Peak Oil?

A leetle rant about those who insist that PO is here! In NZ! I told yer so!

Variations on 'I told you so' are a good substitute for thinking?

NZ is nowhere near PO: the CSG prospecting undertaken by L&M, the Southland lignite fields, and the highly prospective offshore oiliferous zones are all local mitigators. The undoubted impact in a wider sense is of the toxic combination of locally selective PO (e.g. Europe), and BHO's latest excursion into the international version of Chicago Machine Politics which won't end well.

What is needed is a cool, realistic view of how best to use our certain and extensive resources well: so as to make a transition which:

- preserves living standards for working people at or somewhere near current levels. (The rich always have multiple options, ignore them, and it might be as well to state out loud what Won't be possible, in terms of aforesaid living standards' contents). And condemning folk to live in the late 17th century won't cut it, either.

- does not involve more than a reasonable extension of current technological trends. F'rinstance, positing mass use of personal EV's is perfectly OK. Proposing maglev rail everywhere isn't. No unicorn milk and pixie dust, please.

- takes into account the dark view exemplified by fiction such as Danny Suarez' 'Daemon', informed though such as John Robb's Global Guerillas (much mischief for very little input because of systempunkts spread liberally through our infrastuctures), and the genetic fact that we're highly evolved monkeys with an immense capacity for self-delusion and mayhem.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Maybe.

Could be termed 'sustainability' but that phrase is soooo devalued.