In this post, I argued that the best, simplest, and most impactful message for advocates of climate legislation is this: Good climate policy will rescue American families from a sinking ship.
I meant to add that the Dems not only seem to miss the power of this message, but are by all appearances working to undermine it.
What do I mean? Well, core to the message is a simple truth: Fossil energy costs are going up. They're going to keep going up. The reasons are complex, a mix of supply constraints, skyrocketing demand, and commodity speculation, but the important thing to note is that the reasons are deep, structural, and unlikely to be reversed. As long as our transportation, electricity, and agriculture are dependent on fossil fuels, we face a grim future of domestic inequality and strife coupled with international tension and conflict. Sticking with fossil fuels is a ticket to nowhere. The status quo is not an option.
But Dems keep encouraging the delusion that high fossil energy prices -- particularly gas prices -- are some sort of weird aberration resulting from the greed of oil executives or Saudi intransigence. They keep encouraging the delusion that with a few policy gimmicks we can bring those prices back down. They are reinforcing the notion that Americans are entitled to low gasoline prices and that it is in the power of the federal government to provide them.
As long as Americans think that energy prices might go back down at any moment -- that the cheap-energy good times of the '90s are but a "windfall profits tax" away -- they won't support a policy they're told will increase those prices.
They need to be told the truth. We can sit back passively and become a victim of rising, volatile fossil energy prices. Or we can take control of our fate. We can take the edge of today's fossil prices with a coordinated efficiency campaign, and put the money we save toward building a stable, prosperous energy infrastructure for the 21st century. We can break our fossil addiction.
Tell voters the truth. That's the first step.
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Comments
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Sean Casten Posted 4:28 am
04 Jun 2008
In other words, it's entirely possible that the Ds believe what they're saying about the possibility of returning to the days of cheap energy. In which case telling the truth is actually the second step. Learning the truth comes first.
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Delay And Deny Posted 11:14 am
04 Jun 2008
The promise of alternative "sustainable" energy is not just that it doesn't pollute. For most of its history, it's promise...like that of nuclear...was that it would be essentially free. "Too cheap to meter" was what the nuclear industry touted.
The Green energies have always been saying that prior to ITruth. The promise was that either the utilities would build these limitless collectors of wind and solar power or that every home would produce overvoltage to sell back to the power company.
Hydrocarbons, which are produced inside the core of the Earth by abiotic processes, are in fact, a "limitless" and cheap form of energy. It costs Saudi Arabia $1.25 a barrel to extract oil. It's $5 a barrel by the time they ship it.
Everything else is add on fees.
But you have to live with it: Oil is a natural and renewable source of energy. If we could develop a fuel cell that ran on crude oil, the whole system would be as sustainable as the orbit of the Earth around the Moon.
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hapa Posted 11:35 am
04 Jun 2008
basic physics shows what goes up must come down; tegmark's 'shut up and calculate' shows that physics is math, hence after a certain point sequences of numbers (e.g. 1,2,3.....) must start decreasing. (this is called 'negative temperature'.) so, prices will come down. trust me.
also, most reasonable people don't believe the ludicrous 'peak oil' theory (like global warming myths, and the 911 official story that the WTC is not still there ) and follow the geo-philosopher Mirowski. They show that when prices get high, temper(ature)s flare, and this speeds up conversion of 'abiotic' rocks into oil which is also dragged to the earth's surface to fill the national patroleum reserve, due to the force exerted by high prices. (because high prices are larger numbers, and they are proportional to mass, hence they gravitationally attract the abiotic oil to the surface. this is actually say's law.)
another theory might be that when prices go up, people will switch, to say Camels, and hence oil will no longer be seen as having any value. I already have switched, and now run my Humvee on gold.
anyhow i love it when real life reinforces classroom material.
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Capster Posted 2:06 pm
04 Jun 2008
Also, there's not much elasticity in rising gas prices. I am fairly confident (but welcome dissent) that the consumption of gas has not gone down materially while prices for gas have doubled in the past few years. That begs the question with politicians - if price increases don't appear to work, should we support price increases? The answer is "yes", because at some point they do work, but it will take some time to get there. Shifting behavior, shifting our economy - as many have pointed out, it won't be easy.
David, I agree with you - our country is pretty deluded. I hope that enough leaders in congress stand up to make these changes. But to be crystal clear, it won't happen this year. It will be 09 or 10 before a bill gets passed, regardless of who is in the WH.
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MAD MAC Posted 2:15 pm
05 Jun 2008
Politicians don't do that. That would violate their code of ethics.
Dave, you are, of course, quite right. And people are fools if they just sit back and wait for the government (US or any other) to do something about this. People have to start modifying their lifestyles themselves. Government isn't positioned to tackle this issue yet.
So, you can take the bull by the horns, walk the dog, figure out the impacts of peak oil, and structure your lives to deal with those impacts, or not and suffer the consequences.
As they say here: Up to you.
Victory in Pattani
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caniscandida Posted 5:02 pm
05 Jun 2008
The context is one of several disputes in that gospel between Jesus and some Jewish religious experts. But the words themselves have often been taken out of context, and applied in all kinds of new ways.
Circa 100 CE, the words sound kind of Gnostic: the enfleshed soul discovers the truth about about his/her true divine-related nature, and so is freed from the encumberments of material reality.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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