Given the intensifying interest in Peak Oil, there are more possibilities for pretenders to proliferate. In the process, their rhetoric strays further and further away from rational, scientific underpinnings.

Thermodynamics and Money, by Peter Huber [2005 October 31]

"In his day M. King Hubbert was a great geologist who spent his life studying the planet's deposits of oil and gas. But as he got older, he simply lost it. His "peak oil" theory--which many people are citing these days--is a case study in junk economics. "

Richard Beal Responds

"They make the profits on creating artificial scarcity.

"Peak oil" is pure military-industrial-complex propaganda."

"Deffeyes is a geologist and Emeritus Professor at Princeton University, and he predicts an impending world oil shortage and says there will be chaos in the oil industry, in governments and in national economies. In contrast, Peter Odell, an economist and Professor Emeritus at the Erasmus University in the Netherlands, recommends a more relaxed approach."

George Crispin

"Are We Running Out of Oil? Of course not."

Michael Lynch

Does this man have an original thought? Would he have have anything to say if he weren't busy misinterpreting the work of Colin Campbell or Jean Laherrere?

Lest we forget the late Julian Simon. He now has a disciple:

Greener Than You Think, a review of 'The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World' by Bjorn Lomborg, reviewed by Denis Dutton [2001 October 21]

"Bjorn Lomborg, a young statistics professor and political scientist at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, knows all about the enduring appeal -- for journalists, politicians and the public -- of environmental doomsday tales, having swallowed more than a few himself. In 1997, Lomborg -- a self-described left-winger and former Greenpeace member -- came across an article in Wired magazine about Julian Simon, a University of Maryland economist. Simon claimed that the "litany" of the Green movement -- its fears about overpopulation, animal species dying by the hour, deforestation -- was hysterical nonsense, and that the quality of life on the planet was radically improving. Lomborg was shocked by this, and he returned to Denmark to set about doing the research that would refute Simon.

"He and his team of academicians discovered something sobering and cheering: In every one of his claims, Simon was correct. Moreover, Lomborg found on close analysis that the factual foundation on which the environmental doomsayers stood was deeply flawed: exaggeration, prevarications, white lies and even convenient typographical errors had been absorbed unchallenged into the folklore of environmental disaster scenarios..."

The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World' by Bjorn Lomborg, [2001 ]

"In The Skeptical Environmentalist Bjørn Lomborg challenges widely held beliefs that the global environment is progressively getting worse. Using statistical information from internationally recognized research institutes, Lomborg systematically examines a range of major environmental issues and documents that the global environment has actually improved. He supports his argument with over 2900 footnotes, allowing discerning readers to check his sources."