Keeping a jaundiced eye on the corporate media.
Jun 14th, 2006 at 9:57 am by Susie
Went to hear Russ Feingold speak this morning. Good speech, I liked it (after all, he did use several themes from Gore’s President’s Day speech, so what’s not to like?) But for some reason, he didn’t reasonate with me. I do love me some good oration but I didn’t think this was anything special.
The content was fine. There’s no arguing that Russ has the track record; he walks the walk. Should be an interesting primary with him in it.
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“In the few minutes I had personally to talk to Feingold, I tried to give him a capsule summary of the Peak Oil story: that world energy production is on track to fall short of world demand in the very near future; that the gap between supply and demand will mean rapidly rising prices with severe economic consequences; that oil production will soon peak and begin its inexorable, irreversible, and permanent decline; that the CEO of Exxon had just announced that natural gas production in North America has already peaked. I said that these are big problems that are not being addressed.
Feingold’s response was illuminating and somewhat disheartening. He said that three years ago, before the war, the NYT’s Thomas Friedman, a supporter of the war, had said that three years hence one would know if the war had succeeded by looking at the price of oil. If it was $6 a barrel, the war would have been a success. If it was $60 a barrel, the war would have been a failure. Here, three years later, oil is indeed $60 a barrel. He said also that it’s a problem that India and China are buying up so much oil, and said something about Venezuela being a problem. He finished by saying we need to increase our independence from foreign oil.
In other words, he sees our problems with energy as political, not geological. Peak oil, the idea that permanently declining oil and gas production is just over the horizon, does not seem to be anywhere on his radar screen. This from one of the smartest and most progressive members of the Senate. And it was clear from other things Feingold said that he, like everyone in politics, has a relatively short-term focus. A lot of his focus is on 2006 and 2008. That kind of short-term focus is understandable; it’s built into the system. Unfortunately, given the deep, fundamental, tectonic shifts that are underway, a purely short-term focus invites disaster.”
Past Peak: Cause for Alarm