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Culture Change e-Letter
#11
Toward conservation, food security and peace
Citizen petroleum councils
by Jan Lundberg
Do you agree we need to start controlling oil rather than let
it control us?
Using less of it is more than just virtuous, as Vice President
Cheney claims. Oil is all too key to survival, such that our common
future is threatened. Supplies are rapidly becoming insufficient to maintain
what we can call Petroleum Civilization, the offspring of the Industrial and
Agricultural Revolutions.
To conserve oil and natural gas is not enough. We must
emancipate ourselves from fossil fuels, so that a sustainable form of economics
takes over the present petroleum-dependent, polluting and war-driven economy.
The solutions I endorse do not include waiting for a renewable-energy utopia in
which consuming could continue apace for the overpopulation presently destroying
life.
Most of the world’s six billion-plus people are hooked on
petroleum for growing and distributing most of their food, so it follows that
the status quo be examined critically. Everyone from the complacent,
ignorant consumer blithely wasting non-renewable energy and warming the
globe, to the stockholder in a fossil fuels company, must now address community
needs and global security. Such responsibility entails more than voting for some
business-as-usual "leader" every few years.
Making oil last longer could be a valid argument for
safeguarding the community interest. Saving our atmosphere and the climate is
another motivation to deal with today’s prodigious oil consumption. Some would
say that gasoline gluttony is a sin, and others would say industry’s profits must no
longer come before all other considerations.
Considering all of the above, I suggest Citizen Petroleum Councils to
be established in every community, state, nation, and at the United Nations. The
idea is to involve people in their own lives, because petroleum dependence has
crept into and taken over their homes, jobs, recreation, and, most critical, eating. After
the energy shocks of the 1970s, every state in the U.S. formed Energy
Commissions that gathered and disseminated data and discussed policy. However,
they were more a reaction to gasoline lines at service stations rather than to
our fundamental way of life being affected by geopolitical developments
concerning oil.
Many people are concerned about society in a deeper fashion
beyond worrying about affordable energy prices. People are also expressing a
social malaise that stems from an awareness of loss of community. Unraveling of the
social fabric, as indicated by the ascendancy of the prison
industry, for example, places people either in a mood of despair or taking
action. Protest is always simmering below society's surface, and many of
us contemplate solutions to root problems.
For example, the misplaced priorities of driving and
paving rob us of a chance to enjoy a more prosperous and beautiful life. If
there were more passenger trains—hopefully powered by renewable energy—people
could choose between (A) a transport system that kills around one hundred thousand
people a year in the U.S. through car crashes and vehicle fumes, and (B) one
that kills a couple
of people per year—namely AMTRAK. The subsidy to motor vehicles and their
infrastructure totals as much as the Defense Department’s annual budget.
Meanwhile, alternative transportation and more sustainable land use are all but
trashed by those wielding the most political power.
It is time to start putting petroleum industry expertise
closer to the public. The public should appreciate from experts the
role petroleum fully plays in society. Every nation and community should have
its own committee or council of cooperating industry people, consumers, and
conservationists, to advise all governments’ decision makers who control any
part of the petroleum infrastructure. Talents must be
gathered from academia and working persons’ skills, so as to survey our
present vulnerabilities and opportunities. Generating and answering questions,
and formulating solutions for our common energy/agricultural future, from the
local to global level, are critical for getting through the coming phase of
history. From a culture of often vicious, wasteful competition we will have to
transform to cooperating henceforth for the good of the whole human tribe and
our fellow creatures.
In the Citizen Petroleum Councils some points will cry out for
attention: rail freight is eight times as energy-efficient as trucking.
Meanwhile, the U.S. federal court has just put an environmental hold on
President Bush's welcome to all the polluting, unsafe trucks that Mexico can
throw at El Norte's already stressed highways. Rail has its place, but those who buy only very local
products, and walk or bike voluntarily rather than drive, may become society's
darlings.
Global warming is out of control, and in the last decade it has been
especially fueled by the massive increase in transportation's share of
greenhouse gases. World trade as a crazy petroleum
blowout that cannot go on past the current period of global peak oil
production. Should not councils of citizens and industry experts give
their best information, concerns and solutions to all governments and to the
people directly?
This interface between industry and the citizenry is overdue,
when billions of lives are at stake day to day and for future generations.
Unions seldom serve to interface between social classes, as unions are generally concerned with the money
made by workers off the unsustainable industry group employing them. The
automobile workers union recently opposed fuel-economy regulations to rein in
Sport Utility Vehicles.
Regardless of how low-tech or high-tech one's job is, assuming
one is employed, the flow of food from country to town is the precondition of
modern civilization. What is the possibility that this flow is headed for
disruption? Upon such a widespread disruption due to petroleum supply problems, we may witness the disruption of
much of society, more so than in electricity blackouts which shut down
communication and business for a time. Water is pumped primarily via
petroleum and coal power.
There is no need for panic when the
means are present, as they are, to modify distribution systems and prepare
communities for greater self-sufficiency and "new" ways of providing
for our collective survival.
Conservation is not the goal in itself, but rather a
responsible use of limited resources. Much of the world dismisses concern over
meeting future energy and food requirements, assuming "they will think of
something." Who are "they?" You and me probably. In an age of
career overspecialization, we must guard against offering up just one authority over the
many, for an interdisciplinary societal task. Besides, people should do for themselves
rather than sit back to be provided for and then complain. The petroleum
industry and its pervasive grip on society must therefore be appreciated as
never before. Environmentalists are often concerned with restoration of the
land. So, just as the renewable energy infrastructure will require beaucoup
petroleum, restoration of degraded landscapes on a massive, timely scale will
require lots of oil burning also. An example of this would be bulldozers’
taking out abandoned logging roads, as has barely begun back in my own neck of the
woods in northern California.
I’m going to approach some of my oil industry contacts about
the idea of Citizen Petroleum Councils, hastening to tell them that industry people
belong on the councils along with non-industry citizens. One out of two,
or one out of twenty, oil professionals may be receptive. When I met
Michael Halbouty, a Texas oilman who was President-elect Ronald Reagan's energy adviser, he told me
in 1988 "we have to do something about the greenhouse effect."
The movement to bring about a peaceful, unpolluted world has
been waging protest much more than it has represented affirmation. This
negative
aspect puts the movement on the
defensive, while the establishment’s juggernaut is cloaked in
"positive" (e.g., gratification) attributes. Yet, propaganda to consume more and
more lacks staying power, as the global clock ticks to critical peak-oil extraction. As people sense that we are already skidding down a
slope that has only begun to get rough,
solutions follow through awareness. The awareness will come with a high
cost to society and the Earth. Fortunately, solutions are ready now for consideration and adoption. The
Citizen Petroleum Councils can facilitate and expedite that
process.
War talk, or war future?
War on Iraq is part of a long string of aggressive moves by the U.S.
Manifesting its corporation-support role to seize wealth and to dominate, the
world's sole superpower increasingly holds itself to be above international law, and has for
decades been like a beast that
must keep devouring. To point that out is not to support or prefer Saddam
Hussein or the almost forgotten Osama bin Laden. Indeed, defense against
violent threats do justify protective action in "the homeland" against
overseas belligerent enemies.
The U.S., however, has had an even harder time over Gulf War II’s
"selling" (Andrew Card’s approach from the White House) than the
government did
when it escalated involvement in Vietnam. Some international crises can call for
legitimate
defense for the people of America, while some are actually tragic cases of plunder, such as
the annexation of Hawaii at the hands of adventurers including Dole of pineapple
fame. Iraq has more oil than any nation besides Saudi Arabia.
Oil may be the material basis of most of the conflict in the Middle East, but
we get nowhere by dwelling on only one sore spot of Petroleum Civilization.
Petroleum consumption and
its disastrous effect on the environment must be understood as the process by
which modern people feed themselves today. Meanwhile, suburban lawns and urban
paved landscapes waste food-growing space, and much transport is simply wasteful
or unnecessary.
To understand how myopic and convoluted the present warlike strategies make
people think and plan, here is what rigid thinking can do to people who
unfortunately have their fingers on the triggers of weapons of mass destruction,
while their feet are stuck to their SUV gas pedals:
"Some diplomats also worry that if the inspectors were actually to find
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, or to locate a scientist confessing to the
development of such weapons, it may be harder rather than easier to justify a
war against Iraq. Such a development would be seen as a justification for
prolonging the inspections process, they say."
- New York Times, January 19, 2003
This strikes me as narrow thinking in terms of who can blow up who
first. The threat is real, but this does not mean conservation is just for
wimps and non-patriotic peaceniks and anarchists. As Uncle Sam admonished
his citizens in World War II, non-carpooling helps Hitler. Incidentally,
the Victory
Gardens were often from depaving.
Without a leader's moral high ground of being on the
defensive regarding belligerent nations, and being conservative with resources and strategic commodities, it
is no wonder that over 80% in a recent poll by Time magazine's Europe edition
believe the U.S. is the biggest threat to world peace. Instead of ignoring
that reality, let us take the initiative for victory over petroleum domination
by making the U.S. "another Cuba of petroleum
conservation-solutions for sustainable agriculture and renewable
energy." Who will start creating Citizen Petroleum Councils in the
USA?
*****
Jan spoke of Citizen Petroleum Councils at his
speech in London at The Institute of Petroleum. Read
speech.
The Pledge for Climate Protection has 10 steps
for sustainable living, and can be seen at http://culturechange.org/global_warming_pledge.html
See PeakOilAction.org
for ideas on community action regarding oil dependence in light of upcoming
shortage.
For our No War for Oil webpage, see
http://www.culturechange.org/not%20in%20our%20name.htm
Jan Lundberg's columns are protected by
copyright; however, non-commercial use of the material is permitted as long as
full attribution is given with a link to this website, and he is informed of the
re-publishing: info@culturechange.org
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