Denver Conference a Huge Success

Thanks to all of our speakers and attendees.

“We are almost through the age of oil, it will be just a blip on the long progression of mankind…the question is what kind of future do we bequeath to our grandchildren.”

U.S. Representative Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD)

That was the message delivered and the challenge presented to a sold out audience of more than 425 businessmen, students, members of industry, policy makers, and academics from around the country who gathered at ASPO-USA’s first annual World Peak Oil Conference in Denver, Colorado this past Thursday.

Described by ASPO-USA’s co-founder Randy Udall as a “Depletion Woodstock,” an impressive array of more than 20 speakers took the stage during the three-day conference, each emphasizing the impending decline of world oil and charging our society with the pressing responsibility and moral obligation of planning for a more sustainable future.

“We are climbing up a down escalator,” warned petroleum investment analyst Thomas Petrie, in reference to the struggling world effort to meet increasing demands for oil. Matthew Simmons, author of the highly acclaimed Twilight in the Desert, echoed these concerns and pointed to the 1979 decline of oil in the lower 48 states as an indicator of things to come in the Middle East. “Great crises are created by ignoring solvable problems,” he concluded, refuting the popular belief that increased technology or the claimed reserves of the Middle East will delay the world peaking of oil.

Other highlights included Mayor John Hickenlooper’s remarks on the municipal economic impacts of higher oil prices, Professor Al Bartlett’s discussion of the effects of exponential growth and “silent lies,” the inspiring speech on the challenges of transition to sustainability delivered by U.S. Representative Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), and Roger Bezdek’s seminal report on mitigation imperatives and risk management strategies for the peaking of world oil production.