by aflurry » Fri 02 Nov 2007, 13:19:31
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')It's all about showing how the alternatives are not up to the challenge, particularely biofuels.
This is exactly it. Though biofuels are just the politics du jour. last year you would have said "particularly hydrogen"
The magical idea of alternative fuels awaiting their day in the sun (...ahem...) prevents people from looking this thing in the face. At least here in the USA it's funny how this tendency neatly dovetails with pre-existing political and social ideologies on both the right and the left. PO hits them all with a curve ball.
The lefties are used to the stance of disenfranchisement. They see powerful oligarchs always manipulating economics at the expense of the poor. And while this is always true, it is not the claim of Peak Oil. It's funny to me to hear my fellow lefties screeching about how gas prices are being manipulated by the oil companies. I agree that it will be tragic that the poor are hit harder and quicker by this thing than the rich... but that's kind of built into the definition of "being poor." Alternative fuels must exist as proof of the decrepitude of the powerful, locked in a warehouse along with the fairy queen bound and gagged, the male contraceptive pill, cold fusion, zero point generators, orgone accumulators, the greys, and everything we wish were true but is not.
The right of course is dominated by this evangelical belief in the manifestation of heaven on earth as embodied by Imperial America. Since nature is subservient to God, and God is subservient to POTUS, the rise of alternatives is the literal deus ex machina, and proof of grace and the rapture and that all along We Have Been Right.
None of this has anything at all to do with the simple geological claim of PO, which is completely indifferent to those hard fought identities.
But honestly, when the PO aware get their panties in a twist about spreading the word, I always kind of shrug my shoulders. Why? We are so late in the game that general awareness, far from being helpful, will just open the door for all kind of panic profiteering and opportunism, or at least a series of shooting of ourselves in or own feet.
I was in an argument about that "who killed the electric car" movie. My basic position was "The electric car is some worthless bullshit." And my fellow lefty friend was all in a huff saying, "well, what? should we just sit back and do nothing???!"
And I kind of think, Yes, that is exactly what we should do. Things should get as painful and inconvenient as possible as quickly as possible so if it is at all possible to come through this with anything left we'll get as much of a running start as we can. Of course, that pain really should have started 30 or 40 years ago.
The only way conservation will occur is if conservation is the path of least resistance.