The Goopy Ghost in the Machine.

A plan by the Dan Kildee, treasurer of Genesee County, which includes Flint, Michigan would contract the city by 40%, bulldoze huge sections of the outlying areas and "return them to nature." Mr. Kildee's plan is being taken under advisement by the Obama Administration as a blueprint for up to 50 American cities.

I write about this here because I believe this is both a good idea, and for once, an idea based in reality. James Howard Kunstler is spot on when he says the American suburban project of the last century is unsustainable. He calls it the greatest misallocation of resources in history. That may be extreme as Soviet farm collectivisation is part of "history" - still the the point is well taken. The exurbs and suburbs of America are fading rather grotesquely - created as a culture for cars, not people, it was bound to fail regardless. More than the lack of human scale, the suburban project has always assumed that the car and the energy needed for it would be around forever. So living in the faux countryside, 50 miles from employment, had an appeal that could not be matched. It became the American dream. Driving to the mall for any food or bobble from anywhere became an integral part of that dream. (There is a riff in here about the entitlement that has resulted...but that is another post.)

In the long view of history 1970 will be seen as the tipping point for the U.S. It was in 1970 that the American oil production peaked and began its long decent. We stopped being the world's largest producer of oil and Saudi Arabia became the world's "swing" producer. Which it still is. Within three years they let us know rather harshly that they were the new Dons. Within 3 decades years, Nixon made the dollar a floating currency, all oil transactions world wide had to be made in American dollars, Carter declared that any interruption of Mideast oil flow was to be considered a national security concern and the American military could intervene (The Carter Doctrine) and Reagan made sweet deals with the Saudi royal family for military hardware - moving them very much into our camp. George H.W. Bush went to war to ensure that a nutcase did not seize too much oil. Clinton, in office when the price of oil had fallen dramatically because the North Sea and Alaska fields had come fully on line, (The North Sea is now well into its depletion phase.) benefited both economically and politically from all the cheap oil. Then George W. Bush took us to war again in the Middle East.

One can argue forever about the real reasons for the second Iraq war but remove Iraq's oil from the calculus and the invasion becomes an absurdity that no major power would have attempted. One can argue that the American Civil War was about states rights and not about slavery as well. Still, the "right" the Southern states wanted to maintain was the right to enslave people. Therefore the civil war was about slavery. In the final analysis, one must conclude that the Iraq invasion was a resource war. Oil being the resource. In fact, realizing this did not change my view of its legality but it did help me understand its gravity and logic.

Before 1970 America's oil output grew every year for over a century. Had that continued the last 40 years would have looked substantially different. We've involved ourselves in the Middle East because it has more oil than we do. To support Israel as well - but that hardly justifies 6 successive Presidents wheeling and dealing in Saudi Arabia or fighting wars in Iraq. Even Obama's much discussed "withdrawal" from Iraq (the same plan as W's.) ends with 50,000 American soldiers based there....forever? Why? It is not to secure the safety of Iraqi fig exports and it has nothing to do with Israel's safety.

Without ready access to oil American society cannot sustain itself. Period. Every President from Nixon to W was aware of this. I presume Obama is as well, though his alleged intellect seems to be behind the curve on this point. Oil is the goopy ghost in the machine. It is our wealth. 40 years after the oil shocks of the 70s there is still no other energy option that comes close to light sweet crude. If it disappeared tomorrow the United States as we know it would disappear with it.

The alternatives are not good. Drill Here, Drill Now is a fine slogan. It may help a little. But not nearly enough and not soon enough. Even during conservative administrations in the last 40 years oil companies did not push much for more domestic drilling. The reason is probably simple: It made no sense. There is not much oil left here.

No form of oil other than light sweet crude makes economic sense until oil sustains a price of at least $150 -$200 dollars a barrel. That is to say 5 dollars a gallon and up for gas- for years.

(Car travel is not the biggest problem with high oil prices - getting food around the country IS. Again, Kunstler's rants about the embarrassing train system in the U.S. - Kazakhstan without the basic competence - is spot on. Investment in rail in the 80s and 90s would have softened the economic and social degradation that is now unfolding and set to worsen. The only reason to take a plane from San Francisco to Los Angeles or Minneapolis to Chicago is because there is no other choice.)

Which brings me back to Flint. Confining and rolling back growth is logical. It is forward thinking in a country addicted to immediate or magical fixes. The United States has 1/16th of the world's population, yet it uses 1/4 of its oil. If we had 1/4 of its oil underneath our feet we might be able to justify our way of life for another 50 years. We don't. We have not been oil "self supporting" since 1970. All the bubbles conjured by all the pixilated Wall Street brokers in Christendom can't change that geological fact. Nor can the largest military machine the world has ever seen.

I am inspired by Kildee's drastic attempt at being reality based. Dan Kildee is one community organizer we ought to listen to.

Books: Powerdown By Richard Heinberg and The Long Emergency by Kunstler* are both well worth putting on your summer reading lists. As with all peak oil primers the sense of immediate doom can be off putting. The predicted economic blow up - and it remains worse than we are told - has, in fact, commenced. Occurring in occasionally surprising ways it is still tied directly to suburban "dream homes " and the creation of "wealth" out of nothing.

*Kunstler's nasty attacks on Hillary Clinton last year and deluded support for Obama caused me to stop reading him. However his writing on energy and its ramifications for the U.S. remains the best- and most fun. Though, I do wonder what the smarter Obama supporters from last year think now that it is clear that Clinton is the only member of the Obama Adminstration who comes close to being worthy of the label adult.

Also: this article by Michael Clare posted on June 11 in The Nation is important. For the first time, the well-respected Energy Information Administration appears to be joining with those experts who have long argued that the era of cheap and plentiful oil is drawing to a close.

The future is here and it is not pretty.