Good news - peak oil theory seems to be untrue

[claig]

'The so-called ?peak oil? theory, which suggests that within the foreseeable future the world will run out of fossil fuels ? coal, oil and gas ? has never looked more absurd.'

'The green lobby, of course, is terrified that, despite the promotion of expensive and heavily subsidised wind power at the heart of the Energy Bill ? a subsidy paid to a considerable extent by poor householders through their bills to wealthy landowners with wind turbines ? the emergence of large supplies of cheap gas will make this policy unsustainable.
Hence the scare stories, lapped up by the BBC in particular, about shale oil and gas extraction causing earthquakes and pollution of the water supply.

Needless to say, there is no substance whatever in these scares.'




What will the think tanks and elite lobbies do now in order to stop the growth and progress of ordinary people?


www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2244822/Thought-running-fossil-fuels-New-technology-means-Britain-U-S-tap-undreamed-reserves-gas-oil.html

[claig]

Good point. I agree that there are too many people from the same background. We need diversity of thought and experience and background in order to inject new thinking into policy making, so that novel ideas can surface. More of the "same old, same old" won't get us out of the rut.

[badguider]

Erm, you do understand what oil actually IS don't you? And that it cannot possibly be replenished as fast as we use it?
Therefore it MUST run out. That's not a theory. It's logic.

When it might become uneconomical to extract it depends on both economics and technology but it IS a finite resource.

[claig]

Yes it is finite but so is the planet itself. One day it too will disappear. But by the time oil really disappears we will have discovered many other forms of energy. Many things are finite, but human ingenuity may not be one of them.

[PigletJohn]

Has anyone denied that resources will eventually run out if we don't stop using them? Apart from the fishing industry, obviously.

The Peak Oil theory is (was) that by now we have already passed the point of maximum production, so were already on the descent into poverty and deindustrialisation.

No doubt the Peak Oil theory can be rewritten to put the "peak" date at some indedinable future date. However it then loses its impact.

[MoreBeta]

Did we run out of coal in the UK?

No of coourse we didnt. There are millions and milions of tonnes of it still underground. Its just not worth digging it up.

Same principle applies with oil.

[claig]

In a time of austerity when benefits are being cut for millions of people and when banks are still being asked to try and lend more to businesses and people, it is good to see that some of our public money is being spent wisely.


'Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said: ?After an Autumn Statement where people are making significant cuts, to have a £2.9 billion budget for a random collection of projects which have questions hanging over them as to whether or not they are corrupt is just an extraordinary waste of money.

?The Government does not exist to make charitable donations ? that?s something people should do privately. We?re looking for a further £10 billion of cuts and this seems to me the easiest place to start.?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2245300/Britain-gives-millions-climate-aid-tackle-flatulent-Colombian-cows--plus-31m-Turkish-wind-farms-funding-talks-Kenyan-rain-makers.html

[edam]

To be fair, not all of the super-rich are evil and intent on grinding the faces of the poor. Bill & Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet spring to mind. The rest of 'em, though...

[MiniTheMinx]

Future generations of the billions of people on this planet will make new discoveries and find and create brand new sources of energy

but we already have.

Carbon fuels are finite, as we populate more of the planet and build, the conditions for the formation of fuels is diminished plus we use at a faster rate than nature can replenish. Global warming...hmm, hasn't the earth cooled for the last 6 or 7 years?

[PigletJohn]

"Global warming...hmm, hasn't the earth cooled for the last 6 or 7 years"

Are you suggesting that Climate Change is not happening?

[claig]

'Are you suggesting that Climate Change is not happening?'

Only a think tank or charitable trust would suggest such a thing. The climate changes every day and from winter to summer.

But if you are talking about what they call "anthropogenic" climate change caused by carbon emissions from fossil fuels, then that is an entirely different matter.

[claig]

Mini, building towns and cities for humans to live in doesn't affect the fossil fuels buried miles underneath the earth, formed over millenia. There is no replenishment. But 'peak oil' is a scare tactic used to frighten the public into accepting slower and lower growth and higher costs of energy in order to slow down human progress, prosperity and industrialisation.

In centuries to come we will discover energy from many other sources (and not inefficent windfarms which require subsidies from the poor to rich landowners).

[BoulevardOfBrokenSleep]

"Hasn't the earth cooled for the last 6 or 7 years?"

No.

www.newscientist.com/article/dn14527-climate-myths-global-warming-stopped-in-1998.html

And even if it had, that wouldn't disprove an underlying trend.

PigletJohn; yes, there are quite a few people on here who suggest climate change isn't happening. I try to stay off these types of threads as I find them cripplingly depressing.

And also the whole thing is so complex; saying, 'Some glaciers are getting bigger, therefore global warming IS A LIE, ha!' is a much better soundbite than trying to explain about glacier formation and warmer oceans and precipitation and yada yada.

Basically, a lot of people are happy to carry on fucking up the planet until we can distil the entire system of climate science, geology and ocean chemistry into a few catchy soundbites. And we can't, so we're fucked. How depressing is that?

[claig]

I am no expert (although I am a student of the Daily Mail), but one expert is Piers Corbyn (brother of Labour MP, Jeremy Corbyn). He has interesting things to say on climate

[claig]

Another Piers Corbyn debate on Sky News eith a man who is not a scientist and is from what I think is probably a lobby group called "Climate Against Climate Change".

There is the usual scare tactic talk of "tipping points", and while this frightens Guardian readers, it cuts no ice with a scientist like Dr. Piers Corbyn.

I don't agree with everything Piers says, especially when he says that "Gordon Brown is a genius on economics", but then again no one is right on everything.

[claig]

sorry, Campaign Against Climate Change

[MoreBeta]

Climate Change is NOT a 'settled' science at all.

It was only deemed as 'settled' when a group of scientists with Govt funded posts, Labour politicians and left wing activists decided to make a coordinated attempt to shut down legitimate scientific debate.

It is not settled and frankly the data is very shakey. I used to be closely involved in academic research in this area and we simply dont have a long enough history to know if the climate change we are seeing is a temporary cyclical phenomenon (ie like ice ages are known to be) or a real long term trend caused by human activity.

[BoulevardOfBrokenSleep]

So, my case is that the issue is too complex to be reduced to soundbites, and you link me to...some soundbites

On 'fair and balanced' Fox, and their little brother Sky.

OK so.

[claig]

Boulevard, did you listen to the non-scientist, John Ackers, in debate against the scientist Dr Piers Corbyn?

They don't give Piers much media access on the BBC etc. but the global warmers, "ethical men" and bicycle riding non-scientific campaigners warning of "catastrophe" and "tipping points" are never off the public's TV screens.

[BoulevardOfBrokenSleep]

I'm guessing you accept, then, MoreBeta, that CO2/CH4/H2O in the atmosphere cause more heat from the sun to be retained; and your debate would be more around the response of planetary systems to increasing levels of said gases?

[PigletJohn]

"Climate Change is NOT a 'settled' science at all."

As a matter of science it is settled that (1) it exists and (2) is caused by human activity.

There is no reputable scientific body in the world of national or international repute that says otherwise.

There are, however, plenty of people in the fish-wrapping newspaper and media industries willing to stir up argument, and plenty of cranks or oil-industry supporters with an axe to grind.

The fact that research continues to better understand the causes and potentia remedies does not affect that.

[claig]

'So, my case is that the issue is too complex'

It's not complex at all. Listen to Dr Piers Corbyn challenge Mr Ackers to come up with any scientific proff that carbon dioxide has ever driven climate. Mr Ackers says "I am not a scientist", so Piers says then bring a scientists from your camp.

I don't know what happened, but my guess is that Piers is still waiting to see the scientific proof.

[PigletJohn]

an entertainment show set up by a media company to generate argument

and they chose not to invite a reputable scientist on the show to put forward the evidence.

What do you suppose was the purpose of the show?

[MiniTheMinx]

There is a difference between climate changes and global warming though. Of course we have climate change but do we have warming. I actually agree with you on this point claig. We have had global warming, ice ages and the golf stream has switched off before, long before man starting running cars!

[claig]

Well said, Mini.

It's hard to accept that we are subject to spin, it's hard to believe that we might be lied to by spin doctors and think tanks and charitable trusts and foundations and political lobby groups for political purposes.

We want to believe that we are told the truth. But we have witnessed years of spinners politically lying to us without a care.

[claig]

Dr Piers Corbyn says in that video that carbon dioxide has increased in the last decade and yet temperatures have dropped.

Go Piers, "viva il popolo, il popolo vincera"