JOHN MICHAEL GREER

Some nineteen months ago, this blog launched what I thought would be a relatively straightforward survey of the role of myth, narrative and the nonrational in shaping the peak oil debate. After a flurry of unexpected detours into Seventies appropriate tech, the end of the Space Age, and the theory of magic, just for starters, that survey has finally reached as much closure as it's going to find. A glance back over the terrain just surveyed is in order, and a few loose ends need to be tied up, before proceeding to the next major theme I want to examine -- the twilight of America's empire and the implications of that massive geopolitical fact for the world.

The myth of the machine, the theme of last week's Archdruid Report post, has implications that go well beyond the usual terms of discussion in the peak oil scene. One of those implications, which I mentioned briefly last week, unfolds from the way that so many people who are concerned about peak oil fixate obsessively on the hope that some kind of machine will solve the problem.

The strategy discussed in last week's post--that of walking away from energy-intensive lifestyles before the waning of the age of abundant energy brings them grinding to a halt--is a viable response to the crisis of our age, but it's also a great way to poke a stick at some of the most deeply entrenched of the modern world's dysfunctional habits of thinking. Suggest it in public, for example, and you'll very quickly learn why all that talk about saving the planet has turned out to be empty air: everyone's quite willing to watch someone else make sacrifices for the good of the biosphere, but ask them to make sacrifices themselves and you'll see just how far their love of the planet extends.

Today's industrial societies preen themselves on their openness to change and the vast number of choices they provide to their inmates -- er, citizens. Why is it, then, that all those changes and choices inevitably amount to more of what we've already got -- which is not exactly working well any more? The Archdruid considers the options, and offers an unwelcome but necessary suggestion.

Our ability to imagine the future is shaped, and too often limited, by the habitual narratives of our culture. These days the two narratives about the future that have dominated our thinking for centuries--the narratives of progress and apocalypse--do a very poor job of relating to what's happening around us. There are more useful alternatives, some of them from a very unexpected source. Blowing the dust off an old paperback, the Archdruid explains.

At the beginning of every year, the peak oil blogosphere sees a flurry of predictions for the coming year. A surprisingly large number of these predictions are the same ones that were offered in previous years, and didn't happen. Is this simply a matter of impaired collective memory, or is something deeper involved? The Archdruid considers the question.

A great many of those who insist that we can afford to ignore the head-on collision between industrial civilization and the limits of a finite planet justify that claim by talking about hope. As millions of people turn their eyes heavenward, waiting for the end of the Mayan calendar or some other prophesied event to bail humanity out from the consequences of three centuries of our own mistakes, it's arguably time to ask whether everything that gets labeled "hope" deserves the name.

When peak oil comes up in conversation these days, some people insist that shale gas or algal biodiesel or some other technofix will take care of it (and so we don't have to do anything), while others insist that the world as we know it is about to end in a sudden unstoppable collapse (and so we don't have to do anything). To what extent does that common thread provide the driving force for both viewpoints? Glancing at the calendar--no, not the Mayan one, though that also plays a part--the Archdruid explains.

Too many proposals for dealing with the end of the age of cheap abundant energy either ignore the economic dimension or offer wildly optimistic estimates. The widening spiral of economic dysfunction in today's industrial societies makes both those stances problematic. We need to consider the possibility that an economic system that has few ways to pursue projects that don't make a profit will find it impossible to profit from the measures that might ensure its survival.

One of the perennial themes of peak oil discussion over the last decade or so has been what the world will look like once the age of cheap abundant energy comes to a close. While the arguments are ongoing, the answer may already have arrived. With a tip of the hat to green economist Herman Daly, the Archdruid explains.