CERA Vs. The Oil Drum, ASPO, et. al. - very interesting debate thread

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http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/8/12/114231/281#comments

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1. Interesting comments for sure

I like this comment from Don in Co.

Any research into Yergin's recent background will show he's now heavily affiliated with Carlyle, Goldman Sachs, Council on Foreign Relations, etc.

This is the military-industrial-media complex, and everything they do is based on "perception management." If they are successful, they make trillons of dollars and control the world's pipelines.

I hope everyone has time to read why CERA should not be taken seriously..

[Dogmudgeon]

2. And then there's this ...

Matt Simmons is also a Friend Of Bush, even if he's a critic of the administration now.

Matt Simmons is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Care to comment on what that means, Don? (Don was the previous poster -- p!)

Okay, let's back up a little.

First and foremost, personal political allegiances are bullshit, and if we really think this is one of those "our tribe vs their tribe" things, we're deluding ourselves. Both tribes are dependent on cheap energy. Oil. And without that cheap energy, desolation and ruin await.

Screw Yergin's affiliations -- screw the affiliations of all of us, for that matter. Where are they getting these numbers, and how do we know we can trust them? ANY of them?

Almost all energy sources are privately held, and their owners are under NO compulsion to report honestly. Richard Heinberg highlighted this in The Party's Over and Powerdown. That's why Shell and Aramco -- most of the oil industry, in fact -- has dramatically inflated oil reserves estimates over the past decade. Even Hugo Chavez has gently massaged his heavy-crude industry's estimates just a tad. We could be far past Peak Oil, though production has seems to be at its peak now, around 86 Mbbl/day; we may never even reach 90 Mbbl/day, let alone the 120 we'll need by 2010 (so sez the EIA).

If that's the case, then they'd better come up with the One True Solution to efficiently cracking rock-bound petroleum out of its stony matrix, and do it tout de suite, or we won't have nearly enough time left to build windmills, nukes, and to snark ourselves red in the face over which we'll use (we guilty parties know who we are), because the crisis will be upon us too quickly.

Yergin, at least five years ago, seemed to be honest, even if he was wildly over-optimistic. But I don't put too much stock in guilt-by-association (except among politicians and businessmen). However, this isn't a problem for which we'll get a "do-over", and we've shrugged off every decent opportunity we've had since M. King Hubbert's famous paper hit the academic press in 1955. Fifty one years ago.

Sometimes I wonder what life will be like in 2057. I'll turn 99 years old that spring -- maybe.

--p!

[NNadir]

3. I think your post well describes the rise of the use of logical fallacies.

It is remarkable in our times that everybody assumes that anyone who disagrees with them is being bribed.

My wife and I, who are raising two children, were remarking on how difficult it is these days to embrace honesty as a cultural norm. One sees this even in elementary school education now - an inclination to cheat, to distort, to spin. It's incredible. This, more than any material transaction, is the real cost of corruption - everyone assumes that all facts are colored by self interest or simply that people are lying to steal. This makes it confusing to separate facts from spin.

I'm just a little bit older than you are, but I remember a time when dishonesty was almost unforgivable, when people faced the truth because it was the truth and nothing else.

(As we were born in the same decade, let me offer as an aside that I would be surprised if I ended up living very much longer - I am increasingly devoid of optimism, but should you, unlike me, get to the 2050's, I'm not sure you'll like what you see..)

Now, since any statement is predicated by a list of affiliations and an assumption of dishonesty, the truth, though it still exists, is concealed.

These issues will probably from a historical perspective - should history continue to exist - represent the greatest tragedy among many tragedies of the Bush Reign of Error and Ersatz Terror.

Good post.