Falling interest rates have huge power. My background is as an actuary, so I am very much aware of the great power of interest rates. But a lot of people are not aware of this power, including, I suspect, some of the people making today’s decisions to raise interest rates. Similar people want to sell securities now being held by the Federal Reserve and by other central banks. This would further ramp up interest rates. With high interest rates, practically nothing that is bought using credit is affordable. This is frightening.
Another group of people who don’t understand the power of interest rates is the group of people who put together the Peak Oil story. In my opinion, the story of finite resources, including oil, is true. But the way the problem manifests itself is quite different from what Peak Oilers have imagined because the economy is far more complex than the Hubbert Model assumes. One big piece that has been left out of the Hubbert Model is the impact of changing interest rates. When interest rates fall, this tends to allow oil prices to rise, and thus allows increased production. This postpones the Peak Oil crisis, but makes the ultimate crisis worse.
The new crisis can be expected to be “Peak Economy” instead of Peak Oil. Peak Economy is likely to have a far different shape than Peak Oil–a much sharper downturn. It is likely to affect many aspects of the economy at once. The financial system will be especially affected. We will have gluts of all energy products, because no energy product will be affordable to consumers at a price that is profitable to producers. Grid electricity is likely to fail at essentially the same time as other parts of the system.
Interest rates are very important in determining when we hit “Peak Economy.” As I will explain in this article, falling interest rates between 1981 and 2014 are one of the things that allowed Peak Oil to be postponed for many years.
Figure 1. 10-year Treasury Interest Rates. Chart prepared by St. Louis Fed.
These falling interest rates allowed oil prices to be much higher than they otherwise would have been, and thus allowed far more oil to be extracted than would otherwise have been the case.
Since mid 2014, the big change that has taken place was the elimination of Quantitative Easing (QE) by the US. This change had the effect of disrupting the “carry trade” in US dollars (borrowing in US dollars and purchasing investments, often debt with a slightly higher yield, in another currency).
Figure 2. At this point, oil prices are both too high for many would-be consumers and too low for producers.
As a result, the US dollar rose, relative to other currencies. This tended to send oil prices to a level that is too low for oil producers to make an adequate profit (Figure 2). In addition, governments of oil exporting countries (such as Venezuela, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia) cannot collect adequate taxes. This kind of problem does not lead to immediate collapse. Instead, it “sets the wheels in motion,” leading to collapse. This is a major reason why “Peak Economy” seems to be ahead, even if no one attempts to raise interest rates.
The problem is not yet very visible, because oil prices that are too low for producers are favorable for importers of oil, such as the US and Europe. Our economy actually functions better with these low oil prices. Unfortunately, this situation is not sustainable. In fact, rising interest rates are likely to make the situation much worse, quickly.
In this post, I will explain more details relating to these problems.
Low interest rates are extremely beneficial to the economy; high interest rates are a huge problem.
Low interest rates allow consumers to purchase high-priced goods with affordable monthly payments. With low interest rates, consumers can afford to buy more consumer goods (such as homes and cars) than they could otherwise. Thus, low interest rates tend to lead to high demand for commodities of all kinds, thus raising the price of commodities, such as oil.
Low interest rates are also good for businesses and governments. Their borrowing costs are favorable. Because consumers are doing well, business revenues and tax revenues tend to grow at a brisk pace. It becomes easier to afford new factories, roads, and schools.
While low interest rates are good, a reduction in interest rates is even better.
A reduction in interest rates tends to make asset prices rise. The reason this happens is because if someone already owns an asset (examples: a home, factory, a business, shares of stock) and interest rates fall, that asset suddenly becomes more affordable to other people, so the price of that asset rises because of increased demand. For example, if the monthly mortgage payment for a house suddenly drops from $600 per month to $500 per month because of a reduction in interest rates, many more potential homeowners can afford to buy the house. The price of the house may be bid up to a new higher level–perhaps to a price level where the monthly payment is $550 per month–higher than previously, but still below the old payment amount.
Furthermore, if interest rates fall, owners of homes that have risen in value can refinance their mortgages and obtain the new lower interest rate. Often, they can withdraw the “excess equity” and spend it on something else, such as a new car or home improvements. This extra spending tends to stimulate the economy, and thus tends to raise commodity prices. Suddenly, investments in oil fields that previously looked too expensive to extract, and mines with ores of very low grade, start looking profitable. Businesses hire workers to staff the investments that are now profitable, stimulating the economy.
Businesses receive other benefits, as well, when interest rates fall. Their borrowing cost on new loans falls, making new investment more affordable. Demand for their products tends to rise. The additional demand that results from lower interest rates allows economies of scale to work their magic, and thus allows profits to rise.
Companies that have large portfolios of investments, such as insurance companies and pension funds, find that the values of their assets (stocks, bonds, and other investments) rise when interest rates fall. Thus, their balance sheets look better. (Of course, the low interest payments when interest rates are low provide a different problem for these companies. Here, we are talking about the impact of falling interest rates.)
Of course, the reverse of all of these things is also true. It is truly bad news when interest rates rise!
Wages Depend on Interest Rates and Debt Growth
When interest rates fall, debt levels tend to rise. This happens because expensive goods such as homes, cars, and factories become more affordable, so customers can buy more of them. Thus, falling interest rates are very closely associated with rising debt levels.
We find that when we look at debt levels, rising debt levels seem to be highly correlated with rising US per capita wages, (especially up until China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, and globalization took off). “Per capita wages” are calculated by dividing total wages and salaries by total population. Per capita wages thus reflect the impact of both (a) changes in the wages of individual workers and (b) changes in workforce participation. Using this measure “makes sense,” if we think of the total population as being supported by the wages of the working population, either directly or indirectly (such as through taxes).
Figure 3. Growth in US Wages vs. Growth in Non-Financial Debt. Wages from US Bureau of Economics “Wages and Salaries.” Non-Financial Debt is discontinued series from St. Louis Federal Reserve. (Note chart does not show a value for 2016.) Both sets of numbers have been adjusted for growth in US population and for growth in CPI Urban.
What does oil price depend upon?
Oil price depends upon the amount customers can afford to pay for oil and the finished products it produces. The amount customers can afford, in turn, depends very much on interest rates, since these influence both wages and monthly payments on loans. If the price that a significant share of consumers can afford is below the selling price of oil, we get an oil glut, as we have today.
It is important to note that oil and other energy products are important in determining the cost of finished products, such as cars, homes, and factories. Thus, high prices on energy products tend to ripple through the economy in many different ways. Many people consider only the change in the cost of filling a car’s gasoline tank; this approach gives a misleading impression of the impact of oil prices.
Affordability is also affected by growing wage disparity. Growing wage disparity tends to occur because of growing complexity and specialization. Globalization also contributes to wage disparity. These are other problems we encounter as we approach energy limits. Demand for commodities is to a significant extent determined by the wages of non-elite workers because there are so many of them. High wage workers tend to influence commodity prices less because their purchases are skewed toward a greater share of services, and toward the purchase of financial assets.
Because interest rates, debt, wages, and oil prices (and, in fact, commodity prices of all kinds) are linked, the system is much more complex than what most early modelers assumed was the case.
Hubbert’s Theory Underlies Many Mainstream Energy Beliefs
Today’s mainstream beliefs about our energy problems seem to be strongly influenced by Peak Oil theory. Peak Oil theory, in turn, is based on an analysis by geophysicist M. King Hubbert. This view does not consider interest rates, debt, or prices.
Figure 4. M. King Hubbert’s symmetric curve explaining the way he saw resources depleting from Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels, published in 1956.
In this view, the amount of any exhaustible resource that we can extract depends on the resources in the ground, plus the technology we have to extract these resources. In general, Hubbert expected an approximately symmetric curve of extraction, as illustrated in Figure 4. The peak is expected when about 50% of the resource is extracted. Hubbert believed that improved technology might allow more exhaustible resources to be extracted after peak, making the actual extraction pattern somewhat asymmetric, with a larger share of a resource, such as oil, being extracted after peak.
With this theory, we can expect to extract a considerable amount of resources in the future, even if the energy supply of a particular type starts to fall, because it is “past peak.” With the relatively slow decline rate shown in Figure 4, it should be possible to “stretch” supplies for some years, especially if technology continues to improve.
At some point, the standard view is that we will “run out” of energy supplies if we don’t make substitutions or conserve the use of these nonrenewable resources. Thus, an increase in efficiency is viewed as one part of the solution. Another part of the solution is viewed as substitution, such as with wind and solar energy.
In the mainstream view, the major influence on commodity prices is scarcity, not affordability. The expectation is that scarcity will cause oil prices will rise; as a result, expensive substitutes will become cost competitive. The higher prices will also encourage more conservation and more high-cost technologies. In theory, these can keep the economy operating for a very long time. The very inadequate models that economists have developed have encouraged these views.
The Usual Energy Model Is Overly Simple
Hubbert assumed that the amount of oil extracted would depend only upon the amount of resources available and available technologies. In fact, the amount of oil extracted depends on price, in part because price determines which technologies can be used. It also governs whether oil can be extracted in areas that are inherently expensive–for example, deep under the sea, or heavily polluted with some other material that must be removed at significant cost. Because of this, if oil prices are high, new technologies can be brought into play, and resources that are expensive to reach can be pursued.
If oil prices are lower than really needed, for example in the $40 to $80 per barrel range, the situation is more complex. The problem is that taxes on oil are important, especially for oil exporters. In this range, many producers can continue to produce, but their governments collect inadequate taxes. Their governments find it necessary to borrow money to maintain programs upon which the populations of the countries depend. Governments with inadequate tax revenue tend to get into more conflicts with other countries, such as is happening today with other Middle Eastern countries fighting with Qatar.
The situation of inadequate tax revenue is inherently unstable. It can eventually be expected to lead to the collapse of oil exporting countries.
Factors Underlying the Rise and Fall of Historical Oil Prices
The fundamental problem regarding the cost of resource extraction is that we tend to extract the cheapest-to-extract resources first. Thus, the cost of extracting many types of resources, including oil, tends to rise over time. Wages grow much more slowly.
Figure 5. Average per capita wages computed by dividing total “Wages and Salaries” as reported by US BEA by total US population, and adjusting to 2016 price level using CPI-Urban. Average inflation adjusted oil price is based primarily on Brent oil historical oil price as reported by BP, also adjusted by CPI-urban to 2016 price level.
This mismatch between wages and oil price tends to cause increasing affordability problems over time, even as we switch to cheaper fuels and increased efficiency. Part of the reason why affordability problems get worse has to do with our inability to keep reducing interest rates; at some point, they reach an irreducible minimum. Also, as I mentioned previously, there is a growing wage disparity problem caused by growing complexity and globalization. Those with low wages find themselves increasingly unable to afford goods such as homes and cars that require oil products in their construction and use.
Looking at Figure 5, we see two major price “humps.” The first of these is in the 1970-1998 period, and the second is in the 1999 to present period. In the first of these two periods, we often hear that the run up in oil prices was the result of an oil supply problem. This occurred because the US oil supply peaked in 1970, and the Arabs made the situation worse with an oil embargo.
In fact, I think that at least half of the problem in the 1970-1981 period may have been that wages were growing rapidly during this period. The rapid run up in wages allowed oil prices to increase in response to a fairly small oil shortage. Thus, the run up in prices was caused to a significant extent by greater demand, made possible by greater affordability. Note that timing of wage increases is slightly ahead of the timing of increases in CPI Urban. This suggests that wage growth tends to cause price inflation. It seems likely that globalization reduces the influence of US wages on oil prices, and thus on price inflation, in recent years.
Figure 6. Growth in US wages versus increase in CPI Urban. Wages are total “Wages and Salaries” from US Bureau of Economic Analysis. CPI-Urban is from US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The large increases in wage payments shown in Figure 6 were made possible by growing total population, by rapidly growing productivity, and by an increasing share of women being added to the workforce. Figure 6 shows that the big increases in wages stopped after interest rates were raised to a very high level in 1981.
Economists hope that rising oil prices will bring about new supply, substitution, and greater efficiency. In the 1970s and 1980s, oil prices did seem to come back down for precisely these reasons. I explain the situation in more detail in the Appendix. Rising inflation rates and interest rates were a problem during this period for insurance companies. One insurance company I worked for went bankrupt; another almost did.
We have not been able to achieve the same new supply–substitution–efficiency result in the 1999 to 2016 period, partly because whatever easy efficiency and substitution changes could inexpensively be made were made earlier, and partly because we are reaching diminishing returns with respect to extracting energy products, especially oil. Also, the wage disparity of workers is growing. Growing wage disparity makes debt growth increasingly ineffective in raising wages. Instead of debt growth funding more wages and more affordable goods for the working poor, the additional debt seems to go to the already rich.
The decreases in interest rates since 1981 have given the economy an almost continuous upward lift. This long-term decrease tends to get overlooked because it has gone on for such a long time. The major exception to the long-term decrease in interest rates since 1981 was the big increase by the Federal Reserve in target interest rates in the 2004-2006 period (shown indirectly in Figure 7).
Figure 7. Three-month treasury rates. Graph prepared by the St. Louis Fed.
The problem started when Alan Greenspan dropped target interest rates very low in the 2001-2004 period to stimulate the economy, and then raised them in the 2004-2006 period to cut back growth (Figure 7). This seems to have been one of the major causes of the Great Recession. The other major cause of the Great Recession was fact that oil prices rose far more rapidly than wages during the 2003-2008 period. More information is provided in the Appendix.
Where We Are Now
We have many leaders who do not seem to understand what our real problems are, and how successful programs have been to date in keeping the system from crashing. Way too much of their understanding has come from traditional models regarding “land, labor and capital,” “supply and demand,” and “higher prices bring substitution.” These models are not suitable for understanding how the economy, as a self-organized networked system, really works.
These leaders seem to believe that QE worldwide is no longer working well enough, so it should be removed. In addition, securities currently held by central banks should be sold. Also, the growth in debt should be slowed, because it is getting too high. Whether or not debt is too high, this strategy will lead to “Peak Economy.” As I explained in an earlier post, debt is what pulls an economy forward. It is the promise (which may or may not actually be kept) of future goods and services. These goods will be made with energy resources and other resources that we may or may not actually have in the future. Once we pare back our expectations, the system is likely to spiral downward.
It is not entirely clear the extent to which interest rates have already started to influence the economy. Long term interest rates, such as 10 year Treasuries, have not yet changed in yield (Exhibit 1). But short-term interest rates clearly have increased (Figure 7). An increase from 0% to 1% is a huge increase, if someone is using very short-term interest rates to fund highly levered investments.
Worldwide, the International Institute of Finance reported an increase in debt of $70 trillion, to $215 trillion between 2006 and 2016. This sounds like a huge increase, but it only amounts to a 4.0% increase per year during that period. It is doubtful this is enough to support the GDP growth the world needs, plus the increase in commodity prices demanded by diminishing returns.
There is evidence the economy is already headed downward. A recent report indicates that in the US, the smallest increase in consumer credit in 6 years took place in April 2017.
Another worrying area is auto loans. This is an area where interest rates have already begun to increase a bit, making monthly payments on cars higher.
Figure 8. Finance rate on 48-month new car loans through February 2017. Chart by St. Louis Fed.
The average finance rate in February 2017 was 4.52%, compared to an average finance rate of 4.00% in November 2015 (the low point). We don’t yet have information on what the increase would be to May 2017. A person would expect that if finance rates are following the interest rates on short to medium term US government securities, the finance rate would continue to rise. This interest rate rise would be one of the things that discounts provided by auto dealers would act to offset.
Because of the higher cost to the buyer of rising auto financing rates, a person would expect such a rise to adversely affect new auto sales. Higher interest rates would also affect lease prices and auto resale prices. We don’t yet know the extent to which higher interest rates are currently affecting auto sales, but the kinds of changes we are seeing are precisely the kinds of changes we would expect to see from higher interest rates. We have had a long history of falling interest rates (plus longer maturities) helping to prop up auto sales. Simply getting to the end of this cycle could be part of the problem.
Peak Economy is likely not very far away. We do not need to encourage it, by raising interest rates and selling securities held by the Federal Reserve. We badly need more people to understand the connection between interest rates and oil prices, and how important it is that interest rates not rise–in fact, more QE would be better.
Appendix – More Detail on Changes Affecting Oil Prices
(a) Between 1973 and 1981. Our oil problems started when US oil production began to decline in 1970, and Arab countries took advantage of our problems with an oil embargo. We immediately started work on extracting oil from other locations that we knew had oil available (Alaska, North Sea, and Mexico). Also, Japan was already making smaller cars. We started building smaller, more fuel-efficient cars in the US, too. We also began to substitute other fuels for oil in home heating and in the making of electricity.
(b) Between 1981 and 1998. In 1981, Paul Volker decided to force oil prices down by raising target interest rates to a very high level. He knew that such a high interest rate would lead to recession, which would reduce demand and thus prices. Also, earlier efforts at new oil supply and demand reduction approaches began to be effective. The new oil supply was somewhat higher priced than the pre-1970 oil. Falling interest rates made it possible for consumers to tolerate the somewhat higher oil prices required by the new higher priced oil.
(c) Between 1999 and 2008. Oil prices rose rapidly during this period, in large part because of rising demand. Globalization added huge demand for oil. Also, Alan Greenspan reduced target interest rates at about the time of the 2001 recession. (Target interest rates affect 3-month interest rates, shown in Figure 7.) At the same time, banks were encouraged to be more lenient in lending standards, and to offer loans based on the very favorable short-term interest rates available at that time. This combination of factors led to rapidly rising housing debt and much refinancing activity. All of this activity also added to oil demand.
Fortunately, these demand increases coincided with an increase in the cost of oil extraction. The world’s supply of “conventional oil” was becoming limited in supply, and began to decline in 2005. The higher demand raised prices, thus encouraging producers to pursue more expensive unconventional oil production.
(d) The 2008 Crash occurred after the Federal Reserve raised target interest rates in the 2004-2006 period, in an attempt to damp down rising food and energy prices. This interest rate rise made home buying more expensive. Oil prices were also increasing in the 2002-2008 period. The combination of rising interest rates and rising oil prices reduced demand for new homes and cars. Home prices fell, debt levels fell, and oil prices fell. Many people blamed the problems on loose mortgage underwriting standards, but the basic issue was falling affordability of oil, as oil prices rose and as higher interest rates took away the huge boost the economy previously had received. See my article, Oil Supply Limits and the Continuing Financial Crisis.
(e) 2009-2011 ramp up in prices was enabled by QE. This QE brought a broad range of interest rates to very low levels.
(f) 2011-2014. Oil prices gradually slid downward, because there was no longer enough upward “push” created by QE, since interest rates were no longer falling very much.
(g) Mid to late 2014 to Present. The US removed its QE, leading to a sharp reduction in carry trade in US dollars. Many currencies fell relative to the US dollar, making oil products less affordable in these currencies. As a result, oil prices fell to a level far below that needed by oil producers, especially oil exporters.
World’s top climate scientists confess: Glob…al wa…rming is just QUARTER what we thought – and computers got the effects of greenhouse gases wrong
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2420783/Worlds-climate-scientists-confess-Global-warming-just-QUARTER-thought–computers-got-effects-greenhouse-gases-wrong.html#ixzz4lPkog47a
Like I was saying…. the impact is relatively insignificant…. and the climate is changing all the time … so perhaps there is virtually no impact from burning fossil fuels…
Ah, the favorite refrain of anti-science denialists everywhere. “The climate is always changing”. No. No not like this. This is an insanely quick change on geological timescales. And yet, it is one we must embrace. What the scienctists and MSM are clueless about is TINA.
The thing is…
The climate is not changing very much — the climate scientists have confirmed exactly that (you need to read the entire article that I just posted)
All their fancy models and graphs — are wrong.
And they admit it
So who’s to say that these very slight changes are just the work of Mother Nature?
Global warming is just a scam to scare you,guilt you,tax you,make money. And keep you ignorant of peak oil and resource scarcity.
So there is no impact on the environment from human activities?
No I believe there really is but due to peak oil,gas and coal. The effects will be very small and the planet will naturally recover back to BAU post human extinction.
++++++
Now the spent fuel ponds — that’s something we should be concerned about — because the facts do indicate this is a game changer
Funny how when the facts actually do support a theory — the knives come out on FW…
Sheeple sheeple everywhere…. Bo Peep — over here … over here…
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/pwUy9lf8zgs/maxresdefault.jpg
I don’t think anybody is saying that — in fact I do believe I commented earlier that the impact of burning fossil fuels is relatively insignificant — it is not a game changer — it is not going to end the world…
And that is confirmed by that leak that I posted…
Also according to the IEA global emissions have flat lined the last three years. so its possible they peaked already.
The article you just posted is bunk. In 2013 deniers were in a froth after a couple years of cooler temps due to La Nina. Then El Nino came roaring back. The article talks about a “trend” over 15 years as if that meant anything. What is this?: http://i65.tinypic.com/24ex3x3.jpg
What do you see there?
You are referring to the leak that was published where the scientists admitted they were wrong?
How is that bunk?
And then there is this:
They were duped – and so were we.
That was the conclusion of last week’s damning revelation that world leaders signed the Paris Agreement on climate change under the sway of unverified and questionable data.
A landmark scientific paper –the one that caused a sensation by claiming there has been NO slowdown in global warming since 2000 – was critically flawed.
And thanks to the bravery of a whistleblower, we now know that for a fact.
The response has been extraordinary, with The Mail on Sunday’s disclosures reverberating around the world. There have been nearly 150,000 Facebook ‘shares’ since last Sunday, an astonishing number for a technically detailed piece, and extensive coverage in media at home and abroad.
It has even triggered an inquiry by Congress. Lamar Smith, the Texas Republican who chairs the House of Representatives’ science committee, is renewing demands for documents about the controversial paper, which was produced by America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the world’s leading source of climate data.
In his view, the whistleblower had shown that ‘NOAA cheated and got caught’. No wonder Smith and many others are concerned: the revelations go to the very heart of the climate change industry and the scientific claims we are told we can trust.
The contentious paper at the heart of this furore – with the less than accessible title of Possible Artifacts Of Data Biases In The Recent Global Surface Warming Hiatus – was published just six months before the Paris conference by the influential journal Science.
It made a sensational claim: that contrary to what scientists have been saying for years, there was no ‘pause’ or ‘slowdown’ in global warming in the early 21st Century.
Indeed, this ‘Pausebuster’ paper as it has become known, claimed the rate of warming was even higher than before, making ‘urgent action’ imperative.
There can be no doubting the impact of this document. It sat prominently in the scientific briefings handed out to international negotiators, including EU and UK diplomats.
An official report from the European Science Advisory Council stated that the paper had ‘refined the corrections in temperature records’ and shown the warming rate after 2000 was higher than for 1950-99.
The whistleblower is a man called Dr John Bates, who until last year was one of two NOAA ‘principal scientists’ working on climate issues. And as he explained to the MoS, one key concern is the reliability of new data on sea temperatures issued in 2015 at the same time as the Pausebuster paper.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-4216180/How-trust-global-warming-scientists-asks-David-Rose.html#ixzz4lQ6t9a7z
More bunk?
Obviously this time they didn’t want to make the same mistake twice — instead of admitting they were wrong …
They covered it up….
But unfortunately for them — one of their own Blew The Whistle.
I can see za MSM has indoctrinated za people so deeply…. even ven za facts are presented zay remain in za denial…
Ziss is going to be very difficult …
It is almost azz difficult azz explaining to someone zat za solar panels are za bullshit… zat Tesla is za joke…. zat za peak oil about to take down za world…
http://izquotes.com/quotes-pictures/quote-from-error-to-error-one-discovers-the-entire-truth-sigmund-freud-283047.jpg
FE I agree with a lot of what you say, including the fact that climate change will ultimately be irrelevant for many of us in light of the collapse of industrial civilization. That said, it won’t be irrelevant for potential survivors, and the reporting you’re referencing is pretty much nonsense put out by a guy being financed and/or directed to intentionally advance right-wing propagandist agendas.
David Rose is the guy who told us definitively that there were WMD’s in Iraq, and his reporting became the basis on which Tony Blair built his case to invade and plunge us into the never-ending war.
Having accomplished the goal of his masters in launching the world into perpetual war in the ME, he moved on to their next bidding, churning out obfuscation and misinformation about climate change. It’s possible to go through his articles and literally debunk his “reporting” line by line. As is done here:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2010/dec/08/david-rose-climate-science
For a more specific explanation of why his claims in this particular article are nonsense, there’s this:
https://www.skepticalscience.com/ipcc-model-gw-projections-done-better-than-you-think.html
And your “whistleblower” John Bates points out that his complaints were about minor technicalities and his words have been misused by the conservative media to launch an attack on climate science:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/feb/09/whistleblower-i-knew-people-would-misuse-this-they-did-to-attack-climate-science
And you are quoting the Guardian — the newspaper that runs endless stories in support of ‘renewable’ energy….
This guy and his mates only get cash if they come up with the right results — of course he’s going to tamp things down….
End of the day — he stated the results were faked. That is corruption.
Remember all those scientists who insisted smoking was not bad for you? How is this any different – they got paid by big tobacco – these guys get paid by big green.
They both faked results. They both lied.
And then there is the fact that scientists admitted that their models were massively wrong.
Like I said — burning fossil fuels is no doubt impacting the environment — but nowhere near to the point of what we have been told – there are a hundred other more pressing problems that are threatening our survival…. water shortages, industrial farming, etc….
I don’t know why you are debating this —- the findings of the scientists support exactly what I am saying.
They were wrong.
Like Joe suggests — why don’t you moan about something that we actually know is happening — worry about the fact that the oceans are just about fished out.
Or do you have scientific evidence that the oceans are not nearly fished out?
Like I said, it probably isn’t worth arguing about since its outside the scope of this blog and ultimately I think we both agree that we as individuals will likely die from collapse-related consequences before we have to worry about the climate.
I’m just pointing out that there is legitimate science supporting the reality of anthropogenic climate change. Where the narrative falls apart is when people try to come up with solutions vis a vis solar panels or EVs or whatever else. Most people who acknowledge climate change see it as a problem that we have to solve- I realize it’s a problem without a solution.
In that regard I suppose my position is most similar to McPherson: climate change is real, it’s disastrous, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. So I have no real opposition to the “burn more coal” philosophy. We’re all toast anyhow, and it’ll be over soon enough.
The climate change scientists disagree with you.
They have admitted that the impact of burning fossil fuels is far less than they expected.
And yes I believe this all ties together with other massive lies including renewable energy and EVs that are propagated by the MSM on a daily basis.
This is like the Holy Trinity …. (which is also of course a huge lie).
Get the masses all worked up — we are destroying the planet by burning fossil fuels —- then feed them the solutions — solar and EVs – give them hope. Give them Elon. Mars.
Distract them from the real issues — i.e. a system that requires eternal economic and population growth on a finite planet — a system that can only exist if we have unlimited cheap oil.
Of course they must be distracted from that trinity of doom…. because the cattle are not that stupid — if they were to be fed this information — they would fall into deep despair — they would not shop — many would not have kids knowing the future does not require wearing shades….
Instead we get endless stories of catastrophic warming — and techno fixes…
How do I know pretty much absolutely that we are being played?
Because I know that the El.ders know we MUST continue setting records for fossil fuel burning every single year (and we do) — and that if we don’t the skies will be crystal blue soon enough because we will collapse into extinction.
We know they control the MSM – they bloody well own it — so why even bother to mention AGW solar panels and EVs?
Just as they do with many other issues — they simply ignore them — if the MSM does not publish an issue — does it matter — better still — does it exist? And if something crops up in the alternative media call it Fake News — call it a conspiracy theory.
The fact that the MSM is filled with these articles — that we are bombarded with them — is evidence of an agenda
I have laid out what I believe the agenda is. And I am certain you are being played
Dusting off some vintage Benjamin The Donkey (from Limericks of Doom, page 40):
Our various doomer room chatters
Are listing the ways the world shatters
But since we can’t beat
The nukes and the heat,
None of that other stuff matters.
Absolutely right. The Daily Mail ‘leak’ story shows exactly how denialists have had to give up on decadal temp. anomalies since 2013… the 15 year calc. was designed to include 1998, since superseded as the hottest year in the series. Let’s have some up to date leaks, or just accept the 40 degree weather on Gozo is getting to FE’s head in a big way!
Yet the leaked report makes the extraordinary concession that over the past 15 years, recorded world temperatures have increased at only a quarter of the rate of IPCC claimed when it published its last assessment in 2007.
Back then, it said observed warming over the 15 years from 1990-2005 had taken place at a rate of 0.2C per decade, and it predicted this would continue for the following 20 years, on the basis of forecasts made by computer climate models.
But the new report says the observed warming over the more recent 15 years to 2012 was just 0.05C per decade – below almost all computer predictions.
They were WRONG. They admit they were WRONG
https://twocent2c2.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/capture-delusion-blog-08-15.png
http://i65.tinypic.com/24ex3x3.jpg
Interesting graph. Not an honest or accurate one, but interesting nevertheless.
The animation linked below illustrates how NASA has corrupted their own data to make the post-1930’s cooling appear to have disappear. Only the data has been altered. The actual measured temperatures haven’t changed at all. The’ve simply cooked the statistics in order to misrepresent the original temperature observations.
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/GISS_US_1999-2016.gif
Anyone who wants to know whats wrong with this and much of the rest of NASA’s recent climate output would be well-advised to watch the video. It’s a presentation by Tony Heller, a man I admire greatly. And I can tell you, there aren’t too many of them.
https://youtu.be/wgKQIfPr9to
Funny what you find …. if you look
Any Global Warming Groupies give up their AC today — step forward and tell us how you are saving the world
Ah, the favorite refrain of anti-science denialists everywhere.
What’s an “anti-science denialist”, young Tim? Is it someone who denies “anti-science”? Or someone who is opposed to “science denialists”? Or perchance, another of the myriad inflammatory devices used for the purpose of attempting to invalidate the views and disparage the reputation of other people whose views you disagree with? Just askin’.
“The climate is always changing”. No. No not like this. This is an insanely quick change on geological timescales.
How many geological timescales are you proposing, young Tim? iI thought there was only one. There used to be two competing scales but they were standardized into a single one in the last century.
And, actually, climate is always change precisely like this. Climate always changes very rapidly. The size of changes that the alarmists are caping about often take place naturally over decades or centuries, while the units on the geological timescale typically range from thousands to hundreds of millions of years in length. Often it was changes in climate that precipitated the changes in the crust that geologists used in order to put together the geological timescales.
What’s your problem with climate reality young Tim? Are you ideologically blinkered, pig ignorant, deliberately lying, or just thick? Or are you so emotionally attached to a certain narrative that you can’t bear to imagine it isn’t true?
Let’s take the example of the Younger Dryas climate fluctuation. According to NOAA:
The Younger Dryas is one of the most well known examples of abrupt change. About 14,500 years ago, Earth’s climate began to shift from a cold glacial world to a warmer interglacial state. Partway through this transition, temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere suddenly returned to near-glacial conditions. This near-glacial period is called the Younger Dryas, named after a flower (Dryas octopetala) that grows in cold conditions and that became common in Europe during this time. The end of the Younger Dryas, about 11,500 years ago, was particularly abrupt. In Greenland, temperatures rose 10°C (18°F) in a decade. Other proxy records, including varied lake sediments in Europe, also display these abrupt shifts..
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/abrupt-climate-change/The%20Younger%20Dryas
I’ve been alive for six decades so far and I am sure I would have noticed if the climate had shifted by even a small fraction of 10`C in a decade. Indeed, I’m the climate industry would have made sure nobody remained unaware of the event.
I’ve had a rippen night with Madame Fast up on the roof of the palace hotel here in Malta … LL BAU — vive the BAU…
Anyway… I forget what I was going to say….
It just came to me…. I was looking over the side and thinking…. what a great place this would be to leap when BAU ends…
Long Live BAU…
https://d8ys5mrbqhmjx.cloudfront.net/malta/companies/de-mondion/large/de-mondion-22005.jpg
Listening to that BBC podcast… thanks Norm
thought you’d like it Eddy—not easy listening which is why it’s in 15 min sections.
wats a rippen night
or is that something we would prefer not to know about?
The best thing is that I awoke without a hangover….
That was Myles Allen in 2013—and in the Daily Mail!!!!
Myles Allen in 2016 (Quote)
“Limiting warming to 1.5C will be a significant challenge,” said Myles Allen, Professor of Geosystem Science at Oxford university’s Environmental Change Institute (ECI).
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/14/worlds-scientists-to-join-forces-on-major-15c-climate-change-report
Norm – don’t shoot the messenger …
The Mail on Sunday has obtained the final draft of a report to be published later this month by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the ultimate watchdog whose massive, six-yearly ‘assessments’ are accepted by environmentalists, politicians and experts as the gospel of climate science.
If you want to dispute the Mail article then feel free to track down that report — and demonstrate how the Mail has it wrong…
I think you will have trouble — the article ends with this :
Last night Professor Judith Curry, head of climate science at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, said the leaked summary showed that ‘the science is clearly not settled, and is in a state of flux’.
A picture tells a thousand words — a graph tells 100 thousand:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/09/14/article-2420783-1BD2956A000005DC-553_634x376.jpg
i wasnt shooting the messenger–or at least I don’t think I was.
Just pointing out that Allen said one thing in 2013 and the opposite in 2016
The Daily Mail doesn’t have a good reputation here for good journalism
Dont know anything about the daily mail — do they have a hot chick on the front page/? if so they are definitely a few notches up on the NYT
Anyway ..
This is pretty good reporting
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4192182/World-leaders-duped-manipulated-global-warming-data.html
I’ve had it drummed into me by my journalist other half
check everything three times from 3 seperate sources
that way you at least have a chance of printing the truth
All I need to know here are two things:
1. Climate scientists admit they were wrong – that the climate has barely changed.
2. Climate scientists were caught faking the numbers — exposed by one of their own.
I have looked at those two issues and I am satisfied that they are correct.
That article is excellent — but really it is not necessary.
Doubt has been established… enormous doubt…. and I am voting to not convict because the evidence is tainted…. corrupted…. diseased… by perjury.
World’s top climate scientists confess: Global warming is just QUARTER what we thought – and computers got the effects of greenhouse gases wrong
Leaked report reveals the world has warmed at quarter the rate claimed by IPCC in 2007
Scientists accept their computers may have exaggerated
A leaked copy of the world’s most authoritative climate study reveals scientific forecasts of imminent doom were drastically wrong.
The Mail on Sunday has obtained the final draft of a report to be published later this month by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the ultimate watchdog whose massive, six-yearly ‘assessments’ are accepted by environmentalists, politicians and experts as the gospel of climate science.
They are cited worldwide to justify swingeing fossil fuel taxes and subsidies for ‘renewable’ energy.
Yet the leaked report makes the extraordinary concession that over the past 15 years, recorded world temperatures have increased at only a quarter of the rate of IPCC claimed when it published its last assessment in 2007.
Back then, it said observed warming over the 15 years from 1990-2005 had taken place at a rate of 0.2C per decade, and it predicted this would continue for the following 20 years, on the basis of forecasts made by computer climate models.
But the new report says the observed warming over the more recent 15 years to 2012 was just 0.05C per decade – below almost all computer predictions.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2420783/Worlds-climate-scientists-confess-Global-warming-just-QUARTER-thought–computers-got-effects-greenhouse-gases-wrong.html#ixzz4lPkog47a
Like I was saying…. the impact is relatively insignificant…. and the climate is changing all the time … so perhaps there is virtually no impact from burning fossil fuels…
Pollution might be blocking 25% of potential solar power, study finds
http://newatlas.com/pollution-solar-power-study/50234/
I keep seeing new solar panel Installations her in Florida as well as all these ads for solar on the internet. I think Florida is trying to blow a solar bubble. I’d love to see a study that compares solar panels to trees. I.e if you have enough sun shining on your roof to make use of solar panels, what if you just planted some shade trees instead? I bet the trees come out way ahead. PV solar is ludicrous.
Some might be interested in the latest wishful thinking.
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-06-21/forget-coal-solar-will-soon-be-cheaper-than-natural-gas-power/
Which leads me to speculate about analogs.
Could China be considered to solar the way Saudi was to oil. Solarworld Germany just declared bankruptcy. How could this happen if solar is soooo big? Due to pricing. Who is the monster in low priced solar? China. How so…low labor costs, and no environmental restraints. Could this bite them eventually. Sooner or later Chinese have to drink water to stay alive. Are they really polluting their land to death? Seems like they are trying. I just wonder if we will see similar pricing effects in solar as we are now seeing in oil. Solar will be too low priced for manufacturers to make money. And, Solar will be too expensive to afford…resulting in a seesaw of price versus profitability.
Is Solarworld the canary in the coal mine?
The scientists say it is so — therefore it is so.
It has been established that the science is right — even if they scientists admit they are wrong — even if they lie about their results and cover up the lie.
Therefore we must assume that solar is going to replace fossil fuels.
They wouldn’t lie would they?
Their models couldn’t possibly be wrong could they?
Of course not.
Saudi nuclear weapons ‘on order’ from Pakistan
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-24823846
The Saudi’s have nukes and according to wikileaks Qutar has one nuke as well. Are we going to see mad max in the dessert!
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5MxAOErYFRg/WVGBprjrIjI/AAAAAAAAwDk/tvvRYzl-9X49mjhzUr0GNcfUJRMDZneUwCLcBGAs/s640/download%2B%252862%2529.jpg
The scenario of Saudi prepaid nukes via Pakistan or even earlier stories about the program done in South Africa of late 1970-80s is relatively well known, although that BBC article is crap.
Saudies, Gulfies, Iran, Israel, I’d not worry about it much though, it’s basically local issue, which might “only” in worst case cripple the energy exports from the ME (and cause some nasty temporary yet bearable chaos for the north), chiefly I doubt there is an intent and technology to launch it elsewhere (north) in any meaningful numbers and impact.
Instead, we should worry about the ~4000pcs of US-RU MIRVs, because full scale deployment means annihilation of contemporary ecosystem as we know it, while partial/suspended deployment equals the worst nightmarish existence known to b/c-grade doomero movie aficionados.
https://www.vpnanswers.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Its-Popcorn-Time.jpeg
Nearly 40 degrees today … all those soon to be dead people walking around in the heat… sucks to die of thirst
Malta increasingly relying on desalination water
The data indicate that water production from desalination plants between 2001 and 2003 amounted to 56.9 per cent, followed by pumping stations (26.4 per cent), boreholes (16.6 per cent) and springs (0.1 per cent) for the island of Malta. Water production for Gozo is mainly derived from groundwater sources by means of borehole abstraction, which is the source for 91 per cent of the total water abstraction for the region. Only nine per cent is produced by pumping stations. But an average of 251,449 cubic metres of water is pumped from Malta to Gozo to meet the increase in demand for water in Gozo during the summer months.
Between 2001 and 2003, the average water production from desalination plants amounted to 18 million cubic metres. The table shows that water production by desalination process is on the increase.
The domestic sector absorbs the highest consumption share, followed by the touristic, industrial, government and commercial sectors.
Water demand increased gradually up to 1997, when a total of 21 million cubic metres was consumed. A drop in consumption was registered in 1998 and in 2001, when consumption amounted to 17.2 million cubic metres and 18 million cubic metres respectively.
I help stop a desal plant in Marin.
It was a developers wet dream to rape some of the most valuable real estate in California.
Luckily we blocked the psychopaths.
And I helped stop a fed funded NGO org effort to force my community into an Agenda21 mass transit train expense that no one would have ridden but we would have been taxed for. We amended out city charter, requiring a vote for mass transit expenditures such as for the Agenda21 train proposal. I am a “community organizer”!
Bad day at the Dog Track down on Wall Street today, so far.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-29/please-just-stop-republicans-slam-trumps-attack-mika
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-29/trump-slams-morning-psycho-joe-says-mika-bleeding-badly-face-lift
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
…to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year’s Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don’t watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came..
Mark Kornblau ✔ @MarkKornblau
Never imagined a day when I would think to myself, “it is beneath my dignity to respond to the President of the United States.”
The great thing about Donald is that he is so over the top that he actually makes me look away from the edge…
https://wildomarmagazine.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/over-the-edge.jpg
I AM ENTERTAINED!!!! More please… keep it coming….
++++++++++++++++
I avoid the news but when I come across a Trump tweet-feud I can’t help but laugh
He’s made me laugh more than any other politician…
If we’re facing the end of the world, it might as well be full of humorous soundbytes from the president.
What I’ve noticed consistently about people who dislike Trump is that they lack the ability to mock him…they can’t use humor to insult him very well.
Kathy Griffin proved this very well.
Exactly, RBP.
They’ve built him up as Pure Evil, when he is just a buffoon. More of a puffed-up hobbit than Sauron.
The Left is terribly humourless on the whole – the Guardian is a perfect example. Virtue is a serious business……
The Guardian is filled with people who froth at the mouth about solar panels EVs and of course global warming …
Then when they are finished and their purple exploding heads deflate as they calm down….. they jump into the SUV — or the EV with the 500kg lithium toxic waste dump of a battery — drag a couple of tonnes of metal and plastic down to the shop 500m up the road… pick up a refill on their high blood pressure medicine…. an a sack of organic coffee flown from the other side of the planet overnight….
Then head back home — turn on the AC — grind up a nice cup of coffee in their $2000 machine —
get back onto the interweb — and start moaning about everyone else is doing nothing about saving the planet.
And no doubt they also do the right thing and support the Guardian by making regular donations when the pop-up prompts them at the end of every feel good story.
What would we do without the Guardian to protect mother earth!
So true. In the book I’m translating, the fool Naomi Klein constantly refers to the places where she has been doing her chic political activism (Australia, Indonesia, Philippines, France, UK, China, Bolivia, Nicaragua and a long long etc.), I suppose she has already visited half the countries of the globe, and that she made enough air miles to go to the Moon and return. For me, no problem with that, since we are effed anyway.
But then she claims to be deep deep concerned with climate change, and foolishly says that we must stop burning FF immediately and make a transition to you know what. That she is deeply ignorant in matters of economics, finance, and finite world issues, is something we can accept. After all, she’s just a ignorant journalist. What puzzles me is how can a (apparently) intelligent person be so incapable of grasping that she’s a living contradiction? How it’s possible that she does not understand that if we are destroying our habitat, it’s not politician’s fault, or ExxonMobil and Wall Street’s fault. At most, the culprit would be the lifestyle of people like her and me and most of the OECD consummers. But that’s not even exact, because we really never had any alternative, since we are by nature devouring machines, and therefore it’s nobody’s fault.
I’ve come to the conclusion that she’s the most abominable kind of person there is, or at least the kind of person I despise most: a shill and a professional hypocrite. IOW, the typical leftist gatekeeper.
Alas, my employer ought to pay me for this work ten times more than the usual rate. What a torture.
And the thing is, even if we were to present to her all the facts about how TINA to the global economic/financial/energy system we currently have in place, she would still not accept it….
https://metricpioneer.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/1-cognitive-dissonance.jpg
There are just some things that people are not willing to question …
We’ve seen it with religion on FW…
We’ve are seeing it now with global warming….
It is VERY difficult to un-convince someone…. it’s almost as if the belief has been hard coded into their brains….
+++++++++++++++++++++++
And if you could get 30 minutes to sit in front of her and explain this —- she would walk away clueless — and thinking there is something wrong with you
http://codshit.com/gatekeepers-big.gif
Re Arctic Sea Ice Levels…
I am trying to put myself back in the position I used to be in — when I refused to question the global warming narrative…. when I was donkey-like….
I do remember reading that the sea ice was going to be gone and then I read that the sea ice was actually expanding…
I recall feeling a very very slight bit of lingering doubt — but I dismissed that. Actually what I remember most was feeling disappointed…. I was actually cheering for the ice to melt faster — and this threw a big wrench into the wheel works….
All you global warming groupies who drive around in cars and use lights and shop in malls and turn on air conditioners when its too hot —- how did you feel when you heard the ice had expanded?
I know anything about climate science, it’s not a subject i’m interested in. Generally I believe in the scientific community. But when we know what the media are for, what is their political function (thought control), we can not help find highly suspicious any narrative they promote. My rule is that all the news about economics and politics are lies or at best half-truths. So it is not too difficult to believe that the narrative of climate change is also pure propaganda. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter, since the real problem, our nemesis, is oil depletion, low oil prices and the financial ponzi.
the details of climate change can be disputed, but not the broad issues
first steam engines–late 1700s, = we start burning everything, population grows x 7
7bn People work, = work requires heat input/output, atmosphere heats up
Water expands when warm, =Sea levels rise
Arctic temps rise= Northern sea passages open. 1st time in millennia
Glaciers start to disappear, = freshwater sources dry up
The above examples are not media hype in the daily Mail, but visible and proven
Does burning fossil fuels impact the environment? For sure….
Will this result in a catastrophic event? No way.
We’ve been burning fossil fuels since the 1700’s – as you point out — massive amounts of coal oil and gas have gone up in smoke…
And even the global warming scientists admit — the dial has barely moved…. it has moved so little that they have had to fake the results in order to get anyone to take notice…
So if all that burning hasn’t moved the dial — then the dial isn’t going to move — the earth has ways of dealing with this — if it did not then the planet would be cloaked in dense smog long ago…
In any event for those who are fretting and frothing over this non-issue —— time to take a valium and relax —- the burning of fossil fuels is going to end shortly — not because any of you decide to walk the walk and unplug from fossil fuels — we all know that is NEVER going to happen…
Nope – it will stop only when fossil fuels are uneconomic to extract and burn — and that moment is here.
So rejoice — celebrate — your wishes are about to come true.
Be careful what you wish for…..
As we can see from the past 48 hours on FW — the issue of global warming — can easily distract from the real issues at hand….
Exactly JMS, this whole debate of the past few days here whether we are the cause or not of climate change (I’m in the “we are” camp, but I digress) is a classic case of rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic…first we can’t do anything about it, and in any case even if we could, global economic collapse is about to take care of our lot, all 7.5B of us…so in the end who cares if we are or are not causing it…it is what it is…
Yep —- consider the issue of fresh water —- that is a massive real problem — so massive that nobody needs to fake the data ….
Yet is anyone frothing at the mouth over this?
Norman
It’s not the heat from burning things that has warmed the atmosphere and oceans. This heat is totally insignificant. It is the greenhouse gases that are a byproduct of this burning that are the problem.
my term ”burning things” was really a verbal shortcut
excess gases would not be there had it not been for a our predeliction for setting fire to stuff at every opportunity
I knew you understood it really.
I tend to believe the evidence of my own eyes more than anything I read. Back in the 70s we would skate on frozen ponds and playgrounds every winter. The last few winters there has hardly been a frost to mention where I live in northern England (York). I know that winters here have become milder over my lifetime. Summers are more difficult to pin down from memory only due to the lack of a temperature causing a state change in water.
I am originally from Northern Ontario — I have a brother who still lives there (sadly…)
He tells me that the winters are more brutal than ever with loads of days – 30….
The summer in the Nelson area of New Zealand was much cooler than usual — and very rainy — I irrigated the garden maybe half a dozen times — the old timers can’t remember such a cool wet summer…
The climate is always changing — did you know that large areas in the middle east and north africa were not always deserts…. every year the sands have crept in … slowly slowly… long before we even thought of burning fossil fuels…. I am sure if you asked an old man in one of these areas what it was like there when he was a child he’d regale you with memories of verdant landscapes….
FE I go to Abitibi every quarter for work…I cannot imagine ever living in that area of the world…I would not wait for Global Economic Collapse to off myself! 🙂
I like your attitude RBP.
Saudi Arabia’s March Towards Civil War
http://disobedientmedia.com/2017/06/saudi-arabias-march-towards-civil-war/
The collapse of Saudi Arabia is inevitable
http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/collapse-saudi-arabia-inevitable-1895380679
Renewable energy is one avenue which Saudi Arabia has tried to invest in to wean domestic demand off oil dependence, hoping to free up capacity for oil sales abroad, thus maintaining revenues.
But earlier this year, the strain on the kingdom’s finances began to show when it announced an eight-year delay to its $109 billion solar programme, which was supposed to produce a third of the nation’s electricity by 2032.
No doubt they realized solar is a joke…
Yes it is. I bought a small radio a couple years ago to listen to baseball games out of Chicago. And I lost the AC adapter somehow and it had a solar panel on top of it for charging for it you went camping or something. I left that radio outside on my balcony for several days and it never ever charged up!
Preparing for the Collapse of the Saudi Kingdom
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/02/saudi-arabia-collapse/463212/
Forecasting OPEC crude oil production using a variant Multicyclic Hubbert Model- (Ebrahimi 2015) Peak OPEC 2028
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0920410515001539
They have Iran peaking in 2069(!) at 2.2 bbl/yr. There is no discussion whatsoever of the credibility of OPECs asserted proven oil reserves. They are basically analyzing numbers that might as well have been pulled out of a hat. Gail’s academic silo theory in full display.
A hat or an a**
‘She was badly bleeding from a face lift’: Trump goes to war with MSNBC’s Morning Joe in astonishing personal attack on ‘crazy low IQ’ Mika Brzezinski and ‘psycho Joe’ Scarborough
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4650874/Trump-goes-war-MSNBC-s-Morning-Joe.html
The amount of hours watching TV by this POTUS must be staggering, yet understandably real levers of power are denied to him by the deep state as much as possible, nevertheless these viscous attack and counter attacks towards msm are very beneficial to eventually unmasking the system to virtually all public.
http://www.rawstory.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Eve-Lumb-and-Donald-Trump-478×257.png
First this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQMbXvn2RNI
Now this:
Alaska fishermen ‘chased out’ of Bering Sea by gangs of killer whales
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/alaska-fishermen-fishing-bering-sea-killer-whale-orca-gangs-a7801336.html
They are waking up!
look how beautifully was Australia life in 60s
https://youtu.be/vR1CU8NjGW0
people dress way more beautiful than today
Where are all the fat people? The mobility scooters?
Excellent observation
Ah, the 60’s in NY (if your not properly dressed)
And also…if you disrespect the establishment…
What a great scene and movie…too bad that kid, Lillo Brancato, who was a promising actor, effed it all up….human stupidity knows no boundaries…
China’s debt surpasses 300 percent of GDP, IIF says, raising doubts over Yellen’s crisis remarks
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/28/chinas-debt-surpasses-300-percent-of-gdp-iif-says-raising-doubts-over-yellens-crisis-remarks.html
This will be how the coal minings will be done in the future
http://www.y-sakubei.com/world/english.html
(Yamamoto Sakubei became a miner at the age of 8 in 1900, spent 57 years underground, and began painting at the age of 65 after the last mine in his area closed. His paintings are mostly focused upon pre-1920 mining conditions. Then, as now, Japan never really cared about worker safety issues. Despite of all the years in the mines, he lived to the age of 92.
His paintings were deemed important enough to be recorded as Unesco World Heritage.)
Japan is out of coal today. They tried to reopen some mines after the Fuk-u-shima thing, to no success. I don’t think there will be too many coal mines which can be reached by hand in the future.
Dolph is going to talk to you, and talk to you about freedom. But when he see’s a free man it’s gonna scare him!
On the notion of stupidity and darwin awards, etc. For the longest time, the prudent saved and accumulated, and in turn had a survival benefit due to this. I would say this was more or less how the world functioned all the way up until the 1970s and perhaps even later than that.
But the last 30-40 years upturned all of this. The grasshoppers and spendthrifts have been winning, and winning so much that they have effectively stolen trillions in wealth. Meanwhile, the daredevils, the risk takers etc, have often led interesting lives while not suffering the full consequences, because of the widespread availability of industrial healthcare, etc.
Nature is trying to correct all of this but the central banks are saying no way. They are saying they will not allow even a momentarily clearing out of the system. Everything – population, resource waste, money, etc. – must go to infinity, and if it doesn’t they will specifically intervene to make sure it does.
That’s why I take the hedonist approach. I’m telling you, you are wasting your time preparing. You have one last chance to be a hedonist before every single human generation to follow us, for centuries if not thousands of years, will once again have miserable lives of toil and very little to work with. Head to the cities, find whatever work you can, and eat and eat and party and party. That’s the correct approach.
I agree spend, borrow as much as you can. I don’t think I will ever see retirement. I am 51. So, for me retirement would normally be about 6-10 years away. I am so certain that all the funds I have saved for retirement will not be there in 10 years time. So, I am spending what I can now and borrowing to the limit to at least have some enjoyment out of life rather that just work and then have nothing.
PEAK STEWPIDITY
A 19-year-old Minnesota woman has been charged with second-degree manslaughter after she fatally shot her 22-year-old boyfriend in a YouTube stunt gone very wrong.
Monalisa Perez was charged with the killing of Pedro Ruiz III on Wednesday, two days after she shot her boyfriend in the chest at close range outside their home in northwest Minnesota.
Police received a call from Perez on Monday to say she accidentally shot her boyfriend in the chest with a .50 caliber pistol while making a YouTube video, according to Norman County court documents.
“Perez reported that Pedro Ruiz III wanted to make a YouTube video of her shooting a book and he believed that the book would stop the bullet. Monalisa Perez pointed out cameras and stated that the entire incident was recorded,” read the police statement.
https://www.rt.com/viral/394555-youtube-stunt-girlfriend-shoots-boyfriend/
fast eddy you want to see ultimate peak STEWPIDITY
here is
https://youtu.be/1vVV8wyfIlI
CAnt see the link – can you repost
Ah i see it now — good to remove such people from the gene pool — humans are Stooopid enough already
Even if the book would have stopped the bullet, a person could not hold on to it and the impact of the book would likely break ribs or worse. What idiots. .50 caliber pistol…really? Both of these two combined were not smart enough to know what would happen? Wow!
Dude, check it out, they make a nice .50 cal right there in Minnesota-
Interesting articles in the Spanish MSM about the real employment rate in that country: officially, it is 18.75%, with of course great regional variability and the burden falling on the young mostly (foreign workers, mostly Moroccans and Latinos left in huge numbers post-2008).
However, the national bank indicates that very large numbers of people are taking temporary and part-time jobs because they can’t find the permanent full-time work they need. These jobs are also very badly paid.
More than ever the young are staying at home, which is more acceptable in Spanish culture – it’s a reversion to the pre-boom way of things. (You are also legally-obliged to take your kids in, and they you, if in need.)
If these mini-job holders were not counted as fully-employed, the ‘true’ national unemployment rate, according to the bank, would be around 30%.
This gives a much better picture of how the ‘recovered’ Spanish economy (Brussels recently allowed a little extra public spending in order to secure a non-Left re-election) and a liberalised employment market (a necessary move as workers were abusing protected ‘unsackable’ employment badly – just not working really) is failing to provide decent and well-paid jobs for the mass of the people.
Youth unemployment figures are just horrific, above all in the South where construction just collapsed post-2008. This also hit the factories in the ‘rich’ regions, where factories produced fittings and white goods for apartments.
Many, too, left the country to work abroad, many in Britain, like the brave Basque who died trying to protect a woman at the London Bridge attack, who was working as a bank clerk.
Thanks for the update. A number of Spanish people are fans of OurFiniteWorld.com.
You’re welcome. It’s a good snapshot of a somewhat late-developed country on the fringe: late to the party, one of the first to leave…..
I’m just amazed that these figures are being made public. Maybe they are hoping to avert more Brussels -imposed austerity?
Are you aware of any Venezuelan fans?
Now that would be interesting to have a few Venezuelans on here…. on the ground reporting from perhaps the first state to unplug completely from BAU….
Hello Venezuela — does anyone over there get it?
Spain has the possibility of breaking up.
Catalonia is feeling its revolutionary roots:
https://www.bloomberg.com/energy
WTI $45.19
I figured out what’s happening. WTI price increases when shale oil extraction drops and decreases when extraction rises. If the price is high enough, the incentive for shale operations increases, but that added oil to the world supply pushes price back down, then extraction drops, price rises, extraction increases. The margins are tight.
I think the price increase has to do with the EU’s comments about quitting QE. That would (and already has) raises the relativity of the Euro to the US dollar. The higher relativity of the Euro to the Dollar makes oil (in dollars) more affordable to Europeans. This tends to make the price rise.
LET’S BE CLEAR. THERE IS NO SURVIVING A NUCLEAR WAR
http://www.newsweek.com/lets-be-clear-there-no-surviving-nuclear-war-364675
Better hope Trump isn’t Nostradamus’ 3rd badass, after Napoleon and Hitler. Some eery similarities to quatrains and Trump, i.e. https://www.indy100.com/article/us-election-donald-trump-2016-nostradamus-7413801
Is it really possible for anyone else to fit those descriptions in the link?
There’s Way Less Coal Than We Thought
A young researcher’s discovery about fossil fuels and climate change was so troubling, he wondered, “Oh man, am I really right about this?”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-24/misleading-coal-estimates-may-have-skewed-climate-projections
From the above article
Even the low-end climate scenarios (e.g. RCP 2.6) would entail significant and widespread climate impacts, so we don’t need to invoke the worst case (extremely high coal) scenarios to know that the world is in serious trouble if coal burning continues unabated,” Pushker Kharecha, a climate scientist at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, wrote in an email. He noted that he hadn’t yet reviewed the paper’s methods and conclusions carefully
Think our goose is already cooked anyway regarding Climate Change
If there’s one thing fossil-fuel companies have proved to be amazing at, it’s discovering fossil fuels
, the findings don’t change greenhouse-gas physics or even the likeliest projections of global warming. If his research proves valuable to others, Ritchie said, it might just push more attention to the next-most-severe CO2 pathway, RCP 6.0. That world isn’t one anybody would want to live in, either, even though it may be the one we’re setting course for.
Second, there are plenty of ways to keep the carbon burning without coal. such as tar sands or frozen methane sheets in the ocean called hydrates.
There isn’t any need to burn anymore – we’ve already tipped the scales in the direction of accelerating temps. It’s a done deal. Time and thermal inertia will do the rest.
So they say…
They also said we’d be boiled alive by now.
Funny how the story just keeps on changing….
Here’s the real story:
We either Burn More Coal Now — Or the Global Economy Collapses and we Starve.
But they will not tell us that – for obvious reasons.
Nope – what we get is Climate Change/Global Warming — and the solutions Renewable Energy EVs.
And if that fails we move to Mars.
Don Draper is not paid the big bucks for nuthin.
“We either Burn More Coal Now — Or the Global Economy Collapses and we Starve.”
Exactly…we keep the system we have in place and get a few more months/years out of it and then we all die….OR we try and slow it down and we die NOW…anyway that won’t happen, we will keep on going until the financial system craters under it’s own weight in the not too distant future…and again: who cares about GW (of which I believe we have caused with the non-stop spewing of FFs for the past 100 years, but that is beside the point whether I am right or wrong, as all this is pure semantics at this point)…there is nothing that can be done about it…so enjoy the end of the ride of BAU, and forget what we are doing to our “poor” planet….
Indeed, but the planet will be fine. 5 million years from now it will be pristine again.
If Burning More Coal is a way to wipe humans off the planet — another reason to
Burn More Coal Now
I really don’t see any downside to burning coal — it keeps BAU going … and if the global warmers are right — then it both keeps us alive and it kills us
Superb
Well the coal won’t last that much longer anyway, so why not? May as well go for broke now, as the damage is already done.
Funny thing about coal … we’ve been burning it on an industrial scale for around 200 years….
And we are still around… the planet has not turned into a ball of fire …..
Oh but if we do not stop urgently…. well…. we have been warned….
Still a subset of a larger problem.
We live in such small boxes here on OFW.
Exactly – and for those who do believe we have dramatically altered the environment — this is the only position that makes sense.
I have no doubt that we have altered the environment — have we destroyed the planet? Most definitely not. Last I looked at least…. Will we destroy the planet? Nope — because we are going to be wiped out long before we get a chance to find out
FE–
What color is the sky on the planet you live on?
Here on Earth, the estimations on global warming were on the low side.
Changes have surpassed even the most pessimistic estimates.
I have trouble with the change in terminology from Global Warming to Climate Change.
I have a problem with the MSM pounding the drum on this day after day
I have a problem with world leaders flying to climate conferences on private jets — having fine dinners — agreeing to cut emissions — then flying back home — and breaking emissions records the following year…
This smells like BULLSHIT. This smells like I am being PLAYED
This smells like when I was played believe solar panels and EVs were the way forward.
I do not like being played. It embarrasses me
And ultimately I do not care if we are destroying the planet by burning coal
Because if we stop we are DEAD
So answer me this
If you were the grand master of the planet — and you could — by simply giving a thumbs down to fossil fuels right this minute — shut down every coal plant on the planet
What would you do?
What happened to the tag line Global Warming?
I can see it now — Don Draper comes up with Global Warming — then when things don’t warm — they go back to him — hey Don – we got a problem …
And Don ponders this for a moment — just switch it to Climate Change — bravo Don – you are a genius….
No one seems able to name even one scientific academy anywhere on the planet that disputes the conclusions of the IPCC.
Likewise no scientific academy on the planet endorses the Heartland funded NIPCC.
There is a systematic influence on all of these weather events now-a-days because of the fact that there is this extra water vapor lurking around in the atmosphere than there used to be say 30 years ago. It’s about a 4% extra amount, it invigorates the storms, it provides plenty of moisture for these storms and it’s unfortunate that the public is not associating these with the fact that this is one manifestation of climate change. And the prospects are that these kinds of things will only get bigger and worse in the future
There is a systematic influence on all of these weather events now-a-days because of the fact that there is this extra water vapor lurking around in the atmosphere than there used to be say 30 years ago. It’s about a 4% extra amount, it invigorates the storms, it provides plenty of moisture for these storms and it’s unfortunate that the public is not associating these with the fact that this is one manifestation of climate change. And the prospects are that these kinds of things will only get bigger and worse in the future
How many leading scientists at one point insisted that the world was flat?
No idea about the science not interested.
My science is that when the MSM bangs a drum too hard — that gets my spider senses tingling…
And I smell a rat.
I say again — there is NOTHING that can be done to stop global warming — so why bang the drum?
Feel free to enlighten me.
What’s your point? Are you stating modern science is on par with the Medieval period?
I am CERTAIN you do need “enlightenment”..! Good luck with that!
In terms of getting things wrong – yes
18 Science Facts You Believed In The 1990s That Are Now Totally Wrong
https://www.buzzfeed.com/natashaumer/science-facts-you-might-have-believed-in-the-90s?utm_term=.puEZrk52y#.iu574ZnkG
Fast Eddy:
This is not about stopping global warming, It’s about recognizing that global warming is yet another consequence of human actions over the environment. Nobody can stop anything, but you cannot condemn people for trying to cope. What is the point of discussing anything since we all know how it ends and that will be soon? It’s coping, and if you are so strong and beyond that, you should show some respect to your fellow humans and refrain from bashing everyone that does not follow in line with your scriptures.
Why do people have to attack me when I put forward the solution?
There is only one solution — its not solar panels — its not EVs — and it definitely is not cutting back on fossil fuels…
The only solution is to:
Burn More Coal.
Anyone who suggests otherwise — is a fool.
Think about that…..
‘show some respect to your fellow humans and refrain from bashing everyone that does not follow in line with your scriptures’
And if one suggests that burning fossil fuels is having no significant impact on the planet — what happens then?
Once again — I am increasingly convinced that this global warming thing is a pile of shit… it is a made up distraction
We all know that there is NO alternative to fossil fuels — the El.ders know this — so why is this bullshit splattered all over the MSM day after day after day????
Please explain that
@FE Just because the media hypes something doesn’t mean it is BS. Yes, we all know the media loves hype. Hype, like sex, sells. You are somewhat correct, the headlines should be screaming “We are doomed!”, if the media was at all honest. But gloom and doom does not keep the advertisers happy. And anyone who has savings, any investment of any kind, benefits from this advertising driven, consumer first culture. That’s why I say there are no Puppet masters, no string pullers. It is we who ultimately pull all the strings with our cumulative decisions. Nothing more fanciful than that. Pull back the curtain and you will see yourself.
If the science is right about global warming, we are damned if we do (burn more coal, find more Fossil Fuels) and damned if we don’t (no FF leads to collapse). That is, we are between a rock and a hard place, in a bind. That is what AGW (I don’t use the PC term “climate change”) is telling us. We are uckedfay.
You need to understand that the MSM does not exist to clarify issues — it exists to tell you what to think. To control what you think.
It really is as simple as that.
When they repeat something over and over and over and over…. remember …. the bigger the lie and the more times you repeat it…. the better…. the more likely people are to believe it.
Shale, Mars, Solar, Wind, Thorium, WMD, Putin is evil, and alas Global Warming.
A dollar for every time I have seen a headline about each of these…. and I’d have my private jet by now.
Endless repetition is the ‘tell’…..
http://thequotes.in/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/shakespeare-quotes-7.jpg
Funny that. Because I don’t believe shale, solar or wind are viable… thorium? Who pushes that? I never believed Iraq had WMDs, I don’t think Putin is evil. But one of these things is not like the others, remember that jingle from Sesame Street? Can you guess which one? 😉 I.m not plugged into the Matrix FE. I simply respect and dearly love science. Science is how I figure out what to think. Not the MSM, not anybody, unless they have a gun pointed to my head.
First, AGW is a theory (as is the theory of Gravity), based on observed natural laws found in the Science of Chemistry and Physics, and supported by a body of evidence, so it is NOT settled, but ongoing with research, data collection and field studies.
What you posted was a tabloid article that was not article by a journalist, not a scientist and was not related to the topic at all.
I get my information from academic scientific bodies.
You can continue in your Denialism.
I think the article mentioned 18 truths that were exposed as false…
Feel free to go through them one by one and explain how the article is not correct
Otherwise — you make a mockery of yourself
7. “Neanderthals didn’t exist at the same time as humans.”
In fact, some scientists used to theorize that maybe Neanderthals evolved into humans. But archaeologists found and dated some human skeletons that were really old, which proved that Neanderthals and humans co-existed for thousands of years.
This one links to
Neandertal Demise: An Archaeological Analysis of the Modern Human Superiority Complex
bstract
Neandertals are the best-studied of all extinct hominins, with a rich fossil record sampling hundreds of individuals, roughly dating from between 350,000 and 40,000 years ago. Their distinct fossil remains have been retrieved from Portugal in the west to the Altai area in central Asia in the east and from below the waters of the North Sea in the north to a series of caves in Israel in the south.
Having thrived in Eurasia for more than 300,000 years, Neandertals vanished from the record around 40,000 years ago, when modern humans entered Europe. Modern humans are usually seen as superior in a wide range of domains, including weaponry and subsistence strategies, which would have led to the demise of Neandertals.
This systematic review of the archaeological records of Neandertals and their modern human contemporaries finds no support for such interpretations, as the Neandertal archaeological record is not different enough to explain the demise in terms of inferiority in archaeologically visible domains. Instead, current genetic data suggest that complex processes of interbreeding and assimilation may have been responsible for the disappearance of the specific Neandertal morphology from the fossil record.
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0096424
So are you claiming that this is wrong?
The problem is you don’t think. Obviously, just being a argumentative troll with an agenda.
But I did think Jeremy – and I changed my mind.
The science is WRONG – the scientists admit it
What more do you need?
Time to lick your wounds because:
https://t3.ftcdn.net/jpg/01/12/93/78/240_F_112937895_hMLBl8KKIrnhMTXtceECA8StOWaefeVC.jpg
@Stinging Nettle…I have no problem with what you are saying (about talking about AGW here as a way of coping)…where I do have a problem is when the tone of the comment is in the line of “we have to do something to change direction” which at this stage of the game (I would actually say at any stage of Industrial Civ) is completely spurious…nothing can be done (or could have been done for that matter) about this train wreck…Carpe Diem!
I get my Climate Science from Climate scientists, not some clownish TROLL seeking attention as a child…this is rather tedious, but I see you have a lot of time on your hands not working in the garden prepping..
So I assume you get your renewable energy science from renewable energy scientists…
Therefore you must believe that we will be weaning off coal shortly and solar panels will provide our electricity.
You did notice that I posted an article leaked from global wa rming scientists admitting that they were wrong?
Shall I post that again?
It’s ok to admit you were wrong Jeremy — the global warming scientists have done that — as have I.
It is an amazing feeling — I am almost never wrong — what great joy to realize how much of a fool I was!!!
To think — I was doing exactly what you guys are doing — attacking people who rejected the global warming theory…
That said — they did not present the arguments that I have presented here. They just repeated something they heard on Fox
Let’s all just admit it — we can all have a good laugh about how gullible we were.
Let me start it off….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVFd46qABi0
It’s infectious … no?
Time for you to take ANOTHER “End of the World” Party Vacation…one of many more you’ll end up going on….how many times have YOU’VE been wrong now? LOL…
Shouldn’t point the finger genius…
Why the anger Jeremy?
You should thank me —- without me you would forever remain in delusion….
If someone held a door open for you — would you slam it in their face?
If someone opened a window to let some fresh and light into the room — would you slam it on their fingers?
How about a thank you Fast — I never thought of that issue in that light…. it all makes sense now…
If you are planning to send flowers… consider red and yellow tulips… they really brighten up a room
Hey, Ed, think you should MOVE AGAIN to a safer location! LOL..
You “right” record ain’t too good, kid!
let’s try this again
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/e7/9c/9b/e79c9b656572828a3cd2dbe51cf3f8ac–logic-quotes-arguing-quotes.jpg
Ah, Mister Ed doesn’t like it when he gets the dish he dishes out to others,
That’s too bad…Poo Whoo …
Yep, if you were a baseball player they would send your butt to
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j2Z7us1OK_A
Who’s up NEXT..???
I really don’t see why people have a problem with coal.
As Tim points out … coal is the ultimate organic fuel —- maybe Wholefoods should start selling large sacks of it …
The hippies can load up a few sacks into their Teslas and haul it to the next bonfire…
Dance Around the Coal Fire.
http://s.ngm.com/2014/04/coal/img/moment-indian-man-burning-coal-475.jpg
Fast Eddy,
I never said there was an alternative to fossil fuels. THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE in fact, if we stopped burning fossil fuels now, the global temperature would shot up by at least 3.5 C in a matter of weeks due to disappearance of global dimming. Check out what happened when planes stopped flying over the US after 9/11 for a few days.
Let me be clear:ALL WE CAN DO AT THIS POINT IS BUY A FEW YEARS!
But, you think global warming is bullshit, and I think you are dead wrong, because global warming is part of the consequences of human actions on this planet. Not recognizing the scale of the actions and consequences of human race is at least myopic. You know very well it’s not only about burning gasoline in the cars, but agriculture-plowing especially, all industrial activities, deforestation, cement production, steel making, etc that emit greenhouse gases. The calculation is simple btw: How much fossil fuel was burned since the Industrial Revolution started and where is the CO2 level now compared to back then. Then you have the tipping points, where the CO2 locked in the permafrost goes into the atmosphere, methane clathrates are released, and the whole plethora of feedback loops kicks in.
Saying that stuff is all over the MSM is a lie. MSM DOES NOT mention the true scale of the environmental predicament we are in, because they also want BAU to continue at all cost. BTW, I want the same thing, because I realized too late the path we were on and I
have children to take care of.
But, that being said WE DO NOT HAVE AN ECONOMIC PROBLEM. WE HAVE AN ENVIRONMENTAL predicament of which global warming is just ONE aspect. The economical problems we are confronting are manifestations of our ecological predicament.
But that is understandable, because you are looking at things from an economical-libertarian perspective not from an ecological one. That can be said of most of the commenters here and in most sites that deal with the economic aspect of things.
The fundamental mistake humans make when trying to figure out what is going on is that we think it’s all about us. No, it’s not about us, it never was and it never will be.
“Check out what happened when planes stopped flying over the US after 9/11 for a few days.”
That has been thoroughly debunked. The average Temperature did not change at all. The max and min temp did, as would be expected for a clear day bs a relatively clouded one.
You think what you think. But you cannot prove it
I could list hundreds of theories that were set in stone at one point — they were widely accepted as truths
And now they are not.
Again — why was the tag line changed from Global Warming – to Climate Change?
Why were we suddenly told that some places would get colder and some warmer?
Is that not already an acknowledgement that these scientists have not got the slightest clue what they are talking about?
All there models have been WRONG.
The scientists have been WRONG. Endlessly WRONG.
The models keep changing. All the time. T
Yet you still believe they are right? You have no doubts whatsoever…
Now that is kinda… ridiculous – no?
This is so much fun!
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2_tv3by6O8Y/UojwrGqrXiI/AAAAAAAAArQ/3MiLScFeZ7U/s1600/ataque-tubarao-foca.jpg
In fact, I am fairly certain coal production has already peaked. It is a big part of our declining energy per capita problem.
China is by far the world’s largest coal producer. Its production seems to have peaked in 2013.
gail i have to ask you is india coal prouduction has peak or not
production
Appropriate for Venezuela, which is a collapsed society or close to it, by 2017. But this warning apparently did no good in preventing that collapse.
Job applicants over 40 filtered out by employers
In the study, the researchers sent more than 6,000 fictitious job applications to employers who had posted job ads for administrators, chefs, cleaners, restaurant assistants, retail sales assistants, business sales agents and truck drivers to then compile the employers’ responses, such as invitations to job interviews.
“There should be no doubt that the employers discriminate on the basis of age,” says Magnus Carlsson, one of the report authors. “We find very large effects and age is really a negative factor in the recruitment process.”
: https://phys.org/news/2017-06-job-applicants-filtered-employers.html#jCp
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/25/business/economy/amazon-retail-jobs-pennsylvania.html?mtrref=www.reddit.com&gwh=31186157C0A77106C63AC30FF1556F05&gwt=pay
http://imgur.com/a/6prXK
What if I told you that any -ISM would have ended in collapse…it is quite simple…when a species finds a previously unused resource, it will use it, multiply, overshoot and die-off when said resource is no longer available in great enough numbers to sustain said overshoot…
http://imgur.com/wDF80Yt
If one thing is clear…the Government bail out of the scum on Wall Street in 2008…
There is NO doubt it will do so for the Fossil filth Industry, especially with the players in office now. I believe a whole lot of folks here on OFW are going to be disappointed on how this continued on and on. No doubt a large segment of the population will be thrown under the bus, but the core body of the establishment will be able to insulate themselves to remain comfortable, at least for another decade.
This is where they go when BAU ends… for their life sentences…. the world’s most exclusive prison:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/24/b9/33/24b933446ab8d3a5f777981393f1507d.jpg
Great video. It shows how much is going on behind the back of the vast majority. It affirms how much (and how gradually) rich people absorbed the lessons of 2008. It show that the small-group secure community is already a feature of planning among the smarter set. Already, they have left the whole-world issues of population/energy/environment behind. But it’s noteworthy that nobody talks about a really long term of survival. They are doing some of the right things in the wrong ways and for the wrong reasons. Every community worldwide needs to adapt for a sort of security–in various ways that are mostly not like these video models. There is therefore something to learn from this. The what, not the how.
And I was struck by how clear and obvious they saw automation as the major cause of the hell they’re trying to avoid. Nowhere else have I seen this clear emphasis on it.
Awfully lots of weapons and electronics and depressingly little gathering, farming and low tech skills.
But it is the US, an ar-ab around every corner.
WOW i got almost everything except the dehydrated water that they show at 11.26
LOL, good eye!
http://www.refinery29.com/2017/06/161177/trump-rolls-back-clean-water-act
Among a lot of bad ideas this is one of Trump’s worst.
Early signs of a growing wariness among banks and investors are starting to emerge. The Houston Chronicle reports that oil companies have only raised $3 million in new equity issuance so far in June, a massive drop off from the $1 billion raised in May. That is also down from the roughly $8 billion that flowed into the shale industry in the three months after the OPEC deal was announced late last year. Some investors have “little-to-no interest in providing a second lifeline to the industry,” according to Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co.
Wow, a month-to-month decline of 99.7% in new equity financing would kill any other industry.
“Japan seems to have found one. While the US government is busy driving up its “sovereign” debt and the interest owed on it, Japan has been canceling its debt at the rate of $720 billion (¥80tn) per year. How? By selling the debt to its own central bank, which returns the interest to the government. While most central banks have ended their quantitative easing programs and are planning to sell their federal securities, the Bank of Japan continues to aggressively buy its government’s debt. An interest-free debt owed to oneself that is rolled over from year to year is effectively void – a debt “jubilee.”
Or as I refer to it, FFF: Fancy Fiscal Footwork. My oh my how the books can be cooked. Now there’s a method to cancel the debt without actually doing any real work except effortlessly shifting digitized numbers, i.e. a debt jubilee. Isn’t humankind amazing?! We can literally have our cake and eat it too.
What about Cheeto Jesus?
Donald Trump’s Draft Deferments: Four for College, One for Bad Feet
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/us/politics/donald-trump-draft-record.html
Gail,
some interesting news about Japan
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/japan_write_off_nearly_half_national_debt_inflation_20170628
Sheep’s FAITH based voting machines
http://imgur.com/a/3QufD
Yeah, one of the most blatant forms of fraud/corruption in history – ELECTRONIC VOTING. Sure it’s secure – LMAO!!!!!!!!!
Total mindF***
https://twitter.com/ZLabe/status/880087546386030592
Gee, Seems MOST Denialists IGNORED this one here!
i want to ask the people on ofw believe what is biggest failed military campaign of usa
is it Vietnam
or iraq
or Afghanistan
or Libya/Syria
I wasn’t alive then, but I think most Americans would say Vietnam. I don’t think the others would even come a close 2nd.
I was the most drafted class of the Vietnam War, 1966.
The loss of life was greater than any other of the choices.
But currently Vietnam is a functioning country, and a vibrant economy.
I would have to say Junior And The Thugs take the prize.
While both Iraq and Vietnam were rationalized by staged propaganda events (WMD, Gulf of Tonkin), the results were not the same. Bush and the Thugs have destabilized a whole region, and brought real danger to a worldwide political and financial system.
However there is one geopolitical event that has had even greater consequences– the overthrow of the Parliamentary Government of Iran in 1953 by the CIA.
Can you say karma?
That makes you the same age as my father. He did very well in college. Not to take anything away from that but methinks the alternative (going to Vietnam) made for a powerful motivator!
Yea-
I was protected by belief that I was valuable intellectually, and given a deferment.
I would never of gone anyway.
Vietnam?How long has the US been in Afghanistan 16 years and counting.
Afghanistan is where invading countries go to lose.
It is a tradition, so I would say it is not a aberration of conditions.
None were considered failures to those instigating them.
All were and are military failures and humiliations, but the three recent wars have left whole regions as – probably – permanently destabilised hell-holes, so they win the prize.
It’s often said, when discussing this, to say ‘wisely’ that it’s impossible to win a war in Afghanistan – this is completely untrue historically as a glance at Afghan history shows,
It’s just the Brits and Yanks who screw up there. It’s just been a hugely expense training and test ground.
The sheep are gonna get a Brain Reset, so yeah, sheep may become insane
To my delight I’ve found out that ‘sheeple’ as an insult has a very long pedigree: in 11th century Iran, Omar Khayyam the philosopher and astronomer called them ‘Wandering herds of donkeys.’ (Although I wonder if he really meant ‘wild asses’ and the translation is faulty.)
This demonstrates that the MSM is bullet proof … no matter how far they go into ludicrosity — no matter what level fake news they are caught out on …. the cattle lap it up…
This is f789ing ridiculous…. you’d think it was a Saturday Night Live skit….
Leaked footage has emerged of Charles Jaco when he was the CNN anchor made internationally famous for heroically covering the 1990 Persian Gulf War.
The first part of this video shows the stage set he was on while he clowns around with fellow CNN staff. The Saudi Arabian “hotel” in the background is adorned by fake palm trees and a blue wall in a studio. This clip was leaked by CNN staff.
The second part of this video is a live CNN satellite feed recorded onto VHS showing the final cut. Charles Jaco is wearing a different jacket, but he had the same act. Even though the acting is terrible as Charles Jaco wore a gas mask, and his fellow correspondent Carl Rochelle wore a helmet—the American public were manipulated and duped en masse. The sirens and missile sound effects are part of the stage set. The camera never pans out or shows the sky as they appear terrified of chemical weapons being dropped from above.
These clips are the highest quality of this newscast and behind the scenes. And yes, Charles Jaco was a reporter for CNN and then worked as a reporter for FOX 2 NOW in Saint Louis, Missouri.
It doesn’t get more ludicrous than this:
Goddamn, slow Paul, you are gullible.
America’s shit is getting old.
“Hey some bad people in a far away country did something bad!”
“Oh shit, take my tax dollars and bomb those sandy bastards!”
I remember being shocked at the time that people thought it was real.
I did like the incubator baby’s better tho…that was some good acting
22 million people have to lose their health insurance to pay for Forrest Trump’s planned tax cut. And he has untold legions of brainwashed morons who support him taking away their own coverage. It’s an all time new low for the collapsing Roman empire. Selling daughters comes next
“…untold legions of brainwashed morons who support him taking away their own coverage”
Apparently easy to dupe and too slow witted to know they’re voting against their own best interest. What’s that IQ? 55? About 10 pts. higher than a housecat.
You guys are just as duped. What, you think the current healthcare system you have is in the best interest of the people or remotely sustainable?
I see the democrats won’t pass single payer in California with a super majority. How dumb is that?
Bail ins – depositors forfeit everything above fdic guarantee. Already approved by the G7 and tested week before last in Spain.
Shale Rebound Runs Out Of Steam At $40 Oil
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/Shale-Rebound-Runs-Out-Of-Steam-At-40-Oil.html
As long as EU talks about giving up Q\E, that raises the relativity of the Euro to the Dollar, and indirectly raises the price of oil. That is why oil prices are up again a bit in the last couple of days.
Good point, Gail.
Shale Produces Oil, Why Not Cash?
https://www.wsj.com/articles/shale-produces-oil-why-not-cash-1498486995
http://imgur.com/a/OSDgS
Some interesting points below.
“The person uttering them was hedge-fund manager David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital. He charged that the companies leading the U.S. shale fracking revolution were ‘all hat and no cattle,’ failing to meet the basic business requirement of returning more cash to investors than they consumed. The biggest offender, he said, was Pioneer Natural Resources —the ‘mother-fracker.’”
“Oil producers will argue that individual projects have had good returns when planned and that their companies are profitable. Yet free cash flow is a bedrock principle in any investment, even if it seems to matter less in some industries. For example, Tesla and Netflix have burned $6 billion and $1.17 billion more in cash than they have generated in the past decade, respectively, yet their shares are near all-time highs. But both can point to a far off, theoretical profit bonanza. Oil producers don’t have that luxury. Measured by the duration of cash flows from a given project, shale producers have the shortest window among energy producers to recover their investment.”
Which is further evidence that some very powerful people have decided that shale is going to come out of the ground come hell or high water….
That image is great. Very similar to one that was posted earlier here.
Eight Million
The campaign to get the human population under eight million as fast as possible and keep it there forever. For the good of all life including humans.
I used to be stressed out, how will we feed 8 billion?, 10 billion?, 12 billion? Now I see my mistake we will not feed 12 billion. The only sane action is to have a sustainable number of humans. The campaign does not ask people to do ineffective things lie have no children, as others will simply have twelve children. Instead, the campaign promotes large scale, high impact actions to save humanity and life on Earth.
“Instead, the campaign promotes large scale, high impact actions to save humanity and life on Earth.”
Like what?
Making it socially acceptable kill people in whatever way seems fit. It is kind of like humanitarian bombing but on a local scale that just requires imagination.
I’m sure you’re familiar with Geoff Lawton and John D. Liu, who both concur that the world needs more people rather than fewer. Lawton doesn’t explain this seemingly odd concllusion, but I figure he’s thinking of the immense human labor it’s going to take to restore the land to health.
Yeah, Lawton is delusional there. As if 8B people will suddenly have a revelation and will start working on restoring the land. By hand…
I don’t think it would depend on the 8 B people having a revelation. If Lawton’s project were workable, and there was no alternative prospect for them, those people would have to pitch in or die. A critical mass would have to show that the new paradigm worked before Lawton could galvanize anywhere near the numbers to make a dent.
There are things one is not allowed to say or write in society if one wishes to avoid imprisonment. I only advocate change by legal and constitutional means. Only by obeying the laws that got us into this can we get out of this?
Dr Geoffrey Chia on the Limits to Growth – 2017
There is nothing, NOTHING, a person or family can do to prepare for what lies ahead. It is simply going to be too severe of a shock and none, ABSOLUTELY NONE, of our economic, societal or criminal “laws” will apply as chaos ensues.
It could actually turn out to be an ELE, it will be absolutely horrendous when BAU ceases to exist (and with the way we are all interconnected it would not take too long for everything to come to a screeching halt…)
People are underestimating how bad this is going to be…. it is laughable that some think they can just plant their garden and live like Little House on the Prairie…
Delusional….
The chart is in US$. The apparent peak is because the US$ started rising in 2014, so for most countries their GDP in US$ terms started decreasing.
According to this chart from the World Bank Global GDP peaked in 2014? Is this true?
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD
Something structurally changed the fall of 2014. We could chock it up to oil price collapse but it’s more then that.
The fact that Yellen has become completely disconnected from reality is a signal that structural losses with central bank intervention has now become the new norm. However life doesn’t work that way all value has to be eventually realized or written off.
Like to flip a coin on which way this headed.
Yes something fundamental changed in 2014. I think it was peak affordability of just about everything as debt limits were reached by nearly the entirety of the general economy. The real economy is maxed out, broke, in debt and stagnated with respect to wages. In other words we reached the limits to growth in 2014.
Yes, sort of.
The question is how a person calculates World GDP. Most of the GDP numbers you see referred to are “PPP” (Purchasing Power Parity) figures, where different relativities than $ relativities are used. These are infrequently updated (every three years?), so don’t reflect what is happening in the real world with commodity prices, and in other changes that lead to currency changes. In the recent past, the use of PPP relativities made world published GDP growth numbers much higher than if $ relativities had been used, because PPP weights tend to give a lot of weight to developing countries.
I have been using USDA World GDP numbers, in 2010 $. For some reason, the USDA does not show the downtrend in 2015 GDP on a $ basis, the way the IMF does. I am suspicious that the USDA is using old $ relativities. The USDA is only updating their data once a year now, so they really do not have complete 2015 indications yet.
The problem I have with IMF data is that their list of countries includes many countries with no information provided. It is hard to get to a world total, with a lot of blanks.
I don’t think we really know what world GDP is, partly because of the changing relativities, and partly because some countries (China being the prime example) are publishing higher growth rates than are actually the case.