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Peak Oil Quotes

Browse 31 quotes about Peak Oil.

Peak Oil Quotes

“. . . every society that grows extensive lawns could produce all its food on the same area, using the same resources, and . . . world famine could be totally relieved if we devoted the same resources of lawn culture to food culture in poor areas. These facts are before us. Thus, we can look at lawns, like double garages and large guard dogs, [and Humvees and SUVs] as a badge of willful waste, conspicuous consumption, and lack of care for the earth or its people. Most lawns are purely cosmetic in function. Thus, affluent societies have, all unnoticed, developed an agriculture which produces a polluted waste product, in the presence of famine and erosion elsewhere, and the threat of water shortages at home. The lawn has become the curse of modern town landscapes as sugar cane is the curse of the lowland coastal tropics, and cattle the curse of the semi-arid and arid rangelands. It is past time to tax lawns (or any wasteful consumption), and to devote that tax to third world relief. I would suggest a tax of $5 per square metre for both public and private lawns, updated annually, until all but useful lawns are eliminated.”

FoodFaminePermaculturePeak OilPostcarbon
Author:Bill Mollison
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“The nation was cracking under the weight of bloated modernity and all the patches pasted onto its excessive and malfunctioning hypercomplexity, and people were bewildered by the strange glitches, failures and shortages. Going forward, nothing would really work anymore as it was designed to, yet the hope and expectation that it would all magically recover dominated the chatter in the rare moments when people could step back from their frantic lives and share a meal or a drink.”

CollapsePeak OilJames Howard Kunstler
Book:The Harrows of Spring
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“What we all have to avoid is the notion that we can buy our way out of our problems. Instead, the goal is to reduce our costs by extreme frugality. This is psychologically difficult because if there is one great certain confidence in American society it is this: you can buy your way out of almost anything. Other than a few things that will land you in jail even if you are rich, we tend to look for solutions that involve buying things. Having trouble with your marriage? Take a vacation. Pay a counsellor. Don't want to eat pesticides? Buy organic food! Indebted? Buy a book about how to get out. Worried about Peak Oil? Look at all the things there are to buy. Got a crosscut saw and a year's supply of dry milk yet? Don't want to give up driving and flying? We'll sell you some nice carbon offsets.”

ConsumptionConsumerismPeak Oil75
Book:Depletion & Abundance: Life on the New Home Front
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“Regardless of how you feel about peak oil or global warming, the increased use of natural gas is a positive thing because it is being found at a rate that is faster than that of new oil reserves, it is relatively abundant, and our reserves are longer lived than our oil reserves... It does not get the kind of attention it deserves.”

FeelsKindDoeUseFoundNaturalAttentionDeserveRateOilFasterGlobal WarmingGasReservesHow You FeelPositive ThingsNatural GasPeak Oil
Author:Robert Bryce
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“There is a major problem of unsustainability of our environment, and we're seeing it in our natural resources, peak oil is probably upon us, and it can't be sustained. We're on an unsustainable path, and at this point in history we are responsible for that. We're going to have to change our ways. We're going to have to think through this problem.”

ThinkingWayProblemNaturalPathEnvironmentSeeingMajorsResourcesResponsibleOilOur EnvironmentNatural ResourcesMajor ProblemsPeak Oil
Author:Edgar Mitchell
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“Here in the United States we're now consuming about three gallons of petroleum per person per day. That's twenty pounds of oil per person per day. We only consume about four pounds of oxygen per person per day. We're consuming five times more oil each day, here in the United States than we are oxygen. We've become the oil tribe.”

PersonsStatesThreeUnitedUnited StatesFiveFourTwentiesOilEach DayPoundsTribesOxygenConsumingGallonsPetroleumPeak Oil
Author:Stewart Udall
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“Peak oil is already upon us. It is destroying our banking system, that is, our system for marshalling capital, and that is about to put us out of business-as-usual. So, we have to carry on with business-not-so-usual. This could mean anything from your children finding careers in farming (rather than show biz or plastic surgery) to reorganizing households differently to traveling from New York to Boston by boat.”

MeanChildrenShowsCareersNew YorkFindingsOur ChildrenOilBoatYour ChildrenDestroyingUsualPlasticHouseholdSurgeryBankingBostonFarmingPlastic SurgeryBanking SystemPeak OilShow Biz
Author:James Howard Kunstler
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“Saudi Arabian oil production is at or very near its peak sustainable volume (if it did not, in fact peak almost 25 years ago), and is likely to go into decline in the very foreseeable future. There is only a small probability that Saudi Arabia will ever deliver the quantities of petroleum that are assigned to it in all the major forecasts of world oil production and consumption.”

IfsWorldYearsFactsMajorsYears AgoProductionsOilQuantityDeclineConsumptionVolumeProbabilityArabiaSaudi ArabiaSaudisForecastsPetroleumArabianPeak OilOil Production
Author:Matthew Simmons
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“...More important than the deficit, more important then healthcare-more important than anything-we have got to do something about our energy strategy. Because if we permit the climate to continue to warm at an unsustainable rate, and if we keep on doing what we're doing until we're out of oil and we haven't made the transition, then it's inconceivable to me that our children and grandchildren will be able to maintain the American way of life and that the world won't be much fuller of resource-based wars of all kinds.”

IfsWorldWayKindChildrenMadeImportantWarAbleEnergyHavensResourcesOur ChildrenStrategyClimateRateWarmOilAll KindsTransitionPermitHealthcareGrandchildrenDeficitChildren And GrandchildrenAmerican Way Of LifePeak Oil
Author:William J. Clinton
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“A significant number of petroleum geologists believe that we will reach the global maximum of petroleum extraction within this decade or that we have already reached it. Peak Oil happened in 1970 in America, when over half of our oil that we gained from the soil was exhausted ... This is very disturbing, regardless of global warming.”

BelieveAmericaEnergyNumbersHalfHappenedOilDecadesSignificantSoilGlobal WarmingExhaustedMaximumDisturbingPetroleumGeologistExtractionSignificant NumbersPeak Oil
Author:William J. Clinton
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“Surveying the available alternative energy sources for criteria such as energy density, environmental impacts, reliance on depleting raw materials, intermittency versus constancy of supply, and the percentage of energy returned on the energy invested in energy production, none currently appears capable of perpetuating this kind of society.”

KindEnergyMaterialsSourceCapableImpactEnvironmentalProductionsAvailableOilAlternativesVersusReliancePercentagesCriteriaRaw MaterialsConstancyDensityEnergy SourcesPerpetuatingAlternative EnergyPeak OilEnvironmental ImpactEnergy Production
Author:Richard Heinberg
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“Probably no single event highlights the strength of Campbell's argument (on peak oil) better than the rapid development of the Alberta tar sands. Bitumen, the world's ugliest and most expensive hydrocarbon, can never be a reasonable substitute for light oil due to its extreme capital, energy, and carbon intensity. Bitumen looks, smells, and behaves like asphalt; running an economy on it is akin to digging up our existing road infrastructure, melting it down, and enriching the goop with hydrogen until it becomes a sulfur-rich but marketable oil.”

WorldLooksLightRunningEnergyEconomyRichEventsDevelopmentArgumentDown AndExtremesSmellDuesOilBehaveReasonableExpensiveGlobal WarmingSandSubstitutesIntensityCarbonInfrastructureRapidsMeltingDiggingHighlightsHydrogenEnrichingAsphaltAlbertaPeak OilHydrocarbonsSulfur
Author:Andrew Nikiforuk
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“So far in facing this huge [peak oil] challenge, our political/economic system seems unable to cope with reality. We are forced to carry on living in an illusion that we have so much time to adapt to post-oil that we don't even need to be talking or thinking much about what a world without plentiful oil would look like. Reality has become too dangerous.”

ThinkingWorldNeedsLooksRealitySeemsPoliticalChallengesTalkingEconomicDangerousHugeIllusionOilPostsEconomic SystemsPlentifulPeak Oil
Author:Madeleine Bunting
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“Bridges are burning all around us; bridges to responses that might have mitigated the already brutal (and just beginning) ravages of Peak Oil; bridges to reduce the likelihood of war and famine; bridges to avoid our selectively chosen suicide; bridges to change at least a part of energy infrastructure and consumption; bridges to becoming something better than we are or have been; bridges to non-violence. Those bridges are effectively gone.”

Has BeensWarMightPoliticsEnergyGoneViolenceBecomingSuicideResponseOilChosenBurningBridgesBrutalConsumptionInfrastructureSomething BetterFamineNon ViolenceLikelihoodPeak OilBecoming Something
Author:Michael Ruppert
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