World GDP in current US dollars is in some sense the simplest world GDP calculation that a person might make. It is calculated by taking the GDP for each year for each country in the local currency (for example, yen) and converting these GDP amounts to US dollars using the then-current relativity between the local currency and the US dollar.
To get a world total, all a person needs to do is add together the GDP amounts for all of the individual countries. There is no inflation adjustment, so comparing GDP growth amounts calculated on this basis gives an indication regarding how the world economy is growing, inclusive of inflation. Calculation of GDP on this basis is also inclusive of changes in relativities to the US dollar.
What has been concerning for the last couple of years is that World GDP on this basis is no longer growing robustly. In fact, it may even have started shrinking, with 2014 being the peak year. Figure 1 shows world GDP on a current US dollar basis, in a chart produced by the World Bank.
Figure 1. World GDP in “Current US Dollars,” in chart from World Bank website.
Since the concept of GDP in current US dollars is not a topic that most of us are very familiar with, this post, in part, is an exploration of how GDP and inflation calculations on this basis fit in with other concepts we are more familiar with.
As I look at the data, it becomes clear that the reason for the downturn in Current US$ GDP is very much related to topics that I have been writing about. In particular, it is related to the fall in oil prices since mid-2014 and to the problems that oil producers have been having since that time, earning too little profit on the oil they sell. A similar problem is affecting natural gas and coal, as well as some other commodities. These low prices, and the deflation that they are causing, seem to be flowing through to cause low world GDP in current US dollars.
Figure 2. 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.
While energy products seem to be relatively small compared to world GDP, in fact, they play an outsized role. This is the case partly because the use of energy products makes GDP growth possible (energy provides heat and movement needed for industrial processes), and partly because an increase in the price of energy products indirectly causes an increase in the price of other goods and services. This growth in prices makes it possible to use debt to finance goods and services of all types.
A decrease in the price of energy products has both positive and negative impacts. The major favorable effect is that the lower prices allow the GDPs of oil importers, such as the United States, European Union, Japan, and China, to grow more rapidly. This is the effect that has predominated so far.
The negative impacts appear more slowly, so we have seen less of them so far. One such negative impact is the fact that these lower prices tend to produce deflation rather than inflation, making debt harder to repay. Another negative impact is that lower prices (slowly) push companies producing energy products toward bankruptcy, disrupting debt in a different way. A third negative impact is layoffs in affected industries. A fourth negative impact is lower tax revenue, particularly for oil exporting countries. This lower revenue tends to lead to cutbacks in governmental programs and to disruptions similar to those seen in Venezuela.
In this post, I try to connect what I am seeing in the new data (GDP in current US$) with issues I have been writing about in previous posts. It seems to me that there is no way that oil and other energy prices can be brought to an adequate price level because we are reaching an affordability limit with respect to energy products. Thus, world GDP in current dollars can be expected to stay low, and eventually decline to a lower level. Thus, we seem to be encountering peak GDP in current dollars.
Furthermore, in the years ahead the negative impacts of lower oil and other energy prices can be expected to start predominating over the positive impacts. This change can be expected to lead to debt-related financial problems, instability of governments of oil exporters, and falling energy consumption of all kinds.
Peak Per Capita Energy Consumption Is Part of the Problem, Too
One problem that makes our current situation much worse than it might otherwise be is the fact that world per capita energy consumption seems to have hit a maximum in 2013 (Figure 3).
Figure 3. World Daily Per Capita Energy Consumption, based on primary energy consumption from BP Statistical Review of World Energy and 2017 United Nations population estimates.
Surprisingly, this peak in consumption occurred before oil and other energy prices collapsed, starting in mid-2014. At these lower prices, a person would think that consumers could afford to buy more energy goods per person, not fewer.
Per capita energy consumption should be rising with lower prices, unless the reason for the fall in prices is an affordability problem. If the drop in prices reflects an affordability problem (wages of most workers are not high enough to buy the goods and services made with energy products, such as homes and cars), then we would expect the pattern we are seeing today–low oil and other energy prices, together with falling per capita consumption. If the reason for falling per capita energy consumption is an affordability problem, then there is little hope that prices will rise sufficiently to fix our current problem.
One consideration supporting the hypothesis that we are really facing an affordability problem is the fact that in recent years, energy prices have been too low for companies producing oil and other energy products. Since 2015, hundreds of oil, natural gas, and coal companies have gone bankrupt. Saudi Arabia has had to borrow large amounts of money to fund its budget, because at current prices, tax revenues are too low to fund it. In the United States, investors are cutting back on their support for oil investment, because of the continued financial losses of the companies and evidence that approaches for mitigating these losses are not really working.
Which Countries Are Suffering Falling GDP in Current US Dollars?
With lower oil prices, Saudi Arabia is one of the countries with falling GDP in Current US$.
Figure 4. Increase in GDP since 1990 for Saudi Arabia in current US dollars, based on World Bank Data.
Saudi Arabia pegs its currency to the dollar, so its lower GDP is not because its currency has fallen relative to the US dollar; instead, it reflects a situation in which fewer goods and services of all kinds are being produced, as measured in US dollars. GDP calculations do not consider debt, so Figure 4 indicates that even with all of Saudi Arabia’s borrowing to offset falling oil revenue, the quantity of goods and services it was able to produce fell in both 2015 and 2016.
Other oil-producing countries are clearly having problems as well, but data is often missing from the World Bank database for these countries. For example, Venezuela is clearly having problems with low oil prices, but GDP amounts for the country are missing for 2014, 2015, and 2016. (Somehow, world totals seem to include estimates of the total omitted amounts, however.)
Figure 5 shows similar ratios to Figure 4 for a number of other commodity producing countries.
Figure 5. GDP patterns, in US current dollars, for selected resource exporting countries, based on World Bank data.
A comparison of Figures 4 and 5 shows that the GDP patterns for these countries are similar to that of Saudi Arabia. Because resources (including oil) do not account for as large a share of GDP for these countries as for Saudi Arabia, the peak as a percentage of 1990 GDP isn’t quite as high as for Saudi Arabia. But the trend is still downward, with 2014 typically the peak year.
We can also look at similar information for the historically big consumers of oil, coal and natural gas, namely the United States, the European Union, and Japan.
Figure 6. Increase in GDP since 1990 for the United States, the European Union, and Japan, in current US dollars, based on World Bank data.
Here, we find the growth trend is much more subdued than for the countries shown in the previous two charts. I have purposely put the upper limit of the scale of this chart at 6 times the 1990 GDP level. This limit is similar to the upper limit on earlier charts, to emphasize how much more slowly these countries have been growing, compared to the countries shown in Figures 4 and 5.
In fact, for the European Union and Japan, GDP in current US$ is now lower than it has been in recent years. Figure 6 is telling us that the goods and services produced in these countries are now lower in US dollar value than they were a few years ago. Since part of the cost of goods and services is used to pay wages, this lower relativity indirectly implies that the wages of workers in the EU and Japan are falling, relative to the cost of buying goods and services priced in US dollars. Thus, even apart from taxes added by these countries, consumers in the EU and Japan have been falling behind in their ability to buy energy products priced in US dollars.
Figure 6 indicates that the United States has been doing relatively better than the European Union and Japan, in terms of the value of goods and services produced each year continuing to grow. If we look back at Figure 2, however, we see that even in the US, wage growth has lagged far behind oil price increases. Thus, the US was also likely headed toward an affordability problem relating to goods and services made with oil.
The Asian exporting nations have been doing relatively better in keeping their economies growing, despite the downward pressure on energy prices.
Figure 7. Increase in GDP since 1990 for selected rapidly growing Asian exporting countries in current US dollars, based on World Bank data.
The two most rapidly growing countries are China and Vietnam. There seems to be a recent slowing of their growth rates, but no actual downturn.
India, Pakistan, and the Philippines are growing less rapidly. They do not seem to be experiencing any downturn at all.
Considering the indications of Figure 4 through 7, it appears that only a relatively small share of countries have experienced rising GDP in current US dollars. Although we have not looked at all possible groupings, the countries that seem to be doing best in terms of rising current US$ GDP are countries that are exporters of manufactured goods, including the Asian countries shown. Countries that derive significant GDP from producing energy products and other commodities seem to be experiencing falling GDP in current US dollars.
To fix the problems shown here, we would need to get prices of oil and other energy products back up again. This would indirectly raise prices of many other products as well, including food, new vehicles, and new homes. With lagging wages in many countries, this would seem to be virtually impossible to accomplish.
The Wide Range of GDP Indications We See
In this post, I am talking about GDP of various countries, converted to a US$ basis. This is not quite the same as the GDP that we normally read about. It is not until a person starts working with world data that a person appreciates how different the various GDP and inflation calculations are.
GDP in US dollars is very important because energy products, including oil, are generally priced in US$. This seems to be true, whether or not the currency used in the actual transaction is US$. See Appendix A for charts showing the close connection between these two items.
The type of GDP is generally reported is inflation-adjusted (also called “real”) GDP. The assumption is made that no one will care (very much) about inflation rates. In general, inflation-adjusted GDP figures are much more stable than those in Current US$. This can be seen by comparing world GDP in Figure 8 with that shown in Figure 1.
Figure 8. GDP in 2010 US dollars, for the world and for the United States, based on World Bank data.
Using inflation-adjusted world GDP data, there doesn’t seem to be any kind of crisis ahead. The last major problem was in the 2008-2009 period. Even the impact of this crisis appears to be fairly small. The 2008-2009 crisis shows up more distinctly in the Current US$ amounts plotted in Figure 1.
World GDP growth figures that are published by the World Bank and others combine country by country data using some type of weighting approach. Economists tend to use an approach called Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). This approach gives a great deal more weight to developing nations than the US dollar weighted approach used elsewhere in this post. For example, under the PPP approach, China seems to get a weighting of about 1.9 times its GDP in US$; India seems to get a weighting of about 3.8 times its GDP in US$. The United States gets a weight of 1.0 times its GDP in US$, and the weights for developed nations tend to be fairly close to 1.0 times their GDP in US$. The world GDP we see published regularly should be called “inflation-adjusted world GDP, calculated with PPP weights.”
The relationship among the three types of GDP can be seen in Figure 9. It is clear that GDP growth in Current US$ is far more variable than the inflation-adjusted growth rate (in 2010 US$). PPP inflation-adjusted GDP growth is consistently higher than GDP growth with US dollar weighting.
Figure 9. World GDP Growth in three alternative measures: Current dollars, Inflation-adjusted GDP is in 2010 US$ and adjusted to purchasing power parity (PPP).
It is also clear from Figure 9 that there is also a big “Whoops” in the most recent years. Economic growth is at a record low level, as calculated in Current US$.
World “Inflation” Indications
The typical way of calculating inflation is by looking at prices of a basket of goods in a particular currency, such as the yen, and seeing how the prices change over a period of time. To get an inflation rate for a group of countries (such as the G-20), inflation rates of various countries are weighted together using some set of weights. My guess is that these weights might be the PPP weights used in calculating world GDP.
In Figure 10, I calculate implied world inflation using a different approach. Since the World Bank publishes World GDP both in 2010 US$ and in Current US$, I calculate the implied world inflation rate by comparing these two sets of values. (Some people might call what I am calculating the implicit price deflator for GDP, rather than an inflation rate.) I use three-year averages to smooth out year-to-year variability in these amounts.
Figure 10. World inflation rate calculated by comparing reported World GDP in Current US$ to reported World GDP in 2010 US$. Both of these amounts are available at the World Bank website.
The implied world inflation rates using this approach are fairly different from published inflation rates. In part, this is because the calculations take into account changing relativities of currencies. There may be other factors as well, such as the inclusion of countries that would not normally be included in aggregations. Inflation rates tend to be high when demand for energy products is high, and low when demand for energy products is low.
Figure 10 shows that, on a world basis, there have been negative inflation rates three times since 1963–in approximately 1983-1984; in the late 1990s to early 2000s; and since about 2014. If we compare these dates to the oil price and energy consumption data on Figures 2 and 3, we see that these time periods are ones that are marked by falling per capita energy consumption and by low oil prices. In some sense, these are the time periods when the economy is/was trying to stall, for lack of adequate demand for oil.
The workaround used to “fix” the lack of demand in the late 1990s to early 2000s seems to have been an increased focus on globalization. China’s growth in particular was very important, because it added both a rapidly growing supply of cheap energy from coal and a great deal of demand for energy products. The addition of coal effectively lowered the average price of energy products so that they were again affordable by a large share of the world population. The availability of debt to pull the Chinese and other Asian economies forward was no doubt of importance as well.
The United States has been fairly protected from much of what has happened because its currency, the US Dollar, is the world’s reserve currency. If we look at the inflation rate of the United States using data of the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, the last time the United States had a substantial period of contracting prices was in the US Depression of the 1930s. It is quite possible that such a situation existed worldwide, but I do not have world data for that period.
Figure 11. US inflation rate (really “GDP Deflator”) obtained by comparing US GDP in 2009 US$ to GDP in Current US $, based on US Bureau of Economic Analysis data.
It was during the Depression of the 1930s that debt defaults became widespread. It was only through deficit spending, including the significant debt-based funding for World War II, that the problem of inadequate demand for goods and services was completely eliminated.
How Do We Solve Our World Deflation Crisis This Time
There seem to be three ways of creating demand for goods and services.
[1] A growing supply of cheap-to-produce energy products is really the basic way of increasing demand through economic growth.
If there are cheap-to-produce energy products available, a growing supply of these energy products can be used to increasingly leverage human labor, through the use of more and better “tools” for the workers. When workers become increasingly more productive, their wages naturally rise. It is this growing productivity of human labor that generally produces the rising demand needed to maintain the economic growth cycle.
As growth in energy consumption slows and then declines (Figure 3), this productivity growth tends to disappear. This seems to be part of today’s problem.
[2] Increasing the amount of debt outstanding can work to make the energy extraction system work more effectively, by raising the price that consumers can afford to pay for high-priced goods.
This increasing ability to pay for high-priced goods seems to come in two ways:
(a) The debt itself can be used to pay for goods, making these goods more affordable on a month-to-month or year-to-year basis.
(b) Increased debt can lead to increased wages for wage earners, because some of the increased debt ultimately goes to create new jobs and to pay workers. Figure 12 shows the positive association that increasing debt seems to have with inflation-adjusted wages in the United States.
Figure 12. 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.
Debt is, in effect, the promise of future goods and services made with energy products. These promises are often helpful in allowing an economy to expand. For example, businesses can issue bonds to provide funds to expand their operations. Selling shares of stock acts in a manner similar to adding debt, with repayment coming from future operations. In both cases, the payback can occur, if energy consumption is in fact growing, allowing the output of the business to expand as planned.
Once world leaders decide that debt levels are too high, or need to be controlled better, we are likely headed for trouble, because debt can be very helpful in “pulling the economy forward.” This is especially the case if productivity growth is low because per capita energy consumption is falling.
[3] Rebalancing of currency relativities to the US dollar.
Rebalancing currencies to different levels relative to the dollar seems to play a major role in determining the “inflation rate” calculated in Figure 10. Currency rebalancing also plays a major role in determining the shape of the GDP graph in current US$, as shown in Figure 1. In general, the higher the average relativity of other currencies to the US$, the higher the demand for goods and services of all kinds, and thus the higher the demand for energy products.
One problem in recent years is that, in some sense, the average relativity of other currencies to the US dollar has fallen too low. The fall in relativities took place when the US discontinued its use of Quantitative Easing in late 2014.
Figure 13. Monthly Brent oil prices with dates of US beginning and ending QE.
The price of oil and of other energy products dropped steeply at that time. In fact, in inflation-adjusted terms, oil prices had been falling even prior to the end of QE. (See Figure 2, above.) The shift in the currency relativities made oil and other energy products more expensive for citizens of the European Union, Japan, and most of the commodity producing countries shown in Figures 4 and 5.
The ultimate problem underlying this fall in average relativities to the US dollar is that there is now a disparity between the prices that consumers around the world can afford to pay for energy products, and the prices that businesses producing energy products really need. I have written about this problem in the past, for example in Why Energy-Economy Models Produce Overly Optimistic Indications.
At this point, none of the three approaches for solving the world’s deflation problem seem to be working:
[1] Increasing the supply of oil and other energy products is not working well, because diminishing returns has led to a situation where if prices are high enough for producers, they are too high for consumers to afford the finished goods made with the energy products.
[2] World leaders have decided that we have too much debt and, indeed, debt levels are very high. In fact, if energy prices continue to be low, a significant amount of debt currently outstanding will probably be defaulted on.
[3] Countries generally don’t want to raise the exchange rates of their currencies to the dollar, because lower exchange rates tend to encourage exports. If the United States raises its interest rates, either directly or by selling its QE bonds, the level of the US dollar can be expected to rise relative to other currencies. Thus, other currencies are likely to fall even lower than they are today, relative to the US dollar. This will tend to make the problem with low oil prices (and other energy prices) even worse than today.
Thus, there seems to be no way out of our current predicament.
Conclusion
The world economy is in a very precarious situation. Many of the world’s economies have found that, measured in current US$, the goods and services they are producing are less valuable than they were in 2013 and 2014. In particular, all of the oil exporting nations have this problem. Many other countries that are producing commodities have the same problem.
Governments around the world do not seem to understand the situation we are facing. In large part, this is happening because economists have built models based on their view of how the world works. Their models tend to leave out the important role energy plays. GDP growth and inflation estimates based on PPP calculations give a misleading view of how the economy is actually operating.
We seem to be sleepwalking into an even worse version of the Depression of the 1930s. Even if economists were able to figure out what is happening, it is not clear that there would be a good way out. Higher energy prices would aid energy producers, but would push energy importing nations into recession. We seem to be facing a predicament with no solution.
Appendix
Growing Inflation-Adjusted GDP Comes From Growing Energy Consumption
We often hear that GDP no longer depends on energy consumption, but this simply is not true. Energy consumption is needed for practically every industrial process, because energy causes the physical transformations that are need (including heat, light, and movement). Even services that only require a lighted, air-conditioned office and the use of computers require energy consumption of some type.
An industrialized country can outsource manufacturing of many of its goods to other countries, but the need for energy products goes with this outsourcing. The transfer of manufacturing to lesser developed countries tends to stimulate building in these countries. As a result, on a world basis, the amount of energy consumed tends to remain close to unchanged.
Using data for 1965 through 2016, we find the following relationship between inflation-adjusted world GDP and world energy consumption:
Figure A1. World growth in energy consumption vs. world GDP growth. Energy consumption from BP Statistical Review of World Energy, 2017. World GDP is GDP in US 2010$, as compiled by World Bank.
Another way of displaying the same data is as an X, Y graph. A very high long-term correlation can be observed on this basis.
Figure A2. X-Y graph of world energy consumption (from BP Statistical Review of World Energy, 2017) versus world GDP in 2010 US$, from World Bank.
This high level of correlation can be seen for other groupings as well. For example, for the grouping Middle East and North Africa, there is a high level of correlation between energy consumption and GDP.
Figure A3. X-Y graph showing correlation between energy consumption and GDP in the Middle East and North Africa.
If a person calculates the implications of this fitted line, energy consumption for these oil-producing countries is actually growing faster than inflation-adjusted GDP for these countries. This type of trend is to be expected if oil-producing countries are in some sense becoming less efficient in producing oil. This could happen for a number of reasons. One is that the easiest to extract oil is extracted first, leaving the more expensive to extract oil to be extracted later. Another possible reason for this trend is rising human populations in oil producing countries. These people drive cars and live in air conditioned buildings, driving up energy consumption for these countries. Whatever the cause, this loss of efficiency in oil production can be expected to at least partially offset growing efficiencies elsewhere in the system.
Connor leaving the ring!
http://imgur.com/a/qYNTj
1. Relevance?
2. It took the world boxing champ TEN ROUNDS to get him out. That is like the world tennis champ requiring almost five sets to beat the world squash champ *at tennis*. A real triumph.
Floyd could have knocked him out early he just wanted to put a good show for the fans and take it slow because it was his last fight.
I wondered past a bar on the way to lunch and poked my head in to watch round one — confirming what I already knew — a slow white non-boxer was never going to get a hand on one of the best boxers of all time.
Mayweather could have put an end to that in round one if he so chose.
The fight is another welcome distraction from the imminent slaughter to come
And what will be the next big distraction?
The Ice Dragon in Game of Thrones.
For Norman P:
In trying to provide a foil for your ideas, I can only muster a scattered selection of thoughts. I hope it stimulates some discussion, just the same.
Part of how I’d like to challenge your thesis of some inevitable energy dynamic proceeding in such a way as to determine the ongoing sixth human extinction (pretty much the way it is happening) is to look at what global society values. I look through the lens of landscape, but also through consideration of Africa, a place that in human civilization is deemed next to the land at the bottom of the hierarchy of things valued and respected. The African megafauna didn’t die off as they did in other continents. But even now, Africans might be castigated as being more like monkeys than people. That’s supposed to be ab insult. Black Africa never invented the wheel. That is seen as a sign of “backwardness,” but the wheel and other rotary motion lead us right up to the jaws of extinction. But maybe I should lump the feminine in there along with land and Africa as a consortium of the lowly among a global value system.
Africa:
I single out Africa, for the west, critically the US, denigrates Africa, whereas Africa offers the US, as the hegemonic western power, a second chance. American Africans comprise 13% of the US population, while American African culture predominates throughout the nation. America has such a historical intermingling with African culture that it clearly would have the advantage over China in establishing a mutually beneficial relationship with Africa. But it would have to stop using black Americans for target practice and for other oppressive purposes. Meanwhile, all the energy in the room is taken up by people who want to do exactly the opposite of what I recommend, and do it in the name of “making America great again!” A few points about Africa and energy:
– The surplus energy derived from African slaves’ production of sugar and cotton underpins the industrial revolution.
– Western civilization overlooks that, and overlooks the natural world that was the catapult draw for African peoples. Western civilization, by the nature of its thought structure, can’t relate to the Africa/nature connection. No wonder the west treats nature as a dead thing and the African as cursed, and no wonder it would destroy its very self by so doing.
– Rhythm, a major asset of the African, greatly extended a given amount of material energy. The role of rhythm and fractals in producing energy needs to be studied. I suspect that it is the convergence of fractals with rhythm that has led to the predominance of the African in sports and music. Rhythmic work songs helped withstand brutal, killing forced labor.
http://www.ted.com/talks/ron_eglash_on_african_fractals?language=en
http://fraktalneenergije.com/en/energy.html
Women and Land:
I would also put women and land in the category of what the west, as with the African, considers worthy to be exploited but of no inherent value. But women don’t excel at violent crime or old growth deforestation. Women, perhaps inevitably for a fledgling species coming to grips with vagaries of civilization and its extremely limited psychological resources, have been subordinated to the categories males dominated, categories like ethnicity, tribe or states. Women have been subordinated to support these male dominant divisions, taking their identities from them, while emerging feminism thought (only possible in a high-surplus-energy system) might support speculation about detaching women from male dominant structures, producing something like a separate feminine species. Land is inextricably intertwines with issues of the African and the feminine in western thinking. And women separated from male constructs, become, potentially, the first humans to identify as a global entity over any other grouping, putting land first.
—————-
https://medium.com/@End_of_More/legacy-oil-bcac8157070b
“What we see around us represents energy surplus. Every piece of glass, plastic, brick in every house represents surplus fossil fuel. As does every road, railway line and aircraft.”
Most people don’t understand what is meant by surplus energy. That includes artists. But you seem close to defining it even more understandably than we have seen thus far. I suppose that part of the explanation means we can achieve sufficiently abundant energy to create surplus things other than the basics like food and shelter. But I don’t think that’s an automatic stage of energy dynamics. There appears to be such a thing as infection via energy-related paradigms that are accidental and circumstantial. I believe that at each stage of “cultural evolution” a cluster of attitudes inevitably associate with an “energy state.” The energy state, while essential, can’t be separated from the cultural state. The two are mutually determinative of the other’s achievements. What happens on a small and finite planet isn’t what necessarily has to happen. It is instead happenstance, embodying an extremely fledgling species, a species that simply happened up on fire (as Gail repeats) and the subsequent effects of heat (as you discuss).
To begin to address our predicament, we must pay primary attention to the longest lasting tribal groups–the Australian aborigines of 50,000 years duration, the 20,000 year long San culture of South Africa and the 100,000 year pull on a catapult that produced the San. It is a distressing habit to shoehorn these ancient people (who still linger on) into a paradigm of western making. “They are simply an early version of us.” But that is false and painfully presumptuous. These people were different from us, with a cluster of life ways and values unlike our own. The overpowering surplus energy that our line of people discovered and that crushed these early peoples changed our very essence in the process.
“The Apollo space programme was itself a legacy enterprise built at the top of a pyramid of energy/industrial/technological input started by the Wright brothers. (or the steam engine, depending on your perspective). That meant a buildup of almost 2 centuries of industrial strength to deliver a series of moonshots. The ultimate propulsion system was no different from that of Chinese fireworks 1000 years ago. (exploding chemical combustion/reaction).”
“Try to think of it as a 200 year pull on a catapult, rather than a Kennedy speech.”
These quotes make it as clear as I’ve seen how what we do now is based on the past. Like the Apollo space program’s association with China!
This gets to the point, and is an excellent educational measure.
Thinking Inside/Outside the Box (samples):
– I see how desperately hard it is to get sensible ideas understood in my own community. The most elementary planning recommendations fall on deaf ears. The following examples are not at all untypical. People don’t have the freedom of mind to routinely think outside the box. For some reason, I’m incapable of thinking inside the box. The possibilities that for most people seem unimaginable are for me simple and obvious. To say that the human species follows laws that determine their doing stupid things of the sort that I can see through makes no sense to me. (I have my own huge gaps of understanding, but there are many people who can fill in for me with those, while there seems to be fewer who can replicate the qualities I excel in. A system where people could fill in for my deficiencies but allows me to fill in for theirs might get a lot more accomplished).
– Our village water coop has several large water tanks. Exposed to the blazing sun, they tend to get infected with listeria. I suggest that they install a shade structure to decrease sun exposure, as well as provide more rain catchment surface. Does this very simple suggestion sink in? No chance. They’re thinking of all kinds of technical and chemical fixes instead.
So there are enormous human difference wrought by special circumstances or accidents which can relatively blunt those deterministic views of thermodynamics and energy dissipation as also oversimplification and one-size-fits-all analyses. (I read where genetic traits correlate to how land was used to apportion power centuries ago…something to that effect anyhow.)
Collective vs Individual
We may differ in how both are viewed:
– In some cases, the collective is given due when I think it’s the individual that matters.–Descartes, Newton, Darwin, Luther, Columbus, by no means all a bunch of saints.
made the world enormously different from what it might have been (good or bad) without them.
– In other cases, just the opposite–emphasis on individual prepping rather than how communities are organized. Taking the individualism which is merely a recent offshoot of capitalism–and probably serving isolation and inability to confront the power structure–as the inevitable condition of humans.
– A great deal of how I see the present derive from what ancestors did centuries ago.
– What it is to be human are behaviors, not our physical hardware. This means having little reverence for the genetically human. If they aren’t deemed human, they might be treated as one would a fly, a pig, a rodent. So it might be that it’s the program people follow, and nothing else, that determines their value.
– It is mistakenly believed that Earth’s predicament can be addresses through the lens of human affairs. It’s the land that matters most.
– I’m not interested in individual survival but rather in following what experience, will and other attributes lead me to do. I don’t see us as automatons.
Art:
Art is free. An artist should imagine the world as they wish it to be. The artist cannot be a realist.
The artist isn’t realistic. To be realistic is to conform to someone else’s idea of reality. The artist’s reality might not seem realistic to anyone else at first. Too often, thermodynamic determinism flies in the face of individual proclivity. It is unwaveringly “realistic.”
(At some further point, I will consider if art is one of those surplus things. The San of South Africa appear exceedingly simple and basic compared with Australian aborigines. The latter seem to have elaborate body and mural painting, together with elaborate rituals. Why the difference? Rhetorical question at this point.)
“Although there is some controversy and debate on the best ways to improve fluid intelligence, studies are showing a strong link between non-academic pursuits and improved fluid intelligence. I have written a wide range of Psychology Today blog posts about improving cognitive function through: physical activity, playing a musical instrument, making art, improving motor skills, meditation, daydreaming, getting a good night’s sleep… The ultimate goal of The Athlete’s Way is to identify daily habits that optimize the function of the brain, body, and mind throughout a person’s lifespan.”
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201312/too-much-crystallized-thinking-lowers-fluid-intelligence
Two things, or possibly three, contributed to the development of my fluid intelligence in very early childhood: 1) brain trauma caused by someone’s anger; 2) a shared understanding that my best bet was to sit in one place and daydream; 3) the anger that I somehow elicited had to be compensated for by ingenious mental evasions and a habit of living in my head…which produced a world of behaviors that were out of keeping with average norms around me. i was an oddball, and remained so throughout.
Well, Artleads, I was dropped on my head as a kid, which probably explains much.
More seriously, I was often very ill which led to lots of reading, and to being more of an observer of people as if they were another species than getting caught up in whatever was going on.
This helps ‘original’ thinking, I am sure.
I came across the philosopher Idries Shah, who recommended looking ‘at what people do rather than what they say’ (but avoiding cynicism) in order to understand the dynamics of any situation – very useful advice.
Also, belonging to two very distinct cultures and languages – the Anglo-Saxon and the Basque/Latin – was, and is, stimulating: being Basque is perhaps the nearest one can get in Europe to being African, the remnant that survived all the waves of migration and the Roman Empire.
The Sami are an interesting people worth studying, too, if you haven’t already. My only experience of telepathy involved a Sami, very strange and memorable….
But, despite all of this, I am still a bit of an idiot. Life isn’t over yet, so there must be some hope… 🙂
You got me laughing out loud, Xabier. Thanks for that! I’ll consider your post some more.
“British psychiatrist William Sargant discuss(ed) the hampering effects of brainwashing and social conditioning on creativity and problem-solving, and the comedian Marty Feldman talking with Shah about the role of humour and ritual in human life. The program ended with Shah asserting that humanity could further its own evolution by “breaking psychological limitations” but that there was a “constant accretion of pessimism which effectively prevents evolution in this form from going ahead… Man is asleep – must he die before he wakes up?”
You must be a magician to somehow be able to connect me to a source of intellectual and spiritual corroboration that I never knew was out there.
Gail talks about an overriding, guiding force to our lives, where (IMO) things that are relevant (like this) just fall into our lap. It does seem that there is a master mind behind the computer simulation program we’re involved in, and that the “answers” are already in pre existence…
“”Sufi schools are like waves which break upon rocks: [they are] from the same sea, in different forms, for the same purpose,”
This wasn’t my thought exactly (not knowing much about Sufism), but I have been thinking of “answers” and “pre-determined” paths being like waves that we must find, anticipate and ride. So it’s not a case of inventing anything, but rather one of connecting inwardly with that wave so that you actually KNOW what it is before it arrives.
Sufism in its (inherent) freedom and flexibility does seem to suit me.
Now to look up Sami.
Unfortunate, we live on land:
https://i1.wp.com/thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/land-ocean-nasa.jpg
I dwell in Possibility.
You’re welcome to live on a boat if you wish, Duncan, and sail the seven seas.
You say “unfortunate” but is the “clim-ate” getting better or worse for humanity?
Do you believe that overall warming equals overall negative net negative changes in the clim-ate? Based on what?
http://imgur.com/a/RINZR
That’s a great quote. I think Obama was a good example, more so than Dubya, because O promised so much hope and change to his voting base, which got neither. Trump is especially ineffectual because he is perpetually at war with the Deep State. Entertaining, though, to those not about to blow a seal or gasket for their “ideology”.
Idiotic blogging: a process whereby people with too much time on their hands try to appear intelligent by referencing definitions and and articles from obscure journals.
ob·scure
/əbˈskyo͝or/
adjective
1.
not discovered or known about; uncertain:
“his origins and parentage are obscure”
synonyms:
unclear, uncertain, unknown, in doubt, doubtful, … moreantonyms:
clear, obvious
verb
1.
keep from being seen; conceal:
“gray clouds obscure the sun”
synonyms:
hide, conceal, cover, veil, shroud, … moreantonyms:
reveal
Excellent!
👍
Charles Barkley Is a Great Example of a Black White Supremacist
http://www.theroot.com/charles-barkley-is-a-great-example-of-a-black-white-su-1798149722
Yes, it is all very stupid but what is the relevance to this blog? Too much time on your hands and no meatspace friends. Commenters like you choke the comment pages of so many otherwise good blogs. It’s like you are uploading pics of what you had for lunch. Irrelevant.
Everyone is a threat: Venezuela, Yemen, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, tribes in Pakistan, Libya, Russia, China, North Korea, but never Washington. The greatest conspiracy theory of our time is that Americans are surrounded by foreign threats.
-Dr Paul Craig Roberts
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/08/25/conspiracy-theory/
there is a cynical viewpoint that asserts that US foreign policy is intentionally “helping” countries to collapse so that more of the world’s resources will not be used by these countries but will remain available for the USA.
kind of a conspiracy theory of sorts.
an international game of Musical Chairs.
the USA intends to have the last chair.
Every country hopes to have the last chair.
We are living in a world of musical chairs.
The US, Russia, China, and maybe Germany/France: the players in the game. Britain possibly imagining it can still play, but probably deluded….?
That’s the greatest conspiracy of all time? True conspiracy or false, I can think of a half dozen conspiracies that are bigger than that without any effort atall. You don’t think the Fed Reserve conspiracy has been bigger? It turned over ownership of the money of the entire world to one small group of people.
What about the conspiracy that hides that communism is in fact a face of zionism?
And then there’s the problem of deciding exactly what kind of threat would be call “foreign”? Would a dual citizen be called a “foreign” threat or a local one?
Gee, it ‘s a real can of worms, once you start with these kinds of lists.
++++++++++++++
The Fed’s minions are known as the Deep State… they are the apparatus that the Fed uses to destroy anyone who dares oppose them….. they also use their MSM to wage propaganda wars against anyone who pisses them off…
Potus and the rest of Washington rubber stamp the orders from above — so that the public does not become aware of the fact that their true masters are Zayonists.
I do not imagine the American people would react well if they understood the do not live in a democracy … and that their rulers are Zayonists.
Paul Craig Roberts has many interesting things to say, although I fear he is approaching senility.
But he often hits the nail right on the head.
The US informal empire is certainly at war for global dominance,and these places are obstacles to it, defined as ‘threats’ for public consumption.
all wars are about resources
no matter how you dress them up
Then there’s this: Which Country is the Greatest Threat to World Peace?
https://i.imgur.com/9h1JLs4.jpg
“The map shows the results of a 2013 (pre-Trump) WIN/Gallup International survey asking people which country they felt was the greatest threat to world peace.
According to the survey results:
The US was the overwhelming choice (24% of respondents) for the country that represents the greatest threat to peace in the world today. This was followed by Pakistan (8%), China (6%), North Korea, Israel and Iran (5%). Respondents in Russia (54%), China (49%) and Bosnia (49%) were the most fearful of the US as a threat.”
http://brilliantmaps.com/threat-to-peace/
“Just before the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, some of the industrial nations, and specifically the United States, were lambasted for their obscenely high consumption of the world’s finite resources, including food, water and energy.
The world was being gradually destroyed, environmentalists warned, by unsustainable consumption.
Hitting back at critics, then U.S. president George H.W. Bush famously declared: ‘The American way of life is not up for negotiations. Period.’
The message, a pre-emptive diplomatic strike by the United States, reverberated throughout the summit of world leaders, whose plan of action for the 21st century virtually skirted the hot political issue.”
http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/05/us-lifestyle-is-not-up-for-negotiation/
Imagine the deflationary nightmare that would follow if Americans cut back on consumption
Other countries would take care of the slack and provide more growth for an equal amount of consumption.
Carl Sagan on education
http://imgur.com/gallery/CM1PF
In America it is more about test scores and funding that turn out useful idiots for the labor machine than actual free thinkers.
The primary function of the first universities was to provide literate and numerate priests to man the administration of the Church and the state, to maintain the status quo.
That is what a civilisation always requires.
The Only Thing, Historically, That’s Curbed Inequality: Catastrophe
Plagues, revolutions, massive wars, collapsed states—these are what reliably reduce economic disparities.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/02/scheidel-great-leveler-inequality-violence/517164/
It’s like Monopoly. All players start out equal but over time one player establishes an advantage over the others. The only way to equal things out again is to start over. The trouble for society is it’s not a matter of returning all the money, property, houses and hotels and reshuffling the chance and community chest cards, it takes something dramatic and equalizing. The Chinese have a saying; “When a few have everything it’s time for a revolution.”
Also note even in Monopoly the losing players resent the winner and the winner always revels in the victory way too much. “Ah, Park Place with a hotel. That will be $1500. dollars, Ha!”
Remember in Monopoly how the utilities never returned all that much? Well, today things inequality is to bad the wealthy invest in privatized water companies and customers pay exhorbitant fees. Just few years ago we paid 35 dollars for two months water. Now we pay 115 a month! Those hikes in fees occurred after privatization. Whittling people down to size one bill at a time.
All players start out equal
No, all players do not start out equal. The truth is the exact opposite. According to the Forbes list of billionaires almost 70 percent start out as millionaires. through inheritance like Trump. And only around 30 percent start out as poor or middle class.
I was referring to the beginning, not after numerous generations.
Gates was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
Yes. Gates and Paul Allen went to one of the nicest private schools in America. That was one of the very first schools in the country to buy computers for their classrooms.
Here’s a tutorial on the definition and concept of the beginning, CH.
be·gin·ning /bəˈɡiniNG/
noun: beginning; plural noun: beginnings
1. the point in time or space at which something starts.
“he left at the beginning of February”
synonyms: dawn, birth, inception, conception, origination, genesis, emergence, rise, start, commencement, starting point, launch, onset, outset; More
day one; informalkickoff
“the beginning of the Italian Renaissance”
•opening, introduction, start, first part, preamble, opening statement
“the beginning of the article”
antonyms: end, conclusion
The beginning of the Monopoly game
•the first part or earliest stage of something.
“the ending of one relationship and the beginning of another”
•the background or origins of anything.
“the series explores the beginnings of flight”
synonyms: origin, source, roots, starting point, birthplace, cradle, spring, fountainhead; More
genesis, creation;
literaryfount, wellspring
“the therapy has its beginnings in China”
adjective: beginning
1. new or inexperienced.
“a beginning gardener”
•introductory or elementary.
And here’s a way for you to understand what an analogy is, as in playing monopoly as an analogy to something beginning (remember that term from above?) and what happens in an open game of capitalism over time.
a·nal·o·gy /əˈnaləjē/
noun: analogy; plural noun: analogies
a comparison between two things, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification.
“an analogy between the workings of nature and those of human societies”
•a correspondence or partial similarity.
“the syndrome is called deep dysgraphia because of its analogy to deep dyslexia”
•a thing that is comparable to something else in significant respects.
“works of art were seen as an analogy for works of nature”
•Logic
a process of arguing from similarity in known respects to similarity in other respects.
synonyms: similarity, parallel, correspondence, likeness, resemblance, correlation, relation, kinship, equivalence, similitude, metaphor, simile
“there’s a thinly veiled analogy between his fiction and his real life”
antonyms: dissimilarity
•Linguistics
a process by which new words and inflections are created on the basis of regularities in the form of existing ones.
•Biology
the resemblance of function between organs that have a different evolutionary origin.
I think people in quite a few places would agree with, “When a few have everything it’s time for a revolution.”
A think a recent survey showed that most young people in Europe are ‘ in favour of revolution’.
No doubt they think life would be easier , like pre-2008, and they could have all the tech toys they want, long holidays and lots of Chinese clothes and retirement at 55, the European Utopia. I very much doubt they could give a coherent account of any of the great revolutions of the 20th century.
When the Norwegian peasants first heard about the French Revolution, they became restive.
But when they learned that after a few years it had done nothing much to improve the lives of the peasants, they settled down again.
‘Same saddle, different rider.’ But the new rider can be much, much worse.
The problem with revolutions is what comes bubbling up from the worst level of human nature: lots of illustrations of that from the 20th century. Ideal environment for narcissists, the violent and the power-hungry.
For my part I am very happy indeed that Communism was out-manoeuvred in Western Europe after WW2, and that the violent Maoist revolutionaries of the 1960’s and 70’s were also defeated – they would not have improved a thing, in any respect.
I’ve interviewed some of those people in Spain, and they sicken me – they show no shame for the murders they committed, calling them, still ‘political acts’. They really open up if you pretend to be sympathetic in your politics.
Revolution = being ruled by people who think murder is an acceptable ‘political act’.
Aren’t all wars murders disguised as ‘political acts’ though?
Look at the record here of USA ‘interventions” rightly called military but of course for political ends;
It’s a big, long list!
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47701.htm
Norway was not even a country then. it was a property of Sweden I believe.
Norway was kind of a medieval country well into the 20th century It only entered modern age when Hitler invaded it.
And, your heavy English bias is ignoring the fact that a lot of the aristos were indeed nasty, and were in need of some serious housekeeping.
These are all part of what goes together in “collapse.” Most citizens become too poor; governments cannot get enough resources except possibly by going to war. They try to overtax their citizens. The citizens, in poor health, become more susceptible to plague.
This is fairly different from the imagined “Peak Oil” condition of that many people think of as being ahead. In this imagined situation, everyone lives together at relatively the same level of wealth, in a “happily ever after” scenario, using “less” fossil fuels, plus a continuous supply of electricity, to provide the goods and services they need and want.
Good summary Gail!
People are being told that a Golden Age of renewables lies ahead: fossil fuels just go away (the absurd Guardian ‘Leave It In The Ground’ campaign!) and we still have nice pleasant lives, but cleaner and brighter.
And in a way that’s a good thing, it keeps things quiet. On doesn’t read child a bedside story about cancer…..
The likely late-Roman reality of impossible taxes, plagues, banditry, famine and war is conceptually too traumatic to cope with.
“governments cannot get enough resources”
“governments need a Central Bank to fund the defict that allows them to go to war and continue lining the pockets of the already wealthy”
FIFY
Koombaya Lite
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/11/opinion/how-we-are-ruining-america.html
half of all college students don’t get a degree.
of the half who get degrees, half of them get jobs where they don’t need their degree.
so only about one fourth of college students obtain worthwhile degrees.
(who said college is babysitting with beer?)
too many average students go to college.
often because there are few good jobs for high school grads.
but there’s hope!
after The Collapse, the inequality between college grads and non-grads will virtually disappear!
voila!
In the comments on an article about failing post-industrial towns in Britain, one theme that emerged was that many such places are now supported in employment by only two institutions: the hospital, and the local ‘university’.
Even where the local economy is not failing as such, they are now an important employer and consumer of services, regardless of the quality or appropriateness of the degrees and diplomas offered. One more ‘industry’ in the local mix. Who cares what is being taught there?
What seems morally very wrong these days is the staff of these places parasitically living off the debt incurred by the clueless students.
++++++++++++
Living off student debt is bad. Never thought of it that way. What other options do they have?
“What seems morally very wrong these days is the staff of these places parasitically living off the debt incurred by the clueless students.”
Bingo!!!!
College towns tend to attract the more intelligent, which is why they are prosperous. They are likely to remain so forever.
You’re kidding right.
industrial towns in britain came into being through the accident of geology where they are
thus towns grew to support (eg) mining, or pottery, because coal and pot clay existed there.
once the raw material have been exhausted, the towns have no purpose, but of course the simple reality is beyond comprehension—therefore they are kept alive at the taxpayers expense, hosptials, local government or simply benefit handouts.
when the government runs out of money, these towns will collapse altogether.
it will not be pleasant
I usually avoided the temptation to give advice to my kids, but one occasion was when my eldest was about to go to University.
I warned that he might finish with a degree, but knowing less than when he entered.
Universities teach what can be taught, but acquiring skills and retaining marketable insights tends not to be on their curriculum.
Universities can certainly offer excellent instruction in Acquired Uselessness, if one is not careful.
If degrees were truly very helpful, a person would think that the much higher average education now would lead to much higher wages of young people now, relative to in the past. Instead, their opportunities are limited. There are way too many people with any given degree (say dietician) tending to push wages down. As you say, many end up in jobs that didn’t require an advanced degree. Or they end up in part-time “contract” jobs that pay too little.
The ones who end up dropping out, who also have debt, are especially disadvantaged. I expect that many of them are from families in which the parents did not go to college.
There is a storm coming 1%
My message to the rich people in NYC.
And someone is gowning to have to explain how the rich used so much oil and left so much little for all the rest. LOL Good luck! The elites are trapped like rats. And they know it..
Important pop culture clip. Another valuable contribution to the discussion. Thanks!
JMG is now talking about the eclipse and its relation to Astrology. He has gone full blow Michael Ruppert.
Don’t worry there are smart people working in our Government they would create a false flag to invade other oil producing countries before we run out of oil.. https://media.tenor.co/images/f2f79ab9b8d8ce96116a82be6bf6ba8b/tenor.gif
http://imgur.com/a/3xL2b
http://www.theonion.com/article/soldier-excited-take-over-fathers-old-afghanistan–56731
Sears Revenues to Hit Zero in 3 Years. But Bankruptcy First
https://wolfstreet.com/2017/08/25/sears-revenues-to-hit-zero-in-3-years-but-bankruptcy-first/
Oh. Well American’s can just buy their washing machines off of Amazon..
The Global Economy,US Economy,US Wages, have declined for the last forty years
Global Economy Decline
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG
US Economy Decline
http://imgur.com/a/KRPIF
US Wages to GDP Delcline
http://imgur.com/a/Lu6vJ
It is the rate of growth that has declined for both the global economy and the world economy. The rate of growth is tied to the growth in the consumption of energy products. As the growth in the consumption of energy products slowed, growth in the leverage of human labor slowed. Now we are at a point where the growth in energy consumption is not even keeping up with world population growth. Increasing complexity, together with the slowing leverage of human labor, led to the fall in wages as a share of GDP.
This is vaguely related to EROEI theory, but EROEI theory is based on a very limited model. It does not explain most of this. It also does not provide a reasonable estimate of wind and solar, compared to fossil fuels. For people who want to see historical EROI charts, this is a link to a recent EROI paper. https://victorcourt.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/court-fizaine-2017_long-term-estimates-of-fossil-fuels-erois1.pdf
http://imgur.com/a/LiMN6
Confirms Trump as a fascist, racist.
Not all Republicans are racist but all racist are always Republicans.
I am a racist but I am not a Republican. Does that conflict trouble you?
You do know what party fought tooth and nail to keep slavery and what party runs the inner city’s were black people are drooping like flies.
Too much junk food and no enough exercise will have anyone drooping link an unmilked cow eventually.
The Dems have made a fine art out of building coalitions of underprivileged minorities such as various “peoples of color”, LGTB, welfare recipients, university faculty members, and the Wall St. banking fraternity, In the process, they’ve managed to alienate more people across the nation than they’ve attracted. Trump is one of the fruits of that strategy. I doubt he won as a result of his personal charm, credibility or charisma alone. For the electorate, it seems his two big plusses were not being Hillary and not being a Democrat.
This is very entertaining. Bravo … moar Don!
No one said late stage capitalism would be fun.
Pigs always walk anyway, so this is to be expected.
Fascinating. Pre-Apocalyptic America just keeps on surprising one.
Applebees is blaming Millennials for closing over 160 stores nationwide. Question? Do you think Millennials don’t like to eat hamburgers?
Applebees sells junk food meals of all kinds, not just hamburgers. Even their vegetables are deep fried. Really no kidding, cause I ate them ‘once’. Everything is super fatty, chalk full of sugar & salt, cholesterol city USA. Felt very queasy for many hours after that meal. If snowflakes are responsible for it’s downfall, then that’s a wise decision on their part.
Yes American’s really hate unhealthy food don’t they? Maybe all those corn fed country boys decided to go on a diet and become Vegans?
The fatty food is no more attractive. In Slovakia, several brands of lower callories
fruit/vegetables fastoods have gained its postion in the shopping malls in the recent years:
Fruit, milk and vegetable coctails:
http://www.laugaricio.com/fresh/p-11/
The already present Asia food (until now mainly China and Vietnamese) have added Japanese sushi (the picture is not up to date, as there is a big additional banner und the Chine and Vietnamese foods that offers Japanese sushi):
http://www.laugaricio.com/panda-azijske-speciality/p-15/
French sandwiches (without the picture of the given fastfood unit):
http://www.laugaricio.com/french-sandwich/p-16/
Chicken specalties:
http://www.laugaricio.com/pollo-kuracie-speciality/p-12/
Buble drinks (without the picture of the given stand):
http://www.laugaricio.com/bubbleology/p-59/
And even the grill house has a limited offer of salads:
http://www.laugaricio.com/don-papa-s-grill-house/p-14/
Another fresh food bar:
http://www.laugaricio.com/ugo-freshbar/p-125/
Only one unit with traditional Slovak food:
http://www.laugaricio.com/koliba-ovecka/p-17/
and some units with pizza and coffee.
All this is in the biggest shopping mall in my district town.
NO MORE FATTY FOOD…
But surely, living in Central Europe requires pork fat? !
Only a limited number of people in Slovaka raises pigs today. And we do not eat so much potatoes, but more rice, pasta.
The collapse will be fast and will happen at the speed of technology
Extrastronghorseradishplz…davidin100trillionyears:
Are you so clueless that you do not know that this is the topic? Rather than act like teenage girls, perhaps you should offer some contrary arguments. I, for one, would welcome it. I would like a way out of our trap. Better yet, engage our host in an intellectual debate, if you’re able. Otherwise, don’t waste the bandwidth.
What’s your prediction for the next five years Japate?
“I would like a way out of our trap.”
I thought that was the primary purpose of this website. To convince us there is absolutely no other possibility than we are trapped in a corner of imminently approaching collapse. Just try to come up with some kind of light at the end of the tunnel and FE will spend as many hours and posts as needed to counter argue even a sliver of light.
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/c3/7d/61/c37d6101d0b8cbe49918d20b4004c446–admiral-ackbar-star-wars-meme.jpg
Cliffhanger: A study conducted by the U.S. Congress, relative to an EMP attack on the North American continent posited a 90% reduction of the population within the year after. I would extend this to a further 90% reduction in the following year. An energy/economic collapse might very well mimic these projections. In any case, the differences are probably just quibbles.
I suggest that the sort of catastrophic collapse that you and others anticipate, would produce nearly the same results.
Oh my God, so many people are going to die. It’s a calamity, a collapse, it’s all going away so fast. Oh, sorry, my toast just popped up!
“Oh my God, so many people are going to die. It’s a calamity, a collapse…”
the future is going to be really bad…
and I mean REALLY BAD if measured by human deaths…
it is certain that by 2117 or so…
ALL persons alive today will be DEAD…
I know that’s a shock to those who aren’t Doomers…
but come on, we’re all adults here…
Reality is one tough dude.
“it is certain that by 2117 or so…
ALL persons alive today will be DEAD…”
There may be a few random people that were recently born that make it to over a 100, so technically, unless there is an extinction event, that statement is inaccurate. Try 2037 and it’s probably right, but even that could be wrong, because with genetic engineering, etc. and I know this kind of talk is anathema for this website of ultimate global doom, but to finish, people may be living longer than they do today.
No need to panic quite yet.
Wait until your toast stops popping up.
Even an hour without electricity is painful. Just wait until the power goes out for good. It will be chaos in a matter of hours in major US cities. After days it will be an unrecoverable disaster.
Yes, Greg, when the E goes out – our world goes dim and after a time of silence the sounds will get scary. Here’s a short term tip – don’t let that perishable food go bad by going to the store and getting two blocks of ice. Stick one in the fridge at the top, because cold descends and one in the freezer. If you’re wealthy enough, get a back up generator, the type that is hooked up the circuit breaker box outside and goes on immediately after losing power. That won’t work long term but will help in case of power outages that last less than a couple of weeks.
enjoy your toast and toaster while you can.
diesel back-up generators are limited by the amount of viable* diesel stored on site, plus most make a lot of noise that will generate (no pun intended) interest in those without it. similarly, lights on at night will attract unwanted attention to your location.
*diesel fuel will go bad if not properly stored and treated.
The answer to that would be to schedule regular restocking for all storage sites, according to the respective dates of storage implementation at each site. That would require industrial society and adequate governance (perhaps military) to be in place…in perpetuity, or pending a new discovery that posed a viable alternative.
not saying a ‘new discovery’ isn’t possible, but any ”new” process has always been born out of old ones. Nothing is ever ”magicked” out of nowhere.
Our existence seems to be governed by the availability of elements, that we use for our collective benefit. We know what these elements are. There are no new ones.
Such elements are brought together in complex compounds, The prime usage of these compounds would appear to be through the use of heat.
If we don’t/can’t use heat then very few elements would appear to be of any use to us. Even lithiumm, pronounced as our great saviour, require colossal heat input at every stage of production and use
If we do use heat, then we can only do it by setting fire to the planet we live on.
“If we do use heat, then we can only do it by setting fire to the planet we live on.”
Sobering thought. I imagine a new discovery, if one were to happen, would have to be human/social/psychological as much as anything.
Anyone with diesel or solar or who produces food…. post BAU …. will become a target for the hordes.
Yes I just recently read the great book. “One second after’. The only thing bad about it was it was written by a conservative so it had a little to much jingoism for me. But besides that it was great.
yes reading it now and you are completely right.
There are two possibilities, in my opinion, when the age of oil ends
1.) Collapse, chaos and death of our species.
2.) Controlled depopulation (afterwards: iron boot stamping on a human face — in perpetuity. Aka feudalism improved by modern technology.
3.) uncontrolled depopulation: collapse, chaos and the death of 99.999 percent of our species.
maybe only thousands or tens of thousands remain to live as hunter/gatherers unless some of the survivors can manage to do some farming or at least grow some gardens.
sounds like fun!
4) Thorium fission, Mr. Fusion, flying Teslas. Warp Drive, going where no one has gone before, romances with alien women who have six breasts…..
5) No heaven, no countries, nothing to live or die for, no religion too, and all the people living for today.
Ah ha! You may say I’m a MOREon.
But I’m not the only one.
I hope some day you’ll join us.
SInging Kumbaya while sitting on our bums.
6) Neofeudalism with everybody tending their organic gardens and big smiles all round!
7) Neofeudalism with a with everybody tending the communal organic gardens and a stern, serious and almost austere attitude all round.
8) Darlektopia, in which amorphous mutant humanoids encased in metallic life support systems roll around obeying their superiors and exterminating anything that moves.
http://notevenpast.org/wp-content/uploads/imagecache/lg_/Screen%20shot%202012-06-28%20at%203.34.51%20PM.png
I’m 74 and I grew up on Galveston Bay. I can tell you that this hurricane will be shrugged off. This is a nothing burger. Grow up. You think that the Gulf Coast of Texas has not endured this sort hurricane and much worse since records have been kept? The only thing unique that is going on is the relatively few serious hurricanes over the past decade or so, as should be expected from a relatively minor increase in global temperatures.
Except the last times the oil industry was not teetering on the ragged edge of bankruptcy, the refinery yield was not collapsing due to low quality oil, and the us government and financial system had real capital left. The older refineries are not worth rebuilding, they will take the insurance money and run.
It will be a major milestone when there are not sufficient funds left to repair after a major natural disaster one of these days. You are correct, but not this time I don’t think. Texas has the funds and strong economy to withstand the damage and recover.
hurricanes have roared in from the sea, all over the world, for all time.
that isn’t the point.
during the last century we have put things in the path of hurricanes that constitute a barrier to natural forces.
so we delude ourselves that natural forces can be ignored, and any damage fixed.
we ignore the fact that rebuilding involves constant energy input.
The structures getting knocked down were built with cheap surplus energy years ago, as time goes on, and more hurricanes hit, we are being forced to rebuild using energy that gets more and more expensive each time it happens.
You cannot rebuild a sea wall with the output of a solar panel or wind turbine
It follows then, that over the coming decades, whatever nature knocks down is going to stay down because we will not have the means to rebuild it.
Another historical infrastructure example would be the great houses which the rich merchants and aristos built for themselves in Britain in the 17th-mid-19th centuries.
Originally they were built with very cheap labour (although the transport of building materials was very expensive) and funded from the profits of owning ever-improving agricultural land, with of course money made from the cheap labour of slaves in foreign plantations and general commerce within a growing Empire.
By the end of WW2, when the great houses were returned to their owners after having been requisitioned by government and the military, the owners often found that they could no longer afford to maintain and repair them.
In the intervening period, they had sold off land to pay accumulating debts, labour was no longer dirt cheap, and land itself no longer produced the wealth it once had (this started in the period 1870-1914, the great Agricultural Depression).,and high inheritance taxes had been imposed on private fortunes (again leading to sale of the supporting land).
The assumptions which had lain behind the original calculation that building and maintaining such houses would be viable for generations no longer applied. (Earlier generations had had no trouble at all with re-building on a large-scale after frequent house fires – the estates had easily funded the work.
So they were mostly torn down – 4,000 after WW2 alone. England may seem rich in beautiful houses now, but it is just a shadow of what once was.
That is what will happen to our immense infrastructure burden.
And it is what happened to the tiled Roman villa which once stood at the top of the hill which rises over this village. All that remained of the system of which it was a part were the dirt tracks from one settlement to another, and which are now tarmaced roads and un-surfaced tracks. No one in this area built with roof tiles or bricks for centuries after…..
the most obvious expression of this—both laughable and cryable—is in the saudi towers and ”commercial cities”.
they can buy the best economic brains in the world, who tell them that the revenue from such fantasies will continue to deliver revenue after the oil has gone.
whereas 15 minutes in OFW world would tell them the truth, (for nothing) that they are repeating Shelley’s immortal lines:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
I always find that intensely moving, no matter how many times I read it.
And yet no one ever thinks that the lesson it contains will apply to them.
For Norman: (posted elsewhere but in what might be perpetual moderation owing to its length)
In trying to provide a foil for your ideas, I can only muster a scattered selection of thoughts. I hope it stimulates some discussion, just the same.
Part of how I’d like to challenge your thesis of some inevitable energy dynamic proceeding in such a way as to determine the ongoing sixth human extinction (pretty much the way it is happening) is to look at what global society values. I look through the lens of landscape, but also through consideration of Africa, a place that in human civilization is deemed next to the land at the bottom of the hierarchy of things valued and respected. The African megafauna didn’t die off as they did in other continents. But even now, Africans might be castigated as being more like monkeys than people. That’s supposed to be ab insult. Black Africa never invented the wheel. That is seen as a sign of “backwardness,” but the wheel and other rotary motion lead us right up to the jaws of extinction. But maybe I should lump the feminine in there along with land and Africa as a consortium of the lowly among a global value system.
Africa:
I single out Africa, for the west, critically the US, denigrates Africa, whereas Africa offers the US, as the hegemonic western power, a second chance. American Africans comprise 13% of the US population, while American African culture predominates throughout the nation. America has such a historical intermingling with African culture that it clearly would have the advantage over China in establishing a mutually beneficial relationship with Africa. But it would have to stop using black Americans for target practice and for other oppressive purposes. Meanwhile, all the energy in the room is taken up by people who want to do exactly the opposite of what I recommend, and do it in the name of “making America great again!” A few points about Africa and energy:
– The surplus energy derived from African slaves’ production of sugar and cotton underpins the industrial revolution.
– Western civilization overlooks that, and overlooks the natural world that was the catapult draw for African peoples. Western civilization, by the nature of its thought structure, can’t relate to the Africa/nature connection. No wonder the west treats nature as a dead thing and the African as cursed, and no wonder it would destroy its very self by so doing.
– Rhythm, a major asset of the African, greatly extended a given amount of material energy. The role of rhythm and fractals in producing energy needs to be studied. I suspect that it is the convergence of fractals with rhythm that has led to the predominance of the African in sports and music. Rhythmic work songs helped withstand brutal, killing forced labor.
http://www.ted.com/talks/ron_eglash_on_african_fractals?language=en
http://fraktalneenergije.com/en/energy.html
Women and Land:
I would also put women and land in the category of what the west, as with the African, considers worthy to be exploited but of no inherent value. But women don’t excel at violent crime or old growth deforestation. Women, perhaps inevitably for a fledgling species coming to grips with vagaries of civilization and its extremely limited psychological resources, have been subordinated to the categories males dominated, categories like ethnicity, tribe or states. Women have been subordinated to support these male dominant divisions, taking their identities from them, while emerging feminism thought (only possible in a high-surplus-energy system) might support speculation about detaching women from male dominant structures, producing something like a separate feminine species. Land is inextricably intertwines with issues of the African and the feminine in western thinking. And women separated from male constructs, become, potentially, the first humans to identify as a global entity over any other grouping, putting land first.
—————-
Artleads
interesting set of thoughts, i’ll try to deal with them in a logical progression if i can. It is not possible to examine what we face, while ignoring religions, population pressures, energy resources, the determination to survive and the collective insanity driven by our genetic forces.
I try to stand back and take the long perspective on where we are, and where we are headed.
To do that one needs a start point. In the case of humankind, that’s maybe 200k yrs in modernish form, maybe 1m yrs in firemaking form. Humankind is the only ‘aware’ species, creating gods and such to explain an existence in a way that other animals have no need of .
Mankind started in Africa, and diverged into several subspecies,(neanderthals etc) of which we are the ultimate survivors. We are the survivors because we were better at resource appropriation in a variety of adverse circumstances. We don’t know why. (that point is critical to any discussion on this thread).
Our subspecies itself diverged into racial types, black white coloured and so on, simply as a response to environmental pressures. Unfortunately our (Mid-east Eurocentric) ancestors, by then infected with self created gods, saw this as some kind of divine intervention/plan, having convinced themselves that they were ‘created’ 6k years ago.
We spread across Eurasia until 15k yrs ago, then entered the American continent, which until that time was virgin in human terms. We carried on grabbing resources that belonged to other species. Hence megafauna died out. However you want to put it, it was part of the same energy dynamic system which drives us today.
African megafauna didn’t die off because man and animals evolved in the same environment, at the same time, and thus struck a balance. This is why European diseases didn’t wipe out 90% of Africans, they carried immunity. In the Americas, that balance didn’t exist. There, it was as if aliens had landed, both 15k years ago, and in 1492 with Columbus when infection decimated the native peoples. (that too was divine intervention).
The Spanish were on yet another resource grab. (gold primarily)
the white man came to dominate the rest through accidents of climate and geology,—but it was seen as divine providence. Nevertheless our ancestors had to explain the physical prescence of the black man, so they wrote a book to ‘prove’ their godfacts. Then used the same book to justify enslavement and resource theft. The first nation peoples were useless as slave labour, so the (immune) black man was brought in instead to exploit energy resources.
If I was African/American I would be annoyed too.
Africa was the last great continental bloc to be divvied up between the European powers (1885), purely as a resource grab.
This is still with us today. Hence the current white/right thing is rearing its ugly head again. It has a powerful religious righteous insanity behind it, and will if unchecked, lead to a theocratic dictatorship. (before ultimate collapse).
How?
Because we are still resource grabbing as fast as we can. This is driven by our need to survive. African resources are still being stolen. The American continent has been stripped of most resources, (over the last 200 years) but the people still insist on having more. But effectively there is no more. But their existence depends on more.
So reasons are demanded, but man is un-reasonable by nature. (see above about god etc) So blame must be apportioned somewhere. So a leader arises to point the finger, and the mob chants in unison. (check Germany in 1933). Get rid of/subjugate the people responsible for your misfortunes, and all will be well again. They are promised infinite growth and are too stupid to think otherwise. I hope this sounds familiar?
Instead decline sets in, which is where we are now, but we have been conditioned to expect infinite resources. 44m USA people are on food aid. rational explanations of this are unacceptable, so the result is civil disorder driven by thoughtless demand. Violence needs direction, so it focusses on those deemed responsible (Germany in the 30s again). Violence will continue because the system is unjust. We have all allowed it to be.
The ultimate reaction to this can only be military intervention and martial law, suspension of the constitution and installation of a military dictator. That will happen because there will be no other options. Given the current god-obsession, it will be a theocracy. Another rung on our political ladder.
As to women, the female is in many ways the ultimate sought after resource. In theocratic societies, the female is always subjugated. This is yet another manifestation of what you see happening around you, right now. A political system that seeks to restrict and confine women’s rights. It reinforces my certainties of future theocracy.
Our history has been a resource grab. The white race has spent the last 500 years plundering the earth’s resources in the name of civilisation and progress and holy writ. We will go on doing that until there’s nothing left, then we will die back to what we were.
Exactly what that will be — -your guess is as good as mine.
Individually we are capable of altrustic kindness, collectively we are not
https://medium.com/@End_of_More/legacy-oil-bcac8157070b
“What we see around us represents energy surplus. Every piece of glass, plastic, brick in every house represents surplus fossil fuel. As does every road, railway line and aircraft.”
Most people don’t understand what is meant by surplus energy. That includes artists. But you seem close to defining it even more understandably than we have seen thus far. I suppose that part of the explanation means we can achieve sufficiently abundant energy to create surplus things other than the basics like food and shelter. But I don’t think that’s an automatic stage of energy dynamics. There appears to be such a thing as infection via energy-related paradigms that are accidental and circumstantial. I believe that at each stage of “cultural evolution” a cluster of attitudes inevitably associate with an “energy state.” The energy state, while essential, can’t be separated from the cultural state. The two are mutually determinative of the other’s achievements. What happens on a small and finite planet isn’t what necessarily has to happen. It is instead happenstance, embodying an extremely fledgling species, a species that simply happened up on fire (as Gail repeats) and the subsequent effects of heat (as you discuss).
To begin to address our predicament, we must pay primary attention to the longest lasting tribal groups–the Australian aborigines of 50,000 years duration, the 20,000 year long San culture of South Africa and the 100,000 year pull on a catapult that produced the San. It is a distressing habit to shoehorn these ancient people (who still linger on) into a paradigm of western making. “They are simply an early version of us.” But that is false and painfully presumptuous. These people were different from us, with a cluster of life ways and values unlike our own. The overpowering surplus energy that our line of people discovered and that crushed these early peoples changed our very essence in the process.
“The Apollo space programme was itself a legacy enterprise built at the top of a pyramid of energy/industrial/technological input started by the Wright brothers. (or the steam engine, depending on your perspective). That meant a buildup of almost 2 centuries of industrial strength to deliver a series of moonshots. The ultimate propulsion system was no different from that of Chinese fireworks 1000 years ago. (exploding chemical combustion/reaction).”
“Try to think of it as a 200 year pull on a catapult, rather than a Kennedy speech.”
These quotes make it as clear as I’ve seen how what we do now is based on the past. Like the Apollo space program’s association with China!
This gets to the point, and is an excellent educational measure.
Thinking Inside/Outside the Box (samples):
– I see how desperately hard it is to get sensible ideas understood in my own community. The most elementary planning recommendations fall on deaf ears. The following examples are not at all untypical. People don’t have the freedom of mind to routinely think outside the box. For some reason, I’m incapable of thinking inside the box. The possibilities that for most people seem unimaginable are for me simple and obvious. To say that the human species follows laws that determine their doing stupid things of the sort that I can see through makes no sense to me. (I have my own huge gaps of understanding, but there are many people who can fill in for me with those, while there seems to be fewer who can replicate the qualities I excel in. A system where people could fill in for my deficiencies but allows me to fill in for theirs might get a lot more accomplished).
– Our village water coop has several large water tanks. Exposed to the blazing sun, they tend to get infected with listeria. I suggest that they install a shade structure to decrease sun exposure, as well as provide more rain catchment surface. Does this very simple suggestion sink in? No chance. They’re thinking of all kinds of technical and chemical fixes instead.
So there are enormous human difference wrought by special circumstances or accidents which can relatively blunt those deterministic views of thermodynamics and energy dissipation as also oversimplification and one-size-fits-all analyses. (I read where genetic traits correlate to how land was used to apportion power centuries ago…something to that effect anyhow.)
Collective vs Individual
We may differ in how both are viewed:
– In some cases, the collective is given due when I think it’s the individual that matters.–Descartes, Newton, Darwin, Luther, Columbus, by no means all a bunch of saints.
made the world enormously different from what it might have been (good or bad) without them.
– In other cases, just the opposite–emphasis on individual prepping rather than how communities are organized. Taking the individualism which is merely a recent offshoot of capitalism–and probably serving isolation and inability to confront the power structure–as the inevitable condition of humans.
– A great deal of how I see the present derive from what ancestors did centuries ago.
– What it is to be human are behaviors, not our physical hardware. This means having little reverence for the genetically human. If they aren’t deemed human, they might be treated as one would a fly, a pig, a rodent. So it might be that it’s the program people follow, and nothing else, that determines their value.
– It is mistakenly believed that Earth’s predicament can be addresses through the lens of human affairs. It’s the land that matters most.
– I’m not interested in individual survival but rather in following what experience, will and other attributes lead me to do. I don’t see us as automatons.
Art:
Art is free. An artist should imagine the world as they wish it to be. The artist cannot be a realist.
The artist isn’t realistic. To be realistic is to conform to someone else’s idea of reality. The artist’s reality might not seem realistic to anyone else at first. Too often, thermodynamic determinism flies in the face of individual proclivity. It is unwaveringly “realistic.”
(At some further point, I will consider if art is one of those surplus things. The San of South Africa appear exceedingly simple and basic compared with Australian aborigines. The latter seem to have elaborate body and mural painting, together with elaborate rituals. Why the difference? Rhetorical question at this point.)
The first 1/3 rd got through, but the longer remainder didn’t. Some other time, although moderation might release some or all of the diatribe. 🙂
Artleads, your problem, in a nutshell, is you continue to seek solutions to a predicament, which is a set of problems without solutions, hence, a predicament.
i think its more clarification of what the problems are, rather than seeking solutions
perhaps, but i think we are all guilty of looking for mitigation strategies in the false hope that they will delay or at least weaken the effects of collapse. and they might, for awhile, like being the last fans to leave the stadium after the game is over. what victory!
Hi Norm,
We’re saying different things but they aren’t all necessarily inconsistent.
Since you place religion so centrally in your discussion, I feel emboldened to say that I’m also centered on “religion,” although, whereas existing religions depend on rules, dogma, rituals, and also depend on conscription of the many–“more,” if you like–I’m repelled by all of that.
I come at it from extreme “romantic liberalism” I have still to define clearly. This Chris Hedges quote fits me, as far as it goes:
“Cone… in his book, labeled this capacity to defy the forces of repression ‘a sublime madness in the soul. Niebuhr wrote that ‘nothing but madness will do battle with malignant power and spiritual wickedness in high places.’ ” This sublime madness, as Niebuhr understood, is dangerous, but it is vital. Without it, ‘truth is obscured.’ And Niebuhr also knew that traditional liberalism was a useless force in moments of extremity.”
So I very much like the American religious impulse, since I can picture it being divinely mad. But, IMO, American religiosity got things wrong, as have all formal religions globally.
All traditional religions come out of a world not yet truly “mapped” or “compassed.” Since I don’t connect to “last days” and rapture ideas, I have no truck with apocalyptical evangelicals, and base my preferences on what I see as reality.
No religion has had the privilege of facing what a reasonable assessment would see as the end of the world. Physical sciences, as well as psychology (as they exist) can offer no way out. So my religion would have to be based on unreason (divine madness), adherence to science and psychology, only with the understanding that they have a long way to go, and continue daily to make new discoveries, but mostly on what is revealed to my deepest sense of reality/logic. I can’t explain this sense of reality/logic, and can only suppose it’s based on the kind of intuitive understanding that is the basis for religious “faith.” But faith isn’t quite the term for me, for what I sense/feel is absolute certainty. This William Faulkner saying resonates with me: “Man will not merely endure; he will prevail.”
It’s like a maths puzzle, and I’m here on FW to find out how the pieces fit together logically. They DO fit together.
Women: Male systems have up till now been human systems as well. Women’s reproduction kept them alive. But all this might have been understandable before we got to number 7.5 BN. If there is a straightforward need for human population to increase, I’m not clear on what it is. However, much of the furor we see with the alt-right has to do with the realization of whites being dwarfed by the increase of non white peoples nationally and worldwide. We have to see with white people, while recognizing that they are up to a great deal of mayhem in the world. But it is white men doing the shooting and dealing. And insofar as white women identify as “white people” it strengthens “white people.” So, from a global politics (and survivalist) POV, it would be preferable for white women to identify as global-species-women instead.
But realism creeps in. Might we greatly lower our expectations of white women without giving up entirely? Liberal, educated white women should focus laser-like on poor white women in the alt-right camp. And as with a strategic campaign in war, they have to inch incrementally, as close as they can get away with at a time, to restoring reproduction rights that have been stripped away by the evangelical right. Since this would be a most difficult campaign, its strategists would most definitely need to refrain from taking on the panoply of issues that they might be wont to do. One thing mainly: preserving reproduction rights where it exist, shoring it up where it is starting to falter, and devising something like the underground railroad to spirit away poor white women who need to leave town temporarily or permanently. One doesn’t give up a fight without knowing what to fight or how to fight it in the first place. You can’t claim defeat if you haven’t tried.
Africa: Some effort to repatriate some US blacks to Africa might be a helpful all around. Again, that would be a most difficult campaign, one that hasn’t even been considered seriously (AFAIK), much less attempted. Again, if you haven’t tried it you can’t say it’s impossible.
So, I don’t see that good governance is being proposed anywhere, much less tried. (And good governance in one place and not the entire planet can’t work. But where is the start to any such endeavor?)
The world is run by male types who have yet to figure out that what goes around comes around. If it wasn’t so sad it would be laughable. Winning at the expense of others has shown itself as unworkable to any reasonable person. Conceptually anyway, it’s easy to see that the world isn’t even lifting a finger to save itself. Again, FW is the best place I know of to think through the complexities of such a situation. But if we are absolutely certain that humans must behave as they always have before our impasse was universally so clear, then I see that as using a past set of circumstances to determine a new and unprecedented set of circumstances.
The planet must save itself. Assuming that this is impossible is to get in the way. I make recommendations and try getting out of the way of them being acted on (or not). It’s a paradox: I’m sure that civilization will prevail (and do as I see fit toward that end), but I’m not concerned if it doesn’t.
Thanks, Norman.
If I used the term “predicament” in describing our situation, I was wrong to do so, since I don’t know whether or not we have a predicament. Instead, I’m pretty sure that our species got hung up on some extraordinarily destructive “stories” and habits of thought. Since it’s the human mindset that I continually try to break through, I’d say that mindset is the closest thing I can see to being a predicament. If the human species was rational (or perhaps adequately prepared) it no doubt could solve its other pressing problems.
Since I don’t care to do the things (that would seem rational) like rigorous, disciplined study to gain understanding, I’m not doing well in figuring anything out. Part of me believes that even rigorous study wouldn’t help me. So I instead work at things which come naturally–lifting one fallacious stone after another, lifting veils from one blind spot after another. But the “problem” is too big and complex. I blame myself for not being able to get at the crux of the matter. So, yes, maybe there is a predicament, but it would be a predicament of human understanding (especially mine), nothing else, as far as I can see.
Art and Norman, please allow me to “cut to the chase”, so to speak. We are all going to die. We know it, but we don’t wish to acknowledge it, and the timing is always uncertain. What we discuss here on OFW and on Norman’s blog and book (a very fine blog and book, BTW) is the inevitable die-off that must occur, and in the not-too-distant future. The exact timing is up to debate. Most here would agree that living in BAU beyond 2030 is pushing our luck, some here, at least, will tell you it’s gonna crash in October.
What we are comtemplating is a fast crash that will kill a lot of people in a short amount of time. The only example of something similar that comes to my mind are the large historic China earthquakes that have leveled entire cities, killing tens of millions. We are contemplating even larger disasters. It is mind boggling, for sure.
BTW, I have upmost respect for you both. I hope we can continue to debate these issues without any hard feelings.
trying to exercise a bit of logic in this exchange about doomsday
our current pop is 7.5 bn, and 1 bn are at or close to starvation, and there would seem to be no way of feeding them, because food is a commercial resource, and surpluses are:
1 too far away from where they are needed
2 farmers can’t/wont grow food for nothing
3 famines are often in high conflict regions
4 well fed people breed even faster and exacerbate the problem 10/20 years down the line
( and 5 contraception is a factory system product.)
despite that, world pop is on track to reach 9bn by 2050, and maybe double by 2100.
this of course is a nonsense in itself, and won’t/can’t happen.
But if it can’t happen, it follows that something going to prevent it. And in less than 30 years. That something has got to be big enough to take out several billion people in a very short time, globally, because a perceived disaster on one continent will not prevent breeding on another.
Remember the mothers of the next 2 bn are alive now. Instinct will tell them to reproduce. Ovulation stops only when a woman is literally starving.
So you have choices of how that will come about:
1 Pandemics. So far we have been able to stop those (Ebola, HIV etc etc)
2 Nuclear war. Humankind recognises that will kill everybody, so unlikely on a mass scale (though possible)
The above we can control, after a fashion.
So we need something beyond our control, to stop our numbers.
Records show that in the distant past, explosive releases of methane have occurred, that raised global temperatures by several degrees within a decade. That would be sufficient to cut off global food supplies and bring about a mass die off.
Only lack of food stops breeding. That is nature’s shut off valve.
Not a pleasant thought, and most will deny it. But anyone denying it has to answer the question of what to do with a 9 or 11 bn world population.
So there you have it. If the methane bomb goes off, violent conflict will be inevitable as people fight for food and embrace the politics of denial. This will only serve to help natural forces to work, and get the job done more quickly
(and thank you for the kind words about my book)
this link follows on from my methane release thing
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/39957-release-of-arctic-methane-may-be-apocalyptic-study-warns
Scientists have found something about the North Pole that could send a shiver down Santa’s spine: It used to be downright balmy.
In fact, 55 million years ago the Arctic was once a lot like Miami, with an average temperature of 74 degrees, alligator ancestors and palm trees, scientists say.
That conclusion, based on first-of-their-kind core samples extracted from more than 1,000 feet below the Arctic Ocean floor, is contained in three studies published in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/study-north-pole-once-was-tropical/
What comes around goes around?
“The study, titled “Methane Hydrate: Killer Cause of Earth’s Greatest Mass Extinction,” highlights the fact that the most significant variable in the Permian Mass Extinction event, which occurred 250 million years ago and annihilated 90 percent of all the species on the planet, was methane hydrate.”
I doubt that it’s sufficiently appreciated the degree to which animal extinction is already underway, caused as much from land use decisions as from climate change. A Yale Environment article 5 or so years back concluded there to have been a 50% loss of wildlife (unfortunately, with typical vagueness as to how that is quantified) over the precious 40 years, while human population doubled over that same period. Land use madness alone will wipe out the wild nature that remains. In the next 40 years…if such a projection were not madness in and of itself.
maybe a predicament can be defined as something you can extract yourself from.
but the methane thing is something ive been on about for a while now.
archaeology shows that its happened before, and within a decade.
this fits neatly into my certainty those something big and uncontrollable must cull our numbers.
short of an asteroid strike, methane is the only thing that fits the bill
You just blurt sh it without any evidence.
I suppose you read that in the MSM right? Or on some green grooopy f789wit site?
The c has nothing to do with why species are going extinct and everything to do with the fact that humans are paving over the planet destroying habitats — and killing anything that moves that has value to us.
How to spot a re tarrrd:
Whenever something bad happens they automatically blame in man burning more coal.
That is the first thing that pops into their peanut sized brain
I think that Hurricane Harvey will be the black swan that ushers in the beginning of the end of happy motoring. Many of the refineries and unloading terminals will be destroyed and the indebted oil companies will take the insurance payouts and run. There won’t be enough EROI and capital left to rebuild so we will be left a giant rung lower on the energy ladder than we are today. Oil the chains on your bicycles folks.
no, I don’t think this will be the Mother Of All Black Swans… MOABS.
which is what I have been calling the “event” that will bring The Collapse.
no, there will be plenty of these smaller calamities in the coming years.
oh, unless of course the Big One comes sooner.
like the US government shutdown on October 1st.
followed by the stock market “Crash of ’17”.
we’re doomed!
unless we’re not, and the economy wobbles for a few more years.
or a decade or two.
remember, “slowly at first, then all at once.”
U.S. stock valuations haven’t been this extreme since 1929 and 2000
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-stock-valuations-havent-been-this-extreme-since-1929-and-2000-2017-08-22?siteid=YAHOOB
and October is getting closer.
look out below.
Try this:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6db8a5be3aa07e579f4e5697737d0b8bdc5df85ce6b4a7ab46315d4c46a9b386.jpg
This storm puts me and a lot of people in mind of the Galveston hurricane of 1900.
Things are going to be tough for anyone in its path. I hope they can all ride it out safely.
https://historyhodgepodgedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/elpasoherald.png?w=825&h=
https://gsc350.wikispaces.com/file/view/track_htm_txt_trackmapGalveston1900.gif/45270473/434×294/track_htm_txt_trackmapGalveston1900.gif
Too much heat in the oceans amping up the hydrological cycle. The Gulf of Mexico has been record-breakingly warm, so a colossal storm like this is not a surprise:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2017/03/22/gulf-of-mexico-waters-are-freakishly-warm-which-could-mean-explosive-springtime-storms/
Coming ashore:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6db8a5be3aa07e579f4e5697737d0b8bdc5df85ce6b4a7ab46315d4c46a9b386.jpg?w=800&h=587
78% of Americans now live paycheck to paycheck
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/americans-living-paycheck-to-paycheck/
A lot of Americans do not have a pay cheque… because they cannot find a job…. I guess they are not counted in this
or maybe they are counted.
maybe they are including the governmental “safety net”…
where many millions of citizens get their “checks” from Uncle Sam?
Hurricane Harvey a Category 4 storm now … tornado
‘Could be on par with Katrina
The system is packing winds of 215 kilometres per hour, and experts fear could be the most destructive since Katrina left 1,800 people dead in 2005.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has warned it could be “a very major disaster”.
http://cliparting.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Popcorn-clip-art-free-free-clipart-images.jpeg
“The system is packing winds of 215 kilometres per hour, and experts fear could be the most destructive since Katrina left 1,800 people dead in 2005.”
The death of thousands is nothing to celebrate. Popcorn image is in bad taste.
Why do people who live in the path of obvious destruction, not heed warnings to get out, if they can? Why should I feel sorry for these douche.bags then?
And on another note:
On of my sisters is waiting it out in Houston. In answer to why people stay, some wait too long to decide to leave, others it just creeps up on you with the busyness of life. The massive evacuation fiasco that happened with hurricane Ike shows that the roads can only support so many leaving, without becoming a traffic jam of epic proportions. According to you, I guess my sister is a douche bag. BTW, I don’t think most care if you feel sorry for them.
Well I don’t think the hurricane made landfall there. Whether it travels up to Houston is another matter. I’m sorry your sister is trapped there and that the authorities, who seem to have all the money necessary to bomb 7 different nations into the stone age, but don’t, to this day, have a contingency plan for. Wait for it – Gulf Coast hurricanes. I mean, it’s not like they’ve haven’t occurred before.
There is going to be a lot of water damage. A lot of people will suffer as a result. People live near the coast for the same reasons people live in tornado alley. It is just where they live and work. I personally remember Hurricane Carla when I was a kid in Houston. What I remember is the power line in front of my house snapping and waving around the road with live power on it. I remember the sparks as it whipped around and touched things.
The devil’s tail….
BTW everyone. Solar will generate next to nothing for the next week in most of Texas. But wind generators might produce more, as long as they do not shut down due to wind speed.
Some are just poor with no car.
Others are just stubborn Fast may say replace the last b with a m
This is the post that EIA has up about the potential impacts.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=32652
The site give a link that supposedly gives electricity information for Texas, but I couldn’t get it to work.
https://www.eia.gov/beta/realtime_grid/#/summary/demand?end=20170824&start=20170724®ions=002
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/energy-environment/meaning-of-clean-coal-mentioned-by-trump-unclear/2017/08/23/c1eb23fe-8855-11e7-96a7-d178cf3524eb_story.html?utm_term=.2b7ea7d5bafe
Ok, here’s the article on clean coal with the actual quote:
The Republican president took credit for the opening of a coal mine in Pennsylvania, saying, “We’ve ended the war on beautiful, clean coal, and it’s just been announced that a second, brand-new coal mine, where they’re going to take out clean coal — meaning, they’re taking out coal, THEY’RE GOING TO CLEAN IT — is opening in the state of Pennsylvania, the second one.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-25/harvey-strengthens-as-gasoline-surges-on-texas-refinery-threat
I fully expect Trump to claim Obama is to blame for hurricane Harvey and then also claim Harvey is a loser (to cozy up to his base), then in the aftermath refuse help for the region. Beyond whatever alternate reality Trump comes up with, fuel prices are already going up as the Gulf refineries are shutting down for what looks like a week at minimum and possibly longer.
Did you know at that rally in Phoenix Trump said, “We are going to have the cleanest coal. We are going to wash it perfectly clean before using it.” This is our president?!
when i was in the army we used to whitewash it
wats the problem
Michael Caine had to pick leaves off trees by the parade ground, in early autumn, so that none could fall during a Royal visit. I love the military mind.
And what’s your point?
America knew what they were getting when they voted for him.
A loud mouthed bombastic braggart.
And I guarantee you — if another vote was held now – he would win again.
You were trying to make a point????
Fools are destined to repeat history.
The events of the 1590s had suddenly brought home to more thoughtful Castilians the harsh truth about their native land – its poverty in the midst of riches, its power that had shown itself impotent… For this was not only a time of crisis, but a time also of the awareness of crisis – of a bitter realization that things had gone wrong. It was under the influence of the arbitristas that early seventeenth-century Castile surrendered itself to an orgy of national introspection, desperately attempting to discover at what point reality had been exchanged for illusion….
The arbitristas proposed that Government expenditure should be slashed…
Most of the arbitristas recommended the reduction of schools and convents and the clearing of the Court as the solution to the problem. Yet this was really to mistake the symptoms for the cause. MartínGonzález de Cellorigo was almost alone in appreciating that the fundamental problem lay not so much in heavy spending by Crown and upper classes – since this spending itself created a valuable demand for goods and services – as in the disproportion between expenditure and investment. ‘Money is not true wealth,’ he wrote, and his concern was to increase the national wealth by increasing the nation’s productive capacity rather than its stock of precious metals. This could only be achieved by investing more money in agricultural and industrial development. At present, surplus wealth was being unproductively invested – ‘dissipated on thin air – on papers, contracts, censos, and letters of exchange, on cash, and silver, and gold – instead of being expended on things that yield profits and attract riches from outside to augment the riches within. And thus there is no money, gold, or silver in Spain because there is so much; and it is not rich, because of all its riches….’
The Castile of González de Cellorigo was…a society in which both money and labour were misapplied; an unbalanced, top-heavy society, in which, according to González, there were thirty parasites for every one man who did an honestday’s work; a society with a false sense of values, which mistook the shadow for substance, and substance for the shadow.
J.H. Elliott, Imperial Spain: 1469-1716
And so it goes for men who are material.
must be fake news again
AGW isn’t happening—I heard it on OFW
my comment was re the tanker going through the arctic
somehow got in the wrong slot
Actually, AGW has been happening since hunter-gatherer days. We just don’t have a way of balancing our influence in such a way that it will both keep us from (1) Freezing in another ice age, and (2) Overshooting with too much heat. So we talk endlessly about it.
And we produce more co2 when we complain that it’s either too warm or too cold…while those evil plants consume all the co2 in the atmosphere.
the atmospheric gases we breathe are pretty finely balanced in proportion
if you dont believe that, seal yourself in a room with an excess of one of them and see how you get on
That is funny you say that. I was talking to a person the other day who thought Argon was a toxic gas.
Try 90% argon and let me know how long you lived.
Wow what coincidence right Norm????
We live in symbiosis with the plants, trying to maintain a balance, or just trying to stay alive.
Nature (life) always tries to seek balance. Humans are perhaps just a part of that equation.
By our use of fossil fuels we are recycling co2 back into the atmosphere to keep the plants live, who in turn keep us alive.
headbanging time is here again
Norman, Yoshua has a valid point. From a Gaia’s eye view, we are just one more movement in life’s long symphony. And whatever else our liberation of liberal amounts of car-bon di-oxide is doing, the plants are lapping it up.
Planting more trees is all very well, but burning more coal is helping to fertilize and sustain all sorts of plants in all sorts of ecosystems.
Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds
From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25.
An international team of 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries led the effort, which involved using satellite data from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer instruments to help determine the leaf area index, or amount of leaf cover, over the planet’s vegetated regions. The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth
Yes of course it is happening – as has been happening on and off since the earth was formed – but it is not going to boil the world — as we have been told.
Is anyone on FW afraid of boiling to death?
Only after the end of BAU…. In a cannibals’ pot…..
http://img.thedailybeast.com/image/upload/v1492189348/articles/2014/01/21/the-story-behind-the-world-s-greatest-headline/140118-zadrozny-greatest-headline-tease_sfuxoo.jpg
I don’t understand why billionaire, genius investors are short the US stock market. Do they really believe that there will be an economy left the day the stock market collapses? They don’t know that the Fed will pump up the stock market until the day it collapses and after that there will be no civilization left? Or are they they saying that they are short, while in reality they are all in?
Well the ones at the very top, the 0.001% are true dimwits. Blinded by po.wer and gree.d. Anyway, by all accounts, they think they’ll be able to swoop up the last of what remains of the middle-classes wealth, once the bubbles burst, and go happily sailing into the sunset. Somehow, I don’t think events will play out quite like they imagine.
billionaire or pauper, no on can put a time on it
so people go on as they have always done, hoping that things will ”improve” and not go belly up just yet.
the don might nuke korean kim tomorrow—for instance—chances are he won’t.
but other stuff might kick off that we are unaware of
Are we not all blinded by power and greed?
The difference between us and them is that they have succeeded in realizing power and greed.
I don’t know anyone who would say know if someone offering them one billion dollars.
I would say “know” to a billion dollars. It would bring me almost as many problems to be owned by that much wealth as it would to have nothing and have to beg on the street. I wouldn’t say “know” to a million with no strings attached though. It’s not that I’m not greedy, but a man’s got to know his limitations.
+++++++
Don’t Fight the Fed…. they will eventually win …. but it will be a pyrrhic victory…
There will be that oh so brief ‘Big Short’ moment where one realized billionaire status…. and in the blink of an eye that will turn to panic… fear…. shock….. awe……
Then they will be setting rat traps in the hopes of having a meal….
Very very funny actually.
I was told by someone in Bali that the tourist numbers will just keep in building here…. you need to stay in the market … this is the future….. up up and away …. total ignorance of the fact that this is a mirage… fueled by QE…
The right strategy is to sell — and spend. LLL.
Some people will learn their lesson the hard way
Psychiatrists tell Congress Donald Trump is ‘a clear and present danger’ to the world
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-mental-health-psychiatrists-clear-present-danger-world-us-president-dr-bandy-lee-yale-a7911621.html
What do Doctors know anyways…
Who would they prefer to have as the POTUS? Kim Jung-Un? Putin? Merkel? Clinton?
Who would be sane enough and still to run for the presidency?
if the brits hadnt messed up in 1776, they wouldve still had our dear queenie
God save the queen
This fascist regime
He was elected because he acts this way.
Correct.
He has always acted this way.
Americans like this.
That is why they voted for him.
I also like him — because he is very amusing. At the end of the day he is basically a figurehead – he has very little power — he is not the one that is keeping BAU alive – his bosses are.
Rather than have some oh so serious person in that office — pretending they are powerful — I prefer to have someone who makes light of the whole Potus thing.
It is the more appropriate demeanor for someone in this position.
I must say – I feel that I am getting my money’s worth out of the Donald Trump show!
Let me fix this for you “The US is a clear and present danger to the world…..’so it should be no surprise when its elected representative is well, representative huh?
https://www.rt.com/usa/400681-alaskas-thawing-permafrost-decades-away/
Evidently no one understands latent heat and the ice packs ability to absorb excess heat. When the ice is gone game over. Sea ice in particular has been the thermal regulator for a stable seasonal system.
I would be willing to bet that our climate models do not model this correctly, either. There will be a huge increase in “lake effect snow,” increasing the reflectivity of part of the land. The seasons will be deregulated, but I doubt that we have any real idea regarding how.
Sunnier skies driving Greenland surface melt
In the past two decades, the Greenland ice sheet has become the biggest single contributor to rising sea levels, mostly from melt across its vast surface. That surface melt is, in turn, driven mostly by an uptick in clear, sunny summer skies, not just rising air temperatures, a new study finds.
What’s causing the decline in cloud cover isn’t yet clear, but the work shows that understanding what’s behind the trend and developing ways to better represent clouds in ____ ______ models will be crucial to predicting how much Greenland will melt in the future.
Stefan Hofer, a PhD candidate at the University of Bristol in England, and his colleagues looked into what the main drivers of that surface melt were, in particular the effect of cloud cover on melt.
In satellite data spanning the past two decades, they saw a significant decrease in cloud cover over Greenland starting in the mid-90s, which would mean more sunlight was falling on the ice and driving melt.
“Our results clearly show that the reduction in summer cloud cover is an important driver in the recent melt increase on the Greenland ice sheet,” Hofer said in an email.
http://www.salon.com/2017/07/04/sunnier-skies-driving-greenland-surface-melt_partner/
http://media.salon.com/2012/07/670398main_greenland_2012194-673-620×412.jpg
Of course the MSM will tell us that the decreased cloud cover is man-made…. even though there is ZERO evidence of that.
Like Gail says —- change is constant. Nothing new hear.
Greenland was actually green at one time
I believe there is a correlation of the sun’s output of cosmic rays and cloud cover. The sun is going through a change right now. Therefore our climate is reacting and changing also.
The Ludicrous Prepper Plans of the Super Rich
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/08/ludicrous-prepper-plans-super-rich.html
great prepper link Cliff—thanks
loved it, just what I’ve been saying for years
Someone posted this comment about this article on reddit
“A jarhead buddy of my husband works for a private “security” firm that has a couple of these places as clients. Said that if the day ever comes the rules will change. And that he gets a salary now, and a free shelter and breeding stock later. “If it goes down while I’m still young, I will have more kids than Brigham Young.” he said around the campfire recently, “Won’t even have to grease the old man, just tell him ‘no’ once and watch him stroke out while I breed his daughters.”
lol
real old school charm there
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://ei.marketwatch.com//Multimedia/2016/01/27/Photos/ZH/MW-EE076_soros__20160127113703_ZH.jpg
VS
https://matthewshanemcdonald.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/070928_blackwater_hmed_12pstandard.jpg
+++++++++++++++++
I doubt that they have five years of fresh water. I don’t think that five years of bodily wastes would be fun to live with. They clearly will have to have quite a bit of contact with the outside world, whether they want it or not.
The only difference between them and Preppers like Jan — is that Jan gets to enjoy fresh air before he is wiped out — whereas these fools will be locked in their coffins…
Nobody gets out of this alive
If the photo is any indication, it looks like there is a wind turbine at that location for power. What will stop some disgruntled pleb from shooting at it?
Tombs.
Over 7k retail stores have closed down this year so far. Restaurants and bars are having their worst year since 2009. Applebees even just announced they are closing around 160 stores nationwide. And car sales have been negative in the red all year despite dealers offering their largest incentives in their history. This is growth? WTF?
I am in Indonesia. East Java. Every few days I take a long walk along the roads through the rice/corn/soy/peanut/sugarcane/teak fields. Here the rainfall is great and will give one crop per year or maybe two and on a very odd year three.
In order ensure three crops a year the farmers use petrol driven pumps to irrigate. Imagine how many such small engines there are in Indonesia. It must be a very large number.
What if circumstances were to force farmers to change to electric pumps for out on the farm? That would be a lost investment bcs money would be spent for no return. It is just replacing a system that already worked. And where would the electricity come from to power the pumps?
And even if they could plug in the pump. would some farmers not be able to afford a new pump and so not farm? Or would they go into debt?
What if the entire world wished to retool to electricity, assuming it were possible. The costs would be such that it would mean years of the world economy with no profit. How would economies pay the interest on their huge debts if they are – with no profits – all effectively shrinking?
There are so many issues of this kind across an economy. People with their belief in electricity…they have no idea that we have a 150 year infrastructure investment in oi that covers every sector of society and the entire globe.
I just wrote a piece agreeing with your comment, in reply to Ugo Bardi, who seem to have acquired a renewables fixation these days
https://medium.com/@End_of_More/legacy-oil-bcac8157070b
Ugo Bardi is one who is very concerned about climate change. He wants desperately to find a solution, and thinks that some kind of renewables (kites that generate electricity is one I remember) will save us. He ended up leaving TheOilDrum.com, to a significant extent because of his strong views in this direction.
a very clever man
but misguided I fear
Prof. Bardi has children, he is understandably anxious.
I much prefer his posts when they stick to little-known facets of Italian history, and the facts about natural resources and their degradation, than when he zooms off into solar fantasies.
We have spoken at many conferences together, so I have had many meals with him. His children are grown, but he has grandchildren.
Ugo Bardi is listed as one of the chief editors of Charlie Hall’s new journal “BioPhysical Economics and Resource Quality,” but I have seen little recent correspondence that would indicate that he is doing much in this role. Charlie Hall seems to be doing the lead role himself.
I am listed as being on the Editorial Board, along with a whole lot of other people. http://www.springer.com/energy/policy%2C+economics%2C+management+%26+transport/journal/41247?detailsPage=editorialBoard Ian Schindler, the writer of economic articles who sometimes comments on OFW, is also on the Editorial Board.
Thanks. This is the kind of simple logic that might get through to the lay person.
Kim,
I agree with you. Our ability to produce more and more food has come through the increased use of energy in many ways. One of these ways is oil to operate pumps for irrigation; another is electricity to try to replace oil.
None of this can possibly work. Oil is in a real sense “more sustainable” than electricity. In the US, farms had gasoline powered farm machines and washing machines before grid electricity came to farms. Where my father grew up in Madagascar, gasoline was available to power motorcycles, long before there were paved roads or electricity. Installing and maintaining a grid system is very expensive, and requires lots of repairs (using vehicles operated using natural gas or oil) every time a storm goes through. We are making the electrical system ever more complex and difficult to maintain, by adding wind and solar. The way the pricing system works, the subsidies used for wind and solar ultimately help drive the prices of other fuels down, making them less sustainable. The whole situation is a nightmare. Engineers who look at a little piece of the situation say, “Of course we can do it.” But no one figures out the the overall cost is simply unsupportable.
Oil is in a real sense “more sustainable” than electricity.
Gail, in this, you’ve condensed the gist of a big part of what you’ve been laboring to explain for many years into the form of a Zen koan.
There’s nothing at all contradictory about your statement, but I would expect not one person in a thousand would concur with it on first hearing. And the more educated would probably raise strenuous objections to it. “There are so many other ways to make electricity,” I can hear them arguing, “and so many different ways of using it. What ARE you smoking?”
The entire MSM is awash with stories about how we are making the transition to renewable electricity, rendering the use of FFs including oil obsolete any decade now. It is a very hopeful scenario, as comforting in its ways as the idea that we’ll be rewarded in the afterlife for being good sinners on earth. And the tangible symbols of this belief system are increasingly all around us in the form of solar panels, wind turbines and the occasional Tesla car.
I’m not surprised that most people opt to believe in renewable energy as a form of salvation and then go about their lives without the need to contemplate the consequences if this salvation proves to be a mirage.
https://wolfstreet.com/2017/08/23/uber-wants-you-to-know-its-not-collapsing/
Here’s an interesting strategy …. there are signs all over the UBUD area of Bali with big X’s over Uber – Go Jek – Lyft logos…
Apparently what happens is the locals will place calls to these operators — and if one of them actually dares to show up — he gets a sh-it kicking.
The local taxis have no fixed fares and they run all sorts of scams — the exact thing that the likes of Uber help eliminate.
That said ‘Any business model that takes in 99$ and gives back 100$ will be very popular’
Taxi drivers: pillars of morality and fair-dealing throughout the world.
Maybe there is some breakage in the story that is being told.
Today the Wall Street Journal has a front page story about Tesla. The online version is “Tesla’s Push to Build a Self-Driving Car Sparked Dissent Among its Engineers” – Elon Musk’s ambitions goals for Autopilot technology have prompted safety warnings and resignations.
I was going to post a youtube link to a recent talk by Richard Wolff entitled “Uber Is An Old Scam”, but I see the video has been removed from youtube after only a few days. Interesting.
The UK Taxi Deregulation Act of 2015 allowed taxi drivers to operate in areas where they are not licensed, meaning Uber drivers are able to travel to cities where they are not licensed to pick up fares.
Nice to have friends in high places.
Tim is falling into the same trap as Stockman, Wolf, PC Roberts, ZH etc….
i.e. for some strange reason he seems to believe that the UK is on the verge of collapse because of policy mistakes of the various governments that have run the country in recent years.
What he fails to recognize is that they had no choice. Their policies appear MO REonic if you consider them in the context of BAU pre end of the world crisis….
But given the circumstances… these people should be applauded for keeping the UK from collapsing earlier.
I wonder what Tim thinks of the CBs propping up the stock markets of the world…. I assume he must think that is another wrong policy….
Me thinks Tim has blinkers on — these policies are all that are between us and a mouthful of radiation.
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2017/08/23/103-down-and-running/
fast eddy the uk is collapsing because of decrease of eroei in uk
The UK’s net EROI peaked in 2000 at a maximum value of 9.6, “before gradually falling back to a value of 6.2 in 2012.” What this means is that on average, “12% of the UK’s extracted/captured energy does not go into the economy or into society for productive or well-being purposes, but rather needs to be reinvested by the energy sectors to produce more energy.”
The paper draws on previous work by economists Court and Fizaine suggesting that continuous economic growth requires a minimal societal EROI of 11, based on the current energy intensity of the UK economy. By implication, the UK is dropping increasingly below this benchmark since the start of the 21st century
This also implies that the UK has had to sustain continued economic growth through other mechanisms outside of its own domestic energy context: in particular, as we know, the expansion of debt.
It is no coincidence, then, that debt-to-GDP ratios have continued to grow worldwide. As EROI is in decline, an unsustainable debt-bubble premised on exploitation of working and middle classes is the primary method to keep growth growing — an endeavour that at some point will inevitably come undone under its own weight
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*b20I7_q9oRP1d60GuBmLYg.png
Thatcher and the words no one mentions: North Sea Oil
https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/anthony-barnett/thatcher-and-words-no-one-mentions-north-sea-oil
http://econbrowser.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/northseaoilprodn1.jpg
The UK was well on the way to becoming a basket case country in the 70’s…. but then like magic … North Sea oil kicked in …
And now it is nearly all gone…..
Don’t expect another ‘Thatcher/Saviour’ this time around….
Black and viscous, bound to cure blue lethargy
Sugar-plum petroleum for energy
Tightrope-balanced payments need a small reprieve
Oh, please believe we want to be
In North Sea Oil
New-found wealth sits on the shelf of yesterday
Hot-air balloon, inflation soon will make you pay
Riggers rig and diggers dig their shallow grave
But we’ll be saved and what we crave
In North Sea Oil
Prices boom in Aberdeen and London Town
Ten more years to lay the fears, erase the frown
Before we are all nuclear, the better way!
Oh, let us pray: we want to stay
In North Sea Oil
—Ian Anderson (1979)
https://youtu.be/qZxaH8SQgs8
Tim comes from a banking background. He picked up on EROEI theory, but this gives only a piece of the story. He must read at least a little of OFW, since he has commented here.
That’s correct the train is on rails. There has been no choice. So we can either be stooges poking eyeballs. Or we can figure out who laid the tracks.
Norman – think of a massi,,,ve glob,,,bbbal corpor,,,ation. The board of directors pulls the strings of tens of thous,,ands even hundreds of thousands of people who work for the corpo,,ration.
If you control the money — it is very easy to control people — all 7.5 B of them.
The Fe,,,d controls that the world — of that I am 100% certain.
The do not micromanage – they do not have to — not unless someone gets out of line down the chain of command. Their ‘system’ keeps them in power — you want to get paid — you dance to their tune — at all levels.
Their system is what has deliver,,ed pro,,sperity. They did not com,,mand more food – or for people to live in nicer hom,es or drive cars. Their syst,em deli,vered th,ese thi,ngs to us. Thin,gs t,hat we wanted. Just like my do,g wants to lay next to the fire after he comes in on a cold ev,ening.
So we can agr,ee on that.
“So in order to stay in office, they can do no other than to subsidise EVs, windfarms etc, but it is a response to the demands of we the proletariat.”
Now this is abs,,,olutely wrong.
Do you now watch Madmen? The masses do not demand anything – they are TOLD what to want. What to desire.
The masses were not dema,,nding EVs and rene,,,wable ene,,rgy when I was growing up. It was not discussed.
The masses started demanding this bulls sh ,,,,it only very recently — the momentum for this nonsense really gained momentum after Al Go,,re’s movie. Some fringe people were demanding these things before that — but they were insigni,,ficant.
Do you recall having every fifth story in the MSM being decided to EVs Solar Wind Mars pre 2006? I certainly do not. This is recent stuff.
The Fed and their tight circle of associates own/control the MSM. That is fact.
The MSM is a tool for control. Nothing else.
You seem to think that sometimes its purpose is to convey truths. You are wrong.
It’s sole purpose is to Tell Us What To Think.
Always.
I agree with FE on this. The MSM is a “tell” for what the current lie and/or distraction is.
Re-Reading Julian Darley. High Noon for natural gas. Right after his book was published (2004) fracking went big and doubled us gas production to levels we have today. Now we’re sitting on wells with even steeper decline be rates than the old ones… This might be the year. 2017. Kjell Aleklett + Campbell calls this the peak for oil. This time including fracking. I’ll follow it “like a laser” this time. Do we have to wait 4 years to know? Maybe 18 months will do……. Brace for the Never Ending downslope. How to prepare??? Preppers come out and tell! Pay off that debt. Get a boat. Or a wood stove. EPA approved? Does it matter? Prutt – bring it on. Or a generator. The day gasoline is not widely available – that’s the day. Have you fishing gear ready. And vitamin pills, iodine pills too maybe. Gotta haul those glowing rods to the Mariana Trench. All hands on deck. He he.
Canada’s Oil Industry Doomed If Prices Fall Lower
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Canadas-Oil-Industry-Doomed-If-Prices-Fall-Lower.html
Here we see that Al Gore lies about private jet use — he says he does not own one — but he definitely uses them regularly http://www.dcstatesman.com/al-gore-busted-private-jet-use/
Al Gore is the front man for the wobbal glorming. And he is flying in private jets. And lives in a house that uses 30x the energy or an average US house.
And he is a proven liar when it comes to his karrrbon footprrrint.
This smells like fish left in the sun for a couple of days…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEFMfl4_WHs
Mr Clean himself — endlessly jetting about on a private jet — to events where he urges us to DO SOMETHING about wooblle goofying….
Telling us if we do not ACT NOW!!! We will roast in hell. Our children will roast in hell
Then he jumps out of his petrol limo — up the stairs onto the PRIVATE JET — and off to the next event to tell us — we MUST ACT NOW!
And of course ACT NOW means — renewable energy….
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/14/al-gore-launches-renewable-energy-action-plan-in-victoria-australia.html
And we all know that renewable energy is a giant load of booollll sheeeet…
Come on people …. you can’t be that gullible…. this is so obviously a gigantic scam….
Surely I must be shining a few rays down on you with all this logic????
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4125/5072523945_249e20ca9e_z.jpg
https://media3.giphy.com/media/ToMjGpocv0a1U7zbXQ4/giphy.gif
https://giphy.com/gifs/ball-9GlQodYpm2P6g
https://media.tenor.co/images/e7f0710a9b7a171ca9d96f36e7cec137/tenor.gif
one wonders if that was their last Christmas together…
http://poster.keepcalmandposters.com/2201250.png
Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals:
1. “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.”
2. “Never go outside the expertise of your people.”
3. “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.”
4. “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
5. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”
6. “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.”
7. “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.”
8. “Keep the pressure on. Never let up.”
9. “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”
10. “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.”
11. “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.”
12. “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.”
13. “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
The Alar-mistas have have tried too hard to follow Rules 8, 10 and 13 that they’ve broken Rules 2 and 7.
The expertise of Gore and his motley crew of entertainers is vestigial at best. When they decided to use a circus of Democratic Party apparatchiks and Hollywood celebs to chant year after year “The Science is Settled”, “It’s the Hottest Year Ever,” and “There’s a 97 Percent Consensus Among Scientists”, they lost the attention, the respect, and the patience of a huge swath of reasonable moderate ordinary decent people—people who may not be well enough educated to judge the validity of scientific arguments but who know bovine excrement when they smell it.
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/6580e05ad7878bb1c2d25b62a1b49deb
As long as keep saying the end game will be in 50 years… and so long as we pretend to make progress in the meantime…. nobody gets too exciting by all this…
Based on the number of stories about renewable energy in the press — one would think that we are very close to powering the world on solar and wind.
When in reality the total energy provided by these two ‘batteries’ does not even register in terms of global energy use.
And why are we developing renewable energy in the first place? Ah yes of course to save us from peak oil — but we cannot call it peak oil — we call it ___ ______…
Because to call the problem peak oil would not work — because even stewpid people would realize that — if we are at or near peak oil —- renewables cannot actually power the world — how do we fly planes and power ships and make plastics and ag chemicals and all the other stuff made of oil…
They would quickly realize that we are f78 9ed even if we have solar and wind…. and that would be a bad thing.
Perhaps I will skip over to Peak Prosperity and argue with the people there about EVs…
It would not be much different than having an argument involved the above subjects with the FW crowd.
++++++++++++
Let’s fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here!
The thing about carbon pollution is we can actually mitigate it by simply planting trees.
How do we deal with EV pollution; all those exotic pollutants will be added to those spent fuel ponds to make the dev ills brew!
But we don’t — deforestation continues — because planting trees does not resonate…
What resonates is solar and wind and EVs….
Don Draper PR 101
Yep I guess it will be trees planting trees once we get out of the way. Going to be some weird mutant examples!
Lets hope any d people didn’t let ideology overrun reality:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/15517b4ffc500f000c5c2137384d141b293ce5453ab66797d3134b379ced5ba1.gif
Hurricane Harvey is a Category 2 storm that NOAA expects will strengthen to a Category 3 Storm with up to 35 inches of rain, before it makes landfall. http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/25/us/hurricane-harvey/index.html
The big danger is that electrical supplies will be taken out. This in turn would take out refineries, located in this area. Or there could also be direct water damage to the refineries.
Based on previous hurricane experience, the big problem is likely to be that there will not be enough gasoline in the pipeline, to make it to the end of the route. This means that Atlanta and the states immediately north of us may again find supply shortages. There would be work arounds for supply shortages–like using gasoline taken by truck from more distant refineries–but usually there are local mandates of “no price gouging.” Unfortunately, what we need is a temporarily higher price, to move the gasoline to where it is needed. (Truckers need to be paid to move the gasoline long distances.)
So people in the Southeast, who have seen this pattern before, will go to gas stations and fill up their tanks, before the hurricane hits, so that they personally will be prepared. We don’t really have enough stocks for this, however. It will be the pre-hurricane fill-ups that are likely to be as much a problem as anything else.
I live in Cary, NC (hate it, but that’s another topic) I think very few are smart enough to stock up, they won’t remember the shortages a couple years ago. Totally totally ignorant.
This could be a big stress on the economy adding to everything else, especially if the port and refineries are closed for a month or more.
It depends on how much the potential shortage is publicized in the papers, and how recent the memory of outages have been.
Our problems in Atlanta have had to do with Colonial Pipeline outages at various times. This is the pipeline that brings gasoline to Atlanta (and beyond) from the Gulf Coast. http://www.nacsonline.com/YourBusiness/FuelsCenter/Operations/Articles/Pages/Pipelines-Importance-to-Supply.aspx#.WaB7BcaZNTY We had two different outages in 2016–once when there was an explosion, and another time when there was an error in trying to replace parts of the pipelines after the initial fix. We earlier had hurricane-related closures. As I recall, one of them involved loss of electricity in Alabama to pump the gasoline, because of a hurricane or tropical storm.
We have plenty of oil that we could refine in the Strategic Oil Reserve, and in various tank farms. So I don’t think a port problem would really be major. It seems like whatever problems arise will come elsewhere in the system–refineries or pipelines. A lot of things are location specific. If a specific refinery is closed, it can cause local problems, for example.
This is educational. This fill-up behavior defies order in the system. Seems to me it could be stopped by turning off power to filling stations.
Then you have no one going anywhere.
I thought you were saying that gas hoarding was a problem for the larger society, even though it helped the individual hoarders.
Oh yea, and “Harvey is funny name” 🙂
I was watching a documentary on the tv made by Jacob Rothschild and his daughter it was about his art collection and the houses he owns . At one part of the film he made a reference to the 2008 financial crisis and his exact words were ‘ the day the financial system ended’ how interesting I thought i reviewed that part of his sentence and they were his exact words .He seemed quite confident and content as he said those words. At the time when he said those words he was showing off some art pieces they were called ‘ boy playing with a house of cards’ . This is another major clue that tells me that the elites have a ‘plan b’ up their sleeves BAU-LITE is looking good
.
Here we go campers:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f00f07f4412649858641faa155f0b6e8dfacd78d9b535d9d077fc1974a68ba41.gif?w=800&h=588
One thing I’m trying to understand is how Amazon works its workers so hard and doesn’t earn a profit. The situation is obfuscated by the term “cash flow”. Many articles written online about the subject of Amazon’s profits claim that doesn’t have profits because almost all of its revenue is reinvested into expanding its business operations. The implication is that there are no dividends payments to investors either, which begs the question, why would any investor invest in Amazon? Are they hoping that as Amazon absorbs other businesses, it will eventually absorb businesses decent profit margins?
Another question, that reflects my more holistic way of looking at things, is why has there not been anyone, particularly liberals, who have questioned the legality of Amazon’s labor conditions.
One reason would be that they will allow you to order something – and if you don’t like it for any reason – return it free of charge
The obvious reason for this is that people are reluctant to buy clothing online — they want to try it on first …. this overcomes that obstacle…
They don’t make a profit because Mr. Bezos hates paying taxes. In his quest to win at this game of Glob-al Monopoly, he would rather invest any surplus in undercutting the competition and grabbing more market share.
I have and Tesla, Netflix, Uber , all of these companies don’t make any profits. I think the reason is most people are totally unaware of the working conditions there. And most people are totally unaware they don’t make any profits. I told my brother and his wife recently and they were totally shocked. I guess most people just assume that if a company is in business and as large as one s like i named above then they are automatically profitable The New York Times ran a great article last year about how terrible of a company it was to work for. But that is just one article compared to the hundreds of positive articles on them. For example when Amazon had their hiring fair last month across America. They were talking about it on my local news channel even.
I had a similar experience with my brother-in-law recently. A smart man, but he just believes in this stuff, EV’s, solar, etc at face value. After I pointed out what a sh.it business model Tesla had, in that it had never had a profitable year – ever, and showed him proof, the colour just drained from his face.
That is the look of dessssspair….
Now imagine if the MSM were to not give us fals e problemssss and f alse solutions …. imagine if they published articles exposing rene wables and E Vs….
The colour would drain from the world — the masses would sink into des pair — and BAU would en d.
That is why the Eeel ders go to such leng ths with resp ect to establi shing woo obbbal Gorrrmmm
ing — solar – wind – EVs — even MA RS…. as our re ality …
They absolutely MUST keep us from d espair….
One might argue that people are wedded to the woab bal goar ming na rrative so strongly because it gives them something to stri ve for — here is a problem — it can be solv ed….
If they admit it is bu nk then what are they left with? The re ality that we are run ning out of ever ything …. from water to fish to oil …..
Much easier to shif t those con cerns to a da rk c orner of the mind if we have a cause to focus on
And what big ger cause is there on the planet than woo oblly goo blying….
That is the lo
k of desssss
pair….
Now imagi
ne if the MSM were to not give us fals e proble
mssss and f al
se so
lutions …. ima gine if they publis hed arti cles exposing rene wa
bles and E Vs….
The c olour wou ld d rain from the wo rld — the ma sses woul d sin k int o de s pair — and B
AU wo uld en d.
T hat is w hy the Ee el ders go to such le ng ths with re sp ect to esta bli shing woo obb bal Gorrr mmm
ing — so lar – win d – E Vs — eve n MA RS…. as our re al ity …
They abs olutely MU ST keep us from d esp air….
One mig ht ar gue that peo ple are wed ded to the woa b bal goar m ing na rrative so stro
ngly bec ause it gives the m som ething to stri ve for — her e is a pro blem — it can be solv ed….
If they ad mit it is bu nk the n wh at are the y left wi th? The re ali ty th at we a re run nin g out of ever yth ing …. from wa ter to f ish to o il …..
Much ea sier to shif t th ose con ce ns to a da rk c or ner of the mi nd if w e have a caus e to foc us on
And what big ger c ause is ther e on the pl anet than wo o oblly goo blyin g….
Petition to Remove Censorship
Robots are nothing more than stewwwpid moreons…. they cannot think…. therefore they are easily defeated.
All they do is create hassles that are eventually overcome — resulting in posts filled with grammar errors…. making them more difficult to read…
Sign Here if you would like the robots to be unplugged:
Fast Eddy
Your language…. Deteriorating faster than a fracked pussyyy well… pretty creative though.
My understanding of the complexity of this scam are being refined by the minute…. the window — which was blurred with dirt and bird sh it…. is pretty much wide open now …. the sun is shining on my face…. I can feel the cool breeze…. I can see flowers.. and grass… and trees….
I am free at last — free at last…..
I see the light!
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_hntojuBOgo0/SDTdYzlnl4I/AAAAAAAACro/nmSQ30wxb-I/s400/AlGoreJet.jpg
Priceless!
Yes I had a friend on FB recently who posted something about how great Musk and Tesla were. And I commented that they had never created a profit ever in their history. And a few other criticisms about EV’S. And he replied “WOW I did not know that, I will have to do more research on this one, thanks.”.
Why, Mr Bezos is one of the left wing multi-billionaire oligarchs that Cliff is so in love with. He thinks Mr Bezos and his left wing ilk are actually interested in people’s welfare. They are monopolists and will bend gov policy toward their increasing monopoly and economic power. They don’t give a hoot about the common people.
Silicon Valley billionaires are the new robber barons
Power, greed, corruption. Humans are attracted to them, like moths to a flame.
TROUBLE FINANCING ITS DEBT: Massive Decline Rates Push U.S. Shale Oil Industry Closer Towards Bankruptcy
https://srsroccoreport.com/trouble-financing-its-debt-massive-decline-rates-pushes-u-s-shale-oil-industry-closer-towards-bankruptcy/
reality is one tough dude.
shale oil = low EROI and a drag on the economy.
so OPEC soon will be able to end its quotas and produce at full capacity.
and their oil is much higher EROI, so this may help the world economy.
but then again, oil prices may go much higher, and that may hurt the world economy.
and all of this is going to happen soon.
I will guess by 2019.
and that is very soon.
Meanwhile there is a headline on Bloomberg:
Are the Tar Sands Profitable at $50?
Of course they are!!!! sarc….