Global financial system implosion begins
- Thread starter Falcon
- Start date
elbows
Well-Known Member
Quite a lot of people have acknowledged it in a pretty sustained way for many years now. There are plenty of people who don't believe it, but they don't tend to feature very much on these sorts of threads, with a few exceptions.
The problem some, including myself, have with Falcon is that the 'trying to do something about it' and 'stand a chance of avoiding' are concepts which are missing from the bulk of Falcons posts. This is a somewhat understandable position to take if you are faced with people who are in complete denial about the problem, and think that solutions can be found which will enable things to carry on in the same way as before. There are some of those, but a lot of the people who engage in these discussions are not in that camp, so Falcon tends to come across as being too certain and out on a limb.
The mainstream are unable to acknowledge it properly because many of the implications are unthinkable game-changers which stain the very fabric of their ideas and ideals, and I suspect that fully acknowledging the problem is enough to destroy the existing system, which requires not just future growth in energy, but the belief that there will be future growth.
elbows
Well-Known Member
If you reflected that in your posts then you wouldn't face such attacks. The response to your posts are natural and the solution is to change the balance of your posts, not act like you are being unjustly attacked by idiots.
Really? You feel there are circumstances under which personal attacks are appropriate in intelligent debate?
The inevitable pattern of debate here is "Some people who say A also say B. B is shit. Therefore you are a shit". Hence all the crap about being a Malthusian, a capitalist, and all the rest, usually as a device for avoiding explaining whatever inexplicable point is being defended. It's tedious. I'm not accusing ymu of it, btw.
elbows
Well-Known Member
They are an inevitable response, and the best approach is to try to look beyond them and ponder whether there is any merit to the underlying factors which have caused someone to get personal.
You can consider them unjustified all you like, they won't stop and urban75 has a long and colourful history of thousands of discussions getting very personal indeed. So long as people are passionate about stuff this isn't going to change, so you can stick concepts such as 'intelligent debate' up your ass you goof.
You can consider them unjustified all you like, they won't stop and urban75 has a long and colourful history of thousands of discussions getting very personal indeed. So long as people are passionate about stuff this isn't going to change, so you can stick concepts such as 'intelligent debate' up your ass you goof.
Now if you'd given me that pep talk two years ago, I might have spared myself some grief.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Meanwhile Id be really rather keen to hear more about your experiences with the transition movement. There is so much to discuss, Id love to know more, and it would really help to balance out the hopeless doom. I still expect quite a bit of doom, but not without hope or efforts directed at the problems.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Now if you'd given me that pep talk two years ago, I might have spared myself some grief.
Really my point is that a debate doesn't lose its intelligence just because it becomes personal or uncivilised at times. Thats inevitable whatever we say, especially if the subject or opinion is controversial. But its not central to anything and its not a legitimate barrier against debate and progress.
free spirit
more tea vicar?
There's no point me responding to the rest of what you've chosen to repeat again on this thread as it's been said on the other, but on this specific point, I'd have to point out the following empirical evidence that your analysis of future food production potential is not necessarily correct.
In a 10 year study of projects to promote sustainable agriculture practices across 57 countries and 37 million hectares, the average increase in crop yield during the study period from the adoption of more sustainable agriculture practices was a 64% improvement in yields.
This is in the same sort of league of crop yield improvements as the best oil based green revolution results, and gives the lie to the idea that agricultural yields must inevitably drop when the oil starts running out.
I presume you do accept empirical evidence of this sort as being capable of refuting your hypothesis?
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/integration/research/newsalert/pdf/8na3.pdf
BigTom
Well-Known Member
I reckon if you want this analogy you're better off saying Green U is how much beer was/is in the barrel. Red H is how much is in your glass, assuming the bar man continues to fill it at a given rate. Red N is how much beer is in your glass if the bar man stops filling it up. D is how much you'd need to be in your glass to continue drinking at the rate you want to in order to stay blind drunk and happy.
If this analogy works reasonably well then it means I've understood the graph I think. I know it fails because the analogy is talking about amounts rather than rates but it makes more sense to me - if I've understood the graph, that is!
It should also be noted that beer is not the only drink at the bar, but that the other drinks are also being drunk rapidly and there are only fresh deliveries of cider on the way. Perhaps if the landlord of the bar was on the case there'd be enough cider coming to keep everyone drunk, but unfortunately the landlord appears to be spending the profits on gaudy baubles.
And of course, the more drunk we get, the sooner we'll pass out and the worse the hangover will be in the morning.
(have we pushed this analogy far enough yet? Apologies for any flippancy, but I enjoy pushing analogies until they break in amusing fashions.)
Of course I do. I'm just not aware of the study accounting for the degradation in yields attributable to drought and collapsing bioservices. Until it does account for *all* empirical evidence, and not just a subset, I'm not sure it's sound to claim my hypothesis is refuted.
Yes, better. An elaboration might be that (D-N) is the amount of pipe cleaner the barman is blending with beer to maintain the illusion of sales (unconventional oil), the effect of which is making you feel increasingly like vomiting (the economic impact of $90+ oil)
I'm sure we could work in something to do with farting causing evacuation of the bar long before the barrel can be emptied, to account for emissions. How the Karaoke machine can be worked in is a head scratcher.
BigTom
Well-Known Member
Karaoke machine is the media. Unfortunately, the machine is broken, and no matter what record you try to put on, all it plays is "don't worry, be happy".
Useful article by Chris Martenson (of the Crash Course) on what is wrong with money that ties a few of the preceding points together. He is pointing out that money is not wealth, and the divergence between the two systems (as energy stagnates) is what accounts for the dynamics we observe in the financial system.
Money is getting printed, but not spent (since there are no economic projects at $90+ oil price to spend it on) so velocity is low and there is no inflation (yet).
Money is getting printed, but not spent (since there are no economic projects at $90+ oil price to spend it on) so velocity is low and there is no inflation (yet).
free spirit
more tea vicar?
well, I guess it depends on exactly what your hypothesis is, and how you've reached the 2 billion figure, but I was assuming that a significant part of it was the assumption that agriculture with greatly reduced water, pesticide, chemical fertiliser and other green revolution type inputs must lead to reduced yields.
If that formed no part of your hypothesis, then it'd be true that the study doesn't refute your figures or hypothesis, but I doubt you can honestly say that.
free spirit
more tea vicar?
now that I'd have to agree with, though I'd put the caveat in about it being the fantasy of eternal unsustainable growth that's really the issue.I was just talking about this with my g/f: neither economists nor politicians seem to have any understanding of laws which limit their fantasies of eternal growth.
Economic growth can continue even in a situation where energy availability was reducing, so long as that growth was reducing the energy intensity of the economy by more than the rate at which energy availability was reducing.
Same applies to other resources, and as long as that growth / development is creating something of long term use that adds to the sum total of human existence while reducing resource usage compared to items it's replacing, and materials used are recyclable after it's life ends etc then i should generally be viewed as being sustainable.
Maybe there are limits to this type of growth as well, but they're so far in the future that they'll definitely not be reached in my lifetime (I know how wasteful of everything we currently are, and how far we have to go in cutting that down to it's minimum desirable level).
Hmmm.
I remain unconvinced that we can have growth without using more energy or resources.
Sure, we can slow the rate of use of energy and resources and recover resources from stuff we've thrown away, but that isn't growth.
Savings maybe, but not growth.
I remain unconvinced that we can have growth without using more energy or resources.
Sure, we can slow the rate of use of energy and resources and recover resources from stuff we've thrown away, but that isn't growth.
Savings maybe, but not growth.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Improved efficiency means that energy use goes down with zero growth. Improve energy efficiency by 3 percent, and you can have growth of 2 percent with a net energy use reduction. Simple.
fs put it better than me. The growth itself needs to be of an energy-reducing nature. We definitely need to be far more careful about what we describe as growth, I think, and not discount factors such as resource depletion, pollution, etc.
fs put it better than me. The growth itself needs to be of an energy-reducing nature. We definitely need to be far more careful about what we describe as growth, I think, and not discount factors such as resource depletion, pollution, etc.
free spirit
more tea vicar?
of course it is.
it's just about doing more with less, it's that simple, and given how hopelessly inefficient we are now at our use of resources we have a good few generations of sustainable development potential in the economy before we need to start thinking about a zero growth economy.
Or to put it another way, we need such massive levels of investment and economic activity in order to make the transition from a high energy and carbon intensity to a low energy and carbon intensity economy that we could easily grow the economy to the point where there was virtually full employment as a result. That should count as economic growth in anyone's book, no matter how you define it.
tbh, if you're not understood this concept, then it's unsurprising that you have developed the world view that you have. It really is the key to understanding why peak oil doesn't have to mean we're all utterly in the shit.
Not saying this definitely will happen, as it depends on our politicians and those with access to capital recognising this fact, and acting on it, and as you rightly point out, they're showing minimal signs of understanding the issue at present. My hope is that once the fact of the situation really become undeniable, the logic of this will become too obvious to miss, and the money will rapidly flow in that direction with or without the politicians.
Question really is whether this will happen before the situation goes past the point where we can actually make the transition faster than the depletion rate. I'm seeing serious signs though that we can actually make that transition pretty rapidly when we put our minds to it, and a lot of the base knowledge and infrastructure is now either in place or getting there... eg 1GW of solar PV installed in the UK in the last year, vs 50MW total installed up to the start of last year.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Yes. If it is sustainable growth, and that growth can be measured in a way that properly takes sustainability into account. I think we face too many challenges in the near-future to have the luxury of lots of people not working, and everyone working and working as smartly as we can will produce improvements in the way we do things which can and should be called growth, I think.
I used to think that this 'endless growth' model was madness. Now I'm not so sure. We need the right kind of growth - that's the key. And some kinds of 'growth' that we currently have need to be reclassified as contraction because they are not sustainable.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Endless growth of money is easy. Look at Zimbabwe! But I know what you mean - endless growth in 'value' that is measured in a particular way, and represented by money. I agree that we need to redefine it so that it doesn't just mean 'more stuff', and the measure includes anything that is directed towards improving life.
Also, I'm not sure that looking for what has fucked us up is quite right. Are we more fucked up now than we were in the past? I could make an argument to say that we are not, that in many ways we are less fucked up than we have been in the past. We face massive challenges, but plus ca change, really.
Also, I'm not sure that looking for what has fucked us up is quite right. Are we more fucked up now than we were in the past? I could make an argument to say that we are not, that in many ways we are less fucked up than we have been in the past. We face massive challenges, but plus ca change, really.
free spirit
more tea vicar?
none sustainable economic growth is a major part of the problem.
sustainable economic growth though is needed to solve the joint problems of massive unemployment rates, resource depletion, global warming, economic disparity between haves and have nots, food security, water security, poor quality of life, inequitable health and life expectancy etc.
No possible way we can solve all of those problems without the economy growing in the process, we just need to make sure it grows in a sustainable way within the limits of energy availability and a sensible compromise on atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.
free spirit
more tea vicar?
growth as in more people in work, more people having access to decent health care, education, pensions etc etc.
post war style growth in other words*, just with decreasing per capita energy consumption instead of rising per capita energy consumption... not this utterly counterproductive economic growth of the neoliberalist era where all the proceeds end up concentrated in the hands of the tiny minority at the top, while living and social welfare standards for those at the bottom drop in the persuit of growing shareholder value etc.
*or even more so than post war preferably, but that'd be a good starting point compared to where we are now.
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