 | Peak Oil and the Financial Markets: A Forecast for 2008--July 31 Update | The Oil Drum | DrumBeat: August 3, 2008 |  |
DrumBeat: August 2, 2008
Posted by Leanan on August 2, 2008 - 7:25am
Topic: Miscellaneous
Shipping Costs Start to Crimp Globalization
Cheap oil, the lubricant of quick, inexpensive transportation links across the world, may not return anytime soon, upsetting the logic of diffuse global supply chains that treat geography as a footnote in the pursuit of lower wages. Rising concern about global warming, the reaction against lost jobs in rich countries, worries about food safety and security, and the collapse of world trade talks in Geneva last week also signal that political and environmental concerns may make the calculus of globalization far more complex.“If we think about the Wal-Mart model, it is incredibly fuel-intensive at every stage, and at every one of those stages we are now seeing an inflation of the costs for boats, trucks, cars,” said Naomi Klein, the author of “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.”
“That is necessarily leading to a rethinking of this emissions-intensive model, whether the increased interest in growing foods locally, producing locally or shopping locally, and I think that’s great.”
Russia ‘sticks foot in door’ of Arctic riches
Russia has begun a push to claim a vast chunk of disputed Arctic territory in an aggressive campaign to win control of the region's oil and gas resources.A state-sponsored expedition, led by a Moscow geographical institute, is in the region gathering scientific data in an attempt to prove that vast swathes of the seabed belong to Russia.
Drought forces Iran to halt fuel oil exports
TEHRAN, Aug 2: Iran has temporarily halted exports of fuel oil because of domestic needs during a severe drought, a senior official was quoted as saying on Saturday.Iran is a regular exporter of fuel oil to Asia. But industry sources said on Saturday it will halt exports of the heavy fuel from August as it builds domestic stockpiles ahead of winter, and due to a heavy maintenance schedule in the fourth-quarter.
Ditch the Gas Guzzler? Well, Maybe Not Yet
Your neighbors may turn up their noses, but keeping your gas-guzzling sport utility vehicle, or buying one coming off a lease, may be a smart move.
Baker Institute report proposes strategies to ensure global energy security
A new policy report released by Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy suggests strategies to deal with the current turmoil in the global energy markets, including the role of petrodollars in the U.S. credit bubble."Sharp changes in energy prices are having dramatic effects on the stability of the global economy," the report states. "Threats to the global energy market could have dangerous corresponding impacts on the world financial system."
Nigerian Militants Clash in Main Oil Town of Port Harcourt
2 (Bloomberg) -- Rival militant gangs in Nigeria's Niger Delta fought a gun battle in the main oil city of Port Harcourt yesterday, security officials and aid workers said.Ten people who sustained gunshot wounds in the clashes were brought to a clinic operated by French aid group Doctors Without Borders last night, Alex Thomson, a security official at the facility, said in an interview today.
Thousands protest over Iraqi city of Kirkuk
BAGHDAD–More than 1,000 Sunni Arabs and Turkomen staged a demonstration Saturday to protest calls by Kurds to annex the oil-rich city of Kirkuk to their autonomous region as Iraqi officials met in Baghdad to defuse tension over the disputed city.
FACTBOX - Mexico energy reform debate
(Reuters) - Latest developments as Mexico's ruling conservatives court opposition lawmakers to approve an energy reform to allow more private investment in the state-controlled oil industry in hopes of bolstering falling output.
Mexican voters are resisting foreign investment in Pemex, but such a move could help the country.
Iran: SSF crackdown on Shahinshahr shopkeepers protesting to power outage
NCRI - The State Security Forces (SSF) – mullahs' suppressive police – opened fire on a crowd of local shopkeepers protesting to power outage on July 30.Eyewitness reports from the scene indicate that some local shopkeepers were gathered outside the governor's office carrying banners protesting to 5 hours of power outage causing their businesses huge damage.
Forget 25 cents; Metro Transit weighs higher fare hike
A planned 25-cent bus-fare increase is on hold while King County Metro Transit considers a bigger increase or service cuts, because of a rapid drop in sales-tax revenue.Metro had planned an Oct. 1 increase, blaming it on a spike in diesel-fuel prices. New buses were recently added to a few busy routes, but now cutbacks — unthinkable a few weeks ago — are on the table as a last resort, County Councilmember Dow Constantine, D-West Seattle, said Friday.
Another option is a new car-tab fee for transit. But car taxes are unpopular, said Constantine, chairman of the council's Transportation Committee.
Consumers continued their yearlong hunt for the most affordable, fuel-efficient models in this environment.Sales of light trucks, a category that includes vans, pickups, SUVs and some crossovers, plummeted 25.2%. Sales of passenger cars, meanwhile, were flat, with the smallest cars receiving a big thumbs-up from consumers. Subcompacts were up 35% in July.
Several Detroit and import automakers said they could have sold more cars in July, if they had more in inventory.
Toprak said the growing shortage of desirable cars "played a huge role" in July's dismal sales performance.
Sign of the times: Cupboards growing bare at food bank
For the first time in eight years, the food bank recently ran out of frozen and canned meat. The shelves, once stocked with canned and dry goods, also have dwindled.It is a crisis situation, considering the growing effects of high fuel and food prices on consumers. And because of those factors, more lower-income households continue to fall behind.
Energy descent preparation - interview with Vermont peak oil educator Carl Etnier
Every day, year-round, Carl Etnier hops on his bicycle and rides three miles from East Montpelier, Vermont to downtown Montpelier, the state's capital, to work full-time on educating Vermonters and the nation regarding the realities of Peak Oil. I caught up with him at a Montpelier café owned and operated by the New England Culinary Institute which endeavors to use primarily local ingredients for its delectable luncheon menu.At the top of my list of questions for Carl was: What would make a private consultant with a solid, secure income quit his day job to teach people about Peak Oil?
High oil prices are crippling airlines and travellers alike and we may only be at the start of a new, global class divide between the stranded and the mobileIn Europe's late medieval period, the labouring masses rarely travelled further than a few dozen miles from where they were born. For them, travel was dangerous, onerous and slow.
But wealthy aristocrats travelled far and wide in the name of diplomacy, meeting leaders from other countries and extending their power and influence.
For Steven Flusty, an associate professor of geography at York University, this is what society could once again look like if predictions that the lower-middle classes will no longer be able to afford to fly in just a few years come true.
It would be tremendously debilitating and could wind up "breaking down everything below a certain class level, where they are being held in space as if it's some kind of a container," he says.
The Lure of Black Gold: Is offshore drilling gaining more acceptance?
Until recently, coastal states had taken a "not in my backyard" approach to offshore drilling. But that's beginning to change, now that gas prices are hovering at or above $4 per gallon. In Florida, 60 percent of voters now support drilling off their coasts. Perhaps more surprising, a majority in eco-conscious California is also willing to tap waters off the state's shorelines.
The U.S. couldn’t function without its 100+ operating nuclear power plants, but age issues could force many of them to reduce output or shut down completely over the next several years, warns electric utility expert Dan Scotto in Part 3 of his four-part exclusive video news report with EnergyTechStocks.com.
Wind won’t solve energy crisis
Last year wind generators nationally produced only 30 percent as much energy in a year as they would if they ran at full tilt, every hour of the year, a measure called “capacity factor.” Unlike nuclear power plants such as Wolf Creek, which achieve capacity factors of 90 percent or more, the wind operator cannot decide when the wind generator will run.Texas has more wind energy than any other state, and bigger problems as a result. Last year the Electric Reliability Council of Texas said that wind power could be counted on as being reliable only 8.7 percent of the time during periods of peak demand. The rest of the time electric utilities were forced to use backup power generation, usually high-priced natural gas.
Massachusetts: Decoupling order seeks energy efficiency, may cut electric bills
The state's Department of Public Utilities has moved to break the link between utility profits and electricity sales, a change that could help consumers reduce their energy use and the size of their electric bill.In an order issued July 16 the department began the process of "decoupling" revenues from sales for all electric and natural gas utilities in the state.
The debate in Ottawa over public transit continues to be difficult. There is agreement that the city needs a light-rail system, but determining what kind of light-rail system is a technical affair, in terms of both the economics and the engineering.
Forget the common icons of global warming. Fuming tailpipes and industrial smokestacks, it turns out, are less culpable for climate change than a set of offenders hidden in plain sight: buildings. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, buildings are responsible for almost half of all annual greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., consuming more than three-quarters of all the electricity produced by American power plants.
How Texas Struck It Rich Beneath Suburbia
In the 1980s, Houston wildcatter George Mitchell drilled the first well into the Barnett Shale formation that stretches through north and central Texas. He tapped into what would turn out to be one of the largest onshore natural gas reserves in the United States.It would take nearly two decades and millions of dollars to develop the horizontal, hydraulic technology necessary to bring that gas to the surface. But today there are about 7,500 gas wells in the Barnett Shale -- many located in the city limits of Fort Worth, and some a stone's throw from suburban homes and schools.
Gas price falls during prayer at the pump
When the prayer vigil started at 4 p.m. Friday at the corner of Madison Boulevard and Shelton Road, a gallon of Texaco unleaded gas cost $3.92, as it had for a few days.But even before the praying stopped, the price dropped three cents.
"Prayer works fast," said Rocky Twyman, a 59-year-old public relations consultant from Maryland who has organized Pray at the Pumps vigils in eight cities across the country.
Obama shifts on offshore oil drilling
WASHINGTON: In a sudden and major shift, Democrat Barack Obama said he would be willing to support limited additional offshore oil drilling if that would help promote alternative energy sources, a proposal he has repeatedly blasted rival John McCain for supporting....Obama, who has campaigned on a platform of change, previously ridiculed a push by Republicans to open offshore areas to oil exploration in a bid to bring down surging energy prices. The country's economic woes have largely eclipsed other issues, such as the war in Iraq, in the presidential race.
Oil majors' output growth hinges on strategy shift
ONDON (Reuters) - Western oil majors need to speed up a strategic shift into more complex oil and gas projects if they wish to return to consistent production growth after another quarter of disappointing output.The world's largest fully public-traded oil company by market capitalization, Exxon Mobil, on Thursday reported an 8 percent fall in oil and gas production, compared to the same period in 2007.
Industry No 2 Royal Dutch Shell said output dropped 1.6 percent while No 3 BP Plc's was flat.
The results follow a trend of falling output and ditched or scaled back growth targets across the sector in recent years.
Lawmakers to Big Oil: invest in alternative energy
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congressional Democrats on Thursday urged big oil companies to invest more of their record profits into boosting U.S. oil production and developing renewable energy instead of buying back their own stock.
The specter of rising food and fuel prices now threatens to destroy an era of unprecedented global prosperity, with two notable exceptions: Brazil and Canada. Both countries produce and export enough food and fuel not just to offset the worst of global inflationary pressures but even to turn the price spike from a menace to a boon. They are the only two major economies where prices have not burst the upper limit of the central bank's inflation target. And of the two, Brazil is by far the more surprising success story. The country that suffered the longest and perhaps the most debilitating bout of hyperinflation in recent history is now a rare island of relative stability and prosperity. Brazil's inflation is running at 6.5 percent, a rate that worries the country's money minders but thanks to their zeal is still the lowest level in all the major emerging markets.
Fuel prices hit chaotic West African travel
DAKAR (Reuters) - Chaotic transport is a part of life in West Africa, but getting to work has become even harder as rocketing fuel prices ignite protests by bus and taxi drivers, squeeze family budgets and encourage fuel smuggling.Global oil prices doubled in the past year and continued to rise strongly in 2008, hitting hard those who earn a living on the roads of some of the world's poorest countries.
This has fuelled social unrest in some fragile countries whose governments do not have the means to indefinitely soak up the higher fuel prices with subsidies.
Ukraine clash threatens oil to Europe
MONTREAL - Corruption and politics in Ukraine threaten to choke off, at least in the near term, the expansion of oil exports from Azerbaijan and eventually Kazakhstan to Europe. This is the significance of Ukrainian Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko's efforts in July to halt what she called the "shadowy privatization" of the Odessa-Brody oil pipeline.
U.S. Congress starts break with no gas price fix
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress began a five-week recess on Friday, leaving unresolved how to ease the surge in gasoline prices that is certain to be an issue until the November elections and beyond.Lawmakers will resume wrangling over how to bring down the cost at the pump and move the United States toward energy independence when they return from vacation on September 8.
Iran says OPEC to consider oil rationing
TEHRAN (Xinhua) -- Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hussein Nozari has revealed that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will seriously consider rationing its oil production, the semi-official FARS news agency reported."I think OPEC will be serious about this issue" in case of continuous decline of crude oil prices and lack of oil output control by some OPEC members which keep high level oil production, Nozari was quoted as saying.
Lawmakers award gas line license to TransCanada
JUNEAU, Alaska - Alaska lawmakers approved a state license Friday for TransCanada Corp. to pursue construction of a natural gas pipeline, ending a decades-long battle to open up 4.5 billion cubic feet of North Slope natural gas daily for use in North American markets.
U.S. shift to smaller cars raises safety questions
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An accelerating U.S. consumer shift from sport utility vehicles and pickups to more fuel-efficient cars should reduce rollover, but safety experts worry a lighter fleet poses serious risks despite air bags, anti-collision systems and other advances."Shifting to smaller vehicles will make the problem worse," said Adrian Lund, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a group that measures crash test performance that is backed by insurance companies. "You're better off in a bigger vehicle than in a smaller one."
Electric cars - It's the economy, stupid!
LONDON (Reuters.com) -- Much as I would like to say that I bought my electric car over two years ago to single-handedly save the planet, the reality is much less noble. I like to drive. I like to have my own personal space, to listen to the radio and to think. Perhaps it was growing up in South Africa where everyone who could drove a car.As Bill Clinton said: "It's the economy, stupid." The arrival of the congestion charge in central London in July 2005, and my dislike of the Underground system, is what prompted the thought of it. It's been quite calming driving past the petrol stations lately, watching the price go up on a daily basis. I think that the UK has one of the highest petrol prices in the world with an average price now around 1.20 pounds a liter ($9 a gallon).
World Bank unit taps growing solar market
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A World Bank investment in a Russian polysilicon producer this week will help expand supplies of the key ingredient used to make solar cells and bring down costs of solar energy, an official said on Friday.
Despite sceptics' noise, scientific consensus is growing
Anyone keeping up with current affairs could be forgiven for thinking scientists are riven with doubt over climate change. Climate sceptics have enjoyed a resurgence as the federal Coalition danced around the introduction of carbon trading and heavy-polluting industries began an intensive lobbying effort to convince the Federal Government of their special needs....The noise has been loudest on the internet, where websites give voice to people who believe scientists are suppressing evidence to protect their careers.
Unfortunately for the sceptics, and for everyone else, the evidence for human-induced climate change is stronger than ever.
Climate chill came exactly 12,679 years ago: study
OSLO (Reuters) - A drastic cooling of the climate in western Europe happened exactly 12,679 years ago, apparently after a shift to icy winds over the Atlantic, scientists said on Friday, giving a hint of how abruptly the climate can change....The findings adds to evidence about conditions needed for abrupt climate shifts. Some modern scientists fear such wrenching changes may be caused by global warming widely blamed on human emissions of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels.
China opens Highest Operational Speed Rail Line
Claims 350 kph (210 mph) speeds. To be raised to 380 kph. New signals will allow 3 minute headways. Solar panels on trains (<1% of power consumed ?)
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-08/01/content_8888638.htm
Just in time for the Olympics !
Alan
Another dream in technicolour would be to electrify the rails using solar power all along the line and when the sun shone the freight would go and when it didn't it wouldn't. Be great for the crew they would be able to get a decent nights sleep and play some cards on cloudy days! Could therefore even initiate the beginning of true civilization in America.
Claims 350 kph (210 mph) speeds. To be raised to 380 kph. Such desperation to get to where one is supposed to be! Why not just be born there?
Best wishes for getting to the Olympics, just make sure your return ticket will work. Oh and here is some reading material to wile away the hours on that trip.
Just to be on that Chinese track, I'll sign off with this 'chop':
:)cr:(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHr8OzaloLM
End of Suburbia Trailer (2004)
Four Years Later:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121763228998406131.html?mod=hps_us_pageo...
WSJ: After the Bubble, Ghost Towns Across America (August, 2008)
BTW, before any of the Konstant Kunstler Kritics (KKK) jump in, I would like to point out that Jim made a "C" in high school history, so he is clearly wrong about all of his views, and the collapse of suburbia is an illusion.
I'm not sure which way your sarcasm is supposed to cut, it's not clear from your message. I assume someone raised that clearly irrelevant argument against him somewhere else, and you are attempting to pre-empt it.
I regard Kunstler's predictions as a convincing possible future, but certainly not inevitable. Suburbia has a lot of disadvantages but I think at least some portion of it will continue to be inhabitable and inhabited. Not so much because I am in love with suburbia, but because of simple economics: people have already invested so much in their homes that they will make do to the extent possible. Selling and moving won't be such an easy option when their house's value drops, while the value of more livable/walkable homes may skyrocket (relatively speaking). Given a choice between abandoning everything they put into a suburban house and starting from scratch, or trying to make do however possible, I think most people will make the latter choice. Certainly some of the more outlying, more recently developed suburbs may come to be largely abandoned, but older suburbs I think will continue to be inhabited. While people have less access to each other and to common supplies, they have space to grow gardens, and can probably borrow a ride once in a while to stock up on certain things.
That leaves the question of jobs, and how to get to them, which is the most disruptive problem. Many more people will be working at home, either telecommuting or running a small home business. Shops will open in people's neighborhoods, perhaps even in people's garages. Carpooling will become much more prevalent for those who have to commute. That still leaves a gap, and outlying areas will again be the least practical, but by no means is it a total collapse.
"That still leaves a gap, and outlying areas will again be the least practical, but by no means is it a total collapse."
So how do the "supplies" get into the "city" to be distributed to
these still inhabited suburbs?
Start thinking Nigeria pipeline explodes as people line up
to get gasoline from them.
and helos sold by Taliban after stolen from supply "train"
into Afghanistan.
I went to town the other day. I needed some steel. "Town" is 140 miles round trip. The drive both ways took about two hours. If I rode my Mule, it would be a four day trip, at least, and maybe five, depending on what I did while in town. How valuable is fuel?
I make the trip into town every couple of months for stuff I can't get around here, mainly steel for my shop, or sometimes, bullets (I keep a Winchester next to the front door for critters). I've noticed this year the lack of highway maintenance. The highway is cracking and there are many unfilled cracks. I guess the counties have other priorities for spending their limited budgets. Asphalt apparently isn't one of them. Best Wishes from the Fremont
depending on what I did while in town.
So what is the problem? That 5 day trip sounds like it would be my choice! :)
What I do in town? See a movie? Bad Chinese food? Maybe a junkyard visit? No problemo. Five days round trip, that's OK. Four nights sleeping out no problem either. Wintertime will be a bit rough, but I can do it. The five hundred miles, round trip, to visit my Daughter will just take up one half of the month, maybe a bit more, again, it depends. Whatever minimum wage is, $7 per hour (?), well the five days for 140 miles, 8 hours per day, times $7/hr. times 5 days = $280. To compare, my truck gets 15 mpg diesel, at $5 per gallon = 10 gallons for the 150 mile round trip, more or less, or $50 in fuel vs. $280 lost wages at minimum wage for the 5 day trip. Of course, this is pretty meaningless. The point is, we get a lot for our fuel costs, even at $5 per gallon. A $50 fuel bill beats the hell out of five days round trip and four nights on the ground, rain or shine.
Hey, the world as we know it is about to end and you gotta go all coy and serious on me? And here I was going to invite you to Mabel's place when you had that day in town.:(
Wouldn't a bicycle be quicker than your mule?
Don't have to feed it either.
You can't pull a plow, or a wagon for instance.
And speed will not be a prerequisite BTW.
One can tow several hundred lbs. of payload on a bike trailer, and more on the bike/trike itself.
http://worksmancycles.com/shopsite_sc/store/html/page6.html
Best Hopes for Bicycles & Tricycles,
Alan
Do you know anyone who does this regularly, or even occassionally, for the distances mentioned? I bike to work (and everywhere else, as I don't have a car), an 8 mile roundtrip with significant hills in 15 minutes there, 20-25 back, carrying up to 40-50 pounds when work requires traveling, and I can't imagine towing several hundred pounds up the hills I encounter on my trip would be pleasant, whether trying to brake or pedal. Granted I've never tried towing weight before, but towing that much weight on anything but rather flat ground strikes me as a challenge I would rather dodge. Anyway, just curious if this does happen.
You can pull an amazing amount of weight with a bike trailer. Going uphill is tough, and stopping is too. But, gearing is everything, and as long as you accept very low speeds on the climbs, 1000 lb on a smooth road is very doable with the right gears.
If you ride enough with your trailer, maybe you can make the Olympic cycling team, like Svein Tuft. This is an AMAZING story:
http://www.bcsportsbeat.ca/More/olympian_svein_tuft_story_719.htm
20 years ago in Beijing the streets were full of bicycle "trucks" carrying all sorts of goods around the city. They were slow but it was amazing what they could carry.
Scien: Suburbia is a generalization, as you state. The inner burbs should be as strong as inner urban areas, IMO. The car culture is too important to too many people to leave without a fight.
Or it might be a made up absurdity to point out the irrelevance of many of the attacks on JHK.
Jim calls it the "psychology of prior investment." I call it throwing your money away. But in any case, more and more people are walking away--because their mortgage is more than the value of the financial black hole that they reside in.
We just have way, way too much housing space. Zoning regulations will probably be scrapped, and a lot of houses in reasonable proximity to mass transit lines will be subdivided and/or turned into tenement housing.
I'm still waiting for the Y2K bug to wipe us out, like he predicted :)
y2k may happen again in 2038!
Have you ever been wrong about something? Does that determine you're wrong about everything or anything else? So now Kunstler's a shill for software engineers who conspired to reap $ by inventing a false flag catastrophe?
Jeff
Being an imaginary catastrophe, it wiped out your imagination catastrophically!
You do not realize it but your pixels were replaced and only your name remained the same. It still is 'Cashew' as in the 'nut' isn't it? :)
The Y2K problem was serious. The government and private industry threw millions of dollars and hours of senior programmer's time into solving it. We'll never know what might have happened if the problem wasn't addressed before it blew up in our faces.
Maybe if we put as much effort into solving the peak oil problem before it hits, we'll never know either.
Negative evidence isn't worth much.
Indeed, I happen to personally have replaced 2 financial systems which were tested and were *already* beginning to fail in strange ways as we got closer to Y2K. When it came round, what do you know, everything just worked...
Actually, kcrnsnova, the Y2K problem was exactly as Crystalradio wrote - a con and a swindle. Most systems that were multi-year had been set up initially for many years or had the work done much earlier so they wouldd not fail. Any system dealing only with the current year had no need of change. The only systems that might have had anomolies were accounting systems used by companies whose fiscal year was not coincident with the calendar year.
All the control systems still dot't care about the date just duration. Only accounting systems care about dates.
Mostly it wss management CTA.
I'm sorry but that's not true. Y2K was solved because a lot of work was done in the two years leading up. I can guarantee you it would have been a disaster for the Fortune 100 company I worked for at the time if we had we not tested, found what was wrong and put a lot of effort into fixing it.
I was doing docmentation for a small mainframe software company at the time. They developed a program specifically to deal with this issue. It was not a fantasy by any stretch.
Cheers
Actually, kcrnsnova, the Y2K problem was exactly as Crystalradio wrote - a con and a swindle.
Really? And your opinion on this matter is due to your knowledge of computers?
Most systems that were multi-year had been set up initially for many years or had the work done much earlier so they wouldd not fail.
And your 'proof' of this is?
All the control systems still dot't care about the date just duration.
All? Every last one? Wow.
And yet - here's one showing "all" isn't right.
Phillips Petroleum Y2K test - an oil rig hydrogen sulfide detector system stopped working.
Now, you gonna call me out and produce my source on that one?
Thanks for your support ImSceptical, but I'm also sorry as it was Kiashu who implied that - I was merely being a wiseacre:)
As a computer "hacker" type ( meaning I know what a debugger is, how to decompile, and fix at the assembly level, regardless of source code ), I felt the Y2K bug was a total overblown publicity stunt.
This was in 2000. Every software was compiled with one of several standard compilers, and it was routine in that day for us to "fix" software by removing purchase authentication hicks, much to the annoyance of software authors. It seemed even every high school had at least one kid who knew his way around a debugger and would fix programs for his friends. Geez, whats a failed time code next to a deliberately coded-to-be-confusing purchase authenticator?
I see the situation today as more dire, as all sorts of encryption schemes, and law passed to make sharing of knowledge of the intimate inner operation of copyrighted computer programs illegal. A few years ago, I could easily go to the local bookstore and buy books on assemblers and debuggers. Not so today. I am just glad I bought those books when I did.
Same with digital encryption schemes used on digital TV.
I fear the day when a bunch of radio amateurs cannot retune their rigs to broadcast in the public band should the need arise. Its a comforting feeling to know that whatever the "enemy" could do to a few commercial broadcasting sites, there was simply NO way to shut down our communication system between our authorities and the public.
"Whack-a-mole" would be putting the situation mildly.
All the radio amateurs I have ever known made it a point to make the local authorities aware of the existence of their capabilities and offer it for public service should the need arise.
Leanan speaks highly of resilience, and having many people with the technical knowledge of our infrastructure makes it very difficult for that infrastructure to be disabled.
Having techincal ignorance imposed by law results in a system that when disabled - few, if any, know how to fix it. Further, today's outsourcing guarantees there are fewer people in this country with the skills to maintain infrastructure designed abroad.
I shudder at the thought of having to "debug" a modern program written with difficulty of "fixing" it in mind.
You really think a multi-billion dollar company is going to allow its employees (who go in and disable legal license checks with debuggers on critical sofware) to then try and fix several hundred errors occurring in tens of thousands of routines all on one day (1/1/00)?
The type of "hacker" you describe should never be allowed within a million miles of a critical system. It doesn't matter if they can patch it sort of 90% of the time. It's the unintended consequences that can take multiple production lines off-line for months. All it takes is something as simple as just not ordering one critical component with a lead time of 6 months.
Attempting to debug hundreds of complex high level language subroutines in real-time (your systems are down) using nothing but a machine code debugger is asking for disaster.
You raise some very real worries. I am not a programmer by any stretch, but I can see real problems with deliberately hidden proprietary systems. The answer starts at the far end. You have to suggest a revenue source for programmers and engineers [not large companies] which then allows standardisation [what you guys call open source]. No one should generate extra revenue by fitting odd sized bolts to a system.
I'm still waiting for the Y2K bug to wipe us out, like he predicted :)
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Very brave opening up this old chestnut but here goes my 2c worth....
I recently thumbed through a Y2K doomer book in my local library (last borrowing Date Nov 1999) and it was laughable, in hindsight, just some of the things they were predicting. Interstingly though the areas of risk had been broken up into the 1-3 day disruptions, 1-3 weeks, months years and decades and the long er the disruption, the less it was seen to be of a mjaor problem as people could adapt to a situation very quickly once they had a time frame.
Y2K if it happend was going to be an acute event where the damage could be assessed very quickly and the market would allocate resources to repairing it just as quickly. A cynic would suggest that it was a beat up by the IT industry to blackmail the market into handing over vast sums to fix the "problem" (did someonae say 2038?). If Kunstler swallowed all the doomsayers prophecy from the nindustry then he wasn't the only one.
Peak Oil and climate change are chronic problems where the symptoms are mild and diffuse but nevertheless debilitating in totality. If you really want to listen to someone who is not quite as sensationalist as Kunstler, I recommend head over to Global Public Media and Listening to Jason Bradfords excellent interview with David Holmgren of permaculture fame. Holmgren has also done some excellent work on how to go about refitting the suburbs to become worthwhile places to live again.