259. KEN DEFFEYES STARTS BACKPEDALING

As many of you are already aware, Professor Kenneth Deffeyes of Princeton University rocked the peak oil world in February 2006 with this juicy little nugget of doom:


Doomers and primitivists everywhere were electrified, but, sadly, the dream came crashing down yesterday when Deffeyes backpedaled and printed a retraction:

I do have an apology to make for a line in my February Current Events comment on this website. After stating that the world oil peak had already occurred on December 16, 2005, I reported that the Bush administration hoped to double the direct solar electric generation from the present one percent to two percent by the year 2025. My fingers got away from me and typed out: "By 2025, we'll be back in the Stone Age." I'm sorry that some readers thought that I actually meant that we would be wearing furs and hunting buffalo with flint spear points. It's called "hyperbole."Source

Yah, I know how those finger slips go, Ken. It happens to me a lot, but I usually just erase with the delete key and retype. Generally, I don't break the goof out of the body of the main text, and highlight it in yellow with a snappy black border.

Of course, now that Ken has exposed himself as a slapstick comedian who can't be taken seriously, I'm starting to wonder about all his other apocalyptic statements. Like this one from Feb. 27, 2006:

Where is the economic impact of peak oil going to be felt acutely and when?

Geologists like to look back in time, and I'm not that good at futurology. I borrow the analogy of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: war, famine, pestilence and death.Source

Apparently Ken's tongue got away from him here. What's that? You really thought he meant "war, famine, pestilence and death?" You silly fool. He's being clever and ironic. It's called "hyperbole".

-- by JD