The power of peak oil as an external force, a geologically driven catalyst, to act as a wedge to force sustainability and conservation on a world hell bent on exponential growth and energy consumption is what caught my imagination and gave me a sense of hope several years ago when I first investigated this issue. Seeing how the ideologically driven environmental movement of the 70’s and 80’s fell to the wayside to be replaced by conspicuous consumption I even had illusions that peak oil was the beginning of what could break the status quo and eventually lead to a radical transformation of our cultural values and reign in an era of ecological sustainability imposed by the geologic reality of resource depletion.

I have to confess that after years of at times obsessed immersion into this subject that lead me down investigative pathways of economics, geopolitics, religion, human group psychology etc. I have lost much of this initial hope that the transformative powers of peak oil, global warming or other environmental stresses are very likely to act on or threaten the status quo for a long time to come.

I have naively hoped that if the resource, energy, that drives the global culture of consumption starts depleting, then stresses will build up in the status quo to force political or economic change toward sustainability. I was looking for ruptures or the threat of collapse in our global infrastructure to force awareness and change. There have been so many threads on this website discussing the US dollar, our debt based economic system, the housing market, Katrina type climate events, political and religious conflicts in oil rich nations, population dynamics, geopolitical resource wars amongst world powers etc. We look for evidence in these topics that the status quo is under enough threat to allow policy makers and world leaders to question the underlying systemic causes in the hopes that there emerges the beginnings of intelligent ecological and sustainable responses.

There is the assumption that we have been going along mindless of the consequences of resource depletion and that we are collectively heading toward the cliff.

What I have underestimated is the resiliency and the level of cooperation that goes on at the highest levels of our global poltical and economic systems to maintain the status quo. Central Banks and governments are far more aware of threats to their survival caused by peak oil and resource depletion than I thought they were. And they cooperate far more with each other than I assumed. Religious, economic and political institutions all have an aversion to social and economic chaos that could threaten revolution as this would be the greatest threat to their institutional survival. Even though on the surface it may seem that there is resource competition that could lead toward chaos, if we take a closer look at some examples we can see that the elite are far more cooperative than presumed. I don’t mean this in the sense of a conspiracy theory but rather the rational response that these institutions take for their survival. China and the USA would both lose if they started an all out resource war. Central banks in leading economic powers cooperate more than presumed in directing the US dollars evolution away from being the only global currency. Does anyone really think that in 2007 when adjustable mortgages (ARMS) increase their rates that this will lead to a major housing collapse? Won’t banks and government come up with more creative financial instruments as solutions to prevent collapse. You can take any example you want.

Instead of chaos and transformation I see the global elite preserving the status quo at all costs to prevent revolution. The real geological consequences of peak oil and related resource depletion and environmental stresses will only result in an increase of a two tiered class culture where the elites and wealthy will preserve their status and wealth and a growing underclass will be socialized to accept their decline and serve the interest of the elites. This will all occur in a backdrop of increasing environmental degradation as consumption levels will stay at the maximum level the available resources will allow.

I don’t see revolution anywhere near the horizon. I would welcome any arguments to counter this rather dreary and pessimistic assessment.

I agree with most of what you said. My only quibble is that the system breaks down at the limits - at some point, the system cannot be maintained. You can see a relatively non-violent example with the failure of the government in the USSR, a more violent example in the case of Sudan, an extreme example with Easter Island, and a sad example with the Norse Greenland colony.

If we were to experience a slow, steady decline in energy the system would adapt reasonably well. This would be particularly true if food availability were managed so that there wasn't mass starvation.

The problem will occur if we have a rapid decline in energy, attempted mass migrations due to climate and famine, along with some other stresses. At that point, I question the ability of the system to adapt.

As for what will occur - my suspicion is that we'll experience a crunch that will overwhelm the institutional ability to adapt. There will be pockets of stability and instability, but the old way of doing things will change. It may be that Yugoslavia's breakup - or Iraq's present festivities - are a vision of what is to come.

Ibon,
I am going to link and post this over at The Oil Drum. I think you're capturing a lot of the sentiment in the po frame right now.

The way things have been rolling along so far, I'd have to say I agree with most of your assessment. Every time I've been confounded with what's going on in the stockmarket (thinking what the HECK?), I've come to the conclusion that economic/political institutions are indeed cooperating so as not to disturb the status quo.

However, there is one factor that hasn't had a chance to make a difference yet - and that is steady, rapid depletion. We haven't had any real shortages of oil or oil-based products yet. I wonder how all of these institutions will cope with the reality of fields in 8 to 14% annual depletion. Will they be as cooperative, especially as it relates to competition between nations? Or will greed dictate the consequences?

Unfortunately, Mother Earth is the element that is at greatest risk if the status quo is uninterrupted, and those wanting to protect her will no recourse.

Great post...

The stratification of wealth you mention is an unavoidable consequence of resource depletion.

In fact the rich/poor gap has never been bigger than it is today.

That's manageable on a local or even national level... but when critical resource competition comes between nations... it means war.

I'm sure partnerships will be born and fall a thousand times before all is said & done. But as a favorite author wrote...

"When times are hard, table manors change."

Today's contract negotiation process to secure resources is a function of our relative prosperity as a species. Absent our mitigating wealth, a darker vision emerges.

If we could avoid fighting over shrinking energy resources, we might indeed reach your long plateau of sustainable living, without terrible loss.

If we can manage the hat trick here... it'll be the very first time for man however. We have an unbroken record of murdering one another in pursuit of our goals. My fellow countrymen are overseas right now, killing & getting killed in support of our governments goals.

So do I think that cooperation among the elite will stave off the consequences of depletion?

No.

But I think war will...

The dead use very little energy.

The real war is being fought in and for our minds.

2 years ago I was not planning to power down - off grid - maximum self sufficiency etc etc.

I dont know about you but the knowledge of PO sure helped to transform me.

The revolution is occuring - it wont be televised - there wont be a definative beginning or ending.

How much has the average plebe been exposed to PO truth as opposed to more cornucopian optomistic BS?
If we do not feed ourselves then we are what they feed us.

+1

Ibon, maybe you were looking in the wrong place all the time.

There is a huge world movement with tremendous transformative and disruptive power which strives towards some of the goals you mention.

Just look at the historic Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement which was held in Havana during an entire week, uniting more than 100 nations of the South - nations that will determine our future. The revolutionary will and desire to change the 'status quo' of Western consumerist capitalism that spoke from the revived NAM is truly mindboggling. These nations from the South are becoming a major force, and they are the ones who will determine in what kind of a world our children will live. They reject many parts of the 'status quo' you're referring to. (They don't care about bourgeois environmentalism, though, which is, ultimately, the highpoint of Western conformism).

In the same week, another 'historic' meeting was held in Brasilia, the socalled India - Brazil - South-Africa (IBSA) summit. The same South-South strength, and the same discourse about change and rejection of Western development and economic models.

Please search a bit for actual speeches made by, for example, President Lula or India's socialist PM Manmohan Singh, and you will read that social and economic justice are not empty concepts to them.

So maybe you've been looking in the wrong place! Things are moving extremely rapidly in the South, and we will be very surprised at the NAM's and the global south's strength.

September 12, 2006
The 14th Non-Aligned Movement Summit and the India-Brazil-South Africa Summit

http://biopact.com/2006/09/14th-non-ali ... t-and.html

Lorenzo STILL hasn't learned the difference between the science of ecology and the philosophy of environmentalism.

HOW do you manage to stay so damn ignorant, lorenzo? You must put a hell of a lot of effort into it.

God damn!

Lorenzo do you really believe this? I truely want to know.

Don't know about the "they don't care" part, but ...
I have seen plenty of bourgeois environmentalism i.e. people driving their H3s to the meeting of the local Sierra Club to know what Lorenzo means.

"As I shall show, cultures on the whole have evolved along parallel and convergent paths which are highly predictable from a knowledge of the processes of production, reproduction, intensification, and depletion." (p.xiv)

"All rapidly intensifying systems of production, whether they be socialist, capitalist, hydraulic, neolithic, or paleolithic, face a common dilemma. The increment in energy invested per unit time in production will inevitably overburden the self-renewing, self-cleansing, self-generating capacities of the ecosystem. Regardless of which mode of production is involved, there is only one means of avoiding the catastrophic consequences of declining efficiencies: to shift to more efficient technologies. For 500 years Western scientific technology has been competing against the most rapidly and relentlessly intensifying system of production in the history of our species." (p.271)

"How fast and how low standards of living in the industrial nations will fall depends on how long conversion to alternative energy sources is delayed." (p.283)

"Surveying the past in anthropological perspective, I think it is clear that the major transformations of human social life have hitherto never corresponded to the consciously held objectives of the historical participants." (p.288)

"Since evolutionary changes are not completely predictable, it is obvious that there is room in the world for what we call free will. Each individual decision to accept, resist, or change the current order alters the probability that a particularly evolutionary outcome will occur. While the course of cultural evolution is never free of systemic influence, some moments are probably more "open" than others. The most open moments, it appears to me, are those at which a mode of production reaches its limits of growth and a new mode of production must soon be adopted. We are rapidly moving toward such an opening. When we have passed through it, only then, looking backwards, shall we know why human beings chose one option rather than another. In the meantime, people with deep personal commitments to a particular vision of the future are perfectly justified in struggling toward their goal, even if the outcome now seems remote and improbable" (p.291)

--Marvin Harris, Cannibals and Kings, 1977

Perhaps I should have quoted more of Lorenzo's speech.

Lorenzo do you really believe this? I truely want to know.

It's appeared over many posts that Lorenzo may believe environmentalism in general (not just a 'bougeois' variant) is irrelevant to his workers' paradise. So did the Soviet Union and it certainly left its share of pollution behind. (I qualify my analysis because I believe Lorenzo is a cynical SOB who is just pumping and dumping his way to a new Mercedes and doesn't give a damn about the long suffering proletariat. But we'll let him respond.)

EnergySpinMeister, That is stereotypical nonsence. My Sierra Club friends enjoy hiking, rafting, kayaking, and surfing etc. a lot more than monster-trucking. I like to collect edible mushrooms I turned in my Honda for a Volvo. Built better. Hope to go electric. Mostly I walk though, because I live in town.

It doesn't take Jacques Derrida to understand that both are inseparable. But hey, I was just pointing to the world movement that will decide in the future what we understand both under "science" and under "philosophy". That's all.