is the (only) point of disagreement with Free Spirit. The purpose of this thread is to identify those major trends around which to organise meaningful arrangements for living. The timescale of the trends has to be consistent with the timescales for organising meaningful arrangements.

Since the timescale for making meaningful arrangements is decades but has to be begun now (or, rather, had to be begun some decades ago - Hirsch, 2005), the attempt to distinguish between "now" and "decades time" is, in my view, meaningless.

Free Spirit seems to believe that, by confusing "now" with "a few decades time", we have more options available to us. He would like to use some notional remaining emission budget to "fund" a transition. This was a great idea - when it was conceived in the 70's. But in the 40 years since then, we've spent his budget. Now all he can do is water down climate science (which is actually tightening) and try and reset the clock. This is a dangerous, self-serving fallacy.

I personally don't think combustion of hydrocarbons is constrained by emissions disposal factors because the people doing the combustion feel that the combustion itself is more important than the effect of the resulting emissions.

Which is a true statement. And to the extent that the deferred rising cost of mitigating those emissions exceeds the future capability of the financial system to fund, and the climate change induced by such emissions stresses the financial system even further, not one which is incompatible with the thesis of the thread.

The fact that your statement is true, in my view, only proves that there is much ground for agreement and constructive discussion here. I confess I've rather lost track of what Free Spirit's argument is, or what larger point it is intended to serve, but whatever it is I'd be glad if he could just get over it.

 

[Falcon]

. (sorry - double post)

 

[Dr Jon]

...
supply isn't shrinking though, as I've spent a while pointing out.

er...
OPEC oil output falls in Dec, lowest in a year

As a peak oil commentator once said: "they don't make dinosaurs any more"

 

[Crispy]

er...
OPEC oil output falls in Dec, lowest in a year

As a peak oil commentator once said: "they don't make dinosaurs any more"

In context:

That twelve month drop is not enough to say for sure that OPEC as a whole has peaked.

 

[xes]

are we fucked yet, yes or no?

How far away are we from being fucked?

will it ever even get to "fucked"?

Questions an ignorantly dub fucker like myself would like clarified.

 

[Crispy]

pretty much
close
possibly

 

[xes]

ooh you tantalist you

 

[Frank Merton]

That twelve month drop is not enough to say for sure that OPEC as a whole has peaked.

Iraq and Libya are picking up. The Saudis and gulf states are probably running out but its a state secret. The others are not very well run so whether drops are from mismanagement or actual drops in finds is hard to say.

This will for a few decades be offset by increases elsewhere, especially North America.

 

[xes]

also, is it wrong that I want us to be fucked? Like, spread on the table, lubed up and taking it hard "fucked". Proper fucked. I think we need it.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

also, is it wrong that I want us to be fucked? Like, spread on the table, lubed up and taking it hard "fucked". Proper fucked. I think we need it.

Yeah. It's wrong. Because however much we in the rich world are fucked, you can multiply that by 10 for the poor world.

 

[xes]

Yeah. It's wrong. Because however much we in the rich world are fucked, you can multiply that by 10 for the poor world.

Yes there is that, but if we get levelled to the state of the proper 3rd world poor. No money, everything gone. Then prehaps the survivors of this attrocity (which would probably see the vast majority of us starve to death), could learn to live a different way, with no goverments and no money. It's got to be the best thing for humanity on long time scale thing.

 

[Crispy]

Iraq and Libya are picking up. The Saudis and gulf states are probably running out but its a state secret. The others are not very well run so whether drops are from mismanagement or actual drops in finds is hard to say.

Sounds reasonable.

This will for a few decades be offset by increases elsewhere, especially North America.

I'm not so optimistic about USA though. The tight oil that they're getting out of the shale exhibits a very different sort of production/time curve compared to conventional sources, with very rapid declines per well. This leads to an accelerating number of wells required to maintain growth (ie. well count increases faster than production rate). It's an upwards blip for them, but fairly insignificant on a global scale IMO.

 

[Frank Merton]

Sounds reasonable.
I'm not so optimistic about USA though. The tight oil that they're getting out of the shale exhibits a very different sort of production/time curve compared to conventional sources, with very rapid declines per well. This leads to an accelerating number of wells required to maintain growth (ie. well count increases faster than production rate). It's an upwards blip for them, but fairly insignificant on a global scale IMO.

The sooner the world has to leave off oil the better, but I wouldn't be so sure about North America. The possibilities are truly massive at the right price. I think more likely as price goes up consumption will drop, mainly from replacement.

 

[Crispy]

"The right price" for extraction may well end up being too high for the global economy to sustain.

 

[Frank Merton]

"The right price" for extraction may well end up being too high for the global economy to sustain.

I'm not quite sure what that might mean. If it means it would break the bank trying to pay the price, then obviously it won't happen, and living standards would drop accordingly. On the other hand, if it means competitive energy sources would be cheaper, then again the extraction would not happen, but we would all be happier except a few heavy oil drillers.

I think neither is likely; something wedging around in between will happen. Prices will go high enough to cause extraction for those uses where competitive substances don't make it, but for the most part other energy sources will steadily take over. High prices also pays for a lot of research and exploration.

 

[Dr Jon]

In context:

That twelve month drop is not enough to say for sure that OPEC as a whole has peaked.

The IEA forecast for the future of petroleum are not only too optimistic, but also wrong because they are based on summing volumes of fuels which have different output and energy costs of extraction. Here you find the correct analysis, much less reassuring

From:
What future for petroleum?

Also see:
IEA Oil Forecast Unrealistically High; Misses Diminishing Returns

 

[Dr Jon]

Yeah. It's wrong. Because however much we in the rich world are fucked, you can multiply that by 10 for the poor world.

Yeah, the rising price of food and energy are just an inconvenience to us for the moment.
For folks in the developing world it's absolutely awful. I recall Lester Brown saying recently that many such people now have food-less days in order to make ends meet.


Full Planet, Empty Plates

 

[free spirit]

We do not know the number of those loops, their mechanisms, or the point at which they become self sustaining.

this is my point.

We don't know what point they become self sustaining at, so it's complete nonsense to talk about being 5 years away from the threshold of irreversible climate change, or needing to leave 80% of hydrocarbons in the ground as if these figures were in anyway accurate.

In truth they are entirely political constructs - somewhere down the line someone decided that a figure was needed to be used as a totem to aim for, and these figures were plucked out as being nice media friendly figures, but they have fuck all basis in the science of climate change - they aren't even based on the actual figures where the probability of them being right in the models is at their highest IIRC, they're just meaningless sound bite figures.

They won't achieve anything, as they're impossible targets from the starting point we're actually at - they were possible if we'd started in the 90s when I was being taught the science and started campaigning in this field (and you were happily engaged in the oil industry with your head in the sand), but they are impossible targets now and as such merely serve as pointless distractions from anyone actually agreeing some realistic targets that we might actually hit, along with a package of mitigation measures to deal with the highly likely above 2 deg warming we're actually heading for.

These false targets will also prove entirely counter productive once we pass them as they will allow the denialist lobby yet another stick with which to beat us with in the public as they'll both use the lines 'We've passed the point of doing anything about it anyway so there's no point worrying about it', and 'we've passed the tipping points when they said there was going to be irreversible climate change, and the world hasn't ended'. Both of which miss the point of what the problem actually is and how it progresses, but then they can only use those lines because they've been set up in that way by our own side of the debate because some PR idiots determined that we needed some sort of scaremongering 5 year timescale targets to focus people's minds on the problem.

So yes I prefer the slippery slope analagy as it conveys the idea that we don't actually know at what point we might lose traction and start falling uncontrollably, and that yes there probably will be hidden cliffs and other dangers further down the slope but we don't know exactly where they are... but that the sooner we stop marching onward down this slippery slope oblivious to the danger the better, and that even slowing down and stopping a bit out of site down the slope gives us a better chance of avoiding falling off the cliff than carrying on regardless because we've passed some notional way marker someone erected.

Basically I prefer to deal in the realms of what's actually possible, and what fits with a long term strategy to deal with a long term problem rather than some fantasyland notion of what could have been possible had the US actually signed up to kyoto in the 90's and had we had 2 full decades of concerted global action already to pull this CO2 monster around.

 

[free spirit]

I suspect this is the (only) point of disagreement with Free Spirit. The purpose of this thread is to identify those major trends around which to organise meaningful arrangements for living. The timescale of the trends has to be consistent with the timescales for organising meaningful arrangements.

Since the timescale for making meaningful arrangements is decades but has to be begun now (or, rather, had to be begun some decades ago - Hirsch, 2005), the attempt to distinguish between "now" and "decades time" is, in my view, meaningless.

It's not a meaningless distinction though is it, as you well know.

The up front energy investment required to make the transition from our current situation to a low carbon, low energy intensity global economy is massive, so the question of whether we have the energy available now and over the next few decades needed to make that transition is an absolutely vital question to determining whether we're actually utterly fucked long term as you assume, or whether we actually have a decent chance of preserving a decent semblance of civilisation as we know it if we take the right policy decisions now.

In the past you've even made the direct correlation yourself by taking your current position, that we're already in a state of net energy decline, and then applying that to the question of where we get the energy from to make that transition, and basically pronouncing that it's impossible because we don't have the energy to do it.

Free Spirit seems to believe that, by confusing "now" with "a few decades time", we have more options available to us. He would like to use some notional remaining emission budget to "fund" a transition. This was a great idea - when it was conceived in the 70's. But in the 40 years since then, we've spent his budget.

I agree entirely that we should have been making this transition since the 70's, but I disagree entirely with your position that it's actually now too late to make that transition as it's based on this false starting point of yours about us already being in net energy decline - we are not at that point, and I've not seen anything in your bluster and lack of relevant figures to convince me that we will be at that point for a good few years yet at least, if we ever are.

Even if we were though, then IMO it would still be possible to make the transition if the right policy decisions were made simply by transferring energy resources away from producing endless amounts of pointless crap and using the energy saved to be used the up front energy costs of the transition.

The fact that your statement is true, in my view, only proves that there is much ground for agreement and constructive discussion here. I confess I've rather lost track of what Free Spirit's argument is, or what larger point it is intended to serve, but whatever it is I'd be glad if he could just get over it.

I'd just like these discussion to be grounded in fact rather than the false misrepresentations of the true position that you seem to specialise in these days. Is that really too much to ask?

 

[elbows]

er...
OPEC oil output falls in Dec, lowest in a year

As a peak oil commentator once said: "they don't make dinosaurs any more"

This is the perfect example of bullshit attempts to pretend that some aspects of peak oil have already happened in a way that does no justice at all to the present situation.

For a start you seem to be using the headline to make a point, when in fact the article is quite clear about Saudi Arabia cuting supply because of their expectations of lower demand at this time of year. Then there are the political factors in terms of Iran, which in itself tells me that world powers reckon they can cope with this Iranian decline at the moment, otherwise they wouldnt have been so willing to bring it about via sanctions. Much as I suspect was the case with Iraq, I feel that the powers that be move to isolate or overthrow these regimes when they reach a point where it is possible to see a future point where the window of opportunity to do so will close. They have to move before then, at a time where they can still make up for the shortfall in production that sanctions or war bring. And then reap the 'rewards' down the line, as may be happening with Iraq output now, a decade later.

I have no illusions about the future challenges in maintaining OPEC and other regions oil production. I will be shouting very loudly about this when there are clear and sustained signs that are hard to refute of irretrievably declining output from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. But I have no intention of making this claim prematurely, and will rant at anyone who does so. What we saw last decade was a decline in the spare 'buffer' capacity of countries like Saudi Arabia, and this in itself was enough to cause shocks. But dont confuse that with an overall production decline, nor is it safe to even assume that they cant restore buffer capacity for some future period of time (though not indefinitely, obviously, since I buy into peak oil, just not the made up certainty about exact timescales).

 

[elbows]

Russia managing to maintain (and very slightly increase) oil production levels in recent years is another reason I have ended up moaning about premature predictions, emphasising the slightly uncertain timescales, and focussing more on price and plateau when talking about the now rather than the future.

I dont see any point in returning to a very basic 'now' narrative until some of these important producers actually hit the notable decline phase, ie start doing what the north sea has been doing for years now.

 

[elbows]

Another reason I rant so strongly about this is that actually, when looking at the economics, I think it makes the doom story even more dramatic to consider how much the mere hint of peak oil, plateau and loss of buffer capacity can send markets & economies into a mess. I dont want to attribute all sorts of problems to a decline that hasnt even kicked in yet, you run the risk of doing the decline phase a disservice by suggesting its already here when in fact its still lurking somewhere over the horizon. Fine to discuss EROI declines, but again no need to overstate them.

On a possibly related note I am interested in how the peak oil thread lost a lot of its energy (compared to its multi-year sustained interesting discussion by far more people than these other threads currently attract) once we reached a point where it became clear the oil price, economy & demand side were increasingly influencing and muddying the picture.

 

[Crispy]

On a possibly related note I am interested in how the peak oil thread lost a lot of its energy (compared to its multi-year sustained interesting discussion by far more people than these other threads currently attract) once we reached a point where it became clear the oil price, economy & demand side were increasingly influencing and muddying the picture.

I think it's an encouraging sign that the issue has broken out of its niche.

 

[elbows]

I think it's an encouraging sign that the issue has broken out of its niche.

Well thats what I thought originally as I watched the slow plod towards almost-acknowledgement of peak oil in the mainstream, and why I still sometimes mention Gordon Browns oil conference thing and other stuff from that period.

But I'm not so sure anymore as to whether this was enough of a breakout moment for the issues. The mainstream narrative got as far as 'the era of cheap oil is over' and then stalled, and I dont think any of the mainstream discussion about the 'austerity years' and various economic woe has tended to join dots to energy. And we saw some people getting cold feet here recently about how much of a role oil played in the global financial system implosion and subsequent agendas. The discussion that goes on in the uk politics forum seems almost completely unaltered by the end of cheap oil, and the sorts of subjects and doom we get into here are only likely to come up in the context of pissing on dodgy population control agendas.

Because of that Im tempted to say that it matters not what the variations between us on this thread in terms of doom timescale are, whether we are already in decline, how bad the EROI is, etc. What we have not reached is a point where the oil situation is so obviously bad that very large numbers of people sit up and listen, cast off some of their suspicions about agendas and motivations, and start thinking about how the realities of an ugly energy picture can be incorporated into their worldview, expectations and political stances and economic beliefs.