Meltdown

[paulb]

What? No CD or DVD players, that is, no music? 

Our stereo systems will be hooked up to a  bicycle style generator, the faster you pedal the louder you get your stereo
man could you try to pedal out a  entire Mahler sym, w/o falling asleep/dropping dead from exhaustion.

[Florestan]

Our stereo systems will be hooked up to a  bicycle style generator, the faster you pedal the louder you get your stereo
man could you try to pedal out a  entire Mahler sym, w/o falling asleep/dropping dead from exhaustion.

Just imagine playing some "Power Orchestral Music"... 

[Sean]

Hi Dm, last time I rummaged for this on Youtube there was about the first 20 mins variously available of this documentary. I went to see the whole thing at a tiny cinema a few months ago, in an right atmosphere of opprobrium, absolutely ridiculous but exactly what I'm saying about democracies not wanting to know about difficult issues, and making out that we shouldn't know, as a matter of moral majority and peer pressure. It's true.

The opening music is Glass's Facades from Glassworks by the way. There's many more good videos though including a six part one I forget the title of...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HRZPpbpSjg

[BachQ]

here's many more good videos though including a six part one I forget the title of...

Thanks, Sean.  Here's a five-part one that's a tad longwinded, but a good intro that's relatively recent (Nov 07).

Peak Oil (What the Fighting is All About)

part 1 http://www.youtube.com/v/0QFaUcUdLcM

part 2 http://www.youtube.com/v/rT7v9cfrVl4

part 3 http://www.youtube.com/v/JNYcFITUgHs

part 4 http://www.youtube.com/v/y0ykKlL9nns

part 5 http://www.youtube.com/v/Y3dnZcCNNNw

[BachQ]

Oil jumps 3 percent to new peak on UK gas terminal fire
Thu Feb 28, 2008 2:41pm EST
By Matthew Robinson

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil surged more than 3 percent to an all-time high on Thursday after news that a fire struck a major European natural gas terminal.  Record weakness in the U.S. dollar encouraged oil's gains, fueling a broad commodities rally. U.S. crude surged $3.10 to $102.74 a barrel by 2:07 p.m. EST, breaking the inflation-adjusted high of $102.53 reached in 1980. London Brent crude gained $2.83 to $101.10 a barrel.

[Sean]

I'll have a good look at those a bit later today- nice one; will check out the Peak Everything talk also, if I haven't seen it. The scary thing is that peak oil could be happening right now and we can't be sure exactly what it's going to mean in the immediate future, in what are surely our very precarious developed societies. I am sure though that posterity will think what a bunch of self-deceptive morons the democratic masses were thinking (as far as they really do) that the Middle East invasions were to do with 'terrorism' and such.

Good that you take an interest in this. This puts you ahead of everyone else on the forum, there can be no doubt about that...

[BachQ]

Sean, here is a link to a 7-part series; copied below is part 2/7 ..... "utterly serious" stuff.  This was uploaded 4 days ago, so perhaps you haven't seen it yet ......

2/7 http://www.youtube.com/v/7nqcavvB66g&feature=related

According to the Hirsch Report:

1. If government takes action 20 years in advance of peak oil = relatively smooth transition.

2. If government takes action 10 years in advance of peak oil = "significant economic dislocation and disruption"

3. If government waits until peak oil has already happened, then there will be "absolutely massive & catastrophic economic disruption and dislocation"

According to Matthew Simmons: on a scale of 1 to 10, "if global warming is placed as a 3 on a scale of 1 through 10, .... peak oil is a 12"

According to Dr Peter Lloyd: root problem = overpopulation (e.g., mankind is being forced to use increasingly marginal land to survive + deforestation + drought = dustbowl scenario).

[Sean]

Hi Dm, sure, I just had a look at those first five, most of which new to me, with some good info there.

What drives my cynicism here is this. I don't know how old you are but my first decade was the 1970s and the world was so very different, and very beautiful and real in a way it certainly isn't today. I very much feel that people are not even alive today in an important sense, something I could discuss at length.

But underlying this massive corruption of our social world, which I really do insist on, is this phenomenon of peak oil- and it makes so much sense, complementing exactly the adverse developments on the social level.

Lets have a look at the others.

[bwv 1080]

What drives my cynicism here is this. I don't know how old you are but my first decade was the 1970s and the world was so very different, and very beautiful and real in a way it certainly isn't today.

How so?

[Sean]

Hello bwv, well the digital technology revolution and the simulation of reality has something to do with it- instead of analogue being improved, it was scrapped altogether and synthesized sound put in its place as a fake and clever subsititute for real sound. And thus with the rest of society, even to the extent that the likes of Facebook and mobile phones feed on massive alienation between people while ludicrously claiming to connect people. The rise of postmodernism has been a great watershed in Western and the world's history. It's a phoney world...

[BachQ]

Sean, you've already seen these, but for others, here is a collection of introductory materials from Richard Heinberg.

Oil - The Party Is Over - Richard Heinberg

http://www.youtube.com/v/ux0EbSNMc_Y&feature=related

Richard Heinberg on current gas prices

http://www.youtube.com/v/VlH_-JzYGAo&feature=related


The Richard Heinberg Interview Parts 1 & 2

1/2 http://www.youtube.com/v/DHXdS9XYVs8

2/2 http://www.youtube.com/v/osbQ9UHMAvY&feature=related

[BachQ]

But underlying this massive corruption of our social world, which I really do insist on, is this phenomenon of peak oil- and it makes so much sense, complementing exactly the adverse developments on the social level.

Since capitalism depends on oil, query whether capitalism could survive beyond the oil crash?  Since democracy depends on capitalism, query whether democracy could survive post-oil crash?  What will government look like post-crash?

(Sean, you've been thinking about these issues for years, but I've only considered them for a total of 48 hours ........)

[Sean]

Dm, no not years really- I only came across peak oil a few months back. However I do remember people talking about the crucial importance of oil years ago and that did stay with me. I also remember being taught in geography at school in 1985 that an energy crisis was predicted for 2020: nothing meaningful has been done, nothing. Hence I really do think that democratic short sightedness and its pleasing of the simplistic immediate desires of the masses will be discredited in the post-oil world.

And you really do need to have a strong sense of critical detachment to even discuss something like peak oil- most people really hate it. It strikes at their personal model of the world and personal identity, and at the wasteful short term nature of their societies- the extent to which they want to bury this colossal problem is a discussion in itself.

When you have an issue that underlies everything else it's at that point that good decisions need to be made: the boss of a company doesn't ask the workforce about everything decided on, but if the results are good and right the workers will always at least privately acknowledge it. It's prime-mover decisions that are beyond most people and which they don't want to be asked about.

[Sean]

The series on Youtube called The End of oil, I think it was, has some good stuff in it.

[BachQ]

The series on Youtube called The End of oil, I think it was, has some good stuff in it.

Yeah, there's a 6-part series called END OF OIL ...... that's pretty good.

[BachQ]

2 short vids:


The Middle East, & The Impending Oil Crisis

http://www.youtube.com/v/4nyMZ2jIcmQ



The inevitable collapse of the dollar

http://www.youtube.com/v/4n3g5lUgkWk&feature=related

[Sean]

Thanks Dm.

[BachQ]

Oil, Smoke & Mirrors (1/5)

http://www.youtube.com/v/fwMrbHGYlUs

Our conception of limitless oil is an illusion ...... a "consensus trance"



Oil, Smoke & Mirrors (2/5)

http://www.youtube.com/v/Ar8KtGNw040&feature=related

Decline in investor confidence --> contracting economy --> "2d Great Depression"

"Mainstream media have done an abyssmal job of reporting on 9/11 & peak oil"



Oil, Smoke & Mirrors (3/5)

http://www.youtube.com/v/Ph4MUfz0390&feature=related



Oil, Smoke & Mirrors (4/5)

http://www.youtube.com/v/TBYqAigrE6E&feature=related



Oil, Smoke & Mirrors (5/5)

http://www.youtube.com/v/pfBZtG7opyQ&feature=related

[bwv 1080]

Since capitalism depends on oil, query whether capitalism could survive beyond the oil crash?  Since democracy depends on capitalism, query whether democracy could survive post-oil crash?  What will government look like post-crash?

(Sean, you've been thinking about these issues for years, but I've only considered them for a total of 48 hours ........)

Capitalism does not depend on oil - it worked OK before it was widely used.  However our standard of living does depend (now) on oil, however a huge amount of investment and research is being done on alternatives and replacements.  Oil is not going away anytime soon, so you do not have to worry about seeing Sean in ten years dressed like this:



The problem with doom-mongers is that they cannot see what is right in front of them - that billions of people will go on trying to find a way to feed themselves and their families and that the odds are so overwhelming as to be certain that solutions will be found. None of these peak oil guys, Simmons included, adequately addresses the largely untapped reserves of sour crude in Canada tar sands and elsewhere.  Not than energy is not a serious problem, but economies will adjust to changes in supply. 

Also, I would give you a tip that the minute anyone starts talking about the 'certainty' that the dollar will become worthless it is a cue that you have crossed the border of crankdom. 

[Sean]

bwv, oil isn't going to run out anytime soon but demand for it will outstrip supply anytime soon. And what that means is a little unclear to most thinkers: when people become aware that a problem is serious rather than a blip, stock markets tend to react sharply not in terms of a gentle curve, and trillions will disappear from stocks because all the big companies depend on petroleum.

Also Canadian/ Colorado(?) oil sands produce about two barrels of oil for one barrel expended, in a long complex process. Oil fields by contrast can produce 100 barrels for one expended. It does look bad.