Occasionally, you just need to avoid saying Peak Oil. In some company, it’s tantamount to betrayal, in others, too much like a fart at the dinner table. Other people believe peak oil is the realm of cults and conspiracy theorists, and as such, if you want to discuss it without an auto-reflex of denial on the part of your communication partner, you have to use some other terms.
Finally, if you are writing brochures, websites or a book about the peak oil predicament, sometimes you want to use a few different phrases, instead of the same one in every single sentence. From the vaguely indirect to the technical to some black humor, here are ten euphemisms to let you talk around and about PO without actually mentioning the term, should you ever need to do so.
10. TEOTWAWKI
Use this one when you you are among peak oil friends and need a little dark humor. We all know what happens after production starts crashing. Not the end of the world – just the end of the world as we know it.
9. End of cheap-and-easy-to-extract oil
Too many times, when you say peak oil, people hear "the end of oil," and start having flashbacks to all the times they’ve heard THAT one before. No, no, you say – just the end of reasonably priced oil that we can easily access. That’s all I meant.
8. Oil dependency and depletion
Alliteration! I like this phrase because it includes the word "dependency." This euphemism is a good way to describe peak oil if you want to start by discussing how we eat, drink, shop and drive oil. After people understand how much they use it, sometimes the implications of the "depletion" half of the term become fairly obvious.
7. TSHTF
Another inside joke for peak oil followers. As in, "after Cantarell crashes and Mexico stops exporting oil, we’ll really see TSHTF" (the s^%t hit the fan).
6. Our energy challenge
Here’s the wonderfully vague approximation of peak oil that we have chosen to use in many of our Transition Town OKC marketing materials. Non-specific enough for you? Or does it sound too much like a game show?
5. Oil demand destruction
A way to sneak in some economics phraseology. "Demand destruction" means "you can’t afford it any more, so too bad if you wanted to go to work or buy cheap industrial food or heat your house with it."
4. Energy transition
Energy decline is probably more accurate, but let’s face it, declines are downers! We’ll have a transition instead. The only thing I don’t like about this one is that people may start believing that we are "transitioning" to a world of equal amounts of cheap and disposable energy – just produced by solar, wind, ethanol, biodiesel, etc. The transition I’m thinking of involves a lot more efficiency, curtailment, and complete systems redesign than just replacing our oil use with the so-called alternatives, which don’t have nearly the same energy density as oil.
3. Global peak and decline in oil production
OK, seriously, this one basically says "peak oil." Still, you manage to avoid putting the two key words together.
2. Foreign oil dependency
The ultimate for communicating with people who have conspiracy theories of their own. As in "Those damn furreners who want to keep our oil under their soil." Doesn’t get straight to the heart of the issue, but helps communicate with people in terms they can understand.
1. Elimination of spare petroleum production capacity
MMMMMM, deliciously technical. Another way to say, "we’re close to being oh-so screwed." I believe I found this one in Oil 101 – kudos to author Morgan Downey for pages of peak oil discussion without ever once mentioning the actual phrase peak oil.
Here’s a nice quote from Mr. Downey: "Even in the most extreme optimistic scenario, conventional oil production will cease to exist well before the end of the century – a fact even the most optimistic oil company agrees with."
Any way you say it, peak oil is a serious topic. No reason not to have a little fun with it now and then, though, is there?
