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.

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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.

Control doesn't factor in to what we seek, as convenient a fiction as that might be to the right and as easy as it is to find "facts" to support the fears. "On your own" may appeal to some, but it will prove to be of very limited utility; dump it now.

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

Authors Website: http://richardturcotte.com/

Authors Bio:

Looking Left and Right: Inspiring Different Ideas, Envisioning Better Tomorrows

I remain a firm believer in late U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone's observation that "We all do better when we all do better." That objective might be worth pursuing more diligently."

If we don't look for ways to tamp down the vitriol and intense hatred which members of Left and Right teams freely direct at "the opposition," we will not only foreclose whatever options might still remain to find common ground that moves us all forward. Worse still, we will eliminate both the hopes for and attainment of a better and more peaceful future. We're too close to achieving that empty triumph as it is.

We might not want to acknowledge that we're all in this together, but we are. The sooner we pause for a moment and ask ourselves What Happens Then? if we continue to stoke the white-hot partisan fires, the sooner we realize that sustaining polarization is not in the best interests of anyone.

If we keep doing more of the same partisan same, the answer to What Happens Then? won't be to anyone's liking--not that current antipathy is offering us much. It's actually not contributing anything other than deepening the divide. There will be harsher consequences from doing more of the same.

Aren't we better than that? Shouldn't we want, expect, and deserve more?

There's plenty of blame to go around, of course. But we're no closer to one side winning--whatever that might mean--than we ever have. Partisans on each side might not (or might not want to) believe that, but if Left or Right is counting on Right or Left to concede, a long and painful wait is all that's guaranteed.

Sure as hell we won't experience "better" by doing more of what we're doing now".So I'm hoping to do my part by offering--from my staunchly progressive approach--a different and more meaningful perspective on our conflicted public dialogue. I invite you to join in. Who knows " we just might get to a better place after all!

Richard Turcotte is a retired attorney and former financial adviser (among other professional detours) and now a writer.