In the face of the daunting, looming challenges that peak oil is going to dump onto our laps at some point in the not-too-distant future, who nonetheless wants to sacrifice anything about current lifestyles as Option Number One?
Bad, last-minute, overwhelming surprises are not my preference, and I'm having a difficult time thinking that they are anyone else's, either. Blind Faith is still a better rock band than strategy, and it's certainly not the one I want guiding me and my wife and our children and my family and my friends into a future where the inevitable outcomes of using finite resources finally come to roost.
I don't think I'm at all unusual in stating that I want a good future for myself and family in good communities with happy, successful, and prosperous citizens living freely. That's not going to happen as long as too many of us prefer occupying their time with fear-induced paranoid concerns that do nothing but promote more of the same by their adherents and more ridicule from those who cannot accept that perspective. It just does not help!
So do we stand our ideological grounds until there's no question at all what reality has in store, or do we start doing what good businesspeople and well-intentioned families and communities do: plan ahead? We want good solutions and plans for how best to transition away from a fossil-fuel-dependent way of life because that is what facts tell us is necessary.
We all need to be better than that. "Business as usual, every man for himself" have served in many cases great purposes, but changes in both the quality and quantity of our energy supplies--and how we conduct our private and professional lives--are looming. The definition and routes available for continued prosperity are going to change.
Adapted from a blog post of mine
