In the coming months and years, Peak Oil is sure to dominate the headlines, especially during supply shocks the likes of Hurricane Katrina. On October 17, USA Today did an admirable job of canvassing the issue. Interestingly, they quickly pulled their lead article on Peak Oil off the internet features. By mid-day it was nowhere to be found except in the Print Version and, to the best of my knowledge, no letters or editorials were published in response to the article. Anybody smell Big (Oil) Money?
In any event, Peak Oil offers an excellent venue for raising awareness of the impropriety of economic growth in a full-world economy. The Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy offers the following template for those who have an opportunity to reply to Peak Oil overviews in their local or regional papers: http://steadystate.org/Letters/LetterPeakOilEditorial.html The major points: 1) Peak Oil may itself constitute the limiting factor for economic growth. 2) More importantly, if alternative energy sources are developed to an extent that would authorize continued economic growth, the very same sectors that currently operate (via oil) at the expense of biodiversity and ecological integrity will continue to do so (via alternative energy sources). Thus the identification of economic growth as the real 800-pound gorilla in the domestic policy arena... Cheers, Brian Czech, President Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy WWW.STEADYSTATE.ORG Sign the position on economic growth at: http://steadystate.org/PositiononEG.html
