What Does Barack Know About Peak Oil?

By James Howard Kunstler, Kunstler.com. Posted December 2, 2008.

Does Mr. O know that the current re-inflation program being run by the Treasury and the Federal Reserve is so egregious that it may lead to loss of the dollar's legitimacy, to the renunciation of dollar holdings by other nations, to the down-rating of U.S. Treasury debt instruments, and finally to an inability of the United States to purchase foreign oil -- which comprises two-thirds of all the oil we use every day?

Does Mr. O know that we are not going to run the U.S. automobile and truck fleet on any combination of alt.fuels? Continuing it by other means is a fantasy that will only disappoint us. The motoring era is coming to an end. Heroic investments in highway infrastructure to create jobs will be a tragic waste of our dwindling capital. The pressure for Mr. O to make these misinvestments will be enormous, perhaps insurmountable. There are probably not a thousand people in the nation who agree with what I am saying -- meaning the consensus to keep the cars running at all costs overwhelms reality at the moment. Does Mr. O's concept of "change" include the possibility that we may have to live very differently in this society?

Chances are, if Mr. O knows any of these things, he might be crucified in the polls and the media by acknowledging them. The only "change" that America really wants to hear about is evicting George Bush from the White House. They're sick of him and all the disturbances he has caused in their financial affairs. But beyond that, the American public is deathly afraid of the kind of changes we actually face -- such as, the end of consumer culture, the gross loss of value in suburban real estate (which forms the bulk of the middle class's private wealth), the prospect of food and fuel scarcities, the need to re-localize our lives, the need to physically shape up to stop the costly and unnecessary drain on our medical resources, to grow more of our own food, to work harder at things that actually matter, and to save whatever we can for a difficult future.

If Mr. O introduces any of these themes into the national discourse, the public and the media and the bloggers will all dump on him for failing to prop up the wild party that American life became in recent decades.

See more stories tagged with: energy, obama, peak oil, cabinet

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »