I too follow the news of 'peak oil' Kent. Seems as though the battle is on to reassure everyone that there is plenty of oil ready to drill out there.
In ARWAR for example, under the melting Arctic. I cannot imagine trying to clean off another massive spill there.........
And watch the news form Saudi Arabia. Massive protests there could send the price rocketing skyward.

The notion that we should therefore drill in the US is what troubles me. It's like an addict in denial. We need to detox, not find a new supplier.

I see the price going nowhere but up sad to say.
rated with hugs

Linda, you're doubtless right, but that's not my big concern. Not that prices don't matter. I'm sure that will be very painful. But, in a sad way, prices rising will do what no amount of talk will do—get people to see that we have to change our ways. Even if there were no issue of running out of fuel, Climate Change would still be helped by us not burning fossil fuels. The tricky part is getting us out of that rut rather than simply burning down every last gallon and only then saying “Gee, what will we do now?”

Kent,

I think there is also another interpretation of the Saudi cables.

All of this information was coming to light for Americans right before oil prices hit their historical peaks during 2008. It would have been a good idea for the largest supplier of oil to claim (if it were true or not) that these rises in prices reflect a natural state of the oil market. Not some kind of 'tampering' of prices by the suppliers.

I guess the interpretation one likes most depends one's level of cynicism.

As far as climate is concerned, I don't think that getting more electric cars gets us any closer to capping emissions, if that is the desired goal here. It simply shifts where those emissions are coming from.

For petroleum based fuels burned in cars, the emissions of CO2 come from the car itself. For electric cars plugged in at home, the vast majority of those emissions will come from coal-fired power plants off in the distance. Some of that energy could come from solar I think, but most people will charge their cars at night when there is no sunlight.

So while I agree that peak oil is going to change the availability of cheap fuel for consumption, I don't see how it will really help anyone. We'll probably just rely more on natural gas and coal (which will cost more until infrastructure is built), but gets us nowhere with relation to climate.

Also,

'And then there’s also a recent Shell Oil report that acknowledges the issue of declining supplies, as well as acknowledging Climate Change.'

is misleading because the energy lobby was very involved in bringing the cap and trade legislation to the table in the House. I don't think that energy companies have ever really 'denied' climate change, though I don't have any evidence to prove this point. In your words, do you?

Could america be in a codependent relationship, Kent?



-R-

I can only imagine what this will do if the recession lasts longer, or if we only slowly and gradually emerge from it.

I am seeing lots of info-pieces in the media about coal and clean-coal. There was a big article on it in the Atlantic Monthly and how we need to "work with China to create clean coal." And now there is a reality tv show about coal miners.

I think the big boys are going to be pushing coal and nuclear as a replacement fuel.

Nuclear and coal can do good for electric. But what about fertilizers and plastics and the other stuff we use petroleum for?

Major economic distortions will come about once peak oil is reached.

Can solar/wind/water really replace it?

What about nuclear energy? What if we put the reactors in sparsley populated areas?

If they continue meeting the demand for oil thet'll destroy the envirnment for long term life human or not which is suicide.

Is that what those in power want for the whole world? This is mainly for short term profits.

demon, I had actually cut a paragraph from this where I side-tracked about the notion of “declarations against interest” (legal parlance for one of the hearsay exceptions in court testimony) but you make a decent case that there are possible ways in which it wasn't against interest. It's true that hinting or reinforcing that it's not market tampering is a possible motive. And I'm not one who thinks a mere shift to the electric cars by itself is a cure, but I see I left that as a dangling detail. I happen to think that's only a piece of the puzzle, which is one of several reasons why I said I'd say something stronger. But then, these things get long and I was excited to be done writing before it was painfully long. (As it was, two other posts cleaved off of this before I was done.) But I'm a big believer that we have to move our grid off of coal and into some combination of wind, geothermal and nuclear. And, finally, as to the question of whether Shell or more generally the oil industry was ever really denying climate change, I guess that's a kind of subjective thing. But I think when they're asking for permission to build rather than help in retooling, when they're funding people who want to deny climate change, etc. I personally see denial, and so in this message, without provocation, they're saying “hey, independent of things others are pushing us to do, we ourselves are going to have to admit that our future lies elsewhere.” My interpretation is subjective, certainly. So—proof? No. But it's an opinion piece, not a rigid news story, and I do stand by my analysis. I still appreciate the thoughtful read, though. I think at this point a big goal of mine is to get more discussion out there, creating reason for politicians to take real positions on this, not just treat it as a pro forma checklist item.

rw005g: your observation about the petroleum-based fertilizers is what really scares me. I don't know whether Michael Pollen's details are right in The Omnivore's Dilemma, but he suggests that about a third of the world's food depends on petroleum. Peak oil has very scary implications around hunger.

Mark, I'm sure the relationship is very codependent between politicians and oil companies. The situation with the voters is less clear. I think they're not given all the options they should be. I think this can't all be something that can be done at the grassroots level, so people need government to help. Government needs to set the ground rules about what are societal goals and what constitutes legitimate competition. If going green costs money, but we still want companies to do it, the government needs to require it so Company A doesn't beat Company B through savings achieved by failing to go green, laughing all the way to the bank. If both companies are required to do it, yes, it's an expense, but it's one that allows good companies not to be smashed by bad ones.

RW, there is no such thing as “clean coal” in my mind. There is a theoretical possibility of various kinds of scrubbing and capture but to my understanding, that's expensive and not really done, and it's just used to fool people into thinking it might be viable. There's been some recent discussion on the issue of cleaner/safer nuclear, which really is a possible option. See Steve Kirsch's summary of the issue. Or see a summary from the World Nuclear Association. I wouldn't just automatically trust what the nuclear industry says, but I have heard from various other places that there's a lot of credibility to that. Thomas L. Friedman and James Hansen both speak favorably about the modern nuclear program, for example, and are disappointed politicians seem to be ignoring it. Hansen goes into detail but seems to think it's because Gore was riding the anti-nuke (nuclear bomb) wave and didn't want to mess up the message by being pro-nuclear-power at the same time as anti-nuclear-bomb, or something like that. It's quite a shame.

Zachery, your mention that they are in it for the short term and not the long term is precisely why government action is essential. Business is intended to go after what's profitable, but it can only do that within a moral framework mediated by government. Absent any such bounding framework, what people can and will do to make a buck is frightening. One has only to look at what happened to the banking and health industries to see the way a population can be ravaged by unregulated greed.

Stever, yes, you're right about the scary implications of a food supply dependent on oil. In general, our entire manufacturing base is that way. There is an unspoken premise in outsourcing / offshoring that transportation is free and one must locate production where workers are the cheapest. But if transport could spike, that makes a mess of the equation. Just for that reason alone, it argues for featuring a lot more local production than we presently have. But even beyond that, there are industries that are not moving fast enough away from fossil fuel. I've been interested by and heartened by the push in the computer industry for server farms (contrasted with real ones) to be entirely wind-based. Quite a lot of them seem to need to do that. This could turn out to be critical if there's a world shortfall of oil, so that too-late solutions can at least be mediated by computers in a time when all else is failing. But it'd be nice if more of the world were as aggressively working on that kind of thing than just computing centers.

I can just see us, ten years from now, saying "Gee what do we do now." This is so critical; we need to be talking about it, and promoting alternatives. Seriously.

All of this reminds me of something once said a long time ago.

"I was feeling depressed until someone told me, 'Cheer up. Things could be worse.' So sure enough, I cheered up and things got worse."

I think we were at peak oil a few years ago, and as to climate change, I think we're closer to a dangerous tipping point closer than people think.

For years the car talk guys have said the best thing that could happen is for gas to cost more than $5 a gallon. America is still a nation of innovators but sadly it takes a lot to get us off our asses, we can't afford to wait for the ice caps to melt and the oil to run out before we have viable alternatives.

I confess that I followed behind Ablonde.
Thaks for people who do sound research.
The 'Atlantic Monthly' had a great article.
A artist had a electric plug stuck in coal.
A same-same Concern as You. Oil etc.,
It was Last Month?
It's here under beer cans somewhere.
Off/on no comment.
This may be off-topic.

Ablonde. I always think of you when I
visit the local carryout beer store here.
There is a Belgium 'Leffe' Bier I'll buy.
I buy a 6- pack because no one drinks.
It's a sweeter ale. I like it. No one else.
That is one Way to keep drunks away.

I always wonder what to are up to.
I wonder if Ya are cold in barefeet.
I'd send you one red sox uniform.
I lost one red sock in the local bar.
`
You have late evening engagements.
I only get to see you after midnight.
I am `
`
And off to bed. I put on my silk jacket.
It a smoking jacket for pouring 'Leffe'`
`
The Belgium bier makes pleasant burps.
I bet Kent Pittman enjoys superlative brew.
I am so late. I may read later ref Flower Child etc.,
You both (Others too @ Open Salon) are teachers.
I knew a woman math teacher who paced barefoot.
Holy Sock
Great Soul
Pedagogy
Oh, Egads
forgive me
Love thy
fellow
bloggers?
Teachers.

James Fallows.
He's more likable than Mr. Rush Limbaugh.
Kent Pitman may take Fox's G. Beck's gig?
He'd be less happy if he was wooed by fox.
Thanks.
You deserve a EP for taking the quality time.

"The notion that we should therefore drill in the US is what troubles me. It's like an addict in denial. We need to detox, not find a new supplier."

Talk about a rocky comparison. Alcohol and drugs produce social parasites that drain resources. Oil has produced unprecedented social and economic progress since its discovery. After that comment, I didn't bother to read further. Fruit of the tree and all that, you know.

The Saudis never have been totally honest about their ability to hold back or increase production to influence supply, therefore price. They release very little information in general. Those who asses their exports are often down to seeing how low tankers are sitting in the water as they leave with their cargo of oil.
The Wikileaks document can be filed under -- stuff we already suspected was true -- though confirmation is important.

File the following under:
Here we go again...
Oil prices and fantasies about how much oil America has tend to rise in concert. Remember the biggest political canard in recent history-- Drill, baby, drill!
As prices rise, more wells in the US will be opened up, but in the Big Picture, it won't make much difference. No amount of drilling will make 2% of the world oil reserve any larger than...2% of the world oil reserve.
ANWR has an estimated 1.5 year domestic supply.
The much touted (by investment scam artists and excitable Rwingers) Bakken field has a 7-9 month domestic supply.
The Green River shale oil deposits aren't really shale or petroleum, and cannot be counted upon to "save" us from oil depletion.

So, when you say...and when Gordon rejects...the idea that we need to detox, not find a new (domestic) supplier -- the fact is we don't have the freakin' oil anyway. We peaked in 1970. We started importing because we. don't. have. enough. oil. to. supply. our. own. needs. Period.
There is no question, among sane people, anyway, that alternatives are the only answer.

The truth is no one knows how much oil is still in the ground, but everyone in the industry knows it's going to cost and more to extract whatever is left and that demand is going to more and more outstrip supply.

The idea of Peak Oil has been around for some time, in fact, it's my understanding the prediction was we would reach Peak Oil in 1975. Certainly, some experts agreed back then -- which was one reason Jimmy Carter was able to push his plan for alternate energy sources.

This is just one more example of how foolish it is when people say elections don't matter, both parties and all politicians are the same. Clearly they're not.

One can only imagine now much closer we might be to energy independence today if Carter had won a second term, rather than hopeless glad-hander and chamber of commerce cretin Reynard Raygun.

@Gordo
Easy for you to say -- you live in Brazil

My crack to Gordo reminds me that unlike Brazil, Mexico, China, Saudi Arabia and other countries not wholly owned by multi-national corporations, the US doesn't own the oil in US deepwater or protected US areas. Thanks to sweetheart oil leases, that oil is owned by oil companies. There's no guarantee that a drop of that oil will end up being consumed in the US.

Say, you don't suppose Gordo is advocating nationalizing US oil do you?

in 1954, after dad told me how i. c. engines worked, i asked, "what happens when the oil is gone?"

denying resource exhaustion is insane. refusing to put human society on a sustainable path is criminal.

but hey! anyone who can watch the usg in action with a smile is not going to worry about anything until price at the pump becomes painful. then they will scream "fix it! however! kill if necessary, we want it!"

Blue, it's a “just in time” society, and we don't like doing anything until we must, and the perception is by too many that such a time has not yet come.

Jane, you're making (what I see as) the same reasoning error that Alan Greenspan made. See my article The banks? “Shaka, when the walls fell” for a longer explanation, but the short form is that there is a difference between the interests of people and the interests of corporations. But, sadly, Greenspan hadn't realized that. And since he admitted he was wrong, no one has made much of any material change in how business is done or regulated to compensate for that.

Lefty, I agree. Probably more than one tipping point, though many are tightly interrelated. Today I was just reading about a new one about arctic plankton blooms and the food chain.

Ablonde, yep, I agree we can't wait for that.

Good ideas, Kent. Perhaps I will write a blog about nuclear energy, then, as a good alternative fuel?

I like the idea even more, because its very much in keeping with Star Trek, my favorite tv series of all time, even though they use fusion, not fission. That said, nuclear is cool.

And although there's probs with nuke waste, its far easier to manage than anarchic carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

And you basically get unlimited energy forever.

Well, as my contribution, I refer you to my response to an Exxon flack who was trying to claim there is enough oil:

http://www.exxonmobilperspectives.com/2010/12/03/is-the-world-running-out-of-oil/#comment-613

I'm not quite sure why he was making this argument, but his basic argument was that because the USGS has raised their estimates in the past, they will always do so in the future, and thus it doesn't matter that in a short period of time, we'll have to discover as much oil as has been discovered in all of history.

People just don't understand exponential growth.

I also liked Gorden Sorrell's response, arguing we'll never run out of oil -- because at a high enough price, there'll always be a little left.

Left unsaid in that argument is, when we get to that point, say 10,000 USD/barrel (assuming the USD is still worth anything at that point!), and you re-price all the oil consumed to date at that value -- what people are prepared to pay for it for critical, irreplaceable usages -- then you see what a fortune we are squandering.

Our children's fortune.

@Rw005g

My basic problem with nuclear is, you have to take a very looong-term view to evaluate the risks. Will our country even still exist 10,000 years from now? Can, given our political process and our history of stability, really make that kind of commitment to the future?

I'd love to believe we were ready for it -- but sadly, I think we are not.

On the other hand, I have a saying. "Radioactive waste lasts 10,000 years -- but heavy metals are forever."

Still, that cuts both ways. Considering our record of handling coal's toxic waste hardly engenders comfort with nuclear waste.

My basic position is, we should run away screaming from both. Yet that's very difficult to do, and has its own negative consequences.

Still, I think we should generally be seeking distributed, not centralized modalities. Solar is absolutely the best candidate here, but can never stand alone.

The other issue with nuclear is the tie-in with the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The very fact that we produce fuel for nuclear plants is a huge enabler for nuclear weapon production. I don't think we would even have nuclear power plants were it not for the initial impetus in developing the resources and production facilities and techniques, for nuclear weapons.

And I don't think we would have nearly as many nuclear weapons, if we did not have fuel production for for power plants.

Yes, you can make nuclear fuel that is hard to use to make weapons. But we're a long way from doing that universally. And reprocessing is actually one of the better approaches to dealing with waste -- and also leads to less mining, and associated pollution.

And no matter how much nuclear fuel you posit we have, I will take the long view, and predict we shall run out.

At some point, we have to step off of this exponential growth rocketship.

Either we restrain our appetites, or we have them constrained for us, by scarcity, economic collapse, war, or other limiting process.

Bob (responding out of order), among other things, the new nuclear stuff has the particular feature of creating much shorter timescale waste—and using the older, more dangerous waste as fuel.

That's what I like about Tom Cordle. He routinely here and elsewhere bases his comments on my arguments on where I reside. Highly intellectual, that.

Art, thanks for visiting and for the kind words of support. I'm afraid I'm not a drinker, since you wondered. More of a tea-totalitarian, I. And it's nice of you to even suggest the idea of me with so large an audience as Beck, though I fear the things I might have to say to hold that particular audience would not flow trippingly from my tongue.

Kent, I think you parsed the Shell report very well. While I take the likelihood of global warming as seriously as you do, I'm less convinced about the Peak Oil disruption. Prices will rise, but not like the oil shocks we saw in the 70s. Alternative energy sources will become cheaper and eventually will replace a lot of fossil fuel consumption. Unfortunately, I'm doubtful that any of this will happen soon enough to stave off the worst effects of global warming. What keep me from going bonkers about this is that the actuaries reckon I won't be around to see the worst of it.

Kent, yes, the "new nuclear" technologies are intriguing.

The risks, however, are very complicated to evaluate. Well, large-scale risks always are.

Before Three Mile Island, and Chernobyl, we really didn't have a lot of data on what kinds of failures to expect. But what these taught us is not so much the specific technical failures involved, but the human management failures that lead to the technical failures.

The problem with any large-scale risk is -- what are the odds of not encountering the problem, when you scale up to a large number of sites, over a long scale of time.

The risks converge exponentially to a certainty, that whatever can go wrong will go wrong. This isn't arguable -- this is pure math.

The tricky part is deciding how much time and growth of a technology is included in that scale, along with the base risk, to estimate where we are on that curve. And then, to decide whether that risk is worth the benefit.

I wrote about this nearly twenty years ago -- it's been academically cited a couple times even. I think it remains relevant today, and quite relevant to this discussion.

People perceive risk differently, depending on its distribution. This isn't wrong -- it's a value judgement. Do we accept 1000 years of a steady 100 deaths a year due to coal, vs 1000 years with 10 disasters, each killing 1000 people in a single location in a short time? There's an order of magnitude difference there -- yet I think it's quite reasonable to argue that the impact of focused disasters is that much more serious.

But each type incurs a different type of powerlessness. How do you trade off widespread asthma amongst children, vs a higher rate of cancer, mostly striking adults?

Yet we have to confront exactly this type of choice when evaluating directions on a global scale. And we have to do it in an environment of imperfect knowledge about the consequences of the decisions, and especially about future directions and technologies and especially, the political landscape.

How do you evaluate the societal impact of a technology over a timescale far longer than any human society has ever endured?

Yet, given our world population, we are confronted with such choices at every turn.

Fracking is a hot topic these days in some parts of the country, due to risks of polluting the groundwater. That's a long-term effect.

We know that, in part because of all the groundwater that's been polluted as a result of coal. And sewage. Rocket fuel. Petroleum products....

And one of the problems we face into the future is a shortage of clean and safe drinking water. And, as for food, we need energy to produce clean water.

I don't know how we can sanely make these choices as a society. I just observe that currently, we do so insanely. These topics become a point of political dogma, since takes a back seat to scoring political points, and incivility is the entirety of the conversation.

At a minimum, I think we need to educate people as to the effects of scale on risk, and the impact of exponential growth.

But even the most environmentally-conscious company or community or investor will expect to see exponential growth, or they think something is wrong. As long as we expect x% of growth each here -- we're insane.

That's why I don't focus on whether nuclear will get us through this crisis. Unless we change how we approach things, at our current scale, we're headed for another disaster right behind that one.

That doesn't mean these things don't matter. Not unless you're looking to thin the population as your solution to that later disaster!

So please, let's not have nuclear or economic war over oil, or over water, or over food, or where displaced people from low-lying coastal regions will live, farm, eat, or where on earth we PUT 20 billion people without destroying the environment beyond our ability to produce food.

More energy is a mere stopgap. A necessary one, but unless we do something about the endless growth in consumption -- we're doomed.

Gordon, your comment doesn't take me seriously, so I won't make a serious attempt in this reply. I'll just say that given your obvious disdain for my point of view, it's kind of you to keep me on your reading list. In fact, you also said you stopped reading at that comment of mine, yet then you later responded to another comment by Tom. I guess it's just such compelling content you can't stay away. I'm touched.

Long ago, when I first went on the web and could read web logs, I used to ponder what people were thinking as they read along at my site full of stories. I'd see someone come to my site and they'd read a first story. I wasn't overconfident (and continue not to be, actually), and assumed they probably were thinking something negative but just couldn't feed it back to me. I didn't know who they were, just that they were there, so I couldn't ask. Then I'd see them go to a second story. Most people would conclude success, but I'd say to myself “They are obviously disappointed and can't believe how bad it was, so they're reading another just to be sure.” And I'd see them go to another. “They are awestruck by how bad the writing is,” I'd say, “and they're continuing to search for at least one good story.”

My friends would laugh at my fears, assuring me there was no such person.

And yet here you are.

Kent,

You have me on coming back, but it was for sole purpose of defending myself against TC, certainly not to comment further on anything you said.

In my lectures, I stress the importance of both clarity and conciseness. I must say your comment on me is decidedly neither, almost neurotically so.

Maybe you said it all when you said you were touched, or as we used to say down south, "teched."

Paul, I basically agree with your analysis. Thanks for stopping in and offering the endorsement for sanity!

Tom, it's a great point about elections mattering. Indeed, we like to think they matter in terms of the superficial silliness they try to sell us on, but really what matters is the big stuff no one comments on. And even the tired phrase “well, they're all liars” cannot paper over those effects. Thanks for stopping in.

Al, thanks for the story about your youth. I think it was a good insight.

RW, thanks for the insights. I agree with your implicit claim that it's all about what's easiest to manage. I think we got a certain idea about how easy nuclear was going to be to manage, but we didn't get the same easy notion of how hard carbon is going to be to manage. So we made a permanent decision instead of going back and re-examining the trade-off once more information was known. It's not about risk or no risk, it's about which risk.

Bob, I'm going to defer responding to you now because I don't have time to analyze and respond to your remarks with proper thoughtfulness. Ping me later if I haven't come back and given you a fair reply.

Abrawang, that's a pretty thin ‘hope’ to hang your hopes on. :(

Gordon, I have two comments for you.

First, regarding the analogy. OK, oil has led to progress. So choose methamphetamine as the drug in question. We got the dishes washed and the windows washed and the clothes washed and the floor washed and the doorknobs washed and the cat washed and we're looking around for something else to wash and ... boom. We're out of energy.

Still seems like a perfect analogy to me. People take drugs because they give them some benefit, perceived or actual. They become addicted -- structuring their lives around the drug. If the supply is interrupted, they're in trouble. Your response to the analogy seems completely irrelevant.

Second, regarding concision. Well, sure, no argument -- making the same point more concisely is better than obscuring it with irrelevancies.

But I have nothing but disdain for those who believe complex issues should be reduced (or can be reduced) to sound sound bites. And also for people who impatiently surf over the surface of a serious article without giving it -- or their responses -- serious thought.

Your response really gave me no insight as to why you may disagree. It was all about your reading habits -- he lost you on an analogy which irked you somehow but you failed to address his point.

I'm not interested in where you stopped reading. The concise response in this case would have been silence.

I'd be interested in your actual opinion, and your support for it -- but that would take some real writing, and may not be possible with your standard for concision.

As an aside, sort of, as the subject of Gordon is now a separate line of thought...
If anyone has spotted Gordon arguing from fact, let me know. I quit looking long ago after the trend had been firmly established. Here he breezes past the valid point about diminishing oil supply and the need to be weaned from the petroleum teat to complain about the comparison of oil to...whatever one may be compelled to "detox" away from. How dare you! Pish-tosh and harrumph! After that, he even dares to accuse Tom of not being "intellectual."

I'll grant him "clarity" and "conciseness," but that alone doesn't approach intellect, as one can be clear and concise about a droll emotional opinion, as he shows us.
Gordie reminds me of something Hayek said. In fact, I think he's the Poster Child for this observation--

"Unlike liberalism, with its fundamental belief in the long-range power of ideas, conservatism is bound by the stock of ideas inherited at a given time. And since it does not really believe in the power of argument, its last resort is generally a claim to superior wisdom, based on some self-arrogated superior quality."

The only thing Hayek left out that would add to the Gordon description is -- "clear and concise superior wisdom."

I generally avoid the unrewarding task of cutting the Gordian Not, but I think it's acceptable if others want to get into a Pish-Tosh-off with the Master of Clear and Concise vacuity.

Kent Pitman. One thing I think is this. You have the most interesting comments that make readers ponder. You may not have but a banker dozen glazed doughnuts on Ash Wed Day - And you survived the pre-teen normal PTSD and got no low self esteem. You make me wish I still had my Children's Commandeer 64. I am sure some nice conservative will lambast You/me ~ and Barack Obama as a Liberal Racist before Ash Wed Day's Sun sets in the West. Thank a ~ few @ O.S.`
`
You get read at all.
I fear reread of me.
I no understand it.
`
Digits are here to stay
They engender stories
Some weird epiphanies
`
We can discern silly folk
delusional, interpret foe
sense guilts phenomena
moral guilt is cheap shot
`
Even if we were not shot at`
I think folk want to fall outs.
If parents with a tea toddler`
see thee toddler's tea bottle`
rubber nipple baby jug empty?
he two year old has a tantrum.
That because Ma/Pa argue too.
huh?
Farmer 'shrink' barnyard class.
Psycho 101.
P.S.
I wish I could share do-nuts.
We ate many glazed do-nuts.
Hagerstown, Md. sells them.
`
Honest. off-topic? They help too.
Eat Krump's do-nuts. Ash Wed Day.
THey may have a email delivery service.
I ate too many. You be burping bacon lard?
I don't what the do-nuts are made with. Lead?
I like food that makes me feel less led. Butterfly.
Those do-nuts made my belly ache am do-Moan.
apology.
No delete.
Lawyers do.
Judges eat do-nuts.
I wasn't gonna write that.
I was gonna critique comment.
Constructively.
You a big boy.
You respond.
I sense kind.
Respect too.
Diverse too.
I honestly was gonna comment
ref James Fallows etc., Your concise.
You sent me reading elsewhere.
That's a compliment to Teacher.
Now-I want 4- pieces of apple pie.
My 2- year old Grand child cranks.
If he don't get 4- Glazed doe-nuts?

He pouts and Yell at me`
Pa Pa ~ Ya make me consider suicide!
Well ~ That's more apple pie for me!
He wants to take Pa Pa's false teeth!
(tease - I still have real yellow teeth).

He wants them. Show & Tell Classes.
Maud Gras is over. Now we sips teas.
Kent Pitman. I sense you were sober.

I write sober. Aye, writs like teetotaler.
I tease `bout`
drunks, whores,
and new moons.
Moon will wax.
Ay, illustrious.
I was far away.
I may post later.
Last eve was nice.
None would cuts,
paste,
and said to me`
`
You shush up!

It was women!
O Woman Day.
Woe~Males~O.
It was a gathering.
Folks mention OS.
The party was fun.
None help me post.
Maybe I do-nuts no.
No eat 2- Krumpy's.
I no know why a vent.
You must forgive me?
I hope Alpha Blonde do.
Blonde Alpha is good ale.

A few comments about price: the most plausible scenario is that the price will go up and down like a roller coaster, but each peak, and each valley, will be somewhat higher that the previous peak and valley.

Because the global economy is so dependent on long-distance transportation, major increases in the price of oil are enough to put the economy in recession. This causes a temporary drop in oil pricing. But since the baseline demand continues to grow in places like India and China, the price of oil quickly resumes its climb, until it provokes another recession. This dynamic may be happening right now, as the anemic recovery since the 2008 crash pushes crude right back to $100/barrel. Throw in some mid-east turmoil, add some speculators going after a "hot" commodity, and you could soon have $200/barrel oil followed by another recession.

This is the scenario laid out in Jeff Rubin's book Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller, reviewed here:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/article1148668.ece

See spot run. See Gordon drool. How's that for concise?

Bob, and Paul, I thus far haven't even bothered moving Gordon O.'s remarks to the Cornfield because it's hardly worth my time. I agree it would be nice if there were enough meat on his comments that they could be evaluated from some on-topic point of view. But since they are largely unsupported, there seems little risk anyone would take them seriously. So I largely just flit on past.

Art, I'm perpetually too sober, I fear. Donuts would sound fun, if I could tolerate sugar. I used to like them when they liked me. I'm glad you enjoy the comments on my posts. There certainly have been many interesting things said.

Bart, thanks for the analysis. I can't disagree.

Tom, concise for sure, as it wouldn't even fill out a haiku.

Bob, I opted not to respond to your long remarks here after all. As you know from the e-mail I just sent you, I did write some remarks but they were ridiculously long for a comment and I'm saving them for use in a post somewhere instead.