A fine post from Steve Levitt

Solid work explaing why the “Peak Oil” notion is wrong, a summary quote.

So why do I compare peak oil to shark attacks? It is because shark attacks mostly stay about constant, but fear of them goes up sharply when the media decides to report on them. The same thing, I bet, will now happen with peak oil. I expect tons of copycat journalism stoking the fears of consumers about oil induced catastrophe, even though nothing fundamental has changed in the oil outlook in the last decade.

Curiously unmentioned is that oil demand usually peaks in the month of August (it’s lowest in February). I actually read all of the comments thread, which wasn’t terribly illuminating. Few addressed the point in the post. It was surprising how attached people are to particular doomsday scenarios.