Delusion and the Media

August 22, 2005
      Delusional thinking about oil was everywhere in the media last week -- as thick as advertising. Early in the week, Yahoo Finance ran a story with a headline (I paraphrase): "DOW Up Fifty Points as Oil Prices Plunge." The plunge they referred to was oil going from $63.90 a barrel to $63.30. Some plunge. This was after five days of oil ratcheting up out of the high $50s. (It ended the week around $65.)

     NPR's Marketplace show and a separate wire story piece on the web offered similar headlines (or lead-ins) which said (again I paraphrase) "US Economy No Longer Affected By Oil Prices." Of course, this is exactly the kind of magical thinking you'd expect to see in a public on extended leave from reality, despite the ubiquity of "reality television." The accepted idea is that since America outsourced most of its heavy industry to China and elsewhere, we now have an economy that runs just fine on Tic-tacs and Diet Pepsi, and oil is not in the picture anymore.

     Wrong. America consumes one-quarter of the world's daily production of 84 million barrels of oil. More than half of our share is burned in cars and trucks. In fact, our economy now amounts to little more than running 200 million motor vehicles around the suburban metroplexes in the service of ever more slapped-together McHousing developments, big box stores, and fried chicken huts. That's our economy. That's all we do anymore.

      The New York Times chimed in with a cover piece in its Sunday Magazine titled The Beginning of the End of Oil? by veteran journalist Peter Maas. It presented a story that has been around the Internet for more than a year, based on investment banker Matthew Simmons' frequent public speeches about the apparent weakness in the Saudi Arabian oil industry (which Simmons published in book form last month as Twilight in the Desert). Apparently the Times editors have been mulling over the oil story for months and months, wondering if there is anything to it, and perhaps the movement of oil prices into the $60-plus range finally prompted them to run with it.

     Maas's article is full of howling omissions and delusions. For one thing, Maas omits any serious reflection of the consequences of a global energy crisis, any specters of geopolitical blowback, or potential problems for America's non-negotiable easy-motoring way of life. That omission grows out of the delusional assumption that some magical market mechanism will conjure up a menu of just-in-time replacements for the vanishing oil. These are referred to as "alternative technologies," a term that points to a more fundamental delusion now rampant among the public, namely the mistaken belief that technology and energy are the same thing, that they are interchangeable, that you can substitute one for the other. Out of oil? Get new technology.

     Note to public: technology and energy are not the same things, and continuing to think that they are may place our civilization in jeopardy.

     The bottom line of the Times Sunday Magazine article is that they are still not convinced that global peak oil is for real, or that we necessarily ought to be worried about it, with all that "alternative technology" banging around out there in the innovational ethers of the magical market. They bring a magisterial cluelessness to the issue -- while the back pages of the Magazine are devoted to hawking the glitziest high-end products of the suburban housing bubble.

     Finally there was the Sunday Times' editorial, "Foolishness on Fuel," which was really about the editors own foolishness. It essayed to assert that America's oil problem was entirely a matter of vehicle fuel efficiency -- with the presumption that our problems would go away if only congress had the spine to mandate higher gas mileage figures from the car industry. The editorial completely failed to recognize that there was any problem with extreme automobile dependency itself, that maybe we should be making other arrangements -- say, walkable communities, or railroad service on par with what they have in Latvia, or local economies liberated from the despotism of WalMart.

      This week's performance by the media on oil issues shows how America will dissemble its way into a dark era.

Comments

[tom]

yes, belief in the power of the market to solve this is strong. see steven levitt's quick dismissal of peak oil on his blog at http://www.freakonomics.com/2005/08/peak-oil-welcome-to-medias-new-version.html

[Charles]

Just an FYI: Marketplace is not an NPR show. It's produced by something called American Public Media -- http://marketplace.publicradio.org/.

[speedbird]

Technology: words about making stuff. Probably gonna need some of that. Might even need some new and better ones.
Problem 1: it's not just something you can go and buy down the corner shop.
Problem 2: might actually need *less stuff*... that's a bit of a sticking point in an economy premised on continual growth.

[kd]

And the beat goes on. Thanks for the good post, Jim.

I like your insight that in these times of mass delusion, some of the most popular viewing on television are the so-called "reality" shows. Perhaps the biggest delusion of all is the quasi-mystical belief in the "self-correcting market" as the fountainhead of all science, technology, wisdom, & hope.

Ask the average college student what the "market" is. You'll get all kinds of answers. Do the same with "capitalism", & the same even "democracy". You'll be surprised at how juvenile many of the answers are. I've spoken with graduate students who think democracy & capitalism are the same thing. That capitalism is a political system. This, of course, is exactly what neocon ideologues want people to think.

In some very real sense, the infrastructure of the U.S. is one of the weakest on earth because of our near total oil/automobile dependency. That the magic of the "market" & "alternative technology" will keep us moving towards ever greater heights of prosperity--one nation under God with shopping & entertainment for all!--is belief in a fool's paradise.

[Bud Wiser]

Understanding and describing the effects of finite natural resources on a given conutry's economy and quality of life must be too difficult to write about for most newspaper journalists.

I find it difficult to grasp the kind of effect increasing petroleum costs will have on this culture as the rich and well-off will continue to treat petroleum consumption as a "fact-of-life" while the less well-to-do and poor see their ability to consume petroleum for necessities evaporate.

Has this particular aspect of declining petroleum consumption been discussed at length? Any links?

Thanks.
Bud

[Dave]

"any links ?"

Simply go to any of Marxists sites and/or do a google search on capitalists economics and growth or read Sweezy's books on Capitalist Development or read "Monopoly Capital" by Baran and Sweezy. Once you understand the basics it is easy to understand what JHK was referring to regarding deindustrialization of our continent, the debt bubble, the promotion of the cult of status mongering via consumption and finally how the whole damn mess will end- in barbarism, fascism and social collapse with elite reinstituting slavery, coersive violence, enforced ignorance (creationism anyone ?) responded too by equally violent and authoritarian leftist movements reminescent of the early Maoism from the 30's to the late 80's. In short a meltdown for at least the next fifty year when, if we are lucky, we'll come to our senses just in time to witness the release of the methane locked in the sea ice and then ...YOU TELL ME !

[davidog]

kd- nailed it. most folks i know believe capitalism is constitutionally mandated. they also believe in "the market" the way my 12 year old nephew believes in "the force."

apparently freedom is at least as much about money as it is about speech and association. taxation is thus a diminishment of freedom, as is regulation of business, even in the service of keeping air breathable and water drinkable; and government subsidy of public transportation is unfair meddling in the marketplace, at the expense of those courageous atlases of commerce who try not to shrug as they bear the burden of our liberty.

[speedbird]

kd -

I think if you ask the average college student for definitions of 'technology' and 'energy' you'll get a variety of answers... :-D

Hey, I did a degree in this stuff and I still hesitate to explain the difference between 'science' and 'technology'. And I break out into a cold sweat if the name 'Carnot' is mentioned.

Actually, I've noticed a pattern here amongst my 'professional' friends: the more you know about a subject, the less likely you are to be able to produce a simple answer to a 'simple' question...

As for the 'self-correcting market'... let's just say I looked up the word 'hegemony' for the first time today:

"the permeation throughout society of an entire system of values, attitudes, beliefs and morality that has the effect of supporting the status quo in power relations. Hegemony in this sense might be defined as an 'organising principle' that is diffused by the process of socialisation into every area of daily life. To the extent that this prevailing consciousness is internalised by the population it becomes part of what is generally called 'common sense' so that the philosophy, culture and morality of the ruling elite comes to appear as the natural order of things."

http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-gram.htm

[kd]

Great post, speedbird!
I'd never looked up hegemony either. Damn interestin'.
And illuminating.

[fightingdem]

Sadly, I think people as yourself (including me) are marginalized as "doomsday prophets" and will continue to be ignored.

[Sean Fay]

Did Steven Levitt eat paint chips when he was a child? Regardless, it must be nice to live in his world, where the most serious problems will be mitigated by the market.

[Syltty]

"Technology: words about making stuff. Probably gonna need some of that. Might even need some new and better ones.
Problem 1: it's not just something you can go and buy down the corner shop."

Why not? Cutting consumption to half is just that easy for most of americans: just drive that old fuelhog to scrap yard and buy smaller, more efficient diesel car.

Fuel conservation is easey. All you need is railroads, mass transit, walkways etc. The problem is that people just don't want to do it. It is just so nice to drive air conditioned big car on freeway and using mass transit sucks. We will see european consumption levels in US after oil price has been 6$ / gallon.

[ross]

As Voltaire said about common sense,
"Common sense is not so common." Hegemony in his time was of course best exemplified through the domination of the church.

Jim, keep chronicling the denial, delusion, and unbridled sophistry of our media as it pertains to the end of the age of oil. In some strange way your jeremiads at their best act as a balm, and your regular posts will suffice for posterity that someone was publicly monitoring (on a weekly basis no less) the idiocy in much the same way that Doug Noland over at PrudentBea monitors the U.S. financial system as it wantonly hurtles towards collapse.

If this is the year of the Peak in global oil production, then the worm is about to turn in many ways, and we may look back with a hint of wisfulness at all the sort of nonsense that Jim
discussed in his latest post. Well, as Voltaire also said (at the end of Candide), "we must cultivate our garden." Hopefully that will be possible.

[Don in Colorado]

Hey, no problem, Jim.

When the oil gets scarce we'll just try to figure out how to melt it out of rocks in the western U.S.

That's what we'll base the future of industrial society on -- trying to melt asphalt gunk out of rocks.

[Mewsician]

I hesitate to write this since I'm not nearly as informed as many regulars here on the topic of oil....BUT. This being America (at least, it still is at this writing anyway), I'll take the plunge and then await my lumps for saying what I think.

I didn't find the NY Times piece to be nearly as objectionable as Kunstler paints it. I thought the writer did a decent job of putting the whole of the current situation into a very accessible, reader-friendly piece. Remember: newspapers, even the heavy hitters like the NYT, are designed for a general-readership audience. Which means that articles like these are not, in cases like this one, intended as a white paper or full-blown academic analysis for reading by experts in the topical field. It didn't appear to me that Maas's intention ever was, as Kunstler suggested it should have been, to provide "...any serious reflection of the consequences of a global energy crisis, any specters of geopolitical blowback, or potential problems for America's non-negotiable easy-motoring way of life." Rather, I believe Maas was merely attempting to bring into greater public view some details that, as Kunstler says, have been floating around the Internet for a year. Unfortunately, this is America c. 2005, wherein the general public takes at least a year to get onto stories that matter, if they bother to do so at all, in large part because of their lack of curiosity about ANYTHING that matters - saving their inquisitive efforts for such weighty matters as missing white kids in Aruba. Not everyone reads the Internet, either (especially not the many excellent parts), and not everyone takes the time so many posters here do to acquaint themselves with the complexities of the oil markets. For my part, I think Maas has done a very good job - using VERY reader-friendly narrative - of bringing to light the sort of things that your average, grossly incurious and uninformed American needs to be waking up to as far as their miserable oil dependency is concerned. I especially enjoyed hearing the back story from high-ranking Saudi officials who dare to counter the kingdom's party line - however mildly. Far from being the disaster Kunstler makes it out to be, I thought the piece was excellent and informative and it will encourage me to buy books by Maas and others mentioned in the text and learn more about the almost-certain disaster awaiting us in this country. I hope many others in the "general readership" category pick it up and read it, as well.

[JB2]

Brilliant post, Jim.

I've been avoiding the NYT article because I knew it would just make me angry; maybe I can tackle it now with a sense of humor.

I did take the time to look at the Freaknomics guy's blog - what at dunce.

And speaking of delusional thinking, we had quite the double feature here in Southeast Michigan over the weekend - a huge NASCAR race and the Woodward "Dream Cruise".

[Bikeguy]

It's interesting...I've been reading quite a bit about peak oil in the last year or so.But just recently I've noticed more articles in paper format.Heck, Sundays Oregonian had a big article in their commentary section, in which they name drop JHK. And 2 weeks prior there was an article on the proposal of an LNG terminal for the lower Columbia river. Wow!
But heh...there's no problem.

This peak oil problem is like a black panther that creeps up in the night only to pounce on the blissfully unaware.
I think it's time for the suberb dwellin',Escalade drivin', plastic wielding consumers in this country to pull their heads out of their Mcnugget bags and realize that their REALLY IS a problem.
(and everyone else too)
GREAT POSTS people!

[moevis]

More than anything else, Americans will not accept reality. (Thanks, Jim for trying to slap sense into people - those of us here are trying to at least understand).I'm afraid, however, the pickups & SUVs will continue down the highway at 85 until the oil equivalent of 9/11 happens. And then they'll be mad. Lashing out instead of introspection will occur. As a HS teacher, the number of young people aware of our coming shitstorm is near zilch.When the kiddies realize that McD's and BK wages won't allow them to afford fuel for their bitchin Mustangs, we won't need a draft - these video gamers will literally want blood for oil. Who knows, maybe our faith based administration is banking on this as the carrot for fighting over there...Bush can only press the 9/11 button a few more times.

BTW - kd, I've been away from my computer, but I teach in Western NY. Thanks for your excellent posts.

[Mewsician]

JB2 - you might want to read the piece and remember it for what it's supposed to be: GENERAL READERSHIP INFORMATION. I for one am glad Maas put it together the way he did - though it is seemingly dispassionate and apolitical, I think it does an excellent job of making the case for "our side."

[Thayer]

I'd have to say that just because our current society is organized around big boxes, mcmansions, and SUVs doesn't mean we are collectively so witless as to be unable to try something else. True, waiting in the heat for buses which don't go particularly near one's uncooled mcmansion won't be wonderful for a lot of folk but in the mean time others will adapt and prosper. Maybe there'll be internet-enabled hybrid diesel jitney services powered by google maps? Maybe small farms will grow food locally, using said jitney services and internet for very efficient delivery? I do think once we start to think in terms of maximizing energy efficiency some truly astonishing conservation is possible.

I prefer not to underestimate the power of at least a few people to devise workable solutions. The kind of disruptive change Jim envisions is comparable to the social reconfiguration America underwent to defeat two enemies during WWII. In some ways we were at our best during that struggle. Personally I'm looking forward to living in a country where maximizing consumption is no longer the highest social ideal.

[Weaseldog]

This is great discussion.

Peak Oil went mainstream in May 1998 in a Scientific American article entitled, "The End Of Cheap Oil".

Quite a few articles jump from the pages of Nature or in those days, Scientific American, into the the daily paper's science sections.

That one didn't.

Peak oil is bad news. It's real reality, not faux reality. It's not happy. It doesn't limit it's impact to other people. It doesn't care about who get's kicked off the island. It doesn't care about what the top grossing movie of the week is.

The effects of the approach of Peak Oil are in our face, everytime we fill our gas tanks and everytime we purchase a product like milk, bread or a new plasma television.

So Peak Oil isn't a good media story. It doesn't entertain. And in the end, that's what the mass media is here for. It's designed to be entertainment. Even the so called hard hitting news shows are nothing but entertainment. They have an obligation to their advertisers and their viewers, not to report anything personal, that might offend viewers, or cuase them to switch channels.

So they have a corporate obligation to sugar coat news. To wrap it up in gooey sweetness. To make it a story about someone else, and to make it appear that all problems are someone else's problems.

So they preach that Peak Oil will be overcome by magical technology, invented by those magical elves working to make sure we can work and watch television. The sacharin coated promises is that the only reality we need experience, will be the voyueristic thrills of watching other people live in a contrived reality.

As to cutting consumption by 50% by dumping the brand new SUV and getting a fuel efficient diesel? It's estimated that the typical auto requires as much energy to manufacture, as it will consume in fuel, during it's lifetime. Replacing the US fleet of autos, with mopre fuel efficient versions, would take and waste a tremendous quantity of energy.

It's too late to do anything of substance to head this thing off. Corporate America has seen it coming for years and they've been preparing, while telling us, everything's fine.

It's like the crew of the Titanic, telling passengers to stay in their cabins.

Industry has been taking flight overseas to cheaper and more abundant energy supplies for decades, and few in the American public have taken note.

The lifeboats are mostly gone. We're left to ride this boat to whatever destination she's being sailed to.

Science is about understanding things. Technology is about doing them.

And technology creates energy, the same way that eating, creates food.

[Jon Husband]

"the permeation throughout society of an entire system of values, attitudes, beliefs and morality that has the effect of supporting the status quo in power relations. Hegemony in this sense might be defined as an 'organising principle' that is diffused by the process of socialisation into every area of daily life. To the extent that this prevailing consciousness is internalised by the population it becomes part of what is generally called 'common sense' so that the philosophy, culture and morality of the ruling elite comes to appear as the natural order of things."

Also know as Wealth Bondage (www.wealthbondage.com)

[Euthydemos in Athens]

Just wanted to throw this in the mix, but it was a very positive and surprising development from my perspective.

I attended a Georgia Academy of Economic Developer's training, sponsored by the GA Dept of Community Affairs. An entire afternoon, (of 5 full days training) was devoted to Smart Growth! Specifically, granny-flats, alley access, walkability, high density, mixed use variety, capped off by design standards and a sense of place. Jim, you would have been proud. I was agog! This training is mostly for small/rural county/city electeds, staffers and non-profits.

This came hot on the heels of another GA DCA training about urban revitalization, in which all the same themes were pounded relentlessly, with numerous effective powerpoint demos of "good growth" vs. "bad growth."

A recent study by Jeff Dorfman at the university of Georgia has pointed out that sprawl costs more in government services than it produces in property tax revenues. It is getting ALOT of play locally, even tho it is pretty obvious. It has hard numbers and it pretty hard to ignore.

After living and working here for 20 years, I never would have imagined that Georgia would ever produce anything but more sprawl.
Admittedly, Atlanta is a disaster, but the smaller outlying towns still have a change to manage their growth, and i am happy to see that they are beginning to "see the light." It will make my job much easier!

[Rebel Squirrel]

Syltty says:
Why not? Cutting consumption to half is just that easy for most of americans: just drive that old fuelhog to scrap yard and buy smaller, more efficient diesel car.

My old bucket of bolts gets about 23 miles per gallon (gasoline). If I could afford one of the new hybrid models that gets 50 mpg, I'd buy it in a heartbeat - but the price tag on those things is more than twice my annual salary, so I'm afraid it'll have to wait, at least as long as I keep eating.

Fuel conservation is easey. All you need is railroads, mass transit, walkways etc. The problem is that people just don't want to do it.

What you're talking about here is infrastructure. It would be nice. Last year I lived in a US west-coast city that had functional public transit, bicycle lanes, etc. I lived there for 8 years and was without a car for about 18 months of that - and I could get around. I currently live in a small city in northern New England and work in a town 22 miles from where I live. There is no bus and cycling 40+ miles a day is not something I'm physically capable of even in the good weather (let alone in winter.)

I'm looking for work closer to where I live because it currently costs me almost an hour's wages in fuel just to get to and from work, but jobs are not plentiful in these parts and you take what you can get.

We will see european consumption levels in US after oil price has been 6$ / gallon.

We will see impact on low-income workers long before that.

[isaiah]

good post JHK! i have also noticed the MSM's selective word use and article choices in describing oil. Jumps are either ignored or blamed on terrorism threats, political instability, or natural disasters, while declines are overemphasized.

kd, i also had a talk with a friend recently (who just returned from the Peace Corps in Kazakhstan) and he too initially argued that capitalism and democracy were somehow, if not the same or interwoven, at least dependent on each other. i was astonished he held such a naive position. anyway, i'm starting to lose faith in democracy in general (the tyranny of the majority) and feel i'm becoming more of a Libertarian, as our many of the fore-fathers were (though social justice and activism is still a big part of my life).