“Discussing supply limits to the rate of oil production, much less the possibility of declining rates in the future, has been almost taboo,” says Sally Odland, an administrator at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York, who wrote her MBA thesis on strategic management of peak oil. “Since November 2007, with oil consistently above $90-$100 per barrel, the peak oil concept is breaking into the mainstream. The media now routinely mentions tight supplies, ‘looming limits to production’, the ‘end of cheap oil’, the tradeoffs of growing corn for fuel versus food, etc. Some reporters, especially in the investment community, even mention ‘peak oil’ matter-of-factly. But I’d say the majority of reporters covering the energy story still avoid the term, or include it only to debunk it.”
So why is it so hard to discuss peak oil in today’s news stories? One of the main reasons may be mixed signals coming from the scientific and oil communities. At a London conference in October 2007, chief executives from Total SA and ConocoPhillips announced that they believe oil production cannot go above 100 million barrels per day because of supply and technology limitations. The former head of exploration and production for Saudi Arabia, Sadad Ibrahim Al Husseini, agreed with the industry executives. However, other industry leaders from BP and ExxonMobil Corp. continue to deny supply limits. Within the science community, controversy surrounds when we will hit peak oil and what production rates will be at the time.
What is a journalist supposed to do with such a topsy-turvy issue? How soon is too soon for the press to really dive into peak oil? Can we learn anything from how reporters handle other unsettled environmental issues, like the rising sea levels? Odland thinks so:
Peak oil is going to drive many of our economic choices and our foreign policy over the next few decades. Sure, much of last year’s price rise is due to monetary inflation and depreciation of the U.S. dollar. But it still comes down to too much money chasing a relatively fixed amount of yearly oil production.
The oil industry is a tough beat. In order to fully comprehend the story, it seems one must be an expert in economics, science, and international relations. Synthesizing all these relationships and explaining them to a general audience is a lot to ask. A couple of notable projects have accomplished this - in particular, the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Crude Awakening series, which began in 2005. Still, peak oil is an extremely important piece of the modern oil story, and we need more journalists to sort through the competing claims and help us understand it.
it is difficult to overstate the importance of peak oil. Oil companies have a vested interest in denying its inevitable approach (assuming we aren't already there.) Stagflation would be the best to hope for if alternative energy sources and the means to use them are not in place at the time. As the cost of oil skyrockets so do the costs of almost everything we use, further, industrial production of a vast array of goods from food to plastics will slow and become hugely expensive. Add to this scenario the problems caused by global climate change, especially with food production, and the world will be looking at global disasters. It's not a pretty picture and talking in the media about the consequences of peak oil is bound to panic many. Knowing that the relatively comfortable material rich life we have been leading is going to end and great hardship awaits is not comforting news. Given the media's penchant, no withstanding the occasional editorial, for not dealing in depth with issues of great import, it might be better if they don't talk about it.
Posted by Doug Alder
on Wed 2 Apr 2008 at 04:51 PM
A nicely written article. Besides the technical complexity of the Peak Oil issue as it relates to global media, there may also be a psychological aspect. There is an old saying that you can help define a social problem by asking "What is being rewarded?". Most of our press owes it's existence to advertising. In other words, most journalists and publications are just as dependent on continuing the consumerism paradigm as the rest of modern society. If they were to take the implications of Peak Oil seriously, it would be hard to miss the need to inform their readers of the foolishness of buying new SUV's, high power sports cars, investing in airlines, globalization dependent retailers, and 5000 spare foot homes 20 miles from where they work. Publishing advice to reduce consumerism could be bad for business. Most of their advertisers would threaten to pull their advertising dollars overnight. Even if a writer has not openly contemplated this, there will likely be a subconscious suspicion of profound news like this that would make it easy to create behaviors of denial and a reluctance to publish.
Posted by SuburbanFarmer
on Thu 3 Apr 2008 at 03:08 PM
Perhaps the single most important response to peak oil is to alert our society to its existence. A severe obstacle facing climate change activists is the difficulty in persuading others to voluntarily constrain their fossil fuel use for indirect future benefits. By acknowledging peak oil, we understand that we will have no choice but to conserve energy and retool for sustainability as soon as possible; transformation will be mandatory. We can either prepare in advance for the transition that some call energy descent, or the consequences of fuel depletion will unfold chaotically. Sierra Club NYC has issued a report, "Sustainable Energy Independence for NYC," that explains how to enhance Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC initiative to respond to fuel depletion as well as climate change. Its primary request is for the City to convene an Energy Volatility Task Force, as has been done in San Francisco and Portland, OR., to study the economic impacts of various energy pricing scenarios and ways to mitigate them. The report, endorsed by 20 groups, contains many other recommendations for buildings, transportation, electricity generation, and regional agriculture. It is available online at www.beyondoilnyc.org.
Posted by DanMiner
on Thu 3 Apr 2008 at 06:15 PM