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VK2AAB > FUEL 11.10.08 01:09l 119 Lines 6363 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 61982_VK2AAB
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Subj: Money, Fuel & Media
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Sent: 081010/2325Z @:VK2AAB.#SYD.NSW.AUS.OC #:61982 [SYDNEY] FBB7.00i
From: VK2AAB@VK2AAB.#SYD.NSW.AUS.OC
To : FUEL@WW
here is is an interesting item by Tom Whipple of ASPO-US.
He is a columist on a US Newspaper.
73 Barry VK2AAB
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The Peak Oil Crisis: Mea Culpa
Written by Tom Whipple
Thursday, 09 October 2008 10:16
Earlier this week The Washington Post's media critic, Howard Kurtz,
published an apology on behalf of the media for its weak coverage of the multi-
year run-up to the current financial debacle.
To quote the Post, "The shaky house of financial cards that has come
tumbling down was erected largely in public view: overextended
investment banks, risky practices by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, exotic
mortgage instruments that became part of a shadow banking system. But
while these were conveyed in incremental stories -- and a few
whistle-blowing columns -- the business press never conveyed a real
sense of alarm until institutions began to collapse."
In reading through the story I was struck by how eerily similar are the
now admitted journalistic lapses and the failure to connect the dots in
the financial story to what we have been witnessing in the media's
coverage of peak oil. The heart of Kurtz's apologia is the troubling
question "Why didn't they see this coming?"
Lets look at a few of his points about the financial crisis and their
analogies to peak oil. First, "the media warned repeatedly that the
surge in housing prices might turn out to be a bubble, but the emphasis
was on the potential toll on homeowners." Nobody connected the dots to
warn that a collapse in housing prices would leave many major financial
institutions holding so many worthless loans that they would be rendered
insolvent; and that this in turn would result in what may turn out to be
a meltdown of the world financial system.
There is no lack of coverage of the oil in the financial and popular
press. Much of this, however, is in terms of high gas prices and their
damage to family finances and effect on inflation. The rapid growth in
oil prices in recent years is usually attributed to increases in Asian
demand for oil which has resulted in tight world markets. Here too the
dots are rarely connected, and certainly not on the front page where the
impending crisis might start to sink in readers' consciousness. Few in
the mainstream media have warned prominently that worldwide oil supply
has been basically flat for the last four years, has little prospect for
increasing significantly, and that the available evidence says world
production will soon begin to decline creating untold havoc on the
world's economy.
Another issue in warning of a coming financial crisis is simply being
believed. As a senior editor of Fortune told the Post reporter "if we
had written stories in late 2000 saying this whole thing [the
housing/financial bubble] is going to collapse, people would have said,
bPost, who until last spring was the top editor at the Wall Street
Journal, told his writer that "These are really difficult issues to
convey to a popular audience... We also have to remember you're pushing
against a powerful force, which is greed."
With peak oil this issue is similar: the implications of the concept are
so horrendous that few want to hear about or ponder its implications.
The admission that journalism has an obligation to push important issues
(like the end of the oil age) into public consciousness is good, but the
mention of greed is interesting. With the housing/financial bubble
everyone was benefiting -- financiers, homeowners, governments, and
countless middlemen. Everybody was making money. So too is the case with
cheap, freely available oil. We are all benefiting in untold ways and we
most certainly do not want to be told that it is all about to end.
Finally we come to the problem of journalists trying to take on the
wealth, power, and expertise of the status quo. Where billions of
dollars are at stake those with a vested interest, be it Wall Street
investment banks or ExxonMobil, are going to react vigorously when their
righteousness is challenged. According to the Post story, journalists
concerned that the housing bubble and securitization of mortgages was a
disaster waiting to happen were told that they simply did not have the
expertise to understand the problem. Stories critical of what was taking
place resulted in complaints to editors and newspaper owners.
With peak oil the story is similar. First you have extremely rich and
powerful organizations such as ExxonMobil, most international oil
companies, the governments and national oil companies of most oil
producing states, which for one reason or another deem it to be in their
best interests if the complete story of peak oil and its implications
does not come to the attention of the general populace for as long as
absolutely possible. You can add most national governments who simply
don't want to call for the sacrifices required to mitigate the
consequences of peak oil.
You can add to this list the official U.S. and International Agencies,
the EIA and the IEA that are charged with tracking world oil production
and forecasting just when it will go into decline. Until now, their
official position has been that the peak of world oil production is not
imminent, but these official positions seem to be changing. When you get
right down to it there is not a living soul on the planet that really
wants to hear about peak oil and its implications. The peak oil story
certainly will not sell newspapers until the affordability and
availability of oil gets so bad that some sort of action must be taken.
Is there a lesson from the current financial crisis that might be
applied to the impending peak oil crisis? For now the peak oil story is
lost in the collapse of the equity markets, the commodity markets, and
who knows what else. When people and their elected representatives are
worried about what will happen to jobs, retirement accounts, and food
supplies over the next six months, it will become increasing difficult
to get them to heed warnings of higher gasoline prices and even
shortages years from now.
Perhaps the one point we should all take away from this is the
admonition by the Washington Post's executive editor, Marcus Brauchli,
that "you do have an obligation as a journalist to push important issues into
the public consciousness."
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