The Oil Drum

and your closing remarks...
 She, apparently gave the best end speech that some had heard, and functioned very effectively in being MC, and since I did not hear the speech, and missed her movie twice now, I thought a little extra recognition would be fair.

I keep hearing that, and I assume us TOD folks will be given a chance to read her speech, and where to find it....and I do hope you took my very innocent remark as good natured teasing you on the subject, your admiration of her is obvious, and in that, it is shared, I have read as many of her words as I can easily find, and she comes across as clever, well informed, logical in her thinking, but avoids the dark trap of "woes me, nothing can be done", all around a very interesting and pioneering woman of intellectual greatness...(by the way, remember the days on the school yard when us guys teased each other, "Billy likes Suzy!", and you later found they were just teasing from envy....because they would have  enjoyed being in your place getting to speak to her..., guys, we never grow up....:-)

On a much more philosophical note....(important text ahead..)
Your remark...
<Bill McKibben, Pat Murphy and those others who said that investing in technology is a waste of time, got me irritated, and less inclined to listen to what they were saying. As Governor Schweitzer said "if you showed up at the meeting, you were part of the problem!" (Because you used energy to get there). We have to find new ways of doing things, and new technologies.>

This is SO MUCH at the center of the philosophical issue of energy depletion....and resource depletion/environmental degradation, that I have argued it with fellow "depletion/degradation" aware friends and thinkers many times:

There seems to be two ways in which "Peak Oil" or "Resource Depletion" are viewed:
(a)  "Thank Heaven, the filthy, consumptive, greedy rich and fat society is doomed, the collapse is finally here!  The Industrial age with it's dirty dangerous factories, mass produced cars and plastics and household goods, and jet set speeds are not humane, and they are an affront to nature and real humane sustainability.
The oil and gas is running out.  Get rid of IT...the luxury, the modernity, the wealth, and back to a simpler age, more in tune with nature, and the first that should go is THE CAR, the hated car, it is that evil machine that has done this to us, but it IS OVER. There will be no technical fix, and there SHOULD BE NO TECHNICAL FIX.  Trying to save this culture is DOOMED, and we are free of the capitalist, consumerist, CAR culture at last!
The whole culture, built around THE CAR is corrupt, it is a foul and a bad system that IS FINISHED."
(this seems to be very common here on TOD)

or,
(b) "We have a problem.  Resources used to maintain our current standard of living and current view of freedom, mobility and culture, and the environmental damage done by the current system are not sustainable, and we consume resources faster than they can be replaced, and damage environments faster than nature can repair them.
We must move now to try to maintain our culture by attempting to use our options, our resources and our imaginations to move our culture to a sustainable basis.  These will be very big changes, and major sacrifice will be needed, along with use of design, engineering and organizational skill to change our current system and modify it to reduce consumption, operate much cleaner, waste much less and reuse and recycle much more.  Used carefully, there are enough resources to retain our culture and our ideas of reasonable well being, mobility and security for the world's people, but only if we are very careful and very inventive in the path we take.  But we can rebalance our consumption, broaden our options, enhance real democracy and enhance our culture with a more civil community and artful lifestyle, and explore design, humane and people oriented science, and cultural organization not yet even dreamed of, IF we make the effort NOW. "

Notice the difference?

Option (a) does not see the situation as "Our culture has a problem" but instead sees it as "Our culture IS THE PROBLEM.
Peak Oil is just one of the greatest events to be seen as a tool to finish what is viewed as a corrupt and evil culture that should not be saved, and any attempt to do so simply extends a scourge (call it Industrialism, call it Western-ism, call it Capitalism, call it Modern Technical Society, it doesn't matter...) that must be removed.  It is the "modern consumer capitalist technical culture that has held mankind back from achieving "true culture", or "community values" or "spiritual values" or....nirvana?

Option (b) takes the view that Industrial Modernism and technology, for all it's faults (and it surely has many) is well worth saving.  It has lowered misery, enhanced choice, attempted to reach democratic values for as many as possible, and freed humans to enjoy quality, art, culture, communication and transportation, and provided a widely varied and interesting existence to the people it has touched.  It views technology as not only useful but as art form, and that the exploitation of resources was and in some way will always be a crucial and needed part of expanding mankind's achievement, meaning, and variety of life on Earth.
It is a culture that must change, yes, a culture that must improve it's abilities to be sustainable, and to much MUCH better husband it's resources if it wants to continue broadening mankind's choices, freedom and well being, but that it is a culture well worth saving, a culture that provides it's own unique brand of human community, art, quality, and yes, even embodies the spiritual quest to bring mankind closer to the Creator, as man joins in the creation process.  We have only now began to travel down the road to real, humane modernism.
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I beg you to notice that neither of the above options mention "specific" technologies or techniques.  No mention of solar, wind, nuclear, coal to liquids, gas to liquids, corn to fuel, or for that matter, no mention of return to horses and subsistence farming.
Take notice that neither of the above options have any outside sources, as far as where to get the technology, what technology is mathematically proven, what options are tested by the government.

This is because neither of the above options are "scientific".  We are not talking about "means to an end" but about "meaning" itself.

We are not talking about what is "doable" but instead about what is "desirable".  

In fact, we are looking at two aesthetic choices.  Both recognize the serious, perhaps catastrophic, effects of resource depletion.  Both recognize the serious, perhaps catastrophic issues of environmental degradation.  Both acknowledge the need for IMMEDIATE AND GREAT CHANGE.  Both admit to the need for sacrifice, perhaps great sacrifice.  

So how do they differ?  In the goals.  One sees a culture not worth saving, in which resource depletion and environmental degradation become almost "tools" to speed the death of what is viewed as an evil and diseased culture.

The other sees a great, perhaps the greatest, culture facing a crisis.
It feels and sees the art of the motorcar, the aircraft, the lit cities as one of the triumphs of human history.  It sees television, radio, the personal computer as the triumph of ages of sacrifice, leading to better living for the masses.  But it realizes that the consumption of resources to build and maintain this culture have been very high, and may not be sustainable at this level.  But the goal should be to try to salvage the art of the technical culture by using the tools of the technical culture....research, inventive use of materials, art, design, combinations of management, financial, and technical skills to improve our sustainability, to maintain a culture of prosperity, choice, inventiveness, and yes, mobility.

It is the debate above that determines the action we take:  Emotions become Thoughts.  Thoughts become words.  Words become actions.  And actions, in mass, become culture.

I once heard a historian say of the Fall of Rome, that the biggest single factor among all the factors that caused the event may have been "the lack of collective  will to save Rome."

So it may be for the "Modern" technical culture.

Go back to our two options.  Option (a) says essentially, "Modern technical culture cannot be saved, and even if we could save it, we should not."

Option (b) says, "Modern technical culture can be saved, partially by using the very tools that created modern technical culture, and if it can be saved, IT MUST BE SAVED.

Which of these two choices we side with will be moral and aesthetic decisions, not technical or "scientific" ones.  It is the GOAL that will construct the game.
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Now, I hope you see why I sign my work....

Heading Out, send the text above to Magen Quinn, I am always looking to score "brownie points"! ;-)

Roger Conner   known to you as ThatsItImout