Harsh Reality

Yesterday in Salamanca, Spain, Hugo Chavez, the flamboyant, intelligent, and articulate socialist dictator of Venezuela, addressed a few of the unvarnished and undeniable truths about the global energy crunch. The U.S. government and most Americans will make every attempt to deny these obvious facts anyway, probably for about as long as it takes for the American economy to begin to show signs of irrecoverable paralysis.

"We're at the doorway of a major energy crisis worldwide", Chavez said, adding "We'll have to develop other resources such as wind, solar and nuclear energy — naturally for peaceful purposes."

Noting that Venezuela is currently unable to increase it's 3.2-million-barrel daily production, Chavez maintained that "The whole world right now is producing petroleum at their maximum capacity. Prices will continue to rise, but oil is running out."

Chavez also blamed part of the recent oil price increases on "intermediaries," and, taking a swipe at his arch-enemy, the United States, on "the irrational capitalist consumerism model."

It goes almost without saying that both high and low "consumers" of news north of the Rio Grande will discredit the messenger delivering this information (socialism is prototype number 666 in the official U.S. catalogue of forms of government) in a vain and pathetic attempt to ignore the simple truths of the message.

However, if they'd like to hear the same message, delivered a little more aggressively and abrasively, this time by a red-blooded, patriotic, capitalistic American, then they owe it to themselves to read the transcript of James Kunstler's speech to the PetroCollapse New York Conference earlier this month. In fact, every American who cares about his or her own survival in the months and years to come needs to read this warning, which is actually the short form of Kunstler's book, "The Long Emergency".

Kunstler correctly identifies the crisis this country is facing as a two-headed monster. The first head -- the energy crisis itself, is by itself enough to plunge the world into chaos. The second head is the public's weak-minded, frivolous, and infantile denial of the crisis, which amplifies it and multiplies its destructive capacity.

This crisis isn't coming, it's here. We've already begun to experience the inevitable inflation of all prices that accompanies the rising cost of fuel. The question we need to ask ourselves -- that you need to ask yourself -- is, how well prepared are you to weather the storm? Considering the total absence of political leadership in this country today, it's safe to assume nobody is going to help us get through this mess.

If you live in a city, don't own a car, and live within walking distance of groceries and other necessities, you're probably in pretty good shape. If there are food shortages, of course you'll experience them along with everybody else -- there's nothing to be done. But the less dependent you are on petroleum to meet your day-to-day needs, the better off you are.

If you own a car, and need it for survival-type errands, you're vulnerable.

If you live in a suburb distant from the city, work in the city center, drive the kids to school and the various other places they have to go, and are petrodependent, you're screwed. You're going to have to find another way to live.

I noticed that in proposing a Democratic Party platform for 2006, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi suggested one of the planks should be a goal of U.S. energy independence in ten years. It's a nice sentiment, but meaningless without the addition of some of what writing instructors call "concrete detail." We need specifics of a real, detailed energy plan, naming the tangible and attainable resources that might realistically be tapped to replace and augment petroleum.

We need to know how we're going to get there from here. Vapid generalizations and naive good intentions won't get us anywhere.