To:

Zcom_simple
Home » Z Blogs » Noam Chomsky's Blog » Peak Oil Theory

Hello,

Blogs are a familiar feature on the internet - where users post content in an accumulating manner, with comments, and search options, etc. They facilitate expression and exploration, and via attached comments, also debate and synthesis.


Reading and
Navigating Blogs

Our blogs are quite powerful. Each writer can post, as is typically the case. Sustainers who have the option can also post, however. All Blogs appear in the blog system, and sometimes also in content boxes the top page of ZNet - and always via the left menu of the top page - and can be found via searches, etc.

Commenting on blogs follows the blogs, attached at the bottom, and blog comments, like all others, are also visible in many places that show comments including in the forum system. In addition, the entire blog system gathers content for everyone - but one can look at the accumulating content in many ways.

  • For example one can look at one writer's efforts - so one is seeing what is effectively a blog system for that one writer, or Sustainer.
  • One can also look at the content by topic, seeing blogs that are tagged as being about a certain topic - or place, as well. Thus, when doing that, it is a blog system about a topic, or a place, with many contributors.
  • One can look at only writer blogs, or only sustainer blogs, as well.
  • One can look at blogs for particular Groups, too.

All this is easily done using the left menu. Searches allow even more variables and refinements.


Creating Blog Posts

If you are a Sustainer with permission, and are logged in, you will see a link in the left menu for you to post a blog - and you can use that to post one, and then tag it various ways (such as with a topic or place, or a group tag), and once you do, it is in the system with you as the author.

You can also use the console button to the left to post a blog - anytime and from anywhere in the site, as long as you are logged in.

Meanwhile, enjoy the blogs - and, by the way, if you are a Free Member or a Sustainer with a ZSpace page, of course you can put one or more content boxes on it, pulling blog links of any sort you may want to filter for, for example, by you or by your friends or by others - and by topic, about places, for groups, etc.

Blogs

9

Noam Chomsky's Blog

Web Address: http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/noamchomsky
Bio: (More)

All Chomsky Blogs

Recent Chomsky Content

Znetarticle_icon ZNet Articles
Zmagarticle_icon ZMag Articles
Zcommentary_icon ZCommentaries
Zaudio_icon ZAudios
Zvideo_icon ZVideos
Zblogpost_icon Blog Posts
Zbook_icon Books
Zvideo_icon ZStores

Peak Oil Theory

By Noam Chomsky at Jul 10, 2004

PDF Version

Printer Friendly Version
Change Text Size a- | A+
The basic theory is incontrovertible. The only questions have to do with timing and cost. ... The date can be pushed back much farther if more costly (or maybe some to-be-discovered improved) technology is used. As for the estimates of cost, by reasonable standards one could argue that oil is far under-priced. In real terms, it's not particularly high now as compared with other commodities, from some reasonable base line. And low-priced oil leads to heavier use and less effort to create sustainable alternatives. That I think is a far more serious problem than production peaking. In fact, one could argue that the earlier production peaks, the better off the human species (and a lot more) is, because of the effects of unconstrained use of hydrocarbons on the environment. Talk about "shrinking our economies" is pretty meaningless. Our economies would shrink substantially if we got rid of huge expenditures for the military, for incarceration, and other highly destructive activities. Sustainable economies might lead to highly improved quality of life.

Comment On This Blog Post  See All Comments (7)

Person

Re: Peak Oil Theory

By Argonaut84, Godcopbadcop at Sep 20, 2004 09:50 AM
I hope Bush gets out of office so we can throw some money into this shit: http://www.fuelcelltoday.com/index/0,1571,,00.html http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/sb-MSD-multibandsolar-panels.html

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Peak Oil Theory

By Sterlingsilver79, Sterlingsilver79 at Sep 13, 2004 08:44 AM
I'm rather surprised that Zmag and the other alternative outlets aren't covering this issue. This is nothing short of irresponsible considering its immense implications. Global warming more often comes to mind despite the fact that peak oil is more pressing and serious. this literally means permanent global depression...there is no "plan b". there is nothing that we can do in time to avert a serious crisis. Zmag has a number of watch areas, but energy (depletion of natural gas is an issue as well) isn't one of them. Considering nothing is possible without hydrocarbons, they should grace the pages of zmag from time to time. I hope to maybe help wake up the left to this issue, and help people realize that "business as usual" just aint gonna cut it pretty soon. I'm with you t-dawg, we need to practice sustainable living...

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Peak Oil Theory

By Nicholsj100, Nichols at Sep 06, 2004 18:00 PM
What can continue to grow is a concentrated, corporate-owned global economy that will more clearly reveal the nature of capitalism itself, even to many capitalists. As it becomes generally recognized and accepted, one response to the peak of this key natural resource on a global scale (with immediate, broad and deep economic consequences –not in the future, near or otherwise) will be a rapid public shift from the rhetoric of “free trade” to one of national survival.

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Peak Oil Theory

By Nicholsj100, Nichols at Sep 06, 2004 17:59 PM
Without giving Simmons too much credit for his insights, I think his remark is very meaningful and has many implications. The importance of his statement is in sounding the high note of alarm for capitalist ears, for what is a capitalist economy if it cannot grow? One might also argue that capitalism and military expenditures and prisons also necessarily go together (if we are realistic and not purely theoretical). To me, it looks like contradictions coming from several directions. One is that an “economic system” that is fundamentally aggressive (compete, grow, etc.) in nature can abandon tools it depends on (armaments, police, prisons - coercion, appropriation, exploitation) without becoming something else. Another is the suggestion that this process -predicated on growth- can ever choose to shrink itself.

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Peak Oil Theory

By Nicholsj100, Nichols at Sep 06, 2004 17:58 PM
Looking at the global environmental advantages of forced reductions in carbon fuel usage is fine, as far as it goes, but these considerations are absurd in societies or communities wherein the daily catch or the harvest are in the balance, and where at the same time government is in the habit of managing a trade balance that caters to its elite. The threat to cut off the flow of affordable fuel to rural economies should lead to an immediate rethinking of what it means to be caught-up in the a globally interdependent economy, one in which local networks will be the first to be marginalized. Simmons' remark about “shrinking our economies” should be understood in its context. It was what he offered as the only realistic means to deal with the impact of peak oil until alternative energy sources and technologies would be developed to compensate for the decline of oil as a source of energy (if something comparable could be developed).

Reply this comment

Person

By Nicholsj100, Nichols at Sep 06, 2004 17:55 PM
First, I don't think only timing and cost are the only questions. I also want to consider how price impacts upon underdeveloped, developing and developed countries and economies (all in quotes) differently, and what are the realistic alternatives, the immediate consequences, and the long-term possibilities/probabilities/visions/ consequences (both good and bad) for coping with what will be a rationing of energy according to market imperatives. Peak oil will radically alter many, many forward-looking assumptions. Increased competition, for instance, (when the shit really hits the fan) will probably lead to many “Third World” countries being immediately priced out of their relatively modest requirements, but which usage has become an indispensable aspect of basic trade, services, transport, even agriculture (irrigation pump operation, mechanized paddy cultivation, farm-to-market transport, delivery of fish from coast to inland communities, etc., etc.)

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Peak Oil Theory

By Sterlingsilver79, Sterlingsilver79 at Aug 14, 2004 21:39 PM
A group of independent geologists believe that the worldwide peak in global oil extraction will occur withing the next seven or eight years, with some claiming that it already has. Matthew Simmons an advisor for Bush's infamous energy task force has been saying that Saudi Arabia's giant oil fields have reached peak extraction rates, and because of modern pumping methods (injecting gas and water to keep the reservoir pressure high) they are due for a steep decline soon (as was witnessed with Syria's oil fields when subjected to the same methods of extraction). When Saudi Arabia starts to taper off, the world will follow, despite growing demand for oil. As far as conventional oil is concerned, discovery peaked in 1964 and has been steadily declining since then. Of course, the vastly improved agricultural yields of the twentieth century can be attributed to the availability of cheap oil. One use for oil has been in the production of fertilizers (ammonium nitrates) which has led to the prodigious growth of the human population. Clearly, this population would be unsustainable without modern agriculture which is enabled by cheap oil, which is soon to be a distant memory. Unfortunately, sustainable sources of energy don't provide us with nearly close to the amount of energy needed to run industrial society. Industrial society is based upon fossil fuels and has developed a massive infrastructure that would need to be replaced in their absence. I'm afraid we are in for a prolonged depression once oil peaks, especially since no viable alternatives to oil (remember its essential properties: portability, high concentration of energy, etc.) currently exist. This will most probably lead to high unemployment, inflation, and food shortages, to name just a few of the likely consequences. We as a society are totally unprepared for the eventual decline, but perhaps in the long term it could have some beneficial outcomes (survival of the species by the transition into a sustainable lifestyle being one of them).

Reply this comment

Loading_border