by lper100km » Tue 21 Oct 2008, 02:41:31
I have decided to stop talking about PO and its ramifications, period. On the occasions that oil issues have surfaced, they get dismissed as a marketing problem, or a greedy trader’s problem, OPEC shenanigans, big oil taking us for a ride or some such. What puzzles me is that people can see intuitively that oil is a finite resource yet the corollaries of that realization are seemingly beyond their imagination or reasoning to figure out. There’s too much emotional reaction to, say issues like gasoline pricing. A big sigh of relief and a big ‘I told you so’ comes my way as the price falls. No use telling people that regardless of price, the stuff is still being sucked from the ground, burned up and never to be seen again.
There are plenty of “they” as in ‘they’ will find a new source of energy, or use coal, or go nuclear, or develop electric autos etc etc, all of which are presumed to enable our current life style to continue without pause. No one wants to hear about the energy density of gasoline compared to other possible, but unlikely fuels, or EROI, or battery limitations. But that’s now! It will be different (ie better) in the future. No one wants to hear about the current financial crisis impacting the future ability to create new infrastructure or even maintain existing infrastructure. It’s useless trying to explore the intricate co-dependent ways in which oil has permeated our lives and economy. No one really understands energy, energy generation and consumption, yet all are experts on what should happen. No one is knowledgeable of the physical sciences, yet are confident that ‘they’ will engineer a future breakthrough that will solve the problem. Somehow or other, life will go on, maybe with a few ups and downs, but with the unshakeable expectation of a steady beneficial increase in living standards.
There is absolutely no thought of preparation for a powerdown lifestyle. Prepare for what? Doomsday? Ha Ha Ha I bought a 5kg sealed bag of rice the other week and got the evil eye when I came home. ‘What’s this for? We don’t eat rice.’ The inoffensive best I could think of to say was some thing like ‘It was on sale and I thought it might be of use some day’. It’s on the top shelf in the pantry, out of sight, out of mind and that’s probably the best thing that could have happened to it. 5 measly kg!!
I am considered as the uber pessimist, although that is not my nature at all. (Why is realism seemingly always associated with pessimism?) I am also considered to be dogmatic (because I am not swayed from my message), unimaginative (ie I do not subscribe to the ‘they’ solution), have no faith (there’s that terrible word) in human ability, technology and the future, unappreciative of others ideas, and a know-it-all who has just been proven wrong to boot.
It is not possible to discuss the topic rationally. Within a few sentences, the voices get loud and louder as denial and reactive opposition quickly surface. Everyone reads the newspapers and watches the TV news. What do they not see? Clearly, no one wants to take time learn what’s going on around them and are too much taken up with the daily grind of earning a living and raising kids in the only way they know how. The rest is just background noise and too much overloads their capacity to handle it.
Anyway, I’m through with the familial attempts at discussion, though not my interest in PO. I was a child in the last depression and likely will pass from this world in the coming depression – hopefully not with the heat off, the lights out, the car on blocks and the zombie hordes rattling the door chain. (I have to live up to my pessimist status!) A certain unlooked for symmetry, wouldn’t you say?