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26 comments on John Darnell, Bartlett's energy advisor

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billyt on October 7, 2005 - 4:25pm Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
i want to know what actions are being taken by the high levels of gov't.  actions beside militarily securing resources.  only thing i know is that Rep Barlett has made several presentations/talks in hopes of educating members of congress and motivate them into action.  is there a committee being formed to lay out a roadmap to transition away from petro-society?  i work at boeing, and we have roadmaps to transition our processes to adapt to new up-and-coming softwares and technologies.  is this level of discussion and thought and brainstorming happening in our federal gov't?  personally our local gov't is senile.  my state senators and governor - all female btw - have called for a subcommittee to investigate price gouging.  wtf!  this is the kind of leadership we have to put our trust in for post-petro-society?  i'm sick.
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Nate Hagens on October 7, 2005 - 5:54pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
  1. there are many govt agencies looking into this - the problem is that most are unavailable to public scrutiny - only in Congress and a few other venues can CSPAN televise proceedings, which is one reason Congressman Bartlett continually made those presentations the way he did I presume.

  2. The IEA, of which US is a member, has rationing policies in place should supply drop below certain thresholds - there are numerous speeches/presentations/policy discussions available from their last plenary:

http://www.iea.org/textbase/work/2005/oil_demand/FinalAgenPresentations.htm

3) Count yourself lucky - from an evolutionary sense, I would PREFER that my state senator and governor were female- womens responses to stress are more cooperative (oxytocin) than competitive (dopamine, testosterone) on average, than men. In my opinion, we need many many more female leaders if the Sustainability Revolution is to be successful (note: I am not female, but do like them quite a bit)

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bigfootvegan on October 7, 2005 - 8:02pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
you only need one leader, when that leader has a direct  link to god.
from aljazeera

http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=9677

"Bush said God told him to invade Iraq, Afghanistan"
10/7/2005 9:00:00 PM GMT

Bush told two senior Palestinian officials that God told him to invade Iraq and Afghanistan

The U.S. President George W. Bush told two senior Palestinian officials that God gave him a personal message to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a new BBC documentary.

Bush made the comments when he met Palestinian leader- then Foreign Minister - Mahmood Abbas and Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath at a summit in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Sheikh in June 2003, the ministers told a BBC documentary series to be broadcast in Britain next week.

Bush also told the ministers that God ordered him to establish a Palestinian state.

Shaath, now the Palestinian Information Minister, said: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God.

"God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan'.

"And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq...' And I did.

"'And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East.' And by God I'm gonna do it'," said Shaath.

Abbas, who attended the meeting too, also appears in the documentary series to recall how Bush told him: "I have a moral and religious obligation. So I will get you a Palestinian state."

White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said Bush never made the claims, which he described as absurd. 

The three-part TV series, "Elusive Peace: Israel and the Arabs", charts recent attempts to bring peace to the Middle East, from former U.S. President Bill Clinton's peace talks in 1999-2000 to Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza strip this year.

The program interviews presidents and prime ministers, their generals and ministers, to reveal what happened behind closed doors as the peace talks collapsed and the Palestinian intifada, or uprising, grew.

The series is expected to be screened in Britain on October 10, 17 and 24

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RickD on October 7, 2005 - 8:18pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
What am I missing?  What does this post have to with Peak Oil?

Thanks,
Rick

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SJMStrategy on October 8, 2005 - 2:37am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Rick

There are two things that are important here - if "God" is telling Bush what to do in the middle east, where it just so happens the majority of accessible oil reserves are, then "Houston, we have a problem".

Further, while not well known in the mainstream, a key component of the Israili/Palestinian conflict is control over water resources which is a scarce and strategic resource in the region.  This gives us a glimpse of what can happen in the fight to control scarce resources: in PO scenarios, oil becomes increasingly scarce.

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bigfootvegan on October 8, 2005 - 4:48am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
billyt asked "what are the highest levels of government doing about it"

This idea seems to come out time and time again, some sort of "they wouldn't allow it", or "they will sort it out" a sense of some higher group sorting or creating the problems.

so the bush article is/was a warning to all those who follow a hierarchially structured society..

we cant wait for leaders to sort it out, they wont, it is up to us to sort it

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step back on October 7, 2005 - 9:36pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Yeah, but you'll never be able to "think" like one, thank goodness.

No just kidding. Many women are limbically cultivated, meaning they spend more of their brain power worrying about family needs rather than their own self-centerd needs. By contrast, men are focused on power, control and self centered needs, although they do stand guard over the herd much like a stag would stand guard over his herd of does and fawns.

The Peak Oil alert message sent to women has to be different than the one sent to men.

For women: your children, your family are at risk if we do not have enough energy resources to grow food, make clothing, to feed and nurture our families. Your children will never forgive you, and you will never forgive yourself if you do not take steps to assure that your family's needs are met. Oprah will curse you for not having read the right books and felt the right, nurturing feelings. You will be ostracized from the upper groups.

For men: our command and control systems are at risk if we do not have enough energy resources to power our armies and our factories. You will be looked at as having failed to "provide for and protect" your family if you do not become alert to this problem (to the terror that can terrorize) and if you do not rally the herd to safer grounds. Dr. Phil will disrespect you for not having stood up to be a man, to fight and flight, when the challenge was so obvious. Be proud, be powerful, be among the extraordianry few.

Evidence that, duh, the sexes are different and respond to different messaging (this does not account for different religious biases as to what the proper roles of men and women are):

http://www.princeton.edu/~anscombe/articles/rhoads.html

http://207.122.589.com/imprintPM/issues/spring-2004/features3.htm

http://www.iouedu.com/press/09puri/09_01.html

http://www.humiliationstudies.org/documents/evelin/GlobalisationTransformsGenderRelations.pdf

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sekiyu on October 9, 2005 - 3:09am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
These accounts of polarized sex differences seem as exaggerated as the old PC argument that everything in this sphere is socially constructed. The lesson from the serious research seems instead to be that while these polar opposites do exist, they constitute a small fraction of females and males. For example, most males care about their kids and even other people's kids more than C and C systems in the military. Few males fit the stereotype of the f--- 'm and forget 'em tough guy. And in any case a lot of those guys are simply hiding such gross feelings of inadequacy that they wet their beds and would only be moved by peak oil arguments if diaper sales were threatened.

Seriously, trying to craft messages for hoary and polarized cartoons of appropriate sex roles seems unwise. People respond to price signals as well as credible arguments that their kids and their kids' kids are threatened by contemporary irresponsibility.

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step back on October 10, 2005 - 12:18pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Sorry you thought I was claiming Men are from Mars, etc.

The actual point is that different people respond, or not, to different messages. There is no ONE grand unifying message that will motivate all to act on the Peak Oil Problem.

Despite the fact that I am a reptile brain, I do care for my children (and yours) and pray they all will thrive in the challenging world of the future.

Peace.

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Freyr on October 7, 2005 - 8:33pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Just a quick quote regarding the US bill number H.R. 3893.
The bill would streamline government permits for refineries, open federal lands including closed military bases for future refinery construction and limit the number of gasoline blends refiners have to produce, eliminating many blends now designed to reduce air pollution.
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8D3EP7OI.htm?campaign_id=apn_home_down&chan=db This bill passed 212 to 210 in the House and is on its way to the Senate. This seems to be the direction of the current administration, including relaxing air quality standards.
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