Belief System

          My new novel of the post-oil future, World Made By Hand, is available at all booksellers. ____________________________________                         

      A friend asked me how come the public apparently grasps the reality of climate change but can’t seem to wrap its collective brain around the unfolding oil crisis.

        I'm not convinced that the public does grasp climate change. It's perceived, perhaps, as a background story to daily life, which goes on regardless. Are you even sure Hollywood didn't invent it -- and maybe some boob at Time Magazine is selling it as though it were really happening?

      Few have anything to gain by espousing denial of climate change. It's hard for most people to tell if they have been affected by it. It doesn't quite seem real. Those who actually make gestures in the face of it –- screwing in compact fluorescent lightbulbs, buying Prius cars -- end up appearing ridiculous, like an old granny telling you to fetch your raincoat and rubbers because a force five hurricane is organizing iself offshore, beyond the horizon.

     The public appears aggressively clueless about the peak oil story. They do not accept any threats to the motoring regime. The news media is surely not helping sort things out. I saw a remarkable display of ignorance on CNN last week when the new resident idiot-maniac Glenn Beck hosted Teamster Union boss James Hoffa and they agreed that the oil companies were to blame for high fuel prices. To put it as plainly as possible, Beck doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about, and it's disgraceful that CNN gives free reign to this moron to misinform the public. It's perhaps equally amazing that Hoffa doesn't know we have entered a permanent global oil crisis based on demand having outrun supply. These two idiots think that if Exxon-Mobil built a new refinery down in Louisiana, everything would be fine, diesel fuel would go back down to 99 cents a gallon, and it would be Christmas every morning.

      This has been a pretty remarkable month, actually, with all the problems of "The Long Emergency" accelerating impressively. Oil is now testing the $120 mark, the airline industry is imploding (largely over fuel costs), the housing scene has reached a degree of collapse unseen since the 1930s, food shortages have strayed out of the Third World and begun to affect Japan and the USA, bats are dying of a mysterious disease in the Northeast, and the Arctic sea ice is shrinking away to nothing.

     We're in a strange collective psychic bubble. We'd like to forget about all these troubling rumors of hardship and bad weather and just get on with the daily task of making a living and paying for stuff and enjoying our customary entertainments. The comforting ceremonies of everyday life seem to continue. The freeways are still full of cars. Nancy Grace comes on TV dependably at 8 p.m. and is there deploring the latest pervert arrest. The baseball season has ramped up and the teams are criss-crossing the nation in their chartered airplanes. The stock market is actually going up -- what's wrong with that?

       But there's an equally eerie vibe out there that things are seriously out-of-whack. We're on the edge of something. We're at the entrance of a dark passage where some of the ceremonies of daily life meet resistance. You go to the WalMart and five of your six credit cards are refused. Uh oh. It begins to dawn on you that you're spending a quarter of your take-home pay filling up the gas-tank every week. There's no dial tone when you pick up the telephone. How could all the supermarkets in town be out of rice? The local hospital just declared bankruptcy. The neighbors down the street auctioned off all their furniture in the driveway last week. Why does the cat pick up so many ticks these days?

        Events are not through with us this year. They'll keep moving where they will whether we believe in them or not. I'm hardly even convinced that it matters who wins the presidential race this year. It could end up being the world's biggest booby prize.  

Comments

[DanaJ]

WTF? Previewed then posted and was posted twice? Hey Jimmy, better check with your Typopad people to see what happing.

[oneEyeOpen]

Fudge sez:

"Everywhere, things are the same. Energy is getting more expensive. More homeless, foreclosed, evicted hungry former middle-class people with their kids and a few possessions crammed into their SUVs. Food banks everywhere are stressed and empty."

No problem. they can sell some of that $1000.00 gold they purchased for $892.00. Oooops! That can't be right. Gold is down from its 1000 plus range? Oh, well...whatever. Let them eat cake? Nah, too expensive.

[peakoilmom]

Things are escalating faster than perhaps even Jim thought they would!

Still, I must say it makes me uncomfortable to throw climate change into the mix with peak oil. The more I've read on the issue, the more skeptical I've become about "man" being the main driver of climate change. But the more I read about peak oil and resource depletion, the more convinced I am of that.

Maybe I am having a disconnect?
Anyway, resource depletion concerns me much more than climate change.

Was talking to a friend of mine, who always maintains a sunny outlook, and I asked him if rice was missing from store shelves in his area. He said it didn't concern him much, because he didn't eat much rice. He also advised me that now would be a good time to get back into real estate, as prices are depressed.

The blinders are still on.

[DanaJ]

Anyway, forgot to finish my post before I hit post (needed that 2nd cuppa joe).
The parts of town being repo'd are all new developments that were selling for $500k+ 3 years ago, now they can't give the places away for %350k, talk about being upside down in a mortgage! And the Mzizz pointed out that that may have been the last monster truck ralley we ever hear, next year gas will be too expensive for the freaking FANS to be able to afford to go, even if they give away the tickets (someone PAYS to goto that?).

[Yeoman_Lawyer]

In a way, the dichotomy if thought may be a good thing. Addressing climate change requires some thought, or at least some agreement that things need to be done.

Peak oil, on the other hand, requires no thought. If we are there, we're there. Reaction to it will come because we are there. Reacting to it, of course, requires thought, but the thought that will come will be fact driving, as you can't easily deny that things are pricey.

[Yeoman_Lawyer]

To add to my last comment, another aspect of acceptance or recognition is that most human beings judge current events based on past ones. That's why there was a period about two years ago when the war in Iraq was continually compared to the war in Vietnam, even though they do not resemble each other whatsoever in terms of region, position, force size, etc.

In terms of oil, Americans who are 40 years old or over have the experience of having lived through something that seems very similiar, as they lived through the pricey oil era of the mid 70s, which also saw rampant inflation. This looks a lot like that. That being the case, they'll also remember that prices collapsed after a while, and new era of cheap oil came in.

Younger Americans do not remember that, but they do recall that prices were a lot cheaper two years ago.

Now, we can all show that this is a new era, and prices are highly unlikely to decline. But that's arguing against historical recollection. That doesn't mean this argument is wrong, but for average people, who have no advanced understanding of these topics, a certain resistance to this argument isn't insane or stupid, it simply squares with their experience.

[Laura Louzader]

How can the public get its arms around peak oil, when the term never passes the lips of leading environmentalists?

I have never once heard St. Al Gore refer to peak oil, nor any of the other environmental leaders. Nor have these people made any adjustments in thier own lives that would suggest that they have any awareness of it.

At this time, most of the folk out there believe that the crusade for reduced consumption is merely a plot on the part of the privileged to reserve all resources for themselves, and that the escalating fuel prices are due to the manipulation of the oil prices.

I have never believed in force, but it is probably going to take draconian conservation measures, applicable to everyone, to reduce consumption to levels that are in line with our probable supply and that will permit us to keep our most important systems, like our emergency response, and basic power and public transportation for everyone, going in the face of declining supplies. We are acting way too late for gradual measures to make a difference in our consumption, or for the market to work to trigger the massive changes in people's habits necessary to reduce consumption by 50% or more.

The next president, whoever that will be, will either have to apply draconian measures, such as strict rationing of fuel in combination with drastic slashing of highway funding to divert funds to supporting public transit and rail transit. Whatever measures are taken, they will be politically very unpopular, but they will be the only alternative to unaffordable prices, numerous spot shortages and rolling brownouts, and widespread civil disorder.

A studio condo on the lakefront and a fishing rod look better all the time.

[dale]

The essence of JHK's position is contained in the conviction that, as he put it in a recent article regarding oil supply, 'the way down will be a lot more sudden and rocky then the way up'. That has to occur for his POV to have merit. His argument can be summarized as: 'Current growth in use is intersecting with current loss of supply at such a dramatic rate some sort of implosion is imminent.' Well.....yes, that would be true if it were not for the interaction of another variable, price.

Price historically has two effects.

First, an increase in supply. Now...before anyone suggests that an increase is impossible in the current environment let me say that I agree...conditionally. The conditions are that price will tend to mitigate supply declines by reactivating previously marginal supply sources. This is pretty much “Commodities 101”. Given the fall in major oil field production any serious increase in supply is probably not going to occur, BUT...price/supply effect will tend to mitigate against JHK's thesis of the 'sudden and rocky slope'.

The second effect of price is a decrease in demand. There are a number of articles in the press lately that JHK would likely consider signs of the impending apocalypse. Those articles describe the phenomenon of exurb housing prices declining faster than housing nearer to job centric areas and the bust in SUV ownership. These signs of decreasing demand are occurring at gasoline price levels lower than I would have suspected. These are signs of the “flexibility” I have mentioned before and IMO, are good signs. As prices increase there will be a further and potentially dramatic migration to vehicles using other sources (or initially less oil) and a further migration away from long commute distances and generally unsustainable vehicle usage. As many here are fond of detailing, the imbalances in some of these areas are currently so absurd that cutbacks here could be quite dramatic. The effect on Joe Gastoy's lifestyle will not be pretty, or painless, but I don't foresee our government invading Saudi Arabia to give Joe a hand. They haven't been that interested in Joe's happiness before now and I don't see that changing.

To make a long story short, some of the conditions that JHK finds so threatening, or telling, are also telling to me, but in exactly the opposite way. DRAMATIC changes in American lifestyles are not only something which must occur, they are something which can occur in a relatively smooth manner, as long as oil prices rise slowly. Whether this effect is “relatively smooth” or an “apocalypse” probably will depend somewhat on your individual frame of reference and lifestyle.

Fortunately, the effects of supply and demand (and price) are likely to insure that the rise will be slow enough for society to muddle through. That surely will not please those seeking “oil-based rapture”, or sell a lot of books, (sorry Jim) but it is the most likely outcome.

[williedigital]

"There is such a disconnect from what we are seeing from really is and like you said, the feeling is palpable."

I don't know about that. It's still almost impossible to find a parking spot at whole foods on the weekend here--supposedly one of the most foreclosure ridden areas of the nation. It's not like personal financial issues are a new phenomenon--a slightly worse economy is not going to make the difference between solvency and insolvency for most people who are poor handlers of their personal finances.

[FARfetched]

«Few have anything to gain by espousing denial of climate change.»

JHK: Say *WHAT*???

It should be obvious that anyone who produces CO2 (or other greenhouse gases), as a side-effect of making money, has something to gain by ignoring climate change. Energy companies want to sell fossil fuel. Factory owners want to avoid taking the hit to clean up their pollution. Generally Motionless, Fnord, and Crapler all want to keep producing high-margin gas guzzlers; it doesn't cost that much more to make a Dummer than a hybrid econobox, but they make a bunch more money on the larger vehicle.

Even at current gas prices, J6P doesn't want to have to stop driving. He doesn't want to give up his manly-man vehicle either. Planet Georgia has a law that allows the state to yank your license for a drive-off (w/o paying for gas); they have posters stuck to all the gas pumps to warn about it. One of them (quickly removed, amazingly) was a picture of a bicycle and the caption "Drive off without paying for your gas, and this might be your next vehicle." — As if it's uncool to ride a bike? Jeeeeeeeeeez.

You're right about the eerie vibe though, despite the media's best efforts to ignore it. Mrs. Fetched (who gets her news from TV) was completely unaware about rice shortages in the US — the *US*!!! — until I told her about it. I've had that vibe for years (decades even), but most days even I don't feel it. People who are less self-aware may not notice it at all, beyond a vague concern that "things have got to change" while filling up the Suxpedition.

[Yeoman_Lawyer]

"How can the public get its arms around peak oil, when the term never passes the lips of leading environmentalists?"

That's no surprise, however, as oil peaking is not an environmental problem, per se. The reactions to it could be, but a decline in petroleum oil, and the accompanying rise in its price, likely equate with less use of it, which is an environmental plus.

I'm not suggesting that this means there's a conspiracy of silence on the topic by environmentalist, but I sure wouldn't expect them to come in and regard a decline in oil use as a bad thing.

What I'd more likely expect is an argument that it is inevitable, and that nows a good time to look for an environmentally acceptable replacement.

[Micah Pyre]

I'm sorry, but I don't understand the commenters who say (as does peakoilmom) that "the more they look at" global warming, the more they think it's not man-made.

What kind of idiocy fuels such thought and statement?

Here's a simple clue for peakoilmom and the other "skeptics" (better said, eedjit disbelievers) --

Because of our atmospheric system, the Earth is a closed environment. It may be vaster than peakoilmom can envision, but it remains a closed system. So in order to understand global warming, you have to imagine a smaller closed system.

Go into a small car, one the size of a MiniCooper. Take 3 friends with you. Make sure you've all eaten legumes several hours before hand.

Shut yourselves in the car, put the vent system on recirculate/closed, and roll up and close all the windows to the outside.

Spend the night in there. Smoke cigarettes like a chimney. Pee and shit in there too.

Now after 24 hours have passed, try to tell me that the microcosm of the MiniCooper's interior space hasn't been affected in any way by all the fluid and gaseous emissions produced by the four occupants.

This is a mini-model of the effects of man's industrial and post-industrial use of the natural world.

You can't keep emitting crap into the ecosystem and expect the system to "repair itself." It just doesn't happen. It cannot happen. This is basic systemic science, it is a fundamental point of supra-organismal biology.

The only way to be a "skeptic" on global warming is to be a scientific ignoramus.

[Jason]

I love the story about the choir director in San Francisco leading followers to pray for cheaper gas. Talk about weird vibe. I've been making my way through JHK's World made by Hand with mild interest—it turns out fiction is less interesting that reality these days. Had Jim included something like the 'praying for cheap gas' choir director in his book, I would have thought, "Okay Jim, now you've jumped the shark with this one–-that's just too crazy, even for fiction".

[moo]

Another great post, Jim.

Of interesting note to all here is that that there is more and more pumping in the media and business of improving energy efficency of cars, houses, etc. There is an interesting view of that behavior that suggests such resource efficieny improvements will actually accelerate the demise of civilization unless certain constraints are baked into it that void whatever economic gains that are to be had through using CFL, hybrids, etc. The arguments center on Jevons Paradox and the lastest study on the subject can be found at amazon; Jevons Paradox: The Myth of Resource Efficency Improvements.

Turns out that those of us who use CFL, drive Prius', and generally utilize energy efficient technological, increase demand within the economy by recycling the economic gains realized from the efficiency gains. This increases energy consumption, increase production and increase emmissions. The Paradox also, funny enough, is found in almost everything from word processing to the use of tasers in law enforcement. Even those that live frugally compound the problem by decreasing demand which in turn, lowers price, which in turn reveals a new layer of demand fueling an upward push on consumption of energy and resources. Apparently, the paradox is governed by the laws of thermodynamics and regardless of what energy we use, the paradox is always there.

In attempting to understanding the corollary between Peak Oil and Climate change, I have to admit I am suspicious of Peak Oil. I question the timing of the two phenomena as Peak Oil is coming on precisely as climate change is dictating reductions in use of fossil fuel energy. The question is why, precisely, are fossil fuel in decline at roughly the point when emmissions need to be reduced to avert catastrophe. Why does fossil energy peak now instead of 200 or 500 years down the road but precisely at the point when scientisits are calling for intense reductions.

The scientific understanding of climate change is, at least, based on consensus even if there is considerable uncertainity about it. On the other hand, there is no systematic undertaking to analyse oil reserves and open that information up to public and scientific scrutiny. Since oil is private property of oil companies and countries and there is no third party auditing of reserves then it would easy to maninuplate and falsify the data. Furthermore, it would be far easier to engineer black propaganda such as a Peak Oil concept in light of the fact that the data is suspect.

From a social management perspective, if burning fuels is creating a serious, serious problem, and wide spread transformation of society must occur with the minimum of energy and resource expended, then there needs to a narrative constructed for the masses that is coherent and instructional, that explains in simple terms, the rationale underlying the change. If the story line read that there was an abundance of oil but we had to stop using for something so abstract like climate change, then then there would be wholesale resistence to it as domesticated animals are typically very myopic and short sited. Moral arguments are always weak.

The equalibrium created between Peak Oil and Climate change is remarkable and probably fabricated to overcome resistence to abandoning (or constraining) fossil energy use. I question that it is coincidential and may not be pure social engineering.

When I see that industries like Boeing having orders to build 700 new Dreamliners in the coming decades and I suspect that they have highly qualified analysts and access to the highless levels of power and military intellegience, I sustpect they have a leg up and know that fossil energy is not going to be in short supply, its just going to a case of who gets to use it and who does not. With cars and homes , the goal is to wean the general public off fossil energy, but continue to use it to power critical infrastructure like air travel, manufacturing, military needs etc. For every gallon we don't burn, space is freed up within the acceptable emmission load.

Further thoughts about the social transformation taking place is that the destruction of the middleclass (highly cosumptive lifestyles, managerial and professional classes require considerable surpluses to support their activities - surpluses require large energy inputs and technological inputs to achieve) might also be attemtps to re-engineer society by creating new narratives (housing collapse, etc) that rationalize declining living standards (which correlate to declining energy inputs) as the product of mysterious forces such as globalization, wall street greed, etc.

Something is up for sure, just what remains to be seen. If history tells us anything, it is that the narratives of the day are largely false and that they are written for reasons other then what we think.

[Schizoid]

RE: "We're on the edge of something. We're at the entrance of a dark passage where some of the ceremonies of daily life meet resistance."

Yes indeed. Overpopulation has led to peak oil, peak water, peak land, peak food and peak everything else.

As a result, stronger nations will escalate their aggressive plundering of the natural resources remaining within the boarders of weaker nations.

These resource wars will soon solve Earth's overpopulation problem.

[Uncle Remus]

"Something is up for sure, just what remains to be seen. If history tells us anything, it is that the narratives of the day are largely false and that they are written for reasons other then what we think."

And there you have it - the crux of the biscuit.

[Johnny Rico]

Jesus, you people are making my head spin.

There's worse things than peak-oil and climate change.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/28/business/media/28hannah.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[Uncle Remus]

"There's worse things than peak-oil and climate change."

What, like no one paying attention? Or giving a rats ass? Or obsessing about the size of the bullet at their execution?

W.T.F.

[Johnny Rico]

Or Rush Limbaugh calling for riots in Denver? Or a half-eaten Obama waffle selling for $10,000 on eBay.

Dale might be right, the laws of supply and demand and the price of oil going up "slowly" will make everything alright :)

[LaughingAsRomeWasBurningDown]

another addition to the CFN soundtrack:

Superpower Dreamland by Warrior Soul

We come through the windows
We bust down the door
We cut through the ceilings
And pop up from the floor
The children are angry
And they come pouring in
We're searching for justice
From our governments
In every face in this place
I see trouble
In every face in this place
I see trouble
Let's rumble
We tear down the paintings
We tear down the sculpture
You call it destruction
But that's what you taught us

Busted dreamland
The country rots
This is your payback
For three trillion bucks
In every face in this place
I see trouble
In every face in this place
I see trouble
If any pigs outside
Do not hide we will rumble
In every face in this place
I see trouble
Let's rumble
Superpower dreamland
Superpower dreamland
You're livin' in a dreamland
A superpower dreamland

[Uncle Remus]

The demand for heads on a pike hasn't come anywhere near the suitable supply...

[oneEyeOpen]

MIcha-dolt sez:

"Because of our atmospheric system, the Earth is a closed environment."

Not true, genius. If this were so the sun's radiation would have no effect on earth as a closed system would prevent the entry of radiation. It would also prevent the entry of asteroids which many believe were the causal reason for the extinction of dinosaurs.

Futhermore your four people shitting, smoking etc. in a car is a ridiculous example as it does not account for the cleansing phenomena provided by natural processes. Nice try at educating the "eedgits" ,fuckhead, but you have failed miserably.

[Uncle Remus]

Next...

[Johnny Rico]

The stock market going up the last month means little. Just like when it was "crashing" previous to that and everybody including JHK was going apeshit.

It's a measure of what investors feel are the expected future earnings of a bunch of companies in some indexes.

Let's wait for the 1st quarter GDP numbers on Wednesday. The consensus is 0.3%. Last quarter was 0.6%.

That means no recession so far. And there might still be a long way to go.

The market is down maybe %3 on the year. It's only April.

[Lurkerlu]

"If history tells us anything, it is that the narratives of the day are largely false and that they are written for reasons other then what we think."

Indeed. How easily we accept the stories we're told is the single most depressing aspect of the human species. You'll know that the ruling elite have figured out precisely how they wish to manipulate us proles with the situation when we start having Live Peak Oil concerts.