For Sound Energy Policy, Don't Look to Congress Congress thinks we're stupid. Maybe we are. We, most of us, refuse to accept that we are living in a world of rapidly increasing demand for declining fossil fuel resources. We believe more oil is to be found around the corner, in the next country, beneath the ocean, under or in the next rock. Maybe it is. But people who have spent much of their professional lives looking at this issue say it really does not matter that more oil is waiting to be found somewhere. They believe there will never be enough of the stuff to fuel, feed, clothe, house and move a constantly growing global population. Those people include Vice President Cheney, White House energy adviser Matthew Simmons and, believe it or not, President Bush. [...] People enjoy poking fun at Bush, portraying him as something of an errant fraternity boy. But this president is nobody's dummy. He fully understands the concept of "peak oil," the high point of the bell curve at which 50 percent of the provable reserves in any oil field have been recovered. Oil is plentiful on the upside of the curve. It is less available, substantially more difficult and enormously more expensive to retrieve on the downside. [...] Hirsch and his colleagues last March completed a study for the Department of Energy. Maybe it was too difficult for Congress to read. Certainly the title was forbidding: "Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management." [...] Hirsch and his colleagues put it clearly in their report to the Department of Energy: We eventually will not have enough oil to fuel our enormously wasteful American way of life. Global oil production is peaking. [...] In plain English, that means America's cheap-oil ride is over. [...] That starts with political leaders telling the American people the truth, as Bush did in his "addicted to oil" comments. It means mandated increased vehicle fuel economy accompanied by increased taxes on gasoline, engine displacement and vehicle size. It means getting over our social and racial biases, which still keep certain people out of certain neighborhoods, and coming up with a truly efficient, democratic mass transportation system. "Waiting until world conventional oil production peaks before initiating crash program mitigation leaves the world with a significant liquid fuel deficit for two decades or longer," the Hirsch report said. Wake up, Congress. Wake up, America. We are a part of that world.
Congress thinks we're stupid. Maybe we are. We, most of us, refuse to accept that we are living in a world of rapidly increasing demand for declining fossil fuel resources.
We believe more oil is to be found around the corner, in the next country, beneath the ocean, under or in the next rock. Maybe it is.
But people who have spent much of their professional lives looking at this issue say it really does not matter that more oil is waiting to be found somewhere. They believe there will never be enough of the stuff to fuel, feed, clothe, house and move a constantly growing global population.
Those people include Vice President Cheney, White House energy adviser Matthew Simmons and, believe it or not, President Bush.
[...]
People enjoy poking fun at Bush, portraying him as something of an errant fraternity boy. But this president is nobody's dummy. He fully understands the concept of "peak oil," the high point of the bell curve at which 50 percent of the provable reserves in any oil field have been recovered.
Oil is plentiful on the upside of the curve. It is less available, substantially more difficult and enormously more expensive to retrieve on the downside.
Hirsch and his colleagues last March completed a study for the Department of Energy. Maybe it was too difficult for Congress to read. Certainly the title was forbidding: "Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management."
Hirsch and his colleagues put it clearly in their report to the Department of Energy:
We eventually will not have enough oil to fuel our enormously wasteful American way of life.
Global oil production is peaking.
In plain English, that means America's cheap-oil ride is over.
That starts with political leaders telling the American people the truth, as Bush did in his "addicted to oil" comments. It means mandated increased vehicle fuel economy accompanied by increased taxes on gasoline, engine displacement and vehicle size. It means getting over our social and racial biases, which still keep certain people out of certain neighborhoods, and coming up with a truly efficient, democratic mass transportation system.
"Waiting until world conventional oil production peaks before initiating crash program mitigation leaves the world with a significant liquid fuel deficit for two decades or longer," the Hirsch report said.
Wake up, Congress. Wake up, America. We are a part of that world.
However, all policy activities I've heard of are in direct counter to the idea of a recognition of this reality. And until policy changes, then all statements to the contrary are froth and nonsense. keep to the Fen Causeway
