Paul Sengupta wrote:
"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:NaVee.54780$NU4.23676@attbi_s22...

I also remember the many reputable "researchers" claiming that all the

"oil

will be gone by the year 2000." (Actually, some were claiming 1990.)


When I was in school in the 1970s/80s, it was given as being about 300 years
so I'm not sure where the "by the year 1990" came from.

Figures like these were highly publicised in the U.S. during the Iranian oil
embargo. They were used as scare tactics to try to establish gasoline rationing
(amoung other things). I remember in 1979 being told by a co-worker not to throw
away some item I'd broken. "By the year 2000, genuine plastic will be worth a
lot of money, 'cause they won't be able to make it any more."

The claims I heard most often from the media heads and "experts" were that the
world's known reserves would be "exhausted in 15 to 20 years." I quit watching
TV in late 1980, so I don't know when they quit making these claims, but they
repeated them all through the late '70s.

George Patterson
There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
mashed potatoes.