News reports often echo the opinions of those who are the most pessimistic. Old stories that forecast we have already reached the peak of our oil gas production are recycled, no doubt, for ratings purposes. The fantastic, the dismal – the bad news – seems to make ratings for news services. Indeed, it often appears that without negative news and opinions, news services would have nothing to report.

Thomas Robert Malthus was a pessimist. He predicted that world food production would not be able to keep up with population growth. Malthus was, of course, an economist. The Reverend Malthus offered his theory in the late 1700s. Malthus’ theory was later referred to as The Dismal Theorem. He died in 1834.

It is estimated that there were fewer than a billion people in the world in 1800, about the time Malthus launched his theory. There are approximately 6.5 billion people alive today. Given the numbers, it appears Malthus was a bit too, well, dismal in his view of the relationship between human population growth and our ability to produce food.

I am not saying that there have not been problems with the food supply at times. Drought, crop failures and politics (including war) all have played roles in human misery via crop shortages. The Dust Bowl, the Irish Potato Famine and the tragedy of modern Zimbabwe have caused food supply disruption. Overall, though, we have been blessed by the ability to produce food surpluses in the face of population growth.

Consequently, overly pessimistic theories are often referred to as Malthusian. Even so, ideas too negative for reality but still newsworthy are likely to be parroted by the most fearful among us, especially in the media. It seems there is something in the human make-up that just likes a scary story even if it is implausible – just ask those who have made millions writing horror fiction, such as Stephen King or maybe Al Gore.

One of the latest fashionable predictions making the rounds with the newscasters postulates that we have reached peak oil production.

With high oil prices it seems that the public at large wants to find a scapegoat. Never mind that, due to red tape and licensing costs, we have not built a new oil refinery in our country since the 1970s. Refineries are absolutely essential if you like to use products made from raw crude oil – like gasoline, for instance. It appears that many Americans – hopefully a minority -- do not want to allow more offshore drilling for fear of massive oil spills, even though the powerful Gulf hurricanes that made direct hits on our offshore facilities in recent years resulted in hardly a drop of oil spilled. After all, drilling and pipeline technology have made huge leaps in safety technology since large spills occurred off California in the 1960s. Mega deposits of hydrocarbons are found in various geologic strata across much of our nation. Sadly, much of this energy is off limits to production.

Peak Oil seems to fulfill a need for some who are against further exploration and development of our energy potential. "Why try harder when we are all doomed?" seems to be the mantra of many who are aboard the Peak Oil bandwagon.

Interestingly, the Roaring Twenties – a time of economic expansion after World War I – was also a time when many thought that the world had entered a time of peak oil production. During a period of relative prosperity, many thought the price of gasoline would increase as many Americans traded in their horse-drawn wagons for their first cars. Even over that period, gasoline prices stayed fairly flat, rising some the following decade.

British Petroleum predicted that we had found all major oil that could be found by the early 1980s. They said global production would peak around 1985, yet oil production increased by around 25 percent from 1985 to 2005. The large integrated oil companies have not been as successful finding oil as smaller companies that specialize in drilling and exploration. Was this prediction by BP merely consistent with the major oil company’s lack of ability to find new reserves, or was it an effort to keep prices up by underestimating supply in an era (around 1985) when prices were going to trend down? It is always fair to ask who is profiting from a concept.

Who was benefiting as the Malthusian Peak Oil theory was dragged off a dusty shelf as oil was peaking in price recently? As gas at the pump topped 4 bucks in many areas of the country, news specials regarding the Peak Oil theory became all the rage from the business channels to the morning news programs. Who benefits from scaring the public? The media and the major integrated oil companies selling us fuel certainly might, so might alternative energy companies, for that matter. If enough defeatism hits the global psyche, even environmental extremists who do not wish us to use our petroleum assets get their wish. After all, why explore for more oil? Why develop fields that we know are there? Heck, why bring on some of the alternative technologies if we are all doomed in the long run? Let us all go live in caves and await the end and despair.

You think I’m kidding? A recent European television special on Peak Oil suggested that the only answer to our global needs is to reduce our population by two thirds. You got it – they suggested we lose 4 billion – that’s with a B – people! Stephen King or Dean Koontz couldn’t write anything more terrifying than that group of European journalists.

Even if we have reached Peak Oil, is it the end as life as we know it? I suspect not. There are alternative ways to provide energy. Development and research is accelerating into everything from nuclear to hydrogen cells. That R&D is stimulated by higher prices of energy.

However, I do not think we have hit Peak Oil. Whenever oil prices get high, someone somehow seems to figure out a way to extract more oil from somewhere. New fields have been discovered recently off the coast of Brazil, in the Dakotas and in shale and other rock formations in the continental U.S. Sometimes it takes years for the markets to balance out, but those of us who remember the gasoline panics in the 1970s and early 1980s know that prices eventually level off due to more supply being brought on line. More efficiencies and new technologies are also a help.