[Peakoil] Peak oil can fuel a change for the better

[Keith Thomas]

Right on, Jenny! Like all these boilerplate articles in the press, it ends on what the writer like to think is "an optimistic note". On this occasion it's:

> Although energy supply issues undoubtedly have the potential 
> to cause great human suffering, if handled wisely the forced 
> transition away from energy-intensive consumer lifestyles could 
> lead humanity down a more meaningful, just and sustainable 
> path. We need to reimagine the ''good life'' beyond consumer culture.

They just can't shake off this childish green utopianism!

"See every problem as an opportunity" they beam. This sort of optimism permeates our society and prevents us from focusing on reality. Look at those permanent smiles on the faces of the Republican primary candidates - delusional, nauseating, calculatedly deceitful smiles. And look at this article - it focuses on peak oil as if this were the only problem we are facing.

What sort of dreamer imagines "a more meaningful, just and sustainable path"? Who will be looking for "opportunities"? The Tony Mokbels, the paedophiles, the people already cheating the system, those who express road rage, who have illegal weapons, who beat their wives and who write vicious comments on the internet, the people who con elderly people into mail-order/roofing repair/yard cleaning rip-offs and scams. Has this dreamy professor factored them in?

How about a taking few of these coalescing pressures into account, too:

•     The creation of dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico; ocean acidification; loss of protective mangroves coral reefs; nitrogen and phosphorus pollution of rivers and oceans

•     loss of fisheries, plankton

•     The hole in the ozone layer

•     The Arctic melting

•     Increases in forest fires’ intensity and extent in Australia, Chile, Russia, North America

•     Floods in Pakistan, Thailand, Philippines, Australia

•     industrial agriculture and food processing means people are getting fatter and sicker and more stressed. At the same time, soil quality and quantity is being depleted

•     climate change

•     biodiversity loss / species extinction = overshoot; 200 species going extinct per day (E O Wilson’s estimate)

-          Extinction of the Dodo and the Great Auk

*   Extinction of the Passenger Pigeon – whose flocks were so large they darkened the skies for days at a time – six times as many Passenger Pigeons as all other kinds of birds in North America combined

-          The death of runs of salmon so large the bottom of the crystal-clear rivers could not be seen

•     Human population numbers rising inexorably

•     Human health:

-          three generations of accumulating damage to gut flora is leading to the epidemic of ADHD/autism and other gut diseases

-          rising epidemics of Western lifestyle diseases (I include Alzheimers here - others may give it a category on its own)

-          pollution - from straight-out poisons in the air and groundwater including oil spills, nuclear leaks

:   80,000 chemicals have been proposed for commercial use in the United States; only five have been either restricted or banned.

-          synthetic oestrogens

-          the rise in antibiotic resistance in humans and livestock – leading us back to a pre-Florey world

-          risk from viruses and viral mutations (H5N1 etc.)

-          Dioxin and flame retardant in every mother’s breast milk

•     Humans taking 40% of global plant and animal production

•     Human ecological footprint score now exceeds 1.00

•     loss of environmental services

•     humans distant from their place in nature – forced onto “power process” activities; make decisions not based in biophysical reality

•     Waste disposal (domestic, industrial, military) and the associated pollution

•     Water shortages – both aquifers and from rain

•     soil erosion/degradation

•     The risk from GM crops/animals

•     food (in)security (monocultural agriculture, CAFOs)

•     scarcity of mineral nutrients for humans and livestock

•     destruction of tropical rainforests and temperate and boreal forests

•     energy shortages

•     societal complexity and, therefore, vulnerability

•     nuclear threat – from weapons, accidents and leaking storage

•     concentration on military science rather than life science

•     religious fundamentalism and thinking that is contrary to science
-----------------------------
Keith Thomas
keith at evfit.com
www.evfit.com
-----------------------------

On 12/01/2012, at 2:01 AM, Jenny Goldie wrote:

Blank[Would that I were as optimistic!]

Samuel Alexander:Peak oil can fuel a change for the better
The advent of peak oil means we should prepare for a downscaling of our highly energy and resource-intensive lifestyles. 
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/peak-oil-can-fuel-a-change-for-the-better-20120110-1psqg.html