Future Shock - Mad Max

E

Elphaba

Guest
Anyone see 'Future Shock' on RTE last night about oil running out? Twas all
gloom and doom indeed! One expert said oil had already peaked, in fact one of the main reservoirs peaked in 1964!! Another bloke predicted 2011, and also maybe 2020-30 which is our lifetime. As an island we are overly dependent on oil, whereas countrys like the U.K. and France have Nuclear
as a back up, but then uranium is also a finite resource.

Anyway....picture a 'Mad Max' scenario, in Ireland in the future, but I'll have
stockpiled gallons of oil in the garden shed. I'll build a big watchtower from
all the leylandi at the end of the garden, manned by the husband to protect our precious stock from the greedy snobs up the road with the redundant 4X4's. The kids will visit with the grandkids (on horseback) and when I'm tucking them in at night, the youngest will say "Granny, tell me about the old days" and I'll tell them all about aeroplanes and when the oil ran out!
 
I remember being at school in the mid eighties and it generally accepted back then that at most we had 20-25 years of oil left. While the programme made some excellent points the fact is that no one agrees when oil production will or has peaked.
 
I'd recommend a book called "The Prize" by Daniel Yergen.

Its a fascinating read as it shows the history of oil and then how oil has influenced the actions of the world.

However, back to the point, when you read the book, every so many years they reach what they believe is "Peak Oil", which causes prices to rise, which causes one of 2 things to happen

1) Cost of oil going up makes it viable to drill in inaccessable areas
2) Cost of oil going up causes a break through in oil finding / processing technology.
 
SOM42 said:
I remember being at school in the mid eighties and it generally accepted back then that at most we had 20-25 years of oil left. While the programme made some excellent points the fact is that no one agrees when oil production will or has peaked.
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Same here , 2005 - 2010 was the estimate given...
 
Firefly, do you mean, oil running out is ages away? 15-20 years isn't that long really...
 
Our planners were mad allowing so many satellite towns to be built in Ireland, with so many people commuting for for long in cars each day.
 
I think the technology is there to power the world on another source of fuel. What i mean is governments are selling oil to us because it's big business & if someone invented a car that runs on say water, they would almost definitely be assassinated. So tbh i think the governments of the world are waiting for the oil to run out, only then will the release a new fuel source, (don't be naive ppl:)) so they can get the maximum amount of profit.

PS - I'm getting tired of this "Let's save the environment! saga" it's turning into a big farse! You know the way politicions are setting up new taxes like "the bin tax"? That's so bad 'cause even with that money how can they "fix" the world? It's nonsense, it's not up to politicians, it's up to all of us, as in the 6.5 Billion of us to prevent it from being destroyed even more, and pray the earth can heal itself. It's like we're all in denial about our sheer careless attitude to the world we live in. And we won't have to dream of finding a new planet if we just pay attention to this planet and treat it with respect, and NASA can give more of their funding to the hungry and homeless!


I hope ppl know what i mean! I don't wish to sound like a nagging wife. And i hope the civil servants wont demant my post deleted, it's really just a point of view, and i really do want to help the environment.
 
rabbit said:
Our planners were mad allowing so many satellite towns to be built in Ireland, with so many people commuting for for long in cars each day.
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Is this all gloomy ? Is there any advantage to this ? People used to live in small villages away from towns in the past. Suburbs typically have more green areas which could be farmed or exploited by the locals.
 
Sign - Green areas more likely to be exploited by developers as has happened recently in Dublin on a modest housing estate. I agree with snakebite...saving environment is turning into a farce....Forests cut down to grow palm oil, (which defeats the purpose!) agricultural land is been used now to grow alternative bio fuel producing plants, which means less food, price goes up. Especially bad in Brazil where farmers are forced off their land...Is this ethical? Saving the planet does not mean just sourcing alternative fuels, there is a whole lot more involved...a lot more than our governments lead us to believe...
 
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