Petroleum and the future of civilization

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This is not about oil. It’s about suppressing development and suppressing the future of Catholicism by suppressing the numbers of the population of Catholics and Catholic countries/regions.
This is very much about oil, a precious commodity in limited supply, laid down over hundreds of millions of years, and consumed by humans in about two centuries. It has nothing to do with suppressing Catholicism. I speak as a faithful Roman Catholic, a theologian working with oil developers, environmentalists, nuclear engineers, bishops, population experts, and resource economists.

Petrus
 
This is very much about oil, a precious commodity in limited supply, laid down over hundreds of millions of years, and consumed by humans in about two centuries. It has nothing to do with suppressing Catholicism. I speak as a faithful Roman Catholic, a theologian working with oil developers, environmentalists, nuclear engineers, bishops, population experts, and resource economists.

Petrus
Yep. I personally don’t even see what basketball courts have to do with prayer and sprituality. It’s hard to overdramatize just how much oil was so instramental to the 20th century’s lifestyle developments.

Interview with Matt Simmons from two days ago:
netcastdaily.com/broadcast/fsn2007-1117-3b.ram
 
Yep. I personally don’t even see what basketball courts have to do with prayer and sprituality. It’s hard to overdramatize just how much oil was so instramental to the 20th century’s lifestyle developments.Interview with Matt Simmons from two days ago:netcastdaily.com/broadcast/fsn2007-1117-3b.ram
Doug50, I’ve just returned from the American Academy of Religion (AAR) meeting in San Diego, where I convinced the convener of the “Ecology and Religion” program section that we need a session on religious perspectives on sustainability, at next year’s AAR conference in Chicoago.

The irony was not lost on him (like myself, a Catholic) that we will be talking about sustainability and the end of affordable oil at a conference that brings together 10,000 theologians and religious scholars from all across the US and even the rest of the world. The oil costs of flying 10,000 people around, housing them in fossil-fuel-heated high-rise hotels in Chicago in November, with all the food shipped in to restaurants to meet their needs, and all the soap and water and power needed to launder the towels and sheets of 10,000 guests – all this is simply staggering.

Petrus
 
Predictions of imminent catastrophic depletion are almost as old as the oil industry. An 1855 advertisement for Kier’s Rock Oil, a patent medicine whose key ingredient was petroleum bubbling up from salt wells near Pittsburgh, urged customers to buy soon before “this wonderful product is depleted from Nature’s laboratory.” The ad appeared four years before Pennsylvania’s first oil well was drilled. In 1919 David White of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) predicted that world oil production would peak in nine years. And in 1943 the Standard Oil geologist Wallace Pratt calculated that the world would ultimately produce 600 billion barrels of oil. (In fact, more than 1 trillion barrels of oil had been pumped by 2006.)

Source: (and read more here):

reason.com/news/show/36645.html
 
Almost none of these 10,000 theologians have any training in science, engineering or economics. So, all that bringing up these “sustainability” issues would accomplish would be to cause panic.

Unless, there were some alternative points of view presented on an equal time basis.

Keep in mind, that the obvious key/solution to sustainability would be population control … birth control, limitations to force single child families, mandatory abortion, etc. Kind of like what they do in China.

Forcing everyone to live in high rise buildings so they can commute by mass transit along narrow high density corridors (or walk) is not going to please everyone.

The real answer is freedom. Not coercion by people with limited imagination.

Do we want someone like Robert Mugabe to be running the U.S. economic and socio-economic structure? … And all of it in the interest of reform and for the future of civilization, of course.
Doug50, I’ve just returned from the American Academy of Religion (AAR) meeting in San Diego, where I convinced the convener of the “Ecology and Religion” program section that we need a session on religious perspectives on sustainability, at next year’s AAR conference in Chicoago.

The irony was not lost on him (like myself, a Catholic) that we will be talking about sustainability and the end of affordable oil at a conference that brings together 10,000 theologians and religious scholars from all across the US and even the rest of the world. The oil costs of flying 10,000 people around, housing them in fossil-fuel-heated high-rise hotels in Chicago in November, with all the food shipped in to restaurants to meet their needs, and all the soap and water and power needed to launder the towels and sheets of 10,000 guests – all this is simply staggering.

Petrus
 
Read more here, about the origins of peak oil “doomerism”.

energybulletin.net/23386.html

And a couple of brief quotes:

"I now believe that Peak Oil catastrophism is largely a manifestation of our primary cultural myth: that all things end with suffering, death, and then resurrection. Belief in apocalypse is programmed into western civilization. Given our heritage, “the end is nigh” is the nearly unavoidable personal and collective response to times of uncertainty and rapid change. "

“Apocalypticism is at the core of the Judeo-Christian social mythology, and it influences our beliefs far more deeply than we are conscious of.”
 
Almost none of these 10,000 theologians have any training in science, engineering or economics. So, all that bringing up these “sustainability” issues would accomplish would be to cause panic.

Unless, there were some alternative points of view presented on an equal time basis.
But, Al, along your line of argument above…I’ve presented databased argument from people who are oil industry insiders with phds in petroleum geology and resevior engineering. I’m asking you to present databased argument from experts to counter those expert arguments that I’ve presented.
 
How would you know? These are highly educated people.
Oh, … a slap… not nice … important to learn how to be civil.

The first thing anyone ever said to me, alluding to some previous unpleasantness and difficulties with my boss’s boss, “Are you a CIVIL engineer?”
 
But, Al, along your line of argument above…I’ve presented databased argument from people who are oil industry insiders with phds in petroleum geology and resevior engineering. I’m asking you to present databased argument from experts to counter those expert arguments that I’ve presented.
It argues to conclusions.

Consider the discussions relating to the ozone hole and global warming and DDT. Lots of databased arguments. Consider the earlier discussions and debates based on data bases. Club of Rome’s statements on when natural resources would run out. The earlier absolutely positive forecasts by the insiders on when oil was going to run out.

There are numerous well-educated people who make a nice living making forecasts of the mass starvation of the human race. And all of them have been consistently wrong.

Databases are limited in their applicablility to telling the future.
 
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Ehrlich

Ehrlich is classic case of someone who thrives by creating unwarranted alarmism.

And yet he has never been taken to task. Never repudiated. Still has his reputation intact.

This is the VERY brief summary of a well educated person with a PhD:

“Ehrlich wrote an article that appeared in New Scientist in December 1967. In that article, Ehrlich predicted that the world would experience famines sometime between 1970 and 1985 due to population growth outstripping resources. Ehrlich wrote that “the battle to feed all of humanity is over … In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.” Ehrlich also stated, “India couldn’t possibly feed two hundred million more people by 1980,” and “I have yet to meet anyone familiar with the situation who thinks that India will be self-sufficient in food by 1971.” These specific predictions did not actually come to pass, and his later book The Population Explosion is much more cautious in its predictions.”

“The article led to a book (The Population Bomb), the founding of Zero Population Growth, a vigorous policy debate, and both widespread support and criticism of Ehrlich.”

Very relevant, because Ehrlich was very alarmed about the future of civilization.

His prescription for fixing the population problem was Zero Population Growth.

And he was wrong.
 
Very relevant, because Ehrlich was very alarmed about the future of civilization. His prescription for fixing the population problem was Zero Population Growth.And he was wrong.
As well he should be. We will have to arrive at ZPG sooner or later, unless the laws of mathematics change. The planet is not expanding significantly.
 
It argues to conclusions.

Consider the discussions relating to the ozone hole and global warming and DDT. Lots of databased arguments. Consider the earlier discussions and debates based on data bases. Club of Rome’s statements on when natural resources would run out. The earlier absolutely positive forecasts by the insiders on when oil was going to run out.

There are numerous well-educated people who make a nice living making forecasts of the mass starvation of the human race. And all of them have been consistently wrong.

Databases are limited in their applicablility to telling the future.
Sorry, Al, that’s just not relevant. Since this is going around and around unless something new can be presented I’m going to let this thread rest…Find the relevant data that debunks an oil crunch within 5 years (IEA’s date is by 2012). Nobody in the oil industry disbelieves that oil production will reach a limit. The only disagreement is when it will happen.
 
Sorry, Al, that’s just not relevant. Since this is going around and around unless something new can be presented I’m going to let this thread rest…Find the relevant data that debunks an oil crunch within 5 years (IEA’s date is by 2012). Nobody in the oil industry disbelieves that oil production will reach a limit. The only disagreement is when it will happen.
Doug50, I agree. I’m negotiating with a publisher about a volume of essays on the ethical implications of the end of affordable oil, aimed at not-invincibly-ignorant monotheists. Would you be open to my team asking you the occasional technical question?

Petrus
 
Sorry, Al, that’s just not relevant. Since this is going around and around unless something new can be presented I’m going to let this thread rest…Find the relevant data that debunks an oil crunch within 5 years (IEA’s date is by 2012). Nobody in the oil industry disbelieves that oil production will reach a limit. The only disagreement is when it will happen.
We will know soon enough. Five years.

But all those earlier forecasters went unchallenged and undisproved … except by … time.
 
Sorry folks for infiltrating your thread, but I had to chime in.

Rudy Giuliani was quoted recently about NASCAR:

“This is a quintessentially American sport, It represents the best of America.”

And you wonder why everyone is having such a hard time coming to terms with all of our environmental issues.

Most everyone is in denial, that much I know for sure.
 
Sorry, Al, that’s just not relevant. Since this is going around and around unless something new can be presented I’m going to let this thread rest…Find the relevant data that debunks an oil crunch within 5 years (IEA’s date is by 2012). Nobody in the oil industry disbelieves that oil production will reach a limit. The only disagreement is when it will happen.
Light sweet crude is at $99.29. The best thing would be for oil to go higher yet. Then we could push the superfluos Hummers and Expeditions and Tahoes into the sea to form artificial reefs for the renewal of our depleted fisheries.
 
Light sweet crude is at $99.29. The best thing would be for oil to go higher yet. Then we could push the superfluos Hummers and Expeditions and Tahoes into the sea to form artificial reefs for the renewal of our depleted fisheries.
It would be easy to get rid of the SUV’s if the legislation that effectively banned station wagons was repealed.

Nobody wants to drive a TRUCK when a car (with large carrying capacity) would do the job. But, station wagons are almost extinct. Bring back the station wagons and the vans and plushed-out trucks will be history.

Getting Catholic: abolition of station wagons was “anti-family”. Families, particularly, LARGE families need cars that carry a bunch of people and a lot of stuff. But without station wagons, folks were forced to buy vans instead.
 
Doug50, I agree. I’m negotiating with a publisher about a volume of essays on the ethical implications of the end of affordable oil, aimed at not-invincibly-ignorant monotheists. Would you be open to my team asking you the occasional technical question?

Petrus
I’d suggest your interviewing Kenneth Deffeyes phd geologist with Princeton university, Mattew Simmons, Colin J. Campbell Phd geologist, Congressman Roscoe Bartlett Phd, Peter Tertzakian.
 
BTW Petrus, here’s a little mathamatics I put together. Check the math volumes to make sure they’re correct and feel free use them or correct any miscalulation for your book. Source links for the volumes are at the bottom of this page.

1 barrel of oil Volume: 42 gallons
Olympic Pool Volume: 648,000 gallons*
Olympic Pool Volume: ~15,428 barrels of oil equivalent

It’s estimated the current world uses 1000 barrels of oil per second
1000 bbl x 86,400 seconds in one day = 86,400,000 bbl of oil used by the world in one day.

86,400,000bbl / 15428bbl = 5,600 Olympic sized pools of oil used each day.

5,600 pools x 365 days in a year = 2,044,000 Olympic sized pools of oil is use by the world in one year.

Olympic Pool dimensions: 50m x 25m x (2m depth)**
1 meter = 3.2808399 feet
1 mile = 5 280 feet

Olympic pool length: 164 feet
Olympic pool width: 82 feet
Olympic pool depth: 6.5 feet

164 feet length x 2,044,000 Olympic pools = 335,216,000 feet in length
335,216,000 feet /5280 feet in a mile = 63,488 miles

If all Olympic pool equivalents of oil used in one year were lined up end to end, the pool would be 82 feet wide x 6.5 feet deep x 63,488 miles long.

The circumference of the world at the equator is 24,892 miles
63,488 / 24,892 = The Olympic pools lined up end to end would stretch 2.5 times around the world

The world uses ~31 billion barrels of oil per year (31,536,000,000 = 86,400,000 x 365)
86,400,000bbl/210bbl tank = 411,429 tanks of oil used each day
411,429 tanks x 365 days = 150,171,429 tanks of oil per year

Gallons of oil per year: 31,536,000,000 x 42 = 1,324,512,000,000
1.3 trillion gallons

“One inch of rain falling on a 160 acres delivers 4,344,680 gallons of water”***
1,324,512,000,000 gal per year / 4,344,680 = 304,858 inches
304,858 / 12 inches = 25,405 feet of oil equivalent volume on top of 160 acres

1 cubic mile (length x width x height) holds the volume of 1.1 trillion gallons

IEA: Oil demand is expect to 118,000,000 bbl in 2030. According to the IEA projects, allowing for depletion, it will take 200 million barrels per day from 2001-2030 to meet the expected demand. ****

118 million barrels per day equals:
43,070,000,000 barrels per year
7,648 Olympic pools per day
2,791,677 pools per year
86,711 miles of pools lain end-to-end
3.5 times around the world
34,696 feet on top of 160 acres

Source of data for volumens
*hypertextbook.com/facts/2005/JeffreyGilbert.shtml
** answers.com/topic/olympic-size-swimming-pool
*** owrb.ok.gov/util/waterfact.php
****Page 14: iaee.org/documents/washington/Fatih_Birol.pdf
 
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