The Oil Drum

Mr. or Madam President,

Vice President Dick Cheney once famously quipped "The American way of life is non-negotiable." I submit that while our next president might not be so brash in stating this, the root of our energy problems can be traced to this attitude. But, nature doesn't negotiate. It doesn't appear that any of the remaining presidential candidates understand the basis of the problems we face: Oil is a depleting, finite resource - albeit one crucial for the "American way of life."

Because this resource is so crucial - and obviously not just for Americans - depletion is going to drive prices up as consumers bid for dwindling supplies. Threatening to sue OPEC isn't going to change that. Threatening to tax Big Oil into submission isn't going to change that. Mandating that we will invent new technologies to meet a greatly increased Renewable Fuel Standard isn't going to change that. These are the sorts of proposals that merely demonstrate that your grasp of the problem is superficial. And you have to understand the problem in order to begin addressing it.

James Hansen has written an (apparently) open letter to Kevin Rudd, urging that all new coal fired power plants be halted - via Energy Bulletin, original at Australian Science Media Centre (pdf).

27 March 2008
The Hon Kevin Rudd, MP
Prime Minister of Australia
Australian Parliament
Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, 2600

Dear Prime Minister,

Your leadership is needed on a matter concerning coal-fired power plants and carbon dioxide emission rates in your country, a matter with ramifications for life on our planet, including all species. Prospects for today's children, and especially the world's poor, hinge upon our success in stabilizing climate.

For the sake of identification, I am a United States citizen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Adjunct Professor at the Columbia University Earth Institute. I am a member of our National Academy of Sciences, have testified before our Senate and House of Representatives on many occasions, have advised our Vice President and Cabinet members on climate change and its relation to energy requirements, and have received numerous awards including the World Wildlife Fund's Duke of Edinburgh Conservation Medal from Prince Philip.

I write, however, as a private citizen, a resident of Kintnersville, Pennsylvania, USA. I was assisted in composing this letter by colleagues, including Australians, Americans, and Europeans, who commented upon a draft letter. Because of the urgency of the matter, I have not collected signatures, but your advisors will verify the authenticity of the science discussion.

I made the following comment recently in a discussion on Global Warming:

If you put it to a popular vote, and people learned that GHG emissions could be arrested (hypothetically) if they were willing to pay $7/gallon of gasoline, what percentage would vote for that? My guess is that it would be well less than 20%, implying that GW concerns will give way to economic concerns.

At one time I was really worried about Global Warming. And at the risk of starting a Global Warming debate here (one that I don't wish to participate in), my position is that the scientific consensus backs the hypothesis that human activity is contributing to Global Warming. I am not an atmospheric scientist, so in this case I rely on the scientific consensus of the experts. This is the same standard I apply to other fields in which I lack expertise.

This is a guest post by Ian Dunlop, originally printed as an opinion piece in the Australian Financial Review on January 2.

Ian was formerly an international oil, gas and coal industry executive. He chaired the Australian Coal Association in 1987-88, chaired the Australian Greenhouse Office Experts Group on Emissions Trading from 1998-2000 and was CEO of the Australian Institute of Company Directors from 1997-2001. He is Chairman of the Australian National Wildlife Collection Foundation (CSIRO), and Deputy Convenor of the Australian Association for the Study of Peak Oil.

“ Men Argue, Nature Acts” – Voltaire

The impact of global warming is building far faster than scientists had predicted, with extreme weather events in Australia, the US, Europe, Africa, China or Bangladesh, the rapid melting of Arctic sea ice, carbon sinks turning into carbon sources etc. Recent comments from economists and industry representatives, urging a cautious, gradual response, might have been appropriate a decade ago, but no longer.

They miss two crucial points. First, the response to global warming is not primarily an economic issue; rather it is risk management. Second, the risks are escalating rapidly.

The economic case is built primarily around a middle-of-the-road view of global warming, designed to limit temperature rises to 2 degrees C above pre-industrial conditions, with extreme outcomes being downplayed. But with such a potentially catastrophic issue, risk management must address the extremes.

George Kenney over at Electric Politics has quite the interview with Al Bartlett. Here's a link to the .mp3 download, and here's a link to the post itself, which has an in-line player and comments. George writes:

It's an enormous conceit to think that population increases are everywhere and always a good thing. In the blessed tradition, however, of neo-classical economic theory (aka 'free markets') such is the miracle of rational choice that left to themselves people will 'optimize' the rate of population growth: no natural limit on population exists. Nevertheless, in reality the unacknowledged costs of population growth mostly shift to future generations. Call it the ultimate Ponzi scheme. And if you think about it, population growth is the main driver of all our planetary scale problems, from warming to Peak Oil to food production, right down the list. Locally as well, even to diluted democratic practices of governance. Although it makes no sense whatsoever to tackle any of these without due consideration of the population factor most of the time population doesn't get mentioned — the implications are so politically controversial. To help put population and its derivatives into perspective I turned to a man who's been sounding the alarm about sustainability for decades, Dr. Albert Allen Bartlett. It was a real privilege to talk with Al, who's as close to being a prophet as anybody can be these days. Listen, and pass the word! Total runtime an hour and sixteen minutes.

Amen, brother. (Feel free to link to other recent peak oil media in the comments as well.)

Much of what we discuss at theoildrum is about supply - pinpointing problems and/or advantages of existing and future energy technologies. These are the 'means' by which society meets its day to day demands. But little time, (and certainly not equal time) is devoted to discussing the 'ends' - what is all this energy for. As many of you know, I am completing my Phd in Natural Resources at The University of Vermont, with a specialization in Ecological Economics. This hybrid field asserts that the economy is just a part of a larger planetary system (as opposed to the planet and its resources being just part of the economy). EE attempts to evaluate (monetarily and otherwise) the things the market system takes for granted (fresh air and water, biodiversity, healthy dolphin populations, stable climate, etc.) But a growing subset of ecological economists are addressing the 'ends'. By digging into the empirical datapoints that comprise human happiness, we are finding we can be happier with far less energy use. I initially wrote about this here. Below is a short essay, also posted on Grist, co-authored by my advisor Robert Costanza. In my opinion, the questions these authors raise should be preceding or at least accompanying policy discussions on how we decide to obtain and allocate more energy. Ends before means.

This is a guest post by John Feeney, Ph.D. Trained as a psychologist, John is today an environmental writer and activist in Boulder, Colorado. He began investigating environmental issues while fighting destructive residential development in a small Iowa town where he and his family lived for two years. His research pointed inevitably to the interacting roles played by population growth, the drive for economic growth, and our reliance on fossil energy in fueling the ecological crisis we now face. His website is called Growth Is Madness.

Some of us who examine and discuss environmental matters are constantly puzzled and frustrated by the seeming inability of elected officials, environmental organizations, and environmental and political writers to “get” the nature of our ecological plight. Could it be they’re simply unaware of the ecological principles which enable one to understand it?

We are starting to get a number of submissions for TOD:LOCAL and we thank all of you for submitting them; keep them coming! This one is by Nelson Harvey of The Wild Green Yonder, a blog about grassroots urban sustainability, alternative economics, and ecological design.

Arguments for rapid action on global warming are often framed in terms of the precautionary principle: given the potentially catastrophic consequences of the problem, we're better off taking action to prevent them, even if some uncertainty remains about just how bad they'll be. But in thinking about the legislation and technologies intended to combat global warming, it's important to remember that even the most attractive solutions will likely have problems of their own.

We all know the world is finite. The number of atoms is finite, and these atoms combine to form a finite number of molecules. The mix of molecules may change over time, but in total, the number of molecules is also finite.

We also know that growth is central to our way of life. Businesses are expected to grow. Every day new businesses are formed and new products are developed. The world population is also growing, so all this adds up to a huge utilization of resources.

At some point, growth in resource utilization must collide with the fact that the world is finite. We have grown up thinking that the world is so large that limits will never be an issue. But now, we are starting to bump up against limits.

What are earth's limits? Are we reaching them?

ED Note by PG: Note that this is an updated version of an article that was run about six months ago. With all of the new folks (Welcome!) around, it seemed like a good time for an article like this. We appreciate your sharing this and all the work here at The Oil Drum with the people you care about.

Earlier this Summer, New Jersey passed landmark, ground-breaking legislation that will put an economy-wide cap on greenhouse gas emissions to bring emissions down to 1990 levels by 2020 and 80% below 2005 levels by 2050.

The bill’s implementation is in the hands of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP). The department, in conjunction with other state agencies, must develop a pollution monitoring and reporting program by January 2009, a plan to achieve the 2020 limit by no later than June 2008, and a plan to achieve the 2050 limit no later than June 2010. Solutions to cut pollution levels are expected to focus on reducing the state’s energy consumption and shifting to clean, renewable sources of energy in the transportation and electricity sectors – the two largest sources of global warming pollution in the state.

This is not just because some legislators got a good idea in their head and moved forward on their own. But rather this is the outcome of a concerted effort by a coalition of the state's environmental groups called the NJ Climate Change March as part of the larger Step It Up 2007 campaign led by Bill McKibben to force the legislature's hand on the last day of their session. As Mr. McKibben said at a lecture I attended a couple of months ago: "Politicians are like windvanes...it's up to us to make the wind blow."

From the video above it is clear that this is not just about New Jersey taking responsibility and action in it's own backyard, but this is squarely aimed at impacting policy at the national level and ultimately the global agenda. Without a clear national plan to reduce CO2 levels, it seems that more cities and states will join up and take action.