JAMES KUNSTLER: Uncharted Territory

[Tace]

by James Kunstler -- Clusterfuck Nation

When people of any political persuasion cry for America to pull out of Iraq, what do they suppose will be the result? That America will go back to being the same nation of easy-motoring, McMansion-buying consumpto-trons we were in 1999? Things have changed.

The world oil markets have changed. Their stability through the 1990s was a transient phenomenon, and a circumstance which, unfortunately, put us to sleep. During that time, OPEC, led by Saudi Arabia, was the world's "swing producer" -- the oil producer with spare capacity that could always open the valves and pump more. And they did, even cheating on their own official quotas, which only had the effect of flooding the market with "product" and driving down the prices -- so by the end of the last century oil had sunk to $10 a barrel.

That was great for America in the short term. It reinforced the widespread illusion that the oil disruptions of the 1970s were a shuck and jive. We ramped up all our car-dependent behavior, built more malls and "lifestyle centers," carved more housing subdivisions in the farthest-out asteroid belts of the metroplexes, bought cars the size of tactical military vehicles, and acted as if this was a way of life with a future.

Many things have changed. One is that a potent segment of the Islamic world declared war on the west (jihad). Another is that OPEC, led by Saudi Arabia, has apparently lost its spare capacity, and therefore its role as the world's swing producer of oil. Another is that the North Sea and Alaskan oil fields have passed their production peaks and are depleting at phenomenal rates -- in the case of Great Britain's fields, up to 50 percent a year -- because they were drilled so efficiently with the latest technology. Yet Another is that rising ocean temperatures have led to several years of massive hurricanes wreaking havoc among the oil and gas platforms of the US Gulf Coast. Still another is the industrial turbo-expansion of China and India, taking advantage of their ultracheap labor to become the world's factories and back-offices, while jacking up their oil consumption.

more

http://worldnewstrust.org/modules/AMS/article.php?storyid=1785

[Coastie for Truth]

1. The last paragraph just about says it all

as GM's "spin out" Delphi goes through Chapter XI, and GM itself see its corporate bonds descend into "Junk Bond" status -- yet we fail to get serious about "energy efficieny" or "energy engineering."

[IrateCitizen]

2. Coastie, you're not endorsing a KUNSTLER column, are you???

:evilgrin:

In this instance, it appears he's dead right. The complete reorientation of American society and energy usage patterns is the 800 lb gorilla in the middle of the living room that nobody wants to acknowledge.

Of course, I'm also a believer that such a major change will also require a significant value shift -- one that leads us away from the idea of conspicuous consumption = good, and instead places an emphasis of relationships of reciprocity and a focus on the common good over individual greed.

Such a task is Herculean, at the very least. The notion of vices (luxuries) being good for society goes at least as far back as Bernard Mandeville and Robert Walpole, and it is wholly engrained in the fabric of American society.