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The Nature of Design
Blog post
Ozymandias
Posted Jul 26, 2008 by Richard Heinberg
America is sliding head-first into energy Armageddon, with world oil production peaking, North American natural gas production set to plummet, and coal likely to follow in a couple of decades. So what is Congress’s response?
The Democrats have a bill to rein in speculation in the oil futures market, which will accomplish exactly nothing (since the run-up in the oil price was not due to speculation, but rather supply and demand), while the Republicans want to drill in coastal waters and ANWR, which will accomplish practically nothing since the oil won’t flow for over a decade in any significant quantity, and by the time it does it won’t even be enough to raise total US production back to current levels.
The only real solution consists of a two-pronged strategy: develop renewable energy sources at a crash-program scale, meanwhile finding ways to use much less—starting with oil, but including energy in general. This is not rocket science, but it will take political will because it entails investments on the order of trillions of dollars, plus changes of behavior on the part of average Americans.
On Friday, NPR featured a story about the pathetic maneuvering within Congress—the Republicans filibustering the Democratic bill because they smell red meat on the drilling issue. It’s all about scoring points, making the other team look bad.
Listening, I felt like putting my head in my hands and weeping. The only other possible response to such idiocy would be scathing sarcasm, but in the end that wouldn’t be particularly satisfying.
Yes, these representatives of the American electorate are showing collective intelligence equivalent to that of wood shavings, but the fact is that we will all be living with the consequences of their monumental stupidity—or cowardice, or whatever it is.
If Congress or the White House were our only possible source of hope for the future, I’d say it’s all over. Might as well stock up on canned goods and ammo. Fortunately not everyone is so dense as these folks.
Even in Congress we have Roscoe Bartlett and soon—one earnestly hopes—Debbie Cook. And in towns and cities across America, there are officials and citizens who do understand the problem and are working to do something useful.
Meanwhile, what is one to say about the US Federal government? One cannot help but think of the Mayan cities’ clueless leaders, the Easter Island rulers, the last Roman emperors, the Soviet Politburo circa 1988.
“And on the pedestal these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my Works ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
Get The End of Growth http://www.postcarbon.org/eog | Watch the animation Who Killed Economic Growth? http://bit.ly/whokilledgrowth
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