Rhinocrisy

Worthwhile guest editorial on Juan Cole’s bleg. Check out THIS load of cynicism:

It seems to me that even “pessimists” are actually “optimists”: they assume that there exists in Iraq and the Gulf some “solution”, some course of action which can actually lead to an outcome other than widespread, prolonged violence, with devastating economic, political, and social consequences.

I regret to say that I think this is wrong. There is no “solution” to this mess; it is sometimes not possible to “fix” things which have been broken.

And here you thought I was a cynic. Ha! It is to laugh!

ADDENDUM: Another great quote. Read this thing, I tell ya:

After all, no one, from either party, in the political arena is saying anything even remotely commensurate with the threat which most scientists see to the future of the planet. No one with any power is talking sensibly about energy use, global poverty, and their interrelationships. No one at all.

Some interesting happenings in the Oil department, further indicating that “peak oil” has come in out of the cold.

First, there’s a book out by Matthew Simmons, the head of an old and respected oil investment company, called “Twilight in the Desert”. Therein Simmons lays out the case that Saudi Arabia is, contrary to conventional wisdom, reaching the end of its tether, and its main supergiant fields will soon pass their peak of production. Though Saudi officials have vehemently denied the claims made, Simmons responds simply and powerfully: prove it. Provide some convincing documentary evidence for your reserve numbers; otherwise no one has any reason to believe you.

Second, a study was just performed by the National Commission on Energy Policy. They projected results from removing just 3.5 Mbd of production out of 83 Mbd global production. Some of their fearsome news:

• Gasoline prices of $5.74 per gallon
• Global oil price of $161 per barrel
• Heating oil prices of $5.14 per gallon
• Fall of gross domestic product for two consecutive quarters
• Drop in consumer confidence by 30 percent
• Spike in the consumer price index to 12.6 percent
• Ballooning of the current accounts deficit to $1.087 trillion
• Decline of 28 percent in the S&P 500
• Aggressive pressure on the U.S. from China to end arm sales to Taiwan
• Demands from Saudi Arabia for changes to U.S. policy regarding the Mid-East peace process

Fortunately, both of these were recently featured on On Point. You can take a brief half hour out of your life and edify yourself greatly. Despite On Point’s tag-line of “worst-case scenario”, Jason Grumet, the NCEP director, is careful to point out that their scenario is not a “Robert Ludlum” worst-case, but an eminently reasonable one drawn from the legitimate and rather unsurprising concerns of experts in the field - a bit of minor, low-tech terrorism here, some civil unrest there. As I say, 3.5 Mbd is not a huge production drop.

Also pay attention to Matthew Simmons’ final comments: “The most important provision in the energy bill is the most contentious provision, and that’s at the very least doing a scientific survey of our outer continental shelf to see what energy we might have. If the Senators are so haughty about that that they say ‘We won’t do that,’ then we should start today dismantling the U.S. economy.” I.e., when push comes to shove, the environment may have to take a back seat to vital energy considerations. (Meanwhile, Grumet says that before we do anything so rash as offshore drilling and exploration, we should be revising CAFE standards.)

Simmons also has some interesting things to say about what the decline side of an oil production curve looks like (and the influence of technological advance on it), and the real need to have a better understanding of it in this era of depletion.

Not content with making a building that looks like the headquarters for Team Depeche Mode, the planners behind the new World Trade Center-replacement continue to insist on calling the building the “Freedom Tower”.

Now, one must give them credit: they had the good sense to trash their previous design, which might have given unsuspecting tourists the mistaken impression that the city had suffered an abortive attack by some sort of giant robot, one of whose limbs (complete with trapezoidal metallic faux-biceps and pulverizing laser-cannon attachment) had been severed and left behind.

However, the new design really isn’t THAT much better, and it still features the pulverizing laser-cannon attachment, along with pulverizing laser. I was a fan of the short-lived ghostly light sculpture (”Tribute in Light”) put up a few years back to mark Ground Zero. This laser-cannon attachment, though, doesn’t pull it off nearly as well and just ends up looking hokey.

Hokey is, I have to conclude, what they’re going for; why else would they have dubbed it the “Freedom Tower”? My god, can you imagine the embarassment of its inhabitants describing their place of employment?

ROGER: I work in the Freedom Tower.

BELINDA: Oh, I’m sorry… hmmm… Freedom Tower! (Giggles.)

And moreover I fear the word “Freedom” is starting to suffer from that phenomenon of overuse, where you repeat a word so many times that it begins to feel rubbery and unfamiliar, as if part of your brain has become fatigued and refuses to acknowledge its meaning anymore. And the men who are fond of overapplying it so clearly misapprehend that meaning that I’m starting to despise the word itself. Its constant application is meant to reassure us of some great Value, no doubt, but as the word erodes I’m finding that the Value itself is becoming increasingly slippery, until, perhaps, I will cynically doubt whether it exists at all, whether it was ever anything other than the blubbery syllable floating off the lips of disgusting demagogues.