A saying that I like a lot is "Hope is not a method". I don't mean that I don't like Hope - I do mean that Hope must be based on facing the brutal facts. I don't need a sure thing to have hope but nor do I believe in magic either.
My guess is that most people hope that President Obama will somehow help us get back to to the kind of economy and buoyancy of say early 2007.
I think that it is impossible and I think that if we look at the brutal facts we can see that this cannot be the mission of his presidency not should it be where we put all our hope.
Why do I say this?
A quick look at human population
You know this don't you? But let's step back and think about what it says. Something amazing happened around 1800. Human population tipped. What happened?
What happened was that we started to use fossil fuel. Until then we had mainly relied on muscle power - the muscle of animals and men. The fantastic effectiveness of fossil fuel revolutionized the world's food supply. Simply more food, cheaper food drive more people. The huge efficiencies of oil based food systems meant that by 2000, less than 5% of western people were involved in food production. In 1900 there were more than 40%. Our current life is divorced from supplying the energy to get from A to B or to putting food on the table or heat in our houses. We rely on a tiny number of people to do that and we substitute money for what used to be our labor.
The world that we know - where most of us work in very abstract ways - where we flip a switch, open the freezer, book an airline ticket online is entirely based on cheap oil.
The one thing we should all know now is that this is over.
Few people disagree that we are entering the time when all the cheap oil will be soon gone. Cheap meaning not only cheap to find and to pump. Soon we will depend on oil that comes from tough geology and bad politics.
So what really confronts us all as President Obama takes office?
Forgive my bad graphics:
This is my poor rendition of the brilliant talk given by Tim Hudson (YouTube here).
What we know for sure is that the peak is here. What happens next is the unknown. We cannot know the future but we can assign probabilities. Here is how Tim Hudson set the challenge.
1.0 The Miracle of Tech - Somehow in the next 10 years we will have a breakthrough, that no one knows about now, that will offer us the abundance, low cost and ease of use for energy that we can get from cheap oil. See I did not say oil I said "Cheap Oil". In this scenario the growth that we have enjoyed over the last 200 years continues. Somehow we also cope with our growing environmental problems. It's a miracle!
2.0 Somehow Renewables - Somehow in the next 10 years, we have a massive investment in renewables and in conservation and somehow this enables us to muddle along as we have been. We end growth but we can keep our way of life.
3.0 Descent - We in effect "power down". We do go all out in renewables and in conservation but it is not possible to live as we did and we find ever lighter ways of living. We descend in steps over time. We live very differently than we do now. A redesign of of our way of life emerges - it will be very different from how we live today - as different as someone living in 1830 would have lived compared to today.
4.0 Collapse - Just our financial system has collapsed. So the speed and extent of the energy and related food collapse is beyond the ability of the authorities to cope with, so a number of factors combine - with out financial weakness - to send us into a tailspin that we cannot recover from. The world will become more like the Congo or Zimbabwe.
Of course there are many variants of these 4 scenarios but by keeping them so clear, we can find our way.
So what would say would be the probabilities of these 4? Here are my views:
1.0 The Miracle - If there is a miracle there, it has to happen now and it has to be able to replicate very fast. But that is not how things work. Even the most popular innovation takes a decade or more. It's one thing to roll out the web but a whole new energy system? This new technology would have to not only power up the global transportation system but also the current food production system. I don't see how this could happen at all in the next 10 years. I assign it - 0%. But if you asked most people, they might feel that somehow life will continue as it is - don't nearly all the pundits suggest that even as a worst case that things will start to get better in 2011?
2.0 Somehow Renewables - This is where the new President wants to go. This is where Al Gore wants to go - this is where lots of people want to go. But this is also where President Carter wanted to go all those years ago. I think that this is the direction that we will be setting off on but I don't think we can do this on the scale and in the time that we need to to keep us on an even keel. I can't see how the food production and distribution system could keep up in time. I assign this about 10% - 10% that we can do this in time and keep our current way of life. Many people hope for this. They feel that alternatives in some combination can enable us to keep where we are.
3.0 Descent - That more clarity will emerge in the next five years about how we have to redesign how we live and that the challenges will be so great that we will have the stimulus to work with each other to "power down" . That while our material world may fade, that we will still have a great life - a different life - one that is more connected both to each other and to the planet. Cuba managed this in 5 years. A very different way of life but a viable one. They avoided collapse. I assign this 50%. Only a few people think about this - it is a growing group that is very well connected and that has a lot of thinking behind it. With the right leadership and crisis this knowledge - as happened in Cuba - could come to the front.
4.0 Collapse - That we are overwhelmed. That we place too much emphasis in keeping the status quo - that we make only minor changes - that when these fail our anger and resentment boil over and we fight our over energy, food and water resources all the way down to collapse. I assign 40% to this. I no longer am amazed at how stubborn, helpless and willing to be duped that we are.
The facts - reason - evidence - seem to have little to do with any of this. So what is really going on? Tim Hudson wonders if it is this - the grief process?
We are going through a huge trauma - as Russia did or Cuba did at the collapse of the Soviet Union. We are entering our own "Special Period". False optimism and denial are the early reactions to such an event - "It will be OK! Obama will get us through this!"
This where the leadership issue arises for me. If we spend too long in false hope or denial, we will not only miss the chance to take 3 but will set up such resentment that we ensure 4 Collapse.
President Obama has to offer real hope. When all seemed lost at the end of 1940 - Churchill asked his people to stand alone in the hope of ultimate victory. This was not a vain hope. If America could be brought into the war Britain had a chance. With Russia as an ally, Britain had a good chance. These were betting odds.
My hope is that we can use the crisis that is before us to "see" the reality of what confronts us. This is the great challenge that faces President Obama. Will he have to pander to the conventional wisdom - or will he put the best chance option on the table as where he will focus.
If we can do this then I have hope that we can be smart enough to focus on the best options that have to power down. The ideas exist as do the people to get the work done to give us a betting chance.
So what is this big idea?
I think that our best chance is to work full on towards establishing local resiliency - where we shift more control back locally in energy, food and money. Where we link our local efforts to be more resilient to those of others who are doing the same. Where we look also to power of relationships to build a more effective approach to health and to education.
Richard Heinberg say all of this so much better than I. Here is the best talk I have yet seen on the power of local resiliency to give us a chance.
