Many adherents of "peak oil" have never read Hubbert (and I can hear the response already---'many Marxists have never read Marx'-- but for the record I've read both), or Campbell or Duncan or Deffeyes of Laherre-- and that's too bad.
The supposed inability to replace reserves is an economic category not a geological one. North Sea fields exceeded initial and later estimates by 100% in production (and actually displayed 2 distinct peaks, rise, plateau, fall, plateau, rise, plateau, fall) output and platforms have been abandoned with estimates of 50% of known reserves untapped-- and why were the platforms abandoned?-- Capital costs of refurbishing the platforms, production life of the equipment were the determinants, not the depletion of supplies. You can, and should, look it up. But the issue isn't whether supplies are finite, and they are, or whether we have hit the peak today (we haven't), tomorrow (don't know) or 40 years from now. The issue is whether peak oil theories explain anything that is going on in the world economy called capitalism today, tomorrow, yesterday or 40 years from now. I don't think they (peak oil theories) can, do, or will. I think Marxist analysis has, does, and will continue to do so. Just plot out the rates of return in the oil majors with the major "crises" of the past 30 years. Now speaking of reserves downgraded on paper-- Leigh should be aware that reserves are an economic category, defined as the amount of oil that can be produced from conventional sources (no tar sands, no super-heavy, no methyl hydrates) in a fixed period of time (usually 20 years or less) utlizing today's technology, and at A PROFIT. Yeah, you can look that up to. Shell's notorious write down of reserves had nothing to do with actually resizing known reserves, but was the product of letting leases expire on areas with reserves without taking the required steps to initiate production. Shame, shame, shame-- said the accountants. I have to say, I guess Leigh's snide putdown of the the Grundrisse (how many people has the Grundrisse ever fed, as I recall it, as if Marx was a sow with teats, or should have been) still frosts me. It, the remark, is so self-satisfied in its ignorance, so classically and vulgarly American-- an estimate confirmed by Leigh's own claim of doing a class analysis-- using Hare Krishnas-- Ad homs? Did not use any-- simply pointed out that Stan Goff's fresh new breeze was filled with the stale, and foul smelling wind of supporting the Democrats. That's no ad hom. That's the fact. Dennis Kucinich? I'm sure he's a really good guy, actually got run out of the mayor's office in Cleveland by the big utilities-- passionately against the war. Good for him. And he's still a Democrat. Still committed to preserving the ruling class's party as the ruling class's party. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Leigh Meyers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU> Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2007 2:44 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Rampage Across Athens > On 6/23/07, Michael Perelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > The list can tolerate differences of opinion, but not nastiness. > > > > In response to ...I guess a sarcastic paraphrase, of what sartesian > (Real name unknown) thinks I mean: > > > It's not the theory I object to, criticizing the rigidity of current > > Marxist organizations, it's the practice-- the practice that takes you > > to endorsing Democrats, scorning actual class analysis, thumping the > > King Hubbert bible of Peak Oil, etc. > > First of all, the American Marxism I see isn't rigid. It's quite fluid > in it's dogmatism. > > "...endorsing Democrats": Individuals perhaps... One comes to mind, > Dennis Kucinich. > He's just another 'democrat' I guess. I perhaps am guilty of > homogenizing Marxists in a similar manner, so, point taken. > > "...scorning actual class analysis..": I just finished doing an > 'actual class analysis, American Marxists as a 'class', sociologically > compared to Hare Krishnas and Gurdjieffians (giggle). He doesn't like > my analysis, or the grouping I used to illustrate, and ad homs > sarcastically instead of delivering ANY INFORMATION to disprove my > point. > > FWIW, I've never read any of Hubbert's works. The inability to restore > dwindling reserves despite billions and billions of dollars spent on > exploration and the nasty wars, buying off oppressive regimes, black > ops, needed to secure the territory for exploration and actually > explore it, just to claim big finds (unproven, on paper) that are > downgraded later when no one's noticing, is just one chapter in a > rather large volume of works called 'Peak oil was sooo yesterday... > denial & rationalization is now.' > > ... _._ > > Leigh >
