The Oil Drum

Agreed. I don't think there's some big conspiracy where they all know about peak oil, but won't talk about it in public. OTOH, at least some politicians clearly do understand the problem. Republican Roscoe Barlett, for example. He may give his peak oil speeches to the cleaning staff, but they're on the record. Democrat Bill Clinton has given talks about peak oil, and Al Gore has mentioned it, too.

I think they know about it. Some of them, anyway. After all, most of them are old enough to remember the '70s energy crises. But they think we'll innovate our way out of it, as we always have in the past.

Like Tom Whipple said...politicians have so much on their plates already. Unless you can give them a solid and imminent date ("the gas stations will go dry July 3, 2008"), it won't be a priority for them.

A quote (I can't remember whose -so my apologies in advance) that it appropriate is:
"Don't expect a man to understand something on which his job requires that he doesn't".

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." -- Upton Sinclair

I disagree. The problem is defining the problem your trying to solve.

Now with that lets talk about the solution.

I'd say its Equitable ELP or shared ELP in other words the goal is sustainable economies that are energy neutral with a decent living standard for all. Obviously somehow population levels have to be brought into the issue but maybe this can be done by determining carrying capacity and developing target population levels.

A important detail but to move on.

Next you have to determine the time period in which to reach these goals. Communist style 5-10-20 year plans are a good way to at least talk about when to do things.

Then you talk about what to do.

From this approach it becomes obvious that one of the biggest problems is why are people driving all over the place in the beginning ? We need to focus on our work habits first and foremost since most of our energy expense is related to work not leisure. Can companies get satellite offices subsidized so workers can shorten their commutes ?

Can we get a national law to support commuters that take public transport ?
So instead of increasing taxes for roads. You decrease taxes for those that use public transport and redirect current taxes to fund public transport.
So say 50% of current taxes used for roads gets redirected to public transport.
Lightly traveled roads are privatized and taken out of the public domain. Same with the interstate system. We have good ways to collect tolls electronically and these can readily be made better. So toll collection should not interfere with traffic flow. This can be tied into GPS and if you put your route in you can calculate the tolls.

If you allow credit then people that don't pay their toll bill can have their cars confiscated.

By privatizing the roads we force the costs off the cities and onto the users.

You do the same for all the old infrastructure electric/sewage etc for suburbia. If you can really afford it then you get to use it.

However I think you are sophisticated enough to know that the Federal Govt. is dysfunctional and deaf.

Yes, this letter was written more out of frustration than anything. That's why I have to roll my eyes when people suggest that I am naive for thinking anything will happen as a result. Of course I don't expect anything to happen as a result. I didn't write it with the expectation that anything would change. But I do want to point out that I think there are ways to ease a rough road ahead. And someday - and it's already pretty late in the game - politicians are going to ask "What do we do now?"