Sharpe’s Gold is the second (though ninth in chronological order) historical novel in the Richard Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell first published in 1981. The story is set in August 1810 and features the destruction of Almeida during the Peninsular War. — Wikipedia
Compare the recent and continuing furore over anthropogenic climate change to the more muted response to the rapid depletion of the world’s remaining petroleum reserves, and one such distortion stands out clearly. Both these problems are unquestionably real – both were predicted decades ago, both could quite readily force modern industrial civilisation to its knees, and both are already having measurable impacts around the world. Yet the response to the two differs in instructive ways. Anthropogenic climate change has become a cause célébre, splashed across the mainstream media, researched by thousands of scientists funded by lavish government grants, and earnestly discussed by heads of state at summit meetings. Nothing is actually being done to stop it, to be sure, and most likely nothing will be done; not even the climate campaigners who urge drastic action in the loudest voices and most extreme terms have shown much willingness to accept the drastic changes in their own lives that would cut carbon dioxide emissions soon enough to matter. Sull, the narrative of climate change has found plenty of eager listeners around the world.
None of this has happened with peak oil The evidence backing the claim that the world has already passed the peak of petroleum production and faces a future of declining energy and economic contraction is every bit as solid as the evidence for anthropogenic climate change;” the arguments opposing it are just as meretricious; its potential for economic and human costs is as great, solutions are as difficult to reach, and it can feed apocalyptic fantasies almost as extreme as those that have gathered around climate change. Sull, no summit meetings are being called by heads of state to discuss the end of the age of oil; there has been no barrage of mainstream media attention concerning it, and precious few government grants. Climate change is mediagenic; peak oil is not.
A core difference between the two crises explains why. Climate change, as a cultural narrative, is a story about human power…Peak oil as a cultural narrative, on the other hand, is not a celebration of human power but a warning about human limits. — ‘The Falling Years Of Inhumanist Vision’ by John Michael Greer in Dark Mountain