Further, this decline of availability of cheap fuel is triggering ever more rapid use of the “dirtiest” of these energy sources because it exists in the greatest abundance: coal. This is triggering increasingly rapid climate change. Record setting droughts in some areas, record floods in others. As I write, a hundred blocks of Cedar City Iowa are under water due to historically unprecedented flooding.
The net effect of these climatic changes is to decrease agricultural production; and this is occurring at a time when world food reserves are already at an all time low for modern times. However, expensive oil, due to nearly flat production in the context of rising global demand, leads to increasing conversion of food crops to ethanol production, further lowering food reserves.
Global industrialized agriculture is almost completely dependent upon petroleum. Fertilizers are derived from natural gas. Pesticides are derived from petroleum. The entire agricultural production, processing and distribution system depends upon petroleum. The industrialization of agriculture across the planet had led to the majority of humanity becoming, for the first time, city dwellers. More than ever before in history, people are dependent upon the system of industrialized agriculture for their food.
As far as our governmental “software” is concerned, political power is fragmented into numerous nation states of varying power and affluence. Wealth and opportunity are inequitably distributed in all of them. Two thirds of the planet’s remaining petroleum reserves, along with forty percent of its natural gas, are located in the Persian Gulf. The United States is the only nation on the planet with the capability to project large amounts of military power globally. It is bogged down in the Persian Gulf nation of Iraq, in the sixth year of a war to control these resources.
As the energy situation becomes ever more desperate, what will the US and other major powers do, knowing that most of the remaining oil and gas are located in this small portion of the planet?
Consider that this region is roughly contiguous with the “Holy Land.” Also consider that the Middle East is the confluence of geostrategic interests with religious beliefs of the monotheistic religions, particularly the apocalyptic-oriented fundamentalist version of Christianity that is so prominent in the USA at present. Consider the near stranglehold of multinational corporations over the government, information dissemination system (the mass media), and economy, of the USA, the West, indeed, most of the planet.
Now ask yourself: Can it make any meaningful difference who becomes president of the USA at this point?
From a systems theory perspective we have acquired a trajectory through learning space, or alternately, have moved to a position on our fitness landscape from which we are now inevitably locked into movement towards what is called a “strange attractor.” The effect is like what happens when a marble rolls over the lip of a depression—it is inevitably forced to roll down hill into the depression. We are at such a point now.
I want to stress that we are, so to speak, already rolling “downhill” to whatever fate awaits us. Moving “uphill” away from the peak oil-climate change-corporatized government attractor is no longer possible. We are locked in for massive climate change now. Because we failed to transition away from hydrocarbon energy when there was sufficient time to do so—back in the 1970’s—it is now too late. Peak oil is upon us. Anyway governments—ours in the USA in particular—are largely subject to the will of multinational corporations. The interests of these soulless corporate entities—which possess the legal right of “persons”—center on short term profits. Planning for the long term is not good for short-term profit making.
So the bottom line is, we’re heading towards our crisis attractor no matter what we do now, and neither Obama nor McCain can change that reality.
Still, we do have some control over our trajectory as we move towards this self-inflicted crisis-attractor. We could “crash” head on into it—an outcome corresponding to the total collapse of civilization worldwide and the deaths of billions. Or we could rapidly reconfigure ourselves so that our trajectory moves past the attractor with its “momentum” carrying it through and out of the basin of attraction towards, a new zone of stability—corresponding to level ground in our fitness landscape. This “level ground” represents a new stability corresponding to a reconfigured human system which is sustainable with respect to energy and environment.
So does the choice of Obama versus McCain represent any meaningful difference with respect to our finessing our systemic trajectory towards the level ground and away from the smash-up outcome?
Possibly it does. Consider that Obama has made it clear that he will not authorize the national government to prosecute medical marijuana users in states which have passed medical marijuana statutes. [See: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/05/12/18498714.php] This is indicative of a greater emphasis on federalism, on decentralization of power away from the national government on the part of an Obama administration. As the crises come upon us this decentralization is exactly what is needed.
Similarly, Obama would not be likely to nominate a fifth vote on the Supreme Court for a unitary presidency. On the other hand the only probable vacancies all come from the Court’s elderly “liberal” wing” so the status quo would be unchanged—the continued existence of Constitutional government in the USA hangs on the whims of Justice Anthony Kennedy.
A McCain administration would represent continued corporatist consolidation over our political system. It would herald the consolidation of the imperial presidency, ratified by a solid five, or even six, vote majority on the US Supreme Court. This is because elderly “liberal” justices would be replaced by Federalist Society vetted hard right Scalia clones. Such an administration would inaugurate corporatist designed programs to address energy and climate change. These corporate welfare programs would be worse than doing nothing, as these programs would waste resources while preventing effective local and regional efforts from even occurring. The overall effect of a McCain presidency would be to accelerate the crash while “steering” us at the crisis attractor dead-on. This as I’ve noted, could end global civilization and kill most of humanity.
Still, the net difference between the possible effects on our overall trajectory caused by the election of one or the other candidate at this late date would likely be quite small. Also McCain’s agenda would likely lead more rapidly to the collapse of national government, thereby perhaps freeing up local areas and regions to act in a somewhat timely manner.
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