If a perfect storm refers to the simultaneous occurrence of weather events which, taken individually, would be far less powerful than the storm resulting of their chance combination. Such occurrences are rare by their very nature, so that even a slight change in any one event contributing to the perfect storm would lessen its overall impact. Taken out of a weather context, our modern world is as close as ever to seeing a perfect storm of social, political, and economic upheaval that all but guarantees that life as we know it will be no more. The combination of resource scarcity, over-population, climate change, and globalized economics has put our modern world in a precarious position.

The rise in standards of living, scientific advancement, and population explosion can almost all be attributed to one primary resource-oil. Since its discovery as a source of fuel, the world has enjoyed an unprecedented era of cheap global travel and exchange of goods, an increase in agricultural productivity and economic growth, and a formidable advance in scientific knowledge and application. Cheap and plentiful oil made crops grow faster and more bountiful, allowing for the ability to increase populations around the world. Cheap and plentiful oil created and sustained global tourism, increasing our interdependence on each other as whole economies became based on catering to visitors from abroad. Oil drove manufacturing capabilities to previously unknown levels, creating entire industries devoted to creating modern amenities to make our lives easier and more entertaining. Very nearly everything we have or relate to modern society is derived upon the notion of cheap and plentiful oil.

Yet our dependence on and enslavement to cheap and plentiful oil has also helped to create a natural world on the brink of radical change. Pollution, whether directly from oil-related emissions or as a by-product of oil created consumer goods has spoiled our air and soils and water around the world. Changes to our atmosphere caused by unremitting releases of carbon based emissions are combining with naturally occuring forces to dramatically shift our weather patterns and yearly climate conditions. Cheap oil has led governments to expand their societies and strive for continual economic growth, which in turn has led to mass deforestation and land degradation as we search for precious metals and raw materials to sustain the unsustainable growth explosion. And as we continue to encroach upon the natural world to sustain our own, whole species have become extinct, thus changing the local ecologies of entire regions, which in turn create more changes to the environment at large.

And our love affair with oil has blinded or eyes (as love affairs so often do) to the reality of a globalized economy that is suited not to make the lives of everyone more equal and fulfilling, but rather to help enrich more modern societies at the expense of less modernized ones. But by obscuring this reality, most all societies have taken steps to become as modernized as the next, and whole populations have increased with the expectation that our modern world will find a way to not only sustain an ever growing influx of new people, but will indeed lift them up from poverty and create a level playing field the world over.

And despite occasional warnings from forward thinking people throughout the decades, by and large, we’ve been witnessing this great expansion of human prosperity with the impression that the end would never come, that human ingenuity would supplant the more rational notion that says a finite source will eventually run out. We’ve been playing Nero’s fiddle en masse.

I try to be optimistic about things when I can, but I’m primarily a realist. For many though, realism is synonymous to pessimism, meaning that to point out the obvious, especially when the obvious predicts bad times ahead, makes one a doomsayer at best. Yet at the risk of being labeled such, I’m putting my own fiddle down. Because regardless of the ultimate level of devolution modern society is facing, the facts remain clear- the way we are living now can not be sustained indefinitely, and in fact is on the brink of radical change.

The end of cheap and plentiful oil is upon us. Whether or not we have reached the point of peak oil production is still being debated by a few, but most oil industry experts agree that if we have not already reached this point, it will be upon us in mere years. We are seeing and feeling the effects now. As oil and oil derivatives become even more expensive, economies may well stop growing altogether and begin to seriously contract if not collapse. Governments will have to decide what is the more valuable use of oil-transportation or the chemical derivatives from oil that supply things like plastics and petrochemicals and petroleum based fertilizers. If transportation gets the nod, say goodbye to whole industries that depend on oil byproducts for their livelihood. Say goodbye to medical advances and higher yield crops. Say goodbye to ubiquitous electricity too.

Even as we make small strides to shift off of an oil-dependent economy (a near impossibility now, but let’s pretend for a moment), the state of our natural world is becoming overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of humans living on the planet. Potable water resources are not infinite either. Nor is the ability to produce enough food to feed each person. And without oil for transportation or electric generation, large scale water purification and food sharing become near impossibilities. Coupled with our overpopulation problem is the real fact of global climate shifts that are changing local weather patterns and decreasing the likelihood of future increases in food production. Starvation that we’ve grown accustomed to seeing from afar may soon be at a city near you.

I’ve never put much stock in “end times” philosophies, largely because they are predominantly based on religious mythology and doctrine. To assume that an omnipotent being has preordained the time and path of humanity seems more than a little absurd to me. But “end times” are a human reality and have been over and over throughout the eras of human history. Yet where religious “end times” focus on a final battle between good and evil for the souls of mankind, in reality most “end times” come to societies because of the faults of human beings themselves, and are usually fomented by over-population of a particular region, over-extension of governmental dictates, or a lack of natural resources to sustain a society. Large nations become over-reaching in their desires and expectations and collapse under the weight of their inefficient bureaucracies. Societies degrade and lose cohesion. Unlike religious based “end times” where all mankind ultimately perishes to the lakes of hell or the promises of heaven, most real-life “end times” represent little more than drastic change from what came before them. “End times” signify a passing of the guard, as it were, from one type of human condition to another.

And so as we approach another potential “end time” in human history, I can’t help but wonder how people will react when it becomes only too obvious to the majority that their fiddles can’t play fast enough or loud enough to drown out the reality of the situation.

As our perfect storm of resource scarcity, continued population growth, and interdependent economies based on cheap and plentiful oil converge, how will humanity fare? Will those who remain rise from the ashes of our near past to replicate the errors, taking advantage of a smaller population to extend the fragile resources left today? Will we devolve into another Dark Age period, ruled by superstitious and supercilious religious leaders?

In the possible (and perhaps even probable) face of such looming societal breakdown, it sometimes becomes hard to focus on the minutiae of current political desires or societal problems. In the face of potential societal collapse, how important really are the political problems of the day? Yet we can’t completely give up either, because we are human. And the human condition is one of hopefulness, creativity, and reactionism. Even when we can see intellectually that things are going sideways fast, we resist the temptation to throw in the towel and hide our heads in the sand. We infuse ourselves with the notion that our ingenuity will save us, despite some evidence to the contrary. And even with such troubling times ahead, even with great changes in lifestyle all but guaranteed, we continue to collectively play our fiddles. But not because we don’t actually care about what is happening. Rather, we play in the face of what is happening, because we see no ready solution to the end of cheap and plentiful oil and no interconnection between how we drive and what we eat. As a whole, we not only don’t believe the end is near, we deny that it can ever come. And so we continue to live as if things will all work out fine. Because if we let ourselves believe otherwise, we’d have a lot of scared, crazy people to deal with on top of the rest. But ignoring the problem doesn’t make it go away.

To the absolute deniers, I may be just another crock in the crazy world of internet doomsayers. But in all truth, I continue to play my fiddle too, albeit with less vigor than before and with only one eye on the sheet music. You see, I want society to figure things out. I want humanity to continue to exist, to improve, and to realize that as a species, we are not only intimately connected to each other, but to our planet as well. But I’m also taking small steps to prepare for economic collapse, making contingency plans, and looking at the evidence with eyes wide open. If really bad times do come to pass I don’t want to be caught completely uneprepared. And I don’t want you to be either.

I’m not trying to drive unsubstiantiated fear into your heart , dear reader. I’m not a Republican. I’m just calling it like it looks. And I’ve honestly never wanted to be more wrong about anything like I want to be wrong about this. So I continue to live from day to day, acting in one sense as if not much will really change. But I also am trying to make a plan because I just don’t see a way around it. And I don’t want the blinders on any more.

So go ahead and tell me I’m crazy-just give me the evidence to back it up. Like I said, I’d really like to be wrong.

(cross posted at Bring It On!)

(photo from freegan.info, courtesy of falcophoto.com)

 They eat from dumpsters. The shun regular employment. They live in abandoned dwellings. You might think of them as “bums.” They prefer to be known as Freegans. And their ranks may well be growing.

 Dubbed “strategies for a sustainable life beyond capitalism,” the Freegans may well be on to something. In a society as wasteful as modern humanity has become, these “urban foragers” often come back from a night of “product reclamation” with some quality used items. From furniture to electronics to household cleaning products, Freegans are making the point that rampant consumerism fuels not only greed but waste too. But the fun doesn’t stop there.

Free food, even if it has spent a long hot day at the bottom of a dumpster, is the key to Freegan survival. Essentially vegetarians, Freegans relish in the waste of restaurants and retail grocers, creating feasts and sharing the goods with anyone who dares come along.

Free housing, even if it means living with the roaches and rats in an abandoned husk of a home, is a component of the Freegan lifestyle. Their solution to homelessness is to ignore the “No Trespassing” signs because shelter is a right, not a privilege.

Planned joblessness, because working to pay the man becomes less important if you don’t actually have to buy your stuff or pay your rent. And because having a steady job also means you are contributing to the over-production and over-consumption problems of the modern world.

Being Freegan means taking a stand against the environmental destruction caused by mass human consumption. It means working outside the system to bring attention to the problems of the system. It means….well to most of America, it means being a “bum.”

However…..

Our whole modern world is based on cheap oil. Once the cheap oil is gone there is a serious concern that whole economies may collapse. Certainly when the supply of easily obtainable oil reaches the point of diminishing returns, much of what we take for granted will no longer be available-from plastics to abundant crops to mass transportation. If humanity can’t create a viable substitute for a world run on oil, and soon, well then we all may become Freegans-whether we like it or not.

Dumpster diving anyone?

(cross posted on Bring It On!)

Boiled down into even simpler terms, public transit means less congestion, less pollution, and greater efficiency at a low price.

At least, that’s the theory. And in a few places the theory holds up pretty well. Who can imagine traversing New York City without subways and busses? In 2004, nearly one-third of the nation’s public transit users lived in NYC, with over 50% of New Yorkers using public transit for commuting to work. In DC, it was 37%, Boston and San Francisco 31%. This makes sense too, because these metropolises have huge populations concentrated into relatively small areas. Imagine the traffic congestion and accompanying pollution if every one who worked in NYC drove to work alone in a car?

But get away from the east coast (well, okay, and San Francisco) and public transit usage drops way down- 12% in LA, 6% in Houston- so that the national percentage of Americans using public transportation to commute to work in 2004 was only 5%.

Being that it is a public enterprise, public transportation funding comes from a combination of fares and taxes. Fares from actual users, taxes from everyone regardless of whether they ever step foot on a bus or train. A major chunk of the taxes come from fuel excise and sales taxes. This funding system actually relies on a larger number of people NOT using the service to keep it afloat financially. Paradox #1.

When fuel tax revenue declines, public transit coffers suffer. For public transportation, more efficient vehicles plus more public transit users means a loss of revenue and an increase in costs for its own fuel requirements to accommodate more users. So fares go up. And ridership declines.

If one of the benefits of public transit is a reduction in environmental pollution, it should be a goal of public transit agencies to increase public usage. But to do this, public transit authorities have to develop a system that is both expansive and convenient. Out west, historically low usage of public transit has not encouraged systemic expansion, meaning that would be users of public transit face longer and more difficult commutes to get from point A to point B and choose to drive themselves. A lack of comprehensive transit stops and connections reinforces the inefficiency of the system and puts more cars on the road that could otherwise be parked. Paradox #2.

So public transit relies on people NOT using the service to keep financially solvent and poorly designed public transit actually keeps MORE cars on the road due to its inefficiency. Except for New York City, public transit seems to be a net loser, in spite of its valuable service to lower income Americans.

But wait! Gas heads towards $5 a gallon and a lot of people start looking at public transit as a reality. Demand for public transit is increasing. Fewer people can afford high gas prices, and even more are trying to help reduce pollution. But the more efficient cars that continue to drive use less fuel which decreases income for public transit, even as fare paying costumers increase. What’s a transit authority to do?

Raise fares of course. And cut services too.

I guess the message is that public transit is a great thing-just so long as not too many people use it.

Just at a time when we should be increasing public transit and making it more available and affordable, public transit agencies are talking about reducing stops and raising fares. Just at a time when the larger public finally seems to consider the benefits of public transit, agencies are forced to make it less attractive just to stay in service.

So if you try to save money, energy, and reduce pollution by using public transportation, you’re really making public transit authorities cut their services and raise the fares for everyone by overloading the system and not paying enough taxes. Why do you hate America?

Maybe we should all just stay home.

(cross posted at Bring It On!)

I’m nowhere near the radical religion or borrowed money chapters yet- Phillips begins by talking about the oil, or more specifically he begins by taking a short walk back in history by looking at two other global giants of their time, Holland and England. He makes note of the fact that the periods of time in which each of these nations became global powers coincided with their access and innovation with the great energy resources of their times. In Holland, it was command of wind and water. With England it was coal. And in both cases, once an energy source was depleted or replaced by another energy source, those countries fell off their perches among the world’s nations and became former superpowers. Phillips notes that the same dynamics have occurred (are occurring) in the US, and predictably, the same fall awaits us- unless we do something about it.

It is no big surprise that US dominance has mirrored the dominance of oil and petroleum as the main energy source on Earth. Our nation lives and breathes oil. It is our lifeblood. Our entire society is based on the concept of cheap and plentiful oil. As such, it should be no big surprise that American government and corporate mentality is focused on maintaining as much control as possible over all the oil it can, including sending men and women abroad to die for access to oil. But what happens when the oil is no longer cheap or plentiful, as is rapidly becoming the case? For Holland, coal surpassed wind and water and left that nation with an infrastructure not ready to move forward. The coming of coal should have been the writing on the wall, but Hollander’s couldn’t or wouldn’t read it. For England, the same happened with coal, only more so, pushing England into dire straits as oil came online and their infrastructure was too totally coal based to convert. They were forced to play catch-up and lost their edge in world status.

America has had at least 30 years or more to prepare for the end of oil as a dominant energy source, but like Holland and England, the government, corporations, and general public are doing nothing, assuming that the oil will be there for us whenever we need it despite all indications to the contrary. And for 30+ years nothing has changed in any real way. We are still beholden to oil, we’ve made scant effort to find other sources of energy, and we’ve demonized some of the best practical alternatives available to us now-nuclear, solar, and hydro power- as too expensive, impractical, or tapped out. That’s not just myopic thinking, it’s a recipe for disaster.

America may still have a chance to keep hold of some of her world power, but only if we move aggressively into new exploration and development of energy. Regardless, our entire society and infrastructure, our power dominance and our financial prowess will soon end or at the very least suffer serious degradation, due to our continued reliance on oil and oil alone. And while this book isn’t about the use of oil and it’s affects on global climate, there are several lessons to be learned in correlation there as well.

Sadly, the other aspects of the book that I’ve not read will almost certainly show how the religious factions in this country have undermined our scientific-technological capability for at least a generation, further assuring our loss of dominance. I will also read more on how our financial policies (again centered around oil) have trapped us into a spiraling whirlpool of debt that will make any real transformations that much more difficult.

The bottom line is simple- America as a superpower will one day come to an end. Of that there can be no uncertainty. What remains then is to position ourselves in such a way as to benefit most from international cooperations and new discoveries and to turn inward and prepare our society for a massive retooling based not on an oil economy.

In the business world they say to be nice to people on your way up because eventually you may see them again on your way down, and maybe as your boss. Well, our government should take that to heart- we’ll not always be on top of the heap, globally speaking, so we’d better stop pissing so many people off.

More on this book as I read it.

Economy Is Great- If You’re an Oil Company or Defense Contractor

Boy, this Bush economy is really spreading the wealth around, at least for Big Oil and the Military-Industrial complex.

Third quarter reports show ExxonMobile reaping record profit levels, raking in over $10 Billion in profit in the third quarter alone. Since the costs of extracting, refining, and delivering crude oil has not changed much, this is pure profit for the oil giant. If this were simply a matter of passing increased costs along to the consumer, the oil companies would not realize such extreme profits at all, as their costs would also be rising. It’s not about supply and demand either, despite market economy apologists. And it’s not just ExxonMobile either. Profits at Royal Dutch Shell grabbed over $7 Billion in profit in Q2 and ConocoPhillips sucked another $5 Billion out of consumers pockets.

Can anyone say price gouging? Add these obscene record earnings to the record tax breaks given these oil barons by the Bush administration and it’s clear that the Bush tax cuts are working wonders- for the uber-rich at least. Meanwhile, most of the regular joes are cutting back on summer travel, family entertainment, eating, and so on.

But if that’s not enough evidence that America is just a subsidiary of the corporate crassholes, defense companies are enjoying earning increases too, from 17 to 54 per cent as the neverending Bush war doctrine catches on around the world.

Can anyone say war profiteering? Many of these defense contracts are allotted through Homeland Security contracts, the federal governments newest money hole, where rampant fraud and waste have been documented.

You want to talk about ‘wealth redistribution?’ There it is folks. Plain and simple.

America Addicted To Oil, Bush Addicted To Bullsh*t

In his 2006 State of the Union Speech, President Bush declared that America is “addicted to oil.” He then laid out plans to fix that problem, including, among other things, a call to change how we power motor vehicles.

“We must also change how we power our automobiles. We will increase our research in better batteries for hybrid and electric cars, and in pollution-free cars that run on hydrogen. We’ll also fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn, but from wood chips and stalks, or switch grass. Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years.”

Well that sure sounds good on paper, but the reality is that these comments were more rhetoric than reality. The reality is that no matter what technology develops, if you can’t get it into the hands of the consumer, it isn’t going to make a difference towards the goal of reducing oil use. It seems that someone in Congress figured that out too though, so a tax credit was passed for purchasers of fuel efficient hybrid vehicles. Seems the stage is set for some real progress to be made, right?

Wrong. For most people, even with the tax credit, the price of a new hybrid is still out of reach, especially with all other costs going up across the board, and with incomes growing at a snail’s pace. The tax credits were supposed to help level that playing field somewhat, but when drafting the law, Congress put a cap on the number of cars sold per manufacturer that would qualify for the credit. That magic number is 60,000. After that number of cars has been sold and given the maximum $3,500 tax credit, the next batch of cars sold only receive half that amount as a credit, and then six months later, half again of that. By October 2007, the credit will end altogether.

With over 258 million cars on the streets today, nearly 13 million cars would have to be replaced annually with hybrid vehicles just to replace the U.S. fleet in 20 years. That’s right…TWENTY YEARS. And yet the tool designed by Congress and touted by the president in his speech to the nation to help achieve the goal of ‘weaning America off foreign oil’ will barely make a dent in the effort, largely because it is too limited in scope and does not offer flexibility for those who couldn’t afford a new car ever. Even if eligible manufacturer’s pumped out and sold a half million units a year combined, it would take over 500 years to replace the cars we have now burning gas.

So much for breaking the addiction. But that’s no real surprise, is it? After all, we are being led by the biggest pusher and addict of all, our two-headed, executive branch oil monster known as Dick and Bush. Had the president been serious about his statements, he’d have pushed for a much more expansive tax credit program that would include more than just new car purchases, but for used hybrid cars, retrofitted engine replacements for older cars, credits for gas retailers who converted a portion of their businesses to flex-fuels, eliminated the cut-off threshhold for manufacturers, removed any cut-off date for the program, and established a one-per-person every five years rule that would ensure a spreading of the credits across a broader economic spectrum. Businesses with large vehicle fleets would have no such per-person rule.

But he won’t do that, because then Americans might actually make progress in reducing our dependence on foreign oil and oil in general for transportation fuel. And if that happened too quickly his buddies in Big Oil would stand to lose a big chuck of their outrageous earnings, and then where would the ‘ownership society’ be.

As with most things that come out of this president’s mouth, the claim that this administration wants to end the cycle of oil addiction is pure B.S. And that’s just the kind of thing we’d expect a failed Texas oilman to be addicted to.

Big Oil On The Right Track?

Just got the newest National Geographic magazine this weekend and noticed an advertisement (located on page 5) from our friends at Conoco Phillips.

The ad claims, in part, that our friends at Conoco Phillips aren’t willing to settle for just average when it comes to providing energy to the world. Claiming to be raiser’s of the bar and taking the lead in figuring it out, the ad goes on to say just how Conoco Phillips is moving forward to “solve the demanding increase in global energy needs.”

The solution? Finding new places to drill for natural gas and investing in Russia’s oil and natural gas reserves. WOW! These out of the box solutions will surely keep us in oil for decades to come right? Because we all know that oil is the only real source of energy worth pursuing, right?

The ad ends with this missive:

“Turning “what ifs” into “what’s next” – it’s what we do every day.”

Funny, I thought the “what’s next” might possibly include developing non-fossil fuel energy solutions, not just looking for new places to dig. Obviously, Big Oil isn’t interested in that at all.

Green Power

The ERA recently released this years list of Green Power Partnership Rankings and I’m proud to note that I Live near and work in this years list topper- The City of San Diego. By generating some of it’s own energy from renewable resources, San Diego saved many millions of taxpayer dollars and prevented as much as 91 million pounds of CO2 from being emitted into the atmosphere. Imagine that…saving money and fighting global warming at the same time. In all, San Diego generated over 65,000 megawatts of power derived from biogas, solar power, and hydro power. That represents nearly 25% of the city’s annual power needs. That’s enough to power 7,500 homes for an entire year.

In fact, the city is actually producing more energy than it is equipped to use, so they are selling it back to the power grid through the local utility, San Diego Gas and Electric. And this can’t be done elsewhere…why?

Sure, San Diego has the sun nearly year round, but it’s more than just a warm climate that is bringing success. By thinking out of the box with such ideas as converting falling water in its wastewater treatment plant into energy. Or by capturing the methane gas from landfills and other waste water treatment facilities. Or adding turbines to the city’s water delivery system to take advantage of wind power. And yes, lots and lots of solar panels.

The point though is that any municipality could do the same thing. All it takes is some leadership and commitment to doing the right thing. Right for the planet. Right for our own health. Right for our security. Right for our wallets. In fact, there’s nothing negative here at all, except that more cities aren’t doingthis too.

Rounding out the top five were the Austin Independent School District in Texas, the Montgomery County Wind Buyers Group in Maryland, the New York State Municipal Wind Buyers Group, and the East Bay Municipal Utility District in California. Only the city of Portland, Oregon had a more diverse mix of renewable energy sources than San Diego, as they already have a wind program in place. But Portland’s total green power generation was only 17,600 megawatts, putting that city 7th on the EPA list.

It’s obvious that alternative energy isn’t coming from the big oil companies or the federal government any time soon. But the answer can be found in our cities and towns. Contact your local officials and find out what your city is doing to help reduce fossil fuel consumption. If they are not doing anything see if you can help them develop a plan. Together we can make a difference.

(originally posted at Bring It On!)

Russert had the heads of three of the four largest oil companies (Shell, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips) in for a chat about high prices, consumer angst, and alternative fuels. When asked by Russert whether the oil companies and the White House were engaged in talks to wean America of its “addiction to oil,” John Hofmeister, head of Shell Oil replied,

“I think energy independence is the wrong direction because the United States is not an island nation. We are interdependent on all of our global companies doing business all over the world, and I think the oil companies need to be more interdependent as well. I think it’s good for international relations. I think it’s good for the economy, actually, to have oil come from wherever it can come from. Now we can do a lot more in this country. The 102 billion barrels of known oil reserves and gas reserves that we don’t have access to in this country on federal land and the outer continental shelf…we’d like to go produce that and we know how to produce that and I think we know how to protect the natural environment in sound ways.”

What? Energy independence is NOT the course to take? And here I thought that’s what the president meant when he said we needed to cure our addiction to oil. Gosh, did I miss something?

Looking a little closer at the actual words gives me even more reason to pause. What Mr. Hofmeister is really saying is that it is large, multi-national corporations who run the show and that not only should the oil companies work together to consolidate a hold on world fossil fuels, but they should have carte blanche to get fossil fuels wherever they may be found. Sounds like someone has a Napolean complex to me.

This monologue from Hofmeister came near the end of the segment, but there was plenty more good stuff before this show capper.

When asked about the future of energy, including the importance of renewable and alternative energy, all three CEO’s asserted that regardless of the public desire for alternative, renewable fuel sources, we were going to be tied to fossil fuels for at least 30 and upwards of 100 years. Each man danced around the possibility of non-oil energy while insisting increased efforts to increase supply of fossil fuels- from various forms of oil (sand, shale, conventional), gas (including LNG), and coal- were of primary importance at this time.

All three oil barons put up the standard defense vis-à-vis profit margins. Every oil company has experienced record breaking profit margins in the last year and change. Russert wondered why they couldn’t cut prices and earn only a 30% profit instead of 50% or 60%? Why were retiring CEO’s handed $400 million retirement packages? Didn’t they care about the public perception, which shows a 71% negative approval for oil companies? Investment in oil prodiction, offsetting losses in other divisions, and even some research into future energy sources. But none conceded that profits were obscene. No one suggested that consumers will ever get a break.

In the end, what probably shocked me most was the smugness of these men, especially Hofmeister. They spoke of the consumers and the hurricane victims and the hard time high prices are causing, and kept using the term ‘we.” And it occurred to me that the ‘we’ they are speaking of is not the American people. These men try to act like they are just another great American company, but it isn’t true. These companies are multi-national octopuses with tentacles spread across the globe. They don’t care about any one country at all. They care about the money, and the power that comes from controlling the people who control the oil.

It is clear now that if America is ever going to find a solution to our energy woes, woes that compound our foreign policy aims and national viability into the future, it will have to be done in good old-fashioned American tradition. It will be up to the independent thinkers and engineers and financiers who understand the importance of energy independence. It will be up to individual consumers and forward thinking businesses. In short, it is up to us.

The oil companies don’t want us to think of energy independence because that means they lose their money and their power. They lose their ability to manipulate international politics and internal politicians. They lose their strangle hold on the economy and transportation, and everything that makes our modern world modern. Because once we have energy independence, we can really begin to stretch our wings towards freedom, prosperity, and a more peaceful existence.

To be fair, all three executives agreed that we need to take a serious look out our energy demand issues, but their answer isn’t to conserve so much as it is to increase supply. And not just any old supply, but more fossil fuels. (Damn, I was trying to show something positive.)

You can watch the entire show here. This segment is the last of the show, starting around 35 minutes or so.

(cross posted at Bring It On!)

FACT: Oil is the world’s largest source of convertible energy at the present time.
FACT: Most of the world’s known oil sources lie beneath the sands of the Middle East, specifically in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran, in Russia, and in Venezuela.
FACT: Most of the oil in the world is used by the United States, China, Japan and Russia.
FACT: Current U.S. debt is around $8.5 Trillion.
FACT: Japan holds $440 Billion of that debt. China holds $122 Billion. China also holds $361 Billion in foreign currency reserves, much in U.S. dollars.
FACT: The U.S. and Russia have the largest operational nuclear stockpiles with 8,000 warheads and 8,600 warheads respectively. China has around 400 operational nuclear warheads.
FACT: Other nuclear nations include Britain, France, India, Pakistan, probably Israel, and recently, North Korea. No other nations are known to possess operational nuclear warheads, though Iran is making great efforts to produce some.
FACT: China is the most populous nation on Earth. As it continues to modernize itself, it’s need for resources and goods will result in a shifting of global resource allocation causing either greater cooperation between nations or giving rise to great enmity.
FACT: China’s major trading partners include Japan, Russia, and the United States.
FACT: Iran is governed by fundamentalist Islamic religious leaders who vilify the western world and Israel. Their interpretation of their religious texts drives their ideology towards conflict with those whom they describe as infidels.
FACT: Iran’s major trading partners include China, Japan, and Russia.
FACT: George W. Bush comes from a wealthy oil family. He has numerous ties to the oil industry, the Middle East and specifically Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Prior to entering politics and government, George W. Bush was a failed businessman, losing money in Texas oil over 10 years. George W. Bush is a fundamentalist Christian who has said that God chose him for the job of president. Among fundamentalist beliefs is the ‘end times’ scenario, a time of great upheaval, war, natural disaster and various maladies upon Earth and the human race.

When I was a young boy, growing up in eastern Washington State, I became aware of nuclear weapons. I read all about the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II and the resulting devastation that they caused. I learned that in the years following WWII, the United States and the Soviet Union (now Russia) engaged in a tremendous build-up of nuclear arms, each pointed at the others country. Many U.S. nukes were located on the Soviet doorstep, so to speak, in Western Europe and the Soviet attempt to place nuclear missiles close to America resulted in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which had the potential to escalate into a full-scale nuclear war. As history tells us, war was narrowly averted, but the arms race continued unabated through the 1970’s and 1980’s culminating in over 100,000 nuclear weapons between the two nations. With the flick of a switch, the annihilation of the human race was a distinct possibility, and tension between the two nations was high. In the early 1980’s, I lived near one of our major SAC bases where nuclear-armed B-52’s were housed. My town was listed as a primary target for Soviet nuclear weapons in the event of a nuclear war. When I allowed myself to think of the possibilities, I was very much afraid.

But then the Cold War came to a screeching end with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, largely because they had spent themselves into bankruptcy trying to amass the largest nuclear arsenal. Arms reduction treaties between the U.S. and what was once again known as Russia helped decrease the likelihood of nuclear holocaust. Fears of being evaporated faded, not just for me, but for most of the world. It seemed that we had moved on, as a species, away from nuclear Armageddon. Conventional wisdom held that the United States, although the only nation to use a nuclear weapon in war, would never again use a nuclear device against another country unless first attacked by nuclear weapons itself. No U.S. President ever credibly considered nuclear warfare as a viable option, instead understanding that the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction was lose-lose for everyone, including the U.S.

The last decade of the 20th century seemed to be a turning point in the nuclear gambit, as the world turned away from Cold War nuclear ambitions and turned towards creating a global economy. Advances in communications helped launch an era where national boundaries were more blurred, especially in relation to economic growth and the pursuit by corporations to extract every ounce of profit from every corner of the globe. Fueled in large part by American multi-national corporations, the control and acquisition of energy, specifically oil, became the bedrock foundation of national goals as modernization spread across the globe. Where once countries vied for political advantage, they now compete more heavily for resources and access to resources.

Enter the presidency of George W. Bush, a man who has adopted a doctrine of preemptive war and embraced the goals of multi-national corporations as his own. A man who avows a religious worldview that includes an eventual Armageddon in which only ‘true believers’ will be rewarded. A man who has recently renewed the possibility of nuclear war with a newly updated nuclear doctrine that departs from the conventional wisdom of our predecessors, stating that the U.S. objective is now “to ensure the most efficient use of force and provide US leaders with a broader range of [nuclear and conventional] strike options to address immediate contingencies. Integration of conventional and nuclear forces is therefore crucial to the success of any comprehensive strategy. This integration will ensure optimal targeting, minimal collateral damage, and reduce the probability of escalation.” (Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations p. JP 3-12-13). As a corporatist, George W. Bush views the accumulation of wealth as a prime goal, and any means that achieves that end is considered a victory. George W. Bush is also an evangelical Christian who views the end of this world and the second coming of Christ as the ultimate goal to be eagerly anticipated. Is it time to be afraid again?

On September 11, 2001, America sustained a horrific attack that has been attributed to the fundamentalist Islamic group al-Qaeda. As rationale for this attack, al-Qaeda alternately uses their interpretation of the Quran’s dictum to attack all infidels and their underlying hatred of American governmental intrusion to the politics of the Middle East in general. In retaliation, and under the guise of defeating Islamic terrorism, the U.S. attacked Afghanistan, the host country of al-Qaeda. Much of the world supported this action by America. But then, George W. Bush turned his sights on Iraq. And now he is aiming at Iran.

Put together some of the facts that preceded this essay and see how those pieces fit together to form a very bleak picture of where things may be headed if this president continues along the present path.

Here’s one possible outcome that I can derive: Eventual war between the United States and China, and possibly Russia too, with the Middle East being the initial stomping grounds. If the U.S goes into Iran, China will have to respond because this would be a serious threat to her own ambitions. China will
likely begin with economic warfare, calling in much of their U.S. debt holdings. This will result is economic turmoil across the globe, either because the dollar will fall to disastrous levels or because the U.S. will refuse to pay and will instead ratchet up their war efforts in Iran, possibly using nuclear weapons in the process, in an effort to control more oil in the region. (We already have some marginal control over Iraq’s oil, in that U.S. troops and corporations are operating in Iraq much like early American settlers conducted themselves in the Western regions of America during the 1800’s.) U.S. control of the oil will be used against China in retaliation for calling in U.S. debt, forcing China to engage in active warfare against U.S troops to reclaim access to the oil. With the introduction of nuclear weapons by the U.S., several nations will side with China to rein in American aggression and irresponsibility.

The net result of this scenario could well be the destruction of much of this planet through nuclear warfare, giving the ‘end times’ scenario a chance to play out. In this scenario, anyone not part of the fundamentalist Christian religion loses out, because according to their doctrine, anyone not part of their group is damned to hell. Whether that hell is literal or not becomes irrelevant as the actions of Bush’s warmongering will make this planet much like depictions of hell anyhow.

Of course, all of this is simply supposition on my part, but with the trend of current events, it is hard to see where else the foreign policy aims of this administration will lead us. Is this outcome unavoidable? I would like to think it is, but with the current make-up of the U.S. government, acting largely as a rubber stamp to Bush, it is unlikely that they will stop Bush’s plans for control of the oil of the Middle East. For Bush, who really cares mostly about himself and his group of corporate benefactors, either situation is win-win. If he attacks Iran and no one stops him, he gets more oil, thus more money and economic leverage- a win in Bush’s book. If his war turns out to be a disaster and leads to nuclear warfare and widespread destruction, he’s just created the conditions for Jesus to return, according to his evangelical beliefs- a win in Bush’s other book.

But for most of the world, both scenarios are losers. We are indeed at another crossroads in world and American history. As George W. Bush says, “One of our making at a time of our choosing.” The problem is, Bush is choosing these paths and making these realities, not based on widespread support of the American people, not based on sound economic, scientific, military or foreign relations principals, but instead on his own desire to see his warped worldview come to fruition- a worldview that says he who dies with the most money and power gets to sit on Jesus’ lap for eternity.

The only chance of avoiding these scenarios is a serious cleaning of house in the U.S. Congress, the administration and it’s ministers, in favor of people who will turn towards a new course for America, followed by a revamped foreign policy that embraces cooperation, energy exploration, reparations for past U.S. aggression, and a greatly changed attitude and expectation of the future. I hope it won’t come too late.

Of course, I could be totally wrong about all of this. I hope I am. But using the facts presented at the beginning of this post, can you offer another possible outcome? Remember too that no one likes a bully, and at the very least, the actions of George W. Bush give the United States of America a big reputation as the world’s bully. As I recall, most playground bullies eventually get their comeuppance. Ours is coming too, if we don’t seriously change the path we are on.

[All the information presented as FACT at the beginning of this essay were found from various publications and websites using google search words. If you don’t believe them, look them up for yourself. I don’t intend to debate the facts, but I will debate their interpretation.]

Transportation issues can be easily divided into two main groups: local travel and long distance travel. Both levels of transportation must be designed to service their specific needs while maintaining a balance between personal usefulness, cost efficiency, and appropriate ecological responsibility. Transportation infrastructure is a shared property and must thus be considered as such by both those who use it and those who care for it. Our attitudes towards transportation need to be readjusted to allow other thoughts to have a chance at success. Obviously, both our modes of transportation and the infrastructure to support them will continue to change over time, but by accepting this fact at the beginning, we can make projected accommodations to facilitate that change when it comes, reducing long term costs and minimizing the use of resources.

So really, the place to begin is with the way we view transportation. By some twist of fate, the evolution of transportation became intertwined with a part of the human psyche with the result being that to humans, mode of transportation is equal to social status, with the fastest traveler at the top of the chart. (This eventually spiraled out of control. Today we are all expected to move so fast and accomplish so much in a single day that our species seems to be evolving these abilities into our genetic code. But I digress…) As personal transportation progressed to the point where everyone could now go pretty fast, we rose to the challenge to continue our transportation castes through the creation of bigger or sleeker or tougher personal transportation, all the while our identities becoming one with our mode of transport until we almost view them as extensions of ourselves. We’ve managed to transform transportation from a convenience to a personal right. We’ve made getting from here to there and back again a personal statement instead of just letting it be what it is…getting around.

So let’s step back from the attitude of transportation and move into a more practical look at transportation. Which is the more important: how you get there, when you get there, or that you get there? Easily, the “how you get there” question is the least important, but it is the one we all place the most emphasis on. I say enough of that nonsense. Getting to our destination and getting there in a timely fashion are what matters. With that in mind, let’s step outside the box and take a glimpse of what transportation could be like, with a little help from new energy development and better city planning.

Local travel tends towards two goals: errand travel and employment travel. One kind is erratic, the other is fairly consistent. Some employment consists mostly of more travel. Personal vehicles do nearly all of this travel. In smaller towns, this may not seem to be a problem, and as energy becomes more advanced, even the pollutant effects of singular travel may be negated. But in large cities and their ever-growing suburbs, the problem of traffic congestion and pollution grows more staggering every year. How could we reduce, or even eliminate all those individual vehicles, yet still provide people the means to get to work and back, or to deliver the goods that their job requires? The answer lies in the two words capitalists hate to love: Public Transportation.

Fortunately, I’ve been on public buses, vans, taxis, trains, and the like, so I have a healthy contempt for most of our public transportation systems. The reason they exist in this state is because of our attitude towards transportation, which I mentioned that we need to work on. Public transportation is a good idea ruined by bureaucratic idiocy. And corporate greed. And public apathy. But what if we could develop a flexible, high speed, semi-private, public transportation system that would get you to within a half mile from your place of employment? (Think electromagnetic monorail with separate “cars” able to disconnect and reconnect at specified intersections and depots.) What if we developed a subterranean cargo delivery system that delivered all goods from a central location to a specified neighborhood for more local disbursal to shops? (Think pneumatic cargo tubes like those at a drive through bank, only bigger.) Couldn’t such systems greatly reduce pollution, reduce congestion, and even reduce massive road development? As for local errand travel, if development can be steered away from the car and be based more around the local areas, public transit could take many forms.

If local transportation suffers from inefficiency in use, long distance travel suffers from inefficient service and infrastructure. As our nation makes incredible advances in personal entertainment technology, we have done little or nothing to update our antiquated airports, harbors, and railways in the area of security or technology. And our public-private management practices are increasingly tilted in favor of the private entities. Our transportation tax dollars (read fuel taxes, airport or rail use taxes, or any other travel related excises, taxes, or fees), when they don’t get diverted into general funds our pet projects, are supposed to be used to maintain and improve our airports and roads and railways. We build these places with our hard earned money. Then we turn them over to private businesses that charge us to use our airports and rail lines. And in their efforts to increase profits, they cut services and amenities, stifle consumer regulation, and decry security measures as intrusive to their schedules. This is the worst kind of capitalism, and our airline conglomerates are among its most eager practitioners.

It is time for the public to reclaim what we built and paid for. It is time to insist that business become true partners with regards to public transportation, especially long distance transportation. We need to upgrade our technology and security measures while increasing passenger service and economy. We should expect those businesses that operate on public property to be responsible for returning some of their profit towards maintenance and improved service. If they balk, why not develop a national airline and a national rail service, funded by tax dollars, available to all citizens at a reasonable price that would cover costs of operation and maintenance but not produce a profit. After all, the ability to travel around one’s own country or to others should not be based on money. Travel increases knowledge. Travel increases tolerance. Travel is a necessity.

In the end, we may not even really have the option of ignoring public transportation much longer. As fossil fuel resources are increasingly consumed, and until we develop new forms of energy, our current modes of travel will become too expensive for many to operate on a daily basis. Further, international resource usage may change supplies available for personal transportation. And as public transportation increases, so too will the need for increased security measures to be established to ensure public safety. Why not begin to establish alternatives today, before we need to have them in place? Why wait until it’s too late? To do so
could negate the progress we’ve made over the last century and once again, distance could become a barrier.

As with any new ideas, initial suggestions are often subject to criticism based on financial costs, lack of technology, or murky management structures. So let me say this: Yes, the financial costs of overhauling our transportation infrastructure may be expensive, but the returned investment in efficiency, security, and maintenance will be realized in time. The cost of waiting until we’ve no other options could be even more expensive. Yes, we lack some of the technology we may someday have, but we can begin to prepare by reducing our subsidies to obsolete methods and encouraging new development through creative outreach like that used in the commercial space race. And yes, honest management will require honest stewards, but I believe they can be found among us, and that they will be found. We really should begin now.

In the 21st century, space travel and exploration is old hat. From space shuttle missions to long-range probes, our knowledge of our solar system and the universe in general has expanded exponentially. So what then is the next great challenge for us? What pressing need could benefit most from the concentration of our scientific and industrial prowess? The answer, my friends, is energy. Our modern world requires an increasing amount of energy to fuel our cars, to warm our homes, to light our nights. As we grow more and more technologically oriented, our need for reliable energy grows too. And with more developing nations striving to join the industrialized world community, the need for energy will become even more acute.

The bad news is that most of the world’s energy is derived from non-renewable fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas. These resources are called non-renewable for a good reason- once they are gone they can’t be replenished, and if we are still dependent upon these resources for our energy when that day comes, you can plan on going back to the days of candlelight reading, walking to the store, and huddling around the fireplace for warmth. I’m not naturally an alarmist, and I can’t say with any certainty when that day will come, but common sense dictates that it will come eventually. Isn’t it better to be prepared before then?

There are other negative aspects to our use of fossil fuels like pollution or the environmental damage caused by the extraction of these resources from the Earth. Our national security and economy are tied to our need for these resources, leading us into areas of the world that are filled with strife and draining our taxes. And our need to compete with other nations for access to those resources is costing ordinary citizens more money to meet the needs of daily life. Yet there are other ways for us to obtain the energy we need in this modern world, if only our government and business interests would challenge themselves to develop them. Unfortunately, business looks primarily at profit, and the amount of money they have tied up in the current energy production and delivery cycle keeps them from leading the charge towards better energy options. Their financial entanglement blinds them, and they ensure the status quo by keeping pressure on the politicians, keeping our country tied to fossil fuels for most of our energy needs.

I say that the time has come to issue another challenge. Much as President Kennedy did in 1962, American leaders should issue a call for new energy development that precludes the use of fossil fuels in favor of cleaner, renewable energy sources. We should do this not only because it will one day be necessary, but because of the benefits to our air, our water, our land, and our people. Kennedy’s speech recognized that to achieve his goal, things that did not yet exist would have to be created and failures along the way would occur. He told the public that the task would be expensive, but it would be worth it. The drive for new energy has these same problems, but it too is worth it.

We already have alternate sources for energy that come from renewable resources. Hydroelectric energy, solar energy, biomass energy, wind energy, and nuclear energy all exist at some level of development, but the problem with their proliferation lies in the profit margin for business. True or not, the claim that these energy sources are too expensive to develop en masse or not sufficient to meet our needs goes unchallenged. I say that the business interests that control our fossil fuel dependency don’t want to lose their hold on our wallets. To them energy is not a public necessity, it is a cash cow. From development to distribution, their greed not only creates false energy scarcity, it hampers modernization and innovation. It is time for business to either join in the search for new energy sources or to be left behind altogether.

I see a future where energy is no longer considered a commodity to be bought and sold to the highest bidder. The fact of the matter is that reliable and cheap energy has become a necessity of daily life. When something becomes a necessity, it should not be out of reach for people, it should become available to everyone. I see a future where every home has its own energy production plant, supplied by clean, renewable sources of power. I see a future where transportation is powered not by fossil fuels, but by clean, non-polluting energy. I see a future where our cities are not rimmed with power lines and smokestacks. I see a future where countries don’t go to war over oil or make deals with treacherous regimes just to gain access to fuel.

The space race was paid for with public funds and the knowledge gained from the space missions belongs to us all. The advancements in technology derived from space exploration was paid for with public funds, and the proliferation of that technology now touches every aspect of our lives. In this vein, the development of new energy should be paid for with public funds, and the benefits of our research and development should be returned to the public through cheap, reliable energy. And our reliance on foreign nations for our energy could be reduced or eliminated entirely, saving us even more money by avoiding conflicts and expensive security measures.

We must move to elevate the types of renewable energy we now have from second-class status and begin to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels. At the same time we must turn our scientists and industries towards developing new energy or increasing the viability of the renewable sources we do have like wind and solar and biomass. We should look towards the future of energy not from the prospective of profits for businesses, but from the prospective of prosperity for all. Energy supplies should not be fought over or suppressed. They should be clean, and plentiful, and cheap.

In 1962, America decided that going to the moon was worth the cost and the sacrifice and we met the challenge. Meeting this goal saved no lives, fed no hungry, cured no ills, but we did it just the same. Finding new and better energy sources is more important than going to the moon ever was. It’s time to meet this new challenge too.