Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

-- Robert Frost

I highly recommend Robert Newman's piece "Consuming the Future" at

http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/consuming-the-future/2006/02/05/11...

which I recently found while surfing the net (probably via peakoil.com). I posted it all over the UseNet (see http://groups.google.com) and was later
delighted to find that GPM uploaded a copy at

http://www.postcarbon.org/node/2220

and even has an interview with Newman as well as a clip of Newman's humor,
at http://globalpublicmedia.com/interviews/644

The main themes of "Consuming the Future" is that to avert catastrophe
with either climate destabilization (death by fire?) or peak oil (death
by ice?) we need to look at our economic model which is based on
perpetual growth forever and ever. And, that by and large, the high profile
movements to do something about these problems are not addressing
this underlying "elephant in the living room" -- that unless we
change the system, little legal steps here and there won't save
us from the fire or the ice.

(ASIDE: It's a false dichotomy, I must add, for at least two reasons:
first, we're likely to be hit hard by both fire and ice at
the same time -- consider peak oil forcing a 5% or 10% drop
(painful "ice") at the same time as we fail to cut by 50-70%
which the science says we much to avoid dangerous
climate change (painful "fire") so we are going to get
the worst of both worlds unless we have an economy that
can work (rather than enter crisis) under a 50-90% cut
in emissions. Another reaon it's a false dichotomy is that
the ice --peak oil -- may mean more usage of coal (What
Julian Darley so rightly calls one of the 'cyanide
(so called) solutions') and hence worse 'fire'....so
the dichotomy is false on many levels, yet has a ring
to it and I'm in a poetic/literary mood lately...even
looking to The Rime of the Ancient Mariner for possible
inspiration for some educational activities I'm authoring..
Rock Oil, rock Oil Everywhere.." ?!)

I did have two quibbles or rather postscripts that I think are worth
adding, and I posted these comments together with Robert Newman's
excellent piece. In a nutshell: Newman needs to state that
it's not just capitalism but any growth-based economic
model that is unworkable if we want to survive, and secondly
his "Catch 22" can be expanded -- we've not only scr*wed if
we find the oil mega-find that's probably not out there,
but also in trouble if we find another clean form
of what PCI would call 'big energy' --

On the former, Newman rightly points the finger at cadpitalism
but he could reduce some red baiting by pointing out his
arguments make him and many others of us, equally against Soviet or other simillar
economic models which are basically variants of (state coordinated) capitalism
and are also growth-forever-and-ever based, and thus also cannot be allowed.

Not to mention they like (corporate) capitalism had a huge decific in the
area of democracy, but like corporate capitalism, even if we foolishly wish to give up
economic democracy for temporary 'growth' goodies, we much now build a
replacement economic model, and fast, even if we only wish for something much less,
namely survival. And it's not just to reduce red-baiting but to avoid
any "dead ends" for those of us who seek to find new economic models.

So yes, point the finger at corporate capitalism, but let's not forget
to cast the net of our critique more widely...

Secondly, Newman writes,

"Catch-22, of course, is that the worst fate that could befall us is the
discovery of huge new reserves of oil, or even the burning into the sky
of all the oil that's already known about, because the climate chaos
that would be unleashed would make the mere collapse of industrial
society a sideshow bagatelle. Therefore, since we have got to make the
switch from oil anyway, why not do it now? "

What he could and should have added though is another
"god help us if we DO find more energy" paragraph: namely if
by some incredible miracle we do find cheap and easy and greenhouse
gas free energy (and if we even do so in sufficiently
few years...never mind how unlikely this is) well, take a look at
what our perpectual-growth-forever-and-ever economic system has done to
soil, water quality, biodiversity, uranium and certain other minerals,
coillapsing fisheries (worth another google) and more...research it
and it's clear we cannot continue growing forever for the most basic
of mathematical/physical reasons.

So not only are we very unlikely to
find anything as cheap and easy as oil to replace it, much less cheap plus
easy plus climate-and-lung-safe, but even if we DID, we'd hit some
other crisis (and we're not far from crisis in some of the aforementioned
areas) or several crises, about as bad as the peak energy (possibly
almost as bad as the climate crisis) not long thereafter,
so long as we insist on a perpetual-growth-forever economic model.

So that is another area where we need to cast the net of our critique
more widely than Newman's "Catch 22" of it being bad even
if we do find mega-oil deposits; we're done for even if we
do find any mega anything-easy-energy technologies, unless and
until we change the economic model (and culture, inter alia...)

A little while back I wrote a few little illustrations
of the madness of our petetual growth economy, if you're interested,
see

http://economicdemocracy.org/wall-st.html

and

http://economicdemocracy.org/wall-st-ii.html

What's next? We must build a new economy, but one key
part of that is, how to we "invest" for "retirement" type of "income"
without Wall Street, without Mutual Funds, etc?

I have general proposal for starting a community based retirement
security system, about which I will write in the future; if
you're interested, drop me a note
by electronic mail at h [at sign] harelbarzilai [dot] org.

HB