 | The 'Peak' Summit: An Informal ASPO & Oil Drum Gathering | The Oil Drum: Europe | The cost of wind, the price of wind, the value of wind |  |
110 comments on Report: The Interplay between Climate Change and Peak Oil
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
| Show without comments | PDF version
110 comments on Report: The Interplay between Climate Change and Peak Oil
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
| Show without comments | PDF version
User login
Personnel
Editors
Contributors
Peak Oil Primers
Archives
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
Vital Trivia
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
GAIA Host Collective
Thanks.
I think it would convey a useful message as it comes closer to a scenario that includes desired (necessary from the climate change perspective) future policies.
Not including scenarios based on an appropriate policy response to climate change sort of suggests that it is not realistic to expect such a response. And if that's the prevailing thinking, we will never have this necessary response, which means that we're pretty soon locked in on a disastrous 6°C increase.
I don't want to contemplate that scenario, and in a way that means I don't want to contemplate the typical business-as-usual scenarios, because those are the ones that implicitly say: we can continue our comfortable life now without worrying about the future, because we (or our children) won't have a future.
I think that BAU will in fact continue.
People mostly do not care enough to know ... or know enough to care.
People in power act much as if they create their own reality because there are no immediate feed-backs that contradict them in terms of personal comforts.
We have a combination of intentional ignorance with the seduction of a material lifestyle with no limits and a lack of immediate pain linked to it.
Stone age emotion and instinct rules. Various primitive rationalizations -- religious, ideological, and nationalistic -- dress up our behaviours so that we become noble and victims of someone else's wrongdoing. We attack the scapegoat -- economically or militarily -- and steal their good sh*t. Rinse and repeat, except with increasingly Godlike technologies and global environmental blow-back that we could care less about as long as we are comfortable.
More tar sands. Bigger air conditioners. "Clean coal." More nukes.
I will ask my kids again what the shopping mall of the future will be. Last time I asked directly the response was "...more stuff and cooler stuff and way bigger malls with cooler rides and stuff...."
Business As Usual.
We talk about the environment in my family. We bike and I also have a small electric utility vehicle. My kids have learned much since I asked them point-blank about the shopping mall of the future. However, all of the leadership in the USA -- corporatist CEO's, politicians, and their minions -- tell us "more bigger better" and we will return to that as soon as this pesky little glitch in the economy is fixed.
BAU.
Beggar, (et al.,)
What you say is just right on the money--which is frequently the case here--but
you just put it with particular lucidity.
I'm gladdened to hear some kids (yours) at least are getting another side of the story.
BTW: Long time lurker, first time poster.
BAU will continue, but the lies told as cover for increased brutality will need to get bigger.
We humans have a need for patterns, meaning, and purpose. We want to be a part of a story that is bigger than we are. The meta-narratives of religion, ideology, and nationalism will meld into one overarching story.
The propaganda will increase to drown out the truth about the human predicament and especially about the need for horrific violence.
I suppose that something like a miracle could help us mitigate the consequences of peak oil, climate change, habitat destruction, and increasing human violence.
Meanwhile, I'll stick with Vonnegut's "purpose for life" -- we are here to help each other through whatever this is.
There's a third group: those that know that BAU is unsustainable and don't care. They game the system for personal benefit and hope (or believe) they won't get caught.
I think that the group you speak of is very large, and actually includes everyone of us in some way or another -- various ways at various times.
We are very good at denial.
The problem of human evil is that it is diffuse and shared, and we cannot isolate some scapegoat to rid the world of "evildoers."
"The Devil knows the Bible like the back of his hand."
Want to rob a bank? Sit on the board of directors, or better yet, become one of the top management. Steal with impunity.
"Some men rob the passers by for a little cash to spend. Some men rob whole countries dry and still get called their friend."
talk about greater purpose
bring up good and evil and and it is instantly implied
we are quite the study aren't we