The trough can also be adopted by true Marxist who can see the Oil Trough in Orwellian terms as the trough of greed that subverted the rise of the proletariat and led to Totalitarianism and not freedom!!

Clarity, simplicity, directness = still the best ways to get a message across, starting from a familiar known place (or graphic depiction).

I saw a curve much like the one you show here describing the process of alcoholism. The alcoholic starts his/her drinking (on the upper left of your curve) and things are fine for a while. As the drinking continues and increases the alcoholic starts the decline into full blown alcoholism and bottoms out.

If the alcoholic chooses to get sober, they start the climb back up to sobriety and eventually find the means to live a relatively normal life.

I think we are the addicts bottoming out with our addiction to cheap and plentiful energy.

The detox process will be painful and difficult as we get sober, but it will be worth it, just as it is for many addicts who get sober.

The visual (curve) worked for me when I saw it. A therapist was using it to explain the process of alcoholism to me. He told me that my older sisters who knew my dad (the alcoholic) earlier on in his life (at the top of the curve when he was fun) were exposed to a very different person than I was exposed to – I only knew him on the descent into alcoholism – mean and nasty. So my exposure to the addiction was much different.

This is the same with our society. Every generation has had a different experience with cheap and abundant energy. We are all addicted, but at different levels and some for longer than others.

The developing world is joining us in the addiction and we are fighting them for every drop. We will see many of the typical behaviors associated with addiction as we move forward.

Where are we on the curve? People are in different positions on the curve and we need to understand this and deal with it. Some of us want to get sober, some are in denial, some are just starting the addiction.

The journey up the hill to recovery will be a long, difficult, interesting, enlightening and necessary one.

Maybe we could all learn a little about the healing process from the folks who have been studying addiction. It’s worth a try.

Ed

This analogy has actually made me think in a more positive way. Thanks for this.. maybe things aren’t really so bleak as people think (as long as we move towards transition!).

Now, if only there would be a transition movement here in Montreal Canada. Most people are still living in what they think is blissful ignorance. Too bad they don’t think about what their children (and grandchildren etc.) will have to deal with!

If anyone knows of any Canadian groups, let me know!

I think it is important not to look at the cities as a whole but break it down suburb by suburb. Even in cities it can still be brought to the local level. Which is precisely what happened in Cuba. Remember the rooftops can be landscapes. You can find space where ever you care to put your mind to it. Plenty of car parks around which can be converted.
As to understanding peak oil, important of course at this stage, but a lot of people will understand empty stomachs, when that time comes, just as they, once again, did in Cuba.

It great to be thinking of new ways of presenting information, but the truth about Peak Oil is that it is hard to understand, so it demands some concentration of the graphs’ and the explanations in text books and websites, and it is in this very act that, consolidates an realization or conclusion, hence the all of a sudden shock of knowing, that happens to a lot of people, who get the peak oil story.
Changing the visual representation of peak oil, I feel would confuse things as this stage .
It is my experience, that we as transitioners are placing to much emphases on the importance of the peak rather then, its before and after effects, it should be enough to explain an infinite resource as this implies a peak, the rest is in the hands of the people who really need to know.