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.

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).

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 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.

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