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Page added on October 18, 2012
Keeping Peak Oil Reality In Mind # 14: Getting Anywhere
An observation worth noting … and pondering, from Glen Bottoms.
Oil has us literally over the barrel. If this situation is to change, we will all need to recognize that our present course is not sustainable. All of our institutions are geared to an era that was designed for a different set of circumstances that mainly relied on cheap domestic oil. That day is over. We need to realize it and embrace a future that recognizes that fact. That future must include public transportation, especially rail. Delay simply pushes future prosperity and enhanced mobility that much further from our grasp.
Does it really serve our purposes to keep shoving this issue into the background, or rely on the mindless and self-serving, very short-term “drill, baby, drill” strategy which will do little more long-term than to make needed transitions that much more difficult, expensive, and burdensome?
What good will all our new roads and highways do for us when we are all laboring under the reality of fewer quantities of, more expensive, less available, and inferior quality fossil fuels—with so many more seeking their share than is now the case?
To those who continue to mislead and deny: What exactly will be the plan for transportation when there is no longer even the most delusional rationale left to deny the truth about declining oil production and availability? What’s their time frame and budget for a massive move to public transportation and the need to develop other non-road, non-automobile-based forms of transit?
At what point do we start considering how the reality of a finite resource plays out? Since when is the creation of more problems for more people over a longer period of time and at greater cost the wisest course of action?
8 Comments on "Keeping Peak Oil Reality In Mind # 14: Getting Anywhere"
BillT on Thu, 18th Oct 2012 11:43 am
Denial and greed is the motto of the West. For profit Capitalism at all costs! “Damn the pollution! Full speed ahead!” And we race toward our extinction.
SilentRunning on Thu, 18th Oct 2012 12:31 pm
As long as our society is controlled by the wealthiest of the wealthiest, and those uber-rich see the preservation of their wealth as the highest possible good, we are doomed to pursue the present course – which is toward massive disruption of our lives as the very best scenario.
CJ on Thu, 18th Oct 2012 1:48 pm
I think Jared Diamond says it best, “What were they thinking when they cut down the last palm tree?” While I can’t answer that question, I can tell you what they weren’t thinking about – other people’s well-being and the future.
BillT on Thu, 18th Oct 2012 3:08 pm
CJ. I think of the world my grand kids are going to have to live in and cry. It will be nothing like the one I grew up in. A time of security and small government and plenty of food, fresh air and clean water. Theirs will be polluted, hot, insecure, disease filled and harsh in every way.
GregT on Thu, 18th Oct 2012 4:42 pm
Transportation? For all of us to go where? To do what?
To imply that the future will resemble anything even remotely similar to what we are accustomed to is nothing more than delusional.
RP on Thu, 18th Oct 2012 6:14 pm
Any won’t someone please think about the children!!!!!!
Please. McDonalds makes hamburgers because people want them. Builders build homes because people want them. Oil companies drill for oil because people want it.
YOU must stop using oil.
YOU must convince others to stop using oil.
YOU must study and invent the next energy source.
Make oil something that has no value. Nobody will drill for it then.
Don’t wait for someone else….. and don’t complain.
BillT on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 1:36 am
RP, you and all other Westerners are constantly brainwashed by propaganda disguised as commercials, TV programs, movies, magazines, news papers, etc. You are all addicted to your current lifestyle because you have been taught from infancy that it is the way to live to be ‘happy’. If you cannot shop, you are not happy. If you don’t have a car, you are not happy. If your house is not bigger and bigger, you are not happy. If you cannot (whatever your addiction is) you are not happy.
Step away from all of that and look at the world through the eyes of a Bangladeshi or a child in Africa. How do you live? Compared to their lives, you live like a king, even if you are on welfare in the Us. You have been conditioned to always want more, more, more…
IanC on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 1:51 am
Don’t wait for “Them” to do anything because they are wedded to the status quo. YOU have to change YOURSELF.
We bought land and are studying biointensive gardening. Not a panacea, but a start.