Call to ingenuity

Andrew Potter, in his Oct. 25 piece ("Peak Everything and the End of the World") suggests those who acknowledge peak oil are "doomers." Let me offer a few counterexamples: T. Boone Pickens, James Schlesinger, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, Alan Greenspan and Bill Clinton. Further, the American Journal of Public Health is preparing a special issue on the threats peak oil poses to medicine and public health; and the U.S. government has in recent years published several reports - all virtually ignored - warning of the dire consequences of peak oil. Finally, the Defense Department hosts a monthly forum on alternative energy, given the reality of peak oil.

Mr. Potter also claims that peak oil has metastasized into absurd claims about "peak everything," including peak credit.

Thirty years ago two books were published, "The Limits to Growth" and "Overshoot," whose core argument is that perpetual economic expansion is impossible in a world of finite resources. "Peak everything" - including credit - is pretty much what these books predicted as the endgame of ignoring bio- and geo-physical constraints. This is not a death sentence; rather it's a call to human ingenuity to create an ecologically sustainable world.

 

 

DAN BEDNARZ

Edgewood