Gulf Spill Invigorates Peak Oil Movement

With the day-to-day news of oil gushing in the Gulf and BP's failure to cap it substantially, more Americans are thinking about what could happen if and when we run out of oil.

1 minute read

June 7, 2010, 7:00 AM PDT

By Irvin Dawid


While their concerns appear to be more economic than environmental, the Gulf spill has caused more to consider this movement that the reporter likens to "collapsitarians" and "doomers".

"Located somewhere between the environmental movement and the bunkered survivalists, the peak oil crowd is small but growing, reaching from health food stores to Congress, where a Democrat and a Republican (Sen. Tom Udall/NM and Rep. Roscoe Bartlett/MD, respectively) formed a Congressional Peak Oil Caucus.

And they have been resourceful, sharing the concerns of other 'collapsitarians,' including global debt and climate change - both caused by overuse of diminishing oil supplies, they maintain.

Many people dispute the peak oil hypothesis, including Daniel Yergin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power" and chairman of IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a company that advises governments and industry. Mr. Yergin has argued that new technology continues to bring more oil."

Thanks to NY Times Direct - Headlines

Sunday, June 6, 2010 in The New York Times - U.S.

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