Forcing peak oil continued...

Alan Cai

February 21, 2025

In a previous article, we discussed the proposal of forcing peak oil as an extreme and non-traditional possibility for solving climate change. Peak oil is the time at which global oil production (include other fossil fuels for ease of understanding) reaches maximum production and begins to decline. Peak oil is inevitable as a finite amount of fossil fuels exists — a nonrenewable resource — and a maximum point must be reached. Efforts to reduce carbon emissions are futile because the net amount of carbon released into the atmosphere will be approximately equal whether we release it today or one hundred years in the future.

In our previous discussion, I offered that we should increase — not decrease — our fossil fuel consumption to force peak oil. Since the total impact on the climate would be roughly the same either way (assuming climate damage scales linearly with emissions over time), an argument could be made that reaching peak oil sooner would prove more prudent than allowing it to happen later. The reasons cited were an increased level of control over when the transition point happens, an increased technological and economic urgency toward the development of green technology, and an avoidance of long-term suffering. A proper way to analogize this proposal would be that it is safer to swipe one’s hand over a hot fire for a split second than hold it over a regular fire for an extended period. In other words, let’s accept more pain now to engender less pain later.

In addition to the reasons aforementioned, there was a crucial justification that I admittedly overlooked which would strengthen the underpinnings of the force-peak oil argument: that of motivation. Nothing pushes the human mind faster than the threat of annihilation. It is obvious that when people are faced with extreme scenarios, they are capable of innovating previously unfathomable solutions. During the two world wars, humanity experienced more technological innovation than the previous two centuries of the Industrial Revolution” combined. During the coronavirus pandemic, ventilators were quickly built in the thousands and a vaccine was available within a year. Yet, the purpose of forcing peak oil early is not to bring human suffering and somewhat sadistically derive inventions from human desperation. Human suffering will exist whether we hit peak oil now or decades into the future. However, the enthusiasm we have for fighting climate change will fade over time, even as the issue gets worse. At the onset of the coronavirus pandemic as mentioned before, masking, isolating, and general caution surrounding the virus was palpably high. As time wore on, even as the virus became more deadly or more transmissible, mask usage and other mitigating behaviors declined. Interest and investment in the space race were at an all-time high during the '60s. As the decades passed and the practical necessities of space exploration became more visible, space exploration curiously died. It is difficult to focus the attention and energy of a population on a problem they can not feel. It is even more difficult to maintain a high level of alertness over an extended period. Each coming year, the impacts of climate change become worse, but every year the willingness to solve it also wanes. When peak oil finally reaches our doorstep, we may lack the focus and tenacity that we have now.