Clusterfuck Nation prediction: Obama's address on energy and Washington Post article on Peak Oil
May Kunstler call you a corn-pone Fascist!
I have three predictions about the topics that James Howard Kunstler will write about this morning when he posts his weekly blog entry over on Clusterfuck Nation.
First, he's going to castigate President Obama for not going far enough in this past Saturday's web address about oil and renewable energy and once again call Obama a disappointment who needs to be replaced.
In case you haven't watched the speech, here it is.
Click to viewThe White House on YouTube: Weekly Address: Stopping Oil Market Fraud, Beginning a Clean Energy Future
The President lays out his plans to address rising gas prices over the short and the long term, from a new task force to root out fraud and manipulation in the oil markets to investments in a clean energy economy.
Kunstler will once again point out that Obama's cornucopian ideas just won't cut it and that the President should tell the truth according to Kunstler--that America should realize that it's in the business of managing contraction, not growth. More on that later.
Second, he might actually have something nice to say about an article in the mainstream media, to wit, this article in the Washington Post:
Imagining a world without oil
By Steve Hallett and John Wright, Thursday, April 21
How would we live in a world without oil?
First, there’s transportation. With the overwhelming majority of the oil we produce and import devoted to powering our cars, motorcycles, trucks, trains and planes, the impact on getting around would be most dramatic. Price-gouging would begin right away, and long lines would form at gas stations. The lines wouldn’t last, though, because the gasoline would soon be gone. A strategic reserve of finished petroleum products - gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel - has often been suggested but never created. Within a month, every fuel tank would be dry, all our gauge needles would point to “E,” and the roads, rails and skies would be virtually empty.
How far is it to the nearest grocery store? How long does it take to walk - or bike, or skate - to work? Finally confronting our dependence on motor vehicles, we’d reach for whatever solutions we could find. Soon, we’d all be looking for an electric car (but there are precious few of those for sale) or converting our vehicles to run on natural gas. But we’d be waiting for some time to secure adequate natural gas supplies, establish delivery infrastructure and switch over our cars.
Our enslavement to black gold goes much further than the problem of getting from Point A to Point B.
Dear readers, you have no idea. Let me give you one example.
Eating would get tougher, too. If no one can truck in fresh veggies from across the country, we might be inclined to go back to basics and grow our own food. Local farmers would become a necessity, not just people who sell us honey at the street fair.You knew I had to include a paragraph about growing food.
There's more.
It’s not just at the drip of the final drop that the oil crisis begins. It is when production stagnates and begins its inexorable fall. That perilous moment, alas, is now. Our oil supplies are about to begin to fail us. As oil becomes more scarce, we have to get serious about finding new solutions to power our world.
We have time to plan - but not that much time. And so far, we’ve done very little to prepare for a world without oil.
Kunstler will appreciate that one--at least someone in the mainstream media is writing about peak oil and taking it seriously. If Kunstler doesn't urge you to do it, I will--read this article in full. You'll be far better off for it.
I'm going to cheat on that third prediction by pointing out that I've already made it--Kunstler will repeat his insistence that we are not managing contraction.
Bonus prediction: Kunstler will make some snarky comment about Easter gluttony, but that's an easy one.
A longer version of this entry was originally posted as Karnak predicts what Kunstler will blog about this week on Crazy Eddie's Motie News.
ETA: It turns out that I got the first two predictions right. In The Banana Peel of Destiny, Kunstler chided the President for not going far enough and reiterated his point about managing contraction. He didn't ever get around to saying anything nice about the Washington Post article; he was too busy calling people morons. Speaking of which, he had a better insult than snarking at people's gluttony over the holidays. Instead, he compared Americans to a pinhead at a freak show watching the other freaks burn the tents down.