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DrumBeat: December 17, 2007
Posted by Leanan on December 17, 2007 - 9:56am
Triple-digit oil prices expected after 2007 records
After a record-smashing year with oil peaking at $99 a barrel in 2007, a triple-digit world of crude oil awaits in the coming year, energy experts say.
Trading below $51 a barrel less than 12 months ago, crude prices hit their first in a fusillade of all-time highs in July and never looked back.
While some blame the frothy crude market on speculation rather than the simple rules of supply and demand, the only force that managed to slow prices down at all this year was fear of an economic slowdown, as oil fell below $90 a barrel just weeks after hitting a record.
Running out of gas: High prices could fuel economic slowdown felt in all areas
Oil's run to nearly $100 a barrel this year jacked up the cost of travel, clothing, beauty products and milk, and many analysts think fuel prices will remain at historically lofty levels throughout 2008.
But record energy prices could sow the seeds of their own destruction. Along with the housing crisis, they are contributing to an economic slowdown that is sapping the country's energy appetite just as oil producers ramp up production.
Commodity markets have also been in a bubble stage, their prices rocketing due to cheap and plentiful liquidity. Oil being a bellwether of other commodities, the oil market has been the one where the bubble is easiest to identify.
Buoyant China expected to lead growing demand for oil
Booming demand for energy from China and the Middle East will drive global oil consumption up 2.5 per cent next year despite the growing threat of a recession in America, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The Paris-based energy watchdog said yesterday that it expected global crude oil demand to grow by 2.1 million barrels a day in 2008, 200,000 barrels a day higher than its previous forecast.
Gazprom to receive electric power plants in Europe in asset swap
Gazprom could receive electric power plants in Europe in an asset swap with Germany's E.ON, the press office of the Russian energy giant said on Monday.
Gazprom deal over Kovykta at risk
Russian Gazprom's deal to buy control in the giant Kovykta gas field is at risk as the company cannot agree with the current owner, oil firm TNK-BP, on historical costs, a source close to Gazprom said on Monday.
"It has been a systematic problem. If it goes on like this the deal scenario will change," the source said.
Latin America: Biofuels and sustainability – Biofuels boom … or bust?
Biofuels are becoming a boom industry across Latin America, but questions are being asked about their long-term sustainability
Turning Carbon Dioxide into Fuel
Researchers are harnessing solar energy to convert carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide, which can be used to make fuels.
Biofuel wrong way to tackle emissions problem: Transport expert
There are better -- not to mention, cheaper --emission-saving strategies than those involving biofuel, says a leader of a global transportation group.
Jack Short, Secretary General of the International Transport Forum, recently told delegates gathering at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, that too often nations are choosing "high cost and low impact measures" like biofuel development rather than more "cost-effective measures to reduce CO(2) emissions in transport."
China's industrial guidelines urge support for unconventional energy reserves
China will encourage the exploration and production of unconventional energy sources, such as oil shale, oil sands and natural gas hydrate, according to the 2007 edition of the guidelines for industrial restructuring.
China Rolls Out First Self-Designed Hybrid Car
China's state-owned Chang'an Automobile group has started making its own hybrid cars, the first such move by a Chinese automaker, the Xinhua news agency reported.
Mass production of the Chinese-designed car, which consumes 20 percent less fuel than ordinary cars of the same size, was launched after six years of research and development, Xinhua said late on Friday.
China Says Global Warming Will Strain Water Limits
China will have exploited all available water supplies to the limit by 2030, the government has warned, ordering officials to prepare for worse to come as global warming and economic expansion drain lakes and rivers.
Seas could rise twice as high as predicted: study
The world's sea levels could rise twice as high this century as U.N. climate scientists have predicted, according to researchers who looked at what happened more than 100,000 years ago, the last time Earth got this hot.
China Says Glaciers Shrink by up to 18%
High altitude glaciers in China's remote west have shrunk by up to 18 percent over the last five years due to global warming, state media said on Friday, citing preliminary results from an on-going survey.
South Africa looks to sun, wind to lighten blackouts
Faced with power cuts stretching into the next decade, South Africa is slowly switching its focus to alternative energy sources in a country blessed with bountiful sunshine and a lengthy coastline.
While state power utility Eskom warns solar and wind power can only ever meet a fraction of the nation's needs, environmentalists want a more aggressive pursuit of alternative energy rather than a growing use of nuclear power.
'Peak Oil' Theory Flawed: State-Run Oil Firm
South Korea’s state-run oil firm claimed Monday that it would take at least 80 more years before oil is used up, dampening the so-called "peak oil" theory, which has been gaining more currency amid high crude prices in recent months.
In a report titled ``Is the Era of $100 per Barrel Really Coming?’’ the Korea National Oil Corporation (KNOC) also argued that it will be difficult in the foreseeable future for people to see oil prices beyond $100.
Fire at Frontier's Cheyenne Refinery
Independent refiner Frontier Oil Corp. said Monday a weekend fire at its Cheyenne, Wyo., facility will cut output of petroleum products for no more than 30 days.
The one-word answer to sky-high oil prices
Iraq has the third-largest oil reserves in the world – if its government could agree on how to share oil revenues.
2007: The Great Unraveling Begins
But the real news of 2007 is not the disappointment of the US political system, but rather the growing signs of a social, political, economic, and environmental nightmare. The real news is that even while the mainstream politicians and mainstream media have turned a corner in their treatment of global warming, the bigger questions before us as a society are not even part of the discourse. As the subprime lending shell game has worked its way into prominence as an economic problem, big banks and big media continue to dress it up as a manageable one, contained to those who foolishly signed loans they could not handle. Unfortunately, however, the entire US economy is suspect, because it is built upon a number of assumptions that are starting to buckle. In short, the US economy, and much of the world economy, is a house of cards. And 2007 has been the year that the first cards began to fall.
Energy and the presidential race
Where the leading candidates stand on everything from a gas tax to a carbon cap to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Russia delivers nuclear fuel to Iran
Russia said Monday it has begun fuel deliveries to an atomic power station in Iran that has been at the center of international concerns over Tehran's nuclear program.
India: Oil firms not yet ready for 10% ethanol blended fuel in October
While the sugar industry is readying itself for expanding ethanol production, India’s automotive industry has expressed reservations about the viability of the proposal. Oil companies, too, are not ready as yet. In fact, they have not even completed the blending requirement for 5% ethanol. In October this year, the oil marketing firms were directed by the government to sell petrol blended with 5% ethanol in most of the states.
Wind Power: The solution to South Asia’s energy problem
A few years ago, while touring California I was stunned to see the wind farm at Altamont Pass near Livermore, California. I saw hundreds of turbines turning out energy for the national grid. Earlier, I had seen a stray turbine in the UK and in Hambantota, Sri Lanka and have read of windmills in the Netherlands. It beat me as to why South Asian countries, with so much of mountains blessed with ample wind power, even blowing our cars off the roads; have given no thought to wind power.
China stops 13 small power plants to save energy, cut pollution
China's top economic planning agency has revoked approvals for 13 small coal-fired power plants in six provinces amid efforts to boost energy efficiency and reduce pollution.
Looming threat to the world climate
The romantically-named west Siberian bog, bigger than France and Germany combined, contains 70 billion tonnes of methane primed to vent upwards and outwards as it thaws and rots. Since methane is 30 times more efficient than carbon dioxide at trapping heat, that equates to more than two trillion tonnes of CO2, or two thirds the total amount already in the atmosphere.
Japan to Lend $3 Billion to Abu Dhabi to Secure Oil
The Japan Bank for International Cooperation, the government's main overseas lender, will lend $3 billion to Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. to secure a stable supply for Asia's biggest economy, which imports most of its oil needs.
China agrees 38 pct increase in Saudi oil imports
China has agreed to boost crude oil imports from Saudi Arabia by over a third next year, two Beijing-based trading sources said on Monday, helping fuel new refineries in the world's second-biggest consumer.
Crude at $100 a barrel makes good headlines but ignores basic economics. Why oil prices are in for a 50 percent drop.
A 25 per cent increase in prices of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) greeted residents in Dubai and the Northern Emirates on Sunday.
The announcement was made by two of the biggest LPG retailers, Emirates Gas and Emarat Gas, on the back of a rise in the price of bread and eggs.
UK: Gas costs threatens to increase fuel poverty
AS the first frost of winter bites, more and more families will spend this Christmas struggling to pay fuel bills and consequently join the growing number of British households in fuel poverty.
Shortages at Food Banks Cause Closures
Sheid blames an unusual combination of factors for the food shortage. The cost of groceries is up, fuel costs are up and energy costs are high.
"It's much more demanding handling your own personal circumstances then it was ever before," says Scheid.
The Political Class is out of Touch on Energy
We must be running out of energy because so many authoritative-looking people say so on TV. Rhetoric aside, look at the numbers. According to the Petroleum Institute the world's supply of fossil fuels is: Oil-43 years, Natural Gas-66.5 years and Coal-325.6 years. This should quiet the "falling sky" crowd, but not so fast. Population growth in the United States alone requires the generation of 3 million new jobs per year. This translates into more consumption which requires a hefty growth in energy sources. In the developing countries, especially Africa , more energy is the key to the elimination of poverty.
Households urged to take action on emissions
Environmentalists say Australian households can cope with emission cuts discussed at Bali without dramatic impact on lifestyles.
As the Climate Changes So Does Our Wine
The topic of global warming, which has become a hot political football in the last year, was also one of the most-discussed subjects at the recent 13th annual Wine Industry Technical Conference in Adelaide, Australia.
Norwegian Continental Shelf oil output declining faster than previously thought
The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate said crude oil production on the Norwegian Continental Shelf is declining more rapidly than the oil companies had previously expected, adding that something needs to be done.
Russia's oil output grows 2.4% to 9.86 mln bbl/d in 10M07
Oil output in Russia increased 2.4% year-on-year in January-October 2007 to 408.9 million metric tons (9.86 mln barrels per day), the country's top statistics body said on Monday.
The State Statistics Service, Rosstat, said crude sales on the domestic market grew 3.8% in the reporting period to 188.4 million metric tons (4.5 mln bbl/d) and exports were up 3.7% to 215.7 million metric tons (5.2 mln bbl/d).
Nigeria's main militant group urges faction to unite and cripple oil industry
Nigeria's main militant group on Monday urged all armed factions in the restive southern oil heartland to join and cripple Africa's biggest petroleum industry.
Mexico caps damaged Gulf oil well
Oil workers have capped a damaged oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico that spilled crude and natural gas for almost two months after a deadly high-seas collision, Mexico's state-owned oil company announced on Sunday.
Then again, perhaps BP's refinery plans aren't so bad
A report suggests the company's upgrades will be up to code and won't ruin Lake Michigan.
China plans to expand oil tanker fleet
China’s fast-expanding oil tanker fleet is expected to shoulder half of the transportation of imported oil by 2010, experts said. A researcher with the Institute of Comprehensive Transportation (ICT) affiliated to the National Development and Reform Commission, Luo Ping, said that domestic shipping companies have been encouraged to expand the oil transportation market in the past years to help guarantee economic security.
So Much For Capitalist Exploitation Then
We don't actually need to go and find massive new oil fields: we just need to be better at getting out the oil that we already know is there. It wasn't that many decades ago that we only expected to take 10% of the oil out of any field. Technology does march on you know.
We are all well aware that the price of food on the global market is driven by increased demand for more sophisticated food by China and India, Peak Oil, i.e. the inability of the world's petroleum production system to meet demand, hence the increasing cost of transportation and production costs of food, salination and erosion of soils, the movement of land away from food production to that of alternative fuels, failure of crop production in certain countries due to poor weather and climate change.
Here’s to ‘Dow up, Earth down’
With the economies of the world soaring, the ecological health of the Earth is plummeting. The Dow goes up, the Earth goes down. We cheer economic growth as the hallmark of human achievement, while the global environment staggers against the ropes.
Britain's carbon strategy 'up in smoke'
Britain's plans to build new coal-fired power stations as part of the country's efforts to address its looming energy crisis will completely undermine the Bali agreement on climate change and discredit Gordon Brown's commitments to reduce greenhouse gases, according to one of the world's leading climate scientists.
Simple numbers to shape climate talks
Behind the millions of words at the Bali climate conference, in documents, speeches and slick brochures, lay a set of simple numbers: 2 and 445 and "25 to 40."
That's 2 degrees Celsius, 445 parts per million of carbon dioxide, and a 25-to-40-percent reduction in global-warming gases — a formula, some say, to save the planet from climate change's severest consequences.
Small group of US experts insist global warming not man-made
A small group of US experts stubbornly insist that, contrary to what the vast majority of their colleagues believe, humans may not be responsible for the warming of the planet Earth.
Global warming may soon see Santa don shorts
This December, with only a few weeks to go before Christmas, there are only 20 centimeters (seven-and-a-half inches) of snow on the ground, just enough for snowmobiles and dog- and reindeer sleighs.
But the rivers and lakes, which normally freeze over in winter and are used to take tourists on snowmobile or sleigh rides, have not turned to ice yet, and that's bad news.
George Monbiot: We've been suckered again by the US. So far the Bali deal is worse than Kyoto
America will keep on wrecking climate talks as long as those with vested interests in oil and gas fund its political system.
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Regarding Norway, our middle case is that they approach zero net oil exports in 2024.
Regarding Russia, the EIA data show that their C+C production has been between 9.3 and 9.5 mbpd since October, 2006, which is up year to date versus 2006, but basically flat since 10/06. And the VP of Lukoil recently stated that Russia has peaked (the absolute peak was back in the Eighties). With rising internal consumption, flat production = lower net oil exports.
I expect that the 2007 top five net export decline rate will show an accelerating decline rate, versus 2006.
Rainsong has the head of Lukoil link here
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3389#comment-278289
I believe Westexas was the first to post that link. He posted a day or two before Rainsong did.
Have to admit that I'm about 3 days behind in my reading.
Nope, guess again Leanan, it was not Westexas. It was the very first post on Drumbeats Saturday.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3383#comment-277751
And it got one single reply, from NeverLNG. Apparently few people read Drumbeats on the weekend.
Ron Patterson
What's the point of drumbeats if you can't waste time at work reading them.
http://www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=sm6peakoildrum&r=35
The low spots are weekends and holidays.
I think that Leanan was referring to my post on the TOD Europe Oil Watch Monthly thread.
In any case, extrapolating from year to date EIA C+C numbers (and assuming that total liquids is similar to C+C), and assuming the same rate of increase in consumption as 2006 (which is probably conservative), I estimate that the total liquids net export decline rate for the top five in 2007 will be about -5%/year, versus -3.3%/year in 2006, in other words, an accelerating net export decline rate, at least for 2007.
While we have been debating world total liquids versus crude oil numbers, the ELM marches on. Our model, recent case histories and current data--at least for the top five net exporters in aggregate--all suggest an accelerating net export decline rate.
Saudi Arabia is showing an increase in production in the fourth quarter. But a fourth quarter rate of 9.0 mbpd (C+C) would only raise their average 2007 production rate to 8.7 mbpd, from 8.6. Also, there is the question of what effect fourth quarter refinery maintenance in Saudi Arabia had on crude oil exports and product imports, which would show up in the net export numbers.
Whenever Fedun's remark was posted, I think a lot of people -- including me -- missed it. And it's staggering. How often does a senior oil executive from a petro-power -- particularly an oil nationalist like Russia -- concede that his country is at peak?
Steve LeVine, author
The Oil and the Glory
http://www.oilandglory.com
There has been a lot of stuff coming out of Russia suggesting flat to lower production, starting with the Alfa Bank report this summer warning that the country's large old oil fields were beginning to water out at an alarming rate, and Renaissance Capital brokerage said that excluding the Sakhalin-1 Field, daily crude output in Russia has been down year-on-year since May.
In any case, based on our mathematical model, Russia is primed for a production decline, which could be fairly severe. Our middle case shows them approaching zero net oil exports around 2024, same time frame as Norway.
Why would the severity be any worse than in the USA?
"Why would the severity be any worse than in the USA?"
Because the nearest swing supplier is one the moons of Saturn..
Of the 27 European nations 25 import most (more than 90%) of their oil and gas.
There is a good reason that the French have so much nuclear, they have almost no fossil fuels!
We are very vunerable even in the UK where our North sea resources are disappearing rapidly.
Based on the HL model, Russia is at roughly the same stage of depletion as the US, but the recent rebound in Russian production was primarily just making up for what was not produced immediately following the Soviet collapse; therefore, the decline rate should probably be pretty severe, at least the decline rate from mature basins.
Regarding the “We have peaked” comment by the Lukoil VP:
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/1/27/14471/5832
One of my comments (slightly edited for typos) regarding my original January, 2006 post on net exports:
IMO, the HL model should be assumed to be approximately right, until proven otherwise. This suggests that the very lifeblood of the world industrial economy--net oil export capacity--is draining away in front of our very eyes.
And there has been a lot of other stuff coming out of Russia - increasing production of oil. Russian oil production in October was 10.14Mb/d, which is a full 3% higher than it was just 6 months before.
Whatever a few people have been saying, the plain fact is that Russian oil production has been growing fairly quickly in recent months. That doesn't mean it'll continue, but it does mean that the sources you refer to aren't looking terribly credible at the moment.
And that was two years ago - the decline rate would need to be about 15% now to fit your prediction.
Can you name any large, mostly-onshore producer that has ever experienced a geologically-caused sustained decline rate in excess of 10%? Any? Because it looks like you're insisting Russia will behave very, very differently from what the historical experience of similar regions has been.
You're fond of comparing oil-producing regions to the US, and that does seem to be the closest fit for Russia - similar peak flow rates, similar cumulative productions, similar huge, diverse land area...and yet decline rates that differ by nearly an order of magnitude? How is that at all plausible?
Are you going to believe me or the Vice President of Lukoil? Of course, I guess we are saying the same thing.
The most recent EIA C+C data (September) show production to basically be the same as October 2006, and based on Russian data, November was down to the lowest level since May.
As I have previously outlined, the post-1984 Russian production and post-1970 Lower 48 cumulative production were basically been what the HL model predicted they would be, using only data through 1984 and through 1970 respectively to generate the models. Of course, they had wildly different production curves, which results in the anticipated higher decline rates for Russia.
So, let's see if the VP of Lukoil is correct. And if he is correct, we'll find out what kind of decline rates we see because of the rapidly rising water cuts in the old Russian fields.
Excerpt from an e-mail from a European energy analyst (I don't have the link):
But regardless of all of the above, the fundmental point is that the top five net export decline rate--as our model and recent case histories suggested--appears to be accelerating.
I'll certainly believe that the VP of Lukoil wants his government to invest in his business sector. I don't believe your prediction that Russian oil production is going to enter a 15% annual terminal decline. And I also don't believe that he's saying that, either.
Besides...
Peak oil production is still decades away, according to Lukoil's top executive.
...I think you'll agree that we shouldn't take what Lukoil execs say as gospel.
The article isn't available online, at least based on googling for select phrases.
Two problems with that analysis:
Intuitively, I would expect to see the relative share of the top five exporters decrease as oil gets scarcer, as their big, easy fields are used up and more players are enticed into the game with more marginal supplies.
To a certain extent, that's exactly what we see. The net exports from the countries which are currently the top 5 exporters fell in 2006 to 50.2% of net exports, from a recent high of 52.4% in 2003 (EIA data). It's far too early to call that a trend, of course, but it suggests that looking only at the top 5 might not give the full picture.
From the January, 2006 post:
The 11% number was a rough guess. As noted down the thread, Khebab's most recent work that I presented at ASPO-USA shows a middle case decline of about -7%/year.
We can continue to argue about "why" as the Titanic sinks, but the net export decline by the top five--accounting for about 50% of world net oil exports--is almost certainly going to show an accelerating decline rate, as suggested by our model and recent case histories.
We shall see what future production and export data show.
As I've previously given the calculations for, the decline rate would need to be ~13% for the cumulative production given by HL to be right. And if it's wrong, what reason do we have to assume a high rate of decline?
We're arguing whether we're on the Titanic - Russian production has been growing strongly, and has shown little sign of an imminent and rapid decline.
The top five are accounting for a decreasing share of net exports, so an analysis that fixates on them is likely to systematically overstate the problem.
So, I guess when the top five net exports have dropped by 90%, against an overall 75% net export decline, we are in fine shape, because the current top five would account for a small percentage of net exports at that point. Makes sense to me.
Straw Man fallacy. Is it that hard to address what people actually say?
Of course that would be a problem, and I've said as much repeatedly. It would be a 75% net export decline problem, though, and not a 90% one.
If the United States peaked in 1971 and some 36 years later we get about half the production we got then, where in the world are you getting an 11% decline rate from? Russia is not an individual oil field, but a vast continental land mass with numerous fields composed of autochthonous and allochthanous rock units. There are new rigs on order. Eastern Siberia and the Pacific Margin are yet not fully explored. The Arctic Ocean is yet a frontier. Heavy oil tech. is the new, new thing. There is potential for a slower decline in Russia as a whole than is expected with Cantarell, Mexico.
Some people have panicked and without much research are trying to convert 6 billion bushels of corn out of a total 13 billion bushel corn + wheat harvest to get little more than 5% of our gasoline needs met (New U.S. Energy Bill to require seven fold increase in ethanol usage 12/2007). It was a bipartisan mistake to push this bill. Unless people push back hunger will stalk the land.
I have acknowledged that we are principally talking about the mature Russian basins, but I suspect that the new plays, e.g. Eastern Siberia, may be to total Russian production as Alaska was to the US. Furthermore, there have been reports that the new Eastern Siberian fields are both smaller than expected and being developed too slowly to offset the decline from Western Siberia.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2007/07/10/042.html
Tuesday, July 10, 2007. Issue 3695. Page 5.
The Moscow Times: Alfa Report Sees Trouble Looming in Russian Oil Sector
By Anatoly Medetsky
Staff Writer
http://mnweekly.ru/local/20070927/55279368.html
27/09/2007 | Moscow News,№38 2007
Russia's Geology in Dire Straits
BTW, Khebab's most recent work on Russia (used for ASPO-USA) shows the middle case long term decline rate, out to 2028, to be about -7%/year. This is a decline to about 2 mbpd from about 10 mbpd (C+C+NGL), or an 80% decline. If instead we see a 90% decline by 2028, we would see about a -10%/year decline rate, but again we are principally talking about the mature Russian basins.
Bakhtiari did. In fact, Iran has been talking about peak oil for years now.
The cornucopian types claimed that they were just saying that to boost the price of oil. And now, to justify nukes, too.
Russia's energy infrastructure is quite old.
A concern for Russian fields and production in general is that that internal market is very different to the US. You do not get 'mom&pop' shops setting up tiny production enterprises across the oil provinces as you do in the States. These small businesses contribute to the overall US production in a way not seen in many other provinces, leading to a more gradual decline in production. Secondly the Russian infrastructure is much harsher to operate within than the US. Sparse population, huge distances and poor access for vast areas of the country mean that running any kind of oil operation is costly and tends to preclude small infill production scenarios.
Wheat markets soar on renewed tight supply fears
http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7158580
Here is the bloomberg version, which for some reason was gone for a short while.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aS2tGTUyqn3c&refer=home
The rarity is that this happened outside of CBOT's
normal trading.
As in, someone else is taking the lead.
A good article including the ethanol debate and the energy bill that was passed on Thursday by the Senate:
http://www.farmpolicy.com/?p=569#more-569
Some of the 36 billion gallons of ethanol required by 2022 would come from sources other than corn. Corn used for ethanol would be capped at 15 billion gallons; that would require about 6 billion bushels of corn.
Currently about 5 billion gallons of ethanol are produced from about 2 billion bushels of corn. Typically about 11 billion bushels of corn were harvested.
Anyway one writes it; the conversion of corn to ethanol is likely to damage the economy like hoardes of locusts stripping the corn crops across dozens of states. Gasoline prices are likely to become exhorbitant as ethanol manufacturers bid against hungry households for scarce corn. No one has located huge patches of available switch grass and the technology to make it into cheap fuel, else it would have been done as oil passed the $90. a barrel mark. Most large pastures of grass have been exploited by ranchers wherever possible. Deffeyes wrote about the possibility of using switchgrass to make cellulosic ethanol, but did provide the proof that it could be done economically.
Agro-Fuels and Agri-Business: New Colonialism
"The conclusion is pretty much the same across the board: 'the push for agro-fuels amounts to nothing less than the re-introduction and re-enforcement of the old colonial plantation economy, redesigned to function under the rules of the modern neo-liberal, globalised world," said Grain, an international organisation promoting the sustainable use and management of agro-biodiversity.
"The question is not whether ethanol and bio-diesel have a place in the future but whether or not to allow a handful of global corporations to impoverish the planet and the majority of the people.
"This is the last struggle for the peasants (struggle to resist the marginalisation of the poor by multinationals racing to acquire large tracts of land for agro-fuels production). This is the last big push to get rid of the peasants."
Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/16/AR200712...
Headline 2020:
Genetically Modified super bug eats everything, nothing left
Yes, the above it just a joke.
You get the idea...not a big fan of Genetic Modification.
Yes, the above it just a joke.
Ha. Ha.
http://www.saynotogmos.org/klebsiella.html
Let's hope the testing procedures have been improved...
Oh what, we're already "hoping" some new technology will mitigate PO.
Best hopes for hope
No, no, no!
"There is absolutely NO unauthorized Breeding at Jurassic Park!.. We control their chromosomes.. it's really quite simple."
Actually, I found it kinda funny:
Alright, it wiped out those damn carbohydrate destroying crops!
Why'd we ever plant crops that destroy carbohydrates, anyway?
(I'm not criticizing your typo - it's easy enough to have happen. I just found it ironic and funny! :)
The Wapo article is worth the read...found it this morning, interestingly, in a link at Global Guerrillas. Like all tech innovation this one comes with the seeds of good and bad included. Once this technology is readily available nukes probably will lose their standing as the worlds deadliest weapons. New viruses and bacteria can be created that will exterminate an entire population while leaving the infastructure intact...Of course these bugs will have unanticipated results and will get out of labs...and it all started with 19 year old novelist Mary Shelly!
"This raises a range of big questions about what nature is and what it could be," said Paul Rabinow, an anthropologist at the University of California at Berkeley who studies science's effects on society. "Evolutionary processes are no longer seen as sacred or inviolable. People in labs are figuring them out so they can improve upon them for different purposes."
"That unprecedented degree of control over creation raises more than philosophical questions, however. What kinds of organisms will scientists, terrorists and other creative individuals make? How will these self-replicating entities be contained? And who might end up owning the patent rights to the basic tools for synthesizing life?"...snip...
In the coming year, they hope to transplant it into a cell, where it is expected to "boot itself up," like software downloaded from the Internet, and cajole the waiting cell to do its bidding. And while the first synthetic chromosome is a plagiarized version of a natural one, others that code for life forms that have never existed before are already under construction."...snip...
Nature always bats last.
These GM's are to be seen just as SIV
s are.
Nature has the perfect model in place.
GM/SIV's are/were the attempt to get something for nothing.
It's sort of recursive, but people are presumably the result of Nature and Evolution. Nature has just produced another way to modify itself. Begs the question -- why has nature produced consciousness that can (dimly) understand what is going on? If there is really a point to all this, perhaps we should tread more carefully and be a little less arrogant as a species.
NeverLNG, perhaps we should stop multiplying like rats. Perhaps we should stop raping the environment. Perhaps we should stop driving other species into extinction. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
The world is not like it ought to be, the world is the way it is. When evolution created a species whose primary survival mechanism was its wits, it created a species that could out outcompete every other species on earth. We are in competition with every other species for food and resources and we are winning....big time!
We behave the way we do because that behavior was what got us here. To say that we "should" behave in this way, or that way, is just nonsense. Of course we should behave differently but we will not because it is not in our nature to do so. We will continue to multiply and compete with other species, and with our own species until we run through all this detritus which has fed and enabled our huge population explosion.
Then we will begin to collapse. But we will not go quietly into that good night. We will scratch and claw, killing off most species for food. And we will kill each other, not necessarily for food but because others are in competition with us for those last few morsels of food.
But you are right, we should not have behaved in such a way, the way that got us into this terrible mess in the first place. But please don't think people will change their behavior just because they should. People will continue to behave in the manner that their innate nature drives them to behave. And that nature is geared toward their individual survival, and that is not necessarily in the interest of the survival of other species, or even their own species.
LeBlanc above, in a nutshell, explains why we behave the way we do. And this behavior is in our genes. We will not change simply because a few people see the terrible ending this story must have. Yes, a few people clearly see the problem. But the rest of society has a pet name for these people. That name is "Chicken Little"
Ron Patterson
1) If our "culture" is unable to impact the behavior of our "nature," than there is no nurture/nature interaction as you have claimed elsewhere. You are reduced to a simplistic determinism that makes your words themselves pointless, since they too were determined.
2) The "fine" example of why we behave as we do is merely an exercise in (rather poor) logic and has nothing to do with our genes. Consider:
a) we can't control "other's" behavior
b) "other" might take resources
c) "other" always exists
d) best way to survive is to take resources before "other" does.
Not only is the logic suspect, so are the premises. But from the perspective of your claim that this demonstrates that gene's control behavior... Seeing as how gene's aren't even posited in the passage, I believe your argument falls apart.
Shawman, the word "genes" need not need to be mentioned, only implied. And that they were implied should have been obvious to anyone. And this sentence of mine should have been clear even a sixth grader:
Do you know what the word "innate" means Shaman? We behave the way we do because that behavior is what got us here. And that behavior is innate! (Just in case you don't know what that means, it means it is in our genes.) It has become innate because of the survival of the fittest. That is, those whose nature (genes) caused them to behave differently did not survive. Only those whose innate nature caused them to multiply and take resources from others survived. Therefore it is now our innate nature.
But if one would criticize one's logic, then it behooves that person to propose an alternative. If my argument falls apart, then what do you propose is the counter argument? This I just gotta hear!
Ron Patterson
I will begin by ignoring your condescending tone and remind myself, that's just the way you write.
As for the implication of genes in the passage, consider that perhaps you are reading into the passage something that you want to be there? Maybe you'd like to point out just what where it is implied? Or is that implied to? What I see, is a smoke screen of misdirections and high sounding language that covers for the lack of any connection to a scientific explanation. To me it looks like some sort of neocon version of human interaction - "it's us versus them, baby, so we're gonna get us ours."
As for the word "innate" - perhaps you'd like to go back to the dictionary and learn how the word is used.
And, what a clever tactic, trying a misdirect, attempting to justify your misreading by quoting yourself. You can try to set yourself up as the authority all you want, but from where I'm standing it's still just Ron trying to convince us all that he understands what human nature is.
As for my my proposed alternative to the "poor" logic - how about "good" logic. (I know, I know, I couldn't help myself). But if you want a start, try this - start by examining what constitutes the "other" that appears in this passage you like so much.
In my humble and ignorant opinion, people will default to instinctive modes of behavior unless something else causes them to modify their actions. Usually that would be socially enforced codes of behaviors (morals), and often enforced by religion (which is what I think religion evolved for). I suppose that simply being educated so that one could understand and recognize when one's actions were primitive and genetically driven might help, but then again maybe not.
Anyway, when a society is actually driving people to follow their instinctive impulses (like I believe ours is right now), then it's going to be damn hard to get them change course. So even though I think people can learn to act in ways other than following their base instincts, I'm not hopeful that this will happen in our near future. Too many people have bought into the American exceptionalism, greed is good, no one owes anything to society, consume all you can ideas.
And hey - if I don't believe that my fellow man will be able or willing to act in other than selfish ways, maybe I better get all I can too.....
Twilight - here is the crux of the argument - if we "default" to certain instinctive behavior we have to ask two questions - how do we know when a person has "defaulted" and how do we know that behavior is instinctive? The trouble is that neither question can be answered without assuming the answer to the other one. It becomes a self reinforcing circle - default is assumed because a particular behavior is exhibited, the behavior is labeled instinctive because it is assumed to be default.
The innate human behaviour which has caused the destruction of so much of the environment and so many animal species is our constant pursuit of pleasure.
We strive for pleasure at the expense of the environment, other animal life forms and ourselves.
We have other unique behaviours which are destructive too:
Revenge
Anger
Lust
Sadism
Narcissism
Greed
And others.
We have an understanding that there is a future but we have a very hard time dealing with a future which does not include ourselves.
The human race as a whole is psychopathic, ultimately we are only concerned with what affects us personally.
That is why we are on a path destruction.
If we didn't have all these destructive innate behaviours we wouldn't be in the predicament we are in now.
If five million years ago primates failed to get to two legs in Africa, Earth would truly be a paradise.
That's all very fine, but I missed the part where you demonstrated that these were innate human behavior. You just assumed that they were so that you could get to your point about how terrible we are as a species.
I apologise for including you in the list of innate human behaviours, obviously you do not seek pleasure.
Perhaps you could advise me of some other humans who do not seek pleasure.
'Constant pursuit of Pleasure.'
Sounds like a very Calvin-inspired interpretation.
I think the destruction we've reaped is a result of our evolving self-image as something apart from nature, not really a piece of the planet, even.
We develop a complex system of symbols and teach our young to understand the world with names, with abstract ideologies, and through involved metaphors. It doesn't appear that any other species has become this dependent on such a memory and logic-intensive and reconstruction of the world in a Mural of Ideas as Humans have done. Even our sciences, which pride themselves on being a Hard and Fast link to 'Reality' are built within thoroughly arbitrary frameworks; and this framework, some useful fiction, has become to some, the definition of the Reality Revealed by science. There is no such thing as an 'Inch', a 'Deciliter', a 'Dollar', or a Government, save that we have decided it is so and agree amongst ourselves that this thing IS. (And then there is IS..)
So we love our ideas about 'ownership', and about 'control', and about 'future plans'.. and the Idea we call God is, by now, giggling uncontrollably at the well-intended hubris of it all. But it's a nervous giggle, because of the great sadness at how far we can get distanced from the world itself, and from ourselves, while trying to get closer to the ideas. And during that, the upkeep of our home falls apart, since chopping wood and carrying water is something for the little people to do.
Pleasure? Nah.. we do want pleasure, but we're too busy getting all our stuff done. Managing our 'properties' and our 'responsibilities'.. and trying to find 'happiness'..
And my daughter (4) wants me to play house.. so I think I will.
Bob
Pursuit of happiness, pleasure call it what you crave.
If making someone else happy gives you pleasure what's the difference.
If playing with your daughter does not give you pleasure so be it. Does it make you unhappy, or do you do it because your wife told you to? Keeping your wife happy, ultimately makes you happy because the alternative is displeasure. (Just an example, I know it's not so for you).
Avoiding unpleasantness also makes us happy and is pleasure seeking trait.
We must do things which do not give us pleasure, like a job we detest, because ultimately, that work enables us to achieve, self actuate, procreate and pursue the ideals and pastimes which gives us pleasure and at the end of the day, enables us to be happy.
Bandits;
Sorry if I got esoteric up there. Not that I didn't mean it.. but clarity can suffer when my attention is split.
I was just taking issue with the idea that 'Seeking Pleasure' was such a dominant part of how we have decimated the planet. There's such a history of 'Shame about feeling good' that I usually bite at that piece of bait.
If by pleasure, you're thinking of Pleasure Yachts, Expensive Toys, unsustainably Rich Eating and Living, etc.. I would usually put that into a reserved class of Pleasure under the heading of 'Self-medication' or 'Addiction'.. beyond that, I don't think it's the destructive part of our Nature or our Culture as much as the desire for more Property.. this can be confused with 'pleasure', but I'd have to call it gluttony.
Anyway.. I'm still fried from the quibbling-olympics on Friday.
INITIATING: Debate Avoidance Posture #17, Activate!..
.. It's all good!
Bob
From the time in pre history when cut down more trees to feel warmer than we need.
When we killed more game than we needed, to eat more or more of the parts we liked best. The ones killed for their finer fur, or horns or feathers. We even sacrificed to our gods.
Everything from making weapons to slaughtering whales and damming rivers.
We go to war and feel national pride, it all gives us pleasure or an avoidance of displeasure for ourselves or family.
Cheap energy really set us free........
We mined the coal and pumped the oil. We destroy and eliminate.
We pollute, experiment on animals erect fun parks.
We go on pleasure cruises and pleasure flights. We take vacations and build mansions, build highways, cathedrals, monuments, burger king, aircraft carriers, diamond rings and fast cars. No shame in that, we worked hard.
You are right, how can we feel shame about feeling good, we are programmed to seek it by whatever means we can, drugs, alcohol, sex, credit and crime being no bar.
The big question is, can we cut back enough on our pleasure seeking habits to save the planet.
Can we prove we are smarter than yeast.
Hey, I don't want to buy Happiness! Just a boat and some other stuff..
Anyway, Merry Christmas Shopping! (Obey your Thirst!)
Bob
You is funny... and, as usual, full of common sense
"...the upkeep of our home falls apart, since chopping wood and carrying water is something for the little people to do."
Chopping wood and carrying water IS the upkeep of my home, and seems to be a good part of what I do in the winter :-) Just got in from carrying water out to the livestock (sheep/chickens/horse) in the barn, and splitting up extra wood to be prepared for tonight's forecast sub-zero (F) temperatures.
"And my daughter (4) wants me to play house.. so I think I will."
You seem like a man with your priorities straight. :-)
"...splitting up extra wood to be prepared for tonight's forecast sub-zero (F) temperatures."
In which case you might be hauling wood and chopping water:-)
..and I finally did. (Play House)
I'm glad a little of that post came out right. Yes, direct contact with the world, whether it's playing house or chopping water is the necessary balance to the 'great ideas' that we try to use to understand things intellectually.
'What must the student do on the way towards discovering enlightenment? Chop Wood, Carry Water.'
'What does the Sage do, after having found Nirvana? Chop Wood, Carry water.'
~ or the Suburban Counterpart,
"Me, I think about the Big Questions, the Important Issues and the Weighty Concerns.. and my Wife, she figures out what to feed the kids, keeps the house going.."
Stay Warm!
Bob
Some days the very most important thing I do, is snuggle up and pet the kitten.
Exactly.
Not all pleasure-seeking is contributing to the devastation of our world! (But watch out, I've heard that if our cats were only big enough, they would EAT us!)
It's that continual growth thing! (As a renewed blast of 'Breast Enlargement - be the Perfect You!!' ads smack me around from my radio.. You know, there's a rumor that if your radio were only to grow big enough...hey, stop! -... aaaaaHggHH....
Someone who knows How Things Ought To Be. ;)
'People will default to insticntive modes of behavior unless somehing else causes them to modify their actions.'
People respond to carrots and sticks. In that respect we are no different than many other animals. Many analogies are available to prove this contention but a good one is economics because it is considered, by some, to be an endeavor of advanced societies: Suppose that our government wanted manufacturing to return to the US in a big way. What actions would they take? Many are possible but a couple come quickly to mind...Impose high tarriffs on imported finished goods. Offer large tax breaks to US manufacturers. Simple. Would these actions have consequencies for the US Gov and other governments around the world? Of course they would. These actions would be branded 'nationalisim' and a huge uproar would ensue.
'which is what I think religion evolved for'...
I dont believe that religion evolved. I believe that the smartest people in tribal groups realized that no one in the group had an explanation for the phenomena that were apparent daily. In way of explanation of the phenomena the smart people attributed the seeming whims of nature to various gods that controlled various events; ie, rain, snow, thunder, fire, volcanoes, etc. From there it was a simple step for the smartest people to claim that they were in direct contact with the various gods, thus they gathered power over the less intelligent. So, religion was a scam from jump street and it still is. As science progressed and the less intelligent began to understand, through education, that gods were not running the show religious belief began to decline. Well, not in the US but certainly in Europe. American exceptionalisim exists mainly in the mind of American religious fanatics. The problem with linking ones self to a god is that if nature decides to throw a drought at a society then the 'smart ones' sometimes lose their heads. Then their are the 'smart ones' that attempt to overthrow an established system of many gods and claim that only one exists. This has happened more than once in the past and usually is attempted to rid a society of too many deities requiring too many attendent priests, requiring too many resources. But, to say that religion 'evolved' is no more correct than to say that 'atomic weapons' evolved. Both were the product of minds that were above average in the socities around them.
Religion evolves virally, and is still doing so. That's not a metaphor, it does exactly what viruses do, just in a different medium.
Indeed, you see adaptive virulence, convergent evolution, and the equivalent of swapping genes. Just look how much successful religions have in common. This has to do with fitting the niche in the fitness-space it inhabits. (like a shark looks like a dolphin looks like an icthyosaur).
Of course there are human actions involved in the process, since the space inhabited by the religion is the human cognitive system. However, aside from the first person to kick off a new cult - who may indeed engage in a bit of "intelligent design" by recounting a conversation with angels or some such thing, the evolution subsequently proceeds as a response to 'environmental' and competitive challenges and not as a volitional act. Even titular heads of a religion like a pope just facilitate this process.
And the person who starts a religion may simply be nuts. A cursory look at religions present and past would indicate that high intelligence is not a prerequisite to starting one.
Religions aren't the only viruses in our virtual brain-worlds, far from it. But evolution is the rule for self-propagating information systems.
What 'high intelligence' are you talking about? The only requirement in a typical village of 160 people is that the one desiring control must be more clever than the remainder. If the average intelligence in the village is IQ 105-110 then the person with a 125-130 IQ and a type A personallity will probably come up with a scheme to rule the roost. The fact of the matter is that a very small percentage of the population of the village have the intelligence and imagination to concoct a big bs story that the remainder will buy into. Once the intelligent few pull off the feat of getting the remainder to buy into the belief system it becomes set in stone, or nearly so, for future generations. Evolution has nothing to do with religious formation. BS has everything to do with it. Once the majority of the villagers realize that the bs that their forefathers/mothers bought into was bs, heads roll, and their can be a couple of outcomes...reformation is one, return to a former belief system is another, and the rise of a new bs story/religion is another. What is viral about any of this? What is evolutionary about any of this? Fact is, people are no smarter than they were in the caves and they fall for the same bs over and over. Give it a different name but collect the same percentage from the saps...Is that evolutanary? Does it have anything to do with 'self-propagating information systems?' 'Just look at how much religious beliefs have in common.' Yeah, once a scam is found that works it is copied by many. Nothing evolutanary about that. If I bought your theory of religious evolution I would have to believe that the LDS is higher on the evolutionary ladder than, say, the Catholic Church, or the Lutherans. It just is not so. If anything, the LDS members are buying into a much larger bs story than either of the other two I mentioned. The founder of the LDS was a proven con man and wanted for prosecution by several states. Yet the LDS bs story came along much later than the others. How do you fit that into your 'religious evolution' theory?
That was slight sarcasm. I was referring to the fact that the person starting a religion could be entirely insane or totally stupid. If you don't see how that could happen, you don't understand what I'm saying.
Humans are evolved to see any creation as volitional, even if it is by the volition of imaginary beings. It is part of our social circuitry for detecting cheating and anticipating the actions of others. Hence the ubiquity of nonsensical conspiracy theories or the actions of the gods.
Religions are not set in stone or they fall by the wayside. The current versions of the major religions have all changed over time even though they claim to be static, and they will continue to. For instance, you can no longer buy 'indulgences' from the Catholic church.
The altering of religion by "crafty people" is the mechanism of evolution, often. That doesn't mean they are in full control of it, only that they may seek to reinterpret it to serve their own ends. Jesus, for instance, was preaching only to his Jewish flock, it was after his death that the notion of spreading it to infidels was introduced. He probably would have been shocked by it.
EVERYthing about that is evolutionary. You are describing genetic drift.
There is no such thing as being "higher" on an evolutionary ladder. There are some little creepy-crawlies with a more complex genome than man.
The main difference between LDS and Catholicism is that the former was created in recent history and we know the guy's name. If it survives in a mutated form in a thousand years, it will share the verisimilitude of obscure beginnings.
Humans, by their nature and including all other organisms, strive to gain energy and material and reproduce. Brutes often take what they want through aggression. The religious order may gain control of the brute through his fear of ultimate death and fiery punishment while holding forth a carrot of heavenly deliverance. The all powerful brute may have second thoughts before committing heinous acts. Those brutes that are not persuaded may still be brought to heel by the threat of religious condemnation. King Henry VIII, a spectacular brute, established his own church. Stalin and Mao, I am pretty sure, tried to purge religions from their domains and were unimpeded in their dastardly acts.
It’s unfortunate that religions become dissipative structures themselves in competition with other religions for followers and the energy they provide. No accident that they clash in murderous conflict.
People have evolved to behave in a manner enhancing self-preservation in the presence of brutal and dominant leaders. They become supplicants, yes-men and devoted followers. One reason why the United States or any other secular power will not prevail in the Middle East is because the terrorists fight for the mullah of all mullahs, the king of all kings while the U.S. fights simply for the greed of a nation.
Nuclear weapons did evolve just as man’s mind evolved and made him susceptible to hybrid tribes based upon unseen leaders with magical powers. Man’s mind is a shuffler of information and ideas in the never ending (did I say that, it will end soon enough) competition for survival. All of those nukular weapon engineers are as mutagenic to society’s nukular tool blueprints as their depleted uranium is mutagenic to their own bodies.
Greenish, I often want to settle on the Big Island too, but maybe it’s the hula girl tropical paradise meme that has been planted in my mind by disingenuous advertisers. I read about the Easter Islanders, the fighting, destruction of religious idols, starved moai kava kava walking around like ghosts and then I jumped over to New Zealand where the Maori seemed to make warfare a way of life, likely because of population pressures. Where do the peaceful, reasonable humans live? I think I already know the answer and it’s very unnerving. I may have to spin a cacoon and stay in it until this one is all over. Enough rambling for one night.
'People have evolved to behave in a manner enhancing self-preservation in the presence of brutal and dominant leaders.'
Yes, that happened during the era of pre-history and I see no proof of further evolution of the self-preservation instinct.
'Nuclear weapons did evolve just as mans mind evolved...'
Would you care to attempt to prove this conjecture?
'All those nuklear weapons engineers are as mutugenic to societies nuklear tool blueprints as...'
More totally unfounded conjecture. Nuclear engineers are technicians, not scientists, not rare genius, not Einstein, and they do not mutate. There were minds living in caves that were every bit as intelligent as current engineers, difference being a few thousand years of technological innovation. A great deal of time elapsed between the improved flint knife and the first steam engine. Nevertheless, slow progress was being made because each improvement in technology was subsequently built upon by further improvement. Engineering is built on prior engineering and increased failure testing, sometimes by trial and error. Engineers keep very carefull records of what does and does not work. Metalurgy improves over time and through experimentation. Improvement in engineering is not a process of mutation of the engineers brain, but a process of improvement through experiment and carefull documentation of what works in various applications.
'Enough rambling for one night.'
If the blather above is the best you can come up with, I heartily agree that you should go to bed!
River,
Our technological societies are simply a recapitulation of molecular evolution. Blueprints and information = DNA, humans = RNA, tools and infrastructure = proteins and enzymes. Technological evolution occurs at a tremendous pace because we don’t have to wait on random beneficial mutagenic events as in the molecular system. It also occurs so quickly because we are pushing so much energy and material through the system. I assure you that if we are unable to engineer our way out of this declining energy situation, nuclear engineers will become very scarce.
I’m sorry if you thought we were somehow different, special, magical, but we are not. Even our schooling has an analog within the cell as mRNA is assembled upon the DNA template, the equivalent of reading and then sent to the ribosomal factories to work. Think about it awhile, you’ll eventually get it and then you’ll see how behaviors and relationships evolve amongst organisms, and even corporations, religions, and governments. Those nuclear engineers are not simply college graduates, they are RNA, like the editing RNA in the cell nucleus busily cutting and pasting the blueprints.
Evolution is all around you, technological evolution is just a lot faster, until it crashes.
Evolution doesn’t take a genius, just a little change here and a little change there will do the trick. You just have to do it a little faster and a little better than you competitors.
The world really is a tremendous energy and material battlefield, very entertaining and very disconcerting once you know what’s really happening. Sorry I don't have time to prove my conjectures, it would take a long time, much patience and it doesn't pay. Don't forget, I am a dissipative structure. It's only because I have some stored energy and material that I can sit around and think about these things when others must spend every moment working in one of those factories to put food on the table and rely upon Gods to intercede in lives they do not and, because of circumstance, cannot understand.
Actually, a properly-designed religion might accomplish more than any attempt to make mankind rational. We already know the genetic code of successful ones, and we know certain things which will happen soon, which would allow a bit of accurate prophecy as well as preparing it for the new context. Existing religions code for multiple contexts the same as biological DNA does... that is a well-evolved religion will work in times of poverty as well as times of abundance, for the rich and for the poor, by expressing different aspects of its "genome". Never doubt that humans will primarily be directed by religious belief in the upcoming travails. The only questions is which belief systems. It would be nice to see one which is reasonably competive (viral virulence) but has proscriptions against burning coal and other stuff that's a bad idea in a finite world. Probably could be done.
I ain't on the big isle, though I own some cheap land there. Family obligations have me on Oahu, which is a famine waiting to happen if the big boats full of food ever stop coming. At least I won't freeze. For that matter, I'll be selling some dirt-cheap acreage in Puna, anyone wishing info can email me offlist. I would like to end up over there, but near friends and hopefully on land with food trees already planted.
I think that the big isle could be one of the best places to be, in terms of the lowest rate of famine and cannibalism. But already it's becoming a bit third world in some ways - doctors are all leaving, for instance. If you get a compound fracture, they stop the bleeding and give you a vicodin and stick you on a commercial flite to Honolulu. No kidding. But good rain, good climate, stable government for now, and no easy access by marching millions.
I love NZ, and would seriously consider going there except that I'm too old/poor to meet the immigration criteria. Possible I could wangle an exception by asking a favor of former prime ministers or something (I was once a kinda popular foreigner there), but I haven't gotten around to it.
So... where DO the peaceful, reasonable humans live? I'd like to know your thoughts.
My own thought is that they coexist in all of us alongside the murdering lizard. Love and murder are equally human; neither is more real, valid, or dysfunctional. Just a contextual phase change. I'll probably choose not to murder anyone, but I don't expect my neighbors to be introspective about it.
cheers
Shaman, Steven A. LeBlanc is a Harvard Archaeologist, not a biologist. He never uses the term "genes".
I use the term often Shaman, and I know the exact meaning of innate and I used it correctly. Inherited or hereditary means "genetic".
I asked for a rebuttal to my logic and all I get is mumbo jumbo that I do this or that. That is not a rebuttal Shaman, that is a dodge pure and simple. The "others" that appears in the quote, (there is no singular "other") is talking about other tribes. Other tribes would have being doing the exact same thing if their genes still survive today.
Shaman, here is the logic, logic you need to refute if you disagree. The behavior that has enabled us to survive and take resources from others, is innate. It is the product of natural selection. That is, if people or peoples existed in the past who did not possess this innate trait then they, quite naturally, would not have survived.
I hope this covers the "others" Shaman. And I am still waiting for your rebuttal.
Ron Patterson
1) that the original author is an archeologist relates not at all to your suggestion that the author is talking about genes. And yet again, can you demonstrate (even to a sixth grader) how this is what the author meant.
2) Anyone can cherry pick definitions off of dictionary.com. Doesn't mean the understand the word, especially when they suggest that "Inherited or hereditary means 'genetic'." It might, it might not. Consider that kingship is considered inherited or hereditary.
3) Try again on the "other" before you call someone out for "mumbo jumbo." Maybe you could branch your reading out beyond those that (you think) reinforce what you already believe.
4) Rebuttal to your "new" quote - (Are you really kidding me Ron?) (okay I'll try again.) Start this way - How does the "larger" group identify itself as such? (we'll worry about the whole of the first sentence once we get self identification taken care of.)
Shawman, now you have gone overboard. Anyone who knows anything knows what "innate" means. And to suggest that inherited or hereditary "might not" mean genetic takes the cake. Kinship, of the family relationship kind, means you have a common genetic thread. Neither I nor other members of this list just fell off a turnip truck.
And your silly dodges are getting tiresome. I made my case very clear and articulate. But all you can do is come back with questions. If what you think I believe is wrong then it would behoove you to present a rebuttal. You have not. Questions are not rebuttals.
Thanks for the exchange.
Ron Patterson
Ron, I am trying really hard to be civil, but you are stretching my patience. Frankly, I find it hard to believe that you could possibly be as dense as you pretending to be.
I suppose I could make jokes about not realizing that the monarchies of Europe were actually our first geneticists, but your attempts to cleave to an argument simply because you can't admit that you were wrong is just sad.
And if you can't understand how the positing of a question begins a rebuttal, then I can't help you. Maybe if you started asking questions instead of being so bloody dogmatic, we could actually have a conversation.
You clearly didn't understand the reference to the "other," even when I sought to extend it to the self identification of the group. So let me go at it another way. When you identify who Ron Patterson is, what goes into that idea, the idea of Ron Patterson? Is it strictly the limits of your physical skin? Do you consider thoughts to be a part of you? Spirit? Your family? Where does "Ron Patterson" end and the not "Ron Patterson" begin? Once we understand this delimitation, we begin to understand what is self and what is other. Done for the group we understand what is "us" and what is "them."
Once we've gotten that far we can start talking about the genetic basis of this self identification. Maybe it's there, maybe it's not. Easy to see how my children become a part of me, but less so when I tell you my children are adopted, if you want that genetic evidence. Easy how to see how "us" gets defined when the tribe all look alike, but what about when the "tribe" is as physically diverse as something called the United States of America?
And what about thoughts, are they a part of you? Or for the group, are collective beliefs, etc, part of who the "us" is? (For me personally, I don't see thoughts as part of the self, they are the artifacts of a busy mind, signifying little more than the stories we tell ourselves, perhaps they are little more than firing of neurons (at least that's one story). But now, the observer of those thoughts, that I think is the real me. The connection between that observer and genetics? You're going to have to help me there, because that observer is watching that whole discussion, its even watching the science of genetics.
Shawman, please don't go out of your way to try to be civil. For I too, find it hard to believe that you are really as dense as your posts indicate you are. Because they make no sense whatsoever.
Your post above is truly nonsensical. It has absolutely no connection with the original thread. I would gladly debate you on what constitutes Ron Patterson, or Shaman, whatever your name is, but not on this list. This is The Oil Drum and not the Evolutionary Psychology list. Here we are concerned with human behavior, but only as far as it deals with the consequences of peak oil.
My original reply, was to NeverLNG. He/she suggested how we should behave as a species. My reply was to say, in effect, that our behavior as a species is innate. We may make suggestions as to how we, as a species should behave but any such suggestions would be useless because how we behave as a species is in our genes and is not likely to change because someone in Chicago, or wherever, suggested that the species should change its behavior.
I then suggested that our behavior, as a species was molded by natural selection. (Could it possibly be otherwise?) I then posted a quote from an archeologist suggesting how and why this behavior evolved. You then posted a really silly reply complaining about, among other things, that the archeologist did not mention the word “genes”, therefore the entire line of logic was invalid.
That Shawman, is what is called a "non sequitur". It does not follow that because he did not use the word “genes” that his logic, or my logic, was invalid.
Now you have slid the debate to “what constitutes an individual”! No, hell no, I will not discuss that subject on this list. Another list, fine, but not this one. This is Drumbeats, of The Oil Drum. We don’t really give a damn on what constitutes (or constipates) ;-) an individual. Group behavior as a consequence of Peak Oil, yes, but not that.
So if you wish to refute my original point that you cannot, by suggestion, change genetic human behavior, then please do. Otherwise please give it a rest.
Ron Patterson
Ron - since you are clearly one who reads only for information and not for meaning, I will "give it a rest." Should you ever have that epiphany that leads you to understand why my comments were directly on topic, then let's talk. In the meantime, please remember that the genetic origin of human behavior is not a decided issue, despite what you may believe.
Hello Shaman,
Sad to read that you have not yet put forth an alternative to the relentless trends explained by Malthus, Club of Rome, et al, besides Darwinian. As usual, Issac Asimov had an answer, but we, in the global aggregate, refuse to heed his advice:
http://www.asimovonline.com/oldsite/future_of_humanity.html
http://www.emi.u-bordeaux.fr/public/asimov/saveearth.html
-------------------
Is anyone listening? Does anyone care?
-------------------
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
So Shaman, why should the rules of animal behavior apply to every species of animal on the planet except us? What the hell makes us so damn special to be independent of the rules?
I could be wrong, and there could be mole people living under the earth or something, but aren't we the only sentient beings on the planet?
So I'm guessing that you believe that self-awareness allows us to break away from inherited human behavior? Show me in history where that has ever occurred. Explain to me how modern man is so much different than his ancient predecessors other than better technology to enhance his strong inborn desires.
I don't think humans are particularly "self-aware". Only in a most primitive and sporadic sense, if at all.
I think that we like to believe this. It makes it easier to justify screwing over all of the rest of the living things. At the very least, benobo chimps could be considered sentient.
From the wikipedia:
This is a good interview that was on NPR last year featuring. Listen to or read this interview and then convince me that these chimps don't pass whatever test you are using to define "sentient being".
In 1990 a lab I created managed to adapt the Gallup mirror-mark test for use by cetaceans. Bottlenose dolphins passed the test convincingly, which was the first case of any animal not a great ape meeting those criteria. This caused a lot of books to be rewritten. Our work has now been replicated several times by other labs.
There is some niggling about what a mirror-mark test actually tests for, but it is a reasonable benchmark: you can't PROVE that ANYone is self-aware. One either gives the benefit of the doubt to those who seem to possess it, or remains solipcist.
The cetaceans I worked with did a lot more complex stuff than that; they also used computers without training or reward, just for fun, and we documented the cultural transmission of new ideas. (One of these became a SciAm article).
Self-awareness seems to be an emergent property of advanced social cognition, and the fact that it is seen in animals whose evolutionary distance is over 50 million years, clearly shows convergent evolution.
It is a simple matter to keep redefining "sentient" such that Homo sapiens is the only "sentient" being.
Indeed, and an extremely strained pastime it is.
One of my favorites is the "brain to body weight ratio" which sought to show how animals with big complex brains could be kept beneath humans on the charts.
Except that if you add spider monkeys to that chart, they beat humans.
Every major revolution in science shows that we are less the center of the universe than we previously supposed.
I'm not so sure we're the only ones, but I'm pretty sure we're the only ones with opposable thumbs and lots of consonants.
"rules of animal behavior" - what precisely are you talking about? That we all eat, defecate and fornicate? Big whoop, what have you told me? Or are you saying that when my cat decides to relieve himself under one bush instead of another that it was all predetermined? (I'm willing to admit the possibility of the latter, but it sure wouldn't help to explain anything.)
This argument "We have it, and are here now" works with every single human behavior. And humans also share, love, and laugh at farting noises.
My use of "perhaps" and "should" are antithetical to your (postulated) deterministic view of Nature. We can neither agree nor disagree, since probablistic and deterministic views of life can't logically be reconciled.
I don't myself know if there is any "point" to the Universe -- but if there is, then there is also a "should." Pascal's wager was something along the lines of we are more likely to win if we postulate a "should."
Given that, (and I do, you may not) it is clear that we know how to behave responsibly. It is (merely) a matter of acting on our knowledge. Genes have nothing much to do with it -- consciousness has the power to trump genetic determinism. Having "alcoholic" or "violent" or "depressive" genes doesn't mean one has to act that way. There is also an important epi-genetic component to individual development -- and oddly enough, we are now beginning to understand that epigenetic inheritance is possible under some circumstances.
NeverLNG, with all due respect you have Pascal's Wager entirely wrong. And Pascal also used very bad logic in his wager, explained below.
Whether or not the universe has a point has nothing to do with the debate as to whether or not postulating what we "should" do will, or will not, change anything. And you are simply wrong about my determinism. Being a determinist does not imply that all is determined by the genes. It means all is determined by our genes and our environment. For instance we are never violent and try to kill our neighbors unless some environmental factor drives us to do so. Howsomever (a southern colloquialism) concerning Pascal's Wager B. C. Johnson put it this way:
“It is sometimes argued that we have a fifty-fifty betting proposition when considering God's existence or nonexistence. If we bet that God exists and he does exist, then we lose nothing while possibly gaining salvation. If we bet that God exist and he does not exist, then we lose nothing. But if we bet that God does not exist and he does exist, then we lose everything. Of course, if we bet that God does not exist and we are correct, then we lose nothing. Therefore it is prudent to bet on God. (This is Pascal’s Wager.)”
“The problem with the above argument is that it does not establish a fifty-fifty betting proposition. There are many alternatives that it fails to consider. For example, God may exist but he may damn anyone who "bets" on his existence merely for reasons of prudence. He may consider such a "bet" to be an insult. Furthermore, it may be that a mere belief in God is not enough to ensure salvation. A further requirement may be the belief in a particular religion. But which religion? Again, there are many alternatives. Another possible alternative is that God offers salvation only to atheist because God does not like being surrounded by obsequious "yes-men." God may prize independence and skepticism.”
I just love that last line. ;-) Ron Patterson
I wouldn't equate skepticism with atheism (the two might actually be mutually exclusive). Skepticism and agnosticism are a better match.
RE: Pascal's wager...
Dawkins does a delightful job of putting it in perspective in "The God Delusion", highly recommended for its subject matter, its readability, and its lucid prose.
well, if "God" isn't "should", then I don't know what Christian theology is about. Supposedly the Muslim god demands total obedience to a set of revealed principles, while such absolutism is not part of standard Christianity. Supposedly the Christian god requires us to use our heads and choose the correct path-- i.e., reduce consumption of hydrocarbons. If we don't, there will be consequences, but we won't destroy the world.
Exercise of free will is supposedly what got us into the mess we are in, and although we don't HAVE to follow any set plan, there are "should's" that are part of the proper order of things. Science and theology are about finding these out, and teaching people how to follow them.
Pascal was a Christian, and hoped to persuade non-believers to become Christian. I am not trying to beat a dead horse, I am arguing that there is a force stronger than "instinct" -- and that is our ability to choose. Maybe it's from "God", and maybe it's just an accident.
That we usually default to instinct is irrelevant to the argument, but since most people seem to take the default branch, it may be moot.
How do we always stray so far from Oil when the subject of religion is touched??
A sports fan is an example that come to mind. Why do we root for these millionaires from different places that end up on our hometown teams? As far as I can tell, instinctual tribalism is part of our nature. Perhaps, if we are attacked by Martians, we could act collectively.
wow is that ever a jump in logic - we cheer for a sport team because tribalism is instinctual?
q1) what percentage of a town cheers for the team?
q2) how do you know that tribalism is instinctual?
We have.
Population growth is no longer exponential, and hasn't been for about two decades. Moreover, population is projected to peak and start declining this century, even in a business-as-usual scenario.
As you say, "the world is the way it is". And the way it is is that we're not multiplying like rats. Indeed, since this demographic effect on population is most noticeable in countries that have plenty of money to purchase resources and relatively large amounts of land per capita (e.g., Germany), one could argue that our population is behaving in a way that is qualitatively different from any other animal.
Which sort of undercuts most of the rest of your argument.
You state that so confidently, but it's not true. Empirical research has shown that we're wired for altruism and for fairness. And not just us, either - the same has been shown to be true (to a lesser extent) in some closely-related primates.
Evidence suggests that your view of the world is unduly bleak.
Pitt - you got a reference / link for this? The UN has us on 9 billion by 2050
http://esa.un.org/unpp/index.asp?panel=2
That's true, but the projected business-as-usual peak is not much higher than that. Here's a reference:
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/worldpopinfo.html
Be sure to see this table as well:
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/worldpop.html
From the table, population growth peaked, in percentage terms, in 1962-1963 at 2.19% and in arithmetic terms in 1989 at about 88 million. The following two graphs depict that peaking:
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/img/worldgr.gif
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/img/worldpch.gif
Fertility rates for the 5 most populous nations plus a few others for the last 45 years. Clearly a population peak is in the works at some point even if economic growth continues.
From http://www.gapminder.org
(you can look up fertility for any nation)
Graph of Worldwide fertility rates by region:
Data is available at:
http://earthtrends.wri.org/searchable_db/index.php?theme=4
I believe these are the same stats compiled by the UN agencies.
Calorie, Asebius, ET - Thanks.
What's the principal reason for fertility rates falling?
Most scientists credit four factors.
1) Widespread availability of contraceptives.
2) Education and empowerment of women.
3) Urbanization (Kids are a burden in the city, free labor on the farm)
4) Improved health care and nutrition, leading to decreasing mortality rates (and hence less need to have large families in case some don't make it).
The problem I see is that all of these may unwind in the post-carbon age.
I've heard a few theories.
One is that lower child mortality means you need to have fewer kids to ensure enough survive to take care of you when you're old. If 50% die before they're adults, having 6 will give you an 89% chance to have two adult children. If 5% die before they're adults, you need just two.
Another theory is that increased education decreases fertility rates, partly because becoming established in the world simply takes more time, cutting out some of the child-bearing years, and partly because it empowers women, giving them important options other than motherhood.
A third theory is that the pace of modern life keeps people busy enough and makes children expensive enough that most couples don't want as many. When children are an expense rather than an asset (free labour), that changes the incentives.
I suspect wikipedia could direct you towards much more authoritative discussions of the phenomenon than my recollections, though.
None of the above theories includes simple overcrowding. This IMO is the common thread that cuts across all cultural, religious, political and economic boundaries.
Germany (600 people/sq mile) saw its population decline last year, even with substantial net immigration, whereas Bangladesh (2,700 people/sq mile) has one of the highest population growth rates in the world.
So population density alone is a very poor predictor of population growth rate.
http://www.oryxandcrake.co.uk/
One must temper enthusiasm for the possibility of using GM organisms to produce fuels with the reality that ALL organisms, natural or GM, must obey certain basic thermodynamic constraints.
In the case of growing fuel-producing organisms on corn syrup, as in the example of this company called LS9, regardless of what organism is used part of that corn syrup will end up as water and CO2, and the total energy content of the final product will be significantly less than the total energy content of the feedstock(s). Now, this may be acceptable if the sole objective is to produce liquid fuels regardless of the net energy involved, but it raises questions as to what degree such fuel represents an energy 'source' as opposed to an energy 'form'.
LS9 also predicts that it will be able to sell the fuel for just $1.25 per gallon. That's a very interesting claim, considering that the cost of the corn syrup (and other reactants, such as nutrients) required is probably quite a bit greater than that. But more important, anybody making a production cost prediction based on preliminary lab-scale R&D work is either fooling
himself or engaging on a con job. It is difficult enough to make such predictions based on large-scale pilot-plant test work. So, I wouldn't pay any attention whatsoever to that $1.25/gallon number.
SynBio reaching application stage - As if the world wasn't scary enough
How synbio could go wrong keeps even dedicated synthetic biologists awake at night; one, Drew Endy, at the Massachussets Institute of Technology, has said: "I expect this technology will be misapplied... and it would be irresponsible to have a conversation about the technology without acknowledging that fact." Sir Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, talks of bioterror or "bioerror" - a mistake - that could lead to a million casualties in a single event by 2020.
The most frightening aspect of synbio lies in two dimensions of the science. First, after the upfront research costs, synbio has the potential to be a highly accessible technology much like electronics. Unlike nuclear technology, for example, it won't require expensive resources or unusual expertise. In a decade, thousands of laboratories and science graduates are likely to be able to practice synbio, making the task of regulating its use extremely difficult.
Second, creating fantastic bacteria in a contained laboratory is one thing, but what happens when they get out and cross with their wild cousins, mutating into organisms we had never foreseen? The whole point of this science is the development of large-scale use outside a lab, but can we predict what consequences releasing these new organisms could have? The answer is a resounding no. We know about less than 1% of existing bacteria, and have very little understanding of how they mutate. But what we do know is that bacteria survive almost anything - if some malevolent bacteria developed, they would be hard to kill off.
http://www.lulu.com/content/1581272
Within Your Means: Financial Planning for Hidden Expenses
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdoc.cfm?index=8844&type=1
In CBO’s projection of DoD’s current plans, defense resources total about $521 billion annually (in 2008 dollars) from 2014 to 2025, or about 8 percent more than the total obligational authority for defense requested by the Administration for 2008.
The President leads with humanure:
http://icantbelieveitsnotademocracy.blogs.com/weblog/2007/12/either-w-ha...
Trade Nukes for Gas... Threat of Cancer...
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07350/841854-35.stm
The author leaves out a few important points in his article:
1. No mention of the possibility/neccessity of curtailing usage of energy.
2. Never mentions the exact rates of cancer, while giving statistics of the rates of increase.
3. The fact that NG may be more expensive, and is hence used for peaking vs base loads (as in nuclear) seems to have eluded the author, as well as eventual declines in NG over next few years.
4. The installed capacity of these reactors, or all nuclear in PA/MD etc.
That's just sloppy reporting. The cancer rates could be higher in those areas - let's take that as a given, but I would want to verify the figures before I would actually believe them.
The huge leap is to try and blame it on nuclear power. Unless there has been an accident or a venting of radioactive gas into the air (I am not aware of any that have been reported), it seems unlikely to me. And to suggest that there are "radioactive releases of everyday operations" just reeks of yellow journalism to me.
If there really are higher levels of cancer in this area, there could be toxic chemicals or oil refineries in the area that are the real cause.
Trade nukes for gas??? Excellent idea. With a bit of imagination there is no end of what they could be traded for. If America is up for sale why will we need nukes to protect us in the future? Who ever buys America will have to defend what they purchased...bring their own nukes. :)
Perhaps the nukes recently loaded on a B-52 and sent on an unauthorized cross country flight were destined for just such a trade?
Ok, so if we have 43 years of oil left at current levels of consumption, how is that NOT reason for panic? How people can be so complacent about something that's less than half a century away? Oh wait, that's because the people who make the decisions will ALL BE DEAD BY THEN!
[rant]I'm bloody well sick of boomers and older screwing my generation over by mortgaging our future! Of course, it's not just natural resources, it's our GIGANTIC national debt, devaluation of our fiat currency, and a total inability to look further than the step immediately in front of them. With the lack of future-planning that boomer's possess, it's amazing that any of them have retirement savings![/rant]
Many older people dont have any retirement savings and those that do are steadily losing it to inflation. But, we certainly appreciate the sacrafice you youngsters are making on our behalf. I believe that your beef should be with your government, the government that robbed the SS Trust Fund to fund stupid wars and invest in every other imaginable hair brained scheme that could drain the treasury. In the past 50 years we have gone from the biggest lender nation on earth to the biggest debtor nation on earth. No one in government asked me, personally, if I considered that a good idea. If you happen to end up living under a bridge I feel certain that you will find that many of those around you will be older people...Not much consolation, is it?
Some of people's "savings" are not in the bank. They are in businesses owned, real estate, stocks, annuities, bonds, and favors owed by family and friends.
It is good to lend, but do not expect to count on being paid back. Inflation takes back what it could not give out.
To borrow a line from 'Blazing Saddles'...'That is some of the best frontier gibberish that I have heard'...
As far as I can tell, entire generations, no matter which one we're talking about, are holier than any others that preceded them.
The US has no savings.
You said it.
We are about to find out that we can do nothing w/o savings.
The remedy is simple.
Raise interest rates.
Good Luck on seeing that on CNBC.
How about just changing the bankruptcy laws back. You WON'T see that mentioned in any Save The Sheeple talk.
Nor will you hear them putting a cap on Credit Card rates at about 15% or so.
I'm totally surprised by how little the many 25-year-olds seem to care about the future of energy -- they seem to fly all over the place and buy new cars at a rate I would have thought unimaginable when I was 25. However, subsequent generations are not really required to pay the mortgage taken out by their ancestors-- that sort of language is just a figure of speech.
Oh, of course not. We'll simply default on the loan.
I fly all over the place, but it's not for pleasure, it's for business. However, I know what you're referring to. Keeping up with the Jones' with the latest car. Considering I could afford to go out and buy one with cash, it's certainly tempting to go buy a new car, but why buy new? I'll continue driving my 22 year old car to the airport. Not having a car note is better than having one, no matter what that new car has in it that's so cool. 7 years ago I bought my first new car. It's the last time I'll make that mistake. New cars are a waste, financially speaking.
Sure, my post was over the top, but that's how rants tend to be. :)
For the average 25 year old in America today, what would make them think about Savings Rate and Financial Prudence? Who has been teaching and preaching that?
I Learned it by Watching You!
At some point along the line, the American Dream morphed from upward mobility through determination, to "having things."
I'm thirty... one?... and have Au$20K debt in a loan for land. That'll be paid off within 18 months, if I keep my current repayments up. If I'd bought land/house five years ago, it would have cost me half as much, I'd have paid it all off, and I'd be at least 30K in the black.
The best laid plans...
EDIT: This reply should have been one parent up the chain.
Hey! I am 25 years old and have no debt to my name!
Although its rare I hand ya that :)
Get more young people interested in the subject, and TOD..
I'm 28 and have virtually no debt ($3,800 school loan which is interest free), and I could afford to pay it off now, but why bother when there's no interest on it? I have decent job security as an RN...
I also agree that many people my age do have tons of debt, but I know my generation is not alone in taking on debt. I talk to older co-workers swimming in big loans from banks to pay for cars, big houses, and vacations. Ugh.
I avoided debt like the plague in my 20s, and didn't get in trouble until my 30s/40s.
I had student loan debt and paid that off. An inheritance helped, but I may have done it OK anyway.
Looking back, even though I'm known to gripe about only making $11 an hour and all that, it was far richer then, in my 20s, then I am now.
That is scary.
A segment of that "boomer" generation you are denigrating made the one real and significant attempt to change this society to occur in the last 100 years or more.
Some of the best minds and spirits of that generation were destroyed by our unforgiving and totalizing drive toward uniform global capitalism.
Yes, as a whole, we have drifted back toward that capitalist path, perhaps out of sheer exhaustion. But, then, I haven't seen any world shaking efforts at transformation come out of any of the following generations.
And then a bigger segment of them gave us Reagan, the eighties and yuppy culture...
There's no doubt in my mind that an awful lot of people on the edges of "counterculture" of the 60s and 70s were not true believers. They liked the cheap sex and drugs. :)
Because it's been less than half a century away for more than half a century?
Resource depletion has been like fusion power - always 30-50 years away, no matter how much time passes. That'll change (possibly for fusion, certainly for oil), but decades of evidence shows that it's unwise to treat the "current reserves" number as an "all possible reserves" value.
Which is lower than for decades after WWII, and which is requiring the lowest level of interest payments in decades (all as a fraction of GDP, of course).
Back down to its level in the mid-90s. Little has happened other than reversing the strong rise of the US$ in the 1997-2002 period.
Nah, it's only a partial inability. Which is bad enough.
"lowest level of interest payments in decades....(as a % of gdp)", really ? http://zfacts.com/p/318.html
Yup.
What happens if a handfull of Saudi Islamic Clerics pronounce a fatwa against the dollar?
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/business/ambrosevanspritchard/december07/fa...
Probably not much. They don't control the Saudi government, and - even if they did - the total holdings of US federal debt by "Oil Exporters" is about 1.5% (of the ~$9T total).
It's very likely that the high figure for the UK (3%) involves some Saudi money in investment banks, but even adding in all of that leaves us at less than 5%.
your link provides very little useful information, i can tell you this from the link i provided. national debt as a % of gdp declined from about 120% of annual gdp following ww2 (through republicans and democrats, war and peace, good times and bad) to about 32% of annual gdp at the end of carter's term. after 12 yrs of regan and bush, the debt was about, 67% of annual gdp, declining to around 60% during clinton's term and rocketing back up with the current "administration". so if the debt is about 70% of annual gdp, how is the interest on the debt the lowest in decades ? $ 430 e9 at the end of fy'07.
Interest rates used to be much higher.
Interest payments were $214B in 1988, from a GDP of $5.5T, which is 3.9%. Interest payments now are $430B on $14T, or 3.1%. So interest payments have declined, despite the debt rising from 52% to 66% of GDP in that time.
Peak oil skeptics (I'm not claiming you're one, but this is something that has been bugging me lately) repeatedly claim that PO advocates have been predicting the end of oil for ages and keep getting it wrong. Does someone have a quote of anyone who claimed oil was going to peak before 2000, let alone run out?
As for the US$, there were 2 brief periods in the 1990s (1990-91 and again in 1995) that the dollar index dropped below 80. It still wasn't as low then as it was a month ago, and those were brief dips. The average for that era was closer to 100. It was in the 120s in 1985 and back over 110 by 2000.
Also, total US indebtedness (public & private) as a percentage of GDP is about 50% higher than the previous all-time record, which was 1931 as the Great Depression was really hitting its stride. Even that's misleading, because that peak in 1931 just blew away anything close to it, untill we blew the '31 peak away a few years ago.
Even though the public debt was high after WWII, private citizens were net savers, canceling out the public indebtedness (e.g. by buying war bonds). In America today, the average citizen is up to his eyeballs in debt to financial institutions at the same time that the public debt is the highest it has ever been, except for the 10 years following WWII.
Hubbert did, for one, and Campbell's published predictions show a very definite pre-2000 peak. I've seen a few more listed somewhere - try checking JD's site if you're interested.
You're missing the point, though; the point is that "X years at current consumption" is how resource reserves have been stated for decades, and for decades the amount subtracted from X has had very little to do with the number of years that passed.
Accordingly, it's foolish to misinterpret "X years of reserves" as meaning "we'll run out in X years". All historical evidence says that's unlikely to be how things work out.
That "dollar index" is little more than "the US$ against the Euro". If you look at the trade-weighted exchange rate - which takes into account all the countries the US trades with, and roughly their influence on the world economy - you'll see the US$ is about where it was 12 years ago.
True, although the vast majority of the increase is mortgages (which - despite the subprime debacle - are still relatively safe) and financial sector, of which quite a large amount is rich people risking excess money to make even more excess money.
There's likely to be some painful shakeouts in both sectors - indeed, already have been (Bear Stearns, Amaranth) - but I'm somehow not terribly concerned about rich investors losing money on risky investments.
There's likely to be normal people hurt, too, especially people who took on predatory mortgages that they didn't need and couldn't afford, people whose jobs are affected by the economic slowdown, and people whose pension funds are affected by bad investments. It doesn't seem like they'll suffer an exceptionally huge amount, but time will tell.
You may not realize it, but "public debt" means something different than "federal debt". It's the part of the federal debt that isn't owed to itself - basically, the part that isn't the unemployment/social security accumulated surplus - and that part of the debt is just 37% of GDP, which is lower than in 2/3 of the years since WWII. Check the source to the table linked above and see for yourself.
Including the debts from the government to itself - the total $9T debt - it's still lower than it was from 1994 to 1997. In the last 15 years the debt has fluctuated between 57.4% and 67.3% (vs. 65.5% now), suggesting the current levels aren't all that unusual.
Pitt: Just today the White House released an analysis claiming that the USA is 600 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR FOR THE NEXT 75 YEARS short on its financial obligations to its citizens. Oil depletion isn't factored into the analysis. Keep in mind, this is the rosy outlook, coming from the White House. 600 BILLION A YEAR FOR 75 YEARS. Pretty soon they will be talking about serious money.
About 90% of that is due to projecting that medical expenses will continue to grow at the same enormous rate that they have been. Fix that, and the problem goes away.
Paul Krugman has covered this at some length.
Not "rosy" at all - it's an intentional scare tactic which was part of the drive to privatize social security, and is now part of the drive to head off universal healthcare.
(According to Krugman, at least.)
Pitt: i always enjoy reading Krugman. This is an interesting one- 600 Billion X 75 years is quite a discrepancy in the projections (it reads like Krugman thinks the deficit related will be minor). I don't know about this one-obviously putting numbers like this out doesn't help the US dollar one bit.
Another take on this:
"NPR reported that the government has promised $45 trillion more than it can deliver for Social Security, Medicare, and other benefit programs.
...
Let's think about how a news reporter might have dealt with these numbers....Suppose the news reporter had told us what this number is -- the projected shortfall for Social Security and Medicare for current participants, under the assumption that no one else ever starts working in the United States.
...
How about expressing this as a share of projected income over this period -- the share would be around 6 percent. I guess that is not as scary as $45 trillion."
Anyone panicking about the supposed massive shortfall simply doesn't know what they're talking about.
Does someone have a quote of anyone who claimed oil was going to peak before 2000, let alone run out?
Really? Where and when did he do that?
National Geographic, June 1974
http://www.hubbertpeak.com/hubbert/natgeog.htm
"If present trends continue. . . "
If you click on the link, note that Dr. Hubbert's URR estimate was exactly the same as Dr. Deffeyes' (C+C) estimate, 2,000 Gb. If it had not been for the Arab Oil Embargo, and more importantly, the Iranian Revolution, the world probably would have peaked earlier at a higher rate of production.
But the key point is that Hubbert and Deffeyes had the same estimate for the area under the curve.
Or that present trends tend not to continue.
"Or that present trends tend not to continue."
And there's the rub - when, globally, people are planning on increased demand for FFs...
But it's the ROC (Rate of Change) of the Debt Growth that's so significant now. The growth of the debt in the last seven years has (not quite) doubled, from above 5 trillion to nearly 10 trillion. And accordingly, it's the acceleration of the instances in which Congress has had to raise the debt ceiling. Five times, since the present administration took office.
That is one, powerful growth rate. We'll get our "double" soon enough.
The present trend could slow, and even reverse. However, for the current trend to undergo such a change, a dramatic shift would have to occur in spending and borrowing. Perhaps that will happen. But this present era is eerily similar to the Guns and Butter period of the LBJ period. The effects of this Debt explosion will be felt for some time to come, likely into the next Administration.
Including the debts from the government to itself - the total $9T debt - it's still lower than it was from 1994 to 1997. In the last 15 years the debt has fluctuated between 57.4% and 67.3% (vs. 65.5% now), suggesting the current levels aren't all that unusual.
I think that's a point worth making. However, I don't find it comforting, given the ROC of the debt creation. The "magic" of compounding has arrived.
Gregor
Gregor: The additional 45 trillion might put a dent in the fiscal wallet.
Don't be absurd. US federal debt went from 33% to 50% from Reagan's first 7 years, and 61% to 66% from BushII's.
Heck, BushI added more over his 4 years - 10% - than BushII will over eight.
Which is a lower growth rate than we've seen. Reagan's 8 years saw the debt triple.
To GDP as well - that's up 45% since the start of 2000, vs. 58% growth in the debt.
How currency devaluation destroys wealth
While declaring that central banks cannot prevent bubbles, the Fed has admitted more than once that it sees as one of the roles of a central bank the support of the market value of financial assets, however inflated. Instead of being the guardian against moral hazard, the Fed has become the promoter of moral hazard.
A market anomaly is thus created in which equity prices rise in response to what normally would be considered bad news for the real economy, such as falling home sales, because the market then expects the Fed will lower short-term rates, causing equity prices to rise, even though home mortgage rates are tied to 10-year Treasuries rates. Conversely, equity prices can fall in response to what normally would be considered good economic news such as rising home sales because it causes the Fed to raise short-term rates, which really do not have any direct connection to home finance. This is because the market knows that in a bubble about to burst, good news of further expansion is bad news.
US financial assets have been built not only on debt, but on debt recycled at high velocity. It is a form of turbo-debt, in which one dollar of debt can act as equity to finance more than $100 of credit through sequential leveraged financing and leveraged securitization. Borrowers in turn become lenders, who themselves lend borrowed money. Massive financial energy is released through chain reaction of a tiny amount of equity.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/IF14Dj01.html
"in the last 15 yrs " well, yes that would take us back to about 1992, after reagan and bush run it up (as a % of gdp) to that 67%. at the end of carter's term it was about 32% of annual gdp.
you debt deniers are real fond of claiming that ssi/medicare are not part of the national debt.
a subtle reminder: the definition of debt is "an obligation to repay"
I had the same complaints 35 years ago but America keeps plodding along. I didn't expect Social Security to last this long but every month I get that electronic deposit. You are right on one point. I never had a job that paid well enough for me to have any savings. Having children who complain about the boomers cost alot to raise properly.
Yeah, my kids never complain about the boomers.
I didn't have any.
Highly recommended to those now in their 20's.
That would have been the best thing the boomers and older generations could have done for the planet. I've done my share of griping about the boomers, but really...unless you wish you'd never been born, you've no call to gripe.
That's what I did, along with most of my family. Between me, my two siblings and our 5 spouses we contributed a grand total of two offspring to the gene pool (and both were both born in the deep end of the pool). Neither of those two wants children, nor do any of my current partner's 3 daughters from her previous marriage. So counting it all up, the population I'm linked to by blood or affiliation has gone from 10 in my generation, to 5 in the next, to 0.
However, dealing with 3 teenage girls after so many decades of blissful child-freedom has from time to time left me wishing I'd never been born...
No kids for me either. No great plan or purpose, that's just the way life worked out for me. Nevertheless, that is one or two US-sized carbon footprints that will not trod upon the earth's landscape. Put that on the plus side of this boomer's ledger, please.
At least I don't need to have any anxiety about my kid's future, since I have none. What I don't get are the people that DO have kids and don't give a damn.
Us seniors [45 days younger than saddam] have always and continue to wisely expend energy. :)
Actually, our generation was encouraged to consume energy for the benefit of those who sold energy.
It's all Eisenhower's fault.
I remember this.
I'm a 1956 high school grad.
In retalitation we're pushing PNM to start a program to halt new construction for reasons of future energy and water shortages.
Let's see what happens!
In our legal project too.
"sea level could rise twice as fast"
Again? What w'll be seeing over and over is that the worst predictions will turn out to be optimistic. My 2 cents.
I live in Holland so sea level is a big problem. We certainly can't handle a 1.5 meter rise. Mind that we will not have the resources and energy available, like we used to have, for our coastal defences.
It's probably a bit early but I need to put up that "for sale" sign before everyone else does.
OMG!!! run for the hillls...
I do love Science its so funny sometimes. One of the most disturbing facts that people neglect to mention is we live in a lucky time. We live in a time that is interglacial.... These are short blips of time in the history of earth. Most of the time we have had glaciation.
One thing you forgot to mention is that the population is much higher today. Sure, if there were a million people on this planet, there would be no problem with a little higher water.
"These are short blips of time in the history of earth. Most of the time we have had glaciation."
Really??
I thought the earth was much warmer over the billions of years before us. Couldn't it be much warmer for billions of years more?
"I thought the earth was much warmer over the billions of years before us. Couldn't it be much warmer for billions of years more?"
What I'm trying to say is that for large reptiles to "rule" the earth there had to be greater warmth than now. They ruled a long time, much longer than we've ruled here.
Reptiles (and reptilian offshoots) could rule the earth at any temperature, and extended into some quite cold climes. For that matter, many dinosaurs were probably warm-blooded. Many were also well-insulated - they recently found a small velociraptor with feathers, I think. And large size alone, when coupled with metabolic activity, can make it possible for critters to live in cold climates without being true homeotherms.
They ruled because they were the first to expand into the various niches, and acquired additional robustness thereby. It took a huge perturbation to empty the niches and give the mammals a shot at those same niches.
Are you saying that G.W. Bush is not a reptile?
HEY! Snakes are fine creatures. They help farmers to keep down the population of insects, rodents, and other vermin. We'd be in a world of hurt without snakes. How dare you compare such a noble, useful creature to G.W. Bush!
I'm not running for the hills. In fact I'm staying put for for the next years. I need a new roof on my house, and while I'm at it, I might as well get a solar water heater.
You know, saving money to pay for it.
And as the wind blows here about 360 days a year, I want these windside vertical turbines.
Paulus;
I'm building a small Vertical myself, but have been very intrigued by the Windside designs. Please let us know if you manage to get one and can report how it works for you.
Bob Fiske
www.windside.com
Look at some of the home made ones here.
http://www.fieldlines.com/
http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2007/12/8/0453/17909
http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2007/9/20/114145/651
http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2007/12/12/9444/1180
From what I gather, this is the opinion of many of VAWT designs
I still have yet to see a practical 'homebuilt' VAWT.
I also wish all of you VWAT fans 'luck'. Although I suspect research would serve most better.
Up top Leanan has posted a link from Market Watch that says we should expect triple digit oil prices next year. Two links down there is a link to The Moscow Times that says oil prices are going to plunge and we should learn to live with cheap oil. A few links down there is a link to The Korean Times that says that the peak oil theory is “nonsense, almost comedic”.
There is as many opinions out there as there are people. But by and large those who say that oil price is going up and/or that the peak oil theory is valid, look at production and expected consumption. Those who say that peak oil is nonsense talk about reserves and what technology will do for us in the future. And they usually mention such things as The Korean Times talks about:
Man oh man! Liquids extracted from mined solids, whatever that is. Hell with all those sources of oil coming down the pike I may as well join the cornucopians. To paraphrase The Korean Times again, peak oil theory is nonsense, almost comical.
Methinks it is The Korean Times that is comical.
Ron Patterson
Makes me wonder if there really is a driver on this whacky bus we are on or is everyone just trying to grab the steering wheel and pull it in their own direction before we smack the wall.
i think the inmates are running the asylum.
The bus came by and I got on; that's when it all began.
Must have been a Long Strange Trip Running Against the Wind while trying to stay ahead of A Ship of Fools...
E. Swanson
Nah, no different than the Red Queen telling Alice to run faster...
..Bozo's on this Bus
I'll see ya on the fun way...
"If you push something hard enough it will fall over".
I think we are in the scene of "Beat The Reaper" when the people in the studio start running into the street yelling, "The Plague, The Plague"...
For those who are old enough and had strange tastes enough to listen to Firesign Theater...
(I have ALL their albums. Believe me...)
Don't fear the reaper.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5rW-YvYmUE
Rat 1/4 mile from the Antelope Freeway
OK, space cadets, let's take a brief trip. A Star Trip, that is. Too bad the Stoned Ranger can't be sent to Pigeon Park in DC when we need him. We've got a Cocaine Cowboy instead and that's no laughing matter.
E. Swanson
Wow, this takes me back. Favorite was Nick Danger. Great Stuff. This should be re-released.
Jeff
WR-
You are either on the bus, or off the bus.
I have never been the same.
:>))
I suspect the 'mined solids' are oil shales - and I'm sure we will see some oil from coal and other alternate sources, just not enough or cheap enough or for long enough to maintain exponential economic growth.
They probably don't know about coal 'net exports', or indeed 'net exports' of anything in decline, they might change their mind if they did.
I can't help thinking however, that in the short term, maybe oil won't be the Liebig minimum - I don't know what it will be - possibly cheap credit?
RE: Small group of US experts insist global warming not man-made
This report was discussed on RealClimate a few days ago. Fred Singer can be branded as Chief Denialist because of his repeated efforts to spread disinformation about the science behind AGW. Singer may have been paid to perform this role. John Christy has apparently joined the group, along side his former mentor, Roy Spencer. Spencer was the lead author on the original papers that promoted the use of the MSU as a way to assess climate change, a role which Christy has assumed over the past few years. Spencer and Christy were very sure of their results when the early data showed a cooling trend which included the cooling from Pinatubo, before the large El Nino in 1997 reversed the trend. Their results have been shown to be flawed by other researchers. Lately, they have tried repeatedly to downplay the newer results which clearly show a global warming, a trend that other analyst have found to be even larger than S & C's results. This latest report may be just another example of very carefully written high tech disinformation.
E. Swanson
Furthermore, Fred Singer reported second-hand smoke does NOT cause cancer. That research was paid for by the Tobacco lobby. When asked on the video below (about 1/3 of the way in) about the research, Fred said that he didn't know where the money came from. Does anybody working in the research field really not know? I work with PIs and they work very hard to get those grants and know exactly where the money is coming from.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8012901811669462665&sourceid=do...
Same old bad data...but this stuff lives forever.
Well, the same authors (Douglass, Pearson and Singer, now joined by Christy) are back with a new (but necessarily more constrained) claim, but with the same over-confidence in observational accuracy and a similar lack of appreciation of short term statistics.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/tropical-troposphe...
GWB gives Peak Oil a new name
"Played out" Oil or POO for short.
In a live conference from Fredricksburg Va., the Texas oil man explained to an Oklahoma reporter today why some folk are capping their oil wells even in this time of high oil prices. Well, there comes a time when that well is just played out, he said (not a perfect quote --but he did use the "played out" phrase).
So there you have it from the mouth of the plain speaking oil man, Played Out Oil.
This is a commonly used description in the oil patch for a depleted well. Maybe GWB was in the "awl bidness" after all.
You mean "awl game".
We "play in the awl game until she's all played out.
Then we move on to new games.
Always there will be new games.
We'll play global world domination ...
until she, the planet, is awl played out.
Then we'll tell them there techno-knowldge folk at NASA to build us a spaceship to Mars so we can "play" out that new frontier too. My daddy done told me a cowboy never runs out of new pastures. There's always a new pasture over the horizon to play out on.
The December ASPO Newsletter is out!
http://www.aspo-ireland.org/index.cfm/page/newsletter
Philip
Thanks Philip. These latest charts and graphs show an all liquids peak of 87 Mbpd in 2010. Forty years later, all liquids is down to 41 Mbd. On average this is 1.15 Mbpd or 1.3% per year. Is Campbell an optimist?
Yes he is being optimistic. We are all hoping that the decline is that slow, as anything more is a road straight to a crash that we will have difficulty surviving.
Too Cheap to meter???
From my email inbox today, sent by the Ontario Clean Air Alliance:
In March 2004, John Manley, the Chair of the Ontario Power Generation (OPG) Review Committee, recommended that OPG should return its shutdown Pickering A Unit 1 nuclear reactor to service.
Mr. Manley’s recommendation was based on the following two key assumptions: a) the incremental cost of re-starting the reactor would be $500 million (OPG had already spent $325 million on the re-start); and b) the re-built reactor would be able to operate at an 85% capacity utilization rate for 12 years.
Unfortunately, neither of these targets has been met. First, the incremental cost of re-starting the reactor was $691 million or 38% higher than Manley’s forecast, which means that the total cost of the Pickering A restart topped $1 billion.
Second, as of November 30, 2007 the average capacity utilization rate of the reactor since its November 2005 re-start has been only 62%. As a consequence of the poor operating performance of this reactor, OPG has had to increase the output of its dirty coal plants to keep the lights on. The resulting increase in air pollution has been equivalent to putting 385,000 more cars on the road for one year.
5 blocked posts right now.
Very cool.
In reference to the Article about Peak Oil and the KNOC....
I just love it when these folks start spittin out the number of years we have left in terms of oil, etc. While most Americans (and many others) don't ever grasp the impact of growth (or decline), those that are mathematically savvy can see the fallacy of the argument or the is missing argument (at current rates).
We of course, know that this inherent "at current rates" will not be true. If oil supply can grow, it will; if not, it will decline (and in the decline the oil will "last longer" because the oil cannot be extracted at previous high rates, thus lengthening the age of the oil, but at ever lower supply values).
So, how long does that "40 years of oil" last with 2.3% growth (assuming you can achieve it)?
Answer: 28 and change.
And how long does that 80 years of oil last with a 2.3% growth rate?
Answer: 45 and change.
I'm never surprised that people whom claim that all of these resources/reserves to be available, nor the fact that if growth continues that the real exhaustion time is considerably shorter than the current rate number.
Nowhere in the article does it say that at some nimonal growth (say 2.3%) that oil reserves would have to "look like" ~235 years of supply at today's rate.
Perhaps we should tatoo the equation on their forehead (in mirror image, of course) so they don't forget that when they look in the mirror.
As I like to say, the phrase "at current rates of consumption" means "bullshit to follow". Even if the phrase is implied!
Starship:Few remember, but it was only a couple of years ago when Greenspan was enthusing publicly over the miraculous flexibility of the modern USA economy which allowed homeowners to leverage up because of wonderful "wealth creation", leading to increased spending and a robust economy. IMO, he didn't believe that absurd crap then and most of these writers don't believe this absurd crap now.
Twighlight and Brian T:
In this case consider it "state propaganda" considering the source.
USAF is working towards running on coal:
http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/military/story/230092.html
snip
By all appearances, there won’t be anything to distinguish a C-17 that’s scheduled to leave Monday morning from all the others that depart McChord Air Force Base.
But this flight will be noteworthy. It marks the first Air Force cross-country trip powered by a mixture of synthetic and traditional jet fuels. It’s another waypoint in the service’s long-term program to reduce its dependence on foreign oil. “It will look a lot like every other takeoff,” said Col. Frank Rechner, the mission support group commander with McChord’s 62nd Airlift Wing. “But it’s historic.” Just like drivers at the pumps, the Air Force is getting hammered by rising fuel costs. Its gas bill in 2003 was $2.6 billion; by 2006, it had climbed to $5.8 billion. The service burns half the fuel consumed by the Department of Defense each year. With nearly 6,000 airplanes going through 7 million gallons of fuel a day, a $10 rise in the per-barrel price of oil reportedly costs the Air Force $600 million a year. The service’s plan is to turn to domestic energy producers first to supply natural gas, and later, coal, which would be converted into liquid fuel.
snip
I'm picturing guys with shovels busily heaving coal into the boiler, while steam belches and the props slowly begin to turn..... Imagine a Baldwin 60000 with wings!
Churchill switched the British navy from coal to oil, and started WWI-- and all the rest.
How odd that things always come around to where they start.
US corn boom has downside for Gulf
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071217/ap_on_bi_ge/corn_dead_zone_5;_ylt=Aq...
I've just made the following offer to John Cassidy, who wrote that comically ill-informed article for Portfolio.com, using elementary, old-style cornucopian economic theory to assure us that fifty-dollar crude was just around the corner.
The comments on the Portfolio website seem to slaughter his foolish simplicity just about unanimously.
If he lives up to the usual standard of hacks I've challenged to put their money where their irresponsible mouths are, I expect no answer. Here's the quote:
-----------
Any interest in this bet:
1) Crude will be well above US$100 by 2012, at today's values, and much of it will be traded in other, more reliable, currencies than the -- by then -- crashed dollar.
2) There will be, by then, little doubt left that the historic global peak in crude production was in 2005. Production in 2012 will be well below today's level, and will be still cruising unstoppably downwards.
3) The US economy will be in meltdown, severely reducing the current quarter of the world's energy output which your six percent of the world's people currently guzzle. But other economies will have grabbed up the slack, and some.
4) The other legs of the Triple Global Crisis (Peak Everything, Climate Shift and the Sixth Extinction) will be preoccupying out attention rather more than energy prices, as by then many millions of us, everywhere, will have woken up -- very belatedly -- to the fact that we and our one and only planetary life-support system are in very much deeper sh1t than our species has ever encountered before in it's whole lifespan.
If you think that I'm wrong about any of this, I wouldn't care to chop-logic about it. But I wll put down fifty Euros against your ten -- strictly to buy a little wedge of actual gold bullion -- and we'll agree to leave it with a trusted stakeholder for five years, whilst we see who turned out to be right.
When indulging in the fool's game of predicting the future, as I have here, it's always well to try to include absolutely every element that you can think of in the guesstimate. Mere economics alone is absurdly inadequate. Don't you get that yet? Especially in these unprecedentedly Interesting Times,
HOUSING - SIMPLE AS THAT
Dragonfly41...A couple of my favorites from Von Mises...
'Inflation can be pursued only so long as the public still does not believe it will continue. Once the people generally realize that the inflation will be continued on and on and that the value of the monetary unit will decline more and more, then the fate of the money is sealed. Only the belief, that the inflation will come to a stop, maintains the value of the notes.'
And...
'Inflation and credit expansion, the preferred methods of present day government openhandedness, do not add anything to the amount of resources available. They make some people more prosperous, but only to the extent that they make others poorer.'
Very good quote from a very good and scarey as hell article. As has been suggested by Westtexas on several occasions (paraphrased)get your discretionary spending to a minimum and really figure out where you want to be and how you want to get there sooner than you may expect. John
DF41
HOUSING - SIMPLE AS THAT
(Great link>
BTW, This is a great article. Read this one and you will see one of the best synopsis of why we are.. er. Scroomed.
I must quote at least the ending.
Banking by coffee can here.
The debt I have is huge and as they say, it's not my problem it's the bank's problem.
Ultimately it comes down to SKILLS. You won't be able to sit around bloated and lazy on your pile of silver, but I don't think anyone here plans to do that - pretty go-getter chop-wood bunch here.
Skills can come down to what got you by in high school though - babysitting, weeding, mending, fishing, foraging. The person who can make a damned good shoe is likely to do very well.
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/inflation21.11927.html
$30 million for a house with just 4 rooms! Maybe US house prices are just taking a breather ;-)
I find myself too busy to wallow in Drum Beat every day now. I am curious to find out if there have been any reports of spot gasoline outages in recent days.
I crossed from Iowa into Illinois with only half a tank. I know better, but it was late, cold, and I was tired. I found this pump an hour and a half into the state. Had the next stop also had an outage I'd have been sleeping in a booth at the gas station there waiting for a tanker to show.
didn't notice any; but i too can't read as carefully as i used to .