Peak oil - even in the above scenario - is far from irrelevant. I have a weird feeling that industrial ag will take GCC into account and adjust the chemical mix accordingly - making us more dependent upon FF inputs.

In Poll, Many Link Weather Extremes to Climate Change

"A poll due for release on Wednesday shows that a large majority of Americans believe that this year’s unusually warm winter, last year’s blistering summer and some other weather disasters were probably made worse by global warming. And by a 2-to-1 margin, the public says the weather has been getting worse, rather than better, in recent years."

It's true that the majority of people don't act until the smoke is in their back yard. This is true for gasoline and electricity prices too.

The trade-offs will matter - higher energy prices or higher food prices - or both?

Fear of crop failures shows up first in futures prices, a fact not readily apparent until one visits the grocery store. Slow price increases are like a frog in slowly-warming water - he doesn't know when he's getting cooked.

Corn prices rise again as heat wilts Midwestern crops; other commodities mostly higher

If there was a massive crop failure, that would certainly wake people up, but probably rather too late. There would probably be food riots. One wonders if FEMA could handle the load. I'm not sure, though, if the call would be to stop using fossil fuels, or to burn whatever it takes to put chicken nuggets back on the menu.

I do agree with much of what you wrote. Reading this article, and those linked from it, just a few weeks ago has had me thinking about the implications of a drought that never really ends: http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2012-05-28/dust-bowlification-and-...

When you mention the possibility of things changing in 15 years, also remember the other effect of 15 years passing by - people age. Today's "climate change denialists" are generally older. In 15 years there will be less of them voting. There are few young denialists, most younger people accept the science. They will eventually be in charge of things...

Deja vu: (From May 6 2010)

I had a similar discussion with a friend a few years back. He gleefully predicted peak oil would stop AGW. I told him it was more like a sinking ship arriving too late to save a drowning witch.

Interesting comment and replies - all very US-centric.

Can you imagine the scale of the disaster on a global scale if there were food riots because of a "food shortage" in the US? Maybe, literally, tens of millions of people starving to death.

There is no doubt, as a matter of law, that greenhouse gases produced by man-made activity is causing global warming.

The Supreme Court and the Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia have both indicated:

A well-documented rise in global temperatures has coincided with a significant increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Respected scientists believe the two trends are related. For when carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, it acts like the ceiling of a greenhouse, trapping solar energy and retarding the escape of reflected heat. It is therefore a species—the most important species—of a “greenhouse gas.”

Calling global warming “the most pressing environmental challenge of our time,” a group of States, local governments, and private organizations, alleged in a petition for certiorari that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has abdicated its responsibility under the Clean Air Act to regulate the emissions of four greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide. [-Supreme Court]
...
Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497 (2007)—which clarified that greenhouse gases are an “air pollutant” subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act (CAA)—the Environmental Protection Agency promulgated a series of greenhouse gas-related rules.[-DC Circuit]

(Have The Courts Fallen For The Greatest Hoax?). The deniers are now at odds with the law which may lead to civil liability in lawsuits against greenhouse gas emitters and deniers.

As far as predicting the future goes it's all part of one much larger system. Problem with predictions, it is very hard to take all systems and all relationships into account, couple that with having to guess at a lot of the variables within each system. That being said, energy is a very key component in food production, for example the drought conditions are being mitigated to some extent by the energy for transportation over distance and irrigation. If we had truly unlimited supplies of energy we could even take the lack of rain out of the equation. Do not misunderstand the drought is significant, but energy from a regional point of view is necessary to feed the world as well.

Nice write-up, C8. I think you and I have reached the same conclusion: Our species has systemically screwed itself, and many other lifeforms as well. Whether or not we solve our energy/peak oil predicaments, and even if humans collectively begin to respond in mass to the causes/effects of depletion, environmental degradation, over-population, etc. (some forcing will be involved), we humans are damned if we do,, damned if we don't at this point. Our species has set itself a tough row to hoe, at least for several centuries. I've listed the many pitfalls we've created for ourselves and won't do so again here, but, that we've maxed out virtually every system required to sustain our current status quo is becoming quite evident. We face an unprecedented synchronicity of changes in the relative near term, and climate change will be paramount and fundamentally unavoidable. I've seen nothing to change my opinion on this. What to do?

While I have no hope of altering humankind's destructive path, I (we, locally) are keeping to the tasks that, if nothing else, help us feel like we're responding in the only sensible ways we can. On the subject of recurring/permanent drought and food security, I've spent much of the last two weeks improving the water system for our garden and livestock, and we are in one of the few areas that isn't currently in a drought condition according to the map (though this seems to be changing over the last few weeks).

We've had two spring-fed 1200 gallon cisterns supplying the house for 15 years. Last week we installed this 1600 gallon cistern on the hill above our garden/bottom land. It is fed by this spring which is in the forest above the garden, and has proven to be quite drought resistant in the past.

The spring is piped via the creek bed to this smaller tank, and pumped to the cistern on the hill with this small pump, powered by this PV panel. Our groundhogs are quite pleased with the overall layout, as are the crops. The PV photo also shows the pond we've been using (in the background), fed by a different watershed/spring.

Virtually all of the major components of the system are recycled/retasked, from salvage, much of it free. The large tank was purchased years ago from a defunct chicken hatchery for $300 where it was used to transport a slurry of egg shells, and has been sanitized. This spring water is quite potable.

The point is to not be wallowing in despair and fear, but to be taking action in whatever way one can. Greer, Foss, Kunstler, and many others have been beating this drum for years, and I consider the message to be a valid one. It's never too late, even if the end result is only to go down fighting. I have no idea how things will unfold, but hope this system will be useful to someone for many years. Building resilience, one day, one acre at a time...

C8 -- I think you're spot-on. Running a dairy inside the drought zone right now, and I can assure you that if this becomes the new norm, my farm is hosed. 95 degrees in SW Michigan in March, when we should be flirting with snow, is an indicator to me that we've flipped a switch somewhere. Forecast for my area has every day above 90 with no chance of rain. My pastures are about 85% dead now -- this will undoubtedly be the coup de grace.

I always assumed that there would be some major event, a "come to Jesus" moment for the general populace when they decided to take climate change seriously. Seems to me that we've already had several that should've qualified, and I'm hearing nothing but crickets.

The fires are already here! Colorado is engulfed in flames:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/06/27

Epic' Fire Forces Tens of Thousands to Flee in Colorado
Predictions of more frequent and intense fires fueled by climate change contained in recent study
- Common Dreams staff

A record-breaking heat wave in Colorado has generated what one local fire chief called a 'firestorm of epic proportions' and forced approximately 32,000 people to flee their homes near the town of Colorado Springs.

A coworker of mine lives in Colorado - she can see the smoke from her window atop a
Colorado peak. Another coworker who used to live in Colorado says the Air Force Academy
was being evacuated.
At one point do people wake up?

Personally I believe we ARE facing Peak Oil, Climate Change, the shortage of water and other key resources while we are sawing off the limb we are sitting on by destroying
all the Earth's natural systems.

The only scientific position is that we don’t know how global warming will play out- but that the worst case scenario is very bad.

I agree. People prsume a linear warming trend over many decades with the far off year of 2100 as the point in time suggested when things have built to a point of much greater concern, which kicks the can down the road way too far IMHO. Fact is, ice core records show sudden weather changes have occured in the past and we do not know when feedbacks will accelerate climate change, switching it into a much higher gear. In my opinion peak oil and climate change are both pincering in on civilization and which one ends up being the coup de gras is anyone's guess.

That map of drought across many parts of the country should be much more worrisome and newsworthy than it is, but we still have a news service more interested in fluff than substance. I'm wondering if it is possible for the drought situation to reach a point where the cornbelt starts catching on fire and because its so hot, windy and dry, those fires cannot be put out and as they burn it reaches a point where people begin to panic about food supplies.

C8,a thought provoking article though US centric.Just read that in India the rain this year is about 75% of average.Considering that most of the irrigation there is rain fed the next harvesting seasons could be a troublesome situation.

I think your scenario is spot on. However, as I read I expected another twist, and that is the fact that getting much of the remaining FF requires water, lots and lots of it. And the States are in a drought. So, you need water to get FF; you need water to grow food (and biofuel); you need water to make electricity. Your scenario is less complex than the likely reality. This is not a criticism, just an extension to your thoughts.

Don

Hi C8

Thanks for the map.

re: "Tom Murphy say that Peak Oil will be worse than Climate Change - how could he possibly know?"

Well, aside from asking him directly, my guess is that one need only to consult the many charts on decline rate, including the ELM charts.

Since the industrial civilization we currently have runs on FF, this means a decline in EROEI (or however one wishes to conceptualize it) also enters into the picture of how much energy is available for end use and how it is apportioned between users, including regions and projects (such as war or agriculture).

Then, we have the phenomenon that the decline in oil (and decline in EROEI) is manifest as a financial crises, not an oil crises. Or, I should say - not necessarily as an oil crises.

This means that a sudden disjuncture in economic arrangements - (see current financial crises) - is a distinct, and many claim entirely predictable, outcome of the decline in oil, (along with decline in EROEI).

Then, we have the issue that to do things like move food from one place to another requires FF. As does moving people out of harm's way, as do attempts to repair the damage, eg. plant trees and change to more sustainable agriculture systems.

re: "climate change could be the ultimate nonlinear process"

Yes, it could be. The funny thing is, peak oil is for sure - if one follows the trajectory of BAU.

IMVHO, there's no need to frame then question as an "either-or" proposition.

re: "Debates about how many years of oil are left will melt under the blazing heat of record setting days."

I see the most important point in discussing peak oil to be to understand the role of oil and the impacts of it's decline, and to understand what questions are relevant. How many years are left is a question, but it is not the most relevant question, esp. in the sense that one can analyze ranges of probability, just as one can analyze qualitative dependency relationships (i.e., what is oil used for).

My candidates for relevancy are the following: 1) Is it possible to create an industrial economy on an all-electricity basis? (With zero or minimal LTFs.) Let us include here, the other systems currently (in the industrialized world) which rely on this industrial economy: water purification and delivery, agricultural systems, waste disposal and treatment, etc. 2) If so, what is required to make this change? In terms of FF, labor, materials, finance, etc. and *time*? 3) Is it possible to run an industrial economy on this all-electricity basis, using so-called re-newables? 4) If so, what is required to make this change? 3) What are the immediate measures that can and must be taken to minimize human suffering? 5) What are the best uses of the remaining oil? And so forth. (www.oildepletion.wordpress.com) (Sign now and beat the crowd.) :)

So, IMVHO,

re: "What if Peak Oil becomes irrelevant?"

It's important to understand peak oil because it's what machines run on and the machines are supporting the 7 billion humans, in one way or another. (Or, I should say - supporting while killing them off, as well, as the case may be, eg. wars machines, drones, bombs, car wrecks etc.)

This means that positive action involving any use of machines whatsoever requires understanding the oil picture.

And...oil's role the financial picture, etc.

And...this understanding is where it becomes possible to take any mitigating action that may be possible.

And...there's a lot we actually do know about how to create something different.

I live in Colorado. The fear is here and yet the local news media scarcely mentions climate as a cause of all these fires. The Governor wants us to pray.

Peak Oil is not irrelevant. Actually, Peak Oil should never have been called just that. It's a misnomer. You can get the oil out of the ground at high enough prices, which is what is happening right now. The problem is resource depletion and the higher cost in labor, materials and money for new fossil fuel energy.

Peak Oil is not irrelevant. But where I agree with you is that climate change, in my opinion, is the knockout punch. People and civilizations can eventually adapt to use new energy sources (solar, wind, etc). What people and civilizations are terrible about adapting to is an increasingly harsh climate. If the US dries up and we have drastically less food production our nation will simply become unable to support an indigenous population of the current size, much less add wealth through exports. In climate change, we all end up on shrinking islands. Very bad scenario. And that's before even the worst feedbacks kick in.

If the world extracts 110 million barrels of all liquids in 2020, the climate will be fooked anyway. Mr. Maugeri would probably disagree.

He gives himself a classic 'out': the 110 mbpd is productive capacity, not actual production. I doubt you could get him to agree to a measurable definition of 'capacity'.

In one chart he suggests that the US had 8 mbpd of productive capacity in 2011, 30% greater than our actual production that year. It occurs to me that all that spare capacity we had would have come in handy when Brent (and Gulf Coast) prices went to $120-plus/bbl. With the supernormal profits that were available in the market, you would think we would have produced flat out.

He is basically updating/repackaging the IHS/CERA talking points, circa 2006. After repeated failed calls for price collapse over that period, CERA now prefers to work through surrogates, it seems.

EDIT -- This seems like the right time to bring back the infamous ExxonMobil declaration, in 2004, that they would 'bury the world in oil' if the price moved above $40/bbl. While I should perhaps be less snarky to an expert who is looking at all the potential new oil/liquids supply, I would argue that such an analyst should put themselves in the shoes of XOM at that time, and say: what did they so firmly believe that turned out not to be true? Are there perhaps lessons there that inform a similar analysis today?

I'm not so sure people are believing these flood of oil predictions. If they believed them, then shouldn't the stock market go up? If we have cheap oil for the next 10 years, that should give the economy a real kick . . . but markets don't seem to agree.

As Kjell pointed out at ASPO Europe, the trend by the IEA has been going the other way the past few years but this large increase in unconventional oil may convince them to break the trend this year.

WEO 2004 - 121 mb/d
WEO 2006 - 116 mb/d
WEO 2008 - 106 mb/d
WEO 2010 - 96mb/d
WEO 2012 -?? Let's see what they say this year.

However, it's the giant and supergiant oil fields that predict our future more than unconventional oil, since they provide 60% of world production. When they decline in earnest (c.f. Cantarell) unconventional cannot ramp up quickly enough to make up for their decline.

I read his report casually, just needed to see where the oil was supposed to come from.

The guy's a total clown. He forecasts Saudi to get to 14 mb/d, when their Aramco's own VP of engineering has said that it won't get above 11 mb/d in 2020. Russia is even increasing according to him, despite going flatout and is widely seen by ALL experts at having zero net spare capacity and overwhelmingly like to decline over the coming decade.

And best of all, Iraq to 8 mb/d. Iraq won't get there because it needs tons of infrastructure. Ports, pipelines etc, none of which has been built or even started yet. The most optimistic I've seen on Iraq is around 5 mb/d and that is really assuming a lot of things and cutting them tons of slack.

I could go on, of course, but it's essentially a fraudulent document. That people like that are at Harvard or climbed really high at one of the major oil companies is truly scary. If that's the intellectual quality of a lot of the 'experts' then I just become a lot more pessimistic.

As the Cornucopians drop napalm on the raging firestorm of energy disinformation . . .

Some net export numbers follow that 99.9% of the world seems oblivious to, but first, following are the recent annual high Brent prices preceding year over year annual price declines, showing the progression in higher annual highs and higher annual lows.

While it seems a virtual certainty that we will see an annual decline from 2011 to 2012, it also seems almost impossible for the 2012 annual price not to exceed the previous annual year over decline level ($62 in 2009).

EIA data: http://205.254.135.7/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=RBRTE&f=A

1997 to 1998: $19/$13
2000 to 2001: $29/$24
2008 to 2009: $97/$62
2011 to 2012: $111/?

Some thoughts on the GNE (Global Net Exports) to CNI (Chindia's Net Imports) ratio:

I don't think that China & India will actually be consuming 100% of GNE 2030, but on the other hand, it sure is one heck of a trend line, and it looks like China's oil production may be peaking. After US crude oil production peaked in 1970, US net imports doubled in about five years.

Note that at the 2005 to 2008 rate of decline in the GNE/CNI ratio, the Chindia region would be at a 1.0 ratio (consuming 100% of GNE) in 2033.

At the 2005 to 2011 rate of decline in the GNE/CNI ratio, the Chindia region would be at a 1.0 ratio (consuming 100% of GNE) in 2030.

Imagine you are in a commercial airliner. A production peak would be analogous to a gradual descent for landing. A net export decline would be more analogous to a commercial airliner doing a terrifying near vertical dive into the ground, and the data show that the GNE/CNI ratio decline curve has recently steepened:

http://i1095.photobucket.com/albums/i475/westexas/GNEoverCNI.jpg

Meanwhile, the Cornucopian Crowd is in a contest of sorts to see who can generate the most optimistic production forecast.

Remember that after the LGM, about 16,000 years ago, this location might have been above sea level. However, the history of the Baltic Sea is rather complicated, as glacial rebound changed the height of the land such that at one point, the Baltic became actually a fresh water lake filled with glacial melt water. Whatever it is, the unfolding story is surely going to be fun to watch. The diver's claim that electronic equipment wouldn't work within 200 meters is probably wrong as there are several images from TV cameras showing the surface of the "object" at close range...

E. Swanson

Can someone tell me why, with such high crude oil inventories, that the U.S. (or businesses) are still importing 9 million barrels per day?

US refiners step up utilization to meet demand for gasoline & diesel, even though retail gasoline sales remain mired in slump

The great energy supply paradox of 2012 continues - that is, why must US refiners struggle to keep up with demand even though retail gasoline demand is still declining at a rate greater than 3%? [more than 3% according to MasterCard SpendingPlus retail survey, more than 4% per the EIA]. The answer is relatively simple: oil product (gasoline, diesel, ethanol) exports. The US has flipped from being a product importer to a product exporter over the last year - and in dramatic fashion too. Comparing the latest four weeks with the year ago period, US has swung from oil product imports of about 114000 barrels per day to exports of about 718000 bpd - a total swing of 832,000 bpd.

To accommodate the increased export demand, US refiners are consistently using about 3% more oil than last year, and refiner utilization, about 92.6%, is near the highest level for the last few years and also is effectively near the maximum capacity possible when the outages at the largest US refinery, Motiva, and major renovations at some Pennsylvania refiners (for example, the Delta airline refinery acquisition) are considered.

Gasoline inventories improved as refiners tried to optimize output for gasoline production. Over the last week or so, supplies of some grades of gasoline, mores specifically known as CBOB (Conventional Blendstock for Oxygenate Blending) have been in short supply in the NYC and a few areas in the upper Midwest. This week's EIA report indicates supplies of CBOB fell 0.9 million barrels even while overall supplies of all categories of gasoline increased by 2.1 million barrels.

Within the last few days, imports of gasoline have increased considerably, which alleviated any imminent gasoline supply problem. Generally US refinery output of gasoline reaches its yearly peak roughly from late June until late July, roughly about the Fourth of July holiday, although not always.

A final note: The EIA release today was not impacted by the recent tropical storm, but next week's report will be affected by Gulf of Mexico oil production shut-ins and the temporary closure of the LOOP (Louisiana Offshore Oil Port).

Someone should tell him about this startup:
http://www.idleair.com

I was at a Cleantech conference a few years back when they were looking for money...and they got it. It's a great idea.

Alaska_geo,

The U.S. Navy is taking it very seriously, and they even envision a deep water port like Singapore up there.

The US is about the only country that disputes Canadian sovereignty over the Northwest Passage. It is a convoluted, narrow, shallow, and frequently ice-blocked passage between numerous islands - not really a good candidate for an international shipping route. The Northeast Passage, north of Russia, would be much more usable in a global warming scenario, although the Russians may have a few things to say about that. However, if global warming kicked in big-time, ships could go in open seas right over the North Pole.

The rest of the Arctic countries are busy dividing up the polar region under the Law of the Sea Convention, which the US has not ratified. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush supported the treaty, but Congress has not given its OK. In the absence of that, the other nations bordering on the Arctic Ocean (Russia, Canada, Norway, and Denmark - i.e. Greenland) are dividing it up as they see fit.

One wow in this is that it follows a very cold winter up there.

Ocean Heat Flux

There are many factors involved in the current long-term decline of Arctic sea ice. From relatively small ones like river discharge, precipitation and soot, to bigger factors like atmospheric patterns and air temperatures. The possibly biggest factor of all is also the factor that is the most unknown and uncertain: ocean heat flux. How much heat are ocean currents bringing into the Arctic

Ocean heat flux is what separates the aggressive and famous forecast by Wieslaw Maslowski (Arctic essentially ice-free by September 2016, ± 3 years) from more conservative estimates that predict the thing to happen between 2050 and the end of this century.

To quote the first paragraph of this 2011 article by Ron Kwok and Norbert Untersteiner: "The surplus heat needed to explain the loss of Arctic sea ice during the past few decades is on the order of 1 W/m2. Observing, attributing, and predicting such a small amount of energy remain daunting problems."

Arctic sea ice shrinks to lowest June extent ever observed

True, and certainly cause for concern, however if you go to the following link: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ then scroll down to view a comparison of recent years, you'll see they are all comprable, fluctuating within a similar range. Now granted although that range has substantially less ice than the 1979-2000 period, we still need to wait to see how this year's melt compares to 2007. What is the lowest in June could change by the time we get to September's low.

In fact, if you look at the top graph comparing 2007 to this year, you'll notice 2012 is on a line to match up with 07's line in about a week or so. 2007 was unique though, which will become more apparent as they add months to those graphs, as 07's really tails off down near September and subsequent years have fallen short of that low. Not to say it won't be broken, but it's still early in the melt part of the cycle.

Well I have a lot of sympathy for Japan's nuclear woes. Japan's economy is not in great shape and they have one of the biggest debt to GDP ratios of any country . . . as big as Greece I think. They have many billions invested in these nuke plants. It is extremely economically difficult to just walk away from these plants that you invested billions in and try to replace them with a mix of renewables and expensive imported fossil fuels.

They have that new solar FIT and they are working on getting a gas line from Russia. But I think it would be unrealistic to expect them to permanently shut down 54 nukes plants and build those new systems at the same time.

Money corrupts.

@ROCKMAN - I know it was a typo, but I like your word, prodiction. A prediction about production, no doubt!

I really didn't need to read any farther than this:

This development seems consistent with the best study ever conducted on the geological features and potential productivity of Bakken (Price, 1999), which estimated the maximum Original Oil in Place of the whole formation at more than 500 billion barrels, with a probable recovery rate of about 50 percent.

Thank you, Captain Obvious!

According to Gazprom's chairman, Alexei Miller, “Shale gas is a well-organized global PR-campaign."
Now even Exxon admits, that those Shale gas plays are not more than hot air.
And the idea of exporting this "innovation" to other countries looks like even hotter air: Europe shale push shaken by Exxon's Poland pullout

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/06/18/uk-poland-shale-idUKBRE85H1CQ20...

I'm somewhat confounded by this. Does Poland just not have a good shale gas reserve? With the high price of natural gas in Europe and a country with reasonably lax regulations (which I assume Poland qualifies as) then I would think that shale gas would be a no-brainer in Europe. If they can't make a profit on shale gas in Europe with their high natural gas prices then it really makes me wonder how much money the US companies doing shale gas are losing.

"Both Christians and Muslims, and even traditionalist and all the other religions, believe that children are God's gifts to man. "So it is difficult for you to tell any Nigerian to number their children because... it is not expected to reject God's gifts."

Religion is such a well-evolved virus. It coaxes its hosts to reproduce so it can reproduce.

BILL MOYERS: There's a definition of a sociopath as being radically deprived of empathy. Do you see characteristics of sociopathic behavior on Wall Street?

MATT TAIBBI: Absolutely.

YVES SMITH: Yes.

MATT TAIBBI: I'm sorry, just what Yves was talking about with, you know, the old people who were dying earlier now, people who don't have kids, who aren't going to school, garbage that's being left in the streets. That's all because some guy was sitting up in a skyscraper in Wall Street and knowingly selling some communities, some municipality a fraudulent, toxic mortgage backed security.

I mean, he knows that that instrument is going to blow up in, you know, six months, a year. But he's selling it to them anyway. But he doesn't care, you know, because he can't see it, you know? I think in the eyes of a lot of these guys if they can't see the effect, it doesn't really exist. And to me, that's classic sociopathic behavior when you're blind, you're willingly blind to the consequences.

YVES SMITH: I mean, it's really the growth of the trading culture. You know, in the old days, I worked on Wall Street when Wall Street really was only criminal around the margins. I mean, you really, Goldman Sachs in those days had the expression long-term greedy which meant you didn't kill the--

BILL MOYERS: Long-term what?

YVES SMITH: Long-term greedy. That they were long-term greedy. And that meant you didn't kill the goose that laid the golden egg. You know, you wouldn't put your customer into egregiously bad deal. If you took a little extra, you only took it when the customer was making money, too, so if they ever figured it out they wouldn't be really upset.

That attitude has changed completely. And I attribute it significantly to the growth of derivatives. Over-the-counter derivatives where you can't see the price on an exchange. You can't see the history.

And they're much more complicated. And those started growing really in the early '90s and became, and it becomes very interwoven in the practice of finance. Because the derivatives are so complicated, you can't price compare. The risks are often bundled in within formulas that the buyers can't understand. And so they can load all kinds of basically what's equivalent to hidden fees in these things by the way they structure the risks in the terms.

So they're the perfect vehicle for stealing because you're selling, no, you're selling somebody something they can't evaluate.
__________________________________

So, as a customer, say, a city, if you go to them, they will now snuff you for the one-time short-term money to be made... because they can.
__________________________________
Also:
The Scam Wall Street Learned From the Mafia
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-scam-wall-street-learned-f...

Farming and biodiversity can coexist, say Stanford researchers

Although bird species disappear with intensive agriculture, research in Costa Rica shows that forest intermingled with cultivated land rescues biodiversity.

A new paper by biology graduate student Daniel Karp, with Stanford biology professors and Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment fellows Gretchen Daily and Paul Ehrlich, shows that low-intensity tropical agriculture can maintain regional species differences at levels similar to those of intact forest. The study appears in today's issue of the journal Ecology Letters.

All a matter of perspective, right? If you take the perspective of the producers, the prospect of a price collapse is a risk.

The Stockton story is an interesting mix. You'll hear lots of people knee-jerk respond with "Its those crazy liberal Californians and their government spending and unions!" But Stockton is a central valley Republican stronghold. But they indeed were far too liberal with city worker benefits. One can complain about the unions but it is ultimately the city that OKed the deals. Probably because they also give those elected city officials the same type of ridiculous benefits. So voting in Republicans is not a guarantee of fiscally responsible governance. Of course looking at the deficits/debt run up by Reagan, Bush, and Bush 2 should have already informed you of that.

And one can tie the story to peak oil. Stockton is just over the hills from Silicon Valley. With Silicon Valley housing becoming very expensive, many people opted to buy McMansions over the hill in Stockton and commute to Silicon Valley. But when gas prices soared, exurbs like Stockton had a severe housing collapse. A huge part of Stockton's problems (besides the too generous benefits listed above) was a massive foreclosure crisis. Stockton is foreclosure central, USA.

The plan is to acquire as much real resources as they possibly can with freshly minted digital money, while it's still flowing from the Fed, so the downslope which they all know is coming can be mitigated.

Another laugh out loud article. The article is about cheap NG and many of the clueless commenters think it is about cheap gasoline.

Yeah, I just don't see how cheap natural gas can help things much. It isn't really cheap since it is cheap due to losses of natural gas drillers. The only entities that need the gas this time of year are electricity utilities and they'll just be happy with the windfall that they don't have to pass on to customers.

I guess some industries that use natural gas as a feedstock will benefit. But I can't see it as helping the overall economy much. It just isn't a huge input like gasoline is.

A bit of a Finance question..

when you have a big asset like a shipyard, and have to shut down or relinquish it due to bankruptcy, how do the remaining assets weigh in from an economic POV? My point being, the financial downturn doesn't really change the intrinsic work value of the site or the heavy tools (cranes, specialized buildings, docks, etc) , save for the deterioration if it ends up sitting unstored and decaying for years.. but don't those assets become a good deal for the next buyer, and essentially retain a fairly high functional value (ie, for the society overall) if they can get put back into service by someone unhindered by the debt that closed the prior company?

I guess I'm thinking about intrinsic value, embodied energy, etc. as they stand distinct from strictly the 'blue-book price' ..

The last I heard cargo ships were running slower than sail ships of yore to cut down cost, obviously business isn't looking up.

Caproic acid? It will make your car smell like a goat - that's what the name comes from. Other than that it smells really "organic", I don't see what the point of using it is. Ethanol will work just fine as long as it doesn't dissolve the rubber parts in your fuel system.

At least they're not ripping out any tracks. But they only do around 900 million passenger miles per year. So compared to air and cars, they're lost in the noise. Scaled to population, they're only a little better than Amtrak, which does 6.5 billion. Hardly even a blip, no real effect WRT peak oil without a vast expansion, in either country. And even if finances don't preclude a vast expansion, NIMBYs and BANANAs will.

It sounds like the corium from reactor 1 fell into the basement.

How quickly we forget....

During the drought of the 1930s, without natural anchors to keep the soil in place, it dried, turned to dust, and blew away eastward and southward in large dark clouds. At times, the clouds blackened the sky, reaching all the way to East Coast cities such as New York and Washington, D.C. Much of the soil ended up deposited in the Atlantic Ocean, carried by prevailing winds, which were in part created by the dry and bare soil conditions. These immense dust storms—given names such as "black blizzards" and "black rollers"—often reduced visibility to a few feet (a meter or less). The Dust Bowl affected 100,000,000 acres (400,000 km2), centered on the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, and adjacent parts of New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas.[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl

Pinyon pine is food.

Gathering Pinon Pine Nuts
The size and taste of the pinon pine seed made
it a seasonal staple for man and animal in the Great
Basin. Native Americans ground the seeds to make
soup or mush and roasted the seeds to eat like a nut.
The large seed is so nut-like it is commonly called
pinon nut or pine nut.

http://www.blm.gov/pgdata/etc/medialib/blm/nv/recreation.Par.60356.File....

Pinyon pine nuts seem to be selling for $20 a pound. Here's a 6Lb. jar for $158 ($183 total):
http://www.scandinavianspice.com/pinenuts-6lbjar.aspx

Farmers and inhaled diesel soot

Good post, Seraph

I saw no particular focus on farmers in this study, but surely farmers would be prime candidates: almost all modern tractors burn diesel and usually the exhaust stack is about 3'-5' in front of the operator, usually slightly higher than the farmer's head.

I have always found this rather odd: I don't see why the exhaust cannot not exit behind the operator (either below, as in cars & trucks, or above, as on transport trucks).
In any event, farmers are out in their fields for many hours with diesel exhaust about 40" in front of their faces, so it's rather impossible to avoid the fumes.

I'm surprised that there aren't more reported cases of lung problems in farmers (there is the long-standing issue of "farmer's lung" but that usually is in reference to decades of inhaling hay dust & pigeon poop, not diesel fumes).

Give'm 'ell, Ari!

(But hit "REPLY" to a relevant comment so it doesn't end up far apart from the subject you're commenting on..)

It is much easier to get a planet to warm than to cool. There are plenty of potent green-house gases that could heat up the planet should it start to cool. It is much harder to get the planet to cool should it get warmer, as it requires massive amounts of aerosols which will then precipitate out quickly.

The problem with high temperatures is that they are unprecedented. No recent paleo records have gotten this high. Recent data from NE Russia shows that the climate has oscillated but never gone above the ceiling that we are starting to break through. That is for a span of 3 million years.

It is a huge scientific experiment that we are in the middle of.

First consideration: 7 billion humans are adapted to, and deeply invested in, the climate they have now. Beyond that, who knows? Just thinking about the infrastructure and living arrangement changes required to deal with a relatively sudden climate shift is mind boggling. e.g.: Do you think that Canadians are in any way prepared to accept millions of Mexicans moving to their 'tundra'? Beyond that, it may take thousands of years for these new temperate zones to stabilize, and if some of the sea level rise predictions are accurate, billions of folks will need to relocate before the end of this century. Not funny, that. Reaching a new 'equilibrium' is often a violent process.

Interesting times, indeed.

Its not necessarily that a warmer or cooler equilibrium, with ecosystems and sealevel adjusted to he new state is better of worse. However establishing that new equilibrium will take several centuries at least. In the case of mature soils probably a lot longer.
Former permafrost will be a huge mess for quite a while, it will either be wet and boggy, or dry and subject to catastrophic peat fires. Not really a place we will plant crops on.

Another part to consider is not just 'adapting to change', but the SPEED of change, and whether this living system or that one will have the capacity or the luck to make the right changes in time, were we to see a great, quick 'Tipping' .. once we passed some crucial balance point.

Here is a well-cited summary of the science surrounding AGW positives (few there are) and negatives.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-positives-negatives.htm

Read the links out to the full papers as you like. There are other sites that summarize and aggregate the research, but I happen to like the one above.

As others have said, it is very strange to see rapid changes in climate-- it's supposed to be mind-numbingly stable. While new evidence indicates some rapid shifts in the geological record due to "tipping points," and we have research on climate changes after significant impacts and geological upheavals, most would agree that the rate of anthropogenic forcing is significantly troubling and a yet-known "tipping point" is a worst-case.

I've always wondered about what would happen if some of the proposals in the comment fields actually were carried out. Austerity on a more extreme level than now has the slight side effect of undermining the very socio-economic fabric these societies are woven into, perhaps leading to flat-out revolution - the very thing these guys would hate the most. Makes my inner hyena marxist smile for a second or two.

The bad news is that they will need to be standing on the edge of that cliff before they are able to do the right thing.

Oops! That involves depth perception. Bummer.

Of course it was the automakers themselves that were the biggest whiners & critics about raising CAFE standards.

Obviously, they were just being cheap & lazy.

To be honest, the new CAFE regs aren't THAT strict. When CAFE first started, it radically altered the nature of cars (partly because it also came on the heels of clean air regs). Now, all the carmakers know how to build a 50 mpg car, they just don't want to unless they have to - the knowledge of aerodynamics and use of lightweight materials is not "new technology", it's just applying existing technology. The fact they easily met 2016 standards already without any sacrifices means that the standards are increasing too slowly, in my opinion.

In fact, the hybrid tech needed to get bigger gains is now substantially worked out as well, and aside from Toyota it is still barely being used (hybrid models are offered but make up a small percentage of sales).

Still, any good news is nice. Hope they beat the 2025 standard in the next few years.

It really has been fascinating - in the way that watching a cobra is fascinating.

Since the "Individual Mandate" was a Republican idea, the Right wins over the Uber-Right. It is still considered a conservative outcome since the Mandate has been classified as a tax, rather than part of the Commerce Clause.
States can opt out of expanding Medicaid.
The Health Insurance Corporations win since everyone is required to buy insurance.
The Tea Party loses since they don't want to be told what to do. I saw one response that said something like "come and get me, 'cause I ain't paying".

Tri Care for young adults ain't cheap. I have to put my oldest on it in a few months. Better than nothing....

Prime Option: $201 per month
Standard Option: $176 per month

I got a huge kick out of the CNN and FOX epic fails on trying to be fast and getting it wrong. Lots of "epic fail" screenshot memes out now about it. CNN went 7-10 mintues with the wrong report while others had it correct.

Anyway, ACA ain't what we need, but it's what we got.

Regardless of how one feels about "Obamacare", two things are assured: Collective costs will increase as will related debt, and more layers of complexity are being added. So it goes.

My wife's primary care doctor retired and she made an appointment with a new doctor to have a skin condition looked at. She arrived at the new office and filled out the paperwork, (insurance, all that), gave them copies of her records from the previous doctor, expecting to be seen. The receptionist thanked her and told her that she would "be contacted after the doctor reviewed her application, and if it was decided that she was a candidate for their services"...

She was totally miffed, and left without being examined. I told her this morning to go back and demand ALL paperwork be returned to her and tell them that she is no longer considering them as a service provider. Hopefully they will have discovered that she has excellent medical coverage.

This whole healthcare thing is totally out of control. Time for single-payer system like Western Eur.... never mind that; it'll all be moot before long.

The only reason Justice Roberts voted for Obamacare is to allow corporate lobbyists to pay Congress to pass laws that say: buy this product or the government increases your income tax. It will determine which corporations live or die on the falling edge of peak oil.

Buy gasoline to avoid a tax.
Buy electricity from the grid to avoid a tax.
Buy a firearm or get taxed.
Buy a Bible or get taxed.

Buy any conservative/Republican product or get a liberal tax.

It's the new, politically acceptable method of raising taxes in America.

Rock, I support and promote peak oil, heck I'll vote for peak oil and I use as much of the stuff as I can afford. It's just plain good for business. Oh yeah I'm probably getting ready to sign a lease agreement for my tuscaloosa shale acreage. Cheers!

Thanks, Rock. These are interesting observations. It has occurred to me that the tax revolts of the 70s and the general backlash against big government might be traceable to US Peak Oil. As increasing energy bills ripped through the economy, the middle class got squeezed, became much less comfortable with levels of taxation they were ok with 10-15 years earlier, and much more receptive to a conservative, small-government message.

With a good dose of geopolitics mixed in to tweak the energy cycles, that particular dynamic has been playing out for the last 40 years.

I think those time periods are important. Right around the mid-70's is when median wage growth pretty much started to stagnate. Of course globalization was also a huge factor . . . that's when we really had to start competing with the rest of the world. Japanese cars started appearing all over our roads.

Yes, Rockman, US oil consumption during WWII was much lower than it was during the 60's.

Most Americans don't realize it, but prior to the 50's, the US transportation system was based on railroads, and they ran on coal. The vast majority of the WWII military production, and the vast majority of troops, were moved around the country and to port using steam trains powered by coal.

Gasoline was rationed in WWII (the military had first priority) so the majority of urban commuters walked or used electric streetcars or interurban trains to get to work. When the crunch hit, they just put on more streetcars and packed more people into them.

Oil was necessary for the warships, aircraft, tanks and trucks - including that of allies. After they were supplied, there wasn't much left over.

The whole idea that in this day and age of more difficult to produce oil -- that we are going to have faster production growth than we have had in decades -- is ludicrous.

Tam - This seems to be the basic problem with analyzing many of these reports. Folks are offering their opinions. They may be presented in the form of projections, predictions, charts of future X, etc. As such they can never be "wrong"...those are the opinions of that person. No one on the planet may agree with those predictions/opinions. If Mr. Maugeri dooesn't think ELM is an important factor he's certain free to not use it in his analysis. I don't agree 9(and neither do you, I take it). But again, that's just our opinions. Now if he said the US was producing XX bbls of crude on a certain date and all the historical says he's incorrect then a challege makes sense. Not that I'm immune from getting sucked into such debates but I try to avoid challenging opinions. I've yet to see one opinion presented on TOD when someone didn't disagree. And i don't recall anyone changiing their opinion after a debate. So as long as I don't find an opposing opinion to absurd I let it pass.

But facts based on erroneous or misleading data? That's another matter.

It is just really hard to compete against Chinese PV makers that are given free land, have low wages, and have very little environmental regulations.

But hey . . . we have lots of cheap solar panels available.