AN ECONOMIC BIG PICTURE OF PEAK OIL
THE ENVIRONMENT AND THE ECONOMY-
NO SEPARATION IS SAFE
Realizing this
truth that our existence as a society is based on gathering energy from our
environment drives the point home that the environment is not an afterthought
or just another issue on the side. The environment is central to our economy
security and very survival. That is why it is a grave and backwards mistake in
priorities to make environmental / ecological economics into a marginal subset
of the academic discipline of economics to be pushed aside from the
significance it deserves. The environment in fact is our economy and it has
been since the dawn of time. Until relatively recently in human existence
environmental economics was in fact the only form of economics.
The financial
meltdowns marked by the year 2008 have been disturbing and unsettling to many
hopes and dreams. But the environmental peak oil and natural resource crisis is
much more terrifying on an existential level. If taken to its logical conclusion
ecological overshoot with a collapse in energy supply is threatening to the
most basic safety net to our existence. If the stock markets have fallen and
much of the credit is frozen what has really changed in a physical sense? Many
of us may have less monetary capital due to financial upheavals, yet the
amounts of natural resources we have are still physically present regardless. Since
the financial crisis began it has sucked money supply into an economic black
hole and has put on hold many opportunities for great social progress along
with it. But if an environmental peak oil and natural resource crisis reaches a
full blown scenario we would lose the entire underlying basis of the economy
itself and the means of our very survival. There are many economic resources
for us to utilize now which the tentacles of the financial crisis can not take
away from us: our skills, our knowledge and productive capacity. These are the
forms of capital we will utilize to work together in ways to offset the worst
consequences of the twin crises of peak oil and global climate change. The
feared consequences of global climate change threatens to suck our ecological
capital into a black hole in the form of droughts, floods, crop losses, losses
in biodiversity, loss of ecological resilience, rising seas onto major coastal
cities, poverty, starvation, resource wars and so on to the point where it is
useless to try to put a dollar value on the total costs. And to put it bluntly
we only have a narrowing window of time for the needed preventative measures.
Even in a lousy economy we absolutely need to do a new Apollo Energy project,
as it will provide countless jobs and economic stimulus. Most of all, it will
allow us to have a chance that our economy will not go from sluggish to
depressed in a “long emergency”.
THE MAGIC OF ENVIRONOMICAL
FUSION
The connection between the environment and the economy
highlights how dangerously wrongheaded it is to frame administrative
infrastructure for environmental protection as if it were some luxury we can
not afford in this time of fiscal austerity.
For this
purpose there is no idea more magical than the fusion of the environment and
the economy. There is nothing more relieving than breaking out of the false
dichotomy of jobs vs. spotted owls. The perception that environmental concerns
and economic development are separate or mutually exclusive issues is a big
wedge that threatens to divide the very blue-green alliance coalition we see
emerging.
This is seen in the
Republican excitement in late 2011 over forcing President Obama to make a
yea- or nay decision on permitting the Keystone XL pipeline- to box him into “a
damned if he does damned if he doesn’t” environment vs. labor false
dichotomy.
We have an economic crisis to the same deeply embedded extent
that we have an environmental crisis and therein lay the complication. The
financial-economic crisis and the ecological crisis when combined present a
mutually reinforcing double threat on an unprecedented global scale. That is why
instead of a divisive choice between addressing either economic or
environmental crises, we can resolve both of them together “environomically”.
With the magic of the green-collar economy we have the means to do well by
doing good and make room for a general solution to resolve both crises at once.
It is inspiring to hear green jobs advocates to paint a picture of a green gold
rush that we will all profit from in order to channel the magic from the fusion
between environment and economy. This is an inspiration that we could all
welcome to whether through our times and to direct a key level understanding.
Here are some
encouraging findings to back up this point.
For every million dollars invested across a
range of clean energy projects, including renewable energy, transit, and energy
efficiency an average of 16.7 green jobs are created. NOTE 1
That is over three times more favorable
than spending the same amount on fossil-fuel industries where an average of
only 5.3 jobs per million dollars is created
(NOTE 2 )
The median salaries for the green job
sector are $46,343 or $7,727 more than the median wages of the overall economy. Nearly
half of these green jobs are employable for workers with a less than a
four-year college degree.
The
clean energy sector of the overall economy has been growing at an average rate of
8.3 percent annually; nearly double that the growth rate of the
overall economy from 2003 to 2010. Solar thermal energy has had an
especially successful expansion of 18.4% annually.
(NOTE 3)
The overall understanding
to be built is that the best ways to fix the planetary emergency are also the
best fixes for the economic meltdown. Nowhere does this become clearer than
with an understanding of peak oil. We see falling wages, job insecurity,
growing inequality, decaying infrastructure, a tattered social safety net, a
stagnated standard of living etc. In a bold statement, the same green policies
that address the long-term environmental crises are the same economic medicine
for the short-term crises. The true political wedge issue is not between the
jobs and the environment but between a long-term consideration and short-term
emphasis. Ecology is long-term in its values while the economy has a “we have
got to compete to stay afloat” type of short-term urgency. Yet it turns out
that there are short-term competitive reasons to “go green” as well. The magic
of environomical fusion is speaks loudest when going green is not just the
realm of generous altruism or visionary idealism but speaks to pure
self-interest as well.
Linking the mitigation of environmental
concerns to the resolving of economic concerns in a New Apollo project/ Sustainability
Transition fills the void for the desperately needed initiative 1: to unite us
all into a common mission on a macro scale and 2: to revive local communities
on a micro scale. When the truth about peak oil is factored in, a New Apollo Project/
Sustainable Transition is the only genuine way for competitiveness to last into
the future and as a bonus it provides the ideal mission to unite our
communities around.
If the citizens
who are already concerned specifically about peak oil see that the community
around them is building a new sustainable foundation for our society then it be
relieving to so many of their greatest of the worries. The greatest worry is
the one that our window of opportunity to save what is best about our
civilization will be missed. The critical point to pry open the window of
opportunity is to channel the economic crisis in a way that kick-starts rather
than derails green stimulus plans around the world.
REALIZING THE ACHILLES HEEL
OF THE ECONOMY
No conversation
about the economy can be intellectually honest unless oil dependency is
addressed. There is an abundance of evidence from history how petroleum
dependency is the Achilles heel of the entire economy starting with the price
spikes of the 1970’s. Because petroleum has sunken its hooks of dependency into
nearly every aspect of our lives, its dramatic rise in price has the potential
to send the entire economy into a tailspin of stagflation: A recession in
economic growth at the same time as runaway inflation; when prices keep going
up while job availability numbers keep going down. The economic meltdown
following the oil price spike in the summer of 2008 was a case in point.
Realization of the simple economic truth that
energy is the foundation of the economy goes a long way to granting peak oil
the laser-like focus of attention that it deserves. Since it takes energy to
make anything, the prices of everything go up when the price of the underlying energy
skyrockets. When consumers stop buying, employers hold back on making job
offers and fewer people gain earnings. If
people are discouraged from producing or selling goods due to depressed consumer
demand, then how would entrepreneurs be encouraged to invest, and how would
companies grow? If prices of key resources become the limiting factor to
economic “growth” then the answer to innovation is toward production of goods
that more labor intensive but less resource intensive than the typical
throwaway items. This is the start of the creative thinking behind the
multi-level solutions to our crises. The creative thinking put forth on
environmental economics is so mesmerizing; if only it was not such a struggle
to fend off dangerous economic ideas that threaten to keep us going in the
wrong direction. If only the dangerous economic ideas would not eclipse this
creative thinking then we could have an undiluted public demand for a
space-race type new energy Apollo Project that uses the profits of Exxon-Mobil
and the rest of the “greenhouse gangsters” to fund it.
NOTE 2 - By Christina C. DiPasquale, Kate Gordon
(Top 10
Reasons Why Green Jobs Are Vital to Our Economy Millions of Competitive Jobs Created and
Sustained “September 7, 2011 http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/09/top_ten_green_jobs.html
NOTE 3: (Sizing the
Clean Economy: A National and Regional Green Jobs Assessment) Report | July 13, 2011 http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2011/0713_clean_economy.aspx
