Focusing On Our Future (Pt 2)

… [W]e are farther away than we have ever been from having a shared national vision for the future of our country….
Absent such a framework for the future, the national debate has been the victim of an increasingly acute form of intellectual paralysis: The short-term mindsets of our elected officials and the voters — tied to the two-year election cycle — force debate on inherently inadequate, short-term solutions to substantial, long-term problems. Because we have no shared vision of the country’s future, against which short-term solutions might be measured, there are no metrics for productive discourse. Hence, our so-called ‘leaders’ argue in reliance on their ‘principles,’ rather than with a broader view toward implementing the future we want to see.
Things will only continue to grow worse, and much more polarized (although that’s truly frightening to imagine), unless and until we agree, as a nation, that there are some fundamental issues about our future that need to be addressed… and resolved. [1]

So perhaps the most important question of all: What is the Goal—our Vision for the future—for the kind of nation and people we hope to be?

It is much more than a discussion of how we get there. What is it that we want to achieve … to be? Do we want “success” and prosperity and peace only if it can be obtained through the narrow lens of our highly-partisan individual and collective ideologies, or is attaining our primary objectives by whatever means are necessary in a changed world more important?

Last July, I offered this:

If we truly wish to believe and know ourselves to still be exceptional amid all the chaos and challenges and burdens that encompass us, then we need to harness a vision for the future that is not just incrementally better than this one, using the same resources and methods and strategies and ideologies that brought us to here and now. Peak Oil is going to change pretty much all of the dynamics.
We must ask ourselves—individually and community-wide—what we believe are the best opportunities for growth and prosperity going forward, and we must ask this with full awareness that we approach a future very different from the past and the present we will soon leave behind. In the years to come, the energy source which empowered and enabled us to rise to our lofty perch atop the world of technological marvel and progress     will gradually but steadily fail to meet our expectations of ongoing, ready availability; ease of access, and affordability.

We have the opportunity to take the best of all that we have and have to offer—from everyone—and move forward with greater definitions and determinations of success and prosperity and fulfillment. That’s a choice we still own.

But whatever it is we might want or feel entitled to will have to give way to the courage of knowing and understanding what the new scenarios and circumstances will be. Only then can we/should we proceed. That knowing, unpleasant or unwelcome as it is to all of us, must be accepted. The delusional and the fact-free denials about the challenges ahead must be set aside once and for all. They preserve an ideology which serves almost no one, and we need to come to terms with that fact. We deserve better; we are better; and it’s time we demonstrate those truths.

We still have the chance to resume our position of leadership, excellence, and exceptionalism, but we will do so from a different platform and with different resources and purposes to guide us. The longer we take to accept this inevitability, the more troubles we create for ourselves.

Resistance to change must be avoided in every possible way, as unfamiliar a process as that may be for some of us. Without our efforts and commitments and greater understandings, things will only get much worse for almost all of us, regardless of ideology.

I raised these issues almost a year ago:

Is global warming a “hoax” and nothing more? Should we concern ourselves at all with the current and future conditions of fossil fuel production that provides for us all? Are we better off in the long run cutting even more public expenditures that now afford some minimal assistance to our fellow citizens in need, better educational opportunities for our children, opportunities to innovate and invent better lives for all of us, and maintain, repair, and improve the infrastructure that serves as the foundation of all that we achieve? Or are we better off ensuring that instead, that small group of the wealthiest among us preserve their wealth at the expense of the many?

It may seem to be nothing more than a philosophical/ideological exercise, but the answers to those questions go to the very heart of the decision-making that will determine our future. Those decisions affect all of us, if not today or tomorrow, soon enough. As I’ve previously noted:

But the most critical issue to be addressed by all of will be more direct: do we bog ourselves down by nit-picking—working harder to find out why something won’t work or why it is not perfect in every way under every condition and for every person—or do we adopt a grander strategy that will under no conditions be perfect or even acceptable to everyone, but provides us with the best long-term opportunities in the face of Peak Oil. If     we cannot get beyond problem-solving-business-as-usual, we’ll be having these pointless partisan battles for another century … assuming we survive intact that long.

We begin with the question of where we want to go and how we want to be, and then figure out the path that will get us there by taking into account the realities with which we must contend: peak oil, global warming, economic issues (including the destructive inequality), and their impact on what has been to date. Anything less will eventually show us to be doing nothing more than chasing our tail.

The capacity for the United States to alter its current and projected economic and energy course is dependent upon its leaders’ abilities to formulate and effectively communicate a clear vision and unified purpose in the energy field, establish clear renewable energy goals, commit to a rigorous energy-use reduction plan, prioritize energy research, and implement an energy policy that creates a viable energy future. The American populace will need to acknowledge the reality of biophysical constraints, and embrace a renewable, energy efficient ‘American way of life’. [2]

I remain convinced we’re up to the task. We just need to start.

Peak Oil Matters by Rich Turcotte