Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Daniel Yergin is at it again — telling policymakers not to worry their pretty little heads about peak oil because technology will give us plenty more cheap crude. Predictably, the peak oil community responded with a raft of yard-long blog posts filled with charts, graphs and statistics. But this won’t beat Yergin at his own game, reaching the people who matter. For that, we should take a page from Yergin’s own interview with Steven Colbert.
Bill McKibben’s latest book is a well-chosen and arranged collection of climate-related writings by the likes of James Hansen, Al Gore and George Monbiot, which McKibben edits and introduces. Significantly, the book contains writings by Inhofe and his ilk as well, the better to understand “the lines of attack climate deniers have used over and over,” in McKibben’s words,
Upon reading Yergin’s latest missive to the world’s policy elite, I found myself utterly bored. Could this man ever say something that would upset anyone other than a small group of activists who are extremely worried about oil supplies peaking before the end of this decade? I doubt it. He is paid to soothe, and these days so soothing is his writing that it should be placed next to the Sominex on the drugstore shelf.
No matter how well-reasoned one’s arguments are, as a tactical matter, a head-to-head confrontation in the media with Yergin will be a draw at best, but more likely a loss since reason is not what moves crowds. I agree that the fact that Yergin must now address peak oil explicitly and at length shows that he is actually on the defensive. Before, say, 2005 he wouldn’t have bothered even to mention it. This shows some progress, but not among those who matter most.
– Robet C. McFarlane and R. James Woolsey: How to Weaken the Power of Foreign Oil
– NYT: New Fields May Propel Americas to Top of Oil Companies’ Lists (J Brown rebuttal)
– An Oil-Rich Cuba?
– Whose Subsidies Trump Whose?
– Chevron loses latest stage of Amazon pollution battle
– The coming German energy turnaround
– Peak oil per capita
– Kunstler: The US is well and truly fracked
– Wall Street Journal embraces peak oil denialism
– America’s New Production and the Farce of Peak Oil
– The great energy debate
– Daniel Yergin on The Colbert Report
– Yergin in 2005: “It’s Not the End Of the Oil Age”
– Yergin and Hubbert on the same side US Govt video 1979
– Book reviews from American Prospect, LA Times, CS Monitor, Scientific American, MIT Technology Review
The most recent analysis by Daniel Yergin, champion of the "optomists," is dismantled in an interview with Jean Laherrère. veteran expert of the French oil company, Total, and co-founder of Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO). [Excerpts, in French]
In his glib dismissal of “peak oil” theory advocates, Yergin glosses or ignores a number of issues fundamental to the larger picture, for whatever reason, and these oversights should be considered in any evaluation of the piece and the peak oil “specter.” … Is the world then running out of oil then? No, but the increase in future global oil production will likely be modestly incremental and production could be thrown off course by any number of possible events, from an Israeli attack on Iran to (another, but successful this time) al Qaida attack on Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq oil refinery.
2. To make your voice heard in Washington about this issue – because we don’t have much time to begin to act, and every person here who says ‘I care deeply about this’ helps reinforce our message of the centrality of this issue.
3, To hear Wes Jackson talk about what we’re going to eat in the coming decades.
4. To get the latest in the emerging story on Shale Gas reality.
5. Because where else can you hear Nicole Foss and Jeff Rubin arguing deflation vs. inflation in the hallways?
6. Because our future depends on getting the word out and we need your help.
7. Because if you want to do with your retirement funds in this economy there are more experts here per square foot than anywhere else.
Last year a draft of a German army study, which went into great detail in analyzing the consequences of peaking world oil production, was leaked to the press. The German study which was released recently is unique for the frankness with which it explores the dire consequences which may be in store for us.
A weekly update of peak oil news, including:
– Developments this week
– EIA’s International Energy Outlook 2011
In his article in the Wall Street Journal, Daniel Yergin contradicted his own “There Will Be Oil” mantra by stating that discovery of new fields will be lower in future. With detailed knowledge of the world’s oil production one can actually show that part of Yergin’s discussion supports the fact that we are living in the era of Peak Oil. … The false image of the future that Daniel Yergin described can be compared to trying to steer a supertanker on a journey by only looking in the rearview mirror.
