The Oil Drum

This is Lyle Grant. I appreciate CrystalRadio's call for suggestions. My basic approach in the article was simply to endorse the Hirsch report's call for a substantial program to mitigate the effects of peak oil as well as to get behind the specific conservation and other initiatives Matt Simmons has advocated.

Apart from this I also called for increased work in my field, which is called applied behavior analysis, in changing energy-use behaviors. My colleague Scott Geller at Virginia Tech has been a leader in this field. I cited a paper in which Lehman and Geller lament that most of the work was done in the aftermath of the energy shortages of the 1970's and 1980's. This literature of energy conservation should nonetheless be useful in a future of diminished energy.

One seemingly small but important thing we can all do is to send messages of support to those who are leading efforts to publicize peak oil, including those who maintain The Oil Drum. This use of positive reinforcement, a key concept in my field, can be surprisingly effective. In this connection, thanks to those of you who have sent supportive comments today.

Excellent article, it's refreshing to see a discussion of, well, how to frame the discussion!

In response to the call for suggestions, I've been mulling over an idea or two. If the problem is defined as "how do we change peoples behavior" then I believe one of the most effective arguments would be to frame it in economic terms.

I am not a behavioral psychologist, but in layman's terms it easy to see that people have a few core motivators, i.e. providing necessities for themselves and their families, cultural identity, religious faith, etc.

In fulfilling those motivations each individuals world view informs many, if not most of their day to day decisions, and in today's modern societies the primary context for most peoples world view is their economic status.

The primacy of the consumer oriented growth economy has been virtually unchallenged by any society for centuries. Not even to any great degree by communism or socialism. It is this unquestioned assumption that perpetual growth and unrestrained consumption is an absolute good that I think must be challenged in the most fundamental and creative way possible.

The article makes an excellent case that people do not want to be told bad news, nor do they want to hear that they must sacrifice a high standard of living today for the benefit of unseen future generations. And yet somehow people must be persuaded to change their lifestyles if we are to avoid the worst of the negative consequences of resource depletion and ecological overshoot.

The answer then, I believe, lies in reframing the economic paradigm and, by extension, reframing peoples world view. Day to day economic decisions by people all over the world must be changed from "how much abundance can I enjoy today" to "how well have I preserved my abundance for perpetuity".

If peoples primary motivators, and their resulting rewards in life, are intimately tied to how well they take care of their piece of the world then I believe we will see a truly sustainable society arise spontaneously from the day to day decisions of everyone on the planet.

The unquestioned assumption that the perpetual growth machine that is our consumer oriented economy is an absolute good must be directly challenged and somehow transformed into one where the absolute good is instead a caretaker economy.

Taking care of our planets productivity.
Taking care of our resources.
Taking care of our environment.
Taking care of our prosperity, as well as the prosperity of our children, and their children, and their children.

With much worry about the future weighing heavily on many peoples minds I think this is a message that will resonate. We're already seeing seeds of it being planted with the talk of "stewardship" in some religious circles.

However, what I feel is more important, this idea has a fundamentally positive basis on which people can build. It presents people not with the negative question of "what must you sacrifice today for the good of tomorrow?", but instead with the positive inspiration of "you know what your job is, now how well can you do it?".

Cheers,
Jerry