I don't subscribe to Carrol's theory. Indeed, there is an activist streak among the "professionals" of the peak oil advocates-- Campbell, Deffeyes, Laherrere, etc. Unfortunately it is a very conservative, even regressive, but lucrative activism.
Hubbert himself had a bit of activism in his life-- testifying before Congress, drumming the beat for the rule of the technocrat experts. I think the problem comes in ascribing to "nature," conditions that are so fundamentally economic, social, property based. I also think it is a mistake to conflate the elite peak oil theorists with global warming activists or fish stock analysts. Even without global warming, declining fish stocks can be directly traced to an overaccumulation of assets in large fishing vessels, destructive "bottom scrubbing" methods, the deployment of truly gigantic nets (a practice that is most accurately called extinction fishing), in the attempt to circulate, realize, the initial capital outlays. And this is combined with impoverishment of localized, sustainable fishing communities forcing more and more into more destructive fishing practices, abandonment of self-subsistence practices in favor of commercial fishing. Anyway, I endorse fish supporters, and not the peak oilers. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Louis Proyect" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU> Sent: Saturday, June 16, 2007 12:02 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Peak oil warning > Carrol Cox wrote: > > > > And worse -- it doesn't make any difference. I have never, _once_, seen > > a hint of a suggestion by peak-oil freaks of how the view can be > > embodied in actual political practice. My own view is that those who > > push the peak-oil thesis are actually quite frightened of doing any > > actual political work and are desperately looking around for a quick fix > > which will take us to heaven without any effort. Even if the peak oil > > thesis is true it has no political relevance. > > The people who write about peak oil tend to be geologists, so I am not > sure how much potential there is for activism to begin with. In any > case, all of these questions from declining fish stocks to global > warming *do* have political relevance. They pose the question of how > society should be organized. Marx wrote about soil fertility in the > 1870s. What was the political relevance of that? >
