What I do suggest is to not get bogged down in such matters that we have very little say in or power to control. Instead, let’s act at the local level and work together to shift away from the unsustainable infrastructure and system components to sustainable ones. Doing so is very possible, the question is whether we are willing to do it or if we’d rather go on believing that we shouldn’t have to make that effort. I think it could be the best thing we ever do as a community. Likewise for every other community in the country.

Yes, Stew, it does matter who profits. More specifically, it matters who receives a return on investment, what is done with that return, and what are the environmental and social impacts of the initial and subsequent investments. A corporation leading the way, asking for public support for a plan that doesn’t move us toward sustainability is a mistake we can’t afford. It’s not “a start”, it’s a continuation of what got us where we are: centralized, large-scale, profit-driven decision making and consumption-focused priorities with profits spent on more consumption and promotion of more consumption, rather than localized improvements to environmental quality, economic vitality, and social equity, i.e., community sustainability.

When we allow the focus to be primarily on the economics we’re susceptible to the pitfall of thinking that incremental improvements are sufficient to address the environment and equity issues. They will only be sufficient if they can legitimately move us to where we need to go. We need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% by 2050. That’s just over 40 years away. That may be sufficient time to invest a portion of our (limited and dwindling as well as polluting) fossil fuel resources in the development of wind and solar and a variety of small-scale renewable energy generation and comprehensive energy efficiency measures and behavioral changes. If, at the insistence of the wealthy and resistant-to-change among us, we spend the first 10 years developing a system that depends on natural gas and USES IT ALL UP IN THAT TIME moving heavy vehicles for short commutes and products long distances, we’ll have no hope of succeeding.

We have the ability to envision a sustainable future. If we leapfrog the “transition” and and accept the reality that we’ve already burned up too much of the fossil fuels, we might get there with a livable planet.

In the end does it really matter who profits as long as we can end our adiction to foreign oil?

See http://www.worldchanging.com/archives//002384.html

If world oil “production” didn’t already peak last May, it almost certainly will in the next eighteen months. Most experts agree that natural gas “production” will peak about ten to fifteen years after oil does. Keep in mind that in this country we use NG for heating millions of homes. Also be aware that when NG peaks, it drops off a cliff on the backside–one day you’re getting more out of the ground than ever before, and shortly thereafter it’s just gone.

We can’t both heat our homes and fuel our cars with NG, but Pickens isn’t going to tell you that. He’s looking forward to the increased demand for NG he hopes will result from its relatively low cost compared to oil. He’ll profit from the resulting price jump while we foolishly drive more because we can “afford it” again.

I’ll be more hopeful about our prospects when the U invites Richard Heinberg to speak, though he’d insist on addressing us remotely, rather than travel here.

Heinberg will be doing just that for the upcoming “Fifth US Conference on Peak Oil and Community Solutions” (http://www.plancconference.org/), at Oakland University, in Rochester, MI, 10/31/08-11/02/08.