Peak Oil Meets the New Age

https://hazenfoundation.org/3l0swq3eeir The NYT uses the Gulf oil disaster as a hook to examine the peak oil “collapsitarians.” Some of them are a bit overwrought, it seems, and want to do more than rub their worry beads. Fortunately, there’s a new cottage industry catering to their anxieties. The theme of the NYT story can be gleaned from this opener:

https://municion.org/m8tbi5xm As oil continued to pour into the Gulf of Mexico on a recent Saturday, Jennifer Wilkerson spent three hours on the phone talking about life after petroleum.

https://chemxtree.com/3tsq9ggu

Ambien Cheap Overnight For Mrs. Wilkerson, 33, a moderate Democrat from Oakton, Va., who designs computer interfaces, the spill reinforced what she had been obsessing over for more than a year “” that oil use was outstripping the world’s supply. She worried about what would come after: maybe food shortages, a collapse of the economy, a breakdown of civil order. Her call was part of a telephone course about how to live through it all.

In bleak times, there is a boom in doom.

Indeed there is. Click on the link for that telephone course. Check out its marketing pitch:

https://www.scarpellino.com/20s4eyrtpq3 How do you feel about the current unraveling of industrial civilization and the coming transition? Do you long for a place to discuss your feelings, thoughts, and methods of preparation? Do you long to feel less alone as you live with all you know?

https://www.tomolpack.com/2025/03/11/rilegmws2 Now that’s some serious fear mongering, served up with a soothing New Age veneer. Sure enough, click on the instructor’s bio and homepage, and you’ll learn that she’s a former psychotherapist, whose latest book is called Sacred Demise: Walking the Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization’s Path.

https://yourartbeat.net/2025/03/11/iz9m9kg88d What’s that sound you hear? The wonks at The Oil Drum retching in unison. Because I’m sure that’s just what they want, their high-minded debates on overshoot being co-opted by pseudo-spiritualist claptrap.

Still, you gotta admire that singularly American can-do entrepreneurial spirit. If industrial civilization is going under, someone might as well cash in on the collapse.