April ASPO Newsletter  

This months ASPO newsletter is now out. Nothing particularly newsworthy in there - an analysis of India's oil situation (production peaked in 2001), some geopolitical commentary and this gloomy timeline of collapse:

Shock Stage: Initial paralysis at hearing the bad news. (Inability to relate the prospect of growth cessation to any-thing in past experience.) ca. 2000

Denial Stage: Trying to avoid the inevitable. (Rigid refusal to accept the outlandish notion that cheap oil of the right kind will end soon.) 2000-2007

Anger Stage: Frustrated outpouring of bottled-up emotion. (Outrage at “Big Oil,” Saudi Arabia, China, government taxation, etc.) 2005-2009

Bargaining Stage: Seeking in vain for a way out. (”Throw the bums out” by electing new leaders, heavy investing in expensive alternatives, calls for “science” to save us, expecting a deus ex machina.) 2008-2012

Depression Stage: Final realization of the inevitable. (Even flat-earth economists surrender, presidential politicians state facts publicly, businesses begin collapsing in droves, return of the Great Depression foretokens collapse.) 2011-2015

Testing Stage: Seeking realistic solutions. (National impoverishment forces abandonment of socialist policies and international development aid, various alternative-energy schemes tested and most abandoned, local farming grows, large cities wither, beginnings of martial law to keep order, interregional conflicts.) 2013-2025

Acceptance Stage: Finally finding the way forward. (War, collapse.) 2018-2050