DrumBeat: May 15, 2008
Posted by Leanan on May 15, 2008 - 9:15am
Once again the gloom is overdone. There may no longer be virgin lands to be settled and cultivated, as in the 19th century, but there is no reason to believe that agricultural productivity has hit a buffer. Indeed, one of the main barriers to another “green revolution” is unwarranted popular worries about genetically modified foods, which is holding back farm output not just in Europe, but in the developing countries that could use them to boost their exports....Although neo-Malthusianism naturally has much to say about food scarcity, the doctrine emerges more generally as the idea of absolute limits on resources and energy, such as the notion of “peak oil”. Following the earlier scares of the 1970s, oil companies defied the pessimists by finding extra fields, not least since higher prices had spurred new exploration. But even if oil wells were to run dry, economies can still adapt by finding and exploiting other energy sources.
Petrobras Has Drilled Halfway Through Carioca, Minister Says
(Bloomberg) -- Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil's state-controlled oil company, has drilled halfway through its offshore Carioca deposit and will need more time to determine its size, Mines and Energy Minister Edison Lobao said.
Shell: Crude shortfalls will boost renewables
Royal Dutch Shell said the failure of crude suppliers to keep pace with accelerating demand may prompt the expansion of renewable energy.There's "plenty of oil in the world," Shell's Scenario Team said today on a Webcast led by Global Business Environment Vice President Jeremy Bentham. "The important moment is actually not a possible peak of oil production;" it's when demand exceeds supply, which may "come well before a peak" in output.
OPEC Cuts Oil Demand Forecast; Buyers Shun Heavy Oil
(Bloomberg) -- The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries cut its 2008 global oil demand forecast for a second time in three months as producers report difficulties selling ``heavy'' crude grades.
Norway's budget surplus soars on oil
The Norwegian government's budget surplus for 2008, benefiting from record oil prices, is expected to soar more than 23 percent over the original projections, the finance minister said Thursday.
Gazprom joins Quebec gas plant consortium
CALGARY–Russia's Gazprom is joining a consortium developing a Canadian liquefied natural gas terminal and will supply all of the $840 million plant's gas needs from its huge Shtokman project, the companies said Thursday.
Congress looks to close 'Enron loophole' in trading
WASHINGTON — Federal regulators would have more authority to monitor electronic energy markets and guard against market manipulation under legislation approved today as part of the congressional farm bill.
PG&E asks customers to conserve during heat wave
Anticipating triple-digit temperatures in many parts of California this week, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. is asking its "Critical Peak Pricing" customers to voluntarily conserve energy.
Daimler: UPS Placed Major Order Of Hybrid, Natural Gas Trucks
FRANKFURT -(Dow Jones)- Daimler AG (DAI) said Wednesday that United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) ordered 200 hybrid electric trucks and 300 compressed natural gas vehicles.In a statement, Daimler said that this represents its largest of alternative- fuel and drive-train commercial vehicles to-date.
Memorial Day driving to drop slightly - AAA
More than 12% of the U.S. population will be celebrating the Memorial Day weekend away from home, AAA said. Of those traveling, AAA said 31.7 million people, or 83%, are expected to drive. That's 1% fewer than the 32 million Memorial Day drivers a year ago. And airline travel is expected to decrease 0.5%."With Americans working paycheck to paycheck, high energy costs are having an effect," said AAA vice president Mark Brown in a press conference. "Americans are finding themselves at a travel tipping point."
Why is everyone suddenly gaga over gas?
Crude oil gets all the headlines, but there's another fossil fuel that's had an even more impressive run this year.Natural gas has surged 55 per cent in 2008, topping the 29-per-cent rise in crude. And it could go higher still, especially if the summer brings scorching temperatures that prompt homeowners to crank up their air conditioners or hurricanes that knock out gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.
On April 8, President Felipe Calderon dropped a political bomb on the Mexican political scene. The Senate received an executive initiative that would fundamentally change the structure and operations of the oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex). Key operations of the state-owned enterprise would pass into private hands.
Brazil Delays Oil Auctions on Lack of Equipment, Minister Says
(Bloomberg) -- Brazil won't auction new oil properties until at least 2009 because there is a lack of equipment necessary to expand exploration, Mines an Energy Minister Edison Lobao said.
Record Fuel Prices Spur Sales of Gas Cap Locks
With gas heading toward the $5-a-gallon mark a surge in gas thefts from parked cars is the latest energy crisis to hit consumers, with widespread police reports coast to coast of tanks being drained in broad daylight.One woman in a quiet Staten Island neighborhood left her BMW in her driveway with an $80 full tank of gas to take public transit, only to return from work to find her tank virtually empty.
Even cop cars are getting hit, with the NYPD ordering 400 locking gas caps on certain vehicles to cut down on the high tabs for replacing stolen gas.
St. Maarten: Tighten your belt
As expected, fuel prices will go up again Friday, as a result of the ever-rising oil price on the international market. The increase by no less than 30 cents per litre of gasoline and per litre of diesel fuel is sure to be felt by motorists as well as bus and taxi drivers.No only that, but practically all businesses will be dealing with increased transport cost that will no doubt be passed on to the consumer. The fuel price increase will also lead to higher energy bills, which have already gone up considerably in the past year.
Cyprus: Government promises measures to offset soaring fuel prices
THE GOVERNMENT said yesterday it was considering counter-measures to offset soaring fuel prices.This was announced by Commerce Minister Antonis Paschalides as prices at the pump rose again in response to soaring international oil prices.
Pakistan advances clock to conserve energy
Islamabad (IANS) Facing a huge energy deficit, Pakistan has drawn up a comprehensive plan for conserving power by advancing clocks by an hour and ordering markets to close by 9 p.m. from June 1. The adjustment in the Pakistan Standard Time (PST) would take it six hours ahead of GMT. Henceforth, sunrise in Islamabad will be at 6 a.m. instead of 5 a.m. and sunset at 8 p.m.Pakistan, which faces an energy shortfall of 4,000 MW, has twice before attempted to introduce daylight saving time but has failed on both occasions, Dawn reported Thursday.
Author gushing with oil knowledge; Professor speaks at conference
"One hundred and fifty years after the first commercial oil well in Oil Springs, global oil production is about to peak; we are at the zenith of the industry," he said. "It's very fitting that Thomas Homer-Dixon has a message about adjustment to a world of high energy demand and declining resources."Homer-Dixon's speech at Petrolia's Victoria Hall, "The Great Transition: Coping with the end of the oil age," focused on oil production and the severity of the ongoing climate and energy crises.
His message: we're running out of cheap oil.
Celebrate clean coal, come on!
In one TV commercial, Kool and the Gang warble their celebration of good times because coal, yes, coal, makes the party possible in America. In another, white and black, young and old, male and female, and even someone in a doctor's green scrubs, stare into the camera and soulfully declare: "I believe" American know-how will make coal clean and stop it from contributing to climate change. Not sold? Maybe you missed the newspaper ads and billboards warning that turning away from coal could mean blackouts, unemployment and higher electric bills.
While there may be no question of WWF Australia's good intentions in adding its name to the coalition calling for increased emphasis on research into Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), is it really advisable to campaign for an increase in government investment (financial, but also philosophical) in this still mythical technology?
“The Rocky Road to a Real Transition”: A Review
It is flattering that so early in a movement such as the Transition movement, people take the time to sit down and write such a detailed critique of it. Trapese Popular Education Collective were previously behind the excellent ‘Do It Yourself Manual’. As the first published external examination of the Transition model it is to be welcomed, and the authors raise a number of important questions. From my perspective, “The Rocky Road…” does a very good job of identifying many of the key areas where Transition is distinctly different from other approaches to social activism.
ALTERNATIVE energy group Geodynamics lost cornerstone investor Woodside Petroleum yesterday.Woodside, a gas and oil business, offloaded all $17.3 million of its holdings in Geodynamics, which is trying to tap "geothermal" power from underground hot rocks.
OPEC trims 2008 global oil demand forecast
LONDON — OPEC on Thursday trimmed its forecast for global growth in oil demand in 2008, the latest sign that record oil prices are slowing consumption in the industrialized world.The exporter group also cut its estimate for oil supply from non-member countries in 2008, leading to a slight increase in the amount of crude its 13 members need to pump to balance the market.
Peak-oil spike reshapes the suburbs
The reality of peak oil will see properties classified into two types in the near future, according to Simon Fraser University professor Anthony Perl.One will be properties from which owners can get to work, leisure activities, and services predominantly by car. The other offers alternatives to the automobile such as public transit, biking, and walking.
Prices causing people to curb gasoline use - Exxon chief
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The price of gasoline in the United States is at or near the level where people begin to curb their usage, Exxon Mobil Corp chief executive Rex Tillerson told NBC's "Today" program on Thursday."We're already seeing some demand slackening in gasoline demand in terms of miles driven," Tillerson said. "So I think we're very near, if we're not already at, the price where people clearly are altering their daily behavior."
No peak: Why oil prices will fall again
Although U.S. crude oil inventories have fallen, gasoline inventories are at their highest since March 1993, notes Tim Evans, an energy futures analyst at Citigroup's Futures Perspective. World oil production was up 2.5 percent in the first quarter of 2008 over the same period in 2007, while world oil consumption rose by just 2 percent.In fact, world production is projected to be 3.3 percent higher in the second quarter and 4.1 percent higher in the third quarter than the same periods a year ago. On the other hand, world demand is projected to rise by just 1.6 percent over the next six months.
Oil price means BA can barely make a profit on flights
The record oil price means British Airways can barely make a profit on flights despite being poised to announce a record profit margin on its operations in the year to the end of March.
Japan's TEPCO doubles oil buy in April y/y
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's biggest utility, Tokyo Electric Power Co more than doubled its purchases of crude oil and fuel oil in April from a year earlier, it said on Thursday.This reflects the need for the company to burn more oil after the extended shutdown of its nuclear power plant.
Inflation might be of emerging concern to the US, but in Japan it's a real problem now, which shows no sign of slowing.
Japan's largest utility to build its first wind farm
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's biggest utility Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said on Thursday it would build its first wind farm in Shizuoka Prefecture, west of Tokyo, to cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
China central bank sees ample room for oil product price rises
BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) - China's central bank said that there was ample room for rises in the state-set prices of oil products.
China's weakness the greater danger
Although recent events in Tibet and western China, and the central government's response, appear to be generating pro-government patriotic feelings, they dramatically display the practical limits of the government's power. Other sources of unhappiness with the regime, including income disparities and the inevitable collapse of unsustainable price controls on fuel and food, could breed both urban and rural discontent that has no ready outlet besides unlawful opposition to the government.
Venezuela's Chavez Says Attack by U.S. Would Cause $500 Oil
(Bloomberg) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, whose country is the biggest oil exporter in the Americas, said crude oil would rise to ``$400 or $500 a barrel'' in the case of a U.S. attack.The reactivation of the U.S. Fourth Fleet in the Caribbean on July 1 and a possible U.S. base on the Guajira Peninsula, which Venezuela shares with Colombia, are both threats to his country, Chavez said at his country's military academy in a speech broadcast on state radio and television.
Venezuela to sell oil to Portugal in exchange for food, technology, Chavez says
CARACAS, Venezuela: Venezuela announced plans Tuesday to ship oil to Portugal in exchange for food products and other goods that have been running short in the South American country.Venezuela, Latin America's largest oil producer, will send as many as 30,000 barrels of crude a day to Portugal by late 2008, President Hugo Chavez told reporters after meeting with Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates.
Four Indian oil workers kidnapped in Sudan
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Four Indian oil workers have been abducted in the oil-rich south of Sudan by disaffected locals, diplomatic sources said on Thursday.
FG, Shell reach crucial stage in funding for oil production
Royal Dutch Shell is close to signing a financing deal with Nigeria aimed at tackling funding shortfalls hitting production at one of its most important oil businesses.The plan is designed to inject cash into Shell’s joint venture with the Nigerian government. The state’s failure to pay its share of costs has stalled key projects.
A report from the Bureau of Meteorology in Australia makes clear that, despite recent heavy rains in the eastern Australian breadbasket, years of above normal rainfall would be needed "to remove the very long-term [water] deficits" in the region. The report then adds this ominous note: "The combination of record heat and widespread drought during the past five to 10 years over large parts of southern and eastern Australia is without historical precedent and is, at least partly, a result of climate change."Think a bit about that phrase -- "without historical precedent."
A cool look at global warming scepticism
Scientists are human, and scientific debates fall short of the ideal. There is turf protection and self-promotion, and rancour is not uncommon. As an advocate of a minority view in my own field for twenty years, a view ultimately vindicated, I am personally acquainted with these imperfections. The IPCC process is specifically intended to step back from the front-line disputes to see what scientists can agree on. This is the part of the IPCC process that seems to have completely escaped Professor Aitkin’s understanding.
Followers of the peak oil theory argue the world has already or soon will have used up more than half the non-renewable resource. They say current crude prices are just the beginning. Skeptics insist there is no reason to believe that carbon-based capitalism has started to run out of gas. Today’s record prices, they argue, are driven by massive market speculation. Canadian Business writers Thomas Watson (anti-peak) and Jeff Sanford (pro-peak) debate the issue below.
Naimi Counters Peak Oil Theorists, Says World Reserves Doubled
Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al- Naimi said global crude oil reserves have doubled since 1980, countering analysts who predict a supply shortage.
Sechin Looks to Raise Oil Output
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his new energy policy director, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, went on the offensive Wednesday to battle claims that the country's oil production was in decline."You think oil production is declining?" Sechin said in an interview with Interfax, a first for the secretive former Kremlin insider who has been thrust into the spotlight with his Cabinet appointment this week.
"Let's wait until the end of the year. I'm sure there won't be a decline, but an increase instead," he said, declining to provide reasoning for the claim.
Norway trims 2008 oil and gas output forecast
OSLO (Reuters) - Norway's Labour-led government trimmed its 2008 oil production forecast to 2.4 million barrels per day from a previous projection of 2.5 million bpd, according to the revised budget for this year published on Thursday."Oil production is expected to continue to decrease gradually in the coming years," the Petroleum and Energy Ministry said in a statement with the revised budget.
Petrobras Hires 80% of Deepwater Drilling Rigs, Drives Up Costs
(Bloomberg) -- Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil's state-controlled oil company, leased about 80 percent of the world's deepest-drilling offshore rigs to explore prospects including the Western Hemisphere's biggest discovery in decades....The company's ``insatiable'' demand is forcing producers including Exxon Mobil Corp. and BP Plc to pay more as they compete for the remaining units, said Kjell Erik Eilertsen and Truls Olsen, analysts at Fearnley Fonds AS in Oslo. Explorers that don't have rigs under contract may delay projects or pay rents of more than $600,000 a day.
Don't hope for gas prices to drop, says oil economist
Most drivers think $4 per gallon of gasoline is too much to pay in a weakening economy. Sales for sport-utility vehicles are plummeting. And people are actually driving less.But don't expect prices to fall anytime soon despite slackening domestic demand, American Petroleum Institute chief economist John Felmy said Wednesday. The API, based in Washington, D.C., represents the U.S. oil and gas industry.
Greenspan Says Oil to Keep Rising on Capacity Limits
(Bloomberg) -- Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said oil prices will keep rising as energy companies have invested too little in production and infrastructure to cope with higher demand.
Alaska first state to hit $4 a gallon gasoline: AAA
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Alaska hit a milestone on Wednesday that could be a sign of things to come around the United States this summer -- it became the first state where the average price for regular gasoline reached $4 per gallon.
Bank of England warns 'the good times are over' as Britons face real cut in the standard of living
Families face a five-pronged assault on their finances, Governor Mervyn King said in his bleakest assessment yet of the state of the country.In his quarterly Inflation Report, Mr King said although Britain had enjoyed rising living standards over the past ten years, this golden period was over.
Why does Brazil want to join Opec?
What is it about oil that makes Brazilian officials so talkative? Last month, the country's oil regulator provoked uproar when he claimed, very speculatively, that the recently discovered Carioca field might hold a massive 33 billion barrels of recoverable oil reserves. Now, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil's president, speaking to Der Spiegel, says he wants his country to join Opec.
Saudi-US relations hit rocky road
Saudis are uncharacteristically blunt when asked about George W Bush, the US president, and what his two-term administration has brought to the Middle East. Most see an abysmal legacy: a dangerous mess in Iraq, a deepening Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a volatile tug-of-war between Washington and Tehran, most recently on display in the embattled boulevards of Beirut.“We love and admire the United States, I can assure you, and I speak for many people on this matter,” said Saeed al Farha al Ghamdi, a retired government employee in Jeddah. “But, unfortunately their foreign policy is disastrous.”
JPMorgan to start physical oil trade, eyes $200 oil
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co will begin trading physical oil by year-end, increasing its exposure in a market that could rise to $200 a barrel, the bank's global head of commodities said on Wednesday.
PetroChina may scrap Sichuan refinery plan after quake
BEIJING (Reuters) - PetroChina is reconsidering its plan to build a $5.7 billion refinery and petrochemical complex in Sichuan province after a strong earthquake hit the region this week, a company executive said on Thursday.The 7.9-magnitude quake on Monday destroyed many buildings, disrupted transport and communication lines as well as fuel and power supplies and had killed an estimated 15,000 people, with thousands more still believed to be buried.
Total, Saudi Aramco announce 400,000 bpd refinery project
PARIS (AFP) - The French oil group Total and the Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco) announced plans Wednesday for a 400,000-barrel-per-day refinery in the eastern Saudi city of Jubail on the Gulf coast.The groups said in a joint statement that the facility would process Arabian Heavy crude oil, with operations expected to begin at the end of 2012.
South Africa's Eskom Misses Winter Coal Stocks Target
(Bloomberg) -- Eskom Holdings Ltd., South Africa's state-owned electricity utility, missed a target for increasing coal stocks, raising the risk of power cuts with the onset of winter in the southern hemisphere.
Nigeria: Nationwide Blackout Worsens As Funding Stalls Repairs
The current nationwide blackout may worsen as funding continues to be the major albatross to the maintenance of the existing electricity infrastructure in the country.THIS DAY learnt that the Federal Government has not released funds for any repair work on the existing power plants. This has left the infrastructure in a state of near collapse.
T. Boone Pickens orders 667 GE turbines for wind farm in Panhandle
T. Boone Pickens has placed a massive order for wind turbines with General Electric, a big step toward building the world's largest wind farm in the Panhandle.Mr. Pickens' company, Mesa Power LLP, plans to announce today that it ordered 667 turbines from GE for about $2 billion.
On the roof, wind turbines to bring power
Tel Aviv residents are likely to encounter a new sight on local rooftops in the coming years. No longer will there just be the walls and fences on high-rise rooftops that currently surround the various devices and machinery, but there will also be wind turbine farms that will supply part of the building's electricity needs.
Economic Slowdown Challenges Solar Industry - EPIA
FRANKFURT - The economic slowdown, regulatory conflicts and competition from China pose the main risks to future growth of the solar industry, the head of the European Photovoltaic Industry Associations told Reuters.
Ships bring water to parched Barcelona
Climb down the stony banks of the massive Sau reservoir in the mountains above Barcelona and you get a real sense of why this famous city is so short of water that it's resorted to bringing in emergency supplies - by ship.Nestling in a deep valley of stunning cliffs and forests, this vital source of water has sunk so low it's exposed the eerie sight of a medieval village that was flooded when the reservoir was opened in the 1960s.
The huddle of ancient stone buildings, including a church with its spire, has now re-emerged into the light and stands as a potent symbol of the severity of this water crisis.
U.S. adds polar bear to threatened list
The Bush administration listed the polar bear as a threatened species Wednesday, agreeing with conservationists that the bear's Arctic habitat is melting due to global warming.That is where the agreement with conservationists ends.
"This listing will not stop global climate change or prevent any sea ice from melting," Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said while announcing the decision. The Endangered Species Act should not be "abused to make global warming policies," he said.
Kassie Siegel, a lawyer with the Center for Biological Diversity, said the group does not accept Kempthorne's view.
The act requires federal agencies to take steps to reduce or eliminate those impacts on threatened species, she said. "There is no exemption for greenhouse gas emissions."
Oil cos. expect battles over polar bear listing
JUNEAU, Alaska - The lawyers aren't clearing their calendars just yet, but the oil industry is bracing for some courtroom battles to maintain its stake in Alaska's oil-rich fields now that the Interior Department has listed polar bears as a threatened species.
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The new OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report is out this morning. (PDF) According to "secondary sources" total April OPEC production was down 392,600 barrels per day from March. The largest drop came from Nigeria, down 251 kb/d. Iraq was down 104 kb/d, Iran down 34 kb/d, Saudi down 37 kb/d and Venezuela down 21 kb/d. The largest gainers were UAE up 33 kb/d and Angola up 13 kb/d.
The report is on page 35 of this 60 page PDF file.
Ron Patterson
Thanks Ron
Ron, I have been watching your post all day.
I wonder why it did not trigger off a flurry of comments - as this is quite a "smoking gun".
Thanks for sharing it.
Exxon CEO warns of Possible Oil Price Crash
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN1520443120080515
Alan
Eh? The word "oil" doesn't appear in the article. It is about gasoline prices.
Personally, I've come to the conclusion that US driving habits have almost no effect on oil prices any more. Diesel demand is driving prices. Producing enough diesel to meet demand has resulted in a glut of (relatively) cheap gasoline. If America cuts back on driving, it will put more downward pressure on gasoline prices, but it will little or no effect on diesel consumption. Hence, it will have little effect on oil prices.
So, gasoline price crash? Maybe. Oil price crash? Unlikely (though I suspect it depends on what you mean by crash).
This implies that there's already "downward pressure on gasoline prices" which is massively refuted by reality.
"Iranian nukler bombs unforgivable" Bush tells Israel
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL1550673220080515
Alan
Why does Bush frighten me more than all of the worlds terrorists put together?
That is not some frivellous comment. I really do fear for the world with that guy at the helm.
Marco.
The hypocrisy! Isreal HAS them, but is NOT a signatory to the NPV.
And Iran uses 60 year old technology of which it is highly questionable that it can produce weapon grade material.
Hans Blix and M. El Baradei are probably grinding their teeth at this one.
Thee reason Iran is building a nuclear reactor may be relatively simple.
It knows more about it's true reserves than the figures publicly given out, and how soon oil will be short.
Hypocrisy is not in the Jewish dictionary. Or don't you read about AIPAC?!!
Marco.
I'm a regular visitor to whatreallyhappened. Without loosing my healthy skeptism and critical thinking.
My healthy skeptism and critical thinking also enabled me to understand PO, and why it scares the sh*t out of me.
Thought provoking website, that
Last I checked it is the prerogative of every sovereign state to sign or not a sign treaty.
The NPV came with a set of benefits and obligations. Owing to Israel's particular defense posture, the NPV's benefits were of dubious value to the nation, so it refrained from signing the treaty and taking on the obligations.
Iran signed.
So then why doesn't Israel admit that it has nuclear weapons?
If Israel admitted it had nuclear weapons, it would have to admit that these have deterrent value which far outstrips the military utility of taking more land.
Now why would you want more land? That land is taken by settlers and developers, who vote and contribute to political parties. Real estate, as we Americans and Britons have seen the last decade, can create an asset bubble that makes a fiscally irresponsible government look good while it seizes dictatorial powers. The Neocons applied this model first in Israel, then via Alan Greenspan and dual-citizen advisors who cluster around Dick Cheney, it came to the US. The British always follow us.
What kind of rule should we expect to be created by a state-enforced real estate asset bubble? Real estate and financial speculation corrupting the entire political system? Check. The use of a terrorist threat to clamp down on media reporting on the real threat of an asset collapse? Check. The perversion of standards of government on purported security needs such that a president or prime minister refuses to resign after conduct for which his predecessors would have quit, without any subsequent impeachment by the legislature? Check. Oh yeah, and that inflation and bank collapses and depression and stuff.
The Anglo-American bubbles ran aground on the sheer size of their drain on global capital and the supply of oil to fuel more consumption. The Israelis are still building settlements. Their bubble lasts as long as their army and farmers gang up to drive Palestinian farmers off their land one after the other. Or until the water runs out.
I hear the Shia Lebanese have a whole lot of water...
So then why doesn't Israel admit that it has nuclear weapons? Israel has not signed any treaty obliging her to do so.
If Israel admitted it had nuclear weapons, it would have to admit that these have deterrent value which far outstrips the military utility of taking more land. Nope. Israel would not have to admit that, partly because it isn't true.
Now why would you want more land? Why does anyone? Depends on the land and the context. But a silly question given that Israel has been retreating from land for quite some time now.
I hear the Shia Lebanese have a whole lot of water... As well as several tracts of land bought by Jewish philanthropists in the early 1900's, and confiscated and de-Jewed in the conflicts later on. History is complicated.
So then why doesn't Israel admit that it has nuclear weapons?
Israel has not signed any treaty obliging her to do so.
But there ARE US laws that would shut off funding sources.
There was some sqauking over India/Pakistan and these laws in the past years.
But there ARE US laws that would shut off funding sources. And?
And?
And Israel will not admit to having nuke weapons in public as the US might then cut off funding.
Unless one thinks the US of A is not a country under the rule of law.
For years the argument justifying MAD would require 'your enemies' knowing you have nukes. So either Israel has no fission or fusion weapons (because they are at peace with their neighbors?), MAD is not a valid argument, or Israel does not want the US laws on cutting funding to kick in.
I'll leave it to you to figure out why Israel as a nation has not announced its fission/fusion weapon status.
Actually, Olmert did admit just that. Please see any of a large number of news items.
Olmert did admit just that.
If funding happens (like it did for Pakastan/India) then the laws of the US of A have no meaning eh?
America will do what is in its interests, as per the division of responsibilities delineated by Constitution and law and parceled out to Congress, the President, and the State Department. There are no matters of treaty law related to it, as there are no treaties between the US and Israel that pertain to Israel's nuclear program. There is past legislation, but whenever Congress and State square off over something like this, it's usually Congress that backs away, because a hamstrung State Department is not a good thing.
Israel, in the mean time, will pursue its own interests. The non-proliferation treaty is not related to any of this.
Actually, its eqitable application is exactly the issue regarding Iran and Israel.
Here is a search results page from the National Security Archive at George Washington U. (I implore people to search this massive trove of previously secret info, especially the Operation Northwoods file) for Israeli nuclear weapons. The whole collection from just this search makes fascinating reading--now you know where your tax dollars went. Furthermore, The documents found at the link were used along with others to make credible this book.
Most people understand the Pentagon Papers revealed a whole hidden history--the internal truth--regarding US involvement in Vietnam. There are many other similar stories about other aspects of US Imperial policy, some of which are available at the above GWU site.
*clap* *clap*
Thank you for digging up the book and link. Hopefully others will look at these matters before actual bombs are dropped.
The "equitable" application of the treaty is its application to the signers. Israel never signed.
America will do what is in its interests, as per the division of responsibilities delineated by Constitution and law and parceled out to Congress, the President, and the State Department.
Huh. Plenty of people can argue plenty of times when action has stepped outside of the delineation you have stated (Trail of Tears) or used the public power for private gain. (Teapot Dome)
But you just keep on typing responsibilities delineated by Constitution and law - perhaps one day you'll find a nice reality-free zone where such will be believed.
And in this news cycle you have this oddity:
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters?bid=45&pid=300093
Israel, in the mean time, will pursue its own interests.
Yes, because the Nation-State of Israel is UNIQUE in all state-based actions are done for the state, never ever for the private benefit of various people in contridiction to the states own laws.
The non-proliferation treaty is not related to any of this.
You can say anything you want. Doesn't make it true.
I've already shown that you are wrong on the whole America and Law angle with nothing more than the way the man on the $20 bill treated the soverign Cherokee nation. A man who flaunted the Supreme Court gets to have his picture on the money - that is how much American citizens love their law eh?
But I'm sure the Internet will be a-buzz with analysis of the various treaties if Iran gets bombed. Perhaps then, after action has been taken, "we" will know the legality of it eh?
you just need to read below the fold...
"...Bush tempered his remarks by adding that the Iranian push for experience handling all phases of the nuclear cycle was not only their right under the NPT, but was entirely understandable.
"Look, we are sympathetic to their goal, they have enormous quantities of natural gas but have no easy access to the major world markets for that gas.
Of course they would like to develop a petrochemical industry to give future generations of Iranians the benefit of a value-added industrial base.
Chemicals, fertilizers, plastics, these are the key to Iranian development and of course they don't want to burn their feedstock to power these energy-intensive industries...
We fully support the Iranian people's desire for a development model that does not leave them enslaved to Western bankers and dependent upon transfers of Western technology and engineering.
The US honors its treaties, respects the rule of law, and adheres to the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations.""
At least I think that's what he said, I misplaced my glasses this morning.
haha, if only... the sarcanol alarm went off when I saw "Bush tempered his remarks."
Gareth Porter exposes BushCo once again trying to "fix the facts around the policy."
I did read the entire article. Always do when I intend to comment because a few years ago I forget to thouroughly read a TOD post on nuclear energy and Prof. Goose immediately wizzled me back.
"we are sympathetic to their goal, they have enormous quantities of natural gas but have no easy access to the major world markets for that gas"
That's more hypocrisy if y'll ask me. Sanctions anyone??
Iran is after electricity - period - And GWB is paranoid on behalf of the entire US population. How long is it till November?
From the article
I can't wait till that man is in office, this approach is exactly what the US need to win back global approval. To be frank, I hear the voice of "a profet" of some sort, when Obama speaks...
"a profet"???
do you mean prophet or profit? As a tried a true cynic, I only hear the latter when he speaks, though I've heard others claim the former.
Paal - I seldom agree with anything anyone in govt. says but Obama's protocol I agree with wholeheartedly. What few Americans realize is our traditional foes, Iran and Cuba, have signifigant grievances with the U.S. that have never been addressed. Perhaps if the U.S. would have the courage to acknowledge our wrongs (coups and assasinations just to name the most glaring)we could create a working dialogue.
I think Americans base foreign policy on movies. Like former Vegas Casino Executives in the 50's tried to imitate George Raft in order to learn how to act like gangsters, American diplomacy is based on a false Machismo:
"Never apologize...sign of weakness." John Wayne movie line in Fort Apache
"Bring it on." George W. Bush
I find it of great interest that you consider Iran and Cuba "our traditional foes."
As noted by the authors of the musical South Pacific, Americans are "carefully taught how to hate and fear." Yes, and it's been done all too well.
We have always been at war with Eastasia, gosh darn it.
I just got that. It took me a while.
No. President Gas says we have always been at war with Freedonia.
****Obscure References
President Gas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwVnHJ0Zucs
Freedonia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYCOyaIUCSo
Karlof1 - I'm confused!?! Do you object to my point that Iran and Cuba are traditional foes or are you making a plug for Rodgers and Hammerstein?
The story South Pacific however is based on two short stories by James A. Michener from his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1948 book, Tales of the South Pacific.
I agree that the USA has been a traditional foe of Cuba & Iran, but I am quite unsure of the reciprocal.
Alan
If Iran and Cuba are now considered our "foes", traditional or otherwise, we gave them every reason to be.
(Disclaimer--I used to show the film South Pacific to students primarily for that one particular scene that provides us with the great line I already cited.)
Well Joe, how long does it take for something to become a tradition? Generations, usually. Iran "became" our friend by the imposition of the Shah until freedom loving Iranians deposed him in 1979. Since then, our propaganda networks have worked overtime to carefully teach Americans and the world that we should hate and fear Iran. Part of that "education" was the waging of war through our proxy Iraq against Iran, whereby we found a new friend Saddam Hussein.
Cuba is somewhat different in that it was seen as inevitably becoming an American state. Thomas Jefferson envisioned Cuba as an American possession. (I highly reccommend this essay as it provides a lot of background as to why the current US-Cuban state-of-affairs exists.) Here the fears and hate are initially racial and tied to US Slavery. The Platt Amendment essentially annexed Cuba, and is what the Cuban Revolution fought to rid itself of. At first, Castro was seen as someone who could be manipulated by Ike and his CIA, but this optimism was shortlived and an economic war declared that continues today, 50 years later. So from a generational-time standpoint, Cuba might qualify as a foe, except for the inconvenient fact that proves the USA as agressor and Cubans merely wanting freedom from such.
The foes of US citizens exist within the US itself and have for over a century. There were two, somewhat connected, short periods of time where this was recognized by a plurality of the populace: 1898-1917, 1933-1940. The rise of the National Security State and its associated propaganda netwoks has made resistence to the US Empire very weak despite the lessons from the Vietnam era. The current behavior of the Democrats proves my point in that ample evidence exists to impeach and remove many of the top executive magistrates but is ignored because they expect to wield the same powers. There are those here who believe Peak Oil's dislocations will be exploited by the Empire to gain even more power and essentially end the Republic. I believe they have good reason to think that.
Karloff - Thank-you for that excellent analysis. It makes me feel better that we have teachers talking to children who know something.
I would be intersted in your opinion of the following article and how you would present this information to s class of high school seniors and would that presentation be different than what you would present to college freshman?
Malthus, the false prophet http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11374623
"Once again the gloom is overdone. There may no longer be virgin lands to be settled and cultivated, as in the 19th century, but there is no reason to believe that agricultural productivity has hit a buffer. Indeed, one of the main barriers to another “green revolution” is unwarranted popular worries about genetically modified foods, which is holding back farm output not just in Europe, but in the developing countries that could use them to boost their exports.
...Although neo-Malthusianism naturally has much to say about food scarcity, the doctrine emerges more generally as the idea of absolute limits on resources and energy, such as the notion of “peak oil”. Following the earlier scares of the 1970s, oil companies defied the pessimists by finding extra fields, not least since higher prices had spurred new exploration. But even if oil wells were to run dry, economies can still adapt by finding and exploiting other energy sources."
Thank-you
Joe
?? ! ?? I didn't know Malthus was a prophet.
I thought he was just an analyst like Hubbert. You have these general trends, which can be expressed as mathematical relations, and you graph them out. Although the answer might not be popular, it does explain a real physical phenomenon which can be observed by anyone who cares to look at it.
Actually, I did go and give it a quick glance, then read the comments as I noted at the very bottom of this thread. I'd like to fulfill your request, but it will have to wait as I'm on the road for 10-11 hours tomorrow. But to understand Malthus, he must be put into his historical context, and a good place to start with that is even earlier with Thomas More's Utopia. One could go further and consult Hobbes and Hume, but for a group of highschoolers I'd just do More. Then there's the actual eco-state-of-affairs in Europe at the end of the 1700s; it is quite ugly--deforestation, topsoil depletion, erosion, plague-causing "hygenic" urban conditions, superstition masquerading as medical practice, etc. The Corn Laws didn't help the masses either, and further pushed Malthus's thoughts.
Presumably, the author is a Brit and should have read all of this during his schooling, or perhaps he went to one of those private elite schools where they frown on teaching those sorts of things. If I were actually teaching, I'd be using an exploratory-based learning/teaching methodology like this, and this article would provide a teachable moment within that method. The article itself would be filtered through a critical learning device the students would still be experimenting with called the Hexadigm. All students would write a commentary that would be read and commented upon by all students, similar to how a blog works on occasion. This discussion would be refereed by me, but most of the learning/teaching is done by the students. This process would be the same for any 7-20 grade level. I would finish the exercise by having the students write a letter of critique to the author, cc'ed to me for assessment.
That's how I'd teach. Note that aside from providing background material, I want students to explore and discover for themselves and then share their thoughts and ideas with each other in a collaborative manner with as little imput form me as possible. That should fulfill half of your request; my opinion will have to wait.
Why should we acknowledge our wrongs? Think they are going to acknowledge theirs? Yep, we've done bad, so have they...alls fair in love and war. Working dialogue for what purpose, we are all going to be worried about our own hides soon enough, who cares what the Cubans and the Iranians think?
Obama as president will apply the Patriot act quite liberally, hope you like being told what to think, speak and read.
You don't seem to have a very clear grasp of history.
Obama as president will apply the Patriot act quite liberally, hope you like being told what to think, speak and read.
Based on your time travel device Mr. Titor?
Hey, do you have links to where you fought to make sure that the present President did not get these very same powers you are now mentioning? Or is this going to be a case of whining after the fact that 'we' all get to hear?
jrc9596 - Where do you live? I want to make sure we're not neighbors.
Crack spread EIA data 5-13-08
Crude
Cushing Ok Spot $125.83
US Avg. Weighted by Imports Spot $114.94 5-09-08
Gas Spot
NY Harbor $3.078 * 42 = $129.3
Gulf Coast $3.1073 * 42 = $130.5
Dist Spot
NY Harbor $3.6907 * 42 = $155.0
Gulf Coast $3.7559 * 42 = $157.7
C Spread Gas: NY Harbor – Cushing = $3.47
C Spread Gas: NY Harbor – US Avg = $14.46
C Spread Gas: Gulf Coast – Cushing = $4.67
C Spread Gas: Gulf Coast – US Avg = $15.56
C Spread Dist: NY Harbor – Cushing = $29.17
C Spread Dist: NY Harbor – US Avg = $40.06
C Spread Dist: Gulf Coast – Cushing = $31.87
C Spread Dist: Gulf Coast – US Avg = $42.76
Example: 2 Brl. gas + 1 Brl. Dist
($3.47 * .666) + ($29.17 * .333) = $12.02
Total Crack spread on Barrel crude $12.02
Or
(15.56 * .666) + (42.76 * .333) = $24.6
Total Crack spread on Barrel crude $24.6
"We may be losing money on each one, but I’m sure we’ll make it up in quantity!" -(In)famous Business Quote
I have been trying to understand how or why the refiners have been holding back on passing the increase in the cost of crude on to the consumers.
Then it occurred to me that there are basically two types of refiners. Those that are part of a vertically integrated production company and those that are not.
If BP wants to push other refiners out of business they can let the crack spread go to zero as they still make money off the upstream end. But those refiners who have to buy there crude are in a much different situation.
Exactly, the integrated companies are not paying $126 U.S. for every barrel. The government is asking for lower prices it is not going to tell them to raise prices, so the integrated companies have perfect cover to push others out of the business and perhaps buy up refining assets at fire sale prices.
I think many refiners have long-term, fixed price contracts for oil and thus are able to undercut those that are buying on the open market. Think this is more common for refiners in Europe and East Asia, so imports are critical in suppressing the domestic market prices.
Bottom line - while oil is rising refiners will hurt. It will take a while before these costs are passed on consumers, but eventually they will.
Anecdotal Department: Just a personal observation.
A weird set of patterns I noticed recently among people I talk PO with: most (BUT NOT ALL) of the ones with sheepskins (college degrees) now tell me current situations are due to natural economic cycles and are nothing to worry about (and are making no changes) ... the few I know without degrees state the obvious (that the slope of the Hubbert's Curve gets steeper as one goes further ... and THEY ARE getting economy cars).
I'm now getting more insight on system collapse dynamics (as they ponder possibilities out-loud) from those who never studied calculus.
I've got two sheepskins.
Enconomics was my favorite subject of mine in business school... (Don't throw eggs yet, I also beleive in finite resources/world with constraints).
I will be receiving my Prius next week.
I think it's more along the lines of those who think they know something that they learned as a student applies to what is happening now...
I've become wise enough to know that I don't know everything, and neither did my professors.
I'm not even sure how to word what I mean. A few weeks ago I had clear dialogue with these people; then suddenly, it was as if a denial protection mechanism flipped on. It's definitely something out of the ordinary. Has me curious.
In the last few weeks the "experts," pundits, talking heads, etc., have begun talking as if the bottom of the business cycle has been reached and it was no recovery time. When the master narrative says things are returning to normal, it's easy for folks to breath a sigh of relief and ignore other input.
Those without the degrees are typically slower to pick up on the shift in the master narrative - possibly because they watch less TV news, possibly because they are the last out of a recession.
Herein lies one of the greatest risks we face over the next few years. If the economy does manage a recovery, irregardless of how slow and sputtering, many people who we were starting to make inroads with are going to turn their heads, wave us off and say "see, it's just the way the economy works, everything is as it should be." And this will make it doubly hard to get through to people in 3-5 years when it really starts to get tough.
Shaman,
I think you're right about the pundits; now that you mention it I've been hearing WAY overly optimistic news lately. (I've seen NEW home prices drop to about 44% of what they were a year ago, especially in these 'McMansion' "cul-de-sac" developments, yet one local newpaper article said that home prices increased in that area). Still ... this sudden switch in people's response is kind of spooky to me.
Then too - as you suggest - maybe those without a degree are also more sensitive to drops in real earning power and don't tend to pay too much/as much attention to abstract projections.
Speaking of which....
That article (top of this post) about how the free-market will get us through the end of oil freaks me out. Sounds like disconnected reality to me. (No Peak: Why Oil Prices Will Fall Again.)
http://www.readthehook.com/stories/2008/05/15/ESSAY-Peakoil-NotbyBailey-...
Word.
I use Yahoo! as my opening page with my browser. It's like getting your news from Norman Vincent Peale lately. Some recent stories: the ten best housing markets; the ten hottest college degrees re: career choice, Girl Scouts sell amazing number of cookies...
WTH?
Cheers
I know what you mean. I usually refrain from commenting on such articles, but I had to leave some on that page.
But, I should know better, the free market crowd has their god and trying to convince them not to believe is like ... (okay, rather than offend any other group, since I've already offended the fm crowd, I leave it to you to complete the comparison.
We should not expect to change the way people think simply by the force of our arguments. Debate works well when you are talking facts and the basic background thinking is the same. But ways of thinking are a bit harder to change, and targeting some journalist whose job depends on him believing what he believes, was just silly of me.
What we are seeing is a classic example of a paradigm shift. Kuhn described this in his Theory of Scientific Revolutions. We're still early in the shift when the majority "conventional wisdom" of the old paradigm still reigns. The "paradigm pioneers" are mostly those on the margins - those who are not entrenched and heavilly invested in the old paradigm (e.g., most of the people who post here). Most of those with multiple sheepskins, and virtually ALL "experts" and "pundits" interviewed on TV and published in the periodicalls ARE HEAVILLY INVESTED in the old paradigm.
Of course, things will change. We're seeing the first signs right now amongst some of those in the old order of recognition that things are changing, and that the old certainties aren't certain any more. Eventually these drips will become a trickle, then a stream, then a flood, and finally a tsunami.
Once you understand this, a lot of people's behaviors start to become much more understandable and predictable.
Might I suggest a simpler explanation? It's partly the Ivory Tower Effect. One can know more than is good for one's self. "Uneducated" people are often unencumbered by what they are supposed to know and trust their eyes and ears a bit more than the "educated." Homespun wisdom, if you will.
Another problem is what we saw Exxon and the BuCheney White House achieve with AGW: they spun it hard and often - knowingly lying their arses off - and managed to confuse what was nearly impossible to confuse. The power of suggestion and the willingness to hear what one wants to hear are a powerful combination.
This is possible due to the very problem we face: complexity. The world has become so complex it is essentially unknowable to the individual. The single person has neither the time nor the ability to determine if all the stuff they hear is correct/true or not. At some point they must make a leap of faith and that faith must be placed in someone.
People hear what they want to hear in the end.
Cheers
This is possible due to the very problem we face: complexity. The world has become so complex it is essentially unknowable to the individual.
But that does not mean man should not try.
People hear what they want to hear in the end.
Which would be the not-try option.
My post was descriptive.
Cheers
My experience with the PO 'talk' (with few exceptions) is that people are very receptive to it, nod along in agreement the whole time I'm talking, offer no counter-arguments (I usually make them myself), and are left in a dazed, thoughtful state after I've shut up.
The deer in the headlights look usually persists for about half an hour and then.... back to normal! If I bring up again they act like they're hearing it for the first time. Some people will offer up 'Lovelockian' doomer phrases like "who cares there'll be no more oil in ten years and we're all going to die," in spite of the fact that I never frame it that way at all.
Lately after I talk to people about it I'll leave bookmarks on their computers to TOD and The Energy Bulletin. :) If the folks over at Peak Moment were to change their theme song I'd probably send those links more often too, I joke... somewhat. :)
Sounds like a lot of folk here are over-selling the idea.
People convince themselves, no-one else ever does it for them.
If the subject happens to crop up, then a comment that 'Where's all the oil we are supposed to be putting in our cars going to come from?' rarely meets with disagreement, and neither does a comment that petrol is going to go up and up.
Planting seeds works far better than trying to plonk in a whole tree!
"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."
There's still something noble about leading him to water...
Hello Whaleoil,
I agree with your sentiment, but I prefer the forced waterboarding approach:
I like to start off by telling young adults that if they wish to postPeak survive, they might have to kill-off my generation [I'm 52], if they don't get their butts in gear on Peak Outreach. Once they start inhaling again, I clue them in to the usual websites [TOD, EB, LATOC, & especially DIEOFF] and books.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Might have to kill off our generation? Wait a minute, you're supposed to deter them, not encourage them.
super390
age 43
Hello Super390,
Thxs for responding. If enough of these kids change, then they just might have enough resources for themselves, and their one or zero kids, that they don't have to kill the old farts.
Thus, we might still have a chance to die of old age in an A/C or heated building in a comfortable bed. I much prefer that future possibility vs a strong teenager beating me to death for just a small sack of grain.
a strong teenager beating me to death for just a small sack of grain.
Have the last laugh - make sure the grain is poisoned.
Ha! I couldn't help but notice that you didn't sign off this post with "... in Phoenix, Arizona." Afraid some young whipper-snapper like me (25) is going to hunt you down? :)
P.S. I might have to save up a little for the airfare, so you've got a head start. ;)
P.P.S. I always feel the urge to respond to your 'signature question' so I'll do it now:
Probably not... I make a lot of bread and thems is crafty little critters.
Afraid some young whipper-snapper like me (25) is going to hunt you down
Guile and experience will beat youth and energy most days.
I make a lot of bread and thems is crafty little critters.
Hence the age beating youth.
Better wait 'till its nap time for the old folk.
alright. you n' me. tomorrow. 3:15pm. under the monkey bars. we'll find out once n' fer all. I may be young, but I'm veritably oozing guile.
is y'all aggestin' that dem yeasty critters ain't clever? dang, I have one whup me to a math test right afore dinner this very to-night.
* sorry, the misplaced nastiness flung around on the drumbeat offends my Canadian sensibilities... I prefer light-hearted satire.
alright. you n' me. tomorrow. 3:15pm. under the monkey bars. we'll find out once n' fer all.
And the answer of a .50 cal full metal jacket at, well, a long distance is exactly why this whole energy decline scares the hell outta me.
Used to be you could exist in a city-state and the walls could keep the arrows out. Or your killer had to get up close and personal.
Now, you can be hit from a drone up outta your reach by some video-jocky 1000's of miles away.
Yea, this is all gonna end well.
Hello Mlr,
Thxs for responding. No need to pollute with a jetflight: I already have an email collection from people threatening to hunt me down now [no smiley emoticons either].
Hi Bob:
The old 2x4 across the forehead technique. Doesn't seem to work too well with "fully mature" adults. They seem to be able to block out just about anything. I have found this approach to be more effective amongst the younger adult crowd, late teens to twentysomethings. I'm 45 myself.
Hello Whaleoil,
Thxs for responding. My 'hit & run' guerrila technique only takes a few seconds, especially if you have them jot down the websites, or you have a premade card or paperscrap [be sure to tell them the sites are totally free].
I give them a 'carrot', too. I tell them to have all the safe, consensual sex they want, just don't make babies!
I agree, it's not like I launch into lecture mode immediately upon meeting someone. I only mention it if the other person brings it up and I certainly don't go into any doomer scenarios. I definitely don't ram the dieoff.org manifesto down peoples' throats. In fact, I usually don't even use the words peak and oil (together anyways). I also try to deal in verifiable facts; I don't claim to know when we might peak, only that energy prices are very likely going to continue to rise in the short to medium term. I don't expect instant converts, but I hope to give people a framework with which to deal with the information coming in. I'm just getting a little impatient seeing as I'm an enviro-weenie through and through, and PO/high energy prices go a long way towards enacting my nefarious hippie plans to subject the human population to toil and misery for all eternity (or whatever my 'agenda' is).
On the subject of seeds and trees, I must respectfully disagree. I've been hoping to plonk in a couple apple trees at my cottage, and while I have some (crab)apple seedlings on the go, I've found a treasure trove of 5-6ft tall apple trees not far off a local parkway that are begging to be relocated (and yes it's legal).
Phew! So there is hope! :)
My brother has a B.Comm, a C.F.A. (Certified Financial Analyst) and he just got his M.B.A. last week. I'm thinking of getting a gas powered stomach pump to purge some of the kool-aid from his system before he sets off into the brave new world of investment banking.
My bro does have a certain amount of post-MBA know-it-allism that he will hopefully shed before he leaves for Kenya for two months, to help build the business of a high nutrient food rationing company... tomorrow! His team has mostly focused on the political situation there, for obvious reasons, but I've been trying to send him a daily barrage of links about the agricultural and fuel crises going on in Kenya (many thanks to TOD posters and Leanan for being the source of most of those links). I can't help but be a little fretful about his trip since when I talked to him last night he had yet to find out what the weather was like.
So if anyone has heard any other news from Kenya way, I will certainly pass it along.
Thanks
Current weather
http://www.wunderground.com/global/stations/63740.html
May weather History, Change month and review the annual wheather
http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/HKJK/2008/5/15/MonthlyHistor...
Thanks! I made him look up the weather while I was on the phone, and he went to The Economist to find out what the climate was like. Of course when you pay the enormous subscription fees to The Economist's 'intelligence unit' you might as well use it.
Those are a little bit more in depth, though.
*oops formatting error
The weather varies a lot depending on what part of Kenya it is. Nairobi is fairly mild, not too humid. Mombasa is very hot and humid year round. Kisumu can get quite hot and humid, but no where near as bad as Mombasa. The highland areas around Mount Kenya are cool and wet. I like the highland weather very much, but it can get muddy during the rainy seasons. The long rains are usually around July, the short rains are around October. It can rain anytime of course, just more so during those months. It's generally coolest just after the long rains and warms up steadily throughout the year until March or so.
I'm not from there, but Kenya's a great country. I've been worried about the effects of higher fuel prices and the recent election violence.
Where will your brother be living?
From what I understand he'll be in the northern end of Nairobi. What he's doing is helping a company that produces some sort of high nutrient supplement for people in case of famine or hardship or pregnancy. It's currently bought and distributed by NGOs who dole it out in sacks. The company is interested in selling it in a smaller, more affordable package in markets throughout the country, and potentially, the region. It's certainly an interesting idea, but I just hope to arm him with as much information about the food system out there as possible, even though he's 'the numbers guy.'
I boil it down to something that won't apply for all, but possibly many. If you have a college degree, likey the extent of your time being "poor" was while you were in college, and maybe a short period of time after that. Those without degrees just might have more "real world" experience in terms of knowing what tough times are like.
Why do I say such a thing? (It obviously doesn't apply to all, just my observation on 3/4 of such people that I know.) My friends who have college degrees are in two camps:
1. They busted their arse, and are of the opinion that anything can be overcome.
2. Parents paid for college and such, and they managed to get a well paying job immediately out of college due to their degree and people they knew. As such, they don't know hardships.
People who have experienced significant financial hardships, I've found, are quite willing to accept that a big pile of feces lays in the trail ahead of them, because they've seen it plenty of times before. As such, they just MIGHT be willing to make the necessary changes to their lives.
But hey, that's just an observationby me, and likely has no basis in reality. :)
I've got a degree.
I work for an oil company.
I walk to work.
People can believe what they want but, when TSHTF, some will survive better than others.
Do you talk about PO with your work colleagues? What do they think?
Marco.
James Kunstler gave a talk in February at the University of Calgary to a packed room of about 600 people. There seemed to be lots of older folks in the audience - probably professors and people in the oil business. At the end, there was not a single question raised as to "whether" we are entering a crisis - people just wanted to know about the social impacts.
As far as I can tell, peak oil is an accepted fact within the oil business. Nobody would put up the capital for oil sands operations or deep ocean exploration unless they thought that there were no alternatives.
As another Calgary oil company employee, I can attest to a certain level of peak oil awareness amongst my peers. It's understood that we have run out of easily discovered and cheaply exploitable new fields. Peak Oil is interpreted as something that will occur during our careers. But that the current run up in price has as much to do with the bulk of reserves and potential discoveries being held by regimes like Russia, Venezuela etc. that are hostile to foreign companies taking equity in the reserves and investing to grow the production. Hence world production growth lags demand.
While there are new fields to discover and existing ones with EOR potential, costs (including government take) to bring them online have risen such that even with $100+ oil it is still not economic to do so for all of these opportunities.
Calgarydude - I have to know. What does a contemporary Canadian feel about the Alberta Tar Sands and the environmental devastation that will be the unltimate legacy of that oil boom?
Canada has always been a vision of a green paradise now it looks like a 3rd world country exploiting their natural resources for the sake of a few pieces of silver. As soon as it's gone the U.S. will throw Canada to the curb like a Motel Six Hooker.
I have a colleague who lives/works in Calgary (computer field).
He thinks the tar sands are an absolute crying shame disaster.
Apparently he is not alone.
Pete
It's funny that Canada is perceived as a green paradise because that's FAR from the truth. Canada is 'environmentally friendly' only relative to the US. Compare us to any other country and we're terrible. There have been a lot of environmental ranking studies done lately and Canada is consistently second last, but the only message anyone gets out of it is: "at least we're better than the US." I think Canadians are a bit delusional when it comes to the environment since we are duped by our large size into believing that our footprint doesn't amount to much. Of course much of that area is uninhabitable except by natives cordoned off in reserves in the northern areas (ie: not Inuit) -- just ask what the Mikisew Cree think of the Tar Sands.
As a non-Albertan, I'm not so fond of the Tar Sands, but they do represent pretty much the only growth area of our economy (for better or worse), and will likely be the life support system that props up the flagging economies of Ontario and Quebec (which I tend to straddle). Canadians are pretty used to being roughed up and used like a M6H and are perhaps even a little proud of it... I dunno... my two cents.
You could swap 'tar sands' for 'coal' and say all the same things about Australia. The economies of NSW and Victoria are in the doldrums, while the resources states of WA and Queensland are booming, as are the government's coffers.
Your trouble is that you live near a bad influence.
I'm a Canadian.
The tar sands are obviously an environmental disaster.
However, having a reliable source of oil that will last for the next few decades may keep Canada intact and fed (barring a US invasion), and may enable enough emergency supplies to the US to keep them fed, too. Obviously it won't allow Hummer owners to commute to work or otherwise engage in BAU, but it is the biggest and best source of potential liquid fuels in the western hemisphere.
Expect to hear strident calls for nationalization of this important resource over the next few years. We have just as many whiny commuters as the US does, and they don't like high gas prices either. As a democracy, we are just as unlikely to deal with Peak Oil rationally as the US is. The difference is that we actually produce more oil than we use for now. If I had to place bets, I would say we will be looking at nationalization before 2012, causing serious conflict with the US. The waves of economic refugees from the US should be heating up by then, too.
I think the fact that the feds have turned a blind eye to the environmental problems of the tar sands is a huge sign that they are in fact PO-aware. And the calls for sanctions against the oil from the tar sands on environmental grounds from the US Congress is a big sign that they are as clueless as they appear. Any PO-aware politician should be pushing hard for both conservation efforts and increased domestic production; anyone not doing both can safely be assumed to have their heads up their ass.
Canada should hand over the oil sands to the Native Canadians (and Americans). Now those guys will enforce conservation.
As a resident of the province next door to Alberta (and one with Oil Sands deposits of its own), I am completely appalled at the destruction and pollution of the oil sands developments. It's destroying and polluting huge tracts of wilderness all to keep the machine running just a wee bit longer. It's completely unsustainable.
The Saskatchewan government has made a bit of noise about developing our tar sands deposits. I intend to fight tooth and nail to see that our northern forests aren't destroyed the way Alberta's are.
As for the green paradise, the only thing green about Canada is the forest. We've been busy exploiting, destroying and polluting since we got here. We've virtually killed off the Bison, destroyed the prairie grasslands to make farmland, clear cut the forests, polluted northern lakes with mine tailings... the list goes on and on. Just looking around at the vehicles around Saskatoon, and you see a few small cars, but mostly giant pickups and oversized SUVs.
Well, that's enough increase in blood-pressure for now. Rant mode off.
Environmental Awareness
-----------------------
Until recently, the economy of Alberta depended mainly on farming, ranching and tourism. So, there is a deep tradition of environmental awareness in the province.
The city of Calgary is demographically the youngest city in Canada and was voted the cleanest city in a recent survey. As part of a plan to reduce greenhouse gases, the city purchases wind generated power for the LRT (Light Rail Transit) system.
Oil Sands Plants
----------------
There are about 70 separate oil sands sites under construction or in operation. The media likes to show the oldest plants which use surface mining and have giant trucks driving around. Newer plants use steam injection to separate oil underground and all you see on the surface are some small metal buildings. Some operations currently claim a 98% water recycling rate and when natural gas is replaced by nuclear sometime around 2020, there won't even be any CO2 emitted to heat the water.
In summary, the earliest plants were big polluters but the "environmental footprint" has been decreasing as the engineering gets better. And high oil prices mean that companies can no longer claim that they "can't afford it". These days, I think that the public attitude is "clean up or get out".
Media Circus
------------
Last week, several hundred ducks died after landing in a oil covered pond. My understanding is that there was a freak snowstorm in the area and the bird protection systems were turned off. When the snow cleared, someone forgot to turn the systems back on and the birds died as a result. They screwed up and obviously should pay a fine.
The next day, one of the local papers had a huge headline (in letter size used for the sinking of the Titanic) that read (IIRC) "Alberta's Shame" about the dead ducks. Then some some senior government minister "publicly apologized" - I am not sure if he apolgized to the ducks' relatives or to Mother Nature in general.
Oil companies want to portray themselves as "good corporate citizens" - that is, they deserve less regulation and lower taxes. And government wants to portray themselves as "protecting the citizens of Alberta" from these souless corporations - that is, they want more regulation and higher taxes. It's a classic power struggle and environmental issues become political footballs.
calgarydude - "...the bird protection systems were turned off..."
Dude the "bird protection systems" are simple scare crows. The smell of the filth coming from the tar sands can be detected from the next galaxy. Clean cities are nonsense. Where are you exporting your trash to? Whose environment are you trashing in order to make yours so sanitary?
Ensign Calgary, Report to a deprogramming terminal...immediately!
I am in my early sixties now and have lived long enough to outgrow my youthful righteousness. What concerns me these days is the survival of people I love when hard times arrive.
This past winter, the weather here was pretty gentle. But January had a wake-up call in the form of a week of -40C weather. Most people reading this post have probably never experienced -40C or -50C cold - let me just say that it will kill you very quickly if you're not protected.
I want energy that I can rely on 365/24/7 and that means coal/oil/gas/hydro/nuclear and, if we can get geothermal as well, so much the better. And if adorable little creatures get killed in the process, well that's tough bananas for them.
These forums shouldn't be used as a debating society and I really don't care about scoring cheap points. I look for hard information from people posting here and, in return, I am willing to share whatever I know. Also, I want to know what people plan to do so that we can share solutions.
And to "joemichaels", whoever you are, I have two words of advice: "Grow Up!".
Ah yes, the cultural dilemma I touched on below. I do agree with calgarydude, but wonder why he left wood off his list of energy sources? Now the coldest it ever got when I lived in Rapid City was about -30C, and we used electricity and wood in a very well insulated house tucked back into the hillside. Sorta wish I still owned that property. I think Mr Dude would agree that it would be quite nice if we didn't need the tar sands operations at all. After all, he is concerned about the ones he loves.
A lot of us would prefer a world that didn't need the oilsands, not so much for any environmental impact, but for what the fact of their development implies for the scarcity of cheaper alternatives.
More anecdotal evidence: I'm a college professor (three sheepskins) and I've known about peak oil for a long time, since I was taught it as a geology undergraduate in the 90s. I come to TOD because it's interesting, I learn new things, and I keep up to date. Because of this, hopefully my lectures in my Resources, Energy & the Environment course will be better and more accurate when I get to the part of the class about oil. To get out of my class the students must at least know what peak oil is and have some rudimentary knowledge on how an oil production & refining works. You can be sure the students pay attention to this part because gas prices are something they see in their daily life. I usually try to show the data and talk about the possibilities (e.g., I love to show Khebab's graphs of the predicted production for various models, if only to illustrate how much disagreement there is over what will happen). Also, I like the DrumBeat because it's a great source for newspaper articles to discuss in class.
Gwydion,
Thank you. You've left me with a sense of optimism for those who follow.
I think this has to do with "economize, localize, produce". "E" (cutting back on luxuries) is the easiest one. "P" such as sewing ones own clothes or growing veggies is not as easy, but it's the "L" one that is impossible for anyone with any ambition. It means not going to the best college even if you're qualified, or not taking the best job at the best company or biggest university that you can. The people who have degrees are competing--very seriously--for the grant money, customers, contracts, patients, students, etc. that their organizations demand that they compete for. No one is going to just step aside and let the other fellow get an advantage. Localizing effectively means giving up ground and letting another insitution take over a market while you focus on a smaller area (customer base, etc.) Not popular!!!! Hence the denial among the educated group.
People will economize when they are forced to (by eating out less, etc.) They'll produce when they are forced to (selling tomatoes they grew or breeding horses, whatever) and they will localize ONLY when they are forced to do so by circumstances.
In fact, I asked one professor I know about this very issue. "When will you localize?" The answer: "When there is no other alternative", when the university shuts down in phases and lays off staff, hopefully well after this professor has retired (age is almost 50). The underlying belief is that the bargaining power is better if you wait as long as possible, negotiating your way slowly down same ladder (this ladder is tied to the idea of localizing in that the top rungs are the least local) of success you climber earlier.
There is one school of thought that says that early preparation is better (early bird gets worm, etc.) but what I have seen is that early capitulation may be very unpopular in this case. It's better to hold out for a better deal is what some people believe. The people with degrees, who are mostly better off, are going to hold out for a better deal.
The ones who don't have degrees can't afford to do that.
Is it true that waiting until the last possible moment to localize (when one is really forced to) is a good idea???? That preparations are useless???? In some cases making preparations for peak oil would distract these busy achievers from their jobs, or make them have to "leave the city". Or it's a mindset...who wants to be seen building their own private lifeboat while ensconced in a luxury stateroom on board a cruiseship? I mean, what would the other passengers and staff (coworkers, colleagues) say if they saw you building a lifeboat for yourself....."so you think the ship is going to run into some trouble???(ahem)"
I myself take no side on this issue, but I think the answer is based on personal and job skills. Those who localize (and E and P) early probably have good reason to and should, those who wait may be judging correctly that this is the best choice for them.And maybe what we would call denial seems like prudence and patience to these people.
That's actually what I'm doing. I work in Michigan, I live in Arkansas, I'm selling my half of the house to my house mates who currently own the other half, and I'm building a house in the middle of nowhere that will be powered by solar and wind power. (With the addition of wood when it gets really cold.) Everybody KNOWS I'm building a lifeboat, that I fully expect it to go downhill, and I suggest to them that they do the same.
Even so, my house mates are buying me out of my half instead of us selling the house right now. He believes TSWHTF a few years from now and that he will be able to score a good sale on the house before it all goes down, allowing him to procure a larger parcel of land than what I am. What I'm doing is a gamble, and what he's doing is a gamble. In my opinion, his has higher risks, yet higher potential payout. I'm taking the safer route.
Everybody else that knows me thinks I'm bonkers for thinking that the US won't "figure something out." Oh, we'll figure it out all right, when our bellies are empty...
I have two sheepskins and actually am not a believer in collapse. However, I've cut back on my driving and am trying to get a job at an oil refinery because it's close, and, if I can hack the job, steady work. Most of the IT jobs, what I'm trained in, are in SF or silicon valley and while I'm not a believer in a fast crash, I believe in volatile gasoline prices in the future with a steady upward trend. I also believe from reading JD and Robert Rapier that my six-cylinder mom mobile is obsolete and that walking to the grocery store is a good idea.
Also, I don't know that Hubert's Curve should be taken as gospel, although oil prices causing dislocation, obviously should.
Hello TODers,
http://voanews.com/english/2008-05-15-voa19.cfm
------------------------------
China Says Quake Death Toll Could Top 50,000
------------------------------
Tragic news, no doubt, but once the area is cleared: what comes next?
I think it would be fascinating, if ASPO-China has any clout with the govt, to push for rebuilding this area using the latest ideas in ecologic design, best-in-class rural & urban layouts, recycling of all possible resources, full pollution regulations, effective RRs & mass-transit along with banning personal autos, community PV & solar heating, etc.
Of course, I would like to see them build a SpiderWebRiding Network to support the RRs & TOD.
It would be fascinating to see this area quickly transformed into the most-desired place to live in China.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Tragic news, second major disaster this month. 50,000 excess deaths is enough to set back global population growth - by one day.
In other words we would need this level of disaster somewhere in the world every day just to stop the world's population from expanding.
Just to put things in perspective.
A lot of this disaster's deaths are kids. Chinese kids. Only kids. Whose parents married late, had their One late, and now won't have another. So x3 their tally.
Point is these disasters (especially if you are one of the ones directly affected) are tragic and horrendous. However to have any real impact on resource use and growth we would need to loose the equivalent of the ENTIRE population of China. With 6+ Billion of us nature and resource use doesn't even notice 100,000 more or less.
And at just a 2% growth rate in the remaining population we would replace that lost China in just about eleven years.
Good observation.
I think the real news will be when such disasters no longer stay on the "front page" for day after day any longer.
For an insight into disaster, collapse and the difficulty drawing the connections, I strongly recommend John Brunner's classic "The Sheep Look Up" or the equally prescient "Stand on Zanzibar."
There has been a lot of seismic activity of late, Earthquakes and Chile's Volcano etc. I was woken up out of a sound sleep here in the Ohio valley a few weeks ago by a tremor. It seems something is afoot.
As far as the quake in China I wonder if it is a result of shifting of the earth caused from the added weight of all that water behind the three gorges dam.
It looks like the ring of fire is starting to pop. One thing about global warming is even the current light sea rise is adding a lot of pressure on the sea floor and relieving it where land bound glaciers are melting.
Also changing evaporation rates and currents may be changing the water levels in various regions.
Overall it may not be a lot but even small changes may be enough to allow faults to slip.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0819/p16s01-sten.html
I've got my own half-backed hypothesis that as the hydrology changes you get a spike in volcanism this leads to a natural C02 spike and explain how the C02 signal seems to sometimes lag temperature increases. This over activity eventually results in low volcanic activity and earthquakes as the energy is released. C02 levels fall and eventually ice age like conditions prevail. The system is again changing and volcanic activity picks up sending C02 into the atmosphere melting the glaciers leading to more changes and around you go again.
Assuming this cycle is real then human induced global warming will cause a detectable change in the cycle for millions of years. Think about it 100 million years from now we will have left a signal of our existence. The researchers of that period will probably scurry around looking for the impact crater of the large iron meteorite that left strange deposits in former bays and river bottoms of the period.
Others may find our strip mines and argue that some semi-intelligent species was at work. Maybe some
salt mine will survive with its mining equipment intact and a unopened six pack of Budweiser will be found stashed behind the seat :)
yes, what about the strange seismic signature noises being heard of the coast of oregon ? there was a story about it a few weeks ago, and sorry i dont have a link, but the interpretation was that a series of small earthquakes were taking place offshore, possibly a subsea volcano.
if we wanted to leave something to say we were here we would put it on the moon and make it visible from the earth with only a primitive telescope.
A big box with the DNA sequence of all the species we're killing might be a good start.
"I've got my own half-backed hypothesis that as the hydrology changes you get a spike in volcanism this leads to a natural C02 spike and explain how the C02 signal seems to sometimes lag temperature increases."
There's a feedback effect between CO2 and temperature. Ice ages are caused by variations in the earth's orbit that affect the amount of insolation received between latitudes 40 and 60 degrees north during the northern summer. These variations caused the ice-sheets to melt 20,000 years ago, and through feedback effects, increasing albedo during the summer led to rising temperatures which led to the rise in temperatures and melting permafrost which fed into increasing temperatures etc. Becasue the end of the ice age was not caused by CO2 increase, naturally the increase in CO2 followed the temperature increase.
This time, it's the rise in CO2 levels that are leading the temperature increase (more or less).
I recommend "Earth's Climate: Past and Future" by William F. Ruddiman as a good introduction to climate change.
Almost, abracadabra.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/cycles.htm
Cheers
While I do believe there are connections between faults and plates, it is highly unlikely the Ring of Fire had any real or direct effect on the China quake as it is in the subduction zone for the Indian plate sliding beneath the Eurasian.
There is some concern the Three Gorges is/will cause some deformation and help trigger quakes. I'm not familiar with Chinese geography, so don't have any sense of how likely a Three Gorges affect is.
Cheers
I'm confused. How can the same weight of water spread over a larger area increase in weight?
Maybe the oceans absobtions on atmospheric CO2 would increase the weight, but I'm not sure of the volumes we're talking about would make any measurable difference when you look at the weight of the oceans themselves.
I'm thinking they'll plant us firmly in the 'all instinct, no intelligence' category.
Definatly unintelligent. ;)
Just watched the ABC (Australia) produced
"CRUDE - the incredible journey of oil"
http://www.abc.net.au/science/crude/
IMHO this is the best production for anyone just starting to get curious about the whole PO thing.
It is highly entertaining & informative without being saturated with doom and gloom (save that for later).
P.S. I know that this has been discussed but I really think it is the best starting point for discovery and should be widely distributed.
agreed - it's a fantastic piece of work ! And you are getting the historic portion well presented as well, how it came to be ... and for the educated among us we see that .... well we are resetting the conditions from that time today .... as we speek : global warming !
This is probably old news for old timers to this site..but I just discovered this "Winning the Oil Endgame". I haven't been through it all...but saw some interesting vehicle designs claing 66mpg. Jimmy Carter giving it a ringing endorsement has me a little skeptic.
Anyone have the lowdown or opinion (duh, everyone has an opinion of course):
http://www.oilendgame.com/
That is the name of Amory Lovins' book. The site is probably to support said book.
Lovins extremely optimistic, even for a cornucopian.
I listened to his speech at a conference I attended last week. He's such a great speaker and the kind of person that can help motivate governments and organizations to move forward with a smart energy policy. Go ahead and label him whatever you want, but the man is smart and has great ideas and knows what he's talking about.
I'm not sure I would include in my definition of "smart" the building of a research institute aimed at "foster[ing] the efficient and restorative use of resources to make the world secure, just, prosperous, and life-sustaining" some 180 miles from the nearest city (Denver) and 20 miles from the nearest community (a town of 5000). One wonders just what sort of "efficient" use of resources is imagined in having your staff commute those kinds of distances.
Yeah, the book of from Lovins' folks at RMI. Lovins is a technical optimist, but I do not see him as a cornucopian. His message for more than 30 years, since "Soft Energy Paths", is that we need to reduce our fossil energy use.
Of course, some of his ideas over the years were a bit too optimistic, but others have merit. I recall debunking some of his ideas about "hyper cars" several years back. What we now see in the Prius and Civic hybrids is a reasonable implementation of the basic ideas. But, we aren't seeing the 100 mpg vehicles yet and may not until the price of gasoline reaches much higher levels.
It's technically feasible to build vehicles that produce even better mpg. In fact, I built one based on motorcycle technology back in 1984 that produced 235 mpg during testing and I never really got it to work properly. As to whether large numbers of these sorts of vehicles will appear on the road in future, only time will tell. As for me, I just bought a 500cc bike to be ready for prices above $4/gallon and a 55 mph speed limit. I expect to see electric scooters as the next level of improvement in efficient transportation, but the ones available now can't keep up with traffic, which makes them dangerous to operate...
E. Swanson
He says we need to reduce our use of fossil fuels...but not our use of energy in general. Near as I can tell, he believes in BAU, constant growth, ever-increasing standard of living...just without using any oil.
And yeah, he's been pushing this for 30 years. With little noticeable effect.
Lovins is a cornucopian if one ever existed. Lovins is the cornucopians cornucopian.
Jim Kunstler Amory Lovins pushing of the "Hyper Car" is yet another example of cornucopians trying to 'Polish A Turd" (PAT)
The Mundi Club Over the decades lovins's preoccupation with technology seems to have led him away from green politics towards the obscene fantasies of capitalist cornucopians such as julian simons.
And even Lovins himself! "Very similar opportunities are available throughout industries and buildings just by using a better design mentality. It's changing the "mindware" that's really the challenge today. And as we discover in writing our new book "Natural Capitalism", with Paul Hawkin, how these opportunities just pervade society. We're ever more astonished by the opening of the efficiency cornucopia. I guess you could call me a neo-cornucopian.
Lovins believes that technology will fix everything. We will have a far better life after oil, he believes, because of technology. Lovins is the absolute epitome of a cornucopian.
Ron Patterson
Doesn't this pretty much describe the majority of regular posters here on the Oil Drum, despite their protestations to the contrary?
Higher Quality of Life, Lower Quantity of Consumption.
Best Hopes for truly good tasting Food, Great Music and Communities,
Alan
I'll drink to that. Everytime I see you post Alan I get a urge for a good new Orleans gumbo, unfortunately that's hard to find in the DC area. Best hopes for making it to New Orleans this year.:)
antidoomer - I thought DC was destroyed by the nuclear blast? I just read about it. (World Made By Hand, Kunstler)
Oh nevermind it was just a work of fiction...or would that be a wish fantasy? I'll have to ask my therapist.
Well, perhaps almost half the posters here, folks like AlanfromBigEasy, Antidoomer and Roger Connor are cornucopians. But I think a small majority of posters here are doomers just like you and I.
Ron Patterson
I'm an optimist. I believe that biodiversity will recover within 10 mys of Anthropus ecocidus' extinction. :)
Ha! I've often wished I could be around for the next few million years just to watch it unfold. Given the dieoff we are initiating and the typical evolutionary explosion in the fossil record after each preceding dieoff, it would be an adventure to just see how life adapts to so many vacant biological niches.
Have you ever read Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut? That's precisely what the story is about.
My favourite thing about the book is that the villain is "our big brains."
I highly recommend that book to any TODers who haven't read it.
mlr Thanks for the tip on Galapagos. I will put it on my read list. I'm a big Vonnegut fan. Can;t believe I haven't read it so far.
My favorite Vonnegut line: "This is a tale of a meeting of two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet which was dying fast."
Name that book!
Breakfast of Champions of course... love that one... 'specially for the drawrings.
I love the tombstone:
SOMEBODY
Some time to Some time
He Tried
mir--
I second your recommendation on Galapagos, it is a very good read.
GreyZone, Thanks for the Walmart article yesterday. I saw it today.
Grey Zone. I too would love to be around for the next hundred years to see what's going to happen. Unfortunately, even if I survive for a while (I'm 70 :) there probably won't be the excellent level of communications we have now and I won't know much even while its happening.
Edit: I see you meant a few MILLION years. That would be fun too.
AlanfromBigEasy ... are cornucopians.
This is my best hoped for but realistic case.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3140#comments
The 2010s have since been renamed the "Terrible Tens".
All things are relative I guess,
Alan
Nothing against electric trains per se, but what supplies the electromotive force has been my question. Now I see: wind, hydro & nukes. That's what I was afraid of.
As an avid birder I don't like Neotropical migratory birds being shredded by rotors. The damn things are ugly, covering ridges in Cali like a cancer, half of them apparently on the blink as they aren't turning even in a stiff wind.
As a lotic ecologist, having studied the phylogeography of catfishes in Amazonas, I detest dams & reservoirs even more. The methane produced by anaerobic decomposition in the sediments of reservoirs makes them worse contributors to atmospheric heat capacity than equivalent MW coal-fired powerplants are.
And as a living organism I don't like what ionizing radiation does to my tissues. I've seen the mess left by U mining operations behind Sanostee in the Chuskas, & near Moab, UT. I've heard the stories of exploited Navajo U miners related personally. Chernobyl & Three Mile Island ought to serve as warnings to any thinking person.
Hell, I'd rather have coal power the electric trains, or go back to steam locomotives that burn the coal directly, than power them with wind, hydro, &/or nukes.
Well don't come to Ottawa for our steam train;
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2008/05/14/ot-steam-train-080514.h...
This story doesn't mention it, but word is it's gone for good. Half my family lives in Chelsea/Wakefield... guess I won't be taking the train to see 'em any time soon.
The coal burning steam train that runs between Durango & Silverton, CO, is nasty as hell. It routinely starts forest fires & when the wind is still it pollutes downtown Durango with a black pall of coal smoke. Yet it's a tourist attraction and the city council wouldn't dream of shutting it down, no matter how many hectares of forest burn or kids' asthma is aggravated by it. Modifying the engine in any way so as to make it less of a danger & a health hazard would detract from the "authenticity" old timer rail buffs pay $$$ for, you see? I wish a major winter avalanche in the Animas Canyon would shut it down for good.
As an avid birder I don't like Neotropical migratory birds being shredded by rotors.
How ya feel about cats? Radio towers? Glass Windows? Peas that were softened, had sharp wire added, then dried again?
How about you mention how the bird population is quite high VS what would be historic norms because Man has so much excessive Ag products that Man can use some of it feeding birds just so Man can watch birds? (Oh wait. I just mentioned that. Sorry)
The damn things are ugly,
And cities are a thing of beauty?
How about coal smokestacks?
Hell, I'd rather have coal power the electric trains,
I thought of quoting Dick Cheney to Leahy, but instead opted to mention the heavy metal toxins of coalstacks and decided to mention you are a selfish bastard who is on ly concerned with your own personal short term enjoyment of seeing some birds VS the environment overall.
You don't like well-controlled and low-volume waste from Nuclear, but are happy to live with the filth (including radiation) a Coal Plant spews almost unrationed into the air?
Strange man.
Some of us believe life will be better after oil, not because of technology, but because the end of growth is the prerequisite to the spiritual growth of humanity. This is the promise of peak oil. The danger of peak oil is what happens while we continue to seek material growth at the expense of the spiritual.
Not sure what you mean by "spiritual growth." Look to the past what kind of spiritual growth do you see as occurring in the thousands of years before cheap and abundant energy and resources? When I look into the past I see Wars and Genocide from the lack of resources and cheap energy.
Wars and Genocide are products of the growth mentality. Our "civilized" ancestors committed what appear to us to be horrific and barbaric acts when they fought wars, but that is the result of our modern form of squeamishness. We can't stand the site of blood, but the use of a high explosive drone is A-OK. The truth is, though, that total war is a modern invention, as is the "professional" army (though one could argue about the Romans), as are any number of "innovations" in how to kill people.
Yes, our ancestors fought over resources and energy. Are you saying that we don't do the same thing?
The error of the Hobbesian world view is to think that the world before the state was the same as the world during a period of a failed or weakened state.
But if there is no hope for us in avoiding "war and genocide," answer me this - how did the city of Jericho manage to survive for thousands of years without a wall when it sat almost on top of the main source of the single most sought after resource of the time?
Build a spirit trap, catch one, let me measure, weigh, dissect & otherwise examine it, then I'll believe in spirits.
Materialist. And that is the worst insult I can think of ;-)
Seriously, your answer makes it clear that you don't understand what spirituality is. The idea of a spirit, or spirit as a thing is the product of a materialist viewpoint. Spirituality is not dependent on the existence of a spirit. Spirituality is about the development of the being in their own context. Everything else is just the stories we tell to get the point across.
But, since you brought it up, perhaps you'd like to build a graviton trap, catch one, let me measure, weigh, dissect etc.
shaman - "you don't understand what spirituality is"
I think he does. The problem is: build me a world where 7 billion boddisatvas can sit around contemplating their navels.
Somebody has to murder the planet so we can all eat. Right?
With comments like that I'm going to have to dump you into the same category of "not understanding"
First off, please do not try to belittle Buddhism with such comments as it only demonstrates your ignorance.
Second, the notion that spiritualism requires you to give up doing everything else suggests that, like darwin's dog, your understanding is informed only from a modern materialist perspective.
Let's see if a sports metaphor works - you don't understand the game of baseball by applying all you know about touchdowns, field goals, first downs, quarterbacks, etc. If you do you are prone to make silly statements like why did that guy try to steal second base when he only needed three yards for a first down.
Shaman... I have had a spiritual quest in the last 2 years that would knock your socks off, the least of which was predicting my young wife's cancer diagnosis months before the doctors diagnosed her... (She's still with us, but that's another story...)
Anyway, don't pester those you consider the 'deaf' too much... Many of the folks here may not be as 'enlightened' (And I use this word carefully) as you (or others) *think*, just give them a bit of help and guidance along the way, and don't use anger or frustration like you are here... I arrived at the concept Peak Oil on that 'different' path... I saw bits and pieces of how this pans out, and impressed a small circle of friends a year ago about what was going to happen with gas prices (which is going on now).
And yes, everyone may call you crazy, but just give insightful advice as a *guide* not an a$$tard.
Geckolizard - I'm not sure I understand your comments. I certainly didn't intend to come off as "amgry." And looking back at my comment, I still don't see where that is the case.
Care to help me see this? I'm serious, I'm not afraid of criticism.
It's apparent that us stupid materialists don't have the lowdown on spirituality like you do. Your other worldly wisdom is truly impressive. I'm surprised you even bother to interact with the likes of us. I guess it's your duty as an Enlightened Spiritual Master to try & help us lowly materialist losers aspire towards your Exalted Spiritual Status. I'm afraid you're wasting your time. We're hopeless. We're doomed to grovel on the material plane for kalpas of eternity, while you dwell in Spiritual Bliss. Oh well... sucks to be us.
No, Darwin, Shaman is just being an a$$... But I like the comment, becasue he assumes the worst, and thinks that materialism is all evil. Without materialism, he wouldn't have a computer to type on, a job to plunk has butt at, or 'The Internets' to post on. True, materialism has it's bad points... But in reality Shaman (like most people) are pissed because we're (The TOD folks) are aware that the society we run now is unsustainable, changes are coming, and the changes are likely unpleasant.
I'm just mocking the hubris of the "I'm more spiritual than you are" rap. It reeks of egoism, as much as Robert the other day bragging about how his "carbon footprint" is smaller than mine. I just think that such arrogance is hilarious, is all.. ;)
Yeah, it's all pride in the end. What he is advocating is getting over the pride stuff, really, and returning to something more pure... OK, he needs to start with person #1: Himself. (And, ironically, we all will need to get over the pride stuff on some level of our lives WTSHTF).
darwinsdog calling someone arrogant is the true hilarity. Point to one place where I said I was more spiritual than you?
I made observations about your way of thinking, critiques really. And you respond with ad hominem attacks? Brilliant discursive strategy there. Bound to convince me that your approach is the way.
Clearly I have failed utterly in getting my message across. Because from my perspective you have completely misread what I was after.
How's this for a confessional. I don't want the computer. I don't want the job. I don't want the internet. But I am so spiritually weak that I can't kick the junk. That is how and why materialism offends me.
As for being pissed, I came to grips with what was going to happen to our society and the world more than 25 years ago. My only dissatisfaction comes in that the whole thing won't fall apart faster.
I have posted before on how "primitive" peoples often live sustainable, intelligent and happy lives. Happier than virtually any modern society. Happier being = to contented, satisfied, fulfilled and connected to community. The one I posted a link about even had a complete understanding of the need for balance between population and their environment. Naturally, this included abandoning the old and infirm, as was apparently common - necessary? - in such societies. But there is always an opportunity cost. At least their opportunity cost fits within the natural paradigm of survival of the fittest.
I would posit that materialism is always bad. It can only exist under a growth paradigm. To have extra, one must use more resources than one needs. Period. This requires leisure time (definitely possible) and inequality. Inequality leads to jealousy and competition. Sustainability dies.
Of course, it is should be possible to have a level of comfort, but materialism? No. As Jon in "The Forgotten Door" asked, "How can a thing have two values?" A knife is a knife, unless it's a collector's item. If it is a collector's item, we have moved from cooperation and sharing to competition and exploitation. Ultimately, that is unsustainable. Perhaps our aboriginal brothers and the Quakers have something to share with the rest of us? They seem to live in comfort.
What a society deems is useful has no definitive definition. We certainly could decide to keep it alive even amidst a collapse. Would that be materialism? No. If it has utility and is a community asset, it's simply infrastructure.
Cheers
Thanks for putting so many words in my mouth.
Not once did I call you stupid. I suggested that you (and others) were interpreting spirituality from a materialist perspective. If this offends your sense of self worth. I'm sorry.
Not once did I say I was more spiritual than you. Nor did I claim enlightenment or any of your other clever quips.
Only way I can interpret it is that despite all your bluster, my comments cut a little close to quick.
You've got the wrong idea about bodhisattvas--they are proactive in the world, not navel-gazers.
source: wikipedia
Meant no disrespect to Bhudissm. My wife is a buddhist and I chant with her often. I like that they don't accept the invisible guy in the sky theory. I also like the complexity. Bhudissm is a grown-up religion. I should know because I spent 9 years in Catholic School.
1965: Baptized babies go to heaven. Unbaptized babies go to Limbo.
1972 The church gets rid of Limbo.
Q: Where did the Church put all of the souls of those poor unbaptized children?
2000 years of philosophy hasn't accomplished much, but it has done a number on all the alternatives to materialism that have been invented.
But I don't disagree with you about spirituality in general.
I sort of fit in with shaman, that the end of the Imperalist growth paradigm based on fossil fuels will usher in a new paradigm with the goal of gaining knowledge and wisdom instead of material wealth. I accept that such a change will cause great dislocations; too many people in several countries are way out on the Overshoot limb being kept from falling by borrowing carrying capacity from wherever it can be found. Essentially, there is no more carrying capacity "frontier" to be discovered and exploited, and the competition for gleaning what remains has the potential to end the future when the limb supporting the USA breaks.
I'm not really sure what you mean. We had plenty of imperialism before the current fossil fuel binge. Most glaring example: the Romans.
oh, and you don't think that the Roman culture was built on an ethic of material growth? Not quite like or as efficient as ours, but it was material growth nonethless.
Whenever I read about the Romans, I can't help be struck by how much more they were like us than either they or we are like the backward peasants who lived in-between.
However, the peasants seem to always win out in the end.
Like us the Romans too had a source of cheap seemingly inexhaustible energy. Hmmm... what was it now, oh yeah the Peasants and Slaves.
However, the peasants seem to always win out in the end.
No, only SOME win out. The dead - we have no idea and were not our progenators.
That's my point. People who think that the raping and pillaging will stop once we burn all the oil show an ignorance of history. People are still people, and will still kill each other due to greed. The only difference is the tools they will be using.
The thought that once we are done will oil, we will all sit on the porches of our organic farms and walk over to the neighbors house to help with the chores, then go to the local pub for a local, organic meal and folk music is insane. The future will look just like the past, only different. Think Medieval Europe. Or pre-colonial North America. Or Biblical Canaan.
The big difference is Roman and subsequent Imperialism didn't have the power to destroy most life on the planet.
It came pretty darn close. Ask the Native Americans or the Mayans, if you can find any.
Consumer - It is odd that homo-sapiens have the unique quality of being ego-centric. A statement is made that the "Romans didn't have the ability to destroy all life on the planet" and the automatic assumption is made that human civilization is equated with life on Earth.
Humans are an invasive species, ultimately parasitic. In Other Word: Planet Cancer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANmeC24QMto
It is only our current adaptation, fossil fuel exploiters, that allows us to destroy the planet.
Consider the following: "...at the beginning of the industrial revolution the total weight of men and their cattle equaled less than 1% of the total weight of all vertabrae animals on the Earth. Today that number is over 98%."
BTW that sounds like a pretty good recipe for global collapse.
Amen Brother. I see PO as the real tipping point for humanity to evolve and see the reality of billions of interconnected people living on a finite planet, and the deep need to see all of our individual actions affecting everyone else. PO is a crisis that will drag us kicking and screaming into a new paradigm of what is truly important. I think most will resist, and we will have a massive die off, but in the end there will be survivors who will have a radically new outlook on life and much different values that you or I.
My hope is that Alan's list of simple priorities "truly good tasting Food, Great Music and Communities" will win out. My teenage son is a musician, and despite my feeling of TSHTF being immanent I still feel he is pursuing a valuable career that will be needed far into the future. (Of course he also knows a lot of survival techniques, and can garden, hunt, and forage... NOT a typical theatre actor.) What will happen to my daughter with severe disabilities is my deeper concern about the future. And again I believe strong communities are the key. I still have a lot of hope for the future, but I know we will have some Katrina like years to slog through before we reach it.
Yup, give people and infinitely interconnected and indexed resource. Like a vast worldwide "Web" of instantly accessible information. What would humanity use such a capability for......porn. Welcome to spritual enlightenment. Funny how nothing seems to change even when everything does.
Nonsense - porn is the response because the rest of their world is so mind-numbingly distant. Let me see, what shall I do today, spend some money at Walmart or peruse some porn? This is a sick growth society response. You have unwittingly supported my argument that getting rid of growth worship is the prerequisite.
Spiritual growth? Do you really think that humanity is able to overcome its evolutionary heritage and develop a sane mental state?
Even if those, who will survive, were able to realize that our one hundred years of happy time were a really big mistake, how long will this meme persist?
Over time people will forget that the notion of unlimited growth is the death knell for every species that has the ability to absolutely dominate its habitat. And surely there will be a generation which deems itself bold enough to think that it is smarter than their ancestors and thus will not make the same mistakes, just to make them again.
Our evolutionary heritage is it? And you of course, know exactly what that heritage is and what it means for our behavior? Sorry, but that's a little arrogant from my perspective.
As for our "forgetting" about the lessons we learn about growth, you are of course assuming that we will once again go down that path. Tell me, then, why we seemed to do perfectly fine for some 100,000 years or so before we went down the path of civilization and it's growth imperative?
You have made the understandable, but simple mistake of thinking that how human culture and behavior is now is the only way it can be.
Yes this is a great lie in our culture, that our destruction of the natural world is a trait of human nature, and there is no other way to live. I believe this stems from our cultures, and all other imperial cultures such as the Romans(our culture is truly just a descendant of these other imperial cultures), human/nature duality. We believe we are exceptional and different from everything else in the world. There are humans and there is everything else; something we call 'nature.' This has created the human vs. nature idea that allows us to rationalize our all out war we wage on the world. We have been told it is our right, no, our god given duty to conquer and subdue this vile earth.
But this is not human nature, for proof look no further than the 10's of thousands of tribal and indigenious peoples that have inhabitated this planet. Many did not suffer this human/nature duality and correctly understood that we are one member of this worlds life community. These people did not seek to conquer and exploit local resources until it was time to grow and move on to the next location to exploit. They were 'sustainable' the standard any cultures success should be measured by.
I'm not trying to make saints of tribal people, just that they understood humans are 'nature' and in doing, they chose not to wage war against it. I believe this invalidates the meme that it is human nature to conquer, exploit, and destroy the planet. It is not human nature, it is our cultures nature. A very important distinction, and one that brings me hope. My two cents anyways.
Yes you are. Given the technology any culture will do just as much damage as Western technological greed-based cultures do. Driving herds of Bison over cliffs, torching the prairies, poisoning streams with rotenone, etc., were all practices resorted to by the relatively technologically unsophistocated tribal peoples you romanticize and beautify. Give a tribal person a rifle, bulldozer, biocide applicator... & he or she will accomplish just as much damage with it as any ugly American will.
Human nature doesn't change much - but it also includes folk worrying some about something as useless as a snake, which seems to be a bit daft from a survival point of view - unless of course some strategies are a bit more complex and leave room for a greater degree of social and ecological concern than is immediately obvious in the old, rather 19th century, 'nature red in tooth and claw' storyline.
There are some pretty nice folk around, but some of them don't like to admit it!
On New Zealand, eleven species of moa were exterminated within 160 years of human arrival. Had the human settlers been armed with machine guns and hunting rifles, the extermination may have only taken a decade.
We now know that the world's largest palm tress were wiped off the face of Easter Island in a relatively short period of time. Just imagine the early Islanders had had gas-powered chain saws!
Why do you think humans migrated out of Africa and spread all over the world? Why did Polynesians migrate from island to island?
Why did some stay?
Because the forced migration of the others left the island back below the Malthusian limit.
So, you're saying that a couple of boat fulls of people leaving an island was enough to allow those remaining to go back to their profligate growth patterns? Something about that just doesn't ring true, must have been some might big boats.
Actually, yes, the voyaging canoes were quite large, very sophisticated, and made entierly by hand using stone and bone tools. Their knowledge of the ocean, winds, tides, and currents is extraordinary. The culture was quite strict, with many taboos, which is a Polynesian word, FYI. Oh, and their growth patterns were definately not "profligate." With your moniker, you would find their oral traditions and collective mythos fascinating. I suggest you start your investigation of the Oceanic peoples by reading this book.
karlof1 - thanks for the book recommendation. I've known of Oppenheimer's "theory" for a while, but also know that it is considered speculative at best by the so called experts. And with so many books in the queue, I just never thought of adding it to the list. But, with your suggestion I will do so.
Still, I find the notion that a few boat loads of people leaving an island can have a dramatic impact on the population size (I think the one poster called it malthusian limits)rather far fetched. I've seen the Hokulea and talked with people who sailed on it. (I also had the wonderful opportunity of working on a "traditional" Hawaiian farm and sharing poi with people who were trying to recapture the best of their culture while coming to grips with the worst).
I think your point about the strictness of polynesian societies and the non-profligate growth is exactly to the point. These were mature societies with extensive knowledge of their world. Their motivations for moving from island to island was not simple population pressures. As repugnant as it is to our modern sensibilities, most Polynesian (and Micronesian as well) societies practiced infanticide to control population levels. And they did this long before they moved to the next set of islands.
In Collapse, Jared Diamond suggests that such ocean voyages (at least on one of the islands he studied) were a form of socially acceptable suicide - to help keep the population down. The people who went were the young and healthy - the ones who would contribute most to population growth if they were to stay. They were treated like heroes, with a big party and such before they left. Sure, many ended up finding another island. But probably many did not.
I've read this, too, someplace other than in Diamond. Just can't seem to remember where it was this morning (one of the benefits of aging?)
And while I certainly understand the celebratory aspect, and could believe the socially acceptable (read "herioc") suicide. I would have a hard time accepting that this was directed at population control given my (admittedly limited) knowledge of these societies. Population control is much easier to practice through infanticide and abandonment of the elderly.
Stories I was told on the Waianae coast suggest that these periods of heightened population control, up to and including cannibalism , were the result of particular catastrophic events; multiple years of crop failures, a tsunami that salted the lo'i. It was not population pressure, per se, but the sudden change in the ability of the local environment to support the existing population requiring an adjustment to the population. That the Polynesians intentionally enacted these changes (disregarding how horrific they may appear to us), suggests an incredible awareness of the idea of carrying capacity (and also explains the level of taboo in these societies that karlof1 pointed out).
Of course, these were oral histories from Hawai'i and not necessarily representative of all Polynesia.
Still, fascinating stuff. Amazing societies. I just don't think it helps our understanding if we think that they jumped from island to island just because the last one filled up. I don't believe that level of reductionism is appropriate.
But that can't prevent the Tragedy of the Commons. People will not kill their children or abandon their mothers if they can avoid it. It's something people do when times are tough.
One of the societies Diamond studied actually had a hard limit on the number of people who were allowed to stay. Each year, if there were more than that, some had to leave. If there were not enough volunteers, the king would kick people off.
Ouch, that's hard core.
I agree with you about the "when times are tough." But I also think that mediates against the reductionist argument that it was population growth that drove the island hoping. Hard core as they might have been, these societies had implemented means of keeping their population in balance with the carrying capacity of the ecosystem. And while that difference may be subtle, I think it essential to understanding those cultures.
With Agent Orange we could have wrapped the whole affair up in a couple of weeks. Hooray for DuPont!
Give a tribal person a rifle, bulldozer, biocide applicator... & he or she will accomplish just as much damage with it as any ugly American will.
Bull. It was the White Man who killed off the North American Locust. No tribal group has done that!
Yes. That's right. Americans (the White Man) are the only ones to have killed off a species of locust. (pumps fist in air) Take THAT Africa! (Does some wooting, wanders off. Finds a bottle of Snarkonal, takes swig and provides links so at least this post is educational.)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Melanoplus+spretus&btnG=Search
And the Native Americans killed several species of ungulates when they settled North America, including horses and camels.
Oops.
Native American environmentalism as we know it today is in huge proportions a reaction to their encounter with the White Man.
First it made them keenly aware of how human activities (both their own and the White Man's) could threaten their ability to retain their way of life.
Secondly, it made them seek grounds for a moral supremacy to compensate for the guns-germs-and-steel supremacy of the whites. Subordinated cultures always seek these moral high grounds.
That's not to say the environmentalism isn't for real. I lived by a few rezzes and saw for myself that in large parts it was. But it is definitely a 1493 thing, not a 1491 thing. People are fallible. Film at 11.
This is not a settled issue; the debate goes on as to whether it was anthropogenic or climate or both.
Cheers
And the Native Americans killed several species of ungulates when they settled North America, including horses and camels.
Oops.
My example is supported with not only a geologic record (frozen Locusts at Grasshopper pass) but in the written record. And supported in blood with all the dead native people in Africa who still can't beat the Locust.
Your example is 'best guess'.
You should up your game if you wanna play with me.
Apuleius fails - Film at 11.
A "best guess" that is highly well timed and hardly surprising given human-driven extinctions elsewhere.
The key word here is CULTURE. Cultures are capable of being shaped, reformed, in ways that alter their adherents behaviors. The coining of the term Culture Wars was not accidental. Mentioned by most advocates of paradigm shift is the need for a culture shift that helps propel the paradigm change. Currently, too many people are guilty of (one of several) doublethink--that it's possible to continue BAU and save the environment with little behavioral change. Trying to unhinge this doublethink is the underlying motive for writers like Monbiot, Kunstler, and Heinberg. But without the great resources of the propaganda networks it will be very difficult to create the cultural seachange needed to even try to solve our current dilemmas and adapt. And of course, I'm primarily addressing "Western" culture.
Humans are animals. All animals kill to eat. All animals have a rudimentary culture established to accomplish this need. This culture is a priory. All additional human behaviors have this culture at their base. It's possible for animals to develop additional layers of culture that soften the brutishness of the primal culture. Humans have shown ingenuity in trying to accopmlish this, but have failed at even reaching the milestone of becoming equalitarian amongst themselves, although some have tried.
The above is why it's hard to be an antidoomer. It would take generations in the best of times to arrive at a universal equalitarian culture. The problem is we don't have generations worth of time, nor will those times be plentiful. Humans like Bush, Blair, Olmert, Cheney, Howard, Hitler, and Stalin relish exercising the primal culture against their own species--They are cannibals, and only one on that list was punished for such behavior. Until humans get the will to overthrow/arrest and punish such perpetrators--acts that show they really care about their fellows--there can be little hope that the coming dislocations caused by Peak Oil and Climate Change will not result in massive violence, perhaps nuclear war.
Humans like Bush, Blair, Olmert, Cheney, Howard, Hitler, and Stalin relish exercising the primal culture against their own species--They are cannibals, and only one on that list was punished for such behavior.
Albert Howard was punished?
http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/howard.html
You seem to have turned a blind eye to the genocides in Sudan over the past decades, and the genocide of Christians in Iraq by the Islamicists. You have overlooked the human tragedy in Zimbabwe that has sent tens of thousands fleeing across borders. A revolution to empower Blacks resulted in the stealing of farm land from Whites who were paying their mortages. Inexperienced Black farmers yielded little fruit and the nation began to starve.
Haiti has been suffering from lack of planning and smoldering with violence for years. The Gaza birthrate is very high, the people there were incapable of feeding themselves. Having rapidly outgrown their little territory they have fired on their neighbors in desperation. Who is to blame for their poor planning and failed systems of ethics, but themselves? The Israelis had more land, higher education, and a lower birth rate for a more sustainable existence.
You seem to have turned a blind eye to the genocides in Sudan over the past decades, and the genocide of Christians in Iraq by the Islamicists.
Not at all. I have no power to change those things, so rather than worry about them, I've opted to worry about the things I can change.
Like buying move PV. Getting variances in zoning so I can have actual fixed hot solar water. Putting in a garden.
Trying to convice others that living a lower energy lifestyle is a better plan than the machete mosh pit plan that looks to be the program.
rainsong. I appologize for not listing all of the very many atrocities, especially those you favor mentioning. It seems your point is that such behavior isn't limited to white Europeans. Our primal culture arose in Africa, so it is not remakable that cannibalistic behavior exists/ed there, as black culture is the fount of all human cultures. Perhaps you are familiar with the concept of Original Sin. The Ten Commandments demand we not kill or steal, yet as animals those behaviors are a priori for humans. Recall I mentioned human efforts to overcome its a priori failings. Perhaps you recall the Code of Hammurabi, the first written law text (although the Vedic oral laws have proven older) aimed at taming a mass of unruley animals. Interesting the references to the Gods of Gilgamesh.
To become truely civilized, humans must transcend their animal nature, often mistakenly called human nature. If that can be accomplished, we can solve most any dilemma.
And your demonization of "human nature" is just as much a romanticization as any Rouseauian vision. The difference I see is that Cascadia tried to leave some room for doubt. You, however, declare to know precisely what human nature is. Does make me wonder what makes you think you have a special insight on this.
I cannot see any arrogance in the assumption that the genetic programmes that run homo sapiens are just the same as in every other being that walkes the earth.
One person or group might be able to overcome the desire to breed and to live the easiest possible life, but as a whole species we cannot. It is utterly naive to think that all the people will find comfort in a life where temperance is the highest of all values.
In fact every nation, culture, tribe or whatever that grows has a significant advantage over all its competitors who do not. Eventually those who grow will simply overrun and drive out the modest people and the ostracism of growth will be replaced by the old dogma of worshiping it.
History is full of examples of growing nations and empires that wiped out and enslaved those who could not compete with them, but tell me one that ruled a significant part of this world by saying "we have enough, we don't need more" and was able to stop those who said the complete opposite.
Why? Because there was a whole world to be conquered. 100,000 years ago the earth was sparsely populated with hominids, so when the land couldn't support the growing population anymore they moved on, extruding other species, sometimes driving them to extinction. You might say that we did "perfectly fine", and yes we did, from a certain point of view. But this "doing so fine" will also be our downfall.
Our population grew, so, you see, growth was part of us, since we started to roam around. In fact it is part of every species, as every one of them tries to grow its population. Not intentionally, of course, but nature arranged it that way, that specimen try to breed (Species who don't, will die out sooner or later and be replaced by others who don't restrict their growth.) and when they breed, the outcome is population growth. Now, most of the time their population is kept in check by other forces before they start degrading their habitat to a lifless desert, but if it isn't, well, look, what we are doing.
So, did we live in harmony with nature back then? No, certainly not. We did, what we do now, but death and diseases limited our growth, and if we grew, we settled in new areas. After there was no more place on earth waiting for us to arrive, we started to fight each other, to develop tools, which helped us to maintain growth, to feed the growing population and we will do so, until all our apish trickery becomes useless.
I am not talking, nor thinking about culture, and I never will, because it can be, whatever you want it to be. The term "culture" evades a definite definition. Thus, I think, it became just one more of many idiotic concepts the human mind came up with to distinguish "them" from "us".
If you are talking about the "culture of economy" well, it will fade, and ultimately, it will vanish, but anyway, it is not the root of our problems, of greed and growth. How our economy developed is just an image of ourselves and our evolutionary heritage, from a time when power, greed and growth were rewarded.
I am talking about our most basic traits here, "culture" has nothing to do with it.
As to our behavior, yes I think it is the only way, we, as a whole, could behave. You might be able to behave different, I might also, but all mankind cannot. To think otherwise would mean to believe in miracles, or that we, man, are different from all other species on this planet. I do believe in neither.
FalloutMonkey (great screen name, by the way).
Thanks for the considered response. I will not endeavor to respond point by point as it would make this far too long. Instead, I will try to address the highlights and show you where I disagree.
I do not believe the arrogance is in the "assumption that the genetic programmes that run homo sapiens are just the same as in every other being." Frankly, this may or may not be so and you labeling it as an assumption suggests you agree it is not something that can be proved. What I find arrogant is that any one person, having made that assumption, can than continue on to say that "I know what that programming is." Beyond that, your supporting argument is not from genetics but appeals to reason and to history. Let's take a second to look at that history aspect.
First, we must recognize that history itself comprises only a small portion of our time here on earth, all occurring in the last 6000 years. And until recently history only considered a small portion of the global population, those that lived in "civilizations." Now, your observation that history has witnessed many growth-oriented groups wiping out the "modest" groups is obvious enough. Does this suggest to you that the ultimate value of any society is whether it survives or not. Will you stick to that valuation should modern civilization collapse and the only survivors are the few remaining "modest" ones?
But the real telling passage here is your question asking "but tell me one that ruled a significant part of this world." As if ruling the world were a measure of success.
On our 100,000 years I can only suggest that you delve a little deeper. Of course there were population fluctuations, but for the most part our population was remarkably stable. Your observations about "every species" are also off base as you neglect the many examples of stable populations in stable ecosystems. And it is simply not demonstrable that we moved on simply because of population pressures. Did we live in harmony with nature? Probably not the right question. Did we live within the confines of natural ecosystems? Sure. Did we sometimes screw up? Certainly. What we didn't do was consciously set out to extract wealth from nature without a concern about the repercussions. That is the expertise of civilizations.
You say you aren't talking about culture, but that's all you talk about, whether you want to admit it or not. And it is in this section you again come to the same move you made at the beginning. You say "how our economy developed is just an image of ourselves and our evolutionary heritage" but you offer absolutely no evidence of what this "heritage" is. You do make the assumption that it's somehow connected to a time "when power, greed and growth were rewarded." So you self define the task, find the genetic structures that reward power, greed and growth and you'll have me convinced. Until you can do that, your conclusion that as a species we are condemned to behave in only one way is nothing more than a supposition on your part.
My pleasure.
I cannot even prove my own existence, without making certain assumptions, so no, I cannot prove that I am right here, but what I have observed leads me to the conclusion, that we are like any other being on this planet, and that every other being would behave not significantly different from us, if they had the same physical and mental abilities as we do.
I would be very surprised, if our sexual desire was not driven by our genes. And unrestricted breeding will bring every super-dominant species down to its knees.
Concerning our search for comfort, well, this might not originate from our genes, but then I would ask myself, why all animals behave that way. Even our dog favors the couch over the floor. My logic tells me, that living in comfort raises your survivability, thus seeking it makes perfect sense from an evolutionary point of view. But our strive to live in ease and our rejection of even the slightest discomfort is doing this world no good.
If you'd ask anyone if he'd rather live the life of hunter gatherers, or a life with lots of shiny stuff, I guess, most of them will choose the latter.
Well, as recorded history seems to indicate that people didn't change a lot over the millenia, I have little doubt that their ancestors were not in any way different from them. These civilizations did not develop in a vacuum. If people would have thought that what they are doing is foolish, they would have dismissed and opposed the whole concept immediately. But it is obvious that they did not.
Now, we have indigenous people today, which are opposing the invasion of our way of life, be it, because they fear the new, or see the destruction it causes, it doesn't matter. What matters though is that over time they have no chance against our parasitic civilization. If they resist and fight, they will be pushed aside, if they don't, they will be assimilated. In that, we behave little different from cancer. But in the end, our concept will prevail, just to fail afterwards.
No, I feel a great deal of abhorrence when I think about what we are doing. But I don't cherish the illusion that some kind of enlightening moment will happen that changes us for the rest of our existence. I am certain that our civilization will collapse, maybe faster than anyone would assume, and that no civilization will come even close to ours in regards of electronic fancy stuff, resource waste, environmental destruction and population size for many millions of years. But I am also certain that new civilizations will arise, as long as we don't die out, and they will follow the same dogma, growing, fighting, enslaving, destroying and finally collapsing.
To prevent that, technological advancement would have to stop forever, leaving us with no more sophisticated stuff than bow and arrow. But tools are with us now for millions of years, making it highly unbelievable that we won't search for solutions in technology anymore.
I am not talking about success, like in the context of winning. I am talking about evolutionary success. Those people who don't even try to grow will over time be outbred by those who do grow, in size and power, replacing their points of view. This is just natural. I don't say it is sustainable, I don't say it is good, and those who follow this path will, in the end, not overcome the limits nature imposes upon them. But they will always prevail against those who restrict themselves, and it will be this way, until man becomes extinct.
I guess there are no stable populations. You said it, they fluctuate, and human population fluctuated either, until a certain point, when we became so effective in preventing our death that more of us survived than died. That's what I am talking about all the time. All the factors that kept our numbers down, were less and less able to kill off, what we were littering. We became the unchallenged numero uno of the animal kingdom. No predator could kill us without facing severe consequences, no parasite nor disease was able to infest and kill us in enough numbers to stop population growth, because we constantly came up with some stupid idea that allowed us to stay alive.
The major difference between us and those many thousands of years ago was likely that they were less successful in preventing death, thus not having a population problem. I don't think they had some kind of intentional birth control, and without that their unintentional meme was growth just as today, although being a lot less sucessful.
I see only one reason, why a species should leave its original hunting grounds, which is that its habitat cannot feed it properly anymore. This can either occur by it becoming inhabitable in one way or another, or by growing the population over a sustainable limit. The "out of Africa" theory suggests that our population grew, otherwise there would have been no pressure to settle in ever new regions, some of which were quite hostile for a naked ape like us. A stable population, formerly crammed together in Africa, that spreads itself all over the world would mean that single groups of homo sapiens would've been very isolated. Thus logic tells me that our population grew, and when we reached ever new domains, we grew further.
The question is, why did we live in the natural confines of the ecosystem? Because we chose to do so? Or is it more likely that we simply weren't able to breach these confines, because we kept dying nearly as fast as our females could squeeze our spawn out of their wombs?
I think the latter is far more likely.
Well, yes, money wasn't around then, so the concept of wealth was likely limited to a man and his spear, or something like that. But I don't think this is the fundamental problem. Our problem is our dominance. It doesn't surprise me that we use this dominance to exploit this planet to the last, just for a little bit of comfort. But after we have destroyed it, our dominance will not simply disappear, not until we are gone for sure. Our ability to make massive use of tools will persist, so will our power to destroy. And power is tempting. Sooner or later we will use it again, because it makes life cosy. My experience gives me no reason to think otherwise.
And you certainly can tell me which kind of culture I am talking about. Is it the culture of breeding? Or the culture of making tools? The culture of comfort?
Well, I often make the mistake to assume that others can understand easily the things that are obvious to me. So what is our evolutionary heritage? I'd say, it is, what made us survive. And the things that made us survive are basically the same as in every other being. Spawning lots of offspring, keeping it alive, keep yourself alive and healthy to get the chance to breed, be efficent in getting food and so on. Simply basic stuff that secures the survival of your genes and your species.
Why is power rewarded? Because those who have power, meaning mostly physical or mental strenght in the natural world, are more likely to win an encounter with a possible rival, thus occupying the better hunting grounds and getting most of the girls. Meaning power is good for making your genes survive.
Why is greed rewarded? Because those who are greedy have more incentive to get what they want, be it food or whatever makes your life better and easier. To much greed can be bad though, e.g. if you start fighting those to whom you can't stand up to.
Why is growth rewarded? Well, growth is good, because it increases the chance of a species to survive. A species that grows all over the world is less susceptible to changes in one area. Population growth helps you to compete with others for food (in the case of man this is now about every other animal, and we are winning big time.)
Sure, but yours is also, with the little difference that I can point towards more than 6 billion humans and a lot of other beings which underpin my supposition, while you have only the assumption that you are right about the way people lived and thought a long time ago.
Maybe you are right and we will see a big enlightenment, but looking at myself, I dare to say: No, it will not come. At least not to stay.
AFAIK populations follow a pattern of punctuated equilibrium, trundling along at much the same level for ages, pretty much along the lines of some sort of 'society in harmony with nature'.
In human societies at least that often does not mean that all the women have as many children as they can, with the excess dying off.
In many societies devices such as late marriage, abortion or social mores such as a prohibition on intercourse whilst the last baby is breatfeeding, which maygo an for several years, keep the rate of increase low or perhaps even the population stable.
One of the best documented examples of this is eighteenth century England, where in the country areas parish records show a population which is not increases anywhere near as fast as it might.
This equilibrium can be punctuated in any one of a variety of ways, form disease to a volcanic eruption leading to very poor harvests.
The rebound after these events is often vigorous enough to take population to well above the levels prior to the crash, and the individuals then have to see if there is any way to make that sustainable.
Similar considerations surely apply to prehistoric human populations.
Happy is the society with no written records, because the sometimes massive swings in population are not apparent to posterity, but that does not mean that they did not happen.
If you think of a world which swung into and out of ice ages, then any notion of a stable population, or one which was adapted to any one balance of nature, is not sustainable.
Being human, a further source of instability would have been societal - it was split into hundreds of groups, and even if an accommodation had been arrived at which might have endured for some time, with conflict ritualised for instance in stick fighting instead of all-out war, all it takes is one of the groups to go outside the rules for all hell to break loose, and a drought or such would provide the impetus to do so.
It is therefore surely in error to regard prehistoric society as being in some perpetual harmony and balance with nature, just as it is probably, although on somewhat slighter evidence, a mistake to regard conflict and violent attempts to overthrow the existing order as obtaining all the time and everywhere.
The caveat is because some of the 'primitive' societies which we know of do in fact exhibit a remarkable and sustained level of conflict, with murder and attempted genocide everyday occurrences ( Amazonia, Papua New Guinea )
So surely the safest conclusion is that as far as we can see into the past, the human condition has been pretty much the same, with some societies relatively peaceful and harmonious, albeit with something of a tendency to indulge in cannibalism and human sacrifice,and others far more conflictual.
That is really the problem with ideas about the sustainable society.
How long would it last?
How sustainable would it be?
It wouldn't last forever, that's for sure - something would puncture their equilibria.
I would agree with your assessment of the state of prehistory. I think it is very important not to fall into the trap of thinking all prehistoric cultures everywhere were the same. And equally important not to accept the Hobbesian or Rousseauian romanticizations.
I would add one observation about population growth. As best as we can tell, the human population was reasonably stable for tens of thousands of years until one band of hubris filled individuals decided to come down out of the Zagros mountains and foothills and tried to make a living tilling the soils of a flood plain that had been previously viewed as relatively useless except as a place to gather seed for food.
You ask some important questions;
And I think your assumption that a society can not stay in equilibrium perpetually. But I also think that sense of permanency is a relic of the civilized mindset. A sustainable society - or perhaps we should say a set of sustainable societies because universalism is itself unsustainable - would not try to stay the same, it would attempt to consistently change, adapt to it's changing environment. It would not last long in any one shape. It is sustainable because it is capable of that change, it reacts to the incessant puncturing of its equilibrium.
(a story I heard about some villagers in Micronesia might be helpful here. The person I heard it from spent more than a year in the village and was aghast when she saw people intentionally torching their own straw houses (they were, she insisted, more than huts). What she learned, though, was that the villagers routinely burned their huts when the termites got too bad. They would build a new house, move their important stuff in and torch the old one every few years. When she told the villagers about the relative permanence of houses where she came from, they had a hard time understanding the purpose. They kept asking questions like "what if you had to move?" "What if a storm knocked it down?" and of course "what about termites?")
This is an interesting discussion - thanks for the reply.
My argument from what is known of climate though indicates that population never was very stable, but fluctuated intensely.
The problem is with the phrase 'as far as is known it was stable'
This indicates more about our degree of knowledge than the stability of the population in question.
Perhaps this can be illustrated by comparing the population histories of India and China.
In India traditionally population has been shown by demographers as having a very smooth curve up until fairly recent times when records were kept by the British Raj, and the graph suddenly becomes much more saw-toothed - it is obvious from that that population can be assumed to have fluctuated by at least as much in earlier times, it was just not recorded.
This is borne out by the population record of China, which time out of mind has kept census records of it's population, and that fluctuated considerably in the same eras as according to the demographic graphs India was sailing serenely on!
Another line of reasoning to the same result is that prior to the invention of agriculture human population dynamics are unlikely to have diverged significantly from similar dynamics in animals which form troops.
Those populations are not stable, save over the relatively short term, but instead fluctuate according to the rules of punctuated equilibria, or on small areas like islands have perhaps two stable points, with a high and a low population and a trigger which may initiate change from one state to the other - forgive me if my terminology is incorrect, as it is many years since I read the relevant books - in any case, in chaos theory there are systems which when a small stimulus is arbitrarily applied, can switch between two stable states - which may be relevant to discussion regarding sustainable populations when an energy shock is applied.
Anyway, thanks for a stimulating discussion, which is stretching my old brain!
Let me start by saying its a pleasure to have an exchange with someone who actually engages the ideas rather than seeking "one-up-manship".
Truly your effort deserves more of a response than I am going to have time for today. So, I hope we can take this forward in other discussions. But let me see if I can at least suggest where I would go with this. (Just an aside - your opening observation on assumptions is appropriate, but it reminded me of the opening line of Wittgenstein's book "On Certainty" - "If you can prove to me that 'here is a hand' then I will grant you all the rest.")
Anyway, let me look at one of the putative connections between genetics and behavior that you make. Specifically, you say "I would be very surprised, if our sexual desire was not driven by our genes."
It's not exactly clear to me what you mean by that, but on the surface it appears you are saying that I want to have sex because my genes program me to want it. I suppose the purpose for this would be so that the genes themselves will be replicated when I procreate? But perhaps that is going too far for now I have attributed a very human notion (purpose) to genes and that might be a stretch.
But I can't see a way out of this issue with purpose. For if my genes program me to want to have sex, their is the question of the purpose of that sex. If the answer is simply to reproduce, then we have to deal with all of the sex that we have that isn't aimed at reproduction (including masturbation, homosexuality, and out of cycle copulation).
So does this require us to back up yet further and say that our genes merely program us to desire sex, the reproduction is just a fortunate side effect? If so, we are now confronted with a whole bunch of different issues regarding how desire operates. You may find one person desirable, I may find a different one desirable. Desirability over time clearly changes, as it does over space and in different groups (or subcultures) within the same society. So, while it may be possible that genes program for desire, it is difficult to see how that would account for the variability of desire.
So while I do not rule out the possibility, I find the argument for genetic programming lacking when it is based on supposition that it must be this way. Until I see some ability on the part of geneticists to connect particular genetic structures to specific behaviors, then I will take all these arguments with a grain of salt.
Your argument at the end I find interesting - I'm not sure it is an accurate way to resolve this (especially since both of our arguments rest on substantial assumptions), but it would seem you are saying you have the weight of population numbers on your side, while I have the duration of history. Hmmm.
Anyway, again, thanks for the exchange. I hope to have the opportunity to do more of this in the future.
I'm not a doomer, because I don't know as a matter of absolute certainty that a catastrophic die off and fast crash back to the paleolithic, if not outright extinction, is completely inevitable and unavoidable.
However, I'm also not a cornucopian, because I DO know as a matter of absolute certainty that all non-renewable resources WILL deplete, and that we WILL have to live within the means provided solely by renewable resources. That means a sustainable, steady-state economy is our future, and that it is going to have to be an economy where we are poorer, and probably fewer, than we are now.
I'm hopeful that we can ride a rough, scary trip down to something of a soft landing, and that we can somehow preserve a good part of our cultural and technological patrimony through it all.
Darwinian "...the cornucopians cornucopian..."
I first read about Peak Oil in a small publication titled Out Of Gas: The End Of The Age Of Oil by David Goodstein. In that book Goodstein rejected the notion that when the peak occurs new alternative sources of energy will be able to continue the industry in the same way as it is at present. Four years ago I did not accept that prognosis. I thought mankind was pretty clever and we would adapt.
I considered electric technology and finally realized that that is dependent on Coal and natural gas. That won't work. I looked at Nuclear and that's still fossil fuel. You consider wind, solar as well as conservation and although I acknowledge that those measures will help mitigate Peak Oil they will not prevent a collapse.
Eventually I arrived at the conclusion that the current paradigm of driving and using massive amounts of energy is sooner or later going to fail.
In conclusion: I would warn readers of TOD that if you hang out around here long enough you eventually drink the elixer and end up becoming one of the doomsday "Zombie Hordes".
I am worried about Doomers turning cannibal, since it would solve so much!
The vegetarians can always feed their kill to their vegetable garden...
I think it will show post peak here when we get the first post:
'Here's one I killed earlier'.....
Dave - I grew up in the Silver State - Nevada. Nevada has a long and storied history of cannibalism. But we have a euphemism for it in Nevada.
We call it "The Long Pig".
One of the founders of our state, Kit Carson, introduced starving army cadets to that delicacy in the Majove desert over 150 years ago.
Donner, party of 4...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donner_Party
That is Really Funny!
Just the natural order of things. When the an organism runs out of external resources as a last ditch effort at ultra short term survival it feeds on itself.
I would argue that the "zombie hordes" are those driving gasoline guzzling trucks and sports cars and assuming they can continue to do the same thing they've always done. Those who "drink the elixir" fall into two categories - those who are too shocked to react to the awareness and those who do react to the awareness.
Here's hoping for the slow moving 'George Romero zombies' instead of those rabid sprinting zombies that the movie-film industry likes to portray these days. My running endurance isn't what it used to be :)
You'll end up bio-digested and fed to a SUV, I fear.....
Paul Kedrosky with a couple of good finds yesterday...
NatGeo on Peak Oil and Sebastiao Salgado and The Curse of Oil.
Worth reading. Sources at original.
Salgado is Ansel Adams as if humanity mattered.
TVA says drought slammed 2nd quarter net
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/5777087.html
Here in N. Cal we have 30 mph winds and over 100 deg temp ... 105 deg. by Saturday
No global cooling here ... we are in serious drought
Close call yesterday. Seeing it on the news last night it looked like the pipeline damage was more severe, apparently not:
http://www.bizjournals.com/eastbay/stories/2008/05/12/daily64.html
Current Drought Monitor graphics show CA recovered somewhat from last year's drought conditions, which is to say there's been a reduction in drought severity. Fire season will probably provide quite a show.
In a former incarnation as a school principal, we had the problem of gas being stolen out of the school busses. So I had locking gas caps placed on 'em. The gas thieves got around this by simply cutting the fuel line. Replacing the fuel lines cost more than the stolen gas did, so the locking caps were removed & the thieves essentially given license to steal. The price of gas nowadays makes the situation a little different.
In a separate (howbeit concurrent) incarnation as a volunteer firefighter, there were several times when we responded to the fire alarm only to find that the fire truck had had its gas siphoned. Once we were underway to the fire when the driver noticed the gas gauge was on empty. All the firefighters dug thru their pockets for whatever change & small bills they had, so we could gas up the truck before continuing on to the fire. Needless to say, the house had burnt to the ground by the time we got there (which was usually the case anyway, given the distances involved). There was also a time or two we responded to a fire alarm only to find that the battery had been stolen from the fire truck. People willing to steal gas & batteries from a fire truck gives some indication of the cannibal ape's true nature.
As does your and your colleagues willingness to volunteer your time and reach into your own pockets for no reward.
Well done indeed!
Well done, yourself.
(When will we learn not universalize "human nature"?)
Actually, by volunteering as a firefighter, the government subsidized my rent, which was the main reason I did it.
I am sure you operated from impeccably 'Selfish Gene' motivations, and therefore would not have drempt of risking your life rescuing a child caught in a blaze, or anything like that, as that would represent a greater cost than the savings on rent! ;-)
Hello Darwinsdog,
I have posted before on a partial solution to this problem: easily removable gastanks that can be stored in a more secure area. For example: my scooter can be easily fixed up with small gravity feed bottle. A larger vehicle, such as a pickup truck, could have a five gallon jerry can securely strapped in the bed, but easily removed when the owner get home. Make sure you have specialized hose fittings that would make difficult for the thieves to match. It makes it very difficult to steal a vehicle if it won't start--thieves are not inclined to push a vehicle to a gas-station.
If I could ever convince someone to start my speculative Hell's Angels gas-stations: I would never have to worry about a significant fuel theft plus I could personally arbitrage my fuel supply. Just another partial solution.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Hi Bob. LoL The above reminds me of the time I was working on a thinning contract in the Gila Nat. Forest and when we were done & ready to go home, discovered that the fuel pump had gone out on the old International van we'd driven up there in. So what we did was remove the hood & hook up a siphon hose to the carburetor. I held a 5 gallon gas can balanced on the dash as my coworker drove, with the hose running out the window to the carb. Not the most fun trip down the mountain, but it worked!
Clever solution--beats walking back!
I want to see the first video of a guy caught trying to siphon an electric car.
The thieves will want the batteries and any copper:
http://www.wtov9.com/news/15910554/detail.html
----------------------
Batteries Stolen In Belmont County
--------------------
In this case potential "thieves" will be delivered a swift 1,000 volts of electricity once the cars antitheft systems are breached, incapacitating the would be theive until authorities can pick up the dumb rascal.
The thieves, wearing protective gear, laugh as the car's antitheft system tries in vain to prevent their handiwork. The tires are slashed out of spite.
Another team, down the street, loads intact EVs onto their flatbed truck for complete dismantling at a distant location. A couple holding hands, and a man walking a dog pass by the night-time operation, assuming the cars are being towed for a legitimate purpose.
And so, the saga goes on...
-best,
Wolf
But what the thieves don't know wearing their protective gear, is they have unknowingly set off the electric cars high tech gps locater alarm. Police swarm the area in a matter of minutes and the poor chumps have to be careful picking up the soap in the shower the next few years.
A group of smarter thieves, working a different part of town that has a dearth of police due to a recent call about vehicular theft, fires an EMP gun at a line of EVs. All electronics, GPS locators, defense systems etc. are fried in an instant. One car's owner, with extra money to spend, has paid into a system that notifies personnel at a high-cost operations center, and the law is contacted. However, the number of false alarms has been high, and as noted police are busy chasing high-prospect leads, so they're a bit slow in arriving at the scene of merely a possible infraction. The thieves quickly load some of the disabled vehicles onto a rig to later strip them of remaining valuable items, like copper, at a nearby chop-shop.
-best,
Wolf
You go Wolfy - Sounds like you got a good start on;
"Alice through the bottleneck" ?
Cheers
Thanks, soup...
Here's something I've been ruminating over for some time now:
---
Yangtze flu now in Africa, Europe, North America
Alice Lookingglass, Europe Correspondent
Published: Friday, May 15, 2009
London, UK - Global civilization has been abruptly wrenched into a new age.
The deadly Yangtze flu that has resulted in perhaps a billion fatalities in China, India and neighboring countries has struck France, Italy and Greece. A rapidly escalating series of cases have also appeared in Egypt, Somalia and South Africa.
Nowhere seems truly safe from this unprecedented and historic catastrophe. The flu has been confirmed across the oceans in Miami, Florida, parts of Alaska and in Los Angeles, California. Aside from Antarctica, South America is the only continent to remain free of the virus. Many disease specialists think it's just a matter of time for all the Americas to fall victim.
This incredibly potent strain of the Influenza A virus might have been carried into new locations by birds, though human carriers showing no symptoms have also been implicated.
Without intensive medical care, the death rate appears to be nearly 50%. This figure, by necessity, is a rough estimate. Little information is getting out of heavily stricken regions. According to Dr. Emory Hubbard, of the National Centre for Infectious Diseases, "If the symptoms are treated early, and the patient given excellent care, there's some indication that fatality rates can be lowered to about twenty-five percent."
All international travel remains shut down indefinitely. Only essential cargos, such as food, oil and compressed natural gas, are allowed to travel by sea and air. All markets continue their downward spiral. An increasing number of countries have simply closed their borders. Militaries, especially forces of the United States, are being mobilized world-wide...
---
Or, given the massive disruption that would result, the Big Brother approach to the same news story could be considered:
"A mild flu has caused some problems in Asia... ...a new and improved series flu shots are recommended by medical specialists. Contact your doctor immediately so that you can get the higher level of protection offered by the latest inoculation."
-best
Wolf
the death rate appears to be nearly 50%.
And here comes the ferry across the river Styxx.
Total Energy in humanity = number of people * energy rate per person.
X = Y * Z
Solving for a lower X number, looks like the drop in Y may be the answer.
This would not be in the neighborhoods where the theives caught by the local militias are left dangling by the neck from the trees and street lights lining the streets, would it?
Depends on how much of an adrenaline rush the current crop of thieves are looking for. Some may like a good challenge, and live their lives entirely in the moment (where future consequences aren't very big on the motivation scale). And they could be very well armed, too. Yeah, many would probably be eliminated very quickly.
-best,
Wolf
gas siphoned.
Wonder how long it will be till people start fixing fake gas tanks so when people siphon they get tainted gas.
The classic 'taint would be sugar. A fine powder in the mix would clog fuel lines. Something that would change the O2 level or cause the fuel to pre-detonate might also work.
LOL. I was thinking about carrying a
container in the back of my truck, spiked with something to destroy an engine.
spiked with something to destroy an engine.
Ahhhh, but what?
(Channels chem classes where the labs mixed hydrocarbons with K-based oxidizers...I asked 'isn't that dangerous' - and the chem lab ended up changed.)
Bleach. Just make sure you keep it in a plastic container. Rust...OMFG. For more fun, stop in to your local airport and get some leaded AVGAS - which will destroy the oxygen sensors and catalytic converter (particularly nasty in areas with emissions testing). Or just take some crummy gas and load it with Cetane booster - detonation city!
Edit: The moral to this story is that there are many ways to screw something up, and usually much fewer to fix them.
Hello TODers,
http://www.usaid.gov/press/speeches/2008/ty080514.html
-----------------------------------
Statement of Henrietta H. Fore
Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance and Administrator, USAID
U.S. Response to the Global Food Crisis: New Approaches
Before the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate May 14, 2008
---------------------------------
IMO, just more BAU. Very little ecological foresight from Ms. Fore.
I was hoping for radical change whereby full-on Peak Outreach* to the masses would be mandatory in exchange for receiving help. The current trajectory guarantees that Malthusian effects and misery will be the result.
*[which includes family planning to limit births]
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Does this signify a change in policy, whereby food aid can be procured locally, instead of being produced in the US & shipped around the world? If so, it's an improvement over BAU altho it's sure to make American welfare farmers cry.
Looks like this has had a major effect on commodities. Oil plunged by over $4 but is slowly recovering. News networks are saying the fall is related to new legislation closing the "Enron loophole" but the timing looks close to the power failure.
ICE says energy and agriculture trading to resume
Interestingly
ICE Futures Volumes
A record volume for Brent yesterday?
I think this chart (from ICE) shows how it impacted Brent quite well.
Can you spot when ICE power failed and resumed? :-)
WTI now back up over $124
Hello Undertow,
Heh,Heh! I wonder how the psychology of these traders will change when the trading floor goes down repeatedly? I would also encourage their vending machines not to be restocked very often, the plumbing in the bathrooms to fall into disrepair, and no food safety inspections in any restaurants or cafeterias nearby. :)
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Or as this quote on Bloomberg puts it...
Intercontinental Exchange Stops Trading After Outage
You do have to admire his sense of proportion :-)
I wonder what Moe thinks of this drop? I know he was looking for the run to the mid $120s and he's also stated he thinks we're going to roughly $145 before year end.
I need to learn to read these signals better.
Despite the huge swings WTI (on NYMEX) closed pretty much unchanged for the day.
PRICE* CHANGE % CHANGE
124.03 -.19 -.15
Bloomberg now attributing the swing to the new legislation and the power failure at ICE (previously they were just mentioning the legislation until it shot back up when ICE reopened).
Options expired today as well. Any details on the new legistlation? I've only read some vague news about increasing margin requirements - not sure by how much though.
Just wanted to let you guys know that I posted the followon to my "Commuting Costs on Vancouver Island" blog entry... today... "Commuting Costs for Victoria BC"... you will need Quicktime to view the slideshow showing the effect of rising fuel prices.
Scenarios are for 22 and 55mpg (4.2 and 10.7L/100km)... and at cost of $1.20, $1.50, $2.00, $3.00 and $8.00/L
Here's the teaser image:
And *please* if you would like to show your support for reviving the rail line on Vancouver Island. Go to Our Corridor.ca and sign up as a "Friend of the Corridor". We're trying to convince the Provincial and Federal government to invest $100 million to make the short line railroad (which is now community owned), viable again.
Current capacity utilization of US automakers, the last 6 months seem to have hit them very hard:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7403525.stm
---------------------------------------
Lagos pipeline blast 'kills 100'
At least 100 people have been killed in an oil pipeline explosion in Nigeria's commercial capital Lagos, the local Red Cross says.
The explosion tore through the Ijegun suburb, engulfing schools and homes after a bulldozer burst the pipeline, reports Reuters news agency.
Red Cross officials said many injured people had been taken to hospital and they were still trying to rescue more.
----------------------------------------
So, here I was explaining to my mother the possible benefits of a global carbon taxation system in combatting climate change,
of which there are too few, when she asks me:
whats carbon?
I tried to explain that it is a chemical element and an elemental constituent of all known forms of life,
and she didnt know that.
My mum isnt completely stupid, she just never had chemistry or physiscs in school, for some reason.
And she is concerned about global warming, she said,
but doesnt know what carbon is?
she watches a lot of tv, so she should have at least heard the word mentioned once or twice in the past decade.
It would seem difficult to process most of the information regarding global warming without at least a simple understanding of the carbon cycles,
which is why the MSM tries to barely explain it at all in ineffective infotainment style all over again in every item that involves it.
I wonder how many people being targeted by global warming messages dont actually know what carbon is?
or that humans exhale it in oxidised form?
maybe as much as 1 in 30?
Might this ignorance regarding the existence of Carbon
be more widespread in the West?, I mean, despite all that noise.
To be honest, without peeking at the periodic table, I can't remember exacty what Carbon is. I think it's got a weight of 12 or 14, put I can't remember how much of that is protons or neutrons. I think it can bond with up to two oxygen atoms, or 4 hydrogen atoms. But beyond that, it's tough to remeber the details.
it's got both. there is carbon 12 and carbon 14.
Most on both sides of the issue have no idea how carbon plays into it. They might remember from high school that carbon is the basis of all life on earth, and then remember that they learned this in the same biology class that taught the "theory" of evolution and since thats wrong no telling what else in that class might have been wrong as well. All they know is what they are told by the MSM.
Planets warming.
vs.
It has been hotter in the past.
Humans produce something called "greenhouse gases" which is making the planet hotter and killing off polar bears somehow.
vs.
The sun is in a natural high activity stage and nature produces allot of "greenhouse gases" all by itself.
Through sound bites like this people are suppose to somehow make an informed decision on what to believe.
Have her watch "CRUDE - the incredable journey of oil"
http://www.abc.net.au/science/crude/
Hello Leanan,
Thxs for the Economist toplink on "Malthus, the False Prophet":
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Although neo-Malthusianism naturally has much to say about food scarcity, the doctrine emerges more generally as the idea of absolute limits on resources and energy, such as the notion of “peak oil”. Following the earlier scares of the 1970s, oil companies defied the pessimists by finding extra fields, not least since higher prices had spurred new exploration. But even if oil wells were to run dry, economies can still adapt by finding and exploiting other energy sources.
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LOL! Just as their earlier call on $5 crude was terribly wrong, this author has no understanding on the double whammy effect of depleting FF flowrates reducing NPK flowrates, not to mention existing water shortages and already collapsing fishstocks. I bet the author has no understanding that there are no substitutes to NPK to leverage plant growth above Liebig Minimums.
Once potash & phosphates have to be hand-mined by pick and shovel again: I suggest that he be the first laborer. Is it better to be over a mile underground vs out in the blazing heat of Morocco?
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
I seem to be reading a lot of these "Malthus was wrong" commentaries, lately. Unfortunately, the cornucopians will never prove him wrong -- it won't be over till it's over. Maybe that's why the old parson gets under their skin so.
It was quite nice to read the comments to the article, as most everyone showed the author to be a fool.
I've run into the situation where people are starting to tell me "facts" that are just plain wrong. Last night I was told that the dollar has lost 30% of it's value against the euro in the past year. Well, I don't spout off unless I know, so that shut me up except to say "I doubt that". I look it up the next day and find that the dollar has lost 18% against the euro since Jan '07. I was also told OPEC HAS been increasing supply of crude and that we haven't been flat since 2005. Cause the media told them so.
I have linked people to this site too. No one has ever read an article here that I showed them - including family. I've become a little bitter about it all lately.
Nova Scotia Power announced yesterday that with their latest 20-year purchase agreement now in place, they have exceeded their goal of bringing an additional 240 MW of wind capacity online by 2009, up from the 60 MW currently in service.
http://www.nspower.ca/about_nspi/in_the_news/2008/05142008.shtml
With luck, we might see that number approach 500 or 600 MW within the next five years (provincial peak demand is about 2,100 MW).
In terms of cost per kWh, NSP's 2007 Integrated Resource Plan has this to say:
"For the purposes of the IRP it is assumed incremental renewable generation will come mostly from wind and will provide a “capacity equivalent” of 32 percent of generator nameplate (manufacturer’s suggested maximum capacity). The resource is modeled at a contract price of $.085/kWh for the 2010 RPS, $.08/kWh for 2013. Beyond the amount required to comply with the RPS, additional renewable generation is driven by economics at a price of $.092/kWh."
Source: http://oasis.nspower.ca/documents/IRPReportVolume1July2007.pdf
These numbers may be adjusted once the utility completes work on its Wind Integration Study. NSP, like virtually all Canadian utilities, is winter peaking and that peak typically falls in January or February when wind resources are strongest. According to a 2005 report prepared by the New Brunswick Systems Operator, January's estimated capacity factor for New Brunswick and neighbouring Nova Scotia is 56 and 48 per cent, respectively, and the winter average is pegged at 46 and 40 per cent.
Source: http://www.nbso.ca/Public/_private/2005%20Maritime%20Wind%20Integration%...
Cheers,
Paul
Two of the Shell stations I walk past in Waterloo, ON are out of gas (they ran out early Wednesday). The only "fuel shortage shell ontario" news that I could find was for Simcoe (about an hour and a half from here). I guess Shell is running closer to MOL than they should be.
http://www.theobserver.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1028227
A service station near me shut down their pumps because they couldn't charge enough to make it profitable to refill them.
You'd think that today's Christian conservatives would tend to prefer Parson Malthus's outlook on life, given that you could frame our propensity to breed too much and then starve the surplus as a consequence of the Fall. (They would also recognize Malthus as a fellow member of the club.) Instead these Christians have tended to adopt the secular progress narrative from Enlightenment thinkers who often explicitly repudiated the Christian world view. Go figure.
I'm not surprised. People do what they want to do. Religions don't last long unless they are flexible enough to allow that.
There is a program on CBC radio called "Ideas". Today they had a debate on the pros and cons of the hydrogen economy. I think many TOD readers would find it interesting if you can get a link to it.
http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/features/hydrogen-solution/index.html
Hello TODers,
http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/1565635/
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Cdn Farmers To Use Fertilizer Carefully Given High Cost
...Unfortunately, input prices are not expected to fall anytime soon. An industry projection estimates that by spring, 2009, farmers will be paying $2,000.0 per metric ton for phosphorous fertilizer, Wishart said. The reason for the price increase has been a combination of demand from countries such as India and China and rising energy costs.
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Have you hugged your bag of NPK today?
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Hello TODers,
The next fertilizer installment from WIRED:
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/05/reactive-nitrog.html
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Reactive Nitrogen: The Next Big Pollution Problem
Without nitrogen to fertilize crops, the world couldn't feed itself. But if humanity doesn't cut back on the nitrogen it pumps into the environment, we could choke the oceans and ourselves.
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Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Hello TODers,
More double whammy on fertilizer? I don't think we have even begun to see the future bad news on I-NPK. Hope O-NPK recycling starts soon:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/16/2246921.htm?section=business
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Farmers 'ripped off' by fertiliser companies
Posted 4 hours 28 minutes ago
A Queensland MP says food prices will increase because of massive hikes in the price of agricultural fertilisers.
The member for Lockyer says farmers are being ripped off by fertiliser companies increasing prices by $250 this month alone.
Ian Rickuss says the matter must be raised at a Senate Committee inquiry into fertiliser pricing which got underway today.
"On Monday May 5 urea was $714 a tonne, a week later on the 12th of May it was $774 a tonne another week later it was $974 a tonne, that's just ridiculous its gone up 40 per cent in virtually two weeks," he said.
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Too bad Google won't premiere the unlucky button, and Tiger Woods isn't plowing golf courses as I suggested long ago.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
What a surprise. A QLD National Party MP who has no idea.
'The Smart State' indeed.
Hello TODers,
Recall that I have posted many times before that just sitting in the dark with a full belly is vastly preferable to starvation. I wonder if this gentleman has read my postings?
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Editorials/New_gas_allocation_priori...
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New gas allocation priorities
Minister of state for power Jairam Ramesh has reiterated that the fertiliser sector must get priority in feedstock (gas) allocation, even over power.
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Job specialization depends upon food surpluses. You can't get your power plant workers to make electricity if they and their families are starving.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/african-copper-q1-results,396840...
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THE OUTLOOK FOR COPPER
Copper prices have been strong in 2008. While the demand for copper is being supported by strong growth in China and India, the industry is struggling to increase supply. Production forecasts worldwide for 2008 and beyond are being revised downwards because of project delays, falling ore grades, strikes, weather, shortages of sulphuric acid, changes in tax regimes and power shortages. With many of these factors having no short-term solutions long-term prices are being revised upwards and a number of market analysts are expecting that long-term prices will remain above their long-term average for the next few years.
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This certainly does not look good if we are going postPeak too.
Some more headlines from the Peak Oil review (5/12):
http://www.aspo-usa.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=369&It...