The article implies that the differences between the conservatives, Gingrich, and the progressives, Obama, lie in outlook, just like on Wall Street.
She uses the analogy to suggest that Gingrich, in promising $2.50 gas by somehow upping gas exploration and development above current levels, is Bullish or optimistic in the future. The President's mixed approach, is 'bearish; in that it take a pessimistic view.
And she concludes, although not very strongly, that the Bullish approach is best, because it ultimately will bring more oil and gas to market
I fundamentally disagree. And, to disagree with this optimistic approach I know harms the progressive position.
Americans are by nature optimistic, especially when relating to the use of natural resources. This is understandable when you look at history.
Americans are all immigrants (except for Native Americans whose history plays directly into the topic of natural resources). When American colonists immigrated from Europe there was a sense that Europe was using its natural resources up. You must remember this was an agrarian age, the industrial revolution had not started. Whale oil fueled lights and was the oil of the 17th and early 18th century.
Petroleum was not discovered except as a nuisance to farmers, and coal was burned by scrapping it off the surface of the earth and using it in stoves (that just had been invented).
Feudalism was the economic paradigm; and aristocratic monarchy was the political one.
The colonists were fleeing this as "excess persons", that is to say, they went to the dangerous new world because there was not enough to go around in Europe.
What they found was unbelievable. The "New World" had vast natural resources, and free land. There were not nobles or lords in the way, only the Native Americans, and the colonists had firearms, and the "Indians" had bow and arrows; a tragic mismatch.
It is no wonder that a basic tenant of American faith and optimism is this "exceptionalism" that has great faith in limitless natural resources. In the twentieth century, the United States twice came to the world's aid, by using its vast natural resources to destroy tyranny with good, and service, guns and butter.
Today, the United States uses from 20 to 30% of world's energy resources every day. As the article says, if every country in the world used as much, we would need five earth's to provide the energy.
As more countries enter the "developed nation" status, more energy is demanded. And we only have one earth.
So, how do we approach this "new" paradigm? We apply, as the article suggests, the same formula that has worked each time before: we will out produce the world with our vast natural resources and win the day.
That is the bearish position that Gingrich uses, along with xenophobia, racism; etc., which by the way also were part of American "exceptionalism": producing the Civil War, Genocide of Native American to feed "Manifest Destiny"; etc.
In short, the bearish position is not without human and moral cost. But I digress.
So why would Obama embrace the "bearish" position, when the "bullish" optimism of the past has served America so well? Why wouldn't Obama approve the Keystone pipeline, it is in the American tradition.
Ok, read carefully here, because this will go against your "American exceptionalism".
We we running out of gas. We are reaching quickly the tipping point of the world's resources, all resources, to support the total world population.
In a sense we are where Europe was in 1492-1885, when natural resources could not provide a decent life for its population, prompting the mass migration to the "New World" (including Africa, Asia and the Americas through colonialism).
It is not by accident that Gingrich talks about colonizing the moon for resources, it is part of the bearish approach following the same pattern that worked for immigrant Americans in 1500.
The problem is, it takes a whole lot more energy to move one human being to the moon and back. Mass migration is impossible. Mars is three months away, traveling at thousands of miles per hour, for a crew of three. And, the atmospheres of the Moon and Mars cannot sustain human life.
The closest planet that might sustain human life has not been found yet, and promises to be millions of light years away.
In short, we are stuck here. There is not another migration that will save us. We have to make do, with the resources we have, and use innovation and human brain power to utilize energy much more efficiently or we will overtax the resources of the world and sink into social, economic and political chaos.
If you wonder what this looks like, take a peak at equatorial Africa. Global Warming has already changed the climate to a point that the natural resources cannot support the population, mostly agrarian in nature, resulting in genocide, warfare, and mass starvation.
While Americans whine about $5.00/gallon gasoline, the Sudan sees millions starving, raping, and dying.
Now that is a pretty bearish or pessimistic view isn't it? And, anyone running for public office would be pretty stupid to adhere to it unless they put responsibility to their people, the world and the future ahead of an optimism that only will make things worse.
President Obama is no fool. He knows he took a risk by refusing to approve the Keystone pipeline. He knows we cannot move immediately from using 30% of world's resources to say 10% immediately. He knows that.
Gingrich, on the other hand, knows America's hot button. He knows history. He knows that confidence in abundant natural resources and their maximized use, is what Won the West (stole the West), Won World Wars I, and II, and the Cold War. We "outproduced them", and out used resources we had in the Americas to prevail. Why wouldn't that work again?
Ok, lean in here again and listen: BECAUSE WE DON'T HAVE ALL THE VITAL RESOURCES ANYMORE!
Saudi Arabia and the Middle East have vastly more petroleum resources that does the United States. And, they mostly have nationalized their oil reserves, and their country's leaderships control supplies.
In the United States, land of free enterprise, oil companies are multi-nationals, with no allegiance to our country. They drill in our land and oceans, and sell the oil to the highest bidder. The Keystone Pipeline is being built to move tar sand oil to Texas, because Canadian Law does not allow exporting Canadian Oil, drilled within Canada to be exported, unless it is refined outside Canada.
And, Canadians will not allow a thousand mile plus pipeline to traverse their land because of environmental concerns.
The Keystone Pipeline is a scam, exposing the Midwest to pollution, with no benefit to Americans short term or long term energy needs.
President Obama knows that, and to his credit did not approve it.
Gingrich knows it too, but he also knows what Americans believe in, so he sells a bearish view of natural resources that he knows is now false; pandering to an American optimism that is no longer valid, accurate, or relevant.
It is not complicated. To maintain our present standard of living, America has to stop imagining and using what got us out of trouble before. There is no mass migration to a bountiful continent to bail us out. Opportunity no longer will come through Manifest Destiny.
The Bullish approach is to change, to modify, to more efficiently use energy. President Obama's approach, whether he wins re-election or not, is correct.
To prevail, he has to convince Americans to modify one their most profound principles: that we can outproduce anyone, out natural resource them, and prevail every time.
This time, we have to out think, and out efficiency the world to keep our high standard of living. If we use the old approach, WE WILL LOSE!
Bullish is a prescription for defeat.
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