Two and a half years ago, DailyKos blogger Jerome a Paris (a Paris-based investment banker who works with alternative energy) began a series of posts on the site called “Countdown to $100 Oil”. At the time, a few years of surprisingly high oil prices and the release of several books about the imminent arrival of peak oil seemed to suggest that awareness of energy issues was gradually increasing. When Jerome began the series, oil was hovering at $59 a barrel; $100 seemed like a shockingly high figure, one which would inaugurate a very different world than the one we were experiencing.
Fifty-six posts later, oil has finally reached the $100 mark—10 times its low in 1999— and Jerome has concluded his series. Strangely, though, it seems that there is little more awareness of peak oil now than there was then. At the moment, Jerome’s diary doesn’t even appear on DailyKos’s recommended list. Granted, the news comes on the eve of the Iowa caucus, and DailyKos is first and foremost a political website. But when he began his series, it seemed that most of his diaries would end up on the recommended list, and while the final post generated a healthy number of comments, the one just before it got only 17—on a site where the most popular diaries get 400.
Depressingly, all of this seems to confirm the perception of peak oil doomers that America and the world will do nothing to truly address energy issues until faced with a full-blown crisis, at which point it will be too late to avoid a full-blown economic collapse or worse. No dollar figure, however symbolic, will matter until the nation is faced with gas lines, rationing and empty supermarket shelves. Maybe that should be the next countdown.
You imply that it is understandable that oil at $100 a barrel takes a back seat to the Iowa caucus, but isn't that mode of thinking just an element of the mass denial we are all facing? What better day to discuss this obscene development? What better subject to bring up on this day? Oil prices affect more of us, in more ways, than most of the other topics raised by the politicians. Yet, when politicians want to take a populist bent, or speak for the working man, they do not acknowledge peak oil and how it is affecting us. When they want to talk about the war, they avoid the implications of peak oil on our national security and on our international decision-making. When they talk about the affordability (or un-affordability) of healthcare, they don't talk about how increasing oil prices and the looming energy crisis will affect our ability to innovate as a nation and our ability to provide for our citizens' basic needs. And when they talk about the economy, they don't talk about how the price of oil is affecting the price of everything. Today is precisely the day that we should be talking about oil. And I'm looking for any politician to bring it up.
Posted by: RK | January 03, 2008 at 09:55 AM
It's been my working assumption for some time now that while price is far from irrelevant, behavior won't change until widespread shortages are upon us.
Posted by: Mauricio Babilonia | February 05, 2008 at 01:47 PM
You’re undoubtedly correct. It’s still depressing though.
Posted by: Lakis | February 06, 2008 at 10:59 AM
Look before you leap.
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