More about Peak Oil

I realised last night's post was pretty brief so I thought I should explain more about what this whole "Peak Oil" thing is about. I have also read a few websites that reckon it's all a big conspiracy by governments to control people and that there's no problem at all. I would suggest that even if there is no shortage of oil, we should probably still use less of it to cut down on greenhouse emissions.

So why is Peak Oil such a big deal? Well, first of all we should consider what we use oil for. It's not just a question of finding something else to fuel our cars. (I always thought it was.) All plastics are made out of stuff derived from oil. Inks also come from oil. A lot of pharmaceuticals also rely on our supply of crude oil. Finally, almost all of our food industry in the west relies heavily on oil to exist. Tractors, farm machinery and of course the trucks that transport everything around are reliant on oil. If there is no oil, we have no food, medicine, transport or even ink. That's pretty bad.

The name "Peak Oil" refers to the global production of oil hitting the highest it will ever hit and then dropping off. Although that means we have only used 50% of the world's oil, it means the remaining 50% will be very expensive for a number of reasons. 1) The longer you extract oil from a field the harder it gets to extract the rest because it is initially under pressure. As the pressure drops off, water has to be introduced to force the oil out, which then has to be processed more afterwards. This is more time consuming and more expensive. 2) The demand for oil and the world's population have both been increasing so even though we may drop to a level of production that was sufficient 10 years ago, it might not be enough for today. Increased demand leads to increased price.

I don't claim to be an expert on this subject. I'm just very interested in what it could mean for the future of our society as we know it. I already have been feeling that we have been very wasteful of the Earth's natural resources and this is one more thing to consider. It's naive of us to think that oil will last for ever and when you look at how much of our society relies on oil, it makes you wonder how we'd cope if we suddenly had no oil to run our lives.

I've read some articles by people who say Peak Oil is just a big scam. They claim that oil as actually being produced by the Earth itself and that oil wells are being re-filled, resulting in an endless supply. They believe Peak Oil is a scare tactic by our governments to prevent us targeting them when oil prices go up. One article goes far enough to say it's a Misleading Zionist Scam. Not being an expert, I can't claim to know who's right. It does seem, though, that each website opposing Peak Oil has a decidedly mocking, critical tone which makes the whole thing seem unprofessional and childish. I'm not saying they're wrong, just that the people who believe Peak Oil is reality seem a lot better at articulating their story in an objective, grown-up way.

Maybe the whole topic isn't as clear cut as I first though. I still think it's worth looking into. If nothing else, we should all try to use less oil anyway to fight global warming. We are meant to be stewards of this planet and we're not doing a very good job, as far as I can see.

Here are some websites I've found interesting on this subject:

postcarbon.org
Peak Oil page on GlobalPublicMedia.com
BBC Article on Iceland switching to Hydrogen energy
Anti-Peak Oil site suggesting it's a Zionist Scam

Peak Oil

I heard an interesting thing in class today. It seems that the global production of crude oil is set to peak in the next couple of years. This is no trivial fact. The result will be that production will be slower and more expensive resulting in crude oil being more and more expensive. This will result in petrol prices being impossibly expensive and oil-dependent nations being pretty stuck basically.

I found a website that says much the same as today's speaker was saying: http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

Our speaker tied it in with God's plan for the end times. He reckons that as oil gets more and more expensive, there will be more and more wars over the countries in North Africa and the Middle East that have the majority of the remaining oil. It's not too unrealistic a connection to make that the great end times wars and rumours of wars around Israel could well be relating to the shortage of oil.

It's interesting stuff, although not one of the more cheery things I've commented on.

I spoke up about something - and it changed

I've got a really cool story to tell that I'm pretty pleased about.

It all started with a new online game called The Ship. It's a game based on Valve's Source engine. If you're familiar with online games at all, that means it's based on the same world as Half Life 2 and Counter-Strike: Source. If none of that makes any sense to you, don't worry. It's not important to the story.

The ship is based on the classic murder mystery scenario with the scene set on board a Victorian sailing ship. (Think of Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile and you're probably close.) Each player plays the part of a passenger whose mission is to secretly murder another passenger whose name they are given at the start of the round. The tricky part is that at the same time someone else is trying to kill them. You don't know who's trying to kill you, and you should try to be as sneaky as possible in pursuing the person you're after as well. It makes for some pretty intense gameplay.

As if that wasn't all tricky enough, you also need to avoid security and take care of your bodily needs. You need to eat, drink, sleep, socialise, wash and even go to the toilet. This means there are certain times you are vulnerable. Someone could potentially get you while you're asleep or "on the throne". The game has a very humourous, cartoonish feel and it's a lot of fun to play.

The game has an inventory system and you find lots of clothes, weapons, books and so on scattered around the ship. Each item is accompanied by a witty description. Amongst other well-known books, the game includes the bible as one of the items you can interact with. Its description was, "Epic fiction about an angry, omnipotent guy known simply as 'God'." I was a bit surprised and saddened to see that there.

The reaction I had to this was just one of disappointment, more than anything. Up to this point I was enjoying the game but now it had turned on me and I felt a bit insulted, as if it implied my beliefs were intrinsically wrong. I felt that God was being misrepresented as well and I wanted to express this to the company who made the game. I don't see God as an "angry omnipotent guy" at all.

The game is published by Outerlight, who I was pleased to discover are actually based in Edinburgh. I e-mailed them to express my sadness about this unnecessary, anti-Christian remark in the game. My initial couple of e-mails were handled by Ed Wilson, their Technical Director. He assured me that they were taking my concerns seriously and that the team would discuss it further.

A week or so later I heard from Ailsa Bates, the Operations Director at Outerlight. We communicated back and forth on the issue over the following month. Her opinion was that it was only intended as a joke and that everyone in the office had found it funny and didn't really see why I wouldn't be able to see the funny side. She suggested if I was able to come up with a better description they could change it. I sent a few suggestions that I considered quite witty along with one that my mate Greg came up with simply saying "A good book." (I also suggested making the bible a weapon so you could "bible bash" people, but Ailsa reckoned that'd be even more controversial.)

Today is a special day because I finally saw the fruit of my labours. As of the latest patch that I installed on The Ship today, the description of the bible has now changed! It has change from an epic fiction about an angry, omnipotent God to "A good book." It was so cool to see that! It's not about being proven right or anything like that. I'm just feeling more like, "Wow! I expressed my opinion on something and someone decided to change it, just because of what I said. I feel strangely valued!"

It's making me realise that I do actually have influence if I have honest, respectful communication with someone. I could have easily written off Outerlight as a nasty, anti-Christian company but through talking about it, I found where they were coming from.

It's nice to be heard.

We're going to France!

It was finally decided yesterday that our three-month church planting outreach will be to Marseille, in the south of France. We had been given a few options to consider including France, The Ivory Coast and South Africa. In the end we opted for France for a variety of reasons. Of particular concern, our group includes a married couple with a young baby and a second one on the way. Since Angie's pregnant, she can't get any vaccinations without potentially harming the baby. This ruled out The Ivory Coast and we also felt that the conditions in the South African location would be a bit challenging.

One of the cool things about Marseille is that they have a large Muslim population. We're going to be focusing on north African Muslims so that we can learn church planting in a Muslim community while still living in a stable and safe country. I'm excited about going there because I'll also be able to use some of my French which is actually my most academically studied language besides English, although I've never been in a French-speaking nation for any significant length of time.

We don't have exact dates yet but we'll be heading to France just after New Year and we'll be finished by the end of March or start of April. It looks like I'll be celebrating my 30th birthday in France. I daresay some of my Scottish chums could come to visit. I think flights to France are pretty cheap these days. :)