G20 Summit: Post-Peak Oil Blind Spot and Deception

It is always a challenge to blow through the "noise" to arrive at the "information." The risk of over-simplification runs parallel to the effort. However, there is a principle that is worthy of pursuit: in simplicity there may shine a kernel of truth. Of all that has been written and said about the G20 Summit, what is the underlying premise for action amongst the world's leading industrial powers? We need look no further than the Summit's official communiqué.

The official communiqué states: "We start from the belief that prosperity is indivisible; that growth, to be sustained, has to be shared; and that our global plan for recovery must have at its heart the needs and jobs of hard-working families, not just in developed countries but in emerging markets and the poorest countries of the world, too; and must reflect the interests not just of today's population but of future generations, too."

The industrial mantra of growth and prosperity is front and center. This is the underlying premise for the injection of $1 trillion into the IMF by participating nations. This is the cornucopian blind spot that is offered the public. In simplest terms, no matter how bad the global financial and economic predicament may happen to be (and there are now thousands of analyses that one may fall back on) the premise that has come out of the Summit is standard and reactionary: it is business as usual.

Peak Oilers are unanimous in their position that "business as usual" is a non-starter. The underlying collateral for industrial development, i.e. the energy in the ground, has entered the downward slope of depletion. If not full consensus, there is strong opinion within the PO community that 2008 was the peak year. What is more real? The energy collateral in the ground or the financial and economic templates that are superimposed on the collateral, the false notions of capitalism vs. socialism as trumpeted by the corporate media inclusive? (Who owns the "means of production" is secondary to having access to the means of production.)

This break-out onto the terrain of a new paradigm has been outlined clearly and simply by the PO pioneer, Colin Campbell: "Throughout history, people have had difficulty in distinguishing reality from illusion. Reality is what happens, whereas illusion is what we would like to happen. Wishful thinking is a well-worn expression. Momentum is still another element: we tend to assume that things keep moving in the same direction. The world now faces a discontinuity of historic proportions, as nature shows her hand by imposing a new energy reality. There are vested interests on all sides hoping somehow to evade the iron grip of oil depletion, or at least to put it off until after the next election or until they can develop some strategy for their personal or corporate survival. As the moment of truth approaches, so does the heat, the deceptions, the half-truth and the flat lies."

The G20 Summit, in a nutshell, has delivered nothing more than smoke and mirrors, a band-aid for the bankers and an attempt at soothing drool for the public.

The condition matures. The condition will expose the false premises hatched by the G20. The condition is the slide towards Post-Peak Oil and the collapse of industrial civilization. Any analysis short of that is smoke and spin. It is a lie.