Jens Jergensen and Peak Oil

“When the wells begin to peter out, the competition for the remaining petroleum resources will grow even fiercer. Are more than the 0.5 percent of Americans who now serve in the military willing to risk their lives fighting overseas so we can continue to live as we wish? Peak oil will force that question on us.

Rod Dreher: Peak Oil is Coming, and We're Unready. August 17, 2008—Dallas Morning News [Note: Rod Dreher is a self proclaimed “Crunchy Con who blogs conservative politics and religion]

My favorite, most savored moments of the day are when I put my boys to bed. I lay between them in their shared bed, looking back and forth between their two sweet faces. Jens smiling, Lake sternly plotting to be the one who gets to turn off the light when we’re done reading. One night after the light was out I looked at Jens, the sprite, who still holds the look of a cherubic toddler at age four. My mind flashed forward to him being a soldier—a conscripted soldier. This thought came out of thin air, nothing I’d read or seen on tv had planted the seeds in my mind. This boy—Jens in particular—is not being raised to be a soldier. He’s being raised with tender kindness, humored in his spirited nature, adored for his adorableness. There are not a lot of hard edges in his world. I looked at him and could see his grown up face startled by a world of violence. I could see him remembering me, his mother, and these times together. So sweet, so safe.
Dreher goes on to say:

“A famed U.S. military leader has warned that the fossil-fuel supply on which American civilization depends utterly will run out someday in the 21st century and that our nation cannot afford to place our hope in "the sentimental belief that the things we fear will never really happen. I suggest that this is a good time to think soberly about our responsibilities to our descendants – those who will ring out the Fossil Fuel Age," said Adm. Hyman G. Rickover, father of the nuclear Navy. In 1957.

We've wasted a half-century of precious time, another non-renewable resource. We probably don't have another one to spare.

Next installment: Can you live out both your dream and your nightmare at the same time?