Matthew Schneider-Mayerson: Resource Scarcity and Libertarian Political Culture

13 Comments on "Matthew Schneider-Mayerson: Resource Scarcity and Libertarian Political Culture"

Peak Oil Prognosticator on Sun, 8th Nov 2015 10:22 am 



“I view this apocalyptic subculture in the context of petroleum dependence, eco-apocalyptic discourses, the environmental discourse of “limits to growth,” white masculinity, climate change, and the influence of conservative individualism on American political culture.”

So basically I talk about everything but the core issue, which is actual resource depletion. I mean some of these issue are fine to talk about. But trying to tie them in to peak oil is a very cheap and lazy attempt to discredit basic geophysics and resource economics.

By associating it with “white male masculinity”, “capitalism”, and “conservative values” the author is already trying to make it seem like a value only white American males can have. Which is not only offensive but also racist, like there’s no way a non-white male could possibly understand peak oil.

Expect to watch a 17 minute talk? Guess again.

Also, oh God, fucking Tedx, not even good ted talks.

Mark Bucol on Sun, 8th Nov 2015 11:19 am 



The author’s dissertation is in gross error in claiming that those in the “peak oil movement” believe in the collapse of global industrial society. The peak oil believers mostly hold that oil production will peak, then decline while other energy sources (nuclear, renewables, other fossil energy) will partly fill the gap. Concurrently conservation of energy through new technology and elimination of some industrial/economic activity will result.

The author does not seem to look at the technology aspect of peak oil. In other words he does not understand that peak oil is not running out of oil, but only that oil production will have a long & slow decline from a historic peak.

ghung on Sun, 8th Nov 2015 12:04 pm 



I’ve also noticed that the author doesn’t seem to defend his opinions in forums where they can be directly challenged and debated. Betting he’s lurking, but unwilling to support his assertions in real time.

What’s the matter McFly? Chicken?

Anyway, my assertion is that true libertarians are inherently environmentalists. While they don’t want their lives and actions interfered with, they also understand that they have an obligation to not interfere with other people’s opportunities and ability to do the same. Environmental destruction is, perhaps, the most affective way to intercede in others’ lives.

jjhman on Sun, 8th Nov 2015 12:14 pm 



M Bucol:
I don’t think that us “peakists” even agree that the decline will be long and slow. Personally I suspect something akin to evolution: “punctuated equilibrium”.

I suspect that our current economic situation is a good model. We went from a period where a sizeable fraction of the world’s population ( most of western civ)experienced broad economic health while the majority of the world experienced an ahistoric equilibrium of poverty combined with aristocratic wealth.

We are now in a period of relative western stagnation while a portion of Asian civilization gains at our expense. Yet most of Asia and Africa are still in an ahistoric equilibrium.

Resource depletion, I suspect, will end this, just barely stable,period with another period where the average human will experience a lower level of consumer type “wealth. Followed by a later step to be determined by social expectations. That may be one of world wide violence or cultural shifts that enable people to live happier lives with less material goods.

Beyond about 3 weeks, all prediction is unreliable.

Joe Clarkson on Sun, 8th Nov 2015 4:39 pm 



Schneider-Mayerson concludes his generally excellent dissertation with his concern that the alienation of the “peak oil aware” from collective political action is unwise, noting, “Wisdom would also require understanding that the solutions to transnational, existential problems such as climate change and eventual resource depletion must be political and personal.”

He agrees with just about everything “peak oil aware” folk believe and even admires their individual responses in preparation for what is to come, but he can’t quite give up hope that it is not too late to turn the situation around.

He presumably thinks that if only we “preppers” would join forces, become politically active and rally our countrymen to the cause, we just might reform civilization in time to prevent collapse. He blames Reaganite libertarian political influence for our lack of political activity. For me, the real reason is futility.

This author is a person who still does not understand the difference between a problem and a predicament.

energyskeptic on Sun, 8th Nov 2015 6:37 pm 



I just finished a great book about life in Russia called “Nothing is true and everything is possible, the surreal heart of the new Russia” by Peter Pomerantsev. He was a TV show producer in Russia and reveals how Soviet propaganda is propagated through TV shows whose goal is to keep people so entertained and unaware of the depth of corruption that they see no need to try to change the system, and much more than that. As I read it I couldn’t help thinking about the fact there are no wall street or banking executives in jail for their mortgage, student loan, insurance, and dozens of other white collar crime scams. However bad things are here, they’re not as bad as the Soviet Union, but the point of the book is to show how vulnerable we are to falling to such depths, and it certainly appears that we are heading that way.

Anyhow, it made me even more aware of the ways in which Matthew Schneider-Mayerson’s thesis “Peak politics resource scarcity and libertarian political culture in the United States” made into the book “Peak Oil Apocalyptic Environmentalism and Libertarian Political Culture” is flawed. It is not scientific and uses damning language that implies “labyrinthine subculture of peakists” are evangelical cult members and selfish individualist survivalists.

Before I start my critique, let me say that he’s not a “limits to growth” denier, understands why peak oilers believe what they do, and says many things I agree with. It was also interesting to see what an outsider made of the peak oil movement, but it will be a shame if this is the kind of document future historians base their understanding on. I also don’t like his use of the word peakist, which is a derogatory term, reminiscent of the fondness creationists have to call those who believe in evolution “Darwinists”.

His strange critique of those with peak oil awareness appears to be driven by his perception that those with peak oil beliefs aren’t politically active enough, and not doing much to change things (mainly because it is mainly an internet movement).

He thinks it is just another apocalyptic movement because he believes there are solutions to the oil crisis.

I skimmed the 301 pages because I’ve been part of the peak oil community since 2000 and upset that a Ted conference would cover this University of Chicago press book.

This thesis is not science based, but political and social, such as when he describes peakists with political labels: 29% are liberal and 27% are very liberal with only 7% defining themselves as conservative. Science is not political. How people vote has nothing to do with scientific evidence and facts. Spinning “climate change” belief as “democratic” is a propagandist way of deflecting attention away from scientific evidence.

In Chris Mooney’s book “The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science – and Reality”, he explains why liberals believe in scientific evidence and conservatives are less likely to do so. I can’t remember the exact number, but something like 85% of professors vote democratic, and the rest are mostly independents, because the essence of education is changing your beliefs as new evidence arises, especially in science. Conservatives like fixed, unchanging ideas and on average do not do well at universities. If so-called peakists are mainly liberal, that may also reflect a higher scientific awareness of the earth’s problems than the average citizen.

Peak oil smeared as a religious cult

“Peakists” are smeared with labels such as “Cassandra’s evangelism” or “peak oil Jeremiah James Howard Kunstler” (p 38). He describes people who become “peak oil aware” as converted, as if it were a cult (page 14). They have had an ideological transformation (page 17). “Peak oil believers described their awareness of oil depletion and environmental crisis in terms that were strikingly similar to a religious conversion…” Many believers found new occupations, purchased land, and sundered ties with friends and family.” (page 37). “Peakism” is the ideology of peak oil believers.

Peak oil just another one of many apocalyptic movements

The author states “While peakism may seem like an unusual belief-system to some readers, the peak oil movement does not seem quite as “fringe” when situated in the context of American apocalypticism. In 1999, for example, 36% of Americans admitted to planning to “stock pile food and water” in preparation for the fallout of the “Y2K” computer bug, while a 2006 poll found that a quarter of Americans believed that Jesus Christ would return to the Earth the following year. Connecting contemporary events to millennial prophecies is also not uncommon – in 2002, for example, one in four Americans claimed that the Bible had predicted the September 11th attacks. While peakism lacks a concept ion of the sacred or supernatural, it certainly has religious dimensions.

Peak oil beliefs come from watching too many apocalyptic movies

“Of all media platforms and genres, Hollywood disaster films exerted perhaps the strongest influence on peak oil believers.”

There are 35 pages (182-217) of this drivel about apocalyptic books and movies influencing those with peak oil awareness, rather than scientific evidence from peer-reviewed journals such as energy policy and the obvious fact that there are limits to growth on a finite planet.

Furthermore, of all the possible videos explaining peak oil, he picks the stupidest most outrageous one possible: “Oily Cassandra” in her 2007 YouTube video “Porn. Peak Oil. Enjoy”, where half of the screen is a woman dancing erotically. Not videos of Richard Heinberg, Gail Tverberg, Nate Hagens, Kurt Cobb, Colin Campbell, and so on.

Environmentalists smart, peakists simple

“Whereas most environmentalists now see resource scarcity as tightly bound to economic and social issues that are highly variable, peakists tend to hold fast to a simplistic version of the limits-to-growth environmental paradigm where economic and social issues are at the mercy of ecological limits.”

Where’s the science?

There is a notable absence of science and the scientists within the peak oil sphere. His thesis spends a lot of time on James Howard Kuntler and someone I have never heard of, “Peak Shrink” Kathy McMahon. Where are Charles A.S. Hall Colin Campbell, Walter Youngquist, Kjell Aleklett, Tad Patzek, David Pimentel, Ken Deffeyes, and so on?

He accuses peakists of selfish individual survivalism, not activism

He condemns the peak oil movement for being individualist in preparation rather than a collective movement like Occupy and not dedicated environmental activists.

But what about House Representative Roscoe Bartlett and the Peak Oil caucus he formed there?

What about Denver Mayor Hickenlooper (now governor of Colorado) who was a keynote speaker at the first ASPO 2005 conference in Denver? One of the sessions was led by members of the Boulder City council about why it was so hard for them to take action on peak oil issues.

What about San Francisco, Portland, Oakland, and many other cities with Peak oil task forces?

What about all the peak oil meetup groups?

He does mention Transition towns, and how ineffective they have been in most cities in the U.S., which is a fair criticism. But just as an obscure ecology club in Argentina was the seed of a local currency used across the country when their economic system collapsed in 2001, Transition towns and other groups will help the rest of their community cope when times get harder.

He also ignores the fact that Heinberg, scientists, and peak oil activists have met with thousands of political leaders from city councilmen to state and national political leaders, not just in the U.S., but around the world. High-level European Union politicians have spoken at peak oil conferences in Europe. The Australian parliament had meetings all over Australia to get the input of their citizens on how to cope with peak oil.

He seems to be totally unaware of the reasons why political, economic, and scientific leaders deny peak oil (as I describe in http://energyskeptic.com/2015/climate-change-deniers/) .

Also, we have all tried to convince others via blogs, conversations, and so on to little effect. This is too depressing a movement to ever catch on. Most of the people who came to the Oakland meetup that began in 2004 never returned.

He is misguided in thinking that there is no activism. Nate Hagens recently organized a conference at Stanford on Net Energy, which Nobel Prize winner Steven Chu spoke at.

ABOVE ALL, THERE IS NO SOLUTION. This is why there is not a movement. We are way over carrying capacity and there is no substitute for oil for trucks, trains, or ships, which can not be electrified or run on batteries (see my upcoming book from Springer “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”. Without trucks, civilization collapses in less than a month.

The problem is that making preparations to shift to back to a 14th century agricultural society are simply not possible because no one but a segment of peak oilers believe this.

And with great scientific justification — it is not an apocalyptic fantasy! Although oil is the master resource that makes all others possible, peak everything — topsoil, aquifers, forests, phosphorous, coal, natural gas, and consequent resource wars mean we cannot continue business as usual for much longer. Again: this is a scientific, not a political or apocalyptic point of view.

Throughout this book he slams the movement in both big and in smaller ways, even though he holds environmental beliefs himself, as in this description of the ASPO 2009 conference: “Like other subcultures, peakists expressed and advertised their identities through commercially produced and distributed goods. Next to us, Smiley Oil, a conference sponsor, was busy demonstrating its educational pea k oil video game, Energy Worlds. Its logo was sinister but somehow appropriate to its referent, a cartoonish drop of black gold with a white Cheshire grin. A young woman sold ASPO mugs alongside shirts that proclaimed “I [heart] Peak Oil,” and a much wider variety of items could be found online, including bumper stickers, flags, and baby bibs.”

apneaman on Sun, 8th Nov 2015 6:43 pm 



I never trust anyone with a hyphenated name, especially a guy.

GregT on Mon, 9th Nov 2015 12:01 am 



Thanks for both of the the essays ES. Couldn’t agree more.

“ABOVE ALL, THERE IS NO SOLUTION. This is why there is not a movement. We are way over carrying capacity and there is no substitute for oil for trucks, trains, or ships, which can not be electrified or run on batteries (see my upcoming book from Springer “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”. Without trucks, civilization collapses in less than a month.”

And as Joe C said above:

“This author is a person who still does not understand the difference between a problem and a predicament.”

Thanks guys, for being the voices of reason in an otherwise unreasonable world.

Davy on Mon, 9th Nov 2015 7:11 am 



I second Greg’s comment.

Davy on Mon, 9th Nov 2015 7:39 am 



“Banking Giants Learn Cost of Preventing Another Lehman Moment”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-09/banking-giants-learn-cost-of-preventing-another-lehman-moment

The problem is much deeper than the too big to fail banks. It is our entire system at multiple levels. This system is brittle to change. We have a system that must adapt and can’t because the adaptations needed is a poison pill for the system itself. What we have is a situation of irreversibility side by side with increasingly the inability to proceed. We are somewhere in between currently. Any major action will sink our ship and inaction will sink the ship. All there is left to do is lifeboats. This will have to be at the local level because the authorities are not interested in this type of investment probably because there is no political will from the powers that are.

apneaman on Mon, 9th Nov 2015 8:24 am 



Hey, Alice, nice work. I hear the same accusations from optimistic minimizers regarding AGW, 6th mass extinction, ocean acidification, population and the rest of our suicidal behaviours. They acknowledge the problem, but quickly move onto downplaying it, not yet invented techno fixes and always always they push it into a far off future – one where they are already dead. It’s the neo-denial and NO amount of evidence can convince most people otherwise. The evidence, for all aspects of overshoot, mounts daily.

“Between 1980 and 2014, the number of events such as storms, floods and droughts has increased from around 300 to 900 a year, causing around 850,000 deaths worldwide, of which about two-thirds occurred in the world’s poorest countries, the meeting heard. This surge also translated into losses valued at roughly US$3,300 billion, of which US$940 billion were insured.”

http://www.scidev.net/global/climate-change/scidev-net-at-large/big-business-climate-change-cost.html

peakyeast on Mon, 9th Nov 2015 3:15 pm 



All sorts of outcomes are possible. Some are way more likely than others.

And judging from past and present performance of human leadership it will end very badly for the majority.

Actually as all the different crisis are edging closer the leadership looks less and less capable and more and more like a bunch of dumb fuck retards that has no clue about anything else than screwing over other people and violently and corruptly grabbing asserts and power from those without the “right” friends.

peakyeast on Mon, 9th Nov 2015 3:22 pm 



Oh – and thanks to energysceptic for an excellent post and for taking the time to inform us.