Where Do We Go From Here?

In the last year, the idea of peak oil has gone from paranoid conspiracy theory to topic of mainstream debate. Books, articles and blogs have proliferated; “peak oilers” are now an international subculture; and energy depletion is slowly seeping into the general consciousness, even if most of society remains ignorant of the true magnitude of the problem and the severity of its consequences.

Most mainstream debate at the moment still focuses on the question of whether peak oil is even real or if it is imminent. As long as harebrained theories of unlimited “abiotic” oil (always conveniently coupled with a denial of global warming) are given equal time with serious experts who have real, data-supported doubts about the world oil production peak, there will likely remain a general social paralysis. Inertia is powerful, and given the opportunity, most people will choose to believe almost anything, no matter how fanciful or ridiculous, rather than face the grim reality of society slowly losing its vital fluid.

But what is to be done with the facts of Peak Oil once they are understood and accepted? Advice to individuals rarely amounts to more than “buy gold, conserve energy, and look for a self-sustaining community to move to.”

To be sure, some progressives (notably at Daily Kos) are working on serious energy policy proposals, though the scope of their work is necessarily limited to the most obvious questions of energy demand and supply (conserve, build more efficient cars, invest in renewables). But (as the Daily Kos writers admit) the problem of energy depletion is so all-encompassing that it is impossible for any one person or group of people to take in all the implications or possible outcomes of such a radical social change. Any serious discussion must include population growth, agriculture, suburban sprawl and urbanism, globalization, transportation of people and goods, etc. (not to mention the related problem of global climate change). The list becomes unwieldy very quickly.

What to focus on? The personal? The political? Should you buy an organic farm or join an “ecovillage”? Or purchase a hybrid and move closer to downtown? Invest in alternative energy or stock up on gold?

Maybe the questions we are asking are the wrong ones, for which answers have already become too pat. Understanding energy depletion in the framework of the rise and fall of civilizations promotes one kind of thinking. Looking at it as a technical problem puts forward another. Both, however, rely on unproven assumptions about what will and will not be possible. Maybe, in the end, an entirely different collective mindset is required, one which we have yet to discover; a mindset that reflects on the culture and its problems without rushing either to escape society or deny the severity of the crisis it faces. Before we scramble frantically to preserve the status quo or, conversely, rush to abandon the sinking ship of our civilization, maybe it is worth trying to define more precisely what we really might wish to preserve, and what can be abandoned.