Peak Everything

by Richard Heinberg

  And so we live today in a fog of words so thick that it largely prevents us from seeing where we are or where we’re headed. Language helps us understand, and at the same time prevents understanding. It enables reason and rationality, yet also frustrates them.

  Simply put, language magnifies all of the conflicting priorities and potentials of the human organism.

  Can Language Help Us Now?

  It might seem that the solution to our quandary is a big dose of logic and empiricism. If only the matter were that simple.

  Modern brain research explodes the notion that logic can exist in pristine isolation from emotional and somatic states: as neurologist Antonio Damasio explained in his book Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, emotion and reason are not separate; in fact, the latter is inherently dependent upon the former. Domasio explored the unusual case of Phineas Gage, a railroad construction foreman whose severe brain injury (a tamping iron was blown through his skull) prevented him from feeling emotions. While Gage remained intelligent and responsive after his accident, he lost the ability to make rational decisions and to reason, because his emotions were inaccessible to the process. Damasio argued that bodily senses give rise to emotions, which in turn provide the basis for rational (as well as irrational) thought. Thus our state of mind merely reflects our state of body, with emotion as the essential intermediary. The rational and emotional functions of language appear to be handled differently by the hemispheres of the brain: it seems that the left hemisphere processes verbiage that conveys linguistic meaning, while the right hemisphere processes verbal (as well as musical and other artistic) expression that conveys emotional content. There are indications that, in most people, the right hemisphere has a tendency to repress the free functioning of the left, thus making brain activity lopsided and dysfunctional while fomenting self-sabotaging internal conflict. This may be one reason we can appear perfectly rational in our pursuit of ends that are, from another perspective, just plain crazy.

  Again, the organism wants energy, space, and the opportunity to reproduce itself. However, if every human’s individual pursuit of those goals went unchecked, there could be no organized society because all collective effort would dissolve in continual one-on-one competition. Humans would go from bloom to crash with no period of stability between. As history has shown, an organized society can be quite effective at increasing human survival options and population levels.

  Therefore the organism also needs to cooperate, to attenuate wants and desires, and to restrain reproduction. Accordingly we have developed innumerable customs, institutions, and moral strictures to promote moderation. The result is the battle of instinct against society that Freud agonized over (and largely mischaracterized) in Civilization and Its Discontents. In stable societies, a truce is struck that may last centuries or millennia. In our modern world, temporary success based on unique historical circumstances has led us to cast most self-limitation aside, and we have given ourselves perfectly good reasons for doing so. The truce is broken, and we are at war with nature and future generations.

  Is it possible, now and quickly, to tame the organism’s hunger for growth and head off catastrophe? Yes, in principle. One of the wonders of language is that it makes rapid societal change possible. Where another species would require centuries or millennia of genetic variation and natural selection to adapt itself to new conditions, we can shift our collective behavior in a matter of months or years, given language, media, and effective appeals to ethics. Whether it is possible to do so in the current situation, given the enormous growth momentum developed during the past two centuries, remains to be seen. Nevertheless, it is a useful exercise to imagine how a rapid surge toward collective self-limitation might come about.

  An appeal would need to be made, on an ethical basis, to reduce consumption and alter personal aspirations. President Carter tried to do this when he suggested, in 1977, that solving the energy crisis was “the moral equivalent of war” — but sadly other politicians and the arbiters of economy and culture failed to back him up. To be successful, such an effort would require the enthusiastic participation of the advertising, public relations, and entertainment industries, as well as organized religions and all major political institutions. Leaders would have to engage the non-rational aspects of mass consciousness by playing upon our shared needs for meaning and myth, using verbal voodoo to alter attitudes and behavior as rapidly as possible. Wartime jingoism has accomplished something similar on many occasions in the past.

  The campaign would have little chance of success if it were not also based on sound rational arguments, since purely emotional appeals would be rejected out of hand by the most intelligent and influential members of society. Moreover, if an attempt to change collective behavior were not based on empirically verifiable, survival-based necessity, it would amount to crass manipulation worthy of a Karl Rove or an Edward Bernays; hence its moral credibility would soon wane.

  In the current instance, the rational basis for the appeal, and its centrality to our survival, are clear. Nothing is to be lost and everything to be gained by sharing accurate and relevant information about our situation; there is no need to exaggerate the threat.

  Today precisely such an effort is already under way with regard to Climate Change. Al Gore and his famous movie have framed the crisis in moral terms, while hundreds of scientists, by endorsing the conclusions of the IPCC, have established a concurrent appeal to rationality.

  As yet, the message does not have a sufficiently broad base of cultural support to curtail ongoing, richly-funded calls to buy, consume, and travel. Perhaps the addition of the Peak Oil message, by highlighting immediate economic and geopolitical threats posed by continued societal reliance on fossil fuels, will help broaden the coalition of support for needed change. But all of this will have to happen very quickly.

  At this point, language is a given. For better or worse, we humans are stuck with it, even if it arguably has contributed to crises that threaten us with extinction. One way or another, the way we deal with the enormous ecological challenge facing us will be mediated by words, words, and more words — some accurately reflecting the situation, others concealing it.

  Meanwhile here we are, I writing, you reading. We share — I hope and assume — a commitment to logic and evidence, and to an ethic of collective human and non-human survival that transcends the myths of religion and progress.

  There is no denying the satisfaction — even thrill — that comes when language hits its mark by dramatically aiding our understanding of what is by now an unimaginably complex human matrix. Perhaps the most we can do, now as before, though with more urgency than ever, is to harness that thrill by using language skillfully to describe and persuade; and meanwhile to act in ways that are congruent with the ethical content of our words.

  Resources for Action

  My hope in writing Peak Everything is not to leave readers in despair, but to impel them to action. There are many things we all can do to ease the transition from the century of growth to the century of contraction. The following are a two of the most important organizations helping to coordinate such efforts.

  Over 150 Post Carbon groups have emerged in recent months, coordinated by the Post Carbon Institute (postcarbon.org). The Relocalization Network (relocalize.net) supports local Post Carbon groups as they work to develop and implement the strategy of relocalization in their communities. Relocalization Network Coordinators support the Network by providing on-line communication tools, developing resources, facilitating connections between local groups, and cultivating a sense of working together globally on local responses.

  Those living in Britain may wish also to join the Transition Towns Movement (transitiontowns.org; www.transitionculture.org). The mission of this burgeoning movement is to inspire, inform, support and train communities as they consider, adopt and implement a coordinated transition away from fossil fuels and toward a renewable, local economy.

  In addition,
here are three websites offering news and discussion relevant to the subjects discussed in this book:

  • Global Public Media (globalpublicmedia.com) provides audio, video, and print interviews and other materials

  • Energy Bulletin (energybulletin.net) offers daily updated news on energy issues, highlighting subjects such as Peak Oil, renewable energy, climate change, and sustainability.

  • The Oil Drum (theoildrum.com) features original analysis and discussion primarily relating to Peak Oil, but also touching on other fossil fuels, renewable energy, and transportation.

  Remember to visit our online book club at

  www.newsociety.com to share your thoughts about

  Peak Everything and/or other New Society titles. See you there!

  Notes

  Introduction

  1 From the OPEC Bulletin, November-December, 2006: “[A]ll in all, most would appear to agree that peak oil output is not very far away for all of us. It could take place sometime within the next decade or so, which in fact means that there is not much time left for a world economy to be driven largely by oil.” Meanwhile, Claude Mandil, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, speaking on the IEA World Energy Outlook 2006, had this to say: “WEO-2006 reveals that the energy future we are facing today, based on projections of current trends, is dirty, insecure and expensive.” energybulletin.net/22042.html (Cited June 11, 2007)

  2 Robert Hirsch et al. “Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management,” 2005. projectcensored.org/newsflash/the_hirsch_report.pdf (Cited June 11, 2007)

  3 See also Kenneth S. Deffeyes, Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert’s Peak. Hill and Wang, 2005 and Roger D. Blanchard, The Future of Global Oil Production: Facts, Figures, Trends and Projections, by Region. McFarland, 2005.

  4 Energy Watch Group. “Coal: Resources and Future Production.” energy watchgroup.org/files/Coalreport.pdf (Cited June 11, 2007) See also Richard Heinberg. “Burning the Furniture.” globalpublicmedia.com/richard_heinbergs_museletter_179_burning_the_furniture (Cited June 11, 2007)

  5 Kevin McKern. “Trader Kev Explores the Commodity Peak Zeitgiest.” kontentkonsult.com/blog/2006/01/peak_metals.html (Cited June 11, 2007). See also David Cohen, “Earth Audit,” New Scientist May 23, 2007 issue 2605.

  6 Energy Watch Group. “Uranium Resources and Nuclear Energy.” December 2006. energiekrise.de/news/docs/specials2006/REO-Uranium_5-12-2006.pdf (Cited June 11, 2007)

  7 Ivan Illich. Energy and Equity. Calder & Boyars, 1974, p. 17.

  8 World Income Inequality Database. wider.unu.edu/wiid/wiid.htm

  9 James B. Davies, Susanna Sandstrom, Anthony Shorrocks, Edward N. Wolff. The World Distribution of Household Wealth.wider.unu.edu/research/2006-2007/2006-2007-1/wider-wdhw-launch-5-12-2006/wider-wdhw-report-5-12-2006.pdf (Cited June 11, 2007)

  10 We know this from the field research of anthropologists. See, for example, Marshall Sahlins, Stone Age Economics. Aldine, 1972.

  11 Data for this paragraph are taken from Juliet B. Schor, The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure. Basic Books, 1993.

  12 Phillip Johanson. “The Genuine Progress Indicator Shows Continued Decline in Quality of Life.” socialfunds.com/news/article.cgi/117.html (Cited June 11, 2007)

  13 Millenium Ecosystem Assessment. maweb.org/en/index.aspx (Cited June 11, 2007); Dan Moukerud. “Global warming is here, now what?” article.wn.com/view/2007/01/04/Global_warming_is_here_now_what/ (Cited June 11, 2007)

  14 Michael Klare. Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America’s Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum. Metropolitan Books, 2004.

  15 Thanks to my friend Chellis Glendinning, for her book Waking Up in the Nuclear Age, Beech Tree, 1987, which has been an inspiration in more ways than one.

  16 Jason A. Merchey, ed. Living a Life of Value. Values of the Wise Press, 2006.

  17 Richard Heinberg. Fifty Million Farmers. schumachersociety.org/publications/heinberg_06.html

  Chapter 1

  1 Lewis Mumford. “Authoritarian and Democratic Technics.” Originally published in Technology and Culture, Vol. 5 No. 1, reprinted in John Zerzan and Carnes, eds. Questioning Technology: Tool, Toy or Tyrant? New Society, Publishers, 1991, p. 17.

  2 John Zerzan. Elements of Refusal. Left Bank Books, 1988.

  3 Lewis Mumford. Technics and Human Development. Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1966; The Pentagon of Power. Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1970, p. 146.

  4 Richard Heinberg. A New Covenant with Nature: Notes on the End of Civilization and the Renewal of Culture. Quest Books, 1996.

  5 Richard Heinberg. The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies. New Society Publishers, 2005, p. 26.

  6 Marvin Harris. Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture. Random House, 1979, pp. 56-58.

  7 Zerzan’s Elements of Refusal (Left Bank Books, 1988) includes chapters on time, language, number, art, agriculture, and domestication, arguing in each instance that the costs for each of these “advances” has far outweighed its benefit. Whether one agrees or disagrees with his opinion, he must be credited with consistency.

  8 Robert Adler. “Entering a dark age of innovation.” NewScientist.com news service, July 2, 2005. newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7616 (Cited June 12, 2007)

  Chapter 2

  1 Fernand Braudel, in his classic study The Structures of Everyday Life: The Limits of the Possible (translated from French by Sian Reynolds, University of California Press, 1992), notes that, “Famine recurred so insistently for centuries on end that it became incorporated into man’s biological regime and built into his daily life.… France, by any standard a privileged country, is reckoned to have experienced 10 general famines during the tenth century; 26 in the eleventh; 2 in the twelfth; 4 in the fourteenth; 7 in the fifteenth; 13 in the sixteenth; 11 in the seventeenth and 16 in the eighteenth.” (pp. 73-74).

  2 Statistics gathered by Jennifer Bresee from USDA website: usda.gov (Cited December 11, 2006)

  3 Pearce Hammond and Brian Gamble. “Alternative Fuels.” Simmons Energy Monthly, Sept. 15, 2006, simmonsco-intl.com/files/091506%20Alternative.pdf (Cited June 12, 2007)

  4 I recommend the DVD documentary, The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil. Community Solution, 2006. communitysolution.org/cuba.html (Cited June 12, 2007)

  5 The story of the victory garden movements is recounted in David M. Tucker, Kitchen Gardening in America: A History, Iowa State University Press, 1993, in the chapter “Victory Gardening” pp. 121-139.

  6 David Holmgren. Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability. Holmgren Design Services, 2002, p. 27.

  7 Brainy Encyclopedia. brainyencyclopedia.com/b/bi/biointensive.html (Cited June 12, 2007)

  8 “Indian Line Farm - Model for Farmland Preservation and Conservation.” smallisbeautiful.org/clts/indian.html (Cited June 12, 2007)

  9 Kirkpatrick Sale. Human Scale. Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1980.

  10 B. S. Frey and A. Stutzer. “Happiness Prospers in Democracy.” Journal of Happiness Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2000, pp. 79-102.

  Chapter 3

  1 Frank Lloyd Wright. “America’s Tomorrow.” American Architect, May 1932, p. 32.

  2 Earnest Elmo Calkins. “Beauty: The New Business Tool.” Atlantic Monthly, August 1927, p. 152.

  3 Stuart Ewen. All Consuming Images: The Politics of Style in Contemporary Culture. revised edition, Basic Books, 1999, p. 121.

  Chapter 4

  1 Eric Freyfogle. Why Conservation Is Failing and How It Can Regain Ground. Yale University Press, 2006.

  2 World Commission on Environment and Development. “Our Common Future.” 1987. are.admin.ch/are/en/nachhaltig/international_uno/unterseite02330/ (Cited December 11, 2006)

  3 Albert A. Bartlett. “Reflections on Sustainability, Population Growth, and the Environment — Revisited.” Renewable Resources Journal, Vol. 15, No. 4, Winter 1997-1998, 6-23. hubbertpeak.com/bartlett/reflections.htm (Cited J
une 12, 2007)

  4 Website: naturalstep.org

  5 William E. Rees and Mathis Wackernagel. Our Ecological Footprint. New Society Publishers, 1995. Website: footprintnetwork.org

  6 Bartlett 1998, op. cit.

  7 Simon Dresner. Principles of Sustainability. Earthscan, 2002.

  Andres Edwards. The Sustainability Revolution: Portrait of a Paradigm Shift. New Society Publishers, 2005.

  8 Jared Diamond. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Viking, 2005.

  Joseph Tainter. The Collapse of Complex Societies. Cambridge University Press, 1988.

  9 Julian Simon. “The State of Humanity: Steadily Improving.” Cato Policy Report, Vol. 17, No. 5, p. 131.

  10 Bartlett 1998, op. cit.

  11 Simone Valente. “Sustainable Development, Renewable Resources and Technological Progress.” Environmental and Resource Economics, Vol. 30, No. 1, January 2005, pp. 115-125.

  12 Albert A. Bartlett. “Sustained Availability: A Management Program for Nonrenewable Resources.” American Journal of Physics, Vol. 54, May 1986, pp. 398-402.