We need to squeeze the oil industry 'til it's so small it can drown in a bathtub

[Duer 157099]

Starve the beast!

[msongs]

1. wanna starve the beast? quit using gasoline nt

[Duer 157099]

2. I almost completely have

I don't think it's working

[stray cat]

3. The oil companies should close down and also just walk away from the leak and leave it

If it bankrupts them anyway why should they do anything - they should just walk away and let the senate take care of it.

After all it isn't as if the average person off the street needs oil and we all have the expertise to work a mile under water - after we build some sort of contraption capable of running from computers on the water surface of course

[jtuck004]

4. All we have to do is quit driving and eating. And get everyone else

in the global world that is developing to do the same. The oil companies would then die. DIE. DIE. DIE.

But I think there may be something shortsighted about that strategy.

Perhaps we could develop alternative forms of energy, big WPA-like program that puts everyone to work learning and developing solar, geothermal, hydrogen, wind, nuclear, algalfuel, agriculture, etc. We will have to figure out a replacement for the fertilizer, or teach everyone to eat less. More jobs, less oil. Yup, I like that one better.

Then the oil companies could just float away, along with the coal burners. We could even knock down a couple of dams for the salmon...

But could we get someone to plug the BP leak first? Please...

[William Z. Foster]

7. no

Why do so many Democrats now routinely reach for personalized solutions to social problems? that is contrary to any and all politics other than those of the extreme right wing.

Public infrastructure is the answer - public transportation, support for small scale farms that can be closer to the population, programs for training and developing new farmers, protection of existing farm land from developers, getting Wall Street out of the food production system.

Not much would change in farming if oil ran out. Back to manure and mules, and that just means more labor would be required. With oil a farmer feeds 1200, without oil 12. What would be forced to change would be suburbia. All of those people who left the farm and formed the first population in history to be so divorced from their food supply would have to give up whatever it is that they are doing there and go back to the farm.

[jtuck004]

16. You are wrong. "Social problems" are nothing but personal.

Any change to people's way of life is extremely personal, and it's gonna take more than reading a book by Pollan and thinking that his ideas are the way, much less that 300 million people are going to agree. More likely any effort to change things to that degree will be met by a large and collective "go to hell" while they continue to burn through the oil. And when it is gone they will reach for the most expedient answers, probably hydrogen and nuclear. There is not enough arable land left to grow enough food for everyone in the United States, and the irrigation project to cultivate more would be prohibitive. And it's just naive to think all the people are just gonna park their cars and hop on a bus. You would have a huge project re-engineering all the homes, cities, businesses, and in the meantime your economy is going to fall around your ankles. You might also create mass starvation the likes of which have only been seen in a few countries. This isn't like one of those countries where being poor means you can't afford the good homes made of cardboard and mud. Civil war is more likely than people picking up a shovel.

That said, the re-education piece alone would make Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution look like a Tupperware Party. Only 2% of our population works in agriculture now, and a lot of them don't do field work. Any thought that a significant number of people in this country would give up their lives in science, teaching, medicine, law, whatever so they can hoe carrots for any reason short of living in the aftermath of a nuclear war is probably not worth the time it would take to consider it.

[ljm2002]

17. You say, "With oil a farmer feeds 1200,"...

..."without oil 12".

Please see:

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/7426

The article is entitled "http://www.energybulletin.net/node/7426":

"ITHACA, N.Y. -- Organic farming produces the same yields of corn and soybeans as does conventional farming, but uses 30 percent less energy, less water and no pesticides, a review of a 22-year farming trial study concludes.

David Pimentel, a Cornell University professor of ecology and agriculture, concludes, "Organic farming offers real advantages for such crops as corn and soybeans." Pimentel is the lead author of a study that is published in the July issue of Bioscience (Vol. 55:7) analyzing the environmental, energy and economic costs and benefits of growing soybeans and corn organically versus conventionally. The study is a review of the Rodale Institute Farming Systems Trial, the longest running comparison of organic vs. conventional farming in the United States.

"Organic farming approaches for these crops not only use an average of 30 percent less fossil energy but also conserve more water in the soil, induce less erosion, maintain soil quality and conserve more biological resources than conventional farming does," Pimentel added."

Or this one:

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/3918

entitled "Can Organic Farming Feed Us All?"

"Join Worldwatch Institute Senior Researcher Brian Halweil to discuss the role of organic food in helping to alleviate hunger globally. In an article in the May/June issue of World Watch Magazine, Halweil notes that two recent studies reveal that a global shift to organic farming would yield more food, not less, for the world's hungry. Organic farming tends to raise yields in poorer nations, precisely those areas where people are hungry and can't afford chemical-intensive farming. "In poorer nations, organic farming techniques like composting and green manuring and biological pest control may be farmers' best hope for boosting production and reducing hunger," writes Halweil."

There are many more sources on the topic. Lots of research that runs counter to the meme that factory farming using petroleum-based fertilizers and lots of pesticides gives greater yields. It ain't necessarily so.

[Supply Side Jesus]

5. "Norquist" it

[randr]

6. Oil companies touch every aspect of our lives

To stop using their products would take enormous national sacrifice.
Regardless we need to end our dependency and at the same time make sure the alternatives are not even more harmful to the planet. For instance, if we utilize more of our coal, an American resource, we release far more carbon into the atmosphere.
An important read for all at this time is "Eaarth, by Bill McKibben.
Our addiction to the benefits of cheap power has put us in this spot. We have no one to blame but ourselves.
Pogo was right.

[William Z. Foster]

8. disagree

I oppose blaming the working class people for social problems.

I disagree that giving up oil would be some enormous sacrifice. We would be better off, and in a relatively short period of time.

Only one thing would need to be sacrificed - American suburbia and all that it entails: sprawl, consumerism, land speculation and development, destruction of authentic community, wasteful energy use, striving and competitive attitudes and lifestyles, pollution, support for imperialism and corporations, materialism, separation from the natural world, destruction of culture. That represents a small percentage of the population here, let alone of the world, and the people of the world would breathe a huge sigh of relief if American suburbia were to die.

[randr]

9. You are right that we will be better off once we begin to address the problem

More jobs, cleaner air, and a sense of national empowerment.
However, I am not blaming working people for I are one. I am taking responsibility for my part in the pact we made with the devils. Now if I could only remember to take my cloth sack to the store I will even feel better.

[William Z. Foster]

10. yes

"Taking responsibility for our part in the pact we made with the devils" involves mostly understanding our failure to see through the lies, our willingness to shill for the owners, and our acceptance of ever-worsening conditions. That means that making personal choices to adapt ourselves to the situation - driving this or that vehicle, buying this or that product - can actually support the system. Actually, it is in the advocacy of those personal choice strategies as an alternative to sound public policy that does the damage. It suggests that if we all were just making the "right choices" in our personal lives, that things would be better. That is not true, and is a dangerous and politically reactionary illusion.

[randr]

15. The situation has already changed and we must adapt

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” Buckminster Fuller
I personally believe that investing in solar, driving less, eating local food, along with many more life choices are positive and can make a difference.

[druidity33]

12. um, well,

where would all the people who currently live in suburban environments go? There's like, a million people on Long Island... would you spread them out upstate? In what housing? Cities would survive in your post oil utopia? Where would their food come from?

Are you hoping for some population decimating plague? Because honestly, that's what your vision would need to succeed.

:shrug:

[William Z. Foster]

13. no

I am not talking about moving anyone anywhere or interfering with them at all.

It is not suburbanites who are bad - obviously - nor did I say that. It is suburbanization that is causing the problems. It would take a couple of generations to turn that around, but we could get started and if we did get started things would start to improve immediately.

Why do people always assume two things - that politics is about individuals; that public policy is something imposed by an aristocracy, usually in some draconian fashion. Those two assumptions about politics are relatively new, and permeate and distort all discussions.

[flamingdem]

11. tax 'em up the yin yang nt

[ladjf]

14. Young people may well live to see the Oil Companies die from the

lack of demand for oil as oil is replaced by safer and cheaper alternatives. nt