Stuff You Should Know - Will we reach peak oil?

Episode Date: December 7, 2012

A 2012 report showed that the U.S. may be energy-independent in just a few years, but not too long ago the specter of peak oil loomed large on the political and economic landscape. Join Chuck and Josh as they visit the consequences of running out of oil. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jackmove or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and this is Stuff You Should Know, the podcast. And it's election day. We didn't mention that before. Oh yeah, you know, it's election day. Not sure when this is going to come out. I can tell you exactly when it's going to come out. Oh, do we know about this one?

Well, it'll come out either the 27th or the 29th. Of November? Yeah. Oh great. What a great time to talk about, peak oil. Yeah, the holiday season. Everybody's still digesting Thanksgiving dinner. Yeah. It's a little chilly out. It's what everyone's thinking about right now. Yeah. Football and sports and stuff like that and fall colors. Let's talk about oil. Instead, when will the world's oil production be outstripped by demand irrevocably? That's right. That's what peak oil is. That's what we're talking about. Before we get started, I need to just clear something up. Peak oil is a definite thing. So where's the controversy? When it's going to happen? When it's going to happen and exactly what will

happen after it happens. Okay. Because reading this, I was a little confused. It seemed like some people were denying that it was going to happen at all or something. Yeah, no. We got to run out of oil at some point. So if you talk to any peak oil adherent, there's definitely some that are a little more disguised following than others. And I think they probably represent the minority, especially now. But if you went back to 2007, 2008 when I wrote this, remember Matt Baker? Yes. Matt Baker, he used to work here. He was a developer. He got me into this. Oh, really? And he would go to meetings. Oh, yeah, yeah. Matt, sure. Yeah. He would go to meetings and about the future without oil. I mean, he was big time into it. And at that time,

there are a lot of like very smart people talking very loudly. Yeah. Saying like, dudes, we may have already hit peak oil and we need to start doing something about it or else. Like we're in really big trouble. Right. Those voices have quieted down quite a bit due to some developments in the last couple of years. It's almost kind of like a throwback. This episode is going down in prices. There's a lot of stuff happening. But for the most part, there is agreement that we will one day hit peak oil. And the definition of peak oil is now we run out of oil. Right. But when our oil production, right, like removing it from the ground, it can no longer keep up with demand. Yeah. The whole reason that this will probably

happen is because oil is a very finite resource, right? Yes. And we are not treating it as such. No. So those two things combined mean that we're going to run out at some point. But even if we did treat it, like even if we did conserve our oil, but we didn't bring any other type of energy into it. Yeah. It's a finite resource. Like it takes 10 million years for these fossil fuels at least to be produced, to turn into crude oil. The reason we have so much of it is because there was a massive dieout of large dinosaurs. Now, see, I read that the dinosaurs had very little to do with it. And then it was like other living creatures. Well, you tell me who said that. I don't know. I'd have to go look it up. Some guy a lot smarter than me. Okay. So. But regardless.

Regardless. The dinosaurs may or may not have had something to do with it, but things that lived at least 10 million years ago. Sure. And whose corpses were subject to these specific geological processes form oil. And there's only a very limited amount of it. It is the definition of a non renewable resource petroleum. We're going to run out of it eventually. Yeah. But like you were asking like when that happens. Yeah. And what happens when we reach that point? That's what the debate over peak oil is. Because some people think we may never hit peak oil. Right. We may we may come up with great alternative energy fill in the gaps as it were. Right. And and like maybe we'll just leave oil behind and we'll never go back and like use up the whole world supply because something

else will come along or will master wind technology and we'll be fine. But for the most part people agree that we will hit this point of peak oil, which again isn't running out of oil. It's where production plateaus and starts to decline while demand keeps increasing. Yes, I think you have a big problem there. If people don't get that by now. Well, no, if you for the third time, if you talked it, I can tell you that people who are peak oil adherents are very, very satisfied with us right now because we pointed that out three times because it's a big, big misconception. Wait, is that him now? He's coming in here to give us a pat on the back. Right. Yeah. I guess who could that be? King Hubbard? Hubbard? He's dead probably. I believe so. All right. Let's get it. I mean,

he was working in the 50s. So I guess we kind of, we laid out what we're talking about, right? But it is all based on M. King Hubbard's Hubbard curve. That's right. Do we need to talk about the BP reporter? Is that old news? Well, they do that every year. Oh, okay. So what does the recent one say? Do you know? Well, this is one of the recent developments. So this BP statistical review of world energy. BP compiles all of this energy information every year, and it's a huge, awesome PDF of like energy information. Right. And in 2008, they published that we have 1,238 billion barrels of oil improved reserves. That's 1.2 trillion barrels of oil improved reserves. Now, approved reserve doesn't mean that like you already have it in a barrel. It means that

some seismologist has done a geological survey of an area and said, yeah, there's oil there, and it has a 90% chance of being easily extractable. Okay. And you probably have this many barrels in this reserve. That's a proven reserve. Right. There's also probably stuff that we haven't found out there yet. Oh, sure. That adds to the whole oil base. But BP said in 2008 that we have 1.2 trillion barrels of oil. In 2012, they said that we have 1.6 trillion. So we added 400 billion barrels of oil in four years. Right. That was a huge thing that quieted everybody down. Okay. Well, that's good. Yeah. It could be a little hinky because the people giving up this information get, you know, they get money and funding based on things like this. Yeah. If you're

a member of OPEC and they're not, they're not checking their work as it were either. So what you have is you're not being audited. And if you lie about your numbers, you might get more funding. So a lot of people say, wait a minute, we shouldn't trust reports like this. Right. Yeah. There's for every bit of information or data, there's basically two ways to look at it. It's either truthful or here's all the reasons why it's probably not truthful. I know this is one of those things is just the point counterpoint just goes on and on and on. Yeah. And the reason why is because we have no idea how much oil is left on earth. Like we can't say and like the people who supposedly do know have reason to not be truthful about it. Right. Or to exaggerate it

even. Sure. So the BP statistical review is very, very widely respected. It's also criticized for that reason that you just said. But the whole idea behind this is based on what the guy who we were talking about M. King Hubbard came up with in the 1950s, which is called the Hubbard Curve. Right. Yeah. And this just makes sense to me. I don't know why it took this guy to come up with this. But it basically says, you know what, oil reserves are going to follow a trajectory. Right. You're going to tap it and you're going to pump oil out and after that production is going to plateau and then it's going to decline. Yeah. It took some smart guy to figure that out. Yeah. And I feel where you're coming from. You know, I think the same thing, but I think like there's a

specific like like this guy really grafted out and could predict like within maybe a year or something like that, which he did. The reason why everybody listens to Hubbard was because he predicted that the U.S. would hit its own peak production in sometime between 1965 and 70. Well, he missed it by a year. The U.S. oil production peaked in 1971 and it's been declining ever since. And this guy's made other great predictions. But the point is his Hubbard curve for any oil reserve, if you look at all of the reserves on earth as one large reserve, then the earth's oil supply should follow the same predictable curve. Right. And eventually, when you hit this plateau and production starts to decline, it's inevitable. Right.

That's right. It makes sense to you. It makes sense to me. Yeah. So where's the problem? Well, the in 2007, the government accountability office published another study that said, all right, we need to guard ourselves against this potential fallout from the peak oil problem. Right. And so there's a lot of factors here. You liken it to a marathon. This is a terrible analogy. I would say a relay race. That's where you messed up. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Because then you've got different team members doing better or worse. Oh, yeah. Contributing or detracting. I walked right by that. Man, I walked right by that. So let's look at it as a relay race. Okay. And each of the runners in your relay race is going to represent oil consumption, production, or alternative

fuels. So as alternative fuels get more advanced, then you're going to be using less oil. So that's great. Right. As consumption, I guess, you know, we're trying to make moves to just consume less. Right. Or conserve. Yeah. And conserving the, I know Obama's put in place a lot of stringent rules for car manufacturers these days. The cafe standards. Yeah. So in August, he did, he signed in something in the law that doubles the cafe standards to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. That's awesome. Yeah. And that will have a huge impact on oil consumption. So if you're in your little relay race still, that means oil is stabilized a little more because you're just not using, using, using. You're decreasing supply, which is taxing demand or you're decreasing demand,

which is taxing supply. Yes. But then other bad things can happen. One of the little relay racers might get hung up by the fact that China and India are growing in many ways and need some of that oil. Yeah. And so all of a sudden you're going to be using more oil and it's just a, sort of a give and take, a little seesaw effect until I guess you, what do you get a plateau? Or you, or that's just the changes the formula. I think part of the analogy that I, I got wrong too was like, I was making all these racers like racing toward the, the peak oil line, the finish line. Humanity is like on a way, on its way toward that. But how fast we get there, it depends on these things. Okay. Sure. So it's almost like they're

marbles or jacks or stuff for us to trip. They're banana peels. These are different kinds of banana peels. Okay. Some are slipper, more slippery than others. Very good then. One thing is for sure is that here in the United States, we use a lot of oil for transportation. That's the, the primary use. What's the percentage now? 70% of all oil, 70 goes to transportation. In the US? Yeah. Is that worldwide? In the US, sorry. And as of now, we are getting, the good news is we're at a 20 year low for foreign oil imports. We're at 42%. Right. That's a very glib percentage. Like when it gets to energy, you really have to pay attention to what, how a statistic is worded. Because there's a lot of different factors involved. There's a lot of different ways of looking at it.

And that's a really good example. 70% of all of our petroleum goes to transportation. That's mind boggling figure. But what we're really talking about is not oil consumption or energy consumption. We're talking about where that oil goes to. And actually, our consumption of oil in the US has declined in the last few years. So while we're still using 70% of all that oil for transportation, we're actually using less oil overall. But what about the imports though? Was that what you were talking about? Well, the imports have actually declined as well. No, no, that's what I just said. But you said that's the stat that you have to be really wary of. Well, you have to be wary of all energy stats. But no, like there are some that are just kind

of broad and above boards. And one of them is how much we're using, how much we're importing. And actually, we're importing more, but we're using less. So we're importing something like 60% of all the all the petroleum we used in 2011 we imported. Oh, really? Yeah. Which is more than the 58% in 2007. So it took a sharp decrease then because we're at 42% now as of August of 2012. No way. Yeah, it's a 20 year low for foreign oil imports. Okay. All right. So currently we're using as far as this in 2011 we used an average of 18,835,000 barrels per day, which is a very British way of saying 18.835 million barrels a day. Yes. A day. It's a lot. Yeah. A lot of petrol, which is also very British. Right. But we were importing less and that's

actually less than we were using before. And you say there's a sharp decline down to what? Down to where the 20 year lows supposedly of foreign imports. Of imports, not necessarily consumption. Imports. Okay. And why? Well, a lot of reasons. I know that they found a lot more oil in America recently. Yeah. Apparently Texas and I think one of the Dakotas. And from what I understand also, natural gas is stepping up in providing a lot more energy than it was before. Good for you natural gas. Yeah. Aside from the whole fracking problem. Frack that. The war on drugs impacts everyone whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on

drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah. And they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course, yes, they can do that in on the prime example. Okay. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jackpot or being robbed. They call civil asset. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, it's Megan

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activists. It's how you'd imagine the coolest dinner party ever might be. Listen to new episodes of Hereafter with Megan Devine every Monday on the Amy Brown podcast network available on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. So Chuck, where are we at? All right. I think we're at the problems. The other side of the coin, 2006, the Cambridge Energy Research Associates said, you know what? We've got lots of oil. Don't you worry about it. We've actually got 3.74 trillion barrels, three times as many as you guys said. Is the peak oil proponent? Yeah, that's you guys. And don't you worry about it. It's going to be an undulating plateau. It's going to be this drop off. And we got oil for decades and decades

that we can fill in the gaps as things come along with other forms of energy and the sky is not falling. Just shut up and watch Dancing with the Stars. Right. And if you read that BP report, it says that we have enough improvement reserves to last us uninterrupted for 54.5 years, 54.2 years. Yeah. Which is a very long time. That's a lot of oil. Peak oil, people say, that's great, man. That's awesome. But we can't just sit back and say, well, we're just going to keep going like this for 54 years because we will shoot ourselves in the foot. The whole point of believing in peak oil is saying that we have to take steps now to make sure that when we hit that 54.2 year, we're fine. We're totally covered. But as you say, there are plenty of people out

there like the CERA or CIRA that says you guys are crazy. Just settle down. Yeah. And the reason they say things like this is because there's a lot of oil out there that we haven't even touched. In the Arctic, for example, maybe 118 billion barrels of oil. And we know it's out there. This is not a theory. No, they discovered it in the 50s. Yeah. We know it's out there. It's just really expensive to go get because it's in the Arctic. Yeah. It costs a lot of lobbying money to get into the Arctic to drill. Under the ocean, lots of oil down there. It's just very deep. We're just waiting. And we got this oil shell all over Canada. Canada is basically like one big oil shell. And the Western US too. Yeah. So don't worry, people. We've got all these super

fields that we haven't even discovered yet. There's tons of oil. Don't worry about it. So Chuck, the reason why we have all this oil but it's just sitting there is mainly because it's expensive to get it under these conditions. You still have plenty of oil that's easily gotten. Right? And usually the way we get oil is in a three-stage process. Yeah. And most companies are only up to stage two. Yeah. So it's really a two-stage process. Does anyone even go to the third stage? Not yet. That's more like in the future. Sorry. That's like when oil prices rise so high that 90% of your paycheck goes to buy gas. That's when they can afford. Yeah. Because when you're paying $20 a gallon for gas,

then they can afford to go down to the Arctic. Exactly. It's an economic incentive. So normally when you get oil, stage one is where you tap the reservoir and oil pretty much just bubbles up out of the ground. You get about 10% of that reservoir from that first stage. Second one, you have to exert a little bit of effort. You pump some CO2 or some water into there and you recharge it and it starts to come up. You get anywhere from like another 20% to 40%. Yeah. I think a lot of the, if you watch like There Will Be Blood, I think those early oil guys, those were the dudes. I mean, they're the dudes that are now the 1%. Like I don't even think they were probably going secondary. They were just going around from oil, tapping that top 10% cheaply and just moving on.

Right. But now they move on after the second stage. Yes. After the second stage, actually you've taken anywhere from 30 to 50%, which means there's 50 to 70% of that reservoir still left. You cap it and say, well, let's mark the spot and move on. Yeah. P on it. Right. Put your little flag down. Well, no. You want to use like some sort of phosphorescent or fluorescent like crayon in the market and you can come back with a black light and be like, oh, here it is. X marks the spot. So they cap it again because of expense because to go down and get that final 50% is just too expensive right now. Same with extracting oil from oil shale or tar sands or getting into the Arctic or into the deep ocean. There's just not an economic incentive. But if you are a

critic of peak oil, you're going to say, we'll get to that one. We have all that extra stuff out there. Right. Calm down. Yeah. Right. It is kind of good to know in a way. I guess it's probably good that it's expensive because it would be very human like to just suck those things as dry as a bone and then move on. And there, my friend, you just tapped into the central theme of peak oil. I did. It is very human like to just keep plotting along and suck something down to the bone and not look beyond that day when the bone is dry. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. It's sad. I've always wondered too if the earth needed oil and I've looked it up on the internet and I can't find anything. Remember? Yeah. I talked about this before. I don't remember what, but that was,

yeah. And I researched again a little bit last night. I was like, and I can't find any intelligent person on the internet that it's not just some message board saying, you know, oil is the blood of the earth and the planet. And if we suck it dry, like, why do you think we have earthquakes? Yeah. So, but I don't know. There's oil on earth. It could serve a function, right? I would imagine. Maybe. I would think so. I technically speaking. I tend to think of things as a whole. Yeah. Like that. Like that earth has maybe there's reasons for everything like that. Or even if there isn't a reason that's been around so long that something's become dependent on it. So it's sure important to something else other than our cars. Right. And it is a lubricator

and it is found within hard rock. I don't know. Maybe I'm crazy. So, Chuck, we talked about how this article is kind of almost a throwback. That's a lubricator, by the way. You totally said a lubricant. It's a it's like a snapshot of like this kind of I don't want to say hysteria because I think it's it's right. But there was a lot of stuff going on in like 2008 that we're making these peak oil adherents say, Hey, we're right. Everybody pay attention. And probably the thing that verified their beliefs more than anything else came on July 11 2008, when oil reached an all time high of $147 a barrel. That is expensive. Right. And if you believe in peak oil or if you are an adherent of the peak oil idea, this is like one of the four

horsemen riding out of the sky. Yeah. But the thing was they ended up being they were duped like everybody else by the speculators who had driven up prices. But they were saying, nope, this is a problem. This is part of what they call peak light, right, which they think we've hit. Peak light is basically where production starts to plateau. Yeah. And we don't realize that it's going to eventually decline, but we're in the plateau, right. And there'll be like little highs and lows. And all of those are going to each one reflects this smaller scale, longer time frame version of the actual peak oil. But it's kind of it's like the smaller, smaller version of it once we have a peak. And they think that's where we are now. Yeah. And if you ask me

that peak sounds an awful lot like what Sarah was saying, the undulating plateau and peak light sound like they're virtually the same. Maybe so. Yeah. But they disagree on when we hit that. Well, oil per barrel is lower now. Thankfully, that's one big thing. It's it as far as this month goes $86 and 37 cents. We've added since 2008. We've added almost half a trillion barrels of oil improved reserves. Right. It's a big one. So we're moving in the right direction in some ways. Yeah. Correct. Alternative fuels. Alternative fuels are making up a lot bigger chunk. They make up for the first time. And here's a good example of another statistic you have to pay attention to. Alternative fuels, or renewables and nuke and hydro for the first time ever in

world energy consumption, make up more of the energy being used than any single fossil fuel for the first time ever in 2011. This happened. It's great. Covering growth and consumption. Right. So there's a very big key factor. That means that everything passed the year before. That's the growth in consumption. Yeah. So it's covering 34% of that. Right. Not of all energy consumption. So it sounds like this huge enormous number. And it's a good hardening number. Sure. But it's not what you think. Like you really have to pay attention when talking about energy consumption or energy stats. Very true. Because stats can be very misleading in this realm. Right. And so one of the big problems with peak oil is anytime you say, well, hey, we have stuff

in the Arctic Reserve. So we're fine. There's a lot of other problems that come up in conjunction with it. Oil is very dirty, literally and metaphorically. That's right. You could destroy an ecosystem very easily. Very easily. In the Arctic. Very precious, balanced ecosystem. Okay. So let's just sink all of our money into alternative energy. That sounds like you're setting me up. Yeah. I would say that's a great move. But it can be promising on one hand. But things like switch grass and cellulosic ethanol are very corrosive. And it's very expensive to retrofit gas pumps at a gas station and gas storage tanks. It's like a hundred grand a gas station. Yeah. So it's not like there's some super easy answer.

Well, plus also, plus also, it's like you're taking investment money away from finding new oil fields, putting into alternative energy, which isn't necessarily a bad thing until you realize that, well, wait a minute, we are, we're globalized. So if you take away oil from China and India, you're going to slow down this economic engine. I've got to strike that balance. Right. It's Homer with the goldfish and Mr. Pinchy again with the salt, you know, that's right. It's the same thing. Cole, they can actually make liquid coal now that can power a vehicle, which is great. With no alterations. Yeah. You can pump it right into your car. The bad thing is, coal is really dirty and you're going to be emitting four to 8% more greenhouse gases

than gasoline even. Yep. So again, no easy answer. Well, the same goes for natural gas. Natural gas made up 25% of the energy provided in the US that was consumed was provided by natural gas last year. That's huge. It's more than coal. Yeah. Came out of nowhere. Right. But the problem is, is you have fracking alongside of that. Like to get it, you have to basically like create an environmental disaster every time. Yeah. So there, yeah, there's all these problems with mitigating it. But the worst thing you can do is nothing. This one report that's kind of like peak oil adherence Bible found. It's called the Hirsch report. Yeah. Or a k a peaking of world oil production colon impacts mitigation and risk management. And Robert Hirsch, why they call it

the Hirsch report. Yeah. Robert Hirsch put this together and basically laid out three scenarios. It's do nothing. Start 10 years ahead of time to help out this problem. Right. Or start 20 years ahead of time to really head off this problem and to head off these mitigations. It's figuring out alternative fuels, decreasing demand, basically like just doing whatever you can to take the pressure off of production. Yeah. So that we still have oil. We're just using less of it. Yeah. And unsurprisingly, he says 20 years before would be the best way to handle this. Yeah. 10 years before. If you did that, he said it could be a pretty smooth transition. Right. If you start 10 years before, then what you're going to have a problem for about a decade, a shortfall. And if

you don't do anything, then you're going to have at least a 20 year shortfall. And so what we're talking about when there's like, yes, a global energy shortfall. Yeah. That's scary times right there. Yeah. Because oil petroleum, crude oil and petroleum are found in our medicine, our foods. They are used by the tanker trucks and ships that deliver petroleum. Yeah. Use petroleum to deliver it. It's everything to everybody. It's the lifeblood of the global economic engine. And dude, like we've never experienced anything like what like the catastrophic collapse that would happen if we experienced a 10 year global energy shortfall. I got two words for you. Mad Max. Yeah. I think, yeah, I don't, I think like I don't see an end to that. Like if we experienced 10

years or 20 years, I don't see how we would ever come out of that. Yeah. I mean, because it's easy to say, well, get on your bicycle. But like you said, it's not just, hey, I put gas in my car to go to work. It is everything. Like all of a sudden I can't get food delivered to the grocery store or medicines. And yeah, it's pretty scary thought. And the big part of the, I guess, probably the biggest problem is like, we won't know when we hit peak oil until a few years afterwards when all these telltale signs start coming. And I'm sure most people won't agree. So it'll probably be several years afterwards when it's just painfully obvious that production is being outstripped by demand. Supplies can't keep up with demand anymore. And it looks like it's never

going to go back up, which means we've hit peak oil, which means we're in trouble. What mitigation measures do we have in place? Yeah. One thing you don't want to hear someone say is oops. Yeah. You know, especially when you're talking about the global economic engine. Yeah. And I think you said some people claim that it might have already happened in 2005. Mm-hmm. Others say, no, you know what? We're good till what? 2030? 2030 is when we hit that undulating plateau, which should be not a problem as far as sear is concerned. But even 2040 is what you said, the most conservative peak oil. I was about to say enthusiast, but adherence is the right word. That's the latest they think it's going to happen.

As far as when I wrote this in 2008. Now, a bunch of stuff have happened. Remember, we added almost half a trillion barrels of oil. We're using less. Our cafe standards were increased recently. The 3.4% of all new car registrations in the U.S. in 2011. No, 2012 so far. We're hybrid or electric, which is about 1% just a few years ago. But it's such a drop in the bucket. All of those drops count in just kind of prolonging this point until we get the peak oil. Alternative energy investments are up. It's like we're doing all this great stuff. And as a result, all of the people, all these really loud voices that had a real stage in 2008 had the ears of a lot of people who were governing at the time. The climate has changed. And I wonder if it was

because a lot of these peak oil adherents shouting really loud that we have made some concessions. But now I wonder if we're just going to become complacent. Right. Like, oh, well, we staved it off. We're fine for now. And we're just going to kick it on down the road. Because I don't see a lot of effort going into it. I mean, not there's some, but certainly not what is needed. I just feel like we're all headed toward the cataclysmic like collapse of humanity. Eventually, we're all going to turn on each other and ruin ourselves and the earth will be scorched and empty. Nice. May not be anytime soon. Where's it? Where's it going? Hundreds and hundreds of years from now. Who knows. But anyone that thinks that humans on planet earth are we're

going to be around infinitely forever because we're humans is just, you know, they're pooling themselves. It's fool's gold. Nice. How's that for happy? That is perfect. The war on drugs impacts everyone. Whether or not you take America's public enemy. Number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah. And they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course. Yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts

as guilty. Cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, it's Megan Devine, host of Hereafter with me, Megan Devine on the Amy Brown podcast network. There's a lot going on lately, which is a massive understatement from personal losses to bigger collective sweeps of a lot of awful things. Everything is a lot. We have to start telling the truth about how hard it is to be here sometimes. How absolutely sideways life can go in a culture that's often afraid of big emotions. It's a

radical act just to let things hurt. Hereafter with Megan Devine is the show where everyone's allowed to talk about what's real in the service of a more connected and supportive world. It is also the place where I get to have conversations with interesting people about difficult things with bestselling authors and a collection of artists and actors and activists. It's how you'd imagine the coolest dinner party ever might be. Listen to new episodes of Hereafter with Megan Devine every Monday on the Amy Brown podcast network, available on the iHeart radio app, apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you want to learn more about peak oil, you can type those words into the search bar at howstuffworks.com and it'll bring up this

article. And I said search bar, which means it's time for Listen to MailChuck. I'm going to call this Where's the Orchestra? This is from Eric Steffens and he is a double bass player, a principal double bass player in an orchestra near Cologne, Germany. And he listened to the Ben Solisio about music and emotion, which we got great feedback on. And he says, many thanks to Ben who played another fantastic and inspiring performance. He's a beautiful open way of discussing music. Couldn't agree more. Many thanks to him for mentioning the importance of classical music. It's an art form that unfortunately too few people are exposed to now, having a lot to do with its financial and logistical complexities, but nonetheless one of the most powerful and

underrated forms of music today. And it has contributed so much to how we in the Western world hear and perceive music today. I would really love it if you guys could get out and hear another performance sometime, even more so if you encourage SYSK listeners to get out and experience and support their local orchestras. It is difficult time for orchestras right now, and as Ben mentioned, many are being forced to downsize or fold altogether. This is one of the reasons why I've ended up in Germany, which still heavily supports many orchestras with state financing and media. The appreciation is very deeply rooted in the culture out here, and while it's a slightly different situation in the States, I want to remind people that classical music

is not exclusive unless you make it so. And I would go on to even point out that he means orchestral music. It's classical as a period of time. It is not exclusive unless you make it so, so you don't need to have a tuxedo or a deep musical education to appreciate the extreme beauty and the importance of it. Couldn't agree more. Please give it a chance, help keep it alive, and that is very good advice. Support your local orchestra. I guarantee you, whatever town you live in, unless you're in some really backward Kansas field town, you've probably got an orchestra. Even if it's a smallish town, you might have an orchestra. Yeah. If you're in a big city, you definitely have an orchestra. Yes. Go out and see it. It's usually pretty cheap.

It's not like paying for, you know, 60 bucks to go see Jack White. Make noise. Geez. I like Jack White, actually. Oh, okay. But he's charging too much. 60 bucks a head? Yeah. When he played, he got that rock and tours band together. Tickets are like 60 or 75 bucks. That's a lot. For one album of material. Anyway. Thank you for all the years of explaining the world through Fantastic Podcast. I hope for many years to come to hear these. When I drink my delicious colch beer tonight, I'll roast you guys. Yes. He says, shirna gruesa aus cologne, Eric Steffens. Thanks a lot, Steffens. Appreciate that. Go out and see an orchestra. I'm in favor of encouraging our listeners to go out and see an

orchestra. Yeah, here's the plan. We have a good one. A specific day where all stuff you should know listeners go out to the orchestra. Well, I don't think you can count on all orchestras playing on that day and every time on earth. Well, let's find out about it. Let's find out. All right, let's even get that together. Like, I don't think we can make that happen, but maybe there's a day when orchestras typically play. Sure. Like traditionally speaking. Or how about like this winter season, make a commitment to go out because you're going to be darn sure that they'll be an orchestra playing some sort of Christmas classical concertos. Oh, good. You know. Okay. All right. That's it. You have to go out and see an orchestra this winter. Yeah, but don't consider it forever.

No, Craig is not bad, depending on where you see it. I like it. It's a little dull. Really? You think so? Oh, for me, sure. There's like giant soldiers and a huge, there's a rat that hits people with this. There's a lot of stuff going on. Um, well, what do you like to go see? You see Christmas Carol? No, I mean, I don't do any of that stuff. I go see Jack White and complain. Let's see. If you have a favorite band you like to see that you think Chuck and I should see, or a performance of some sort, whether it's Nutcracker or Jack White or whatever. Well, we've already covered those two, so you should probably leave them alone. We want to hear from you. You can tweet your suggestions to us at SYSK Podcast. You can join us on facebook.com

slash stuffy snow. And you can send us a general email to stuffpodcast at discovery.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff, stuff that'll piss you off. The cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Whitney Dow here co-host with Eric Alexander of Reparations the Big Payback podcast. In our podcast,

we explore the arguments for and against reparations for black Americans. All episodes are available now on the iHeart radio app, Black Effect Podcast Network or wherever you get your podcast. Looking to continue the story? Make sure to stream our new documentary, The Big Payback, co-directed by me and Whitney Dow. As we examine the attempt to make reparations for African Americans, a reality available now on the PBS app or wherever you get your films.