The Oil Drum | A Letter from the TOD Editors Box…: “I’m 24 years old and for as long as I’ve known what it was I’ve been concerned about peak oil and about the potential consequences for my country (the U.S.) and the world as a whole. The thing that keeps me up at night the most is the feeling that there is nothing I can do to stop us from sleepwalking over the edge of a cliff. …My question is what can I, as an individual do to prepare myself to survive peak oil?”

Lots of questions and answers at The Oil Drum.

See in particular the post from Matt Savinar (AlphaMale Prophet of Doom) about a third of the way down, from which I extract this:

If the decline rate is 4%, that halves production in 17.5 years or so. On top of the usual decline rate, I think it reasonable to expect further/additional disruptions due to war/terrorism and weather. (More Katrina-type events) So that bumps it up to 6% let’s say, halving the supply in 11.5 years. If the decline rate is 8% (as some have speculated) plus anohter 2-3% due to terrorism/war and weather plus then we’re looking at a 50% cut in 7 years.

The ‘some have speculated’ is Schlumberger.

1. One book that changed your life:
Honest to God, John Robinson

2. One book that you’ve read more than once:
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Stephen R Donaldson

3. One book you’d want on a desert island:
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig

4. One book that made you laugh:
Wilt, Tom Sharpe

5. One book that made you cry:
Lament for a Son, Nicholas Wolterstorff

6. One book that you wish had been written:
Wittgenstein’s Confessions (in the Augustinian sense)

7. One book that you wish had never been written:
Anything by Ken Wilber

8. One book you’re currently reading:
Collapse, Jared Diamond

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:
Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, Eugene Peterson

(see also this post.)

I realise I haven’t yet introduced the other member of our household.
Polly, 34ish, probably male, but always treated as female…

The Fire and the Rose: Anti-American Superman?

“I will keep saying it until I have no more reason to: Evangelicals are propagating more heresies today than in any other era of the church. These include a Pelagian doctrine of salvation, a unitarian doctrine of God, a docetic christology and Bible, a gnostic doctrine of eschatology, and a Constantinian doctrine of church-state relations—which, by the way, was what led the German church to support Hitler. Do I really need to unpack these in more detail? I am afraid that I will have to, since I doubt most realize how much the American evangelical sector has capitulated to these grave heresies and called it ‘a personal relationship with Jesus.'”

(HT Byron)