Thursday, August 04, 2005

Y2K, Peak Oil and Cassandra

Jamais Cascio has a great post on WorldChanging titled "Peak Oil and the Curse of Cassandra".

Just to be safe, here is some background. I guess everyone knows all about the Y2K, but just in case someone has forgotten, here is a primer. We are also well aware with the term Peak Oil, I suppose, but here is a link (via treehugger) anyway. Now Cassandra is probably not as famous except among history/mythology buffs. She was the Trojan seeress who could correctly predict the future, but was cursed to be always ignored. She correctly cried out when Paris brought Helen home, though the city rejoiced. She similarly knew of Achilles and company hiding in the wooden horse, but no one believed her. She was also the sister of Paris and Hector.

Now for the interesting part. Jamais believes that the Peak Oil scare is like Y2K. And no, Y2K was not a hoax. It was a desperate and herculean effort that averted the Y2K crisis, and a similar thing will happen with Peak Oil. Then people will call Peak Oil a hoax. But the scare was vital to mobilizing the resources to beat Y2K, and a similar emotional frenzy will help with Peak Oil too. Beyond this, I would urge you to read the original article..