OP is “Looking for models / analysis / predictions published in peer reviewed journals about the economic / political state of the world as we move away from fossil fuels.” Whether such papers exist and where to find them is, in my opinion, a factual question.
The merits of any particular prediction or model is probably not FQ material, though I think it would be appropriate to question whether a particular model has been published in a peer reviewed journal.
Individual member’s predictions and personal models, unless published in a peer reviewed journal, I would think are slightly off-topic.
On the other hand I think the question, “Will the resulting Global turmoil be manageable?” is inappropriate for FQ. Same with the linked topic question, “How Can We Address Climate Change Besides Limiting Emissions?”. These questions appear to be better suited for GD or IMHO than FQ.
Well Ruken basically told him the approach to find the answer:
"I’ve had some luck with
post-oil economy [country]
in Google Scholar. E.g.:"
Or he could simply start with other possibilities there such as
“post fossil fuel economy” and get 2,450 results–and tens of thousands more if you read all the references and works which cited these results.
But most of the results are only useful if he is connected to an academic institution or well off as these peer reviewed results typically cost $25 or so for an article even though the research has been usually paid for by public funds.
And for suggestions are to which of these thousands of articles are the best is something Straight Dope members can’t answer as it is too small a community: it is unlikely to have academic economists specializing in post fossil fuel economics.
So instead you get the informed general discussion instead.
Or he can ask me or someone else with broader access who wants to join the scavenger hunt to quote a few paragraphs because I think the topic is interesting. I’m happy to do that now and then. And absent that, abstracts and the “who has cited this” button go a long way toward answering some questions.
It’s frustrating to ask for factual information in FQ and have the thread overwhelmed by people with IMHO you didn’t ask for.
FWIW I took “Will the resulting Global turmoil be manageable?” to be a constraint on the papers he’s interested in.
It is, but with a lot of topics, the factual information that folks are sometimes looking for might not be out there, at least not where some random folks on a message board can find it.
That leaves us FQ mods with a judgement call to make. Do we try to steer the thread back into FQ territory? Do we think that the thread has been addressed factually as well as can be expected, and if so would trying to restrict the thread to FQ rules end up killing the thread entirely? Or is there still more to be addressed factually in the topic? Would the thread benefit from the type of speculation allowed in IMHO vs. the factual restrictions of FQ?
In this particular case I chose to move the thread to IMHO since I felt enough time had passed that the thread was not likely to receive any further factual posts about specific models/studies/etc. and the thread as a whole would benefit from removing FQ’s restrictions.