Up gradually would be ideal. Up suddenly would be disastrous, among other things fueling (pun not intended) reactionary politics.
Making energy cost more makes everything cost more.
This is fine, if you are rich, and having stuff you need cost more doesn’t really impact you.
It sucks for people who are essentially already spending all their income on stuff they need.
It’s going to happen anyway, though, right?
Nobody really thinks we have a limitless supply of oil, do they? I mean maybe it’s ten years, maybe it’s 50, but we are going to run out and long before that gas and oil will be priced so high that only the rich will be able to afford it.
So yeah, the price for fossil fuels should be going up every year.
I think one of the big problems the US has with capitalism is the idea that our #1 goal should always be to lower prices for everything.
Eh, only to a degree.
Because at some point transitioning to other energy sources will reduce demand for fossil fuels, causing their prices to drop.
This doesn’t require the price of fossil fuels to go up in order to force that transition. You can also achieve it through lowered costs of those other energy sources.
That’s definitely true, but there’s no reason to think that the transition will be orderly. We should be thinking about it now. We should be making choices about where we use the fossil fuels we have left so they can last hundreds of years.
For example, there are areas where electric power is going to have a lot of trouble. Large-scale air flight, for example, I think is going to be tough with electric.
So we should be working on laws and regulations now that encourage places where electric does work, and works really well, to transition sooner rather than later. Like a 30-year countdown, starting today, where by 2050 there are no longer any fossil fuel vehicles on our roads. And regulations about solar power and new construction, etc.
I don’t believe that the free market is going to just work this one out. There are too many parts of the fossil fuel industry that exist outside the free market as it is, and too many interests in outcomes that are not in the best interests of normal people.
Yup. Pulling out of the middle east would not be the way to go if this were the goal. So this discussion probably doesn’t belong here. :)
Me, three. It would hit my pocket book but fine.
In a world where a sane government is taking necessary steps to reduce carbon emissions in an orderly way, this is true.
In a world where the GOP is actively trying to increase emissions, for no more coherent reason than “fuck you,” and the major media outlets aren’t putting “Republican Party conspires to make Earth uninhabitable” in large-size font every day (which IMO would be the accurate, proportionate journalistic response), I’d say anything that reduces the amount of death-gas we pump into the atmosphere is all in all a net plus, considering that there is only one earth as far as I can tell.
The shoe is gonna pinch like a mother fucker, and a sane government could alleviate that, but we don’t have a sane government, and, y’know, death-gas.
Indeed, I’m imagining a government of the people considering their options:
- We could spend a ton of money bombing and killing people in order to keep oil prices low to help the poors, or
- We could just give that money to the poors directly to offset the higher cost of oil.
Yeah, totally has to be the first one.
Sorry, I did not connect the dots.
I find it distasteful to keep mucking around in the affairs of Middle Eastern countries, yet pulling out would be a precipitous change, which could very well cause a precipitous change in oil prices.
Is it possible for US to pull out of ME entirely without also cutting Israel loose? The initial premise seems to be flawed to me, since that suggests more or less the status quo minus some of the saber rattling.
No need to apologise! I just can’t help but say “maybe that’s a good thing” when someone says “X would increase the price of oil”.
So it keeps coming back to oil. However the Middle East balance of power works out, any oil price issues can’t come close to matching what’s been spent projecting force and killing people there,.
Assuming we continued to keep Israel armed with cutting-edge technology, continue to base aircraft there as part of “exercises and cooperation,” why continue to fight there? Give the Iraqis a bunch of F-16s and F-15s from the Arizona boneyard on our way out to help them keep from being overrun by Iran, realize that all we’ve done in Syria is turn much of the country into a wasteland and get out, and then let the people of the region choose\ their own destinies. It’s not like we’re fighting for “good” or “democracy” there, we’re just fighting for people who will do what we ask of them however good or autocratic they might be.
The fear, of course, is a conquered, unified Muslim region that will somehow turn against the West. But I wonder how many Middle Eastern residents would want to fight if we weren’t constantly causing people in the region to be killed or bombed out of their homes?
Doesn’t this seem really unlikely given the last couple thousand years of conflict in the Middle East?
If the US pulled out of the middle East, Russia or China would just move in.
Potentially they might fight against each other, not sure how a Russia/China proxy way would look in the middle East.
The region would certainly not become any more stable though, i don’t think.
And if Russia or China moves in… So? China probably wouldn’t. And Russia has a pretty good supply of petroleum itself, so that’s not going to create a big power imbalance.
I still can’t see any good reason not to just GTFO.
You really can’t think of how this would be bad? To have that much of the global energy supply under their political control?
What makes you think this? Because China doesn’t care about energy? Are you aware of China’s other actions around the globe centered on securing natural resources?
There were periods where the Islamic world got pretty unified. The early Caliphates and then the Ottoman Empire (which, though perhaps more pragmatic and less zealous, still went around conquerin’ and convertin’) come to mind.
You’re assuming Russia will have any more luck than they had in Afghanistan. And even if they do, between the US and Canada, we’d be fine. And maybe better incentivized to make better progress weaning off oil.
Yeah, but they’re not big on sending in invasion forces, so far. There’s Myanmar, etc. but those are long-running historical conflicts.
Good grief. If China and Russia moved in economically, they’d mostly want to…sell oil. If they moved in militarily, the place would eat their lunch, grind them down, like it does everyone else.
There is a huge territory of opportunity between effectively disappear and invade and occupy countries forever. When we talk about pulling out, I don’t think anyone means pretend it doesn’t exist.
That aside, Israel could use a dose of reality right now, before they reach the point that any such dose is fatal. They’re going to have to learn to live with the demographics of that part of the world. No amount of force is going to change that.