Marble Composition

Peak Oil & The Washington Monthly

Kevin Drum over at the Political Animal analyizes and provides a summary of the current coverage on the topic of Peak Oil here, his coda here, and I have my take here. Go read up if you have some interest in where we're headed as a nation.

He asserts the idea that the fallout from the depletion of world oil supplies doesn't have to be as painful as it needs to be, and that we can avoid any kind of crisis that comes down the pike if we buy ourselves enough time to invent new technologies to push the fall-off point to some future date in time.

Fair enough, and technologically correct, but the one thing he fails to address is the political will to demand that Americans start to conserve energy, that business and government pour vast amounts of money into a real effort to develop alternate sources of energy, and that politicians need to "market" the idea to the public.

I think it's pretty clear that oil men from Texas aren't up to the job. And who's going to add that to their party plank when they run for president? Anyone who does run on the issue in even a small way will be painted by the media as a fear monger and a crank, so good luck.

I have immense respect for Kevin, and I appreciate him bringing an issue that's this vital to the American public to the forefront, but I'm as pessimistic about the issue as he is optimistic, and in the end we're really not that far off in our assessments.

I've neard enough from men who've enriched themselves by way of profits from oil companies, we need new voices.

posted by FuzzFinger @ 6/07/2005 06:20:00 PM