Peak Oil (was "petroleum geologist explains US war policy")
- Thread starter Bernie_Gunther
- Start date
totaladdict
Well-Known Member
Like this for example: "When the Chinese write "crisis", they use two characters, one of which means "danger" and one "opportunity". This expression points beyond the riskiness most people usually associate with crises to the new possibilities inherent in any moment of dramatic change. The situation in Mexico City has shown just how perceptive this linguistic formulation really is. Not only were the dangers created by the quake extremely complex, but so too were the new opportunities created."Bernie Gunther said:
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/Homepages/Faculty/Cleaver/earthquake.html
(More later)
totaladdict
Well-Known Member
I guess maybe you should use that terminology - but it's likely to make what you're saying pretty inaccessible. I just read through the above link, and, well... it's not very easy to absorb, to say the least.Bernie Gunther said:
I think this is an area that you could expand on if you fancy - what makes you think that, say, a system of interconnected eco-village type structures would be resilient (if that's what you mean)? Wouldn't such a system be susceptive to environmental degration caused by outside actors, or cross contamination of GM crops?
(I can expand on what I mean if I'm not making myself clear - getting kicked off the computer for the moment though.)
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
That's sort of how I feel about slogging through Marx's Capitaltotaladdict said:
The sense in which I thought decentralised structures might be more resilient wasn't quite that. What I had in mind was that many of the highly specialised and complex structures of global capitalism are likely to be viable only at a high energy throughput, which can no longer be achieved past a certain point of hydrocarbon depletion. So they will tend to fall apart in various ways.totaladdict said:
A likely example of this might be the industrial production, food processing, transport, distribution, retailing and marketing chain associated with food.
It appears likely that the organioponicos which appeared during Cuba's 'special period' or ecovillages might be much better adapted to conditions of lower energy throughput.
I do think they'd also be affected by environmental degradation of the kinds you mention, but no more than any other form of agriculture and possibly less than industrial farming, because methods such as biointensive farming are far less prone to e.g. problems of soil erosion and are so 'hands on' that pest problems and the like are spotted and dealt with more effectively.
The Cuban experience suggests that there are also significant social benefits of doing urban farming and similar activities though, leading to a growth in community solidarity and I think this is an especially interesting angle from an egalitarian point of view.
Part of the reason that I linked in all that stuff about the evolution of complex structures was that it seems likely to me that due to the complexity of the systems involved, the future is not terribly predictable except in the terms of systems theory. So you can get some meaningful constraints like:
1) to be viable, food systems must work at lower energy throughputs.
2) localising food production increases viability at lower energy throughputs.
3) localising food production is known to increase solidarity in some models.
4) solidarity can help communities resist attempts at corporate expropriation.
5) capitalism owns governments and won't get out of our food chain willingly.
But what actually happens in the real world is anybody's guess. The system of constraints I proposed is obviously only one, among many relevant ones. I'm just focussing on food security and through the filter of my own thinking.
All you can do is model it a bit to see what might be good, then try to set up the conditions to make it happen, by prototyping and circulating what works.
totaladdict
Well-Known Member
Okay, I think I'm up to speed now. I was still absorbing the systems theory stuff. Obviously my question about susceptibility was a bit blinkered...
I agree that the eco-village and/or organioponicos are both good examples of the direction that change could go... I also like some of the ruralisation ideas on that Folke Gunther site that you link to a lot.
I think what you say about prototyping is important too. It seems to me that a large number of people have been persuaded of the 'There no alternative' theory - "yeah this is shit, but what can you do?". One of the key ways of being able to break that psychological hold must be to show that there are viable - and attractive - ways of doing things differently. Obviously though, as William Blum's Killing Hope makes abundantly clear, Capital isn't too keen on alternatives being able to freely develop.
Obviously small scale experiments are possible, as with the eco-village network... but when things really start to challenge conventional wisdom they become subject to, at the very least, propaganda campaigns - and obviously the more challenging, the more intense become Capital's defensive manouevers.
Dunno where I'm going with this, thought it was better than just "yeah, I agree" though......
I agree that the eco-village and/or organioponicos are both good examples of the direction that change could go... I also like some of the ruralisation ideas on that Folke Gunther site that you link to a lot.
I think what you say about prototyping is important too. It seems to me that a large number of people have been persuaded of the 'There no alternative' theory - "yeah this is shit, but what can you do?". One of the key ways of being able to break that psychological hold must be to show that there are viable - and attractive - ways of doing things differently. Obviously though, as William Blum's Killing Hope makes abundantly clear, Capital isn't too keen on alternatives being able to freely develop.
Obviously small scale experiments are possible, as with the eco-village network... but when things really start to challenge conventional wisdom they become subject to, at the very least, propaganda campaigns - and obviously the more challenging, the more intense become Capital's defensive manouevers.
Dunno where I'm going with this, thought it was better than just "yeah, I agree" though......
USG foriegn policy is in major part about punishing those that show signs of opting out of neo-liberal arrangements that benefit the owning class (this the legacy of Nitze, Kennan, et alia). We don't invade Panama, escort a leader out of Haiti at gunpoint, or mine the harbors of Nicaragua because anyone perceives them, in themselves, to be a geniune threat. It's all about crushing the example of alternate models. The capitalist says Greed is Good in one breath and whispers apathy is better in the next -- all the more to exploit those without hope for a better future!totaladdict said:
(One shivers at the symbolism of re-appointing Elliot Abrams, Otto Reich, John Negroponte, and John Poindextor to positions of power, these shatterers of dreams. Recall the sight of storm-troopers at the FTAA meetings in Miami last year. Jack London's The Iron Heel made real. "Alternate" will be brutally repressed wherever it is seen.)
But we do stand at the brink of opportunity. By hook or crook (by both most likely) the mankind-world ecosystem will go through gut-wrenching change in search of a new ESS, one pegged on lower energy throughput than experienced during the Industrial (Oil) Interval now ending (albeit this "ending" will take more than a couple of decades). Key will be the organizing and energizing values that are found in the debris.
Living myths are not mistaken notions, and they do not spring from books. They are not to be judged as true or false but as effective or ineffective, maturative or pathogenic. They are rather like enzymes, products of the body in which they work; or in homogeneous social groups, products of a body social. They are not invented but occur, and are recognized by seers, and poets, to be then cultivated and employed as catalysts of spiritual (i.e., psychological) well-being.
---Joseph Campbell, The Flight of the Wild Gander
Bernie here is one of the seers, cultivating possibilities, and using the internet (while we can still push electrons around) to sing his song. He points here and there to prototypes in action. He provides example that there is, indeed, hope.---Joseph Campbell, The Flight of the Wild Gander
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
hehehe ... you're too kind dave.
Eco-villages are all very well, but realistically most of us live in cities. So I'm particularly interested in urban models like Folke's Ruralisation and Urban Farming in this context.
Cuba is particularly interesting, because it's the nearest thing I've seen to a test case. When the Soviet Union was still in business it heavily subsidised Cuban agriculture with oil and industrial agriculture materials like fertilizer and pesticide in return for Cuban sugar exports. Due to the US embargo, when the SU fell and stopped sending this stuff, Cuba was in a horrible mess. They were struggling to provide a basic diet for their citizens.
Given the relationship between oil and food security, the problems Cuba was having bear a useful resemblance to the problems everybody might be having in the event of serious long-term oil shortages.
Over the last decade or so they've worked really hard to fix the mess using, among other things, urban farming techniques. Here's a very interesting recent book on the subject. Thoughtfully provided online.
I've been reading again it to see if I can identify potential points of conflict with and resistance against the corporate state. Some possibilities.
1) Biotech economics. Massive investment in biotech companies creates pressure for revenue. GMO's can contaminate regular crops and biotech patent holders may demand revenue, or try to circulate sterile seed lines.
2) Water availability. Privatised water would be a big issue, especially given increased water needs due to climate change.
3) Planning law. Waste recycling, livestock etc, are potential hazards.
4) Education. In order for this approach to be workable, techniques and expertise must be widely circulated. The UK has a lot of potentially useful structures for this due to the prevalence of gardening mania here, but in other places this doesn't exist. Food storage and preparation also requires knowledge. How many people know how to preserve fruit for example? Or how to cook anything that didn't come in a packet from the supermarket?
5) Taxation. If a significant number of people began local trading/barter of food that they'd grown, an increasingly desperate government would probably try to find ways to tax it (c.f. the Roman Empire examples in Tainter's work)
6) Nutrient recycling. Right now we have an incredibly stupid sewage system. Nutrient recycling is essential to make this stuff viable, but without major investment now, we're likely to see some primitive alternatives emerging. These may be deemed health hazards.
7) Fuels and cooking. Unless you're keen on raw veg, you need some way to cook this stuff. This takes us into a whole other set of problems beyond food
8) Land availability. While you can do an awful lot with a small space if you know how, and don't mind eating a lot of spuds, a mass urban farming movement would require a lot more land. If one looks at Folke's ruralisation proposals with their suggestion of no further building in urban areas and condemned buildings to be replaced with urban farms, one can see issues.
9) Availability for work. Doing this takes time. Time that is no longer available for work. Self-sufficiency in food would tend to make resistance to the imposition of work easier, but other costs (water, fuel, tax etc) might be used as leverage against this.
10) Political will. As the study above makes clear, the Cuban government was highly supportive of these efforts, making vacant land, seeds and tools etc available. Instructing the Ministry of Ag to support the efforts fully. Even with this high level of government support, the programme has only gotten people back up to a minimally sufficient calorie intake in the last couple of years. Our government could be expected to be far less supportive because it's either going to be Labour, with supermarket magnates like Lord Sainsbury and former Monsanto flacks like David Hill in key positions, or the Tories, with various major landowners in key positions. In our case it seems likely that a popular movement might need to be established independent of a resisting government.
11) Security. Theft is always a problem on allotments etc. It seems likely that it would be a problem in this scenario also, especially with high-value crops. The likely answer would be some kind of 'neighbourhood watch' approach, and this could easily be seen as vigilante activity by the state.
12) Local organisation. The Cuban example and others (e.g. Argentina) indicate that all kinds of community organisations will tend to spring up around these kind of activities. Such organisations become a vehicle for solidarity and will therefore tend to become foci of resistance to the state, by e.g. expanding their activities into factory occupations and the like in the event that long term oil shortages are accompanied by economic depression.
I'm going to be away for a couple of days, although I might get time for another post or two before I head off, but I should have time this weekend to continue the conversation if anyone is still up for it ... cheers
Eco-villages are all very well, but realistically most of us live in cities. So I'm particularly interested in urban models like Folke's Ruralisation and Urban Farming in this context.
Cuba is particularly interesting, because it's the nearest thing I've seen to a test case. When the Soviet Union was still in business it heavily subsidised Cuban agriculture with oil and industrial agriculture materials like fertilizer and pesticide in return for Cuban sugar exports. Due to the US embargo, when the SU fell and stopped sending this stuff, Cuba was in a horrible mess. They were struggling to provide a basic diet for their citizens.
Given the relationship between oil and food security, the problems Cuba was having bear a useful resemblance to the problems everybody might be having in the event of serious long-term oil shortages.
Over the last decade or so they've worked really hard to fix the mess using, among other things, urban farming techniques. Here's a very interesting recent book on the subject. Thoughtfully provided online.
I've been reading again it to see if I can identify potential points of conflict with and resistance against the corporate state. Some possibilities.
1) Biotech economics. Massive investment in biotech companies creates pressure for revenue. GMO's can contaminate regular crops and biotech patent holders may demand revenue, or try to circulate sterile seed lines.
2) Water availability. Privatised water would be a big issue, especially given increased water needs due to climate change.
3) Planning law. Waste recycling, livestock etc, are potential hazards.
4) Education. In order for this approach to be workable, techniques and expertise must be widely circulated. The UK has a lot of potentially useful structures for this due to the prevalence of gardening mania here, but in other places this doesn't exist. Food storage and preparation also requires knowledge. How many people know how to preserve fruit for example? Or how to cook anything that didn't come in a packet from the supermarket?
5) Taxation. If a significant number of people began local trading/barter of food that they'd grown, an increasingly desperate government would probably try to find ways to tax it (c.f. the Roman Empire examples in Tainter's work)
6) Nutrient recycling. Right now we have an incredibly stupid sewage system. Nutrient recycling is essential to make this stuff viable, but without major investment now, we're likely to see some primitive alternatives emerging. These may be deemed health hazards.
7) Fuels and cooking. Unless you're keen on raw veg, you need some way to cook this stuff. This takes us into a whole other set of problems beyond food
8) Land availability. While you can do an awful lot with a small space if you know how, and don't mind eating a lot of spuds, a mass urban farming movement would require a lot more land. If one looks at Folke's ruralisation proposals with their suggestion of no further building in urban areas and condemned buildings to be replaced with urban farms, one can see issues.
9) Availability for work. Doing this takes time. Time that is no longer available for work. Self-sufficiency in food would tend to make resistance to the imposition of work easier, but other costs (water, fuel, tax etc) might be used as leverage against this.
10) Political will. As the study above makes clear, the Cuban government was highly supportive of these efforts, making vacant land, seeds and tools etc available. Instructing the Ministry of Ag to support the efforts fully. Even with this high level of government support, the programme has only gotten people back up to a minimally sufficient calorie intake in the last couple of years. Our government could be expected to be far less supportive because it's either going to be Labour, with supermarket magnates like Lord Sainsbury and former Monsanto flacks like David Hill in key positions, or the Tories, with various major landowners in key positions. In our case it seems likely that a popular movement might need to be established independent of a resisting government.
11) Security. Theft is always a problem on allotments etc. It seems likely that it would be a problem in this scenario also, especially with high-value crops. The likely answer would be some kind of 'neighbourhood watch' approach, and this could easily be seen as vigilante activity by the state.
12) Local organisation. The Cuban example and others (e.g. Argentina) indicate that all kinds of community organisations will tend to spring up around these kind of activities. Such organisations become a vehicle for solidarity and will therefore tend to become foci of resistance to the state, by e.g. expanding their activities into factory occupations and the like in the event that long term oil shortages are accompanied by economic depression.
I'm going to be away for a couple of days, although I might get time for another post or two before I head off, but I should have time this weekend to continue the conversation if anyone is still up for it ... cheers
Barking_Mad
Non sibi sed omnibus
Interesting stuff Bernie. If there isn't a website that covers many of the topics in this thread and integrates them together, then there should be!
From another thread on urban75...I want to post this link: http://www.sovereignty.org.uk/features/footnmouth/zwaste2.html
It seems worth mentioning here anyway
It seems worth mentioning here anyway
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
I've tried to find a serious scientific evaluation of this and failed. What I've seen so far appears to be a claim being made by a particular company called Changing World Technologies, in a US popular science magazine called Discover. So all we have so far is a commercial claim by a company promoting this technology.the B said:From another thread on urban75...I want to post this link: http://www.sovereignty.org.uk/features/footnmouth/zwaste2.html
It seems worth mentioning here anyway
I'd be interested to see some independent verification of these claims, which seem a bit unlikely to me. I'm particularly sceptical about the stated 85% efficiency of the process and the impression being portrayed in these articles about what that's supposed to mean in the real world.
To take a related example of a new 'oil substitute' where I'm more familiar with the details, the claims made by promoters of ethanol as fuel turned out to be a bit dubious although these claims are still being extensively promoted using the political lobbying muscle of the corn and soya industries (who benefit from such claims by using them to justify huge government subsidies) and a wide range of PR front groups.
Any company promoting alternatives to oil has all kinds of potential motives for making exaggerated claims and the popular media, based on their record (remember cold fusion?) can't be trusted to evaluate their claims sceptically.
Backatcha Bandit made a good point about these kinds of 'miracle alternative' stories a while back, to the effect that a steady drip, drip of headlines followed by the largely unreported sceptical destruction of such claims, has the effect of convincing the general public that solutions for a post-oil world are or will become available. Serious scientists working in these areas, like Prof. Pimentel and his colleagues, seem rather less optimistic about this.
Dear Bernie, BB and anyone else with an interest in energy alternatives
Have you come across zero point energy as a field of scientific study? Put zpe into google. I first came across it on reading this book which I would recommend as a good read and since then keep bumping into it.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0767906276/102-6941350-8330513?v=glance
I’m no quantum physicist so I would struggle to comment on the science (as would most scientists), but I know of enough reliable accounts of the military, business, government and cutting edge science taking an interest in this for me to take it seriously.
Below are some links for your information and discernment
http://www.earthrainbownetwork.com/Archives2004/HalFox.htm
http://www.keelynet.com/mainnew.htm
http://www.earthrainbownetwork.com/Archives2004/ArisenPhoenix2.htm
http://www.disclosureproject.org/Outsidethebox-TedLoderPaper.htm
http://www.disclosureproject.org/crandallbook.htm
http://www.disclosureproject.org/PDF-Documents/EPWoutofboxBrief.pdf
Unfortunately the study and debate of zpe is closely tied Tesla’s technology and to the US military and has been largely hidden from the public and so zpe links to other hidden agendas (and will no doubt be dismissed by many as loony conspiracy nonsense without checking out the evidence)
One love
Ian
Have you come across zero point energy as a field of scientific study? Put zpe into google. I first came across it on reading this book which I would recommend as a good read and since then keep bumping into it.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0767906276/102-6941350-8330513?v=glance
I’m no quantum physicist so I would struggle to comment on the science (as would most scientists), but I know of enough reliable accounts of the military, business, government and cutting edge science taking an interest in this for me to take it seriously.
Below are some links for your information and discernment
http://www.earthrainbownetwork.com/Archives2004/HalFox.htm
http://www.keelynet.com/mainnew.htm
http://www.earthrainbownetwork.com/Archives2004/ArisenPhoenix2.htm
http://www.disclosureproject.org/Outsidethebox-TedLoderPaper.htm
http://www.disclosureproject.org/crandallbook.htm
http://www.disclosureproject.org/PDF-Documents/EPWoutofboxBrief.pdf
Unfortunately the study and debate of zpe is closely tied Tesla’s technology and to the US military and has been largely hidden from the public and so zpe links to other hidden agendas (and will no doubt be dismissed by many as loony conspiracy nonsense without checking out the evidence)
One love
Ian
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
Oh dear. Well yes, I've heard of this stuff. The Casimir Effect is established science, but most of the stuff I'm familiar with about ZPE as any kind of practical energy source is extremely dubious extrapolation in my opinion.
Realistically, even if we choose to disregard all the stuff about Nazi UFOs and so on, this is fringe science of the most speculative sort. So I'd put it in the same probability range as cold fusion when considering possible solutions to the problems of hydrocarbon depletion. One of your links leads to something much more immediately relevant though.
The FEASTA online book Before the Wells Run Dry is a very interesting wide ranging and worthwhile look at sustainability in a world of contracting energy stocks.
Realistically, even if we choose to disregard all the stuff about Nazi UFOs and so on, this is fringe science of the most speculative sort. So I'd put it in the same probability range as cold fusion when considering possible solutions to the problems of hydrocarbon depletion. One of your links leads to something much more immediately relevant though.
The FEASTA online book Before the Wells Run Dry is a very interesting wide ranging and worthwhile look at sustainability in a world of contracting energy stocks.
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
Here are a couple of quotes from the intro, expressing one of the main themes of Before the Wells Run Dry
The scale of this problem is made worse by the likely economic effects of a sustained energy crisis and the enormous amount of capital investment (both in terms of money and embodied energy) likely to be required to effect the transition to sustainability.
Consider what needs to be built and to be replaced ...
The point being, that while we still have relatively plentiful relatively cheap energy, it's a lot easier to invest some of it in the transition to sustainability than it would be when it has become relatively scarce and expensive. This is especially true of high capital cost approaches to replacing fossil fuels like nuclear or switching all our transport systems over to run on hydrogen, but is also true to some degree of many low-impact solutions.
The scale of this problem is made worse by the likely economic effects of a sustained energy crisis and the enormous amount of capital investment (both in terms of money and embodied energy) likely to be required to effect the transition to sustainability.
Consider what needs to be built and to be replaced ...
National Geographic Magazine, June 2004: The End of Cheap Oil
Interesting opinions in the NGM forum:
The U.S. tax code offers a $2,000 consumer credit for hybrid car owners and a deduction of up to $100,000 for people who buy the largest SUVs for business use. Should such incentives be increased for hybrid cars and decreased for gas-guzzlers? What can, and should, be done to conserve oil?
Interesting opinions in the NGM forum:
The U.S. tax code offers a $2,000 consumer credit for hybrid car owners and a deduction of up to $100,000 for people who buy the largest SUVs for business use. Should such incentives be increased for hybrid cars and decreased for gas-guzzlers? What can, and should, be done to conserve oil?
totaladdict
Well-Known Member
Why is it that whenever oil is mentioned in the US the ONLY thing they ever talk about is cars? I've seen 2 "in-depth" discussions on tv this week regarding 'the end of cheap oil' (not the article, the concept) and neither of them even so much as mentioned industrial agriculture.
totaladdict said:
I think this is because US is a "freedom loving" contry. Cars give you a sense of freedom - you can go wherever you want.
However this freedom has two sides.
totaladdict
Well-Known Member
Nnnyah, dunno about that.
Surely there are some deeper reasons. I can understand that most people's gut reaction is to think of their car... oil is generally regarded as fuelling transportation, maybe some people think about it heating their home. The car thing is reinforced because people have to actually put the stuff into their car regularly, whereas they fill their boilers a few times a year maybe, and never pour the black stuff onto their vege patch (not that many actually grow their own food!). But still, when they get "experts" to talk about oil and the consequences of its running, "experts" who presumably look at how and where oil is used (in order to form some kind of opinion as to the consequences of it running out), they never mention food production. Why is that?
Surely there are some deeper reasons. I can understand that most people's gut reaction is to think of their car... oil is generally regarded as fuelling transportation, maybe some people think about it heating their home. The car thing is reinforced because people have to actually put the stuff into their car regularly, whereas they fill their boilers a few times a year maybe, and never pour the black stuff onto their vege patch (not that many actually grow their own food!). But still, when they get "experts" to talk about oil and the consequences of its running, "experts" who presumably look at how and where oil is used (in order to form some kind of opinion as to the consequences of it running out), they never mention food production. Why is that?
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
Well, a possible reason is that the car connection is obvious, and the other industrial uses of oil less so. Systems thinking is not taught in our schools as far as I'm aware, which I think is rather a pity. Complex webs of causation are a lot harder for most people to understand than simple ones.totaladdict said:
Another possible reason is that it calls into question our whole way of life.
Consider this. Industrial agriculture isn't, with regard to productivity per hectare, vastly more efficient than that of mainstream organic farming techniques (about 20% if I recall right)
It's the difference in productivity of agricultural workers that has the biggest social effects. Under industrial agriculture, one farmer can support 100-odd other citizens.
This is a basic enabler of our present way of life. It's got enormous political and economic implications, as discussed in those Harry Cleaver papers I was mentioning a page or so back. It's what lets globalisation put village farmers in the third world out of business and put them in factories to make training shoes for 18 hrs a day and shit like that.
If we look at the techniques required to grow enough food and biomass (for energy systems) to support a global population of around the present 6 billion, sustainably, using available land etc, in reasonable comfort, then the ratio looks to me as though it could be in the range of one farmer supporting something more like 5, 10 or 20 people.
I'm not talking here about mainstream organic agriculture, because I don't think, based on the scenarios constructed by Pimentel et al, that it's viable for supporting that many people with the available land. What might work instead are the kinds of techniques used under the Cuban 'special period' and stuff like biointensive methods. They are a lot more labour-intensive though. In addition, Pimentel is assuming a great deal of viable land is being used for energy systems, to come up with his suggested figure of a 2 billion sustainable population. To do better, you have to have lower energy use,which can most easily be achieved in food systems by ruralisation and so on.
That makes a very big difference to our society.
Jared Diamond and
Joseph Tainter have interesting thing to say about this sort of stuff.
Complexity, in the sense that Tainter is using, is directly subsidised by industrial agriculture, allowing for much greater specialisation of roles within a society. An early sceptic about the wisdom of this was Borsodi
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
What I am doing in the post above though and in previous posts where I've been talking about this stuff is making an assumption along the lines of 'for all people considered, one standard of living is assumed.' Clearly in practice this isn't the case now and is probably even less likely to be the case in future.
This almost certainly would make a big difference to the scenarios being considered. The difference might be quite complicated though. Consider this.
It's oil-based transport that allows us to export wastes and import resources. So the energy cost of subsidising our way of life at the expense of others is likely to increase as oil becomes more scarce relative to the demand for it.
So as energy resources become more scarce, local resources become more important and subsidising unsustainable practices becomes more expensive.
This almost certainly would make a big difference to the scenarios being considered. The difference might be quite complicated though. Consider this.
It's oil-based transport that allows us to export wastes and import resources. So the energy cost of subsidising our way of life at the expense of others is likely to increase as oil becomes more scarce relative to the demand for it.
So as energy resources become more scarce, local resources become more important and subsidising unsustainable practices becomes more expensive.
totaladdict
Well-Known Member
That's more like the kind of answer I was expecting (Edit: talking about your one before last).
I think I've read that Jared Diamond article before, not entirely sure though. It's certainly a good 'un. I've spent some time in that area recently and it seems as though the 'environmental collapse' theory has been adopted by most of the historic sites - though without the links to todays world that Diamond makes so cogently. (It should be remembered that the Mayans do still live on though, mostly in the highlands of Chiapas/Guatemala - horrendously oppressed, and making some of the same mistakes mentioned in that article [slash and burn, deforestation etc].)
I read a similar article on Easter Island a while back - no, now I've been looking for it I see it was a program on BBC . They spent quite a lot of time linking the ecological disaster they brought on themselves with the one we're facing now. Interestingly, the islanders started to worship bird-like figures at around the time they realised they'd fucked their environment, a means of escape or some such saviour presumably. I wonder if there's a parallel to be drawn with our spaceship obsession....
I think I've read that Jared Diamond article before, not entirely sure though. It's certainly a good 'un. I've spent some time in that area recently and it seems as though the 'environmental collapse' theory has been adopted by most of the historic sites - though without the links to todays world that Diamond makes so cogently. (It should be remembered that the Mayans do still live on though, mostly in the highlands of Chiapas/Guatemala - horrendously oppressed, and making some of the same mistakes mentioned in that article [slash and burn, deforestation etc].)
I read a similar article on Easter Island a while back - no, now I've been looking for it I see it was a program on BBC . They spent quite a lot of time linking the ecological disaster they brought on themselves with the one we're facing now. Interestingly, the islanders started to worship bird-like figures at around the time they realised they'd fucked their environment, a means of escape or some such saviour presumably. I wonder if there's a parallel to be drawn with our spaceship obsession....
TrueStory said:
I suspect the deep psychological dependence is connected with the lack of job security as well. Isn't part of the mythology that if your town goes belly-up you just get in your car and drive to boom-town? It's certainly an assumption in US labour economics...
And one good reason for focusing on the car - alongside the excellent point about tellable stories - is that, however deep that connection, it's relatively unscary.
Put yourself in the position of writing an article about the effects of more-rationally-priced oil. Your editor insists you must write it "so people can relate to it". Do you:
- Hoover up some relatively accessible figures about transport and anger them that their cars are threatened; or
- Do absolutely shedloads of research, weave a complex story involving chains of causation and consequences of consequences, and if you've succeeded in keeping them with you to the conclusion scare the shit out of them? Millions are going to starve... it could be you...
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
I think the fear and unacceptability are key. You can actually make the case quite simply, as Pimentel does in a few places. It's actually a lot easier to understand than climate change for example. The problem is that it's very scary and requires one to talk about taboo subjects like population.laptop said:
Perhaps psychiatric inquiries into the condition of anosognosia may have some useful contributions to make to our understanding of this phenomenon.
Hi Bernie
Just a quick one. I'm a little surprised at your apparent dismissal of zpe as worthy of further research. This is not because I would claim to know more on the subject and not that I'm unaware that the internet is full of its share of crank science, but because like I say some serious people such as BAE systems (to name one company) who apparently are talking openly of their investment in research (article here from interesting site ) and also because our understanding of reality is so different (bordering on the speculative) at the nano/quantum level.
Given this 'strangeness' that exists at this level, about which we have only recently learned so much and which challenges so much of our accepted understanding of science and reality, I would have thought the possibility of zpe would be worth a second look. My understanding of zpe's history also ties in with what I understand about UFOs and the possibility of ET life and so may be sparks my curiousity. But no matter whether zpe links to other secret histories or not, IMHO it is worth keeping an open mind and eye on.
Cheers
Ian
PS another link which may be helpful? www.postcarbon.org
Just a quick one. I'm a little surprised at your apparent dismissal of zpe as worthy of further research. This is not because I would claim to know more on the subject and not that I'm unaware that the internet is full of its share of crank science, but because like I say some serious people such as BAE systems (to name one company) who apparently are talking openly of their investment in research (article here from interesting site ) and also because our understanding of reality is so different (bordering on the speculative) at the nano/quantum level.
Given this 'strangeness' that exists at this level, about which we have only recently learned so much and which challenges so much of our accepted understanding of science and reality, I would have thought the possibility of zpe would be worth a second look. My understanding of zpe's history also ties in with what I understand about UFOs and the possibility of ET life and so may be sparks my curiousity. But no matter whether zpe links to other secret histories or not, IMHO it is worth keeping an open mind and eye on.
Cheers
Ian
PS another link which may be helpful? www.postcarbon.org
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
Well, if you check out some of the other posts I've made on this page, perhaps what I'm saying will make more sense. ZPE as power, even if there is something potentially workable there, is at best a gleam in a researchers eye.
To take a contrasting example of another proposed 'technical fix', nuclear fission is pretty well understood, yet even if we thought that was a good way to solve the problem, it's probably too late to make the big investments.
Here's why
This is why I don't see unproven and speculative technical fixes as any kind of solution to the immediate problem, when most of the proven technical fixes probably aren't feasible as solutions due to the immense effort involved in deploying them as required and the looming necessity of doing so.
This is one reason why I'm continually arguing that fast adaptation to lower energy use is likely to be vital.
Technical fixes, whether promoted in the mass media or attached to exciting stories of 'secret histories' need to be treated rather sceptically in my view because they are currently being used to facilitate mass denial (cf BB's 'drip, drip' comments). A focus on technical fixes, any technical fixes, which ignores the systemic implications of hydrocarbon depletion, can promote a 'well one of these fixes will surely work out and save us' mentality. If you take a systems view, you can see the impact of such technical fixes in perspective. Taking a systems view is harder though, but worth the effort.
That's not so say that some of them don't have a role to play, but even some of the well-proven technologies are heavily limited in their usefulness by the captial costs and change impact of rolling them out. Unproven ones are therefore probably of marginal interest at best.
The postcarbon guys you just linked to probably wouldn't disagree with this.
If you want to go start a thread on ZPE on the science forum (I'd advise leaving the Nazi UFOs out of it) you may get an interesting discussion going. I just don't see it as very relevant to this one.
To take a contrasting example of another proposed 'technical fix', nuclear fission is pretty well understood, yet even if we thought that was a good way to solve the problem, it's probably too late to make the big investments.
Here's why
This is why I don't see unproven and speculative technical fixes as any kind of solution to the immediate problem, when most of the proven technical fixes probably aren't feasible as solutions due to the immense effort involved in deploying them as required and the looming necessity of doing so.
This is one reason why I'm continually arguing that fast adaptation to lower energy use is likely to be vital.
Technical fixes, whether promoted in the mass media or attached to exciting stories of 'secret histories' need to be treated rather sceptically in my view because they are currently being used to facilitate mass denial (cf BB's 'drip, drip' comments). A focus on technical fixes, any technical fixes, which ignores the systemic implications of hydrocarbon depletion, can promote a 'well one of these fixes will surely work out and save us' mentality. If you take a systems view, you can see the impact of such technical fixes in perspective. Taking a systems view is harder though, but worth the effort.
That's not so say that some of them don't have a role to play, but even some of the well-proven technologies are heavily limited in their usefulness by the captial costs and change impact of rolling them out. Unproven ones are therefore probably of marginal interest at best.
The postcarbon guys you just linked to probably wouldn't disagree with this.
If you want to go start a thread on ZPE on the science forum (I'd advise leaving the Nazi UFOs out of it) you may get an interesting discussion going. I just don't see it as very relevant to this one.
No problem. No need for separate thread.
I would agree with that analysis that we need to focus on restoring sustainability and balance by shifting to a low energy locally based economy based on renewable resources. My only point to raise zpe is that many readers will be unaware of it full stop and may be interested in developments in this area. And that done I'll leave it at that. Those with any interest will be quite capable of following up as they see fit.
Ian
I would agree with that analysis that we need to focus on restoring sustainability and balance by shifting to a low energy locally based economy based on renewable resources. My only point to raise zpe is that many readers will be unaware of it full stop and may be interested in developments in this area. And that done I'll leave it at that. Those with any interest will be quite capable of following up as they see fit.
Ian
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
Nice one Adam
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
Looks like George Monbiot has just been reading your BBC article, he's also mentioning what sounds a lot like Tainter's complexity argument (see above).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1233533,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1233533,00.html
TinyCrendon
New Member
.
totaladdict
Well-Known Member
Nice article Adam...
Can I just ask though, 'cos I'm intrigued about it now. In your article you ask, "How much will transported food go up in price?" - thereby implying that that's where most of the embedded energy in food is wasted - through transportation.
Earlier in the thread Bernie showed these figures:
"Pimentel also comes up with a figure of ten units of oil energy to put one unit of food energy on the table when you include everything from the field to the table under the rules of business as usual. Hence eco-villages, ruralisation of cities etc, because to get really efficient you have to cut out a big chunk of transport and stuff like that by mostly eating stuff grown locally.
If it's just fertiliser and other farm stuff it's more like 7:1 (both ratios are for the US by the way, and the details are in his 'Food, Energy and Society'"
So it's 10 units of oil energy to 1 of food including transport, but still 7 units of oil energy to 1 of food without transportation.
Obviously with that being the case the majority of energy (7 units) is used on the farm, whereas only 3 is in the transportation. (Unless I'm getting confused - bernie?)
So, why do you concentrate on food transport and not other things like fertiliser/farm machinery use? Is it because that's what people connect with more easily? Because the article would get unnecessarily complex otherwise? Because you don't want to imply some kind of 'going back to the land'? Or something else?
As for Monbiot, he says "If the complexity of our economies is impossible to sustain, our best hope is to start to dismantle them before they collapse." Yet he's the one who tried to trash "localisation" to make his "global manifesto" (less complex!?) sound better.
Can I just ask though, 'cos I'm intrigued about it now. In your article you ask, "How much will transported food go up in price?" - thereby implying that that's where most of the embedded energy in food is wasted - through transportation.
Earlier in the thread Bernie showed these figures:
"Pimentel also comes up with a figure of ten units of oil energy to put one unit of food energy on the table when you include everything from the field to the table under the rules of business as usual. Hence eco-villages, ruralisation of cities etc, because to get really efficient you have to cut out a big chunk of transport and stuff like that by mostly eating stuff grown locally.
If it's just fertiliser and other farm stuff it's more like 7:1 (both ratios are for the US by the way, and the details are in his 'Food, Energy and Society'"
So it's 10 units of oil energy to 1 of food including transport, but still 7 units of oil energy to 1 of food without transportation.
Obviously with that being the case the majority of energy (7 units) is used on the farm, whereas only 3 is in the transportation. (Unless I'm getting confused - bernie?)
So, why do you concentrate on food transport and not other things like fertiliser/farm machinery use? Is it because that's what people connect with more easily? Because the article would get unnecessarily complex otherwise? Because you don't want to imply some kind of 'going back to the land'? Or something else?
As for Monbiot, he says "If the complexity of our economies is impossible to sustain, our best hope is to start to dismantle them before they collapse." Yet he's the one who tried to trash "localisation" to make his "global manifesto" (less complex!?) sound better.
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