Just Stop Oil?! Part 2 - Oil is the Economy
Frankly #39
Oil - it was the best of fuels - it was the worst of fuels.
Just Stop Oil movement is in the news. Climate change - and accelerating impacts from human burning of fossil carbon is also in the news. In this Part 2 of a 4 part Frankly ‘mini-series’, I offer a short recap on the centrality of energy - and particularly oil - to our modern way of life. I then reflect on 10 systemic inferences for our situation due to the embedded nature of oil in our socio-economic system.
Here is this week’s Frankly - (the longest ever at 31 min!)
An important summary, imho.
Next weeks episode will be on the ‘10 Pathways to Post Growth’ (which presumably would involve ‘less oil’)
In case you missed it…
In Just Stop Oil?! Part 1, I unpacked how each barrel of oil is refined ‘serially’ - and results in 6,000 important products to (current) global economy. The middle distillates especially are important to machinery and heavy lifting in the global economy. The implications are - even if we don’t need ANY gasoline due to e.g a scaling of Electric Vehicles, this will not significantly reduce our demand for ‘oil’ (unless all/most other product demand is reduced commensurately)
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Looking forward to the podcast with Iain McGilchrist. He is not only a philosopher, but also a literature scholar (poetry), a neuroscientist, a psychiatrist and a wonderful human being. Iain McGilchrist has written two of my favourite books: “The master and his emissary” and “The matter with things”. His hemispheres hypothesis states that both hemispheres have a different take on the world. The left hemisphere is the emissary, divides the world into parts, focusses on the parts and is meant to manipulate the world. The left hemisphere is the hemisphere that made technology possible. The right hemisphere is the master, it sees the Gestalt (the whole), it is present in the world and good in relating to the world and in relating to each other. It has no words, because language is in the left hemisphere. In my opinion it is the right hemisphere that is able to perceive the warm data Nora Bateson is talking about.
I'm glad you're going to share options to address the dynamics you outline - given the inertia within the present 'system' that is inhibiting deep change, I pessimistically envisage things ending badly this centruy for most species. As an antidote, today I registered for the Beyond Growth Aotearoa conference next month in Whanganui A Tara Wellington. I'm looking forward to your talk, and subsequent visit?