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In 1982 we had just emerged from the decade where the 1973 Yom Kippur War oil crisis and the 1979 Iranian Revolution oil shock has us waiting in line for gasol

In 1982 we had just emerged from the decade where the 1973 Yom Kippur War oil crisis and the 1979 Iranian Revolution oil shock has us waiting in line for gasoline and filling only on odd/even days depending on whether we had odd or even license plates. People were interested in producing more oil, not less. Even the Club of Rome could not get much traction with its "Limits to Growth" reports. It was also the middle of the Cold War and oil is a vital military supply - the Department of Defense is a huge consumer of refined oil products.

mattacular 7y ago
Hope it was worth it.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Sharlin 7y ago
  For a few glorious moments we created a lot of value for the shareholders.
  - crisdux 7y ago
    We industrialized the world, lifted billions out of poverty, and increased living standards. Why do people ignore the human progress's we've made. Folks really need to have some perspective.
    - posixplz 7y ago
      And all it cost was the inevitable total destruction of our climate and ecology! Yay!
    - Sharlin 7y ago
      Had we acted on climate change in the 1980s, I doubt that would have made much difference on living standards in the end. And insofar as it would, it would have been worth it. Maybe we could have avoided the worst externalities of petrochem and consumerism-centered lifestyle.
    - nojvek 7y ago
      Right. Oil is energy. A very energy dense, low volume, light weight, easily transportable form of energy. It’s truly a liquid with magical properties that doesn’t have a green equivalent. Now the ask is to make people’s lives uncomfortable? I doubt that’s going to fly. My bet is whoever figures out a carbon capture -> green oil solution is in for big wins. Energy makes our lives great.
      - smt1 7y ago
        People have figured out carbon capture; people haven't figured out economical carbon capture at scale yet (except for reforestation, which only partially helps), and it feels like we're a long way off. If you want to incentivize the creation of CCS while still penalizing the externality (cost to society of a carbon intensive economy), you'd probably want to ratchet up something like a carbon tax, and then give a rebate for performing something like carbon capture. That might create the economies of scale needed.
      - Merrill 7y ago
        Petroleum and Sea Power -- https://aoghs.org/petroleum-in-war/petroleum-and-sea-power/ https://aoghs.org/petroleum-in-war/petroleum-and-sea-power/ Before airplanes, before tanks, the oil-fired battleship was a vast improvement over coal-fired battleships. Also "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power" by Daniel Yergin is essential for understanding the history of oil.
      - iikoolpp 7y ago
        > My bet is whoever figures out a carbon capture -> green oil solution is in for big wins. Otherwise known as a tree
        nojvek 7y ago
        Trees are great. What I mean is engineering Trees that convert sunlight in a super efficient way and bear electroil fruits. Electroil is an imaginary liquid that is as energy dense as oil but can be converted to electricity at almost a 100% efficiency We know most of the oil is used to power engines. It’s not a very efficient chemical to kinetic energy conversion.
    - tarsinge 7y ago
      What’s progress if then m/billions will die with climate change?
    - lifeformed 7y ago
      Would that not have happened had we been more responsible with our greenhouse gas emissions?
    - dorfsmay 7y ago
      While taking action and changing our ways and the use of some products to prevent further damage to the ozone layer, and even reverse damages. It doesn't have to be one or the other.
    - freen 7y ago
      I recently read almost exactly this talking point earlier today, about Exxon’s lies. Almost word for word. 1) that’s weird. 2) we make trade off choices all of the time, it’s what society does. However, when one side argues that the trade offs don’t exist, or lie about them, that’s deeply immoral, especially when it is such a pervasive, existential threat. “If you work this job I have for you in my mine, I know for a fact you’ll get mesothelioma, I won’t tell you, and in fact fight tooth and nail to convince you and everyone else that it’s perfectly safe. But now that you have mesothelioma, why don’t you think about the salary we paid you? How it supported your whole life? Maybe have a bit of perspective, huh?”
- yostrovs 7y ago
  Did you take an airplane anywhere in the meantime? Hope it was worth it, cause you knew about climate change when you got on it so many times you can't count them all.
  - dmm 7y ago
    People who advocate change should refuse to participate in any aspect of society. Otherwise their arguments are invalid because of hypocricy!
    - microcolonel 7y ago
      > People who advocate change should refuse to participate in any aspect of society. There's a big difference between refusing to burn massive amounts of oil and refusing to participate in any aspect of society. If burning oil like this is immoral for everyone, it is immoral for you; if it is not immoral for you, it is not immoral for anyone with your resources. > Otherwise their arguments are invalid because of hypocrisy! Yes, their arguments are silly because of hypocrisy; pricing the poor out of energy is a hypocritical way for the world's rich to purport to make change.
      - madaxe_again 7y ago
        You burn massive amounts of oil by being alive. Here you are, using a computer, using electricity, inside of a structure, eating food grown with artificial fertilisers and machinery, wearing clothes that were manufactured out of oil and then transported with oil. Unless you are living naked in a forest, foraging for food, and shivering for warmth, and have done so since birth, you’re as hypocritical as those you would accuse.
        microcolonel 7y ago
        > you’re as hypocritical as those you would accuse I'm not going around judging people for ordinary oil use, I fully accept the costs of my actions, and I know that convenience is more important to me than reducing my carbon footprint, at some threshold. The hypocrisy comes from putting on an air of caring without putting in the work, as though it is somehow a moral accomplishment to impose the costs of your own lifestyle on others. I also think it's pretty rich that this thread is nothing but name-calling, antagonism, and flamebait, and dang is nowhere to be seen; but I avoid all of this behaviour and somehow still get reprimanded because HNers can't help but be nasty to eachother in my threads.
ajross 7y ago
> People were interested in producing more oil, not less. That's not really a correct categorization. In fact the oil shock also drove serious interest (i.e. among "serious thinkers") in efficiency of consumption and distribution. The CAFE standards et. al. date from this period too. It wasn't until the mid 90's, long after climate change became a public meme, that most of our government turned away from the idea.
- Merrill 7y ago
  The Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act of 1965 was the first real vehicle pollution control act and it limited certain tailpipe emissions. However, it was one of the stupidist regulations ever, since it limited the proportion of unburned hydrocarbons, etc., in exhaust gas. The auto manufacturers did the rational thing and met the requirements by increasing the displacement of engines and pumping more air in a leaner mixture. The result was poor performing gas guzzlers and fleet mileage dropped from the mid 60s to the mid 70s. Thus, a decade of misguided federal clean air regulations made the oil crises much worse than they would have been. The regulations should have limited grams of pollutant per ton-kilometer in order to require both less pollutants and better efficiency.
- makomk 7y ago
  Efficiency improvements don't seem to be what the recent push against Exxon is about. In fact, according to Massachusett's lawsuit against them, claiming that efficiency improvements in hydrocarbon-powered vehicles reduce CO2 emissions is an illegal attempt to deceive the public because the vehicles still emit CO2.
amiga_500 7y ago
They didn’t just withhold, they actively sowed disinformation https://climateinvestigations.org/drilled-climate-change-denial/ https://climateinvestigations.org/drilled-climate-change-den... Are they doing it this very morning on popular forums?
mistrial9 7y ago
Motorists rush to fill their gas tanks in Martinez, Calif., on Sept. 21, 1973. During two separate oil crises in the 1970s, Americans from coast to coast faced persistent gas shortages as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, flexed its muscles and disrupted oil supplies. In 1973 and again in 1979, drivers frequently faced around-the-block lines when they tried to fill up. Drivers would go to stations before dawn or late at night, hoping to avoid the lines. Odd-even rationing was introduced — meaning that if the last digit on your license plate was odd, you could get gas only on odd-numbered days. New Jersey and New York have just reintroduced the system. Back in the '70s, some gas stations took to posting flags — green if they had gas, yellow if rationing was in effect and red if they were out of gas. -NPR https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2012/11/10/164792293/gas-lines-evoke-memories-oil-crises-in-the-1970s https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2012/11/10/16479229...
rhino369 7y ago
Even in the mid-90's we were being taught that the coming global catastrophe related to oil was that we wouldn't be able to produce <<enough>>. Peak Oil theory that was accepted at the time said that the world would have already hit peak oil production by now.
Maximus9000 7y ago
That is good context but it's not quite satisfying. It would be better if exxon was honest about the science and didnt try to obfuscate it with a coordinated campaign.
rasz 7y ago
I bet driving sedans/trucks powered by 4.4-8.2 liter (!) engines consuming 15-35 liters per 100km didnt help the situation either.

mattacular 7y ago

Hope it was worth it.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Sharlin 7y ago
For a few glorious moments we created a lot of value for the shareholders.
- crisdux 7y ago
  We industrialized the world, lifted billions out of poverty, and increased living standards. Why do people ignore the human progress's we've made. Folks really need to have some perspective.
  - posixplz 7y ago
    And all it cost was the inevitable total destruction of our climate and ecology! Yay!
  - Sharlin 7y ago
    Had we acted on climate change in the 1980s, I doubt that would have made much difference on living standards in the end. And insofar as it would, it would have been worth it. Maybe we could have avoided the worst externalities of petrochem and consumerism-centered lifestyle.
  - nojvek 7y ago
    Right. Oil is energy. A very energy dense, low volume, light weight, easily transportable form of energy. It’s truly a liquid with magical properties that doesn’t have a green equivalent. Now the ask is to make people’s lives uncomfortable? I doubt that’s going to fly. My bet is whoever figures out a carbon capture -> green oil solution is in for big wins. Energy makes our lives great.
    - smt1 7y ago
      People have figured out carbon capture; people haven't figured out economical carbon capture at scale yet (except for reforestation, which only partially helps), and it feels like we're a long way off. If you want to incentivize the creation of CCS while still penalizing the externality (cost to society of a carbon intensive economy), you'd probably want to ratchet up something like a carbon tax, and then give a rebate for performing something like carbon capture. That might create the economies of scale needed.
    - Merrill 7y ago
      Petroleum and Sea Power -- https://aoghs.org/petroleum-in-war/petroleum-and-sea-power/ https://aoghs.org/petroleum-in-war/petroleum-and-sea-power/ Before airplanes, before tanks, the oil-fired battleship was a vast improvement over coal-fired battleships. Also "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power" by Daniel Yergin is essential for understanding the history of oil.
    - iikoolpp 7y ago
      > My bet is whoever figures out a carbon capture -> green oil solution is in for big wins. Otherwise known as a tree
      - nojvek 7y ago
        Trees are great. What I mean is engineering Trees that convert sunlight in a super efficient way and bear electroil fruits. Electroil is an imaginary liquid that is as energy dense as oil but can be converted to electricity at almost a 100% efficiency We know most of the oil is used to power engines. It’s not a very efficient chemical to kinetic energy conversion.
  - tarsinge 7y ago
    What’s progress if then m/billions will die with climate change?
  - lifeformed 7y ago
    Would that not have happened had we been more responsible with our greenhouse gas emissions?
  - dorfsmay 7y ago
    While taking action and changing our ways and the use of some products to prevent further damage to the ozone layer, and even reverse damages. It doesn't have to be one or the other.
  - freen 7y ago
    I recently read almost exactly this talking point earlier today, about Exxon’s lies. Almost word for word. 1) that’s weird. 2) we make trade off choices all of the time, it’s what society does. However, when one side argues that the trade offs don’t exist, or lie about them, that’s deeply immoral, especially when it is such a pervasive, existential threat. “If you work this job I have for you in my mine, I know for a fact you’ll get mesothelioma, I won’t tell you, and in fact fight tooth and nail to convince you and everyone else that it’s perfectly safe. But now that you have mesothelioma, why don’t you think about the salary we paid you? How it supported your whole life? Maybe have a bit of perspective, huh?”
yostrovs 7y ago
Did you take an airplane anywhere in the meantime? Hope it was worth it, cause you knew about climate change when you got on it so many times you can't count them all.
- dmm 7y ago
  People who advocate change should refuse to participate in any aspect of society. Otherwise their arguments are invalid because of hypocricy!
  - microcolonel 7y ago
    > People who advocate change should refuse to participate in any aspect of society. There's a big difference between refusing to burn massive amounts of oil and refusing to participate in any aspect of society. If burning oil like this is immoral for everyone, it is immoral for you; if it is not immoral for you, it is not immoral for anyone with your resources. > Otherwise their arguments are invalid because of hypocrisy! Yes, their arguments are silly because of hypocrisy; pricing the poor out of energy is a hypocritical way for the world's rich to purport to make change.
    - madaxe_again 7y ago
      You burn massive amounts of oil by being alive. Here you are, using a computer, using electricity, inside of a structure, eating food grown with artificial fertilisers and machinery, wearing clothes that were manufactured out of oil and then transported with oil. Unless you are living naked in a forest, foraging for food, and shivering for warmth, and have done so since birth, you’re as hypocritical as those you would accuse.
      - microcolonel 7y ago
        > you’re as hypocritical as those you would accuse I'm not going around judging people for ordinary oil use, I fully accept the costs of my actions, and I know that convenience is more important to me than reducing my carbon footprint, at some threshold. The hypocrisy comes from putting on an air of caring without putting in the work, as though it is somehow a moral accomplishment to impose the costs of your own lifestyle on others. I also think it's pretty rich that this thread is nothing but name-calling, antagonism, and flamebait, and dang is nowhere to be seen; but I avoid all of this behaviour and somehow still get reprimanded because HNers can't help but be nasty to eachother in my threads.

ajross 7y ago

> People were interested in producing more oil, not less. That's not really a correct categorization. In fact the oil shock also drove serious interest (i.e. among "serious thinkers") in efficiency of consumption and distribution. The CAFE standards et. al. date from this period too. It wasn't until the mid 90's, long after climate change became a public meme, that most of our government turned away from the idea.

Merrill 7y ago
The Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act of 1965 was the first real vehicle pollution control act and it limited certain tailpipe emissions. However, it was one of the stupidist regulations ever, since it limited the proportion of unburned hydrocarbons, etc., in exhaust gas. The auto manufacturers did the rational thing and met the requirements by increasing the displacement of engines and pumping more air in a leaner mixture. The result was poor performing gas guzzlers and fleet mileage dropped from the mid 60s to the mid 70s. Thus, a decade of misguided federal clean air regulations made the oil crises much worse than they would have been. The regulations should have limited grams of pollutant per ton-kilometer in order to require both less pollutants and better efficiency.
makomk 7y ago
Efficiency improvements don't seem to be what the recent push against Exxon is about. In fact, according to Massachusett's lawsuit against them, claiming that efficiency improvements in hydrocarbon-powered vehicles reduce CO2 emissions is an illegal attempt to deceive the public because the vehicles still emit CO2.

amiga_500 7y ago

They didn’t just withhold, they actively sowed disinformation https://climateinvestigations.org/drilled-climate-change-denial/ https://climateinvestigations.org/drilled-climate-change-den... Are they doing it this very morning on popular forums?

mistrial9 7y ago

Motorists rush to fill their gas tanks in Martinez, Calif., on Sept. 21, 1973. During two separate oil crises in the 1970s, Americans from coast to coast faced persistent gas shortages as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, flexed its muscles and disrupted oil supplies. In 1973 and again in 1979, drivers frequently faced around-the-block lines when they tried to fill up. Drivers would go to stations before dawn or late at night, hoping to avoid the lines. Odd-even rationing was introduced — meaning that if the last digit on your license plate was odd, you could get gas only on odd-numbered days. New Jersey and New York have just reintroduced the system. Back in the '70s, some gas stations took to posting flags — green if they had gas, yellow if rationing was in effect and red if they were out of gas. -NPR https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2012/11/10/164792293/gas-lines-evoke-memories-oil-crises-in-the-1970s https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2012/11/10/16479229...

rhino369 7y ago

Even in the mid-90's we were being taught that the coming global catastrophe related to oil was that we wouldn't be able to produce <<enough>>. Peak Oil theory that was accepted at the time said that the world would have already hit peak oil production by now.

Maximus9000 7y ago

That is good context but it's not quite satisfying. It would be better if exxon was honest about the science and didnt try to obfuscate it with a coordinated campaign.

rasz 7y ago

I bet driving sedans/trucks powered by 4.4-8.2 liter (!) engines consuming 15-35 liters per 100km didnt help the situation either.