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138 comments on DrumBeat: December 23, 2006

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Roger on December 23, 2006 - 10:44am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
In the Netherlands (one of the richest countries of the world), last year there was a sharp increase of households who got cut off from nat. gas, electricity and even water.

The main reason for this is the energy price increase (up 80% since 2000) people cannot afford to pay anymore.

Powering down in the mists of plenty!

Is this happening in the US also?

Roger from the Netherlands

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BOP on December 23, 2006 - 11:16am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Roger:

I am in Canada and was unaware of the degree of current impact of recent price changes in your country. I know of nothing similar here.


With regards your comments on GHG and AGW I believe you are being much too complacent. There is growing evidence that the environment may be more sensitive to forcing then was first believed. GHG continue to increase at a rate greater then that encountered in any prior historical natural record; the potential for positive feedbacks resulting in a further acceleration of AGW is high.


The IPCC is due to issue an updated report early in the coming year. I would strongly urge reading the text of the IPCC report. The press does a very poor job of communicating the issues.


I would also observe that statements along the lines of "we cannot afford the required response to mitigate AGW as this would devastate the [local, national, global] economy" simply underscore the degree to which our current economic system is unsustainable. To put it bluntly, we cannot afford our current western lifestyle. Both PO and AGW are in the process of teaching us the truth of that fact.


Cheers! And best wishes of the season.

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Leanan on December 23, 2006 - 11:53am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Wow. I'm surprised. They allow people to be cut off?

I don't think I've ever heard of anyone being cut off from water in the U.S.  I don't know what happens if you don't pay your bill, but I imagine it would be considered a health issue to not have water.

Power and natural gas can be cut off, but generally not in winter.  What happens is people who can't pay rack up huge bills in the winter - so big they can't pay them in summer.  So they get cut off in the summer, and the next winter they struggle to heat their homes.

It's apparently pretty common for people to try to heat their homes by turning on the oven and leaving the door open.  (Which is not safe.)  Also to run the shower with all hot water (since often, hot water is included in the rent, while electricity isn't).

We have programs to help the poor with winter heating costs, but there's not enough funding for them.  Hence states' eager acceptance of Chavez's cheap oil charity, even when they hate his politics.

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Roger on December 23, 2006 - 12:26pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Oh yes, they do allow that. This year over 20.000 households where cut off. On a population of 16 milion and say an average household of 3 people that's about 0.4% of all households. That is not a lot, but it is rising fast.

My wive is a social worker and the stories she sees unfolding in the poor families are heartbreaking...  children starting to smell because there is no running water to wash with... people who burned their house down because they tried to stay warm with a wood fire inside...

This is just the beginning!

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Leanan on December 23, 2006 - 12:37pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I'm really astounded.  I guess the rumors of Europe being a giant, cradle-to-grave welfare state are greatly exaggerated.
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Roger on December 23, 2006 - 12:51pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
The welfare state in Europe is something that is disappearing quite fast. There are a multiple of reasons for this (in random order):

-Depletion of oil and N.gas fields in Europe
-Increasing imports of energy from outside Europe
-Large amounts of immigrants from the former Russian states and Africa
-The aging of the total polulation
-The introducton of the Euro

Remember the large riots in France this year?

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PaulS on December 23, 2006 - 2:13pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
And let's not forget another biggie - that overweening sense of entitlement that is sometimes falsely regarded as quintessentially and uniquely American. For example, plenty of Europeans want les trente-cinq (the 35 hours) for themselves. On the other hand, most also demand the limitless "right" to the fruits of somebody else's  soixante-cinq (65 hours) in order to provide themselves with many, many things. Such as ultra-super-deluxe luxury medical care and marvelous but fantastically expensive TGV networks.

This sort of thing is unsustainable regardless of the size of the energy supply or of the economy itself, so in accordance with Stein's law, and consistent with the post, it isn't being sustained. So I have to guess that in the end, and putting it crudely, if people demand trainloads of this, plenty of that, and boatloads of the other thing, then there's little choice but to also demand that they turn off the TV, drag their bottoms out of the couch, and work for it.

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JustZisGuy on December 23, 2006 - 3:36pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

marvelous but fantastically expensive TGV networks.

Unlike that marvelous and fantastically cheap highway network in the U.S., which has paid for itself and is generating a profit to this day?

Sorry for the sarcasm.  My point is that the TGV network may be expensive to build, but as far as I can tell it makes a profit, so that's hardly an argument against it!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A711785


It is interesting to note that the TGV became one of the few SNCF services to operate at a profit, paying for the construction costs in just ten years.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1215/is_n7_v194/ai_14163718


The three TGV lines now in operation--TGV-Sud-Est, TGV-Atlantique, and TGV-Nord--are moving millions of people between France's major population centers with speed, comfort, and convenience--and they're doing it at a profit. The 11-year-old Paris-Lyon TGV-Sud-Est is earning 15% on investment--an ROI that rises to 30%, claims SNCF (French National Railways), when you factor in fuel savings and highway and airway maintenance savings--the French even enter sharply reduced highway fatalities into the equation. Air traffic has all but vanished between France's two largest industrial centers, where center-city-to-center-city travel time is now three hours by plane and two hours by train.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BQQ/is_6_43/ai_105203013


Emmerich told IRJ in Paris: "Unlike the commuter rail services, grandes lignes is not subsidised.
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slx on December 23, 2006 - 1:28pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
It depends on the country. In Belgium people are entitled to minimum services of electricity (barely enough ampère to run a washing machine, but still).
Squatters have the right to have a connection to the grid etc. - they still have to pay, of course.
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Don Sailorman on December 23, 2006 - 6:40pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Could it be that utilities in Europe are socialized and government owned and thus able to be nastier to poor people than the privately owned but highly regulated U.S. utility companies? Just a guess.
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oilmanbob on December 23, 2006 - 11:00pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
  Water utilties are mostly public in Texas, although in the last 30 or 40 years they are mostly built be  Municipal Utility Districts rather than directly by a municipality. The MUDs issue bonds and collect taxes as well as fees, but are incorporated separatly from counties or cities. This rather Byzantine arangement allows for maximum feeding at the public trough.
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PaulS on December 23, 2006 - 1:42pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I'm surprised too but only a little. It causes me to recall that some of our politicians in the USA paint life in Europe as some sort of free ride, at least when they're advocating their pet programs, i.e. advocating more control by themselves over other people. But nothing could be further from the truth - it's not a free ride, just a different ride.
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PaulS on December 23, 2006 - 1:44pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Oops meant this to go under Leanan's comment.
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