Matt, as I said to RJ, Irish Labour has finally crossed the threshold they had so long lingered by. It’s no surprise, don’t get me wrong, but it still stings a bit when it eventually happens.

I find it disturbing that the political centre-ground has shifted so far to the right; even now when capitalism is in such crisis; that Irish Labour are still viewed as centre-left in the media. I mean, they are outright advocates for the sort of right wing economic policies that even Thatcher’s Tories would never have dared implement for fear of a backlash. This punitive approach towards the unemployed, in a society that is shedding jobs and seeing a decrease in the number of new jobs being advertised is just plain nasty. The additional stress it will heap on the shoulders of the already heavily burdened is shameful.

It used to be that a person on “the left” was a staunch socialist; certainly a believer in a compassionate approach to public policy and perhaps an advocate of the nationalisation of strategic assets and infrastructure. They might even be the sort of person who would float the idea of abolishing the free market in natural resources. These days such views have been effectively relegated from mainstream political discussion and find themselves banished to a supposedly radical fringe (and it’s pretty lonely out here on the fringe, let me tell you).

What’s more, I completely dispute the notion that these ideas have been banished because they were someone discredited or “defeated” by the tenets of the free market or capitalism. I just think the capitalists were ultimately better organised and better financed. They launched an effective propaganda war and bought up our policy makers lock, stock and barrel. But being better organised and better financed doesn’t make you better for society. And it certainly doesn’t make you better for the long-term prospects of the planet.

I tell you what, I’ve read Proudhon and I’ve read Bakunin. I’ve read Marx, Nietzsche, Freud and Einstein. And ultimately I’m convinced by those who say that non-violent revolution is the only way to guarantee a better world. That by legitimising force as a political tool, we open doors that are very difficult to shut again. And yet I’d be a liar if I said my mind never wandered to the darker side… just occasionally and never for very long. But sometimes, as I fall to sleep, I start to wonder whether the problems faced by this world might not be eased slightly by a small number of trained men and a crate of sniper rifles.

And how the hell are folks meant to actually get a job given the trends? Logic and reason are becoming scarce commodities.

Your conclusion sounds all too much like the truth! FUBAR!

In today’s world it’s too much to expect of any politician – whatever their party.

Firstly because those vast resources can only be exploited at a relatively restricted rate, a rate that is absolutely dwarfed by global oil consumption. And partly because the oil we get from them cannot be compared like-for-like with conventional crude thanks to the vastly inferior net energy.

Right now we’re getting between 1.5 and 2 mb/d from the Canadian sands. A small drop in the 90 mb/d we’re consuming. However, if we factor in the knowledge that each barrel from the tar sands has a net energy equivalent of 1/8th of a barrel from Saudi or the North Sea, that number looks even more minuscule as a battle against a looming energy shortage.

With regards to Shale Gas, I’ve yet to do much serious research on the subject. Some people believe that increased gas production (from whatever source) can offset decreased oil production, but I’m not one of those people. I feel the unique importance of oil to modern society is seriously underestimated. That said, I do know a couple of people who have spent a lot of time studying shale gas (mostly from an environmental angle, but they also know their stuff from an engineering perspective) and while the promise it offers isn’t quite as hollow as tar sands, they seem to think it’s being hyped way beyond any real potential by an industry desperate for investors.

It’s something I do intend to look into in more depth soon though. One thing we do know about shale gas, however, is just how ecologically catastrophic it has the potential to be. Of course that won’t stop us exploiting it if there’s money to be made. And yes, it may offset some of the fall in oil production within certain sectors of the economy (i.e. as you point out, allowing Canada to continue burning natural gas to hydroprocess tar sands); but shale gas as a mitigation strategy for a peak in conventional oil is seriously flawed.

As for the crisis being “more drawn out, messy and unpredictable than [...] the peak oil proponents initially expected”, it’s probably worth pointing out that peak oil proponents have always said this would be a drawn out, messy and unpredictable process. Hence Kunstler’s book being called “The Long Emergency” and CJ Campbell talking about a “20 year plateau”.

I’m actually at the more ‘dramatic’ end of the peak oil community in that I believe the implications of peak oil will eventually sink into popular mass consciousness and provoke extreme reactions leading to a crash. But despite the mainstream media portraying peak oil proponents as predicting the sky’s about to fall and one day we’ll wake up and find nothing works any more, in reality these guys tend to be a bunch of middle-aged and retired engineers and academics whose pronouncements are far too dry and measured to make it into the media without being sexed-up almost beyond recognition.

I’m tempted to write a response disagreeing with you as much as possible, entirely because your repeated use of “massive quantities of tar sands” in quotes seems a bit more ironic than is warranted. Canada now being the second biggest supplier of oil in the world and all, ‘massive’ seems appropriate.

For example I could point out that the USA may well not mind about Canada providing it with less natural gas, because of the, ahem, massive quantities of shale gas the USA is producing right now.

But basically I take on board your argument that there are problems with tar sands production which mean it’s unlikely to fill the gap between supply and demand presented by peak oil, and I appreciate your response.

And OK, it was rash of me to say I don’t see any signs of an energy crisis. Tar sands, shale gas etc are all symptomatic of a real and current energy crisis… I do think that as conventional resources diminish and prices rise, the tendency for new sources of oil and gas that were too expensive to get at before to seem ‘economically viable’ looks likely to make this crisis more drawn out, messy and unpredictable than I think the peak oil proponents initially expected.

Basically I agree with you that he may have meant his statement in that sense. However, as a Freudian psychoanalyst I’m almost duty-bound to examine the literal meaning of his words and interpret them as possible parapraxis.

I’m not suggesting that is the only way in which his words can be interpreted. Nor that you are forced to accept the validity of a Freudian interpretation. But I’m afraid on this blog you’re going to get Sigmund Freud, Gregory Bateson and a whole bunch of anarcho-syndicalism (as well as the occasional music video and film review).

Similarly, while I agree with your final paragraph – in the sense that he consciously meant it that way – I also suspect there’s more to it than that. But again, that’s pretty much obligatory for Freudian analysis.