[Ibon]

I just signed on and a featured article on the home page of peakoil.com is .......

Why doesn’t more communication translate into greater consensus about the world’s problems?

http://peakoil.com/generalideas/why-doe ... s-problems

A bit serendipitous to my last comment. The article does address some good points but I think misses the elephant in the room nobody wants to really address.

Dealing with peak oil and climate change does not have to do with more education or better understanding complexity. It does not require educating our politicians. This is the old mantra we were all talking about 6 years ago.

Our military knows this issue. The advisers who advise our politicians know this issue. The oil industry knows this issue. So do more citizens than we realize know about peak oil. In fact Matt Simmons in 2008 stated that Mitt Romney gets peak oil and that Mitt was his choice for presidential candidate (besides them both being mormons). And some of us actually think that Obama doesn't know about this.....geez, give me a break.....

The truth is that we are all collectively tethered to our modern existence and that any short term mitigation that directly tries to wean ourselves from either carbon emissions or fossil fuel consumption will create 1000's of painful consequences that freeze any chance of collective consensus. What we have done is to collectively and unconsciously surrender ourselves to allowing the consequences to rule going forward.

Let me bring an example here to highlight what I am trying to explain. It reminds me of the catholic church in the Philippines that says it is gods will when a land slide buries a village. The land slide which was caused by deforestation which is a symptom of overpopulation and exceeding carrying capacity is never really collectively acknowledged. There is at times an article written up about the symptoms but no real affirmative action is ever taken because you cant. This is a microcosm example of the macro collective position of our corporate and political institutions globally around these issues. Do you think the Philippines has the budget or the priority to address the real issues causing land slides? Do you think the USA or China or Europe can really make policy decisions that address the most intelligent transition away from carbon based fossil fuels? In both cases the burden of millions of small land slide type symptoms do not allow any real affective policies. How many Rios or Kyotos or Copenhagens do you need to witness before you get this point?

We waste so much time on these forums with petty discussions about absolutely nothing.

[seenmostofit]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('seenmostofit', '
')
Unfair. Some are forced through circumstance to...say...participate in the state undergraduate and graduate systems because...well....good schools collect the good students...and leave the rest for the states to inflict their "learning" on. In pursuit of the American dream, there has to be some path for the less talented to convince them that they too have "won".

[Cloud9]

I agree. We have painted ourselves into a corner. The collective cannot be saved. Therefore it is prudent to make every effort to save ourselves. By doing so, thousands perhaps millions of individuals may make it past the event horizon.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 's')ome of us actually think that Obama doesn't know about [peak oil].....geez, give me a break.....

[SeaGypsy]

The facts are clear, have been well known for years, yet have made almost zero difference to anything except that oil prices no longer tumble in response to bad economic news/ or when they tumble it's to what were extremely high prices just a few years ago. As Loki said: "We are on the precipice".

Throughout the developing world, anyone with a job can buy a motorbike on credit and join the commuter class. Anyone with $100 a week coming in can buy a car on credit and call themselves 'middle class'. This consumer capacity is gobbling up excess oil faster than the first world can reduce it's consumption by any means politically possible. Thus we are stuck with permanently high oil prices and business systems developed over decades of cheap oil; effective impasse. The 'give' in the system is mostly in excess consumption by the first world. Wages, welfare entitlements, social security in general, maintenance and infrastructure, military; are all key areas of potential savings. Yet no democratically elected government will admit this is really where we are headed.

The massive change in activity will not come about through our current institutions of power. Putting all capability into environmental repair on a survival wage just has nothing to do with what the people at the top of our societies want. It also has no appeal to the vast majority of people striving to achieve middle classness. We need a population of tree planters content with basic needs. We have a population of oil burners never content with less than the norms of suburbia.

Our current attempts at mitigation and going beyond oil/ FF dependency are both pathetic and falling subject to Jevon's paradox.
The change required is so deep and so substantial it can only be brought about by natural forces. No government anywhere is going to legislate that everyone capable must devote themselves to earth repair; damn the current economy to hell (where it is ultimately going anyway).
Things will have to get a lot worse before the political environment changes; if it even can.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '
')I haven't collectively or unconsciously surrendered to anything. I want Obama to stop blathering about evil speculators. I want the next president, whether its Mittie or Obama, to start instead to introduce policies tailored for the post-peak oil world.