There are 1.65 trillion barrels of proven oil reserves in the world as of 2016.
The world has proven reserves equivalent to 46.6 times its annual consumption levels. This means it has about 47 years of oil left (at current consumption levels and excluding unproven reserves).
This means that the oil is going to run out in our lifetime
Source/more reading: https://www.worldometers.info/oil/
Update: It is infact not true (or just partially true), because it only considers already known oil reserves that can be pumped out with current technology.
There is more oil that can potentially be used as technology and infrastructure advances, so the estimate of 50 years is wrong.
For the correction thanks to Cephalotrocity@biglemmowski.win (their original comment)
Glad you already learned this is probably nonsense. The wrong reasoning is very similar to much thought about overpopulation. The amount of people that makes for a place to be overpopulated is a function of how societies work and the technologies they have at hand. One extra issue there is that improvements in technology usually lead to population growth, so much progress gets cancelled out.
Honestly we’ve known peak oil would occur in our lives for several decades. Not that you could tell by any project to prepare for such an event.
I’ve heard this for my whole life. Oil runs out in X years, until they develop affordable ways to dig deeper and get at more
Cheapest oil runs out in x years. Mid cost in y years. Expensive in z years. Then we get into “manufactured” oils.
Oil isn’t going to run out, it’s just going to get more expensive.
Part of me wishes that the oil would run out sooner to give governments more urgency to actually do something about our fossil fuel dependency, cause apparently the increasingly apparent effects of climate change just aren’t enough motivation.
The disconnect between the general public and the realities of the petroleum industry may be the largest gap in existence. Pretty much any article you read gets 99% of the info hilariously wrong as the journalist has no idea wtf they’re talking about.
Off topic but the amount of oil we have left is the least of humanities’ concerns right now imo.
This means that the oil is going to run out in our lifetime.
Well, not in mine. So good luck with that!
The way things are going we’re all going to be dead before it gets to that point
And it could be caused by nuclear fallout before climate change gets critical
Probably because of all the dipshits in this thread specifically, acting like we don’t need to stop extracting and using oil.
This thread is filled with people who don’t grasp what a finite resource is. Saying “I remember hearing that x years ago”. Sure there’s probably more it there somewhere, but we don’t need to have to the finish on this. There are are kids who are going to grow up, people who aren’t born yet. Hell, at current rates, we might fuck up things with climate change. Which, even more reason to use less.
Call me selfish, but I want my nieces and nephews, to be able to grow up into a prosperous world and not some weird dystopian hellscape.
I think our point is that we don’t know if this is a good prediction or not. They both keeps crying wolf.
We’re not cheering for it, we’re just skeptical.
Skeptical of what? That it’s finite? Or how much is left? Or that climate change is real?
Because I’m definitely seeing people who think we have unlimited oil, that there’s always going to be more, and that climate change is not only a hoax but isn’t caused by humans at all. Some of those folks are in this thread, some of those folks I know in real life.
Skeptical of the timeline prediction, you disingenuous git.
Sorry you don’t like their tone but they’re right.
They’re right to put words in my mouth? Fuck on off with them.
I remember when they said there were 30 years left in the '90s.
By 2050, there might even be 70 years of oil left!
Yeah, not trying to poke holes, but I was hearing “less than 50 years left” when I was in school in the 2000s. I do remember seeing a post here and there about new oil reservoirs being discovered but never any follow up. So I suppose that could be stretching things out. But oil use certainly hasn’t decreased in the last 25 years.
At the current rate of oil consumption there are only 15 years left in the world. So it’s fine.
I’ll be 91. I’m sure I’ll have bigger problems by that point.
…such as having been dead for the past 49 years!
Congrats on reaching 91!
Shiiit, 1985 to 2075? That’s a long life
This has been said since the 1970s.
It’s ok, there isn’t 50 years of world left.
Every human ever has believed this. Christians have believed they’re the last generation for 2,000 years now
Of human-habitable world, you mean.
Imagine if the dinosaurs had newspapers back then: “THE WORLD IS ENDING!!” And mammals be like “lol”
Why do you people insist on making this insane point every time? We’re talking about the unnecessary death of everything you’ve ever seen. Stop trying to lighten the mood you absolute twat.
I’m not lightening the mood; I’m just stating a fact. Some cells billions of years ago started producing this very highly toxic, very highly poisonous gas that killed 99% of everything that was living back then on Earth. That gas spread everywhere. It was horrible. Death everywhere. Did the world end? Nope. New life adapted and thrived. The gas was oxygen.
Now it seems like it will be CO2. Produced by carbon-based organisms, like those oxygen-producing assholes of a distant past. And I, just like the universe, say, “eh… it happens.”
But more to the point - naaaaah, the world will be fine. Humans ain’t going nowhere. We’re what, 8 billion already? That’s 8 million of millions of people. Some of us will just move underground, or to the poles. But chances are, we’ll fix this issue before it becomes a human extinction event.
There’s not? Why?
Climate collapse
No wonder you guys are so damn stressed if you really think climate change is literally going to end human existence on earth.
Read the fourth, most recent IPCC report - it’s essentially a metastudy synthesising a lot of hard science.
The picture is grim.
They’ve been saying this for 50 years at least.
