You have posted these web sites on almost all of the threads involving oil depletion. I have to thank you for that, it is something that shoudl be done, but I like to point out one big problem I have with some of your sites, namely Dieoff.org etc.
Dieoff.org is a very pessimistic site. Given what I know of oil depletion and what it costs to live without oil way to pessimistic. It took us 140 years to get to where we are in the depletion cycle and will take us another 140 years to pump out the remaining oil (Check your sites, many of them will give you those numbers especially asponews.org). My problem is the pessimistic sites have two problems with them. The problems are a follows:
1. First people do NOT want to hear bad news, they want to hear good news even if it is bad. If you ever saw Disney’s Old Yeller, Old Yeller gets shot in the end (Disney followed the book in that regard) but Disney added the pup at the end of the story, he knew an upbeat ending would help sell the film because people went to movies to be happy NOT sad. People will listen to stories with happy endings much more than stories with sad endings.
Thus the problem with dieoff.org etc, they are so pessimistic you will turn off the people we need so that the Government will start to listen and act upon oil depletion. If you say (as dieoff.org does) we are all going to die, these people will turn away from the messenger and we will continue down the path we have be on for 140 years.
2, My second point is dieoff.org is just plan wrong about the extent of the reduction in human population. While I see a drop in population, I do not see a drastic drop from 6 Billion to 500 million dieoff.org is touting. Even in 1859 the world population was over 1 billion (a number dieoff.org cites) thus the drop to a half billion is unlikely. To get such a die off dieoff.org basically assumes oil will disappear quickly and people will not be able to adjust and just die of starvation. That will not happen, people will convert to eating more Vegetable food and less meat (do to the increase in the cost of meat do to the increase in the cost of grains being feed to both people and animals). People will put more land into production for their own use (the Victory Gardens of WWII and of the 1970s if you remember them). Energy will be conserved by changing society to reflect the higher costs of energy (Another factor Dieoff.org tends to ignore, almost assumes that the author prefers to die than live anywhere else but suburbia).
As I have point out in other threads (see below) people will adjust, bicycle will replace cars, given that bikes not cars will be the main means of movement, people will move closer together concentrating people and lessening the need for energy. People will also move back to rural areas do to demand for workers to replace oil. Smaller (and more efficient from a work input view) farms will return and those will need people to farm them (This will be help by increase food prices to reflect the loss of oil to run farm machinery, the loss of nitrate fertilizer do to the loss of natural gas, the base for most fertilizer, and the increase in demand for alcohol as a substitute for oil).
Thus while suburbia will die off, Inner Cities and Farmers will boom (Through not enough to cover the loss of suburbia).
My point here is these pessimistic sites should be segregated from the rest of the sites with their hard information (i.e ASPO) not mixed in with them. The pessimistic sites will just turn people off this subject WHICH HAS TO BE ADDRESSED. Keep the more fact base websites seperate from the dieoff sites. The fact based sites at least will not turn people off by making them afraid to face this problem. The fact based websites (ASPO etc) will tend to force people to face the problem and in a way that does not turn people off.
For my piece on incentive traps and oil (it is in the middle of the thread):
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=3110 On the history of Suburbia and its upcoming decline (it is the middle of the thread):
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=1539#1568.
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