You decide who's to blame
Posted by Yankee on April 15, 2006 - 11:21am
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: automakers, big oil, chrysler, exxonmobil, jason vines [list all tags]
Despite a documented history of blowing their exorbitant profits on outlandish executive salaries and stock buybacks, and hoarding their bounty by avoiding technologies, policies and legislation that would protect the population and environment and lower fuel costs, Big Oil insists on transferring all of that responsibility on the auto companies.Yes, even though the automakers have spent billions developing cleaner, more efficient technologies such as high-feature engines, hybrid powertrains, multi-displacement systems, flexible fuel vehicles, and fuel cells, Big Oil would rather fill the pockets of its executives and shareholders, rather than spend sufficient amounts to reduce the price of fuel, letting consumers, during tough economic times, pick up the tab.
Vines also responded to claims that automakers like Chrysler are doing nothing to improve fuel economy. A recent Exxon advertisement reads, ""Every form of transportation-planes, trains and automobiles-now benefits from improved fuels and engine systems. So why is that despite this overall progress, the average fuel economy of American cars is unchanged in two decades?"
To which Vines responded:
"The auto industry is doing its job by building cleaner, leaner, more efficient vehicles and embracing alternatives to gasoline such as biodiesel and ethanol and hybrids," he concludes. "So while we make these important and responsible strides despite the challenges of global competition and legacy costs, Big Oil is swimming in profits, content to let the nation's drivers drown in rising prices, every time they fill up."
And so, here we are on the eve of $3/gallon for regular gas again (in NY, anyway, and in Houston, Miami, Hawaii, etc). Is a fight between Big Oil and the automakers really going to result in some beneficial outcomes?
Bonus: In googling around for this post, I came across this editorial in the Journal-Standard of Freeport, IL. In it, they call for "energy independence", but they don't really define what they mean. Is it independence from foreign oil, or independence from our addiction (meaning that we should seriously conserve, regardless of where the oil comes from)?
We need a Marshall Plan for energy independence in America, with an aggressive goal of achieving such independence in 5 to 10 years. Such a plan would also address the problem of global warming and greenhouse gases, two scientific realities that the GOP in Washington continues to assume don't exist.
This sentiment may be in the right direction, and it's good to see that small papers across the country are taking on the topic. But it's troublesome if people believe that it'll only take 5 years to acheive "energy independence". I worry that in fact it will make the public even more complacent, since they will continue to think that "we have plenty of time".
Thxs for posting this as we can now start tracking all the scapegoating that will be going on a people refuse to accept the 'Tragedy of the Commons'.
I think going forward we can expect to read media reports of people yelling at gas station attendents at the gasoline price, SUVs having their tires deflated, truckers causing massive traffic jams as their method of protesting diesel prices, the unemployed starting to blame certain ethnic groups for their strife, and so on.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
I feel I should include this link to Dieoff.com to help explain the 'Tragedy of the Commons' by Garret Hardin to any new members:
http://dieoff.com/page95.htm
If you wish to read more about Hardin:
http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
I fervently hope many TOD readers will visit there, look at the descriptions of his books, buy some and study them.
Prerequisite to living with Peak Oil is coming to grips with the tragedy of the commons. It is not easy to do so, but it is necessary, because the only alternatives are the worst scenarios of the doomers.
If one person's ideas can be said to be most fundamental to understanding where we now stand and suggesting constructive actions, I nominate Garrett Hardin for first place.
When there were substantial commons - common pasture and common woodlands usually, but including all sorts of commonly held land - the system worked well and smoothly for 1000 years. The theoretical problems latterday economists like to yammer on about mostly just did not arise. The problem came when common property was privatized.
I'm sure there's the possibility of researching this one online but I suggest you try the library instead. And look up enclosures or the Enclosure Acts since existence of commons is assumed.
Once you know something about commons and enclosures you will understand everything you've ever learned about Europe quite differently. And understand what an anomaly America is.
Seriously, you are not even going to understand gamewarden vs. poacher jokes if you are relying on someone so far afield as Hardin for the lay of the land on commons.
That one word speaks volumes.
Won't bother to post anymore on this site & am sure you are already glad of that. Spectator position only.
And Only in America could such an article or such a discussion of the commons exist. You can't adress peak oil or much else while being so severely provincial.
Don't let Don scare you off the site or stop posting. He has not read much history, and even less anthropology, and almost nothing on communal fisheries management. But then neither has Hardin.
Being a prolific blog poster does not in any way make what you have to say any more important or accurate.
Having been a reader and contributor to TOD longer (albeit not more frequently) than Don and BOP combined, I also feel compelled to point out that being generally abrasive and/or discourteous to others are not traits that serve well either on this blog, or in post-peak life.
The problem is the futility of this endeavour.
Good Lord I probably ran into Garrett Hardin 3 decades ago when some young naiive econ professor ran that article past me. And now he has a new life on the net. Back then I think I bothered to debate it. Looking at that shite again, having been trained as an historian, it just feels like a slap in the face.
There was once, and may be again, a stripe of American scholar who would pick up something plain as dirt, simple as breathing, but unknown to America. Who would know if the facts were wrong? Who would catch that he had no grasp of the field? Dress it up with a metric. Reference a name physicist, mathematician, philosopher, whatever. Cover by publishing in a journal where no one knows. The audience really was born yesterday. And this stuff now lives forever.
What really bothers me about Hardin is that he committed that essay in 1968. Probably the last time we all really had the chance to live.
Anyone still with me? Read the knave of the soixant-huitards, Guy Debord. The whole oeuvre is 3 inches of shelf, unless you read French and can score a copy of the filmscripts - then it's 5 inches. But would anyone on this board be able to read it? Or read the illustrated version from Grant Morrison.
Anyway this board has people who know lots and lots about about petroleum engineering and the oil biz, subjects of much interest where I should only listen.
Of course you should not go away! We have a lot in common, as you pointed out.
We are in the mess we are in BECAUSE the ideas of Hardin are relatively obscure.
I in no way intended to attack you--but rather to deplore the ignorance of the powers that be as to what our fundamental problems are.
Peace.
Has any cultural group solved this practical problem at the present time, even on an intuitive level? One simple fact proves that none has: there is no prosperous population in the world today that has, and has had for some time, a growth rate of zero. Any people that has intuitively identified its optimum point will soon reach it, after which its growth rate becomes and remains zero.
Since today there are a number of countries with negative population growth, the above claim is no longer true (I admit there are holes in this claim, but I'm not going to elaborate). At some point the costs of having children became greater than their benefits. That's a qualitative change that was not an intended technological consequence. That gives me a few extra shreds of hope for the current energy dilemma.
For bonus points, perhaps, prove that the calculus making the cost of children greater than the benefit is reliant on cheap energy. heh.
The problem of population in high-energy societies is not a problem of excessive birth rates: Every single modern society has low birth rates, some of them 40% lower than that needed just to stabilize population. The problem that prosperous societies in the U.S. and Europe face is immigration from poor countries.
Neither Democrat nor Republican leaders have the guts to do what needs to be done, because both are captive to special-interest groups that favor large-scale immigration to the U.S. Note that this failure of democracy is a VBD (Very Big Deal), because even though a large majority of U.S. voters want immigration stopped (or greatly restricted), the people have been betrayed by their elected representives.
IMO, the leaderships of the Republican and Democratic parties are both morally and intellectually bankrupt. The major parties are broken and cannot be fixed, and hence the importance of creating a successful new party for the first time in a hundred and fifty years.
Heartily agree. My many previous posts on building biosolar habitats geographically distinct from detritus habitats seems like a logical path forward. Jeff Vails has some excellent thinking along these lines. EnergyBulletin has a couple of links:
http://energybulletin.net/14902.html
http://www.jeffvail.net/2006/04/creating-resiliency-stability-in.html
Jeff's blog: http://www.jeffvail.net/index.html
The Big Question is: are the unwashed masses willing to proactively mitigate by Powerdown, or do we go the '3 Days of the Condor' scenario?
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
* - I've owned tow Jeep Ckerokees in the past, actually. I think they are a great size from a driving and utility standpoint, just not worth it in terms of gasoline costs (and repair rate).
(By the way, making Americans pay cash for gasoline would be a great way to change their thinking about the value of gasoline.)
Thats the problem when capitalism is allowed to fully run its course. The majority end up with a mindset that they only want to do things that benefit them. I'm not saying America has lost its sense of altruism, I just saying that corporate and political America has lost its sense of altruism.
Not only do we need to examine the size of our houses, cars and journeys, we need to examine how we are going to pay the world back what we owe them. Otherwise we can either go bankrupt or try to fight the rest of the world then go bankrupt and be left abandoned.
Lets say the US economy manages to haul out another 5 years before the housing bubble pops, the stock markets take a 50% hit and the dollar loses 40% of its value. Based on the current trends we would rack up at least another $10 trillion in foriegn debt in that time. Does the rest of the world even have this much money? Or is it because we're 'printing' it, buying stuff from the rest of the world then borrowing our own money back from them at 4.75% ?
We're already stuck in a vicious circle:
- The dollar depreciates.
- Foriegn commodity suppliers want the same real value of cash in return for their goods.
- Prices go up.
- The US economy stagnates because of inflation.
- Foriegn investment in the US slows.
- Back to 1.
Obviously the government is doing whatever it can to prop up the system and the rest of the world doesn't exactly want a collapse either so they play along. Unfortunately the larger they are, the harder they fall.My little theory probably has a million holes in it, its just the way I see things at the moment.
I agree that we should try to repay our debt, but realistic thinking tells me we shall not. Just takke a look at the trade balance - it will take 5 consequitive years of our whole export to produce what we already owe to our creditors. In the meantime we will need to import nothing, not even energy. But we are structurally bound to paying some $400bln. (half of our export) for our energy imports only - meaning that simply put, what we are talking about is impossible to happen, not even for decades.
What will happen instead is that we will continue inflating our debt and the cycle you describe will become worser and worser. At some point we will simply say "s***w you" to our creditors - the game will be over, and it will clear the stage for a new start.
What peak oil?
Despite the fact that I have a small urge to throw up, I will continue typing. This man has done more damage than almost anyone I know of. He funded the so-called "contrarians" on climate change that produced doubt in the "mind" of the public at large. He made huge amounts of money but ExxonMobil's production has remained flat over the last five years. He has consistently denied that peak oil exists and has spent considerable money reassuring the public on that point.When I think of the Prince of Darkness, he comes to mind.
"Tarry, tarry night.
Paint the beaches black and grey,
Trouble lurked that sunny day...
Tarry, tarry night.
Ten years later, beaches still
Are poisoned from that awful spill.
The bitter feelings linger to this day.
Exxon will not pay
Five billion dollars damage done,
Eight years now have the lawyers won,
While lives are choked like beaches fouled by greed.
Oil we still need, yet the cost is far too dear.
Several million tons are spilled each year.
Now we need to make them hear.
They would not listen, they're not listening still.
Perhaps they never will."
Entire lyrics at
http://xenophilia.org/filk.html#tarry
Chris
The vast underworld of HELL passed Peakoil a long time ago [We superstraw sucked the petro to the surface beyond Satan's reach]-->Now it means freezing to Death!
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
In a surprise statement from the netherworld today, Satan (Beelzebub, Antichrist) has announced that his fuel estimates had been somewhat overstated in Q1, and that 'efficiency measures' would begin to be emplaced, such as the implementation of 'Really Bad Noogies, Horsebites and TittieTwisters' as the eternal punishments, instead of the traditional Fires, Scalding and Immolation usually associated with that industry. "Still," said the Lord of Darkness optimistically, "with people's life expectancy being so long now, there will be plenty of suffering up on top as their fuel expires, too, relieving ~some of~ the pressures on our now overextended systems." That said, it was impossible not to detect a strong feeling of melancholy from the Evil One.
Would you rather have 400 million US dollars or 5.7 million barrels of $70 crude. 400 million doesn't go as far as it used to....
These adverts criticize management.
RR
I think the executive quote suggests the following:
1) The level of Tainter Complexity has risen to such a level that the executive of a large capitalist firm fails to understand the workings of the very system that provides his own paycheck.
2) That this complaint will likely be echoed by the MSM and elected officials for the sole reason that it will appeal to a broad segment of the populace (see earlier thread which contained quotes from fuel consumers in Billings MT). It is after all an election year, and while we cannot find UBL, we know where Mr Raymond lives.
3) If continued, the outcome will be an environment unreceptive to capital. If you wish to pursue the American Dream you had best go offshore to China, India, Russia, or Eastern Europe.
BOP, I can hate Lee Raymond solely on the basis of his actions, policies, propaganda and greed. This is quite independent of Tainter's complexity and the fact that we are oil crack addicts.
For you see, Lee abnegated his responsibilities to society as a whole while pursuing his self-serving goals. He is certainly not singular in this regard. Most corporations and their CEOs do this. But, in Lee's case, we see an egregious attempt to propogate lies at this expense of truths that threaten us all.
I hope this response covers your point.
I agree with your comments 110%. I am not trying to provide any excuse for the actions of either Raymond or Exxon-Mobil. Both the corporation and the former CEO have a lot to answer for.
I do find myself baffled by the motive of the Chrysler exec. It is like being arrested for urinating in a public place and claiming "I didn't do it. My bladder did! Don't arrest me! Arrest my bladder!!
I'm glad we agree on this and I agree with your remark about the Chrysler execuctive.
Have a good one, Dave
Martin Luther King.