The Psychology of Peak Oil Denial

Here's some more info in regards to what goes on inside the heads of those struggling to cope. Perhaps the answer for some of them is to get mental treatment, before they endanger themselves or those around them. Sadly, many have to fall down the well of despair before they start to climb out.

Exploring emotional reactions to peak oil
I’m a psychologist, I’m not a geologist, financial expert, political analyst or economist.

I watched myself go through a wide range of emotions. I went through periods of shifting denial, and an attempt to find believable critics. I would work diligently on a permaculture project, and watch my spending carefully, then “forget” and go out to dinner or another unnecessary expense. I’d feel hopeful and elated, depressed and worried, busy and determined, overwhelmed and frozen. All the while, the stock market continued to ’soar’ and everything looked ‘normal’ in the culture around me.

Are you ‘coping’ or ‘freaking out’ about Peak Oil?

Rage

“I started getting really mad. Furious. It was like, “I just got through school and now I have to listen to this? Why did I waste my time? What am I suppose to do now, crawl up and die?”

First I was really pissed at the people talking about it, like they just made it up to scare people. Then I got pissed at the people who refused to believe it. Like my parents. I couldn’t bring it up without screaming at them. Then I got rip-*hit at the government for doing nothing. It was like the whole culture was letting me down.”

Matt Savinar, Jim Kunstler and the Psychology of Peak Oil
Bob finds out about Peak Oil in all of its grimness -> Now Bob can’t socialize/network with his coworkers as smoothly and effectively as before because all they talk about is stuff like their Mcmansions, their SUVs, their wives’ boob jobs, their kid’s IPODs, etc. -> Bob is now a less well integrated and effective member of his team -> Bob’s team is now not as effective as before because not everybody is on the same page -> Bob suffers

...For most there is no “advantage” to believing in the coming of peak oil, so the brain deletes the info.

A deep level of denial is clinically known as "dissociative disorder" in which the avoidance of a traumatic event leads a person to literally create and maintain their own false sense of reality.

[edit on 27-8-2006 by Regenmacher]

Originally posted by mbkennel
This is factually incorrect. There are new discoveries but the rate and size of fundamentally new discoveries have been declining substantially even as consumption increased.

Here is some of my source material.

How much oil and natural gas i left?[/url

www.energybulletin.net...

www.arabnews.com...

wyden.senate.gov...

BP's 1-billion-barrel Thunder Horse (previously "Crazy Horse") field, the largest single field ever discovered in the Gulf of Mexico, which came online in January 2005,

www.eia.doe.gov...

www.forbes.com...

[url=http://www.energyseer.com/Monkey%20Business.pdf]The Shell Reserve Downgrading: Year of the Monkey Business?

The New Pessimism about Petroleum Resources: Debunking the Hubbert Model (and Hubbert Modelers)

www2.eluniversal.com.mx...

That's a small sampling.

There is a distinction between "reserves" and discoveries not fully appreciated.

Appreciated by who? The fools who buy oil at 70 dollars a barrel or the energy company laughing all the way to the bank?

An oil field, when discovered, is not officially booked as "reserves", at least according to accoutning standards of Western oil companies, until sufficient drilling and characterization has been done to ensure capability for production. This is intentionally conservative for financial reasons.

It is in fact intentional done to limit reserve growth which seems to go up whatever they do to deny the fact. The USA has used up it's known reserve a dozen times over in the last 5 decades and yet the reserves decline very slowly indeed. How can reserves be taken to mean anything when you use up your known reserves every five years? It in fact , quite clearly, means that 'reserves' are a meaningless number meant to frighten the ignorant mob with.

"reserves" go up frequently because oil companies drill new wells in existing oil fields, where they knew they already had oil, enough for near-term production so that they can officially call it "proven" or "probable" reserves in the technical standards.

Well that does nothing to explain the fact that 'known' reserves in the USA gets used up every half a decade or less and this is in a supposedly heavily explored part of the world. Who believes this lie these days?

This is how 'reserves' appear to have been growing easily but when it is done correctly, by backdating reserve growth in existing fields to original discovery of that field, a totally different picture comes out. True oil discovery from scratch peaked approximately in 1960's.

And i would love to see evidence for that is not based on the type of speculation those reports normally involve.

The reserves from OPEC members is a made up figure. They once doubled reserves at a stroke of their pen---this because production quotas were determined by their reserves, so magically everybodies reserves just doubled.

Actually i would argue that they finally had a reason to admit more of the reserves they had. They are all playing the scarcity game and unless forced no one discloses how long they can produce from what they have.

I.e. the numbers are fiction, because there has been no independent verification of actual production and especially total reservoir quality.

The oil keeps flowing despite near yearly predictions of peak oil; who's been right so and why should i stop trusting them now? I have seen nothing to suggest that oil discovery or production has peaked or will any decade soon.

The actual state of the oil reserves is literally a classified state secret in Saudi Arabia.

Best keep it that way as flooding the market with massive known reserves might drive down world prices severely which then would result in far less money flowing back to the USA as that is the deal they have had for some decades now. The game is rather bigger than you seem to realise.

What is happening is that consumption of oil is resulting in declines in production in the largest fields which is not at all being offset by new discoveries.

Where is the evidence?

North Sea oil was pumped heavily in the 80's ,

It was profitable in the early 80's

declined in the early 90's because of lower demand (recession), increased,

Demand was not lower and what actually happened is that the oil price per barrel declined to 8 dollars at which point EVERYONE in the North sea was losing money they simple had to stop.

and is now declining again but this time, DESPITE, much higher prices. That is the result of physical depletion.

It only means that they are sick and tired of risking the reinvestment to reopen those fields when the oil market is so volatile. They KNOW there is too much oil and before they can create conditions where it can not reach the market ( invading Iraq/Afghanistan/ firebombing Kuwait's oil fields) they will not bother with those again. They are trying to create shortages and closing your most expensive production sites first makes good economic sense.

Here is the graph from the U.K.

www.og.dti.gov.uk...

Over the last few years the oil price has tripled, and yet North Sea oil production is declining. Why?

Cheaper alternative production areas such as South America and Africa not even mentioning the surging Russian production.

The oil companies would love to be minting money at these prices, but they can't. Oil production is fundamentally limited by depletion and geology everywhere on the planet.

No evidence i am aware of conclusively proves or modeled that decline accurately.

The previous post is an example of the "alternative" denial of Peak Oil----not the consumerist one that is a know nothing---but the one that imagines there is a grand conspiracy to keep all this dirt cheap oil out of our tanks.

It's what i believe based on what i have seen in the last few years but before that i also thought what you still do. Why would all these global treaties to limit pollution be aimed at the West while others get to pollute as much as they like? Why are all the factory and manufacturing moving to areas not subject to these strict environmental rules? It is clear that there is a specific campaign to impoverish the American worker by taking away their jobs ( due to 'high' labour cost and such nonsense) and moving them to those areas of the world were the same job is done for much less on a basic almost-survival rate.

Peak oil is just a another one of the ploys they are employing to convince the 'pampered' western worker that they do not deserve their current living standards and wont have them for very much longer. Investigate the environmental movement and Banking and you will find the very same phenomenon happening.

There is a wealth of evidence ( American middle class buying power has been declining for 25 years ) proving all of what i just said so feel free to ask for links if you want to talk about something vastly more important than the peak oil nonsense.

Anyways

Stellar

Originally posted by Apoplexy123
Well, well, ahh well. I need not copy and paste facts from web pages, as you all seem to be pretty good at.

Very few are any good at it and it only gets worse as one forces them to try defend what they 'assumed' to be true.

You do understand that putting ones view across dosen't make it any more truthful than the others argument.

So anything goes and no one's feelings gets hurt? How do we make progress on Earth when every one's opinion is somehow suddenly equal? My views may not be correct but i can assure you that your going to have a hell of time coming up with a better supported explanation for what i have suggested so far.

StellarX you can quote every line of Regenmacher's posts, but that only shows the defensivness of those aginst the argument all together.

It's actually forum policy to try break down what you are responding to specifically and never to quote more than four lines at a time. Over time i have just decided that i can just as well do it this way and make my responses very specific. I am not 'defending' my point of view as much as pointing the massive inconsistencies in the peak oil 'theory'.

I'm not going to say that Oil Peak is happening as we speak, though i believe it is, but I find it hard to comprehend that you honestly feel you are not directly threatend by the Oil Peak "Senario".

No one is as there is plenty of oil left to exploit to our hearts content. Whether our environment can take it is a COMPLETELY different matter and not part of the current discussion.

The thing is my friend, even if oil reserves last another 150 years, you're still going to have a problem in 150 years. So if not you, maybe your great grandchildren are going to be in a dire state.

First off i am not your 'friend' and as far as i am concerned my demands for the highest living standard for myself will not only force out government towards action in favour of it's citizens now but will force them to sooner rather than later accept the reality of Cold Fusion and ZPE near free energy sources. What i am doing is not only best for me but best for my children and their children as well.

They say the primary objective for the Human species is to shed our DNA, and make sure that they are going to be safe and healthy when we die.

Well if you want to believe that carrying your DNA is your sole purpose on Earth that is just fine and i guess you can move to a fourth world slum and get the whole silly 'living' thing over with.

We need to look out for the future, OIL IS NOT RENEWABLE

Well i happen not to believe that and i am not by any means alone. Feel free to check out some of the prior work on the Abiotic theory.

...do you understand that. It does not matter what facts you have to make yourself feel better about the situation.

This has nothing to do with how i 'feel' about my life and everything to do with the facts that led my to my current conclusions.

We are on a collision course with chaos.

Not because oil are running out.

We pump more and more oil every year. Populations get bigger and bigger. Our dependencey on oil becomes greater and greater. Graphs, Statistics and Quotes are not facts that make any difference in the long run.

Our dependency on oil is getting greater by it's because our governments have a vested interest in controlling energy and it's distribution. There is nothing easier to control than vast fleets of tankers, trucks,oil rigs, millions of miles of wiring and massive infrastructure. Losing control of energy distribution is the end of big government and they might very well take the planet down with them rather than give up on their current power monopoly.

I like the way you say- There are plenty of new discoveries ( any amount of research will indicate that) and world reserves have been consistently growing for decades without much effort. -

Hey it's true , as far as i can tell at least, and i am glad you like the way i say it.

You do understand, that by growing, that actualy means were tapping more than before, it isn't actualy oil growing under the surface of the earths crust.

Well in fact there might very well be oil 'growing under the surface' but that is another discussion for another time. Whether that is true or not does not change the fact that known world oil reserves are rapidly growing.

So in any case, that does'nt make me feel any more confident that we have an abundent amount of oil. Sure reserves are seen as what we are actualy drilling, but we rely on the discovery of new fields for the long term, and the long term is waht I'm talking about here.

They have been finding 5 barrels for every three they used in the last 3 decades and they have not been looking very hard.

It's possible there are big oil fields that the big oil companies are not tapping for the very reason of - demand vs price - , and they will wait till much later to rape it clean of anything that resembles black liquid.

They openly admit that.

But what worries me is when you have acclaimed geologists and "oil experts" getting excited about signs of oil on mars, and the idea of going to Mars to consider suitability for oil drilling....

Every industry has it's well payed nuts.

Is that an indicator of the Kübler-Ross model: Five Stages of Grief ...the 6th one, HOPE.

Well i am placing my hope on cold Fusion and ZPE NOT on oil as i do not want to have them controlling my future or anyone else's.

Stellar

StellarX, I'm just happy you replied. You do make a stong point.
Didn't mean to offend you by saying "friend".
At least this threads brought out a little debate eh.

*attention atheists, skip ahead to next post*
All life on earth is carbon based. the raw materials for this have been gradually sealed deep inside the planet's crust for hundreds of millions of years. all this bio-energy, all the plant and animal material the planet can generate is compressed into a black sludge locked into the earth's crust.
god, as overseer and director of planet earth wants this carbon, this key building block of life released back into the atmoshere for future use. Solution: evolve highly skilled primates to discover and burn this carbon back into the atmosphere while at the same time allowing said primates to achieve opulent lifestyles and impressive technology, while serving as a kind of observation and participation platform for our higher consciousness. Once the finite carbon-based energy source is depleted, primates return to natural food-chain based lifestyles, hunter/gatherer sustenance as it was before the oil was burned.