[lbo-talk] Output Falling in Oil-Rich Mexico, and Politics Get the Blame

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 3/13/07, Julio Huato <juliohuato at gmail.com> wrote:
> In the spirit of what you wrote before, regular working people in the
> U.S. (let alone activists) shouldn't limit themselves to just predict
> the evolution of oil consumption while assuming ourselves as chopped
> liver.  We're not.  Insofar as we take responsibility, we're *the*
> decisive factor in the future evolution of oil consumption in the
> country and, given the size of our economy, in the world.  We can make
> projections of the kind self-fulfilling, just as we can preempt them.
> We are consumers, producers, citizens, human beings -- capable of
> thought, communication, and concerted action.  As such we can turn
> things around.

Theoretically, yes, but fast enough, in time to prevent potentially
catastrophic consequences of climate change?  James Hansen says:

     [W]e have at most ten years -- *not ten years to decide

     upon action, but ten years to alter fundamentally the

     trajectory of global greenhouse emissions.* Our previous

     decade of inaction has made the task more difficult,

     since emissions in the developing world are accelerating.

     To achieve the alternative scenario will require prompt

     gains in energy efficiencies so that the supply of conventional

     fossil fuels can be sustained until advanced technologies

     can be developed. If instead we follow an energy-intensive

     path of squeezing liquid fuels from tar sands, shale oil, and

     heavy oil, and do so without capturing and sequestering

     CO2 emissions, climate disasters will become unavoidable.

     (Jim Hansen, "The Threat to the Planet," NYRB 53.12,

     13 July 2006,
<http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19131>)

We won't run out of oil, but we can very well run out of time to
prevent the worst climate disasters if Hansen is correct.  That is
especially the case since there is no Left to speak of in the USA, the
US working class are mostly politically inactive, and the US power
elite have not sense of urgency of action.  How do you propose to
change these political facts and begin to "alter fundamentally the
trajectory of global greenhouse emissions" in ten years?

-- 
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>