Paula Abdul does not matter

This is the first of two posts on Peak Oil, my fourth or fifth favorite topic.

The future will require us to build better places,
or the future will belong to other people in other societies.

James Howard Kunstler

I began my peak oil bender with The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler. It is a bit dated already. But nearly every word shines. His The Geography of Nowhere is a wonderful primer on the suburban problem. I recommend going to to peak oil sites and reading up. The crash and burn in the economy is a fine time to check out what they have been saying.

Here is my rule with the peak oil sites - take what seems on the mark and look further.

Understand that there is a deep strain of Luddite fetishism with many attracted to peak oil info. I find the doomsday stuff very seductive, entertaining, but ultimately useless. With one big caveat: Peaksters are big on being prepared, being thrifty, and being alert. All traits I admire and find empowering. But spending a lot of time reading about the coming die off is ultimately disempowering. If political blogging from one's apartment is anything at all - it is an ongoing personal insurrection against learned helplessness.

I have also found of late that one does not even have to buy the central thesis of peak oil to get something out of what is being said.

All of us knew on some level that the economy was false for the last 4 years. No house is worth 20 times more than one's income. Therefore taking out second mortgages and house flipping was bound to crater.

All of us knew on some level that info was withheld on Iraq. That there were other reasons for the war.

All of us know our life style is run on other people's oil. We spend exactly .001% of our time thinking about it. But it is true. The lights are on here, because the Saudis are home - there.

Even if there will be oil for 1000 years - the peak oil narrative hits at the basics in our society that we know are wobbly already. A democracy that has traded in citizenship for consumerism will not last. We pat ourselves on the back all the time - but our major contribution to the world economy at this point is buying other people's crap and selling them weapons. The Chinese did not keep us afloat during our latest bender because they love us. We bought their stuff. Of course they financed us. Maybe there IS enough oil to keep Chinese trinkets flowing into American Walmarts forever. But is this what we want?

A society that has denuded its towns and villages for suburban sprawl will splinter. Most large cities and suburbs are built for cars not people. I know, I live in one. This is ultimately deadening. A frantic attempt to graft walkable neighborhoods back on to sections of LA shredded by freeways has been underway for a decade. And in some places it is working. My neighborhood along the Wilshire corridor - "koreatown" has become a wonderful walking neighborhood. As has old Hollywood. Both fueled by public transport on rails passing through or ending in these neighborhoods. What is it about subways and light rail lines? After decades of stopping a subway line going through Beverly Hills - implying it would being in the "criminal element" (read "blacks") the city now is bending over backward to accommodate a coming "subway to the sea". Why can't bus lines salvage an auto centered city the way light rail can?

(Also- did the city of Beverly hills think the "criminals" could not get on buses? I always found this excuse racist AND silly. All those petty thief's in South Central would not deign to get on a bus...but would hop the subway train and start a crime wave....)

The resulting social insanity of the emptying the towns and cities and building soulless car wonderlands in the outer rings of urban areas should be obvious. People in the burbs and the rotting cores of some of these cities debt, drug, eat, distract, and entertain themselves to death. Obesity rates have doubled since 1991. Think about that. Obesity rates are skyrocketing in all nations that are "developing" like us. What are we eating at?

We have debted ourselves into a financial nightmare - mostly for toys. Big ones. Like houses. The near universally accepted corrective to this problem is to debt more.

(Is anyone else sick of being harangued by those cute boys to go to "freecreditreport.com"? Who is making enough money on a free credit report to buy that kind of ad time? It's creepy. )

A nation run on other nations' resources is on borrowed time. The world in NOT flat. It is bumpy and complex. Most people still do not want McDonald's and Starbucks usurping their landscape. And many resent us for it. And the ones who resent us the most have the oil we need. Not "want to have" - need.

I WANT peak oil to be true. But if it is not, I hope we take the lessons it would force on us. To live within our means, to stop valuing style over substance, to live locally (grapes from South America are not an entitlement), to elevate people who contribute over those who distract us - mostly from the high pitched meaninglessness of all consumption, all the time.

Paula Abdul does not matter. Individual farmers do.

The "consumer lead" economy needs to collapse. I hope it does. Nicely, with everyone getting time to make lovely arrangements.

Either we return to making and doing things of real value, or we deserve what we get - empty strip malls, obese children, and meth labs.