Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of

governance S 23
extract, refi ne, transport, and defend our access to it. This is not
the end of oil but rather the beginning of the end of cheap oil and
the way of life we built on the fl imsy assumptions of easy mobility,
convenience, and dependability of long-distance transport of food
and materials. Because we have failed so far to advance energy
effi ciency and renewable energy as a national policy, when supply
and demand curves for oil eventually diverge the results likely will
be long gas lines, economic downturn, unemployment, infl ation,
political instability, and wars fought over the remaining reserves
of oil.
The end of the era of cheap oil has been apparent at least since
the fi rst oil embargo in 1973, but we failed to take effective action
commensurate with the scale of the challenge and with the opportunities
created by rapidly improving technology. In November
of 1976 I helped organize an effort to inform the newly elected
Carter administration about the largest environmental challenge
he would likely face. We chose to focus on energy policy, which
was then and is now the linchpin connecting the economy, security,
equity, and environment. The resulting “Wolfcreek Statement”
proposed raising the price of energy by imposing severance taxes
on all fossil fuels at the mine mouth or wellhead until the price
of fossil energy equaled the marginal cost of the cheapest renewable
energy alternative. My coauthors also recommended that the
proceeds of the tax be used to help those hardest hit by higher
energy prices and to fund research and development on effi ciency
and renewable energy technology. 12 National politics, however,
were dominated by oil and coal companies that blocked all efforts
to advance a far-sighted policy. As a result, U.S. dependence on
imported oil and fossil fuels grew steadily, even though the technology
for fuel effi ciency improved dramatically in the same
period. The failure of successive presidents and congresses over
three decades to create a decent energy policy certainly stands as
one of the most egregious policy failures ever, with ramifi cations
that led to terrorism, oil wars, defi cits, economic vulnerability,