Shuck and Jive


Sunday, December 30, 2007

Peak Oil: From The Blues to Hope

I thought as the year ends, I would bring up the topic mainstream press does not mention--but most of us realize lies at the root of our panic--Peak Oil. Don't tell me you haven't heard of this. If not, get your reality check here.

Once that finally settles in you will go through several months of panic and depression. I did. After all, you thought things were simply going to get better and better. It sucks when your whole worldview crashes. Peak Oil puts a damper in those plans for a 30 year mortgage on that big house in the suburbs, doesn't it?

I have passed through the depression phase. You can read some of my depressing posts about Peak Oil here, here, here, here, and here.

If you are still in doubt, just google, dogpile, yahoo, or whatever "peak oil" and read.

I am no longer depressed. In fact, I am now in my happy phase. Peak Oil is good for us ladies and gentlemen. Something good is going to come from all of this.

If humanity survives the next 50-100 years, we are going to be in good shape. This does not mean there will not be a great deal of suffering and pain in the next 50 to 100 years. We are in for a great deal of that. But, if we make it through without losing our heads, our descendants are headed for an awesome, evolutionary, post-carbon future.

We all have our parts to play in preparing for this future. As a religious cleric, I have a role to play. A major part of that role is to criticize religious fundamentalists and their fantasy-based, Armageddon-oriented, porno-violent superstition.

We need wisdom, folks, not superstition.
We need creativity, not crapola.

We need clear thinking, scientific endeavor, cooperation, spiritual humility, collaboration, and a new global consciousness. We are citizens of Earth--one Earth--our home. We need to embrace our human story, our planet's story, our universe's story--the story of evolution--and form a new wisdom from the best that our religious, spiritual, and humanistic traditions have offered.

We are on the verge of great change.

This next year I am going to be blogging about some people who I think are preparing us for this change.

There is no more exciting time to be alive than today.

We have a quest.
A hero's quest.
A quest for a new future.
Our children,
born and not yet born,
are counting on us.

2 comments:

  1. John, I read through the peak oil site, and while I don't think anyone would argue that oil is scarce and getting scarcer, the website raised all kinds of red flags with me because of the rhetoric and conspiracy theories. (like no reporter will report on this because the networks are owned by giant corporations who don't want to lose money by scaring people).

    I found this blog, which looks like a serious attempt to respond to some of the more conspiratorial claims:

    http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/

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  2. Thanks Robert, I will check out that site. I agree with you about some of the rhetoric. People have a lot of theories about what might happen and whose interests are served by sharing or not sharing information.

    The basic theory seems pretty sound. Hubbert's Peak is the place to start.

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