ONE TOWN SQUARE: at the intersection of peak oil, climate change, and land use

Dave Cohen at the Energy Bulletin observes that the 21st century will surely usher in a peak and decline in both expansion and growth for human population and economies. He then takes on what he calls “friedmanism” – a syndrome certainly not particular to Thomas Friedman, but he serves as exemplar: the “Awful Truth” is too much for him to handle.

Cohen observes Friedman has to be a cheerleading, “blue skies” kind of guy if he wants to be a mover and shaker, and a fixture at the New York Times. That’s true, not only at the New York Times. Joseph Romm, for all his invaluable work is another example. As Cohen says, realism will get you fired in a heart beat. Why do you think we have a cheerleader as President (now that’s two in a row!). Realism won’t get you elected.

We’re in the middle of Earth’s sixth great extinction event – this one caused by human activities. This loss of species will pose a major threat to human existence in the next century. Yet we press on as usual, mining fossil fuels and burning oil, gas, and coal as if nothing’s wrong. It’s keep the economy growing at all costs – even at the cost of the collapse of Earth’s ecological systems that sustain us.

Pundits like Roger Pielke Jr. warns that we can’t aspire to the impossible – that is, to actually doing something to mitigate global warming before it’s too late. That would be “magical thinking.” Pielke says setting unattainable emissions targets such  is not a policy – it’s an act of wishful thinking. Nature doesn’t give a damn about what’s politically possible or not. Believing that reality can be placated by half-measures is magical thinking, in my book.

Question: why is a supposedly reputable journal like Yale Environment 360 publishing bilge by Roger Pielke Jr.?

Realistic thinking would be to admit that the days of economic growth are over and to begin planning for a measured descent; to admit that global warming is a crisis and to take whatever steps necessary to avert catastrophe; to admit that the end of the fossil fuel age is upon us and to begin to transition to living well on far less. To optimistically believe that these problems will solve themselves without effort and without drastically changing our ways is magical thinking.

Realistic thinking would recognize that the American Empire is unsustainable and needs to be dismantled. We spend hundreds of billions each year on so-called  “defense” to sustain a network of 865 military facilities stretched around the world. As Chalmers Johnson writes at TomDispatch:

However ambitious President Barack Obama’s domestic plans, one unacknowledged issue has the potential to destroy any reform efforts he might launch. Think of it as the 800-pound gorilla in the American living room: our longstanding reliance on imperialism and militarism in our relations with other countries and the vast, potentially ruinous global empire of bases that goes with it. The failure to begin to deal with our bloated military establishment and the profligate use of it in missions for which it is hopelessly inappropriate will, sooner rather than later, condemn the United States to a devastating trio of consequences: imperial overstretch, perpetual war, and insolvency, leading to a likely collapse similar to that of the former Soviet Union.

But I suppose it is magical thinking, to think that anything will be done to avert disaster, either here in the U.S. or globally. Humans are what they are. Things will unfold as they will unfold.

Cohen ends his piece by citing David Quammen:

I can’t top David Quammen. As he says, in some millions of years the planet will fill up with life again-that’s the good news.