PEAK OIL - EPOCHAL EVENT OF OUR LIVES

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Hollow victory

Originally published June 04, 2008

Katherine Heerbrandt





http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/opinion/display_columnist.htm?StoryID=75817

Rep. Roscoe Bartlett's been proselytizing about peak oil from the House floor to the White House for years. He told us that America was in trouble by producing so much less oil than we consume. He warned of dependence on foreign oil and urged a national commitment to a smart energy policy — or else.

The "or else," of course, being what's happening now. Truckers are out of work and more unemployed are on the way as the cost of fuel hits a staggering all-time high. We feel the pain when we swipe our bank card, open a bill or buy food.

In 2005, borrowing from Richard Nixon, Bartlett said "America needs a national energy policy and a program on a scale of the Manhattan Project ... to prevent or mitigate the consequences of global peak oil. Doing nothing or doing too little too late will lead to a global economic and geopolitical tsunami with potentially devastating ramifications."

Let that bit of news sink in for a bit.

Bartlett was so singularly focused, he declined to talk about transportation at last year's transportation summit spearheaded by Commissioner Charles Jenkins and Alderman Paul Smith. Instead, he offered to talk about peak oil. His wanted to put the traffic woes into a larger perspective.

Confronted with congestion on Frederick's roads and an increasingly irate constituency, local leaders were less than impressed with talk about the impending fuel crisis.

It's one of government's most debilitating aspects: Too many fires to put out, too little time to think ahead to cast eyes into the future and plan accordingly.

And so it was for Bartlett, who tried and failed to capture even the limited imagination of a self-absorbed administration and Congress.

Bartlett has received scant praise in this column, and has been taken to task for his positions on Iraq, health care and mothers and veterans — to name a few. But his perseverance on the subject of peak oil, and the grim consequences facing our nation if we continued to ignore it, is worthy of praise.

Especially now that his dire predictions ring so ominously true.

Challenger Jennifer Dougherty scoffed at the suggestion the incumbent had something right. Sure he's talked about it, but what's he done about it?

Good question with reasonable explanations: For all his expertise and knowledge, he might as well have been the ragged guy playing guitar on Market and Church streets. No one listened. He enlisted few allies from his own party and his floor speeches were getting monotonous.

So Bartlett focused on spreading the message elsewhere. He sponsored groups, conferences, seminars; appeared on radio and television programs; and met with any interested journalist who called on the subject. But that's taking too long.

In the end was he unsuccessful in garnering large-scale support because people were preoccupied with the war and the illegal immigrant debate, taxes and traffic jams? Was it because his position on energy was too progressive and attracted the endorsements of liberal activists and like-minded citizens?

Or did he just not have the leadership or charisma to sell it?

All of the above and more.

But it only matters if there's any lesson learned. While Bartlett's vindicated, it's a hollow victory. We're approaching a crisis he predicted, a crisis that might have been circumvented if, as a nation, we'd paid attention.


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