Bravo Realist for putting your money where your mouth is!

The danger is shutting the gate after the proverbial horse has bolted... if you're implying by your post that market forces will be sufficient to make the transition to a sustainable future I think you're quite naive. Energy markets are a joke, there is monopolistic (or oligopolistic at best) control by multi-national corporations that are consolidating as we speak to stall the inevitable death of their polluting, socially destructive ways. The clock is ticking on climate change and too little is being done.

I'm probably reading too much into your post, if so, apologies.

Renewable naysayers,

The solution to peak oil is renewables, the economic SUPERIORITY of renewables to fossil fuels is within grasp, we just need to overcome the political hurdles and dismantle the perverse tax incentives these industries get.

I agree with Kunstler, the alarm must be raised, action must be taken now. However, falsely citing the inability of renewable, decentralized energy systems to maintain quality standards of living is a terrible disservice, it strengthens the strangle hold fossil fuels have over lives.

Get over your antiquated base load ideas about electricity, it is bunk put out by the fossil fuel lobby to prop up their filthy manipulation of the market.

Read economist Herman Scheer for an achievable realistic future that awaits if we abandon oil, coal and nuclear. Peakniks, get with the program and educate yourself about the potential alternatives, you're not going to win anybody over with doom and gloom.

Read more here: http://www.sydneypeakoil.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=1624

“We are living through our third oil shock, and the last two ended really badly for the world and Australia” (Peter Costello 12/04/06)

Well! Even Mr Maximus Growthus can see that things look ominous.

How about realising that your continuous growth ethic is completely at odds with the resource crisis that peak oil is about to impose on us?

So how about getting serious about the whole deal Peter…. and Johnny?

The real impending crisis is the end of economics as economists have become comfortable with.

The basis of our economies is not so much a particular cheap fuel, but a reliance on certain social constructs. If those constructs collapse, or are overthrown, we face the same excitement as the early stages of the Industrial Revolution.

At the moment, some societies - or at least segments of them - seem to be shifting the "means of production" away from purely physical to more ephemeral means. Much of our economic modelling is based upon the idea that resources are limited, and are valued according to supply and demand.

With intellectual products, the difficulties lie in enforcing the scarcity (through "Intellectual Property" regimes) and in their 'unreliability'. Putting more brains on a problem doesn't necessarily solve it faster, or better, or at all.

The content and the quality of education - and experience - are very important, but they're "mere" enablers. Both are required, but not sufficient, preconditions for a "knowledge economy" or whatever we're calling it today.

The emergency is artifical, not the least because we're trying to hold on to an old model of our own constructed reality. Something that cannot, and will not, last. Knowing that, we still fear the uncertainty of change - despite it being our oldest and most constant friend - and instigated by our own hands/minds.

Looking for a spot to put this in, Peter - hope its okay

Two spatial discussions proved tremendously interesting on Wednesday, April 15th- one between George Negus and US Professor Fukuyama on SBS Dateline, and the other, between Tony Jones and an American cleric, not an Evangelist.

The first with Fukuyama, brought out the change of attitude that has come from the professor since things have not been going so well in Iraq. Now for some of us who were against the pre-emptive strike on Iraq, Fukuyama’s philosophical turnabout, though certainly good news for the loonie left as some of our Posters might declare, might indeed be better news for our Greens and Democrats, who have been regarding the international scene all along as too much relying on big power brutish force as the only path to world democracy, Sadly in a sense, as well as Cheney, Bush, and Rumsfeld’s way, it has also been Blair and Howard’s way.

Bushbred - Part Two

Turning to the environment, there has also been change among whom we might call the uptite right, an admittance that Global Warming is not just a cyclic change but could be caused by modern man and his overdoing of ways and means to make it a more comfortable world to live in. But as shown lately, there has come a rather quiet admittance from the conservative corporate quarter that we are facing a scary environmental future.

Admittedly we did see spells of political spin coming out with Blair, Bush and Howard, formerly not agreeing with Kyoto one iota, but then with inclines of a rather dirty switch-over agenda about global warming being a serious problem - pretty well a paper-copy. of the opposition, but their own way to present it.

But just lately it is from Blair and Howard from which this 19th century type political spin seems to be coming, George W’ staying with his ME problems and surprisingly rather earnestly saying that it might be better not to pepper Iran with modern shot and shell, but to use diplomacy. Let’s hope Condy Rice also has a change of heart, considering she has too long been called the Devil’s Handmaiden for such a classy looking lady. .

But all in all, according to the religous leader talking to Tony Jones, as well as Fukuyama to George Negus, that Pax Americana might be looking for a Third Way to solve our present political world problems. Could be real hard to take, but maybe they might listen to Nelson Mandela, as well as some of our loonie leftist uni’ professors many of our Posters are still aiming at.

If it really does turn out this way, my goodness, what a cracking future for any genuine historian, though it could be said our futuristic cartoonists are already well on the job.

"The basis of our economies is not so much a particular cheap fuel, but a reliance on certain social constructs...

At the moment, some societies - or at least segments of them - seem to be shifting the "means of production" away from purely physical to more ephemeral means. Much of our economic modelling is based upon the idea that resources are limited, and are valued according to supply and demand."

Ephemeral indeed, this is the great sleight of hand of much economic wishful thinking today. The necessities of life, food, warmth, shelter are physical in nature and always will be, we take them for granted in rich countries but lack of these necessities is a bitter reality for the people locked out of our centralised economies.

Globalization driven by the established and quickly developing countries is not about "intellectual property" it is about increasingly scarce yet highly concentrated energy and material resources that need to be exploited and distributed on a global level over very long supply chains. America, with 5% of the global population consumes a disproportionate amount. This hierarchical system has been the driving force of the consolidation of corporate multi-nationals and their immense power and their ability to erode the democratic nature of western nation states.

The dawning crisis is obvious when one perceives that the current increase in the use of military force (at unheard of cost) is being used to maintain this system. This is not about imposing democracy by use of brute force, it is about a desperate empire teetering on the brink of failure. The real economic crisis will be the realisation that endless creation of money through debt, backed by the collateral of future growth, cannot be sustained forever because it is based on finite resources. The ephemeral issues of copyright and intellectual property will pale in comparison to the inevitable failure of neoclassical economic folly. Changing the resource base to sustainable solar energy and materials can enable a healthier, more equitable decentralised global economy.