The American baseball legend Satchel Paige famously observed, “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.” While that might good advice in some circumstances (it was one of his rules for staying young), in energy and environmental matters it’s painfully shortsighted and all too typical of how many of us do things, at least until very recently.

While I suffer from no delusions that my next trip to the local grocery store will reveal hordes of shoppers wearing peak oil-themed T shirts while they fondle the produce, or that every person in my neighborhood who owns a dinosaur on radials (i.e. an unnecessary SUV or pickup truck) will sell it for scrap and buy a Vectrix electric scooter or a bicycle, the signs are accumulating that the peak oil meme is spreading–slowly and inexorably–beyond our virtual clubhouses on the ‘net. It’s about freakin’ time.

Just to be clear, one thing that doesn’t necessarily point to this dawning awareness is the trickle of stories about surveys showing people expect higher gasoline prices, like this one from Gallup. Notice near the bottom of that page that Gallup asked people what was causing higher gasoline prices. “Peak oil” wasn’t an explicit option (but some similar options were offered), and the number one choice (34%) was “Oil/gas companies getting greedy and gouging the public”. So we have some work to do and it’s not quite time to shut down this site.

But we are seeing some mainstream discussion of peak oil, and even (gasp!) people explicitly using the term “peak oil” in a non-sarcastic or demeaning way, instead of simply describing the situation perfectly and then conveniently avoiding the term.[1] The latest example is the Reuters article, Cairn says peak oil fears may have fuelled rally[2], which says:

Oil’s spurt to a record above $135 last month from around $100 at the start of 2008 may have been influenced by a growing feeling that oil supplies might be peaking, the head of oil explorer Cairn Energy (CNE.L: Quote, Profile, Research) said.

Cairn’s Chief Executive Bill Gammell told the Reuters Global Energy Summit on Friday that there was growing awareness in the market about “peak oil”, a theory which says that global production is near an apex after which it will decline sharply.

“The move from $100 to $130 was actually a period when people started to look at and wonder more a bit about the peak oil theory,” Gammell said.

…

Cairn’s Gammell said it was a “struggle” to see where major production volumes would come from going forward, while demand for oil in Asia led by China and India was only “going to go one way”.

“Which leads me to suspect that prices are likely to remain firm … I would say that from a long term view, I would be bullish on oil prices. Where they will be I don’t know,” Gammell added.

Why is this a big deal? Because perception is reality, as they tell people in corporate communications classes and politics. Not literally, of course–what we think or say certainly won’t put more oil in the ground or instantly improve the efficiency of the massive infrastructure already in place in industrialized countries. But it does have a profound effect on our actions; we respond to our perception of the world, not the world itself.

If we buy the projections of the US Dept. of Energy (which really should be turned into a slapstick comedy routine), then it seems ridiculous for oil to be leaping off the charts as it is right now. (It’s up $11.14/barrel, with wholesale gasoline up 21.56 cents/gallon, on today’s trading. Stop and ponder those numbers for a moment.) And keep in mind, we didn’t have a hurricane or terrorist attack interrupt the oil supply, nor was there a sudden cut in oil shipments from Saudi Arabia or Russia or anyone else.[3] There’s clearly an element of speculation and exchange rate fluctuation involved, no sane person would deny that, but the core driver, I think, is nothing more complicated than the traders finally pulling their heads out of the sand. They’re just beginning to realize, right down to the DNA level, that a worldwide, permanent, inescapable peak in oil production is not some far-off, quasi-theoretical construct on a professor’s PowerPoint slide, but a terrifying occurrence that has been tightening its grip on us for a few years already, even if the peak itself is still technically a few years off. After being yelled at by the energy geeks for years, they’re finally recognizing the broad and deep and long-lived ramifications for modern industrial society of vastly more expensive oil. And they suddenly realize that even when you don’t look, something very big and very nasty could be gaining on you.

[1] I’ve commented on this phenomenon, the “peak oil by any other name” gambit, several times. I still believe that writers do this to avoid being lumped in with the doomers. This is why I think the Apocalypticons are doing more harm than the Cornucopians–they’re making it very easy for the newbies (which include the vast majority of consumers and voters) to dismiss the entire entire notion of peak oil as yet another Internet-fueled urban myth. And let’s face it–peak oil forces such a radical change to one’s world view that we’d all like to brush it off with no more regard than we give the crazies who claim we never landed on the moon or Elvis is alive and working in a Wal-Mart in Georgia.

[2] Yes, the speaker (or the author?) in the article takes some liberties with what peak oil means. I’m not about to pick nits here. Just the fact that he’s talking about it in this way and using the name will get a pass from me, at least this time. But he should consider himself on notice.

[3] Yes, there are those rumors lately that the US is getting ready to attack Iran any second now, the same rumors that have been floating around the ‘net for years in one form or another. I would be stunned if the oil traders suddenly decided those stories had enough credibility to make them risk millions of dollars on commodity options. Even I’m not convinced Bush is far enough out in foo-foo land to do it, and I’m one of the people who thinks he attacked Iraq largely to prevent other countries from monopolizing their oil and natural gas exports.