Ludwig,

A comment on peak oil:

It is a big issue, but I'd suggest too big even for Governments to turn around without risk of introducing an air bubble into their economies. As the economy is an aggregate of the labours of many diverse activities over centuries, the one thing you can say with certainty is that it is an empirical process. Given this, what exactly are governments going to do about the issue - have a summit or knock up some white papers? Even if they create a "green market", at the end of the day, if it can't be made workable or profitable by the doers in society, it just won't go anywhere.

The solution is the same as it's always been: when there's a need for a change, someone will be there to make it happen. If the blueprints and past talkfests don't help, they'll be out the window and replaced by a paradigm of pragmatism. And the best thing to trigger the paradigm shift, will be the scarcity of the resource itself. I have confidence that people will quickly find ways to adapt when faced with that reality when it comes.

Regarding 'peak oil.'

There is another possible interpretation of this idea.

That the steep rise in the oil price (and all other commodities and 'hard' assets) is driven by monetary inflation, which has been in runaway territory for at least a decade now. The 'perpetual growth' model is more or less now spent and relies on money flow to keep the facade up.

The supply/demand fundamentals are debatable and it is not absolutely incontrivertable that they are in dis-equilibrium.

Its possible that global warming, geo-political tensions and supply/demand speculations are all being either contrived and/or exagerated to JUSTIFY a rising oil price, without the oil-oligarchy price-fixing shennanigans being challenged.

This sort of inflation is both a hidden form of taxation (fiat currency debasement) and a hidden transfer of wealth/labour/resources. Thankfully, its not that hard to get off this slippery slope and not get sucked into a life of supporting the shennanigans. Moderate spending and consumption and find purpose in something beyond stuff, status and mindlessly satiating one's desires.

It doesnt help that the USA is dumping staggering amounts of credit/money into the system and consequently, anyone who is trading anything for those increasingly over-supplied (and progressively worth less) dollars, want more of the depreciating 'promises to pay.' Countries with pegged currencies compound the problem. The worlds 'reserve currency' literally has no bottom, as it backed by nothing. This is what happens when a currency is backed by wanton aspiration, consumerism, materialism (in the physicalist sense), self immolating desire and unconscious subservience to emotion and blind reaction.

Just a thought.

Kevin Rudd had his photo taken looking thoughtful, smiling with the Stars, sitting on the floor looking thoughtful,smiling with Cate Blanchett, smiling looking thoughtful.
For him it was a total triumph.
Was a photo taken of Peter Garrett looking thoughtful with a plastic bag?

Australia's prime Minister Rudd just had a 2020 intellectual summit. He has placed himself and Labor in an intellectual bolt hole thinking he is safe from the realities of a peakoil, overpopulated global civilisation that by the second-law-of-thermodynamics will drive human beings to incredible barbarism to maintain living standards.

There won't be police to solve crimes. Fuel will be reserved for elites. It will be akin to living in a jail without guards.

The 2020 summit's task was to forge future energy-guzzling concepts for a never ending economic and population growth Australia. The trend was to glamorise & effectively censor realistic doom-and-gloom insights.

Hence, the summit predictably concluded that by immigrating millions more people and charging them 10% GST tax on everything they spend, Australia could have the income to become a world military, economic and cultural power to rival the US.

The problem is, when all the doom-and-gloom views were censored so too were the realities: peakoil transport costs will prohibit economic & development growth. Law-and-order will be too expensive to service. Millions of extra 'skilled' immigrants all across the nation will no longer be be GST tax fodder but motivated groups ready to take advantage by force or be employed by corporations in private armies.

Only facing Doom-&-Gloom can we hope to outmatch it:

1.Immigration must cease immediately. Its link to GST revenues is stupidity and greed. It alienates government from electors. It serves little purpose to immigrate skills when corporations have become too lazy and corrupt to pay for training employees.

2.The search for GEOTHERMAL energy locations must be top priority ahead of clean-coal. One Geothermal well should be drilled for every oil well. The reasons are clearly expounded at WWW.DIEOFF.ORG.

Its not a lot to ask. Two edicts. The time for economic growth based on population numbers is OVER. Its time to use our collective intellects to create economic growth in absentia of population growth. We CAN do it! Further, it can be shown that the second law of thermodynamics guarantees such economic growth if 1 & 2 above are implemented sooner rather than later.

The shallowness of Lardelli's arguments is highlighted in his final paragraph where he says that 160 UK residents have died from eating beef over the past 18 years. Compare this with the 9 million who died of other causes over the same time period and you get an idea of his lack of perspective on this so-called peak oil issue.
The reality is that, if and when we reach peak oil, scarcity will send the price of remaining oil resources sky high, making it economic to extract oil from tar sands or to obtain energy from a wide range of sources that are currently uneconomic. The world will have to adapt to the financial consequences of reduced oil availability because we simply won't have any choice. In the meantime, we should stop bleating about the end of the world as we know it and get on with living life in a more expensive, oil depleted world.

Bernie, I suggest you do a little research on the Canadian tar sands before making a comment like "....making it economic to extract oil from tar sands..."

To be viable to extract oil from tar sands requires the price of a barrel of oil to be above $60. It's currently $117 a barrel and has been over the magic figure of $60 for some time, but you won't see tar sands being any kind of saviour for our energy woes. Why? Energy of course!

It takes massive amounts of steam created by either electricity or gas to melt the tar (not oil) from the sands. It then takes another massive dose of energy to refine this sticky black ooze into some form of usable oil. The problem is that Canada doesn't have gas to waste, nor copious amounts of spare electricity. In fact the electricity grids of both the US and Canada are beginning to strain at the seams. The same is happening in other countries too.

You also state.... "The world will have to adapt to the financial consequences of reduced oil availability because we simply won't have any choice."
Taking into account the riots over food in parts of the World at present and considering that all modern agriculture relies on the availability of cheap and abundant oil, how long do you think it will be before Australia experiences civil unrest due to escalation food prices?

Bernie, forgive me if I'm wrong, but you sound to me like someone who lives well above the current poverty line and one who believes money will continue to be freely available to you, but you won't escape once the tsunami of PO arrives on your door step.