[Trusties] Its official- Peak Oil is immenent- this is very big!

[timwinton]

It has been coming for a while, but not it seems it is official (see 
Michael's post below). The battle over peak oil theory has been won, 
although it is a hollow victory. Now it is time to get down to business.

See you at the Transition!

Tim


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Lardelli" <michael.lardelli at adelaide.edu.au>
To: "Michael Lardelli" <michael.lardelli at adelaide.edu.au>
Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2007 3:49 PM
Subject: Former US Energy Secretary declares "We are all peakists now"



I have to say that I am simply gobsmacked by the following article!

Regards,

Michael
_______________________

We are all peakists now - Schlesinger
David Strahan, website
Former US Energy Secretary Dr James Schlesinger today claimed that the
intellectual arguments over peak oil had been won, and that in effect
'we are all peakists now'.

In the keynote speech at the first day of an oil depletion conference
hosted by the Association for the Study of Peak Oil in Cork, Schlesinger
said that the oil industry executives now privately concede that the
world faces an imminent oil production peak, and argued that a recent
report by the US oil industry grouping the National Petroleum Council
constituted "a backdoor admission that in the next decade or two we face
a moment of truth".

In a wide-ranging interview with Lastoilshock.com, Dr Schlesinger - who
was also Defence Secretary and CIA Director - explains why he thinks
"the battle is over, the peakists have won", and discusses the delusions
of US energy policy, Iraq, Iran and $100 oil.

Hear the interview with Dr James Schlesinger.
[ Go to http://www.davidstrahan.com/blog/?p=42 ]

BA: Excerpts from the interview:

David Strahan: ...You said today in your speech that conceptually the
battle is over, the peakists have won. That's an astoundingly bold
claim. I was astonished. What did you mean by that?

James Schlesinger: If you speak to people in the industry, they will
concede that "whatever my company may say publicly, we understand that
we are facing a decline in our own production and that world-wide we are
not going to be be able to produce more fuel liquids or crude oil in the
near future."

And if you look at pronouncements by governments, including the Energy
Information Administration in the United States, the National Petroleum
Council (NPC) what they show is that by the early 2020s we are going to
have peaked out in terms of conventional oil productions. And that is an
immense change from what we have seen before in the attitude of the
industry.

DS: But it's not what we're hearing publicly, is it? From the
executives, from governments, from environmentalists? All seem to be in
denial or ignoring this issue, don't they?

JS: Well "denial" may be too strong. "Ignoring" is probably right. One
does not want to be the bearer of bad tidings. Cassandra has never been
an appropriate role model for politicians. You do not ask the public to
make sacrifices. If you concede that indeed the peak is coming, that we
ought be making adustments, the adjustments will be costly and the
public will bear the cost, which means that other things being equal, a
decline in the standard of living. That is not the way to successful
re-election.

... I was recently at a conference in New Mexico, sitting next to one of
the recent CEOs of a major oil company. In response to a question from
the audience, he said: "Of course I'm a peakist. It's just a matter of
when it is coming." ... Once one is retired as a CEO, one is freer ...
to say I am a peakist. And what you hear privately from almost all
people - is we're coming to it.

...the American public has been coached into believing that we can have
energy independence, which is not obtainable as long as we have the
internal combustion engine, and at the same time as we get energy
independence, we can lower the price of energy. These are simply
unattainable, but they are regularly promised.

...There is not going to be a turnaround [in U.S. energy policy] until
you have public support and the public has got to be frightened by a
serious crisis which persuades them that indeed the wolf is at the door.

... I think that many of these politicians will ultimately find that the
public blames them for [their] failure to warn them. Of course in a
sense the public is responsible because it's the present public
attitudes to which politicans play up - tell them what they want to
hear. But when the view of the world changes, what the public wanted to
hear some time ago is no longer what they want to hear in the future.

[Asked about Greenspan's assertion that Iraq was about oil]

The reality is that concern about the supply of oil is always a
consideration because the Middle East contains so much of the oil...
What some people are suggesting is that the invastion was to get control
of Iraq's oil supply. No, we were determined to leave it up to free
market pressures. And To the extent that they thought the United States
was reaching for control, it is plumb wrong.

... I want to state quite clearly, that war is not the way to increase
production near-term.

... We should be helping oil prices rise, particularly for gasoline.

... We are going to face a great difficulty in the near future. Whether
or not it is defined as a crisis depends on how you define crisis. But
there is difficulty, great difficulty ahead.
(17 September 2007)
James R. Schlesinger has been chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission
(AEC), Director of Central Intelligence for six months under President
Nixon, Secretary of Defense (1973-1975), and the first Secretary of
Energy under President Carter.

_______________________
 Michael Lardelli
 Zebrafish Genetics Laboratory
 Discipline of Genetics
 School of Molecular and Biomedical Science
 The University of Adelaide
 5005
 AUSTRALIA

 Tel.    (Aust. = 61) (0)8 8303 3212  direct
         (Aust. = 61) (0)8 8303 5633  departmental secretary
 Fax.    (Aust. = 61) (0)8 8303 4362
 e-mail. michael.lardelli at adelaide.edu.au
 www.lardellilab.adelaide.edu.au/



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