Re: SC32

http://energybulletin.net/24172.html

It’s the energy and the economy, stupid
An open letter to US policymakers

...................This essay is intended to inform others of the challenges and choices that are directly ahead. Two decades of wasteful US fiscal and energy policies have placed the US at risk for an economic downturn of considerable depth and duration, and we are woefully unprepared as a nation to reduce our fossil-fuel consumption. Unfortunately, recent US foreign policies are exacerbating global tensions and could lead to even worse warfare than the Bush years have already wrought. Their must be no misunderstanding — global resource warfare will ultimately leave even the so-called “winner” in a ruined state of energy deprivation along with economic and moral bankruptcy.

This need not be the case, but global Peak Oil is undoubtedly the test that will define the human condition in this new century. As Robert Freeman observed, the destiny of the US will be decided by how willing the American people are able to adjust to the realities of hydrocarbon depletion. The reduction of fossil-fuel consumption and the transition to a more sustainable energy paradigm will be decades long and very difficult, but our generation can not escape these facts.

Americans are largely blinded by government propaganda and a pervasive corporate media bias that is subtly imperialist and very often filtered, thus rendering the People unaware that terrorism and other international frictions are too often the result of 50 years of US meddling overseas, including the overt or covert replacement of governments with puppet regimes and dictators. America’s uncritical support of Israel’s policies is also not in the interest of anyone’s long-term national security. This combination of foreign policies, as practiced under both Republican and Democratic administrations, has produced increasingly painful levels of blowback.

Regrettably, the US electoral system has broken down under its current funding mechanisms, and the corporate media conglomerates have become the docile handmaidens who excessively filter the daily news to favor the status quo and the interests of the elite. As a result both political parties appear incapable of initiating the needed reforms. This must change, and time is running short. Most importantly, the American people — especially those in Congress — must not allow the executive branch to cynically use the “war on terror” as a tool of fear to gain our complicity for more unprovoked resource wars. The US military should not and cannot be used to enforce the petrodollar system. Current US-led antagonism toward Iran should be replaced by negotiations regarding its nuclear energy program and a compromise with the EU, Russia, and OPEC regarding a graduated implementation of a multiple-petrocurrency global economy.

Failure to pursue multilateral reforms will result in increasing levels of societal disorder, endless war that requires military conscription, increased levels of political deception and repression at home, and moral and economic bankruptcy. The only rational strategy is to compromise our hegemonic status and pursue multilateral treaties. This would require politicians to disavow today’s imperial conquests and focus instead on managing our decline. Unfortunately, I remain quite skeptical that the reforms I have proposed will happen until a global crisis occurs, thereby forcing these monetary and energy issues to the negotiating table.

Indeed, the real struggle for the United States is internal. Can we return to our republican origins and restrain ourselves from empire building? Can we rejoin the community of industrialized nations as an equal? The ultimate test for the American experiment: Can we once again begin living within our means from both fiscal and energy perspectives? Do we have the will and the wisdom to reduce our oil and gas consumption and engage in what Heinberg calls “powerdown”?.........................