Peak Oil Barrel

Open Thread Non-Petroleum, August 29, 2025

D C

Comments not related to oil or natural gas production in this thread please. Thanks.

D C

60 responses to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, August 29, 2025”

  1. Iver

    Brutal Chinese dictatorship sets the standard for how it’s businesses conduct themselves.

    https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2024/04/11/chinas-fishing-fleet-is-causing-havoc-off-africas-coasts

    China is taking over half the fish in the world’s oceans, they fish in areas never fished before destroying breeding grounds and future food for entire countries.

    https://marinemegafauna.org/news/how-chinas-fishing-fleets-target-galapagos-islands

    China is responsible for buying most illegally cut trees increasing deforestation. Just like the ivory trade they don’t care what they destroy

    1. kolbeinih

      Iver

      You most probably are right.

      Relating to my part of the world, we have had a real problem with too efficient fishing in the North Sea. Way too many fishing trawlers have been allowed to lower the amount of fish available over time. Herring and potato was a major improvement of the staple diet in Norway from the late 1800s and onwards. Due to the steadily technological advances to catch the fish in high volumes. Today, the North Sea is more or less empty for herring and cod due to overfishing and also all kinds of industrial activity like developing oil/gas fields and lately wind farms, constant traffic of ships etc. Sourcing of cod had to go way north to Island and the north of Norway together with the Russian part of the Barents sea (they still want to sell if the price is right). Crucial to “fish and chips” and cod based diets overall (clean nice protein source).

      I would guess in the high 90% tile, that China have faced the same problems we had in the North Sea. Overfishing, over industrialisation in for example the east China sea.

      There is now quotas in place in the mentioned regions in northern Europe, but they are more efficient when it comes to slowing decline in important regions than to reinvigorate the herring and cod catches in the North Sea possible before overfishing took place.

      I do not have to many links to offer, but here is a recent one about salmon. A little bit off topic, but not too much. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVOXMoJUBag&t=1498s

    2. THOMPSON

      What’s with all the narrow minded drivel IVER, all your posts are full of it. China have only been at the game for 20 years you know, was the planet virgin before that?
      In 1992, Northern cod populations fell to 1% of historic levels, in large part from decades of overfishing.
      A significant factor contributing to the depletion of the cod stocks off the shores of Newfoundland included the introduction and proliferation of equipment and technology that increased the volume of landed fish.
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Atlantic_northwest_cod_fishery

      One more example of how “technology” destroyed an ecosphere. In this case so house cats could be fed.

    3. Iver

      https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/9742-narcissistic-personality-disorder

      I have found the perfect place, I have sorted everything out for myself, I don’t care want is going on anywhere else, I’m not bothered about other people

  2. THOMPSON

    Falling for Machines: The Growing World of Human-AI Romance

    In 2024, after living together for five years, a Spanish-Dutch artist married her partner—a holographic artificial intelligence. She isn’t the first to forge such a bond. In 2018, a Japanese man married an AI, only to lose the ability to communicate with her when her software became obsolete. These marriages represent the extreme end of a growing phenomenon: people developing intimate relationships with artificial intelligence.
    https://studyfinds.org/falling-for-machines-the-growing-world-of-human-ai-romance/

    Welcome to the matrix

    1. Survivalist

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_sexuality

      “Don’t be so suburban”

    2. THOMPSON

      Yes well those can be excused to some extent.
      Erika Eiffel, also known as Aya, is an American competitive archer and advocate for object sexuality. She “married” the Eiffel Tower in a commitment ceremony in 2007

      In 2009, Amy Marsh, a clinical sexologist, surveyed the twenty-one English-speaking members of Erika Eiffel’s 40-strong OS Internationale about their experiences. About half reported autism spectrum disorders: six had been diagnosed, four were affected but not diagnosed, and three of the remaining nine reported having “some traits.”
      But that doesn’t explain the millions that are in “love” with their dogs, having them on the couch at night, sleeping with them, kissing them. All of it points to a breakdown of normal social relations where people are increasingly estranged from each other. Dogs have a place in human affairs, but not on the bed at night, not with their tongues in your mouth.

    3. Survivalist

      You got a one track mind

  3. hightrekker

    2005: Hurricane Katrina strikes Louisiana

    things happen

  4. THOMPSON

    China is set to host both Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Beijing next week in an unprecedented landmark visit. This will be Kim’s first multilateral international meeting, and the leaders will gather with President Xi Jinping to observe a military parade marking China’s “Victory Day”

    China said Wednesday that it would not participate in denuclearization talks with the US and Russia, after President Donald Trump said he hoped to include Beijing in negotiations.
    Moscow pulled out of the last remaining arms control agreement with Washington in 2023.

    The BRICS are going their own way and ‘MAD’ no longer exists, it’s two against one now.

  5. SaraB

    Weird: the {New} flags and ignore controls aren’t showing up for me anymore. 🙁

    1. John Norris

      Me too. Hopefully fixable…

    2. DC

      sorry

      trying to update PHP to more recent version so I have deleted some plugins as many of the plugins I use are very old and are no longer maintained. Probably need help from a real programmer like Paul Pukite to get this fixed, I can program a bit, but only enough to break stuff, fixing things is another matter.

    3. WeekendPeak

      Have you tried Claude or ChatGPT to help you out?
      Rgds
      WP

    4. DC

      Weekendpeak,

      I may go that route, but am not confident that Chat GPT will get the job done. Not familiar with Claude

    5. Paul Pukite (@whut)

      They all work well for software development. This is with a couple of days generating javascript and Python using copilot, which is integrated with github
      https://pukpr.github.io/results/image_results.html

    6. WeekendPeak

      I use both Claude and ChatGPT – both are functionally similar for (basic) programming stuff. I had it write an app for me, and give me directions on how to install it ( and Python) on my computer. It wrote a simple scraping app for me that is super useful. I then had it write a VBA macro so I could trigger it from Excel, and write the output to Excel. It took perhaps 10 minutes and 2-3 tries to get it all correct. I store most of my data in Sharepoint and that was the issue that it had to work around. It is amazing how it increases productivity – it is only after using it myself that I get what appears to be hype on the AI as programming tools topic. Key is to write a prompt with sufficient context and direction of exactly what it is that you are looking for. So I had to spend some time thinking through my little project – and had to make a couple of changes to what I though I wanted – when writing the prompt. It even told me how to check for the various Python libraries and all that infrastructure related stuff. I highly recommend that you spend some time playing with it, especially given that POB is mainly data driven. It can save you oodles of time getting and organizing data. For a different project I had it go to a website, download historical information in zipfiles, unzip the files, create a directory to put those unzipped files in, re-label them to a consistent format and then extract information from those files and output it to another Excel file. It took probably 5 tries to get the whole process done, and I broke it down into the data acquisition part and the processing part to make it easier to follow.
      Rgds WP

    7. WeekendPeak

      On the second project, the reason why I decided to use AI was because I was grabbing 28 years of quarterly data, in different formats, and it was just too much to handle manually. So if all you do is grab one spreadsheet from a website and pick up a hand full of fields it’s probably not worth it but for more bulk data projects it is – at least it was for me.
      Rgds
      WP

    8. WeekendPeak

      You may want to start with something like this:
      “Please walk me through all the step required to create and execute an app on my desktop which, when opened, has a button which, when pressed, opens a window which contains the words “Hello World” in larger, bold letters. Be detailed in all the steps required to execute this on a windows 11 computer.”

      rgds
      WP

    9. Paul Pukite (@whut)

      Very relevant comments WeekendPeak. For me in the past, software development was fun and challenging by itself, but now I don’t have as much motivation, because I realize how much of a time sink it can be. That’s changed because the LLMs will shave lots of time off the process. Yes, think like someone who has done software requirements specifications..

  6. Alimbiquated

    The internet is going wild with rumors that Trump is dead. He has some obvious circulation issues, hasn’t been seen for days, and Vance says he’s ready to take over. Worst of all Trump actually cancelled a golf trip.

    Oh yeah, and pizza takeaway orders from the Pentagon are through the roof. But maybe they are preparing to invade Venezuela.

    He might actually be bedridden for one reason or the other.

    1. JJHMAN

      Like him or not, one way or the other, he’s driving everybody stark raving nuts. Me included.

  7. Andre The Giant

    https://mishtalk.com/economics/how-much-did-ai-spending-boost-2025-first-half-gdp/

    How much did AI boost GDP?

    IMO, AI is a bubble and has not proven to be profitable.

    It will take an Einstein General Relativity level breakthru to make it so.


    Linear Regression, Logistic Regression, Neural Networks (Graph Theory), Clustering, Decision Trees…..been around for decades.

    It is a very high powered pattern matcher. That has value.

    But it is also OPEN SOURCE which is free!!!!!

    1. THOMPSON

      “IMO, AI is a bubble and has not proven to be profitable. ”

      Just like the EV bubble, which was unprofitable.
      Or the shale oil bubble, which was and is a money sink.
      It seems every President of the US has his unique bubble, the EV/ alternate energy one was Biden’s
      Shale was Obama’s

      As soon as I saw the pictures of Trump’s inauguration it was obvious that his would be a Data collection//AI Bubble. Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Sergey Brin ($154 billion), the co-founder of Alphabet and seventh-richest man in the world, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Apple CEO Tim Cook, all the big pigs lining up at the trough.

      They make wild promises of a George Jetson future, pump the stock sky high, then milk it out before the top, leaving the pension funds etc to hold the bag. Where are all those EV companies that were worth billions? Gone now most of them, along with the supposed massive coast to coast recharging network. The real limiting factor there was always the grid, and it will be the limiting factor with this waste of capital too.

      Jan 21, 2025 — US President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced a private sector investment of up to $500 billion to fund infrastructure for artificial intelligence. Just like Biden’s supercharger promise…

    2. Huntingtonbeach

      First Flamingo Cruise Missile Used in War

      Ukraine has announced their first operational use of their new Flamingo Cruise Missile against an FSB outpost in Crimea. Ukraine has aggressively been targeting Russia’s air defense systems so their new cruise missile can effectively hit their targets. Another day, another Russian oil refinery damaged.

      Would love to see Volodomyr Zelenskyy get the peace prize — Urkaine is fighting for peace for all of us.

      Putin in 2022: Europe freezes without Russian energy
      Putin in 2025: Russia freezes without Russian energy

      Putin is a true genius

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szsXCgxfFgc

    3. Alimbiquated

      ANDRE
      LLMs have a much different use case than the data science tools you mention.

      In particular, generative AI is killing the internet. The old model was you went to google, found a website based on their search engine, visited the website. The website then got money from ads. They were supposed to use this money to pay journalists or something.

      This is changing very quickly. Now google answers the question it guesses you are asking and gives you a bunch of ads. News sites and information sites like Wikipedia are experiencing rapidly declining viewer numbers, and declining revenue as well. So google has gone from being the the search engine of choice to being a monopoly information provider. I guess when the journalists all get fired the AIs will just start inventing news.

      It is similar to what already happened to Amazon. Amazon doesn’t make money on selling stuff online. It makes money by being a near monopoly and charging vendors for product placement. When you search for a product on Amazon, the results you get are from the highest bidder (to Amazon). That’s how the platform makes money.

      AI lets google satisfy its captive audience without encouraging them to click random links leading away from the google website. Nearly all the links you see are paid ads, you have to scroll down a few pages to see real search results.

  8. Survivalist

    Perhaps a new record low for September arctic sea ice volume is in store.

    https://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icethickness/thk.uk.php

    1. Paul Pukite (@whut)

      Bunch of prickly people are discussing this topic at https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2025/08/24/another-pause

      It’s not that they are so much clueless, as having such fragile egos that they can’t tolerate any dissension in their ranks. What totally spooks them is that no one has any idea what direction the sea-ice is heading. In the past, Arctic sea ice has also followed the cycles of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and that is close to a historical warming peak right now. Which means that if the AMO starts getting cooler, hen the Arctic sea ice will likely increase. So I was arguing with them what kind of downgraded heuristic that they were using. I suggested that they were simply using a qualitative prediction of a dead-reckoning heuristic, which is that it will continue to decline. Finally they started deleting my posts after calling me names

      https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img923/2838/lPcFBs.png

      And this will happen at other climate science blogs. The moderation is so intense in that they can’t handle any kind of real discussion, only chearleading

      https://skepticalscience.com/another-pause.html

    2. THOMPSON

      Good charts, that NE passage is a real boon for certain nations. The Danish make some of the best marzipan on the planet too.

  9. hightrekker

    “Maybe Rex Tillerson Was Right. Maybe Donald Trump Really Is Just A Moron.”

    Sometimes a simple explanation is best.

    1. JJHMAN

      Hightrekker:
      Maybe not a moron but more like the guys who were selling houses to people who couldn’t afford them and then bundling the mortgages and selling those to people who didn’t understand them. They thought grifting was their right.
      Probably even more long term damage will result. Unfortunately we continue self-infliction and ratcheting down.

  10. Survivalist

    “The NorthWest territories explodes.
    Temperatures 15 degrees (Celsius) above normal mixed with winds gusting to 70km/h resulted in massive fire growth over the past few days. Last night alone the fire threatening Fort Providence ripped through~60,000 hectares coming within a kilometre of the town and forcing evacuations. While today should be a calmer day no precipitation is in the forecast and well above average temperatures are forecasted to return in a few days.
    So far well over 700,000 hectares have burned across the territory with some fires being 150km across. This makes it the third consecutive destructive fire season in a row for the region. Persistent drought and well above normal temperatures being the main driver.”

    1. Huntingtonbeach

      Some people say there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans due to the parties’ fundamental similarities, shared goals, and the historical convergence on certain issues, particularly from the perspective of critics on the far ends of the political spectrum. At the same time, the parties hold profoundly different positions on the role of government and many social and economic issues.

      In the American two-party system, Democrats and Republicans are the dominant political forces, holding fundamentally different positions on issues like the economy, healthcare, and social policies. Third parties exist but face significant hurdles to gaining power, though they can influence elections and push major parties on specific issues. A large and growing segment of the electorate identifies as independent and often leans toward one of the two major parties, though a significant portion resists doing so.

      Democrats and Republicans hold opposing views on the role of government, taxes, climate change, and social issues, creating a fundamental divide in American politics. Based on their 2024 platforms, here is a comparison of their core positions. Democrat, generally favors a more active role for the government in regulating the economy and addressing economic inequality. Where as Republicans typically advocates for a smaller government with less regulation, viewing it as an obstacle to economic growth.

      Democratic view climate change as an urgent, human-caused crisis and supports regulations to limit emissions from various sectors. Where as Republicans are skeptical about the extent of human impact and often prioritizes energy independence over aggressive climate action. Democrats champion investments in renewable energy sources and sustainable technologies, moving away from fossil fuels and Republicans prioritizes energy independence through expanding fossil fuel exploration and reducing regulations on the industry.

      “You snooze you lose” or should I say, you snooze and the environment loses

    2. Iron Mike

      HB,

      Democratic view climate change as an urgent, human-caused crisis and supports regulations to limit emissions from various sectors.

      Sorry i don’t buy that. If they were actually serious they would stop the export of all FF to other countries. Which they didn’t (under the biden administration there was a gradual rise in coal exports). So their policy is more like, “if it is burnt somewhere else we don’t care”. Which for any rational mind, is complete nonsense.

      To extrapolate from that. All these climate summits for the past decades, has global emissions fallen ? Just look at the data, stop feeding into your political conditioning and look at what is.

    3. Huntingtonbeach

      “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good”

      Mike- “they would stop the export of all FF to other countries”

      That’s just nonsense. First, if we are talking about coal. It would just be purchased from another country other than the US. Second, if we are talking about oil. The US is a net importer. Third, sure maybe the US could not have exported natural gas over the last 5 years, but for what ? To watch the European’s freeze in the winter or their economy falter. Or worse yet, burn more coal.

      The only answer to address climate change is to transition away from the use of FF, not “Drill Baby Drill”. There will always be naysayers and nitpickers. Didn’t think you were one. The original power plant in Huntington Beach was built in 1957. It’s replacement was finished in 2020, but the original is still used as backup and not torn down yet. The transition away from FF is going to take a century or longer depending on politics.

      If you and others can’t see the difference between the D’s and the R’s. Then humanity will deserve to burn in hell. Without change, it’s definitely the direction it’s heading. Why ? because Biden exported some FF. I’m not that shallow.

      If it were me, I would ban new ICE vehicles in 2030. Govern all land transportation vehicles to 55 mph max today. Remove income tax and replace it with a FF tax. Limit air transportation. Advance wind, solar and back up battery faster. If we have to live with the transportation speeds of the 1920’s or 1930’s so be it. And for sure I would not vote Republican because Biden sold some coal to another country.

      Again, “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good”

      Have a great day, let’s hope the next generation can say that

    4. Iron Mike

      HB,

      I live in Australia, we have our own version of D’s and R’s. I like to also mention I am a millenial, and I can tell you a lot of people in my generation and later don’t see much difference between the Labor and liberal equivalent of D’s and R’s we got going on here.

      I’ll tell you why. There is a strong aroma of hopelessness going on, arguably worldwide especially in the younger generation who can’t afford to rent or buy the basic necessity of shelter or food. The cost of living is making them hopeless as they cannot get ahead in life and their concerns are real. It’s not because they are lazy or spending lavishly on unnecessary items no, there is a real problem of financial inequality from a structural level.

      The younger generation concerned with climate change here are generally part of a societal sect who have rich parents (we call them bank of mum and dad) who have assets which means their kids don’t have to worry about making ends meet.

      As you can see this is a symptom of a wider problem of D’s and R’s in the context of climate change. It is become a complete political issue, were it shouldn’t be. Ask yourself who benefits from this ?

      You think people in the lower-middle class of society struggling to make ends meet and poor people in 3rd world countries care about climate change ? The answer is a pronounced no. Ask yourself why ?

      You need to stop looking at things through your small narrow subjective view, with your current condition. I am sure you got most of your basic necessities met and have some elements of luxury in your life, i’d make a conjecture that you are living within the top 5-10% of the global population. For you, climate change is a big deal. For people with real struggles it isn’t even on their radar.

      This is a partial reason as to why Trump won in a landslide victory, His PR campaign tapped into the lower and middle class who have day to day struggles making ends meet. And essentially sick of of the status quo. Obviously they were sadly duped but that’s another story.

      I don’t have a solution to all this, just telling you how i see it.

      Climate change is a real issue, but lets be honest, neither the elites give a fuck nor do the poor people of the world. It is only the scientifically literate that share concerns and the people hell bent on politically dividing people and increasing divisiveness and conflict in the process which doesn’t help anyone.

      And just to add, if you read Paul Pukite post even some climate scientists are hell bent on name calling and censoring when alternate views are put forward. It seems like part of the human condition, in short we are one fucked up species.

    5. Paul Pukite (@whut)

      “And just to add, if you read Paul Pukite post even some climate scientists are hell bent on name calling and censoring when alternate views are put forward. It seems like part of the human condition, in short we are one fucked up species

      It’s a mind-field regarding climate science social media. For example, yesterday at RealClimate.org, which is the site that the professional climate scientists post blog articles at, in comments one can’t directly link to PeakOilBarrel.com because someone there put a filter on it and it goes directly in the spam bin.
      https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/08/critiques-of-the-critical-review/#comment-838678
      Everything is moderated there before posting so this URL got fixed up by the blog mod.

      Most of the climate science forums deplore mentioning of peak oil. They also get conniptions if you discuss the impossibility of removing any of the excess CO2 that’s now permanently part of the environment. Which means that discussion of climate change mitigation is largely a moot point. The levels of CO2 in the air right now won’t go down, and will at best creep upward.

    6. THOMPSON

      I’m in Oz IRON-M, up in QLD.
      I don’t see the hopelessness you’re referring to but then I’m a retired Gen-X with a paid off home and spare cash. I don’t see any difference between our two parties but then I don’t vote or even watch the TV so I can’t really comment on that other than what I experienced 40 years ago. I ignore the turds, have done since 1985 when I was in the unions during the time of the traitor hawk’s government. I learnt then that the politicians serve the corporations and not the people, a big con-job, a racket like the Banks and their usury. Only one ever dared challenge the system and they threw her in Jail for her trouble.

      Your are correct about the climate change activism being a wealthy middle-class phenomena. I remember the school strike back some years, all those 12 and 13 year old girls running with Greta Thunderberg, save the planet, stop burning oil and coal! Then back home in mum’s airconditioned car, with a Victory lunch at Maccas on the way no doubt. Where are they now? Getting their licenses and needling dad for a car of their own. A neighbor just bought one for his second oldest girl, the oldest got her car a year and more ago. Four cars in driveway now, and screw the climate. Unless those girls are total hypocrites they will have left their activism behind as they pursue jobs and boys.

    7. T HILL

      IRON MIKE

      Really? Ever heard of Bangladesh?

    8. Huntingtonbeach

      Mike, thank you for your respectful reply. I already knew you lived in Australia. Sadly, there is too much truth in your comment and I already understood most of what you said. I grew up mostly in the 60’s and early 70’s and was working by the age of 14. Rode a 10 speed bike to work my first couple of years and bought my first car with the cash I earned before I got out of high school.

      “There is a strong aroma of hopelessness going on”

      I agree. But, today’s youth have more creature comforts available than I would had ever imagined in the 70’s and there I believe lies a lot of the problem. Not to mention the availability of information today not to be found in the 70’s. I can remember the price of housing going up at the rate of 10 to 12 percent per year in the late 70’s and thinking how can people afford it or it continue. I have to admit, I have said it many times. I’m glad I’m not trying to make it today as a young person. But on the other hand, I sense today’s youth seem entitled and lack the kind of work ethic of the past. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so(one should always question their thinking). Hopelessness is like a disease and does nothing but harm you in the long run. I think the earlier one starts their adventure in life acquiring meaningful assets and understand that. That encludes an education. The more successful they will end up in general.

      I can’t speak for Australia politics. But here, I truly believe the D’s care more about the average Joe than the R’s. Sure they buddy up with big donors at times. They have to for the money to get their word out. That money doesn’t come from the poor. Business is also a required element for the success of a quality standard of living. In todays modern world, I believe government needs to make opportunities available for all at a young age. This includes a meaningful education and heathcare. Here in the states, it’s not like one can just head west and homestead anymore. You are part of the system, like it or not. If you want to carry around a smart phone in life. Maybe one needs to start thinking about what’s it’s like to work and live the factory life that brings it to them.

      People have always struggled in life. My grandparents youth didn’t have cars or phones. In the 1920’s “hopelessness” was wide spread in Germany. Then facism turned into over 60 million dead and a continent in ruins.

      I could go on, but can’t spend any more time here today. I have real things I need to do. Later.

      Thanks again

    9. Survivalist

      Swapping out Biden for Harris was like changing your shirt cuz you shit your pants.

    10. Huntingtonbeach

      Burn Baby Burn, there is no help coming. You checked the wrong box in November.

      Beautiful weekend here, hopefully you will learn

      Maybe stupid could have the troops in DC picking up trash, rake your forest.

    11. Survivalist

      “There is no help coming” is the only thing you got right all week. You got a plan for that, or just gonna tick boxes? My wild ass guess is you starve out in the first wave.

    12. Huntingtonbeach

      Obsessive thoughts of social collapse are characterized by persistent, intrusive, and unrealistic fears of widespread societal breakdown, often linked to catastrophic thinking, a cognitive distortion where one focuses on the highest possible negative outcome. This can be a symptom of an underlying anxiety disorder, particularly obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), where these thoughts are paired with compulsive behaviors to alleviate the anxiety. If these thoughts significantly interfere with your life, seeking professional help from a mental health provider is recommended for diagnosis and effective treatment.

  11. hightrekker

    “The reality is, something is wrong. Very wrong. And while America is kept in the dark, while his inner circle hides it, dictators overseas are already calculating their next moves in a world without him.”

    Trump was never the healthiest human, and now is experiencing this delusion.
    Vance? Smart, but horrible vibe.

    1. THOMPSON

      Were any of them any better than their counterparts? I remember the early Bush days, it only took 6 months and they were calling him the ‘shrub’ and blaming him for every ill on the planet. Then he (or more accurately the powers behind him) went to war in the middle east over oil and currencies and he was roundly cursed across the interwebs. The reason, and the only reason, that he got a second term was that the whole nation was happily fornicating with the equity fairy under the capital gains tree and no one wanted that orgy disturbed.

      The funny thing is, as soon as they are out of office they are forgotten, as are all their ill deeds. It’s like they never were lol. Along came Obumma and the cycle starts again.

    2. DC

      Thompson,

      So are we to conclude that all politicians are the same?

      Would you include Hitler and Stalin?

      My reading of history is much different. Obama was not perfect, but better than G W Bush, but Bush was far better than Trump in my view. I am less familiar with Australian politicians.

    3. THOMPSON

      Well it guess it’s how you classify better? He continued the wars in the middle east, he brought in an affordable healthcare act that was anything but, he basically changed nothing of consequence. 8 years, did debt go down? Was any major repairs done to the nation’s infrastructure? I remember he brought in a minimum wage act and the companies put everyone’s wages up a few dollars, then laid off enough staff to compensate and made the others work harder. Yes the top dogs are all the same, and what you see on a 5 minute TV interview of them doesn’t change that.

      Hitler… sure he was off the rails, insane, but he had a lot of help from the corporations building the tanks and other armaments. As well as from some dubious American companies that are still trading today. Dow Chemical, Ford, Coke, Kodak, a long list. Corporations run the Western world, politicians are just there to run interference. People refuse to believe the facts before their very eyes, instead they cling to political promises. The average person simply can’t cope with the truth. They are fully indoctrinated, just as the German peoples were back then. “Tell a lie often enough and it will be believed” said Joseph Goebbels. He was dead on.

      https://www.historydefined.net/us-companies-that-worked-with-nazi-germany/

      Henry Ford received honors, and Hitler even maintained a portrait of Henry, a rare “honor.”

  12. Alimbiquated

    So the lesson for today is that Western Democracy is a joke and there is no hope of stopping the fossil fuel industry from destroying the world. Don’t try changing things, you are just wasting your time. Surrender to your fate.

    Also all Western politicians are the same, weak, corrupt and ridiculous. Voting is a waste of time.

    Who profits most from this message? Who do you think wants to spread it?

    1. THOMPSON

      Ha, Change things… How’s that worked out for you so far? Yes voting is a waste of time, worse than that it’s an exercise in futility. The voters get more and more deranged as they see their efforts failing election after election. That’s the root cause of all the trouble you have there, Two parties full of multi-millionaires living in gated estates turning you against each other like two packs of dogs simply by blaming the other party for all the woes of society.

      If you as an individual can accept the truth that the “system” is completely rigged, corrupt to the core, then you have a chance of finding a better path for yourself personally. Until you stop relying on politicians to wipe your nose and give you tax breaks, fix your medical woes and stop crime in your neighborhood you’ll never take action to fix (avoid) these things yourself. I fixed them myself because I never trusted the Lying government to do it for me. I could go into detail but why bother, people will just offer up defeatist arguments as to why it can’t be done because of XYZ. Well I did it, I don’t intend to go hungry or live in the dark in the future.

    2. Survivalist

      Democrats are dead in the dust. Other than Gavin Newsom they’ve had nothing to say since they told Zohran Mamdani that he had to take back what he said about Israel. What a joke.

  13. Doug Leighton

    Attention astronomy buffs (exciting news)

    A DIRECT BLACK HOLE MASS MEASUREMENT IN A LITTLE RED DOT AT THE EPOCH OF REIONIZATION

    “Recent discoveries of faint active galactic nuclei (AGN) at the redshift frontier have revealed a plethora of broad \Halpha emitters with optically red continua, named Little Red Dots (LRDs), which comprise 15-30\% of the high redshift broad line AGN population. Due to their peculiar spectral properties and X-ray weakness, modeling LRDs with standard AGN templates has proven challenging. In particular, the validity of single-epoch virial mass estimates in determining the black hole (BH) masses of LRDs has been called into question, with some models claiming that masses might be overestimated by up to 2 orders of magnitude, and other models claiming that LRDs may be entirely stellar in nature. We report the direct, dynamical BH mass measurement in a strongly lensed LRD at . The combination of lensing with deep spectroscopic data reveals a rotation curve that is inconsistent with a nuclear star cluster, yet can be well explained by Keplerian rotation around a point mass of 50 million Solar masses, consistent with virial BH mass estimates from the Balmer lines. The Keplerian rotation leaves little room for any stellar component in a host galaxy, as we conservatively infer . Such a ”naked” black hole, together with its near-pristine environment, indicates that this LRD is a massive black hole seed caught in its earliest accretion phase.”

    https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.21748

  14. DC

    https://www.npr.org/2025/09/02/nx-s1-5521384/energy-report-scientists-climate-change?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

    Dozens of scientists find errors in a new Energy Department climate report at link above.

  15. THOMPSON

    “To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation has a rendezvous with destiny.”

  16. Doug Leighton

    Not good.

    GLOBAL METHANE LEVELS CONTINUE RISING AS TRADE AND DEVELOPING REGIONS FUEL GROWTH

    “The world’s methane emissions continue to rise steadily with no signs of slowing, as global trade contributes some 30% to the total amount of the greenhouse gas swirling around the planet, a new study reveals.”

    https://phys.org/news/2025-09-global-methane-regions -fuel-growth.html

  17. Survivalist

    Flip phones and fax machines was peak humanity. If I ever get elected king of the world I’m doing a Pol Pot on IT.

    And furthermore,

    https://www.rutgers.edu/news/researchers-find-climate-change-threatens-global-food-supply

  18. Survivalist

    “If any ethical meaning can be derived from what we now know concerning the nature of reality, it must be extracted from the fact that we are complicit in the universal unbecoming of our cosmos and exist solely to destroy our environs and ourselves in the process. It must also acknowledge the fact that, to the extent that any being has the distinct misfortune of being able to sense and respond to their thermodynamic destiny, they are doomed to experience rot, ruin, sickness and death: in a word, suffering.
    No longer can we conceive of existence as something that is ultimately good. Nor can we conceive of it as something that is morally neutral, as others might have it.
    Instead, we must acknowledge that reality – which is organized antagonistically against all that it creates, and is the direct cause of the suffering of every entity it endows with consciousness – might be morally evil. If our existence means being forever at war with ourselves and our environs, and actively contributing to the suffering of everything we encounter along the way, then it is decidedly not good to be. Life is a moral catastrophe. To exist is to be unavoidably complicit in an order that is entirely evil.”

    https://aeon.co/essays/philosophers-must-reckon-with-the-meaning-of-thermodynamics

  19. Florian

    Good morning ,
    I am experiencing difficulties viewing your excellent site. For example I can only read the first post. Any replies are pushed to the right until it is only one column of letters. What am I doing wrong? I use Chrome and Android on a Samsung Galaxy.
    I want to also take this opportunity to thank Mr Coyne, Ovi and all the other contributors for their tireless , high quality work.

    1. DC

      Sorry about that.

      I had to update the site as WordPress would not continue to work with the older software I was using.

      I will try to correct.

  20. Ovi

    A new Open Thread Non-Petroleum has been posted.

    https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-september-4-2025/

    An updated report on June US Oil Production has been posted

    https://peakoilbarrel.com/june-us-oil-production-new-high/

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