Decoding an oil company's big ad

My book has come out and should be available at your favorite bookstore or on the web. Later this week, I'll post some links to help you buy it more easily. The Homeowner's Guide to Energy Independence describes today's dependence on oil and coal and outlines how to get away from these sources, one person at a time. On March 2, I saw an ad on the op-ed page of The New York Times that tries to debunk the peak oil theory. It assures you that oil isn't running out soon and that, actually, there is so much oil that it's really the best choice for heating and transportation right now. And then it ends by reminding people to conserve energy. Let's decode these words. The ad says that peak oil proponents "theorize that, since new discoveries have not kept up with the pace of production in recent years, we will soon reach a point when oil production starts going downhill. So goes the theory." The peak oil theory, which I explain in my book, would define "soon" to mean sometime in the next 40 years or so. Most ordinary people don't mean 40 years from now when they say, "soon." The ad points out that since recorded history, humans has used only a third of all the recoverable oil. It doesn't add that we have used most of that oil in the last 50 years, nor that the per-capita energy use in the biggest energy-gobbling country, the United States, is going up and up. It doesn't point out the problems of burning fossil fuels. Scientists hired by our federal government told the leaders six years ago that global warming is real and that human activity is playing a part in this. It's not as if we're in the middle of a science fiction movie. The changes are gradual. But they're happening. The ad says that oil has no equal as a transportation fuel. That's true, but partly because we remain so committed to oil. No one who is concerned about oil supplies in the future is claiming that it will all run out tomorrow. The "peak oil" theory does not say it will run out tomorrow. Oil companies need not try to discredit those who worry about the next half century.