DrumBeat: March 23, 2008
Posted by threadbot on March 23, 2008 - 8:56am
Topic: Miscellaneous
Now for some wise words from the readers of The Oil Drum...
Posted by threadbot on March 23, 2008 - 8:56am
Topic: Miscellaneous
Now for some wise words from the readers of The Oil Drum...
All of the discussions of how to control global warming have centered on demand side solutions. Various governments pledge to reduce emissions by some percentage at some future date. Treaties are negotiated requiring reductions in emissions by those nations willing to ratify the treaty.
A major difficulty in achieving these agreements is they are perceived as requiring a sacrifice by those whose consent must be attained.
Why would elected leaders agree to emissions cuts if they could result lower incomes and fewer jobs? Why ratify treaties with the potential to limit growth when other nations are continue to expand their economies and there emissions at a rapid pace? Why agree to reduce emissions when the likely net result will be the export of emissions and the associated jobs overseas?
Even in Europe, which has taken the lead in ratifying treaties limiting emissions, there has been discussion of exempting some heavy industries from the emissions cuts to preserve competitiveness.
I’d like to propose an alternative method of controlling greenhouse gas emissions: a supply side solution.
Instead of pushing nations to agree to reduce the use of fossil fuels target the producers.
Persuade the producers to limit the production of oil, natural gas, and coal.
Some advantages of a supply side solution to global warming:
1) Little or no sacrifice is required of those who must take action. If enough agree and production increases are slowed or eliminated profits will expand as demand growth continues.
2) The agreement of fewer nations is required. The reserves of the various fossil fuels are concentrated in a limited number of nations.
3) Agreement of a nation to limit its production is unlikely to result in only the shift of jobs and emissions overseas.
The easiest place to begin is with oil. An organization controlling the production of oil already exists: OPEC. For several years around the turn of the century OPEC maintained relatively fixed production. During the last few years OPEC has constrained production enough to stop the increase in world oil production.
All that would be necessary would be for some of the prominent leaders in the fight against climate change to persuade the rulers of the OPEC nations to hold a press conference announcing that in the interest of limiting climate change OPEC will cap production at current levels. Furthermore, in a few years OPEC will reduce production as necessary to stop the growth of world oil production and eventually make the cuts necessary to reduce world oil production.
Achieving the same for coal production will be more difficult as a substantial share, ~40%, of world production is in China which would be unlikely to agree to production limits. In this case again targeting the exporters may be an easier option. As with oil coal exports are concentrated in a small number of nations.
A cap on coal production in exporting nations while only having a limited impact on the growth of coal production will have a significant impact on price. Higher coal prices would make alternative energy sources more competitive and will discourage the continued building of coal power plants which has recently been accelerating in developing nations.
Brilliant! I'm serious.
The United States has lots of coal which is even exported to Europe among others. The only problem I can see is it would put a cog in the wheel of globalization and probably bring on a world wide depression if effective. It might be so effective that pressures would be brought to bear to reverse it as unemployment increased in Europe.
I disagree on the effect on price. The price of coal would fall since there would be a surplus in the United States for example as coal piled up because of no export market. This has happened before with grain embargoes put on by the Nixon administration, if I remember correctly. The price of grain fell and never really recovered. Huge subsidies were the only way to keep farmers afloat and until recently have been the rule. Expect the government to have to support the coal industry with subsidies because it would be they who destroyed the market. The effect would be to slow down or stop alternative energy developement as there would be little need with such low coal prices.
Yeah, a brilliant approach that would have as it's only drawback 'a world wide depression.'
Just what markets need...more government intervention...which leads to?...more government intervention. Slippery slope, that one.
Well, that's certainly a possibility. But, just how would you go about reducing CO2 emissions, which might mean that the world's economies must go toward zero emissions in a short time period? Wouldn't any effort to do that require some sort of government intervention?
E. Swanson
It seems strange to worry about global warming when in England we are having a white Easter. Not normal here.
This is the earliest Easter since 1818. Easter can fall between March 22nd and April 25th.
And I'll bet the final March average temperature across the UK will be above average (as were November, December, January and February).
It's not 'Global Warming', it's Climate Change.
While the overall trend is towards warming, the great deal of disruption and dislocation with come from the fibrillation and arrhythmia of 'Normal' weather patterns.
Extreme fluctuations of temperature and rain fall can average out to Normal.
However, it's alot different experience to have 2 weeks of 100 degree(F) heat wave followed by 2 weeks of zero degree(F) freezing. The Average is 50 degrees(F)
It will feel alot different than 4 weeks of 50 degree (F) weather.
This is what is coming. The heat part will be the least of our problems.
How about 2 years of no rain at all followed by 2 years of torrential flooding.
The 'Average' over 4 years is 'Normal' rainfall, Not.
If climate change deniers (mostly rightwingnutters) what to see an example of real world conservative business models response to the weather fluctuations coming our way, just give a good gander to the insurance industry. They are bleeding from weather pattern losses that were based on old outdated actuarial tables that had 100 year storms only happening every 100 years. Those same storms are happening once a decade.
Does this make those same storms 10 year storms now?
Inflation in weather patterns?
Reminds me of the bumper sticker I just saw:
The Quarter is the new Nickel
Seems that we have reached a point where government intervention is the worst possible solution.... except for all the rest.
Maybe I was clear, I am advocating the production, not exports, be capped. what I'm advocating is in essence a coal producers cartel. If demand continues to grow at the current rate while the production growth is constrained the price should climb.
The companies producing coal would have increasing profits with no additional effort needed. Thats one of the advantages of this plan: the parties that be required to act will not resist taking action because they are likely to benefit from the plan.
Modeling work with the Millennium Institute's T21-USA model ## shows that
The Best Economic Policy is the Best Energy Policy and the Best Environmental Policy (and also the Best National Defense (if not offense) Policy)
The same policy resulted in the highest GDP, greatest reduction in CO2 and greatest reduction in oil use (for the USA) of all policies modeled. It also provided a place for some oil based transportation to go to when oil shocks are modeled.
The policy ?
A maximum push for renewable energy coupled with a maximum push for building a Non-Oil Transportation system# in parallel to the existing Oil Based Transportation system.
# Non-Oil Transportation was defined as electrified and expanded existing freight rail system, massive build out of Urban Rail, more bicycling and Transit Orientated Development (walkable neighborhoods).
The interaction between renewable & Non-Oil policies appears to be multiplicative and not merely additive.
We suspect that a massive push for conservation would improve these already excellent results. One restraint is just how much investment the USA would be willing to make, we cannot "crash everything".
I recently returned from 2.5 weeks in DC working on a peer reviewed paper on this (on my nickel).
Best Hopes for pro bono publico efforts,
Alan
## ASPO-USA sponsored the T21-USA model which has EROEI and other energy and environmental add-ons to standard econometric models (CBO & World Bank caliber).
Thanks once again to Alan Drake (Big Easy) for expressing what I was having trouble doing.
I think that "Alan" (Initial poster in thread) was accurate about describing the problem of promoting something that is lobbying for a 'negative', which is a hard concept to grasp as an Action Item or as a Business proposition. I think that, as with 'Giving up something', like Coffee or Cigarettes, it can be more helpful to focus on the positive of the replacement, not the 'desired absence' of the current problem (CO2).. Alan Drake's examples of Electric Rail and Renewables are both (IMO) Great Positives that can create jobs, quality infrastructure and economic liveliness without having to be focused on the 'Negative Space', as artists call it.
Not that 'Negative' or 'Less' is bad or undesired, but instead of describing it as 'What I'm NOT producing.' (CO2, or whatever).. to redescribe it as what you ARE, what you ARE DOING, what you ARE PRODUCING.
I would like to discover more language for how this applies to individual lifestyles and behaviors, too, so that selling these concepts can focus on the Water in the Rapids, not the Rocks..
You are HEATING your own house with the sun..
You are SAVING money(and energy dependence) and you are 'TONING UP yourself' by leaving lights off, consolidating refrigerators/washloads/commutes.. ie trimming the fat, being sharp and conscious about how you live.
It's funny, as soon as I said that last sentence, ... and actually struggled to get the words out.. it reminded me of one of the 'latent elements' of the 'American Way' being implicitly synonymous with 'continual material gratification' and not only refusing to compromise on such, but in fact that compromise, and with it, self-restraint is ultimately A)Synonymous with failure, giving in, being a loser.. B)That it's TOO HARD.. I CAN'T do that.. and C)ultimately dangerous. "It will hurt the Economy", "It will compromise our security!" It was basically a reminder that a lot of this comes down to Addict Behavior, and needs to be addressed with that in mind. It makes the fear of "Less" make a lot of sense, of course. Even though we seem to celebrate the idea of self-control, self-discipline.. these are the traits that addiction destroys. The language I said I was seeking is common enough, but it's funny how the brain jumps away from using them when considering speaking them to such an addicted audience, as it will be laughed out of the room, even if it's the right word.
Hey Americans, SAVE MONEY. Actually SAVE some of your income as your first action on payday. THEN figure out how much COFFEE and ICE CREAM and CABLE CHANNELS you can afford.
And Naturally.. well ARTIFICIALLY, really, we are being encouraged to OBEY OUR THIRST everywhere we look. It's not that it's JUST the Advertisers' fault, but I don't give them a pass on this either, by any means.
"Can't Live Without Chocolate? Well now you don't Have To!!" Because the whole carnival ("Meat Market"..almost mistranslated) has been conditioned with the unapologetic goal of convincing you that you need their product.. and the more addictive that product is, the more it's sales will pay for psychologists, salespeople and artists to work their damnedest to keep convincing you that 'It's okay.. you deserve a break today.' "Don't just sit there. Well, OK just sit there ABC."
Alright.. so just as a conscious, well-informed and activated public would threaten a number of our most lucrative industries, it would also radically transform the major political parties. Piece of Cake!
I did it, though. I threw out the girl-scout cookies.. after eating a 'few'. They are really crap. Well intentioned, but crap. Next year, I'll just give them the $14 and toss in a couple Apples.
Bob
What about Nega-Watts?
Those are the watts one doensn’t use, so they are ‘sold’ back to the community in the sense that they are never produced, not called for, and thus spare the environment, nature, reserves, etc.
It is largely the 'Negawatts' idea that I was (initially) thinking of here. I strayed off about 90 degrees from the original thought with the Addictions/Adverts ideas..
Running Rapids on my stream of consciousness, I guess. I'm a little delirious with some sudden stomach thing today, so I've been a little more 'impressionistic' than usual.
I am just trying to point out that it can be counterintuitive to write about 'what isn't'.. People describe themselves, sometimes, by starting out with what they are NOT, and while the process of elimination can work, it is a roundabout way to get there. It feels like the energy equivalent to "Picture in your mind anything BUT a blue elephant.."
Anyway, I'm not going to do much better than this today.
Happy Birthday, TOD, Happy Easter All (My Agnosto-antagonist brother is serving up a Rabbit to the rest of the family tonight, blessings of the Great Pumpkin be upon him!) Time to pray to the porcelain!
Bob
One that we would like to model, but do not have the resources to model, yet.
A good conservation tool.
Alan
I fancy maximum push for efficiency, renewable energy, nuclear energy and non fossil fuel transportation. This must to a very large degree be made on an as free markets as possible to catch the economical solutions and not the politically correct or popular solutions since it would be a disaster if too much resources are wasted. Every region and business sector must make an effort based on its current strenghts.
The Millennium Institute is quite willing to develop a T21-Sweden or T21-Nordic. Not that expensive and one can try out different policies.
Humans have difficulty considering the interactions of more than 4 or 5 variables at once (politicians usually consider only one or two variables), and the computer can vastly increase that #.
Try out various policies and look for "unintended consequences" and which policies work better. Good data for projections is needed.
One can download a simplified T21-USA or T21-NA at
http://www.millenniuminstitute.net/
BTW, Some of the MI staff have Nordic links, Andrea is getting his PhD in Bergen and his girlfriend is working on that Danish renewable island south of Copenhagen, and MI is negotiating to move to Riga.
Best Hopes for Rigorous Policy Analysis,
Alan
Basing political decisions on rigorous policy analysis do to me seem a little far fetched from the political day to day world but it is an intresting ideal.
I am happy that statistical and scientific arguments carry a fair ammount of weight both in the Swedish parliament and to the general population. If an institution, organization or knowledged individual do a realy good analysis it can be heard thru the buzz and PR people. Appealing both to feelings and science often wins debates over people who look good and only appeal to feelings.
How much people listen to scientifically based argumentation varies greatly between different areas of politics and it varies over time. My conclusion is that it often is very bad if decisionmaking separates from reality and drifts up in the clouds to deliver ideology or religion.
My aim was to produce one result: reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
How nations adapt to the reduced availability will determine the impacts on society. I like your plan and if it is put into wide practice society would benefit.
Unfortunately without a limit on the production of fossil fuels I they will most likely be exported and burned elsewhere. If developing nations try to follow our 20th century path the communities following your plan while receiving the benefits of your plan will still face larger problems from climate change produced by the exported emissions.
One benefit of my plan is it becomes more difficult to avoid following your plan.
.
One of the goals of the Millennium Institute is to create a T21-World to test global strategies.
Shifting carbon burning from one nation to another does little good, reducing emissions from the #1 polluter but making no change in the #2 polluter does do some good. Reducing everyone's CO2 emissions will likely be required.
The most profound insight is that doing right by the environment also results in a significantly larger GDP than BAU.
Best Hopes,
Alan
Alan...You are advocating production controls in order to slow growth. You, or someone else, can give it a fancy name, but production control is what it amounts to.
Many wars have been fought over resources. When FDR constrained resources to Japan, WW2 ensued in the Pacific...just one example.
The governments of the world would have to agree to such a scheme in order for it to be effective. The world's major manufacturing nations would have to say 'OK, we are going to limit our growth, and not go to war, because the EU, US, China, India, etc, have all agreed to do the same.' The idea might be a good one on paper but the implementation of such a plan would be frought with problems. First, it would put OPEC in the position of making allocation decisions...a political as well as practical football. What if OPEC continues down their current path of importing more industry and saying that they needed an ever larger share of the FF production? A huge black market would probably spring up, for people and governments are human and greedy. Who will over see this cut back to insure that all FF exporting countries are playing by the rules? Remember, any time governments intervene in markets, which production controls are, stresses are set up in the markets. In order for governments to go down this road they would have to admit to their citizens that 'we have agreed to constrain growth through production controls.' Do you believe that citizens of these governments would stand still while their governments agreed to and implemented these rules? Perhaps the plan would work in a tyrannical form of government but I do not see it working in a democracy. Take a close look at what economic distortions caused by government intervention is doing to Zimbabwe, for one. Before such a plan could be implemented the idea and practice of continual growth, and continual economic expansion would need to be changed to one of limited growth. Might not sound like a big deal but it is...governments that are answerable to voters, must tread very lightly when visiting such a policy shift.
If governments mandated limited production of FFs, goverment intervention would also be required in the downsteam use of the available FFs, otherwise their populations would simply say 'you started this limited production and now I can't get fuel for my small biz and I am bankrupt'. If governments did not implement distribution controls of FF resources a bidding war for remaining resources would start and the resources available would go to large businesses, and the government itself, that could bid the most. How would you local fire station get gas for their fire trucks? A bidding war already is in progress between have and have not countries and we are seeing the beginnings of bidding wars inside the 'have' countries as FFs become more constrained. So, what you are advocating is probably going to happen without government intervention...usually better in the long run.
Alan...You are advocating production controls in order to slow growth
Quite wrong. We modeled only a "positive" approach. No constraints on market reaction, nothing was prohibited.
Carbon taxes are possible source of funding, but other sources are possible.
The result from our advocated policy is about one quarter larger GDP than a BAU market based reaction to Peak Oil.
That is why it is the best economic policy !
Best Hopes for Being All Things to All People :-)
Alan (from Big Easy, you may have been addressing the other Alan)
AlanFromBigEasy...My comments were directed to alan, not you. But, thanks for responding. :)
So, peak oil is a good thing as it amounts to one element of the proposed plan? I have to admit this is my viewpoint, as market forces will correct desires for petroleum over consumption. Ditto for natural gas. While peak oil and global warming share many constraints to effective political response, the absence of an inherent market mechanism to address global warming is the key difference between these issues. Resource limitation is perhaps the only approach that will effectively address global warming, as coal is the only fossil fuel exported by the developed countries; providing them with considerable leverage. Combined with a moratorium on new coal plants without carbon capture, one can almost see the outline of the response that could limit CO2 emissions.
Most here expect peak oil to hit soon if it hasn't already. I believe its still 5-10 years out. If peak oil is about to hit the net result of my plan will only be to announce that peak oil is around the corner, although it will officially be for a reason other than geology.
At least this way everyone will know its coming and will have sometime to prepare. Better than the knowledge being confined to some fringe groups and perhaps a few leaders who are keeping it to themselves.
Nonsense! People will deny even years after peak oil. And they will deny for the very same reason you are denying right now. This reason they will say:
That is just another form of denial. You are saying in effect: "If peak oil hits, it will not be be because there is still not plenty of oil in the ground!"
Wrong! That is exactly why we are on the peak plateau right now. And it is because of geology. It is because we have run out of the very easy oil, the very large fields, and now we are scraping the bottom of the barrel, trying to cook oil out of the bitumen in oil sands and trying to find tiny pockets of oil in the very deep ocean. All the easy oil is gone and it is gone because of geology!
Ron Patterson
There is no geological reason why bitumen could not be extracted first, and light sweet crude later.
Oil with the best profit margin is extracted first: that's economics, not geology.
Bob, that is sheer nonsense. Picking the low hanging fruit first is geology. Getting what you can get easy first, because of the geology of the oil patch, is geology.
Of course economy is always present. You get the most profitable stuff first, then as the price goes up, because all the good stuff has already been picked, you go after the scrapings at the bottom of the barrel. The geological easy stuff to get at is gone, geologically gone! Now because of geology, you are milking the almost dry holes but you will be in decline anyway.
Bitumen can be extracted only at a very slow rate because of geology.
Methinks Bob, that you are more than a little confused here.
Ron Patterson
I understand what you're saying, Bob. People made the decision to take the easy stuff first, for obvious reasons. Imagine how bad the situation would be if they did start with the bitumen? We probably wouldn't peak until 2025 or 2030 in that case, but it would be a much faster production drop off since we wouldn't have those "bottom of the barrel" sources to fall back on.
All in all, it comes down to how people assess the economic viability of a given geologic situation. Oil with the best profit margin has the best profit margin because of geology. Therefore, it economics and geology, together.
Alan said: "I’d like to propose an alternative method of controlling greenhouse gas emissions: a supply side solution"
You need to read about environmental economics to understand why this has not happened. In basic terms, producers are incentivised to deplete resources at the fastest rate that demand allows, because the more they extract, the more they earn and that money can be reinvested in the activity or in the broader economy, but they can only invest when they extract. What we need is an economic system that incentivises resource efficiency. But fundamentally it is caused by a lack of feedback mechanisms. These should not be controlled by a bureacracy because the market would destroy any attempts at that and we would see a Mugabe style state. What we need are changes to the economic system to bring in feedback mechanisms to producers. Ultimately, it requires global agreements and governance because resources are controlled by global corporations, not by national governments. This is where I hope to God that global warming is a scam to bring upon new world order, because it would be a lie capable of being exposed. The reality of global warming itself is too scary to imagine.
So here it is, the grail is a a global economic system based on ethical feedback between economics and environmental limits (with safety buffers in place). In reality, we have probably crossed many thresholds and need to shut down all energy production for a few years or decades, but I can't see that happening, so are we doomed? Given that we can't converse with many nations already, Russia, Middle East, etc. how can we bring about global governance? Particularly when the corporations we seek to control payroll governments, control media and have a massive say over who gets into power. I think that governments are aware of this, and there is a real risk of massive events being engineered to fear people into accepting a global government, which would be both a tool for liberation in the right hands and total suppression in the hands of those who wish to limit the autonomy of individuals, groups and nation states.
Higher prices = economic system that incentivizes resource efficiency. If energy prices in the US were equivalent to those in Europe or Japan, for thirty years, then energy use would probably be about the same as in Europe or Japan, namely 50% lower than the present.
When things are wrong, a more efficient system makes matters worse. More efficient ways to grind up forests, fish, resources. The paradigm is wrong. Making it more efficient might delay the crash but it will also make the crash harder.
Doing the wrong thing better - sort of like the Democrat's plan for Iraq. No, if you are going the wrong way, stop and turn around before it's too late. If what you are doing makes matters worse - and our economic activities are the direct cause of the crises around us - then doing those activies more efficiently makes matters worse. Find another way.
Doing the wrong thing better, faster, harder doesn't help. It just leaves more and bigger stone heads unfinished in the quarries.
cfm in Gray, ME
Well said. The whole project is wrong and impossible. Doing it harder and "better" is not the way to go.
Econ guy said: "Higher prices = economic system that incentivizes resource efficiency"
No, higher prices equal greater incentive to produce to get money to invest in more industrial activities, or exotic investment vehicles in the unreal economy. Higher prices open up more resources that are unviable without such prices. Come on, you should know that if you post in this site. Or are you playing with me?!
The only way is to limit primary production to environmental limits, ensure a trading system that provides fair distribution of resources. Resource efficiency could be used to increase the primary production quota and be part of the distribution system. However, whilst efficiency should be encouraged everywhere, taxation of the rich countries would be required to put poorer countries on an even footing, in the interest, not of fairness, but of stability of the system, because some of the industrial processes and transport infrastructure (especially cars) in poor countries lack efficiency from a lack of investment.
Taxation may sound anti-capitalist, but, every currency has it because interest rates can never be set for the whole of an economic union. For example, North England is subsidised by London and the South East of England, because interest rates are set for the dominant London economy and are too high for the subdued economy in the north since its industry was exported to China.
So, taxation and rational redistribution is required, not as a socialist tool, but as an extention of the integration of different economies within a capitalist structure.
But the redistribution must be rational or it is peverse and the system still breaks down. How would it work? We would need a global primary production administration run by a legal framework that linked production to scientific findings in a transparent bureacracy with statutory duties and an affective enforcement regime. Miners would have to apply for licences that tied them to the agreements. This would apply to logging and bio-fuels.
This would increase inflation, so countries would need to reduce the money supply and the process would have to be gradual to avoid economic meltdown. Those with technology that reduces the impact of consumption, i.e. carbon capture, could gain credits that let them have more resources. Those that are inefficient, and rich countries would pay money into a fund for others to invest in efficiency. That way, we work within limits and economic growth is focused on sustainable efficiency and thrift and we would have a market that makes spontaneous decisions about resouce distribution, within a framework chosen by mother earth.
And I suppose you would be the Administrator of this "global primary production administration run by a legal framework that inked production to scientific findings in a transparent bureaucracy with statutory duties and an effective enforcement regime"?
It's true that higher prices incentivize more marginal resource extraction. That wouldn't necessarily be a good thing. I was thinking more along the lines of higher resource taxes, as in the case of energy in Europe. You could have resource extraction taxes ie royalties as well, and this is already common.
It seems to me that the Europeans are doing a pretty good job of it. Their governments are not so corrupt as ours. They focus on efficient transportation (trains mostly), better insulation and other such efficiency gains, high taxes to discourage use, encouraging a variety of alternative energy sources, etc. A grab bag of stuff, some of which may work well and some of which may not. An important thing, however, is that this system is scalable. In other words, to use less resources (by choice or necessity), you just "turn the knob" a bit more. Higher prices, more focus on alternatives, etc. etc. Thus, although Europeans and Japanese already use about 50% of the energy per capita in the US, I think it would be easier for them to reduce their energy use by another 50% (to 25% of present US use) than it would be for Americans to get to where Europeans and Japanese are today. They just "turn the knob" a bit more, and I think most citizens would be pretty happy with this. For people in the US, it would mean the present structure (suburbia/cars/long commutes) would become unusable, and there is no alternative system that could be expanded to handle the demand.
Europe is doing better, but that is more an accident of history. We have stronger governance than US from longer democracies so don't have situations like LA where a car company can rip up rail roads so easily. And our cities were built pre-car so are walkable and public transportable by default. But we are still one of the largest importers of rainforest products and most of our pollution has been outsourced to China. We also still screw Africa and many other places, so yes, Europe has it good locally, but this is a global issue with global soutions. Just hope that the power hungry elite do not use solutions to global issues as an excuse to crush liberty and push their toxic corporate agenda, or most of the world will end up like Iraq and Afganistan.
Europe ... than US from longer democracies
Except for Switzerland and San Marino, simply *NOT* true !
And neither is an EU member state.
Best Hopes for the Finest Work ever done (in the history of humanity) by a committee, The Constitution of the United States of America,
Alan
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/environment/i'll-be-just-fine%2c-says-planet-20080306774/
I'LL BE JUST FINE, SAYS PLANET
THE planet Earth has dismissed claims it is in danger from global warming, stressing the worst that could happen is the extinction of the human race.
'If you don't mind, I've got some orbiting to do'The Earth spoke out after a series of books, television programmes and environmental campaigns urged people to do everything in their power to 'Save the Planet'.
Earth, 4,000,000,000, said last night: "I'll be absolutely fine, seriously. I might get a bit warmer and a bit wetter, but to be honest, that actually sounds quite nice.
"Try living through an ice age. Pardon my French, but it's absolutely fucking freezing."
The planet, based 93 million miles from the Sun, said it was 'sick and tired' of being drawn into arguments about human behaviour.
"Look, I'm just a planet doing its thing, alright? If you want to live on me, that's your business, but I've got important planet stuff to do, okay?
"Try being in elliptical orbit for five minutes, or balancing your gravitational pull with a medium-sized moon. Let me assure you, it's no fucking picnic."
The planet said environmental campaigners should change their slogan from 'Save the Planet' to something more relevant such as 'Save Your Sorry Arse'.
Earth added: "Okay, so there may come a time when, for a variety of reasons, I am no longer able to support pandas, polar bears, and humans, but you know what? Life goes on.
"Who knows, I might end up being a haven for toads."
That doesn't generalize too well to other commodities.
I keep coming back to the concept of footprint and boundaries - whether bioregions or local...national political boundaries. Smith's concept of capitalism presumed that Capital could not cross state boundaries. Ultimately, we have to return to an economy largely based on a footprint bounded by the visible horizon. Nothing else is going to be sustainable - and even that isn't sufficient requirement to guarantee sustainability.
As far as US goes, how many people have to starve before we abolish corporate personhood and rights and put the economy back under citizen control? Are the citizens so mis-informed that would make no difference? Certainly the US will have to break up well before that happens.
Can communities flying under the radar take care of themselves as Jeff Vail brings up? Not if the leaders and speakers stay under the radar, because then the discussion and implmentation of what needs to be done will never happen.
cfm in Gray, ME
"abolish corporate personhood"
A critical point, far too rarely mentioned, IMHO, and along with the need to unlearn the mantra "growth is good", a key element to giving us any hope of reigning in the monster we have unleashed that Daniel Quinn (Ishmael and others) describes as the 'Secret Plan' - i.e. consume everything as fast as possible until it's all gone.
Re: abolish corporate personhood:
This is the first step towards sanity that our culture might make. We won't, because governance is in the hands of the corporations. But it needs to be done...
Or, as an alternative, simply establish liquidation (with an award of all liquidated net assets to the victims) as the standard remedy for all corporate malfeasance. That would surely get the attention of shareholders!
Move Over Hemp, Opium Poppy Will Save the World !
Free registration required
http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/54320/
Happy Easter,
Alan
"We are Addicted to Oil." GWB
You think it's bad now..
I think some crucial info has been withheld here. One is that insects like diamondback moth have made higher oil yield crops like canola unviable. Second is that illegal Afghan poppy growing has flooded the market for legal opiate feedstock so they need a new product. Without subsidies there would be no poppyseed biodiesel.
Bishop of Rochester: save your souls, you greedy bankers
Tim Henman's parents rally against 'eco-town'
Further £100 rise in energy bills looms
Livingstone fury at green plans veto
London's Mayor claims civil servants blocked his energy proposals for the capital because they put the interests of big business first
BP left confused after Russian police raid oil giant's office
The rise of British sea power
"He said the crisis gripping the world’s money markets was “almost certainly” due to amoral forces pursuing their own wealth-creating agenda and warned that without action the less wealthy might suffer disproportionately from the fallout."
This is completely backwards. The less wealthy borrowed more money than they should have and then stiffed the lenders when rates rose. The bankers are the ones "suffering disproportinately from the fallout" because the poor are just walking away.
Bankers used to be chastised because they didn't lend to the poor, now they are chastised because they lend to the poor. The Bishop needs less Bible and more Wealth of Nations.
Lending to the poor? Using sub-prime loans with teasers and re-sets that the lenders should have known that borrowers could not pay back? If the lenders had followed due dillagence lending guidlines the loans would not have been made to those that could not pay off the loans.
Responsibility lies with the lender to insure that the borrower can repay the loan, not the other way round.
If the fault is with the borrowers, this sub-prime mess would have and could have happened long ago. It didn't untill the lending practices and banking regulations were changed...at the request of the lenders. Lenders are reaping what they sowed.
K 100 - It was never about the money loaned out for mortgs.
It is ALL about the money made with those mortgs afterwards that is the real and HUGE problem.
The bankers chose to loan that money, Keithster100. They chose to overlook the financial status of those borrowers. They made that loan despite knowing it had a high probability of default. They deliberately paid S&P, Fitch, and Moody money to get those loans bundled as "AAA" securities, Keithster100, and then resold that toxic waste a "premium" grade investments to people who believed the ratings agencies lies.
The banks are complicit in this. The banks did this to themselves by loaning to probable deadbeats. And now the banks want to offload this bullshit toxic waste on the public?
Screw them. Let the banks fail, totally. They do not deserve to be rescued given the stupidity they just displayed. This IS the fault of the banks for failing to do due diligence of the borrowers or having done it then deliberately choosing to ignore the results of that process. Either the banks are incompetent or corrupt. And in either case they do not deserve to exist at all. In fact, most of those bank's top executives belong in jail.
Malefactors of Great Wealth
Theodore Roosevelt
Absolutely.
Nobody cared if the mortagees could, or could not, pay after some time. That didn’t matter, and doesn’t matter today.
Bad payers are not a problem. (For the lenders.)
As in many credit schemes, incl. US credit cards, for ex., high or usurious interest, late fees, and the usual take off, means a bundle can be made. Even the poor pay in their last pennies...
The point was to bundle up that 'house' debt and sell it on in some faintly respectable package.
See for ex., worth a read:
Subprime Securities Market Began as `Group of 5' Over Chinese
By Mark Pittman, Bloomberg, Dec. 17
link
I could not agree with you more, Grey.
The problem I see is the widespread business use of "hold harmless" and "arbitration" clauses. Not so much that business uses them, but that ignorant people accept them.
What has happened is sorely needed. You can tell a child till you are blue in the face not to play with the cook pots. Once a child pulls a cook pot full of hot stew on itself, the lesson is painfully learned. I learned that way and I STILL remember it. No lasting effects, but the psychological surprise to find out Mom wasn't able to protect me from my own ignorance of her advice is seill with me.
A lot of naive investors ( many claiming themselves professional stewards of retirement plans ) have been burned. Hopefully, they will remember.
The lesson will only take hold if the result was painful. Having the government step in and clean up the mess isn't helping - it only shows Mom will step in at the last minute and keep the hot soup from hitting ME. If I made the mess, Mom would make me clean it up. Old school.
I do not think our government has the guts to go to all those investment bankers and ask them to make good on all the promises they made - irregardless of arbitration and hold harmless clauses. It would mean a lot of very wealthy people would find themselves "out on the street", much like the fate they sentenced countless others to with their leveraged scheming.
I can now look companies in the eye when they put "arbitration" clauses and "hold harmless" agreements in their paperwork they had me and ask them just what they are up to. Such "businesstalk" is a sure indicator to me that the business may be up to no good. As a business, they need legal teeth to exact payment from me should I fail to keep my end. I now require - from any financial advisor - him to be PERSONALLY responsible for any claims he makes.
The days where a little headhocking will get the check signed are OVER. The first thing that trips me off to ask the financial advisor to put his PERSONAL assets on the line is arbitration and "hold harmless" clauses in the papers he hands me for signature. My question to him is that its MY money. If everyone is denying responsibility, then SOMEONE has to take it - and he's the one earning the commission for the sale. Why should I assume all the risk AND pay a commission?
If everybody would do this, we will not see a rerun of the financial idiocy that landed us all in this mess.
SIMPLY HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE!!!
Steve
A good idea to jail the bank executives. Trouble is the result of the banks failing could be devastating for the economy. Trouble is by creating liquidity we are relying on the people who got us in to the mess to get us out. Knotty.
"Trouble is the result of the banks failing could be devastating for the economy. "
Yes. They're banking on that. ;-)
The "free marketeers" have also been pushing degraded educational systems. Take away that free pint of milk before classes, let McDonalds train 'em in food service, etc, above all keep 'em dumb. Always, always "up sell" 'em.
Utterly charming how they are all for free enterprise etc. and then when things get rocky they go all socialistic and ‘responsible’ and ask for handouts. It is a scam they pull again and again, successfully. The tax payer bails them out, and - on we go to the next round.
The problem is that the present system is so deeply ingrained no one can see their way out of it. Gvmts., finance, corporations, (and in many countries the military as well) with their propaganda arm, the media, are all tightly tied together in circles of mutual influence and profit sharing, and few find it strange. It is just the way things are.
An educated and healthy workforce made sense after WW2. Morally and pragmatically. That is no longer the case today.
No banker jumped out of a van, grabbed people off the street and forced them to take a loan. These "less wealthy" the bishop describes did it of their own volition, now they should pay. If I were a banker I would go after these thieves and bring them to court.
Thou shalt not steal, right Bishop?
Right K100, it's just like poor people. The wonderful people of Countrywide gave them a 0 down loan and did not even to ask to see proof of employment. While the RE cheerleaders including, MSM, gov't and financial institutions encouraged them touting how wonderful it is to own your own home and what a loser you are if you don't. Buy now or be priced out forever! Damn them for believing the collective lies of everybody in authority. I'm sure they abandoned underwriting procedures for the betterment of society and to give people a chance to live the american dream, and those damn poor people ruined it for every body. If those bastards would go out and get a 3rd job maybe my property value would not be falling. (sarcasm off)
I'm in San Diego, we have condos in my area going 40-50% off peak pricing. I personally would let if go regardless if I could pay or not. It's the better business decision.
fraud /frɔd/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[frawd] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1. deceit, trickery, sharp practice, or breach of confidence, perpetrated for profit or to gain some unfair or dishonest advantage.
2. a particular instance of such deceit or trickery: mail fraud; election frauds.
3. any deception, trickery, or humbug: That diet book is a fraud and a waste of time.
4. a person who makes deceitful pretenses; sham; poseur.
It is typical of those who have a religious faith in the 'free-market' system to value the principle of 'caveat emptor' but to ignore or play down the issue of fraud. An excellent case could be made, and doubtless is being made in courtrooms as we speak, that lenders participated in large-scale fraud. They are supposedly the financial experts and have obligations which they willfully ignored.
A good article http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_...
Surely you jest !!
Cayne, the chairman and chief executive of Bear Stearns, was paid $40m between 2004 and 2006 and made millions more by selling his shares. But he has just presided over the destruction of virtually the whole value of the shares in the bank.
What's to look forward to ?
Finally, what are the prospects for the ordinary person in all this? Not good, I’m afraid. If there is another great recession, tens of millions in the West will suffer real hardship. If we manage to avoid it, even more will feel it in their pockets in a much less dramatic but still noticeable way.
Hey that's me he's talking about,
'ordinary'.
I live within my means. I do all the other law abiding things a citizen is expected to
do. I expect, in return, the full letter of the law to be enforced on any and all law breakers.
It is simply too late to do anything else this time round.
Bull !!!!
weatherman, "good article", my a**
Cayne may have lost $500 million in the collapse of Bear Stearns. There is justice in this situation.
Jack,
I think you're tap dancing here ...
may have -- mayyyyy have ?
$500 million -- nice number, but just plain meaningless - how about some pertinent context like ... what's his total worth ?
I am not tap dancing. This is pretty much cold hard fact. Cayne held a huge amount of Bear Stearns stock. How much he lost depends a lot of when you price it and what the final settlement winds up being. $500 million is a reasonable estimate.
I have no idea how much he is worth, but do expect that this is the majority of his wealth. In fact he could be underwater, if he has enough debt.
Saying that losing $500 million is meaningless is just plain silly. You are asking for the private sector to bear the pain of their failings. It is clear and indisputable that Cayne did.
You really are a piece of work.
You don't think there was, let's say, misrepresentation of what was being sold? No taking advantage of the complexities of the fine print and such?
But don't worry. The little people will lose everything, and the huckster loan sharks will get bailed out. As always in this "free market" "democracy", risk is socialized, profit is corporatized.
What a f**king joke.
You are a real tool, you know that?
It certainly seems that there was a high level of misrepresentation involved in subprime lending. If I am not wrong, there is a "Truth in lending law" that does require relevant details to be spelled out clearly. Any lender who violated the spirit of this law should be punished.
However, the rest is not so easy. If you have "little person #1" who basically conspired with a lender to inflate their earnings and qualify for loans they both should have known could not be paid back, they should both bear some of the responsibility. It would be unfair to bail them out and ignore "little person #2" who watched the whole thing and made the right decision not to lie, borrow or get over extended.
It also does not seem clear at this point that risks are being socialized. Bear Stearns was effectively bankrupted with shareholders getting somewhere near 2 cents on the dollar (using peak value and the $2 share price). They bore 100% of the risk and the punishment. As for other money that is going into the system to strengthen it, the judgement is based on public good. You may not like the banking system, but it is an essential part of a functioning economy. Destroying the banking system because you are mad at bankers would be like cutting your leg off because you can't run fast enough.
Finally, there is an unavoidable tension between availability of loans to the poor and protecting them from predators and bad decision-making. You have to err on one side or the other. The commentariat will alternate between saying that cruel banks won't lend to the poor and saying that cruel banks are expoiting the poor by lending to them when some can't pay the money back. Perfect doesn't exist.
Something else that people are not mentioning very much is that often the valuations of the properties involved were inflated, if not downright fraudulent, as well. Appraisal is more of an art than a science, and it should be understood that there is a fairly wide margin of error implicit in any appraisal, and wider in some than in others. Appraisers are constantly under pressure from lenders, borrowers, and real estate agents to come in as high as possible, and they know that if they consistently come in too low and wreck too many deals, they will stop being asked to do appraisals.
Simply overvaluing a refi by 10% will turn a 90% LTV transaction into a 100% LTV transaction - or a 100% LTV into 110%. I suspect that a fair number of these troubled mortgagees were underwater before the ink was even dry on the loan papers.
Jeez Louise!
Would YOU loan your money to people with the qualifications listed in "sub-prime"? If your neighbor loaned his money to someone with the qualifications listed in sub-prime would you feel sorry for him or think he was a stupid moron for doing something clearly idiotic? And would you put up with him coming over and demanding to tax you to pay for his screwup?
That is what the bankers are demanding - that the rest of us pay for THEM making STUPID LOANS.
Unbelievable.
Like Saudi Arabia's "voluntary" reduction in net oil exports, from 9.1 mbpd (total liquids) in 2005 to around 8.0 mbpd in 2007, Lukoil is saying that the continuing cutoff of crude oil exports to Germany is also voluntary:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aIlAkMVIhYpc
Lukoil Won't Send Oil to German Refiners in April, Reuters Says
By Greg Walters
A totally different topic....but I just wanted to toss out a question that has been on my mind for some time. What will universities look like in the future as energy supplies become more constrained? Does anyone have any ideas? Any links? I've seen so much written on financial co.s and suburbia, on living arrangements and transportation and food supplies, and it has been greatly interesting and helpful. Yet what about universities? They have been around for a long time (some at least), so it is likely they'll still BE around (some at least) but beyond that does anyone care to speculate on the particulars of what universities will be like in the future?
From a California perspective, I'd say that a college education will be less common in an energy-constrained future. Here in California, the U.C. - but particularly the C.S.U. - systems are made possible with a lot of public money subsidizing public education for a broad middle class. The U.C. system will probably survive, as it carries more prestige, and many of the campuses are centers for research. The C.S.U. system has always been the affordable way for anyone to get a degree. Also, its campuses are also commonly thought of as 'commuter' schools - with very few students living on campus.
I think that there will be an upsurge in student interest in social changing "trades/skills" with decent post-graduation employment possibilities.
Agricultural and Engineering schools could do well, lawyers (despite being a renewable and undepletable "resource"), liberal arts less so. Likewise business schools will see changes, perhaps more Management, Statistics/QM majors and less Marketing majors, with an overall decline.
Health care may make less money than today, but they will be needed none-the-less.
If our society holds together, there may be a massive upsurge in Social Workers. The FWOs are going to need help, as will many of the rest of us.
Student loans may be more targeted (will practicing lawyers practice "birth control" on new lawyers ?) and fewer will get them.
Best Hopes for a Better Student Body,
Alan
Western Countries, to make it short:
1) educate all to some level, and wait for a shake out, egalitarian like
2) have a competitive system, supposedly based on ‘merit’ in fact heavily on pedigrees and riches, an ‘elite’ class replication system
3) import the educated as needed, or outsource activities (much the same), thereby capitalizing on what others spent, what advantageous price workers can be bought for
Most today mix, using all three strategies in various doses. All wrapped in grand rhetoric and much obfuscation.
The Education market is huge ... the US used to earn a bomb from foreign students for ex.
Basically, the money for 'useless' education will dry up.
I get the idea theology will be the most secure/stable occupation of all.
The rich do not need God. The poor do.
It looks we will have an avalanche of poor.
Personally, I am sticking with an ability to fix things to be a trait that would help my survivability. If I am not useful to my society, its only logical I perish to make way for someone else who is.
I feel this is when my knowledge of refrigeration thermodynamics will be useful. If TSHTF, no one is gonna care what refrigerant is in a system. I can go to the scrap heap, find damn near any scrap parts for old systems and bring up a perfectly good ice bank with a bottle of barbeque gas. If need be, I will find ways of running my compressors and vacuum pumps from solar panels.
Or build ISAAC's. (Intermittent Solar Ammonia Absorption Chillers ). A chemist friend of mine can get ammonia from pee. Admittedly, it takes a *lot* of pee to make a ton's worth of coolant, but it can be done. )
But until then, I await becoming useful. Right now, no one seems interested in alternative systems when conventional systems can be delivered with just a signature in a checkbook. When their signature, combined with a hard day's labor in the field, will net a meal, there will be a need for what I can do.
I know there are a lot of people out there just like me. Old cantankerous packrats. They know exactly what they are doing. And by today's standards - unemployable - because we don't subordinate well and hate cubicles.
In a way I look forward to being useful again... when society appreciates the tool guy more than the tie guy.
Steve
There's lots of absorption coolers/refrigerators in old campers. I see then all the time in the local dump, probably put there because the electric heating element has burned out. I think it would not be a big problem to make A/C units using absorption, using solar concentrators. They would be perfect for days when the sun was out, but wouldn't do squat after dark. What would be needed is some method of storing thermal energy for an overnight period, to keep the humidity down after dark.
E. Swanson
The rich need God more than any of us may ever realize. John
before the industrial revolution they were for the upper class children only.
the lower classes only got a few years education(depending on the area that might include reading and writing), then they were apprenticed to either their father, realitive, or complete stranger for a trade or craft they will then spend the rest of their lives in.
As dismal as this sounds to people now, this was a real good system for stability. Though it must sound like hell for people who like me live in the age when it is thought it is a right for a person to have a proper and complete education.
I suppose people would need to spend most time making a living, not only for themselves but for the ones in the family that have less capability of supporting themselves. Therefore only the privileged (even more than today) would have the opportunity, let alone professional motivations to undertake lengthy periods of student life.
As long as there is a more-or-less functional civil society, community colleges should do fine. These represent the best value in higher education available today (except for the genius that can swing a full-ride scholarship to some elite campus like MIT, and applies to something like 0.0000001% of the population). Ordinary people should go to their local community college if they can possibly swing it (in terms of their intellictual abilities, the time commitment, and the very minimal money involved). Given a declining economy with decreasing opportunities, this may be all that most people will ever need or can afford. The practical training that one can get at a community college will certainly serve most people better than a BA in some nonsense field.
There will still be colleges and universities where one can transfer from community college to complete their bachelor's degree, and to move on into graduate-level studies. There are likely to be far fewer career opportunities for highly educated people in the future, so IMHO, there will be fewer such institutions in the future. This suggests that a very substantial and traumatic shakeout is coming to higher education within the next decade or two. When it is all other, there will be a handful of elite, highly-selective, well-endowed 4-year colleges catering to the very small number of rich (who we will always have with us) and geniuses (which brings us full circle back to the way things were over a century ago), and maybe one or two universities (with a network of branch campuses) in each state that focus on upper-level undergraduate and graduate-level education only. The universities will have to shrink in size and facilities, and re-engineer their curriculum and schedules so that students can complete their degree programs m