On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 2:56 PM, Jim Devine <[email protected]> wrote: > Eugene Coyle wrote: >> Many on the left have made the incorrect conclusion that "peak >> oil" advocates are also leftists. My own judgement is that most are >> apolitical. What the rest are is difficult to discern. > > the political impact of impending "peak oil" is extremely ambiguous, > so I'd bet that people predicting (or even hoping for) peak oil would > be found all across the political spectrum. It could cause humanity to > wake up and decide to drop oil as a source of energy. Or it could > cause the fall of existing nation-states, leading to civil wars, wars > between countries, revolutions, etc. Those could go either way, toward > right-wing or left-wing politics. Likely, I'd guess, the results would > go in a right-wing direction because of the austerity that would > likely be required (imposing extra taxes and the like on working > people).
Yeah, in terms of the reality: it is worth remembering that arguments about peak oil are about timing not about whether it will happen. There is a finite amount of oil on this planet. Well before we have tapped the last barrel we will have tapped the last economically feasible barrel. Well before we tap that oil production will peak and decline. We really don't know when that will happen, but there is no reason to think the most optimistic estimates of 2030 or 2040 are the best guesses. A lot mainstream elites are now guessing 2015 or 2020. They are not necessarily right either, but at least the precautionary principle means that it is worth taking into consideration the possibility they might be right. Also worth remember. Peak oil does not mean zero oil. It is a peak of production, with oil continuing to be produced for decades, but less every year. So when people list the stuff dependent on oil like food and machine and engine lubricants, it is worth remembering that as oil gets scarcer if we have starting shifting stuff that is easy to shift (like freight) off oil, that we will have enough time to do some of the hard stuff even after peak oil hits. But that is probably not true if we do nothing or minimal stuff until then. Both for global warming reasons, and for the substantial possibility of peak oil soon we really do need to start getting off fossil fuels as quickly as possible. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
