s.artesian wrote:
Have supplies, reserves, "peaked," and no future discoveries, extensions of reserves, or new technologies to access remaining reserves (usually half the amounts actually extracted) will ever reverse the depletion? Or have supplies of the "cheap stuff" peaked? And if the latter, isn't cheap a social, not a geological, category?
Well, I don't know about peak oil but according to BP, there are 40 years left at which we can enjoy consumption at the current rate. On the historical timeline of the human race, that amounts to a blink of an eye. I think that the time to deal with energy issues is now, not 40 years from now. That is why I find Cockburn's utterances so disconcerting. Leaving aside the global warming question, they seem rather insouciant on the problem of dwindling supplies versus usage--particularly with his country squire's fleet of gas guzzlers.
