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It's basic supply and demand, which is microencomics, formally known as the non-bunk part of economics. Macroeconomics is where the bunk lives, so it's quite ea
by eloff 7y ago
It's basic supply and demand, which is microencomics, formally known as the non-bunk part of economics. Macroeconomics is where the bunk lives, so it's quite easy to tell - only slightly joking.
I don't think anyone on either side really knew with oil how things would go. Hindsight is 20-20, and one of the two camps was going to win with 100% certainty. It's not fully decided yet mind you, peak oil could still happen if people keep increasing demand for it instead of weaning away from fossil fuels. But I don't think that scenario is likely at all.
- jessaustin 7y agoI don't recall any of the original Peakist manifestos including your very reasonable caveats about hindsight and uncertainty? Really though, this is why I sort of stopped worrying about peak oil about a day after I was first exposed to the idea. It was a very absolutist disastrous sea-change phase-transition sort of scenario, and those are relatively rare in real life. (Well, at some level they are very common: everyone is conceived at some time and dies at another. These details disappear in aggregate.) It's much more common for equilibria that have been stable over decades to continue that stability, even if at slightly different locations. Lots of things are more expensive in our modern times than they used to be; somehow society has survived.
- woodandsteel 7y agoIt became a moot argument due to the rise of renewable energy and concern about global climate change. I really doubt that is going to change for many decades.