The Myth of Peak Oil

The idea of Peak Oil has become a salon topic for the progressive left. Unfortunately, discussions on this sort of subject tend to run to hysterical extremes. How the planet is going to descend into anarchy when that last drop of gasoline is eked out of that last gas pump somewhere in the world. How suddenly, we’ll face all manner of ugly deaths, from starvation, or exposure, or isolation, as our oil-powered suburban lifestyles become unsustainable. So reminiscent of the flap over Y2K.

Personally, I’m inherently suspicious of doomsday scenarios. It’s not that I disbelieve that oil is a finite resource. It's not that I doubt the ability of the human race to burn it all up in a frenzy of consumption, merrily fouling our nest to the point of uninhabitability in the process. But I have not one iota of faith in our American media to report on an issue in a calm, factual, intellectual manner. If it cannot be sensationalized, if it cannot be presented in a way that will incite some kind of exaggerated emotion—fear, hatred, hysteria, greed—it will not be published in a form readily consumed by the average American citizen.

Which makes me wonder how the theory of Peak Oil is making it into mainstream media at all. Especially considering who sits in the seat of power in the US, and who sits a heartbeat away. (You pick which one sits where…) We all concede that the administration’s “politics of fear” was largely responsible for their locking up a second four-year lease on the White House. It’s not too much of a leap to imagine them employing that same iron-fisted media manipulation to tweak the reactions of the American public in any direction they desire, on any issue that stands to increase their cash flow. So they can buy more power. Not energy. Power.

I can’t help feeling that the GOP media patrol is letting just enough (mis)information on Peak Oil leak out to the general public to induce a very specific reaction: Get it while you can. The old “run-on-the-bank” trick. Why else would we be stupid enough to queue up for gasoline at $4 a gallon? Why else would we plant our feet and bellow like mules at the idea of the government levying a gas tax that would be high enough to get our attention and curb our usage; but we’ll happily let Exxon and Chevron put those very same dollars in their pockets as obscene profits on our gullibility? I don’t know about you, but if I have to pay $5 or $6 a gallon for gasoline, I’d like to know that those extra dollars are going somewhere that there is at least a remote possibility of them being used for the “greater good.” Rather than into the coffers of the Big Oil fat cats, so they can save up and buy another war.

And what about things like bio-diesel, and wind farms, and entrepreneurial alternative energy industries all over the world, quietly going about their business of R & D, in what amounts to a government-imposed media vacuum? The alternative energy resources are out there. They’re being developed, albeit much more slowly than they could be, as we guzzle our last drops of gasoline. But our government, and therefore our media, does not want you to know that. Every fact about alternative energy that does make it past the Bush Information Blockade will be countered with an “expose” about how much fossil fuel energy it takes to produce, therefore nullifying its worth.

Might as well just keep forking over those bucks to Exxon and Chevron. That old trickle-down will take care of you when the time comes. All they’ll have to do is light a match…

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