[Sustain] [Transpo] Excellent Short Audio On The Biofuels Myth

[Dennis Brumm]

At 11:55 AM 4/5/2007, Eric Brooks wrote:
>I'm am so sick of the peak oil crowd using this ridiculous bogus
>argument that I am literally about to lose my cool over it.

Renewables certainly need to be promoted big time; in the circles I 
travel in, I can't remember anybody not wanting that (and that 
includes an awful lot of peak oil folks). That doesn't necessary fit 
in with the plans people in power who intend to profit off energy 
have, because some of these renewables could prove to be very 
empowering for the people who now are their energy serfs. But when 
renewables are used to promise that the way of life we live now is 
going to continue, I certainly don't think that's very likely.

We are embedded with a "progress is good" meme that needs to be 
highly reconsidered; or else (I believe) the definition of what is 
"progress" needs to be changed.

I also don't know how you will change the minds of so many Americans 
to embrace mass transit in a 25 year time frame without a genuinely 
huge consciousness shift (these shift may be able to happen, but in 
my lifespan I've not seen any of them, especially when they require a 
change in what we all love because of our evolution: convenience.

By the way, I'm glad to see the "peak oil crowd" seems to have a 
unified voice. Were that really true, at least with much of message, 
life would be a lot easier. :)

The way we are living and consuming now is a big lie; without 
lifestyle changes these arguments all become moot. Education needs to 
go way beyond the Al Gore message of "change a lightbulb, save the world."

The major oil field in Mexico is now in big decline (they're our 3rd 
largest supplier); the biggest field in Saudi Arabia is apparently 
starting the same process. The longer we wait to create renewable 
energy, not boondoggles for our convenience, the more these things 
will cost, along with everything else. It's already way beyond where 
it should have begun, if we operated outside of the delusional space 
of "the way we live now is normal."

AND REALLY IMPORTANTLY, We also will not continue to inhabit the 
planet in the numbers of people now here. I don't see anyway it is 
likely to support us in 6 or 9 billion numbers with organic or 
permaculture used as agriculture. This is the elephant in the room 
that nobody in a political sphere dare touch, but talk to ecologists 
or environmental biologists and read their science. Just lowering 
birthrates so that actual numbers still increase, albeit slowly, 
still impacts the planet with more degradation. We desperately need 
to encourage very very small families immediately.