Rollercoaster time again
An article in the WSJ thinks maybe not, and I agree. As noted in a NYT article last month, OPEC has succeeded in cutting production and stabilizing prices. As the price of oil climbs steadily back up to the level that held when we played the World Without Oil game, even in the face of a global recession and shaky demand, one has to wonder if we played it and now it’s time to live it…
World Without Oil - serious game for the public good 
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June 7, 2009 at 7:40 am
Tlachtga
We’ve been given a breather with this recession; the prices are going to go back up. I’ve heard it could end up in this pendulum experience for a while–price of oil goes up, so economy tumbles, so price of oil goes down, economy recovers, so the price of oil goes up, etc. However, the economy’s getting worse and the price is going up anyway, so maybe it won’t be so nice and clean as that pattern.
My town seems to be waking up to this; we’re finally starting a farmers’ market this summer, which is long-overdue, since this town is surrounded by independent farms and dairies. It’s a small step, but a step in the right direction nonetheless.
June 7, 2009 at 4:17 pm
WriTerGuy
Hi Tlachtga! And my regards to the Philadelphia Preservation Society. I see the potential for the seesaw you describe, but I think there are dampers on that oscillation: most notably, the desire of oil producers not to have a wide swing on that teeter-totter. Much better for them if they just keep the price on the pain point all the time, and when their choke gets too greedy and the economy starts to turn blue, release a little only to tighten when the economy recovers. And retaining the option to let up a lot whenever a price fluctuation will do the most damage to the parts of the alternative energy industry that they don’t control. We’ll see if they have enough coherence to pull this off – many people say they can’t, and they have a point, but many said they wouldn’t be able to cut production this soon to reassert price control, and they did.
Glad to hear about the farmers’ market – that may turn out to be a pretty significant step forward actually. Once people start connecting locally, it can really go viral.