Peak Oil and Olduvai Theory

Richard Duncan, Institute on Energy and Man, speaks on Peak Oil and Olduvai Theory

Richard Duncan presents Peak Oil data, which indicate that we are at or near Peak Oil. We have been used to a 100% increase in world oil production since 1970; that's what we're used to, that's what we want, and that's what we'll never get.

Geologist Walter Youngquist says we're now in depletion dominance: it dominates technological change, investment capital - it dominates everything.

Think of the Olduvai Theory this way: you have a video of world history from pre-history until 2010. Then you stop the camera and then you play the video backwards. As awful as this is, one must remember that the Copernican Theory was rejected for over 200 years before being accepted. The Olduvai Theory explains how population, immigration, etc., will adjust to the local ecological carrying capacity worldwide, and that localities will be completely dependent upon solar energy.

Presented at the September 2007 Social Contract Writers' Workshop.