Voices in the Congressional Wilderness
Roscoe Bartlett on Peak Oil
LEIGH POMEROY
Too often we see the same ubiquitous mainstream blowhards on TV as the face of Congress. Every once in a while there is one member who stands up to break with his (or her) pack to advocate something unique. One example is Republican Rep. Walter B. Jones of North Carolina, who originally was a gung-ho supporter of the war in Iraq and now has come to staunchly oppose it. (Yes, Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania made the same reversal, but as a Democrat and a veteran he got all the attention.)
Another Republican congressman has stepped up — or rather, has been stepping up for some time — to speak out on an issue that Democrats have largely (and strangely) ignored: the concept that the world is rapidly reaching the point when oil use will exceed the discovery of new extractable reserves. Known as "peak oil", the theory posits that the planet will soon (most adherants say in this century) run out of oil, which will bring about a worldwide energy and thus economic crisis.
The claxon-ringer in Congress is Rep. Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland, who appears from time to time on C-SPAN equipped with a flurry of charts while he speaks, of course, to an empty chamber.
There are many detractors of the peak oil theory who argue that new technologies (e.g., coal gassification), an emphasis on renewable energy resources (e.g., ethanol and biodiesel), and bringing online more expensive-to-extract reserves (e.g., tar sands and deep water reserves) will save us. But Bartlett and other peak oil theorists say this won't mitigate the economic upheaval the world will experience with the sudden end of cheap oil.
Many industry veterans think that Bartlett and his fellow peak oil proponents are just a bunch of Chicken Littles. To use another fable, the peak oil folks could be the ants while the rest of us are the grasshoppers just fiddling away.
No doubt the truth is somewhere in the middle. But judging from the world's response to recent political and natural disasters, we're going to be in deep doo-doo if we don't start planning ahead... FAST.
For more information, see:
LEIGH POMEROY
Too often we see the same ubiquitous mainstream blowhards on TV as the face of Congress. Every once in a while there is one member who stands up to break with his (or her) pack to advocate something unique. One example is Republican Rep. Walter B. Jones of North Carolina, who originally was a gung-ho supporter of the war in Iraq and now has come to staunchly oppose it. (Yes, Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania made the same reversal, but as a Democrat and a veteran he got all the attention.)
Another Republican congressman has stepped up — or rather, has been stepping up for some time — to speak out on an issue that Democrats have largely (and strangely) ignored: the concept that the world is rapidly reaching the point when oil use will exceed the discovery of new extractable reserves. Known as "peak oil", the theory posits that the planet will soon (most adherants say in this century) run out of oil, which will bring about a worldwide energy and thus economic crisis.
The claxon-ringer in Congress is Rep. Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland, who appears from time to time on C-SPAN equipped with a flurry of charts while he speaks, of course, to an empty chamber.
There are many detractors of the peak oil theory who argue that new technologies (e.g., coal gassification), an emphasis on renewable energy resources (e.g., ethanol and biodiesel), and bringing online more expensive-to-extract reserves (e.g., tar sands and deep water reserves) will save us. But Bartlett and other peak oil theorists say this won't mitigate the economic upheaval the world will experience with the sudden end of cheap oil.
Many industry veterans think that Bartlett and his fellow peak oil proponents are just a bunch of Chicken Littles. To use another fable, the peak oil folks could be the ants while the rest of us are the grasshoppers just fiddling away.
No doubt the truth is somewhere in the middle. But judging from the world's response to recent political and natural disasters, we're going to be in deep doo-doo if we don't start planning ahead... FAST.
For more information, see:
- Roscoe Bartlett on peak oil
- "Peak oil is closing in" from Stuff (NZ)
- "As Prices Rise, Technologies Emerge" from Wired Magazine
- "Seven Questions: The Future of Oil" from Foreign Policy
- "Peak Oil primer" from Energy Bulletin
- The Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas
- The Post Carbon Institute
- The latest news on peak oil from Google
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