Peak Oil, Economic Collapse, and the Efficacy of Government
by Jason GodeskyJeff Vail has some sobering news for anyone looking to the government to solve Peak Oil:
On Tuesday I had a conversation with a few Senior Executives in the Department of the Interior about how to solve the Peak Oil problem–and we all came to the same conclusion: there is a structural block to the solution to this problem, because to do so would require massive and immediate investment that would not pay dividends for at least 10 years–longer than the 2, 4, and occasionally 6 or 8 year cycles in American politics that proscribe our national time-horizon. It just isn’t politically realistic to back a project that won’t pay off in time for the next relevant election cycle–even if you could find politicians that would be willing to sacrifice their own re-election for the greater good, they would still be hamstringed by the unavailability of the campaign funding on which they require, and would likely lose in the next election to a candidate who is promising a short-term benefit… We’re structurally short-sighted, which goes right along with my general thesis that the structure of our institutions, much more than the individuals within them, is the real root of our problems.
Vail goes on to describe the kind of economic myopia that hampers any solution to Peak Oil, but he also cites an an interview with John Williams that I’d actually also seen earlier.
Williams shows how, for at least the past 25 years, the government has systematically manipulated the most fundamental of economic parameters such as the Consumer Price Index (a measure of inflation), the unemployment rate, the growth rate of Gross Domestic Product, and more. This isn’t just a case of minor fudging of the numbers–Williams provides a compelling argument, for example, that current US unemployment is currently over 12% (compared to the reported 4.6% in Jan. 2006), that the CPI is actually around 7% (compared to the reported 4% WITH energy prices included), and that the US economy actually shrank 1.9% in the last quarter (compared to the official, and already alarming “rise” of of 1.1%)
Williams’ website, “Shadow Government Statistics,” has a great deal more information on how the government has obscured economic data to give the appearance that we’re doing much better than we actually are. Of course, as we’ve discussed before, collapse is always a question of confidence, so such obfuscation is completely understandable. It may be the only reason our civilization has lasted this long. But it does raise the question of economic collapse–something Vail describes as, “only a matter of time.”
I haven’t said much about economic collapse. Economics is difficult to predict, and I’ve been unsure what role economics would really play in the downfall of civilization. But after reading Vail’s latest, I am reminded of the red map, and the fact that the world’s peer polity is now propped up by very few remaining peers. Those peers are tightly integrated, economically. Globalized markets provide a super-system that subsumes them all. An economic crash could devastate them, and if the last peers holding up the system collapse, then the entire system must fall with them.
Quick technological collapse, slow social crash.
- Chuck
Comment by Chuck — 10 March 2006 @ 1:12 PM
do you have a definition for quick and slow?
Comment by _Gi — 10 March 2006 @ 1:23 PM
Society is a layer of adaptation that helps us adapt to changing circumstances. If a society doesn’t adapt fast enough to deal with the changes we face in the basics of how we survive, that society will perish.
By 2050, civilization will be isolated to a few, tiny pockets that are easily escaped and easily avoided.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 10 March 2006 @ 3:47 PM
Expending energy on convincing governments of Peak Oil is futile much less expecting them to solve this problem. It is debatable that a lower energy future is even a problem. Governments can only respond to a problem with a solution which increases complexity and this responce only tightens the noose in an environment of energy descent. My only question is why does Jeff bother when I am sure he is aware of this arguement?
Mark
Comment by Mark — 10 March 2006 @ 4:49 PM
The government is quite aware of Peak Oil, as Jeff has highlighted previously. The war in Iraq, the current posturing towards Iran–indeed, the “Long War”–is understandable only through the lens of Peak Oil.
Jeff is an advisor for the Department of the Interior. He’s “on the inside.” They have him because they’re so acutely aware of Peak Oil.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 10 March 2006 @ 4:54 PM
Railroads also took more than ten years to show profits.
How did the governments of that time manage to build the railroads?
Comment by _Gi — 10 March 2006 @ 7:02 PM
In your view, what methods will be employed by surviving pockets of civilization to keep their non-elites from escaping?
Comment by _Gi — 10 March 2006 @ 7:05 PM
“do you have a definition for quick and slow?”
Other than their relativity to one another on a “unit for unit” basis? No. Why should I have one? It would imply some knowledge that neither I nor anyone has. Anyone.
- Chuck
Comment by Chuck — 10 March 2006 @ 8:22 PM
Private enterprise did, because the returns took much less than ten years. A short railroad still had a return. The transcontinental railroad was just a matter of joining the various shorter railroads that had already been made. At each stage, there were returns to be made in the near future. That’s not the case with peak oil.
Ineffective ones.
Attempts to contain fleeing dissidents have traditionally not worked–even when they had much higher levels of complexity and more energy at their disposal. See Wall, Berlin.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 10 March 2006 @ 10:03 PM
Yep, Jeff’s dead on here. Very much related to a post I did on the institutions of federal government and how they are designed not to be reactive:
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/2/15/104340/306
which is why most of the reactive change to peak oil will be local and sporadic, at best.
Comment by Prof. Goose — 14 March 2006 @ 12:55 PM
Who says the Government is not doing something to help solve Peak Oil? There are tax subsidies for hybrid cars and solar panels (http://www.dsireusa.org/) that reduce payback periods, in some cases to less than 10 years. These examples are by no means a SOLUTION to Peak Oil, but reduced energy use (hybrid cars) and expanded use of renewable energy (solar panels) are two components of a potential solution.
The question is “Is Peak Oil Solve-able?”
Comment by Dan — 14 March 2006 @ 2:05 PM
But neither of those elements are operating on nearly the scale necessary. Government can offer sticks in the mud; it can’t change the river’s course. It doesn’t have the long-term vision for a project like that.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 14 March 2006 @ 2:18 PM
Well folks, the meltdown in Iceland may be the beginning of total world financial collapse. Also have just learned the same is happening to markets in the middle east.
http://icelandreview.com/icelandreview/daily_news/?cat_id=16539&ew_0_a_id=189794
Comment by Rick Larson — 14 March 2006 @ 11:50 PM
Hey –
Must’ve missed this the first time around…
Sure the government is offering tax rebates on hybrid cars… but their offering LARGER tax rebates for X-Large SUV’s. You know, hummers and such. So what is the message in this?
Janene
Comment by Janene — 15 March 2006 @ 9:58 AM
“but their offering LARGER tax rebates for X-Large SUV’s. You know, hummers and such. So what is the message in this?”
That subconsciously, they’re connected to the rest of the human psychic web, and they want to end the suffering as soon as possible, too.
(That’s a fun answer. An evil answer is that they’re financially connected to the car companies, as evidenced by some of the cool maps on Theyrule. They’re looking out for themselves on the short-term, at the expense of everyone else.)
- Chuck
Comment by Chuck — 15 March 2006 @ 10:42 AM
Hey kids,
CNN will do a 6 part series this weekend (March 18th) on Peak Oil. http://www.energybulletin.net/13911.html
Just in case you have been hiding in a cave for the past week.
Comment by Peter — 17 March 2006 @ 6:42 PM
John Kenneth Galbraith has a great book titled “The Culture of Contentment,” which takes a hard look at why America is incapable of constructive change. His main argument is not unrelated to Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons:” anyone who tries to do anything about the rising spiral of problems has to pay up front, in person, while if nothing’s done the costs are postponed and will be shared by the whole society. A politician who tried to get Americans to use energy less extravagantly would risk being hounded out of office the way Carter was. One who votes for big tax breaks for SUVs may be helping to doom industrial civilization to a brutal collapse and a dark age centuries long, but hey, maybe it won’t happen during his term.
Galbraith points out that exactly the same logic kept the French aristocracy from doing anything constructive about French society in the century before the Revolution. Everybody knew what needed to be done, but nobody was willing to pay the price in foregone privilege and power. The process ended at the business end of the guillotine. It’s the same process, just a shortage of powdered wigs this time.
Comment by John Michael Greer — 21 March 2006 @ 5:23 AM
Which is a shame, because the powdered wigs were really the best part, I think.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 21 March 2006 @ 10:32 AM
– Moiseide Ostrogorski, 1902
Comment by Jason Godesky — 21 March 2006 @ 6:43 PM
Well worth 50 minutes of your time to watch Peak Oil Video: Oil, Smoke and Mirrors
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=8677389869548020370&hl=en
Comment by Peter — 14 October 2006 @ 12:53 PM
http://wakeupfromyourslumber.blogspot.com/2006/10/911-truth-tsunami-headed-this-way.html
I poop-pooed this conspiracy stuff at first.
Comment by Peter — 14 October 2006 @ 3:42 PM
I still do. What, the U.S. government is the only dastardly organization on the planet? When it happened, I knew it was al-Qa’ida immediately. How? Because everyone knew they were trying to do something like this, and everyone knew that you always could, if you wanted to badly enough. Complexity opens up weaknesses and leverage points that are easy to press. In this case, all you need is 19 guys with box cutters.
Sure, the U.S. government does a lot of really nasty stuff, but they’re not alone in that regard. False flag missions are by no means unheard of, but where’s the evidence that this was one? I won’t be surprised if in years to come it comes to light that our government knew this was going to happen, and decided to look the other way in order to reap the windfall. But as for going out and actually doing it themselves—that’s pretty dumb, when there’s so many genuine bad guys that are so eager to do it for you.
That’s my biggest beef with these conspiracy nuts: it’s all so Americentric. It has to come from the United States because it hurt us, it was effective, and only the U.S. government has that kind of power. Bollocks. What all this conspiracy talk serves to do is buttress the notion that all power must come from the government. It reinforces hierarchical thinking. It’s bullshit.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 16 October 2006 @ 10:35 AM
Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 16 October 2006 @ 12:06 PM
I’d love to jump on that, I really would, but that doesn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. I knew in 1996 that bin Ladin was determined to attack the U.S. on its home soil. The key elements—where, when, and how—are missing, and without those, it’s pretty useless. Now yeah, you can use that to ask what the hell Bush was thinking cutting the anti-terrorism budget, but I don’t think that constitutes evidence that they knew 9/11 was coming and looked the other way in any meaningful way. Like I said, I won’t be surprised if it turns out they did, but even on that score the evidence is currently lacking.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 16 October 2006 @ 12:15 PM