The subject of Monday's column was Thomas Gold's theory that oil is produced deep within the earth from an abiogenic process. In other words, Gold proposed that oil is not a fossil fuel. Gold's theory, like the fossil fuel theory, hasn't been disproved and deserves to be tested. The importance of the abiogenic theory of oil's origins is not that geology saves us from ourselves. The careful student of history knows that every civilization, regardless of ingenuity or technology, will sink in decline. As these words are written I do not believe we have reached peak oil. Setting aside the debate on this subject, there are other indicators - moral and intellectual indicators - suggesting that our civilization peaked four decades ago.
King Hubbert's prediction that U.S. oil production would peak in the early 1970s was, of course, correct. However, America's oil was discovered in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. America's oil supplies were not as limited as Hubbard envisioned. Almost 30 years ago, when I was just starting to work and drive a car, I asked a man of 58 years - who'd lived through the Great Depression and World War II - what he thought of Jimmy Carter's energy speech of April 18, 1977. In that speech President Carter offered the following, grim prognosis: "The world now uses about 60 million barrels of oil a day and demand increases each year about 5 percent. This means that just to stay even we need the production of a new Texas every year, an Alaskan North Slope every nine months, or a New Saudi Arabia every three years. Obviously, this cannot continue." Carter further stated: "World consumption of oil is still going up. If it were possible to keep it rising during the 1970s and 1980s by 5 percent a year as it has in the past, we could use up all the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade."
After hearing Carter's speech I imagined that the economic future was bleak, that I wouldn't enjoy my automobile for long. When I asked my 58-year-old co-worker his opinion of Carter's speech, he gave an unforgettable answer. He said, "Except for a few things left by the astronauts on the moon, everything is still here on earth." Man's capacity to invent, discover and build has not been exhausted. The earth is still beneath our feet. The new pessimism, he thought, was ridiculous.
President Carter was seriously mistaken in his analysis of America's energy crisis. King Hubbert's prediction that U.S. oil production would peak in the early 1970s was off the mark. Of course, oil production will peak in the not-too-distant future. But the reason may not be the exhaustion of energy reserves. It is not a shortage of oil that will bring down our civilization, but moral and intellectual decline that overshadows us. Professor Gold was right to worry about the integrity of the scientific process. I do not believe that today's scientific bureaucrat is equal to Edison or Einstein. In fact, today's bureaucrat is likely to quash an Edison or an Einstein.
I am not worried about peak oil. I am more concerned about moral and intellectual mediocrity. Our moral decline has been demonstrated by many measurements. According to the 2002 Report Card published by the Josephson Institute of Ethics, "cheating, stealing and lying by [American] high school students have continued their alarming, decade-long upward spiral. A survey of 12,000 high school students showed that students admitting they cheated on an exam at least once in the past year jumped from 61% in 1992 to 74% in 2002; the number who stole something from a store within the past 12 months rose from 31% to 38%, while the percentage who say they lied to their teachers and parents also increased substantially."
The West's intellectual decline is also real. We must not delude ourselves. As Neil Postman explained almost two decades ago, entertainment has eclipsed serious intellectual pursuits throughout our culture. The intellectual confusion we find today, and the collapse of general knowledge (as shown on the Tonight Show by Jay Leno), is not a myth. It is simple fact. As Postman explained: "From Erasmus in the sixteenth century to Elizabeth Eisenstein in the twentieth, almost every scholar who has grappled with the question of what reading does to one's habits of mind has concluded that the process encourages rationality; that the sequential, prepositional character of the written word fosters what Walter Ong calls the 'analytic management of knowledge.' To engage the written word means to follow a line of thought...."
If we are running short of oil, the fault does not lie in a scarcity beneath the earth, but a scarcity between our ears. Human civilization is built on order, principle and integrity. When these intellectual and moral elements are exhausted there is nothing to stem the tide of calamity. Western Civilization is a massive intellectual and moral system. It was built on concepts derived from Greek philosophy and Roman law, Christian spirituality and love of truth. This foundation is now undermined. Our legal system, for example, is in complete shambles. The government doesn't follow its own laws. The financial system has abandoned the warnings of classical economics. The leaders of our political system prefer self-defeating policies. They do not seem to know what a nation is, what preserves or disintegrates social order, or how to recognize an enemy.
When will peak oil overtake us and send civilization spiraling downward?
The downward spiral has already begun. An economic crisis is upon us. The political fallout, and the growing weaknesses of the political system, will likely to bring revolutionary consequences. The aftermath is that of a vicious circle, with political insanity driving economic decline as economic decline inspires more and more insanity. In this scenario, the production of oil will peak because the demand of oil will fall off. And it will continue to fall as the politicians demonstrate their ignorance of founding principles, or their inability to resist the abuse of power and public trust.
The breakdown of constitutional order in the United States is indicated on all sides by an emerging legal anarchy. Consider the case made by Fox News senior judicial analyst, Judge Andrew Napolitano, whose 2004 book was titled, "Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When the Government Breaks Its Own Laws." According to Napolitano the U.S. government has not been faithful in its obligation to defend our liberty. "It has tortured people it has arrested," wrote Napolitano. "It has claimed the power to lock up Americans for life and not even bring charges against them." The government has begun to deprive citizens of their First and Second Amendment rights. The government bribes witnesses, falsifies or ignores evidence and confiscates property without due process. The most incredible tale, taken from the judge's firsthand experience, is the case of an automobile taken from a suspect by a prosecutor. "The cops had taken the car as evidence of a crime but had given it to the chief county prosecutor, who began driving it for his own personal use. I was the judge to whom the application to return the car was assigned," wrote Napolitano, who returned the car to it's original owner. "About ten years later," he added, I happened to be in a restaurant where I ran into this now-former prosecutor. He introduced me to his wife, who looked at me and then back to her husband and said, 'Is this the judge who took your car away?'"
This is where we stand today.
