Tom Friedman is fond of the theory that high oil prices will drive investment in renewables and spur reform in corrupt governments. He's not alone -- some peak oil types believe that oil price spikes will force us to do the very things that will save us from global warming.
This has always struck me as dangerous folly. Nothing good in politics happens automatically. Regress is the path of least resistance. Progress must be fought for.
To wit, I commend you to Drake Bennett's piece in the Boston Globe, "The new dirty energy." Turns out oil prices are having some perverse effects:
But as oil prices stay high, the real beneficiary often turns out to be a very different alternative-energy industry, one focused on dirty fuel sources such as oil sands, oil shale, and coal. Environmentally speaking, the oil-sand plants of Alberta are no better than petroleum drilling, and in some ways decidedly worse. In North America, in terms of energy output, this so-called "unconventional oil" sector already dwarfs clean and renewable-energy technologies, and is poised to grow even faster in the next decade.
Oil prices aren't going to save us. No external event or trend -- not oil prices, not a housing market crash, not extreme weather -- is going to force the changes we want to see.
This in mind, I hereby propose Roberts First Law of Sustainability Politics:
Sustainability is a choice.
‘Heretic’ battles straw man
Oil: enough energy to melt glaciers!
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JMG Posted 10:06 am
20 Aug 2007
Perhaps you meant that high oil prices would spur investment in renewables and if those investments paid off in terms of a massive drop in demand for oil they would drive prices down, which would spur reform ... That's what I think he's actually arguing anyway.
It's a false hope though, because, as far as "renewables" affect the oil situation, they do not reduce demand at all--most are more expensive than oil anyway, and so they don't constrain oil's price (quite the opposite). And all renewable liquid fuels do is launder coal and natural gas into transportation fuels, helping to prop up the happy motoring life a while longer, allowing demand for oil to remain high in the West and to keep climbing in ChIndia.
There is no hope for reducing oil prices through supply side actions; only sharply reduced DEMAND will force wholesale oil prices down---and if we don't maintain the high retail prices through carbon and vehicle taxes then we'll just promote more usage through lower prices.
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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Biodiversivist Posted 8:01 am
21 Aug 2007
It does seem pretty unlikely that any oil will be left underground. If we stop using it, China, India, Africa, and everyone else will, but it still won't be cheap and that will slow its use.
We need to prepare for the coming high oil prices (paying twice as much but getting twice as much mileage).
Slowing the use of oil is almost as important as not using it.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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