Peak Oil

I have been planning a post on this for some time now, but since it is somewhat related to the story below (I plan to connect this up in later posts) I might as well get it out there now.

At a basic level, "Peak Oil" theory is based on the fact that oil is a finite (unrenewable) resource. The theory states that the production of oil therefore can be plotted as a bell curve (the y axis being amount of production, and the x axis being time). At the top of this curve (the "peak") oil production is at its maximum, and as you move to the right of the peak (forward in time) oil production steadily declines.

The illustration (top right) is from a paper advanced by M.K. Hubbert in 1956. The dates given along the x axis are theoretical based on data available at that time, and have since been updated by others.

You can read further about this in the Wikipedia article. My favorite website on this is here, although they seem to have recently taken the unfortunate step of including a lot of propaganda for global warming (try to ignore this -- the two issues are not related).

Anyway. The implications of this theory are that at some point in the future (near or distant, depending on who you believe) the demand for oil (which is steadily increasing and will continue to to so) will begin to far outstrip production (which will begin to decrease). Because of the importance of oil to the global economy and to our everyday lives, this will cause all manner of negative consequences.

Does this relate to what is going on in Iraq? Stay tuned.

So much for not thinking about Iraq

Ok, now the Iraq thing is in my head. Here's a link to a recap of our president's interview on 60 Minutes. Some excerpts:

The president bridled at the suggestion that he has been less than forthcoming with the American people about such matters as the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the lack of any connection between the September 11, 2001 attacks and Iraq, and predictions that the war would cost about $50 billion -- far short of the current $400 billion price tag.

How many corporate CEOs would keep their positions after the stockholders realized that a project proposed by that CEO and undertaken by the company will end up costing at least 8 times the amount originally budgeted? Didn't Republicans used to be the party of fiscal responsibility?

"I strongly reject that this administration hasn't been straight with the American people," he said. "The minute we found out they didn't have weapons of mass destruction, I was the first to say so."

Well, at least the first to say so other than Saddam Hussein. And again with a corporate analogy: How many CEOs would keep their jobs after spending that much money, relative to their overall corporate budget, not to mention other resources (think personnel, as well as corporate goodwill), to undertake a project based on a premise that turns out not to be true? And if this were the real reason we undertook this project (i.e., a war, for God's sake, with real actual dead people, and lots of them), don't you think we might should have investigated this a bit more and sought to, like, actually confirm it first?

As he did in his Wednesday speech, when he announced the deployment of more troops to the nearly 4-year-old war, Bush acknowledged his administration made mistakes in Iraq. Bush allowed that low troop levels "could have been a mistake," that led to a widespread breakdown in law and order after the March 2003 invasion.

So... the war itself, invading a country, killing thousands of its citizens and thousands of ours, spending 400 billion dollars to do so, at a cost of 8x the amount originally estimated, all based on
information found and admitted to be 100% false, all that isn't a mistake, the only mistake was (maybe) that we didn't send enough military over there in the first place?

"We liberated that country from a tyrant. I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude. That's the problem here in America: They wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that's significant enough in Iraq."

Oh, so that's the problem. If only there was a significant enough gratitude level, people in America wouldn't care that we spent 400 billion dollars and lost 3000+ soldiers to invade a country based on false information.

If there is such a thing as a "credibility gap", I think our president has fallen head over heels into it.