The bigger issue: Global Warming or Peak Oil?

Question

We've all heard of Global Warming, and by now most of us know what its doing to the earth. We've seen the results of Global Warming, and they're scary. The ice caps are melting, species are dying and the climate is changing drastically.

But now there's word of another major issue: Peak Oil. If you haven't heard of Peak Oil before, I sugest you look it up, but I'll briefly explain it. Throughout the years, scientists have prove that there is a decline in the amount of oil we can produce.

This is not because we're "running out" of oil, but because we aren't able to produce as much as before because of geological problems. So basically if we can't use oil, things will start to fall apart. Humans depend on fuel to make food and transport it. Airlines will feel the impact, as well as other businesses that rely on fuel. So here's my question: Which one of these situations is a bigger problem? Which should we face? Both or just one by itself

Answer 1

Global Warming is a myth. The average temperture of the earth has actually fallen in the last seven years. Do you homework before spouting GW nonsense.

Answer 2

Well peak oil would actually help with global warming as our use of oil declines rapidly so does our production of CO2, ofcourse lots of people die but thats a different discussion. The oil companies will work to find oil as hard as they can. We do not need to have a public discourse on how to solve something that is dirrectly affected by capitalism. Money talks. they will fix it if they can.

Global warming is up for debate but who cares. The proposed solution is conservation, renewable energy and less pollution. I'm fine with all those things and whats more, they will help to delay peak oil. We should spend our time on global warming as an issue. Just don't try any huge climate modification scheme.

Answer 3

In reference to your statements:

" We've seen the results of Global Warming, and they're scary. The ice caps are melting, species are dying and the climate is changing drastically."

You are mistaken if you assume that man is responsible for ice caps melting or lost species due to 'man-did-it' global warming.

Insofar as peak oil..... your understanding of the concept is correct..... but the thing that most affects production is 'where' production is allowed to occur.  

Environmentalists have shut the door on the most productive fields and as a result, the new fields that are opened involve either very expensive and extremely deep off-shore or low-yield on-shore production.

Answer 4

Global warming is the only one that is worth worrying about, peak oil will simply mean that we have to find a replacement for oil (or a replacement for middle eastern oil) which we should be able to do (and increased oil costs will provide an economic incentive).

In fact the big problem is not that we are running out of fossil fuels but that we aren't running out of them, oil may end up being replaced by other fossil fuels (either different sources of oil or coal to liquid) and we have lots of coal left.  If we really were running out of the things that cause global warming we'd have a very real economic incentive to replace them.

As for renewable energy, for the most part it's just a distraction from nuclear power which unlike wind and solar has actually proven itself capable of supplying the electricity needs of an entire country.

Answer 5

Neither the one world goverment is what should be feared over everything else.

Answer 6

Peak oil will cause global warming to be much worse.   Coal (much more CO2 than oil) will be used to make fuel for vehicles when its cheaper to do so than oil.   I'm buying up all the coal stock I can afford.

Answer 7

Wasn't peak oil supposed to have happened in the 70's?  In a related note wasn't Global *Cooling*  a big issue in the 70's ?  Make up your minds enviromentals!

Answer 8

My opinion on these issues is that

To avoid the run out of the deposited oil due to geological cause ,we have to extract it and put it in safe condition ,and use it priorly for the research to invent new type of energy form ,which is ,compatible to environment. Otherwise by fearing global warming we can not retreat from the development of the world.

Answer 9

I personally dont think that global warming exists but peak oil sure does. :)

Answer 10

Well I think that we should face both but in term of priority I think that Global Warming is the more important, the fact that the ice caps are melting will cause tides and flooding in different parts of the world, and it will change the weather drastically.

As you said the problem with the Peak Oil is that we have oil but the means of getting it its a problem, I think that it is a very important issue but we can find new ways of getting that oil, so I think that it is an important issue but not as serious as Global Warming, if we don't do anything about Global Warming, it might turn into a problem that we might not be able to solve and eventually will be getting worse.

Answer 11

Well U can not have Global Warming with the level of green house gas we have. It is a Lie propagated by Gore. The ice melting picture was computer generated.

Then there is the average temp for the Globe. It would be near impossible to do an honest average. Do they take the temperature in the mountains or valleys. They used the City records and that is from old non calibrated thermometers. Hope this help as to how the Left is trying to manipulate U. Don't give up your freedom...

Answer 12

i think both are important, just as you do.

i think that peak oil will result in dramatic price increases, so will force attention on itself.

i think that global warming is the more "ignorable" of the issues, and requires us to decide to put the attention that it deserves on it.

looked at that way, i agree with you, global warming is the more important.

it's also more important because the decline in oil will cause more coal to be used, which will be detrimental to global warming.

so it'll be more important to insure that we don't "save money" making global warming worse.

i think that nuclear, wind, solar, etc, rather than bio, will be the main replacements for oil, as long as we can resist changing to coal.

Answer 13

Neither.  Peak oil is totally false.  We have oil reserves to last us for years to come.  And global warming is a natural occurrance.  I'd say we're doing just fine.

Answer 14

It's hard to believe that the cult of global warming has grown bigger than the one called scientology.What in the name of xenu happened to people???!!!

The reason people are fighting over this is because this is a serious issue.But I don't believe the lie of man-made global warming.I believe that it has the potential to bankrupt our economy based on flawed and overblown data that has been declared nonsense by a substantial portion of the scientific community.That is where the seriousness comes in.You mention a "drastically"changing climate,but records show that the earth has only warmed .7,,,yeah,that's right.7 TENTHS!!!!of a degree in the last 100 years.So much for your "drastic" claims.And further,records also indicate that the earth has actually been cooling for the last 10 years.PUT DOWN THE KOOLAID!!!!!!!!

I also believe that elevated c02 levels are benificial in many ways.Trees grow better,which helps put oxygen into the air,and the food crops grow and produce more food.

I guess you could label me a skeptic.

There is no question that the lack of oil will be much more devestating to our society and country.I don't think people realize the vast amount of products they are surrounded by every day that are petroleum based.Without oil our economy crashes to a halt.The foreign invasion and takeover will follow soon after.

Answer 15

Global warming is by far a bigger problem, however, I view peak oil as part of the solution to global warming, not necessarily another problem.  With peak oil, global supply of oil cannot keep up with the demand, which increases the price of oil.  At some point, however, the price of oil will get so expensive that we will start conserving the oil we currently use.  It's called demand destruction, and I think we're starting to see it with gasoline around $4/gallon.  People are driving less, trading in their SUVs for a smaller car, even Ford and GM have been shutting down truck plants to build smaller cars.  With peak oil upon us, there will be some economic pain, but I think our society can handle it.  

I think if the US developed a national renewable energy policy that mandated an ever increasing % of our electricity be generated by solar/wind/geothermal power, combine that with big tax breaks and other incentives for consumers to buy plugin electric hybrid cars that should be on the market soon, we'll get out of this mess OK.  However, if we insist that we can drill our way out of this problem, we're just going to make it much worse.

Answer 16

There's little difference in the threats, for two reasons.

Most importantly, both threaten complete economic ruin for advanced countries that import large amounts of oil.  The exact degree of that complete ruin is pretty academic.

But, there's a good similarity.  There's a huge overlap between the action we need to take to fix both problems.  The alternative energy sources and vehicles needed to solve global warming, will also be very beneficial to getting off our addiction to unstable and expensive sources of oil.