This is one of the better quotes on the Peak Oil controversy that I've found in quite a while. It reminds me of the tale of the ten blind men trying to describe the elephant in front of them.
He [Kunstler] isn't alone in seeing what he wants to see of course - the Viridian camp sees a shiny green future awaiting us in the post oil world, old school oil guys like T Boone Pickens see a exploration and drilling bonanza, energy industry investors like Matt Simmons and Henry Groppe see soaring energy prices, gold bugs see rampart inflation and soaring gold prices, ferals and hippies see a return to living closer to nature, socialists see the revivial of marxism, conspiracy theorists see government/elite conspiracies and the rise of the new world order, primitivists see the collapse of industrial civilisation and human dieoff, libertarians see an opportunity for the market to bring new energy sources and technoloies to us, fascists see an opportunity for a return to authoritarianism and some of the uglier approaches to population control used by their ilk in the past, economists see supply and demand issues being resolved by energy prices, military-industrial complex members see the need to militarily dominate the energy rich regions of the planet, end-times Christian fundamentalists see another symptom of the impending rapture and survivalists see an opportunity to say "I told you so" and finally get to use the skills and tools they've spent their lives practicing for.
Source: http://peakenergy.blogspot.com/
It's human nature to try to see the silver lining in every cloud.
Posted by: Beef Jezos | December 06, 2005 at 03:02 AM
I have been trying to find a quote from Orwell for years now. I have all of his collections of essays but not the time to reread them. It's been a good decade since I saw the quote. It goes something like this, "All political ideology is the result of childhood neurosis."
Anyone know it?
Posted by: Peter | December 06, 2005 at 10:34 AM
bump
Posted by: Peter | December 22, 2005 at 09:00 PM