Kunstler on the transition

Here's part of Barack Obama's inaugural address:

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done.  The state of our economy calls for action, bold and swift.  And we will act, not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth.  We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together.  We'll restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost.  We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories.  And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.  All this we can do.  All this we will do.

Bold is mine.  What if science and Dr. Chu, the new Energy head, say decline is inevitable?

J. H. Kunstler writes this, HOPE AND FEAR,  reminding me of an earlier blog entry of mine.

For me, the argument is simple and carefully ignored.  

1. Consumption, for the many (of the Earth, by China(and others), for America [shall not perish?]), has become the purpose and measure of our economy. 
2. The basis of consumption, Nature's physical bounty , is limited and is being rapidly depleted.  
   
3. The response by the pols and pundits is: do something quick, stimulate more consumption, government can't allow this or that industry or company (or individual) to fail, borrow now-pay back later.  Have faith.  Party like it's 1999.

But, as Abe Lincoln put it in his Second Inaugural:

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which (we) may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.