There's a lot of depressing news going on these days. But it was ever thus. However, there's something a little bit worse in character about present-day bad news. In the past, we could rely on the hope that whatever bad happened now, there was a "progress" way out; time and ingenuity would solve our problems. But with Peak Oil apparently looming over our shoulders, now seeming to overshadow the long-term threat of global warming, it seems like the opposite is true: it's all downhill from here.
It's an immobilising sentiment. And you'd think that that was irrational---a sentiment generated by the scale of the problem, but I'd like to play the "Devil's advocate" and say that it is, in fact, the rational response.
Like most people, I'm used to many of the comforts of technology. However, there are some I do without: I don't own a car, which is a biggie, and in fact most of my day to day travel is done on foot. (Let's leave aside the plane travel for now...) But I cannot imagine living in or surviving a world in technological and economic decline. And if I cannot imagine it, how can the masses who rely even more than I on cheap energy would be able to go without, let alone actually choose to do what needs to be done and let go early enough that there is sufficient available energy for the truly important things, like health care and so on.
In fact, I cannot imagine human (North American) society as a whole choosing to scale back in advance. There's always one group or another that thinks it's sufficiently important to continue to consume ever-increasing amounts. The only scale-backs I can think of are those which are forced by supply: Peak Oil.
The optimists tell us that there is a way out: the Julian Simonesque dictum that human ingenuity and the market are sufficient to solve most problems and can be assumed to work. As the price of energy goes up, so does this incentive to find new, hitherto unknown (not-so-)cheap sources, and this can be reliably counted upon---inventiveness given demand seems to be quite powerful through history. However, this seems like a risky fantasy to me. So much safer to conserve, isn't it? But let us survey the existing options for action:
- The pollyannas are wrong, and there is no cheap energy escape hatch from the Peak Oil Problem. Then we're doomed (assuming I'm right that people won't stop consuming). Then the smart thing to do is to continue to enjoy life as before---worse, yet, perhaps to consume even more before it becomes impossible to do so.
- The pollyannas are right, and the supply problem is solved by the ingenuity of demand. In which case, it is still appropriate to consume as before. Perhaps, to consume more than before, in order to hasten this economic process!
Either way, it seems to be worth it to be consuming, not conserving. Make of that what you will. But if the truth lies in between the two, then the calculation is a little different.
What I think is that the truth is between these two options you posit in a way that encourages more conservation:
There are going to be alternatives to oil, but they'll take time to develop. This time depends on the availability of oil, but there is a minimum time period required to become completely oil-independent.
For example, take electricity: photovoltaic cells' cost is plummeting independently of the demand for oil. The ambitious large-scale alternative energy project, lunar solar power, will take 10-15 years to build.
For other uses of oil, it will take a lot of time to just develop the alternatives, let alone use them. In the meantime, coal, which is now used to produce electricity, can be converted to oil as a stopgap measure, but it won't be economically viable until well after the oil peak. It's necessary to cut down on use of oil until these alternatives become technologically viable.
Posted by: Alon Levy | July 16, 2005 at 09:31 AM
You may be right, but...will people scale back demand? My pessimism rests on this point. Where in history have people scaled back demand prior to the "natural" price of supply rising out of reach?
Posted by: Mandos | July 16, 2005 at 06:41 PM
No, people will not scale back demand. Eventually they will, after reduction in supply causes prices to soar, but I don't think that's what you're talking about.
Posted by: Alon Levy | July 16, 2005 at 10:11 PM
Yeah, I'm talking about scaling back demand in a foresighted attempt to conserve enough to support alternative technologies that may fill some of the gap, as you mentioned.
Posted by: Mandos | July 17, 2005 at 12:05 AM
Well, that just won't happen, unless governments (in particular the USA's) start taxing the hell out of gas consumption.
Posted by: Alon Levy | July 17, 2005 at 10:11 AM
Well then doesn't one of my extreme scenarios now apply?
Posted by: Mandos | July 17, 2005 at 11:34 AM