Peak-Oil
Awareness And
The Larger Community
By Peter Goodchild
08 September, 2007
Countercurrents.org
If
the imminence of oil depletion is regarded as a given, the next question
is that of preparation and survival. Commonly the issue of survival
is dealt with in terms of the small group: the family or the ad-hoc
band (complete with camo gear and pump-action shotguns?). The feeling,
apparently, is that the larger community would be useless, or even hostile,
toward the more-prepared group. Yet others hope to deal with the issue
in terms of a broader geographic base, perhaps even national or global.
To what extent would such a large-scale approach be practical? Is it
possible to deal with peak oil on a broad demographic scale?
The obstacles would certainly
be considerable. The steps would include convincing the majority of
citizens (1) that oil-depletion is real (hence countering the persistent
propaganda of the oil industry itself), (2) that there are no simple
and painless solutions in terms of "alternative energy," (3)
that there will be an increasingly severe imbalance between population
and resources (including food and other most-essential ones), and (4)
that only the most strenuous emergency program (equal to that of nuclear-war
preparation) will allow any hope of a decent life.
All of this will go against
the grain of "human nature" — or at least human habit.
The population would have to consider that five thousand years of civilization
may have all been in vain. It would have to realize that "progress,"
an idol of humanity since the eighteenth century, is a false one. It
would have to consider the fact that happiness, exuberance, and abundance
are not interchangeable concepts. It would have to accept the fact that
white-collar skills are of little consequence, and that most of daily
life must be shifted to a pre-industrial paradigm. It will be necessary
for each person to understand that the television set will be permanently
unplugged. Is such a geographically large-scale operation possible?
Or will the sheer inertia be insuperable?
I am reminded of a terrible
automobile accident to which I was a witness. Several cars were involved.
One driver, a young woman, left her vehicle and sat with her children
under a tree on a well-mown lawn. A photograph of that scene would have
looked idyllic, yet the reality was not so. The woman simply sat, staring
into the distance, through the long, long minutes, as I and other witnesses
did what we could while waiting for the emergency vehicles to arrive.
I spoke to her several times, but she barely replied, although she seemed
to have no physical injuries. She was, of course, in shock. To deal
with the situation, she had taken her mind to a nicer place. She certainly
had no desire to converse with rescuers. Is this the kind of response
that one might expect in a severe fuel crisis? Both the crisis and the
response would be far more prolonged than those of a car accident, but
the symptoms of apathy or catatonia might be similar.
Is it possible to deal with
shock on such a broad scale? Even if so, there would be other major
questions to answer. Would it be possible to ensure fair treatment for
all — male and female, young and old, rich and poor? There would
also be regional differences to consider, in particular that of population
density: rural areas might have one person per square kilometer, whereas
a city might have several thousand; would scarce resources be even scarcer
with high density, or would there be some advantages to the shorter
distances needing to be covered? (How could one even begin to explain
that it would take a thousand square meters of arable land to supply
the grain and vegetables for one person, and that food would have to
be hauled by horse and wagon?) Nor is it even certain that cities will
suddenly become obsolete; over the course of history there is no strict
correlation between the existence of cities and that of a certain level
of technology, and it may be that the presence of cities is largely
correlated with that of superior political (more precisely, military)
power. On a more immediate level: Who exactly would be supplying the
"soup and blankets" for the survivors? And who would explain
that although "the authorities" will never arrive on the scene,
over the course of thousands of years they might form part of an astonishing
mythology?
Peter Goodchild
is the author of Survival Skills of the North American Indians (Chicago
Review Press). He can be reached at [email protected].
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