I mentioned in a recent post (here) that we need to develop different attitudes and beliefs about the onset and impact of Peak Oil. A better understanding of the challenges likely to be faced will be a deciding factor in how effectively we transition away from fossil fuel dependency. It’s going to take a while as it is.

I suppose it’s nothing more than human nature to focus efforts and attention on the problems at hand, and we certainly have enough of them to deal with right now … more than enough! For most of us, just getting by from day-to-day has become a vastly more complex struggle than we could have imagined just a few short years ago. Hope for immediate improvement is tough to come by these days.

Headlines routinely announce the same set of stressful economic and unemployment factors that weigh us all down, and the skirmishes in Congress between feckless Democrats and mindless Republicans who continue to engage in fact-free proclamations while refusing to agree to anything (even their own suggestions! See this great Steve Benen/Rachel Maddow piece) serve to discourage and dishearten more of us by the minute. It’s easy to lament what once was and to legitimately question whether we’ll ever participate in prosperity again.

I can’t imagine there’s a single person who welcomes the news that Peak Oil is likely to impose even more hardships on us if we don’t grab the reins immediately and start planning and doing. It is understandably much easier to ignore or deny it and hope it either goes away or gets “fixed” somehow without any input from us.

For most, Peak Oil remains some vague concept having to do with international supplies or off-shore production of oil, or the Middle East, or something along those lines. We’re “safer” in assuming that someone else is handling that for us. As long as we can drive down the street and put gas in our tanks before we go grocery shopping, and encounter no problems getting what we want and need there, we’re pretty well set for now. Since no one is telling us that Peak Oil is going to strike in the next couple of weeks, we’ll take a pass on adding that concern to already overflowing plates of worries and stresses. Who can blame anyone for thinking this way?

Problems that are likely to unfold over the course of many months and years require a special level and blend of understanding, courage, and capabilities that most of us—and many of our leaders—simply do not possess in abundance. No blame for that … it’s just how it is. Unfortunately, given the wide swath that oil cuts across our industrial, economic, agricultural, transportation, and cultural foundations, we run the risk of being blindsided from several directions simultaneously if we don’t begin giving Peak Oil the consideration it mandates—at least for societies hoping to sustain themselves.

Now there are the expected deniers who issue their platitudes about ingenuity and technology and zillions of barrels of oil here and there which I guess are going to magically appear just in the nick of time, but this cottage industry of obfuscation, misdirection, and disingenuous arguments serve no purpose in the long-range planning we will have to undertake to convert our ways of life away from oil dependency. The seeds of doubt and confusion they sow appear to have no purpose beyond ensuring that monies continue to be spent on business as usual. That’s all fine and well in the short term, and more power to them, but we’re going to pay a price. How steep that price turns out to be will depend on how soon and how effectively all of us start taking steps now to chart a different course by dealing with Peak Oil.

Let’s be clear: Oil and oil production will be with us for years to come—but not forever; and not even that much longer when you get right down to it. We’re not running out of oil soon, or for many years. I don’t argue that we are, nor do any Peak Oil advocates with whom I’m familiar. But we’re going to soon have less available for all the things we’ve come to expect and rely upon, and what we do have will get more expensive, it will take longer to get from there to here, and it will take a lot more effort to make all that happen.

Expecting that we’re all going to click our heels once or twice and then magically—happily—transport ourselves and our entire infrastructure into a world where lack of readily available oil is “no big deal” is one hell of a dream to hang our hopes on.

I’d love to be wrong! Despite the attacks that suggest we peak oil “doomers” thrive on the negativity (like most of their arguments, that one is likewise free of any supporting evidence, but it does make for a great and dismissive sound bite), none of us want to endure hardships any more than anyone else! I love my lifestyle … the terrific summer home by the ocean, the nice cars, the traveling! What person in his or her right mind wants to give that up? The problem is that circumstances well beyond my control are going to impose some changes on that lifestyle, and yours too.

Do you want to be ahead of that curve with some say in how this all plays out, or are you going to cross fingers and toes and just hope … for some thing, some solution, some alternative that will be handled and managed by someone else? It is a choice; not a good one, but it is a choice.

Is it going to be easy, or quick?

No!

Anyone expecting/praying/whatever-ing for a couple of minutes worth of tinkering as being all that’s necessary to fix this problem is in for a hellacious surprise. This is not a challenge that’s going to be solved soon, effortlessly, or by someone else. That truth is not by anyone’s definition the preferred option. It’s just the truth. We can pass along responsibility for doing our part, we can designate others to play our role in planning and then making the changes to our ways of life (traveling, working, producing, transporting, farming, living, consuming, driving, repairing, supplying, building, and all the other aspects of our lives that currently require oil in some capacity or other), but that will just add potential and unnecessary woes. The plates are full.

As this blog progresses I’ll be providing much more detail on how and why Peak Oil will have such a pervasive effect on all of us (given the singular importance of oil to basically everything we do), but the sooner we recognize that a collective effort is our best course of action, the sooner and cleaner will be our transition. Collective means just that: you, me, neighbors, family, friends, local businesses, local government, bigger businesses, bigger governments. No one gets a free pass.

And no one gets a guarantee that by making the changes we need to make we “succeed” in ensuring a prosperous life will be ours as we’ve grown accustomed to expect. The material prosperity we enjoyed not too long ago is not promised us forever. No one wants to hear that message, I know. It’s just another truth we need to come to terms with. (It’s a challenge not to make this all sound so over-the-top depressing that we all just want to jump into the nearest lake. I recognize that and admittedly struggle.)

But I remain an optimist. If we do the things we’ll need to do—consider, plan, research, envision, change—we can create a future that is every bit as rewarding and fulfilling as the ones we’ll leave behind, and maybe even a better one. But it doesn’t happen if we don’t make it happen. There’s a great satisfaction in playing a role in your own success and prosperity, and this challenge is no different. That is my hope….

There’s no reason why our ingenuity and our creativity and our will and our desire and our efforts and our technological savvy won’t provide us with successes and comforts and happiness. But we’ll give ourselves a chance at that—in ways we probably cannot envision right now—only if we start paying attention to an issue that gets far too little of it given the prominent role it plays in your life and mine. Peak Oil is not going to go away.

Access to readily available and regularly supplied inexpensive oil is going to become an issue that affects everyone. It’s just not an option for us much longer. We’re going to have to step out and do things differently.

Let’s start recognizing the challenge for what it, and begin thinking and planning for Peak Oil’s arrival and impact. It’s going to show up anyway … might as well be as ready as we can be.

Next: Part III