The Party's Over Part 13

Similarly, with oil depletion there is no solution - in that there is no way to subst.i.tute something else for oil and then continue as we are, which means continually growing our population and economy. But there are better and worse ways to respond to the challenge. If we were smart, we could do the equivalent of moving into a modest home and getting a job; we could improve our diets and start getting more exercise. That is, we could begin systematically and cooperatively to reduce our population and per-capita resource consumption, re-localize our economies, and maximize the efficiency of our energy usage. (I offered more specific prescriptions along these lines in Chapter 6.) Better solar panels or wind turbines could help in the transition, but only (and I must stress and re-stress the word only) if adopted in the context of a worldwide effort to simplify and downsize the human project.

Meanwhile, the cult of the inventor-savior only mires us deeper in denial. It gives us hope of redemption and of paradise regained - but it is a false and poisonous hope, because it distracts us from taking the intelligent though difficult actions that offer us the best chance of surviving the depletion of fossil fuels.2 Where the Real Hope Lies Many other readers contacted me to say that my book is depressing. I am sorry if this is the case, but that was certainly not the intent. My aim has been simply to alert as many people as possible to a profound change that is about to overtake our civilization and our way of life. In Chapter 6, I did try to offer positive suggestions of things that people can do to help their families, communities, and nations survive the coming energy famine. In the end, optimism is most useful as a state of mind that fosters constructive action. It is self-delusional to dwell on hopeful images of the future merely to distract ourselves from facing unpleasant truths or to avoid having to take difficult actions.

While the international political scene looked bad enough as I was writing the original edition of this book (and, as I have explained above, it looks even more worrisome today), at least the subject of global oil peak is quickly getting out to a larger audience. This increased awareness will not by itself lead us toward a survivable future, but it is an essential prerequisite.

I still believe that if the people of the world can be helped to understand the situation we are in, the options available, and the consequences of the path we are currently on, then it is at least possible that they can be persuaded to undertake the considerable effort and sacrifice that will be entailed in a peaceful transition to a sustainable, locally based, decentralized, low-energy, resource-conserving social regime. But inspired leadership will be required. Everywhere I have traveled to speak on this subject, audiences have shown not just a willingness, but an almost heart-wrenching eagerness to be part of such a collective undertaking. Until inspired leadership does emerge, we must do what we can at the local level, wherever we are.

Notes.

Introduction.

1. Robert M. Solow, quoted in Herman Daly, Steady-State Economics (Island Press, 1991), p. 117.

1 - Energy, Nature, and Society 1. "In 1995, researchers found bacteria subsisting on rock and water about 1,000 meters (3,200 feet) down in aquifers within volcanic rocks near the Columbia River in Washington. They survive by getting dissolved CO2 from the groundwater and appear to get energy by using hydrogen (H2) generated in a reaction between iron-rich minerals in the rock and groundwater." G. Tyler Miller, Jr., Living in the Environment: Principles, Connections, and Solutions (Brooks/Cole, 2002), p. 100.

2. However, it might be argued that, due to our present reliance on fossil fuels for agricultural food production, we humans have also become, in a sense, scavengers or detritovores.

3. For examples of avoidance of compet.i.tion in nature, see Robert Augros and George Stanciu, The New Biology: Discovering the Wisdom in Nature (Shambhala, 1987), pp. 91-105.

4. Quoted in Augros and Stanciu, The New Biology, p. 118.

5. Lynn Margulis and James Lovelock, "Is Mars a s.p.a.ceship, Too?" Natural History, June/July 1976, pp. 86-90.

6. These strategies are described at length by sociologist William Catton in his groundbreaking book Overshoot: the Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change (University of Illinois Press, 1980).

7. William Catton, Overshoot, p. 27.

8. For a more detailed and highly readable description of this process, see Marvin Harris, Cannibals and Kings: The Origins of Cultures, (Random House, 1977), pp. 9-30.

9. Theodore Xenophon Barber, The Human Nature of Birds (St. Martin's Press, 1993), p. 12 10. a.s.sociated Press, 8 January 1999.

11. Quoted in David Suzuki and Peter Knudtson, Wisdom of the Elders: Sacred Native Stories of Nature (Bantam, 1992), p. 212.

12. Theodore Xenophon Barber, The Human Nature of Birds, p. 11.

13. While this idea has been expressed elsewhere, William Catton developed it brilliantly in Overshoot (pp. 143-155), and I follow his exposition closely.

14. William Catton, Overshoot, p. 150.

15. Ibid., p. 146.

16. See Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962); see also, for example, Plato, Phaedrus, verses 67-71.

17. William Catton, Overshoot, p. 159.

18. John H. Lienhard, Power Production, [online],

19. Julie Wakefield, "Boys Won't Be Boys," New Scientist, 29 June 2002, pp. 42-5.

20. Ross Gelbspan, The Heat Is On: The Climate Crisis, the Coverup, the Prescription (Perseus, 1998).

21. Joseph Tainter, "Complexity, Problem Solving, and Sustainable Societies," in Robert Costanza et al., eds., Getting Down to Earth: Practical Applications of Ecological Economics [online], (Island Press, 1996),

22. Joseph Tainter, "Complexity, Problem Solving, and Sustainable Societies".

23. Joseph Tainter, The Collapse of Complex Societies (Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 91-2.

24. Joseph Tainter, The Collapse of Complex Societies, p. 195.

25. Ibid., p. 196.

26. Joseph Tainter, "Complexity, Problem Solving, and Sustainable Societies".

27. Joseph Tainter, The Collapse of Complex Societies, p. 216.

28. Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (W. W. Norton, 1999).

29. William H. McNeill, Plagues and Peoples (Anchor, 1998), pp. 31-68, 176-207.

30. Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel, p. 373.

2 - Party Time: The Historic Interval of Cheap, Abundant Energy 1. Marvin Harris, Cannibals and Kings: The Origins of Cultures (Random House, 1977), p. 25; see also Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel.

2. Quoted in Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine, Vol. I: Technics and Human Development (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1966), p. 247.

3. Quoted in Fernand Braudel, The Structures of Everyday Life: The Limits of the Possible (University of California Press, 1992), p. 366.

4. Fernand Braudel, The Structures of Everyday Life, p. 368.

5. Quoted in Jeremy Rifkin, with Ted Howard, Entropy: A New World View (Bantam, 1981), p. 74.

6. Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine, Vol. II: The Pentagon of Power (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1964), p. 147.

7. Quoted in Margaret Cheney and Robert Uth, Tesla: Master of Lightning (Friedman/Fairfax, 1999), p. 19.

8. Vaclav Smil, Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, and the Transformation of World Food Production (MIT Press, 2001).

9. Quoted in Katie Alvord, Divorce Your Car!: Ending the Love Affair with the Automobile (New Society, 2000), p. 18.

10. See Peter Schweizer, Victory: The Reagan Administration's Secret Strategy that Hastened the Collapse of the Soviet Union (Atlantic Monthly, 1996).

11. Jimmy Carter, Address to the Nation, 18 April 1977.

12. Helga Graham, "Exposed: Washington's Role in Saddam's Oil Plot," London Observer, 21 October 1990; see also Phyllis Bennis and Michel Moushabeck, eds., Beyond the Storm: A Gulf Crisis Reader (Olive Branch Press, 1991), p. 395.

13. Stephen C. Pelletiere, Iraq and the International Oil System: Why America Went to War in the Gulf (Praeger, 2001).

14. See Jim Vallette and Daphne Wysham, Enron's p.a.w.ns: How Public Inst.i.tutions Bankrolled Enron's Globalization Game [online], Inst.i.tute for Policy Studies Report, March 2002, .

15. However, economic inequality was greatly tempered by government intervention in the economy. In the US, the progressive income tax and various government programs stemming from the New Deal reduced economic inequality substantially during the middle decades of the century. But then the reduction of tax rates for the wealthy and the gradual undermining of social programs by the Reagan-Bush administration in the 1980s signaled the beginning of a steep rise in inequality that continues up to the present.

16. See Richard Douthwaite, "When Should We Have Stopped?", Irish Times [online], 29 December 2001,

.

17. Widely quoted on 30 April 2001.

3 - Lights Out: Approaching the Historic Interval's End 1. Throughout this book the word terrorism appears within quotation marks because I wish to call attention to the fact that it is a highly politicized term with no uniform definition. A given act -such as an a.s.sa.s.sination or the bombing of civilians - is officially declared by the US government to be "terrorism" when committed by one organized group, whereas a similar act committed by another group is labeled "counterterrorism" or "self-defense." Since the word so dominates public discourse, it is scarcely possible to avoid using it; the implied irony of quotation marks is simply a reminder that the term always carries an unstated political agenda and point of view.

2. Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, Forbidden Truth: U.S.-Taliban Secret Oil Diplomacy, Saudi Arabia, and the Failed Search for bin Laden (Thunder's Mouth, 2002).

3. Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, Forbidden Truth; see also Greg Palast, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: An Investigative Reporter Exposes the Truth about Globalization, Corporate Cons, and High Finance Fraudsters (Pluto, 2002).

4. Goldman Sachs, Energy Weekly, 11 August 1999.

5. EIA Annual Energy Outlook 2000 with Projections to 2020; current report available online at .

6. Blair made these comments on January 28, 2000, at Davos, Switzerland. See, for example, .

7. Eric Haseltine, "Twenty Things That Will Be Obsolete in Twenty Years," Discover, Vol. 21, No. 10, October 2000, p. 85.

8. William G. Phillips, "Are We Really Running Out of Oil?", Popular Science, May 2000, p. 56.

9. Hubbert was fortunate to deal with the US lower-48, where a simple bell-shaped curve could be derived from production statistics. Adding production data from Alaska changes the curve, revealing two cycles. Further, between 1960 and 1980 supply was almost never constrained by demand - because of mandatory quotas on oil imports inst.i.tuted by Eisenhower in 1959. Without these quotas, US production would have been less since foreign oil was cheaper. Thus reduced demand for more expensive domestic oil would have delayed the peak.

10. Kenneth S. Deffeyes, Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage (Princeton University Press, 2001), pp. 134-49.

11. Kenneth S. Deffeyes, Hubbert's Peak, p. 135 12. "Two Intellectual Systems: Matter-energy and the Monetary Culture." Summary, by M. King Hubbert, of a seminar he taught at MIT Energy Laboratory, 30 September 1981, at

.

13. See .

14. See .

15. See .

16. C. J. Campbell, The Coming Oil Crisis (Multi-Science Publishing Company and Petroconsultants, 1997).

17. C. J. Campbell and Jean Laherrere, "The End of Cheap Oil?", Scientific American [online], March 1998, .

18. C. J. Campbell, Peak Oil: An Outlook on Crude Oil Depletion [online], October 2000, .

19. Kenneth S. Deffeyes, Hubbert's Peak, p. 149.

20. L. F. Ivanhoe, "King Hubbert Updated," Hubbert Center Newsletter [online], No. 97/1, .

21. Walter Youngquist, Geodestinies: The Inevitable Control of Earth Resources over Nations and Individuals (National, 1997), p.183.

22. Walter Youngquist, Geodestinies, p. 200.