There are four mutually contradictory opinions of oil:
1. Conventional Free-market Economists, who view energy as one more priced commodity. By using more energy, more supply will be created. Upon depletion, alternatives will be automatically created.
2. Environmental Activists: who push all to reduce greenhouse gases, hydrocarbon pollution, to conserve and switch to renewables.
3. Geologists: the most attenuated voice but has contempt for the economists because reducing all resources to dollar prices obscures real physical distinctions. Petroleum will run out; substitutes will not be easy. Renewables cannot fully replicate fossil fuels, and their implementation requires decades--if it was being fully worked on.
4. Politicians: the voice that really matters, tend to believe the economists thus markets will inevitably handle everything. Voters want good news and quick solutions; constraints are unwelcome. Solutions do not favor their inaccurate view of the world, so they blame their opposition.
Ref: Richard Heinberg, The Party's Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies.
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