Peak Oil and a Changing Climate

The scientific community has long agreed that our dependence on fossil fuels inflicts massive damage on the environment and our health, while warming the globe in the process. But beyond the damage these fuels cause to us now, what will happen when the world's supply of oil runs out?

In a new video series from The Nation and On The Earth Productions, Bill McKibben, Noam Chomsky, Nicole Foss, Richard Heinberg and other scientists, researchers and writers explain.

http://www.thenation.com/article/157434/peak-oil-and-changing-climate

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Comment by Localtarian on January 9, 2011 at 12:59am: Yeah it's the monopolized oil market. No one can interfere with that monopoly, or you're either killed, or your invention/product is bought and thrown in the back of a warehouse somewhere.

Comment by Nikki on January 8, 2011 at 7:03pm: Thanks, that's one of my favorites. Carlin sounds just like my astronomy prof. - the world will survive anything we humans can throw at it. The real threats to the planet are for it's molten core to cool down which will end geologic activity and when the sun begins to cool and die, whichever comes first. But just because we don't believe the entire global warming hypothesis doesn't mean we don't care about the environment. The gw alarmists like to say deniers are either stupid neanderthals or own stock in oil companies. That's because they want to see cap and trade implemented and Western civilization sent to the Dark Ages. There's a lot of technology that's being withheld from the market and I wonder why.

Comment by Localtarian on January 8, 2011 at 6:38pm: I always really liked and agreed with George Carlin's out look on this topic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjmtSkl53h4

Comment by Localtarian on January 8, 2011 at 6:31pm: Yeah I definitely agree there has to be an economic change and a change of profit 'holders' first. The main reason we haven't really seen any good and possibly mass produced and used alternative energies is because of the HUGE monopolization. This is another society hindering action that comes with fascism. They'd declare that the person/company trying to make a viable alternative energy is "interfering with their monopoly and monetizing of oil." But the whole global warming thing is a different story. I kind of sit in between the two 'theories'. Yes I do think we are contributing to the destruction of the environment via combustion of crude fossil oil and other pollutants, but I don't think we're causing enough damage to have an effect on the earths cycles, and that the earth has a much bigger threat than humans, like you said, itself is it's biggest threat and foreign objects from space.

Comment by Nikki on January 8, 2011 at 5:37pm: Lindsey Williams claims that peak oil is a myth but I certainly don't know how reliable he is. As for global warming, I'm not buying into that either. When I went to college my geology and astronomy profs didn't think much of this global warming hypothesis or that we could destroy the earth. They said the biggest threat to the species on the planet were super volcanoes and large asteroids. As for the climate we have gone through many warming and cooling cycles, and as you said, even before life. And the global warming hypothesis relies on greenhouse gases but leaves out many other variables that can affect the climate, so it's not based on the scientific method. Renewable energy has great potential and can help us all reduce or eliminate our dependence on the utility grids. But there has to be a transitional period that doesn't cause further harm to the economy.

Comment by Localtarian on January 8, 2011 at 4:33pm: I personally think peak oil is a legitimate factor. After all, it is just a bunch of old earth minerals and dinosaur fossils that is "crude fossil fuel". So I'd have to say that yes, we are running out of it, sort of like how China is starting to run out of those precious earth minerals that are refined to make some of these technology gadgets we have today and that are used in hybrid car battery fuel cells. But I don't believe in the whole man is entirely responsible for the changing of the climate. I see it as, yes we are spewing huge amounts of pollutants into the atmosphere, but the earth has been going through weather/climate changing cycles before any living thing was here on earth. And I think we should actually start trying to develop new means of energy instead of all fossil fuel based ways, or else we will destroy the earth.