About that Shale Oil ‘Miracle’…

Our work here at Peak Prosperity largely centers on trying to use facts and data to shift people’s actions towards the more positive and sustainable things that we not only can do, but should do.
There’s literally nothing preventing us from behaving in ways that increase the Earth’s abundance rather than deplete it. Besides being both prudent and needed, these actions are usually cost-effective, in our best interest, and worthy of our creative talents as human beings.
We can build rich topsoil at 100 times the rate of nature alone. We can build negative-energy footprint buildings that actually add electricity back into the system rather than draw it down.
There are thousands of wiser steps we could be taking right now, but aren’t.
It’s been said that humans are rationalizing — not ‘rational’ — animals. The deep truth in that statement is that we humans have strongly-held beliefs that color the information we take in an accept. We’re often guilty of recognizing only the data that supports those beliefs while rejecting the rest.
For example, today most people place a great deal of faith in the potential for technology to fix whatever predicaments society may face in the future. And they support that view with cherry-picked data, while conveniently overlooking evidence suggesting technology is instead a sword with two edges.
Here’s a recent example of that duality:
The USDA Approved a New GM Crop to Deal With Problems Created by the Old GM Crops
Sept 25, 2014
Last week the U. S. Department of Agriculture approved a new line of genetically modified corn and soybeans for use in the U. S. The crops, made by Dow Chemical Company and running under the brand name ‘Enlist,’ may be the future of genetically modified crops. This future, though, has been largely determined by the problems caused by the last generation of GM crops.
Dow’s new Enlist genetically modified crops are the intellectual descendants of Monsanto’s genetically modified ‘Roundup Ready’ crops. Like Monsanto’s crops, Dow’s are designed to be resistant to a patented herbicide. By planting the modified crops, farmers can spray the herbicide to kill weeds without worry that it will affect their crops.
(Source)
Well isn’t that just great. There’s a new batch of herbicide-resistant plants out there because the old batch is being overrun by RoundUp-resistant weeds. To me this is merely a sign that technology is not trouble-free, and quite often creates problems equal to the ones it was ‘solving.’
The record is rife with such new fixes for problems caused by yesterday’s technological advances.
Geo-engineering is being proposed to deal with the excess carbon released by — you guessed it! — all the marvelous technology that allowed us to find and burn all these wonderful fossil fuels in the first place.
Antibiotics slowly being rendered useless by their overuse leading to stronger ‘superbugs’. And so what are focused on? Developing ever stronger antibiotics in a race most doctors assure us we will eventually lose.
And on and on.
My point here is the extent to which we fail to confront the facts, free from beliefs and the biases that come with them, is the extent to which we are deluding ourselves.
About That Shale Oil Miracle…
A recent piece of belief-based propaganda, designed to dovetail perfectly into society’s main belief in technology, ran in the Wall Street Journal. Based on the comments it generated, it scored a bull’s-eye.

This post was published at PeakProsperity on October 28, 2014.