[lit-ideas] Re: A New Oregon Trail?

  • From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 16:28:00 -0800

Apparently Julie is not the only one with a soft spot for Oregon. I guess we'd better send the welcome mat to the cleaners.

David Ritchie
Portland, Oregon


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Oil expert: Output downhill from here
Energy - Author Ken Deffeyes thinks the depletion of fossil fuels could lead to a worldwide cataclysm
 February 27, 2006
Excerpt, go to http://www.oregonlive.com/business/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/business/1140854437306230.xml&coll=7&thispage=3 for complete article
 
TED SICKINGER

Few petroleum geologists qualify as celebrities. But Ken Deffeyes, a former Shell Oil geologist who is now a professor emeritus of geosciences at Princeton University, recently sold out Portland's First Congregational Church, where he came to lecture on his latest book, "Beyond Oil."

Before Princeton, Deffeyes worked as a researcher in the labs of Shell Oil and taught at the University of Minnesota and Oregon State University. At Shell, he worked with the now-famous petroleum geologist M. King Hubbert. Hubbert coined what is fast becoming a fixture in the modern lexicon -- "peak oil" -- when he predicted that U.S. oil production would peak in the early 1970s and decline thereafter. Widely criticized at the time, Hubbert has since been vindicated.

Building on Hubbert's hypotheses, Deffeyes recently theorized that world oil production peaked Dec. 16, 2005, and has begun its permanent decline, with economic disruptions to follow.
.....

So you really believe [an apocalyptic] scenario is somewhat likely?

We're not doing much about it. We could have had a soft landing if we had listened to Jimmy Carter and started 20 years ago. But in the absence of a Winston Churchill or John Kennedy, I'm not sure we're going to get in gear fast enough to avoid this. The mildest form of the disaster is a global recession worse than the Great Depression, and that's a form it could take rather than war, famine, pestilence and death.

How would you prepare for this?

What I'd like to have is farmland on volcanic rich soils so that it doesn't require fertilizer. And I need a place where there's enough rainfall. Maybe this could be in Oregon. Owning something that's relatively energy independent and supplies food for the survivors to eat would be the sweetest target.

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