Richard Heinberg's Talk

Richard Heinberg is one of the few Peak Oil educators who comes from a vaguely radical perspective, and this is why he is very influential to me. So I was happy to have the priviledge of seeing his presentation at the Eugene Hilton tonight entitled "Peak Oil: Challenges and Opportunities at the end of Cheap Petroleum." I was pleasantly surprised to find that a rather large ballroom in the Hilton was filled to capacity with probably over a thousand people who came to see Heinberg. I even believe some people were turned away once the place was filled.

He was introduced by Eugene's mayor ______. Ms. ______ gave a very warm welcome to Heinberg which bordered on ass-kissing, and towards the end seemed to be giving a sales pitch about how great Eugene is. Fortunately, she wasn't long. Heinberg himself came up and warmed up the crowd with a few jokes, including one about how he doesn't know whether people in Eugene are lucky to have such an awesome mayor, or just smart to have elected her. Yuck.

Then came the real part. Heinberg basically just summed up Peak Oil for the crowd, and I learned little, but it was still great. He mentioned the US production peak in 1970; he showed how the supply shocks temporarily reduced demand in the 1970s; he emphasized the fact that no one exactly knows when the global peak will happen but it inevitably will; he talked about the probable consequences of the global peak; and he dismissed the notion that any currently known energy source will in any way replace fossil fuels. His message is "prepare for the worst, just like in any other crises management." It was especially interesting when he mentioned the book that he is currently working on called "The Oil Depletion Protocol" which calls for oil producing nations to agree to restrain production in agreement with consuming nations to restrain demand. I don't see such a proposal being very effective, but if it actually were implemented and agreed to I believe it would have some (slight) positive effects. But the major point is that, locally, we ourselves need to deal with these problems...

...Which brings me to the question I asked in order to take advantage of the Q&A session. I said, "I know you've written for anarchist periodicals in the past, so I was wondering what role you see anarchist philosophy playing in the whole peak oil picture?" His response was that he sees anarchism as the belief that people can come together to make their own decisions, and that this has obvious connections to the type of world we should wish to create after the age of cheap oil. We basically have two options after the crisis, he said: some sort of society loosely constructed around anarchist principles, or fascism. He was very blunt.

I'd also like to add that I was very pleased with the way he dealt with an old hippie asking a stupid question. Some guy with crazy hair wearing tye-dye came up to the mic and said something along the lines of "There are no economic, political, or social solutions to these problems. So could you address the need for spirituality?" (I groaned loudly.) Heinberg told him that we are addressing material problems and it is dangerous to drift away from reality in favor of the spiritual. To be more consoling, he added that in the future there might be opportunites to become closer to nature and that this could have healing effects. I concur.