Apocalyptic Rapture from the Left

I wish Harper's had an on-line feature. They don't. But if you guys find yourselves wandering through Harvard Square, grab one of the undergrads and ask if you can borrow their copy. Check out Bryant Urstadt, "Imagine There's No Oil: Scenes From a Liberal Apocalypse," Harper's, August 2006: 31-40.

Urstadt investigates the growing Peak Oil movement and draws analogies with Christians (or, in other cases, Puritans too) who are looking forward to armageddon.

Urstadt excerpt: Americans seem born to love the apocalypse, even though it jilts us every time. Peak Oil and Left Behind are mere froth on the sea of doomsaying that stretches back to the Puritans.

In weighing our options (oil ain't gonna last forever), Urstadt suggests we look at building more nuclear reactors (for example: the 103 nuclear reactors in the United States produced the equivalent of 1.4 billion barrels of oil in energy in 2004). However he seems to think that war in the mid-East would suddenly cease if oil was non-existent. Again we have another example of a Harper's writer either failing to read the smite, spite, and resentment of the Quran, or merely cruising around with blinders on.