You don't get elected president, or dogcatcher, in America by suggesting that citizens change their profligate lifestyles. America is all about excess and consumption, forever and ever. The pleasant fantasy that keeps us going is that by the time the oil runs out we will have made a smooth transition to "alternative energy" sources. And everything else will remain exactly as it is. Each house will still have two or more cars (fueled by Dumpster scum or sunflower seeds), all our myriad machines will still run on electricity, things we no longer want (after being used for minutes, days or weeks) can be dumped in the landfill or "recycled," and the climate will go back to being "normal."
Conventional wisdom says it is political suicide to tell voters the truth—that is, that everything in the above paragraph is a delusion. However, as Orwell said, "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they don't want to hear." And to keep what is not pleasant to hear, but truthful, from people is suicide of a different sort.
Obama and Biden, McCain and his running mate have yet to address the substantive issues facing the nation down the road environmentally and economically. The truth is that we are collectively walking headlong into a hurricane while pretending to be out for a stroll in the park. If the next financial quarter shows an uptick, the nation's designated "experts" will declare that it's back to "business as usual."
What got me thinking this way was my oil bill. After I finally paid off last winter's bill, Standard Oil sent one of its trucks around to fill the tank at my house. The bill was $700—for less than a full tank of heating oil. This is double what it was last winter. Double. In one year. I will pay it, of course, but what will I end up not paying for in order to pay for it? And what will everyone else stop paying for?
The truth is, we are headed for disaster when the weather gets cold. People will heat their homes with electric stoves and space heaters to cut down on fuel oil. The impact on the electric grid will be catastrophic, potentially causing brownouts in the middle of blizzards.
Whether or not we as individuals are confronting this new reality, towns and cities across New England are being forced to do so, holding special meetings to create contingency plans, taking "free oil" from Hugo Chavez in Venezuela (15 cold-weather states participate in this program, including all of New England), stocking the shelves of food banks and shelters (which are more bare this year than normal). These are all, of course, good things to do. But collectively they are like bringing a garden hose to a forest fire.
If the politicians won't talk about it, the "private sector" will. For example, Noble Environmental Systems, based in Essex, Conn., is one of the major players in wind power development, spackling upstate New York with hundreds of skyscraping turbines. Noble's senior management is filled with former General Electric and JPMorgan execs, its advisor is Goldman, Sachs, and its Web page features a quote from George W. Bush. Not exactly stuff that instills great confidence. Indeed, last month, Andrew Cuomo, New York's attorney general, subpoenaed Noble for documents as charges of corruption are being probed in the rural communities where Noble wind turbines are rising faster than Golden Arches.
And then there's T. Boone Pickens, the billionaire hedge funder and financier of the Bush family. He's proclaimed that "we can't drill our way out of this," and is now wind, hydro and solar power's best friend. He's buying up land and putting up wind turbines like there's no tomorrow. Meanwhile, he is, Huffington Post reports, "selling water he doesn't own." His scam is so audacious that it could only happen in Texas or Hollywood (check out http://patgray.com/home/?p=2147 for the details). Daniel Day-Pickens drinks our milkshake indeed."
