I truly don't like to take up other bloggers' space with really long comments. At moments like that I just have to come here and lay it out.
Paradise's latest acknowledges the writing here at The Living Room, and professes a lot of excitement for the positive things that can be done. As we all know, she is an unabashed Moore supporter and it shows. My comment, suggesting that Moore take the lead on developing a risk analysis for Chicago regarding Peak Oil elicited this in response:
It costs maybe a hundred grand to do those. Maybe more, I never shopped around for one. Have the peak oil people done them for cities in general, have you already pondered it over? I guess its not a matter of guessing is it? It's alot of work. It wouldn't be any trouble at all to ask Joe to have a look if there were a risk analysis, but you ask someone to do it themselves, I don't think its indifference, it's alot to do!
Goodness gracious me (as Curlytop would say). I can't help but believe Paradise is either naive or terribly uninformed about the way things work. I don't know why she thinks Joe would have to do this himself. But more revealing is the focus on the mechanics of getting it done, not the issue as to whether it is needed. She never goes there.
As I pointed out to her, Portland, Oregon has already done it. Why not Chicago? All of the candidates got a copy of the Portland report. Clearly Portland thought it was necessary to do.
My email also included a copy of the Hirsch Report. I spoke to Jim and Don personally, and very briefly with Chris, about Peak Oil. Only Don really embraced the discussion, Jim tried but his comments to me indicated he needed more time to study the issue. I don't know if he has. In any case, Moore has the info, I know because I sent it to him. So I am unlikely to think kindly of him if he pleads ignorance about it. Especially now that the NPC and IEA have commented on the matter of oil supply and demand.
Chicago can do this. Moore can get behind this, if he chooses to do so. He certainly is looking for a national issue, why not this one?
5 comments:
Look, its a matter of how you pitch it. Alot of people are still adverse to anything sounding remotely "Malthusian" even if the facts are in front of their face, certain approaches are played out and taboo, I don't know what you call it. I'm looking at a way to pitch this with the green collar jobs angle. This is getting the Unions excited, there's your spark. People don't respond to doom and gloom, it makes them loopy if you suggest it, I'm just telling you I appreciate it and I see an opportunity. I see a consensus, I'll go look at the stuff, its just that nobody wants any vague sort of stuff. People have their own focus. You have to put the compass and the map in front of them.
There is nothing "Malthusian" about a risk analysis. It is an assessment of the risks, in this case the risks to Chicago from the effects of Peak Oil, and the mitigations that can be taken to manage those effects.
However, if politicians choose to portray this as such, and fail to emphasize the choices we can make to help ourselves then yes, it will come across very badly. Do you think Moore can provide the needed leadership? Not everyone needs a compass and map, but yes I agree there are those that do.
There's an assignment for you, read this....I started reading them, its above my reading level of course, but it gets a person to imagining. Well, it sounds like stuff we should be doing anyway. I don't think they convince just based on peak oil. That's the thing, they can go to coal, that's what they are doing, see, reviving the coal industry. And alot of the other arguments I'd like to see get wiped out by the damn coal. For instance, energy independence. If we were to do something that has the stamp of our locality, we need to emphasize the jobs aspect and bash the coal into the ground. For one thing it is dirtier than oil, its got pollution that has nothing to with global warming, more carcinogens and general HAZE, nobody can argue its good to breathe soot. Everybody knows that, they can't argue. Anyway, the renewables pay for themselves, cheaper in the long run. So its still important that the oil is going to run out, but coal is not the answer.
Moore is not getting behind this because emergency preparedness requires confronting too many really unpleasant things. It will also take massive work, and most of all, many of things we will have to do to adequately prepare ourselves for drastically reduced energy imputs are so unpleasant and will take such a change of lifestyle, that discussing it is political suicide.
In all fairness to Moore, Da Mare has pretty well written the book on how to posture as a "greenie" while steadfastly refusing to take even baby steps toward genuine preparedness, such as enacting an Apollo-style program to repair and expand our ailing transit so that it could realistically handle 3X the ridership it now has, AND be able to handle the transportation needs of people living in the city's sprawling, car-dependent outer neighborhoods.
It's a lot more pleasant to discuss green roofs and recycling than it is the really threatening issue of resource depletion. And it's much easier to just TALK about minimal steps like recycling than it is to actually DO anything to make recycling even possible for most people in this city, let alone get the ball rolling and get people to do it in large enough numbers to make a difference in our plastic consumption.
Until I see a serious, inclusive, and uniformly enforced recycling program in this city, and until I see the city take strides to expand transit and make it workable for most people to use it, then all the politician's yap is just wind.
It's interesting, there are similar strategies preparing for peak oil and combating climate change. You know, I was just reading about the Chicago Climate Agenda. Its just like the risk analysis for peak oil. Supposed to wrap up a study this month and publish strategies in the fall. I'm telling you though. It needs more than that because today they approved service cuts and higher fares for the CTA knowing full well they would lose ridership and I saw them tearing up a pedestrian mall by the Harlem green line stop to ease automobile traffic. Then there was talk about infrastructure and jobs at the AFL/CIO debates, a little bit of mention about mass transit, but I guess I'm skipping around. You know, the commisioner of Chicago's DOE lives here. How come he isn't screaming about the CTA? Maybe he is, but you'd never know. Well, are you guys content with the climate focus of the agenda? What do you want to do, just blog? I'm sick of blogging. They can't have any climate agnda and let the CTA wither.
Post a Comment