Napping on the railroad tracks

Napping on the railroad tracks sounds risky on its face. But it may not feel that way if you don't know you're napping on the tracks.

Humans seem programmed to believe that the future will look pretty much like the past. But the narrative of history is the narrative of unexpected events. And, so it is surprising that when it comes to resource depletion, cornucopian thinkers love to refer to history. Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, likes to say, "This is not the first time the world has run out of oil. It is more like the fifth." But even though Yergin admits that oil is a finite resource (and that therefore its total quantity is declining), he invites us to snooze with him on the railroad tracks because history has shown that so far it's been safe to do so.

Yergin's faith (and that of many others) is founded on the forecasts of his own firm and that of the U. S. Energy Information Administration (which takes its data from the U. S. Geological Survey's World Petroleum Assessment). But what drives us to make such forecasts? Even create a whole forecasting industry? In his latest book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, Nassim Nicholas Taleb believes that we do so because we are planning animals. This behavior may be a successful evolutionary adaptation. We are able to imagine situations that might risk injury or death rather than simply experiment and see what happens. "Used correctly and in place of more visceral reactions, the ability to project effectively frees us from immediate, first-order natural selection....," he writes.

But, imagining the future is not the same as correctly predicting it. Taleb outlines the problems with forecasts as follows. First, variability matters. Most forecasts don't include an error rate, often indicated as a range of possibilities. In other words, how wide of the mark might a forecast be? (The U. S. EIA forecast is an exception, but it is not clear how the error rate is calculated and whether the data upon which it is based can be justified.) Very often, the "error rate is so large that it is far more significant than the projection itself!" (The EIA doesn't seem to understand this point.) Taleb gives this example: If you knew the place you are flying to is expected to be 70 degrees, you would pack much differently if you also knew that the range was plus or minus 40 degrees rather than plus or minus 5 degrees.

Second, forecasts degrade quickly as the forecast period lengthens. There are so many imponderables including technological developments; individual, corporate and government decisions; and unforeseen events such as wars, revolutions, and economic busts and booms, each essentially unknowable and each compounding upon the others with every passing year. "Our forecast errors have traditionally been enormous, and there may be no reasons for us to believe that we are suddenly in a more privileged position to see into the future compared to our blind predecessors," Taleb writes.

Third, there is often a failure to grasp "the random character of the variables being forecast." Taleb doesn't address resource depletion in his book. But, when it comes to oil supplies, those confidently making optimistic forecasts assume substantial new discoveries. However, discoveries can in no way be determined ahead of time; otherwise, they would be classed as reserves and not discoveries. Future consumption rates for oil depend on the economy which depends on so many individual and collective decisions that one cannot tally them all. And, even if we could, how would we know what numbers to use for 2017 or 2026?

When it comes to technology, it has always seemed to be a one-way street, ever improving. There can be no dispute that technology has put into the hands of human societies great power to learn about the world and to manipulate it. But, even here there have been long stretches of only small, incremental improvements in, for example, our ground transportation system which relies on the same basic internal combustion engine technology first produced more than 100 years ago. There have also been notable failures--no commercially feasible fusion energy and no miracle cures for genetic diseases. Technological development moves unevenly through various sectors, sometimes by fits and starts and sometimes not at all.

All of this implies that we have no way of determining whether we should prefer pessimistic or optimistic forecasts for world oil production. What is more perplexing is that both forecasts depend on certain kinds of extrapolations from the past. The pessimists focus on the peak in world oil discovery back in the 1960s and the optimists point to reserve growth through additions to existing fields and to advancing technology for both exploration and extraction. While the pessimists and optimists emphasize certain data, both accept the historical data, but then draw vastly different conclusions, i.e., an imminent peak in world oil supplies versus a distant peak followed in some cases by a long plateau. When it comes to technology, for example, the pessimists argue that technology has done pretty much all it is going to do for oil recovery while the optimists believe that vast increases in the percentage of the oil recovered from existing and undiscovered reservoirs lie ahead.

Taleb suggests a way to look at the problem as follows: "Even if you agree with a given forecast, you have to worry about the real possibility of significant divergence from it," he writes. How might he apply this to the peak oil issue? He gives us a pretty clear idea. "[I]t is the lower bound of estimates (i.e., the worst case) that matters when engaging in a policy--the worst case is far more consequential than the forecast itself. This is particularly true if the bad scenario is not acceptable."

While it's possible that Daniel Yergin and other cornucopians may continue to nap on the railroad tracks without any harm for many years to come, it is faulty logic that leads them to believe that there is very little risk in doing so. And, because of their influence, they are doing a great disservice to society by pretending that their oracular pronouncements are somehow based on something other than conjecture. (Such an admission might cut into demand for their forecasts, but it would be better for policymakers and society as a whole if they admit to uncertainty.)

On the other side of the argument, the pessimists would be wise to attach wide error bars to their forecasts as well. They can do this without abandoning their basic premise, namely, that preparing for a decline in oil supplies will be a monumental task that is better begun early rather than late precisely because we cannot predict when the decline will begin. Moreover, the use of generous error bars will have the added benefit of removing the "Chicken Little" aura which now surrounds so many peak oil theorists.

Taleb has strong words for the unctuous forecaster who won't admit the uncertainty in his or her work:

Anyone who causes harm by forecasting should be treated as either a fool or a liar. Some forecasters cause more damage to society than criminals. Please, don't drive the school bus blindfolded.

Deceptive landscape

I have taken to walking for exercise in a nearby neighborhood populated primarily by well-heeled professionals. There is very little car traffic (which makes up for the lack of sidewalks), and the area is both unusually quiet and aesthetically pleasing. Nearly all the houses have well-kept gardens with a variety of ornamental plants and flowers punctuated by properly-trimmed shrubs. Still, none of this exhibits the obsessiveness associated with grounds surrounding the homes of the super rich that are meant to repel outsiders by telling them that they don't belong there. Instead, this neighborhood displays an orderliness that is both comfortable and reassuring.

But my pleasant walk through these leafy streetscapes is deceptive. For all its orderliness this neighborhood generates enormous entropy that is hidden from the viewer's eyes. This has implications for our political life because these are the kinds of neighborhoods across the United States from which communities draw their leaders and in which turnout is heaviest during election time.

Even for those familiar with the environmental depredations wrought by this way of life, it is difficult to point to anything troubling in this neighborhood that is directly visible except perhaps the belching gas-powered lawn mower which disturbs the air with its thick exhaust. Even the Tru Green/Chemlawn truck applies its poison and fertilizer with little fanfare, leaving behind only mildly distressing miniature green and white signs that say children and pets should stay away, but only for the day. The tap...tap...tap and constant hiss of sprinklers dousing lawns produce a soothing cadence in the otherwise quiet air, signaling the delivery of a refreshing drink to living things groaning in the summer heat. (Of course, intellectually, I know that all this irrigation is a colossal waste of fresh water and of the energy to purify and pump it.)

The explanation for why this way of life creates enormous entropy and thus environmental damage is alas abstract on the one hand--global warming due to fossil fuel combustion used to create electricity is a fairly complex chain--or relatively hidden on the other--unseen oil and natural gas wells and petrochemical refineries that provide the basis for many of the chemical inputs used by the average American gardener or lawn enthusiast.

So, if the daily experience of the leaders who live in such neighborhoods is one of order and pleasant surroundings, how can we expect them to champion change? What immediate and visible incentive do they have, short of some personal philanthropic tendencies, to confront the major environmental and resource depletion problems of the day?

This is a classic problem of lag times. When it comes to climate change, for example, the rise in temperatures we are experiencing now has its origins in greenhouse gases emitted more than a generation ago. And, the feedback that would tell us how we are doing today will not arrive for another 30 years. Likewise, the deprivations that resource depletion might bring to a neighborhood like the one I describe above will not come there first. They will be felt first by the world's marginal populations; and, those deprivations will at most be experienced by Americans remotely in the form of television appeals for humanitarian aid. Americans will make few connections between the desperation they see on the television screen and the rising prices at home for basic goods. In fact, something like this is already happening when it comes to petroleum products, metals and food. But there are no shortages here--yet!

The human mind is primarily inclined to think in concrete terms. Abstract thinking is largely an acquired talent which needs constant practice in order not to atrophy. And, yet it is abstract thinking which is required to address the perplexing, systemic challenges we face. You might be able to reduce your own carbon footprint; but the carbon footprint of humanity is not going to be reduced without determined collective effort. And, that will require complex abstract thinking.

One step toward that way of thinking may be to see through the deceptive landscape of any relatively prosperous American neighborhood. Only when we can uncover the hidden and often abstract evidence of the damage our way of life is doing to the biosphere will a genuine public inquiry into our ecological fate be possible.

The difference between hypocrisy and unilateral disarmament

A charge of hypocrisy always carries with it the Biblical echo of Matthew 23 and thus seems like a weighty and serious condemnation coming directly from God. That is why it is a favorite among those who have lost an argument on its merits and who must now resort to ad hominem attacks.

Such was the case with attacks on Al Gore's personal energy use earlier this year which, in some instances, found their way into major media including USA Today. Gore has responded to some of the attacks, and I'll let you judge his effectiveness.

But it is undeniable that we would not even be discussing Al Gore's energy use today had he not crisscrossed the globe in jet aircraft to make his global warming slideshow presentation more than 2000 times. Nearly everyone now alive is enmeshed in systems that rely heavily on fossil fuels. Even simple household tasks such as cooking and mowing the lawn use fossil fuels. Even if you have a push lawn mower, fossil fuels were used to make it and ship it. Gore's point, of course, is that we have to change the system so that it doesn't run on fuels that release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Naturally, it would be very hard for him to advocate for such a change while living in a lean-to in the forest. And so, Gore uses the tools available to hydrocarbon man: air travel, slideshows, microphones, television and radio appearances, the Internet, and now, his film, An Inconvenient Truth.

I've never met Al Gore, but I do know many people who are trying to inform the public about the twin dangers of global warming and peak oil. Most of them think carefully about the energy they use in trying to get the message out. And, most do a balancing test that amounts to this: Does the good I'm trying to do exceed the damage I must do, say, through travel? It's not an easy judgement to make. There is no simple equation into which to plug a set of appropriate numbers. I know at least one prominent person in the peak oil movement who says he can no longer justify attending overseas conferences because of the energy used and the greenhouse gases emitted.

And yet, to forego travel and modern methods of communication altogether would be to engage in unilateral disarmament. And, isn't that what the global warming and peak oil deniers really want?

The truth is that all of us are hypocrites. None of us measures up to our own ideals unless we have set our standards so low that they don't deserve the name ideals. And, yet our ideals point the way even as we stumble toward them.

Meanwhile, the propagandists, pundits, and so-called scholars aligned with the fossil fuel industry jet about freely with their cellphones and BlackBerries in hand as they burn untold quantities of fossil fuel while spreading their disinformation. Since they've lost the scientific argument about global warming, they now turn to the savagery of personal attacks. (The peak oil debate doesn't yet have the traction of the global warming issue. But we can look forward to a similar dynamic when peak oil reaches the same level of public awareness.)

These deniers often tell us how they can respect a principled person with whom they disagree; but the one thing they can't abide is a hypocrite. Naturally, because the deniers don't believe we have a problem with global warming or fossil fuel supplies, they are free to go on gorging themselves on fossil fuels without any feelings of shame. (By that logic, it seems, they could kill people they don't like without shame as long as they believe it to be consistent with their principles.)

How convenient, then, to deny the inconvenient truths that get in the way of one's personal desires and narrow self-interest! Apparently for the deniers, all it takes to live a blameless life is to cultivate a certain state of mind that makes virtues out of all one's vices.

See you next week

I have just returned from a week out of the country and have only started to catch up. I expect to post again Sunday, June 24.

The official story: A lesson in how to undermine it

It is now the official story in the United States that there is plenty of energy to be had in the world; it's just that energy that comes in the form of petroleum is mostly in the wrong hands, namely, OPEC-member regimes that hate us. So, now the quest is for an ever-elusive energy independence that currently involves massive subsidies to ethanol makers, soon-to-be-massive subsidies to would-be coal-to-liquids makers, imports of oil made from Canadian tar sands, oil shale, new nuclear power plants, liquified natural gas imports, and offshore drilling. There are also preposterous, but widely believed claims about the possibility of a hydrogen economy. (For a brief and intelligent explanation about why it is very unlikely to happen, read this.) The energy independence story appeals to a deeply held belief in American life: Good old American ingenuity can solve any problem.

For those concerned about world peak oil production (and peak natural gas and coal, for that matter), none of the above responses seem adequate or, in some cases, entirely ethical, especially with regard to environmental effects such as global warming. The problems with such responses have been detailed again and again on the web, in specialized publications, and in many places in the mainstream media. If this is the case, how come the peak oil story and the many warnings about such responses to our energy challenges aren't center stage in the American consciousness? There are plenty of reasons, but I propose to discuss what I think is a critical one: The peak oil movement has been focused mainly on selling a new narrative to the public without first dislodging the existing one. As long as people have faith in the existing official story about achieving American "energy independence" within the framework of a cornucopian future, it will be almost impossible to sell them on another story no matter how carefully constructed and supported.

Let me dwell for a few moments on the astonishing success of the so-called 911 truth movement. In discussing its success, I make no claims whatsoever about the validity of the movement's conclusions. I am simply interested here in understanding why it has succeeded in convincing more than one third of Americans that "federal officials assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East." In addition, 16 percent of those surveyed said that "it's 'very likely' or 'somewhat likely' that 'the collapse of the twin towers in New York was aided by explosives secretly planted in the two buildings.'" (Imagine, for a moment, where the peak oil movement would be if a third of all Americans felt that world peak oil production was, say, likely to happen within the next decade and likely to have very serious consequences.)

Given that very few of the 911 truth movement's contentions have been widely reported by mainstream sources--and when they are they are usually ridiculed--how can we account for this success? I don't believe all of it can be attributed to the power of the Internet. The peak oil movement also has a wide-ranging and intelligent Internet presence, but has not broken through in a similar way. I think we can account for the 911 truth movement's success by looking at the focus of its campaign.

That focus surprisingly has not been on replacing the official 911 story as exemplified by the 911 Commission Report, but rather on discrediting it. The strategy has been to raise as many questions as possible about the official version of events. In fact, alternative theories of the 911 attack range from careless neglect by the Bush Administration of warnings about possible terrorist threats all the way to active participation at the highest levels of the U. S. government in planning the attacks. No single narrative has been widely adopted by those who disbelieve the official story. What this shows is that a coherent alternative narrative is not needed in order to discredit an official account. All one needs is a relentless attack on the credibility of the official story.

By contrast, those in the peak oil movement generally start a conversation about oil depletion with an attempt to explain Hubbert's Peak. It is a laudable impulse to want to educate people with all the facts. But it is not necessarily the most efficient way to sway a mass audience. Keep in mind that many of those proposing the solutions outlined in the first paragraph of this piece do not dispute peak oil theory. When confronted with the Hubbert Curve, they will quite confidently respond, "Yeah, we know all about peak oil. And, the solutions are already being perfected: biofuels, coal-to-liquids, tar sands, oil shale, offshore drilling, imported LNG, electrically powered transport from new nuclear power and so on." The challenge isn't to convince people that we have a problem with oil. People know we have a problem with oil. The challenge is to convince them that we don't have the solutions, at least not ones that will allow us to go on living the way we are now.

Fortunately, the peak oil movement has a mountain of evidence with which to discredit the official story. Less fortunately, there is no single official government panel or report to focus on. About the closest thing we have in that regard is the U. S. Energy Information Administration reference case for peak oil which projects its occurrence in 2037. But, in reality, the official story is a disparate set of assumptions drawn from many areas including 1) the American historical experience (for example, winning World War II and resuming business as usual after the oil shocks of the 1970s); 2) the cornucopian ideological backlash led by people such as Julian Simon; 3) the relentless infiltration of neoclassical economics into popular discourse, particularly notions of substitutability; 4) continuing technological progress in many highly visible areas such as medicine and electronics; 5) the combination of the Gulf War, Iraq War and the 911 attacks which have brought into focus American dependence on oil imports; 6) the highly publicized boom in biofuels; and 7) the heavily hyped promise of hydrogen cars.

This makes it more difficult, but not impossible, to mount a campaign to discredit bogus solutions for addressing energy depletion. However, it is not necessary to demolish every single argument supporting a seamless transition to a cornucopian future. It is only necessary to begin by calling into question some of those arguments in order to start the process of undermining the official story. Questions lead to more questions which lead to openness to an alternative narrative about the future of society and the planet.

Again, fortunately, the peak oil movement does have a coherent alternative narrative about the direction society should go, and that narrative is complete with action plans. That narrative generally includes emphasis on efficiency; conservation; relocalization of nearly every aspect of our lives; genuinely sustainable energy sources such as wind and solar; public transportation; compact development; redevelopment of cities; small-scale, low-input agriculture; and many other specifics. Entire communities are moving ahead to implement these ideas in places such as Willits, California and Kinsale, Ireland.

By contrast the 911 truth movement does not appear to offer a coherent narrative or plan of action. Perhaps individual members of the movement are working to impeach President Bush or to encourage more official investigations or to create political change through elections. But, there appears to be neither a guiding template for action nor a clear description of what the world would look like if it were run the way those in the 911 truth movement would like it to be run.

I count it a huge plus that the peak oil movement has been able to outline a vision of a sustainable future and even more, begun to implement it. But my years doing advertising and public relations work tell me that the movement could do a lot better in advancing its cause. One of the unfortunate rules of thumb of the public relations business is this: If you're explaining, you're losing. Those in the peak oil movement are all too happy to provide endlessly detailed explanations about peak oil and responses to it. Kudos to those who have informed themselves so well and are good at articulating their knowledge.

But before most people will be able to hear the peak oil movement's narrative, they will have to develop doubts about the official story. Naturally, the peak oil movement will get some help from events. Recent high gasoline prices have caused people to seek explanations. But we cannot wait for events to do the work for us. As most of those familiar with peak oil already know, by the time peak arrives (and let's hope that those who think it already has are wrong), it will be too late to avoid very unpleasant consequences.

So, my suggestion is to focus on questioning the current official narrative of technological advancement, alternative fuels and new sources of oil that will supposedly lead to a seamless energy transition. It may somehow seem not quite right to tailor one's approach to fit a public that is confused by detailed explanations and often even suspicious of them. But my experience tells me that the peak oil movement will make much faster progress if it puts more emphasis on questioning those spouting the official story, thereby forcing them to come up with the detailed explanations. Those explanations will only reveal more flaws in their arguments which can lead to further questions. Such explanations will fatigue the public which has a short attention span and is inclined to put more emphasis on the questions than the answers. Pursuing this strategy means, of necessity, being ready with plenty of disquieting follow-up questions.

Once a large enough portion of the public begins to question the official narrative, I am confident that the peak oil movement will be able to present an alternative narrative that is clear, coherent, and principled enough to be accepted. But until the tipping point arrives, I think the entire movement would be well served by focusing a larger portion of its effort on propagating questions about the official story. To that end, I list 10 questions below that I think may be useful for this purpose, and I invite readers to list many more in the comments.

____________________________________________________________________________

10 questions to challenge the official story

1. How do you explain the sudden 50 to 100 percent gains in the oil reserves of many OPEC countries in the mid-1980s?


2. How do we know the oil reserves claimed by many OPEC countries--over 60 percent of the world's reserves--are even there since those countries won't allow an independent audit?


3. How many coal-to-liquids plants are there in the world today? Why so few?


4. How many commercial oil shale plants are now producing oil in the world today? How many are planned?


5. Does anybody know how much uranium is available using current technology and extraction techniques? If there are figures, who compiles them and how can we be sure they are reliable?


6. Why have past oil price predictions by major forecasters including the U. S. government turned out to be so wrong? If they missed developments such as the tremendous growth in oil demand in China and India, isn't it possible that current optimistic forecasts by some forecasters about greater oil supply and lower prices in the future could be wrong?


7. The United States now expends 1 unit of energy to get 39 units to run the non-energy economy. Can you explain how our society will function if we move to biofuels such as corn ethanol that would require us to expend at least 15 units of energy for every 9 delivered to the non-energy economy? (This assumes, of course, that we accept the U. S. Department of Energy's very generous estimate that corn ethanol has an energy profit ratio of 1.6 to 1. Lowering it to 1.2 to would mean we'd need 45 units of energy for every 9 delivered to the non-energy economy. Some researchers such as David Pimentel say the energy profit ratio is less than 1, making ethanol an energy sink.)


8. If we have to use other energy sources to extract hydrogen to fuel a hydrogen economy, why not just use those other energy sources directly? Wouldn't that be more efficient?


9. Even if world peak oil production is many years away, why wouldn't it be a good idea to start getting ready now? (This question is often useful if paired with question 10.)


10. Haven't you heard of the Hirsch Report commissioned by the U. S. Department of Energy which calls for a crash program to get ready for peak oil?

Please note that in posing these questions I am not trying to be internally consistent; that is, I'm not trying to make a case for a coherent alternative path. I am merely trying to get people to ask questions about the official story so as to open them up to an alternative narrative. I look forward to readers' suggestions for additional questions.

Road to nowhere?

Last week I attended a hearing on the transportation plan for my county for the year 2030. Similar plans are mandated by federal law for most localities in the United States. Though not explicit, the assumption behind our plan is that liquid fuels will remain cheap and abundant through 2030 and beyond. I suspect that most of the nation's transportation planners share this assumption and that therefore most of the country's transportation plans embrace it.

Below are comments I presented before my local transportation planning agency concerning its 2030 plan. I hope these comments will provide some ideas for those who want to comment on plans in their own locales. My planning agency goes by the rather strange name of Kalamazoo Area Transportation Study though a web search reveals that several agencies use this format for their names, for example, Chicago Area Transportation Study. Many also use the generic term for such agencies, metropolitan planning organization, tacked onto the name of the area covered by the plan, for example, Metropolitan Planning Organization for the Miami Urbanized Area. For a list of such agencies, check the Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations website.

These planning organizations meet frequently and provide many opportunities for citizen input. Some jurisdictions may be beyond the comment period for their long-range plans; but, transportation planners are essentially planning all the time, so virtually any time would be appropriate to bring energy issues to their attention.

Below are the comments which I read before the Kalamazoo Area Transportation Study or KATS on March 29:

Good evening. My name is Kurt Cobb and I live in the city of Kalamazoo. I am neither a scientist nor an engineer. Rather, I am concerned citizen who also happens to write frequently about energy and environmental issues.

Transportation planners (like many of the rest of us) desperately want to know the one thing which they cannot know: the future. I understand that KATS is obliged by law to look out decades into the future and attempt to anticipate the transportation needs of this county. And, I understand that this plan will evolve over time as the future unfolds. I also understand that the planning process is necessary and useful for soliciting public input. None of us would be here today if we did not have something to comment on.

That said, history teaches us that the future is the domain of unexpected events and discredited predictions. In our technologically driven society, a forecaster predicting the outlines of our world 20 or even 10 years from now would, for example, have to know about all the inventions of the coming decade or two and their effect on society. This, of course, would mean that the forecaster would be very close to inventing all those inventions right now which means he or she would really be talking about the present and not the future.

Still, there are some things, such as our sprawling transportation infrastructure, which cannot be planned on a napkin the night before construction begins and so we must try to guess at a future whose outlines are beyond knowing with any specificity.

My aim this evening is not to comment on the details of the 2030 transportation plan, but rather to question one of its tacit and yet critical assumptions, namely, that liquid fuels will remain abundant and cheap through the year 2030. There are many reasons to believe that we cannot count on cheap, abundant liquid fuels in the decades to come. I will get to those in a moment.

First, let me say something about the asymmetry of the risks we face in transportation planning for this county or really for any place that relies on motorized transport. If the most optimistic predictions about the availability of liquid fuels in 2030 are realized, it is possible that this plan will not provide enough new roads to handle all of the traffic that will result. So, the risks are that the roads in Kalamazoo County would end up choked with cars and trucks for some time until additional roads could be built. However, if the most pessimistic predictions about the availability of liquid fuels are realized, we will be living in a completely different world. Instead of clogged highways and roads, we will find empty expanses of crumbling asphalt that may have limited use as bike paths or walkways, but which will have turned out to be a mammoth waste of resources in an energy-constrained world. The age of the private automobile will be over.

No one knows which of these two outcomes will occur or whether something in-between will result. But, it is clear by comparing the two most extreme scenarios that the risks we face are wildly asymmetrical, that is, one scenario would reveal the plan we have before us as a colossal planning failure while the other would demonstrate that it was somewhat inadequate, but not necessarily incorrect in its general direction.

This is why I would advocate that future plans incorporate an explicit energy supply forecast with lower and upper bounds. (Price is less relevant than supply since price merely rations supply and fluctuates based on immediate demand.) If this is done, the plan will in all likelihood have to include various plans based on various scenarios for energy availability. In this way, policymakers could determine the most prudent course based a range of outcomes rather than trying to do something which none of us can do: Predict the future precisely.

Now, let me say a few words about a why I believe we may not be able to count on cheap, abundant liquid fuels. I say liquid fuels because nearly all transportation worldwide runs on liquid fuels. There is a tiny, but increasing portion that runs on electricity and this type of energy may offer a path for replacing at least part of the liquid fuel I expect us to lose in the next couple of decades.

First, we must understand that 86 percent of the world's primary energy supply comes from fossil fuels: coal, natural gas and oil. (I say primary energy supply because electricity, for example, is an energy carrier and thus classed as a secondary energy supply and not an energy source.) Fossil fuels are made from organic material, much of it deposited hundreds of millions of years ago in seabeds and on land. They are continuously being made in the Earth's crust, but at rates that are so slow that this replenishment has no significance for humans living now or any time in the next several million years. In other words, fossil fuels are for all practical purposes finite.

What this means is that for all fossil fuel resources the world will reach a peak in the rate of production followed by an irreversible decline. No amount of effort, no price, no new technology will work to stop the decline although these things may help to moderate it. Surprisingly, this peak will occur even as huge reserves still lie in the ground. But it is the rate at which we can get them out of the ground that is crucial, for everything in society today depends on our ability to support economic growth by continuously increasing the rate of production of our primary energy sources, especially fossil fuels.

As it turns out, natural gas in North America appears to have peaked already at about 27 trillion cubic feet per year, running along a production plateau since about 1998. This is despite very high prices and unprecedented drilling efforts. And, a moratorium on development of the world's largest natural gas field in Qatar containing 14 percent of the world's reserves has called into question whether the growth in liquefied natural gas supplies will be sufficient to satisfy both North American and Asian demand growth. The idea that natural gas turned into liquid fuels will provide a significant substitute for declining fuels derived from petroleum should be regarded with considerable skepticism.

As for oil, peak projections range from 2005, meaning, of course, that it's already happened, to 2037, an estimate provided by the U. S. Energy Information Administration and the one most often cited by the optimists. But the EIA estimate should be taken with a grain of salt. This is the same agency that missed the peak in American domestic oil production in 1970 and predicted growing supplies of natural gas throughout this decade. No matter what date you believe world peak oil production will occur--and there is going to be a peak and then a decline at some point--perhaps more important than any exacting prognostication as to the time of the peak is an evaluation of what it would take to make up our deficit in liquid fuels after the peak.

It turns out that the U. S. Department of Energy has already undertaken such a study, and it makes for sobering reading. Commonly referred to as the Hirsch Report after its principal author, Robert Hirsch, the report concludes the following: It will take a crash program to develop alternative fuels and implement conservation measures starting 20 years in advance of the peak to avoid significant societal and economic disruptions resulting from a shortfall in liquid fuel volumes. This is regardless of when the peak occurs. So, even if the optimists are right, we have little time left to start making the transition, and, of course, changing our transportation system to accommodate these new realities.

Let me cover briefly various panaceas that are currently being offered. First, there are known methods for turning coal into liquid fuels, and we are said to have a 250-year supply of coal in the United States. These methods are very carbon intensive and therefore have implications for global warming. But I'm not going to address that issue here, though I believe any intelligent energy supply forecast will have to take into account the near certainty of carbon emission limits. But setting aside the global warming implications, is there really that much coal left? A new independent study produced by the German-based Energy Working Group tells us, for instance, that Chinese coal reserve data hasn't been updated since 1992 even though 20 percent of those reserves have presumably been produced. This is no small matter since China is supposed to have one of the largest coal reserves in the world. There are similar anomalies all over the globe including the curious fact that while annual coal tonnage in the U. S. continues to climb, the total energy content of that coal has been declining since 1998.

Second, biofuels are often touted as a replacement for gasoline and diesel. Even if all the corn grown in the United States were converted to ethanol, it would supply only 7 percent of our liquid fuel needs. Only if all the arable land in North America were put under oilseed cultivation could we fuel the North American vehicle fleet with the much vaunted biodiesel. In other words, we could drive, but we couldn't eat. (Here I'm assuming, of course, that the entire fleet has been converted to diesel.) But, there are serious questions about whether both of these biofuels are actually energy losers, that is, they require more energy to produce than they return which would make them a drain on our current fossil fuel resources.

Third, the words "hydrogen economy" are now frequently heard from the lips of politicians and policymakers. Alas, hydrogen is not an energy source. There are no hydrogen mines. There are currently two ways to make hydrogen: strip it from natural gas which is already in short supply or make it through the electrolysis of water. And, that means, of course, that you need another energy source to make the electricity which in turn means that hydrogen is an energy loser. In addition, there are huge problems with storage and transport. But, beyond this is something that may have escaped your notice. All the talk earlier this decade about hydrogen cars has quieted down considerably as major carmakers have either drastically scaled back their research or abandoned it altogether. The major reason: the technological hurdles are much larger than anyone had assumed.

This leaves us for the moment with electricity. I believe we must begin a serious effort to electrify our transportation system and save what dwindling liquid fuels we will have for only three purposes: emergency vehicles, rural transport and farm machinery.

While hybrid cars are a start and plug-in hybrids may become commonplace within the next several years, I believe we will need to go far beyond the private automobile. After all, half of the energy that a car will ever use has already been used by the first time you take it for drive. In an energy-constrained world, it seems doubtful that we will be able to provide private automobile transportation to the masses, even if it is electrically powered. We will instead need to electrify our public transportation system and vastly expand it. We desperately need to expand greatly our intercity passenger rail service and add to our freight rail service while electrifying both. We need to bring more electrified rapid transit to our cities similar to the SkyTrain system found in Vancouver.

The electricity we will need will have to come from wind and solar, and possibly some nuclear, if we are to avoid the catastrophic consequences of global warming. Fortunately for us, Lake Michigan is one of the greatest wind resources in the world and large, state-of-the-art wind turbines placed inland from the lake and near major electrical infrastructure have the potential to power much of the Midwest.

If we move forward with the electrification of transportation, and it later turns out that liquid fuels are in ample supply, I think there will be many advantages and few disadvantages to having done so. On the other hand, if we are passing into the post-petroleum age, we will be obliged, in my view, to replace the notion of consumer preference--which is clearly an artifact of the oil age--with the notion of societal necessity.

This is only a cursory look at the problem of liquid fuel supplies and one possible solution, the electrification of transport. But, I hope it will stimulate the curiosity of the people who plan our transportation system to examine energy issues more closely as they proceed with their very important work.

Thank you.

Economists are from Mediocristan

Mediocristan is a mythical land inhabited by economists (and other social scientists) who believe that the world's events fit neatly beneath a bell curve of outcomes. Economists live in this land not because they are mediocre--in fact, they are decidedly less than mediocre in their prognostications--but because they accept one very crucial idea. They believe that extreme outcomes such as market crashes and other major discontinuities in our economic life are so rare that we can all but ignore them.

Mediocristan is an invention of the mind of Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a hedge fund manager and self-styled philosopher of uncertainty. His most recent book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, provides an entertaining and thoroughly readable critique of how most of us have been taught to think about risk.

Taleb doesn't address oil depletion, global warming or other resource or environmental issues directly. But much of what he says turns out to be useful for those trying to assess risks in such areas.

Economists often like to insist that risk can be easily quantified and that future economic scenarios will be played out within the bounds dictated by models. But risk cannot be easily quantified except in cases where the possible outcomes are already known. An example would be a game involving dice. There are only six possibilities on each die so the range of outcomes (assuming perfect dice) is already known. As for economic models, they are usually backtested which means that they are tested using historical data. First, historical data, probabilistically speaking, represent only one possible outcome among many outcomes. Second, historical data are very unlikely to reflect the dynamics of world peak oil production or global warming since peak by definition happens only once and the effect of global warming on the economy is a wildcard for the future.

The admission that economists are from Mediocristan is sometimes made explicit. This piece lays out many of the arguments frequently used by economists when discussing world peak oil production. But rather than focus here on the counterarguments, let me call your attention to the following sentence in that piece: "Remember that barring any unforeseen tragedy or deliberate measure to limit the supply of oil, the supply will not drop suddenly, meaning that the price will not rise suddenly."

It is precisely this type of risk that peak oil theorists are pointing to, risks of an extreme outcome that could be very disruptive to modern society. The sentence quoted above explains in part why economists and those concerned about peak oil often talk past one another. Economists start by discarding extreme outcomes. Those concerned about the possible severe consequences resulting from peak oil focus on extreme outcomes.

So then, who's right? The rather unfortunate answer is that both are right if you stay within the confines of their assumptions. So you need to figure out which assumptions better reflect the world we live in. The economists are assuming that no unforeseen, disruptive event will occur that causes a dramatic and relatively sudden fall in oil supplies. (They are also assuming rather better knowledge than we actually have about oil reserves.) Those concerned about peak oil think we should look for clues foreshadowing such a disruptive shortfall and take out some insurance in the form of concerted action on conservation and the development of alternative fuels. In other words, most of those pounding the table about peak oil do not believe that the marketplace will solve the problem.

Using Taleb's words, the arrival of peak oil in the near future could be considered a "black swan." The black swan is a metaphor for a rare and unforeseen event that has an extreme impact. Of course, a fair number of people now believe peak oil is imminent. But the vast majority of the world's population knows nothing about peak oil or believes that it is something for the distant future. And, it is expectations among the populace at large that make the impact of such an event extreme (since very few people are, by definition, prepared for it).

Taleb has admitted to making a bet on peak oil, but not one that most people would expect. In keeping with his principle that we cannot really know the future, but that we can expect people to underestimate the number and impact of extreme events, he has bet on two extreme outcomes: very cheap oil and very expensive oil within the next few years. (He does this using the options market, and his record shows that he does not have to be right about any one bet very often to do well financially.)

By doing so, he at least demonstrates a principle that lies behind the thinking of peak oil believers, namely, that it's worth taking out insurance against seemingly unlikely events if their impact could be very severe. And, that places peak oil believers in the other mythical world which Taleb calls Extremistan. In that world unforeseen, extreme, but still rare events happen more often than anyone can calculate. Their consequences are so large that they alter considerably the previously assumed average results for such events.

In the world of easy-to-tally physical measurements such as height and weight, the chance of extreme outcomes that can alter the average is quite small, Taleb explains. We are very unlikely to find a human being who is 100 feet tall or who weighs 10,000 pounds. This is the proper place for using techniques from Mediocristan. But in the world of social and economic affairs where so many factors are unknown and the dynamics of the system are so unruly, exceptional and unexpected events are the ones we should be thinking about because they are the ones that change the course of history. (Oil depletion must be classed within this realm since economic trends, political decisions and technological change as well as geological constraints are all important factors in analyzing it.)

Taleb adds that, by definition, no one can forecast a "black swan" event. Its very nature is that it is unexpected. But he believes we can acknowledge the existence of such events and try to mitigate the damage of "bad" black swans while exposing ourselves to "good" black swans. In the case of oil depletion, a good black swan might be an invention that makes an electrically powered transportation system very easy to deploy and run.

Taleb tells us that financial models based on the bell curve would have predicted that a stock market drop similar to the 1987 crash would occur once every several billion lifetimes of the universe. And, it is from people relying on such models, who believe in the magic of the marketplace (under ideal bell-curve conditions with no "unforeseen tragedies"!), that we now get confident pronouncements that peak oil is nothing to worry about, even if it's here.

Somehow, I don't take any comfort in that.

Peak oil forecasts and asymmetrical risk

It's fun to predict what life will be like 30 or even 50 years from now. There's a steady market for it, both for the optimistic version--designed mostly to make people feel good (or less bad) about destructive behaviors--and the apocalyptic version--designed primarily to bring converts into certain religions and social movements. Until the day approaches, the forecaster doesn't have to account for his or her prediction. Sometimes the forecaster is dead when the date arrives, and no one remembers what he or she said. Or if the forecast is vague enough, it is reinterpreted to explain what is happening, and any followers then feel vindicated.

Oracular pronouncements have become a staple in discussions of peak oil, global warming and other environmental issues. The problem with any forecast, however, is that its accuracy degrades rather quickly the further one projects into the future. This is because our society is characterized by rapid technological change and contained, like all societies, within a complex natural system. It would have been pretty easy to forecast the basic conditions for human beings starting 100,000 years ago for the 5,000 years that followed. People would be living in small groups of hunter-gatherers at the beginning of this period and at the end. But, things were much simpler back then, and nobody really needed a forecaster.

Any long-term forecast today, however, requires that someone predicting the next, say, 20 or even 10 years, would have to know in advance about every major invention. And, if a forecaster already knew this, he or she would be very close to inventing those inventions. The inventions then would not be something for the future, but really for the present. (I am indebted to Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, for this obvious--once you hear it--insight. It doesn't, however, seem to be obvious to people who call themselves futurists.)

Those concerned with natural systems run into an additional problem. Predicting the trajectory of complex natural systems and their reactions to technological and social change is also exceedingly difficult.

But, forget about the future for a moment. Contemplate how difficult it is to figure out what is going on in the present with our very limited understanding of both the social and natural systems that surround us. So, does this mean that it is hopeless to even think about the future? The short answer is "no." My attempt at a long answer is as follows.

First, humans seem uniquely designed for thinking about events which haven't yet happened. They can imagine how they would react to such events or plan some future course of action that they believe will create their desired outcome. However, as anybody who has lived long enough already knows, nothing ever goes according to plan. Even so, planning can prepare us for contingencies that would otherwise confound us in the heat of action.

Second, even though the precise outlines of the future cannot be ascertained, we can imagine several scenarios within which the future is likely to unfold. While examining various scenarios gives us no precise estimates of risk, at least it gives an indication about the character of those risks. Are the upsides and downsides of the scenarios consequential? In other words, will they affect society much either way? If they are consequential, is the advantage or harm implied by favorable and unfavorable outcomes of equal magnitude? Or is one outcome disproportionately good or bad?

A simple way to explain this is as follows. If I risk getting a hangnail in pursuing a course of action, I will act differently than if I risk getting my arm cut off. It is just such an analysis of risk that deserves consideration in the peak oil debate and in other important debates such as how to respond to global warming.

Here's what such an analysis might look like with regard to peak oil. Let's say the range of predictions about how much oil will be flowing worldwide in 2025 goes from 50 percent less than is being pumped today to 50 percent more. Since oil is not an intellectual product, but rather a physical one that requires considerable work to find, pump, and refine, it is probably safe to assume that we will not be pumping 1,000 percent more than today. Nor is it likely--given what we can ascertain about reserves in the ground today--that we will be producing anything approaching 100 percent less or, in other words, nothing. (Naturally, one could concoct extremely unlikely scenarios in which, for example, aliens teach us how to turn seawater into conventional oil at 3 cents a gallon or conversely, a plague wipes out all human beings who then, of course, cease to pump any oil.)

Within these bounds of 50 percent less and 50 percent more, we can imagine what the consequences might be. A world with 50 percent more oil will probably look like an extension of today's world with a lot more Chinese and Indians driving cars. (I'm not considering global warming as an issue in this example.) A world with 50 percent less oil will certainly be experiencing extreme difficulties. Unless suitable and inexpensive substitutes for petroleum-derived fuels have become widely available, the price of such fuels will be considerably higher. The costs associated with products such as plastics made from oil-derived feedstocks may become prohibitive for many users. Our complex transportation and agricultural systems which are dependent on cheap liquid fuels and oil-based chemicals such as herbicides will be in considerable distress. They may provide neither the level of transportation for goods and people to which we have become accustomed, nor the necessary quantities of food to feed those people.

Clearly, the downside of the pessimistic forecast cannot be equated with the hangnail mentioned above. It must be classed with the amputation.

Those who pooh-pooh such a comparison are likely to call the pessimistic forecast a scare tactic. But remember, no one can possibly know with any precision what worldwide oil output will be in 2025, and no one can confidently ascertain whether technological changes will substantially mitigate--through efficiencies and substitutions--any reduction in oil supplies. In fact, there are sound reasons to doubt that such mitigation will be possible on such a short time scale, even if we ignore the problem of carbon emissions. (A report commissioned by the U. S. Department of Energy, now commonly referred to as the Hirsch report, is probably the most definitive attempt to look at near-term mitigation. It casts doubt on whether we will make sufficient strides at mitigation even if peak oil doesn't occur until the dates offered by the most optimistic scenarios.)

The scenarios we use to peer into the future don't have to be precise in order for us to glean a considerable amount of information from them by contemplating the consequences of each. If the downside of the pessimistic forecast could readily be dismissed as minor, then we could probably (but not with complete certainty) set aside our anxieties.

But such is not the case. The downside of a large reduction in oil supplies is so monumental that it could cripple modern, technological civilization and even initiate a cascade of failures that lead to a long-term downward spiral. In short, the risks posed by pessimistic and optimist scenarios in the peak oil debate are wildly asymmetrical. The downside consequences are possibly civilization-wrecking, while the benefits of the upside can be broadly characterized as nothing more than allowing business as usual to proceed. It's no wonder that optimistic scenarios are popular among such deeply entrenched business interests as the fossil fuel, automotive and utility industries. They would all be hurt by a rapid transition to a sustainable transportation system and a sustainable energy economy.

It is worth asking the oil optimists why they buy insurance for their homes and cars to protect them in case of catastrophe, but refuse to support taking out insurance for society as whole in the form of investing in a sustainable economy. The optimists may complain that we have much more time to make the transition than the pessimists say and that a rapid transition would be unnecessarily costly for society. If this is their argument, then it amounts to nothing more than saying that the main danger we face is creating a sustainable society before we actually have to--a process that will end up hurting some business interests while benefitting others.

For my own part, I can live with that risk!

James Lovelock's strange bedfellows

Scientist James Lovelock stunned the scientific community last year with his assertion that it is too late to do anything about global warming. Even if we have not yet reached the tipping point, he said, the vast momentum of industrial society will soon carry us crashing through it and dash any hope of arresting a deadly planetary heat wave that will wreck civilization as we know it. Lovelock detailed his assessment in a new book entitled The Revenge of Gaia: Earth's Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity.

Lovelock is no ordinary researcher. He is a world renown independent scientist and inventor. One of his inventions helped to uncover the role of chlorofluorocarbons in the destruction of the ozone layer. He is probably most famous for his thesis that the Earth is a living organism that regulates its temperature and conditions to make the biosphere amenable to life. He explained his theory in a book published almost 30 years ago entitled Gaia: A New Look at Life On Earth.

At the other end of the spectrum of the global warming debate are the so-called climate change skeptics. They have been known to employ something akin to a modified dog-bite defense. In a classic joke a man whose dog has bitten a passerby defends himself in court by saying: "My dog doesn't bite, it wasn't my dog, and furthermore, I don't have a dog." And, so it is with the so-called climate skeptics. They claim variously that global warming is good for you or at least not so bad that we need to do anything about it; that global warming is not caused by human activity; and that furthermore, there's no global warming.

Most of the skeptics, which comprise a small and dwindling group of scientists and a much larger contingent of professional propagandists, have strong financial ties to the fossil fuel industry. Their intent is not to enlighten, but to confuse and thereby delay any action that could inflict financial pain on their benefactors. But with the evidence so overwhelming that a worldwide warming trend is underway, the skeptics have largely dropped the third part of their modified dog-bite defense. Instead, they've to begun to focus on the second part, namely, that global warming is not caused by human activity. It is here that they have unwittingly walked into a trap. And, it is here they now find themselves in the same camp as Lovelock.

Lovelock's essential point is that humans can no longer do anything about global warming. This is because we have reached or will shortly reach the point at which the Earth's processes will begin to greatly amplify and accelerate warming without any need for further inputs from us. This is often called runaway global warming. It is the point at which the Earth's climate switch has been flipped and after which there is no hope of going back to our former climate. And, it is the reason that climate scientists are calling for immediate action on deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions in hopes of avoiding flicking this planetary switch.

Lovelock, of course, thinks it's too late. Now, the only thing to do, he counsels, is to adapt. But ironically, the so-called skeptics' main argument has become essentially the same. Of course, they arrive at their conclusion through a different route: Humans aren't causing global warming, so they can't really do anything to stop it. But this is really only another way of saying that we may have entered runaway global warming. The causes cited include increased solar radiation and cyclical warming of the Earth unrelated to human activity. The skeptics cite the geologic record as proof that the Earth periodically undergoes such warmings, and that it's nothing to get excited about. Although the first part of this statement is true, it does not constitute proof that this warmup is natural. The second part of the statement, however, deserves special scrutiny. That's because, inconveniently, the geologic record is full of sudden, dramatic climate shifts, some occurring in as short a period as a decade.

With global warming on a dangerously accelerated schedule, Lovelock believes that governments and societies have no time to lose. They must begin planning now to secure energy and food supplies. They must brace themselves for early and dramatic rises in sea level. He also believes that basic knowledge must now be committed to long-lasting, durable books that won't deteriorate over time. The computer-driven, electricity-filled life we currently lead will not survive the massive dieoff that he predicts will leave only "a few breeding pairs" in the Arctic by the end of the century.

Since the skeptics and Lovelock are now basically in agreement that nothing can be done to stop global warming, why haven't the skeptics outlined a plan for adaptation (even emergency adaptation) as Lovelock has? Perhaps the skeptics are falling back on the first part of their modified dog-bite defense that global temperatures won't rise enough so that we need to do anything to adapt. But, this does not square with their almost constant assertions that there is a great deal of uncertainty about future temperature rises. While true, the uncertainty runs in both directions. Global temperature rises could just as easily turn out to be much higher by the end of the century than current estimates. But so heedless are the skeptics of their own contradictory thinking that in testimony before the U. S. Congress one bona fide climate scientist who styles himself a skeptic simply deleted the median and high temperature estimates from a study done by NASA's famed climate researcher, James Hansen.

The fact that the climate change contrarians 1) have no plan for adaptation to a warming climate; 2) ignore the obvious warnings of the geologic record they cite; 3) claim that the future of climate change is terribly uncertain and then claim to know it with certainty; and 4) deploy mutually contradictory arguments supports the widespread belief that they have a rather narrow agenda, namely, to defeat any attempts to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

But this still leaves them in the same camp as Lovelock (albeit by different reasoning), a position that cries out for a credible plan of adaptation based on the great uncertainties that the skeptics themselves admit surround the future of global warming. Just to be safe, however, I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for them to give me such a plan.

The Point of Despair

I recently gave a talk to a college audience on what I called the hidden role of energy in every environmental problem. As part of my presentation I went through a depressing list of environmental problems and showed their connection to our energy use. The next day I received a message from an audience member who clearly understood the implications of my talk, but who bemoaned my failure to provide practical solutions. He said I had left the students feeling hopeless.

This unfortunate result was partly a problem of scheduling. Most of the students attending needed to leave early to go to other presentations that evening on campus. Those who stayed did have some opportunity to discuss possible responses. I say "responses," because I don't believe our ecological predicament has any solutions by which people normally mean that we can solve our problems and then go back to business as usual. Instead, we are left with responses--responses which may prove valuable or worthless, but the results of which cannot be known in advance. In short, there are no guarantees that our responses will work. By "work" I mean allow us to maintain the semblance of a technically advanced human civilization.

It's no surprise that such a realization brings many people to the point of despair. Of course, if they remain there, they can accomplish nothing. But, let's not hurry forward. Let's dwell on that despair for a moment. Does it have a function? I think it does. It is at the point of despair that people can feel deep down their connection to all that has come before them and all that will come after. It is not just their personal futures that are at stake anymore. It is the whole project of human civilization, the art, the literature, the philosophy, the great works of architecture, the great institutions of learning and research, the huge store of human knowledge, and the ongoing experiment in self-government. It is also the future of the natural world, not just what it can provide for our sustenance, but also the beauty and diversity that result from its own purposes.

It is no wonder that such an understanding brings with it what seems like an unbearable burden. Indeed, for some people this is the very first time their personal ambitions shrink as their link to the social and natural world greatly expands. To feel that link strongly can be overwhelming. It brings with it a sense of responsibility, the size of which seems immense. The moment seems to say, "If I am linked to all of this, I am somehow responsible for it." But how can one lone person even make a dent in the immense challenges humankind faces?

The question certainly reflects a state of despair; but it is in this state that we can become aware of our connection to the greater world. Without that connection nothing important can be accomplished when it comes to sustainability. With it, in my view, genuine work can begin without hubris; with respect for the size of the task; with the realization that each person can only do a part of the job; and with a sense of solidarity with other humans and with the natural world.

So, how can a person who has been brought to the point of despair take the next step? For those who are late in life, it is often an easy step. I've puzzled over why the older a person is, the more likely her or she is to be concerned about peak oil, global warming and sustainability in general. I've discovered two reasons. First, age teaches us limits in ways that no words can. Second, those in the late stages of life think of their children and grandchildren, and they begin to act out of love.

As for young people, Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods, has a suggestion. He says that every generation likes to think that it will change the world. This generation has to change the world. Everything must change, he explains. That's the kind of invitation that an idealistic young person would find difficult to pass up. No matter what his or her interest--engineering, art, architecture, literature, sports, theater, music, community organizing, politics, agriculture, the building trades, computers--everything must be reworked for sustainability.

And still, on the path to sustainability, I do not think that despair is something to be avoided. Rather, I think the point of despair can become a point of departure for contemplating our deep connections to one another and to nature. When we have made some sense of those connections, then and only then, is it time to move on to action--action now informed by a new and more profound understanding.