Peak Oil Matters

The official mourning period is now over, and I’m once again able to discuss the Super Bowl in somewhat dispassionate terms (%^&$*$ Eli Manning! Sorry….)

What if there was no Super Bowl game?

In a January article entitled “Super Bowl 2012: Indianapolis Invites Visitors for Weeklong Celebration” by Mark Johanson, city officials were said to be expecting 150,000 visitors during Super Bowl weekend (nearly 70,000 of whom would attend the game itself). Another source suggested the number was more likely in excess of a million….

In Diana Lind’s piece (“The Economic Mixed Bag That is the Super Bowl“), she reported that while the National Football League claims that the host city for the Super Bowl receives revenues totaling anywhere from $300 to $500 million, Indianapolis was expecting less than half of that lofty amount ($150 million was the stated estimate, and the calculations for that were questioned as being too optimistic and inaccurate as well, as Lind noted).

Having been lucky enough to attend a Super Bowl several years ago (much happier memory—the Patriots won that one!), I can personally attest to the fact that it is indeed quite the spectacle.    The Colts home city appears to have left no stone unturned in its efforts to present itself in the best possible light while offering fans and visitors the full scope of Super Bowl pageantry.

The Johanson piece quoted a Convention & Visitors Association official as promising a complete transformation of the downtown area, filled with “food carts, vendors, three stages, warming stations, food and beverage” with the intent of re-making that part of Indianapolis into an Olympic Village. And for those not satisfied with that (?), Johanson reported that there would also be “interactive games, concert stages, bars and restaurants, and a so-called ‘Tailgate Town,’” together with “four zip lines” enabling users to “fly over the Super Bowl Village.” Not to be outdone, the “NFL Experience” located at the Convention Center serves as the sport’s interactive theme park with all the bells and whistles one might expect: “participatory games, displays, entertainment attractions, kid’s football clinics, free autograph sessions, and the largest football memorabilia show ever staged.”

I am not nearly versed enough in the intricacies of planning such an event, but it stands to reason that a lot of time, effort, equipment, personnel, machinery, and transportation is needed to turn an American city into the center of the pro football universe (and for that matter, the entertainment one as well, given that the game itself drew more than 117 million viewers—a new television-viewing record, topping the 2011 Super Bowl audience.)

Granted, the Super Bowl is not your average sporting event (not with secondary market ticket prices starting in excess of $2000 per, and “a field-level luxury suite with a capacity of 35 people can be yours for $650,000!” as noted in a Huffington Post article by Andrew Brandt). The “normal” ticket-purchasing fan is not the typical attendee at the Super Bowl, and the marketing aspects attending the event are far from routine, given that it is the biggest event of the year for most advertisers.

Brandt’s article went on to report that NBC received more than $250 million just from TV advertising, and (citing other sources, including this one) that “5 million people are projected to buy new televisions in preparation for the game, and fans are expected to spend $11 billion on Super Bowl-related purchases (including the consumption of 1.25 billion chicken wings).” That’s a lot of grocery stores, caterers, restaurants, sporting goods stores, electronics stores, party-favor suppliers, etc., etc., reaping tangential benefits. (Wikipedia reports it’s the second-largest day for food consumption in America; Thanksgiving is first.) Brandt also pointed out that the city’s 6000-plus hotel rooms were all sold out (at inflated rates, no doubt), leaving many visitors obliged to stay at facilities nearly an hour away (also at exorbitantly higher rates.)

That’s a lot of traveling (personal and commercial), together with a lot of supplying and delivering. (Johnson’s article reported that “Over 1,000 private planes are expected on the ground during the weekend ushering in countless celebrities.”)

John Russell and Jon Murray wrote a separate article at the indystar.com website that one national restaurant chain in particular drew more than 1200 people to its facility in Indianapolis over Super Bowl weekend, more than double its usual amount. Obviously merchants and retailers expect/hope to reap secondary benefits from consumers who leave with favorable impressions of the service or product and might thus frequent those same commercial establishments in other locations. Certainly the host city itself likewise expects/hopes to attract additional tourists and convention business from the favorable reviews.

However, the Russell/Murray piece also noted that when all relevant revenues (more than $7 million, including several million dollars from the NFL along with hotel and restaurant taxes, etc.) and expenses (labor, insurance, utilities, personnel, security, etc.) are tabulated, the city may be looking at shortfalls of anywhere from $450,000 to nearly $900,000. Not pocket change in this economy….

So I’ll ask again, what if there was no Super Bowl game?

Nearly two years ago, I wrote my first piece about the impact of declining oil/gas supply (i.e. Peak Oil) as it relates to sports and sports travel. In that post, I offered these observations:

How do teams (high school, college, the pros) deal with travel issues and schedules when gas is much too expensive to enable teams to transport their players even short distances, or when air travel is severely curtailed and wildly expensive because not enough jet fuel is being processed to meet demand (and airports are shuttered because air travel has diminished markedly), or when the fans cannot afford to put the gasoline in their vehicles that in the past allowed them to attend the games without a second thought?
What happens when half, or a third, or one-tenth the number of fans can afford to attend games because budgeting all that money to drive to an in- or out-of-state stadium no longer makes financial sense? Pure supply and demand: when demand continues and supply is reduced, prices go up. Decisions are then made about where to allocate funds. Does a trip across the state to attend a Red Sox game make more sense than paying for your children’s basic needs for the next few months?
Where will the revenue to pay players come from when the majority of fans are no longer traveling to see the games either because limited gas supplies are now being allocated or it’s simply become too expensive for “frivolous” trips? How do owners continue to fund their vast operations (office staff, marketing, scouting staffs, minor leagues, utility services for the stadiums and training facilities, and on and on it goes)? What happens to the vendors and other suppliers when the majority of fans just stop attending … permanently?

What happens when the mind-boggling efforts in planning, preparing, transporting, supplying, delivering, etc., etc. needed to stage this incredible event by countless thousands of individuals and merchants and organizations and government officials are simply no longer feasible because every single entity up and down the supply and service chain is faced with the reality of insufficient availability of “affordable”, quality, energy supply to make this extravaganza happen?

How many economic dominoes tumble as a result? How many businesses lose out? How many employees?

I’m not anticipating that the NFL will cease production of the Super Bowl anytime in the near future, but the reality of Peak Oil will affect this event and this organization just as it will every other commercial enterprise. It will take an incredible amount of planning and thought to figure out an appropriate Plan B just for this one event … how much more planning and thought will be needed for everything else?

A few more of those annoying facts to keep in mind as we (don’t) prepare for looming energy challenges, courtesy of three recent and excellent articles/interviews well worth the time to review in full [see Sources below for the links]:

Nothing can replace oil as the lifeblood of our culture and there is no domestic supply source which will eliminate or even reduce our dependence upon the 10 million barrels per day we import from foreign countries. There are some hard truths that are purposefully ignored by those who want to mislead the public about the grim consequences of peak cheap oil:
* The earth is finite. The amount of oil within the crust of the earth is finite. As we drain 32 billion barrels of oil from the earth every year, there is less remaining within the earth. We have drained the cheapest and easiest to reach 1.4 trillion barrels from the earth since the mid 1800s. The remaining recoverable 1.4 trillion barrels will be expensive and hard to reach. [1]

While it is critical we invest our current resources to finding solutions to the approaching energy gap, it’s also essential we approach the situation realistically and with as little magical thinking as possible. Currently, the US is consuming 10 million barrels per day more than it produces domestically….The short of it is there is going to be no single fuel source that replaces oil, and the transition to a post-Peak Oil future is going to involve a period of “less energy” for society for an undetermined period of time. [2]

We tend to have self-confidence in our ability to solve any problem. But we have no historical analog to the peak of fossil fuels, without a clear (and superior) replacement on the horizon. As a result of our fossil fuel binge, we have unprecedented problems in population, water, agriculture, fisheries, pollution, climate change, and so on. Our moment in history is rather special. It is dangerous to assume that we’ll gracefully handle problems at this scale, because such assumptions amount to dismissals and concomitant inaction. Unacceptable.
It bothers me that we don’t have a plan. It scares me that we (collectively) don’t think we even need a plan. Faith in the market to solve the problem represents a high-stakes gamble. We can and should do better. [3]

Another in the body of recurring themes of Peak Oil Matters is that we do ourselves no favors by denial and delusion. The psychological purposes they serve are no match for the potential harm we’ll cause ourselves over a much longer period of time by ignoring, hoping, or wishing. Strategies available to us, of course, but their usefulness—such as it may be—is completely useless at this point.

The authors above each discuss similar themes raised in prior posts of mine and by any number of others doing their best to put us all on notice that we need to start thinking about the energy issues at hand, and then thinking differently about how to address the challenges. More importantly, planning should be among our top priorities starting about ten years ago. We’re a wee bit behind.

Echoing proposals I offered several months ago (as have others), Jim Quinn boils it down succinctly:

If our society acted in a far sighted manner, we would be creating communities that could sustain themselves with local produce, local merchants, bike paths, walkable destinations, local light rail commuting, and local energy sources.

And Tom Murphy bolsters that theme, citing the much-discussed and highly-respected The Hirsch Report (a subject I’ve covered in a number of prior posts; see the Category in the sidebar):

The bottom line was that initiating all such crash programs in parallel 20 years ahead of the peak (or more to the point, 20 years before the start of decline) may be sufficient to avoid major hardships. Waiting until 10 years before the decline would result in major disruptions as the efforts struggled to establish a large enough foothold in time for the decline. Initiating the crash program at the moment the decline starts was characterized as having catastrophic repercussions. Not treated was the more politically realistic scenario of waiting until 5 years after the start of decline while we bicker about the fundamental cause of our woes and strategies for mitigation….
Because we will more likely wait until the pain of decline has made itself clear, we may find ourselves handicapped by recession and debt, hampering our ability to act boldly….
… [S]tarting a crash program toward replacement of finite fossil fuels too early has great up-sides and marginal downsides (opportunity cost); but failure to act has enormous downside for marginal upside.

What exactly are we waiting for? For all the happy talk about the “potential possible if only we do X and Y might work” options discussed by others [as I’ve cited ad nauseum in the many “Denial” posts], too many of us have been lulled into a false sense of security that the problems—if any—are being handled.

Jim Quinn wasn’t as “kind” in his assessment (but he’s right) while pointing out a serious consequence of this pattern of deceptions and half-truths offered up by not only politicians but also by many in the oil industry who know better (and, as I’ve also emphasized repeatedly, by our own failure so far to learn more):

American presidents have propagated the Big Lie of energy independence for the last three decades. The Democrats have lied about green energy solutions and the Republicans have lied about domestic sources saving the day. These deceitful politicians put the country at risk as they misinform and mislead the non-thinking American public….
The propaganda blared at the impressionable willfully ignorant American public has worked wonders. The vast majority of Americans have no clue they have entered a world of energy scarcity.

For all the talk about the magic of Technology riding to the rescue, almost all of the research, planning, testing, marketing, etc., etc., etc required before establishing various Plan Bs as solutions require fossil fuels to make the processes happen from A to Z. What gets prioritized in a future with fewer of those resources available to begin with? Just how quickly will these various, successfully-tested and fully-implemented Plan Bs be showing up on our doorsteps?

Does anyone have a full appreciation for just how much and how many (processes, productions, transportation plans, products, etc., etc.) will have to be effectively and efficiently converted/prepared/tested for successful utilization of these Magic Technology Saviors (while fossil fuel reserves continue their steady march down the Depletion Slope)?

As Tom Murphy so nicely summed up: “Even though energy may represent something like 10% of GDP, it’s what makes the other 90% possible.”

Is anyone paying attention to the energy “quality” of all the alternatives being considered/hoped for? There’s not a single unconventional (tar sands, shale) or alternative (wind, solar, etc) energy resource that comes close to matching the energy density and efficiency of the hundreds of billions of barrels of crude oil we’ve consumed in the last century and a half. Hello! One need not be schooled in quantum physics, advanced algebra, or geology to appreciate that replacements which are for starters less efficient and more costly are not going to actually “replace” crude oil’s extensive benefits. They’re at best poor substitutes, and how might the consequences of that fact play themselves out for the billions of people with their trillions of products and demands and needs currently supplied by crude oil? Hello again!

With almost all of the major oil fields now on the downslope of their own production peaks, how much stock should any of us be putting in the still-rosy assessments of ramped-up production from those same fields over the next few decades? How does that math work? (We’re of course blindly assuming that these primary oil exporters will of course continue to serve the needs of Americans before … their own citizens? Seriously? Who gets to deliver that message? Safe to assume there might be a complaint or two?)

The most optimistic, arguably-realistic assessments about production potentials of the various unconventional and alternative resources will barely match current depletion rates. It’s now been several decades since we were finding more oil than was being consumed. Given that these crude oil wannabes aren’t as efficient, what kind of math is     being passed around to make this all seem acceptable and not worth a moment’s worth of concern?

As Tom Murphy again summed up for us:

The geological upshot is that oil is not a lake into which we thrust a straw, slurping as fast as we wish. Rather, oil is a viscous fluid in porous, permeable rock that resists rapid recovery. It’s not a spigot or valve that we can turn at will. Nature has a say in how fast we can claim the oil….
The lesson is that we don’t have full control over oil production. If previous discoveries are in decline, and we are not adding new fields at a replacement rate, we should expect aggregate decline.

Each of the three referenced authors do us all a great service by discussing these and other relevant considerations (economic and geopolitical, for example) which put a bit of a crimp in the blind happy talk which gets far too much airplay … at our expense.

I think I can safely speak for each of them, and almost every other proponent of Peak Oil, when I say that I would LOVE to be wrong about all of this! But the harsher truth is that there are just too many warning signs in too many aspects of fossil fuel exploration, discovery, production, cost, quality, and supply to ignore it all and expect that hope, wishes, good thoughts, and crossed fingers are all we need.

The potential exists, therefore, for major disruption to our accustomed ways of life. We will become viscerally aware of how fundamentally important oil is to all that we do.. It’s not just another commodity like sneakers or widgets. Curtail transportation and watch the grocery store shelves struggle to stay full. See food prices escalate and cause immediate hardships around the world. Find out how far-flung about the globe the material resources are that comprise a cell phone. [Tom Murphy]

So, assuming the Peak Oil camp is on to something, what’s the likelihood for a disruption-free transition to another energy source that can replace the energy output we currently enjoy from oil? … How realistic are these hopes?
Not very. [Martenson and Rapier]

Shouldn’t we at least be having broader and more meaningful discussions starting right about now?

Sources:

[1] http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article31542.html; U.S. Energy Independence – The Big Lie by James Quinn – 11.15.11
[2] http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/robert-rapier-scientific-challenges-replacing-oil-renewables/65387; Robert Rapier: The Scientific Challenges To Replacing Oil with Renewables [interview with Robert Rapier by Chris Martenson, posted by Adam] – 11.26.11
[3] http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/peak-oil-perspective/; Using physics and estimation to assess energy, growth, options by Tom Murphy – 11.01.11

Although it is likely that the President and his Secretary of Energy understand that a decline in world oil production is not far away, it is simply not a topic to be raised prior to an election as the political risk is simply too great. Someday, likely within the next decade, the US and the rest of world’s governments will have to acknowledge there is a problem here, and unless alternative sources of energy can be developed and brought     into general use quickly, major changes in economic activities and lifestyles are going to take place. [1]

So that’s sufficient reason to be allowing moronic decisions to serve as current policy instead? Do any of our “leaders” in Congress understand the concept of “long-term planning”? Foresight? How about just plain ‘ol basic “planning” … the kind that runs beyond Election Day? Are they all clueless … and self-serving beyond all bounds of basic decency?

The latest demonstration of short-sighted, narrow-minded “leadership” comes courtesy of the House Ways and Means Committee. Last week, the Committee’s majority, in their infinite wisdom, proposed a much-needed transportation bill which managed to all but eliminate currently-legislated funding for public transit, among other egregious, ignorant and decidedly ideological proposals having very little to do with national best interests.

This awesome display of brazen hypocrisy (and a giant “screw you” to millions of not-wealthy citizens who use and/or rely on public transit) calls for that funding to now take a number and wait in line for crumbs from the general fund—the same general fund which supplies the needed revenue for all other government spending. Now, the billions collected from the (wildly insufficient) gas tax will be directed exclusively to road programs, rather than allocating a percentage of those revenues to transit as has been customary and routine for decades.

But the good news is that the House wants $40 billion in spending cuts to offset this “transfer” of funding to the general fund. Another giant “screw the future” message….

With a House like this, what advances can American transportation policy make?
Actions by members of the U.S. House over the past week suggest that Republican opposition to the funding of alternative transportation has developed into an all-out ideological battle. Though their efforts are unlikely to advance much past the doors of their chamber, the policy recklessness they have displayed speaks truly poorly of the future of the nation’s mobility systems. [2]

Wouldn’t it be easier for them to just announce that they genuinely don’t give a shit about 99% of Americans? Think of how much time and energy they’d save by making it obvious to even the densest of right-wing, (non-wealthy only, of course) supporters that what’s in their best interests really does not matter any more than it does for those who support the Democrats.

Dan Smith of USPIRG put it like this:
The House Ways and Means Bill stops just short of defunding America’s public transit system. Instead it says that the real money with a funding source will all go to highways, while the tooth fairy will pay for transit. For Big Oil and the highway lobby, this is a dream, but it’s a nightmare for America’s transportation future. [3]

Here in Eastern Massachusetts, the state’s Department of Transportation recently rolled out a grim set of proposals designed to counter severe budget shortfalls. All indications are that an increase in the state’s gas tax as a viable source for funding is a dead issue before it’s even raised in the legislature, so cutbacks in Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority [MBTA] services—  coupled with fare hikes affecting commuter rail, bus, ferry, and subway riders—are Plan B. Parking fees at various transit stations would also be raised.

Under one scenario, fares overall would increase by 43 percent, while under the other, they would increase by 35 percent.
Under both scenarios, MBTA ferries would be eliminated, commuter rail weekend service would be eliminated and nighttime service would end at 10 p.m., and weekend service on [specified transit lines] would be eliminated.
But in the second scenario, a larger number of bus routes would be cut, generating savings that would enable the smaller fare increase. [4]

The MBTA also provides commuter rail service to the Massachusetts North Shore community where our summer home is located. We try to spend as many weekends there as we can during the late spring through mid-autumn period. But under what I labeled as the MBTA’s Plan B as noted above, elimination of weekend rail service there is also on the table.

… [O]fficials said there is no way to quantify exactly how many weekend visitors who come by commuter rail would stay away if they had to drive instead.
But during the summer, Rockport and Manchester fill with out-of-towners, many of whom take the commuter rail in order to save money or to avoid the difficultly of finding parking space. [5]

(That same article also notes this distressing fact: “According to the MBTA, 12 percent of commuter rail passengers would be affected by the cuts, and 6.7 million fewer people would ride the commuter rail each year than do currently.” That’s not an insignificant number of people obliged to now use autos instead….)

I’ll admit that to date this is not an issue affecting me personally. We drive to our summer home, as I’ve noted in other posts such as this one. I did, however, make use of public transportation on one notable occasion back in 2010, as I recounted (here):

As I noted way back when in my introduction to this blog, we are very fortunate. We own an exquisite (at least to us), spacious summer home a hundred yards or so from the Atlantic Ocean. We vacation here and enjoy every blessed minute of it! In normal driving conditions, it takes us fifty minutes or so to go door-to-door from our suburban Boston home to the ‘beach house’, which is where I am as I write this. What a treat for us!
Summer vacation usually means grabbing as much time as we can here—work and young adult schedules permitting. That means frequent travel along the Route 128/Interstate 95 corridor … most times with more than one vehicle; most times more than once or twice a week.
As a strong proponent of Peak Oil, I have decidedly mixed feelings about this, as I have mentioned before….I love this lifestyle, and I approach my task of disseminating information about our soon-to-be-curtailed availability of fossil fuel supply with more than my fair share of selfish trepidation. We do not yet own hybrid vehicles, and so we spend more than our fair share of time filling the gas tanks of my wife’s German import and my Japanese SUV in order to make many trips to and from our summer home from Memorial Day through mid-October. I balance that guilt with the acknowledgment (rationalization?) that I work from home, and that my wife’s office is about 6000 feet from our home, so we actually spend no more on gas than most other families.
Once gas prices begin their inevitable climb up, whether that’s later this year, next year, or a couple more years down the road, and with a simultaneous curtailment in how much fossil fuel will remain available to us to meet all of demands and expectations and needs, my rationalizations may not matter much.
With that in mind yesterday, for the first time in the 6 summers that we’ve owned this home, I used public transportation to make most of the journey from home to here at the beach house. My daughter drove me a couple of miles to a commuter rail stop which took me into Boston’s North Station, where I then—some fifteen minutes after my
arrival—boarded a different rail line to take me to the North Shore. I then hailed a cab to take me the three miles or so from the train station to our summer place. (I’ve already informed my wife that I will soon take public transportation door to door, just to see what that’s like. That will add two bus trips and a decent amount of walking at the beginning and end of my trip, along with two separate subway rides. I’m expecting at     least an additional hour of travel each way, but no more than a few more dollars in fares.)
The one way trip yesterday cost me about $20.00, and took me two hours and ten minutes door to door. Compare that to less than $10.00 of gas and less than 60 minutes of travel time when I drive. More expensive certainly, and clearly more time-consuming, but all in all it was a pleasant enough experience, and surprisingly scenic in several places along the way. It was nice to be able to read and engage in some computer work while traveling … not an option when I’m barreling along at 65 miles per hour on Route 128.

So when we all begin experiencing first-hand and on a regular basis the myriad consequences of reduced availability of the fossil fuel resources we’ve long taken for granted, how quickly can our local communities, regional administrations, states, and federal authorities reinstate and create new transportations modes? Has that thought occurred to any of our brilliant Congressional officials who now feel emboldened to all but eliminate these options right now because they are intellectually incapable of thinking beyond November, and morally opposed to anything that might smack of decency and national interest (except, of course, the national interests on the wealthy)?

How much money, time, effort, and resources can we be expected to waste by devoting all of those assets to highways and roadways used by gasoline-chugging vehicles … highways and roadways and vehicles whose usage and very existence will be challenged in decades to come when the availability of affordable, efficient, and plentiful fossil fuels is no longer routinely assured to the masses?

… A]s the consumer of a quarter of the world’s oil supply, we can have a significant effect on the world oil market by making sure that our economy can adjust quickly and easily to changes in the oil price….
Increased investment in alternative modes of transport, such as mass transit (both buses and rail), bike lanes, bike and car sharing, and walking improvements to allow many more workers the option of getting to their jobs without the use of a personal car.
Improvements in our nation’s rail system to allow more freight to be shifted from truck to rail.
Encouraging the electrification of transport (including the alternative transport options mentioned above) to provide transport options which are not dependent on oil.
In short, we need to make the market for transportation services more efficient by encouraging new entrants (mass transit, bikes, trains) and competition with the incumbent car/internal combustion engine infrastructure. [6]

Wouldn’t it be nice to have voted into office leaders who think about these fact-based possibilities on our behalf (even if these contrary-to-their-ideology issues are not 100%, absolutely guaranteed to occur in every moment and circumstance?)

Why should this be wishful thinking?

Sources:

[1] http://www.fcnp.com/commentary/national/11048-the-peak-oil-crisis-election-2012.html; The Peak Oil Crisis: Election 2012 by Tom Whipple – 02.01.12
[2] http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2012/02/06/time-to-fight/; Time to Fight by Yonah Freemark – 02.06.12
[3] http://dc.streetsblog.org/2012/02/02/house-gop-takes-transit-funding-hostage/; House GOP Moves to Decimate Dedicated Transit Funding by Ben Goldman – 02.02.12

[4] http://www.boston.com/Boston/metrodesk/2012/01/state-unveils-two-mbta-fare-increase-service-cut-scenarios/DoUG26YM6frTKPtULQkOUK/index.html; MBTA fares could rise as much as 43 percent; ferry, bus, commuter rail cuts also eyed by Martin Finucane – 01.03.12

[5] http://www.gloucestertimes.com/local/x1666061106/MBTA-service-cuts-seen-hurting-Cape-Ann; MBTA service cuts seen hurting Cape Ann by Stephanie Bergman – 01.05.12

[6] http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomkonrad/2012/01/26/the-end-of-elastic-oil/; The End of Elastic Oil by Tom Konrad – 01.26.12

Although here in the Boston area we couldn’t offer definitive proof that it’s winter (a few single digit wind chill days aside)—given that after a surprise few inches of snow here on Halloween weekend, our next accumulation of snow (all of two inches or so) didn’t occur until mid-January …  with just a couple of trivial “storms” since then along with some very nice, mild temperatures such as yesterday’s near-60 degrees—‘tis the season for winter getaways.

Family and business obligations serve as our excuses for upcoming travel. The first trip is to DC, but at the end of February we’ll spend 5 days in Orlando.

That prospect, like most other plans these days, got me thinking about what happens a few years down the road when travel requirements might still be part of at least some portion of the population—business or pleasure.

Both of our trips entail a seven or eight mile drive to and from Boston’s Logan Airport (not a big deal if you avoid the rush-hour-parking-lot-on-the-highway experience) and then round trip (nonstop) flights to both of our destinations. A rental car awaits us on our DC trip, corporate transportation in Orlando.

We figure the fares total about $1500.00 for my wife and I. It’s possible that two of our children will join us on the DC trip, so there’s the potential for added costs.

The nice thing is that we have a number of flight options available at the moment. Both trips afford us multiple nonstop options to and from our destinations, along with a number of other options via connecting flights.

The airline industry, battered though it may be, nonetheless generates tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue. That means a lot of employees, suppliers, suppliers’ employees, airports, airport employees and countless others up and down the supply and service chain depend on daily flights to feed their families and pay their bills. Warmer winter weather down South is usually sufficient incentive all by itself!

As will be the case for us, air travel usually includes hotel stays and some other transportation needs. Travel is indeed a big business. Aside from the airline and airline-related personnel and suppliers mentioned above, restaurants and retailers likewise depend on airline-delivered tourists and business travelers to help pad their bottom lines.

One issue that seems fairly obvious to me is that since no one has yet figured out how to fly planes on anything other than jet fuel—at least commercially and on a mass scale—what happens when refineries decrease the supplies of jet fuel because Peak Oil necessitates basic changes in the allocation and supply of crude oil and its by-products? [Tom Whipple wrote a piece on that very subject just last week.]

Supply and demand operates in the airline industry just as it does most other places in our increasingly global economy. So when demand remains as is, but supplies are harder to come by or much more expensive, what happens then?

How much business planning has even been considered to date, let alone implemented to any degree?

When we start brushing up against the limits of oil production (and I believe we already have) and are left scrounging around for less than ideal substitutes as the years go by, what happens to all of the winter tourist travels to warmer locales? What’s our Plan B?

What gets prioritized and why? Which business industries will insist upon travel priorities and actually get what they need? Who will be making those determinations? How will they and their travel planners deal with fewer flights, fewer hotels, fewer transportation, and fewer dining options?

What happens to business conferences [see my 2011 post on that topic here]. What adaptations and transitions will be required of and from businesses from the small local to the mega-giant internationals when travel and transportation needs are restricted? How quickly does all this planning fall into place if we’re not already starting now?

What happens when even more smaller airports shut down when diminished supply cuts into current demand?

And given the incredible shortsightedness our Congressional leaders routinely display, what transportation alternatives will be in place that won’t prove to be infinitely more inconvenient at best?

What happens when your children now living on an opposite coast are no longer afforded the same reasonable and reasonably-priced options to visit you? Now, booking flights is as simple a process as logging on and ordering up a flight. What happens when there aren’t as many flights, or the remaining ones aren’t as affordable, or conveniently located and scheduled because jet fuel prices have shot the through as a result of basic supply and demand constraints? My oldest friend’s daughter (my godchild) now lives in Colorado. How often will she be able to visit with her siblings and parents here on the East Coast when that travel shoe drops?

Of course, we could just come to a conclusion that jet fuel must remain a refinery priority, and the countless other industries relying on their piece of the refined oil product pie will have to take a number and wait their turn? Volunteers? Doubtful.

And what of all the related transportation services dependent on all these flights: rental cars, limos, taxis, hotels, restaurants, airport gift shops and the like? What happens to them, and their employees, and their suppliers? What kind of plans have been discussed in the boardrooms?

How many employees in each of those industries, each individual business establishment, and each spouse or partner or child dependent on each one of those countless employees might be adversely impacted when those businesses start to feel the serious pinch of declining energy supplies? We’ve already gotten a good taste of how our economy gets hammered by poor business environments … what happens when a failure to plan for alternatives leaves with us poor business and economic environments as the norm?

And what of the ripple effect?

What happens when this air travel decline is extended to hotels and rental cars and all the rest; when rental cars are either much more costly and/or there are less of them to begin with? What happens when the preferred hotels have downsized because business and tourist travel has declined?

Nothing escapes the reach of declining fossil fuel availability, and there is nothing on the horizon which suggests that any substitutes currently in place are anywhere near as plentiful, affordable, or energy efficient as good ‘ol crude oil.

The resource agenda for business leaders
To thrive in an era of higher and more volatile resource prices, companies will need to pay greater attention to resource-related issues in their business strategies. The goal must be to improve a company’s understanding of how resources will affect profits, produce new opportunities for growth and disruptive innovation, create new risks, generate competitive asymmetries, and change the regulatory context. [1]

It won’t happen all at once. Slow leaks are the more likely scenarios played out across countless industries. But if we’re not thinking about these possibilities now, or getting better ideas about what changes will be sure to occur and what options might be available to us as this years-long process unfolds, we’re not giving ourselves much of a chance.

I believe the top three challenges to making progress on solutions are: 1) a lack of public and policy maker knowledge on these issues, and strong resistance to understanding and believing that such a profound threat to everything that many of us hold so dear–our big houses, automobile-centered lifestyles, frequent air travel, access to consumer goods from around the world– is close at hand; 2) very strong vested interests that will oppose changes in their industries and how they do business; and 3) our amazing lack of preparation for what we are facing, after investing in a built environment, food production system, transportation system, and overall economy that is so heavily reliant on cheap and plentiful oil. [2]

Thinking about and planning for these likelihoods before they become monumental problems might not be a bad idea….

Sources:

[1] https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/ghost.aspx?ID=/Energy_Resources_Materials/Strategy_Analysis/Mobilizing_for_a_resource_revolution_2908; Mobilizing for a resource revolution by Richard Dobbs, Jeremy Oppenheim, and Fraser Thompson – January 2012
[2] http://countercurrents.org/cardoni230110.htm; Dealing With Peak Oil by Salvatore Cardoni & Dr. Brian Schwartz – 01.23.10

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.

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]

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

If we focus on trying to wean ourselves from dependence on oil, we can do it.
No, it won’t be easy–kicking an addiction never is. Yes, it might lead to some people eventually switching jobs or being slightly less fantastically wealthy (oil industry executives). And, yes, it will require some lifestyle and philosophical changes (ditto). But some of those changes will eventually be positive, not negative.
And, done intelligently, kicking our Middle Eastern oil addiction will also lead to the development of vast, exciting new jobs, companies, and industries–industries that we own and control and that will ultimately employ and enrich millions of Americans…..
We’ve had almost a half-century to prepare for this situation, and we haven’t done jack. If we remain in denial, fighting to preserve the status quo, a transition of Middle Eastern oil will ultimately be forced on us. And it’s hard to see why we would ever want that.
So it’s time we focused on this problem. And it’s time we did what any individual or company focused on fixing a long-term problem would do: Start by developing an intelligent long-term plan. [1]

Creating and disseminating an executable, unambiguous and widely adopted vision with supporting goals is one of the first steps to successful goal setting and implementation for any organization. The more complex the initiative and the larger the organization, the more important the creation and adoption of a shared vision becomes. [2]

Both quotes above echo themes I’ve been promoting since my first post more than two years ago. Addressing concerns and the challenges we face now by promoting ideas and policies designed to get us to the next election is not enough, and we should not for one moment be content with this strategy. Feckless Democrats and mind-numbingly narrow-minded Republicans serve no useful purpose, and we should all work to make sure that our elected leaders share the Vision we create for our future, and that they will abide by the directives we establish to make that our reality.

The challenges Peak Oil and Global Warming impose on us demand nothing less. Leadership has been almost entirely absent, and we’re past the point where we can wait through one or two more election cycles to get what we need. So far, we’ve gotten too much of the leadership we’ve deserved, and so there is responsibility on our parts to become more involved and knowledgeable about what takes place in the world outside our front door. Leaving others entirely in charge is no longer a viable option. The sooner we come to grips with that, the better our chances for the future most of us still hope to create.

Those themes are among the guiding tenets of what I’ll be proposing as this blog evolves, as I first suggested here.

As time passes, we’ll have fewer resources at our disposal to make the great changes we’re destined to make. Accordingly, we cannot afford to waste more now. We clearly have to find ways to move beyond the soul-crushing partisanship and the idiotic battles we wage to preserve ideologies at the expense of this great nation. Putting ourselves further behind cannot be a guiding strategy any longer. It never was, and is less so now.

So too must many of us come to accept that a blind, stubborn, and/or arrogant insistence on having now what once was is not the path forward either. Certainly it is more appealing and psychologically easier, given that it requires less of a (or no) commitment and effort on our part. We cannot do that to ourselves and our children, for one. And the uselessness of Congressional officials has made it abundantly clear that ceding all authority to them is a pointless exercise on its best days. We should be far more embarrassed than we are. We need to move beyond that, as well. Finger-pointing cannot be in the playbook, either.

In truth, the future could be unrecognizably harder than today in as little as 20 years. To reject this real possibility is to be willfully biased toward a bright future. Just because I warn of a possible future of hardship does not mean that I reject the notion that we could pull through the transition ahead in glorious fashion to a splendid shiny future for all. In fact, I’d love to see this happen, and I’d love it if we find a way around all my worries. But given the scale of our challenges, we would be foolish to assume that this path will materialize.
Assuming that a high-tech future will naturally unfold on the back-side of this curve is dangerous.
But for us to pretend that we are not stressing the ecosystem on a multitude of fronts at a scale never before seen in this world is irresponsible. It really is no wonder that we have a sense of unraveling. The future is unwritten, and the recent past may not be a good     template for the near future. We must accept that we face in the decline of fossil fuels the mother of all problems for humanity, and that past success has been against the backdrop of cheap and abundant energy. An unfamiliar phase awaits. [3]

The evidence of a warming planet and diminishing fossil fuel supplies are everywhere. What’s not at all clear are the motivations which support the destructive strategy of denial (although Naomi Klein had a brilliant piece on this recently—one to which I’ll be devoting considerable time to in the next few weeks.) Changes are going to force adaptations on our part. We can either lead by making intelligent, rational choices for the long term, or be at the mercy of changes for which we’ve instead chosen to be foolishly unprepared.

One could go on. The point is that the way we live together now, the way we govern ourselves, the way we arrange our physical spaces and our commerce, the way we do economics and measure prosperity—all these have to be changed in creative ways if we want to achieve the goal of sustainable prosperity. All these changes require … wait for it … innovation. Innovations in the way we think, interact, and structure our lives require just as much imagination, intelligence, persistence, and funding as innovations in technology. [4]

We buy fire insurance for our homes even though the likelihood of ever needing it are exceedingly small. The National Fire Protection Association reports that approximately 400,00 house fires occurred per year in the last half of this past decade. The U.S. Census Bureau reports there are more than 90 million single detached and mobile homes in this country, and 40 million other types of housing units. The percentage of homes requiring such coverage is thus exceedingly small, on the order of about four-thousandths of a percent if I did the math correctly (odds aren’t good, but regardless, the number is small!)

We weigh the risks and decide nonetheless that it is one we cannot and will not chance. Global warming is happening, and the quantity and quality of fossil fuel reserves available to us will not meet demand in the years to come. Much better odds (almost a guarantee) of dealing with the varied and overwhelming consequences, yet we are doing almost nothing about these challenges which carry the potential for greater harm and disruption to all of us! Hello!

Even if you want desperately to doubt, and can muster all the artillery possible which favors your point of view, the reality is what it is. Deniers must demonstrate the courage to at least consider the possibilities that there are indeed many truths and facts in support of the evidence they so ardently deny, and thus preparation and planning ought to at the very least be considered.

If you choose not to purchase fire insurance for your home because of your supreme confidence it will never be needed, then this argument will fall on deaf ears. But for all the others, you owe it yourselves and your children to consider the possibility—however slim it might appear to be from your perspective—that the evidence offered by your ideological opponents might … just might, have some validity.

America needs to resurrect the benevolent community and take on a new challenge. The Great Seal of the United States bears the dictum, ‘E Pluribus Unum,’ Out of many, one. That’s the historic spirit of America that is needed now more than ever. [5]

Sources:

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/middle-eastern-oil-addiction-2011-12; It’s 2012–It’s Just Absurd That We’re Still Addicted To Middle-Eastern Oil by Henry Blodget, 12.28.11
[2] http://www.businessofgovernment.org/blog/strategies-font-color-redcut-costsfont-and-improve-performance/reduce-energy-use-leading-vision; Reduce Energy Use: Leading with a Vision and Acting with Strategic Intent by Tim Fain – 07.20.11
[3] http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/12/the-future-needs-an-attitude-adjustment/; The future needs an attitude adjustment by Tim Murphy – 12.27.11
[4] http://www.energybulletin.net/node/51627; Why Bill Gates is wrong by David Roberts – 02.17.10
[5] http://www.opednews.com/articles/Lost-in-Space-The-Decline-by-Bob-Burnett-110715-765.html; Lost in Space: The Decline of the American Spirit by Bob Burnett – 07.15.11

[NOTE: This post is part of an ongoing series (the first from 2010 and from 2011 can be found here and here) whose purpose is to provide tangible examples of what our future might be like in a world where we will no longer have available to us the quality and quantity of fossil fuel energy sources as we have long been accustomed to possessing and using. Some examples will describe significant impacts beyond the most obvious one: less but more expensive gas to power our vehicles.

Other posts will describe routine aspects of daily living that will likely change when producers of goods and services no longer have inexpensive and adequate supplies of the fossil fuel resources they need. I’m certain that the questions I raise will in turn raise other concerns as well. It is only by acknowledging the consequences affecting each of us that we can begin an intelligent national process of planning and implementing new methods of providing the goods and services we’ll need or desire.]

~~~

I don’t know if this is good news or bad, but credit card usage was up in 2011. [1] We’ve all survived another holiday shopping season, and if we’re behaving reasonably, we’ve all decided to hide a credit card or two for a few more weeks as part of our recovery.

I’ll confess that they are handy (as are debit cards, although my wife and I use those only on rare occasions). We’ve pared down the amounts and frequency with which we use them nowadays, but for most of our everyday purchases (gas for the cars, groceries, dry-cleaners, etc) they remain the standard. They are also quite handy in setting up online accounts as well … no fuss, no bother. Just click and pay. Great to have for all that Christmas shopping!

Raw Materials
[Credit] cards are made of several layers of plastic laminated together. The core is commonly made from a plastic resin known as polyvinyl chloride acetate (PVCA). This resin is mixed with opacifying materials, dyes, and plasticizers to give it the proper appearance and consistency. This core material is laminated with thin layers of PVCA or clear plastic materials. These laminates will adhere to the core when applied with     pressure and heat.
A variety of inks or dyes are also used for printing credit cards. These are available in a variety of colors and are designed for use on plastic substrates. Some manufacturers use special magnetic inks to print the magnetic stripe on the back of the card. The inks are made by dispersing metal oxide particles in the appropriate solvents. Additional special printing processes are involved for cards, like VISA, which feature holograms.
The Manufacturing Process
The manufacturing process consists of multiple steps: first the plastic core and laminate materials are compounded and cast into sheet form; then the core is the printed with appropriate information; next the laminates are applied to the core; and finally the assembled sheet is cut into individual cards.
Plastic compounding and molding
1 The plastic for the core sheet is made by melting and mixing polyvinyl chloride acetate with other additives. The blended components are transferred to an extrusion molding apparatus, which forces the molten plastic through a small flat orifice known as a die. As the sheet exits the die, it goes through a series of three rollers stacked on top of each other that pulls the sheet along. These rollers keep the sheet flat and maintain the proper thickness. The sheets may then pass through additional cooling units before being cut into separate sheets by saws, shears, or hot wires. The cut sheets enter a sheet stacker that stacks them into place and stores them for subsequent operations.
2 The laminate films used to coat the core stock are made by a similar extrusion process. These thinner films may be made with a slot cast die process in which a molten plastic film is spread on a casting roller. The roller determines the film’s thickness and width. Upon cooling the films are stored on rolls until ready for use.
Printing
3 The plastic core of the card is printed with text and graphics. This is done using a variety of common silk screen processes. In addition, one of the laminate films may also undergo subsequent operations where it is imprinted with magnetic ink. Alternately, the magnetic stripe may be added by a hot stamping method. The magnetic heads used to code and decode the iron oxide particles can only operate if the magnetic medium is close to the surface of the card, so the metal particles must be placed on top of the laminating layer. Upon completion of the printing process, the core is ready to be laminated.
Lamination
4 Lamination helps protect the finish of the card and increases its strength. In this process, sheets of core stock are fed through a system of rollers. Rolls of laminate stock are located above and below the core stock. These rolls feed the laminate into the vacuum shoes along with the core stock. The vacuum holds the three pieces of plastic together while they travel to a tacking station. At the tacking station a pair of quartz infrared heat lamps warm the upper and lower plastic films. These lamps are backed with reflectors to focus the radiant energy onto a narrow area of the films, which optimizes a smooth bonding of the film to the core stock. The laminate films are then fully bonded to the core stock by pressing with metal platens, which are heated to 266° F (130° C) and applied with a pressure of 166 psi/sq inch. This lamination process may take up to 3 minutes.
Die cutting and embossing
5 After lamination has been completed, the finished assembly is cut and completed by die cutting methods. Each assembly yields a sheet, which is cut into 63 credit cards. This is achieved by first cutting the assembly longitudinally to form seven elongated sections. Each of the seven sections is then cut and trimmed to form nine credit cards. In subsequent operations, the card is embossed with account numbers. The finished cards are then prepared for shipping, usually by attaching the card to a paper letter with adhesive. [2]

There were 1,488,000,000 credit cards in use 2006 and that number is projected to grow to 1,618,000,000 in 2010….
A stack of the 1.5 billion credit cards in use in the U.S. would reach more than 70 miles into space and be almost as tall as 13 Mount Everests….
There were 354 million debit cards in use 2006 and that number is projected to grow to 484 million in 2010. [3]

That is much more than I ever wanted or needed to know about credit card manufacturing, and I’m safe in assuming it’s more than you ever cared to know as well. The above information may be a bit dated, but I’m further assuming that the manufacturing processes remain essentially the same. The economy may have impacted the Census Bureau estimates in the second quote above, but it’s reasonable to assume that here in the U.S. there are still well over one billion credit and debit cards circulating in and out of wallets and purses today.

I couldn’t bring myself to determine the materials needed to obtain, manufacture, supply, transport, dispose of, or market each of the dozens of components required to create a credit card, and who knows how many hundreds of processes and components needed to obtain, manufacture, supply, transport, dispose of, or market each piece of machinery required to get from A to Z in the world of credit card manufacturing. How many workers and suppliers who depend on this industry is beyond my capacity to imagine.

A lot is a good guess. An even more accurate guess is that none of those dozens/hundreds of steps happen without some measure of fossil fuel at each and every one of those individual phases. Without twisting yourself into knots, just think about this entire A to Z process for another moment and consider that observation.

Oil production worldwide peaked/plateaued (whatever works for you) five years ago. Whatever we get from here on in is pretty much guaranteed to cost more; take longer to bring to market; in too many cases be of inferior quality, and will be financially/politically/technologically/practically riskier to obtain. [see this and this, for example]

While I cannot recall now where I read the statistic last month, more than a billion additional cars are expected to grace the planet in the not-too-distant future (mostly in China and India if I recall correctly). That’s just one fossil fuel-consuming product (albeit a big one).

If we no longer have adequate supplies as it is, and cannot rationally (key distinction) expect quality, affordable supply to keep pace with increasing demand—keeping in mind that the “good stuff” is being depleted each and every day and that unconventional supplies are barely keeping pace with those rates of depletion—what happens?

How many component manufacturers in the chain of credit card production are going to find their manufacturing capacities adversely affected when the fossil fuel supplies each and every one them needs is either restricted occasionally or frequently, and/or becomes prohibitively expensive? How many components will be in short supply? For how long? Replacements parts? Transportation capacity?

How many workers up and down the supply chain will have hours cut or eliminated? What’s the ripple effect then?

What if Friendly Bank A finds itself unable to meet your request for a replacement card until … “not really sure when”?

Of course, a collective decision could be reached that credit card manufacturing has been deemed a “Class A, Really, Really Important” Industry and thus will suffer no curtailment whatsoever in fossil fuel supplies up and down the chain.

Of course, that means Some Other Industry will have to sacrifice a bit more….

This is just one industry among how many hundreds/thousands which require full supplies of fossil fuels to get from Point A to Point Z. How long should we continue to deny or keep fingers and toes crossed that Magic Technology is racing to the rescue On Time?

Sources:

[1] http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/05/pf/credit_card_use/index.htm
[2] http://www.madehow.com/Volume-4/Credit-Card.html
[3] http://quezi.com/5215; How many credit cards and debit cards are there in the United States? – 03.16.09

… [W]e are farther away than we have ever been from having a shared national vision for the future of our country….
Absent such a framework for the future, the national debate has been the victim of an increasingly acute form of intellectual paralysis: The short-term mindsets of our elected officials and the voters — tied to the two-year election cycle — force debate on inherently inadequate, short-term solutions to substantial, long-term problems. Because we have no shared vision of the country’s future, against which short-term solutions might be measured, there are no metrics for productive discourse. Hence, our so-called ‘leaders’ argue in reliance on their ‘principles,’ rather than with a broader view toward implementing the future we want to see.
Things will only continue to grow worse, and much more polarized (although that’s truly frightening to imagine), unless and until we agree, as a nation, that there are some fundamental issues about our future that need to be addressed… and resolved. [1]

So perhaps the most important question of all: What is the Goal—our Vision for the future—for the kind of nation and people we hope to be?

It is much more than a discussion of how we get there. What is it that we want to achieve … to be? Do we want “success” and prosperity and peace only if it can be obtained through the narrow lens of our highly-partisan individual and collective ideologies, or is attaining our primary objectives by whatever means are necessary in a changed world more important?

Last July, I offered this:

If we truly wish to believe and know ourselves to still be exceptional amid all the chaos and challenges and burdens that encompass us, then we need to harness a vision for the future that is not just incrementally better than this one, using the same resources and methods and strategies and ideologies that brought us to here and now. Peak Oil is going to change pretty much all of the dynamics.
We must ask ourselves—individually and community-wide—what we believe are the best opportunities for growth and prosperity going forward, and we must ask this with full awareness that we approach a future very different from the past and the present we will soon leave behind. In the years to come, the energy source which empowered and enabled us to rise to our lofty perch atop the world of technological marvel and progress     will gradually but steadily fail to meet our expectations of ongoing, ready availability; ease of access, and affordability.

We have the opportunity to take the best of all that we have and have to offer—from everyone—and move forward with greater definitions and determinations of success and prosperity and fulfillment. That’s a choice we still own.

But whatever it is we might want or feel entitled to will have to give way to the courage of knowing and understanding what the new scenarios and circumstances will be. Only then can we/should we proceed. That knowing, unpleasant or unwelcome as it is to all of us, must be accepted. The delusional and the fact-free denials about the challenges ahead must be set aside once and for all. They preserve an ideology which serves almost no one, and we need to come to terms with that fact. We deserve better; we are better; and it’s time we demonstrate those truths.

We still have the chance to resume our position of leadership, excellence, and exceptionalism, but we will do so from a different platform and with different resources and purposes to guide us. The longer we take to accept this inevitability, the more troubles we create for ourselves.

Resistance to change must be avoided in every possible way, as unfamiliar a process as that may be for some of us. Without our efforts and commitments and greater understandings, things will only get much worse for almost all of us, regardless of ideology.

I raised these issues almost a year ago:

Is global warming a “hoax” and nothing more? Should we concern ourselves at all with the current and future conditions of fossil fuel production that provides for us all? Are we better off in the long run cutting even more public expenditures that now afford some minimal assistance to our fellow citizens in need, better educational opportunities for our children, opportunities to innovate and invent better lives for all of us, and maintain, repair, and improve the infrastructure that serves as the foundation of all that we achieve? Or are we better off ensuring that instead, that small group of the wealthiest among us preserve their wealth at the expense of the many?

It may seem to be nothing more than a philosophical/ideological exercise, but the answers to those questions go to the very heart of the decision-making that will determine our future. Those decisions affect all of us, if not today or tomorrow, soon enough. As I’ve previously noted:

But the most critical issue to be addressed by all of will be more direct: 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 in the face of Peak Oil. If     we cannot get beyond problem-solving-business-as-usual, we’ll be having these pointless partisan battles for another century … assuming we survive intact that long.

We begin with the question of where we want to go and how we want to be, and then figure out the path that will get us there by taking into account the realities with which we must contend: peak oil, global warming, economic issues (including the destructive inequality), and their impact on what has been to date. Anything less will eventually show us to be doing nothing more than chasing our tail.

The capacity for the United States to alter its current and projected economic and energy course is dependent upon its leaders’ abilities to formulate and effectively communicate a clear vision and unified purpose in the energy field, establish clear renewable energy goals, commit to a rigorous energy-use reduction plan, prioritize energy research, and implement an energy policy that creates a viable energy future. The American populace will need to acknowledge the reality of biophysical constraints, and embrace a renewable, energy efficient ‘American way of life’. [2]

I remain convinced we’re up to the task. We just need to start.

Much more on the way.

Sources:

[1] http://www.newgeography.com/content/002394-whatever-happened-the-vision-thing-part-ii?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Newgeography+%28Newgeography.com+-+Economic%2C+demographic%2C+and+political+commentary+about+places%29; Whatever Happened to ‘The Vision Thing’? Part II, by Peter Smirniotopoulos – 09/03/2011
[2] Lambert, J.G.; Lambert, G.P. Predicting the Psychological Response of the American People to Oil Depletion and Declining Energy Return on Investment (EROI). Sustainability 2011, 3, 2129-2156 [p, 2150]. http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/3/11/2129/

You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today
— Abraham Lincoln

Let’s work to make this a very good year for us all….

Imagine, if you will, a nation of 300-plus million people … the vast majority of them good, honest, decent, and hard-working (when they have the opportunity, that is).

Each and every one of these honorable individuals is looking for just about the same things as everyone else: to make a good life for themselves and those to whom they owe a responsibility; to better their circumstances and those of their children in whatever manner best expresses their individuals dreams, ideals, and expectations; to plan for a future that is a bit brighter than the one they faced years ago or contend with now; and a future for their children filled with hope and promise and expectations that the world they inhabit will be brighter and happier and more fulfilling and peaceful and rewarding at all levels.

Not so difficult to imagine, is it? Any objections to this definition of what most might recognize as an expression of the American Dream?

Now imagine this same nation where just 400 people are wealthier as a group than half of that exceptional nation of 300 million citizens (impressive, and not necessarily a problem in and of itself). But imagine further than these 400 people are better served by policies and benefits and advantages than more than 150 million of their fellow citizens. Imagine that the representatives elected by those millions of citizens to serve them instead devote their efforts and energies to making certain that the 400 are always better served and protected than the 300 million.

Probably don’t have to actually explain to anyone residing on Planet Earth in these last couple of years which nation we’re referencing. What comes after shameful?

This is “exceptional”? This is the kind of nation we choose to be? One need not vilify the 400 for their wealth if fairly-earned, but it should not be an objectionable argument that protecting their interests at the expense of all others is not the mark of a great nation and respected leaders.

This is the kind of nation we choose to offer to our children?

It’s been a recurring theme of mine, among others, that we face a set of challenges as daunting as any this nation has ever encountered.

I have not been shy in stating that I believe we are up to the challenge, and that we are indeed an exceptional people. But I have not been hesitant to call out the rampant hypocrisy, stupidity, as well as the appalling lack of integrity and compassion routinely exhibited by “leaders” (and yes, much of my ire is directed to the nonsense and fact-free justifications from some on the Right, whose lack of concern for almost everyone not in that sacred group of 1%-ers is breathtaking in its arrogance and disregard.)

Ideology can be a club, but rarely is it a shield, and in light of what the facts (for those for whom such things matter) tell us about our climate (laughable, tinfoil-hat-wearing, paranoid nonsense like this notwithstanding) and fossil fuel reserves, the narrow-minded and short-sighted ideology guiding too many with influential voices will offer them no protection when the consequences make themselves known to even the most delusional among them. (The attacks from the many who placed their misguided trust in the smooth assurances these “leaders” trotted out from their one-note play books will be another story altogether.)

We’re all going to have to come to some understanding sooner than later about what is most important: prosperity, opportunity, and peace; or preserving a rigid ideology which protects the few at the expense of the many.

Long-term planning, visionary thinking, and the courage and wisdom to act upon what is in the best interests of society, regardless of the short-term consequences, political or otherwise, are the hallmarks of a progressive* society. [1]

* I interpret this term in its broader (i.e., forward-thinking, innovative) sense than the left-leaning political definition more often attributed to it.

What will we demonstrate now and in the years to come? And by “we” I mean all of us, not just the “leaders” to whom we’ve assigned responsibility for our well-being while paying too little attention to what they’re doing with that charge.

Back in May, I began this series about our future by setting out my “table-setters” for the Vision I’ll explore in much greater depth in the months to come:

~ What kind of a nation do we want to be?

~ What do you want for yourself, now and in the days to come?

~ What kind of life are you looking forward to living, whether you are a recent graduate about to enter the workforce, an established professional, or are now in your later years?

~ What kind of community do you want to live in?

~ What kind of environment do you truly believe is most conducive to a life of opportunity and hoped-for prosperity?

~ Will you choose to fear change, or welcome it as an opportunity for you to play a greater part in using it for your own benefit as well as for others—in whatever manner offers the most meaning for you?

~ Do you want to feel as though you have a voice in what your life can and will be, or is being entirely at the mercy of others a better way to live?

~ Do you still harbor at least a bit of hope for better days to come?

~ What do you want for your children and grandchildren?

~ What answers will we provide for them in years to come when they are mired in the difficulties and challenges brought about by an ever-declining supply of fossil fuels and are wondering why we were so short-sighted and narrow-minded when we had so many opportunities to do more?

These are not (or at least they shouldn’t be) idle questions given short-shrift. How we answer these and related questions will determine our future. It’s not rocket science.

Will our future be one filled with great regret for opportunities lost, or one relished because we showed ourselves—individually and collectively—to be the exceptional people we’ve been boasting about? I know where I’m casting my vote and placing my hopes. You?

The great majority of us—the 99%-ers (Left and Right), have a very simple decision to make and abide by from this moment forward: should we continue to advocate affirmatively, support passively, or defend vigorously, the policies and ideologies which in the end (and through most of the journey, for that matter), benefit the 1% and their obedient sycophants regardless of its negative impact on most of us; or do we decide that we and our children (future 99%-ers in most cases) are just important enough that we all need to start doing things differently?

Should each and all of us be denied the better opportunities we have long held as this nation’s most sacred promise because of the actions and favored policies of the few? Do we honor the hopes of the 21st Century or find ourselves catapulted back to the Middle Ages with clear demarcations between the those entitled and those not? We might want to sneak a peek out the front windshield and figure out which road we’re traveling.

We still have choices….

Much more on the way.

Sources:

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lance-simmens/california-high-speed-rail-_b_1093423.html; Why We Can Afford High-Speed Rail by Lance Simmens (Deputy Director for Communications, California High-Speed Rail Authority) – 11.17.11

[NOTE: This series (first one here) spins off from a recent series of posts in which I’ve discussed the need for all of us to move in a new direction as we anticipate the challenges to be confronted as a result of declining oil production in the years to come. The impact will be felt by all of us in one degree or another (a separate series, which began here and was re-established more recently here, addresses some of the day-to-day impacts.) It’s time to turn our attention to what the New Direction might be....]

~~~

“Peak oil and the events associated with it will be an unprecedented discontinuity in human and geologic history. Peak oil crises will soon confront societies with the opportunity to recreate themselves based on their respective needs, culture, resources, and governance responses. Peak oil will require a change of economic and social systems, and will result in a new world order. The sooner people prepare for peak oil and a post-peak oil life, the more they will be able to influence the direction of their opportunities. Nevertheless, there are probably no solutions that do not involve at the very least some major changes in lifestyles. Consequently, peak oil will probably result in some catastrophic upheavals. Peak oil will also present opportunities to address many underlying societal, economic, and environmental problems.” [1]

In the face of this eventual, inevitable challenge: What kind of a nation do we want to be?

The question has been asked in numerous posts to date, and it remains as viable and vital an inquiry as any other. How we answer determines not just our impending future, but more importantly, the one we pass on to our children….

What kind of a future do we wish for them?

I continue to wait for a logical (or even marginally logical) explanation as to how cutting educational opportunities, taking away health care for more citizens, restricting research and innovation, letting our infrastructure worsen, making no plans for future transportation needs in a world where we simply will not have the same quality and quantity of fossil fuels available to us, while putting even more people out of work, BUT giving the wealthy more tax breaks, is helping anyone other than the wealthy 1% or so among us? It would appear that there is only one genuinely “important” objective one party sees fit to pursue….It is not a consequence-free choice, however.

Policies which would no longer require businesses to abide by health and safety regulations that benefit us all, or for the wealthy to pay a fair share of taxes which provide us (and them) with the fundamental resources and services the great majority of us continue to insist upon, or hoarding more of their income from these expenditures because the Magic Economic Fairy says this trickles down for everyone’s benefit and is thus a sound and acceptable strategy (while it creates even more hardships for more of the rest of us) … why? How does that work?

There is a definitive, narrowly-focused agenda being pursued by a determined segment of the GOP, and its effects are now spilling into national view. The numbingly-ignorant threats to our nation’s (and the world’s) economic well-being by their dangerous posturing on the recent debt-ceiling debate are only among the more visible efforts of a radicalized segment of the Republican Party in their quest to protect the wealthy at the expense of the rest of us. The consequences of these actions are now being or will soon enough be made clear. We have the responsibility to understand what is happening, what will result, and then collectively decide whether that really is where we want to go as a nation. The sacrifices being asked of middle class citizens to preserve the benefits of the wealthy will only grow more onerous as time passes and resources become scarcer.

What kind of a nation do we want to be?

I’m not certain that I’ve encountered an observation that is more disheartening than this one, offered by an anonymous senior House Republican aide and reported on a number of websites in the past day or two, (regarding President Obama’s current job initiative):

“Obama is on the ropes; why do we appear ready to hand him a win?” [2]

Millions of good, decent, hard-working (if only they had the chance) Americans unemployed for months on end; countless families and children suffering as a result of policies and economic truths implemented long before the dreaded Barack Obama took office; the psychological, physical, financial, and emotional toll on countless Americans as yet unknown, and we have an aide to a senior House Republican completely unconcerned about any of this. What’s important is the political scoreboard.

Millions suffering and now with at least a good chance of being helped in some manner by the passage of this or similar legislation? Not my problem! Let’s make ‘em wait another 15 – 18 months when we hopefully have a Republican President in charge. Then … what? Should we expect a different “exceptional” than this cowardly official represents?

It’s easy to be enraged by the audacity of this person’s callousness and breathtaking ignorance, but mostly … I was just saddened. Leaders and their aides are once again demonstrating that their concern is not to help the millions of American in need—no doubt many of whom supported these mean-spirited and narrow-minded representatives—but to make sure President Obama does not put any points up on their watch. This is the exceptional America these people boast of? Seriously? These are the types of “leaders” we’re expecting to guide us into a future far more challenging than any generation before us? Not good….

If we fail to become more informed about the beliefs, actions, and consequences of policies and ideologies promoted by our elected officials, while making no effort to become involved in the process, we’ll have no one to blame but ourselves for the greater hardships most of us will face in the years to come. Who is looking forward to explaining that to their children and grandchildren?

Do we really want to make life even more difficult for them?

Becoming informed leads to understanding that that is exactly what we’re doing, and provides us the opportunities to make a difference by doing….

Choices….

I wrote this several months ago, and my perspective has not changed: “We need a national vision with courageous, honest national leadership (Democrats and Republicans) unconcerned with narrow-minded and short-term ideological nonsense. This is about so much more than partisan principles. It’s about what is best for us as a nation now, next week, next year, and for the rest of this century at the very least. No easy, simple, or inexpensive and consequence-free decisions are on the horizon.”

We need to pay attention to the things that matter beyond next week, and Peak Oil, climate change, and laying the groundwork for our hoped-for future prosperity should be high on that short list of priorities. Gays in the military, President Obama’s status as an alien from some faraway planet, the need for guns in churches (seriously?!) scores of other equally absurd pursuits, “theories” and conspiracy fears, and any other selection from a too-broad assortment of crackpot pseudo-concerns have to give way to our dealing directly with a few very real, serious problems that will require more effort and involvement and talent than almost anything we’ve ever confronted.

I have no doubts that we are up to the challenge … now it’s time to do more than talk the talk. Are we ready to demonstrate what truly makes this nation “exceptional”? Do we lead … or destroy? Stark choices, but sadly not much of an exaggeration.

The fear that motivates these other ludicrous efforts, artfully egged on by too many who have too little interest in what is best for too many of us, must be set aside once and for all. Fear may have its place, but it is occupying too much territory on a too-crowded-as-it-is agenda. We’re better than that, and we need to make the decision to believe that that is true.

Promoting fear and misunderstanding keeps the Rush Limbaughs and the Fox News of the world in some semblance of control and power and prosperity—the rest of us be damned*—but is that really what we want? How exactly are they helping anyone other than themselves?  How is promoting more fear through misrepresentations (I’m trying to be kind) of any benefit to us? Other than stoking mostly irrational fears, what exactly is their contribution to our well-being?

In promoting fears which these “leaders” then convince their uninformed followers to believe, and that they have solutions for these problems (or are “protecting” them), what results instead is that these public figures are then free to pursue their own grander and more selfish agendas: lower taxes, less regulation, less assistance to those most in need. And who does that wind up helping, and who does this wind up harming? They can afford what they need, so who cares about anyone else? Is that how it works?

In a harsher future we’re now in the process of consigning our children and grandchildren to, this is okay?

When so much power and prosperity is confined to so few, what then? As more and more is stripped away from more and more in order to protect the few, greater inequality will result, and a much larger percentage of those so far unaffected by that disparity will then fall into the have-nots, including our children and grandchildren—and perhaps many more of us.

Of course we ought to be legitimately worried about what massive debt will do for the prospects and opportunities of our children and grandchildren, but if we aren’t also doing all that we can right now to provide the programs and resources and opportunities and investments to innovate and grow starting now, they’ll be faced with the double whammy of the burdens of great debt and no viable means to address the problem! What a wonderful prospect … but thank God the wealthy will be okay!

“What is the crisis we face today? We have an economy scarred by mass unemployment, falling wages, and growing insecurity. In the downturn, a staggering 40 percent of American households have been afflicted by unemployment, negative home equity (‘under water homes’ worth less than their mortgages), mortgage payment arrears, or foreclosure. In November 2008, one quarter of Americans aged 50-59 reported that they’d lost more than 35 percent of their retirement savings.

“The [wage] imbalances were obscene before the recession, with finance capturing 40 percent of corporate profits, the wealthiest 1 percent capturing half of the benefits of economic growth, the US running soaring trade deficits, even in high technology products, with China and the world. Our decaying infrastructure, broken health care system, declining educational performance in relation to the industrial world all preceded the fall….

“The right question we need to ask, I would argue, is what is the new strategy, the new foundation for an economy that offers hope for rebuilding America’s economic vitality in the competitive global market place? This requires a clear and bold strategy for revitalizing American manufacturing. It requires investments in areas vital to our future — in modern infrastructure, in education and training, in research and innovation. We need to capture a lead in the green industrial revolution that is sweeping the world. It requires new trade strategy, shackles on financial speculation, empowering workers to capture a fair share of the productivity and profits they help generate to help rebuild America’s middle class. We have to figure out how to afford this, financing what we can, changing priorities and raising revenues where needed. But this is a far different question than just how we get our books in order.” [3]

As Mr. Borosage noted at the conclusion of the passage just quoted: “It is hard to get the right answer when you ask the wrong question.”

Choices….

* (Some will surely find that referenced column intemperate and unnecessarily harsh. Surely some will merely brush this off as the ramblings of a bitter liberal disappointed by the Republican gains in Congress. But there is an underlying message that is being borne out every day now by the actions and legislative efforts of the GOP in Congress and GOP governors across the nation. We need to take at least a half-step back for a moment and think even just a little about where those policy roads are going to lead us, and where they will lead the wealthy few. The destinations are not the same.)

Sources:

[1] http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-11-21/collapse-nov-21 and http://www.global.ucsb.edu/climateproject/papers/index.html; Peak Energy, Climate Change, and the Collapse of Global Civilization: The Current Peak Oil Crisis by Tariel Mórrígan; Global Climate Change, Human Security & Democracy, Orfalea Center for Global & International Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara

[2] http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/09/12/316598/why-congress-wont-pass-a-jobs-bill-obama-is-on-the-ropes-why-do-we-appear-ready-to-hand-him-a-win/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+matthewyglesias+%28Matthew+Yglesias%29&utm_content=Google+Reader; Why Congress Won’t Pass A Jobs Bill: ‘Obama Is On The Ropes; Why Do We Appear Ready To Hand Him A Win?’ by Matthew Yglesias on Sep 12, 2011

[3] http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010114724/americas-confidence-deficit; America’s Confidence Deficit by Robert Borosage – November 24, 2010