Years ago, I read a book by James Howard Kunstler entitled, “World Made by Hand.” Kunstler is described as “an American author, social critic, public speaker, and blogger.” Kunstler was, still is(?), apparently, a “Peak Oil” advocate, a “hockey stick” theory kinda guy. The premise of his novel was that the entire power grid had finally gone down, whether by hook or by crook, and people had to relearn how to survive without electricity – i.e., in a world made by hand.
I worked with a guy who was all about the “Peak Oil” scam and how we were all gonna perish because we had used all the oil. We would debate but he was convinced – not very forward looking… well, that was then, this is now.
Peak Oil was all about oil being a biotic substance – “relating to or resulting from living things, especially in their ecological relations” – Dictionary. I read years ago that there were others who theorized that oil was abiotic – “physical rather than biological; not derived from living organisms” – Dictionary. In other words, rather than from rotting forests or organisms, five miles below the oceans, oil was a natural byproduct of a living earth.
Fact: we discovered that oil could be used for many things and started developing the oil that was readily available, oil that was found near the surface, the low-hanging fruit, so to speak. As time progressed, we became more sophisticated and discovered that there was much more of the stuff than we had initially suspected, it just hadn’t risen to the top yet and would require a little more work and some ingenuity. That’s all some people needed to get to work and now we have more oil and natural gas than we know what to do with, unless, of course, Crazy Uncle Joe turns off the spigot.
To my point, Kunstler, a Peak Oil nut and, thus I’m guessing, an advocate for Green Energy, was all about trying to scare people into going green, otherwise the electricity was going to turn off, eventually, and we would be thrown back to the stone age.
Well, taking a short-sighted view like these chicken-littles always do, it looks like that might actually be happening across half the country…
EXCEPT! … Except it’s not due to a shortage of abiotic, or fossil fuel (whichever you prefer), it’s because of the abandonment of traditional, tried and true, and abundant, “carbon-type” energy sources for the fantasy of “Not Ready for Prime Time” green energy sources. In other words, the Turbine Wind Mills are frozen over and the Solar Panels are snow covered, and people are freezing to death, and some are dying.
As Albert Einstein once opined, “Only two things are infinite; the universe and human stupidity.”
Somebody, please… Change My Mind!
Change My Mind! 