I sent copies of my previous posts on “Denial” to a friend and fellow Wall Street working stiff, who then showed it to another of the traders at his firm. After reading the posts, the trader sarcastically remarked, “I guess that means we can short everything”, and when pressed, retorted (and I am paraphrasing here), “I’ll be playing golf by then”, meaning the advent of the era of declining energy supplies.

I can think of nothing that better exemplifies the American spirit of denial of our energy situation. I might have spent 6000 or more hours on this research project, wrote dozens of articles, many of which were published, and at one time had 3 “fact checkers” in my employ to make sure that I had the details and facts correct – but in the space of 5 minutes this very educated, top earning Wall Street talent dismissed my assertions and conclusions out of hand. Perhaps the irony was lost on him – after all, I was writing about DENIAL!

Oh, and by the way… you know that golf game you were planning to take up full time? Will the course need fossil fuel powered landscaping equipment? What about pesticides and fertilizers for the fairways and greens (these are made from fossil fuels)? Will you be driving to the course? Will the club’s employees need to drive to work? Will the employees be able to afford a $200 fill up?

Maybe you should take up gardening…