Notice that peak oil awareness is increasing among the general population, and our top business leaders are almost all peak oil believers.
Yet our politicians are strangely silent. They never let the term Peak Oil pass their lips, preferring to focus on global warming, with an occasional reference to "reducing our dependence on foreign oil" (as though we had any of our own), or some such meaningless phrase.
Why? Awareness of peak oil and its ramifications would do much more to motivate people to change their lives than global warming. While I agree that global warming is a major threat, it is vague and there are many ways it could play out. And no one is really sure just what the ramifications are or how they will play out over decades.
Peak oil is very easy to figure out, on the other hand, and it's easy for any simpleton to project just what permanently reduced or totally unavailable oil will mean. Once people become peak-oil-aware, they become VERY SCARED. Scared enough to ditch their houses and cars in favor of apartments close to bus and rail lines, and scared enough to pay down bills and reduce their spending to save money.
And that's what our leaders don't want. Nothing is to be allowed to interfere with the great consumption machine, no matter how obvious it is that the consumer economy is totally played out and that we are going to be living under a very different economic regime, one defined by scarcity and reduced living standards.
1 comment:
This is another informative peak oil site.
Notice that peak oil awareness is increasing among the general population, and our top business leaders are almost all peak oil believers.
Yet our politicians are strangely silent. They never let the term Peak Oil pass their lips, preferring to focus on global warming, with an occasional reference to "reducing our dependence on foreign oil" (as though we had any of our own), or some such meaningless phrase.
Why? Awareness of peak oil and its ramifications would do much more to motivate people to change their lives than global warming. While I agree that global warming is a major threat, it is vague and there are many ways it could play out. And no one is really sure just what the ramifications are or how they will play out over decades.
Peak oil is very easy to figure out, on the other hand, and it's easy for any simpleton to project just what permanently reduced or totally unavailable oil will mean. Once people become peak-oil-aware, they become VERY SCARED. Scared enough to ditch their houses and cars in favor of apartments close to bus and rail lines, and scared enough to pay down bills and reduce their spending to save money.
And that's what our leaders don't want. Nothing is to be allowed to interfere with the great consumption machine, no matter how obvious it is that the consumer economy is totally played out and that we are going to be living under a very different economic regime, one defined by scarcity and reduced living standards.
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