Seize the moment – the man on the moon mission starts now

January 26, 2009

(Note: Commentaries do not necessarily represent ASPO-USA’s positions; they are personal statements and observations by informed commentators.)

In recent years, peak oil realists have done a tremendous job sounding the alarm about the need for a concerted national effort to leave oil before it leaves us. Now, our mission must turn urgently from the educational to the political. With the changing of the guard in Washington, D.C. and the sting of $4/gallon gas still a recent memory, we have a unique opportunity to present the federal government with a do-or-die call to action.

When oil prices were at record highs, a cacophony of voices from the right, left and center put forth all kinds of energy independence proposals, some absurd, others quite sound. But, as we saw, the lack of a unified message made it easy for a do-nothing administration to do, well…nothing. We now have an energetic executive branch, a rejuvenated legislature, and an inspired electorate that is beginning to understand that great ideas require great sums of money. But before President Obama and Congress commit too many federal dollars to programs that will not help us avert a peak oil catastrophe, we must present them with a unified plan of action that has the endorsement of everyone from Anne Korin to Al Gore and Goldman Sachs to Google.

The desire for energy security cuts across the ideological spectrum, with conservative Islamaphobes as anxious as liberal environmentalists for the United States to overcome its oil addiction. As the President said at his inauguration, “[T]he ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.” Few would dispute this. There is not full agreement about how best to scale down our use of oil, but there are enough shared policy recommendations to put forward a concise five-point agenda that could look something like this:

  1. Put a floor on the retail price of gasoline of, say, $5/gallon (with tax credits to ease the burden for low-income taxpayers). When the market price is lower, the government pockets the difference and spends it on mass transit and rail projects.

  2. Put a moratorium on new federal highway spending, with the exception of critical road and bridge safety improvements. In other words, no new lanes.
  3. 55 at 55. Raise CAFE standards to 55 mpg, a standard that is easily achieved by hybrid and plug-in vehicles, and lower the speed limit to 55 mph. This set of changes alone would buy us years of time to adapt to dwindling oil reserves.
  4. Prepare an emergency gasoline and diesel rationing plan to be implemented by the Department of Energy when and if needed.
  5. Appoint an Oil Conservation Czar to oversee a 9% annual reduction in U.S. oil consumption to match the annual global oil field decline rate.

There are, of course, many other ideas that could be part of this list—my point here is not to define it but to suggest that it contain no more than five items and that it avoid contentious proposals like offshore drilling and bio-fuels. Likewise, it may be wise to steer clear of solutions that are not directly related to oil depletion—smart grids, solar and wind energy, energy efficiency retrofits, etc—much though these things are needed to combat climate change. The bottom line is this: With a short list of policies backed by a long list of influential players, the odds of making change will, at long last, be on our side.

In Washington, bold new ideas don’t get embraced until they are reiterated so often they become conventional wisdom. We need to lobby, testify, blitz the media and convince the netroots to spread the gospel and hammer home our five points so incessantly they become matters of simple common sense. And we need an array of voices echoing our message, far beyond the usual cast of environmental and peak oil activists. Stitching together such a coalition and handing it a bullhorn is more doable now than ever before. We have on our side new leadership, heightened awareness and the exponential grassroots power of the internet. I’ve never been optimistic about the federal government’s willingness or ability to deal with peak oil but, given the hope Obama has inspired and the inevitability of big deficit spending over the next few years, I think it’s worth one last big try. If anyone is going to rally the nation behind a man-on-the-moon-intensity project, it’s Obama.
As I write this article, the Post Carbon Institute has just announced its call for a Real New Deal that would launch an unprecedented mobilization to combat climate change and secure a clean energy future. ASPO supporters should get on board with this campaign at the same time we push for a less comprehensive, more immediate set of policies needed to avert the looming liquid fuel crisis.

Take the President at his word: “Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America—they will be met.” Let’s help President Obama do what must be done by handing him the kind of post-partisan coalition he thrives on. The political ground has shifted beneath us, so set your cynicism and despair aside, and give it one last shot. And then… “Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter.”

Erica Etelson is a freelance journalist, former environmental and human rights attorney, and founder of the Berkeley Oil Independence Task Force.

Erica Etelson

Erica Etelson is a former human and civil rights attorney and the author of the book "Beyond Contempt: How Liberals Can Communicate Across the Great Divide."

Tags: Activism, Energy Policy, Politics