Planning for the Future

I recently wrote about Sharon Astyk's essay on peak oil and the absence of minorities in the discussion. Back on May 18 I commented on the presence of the British National Party (BNP) in the Peak Oil conversation, and the effort they were making to be prepared.

Well lo and behold today I come across this lovely post by the Archdruid who comments on Sharon's essay and the BNP!! A two-fer but not just any two-fer and far more timely than you might imagine, given what I had to say in my segment of the Oral History Project.

I was asked what an Alderman could rationally expect to do to prepare for Peak Oil, and I referred to the Portland Peak Oil Task Force report. What I hadn't thought about, but Archdruid does, is that progressive politicians are not generally visible. Roscoe Bartlett (R.-Md) is the leading Congressional voice on Peak Oil, and he is a Republican. He leads a small Peak Oil Caucus. But where, oh where are the progressives who profess so much care for their fellow citizens?

Archdruid has noticed this too, and he isn't liking the implications:

I also don’t think it’s necessary to be a “doomer” to notice that while most parties on the left are avoiding the implications of peak oil the way a ten-year-old boy tries to wriggle away from an elderly aunt’s kiss, the BNP and other parties of the far right are already hard at work positioning themselves to take advantage of post-peak realities.

It's clear to me that he believes, and he gives his rationale earlier in the essay, that the reactionaries among us will spring forward should Peak Oil result in economic and social dislocation. To Astyk's contention that "one bright spot in this future is that peak oil and climate change represent the greatest hope for reallocation of wealth and justice in the world" he responds, with a noticeable caveat (emphasis will be mine):

Thus if Astyk means simply that liberals might be able to respond to the social impacts of peak oil and climate change, and in the process regain some of the ground they’ve lost in recent decades, she may be right. They’ll have to work overtime, both to counter the advantages held by reactionaries and to make up for time already lost, but the thing has been done successfully before – the New Deal comes to mind. On the other hand, if she’s claiming that the wrenching social problems set in motion by these two factors will necessarily favor her agenda, she’s likely misleading herself, and she may be doing the causes she supports a significant disservice.

There is a window of opportunity here and it is being squandered, likely to our peril. Do we focus on setting the stage for managing the changes that will occur or do we wait until the hammer falls and find ourselves trying to counter the agendas of the BNP, and their American cousins?

Our erstwhile Alderman has a copy of the Portland task force's report, what is he doing with it? Using it as a paperweight?