Josh Marshall muffs first chance to explain Peak Oil

Early Thursday, the TPM editor wondered aloud how much the Bush/Cheney saber-rattling on Iran was driving the rapid ramp-up in oil prices.

I told him it, even if combined with Turkey’s saber-rattling on the Kurds, probably was no more than $10/bbl, and even that much effect was due to world supply tightness. I then noted I had written my most recent newspaper column about Peak Oil, T. Boone Pickens’ prediction of $100/bbl oil and related issues.

I implored Josh to take the opportunity to familiarize his readers who aren’t up to date with it on Peak Oil, including through referencing a website such as The Oil Drum. I bluntly juxtaposed Peak Oil to global warming by saying the U.S. could grind to a halt before the world burns to a crisp, to link two metaphors.

Well, Josh took a whack at it this evening, but kind of whiffed. I cite this sentence as proof:

Over time spiraling prices will lead to more investment and eventually more supply.

No, no, no, Josh.

King Hubbert factored in rising prices driving more marginal production techniques in more marginal production areas as part of his Peak Oil prediction methodology.

And, the statement above, to me, just doesn’t get the basic bell curve fact of Peak Oil, either.

I e-mailed Josh again, re the quoted statement of his: No. We will then, globally, be on the downslope of the bell curve and past the peak. Many analysts not named Daniel Yergin believe we are at that point RIGHT NOW.

I hope Josh, in the posts he promises for Friday, does a better job. We need major bloggers to discuss this more in hopes of getting politicians to honestly discuss it AT ALL.

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TalkingPointsMemo Has Changed Layout

Talking PointsMemo has changed its look. You might want to check out the newspaper style layout TPM has introduced this morning.

As we've grown and had more and more original reporting we wanted to bring to you, more and more posts on the TPM blog have been links to reports we've published at TPMmuckraker, Election Central and TPMCafe. That's made the blog not just a blog but also a portal to access the rest of our content. But while that's worked fine, it's not ideal. It makes it hard to see at a glance what's new at TPM and also changed the nature of the blog itself.

I like the new layout. Although Josh touts reader friendliness, the layout's real advantage is that it dramatically increases advertising space. More advertising means TPM can afford to hire more reporters and to produce more audio visual pieces. As long as it doesn't get in the way of content, increased ad space is a good thing.

That is two days in a row I have written something good about Josh Marshall. That's creepy. I need to take a shower.

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