Why Oil Prices Will Never Again Be Low ENOUGH

The global economic system is not merely at the pop of a cyclical, natural bubble caused by overconfidence and greed, but transforming.  Ambition and greed, their present form known by "Anglo disease" as named by Jerome, has become so reckless that irreperable change is being wrought in a way that did not happen in 1999, or 1987.

While many of the points are not new, most Americans--and especially the "serious" boys and girls--remain fundamentally ignorant of what's going on.  

Already, energy is reorganizing the financial system, regardless of whether we want it to or not.  The choice we face is in how to channel market forces. The points remain isolated tidbits of the CW.

China. Middle Eastern Oil. Instability. Conservation and offshore. And finally, climate change.

Let's humor flat-earthers for just a second, assuming that somehow, we actually could magically ignore the real structural, economic damage done by the unholy consequences of intemperate land stewardship, indifference to ecocide and hydrocarbon addiction that, when grouped together, are known as climate change.

Even though the US uses a whopping amount of the world's energy, the actual availability lessens.

The answer, we're told, is to get off our "dependence on foreign oil", but this is a misleading attempt by xenophobes to stack their own political power against educated reform. Republicans now love this meme since it allows them to usher in domestic drilling and accuse Democrats of being against helping the consumer.  

In reality, when oil and gas were cheap we had several hundreds of millions of Indians and Chinese people (not counting other countries... Angola...) living with very low carbon footprint. They increasingly aren't now, and neither will their effect on energy prices dissipate:

Until recently, several billion Chinese lived as we did a century ago. Imagine their energy demands rising to our levels and you'll quickly figure oil prices aren't going to return to the levels of a year ago.

Not to mention that tar sands, ANWR, oceanic drilling, et al, are harder to tap than regular drilling and produce less.

We still won't get back to cheap.

If we look at the future in terms of our known history, we see potential for conflict; many wars are started over diminishing resources.  A willfully stupid section of this nation demands lower energy prices, believing the price is an a conspiracy by those ingrate "sheiks", while a nascent China's is "surging". Then there's resentment at China over the pet food and toy scares, et al, not to mention listens to piecemeal stories about the big scary Chinese economy on the evening news. We still believe the US will be a superpower the way it was in the 90s and before without any tolerance to contrary observation, while even the Pentagon warned of climate change-driven war before $100 oil, let alone $144.

So, if we're using an old, "market-based" view of society and technological change and policy that does not reflect the reality of climate change (if the markets include nearly everything then surely crop failure, drought & flooding, evacuation and wildfires too merit) we still find ourselves at a point of no return.

Of course, things are not stop and go, all happening once someone (say, Bush) gives the greenlight. So we know why, for example, Mercedes is shutting off its petroleum-based autos by 2015.  The markets are already adapting, as doors towards sustainability open. Unfortunately, too many people aren't adapting, either through lack of education or obstinance.