A fine attempt to summarize the multiple problems of the Globe, Peter.
The Internet brings many possibilities, but as yet few solutions.

The poles melt before our eyes (we need only check the NASA website) but still we languish in mindless 'cancerous'consumption - over-use of fossil powered cars, jets, air conditioners and processed foods.

A few thoughts for structural changes:

World monetary system - a single world currency. Aim to eliminate trading and speculation in currencies. Can it be 'pegged' to gold? I don't think so. New structures are being invented in Europe as we write - perhaps it will start there. Printing money ('QE') to buy government and other dodgy bonds seems to be doomed to failure - doesn't stop debt expanding. It's more of the same thing that caused the problem - 'wealth' being created from nothing by speculation, wheeling and dealing. 'Blind Freddie' can see this but reserve bank boards (not elected by the people) go on imposing it on the population - result - 'stagflation' and continued government indebtedness.

In Aus - get rid of state and local governments and replace with Federal and Regional. State governments are a major cause of plundering resources in their desperate grab for royalties. Elections 5-6 yearly; 'mixed member proportional representation' voting.

How to get peoples' minds collectively engaged? The 'Perth Network City'forum where 1,000 people 'work shopped' pre-planned options at Fremantle Port about 10 years ago worked well. It had an outcome - a preferred model for development of a city. I think a coordinated series of such forums around the world, aiming to mend each of the 4 broken systems - democracy, fiscal/monetary system, environmental regulation and corporations would be a good start.

re form my butt..sorry but we need to go back to honest values

global reform must see that its to catch the criminals
that debauched the queen by stealing the gold silver and copper from HERE coin

then LEASING the gold content..and selling the leased gold
thats like me renting YOUR car..and selling it

or renting your house..AND SELLING IT

but then they got creed of enron
mixed with greed..and colaretalised DEBT obligations as if real value[bad debt..wwappped for equaly bad dents..yes you 'sold your debt..for the intented value ..but the real value wasnt there

so they STOLE the value from our coin
by demanding go0vt pay back 20 year war bonds..IN COIN..ie gold silver

govt deefaulted..so the money changers stole the fed mint fort knox gold..next they leased out the gold..[then at a huge high cause govts wanted to buy it..had to buy it cause the holders wanted it back in gold now..

this did many things..but no one is taliing about that

the timming is everything..
let us all go to sleep at dec 24..to wake..on the first of the new year to the new way..at presernt we have many ways..but by deecember it will be stay in your homes

food will be deliverder to your home
or you will be deliverd to yiour home

police and solgers are going door to door
to stock take ..to see who has been cheating and who has been 'nau\ghty'

the naughty ones loose that the stole
or it better be somethinmg like that..or else next year is hell

the inflation..has devalued the coin value base it was based on

the coinage has been debased..thats treason to who ever did that
itts likely king edward resisted thus

regardless of how it was done..THE BASIS OF MONEY IS COIN*
you cant cheat..with coin..but you can cheat with face values of coin

say i get paid in silver dollars
and you get paid in silver fiat..my silver dollars sell for the price of silver in dollars..[each of my dollars buys 50 times more than yours

so your family trust fund pays you 50 [SILVER dollars..each day
in 365 days..how much has he earned at face value of the silver coin

compared to you getting payed in fiat[by deecree notes
where those who decreed its values..MUST LEND IT from a third party

OF THIEVES
who scammed most of the value plus values of this world
now going to plunmder the last of the public assets

unless we make this a true xmass
where is the naughty list..[from you will be taken

where is the nice list..to you will be given
[your queens coin ..will be worth its value AS IF in silver

your pennies cents nickles and dimes
are now
'as if'..still minted with/ in silver or gold

valued according to as deemed by ..after the coin weights..

*historicly....as intended..
that the queens face on the coin was minted
ASURED to the ASSAY*..of its metalic quality AND WEIGHT

precice MEASURE

measure that has been twisted beyonf treason

i put it crudely..because this is a matter issue of treason..most vile

inflation has stolen so much
as decreed by face..by their clear criminal act..
with intention to defraud collude ,,to steal impoverish..not only the peoples weaklth but the govts

BUT..this..CAN BE THWARTED

govts simply revalue that one cent=one dollar
new coins wil be issued in time as govt spends coin
but old fiat debts stay fiat debts..

ALL govt will pay in full all debt
in coin..by face values..set by defined time lines
exmass new year

govt issues a gift to each citisen of 25 in coin

as if still in gold/silver copper
the coin age can prevent the hyper deeflation value thieving stage

but first we need find out

WHO"S BEEN NAUGHTY*
then begin the new year back into the COIN AGE
govt spends in coin ..taxes paper credit..but NEVER COIN..

its sacred as a measure of the value of the promise..of the SOVEREIGN on its face..its her face being diminished..the vile thus dimisnish us all..yet all common wealth forces..are swornm to protect here airs and suckceasors..when they should be PROTECYTING the COMMON wealth

or rather basis for wealth
coin..restore its true value
we can consumer them into a bailout from the base..for the base

or record the wealthy into a book
so many options..what would jesus do

restore the VALUE* of our COINage
..to return the consumer age but heck..whats a penny worth today

im my day it bought a BOTTLE of coke
and i got half a penny back for the empty bottle

finding two bottles meant i could swap two drunk
for one drink..but mad cow hamburger patties are making us mind numb

or maybe its the perscribed opiates or legal booze
heck try returning into the coin age..

o

what else will be left to loose
just the stuff govt stole from us to give to 3 rd party underwriters

so much vile..but who holds the resourse in due course?
the common people..who do the value adding..work
not those with income..[for now

cash flow needs coin cash more than ever
be far so much was stolen..govt need sim;plt say happy new year on new years day..by saying spend ya coin..cause tomorrow govts giving you more coin

then at the turn of the new year..your coin is fiatised
all your savings ARE AS IF IN COIN..up to the averge..of your spend type

heck push govt to restore traditional VALUE..back into coin
its paper that inflated deflated..NOT COIN

Peter a good post but,

You discuss many of the issues that face the globe as problems, unfortunately most of them are predicaments and as such, again unfortunately, you can solve a problem but you need to realise you cannot solve a predicament.

It is the vested interest that stops progress toward any solutions at the global scale.

The elephant in the room remains 'population' and the fact we live on a finite planet, yes there are many things that can be done, as you suggest, however the bottom line is we are living a way of life and cling to this way of life, that was built on a energy resource with a massive bang, oil.

Conventional oil likely 'peaked' in 2005-08 but no matter the level of investment, unconventional will never be able to replace this declining energy source, not shale, tar, natural gas, GTL, CTL, they are just too expensive and require too much processing and energy thereby reducing the 'Energy Return on Energy Invested'.

Per Capita wealth globally has been in decline since the 1980s, the rich are with out doubt getting richer, the middle and poor are getting poorer.

Social unrest, that we currently see in the US, Europe, Middle East and beyond is just the tip of this social degradation.

Localisation will help some, but cannot save all.

We are heading for a very rough future, with declining energy and other key resources we have a 'predicament' no matter what we attempt, the solution is obvious, business as usual, until we have a major failure.

The world is not about to come together to solve anything, it's too late I believe.

Just get used to it.

I started to read the article with the thought that Peter was being
realistic. However in the second half it became obvious that he is
a "Business as Usual" advocate.

It will not be BAS. We might well have difficulty in keeping local
telephone systems operational.
The internet and its undersea cables and all the cost and resources
needed to maintain them are almost certainly doomed.
The high intensity industry to maintain such systems will probably
not be attainable.
We are going into a more local industry as international freight will
become impossible at the intensity we now have with thousands of
container ships.
We may well be back to either nuclear powered ships or sailing ships.

Expect a slowdown in industrial activity and more industrial make do.
Higher energy costs and the shortage of liquid fuels will prompt a
diversion of resources into alternative systems which use less energy
and less other resources.

The days of the 2000km salad are also ending unless we build while we
can a country wide electrified railway.
Industry and business will have to be more sustainable in a time of
zero growth.

Indeed we are facing the steady state economy and the "End of Growth".

Peter is another hold out in this idea of "peaks" in resources. the idea of "peak oil" has now officially collapsed, thanks to the energy revolution and its difficult to know what other peaks he may be referring to.

A lot more could be said but Peter's view of economic history is unusual to say the least. This statement:

"Huge industrial corporations are in reality dinosaurs left over from the mass-industrial age and there are plenty of commercial arguments for their demise. Big firms arose in the main to avoid open trading through control over information flows, but given we now have a much greater information capacity, they should logically be broken up into smaller parts to improve efficiencies."

So Microsoft and Apple shouldn't really exist? They control information on what, exactly? What information does BHP Billiton control that its component divisions would not?? and so on, and on. In the author's polemic he misses an interesting point.. multinationals are becoming a problem not for the reasons he alleges but because they can find ways to evade taxes. Microsoft, for example, is able to book much of its revenue through Ireland which has an advantageous tax tructure (BHP Billiton cannot do this, incidently, as it deals in physical products).

That is just the start of problems with this article.. best to move on.

Doubtless well intentioned, Peter McMahon’s article is nevertheless seriously flawed by his employment of high-level abstractions and lack of critical analysis of the politico-economic relations underpinning the series of crises besetting ‘global civilisation’.

Pointing out that the nation-state has “in large part been undermined over the past few decades by the rise of the transnational corporation and global financial market”, he concludes that “The result is governments increasingly prone to capture by vested interests ruling over increasingly disengaged and apathetic populations”.

For Peter, huge industrial corporations are dinosaurs left over from the mass-industrial age and should logically be broken into smaller parts to improve efficiencies… including banks. However long-distance trade remains essential to connect various regions with specific resource strengths, such as food growing capacity and mineral deposits.

One big idea, he suggests, is that “we can replace the existing hierarchies of power, wealth and information with a plethora of networks that use digital technologies”.

"It may be that what we are seeing is the rise of a social-capitalist system built on huge amounts of micro-trading carried out by everyone utilising digital networks with a focus on generating reasonable profits along with maintaining social cohesion."

Arguing that we know a lot more about how modern civilisation works than we did, he naively concludes that “more and more people and organisations are moving on the need to achieve basic structural change”, and that “this orientation is breaking into the mainstream.”

The idea of a ‘social-capitalist system’ is an oxymoron. The ‘ethic’ of Capitalism is anti-social, anti-democratic exploitation, alienation and oppression of any and all competitors and those whose only input to this pernicious mode of Production, Distribution and Exchange is their labour. It is about ‘beggar thy neighbour’. For the Capitalist Class, ‘reasonable profits’ is anathema, and another oxymoron!

Yes, bring out the usual suspects, give them a good thumping! No mention of the fact that our satanic capitalist global economy, fuelled by our wicked use of evil fossil fuels, has led to longer lives, lower infant mortality, and better-fed, happier, healthier, better-educated populations the world over. No mention of the innumerable prognostications of doom and disaster, dating back almost to the industrial revolution itself, which have all turned out to be misguided, misinformed and ultimately laughably wrong. No mention of the remarkable and inspiring capacity for human beings to solve problems for themselves and others, when they actually have reason to think that the problems are genuine, and not imaginary bugbears manufactured by mean-spirited and jealous individuals anxious to drag everyone else down to their own level of resentment and gloom. Why are so many of you people so desperate to believe that you're living in the End Times? Is being happy, healthy and prosperous too boring for you?

Keep the article handy, Peter, and post it every three months or so. It will save anyone else having to cobble together the same old dreary nonsense over and over again. Carefully husbanded, it may last as long as human civilisation does, which will be a good many centuries yet.

the idea of "peak oil" has now officially collapsed

Now there is an interesting statement. Which official official ?
The International Energy Authority ?
The IEA says 2006 !

The only one to even suggest that latterly has been someone at a US Uni.
Forgotten his name, but his maths were torn to pieces by several others.
Curmudgeon is probably referring to shale oil in the US where some
are even predicting that the US will become an oil exporter of the
scale of Saudi Arabia.
Either that or he is referring to cold fusion.
Well cold fusion probably has a better chance than the US being an exporter.

Nothing much has changed since 2005, crude oil production has been
about the same and some are predicting the decline will start about
2015.
The increase in all liquids is mainly ethanol production and that is
now putting pressure on food supplies. Hence the Euro is now being
asked to remove their mandated ethanol in petrol.
The same subject has arisen in the US because of their drought.

Do you want to drive or eat your daily bread ?

Great well researched, thoughtful,extremely cogent article.
Yes there are some multinationals, with larger budgets and more real power, than many sovereign nations! Many of who have so mismanaged their economies, with tax breaks for those who least deserved or needed them, or the employment of three times more lay-about bureaucrats, than was needed to supply every possible public service!
Why, the Greeks employed more workers to maintain a national railway than he total of passengers it actually carried.
It would have been vastly less expensive to actually rip up the rail, sack the staff and put all of its intending passengers into govt paid taxis!
A Tobin tax, or rather an entirely unavoidable expenditure tax, is a great Idea, that ought to end avoidance.
Excluding capital and energy business models from the private market and its endless machinations/speculation; via mandating legislation, is also a must, as is taxing myriad small to modest co-ops and family business models, at a lower rate?
[Creating competing for market share public enterprise, would remove the tendency for these things to morph into union controlled monopolies?]
Which would then allow them to not only compete, but bring the too big to fail enterprises, to their knees? Making anything else than a carve up and sell off completely and financially non-viable.
Shifting the focus onto poverty and acting to end it, in all its forms and guises; with say micro finance and or exclusively targeted direct aid, will create many millions of interactive business growth models, no longer reliant on endless and entirely unsustainable growth.
Many small rural and regional co-ops could be successfully assisted, with govt guaranteed start up money and managerial mentoring/advice/assistance.
There would be many places where say a small to modest multi purpose recycling plant, could be set up to reclaim and recycle regional waste, or distil endlessly sustainable, low cost alternative fuel.
We need to remain cognisant of the fact, that almost all of our worthwhile progress, as truly liberated humans, was accompanied or created by the advent of endlessly reliable ultra-cheap energy, and progressive thinkers!
Rhrosty.

When people do not pay sufficient attention to what the science says, they are not able to consider that science with the seriousness it deserves. From what I can gather, privately, many scientists in various fields of study are terrified about what future holds, especially if they have children or grandchildren.

Leaving out large parts of reality is a sophisticated form of denial by omission. Ignorance is not an excuse.

If we take seriously what's happening in the Arctic and northern latitudes generally, with the climate generally, in terrestrial ecosystems (e.g. destruction of rainforests), in the oceans, with crucial resources like crude oil, and so on, it becomes increasingly harder to believe that humanity will not be toast by the end of this century if we stay on our present course. You have to look at these trends altogether, taking the widest possible available view. Once you've done that, the unknowable future comes into clearer focus, again assuming that current trends continue. The Big Picture is not a pretty picture.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, the Era of Procrastination is ending, and the Age of Consequences has begun. First cab off the rank for me will be a permanent food crisis and its resultant consequences, then a permanent energy crisis, followed by economic, social and societal crisis, ultimately collapse of the world as we currently know it, depressing, but a more likely outcome than one solved by politicians and technology and out inherent need to cling to a ‘business-as-usual’ mantra.

Curmudgeon, I love your new cornucopian Peak Oil view, perhaps your blinkers could be removed, read this and tell me how this crisis is being resolved? http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2012-09-16/tar-sands-oil-shale-and-heavy-oil-why-conventional-wisdom-about-unconventional-o

Geoff do you really believe that garbage, or do you have something to gain from those stupid enough to do so? Perhaps if you & Bazz were to read something rather than greeny propaganda you would have a happier life.

Actually if the future turns out as I expect it is not a gloomy proposition.
To live in a more locally orientated community could be a very much
better life than the hour long commutes that many have to suffer now.
Whatever skills you have could be employed in the local busnesses.
Sure you won't be working on the 38th floor of a fully air conditioned
building, but in an office or workshop at the rear of a local business
where locals come to get something made for them or have repaired.

You may not realise but the trend has already started.
Furniture manufacture has left Asia and is being made locally.
Furniture is bulky, but as it gets more expensive to ship smaller and
smaller goods will be made locally.

Notice the fairly sudden appearence of farmer's markets around our
cities suburbs. It is a world wide trend.
People will adapt to new circumstances and hopefully it will not
happen overnight but may be a python squeeze instead of a cobra strike.
Hmmm where did I hear that ?

Curmudgeon and Hasbeen,

Rather than talk about "greeny propaganda", why not look at the historical prices of crude oil? This graph shows crude oil prices in 2010 dollars since 1947.

http://www.wtrg.com/oil_graphs/oilprice1947.gif

If there is plenty of oil out there or if there are cheap, convenient substitutes, then why is the price so high? Note that the price has been high in historical terms for the last 10 years. If it is easy to increase supply, then why hasn't competition brought the price down?

Gord, Hasbeen called me a greeny !

A good essay, positing some optimistic solutions to the catastrophe that is on our heels. However, I am in accord with Geoff of Perth. There's a slight chance that Bazz's future idyll will eventuate, but none of us will live to see it. Humans only respond to catastrophe - when their backs are to the wall and they have no other option, and the response is always bloody revolution, followed by despotic rule of vicious warlords and fire-breathing, guilt inducing priests.

Perhaps after a millennium or two some human societies will fight for a fairer deal, but it's unlikely they'll succeed. We've been cosseted in a societal aberration for the last eighty years, and imagine it has been normal - that this is a natural way for human societies to operate - but it isn't! Only a very few wealthy western countries have provided political and economic freedom and security for their citizens, in a more or less secular society. The rest of humanity have been the pawns of corrupt governments, fear-mongering priests, murderous war lords and obscenely wealthy 'slave owners.'

When the crunch comes it is going to be very nasty indeed so I'm glad I've no children and only a few years to go.

Divergence

I'm well aware of the price, of course.. Unfortunately your link does not work but is it adjusted to real dollars? Never mind.. certainly prices are high at the moment but that has more to do with OPEC and failing to invest in production, than any peak. There may also be some short term dispruption due to the general switch over from OPEC to non-OPEC sources (actually all peak oil was ever really about).

I can't discuss this interesting subject in all the detail it deserves at the mo, but as noted before even the environmental movement has dropped peak oil as a cause due to the revolution in the energy sector.. although ther are a few hold-outs..

Curmudgeon,

I can only respond by saying "CRAP" you obviously believe those within your inner-circle, the 'business as usual mob'.

Sorry to bust the bubble but we are in terminal decline, every scientific (and that would be peer-reviewed) oil report shows that conventional oil is in decline, perhaps as high as 6.5%.

Unconventional oil and all of the other supposed up line solutions to fuel the 'growth economy' are just not there, and technology will not solve these predicaments in time.

If LSC (Light Sweet Crude) remains above US $100 per barrel during the biggest recession since the 1930s, explain to me what will happen if any real 'green shoots' begin to appear.
Currently the US is reporting unemployment (U3) at about 8.2%, how about the real unemployment figure (U6) which stands at around 22%, tell me then how the real economy in the US with more than $1T going toward hegemony and overseas wars, fractional reserve banking, credit (debt) and the hollowing out of the middle class is working toward a better future! Australia is not far behind, we have private debt at nearly 92% of GDP and our banks are about as badly exposed as one could wish.

Rose colour glasses are great when you have a vested interest, however I worry given my own vested interest in seeing my children, aged 5 and 8 gravitate into a world that is going to need a paradigm shift in thinking from here on in.

Your, old, biased, and blinkered view is no longer relevant.

Bet on the table ($1,000AUD) - Oil will either be $250+ per barrel by 2015 if BAU continues or circa $40 per barrel if we have a complete international collapse of the global financial system within this time-frame (confirmed date 1-1.2015).

Maybe you should take the time to look at the real situation and report back on what is self-evident, chaos in the near future.

Bazz, Geoff of Perth and others

Fellas, look this business about peak oil ending has been discussed many times on this forum and elsewhere, and its becoming old. Its time for you to catch up. For starters search on the UK environmentalist George Monbiot, notably his recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald in which he declared the peak oil story was over. Also search on peak oil and that should bring up the analysts who have declared it over. Also start reading up the energy revolution and oil and gas reserves going through the roof.

Now granted there may well be price disruptions and oil prices are high for a host of reasons that have nothing to do with peak oil as such, but does have a lot to do with OPEC production. And, no, I have not the slightest idea what will happen to prices from now. There are a legion of highly trained analystst who consistantly get price forecasts wrong.

But some of those analysts did believe in peak oil. Now they don't mention it. The peak oil story is gone. Deal with it. Leave it with you.

The author gives us much food for thought regarding the Bigger Picture, nationally and globally. Yet we seem bent on focusing on minutiae, with a myopia nurtured with near religious fervour from ages of fastidious reverence to a view that someone else can always do it better than we ever could.

Time to wake up and take a good look at just how very inward and foolish we can be - if we continue to try very hard.

For all global thinkers the writing is on the wall. Business as usual is taking us on a one-way ride to a place we would all very much rather avoid - where economic-capitalism creates an unbridgeable divide between the elite and the masses, where ultimately even the rich will no longer have sufficient means or interest to care for the poor, and where this Earth is hardly a place where one would care to live. That is, even if such outcomes are not predicated upon an age of global warfare too horrific to even contemplate.

Time to think very hard on what is really important, and how best to get there. The choice is in our hands, as much as in anyone else's - why should we just sit back if there is the least we can do to shape the sort of future we would like to leave for our descendents and beyond?

A little tinge of Green is a good thing, and the only thing which may preserve any concept of Community, of Humanity, and which may enable us to avert the total desertification of our only home, of Mother Earth. Eventually the profit-motive will have to be seen as the destructive force it really is, and wealth creation accepted as having to be shared equitably (with emphasis on the have-nots) and not as currently at the expense of those taken advantage of and dispossessed of their reasonable rights. Now would be a good time to start on the inevitable revolution in global systems - while there is still time to avoid far less-attractive alternatives becoming the only reality.

Curmudgeon,

Try this link to the same crude oil price graph. The graph also has notations indicating the explanation for previous price movements.

http://www.wtrg.com/prices.htm

There is no monopoly supplier, so it is hard to believe that someone wouldn't be raking in all those lovely dollars if there were plenty of cheap oil out there or an easy substitute.

On the peak oil question and other environmental/resource issues in general, you seem to have a pattern of looking for an expert or commentator (such as George Monbiot) who agrees with you and then pronouncing the issue settled. Scientists and other experts are people too. Some of them are corrupt and willing to act as guns for hire. Others will lie for ideological reasons. Still others are just deluded. You can find a properly qualified expert to say anything you like: alien abduction is a real phenomenon, the HIV virus doesn't cause AIDS, childhood vaccinations cause autism, fluoridated water is dangerous, etc., etc. If you look at the balance of expert opinion, you don't see anything like grounds for the rosy, Cornucopian future that you believe in.

Geoff of Perth and the rest of us are like the mighty unpopular people who were warning about the rise of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. People in Britain and France had suffered terribly in WWI and in the Great Depression. They didn't want to know about rearmament, and there were plenty of politicians to echo their views. Peace in our time. If they had listened to the Cassandras, WWII might have been avoided, or at least, they wouldn't have had to take on Hitler after he had the industrial resources of the Rhineland and Czechoslovakia.

Divergence

Okay, a reasonable response from you (unlike Geoff of Perth), but I must express some surprise that you're still holding on to this concept. You also accuse me of the sin of which you yourself are guilty, that is of searching for sources that agree with your beliefs.

Now you do know the energy sector is undergoing a revolution right? This is mainly gas but it is spreading to oil. You point to the oil price. Sure its high due to supply constraints and its not necessary for OPEC to be a monopoly supplier to affect oil prices, just a major one which it is. So OPEC has not been investing in production capacity or searches for any more reserves so supply for its wells has levelled off, and production in unconventional oil and from deep ocean discoveries has not ramped up fast enough to compensate.

However, there have been too many changes in technology freeing up unconventional oil reserves and too many deep ocean discoveries (which were entirely unexpected)to cling to peak oil. But the original proponents - Campbell and Laherrere in 1998 - have an out as all it was originally about was a forecast of higher prices and disruption while the world switched to unconventional oil. However, they did not forecast the deep ocean discoveries. Environmentalists later distorted the original proposition into a claim that it was some sort of fundamental limit - that part is completely wrong.

Curmudgeon,
George Monbiot fell for the duff data put out from Harvard Kennady School by (Maugeri)

http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2012-07-04/treehugger-monbiot-and-peak-oil-over

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9292

There was a whole spate of articles showing where it was in error.
It was never corrected or replied to as far as I have seen.
The situation has not changed much since 2005.
Even ethanol has come under attack because of its effect on food prices.

But please go and read the plentiful info on the Harvard article.

Bazz

I'm not just reacting to Monbiot so it does you little good to point to supposed "errors" on this part.. I was only quoting him as evidence that even sections of the environmental movement are beginning to acknowledge the inevitable.. You still have the problem that now only extreme sections of the environmental believe in peak oil.. No analyst will go near it, although some did for a time.

The is because, and I'm getting tired of repeating this, the revolution in the oil and gas industry. All reserve estimates have gone through the roof.. granted prices are still high for various reasons I've referred to in previous posts on this thread, but the concept that there is any fundamental limits to oil (never part of the original peak oil forecasts, incidentally) have been abandoned. Forget them.

Time to move on.

@ All reserve estimates have gone through the roof..

Use of the word ALL seems patently false if you read any of the the articles linked to. Not saying the articles are necessarily correct but your use of the word ALL most definitely is not.

It seems to me that we have a situation here where banding the terms reserve and resource around without understanding them has seen people make huge errors of judgement and calculation. We're using the stuff at an alarming rate, a 50 billion barrel reserve is days of consumption and might be from a trillion barrel resource.

back to the article, I think Ted Trainer's piece some time ago was equally politicly untenable, yet both offer a glimpse at a possible solution. I am not completly sure the author is about though, he makes the a point about re-tasking the vast arms budget, and a good thing that would be but surely re-tasking simply sees consumption shift ? consumption at unsustainable rates is the problem... but if the outlook from the climate scientists is right, we're going to be down a few billion in the next 100 years anyway, so I guess in that sense the Planets biosphere is simply finding a new normal. Alarmist or realist ?

but he's right, we're pissing around at the edges and that's worse than nothing.