A period of consequences

I don't know if I'd ever have liked Churchill had I known him, a politician both ahead of his time, and behind it, but at least for World War II, he was a man for his times, recognizing growing danger and calling it such.

I suppose I'm mostly a contrarian myself, better suited for recognizing danger and demanding attention than to the more daily practical aspects of democracy.

I hold a deep appreciation for a modern contrarians and writers, James Howard Kunstler and Wendell Berry, both calling the "truth" that modern ways are based on lies and foolishness, and we'll pay for it sooner or later. Both TRY to offer visions for a different future, but besides avoiding the greatest insanities of our time, they choose to continue their lives trying to practice something better, at least in practical ways.

Al Gore quotes Churchill as well, in the slow coming disasters from Global Warming, and climate change, glacially slow but perhaps perceptible changes that will make the earth very different from what we've known, as if our entire species hasn't already done this on reduced diversity, things could get much worse than we've had to deal with so far.

The difference to Gore's problem is we are our own enemy, like the fat person who eats to feel better, and then feels bad for eating too much, so must eat more in a downward spiral of self-destruction. Well, the puffy way Gore has looked recently, perhaps it is what he's been doing. Anyway the point of no return for the sedentary lifestyle is when you're too fat to get up off the couch.

I don't know about GW, except to say we're probably screwed by our own momentum and "will to life" that self-restraint is LONG past a viable option. The sheer mass of humanity, ignoring our blubber, has already doomed us, UNLESS something better comes along to save us.

Peak oil would seem to be the first call, a vital resource that has been in decline in the U.S. for some 36 years, and is likely in decline nearly everywhere except for a few key countries holding on a little longer.

It was just a few years ago VP Cheney said (rightly so) that "Conservation was a personal virtue", long before world excess production capacity evaporated under a sea of demand that has been slowed by rising prices, but not reversed.

Then today I read an interview like:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/07/10/fa.lundberg.qa/index.html Chatting with America's gas price survey maven

Mostly I won't argue, but the last question reply astounds me:
Q: As far as conservation, what are the trends you are seeing?
A: I'm hoping that consumers will see through the rhetoric about consuming less, demanding less, as faulty. It is not a given that consuming less will be good for our economy or for our personal freedom. It is not even established for our environment that we [should] deprive ourselves of gasoline for our personal mobility as well our commerce. And to suppose that it is good to do that, and pretend that we have consensus and put our heads together to deprive ourselves of this great product that makes the country go around, commercially and individually, I think is flawed. I'm hoping consumers and voters will see through that and be able to ignore some of the most extreme suggestions.

I think that there has been friendly as well as unfriendly brainwashing taking place. And when I say friendly and unfriendly, I'm talking about decades of extremist views that have now achieved mainstream acceptance. And the No. 1 item among those affecting current oil politics in Washington is the boogeyman, also known as global warming.

I don't accept it as established fact, nor do I accept that it would be caused by petroleum consumption, nor do I accept that the human species should not affect its environment. So even if it were someday to be shown to have some small effect on the environment, I see no crime. In fact, taking into account the many, many millions of people around the world that envy our way of life, it would seem more humanitarian to wish them the kind of plentiful petroleum products and vehicles ... that we enjoy ... to lift themselves out of [a] backward, poor way of life.

I suppose I can forgive her for meaning well. She just isn't afraid like me. She doesn't want to dishonestly support the idea that conservation will help BECAUSE it might not. And she's so virtuous, wishing the rest of the world can follow our lifestyle. In her mind I guess the "solution" can only exist by consuming more and more, and that can only happen because there's consumption pressures on us to find our next fix, or combination of fixes.

Its just curious to me that people in power are not afraid, or at least that people in power believe fear is ONLY GOOD if it promotes us to continue further on the same road we've always followed.

Well, not much more to say. I'm a contrarian. I know things that can't last don't, and someday the systems that support us will faulter. Individually we can prepare, and perhaps collectively us gloom&doomers might find some lifestyle choices that we can accept.

I suppose people in power say what they do because its the only thing they know. They can't imagine a world with less energy next year than this year. They know when this happens, their game will be over.

I suppose I shouldn't even be disappointed. I know conservation is a "personal virtue". I not ready to tell people they should suffer discomfort now MERELY for the opportunity for a little less discomfort later. It's a personal choice, at least to those who are lucky enough to see it and have extra resources now to do something.

Mostly I'd advocate "practice" at deprivation, nothing big, just the sort of inconveniences know since time immemorial, that we now can hide in our spending spree.

Be afraid, and recognize the enemy is our own success. Beyond that I'm lost as anyone I guess...