Collide-a-scape

I tend to think there’s a lot of misunderstanding about the meaning of peak oil, a term that is becoming ubiquitous in public discussions of energy and climate change. So I want to highlight this articulate definition, which is devoid of hyperbole and concludes with a modest nod to peak oil’s relevance:

In my opinion, peak oil is a big deal because it will send a price signal – or shock – through the energy consuming systems of the world once shortages become a reality, and at least in the case of oil, it will force both conservation and use alternatives into the market because both supply availability (falling) and price (increasing) will create opportunities for other fuels and energy sources.

The NYT uses the Gulf oil disaster as a hook to examine the peak oil “collapsitarians.” Some of them are a bit overwrought, it seems, and want to do more than rub their worry beads. Fortunately, there’s a new cottage industry catering to their anxieties. The theme of the NYT story can be gleaned from this opener:

As oil continued to pour into the Gulf of Mexico on a recent Saturday, Jennifer Wilkerson spent three hours on the phone talking about life after petroleum.

For Mrs. Wilkerson, 33, a moderate Democrat from Oakton, Va., who designs computer interfaces, the spill reinforced what she had been obsessing over for more than a year — that oil use was outstripping the world’s supply. She worried about what would come after: maybe food shortages, a collapse of the economy, a breakdown of civil order. Her call was part of a telephone course about how to live through it all.

In bleak times, there is a boom in doom.

Indeed there is. Click on the link for that telephone course. Check out its marketing pitch:

How do you feel about the current unraveling of industrial civilization and the coming transition? Do you long for a place to discuss your feelings, thoughts, and methods of preparation? Do you long to feel less alone as you live with all you know?

Now that’s some serious fear mongering, served up with a soothing New Age veneer. Sure enough, click on the instructor’s bio and homepage, and you’ll learn that she’s a former psychotherapist, whose latest book is called Sacred Demise: Walking the Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization’s Path.

What’s that sound you hear? The wonks at The Oil Drum retching in unison. Because I’m sure that’s just what they want, their high-minded debates on overshoot being co-opted by pseudo-spiritualist claptrap.

Still, you gotta admire that singularly American can-do entrepreneurial spirit. If industrial civilization is going under, someone might as well cash in on the collapse.

It’s out there, lurking. Here’s something warm and fuzzy for Westerners to wake up to this morning:

Now before I get into the piece that follows I should explain that I don’t hold any particular animus towards the states of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming or Idaho, and so when I start talking about disposing of nuclear weapons in those states by making use of them it should be taken as merely a technical discussion (grin).

Hey, nothing personal guys. If peak oil hits sooner than expected, what’s a hungry, oil-starved world gonna do?   You’ll just have to grin and bear it.

UPDATE: The nuke the shale out hypothesis has largely generated disgust and disdain from Oil Drum readers. But this person cautions that nothing will be off the table if there’s a true energy shortage:

Well, most may think this is a non starter, but if Peak Oil decline is half as bad as some here think, then you should not be surprised by what actually happens to keep gas tanks full.

Actually, this editorial appears in the Journal’s Europe edition. I can’t imagine it appearing in the U.S. edition, especially with this kicker:

Some dubious emails and slightly dodgy dossiers have cast a new, and unflattering, light on the global-warming debate, raising the risk of a return to the belief that we can go on consuming oil with impunity. Being a “climate-change denier” is in danger of becoming almost fashionable. But whatever the risk to the climate, scarce and expensive oil would be a threat to established economies.

We need alternatives.

Here’s the best part: the author is WSJ Europe’s editor-in-chief.   Ah, the Tale of Two Journals surely will continue…

Looks like there’s an important new voice in the climate change debate. As Roger Pielke Jr. notes, Bill Gates recently offered some refreshing thoughts on climate policy, starting with this:

Conservation and behavior change alone will not get us to the dramatically lower levels of Co2 emissions needed to make a real difference. We need to focus on developing innovative technologies that produce energy without generating any CO2 emissions at all.

To this end, Gates charts a new path for climate advocates who can’t get traction with doomsday scenarios and who now watch helplessly as chances for an international climate treaty grow dimmer by the day.  Let’s stop focusing on halfway measures, Gates argues, and just cut to the chase:

If CO2 reduction is important, we need to make it clear to people what really matters – getting to zero.

With that kind of clarity, people will understand the need to get to zero and begin to grasp the scope and scale of innovation that is needed.

However all the talk about renewable portfolios, efficiency, and cap and trade tends to obscure the specific things that need to be done.

To achieve the kinds of innovations that will be required I think a distributed system of R&D with economic rewards for innovators and strong government encouragement is the key. There just isn’t enough work going on today to get us to where we need to go.

Some climate advocates are likely to counter that Gates presents a false dichotomy – innovation or effeciency. But Yael Borofsky over at the Breakthrough Institute blog has a convincing rejoinder:

They are ignoring the “energy crossroads” the United States is facing. As it becomes increasingly clear that cap and trade is not the policy to help us meet our climate change mitigation goals or our energy needs, Gates is not pushing for an either/or decision, he’s pushing for an honest prioritization.

Gates will have to keep pushing if he becomes seriously engaged in this debate, because energy innovation is not at the tip of the political or policy spear. In fact, there’s so much political and institutional investment in cap and trade at this point that I think one of two things has to happen before innovation becomes an “honest prioritization”:

1) There has to be fundamental mindset change in the influentials, such as Thomas Friedman and Paul Krugman. The horse they back is Joe Romm. So far, Romm’s approach (cap and trade, political horsetrading) has won over both Friedman and Krugman. (It’s the so-called “climate realist” approach.) But if the two influential columnists start to believe that Romm is leading them down a dead end, then maybe they rethink their positions and start listening more to Gates.

2) Peak oil happens soon, as in within a few years. If oil prices spike and Americans are again paying over 4 bucks a gallon for a gallon of gas, then political conditions might be right for an “honest prioritization” in energy policy.

Which will win: peak oil or global warming?

If you follow both narratives in the blogosphere, which is where the debate is most kinetic, you already know that peak oil and global warming are flip sides of the same coin.

I come at this mainly as a journalist, but also as someone who is interested in archaeology and the collapse literature of recent decades. I’ll leave the modern-day parallels to Jared Diamond, though I tend to think he oversimplifies his case studies.

What fascinates me about the respective peak oil and global warming narratives is that both revolve around the same meme: that civilization is on the fast track to collapse, unless we make systemic changes to the way we live. The peak oil camp take the argument to its logical extension and talk earnestly about such things as overshoot, or carrying capacity. The gobal warming camp dabbles in this debate, but because they have a big tent (which must accomodate politicians), their overriding goal is to replace the world’s carbon economy with one that doesn’t spew greenhouse gas emissions. And hey, that is plenty formidable.

Still, in the global warming camp, there is no real engagment with underlying, socio/economic forces. There really can’t be when much of the rest of the world (understably) aspires to live like average Americans. Copenhagen is proof of that. Ironically, Andy Revkin, one of the few persons who has used his prominent platform to expand the intellectual sphere of the climate change debate, is often pilloried by hardcore climate advocates. Some of them hold to the notion that Revkin, despite a stellar body of work on the energy & climate change beat, has aided and abetted the guys in “black hats.” Go figure.

This recurring complaint against Revkin is part of a deeper animus that the the global warming camp has towards the media at large. The peak oil folks, for their part, are fighting just to be relevant. It’s mind-boggling to them that nobody but them seems to get the dire trajectory the world is on.

But some pretty famous climate scientists feel that way too about global warming.  Thus, as far as representatives from these two camps are concerned, the race to doomsday is on. Which will get their first? Will it be when the global demand for oil exceeds the supply, or will it be when the carbon load in the atmosphere tips a baking planet into ecological and social mayhem? Go ahead, flip a coin.

One of the more amusing (and popular) voices in the the enviro/peak oil doom-o-sphere is James Howard Kunstler, perhaps best known for his book, The Geography of Nowhere. Once a week, he issues a rambling missive on all issues related to society’s imminent collapse from his profanely titled blog, Clusterfuck Nation. People seem to eat it up. This week, his curmudgeonly schtick is about the biggest climate story of the year (pre-Copenhagen):

Against a greater welter and flow of incoherence jerking the nation this way and that way en route to collapse comes “ClimateGate,” the latest excuse for screaming knuckleheads to defend what has already been lost.

Chalk Kunstler up as someone who definitely thinks it’s a piddling story. But that’s mainly because he believes the train to societal ruination has already left the station:

My guess is that the undertow of entropy is now too great to provoke any meaningful unified change in behavior.  The collapse of the US economy is too close to the horizon, and the so-called developing nations will have problems equally severe.  In the meantime, it is unlikely that any of the major players will burn less coal and oil, or not cheat on each other even if they pledge to burn less.  People who are not knuckleheads will make the practical arrangements that they can. These will, by definition, be localized, small-scale, and non-global communities, doing what they would have to do anyway.

Practical arrangements? I don’t even have a key to get into the local community garden. Fuckin a, I’m stocking up on Coco Krispies, Yoo-hoo’s, and devil dogs. That’s what I was fed as a kid (okay, ring dings, too) and I’m still standing. That seems the perfect diet to survive a post-apocalypse landscape, no?

Whoa, The Oil Drum is going to burst when it gets hold of this exclusive at The Guardian:

The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying.

As I mentioned here, enviros and climate advocates have gotten all starry-eyed about unconventional natural gas. But the Oil Drum says that the

future of natural gas production is a puzzle.

In fact, pointing to this recent article, TOD suggests that

some caution is in order.

What happens when you cross John Nash’s view of human behavior with Isaiah Berlin’s concept of human freedom? You get the reason why we may never chart an environmentally sustainable course.

This is the interesting argument that Kurt Cobb lays out over at The Oil Drum. His conclusion is dispiriting:

The way to win any battle for the public mind is to focus on the so-called “persuadables.” These are the people who haven’t really made up their minds about an issue, and they tend to be the largest segment of any population. On this count my worry grows exponentially. As Robert Rapier has explained on this site previously in a piece entitled “We Won’t Stop Global Warming,“  most people say they want to do something about global warming. But when one places a price on actually doing something, say, raising the cost of gasoline $1 a gallon through taxes, support for action drops precipitously. People see themselves as maximizing consumers first, and citizens with duties to a greater society second.

In that essay, Rapier also notes the classic global warming conundrum:

the disconnect is that people don’t see any immediate consequences, and they know that mitigation is going to cost them money. So, they figure “Let’s just wait and see what happens.” The average person just doesn’t see this as a problem serious enough to make meaningful sacrifices over.

Cobb argues (using Nash and Berlin) that this mindset is behaviorally and culturally rooted:

Any public-spirited sacrifice–even for people who believe there is a problem–seems out of a question in societies whose entire politics and culture are dominated by the idea that personal wants are the equivalent of the public good.

This would especially seem to be the case for Americans. Recall, for example, George W. Bush’s injunction immediately after 9/11–to go shopping. He was widely ridiculed for the shallowness of this gesture. But perhaps Bush knew human behavior and contemporary America’s essential trait better than we give him credit for.