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We know what Aspen is like in drought years. The snowpack thins. The skiing sucks. The economy suffers. We pull our purse strings tight and hope for a better season next year.
The Canary Initiative hopes to address the long-term viability of skiing in the Central Rockies by weighing the impacts of global warming. The thinking goes that it's better to know the demons you face than to blithely ignore them.
Oil is a different bag. We currently ignore a pending oil drought that could make our climate-based droughts seem quaint. Snowpack and ski conditions will be the least of our worries when the energy economy hits the skids.
If you've been watching the stock market lately, it is obvious that oil is the great barometer of economic indicators. Our top-heavy economy is built on the very slippery foundation of oil as it relates to cheap energy.
"It has been very hard for Americans - lost in dark raptures of nonstop infotainment, recreational shopping and compulsive motoring - to make sense of the gathering forces that will fundamentally alter the terms of everyday life in our technological society," admonishes James Kunstler in a recent article in Rolling Stone.
In "The Long Emergency," Kunstler decries America's infatuation with cheap oil. He warns that America lacks a Canary Initiative to examine what it will mean when oil production peaks, which it is supposed to do by about 2010.
Those who don't feel a tremor of doubt about the future are among those Americans Kunstler labels as "Jiminy Crickets." Their "just wish and make it so" denial is popular today because the energy crash is not a happy topic of conversation around the dinner tables of America.
"It is no exaggeration to state," writes Kunstler, "that reliable supplies of cheap oil and natural gas underlie everything we identify as the necessities of modern life: central heating, air conditioning, cars, airplanes, electric lights, inexpensive clothing, recorded music, movies, hip-replacement surgery, national defense - you name it."
Most people assume that America will segue from oil to some other form of energy, allowing us to perpetuate our habitual tendency to waste. But Kunstler warns that we may not have the time to implement a new and viable energy program before the old one is gone.
He predicts a major revamping of American society, from the way we view work to the makeup of our communities. Luxuries - compulsive driving, consumable goods, skiing and other energy-intensive recreation - will abate. But the more important consideration is food.
A friend reminded me of a conversation he once had with the late Fritz Benedict. "When Fritz first arrived in 1946, people depended on locally grown potatoes, beef and sheep, fruit from Paonia put up for winter, and wheat grain delivered by train from the plains. This is what supported the few thousand people living between Glenwood and Aspen."
Twenty years ago, Wilk Wilkinson proposed tapping the geothermal source of Conundrum Hot Springs and piping it into a greenhouse large enough to grow the bulk of Aspen's food. In Aspen, we may be tending greenhouses together instead of fretting about snow conditions.
Cheap oil has long been the lubricant of the American economy, underlying shipping, production and transportation. That economy has built monster homes on Red Mountain, supported our tourist economy and elevated Aspen to world-class stature.
All of that could change during a devastating oil drought, and there will have to be adjustments. First, there will be an energy panic and a free-for-all gas, oil and coal development orgy. Then we will adjust to lives in a grave new world.
"The successful regions in the 21st century," prophesizes Kunstler, "will be the ones surrounded by viable farming hinterlands that can reconstitute locally sustainable economics on an armature of civic cohesion."
<i>Paul Andersen thinks we will have a lot of work to do in the Roaring Fork Valley. His column appears on Mondays.</i>
The Canary Initiative hopes to address the long-term viability of skiing in the Central Rockies by weighing the impacts of global warming. The thinking goes that it's better to know the demons you face than to blithely ignore them.
Oil is a different bag. We currently ignore a pending oil drought that could make our climate-based droughts seem quaint. Snowpack and ski conditions will be the least of our worries when the energy economy hits the skids.
If you've been watching the stock market lately, it is obvious that oil is the great barometer of economic indicators. Our top-heavy economy is built on the very slippery foundation of oil as it relates to cheap energy.
"It has been very hard for Americans - lost in dark raptures of nonstop infotainment, recreational shopping and compulsive motoring - to make sense of the gathering forces that will fundamentally alter the terms of everyday life in our technological society," admonishes James Kunstler in a recent article in Rolling Stone.
In "The Long Emergency," Kunstler decries America's infatuation with cheap oil. He warns that America lacks a Canary Initiative to examine what it will mean when oil production peaks, which it is supposed to do by about 2010.
Those who don't feel a tremor of doubt about the future are among those Americans Kunstler labels as "Jiminy Crickets." Their "just wish and make it so" denial is popular today because the energy crash is not a happy topic of conversation around the dinner tables of America.
"It is no exaggeration to state," writes Kunstler, "that reliable supplies of cheap oil and natural gas underlie everything we identify as the necessities of modern life: central heating, air conditioning, cars, airplanes, electric lights, inexpensive clothing, recorded music, movies, hip-replacement surgery, national defense - you name it."
Most people assume that America will segue from oil to some other form of energy, allowing us to perpetuate our habitual tendency to waste. But Kunstler warns that we may not have the time to implement a new and viable energy program before the old one is gone.
He predicts a major revamping of American society, from the way we view work to the makeup of our communities. Luxuries - compulsive driving, consumable goods, skiing and other energy-intensive recreation - will abate. But the more important consideration is food.
A friend reminded me of a conversation he once had with the late Fritz Benedict. "When Fritz first arrived in 1946, people depended on locally grown potatoes, beef and sheep, fruit from Paonia put up for winter, and wheat grain delivered by train from the plains. This is what supported the few thousand people living between Glenwood and Aspen."
Twenty years ago, Wilk Wilkinson proposed tapping the geothermal source of Conundrum Hot Springs and piping it into a greenhouse large enough to grow the bulk of Aspen's food. In Aspen, we may be tending greenhouses together instead of fretting about snow conditions.
Cheap oil has long been the lubricant of the American economy, underlying shipping, production and transportation. That economy has built monster homes on Red Mountain, supported our tourist economy and elevated Aspen to world-class stature.
All of that could change during a devastating oil drought, and there will have to be adjustments. First, there will be an energy panic and a free-for-all gas, oil and coal development orgy. Then we will adjust to lives in a grave new world.
"The successful regions in the 21st century," prophesizes Kunstler, "will be the ones surrounded by viable farming hinterlands that can reconstitute locally sustainable economics on an armature of civic cohesion."
<i>Paul Andersen thinks we will have a lot of work to do in the Roaring Fork Valley. His column appears on Mondays.</i>
