Russia peak oil getting some good evidence

[greeny]

Link to original contents of this post:

http://www.vialls.com/wecontrolamerica/peakoil.html

Contents deleted for copyright infringement

[Cornonthecob]

There's probably some good info here.....but it's partly buried by bias.

I wonder how much (or any) of this is true.

Anyone?

[RobWindt]

Sorry guys, Vialls is a discredited nutter. There may be something to abiotic oil but only in finite amounts, certainly nothing on the scale that is currently being extracted
Rob

[heuristics]

Sorry Greenie
My web-suring does not lead me to believe in this theory at all.
I think there are far too many people who I respect (start with David Holmgren and work outwards) who are convinced Peak Oil is real and argue convincingly the implications.

In an other vien I have also had people try and tell me that the Holocaust was a Zionist plot - I couldn't quite follow the argument, but it goes something like the holocaust never happened, or has been vastly exaggerated, and this somehow plays into the hands of the Zionists. I dont accept it and dont understand the argument.

I think this oil thingie theory is in a similar vein. For myself, I prefer to concentrate on understanding the implications of Peak Oil and working on how to survive (prosper?) in an energy descent world...
In a world of oil wars. and other resource-driven conflicts

[heuristics]

From Sydney Morning Herald
"Not Happy Woodside"

Barry FitzGerald
July 21, 2006

WOODSIDE has managed to disappoint the market despite its earnings flying in the high oil price environment.

The release yesterday of a June quarter activities report proved to be a trigger for a sell-off in the leading independent oil and gas producer, with its shares diving $1.90, or 4.15 per cent, to $43.90.

While overnight weakness in the oil price was partly to blame,
[CAPS MINE:] IT WAS THE FLAGGING OF A RESERVES DOWNGRADE AT THE NEW CHINGGETTI OIL PROJECT IN MAURITANIA and a cost blow-out at the $2 billion expansion of the North-West Shelf gas project that discouraged shareholders.

Some disappointment that the group's Pluto gasfield was "only" 4.1 trillion cubic feet of gas after latest appraisal drilling did not help the mood.

The only positive that investors could find was that the Enfield oil project was expected to start production "shortly" and that, so far at least, the company was sticking to its forecast that production in 2006 would be 72 million barrels of oil equivalent. THAT FOLLOWS ON FROM THE FORECAST BEING REVISED DOWN FROM 76 MILLION BARRELS OF OIL EQUIVALENT IN JUNE. .

Production in the June quarter was 15.6 million barrels of oil equivalent. While that was 8.8 per cent higher than in the preceding March quarter,
IT WAS BELOW THE 16.5 MILLION BARRELS OF OIL EQIVALENT THAT THE MARKET HAD BEEN EXPECTING. Revenue for the June quarter was $848 million, up from $719 million in the March quarter.

The $1 billion Chinguetti project was one of the reasons why Woodside did not reach expectations. PRODUCTION THERE HAS FALLEN SHARPLY FROM THE INITIAL 70,000 BARELLS OF OIL A DAY TO AS LITTLE AS 35,000 BARRELS A DAY RECENTLY [(did you catch that little throw-away line? ""Recently"""?)]

Woodside is the operating partner in the field and had previously indicated that technical problems with the field's production wells would eventually be overcome. It is now saying that, given the lower than expected production from the field, THE RESERVES POSITION THERE IS "ÜNDER REVIEW"

Chinguetti was developed on the basis that it contained 120 million barrels of recoverable oil. Hardman Resources is a partner in the development and its shares tumbled 12.5c or 7.3 per cent to $1.59 yesterday.

Woodside's warning that a "comprehensive cost review" of the expansion project at the N-W Shelf project was under way was not a big surprise as the group's mining cousins have been reporting 30-40 per cent cost increases in their onshore development projects. The real surprise was that Woodside had not flagged cost overruns sooner.

At the Pluto gasfield, an appraisal well has confirmed the northern extent of the field, increasing the likely resource to 4.1 trillion cubic of gas from 3.6 tcf. Some analysts suggested that the resource was too skinny to support Woodside's aggressive development plans.

-ENDS-


The PO signs really are everywhere - Joe Public just doesnt comprehend what is happening all around him/her everyday.

This is the sort of news article that is just skimmed over while chewing on the toast and cornflakes and forgotten as soon as it is read.
Only later, years later, does the full impact of what it contained become apparent....


I just had a phone conversation with a good friend of decades standing. We dont talk often, but we always pick up right where we left off.... it's one of those "comfy slippers" friendships....... I explained about PO and he LOL LOL LOL. He lives near Pymble so I am going to try and kidnap him along to Holmgren's August talk... I don't think I'll have much luck....
I mention this because this guy is - well, .... educated, informed, intelligent, and aware the world doesnt operate the way we "think"it does.
By the time he and so many like him stop LOL at PO - it'll be way too late to turn this Titanic of an economy away from the iceberg....


[/b]

[RobWindt]

The following was written by a mate from up north, it's his attempt to educate some friends on the reality of peak oil.
Apologies for the length but it's worth the effort
Rob


At last, here it is.

The complete, abbreviated (?) outline of how it all
might actually be – If, that is, you were to listen
to, let alone believe, an eccentric but fastidious
observer of things.

The imaginary poses as real. All things are equal.
Some are just more equal than others.

Relativist views abound. They are the trend
amongst the cognoscenti, and are generally accepted
in practical form by the bulk of our society. Post-
modernism has delivered us pluralism and an
abiding view that all things are possible, equivalently
entitled to exist and that we should not tolerate
intolerance. Absolutes are shunned as reactionary
and primitive.

Funnily though, within this bubble of social
enlightenment, subliminally projected mores in
favour of wealth, achievement and productivity
have become powerfully dominant. Much of the
apparent pluralist choice is manifest within a tight
scope of what this commercial powerhouse deigns as
righteously “progressive”.

In a further irony, post-modernism's legacy of
non-judgmental equivalence acts to keep palpably
extreme behaviors within our systemic operations
safe from any proper moral and intellectual scrutiny.
For example, science and technology are all good
simply because they are possible, and rootin' tootin'
impressive to boot. You'd be a redneck or a luddite
to disagree. This intolerance is conveyed as a passive
aggressive disdain and applied with the full weight
and breadth of the status quo.

The people that do demonstrate innate recoil to
our banal but excited surge “forward” are easily
marginalised. Many of them are “losers” within our
prevailing socio-economic machinery. Furthermore
it is true that many of these losers are both ignorant
and in regional locations, both attributes due in most
part to the centralising, elite generating function of
the system that they are griping about. Sadly these
attributes also mean that these objectors are often
clumsy, simplistic, ridiculous and even self-defeating
in framing their complaints.

Nonetheless their complaints are, in essence, very
real. Destiny now has it that they may not be left
to eat cake for a lot longer. Not because they will
effectively rise up, but because the hideously stupid
contrivance that burgeons above them will soon
collapse. More on that a bit later.

So what is real?

It is vital to realise that absolutes do exist, that
they are quite simple and discernable, and that they
need to be worked from and not sought via layers of
social or intellectual relativism.

We simply need to look to basic physics for our
fundamental pivot, which surely is not too much to
ask in a technologically proud world. Is it? Well it is
because our technology, and our scientists in most
part, are owned by entrepreneurs in tandem with
the economists and politicians that lick the mogul's
behinds for nutrition and favour. Scientific purpose
and application have been corrupted and now parade
quite precociously, just as the emperor's new clothes.

Simple physics tells us that everything, in our part
of the universe at least, is made of only two basic
components: matter and energy.

It also tells us that all matter takes its composed
form and function from the energy available to it.
Reduced energy means reduced material form and
function.

It also tells us that energy incessantly dissipates
from high concentration to low concentration. This
is defined as the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics and the
loss of material form and function that accompanies
the dissipation is called entropy.

With just these three basic and widely accepted
physical tenets, we can understand a lot about
ourselves, our capabilities, and our most pressing
social obligations. If we want to!

Of course we do, so let's take a quick, guided tour
of physical reality as it relates to our daily existence.

Our sun is constantly dissipating its energy
according to the Second Law's definition. In about
5 billion years it will be cold and dead. No need to
lose any sleep over that though.

Objects in the path of this energy flow, such as
earth and the other planets, absorb it as it strikes
them in concentration. They also dissipate it back
into space as it diffuses through their mass and
presents itself in ambient concentrations above that
of the connected outlying void. The energy radiated
is always equal to the amount absorbed. Except for
Earth. Earth is different. Earth has life.

Life uses incoming energy to build complex, self-
replicating, expanding systems. As these grow in
mass and complexity, they are able to absorb even
more energy and to grow and diversify even further.
These life systems are an energy sink as well as a
circuit within which individual life units and groups
can draw energy and act, as semi-autonomous
appliances if you like, within an enormous grid. This
life mass also interacts with geophysical components
to further extend the sink and circuit capacity,
ie energy storage and flow. Such hybrid systems
include the water cycle and the carbon cycle.

In this completely unique manner life interrupts
entropy in its incessant charge toward complete and
utter diffusion of all things.

So what?

Well, basically the quality and diversity of life on
earth, its forms and networks of forms, is the only
means by which incoming solar energy is trapped
and accumulated on our planet. Essentially bio-
diversity is, in its layered interactive complexity,
a densification of solar energy storage and energy
delivery niches from which even more diversity can
operate and develop, thus in turn giving rise to even
more solar energy storage and flow capacity.

We are material beings and need energy to simply
survive at all, let alone to create social fabrications
within which to entertain our dreams as reality.
Consequently this natural energy supply system is
absolutely vital. As we are high-order predators we
need a lot of energy. This elevated demand makes
the fullness of life's diversity, with the attendant
depth and balance of its energy grid, absolutely
critical to our survival. Our various social and
psychological aspirations extend this energy demand
and dependence even further.

This is a grave paradox as our imagined needs,
actuated by our intellectual and physical capacity,
tends to drive us to strip form and space (both of
which we can imagine to be wealth, and worse,
privatisable wealth) from the very systems that we
need operational in abundance to just survive.

Many traditional social systems were long-
lived due to their development of mores and lores
that understood and maintained local energy
fundamentals. Codes of care and responsibility
to dynamic landscape form and function were
conveyed to all constituents, embedded and
celebrated via spiritual myth and legend. This
method recognises that most people are emotionally
(story) rather than intellectually (fact) oriented.

When the basis and objectives of the stories were
comprehensively sound, the culture flourished, not
by physical growth but by secure tenure upon local
landscape over vast time, and by an accumulating
depth of social experience and feeling. A vital aspect
herein is the extent to which the minority of thinkers
and planners feel connected to the lot and fate of the
believers or doers. This arbitrates whether the social
system will be one of synergy or manipulation. Scale
is a direct factor in this determination. It is also a
direct factor in the degree or rate of local energy
depletion. Social scale drives both the development
of manipulative elite power and ultimate social
collapse due to resource exhaustion. And it has
happened repetitively over history. Beyond a certain
quite modest social scale, it has happened without
exception.

Ours is the most recent of these over-inflated,
inequitable social manipulations. In a madness born
of arrogant theocratic and technocratic stupidity, we
have lost our view of the simple fundamental. Even
though our most basic science spells it out so clearly.
This provides a dire example of how we proudly
know so much but foolishly understand so little.

Our current social madness is purposefully
geared to expand and accelerate the extent and rate
at which it dismantles biophysical diversity and
function. It does this as it also elevates its embedded
energy demand via expansion of both population
and myriad complex synthetic systems that seek to
furnish the social expectations. Our socio-economic
vehicle can pursue this fundamentally dissonant
course solely because it is driven and armoured
by its opportunistic exploitation of huge stores of
fossilised solar energy. However this energy store
is finite. It is only a temporary adjunct to our more
permanent need to survive upon the temporal store
and flow of solar energy through bio-physical
systems - the very systems that we are stripping
madly in our intoxicated growth.

The adjunct nature of this power stream, and the
bounds and proximity of its finiteness, is completely
unappreciated if not actively ignored. Our social
attitude is that we have an innate unlimited power to
innovate and extrapolate our will. There is mad but
popular contention that we may not even need nature
anymore as we are so technically proficient. This
notion actually gets discussed seriously in public
and, more disturbingly, is quite evidently a default
parameter of economic and political decision-
making.

Even most environmental advocates seem to
see the web of life as an aesthetic pleasure and/or
a moral imperative rather than the only durable
battery and power plug we have through which to
draw our social and individual need for energy. Most
“alternate progressive thought” is thoughtlessly
subscribed to the new secular religion of humanism
and believes unassailably that we can continue to
grow a .triple bottom line' economy by way of
ethical and optimum technologies. They exhibit no
real understanding of the singular, basic source of
energy and its physical constraints. Or of its vital
requirement by ALL forms of material association
and activity, INCLUDING human innovation. And
that is the “good”guys. Oh dear.

But what does it all mean to us?

So, yeah, that's an unfortunate big picture but
we all have to get on with our lives don't we. We
can't all be pre-possessed with changing the world
(a popular little epithet for marginalising critics
of denial that rates up there with “he/she is so
passionate”).

There may be persons who think they could have
been in Aceh last year and ignored the tsunami
because it was just too big and too much to think
about. If so then they could equivalently ignore this
large topic. The point of this absurdity is to illustrate
that size of issue isn't the active arbiter of our
attention. It is imminence of impact.

Socially and individually we have a pressing
sense of the immediate that directs what we will
practically care about. We compel ourselves to look
after our children but don't really give too much of
a practical toss about their children, and certainly
not about their children's children. The most
amazing thing about the more competent traditional
cultures is the manner in which they connected
social attention to events and priorities that fell
across a huge time span far beyond the immediate.
Our rationalist scientific method derides the tools
they employed so effectively to do this as simple
superstition, fantasy and primitive barbarianism.
As it thinks this it dismantles tomorrow for today's
convenience on the unverified and religious
assumption that it can refurbish the devastation with
its own synthetic image of reality.

The time is nigh where we will see about this.
The faith is about to be tested.

Global oil extraction is about to or perhaps
even has already peaked. Demand for oil however
continues to grow. Our economy depends upon
material growth. Material growth, and the complex
order of mechanisms and systems manufactured and
maintained within it, depends entirely upon access
to energy. Basic physics – the 1st and 2nd Laws of
Thermodynamics. Just as with the bio-physical
model described earlier it must draw upon energy
to feed both growth and maintenance to its bulk.
However it does not and cannot autonomously
furnish and recycle it own supply. It mimics and
seeks to replace natural systems but is not self-
sustaining from ambient sunshine as they are. There
is much rhetoric to that end, but no substance.

Our huge socio-economic air-mattress gets the
energy for its ongoing inflation from…?

This is an utterly vital question that hardly anyone
ever thinks about. Everyone assumes a lot, but they
don't ever think much about it. Too big. Who wants
to save the world? Who's that passionate?

Can you imaging taking off across the desert in
a car with no fuel gauge and no map of the fuel or
water stops. Completely irresponsible. Wouldn't
do it. Certainly wouldn't take the kids along.
But we will happily head, with our kids, into an
eternity of travel across a desert of our own recent
and ongoing construction, with no concern for our
fuel consumption or its supply. And fuck me if our
generation's shift at the wheel hasn't been stuck with
the first coughs issuing out of the depleted tank.

Liquid hydrocarbons furnish 60% of global
energy consumption and about 90% of the
economically vital transport sector – think global
economy – resources and end products don't walk
themselves to market across an entire planet. Check
out the price trend at the local pump. It's not an
overabundance of the resource that is making
that sting. Global peak gas extraction is another
decade or so beyond this point, but will be rapidly
accelerated by demand replacement due to oil
shortage.

Have a look all around your house and make a list
of where it all comes from. These exotic products
will all get inordinately more expensive and even
unavailable as the liquid hydrocarbon market
continues to tighten. Think about what goes into
each of the things you buy each day. Did you know
that there are around 1000 hydrocarbon calories
embedded on average in each edible calorie of fresh
produce? It gets higher for processed foods. Did you
know that it takes 1000 litres of water to produce a
kilo of grain. Much of this water supply is dependent
upon energy to pump, process and apply. And of
course how many people walk to the shop or to the
job that pays for their shopping?

This universal multiplier will soon bring an
ever tightening grip upon everyone's budget as the
embedded energy costs in production and transport
begin to spiral. How will this budget constriction
effect jobs in key consumer industries like building,
tourism and hospitality? How will those people laid
off or cut back in hours deal with the rising costs?
Will they be able to be kept on regardless because
the new IR laws will follow the US trend example of
$3-4 an hour wages? Will we just need to get 2, 3 or
even 4 shitty paid jobs to make ends meet. For how
long? Until we get a medical bill?

This actually points to some possible avenues for
substituting portions of the depleting hydrocarbon
energy. The poor don't use as much and also provide
a source of cheap manual labor. Civilisations
before the industrialisation of fossil fuels were all
dependent upon bonded feudal labor and slavery.
For a smart society we overlook a lot of history. It is
prudent and timely to remember what history very
clearly tells us if we can just remove our mind for
a moment from the stupor of our peer intoxication.
Civilisation exists for the benefit of elites, and not
the general good. The latter is provided only as it is
convenient, necessary and not at any avoidable cost
to the core project.

But that is just the tip of it.

Economic growth is based upon the expansion of
the money supply that measures and makes manifest
notions of increased production and resultant wealth
– ie the capacity to purchase. For the very rich, the
latent capacity to purchase is power, even if they
don't actually do it. Our money supply is expanded
via the creation of debt. The huge wealth we now
see, smell and hear of all around us is mirrored
by an equally enormous personal and private debt
structure. Neither the wealth nor the attendant debt
match up to any actually available base of durable
resources (aka - real wealth).

The imaginary wealth economy has to keep
growing to maintain confidence that the associated
contracted debt levels can be re-payed. Without
that assumption of repayment being maintained
the wealth it promises to realise by its remittance
evaporates. The necessary expansionary confidence
is achieved by expanding the debt further. We are all
subscribed to a massive pyramid scheme.

As diminishing energy supply constricts growth,
initially by economic input cost pressure and
eventually by actual physical shortage, we will enter
economic recession and then depression. Activity
contracts, profits and salaries are squeezed, debts
are then defaulted, wealth estimates are reconciled
downward, thus more cut-backs and contraction and
even more debt is defaulted and so on.

Classic economic theory accepts these bust cycles
as “natural”. To normalise such socially awful events
as a product of the system is a very clear sign of
the redundancy and corruption of the system. But
normalisation is an effective tool, especially when
driven by the powerful psychological machinery
employed by the mass media. It prevents us from
considering the reality that these regularities are
systemic housekeeping events, intended to suck
up the real wealth (material and energy resources)
extracted in the previous boom, and consolidate into
select hands. When that adjustment is fully shaken
out, public money is then used to fuel the economic
flame for another boom cycle.

But what if there is no fuel available to re-prime
the economic pump?

And what about the rest of the structural tumours
accumulating to clog the near empty oil tap?

Personal debt levels leveraged against imaginary
property values are at a record peak. The sheer
volume of pending bankruptcies is poised to
take the market and whole segments of social
machinery completely to pieces.

Economic fundamentals are so overstretched
generally with regard to foreign account deficits,
public debt levels, dependency upon essentially
non-productive profit sectors, existing deficits
on public infrastructure demand, etc. that the
necessary extent of national response effort will
be beyond systemic capacity. Just as fat, sick
people cannot run in an emergency, neither can
fat, sick economies.

Heavily urbanised demographics will leave
most people stranded well away from close or
easy access to basic resources such as food and
water as prices rise and supply wanes. Many of
these pubic utility resources are now privatised,
presenting a further potential complication to
equitable management in crisis. If you're on the
public side of the crisis that is. It offers many
interesting opportunities to resource owners.

Dependency upon infrastructure systems such as
power and sewage has become enormous. How
could anyone live in many modern houses, let
alone in medium to high-rise units, without air-
conditioning? A serious cost factor even short of
supply failure.

Events are looming like a screenplay for
Capitalism meets Easter Island. But this will not be a
spectator's show. Everyone will be an actor.

So, how does it effect you and what can be done?

Just some questions:

Do you have a mortgage or any other individual
or cumulative significant debt?

Do you depend upon a lot of fuel for accessing
work and supply outlets?

Are your supply outlets remote from the
producers?

Is your water supply energy dependent and
accessed from remote storage?

Each yes, particularly the first one, adds cause
for concern. Not for immediate alarm but for some
serious consideration and research.

One question of primary value is:

What do you need to live, what is usefully
desirable and what is easily expendable filler?

This question will soon become a keystone topic
as the world we now see out of our window every
day, and believe in implicitly, gets wobbly and
gradually comes unstuck.

Smart people will begin to consider it very
earnestly now. Their well-considered findings will
define the various things - values, resources, people
and situations - that represent good options for the
future as against poor ones. The basic concept to
abide by is that things will soon no longer be the
same as they now are, and never will be again. The
operational patterns that are now accepted by rote
will no longer be either durable or safe.

How soon, how rapid and how exactly will
change be?

How long is a piece of string? The fundamentals
are clear, but there are a lot of moving parts.

Will the US and China begin a serious tussle over
the remaining oil?

Will China or the OPEC nations call in their
enormous investment in US Govt. Bonds and
utterly tank the US $ and economy.overnight?
A pyrrhic victory perhaps as the US is currently
their major market for manufactured crap and oil
respectively, but who knows what might happen
in what is ultimately a zero sum game anyway.
They're all mad at that level. Anything is possible.
Look at Iraq, and probably soon Iran.

Will the huge Saudi Ghawar oilfeild collapse next
week, next year or in a decade? Pumping now at
a 55% water cut (65% pretty much means a dead
field), anything is possible and nearly everything
that is actually happening there is secret.

When will another huge natural or contrived
event sweep out the last of the Gulf of Mexico
extraction capacity, the S.E. US refining capacity,
or another key oil production region?

Etc., etc., etc.

Will some happen all at once? Maybe rapidly as
soon as next year. Maybe slowly over a decade. The
fact is, things are actually changing already.

Fuel costs are beginning to soar and there is no
end to that in sight

Foreign and domestic policies are gearing up to
assist in the securement of key energy resources
and to enable tighter levels of social control.

Access to commons is tightening.

Traditionally public resources are being
commodified and privatised.

Public services are being consistently constricted
and charged for.

The last four are very dire signals of a possible
transition ahead to a neo-feudal state. Growth is a
social control device that provides very amenable
carrots and sticks. With growth rendered an
impossible strategy by energy shortage, elites will
return to more traditional means of acquitting the
core task of hierarchical civilisation. Time perhaps
to re-read 1984. The stage play could already be
underway. If so, the debt levels and location of
both individuals and their communities will be of
paramount importance. The indebted will be the
first into bondage and servitude if things go that
particular way.

There is also the possibility of quite softly
benign outcomes, but structurally significant and
needing preparation just the same. A shrinkage back
from rampant globalism, return of local political
autonomies and ressurection of production for local
need by local people, re-engaging them with some
purpose, dignity and meaningful community.

Things may well be good in some areas and awful
in others. Government may get (more?) patchy in its
influence without the intense energy supply needed
to generically manage and regulate vast areas.

There's still much of great interest to examine
in the social contexts of form and opportunity, as
well as attendant individual options But that's the
overview. You may want to discuss it and its various
extensions. I hope you dont want to simply dismiss
it. Not because it would hurt me. I think that option
would end up hurting you and those you care about.

The religious technological peerage will contend
that such system criticisms are madness. Methodical
scientific calculation says they are not. Go figure.

Not just ultimately, but also now immmediately,
what will protect us from the onslaught of entropy?
Machinery directed from a global political maze?
Hardly! It's time to choose. Not choosing is a choice.

[ecodharmamark]

G'day Rob :)

Yep, well worth the effort alright. Thank you to both you and your friend for sharing it.

Mark.

[Jez]

No offense Greeny, but that article is mostly nonsense with a handful of facts thrown in...which are almost all unrelated to oil production.

Russia's production rate peaked in the late 80's at ~12 million barrels a day (Mb/day) and hasn't got back near that since. Production rate is currently ~3 Mb/day, or 25% less than the peak rate - and internal consumption is increasing quite rapidly.

----------
*Sidenote* - it's worth keeping in mind that as the economies of oil exporting nations grow due the current high prices, their own internal consumption practically always increases in line with economic growth...effectively meaning that the actual amount of oil being exported drops even faster than by dwindling reserves alone. This will become more important in coming years as global demand grows increasingly higher than supply can manage.
----------

Much like the US and practically all other countries, oil production has already peaked in Russia.

If there was any substance to this article, Russian production rates during the Soviet era would have increased or stayed steady instead of falling exactly in line with the Hubbert curve as they have everywhere. Russia is a somewhat unique case, due to the fact that their virtual economic collapse has delayed the decline - their production rate which at face value seems to be 'climbing,' is actually now just getting back to around 75% of what it was at peak production - again, getting back in line with Hubbert's curve.

This is all despite enormous efforts in exploration over the last decade and a bit...and some fairly significant technical enhancements (borrowed from the West ironically) in recovery...and Russia employing that technology in a manner similar to that used in the North Sea...one which allows a temporary plateau or even slight increase, followed by an even more dramatic decline.

There are a good number of 'conspiracy theories' out there which have solid roots in fact, but this is not one of them I'm afraid.

---------------------

Woodside taking a battering from inflated reserve estimates eh Heuristics? They'll soon have plenty for company!

---------------------

Great post Rob, your mate's view is pretty much spot on I reckon. Thanks very much for sharing it...any chance you'd re-post it on the peak oil thread in the links section for people to read there as well?

[Douglas J.E. Barnes]

I looked hard into abiotic oil the first time I ever heard of it and there is no conclusive evidence that it exists at all. To say that it does and that peak oil is a Zionist plot is battiness (my apologies to bats) in the extreme.

[jackie]

Thanks for posting an alternate idea. I have done much reading on the Peak Oil concept however hadn't seen much to the opposite. I must say however I'll continue to prepare.

[Jim Bob]

Dear Greeny,

That is a load of old bollocks. You have posted to the wrong forum, this is permaculture. I suggest you try the entertaining conspiracy theory forum at Above Top Secret (http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/). They even have a forum specifically for this topic.

Ideas that broadly-accepted scientific theories are in fact a Zionist conspiracy is what we generally call "racism", and "being a nutter."

It's alright to be a nutter, we have a few of these here, but racism is not accepted. As well as deleting spam, I will delete any racist posts in future.

I hope you will have some things to say on the topic of this forum, which is permaculture.

[christopher]

In addition to being lunatic conspiracy anti-semitic psycho-babble, the original post was protected under copyright (it even said so in the original post), and publishing it here put this forum at risk of legal action from the publisher. The original post has been deleted.

[christopher]

And, Rob, that was brilliant! Thanks for posting it, and thanks to your friend for sharing it!

[Mungbeans]

lunatic conspiracy anti-semitic psycho-babble

Quite.

[RobWindt]

Great post Rob, your mate's view is pretty much spot on I reckon. Thanks very much for sharing it...any chance you'd re-post it on the peak oil thread in the links section for people to read there as well?

Done

[Jez]

Ideas that broadly-accepted scientific theories are in fact a Zionist conspiracy is what we generally call "racism", and "being a nutter."

It's alright to be a nutter, we have a few of these here, but racism is not accepted. As well as deleting spam, I will delete any racist posts in future.

I hope you will have some things to say on the topic of this forum, which is permaculture.


I must be missing something here, are you now the moderator of this site Jim Bob? If so, when did this happen and what happened to Murray?

Personally, I can't see how some have taken the article as anti-semitic or racist...badly written/researched, almost entirely false criticism doesn't amount to racism. I've read it three times now (one of those when it was originally published in 2004), and while it makes false claims about a 'Zionist conspiracy', I fail to find anything that could be classified as racist.

While this is a Permaculture board, if many of the leading exponents of Permaculture feel Peak Oil is important enough to hold lectures/talks/discussions about, and many of the leading experts on Peak Oil feel that Permaculture is important enough to be regularly promoted, then I don't see the harm in discussing it here occasionally, though it clearly should be a very minor subject in the context of the whole board.

I understand the article was reproduced in full which may be seen as a breach of copyright (IMO a very dubious judgement considering fair use/dealing regulations), but I'd prefer to believe greeny posted the article as a discussion piece in good faith - not to cause trouble, offend anyone or anything else negative, but purely because he believed it had some merit.

I think all in all greeny's been a bit harshly dealt with considering the above.

Anyway, that's just my opinion.

[christopher]

Jez,

Jim Bob did not delete the contents of the post. I did.

Murray is still the moderator, but since PRI has been deluged with spam, Jim Bob and I have been asked to moderate the forum by removing those spam posts, and I think we have done a really good job!

I read what jim Bob wrote, then read the post and noticed, that in addition to the inflamatory title of the thread and its spurious claims, it also contained a declaration of copyright. I then decided to remove the contents of the original thread.

I looked up the article and inserted a link so that anyone who wants to waste their time reading such drivel and nonsense can feel free to, without endangering PRI with a copyright issue. The content has been removed, but is available with a click of the mouse.


C

[frosty]

I am glad the link has been restored because I thought it was an interesting read - not saying I believe it but it was interesting and worth some more research

and thanks greeny for posting it .........

one part that definately rang true is that america needs the whole worlds oil and has built aircraft carriers and an created an overblown military to ensure they get it :evil:

most of what joe vialls writes ( maybe wrote I am fairly sure he died :? mysteriously like one of his articles ) is interesting and a little shocking - aussies should read his piece about martin bryant and Port Arthur massacre - it really does raise a lot of questions

the problem is he is anti semitic and unfortunately many people just shut down and label him a nutter ........ unfortunately we are conditioned to think people with some views are automatically nutters :cry: and top of that list is anti semitic followed closely by not thinking the US govt and elites are anything but benign and caring :lol: :lol: :lol:

I have nothing against Israeli or American people but recrent events in the world like the US invasion of Iraq and the current Israeli genocide of lebanese civilians should show us just how ruthless and racist the govts of both countries are ...... ( and the australian govt for supporting both )

why is that any explaination other than that put forward by the govt is labelled a conspiracy theory even when accompanied by proven facts ( not saying that this case is )

but it shows how we are conditioned not to even consider anything our govts dont want us to while they employ spin doctors to feed us the outright lies that suit their purpose :evil: eg WMD in Iraq

edited to add Joe Vialls did die in 2005 ......... here is a link with more on him http://judicial-inc.biz/Vilas_Beattie.htm

frosty

[murray]

hey all,


It's alright to be a nutter, we have a few of these here, but racism is not accepted. As well as deleting spam, I will delete any racist posts in future.
chris and jim bob have the ability to delete spam and i think they have done a great job, so thanks for the help guys! but importantly, i have asked them not to delete other posts without checking with me first.

chris said to me in PM:
[The thread's] premise was BS, and it would give the impression to the casual visitor that we are nutters, or nazis, or something unpleasant.
my reply to him:
ah, i think the replies that followed would have set people straight. while i hate racism as much as the next guy, i despair that racist people aren't given the chance to humiliate themselves in public a lot more often due to their threads being erased.
anyway - the link's back and the debate can continue if that's what people want. :)

murray

[Tezza]

Gee Jim Bob Im shaking at my knees ..What gives you the right to delete ANYTHING you decide we CANT read????????????


Get back to killing innocent Possoms and anything else you "accidently Kill"



Tezza

[murray]

tezza, relax a second.

four weeks ago, the spam was hitting the board at a rate of over 100 a day and it was a full time job to deal with it. i was gettng most of it, but when i was sleeping it would sneak in.

Jimbob was the first member to ever offer to help out. so i gave him delete priviledges to deal with any spam he saw. that's all. i also gave chris delete ability for spam. i didn't ask them to go around deleting people's legitimate posts.

but after this, i don't think this will happen again, right guys? 8)

[Richard on Maui]

I think Tezza, like me, is just peeved that he wasn't offered the delete button too. I mean, we have seniority over those other two bludgers, don't we?

[murray]

richard,

you make it sound like i go around handing out delete buttons as a special treat. it's not - believe me. chris and jim offered to help, so they got to do some work for me. i specifically *didn't* give them 'moderator' status so that nobody would get pissed they weren't "chosen".

but now i think i have the spam under control again and because it seems to be upsetting too many people that they weren't offered a delete button too, i think i can safely take back control again.

sweet jesus. :x

m.

[Richard on Maui]

Um, I was totally joking about my desire for "delete" priveleges. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: I would be happy to help out if it was needed, but you know me Murray, I think that one moderator is more than enough... :wink:
Fair enough to delete the SPAM, noone is going to disagree with that, but bugger giving anyone editorial powers...

[Richard on Maui]

ps, when I called Christopher and JimBob bludgers I meant it in the nicest possible way. To me it is a term of endearment. It is ironic. The worst thing about the internet, of course, is that it doesn't handle irony very well...

[murray]

Um, I was totally joking about my desire for "delete" priveleges. I would be happy to help out if it was needed, but you know me Murray, I think that one moderator is more than enough...
arrghh... why didn't you use the smile or a wink or something then?

i figured you were serious!


Fair enough to delete the SPAM, noone is going to disagree with that, but bugger giving anyone editorial powers...
amen sister.

[Richard on Maui]

:lol: sorry :oops:
but hang on, are you calling me a sissy?! :evil: :twisted: :evil: :twisted:
:lol: :wink:

[Cornonthecob]

lol Richard ya crawler! :P

Me thinks Murray has a lot on his plate not to notice the joke.

I say keep the hired hands Murray....just make sure the 'power' doesn't go to their heads! (insert a 'lol')

But seriously....tis a good idea.

:)

[Jim Bob]

Look, I only offered to become a moderator so I could oppress Richard.

Really.

I wanted to pull on a pair of jackboots, and trample all over his RIGHTS.

I'm totally serious.

Bludger.

[murray]

ok, ok.. let's move on... :)

[frosty]

ok then ........ moving on ....... has anyone else bothered to do a little research ....... seems deep oil may be a genuine thing

with fair use in mind here is a snipet from http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38645


Sustainable oil?

Posted: May 25, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern


By Chris Bennett
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com


About 80 miles off of the coast of Louisiana lies a mostly submerged mountain, the top of which is known as Eugene Island. The portion underwater is an eerie-looking, sloping tower jutting up from the depths of the Gulf of Mexico, with deep fissures and perpendicular faults which spontaneously spew natural gas. A significant reservoir of crude oil was discovered nearby in the late '60s, and by 1970, a platform named Eugene 330 was busily producing about 15,000 barrels a day of high-quality crude oil.

By the late '80s, the platform's production had slipped to less than 4,000 barrels per day, and was considered pumped out. Done. Suddenly, in 1990, production soared back to 15,000 barrels a day, and the reserves which had been estimated at 60 million barrels in the '70s, were recalculated at 400 million barrels. Interestingly, the measured geological age of the new oil was quantifiably different than the oil pumped in the '70s.

Analysis of seismic recordings revealed the presence of a "deep fault" at the base of the Eugene Island reservoir which was gushing up a river of oil from some deeper and previously unknown source.


Similar results were seen at other Gulf of Mexico oil wells. Similar results were found in the Cook Inlet oil fields in Alaska. Similar results were found in oil fields in Uzbekistan

[greeny]

Fantastic link frosty. The site and its related sites totally validate most of what vialls said. Nutter or no ! Gold is highly respected.

" The deep-seated oil source at Eugene Island strongly supports T. Gold's theory about The Deep Hot Biosphere. Gold holds:

"that oil is actually a renewable, primordial syrup continually manufactured by the earth under ultrahot conditions and tremendous pressures. As this substance migrates toward the surface, it is attacked by bacteria, making it appear to have an organic origin dating back to the dinosaurs."

The apparent deep-seated oil source at Eugene Island and Gold's ideas make petroleum engineers wonder about a similar situation at the seemingly inexhaustible oil fields of the Middle East.

"The Middle East has more than doubled its reserves in the past 20 years, despite half a century of intense exploitation and relatively few new discoveries. It would take a pretty big pile of dead dinosaurs and prehistoric plants to account for the estimated 660 billion barrels of oil in the region, notes Norman Hyne, a professor at the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma. "Offthe-wall theories often turn out to be right," he says."

(Cooper, Christopher; "It's No Crude Joke: This Oil Field Grows Even as It's Tapped," Wall Street Journal, April 16, 1999. Cr. C. Casale.)

[greeny]

Maybee this guy isn't a nutter. I found this from http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr64.html It has ref.n sites. Is the possibility there that we could have been conned????
"On June 21, the Los Angeles Times ran a story that the ever-growing 'Peak Oil' crowd seems to have missed. The article concerned the Shell oil refinery in Bakersfield, California that is scheduled to be shut down on October 1 -- despite the fact that the state of California (and the nation as a whole) is already woefully lacking in refinery capacity.

Now why do you suppose that Shell would want to close a perfectly good oil refinery? It can't be because there is no market for the goods produced there, since that obviously isn't the case. And it isn't due to a lack of raw materials, since the refinery sits, as the Times noted, atop "prolific oil fields." The Scotsman recently explained just how prolific those fields are:

The best estimates in 1942 indicated that the Kern River field in California had just 54 million barrels of remaining oil. By 1986, the field had produced 736 million barrels, and estimates put the remaining reserves at 970 million barrels. (http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=578462004)

....
Times reporters discovered when they got their hands on internal company documents, that the refinery is wildly profitable. How wildly profitable? The Bakersfield plant's "profit of $11 million in May [2004] was 57 times what the company projected and more than double what it made in all of 2003." (Elizabeth Douglas "Shell to Cut Summer Output at Bakersfield Refinery, Papers Say," Los Angeles Times, June 21, 2004)

Go ahead and read that again: "more than double what it made in all of 2003." In a single month! And 2003 wasn't exactly what you would call a slow year at the Bakersfield refinery. According to Shell documents obtained by the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, "Bakersfield's refining margin at $23.01 per barrel, or about 55 cents profit per gallon, topped all of Shell's refineries in the nation."
(http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelea ... 4-04062004 (http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=114-04062004))

...""""

Given that situation, what response would we normally expect from that facility's parent corporation? Sit back and let the good times roll? Attempt to increase production at the facility and rake in even greater profits? Sell the facility and make a windfall profit? Or, tossing logic and rationality to the wind, shut the facility down and walk away?
That last one, of course, is what Shell has chosen to do. And this story, believe it or not, gets even better:
""""
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelea ... 4-04062004 (http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=114-04062004))

Can any of you 'Peak Oil' boosters out there think of any legitimate reason why a purely profit-driven corporation would acquire an outrageously profitable asset and then proceed to deliberately destroy that asset? "
I have deleted bits inbetween.""""
Check the links, especially http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr64.html

[heuristics]

thanks to everyone taking time to can the spam.
It really shitted me to come here and find that trash on line -
I didn't think to offer to "help fight it - didn't know that it would be possible.

[heuristics]

Simple straight up answer Greenie is I don’t know - haven’t a clue… but let me indulge in some wildly unsubstantiated speculation…
I googled shell and bakersfield to check there REALLY was such a field – the web allows people to make all sorts of unsubstantiated claims – just like I am about to do now.
As at January 05 Shell sold the oil field to a company known as “Flying J”. I googled Flying J and didn’t learn very much… but its website does say this:

[quote] Of the 10 million privately held companies in the U.S., Flying J Inc, an Ogden, Utah, based corporation has the distinction of being ranked number 30 among Forbes' 500 Largest Private Companies in America with 2005 annual sales exceeding $11 billion. This fully integrated oil company employs over 14,000 people throughout the United States and Canada, through its interstate operations, transportation, refining and supply, exploration and production, as well as its financial services and communications divisions.[ends]

Now if I were an incredibly rich American, operating such a company and my business was oil, well buying me one of them profitable and full oil wells might just be the way to secure my business in a time of energy descent, tightening global supply and rising prices….

AND what if Shell exaggerated the reserves ahead of such a sale??? I am not saying they did – but there are families of some dead and allegedly murdered Nigerians who have a rather negative view of Royal Dutch Shell corporate ethics…

There is probably some other reason to answer your question Greenie, but my mind has now been trained to think along these sort and suspicious sort of lines…

[FREE Permaculture]

what absolute waffle this all is.
fmd, wtf has politics got to do with gardening, permaculture and growing peaches?
a lot of you's should look for a political forum and waffle your crap there.

no wonder there ain't anything happening here like it should be, the average permie enthusiast would run, who really gives a toss about politics that would come here appart from the few tossers that can't be bothered googling political forums and sign up there.

absolute waffle.

this site has lost the whole point of the excrcise.

Failed miserably.

just another political avenue for numb-nuts to express their political views to others that may listen, your partners and friends must of found your waffle boring years ago and you finding the internet to disperse your waffle has come down to posting it in unrelated forums as you probably don't have the intelligence to post your waffle in a real political forum as yous'd be found out that you's are just numb-nuts.

can't even get a strawberry jam recipe here anymore :(

[murray]

hey chickadee,

this site has lost the whole point of the excrcise
hrmmm... not totally sure i agree with you since Geoff saw fit to post this article on peak oil (http://permaculture.org.au/?page_id=21) on the main PRI site about 9 months ago now.

peak oil is of huge importance to all the permaculture people i know - david, bill, geoff and nadia.

draw your own conclusions, but i think permaculture is as much about oil as it is about strawberry jam. which is why it's so darn fascinatin'. 8)

cheers

m.

[christopher]

Ben, thank you.

Greeny, the guy is a nutter, a whacko. Check his web site. If you have seen his website and still think maybe he isn't a nutter, then somethng is wrong with your cognitive abilities.

Why did Shell close its refinery in the US? Well, I dunno, it could be, perhaps, just maybe because its cheaper to do it in Mexico, where labour costs are 1/5th the US, and the Mexicans are less troubled by (coming NOW, sarcasm and irony) overly zealous environmental laws..... and the free trade agreements with Mexico make bringing it across the border free from duties. It would make good business sense for Shell (which is a Dutch company, BTW) to move its operation to Mexico or some other country, or mothball the plant until peak oil really hits and oil prices boom and extracting and refining that petroleum becomes more profitable.

Ben, I don't have any strawberry jam recipes, but I have some mango and pineapple recipes. You want those?

C

[RobWindt]

Abiotic Oil: Science or Politics?
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/w ... _oil.shtml (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100404_abiotic_oil.shtml)

No Free Lunch, Part 1: A Critique of Thomas Gold's Claims for Abiotic Oil
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/w ... _pt1.shtml (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/102104_no_free_pt1.shtml)

No Free Lunch, Part 2: If abiotic oil exists, where is it?
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/w ... _pt2.shtml (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/011205_no_free_pt2.shtml)

No Free Lunch, Part 3 of 3: Proof
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/w ... _pt3.shtml (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/012805_no_free_pt3.shtml)

Does this help the conversation? :D

[heuristics]

Chickadee – you are spot on mate – I DO come here to discuss PO and other “whats happening in the world” concepts – which may or may not be called “politics”.
And I DO come here because others in my non-cyber word aren't interested or dont want to discuss these things. So you are right. Put the PO posts are not the sum total of what is happening here on the PRI board. There's plenty of other posts covering the broad spectrum of permaculture.

I come here because I really enjoy and value the input of other who are interested in this topic (PO)and are reading and researching widely. Jez, (to name just one and not to overlook others) has posted some brilliant links to other sites to assist those of us with an interest to keep delving into this topic.

If you want to leave a recipe for strawberry jam, we'd all appreciate it – and if you want to request one – start a post with that request.

[RobWindt]

wtf has politics got to do with gardening, permaculture and growing peaches?

Err, everything. The chart below extrapolates the decline in Australias oil production using the governments own figures (via ABARE), all gone by 2015.
Got that? the liquid fuels that power 90% of our transportation will have to be fully imported within ten years, presuming that we can out compete (outbid) the rest of the world for the remaining (diminishing) resources

http://home.austarnet.com.au/davekimble ... recast.gif (http://home.austarnet.com.au/davekimble/peakoil/australia.oil-prod.hubbert.forecast.gif)

I'm guessing that this could be important

[Jim Bob]

They're not closing just any crude refinery, they're closing a "sweet" crude refinery. They're closing the "sweet" crude refineries because there's not enough "sweet" crude, and they're waiting for the "sour" crude refineries to come online.

To understand why Shell closed its refinery, you have to understand something about crude oil - oils ain't oils, as the old advert used to say. Excuse the length of the following, it takes a few words to explain these things. They're basically simple ideas, though, so bear with me.

We don't pump petrol (gasoline) straight out of the ground. Crude oil is sloppy black stuff, made of a mixture of all different stuff. Basically the stuff is all chains of carbon atoms - carbon, like in the black ash after your nice woodfire has burned down. Some of these chains are long, some of them are short.

The chains which are long make up things like asphalt (the black crap they put on roads) and wax. The chains which are short make up things like natural gas (as used in your gas stove), and fuel for cars and aeroplanes.

When they pump crude oil out of the ground, it's a mixture of the shorter and longer chained stuff. How to separate them? I can't put asphalt in my car! Well, they do a thing called "fractional distillation." They pour the crude oil into big towers, and they heat the tower up. As they heat up the mixture, the shorter-chained stuff - the lighter fractions - start to boil off. So first they get out any methane (like in your stove), then they get out aviation fuel, then car fuel, and so on. Eventually there's the asphalt left in the bottom.

Now, like I said, oils ain't oils. Some have got more of the longer-chained stuff, we call these "heavy" or "sour" crude oils. Some have got more of the shorter-chained stuff, we call these "light" or "sweet" crude oils.

Our society uses a lot more of the light fractions than the heavy. We need more petrol for cars than we do asphalt for roads. So places like Saudi Arabia, okay they have (say) 20 oil fields, and 10 of them are "sweet" crude, and 10 of them are "heavy" crude. Obviously they'll pump out the "sweet" crudes first, it has more of what people actually want, and they can sell it for a higher price.

Nowadays, the supply of "sweet" crude has pretty much hit its peak across the world. It's passed its peak in Saudi Arabia. They still have lots of "heavy" crude, they can produce as much of that as anyone wants - but we don't want it.

All the crude ends up in a refinery. The thing is, though, the refineries aren't all the same. Some are built to handle the "sweet" crude, and some are built to handle the "heavy" crude. It's like a woodchipper in your garden or on your farm. If it's set up to handle the big logs, then when you put grass in you'll gum the machine up. If it's set up to handle the twigs and grass, putting in a log will jam it. Well, oil refineries are the same - they're set up to handle either "sour" or "sweet" crude.

So because the world production of "sweet" crude has passed, there are a whole heap of "sweet" crude refineries closing down. When you've run out of twigs and grass, what do you do with your little woodchipper? The oil companies want to build "heavy" crude refineries, but these things take a lot of time and money. With the time taken to collect the money, get planning and EPA permission, grease the hands of local politicians and officials, it takes 10-20 years to get a "sour" crude refinery up and going. But over in Saudi Arabia, it's 2-10 years.

So Shell simply won't bother. By the time they get 1 "sour" crude refinery up and running, Saudi Arabia will have built 3.

So they're closing the "sweet" crude refineries because there's not enough "sweet" crude, and they're waiting for the "sour" crude refineries to come online.

Bear in mind that "sour" crude does not have no petrol, avgas, etc, it just has less than "sweet" crude. For example, 10% by weight rather than 15%. But when you're producing and using millions of barrels a day, that 5% is really important. It's why we've used the "sweet" oil fields first, and not used the "sour" oil fields so much.

Still, the "peak oil" thing is going to hit us in the next few years, less because of how much oil there is, and more because of how much oil we can process.

There's no conspiracy.

[heuristics]

Now that is one of the best essays on PO I have read.
Thanks Jim Bob.

[Jez]

Jez,

Jim Bob did not delete the contents of the post. I did.

Murray is still the moderator, but since PRI has been deluged with spam, Jim Bob and I have been asked to moderate the forum by removing those spam posts, and I think we have done a really good job!


Noted Chris, you and Jim Bob have done a good job removing spam from what I can tell.



hey chickadee,

this site has lost the whole point of the excrcise
hrmmm... not totally sure i agree with you since Geoff saw fit to post this article on peak oil (http://permaculture.org.au/?page_id=21) on the main PRI site about 9 months ago now.

peak oil is of huge importance to all the permaculture people i know - david, bill, geoff and nadia.

draw your own conclusions, but i think permaculture is as much about oil as it is about strawberry jam. which is why it's so darn fascinatin'. 8)

cheers

m.

Very well said Murray. 8)



Ben, thank you.


For what exactly Chris? I fail to see how that outburst was justified, constructive, or deserved affirmation... :? :(

[Jez]

Forgot to add - great posts Rob and Jim Bob! 8)

[christopher]

I am going to respond to this on last time as it seems people do not understand:

This is a (slightly edited) PM to Jez, but my PMs do not seem to send:

Jez,

This is a PM to you, and only because I respect you, otherwise I wouldn't waste my time.

I was not thanking Ben for affirming my outburst, which, BTW, was in a different thread, Greeny's "oh, poor me, I posted copyright protected racist drivel counter peak oil fantasies, and someone had the sense to object to it" whingeing thread. I am thanking Ben for saying "what a load of shit this thread is, how pointless, what a bunch of dopes for continuing talking about it". I think what I have said is extremely mild considering Greeny posted something that says Jews control the world, and there is a "Zionist cabal" conspiracy to stop abiotic oil (abiotic oil is a kukoo fantasy even without tieing in the nonexistent Jewish conspiracy). If anyone outside of our community read that here, we would all be dismissed as eihter racist idiots or as people who tolerate racist idiots. As we say, fuck that shit.

If Greeny had said, "apart from this asshole Vialls racist loony tunes views on a conspiracy, isn't the concept of abiotic oil interesting?" then I wouldn't have said anything, but to allow this sort of shit to sit up there, this concept that some secret "Zionist cabal" controls the oil, unchallenged, makes all of us complicit in its message.

I feel the need to strongly and vocally dispute this, and I would dispute it more, but have decided to let all the people silly enough to talk about it continue talking about abiotic oil, which is so comforting to those who are not ready to deal with the implications of peak oil, and anyone who thinks a secret "Zionist cabal" exist that controls all the oil is so hopelessly stupid there is no hope in trying to help them (hence "hopeless"), so unless Murray feels like stepping in and saying that type of shit makes PRI look bad and does something about it, it can sit up there in peace.

When they are all done with discussing abiotic oil, someone can open a thread about Peter Pan, the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus, and debate that, and as long as noone says the Muslims created Santa Claus to steal the Christian value of Christmas, or Peter Pan is a Zionist demon, or the Tooth Fairy is a Catholic Pagan practice that will send you straight to hell, or some other demonstrably false racist drivel, I won't say peep. Peter Pan and Santa Claus are pefect for a follow up to this thread, because abiotic oil is in the same category.

Everything good and valid said here in this forum is discredited when we allow goof ball shit like "Zionist cabals" are keeping abiotic oil from happening to remain up on the boards without being contested loudly. It is ambarrasing to see that was tolerated here and is now defended.

It is disturbing that it seems few people undestand why I object to this, and that in response we have people offering definitions of Zionism to "counter" my concern about blatant racist antisemitism kukoo psychobabble here, in this forum. The post had nothing to do with Zionism, at all, other than suggesting that some secret bunch of Jews in New York secretly control all the oil. Jez, you even say that abiotic oil is a nonissue. Don't you find the concept that a secret bunch of Jews in New York control all the oil seriously loopy, or worse than loopy? Anybody who says that, nothing they say after that can make any sense. I know Jim Bob, Douglas, Rob Windt, Mungbeans and Heuristics understands why thats crazy, don't you?

And, given that this is seriously loopy (or a whole hell of a lot worse than merely loopy), isn't doing everything possible to discredit it and make sure it sets no roots here justifiable? Imagine if there were two idiots here posting this shit back and forth. You deal with this shit head on, with no remorse, and you deposit it in the dustbin, where it belongs.

You remember when you had it out with someone over at ALS about Bill Mollison being an asshole and equating this with Permaculture, etc? I understood why you did it, even tho you were a bit heavy handed when you had her up on the ropes, in a corner she could not talk her way out of, because that needed countered. Permaculture is more than Bill Mollisons and his reputation for being disagreeable. This topic is about 1000 times more in need of countering, and that's why I have done so.

I have never been overly impressed with the intelligence of most humans, but I find it upsetting to see that there are enough people right here to keep this stupid "discussion" alive. Anyone who pops in and sees people discussing this will justifiably think most of us are complete idiots. And, not wanting to be an idiot, myself, I have elected to not respond further to any of this.

As I said previously, I am trying to walk away from this, so if you have any questions, or statements, then please PM me. This whole thread is stupid, and I really want no part of it.

Best,

C

[RobWindt]

Peter Pan and Santa Claus are pefect for a follow up to this thread, because abiotic oil is in the same category.

Truth or conspiracy? you decide

From http://www.jamesarthur.net/mm_01.html
# Saint Nicholas is the patron Saint of children in Siberia (Russia), a supplanter to the indigenous Shaman.
# The Amanita muscaria mushrooms grow nearly exclusively under the Christmas (Coniferous) Trees (Birch also [another whole story]).
# The Reindeer eat these mushrooms, hence the presumed flight.
# Santa brings presents in his white bag/sack. Mushrooms are gathered in bags, and Amanita muscaria sprouts out of a white vulvae sack.
# The mushrooms are red and white and grow under a green tree. Christmas colors are red, white and green.
# Typically, the red and white mushrooms are dried by stringing them on the hearth of the fireplace. Christmas stockings are red and white, hung in the same way, and shaped similar.
# The Virgin Birth is symbolic for the "seedless" growth/germination pattern of the mushroom. To the ancient mind, with no microscope to see the spores, it's appearance was thought to be miraculous.
# The very name, "Christmas" is a holiday name composed of the words, "Christ" (meaning "one who is anointed with the Magical Substance") and "Mass" (a special religious service/ceremony of the sacramental ingestion of the Eucharist, the "Body of Christ"). In the Catholic tradition, this substance (Body/Soma) has been replaced by the doctrine of "Trans-substantiation", whereby in a magical ceremony the Priests claim the ability to transform a "cracker/round-wafer" into the literal "Body of Christ"; ie, a substitute or placebo.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Just for the record, i was offended by the posts original title rather than the honest attempt to discuss its content
Cheers Dears

[frosty]

Everything good and valid said here in this forum is discredited when we allow goof ball shit like "Zionist cabals" are keeping abiotic oil from happening to remain up on the boards without being contested loudly. It is ambarrasing to see that was tolerated here and is now defended.

It is disturbing that it seems few people undestand why I object to this, and that in response we have people offering definitions of Zionism to "counter" my concern about blatant racist antisemitism kukoo psychobabble here, in this forum. The post had nothing to do with Zionism, at all, other than suggesting that some secret bunch of Jews in New York secretly control all the oil. Jez, you even say that abiotic oil is a nonissue. Don't you find the concept that a secret bunch of Jews in New York control all the oil seriously loopy, or worse than loopy? Anybody who says that, nothing they say after that can make any sense.

chris

may I suggest that your over zealous defence of any criticism of anything remotely approaching a critisism of zionism is understandable and due to your being an american

but it doesnt mean you have to right to stop those of us with a broader world view discussing a thoery on peak oil ........ it may be wrong or right but we DO have the right to discuss it

the 'thoery " of a zionist cabal "may well be out there :evil: it wasnt the main subject of the Vialls article it is you who has made it an issue

but to those of us who get a more balanced world news there can be no doubt that those who are rabidly pro jewish do at a bare minimum control the US media ....... and lead to a large portion of the US population behaving like idiots over issues such as this

the rest of us are utterly horrified by the current genocide being perpetrated by Israel in lebanon and equally horrified by the US supporting it ......... that support would have to make any thinking person doubt whether such "theories" may have at least some substance :cry:

but of course that is not what we are discussing here ....... but it does show that you are the one with a problem and harassing us and making insulting statements like the one quoted below ...........


I have never been overly impressed with the intelligence of most humans, but I find it upsetting to see that there are enough people right here to keep this stupid "discussion" alive. Anyone who pops in and sees people discussing this will justifiably think most of us are complete idiots. And, not wanting to be an idiot, myself, I have elected to not respond further to any of this.


....... makes it plain the only complete idiot here is you - you look like a brainwashed biased american ..........

and anyone who pops in will think YOU are a refugee from Free Republic or some other intolerant wingnut site :evil: and as usual for such people are trying to force your view on everyone else

I too am upset because I thought you had more sense :cry:


frosty

[christopher]

Hi Frosty,

Being anti-racist doesn't make you pro-anything.

Look, here it is: I disagree with the contents of the article in question. I thought it was irresponsible to post it as it is hate filled, and further, was copyright protected. I am not arguing anything from a nationalistic point of view. The article in question said that abiotic oil is NOT happening because the Jews in NY don't want it to happen. I think that is crazy. Perhaps you agree with these concepts. If so, you are not alone.

Listen carefully: I AM NOT DEBATING ZIONISM, AT ALL, OR DEFENDING ZIONISM (NEITHER AM I CONDEMNING IT). I NEVER DID, AT ALL, DEBATE ZIONISM! I AM SAYING THAT THIS ARTICLE IS HATE, THAT THIS ARTICLE IS RACIST, THAT THIS ARTICLE MAKES ZERO SENSE. THERE IS NO ZIONIST CONSPIRACY TO STOP ABIOTIC OIL! THAT IS WHAT I AM OBJECTING TO. ANYONE WHO WANTS TO TALK ABOUT ABIOTIC OIL SHOULD DO SO, BUT PLEASE DON'T SAY STUPID THINGS LIKE THE JEWS IN NY ARE STOPPING ABIOTIC OIL FROM HAPPENING.

You have the right to discuss it, but saying crazy shit like "the Jews are controlling the oil" is nuts. If you think the Jews in NY control all the oil, (and I thought it was the Saudis :? ) pshaaaaw, sorry, can't help you.

Further, Frosty, you know nothing at all about how I feel about US foreign policy, not one thing, because I don't talk about it here. You know not one little thing about what i think, though you presume to in your post. You have no idea why I live in Belize, why I came here when I was 19, and why I have stayed here, or anything at all about me, except that I am from New York.

Just to let you know: its been a long time since I lived in New York, Frosty.

You think I am coming at this as a thing about Zionism. I'm not. I have been very sympathetic of the Palestinians, and highly critical of how the Palestinians have been treated, for many years. I knew Palestinian children when I grew up, and they talked about being displaced, and coming from displaced Irish immigrants who fled America, I understood what that loss meant. I also empathize with the Jews, who were treated very poorly in the world historically.

I am not here to debate Zionism, nor to discuss Israel/Palestine. My point is the article: this article did not even mention anything about Zionism, except to say there is a "Zionist cabal", and there isn't. What I am saying is the article in question is really crazy, okay? Not that Zionism is great, or that Zionism is bad, just that in the context of the article, the term "Zionist cabal" is anti-semitic nonsensical psychobabble.

More on, okay, Frosty, I understand how you feel about pesticides, I feel the same way. I know lots of people who have been poinsoned here. So I inderstand how you feel, but without having suffered from their use as you have. It may surprise you, but I understand how you feel about the military, too, especially the US which is poisoning your place. I just don't talk about it. I come here to talk about plants, and solar panels, and wind turbines and aquaponics :wav: , and guilds.

My opinions regarding US militarism and pesticides are much more closely aligned with yours than you think, and my opinions on some of these subjects is probably a fair bit to the left of yours. I just don't make a lot of noise all the time and talk about them as much as you.

When you talk about the risk of pesticides and the long term environmental costs of militarism, those are all valid points, important points worthy of discussion. However, the concept that Jews in NY want to control the oil and are keeping abiotic oil from happening is plain crazy, and THAT is what I am objecting to.

Here at PRI, I have vocally supported your right to talk about your poisoning, believing that it is important for others to hear your tale, encouraging you to share your experience, supporting you when others literally told you to shut up, wither away and die. I went to bat over that.

I'm not telling anyone not to talk about peak oil, but am saying that there is no Zionist conspiracy that controls all the oil, as stated in the article, and that abiotic oil is lalaland fantasy stuff, wishful thinking for people who can't cope with what peak oil really means. The same guy who wrote the article said the tsunami was caused by a Wall Street conspiracy, which ties in with the "Zionist cabal" in his other articles. Hello? Thats crazy.

Did you read the article? Anyone who really believes that there is a "Zionist cabal" controlling the oil in NY has serious mental health issues.

Maybe you believe that Jews in NY control all the oil, and that they want to keep abiotic oil from happening. Whatever. I don't. I hate that this nonsensical discussion is happening here because it makes us all look stupid. Frosty, if you want to believe that there is a secret group of Jews in NY who control the oil, fine. If you want to talk about it, please, go ahead. Plenty of people believe things that are almost as stupid as that.

Have a nice life,

C

[jackie]

Keep the peak oil discussion going. As a permie of many years, peak oil has given me and my family some new found vigar and motivation to be doing more and doing in the now. How did I find out ab out it, David Holmgreins opening lecture to last years Permie convergence in Melbourne. If that's not giving peak oil relevance in Permaculture, I don't know what is.
Permaculture may involve a lot of gardening, but that is one component of a broad and diverse range of activities. Take a look at Davids Permaculture Flower diagram in his latest book. It is a great summary.

[frosty]

all the arguments for and against abiotic oil

http://www.questionsquestions.net/docs04/peakoil1.html

still reading it myself

frosty

[Jez]

Jez,

This is a PM to you, and only because I respect you, otherwise I wouldn't waste my time.

I was not thanking Ben for affirming my outburst, which, BTW, was in a different thread, Greeny's "oh, poor me, I posted copyright protected racist drivel counter peak oil fantasies, and someone had the sense to object to it" whingeing thread. I am thanking Ben for saying "what a load of shit this thread is, how pointless, what a bunch of dopes for continuing talking about it".


I meant that it looked like you had affirmed Ben's outburst Chris, not the other way round. The way I read what he said, I thought it was an unneccessary and deliberately inflammatory abuse post about the site and many of the participants...which was something I didn't think deserved thanks. :?




Everything good and valid said here in this forum is discredited when we allow goof ball shit like "Zionist cabals" are keeping abiotic oil from happening to remain up on the boards without being contested loudly. It is ambarrasing to see that was tolerated here and is now defended.


As far as I'm concerned, the entire article was contested very thoroughly with solid scientific eveidence, which IMO is enough...without going to the extreme of lumping the article in with the person who asked the question and mocking him repeatedly, then calling him a whinger when he didn't like being mocked or that his intentions had been misconstrued.

For all you or I know, maybe quite a few of the 'guests' or largely silent users of this site were under the impression there was something to the abiotic oil theory, which in and of itself makes greenie's post worthwhile. Failing that, there was a lot of good educational information shared.



The post had nothing to do with Zionism, at all, other than suggesting that some secret bunch of Jews in New York secretly control all the oil.


Right, so IMO it was better to deal with the overwhelming substance of the article (abiotic oil) rather than the political aspect...or read racist overtones into a statement which people may or may not feel is correct - you don't, I don't, but IMO it doesn't hurt to show someone's opinion enough respect to agree to disagree.



Jez, you even say that abiotic oil is a nonissue. Don't you find the concept that a secret bunch of Jews in New York control all the oil seriously loopy, or worse than loopy? Anybody who says that, nothing they say after that can make any sense. I know Jim Bob, Douglas, Rob Windt, Mungbeans and Heuristics understands why thats crazy, don't you?


I very much believe abiotic oil IS a non-issue...I disagreed with almost the entire article and said as much. But I don't believe that just because someone finds credence in either idea that they can't possibly ever have anything worthwhile to say, are a nutcase (or whatever) or that they deserve to be overtly mocked for their belief - I feel much the same way about a person's religious beliefs.

By way of example, just because those Mennonite folks you have for neighbours believe some things which you and I find a bit fanciful and perhaps even harmful in the modern world, doesn't mean they aren't valuable in their own way and that we can't all live together amiably and learn something from each other...right?

Isn't that what 'looking after people' is all about? Finding the good things we each have to offer...rather than going to war (verbal or otherwise) over differing opinions and beliefs?

And FWIW mate, just like a stopped clock, Viall's IS right now and again. A relative of mine was on the site immediately after the Port Arthur massacre in a highly specialised expert capacity, and he is the first to say that the official story is a long way from adding up to the truth, and give irrefutable evidence why.

That seriously misguided bloke (whose name escapes me ATM) who is the main publicist for the KKK in the US, very occasionally says something worthwhile, Pauline Hanson said the odd thing or two which sounds like direct quotes from a permaculture text (looking after those in your own backyard first etc).

I overwhelmingly disagree with the overwhelming majority of what all the above people have to say...but just like nobody is right all the time, nobody is wrong all the time either IMO.



You remember when you had it out with someone over at ALS about Bill Mollison being an asshole and equating this with Permaculture, etc? I understood why you did it, even tho you were a bit heavy handed when you had her up on the ropes, in a corner she could not talk her way out of, because that needed countered.


I'm not very good at being diplomatic Chris and it's something I have to work very hard at - infinitely more so in text - but I was very careful to say throughout that exchange that I valued the person concerned, admired many things she did and her as a person, and was sorry that she felt she was being 'attacked' because that was not my intention...it was my intention to defend Bill and not allow Permaculture to be portrayed as just about growing food, or just another system (or about profiteering as Ben suggested) in a forum where many people are very new to the whole concept. I said the vast majority of what I said because the person concerned has expressed on numerous occasions that they want to do all they can to help the world and because I saw them as a friend who could take what I had to say the right way without being mortally offended. I had plenty of positive things to say along with the strong debate...unfortunately, all the supposedly offensive things were not taken in balance with the positive things.

Personally, I like nothing more than being talked into a corner I can't rationally debate my way out of - it means I'm wrong and that someone has clearly shown me how I can improve my self, the way I think, or the values I hold. It's a failing of mine to assume that more than a minority others also think that way...when there is an element of friendship there I am more likely to assume that things can be discussed strongly without offense automatically being taken.

In this case, that was a mistaken assumption.




I have never been overly impressed with the intelligence of most humans, but I find it upsetting to see that there are enough people right here to keep this stupid "discussion" alive. Anyone who pops in and sees people discussing this will justifiably think most of us are complete idiots. And, not wanting to be an idiot, myself, I have elected to not respond further to any of this.


I don't see how someone asking a question and getting a lot of sound scientific answers would make visitors now think people here are idiots Chris, and to me your words above amount to calling everyone else involved an idiot.

There aren't two people alive who both completely agree on everything...but it would be hard for any of us to ever get along if we each decided that everyone else was an idiot based on the fact we disagree about a few things.

I respect you too Chris, you've shared a lot of good knowledge wherever you've gone and some of that has been very valuable for me personally as a fellow tropics dweller who shares many of the same values and ideals. It is because of that respect that I'm asking you to perhaps see that trampling on greenie and mocking him was not good for anyone concerned...nor was it when you did it repeatedly to Floot...who as you've admitted yourself has a wealth of good things to share with us all.

You, Floot, Richard, myself and the other tropics dwellers should all have a special bond of sharing and helping each other...even though we're all pricks at times...Richard especially. :lol:

IMO I've just defended greenie's right to be treated with a little more respect...mostly because I'd like to hope someone would do the same for me if I were in his shoes. Having done so, I hope I haven't offended you in the process, and I'm more than happy to move on and talk about strawberry jam or whatever else is the new topic of the day. :lol:

[frosty]

I am still interested in exploring the theory of abiotic oil :? maybe I am the only one ?

anyway for those who think it cant be ebcause they don believe oil companies would hide it to inflate the price this article is interesting

it may at firsts seem off topic so I will quote the main point oil companies and oil states don't make their loot by finding oil but by finding trouble. Finding oil increases supply. Increased supply means decreased price. Whereas finding trouble -- wars, coup d'etats, hurricanes, whatever can disrupt supply -- raises the price of oil.





GREG PALAST – OIL AND LEBANON:

BLOOD IN BEIRUT: $75.05 A BARREL


The failure to stop the bloodletting in the Middle East, Exxon's record second-quarter profits and Iran's nuclear cat-and-mouse game have something in common -- it's the oil.

By Greg Palast
July 26, 2006

I can't tell you how it started -- this is a war that's been fought since the Levites clashed with the Philistines -- but I can tell you why the current mayhem has not been stopped. It's the oil.

I'm not an expert on Palestine nor Lebanon and I'd rather not pretend to be one. If you want to know what's going on, read Robert Fisk. He lives there. He speaks Arabic. Stay away from pundits whose only connection to the Middle East is the local falafel stand.

So why am I writing now? The answer is that, while I don't speak Arabic or Hebrew, I am completely fluent in the language of petroleum.

More... What? You don't need a degree in geology to know there's no oil in Israel, Palestine or Lebanon. (A few weeks ago, I was joking around with Afif Safieh, the Palestinian Authority's Ambassador to the US, asking him why he was fighting to have a piece of the only place in the Middle East without oil. Well, there's no joking now.)

Let's begin with the facts we can agree on: the berserkers are winning. Crazies discredited only a month ago are now in charge, guys with guns bigger than brains and souls smaller still. Here's a list:

-- Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's approval rating in June was down to a Bush-level of 35%. But today, Olmert's poll numbers among Israeli voters have more than doubled to 78% as he does his bloody John Wayne "cleanin' out the varmints" routine. But let's not forget: Olmert can't pee-pee without George Bush's approval. Bush can stop Olmert tomorrow. He hasn't.

-- Hezbollah, a political party rejected overwhelmingly by Lebanese voters sickened by their support of Syrian occupation, holds a mere 14 seats out of 128 in the nation's parliament. Hezbollah was facing demands by both Lebanon's non-Shia majority and the United Nations to lay down arms. Now, few Lebanese would suggest taking away their rockets. But let's not forget: Without Iran, Hezbollah is just a fundamentalist street gang. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can stop Hezbollah's rockets tomorrow. He hasn't.

-- Hamas, just days before it kidnapped and killed Israeli soldiers, was facing certain political defeat at the hands of the Palestinian majority ready to accept the existence of Israel as proposed in a manifesto for peace talks penned by influential Palestinian prisoners. Now the Hamas rocket brigade is back in charge. But let's not forget: Hamas is broke and a joke without the loot and authority of Saudi Arabia. King Abdullah can stop these guys tomorrow. He hasn't.

Why not? Why haven't what we laughably call "leaders" of the USA, Iran and Saudi Arabia called back their delinquent spawn, cut off their allowances and grounded them for six months?

Maybe because mayhem and murder in the Middle East are very, very profitable to the sponsors of these characters with bombs and rockets. America, Iran and Saudi Arabia share one thing in common: they are run by oil regimes. The higher the price of crude, the higher the profits and the happier the presidents and princelings of these petroleum republics.

This Thursday, Exxon is expected to report the highest second-quarter earnings of any corporation since the days of the Pharaoh, $9.9 billion in pure profit collected in just three months -- courtesy of an oil shortage caused by pipelines on fire in Iraq, warlord attacks in Nigeria, the lingering effects of the sabotage of Venezuela's oil system by a 2002 strike... the list could go on.

Exxon's brobdingnagian profits simply reflect the cold axiom that oil companies and oil states don't make their loot by finding oil but by finding trouble. Finding oil increases supply. Increased supply means decreased price. Whereas finding trouble -- wars, coup d'etats, hurricanes, whatever can disrupt supply -- raises the price of oil.

A couple of examples from today's Bloomberg newswire are:

"Crude oil traded above $75 a barrel in New York as fighting between Israeli and Iranian-backed Hezbollah forces in Lebanon entered its 14th day... Oil prices rose last month on concern for supplies from Iran, the world's fourth largest producer, may be disrupted in its dispute with the United Nations over its uranium enrichment ... [And, said a trader,] 'I still think $85 is likely this summer. I'm really surprised we haven't seen any hurricanes.'''

In Tehran, President Ahmadinejad may or may not have a plan to make a nuclear bomb, but he sure as heck knows that hinting at it raises the price of the one thing he certainly does have -- oil. Every time he barks, 'Mad Mahmoud' knows that he's pumping up the price of crude. Just a $10 a barrel "blow-up-in-the-Mideast" premium brings his regime nearly a quarter of a billion dollars each week (including the little kick to the value of Iran's natural gas). Not a bad pay-off for making a bit of trouble.

Saudi Arabia's rake-in from The Troubles? Assuming just a $10 a barrel boost for Middle Eastern mayhem and you can calculate that the blood in the sand puts an extra $658 million a week in Abdullah's hand.

And in Houston, you can hear the cash registers jing-a-ling as explosions in Kirkuk, Beirut and the Niger River Delta sound like the sleigh-bells on Santa's sled. At $75.05 a barrel, they don't call it "sweet" crude for nothing. That's up 27% from a year ago. The big difference between then and now: the rockets' red glare.

Exxon's second-quarter profits may bust records, but next quarter's should put it to shame, as the "Lebanon premium" and Iraq's insurgency have puffed up prices, up by an average of 11% in the last three months.

So there's not much incentive for the guys who supply the weaponry to tell their wards to put away their murderous toys. This war's just too darn profitable.

We are trained to think of Middle Eastern conflicts as just modern flare-ups of ancient tribal animosities. But to uncover why the flames won't die, the usual rule applies: follow the money.

Am I saying that Tehran, Riyadh and Houston oil chieftains conspired to ignite a war to boost their petroleum profits? I can't imagine it. But I do wonder if Bush would let Olmert have an extra week of bombings, or if the potentates of the Persian Gulf would allow Hamas and Hezbollah to continue their deadly fireworks if it caused the price of crude to crash. You know and I know that if this war took a bite out of Exxon or the House of Saud, a ceasefire would be imposed quicker than you can say, "Let's drill in the Arctic."

Eventually, there will be another ceasefire. But Exxon shareholders need not worry. Global warming has heated the seas sufficiently to make certain that they can look forward to a hellacious -- and profitable -- season of hurricanes.



frosty

[Cornonthecob]

Once it was for valuable metals, forests for wood, commerce routes, land etc

Now it's for oil....nothing has changed. No surprises really.

[Jez]

Frosty, did you read the links Rob put up? Just curious if you added them to your investigation yet...

You may like to check out this article in relation to Palast:

An Open Letter to Greg Palast - by Richard Heinberg (http://www.energybulletin.net/17914.html)

FWIW, I strongly agree with what Heinberg writes in his 'open letter'...Palast has a very sketchy and limited scientific understanding of Peak Oil...something which Heinberg illustrates very thoroughly. Palast has done a lot of fantastic investigative journalism in the past and his opinion carries a fair bit of weight, unfortunately, in this instance he's well wide of the mark IMO - and that of many others.

That's not to say that much of what he's written on this topic isn't correct...just that his understanding of Peak Oil is very flawed.

[RobWindt]

[/quote]Frosty, did you read the links Rob put up? Just curious if you added them to your investigation yet... [quote]

An interesting article at http://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/ may put this into perspective..

Why It's Hard to Debate a Cornucopian
"It's much easier to tell people what they want to hear than to tell them what they need to hear. This is the first and most important advantage a cornucopian thinker has when arguing before any audience. No one really wants to hear that the future may be filled with turbulent change and personal insecurity"....

It reinforces my suspicion that this thread is more about denial than anything else.
Check the links halfway down page three before flaming me
Rob

[frosty]

jez

yes I did check our robs links but as they are all fom the same site I thought it needed another perspective .......... so more research found the site I posted above which unbiasedly compares Ruppert's theories with those of Dave McGowan and lead me to

http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr52.html

it is a long article and he details why he believes in abiotic oil and equally intersting why he thinks the theory is being discredited

he is absolutely NOT an oil industry supporter

some interesting quotes on the why


Several readers have written to me, incidentally, with a variation of the following question: "How can you say that Peak Oil is being promoted to sell war when all of the websites promoting the notion of Peak Oil are stridently anti-war?"


But of course they are. That, you see, is precisely the point. What I was trying to say is that the notion of 'Peak Oil' is being specifically marketed to the anti-war crowd -- because, as we all know, the pro-war crowd doesn't need to be fed any additional justifications for going to war; any of the old lies will do just fine. And I never said that the necessity of war was being overtly sold. What I said, if I remember correctly, is that it is being sold with a wink and a nudge.


The point that I was trying to make is that it would be difficult to imagine a better way to implicitly sell the necessity of war, even while appearing to stake out a position against war, than through the promotion of the concept of 'Peak Oil.' After September 11, 2001, someone famously said that if Osama bin Laden didn't exist, the US would have had to invent him. I think the same could be said for 'Peak Oil.'


I also need to mention here that those who are selling 'Peak Oil' hysteria aren't offering much in the way of alternatives, or solutions. Ruppert, for example, has stated flatly that "there is no effective replacement for what hydrocarbon energy provides today." (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/w ... tions.html (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/052703_9_questions.html)) The message is quite clear: "we're running out of oil soon; there is no alternative; we're all screwed." And this isn't, mind you, just an energy problem; as Ruppert has correctly noted, "Almost every current human endeavor from transportation, to manufacturing, to plastics, and especially food production is inextricably intertwined with oil and natural gas supplies." (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/w ... pbell.html (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/102302_campbell.html)) If we run out of oil, in other words, our entire way of life will come crashing down. One of Ruppert's "unimpeachable sources," Colin Campbell, describes an apocalyptic future, just around the corner, that will be characterized by "war, starvation, economic recession, possibly even the extinction of homo sapiens." (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/w ... pbell.html (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/102302_campbell.html))

snip

The message there seems pretty clear: once the people understand what is at stake, they will support whatever is deemed necessary to secure the world's oil supplies

snip

Elsewhere on his site, Ruppert warns that "Different regions of the world peak in oil production at different times ... the OPEC nations of the Middle East peak last. Within a few years, they -- or whoever controls them -- will be in effective control of the world economy, and, in essence, of human civilization as a whole." (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/w ... pbell.html (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/102302_campbell.html))

Within a few years, the Middle East will be in control of all of human civilization?! Try as I might, I can't imagine any claim that would more effectively rally support for a U.S. takeover of the Middle East. The effect of such outlandish claims is to cast the present war as a war of necessity. Indeed, a BBC report posted on Ruppert's site explicitly endorses that notion: "It's not greed that's driving big oil companies - it's survival." (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/w ... r_bbc.html (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/040403_oil_war_bbc.html))



big snip and he ends with


The key point there (aside from Sassen's malicious characterization of Kenney) is his assertion that no one is discussing abiotic oil at this time. And why is that? Because, you see, we first have to go through the charade of pretending that the world has just about run out of 'conventional' oil reserves, thus justifying massive price hikes, which will further pad the already obscenely high profits of the oil industry. Only then will it be fully acknowledged that there is, you know, that 'other' oil.

"We seem to have plum run out of that fossil fuel that y'all liked so much, but if you want us to, we could probably find you some mighty fine inorganic stuff. You probably won't even notice the difference. The only reason that we didn't mention it before is that - and may God strike me dead if I'm lying - it is a lot more work for us to get to it. So after we charged you up the wazoo for the 'last' of the 'conventional' oil, we're now gonna have to charge you even more for this really 'special' oil. And with any luck at all, none of you will catch on that it's really the same oil."

And that, dear readers, is how I see this little game playing out. Will you be playing along?



Rob you seem to ahve the wrong idea about me altogether :lol: I am certainly not in denial about peak oil in fact I can hardly wait for the demise of oil - all the petroleum products are a threat to my very life as I suffer from serious multiple chemical sensitivity which is basically an allergy to petroleum products

but the more I read the more I doubt ........ maybe we are all being duped for the sake of greed and military conquest
frosty

[greeny]

I am very interested in continuing this thread and I love reading all you have to say Frosty. You are some sharp mind!
Rob, I have read your cornucopia link . I would like to show another perspective. Quote “Above all, cornucopias love to argue that even if many environmental problems exist, we will think up ways to solve them because we always have. “edit.” It is as if the turkey in Bertrand Russell's story knows that the axe has fallen with regularity on other turkeys, but somehow believes that the axe " problem" will be solved before his number is up."

About the turkey and the axe . We have watched country after country go under the axe yet we feel quite happy in our cornucopia that a terrible war or invasion will not happen here. We watch with distant horror at thousands of homeless and starving people yet we wont believe that it could happen here to us. We watch the governments lie to the public again and again but we happily allow ourselves to be convinced it was some unusual event and will not happen again and we seem to forget . Even though most of us have some knowledge of the distorted information we receive from governments, multinationals and media, we still to allow the mass media to manipulate our thinking.
Perhaps a cornucopian may also be someone who has identified themselves with a certain philosophy that they feel sure of, be it pleasant or not, and feels totally threatened if it is questioned.
I believe that the changes to come in the next few years will be so shocking that many people will not cope psychologically. They just wont be able to let go of their beliefs of how they think things should be in order to move on and embrace the present situation. We are a culture used to taking sides, to judging good or bad, right or wrong, win or lose etc ,it’s a way of desperately and hopelessly trying to control our lives as we want to believe them to be. But reality is not that way at all , there is no certainty, everything changes and manipulating others by bullying or whatever just leads to avoiding the issue by being sidetracked .

I am not the best at writing hopefully you get the gist
Ps I have nothing against jews. But becoming more and more anti american.....
Im off to plant some more trees.

[RobWindt]

A good article Frosty, though i feel that the ending is a copout - "(if) Osama bin Laden didn't exist, the US would have had to invent him" - must admit that it's hard to picture Osama dragging his dialysis machine from cave to cave unnoticed :)

"I also need to mention here that those who are selling 'Peak Oil' hysteria aren't offering much in the way of alternatives, or solutions. Ruppert, for example, has stated flatly that "there is no effective replacement for what hydrocarbon energy provides today.""

Ruppert appears to be paranoid and he probably has good reason for being so, but his research is impeccable, it's only his projected opinions that i take with a grain of salt. Having said that may i add that, abiotic theory aside, there really is "no effective replacement for what hydrocarbon energy provides today." Sorry if that sounds pessimistic but a pessimist is only a well informed optimist :D

One litre of petrol has the same energy as 1,000 litres of natural gas, or three kg of firewood, or 24 solar panels working all day in sunny Brisbane (figures via Mike Stassy at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/roeoz/ ) The stuff truly is worth its weight in gold and that is what it will end up costing.
90% of our transportation relies on liquid fuels, our whole economy runs on JIT (just in time) deliveries and all western "democracies" have become governments of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations; thus we are unable to collectively implement any policies or solutions that do not show a "profit", we know the solutions but they are constantly blocked and usurped to protect corporate sensitivities and centralised control

We need to rebuild rail services, not privatise them; we need locally owned and operated energy systems, suited to local conditions and opportunities, not nuclear or so called clean coal; we need local production and distribution of regional and seasonal foods, not JIT supermarkets that will be gutted within three days of a transportation crisis; most of all we need to stop waiting for the "big fix" that is promised by hydrogen or bio fuels or abiotic oil

We need to get off our arses and rebuild local networks, local community and local support systems because I'm buggered if I can see any government or corporation doing the hard yards for us, and most of all I need to get off this bloody soapbox

http://www.conservationeconomy.net/ :wink:

Cheers

[ecodharmamark]

G'day Everyone :)

Thanks for that one, Rob - spoken like a true permaculturalist.

Yes, localisation is going to play a big part in our lives in the very near future. I see the future stretched out before us as a period of great opportunity. Sure, it is going to be a battle for many in a post carbon-based energy future, but humanity has been through some tough times before - and survived!

I've refrained from adding my thoughts to this thread mostly because I've been kept very busy (in between full-time studies, work, and family/local community commitments) reading the links that many of you have provided. Thank you for posting them, some interesting issues raised in many of them.

Back to the future - so to speak. I see it as a time for growth (but not of the fabled economic variety), a time for change and a time for people to maybe finally realise that happiness does not come in the form of a plasma TV. Economic hardship is going to bring about big shifts in the social fabric, as it has done in the past, but this time there will be no going back. No amount of effort will ever be able to return us to a time where economic growth above all else is seen as the indicator of 'wellness'.

How long will it take before this scenario becomes a reality? How long is a piece of string? Your guess is as good as mine. One thing I am certain of is that in a post carbon-based energy future things are going to be a lot different. How well we cope as a species all depends on how well we can adapt to our new environment. I've been training my mind for many years now which will hopefully enable me to cope with all that will come our way. I'm actually looking forward to the day when the world becomes once again a vast entity where travel from one's homeland is rare and security comes from knowing and caring for your nieghbours.

Localisation is permaculture, and permaculture is the only hope we have of a peaceful decent from the madness that this carbon-based energy world has become.

Wishing you all much peace and happiness as you go about your daily tasks. As for me, I'm devoting the entire weekend to the practice of planting trees and turning off any carbon-based-energy-sapping machine I can lay my hands on.

Time for me to get of my soapbox now, lol.

Cheerio,

Mark.

[Tezza]

Yeah Mark Im inclined to agree with you a bit there....I think its too late in some places on this poor planet....Some people will never Learn,One born every minute,Theres a million more..etc etc etc..


We come here to find the answers to our dilemma,,and then we argue over what/whos version of what may not even be happening.....When all the time, we waste time....Get back in your gardens keep that food growing...Dont pay $20 for bananas lol

Call Our selves Modern day Noahs...Those who are prepared will be prepared.

Weve seen all the scenarios,Earthquke,Tsanami,Asteroid,Climate change rising sea levels etc etc etc etc etc......We all Know that all or more scenarios can/will happen.. Are Some people in here So far Organised to cater for these scenarios that they have nothing beter to do then argue over Something that non of you can change.....Whats More Truthfull, the mass media or ones own Intuition.....

Like Noahs Time Some people chose not to join his Cruise of a lifetime....

This time its not one Big ark its a million Little Arks "Permaculture Arks"

Wheres My2 Chooks,2 Yabbies,2Trout,2 Worms...

Dreading Globally Acting Locally..


Tezza 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)

[Jez]

Frosty, personally I don't think the abiotic oil/price fixing conspiracy theory stands up to scrutiny. If we assume that there is a conspiracy, then hypothetically the giant US oil companies and the US govt are holding back on the knowledge of abiotic oil. Yet if abiotic oil were an actuality, the US wouldn't have such a massive deficit and be the world's largest importer of oil - they'd still be among the largest producing/exporting nations as they once were.

The US has expended such an enormous amount of capital trying to control the ME for decades, precisely because abiotic oil is the stuff of fantasy. US power - in terms of purely financial strength - has declined enormously since the early 70's, which by no coincidence, is when their own oil reserves began to peak and decline.

In the 60's, 85% of the world's proven oil resources were open to be exploited by international oil companies. Today that figure has dropped to a paltry 16%. While Eastern, Middle Eastern and Latin American fields were once open to international partnership agreements with regard to exploitation, today they have either been entirely nationalised with the giant international oil companies totally excluded, or nationalised with the companies getting an increasingly slimmer slice of the pie.

The oil giants may be currently making record profits, but let me assure you, they are scared witless about the future - they are rapidly running out of places to reinvest these profits. On top of that, the remaining opportunities have an extremely marginal chance of profitability, or no chance at all. That's why we're seeing giants like Shell gambling heavily (and steadily losing) on flights of fancy like tar sands in Alberta...at least there's plenty of it...in the extremely unlikely scenario that they can make it profitable (which is the gamble).

With oil at record prices and seriously in danger of tipping the global economy into permanent recession sometime soon, IF abiotic oil were a reality, the US giants would have begun to exploit their own abiotic reserves - instead of wringing their hands at how bleak their future profitability is becoming due to drastically reduced opportunities. The US once had enormous reserves of oil, IF there was still plenty left in the ground, now is the time they'd be exploiting it...but there isn't and they can't.

Like Rob, I also take exception to McGowan's statement:


I also need to mention here that those who are selling 'Peak Oil' hysteria aren't offering much in the way of alternatives, or solutions.

Almost all those "selling 'Peak Oil' hysteria" are offering solutions, which is the major reason re-localisation, Permaculture, food security, alternative energy and numerous other 'solutions' are intertwined with the vast majority of discussion about Peak Oil. Every Peak Oil action group (whether global or local) is focused almost entirely on the above 'solutions.'

'Alternatives' is another issue entirely...as Rob said, there isn't any feasible 'alternative' which can step in and sustain the current global use of fossil fuels, let alone sustain the constant need for growth which underpins the global economy.

It's disingenuous for McGowan to make such a statement as the above...sounds impressive, but even the most cursory analysis reveals that it's not even remotely based in reality. IMO the major reason people like him are determined to insist there aren't any solutions being offered, is simply because he doesn't like the solutions.

As Mark says, for some people the peaking of fossil fuels is seen as an exciting opportunity for humanity to restructure along more sustainable and personally rewarding lines, for others, this particular type of solution galls them. McGowan can't possibly be naive enough to be totally unaware of the 'solutions' being offered, so I'd suggest he falls into the latter category of just not liking the solutions.

Finally, energy insecurity may well be sold to the US people as a reason for further incursions into the ME to secure supplies, but such a scenario relies on a similar brand of Republican government being retained (highly unlikely IMO - the fundamentalists have ultimately become quite marginalised by the majority of the Republican party, while more moderate voices in the mould of McCain have grown in stature), but more importantly, the rest of the world allowing it to happen. There is more than enough diplomatic, economic and military might in the rest of the world to prevent the US from making any further overt grabs for oil resources beyond what they've attempted already. If the US elects another Republican President they will almost certainly be far more moderate rather than the current fundamentalist, apocalypse driven nutcases, and neither they or a Democrat President will deliberately tip the US into a global war - which would certainly become a case of the US versus the rest of the world.

[frosty]

there are lots of things I want to reply to but as I type very slowly I wont be able to do it all now ......... so I will pick out a few major issues

firstly no matter what the oil situation I do belive we have tostop using oil ........ burning it contributes to global warming and it is a toxic chemcial which I believe WILL cause the demise of the human race if we keep using it

I guess I just academically want to know the truth and if we are being duped

Rob you have a talent for zeroing in aon the weakest parts :lol: :lol: I thought of not including the osama bit in the quote but I thought be fair rpesent the whole picture !

A good article Frosty, though i feel that the ending is a copout - "(if) Osama bin Laden didn't exist, the US would have had to invent him" - must admit that it's hard to picture Osama dragging his dialysis machine from cave to cave unnoticed :)

"I also need to mention here that those who are selling 'Peak Oil' hysteria aren't offering much in the way of alternatives, or solutions. Ruppert, for example, has stated flatly that "there is no effective replacement for what hydrocarbon energy provides today.""

now the part about not offereing alternatives which jez also picked out

I didnt take that as mcGowan refering to the people offering real alternatives like us permies ....... he has stated he believes the anti war left wing people are being sold the peak oil theory by the companies and govt ........and they are not offering any alternatives

and I have to agree to some extent

I cant understand why if oil is so short petroleum is still being used in products which can quite easily be made from other sources ?

this is one of the things that have niggled at me for years ...... petrochemicals are in so many things ( I know I have to avoid them ) ......... eg things like shampoo - cleaning products - makeup - perfume - paints - pharma drugs etc etc can be made without petrochemicals - so why waste dwindling oil supplies ?



One litre of petrol has the same energy as 1,000 litres of natural gas, or three kg of firewood, or 24 solar panels working all day in sunny Brisbane (figures via Mike Stassy at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/roeoz/ ) The stuff truly is worth its weight in gold and that is what it will end up costing.
90% of our transportation relies on liquid fuels, our whole economy runs on JIT (just in time) deliveries and all western "democracies" have become governments of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations; thus we are unable to collectively implement any policies or solutions that do not show a "profit", we know the solutions but they are constantly blocked and usurped to protect corporate sensitivities and centralised control

We need to rebuild rail services, not privatise them; we need locally owned and operated energy systems, suited to local conditions and opportunities, not nuclear or so called clean coal; we need local production and distribution of regional and seasonal foods, not JIT supermarkets that will be gutted within three days of a transportation crisis; most of all we need to stop waiting for the "big fix" that is promised by hydrogen or bio fuels or abiotic oil

I absolutely agree with all you say .......... I am not wanting to keep on with the "oil economy" ........ I would think that I probably consume less oil than most people here ......... no matter whether there is abiotic oil or not I will continue to do so ........ we DO need to stop using oil

in fact probably I will try even harder not to consume oil if I arrive at the conclusion we are just being conned about peak oil to make oil cos more money :evil:

I just like to know the truth 8)

one other bit I feel is urgent jex said
but more importantly, the rest of the world allowing it to happen. There is more than enough diplomatic, economic and military might in the rest of the world to prevent the US from making any further overt grabs for oil resources beyond what they've attempted already

I dont believe anyone can or will stop the US ......... and I am going to go out on a limb and say I think an invasion of Iran is imminent .........

yesterday we found out that starting the 6th aug there will be 2 weeks of air to ground bombing here - only US carriers do ATG here the aussie RAAF has its own range near Pearce

this is a sudden development at the long range calender put out by the military at the beginning of july did not show it

and at the meeting they were asked if there were any carrier due and said no - not that they wouldnt lie

but it seems to me like a decison made quickly and the time is about right for dispatching a carrier from Bremerton bound for the the ME

the US always has a dress rehearsal training on such missions and this seems like it ......... it happened prior to the Iraq war the abe lincoln came here suddenly in much the same way

we will see :P maybe I am paranoid but that doesnt mean they arent out to get me :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

more reply later if they dont get me :lol: :lol: :lol:

I need to go and garden and look after goats

frosty

[markg]

Hi guys,

First time poster, medium time lurker. Have been enjoying the site with lots of good info on PC & a healthy range of views on most topics so thank you everybody. Being a PC newbie I'm still very much taking it all in but on this topic I feel as if I had to say something.

If you hang around the net long enough you can usually find somebody to support whatever view (logical or not) you have about most things. Most times I head for the experts in the field under review (using Google it's not hard to work out who is respected in their relevant field of knowledge). In the case of peak oil I read Heinberg, Campbell, energybulletin.net, theoildrum.com, lifeaftertheoilcrash.net etc - after checking peak oil out for 18 months or so I've got an idea who to trust. Most of the sites I go to are run by geologists, petroleum engineers etc - experts in their fields. There's a lot of noise about peak oil put out by journalists, commentators etc but unless they have a background in geology I'm usually a bit sceptical. Michael Ruppert is an interesting character but because many people see him as a conspiracy-theorist I wouldn't use him to prop up a PO argument. As for David McGowan I checked his site but couldn't find any oil/geology-related credentials there.

Anyway, regarding abiotic oil, my impression is that oil geologists either discount the theory altogether or accept it with the proviso that abiotic oil accounts for a tiny fraction of oil found & is not worth considering when looking at how to increase future reserves. Check out the following links for more info:
http://www.energybulletin.net/2423.html
http://lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/SecondPage.html
http://www.energybulletin.net/13349.html
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/11/4/15537/8056

I particularly like The Oil Drum because they have many intelligent oil geologists, engineers etc taking part in the discussions. If somebody makes a claim & can't back it up all hell breaks loose.

Personally I think PO is going to be a big deal and permaculture is definitely a way to make sense of the way forward. In fact if it wasn't for PO I wouldn't have done a PDC last year which opened my eyes to the whole sustainability issue, so thankyou PO & PC.

Cheers Mark

[frosty]

. I would like to show another perspective. Quote “Above all, cornucopias love to argue that even if many environmental problems exist, we will think up ways to solve them because we always have. “edit.” It is as if the turkey in Bertrand Russell's story knows that the axe has fallen with regularity on other turkeys, but somehow believes that the axe " problem" will be solved before his number is up."

About the turkey and the axe . We have watched country after country go under the axe yet we feel quite happy in our cornucopia that a terrible war or invasion will not happen here. We watch with distant horror at thousands of homeless and starving people yet we wont believe that it could happen here to us. We watch the governments lie to the public again and again but we happily allow ourselves to be convinced it was some unusual event and will not happen again and we seem to forget . Even though most of us have some knowledge of the distorted information we receive from governments, multinationals and media, we still to allow the mass media to manipulate our thinking.

I absoutely agree with this ! I am constantly amazed at how so many people have this attitude !

we are letting J Ho suck up to the USA and let them virtually do as they F^%&ing please in this country ! so many people trust the US wont harm us which is utter BS !

they are moving their military training operation to australia because too many americans die from the pollution and they lose votes ! and our govt has now signed an agreement meaning that US training operations do not even need environmental approval !!!!!! and they dont have to clean up .......

to clean up the mess they have already made in the USA will take over 100 years at the rate of spending 1.3 BILLION a year .......... so with rising cost it will never get finished

WHO is going to pay to clean up australia ?????? even if you acknowledge it will be us the taxpayers ( and you dont care ) the aussie govt just doesnt have the money to spare so large tracts of australia will stay inhabitable ........ BUT the other problems is that our groundwater ( already getting short ) will become undrinkable

and I am sure that if we have a change of govt and that new govt does not bow to the USA and do what they want they WILL use force here

especially now with the uranium issue

I am far more frightened of the USA govt than any other terrorist organisation ( an dont worry the label fits )or other country ...... and yes it is very hard not to be anti american ......... I do know many good american people but so many of the others seem to support having the huge kick ass military and using force to get what you want and plunder any other country and kill it's civilians to get it :cry: the only deaths that matter are americans <rolleyes>

there is already strong evidence the US was behind the dismissal of the Whitlam govt because they considered closing Pine gap

Thing are about to change with global warming ........ I agree most people wont cope ........

I am still not sure what to believe about the origin of oil but I will still be working towards using as least as possible

mark I am still reading your links - thanks

frosty

[Loris]

Heard an interesting interview on Radio National early this morning (very serious journalism from Fran Kelly) who was interviewing the head of the government task force on something maybe agriculture and the gist of the interview was that the task force had determined that we could no longer afford either economically or environmentally to farm in a conventional manner. Alternatives must be employed.

Anyone who unearths any more about this task force/ determination/ interview, lets know.

[Mungbeans]

Was this the interview?

http://abc.net.au/rn/breakfast/stories/2006/1704734.htm

[Mungbeans]

This is the final report he prepared:

http://www.eldis.org/static/DOC17528.htm

[Loris]

That was definitely the interview. Caught a bit of it and thought that some of these things get aired at 6.00am to stop me being able to think clearly about it. Will read report sometime when not desperate for sleep. Would love a summary from anyone keener than me. Thanks for that.