For those who want to "bug-out" - bigtime !

Sounds like Branson is a technofixer to me. I can tolerate that for now as long as he's willing to sound the alarm.

Good luck with that.

The Credit Crunch was triggered by the rising swell from the approaching PO storm.

Don't we already have a thread for that?

Politicians are hopelessly incapable of addressing complex, long-term issues ... and for Branson to suggest that politicians have the capacity to confront issues like PO or GW is the height of idealism.

Besides, he's 5 to 10 years too late. PO has already "caught us" off guard.

You know what, at this point I don't even care. I would like to see the issue finally get its due, just for the "I told ya so" value among my peers.

Agreed, and, in the process, let's expose the cornies' bullshit arguments for the vapid nonsense that they are ... and let's watch the cornies concede in abject humiliation, with their tails down, as their dwindling numbers evaporate into oblivion ...

I *DO* wonder for how long cornies will insist that the reason production is declining is because demand is down (because of the economy).

I would say the key in figuring out whether it is economy-caused demand reduction or geology-caused production decline is price...

I'd say if oil price goes up this year AND demand for oil stays down, we'll have our answer...

The Saudis are so full of it, it's rediculous. I agree Mos, it has to be a good thing someone as prominent as Branson is coming out in this way, not just in a press release but in direct pushing of the issue to his government. Little by little the message is getting through. Governments must recognise the problem and slow down oil use quite dramaticly to have any chance of cornucopian techno fix. BAU will circumvent this possibility altogether. It's going to be very politicly unpopular but consensus must be reached and soon. Taxes on fuel must dramaticly grow, and NOT be put into ROADS but mitigation strategies.

The debate is obviously starting to bubble up, as we saw in Davos or the IEA "scandal" before it. It's going to take the form of an angry debate just as AGW was. It's not going to rise up without oil elites and conservatives trying to play whack-a-mole on it.

I expect any "names" like Branson to face withering "blame the messenger" attacks, just as Al Gore has, or Lovelock.

Branson is a big name to be telling such truth. He better watch out. There is no government (except for Sweden) which has recognized Peak Oil, and very few important people who will acknowledge that it's a problem.

They are probably building their lifeboats if they know about it, like Matt Simmons.

My crystal ball tells me TPTB are currently preoccupied figuring out where the next big war will be/ Iran or China. This preoccupation will drown out sensible conversation.

Branson must have been thinking about this for a while before he went public.

He's been preparing his own "doomstead" for years.

Branson's newest toy for his doomstead

Serious +1

I think you have to figure time in too, multiple quarters or years of the condition you describe happening.

especially if Branson continues with this
http://www.virgingalactic.com/

talk about a clash of interests!

Branson's peak oil spiel is making waves around the world. I am getting ready for work here and one of the MSM (in Australia) stations just did a story on it. They did the usual format, with a public transport activist and a sceptic. Even the sceptic was agreeing there will be shockwaves throughout the economy and that the EIA may have been fudging figures to prevent market panic. The attitude of the news channel was quite blase', of course. Up until now it has only been discussed in non commercial media, so I suppose this is a step forward.

According to James Lovelocks latest book Branson has said he will take him into space when he gets it up and running. Branson has maybe become an uberdoomer from chatting to Lovelock.

I would guess that Virgin Galactic (catering to the megawealthy) will do just fine, whereas an airline like Southwest would be the one to go bust. Remember, post peak decline won't be like normal to mad max right away, a very long period of third world style rank inequality is more likely.

A quote from the article:


Good lord, government is stupid. They're just taking BP and and Saudi's word for it that everything's ok, nothing to see here.

That's easy. It doesn't

Lovelock is indeed King Doom and as of yet, his predictions have not been wrong