Looking Left and Right - Peak Oil Matters

Peak Oil Denial: The Liberal’s Dilemma (Pt 6)

May 17

[NOTE: This is the sixth and final installment of a subset of my ongoing series entitled Looking Left and Right (which began here; see Category sidebar for all links). This is about Peak Oil, but addresses the considerations and potential solutions from a different perspective than purely fact-based and/or he-said—she-said ones which too often dominate public discourse. With the caveat that I have NO professional expertise/training in psychology or its related fields, I’ll look at emotional and psychological “tricks” and traits we all use—Left, Right, and in-between—to bolster our beliefs and opinions as we do battle with our “opponents” in the increasingly polarized political forums which too-often dominate our culture.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else-by some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusion may remain inviolate - Francis Bacon [courtesy of David McRaney]

As I observed in that first post of this Looking Left and Right series:

We all act much the same way, ideologies notwithstanding. Human nature, I suppose. The more important questions: might we benefit from a bit of introspection before doing more of the same?…We obviously wouldn’t be making use of these psychological tricks of the trade if they didn’t provide us with benefits and gratifications. So is that it? Shrug our shoulders, admit that we are all guilty from time to time and then … nothing?
Might we consider the possibility of being ‘better’ than that? If we choose to solve what might appear at first blush to be overwhelming and even insoluble problems, we need more. We need more from our systems, more from our leaders, and more from ourselves.
There is a great deal at stake for all us, and we might all be better served understanding not just what we do in asserting and defending our beliefs, policies, and opinions, but why. Appreciating that might make a world of difference … literally!]

In the first five installments of this mini-series [links * at the end of this post], I’ve examined what my semi-snarky, decidedly liberal perspective viewed to be a perfect summation of stereotypical right-wing nonsense regarding fossil fuel production and gas pricing, relying on the concept of cultural cognition as described by Dan M. Kahan, Yale University and Donald Barman – George Washington University [link to PDF download in Sources [1] below]. I’m doing so in the hope that this might afford Peak Oil proponents—and those who doubt—a window into how the discussion has been approached to date, and more importantly, how to get past the stumbling block of ideology (my own and the “others”). We’ll need all the intelligence, expertise, and assistance we can get to find some practical adaptations and solutions. [Quotes below are from the above-linked article by Jeffrey Folks unless noted otherwise.]

So where are we? I’ve done what we’re inclined to do when people don’t accept a position/viewpoint offered: I’ve supplied lots of reasons why the “other side” is wrong about Peak Oil. As I stated at the conclusion of the last post, this is not a philosophical discussion, as some political issues are more apt to be addressed.

That he has not yet been able to do so must pain the president greatly. He must also be irked that high gas prices — the same high prices he has worked so hard to create over the past three and a half years — now pose an obstacle to his re-election.

What’s the point in saying things like this when we’re trying to deal with real-world problems? How do we get beyond the “you are crazier than I am” model of public discourse if facts cannot be rationally debated in the first instance? (Does this gentleman and his many peers who have suggested much the same seriously think that any President of the United States would deliberately pursue a policy so completely at odds with the interests of practically every citizen in the country so that he or she can … uh … uh … why would someone do this?) How does this help any of us?

Idiotic viewpoints are not the substance of sound decision-making, so what is the point?

Our prescription, counterintuitively, is a more unabashedly cultural style of democratic policymaking. Those interested in helping citizens to converge in support of empirically sound policies—on guns, on the environment, on crime control, on national security—should focus less on facts and more on social meaning. It’s only when they perceive that a policy bears a social meaning congenial to their cultural values that citizens become receptive to sound empirical evidence about what consequences that policy will have. It’s therefore essential to devise policies that can bear acceptable social meanings to citizens of diverse cultural persuasions simultaneously. Because culture is cognitive prior to facts in the policy disputes, culture must be politically prior to facts too. [1]

But when legitimate problems confront all of us, how do we abide by the decorums suggested if nonsense is the starting point for one side of the debate? I hope there is a limit to the usefulness of this kind of strategy … sure wish we were there already.

What’s the vision and expectation for the future? The effects of Peak Oil (and climate change) don’t lend themselves to being bent into shapes conducive to conservative or liberal ideology. There is no one obvious solution which smacks almost entirely of liberalism (and vice versa) which one “side” can legitimately promote. Too many aspects of our everyday lifestyles—both personal and industrial—will require a broad range of adaptations and transitions well beyond ideological constraints.

There is undoubtedly some comfort in thinking that one’s ideology will ride to the rescue, thus avoiding all the unpleasant psychological contortions relinquishing such beliefs would necessitate if change is necessary. We get that, too.

I’ll say again: I’m willing to wager that almost all Peak Oil proponents would be delighted to be proven wrong so that we don’t have to endure the inevitable magnitude of changes our beliefs suggest. But what worries us is the fact that the problems will be of such scope and and impact and complexity that we feel strongly that planning must take place now—by all of us, both Left and Right—and we’re not seeing enough honest, intelligent, rational analysis from those whose contributions will be every bit as important and meaningful. The ideology sponsoring practical and effective adaptations and solutions won’t matter to us if they work. We just don’t think it’s all that unreasonable to expect that the contributions are grounded in the realities of what we face.

Whether it is ‘peak oil,’ ‘carbon emissions,’ ‘can’t drill our way out,’ or ‘no quick fix,’ every argument has the same goal: to force Americans off fossil fuels and onto expensive, government-regulated green alternatives.

That certainly sounds ominous, and it coincides nicely with the Right’s “liberal control over our lives” meme, but at what point can we expect a legitimate examination of the facts about what we face and realize that there is no one solution that fits all? Like it or not, green alternatives are going to be necessary. Given how far behind they are to already-established, depleting-by-the-day energy sources, some government involvement and oversight is simply going to be part of the mix. If you truly believe that 300 million-plus people and or tens of millions of business each trying to figure out on their own how to deal with diminished fuel supply is the way to go, then best wishes!

Paranoid nonsense about “government control” and “boots on the neck” and assorted other conspiracy-laden premises simply have no place in the dialogue. Thinking that the absence of government is part of the solution is unrealistic—plain and simple. We appreciate the “values” such perspectives support, but it is way, way past time for us to all move beyond the psychological fixes. Reality beckons, and absent meaningful involvement, planning, and contributions from anyone and everyone with valuable expertise, we’re all going to be neck-deep in avoidable troubles. We’ll have enough that aren’t avoidable as is. Let’s not make things worse.

Wouldn’t all of us prefer having a say ahead of time, comforted by the realization that we all took part in making meaningful contributions?

Who wants to sacrifice anything about current lifestyles as Option Number One? Bad, last-minute, overwhelming surprises are not my preference, and I’m having a difficult time thinking that they are anyone else’s, either. Blind Faith is still a better rock band than strategy, and it’s certainly not the one I want guiding me and my wife and our children and my family and my fiends into a future where the inevitable outcomes of using finite resources finally come to roost. I don’t think I’m at all unusual in stating that I want a good future for myself and family in good communities with happy, successful, and prosperous citizens living freely. That’s not going to happen as long as too many of us prefer occupying their time with fear-induced paranoid concerns that do nothing but promote more of the same by their adherents and more ridicule from those who cannot accept that perspective. It just does not help!

So do we stand our ideological grounds until there’s no question at all what reality has in store, or do we start doing what good businesspeople and well-intentioned families and communities do: plan ahead? We want good solutions and plans for how best to transition away from a fossil fuel-dependent way of life because that is what facts tell us is necessary. Control doesn’t factor in to what we seek, as convenient a fiction as that might be to the Right and as easy as it is to find “facts” to support the fears. “On your own” may appeal to some, but it will prove to be of very limited utility … dump it now.

We all need to be better than that. “Business as usual, every man for himself” have served in many cases great purposes, but changes are looming. The definition and routes available for continued prosperity are going to change. We’re drawing down just about all of the remaining easy-to-get-at stuff which produced such breathtaking successes and advances. Now we’re in a global world of infinitely greater complexity with billions more people wanting what we have, and there just won’t be enough of that remaining easy stuff to go around for everyone to either maintain or attain the standards of the good life we’ve grown accustomed to.

That’s not ideology. It’s math.

That’s actually not what the President is saying at all. Having used finite resources for nearly two centuries in an ever-increasing complex, technologically-sophisticated world, how does one not think about Plan B given the facts about current crude oil supply and production, and the facts about what producing the gazillion barrels of unconventional reserves buried underground or beneath ocean floors entails? No business owner, coach, of leader in any endeavor or profession ignores facts and relies instead on hopes and suppositions. Not the winning formula….

But if the fossil fuel fix is not all that quick, the green energy fix is glacial. In fact, it is no fix at all, because no matter how many windmills and solar farms we subsidize with taxpayer money, it will not be enough to fuel even one tenth of our energy needs….
When Obama proclaims there is no quick fix, he implies [says you!] that we must give up on increased domestic production of fossil fuels and turn to alternatives. But those misnamed ‘alternatives’ are not really alternatives at all. Wind and solar now account for less than 2% of America’s energy needs.

Absolutely true! But using up more of what’s not as available anymore as the sole option will only work for a while longer, and if we have done absolutely nothing to plan an alternate route to get is to the destination all of us hope for, what happens then?

I see that as perhaps the single greatest failing of right-wing philosophy in the face of Peak Oil: Yes, we’ll need all of the marvels of “human ingenuity” and great technological inventions. But without recognizing and accepting the simple truth that we’re drawing down a finite and depleting resource which necessitates almost unimaginable adaptations and transitions to Plan B, the limits of human ingenuity and technological prowess will inevitably be reached if we keep tweaking the finite resource. Just how does the market on its own develop guidelines about what needs to be done, how, when, in what priority, where, and assorted other considerations?

There is no intellectually honest way to believe that the world can continue its near-total reliance on fossil fuels for much more than another decade — a paltry window of opportunity. We also know that we cannot wait until they go into decline before reaching for renewables and efficiency, simply because the scale of the challenge is so vast, and the alternatives are starting from such a low level that they will need decades of investment before they are ready to assume the load. The data is clear, and the mathematics are really quite straightforward. [2]

So now what?

* links to the prior installments:

http://peakoilmatters.com/2012/04/12/peak-oil-denial-the-liberal%E2%80%99s-dilemma-pt-1/
http://peakoilmatters.com/2012/04/19/peak-oil-denial-the-liberal%E2%80%99s-dilemma-pt-2/
http://peakoilmatters.com/2012/04/26/peak-oil-denial-the-liberal%E2%80%99s-dilemma-pt-3/
http://peakoilmatters.com/2012/05/03/peak-oil-denial-the-liberal%E2%80%99s-dilemma-pt-4/
http://peakoilmatters.com/2012/05/10/peak-oil-denial-the-liberal%E2%80%99s-dilemma-pt-5/

Sources:

[1] http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=746508; [link to PDF download]. Cultural Cognition and Public Policy by Dan M. Kahan, Yale University – Law School; Harvard Law School and Donald Barman – George Washington University – Law School; Cultural Cognition Project – Yale Law & Policy Review, Vol. 24, pp 147 – 169, Public Law Working Paper No. 87 – 2006 [quote from p. 169]
[2] http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/energy-futurist/our-energy-future-golden-age-or-stone-age/143; Our energy future: Golden Age or Stone Age? by Chris Nelder – 10.26.11

Leave a Comment denial, ideology, lifestyle, oil production, Peak Oil Read more

Peak Oil Denial: The Liberal’s Dilemma (Pt 5)

May 10

Looking Left and Right, Peak Oil, Peak Oil Denial

Individuals can be expected to give dispositive empirical information the weight that it is due in a rational decision-making calculus only if they recognize sound information when they see it.
The phenomenon of cultural cognition suggests they won’t. The same psychological and social processes that induce individuals to form factual beliefs consistent with their cultural orientation will also prevent them from perceiving contrary empirical data to be credible. Cognitive-dissonance avoidance will steel individuals to resist empirical data that either threatens practices they revere or bolsters ones they despise, particularly when accepting such data would force them to disagree with individuals they respect….
This picture is borne out by additional well-established psychological and social mechanisms. One constraint on the disposition of individuals to accept empirical evidence that contradicts their culturally conditioned beliefs is the phenomenon of biased assimilation. [citations] This phenomenon refers to the tendency of individuals to condition their acceptance of new information as reliable based on its conformity to their prior beliefs. This disposition to reject empirical data that contradict one’s prior belief … is likely to be especially pronounced when that belief is strongly connected to an individual’s cultural identity, for then the forces of cognitive dissonance avoidance that explain biased assimilation are likely to be most strongly aroused. [with citations]. [1]

[NOTE: This is the fifth in a subset of my ongoing series entitled Looking Left and Right (which began here; see Category sidebar for all links). This is about Peak Oil, but addresses the considerations and potential solutions from a different perspective than purely fact-based and/or he-said—she-said ones which too often dominate public discourse. With the caveat that I have NO professional expertise/training in psychology or its related fields, I’ll look at emotional and psychological “tricks” and traits we all use—Left, Right, and in-between—to bolster our beliefs and opinions as we do battle with our “opponents” in the increasingly polarized political forums which too-often dominate our culture.

As I observed in that first post of this Looking Left and Right series:

In the first four installments of this mini-series [* links at the end of this post], I’ve examined what my semi-snarky, decidedly liberal perspective viewed to be a perfect summation of stereotypical right-wing nonsense regarding fossil fuel production and gas pricing, relying on the concept of cultural cognition as described by Dan M. Kahan, Yale University and Donald Barman – George Washington University (link to PDF download in Sources [1] below). I’m doing so in the hope that this might afford Peak Oil proponents—and those who doubt—a window into how the discussion has been approached to date, and more importantly, how to get past the stumbling block of ideology (my own and the “others”). We’ll need all the intelligence, expertise, and assistance we can get to find some practical adaptations and solutions.

There’s not much doubt that Barack Obama’s election prompted extreme reactions across the entire spectrum of political beliefs. Many rejoiced, while many others were threatened by his Presidency for a variety of reasons … some much less honorable than others. Some were even worse—he is, if you hadn’t heard, our first black President … and no need to explain how horrible that is … he’s so … so, different—and his name is strange, besides! (21st Century, correct? Just checking….) That the animosity and fear carries over into areas with decidedly oppressive consequences absent rational, fact-based and ideology-free conversations is more than a bit troubling.

Let’s jump right in with more commentary from Mr. Folks: “Peak oil may be 200 years away; carbon emissions have not raised the sea levels by 12m, devastated our croplands, or engendered monster storms.”

Yet. (Just because the full scope of consequences haven’t knocked on everyone’s door by now is far different than acknowledging enough signs are already in place! Denial is a strategy … it just happens to be a particularly ineffective and very bad one!)

If by “200 years away” he means approximately 2005, he’s absolutely correct. I wasn’t aware that climatologists had issued a specific date for sea level rise or cropland “devastation”, and I apparently missed them both … damn! So that’s it? No more worries about climate change because those specific events haven’t materialized all at once by winter’s end, 2012? (Climate scientists actually inform us these conditions will develop over the decades to come—kinda like a leaky roof getting leakier day by day until it stops leaking entirely … because it collapses.)

We had a near-hurricane here in New England last summer (not to mention tornadoes), a god-awful winter in 2010-2011, and here in the Boston area all of about eight inches of snow this entire winter just concluded—on the order of about one-tenth the amount we had the prior, brutal winter. (And did I mention the Halloween weekend snowstorm this past autumn which dumped 32 inches of snow in the Berkshire Mountains community in western Massachusetts where my parents’ own some land?) Seems to me that one or two of those nefarious liberal conspiratorial climate scientists mentioned something about different weather patterns just like those as prime evidence of the gradual changes resulting from our ever-warming planet. Imagine that! But hey, if my leaky roof hasn’t collapsed by now, then I’m good to go! Who cares about the future, Right?

If those who dispute Peak Oil were willing to deal with facts—not the “could possibly might if only” suppositions they routinely engage in [the Peak Oil Denial Category in the Sidebar has a few dozen posts which address this in great detail], or the hosannahs given to the vast, more-than-a-trillion barrels of oil right here in the good ole’ U.S. of A. (while carefully neglecting to mention facts about production which kinda make more than a trillion barrels of oil a lot closer to less than dozen or two billion more likely to be produced … and over the course of a few decades to come)—it would be a lot easier for us to fashion effective solutions, or at least develop reasonable plans for adaptation. This is a different conversation if we Peak Oil proponents are arguing that space aliens are draining Earth’s oil fields in the dark of night. But since we’re instead relying on ideology-free facts, the approach has to be a sensible one.

What’s the purpose in avoiding/denying the facts? It’s the same question I’ve asked before: How does this help?

Keeping peers uninformed—or entirely ignorant of not just the facts but an understanding about consequences—isn’t exactly a noble, integrity-laden pursuit. So why keep doing it? What’s the reason? Who benefits? (Hint: very, very few of us … very few.) If you shade, hide, misrepresent, or flat-out lie about the facts, then any outcome or support is all but useless. So why keep doing it? Does “long-term” mean anything? Planning?

Is this the typical CEO strategy? One may proclaim an interest and commitment in dominating the garden and lawn supply market, but if the location of the “market” is in Antarctica, and you neglect to pass along that location factoid to your investors, well then … the support will wind up ringing a bit hollow, and investment rewards a bit on the slim side….Do you count on your health care provider to completely misrepresent your medical condition, hoping she’ll prescribe just-as-completely irrelevant treatments? How much success would NFL coaches have had in the past decade if they crafted game plans against Tom Brady or Peyton Manning on the premise that “This guy can’t pass and he’s not all that good, so our focus is all about punt coverage.”

So why keep misrepresenting or ignoring the facts and realities about Peak Oil? Just because civilization won’t collapse by Thursday is not a sound reason to avoid considering the implications or facts about declining oil production and supply issues, or to begin planning for the lengthy and inordinately complex, decades-long transition away from fossil fuels. No doubt denial means you don’t have to invest any time, effort, or money on the problem now. So there’s that. And that’s pretty much the entire benefit … today. (How long does one typically ignore a raging toothache, or recurring chest pains, or blinding headaches, before deciding a visit to the dentist/physician might be a good idea? Is saving money, time, or effort for a few more months a good strategy?) We’re not handling Peak Oil much differently than that right now … with consequences a bit more dramatic society-wide.

This is not a philosophical issue! We’re not arguing the “morality” of Peak Oil v. alternative energy. We have fact-based issues at hand which will result in enduring, fact-based problems of unimaginable complexity and scope, and we need fact-based solutions from any and all “experts” in any and all fields of endeavor because fossil fuels touch almost every aspect of our lives. Finite resources are … finite! Are we really better off waiting until we’re scraping the last little pools here and there before realizing we should probably be doing something else?

“The proper course is to withdraw all subsidies and allow market forces to decide where to allocate capital” proclaims Mr. Folks and those adamantly opposed to anything other than “drill, baby, drill”. Who benefits, and at whose expense? There’s no question that free-market principles and its benefits have an important role to play in crafting energy supply strategies in the years to come. But lamenting the relatively ineffective characteristics of fledgling alternatives currently decades behind fossil fuels in testing and implementation is a bit narrow-minded. Are we better off waiting until we truly have no other option? Just how quickly are these free-market proponents anticipating we can develop, test, market, and implement replacement energy sources once finite fossil fuels have done what finite things do: cease to be?

It would be wonderful if magnanimous corporations concerned primarily with mankind’s welfare might collectively decide all on their own that they are going to devote their expertise and resources to a broad-based energy strategy duly recognizing the challenges ahead in light of the facts at hand, and so we could then relax, comforted by their generosity of spirit.

The cynic in me suggests that that might not happen….Blind Faith … a great rock band. A strategy? Not so good.

More likely, scores of the largest corporations are going to do what corporations do: devote their resources and capabilities to what they do best so as to maximize their profits. Millions more smaller businesses will do the same. All fine and well, except that with problems on a scale beyond the capabilities of most to fully appreciate, the fundamental capitalist approach is not the long-term strategy to implement with finite resources so broadly utilized and depended upon … assuming the well-being of everyone beyond next week is a concern. If your interests are a bit more narrowly focused (investment portfolio, bonus potential, profitability), then that path is the one to follow. “You’re on your own” is not just a bad economic policy….

I’ll ask again: Who benefits, and at whose expense?

One more installment coming up.

* links to the prior installments:

http://peakoilmatters.com/2012/04/12/peak-oil-denial-the-liberal%E2%80%99s-dilemma-pt-1/

http://peakoilmatters.com/2012/04/19/peak-oil-denial-the-liberal%E2%80%99s-dilemma-pt-2/

http://peakoilmatters.com/2012/04/26/peak-oil-denial-the-liberal%E2%80%99s-dilemma-pt-3/

http://peakoilmatters.com/2012/05/03/peak-oil-denial-the-liberal%E2%80%99s-dilemma-pt-4/

Sources:

Leave a Comment climate change, denial, ideology, lifestyle, oil production, Peak Oil, planning Read more

Peak Oil Denial: The Liberal’s Dilemma (Pt 4)

May 3

Looking Left and Right, Peak Oil, Peak Oil Denial

We form our beliefs for a variety of subjective, emotional and psychological reasons in the context of environments created by family, friends, colleagues, culture and society at large. After forming our beliefs, we then defend, justify and rationalize them with a host of intellectual reasons, cogent arguments and rational explanations. Beliefs come first; explanations for beliefs follow….I call this process, wherein our perceptions about reality are dependent on the beliefs that we hold about it, belief-dependent realism. Reality exists independent of human minds, but our understanding of it depends on the beliefs we hold at any given time….
Once we form beliefs and make commitments to them, we maintain and reinforce them through a number of powerful cognitive biases that distort our percepts to fit belief concepts. Among them are:
Anchoring Bias. Relying too heavily on one reference anchor or piece of information when making decisions.
Authority Bias. Valuing the opinions of an authority, especially in the evaluation of something we know little about.
Belief Bias. Evaluating the strength of an argument based on the believability of its conclusion.
Confirmation Bias. Seeking and finding confirming evidence in support of already existing beliefs and ignoring or reinterpreting disconfirming evidence. [1]

[NOTE: This is the fourth in a subset of my ongoing series entitled Looking Left and Right (which began here; see Category sidebar for all links). This is about Peak Oil, but addresses the considerations and potential solutions from a different perspective than purely fact-based and/or he-said—she-said ones which too often dominate public discourse. With the caveat that I have NO professional expertise/training in psychology or its related fields, I’ll look at emotional and psychological “tricks” and traits we all use—Left, Right, and in-between—to bolster our beliefs and opinions as we do battle with our “opponents” in the increasingly polarized political forums which too-often dominate our culture.

As I observed in that first post of this Looking Left and Right series:

We all act much the same way, ideologies notwithstanding. Human nature, I suppose. The more important questions: might we benefit from a bit of introspection before doing more of the same?…We obviously wouldn’t be making use of these psychological tricks of the trade if they didn’t provide us with benefits and gratifications. So is that it? Shrug our shoulders, admit that we are all guilty from time to time and then … nothing?
Might we consider the possibility of being ‘better’ than that? If we choose to solve what might appear at first blush to be overwhelming and even insoluble problems, we need more. We need more from our systems, more from our leaders, and more from ourselves.
There is a great deal at stake for all of us, and we might all be better served understanding not just what we do in asserting and defending our beliefs, policies, and opinions, but why. Appreciating that might make a world of difference … literally!]

In the first three installments of this mini-series (here, here, and here), I began an examination of what my semi-snarky, decidedly liberal perspective viewed to be a perfect summation of stereotypical right-wing nonsense regarding fossil fuel production and gas pricing, relying on the concept of cultural cognition as described by Dan M. Kahan, Yale University and Donald Barman – George Washington University [link to PDF download]. I’m doing so in the hope that this might afford Peak Oil proponents—and those who doubt—a window into how the discussion has been approached to date, and more importantly, how to get past the stumbling block of ideology (my own and the “others”). We’ll need all the intelligence, expertise, and assistance we can get to find some practical adaptations and solutions.

I ended the most recent post of this series with a listing of the points Mr. Folks made in the above-referenced article. I “replied” to one of his many criticisms of President Obama—specifically the failure of his policies and actions to lower gas prices—by providing a lengthy list of recent articles demonstrating rather convincingly (or so I like to think) that no President has the ability or power to lower gas prices (not even a socialist-Marxist-not-born-here-America-hating liberal like Obama … and have you noticed he’s not Caucasian?).

Gas prices are set on the world market for all the reasons explained by those with far more knowledge of such things than me. And since all those reasons have little or nothing to do with adopting a balls-to-the-walls “drill baby, drill” strategy, complaining that Obama’s ineptitude is only raising gas prices is … nonsense! Red meat for some; not much nutritional content.

Why continue to make an arguments which facts quickly debunk? How does this help?

As an aside, a bit more than a year ago I offered this:

During the Bush Administration, the United States’ Energy Information Agency issued a report (updated and confirmed in its 2009 follow-up: ‘Impact of Limitations on Access to Oil and Natural Gas Resources in the Federal Outer Continental Shelf’) in which its analysis of the difference between full offshore drilling (‘Reference Case’) and restricted drilling (‘OCS limited case’) concluded there would be no impact on gasoline prices in 2020, and a whopping ‘three cent’ (that’s not a typo) per gallon decline by 2030.
GOP officials who continue to tout drilling never get around to mentioning that little factoid. Of course, they also never bother to mention any other facts about drilling off-shore or in the Arctic such as the extreme exploration conditions which must be accounted and paid for, the length of time that will pass before full production (such as it may be) will be reached (i.e., several decades), and an assortment of other bothersome little details which would only contradict the ‘benefits’ their sound bites imply. It goes without saying that there is no mention of the current political turmoil in the Middle East and parts of Africa … annoying considerations which most market analyst experts believe to be primarily responsible for recent price spikes. What good are experts if a good political sound bite is available instead?

When “dialogue” about a contentious topic features facts on one side and a genuine desire to find solutions, and fear-based irrelevancies and/or half-truths and/or misrepresentations on the other side, how can anyone expect meaningful exchanges and acceptable solutions? What’s the benefit in not having solutions to urgent challenges because ideologies must be protected first? There’s not all that much of an advantage in postponing shooting oneself in the foot.

Another argument posed by Mr. Folks: “For over 40 years the left has brought out one argument after another against fossil fuels.”

None of us are “against” fossil fuels. What we are concerned with are the facts about declining rates of production in the highest quality conventional crude supplies which have powered our society for decades. We’re simply not finding much of it any more (while what’s left depletes by the day); what we are finding is more costly to extract and refine; takes longer to bring to market; with inferior substitutes in lesser produceable quantities failing to make up for that decline … among other problems.

So what we recognize as likely consequences affecting ALL of us calls for us to find ways to deal with the impact and find ways to adapt before the problems strike full force. So until and unless the Magic Technology Fairy finds an acceptable substitute at acceptable costs, in wildly abundant quantities, easily accessible, while providing the same energy bang for the buck, we’re going to have to rely on developing alternative sources of energy—recognizing that they are indeed no match for what fossil fuels have provided us. And by the way, we also recognize that billions of people around the world and their governments are also planning to use the conventional crude oil supplies still being produced. With their growing populations and increasing domestic demand, oil-producing nations won’t be exporting quite as much in years to come … while the magical shale oil and tar sands continue to fail to meet demand.

Worse than the decline of oil production is the decline of net oil exports. Net oil exporters, awash in the cash from their oil sales, are growing up and industrializing, which causes them to consume more of their own production and cuts into their exports. At the same time, rapidly growing economies like China and India are consuming an ever-larger share of the available net exports. As analysts Jeffrey Brown and Samuel Foucher have shown, available net exports have fallen at an average rate of about 1 mbpd per year from 2005 to 2010, from about 40 mbpd in 2005 to about 35 mbpd in 2010 (BP and EIA data, total petroleum liquids). On current trends, China and India would consume all of the available exports in about 20 years, while the U.S. is slowly squeezed out of the global market. [2]

Basic math; facts; reality—call it what you will—this is what we have to deal with. We are suggesting that what we perceive to be laughably ignorant paranoia-derived fears about socialist takeover from a Muslim-Marxist-alien-President should be left to the Fantasy Cable Network. Keeping the uninformed agitated and fearful is an at best questionable exercise, given the challenges Peak Oil is going to impose on all of us long before we’ve properly prepared.

(Perhaps if we could design energy-based solutions benefitting only liberals and progressives we could stop being concerned….)

“If only he could gain control over oil and gas drilling — regulatory control that still rests mainly with state governments — he would soon have his boot on the neck of America’s energy companies — extorting billions from them to further his political ambitions.” – Jeffrey Folks.

Seriously? Might there instead be some benefit to understanding the reasoning behind the “Liberal” approach to energy “policy” instead of relying on increasingly lame, pointless fears about mind-control and government takeovers and wild-ass conspiracies which at least 99.8% of us wouldn’t know how to contemplate if our lives depended on it?

I’m honestly saddened by that perspective. When reading statements that the President (and all liberals, I assume) are presumably plotting to “gain control” so that we can put a “boot on the neck” to help the President “further his political ambitions”, it is very difficult to look at those pronouncements as anything other than the rantings of a tinfoil-hat-wearing, paranoid loon. I’m betting that’s not especially constructive on my part if I’m trying to engage an author/speaker in mutually beneficial, problem-solving dialogue. I’m equally at a loss to understand how that perspective serves practical long term needs for one who thinks/fears such outlandish motives. At what point does that stop being the best option going forward?

We remain optimistic that upon reflection (ideology-free), of the facts at hand and recognition of at least the possibility Peak Oil advocates may be on to something, conservatives will have something of great value to offer all of us. But if contributions are going to remain at the fear-based level, coupled with an unwillingness to accept facts (and thus fail to offer the expertise and experience we’re counting on from you), what happens to all of us?

Of course it’s threatening to think that our lifestyles, systems of governing, and capitalist processes themselves may all face drastic changes in the not-too-distant future because of the facts and reality of Peak Oil and climate change! As I’ve stated repeatedly, I’m betting that almost every single Peak Oil proponent want nothing more than to be wrong! I’m certainly not the poster-child for Peak Oil advocacy and lifestyles. I have a very nice, capitalist, well-to-do existence: 7 bedroom summer home by the ocean, luxury vehicles for my wife and I, and assorted other technological goodies in quantities too embarrassing to detail. To hell with all of you, I don’t want MY life to change!

I just don’t see much value in ascribing super-secret, nefarious conspiratorial aims to someone ever-so-gently (too cautiously, perhaps?) trying to get Americans to recognize we ought to consider preparing for change before we have no choice … and no plans in place.

Two generations came to think of declining oil prices as normal, which accounts for the current sense of entitlement, the outrage at rising prices, and the search for villains: politicians, oil-producing countries, and oil companies are all targets of scorn in public-opinion surveys.
A substantial failure of education about non-renewable natural resources lies in the background of current public sentiment. And now, having underinvested in energy efficiency and security when the costs of doing so were lower, America is poorly positioned to face the prospect of rising real prices. Energy policy has been ‘pro-cyclical’ – the opposite of saving for a rainy day. Given the upward pressure on prices implied by rising emerging-market demand and the global economy’s rapid increase in size, that day has arrived….
Rather than anticipating and preparing for change, the United States has waited for change to be forced upon it….
Obama is correctly attempting to explain that effective energy policy, by its very nature, requires long-term goals and steady progress toward achieving them.
One frequently hears the assertion that democracies’ electoral cycles are poorly suited to implementing long-term, forward-looking policies. The countervailing force is leadership that explains the benefits and costs of different options, and unites people around common goals and sensible approaches. The Obama administration’s effort to put long-term growth and security above political advantage thus deserves admiration and respect.
Declining dependence on external sources, properly pursued, is an important development. But it is not a substitute for higher energy efficiency, which is essential to making the switch to a new and resilient path for economic growth and employment. A side benefit would be to unlock a huge international agenda for energy, the environment, and sustainability, where American leadership is required.
This effort requires persistence and a long official attention span, which in turn presupposes bipartisan support. Is that possible in America today? [3]

Good question.

Peak Oil Denial: The Liberal’s Dilemma (Pt 3)

Apr 26

Looking Left and Right, Peak Oil, Peak Oil Denial

Most of us like to believe that our opinions have been formed over time by careful, rational consideration of facts and ideas, and that the decisions based on those opinions, therefore, have the ring of soundness and intelligence. In reality, we often base our opinions on our beliefs, which can have an uneasy relationship with facts. And rather than facts driving beliefs, our beliefs can dictate the facts we chose to accept. They can cause us to twist facts so they fit better with our preconceived notions. Worst of all, they can lead us to uncritically accept bad information just because it reinforces our beliefs. This reinforcement makes us more confident we’re right, and even less likely to listen to any new information. And then we vote.
This effect is only heightened by the information glut, which offers — alongside an unprecedented amount of good information — endless rumors, misinformation, and questionable variations on the truth. In other words, it’s never been easier for people to be wrong, and at the same time feel more certain that they’re right. [1]

[NOTE: This is the third in a subset of my ongoing series entitled Looking Left and Right (which began here; see Category sidebar for all links). This is about Peak Oil, but addresses the considerations and potential solutions from a different perspective than purely fact-based and/or he-said—she-said ones which too often dominate public discourse. With the caveat that I have NO professional expertise/training in psychology or its related fields, I’ll look at emotional and psychological “tricks” and traits we all use—Left, Right, and in-between—to bolster our beliefs and opinions as we do battle with our “opponents” in the increasingly polarized political forums which too-often dominate our culture.

As I observed in that first post of this Looking Left and Right series:

We all act much the same way, ideologies notwithstanding. Human nature, I suppose. The more important questions: might we benefit from a bit of introspection before doing more of the same?…We obviously wouldn’t be making use of these psychological tricks of the trade if they didn’t provide us with benefits and gratifications. So is that it? Shrug our shoulders, admit that we are all guilty from time to time and then … nothing?
Might we consider the possibility of being ‘better’ than that? If we choose to solve what might appear at first blush to be overwhelming and even insoluble problems, we need more. We need more from our systems, more from our leaders, and more from ourselves.
There is a great deal at stake for all us, and we might all be better served understanding not just what we do in asserting and defending our beliefs, policies, and opinions, but why. Appreciating that might make a world of difference … literally!]

In Part 1 and Part 2 of this mini-series, I began an examination of what my semi-snarky, decidedly liberal perspective saw as a perfect summation of stereotypical right-wing nonsense regarding fossil fuel production and gas pricing, relying on the concept of cultural cognition as described by Dan M. Kahan, Yale University and Donald Barman – George Washington University [link to PDF download]. I’m doing so in the hope that this might afford Peak Oil proponents—and those who doubt—a window into how the discussion has been approached to date, and more importantly, how to get past the stumbling block of ideology (my own and the “others”). We’ll need all the intelligence, expertise, and assistance we can get to find some practical adaptations and solutions.

Studies of everyday reasoning show that we usually use reason to search for evidence to support our initial judgment, which was made in milliseconds. [2]

Our task, then, is to organize society so that reason and intuition interact in healthy ways. [Jonathan] Haidt’s research suggests several broad guidelines. First, we need to help citizens develop sympathetic relationships so that they seek to understand one another instead of using reason to parry opposing views. Second, we need to create time for contemplation. Research shows that two minutes of reflection on a good argument can change a person’s mind. Third, we need to break up our ideological segregation. [3]

Problems solved!

And now, back to reality….I’ve argued in any number of posts that how we approach, plan for, and then finally adapt to the changes Peak Oil and a warming planet are going to impose requires not just better efforts from our so-called political and business leaders. As full as our plates may be, meaningful adaptation to a very different future requires understanding, effort, cooperation, and contribution on our parts as well.

So far, most of our leaders have done an admirable job of ignoring and pandering instead. “Gotta cover my political ass” is the unfortunate, long-lamented but yet-to-be-changed legislative approach for most. No one seems willing or able to get past that and have honest, full-disclosure conversations with the electorate (all of them, not just constituents on the same side of their ideological fence), to thus explain why change is on its way and why (and how) we need to plan for it now. It’s a daunting challenge to be sure, but it’s the only way. (I’m not suggesting that President Obama isn’t attempting to do so. He is. It’s just not enough, and that’s not solely his “fault.”)

It’s well past time for us to ask: What’s the incentive and benefit in keeping people uninformed? Expecting delivery of honest (albeit unpleasant) truths shouldn’t be just an ideal….How is not doing so of any benefit past the next election?

And so again we circle back to more of the perspectives commonly adopted and expressed by those who deny Peak Oil, artfully shared by the above-referenced Mr. Folks. (There’s a lot to discuss. I’ll examine and discuss these points in the final installments.)

That’s been more than enough time to fix the problem, but he’s done nothing but make it worse. If the president had promoted domestic production of fossil fuels as he should have done, we wouldn’t need a quick fix. We would have had a fix already in place, and it would now be working.

Meanwhile, on his four-stop ‘energy tour,’ Obama continued pushing the failed policies that have resulted in soaring gas prices. At every stop — even at Cushing, Oklahoma, the heart of oil country — he insisted that drilling for oil is not enough. It will take “all of the above,” he stated, including greater subsidies for solar outfits like Solyndra and higher taxes on oil companies. How is that going to bring down gas prices?
At the same time, Obama’s surrogates are attacking Wall Street speculators and ‘greedy oil companies’ for driving up prices. Those same speculators drove down prices during the Bush administration — why are prices soaring only now, if not as a result of Obama’s policies? And those so-called greedy oil companies have had to fight Obama for permission to drill anywhere.

For over 40 years the left has brought out one argument after another against fossil fuels.

When Obama tells us there’s no quick fix, he is not suggesting that we should get started on a fossil fuel fix. He’s saying that since there is no quick fix with fossil fuels, we’re better off dumping them and moving on to renewables. But if the fossil fuel fix is not all that quick, the green energy fix is glacial. In fact, it is no fix at all, because no matter how many windmills and solar farms we subsidize with taxpayer money, it will not be enough to fuel even one tenth of our energy needs.

The proper course is to withdraw all subsidies and allow market forces to decide where to allocate capital.
Yet Obama refuses to consider this obvious solution, despite the fact that in the real economy and at the state level, where federal regulation has not yet intruded, it is already working. The oil and gas boom in North Dakota, Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and other states is spurring growth, producing cheap energy, and why can’t you recognize the facts about its limitations and creating hundreds of thousands of jobs.

If only he could gain control over oil and gas drilling — regulatory control that still rests mainly with state governments — he would soon have his boot on the neck of America’s energy companies — extorting billions from them to further his political ambitions.

If Obama is re-elected, the effort to bring the energy sector under national regulation will only be intensified. A large part of that effort will be punishing new taxes and environmental regulation at the national level. None of this will result in lower gas prices. In fact, it will continue the push toward European price levels, currently at $10 a gallon.
Despite what the president tells us, there actually is a ‘fix’ for high gas prices. It is to get government out of the way and allow America’s world-class energy companies to compete in the production of cheap and reliable energy.

Sigh….

For starters, the ongoing whining (I know, I know—not helpful, but I am duly acknowledged that this is not a practice limited only to the Right bashing a President on the Left) that President Obama’s policies are either raising gas prices or not lowering them has been thoroughly discredited by a long list of experts from across the political spectrum *, yet the “argument” persists. To what end?

The question I posed above as it relates to our political and business leaders is no less applicable to these “messengers:” What’s the incentive and benefit in keeping people uninformed?

How do we get past that? Can we? We don’t have much of a choice.

Peak Oil Denial: The Liberal’s Dilemma (Pt 2)

Apr 19

Looking Left and Right, Peak Oil, Peak Oil Denial

The problem isn’t that people don’t reason. They do reason. But their arguments aim to support their conclusions, not yours. Reason doesn’t work like a judge or teacher, impartially weighing evidence or guiding us to wisdom. It works more like a lawyer or press secretary, justifying our acts and judgments to others. [1]

[NOTE: This is the second in a subset of my ongoing series entitled Looking Left and Right (which began here; see Category sidebar for all links). This is about Peak Oil, but addresses the considerations and potential solutions from a different perspective than purely fact-based and/or he-said—she-said ones which too often dominate public discourse. With the caveat that I have NO professional expertise/training in psychology or its related fields, I’ll look at emotional and psychological “tricks” and traits we all use—Left, Right, and in-between—to bolster our beliefs and opinions as we do battle with our “opponents” in the increasingly polarized political forums which too-often dominate our culture.

As I observed in that first post of this Looking Left and Right series:

In Part 1 of this “mini-series”, I proposed an examination of what my semi-snarky, decidedly liberal perspective saw as a perfect summation of stereotypical right-wing nonsense regarding fossil fuel production and gas pricing, relying on the concept of cultural cognition as described by Dan M. Kahan, Yale University and Donald Barman – George Washington University [link to PDF download]. I do so in the hope that this might afford Peak Oil proponents—and those who doubt—a window into how the discussion has been approached to date, and more importantly, how to get past the stumbling block of ideology (my own and the “others”). We’ll need all the intelligence, expertise, and assistance we can get to find some practical adaptations and solutions.

(Of necessity, there must at a minimum be some recognition on the part of those who dispute Peak Oil that at least some facts bear consideration before outright dismissal. I hope that bar is low enough….)

So let’s dive in.

Once something is added to your collection of beliefs, you protect it from harm. You do it instinctively and unconsciously when confronted with attitude-inconsistent information. Just as confirmation bias shields you when you actively seek information, the backfire effect defends you when the information seeks you, when it blindsides you. Coming or going, you stick to your beliefs instead of questioning them. When someone tries to correct you, tries to dilute your misconceptions, it backfires and strengthens them instead. Over time, the backfire effect helps make you less skeptical of those things which allow you to continue seeing your beliefs and attitudes as true and proper….
Contradictory evidence strengthens the position of the believer. It is seen as part of the conspiracy, and missing evidence is dismissed as part of the coverup….
What should be evident from the studies on the backfire effect is you can never win an argument online. When you start to pull out facts and figures, hyperlinks and quotes, you are actually making the opponent feel as though they are even more sure of their position than before you started the debate. As they match your fervor, the same thing happens in your skull. The backfire effect pushes both of you deeper into your original beliefs….
The backfire effect is constantly shaping your beliefs and memory, keeping you consistently leaning one way or the other through a process psychologists call biased assimilation. Decades of research into a variety of cognitive biases shows you tend to see the world through thick, horn-rimmed glasses forged of belief and smudged with attitudes and ideologies. [2]

Certainly makes sense! As a general proposition, aren’t we all most comfortable in familiar surroundings and circumstances? How many of us have been guilty at one time or another (or many more) of staying in a job we hate, or a relationship clearly having no future, simply because the known is “easier” to deal with than the unknown, regardless of potential improvement?

Isn’t it perfectly reasonable to assume that everyone acts in ways to support and validate their thoughts and beliefs and opinions? Who likes change or wants to be proven wrong all the time (or even occasionally)?

And so risks objectively undertaken and/or controversial positions adopted tend not to be such an issue when we’re lodged in the familiar or among peers who share our opinions and beliefs. Common sense, right?

There’s now a staggering amount of research on the psychological and even the physiological traits of people who opt for conservative ideologies. And on average, you see people who are more wedded to certainty, and to having fixed beliefs. You also see people who are more sensitive to fear and threat — in a way that can be measured in their bodily responses to certain types of stimuli. [3]

In and of itself, this is neither a “bad” or “wrong” approach. It’s just how one views the world, and it’s also understandable that most of our life experiences are shaped by and from a particular vantage point most comfortable to each of us.

So, conservatives tend to be ‘individualists’– meaning, essentially, that they prize a system in which government leaves you alone — and ‘hierarchs,’ meaning, they are supportive of various types of inequality.
The individualist is threatened by global warming, deeply threatened, because it means that markets have failed and governments — including global governments — have to step in to fix the problem. And some individualists are so threatened by this reality that they even spin out conspiracy theories, arguing that all the world’s scientists are in a cabal with, like, the UN, to make up phony science so they can crash economies. [4]

Which at long last brings me to Mr. Folks, and our dilemma.

The left’s goal is to shift control of a vital sector of the economy, and one that plays a crucial part in the lives of all Americans, into the hands of government. Along with ObamaCare and financial regulation, it is the third leg of Obama’s socialist takeover of the economy.

We Peak Oil advocates want to find ways to adapt and solve the problems Peak Oil will create. Whatever works best in fashioning acceptable and hopefully profitable/beneficial solutions amid the great complexity and inter-connectedness of 21st century living is our concern and objective. We’re willing to tweak what must be tweaked because we accept and understand that Business-As-Usual simply will not be possible in the long term. We would rather that perspective be adopted and understood sooner rather than later.

So when we read statements like the one just quoted, our first reaction (other than snickering at the bug-eyed conspiracy nonsense), is despair. At first glance there seems little hope of bridging the divide between what we accept as fact and the “other side’s” promotion of irrelevancies, delusions, misrepresentations, and failures to understand and accept … reality! And no doubt we are doing so colored by our perceptions and biases and beliefs.

Liberals don’t understand conservative values. And they can’t recognize this failing, because they’re so convinced of their rationality, open-mindedness and enlightenment. [5]

What to do? We’re driven to get past this and solve the problems before they become unsolvable, but how to make that happen when our perceptions convince us that those who deny Peak Oil are delusional at best?

Climate change and Peak Oil are going to impose some major-league changes for all of us. Those whose psychological make-up is more discomfited by change will go to great lengths to fashion justifications for denying or ignoring potential consequences. This is all the more pronounced given that solutions will almost certainly require more involvement by government, more community-wide planning, and concessions by free-marketers—all of which are anathema to conservatives.

But the bigger issue is not how to continue supporting one’s belief system in the face of potential change. The more important question is: do we create more harm for ourselves and others by failing to question or think about what we’re confronted with? Do we give in to the emotional responses which first set us on the paths of ideological make-up, or can we find room for reasoning before arriving at final conclusions? Given what we face, is that “automatic” and unquestioned response wise? Is the ideology more important than our longer term well-being?

Politics isn’t just about manipulating people who disagree with you. It’s about learning from them. [6]

In the next installment of this series, we’ll examine more of Mr. Folks’ commonly-held positions to see what we can learn from the conservative’s perspective, and what those who share his viewpoint might learn from ours.

Sources:

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/the-righteous-mind-by-jonathan-haidt.html?pagewanted=1; Why Won’t They Listen? [book review of] ‘The Righteous Mind,’ by Jonathan Haidt – March 23, 2012 review by William Saletan
[2] http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/06/10/the-backfire-effect/; The Backfire Effect by David McRaney – 06.10.11
[3] http://www.alternet.org/environment/154709/the_strange_conservative_brain:_3_reasons_republicans_refuse_to_accept_reality_about_global_warming; The Strange Conservative Brain: 3 Reasons Republicans Refuse to Accept Reality About Global Warming by Chris Mooney – 03.26.12
[4] Chris Mooney
[5], [6] William Saletan

Leave a Comment climate change, cultural cognition, denial, ideology, lifestyle, Peak Oil Read more

Peak Oil Denial: The Liberal’s Dilemma (Pt 1)

Apr 12

Looking Left and Right, Peak Oil, Peak Oil Denial

Reality has a well-known liberal bias – Stephen Colbert

[NOTE: This is the first in a subset of my ongoing series entitled Looking Left and Right (which began here; see Category sidebar for all links). This is about Peak Oil, but addresses the considerations and potential solutions from a different perspective than purely fact-based and/or he-said—she-said ones which too often dominate public discourse. With the caveat that I have NO professional expertise/training in psychology or its related fields, I’ll look at emotional and psychological “tricks” and traits we all use—Left, Right, and in-between—to bolster our beliefs and opinions as we do battle with our “opponents” in the increasingly polarized political forums which too-often dominate our culture.

As I observed in that first post:

We all act much the same way, ideologies notwithstanding. Human nature, I suppose. The more important questions: might we benefit from a bit of introspection before doing more of the same…? We obviously wouldn’t be making use of these psychological tricks of the trade if they didn’t provide us with benefits and gratifications. So is that it? Shrug our shoulders, admit that we are all guilty from time to time and then … nothing?
Might we consider the possibility of being ‘better’ than that? If we choose to solve what might appear at first blush to be overwhelming and even insoluble problems, we need more. We need more from our systems, more from our leaders, and more from ourselves.
There is a great deal at stake for all us, and we might all be better served understanding not just what we do in asserting and defending our beliefs, policies, and opinions, but why. Appreciating that might make a world of difference … literally!]

Recently [Part 3 of this Looking Left and Right series], I introduced the concept of “cultural cognition”, from the works of Dan M. Kahan, Yale University and Donald Barman – George Washington University [link to PDF download]. The authors’ introduction:

So here’s one Peak Oil-related problem:

Furthermore, in a democracy, a mandate for radical changes, particularly those that will in the short-term adversely impact the living standards of voters, requires the electorate to be already suffering from the condition that the government’s ‘cure’ is intended to alleviate. With regard to the energy sector, there is a lengthy lag between the adoption of a new policy and its implementation, due to the scale of the infrastructure and work required. If a crisis occurs in the energy sector, then it follows that a country will find it much more expensive to resolve, than if it had taken earlier measures to prevent it from happening in the first place. In other words, prevention is better than the cure….
Like climate change, peak oil and resource depletion in general runs into the human tendency to discount the future. While this worked admirably back when our problems occurred on a daily or at most seasonal basis, it is ill-suited to managing events that happen over the course of decades. [1]

If planning ahead makes sense, then this would appear to be one reasonable approach:

Clearly, you shouldn’t try to persuade your ideological opponents by citing threatening facts. Rather, if your goal is an honest give-and-take, you should demonstrate the existence of common ground and shared values before broaching anything controversial, and you should interact calmly and interpersonally. To throw emotion into the mix is to stoke automatic, moralistic, indignant responses. [2]

Hard to argue with the truth or rational approach of either observation, at least in an objective world. So how should one deal with the perspectives in opposition to Peak Oil or any planning other than “drill, baby, drill”—expressed in articles like this one by Jeffrey Folks?:

Everything from ‘peak oil’ to ‘no quick fix’ is a thinly disguised attempt at government takeover of the energy sector, something the left has plotted since at least the 1930s.

A likely knee-jerk reaction from those who understand the developing urgency of Peak Oil’s impact is admittedly unkind: “It’s not much more than laughably ignorant, paranoid nonsense, and it’s thus impossible to take either the comment or author seriously. After eighty years, you’d think the nefarious Left’s super-duper, double-secret plot would have either succeeded or those damn liberals would have given up.” So that’s settled!

A wild guess: this doesn’t make for much of a discussion of any kind, let alone a good-faith attempt to understand opposing perspectives and then make the effort to arrive at some mutually agreeable and ideally beneficial solutions to the problem at hand. Dale Carnegie’s How To Win Friends & Influence People strategy it is not.

So that option, while validating one’s own beliefs and ideology at the expense of some clueless, reality-challenged, tinfoil-hat-wearing “other”, doesn’t offer much to any of us. With the high stakes at hand, obviously another approach is called for.

But the seemingly logical alternative is quickly dismissed by Kahan and Barman:

If one starts with the intuitive but mistaken premise that public disagreement is an artifact of insufficient or insufficiently accessible scientific information, the obvious strategy for dispelling disagreement, and for promoting enlightened democratic decision-making, is to produce and disseminate sound information as widely as possible. But the phenomenon of cultural cognition implies that this strategy will be futile. [pp. 148-149].

So now what? Peak Oil (and climate change) are—to those of us who do accept the evidence and expert assessments—serious, fact-based realities which will soon enough impose some rather unpleasant, widespread, and irrevocable changes on how we live and work … all of us, even those on the Right who presently find almost nothing about either topic to be worth contemplating at all. That poses a dilemma (more than one, but let’s stick with this for the moment).

Almost no aspect of our personal, cultural, economic, industrial, or commercial lifestyles will not be affected in large or small measure by the impact of Peak Oil and/or climate change. We don’t treat that unpleasant expectation lightly, although I suspect that I’m not the only Peak Oil proponent who would prefer being wrong! Our beliefs and the facts we accept in support make for a beyond-reasonable-doubt convincing case—from where we sit. So whatever solutions/adaptations are needed will require on all-hands-on-deck approach, and soon.

We will need the insights and perspectives and experiences and expertise of all parties, and ideologies aren’t high on the checklist of criteria. We’ll need the expertise of business owners and investment advisors and bankers. (Would they prefer getting left behind as economic conditions change, or might having a say in, and possibilities for, continuing success be more appealing?) That’s not to say there shouldn’t be some recognition of cultural perspectives, but we will have to decide what works best across as many lifestyle categories as is possible.

The changes needed can’t be dictated solely by a Big Liberal Government-No Government Tea Party scorecard for the simple reason that the effects of Peak Oil and climate change will be beyond any challenge we’ve ever confronted. The manner in which we address the effects thus do not fit neatly into ideological boxes providing clear choices.

We must move beyond those limitations. As with most observations on the subject of Peak Oil, saying is so much easier than doing. The challenge is all the greater—if that’s possible—because from our perspective too many people without the means/opportunities to understand what’s at stake are being fed a steady diet of half-truths, misrepresentations, irrelevancies, nonsense, and in some cases outright lies. If you come to the table without understanding or even knowing the facts, it’s a wee bit more difficult to contribute and then leave with meaningful solutions in hand. Not exactly a major revelation….

So now what?

Because I found Mr. Folks’ arguments to be an ideal example of most elements of the “diet” mentioned above, I’ll expand on the topics of this Looking Left and Right subset in several follow-up posts over the next few Thursdays. The conclusions about cultural cognition offered by Mr. Kahan and Mr. Barman as they relate to the points raised in the piece by Mr. Folks will serve as the foundation.

Perhaps (I hope) we all might benefit from a different take. If nothing else, it should spark what I can only hope will be meaningful exchanges as we begin the long overdue process of trying to figure out what to do in the face of Peak Oil’s many challenges.

Until next time….

Sources:

[1] http://www.ifandp.com/article/009633.html; Is time running out? by Dr. Samuel Fenwick/ IFandP Research – 02.14.11
[2] http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/154607/how_the_right-wing_brain_works_and_what_that_means_for_progressives?; How the Right-Wing Brain Works and What That Means for Progressives by Chris Mooney – 03.20.12

Leave a Comment cultural cognition, denial, ideology, lifestyle, Peak Oil Read more

Peak Oil Denial: Looking Left and Right (Pt 4)

Apr 5

Looking Left and Right, Peak Oil, Peak Oil Denial

[NOTE: This part of a developing series (which began here; see Category sidebar for other links) related to Peak Oil, but addressing the considerations and potential solutions from a different perspective than purely fact-based and/or he-said—she-said perspectives. With the caveat that I have NO professional expertise/training in psychology or its related fields, I’ll look at emotional and psychological “tricks” and traits we all use—Left, Right, and in-between—to bolster our beliefs and opinions as we do battle with our “opponents” in the increasingly polarized political forums which too-often dominate our culture.

As I observed in that first post of this Looking Left and Right series:

Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger. [1]

It is societies such as ours, badly divided and obsessed with the present, that most need communal ties. But they are the least likely to produce them. Obama’s speeches have gestured at this problem but haven’t solved it. Indeed, in these circumstances, only a steady appeal to common sense and common decency has any hope of sustainably convincing American citizens to act in what Tocqueville called their self-interest, rightly understood. But it’s still an open question whether our leaders have the fortitude to make, and our citizens the disposition to hear, such an appeal. [2]

What’s the alternative if we don’t “hear such an appeal?” At some point, reality will intrude on the comfortable beliefs of those who deny that our planet is warming—dangerously so—and that the fossil fuel supply which powered us to this point in history with remarkable technological prowess will soon enough no longer be available to all of us as it has.

What kind of a nation do we choose to be?

Will we collectively make choices to adapt to the changes geology and Mother Nature are going to be impose on all of us—Left and Right—or are we going to resist change, preserve ideology at all costs, and then be forced to adapt? The end result will be the same. Do we make the choice to have a say, or is last-minute, unprepared panic the preference? Denying that there will be any significant changes at all is at this point delusional, dangerous, and several stages beyond foolish. How much and how “bad” remains to be seen, but none of us can afford to blithely pretend that all will continue to just fine and dandy in the years and decades to come.

There’s no solace in recognizing that the harsher consequences are probably still several years away. The process has already begun….

At the heart of resilience thinking is a very simple notion — things change — and to ignore or resist this change is to increase our vulnerability and forego emerging opportunities. In so doing, we limit our options. [3]

Who’s prepared to explain to our children that we chose to avoid and deny … at their expense, because we were … well, it was too uncomfortable or painful for us, and we just preferred to hope and pray instead. Plates were full; we were sure someone would do something somehow to fix it so we could continue to ignore it all; costs were too high; too much sacrifice … the excuses won’t be worth the paper they’re printed on, and as a result, problems several orders of magnitude beyond what we’ll most likely have to contend with as it is will be what’s left. Nice, huh?

Why would people who are politically conservative be more likely to deny the evidence about climate change? Well, conservatives are generally what Cultural Cognition theory calls Hierarchists. They like clear and fixed hierarchies of class and race and social structure, a rigid predictable ‘that’s the way it’s always been done’ status quo. They don’t like government butting in trying to change things, and leveling the playing field, and taking from the haves who have earned it and giving to the have-nots who haven’t. Well, the solutions to climate change [and Peak Oil - my comment] are going to take all kinds of government ‘butting in’, all sorts of adjustments to the economic status quo, interventions that will mean new winners and losers, changes to who’s where on the economic and power ladder, and to a hierarchist (i.e. conservative), that means somebody else’s sort of society – the society of ‘Egalitarians’ who want things flexible and fair, not rigid and bound by class and hierarchy – is going to prevail. [4]

The challenge for those who choose to deny for whatever reasons* is to recognize—much sooner than they’re currently prepared to—that business as usual is not a viable option for the long-term. All the well-rehearsed ideological principles they’ve relied upon, the cherry-picked facts and assorted misrepresentations the well-oiled denial machine has cranked out**, the refusal to deal with facts … not a single one of those efforts, nor all combined, will prevent the consequences of a warming planet and diminished energy supplies from reaching those who have evaded the truths.

What happens then?

[W]hen faced with an ambiguous situation, conservatives would tend to process the information initially with a strong emotional response. This would make them less likely to lean towards change, and more likely to prefer stability. Stability means more predictability, which means more expected outcomes, and less of a trigger for anxiety. [5]

Perfectly understandable! But will it help?

“Expected outcomes” aren’t in the cards in the years to come, so the ideology/strategy is doomed to eventual failure. A risk worth taking, given what’s at stake?

How do we not accept change in all its variations? Where would we be if this nation made a collective decision in 1846 or 1903 or 1949 that we’re done: “We’ve gone as far as we care to go, we’re not going to do anything drastic; we’re just going to sit tight and make do with what we’ve got and where we are, because, quite frankly, imagining something different might be a bad thing, and we just can’t go there…?”

There’s nothing joyful or gratifying in discussing the consequences and impact of Peak Oil (and climate change). Being wrong would be fabulous! On purely selfish terms, my being wrong about all of this means my pleasant suburban life complete with a summer beach home and assorted gadgets and nice cars, etc., etc. could continue merrily along without interruption. I’m sure I would find something else to devote my efforts to, and I’m also certain I wouldn’t carry the weighty concerns which this endeavor burdens me with on a daily basis. There is little enjoyment in collecting facts on the subject of Peak Oil—recognizing what its impact means to and for all of us. But like my peers on this side of the discussion, denial is not an option. The message is too important.

Accepting the consequences is one thing. Accepting that we made no effort to inform when we knew is quite another. So onward and upward we go….

We often speak of ‘change’–as a potent political slogan, as a permanent feature of life, as a ‘good thing’–but we rarely speak of the often-wrenching process of change. I think the reason is self-evident: change often involves loss.
This is why Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grief –denial, anger, bargaining, resignation and acceptance–have become an increasingly mainstream model of the process of coming to terms with the losses of declining asset valuations, a devolving economy and a lower standard of living…..
That the Status Quo–dependent on ever-rising debt and asset values, on cheap, abundant energy, food and other resources–is unsustainable, is self-evident to all not firmly lodged in the cocoon of self-deception and magical thinking known as denial. It follows that the Status Quo will devolve or implode within the next 10-15 years, and be replaced by some other arrangement….
Just like the ancient Romans, we cling to magical thinking, as if a glorious past will magically repeat itself without any effort or sacrifice on our part; rather than confidence about the future, our primary emotion is fear, and our primary defense is denial….
[W]e fear the process that will make us whole and bring us a grounded well-being because at the start of the process, the end result is unknown. The leap requires self-confidence and faith. The person–and the society–grounded in realistic appraisals and self-knowledge is not afraid of transformation or the stiff challenges of the future….
One of the key stages in the process of change is to accept responsibility for where we are right now, and fashion a realistic response. [6]

We still have choices. The steps we take individually and collectively matter … a lot. Making wise choices unencumbered by ideologies or “safe” tactics is an option worth considering.

* Sen. James Inhofe was kind enough to explain one of the real reasons for the Right’s denial of climate change in an unguarded moment when he wandered onto the dark side of truth, facts, and reality: “I was actually on your side of this issue when I was chairing that committee and I first heard about this. I thought it must be true until I found out what it cost. [my emphasis]”

** [See this—the first link—to a four-part account of how that effort has manufactured doubt.]

Sources:

[1] http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/; How facts backfire: Researchers discover a surprising threat to democracy: our brains by Joe Keohane – 07.11.10
[2] http://www.tnr.com/article/the-vital-center/101057/obama-economic-doctrine-community-nationalism; Has Obama Convinced Americans About the Importance of Community? by William Galston – 02.25.12
[3] http://news.thomasnet.com/green_clean/2012/01/02/will-the-resilience-movement-help-the-world-cope-with-the-resource-crunch/; Will the Resilience Movement Help the World Cope With the Resource Crunch? by Al Bredenberg – 01.02.12
[4] http://bigthink.com/ideas/39500?page=all; “Cool Dudes”, Hot Temps; The Climate Change Battle Will Get Us Nowhere by David Ropeik – 07.29.11
[5] http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2011/09/07/your-brain-on-politics-the-cognitive-neuroscience-of-liberals-and-conservatives/; Your Brain on Politics: The Cognitive Neuroscience of Liberals and Conservatives by Chris Mooney (guest post by Andrea Kuszewski) – 09.07.11
[6] http://www.oftwominds.com/blogaug11/process-of-change-8-11.html; Change and the Process of Transformation by Charles Hugh Smith – 08.15.11

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Peak Oil Denial: Looking Left and Right (Pt 3)

Mar 22

Looking Left and Right, Peak Oil, Peak Oil Denial

[NOTE: This part of a developing series (which began here) related to Peak Oil, but addressing the considerations and potential solutions from a different perspective than purely fact-based and/or he-said—she-said perspectives. With the caveat that I have NO professional expertise/training in psychology or its related fields, I’ll look at emotional and psychological “tricks” and traits we all use—Left, Right, and in-between—to bolster our beliefs and opinions as we do battle with our “opponents” in the increasingly polarized political forums which too-often dominate our culture.

As I observed in that first post of this Looking Left and Right series: ‘We all act much the same way, ideologies notwithstanding. Human nature, I suppose. The more important questions: might we benefit from a bit of introspection before doing more of the same….We obviously wouldn’t be making use of these psychological tricks of the trade if they didn’t provide us with benefits and gratifications. So is that it? Shrug our shoulders, admit that we are all guilty from time to time and then … nothing?
‘Might we consider the possibility of being ‘ ‘ better’ ’ than that? If we choose to solve what might appear at first blush to be overwhelming and even insoluble problems, we need more. We need more from our systems, more from our leaders, and more from ourselves.’
There is a great deal at stake for all us, and we might all be better served understanding not just what we do in asserting and defending our beliefs, policies, and opinions, but why. Appreciating that might make a world of difference … literally!]

In his excellent book, Collapse, scientist Jared Diamond looked at a number of societies that had seen their physical climates change. He tried to determine what made some cultures die out while others persevered. According to Diamond, it wasn’t the severity of the change, or its speed that was the determining factor. One important variable was the foresight of those societies’ leaders — their ability to properly diagnose the problem and adapt, to come up with proactive solutions to the problems they faced.
[Quoting Diamond]: ‘[O]ne always has to ask about people’s cultural response. Why is it that people failed to perceive the problems developing around them, or if they perceived them, why did they fail to solve the problems that would eventually do them in? Why did some peoples perceive and recognize their problems and others not?’ [1]

Good questions … ones we need to find answers for before too long. Now would be an excellent time to start.

More and more we respond by shutting out the assault of cognitive dissonance and retreating from any unwelcome input. We surround ourselves with news outlets, friends and even neighbors who carefully reinforce what we want to believe. We are building our own reality to support our chosen narrative. It doesn’t seem to be working out well on a personal level and it’s rotting our politics. [2]

Liberals! Right-Wingers! Environmentalists! Big Oil! Doomers! Deniers! On and on are the labels applied, each utterance displaying more contempt, disrespect, and enmity than the last. I’ve certainly done my part to contribute.

Is this the best we have to offer? The ideal problem-solving model to pass on to future generations (assuming we’ll still have many left)?

Economic woes have not yet run their course. Millions too-many of our fellow citizens have no job, no savings, and little hope for “better” anytime soon. Our planet is warming; oil supply has been on a precarious plateau for more than a handful of years now … facts bear that out; opinions and ideologies and hopes/expectations suggest otherwise.

Elected officials pandering to the worst while the wealthy inject themselves and their money far too deeply into our politics now define too much of our democracy. Congress couldn’t issue a unanimous proclamation honoring each of their membership’s own mothers, yet we expect them to lead out of this long-developing mess without so much as mussing anyone’s hair. If Plan A doesn’t solve the problem, then let’s just be sure someone else has to pay or do or sacrifice under Plan B.

Is this the best we have to offer? Is our best/only hope more of the same?

ALL of our positions on issues arise in part out of a subconscious desire for social cohesion and safety. In other words, they are not purely a matter of free conscious will.
But we are not absolute slaves to these instincts. We do have will. We can reason. We are all responsible to some degree for our choices and behavior, responsible not only to ourselves, but to each other….[3]

But there are “obstacles” which prevent us from speaking with one another rather than at or past each other. Understanding these obstacles, respecting what they intend to provide, but then moving beyond them if they cannot serve greater purposes as we commit ourselves to finding meaningful, lasting solutions and plans to the challenges we face—climate change, economic growth, and energy supplies chief among them—is the task at hand, and for all of us….

Relying solely on others as our primary strategy has run its course. Too much is at stake to leave it all to those others who too often demonstrate that what motivates them is far different than the desires and needs we expect them to address.

So, let’s look at a few of the predominant obstacles for starters, and then delve more deeply into them—and how they influence us—as this series develops. [Bold/Underline mine]:

The Misconception: When your beliefs are challenged with facts, you alter your opinions and incorporate the new information into your thinking.
The Truth: When your deepest convictions are challenged by contradictory evidence, your beliefs get stronger.…
Once something is added to your collection of beliefs, you protect it from harm. You do it instinctively and unconsciously when confronted with attitude-inconsistent information. Just as confirmation bias shields you when you actively seek information, the backfire effect defends you when the information seeks you, when it blindsides you. Coming or going, you stick to your beliefs instead of questioning them. When someone tries to correct you, tries to dilute your misconceptions, it backfires and strengthens them instead. Over time, the backfire effect helps make you less skeptical of those things which allow you to continue seeing your beliefs and attitudes as true and proper.
Psychologists call stories like these narrative scripts, stories that tell you what you want to hear, stories which confirm your beliefs and give you permission to continue feeling as you already do. [4]

What’s going on? How can we have things so wrong, and be so sure that we’re right? Part of the answer lies in the way our brains are wired. Generally, people tend to seek consistency. There is a substantial body of psychological research showing that people tend to interpret information with an eye toward reinforcing their preexisting views. If we believe something about the world, we are more likely to passively accept as truth any information that confirms our beliefs, and actively dismiss information that doesn’t. This is known as ‘motivated reasoning.’ Whether or not the consistent information is accurate, we might accept it as fact, as confirmation of our beliefs. This makes us more confident in said beliefs, and even less likely to entertain facts that contradict them. [5]

There is some phenomenon—other than the paucity or inaccessibility of scientific information—that shapes the distribution of factual beliefs about, and the existence of political conflict over, law and public policy. What is it?
The answer, we propose, is a set of processes we call cultural cognition. Essentially, cultural commitments are prior to factual beliefs on highly charged political issues….culture is prior to facts in the cognitive sense that what citizens believe about the empirical consequences of those policies derives from their cultural worldviews. Based on a variety of overlapping psychological mechanisms, individuals accept or reject empirical claims about the consequences of controversial polices based on their vision of a good society….
The same psychological and social processes that induce individuals to form factual beliefs consistent with their cultural orientation will also prevent them from perceiving contrary empirical data to be credible. Cognitive-dissonance avoidance will steel individuals to resist empirical data that either threatens practices they revere or bolsters ones they despise, particularly when accepting such data would force them to disagree with individuals they respect….
One constraint on the disposition of individuals to accept empirical evidence that contradicts their culturally conditioned beliefs is the phenomenon of biased assimilation. This phenomenon refers to the tendency of individuals to condition their acceptance of new information as reliable based on its conformity to their prior beliefs….
Two additional mechanisms reinforce the tendency to see new information as unreliable when it challenges a culturally congenial belief. The first is naïve realism. This phenomenon refers to the disposition of individuals to view the factual beliefs that predominate in their own cultural group as the product of ‘objective’ assessment, and to attribute the contrary factual beliefs of their cultural and ideological adversaries to the biasing influence of their worldviews….the truth will be held up at the border precisely because it originates from an alien cultural destination. The second mechanism that constrains societal transmission of truth—reactive devaluation—is the tendency of individuals who belong to a group to dismiss the persuasiveness of evidence proffered by their adversaries in settings of intergroup conflict. [6 - with citations]

So we all employ these “tactics” at times—unconsciously, so it seems. How’s it working for us so far?

Just getting started … much more to come.

Sources:

[1] http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/153554/how_right-wing_conspiracy_theories_may_pose_a_genuine_threat_to_humanity; How Right-Wing Conspiracy Theories May Pose a Genuine Threat to Humanity by Joshua Holland – 12.25.11
[2] http://www.frumforum.com/where-the-crazy-may-be-coming-from; Where the Crazy May Be Coming From, by Chris Ladd – 09.16.11
[3] http://bigthink.com/ideas/42502; The Heartland Institute and “Climate DenialGate” by David Ropeik – 02.16.12
[4] http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/06/10/the-backfire-effect/; The Backfire Effect by David McRaney – 06.10.11
[5] http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/; How facts backfire: Researchers discover a surprising threat to democracy: our brains by Joe Keohane – 07.11.10
[6] http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=746508; [link to PDF download]. Cultural Cognition and Public Policy by Dan M. Kahan, Yale University – Law School; Harvard Law School and Donald Barman – George Washington University – Law School; Cultural Cognition Project – Yale Law & Policy Review, Vol. 24, pp 147 – 169, Public Law Working Paper No. 87 – 2006

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Peak Oil Denial: Looking Left and Right (Pt 2)

Mar 15

Looking Left and Right, Peak Oil, Peak Oil Denial

Some food for thought….

The deniers did not decide that climate change is a left-wing conspiracy by uncovering some covert socialist plot. They arrived at this analysis by taking a hard look at what it would take to lower global emissions as drastically and as rapidly as climate science demands. They have concluded that this can be done only by radically reordering our economic and political systems in ways antithetical to their ‘free market’ belief system. [1]

We all make choices all the time. The great majority of them tend to be rather inconsequential in the bigger picture, but no choice is consequence-free. If “radically reordering our economic and political systems” will prove mandatory in order not just to protect us from the serious consequences of climate change (and the effects of declining supplies of energy resources as Peak Oil clearly infers) then what decisions will be made?

Do we preserve the great god of political ideology and free-market capitalism in present form at all costs—consequences be damned—or might we all be better served by adaptation to the inevitable changes these forces of Nature will impose upon us regardless of the passion we hold for our ideologies and beliefs? If slamming headfirst into the wall because one has no intention of changing course seems wise, then we know what your decision will be.

It’s all fine and well to honor the beliefs and convictions each of us holds. But if those ideologies and beliefs are intended to best serve our needs long-term, then wisdom’s role is to alert us to the possibilities of change and an attendant need to adapt so as to carry on.

It’s perfectly “acceptable” if you choose to doubt mankind’s role in—or even the very fact of—global warming. It is a free country, after all. But to go so far in the face of mounting, factual evidence that climate changes are already taking place and fossil fuel supplies are now on a different trajectory that you completely disregard the need to consider at least some adaptations is to practice delusion and denial on a scale beyond all bounds of human behavior!

Who is to “blame” for the climate changes now taking place, or believing it is just the normal way of Earth’s geological history, are in the end irrelevant! These changes, in this day and age, will produce consequences on an order of magnitude we may not be capable of understanding. Your ideology will not save you from the effects of a warming planet, and it will not supply you with unlimited and affordable fossil fuels even close to forever.

I cannot imagine anyone now supporting the validity of Global Warming and Peak Oil who takes any delight whatsoever in the knowledge that they are “right” and that the deniers are wrong—foolishly so. [Sen. James Inhofe’s recent, incredibly idiotic denial is among the more laughable—”leadership”?!]

One reason alone is sufficient for our inability to gloat and take solace in the correctness of our beliefs: what happens to all of us—hemp-wearing, long-haired leftist radicals all the way across the spectrum to tinfoil-hat-wearing right-wingers—will be decidedly unpleasant if we do not begin the process of change and adaptation. (Not that there’s any guarantee of unending joy and prosperity if we do; but the odds are a lot better!)

Personal responsibility as a defining feature of our nation’s character also encompasses the need to demonstrate integrity and honesty and courage. We do so by accepting unpleasant truths, and then dealing with them to the best of our collective abilities regardless of the ideologies we cling to in an abstract environment where outcomes never matter.

If the choice is to preserve and protect the free-market, the only viable way to do so beyond the short-term is to recognize and understand why the concept itself will have to adapt to needed changes.* This will not be the failure of conservative economic ideology nor failure of its practitioners. It will instead be the inevitable (if unintended and unanticipated) outcome of our ingenuity and the inherent characteristics of free-market philosophy.

Our progress and growth has produced the wonder of our greatest technological advances … and the unending depletion of the energy resources which made all of that possible, while simultaneously impacting the environment and atmosphere in unintended but unpleasant ways. This is not an issue of fault or liability. Optimist that I am, I believe that nearly 100% of inventors and industrialists and business owners of all stripes did not intentionally choose an option for growth guaranteed to cause the most environmental or atmospheric harm or waste the most natural resources. Sometimes, outcomes are just outcomes.

So too in a globalized economy far more advanced and interconnected than we could possibly have foreseen decades earlier must we understand and accept that that path leads to certain destinations both unforeseen and unintended—all the good notwithstanding. The ever-increasing and destructive income inequality and distressed economic conditions we find ourselves struggling to escape from have further diminished the opportunities for others to get a foot in the door of success and prosperity. That may not have been the case a decade or two earlier, but the complexity of world economics makes us inextricably bound to one another, and that is not a guarantee that all is well with everyone all the time.

Individualists, at their core, are protectors of choice. Free-market competition is the preferred economic ecosystem because it preserves unencumbered freedom. Their idol, best-selling author Ayn Rand, was famous for a philosophy that condemned moral obligation, fearing that the logical outcome was a dictatorial nanny-state; as such, individualists have a deep-seated fear of government, which almost by definition, coerces citizens into collective action for the greater good. [2]

Asking the 1% to make contributions to the culture which provided them the means to attain their great wealth and success should not automatically be viewed from the tint of ideological frames as punishment, nor is it a blind handout to the lazy. We just need to recognize that conditions (including our own assessments and hopes for the future) have changed dramatically and in many cases have been diminished far beyond our worst fears. If we are to truly maximize all the resources of this nation—which, by the way, we do in fact happen to love just as deeply as do the red-blooded patriots on the Right—changes have to be made in the basic structure of our economic and political systems.*

By all means we should allow the “deserving” to continue on. But unless you are one of the 99% who just happens to believe that all is well as long as the 1% is cared for—regardless of the impact policies and practices have on you and your family—then asking the 1% to shoulder a bit more of the burden in an increasingly complex global economy should not be viewed as the destruction of all that makes us exceptional. In this intricate global economy, maximizing all of our best resources and those of every citizen capable and willing to offer a contribution is what will continue to define us as the pre-eminent nation in a world far different than the one of generations past.

Insisting that we continue to do what we’ve always done across the landscape of political, personal, and economic opportunities is a sure sign that we lack the vision and capacity to adapt and evolve. Letting the world pass us by because of a stubborn insistence that we must not change our ways is an option, I guess, but no one is going to slow down or reverse course to appease the thoughts and wishes of days gone by—thoughts and wishes having almost no place in the 2012 world we live in.

Should that lack of vision be our legacy in this new century?

How much better do we choose to be?

(* An upcoming seven-part series will be discussing this issue in greater detail.)

Sources:

[1] http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate; Capitalism vs. the Climate by Naomi Klein – 11.09.11
[2] http://www.fastcompany.com/1750214/how-to-make-skeptics-believe-obamas-birth-certificate-is-authentic; How To Make Skeptics Believe Obama’s Birth Certificate Is Authentic by Gregory Ferenstein – 04.27.11

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Looking Left and Right (Pt 1)

Jan 30

Looking Left and Right, Peak Oil, Peak Oil Vision

We all act much the same way, ideologies notwithstanding. Human nature, I suppose. The more important questions: might we benefit from a bit of introspection before doing more of the same….

What comes after the ideology is appeased? How do we each and collectively deal with the outcomes of roads taken and not taken?

I could spend hours pointing out the nonsense of Republican orthodoxy, and sure as hell ten from the Right will rise up and point out what an idiot I am because they happen to have Chart A, Opinion B, and Evidence C to show me why I’m so thoroughly wrong. And just as quickly, ten of my peers will produce Chart D, Opinion E, and Evidence F to show why the Right is clueless. There are surely no topics having influence or impacting any segment of society which are not subjected to this type of analysis, dialogue, and dispute. And on and on it goes….

As an ideological exercise designed to reassure us that we are obviously correct and our opponents are just as decidedly insane, there’s merit in continuing to wage philosophical, political, and economic war with those on the “other” side who just simply don’t get it … at all! Ever! In a fact-free and consequence-free world, we could indulge ourselves forever by playing this game. Every day is Groundhog Day.

What is this getting us, exactly (besides a healthy stroking of our egos and intellect, of course)?

Back in the day, when all of life was so much simpler and easier, we could afford to just take care of our own, prosper, debate, solve problems, and then carry on with the assurance that tomorrow all but guaranteed better opportunities than those of today. That dizzying pace never got away from us.

But today, “our own” is … everyone else, and the pace has quickened in every direction. Several billion people want to be just like the best of our best. But when the few best resist the efforts and attempts of everyone else, or deny them the very opportunities which boosted them up the ladder, we have problems. And when the game board itself has changed to, and we no longer have all the pieces we need to win the game on our own, we’ll have even more problems if we don’t consider changing the rules a bit—assuming “winning” is still the goal. If not, then the current winners will by and large remain, everyone else loses, and pretty soon, everyone loses … all 100% of us.

Sound like a good strategy for the 21st Century?

I’m thinking a bigger vision is needed. As I suggested several months ago: “do we bog ourselves down by nit-picking—working harder to find out why something won’t work or why it is not perfect in every way under every condition and for every person—or do we adopt a grander strategy that will under no conditions be perfect or even acceptable to everyone, but provides us with the best long-term opportunities…?”

That remains a choice we each and all own.

The challenges are exacerbated by little tricks each and every one of us plays. They must help us in the moment, else we would change, but introspection might offer up some different approaches to help us all, and for a longer period of time. We shouldn’t be turning down any chances to make things better.

… [P]eople who know very little about an issue — say the economic downturn, changes in the climate or dwindling fossil fuel reserves — tend to avoid learning more about it. This insulates them in their ignorance — a pattern described by researchers as ‘motivated avoidance.’
Faced with complicated or troubling situations, these people often defer to authorities like the government or scientists, hoping they have the situation under control….
‘This is psychologically easier than taking a significant amount of time to learn about an issue, all the while confronting unpleasant information about it,’ [Steven Shepard] added. [1]

Too often, the “authorities” deferred to have motivations and interests entirely at odds with those who have turned to them for assurances that everything is being managed and “under control.” The result is obvious: Authorities misinform, misdirect, or even outright lie to promote their own agenda.

Is this the better and wiser approach (notwithstanding the pointlessness of it all)? Will there come a time when most of us (I’m not that optimistic!) decide that perhaps we ought to consider choosing paths which give us the best chance of leading to a reasonable and acceptable level of continuing well-being and prosperity—even if those choices do not mesh with the ideologies and beliefs we cling to so tenaciously?

That commitment requires that we take a moment to consider what happens if we don’t do so. This is not the time or place for delusion and denial.

… [A]n array of new discoveries in psychology and neuroscience has further demonstrated how our preexisting beliefs, far more than any new facts, can skew our thoughts and even color what we consider our most dispassionate and logical conclusions. This tendency toward so-called ‘motivated reasoning [citation]’ helps explain why we find groups so polarized over matters where the evidence is so unequivocal: climate change, vaccines, ‘death panels,’ the birthplace and religion of the president [citation], and much else. It would seem that expecting people to be convinced by the facts flies in the face of, you know, the facts….
We push threatening information away; we pull friendly information close. We apply fight-or-flight reflexes not only to predators, but to data itself….
[O]ur quick-fire emotions can set us on a course of thinking that’s highly biased, especially on topics we care a great deal about….
‘[We] retrieve thoughts that are consistent with [our] previous beliefs,’ says Charles Taber [political scientist from Stony Brook University], ‘and that will lead [us] to build an argument and challenge what [we’re] hearing.’
In other words, when we think we’re reasoning, we may instead be rationalizing … Our ‘reasoning’ is a means to a predetermined end—winning our ‘case’—and is shot through with biases. They include ‘confirmation bias,’ in which we give greater heed to evidence and arguments that bolster our beliefs, and ‘disconfirmation bias,’ in which we expend disproportionate energy trying to debunk or refute views and arguments that we find uncongenial. [3]

Okay … guilty as charged. So now what?

We obviously wouldn’t be making use of these psychological tricks of the trade if they didn’t provide us with benefits and gratifications. So is that it? Shrug our shoulders, admit that we are all guilty from time to time and then … nothing?

Might we consider the possibility of being “better” than that? If we choose to solve what might appear at first blush to be overwhelming and even insoluble problems, we need more. We need more from our systems, more from our leaders, and more from ourselves. “Greater/better” leads to greater responsibilities of course, and there are ample reasons why we may prefer to just leave that to others.

A choice, of course. But every choice has an outcome, and when the challenges are great, great effort is called for. The alternative outcome is usually quite obvious: worse….

Guilty as charged there, too. Not much long-term benefit, to be sure, but easier in the moment by a long shot….

… [A]ccording to Charles Taber and Milton Lodge of Stony Brook, one insidious aspect of motivated reasoning is that political sophisticates are prone to be more biased than those who know less about the issues. ‘People who have a dislike of some policy—for example, abortion—if they’re unsophisticated they can just reject it out of hand,’ says Lodge. ‘But if they’re sophisticated, they can go one step further and start coming up with counterarguments.’ These individuals are just as emotionally driven and biased as the rest of us, but they’re able to generate more and better reasons to explain why they’re right—and so their minds become harder to change.
Cherry-picking is precisely the sort of behavior you would expect motivated reasoners to engage in to bolster their views. [4]

Sound familiar?

More shoulder-shrugging, or do we reach for and seek to be … more?

Sources:

[1] http://www.eenews.net/public/climatewire/2011/12/19/1; PUBLIC OPINION: Report finds ‘motivated avoidance’ plays a role in climate change politics, by Umair Irfan – 12.19.11
[2] http://www.frumforum.com/where-the-crazy-may-be-coming-from; Where the Crazy May Be Coming From, by Chris Ladd – 09.16.11
[3] http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/denial-science-chris-mooney; The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science – How our brains fool us on climate, creationism, and the vaccine-autism link, by Chris Mooney – 04.18.11
[4] Mooney

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