Max Sawicky wrote:
> I just don't believe it. When fossil fuels become
> sufficiently expensive, massive efforts will go into
> developing alternatives. There will be a lot of money
> to be made, coordination problems aside. To me
> that's more likely than green consciousness leading
> to revolution
No, there will be no such massive efforts as you suppose because the
material basis for making such efforts will have disappeared. No, there will
be no money to be made, but there will be signs of severe social and
historical stresses in all countries including the overpopulated,
third-worldised US whose Ogallala aquifer will just be running out when the
population hits its first half billion. Your hopes are false.
The time to do something is obviously now, not later. You should make this
the central issue of your work and life because the fact of this crisis
simplify falsifies and empties of worth the kinds of worthy but now
pointless social policy things you do do. It's hard to accept, I know, and
much easier to make a flip joke about barbecues, turn your back on the
problem and get on with your life while you can; but this option is already
not as easy as it was, because there is so much more evidence now than there
was even two years ago, when I last rattled the pen-L bars, and Doug
produced a tame petroleum economist to prove me wrong (where he, Doug?
Changed specialty?).
And in 2 years time when the evidence is incontrovertible enough to be
finally getting thru even to economists, self-appointed wonks and
marginal pundits, a moment will come when you will all be talking about
nothing else, but in reality nothing will change because you will still be
being led by the ideological nose thru the wastelands of broadsheet and NGO
'policy analysis' and CNN gibberish about 'the energy crisis'. The results
will be to amplify dsaster, and to set a minus sign against your life's
work.
You want that Max? The US state and polity cannot be saved, it will be
destroyed, and the question is only what comes after.
Hiding from the clear evidence of energy crisis and whistling in the dark
that you 'just don't believe it' does not show manly scepticism, only
undimmed ability to avoid the real nitty-gritty.
Mark
