Saturday open thread
Posted by Yankee on February 18, 2006 - 12:22pm
Topic: Miscellaneous
Tags: nigeria [list all tags]
Things are not looking good in Nigeria (also pointed out by Leanan):
Armed militants carried out a wave of attacks across Nigeria's troubled Niger delta on Saturday, blowing up oil and gas pipelines and seizing nine foreign oil workers.[editor's note, by Prof. Goose]Also, please check out this interview with Richard Heinberg and JH Kunstler with Jim Puplava over at FinancialSense (it's about an hour). I found it to be a good "primer interview" that you can send to people who might be inclined to listen. (Plus, there's a pretty cool plug in there regarding TOD by Heinberg about ten minutes from the end. Thanks for that, Richard.)
[editor's note, by Prof. Goose]And, after a night of -13F temps, Denver has initiated rolling blackouts. Sweet.
http://www.financialsense.com/Experts/roundtable/021806.html
[There's not much new in this discussion to the PO aware, but it is interesting to hear Heinberg and Kunstler together in the same discussion. Even when they agree, their style differences are notable, to put it mildly.]
Aside from the nice words about TOD, it's a good primer interview as well...one of those you send to the people who can listen...
MIA: any acknowledgement that when crude prices jump on the start of public awareness of PO, as they will, it will cause enough economic contraction world wide to slow demand for oil substantially. Once demand slows, crude prices will temporarily drop, even after PO, but the scare should be enough to propel the adjustment process (more hybrids, less wasteful use of oil, more nuclear, solar, wind, etc.) Of course, eventually world economies will start growing again and quickly crude prices will spike even higher, and the whole recession, adjustment process will begin again. The net result of all this is that the world as a whole will have a lot more time to adjust to PO than is contemplated in this discussion.
Skipped over: the very important discussion of regional hegemony, bilateral deals, and production cutbacks by exporting countries to conserve their resources. These trends, as noted, will exacerbate the effects of PO (opposite to the effects of economic contractions discussed above). While this part of the discussion was exactly on target, I think, it failed to emphasize the early manifestations that we are seeing almost every week whereby China in particular and India less so are making bi-lateral deals that reduce the supply side of the global "free market" in crude. This is the future staring us in the face from headlines in our papers nearly every day. It is truly mind-boggling that such clear indicators of the direction of the future can be either misunderstood or ignored by virtually every single American (and European, so far as I know) political "leader".
Boris
London
It shows the danger of programme producers trying to obtain 'balance'. Without care niether side of the argument gets well put.
Thanks
Delta Farm Press is a publication for farmers, which usually prints articles about corn prices, soybean rust, farm subsidies, etc. But high fuel prices have been so brutal on farmers, they're now covering Kuwait's reserves.
http://www.deere.com/en_US/ProductCatalog/FR/category/FR_TRACTORS.html (not the utility tractors)
Forage choppers and combines are even higher hp:
http://www.deere.com/en_US/ProductCatalog/FR/series/spfh_forage_harvesters.html
In typical use, a tractor burns about 4.4 gallons of diesel per hour per 100 Hp in size. Then there is the cost of fertilzer, irrigation power, crop drying costs, transportation to market and so on. Historically 40% of the on-farm costs for alfalfa, a major feed crop for cows, is the direct or indirect cost of energy. For milk production the cost of feed is about half the input costs. The increasing production of biofuels displaces the production of either human or animal food, reducing their supply and thus increasing their prices as inputs. IMO, increasing energy prices are a double whammy for food agriculture (animal or human) and ultimately the cost of food.
Matt Stockton of the West Central Extension Center gave a presentation at an ag conference last week. He said, "There is no bigger headline ... than where our energy costs are going for diesel fuel and fertilizer."
I'm inclined to agree. Along with transportation, agriculture is the industry most dependent on petroleum. It will be difficult to maintain our current levels of production, let alone grow biofuel crops.
This year's growing season may well cause a real spike in the cost of food.
Remember, the spike in oil prices occurred after the last planting and growing season. This year, farmers see real hikes in all sorts of products necessary for growing. There is a direct correlation, the article says, between the cost of these products and the cost of oil and natural gas.
Perhaps because economists are not farmers, they have overlooked a real inflationary cause that will bite later this year.
I wonder what kind of demand destruction is going to occur here? Cut down on the calories?
My parents took me to a French restaurant over the holidays. They are light eaters, so I was really surprised when they ordered an appetizer, entree, and desert, and insisted we all do the same. In most restaurants, I can't finish the entree, let alone apps and desert. But they said portions were French-sized at this restaurant, and sure enough - you really could eat appetizers, entree, and desert. And walk out not feeling stuffed.
In any case, smaller portions would be the easiest way to deal with higher food prices. People get upset if you raise prices, but if the price is the same and there's a few less fries in the bag, they may not notice. Or if they do notice, they won't get too upset.
Other issues, driving and not walking a few blocks.
Living in NYC requires quite a bit of walking and hence obesity is lower as well as diabetes.
Oddly, New Orleans, with the best food in the world, also has high obesity but not so high diabetes. A bit of exercise goes a long way, even if eating a roast beef po-boy :-)
I was shocked during my summer evacuation just how much HIGHLY processed food clogs the supermarket and how little basic foods.
I am used to a large selection of rice types, frozen and fresh vegetables and a limited selection of frozen pizza and hot pockets, gourmet popcorn, etc. I found the reverse in the rest of America.
I have gained 20 lbs since moving to New Orleans, but it was GREAT tasting, well prepared food, not junk. Quite frankly worth any reduction in lifespan. Sex, laughter and good food are the primal pleasures of life. McDonalds is not.
Of course, it didn't come close to the Icelandic fish, soups, bread and milk (where do they get it and why is it so good?) that we ate most of the time...
The only benefit to this was that at least I always knew where I could find a restroom. lol.
The most common Swedish fast food is a fairly thin pizza with white cabbage salad with a mild sweet and sour taste and black pepper. Any place with a few hundred houses or more have a pizza baker that almost allways is run by an immigrant selling pizza and often kebab and fairly often cheap lager. 99% of the pizza owens run on electricity.
The first fast food that became common is the hot dog, it is still popular but has been complemented with hamburgers. There are probably more independent hamburger friers then McD, Burger King and Max (A local chain that is very Swedish in a 100% american way, good burgers made with a recipie more like swedish meatballs. ) Sushi is becomming very popular, probably due to the sweet and sour taste familiar from pickled herring.
We have as usual imported most american things including critizism of McDonalds. We have had and still have some young left wingnut green vegans who even burned down one McDonalds in my town a few years ago. This resulted in some more policework and people basically waiting for them to grow up. This seem to work but the next generation of left wingnuts seem to become extreme feminists. It is probably a phase in their lives some people go thru. :-) A need to hate. :-(
Myself I used to buy a McD hamburger of cup of cofee about two times each week untill they stopped serving bicyclists at the drive in a few meter from the main bicycle road to the university.
The butter and skyr are special as well).
The cows are a historic breed (no imported bulls/semen allowed) that has lower than typical milk production and they feed on grass and herbs )fresh 1/2 the year, hay the rest). The herbs add something to the milk (I have noticed subtle differences, I assume based on diet).
And the pylsur ! Their hot dogs (think mutton :-)
Do the Kiwis make sheep based hot dogs ?
I have to disagree - the reason for American obesity is NOT a surplus of food - it is the type of food that we are eating - its the silly low-carbohydrate diet that has caused the problem - grains, potatoes, breads, pastas, pastries and sugar -- people eating a low-carbohydrate diet have to eat MORE in order to be "filled" - and being thinner is NOT a sign of good health ...
Thanks
It's not what we eat that matters. It's how much. The food is highly processed, which makes it more likely we'll eat it. (People will eat more potato chips than they will boiled potatoes.) But it's the portion size that counts. French food isn't exactly known for its health value, after all.
There have been studies done of potion sizes in the U.S., and they've gotten immense over the past 50 years. McDonald's used to serve just hamburgers, what would be a very small drink now, and small fries. Now few except children order the hamburgers; instead, they get QuarterPounders, BigMacs, etc. The smallest drink is bigger than the one they used to sell, so is the smallest fries. They aren't the only ones, either. CocaCola used to sell 5 oz. bottles of Coke. Now cans are 16 oz., bottles are 20 oz., and 64 oz. or larger cups are common on fast food and convenience stores. Bagels are more than twice as large as they used to be, and muffins are something like five times as big. Even the standard dinner plate has gotten larger.
When I look round an american diner the ones that are eating the two plate meals are the grossly fat ones. The obesity problem is a combination of three main factors: sedentary lifestyle, near unlimited access to food, poor choice of food.
For most people the problem can be solved by awareness and willpower, should they choose. Though peak oil and recession may come to the rescue of the uninformed and weak willed soon enough.
Being excessively thin or excessively fat are both signs of ill health, for maybe 70% of americans being thinner would be a sign of better health, LOL.
"Willbros Group Inc. said the hostages were taken from a boat that was on contract for Shell, Nigeria's top international oil producer. The attacks sparked a fire at the Forcados terminal, which has a capacity of 400,000 barrels a day, and an explosion at the Chanomi pipeline, Shell spokesman Don Boham said.
``It could be that it shuts down all of Shell's onshore operations in Nigeria,'' Simon Wardell, an analyst in London at Global Insight, said in an interview today. ``The markets are going to discount Nigerian production in the price of oil.''
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000006&sid=agaxJWl1PfHU&refer=home"
If that's true, $60 a barrel is going to look like a bargain.
There are rumors that Shell is going to pull out of Nigeria entirely.
I didn't think Nigeria was that big a deal, but the news out of there is getting worse and worse. Plus there's the wicked cold snap in the U.S., and the fact that oil prices usually start rising around now. February is typically a low point for oil.
Sooner or later there will be total disruptions greater than this due to simple probability, it would be crazy to think otherwise ;)
Wasn't the food for oil program created along these lines?
We now know that the UN is not the enity to do so; so would the US, China or India be given the green light to do so; as in this case?
Wondering ...
It did some good things and some bad things. It developed order and infrastructure, it taught english and cricket. It exploited resources and labour, but provided markets and trade routes. It attempted to impose its religion and values where it could but mostly pragmatically accepted when it couldn't. It supported good and bad local rulers as it suited them, it granted peaceable independence eventually - it may have been too late for some and too early for others.
Your thought is a valid one and worthy of debate. The best of the British Empire model without the worst would be a useful model. But on one thing I must totally disagree: it cannot be by a country, it must be by the UN. If the UN is inadequate for the purpose then it must change to become fit for it, and we must wait till then.
I personally believe that the US mostly does its best to sabotage the UN. I advocate a significant proportion of all countries' military forces and spend being ceeded to UN control, I would start at 5% and steadily increase that to between 20 and 30%. I would include nuclear weapons and aim to put all of them under UN control within 20 years by which time I would hope they are down to at most 10% of current levels.