What can be done in response to Peak Oil?

WHAT CAN BE DONE IN RESPONSE TO PEAK OIL?

How should we respond to the dire predictions that Peak Oil will be a powerful catalyst for energy war, social dislocation, and massive upheaval?

First, we need to understand what we mean when we say that Peak Oil is a catalyst. It is not a cause of energy wars in Middle East, which have been underway from the late19the century. Nor is it a direct cause for the Middle East arms race, which can be traced back to the 1950s. Furthermore, waves of starvation in poorer countries, the flow of capital to energy producers, climate change, and similar global phenomena do not require a serious gap in oil supply and demand to take place. They all preceded Peak Oil, some by a century. But, the rate of these changes is accelerated by Peak Oil. It puts history on the fast track.

Second, we cannot precisely predict how each trend will accelerate and then influence the others – since they are interconnected.

For example, the ongoing, escalating, and future energy wars to gain hold of a dwindling oil supply and soaring oil profits, in turn, burns up more fuel. As a result, the overall supply goes down, the current price goes up, the atmosphere heats up even more, and the amount of public resources available to develop new sources of energy, to make the use of existing energy more efficient, and to replace outmoded energy infrastructure with new designs and technologies, are all put on the back burner.

On the other side, as the social consequences of Peak Oil continue to unfold, they in turn influence other outcomes. For example, when more money is paid to oil producers, there is also less available for personal consumption because the direct price of transportation, heating and cooking fuel, and driving all go up. Similarly, the indirect energy costs, in the form of the decline of the dollar, as well as open and hidden transportation surcharges, fuel inflation and, therefore, reduce living standards. They amount to a further transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich, and from countries like to the US to oil and gas suppliers like Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Voila, the hard times and inequality imposed by the financial resources required to fight energy wars – such as the $3 billion price tag for the Iraq War – are magnified by the austerity resulting from increased energy costs.

This means that political opposition to war and militarism could be paired with opposition to growing inequality and deprivation. This combination is a serious threat to those in power, who understand the fragility of their system much more than progressives do. Peak Oil could produce extraordinary opportunities for activists of all political stripes, whether fascists on the right desperate to save the market system, to communists on the left, happy to dig the grave of capitalism.

Given what we do know about energy wars and social dislocation, and what we do not know about the uneven and intertwined trends accelerated by Peak Oil, there are some technical and political responses which should be pursued.

Life style changes: Many people turn to changes in life style, such as working more at home, carpooling, driving a hybrid, avoid styrofoam cups and excessive packaging, and washing clothes in cold water. While none of these “green” changes in behavior hurt, they are only a small part of the solution. They all rely on existing technologies and are, in essence, a way for most people to tighten their belt when the cutbacks of the war machine or energy inflation erode their living standards.

Still others put their faith in the market. They argue that high oil prices mean that alternative energy technologies, such as wind and solar, become profitable, hence investors will flock to them, especially if they get tax break and public subsidies. Yes, this is happening at a small scale, but it overlooks six barriers.

The profit margins of oil and gas are much greater, and it will attract much investment, which could, in a rational system, be spent on less profitable alternative energy.

The history of oil and gas within the market system is endless wars to control supply and profit.

Many alternative energy sources, such as coal, tar sands, and oil shale are dirty. They heavily pollute the air, causing more global warming, as well as water supplies.

Some alternative energies, such as ethanol, use corn, which in turn reduces grain supplies and causes starvation.

New, breakthrough technologies will require a dozen Manhattan Projects, the accelerated government research and development to develop nuclear weapons during WWII. The private sector does not have the resources or the organizational capability for such an undertaking.

Once breakthrough technologies for fusion, solar power, wind and tidal power, hydrogen engines, and other alternative technologies (e.g, new building materials with integrated photosynthetic or photovoltaic properties) are developed, it will take trillions in new investments to rebuild transportation systems, housing, and entire sustainable cities to make them viable. Market economies based on profit and wars are not capable of such an undertaking, especially if it must be done in a matter of decades instead of centuries.

Conclusion:

This is why there is no solution to the overlapping problems ushered in by Peak Oil within the market system. Capitalism may be the root cause, but unlike the myths fostered by neo-liberalism, capitalism cannot be tweaked to clean up its own mess.

This is why we have concluded that the first step to address the consequences of Peak Oil is to take on capitalism itself. This does seem like a daunting task because it is daunting. But we need to understand that the conditions of expanded energy wars combined with ravished economies have, historically, ushered in periods of great social change.

As demonstrated in WWI, when the Russian and Bolshevik revolutions took place, and WWII, when the Chinese revolution took place, two new large scale economies emerged which thought they could rebuild human society based on production to meet human needs, not to produce profits in the market place.

The failure of these revolutions in the form of their reversion back to capitalism does not mean it is impossible to escape from capitalism and the destruction it spawns through such phenomena as Peak Oil. But it does mean that the two cases we have before us, the Soviet Union and China, need to carefully analyzed. It is certainly possible that the doomsday scenarios of Peak Oil will usher in such revolutions, and it will then be incumbent on those new societies to avoid the mistakes which lead to the return of capitalism in Russian and China.

While such an extraordinary undertaking strikes many an insurmountable, a world ravaged by worsening energy wars and massive human suffering is likely to change that pessimistic assessment.