Drink Up, Dreamers - Part 2
We were speaking of stories. Todd needed an example. I needed inspiration. And Peter Gabriel was singing.
All the strange things
They come and go, as early warnings
I remembered a recent visit with my folks. “My parents have a piece of land, Todd,” I typed, “that they have my cousin farm for them for a share of the profits. A couple of weeks ago, they told me that they made twice as much this last year as in previous years. Why is this? It seems that ethanol producers are buying up all of the corn they can, and that, of course, is driving prices up.”
Todd pulled up a sticky, but didn’t write anything on it. As if to let me know that he was listening intently, but not wanting to interrupt.
“Now, there are a whole bunch of people in this country who would look at this and call it a good thing. Ethanol. We can drive our cars and trucks with the stuff. It’ll decrease our reliance on foreign oil imports. It’s a renewable resource. It uses current energy in the form of sunlight. It can be made and used locally. It provides jobs, and puts more money into the hands of farmers. Lots of reasons.”
“Problem is, ethanol, or any biofuel, probably, scaled up to the level of this culture, is a complete disaster. It’s one thing for Farmer John to turn some of his corn into ethanol for his farm truck, or some of his soybean oil into biodiesel, to run his tractor. Such local and small-scale actions may prove very helpful during the Powerdown, as population and culture contract to fit the reality of life on this planet. But scaled up in an effort to keep this present madness going, it will simply make things way worse. I’ll give you some links and you can check that out on your own. Culture Change has just posted Alice Friedemann’s excellent analysis of this scaling up problem called Peak Soil. John Michael Greer’s essay, Faustus and the Monkey Trap, is so good I feel like I should just shut down my blog and link to his.”
so I was asking you about stories
“I’m getting there, dude. I can’t say everything at once.”
sorry
“So what stories underlie the ramping up of ethanol production? That we should have fuels for our cars and trucks. That we’ll need transport to keep our lives going, to keep this economy going. That we’ll need these fuels at a reasonable price. That we can’t continue to rely on imported fuels.”
“What stories underlie those stories? That our lifestyle is good and right. That our economy is good and right. That car culture is good and right. That we can solve our fuel situation through technology.”
“What stories underlie those sto