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Edited on Tue Aug-22-06 12:43 PM by 4dsc
What a great article.. http://hydrocarbonman.com/ If it is subversive to talk about withdrawing our confidence in a political and economic system that no longer has a future, then what you are about to read is subversive. If it is hopeful to think about rebuilding that confidence on community foundations that are localized and sustainable, then I also present a reason to hope. But for hope to be real and not self-delusion, it must stand on an assessment of things as they truly are, not just as we wish them to be. That is why, when talking about peak oil, we must first look fear and despair right in the face.
It only takes about five minutes of research into the issue of peak oil to realize how dependent our culture is on the stuff, and therefore how vulnerable we have become to painful disruption or outright collapse as supplies begin to contract. We do nothing without oil. Nichts. Nada. But to say we are dependent on and vulnerable to oil stops too far short of the bigger picture. Oil is not the true lifeblood of our civilization, no matter how tempting a metaphor that is.
Next, even if peak oil is followed by a nice, smooth depletion curve rather than abrupt shortages (a big "if"), this is no guarantee that humans will react as smoothly. The reason is simple. The economic equations that turn oil into money are not pure math: so much energy in, so much money out. No, they include terms that have to be described as psychological at best, or - probably more accurately - as metaphysical. There is a commodity that is far more slippery than oil, upon which the whole runaway train glides.
It is called confidence. (It should give us no comfort that this is also the key ingredient in any successful "con." The "con" man has to get and keep his mark's trust for the scheme to work.) Confidence is an essential ingredient in modern economics. Newscasters often report on "consumer confidence" as if they could actually count it, like the number of Big Macs sold. The fact is, our economic machine is built on nothing more tangible than ideas. Ideas shrivel up and blow away without the consent of large numbers of people to believe them - to act as if they are the truth.
"The truth" that our economic system pretends to represent is the idea that our modern way of life can and will go on forever. It is the idea that the future will always be "like today, only moreso. |
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