and they're not even on the table to discuss.

Like refurbishing and expanding a national rail system (9 times more efficient than a semi-truck).

Passenger rail, mass transit, bicycle lanes, sidewalks.

An end to further highway expansion.

Allow the airlines to die or raise prices to the point where they are profitable without subsidies.

Dismantling of the military industrial complex. Why do we need to spend more on our army than all the rest of the world's countries combined (and why does our army burn more fuel than most nations)?

We need to do some monopoly busting (especially big-ag), get rid of patent protection for seeds and forms of livestock, provide incentives for relocalization of food production closer to the point of consumption.

Invest in every form of feasible alternative energy technology possible.

Etc.

This has nothing to do with the left or the right. I don't consider myself "from the left".

I did inhale.

But the language of "apocolypse" and "long emergencies" get us nowhere. First of all because its largely false.

I don't doubt global warming but we don't need to conjure up sci-fi scenarios of Manhattan under three-feet of water. Millions are already being poisoned by dirty air.

And millions around the globe live with "food insecurity" and have for years despite an abundance of food. Only now some notice and imagine that we've crossed some population rubicon. Baloney.

Sure oil's getting more expensive but most people are just adjusting to it. And if Glenn Beck wants to get them pissed at Oil Companies. Good on him. Terrible shooter, right target.

All the technology and planning fixes are good and necessary but they're secondary to taking the political system away from the global elite.

Allow me to suggest one more: End the tax deduction for business travel. There are people who routinely fly across the country for 3-hour meetings and back the same day. This is a travesty in the age of videoconferencing. My impression is that it would significantly decrease air traffic. It would make flying more expensive for everybody if those business-class travellers started paying their own way.

Rojo's right, though, when he says, "Spend all day reading doomsday stories on the internet and you're left feeling powerless."

is systemic change, much like Don has outlined in his comment above. Individuals can only do so much. There needs to be action at higher levels, involving large organizations and communities. The federal government needs to get onboard. Some corporations are already moving in the right direction, though I fear many of them are just engaging in "greenwashing."

Changing a light bulb won't do much. Changing 200 million light bulbs will do a little bit. Changing the electrical grid that powers those light bulbs will do lots. That's the scale-up that we need. We're still at that first line--changing individual bulbs.

We could all reduce our energy consumption by 10%. That means the producers shut down the most expensive energy production -- and that ain't coal folks.

So, coal companies will keep blowing the tops off the Appalachians, poisoning people and destroying the environment to power our new light bulbs.

Individual action without collective, political action is spitting in the ocean and only serves to reinforce the market-as-democracy model.

Otherwise people will fight like hell to maintain the status quo. If people didn't have to worry about becoming hungry and homeless and loosing access to health care if they lose their jobs they would be much less resistant to economic change. There would be much less pressure on politicians to bail out wasteful industries.

But the frightening thing is that I know a large number of people who would fight to keep a social safety net from being put in place. Not because they're rich (though they do tend to benefit from the status quo), but because they've been trained to think of it as something that hurts people--welfare, socialism, etc. are curse words to these people.

Of course, if you frame it in a different way--helping your fellow man/woman through hard times--they tend to be a little more compassionate. I have serious worries about American culture being willing to create a good social safety net. It's not impossible, but the intellectual groundwork just doesn't exist in the public domain. Or, more accurately, it's been destroyed piece by piece over the last few decades.

religious fantasy with scientific prediction doesn't help anything, either.

Some of us don't have a pearly afterlife to look forward to - so we'll have to look after things here.

I have to agree with Rojo. Don, your expectations for what people can (and yes are willing to) do is a little out of whack. If you are like me, and I suspect many folks are, you see climate change and peak oil as multi-generational problems that are going to take long term solutions to solve. You do the things you can do today to help alleviate the problem and push to build for better solutions tomorrow. I replaced a good amount of our most used night lights with either LEDs (for nightlights) or CFLs for general use. We also had the funds and the good fortune to install some solar panels on our house (still questionable to me as to whether these truly help or hurt long term.) We also tend to carpool all over the place (have kids/minivan), composte our organic food waste, recycle, and maintain a basic garden.

Small drops in a large bucket, but what else can you really do? Not buying an electric car at $50-100k, there is no light rail or public transit out here (other than bus), and other energy saving tactics are too harsh on the lifestyle. Move to a 900 sq ft apt with 3 rooms? With two young boys and a baby? Until you have to, such an idea is nuts. Maybe in 10-20 years it won't be, but today it is.

In my view, things are going to get more and more painful. But I believe this process on the whole will be slow and gradual, with obvious spikes here and there - much like watching the stock market day to day vs longterm. As things progress and become more painful though, more and more attention will be paid and more action will be taken.

As others have commented, what are you going to do? Call your boss and say you have telecommute so as to halt global warming and preserve our dwindling oil deposits? Suicide at most any job I'm aware of. Maybe someday telecommuting will be viable and accepted, but not today. So people do what they can easily (pick the easy fruit) and save the harder picking for later, if neccessary. This to me would seem to be the product of natural human behavior and practical reasoning.

I don't see how berating people without the power to change all of society on a dime does any real good at all...

Unfortunately, we have waited very late in the game to alter our way of life and the subject still rarely makes mainstream discussions. How many times have you seen it discussed in the presidential debates?

I don't sit around reading doom sites all the time, but I do read the headlines on a daily basis to follow events as they unfold.

As I have said before, if climate change is 2 of 10 on a scale of the way it'll affect us in the short term, then peak oil is 10 of 10.

Regardless of what neocons say, securing oil was a major factor in Cheney's decision to raid and occupy Iraq.

Cheap oil fuels our economy. Continual growth is required to make the system work. Growth cannot continue absent plentiful and inexpensive fossil fuel.

If in fact we have reached Peak Oil (or even if not, but world demand exceeds our ability to increase production) this is a mega event that will affect world economies like nothing we've seen in our lifetimes.

You'll likely see $4.00/gallon gas within a month, and if oil goes to $200/barrel you'l see at least $6 gasoline by the end of the year.

High fuel costs raise the price of everything else.

The next blow in our cascading economic woes will likely be massive credit card default, a good portion of which will be directly attributible to the cost of fuel and other commodities.

I wouldn't be surprised to see regional shortages of gasoline and diesel in the very near future. No gas at any price.

This ain't doom folks, this is reality.

Oil May Hit $200 as Refiners Buy Costlier Crude, Verleger Says

Bloomberg (not a peak oil site):

By Robert Tuttle

April 25 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil may rise to $200 a barrel by the end of the year as refiners increase purchases of low- sulfur oil to make diesel fuel, economist Philip Verleger said.

Ultra-low-sulfur diesel powers most U.S. trucks and diesel- burning cars. To make the fuel, refiners are buying more-costly low-sulfur oils such as the West Texas Intermediate crude traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange, said Verleger, president of PKVerleger LLC, in an interview.

``It's conceivable'' oil could rise to $200 a barrel by the end of the year, he said. If economic ``growth resumes, we are short diesel and no way we are going to fill the gap.''

Lower-sulfur crude is easier to refine into ultra-low-sulfur diesel than heavier, higher-sulfur oils, said Verleger, who, in 2005, predicted oil would rise to $100 a barrel. The diesel was introduced to the U.S. in 2006 to cut air pollution.

Converting higher-sulfur crude into diesel requires hydrogen, which is in short supply, Verleger said. The element is a byproduct from making gasoline. Refiners are making less of the motor fuel than in the past because of increased ethanol use, and therefore less hydrogen, Verleger said.

The 2007 Renewable Fuels Standard, signed last December, mandates that the U.S. use 9 billion gallons of renewable fuels, such as ethanol this year and 36 billion gallons by 2022. U.S. gasoline production in November was 1.4 percent lower than two years earlier, Energy Department data show.

Ethanol Requirement

An option ``would be for Congress to waive the ethanol requirement,'' Verleger said. ``There are a lot of reasons to do this.''

Oil has also risen because investment funds are buying commodities, Verleger said. ``These index funds are playing an important role in lifting prices across the board.''

The returns on the index funds are ``negatively correlated'' to stocks and bonds, Verleger said.

``That finding causes the leading pension funds to put more money into these commodity funds because it has the effect of diversifying portfolios,'' he said. ``This is an ongoing processes that probably has another five years to go.''

Crude oil for June delivery rose $2.93, or 2.5 percent, to $118.99 a barrel at 11:01 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices are up 81 percent from a year ago.

West Texas Sour, a crude oil that is higher in sulfur, was trading at $112.38 a barrel at 9.03 a.m., according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

I did inhale.

Most of us are like that, until we won't be; don't worry, the world will do the necessary changes for us, and for our bosses too. If we don't adjust when those changes happen, we're going to get seriously creamed, and plenty of people have been or are being creamed right now by circumstances beyond their control. It doesn't take much of an imagination to forecast that circumstances for these unfortunates will become much worse, and that many who think it can't happen to them will find themselves among those who suffer in silence, and in unwarranted shame, for stumbling economically in the mythical land of self-made "winners."

I used to think the same way about national politics--what, me go door to door? Three states away?--but I realized that it was my absence from the process that was enabling what has been going on now for far too long.

A couple of points haven't been brought up, and one of them is nuclear power. If something goes wrong with a reactor, it's obviously very bad, for centuries. But France has a system of cookie-cutter type reactors all around the country that produce reliable, inexpensive electrical power. They're built in exactly the same way (unlike here), and as such the bugs have been combed from the system. I was very young when Love Canal and Three Mile Island occurred, but I suspect that the experience has made many boomers, especially people who are lefties like me, irrational about the prospect of having a new reactor in their neighborhood. But reactors from the sixties keep chugging away, two by my count, and less than 70 miles from me. When driving to work becomes more expensive than quitting your job, it seems like it may be a time for affordable electric cars and some new reactors.

The other thing that Don seems to be hinting at is a state of social unrest. He's coming from, as he describes it (Don correct me if I'm wrong) a right-of-center perspective, and me from the left, but I think we could probably agree that with major economic dislocations come major social and political repercussions. Look for a crime wave, homelessness, bread lines. I think we're in for a dark and chaotic time. Oil prices are making it so that people can't afford anything other than oil, and when they lose their jobs, not even that.

I was skeptical about peak oil, climate change, etc. etc., but recent events are scaring the hell out of me. For the first time in my life, this city slicker planted a garden and joined a community-supported agriculture (CSA) association. Neither will feed my family if the shit really hits the fan, but every little bit helps, and we've got to change. We've got to.

about claiming that nuclear power is relatively safe. I'm not intimately familiar with how France operates its plants, but I have at least some knowledge about US operations--and its frightening to see how many close calls and how much down time there actually is among the reactors we run.

I would recommend reading "Walking the Nuclear Tightrope". There should be a link to the report under the "related links" box with a butterfly in the corner.

Scariest recent nuclear problem: Davis Bessie in 2002. They estimated that they were a matter of hours away from a reactor breach--and the problem was only caught because they extended the inspection deadline.

All that being said, if we could operate safe nuclear plants then nuclear power would be a great idea. Zero carbon from operations, very little waste, etc.

My roots are conservative. If a neocon is a liberal that got mugged by reality (I'd disagree) I am a conservative that woke up to the needs of the disadvantaged that aren't being met by the so-called benevolent right wing church going "Christians" I grew up with. Not just here, but worldwide.

I think nuclear probably needs to happen but I don't know enough about it to offer an informed opinion.

Most of the immediate changes we can make come on the conservation side of the equation. As you suggest, we will make the changes because we will have to.

I know this would be unpopular but I think we should install an additional $1/gallon gasoline tax, perhaps with a rebate for the poor, the proceeds of which must be applied in entirety to research and development of alternative energy sources, efficient technologies for better use of current fuels and development of public transit systems.

I did inhale.

The conservation makes sense and we should do it, but China and India are taking on the consumption habits of first-word nations, so even if we scrimp, it won't necessarily change commodities prices. I get the feeling that there really is no good solution to this, just a series of bad choices leading to qualitiatively different, but grim outcomes. Maybe after Iowans figure out that you can't plough and harvest enough corn to run the machinery necessary to grow it, they'll lose their death grip on American presidential politics and will start ploughing fields like the Amish.

Making a Killing from Hunger: We Need to Overturn Food Policy, Now!

Read and weep. It's not just a lack of resources but pure rotten corporate greed that is starving people.

I did inhale.

1) had a warning from my parking lot security at work that there have been attempts/thefts of catalytic converters from cars for the precious metals (sounds like Toyota 4Runners are especially popular, that is, easy marks)--plenty of other anecdotes online.
2) then there's the two-fer where foreclosed houses get broken into and the copper piping removed (and occasionally the nimrods don't turn off the gas and the house explodes)
2a) or this variation on a theme: Taking Theft To New Heights

This does seem to be a new level of desperation.