I just did some reading on "peak oil". Reaching that peak seems to have terrible implications for our society

Question

Does anyone have anything uplifting for me????

The most severe implication to me seem to be global waves of starvation everywhere.

I am really depressed, because even if I managed to have a patch of land (which living in a city I don't) to plant enough wheat/corn or whatever necessary for my family, I think it is going to be the complete chaos and people will turn into animals to find food/water.
Does anyone have a different view? Maybe a bit uplifting/optimistic? Usually I am optimist myself, but this concept is just too much. It is not even so essential to me, if we will reach it next year, 2010 or if we already reached the oil peak in 2000, the difference is marginal, it is just depressing enough to have swept me of my feet enough to neglect my work etc...I am in my thirties and like everyone in that age group or younger, I think we will all be faced with it...

If you don't know anything about it, just google "peak oil" and tell me you (hopefully) more positive view......

Answer 1

I feel that way, too. For the past 150 years we have been running our society on oil, and now we have to start weaning ourselves from it. If you want something uplifting, take the declining oil prices this year, and the current boom, especially in the stock market. But when the wells come up short, what's going to happen? Spiraling prices, recession, depression, who knows what?

Alternative fuels are a possibility - Brazil is off the oil habit, relying on ethanol from sugar cane for fuel. But their standard of living is less than ours, and sugar cane is loaded with energy, more so than corn. Hybrid cars are a possibility, and hybrid diesel plugins even more so. We can start throwing up a half million wind turbines, so that they become as common as cell phone towers. We can redesign our houses on solar energy and perhaps use hydrogen from water as a fuel.

But we may have to start cutting back as well. Find things we can do to avert global warming - there is a recent Yahoo! answers question that deals with that. These things, such as using compact fluorescent lights, buying hybrid cars, and washing clothes in cold water, will help deal with the peak oil problem as well, by reducing our consumption of oil.

And one last uplifting thought. The worst impacts of global warming - flooding of cities, melting of the Greenland ice sheet, and disruption of the Gulf Stream, probably won't happen because we will hit peak oil and fossil fuels and start running out of them, bringing an end to the global warming.

Answer 2

My brother in law works for the oils company's.He goes all over the world to test oil.He said off the coast of Florida we have enough oil to last a hundred lifetimes.That as it is right now the environmentalist will not allow us to drill.But if push comes to shove we will. Use everyone Else's up then still have ours.Sounds like our government.
Love Nana<><

Answer 3

I do not see any optomistic or positive outcome from the rapid loss of oil.

WIthin 100 years all oil reserves will be gone.

By then we had better move over to natural, methane, hydrogen, and nuclear power. Even then all of the products of oil (plastic, styrofoam, etc), will no longer be produced.