The Oil Drum

Every time I think about PO in general, and how to sell it, it raises the question of whether to jump right in with PO, or tell them about other problems that will conveniently be solved at the same time. Usually, the latter is better, since those reasons are more palatable. Take the bike lanes issue: for most people, it's not about reducing oil use, it's about reducing traffic congestion. I suppose that if we get the outcome we want and change people's habits for the future, it doesn't matter if they don't know why they're really doing us a favor for the future.

http://www.bikeleague.org/about/index.html

FWIW, I'd say that I make a daily effort to reduce fossil fuel consumption, but now and then I back off a bit.  It's no fun to be a hair-shirted monk in a world of libertines.  So for what it's worth I try to keep my "averages" low, but loosen up now and then.  Whether that is an accommodation to Apathy & Cynicism, or a means to combat it ... who knows.

I think those ranks of (what I'm semi-seriously calling) libertines will change on their own, if they change at all.

First remove the telephone pole from your eye, then remove the speck from your neighbor's eye.

This type of message, where its not only not 'cool' to be profligate and unaware, but IS cool to be sustainable- has to, and will someday pick up momentum. People wont do things for the planet  unless it somehow helps their own lives as well. We need to change culture in a way that conforms to our evolutionary impulses to be more fit than the next guy (even if we consciously are thinking about saving frogs going extinct, we are subconsiocusly thinking about how to get the 'chicks' and get more money-our cultural fitness measuring stick)

my little stunt is a small step in the direction of having 'chicks' choose differently - (the money thing will only follow post peak) If some would be Humvee buyer consciously sees that driving one makes him an a$$hole, maybe he/she would reconsider the purchase, out of shame.

( I rationalize that my actual use of the Humvee and miles driven will be outweighed by the impact of smaller future Hummer sales, so that 'technically', Im not really an a$$hole)

People think that if we can just educate people on issues, they will all come around the to "right" way of thinking about something.  But the problem is that "Success", defined crudely as actions that result in more of what you desire in a certain timeframe, doesn't always align with what is "right".

Wealth and power are measured in timeframes shorter than those of their impacts.  There has long been, and forever will be a  thoughtful and more educated minority of activists.  Many will burn out in grassroots attempts at converting the masses.  But the problem is a company, government, or individual who is willing to seek short term gains at the longer term expense of others, will often be "better off" and their offspring will be "better off" and so will overpower those who are more thoughtful of the long term impacts.  There are many exceptions, and they do well in proving the rule.  If you match a peaceful, long term thinking culture and pit them against the power of highly consumptive U.S. like culture in a conflict, it is clear who will continue to exist in the future and who will perish (in the timeframe of that conflict, not ultimately).  It is this fact that we are inherently ill equipped to be "aware" of the long term (knowing only cerebrally, not instinctually) that will cause us to face Peak Oil more as crisis than as transition.

-Ptone

The best analogy I can come up with is that people say we ought to reduce oil usage just like people say they need to work out at the gym more often, but in the end it is just talk.

This is really coupled with the individualism, materialism, consumerism and all of the rest that people in our society have strongly embraced.  I hear some people talk who say they are all for alternative energy, and once it becomes cheaper than traditional energy they would buy it.  No thought given to simply using less for the common good - the notion that there even is a common good got lost years ago.

I hate to say it, but I am thinking that it won't be until oil prices jump a few more times that people will be sufficiently introspective to actually do something about it.

Now I want to buy a low priced used LPG car and low priced farmland.  The apathy of the masses makes those tasks easier.  Since it is at least 20 years too late to mitigate the PO transition, public education in 2006 doesn't make any sense at all.  The apathy I used to hate is now my best friend.  Go sheep, keep playing your oil age consumer games while the rest of us quietly prepare for the inevitable.

I think that it might be a good idea to permanently post the preprinted versions of Hubbert's remarks somewhere.

http://mobjectivist.blogspot.com/2005/05/our-petroleum-predicament.html

A Special Editorial Feature by GEORGE PAZIK Editor & Publisher, Fishing Facts, November 1976

Excerpt:

The preprinted version of Hubbert's paper distributed at the March 7, 1956 American Petroleum Institute meeting in San Antonio, Texas had the following statements:

"According to the best currently available information, the production of petroleum and natural gas on a world scale will probably pass its climax within the order of a half a century (i.e., 2006), while for both the United States and for Texas, the peaks of production may be expected to occur within the next 10 or 15 years. (i.e., 1966 to 1971)

"Assuming this prognosis is not seriously in error, it raises grave policy questions with regard to the future of the petroleum industry. It need not be emphasized that there is a vast difference between the running of an industry whose annual production can be counted on to increase on the average 5 to 10 percent per year and one whose output can be depended upon to decline at that rate. Yet, in terms of the production of natural gas and crude oil, this appears to be what the petroleum industry in the United States is facing."

(When the paper was published, after Shell Oil Company censors had finished with it, the statement above was deleted and replaced with the following: "the culmination for petroleum and natural gas in both the United States and Texas should occur within the next few decades.")

I got a realy nice energy politics article into the largest local newspaper a couple of days ago on the most read page. 0 phone calls, 0 emails, so far 0 answers in the newspaper (the editing delay can be a week or two), 0 letters, some friends and relativs commenting  that it was a realy good one.

The direct feedback to established politicians seems to a large extent be nutty people, a few ordinary citizens, friend and relatives and other politicians. Politicians high up in the hierachies seems to often become isolated and only get feedback from other politicians, mass media and lobbyists. I get the impressions that their views on things then can drift away to strange lands, at least that would explain a lot about how the world is led.

Of course, I do not realy know how strange my views on things are. I use misc sources and debates such as TOD to "anchor" them in reality. A sad thing about that is that a 0 feedback article perhaps accomplishes much more then writing with feedback such as this forum or other with more nutty people then sane. TOD has better signal/noise ratio then most. But it is said and I think it its true that the thankless work is important for winning the election. I might be spoiled by the direct feedback on the net.

Your work to get something good built probably do more good then what is apparant when you campaign.  Try and try again. Perhaps you can also figure out better ways of getting it done, that is what I try myself when my political opponents have a good idea or get something to work.