Worth watching. Extremely serious business.

For those not already familiar with these issues, I recommend Richard Heinberg's Web site and his books.

Another useful experience and resource is the one hour lecture by Dr. Albert Bartlett - shouldn't be missed. Link to video offered here... http://www.gpln.com/thinkforyourself.htm

Peak oil is a myth of scarcity created by the oil industry. This lie is based upon the bogus "fossil fuel" theory.

Oil and gas are actually abiotic in origin derived from hydrocarbon chemical reactions deep within the earth.

The problem is that there is too much oil and gas within the earth.

If it were all ever extracted the resulting carbon emissions would destroy the atmosphere that we rely upon for life on earth.

Finding alternatives to hydrocarbon fuels is the real long term issue.

So, Gonzonews, if what you say is true, why is it that the USA has to import 50% of its oil rather than getting it all from a renewable resource right here. Why Deep Horizon wells everywhere in thousands of feet of water? All just to fake us out? I think that there would be easier ways to do that, maybe an increase of propaganda in the Mainstream Media, while they pump away secretly from massive renewable deposits like those on Signal Hill, CA. or Huntington Beach, CA or West Texas which only appear to be bone dry. Please give us your sources for such a ludicrous position. The Drudge Report? Bill O'Reilly? Glen Beck? The Oil Institute? UFO's?

The "PreSal" deep water drilling off the coast of Brazil proposed by Petrobras also represents a speculative bubble that Brazilian/transnational corptocracy is hanging the 75% of Brazil that lives in poverty. How kind - a small percentage will be designated... this is worth becoming familiar with

Here's 2007 sales pitch PDF from Petrobras
www2.petrobras.com.br/ri/pdf/2007_Formigli_Miami_pre-sal.pdf

I've never seen such an august group let us know how badly we're screwed. How did a serious dose of reality get on The Nation's website?

Dmitry Orlov posted this video on his blog, and had this for deniers: "Whenever climate change is mentioned on [ClubOrlov], I get to delete comments from the corporate shills who get paid to deny climate science and the many idiots who are misled by them. The chance of them getting their inane, suicidal viewpoint across on this blog is exactly zero. The chance of their heads exploding as a result of that: lower than we would like."

So in order to service our enslavement to the idea that short-term profits for the greediest among us should be our only criterion for deciding on a course of action, we deliberately and consciously choose suicide for at least most of the human race, and a huge proportion of the other species with whom we share this beautiful planet.
What a shame. What a waste.

Ain't capitalism wonderful?

Sometimes Chomsky's arrogant patronizing attitude makes me want to spit on his shoe.

James Hansen fudged his data and politicized a scientific inquiry so that it has ceased to be an inquiry and morphed into a political dogma.

Those of you who are globing warming true believers should give a listen to Piers Corbyn. Google the name. He's got all the credentials a lay person could desire in an expert.

But, more than credentials, he's got a predictive model that WORKS. How can this be, when the majority of climate scientists, we are endlessly told, embrace AGW, anthropogenic global warming? The IPCC consensus leaves the sun out of the picture. So, if there is any merit to the greenhouse gas theory, which Corbyn says there isn't, it is not the climate driver. The sun is. Common sense. Our planetary heat source is the sun. If the sun's activity is reduced, the earth cools. So far, solar cycle 24, predicted to be active & intense, hasn't actually begun. Solar activity in the past few years has been depressed, and it may continue for years to come.

The party-line Met Office in the UK has forecast milder and warmer winters for the past three seasons ( including this one ) because their AGW models developed on one of the world's fastest supercomputers, said so. Piers Corbyn predicted months in advance that this was not the case, that the winters would be the coldest in at least 100 years, with record snow and so forth. He has been consistently correct. Farmers in the UK who listen to Corbyn and ignore the Met Office, have suffered minimal losses.

The theory with the most predictive value is the correct theory. This is not oil company propaganda. It is simply science.

We need to develop sustainable, clean energy, not because we can stop global warming by doing so, but because oil extraction, like coal extraction, destroys our environment. AGW is not happening. The AGW model is wrong, based on inadequate data and false data.

Each of us understands, if we are not totally numb, that the human species is destroying our environment. Bill McKibbon is one of the more sensitive among us. He's quite sincere, but in a couple of years, he will be very wretched indeed because he has embraced a fallacious dogma. It is getting cooler, not warmer. The sun is the cause.

I see a pattern in the posts by deniers of climate change and peak oil, and I can see ALL of the points raised by them as coming from a few conspiracy websites. I know because I always suspect a conspiracy on many issues. But I've come to see in the last few years that these conspiracy peddlers have gone way overboard. Instead of doing targeted, in-depth exposés on particular issues, they have become like the 24x7 news channels that feel compelled to put out junk to fill the time in between advertisements. And the deniers on this site have obviously bought into these, even though they are not bold enough to admit their sources, and instead pretend to have an independent mind. Even worse, they pretend to be more knowledgeable than so many experts that I find so much more credible than any of the wannabes that these people seem to rely on. Having invested their time and energy in a particular package they find it hard to let go and keep popping up on various threads. And the worst thing is that many of us bite, and start countering their lies and disinformation that clearly originate from shady sources with a questionable agenda.

I think the time has come to JUST IGNORE these deniers and instead focus on the solutions. I think it is necessary to look for the hook right away and decide not to bite. I said the same thing last year:
"Last Month Was the Hottest June Recorded Worldwide, Figures Show":
www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/07/16-1
Time stamp: Alcyon July 17th, 2010 12:28 pm
But I have been guilty of getting caught up in several back-and-forth exchanges myself since then that seem fruitless and futile.

Why ignore the deniers? Here's a simple answer - actually simple questions that you need to answer for yourself:

1) Looking at the experts, activists and scientists who warn us of impending danger - such as those who appear on this video, looking at their credentials and track record and considering what it is they are asking us to do - which is basically to change course in order to avert disaster, what is the worst that can happen if they are wrong on some counts?

2) Contrast that with the points raised by the deniers and their shady sources. Even look at their credentials and see what it is that they are asking us to do: In most cases, they are pretty much saying that nothing needs to be done to change the status quo. Or they would rather talk about human population - without telling you how soon they would like to see a drastic reduction in human population and who exactly they would like to see die off first. Once again, I've bitten this hook myself, even though I, nor anyone who is sane, has ever said or implied that the current human population is desirable or sustainable - ever!

Now ask yourself: why should you trust or listen to these posters over the other experts, activists and scientists? What would happen if these deniers and their shady sources are wrong? DISASTER.

And what would happen if the scientists and activists are wrong? We still get to live, hopefully in a cleaner, more equitable and more sustainable environment.

Bottom line: Time to ignore the deniers. I think they have a certain agenda or they are looking for attention. Either way it's a waste of energy to engage them in fruitless exchanges. Unless some of you think that refuting their points may help others who are genuinely confused by the arguments on the two sides and who are here with an open mind to learn. That thought is always at the back of my mind. So in that case, I think it would be best to answer the deniers on specific points and stop - even though THEY would not stop.

Since the so-called "abiotic" source of oil was raised as a counter to the warning on peak oil, I want to point that this has been debunked so many times, and yet it keeps popping up whenever peak oil is mentioned. Richard Heinberg, who appears in the video wrote a piece in 2004 debunking this very thing:
http://richardheinberg.com/richard-heinberg-on-abiotic-oil

And Heinberg had already written these books by then:
"Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World" and
"The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies".
I can see that such titles may be disturbing to certain groups, but I haven't been convinced by the credentials or credibility of those who say there's nothing to worry.

Another story about a "debate" on CNBC - in 2005:
"Abiotic Snake Oil"
www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/11/4/15537/8056

"Even if it were true, it would not change the fact that in recent decades the globe has been scoured for new oil finds and the rate of return has steeply declined."

Iraq may have more oil than Saudi Arabia. Only about 10 percent of their potential fields have been explored. Oil in Iraq is also cheap to extract and much of it is light sweet crude. If Iraq were fully developed and produced there would be a market surplus and prices would drop. Palast makes a well-documented argument that Big Oil has maintained a policy of limiting Iraq's production as to not depress oil prices.

Central Asia also has vast proven reserves of oil and gas but American corporations need a pipeline route to market those resources which is the reason for the occupation of Afghanistan, or shall we say Pipelineistan. Afghanistan itself has proves gas reserves and probable oil reserves. And Brazil is making huge gains in offshore production with safer deep drilling procedures than what led to the Deep Horizon. The arctic also has substantial reserves yet to be developed. And using abiotic drilling science, Russia is now outproducing Saudi Arabia. Etc.

There is no scarcity of oil.

Gonzo, oil discovery peaked in the 1960's, Iraq has been producing oil for many more years than Saudi Arabia and no, Iraq's reserves are not greater than Saudi Arabia's. You will note the western deserts of Iraq is where some hope is however, these areas border Saudi Arabia's oil fields (all Saudi fields are in the eastern portion of the country, including the fabled Ghawar (largest in the world). Interestingly, the second largest Saudi field is offshore.

Abiotic oil is a myth - period. Peak oil production is close at hand with only one nation having any swing production available whatsoever, Saudi Arabia. As our entire way of life, our economies, everything we have is dependent upon abundant and inexpensive oil, get ready for some big changes going forward. The "old" days are gone forever.

We will never "run out" of oil, it will be worse than that.

And what makes the invasion and occupation of Iraq even more criminal (as in a war of aggression under international law) is that the corporatizing Iraq's oil is costing the U.S. taxpayer $Trillions (Stiglitz) and crippling our government and economy with debt. This is the biggest corporate subsidy in the history of the world. And of course Big Oil could care less about 500,000 dead Iraqis and 5,000 dead Americans.

Whether oil is abiotic or a "fossil fuel" is not critical to the present supply issue. There is plenty of oil around. Although if abiotic theory is true it would explain the huge reserves found a great depths having no biomarkers. The deep deposits may be beyond the understanding of today's oil geologists who may eventually look like a bunch of idiotic scientific dinosaurs.

And what a surprise, the invasion of Iraq raised oil prices.

Keeping Iraq's Oil in the Ground
By Greg Palast
AlterNet

http://www.truth-out.org/article/greg-palast-keeping-iraqs-oil-ground

excerpts:

"The oil majors had a better use for Iraq's oil than drilling it - not drilling it. The oil bigs had bought Iraq's concession to seal it up and keep it off the market."

The following was written three decades ago:

"Although its original concession of March 14, 1925, cove- red all of Iraq, the Iraq Petroleum Co., under the owner- ship of BP (23.75%), Shell (23.75%), CFP [of France] (23.75%), Exxon (11.85%), Mobil (11.85%), and [Calouste] Gulbenkian (5.0%), limited its production to fields constituting only one-half of 1 percent of the country's total area. During the Great Depression, the world was awash with oil and greater output from Iraq would simply have driven the price down to even lower levels."

A History of Oil in Iraq

Suppressing It, Not Pumping It

* 1925-28 "Mr. 5%" sells his monopoly on Iraq's oil to British Petroleum and Exxon, who sign a "Red-Line Agreement" vowing not to compete by drilling independently in Iraq.

* 1948 Red-Line Agreement ended, replaced by oil combines' "dog in the manger" strategy - taking control of fields, then capping production-drilling shallow holes where "there was no danger of striking oil."

* 1961 OPEC, founded the year before, places quotas on Iraq's exports equal to Iran's, locking in suppression policy.

* 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War. Iran destroys Basra fields. Iraq cannot meet OPEC quota. 1991 Desert Storm. Anglo-American bombings cut production.

* 1991-2003 United Nations Oil embargo (zero legal exports) followed by Oil-for-Food Program limiting Iraqi sales to 2 million barrels a day.

* 2003-? "Insurgents" sabotage Iraq's pipelines and infrastructure.

* 2004 Options for Iraqi Oil The secret plan adopted by U.S. State Department overturns Pentagon proposal to massively in crease oil production. State Department plan, adopted by government of occupied Iraq, limits state oil company to OPEC quotas.

The most important point made in this piece may be missed by many, and the magnitude of this point is rarely grocked, even by folks such as McKibben and Kunstler.

Noam Chomsky says at 10:40--

"CEOs and managers who are trying to convince the public that it's a hoax, know perfectly well that it's extremely dangerous... they are caught in a kind of institutional contradiction- as leaders of major corporations, they have an institutional role, and that is to maximize short term profit and if they don't do that, they're out and someone else is in who does do it... Institutionally speaking, it's not a choice... they may know they are mortgaging the future of their grandchildren and in fact maybe everything they own will be destroyed, but they are caught it a trap of institutional structure, that's what happens in market systems...

In fact in the US it's actually a LEGAL OBLIGATION... that's a very serious problem... we're marching over a cliff and doing it for institutional reasons that are pretty hard to dismantle..."

Until this legal fiduciary obligation is undone we will make little progress on this issue, IMO.

And as an example from personal experience, I worked as a roughneck (on the floor and in the derrick) on drilling rigs in Wyoming in the 1970's. More than once we capped wells that had good tests for oil. The idea was to wait for prices to rise. And many are still under the impression that there was an "energy crisis" in the 70's, when in fact it was a deliberate OPEC boycott in protest of what the Israelis were doing to the Palestinians. There was no real shortage of oil.

And what is happening in the USA today? Oil consumption is down and refineries are being closed or limiting production as to not depress prices. And what Big Oil is after in Central Asia and Afghanistan is to develop pipelines that will allow them to gain hegemony over expanding Asian markets such as India. The mess in Afghanistan is public debt for private profit, with the MIC cashing in win or lose, and after nearly a decade, we are still losing.

And the costs of the illegal invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan are destroying the American economy. Right now those "wars" are being financed with more funny money (the wonders of fiat currency) as buyers of our debt in the form of treasury bonds are buying fewer bonds due to a lack of confidence in the future of the US empire. But it is possible the inflation of the dollar may result in higher prices for oil.

Chomsky is a LINGUIST, for crying out loud. Next, we'll have a plumber speak out on what constitutes proper brain surgery.

The video is a propaganda piece, and nothing more. Let's see the opening claim: "What you should know from the experts".

I watched the whole thing, waiting for the experts to tell about Peak Oil... there wasn't a single one.

There was a Journalist, another Journalist, a Radio Talk Show host, a Writer, a BBC Reporter, an Author, a self-styled Evironmentalist without any scientific background, and a Linguist.

There were no experts. Just paid propagandists for the "AGW/climate change" lobby.

I just noticed and I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the name of M. King Hubbert, the geologist who first sounded the alarm on peak oil with his "Hubbert curve" back in 1956.

gonzonews here mentioned Palast, who has unfortunately got it wrong on peak oil. I say "unfortunately" because this seems like a needless foray of Palast into a topic that is not his area of expertise and many people seem to have fallen for this because of the excellent work Greg Palast has done in other subjects.

Richard Heinberg has pointed out the mistakes of Greg Palast, back in July 2006, but the internet has a nasty way of keeping debunked stuff alive because not everyone is prepared to do their homework. Either that, or those who post a lot of denialist stuff here are counting on the ignorance and laziness of others here.

"An Open Letter to Greg Palast on Peak Oil" - by Richard Heinberg:

>>>"Dear Greg,

Congratulations on your new book, Armed Madhouse. As with your previous work, I admire your dedication in exposing the machinations of government and corporate miscreants.

However, this time around you’ve also taken a potshot at a target that I happen to know a good deal about and have been closely involved with for a few years—the efforts by a growing number of analysts to forecast the arrival, and prepare the world for the consequences, of Peak Oil. In this instance I think your negative comments about Peak Oil and those of us who study it are not well informed. Ordinarily I wouldn’t respond to an ill-considered statement by an otherwise admirable author; but unfortunately you go on for several pages on this theme, and I’ve started receiving e-mails from folks who are troubled by what you said. In my many years of fighting to protect our planet from environmental destruction, I have learned how important it is to make sure that our supporters have the most accurate information possible. Time and again, I have seen our opponents seize on internal disagreements as wedges in their drive to weaken and damage the credibility of the environmental movement. I feel the responsibility to help sort out the factual issues in this instance particularly strongly because you have worked so hard to earn your reputation as a truth-teller in these perilous times.

First let me make clear where I’m coming from with my critical analysis. Before you assume that, just because I disagree with you, I must therefore be secretly in the employ of the Heritage Foundation or some nefarious corporation, I should point out that in my own recent book, Powerdown, I take the Bush administration to task as vehemently (if not at so great a length) as you have done. And I teach in a program on “Culture, Ecology and Sustainable Community” at a small, far-left liberal arts college where you have lectured. So we are in other respects natural allies.

In your book, you place your critique of Peak Oil in the context of scathing attacks on the Bush energy plan and the oil companies’ enormous ongoing political influence. These are serious problems and you deal with them skillfully and entertainingly.
*** But, in contrast to these subjects, the Peak Oil discussion is more about science than politics, and when it comes to science, catchy phrases don’t count; only a careful weighing of evidence does. ***
I’m sorry to say that you don’t appear to be fully informed about the terms and history of the debate.

Let’s start with your description of the work of the late geologist M. King Hubbert and the study of oil depletion.

On page 108 you pretend to summarize Hubbert’s 1956 world forecast for global oil production as follows: ... <<<

The "open letter" continues - please check the link:
http://richardheinberg.com/171-an-open-letter-to-greg-palast-on-peak-oil