A couple of years ago, a handful of progressive bloggers associated with the DailyKos website undertook a project to revolutionize U.S. energy policy. The result was Energize America—a wide ranging set of legislative proposals designed to achieve “energy security” for America by 2020. The plan included initiatives to greatly increase the fuel efficiency of cars and trucks, to increase renewable energy use and to build a high-speed passenger rail system. According to its authors, Energize America was recently presented to members of Congress; an achievement for which they should certainly be commended.
But as several commentators pointed out during a recent debate on The Oildrum, Energize America as it stands is seriously flawed. In the comment thread, transit engineer Alan Drake was critical of the feasibility of several of the plan’s technical goals; in particular, he thought the idea of doubling the energy efficiency of long-haul trucking and air travel by 2020 was highly unrealistic, and a diversion from the far more practical and critical goal of shifting as much freight as possible to rail.
But unrealistic technical goals are only symptomatic of Energize America’s deeper flaw: the failure to address the systemic nature of the crisis that faces us. Many of the early discussions about Energize America on DailyKos were dominated not by debates on the feasibility or merits of individual proposals, but by the question of how to “frame” the issues to make them most palatable for mass consumption. The unspoken premise, therefore, was that to truly address the severity of imminent peak oil would be to render the topic politically untouchable.
The result is that for all its breadth, the Energize America never mentions mixed use development, light-rail, the localization and downscaling of food production and other businesses—or anything, for that matter, that might challenge the current mode of American life.
Trying to build consensus and be politically savvy is wise in most cases. But to approach energy depletion in that manner is to fail to grasp its true magnitude and inexorable reality. A decline in world oil production means that the world will be using less oil—possibly much less oil, much sooner than we think. Once the process begins, it will no longer be a question about convincing people to take the problem seriously, but about finding appropriate collective responses to an unfolding crisis.
As Richard Heinberg put it in a recent essay:
“Whatever response society eventually arrives at to fossil fuel shortages will consist of a cobbled-together mix of the available alternative energy sources plus a heaping helping of energy conservation (efficiency and curtailment). I use the word response rather than solution because the latter term implies an outcome in which present societal patterns of industrial production and consumption are maintained. But this may not be possible. Planned, strategic curtailment of energy use will of necessity be the primary adaptation strategy. This has enormous implications for every aspect of modern economies.”
It could be argued that accomplishing even small, incremental goals is better than doing nothing. But in the current environment, the most politically achievable goals are precisely those that in no way challenge the current socio-political economic system—pursing long-haul truck efficiency, for instance, with the assumption that anything like the current Interstate Highway System will be in operation in 2020, much less 2040—and are thus are at once the most technically challenging and least beneficial.
To put it another way: implicit in Energize America’s approach to the energy crisis is an unarticulated, yet deeply held belief that it is easier to achieve any technological miracle imaginable than to alter the “non-negotiable” American way of life.
It would be one thing if that way of life made us happy; but if we are to believe a recent World Health Organization study, Americans are actually the most depressed people in the world. In that context, futile attempts to maintain the status quo—from industrial food to suburban sprawl to a globalized economic system which, as James Howard Kunstler would put it, destroys local economies and civic life for the sake of paying a few dollars less for a hair dryer—seems not just counterproductive but pathological.
One way or another, we have to come to terms with the fact that the world as we know it is about to change dramatically. Energy availability will be the major, driving force behind that change, but its effects will be felt in absolutely every arena of life—social, cultural, economic and political.
As long as the culture has not come to terms with that fact, it is likely that efforts to mitigate or respond to peak oil will be ineffective at best and counterproductive at worst (as in the case of corn-based ethanol). Maybe a better political and legislative goal is to demand, as Matthew Simmons often advocates, a complete, transparent accounting of what the actual state of our energy situation is. That means pressuring governments to open up their resources for independent, third-party audits. Once the world has the appropriate data, countries could begin pursuing some form of the Oil Depletion Protocol, as advocated by Heinberg and Colin Campbell. Only then will the nation and the world be able to really plan for the new energy era.
I must respectfully disagree with your premise that once the downturn in oil supplies occurs (or is obvious to the world, as it has likely already occurred), "it will no longer be a question about convincing people to take the problem seriously." I think it is a dire mistake to overlook or minimize the vast ability of people, both individually and collectively, to maintain denial about their situation and the world around them. In fact, the lack of recognition of peak oil maintained to date is ample evidence of this denial. The need to make responses and new strategies for survival and, yes, development (because surely we will not want to quit development of our society, just redefine what that means to us) more palatable to our members and the world at large will remain a struggle long after peak oil is apparent and the world is thrown into crisis. While I agree that reliance on trucking is not a tenable response, I have to also agree with the strategy of seeking a route that seems acceptable to the large majority of people. In addition, if people begin to accept changes as feasible and reasonable, they may be more open to facing reality, learning more, and devising more aggressive solutions.
Posted by: Renee Kashuba | March 24, 2007 at 07:22 AM