How realistic is "Global Peak" series now?

[Battlehymn Republic]

Global Peak was a really well-written story series by The Duchess of Zeon and others depicting the dystopia that results from the aftermath of peak oil. The U.S. breaks apart between an authoritarian emergency federal government and highly regressive far right governments. Much of Europe goes neo-fascist. Much of the Mideast and South Asia are nuked. And so forth.

It was excellent, if morose, world-building, and now six years after the last piece of that story was posted, how closer are we to that dystopia? It certainly seems like culturally speaking the West has alarming tendencies towards renewed nativism, xenophobia, and outright reactionary thought. On the other hand, are we still as screwed by peak oil as we thought we were? Isn't renewable energy technology advancing better than we expected?

Curiously, the only other thread besides StarDestroyer.net that mentions that story can be found here- looks like there's some critiques of it.

[The Romulan Republic]

I suspect that between pre-existing economic problems and neo-Nazish elements, the current refugee crisis, and Islamic terrorism, much of Europe will go Neo-Nazi.

Beyond that, I can't say, except that I tend to believe that if nukes start flying, everyone's probably going to get nuked.

Well, I guess I can also say that I doubt the US would break into multiple stable nations. I can't see the Federal government allowing regions to secede unless it was utterly crippled.

[Simon_Jester]

The federal government allowing secession would require either a screwup on the level of James Buchanan (the guy who allowed it to happen last time), or the federal government doing something so controversial and such a violation of basic citizens' rights that the population was more or less evenly split on whether obeying the government was legitimate (which is what happens in most civil wars).

Things get different when the population is approaching a 50/50 split (or something like the American Revolution with roughly 1/3 of the people favoring rebellion, 1/3 favoring union with Britain, and 1/3 neutral). At that point, organizing an effective response to secession becomes very challenging.

[Battlehymn Republic]

Has anyone read those stories and remember them? At the time, they seemed more like peak Bush-era paranoia. Now- well they seem somewhat more realistic, but they failed to predict Tesla and Trump, to pick two random signs of the times.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

We've pretty much dodged the peak oil bullet. The 2008 recession reduced demand for a number of years and fracking will add 10-15 more years of cheap supply. By then the greening of the auto fleet will be well underway. Bad news for the climate, good news for the economy. By the way, I seem to remember pointing out back then that high oil prices would increase incentives to find a technological solution to oil shortages (which turned out to be fracking and higher fuel efficiency) and was ridiculed for magical thinking.

[Thanas]

We've pretty much dodged the peak oil bullet. The 2008 recession reduced demand for a number of years and fracking will add 10-15 more years of cheap supply. By then the greening of the auto fleet will be well underway. Bad news for the climate, good news for the economy. By the way, I seem to remember pointing out back then that high oil prices would increase incentives to find a technological solution to oil shortages (which turned out to be fracking and higher fuel efficiency) and was ridiculed for magical thinking.

That peak oil bullet was never realistic to begin with, really. I mean, "bread lines".

I suspect that between pre-existing economic problems and neo-Nazish elements, the current refugee crisis, and Islamic terrorism, much of Europe will go Neo-Nazi.

And I suspect you have not been taking your pills recently.

Honestly, between you and Cosmical ALi I can't even distinguish who is worse right now.

[trekky0623]

The advent of electric cars and nuclear energy is what is probably going to supplant oil for power and transportation. The other thing I think would be worried is plastics, but there are eco-friendly substitutes. All in all, I do not think we'll see a huge global recession after oil. The oil companies are well aware of the current supply, and will not be investing money in oil if they aren't sure they can get a return. Companies like BP and other oil companies are already investing in green tech in order to make money after the oil becomes unprofitable.

As for the environment, the current oil situation is set to raise the global temperature well beyond the 2°C limit we've been hoping to avoid. There is just way too much money invested in oil that hasn't even been burned yet to abandon it, which probably means more warming and rough times, especially for developing countries.

[Patroklos]

The advent of nuclear power was 70 years ago. The simple fact is green energy was going to replace oil as soon as it was sufficiently mature as a technology to do so economically. No amount of hand wringing from activists, empty promises from non-engineer futurists, or nay saying from fossil fuel lobbyists changed a thing regarding its ascendance.

Lucky the current techs don't have an obvious boogey man to turn consumers away like nuclear. We wouldn't be in half the trouble we are not if the eco freaks (as opposed to principled sane enviromentalists) didn't bury that tech under lies.

[The Romulan Republic]

We've pretty much dodged the peak oil bullet. The 2008 recession reduced demand for a number of years and fracking will add 10-15 more years of cheap supply. By then the greening of the auto fleet will be well underway. Bad news for the climate, good news for the economy. By the way, I seem to remember pointing out back then that high oil prices would increase incentives to find a technological solution to oil shortages (which turned out to be fracking and higher fuel efficiency) and was ridiculed for magical thinking.

That peak oil bullet was never realistic to begin with, really. I mean, "bread lines".

I suspect that between pre-existing economic problems and neo-Nazish elements, the current refugee crisis, and Islamic terrorism, much of Europe will go Neo-Nazi.

And I suspect you have not been taking your pills recently.

Honestly, between you and Cosmical ALi I can't even distinguish who is worse right now.

Weather you agree with me or not, weather I am right or not (and this is a point, obviously, on which I'd very much like to be wrong), I just want to point out, in case your post makes it unclear to anyone, that my politics and values are very, very different from what I have seen of the individual in question, and that while you may find us both offensive, any implication that our attitudes are the same would be false.

[Patroklos]

Crazy is a circle not a line. In the case of exaggerating relatively minor current events in the grand scheme of things into world changing apocalyptic near future realities you have both met on the other side.

[Battlehymn Republic]

So I suppose Surlethe's "Global Mean Temperature" ended up being the more plausible story? I suppose "Global Peak" teaches us that prognostication is hard, especially about the near future.

[Sea Skimmer]

Peak oil collapse was always nonsense, and has now been thoroughly replaced with zombie fantasy as the new method of doom of choice of the internet world. I'm sure at some point sooner then later the zombie thing will fade, it already is in large part, and be replaced by something else in turn.

[Thanas]

Weather you agree with me or not, weather I am right or not (and this is a point, obviously, on which I'd very much like to be wrong), I just want to point out, in case your post makes it unclear to anyone, that my politics and values are very, very different from what I have seen of the individual in question, and that while you may find us both offensive, any implication that our attitudes are the same would be false.

And I want to make it clear that your behaviour is exactly like him, no matter what political ideologies you hold. Chicken littles blowing events out of proportion while having no clue what is really happening, but that cluelessness does not stop you from wildly speculating and exaggerating everything into the worst possible scenario ever.

[CaptHawkeye]

Global Peak was a really well-written story series by The Duchess of Zeon and others depicting the dystopia that results from the aftermath of peak oil. The U.S. breaks apart between an authoritarian emergency federal government and highly regressive far right governments. Much of Europe goes neo-fascist. Much of the Mideast and South Asia are nuked. And so forth.

It's like people really can't tell she was more than a little depressed about her own prospects in work and finance that year.

It was excellent, if morose, world-building, and now six years after the last piece of that story was posted, how closer are we to that dystopia? It certainly seems like culturally speaking the West has alarming tendencies towards renewed nativism, xenophobia, and outright reactionary thought. On the other hand, are we still as screwed by peak oil as we thought we were? Isn't renewable energy technology advancing better than we expected?

The joke to me about all of it was the reaction the predominantly rich white-westerners who populate this board had about the very idea they might experience 1/10 of what the Third World deals with every day. I mean Thanas isn't the only one chuckling at the "bread lines" doom prophecy that DoZ ever-so-gracefully backpedaled from a year later.

We've pretty much dodged the peak oil bullet.

How does it make you feel to know that much of your life is spent in a state of perpetual fear?

[Thanas]

The joke to me about all of it was the reaction the predominantly rich white-westerners who populate this board had about the very idea they might experience 1/10 of what the Third World deals with every day. I mean Thanas isn't the only one chuckling at the "bread lines" doom prophecy that DoZ ever-so-gracefully backpedaled from a year later.

Why? I mean, there are dozens of such "peak anything" prophecies around. In the 70s it was peak coal. Then it became peak oil. The idea that those shortages would actually collapse western civilization is a bit rich.

It has nothing to do about not recognizing that the third world is exploited and facing problems every day. It has everything to do with the fact that those doom-and-gloom scenarios have been around ever since mass media was invented (anybody should read some books of the 18th century where overpopulation is used as the doom which can only be fixed by waging wars and taking land from others) and to this day they have not come true because humanity is very good at adapting if necessary.

[Adam Reynolds]

It has nothing to do about not recognizing that the third world is exploited and facing problems every day. It has everything to do with the fact that those doom-and-gloom scenarios have been around ever since mass media was invented (anybody should read some books of the 18th century where overpopulation is used as the doom which can only be fixed by waging wars and taking land from others) and to this day they have not come true because humanity is very good at adapting if necessary.

What is especially enlightening in this respect is a history of peak fertilizer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. First it was peak guano, then it was peak salt peter, then finally the Fritz-Haber process put all such fears to rest. We will eventually see the same thing with energy. Short term we will see "green" energy, long term we might eventually see fusion power. LockMart believes they will have it by 2020. While I am somewhat skeptical about that rather ambitious claim, we will probably have something within the 21st century.

[K. A. Pital]

I don't want to channel Vader here, but yeah, being too proud is also wrong. Peak something is just a concentrated apocalyptic scenario that is easy to imagine (and relate to) because our economic system is voracious and can barely be steered; overfishing and extermination of entire species have happened before, so overconsumption of a non-renewable resource can and will happen; the only question that remains is whether substitutes can be found.

Civilizations have collapsed before; advanced, technologically developed ones (by the standards of their time). Rome has fallen; the consequences for cultural and technological advancement in Europe could be described as several centuries of disaster and, at the end, a short period of uncovering prior discoveries - before moving on.

Humanity survives; it adapts. The fall of empires, the feudal infighting - all this was survived by mankind as a whole, but it was not pretty for the ordinary human being.

The apocalyptic as a genre is interesting - fascinating sometimes, but in my view it represents the apocalyptic fears of the ruling class; for it cannot see a future for itself. It therefore deprives the whole world of a future in their visions.

I have already mentioned that this world lacks a vision of the future that would be attractive and compelling. Cyberpunk - our present and our nearest future - is compelling and terrifyingly realistic, but it is not attractive. It was meant as a warning genre but has itself became the ordinary, the all-too-real, and in the end it became our reality to a great extent. Totality of control over one's thoughts and one's life, but at the same time utter atomization, destruction of social solidarity on a level unheard of in the mid-XX century.

In the absence of a positive vision - and there is none, capitalism is ugly and coupled with technological marvels it just produces the above - negative visions will take its place. It is no surprise that apocalyptic visions are interesting and compelling, but they are likewise not attractive, at least not in the sense of "I'd like this to be my tomorrow". Whether amateurs or professionals, nobody offers a vision that I'd like. Most offer something shocking - just to shock, perform for the sake of performance. "Look how bad things are and how even more bad they can be!"

The lack of vision itself is a cause for concern. The failure of a particular vision to become reality is not.

[Battlehymn Republic]

Does anyone thing nuclear fission using existing tech might become politically feasible in America within a generation? Especially if it's touted as a solution to energy production that causes climate change?

[Elheru Aran]

Does anyone thing nuclear fission using existing tech might become politically feasible in America within a generation? Especially if it's touted as a solution to energy production that causes climate change?

Within a generation? No. A couple, three generations? Maybe. Certainly once we start seeing some more drastic effects of climate change. But the anti-nuclear lobby over all branches of society has contaminated that source of energy pretty inescapably for the near future.

[Thanas]

I don't want to channel Vader here, but yeah, being too proud is also wrong. Peak something is just a concentrated apocalyptic scenario that is easy to imagine (and relate to) because our economic system is voracious and can barely be steered; overfishing and extermination of entire species have happened before, so overconsumption of a non-renewable resource can and will happen; the only question that remains is whether substitutes can be found.

Civilizations have collapsed before; advanced, technologically developed ones (by the standards of their time). Rome has fallen; the consequences for cultural and technological advancement in Europe could be described as several centuries of disaster and, at the end, a short period of uncovering prior discoveries - before moving on.

But the fall of such civilizations cannot be linked to one such event. Usually it takes a perfect storm of such factors to even threaten, much less destabilize society. I mean, the Romans were up against external enemies, declining population, climate change, change in sea levels, resource shortages and mass migration. And yet it took nearly a century until it brought them down and even then 2/3rds of the Empire survived.

History tells us that civilization falls. It also tells us that they do not fall due to a single reason once the nation in question has become large enough, which is certainly true for the alliances that form the west.

If anything, the consequences of resource shortages will be inflicted on the less powerful. You can already see that with how EU agriculture is crushing third-world economies.

[Battlehymn Republic]

The lack of vision itself is a cause for concern. The failure of a particular vision to become reality is not.

Well, locally speaking, it'd be interesting to see what the 2015 SD.net equivalent to this 2007 series would be.

[Thanas]

Probably peak water.

[Elheru Aran]

Energy is still a concern, especially as so much of it still focuses on fossil fuels. The transition from standard forms to alternatives could create enough tension to permit a decent story to be written around it. Water is one concern, but it's a symptom of the greater problem of climate change.

[Sea Skimmer]

Peak internet bandwidth, duh! We already had a moron here claim loosing the internet was on par with being nuked, someone should write a story in which that is taking as literal fact.

[Lonestar]

Peak internet bandwidth, duh! We already had a moron here claim loosing the internet was on par with being nuked, someone should write a story in which that is taking as literal fact.

You rang?