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Coping with Peak Oil
In response to my recent Blog post on Peak Oil, Thankful asked for a summary of the actions that should be taken to mitigate the impact of a declining supply of petroleum and natural gas. As a stopgap, I quoted part of an article in Orion Magazine by Jim Kunstler:
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/7
The title of the piece is “Making other Arrangements” Kunstler describes the problem in bleak terms, then reviews (and trashes) the “solutions” suggested by energy companies, politicians, and even environmentalists. One short quote:
The widespread wish to just uncouple from oil and gas and plug all our complex systems into other energy sources is an interesting and troubling enough phenomenon in its own right to merit some discussion. Perhaps the leading delusion is the notion that energy and technology are one and the same thing, interchangeable. The popular idea, expressed incessantly in the news media, is that if you run out of energy, you just go out and find some “new technology” to keep things running. We’ll learn that this doesn’t comport with reality.
The common element to Kunstler’s (and others’) prescription for coping with peak oil is pain, and plenty of it, though not as much pain as we’ll endure if we just blunder along, hoping things will get better.
What politician is going to legislate pain, even if it forestalls even greater pain in the future? There is no FDR currently running for office, so the only way we’ll get meaningful results is through coordinated and relentless grassroots pressure, also not a great likelihood in our dumbed-down, self-absorbed, uninformed populace.
An example (from Kunstler’s article):
The most arrant case of collective cluelessness now on view is our failure to even begin a public discussion about fixing the U.S. passenger railroad system, which has become so decrepit that the Bulgarians would be ashamed of it. It’s the one thing we could do right away that would have a substantial impact on our oil use. The infrastructure is still out there, rusting in the rain, waiting to be fixed. The restoration of it would employ hundreds of thousands of Americans at all levels of meaningful work. The fact that we are hardly even talking about it—at any point along the political spectrum, left, right, or center—shows how fundamentally un-serious we are.
So even though the likelihood of sensible solutions being enacted in time is vanishingly small, here is Kunstler’s summary of what needs to be done:
We have to do better. We have to start right away making those other arrangements. We have to begin the transition to some mode of living that will allow us to carry on the project of civilization—and I would argue against the notion advanced by Daniel Quinn and others that civilization itself is our enemy and should not be continued. The agenda for facing our problems squarely can, in fact, be described with some precision. We have to make other arrangements for the basic activities of everyday life.
In general, the circumstances we face with energy and climate change will require us to live much more locally, probably profoundly and intensely so. We have to grow more of our food locally, on a smaller scale than we do now, with fewer artificial “inputs,” and probably with more human and animal labor. Farming may come closer to the center of our national economic life than it has been within the memory of anyone alive now. These changes are also likely to revive a menu of social and class conflicts that we also thought we had left behind.
We’ll have to reorganize retail trade by rebuilding networks of local economic interdependence. The rise of national chain retail business was an emergent, self-organizing response to the conditions of the late twentieth century. Those conditions are now coming to an end, and the Wal-Mart way of doing business will come to an end with them: the twelve-thousand-mile merchandise supply line to Asian factories; the “warehouse on wheels” made up of thousands of tractor-trailer trucks circulating endlessly between the container-ship ports and the big-box store loading docks. The damage to local economies that the “superstores” leave behind is massive. Not only have they destroyed multilayered local networks for making and selling things, they destroyed the middle classes that ran them, and in so doing they destroyed the cultural and economic fabric of the communities themselves. This is a lot to overcome. We will have to resume making some things for ourselves again, and moving them through smaller-scale trade networks. We may have fewer things to buy overall. The retail frenzy of recent decades will subside as we struggle to produce things of value and necessarily consume less.
We’ll have to make other arrangements for transporting people and goods. Not only do we desperately need to rebuild the railroad system, but electrifying it—as virtually all other advanced nations have done—will bring added advantages, since we will be able to run it on a range of things other than fossil fuels. We should anticipate a revival of maritime trade on the regional scale, with more use of boats on rivers, canals, and waterways within the U.S. Many of our derelict riverfronts and the dying ports of the Great Lakes may come back to life. If we use trucks at all to move things, it will be for the very last leg of the journey. The automobile will be a diminishing presence in our lives and, increasingly, a luxury that will be resented by those who can no longer afford to participate in the “happy motoring” utopia. The interstate highways themselves will require more resources to maintain than we will be able to muster. For many of us, the twenty-first century will be less about incessant mobility than about staying where we are.
We have to inhabit the terrain of North America differently, meaning a return to traditional cities, towns, neighborhoods, and a productive rural landscape that is more than just strictly scenic or recreational. We will probably see a reversal of the two-hundred-year-long trend of people moving from the country and small towns to the big cities. In fact, our big cities will probably contract substantially, even while they re-densify at their centers and along their waterfronts. The work of the New Urbanists will be crucial in rebuilding human habitats that have a future. Their achievement so far has been not so much in building “new towns” like Seaside, Florida, or Kentlands, Maryland, but in retrieving a body of knowledge, principle, and methodology for urban design that had been thrown away in our mad effort to build the drive-in suburbs.
And his punch line:
As a matter of fact, you can state categorically that anything organized on a gigantic scale, whether it is a federal government or the Acme Corporation or the University of Michigan, will probably falter in the energy-scarce future. Therefore, don’t pin your hopes on multinational corporations, international NGOs, or any other giant organizations or institutions.
Recent events have caused many of us to fear that we are headed toward a Big Brother kind of governmental tyranny. I think we will be lucky if the federal government can answer the phones, let alone regulate anyone’s life, in the post-oil era. As power devolves to the local and regional level, the very purpose of our federal arrangements may come into question. The state governments, with their enormous bureaucracies, may not be better off. Further along in this century, the real political action will likely shift down to the local level, as reconstructed neighborly associations allow people to tackle problems locally with local solutions.
It’s a daunting agenda, all right. And some of you are probably wondering how you are supposed to remain hopeful in the face of these enormous tasks. Here’s the plain truth, folks: Hope is not a consumer product. You have to generate your own hope. You do that by demonstrating to yourself that you are brave enough to face reality and competent enough to deal with the circumstances that it presents. How we will manage to uphold a decent society in the face of extraordinary change will depend on our creativity, our generosity, and our kindness, and I am confident that we can find these resources within our own hearts, and collectively in our communities.
The other authors of post-oil scenarios don’t vary a lot in their assessment of where we stand, or what we must do to mitigate the effects of declining oil and gas production. A very readable outline of the options we face is by Richard Heinberg:
Heinberg Richard (2004). Power Down: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World. New Society Publishers. ISBN 0-86571-510-6.
Heinberg outlines the situation, powerfully and succinctly, then reviews the options available:
- LAST ONE STANDING: THE WAY OF WAR AND COMPETITION
- POWERDOWN: THE PATH OF SELF-LIMITATION, COOPERATION, AND SHARING
- BUILDING LIFEBOATS: THE PATH OF COMMUNITY SOLIDARITY AND PRESERVATION
At this stage, we’re well entrenched in option 1, with our outrageous attempt to dominate the oil-rich Middle East. McCain will certainly continue this ultimately futile approach if elected. Obama has signalled an intent to maintain the American presence in the Middle East at some level, which I guess we could call Option 1-lite. It’s up to us to persuade him to move on to Option 2.
Drilling for oil and border security are the two issues voters put at the top of the list. If Obama embraces drilling for oil and boreder security he will win the election.
http://mo.barackobama.com/page/content/Independence/
EVENT WITH BARACK OBAMA
Truman Memorial Building
416 W. Maple Avenue
Independence, MO
Monday, June 30th
Doors Open: 9:00 a.m.
...
Preparing the Battlefield
http://www.truthout.org/article/preparing-battlefield
Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker: "Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country's religious leadership."
US Raid Kills Maliki Relative; Crisis Grows Over US-Iraq Agreement
http://www.truthout.org/article/us-raid-kills-maliki-relative-crisis-grows-over-us-iraq-agreement
Hannah Allam of McClatchy Newspapers, "Senior Iraqi government officials said Saturday that a U.S. Special Forces counterterrorism unit conducted the raid that reportedly killed a relative of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, touching off a high-stakes diplomatic crisis between the United States and Iraq."
Iran Threatens to Shut Down Persian Gulf Oil Lanes if Attacked
http://www.truthout.org/article/iran-threatens-shut-down-persian-gulf-oil-lanes-if-attacked
The Los Angeles Times' Borzou Daragahi: "The commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard said the government might shut down vital oil lanes through the Persian Gulf if the country were attacked by the United States or Israel, according to a newspaper report Saturday."
community which conflates "law enforcement and the war on terror." That's why the components of the Patriot Act had been long prepared and packaged before the legislation was passed in 2001. Who's in charge, the people or their agents is an open question from the law enforcement perspective. Perhaps it's a consequence of a readily identifiable criminal class having been ruled out, it was natural for some people to consider everyone guilty of something, until proven otherwise. The evidence may be found in the treatment of almost everyone being equally shoddy.
"You want equality? I'll show you equality!"
Congress Rushes to Encourage Iran Attack On October 11, 2002, the Senate passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution. It did so influenced by what anyone paying attention now knows was a campaign of fear-mongering lies organized by the neocons surrounding Vice President Cheney. The Congress is about to repeat that disgraceful performance. House Resolution 362 will be voted on after the July 4th recess.
bushtool: Is Obama Selling Us Out or Simply Selling Himself to the Media?
...essential to an election victory, easily rallied and a dependable source of funds, but not to be considered seriously in any policy decisions. As Evangelicals are mocked by Wall Street, so Progressives are mocked as a fringe element by the likes of Pelosi and Reid. Progressives are the one group the Democrats think they'll never have to pander to, as we'll always be first to fall in line while asking for nothing in return. We lose issue after issue-- FISA, war funding, single-payer health care and dozens of others, yet we'll be the first to tell each other, "Forget FISA, think of the Supreme Court. Forget single-payer health care, think of the Supreme Court." Then, when another corporate shill is appointed to the Court by a Democratic president, we'll look ahead to the next election with our silly sad vows of Never Again, Never Again.
article continues:::"Now that Obama has the nomination wrapped up, the conventional wisdom is that he must swerve to the center in order to win against McCain. And we are seeing lots of examples of that in fact happening.
There is something very distorted about this strategy but it is a reality that must be dealt with nevertheless.
Practically every poll out there indicates that the voters of America are overwhelmingly not in "the center" but in fact are "Progressives" even though many of them do not identify with the label. We want single payer health care, withdrawal of our troops from Iraq, diplomacy rather than saber rattling towards Iran, stricter gun control, better environmental regulation, higher taxes for the upper income group, etc. The list goes on and on. It is only the extreme media bias caused by a highly concentrated media oligarchy that tricks some of us into believing that progressives values are somehow not in line with what the majority of us desire.
So if the majority of us are not centrist but hold progressive values and most of the rest hold regressive values such as being pro-war, anti-gay, pro-torture, pro-wiretapping, etc., who exactly is in the "center"? In my opinion, there is almost no one there.
So why would Obama diss his progressive roots when he stands to gain little or nothing by doing so?"
Click above to see the graph
Because he can!
i don't think obama has dissed anyone. if you want perfection, look in the mirror. otherwise canvass and vote for the best candidate.
stop mccain and the repug machine from further destruction!
- So is coal. There is no such thing as clean coal technology. It does not exist.
By Susan Rowe on Jun 30, 2008 4:53 AM EDT
For more check out: http://www.coal-is-dirty.com
A special thanks to: http://www.burningthefuture.com/
- Robert Greenwald -The REAL McCain: Big Oil Fuels the Straight Talk Express
By Susan Rowe on Jun 30, 2008 4:55 AM EDTMcCain Flip Flops Again -- Praises GI Bill He Opposed
by Christine Pelosi
Posted June 27, 2008 | 05:48 PM (EST)
In today's installment of McCain vs. McCain, the "straight talker" claimed credit for passage of the 21st Century GI Bill of Rights he opposed.
When Fighting Dem Jim Webb vowed to give patriots who enlisted after 9/11 the same opportunity for a first-class education offered to the greatest generation after World War Two, McCain said NO. ...read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christine-pelosi/mccain-flip-flops-again_b_109703.html
Obama Camp Thinks Democrats Can Rise in South
WASHINGTON — As they look to the fall election, Democrats face a strategic decision that has bedeviled their party for 40 years: How hard should they fight in the South?
...Officials in Mr. Obama’s campaign say they are bullish on the South, and they have signaled their aggressiveness with early campaign appearances in North Carolina and Virginia, major voter registration drives in the region, and television advertising in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.
Steve Hildebrand, the deputy campaign manager for Mr. Obama, said he saw “tremendous potential” in several Southern states.
“If you go in and look at the number of unregistered voters in demographic groups that are important to Barack’s candidacy — younger voters, African-American voters — the potential is just incredible,” Mr. Hildebrand said.
And yet since the South began to shift away from the Democrats in the 1960s, it has become one of the biggest and reddest of the Republican strongholds. In the last two presidential elections, the Democrats failed to carry any of the Southern states.
...we should put up a Barr bat
You know I have a strong libertarian bent -- Barr sounded good to me this morning when he was talking about FISA. Not that I'd vote for him.
tenant in Georgia appologetically told me he was going for Obama? I'm guessing he assumed that I, as a woman, was supporting Hillary. And then, of course, the glossy literature I forwarded was weighted (literally) towards the Clinton campaign.
Boys and girls there are a TON of black folks in the deep South - Georgia, Carolina, etc, even here in N FL -- all we gotta do is get them registered and to the polls -- look what happened in S Carolina.
- Barack Obama Opposes Prop 8 [CA], the anti-marriage amendment
By Susan Rowe on Jun 30, 2008 5:10 AM EDT|
Barack Obama Opposes Prop 8 [CA], the anti-marriage amendment
by: Brian Leubitz
Sun Jun 29, 2008 at 19:05:08 PM PDT
|
|
In a letter to the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club, Sen. Barack Obama stated his opposition to the California constitutional amendment. As far as I know, this is the first official mention of such a position.
Incidentally, the Alice Pride Breakfast was an amazing success. I'll have pictures up from the Alice Breakfast and Leno Pride 2008 up soon.
Check the letter out over the flip... read more: http://www.calitics.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=A137F0D9DF0634D9CA5743D847143E94?diaryId=6307 |
http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/1031268,CST-NWS-tax30.article
Tax facts: Obama vs. McCain
...
<!-- Article By Line -->
The rich would pay more under Barack Obama's tax plan, and the poor and middle-class would pay less, a nonpartisan analysis finds. Under John McCain's plan, the rich would pay much less than they do now, the poor and middle-class would pay a bit less, and the federal deficit would grow, the study found.
...
- McCain is busy taking positions on both sides and we can assume he is taping TV spots.
By Phil Specht on Jun 30, 2008 5:15 AM EDTThat way he can run TV ads whichever way Rove's focus groups say the wind is blowing.
more remarksble than his drilling tour was the fact it was the same week he was calling global warming a grave threat
speeches about both on the same day
http://www.ldnews.com/sports/ci_9742301
Spain wins first major in 44 years
<!--subtitle--><!--byline--><!--date-->
It's been a long time.
It has taken 44 years, to be exact. With teams as talented as most opponents in the major championships they qualified for, the Spaniards always fell short. They were called underachieving, short on heart, even chokers.
With one magnificent month, Spain put all those shortcomings in the past, emphasizing its rise with a 1-0 victory over Germany on Sunday night in the European Championship.
...44 years ?
That's about the same length of time the dems had control of Dixie -- the Southern states.
typo - length of time the dems had control of Dixie
s/b - length of time the dems last had control of Dixie
didn't know you could do a jab step, and cross over dribble with your feet at full speed
Indeed.
Spain's Torres, surrounded by two Germen defenders, with a rushing German goalie, to encircle the Torres, he Torres simply jumped like a bull (Toro) out from the entrapment and kicked a goal on target.
One of the best offensive football (err, soccer to Americans) playing I've seen in a long time.
Indicting Bush in Venice
June 28, 2008
by Dick Price & Sharon Kyle
Where else but Venice, California, would you go to hear an outraged crank argue for indicting the sitting president of the United States for murder in a gymnasium packed to the gills with wild-eyed radicals cheering his every charge?
Which is exactly what we did this past Wednesday, except the crank was no crank, but rather the world-famous former district attorney and best-selling author Vincent Bugliosi, and more than a few radicals in the audience looked to have day jobs and mortgages to pay. ... read more: http://www.laprogressive.com/2008/06/28/indicting-bush-in-venice/
The Telegraph has learned that the former president's rage is still so great that even loyal allies are shocked by his patronising attitude to Mr Obama, and believe that he risks damaging his own reputation by his intransigence. A senior Democrat who worked for Mr Clinton has revealed that he recently told friends Mr Obama could "kiss my ass" in return for his support.
A second source said that the former president has kept his distance because he still does not believe Mr Obama can win the election. Mr Clinton last week issued a tepid statement, through a spokesman, in which he said he "is obviously committed to doing whatever he can and is asked to do to ensure Senator Obama is the next president of the United States ".
It has long been known that Mr Clinton is angry at the way his own reputation was tarnished during the primary battle when several of his comments were interpreted as racist. But his lingering fury has shocked his friends. The Democrat told the Telegraph: "He's been angry for a while. But everyone thought he would get over it. He hasn't. I've spoken to a couple of people who he's been in contact with and he is mad as hell. "He's saying he's not going to reach out, that Obama has to come to him. One person told me that Bill said Obama would have to quote kiss my ass close quote, if he wants his support. "You can't talk like that about Obama - he's the nominee of your party, not some house boy you can order around.
<noscript></noscript>"Hillary's just getting on with it and so should Bill." <script type="text/javascript" src="/telegraph/template/core/webtrends/Webtrends.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/telegraph/template/core/js/jquery-1.2.3.pack.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/telegraph/template/core/js/tmglMultitrackSelector.js"></script>
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Sorry for all the format stuff.--it happens.
Bubba doesn't have to worry about his reputation. He's trashed it himself. I can't see him as a positive force for Obama; he certainly helped to wreck Hillary's campaign
by checking the html icon and edit the source box by deleting everything but the text you want to quote. When you click return, you'll see what you've got in the comment.
We could also eliminate the lettuce if we had a preview feature like KOS -- this would help me with my homonym issue as well :~). Life would be better too if when you type anywhere in the post http://www.etc.etc it would automatically turn blue and you wouldn't have to go searching for the html code, make substitutions, etc etc.
Bill was the main reason Hillary lost, he is the one that has to live with himself.
maybe be can start a new dance step like "the Cheney" trying to kiss his own ass lol
actually Hillary listening to Mark Penn and running on experience and a Clinton third term gave Bill the stage to make his mis-speaks
the right track wrong track numbewrs mewans the electorate is ready for a completely different direction and Obama best not forget that in this last move to bring Hillary supporters along
- unused mall space will be used to replace flooded out schools in Iowa
By Phil Specht on Jun 30, 2008 5:51 AM EDTpeak oil might make that a choice in more places if strip malls are within walking distance of housing developments with families with kids, the shops are often classroom size, and governments are too broke to build new schools
always was, always will be. and instead of sensing the politcal wisdom of his own words - "fall in love, then fall in line" - he's on the midnight express to reaching his own irrelevancy. he's not such a bright pol, after all. thank goodness he and Hil aren't headed for the WH.
- Winnfield Missouri lost the battle against the Mississippi
By Phil Specht on Jun 30, 2008 6:01 AM EDTwhen the levee broke Saturday but the valiant effort gave time to move valuables to higher ground
I'm still surprised that more effort upstream wasn't focused on moving to higher ground
two lessons from the flooding response might be a need for National Guard troops to simply guard possessions brought up out of flood plains ahead of rising water
and there needs to be pre-planning for pet housing because shelters don't taske pets and people won't leave them at the risk of their life
Seems like it would be SO easy to have 'pets' and 'no pets' shelters -- we have the same issue with hurricanes.
Seems like there has been MUCH LESS coverage of the midwest floods than of NOLA.
On the other hand we haven't had a disappearing blonde in some time - guess the election is sucking cable's energy?
local and sustainable - keywords to our future health and wellness
local and sustainable - keywords to our future health and wellness
- Howard Dean is first.
By Phil Specht on Jun 29, 2008 10:14 PM EDT