Sorry about all the oil news, but, it IS in the news. Here's the latest...
(CNN) – Campaigning for his wife in North Carolina, former President Bill Clinton said Wednesday that he’d be “very surprised if oil goes below a hundred dollars a barrel again in my lifetime.”
“There is a limited amount of oil in the ground and everyday more and more people can afford to buy it so they are gonna bid the price up,” said Clinton, who added that drivers have been forced to choose “between driving to work and having enough food for their kids.”
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NOW, he's saying that. He had eight years in office to do something about our dependence on cheap oil and our overexploitation of this finite resource, but nothing (much) was done on his watch.
Similarly, Bush has had nearly his eight long years in office with doing very little about this looming crisis. And Reaganbush had an additional 12 years in office. This peak in oil prices was predictable and predicted. Each president since the much maligned Carter has chosen to ignore the looming crisis instead of dealing with. Instead of admitting we have an overconsumption problem, not a price problem. A dependency problem.
Let’s face it, we’re addicts.
We are addicts and our leaders are running around with band-aid
solutions to the wrong problems.
“Maybe things would be better if we could find a local source for drugs,” our pusher-leaders say. “Maybe if we converted our corn to liquor, that would help.” And on and on they pander to the addiction instead of tackling the root problems.
Our leaders since at least Reagan have been facing a Category V
hurricane and wondering about whether or not we ought to put a piece of cardboard over one window and hope that the hurricane doesn’t appear. “Maybe it will be okay? Maybe we’ll come up with some magic device that will protect us from hurricanes – like a magic wall or something??”
In our leaders’ defense, though, I think they’ve only been doing what
we, the people, have wanted. This next president will have to deal with it and it’s not going to be easy. They’ll have to start facing some
serious choices and, well, that’s just no fun.
Maybe we can should still bet that we'll find a magic answer?
I seem to always offend you so now I’m just going to name the logical fallacies I found your post.
ReplyDeleteFalse Dilemma
1. Oil is the only way to produce portable energy. Nothing else will ever be invented that has the same qualities as oil as that would be magic and magic does not exist.
2. There are only two choices. Stop using Oil and only exist in a small area or run out of oil and only exist in a small area.
False Analogy
Your post claims that oil is to society what illegal drugs are to people. Oil in society allows for productivity, drugs cause less productivity.
If I were to do a re-write I would say Oil is to Society what food is to people.
then I would respond:
If you give people enough freedom they will always find more food.
source:
http://www.onegoodmove.org/fallacy
Actually Edwin, by stating it thusly, you've helped clarify what you think I'm saying and thereby help me to understand where you're coming from.
ReplyDeleteYou think I suggested:
False Dilemma 1:
"Oil is the only way to produce portable energy. Nothing else will ever be invented that has the same qualities as oil as that would be magic and magic does not exist."
Clarification: I never said that. What I have stated - repeatedly - in the past and suggested here is that we have built an economy based on cheap, abundant oil. I've further suggested that this is an extremely stupid and unconservative idea.
MIGHT we one day find some way somehow perhaps to continue to consume energy at the rates we do as cheaply as oil?? Well, I reckon it COULD happen. But lacking even the slightest idea of anything else to fall back on, it was stupid and imprudent to design our economy thusly.
You get my drift, the difference between what you suggested I've said and what I HAVE said?
You also suggested that I suggested:
False Dilemma 2:
"There are only two choices. Stop using Oil and only exist in a small area or run out of oil and only exist in a small area."
Again, no where in anything that I've written have I said that we must not use oil at all.
The economic reality that I HAVE presented is more along the lines of: If we continue to depend upon a finite resource - and create a global economy that is largely dependent upon it - then at the point where that finite resource starts drying up and demand remains high (since the economy is dependent upon it), prices WILL increase. It's the way capitalism works. High demand, limited supply = increasing prices.
Hopefully now you have a better understanding of what I'm actually saying.
As to your second complaint:
ReplyDeleteYour post claims that oil is to society what illegal drugs are to people. Oil in society allows for productivity, drugs cause less productivity.
If I were to do a re-write I would say Oil is to Society what food is to people.
then I would respond:
If you give people enough freedom they will always find more food.
1. It's not a bad comparison to suggest using food as analogy for our dependence upon oil, but it is lacking. Mainly the difference is, we HAVE to have food. We do not have to have oil. Oil has been a luxury that has allowed us a one-time 100 year consumption spurt enjoyed chiefly by the West. Lacking any affordable, abundant energy source, that won't be repeated.
In that sense, drugs - as a luxury and a non-necessity - makes for the better analogy. But it is certainly arguable. We HAVE created a system that IS dependent on oil. If cheap petrol were to go away tomorrow, people would be starving.
Oh, wait, that's happening already.
2. I'd suggest your last line would be better stated: If you give people enough freedom, access to arable land, clean water, knowledge as to how to grow food, they can feed themselves. IF - and it's a big IF - IF we're talking about people in numbers that the land can support.
we can currently feed our approximately 7 billion people with the land we have. Just giving freedom to 10 billion people will in noways assure that they will all find more food. This is a finite world and can't support an ever-increasing consumption rate. That is the logic of cancer and we know how that ends.
Here's another analogy, let's see how you like it...
ReplyDeleteThere once was a dirt poor fella who won a lottery. He won $1 million!
He promptly quit his job at McDonald's and purchased a $5 million home (placing a $500,000 deposit on it and paying $25,000/month on house payments.) He also purchased a Hummer Limosine (for special occasions) and a Jaguar (or some insanely expensive car, sorry I don't know their names). These cost another $200,000, which he paid in cash.
He hired a butler and a maid to care for his house and a chauffeur to drive him around.
"But wait!" I said to this fella, "You'll go through your $1 million THIS year. Then you won't have enough to support this lifestyle. You'll never be able to make the house payments after this first year, nor pay for your staff or even the gas for your cars!"
"Phhht!" he said confidently. "I still have plenty of money! I'll just keep playing the lottery and I'll probably win again. Don't be such a negative thinker. My ingenuity and determination have gotten me this far, haven't they?"
"Well," I sputtered, "PERHAPS you'll win another lottery, but wouldn't it be more prudent to take advantage of this opportunity WISELY? To use the resources to ensure your children and their children might have a better life?"
"Are you kidding me?!" He shouts. "Look at the life I'm providing them! How could it get any better than this???"
Now, surely, Edwin, you'll agree with me that this fella was a bit fortunate in getting that windfall but he is foolishly pissing it away and he'll be worse off in the end?
How is that NOT a good analogy for our oil dependency?
Believing that George Bush or Bill Clinton could reduce the energy dependence of a nation of Edwin Droods may be your biggest logical fallacy Dan.
ReplyDeleteWell now, I DID say, "I think they’ve only been doing what we, the people, have wanted." but yes, your point holds true.
ReplyDelete"If you give people enough freedom they will always find more food."
ReplyDelete..Soylent Green? Donner Party?