ita, insent to profile addy.

My personal favourite disaster scenario is another flu pandemic. We cosy first-worlders will probably be spared the worst of it, but up to 5% of the world's population died in the 1918 outbreak, and we're more overpopulated now than then. Even if the disease itself didn't do so much damage, the economic impact would be pretty severe.

Yes, I was one of those kids who cried themselves to sleep at night convinced I was going to wake up to a nuclear holocaust, why do you ask?

The problem is not so much that oil is gonna run out, but that at some point oil production will peak, and as oil gets harder and harder to extract the world's oil production will start to decline, or at least it will be unable to keep on growing to meet demand. This will result in much higher oil prices, shortages, etc.

There's a lot more to all this, but I'm busy at the moment so....

Short version is that for a typical oil field, once half the oil is gone, the remaing half gets harder and harder to get out, so that field's production will peak at the half-gone point and decline after that. This can also be applied to countries, such as the US (where our oil production peaked around '71 IIRC) and Saudia Arabia, where some think this will happen in the next ten years....

cereal:

Excerpt of oil article here.

We have the science and technology to provide alternatives to oil and gas. But we won't fully exploit them until oil is so expensive that we have no choice.

I'm worried, obviously, but not in full panic mode just yet. When prices force people to think about the way they use petroleum, things will change.

For one thing, they didn't have Miracle Gro in 1800.

For another, I delight in reading articles about people who drive their cars on corn oil. (Apparently they smell like popcorn driving by, and it's illegal in the UK because it's an attempt to avoid the gasoline tax.)

For a third, giant wind turbines are the wave of the future. And with global warming, we'll have plenty of wind!!

Lack of fresh water will be the bigger problem of the future.

This always reminds me of George on Six Feet Under, sitting and staring at the web site showing how our water supply is disappearign as he descends into paranoia. But it is legitimately scary.

My personal favourite disaster scenario is another flu pandemic.

This is my pick, too, though I think it could be flu or another disease. I also get paranoid about the (over)use of antibacterial agents in soaps and the like, on the theory that we're producing superbacteria that will one day rise and kill us all.

Received and replied, Aimée.

I don't know. I can read Wentworth Miller. I can totally see it. The Purcelll guy, on the other hand, continues to seem heavy and hammy to me.

Know who's just as pretty in real life as on the screen? Victor Webster. Dearie me.

Oh. My.

My personal favourite disaster scenario is another flu pandemic. We cosy first-worlders will probably be spared the worst of it, but up to 5% of the world's population died in the 1918 outbreak, and we're more overpopulated now than then. Even if the disease itself didn't do so much damage, the economic impact would be pretty severe.

Yes, I was one of those kids who cried themselves to sleep at night convinced I was going to wake up to a nuclear holocaust, why do you ask?

Hee. I was following the conversation based on Susan's question and was all set to respond to her, "Don't worry. We'll all be dead of bird flu, long before the oil runs out."

We have the science and technology to provide alternatives to oil and gas. But we won't fully exploit them until oil is so expensive that we have no choice.

I also think Big Business needs to decide/figure it it can exploit the masses as well with alternatives as they can with petro based energy sources.