Peak Oiler's Anxiety: "Are We All Wasting Our Time?"

The rub about doomsday predictions is that one can't tell until it's too late whether he or she was shrewd to take heed, or foolish to be drawn in.

So it is with one of today's most active doomsday movements -- that known as Peak Oil.

Peak Oil adherents, as readers of this blog know, believe that at least half the world's fossil fuel has already been found (or soon will be), that production is declining, and that we're going to be forced to adjust to a stark new future.

There's plenty of smart analysis to buttress the theory, and the result has been panic in many countries. But last week an England resident calling himself Chris25 penetrated the nub of one of the movement's problems in a compelling remark on one of its key websites, called Peak Oil. (Another great peak oil site is The Oil Drum.) He headlined his post, "What If We Are All Wasting Our Time?"

In it, Chris identified himself as a doomsday believer, said his life had changed completely, but lamented that he didn't know how long in the future his worst fears would materialize. "Man, I wish I'd never heard about peak oil," he wrote.

The result has been a flurry of responses by fellow adherents. The string is worth reading.

Here is Chris25's post in its entirety:

"Oil prices shoot up .... I start to buy bags of grain and run for the hills .... now they've gone down again.

Now I'm not denying peak oil at all, and btw chaps i'm a doomer, but what i'm saying is, what if what we are waiting for is 25 years away?

Peak oil has already changed my life completely. It has now got to the point where everyplace I go, I look at buildings and I look at people and imagine what would be there without cheap oil.

I know that the luxuries I enjoy today will have to come to an end. But I don't know when and how they will go.

Man, I wish i'd never heard about peak oil.

The worse bit is the wait and having no idea how things will pan out. Eats you up inside. Knowing the collapse of modern civilisation could be round the corner, 25 years away or many more years away."

Chris's soul-searching struck a nerve. Here's just one example, from a blogger called Korosten:

"I feel the same way!

We are seriously thinking of completely relocating to a rural area (we have started to look for a job, selling the house etc!), a place where we might not necessarily go w/o peak oil, and starting a big garden etc - that probably means I have to give up my career...

So I keep thinking, will I feel very, very stupid in a few years when PO has not happened yet? Or if it happens, but nothing drastic happens and it was all unnecessary?

But then again, what if I do *nothing* and it does get as bad as I am afraid it will?

I think doing something (for nothing) is not as bad as doing nothing and be totally screwed...

But PO has totally change our life, view of live, values etc - you name it. It's scary in a way.. I feel like "wakinig up" in a matrix..."

The most reasonable analyses, I think, are that we are going to be living almost precisely as we are now for at least another two decades, probably three and perhaps longer. That said, we have found the easy oil, and prices hence are going to stay relatively high. The search for a locomotion version of the Holy Grail -- a non-carbon way to fuel the world -- is wholly reasonable, and necessary. Until then, so is conservation and the push for cleaner fuels.

Perhaps I'll regret my own conclusion. But at least for now I come down on the side of those who think we'll work our way out of the carbon world. For another such view, see Common Sense Forecaster.

Photo: ElektraCute
Rights: Creative Commons