Conventional Wisdom Resists Change

Conventional Wisdom Resists Change

I am a firm believe in rapid change through paradigm shifting. However conventional wisdom as put forth by the eggheads and robber barons that run our country states change must be slow and gradual. The rational is that rapid change destabilizes society and leads to violence.

This has been one of the excuses we use to slow the transition off of oil. We have known for a long time that oil sources are getting scarce and remote. We knew in the 1990’s that we had to start to transition off of oil. GM glimpsing the future made the electric car, the EV-1. But something funny happened.

In short the massive oil companies fear leaving any money on the table. There are still trillions of dollars of oil in the ground to be drilled. If we transition off oil too fast all that money would be lost. So, enter the SUV and the high times of gas guzzling we enjoyed in the 90’s and 2000’s up until gas hit $4.50 a gallon.

We could all right now be driving more fuel efficient and alternative energy powered vehicles if we started this process in the 1990’s. But it was seen as too soon by many. It would be too disruptive to the economy and all that oil money would be lost.

I got news for everyone. If we continue to listen to these self-interested oil barons and the politicians they buy off we will never transition off of oil. We may eventually have cars that get 300 miles to the gallon but that gallon of gas will cost $30. They are a parasite; a cancerous growth on our society that will never go away on its own. It will have to be carved out with a scalpel.

The other cries by the eggheads are for example if we decide to build solar panels and wind turbines across the country then what about all the coal miners? What about all the poor people who run the coal power plants?

I have never understood that argument. How hard would it be to put the coal miners to work building wind turbines? How hard would it be to transition coal fired power plant operators to being operators of solar plants? Is it such an impossible task that we must just throw up our hands and wait for the oil barons to slowly transition us off of fossil fuel?

The same argument is made when it comes to alternatives of the combustion engine. Why, if we get rid of the combustion engine then everyone from the top to bottom will be out of work. From the gas attendant and spare parts manufacturer to the repair shops and auto execs, everyone will be out of work.

First, why the fuck can’t these same people get trained to work on the alternatives? Second, it’s already happened. GM has bankrupt itself chasing the SUV Hummer Dragon. They could be the world’s leader in electric cars right now but they chose to not go that route. The end result is jobs are being lost from top to bottom anyway.

Sooner or later we will have to get over our fear of change. That fear is put in us by people who profit off the status quo who have no interest in seeing things change. The reality is when we have periods of rapid change is when we have periods of rapid economic growth. From 1995 to 2000 the internet exploded. Further back in the 1950’s the interstate highway projects fueled our economy for decades. Of course the war effort during WW2 created rapid change and innovation. Even further back we can look and see what happened during the building of the transcontinental railroad.

I guess I am just a bit frustrated because I figured by now, closing in on June 2009 that we would be seeing the ground breaking on various infrastructure projects across the country. Maybe it’s happening and I am just not hearing about it. But I have yet to hear about any ambitious plans such as building wind turbines on such a level that we could power every home in America. I have yet to hear about building out our internet infrastructure or upgrading our power grid.

Are these things happening and we just won’t hear about it for a few years?

I fear we are stuck in the status quo of Washington DC as Republicans take dollars from oil companies to continue their denial of global warming as they try to figure out how to suck every last dollar out of oil they can.

Will we wait 5 years for another oil and gas crisis before we get serious? Even worse, will we be having this same debate in 2020? We had this debate in the 1970’s, 1980’s, and 1990’s. In the late 90’s through 2007 we took a break from the argument and went back to an era of big oil. This was only natural having oil men for President and Vice-President. Now we’re back having the debate again.

When will we finally see some action?

Cross Posted at Pissed On Politics