Friday, November 23, 2007
NEIL REYNOLDS, THE BUSINESS PAGES & THE BAU BARGAIN
Jeff Berg
It is easy to understand why many have been confused by Neil Reynolds' November 21, 2007, Globe & Mail article 'Here's Why the U.S. is Facing Up to its Thirst for Oil' http://tinyurl.com/2hfynb He does after all promise much with this title only to follow it with a bizarrely antediluvian look at the Ultimately Recoverable Resource world of oil and gas discovery and extraction.
Today so very much is so very widely known and agreed upon in the oil and gas service sectors and in the field of resource geology that it is no surprise that this knowledge is part of the consensus that makes up the rarefied realms of intelligence occupied by groups like the National Petroleum Council, the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Petroleum Institute. How strong the consensus is today concerning the facts about Peak Oil and Gas is probably best illustrated by the fact that James R. Schlesinger opened his remarks to the 6th Annual ASPO Conference by saying, "The conceptual argument is over - the Peakists have won. Everyone is a Peakist now."
That such a man could state such a thing so openly for public attribution at a such forum, knowing full well how widely such a statement would be quoted,
bespeaks a consensus at least as strong as the one that now surrounds Climate Change.
N.B. Schlesinger is a former U.S. Secretary of Defence, CIA Head and U.S. Secretary of Energy.
For Mr. Reynolds this is not his first article alluding derisively to limits to resources or dismissing the importance of the limits to growth or the fragility of the environment. However, given how quickly events are unfolding it may be among his last. He has over the years been taken off numerous files because his slick renunciations of fact became an oil slick's worth of embarrassment for his paper when events raced out far ahead of his recalcitrant denials. Aka. His 'analysis'.
In essence Mr. Reynolds, like many other business pages writers, is a bought and paid for reactionary denialist. An ideologue cut from the neoclassic mould of pseudo-Libertarian and pseudo-Supply Side Economics commentary. A strain of Canadians who not so covertly are 3 R wannabes (Roidal Rage Republicans) A "free" trade economics rah-rah booster for the corporate class who's never seen a tax cut he didn't like and like Thomas Friedman never seen a free-trade deal he wouldn't sign regardless of whether or not he has read it.
What he denies is not so important as why he denies. He like Bjorn Lomborg is a professional shill for the idea that things are way better than we think they are. To this he adds by inference the more or less "open secret" that underlies the surface of every business page and homeland security argument everywhere. I.e. The unspoken threat that says that things are today far better than they could otherwise be and that we all don't know just how good we have it. This threat is left to hang in the atmosphere we all breathe daily, aka “the public dialogue”, where it combines potently with what we all know about abuse and victims. I.e. The possibility that if we all don't just shut up and go along for the ride we will make it all much worse for everybody. Most especially for the most vulnerable.
Aka. The mailed fist that flexes regularly a mere 1/16 th of an inch beneath the velvet glove of silkily murmured platitudes that say "All's well, nothing to see here. Move on."
One cannot say that over the years Reynolds' and the business page arguments haven't matured. For example where once he and they completely ignored the existence of pollution, environmental degradation, climate change and peak oil and gas. Now they simply ignore their importance to a coherent critique of North American economics and social well being not to mention the world's.
In some ways it is a surprise that Reynolds did not follow Brent NS of the Canada Energy listserve and Terence Corcoran of the National Post into the radical fringe of using arguments from Epistemology 101 to deny GW. I.e. "It's not proved. In fact it's really, reallly, hard to prove anything and these scientists over here, some of them from MIT, say that you can't really ever prove anything and since GW is part of everything it too can't be proved. So there! " What I like to call the Tobacco Science Defence.
Which brings me to RULE #10 in how to measure the success of your information campaign when your information is inconvenient to the financial, industrial and BAU classes. (Business As Usual)
RULE #10: The last refuge of every of scoundrel is not nationalism, that is the second to last refuge of every scoundrel. Hiding behind arguments from
Epistemology 101 is the last refuge of every scoundrel.
It is also when you know for sure that you have won the battle of ideas. The next step of course is to use that victory to carry the battle of hearts and minds so that you can force an invite to the table where participatory budgeting takes place at a societal level.
Once there you will likely have to accept some compromises but if you have done your alliance and back channel bridge building correctly surprisingly little compromise. As was proved by the SOX and NOX and CCF campaigns. The reason why very little compromise is necessary at such historical points is that when those who have no power but information are able to advance their way to a place at the table; it is always because the arguments that they have been making are now so overwhelmingly clear that all but the most reactionary are more than willing to join the fight.
Mostly the compromises will be in the form of a not so little amount of red meat/subsidy for those that have remained denialists for so long that they have entered the "sunset industry" category. This should be viewed by all as an unavoidable cost of the adult way of doing business. It's only money after all and more important things are at stake and at risk if this mature and well trod route is not taken.
At the same time it is important to keep in mind that, sadly, some warriors will be seduced into selling out even after having made it all the way to this point with their ethics intact. Trading away at the least possible instant defeat for victory. Trading a certain and meaningful result for a much watered down 'victory' when so much more was mere inches from our collective grasp. And doing so for trinkets. A few tributes, a few plums, a fleeting bit of prestige and some hearty pats on the back. Overwhelmed at the last in a way that they could never be by obstacles no matter how large. Overwhelmed in the end by the heady success of finally finding themselves “real players”. Eternal vigilance is the price to more than freedom mes amis.
As to how Mr. Reynolds could see his piece as a "Coming to terms with Peak Oil" article you need look no further than to the following.
"They represent 3.5 trillion barrels of oil resources. America 's commercial-quality oil shale resources alone exceed two trillion barrels. This shale can be processed to generate ultraclean, high-quality diesel and jet fuels, along with high-value chemicals - with existing technologies under normal economic conditions."
If you remember your five stages of grief: 1) Denial 2) Anger 3) Bargaining 4) Depression 5) Acceptance.
Mr. Reynolds has entered stage 3 and is now effectively saying. "O.K. so I was somewhat mistaken. And yes I accept now that Peak Oil is somewhat of a problem. But it's no biggie and it sure as hell isn't what the Peakniks have been saying it is. We've got TRILLLLL LLL IONS of barrels of oil in North America alone. We've got the Tarsands, and Oil Shale, and 250 years worth of clean coal, and Saskatchewan 's uranium, and that's just for starters!"
Like someone diagnosed with cancer he is, understandably, looking for a way out that isn't the end of the line. Like an alcoholic who has not yet admitted the full extent of his problem he is looking for ways to still have his cake and eat it too.
"OK. Alright. I admit it's a bit of an issue. But it's under control and I'll only drink on the weekends. And I'll only have 4, no 5, drinks a night max and never, ever any more than that.”
“Unless of course it's a realllllllly special occasion like a promotion, or a buddies promotion or a birthday or anniversary or a retirement party or the Leafs won a really big game or something important like that. But I'll never, ever drink on days like today that are weekdays and workdays, holidays excepted of course.
NEVER! Perfect. Done. Never. Excellent. That's great. That's really well done. I'm proud of myself. I should be proud of myself! Just one drink to seal the deal."
This is analogous in my mind to the extent to which Mr. Reynolds has come to terms with the end of the Age of Oil. For him "Coming to terms with PO&G" means agreeing that conventional crude is not as abundant as the EIA, the U.S.G.S. and EXX ON formerly stated. Or rather what other people told him the EIA, the U.S.G.S. and EXX ON were saying. I rather doubt that he did much if any primary research himself.
And so now he is looking around for what “people” are saying about the other fuel sources that will now take the place of conventional crude because he simply cannot imagine that things will not continue pretty much as they have for quite some time yet. (At the very least until he is comfortably retired) HE IS NOT ALONE IN THIS!
N.B. Wait till those like him hear about natural gas in NA and the global re-audit of coal and uranium. Then shall the proverbial fecal matter meet with the whirling blades of ineradicable verity. Or something like that :-)
We in the Peak Energy community are still very far ahead of most on this particular learning curve and we must tax our patience as much as we possibly can because it will be some years yet before folks will be where they need to be for this argument to move forward in the way that it must societally.
Proof of this assertion was to be found at the Parkland Conference in Edmonton , Alberta , November 16 to 18, 2007. Parkland is a research Institute for Political Economy, Social Justice and Environmental issues. And while most there have heard of the issues that we in the Post Carbon movement deal with daily many in the audience have yet to truly marinate in all of the consequences and so are just now exiting the negotiating stage to the point where depression is starting to settle in.
For some it may be a protracted stay. And because they are Albertans and oil and gas rich for now, for some the negotiating stage will be very long indeed. Though I can also say that at least one of the U of A students was brought to tears because of a newly felt deepening of understanding for what this is going to mean to so many. Frankly, a perfectly appropriate response.
By the by Richard Heinberg was 'Skyped in', to speak at the conference. The technology worked beautifully and his Peak Everything talk was very well received. My talk ‘Energy What Energy' followed his and - for reasons that are still not entirely clear even to me - was raucously received. And by raucous I mean that the audience spent almost as much time laughing as listening. I kid you not. They roared! Really. Strange but true and I'm still not entirely sure what to make of it.
Now it is true that I purposely set out to take the PE message and lighten it as much as possible for this event. And it is also true that I do have ten years of training in theatre and performance and wasn't half-bad at it. Still I had no idea that this lightening could be done to such an extent that it became a Stewart like comedy routine. Peak Energy as laugh-out-loud comedy!? Who knew?
Of everyone there I can tell you that I was perhaps the most surprised of anyone by the degree of humour my talk elicited. At one point I even had to go to the extent of telling the audience to stop laughing so much as they were cutting into the very tight 30 minutes I had been given and threatening to put me over my time. (And yes of course I knew that this would have exactly the opposite effect of the one I was putatively requesting. I am a ham it's true, but a ham with a heart :-)
Mr. Reynolds and many on the business pages of the world by contrast are talking hands who long ago divorced their work from their heart. Unsurprising given that their careers were made by echoing the party line they are being given by those who have made a far greater financial “success” of their lives than they or we. He and his ilk are in point of fact little other than stenographers to power and so one should expect little more than denial and the echoing of the BAU 'party-on dudes' line when it comes to Peak Energy and its implications.
Text source:Jeff Berg is a member of www.postcarbontoronto.org and www.pledgeTOgreen.ca
A listing of other articles by Jeff Berg can be found here.
