Advice To Pres. Obama (#2): Yes We Can, But Will We?

We are at a major crossroads in the history of our nation and our world. There are dozens if not hundreds of salient aspects of our supply and demand situation, each with its own cheerleaders, opponents and unaware. Myopic focus on any particular issue runs the risk of creating more long term harm than good. In this letter, I attempt to highlight our situation’s most critical components, not claiming other issues are unimportant, but that the following principles likely trump/supercede the others:


1)It is energy, not money, that powers our economies

2) All energy is not equal- each energy investment entails different input costs, and has different output quality, often not recognized by the market system, nor environmentalists

3) By far the highest odds for arriving at a better energy future lie in exploration of, understanding of, and ultimate jettisoning of our cultural addiction/habituation to conspicuous consumption.

The Oil Drum