June 13, 1996
Mexico, D.F.
William Clinton
President of the United States
The White House Office
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.
Washington, D.C., 20500, USA
Dear Mr. President;
It is difficult to appreciate the dimension to which we have grown dependent upon the supply of oil, and its ongoing liquidation as a natural capital into current income. We are desperate to believe we shall never have to embrace a reality categorically different from the present, that we shall ever be able to construct the world we fancy, unbounded by the limits of the earth. But, the phenomenon of petroleum exhaustion within the Continental United States was accompanied by a precipitous decline in supply:
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-- such decline being what threatens a global economic system based upon ever increasing consumption, rather than any reckoning of total quantity ultimately extractable. Contrary to the traditional concept of supply-demand in which more product is liberated at higher price, an economic experience of unprecedented supply-exhaustion portends globally, for the resources of the earth can only be similarly finite.
The estimates of when decline in global production shall commence depend upon ex-soviet and third world consumption levels, as well as success of projected Enhanced Oil Recovery rates, and range from about 2000 to 2017.
All too obvious it is that we are totally unprepared for such a reality, preferring to wager our future on technological breakthroughs which will allow continuation of dependence upon the private vehicle, without increase in the proportion of effort-cost to society. Indeed, to even question the viability of present private transportation is to think upon the unthinkable, to contemplate change beyond the desired. Simple reflection upon the phenomenon of petroleum exhaustion leads to the conclusion that obsolescence of the greater part of the national transportation infrastructure is imminent: deniable only through an immoderate faith in technological ingenuity and a naïve misperception of magnitude of dependence. What we are wagering is the present ability of civilization to unfold without the brutish master of immediate, overwhelming necessity -- a juggernaut of chaos whose disruption of society could shadow that of the Civil War.
There remains in all probability less time in which to develop our alternatives than that which has passed since the significant rise in petroleum price so affected the world economy. Yet, I see the development of no viable alternative, nothing that could be considered a globally sustainable model, only heedless extension and expansion of reliance upon petroleum, with disregard for any deleterious effects upon global climate, with an unfounded faith in ability to avoid the feared great change.
Should technology fail to allow continuation of present design by replacement of the blood of the dinosaurs, we must not risk a sudden imperative to rebuild a massive infrastructure in combination with inelastic demand for oil and irrevocable decline in supply to be resolved through pricing or war, and ourselves, still ignorant of sustainable alternatives. There is no other wisdom but to now explore new Ways of dwelling upon the earth, before that zenith of consumption arrives which shall compel the beginning of the end of the age of petroleum.
Solar derived energy through photovoltaics is an often proclaimed possibility which has never been exemplified on a large scale, probably due to incompatibilities with existing social and capital structures. I envision and long for a cooperative Way of living which would correspond to the requisites of an extension of solar energy collection combining transportation and communication stretching initially perhaps from Sahuarita, Arizona to Guasave, Sinaloa, Mexico, that would more fulfill human need, and the building itself as an intelligent undertaking in these times.
This sketch was presented to Presidente Ernesto Zedillo in conjunction with request for assistance in the approval process of a dental product of my discovery for the prevention of tooth loss. An endeavor at social innovation can better succeed if accompanied by its own economic means upon which to evolve. That, I hope to be able to initially contribute. The Mexican Government answered my petition with official document folio # 48423, October 2, 1995, and their assistance is now overt, if seemingly slow. [This project was carried to the appropiate office in the Mexican Secretaria de Salubridad (Department of Health) where the final authority, Dr. Javier Portilla Robertson thought the idea was so good that it warranted a contribution to his personal benefit of some 600,000 $US. There, the project halted. ]
The route would tentatively follow the existing rail lines, appropriate because of the need to otherwise cross the multitude of private properties and desirability of interconnection between agricultural sectors, the western side of the Sierra Madres of Mexico being the more humid: in ultimate utility --international; and the labor aspirations of Mexico would combine well with the technological ability of the US
One problem is the staging area in the southern part of Arizona. There are lands such as the Canoa Ranch where the building could be combined with an agricultural harmony, and this integration is indispensable to any integrity of social structure, for the foundation of civilization is agriculture. With implementation of modifications of Chinese practices which have allowed continuous cultivation for 40 centuries, water could be used in a manner by humans to leave it suitable for irrigation. Those bands of fertile soil which follow the riverbed and parallel the rail lines are the evolutionary product of millennia over much larger land areas, and they are unique in that management of the occasional floodwater could increase the soil quantity and quality, and in that the climate allows for multiple cropping.
But that would be intent toward sustainable economic practice, and such is far from the impetus of today. Short-term foolishness moves through that valley as in much of the modern enterprise. Golf courses are planned for and being built upon many of those farmlands, to be watered with drinking water, and this in Active (Water) Management Areas; the commutes are to be long distance by private vehicle, of course. This disrespect for agricultural resources and seeking of immediate profits at expense of enduring potential gives the perceptive intelligence an intractable wariness of present momenta.
It is with difficulty that government can lead with vision enmeshed as it is within popular opinion and concentrations of capital. Perhaps the most it can accomplish is to foster the creativity that begins with individuals and spreads unto society. I ask you, as the Executive of the United States Government, to ponder the exploration of a sustainable Way, to maintain that potential within the Santa Cruz Valley by acquiring those suitable properties threatened with shortsighted development, to enable creation of the needed. [In effect, this happened, appearingly through the County Government. The potential remains intact]
Let us be willing to leave our deeds unheralded, and believe that in the future of humankind doth reside our immortality.
Sincerely
Steve Morningthunder
[Sent by certified mail, confirmation receipt returned.]