- MENU
- HOME
- SEARCH
- WORLD
- MAIN
- AFRICA
- ASIA
- BALKANS
- EUROPE
- LATIN AMERICA
- MIDDLE EAST
- United Kingdom
- United States
- Argentina
- Australia
- Austria
- Benelux
- Brazil
- Canada
- China
- France
- Germany
- Greece
- Hungary
- India
- Indonesia
- Ireland
- Israel
- Italy
- Japan
- Korea
- Mexico
- New Zealand
- Pakistan
- Philippines
- Poland
- Russia
- South Africa
- Spain
- Taiwan
- Turkey
- USA
- BUSINESS
- WEALTH
- STOCKS
- TECH
- HEALTH
- LIFESTYLE
- ENTERTAINMENT
- SPORTS
- RSS
- iHaveNet.com
Robert C. Koehler
You couldn't call it a dialogue. It was more like a momentary rip in the global power continuum, a spill of outrage on the stage of a major oil conference in London.
Recently, two
One unfurled a banner that read "Go Beyond Petroleum." The other, as she was being ushered off the stage and out of the hotel, shouted, "We need to speed up progress and make a push to end the oil age."
That was it. Time's up. That's how protest is -- shouted and emotional, sometimes illegal. Even when it's videotaped and the world gets to witness those 20 seconds of public theater, all we hear are slogans, all we see are disruption and scuffle: disorder, quickly dealt with. Money gets its hair mussed a little and then returns to its agenda. Nothing seems to change. The disorder implicit in that agenda returns to "let our children worry about it" status, and we remain on the track described by Ronald Wright in "A Short History of Progress," his investigation into why civilizations collapse:
"The concentration of power at the top of large-scale societies gives the elite a vested interest in the status quo; they continue to prosper in darkening times long after the environment and general populace begin to suffer."
As though still on the podium with the BP exec, I claim a little more time to open up that
For it to matter whether or not we move "beyond petroleum," there has to be a spiritual, not just a technical, dimension to the concept. It implies, I think, a fundamental break with the domination impulse by which we have "tamed" nature over the millennia of recorded history and built our unstable civilizations, propped up by war and conquest. Moving beyond petroleum means moving beyond our uncritical acceptance of a fragmented world and fragmented sense of responsibility.
Indeed, it means moving beyond the gospel that competing fragments, each looking out for its own "self-interest" (a.k.a., capitalism), is the highest form of order we can hope for. Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, the highest-ranking Republican on the House energy committee, demonstrated the sham nature of this system last week, when he apologized to BP for the
Turns out, A) "Of the five Gulf Coast states, Mr. Barton's Texas is the only one whose beaches, fisheries and tourist haunts are not threatened by oil spewing from BP's ruined well," the
At the very least, capitalism in its unregulated, most virulent form -- fragmentation capitalism, you might say -- which was set loose in the Reagan era, has to be contained. No small task. U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman, a Reagan appointee (with stockholder interest in the drilling industry), recently overturned Obama's six-month moratorium on new deepwater drilling in the Gulf (which would affect operations at 33 of 3,600 sites), siding with the argument that one blown deepwater well is "no proof" the others constitute a threat -- no matter that the consequences of another accident would be cataclysmic.
The decision is proof of the status-quo aversion to long-range thinking -- or thinking that goes "beyond petroleum," thinking that muddies the profit game with ethical, moral and ecological concerns.
The "no proof" argument has long been the dodge of last resort for polluters, whether corporate or governmental. For instance, the
Beyond petroleum, beyond the shortsighted exploitation and fragmentation of the planet, there is life itself, awaiting our discovery in its ever-unfolding complexity. Beyond petroleum lies the human future, at peace with itself, at peace with the planet, secure in its context and evolving toward whatever comes after us.
We have to start growing up. This won't be easy, of course. Getting there will require a concerted, planetary effort, and the ascendance of values -- reverence, humility, love -- bigger than the ones that drive the age of oil.
Available at Amazon.com:
Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?: How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life
The Disappearing Center: Engaged Citizens, Polarization, and American Democracy
The Virtues of Mendacity: On Lying in Politics
Bush on the Home Front: Domestic Policy Triumphs and Setbacks
The Political Fix: Changing the Game of American Democracy, from the Grassroots to the White House
WORLD | AFRICA | ASIA | EUROPE | LATIN AMERICA | MIDDLE EAST | UNITED STATES | ECONOMICS | EDUCATION | ENVIRONMENT | FOREIGN POLICY | POLITICS
Beyond Petroleum