Peak Oil Roundup, Redux

Since the concept is now on everybody's mind (well, maybe not quite yet, but soon), it's worthwhile to pick through the various outlets and see what's been happening. First off, if you, like Chaos, have become annoyed (or maybe just puzzled) by the constant chantings of Faux News types that the only thing standing in the way of the US becoming oil-independent and driving down those pesky gas prices is the "wacko-environmentalists" who prevent Alaska and off-shore drilling, read this to clarify the fact that there just isn't oil out there in sufficient quantities to make any difference (long and somewhat technical article, but has the virtue of being true).

Next off, in an interesting development, our friend James Howard Kunstler, fresh off completion of his newest (an entertaining work of fiction, entitled World Made By Hand), is featured in an editorial in, of all place, the Washington Post. The point here is not the content of the piece, since Kunstler repeats what most of us have read weekly on his blog, but the fact that it appears in a national newspaper in its unvarnished bluntness. Is the US public finally ready to hear some unpleasant facts? Doubtful, but interesting nonetheless to watch the tone of the discourse change so quickly.

In more doomer news, truckers are going out of business at an alarming rate, and car loans are not much available anymore, adding to the auto industry's woes (which are already considerable). This in addition to the continual downward spiral of the airline industry, which last week decided to add yet another level of annoying surcharges and inconvenience to the passenger experience, clearly aimed at driving more and more people to forsake air travel completely. Chaos should probably have listed more examples of this trend, but it seems too obvious and common to belabor.