The Oil Drum: Local

Apropos of Nate's post on "Status and Curiosity - On the Origins of Oil Addiction" earlier this week, and Stuart's post "Happiness, economic growth, and oil prices", here's Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, who challenges the idea that we’ll be miserable if we don’t get what we want. Our "psychological immune system" lets us feel truly happy even when things don’t go as planned.

Much of what we discuss at theoildrum is about supply - pinpointing problems and/or advantages of existing and future energy technologies. These are the 'means' by which society meets its day to day demands. But little time, (and certainly not equal time) is devoted to discussing the 'ends' - what is all this energy for. As many of you know, I am completing my Phd in Natural Resources at The University of Vermont, with a specialization in Ecological Economics. This hybrid field asserts that the economy is just a part of a larger planetary system (as opposed to the planet and its resources being just part of the economy). EE attempts to evaluate (monetarily and otherwise) the things the market system takes for granted (fresh air and water, biodiversity, healthy dolphin populations, stable climate, etc.) But a growing subset of ecological economists are addressing the 'ends'. By digging into the empirical datapoints that comprise human happiness, we are finding we can be happier with far less energy use. I initially wrote about this here. Below is a short essay, also posted on Grist, co-authored by my advisor Robert Costanza. In my opinion, the questions these authors raise should be preceding or at least accompanying policy discussions on how we decide to obtain and allocate more energy. Ends before means.

Top: US GDP per capita, and US median family income, in thousands of chained 2000 US dollars. (GDP from the BEA, median family income from Data 360, and population from the Census Bureau). Bottom: Percentage of persons who responded to the question "Taken all together, how would you say things are these days‐‐would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?" with each of the three options. (General Social Survey).

Yesterday was Make Music New York Day. I caught some of this near my office and it was just wonderful to have an outdoor concert at lunch with a cool breeze coming off the harbor. Streetfilms has put together an extraordinary 3 minutes of various music venues on the street.

Some great moments of street life activated by a little music. New York at it's best. Bookmark this video if you ever feel down or worry that happiness can't continue without a high energy consumption lifestyle. We make our own happiness - for ourselves and for others. Enjoy the summer weekend.

Editor's Note: This is a guest post from thelastsasquatch.

Peak Oil is one of many symptoms of an ecologically full planet. Our genetically embedded drive for `more' coupled with an expanding world population of 6.5 billion suggests a finite limit for growth will eventually be reached, if it hasn't been already.

In discussions about the impacts of Peak Oil, it is sometimes implicitly assumed that we NEED to replace the energy lost from the coming liquid fuels decline with other energy sources in order to maintain our way of life and our happiness. Indeed, it seems that much of the current effort is focused on comparing/discovering the best energy alternatives with respect to EROI, environmental impact and scalability/timing. In addition, demand experts also look at efficiency, carpooling, 4 day workweek, living locally type solutions, etc. In this post, I look at Peak Oil from a broader context: the necessity and purpose of continued increases in demand for energy. What is it all for, if not to make us happy?