Renewables

[Drashner1]

This creates a problem: It is very late in the day; as the Hirsch Report pointed out five years ago ;adapting to peak oil without drastic social disruptions requires major changes to begin twenty years before the peak. We missed that chance, and so there are going to be drastic social disruptions. Said disruptions will make moves to sustain industrial civilization on renewables impossible and thus cause drastically reduced living standards. This combined with mass migrations etc. will cause a centuries-long societal collapse with its accompanying dark age until someone figures out how to use the tech you described.

Sorry, but I'm not seeing any evidence for much of what you're saying here, certainly not from the link to the Hirsch report you cite. They talk about some potential for societal disruption and shortfalls measured in decades. That 's a big jump to go from there to 'centuries-long societal collapse and its accompanying dark age'.

Frankly, this reminds me a lot of the Limits to Growth report that came out decades ago and predicted that society would have fallen into a centuries long dark ago some decades ago. Notably, it didn't.

Dealing with peak oil and energy and environmental issues is certainly a serious issue and one that may involve some societal pain along the way. But it seems to me that you're being more than a little melodramatic here.

You seem to be operating on the theory that the only possible response to societal stress is for society to fall apart. Historically, that isn't want happens. Society changes, it adapts, and it also innovates and looks for ways to meet the problem. While it certainly isn't a given that this will happen, neither is it a given that the only possible response is to just throw our hands up in the air and wait for civilization to die.

Todd