> > Lastly, what happened to the energy question? Are fossil fuels soon
>> running out? Are alternative energy sources viable given a chance?
>> :-)
>
>The energy question always runs up against a wall of ignorance, I reckon. As
>the question is actually (as Mark never tires of telling us) more like: 'is
>energy available at current requirement projections at environmental costs
>most people can stand and at market prices compatible with those particular
>requirements within a capitalist context', it is rather a difficult nut to
>crack - lots of room for error and all that. That we're going to need the
>contribution of fossil fuels to humanity's energy budget to go down
>significantly over the next twenty years seems obvious to me. I predict the
>comeback of nuclear reactors, myself, but that probably won't get any of us to
>or from our designated production and consumption zones from and to our
>designated dormitory zones. In that crucial respect, a sudden surge in prices
>or the intensity of urban inversion blankets (I was on the apex of Sydney
>Harbour Bridge a few months ago, and glamorous Sydney, only a mile away, was
>quite invisible in its turd-like shroud - quite scary to drive into, even for
>an industrial-strength smoker like me) could be hard to handle, short of a
>retreat to government transport systems. Talk of alternatives should
>encompass something affordable to put under my bonnet (hood) that takes less
>energy to make and less energy to run. Coz, like most outside the US, I shall
>go through life without ever being able to afford to replace the old steed
>(who drinks and smokes more than I do) with something new. Haven't heard
>anything convincing in that line yet.
>
>Cheers,
>Rob.
Mark should stop putting the question as an oft-thwarted attempt at a
prediction -- e.g., "will energy be available at current requirement
projections at environmental costs most people can stand and at
market prices compatible with those particular requirements within a
capitalist context?" That's a perspective of a political spectator.
The idea is, instead, to think like a political organizer & ask, "how
can we *make* environmental regulations, clean-ups, & thus production
& distribution costs of industrial inputs like energy -- as well as
the value of labor power -- impossibly costly to capitalists & *push*
the system into a crisis & *turn* it into our political advantage?"
Yoshie
