Mansoor Khan, famous for directing movies like Qayamat se Qayamat Tak and Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar visited ISB campus yesterday. We got an invitation to attend his talk. The invitation even had this YouTube link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovMfoB3PDYc. Expecting a talk about his journey from IIT Bombay to Cornell to MIT to directing super hit movies to settling down in Coonoor and running an organic cheese-making farm, I went there very eager to hear his story. Being a confused soul myself, I thought I would find some common ground with him.
The talk started at about 7:15pm with a slide reading “Peak Oil”. One of my friends ran out because he thought that learning Black Scholes model was a better use of time. I stayed.
Mansoor began his presentation. Most of what he said is here – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil. He has also written about this topic on his blog – http://www.acres-wild.com/Blog.shtml. In summary, what he wanted to say was that we have reached the peak of using our oil reserves and that the remaining reserves are going to deplete at a much faster rate than we can imagine. So, let’s prepare ourselves for living in a world without much oil and without exponential growth.
The presentation was well-researched and well-delivered though a tad bit alarming. The theories were based on secondary data and I have no way to prove or disprove it.
I have one problem with these disaster predicting theories though. They believe that they are saying the right thing and that they know the way the future should be. So, they say that let’s stop using up oil at such a high rate because we have to pass this beautiful world to our children and grand children. This claim implies that these people are very sure about how the future should be.
But, in the larger scheme of the universe, where we are smaller than a speck of dust and where there is so much uncertainty, how can someone say that ideally the future should be this specific way. And is not human mind a part of nature. We are a part of nature so, how come anything we do becomes detrimental to nature? The world is way too big and complicated for some people to take moral high ground and say that something is right or wrong.
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Actually all of our words are useless. We’re talking about Oil…..geology. No theory of “economy” or “technology” can beat the real geology, the facts. The facts are actually very, very clear.
When we think of oil, we picture the gas tank analogy. When the needle reaches E for empty is when we are in trouble. The world does in fact have a trillion barrels of oil left to produce. The real analogy is like a Pearl Harbor reconnaissance plane flying its mission over the ocean. The plane flies as far as it can for as high as it can. The pilot fulfils the mission of aerial photography of enemy positions. At a certain point though the pilot knows he must turn around at the HALF WAY point of the gas gauge to make it back home. When the needle reaches at half the tank the pilot MUST RETREAT and DESCEND to make it back to base. When the world has produced as much oil as it will ever can in one day (peaked), when it has flown as far as it can for as high as it can the world economy MUST RETREAT and DESCEND.
Soon we’ll all be living like the Amish…….or least the remainder of us will be.
Comment by informationforager November 10, 2011 @ 2:40 pmMaybe the universe wants petrol to finish!
Comment by Ankur November 10, 2011 @ 5:54 pmGood one! That was what i was trying to say!
Comment by Neelabh November 10, 2011 @ 6:09 pmI feel the same. By making the choices we humans are making, we can only affect a small section of the biosphere (which people mistakenly call as ‘nature’), let alone the space-time-mass-energy continuum called the universe (which I prefer to call as ‘nature’).
If we zoom out in space and time, what the humans are doing is very normal – like may be an infant wetting its bed, not knowing that it is ‘wrong’!
Worst case scenario – the humans will be eradicated, like dinosaurs who once ruled the planet. But nature will carry on with its course of evolution and will create a more superior life form.
Caution: This thinking is for relief purpose only, and not a license to wasteful lifestyle! Enjoy life without worrying, but save energy and oil and water and so on…
Comment by Satyanshu Singh November 13, 2011 @ 9:00 pm