City of the Future

False Populism

As oil hits a record high at over $71 per barrel and gas hovers at $3.00 a gallon, the “price-gouging” meme is making a comeback.

It is true, of course, that oil companies make ridiculous amounts of money and that high gas prices make life difficult for many people. But the way that Democratic politicians insist on framing this issue is not only cynical but dangerous in the context of peak oil. Capitalizing on frustrations at the pump only serves to reinforce the notion that gas prices should inherently be low, and postpones the coming collective realization that we have made the catastrophic error of building a society on the assumption that a non-renewable resource was infinite.

The reality is that barring a massive, worldwide depression (and most likely not even in that case) the price of oil is never going to go down again to historically “cheap” levels. Even in the unlikely event that peak oil is not imminent, the relentless explosion of demand from China and India virtually guarantees ever-increasing energy prices.

A truly courageous politician would explain this to the American people; a wise politician would do everything in his or her power to help society radically reduce its consumption of oil and find alternatives. But the fact that neither party has the guts to even suggest that people might want to think twice before buying an S.U.V.—much less explain that globalization must be reversed, the national railroad system must be rebuilt, and cities must be redesigned to function to a great degree without cars—is a grim sign.

By failing to explain the real nature of our predicament and promoting pseudo-populist resentment, politicians who harp on “price-gouging” are in fact stoking the flames of what could be dangerous political unrest.

Bad Faith

In his recent essay “Apocalypse, not,” permaculture designer Toby Hemenway takes issue with peak oil “catastrophists”—those who believe that peak oil spells “the end of the world as we know it.”  Hemenway doesn’t doubt that peak oil is real; in fact he believes that worldwide depression and soaring unemployment will be an inevitable result of higher gas prices.  But, he says, “for every convert that Peak Oil’s doom-and-gloom extremism sweeps up, it alienates plenty of people who might otherwise climb down from their SUVs.”

In two previous peak oil essays, Hemenway provided a valuable perspective by questioning the common assumption that rural areas would be better places to live than cities in a post-peak world.  History, he argued, showed the opposite:  that in times of economic distress and scarcity, cities were actually much better places to live. 

“Apocalypse, not,” is in some ways less well reasoned than his previous essays.  Beginning with a misleading Y2K analogy, he continues with an unconvincing critique of M. King Hubbert’s methodology.  On the other hand, he makes good points about the fallacy of measuring standard of living strictly by per capita energy use (as “Road to Olduvai” author Richard C. Duncan does) and the broader assumption that faced with shrinking energy supplies, human beings will do nothing to adapt.

A point Hemenway does not address, though, is the psychological question of why so many in the peak oil movement are eager to identify themselves as “doomers”—essentially turning speculation about the future into an ideological position with its own secular eschatology.  Even the statement, “I believe civilization will collapse” is quite different from “I am a doomer,” because while the former is a statement of prediction, the latter is one of personal identification—an expression of what Jean-Paul Sartre called “bad faith”. 

According to Sartre, bad faith is the attempt to escape from the responsibility one’s freedom.  One way bad faith is manifested is through denial.  Bring up the subject of peak oil and many people will simply refuse to listen or acknowledge receipt of the information, because doing so might force them to confront unpleasant choices they would rather not face.  But self-proclaimed “doomers” are just as guilty of bad faith in another way; by taking on a role with pre-defined parameters, they essentially deny their own freedom as well. 

The problem with peak oil is that while peaking is certain, the potential consequences range from recession to a massive, world-wide “die off” and the end of industrial civilization.  There are so many unknowns:  the rate and timing of peak oil and depletion, the viability of alternatives, the ability and willingness of our society to mobilize, the political stability of oil producing nations—never mind external factors, like the housing bubble, the trade deficit, etc. 

All is uncertain.  Nonetheless, we must make choices, individually and collectively.  Calling ourselves “doomers” is not a tough-minded response to the coming societal challenges—it’s an attempt to lift some of the existential load from our shoulders.  No matter what happens, we will all be faced with innumerable personal choices until the moment of our deaths.  Pretending that all is already determined is as bad as denying the problem entirely.