AP Sinking Oil TankerThe Oil Drum hosts a research piece that wonders why peak oil isn’t even discussed or worried about by energy experts in governments all around the world.

We’d add that peak oil isn’t really discussed by most energy companies around the world either when they host analyst calls or talk about their strategy.

At least nowhere near the degree that peak oil disaster scenario believers do.

Yet, interestingly, rather than confront their own assumption that peak oil is the global disaster they make it to be, this article at The Oil Drum ignores this and concludes that non-believers around the world are either A) suffering from psychological ‘cognitive biases’ or B) in it together in a giant global cover up (combining many enemy governments at odds with each other, plus competing corporations we might add).

It seems the peak oil disaster boat is sinking. You be the judge, emphasis added:

The Oil Drum: Anyone aware of peak oil has had to wonder (at least briefly) why the world’s governments seem to be ignoring the issue….

“The growing popular debate on ‘peak oil’ has had relatively little influence on conventional policy discourse. For example, the UK government rarely mentions the issue in official publications and …..’does not feel the need to hold contingency plans specifically for the eventuality of crude oil supplies peaking between now and 2020′.”3 The report notes that “the UK is one of many countries that are failing to give serious consideration to this risk.”…

Nate Hagens has argued here “that despite facts, we exhibit certain cognitive biases that prevent us from acting on complex or frightening subjects outside of our day to day realities.”9 This category would include the notion of “cognitive dissonance” and other psychological factors that save us the trouble of facing difficult facts or “truths”, including that of our own mortality. The sheer difficulty of believing, or grasping, as consequential a figure as Hubbert’s Peak, is well supported by anecdotal evidence among peak oilers who commonly report a “glazed-over” response to their efforts…

What if the silence on peak oil is not a betrayal of national interests, but a policy choice informed by national interests? What if, with Mike Ruppert, we accept that there are “conspiracy facts”, and that the silence on peak oil is one of them?

“Most people have… a serious misconception: That misconception is a belief that there is an urgent need to somehow make key decision makers and leaders of American and global life ware of the immediate problems of Peak Oil and Natural Gas. Nothing could be more off base. The world’s key decision makers have been aware of and planning for this crisis for years.”

Read the full article at the Oil Drum and tell us if we’re wrong >>