Peak Oil: Denial Mode

An observation worth noting … and pondering, from Richard Embleton:

We don’t like bad news, particularly when it has very long term implications. Individually and collectively we tend to slip into denial mode, focus on diversions, become numbed to the reality of the situation, cling to anyone willing to assure us it just ain’t so, that things are going to get better. You can’t live your life in crisis mode.
We have, in recent decades, turned this into a political institution; the denial industry. The primary objective of the denial industry is not clarity but rather to create confusion and conflict in the minds of the public by creating the impression that there are legitimate differences of opinion between experts and scientists. It is a strategy honed and perfected around the issue of smoking, a strategy they have continued to use, often with the same players, on issue after issue and now dominating the debate over global warming and peak oil.

Why?

When more than ninety-five percent of the world’s climate scientists in their various fields tell us that climate change is going to be an overwhelming problem, and that our own actions—blameless or otherwise—are the primary causes, why do some nonetheless insist on sowing misinformation, half-truths, or worse?

Why is a question that continues to fascinate me. Political conversations exhibiting this sad phenomenon abound. Climate change may be worse, if that’s possible. Peak Oil provides even more examples of the high art of cherry-picking some approximation of partial truths in order to protect a narrative serving only the few at the expense of the many.

Why? What happened to integrity? What happened to reliance on facts, truth, reality? It’s as if we’ve become so invested in making sure that the reality we contend with is laden with nothing but positive messages that we’ve abandoned our gifts of rationale contemplation. Ten doctors tell us we have a broken arm and must get proper treatment immediately, a plumber wanders in to tell us it’s a hang nail best cured by drinking a glass of tomato juice, and we can’t run to the grocery store fast enough! Hello!

As Mr. Embleton added: “With the growth in accessible information through the media, the internet, cell phones and more, people have abandoned seeking answers to their questions through independent thought and instead turn to various media for those answers. They have abdicated to others the right to tell them how and what they should think, to define truth.”

Can we take a collective breath, look at what the great preponderance of pleasant and unpleasant facts are telling us about climate and energy supplies, and then assume some greater level of responsibility for speaking up and taking charge of our own well-being rather than continuing to rely on leaders whose vested interests diverge sharply from our own? Who benefits when industry officials tell us all is well with our supplies of oil despite a mountain of evidence suggesting otherwise—evidence they curiously neglect to discuss with us?

When we’ve exhausted our ability to ignore simple truths and are left to contend with some rather daunting challenges to Life as We’ve Known It, what will we do?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to invest at least a small measure of time and an equally undemanding portion of our great talents and capabilities to start making some plans and engaging in meaningful conversations? It’s not that difficult to get all the facts, not just a select few which sound good and which only a few seconds of contemplation tell us that only a few are being served.

Peak Oil Matters