Spiritual Direction: What Is The Problem Here

In a 1999 Discover Magazine Article entitled: Why We'll Never Run Out of Oil,  Curtis Rist wrote: 

Back in 1973, some experts were predicting $100-a-barrel oil prices by the year 2000. What happened?
American civilization as we know it appeared to be in grave peril a quarter century ago. When Arab nations cut off oil shipments to the United States during the 1973 war in the Middle East, gasoline prices abruptly rose 40 percent and panic ensued. Motorists idled in long lines at gas stations, where creeping tensions led to fights and even occasional shootings. Automakers scrambled to retool their assembly lines to manufacture miserly compacts rather than gas-guzzling behemoths. Entrepreneurs poured millions into upstart solar-energy and wind-power companies. Politicians pontificated about the need for collective belt-tightening and offered income tax credits to homeowners for energy-saving insulation. Meanwhile, doomsday scenarios predicted ever-increasing shortages of fossil fuels and $100-a-barrel oil prices by the year 2000. Surprise. Doomsday is nigh and oil has been selling at $10 to $15 a barrel, not $100. Adjusting for inflation, gasoline is cheaper today than it was before the Arab oil embargo. Indeed, the world seems to be awash in oil.This year, wells around the world — from the sands of Saudi Arabia to the deep continental trench off the coast of Brazil — will pump some 75 million barrels of oil each day to satisfy demand. That’s about 25 billion barrels a year, and the number is climbing at a rate between 2 and 3 percent a year. Barring a worldwide recession, the U.S. Energy Information Administration believes the world will be consuming around 110 million barrels a day by the year 2020. And it looks as though we won’t be running short by then either. “It’s hard for people who remember the seventies to accept this, but I believe we’ll never ‘run out’ of oil the way the pessimists used to think,” says Michael Lynch, a political scientist at MIT. “People think of the Earth as having a certain amount of oil the way you might have a certain amount of money in your bank account,” adds Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, who wrote the The Prize, a history of oil, and The Commanding Heights, a study of market forces and the energy industry. “But in reality, the ultimate amount available to us is determined both by economics and technology.” So even though the United States has already spent more than half its domestic oil reserves on its energy-hungry economy, the gloom-and-doom predictions of the seventies were averted because of advances in oil technology and colossal new oil finds in West Africa, Colombia, and Russia. And Roger Anderson, director of the energy research center at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, expects the future will hold more of the same. “If you pay smart people enough money,” he says, “they’ll figure out all sorts of ways to get the oil you need.”

What is the problem here? The problem is twofold.  First we were told that we are running out of oil- the peak oil theory.  Peak oil refers to the hypothetical point at which global crude oil production will hit its maximum rate, after which production will start to decline. This concept is derived from geophysicist Marion King Hubbert's "peak theory," which states that oil production follows a bell-shaped curve.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
Peak oil is a hypothetical scenario where oil production hits a maximum rate and begins to decline.

When peak oil is reached, the discovery of new reserves cannot keep pace with the decline in existing reserves.

Although declared several times, peak oil has not happened thanks to new technology that helped sustain oil production, keeping global supplies flowing.

Peak oil might also happen due to declining demand, which would result from more efficient technologies and alternative energy sources.

Studies of climate change suggest that a decline in oil consumption in favor of alternative energy sources will be necessary in order to avert catastrophic climate change.

The importance of the key takeaways has a large cross over impact into our lives and religious beliefs.

Takeaway 1- Just the fact that Peak Oil has been theorized and actually predicted on several occasions and each time to be found to be not true should really make a person wonder about the entirety of their arguments here.  If the premise is false can the conclusion be true?

Takeaway 2 and 3-This has never happened and in fact reserves have increased not decreased.  Reserves are created not by technology but believers in this theory always point out the fact that new technologies increase reserves-if this is the case then the entire concept of oil being a fossil fuel must be revisited because where are all of these new fossils coming from?  What is causing the increase in reserves- were we wrong then or are we wrong now?  Technology does not create oil in areas where it did not exist.

Takeaway 4- In the year 2021 we had a decrease in the demand for oil yet instead of oil prices going down, they increased sharply.  Why?  The concept was simple-we sharply decreased the output of drilling, cut back on a major pipeline, and laid off thousands of people in the oil field production field.  This domestic policy was not only short-sighted, it allowed for gas to double in price in a market where it should have decreased in price due to demand loss.  This accounted for the worst case of inflation in the US since the time of Jimmy Carter and the oil situation surrounding the 1979 revolt in Iran.  

Takeaway 5- Since the first four were incorrect, are you seeing a pattern here developing?  Can you trust the connection to climate change?  Have you considered that climate change is cyclic in nature and is not dependent on man’s influences.  Look at the 12th and 13th centuries in Europe.  This area had people but little or no major industrialization yet the temperatures were warm.  Does this mean that global warming is naturally occurring?  What accounted for that time period’s global warming/climate change can not account for today’s and today’s can not account for theirs, correct?  Therefore, the most conclusive takeaway from this has to be that we can not make the conclusion that oil is tied to climate change.

In conclusion, you are faced with a problem.  What is the important problem facing the world today?  Should we be worried about climate change?  Or should we be worried about the state of your immortal soul?  Or to put it in a different way, should we be worried about climate change on this earth now?  Brothers and sisters, could it be possible we should worry about climate change in the next world?  If we do not repent and turn our minds to God and our Lord Jesus Christ, what will happen to us in the next world?  If it's your choice, then I must ask you today,  which direction will you take?  Amen.