James Howard Kunstler had a fabulous post yesterday that exactly mirrors my feeling on our constant search for solutions. When I speak of "solutions" on PeakOilDesign, I am under no illusions that we will "solve" the problem of Peak Oil by innovating our way out of it. It's not a matter of fixing our society with infrastructure, but changing the way we structure our society.
When I speak of solutions, I'm referring to ways in which we can redesign our lifestyles to adapt to Peak Oil. The same mode of thinking goes for global warming, water shortages, bee extinction, or any other crisis of our environment.
JHK says it best. From the article:
[...] It only made me more nervous, because this longing for "solutions," strikes me as a free-floating wish for magical rescue remedies, for techno-fixes that will allow us to make a hassle-free switch from fossil hydrocarbon power to something less likely to destroy the Earth's ecosystems (and human civilization with it). And I think such a wish is, in itself, at the root of our problem -- certainly at the bottom of our incapacity to think clearly about these things. [...]
[...] In my travels, I have noticed a disturbing theme among the educated minority of eco-advocates: they are every bit as dedicated to the status quo (in their own way) as the NASCAR morons and shopping mall developers. The eco-advocates want cars, too, and all the prerogatives (like free parking and country living) that go with them, just like the WalMart shoppers. If this were not so, then why do the eco-advocates cream in their jeans whenever somebody presents a snazzy new vehicle that runs on a fuel other than gasoline? Indeed, why are some of the eco-friendly pouring all their efforts into the invention of such things instead of into walkable communities and the reform of our stupid land-use laws? [...]
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We don't need no water let
"We don't need no water let that mo*er burn. Burn mo*er, burn."
If I knew how to sustain this infrastructure, I'm not sure I would tell, and my name's truthulist. Even if I liked this infrastructure, there's nothing the average citizen can do except hope that we hit the free-energy device lottery. Instead I choose to help society get a job with a guaranteed income, by starting to use the already existing low-crude-oil lifestyles.
Average citizens apparently do wish upon a star
Yesterday, while I was walking on the sidewalk, a driverby asked for directions to the DMV, next to which I was going, so I rode with them, and they mentioned how expensive gas is getting, and I said it would only get worse, and they said, "Yep. But have you heard about zero point energy. They'll figure that out." No thanks, I don't gamble.
Phew...that's some wishful thinking
Speaking as a physicist, zero point energy is not an energy source. In fact, as the wikipedia article accurately notes, the very notion of extracting usable zero point energy from vacuum (or anything) is flawed.
Incidentally, the related Casimir effect is proposed to be the only force capable of preventing a black hole from collapsing. If you were to insert two giant metal plates into a collapsing singularity, the theory goes, the Casimir effect would force them apart and keep the black hole open -- and then who knows what would result. The more avant garde astrophysicists propose that it could create a "wormhole" -- but not quite in the sense you see it in shows like Stargate or Star Trek.
Similar sentiment
Sharon Astyk blogged about JHK's article at her site the other day. She shares many of the same sentiments as I (and many reading here) do.