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Shall we both let the externality that motivates Lomborg go unaddresed AND have government pick our pockets in order to exercise its wisdom in choosing what technologies are most promising and can be best implemented across the economy?

Peak Oil? Fossil fuel? Well, maybe not.

Happy Friday!

(You are now free to move about the country…)

… the market is signaling developed economies to cut back their consumption so there will extra capacity to meet the increasing consumption of developing economies.

If demand is more elastic in the developed economies, you're right, and I think it is. The heavier manufacturing industries that grew in developing countries in recent decades may be more energy intensive. I know I want this laptop more than a drive to the coast this summer and more than a few degrees on my thermostat and a lot more than a hummer … well … some hummers. I never liked lying on the beach anyway.

I suppose the supply has been shrinking since started burning the stuff in lamps, and you're right about alternatives replacing oil and thus stretching out the supply of oil indefinitely. When I say I'm a believer in "peak oil", I'm not saying the sky is falling. I'm only saying that global production of oil will peak soon, probably in my lifetime.

The alarmist Peak Oil school says that production is peaking, and there is no alternative, and modern human civilization is doomed to revert to the dark ages after most of us ungraciously die off. I'm not in this school at all.

The sooner a rising price makes alternatives viable, the sooner oil production peaks, regardless of remaining reserves. The earlier the peak occurs, the longer remaining reserves last. The quantity of oil still in the ground may be less a factor than the rapidity of alternative developments. I think that's your point.

Carbon nanotube supercapacitors may be McCain's miracle battery already. Hopefully, he won't get to enact his Prize in time to claim credit for it. With such a battery, we still need electricity to power the personal car culture, but nuclear power has great, untapped potential limited largely by political machinations.

Unfortunately, the U.S. has now declared a monopoly not only on weapons of mass destruction but also on the development of civilian nuclear power. Never mind the nonproliferation treaty. Iranians are like the Native Americans. Treaties with them are made to be broken.

If we return to the dark ages, the McCainiacs in the state-industrial complex will blow is there.

Good God, man, that looks too much like freedom!

European airlines angered by EU 'CO2 tax'

Demand has been dropping in the US and developed countries, but the net consumption of oil on a global scale should still be increasing. Assuming inflation isn't the only reason behind the recent rise in oil, the market is signaling developed economies to cut back their consumption so there will extra capacity to meet the increasing consumption of developing economies. I think the peak oil theory you bring up is interesting. If we are indeed at or close to peak oil output, output is inelastic and the market will increase price to keep demand at current levels. I would also want to know if the carbon emissions that go along with that peak oil curve will cause any major negative impacts on the environment. Hopefully the answer is no. That being said, I think geopolitical uncertainty and other unknowns make predicting future oil production practically impossible.

But why does wiki use data chart from the UK, which has a fraction of the area of the U.S.? …and it is widely acknowledged that the U.S. data set is the 'gold standard' for climate modeling (as bad as it may be).

As it becomes more and more apparent the supply of petroleum is shrinking, the price should continue rising. Petroleum price increases should enable development and adoption of alternatives, as well as curtail demand. IMO, estimated reserves of petroleum will never be exhausted. Petroleum will cease to be an important energy source long before that happens.

I think you will probably agree. I wasn't meaning to dispute anything you wrote, but just making a point.

4 dollar gas is driving a net increase in carbon emissions.

But U.S. consumption has fallen, actually fallen in absolute terms, at this price level, even as the U.S. population grows. The population is also aging, and older drivers may drive less. Obviously, I don't know the whole story behind the recent fall in consumption, but price certainly seems a dominant factor. Of course, the price has risen less in other countries, because the falling dollar is a significant factor in the rising price we see in the U.S.

We are simply marching up the supply curve of oil.

But this curve presumably peaks somewhere, and if global production follows a pattern similar to U.S. production in the 20th century, global production peaks in the first half of this century.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/36645.html

I became a believer in peak oil after reading this article by Ronald Bailey in Reason. Bailey is hardly an alarmist, and Reason is not exactly an environmentalist rag. In fact, this article purports to debunk peak oil.

But if you read the article closely, Bailey reports two compelling facts. First, credible sources like Exxon and the U.S. Geological Survey estimate global oil reserves at three trillion barrels. This estimate is not "proven reserves". The "proven reserve" figure is closer to one trillion. This article cites no one claiming reserves of conventional oil higher than three trillion barrels. [Exxon esimates 3.2 trillion.] This figure includes undiscovered reserves presumed to await discovery. In fact, most of the figure is an estimate of undiscovered reserves.

The article also cites current global consumption of 30 billion barrels a year. At this rate, the world consumes three trillion barrels in a hundred years. That's not the time until production peaks. That's the time until production of conventional oil ceases altogether (assuming that we could continue production at the current level for a hundred years).

The peak obviously occurs much earlier. If it occurs when half of remaining oil has been consumed and if consumption remains at 30 billion barrels a year, the peak occurs in fifty years; however, if production can expand further, global consumption shows no sign of leveling off at 30 billion barrels a year. If the rest of the world's consumption, per capita, were even close the U.S. consumption, we'd exhaust estimated reserves in much less than a century, and the peak would occur in much less than fifty years. Since rising global consumption seems inevitable, expecting a peak in the next few decades is not the least bit incredible.

That's what Ron Bailey is telling me in Reason magazine. Right?

Now, just in case the world is just looking to make out of the whole global climate change fight just another business opportunity, I am frantically working on a line of fashionably designed undershirts, ladies too, that when used in conjunction with a low-caloric diet will permit the conscious world saviours to reduce their own contributions of body heat. The tentative name for such line is Le sans souer (for you Anglo-Saxons this is sort of French for “no sweat”)

By the way may this post, with a professor as my witness, serve as a notice to the world of the copyrights for the “Sans seuer” (no sweat , sin sudor) line and from which I am intent upon to extract my fair share of WTO approved monopolistic rents so as to also help out to improve the Gini coefficient.

Yes, 4 dollar gas is driving people to take closer looks at alternative energies and transportation means. But as far as reducing carbon emissions, it isn't helping in a global sense (atleast in the short term). 4 dollar gas is driving a net increase in carbon emissions. We are simply marching up the supply curve of oil.

I believe that Wikipedia graph is a bit dated. Recent corrections to the data have restored 1938 as the hottest year of the 20th century.

The correction was for NASA records of temperatures in the U.S. The hottest year in the U.S. in these records is 1934, but 1934 was always one of the hottest years.

http://articles.latimes.com/2007/aug/15/science/sci-temp15

The wiki chart uses temperature measurements from the U.K. that have not been similarly revised. I don't take these temperature changes very seriously, and I don't necessarily attribute them to rising CO2, but even Lomborg acknowledges a widespread observation of warming during the 20th century, particularly in latter half.

I suspect when surface stations have been upgraded, there may be further corrections to the data.

I’m simply saying there currently is no carbon tax, nor should there be, directly on gas or oil in this country…

The fact that we can't increase drilling along our US coasts has nothing to do with price, according to Mesa add Obama.

Please don’t put me in the same sentence as that moron Obama. [I personally think drilling early & often is a great idea, and will most definitely help supply.] I’m simply saying there currently is no tax, nor should there be, directly on gas or oil in this country (don’t know about Canada). The very first comment mentions R&D taking off once a carbon tax is enacted, to which Martin said “We don’t have one already?” We don’t, but to Martin’s point, we don’t need one.

Interesting point about Canadian royalties – is there a carbon tax component charged to importers (us)? It looks like Quebec was the first to charge an explicit carbon tax on the consumer sales side.

Investment in alternatives, like electric cars, has risen. Who needs another tax on gasoline labeled a "carbon tax"?

Absolutely agreed (substitution effect).

But from your previous post, you implied that there was already a tax on gas devoted exclusively to carbon emissions. No such thing, thankfully, currently exists (in this country).

And don’t get me started on Carbon trading schemes….