Peak Politics: Resource Scarcity and Libertarian Political Culture in the United States
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Peak Politics: Resource Scarcity and Libertarian Political Culture in the United States A Dissertation SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Matthew Schneider-Mayerson IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Elaine Tyler May, Adviser June 2013 © Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, 2013 Acknowledgements First and foremost, many thanks to the wonderful members of my committee, Elaine Tyler May, Lary May, Daniel J. Philippon, Kevin P. Murphy and David N. Pellow. Elaine and Lary were dedicated mentors throughout graduate school, even when they—and often I—had little idea exactly what I was studying, or why. Lary’s emphasis on the “so what” question reminded me that my research should always be relevant, while Elaine’s consistent support, insight, and warmth were invaluable. Their monthly dissertation group provided the kind of intellectual community that one seeks but rarely finds as one enters graduate school, and having regular take-out Chinese food made me, a Jew from New York City, feel right at home in the Midwest. Dan Philippon was a mentor in my environmental pursuits and provided generous feedback and advice on this and other projects that was incredibly thoughtful and detailed. David Pellow agreed to join at a late stage and always provoked me to consider new angles. Kevin Murphy guided my research into conservatism and masculinity and was a model of sustaining kindness and warmth. Thanks to the University of Minnesota for its financial support, especially in the form of a Graduate Student Fellowship my first year and a Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship this last year. The Department of American Studies provided support through a Graduate Research Partnership Program Fellowship, a Graduate School Block Grant Summer Dissertation Award and a Mulford Q. Sibley Graduate Fellowship for Summer Research Support. Thanks to the faculty and staff at the University of Minnesota who i were extremely generous with their time, especially Penny Edgell, George Henderson, David Karjanen, Andrew Sell and Jeanne Kilde. Thanks to those who provided advice and support beyond the U of M, especially David Kinkela, Linda Gordon, and Martha Minnow. Thanks to my mentors at Yale whose teaching, research and activism inspired me to seek a PhD in the first place, namely Laura Wexler, David Graeber and James Scott. Along the way, I couldn’t have done this without the kindness of Leslie Gross, Corey Brettschneider, Jill Cutler and so many others. Thank you to all the “peakists” who I interviewed, including Colin Campbell, Kathy McMahon, Gaea Swinford, Richard Kuhnel, Pat Wentworth, Dee Williams, Oily Cassandra, Kris Can, and many others. Thanks to Kathy McMahon and James Howard Kunstler, who graciously posted the link to one of my surveys on their blogs. While you may disagree with some of my claims, I hope that the picture I paint is not wholly unfamiliar to you. Thanks to all the workers at the coffee shops where I completed much of this dissertation, namely Tao, Bob’s Java Hut, I Am Coffee, Common Roots and the Birchwood Café. Thanks to my feline companions, Trout Fishing in America and Blue, for distracting me from my work by constantly sitting on my keyboard to remind me that petting you should always be a higher priority than academic work. You were correct. Thanks to my colleagues in the Department of American Studies, who patiently listened to countless iterations of this project over the years, especially Melissa Williams, ii Susie Hatmaker, Ben Wiggins, Danny LaChance, Ryan Murphy, and Aaron Eddens. Thanks to all the participants in the Mays writing group over the years, including Jennifer E. Moore, Alice Leppert, Joseph Haker, Andrew Paul and James Brown. Writing a dissertation can be a lonely process, but friends and family certainly made it easier. Thanks to all my friends in GSWU, the graduate student unionization campaign, especially Marla Zubel, Charmaine Chua, Melody Hoffman, Raphi Rechitsky, and David Morawski. Thanks to Benjamin Wiggins, Christiaan Greer, Nick Pinto, Nadia Sussman and Joshua Drimmer for their friendship. Special acknowledgements go to K.C. Harrison, who helped me struggle with this topic and read early chapter drafts, and Cameron Leader-Picone, who read many of these chapters and provided advice and emotional support throughout. Couldn’t have done this without you. Most of all, thanks to my family. To my grandpa Harry, who taught me the value of inquiry, an open mind, and being a mensch. To my sister, who read a chapter and was always willing to listen to my half-baked ideas. To my father, for his longstanding love and support. And most of all to my mother, who showed me that a scholar who is motivated by a concern for social justice can do some good in this world, through her teaching, research, and kindness. Thank you all. iii Abstract My dissertation uses the “peak oil” movement as a lens to analyze the convergence of apocalyptic environmental thinking and libertarian political culture in the recent United States. The “peak oil” movement was a twenty-first century American social movement of Americans who came to believe that oil depletion and other environmental problems would lead to the imminent collapse of global industrial society. Dedicated adherents developed a rich subculture, primarily online, and prepared themselves for the “post- carbon” future by conserving energy, changing occupations, and even purchasing land. Drawing on surveys of over 1,500 participants, ethnographic research, discourse analysis of peak oil websites and literary analysis of subcultural fiction, my research reveals a group of mostly white, male, liberal Americans struggling with the perceived threat of economic, environmental and geopolitical decline while the country undergoes a broad shift in political culture: the continued rise of libertarian ideals, accelerated by the influence of Internet technology. I view this apocalyptic subculture in the context of the environmental discourse of “limits to growth,” petroleum dependence, eco-apocalyptic discourses, and the influence of conservative individualism on American political culture. iv Table of Contents List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………….vi Introduction: Peak Politics…………………………………………………………...……1 Chapter 1: The Peak Oil Ideology and Subculture…………………………...……….…29 Chapter 2: Abundance, Scarcity and Limits in the Age of Oil…………………………..78 Chapter 3: Alone Together: The Libertarian Shift and the Network Effect…….……...131 Chapter 4: Apocalyptic Popular Culture and Political Quiescence……………….....…174 Chapter 5: White Masculinity and Post-Apocalyptic Retrosexuality…….....………….219 Conclusion………………………………………………………………….…..…........251 Bibliography………….….……….……………...….….………..….……………….…266 Appendix………………………………………………………………………………..287 v List of Figures Figure x.1: “Oily Cassandra” explains the theory of peak oil…………………………….3 Figure 1.1: Peakist graph of world oil production, past and future…………..……....….34 Figure 1.2. Richard Kuhnel working in his garden………………………………………53 Figure 1.3: Steve Allen and T-shirt detail………………………………………………..64 Figure 2.1: Philip Niemeyer’s New York Times op-ed chart…………....……………...86 Figure 2.2: Price of gasoline and climate change concern in the 2000s…………………97 Figure 2.3: Crude oil prices, 1861-2010………………………………………………..107 Figure 2.4: Energy densities……………………………………….…………………...110 Figure 2.5: U.S. per capita energy consumption, 1650-2010…………………………..112 Figure 4.1: Peakists and disaster movies……………………………………………….187 Figure 5.1: NBC’s Revolution……………………………………………………..……244 Figure 6.1: The “Great Acceleration”…………………………………………………..254 vi Introduction: Peak Politics To most scholars who are even familiar with the term, “peak oil” is shorthand for energy depletion, but for a subculture of Americans in the early twenty-first century “peak oil” became an ideology. Between 2004 and 2010, hundreds of thousands of Americans came to believe that an impending oil scarcity would lead to the imminent collapse of industrial society and the demise of the United States of America.1 The “peak oil” movement was a twenty-first century movement of Americans for whom the dire, apocalyptic consequences of oil scarcity were a fundamental belief that organized the way they thought about their lives, an “ecological identity” that often superseded other categories of identity.2 For many, “peakism” transformed the way they lived as well: so- called “peakists” changed occupations, purchased land, retrofitted their homes, drove less, biked more, stockpiled supplies, and even left their partners as a result of their newfound belief system. One popular explanation of the peak oil theory was provided by writer/filmmaker “Oily Cassandra” in her 2007 YouTube video “Porn. Peak Oil. Enjoy.” A split screen was intended to attract and then educate male viewers, who made up over three quarters of all peakists: on the right side, a sexualized Cassandra, wearing a short pink skirt and a revealing top, performs a mock-striptease to house music; on the left side, she soberly explains the concept of peak oil: 1 This conservative figure emerges from analysis of web site membership two surveys developed for this dissertation. See page 20 for more details. 2 Although we typically think of identity as being determined by more traditional categories, such as race, class, gender and sexual orientation, historians of conservatism and environmentalism can attest to the importance of self-chosen factors, such as dedicated conservative activists or deep ecologists.