Economists have given us a model of how prices and quantities of goods are supposed to interact.
Figure 1. From Wikipedia: The price P of a product is determined by a balance between production at each price (supply S) and the desires of those with purchasing power at each price (demand D). The diagram shows a positive shift in demand from D1 to D2, resulting in an increase in price (P) and quantity sold (Q) of the product.
Unfortunately, this model is woefully inadequate. It sort of works, until it doesn’t. If there is too little of a product, higher prices and substitutions are supposed to fix the problem. If there is too much, prices are supposed to fall, causing the higher-priced producers to drop out of the system.
This model doesn’t work with oil. If prices drop, as they have done since mid-2014, businesses don’t drop out. They often try to pump more. The plan is to try to make up for inadequate prices by increasing the volume of extraction. Of course, this doesn’t fix the problem. The hidden assumption is, of course, that eventually oil prices will again rise. When this happens, the expectation is that oil businesses will be able to make adequate profits. It is hoped that the system can again continue as in the past, perhaps at a lower volume of oil extraction, but with higher oil prices.
I doubt that this is what really will happen. Let me explain some of the issues involved.
[1] The economy is really a much more interlinked system than Figure 1 makes it appear.
Supply and demand for oil, and for many other products, are interlinked. If there is too little oil, the theory is that oil prices should rise, to encourage more production. But if there is too little oil, some would-be workers will be without jobs. For example, truck drivers may be without jobs if there is no fuel for the vehicles they drive. Furthermore, some goods will not be delivered to their desired locations, leading to a loss of even more jobs (both at the manufacturing end of the goods, and at the sales end).
Ultimately, a lack of oil can be expected to reduce the availability of jobs that pay well. Digging in the ground with a stick to grow food is a job that is always around, with or without supplemental energy, but it doesn’t pay well!
Thus, the lack of oil really has a two-way pull:
(a) Higher prices, because of the shortage of oil and the desired products it produces.
(b) Lower prices, because of a shortage of jobs that pay adequate wages and the “demand” (really affordability) that these jobs produce.
[2] There are other ways that the two-way pull on prices can be seen:
(a) Prices need to be high enough for oil producers, or they will eventually stop extracting and refining the oil, and,
(b) Prices cannot be too high for consumers, or they will stop buying products made with oil.
If we think about it, the prices of basic commodities, such as food and fuel, cannot rise too high relative to the wages of ordinary (also called “non-elite”) workers, or the system will grind to a halt. For example, if non-elite workers are at one point spending half of their income on food, the price of food cannot double. If it does, these workers will have no money left to pay for housing, or for clothing and taxes.
[3] The upward pull on oil prices comes from a combination of three factors.
(a) Rising cost of production, because the cheapest-to-produce oil tends to be extracted first, leaving the more expensive-to-extract oil for later. (This pattern is also true for other types of resources.)
(b) If workers are becoming more productive, this growing productivity of workers is often reflected in higher wages for the workers. With these higher wages, workers can afford more goods made with oil, and that use oil in their operation. Thus, these higher wages lead to higher “demand” (really affordability) for oil.
Recently, worker productivity has not been growing. One reason this is not surprising is because energy consumption per capita hit a peak in 2013. With less energy consumption per capita, it is likely that, on average, workers are not being given bigger and better “tools” (such as trucks, earth-moving equipment, and other machines) with which to leverage their labor. Such tools require the use of energy products, both when they are manufactured and when they are operated.
Figure 2. World Daily Per Capita Energy Consumption, based on primary energy consumption from BP Statistical Review of World Energy and 2017 United Nations population estimates.
(c) Another “pull” on demand comes from increased investment. This investment can be debt-based or can reflect equity investment. It is these financial assets that allow new mines to be opened, and new factories to be built. Thus, wages of non-elite workers can grow. McKinsey Global Institute reports that growth in total “financial assets” has slowed since 2007.
Figure 3. Figure by McKinsey Global Institute showing that growth in debt in financial instruments (both debt and equity) has slowed significantly since 2007. Source
More recent data by McKinsey Global Institute shows that cross-border investment, in particular, has slowed since 2007.
Figure 4. Figure by McKinsey Global Institute showing that global cross-border capital flows (combined debt and equity) have declined by 65% since the 2007 peak. Download from this page.
This cross-border investment is especially helpful in encouraging exports, because it often puts into place new facilities that encourage extraction of minerals. Some minerals are available in only a few places in the world; these minerals are often traded internationally.
[4] The downward pull on oil and other commodity prices comes from several sources.
(a) Oil exports are often essential to the countries where they are extracted because of the tax revenue and jobs that they produce. The actual cost of extraction may be quite low, making extraction feasible, even at very low prices. Because of the need for tax revenue and jobs, governments will often encourage production regardless of price, so that the country can maintain its place in the world export market until prices again rise.
(b) Everyone “knows” that oil and other commodities will be needed in the years ahead. Because of this, there is no point in stopping production altogether. In fact, the cost of production is likely to keep rising, putting an upward push on commodity prices. This belief encourages businesses to stay in the market, regardless of the economics.
(c) There is a long lead-time for developing new extraction capabilities. Decisions made today may affect extraction ten years from now. No one knows what the oil price will be when the new production is brought online. At the same time, new production is coming on-line today, based on analyses when prices were much higher than they are today. Furthermore, once all of the development costs have been put in place, there is no point in simply walking away from the investment.
(d) Storage capacity is limited. Production and needed supply must balance exactly. If there is more than a tiny amount of oversupply, prices tend to plunge.
(e) The necessary price varies greatly, depending where geographically the extraction is being done, and depending on what is included in the calculation. Costs are much lower if the calculation is done excluding investment to date, or excluding taxes paid to governments, or excluding necessary investments needed for pollution control. It is often easy to justify accepting a low price, because there is usually some cost basis upon which such a low price is acceptable.
(f) Over time, there really are efficiency gains, but it is difficult to measure how well they are working. Do these “efficiency gains” simply speed up production a bit, or do they allow more oil in total to be extracted? Also, cost cuts by contractors tend to look like efficiency gains. In fact, they may simply be temporary prices cuts, reflecting the desire of suppliers to maintain some market share in a time when prices are too low for everyone.
(g) Literally, every economy in the world wants to grow. If every economy tries to grow at the same time and the market is already saturated (given the spending power of non-elite workers), a very likely outcome is plunging prices.
[5] As we look around the world, the prices of many commodities, including oil, have fallen in recent years.
Figures 3 and 4 show that investment spending spiked in 2007. Oil prices spiked not long after that–in the first half of 2008.
Figure 5. Monthly Brent oil prices with dates of US beginning and ending QE.
Quantitative Easing (QE) is a way of encouraging investment through artificially low interest rates. US QE began right about when oil prices were lowest. We can see that the big 2008 spike and drop in prices corresponds roughly to the rise and drop in investment in Figures 3 and 4, above, as well.
If we look at commodities other than oil, we often see a major downslide in prices in recent years. The timing of this downslide varies. In the US, natural gas prices fell as soon as gas from fracking became available, and there started to be a gas oversupply problem.
I expect that at least part of gas’s low price problem also comes from subsidized prices for wind and solar. These subsidies lead to artificially low prices for wholesale electricity. Since electricity is a major use for natural gas, low wholesale prices for electricity indirectly tend to pull natural gas prices down.
Figure 6. Natural gas prices in the US and Canada, indexed to the 2008 price, based on annual price data provided in BP Statistical Review of World Energy, 2017.
Many people assume that fracking can be done so inexpensively that the type of downslide in prices shown in Figure 6 makes sense. In fact, the low prices available for natural gas are part of what have been pushing North American “oil and gas” companies toward bankruptcy.
For a while, it looked like high natural gas prices in Europe and Asia might allow the US to export natural gas as LNG, and end its oversupply problem. Unfortunately, overseas prices of natural gas have slid since 2013, making the profitability of such exports doubtful (Figure 7).
Figure 7. Prices of natural gas imports to Europe and Asia, indexed to 2008 levels, based on annual average prices provided by BP Statistical Review of World Energy, 2017.
Coal prices have followed a downward slope of a different shape since 2008. Note that the 2016 prices range from 32% to 59% below the 2008 level. They are even lower, relative to 2011 prices.
Figure 8. Prices of several types of coal, indexed to 2008 levels, based on annual average prices provided by BP Statistical Review of World Energy, 2017.
Figure 9 shows the price path for several metals and minerals. These seem to follow a downward path as well. I did not find a price index for rare earth minerals that went back to 2008. Recent data suggested that the prices of these minerals have been falling as well.
Figure 9. Prices of various metals and minerals, indexed to 2008, based on USGS analyses found using this link: https://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/mcs/
Figure 9 shows that several major metals are down between 24% and 35% since 2008. The drop is even greater, relative to 2011 price levels.
Internationally traded foods have also fallen in price since 2008.
Figure 10. Food prices, indexed to 2008 levels, based on data from the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization.
In Item [4] above, I listed several factors that would tend to make oil prices fall. These same issues could be expected to cause the prices of these other commodities to drop. In addition, energy products are used in the production of metals and minerals and of foods. A drop in the price of energy products would tend to flow through to lower extraction prices for minerals, and lower costs for growing agricultural products and bringing products to market.
One surprising place where prices are dropping is in the auction prices for the output of onshore wind turbines. This is a chart shown by Roger Andrews, in a recent article on Energy Matters. The cost of making wind turbines doesn’t seem to be dropping dramatically, except from the fall in the prices of commodities used to make the turbines. Yet auction prices seem to be dropping by 20% or more per year.
Figure 11. Figure by Roger Andrews, showing trend in auction prices of onshore wind energy from Energy Matters.
Thus, wind energy purchased through auctions seems to be succumbing to the same deflationary market forces as oil, natural gas, coal, many metals, and food.
[6] It is very hard to see how oil prices can rise significantly, without the prices of many other commodities also rising.
What seems to be happening is a basic mismatch between (a) the amount of goods and services countries want to sell, and (b) the amount of goods and services that are truly affordable by consumers, especially those who are non-elite workers. Somehow, we need to fix this supply/demand (affordability) imbalance.
One way of raising demand is through productivity growth. As mentioned previously, such a rise in productivity growth hasn’t been happening in recent years. Given the falling energy per capita amounts in Figure 2, it seems unlikely that productivity will be growing in the near future, because the adoption of improved technology requires energy consumption.
Another way of raising demand is through wage increases, over and above what would be indicated by productivity growth. With globalization, the trend has been to lower and less stable wages, especially for less educated workers. This is precisely the opposite direction of the change we need, if demand for goods and services is to rise high enough to prevent deflation in commodity prices. There are very many of these non-elite workers. If their wages are low, this tends to reduce demand for homes, cars, motorcycles, and the many other goods that depend on wages of workers in the world. It is the manufacturing and use of these goods that influences demand for commodities.
Another way of increasing demand is through rising investment. This can eventually filter back to higher wages, as well. But this isn’t happening either. In fact, Figures 3 and 4 show that the last big surge in investment was in 2007. Furthermore, the amount of debt growth required to increase GDP by one percentage point has increased dramatically in recent years, both in the United States and China, making this approach to economic growth increasingly less effective. Recent discussions seem to be in the direction of stabilizing or lowering debt levels, rather than raising them. Such changes would tend to lower new investment, not raise it.
[7] In many countries, falling export revenue is adversely affecting demand for imported goods and services.
It is not too surprising that the export revenue of Saudi Arabia has fallen, with the drop in oil prices.
Figure 12. Saudi Arabia exports and imports of goods and services based on World Bank data.
Because of the drop in exports, Saudi Arabia is now buying fewer imported goods and services. A person would expect other oil exporters also to be making cutbacks on their purchases of imported goods and services. (Exports in current US$ means exports measured year-by-year in US$, without any inflation adjustment.)
It is somewhat more surprising that China’s exports and imports are falling, as measured in US$. Figure 13 shows that, in US dollar terms, China’s exports of goods and services fell in both 2015 and 2016. The imports that China bought also fell, in both of these years.
Figure 13. China’s exports and imports of goods and services on a current US$ basis, based on World Bank data.
Similarly, both the exports and imports of India are down as well. In fact, India’s imports have fallen more than its exports, and for a longer period–since 2012.
Figure 14. India’s exports and imports of goods and services in current dollars, based on World Bank data.
The imports of goods and services for the United States also fell in 2015 and 2016. The US is both an exporter of commodities (particularly food and refined petroleum products) and an importer of crude oil, so this is not surprising.
Figure 15. US exports and imports of goods and services in US dollars, based on World Bank data.
In fact, on a world basis, exports and imports of goods and services both fell, in 2015 and 2016 as measured in US dollars.
Figure 16. World exports and imports in current US dollars, based on World Bank data.
[8] Once export (and import) revenues are down, it becomes increasingly difficult to raise prices again.
If a country is not selling much of its own exports, it becomes very difficult to buy much of anyone else’s exports. This impetus, by itself, tends to keep prices of commodities, including oil, down.
Furthermore, it becomes more difficult to repay debt, especially debt that is in a currency that has appreciated. This means that borrowing additional debt becomes less and less feasible, as well. Thus, new investment becomes more difficult. This further tends to keep prices down. In fact, it tends to make prices fall, since new investment is needed to keep prices level.
[9] World financial leaders in developed countries do not understand what is happening, because they have written off commodities as “unimportant” and “something that lesser-developed countries deal with.”
In the US, few consumers are concerned about the price of corn. Instead, they are interested in the price of a box of corn flakes, or the price of corn tortillas in a restaurant.
The US, Europe and Japan specialize in high “value added” goods and services. For example, in the case of a box of corn flakes, manufacturers are involved in many steps such as (a) making corn flakes from corn, (b) boxing corn flakes in attractive boxes, (c) delivering those boxes to grocers’ shelves, and (d) advertising those corn flakes to prospective consumers. These costs generally do not decrease, as commodity prices decrease. One article from 2009 says, “With the record seven-dollar corn this summer, the cost of the corn in an 18-ounce box of corn flakes was only 14 cents.”
Because of the small role that commodity prices seem to play in producing the goods and services of developed countries, it is easy for financial leaders to overlook price indications at the commodity level. (Data is available at this level of detail; the question is how closely it is examined by decision-makers.)
Figure 17. Various indices within US CPI Urban, displayed on a basis similar to that used in Figure 7 through 11. In other words, index values for later periods are compared to the average 2008 index value. CPI statistics are from US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Figure 17 shows some components of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) on a basis similar to the trends in commodity prices shown in Figures 7 through 11. The category “Household furnishings and operations” was chosen because it has furniture in it, and I know that furniture prices have fallen because of the growing use of cheap imported furniture from China. This category shows a slight downslope in prices. The other categories all show small increases over time. If commodity prices had not decreased, prices of the other categories would likely have increased to a greater extent than they did during the period shown.
[10] Conclusion. We are likely kidding ourselves, if we think that oil prices can rise in the future, for very long, by a very large amount.
It is quite possible that oil prices will bounce back up to $80 or even $100 per barrel, for a short time. But if they rise very high, for very long, there will be adverse impacts on other segments of the economy. We can’t expect that wages will go up at the same time, so increases in oil prices are likely to lead to a decrease in the purchase of discretionary products such as meals eaten in restaurants, charitable contributions, and vacation travel. These cutbacks, in turn, can be expected to lead to layoffs in discretionary sectors. Laid off workers are likely to have difficulty repaying their loans. As a result, we are likely to head back into a recession.
As we have seen above, it is not only oil prices that need to rise; it is many other prices that need to rise as well. Making a change of this magnitude is almost certainly impossible, without “crashing” the economy.
Economists put together a simplified view of how they thought supply and demand works. This simple model seems to work, at least reasonably well, when we are away from limits. What economists did not realize is that the limits we are facing are really affordability limits, and that growing affordability depends upon productivity growth. Productivity growth in turn depends on a growing quantity of cheap-to-produce energy supplies. The term “demand,” and the two-dimensional supply-demand model, hide these issues.
The whole issue of limits has not been well understood. Peak Oil enthusiasts assumed that we were “running out” of an essential energy product. When this view was combined with the economist’s view of supply and demand, the conclusion was, “Of course, oil prices will rise, to fix the situation.”
Few stopped to realize that there is a second way of viewing the situation. What is falling is the resources that people need to have in order to have jobs that pay well. When this happens, we should expect prices to fall, rather than to rise, because workers are increasingly unable to buy the output of the economy.
If we look back at what happened historically, there have been many situations in which economies have collapsed. In fact, this is probably what we should expect as we approach limits, rather than expecting high oil prices. If collapse should take place, we should expect widespread debt defaults and major problems with the financial system. Governments are likely to have trouble collecting enough taxes, and may ultimately fail. Non-elite workers have historically come out badly in collapses. With low wages and high taxes, they have often succumbed to epidemics. We have our own epidemic now–the opioid epidemic.
“Beijing’s push to use crude import quotas and licences as a tool to spur consolidation within China’s independent refining sector is working to correct an industry that has grown “out of control”.
“Consolidation comes as the industry faces pressures from overcapacity, a battle for market share between independent and state-owned companies and slower demand for refined products.
“Large plants with higher utilisation rates and greater access to imported crude had already begun acquiring smaller plants that had not been granted the same rights by Beijing.
““The government does not want dozens of refineries running at 40-50 per cent capacity,” said Erica Downs, the author of the report. “Beijing is correcting a course for an industry that has gotten out of control.”
“Two years ago “teapot” refineries were granted import licences to help China compensate for the effects of an anti-corruption purge that had limited production from state-owned oilfields. A global crude price downturn had also lowered output from China’s own oilfields that were expensive to operate.
“By the end of 2016, 19 independent refineries had been granted import quotas totalling almost 1.5m barrels a day — more than the net imports of some European countries. These extra imports disrupted global energy markets as China began favouring exports from countries such as Russia over traditional suppliers such as Saudi Arabia.
“China is on pace to overtake the US as the world’s biggest oil importer this year, taking in an average 8.6m b/d in the first half of the year compared with the 8.1m into the US. Independent refineries increased their production of refined fuels, often taking on huge debts to grow, and began competing with big state-owned oil groups such as PetroChina and Sinopec which themselves had spent billions on expanding their operations.
“Since then, China’s energy sector liberalisation has reversed. The teapots’ export quotas were cut off, trapping their output in China. Their crude import quotas also have been issued less consistently.
“The goal is for the surviving independent refineries to put pressure on state-owned companies to become more efficient without creating an existential threat to their dominance, Ms Downs said. Refining capacity in China has increased more than 40 per cent from 2011, even as economic growth began to show signs of a slowdown.
https://www.ft.com/content/2b6d92cc-946c-11e7-bdfa-eda243196c2c
Thanks!
The situation sounds like too much capital (really debt) chasing too few opportunities for true profits. Lots of investment in things that don’t make sense. And this is in a period when world investment is not rising very rapidly.
Looking at BP’s data for China, I see somewhat different information about China’s refinery capacity. It claim’s China’s refinery capacity peaked in 2014, and by 2016 had fallen by about 2.5%. It is possible that BP’s data is not entirely correct, I suppose.
I can believe that China is now the biggest oil importer. BP says China’s own oil production fell by 310,000 barrels per day, or 7.2%, between 2015 and 2016.
they are also diversifying a lot, taking everything from heavy, sweet and arctic oil..
each needs special treatment at port and refinery facilities, expensive plan, but it’s the only way “how to secure” some reliable imports for a while..
“Recent weeks have seen an escalation of violence against the Rohingya in Rakhine, the poorest state of Myanmar. A tide of displaced people is seeking refuge from atrocities—they are fleeing both on foot and by boat to Bangladesh. It is the latest surge of displaced people, and is exacerbated by the recent activity of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA)…
“Land grabbing and confiscation in Myanmar are widespread. It is not a new phenomenon.
Since the 1990s, military juntas have been taking away the land of smallholders across the country, without any compensation and regardless of ethnicity or religious status…
“In 2011, Myanmar instituted economic and political reforms that led it to be dubbed “Asia’s final frontier” as it opened up to foreign investment. Shortly afterwards, in 2012, violent attacks escalated against the Rohingya in Rakhine state and, to a lesser extent, against the Muslim Karen…
“Myanmar is positioned between countries that have long eyed its resources, such as China and India. Since the 1990s, Chinese companies have exploited timber, rivers, and minerals in Shan State in the north…
“In Rakhine State, Chinese and Indian interests are part of the broader China-India relations. These interests revolve principally around the construction of infrastructure and pipelines in the region. Such projects claim to guarantee employment, transit fees, and oil and gas revenues for the whole of Myanmar.
“Among numerous development projects, a transnational pipeline built by China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) connecting Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine, to Kunming, China, began operations in September 2013. The wider efforts to take Myanmar oil and gas from the Shwe gas field to Guangzhou, China, are well documented…
“A parallel pipeline is also expected to send Middle East oil from the Kyaukphyu port to China…
“In Myanmar, the groups that fall victim to land grabbing have often started in an extremely vulnerable state and are left even worse off. The treatment of the Rohingya in Rakhine State is the highest profile example of broader expulsion that is inflicted on minorities…”
https://qz.com/1074906/rohingya-the-oil-economics-and-land-grab-politics-behind-myanmars-refugee-crisis/
as say today conflicts are happened because of resources
Myanmar is of course the old Burma, located next to Thailand. It looks like its crude oil production is down recently.
https://tradingeconomics.com/myanmar/crude-oil-production
The issues may be more in its position as a transit country.
HIV on the rise in Slovakia. The situation started to change dramatically in 2013, when the number of the newly infected rose by 100 %. In 2012, the number of infected persons was 47, in 2013, it climbed to 80 and the number still rises, with 87 newly infected persons in 2016.
https://domov.sme.sk/c/20646695/ocakavame-epidemiu-hiv-varuju-odbornici.html?ref=trz
What is HIV? I am being serious. The test to detect HIV infection does not detect virus. It is a very obscure yes no maybe check-list that varies from country to country. So, you could be HIV+ in London and move to NY and be HIV-. It is such a crock. Science must be subject to diminishing returns as well!
http://izquotes.com/quotes-pictures/quote-there-are-no-slow-retroviruses-only-slow-retrovirologists-peter-duesberg-225490.jpg
Tight Oil and The Long-Term Debt Cycle -Scientist Art Berman
http://www.artberman.com/tight-oil-long-term-debt-cycle/
What is more stiuwpid … a MORE on … or a DelusiTANI?
Watched this one with my Dad this afternoon:
https://youtu.be/VOMWzjrRiBg
It doesn’t cover the finer points of Our Finite World but does a good job with the basics. I particularly enjoyed the soothing classical music, given the dreary subject matter. We can certainly affect to be civilized as we march into the cold, dark night. 😉
That was very nicely done. I liked the narration, the cute dinosaurs oblivious to their impending demise, and the bacteria filling up their bottles. And those cubic miles of oil and coal were very familiar.
The image of the little man shovelling coal at an EV is excellent, as is the whole video.
And yet, if one were to allude to any of this at a dinner party, without the soothing accompaniment of Solar Fantasy, what sort of reception would one get?
Nutter. Doomer. Tin-foil hat wearer. Or, my favourite: ‘You have an Apocalyptic personality!’
Guarantee of social failure, and probably divorce if married.
Let’s face it, Xabier, in the eyes of some people, we’re in a cult at OFW. Which is not the case as in reality we are a rather broad church.
What we do have in common is we’re the keepers of some unwelcome knowledge and of the sublime dark truth that the end of more is here and the end of BAU is near, and we don’t subscribe to the mainstream view that future progress is guaranteed as long as we all keep our noses to the grindstone.
Anyone who exposes themselves to radically new ideas will find them outlandish at first, but if they are exposed to the same set of ideas repeatedly and they can’t see any obvious flaws in them, they will come in time to feel those ideas becoming more familiar, more substantial and more valid.
The new ideas are initially vague shapes in the mist but they gradually assume a clearer form like pieces of sculpture in the mindscape. Eventually the ideas will seem natural and comfortable to hold and will be considered a matter of common sense.
The same process can occur regardless of whether the ideas are good or bad. That’s why if we don’t want to believe falsehoods, we would do well to challenge and scrutinize the ideas we hold before they become so familiar that we’ve set them in stone.
++++++++++++
Let me convert that eloquent post into a picture
https://www.valuewalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Stock-Market-1-1.jpg
http://i.quoteaddicts.com/media/q1/526306.png
“Guarantee of social failure, and probably divorce if married.” – Wow that is me! amazing how that works.
I made the mistake of stepping into a discussion of Trump yesterday — he is apparently evil because he does not support renewable energy
I asked what they had in mind in terms of renewable energy ….
Why of course solar and wind….
But … how are they renewable I said — they are made using coal
Coal? What do you mean — why is coal involved?
Umm…. well they dont grow on trees said I coal is used to generate electricity to smelt the metals and power the factories that make them
Oh….
And when there is no sun we need coal plants running to step in to provide power…
Oh … but what about batteries
What about batteries — they are very expensive — and there is not enough resources to make enough batteries to power the planet
And in any event airplanes and ships etc cannot run on solar energy and batteries…
Oh…
But we cannot just give up — we will figure out how to make this work — look at how far we have come with computers….
I really need to learn to keep my mouth shut — there is no upside.
As we can see — when the MSM has made up peoples minds — there is no unmaking them
Even fairy tales have a grain of truth:
Worst of all are the people—often school or college teachers—who put solar panels on their roof and then immediately start lecturing others on how they are making a contribution to saving the Earth. When cornered by such people I usually say something along the lines of “If you like solar panels, install solar panels. If you want to drive a Tesla, adopt a vegan or paleo diet, keep goats and chickens or grow your own potatoes, by all means do so and I hope it brings you much joy. But spare the rest of us the holier than thou virtue signaling.”
When we climb up the hill and see a bigger picture, one of the things we notice is that many other people who in the valley below have no ability to see beyond their small horizons. In today’s world, billions of people are thinking locally while being sustained globally. Their thoughts are concentrated primarily on what’s going on in their own local circle, at home, at work, and in the neighborhood, and secondarily by what’s going on in the newspaper or on the tee-vee. They are virtually blind and death to what’s going on a hundred miles away or in the levels of society above and below their own, and yet they are dependent on the functioning of the huge globalized machine to bring them power, fuel, food, water, 2-ply toilet paper and lots of other necessities and luxuries, often from the other side of the world. They live lives a lot closer to those of rabbits or chickens in cages than they suspect.
When I talk to people, even educated people, especially educated people, I usually find they are not very interested in what’s going on beyond their horizon, outside their level, in the wider world. They are not systems thinkers. They are content to have direct knowledge of their own little corner of the world, and they are comforted by the assurance that all the other little corners of the world have competent people in charge of them who will make appropriate decisions and take appropriate action as needed.
It’s a sort of human version of the old idea of God in His Heaven keeping the cosmic clockwork running so that we mortals don’t have to worry about the sky falling or the seasons getting out of synch. And there’s a fair amount of truth in this vision of competent people running various aspects of society and the world economy. But they certainly don’t have divine powers and they are unable to plan over the really long term. In my experience, very few people in government or business are looking more than five years ahead. There are longer term plans, of course, but these are usually quite tentative. Such as the plans to eliminate FF vehicles by 2040. At this stage, that’s a mere statement of intent, an act of national virtue signaling. If average guys and gals are still driving happy motor vehicles of any description at all by 2040 it will be a bloody miracle.
Snow Falls in the Sahara for the First Time Since 1979
A cold snap in the Algerian city of Ain Sefra led to a snowfall that covered the area’s distinctive orange dunes
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/snow-falls-sahara-first-time-1979-180961545/#Jd8CCOvOZoVu5YRk.99
Perth experiences coldest September since records began
http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/perth-experiences-coldest-september-since-records-began/news-story/bbb1348db61d9f00c61b9293d9bdfb3a
Chilly Qatar records coldest ever day | ABS-CBN News
http://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/02/06/17/chilly-qatar-records-coldest-ever-day
Funny what you can find …. if you look….
FE, you are undermining your own credibility here because it is very apparent that you have started out from the position, prior to doing any actual research, that glandular waxing is a hoax or a nefarious con-job and have been frantically googling articles to try, retroactively, to support that position. It’s not a good look.
In the US in the past 365 days, war.m temperature records outweighed cold temperature records by 3.71 to 1. The overall trend is a war.ming one but we will see more clima.tic extremes of all sorts, including more record lows, in part because wobbly jet streams at both ends of the planet mean displaced polar air.
Although well intentioned, trying to get through to FE is like trying to penetrate a thick wall of Tungsten with a ping pong ball. He’s unreachable.
I have another comment stuck in moderation in which I suggest a moratorium on discussing You Know What in the comments section of OFW, lest it descend into a proxy war between WattsUpwithThat and SkepticalScience, which would be unbearably tedious.
GW is global in scale. To try to justify the existence or non-existence of GW by looking at local weather patterns is silly. Regardless, GW is not going to matter anyway as we face much more dire short term consequences. I grow weary of the GW debate.
so….tired….of….it…..
JH — you should have tried a few months ago — before I had my epiphany … we would have been on the same team…. I too was a MORE on….. but then I saw the light.
And yes – I get tired of reading about how random weather events are evidence of …._____.
Gail is the wisest of the wise — and she has made her position absolutely clear.
https://i2.wp.com/selfeducatedamerican.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Winston-Churchill-V-for-Victory-02.jpg
“Gail is the wisest of the wise — and she has made her position absolutely clear.”
Yikes, FE – that is cultist thinking! Gail is an absolutely brilliant systems-thinker but we all have feet of clay.
You may have noticed the Dream Team surrounding Gail on this …. Tim, Greg, and a few others who are at least expressing doubts …
Meanwhile the rest of you are absolutely certain because the MSM has made up your minds for you.
On the contrary — I was like the rest of you until recently — I did not look at the logic of the situation — I was a fool — I broke my rule — because the MSM repeated this endlessly I assumed it must be true
But then I looked more deeply into the issue — and I concluded – correctly — that I was being lied to.
If you prefer to continue to spew the lies that the MSM provides you with then that is up to you
My credibility is doing just fine thank you very much — I have backed up my position with enough facts and logic that any thinking person should at least hold at least a bit of doubt on this issue
But nope — your mind has been made up for you – and nothing will change it
I know a lot of people are tired of this, and I know I can be a right pratt about it, so apologies to all, but Harry!
The overall trend is a war.ming one but we will see more clima.tic extremes of all sorts, including more record lows, in part because wobbly jet streams at both ends of the planet mean displaced polar air.
If this is the position, then it makes AGW unfalsifiable, since any unusual or extreme weather pattern can be considered a sign of AGW.
Hurricane in Texas…. Is this a sign?
Hail the size of Golfballs in Saskatoon…. Is this a sign?
Snow in the Sahara…. Is this a sign?
The Thames freezing at London Bridge…. Is this a sign?
https://youtu.be/Ka9mfZbTFbk
“If this is the position, then it makes A.G.W. unfalsifiable, since any unusual or extreme weather pattern can be considered a sign of A.G.W.”
Well, in a sense I would agree with this as we have changed the chemistry of the atmosphere such that the entire context within which weather patterns occur has been altered. I think what we will see moving forward though are many more hot-weather and sea-temperature records than cold ones.
It occurs to me that this whole debate is a salutary reminder that us humans will, even when we have huge amounts in common, tend to focus on and become antagonised by the one area in which our opinions differ. Anyone who has been on the long and bruising journey of discovery that has resulted in them washing up in the comments section of OFW has my respect, regardless of where they sit on this issue.
I suggest you focus your energy on real issues that are a threat to our survival — things like fresh water depletion … plummeting fish populations…. deforestation… ruined soils…..etc…
Funny how there is no ‘Al Gore’ urging us to ‘do something’ about these very real problems.
But of course that is because there are no solutions to those problems —- for G W …. we have solutions — solar wind and EVs.
I agree that the whole issue of A G W has become politically charged and a battle-ground for vested interests, so that we have dishonesty on *both* sides of the debate (see the Heartland Institute) and that it draws attention away from the other issues you mention, which are equally disastrous for us and the planet – but I fear they are all basically insoluble and simply boil down to there being too many of us, irretrievably locked in to a way of life that carries the seeds of its own destruction and which is not sustainable even in the near-term.
Not much to be done but chew the fat and watch the signs…
Thanks Harry for a very well measured response. Your view on this is quite reasonable and matches the majority opinion among my associates who have an interest in the matter. It will get warmer in the decades ahead, most say, although not necessarily dangerously warmer.
Then on the fringes there are characters like Guy McPherson on the one hand, who argues that the warming will end human life within the next ten years once enough methane seeps out of the Arctic and the wet bulb temps rise high enough to stop us from sweating, and me on the other hand, who is expecting cooling back to 1970s levels and half-expecting a repeat of the Dalton minimum, which began around the time of the French Revolution and brought widespread famine between 1816 and 1820, mainly as a result of the 1815 volcanic eruption of Mt. Tambora.
All you need to know about 9 11
Lets zoom out for the why and who set of Q&A as well as timing:
China was still before the lift off stage mania, Russia was barely standing on its own feet, national mil-gov + w. oligarchy cohabitation still largely in place, .. Europe – launch of EUR ? Nah.
Actually, it’s there in the plain sight, they freaked out from “early peak” projections, hence the Iraq invasion and domestic quasi martial laws enacted afterwards, also don’t forget the spillover of “peak oil” literature in the late 1990s / early 2000s as the meme dripped down from the ruling level into some limited public realm exposure at that time as well.
Hence, looking into rear view mirror, we must conclude today almost a decade later with very high probability we are currently existing on very “lucky” extended life support (timewise) as of now..
oops, obviously meant: “almost two decades later” ..
9/11 is a symptom of the greater disease of diminishing returns. The last remaining economic oil reserves in the world in the year 2000 were (and still are) in Iraq (and in the Middle East in general). In order to secure public support of the militarization of the Middle East, a Pearl Harbor type of event was needed that would turn public perception against the Middle Eastern “terrorist” and secure those resources for US consumption. 9/11 was that event. It is very obvious that it was a manufactured event. And It worked very well Many are still fooled to this day into believing that three WTC buildings collapsed due to structural failure and gravity. There is so much evidence out there showing that explosive demolition is the mode of collapse. Even just a little research turns up mountains of evidence of explosive demolition. Even foreign countries are calling us out on this as well. Most notably Japan. With zero US response and zero coverage in the US news media.
The goal of securing Middle East oil has not been fully realized though as the oil production from Iraq has not lived up to expectations. So, to that end the US gov’t must prepare itself for the eventual decline in oil supplies and violent insurrection in America. Again, 9/11 fills that void as well by allowing the rise of the US police state. After all we have to militarize our police to protect us from terrorist that harmed us on 9/11. So, the general public perception of the Middle East is that of terrorist. And the US gov’t has taken full advantage as well by essentially revoking the Bill Of Rights from the people. The militarization of the US and the Middle East is all too apparent today. And all of this started with 9/11.
So, as we continue to struggle with oil prices, and diminishing returns there will be ever more desperate attempts to shift the pain and blame to someone else. What will be next? War with Russia? War with NK? Senseless flailing as the Titanic sinks.
Is the Brotherhood even real?
That Winston you will never know.
-Orwell 1984
The intent behind bringing down those buildings was good….
Pity you weren’t in one, Mr Schadenfreude.
Oh come now …. those people were sacrificed for a good cause….. they gave their lives so that the El ders could invade the ME …. ensuring that we had a supply of cheap oil…. and BAU could live on …
So that you could continue to shop … and have a warm/cool home… a nice bed…. plenty of food… medical care… security…. and your wonderful life….
Better them than you no?
I volunteered for AE911Truth for several years and did research and worked on one of their videos. It became exhausting to try to swim upstream against willful denial by the mainstream media and most Americans. The official story of 9/11 defies the laws of physics and logic. I look forward to the day when the entire story comes out and so admire the people (like AE911Truth founder RIchard Gage) who can press on in the face of ridicule and ignorance.
The CIA’s mission of “ensuring everything American’s believe is false” – is working!
http://tinyurl.com/yd892pbb
This is good.
It is a very good summary. And anyone who hasn’t spent time delving deeply into the subject would do well to check out any of Professor David Ray Griffin’s excellent books.
David Ray Griffin’s 9/11 work is very good and very entertaining. He reveals a mountain of lies, distortions and inconsistencies that went into making the up the official 9/Eleven account.
However, more recently, he penned a book entitled Unprecedented: Can Civilization Survive the CO2 Crisis?, in which he does the opposite, he endorses a mountain of lies, distortions and inconsistencies that went into making the up the AGW theory.
It’s amazin’ how in DRG’s mind the same Shallow State can be capable and culpable of misrepresenting, obfuscating and twisting the facts out of all recognition on 9/Eleven but is so transparently honest and above board when it comes to AGW. It really is. I know DRG is a retired professor of philosophy of religion and theology, so he must be used to examining lots of seemingly perverse, ridiculous and even contradictory ideas, but I’ll have to have a doublethink about this.
Similarly… there are people who can see through the renewable energy fakery … but are unable to see through the ggg wwww fakery…
Don Draper has obviously not done as good a job with the renewable energy side of things…
Just wait until we experience a 10% or 20% drop in oil supplies. In a few years or sooner we certainly will. When it hits the economic and social damage will be catastrophic. The end of Western Civilization, from China to Europe, to the US, will not occur when oil runs out. The economic and social chaos will occur when supplies are merely reduced sufficiently.
https://media0.giphy.com/media/bn0zlGb4LOyo8/giphy.gif
If 2% or 6% can’t happen, can 10% or 20%?
100%.
That is what will happen soon after the supply of affordable oil peaks.
Because BAU will end soon after that happens.
And whatever oil is in the ground at that time — will stay in the ground
Timeline?
If I knew that then I would time things so I was down to my last dollar on the day BAU ended….
One recommended correction – be down to someone else’s last dollar…borrowed that is! Leverage to the hilt, do your duty to prolong BAU. 😉
75% of Americans have less than $500. Any significant inflation (due to oil shortage) will be enough to spark the bloodiest and longest lasting civil unrest ever seen on earth.
I agree Americans are angry, divided, and armed to the teeth. Add to that formula 4 dollar a gallon gasoline and shortages. Shit will be hitting fans!
The 45+ million on food stamps are only hours away from taking all you have and killing you for it when that income ends. And it will.
++++++++++++++
When the darkness descends over the land …. the hordes will come… and they will not be asking
https://voiceofoc.org/wp-content/uploads/archive/editorial/5/2d/52dea990-2085-11e3-8b31-0019bb2963f4/5239ded32a185.image.jpg
I agree with all but the long lasting part.
It won’t last long.
Starvation – disease – and spent fuel pond radiation …. will end it within a couple of months….
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Radiation_Sickness.png/310px-Radiation_Sickness.png
and that is the new system that will replace us dollars as the reserve currency a world gold standard the powers that be are secretly working on their creation which will usher in the new world order a new financial system that does not need growth. it will be communistic in nature
https://sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i/keep-calm-you-re-a-little-delusional.png
We can help you — but you have to want to be helped
Report of aftermath of Hurricane Irma beret in Broward County Florida.
Electric went off 8:30 am on Saturday and just turned back on here 10:00 pm.
Dodged a bullet in terms of derailing BAU, by most accounts infrastructure and functioning government, private sector operating at a high level.
Undoubtedly, water surge and wind damage was most notable; it was 10 years since the last major hurricane and much vegetation and landscape growth had a “haircut”, as a Florida Power Light spokesman pointed out.
A few deaths related go the hurricane, man hanging shutters from ladder, fell and died.
Another with gas generator ran it inside and died from the exhaust fumes.
Curfews enacted to prevent looting, number of reports of arrests.
Shelters are closing and provided exceptional safety for people in need.
Already cleaning up yard of debris of trees and branches.
Most neighbors reaching out to help and assure there is help if needed.
I was out and about in the front yard at times during the hurricane, some wicked high wind sprawls and gusts. Obviously, this could have been a lot worse.
I am so grateful that I might have a Turkey dinner again during the Holidays!
The fact that the petrodollar is at risk seems to have been off most people’s radar.
http://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/China-Readies-Yuan-Priced-Crude-Oil-Benchmark-Backed-By-Gold.html
That is very interesting. I have read over the years that the war in Iraq and the overthrow of Gadaffi in Libya was (at least in part) due to their leaders wanting to price oil outside of Dollars. The US also pledges military support to Saudi Arabia in return for their agreement to price oil in Dollars. So, it does seem important. It makes other nations scramble to acquire Dollars to buy oil. By having other countries buying US debt it helps finance our debt and offsets some of our trade imbalances too. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to do anything to the stagnant wages in America.
The White House said Monday it will take “weeks” to fully restore electricity to Florida following Hurricane Irma, which left more than half of Floridians without power according to some estimates.
“I would caution people to be very patient here,” said Tom Bossert, assistant to the president for Homeland Security and counterterrorism. “We could have power down in homes for the coming weeks. Weeks.”
Bossert said the federal government is working with electric companies to help remove debris and clear roads as part of what he called “the largest ever mobilization of line-restoration workers in this country.”
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article172705816.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Tainter
Peak complexity = peak fragility
+++++++++++++++++++++
Yep!!!!!
Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Warns of Oil Shortage -WSJ
https://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-minister-sees-end-of-oil-price-slump-1476870790
This is from 2016. I think it is wishful thinking.
He gives reasons
Energy watchdog warns oil and electricity shortages could develop as investment falls again in 2016
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/10/watchdog-warns-of-oil-and-electricity-shortages-as-investment-falls.html
It is strange that they don’t figure out that it is wages that drop too low.
Piano player is great…..
Family of Tesla driver killed in ‘Autopilot’ crash does not blame car
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-autopilot/family-of-tesla-driver-killed-in-autopilot-crash-does-not-blame-car-idUSKCN1BM22L?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=59b6dadb04d3012f305d5637&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter
Driver did not use very good sense. I wonder if he had been drinking or was otherwise impaired.
Blaming the car would be like blaming Elon …. Green Grooopie MORE ons would never do that.
Turgot 1766
“The land has also furnished the whole amount of moveable
riches, or capitals, in existence, and these are formed only
by part of its produce being saved each year.”
“Not only does there not exist nor can there exist any
other revenue than the net produce of lands, but it is also
the land which has furnished all the capitals which make
up the sum of all the advances of agriculture and commerce.
It was that which offered without tillage the first
rude advances which were indispensable for the earliest
labors, all the rest is the accumulated fruit of the economy
of the centuries that have followed one another since man
began to cultivate the earth. This economizing has doubtless
taken place not only out of the revenues of the proprietors
but also out of the profits of all the members
of the working classes.
It is even generally true that,
although the proprietors have a greater superfluity, they
save less because as they have more leisure, they have more
desires and more passions, they regard themselves as more
assured of their fortune, they think more about enjoying
it agreeably than about Increasing It luxury is their inheritance.
The wage-receivers, _ and especially the undertakers
of the other classes, who receive profits proportionate
to their advances, to their talent and to their activity,
although they have no revenue properly so called, have yet
a superfluity beyond their subsistence, and almost all of
them, devoted as they are to their undertakings, occupied
in increasing their fortunes, removed by their labor from
expensive amusements and passions, save all their superfluity
to invest it again m their business, and so increase
it.
Most of the undertakers in agriculture borrow little,
and scarcely any of them seek to make a profitable employment
of anything but their own funds. The undertaker
in other employments, who wish to make their fortune,
stable, also try to get into the same position: and, unless
they have great ability, those who carry on their enterprises
upon borrowed funds run great risk of failing.
But, although capitals are partly formed by saving from the
profits of the working classes, yet, as these profits always
come from the earth, inasmuch as they are all paid,
either from the revenue, or as part of the expenditure
which serves to produce the revenue, it is evident that
capitals come from the land just as much as the revenue
does, or, rather, that they are nothing but the accumulation
of the part of the values produced by the land that
the proprietors of the revenue, or those who share it with
them, can lay by every year without using it for the satisfaction
of their wants.”
Turgot was a Physiocrat
If you carefully read his conclusion and reflect on the global economy as it mirrors France in his day you will see clear parallels.
“It is even generally true that,
although the proprietors have a greater superfluity, they
save less because as they have more leisure, they have more
desires and more passions, they regard themselves as more
assured of their fortune, they think more about enjoying
it agreeably than about Increasing It”
Or it would seem that they think about enjoying it agreeably while increasing it lazily, greedily and short sightedly, without ensuring its long term continuity.
Welcome to America
https://medium.com/@GeeeBee/looking-down-the-barrel-the-tooth-fairy-the-dragon-king-9225dfb4cc6a
“So long as oil is used as a source of energy, when the energy cost of recovering a barrel of oil becomes greater than the energy content of the oil, production will cease no matter what the monetary price may be. ”
Oil exploration began as a function of the religious belief in “economics,” and infinite growth–society, unlike living species, had no upper limit to growth. That seemed to work as long as the rate of growth and the cost of mining oil remained somewhat modest. But that state of affairs (and expectation), while it has overwhelming cultural momentum and can’t be stopped in its tracks, is now fairly easy to see as a dead end. This is a relatively new and partial realization.
Economic reward is now not appropriately linked with oil production. Something more akin to religion might be, though. The efficiency and ubiquity of oil energy is such that it can’t be foregone. The animal muscle to fuel hospitals, food production, computers, and everything else, couldn’t be had even through enslaving most people toward that end. The energy infrastructure is too large, and by many orders of magnitude.
So now that oil production might not pay handsomely or make one rich, it still has to continue through some other kind of motivation. Paying oil workers more than anyone else (but only as a conditional measure in a dire emergency), as I think Gail suggested, would be something reasonable to do. But some sort of non monetary motivation is required simultaneously.
If you get less energy out than it takes you to find, drill, refine and deliver to the economy then the game is over. Though it is well over before that as the economy needs surplus energy to run. How much is a big debate.
“If you get less energy out than it takes you to find, drill, refine and deliver to the economy then the game is over. ”
How much of that is mandated on the wish of owners and shareholders to get rich? I am suggesting that oil production as a money game is at odds with the survival of industrial production (run on oil) after certain limits have been reached. In a theocratic or military government, oil is produced without private parties–corporations, shareholders–getting rich. You take private interests out of the equation, the general public live simply while technology, government services, militaries get funded. The system is run by force or by religion, or both. Industrial civilization continues under different rules. i’m not prescribing anything. It just seems that a neutral party looking at the situation might think along those lines in the process of trying to understand the subject.
Yes, nicely described dynamics, which is in line with historical accounts and human nature.
That’s why we can assign high priority to scenarios of at least attempted command style economies post crash, mileage may vary, it would be immediately unsuccessful in some parts of the world, resulting in further cascading chaos and or small governable areas, while working for a while in other places. Obviously with the proviso there is no fulls scale global nuclear/.. war knee jerk reaction, and also at least some %% of regions will be able, willing to commit resources to cool nuclear waste pools for a couple of more years, before longer terms disposal etc.
Hi worldofhanumanotg
Where I would differ is to refute the prospect of anything like civilization continuing post crash (if it’s a kind of networked crash which shuts down governments’ ability to keep some kind of order worldwide). So my concern is to be as clear as possible where I see us now, whether or not there is any possibility to change course now, with industrial civilization still up and running.
There is massive social and economic decline all over, even as there is growth of the over all economic system. This might provide two opportunities for change. 1) Where there is decline, innovative coping methods might be better than the status quo. 2) Where IC is gaining, there could be an opportunity to make some tiny but smarter initiatives than otherwise–roof water catchment, widespread gray water outlet, more telecommuting… Admittedly, these little things are like spitting into the wind of the over all destruction–get this–of the means for IC itself to continue! IC is busy cutting off the limb it’s perched on. But it’s such a huge and complex system that it can only be self organizing.
However, aren’t we each a part of that system which is self organizing?
Clearly the MIL have large needs. As do police, services of all kinds, food production. Then you have corporations and 0.1% ers. So a small surplus still yields no oil to the middle class.
Oil and the Global Economy- Group of 30 Washington DC 2016
http://group30.org/publications/detail/678
I wonder if anyone here has read the pay article. Please comment if so! Personally from the abstract I’m always suspicious of “changing consumer preferances.”
here some nostalgia of fake news
https://youtu.be/IrH2r_6oDAU
Palestinians celebrating the 9/11 attack which was never truth
Usually I don’t like to go too deep down the 9/11 rabbit hole, but plenty of inconsistencies have been pointed out by lots of smart people, AND IT IS ONLY ONCE A YEAR!!
https://youtu.be/8W3y3Qh8R1s
http://drjudywood.com
Check out the you tube video at her site. Great research!
Proving again that Elon is the new Moses, he reached out his hands and extended the range of his Tesla-mobiles for his followers to get extended range to flee Florida
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/fp_thumb/images/user245717/imageroot/2017.09.10elon.JPG
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-10/elon-musk-magically-extends-battery-life-teslas-fleeing-irma
Interesting! I didn’t know this could be done. I understand that it took 28 hours for some people driving from South Florida to get to Atlanta. The trip is about 663 miles and would normally take about 9 hours.
I seem to have a bandwidth problem today. Perhaps way too many people at home, watching movies around here.
http://trinitynewberg.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/amen_1982c.jpg
Half of Americans Believe in 9/11 Conspiracy Theories
https://www.livescience.com/56479-americans-believe-conspiracy-theories.html
No surprise there. Why do you think Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones are so popular? The imbecility of the american populace has no limits. Meanwhile, they think they are the “exceptional ” ones. When you have been told, as a nation, for a few generations, that you were the best in the world, that you were the example to follow, and there is nothing better than the “american way”, you really have that ingrained in your collective mentality. And you become a mass of gullible morons ready to swallow anything that says “your way” is under threat…
I worked on the oil rigs in Colorado for a Summer during college break and many co-workers listened to all that AM radio conspiracy stuff and repeated it back like it was gospel. I think it was more of a case of them ‘wanting’ to believe it than any of it actually making sense, but maybe that is giving them too much of a benefit of the doubt. It was their form of entertainment but they probably didn’t get that it was fantasy.
The same holds true for the MORE ons who allow the likes of CNN BBC NYT etc… to tell them what to think.
Both groups are equally Stewpid.
I am sure you will disagree with that.
I have a hard time believing these percentages, but if it is true that only 46% of Americans believe the scamp of the official version of 11-9, that means MSM is not doing their job well. They have to try harder, if they want justify their nice salaries.
if I were a media boss, I would be furious with these numbers, and tomorrow morning heads would roll. It’s a shame to spend billions on such a heart-lifting story, to pay gazillions to its writers and promotors, to obtain such weak results.
scam
The thing is…
Even if 90% of Americans firmly believed that the US govt was behind this incident…..
What could they do about it?
Could they protest?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/64/Uc_Davis_Pepper_Spray_Incident.jpg
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/03/13/suspension-pro-palestinian-student-group-northeastern-stirs-debate/fzDKNCtFeRykLXTPxbRIHO/story.html
Nah…. they’d just go on with life …. as if nothing happened.
You mean half of all Americans know that 911 was a false flag…. ???
Saudi government allegedly funded a ‘dry run’ for 9/11
http://nypost.com/2017/09/09/saudi-government-allegedly-funded-a-dry-run-for-911/
In the area of Texas that was affected by Harvey, foot traffic and sales fell to near-zero for the last week in August.
Oh well, the run of consecutive months of year-over-year declines ought to end in August 2018 then!
That hurricane Harvey will leave marks on overall economic data, after the ravages it produced in one of the largest urban areas in the US, is clear. Chain restaurants had already been struggling with 17 months in a row of year-over-year declines in same-store sales and foot traffic, the longest downturn since 2009. Then Harvey made landfall.
And August became the 18th month in a row of year-over-year declines, with foot traffic at chain restaurants falling 3.9% and same-store sales 2.0%.
Sales fell in 153 markets and rose in 42 markets. The Western Region was the least bad market, with same-store sales inching up 0.1% and foot traffic falling 1.9%. Texas was the “worst region” with same-store sales falling 5.2% and foot traffic plunging 7.2%. In the area of Texas that was affected by Harvey, foot traffic and sales fell to near-zero for the last week in August.
https://wolfstreet.com/2017/09/09/harvey-hits-chain-restaurants-but-not-just-harvey/
Atlanta is forecast to have 3 to 5 inches of rain from Harvey. https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/2017-09-11-hurricane-tropical-storm-irma-florida-georgia-carolinas-southeast
I am sure sales in Atlanta will be way down for today and tomorrow. A lot of businesses are closed. Kennesaw State University (where my husband teaches) announced yesterday that it would be closed Monday and Tuesday, “out of an abundance of caution.” A nearby creek frequently overflows its banks, and a major intersection tends to end up underwater when there is a lot of rain.
The bus that our son takes downtown will not be running today. The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that all public schools in metro Atlanta will be closed on Monday.
And quite a few workers paid on an hourly basis won’t be paid. I am sure that people who don’t need to go out will stay in. Restaurant meals will be down here as well. Some parents without daycare arrangements will have to stay home, even if their employer is open, because schools are closed.
Generators etc were sold out in Raleigh 11 days ago.
Your area has had some bad weather problems over the past few years, so I’m not surprised of the shutdown.
This website https://georgiaemc.com/storm-center/current-outages says that there are 212,000 homes or businesses currently without power in the metro Atlanta area, and the total for the state is about 560,000 accounts without power.
We have not had problems here. It has been raining quite hard, but there has been very little wind.
Bullshit. It drizzled in Houston, and MSM is calling it a flood. Pathetic!
I went to Houston to help my sister, who was flooded. I took her to a steakhouse for lunch. There were probably 7-8 people in the restaurant. Meanwhile a local Baptist church offered free hot meals from 5:00-7:00 every evening. No doubt well attended.
Good point!
A lot of people in the Atlanta area are hosting visiting friends and relatives from Florida.
There was NO flooding. I repeat: NO flooding. Despite what FE and others keep saying.
No flooding in Houston? ha! You are wrong big time. Funny, my sister was flooded. I went to Houston….a week after the hurricane there were still areas flooded.
Are you sure you were in Houston?
Harvey was Fake News FE! It drizzled that day.
Say goodbye to gasoline. The world’s slow drift toward electric cars is about to enter full flood.
China, one-third of the world’s car market, is working on a timetable to end sales of fossil-fuel-based vehicles, the country’s vice minister of industry and information technology, Xin Guobin, told an industry forum in Tianjin on Saturday.
That would probably see the country join Norway, France and the U.K. in switching to a wholly electric fleet within the lifetime of most current drivers.
https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2017-09-11/electric-cars-reach-a-tipping-point
But of course the MSM only lies about EVs… with respect to ggeebla gooble….. they are telling you the truth
🙂 🙂 🙂
EVs are popular where (1) there is a problem with local air pollution or (2) there seems to be source of electricity that could be used. Norway has its hydroelectric. Europe has tried using diesel, but it is too polluting. China has lots of coal to power electric cars. It might not be too locally polluting, if the coal is burned at a distance, and the electricity is sent by transmission lines.
Will you ever understand that SCIENCE says about G W? MSM could not talk about it at all, and I would have same opinion about G W that I have now. Will you question Einstein’s Theory of relativity, because MSM accepts it?
If the MSM took to repeating that theory over and over and over day after day after day …. then yes – I would question its validity
And I would seek to understand what the agenda was — why are they bothering to repeat it.
Just as with ____ ____ I see this repeated day after day after day after day …..
We KNOW that there is nothing we can do about it. So what is the agenda? Why bother publishing this sh*t day after day after day after day?
Gail has of course outlined the agenda. But some here refuse to accept her logic.
Perhaps you could enlighten me — if there is nothing that can be done — why does the MSM go on and on and on about this non issue?
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Facts damned Facts….
cherry-picked facts damned facts…
The oceans and the atmosphere could care less about what Chicago Tribune had to say in 1981. Greenhouse gases cause warming. Human activity emits greenhouse gases-a lot of them, and the majority of them do not come from tail pipes, but from tilling the soil, raising livestock, deforestation, and industrial activities, including burning coal, manufacturing cement and so on. Warming does not manifest itself in boiling hot temperatures all over the world but in wild fluctuations in the weather. If you don’t live under a rock you could see with your naked eyes. Anyone could come up with a graph. Look out the window. Talk to people. Live in the real world. The world has changed significantly.
The problem of deniers is they think they live in an infinite world. If you deny AGW then you say we live in an infinite world, and humans could do all they want for as long as they want. In other words, if “economic” system works, be it through QE or other financial engineering, or yet, if the Ponzi scheme could be maintained, who cares about the environment? Wrong approach. The laws of physics do not care about the Ponzi scheme called “economy” But if you believe 9/11 was an inside job, of course AGW is a hoax…
There’s no particular problem with AGW deniers. If AGW is the sort of problem you imagine it is, then the main problem obviously lies with AGW affirmers like your good self. After all, there are more of you affirmers than their are of us deniers, right? And at the top of the ziggurat, among those members of the overclass that fly in private planes, own private yachts and private islands, have carbon footprints the size of a small town, and make the big decisions about what sort of things get invested in and developed, the vast majority are card-carrying AGW affirmers, just like you.
The way I see it, all you have to do is get the affirmers—the vast majority—to actually practice what they preach, stop burning FFs, stop tilling the soil, stop eating and breathing, etc., and your problem’s sorted, innit? When you’ve organized that, get back to us.
Anyone can think anything they want and that isn’t a problem as long as it doesn’t affect their behavior. Your personal delusion is that you think individual thinking can make a difference to the overall human predicament to the extent that if we all became 100% alarmed about AGW we could do something practical to save the world from these wild fluctuations in the weather you appear to be so concerned about.
Of course, if you want to think that, you’re welcome to think that, for all the good it will do anyone.
You can be a gambler
Who never drew a hand
You can be a sailor
Who never left dry land
You can be lord Jesus
All the world will understand
Down where the drunkards roll
Down where the drunkards roll
https://youtu.be/uXdx1fwEKrw
TG.
You are absolutely wrong. You say:
Your personal delusion is that you think individual thinking can make a difference to the overall human predicament to the extent that if we all became 100% alarmed about AGW we could do something practical to save the world from these wild fluctuations in the weather you appear to be so concerned about.
I never said that, never thought of that. I know we cannot fix this situation and we will all go down with the ship, you deniers and us affirmers.
I will repeat one thing though: denying AGW means you think we live in an infinite world and what we do to our environment does not count. Not saying we could fix it, we are beyond that point.
The issue is a different one than you think.
We humans have been destroying the environment since the days of being hunter-gatherers. It is part of the physics of the situation.
We humans, like all plants and animals, are dissipative structures. We need energy to grow and maintain ourselves. In fact, ecosystems tend to optimize the use of available energy to the maximum extent possible. It is this optimization process that determines which animals will “succeed” in a particular environment, and which animals will fall in number. Evolution, and survival of the best adapted, play a significant role as well.
Humans are different from other plants and animals. We learned to harness the power of burned biomass, over one million years ago. Its use became widespread, at a later date, but still soon enough to influence heredity. Humans learned to cook at least some of our food. The digestion of both plant and animals used as food is aided by cooking. Later, we learned substitutes for burned biomass, including burning coal and later natural gas. We also learned to make high tech devices (using fossil fuels) to produce electricity using uranium. Later, we started using fossil fuels to make intermittent electricity with only solar energy or wind.
The use of cooking allowed our bodily structure to change. Our jaws and our digestive system became much smaller, and our brains became much bigger. Our metabolism also speeded up somewhat, relative to other mammals. We are now adapted to the use of supplemental energy, beyond that in food, or that available from using animals as our slaves.
At this point, we have no way of going backward. At a minimum, we need to cook part of our food. If we are going to live outside areas where we are well adapted, we also need heat to keep our bodies from freezing. There are other workarounds as well–clothing and air conditioning, as well. These also require fossil fuels. We cannot make wind turbines, solar panels, nuclear power plants, or modern hydroelectric plants without fossil fuels. We cannot maintain our electric grid without fossil fuels.
Our problem is that we humans do not really have very much control over the situation. We have to use fossil fuels, if we are to continue to feed any significant share of our population. We cannot cut back on our use of fossil fuels to any significant extent, because (regardless of what we read in the press) wind, solar, and other alternatives are not all that good. At most, they act to extend our use of fossil fuels a bit.
I object to the use of the term AGW, because the way the term is used, people assume that humans have some control over global warming. Humans started burning down forests as hunter gatherers, both in Australia and in Europe. This no doubt affected the climate. No matter what we do now, there is nothing we can do that will fix the situation. Humans always cause change to the climate, just as growing human population has an adverse impact on populations of other species. But there is nothing we can do now, or could ever do, to fix this situation.
We need to come up with a different term, that makes it clearer that we as humans have no control over global warming. The things that allow us to be human are the same things that cause global warming. The two issues are connected, but we have not been given the power to fix the situation. We need to move on.
We have burned just about all the ffs we are going to ever burn.
I take a walk outside here and I see nothing abnormal – the sky is blue — with some cloud — there is snow on the mountains — it is a chilly spring day
I travel a lot — and I see nothing abnormal in other countries.
If we have not burned up the planet by now — then it is simply not going to happen.
Your dream is about to come true.
The solution to your problem is at hand — we will not stop burning — we will simply run out of fuel
You should be far more concerned about this than being roasted alive.
‘
Of course the last thing we want is for the masses to become aware of this….. better they spend their time moaning over something that is not going to happen.
https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/icbkDFACM4iA/v2/800x-1.png
The so called Irma storm is made up bullshit. 100% fake news. Just sayin! It’s not possible to have a hurricane that hits BOTH Cuba AND the US. Doh.
Don’t look at NOAA much, huh?
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/glob/201409.gif
The most important graph regarding this issue.
IMHO, the above fake graph includes some dodgy and some misrepresented data, it has been fraudulently compiled for political propaganda purposes, and it does not say anything significant about the real world apart from about the prevalence of deceit in the world of government- and corporate-funded “Big Science”. You may well disagree with that opinion, but you’d have to be deluded, scientifically ignorant or intellectually challenged not to understand that EVEN IF the base data was valid, the fact that the graph contains NO ERROR BARS means that THE GRAPH MISREPRESENTS THE PRECISION OF THE DATA that went into it. (And No, I didn’t accidentally put on the caps lock there. I capitalized for emphasis.)
Measurements made using thermo-meters with an accuracy of 0.5 degrees C can’t produce data accurate to 0.1 degrees C because each individual measurement is only accurate to 0.5 degrees C. Some of these measurements might have been accurate to within 0.1 degrees C, while others would have been rounded up or rounded down by anything up to 0.5 degrees C. In proper science, you can’t average out all that statistical “noise” by assuming that all the rounding up and the rounding down cancels out over time.
There are lots of issues with the paucity and the accuracy of actual historical measurement data over most of the world and especially the oceans (where for most of the record thermometers were dipped in the occasional bucket of sea water collected by the occasional passing ship, and this is now being interpreted as “we’ve measured the temp. of the South Pacific to within 0.1 degrees C in 1880!”), adjustments applied to replace actual measurement data with values that were not actually measured (because altered observational data is no longer observational data), merging different data sets (because different data has different limitations on its currency, accuracy, definition and reliability) and the averaging of averages (something proper scientists and statisticians warn is fraught with imponderables).
Then there are issues with humidity, inversion layers, etc., that render raw temp. data a very rough tool for estimating the heat content of the atmos-phere.
Yes, lots and lots of issues. But the long and the short of it is that the above graph pretends to a degree of precision and accuracy that is unachievable given the data it is based upon.
http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/74/74e820896d7d2a903dbfe476a00ed166d9baf5e45e8746084ef9c81b3f0df2c4.jpg
The thing is…
Klimey scientists have been caught outright faking data — because the klllimate has NOT warmed in nearly 20 years
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4192182/World-leaders-duped-manipulated-glo bal-war ming-data.html
That is a FACT – one of their own BLEW THE WHISTLE on them.
Yet the MSM has continued to publish the same lies — no mention of the fake data.
Is it ok if I bring a bit of logic to the party?
The scientists faked their data because the temps did not increase.
Which means the temps did not increase.
But the MORE ons are posting graphs that indicate the temps increased.
And they expect that should convince us that their position is correct.
Now this is beyond MORE onism…. this is just plain
F789ING STEWPIDITY!
This is like a WTF moment on steroids.
A f789ing 7 year old would not attempt to use this ‘logic’ in trying to make an argument.
Well maybe a severely mentally retarded 7 year old.
“The increase in temperatures since 1975 is a consistent feature of all reconstructions, and is also a feature found in reconstructions from natural temperature proxy measurements. This increase cannot be explained as an artifact of the adjustment process…”
https://skepticalscience.com/surface-temperature-measurements-advanced.htm
My recommendation is that we call a moratorium on discussing cl.ch.
As far as Gail is concerned – and Gail correct me if I am wrong – it is something of an irrelevance because impending financial collapse renders all existing cl.ch models inaccurate and because we are irretrievably fossil-fuel dependent until that collapse occurs. I don’t come to OFW for informed debate on the climate any more than I would go to Robert Scribbler’s blog for informed debate on energy and the economy.
As far as I am concerned, it is just one of many ways in which humans are stressing the environment and piling additional pressure on the growth-dependent financial system. Unfortunately it has become politically charged and socially divisive in a way that pollution, ocean acidification, overfishing, habitat destruction, deforestation etc. have not, which means that debate quickly becomes unedifying.
We are in danger of becoming a proxy battleground for WattsUpwithThat vs. SkepticalScience, which would be tedious beyond belief.
Regardless of one’s position on this ….
The imminent and only threats we are facing is starvation disease violence and radiation poisoning due to the end of cheap to extract oil and other resources
Those who crave blue carbon free skies are going to get them soon enough — you will be looking up at them as you lie on your back taking your last breath.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/10/24/1414160249553_wps_3_MUNICH_GERMANY_FROM_CHA_C.jpg
From the comments on ZH
Funny how sea level is identical to 1870 (and 1901), then, huh?
Funny how all the gauges show a 0.63mm/yr rise (which, again, is smaller than at any time in the last 11,000 years). Not 3.3. Not 2.6. Not 1.4.
Certainly not “a meter by 2050.”
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http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-10/bill-maher-federal-aid-texas-and-florida-seems-unfair
Funny – hahahahahahaha
Lots of good stuff here
https://forums.appleinsider.com/discussion/comment/2948695/#Comment_2948695
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Tell that to people in Bangladesh who lose their land because of salt water intrusion.
You in the anglo-saxon world think it’s all about the USA, GBR, AUS, NZL. Got news for you. It’s not about you only. There are more than 4 billion people on Earth already affected by AGW, and no I didn’t read that in the MSM. Open your mind and do your own research. Oh, wait, you’re busy filling up your 20 footer with booze for the end-of-the-world-party. Or doing your bucket lis of whatever adrenaline inducing crap you’re doing. And sneering at permies, lefties and whoever else does not agree with your more-onic worldviews
Perhaps if there was not so much sand erosion due to both mining sand from the oceans, and to over development of natural wetlands, ther might not be salt water intrusion.
Sand mining and over development in Bangladesh? Right…
You did read my earlier post on this I hope….
https://sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i/apology-accepted-and-you-re-forgiven.png
In the heavily congested coastal areas of Bali — particularly Seminyak — so many bores have been sunk to tap fresh water than it is forcing people to drill ever more deeply into the ground…
That has resulted in sea water seeping into the aquifers … and what comes out of the tap is undrinkable due to high salt content.
I am sure many people attribute this – incorrectly – to rising seas caused by you know what.
If you enjoy enduring deep frustration — try explaining to them how they are wrong.
Soooo many people; maybe the land is sinking as much as the sea-level is rising!
More Inconvenient Truths…. for Goooble Gobbling MORE ons….
Submerged lands[edit]
Main articles: Submerged continent and Continental fragment
The Sahul Shelf and the Sunda Shelf during the ice ages and today. The area in between is called “Wallacea”.
Although the existence of lost continents in the above sense is mythical, there were many places on earth that were once dry land but submerged after the ice age around 10,000 BCE due to rising sea levels, and possibly were the basis for neolithic and bronze age flood myths. Approximately listed by size, these are:
Dvārakā, mythical city of Krishna, claimed by some to be found in marine archeology in the Gulf of Khambhat
Lemuria, a mythical lost continent with an ancient Tamil civilization in the Indian or the Pacific Ocean
Sundaland, the now submerged Sunda Shelf.
Zealandia, a continent that is now 94% submerged under the Pacific Ocean.
Kerguelen Plateau, a submerged micro-continent which is now 1–2 km below sea level.
Beringia, connecting Asia and North America.
Doggerland, the bed of the North Sea, inundated by rising sea level during the Holocene.
The bed of the Persian Gulf—claimed by some to contain Dilmun or the Garden of Eden
A large island in the Mediterranean Sea, of which Malta is the only part not now submerged.
Maui Nui, once a large island of the Hawaii archipelago; several major islands represent residual high ground of Maui Nui.
New Moore Island, an island in the Bay of Bengal submerged in 2010 by rising sea levels.
Verdronken Land van Reimerswaal, most of this region in The Netherlands vanished in a storm in 1532; the town of Reimerswaal survived as an island into the 17th century; the last bits of land vanished in the early 19th century.
Strand, an island off the German coast with the town Rungholt, eroded away by storm surges before being washed away by a final flood in 1634.
Jordsand, once an island off the Danish coast, eroded away by storm surges before being washed away by a final flood between 1998 and 1999.
Ferdinandea, submerged volcanic island which has appeared at least four times in the past.
Sarah Ann Island, now submerged guano island, located just north of the equator. Vanished between 1917 and 1932.
Ravenser Odd, a large 13th-century town on the old sandbank promontory in East Yorkshire, which became an island and then vanished in January 1392.
Dunwich, the traditional capital of the Kingdom of the East Angles that was lost to the sea when a storm surge hit the coastline in 1286.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_lands#Submerged_lands
Bangla Desh, Bangla Desh
Where so many people are dying fast
And it sure looks like a mess
I’ve never seen such distress
Now won’t you lend your hand
Try to understand
Relieve the people of Bangla Desh
Bangla Desh, Bangla Desh
With sixty-five million people at the time of Harrison’s mess
And a hundred and sixty-five million now according to the latest guess
The most densely populated nation on earth by a very long chalk
With nearly 1,400 people per square km, there’s hardly room to walk
And most on a flat plain less that 10 meters above the sea
On the delta of three great rivers, it’s a flood-prone country
A human resource rich kind of place
Kissinger called “a basket case”
Even if you lend your hand
Try to understand
You can’t relieve the people of Bangla Desh
https://youtu.be/VPRwzB_1YEk
I guess you read that on CNN? Perhaps the NYT? That’s what MORE ons do…. because MORE ons like to be told what to think…. because they are very stewpid… they are unable to think…. they have IQ’s that are barely room temperature…
Now a Non-MORE on … perhaps Tim… or Gail…. would look at that research Fast posted… and think hmmm…. the sea levels are NOT rising….
Then when they came across an MSM article stating otherwise for Bangladesh — their brains would kick in and say – hang on — this makes no sense…. sea levels are not rising so how can Bangladesh be flooding?
Then they would type into google Why is there flooding in Bangladesh? And they would see that this has NOTHING to do with sea levels….
But since you are MORE on —- you do not think to do that — you like to be told what to think —- because you are a MORE on….
So you just post the first thing that comes into your pea sized brain — you make a fool of yourself — you exposure your MORE onicness…. for all the world to see.
Why is there flooding in Bangladesh?
Causes of flooding in Bangladesh: cyclones cause coastal flooding. lots of low-lying land. melt water from the Himalayas.
BBC – KS3 Bitesize Geography – Rivers and flooding : Revision, Page 9
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks3/geography/physical_processes/rivers_flooding/…/9/
Causes of flooding in Bangladesh: cyclones cause coastal flooding. lots of low-lying land. melt water from the Himalayas. deforestation. heavy monsoon rains.
Floods in Bangladesh
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bangladesh is prone to flooding due to being situated on the Ganges Delta and the many distributaries flowing into the Bay of Bengal. Coastal flooding, combined with the bursting of river banks is common, and severely affects the landscape and society of Bangladesh. 80% of Bangladesh is floodplain,[1] and it has an extensive sea coastline,[2] rendering the nation very much at risk of periodic widespread damage. Whilst more permanent defences, strengthened with reinforced concrete, are being built, many embankments are composed purely of soil and turf and made by local farmers. Flooding normally occurs during the monsoon season from June to September. The convectional rainfall of the monsoon is added to by relief rainfall caused by the Himalayas. Meltwater from the Himalayas is also a significant input.
Floods in Bangladesh: Possible Causes and Solutions
http://www.icimod.org/?q=6212
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/4EuaqgK28FE/hqdefault.jpg
Your little rice sized brain cannot tell the difference between flooding due to cyclones and saltwater intrusion. I rest my case. Clowns like you do not deserve any attention.
You have no case to rest
On this anniversary of 9/11 let me again point out that the official story holds up. There is no reason to think otherwise.
I am normally somebody to question everything, but I’ve studied this in great depth, and everything about 9/11 was consistent. After the fact, of course, the people in charge of America loved it, it gave them the perfect excuse to implement their long term plans.
Bingo!
we have a winner.
For sure, World Trade Center #7 collapsing in to its own footprint at free fall speeds despite not being hit by a plane, and only having some damage moderate from falling debris and a few fires is definetly consistent with the laws of physics and structural engineering. I guess that is why they left it out of the official report eh?
Yes and all those intact passports at each crash site. But no black boxes. LOL!
And airplane wings that can cut through 1 inch thick structural steel I-Beam like butter.
I’ve heard it argued that the kinetic energy of the fuel (liquid) in the wings has incredible force. (sarc on) So I believe everything the government tells me. (sarc off)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
There were no plane photage on day 1… Just burning/collapsing towers. Wonder why..
What are you talking about, I watched on live feed here in Australia as the second plan flew in. As far as that causing the buildings to fall – unlikely.
The smoking gun for me Was the outside steel walls and concrete floors but yet it flew in one side and out the other
It is like one big joke…. but most people are not laughing.
Two questions regarding 9-11:
1) Why is Dick Cheney still a free man? In fact, what is he even allowed to breathe air like the rest of us?
2) Why is George W. Bush still a free man?
why is he…
Dick Cheney is a hero — as is GWB —- along with Don Draper and everyone else involved in the fake WMD and invasion of Iraq….
Because they contributed to keeping BAU alive a little longer…..
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_RaRg5_v_Eus/Rd-_aB1qaPI/AAAAAAAAAL8/Uy5faYGKhH4/w1200-h630-p-k-no-nu/DickCheney.jpg
wow! …just wow
It is amazing how all the camera recordings around the pentagon were “disappeared” by the FBI. And then they claim a hole the size of a missile was a passenger plane! What Utter rubbish that made up tale was.
It is so beyond obvious that 911 was a false flag… it doesn’t even merit debate…..
Make yourself a favor: get a brain.
See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.
This is for everyone interested in the Newspeak aspects of the WOT.
By 2004 I was convinced that the U.S. government’s claims (and The 9/11 Commission Report) were fictitious. They seemed so blatantly false that I concluded the attacks were a deep-state intelligence operation whose purpose was to initiate a national state of emergency to justify wars of aggression, known euphemistically as “the war on terror.” The sophistication of the attacks, and the lack of any proffered evidence for the government’s claims, suggested that a great deal of planning had been involved.
Yet I was chagrined and amazed by so many people’s insouciant lack of interest in researching arguably the most important world event since the assassination of President Kennedy. I understood the various psychological dimensions of this denial, the fear, cognitive dissonance, etc., but I sensed something else as well. For so many people their minds seemed to have been “made up” from the start. I found that many young people were the exceptions, while most of their elders dared not question the official narrative. This included many prominent leftist critics of American foreign policy. Now that sixteen years have elapsed, this seems truer than ever.
So with the promptings of people like Graeme MacQueen, Lance deHaven-Smith, T.H. Meyer, et al., I have concluded that a process of linguistic mind-control was in place before, during, and after the attacks. As with all good propaganda, the language had to be insinuated over time and introduced through intermediaries. It had to seem “natural” and to flow out of events, not to precede them. And it had to be repeated over and over again.
In summary form, I will list the language I believe “made up the minds” of those who have refused to examine the government’s claims about the September 11 attacks and the subsequent anthrax attacks.
https://off-guardian.org/2017/09/11/why-i-dont-speak-of-911-anymore/
Re…petition works….. it is pow…erful.
Even if you explain how the magi..cian we .aves his ma g.ic tr ic.k — even if you let the masses pea k behind the cur.t a in to see what is going on …
It does not matter —- they will refuse to see.
Good for you dolph!
It seems Cuba is hit badly from Irma. A nice opportunity to gentrify Havana, and make it back to the days of Hemingway.
Snopes
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/07/26/16/42AF3F1100000578-4730092-image-a-2_1501084300916.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/07/26/16/42AF3F2100000578-4730092-image-a-3_1501084763406.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/07/26/19/42AF3F3600000578-4730092-image-a-5_1501093993620.jpg
Now that is a source you can trust when looking for the truth!!!!
It would be useful to have proof of the cause. But who needs proof — when you have a willing audience of More ONS who read the headline and like du mb parrots repeat the assertion…
No questions asked. A warm day = ____ _____ A hurricane = ____ _____ Ice melts = ____ _____ That pretty much defines ste w pidity.
Its kinda like this Russia Trump alliance…. endless accusations … not a shred of evidence.
Remember WMD.
http://euanmearns.com/atlantic-hurricane-trends-and-mortality/
It’s the cliffy and fast Eddy show. Goes on all night. All the doom you can handle. It’s a bit like Beavis and Butthead, only they were funnier.
Doomers are often quite entertaining.
There might be an unspoken schadenfreude lurking under their surface.
Like, ho ho, The Collapse is coming to get the unknowing masses!
Though I suppose I might have to classify myself as a Doomer, just a very slow variety.
The Collapsestanis would be a subset of Doomers.
Collapsestanis would be the Very Soon Doomers.
VSD’s are everywhere.
Watch out!
There is a bit of that …. humans are gonna get theirs … finally …. we certainly deserve a bit of suffering ….
Unfortunately I am included ….
sometimes I think that my middle name should have been Schadenfreude.
Irma was a dud. A big nothing burger.
See? Geoengineering works.
Evidence of gerbel cooling….
Of course the MSM hyped it big time — keeps the masses entertained….
so says Cliff…
who lives 1,000+ miles away in Michigan.
We have a lot of people from Florida staying in the Atlanta area now, after they were ordered to evacuate from Florida. We are probably one of the closest areas for the people from Florida and coastal Georgia to evacuate “to.” Many people in Florida have friends or relatives here.
The rain from Irma is supposed to hit here tomorrow. A lot of schools and businesses are closed,”out of an abundance of caution.” We are supposed to have between 3″ and 5″ of rain. There are quite a few underpasses and some creeks that flood with that much rain. Also, it is supposed to be at least somewhat windy. We have a lot of trees that blow over whenever we have a storm, plus above-ground electrical transmission, so electrical outages are fairly likely.
We will see what happens tomorrow.
It has been raining this morning. Now, this afternoon, it is now starting to get windier. I suppose that raises the chance of power outages in Georgia.
Irma is now the worst weather-related power outage in US history, beating Sandy (8.1 million in 17 states).
Florida: 6,500,000
Georgia: 1,000,000
South Carolina: 720,000
Alabama: 40,000
Total: >8.2 million.
That is a lot of wasted food in the fridges.
Around 75% of all Florida households are currently without electricity. There are also record floods occurring all the way to South Carolina. Irma is still one powerful beast.
Restoring power to Florida will take ‘weeks, not days’ in some areas
One day soon, the power will never come back.
The top connected must know. The world would have been totally crazy if they didn’t know. The world is a bit mad though. The stress must be extreme at the top. No one wants to turn into the next Venezuela or Syria.I guess they all lie to protect them selves and not to expose their weaknesses, while they are trying to maintain their populations calm. They have so far managed to keep everybody in the dark despite the collapse of some nations. It’s amazing when you think about it.
Sorry, doesn’t compute, there is *no such “maintain THEIR populations” to begin with for transnational oligarchies, mostly don’t have national bound domicile, despite having estates in various countries. They select host nations for a given suitable period of their prime relative status, running-influencing the operations like petro-dollar, its military arm, media-PR-propaganda, spies etc. Now, they are likely reaching the end of larger multi centuries cycle, the perceived way out for them would be an attempt to “carve out/preserve” smaller, supposedly more manageable fiefdoms like “FR-DE-Benelux core of the EU = Reich v4.5-5.0” and or regions within “Former USA”.. and play it against the Asian factions and the impoverished masses nearby left behind as well..
*With the exception of traditional monarchies with some degree of domestic support (imaginable, enforced, or real), yes they intermingle with the financial global elite of past centuries to some degree, but are not the same entity when events go crazy..
Humans of Late Capitalism
https://humansoflatecapitalism.tumblr.com/
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED: The Situation In The Markets Is Much Worse Than You Realize
https://srsroccoreport.com/you-have-been-warned-the-situation-in-the-markets-is-much-worse-than-you-realize/
These guys are kind of betting on the outcome in which an peon can still freely exchange and juggle between various asset classes after the crash – during likely martial law/command style economy attempts, revolutionary – elevated chaos and crime rates.. They might be correct, but only for a very limited time period + specific place at best, I’d assign it low probability after-all.
The bottom line is you should have been rich (when it mattered and could be enjoyed) before the crash not afterwards in times of chaos, that takes completely different skill sets and personality traits to keep what you have or get into wealth as a newcomer.
LLN – Live Large NOW.
I pity people who invest with the long term in mind….
More great information!
Steve has something in common with those who do not get the energy story — and with those who continue to believe the ggewabaeafdafs story —- in spite of facts that should cause both groups of people to at least question their beliefs…
Steve’s weakness is that he believes that PM will save him.
For those who believe in geeeba afdasfasd I suggest you try to explain to Steve why PM are not going to save him….
Trot out logic and facts and bombard him – I guarantee you — you will be wasting your time. He has hard coded this into his brain.
You both have something in common. 🙂
A simplistic and incomplete thought. It seems as if we calculate gdp as a single entry bookkeeping – not double entry like we should. The other column should be the finite resources of the planet. I am thinking as a visual and a thought process it would help us conceptualize some of this issue.
Lack of a double-entry booking system is a good way of explaining the problem. The only difficulty is that we are dealing with a networked system. If we humans get an increase, there are several different ways that is offset, at the same time. And the offset is generally larger than what we humans take.
Clearly, if we extract resources that are close to a one-time gift, there is a problem. Some examples include
(1) Burning fossil fuels.
(2) Extracting water from reservoirs that “recharge” over thousands of years.
(3) Extracting high quality mineral ores, leaving only low quality ores.
(4) Tilling the soil, necessarily leading to erosion, and loss of soil faster than it builds up again.
(5) Irrigating the soil in such a way that over a period of years, salt builds up in the soil.
There is also a problem if we humans reproduce (and live to maturity) at a rate that we crowd out other species. This has been happening since hunter-gatherer days.
There is a lot of talk about using only renewable resources. One problem is that other species also use renewable resources. We crowd them out, when we try to use them.
Debt is a promise of future goods and services. These goods and services are also made with energy products. So we use a promise (which we may not keep) of future energy products to get more out. At one point, we could get $1 of GDP for $1 of debt. Now the ratio is much higher–$4 or even $6 of debt, to one dollar of GDP.
CO2 (and other gasses affecting the global temperature) added to the atmosphere.
Pollution, as we try to extract the resources we want, and discard what we don’t want.
It very often takes destruction of an existing built item, in order to put in place a new “more efficient” built item. The US “cash for clunkers” program was a program to take older, still functioning cars, off the road, to encourage building new, more efficient cars. Anything (wars, hurricanes, crime, normal wear and tear, obsolesce (not the current “style”)) that takes existing products out of use, helps bring new, hopefully “better” products into use.
“Complexity” is a by-product of trying to work around all of the problems that occur. Some people end up highly educated and well-off; others end up at the bottom of the social “ladder.”
“Anything (wars, hurricanes, crime, normal wear and tear, obsolesce (not the current “style”)) that takes existing products out of use, helps bring new, hopefully “better” products into use.”
Something that I’m sure could catch on would be to take wrecked cars from the wrecking sites and equip them with new engines and other drive-train parts that make them safe. But those battered, rusted bodies–many of them antique–would be a huge attraction. Madison Avenue could even make discomfort fashionable: “You have to suffer for style.” (Tom Wolf) Old hulks that couldn’t be made drivable could make equally innovative shelter or sea breaks, etc. (The latter has been long and widely applied.)
Totally to the point Gail. I especially appreciate “Debt is a promise of future goods and services” and the link to energy. It’s no trivial matter, if the amount of current debt is considered along with our current energy mix of 86% fossil fuels and their inherent finite nature.
I wish you would publish this response on Facebook.
Perhaps I should write a post about the topic. I wouldn’t mind if other published this comment on Facebook.
The best brief summary of our predicament that anyone could read, Gail.
Thanks! Sometimes it takes someone asking the right question. We have an awfully lot of people working at making overly simple models of our predicament. It explains why beliefs become so divergent.
With increased efficiency we also have more of the Jevons Paradox.
Good point!
Tim Groves, about Japanese attitude on LGBTQ, Japan was always open for these kind of things since they did not lead to pop increase.
All samurai worth his salt had homosexual lovers, usually boys much younger. The most famous of these was Mori Ranmaru, who died with Oda Nobunaga when the latter was attacked at a Kyoto temple in 1582, a story every single Japanese knows. Kabuki actors (all male) were sought after by rich merchants and samurai
Mishima Yukio, the ultra-reactionary, was also very gay (although he did marry and had children).
It is never what it seems to be. Like the peak oil issue.
This isn’t a subject I know much about, but in Japan there seems not to have been the level of intolerance, disgust or hatred toward homosexuality that existed in most Christian countries. But that doesn’t mean homosexual acts were considered normal by the heterosexual majority or that there was no discrimination against its practitioners. Also, many gay and lesbian people in Japan have remained in the closet, so we must suppose they felt it not to their benefit to out themselves.
Taking the case of Mishima, from WIkipedia we get:
While working on Forbidden Colors, Mishima visited gay bars in Japan. Mishima’s sexual orientation was an issue that bothered his widow, and she always denied his homosexuality after his death. In 1998, the writer Jiro Fukushima published an account of his relationship with Mishima in 1951, including fifteen letters between himself and the famed novelist. Mishima’s children successfully sued Fukushima for violation of his privacy and copyright.
From this, I get a feeling that Mishima’s family felt there was something shameful about admitting publicly he had engaged in homosexual acts. This would not necessarily be the same sort of shame that people in the West generally used to feel, but they clearly considered that it was damaging to his reputation in some way.
America Can’t Afford to Rebuild
https://www.theautomaticearth.com/2017/09/america-cant-afford-to-rebuild/
Been saying that forever! The trouble is when you only get this understanding from intuition and not hard facts. America can only afford shanty towns (and it has the professional resources to do that spectacularly), but I’ll have to wait (how long?) till someone with hard facts corroborates this.
I am not sure if it is these hurricane, or a later set of hurricanes, that America cannot rebuild after.
There are all kinds of problems that can arise. Electric power is one that occurs with many storms that aren’t even particularly severe. Most power lines in the Southeast are above ground, and there are lots of trees. Whenever it gets a little windy, there is a problem with branches falling on power lines. USA Today, a few hours ago, reported, “More than 3 million without power in Florida as Hurricane Irma makes landfall in the Keys.” This calculation was based on 1.5 customer accounts being down, each serving an average of a little over two people. There are likely to be a lot more accounts off line, before the storm leaves. If something should get in the way of turning this electricity back on, this would be a real problem. But I don’t expect that to happen, this time around.
At the other end of the extreme, there are buildings that are knocked down that probably shouldn’t have been built in areas right next to the coast. Perhaps these will not be rebuilt.
All of the storm losses to put more pressure on government funding. I expect that funding for retirees is going to be even more of a problem. They do add together, though.
The hurricane related rebuilding comes on top of the national infrastructure rebuilding that seemed off the table even before that.
Consider the idiot Nikki Haley, appointed by Trump in a fit of mindlessness as US Ambassador to the United Nations. This stupid person is forever shaking her fist at the Russians while mouthing yet another improbable accusation. She might want to read Mario Puzo’s book, The Godfather. Everyone knows the movie, but if memory serves somewhere in the book Puzo reflects on the practice of the irate American motorist who shakes a fist and gives the bird to other drivers. What if the driver receiving the insult is a Mafia capo? Does the idiot shaking his fist know who he is accosting? No. Does the moron know that the result might be a brutal beating or death? No. Does the imbecile Nikki Haley understand what can be the result of her inability to control herself? No.
-Paul Craig Roberts
Trump will urge UN to impose North Korean naval blockade and oil embargo
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/09/trump-urge-un-north-korea-naval-blockade-oil-embargo
A naval blockade is a form of warfare and usually leads to all out war. This is a sticky wicket because it would seem the more NK is pushed the more they are likely they are to launch nukes and invade Seoul. Back a wild animal up into a corner and at some point it’s forced to fight back.
The alternative is to accept NK has joined the club of H-bomb countries, figure they are solely for defensive purposes and deploy lots of anti-missile systems just in case. I like the latter because it reduces the chances of nuclear war but Trump is apparently opting for the former.
MG. The reason there are not too many Protestants in Slovakia boils town to two words – Erzsebet Bathory.
Believe or not, she was a Protestant, which basically made Protestantism uncool in there.
It seems the Protestants in that country kept quite a low profile, combined with the fact that the Habsburgs were Catholic, and also they lived in smaller enclaves and did not really mix with the majority of the pop. They were not really noticed by the majority of the Slovaks till Czechoslovakia was formed, and did not become a problem until Slovakia was formed again.
However, it seems the Lutheran minority of that country still kowtows to Vatican a bit
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2001/juneweb-only/6-18-44.0.html
A lot of small enclaves will survive like that, bowing a bit to whoever power and keeping some degree of their autonomy. Might be a model for future survival communities.
I think the most important thing that distinguishes catholics from protestants is the celibate. It was the religious orders like Franciscans and Jesuits that were successful in re-Catholization, not the parish priests: it certainly had energy reasons – the individual diocese priests had difficulty to survive. This difficulty to survive alone is, in my opinion, the most important reason why the protestantism started and abolished celibate. The fact that the religious orders, i.e. the groups of celibates, were successful in re-Catholization confirms this.
Jesus Christ was a celibate man, who renounced having children when the system was crumbling down. The rich monasteries of the High Middle Ages were the places of opulence exactly because of fact that there was not procreation in them, they received adults to serve and die there. On the similar principle work many of the so called Western states today: they receive immigrants, but their native population declines due to low birthrates caused by the same reasons as in the Highe Middle Ages: the rising lack of the energy.
Therefore, I think, it is no wonder that the current pope is a Jesuit with the name revoking St. Francis. When families crumble, it is because women are mostly energy consumers and many women do not realize that the system is crumbling, that there is no man in the world as before, because all males have lower incomes, i.e. less external energy at the disposal, are the only children that have to care for their ageing parents, relatives etc. The religious orders that were successful in re-Catholization were created from energy producing males who were celibates, so they put all their energy into their activity for the communities, without the need to care for their offspring that faced harder and harder living conditions and survival of the offsprings was a more and more demanding task.
The Catholic Church took in a lot of young adults from families that had more children than the family farm could support. The extra children could not inherit the family farm, for example, without breaking it into small pieces.
There was already an overpopulation problem. It would make no sense for the Catholics to allow all of these recruits to have children.
Perhaps a person could argue that times changed enough for Protestant priests to have children. I expect there was still an overpopulation problem, however. The Protestants ignored it, however.
I have known men who were, more or less, married to their jobs. If they had no one to go home to, they could put a huge amount of effort toward their jobs. I suppose this could happen within the church as well.
Not forgetting the habit of moneyed families of placing spare daughters in the Church as nuns so that they could save money on dowry payments. Very useful economic measure!
And it explains why some nuns could be a bit naughty – no vocation at all to be a nun….
The church was certainly thoughtful! I hadn’t realized how involved it was in governance. Maybe it could do more in these times? Or maybe it’s doing a lot that I’m unaware of.
We are dealing with self-organized system. Religions have served many purposes over the years. In fact, they have been an essential part of the economic system, more or less from the beginning of economies.
It is only when the system succeeds in making “science,” “economic leaders,” and “the authority of the system” as gods, that the system can do without religions. Japan is very close to having a state religion. Same with China. The US has elevated “science” and the ability of financial leaders to gods.
“Japan is very close to having a state religion. Same with China. ”
Very interesting. In art school, I’d see a lot of slides of Chinese and Japanese art (scroll paintings and some architecture) from the past. But being a horrible student, I didn’t take note of dates. I love wabi sabi, which I think emerged in Japan during the Edo period, starting in the 16 hundreds? I love the simpler (post and lintel style) architecture from that era, and everything about Zen aesthetics–rock gardens, art. etc. The thoughtfulness (elegance) of older Japanese culture is amazing. I imagine some of that ancient style carried through to the present, and would account for the ability to have something close to a state religion?
What were we saying about tattoos vs. brains?
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/e3/5c/7c/e35c7c20b9464eda5999ee74a0bb01d0–iconic-photos-photos-of.jpg
I think the tattoos to IQ connection is generally accurate. We have a business that only people of means can afford and not one in the many years we’ve had this business has had a tattoo. Not one person – not one tattoo, but then again not any of our friends or relatives have them either. But I did work with someone years ago with lots of tattoos and he was one of the biggest jerks I’ve ever met and his breadth of knowledge was extremely limited and if someone talked about anything out of his scope of understanding he would verbally attack them to get them to stop talking.
Well…maybe. But what a talent! This tattoo “flows” in a way that I haven’t witnessed on others. Shoulder ball and socket and crease of the elbow…
She was the MOST GLORIOUS CREATURE UNDER the SUN…..
https://youtu.be/n4zRe_wvJw8
And you can learn a LOT from her…
“The End is Near…Repent”
https://search.aol.com/aol/video?q=amy+winehouse+tears+dry+on+their+own+chords&s_it=video-ans&sfVid=true&videoId=8720E3F9D9F170DE53158720E3F9D9F170DE5315&v_t=webmail-hawaii1-basicaol
https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/09/09/the-paranoid-style-in-conservative-politics/
I don’t consider Krugman worth reading.
Krugman is on the team tasked with keeping the sheeple calm…. he is the go to guy with the economics prize when support is needed for desperate economic policies…
He serves a useful purpose — but hardly worth reading — unless you are into believing fake is real
Perhaps the geeble weeble crowd might be interested in what he has to say…. they lap up fake news by the gallon
http://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-paul-krugman-is-a-danger-to-society-nassim-nicholas-taleb-29-0-082.jpg
I may have to try the Fast Eddy Challenge soon here in Tampa whether I want to or not! 🙂
Good luck, Timl2k11!
Thanks! I lucked out.
Check out the eye.
Tattoos are ways to identify people of lesser intelligence.The more the tattoos, the lower the IQ.
so are you saying that me have no tattoo means
i have high intelligence that will big question mark
because i was not good with studies
https://imgur.com/a/HNc9U
That doesn’t make sense. Stephen hawking has like 7 tats bro.
Actually, they make you easy for authorities to ID you.
A walking billboard.
That really only applies to a lager brand, on the back of the neck. On a woman. 🙂
Silly comment. I know lots of very bright young people with tattoos. My daughter graduated from an Ivy and has two.
Bright people with tatoos? What about the infections and the damage of the skin and its functions?
This is a good summary:
http://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/ss/slideshow-tattoo-problems
Leviticus 19:28 Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD.