Everything depends on when "peak oil" occurs or occured. Some say it happend the end of last year and others say it is 20 years out. All individual fields of oil have the same characteristic - when peak oil occurs, the drop off in production is steep and not flat or a shallow curve. And so will be the cumulative drop off.
If it happened last year or happens within the next ten years, we're economically screwed.
If we do now what we should have done in the 70's, we'd be that much further ahead. Ten years of substantive conservation, research and commercialization of alternate fuels and power generation before peak oil is the about the minimum time required to avoid being completely screwed.
A tiny 6% windfall tax on Exxon profits this year only, if applied to solar research, would be 10x the money spent today.
Acting too early doesn't pose any risk. Acting too late will be be a global economic disaster. I am not fear mongering, it could be as severe as the Great Depression.
The problem is that we won't really know if we've hit peak oil until we're over the edge of the curve.
You are basing your do 'nothing' attitude from the conditions that were in effect 30 years ago. Today is not 30 years ago and the conditions are not the same. We were nowhere near peak oil, global consumption was not ramping up from China and India growing at double digit rates and the US was still manufacturing goods instead of importing without the massive debt racked up.
You just want to gamble that you can make through your little pathetic lifetime without feeling the effects.
I think you're the one who has forgotten what it means to be an American.
You never served the country in uniform. I'm a Vietnam veteran.
You admit that you were a criminal. I was never a criminal.
Your're a tax-sucking government worker who whines about the government.
I am the engineer who designed and built the electrical distribution equipment that has powered the Prudhoe Bay oil facility in Alaska for the last 25 years, the Washington DC subway system and the Marta rail system, hired more people and contributed magnitudes more to the country than you ever have by helping major Japanese companies, such as Panasonic, build manufacturing plants in America 15 years ago that provide the employment for thousands of Americans.
Stuff it, you anarchist whiner.
Added: One more thing, I'm done with you, so don't bother whining to me anymore. This board has a great feature - Ignore. Your nonsense is invisible to me now.
