Preventing peak
What could we have done to prevent ourselves from the corner we've backed into?
I wonder how different our lives would be if the very first people to extract petroleum commercially in the 1800s had said "Hmmm, the Earth only has so much of this stuff, we need to be careful how we use it." Instead, we've carelessly wasted so much of a precious resource. It gives you a sick feeling in your stomach when you think of all of the petroleum wasted because of traffic jams, people going on recreational drives, tanker spills, carelessly planned communities, and our buy-cheap-plastic-junk-and-throw-it-away-six-months-later society.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that even as late as the 70s, we could have saved ourselves from the s*&#storm that may be on the horizon. It would have required us to radically alter our lifestyle that we had been enjoying after WWII, but it probably would have been better than the dilemma we now find ourselves in. But no, after Carter left office everybody pretty much fell asleep as far as energy issues go. So we partied on for another 25 years, and now we're going to have to pay for it.
I just wish I could have been born 20 years earlier so that I could have had more time to enjoy the party.
I wonder how different our lives would be if the very first people to extract petroleum commercially in the 1800s had said "Hmmm, the Earth only has so much of this stuff, we need to be careful how we use it." Instead, we've carelessly wasted so much of a precious resource. It gives you a sick feeling in your stomach when you think of all of the petroleum wasted because of traffic jams, people going on recreational drives, tanker spills, carelessly planned communities, and our buy-cheap-plastic-junk-and-throw-it-away-six-months-later society.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that even as late as the 70s, we could have saved ourselves from the s*&#storm that may be on the horizon. It would have required us to radically alter our lifestyle that we had been enjoying after WWII, but it probably would have been better than the dilemma we now find ourselves in. But no, after Carter left office everybody pretty much fell asleep as far as energy issues go. So we partied on for another 25 years, and now we're going to have to pay for it.
I just wish I could have been born 20 years earlier so that I could have had more time to enjoy the party.
posted by Utah Peaknik at 3:24 PM
1 Comments:
29 years ago Jimmy Carter, for the sake of future energy security, asked us to put up with inconveniences and to make sacrifices. To view the task of securing our energy future as "The moral equivalent of war". I guess that was too much to ask. Instead we sent him back to the peanut farm and brought in the Gipper to tell us everything was fine.
I remember back in 79-8O I had just been to the post office after my 18th birthday to fill out my selective service card when the whole Iran hostage/oil embargo thing was going on. I was getting around on a bicycle and I was pretty pissed about the prospect of getting drafted and sent over there to fight for the right of others to drive around as much as they want.
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