George W. Bush and Peak Oil: Beyond Incompetence

by Richard Heinberg

(Note to readers: This month’s MuseLetter was written as a chapter to be published in a forthcoming book by Project Censored titled The Case for Impeachment of Bush and Cheney, Seven Stories Press, Summer 2006. For permission to republish this essay, please contact me at rheinberg@igc.org.)

While it would be difficult to create an airtight legal case for impeaching George W. Bush based on his ignoring the very real threat posed by Peak Oil, nevertheless I believe that his actions—and inaction—in this regard constitute dereliction of duty on an unprecedented scale.

It is part of the job of leaders to foresee problems and either steer around them or prepare for them. A head of state is analogous to the captain of a ship, who is responsible not only for keeping his vessel on course but also for avoiding hazards such as storms and icebergs. Some problems are not foreseeable; others are. A ship’s captain who loses his vessel to a freak “perfect storm” may be blameless, but one who steers his passenger liner directly into a foggy ice field, having no sonar or radar, is worse than a fool: he is criminally negligent.

The argument I will make, in brief, is this: Peak Oil is foreseeable. The consequences are also foreseeable and are likely to be ruinous. The Bush administration has been repeatedly warned. Actions could be taken to reduce the impact, but the longer those actions are delayed, the worse the impact will be. The administration, rather than taking steps to mitigate these looming catastrophic impacts, has instead done things that can only worsen them. <snip>

http://www.energybulletin.net/14102.html

This is important information.

The article fails to consider this administrations point of view.

Looked at in terms of decreasing the adverse effects of Peak Oil on our society as a whole, this Administration appears to be a total failure.

However, this administration is not concerned with our society as a whole. It is only concerned with the well-being of it's own members, namely, the ultra-rich who control big oil companies and extremely large contracting firms, like Haliburton.

To them, Peak Oil has huge profit making opportunities. When supplies peak and start dwindling, demand for the remaining supplies will skyrocket, even while costs of obtaining those supplies remain relatively flat. The difference is pure, sheer profit, to be raked in by whoever controls the oil.

Now, if you start taking steps to decrease oil dependance, you decrease that frantic demand in the last days of oil. People, instead of screaming to gas pumps with wads of cash, will instead start demanding and buying biofuel capable vehicles, and installing wind and solar home systems and more efficient lighting and appliances, to decrease natural gas and coal powered bills. Whoosh! Away go those happy profits the fat cats are dreaming of.

So, instead, they get on the bandwagon for drilling ANWAR. They kill domestic alternative energy programs. They promote alternative fuel car designs from an industry that never brings them into production. They fail to change laws which, due to loopholes, make large gas guzzling SUVs more affordable than they have any right to be. The end result is that we are burning fossil fuels faster than we ever have before.

We are nearing the edge of a cliff, and they are mashing the gas pedal to the floor.

When we fly off that cliff, they will bail on golden parachutes. We crash to the ground.

And THEN, bouyed and cushioned by cash, they, as the captains of industry, will introduce "new" technologies to keep society trickling along, but at a price that will keep them at the top of the heap.

That is our future, unless we can find a way to do an end-around, and get a green revolution going despite their best efforts to block it.