Sorry I've been absent from this site recently, school is totally kicking my ass right now. I'm lucky enough to be studying Activism and Social Change at the New College of California. The courses I'm currently taking have kept me from participating in PCI ventures as much as I would like, but they have provided me with valuable insights which I believe have added to my understanding of the political and social dimensions of peak oil. I'm using these points as a basis for any new discussions I have about Peak Oil and Gas, starting tonight at Acterra in Palo Alto (EOS screening).

When I first came to learn about the Hubbert Peak, I admit I was very much swept into the apocolyptic mentality that is everpresent within the Peaknik community. I'd like to think that my viewpoint has matured quite a bit since then. Here are some thoughts I've had that I think are useful in the outset of any peak oil discussion.

1. Oil itself has no particular value outside of capitalist modernity, and therefore should be discussed in context. The idea of "petroleum man" as an abberation in human history can be useful, but it can have the unfortunate consequence of glossing over everything that came before 1900. The preconditions for industrial and then petro-capitalism are part of a long history, which is, in my belief, instrumental in understanding the abberation we are living in.

2. Because of point #1, any discussion of the geological "facts" which ignores the economic and military systems in place is flawed, as is any economic discussion (collapse or "the market will solve it") which takes the "economy" as a reified entity for granted.

3. Peak Oil and the disruptions in energy flow which precede and follow it do now and will not affect us all equally. We are all in the same boat in a broad sense, but just like the titantic, some of us are in first class, and some are in steerage (this applies both between citizens and states). To ignore this element of the social effects of peak oil (or any other energy scarcity issue) will neccesarily lead to flawed analysis.

4. The global and US elites are fully aware (as much as anyone can be) of the magnitude and implications of the peak, and have been working for years on a plan for how to preserve their power and influence. Any attempt to "alert" national authorities to this looming crisis is misguided and naive (I don't believe the same to be true of local authorities, but I may be wrong even there). Aside from specualtion about the topics discussed in Cheney's secretive energy task force, the CIA was discussing the National Securty implications of Hubbert's Peak as early as 1977.

5. Relocalization, if it is to become a real alternative must present itself as such, as opposed to a contingency plan. Pretty much everything we should be doing in preparation for petrocollapse are the same things we should be pushing for in the absence of a collapse. It's a matter of framing, and the idea that these ideas will become immediately and inescapably relevant at some point in the near future can have the undesired effect of delaying action (If it's all going down this winter, I can't do anything right now, let the activists work on it now, I'll join when I have no other choice).