Caveat Emptor

 So I’m reading a Bill McKibben essay in The New Yorker, wherein he argues that the Iran war is moving us toward electric cars (those of us who can afford them), and away from the greedy grasp of the “fossil fuels industry.”

And he never once mentions fertilizers; or plastics; or the use of petroleum for fuel oil (driving international commerce via international shipping), or even agriculture. Which once employed most people on the planet, and now feeds the planet because of: fertilizer (based on fossil fuels), and gas powered equipment. Without which the world as we know it (food supplies; lumber; mining for rare earths for things like cells phones, and ore for metals; and just plain food) would grind to a halt.

I don’t know the percentage of petroleum that winds up in gas tanks of cars, but it’s not a majority. And electric cars don’t really reduce air pollution; they just shift it to other sources, and diminish the problem by almost a de minimus amount. Lithium batteries wear out, and then what? What’s the mining process for lithium? Can we do it without petroleum power somewhere in the chain of production? Do we have electric trucks ready to replace the diesels that carry ore from mines to refineries to factories? The phone I’m typing on is more plastic than metal. Has the fossil fuel industrial complex brainwashed me into accepting that? My desktop computer is more plastic than not (the shell is metal. My keyboard is metal, but the keys are plastic. So is most of my monitor.

Miserable creature that I am, who will save me from this fossil fuel created nightmare?

I mean, when you put it like that.

Trump’s “excursion” is not going to prompt an exit from the fossil fueled modern world. Not unless you want to give up on medicine and food and commerce and modernity (including the internet) , even sanitation (most of the electricity in America is provided by fossil fuels. Electricity powers the pumps that make modern plumbing work. You find that out when your state loses power for ten days in winter, and you not only can’t heat your house, you can’t take a shower or flush your toilet). Shutting down the Strait of Hormuz is the only play Iran really has. Sending off “cheap” drones (v. the expensive interceptors) is a viable military strategy, but forcing the world to force Trump to leave Iran alone is not going to fail because the world suddenly reverts back to 19th century fuel sources (the whales alone are grateful). 

Besides, solar panels need plastics, and windmills have to be shipped by truck. How many electric trucks are that powerful and that available? 

If there is a reset because of this “incident,” it is more likely to be Congress reasserting its authority over the use of the military when the matter is not one of defense. It was Pearl Harbor that got us into WWII, and the Axis alliance that got us into war with Germany. It was the Gulf of Tonkin incident that made us commit so deeply to war in Vietnam for so long. Not only did we not win that war, but all the theories we were sold about why we had to fight it were proven wrong. Vietnam is now a trading partner, Russia is close to collapse (again), and China is using the diplomatic methods JFK championed, as successfully as we once did; while almost no one in America notices. 

Beware of people taking small instances and trying to predict historic change from them. Better, as Candide learned, to tend your own garden. 🪴