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.
Interesting comments bellow the article:
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2017/06/18/99-while-time-allows-part-three/#comments
Basically, they witness on the ground situation inside the UK worsening after that highrise tower fire, as it somehow opened eyes to wider pre-collapse issues in the country..
Now, my speculation, with the complex post Brexit situation, Corbyn’s hard(-er) left waiting in the wing anxious to set a nationalization scheme, one can’t discount the possibility that UK might be visible last trigger of the next big slump.. e.g. looming crash of Sterling ricochets through the global etc.
http://i.imgur.com/ROXMhtf.gifv
Would be interesting to hear Dolph’s opinion on this one. He has strong opinions on what sorts of people do what.
I guess that is how dolph sees the world. We are the car that crashes into the wall, and he is just riding his motorbike like nothing happened, totally unaffected by the collapse – because he is just smarter than us.
“…things are starting to get worrisome in the auto industry where manufacturers have been scheduling production cuts faster than at any time since the Great Recession…
“…with the auto industry struggling to maintain momentum, any other hit could prove doubly difficult for the economy to take, analysts warn. And auto sales are particularly sensitive to any weakening of the economy, so declines in housing, for example, could lead to an escalating, downward spiral. And that would send even more autoworkers lining up at the unemployment office.”
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/automakers-are-making-production-cuts-faster-any-time-recession-n775956
“The operator of the biggest U.S. fuel pipeline system said on Thursday demand to transport gasoline to the country’s populous northeast is the weakest in six years, the latest symptom of a global oil market grappling with oversupply.
“Summer is typically when gasoline demand peaks in the world’s biggest oil consuming country as motorists hit the road for vacation, and keeping their gas tanks full strains the capacity of U.S. refiners and pipelines.
“This year, so much fuel is stored in tanks in the Northeast that Colonial Pipeline Co [COLPI.UL] said in a notice to customers that demand from refiners and fuel traders to bring gasoline through its pipeline to the region from refining hubs in the South was the worst in six years.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-gasoline-colonial-idUSKBN19D270
That doesn’t sound good.
And a day or two ago we saw this report about falling demand from China. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-oil-demand-analysis-idUSKBN19C168
“The next pandemic will erupt, not from the jungle, but from the disease factories of hospitals, refugee camps and cities ”
https://aeon.co/essays/the-next-pandemic-will-be-nothing-like-ebola
“Wondering this morning: can you brainwash yourself? Because we have not seen the kind of homicidal groupthink behind the Senate health care bill since Jonestown. Former health insurance executive turned health care crusader, Wendell Potter, told Joy Reid his insurance company colleagues “would never be this cruel.”
“There is something that has really happened to this party of my father and my grandfather,” Potter says. “It’s as if they’re under some kind of evil force that would lead them to take away access to health care for millions of people…” It’s gold. It’s money, and the power, not the freedom, that comes with it. ”
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e4yhELE-KSw/WU0NqO1L66I/AAAAAAAADPs/OagTtqVHxqwayA2qKKCLMf9BzaFZWvw6QCLcBGAs/s400/Auric-Goldfinger-Goldfinger-1964.jpg
Understand what’s going on behind the scenes.
It’s not that any one person, party, or institution in this system is evil or wrong headed. It’s just that certain things need to happen.
How do you control healthcare? Simple. Cut it off for the present generation before they can even grow old. You cannot let them turn old, otherwise they will just keep demanding more and more.
Why not just kill all the people of hue?
The people of hue? The city in central Vietnam that was the seat of Nguyen Dynasty emperors and the national capital from 1802 to 1945?
Nixon and Kissinger tried that. It was all part of the Hell we called Nam!
https://youtu.be/Kix6IgGakKk
IMO, we badly need to cut back on the cost of health care–the economy cannot function with this high level of costs. One option would be for the government to operate the healthcare system, and only provide a fairly short list of services. Doctors would not be paid as much as they are now, and the extensive use of tests would be discouraged.
Another, rather off-the-wall idea, would be to get rid of private healthcare coverage for everyone–young to old. Then healthcare products would be developed that people can actually afford, because the healthcare system would have to realize that customers cannot afford the absurd amounts that are being charged now, and the absurd amount of care that is currently being given. One idea would be to allow people to pay up to 10% of income, for up to three years after the care, after they receive care from the system, as a kind of debt-based payment system. If the healthcare system can see that a particular person has no chance of getting back to work, even after the care, the amount of care would be greatly curtailed. It would be “nice” to give unlimited care to everyone, but it seems like those who really can be expected to be able to work in the future should be prioritized for healthcare.
I agree Gail, something needs to be done.
It is obvious universal health care works the best.
Canada spends half of what we do, Canadians live 2 years longer, and have a lower infant mortality rate.
U.S. Health-Care System Ranks as One of the Least-Efficient
America is number 50 out of 55 countries that were assessed.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-29/u-s-health-care-system-ranks-as-one-of-the-least-efficient
U.S. Health Care Ranked Worst in the Developed World
http://time.com/2888403/u-s-health-care-ranked-worst-in-the-developed-world/
Hasnt the developed world about half the sickcare costs of US with at least as good quality?
US is worst in the Developed World.
And we spend twice as much.
Canada spends about half of we do, lives 2 years longer, and has a lower infant mortality rate.
Single payer universal coverage is not rocket science.
Interestingly Sweden is moving from single payer towards insurance (usually paid by employer).
With better outcomes, I am afraid. There are a lot of things affecting US health–too much wage disparity, too little exercise, too much processed food and sugar, too much meat, serving sizes that are too large, eating snacks all day long, too many soft drinks.
http://imgur.com/vbuYdmC
The World Is Burning
http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/06/the-world-is-burning/
Climate Change, Combating Desertification and Drought, Development & Aid, Environment, Featured, Food & Agriculture, Global, Headlines, IPS UN: Inside the Glasshouse, Migration & Refugees, Natural Resources, Poverty & SDGs, Projects, TerraViva United Nations, Water & Sanitation
The World Is Burning
By IPS World Desk
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A view of rusted, abandoned ships in Muynak, Uzebkistan, a former port city whose population has declined precipitously with the rapid recession of the Aral Sea. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe
ROME, Jun 23 2017 (IPS) – Record high temperatures are gripping much of the globe and more hot weather are to come. This implies more drought, more food insecurity, more famine and more massive human displacements.
In fact, extremely high May and June temperatures have broken records in parts of Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and the United States, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported, adding that the heat-waves have arrived unusually early.
At the same time, average global surface temperatures over land and sea are the second highest on record for the first five months of 2017, according to analyses by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NASA-Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Meanwhile, the world has marked New Inhumane Record: One Person Displaced Every Three Second. Nearly 66 million people were forcibly displaced from their homes last year, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) informed in its report Global Trends, released ahead of the World Refugee Day on June 20.
The figure equates to “one person displaced every three seconds – less than the time it takes to read this sentence.
Such an unprecedented high records of human displacements is not only due to conflicts. In fact, advancing droughts and desertification also lay behind this “tsunami” of displaced persons both out of their own countries and in their own homelands.
On this, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) on the occasion of the World Day to Combat Desertification (WDCD) on June 17, alerted that by 2025 –that’s in less than 8 years from today– 1.8 billion people will experience absolute water scarcity, and two thirds of the world will be living under water-stressed conditions.
the United Nations leading agency in the fields of agriculture has issued numerous warnings on the huge impacts that droughts have on agriculture and food security, with poor rural communities among the most hit victims.
As a ways to help mitigate the effects of the on-going heat waves, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on 20 June signed with WMO an agreement to deepen cooperation to respond to climate variability and climate change, “represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies, natural ecosystems and food security.”
Looks like we have a problem, HOUSTON!
While the world buries its head in the sand. The world’s playbook seems to say, “There are problems, but those will be handled later by experts. If these things were so threatening, someone would tell us, so no big problem for the core. Everything has worked out in the past, and so they will also work in the future.”
It seems we have two overwhelming forces at play: the breakdown you describe, and the denial of the global majority to the seriousness of it. (Don’t both these forces have the same root?) So things will continue to burn and fall apart, with fairly predictable consequences in some cases, not in all. But if we can have a rough idea of the above crises, the denial of them, and the ‘covfefe’ that will happen when these worlds collide, we can put some ‘programs’ (or memes) into place, publicize them somewhat, and let people decide whether to use them or not. I agree with Gail that we live in a self-organizing system, but I don’t see how that contradicts ‘responding’ on an individual level to the unfathomable complexity around us.
I’m sort of glad that other people march and try to pass laws. It might benefit me for the near term, but I consider it best to spend MY time off to the side building those memes.
Great post,
Sound a bit like George Carlin
“Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn’t impress me”
What is not realized is the lag time of Climate Change
The reason the planet takes several decades to respond to increased CO2 is the thermal inertia of the oceans. Consider a saucepan of water placed on a gas stove. Although the flame has a temperature measured in hundreds of degrees C, the water takes a few minutes to reach boiling point. This simple analogy explains climate lag. The mass of the oceans is around 500 times that of the atmosphere. The time that it takes to warm up is measured in decades. Because of the difficulty in quantifying the rate at which the warm upper layers of the ocean mix with the cooler deeper waters, there is significant variation in estimates of climate lag. A paper by James Hansen and others [iii] estimates the time required for 60% of global warming to take place in response to increased emissions to be in the range of 25 to 50 years. The mid-point of this is 37.5 which I have rounded to 40 years
So, our thoughtless actions won’t be felt until 40 years from now by our frivolous burning of fossil fuels! Something to remember our generation by…👄
If we had stopped burning more coal say 30 years ago — then we would all be dead long ago.
So what’s your point?
Why Eddy you disappoint me, EXPECTED you to write “Burn more COAL”
But act dumb, it suits your personality.
And your point is?
This is an agent of Venus promoting what ever it takes to create Venus like conditions on Earth. We are caught in a planetary war. Venus is a planetary consciousness. It realizes that future Sun expansion will vaporize the planet and extinction will result. The low hanging fruit is to occupy Earth. The process of boiling all the water off the surface of the Earth is a reproductive act of the planet Venus.
Everyone who’s followed OFW for very long realizes that our current human civilization is toast. We are close to over. Take away the fossils energy and 99% of what is here no longer works.
The question is not if it is when. And the next question is what do we do until the inevitable arrives? We have this unearthly position that since it is over anyway, we might as well keep on with those practices that got us here as long as possible to postpone the pain as long as possible. Some smart person could show a graph of how many tons of CO2 in the atmosphere equals how many species go extinct. Any proposal that we might consider our fellow Earthlings and curtail some of our more inconsiderate behaviors is met with derision and name calling an such. I don’t wish the Venusians any bad future, but I feel a kinship with our water soluble life on Earth. I’m for Earth life as long as possible.
BAU is s done deal. I don’t like pain one bit but if it is inevitable this let’s support our Earthling kin.
I like the theory. But any life on Venus that would be remotely interested in colonizing earth is probably limited to the Venusian equivalent of Elon Musk. I imagine them as shrimps that can survive life in a deep fat frier and they’ve already migrated to our open depths.
Guy McPherson (GM) talks plenty about this 40 year lag, and how in the last 40 years–the effects of which are yet not manifest–more carbon has been emitted than in the entirety of Industrial Civilization before that. But we seem to be having a hard enough time now with the carbon emitted beyond the past 40 years. And GM points to a spectacular ever growing number of positive feedback loops and exponentialities occurring right now. Climate catastrophe is already at hand.
Your fossil fuel burning may be thoughtless and frivolous.
But please don’t presume to speak for the rest of us.
Some of us really are earnestly trying to do the right thing and we’ve come to the conclusion that keeping those dark satanic mills rolling is the right thing to do.
Also, I can see a few problematic points with the analogy of the oceans to a saucepan placed on a gas stove; the most obvious being that increasing the amount of CO2 in the air from say one molecule in 3,000 to one molecule in 2,500 is in no way comparable to placing a huge flame underneath the oceans and turning it up to Gas Mark 5. Indeed, if we try a little thought experiment, we can make the atmosphere in our kitchen 100% CO2 and try to use that to heat the saucepan. (Caution! Do not try this at home without using diving equipment!) I think you’ll find that the temperature of the water in the saucepan is never ever going to reach boiling point. Further analysis will doubtless reveal that the reason is because unlike the flame, CO2 gas at room temperature doesn’t have a temperature measured in hundreds of degrees C.
Climate lag? A 40-year climate lag? That’s a good one. I’ll be chuckling at that all evening. The creative PR folks who think up these concepts really are worth every penny. It’s a great way of keeping the climate scam alive and a great way for Hansen personally to never have to say sorry for the failure of his 1988 predictions to the US Congress.
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c01bb07ec1576970d-pi
Climate lag? A 40-year climate lag? That’s a good one. I’ll be chuckling at that all evening. The creative PR folks who think up these concepts really are worth every penny. It’s a great way of keeping the climate scam alive and a great way for Hansen personally to never have to say sorry for the failure of his 1988 predictions to the US Congress
++++++++++++++++++
Tim Groves and Mister Ed, what a team….
Jeremy and the Three Stooges…. the Dream Team!
Where is Norman?
No surprise you would find it as such Mister Ed….still watching them at the age, some folks never grow up🚯
Jeremy, let me raise a science question.
James Hansen’s Scenario C, which assumed no increases at all in anthropogenic CO2 emissions after 2000, has has turned out to be the most accurate of his three scenarios despite the fact anthropogenic CO2 output continued growing in line with his Scenario A until around 2015 and that atmospheric CO2 has grown from a little over 350 ppm when he made his prediction to 370 ppm in 2000, and to over 400 ppm today.
Therefore, doesn’t it seem reasonable to you to conclude that the real-world data supports the following statements?
1) Climate sensitivity to CO2 was overstated Hansen’s 1988 models
2) The changes in C02 over the past 28 years have not made any detectable difference to temperature so far.
I have no problem with academics, scientists and even activists making public predictions of doom. All I ask is that if and when those particular predictions are invalidated, the people who made the predictions recognize the fact and publicly admit they were wrong and that the media publicize these admissions as loudly and prominently as they publicized the original predictions.
All they have to do is say, “I was wr…, I was wro…., I was w… w… w.., my forecast due to data limitations at the time was incomplete!! :)”
Not much to ask, is it!?
Whatever happened to integrity.
Whatever happened to “Be a mensch!”?
Whatever happened to “Own up and look big”?
This is my main issue with Prof. Peter Wadhams, who for a number of years now has been habitually predicting the end of Arctic summer sea ice within two or three years. He did it again last August and the fans loved it. So I’m looking forward to seeing him pop up and doing it once again this August.
“Where is Norman?”
Last spotted over at the Doomstead Diner with his friend RE.
No global warming in the last 28 years? What planet are you on? Nice job cherry picking one wrong statement by a politician (gasp!) about climate change. Of all the things said, yeah I’m sure one can find innacurrate predictions and plain old dolts (Gore) talking about climate change.
“How well have climate models done in the upper atmosphere? – Ars Technica”
https://apple.news/ABqjaA1rdTF2XCymwbO5zug
Burn More Coal – Or Die
So this is not a thing?
Funny, Al Gore must not have taken that into consideration when he said the Artic would be ice free by when…2012.
There’s always another excuse and reason for GW.
No, Jesse, there funny part is you got it incorrect
He DID not state that at all…just another reason to ignore such from the peanut gallery
In the late 2000s, Al Gore made a series of high-profile statements suggesting the possibility that Arctic sea ice could be completely gone during the summer by around 2013 or 2014.
Sea Ice….got it Jesse…and he’s not too far off that mark it seems…
Maybe the US Navy listen to him on that one LOL
An ongoing US Department of Energy-backed research project led by a US Navy scientist predicts that the Arctic could lose its summer sea ice cover as early as 2016 – 84 years ahead of conventional model projections.
The project, based out of the US Naval Postgraduate School’s Department of Oceanography, uses complex modelling techniques that make its projections more accurate than others.
Are you attempting to defend Gore’s record of failed predictions, projections and oracular pronouncements, Jeremy, or are you trying to minimize his failure?
https://youtu.be/dFmqtkeQy9c
and he’s not too far off that mark it seems…
Gore’s predictions for 2013 and 2014 have been invalidated by real world data, as I expect you know. But by all means, please come back and tell us when the US Navy scientist’s prediction materializes. You can crow like a cockerel then.
Come on don’t be silly. Even without climate change, acidification of the oceans is enough of a reason to burn less carbon. One’s predictions are meaningless; it is the data that matters
F789 the oceans — I want to LLL (live large longer)
Therefore we must Burn More Coal.
If we do not burn more coal then the global economy collapses and I die
F789 the oceans — if necessary we should boil them
“Consider a saucepan of water placed on a gas stove. Although the flame has a temperature measured in hundreds of degrees C, the water takes a few minutes to reach boiling point. This simple analogy explains climate lag.”
Except it doesn’t. At all. You analogy speaks to heat capacity, not thermal inertia. The two are related but not equivalent. It takes a lot of time for the biosphere to reach a new equilibrium point after any sudden change due to climate inertia (largely in turn due to the thermal inertia of the oceans). Bad analogies simply embolden those who think it’s all some hoax. A better analogy might be that if you heat the room by one degree, it will take quite a bit for the water to warm one degree and hence the air directly above it will stay cooler until the water “catches up”. Not a perfect analogy by far, but better.
Using Energy to extract energy – the dynamics of depletion
http://www.credoeconomics.com/using-energy-to-extract-energy-the-dynamics-of-depletion/
Actually, the ideology of ignoring race only arose during the industrial boom times. For all of human history before that, humans were tribal and recognized insider/outsider (which race is a part of), and we are quickly returning to those times.
It’s not that I think that average white European or American is a great creature. It’s just that I recognize the blacks aren’t exactly going to start designing nuclear fusion plants and spaceships to Mars. More likely than not, they are just going to get whatever advantage they can from this decaying system.
You see, to ignore race is just this leftover virtue signaling. Nobody believes your BS anymore. Everybody with two eyes can see race.
And, white Americans, if you continue to accept the immigrants of the world, you will get swamped and you will just have a larger, more divided population to deal with as the crap hits the fan.
“It’s just that I recognize the blacks aren’t exactly going to start designing nuclear fusion plants and spaceships to Mars.”
Hmmm… Except maybe these 5 black female nuclear physicists:
Shirley Ann Jackson, M.I.T., 1973. The Study of a Multiperipheral Model with Continued Cross Channel Unitarity.
Trina Christian Coleman, Hampton University, 2001. Study and Applications of Proportionally Off-Mass-Shell Equation.
Aziza Baccouche, University of Maryland at College Park, 2002. Phenomenology of Isoscalar Heavy Baryons.
Lisa Dyson, M.I.T., 2004. Three Lessons in Causality: What String Theory Has to Say About Naked Singularities, Time Travel, and Horizon Complementarity.
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, Perimeter Institute/University of Waterloo, 2010. Cosmic Acceleration as Quantum Gravity Phenomenology.
And maybe these 5 black astrophysicists:
Dr. Jarita C. Holbrook She received her B.S. in Physics in 1987 at the California Institute of Technology and her M.S. in Astronomy in 1992 from San Diego State University.
Dr. Beth A. Brown She holds a B.S. degree in Astrophysics obtained in 1991 from Howard University, a M.S. in Astronomy obtained in 1994 from the University of Michigan. She obtained her Ph. D. in Astronomy in 1998 from the University of Michigan as well.
Reva K. Williams She has a B.A. (Astronomy and Physics) from Northwestern University in 1980 and a M.A. (Astrophysics) from Indiana University in 1990. She earned a Ph.D. in Astrophysics from Indiana University in 1991.
Dr. Arlie O. Petters He gained his B.A./M.A. in Mathematics and Physics from Hunter College in 1986. Petters earned his Ph.D. (Mathematics) from Massachusettes Institute of Technology 1991. His research revolved around Mathematical Physics.
Gibor Basri He has a B.Sc. in Physics in 1973 from Stanford University. He earned his Ph.D. in astrophysics in 1979 from University of Colorado.
These achievements were accomplished in white countries, using institutions created by white men. Since I’m quoting Darwin:
“Since the dawn of history the Negro has owned the continent of Africa – rich beyond the dream of poet’s fancy, crunching acres of diamonds beneath his bare black feet and yet he never picked one up from the dust until a white man showed to him its glittering light.
His land swarmed with powerful and docile animals, yet he never dreamed a harness, cart, or sled.
A hunter by necessity, he never made an axe, spear, or arrowhead worth preserving beyond the moment of its use. He lived as an ox, content to graze for an hour.
In a land of stone and timber he never sawed a foot of lumber, carved a block, or built a house save of broken sticks and mud.
With league on league of ocean strand and miles of inland seas, for four thousand years he watched their surface ripple under the wind, heard the thunder of the surf on his beach, the howl of the storm over his head, gazed on the dim blue horizon calling him to worlds that lie beyond, and yet he never dreamed a sail.” — Charles Darwin
And the white man’s era is over in Hong Kong
Today, expats get 15% of finance job placements, down from 40%
Majority of new grads joining Citi in Hong Kong to be Chinese
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-15/sun-sets-on-british-filth-in-hong-kong-as-china-deals-beckon
I guess the white man is stooopid… inferior… after all.
Does this explain it?
https://iq-research.info/en/page/average-iq-by-country
No – average IQ is useless in explaining this… there are plenty of people in every country with IQs high enough to handle the most complex finance jobs…
Chinese are taking over because China is now a very important cog in the global economy — and you cannot do business with China unless you speak and read the language.
Which once again demonstrates – the race angle is total bullshit.
There is no such thing as a superior race — their are superior individuals though — and they come in all hues.
If talking about superior, it’s necessary to state what attribute you are talking about. There are racial differences in average ability in every physical and mental attribute.
Well thank you for proving my point. You’ve picked up a mis-attributed quote from some racist website you were surfing. The quote you provided is not by Darwin, but by a man named Thomas F. Dixon, Jr, in his book “The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan.”
https://ncse.com/blog/2015/09/dixon-not-darwin-0016631
I stand corrected. Nevertheless its still the truth.
“and yet he never dreamed a sail”
Why dream a sail when your already in paradise? Why fawn over rocks you can’t eat? The hubris and conceit of white man never ceases to amaze me. Our inventions so often bore from neither imagination nor intelligence, but desperation. Has there ever been a race so divorced from nature as the white man?
Nasty and unsubstantiated racism. Doesn’t sound a bit like Darwin to me.
One could just as well say that the ‘white man’ was in charge of Europe, unchallenged, for tens if thousand of years and ……lived in mud huts, not getting anywhere much.
LOL, 10 people out of 38 million.
If “we” should choose to go joogenic, why not breed on the best specimens? I bet this will not be from a single raise.
Instead of looking at others… consider the fact that you are a MOREon.
Ani.diot.
I guess it makes you feel better to assert that others are more stooopid and idi..otic than you.
I recognize that I am superior in intellect than you … but that does not make me feel better.
What is. Just is. I dont even feel sorry for you
At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races.
–Charles Darwin
Darwin was an exceptional scientist. His findings and deductions are based on observation of nature with scientific method. When scientist of his stature says “almost certainly” it means something completely different than scientists of today saying “global warming is settled science”. Nevertheless I thought for a long time that with demise of Hitler this is something we left behind, but I realize today its anything but.
Sigh, we owe a lot to Darwin but to base our entire view on race on one sentence (out of how many? hundreds of thousands?) from a man almost 200 years ago seems a bit… pedestrian?
http://www.nomeatathlete.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/dysevolution-image.jpg
A friend kindly brought my dog a toy: a huge, lurid green, made in China, rubber bone.
I realised that it would make a simply fantastic kosh, delivering quite a blow!
That puts me right back on the left of that image of the March of Man. 🙂
White as I am, I refuse to take individual or collective credit for designing nuclear fusion plants and spaceships to Mars. Left to my own devices, I wouldn’t have been able to invent a light bulb or build a half-decent hammer. 99% of human beings are really not that creative or inventive, regardless of the color of their epidermis.
This I will say. Neil DeGrasse Tyson is certainly no Carl Sagan, and neither is Bill Nye. This has nothing to do with pigmentation or genes but is purely a consequence of the USA, like most of the industrialized world, being in a state of cultural free fall
Left to my own devices I couldn’t toast bread.
Wing Pawn Global Cooling News Update–
liberal Lies!
It’s so hot in Phoenix that airplanes can’t fly:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2017/06/20/its-so-hot-in-phoenix-that-airplanes-cant-fly/?utm_term=.846bb0119acb
“Regional flights on American Eagle were the most affected, because they use Bombardier CRJ planes that can only operate at temperatures of 118 degrees or below, Feinstein said. Flights on larger Airbus and Boeing planes were not canceled because they are able to operate at higher maximum temperatures: 127 degrees for Airbus and 126 degrees for Boeing.”
Have we finally stopped taking ourselves seriously?:
“U.S. President Donald Trump will nominate National Football League team owner Woody Johnson as U.S. ambassador to Britain, the White House said on Thursday.
Johnson, a billionaire investor and owner of the New York Jets, will require Senate confirmation to take up the diplomatic post. Johnson’s nomination does not come as a surprise. In January, Trump referred to Johnson as “ambassador” during remarks at a luncheon and said the NFL team owner was “going to St. James.” “
Actually, it’s kind of US historical tradition to fill ambassador posts with various weirdos.
Traditional career diplomacy at all ranks is more of an old world continental thing.
Yes, that sort of role is pay-back time, nothing more or less. It could be amusing, I look forward to his arrival!
Here’s an interesting pie-chart comparing the relative sizes of various energy supplies.
I can’t swear to its accuracy, but I thank providence for all those hydrocarbons.
http://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/World-Energy-Consumption-By-Source.jpg
Here is more data than you can shake a stick at from BP: http://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/en/corporate/excel/energy-economics/statistical-review-2017/bp-statistical-review-of-world-energy-2017-underpinning-data.xlsx
According to BP Wind share was 1.1% in 2013, 1.6% in 2016, as share of total energy consumed. Not sure why the discrepancy.
Cheers timl! You were quite right to point out the discrepancy.
BP figures are the closest thing to definitive that we have. Generally, I would go with them over the conflicting stats produced by various folks with agendas. It’s just that this was a very picturesque graph that nicely illustrates the total dependency the world has on burning hydrocarbons and I would assume the figures have “ballpark accuracy”.
I haven’t been able to find out why there’s such a big discrepancy for wind between their figures and that graph. But it must be fairly complicated working out precisely how much wind power is actually consumed. Perhaps there is more than one way to do it. For instance, if at times of low demand, wind-derived electricity is used to pump water uphill to a reservoir and then the reservoir fills to capacity and starts rolling over the top of the dam when it isn’t needed, how much of the wind-derived electricity should be counted as “consumed”?
Then there is superfluous thermal electricity from plants that have to be kept running at less than optimum efficiency in order to cover for the wind when it’s being capricious, which is most of the time. There must be various ways of calculating that and they would yield different results. I’m not very well-versed in that field, but it’s fairly obvious that wind has to be “chaperoned” or supported by more reliable power generation methods in order for it to be able to strut its funky stuff as part of the mix.
From what I have seen of the data, the International Energy Agency (IEA) includes a lot more biomass (and I supposed burned animal dung) in their figures that does BP. When the US puts together numbers, they have a yet different amount of burned biomass. Since much of biomass is gathered locally, it is hard to count. The 9% traditional biomass amount in the top figure is a relatively high estimate of this amount. I would deduce that the top figure reflects IEA data.
Part of the question, too, is the question of how electricity should be counted. Should it be the “heat value” of electricity, or should it be the amount be “grossed up” to represent the amount of fossil fuel that would need to be burned, to produce the heat. The IEA uses the heat value, without grossing up; BP grosses up electricity heat amounts by dividing by .38. so it always shows higher percentages of wind than does the IEA. Thus, BP always reports higher amounts for wind than does the IEA, because of the different counting approach. Also, 2013 is an earlier year.
If I take the BP 2013 figure for wind, and multiply by .38 (to get up the grossing up), and then figure wind as a percentage of total energy 0.43%, which is not too different from the 0.39% shown in the top chart. Whatever it is, it isn’t much. I don’t think that wind replaces more than fuel. If that is the case, we should not be applying the grossing up procedure.
Thanks very much Gail.
Statistics, because they are expressed with precision and often presented authoritatively, have an annoying habit of often looking more accurate than they really are.:)
Traditional biomass = firewood?
Most likely correct given their list.
Mind you this wood is obviously all dipped in enormous amounts of diesel fuel and electricity to bring it to the consumer. For instance wood pellets for “high eff” burners are joke from the overall energy input analysis as it’s not trivial (not one step process) to produce them..
Also dried dung and garbage. No joke.
I made a rocket stove that cooks with sticks, leaves, straw, pine cones etc.but hardwood is better
I think the Swedish men should be hiding a big role in their pants.
People in Sweden are hiding cash in their microwaves because of negative interest rates
http://business.financialpost.com/business-insider/people-in-sweden-are-hiding-cash-in-their-microwaves-because-of-a-fascinating-and-terrifying-economic-experiment/wcm/34c1d626-b333-44ca-a708-0ad321f6c1de
Two years old post? Of couse no one is hiding cash in the microwaver, or anywhere else, we are more or less a cash free country.
Instead of negative interest on accounts all banks (and you HAVE to have a bank) have bumped up the fee, so maybe it is 400 kr/year for an account that on average has a 10000 kr balance = -4% interest.
The Age of Entitlement: How the Baby Boomers Ruined Everything
http://www.mensjournal.com/entertainment/articles/the-age-of-entitlement-how-the-baby-boomers-ruined-everything-w472897
It’s a bit unfair to blame one generation for our predicament. Any group of humans (or any species for that matter) given the option of unlimited growth & fecundity, would have taken it. Just biologically determinism I’m afraid…
MALTHUS WAS AN OPTIMIST
Yes 30 years of voting for NO NEW TAXES is how we are biologically hardwired.
Politics (survival & reproduction) is a biological imperative.
Exaclty psile…anyone born in those years would have done exactly the same…I feel bad for millennials who reached adulthood in the twilight of Industrial Civ…but to blame the Boomers…cry me a river…they would have done EXACTLY the same given the same circumstances…
I’m a boomer…seems in my youth Older White Guys in suits and ties held the reigns of power. Not sure if my Generation is to blame because a lot of it can go around.
Being here and following Gail and the comments has been very revealing as far as the nature of the “system”. Regardless, am I proud to be a member of the Boomer generation, hellno ….failed on all accounts…but than again so did Jesus Christ.
Can you say revisionist history?
I know you can—-
They still feel inadequate for missing the 60’s.
They will never know.
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pLDr-I9g57I/WUv9tpajW5I/AAAAAAAAv4g/yeypHnoSlk8Ou0pd9a34ReRR-ulqFL7AACLcBGAs/s640/hippies.jpg
Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones commented about the so called 60s Cultural Revolution…..”We DRESSED UP”….yep, nice fashion statement
Shale Drillers Digging Themselves a Hole as Oil Breaches $45
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-13/shale-drillers-may-be-digging-own-hole-as-oil-flirts-with-40
http://imgur.com/a/ing4h
Why Oil Prices May Plummet to Nearly $20 a Barrel in 2018
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/markets/why-oil-prices-may-plummet-to-nearly-dollar20-a-barrel-in-2018/ar-BBCZFdp?li=AA54rW&ocid=ientp
Goodbye global oil industry!
I agree. The likely direction of oil prices is lower, not higher. There is too much cutback in demand around the world, including China, India, and other countries that were growing rapidly, but now are not growing as quickly (even if their official statistics deny this).
which will be next bankrupt companies
Toshiba or sears usa or some other big company that ofw knows
Logically it would be Tesla that goes bankrupt next. But, things are not logical anymore.
Bankrupting an Automation 5.0 push/case study with advanced AI and a near 100% robotification??
While the Germany inc. manufacturing powerhouse is running wild on the latest tech fueled by cheap Russian Natgas and Scandinavian hydro power. We can’t have that, now can we? It is time to bring the US back to the state of the art in mfg.
Dolph — you do know that one of the theories as to why people hold racist attitudes is due to the fact that they are total losers and failures in life…. and they need to denigrate others so that they can convince themselves that they are not the scum on the bottom of the barrel.
Well FE, you are the master at denigrating others so…
I only denigrate proven MOREons.
That is not only accepted — it is expected.
It’s a tough job – but someone has to do it
Oh dear, FE has developed a Messiah complex. 🙁
You’re ruining the comments section here, really. Diversity of opinion is good. Yours are tired and trodden.
“YOU DON’T BELEIVE IN INSTADOOM™? SHOO FLY, SHOO!”
This s–tshow is going to drag on for quite some time. The system is nothing if not resilient (we’re still here after all). You may have to drive into that sheer cliff wall out of exasperation.
For some people it’s simply impossible to think in the span of decades or longer.
Yet, that’s the pace these changes unravel.. Usually, the younger the more brain washed by the short attention span programmed via influence of television. music videos, social networks etc..
Most of us are hoping that things will limp on for a good while longer, but the world is determined to shoot itself in the head, sooner rather than later. Existential threats to the system are being papered over by money printing, but if something were to happen to the financial sector, all payments would stop, and that would be that very quickly, since there is no alternative. If you recall, this almost happened in 2008 with the GFC and nothing has changed, except that the problems which caused it have only gotten worse, much much worse. Not very resilient then, is it?
You’re ruining the comments section here, really.
I beg to differ, really. Without Eddy’s admittedly often repetitious and belligerent comments, the comments section here would resemble nothing so much as a boy and girl scouts jamboree with everyone sitting around a campfire roasting sausages, practicing their knots, telling enormously entertaining anecdotes about the animal tracks they found in the woods, and of course, singing this infectious little foot-stamping ditty they learned from Pete Seeger.
https://youtu.be/x1k6vioRQB8
Thanks for that Tim.
And yes — the only way to drive off DelusiSTANIS is with a machine gun and rocket launcher.
Trying to reason with them… trying to explain how they are wrong — using facts logic and common sense….. only results in frustration… because DelusiSTANIS are stoooopid MOREons….
And making the problem worse is that they think they are brilliant….
Which means there is no middle ground. They must be driven off.
And before anyone starts asking how do we know that we are right and they are wrong — as has been posted on numerous occasions — those of us attacking the DeluisTANIS at one point had a foot in their camp…
We bought the NYT — and hoped that renewable energy and EVs would save us…..
But unlike them — we used our minds to work out that this was all bullshit….
That said – I don’t think any of us danced about a campfire eating organic oatmeal
“Anti-racism” isn’t Kumbayaism?
I fail to see the justification for denigrating a person because they are not of an acceptable hue.
That is NOT Koombaya.
I have no problem with denigrating someone because they are stoooopid… or MOREonic…. regardless of their colour.
I do not care if someone is white black beige brown or purple — if you are a DelusiSTANI (DelusiTAN is the ultimate melting pot) …. you are on the Hit List.
Dolph is on the Hit List now. Poor Dolph — how does Kunstler put it — ‘he has an IQ barely above room temperature’ so he has to try to find people with an IQ of melting ice… to make himself feel better
“I beg to differ, really. Without Eddy’s admittedly often repetitious and belligerent comments, the comments section here would resemble nothing so much as a boy and girl scouts jamboree with everyone sitting around a campfire roasting sausages, practicing their knots, telling enormously entertaining anecdotes about the animal tracks they found in the woods, and of course, singing this infectious little foot-stamping ditty they learned from Pete Seeger.”
Maybe you would? Not me, but due to all the shouting and pushing of childish pics with text it’s hard to hear the more intelligent contributions …
If it were not for my flame thrower…. there would be no sensible comments whatsoever…. because the Gods of FW would be drowned out by the DelusiSTANIS…. and you’d be reading endless shit about space solar and EVs … remember Pete EV?
If you disagree with this — then you are very obviously a DelusiSTANI…. and you become a target.
Maybe you would? Not me, but due to all the shouting and pushing of childish pics with text it’s hard to hear the more intelligent contributions …
Fair enough. It’s a free cyberworld. We don’t have to like what other people do online. There is a technique we can all practice known as filtering. Just skim past any comments that don’t appeal to you, or even better, refuse to read anything by commenters who irritate you. It isn’t like we are all stuck in an elevator together and breathing in each other’s faces.
Fast Eddy is irritating or offensive to a lot of people, apparently. So what? Online, being irritating or offensive isn’t a crime; it’s just a consequence of the nature of the medium. As Rummy said, “freedom is messy.” Also, OFW is not a direct democracy in which commentators can be muzzled or banned by a majority vote; it’s an absolute monarchy or an enlightened despotism in which Gail reigns as Empress and has the power to cut out tongues (eliminating posts) or send people into exile (banning) at a whim.
Personally, I don’t have any problems with Eddy or with Dolph or with Keith or even with the guy who was evangelizing for shale oil a few months ago until he started threatening lawsuits.
It’s time for some music to chill out to.
I don’t care about their different thoughts
Different thoughts are good for me
Up in arms and chaste and whole
All God’s children took their toll
https://youtu.be/T5emcbg_wZk
Great comment Tim!
That song you posted is excellent…I probably have not heard it since it was a hit all the way back in 1988…which got me thinking…the human brain is fascinating….yes the use of our human brains have pretty much effed up this biosphere, perhaps permanently…but at the same time, I am amazed how much info is stocked in there and is accessible anytime…here you put a song that I haven’t heard since the late 80s, so almost 30 years and boom immediately my brain recognizes it (this and a million other things since I was what….5 years old maybe?)…truly fascinating piece of equipment 🙂
https://twocent2c2.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/capture-delusion-blog-08-15.png
you right fast eddy you know a fact majority are racist to minority
in all countries
Up until the last few decades, a preference for one’s own tribe would have been considered a desirable attribute. As resources become scarcer, it will inevitably become so once again.
Insightful comment, Yorchichan. I think you’re onto something there.
Thanks Rendar, but my comment was not particularly original, I’m afraid. If the decline is gradual (a very big if), aligning oneself with one’s own tribe is the best survival strategy. The further the decline progresses, the more refined the definition of that tribe will become.
Another theory is that there are racists because there are races.
I lived in Hong Kong for two decades… Hong Kong people generally despise mainland people — they believe they are low life pond scum…. inferior … boorish….
Ironic considering Hong Kong people are only a couple of generations removed from the people they are denigrating …. i.e. they are one and the same
In Papua New Guinea — people of the same race but different tribes — love to kill each other.
Just by looking can you tell the difference between a white French man and a white Brit? Yet they have enjoyed killing each other for centuries.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
FE, the nihilist. He believes in nothing, except fighting rascism.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b_29yvYpf4w
Fighting against stooopidity … idi…ocy… and denigrating people because of their colour — these are all one in the same
But you are obviously too st.ooopid to understand that.
But you have to admit, that blacks are on average far less intelligent than whites? It’s science.
That is bullshit science.
Tell you what — do you have a young son or daughter – how about a niece or nephew – or grand kid?
Let’s try a little science experiment with them — we have a crack whore raise one of them — and the other one you give to me and I will put that one in the best private school in new zealand.
Which one do you think will score higher in an IQ test in 5 years?
Two words for you
F789 off
Yeh, you’re right. Absolutely no difference between the races. None whatsoever.
https://stillmed.olympic.org/media/Photos/2016/08/14/part-3/14-08-2016-Athletics-100m-Men-08.jpg
‘The black is a better athlete to begin with because he’s been bred to be that way, because of his high thighs and big thighs that goes up into his back, and they can jump higher and run faster because of their bigger thighs and he’s bred to be the better athlete because this goes back all the way to the Civil War when during the slave trade … the slave owner would breed his big black to his big woman so that he could have a big black kid’ – Jimmy the Greek
I don’t seem to recall an institutionalized program whereby the most intelligent whites were bred to create a super race.
Are you aware of anything like this?
That explains all great african athletes not descendant from slaves.
Have you noticed any Africans in the NFL? Every been an African who won the 100 metres?
Nope.
Because Africans were not bred for power.
They are basically like all other races — by chance some individuals are just great athletes….
The top sprinters are virtually to a man — and woman — all descendants of slaves.
http://www.besttickets.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Race-Distribution.png
Asked about his record-breaking 100m performance in 2009, he said: ‘It’s a background from slavery. The guys back in the day were so strong from physical work . . . the genes are really strong.’
The controversial theory supporting these claims goes back to 2003, when Australian scientists discovered that a gene called ACTN3 has variants which may give performance advantage to the muscles of elite athletes.
In effect, it can give sprinters a boost because it gives extra power to muscle cells that are required for fast, forceful actions. Studies show that this ‘sprint’ version of the ACTN3 gene is more common in Jamaicans, for example, and others of West African descent than in people of European ancestry.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2167996/Why-progeny-slaves-strike-gold-Olympics.html#ixzz4l5j72nbe
Again — feel free to show me where the smartest whites were bred like race horses…. to create this super intelligent race that many are talking about.
I don’t seem to recall an institutionalized program whereby the most intelligent whites were bred to create a super race.
Are you aware of anything like this?
No, I am not. The horrendous conditions on the boats from Africa and on the plantations also selected for stronger individuals. But different evolutionary pressures in different regions of the world were a factor too in the discrepancies in mental and physical abilities between different races.
Can you show me extensive research that demonstrates what you are saying?
Also – I will be looking for evidence that any discrepancies in intelligence in a given population are not caused by environments.
i.e. if you are going to compare blacks with whites then you need to take your samples from a matched environment — you cannot take black slum dwellers and compare them to middle class whites
Here’s a tip – don’t waste your time — because you are NEVER going to be able to prove your point because it is not possible to match all the variables.
As we also know – IQ tests are skewed in favour of whites…
At the end of the day — this discussion is a waste of time — the only valid position is to evaluate people on an individual basis. And there are brilliant people of all hues
And as I have suggested – those who get hung up on trying to prove one race is smarter than another — generally are themselves rather stooopid.
Just look at Dolph as a prime example
Again – I recommend reading this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Nations_Fail It debunks the irrational garbage that many are posting on FW.
The races were separated from each other by tens of thousands of years. Do you believe in evolution? Why would evolution stop for all those years? Why would evolution stop at skin colour? The people in an area adapted to the area they found themselves in. There is no sense in which one race is better than another overall, except being better adapted to the environment they evolved in. Is a Siberian tiger better than a Bengal tiger?
Another factor is that as people spread out from Africa they interbred with the other homo species they found in the regions they spread too. Thus whites have a small percentage of Neanderthal DNA and Australian aborigines have an even higher percentage of Denisovan DNA. Blacks who remained in Africa are the “purest” form of homo sapiens.
I don’t know why high IQ was more advantageous for East Asians than for whites for whom, in turn, it was more advantageous than for blacks, but study after study have shown there are IQ differences. The tests are designed to eliminate socio economic factors. If blacks live in slums while whites live in middle class suburbs then this rather proves my point, because income is strongly correlated with IQ.
‘If blacks live in slums while whites live in middle class suburbs then this rather proves my point, because income is strongly correlated with IQ.’
That statement demonstrates that you are IQ challenged.
But then that is why are a cab driver — right?
That statement demonstrates that you are IQ challenged.
But then that is why are a cab driver — right?
Does the necessity of having a low IQ to be a taxi driver explain the large number of taxi drivers in the UK from the Asian subcontinent too?
I suspect the reason that there are many SE Asian cab drivers has to do with lack of education… and the fact that when white person and a brown person show up at a job interview — frequently bias comes into play — and the white person gets the job.
People in different parts of the world are adapted to different conditions. Those with light skin are adapted to living in an area without much sunlight. I probably should be living in a more northern area, because of my skin type. Selection plays a role in this.
Being big, physically strong, and well co-ordinated are characteristics that are helpful in many situations, but especially when fighting against nature, without fossil fuel. There are people of all colors with these characteristics, but I think of black people as being especially favored with these characteristics. With our current dependence on fossil fuels, we no longer value these characteristics, but we probably should. In a world without fossil fuels, these characteristics can be expected to become increasingly important. I would not be surprised if the vast majority of those surviving the next bottleneck are big and strong, and perhaps black.
Since we have had the use of fossil fuels, excelling at paper and pencil tests has become important. These skills are likely to become less important in the future. But some people would like to use these characteristics to judge people today.
Humans are, in some sense, “Too smart for our own good.” https://www.amazon.com/Too-Smart-our-Own-Good/dp/052175769X We think that intelligence is the most important characteristic, but stratification based on intelligence tends to lead to wage disparity and collapse. This is not at all helpful.
I would not be surprised if the vast majority of those surviving the next bottleneck are big and strong, and perhaps black.
I disagree Gail. When food is scarce, it’s an advantage to be small. This passage is from Sapiens, A Brief History Of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari:
“On another Indonesian island – the small island of Flores – archaic humans underwent a process of dwarving. Humans first reached Flores when the sea level was exceptionally low, and the island was easily accessible from the mainland. When the seas rose again, some people were trapped on the island, which was poor in resources. Big people, who need a lot of food, died first. Smaller fellows survived much better. Over the generations, the people of Flores became dwarves. This unique species, known by scientists as Homo oresiensis, reached a maximum height of only one metre and weighed no more than twenty-five kilograms. They were nevertheless able to produce stone tools, and even managed occasionally to hunt down some of the island’s elephants – though, to be fair, the elephants were a dwarf species as well.”
If any humans survive the bottleneck, skin colour will over time become a reflection of latitude once more.
You could be right. In that case, I might do OK. I am definitely not large in size, but at the wrong latitude.
https://goo.gl/images/fwjqTZ
Norway seems to be about as light as the scale goes.
Maintaining a big muscle mass means eating every three hours or so. Maybe done easiest by eating up a whole henhouse of chickens and their eggs each month. Like the big bad wolf, yum-yum. Eating, sleeping, eating, working out, eating, sleeping, eating, repeat. Yay!
But looking at how our bodies react to different diets, restricting calorie intake every now and then is actually quite healthy. A diet of reduced calorie intake improves almost everything else than the muscle mass part.. bodily functions go to optimum values, brain and memory functions also. So being able to function with low blood sugar levels, not maintaining a big muscle mass, and feeling really hungry every now and then, is actually quite a good thing.. so good actually, like we were built for it..
That makes sense….
That, and there are different kinds of intelligence. IQ is not the definitive measure. It’s the most accepted, yes, but it says very little about a persons skill set.
Spent fuel ponds aside … who would be more likely to thrive post BAU:
http://www.sickchirpse.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Hunter-Gatherers-.jpg
https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/castecover-copy.jpg
Warning for baby boomers: Your Generation X kids are coming back home (for good)
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/warning-for-baby-boomers-your-generation-x-kids-are-coming-back-home-to-live-2017-05-02
I love this comment left on that article: “parents if you think your adult kids are going to try and be moochers just sell the house and buy an RV or sailboat. Sink or swim kiddies, time to grow up and face life.” – Face life…indeed. Life without sufficient energy.
That comment reflects one ideology of the ‘insane’ American (or first world) culture (and it’s housing ‘scam’, and it’s dysfunctional families). Most people live around the world live with multiple generations under one roof.
http://imgur.com/mfn3Cr1
Hard Times In ‘Boomtown, USA’: The Rise And Fall Of Oil In Williston, North Dakota
http://www.ibtimes.com/hard-times-boomtown-usa-rise-fall-oil-williston-north-dakota-2224834
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tEmafHO71n0/ToCg7Jv2ElI/AAAAAAAAECQ/KviFaWqhHRQ/w1200-h630-p-k-no-nu/child+peeing+all+over.jpg
Uhm, older LandCruiser generation, yummy, neighbor deployed insane funds to keep that behemoth’s 4WD system operational.. Well, but better than nothing, for good cargo and towing capability.
Can fracking power Europe?
http://www.nature.com/news/can-fracking-power-europe-1.19464
As I see it, whether or not any technique can be used for natural gas extraction or oil extraction is largely dependent on how high the price of natural gas and oil can rise.
If oil rises to $300 per barrel and natural gas rises to $50 per million Btu, (natural gas is now between $2 and $3 in the US, a little higher in Europe), then absolutely any resource, regardlessly how poorly positioned and how low quality, can be extracted. If oil price cannot rise above $45 per barrel for any extended period of time, and quite likely will fall to $20 or $30 per barrel and natural gas is even lower priced, then fracking clearly makes no sense, almost anywhere. Fracking costs are higher in Europe than in the US for a variety of reasons, including lack of built infrastructure to hook into.
Natural gas prices are too low for producers in the US, even worse than the problem with low oil prices.
Giant gas well closure fuels UK energy security fears
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/06/20/giant-gas-closure-fuels-uk-energy-security-fears/
The World’s Population Is Forecast to Reach 9.8 Billion By the Year 2050
http://time.com/4828004/world-population-growth-china-africa/
This is fine. Jesus made the world to hold this many people. Carrying capacity is heretic denial of God’s infinite blessings.
I don’t often make predictions, but I’m going to hazard one that world population will peak above 8 but below 9 billion. It’s about 7.5 billion now and already we can see the four horsemen stalking us on the horizon closely followed by Bill and Melinda carrying syringes; and is that Mr. Bezos getting into the Soylent Green vending business?
Bill the vaccine peddler.
https://i1.wp.com/www.fourwinds10.net/resources/uploads/images/Bill-Gates-vaccine_large.jpg
I’m with you on your analysis.
Yep, only Africa is still growing after ~2020, and that can end up overnight when the “outside help” is no longer provide for whatever mix of reasons..
Wow! That’s naively optimistic.
I know, I know.
But if I were to keep reminding myself and the rest of you that our position in today’ world is as precarious as that of the former residents of Grenfell Tower—tonight and every night we have a statistical chance of being incinerated to death (or being the victim of something similarly nasty) due to someone’s accident or design, or simply because we get in the way and became collateral damage—I doubt whether many of you would thank me for my wise but jaded pessimism.
+++++
Perhaps the additional missing (sub)piece of the puzzle, why so much interest in the northerly Euroasia.. Global heatwave map inside: https://youtu.be/XbPvsQbPOAc?t=53
https://econimica.blogspot.com/2017/06/why-next-recession-will-morph-into.html
The case for “..an unending downward cycle of partial recoveries..contrary to all contemporary human experience.” aka when bumpy plateau turns into bumpy slide..
I thought Hambone had quit.
For some reason he apparently reversed the course and in that past ~month produced new stellar articles..
I remember he has quit before.
However good he is, he still hasnt figured out WHY population doesn’t grow.
Oil prices ‘like a falling knife’ as sentiment hits all time low, says analyst
“Oil prices could be poised to fall below $40 a barrel before too long, according to an analyst at Energy Aspects, as the commodity appeared set to post its largest price slide in the first half of the year for the past two decades.
“This is like a falling knife right now, I genuinely haven’t seen sentiment this bad ever,” Amrita Sen, the co-founder and chief oil analyst at Energy Aspects, told CNBC on Wednesday.
“We have had clients emailing saying they have been trading this for 20 or 30 years and they have never seen something like this,” she added.”
This is expected by most on here. The price of oil is unaffordable to the general economy. Rising interest rates is only going to make it worse.
Obviously the Central Banks are clueless about what they’ve accomplished and why it was needed. When they start unloading their balance sheet and realize there are no buyers it’s going to get interesting.
They’d be better off disposing of them.
http://wolfstreet.com/2017/06/21/rising-wages-scare-fed-end-qe-sept-rate-hike-dec/
Rising wages is exactly what we need right now to burn all the excess oil inventory and get the economy running a bit longer.
JT, I think the CBs know exactly what they are doing and the end result is all part of their plan.
Powering U.S. Using 100 Percent Renewable Energy Is a Total Fantasy
http://reason.com/blog/2017/06/21/powering-us-using-100-percent-renewable
The name of the website is a turnoff.
Evil in America is shockingly cowardly.
The future is so bright…. you need glasses :
How LG’s OLED displays will shape the future
“Saying that you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say.”
Corn better used as food than biofuel, study finds
https://phys.org/news/2017-06-corn-food-biofuel.html
We really need to get the nutrients back in the soil.–I would suppose that is part of the problem, but I am doubtful it happens whether the use is food for people/animals or ethanol.
We sell the remainder of the corn, apart from what is used as ethanol, as distiller’s dried grains and solubles (DDGS), which is used as animal food. The write up doesn’t seem to mention the value or lack of value of animal food.
The article doesn’t really say much–perhaps the academic article says more, but I have some doubt. This sounds too much like an “ecosystems services” article.
I don’t know how well this translates to corn, but we get spent grains from the local breweries that we feed to our hogs. We get them for free because then the brewers don’t have to pay the garbage hauler to take them to the landfill.
We’ve found they’re an okay “filler” but don’t add much weight to the animals because the nutritional density is so low. It’s only a supplement to other more nutritious food. We’ve talked about it and if it wasnt free we wouldn’t take it- it just wouldn’t be worth paying for.
I’d like to try this “spent grain” diet out on George, our Labrador, who has big brown pleading eyes and an insatiable appetite, and can make a complete pig’s breakfast out of a dog’s dinner. Saving him from obesity is a full time job.
I have a border collie/Aussie mix that can get fat just looking at food- I hadn’t thought of diluting her food with the grains. A little google search reveals that in moderation it probably wouldn’t be bad for her. You may be on to something.
This is also good for compost/mulch. Anything organic added to soil will help.
Cannot believe it…… Alan Kohler on ABC TV news blamed the falling oil price on “so many electric cars powered by wind and solar”.
I saw another article on Zerohedge linking to an article that blamed falling oil prices on Trump… due to illegal immigrants driving less because of fear of deportation.
Soro’s was right we need to keep the borders open to save the oil industry!!!!LOL
Strange!
He’s definitely one of these…
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/05/5f/04/055f048fe3e44bf1d9caa9c40b065223.jpg
Yep-
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-hbpa0BKAH54/WUrI54E1EqI/AAAAAAAAj68/A_BFk-4Ww_IjLA4qLrz1T1qT4CIIeEQsQCHMYCw/image%255B5%255D?imgmax=800
Energy Junk-Debt Losses Pose Reality Check
https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2017-06-21/losses-on-high-yield-energy-debt-pose-reality-check
The WSJ has a similar article called, For Energy’s High-Yield Investors, Sentiment Sours.
This is clearly related to lower oil prices recently.
Meanwhile, Elon has been talking late into the night with Keith, and they’ve come up with some humongus plans for saving humanity from extinction.
A city on Mars with a million inhabitants could be achievable within 50 years, the space entrepreneur Elon Musk has forecast, as he laid out plans to turn mankind into a multi-planetary species.
The SpaceX founder warned that humans would need to venture away from Earth to avoid a ‘Doomsday event’ and our ‘eventual extinction.’
But he said that a huge Martian city could be established this century, which would not just be an outpost, but a fully functioning society with ‘iron foundries and pizza joints.’
Musk is already planning the first manned flight to Mars in 2023 and has said he wants to die on Mars, although he has stipulated ‘not on impact.’
Under new plans released in the journal New Space, the billionaire said he hoped to build a ‘Mars Colonial Fleet’ of more than one thousand cargo ships which would depart ‘en masse’ could transport 200 passengers at a time, along with materials to build homes, industrial plants and shops.
He estimated that the first colonists could begin setting out in a decade, and said it would take between 40 and 100 years to ship enough people over to Mars to populate a city.
“I think there are really two fundamental paths. One path is we stay on Earth forever, and then there will be some eventual extinction. The alternative is to become a space-bearing civilisation and a multi-planetary species,” he said.
“The threshold for a self-sustaining city on Mars or a civilization would be a million people. If you can only go every two years and if you have 100 people per ship, that is 10,000 trips.
“Therefore, at least 100 people per trip is the right order of magnitude, and we may end up expanding the crew section and ultimately taking more like 200 or more people per flight in order to reduce the cost per person.”
Elon Musk said he was accumulating vast quantities of wealth to fund a city on Mars
Elon Musk said he was accumulating vast quantities of wealth to fund a city on Mars CREDIT: AP
Describing the journey, he added: “It has got to be really fun and exciting. It cannot feel cramped and boring. Therefore the crew compartment or the occupant compartment is set up so that you can do zero-gravity games. You can float around.
“There will be movies, lecture halls, cabins and a restaurant. It will be really fun to go. You are going to have a great time.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/06/21/elon-musk-create-city-mars-million-inhabitants/
So, how about it FWers? Step right up, avoid the gloom and doom and become the first person in your peer group to snap up a ticket for the trip of a lifetime!
Thanks for posting Tim, there goes my supper down the toilet….
Read between the lines people.
Nobody believes this, least of all Elon Musk. He just needs publicity so people keep buying his electric cars and making him rich.
It’s all about getting rich. Lose sight of that for a second, and you can misinterpret so much in this world. Everything is a rich man’s trick. Yes, everything.
Your only role in this world is to work and consume to make rich people richer. If you reject this role, you have two choices: become rich yourself, or drop out and stop working and consuming.
I’m wondering how emusk thinks this civilization will power itself? The sun is dim and the wind scarce on mars!
It’s ok. It’ll use these…
http://img14.deviantart.net/7608/i/2012/060/d/2/rainbow_farting_unicorn_by_ahiruluver602-d4rdxgx.jpg
Just for reference!
Average TOA (Top of Atmosphere) solar irradiance, (W m-2)
Earth: 1,360
Mars: 590
So Elon would have to stick up more than twice as much photovoltaic collection area at the top of the Martian atmosphere as Keith would in Earth orbit.
However, at the surface, since Mars has such a thin atmosphere, we find rooftop solar would be a bit more competitive there.
Average shortwave radiation at the surface (W m-2)
(on a clear day at noon with the sun directly overhead)
Earth: 1,000
Mars: 590
I know some people who actually believe this to be the future. Technological/economical feasibility aside, it is the logical next step if one believes in the growth/collapse dichotomy and acknowledge finite world issues. We must expand to other planets or go extinct.
It might be the next big ponzi, SpaceX buying up all the shale oil to make rocket fuel…
Hurrah
He gets the best drugs…I remember the good old days when only the boys in the band had them.
1,000 flights per day at 200 people will keep the global population constant. At a low cost, I am sure.
Saw this on FB
At the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Global Energy Institute event today people are talking about “peak oil demand.”
LOL what a bunch if freaking fools. Notice that once the shale oil bankruptcies started that the MSM started spreading this lie about peak oil demand coming soon.
Except that peak oil demand comes from increased wage disparity and low wages. We are having a terrible time keeping oil demand up. We have been using falling interest rates, and rising debt, to keep demand up, despite rising costs of extraction. Now there is increased difficulty in keeping demand high enough.
If you understand the real story, it really is peak oil demand–just not for a nice reason. In a networked system, peak demand and peak supply go hand in hand. Supply goes down, because of bankruptcy of producers, not because there is not oil in the ground.
I think cliffhanger’s point is that it is put forth as though we are voluntarily reducing our fossil fuel use demand as opposed to being forced to.
We do hear the story backward a lot.
So Ruppert blew his brains out. Salazar took his ball and went home and started an astrology blog. Simmons died drunk in his own hot tub. And now JMG has started a new eco spirituality blog. lets face it everyone many Peak Oilers are nutters!
It does sometimes make me wonder if I have inadvertently joined a cult. Something about the finite resources and exponential population growth keeps me following blogs like this. Truth be told, I thought we were F789ed no later than 2012, yet here I sit, getting progressively older, fatter and wealthier. Talk about cognitive dissonance!
LOL +1
Don’t worry, FE is not exactly a ‘love bomber’ 😉
If we’re off on this by 5-10 years it’s no biggie given the scope of the collapse to come, which could very well be an ELE..where it would be sad is if someone is so convinced that the end is nigh, he quits his job, spends all his money and is completely broke awaiting this collapse (not unlike a cult where people quit everything to follow some nut-job)…the way to play it IMHO is to find a nice balance between work and enjoying life…and when it happens…well it happens…
Good comment, On the topic, just wanted to post this (as someone who has exited a cult), that readers may find interesting.
16bn population or 7.3bn in 2100 un say both possible
https://www.populationmatters.org/16bn-7-3bn-2100-new-un-projections-say-possible/
bau definite can not handle this kind of population for so long
Unbelievable, everybody in the world, whether in finance, sales, politics, NGOs, academia are just making shit up as they go…the cluelessness of everyone from the uneducated to the educated in these end times is simply astounding….
Most people cannot see what is happening, because nobody can afford to.
I agree!
Hi Gail
This is FYI.
https://www.planetizen.com/node/93360/atlanta-needs-new-tree-ordinance
Thanks. I am guessing that this relates specifically to trees in the city limits of Atlanta. I suspect that ordinances vary around the metro area.
Looks like the ghosts of HillsGroup are starting to hit.
http://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/oil-price?type=wti
JT
Could you please explain why the Hills Group forecast oil to fall in price? I remember reading something along the lines that oil will fall in price as it’s eroi and hence value to the economy decrease, but I don’t understand the logic of that. Doesn’t a barrel of oil have the same value to the economy regardless of the cost of it’s extraction?
Gail’s idea that oil price is dropping because people are getting poorer and can no longer afford the products made from oil is easier for me to understand.
I’m the same way, but this is how I think of it (I like simple thinking)
We HAD cheap and easy
Now it’s hard and expensive
We can ‘paper over’ the expensive part some, and we are/have, but in the simplest terms, if it takes a barrel to get a barrel (in a usable form and location), it will be left in the ground. (the same place we’re heading)
Thanks for trying. I get the whole eroi thing, although Gail dislikes it because it is difficult to gauge and doesn’t tell the whole story anyway. It’s widely accepted here that the financial system will collapse long before the eroi of oil drops to 1:1.
Actually, if another sufficiently cheap source of energy were discovered, oil would be extracted even if its eroi were less than 1, because of its many other uses other than as a source of energy. However, don’t hold your breath on this new magical source of energy arriving. Known physics would appear to proscribe it.
The Hills group model correctly predicted the drop in oil prices in 2014. (which nobody else did).
I think he want’s to know specifically ‘why’?
Gail says it’s complex, but perhaps the question should be:
Why are people getting poorer? (can’t afford it)
And the answer is
http://internationaltimes.it/wp-content/uploads/Untitled-43.jpg
The Hills group model suggests that as we mine and refine more oil the energy sector is using up more and more of that energy as a percentage of the total every year. In a nutshell the energy sector is becoming its own biggest customer leaving little over for the rest of the economy to continue growth.
Because the real economy (outside wall street) is floundering. Not just in the US, either. The quality of employment is decreasing, debt levels are sky high… QE bailed the banks out, but the money never made it’s way into people’s hands. It just blew the bubble in the stock market. Thus the excess gasoline inventories, and really the oil glut (assisted by overly ambitious frackers, not to mention Libya coming online, etc). Malinvestment encouraged by cheap debt led to overproduction.
At least, that’s what it looks like. As always, supply and demand sets the price. Low prices will solve the supply dilemma of the moment. Or a war… They need a war, really. Something to stimulate growth. Because severe deflation is not an option in THIS system.
I’m betting oil still goes up on the long run. Too many depend on it being higher than $40. Just need to bankrupt some frackers (again) first.
“In a nutshell the energy sector is becoming its own biggest customer leaving little over for the rest of the economy to continue growth.”
Indeed the true bastard child of readily available cheap energy, its waste and pollution, corporatism, consumerism and overpopulation.
A stinkin’ manifestation of the dystopia process.
It needs to be put to rest.
http://bogleech.com/digimon/godwarrior.jpg
I would point out that the folks who study EROEI have not come to the same conclusion as the Hill Group. They have created their own methodology, and have come to very nonstandard results.
The Hills Group gave a prediction oil prices back in 2014 called the “Maximum Affordability Consumer Price”(MAP), which is the EIA Annual WTI price which is reported in Jan of each year, their predictions are that the average annual price will not be more than
Dec 31, 2016 = $66
Dec 31, 2017 = $54
Dec 31, 2018 = $41
Dce 31, 2019 = $27
Back in Nov 2016 the price of WTI raised to with 80% of the MAP with the EMA(50,weekly) raising above 70%. Since that time WTI has been trading between 70% and 85% of the MAP and the EMA(50, weekly) has stalled at 80% for the last month.
While this doesn’t prove the ETP model I do fine it interesting.
[img]https://u30299629.dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/30299629/ETP%20MAP%2016%20Jun%2017.png[/img]
You have MAP wrong by one year. 54 usd/b was MAP in January 2017.
I have been talking about low oil prices for a very long time–2012 or before.
Here is how i see things playing out. We burn and use FF until they run short and collapse economic growth. Then we all go to sleep….Even though I am afraid the sleep may be the stuff of nightmares…
In China, the world’s top grain producer, hot and dry conditions in the main corn belt have delayed plantings and stunted crop development, especially in the province of Liaoning where soil moisture levels are at their lowest in at least five years.
Thomson Reuters Eikon data shows that precipitation in Liaoning for the past month has been between 40 and 60 percent below the seasonal norm.
“The drought that hit parts of China’s northeast is the worst for this time of the year in the past decade, in the breadth of areas it has affected and the length of time it has lasted,” Ma Wenfeng, analyst at Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultancy, said.
The trend seen during the past two months has put average monthly global temperatures among the highest ever recorded since data began to be collated in 1880.
Even before this month, U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) data showed Europe, the United States and Northeast Asia – including eastern China, Japan and South Korea – had experienced unusually warm weather between March and May.
A study published earlier this week found that nearly one in three of the world’s people were already exposed to potentially deadly heatwaves and predicted that number would rise to nearly half by the end of the century unless governments take steps to aggressively reduce climate-changing emissions
“People are talking about the future when it comes to climate change, but what we found from this paper is that this is already happening … and this is obviously going to get a lot worse,” said Camilo Mora, geography professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and lead author of the study published in the Nature Climate Change journal.
http://www.independent.ie/weather/record-heat-brings-havoc-as-planet-is-in-the-grip-of-another-exceptionally-warm-year-35850817.html
All we humans need is just one MAJOR WORLDWIDE crop failure….even the Federal Reserve can’t delay STARVATION…..
Yes, this a bigger concern than interest rates and sovereign debt. Which is just numbers on a screen, telling us who gets to dissipate the most and least.
As long as we can keep famines and major diseases to a minimum, we will be alright. But it is a losing battle for sure.
Your comments are an insult to Gail, reason itself, and your ancestors. At least they would have realised when they were inferior to their betters.
So you don’t think we will go down to famines/disease?
No, we will die because of lack of digits. Peak Digit.
Could be, we don’t really know, we just know what is the most likely. Bau will continue at all costs, but if we’re blindsided………………..
Saudi Arabia was already a dead man walking. Her old depleted out fields can no longer cover the Kingdoms expenses. Infighting over the scraps is to be expected. A palace coup, a few beheadings and 10 mb/d becomes 3. As Matt Simmons said, “as goes Ghawar goes the world”. A revolution here, a revolution there, and the oil age has come to its end.
Anyone seen Plan B laying around?
Just one look at his face is all it takes to realize that the new crown prince is a spoiled selfish prick and a bully. He is likely to be the man who will be in power during the coming kingdom’s collapse. A perfect man for the job. He seems to have a great opinion of himself and suffer from a complete lack of awareness of his flaws and limitations.
https://apnews.com/7f62ec4613a649c18dda908794079652/Saudi-king-upends-royal-succession,-names-son-as-1st-heir
Perhaps.
But he’s a quadrillionaire and you, like me, are posting on a doomer blog to give yourself a sense of importance.
He might share the fate of a former King of Egypt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farouk_of_Egypt
An exiled King is just a prisoner in his expensive hotel room.
So is this how the end of the world as we know it comes?
We sit in front of screens and type insults at people we disagree with?
Sounds like heaven!
[Bit of right-wing support]
Why would anyone continue to post on a site where they are universally derided?
Most likely they are a wishfully pursuing their self-delusion as a misunderstood genius.
It’s delusion that fits the psychology of a white supremacist of course… Explain away your miserable self by believing you are inherently superior.
This is topical at least.
http://www.quotehd.com/imagequotes/TopAuthors/tmb/bill-cosby-comedian-a-word-to-the-wise-aint-necessary-its-the-stupid-ones-that-need.jpg
And we could all take a leaf out of this dude’s book.
http://izquotes.com/quotes-pictures/quote-if-the-fool-would-persist-in-his-folly-he-would-become-wise-william-blake-18866.jpg
Your new handle: The Stump.
Like it?
No “Plan B” for the masses that is for sure. All of our eggs are in one basket.
Plan B http://www.nber.org/papers/w20126.pdf
This is a concern. Thanks for the link!
Somehow Kenneth Rogoff failed to mention the real reason interest rates must fall below zero. Fossil fuel depletion. I highly doubt this was an oversight on his part.
I’m more interested in how he thinks the fed is going to go about “unwinding” this:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WSHOMCB
Well, I’m going to speculate that the plan is to raise the ffr until something breaks, then as boomers clamor for Janet to save their pensions, we’ll forget all about unwinding anything.
There will be no unwinding, just the discontinuation of re-investing, or turning over, the balance sheet. They just start letting their holdings mature and the money goes back into the void from which it came. They need to do this to repair their credibility.
Almost each day we are provided with new clues, evidence, that the situation shapes up as battle over emerging global natgas cartel, which could be under the thump of the Axis of the East (Russian-China-Iran-Turkey-…). This obviously threatens legacy petrodollar regime if the depletion situation of oil is as horrible as we think it is and natgas is the near/midterm top strategic stuff..
So, lets expect some further fireworks in the ME and or Euroasia, because it’s doubtful the current hegemonic power is going down without the proverbial last fight.
worldof
Yes, once we clear away the solar/wind/fracking camouflage, it is all about natural gas now, and clearly no effort will be spared in the attempt to destabilise these key strategic states, and turn them into controlled and compliant clients.
Yeah, good luck with that the U.S. All of these countries have modern armies, populated by people who love their homelands (and hate the U.S.) and are prepared to die in their defence.
“I guess common sense is a low ticket item these days.”
Aren’t we looking down a long nose. The poor are blowing their money on the ‘commodities’ markets, Artleads. You know, like milk and shoes. They simply do not have the surplus income to even think about saving a buck. Have you ever been in such a situation? Be happy that you are able to stash cash and afford the gadgets you are too challenged to operate.
I’m really very “poor” in money terms. But, yes, I’ve had the enormous privilege of having had time to think and reflect, and having been able to attend amazing schools that brought out the ability to value what lay outside the box. The average poor have not had those opportunities. It’s far more the thinking than the money that is the “problem.”
Funny how the poor are also able to afford pick up trucks, gas, trips to football games and nascar races, cross country trips, hunting and fishing trips, tobacco, booze, marijuana, lottery tickets, casino outings, enough food to gain 200 lbs, computers, new cell phones every year, medicines, having 5 kids with multiple partners.
Should I go on or have I made my point.
Again, you are correct about very specific population residing in few core countries, leaching on the rest of the world, enjoying debauchery on the heap of dead bodies and ravaged environment elsewhere out of sight. That’s not that much unique phenomenon in “human civilization” project of past millennia.
If you can afford all that fun you are not poor. Sounds like Pauls Pulled Hamstrings bucket list. I am envious!
“I am envious!”
It didn’t sound fun at all, except the hunting and fishing part. MmmMmm, FOOD!
http://www.lulea.se/images/18.2361edeb13cf367a1f91d28/1361788118350/1996001800070.jpg
Our Vegan Food Fascists dream insect:
Oh, Lovely: The Tick That Gives People Meat Allergies Is Spreading
https://www.wired.com/story/lone-star-tick-that-gives-people-meat-allergies-may-be-spreading/?mbid=nl_61917_p1&CNDID=38901740
Dolph is you are poor you are by definition not able to afford all of those things you listed. How did you ever discover FW? shouldn’t you be on Stromfront or Breitbart?
Believe it or not stormfront censors comments on both race and doom.
They consider themselves to be genteel white nationalists who are going to make America white again. They don’t understand how far things have really gone.
Dolph why don’t you change your handle to The Mongrel? Or perhaps The Loser… The Tosser? Maybe The Racist Pig.
Better still – you can have the rights to this The MOREon.
The Stump has spoken. All hail The Stump!
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_jQiLBLhdULM/SAo7DzT5xvI/AAAAAAAAAoY/Fjf4zyliuxU/s400/Stump.no.jpeg
another collapse article in msm
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2017/06/what_really_happens_after_societal_collapse.html#lf_comment=705085694
The plan is to provoke Russia to war to cover for the economic collapse. The Elders hopes to get Russia to drop a nuclear bomb on the US to cause chaos. The elites plan to be safe in their silos while the rest of the population suffers. Economic problem solved. Angry US population neutralized...
Is this something Cathal has told you?
That would not surprise me at all. Things are looking very gloomy right now.
Russia seem pretty sane compared to the west, a false flag nuclear bomb would be more plausible.
+1
Gosh…We should BURN MOAR coal….
We’re having a heat wave. New daily high temperature records beat new cold records by nearly 5 to 1 in June
How hot is it? So hot that June “breaks the record for the warmest average temperature observed for any calendar month in Miami”
“We’re getting a dramatic taste of the kind of weather we are on course to bequeath to our grandchildren,” says Tom Peterson, Chief Scientist for NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center
Record-smashing temps are precisely what scientists have been predicting. As the UK’s Royal Society and Met Office (the UK’s National Weather Service [i.e. meteorological office], within the Ministry of Defence) said in their must-read statement on the connection between global warming and extreme weather:
We expect some of the most significant impacts of climate change to occur when natural variability is exacerbated by long-term global warming, so that even small changes in global temperatures can produce damaging local and regional effects.
, the global record temperatures we’re seeing now are especially impressive because we’ve been in “the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century.” It’s just hard to stop the march of manmade global warming, well, other than by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, that is. NASA’s 12-month global temperature grew to 0.66°C in May “” easily the highest on record
. If you want to know how to judge whether the near 5-to-1 is a big deal, here’s what a 2009 National Center for Atmospheric Research study found for “1,800 weather stations in the 48 contiguous United States” (see “Record high temperatures far outpace record lows across U.S.”
records are being set globally:
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Chad, Niger, Pakistan, and Myanmar have all set new records for their hottest temperatures of all time over the past six weeks. The remarkable heat continued over Africa and Asia late this week. The Asian portion of Russia recorded its highest temperate in history yesterday, when the mercury hit 42.3°C (108.1°F) at Belogorsk, near the Amur River border with China. The previous record was 41.7°C (107.1°F) at nearby Aksha on July 21, 2004. (The record for European Russia is 43.8°C-110.8°F-set on August 6, 1940, at Alexandrov Gaj near the border with Kazakhstan.) Also, on Thursday, Sudan recorded its hottest temperature in its history when the mercury rose to 49.6°C (121.3°F) at Dongola. The previous record was 49.5°C (121.1°F) set in July 1987 in Aba Hamed.We’ve now had eight countries in Asia and Africa, plus the Asian portion of Russia, that have beaten their all-time hottest temperature record during the past two months. This includes Asia’s hottest temperature of all-time, the astonishing 53.5°C (128.3°F) mark set on May 26 in Pakistan.
And we’ve just had the 500-year deluges in Oklahoma City and China and Tennessee’s 1000-year deluge, and on and on:
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
https://thinkprogress.org/were-having-a-heat-wave-new-daily-high-temperature-records-beat-new-cold-records-by-nearly-5-to-1-in-699ec3129756
Not to WORRY about it all NOW…FE there Almighty issues his proclamation stating so….🚽
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qAbzICyCQCY/WUqqZxG4bnI/AAAAAAAAv3M/ypDOSoMi6WcvX8g5ZQuZ8JZbE8hLpYxoACLcBGAs/s640/1414560628670.jpg
34 degrees in Paris today …. nasty.
But I will take this over the alternative — death by starvation, disease, violence or radiation poisoning.
Instead of complaining just turn up the AC higher….
Burn More Coal.
Jeremy, I really hope you’re enjoying all this good weather while it lasts.
We are in what might be termed the middle of climactic autumn and the long term forecast for planet earth remains a return to subglacial conditions with larger ice sheets and lower sea levels—the start of the long, long glacial winter— within the next few millennia. The pace of these climactic changes is too slow to be noticeable in the course of a single human lifetime, but they add up. According to most proxy temperature records, each of the past four millennia has been cooler than the previous one, and this can be expected to continue until eventually, a few tens of thousands of years hence, polar bears roam the New Jersey coastline, Great Britain rejoins Europe, and people (if there are any around then) are able to walk between New Guinea and Australia again.
But Fast Eddy is OK with that…so we ALL should agree…he’s the ALMIGHTY… at least in his own mind…maybe FE will be able again to walk all the way to the Elders board room!