Letter: This isn't working

Editor, Daily News:

I agree with columnist Ben Bova (May 28 Perspective section) that "if we're serious about alleviating global warming, we should move as swiftly as practicable away from burning petroleum and coal and natural gas." But the energy crisis is worse than Bova lets on.

The world has passed peak production of petroleum. Supply is irrevocably declining while demand and population pressures go up. Both the White House and the petroleum industry know that no new exploration will make a difference.

As Richard Heinberg explains in his two books, "The Party's Over" and "Powerdown," net energy extracted will not be worth the net energy expended. The world's oil has been mapped. No magic elixir, whether ethanol or hydrogen or shale, will avert the energy crisis, and neither technology, the market, nor our corporate-controlled government will have the will (or the capital) to pursue a solution.

The obvious first step, as Bova notes, is to cut fuel consumption in vehicles, which burn over half of the 21 million barrels of oil used daily in the United States. Failing this, nothing can substitute for petroleum, which is also used for critical functions like aircraft, agribusiness, transportation and electricity production. Or will vital infrastructure be ignored, leading to blackouts like that of 2003 caused by peak demand? Will there be new "resource wars," as Michael Klare puts it: invasions of Iran, north and west Africa, South America?

We are on a slippery slope, distracted from the real problem, namely that the American lifestyle is simply not sustainable.

Noelia Rodriguez , Naples