<Monday Open Thread... The Oil Drum And things quietly appear to be getting incrementally worse>

49 comments on What does "Addicted to Oil" mean?

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unplanner on February 6, 2006 - 11:20pm Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
I have never seen so much double talk as I have with this administration.  Talking one thing yet doing another, usually the opposite.  Just like supporting energy research while cutting NREL funding.

The addicted comment is yet the latest example.

We are not addicted to oil.  We are dependent on it but it is not the root addiction. Oil is merely the latest greatest substance we have turned to in feeding our greatest addiction, namely growth.

We are addicted to growth.  

We want more and better of anything we stumble upon.  We are addicted to the promise of a better tomorrow.  Oil merely helps us meet that need.  This need for growth is more or less universal across the political spectrum and national too.  Curing this addiction will take far more than simplistic speech making.  Given the evidence that this behavior may be hardwired into our genes, it may be futile.

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Marotti32 on February 7, 2006 - 9:13am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Your comment reminds me about Wouter Van Dieren's report to the club of rome "Taking nature into account". It describes the idea of "economic growth" pretty well. There is actually no necessity to do this. I think there were some pages about Thomas Hobbes "Leviathan" (Long time ago I read this excellent book. Oil is just the first important commodity which is in use in the industrial world. A kind of addiction which simply cannot be served in the long run. So it is with fertile soil, stable climate, clean water...
matthias, berlin
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Don Sailorman on February 7, 2006 - 12:56pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
If we want people to be employed, a rate of growth in real Gross Domestic Product of about 3.5% per year is required to prevent the rate of unemployment from increasing. You may not like to acknowledge this fact, but I challenge you to find a single economist to disagree with it.

The problem as I see it is to sever income from work. The only people to tackle this problem seriously are the utopians (who have come up with nothing useful, to the best of my knowledge) and certain science fiction writers.

John Maynard Keynes gave some interesting hints as to how this problem might be resolved in his famous 1930 essay, "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren."

My own ideas for income distribution are so radical that advocating them, for example in a graduate student economics lounge room, would cause somebody to dial 9-1-1 and have me involuntarily committed to a mental institution. Why? Because everybody knows that the way it is must be the way it has to be.

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odograph on February 7, 2006 - 10:50am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
The word "growth" covers a lot of territory.  Personal growth. Spiritual growth. ... you shotgun that word an you don't leave a lot for people to hope for.

I think at the other end people do take a messy growth-is-good position as well.  In particular there is the implication that higher GDP means "wealthier" citizens.  Actually as we've seen you can have increasing personal debt with higher GDP.

I'd say "grow smart" or "smart growth" ... but something a little more selective than the two extremes.

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SqueakyRat on February 7, 2006 - 11:39am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
We want growth because we don't want to think about justice. If we really had to face a steady-state economy, we'd have to start wondering how to justify the fact that the boss makes a thousand times as much as the guy behind the counter.
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49 comments on What does "Addicted to Oil" mean?

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