Most of us are familiar with the Politically Correct (PC) World View. William Deresiewicz describes the view, which he calls the “religion of success,” as follows:
There is a right way to think and a right way to talk, and also a right set of things to think and talk about. Secularism is taken for granted. Environmentalism is a sacred cause. Issues of identity—principally the holy trinity of race, gender, and sexuality—occupy the center of concern.
There are other beliefs that go with this religion of success:
- Wind and solar will save us.
- Electric cars will make transportation possible indefinitely.
- Our world leaders are all powerful.
- Science has all of the answers.
To me, this story is pretty much equivalent to the article, “Earth Is Flat and Infinite, According to Paid Experts,” by Chris Hume in Funny Times. While the story is popular, it is just plain silly.
In this post, I explain why many popular understandings are just plain wrong. I cover many controversial topics, including environmentalism, peer-reviewed literature, climate change models, and religion. I expect that the analysis will surprise almost everyone.
Myth 1: If there is a problem with the lack of any resource, including oil, it will manifest itself with high prices.
As we reach limits of oil or any finite resource, the problem we encounter is an allocation problem.
Figure 1. Two views of future economic growth. Created by author.
As long as the quantity of resources we can extract from the ground keeps rising faster than population, there is no problem with limits. The tiny wedge that each person might get from these growing resources represents more of that resource, on average. Citizens can reasonably expect that future pension promises will be paid from the growing resources. They can also expect that, in the future, the shares of stock and the bonds that they own can be redeemed for actual goods and services.
If the quantity of resources starts to shrink, the problem we have is almost a “musical chairs” type of problem.
Figure 2. Circle of chairs arranged for game of musical chairs. Source
In each round of a musical chairs game, one chair is removed from the circle. The players in the game must walk around the outside of the circle. When the music stops, all of the players scramble for the remaining chairs. Someone gets left out.
The players in today’s economic system include
- High paid (or elite) workers
- Low paid (or non-elite) workers
- Businesses
- Governments
- Owners of assets (such as stocks, bonds, land, buildings) who want to sell them and exchange them for today’s goods and services
If there is a shortage of a resource, the standard belief is that prices will rise and either more of the resource will be found, or substitution will take place. Substitution only works in some cases: it is hard to think of a substitute for fresh water. It is often possible to substitute one energy product for another. Overall, however, there is no substitute for energy. If we want to heat a substance to produce a chemical reaction, we need energy. If we want to move an object from place to place, we need energy. If we want to desalinate water to produce more fresh water, this also takes energy.
The world economy is a self-organized networked system. The networked system includes businesses, governments, and workers, plus many types of energy, including human energy. Workers play a double role because they are also consumers. The way goods and services are allocated is determined by “market forces.” In fact, the way these market forces act is determined by the laws of physics. These market forces determine which of the players will get squeezed out if there is not enough to go around.
Non-elite workers play a pivotal role in this system because their number is so large. These people are the chief customers for goods, such as homes, food, clothing, and transportation services. They also play a major role in paying taxes, and in receiving government services.
History says that if there are not enough resources to go around, we can expect increasing wage and wealth disparity. This happens because increased use of technology and more specialization are workarounds for many kinds of problems. As an economy increasingly relies on technology, the owners and managers of the technology start receiving higher wages, leaving less for the workers without special skills. The owners and managers also tend to receive income from other sources, such as interest, dividends, capital gains, and rents.
When there are not enough resources to go around, the temptation is to use technology to replace workers, because this reduces costs. Of course, a robot does not need to buy food or a car. Such an approach tends to push commodity prices down, rather than up. This happens because fewer workers are employed; in total they can afford fewer goods. A similar downward push on commodity prices occurs if wages of non-elite workers stagnate or fall.
If wages of non-elite workers are lower, governments find themselves in increasing difficulty because they cannot collect enough taxes for all of the services that they are asked to provide. History shows that governments often collapse in such situations. Major defaults on debt are another likely outcome (Figure 3). Pension holders are another category of recipients who are likely to be “left out” when the game of musical chairs stops.
Figure 3 – Created by Author.
The laws of physics strongly suggest that if we are reaching limits of this type, the economy will collapse. We know that this happened to many early economies. More recently, we have witnessed partial collapses, such as the Depression of the 1930s. The Depression occurred when the price of food dropped because mechanization eliminated a significant share of human hand-labor. While this change reduced the price of food, it also had an adverse impact on the buying-power of those whose jobs were eliminated.
The collapse of the Soviet Union is another example of a partial collapse. This collapse occurred as a follow-on to the low oil prices of the 1980s. The Soviet Union was an oil exporter that was affected by low oil prices. It could continue to produce for a while, but eventually (1991) financial problems caught up with it, and the central government collapsed.
Figure 4. Oil consumption, production, and inflation-adjusted price, all from BP Statistical Review of World Energy, 2015.
Low prices are often a sign of lack of affordability. Today’s oil, coal, and natural gas prices tend to be too low for today’s producers. Low energy prices are deceptive because their initial impact on the economy seems to be favorable. The catch is that after a time, the shortfall in funds for reinvestment catches up, and production collapses. The resulting collapse of the economy may look like a financial collapse or a governmental collapse.
Oil prices have been low since late 2014. We do not know how long low prices can continue before collapse. The length of time since oil prices have collapsed is now three years; we should be concerned.
Myth 2. (Related to Myth 1) If we wait long enough, renewables will become affordable.
The fact that wage disparity grows as we approach limits means that prices can’t be expected to rise as we approach limits. Instead, prices tend to fall as an increasing number of would-be buyers are frozen out of the market. If in fact energy prices could rise much higher, there would be huge amounts of oil, coal and gas that could be extracted.
Figure 5. IEA Figure 1.4 from its World Energy Outlook 2015, showing how much oil can be produced at various price levels, according to IEA models.
There seems to be a maximum affordable price for any commodity. This maximum affordable price depends to a significant extent on the wages of non-elite workers. If the wages of non-elite workers fall (for example, because of mechanization or globalization), the maximum affordable price may even fall.
Myth 3. (Related to Myths 1 and 2) A glut of oil indicates that oil limits are far away.
A glut of oil means that too many people around the world are being “frozen out” of buying goods and services that depend on oil, because of low wages or a lack of job. It is a physics problem, related to ice being formed when the temperature is too cold. We know that this kind of thing regularly happens in collapses and partial collapses. During the Depression of the 1930s, food was being destroyed for lack of buyers. It is not an indication that limits are far away; it is an indication that limits are close at hand. The system can no longer balance itself correctly.
Myth 4: Wind and solar can save us.
The amount of energy (other than direct food intake) that humans require is vastly higher than most people suppose. Other animals and plants can live on the food that they eat or the energy that they produce using sunlight and water. Humans deviated from this simple pattern long ago–over 1 million years ago.
Unfortunately, our bodies are now adapted to the use of supplemental energy in addition to food. The use of fire allowed humans to develop differently than other primates. Using fire to cook some of our food helped in many ways. It freed up time that would otherwise be spent chewing, providing time that could be used for tool making and other crafts. It allowed teeth, jaws and digestive systems to be smaller. The reduced energy needed for maintaining the digestive system allowed the brain to become bigger. It allowed humans to live in parts of the world where they are not physically adapted to living.
In fact, back at the time of hunter-gatherers, humans already seemed to need three times as much energy total as a correspondingly sized primate, if we count burned biomass in addition to direct food energy.
Figure 6 – Created by author.
“Watts per Capita” is a measure of the rate at which energy is consumed. Even back in hunter-gatherer days, humans behaved differently than similar-sized primates would be expected to behave. Without considering supplemental energy, an animal-like human is like an always-on 100-watt bulb. With the use of supplemental energy from burned biomass and other sources, even in hunter-gatherer times, the energy used was equivalent to that of an always-on 300-watt bulb.
How does the amount of energy produced by today’s wind turbines and solar panels compare to the energy used by hunter-gatherers? Let’s compare today’s wind and solar output to the 200 watts of supplemental energy needed to maintain our human existence back in hunter-gatherer times (difference between 300 watts per capita and 100 watts per capita). This assumes that if we were to go back to hunting and gathering, we could somehow collect food for everyone, to cover the first 100 watts per capita. All we would need to do is provide enough supplemental energy for cooking, heating, and other very basic needs, so we would not have to deforest the land.
Conveniently, BP gives the production of wind and solar in “terawatt hours.” If we take today’s world population of 7.5 billion, and multiply it by 24 hours a day, 365.25 days per year, and 200 watts, we come to needed energy of 13,149 terawatt hours per year. In 2016, the output of wind was 959.5 terawatt hours; the output of solar was 333.1 terawatt hours, or a total of 1,293 terawatt hours. Comparing the actual provided energy (1,293 tWh) to the required energy of 13,149 tWh, today’s wind and solar would provide only 9.8% of the supplemental energy needed to maintain a hunter-gatherer level of existence for today’s population.
Of course, this is without considering how we would continue to create wind and solar electricity as hunter-gatherers, and how we would distribute such electricity. Needless to say, we would be nowhere near reproducing an agricultural level of existence for any large number of people, using only wind and solar. Even adding water power, the amount comes to only 40.4% of the added energy required for existence as hunter gatherers for today’s population.
Many people believe that wind and solar are ramping up rapidly. Starting from a base of zero, the annual percentage increases do appear to be large. But relative to the end point required to maintain any reasonable level of population, we are very far away. A recent lecture by Energy Professor Vaclav Smil is titled, “The Energy Revolution? More Like a Crawl.”
Myth 5. Evaluation methods such as “Energy Returned on Energy Invested” (EROI) and “Life Cycle Analyses (LCA)” indicate that wind and solar should be acceptable solutions.
These approaches are concerned about how the energy used in creating a given device compares to the output of the device. The problem with these analyses is that, while we can measure “energy out” fairly well, we have a hard time determining total “energy in.” A large share of energy use comes from indirect sources, such as roads that are shared by many different users.
A particular problem occurs with intermittent resources, such as wind and solar. The EROI analyses available for wind and solar are based on analyses of these devices as stand-alone units (perhaps powering a desalination plant, on an intermittent basis). On this basis, they appear to be reasonably good choices as transition devices away from fossil fuels.
EROI analyses don’t handle the situation well when there is a need to add expensive infrastructure to compensate for the intermittency of wind and solar. This situation tends to happen when electricity is added to the grid in more than small quantities. One workaround for intermittency is adding batteries; another is overbuilding the intermittent devices, and using only the portion of intermittent electricity that comes at the time of day and time of year when it is needed. Another approach involves paying fossil fuel providers for maintaining extra capacity (needed both for rapid ramping and for the times of year when intermittent resources are inadequate).
Any of these workarounds is expensive and becomes more expensive, the larger the percentage of intermittent electricity that is added. Euan Mearns recently estimated that for a particular offshore wind farm, the cost would be six times as high, if battery backup sufficient to even out wind fluctuations in a single month were added. If the goal were to even out longer term fluctuations, the cost would no doubt be higher. It is difficult to model what workarounds would be needed for a truly 100% renewable system. The cost would no doubt be astronomical.
When an analysis such as EROI is prepared, there is a tendency to leave out any cost that varies with the application, because such a cost is difficult to estimate. My background is in actuarial work. In such a setting, the emphasis is always on completeness because after the fact, it will become very clear if the analyst left out any important insurance-related cost. In EROI and similar analyses, there is much less of a tieback to the real world, so an omission may never be noticed. In theory, EROIs are for multiple purposes, including ones where intermittency is not a problem. The EROI modeler is not expected to consider all cases.
Another way of viewing the issue is as a “quality” issue. EROI theory generally treats all types of energy as equivalent (including coal, oil, natural gas, intermittent electricity, and grid-quality electricity). From this perspective, there is no need to correct for differences in types of energy output. Thus, it makes perfect sense to publish EROI and LCA analyses that seem to indicate that wind and solar are great solutions, without any explanation regarding the likely high real-world cost associated with using them on the electric grid.
Myth 6. Peer reviewed articles give correct findings.
The real story is that peer reviewed articles need to be reviewed carefully by those who use them. There is a very significant chance that errors may have crept in. This can happen because of misinterpretation of prior peer reviewed articles, or because prior peer reviewed articles were based on “thinking of the day,” which was not quite correct, given what has been learned since the article was written. Or, as indicated by the example in Myth 5, the results of peer reviewed articles may be confusing to those who read them, in part because they are not written for any particular audience.
The way university research is divided up, researchers usually have a high level of specialized knowledge about one particular subject area. The real world situation with the world economy, as I mentioned in my discussion of Myth 1, is that the economy is a self-organized networked system. Everything affects everything else. The researcher, with his narrow background, doesn’t understand these interconnections. For example, energy researchers don’t generally understand economic feedback loops, so they tend to leave them out. Peer reviewers, who are looking for errors within the paper itself, are likely to miss important feedback loops as well.
To make matters worse, the publication process tends to favor results that suggest that there is no energy problem ahead. This bias can come through the peer review process. One author explained to me that he left out a certain point from a paper because he expected that some of his peer reviewers would come from the Green Community; he didn’t want to say anything that might offend such a reviewer.
This bias can also come directly from the publisher of academic books and articles. The publisher is in the business of selling books and journal articles; it does not want to upset potential buyers of its products. One publisher made it clear to me that its organization did not want any mention of problems that seem to be without a solution. The reader should be left with the impression that while there may be issues ahead, solutions are likely to be found.
In my opinion, any published research needs to be looked at very carefully. It is very difficult for an author to move much beyond the general level of understanding of his audience and of likely reviewers. There are financial incentives for authors to produce PC reports, and for publishers to publish them. In many cases, articles from blogs may be better resources than academic articles because blog authors are under less pressure to write PC reports.
Myth 7. Climate models give a good estimate of what we can expect in the future.
There is no doubt that climate is changing. But is all of the hysteria about climate change really the correct story?
Our economy, and in fact the Earth and all of its ecosystems, are self-organized networked systems. We are reaching limits in many areas at once, including energy, fresh water, the number of fish that can be extracted each year from oceans, and metal ore extraction. Physical limits are likely to lead to financial problems, as indicated in Figure 3. The climate change modelers have chosen to leave all of these issues out of their models, instead assuming that the economy can continue to grow as usual until 2100. Leaving out these other issues clearly can be expected to overstate the impact of climate change.
The International Energy Agency is very influential with respect to which energy issues are considered. Between 1998 and 2000, it did a major flip-flop in the importance of energy limits. The IEA’s 1998 World Energy Outlook devotes many pages to discussing the possibility of inadequate oil supplies in the future. In fact, near the beginning, the report says,
Our analysis of the current evidence suggests that world oil production from conventional sources could peak during the period 2010 to 2020.
The same report also mentions Climate Change considerations, but devotes many fewer pages to these concerns. The Kyoto Conference had taken place in 1997, and the topic was becoming more widely discussed.
In 1999, the IEA did not publish World Energy Outlook. When the IEA published the World Energy Outlook for 2000, the report suddenly focused only on Climate Change, with no mention of Peak Oil. The USGS World Petroleum Assessment 2000 had recently been published. It could be used to justify at least somewhat higher future oil production.
I will be the first to admit that the “Peak Oil” story is not really right. It is a halfway story, based on a partial understanding of the role physics plays in energy limits. Oil supply does not “run out.” Peak Oilers also did not understand that physics governs how markets work–whether prices rise or fall, or oscillate. If there is not enough to go around, some of the would-be buyers will be frozen out. But Climate Change, as our sole problem, or even as our major problem, is not the right story, either. It is another halfway story.
One point that both Peak Oilers and the IEA missed is that the world economy doesn’t really have the ability to cut back on the use of fossil fuels significantly, without the world economy collapsing. Thus, the IEA’s recommendations regarding moving away from fossil fuels cannot work. (Shifting energy use among countries is fairly easy, however, making individual country CO2 reductions appear more beneficial than they really are.) The IEA would be better off talking about non-fuel changes that might reduce CO2, such as eating vegetarian food, eliminating flooded rice paddies, and having smaller families. Of course, these are not really issues that the International Energy Association is concerned about.
The unfortunate truth is that on any difficult, interdisciplinary subject, we really don’t have a way of making a leap from lack of knowledge of a subject, to full knowledge of a subject, without a number of separate, partially wrong, steps. The IPCC climate studies and EROI analyses both fall in this category, as do Peak Oil reports.
The progress I have made on figuring out the energy limits story would not have been possible without the work of many other people, including those doing work on studying Peak Oil and those studying EROI. I have also received a lot of “tips” from readers of OurFiniteWorld.com regarding additional topics I should investigate. Even with all of this help, I am sure that my version of the truth is not quite right. We all keep learning as we go along.
There may indeed be details of this particular climate model that are not correct, although this is out of my area of expertise. For example, the historical temperatures used by researchers seem to need a lot of adjustment to be usable. Some people argue that the historical record has been adjusted to make the historical record fit the particular model used.
There is also the issue of truing up the indications to where we are now. I mentioned the problem earlier of EROI indications not having any real world tie; climate model indications are not quite as bad, but they also seem not to be well tied to what is actually happening.
Myth 8. We don’t need religion; our leaders are all knowing and all powerful.
We are fighting a battle against the laws of physics. Expecting our leaders to win in the battle against the laws of physics is expecting a huge amount. Some of the actions of our leaders seem extraordinarily stupid. For example, if falling interest rates have postponed peak oil, then proposing to raise interest rates, when we have not fixed the underlying oil depletion problem, seems very ill-advised.
Everything I have seen indicates that there is a literal Higher Power governing our world economy. It is the Laws of Physics that govern the world economy. The Laws of Physics affect the world economy in many ways. The economy is a dissipative structure. Energy inputs allow the economy to remain in an “out of equilibrium state” (that is, in a growing state), for a very long period.
Eventually the ability of any economy to grow must come to an end. The problem is that it requires increasing amounts of energy to fight the growing “entropy” (higher energy cost of extraction, need for growing debt, and rising pollution levels) of the system. The economy must come to an end, just as the lives of individual plants and animals (which are also dissipative structures) must come to an end.
People throughout the ages have been in awe of how this system that provides growth works. We get energy from the sun. This solar energy helps grow our food. It allows the physical growth of humans. It allows the growth of ecosystems and of economies. Humans, ecosystems, and economies seem permanent, but eventually they all must collapse. In physics terms, they are all dissipative structures.
Humans have been in awe of the self-organizing property permitted by flows of energy for as long as humans have had the ability to think abstract thoughts. These flows allow a newly created whole to be greater than the sum of their parts. For example, babies start from a small beginning and mature into adults. Musical notes go together to form recognizable melodies. Physical movements go together to form dances. Awe for this phenomenon seems to be one of the origins of religion.
Another reason for religions is a need for hierarchical structure within an economy. We know that animal groups very often have “pecking orders.” Adding a god provides a convenient way of adding a “top level” to the pecking order. Of course, if leaders can convince members of the group that they are all knowing and that science can provide all of the answers, then the top level provided by religion is not needed.
A third reason for religions is to help align the thoughts of members in a particular way. Most of us are aware of the power of magnetized materials.
Figure 7. Source.
To some extent, the same power exists when the belief systems of groups of people can be aligned in the same direction. For example, teachers find it much easier to teach large groups of students, if parents have emphasized the importance of school and the need for respect for teachers. A military leader can attack another country, if soldiers follow orders. A group of generally uncivilized people can learn the benefit of working with others, if proper instruction is given.
What has been astounding to me, as I have looked into the situation, is that the scientific evidence seems to point in the direction of a literal Higher Power governing our Universe. It is not clear whether this higher power is the Laws of Physics, or whether it is some outside “God” that created the Laws of Physics.
In the past, many researchers assumed that the Universe was a closed energy system, irreversibly headed toward a cold, dark end. Recent research indicates that the Universe is ever-expanding, and in fact, seems to be expanding at an accelerating rate. While individual dissipative structures are constantly encountering more and more entropy, the universe as a whole is perhaps expanding rapidly enough to “outrun” growing entropy. Thus, it can behave as an always-open system. This always-open energy system allows many types of objects to self-organize and grow, at least for a time. These objects behave as dissipative structures, each having a beginning and an end.
We really don’t know whether the Universe had a beginning. Some research suggests that it did not. Others believe it began with a Big Bang.
Within the Universe, the earth seems extremely unusual. In fact, it is not clear that there is any other planet that has exactly the right conditions for complex life. A recent American Scientist article discusses this issue. The book Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe points out the huge number of coincidences that were necessary for complex life to form and flourish.
Within the Earth, and perhaps within the Universe as a whole, human economies are the most energy-dense form of structure found.
Figure 8. Image similar to ones shown in Eric Chaisson’s 2001 book, Cosmic Evolution: The Rise of Complexity in Nature.
Thus, in some sense, we humans and our economies may, in some sense, represent the current upper bound on development in the Universe.
We humans live on Earth. It is easy for us to think that our primary purpose in life is to care for and protect the Earth. Unfortunately, with our need for supplemental energy, this is not possible. Even at an early date, our need for resources exceeded what was sustainable. Joshua (in Joshua 17:14-18 relating to the period around 1400 BCE) instructs the tribes of Joseph to clear the trees from the hill country to have enough land for his tribe. This practice was clearly unsustainable; it would lead to erosion of the soil on hilltops. Even at that early date, high population and the need for resources to provide for this high population was conflicting with earth’s sustainability.
If our God is either the Laws of Physics, or some force giving rise to the Laws of Physics, then our God is really the God of the Universe. The limitations of the current Earth are no problem. God (or the Laws of Physics) could create a new Earth, or 1 million new Earths, if He chose to. Thus, from God’s point of view, it is not clear that there is any point to today’s environmentalism. There is a need not to poison ourselves, but “saving the earth” for other species after humans, or for a new set of humans who somehow will use much less energy, doesn’t make much sense. Humans can’t use much less energy; even if we could, our energy use would always be on an upward slope, headed to precisely where we are now.
There are many things that we can’t know for certain. Does this God want/expect us to worship him? Does this God plan an afterlife for some or all of the humans on Earth today? Obviously, if God (or the Laws of Physics) could create the Earth, God could also create other structures as well–possibly a “Heaven.” It is not clear to me that any one of today’s religions has a monopoly on insights regarding what is expected. A person might argue that we need not worry about religion at all, except for the fellowship it provides and the insights it offers regarding how early people coped with their difficulties.
Myth 9. The texts of religious groups around the world are literally true.
The texts of religious groups are true in the same sense that peer reviewed scientific literature is true. They represent, more or less, the best thinking of the day on a particular subject. This certainly does not mean that they are literally true.
We need to read religious texts in the context that they were written. In the earliest days, religious texts represented stories that people passed down from one generation to the next. These stories represented insights that these early people had gained. No one at that time was too concerned about authorship. If a story says, “God said,” it could also mean, “We think that this is something that God might have said.”
Literary styles were very different, back in an era before people pretended to have scientific knowledge. People created stories illustrating some aspect of a particular phenomenon. These stories were not supposed to fully describe what happened. This is why Genesis features two different creation stories.
The Bible makes liberal use of hyperbole and exaggeration. It is hard for people who are not familiar with the original language to understand how stories were intended to be interpreted. Is the concept of Hell added, primarily to provide a contrast to Heaven? In the Old Testament, the number of words in the ancient Hebrew language is much smaller than in today’s languages. This, by itself, makes direct translation difficult.
The earliest religious stories explained how God was perceived at that time. As people became more settled, their views changed. People were getting more “civilized.” Population densities were rising. The best beliefs in an early period may not have had relevance for a later period. This is why most religions have had reformers. Sometimes new writings are added. At other times, the way the writings are interpreted changes. This is why there seems to be a bizarre progression of stories from the Old Testament to the New Testament; new stories needed to be added to supplement and replace old ways of thinking.
Some of the things that early people discovered have not been understood by environmentalists. Genesis 1:28 says,
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
The early people had figured out that humans were indeed different from other animals and plants. Their use of supplemental energy gave them power over other creatures. Their numbers could (and indeed, did) increase. Early authors were documenting how the world really worked. We later humans have been too blind to see the real situation. It is more pleasant for us to think that somehow we are just like other animals, except perhaps smarter and more in control. With our greater knowledge, we could somehow have avoided an increase in our numbers, if we had only planned better. The laws of physics say this cannot happen; our higher energy use dictates who will win the battle for resources.
The early religious stories were not too different from Peak Oil and Climate Change. They were sort of right. They gave partial insight. They were the best the authors could do at the time.
The ancient religious documents could not tell the whole story at once. New groups would gradually add more insights to the developing story, providing a better understanding of what was truly important for people living in a later period.
Conclusion
In practice, people need a religion or a religion-substitute. People need a basic set of beliefs with which to order their lives.
Our leaders today have proposed the Religion of Success, with its belief in Science, and the power of today’s leaders, as the new religion. This religion has appeal, because it denies the limits we are up against. Life will continue, as if we lived on a flat earth with unlimited resources. This story is pleasant, but unfortunately not true.
Donald Trump, with his version of conservatism, presents another religion. This religion seems to be focused on justifying the allocation of wealth away from the poor, toward the rich, through tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy. This is part of the process of “freezing out” the poor people of the world, when there are not enough resources to go around.
It is hard for me to support Trumpism, even though I recognize that in the animal world, the expected outcome when there are not enough resources to go around is “survival of the best-adapted.” If our concern is leaving energy resources in the ground for future generations, transferring buying power from the poor to the rich is a way of collapsing the economy quickly, while considerable resources remain in the ground. The fact that wealthy people are favored ensures that at least some people will survive.
China and Japan both have what are close to state religions, created by their leaders. School children learn stories regarding what is important, based on what state leaders tell them. In Japan, school children visit religious sites, and learn the proper religious observances. They also learn rules about what is expected of them–always be polite; respect those in charge; don’t eat food on the street; never leave any food wrappers on the ground. In many ways, these religions are probably not too different from today’s Religion of Success.
I personally am not in favor of religions that originate from political groups. I would prefer the “old fashioned” religions based on ancient documents from one or another of the world’s religions. We are clearly facing a difficult time ahead. Perhaps early people had insights regarding how to deal with troubled times. Admittedly, we don’t know for certain that heaven can be in our future. But when things look bleak, it is helpful to see the possibility of a reasonable outcome.
Furthermore, religious groups offer the possibility of finding a group of like-minded individuals to make friends with. We need all of the support we can get as we go through troubled times.
California Considers Following China With Combustion-Engine Car Ban
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-26/california-mulls-following-china-with-combustion-engine-car-ban
The closer we get to the edge… the more fake news we get injecting hopium into the cattle….
It’s like it’s got a life of its own now. Something big can’t be too far away…
Yes it has become more blatant in recent months….
There are a lot of people without jobs… and a great many with will be under huge pressure from stalled wages…. the stresses must be incredible…
Mars.. EVs… renewable.. ___ ___ (hyped up) Trump opiates North Korea … all modern day bread and circuses to distract the masses from their despair….
Oh it is not completely fake newsl. California will certainly ban ICE cars. And will give up their electric cars too. The whole US will join in giving up powered transport all together. Not because we want but, we just won’t be able to afford the fuel, insurance, taxes and costs of the automobile anymore. Passing the law will just make it seem like we did it voluntarily.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0LeVRLer0C4/TqbT8oSghMI/AAAAAAAABOA/-9i4tUYFSB8/s1600/IMG_5273.JPG
And
http://www.ecohustler.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/starving.jpg
Now that is what Green looks like!!!
It’s not eeeesy bein’ green……
But when green is all there is to be……..
https://youtu.be/fnCQTNriVlE
Gail – great article. PC has been the main issue since 2000. It is nothing more than the artifact of “extreme fossil fuel use” and that we are totally detached from what our lives should be. PC is accorded by the fact that we have hundreds or thousands of slaves doing our work and we have the time to think about all these non-value added stuff. When you are busy fending off tigers or being in danger of starvation, no one will think about PC. As I have said many times in here, humans are racist by nature (“let us kill those moronic short ugly tribe over the valley and take all their food and women”) and suppressing them will have a severe backlash as anything that goes against nature is bound to fail .
I don’t think we are born racist (If you put young children together they do not exhibit racism) … I think it is something we learn …. and that it can be a very useful tool in a world where populations are competing for scarce resources…
Leaders understand this and they use racism and religion to motivate us to kill kill kill.
Racism, dem vs rep, liberal vs conservative – it is all a divide and conquer scheme to deflect the plebs attention away from the real trouble makers and focus blame somewhere else.
Mix a few gallons of nationalism into the mix…. to create a truly volatile situation
You are correct. PC and gender identity politics are associated with FF use. Too many people with excess time on their hands. Post BAU there will be no time left for such things.
I think that the one part of the discussion that may come from resource scarcity/wage disparity is same sex marriages. Young people may not want children because of the issues facing the world. A convenient way of doing this is by marrying someone of the same sex. (This is especially true for women.) Marriage is helpful because of the way healthcare is handled in the US. Individual healthcare coverage tends to be expense. If one partner has healthcare coverage through an employer, it is generally much cheaper to get spousal coverage through the employer’s policy than to buy a separate policy.
No one “goes gay” for insurance. And the cause of same-sex marriage was not championed by heterosexual people who wanted to to share insurance costs. That’s silly.
People have been known to marry for insurance. And same sex couples, whether or not they were gay or engaged in sex, existed before same-sex marriage became legal. (This was especially true for women.) Whether or not anyone has actually “gone gay” for health insurance purposes is something I have no data on. But I would note that it isn’t necessary to “go gay” or to engage in sex with one’s spouse in order to exercise the right to same sex marriage.
The harsh truth about economic inequality -MarkeWatch
“Based on thousands of years of evidence: “only the so-called ‘four horsemen’ of war, disease, state collapse and revolution have succeeded in leveling income”
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/want-to-level-income-inequality-so-far-only-war-and-disease-have-worked-2017-09-18
Collapse can perhaps be summarized by the same four horsemen, “war, disease, state collapse, and revolution.” It is the way the income inequality gets compressed again. Also the ratio (Resources/ Population) no longer is too low, because the denominator (Population) goes down.
(This worked better in times where we could live on renewables resources alone. Fossil fuel resources can be expected to drop, if something happens to the networked system that provides them.)
I’m a bit disappointed to see so many things lumped together under the “PC” banner. I agree with many of those things, but I also disagree with many others. So I feel “dissed” that the things I hold true are dismissed, but also because I’m lumped in with people who hold irrational beliefs.
But I’m glad to hear you’re a Funny Times fan. I’ve been a subscriber for about 20 years! Now that’s a “PC rag.” 🙂
By the way, The Collapse of Complex Societies is available as a free download — not that I want to deny Joseph Tainter any royalties.
I highly recommend this book, although Tainter soft-pedals the challenges facing our own “complex society.”
I have a different theory that I would like to fully explore someday. My theory (that Tainter sort of hints at) is that all collapses are fundamentally energy collapses, and that the Great Depression was primarily caused by Cryphonectria parasitica, which then caused a slew of secondary effects that historians cite. I managed to convince Gene Logsdon of this shortly before his death. Now if I can just get someone to fund the research and documentation… Remember, you heard it here first, folks!
Loved your Mahli chart! People simply have no idea. Another way of looking at it is that humans currently consume about 25% to 40% more energy than all the sunlight gathered by all the photosynthesizing plants on the planet. This clearly cannot continue!
While I agree that climate change may not be our biggest concern, I think we down-play it at our peril. A considerable amount of today’s demand reduction is directly or indirectly the result of climate change models, for instance, the impact on demand from carbon taxes. There is absolutely no doubt that the climate has been getting warmer, and very little doubt that humans are behind the majority of the amount. Climate models are not simply based on extrapolating human carbon emissions linearly into the future, but also assess the impact of feedback loops, like methane being released from thawed permafrost that has been frozen for tens or hundreds of thousands of years.
Rather, I would submit that the God of our current civilization is Growth. When was the last time you heard a politician or business leader say that we must stop, or even reduce, growth? Never. They would not last another week in their jobs. Even religious leaders act as though growth was a given. And yet, simple physics argues against endless growth.
Although I tend to be agnostic and wary of organized religions, I find neo-paganism speaks to me, with it’s emphasis on natural happenings, cycles, and inter-relationships. A stream can have a soul. A butterfly is cognizant of its surroundings.
I don’t subscribe to comments here. Please feel free to contact me directly if you think it might be useful.
Cryphonectria parasitica refers to Chestnut tree blight. I think the problem was too many people who got laid off from farm work, and declining wages of farm hands, due to low food prices. Chestnut Blight could have added to these problems, by all but eliminating a cheap, nutritious source of food, and the work involved in growing it. The collapse of the debt bubble also contributed.
Jan’s reference to “Mahli’s chart” refers to Figure 6.
The name is actually “Yadvinder Malhi.” (l before h) He is Professor of Ecosystem Science at the University of Oxford. He says
I don’t agree that Growth is a god. It is not the enabler of the system. It is growing energy supply that enables the system, at least until it runs into limits. Our (possibly) ever-expanding Universe seems to be without limits. The Earth has limits, but Universe, and whatever powers it, seems not to. Of course, this is not really known 100% for sure–it is just that the pieces seem to point in this direction.
Growth is God
A man walked into a town, crying: ‘Your God is under my foot! ‘
The people prepared to lynch him fpr blasphemy.
He then took off his shoe, and showed them a gold coin which he’d placed in it.
‘And you’re telling me that this isn’t your God?’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4192182/World-leaders-duped-manipulated-glob al-war ming-data.html
The purpose of science is to understand existence.
The purpose of religion is for humans to cope with existence.
Or to control people
I agree, controlling the people is a large part of what religion tries to do.
I think the situation is that politicians manipulate religions in such a way that religions support politicians’ needs. Church and “state” have historically been very closely bound together. David Graeber talks about temples providing employment and acting as a central place for trade. Credit was needed to enable these markets; I would imagine that the King or other ruler was the main backer of this credit.
The religion indirectly could be used to support the authority of the King. This made it easier for the King to rule.
Whatever theologians thought was probably not of much consequence. The issue was what made the king happy.
The pastor of the church I attend made a joke about the sale of indulgences to get people out of purgatory (back in Martin Luther’s time) seeming to have been a way to obtain funds for a building program. If there was a need for additional employment, I can imagine a situation where the government was a major player in deciding what the church would do. Raising taxes for public works (that would provide jobs for unemployed peasants) would be a problem. But if people with sufficient funds could be talked into voluntarily buying indulgences that could be used for public works projects, that would be a workaround that no one would suspect.
The ancient kings of Scandinavia realised that Christianity had certain advantages: under the traditional pagan system, people of royal blood were liable to be sacrificed in times of suffering and disaster order to appease the gods – this also occurred in other regions of the world.
The king was sacrificed precisely because he was holy.
In the event of prolonged famine, sacrifices usually followed this order: year 1, animals; year 2, animals and slaves/volunteers (and people did volunteer!); year 3, animals plus the sacred king.
Under Christianity, kings were ‘appointed by God’ but not sacred in quite the same way – to their relief!
Interesting!
I suspect that sacrificing a pope each time a priest diddled a young boy … would quickly put an end to the diddling
Nature is a giant experiment into what is possible.
Ever-increasing humans on Earth using ever-increasing energy will show Nature what becomes impossible.
isn’t it a fundamental aspect of Nature that overshoot can’t last for very long?
and overshoot is usually followed by population collapse?
Increased debt seems to allow more overshoot. Debt is used to promise future goods and services, which are of course made with energy.
Our current financial system seems to have come up with a way to increase debt to as high a level as possible. I would have never dreamed that a government could “get away with” negative interest rates.
http://ideonexus.com/wp-content/uploads/2005/01/wileecoyote.jpg
An interesting observation I have seen about PC is that it is just as interesting/important to see what is ‘not being talked about’ as it is to observe what is.
The failure of any Chur.ch to discuss its history of pay.day.fillia until being forced to being another observation.
The war crimes of the current world hegemon can not be admitted either.
Overpopulation is rarely ever discussed, nor old style nuclear families…whether real or imagined.
Greenwash is rampant, but rarely analysed.
And so forth
You are saying that the churches are no better than the Politically Correct group. That may be true. Churches are made up of people. They listen to the same PC stuff that other people do.
My point was that there seems to be a literal higher power that controls the true activities of the world. This isn’t really connected with whether the some/all of the churches have the story right. They may have parts of the story right, buried under all of the PC stuff.
I agree, we all tune in to the messages that resonate, and ignore those that don’t. Throughout history the dominant grouping (Church, Lord, State, Merchant class, Scientists, whomever….) ensured their message prevailed and suppressed alternate truths. In each case being surrounded by yes people didn’t ensure longevity.
The historic landscape is littered with the ruins of the buildings that represented the class in charge of the truth of that era. Our era is dominated by the Bank facade. These will join the ruins of the previous truth-makers in due course.
Even in small town NZ we see quite grandiose ‘Regional Council Buildings’; they are the rule makers at present. Previously some of these small towns were dominated by Saleyards for farmers markets. And so the wheel turns.
As for higher powers, I have read much about the story of some groups and see them as being far more in tune with the realities of the human journey than cold hard science will ever be.
However, at this stage, I see our best hope in an Alien race that is scouring the Universe in search of spent fuel rods finding us and stealing all our ‘Nuclear’ materials. We have strayed too far from our natural selves to be able to save ourselves.
LOL: “I see our best hope in an Alien race that is scouring the Universe in search of spent fuel rods finding us and stealing all our ‘Nuclear’ materials.”
Like this?
L.A. controller says city should open emergency homeless campgrounds and shelters -LA TIMES
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-controller-homeless-camps-20170927-story.html
Fast collapse is proceeding apace in Puerto Rico, with power and just-in-time going offline since hurricanes Irma & Maria struck.
As a result, between 70% and 100% of the population are facing several if not all of the following predicaments:
No Money
No Water
No Fuel
No Electricity
No Food
No Medicine
No Communications
With the U.S. essentially dead broke and still coming to terms with the storm devastation in Texas and Florida, estimated at between $200-$400 bn, relief efforts for Puerto Rico are only barely underway. And even those are piecemeal and low-level.
The sun is setting fast on the U.S. empire. Entropy has struck hard and the place is coming part at the seams, distracted by the internal squabbling of the elites over who gets the scraps. Expect it to do something REALLY stupid before its lights out.
good point that JIT has gone offline in PR.
this past June, PR voted to become the 51st US state, but it may never happen.
could things go the other way for PR?
like, could the USA shrink its empire and free itself from liabilities like PR?
I don’t know, just asking.
Just as a leopard can’t change its spots, don’t expect the U.S. to voluntarily shrink from empire. Only economic collapse, brought about by some great disaster, like a torrid hurricane season, will do the trick. No empire has ever done so, save for the Byzantine Empire, which did greatly simplify its administration in the 13th century, but only after suffering a number of humiliating defeats at the hands of the Turks and the Europeans.
I understand that the vote for PR to the 51st state was a non-binding referendum. The US would need legislation passed for Puerto Rico to become a state. I doubt this would happen. It would be a continual drain on funds.
But how can this be? Tim Groves just said in another post that no category 3 or worse hurricanes have struck the US In years. You mean to tell me that 3 major hurricanes just hit the US in a 1 month span? By god, it’s like climate change is really happening. Who woulda thunk it?
You cannot consider a hurricane hit on Puerto Rico as a “US hurricane.” That is not how hurricanes are counted. It is only the parts of US that are states that count in US hurricane counts.
Having 2 US hurricanes after a long period without is not a huge surprise.
I guess the planet must have been cooling during those years that no hurricanes hit….
Oh right — the planet cools and warms and cools and warms… ice melts and it freeze then it melts again …
KKLimate CCChange is REAL…. it always has been real. For billions of years….
And then we have these clowns ranting from roof tops telling us the sky is falling — well guess what — we have been hearing that for decades now…
And the sky is NOT falling. We are not sinking into the ocean… we are not burning up
Oh but just wait… we have released enough carbon to kill us all…. righteo — exactly when is that going to happen?
Nothing feels out of the ordinary to me.
You want change on a significant scale? Here you go K Ch Clowns… or is it MORE ons?
El Niño /ɛl ˈniːnjoʊ/ (Spanish pronunciation: [el ˈniɲo]) is the warm phase of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (commonly called ENSO) and is associated with a band of warm ocean water that develops in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific (between approximately the International Date Line and 120°W), including off the Pacific coast of South America. El Niño Southern Oscillation refers to the cycle of warm and cold temperatures, as measured by sea surface temperature, SST, of the tropical central and eastern Pacific Ocean. El Niño is accompanied by high air pressure in the western Pacific and low air pressure in the eastern Pacific. The cool phase of ENSO is called “La Niña” with SST in the eastern Pacific below average and air pressures high in the eastern and low in western Pacific. The ENSO cycle, both El Niño and La Niña, cause global changes of both temperatures and rainfall.[2][3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Ni%C3%B1o
Eddy you’re high. Your formulated response, if you can even call it that, is pure drivel. I’ve lost count, what does that make this, 4 El Niño years in a row? Yeah, that sounds normal. Previous periods of warming have nothing on this one. The speed of CO2 release is 2 orders of magnitude greater than the Permian extinction. Go read about and try to understand the difference between changes taking 100 years versus 100,000 years; 1 is natural and the other is human forced with greenhouse gases. This isn’t rocket science level stuff, more like 8th grade. Things like convection and moisture content in the air.
Yadda yadda yadda….
So what happened in the years there were no hurricanes?
And what happened during the past 20 years where there has been virtually no warming at all? You do know that a prominent GeeW scientist blew the whistle on that rather inconvenient truth….
Feel free to trot out more of your MSM bull sh it… let’s here how that scientist was paid by big oil to blow the whistle…..
And what about the other questions – are you a WMD 911 Putin is the devil guy? You should be – because you believe whatever you read in the MSM
Trying to argue this point is as frustrating as trying to convince a MORE on … that solar panels are not going to save us..
But then trying to argue with someone who believes the MSM does not exist to control what he thinks…. is always going to be futile.
Such people are unable to think rationally – they are like steewwwpid cows pulled around by rings in their noses….
MOOOOOoooo.
Well we certainly know Trump agrees with you, lol. 2-3 large hurricanes hitting doesn’t mean a thing by itself. I’m mostly ragging on Tim for not keeping his arguments up to date.
I am still wondering what happened in those years where no significant hurricanes hit the US…
U.S. Has Gone a Record 142 Months Without a Major Hurricane Strike
https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/record-142-months-without-major-hurricane-may-be-coming-end
No Major Hurricane Has Made Landfall In the US In More Than 9 Years
https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/major-hurricane-us-landfall-drought-study
So what gives TO?
logic
ˈlɒdʒɪk/Submit
noun
1. reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity.
http://www.jaclynglenn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/keep-calm2.jpg
http://keep-calm.net/images/keep-calm-and-use-logic-400-400-black-white.jpg
http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/a6/a6d59eba7cf1de431caa3d580dab31bd17d64532b085c44064e8505f87ab7fcd.jpg
MORE WINE PLEASE!
“I am still wondering what happened in those years where no significant hurricanes hit the US…”
They hit other places besides the US.
Right — so now that a couple of them hit the US that is proof of what exactly?
Your logic is that of a 6 year old MORE on.
Keep on watching CNN … it makes live so much easier when you don’t have to actually think about anything….
http://www.nopitbullbans.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/Donkey_against_wall.jpeg
Yep – that would be proof — if you are a MORE on.
If someone goes 3 days without a sh it… then suddenly they have 3 in one day… what does that prove?
I’m just warming up …. Madame Fast just put a glass of TGtheworldhasnotended wine in my hand…
Not to be confused with ohnowearegoingtobroilandiamsoupsetboutthatthatikeepingusingelectricitydrivingacarandshopping WHINE…..
There’s good wine… and their’s irritating whine.
+++++++++
Shit happens!
Tango has some problems differentiating between weather and clim-ate.
But it’s understandable.
Ever since the decision was made to stop pushing the Glow Ball War Ming meme, the word “clim-ate” has been much abused by everyone from the UN and the MSM to a lot of people who really should now better.
People who think “it must be true as I saw it on tee-vee!” or “because the experts say so!” are apt to get confused.
Strange logic…
An abnormally hot month means …..
But an abnormally cold month means nothing.
The reason people confuse the weather with the kklimate is because they allow the MSM to determine what they think….
And the MSM is constantly confusing the two….
It is also repeating the lie endlessly — ever time we get a warm temp …. they immediately attach that to …. ……..
WMD anyone?
The woeful response to Puerto Rico’s plight – Financial Times
https://www.ft.com/content/ca7d39e6-a36f-11e7-9e4f-7f5e6a7c98a2
I’m not sure even if Trump is aware that Puerto Ricans are US citizens. -Hillary Clinton
these US citizens are in a common situation:
though citizens, they are on the periphery of the core first world.
Texas and Florida will likely get far more help for their hurricane damages.
right or wrong, more needy or less needy, that’s what probably will happen.
I expect to see quite a few Puerto Ricans move to the United States. This would seem to be cheaper than trying to rebuild.
yes, that’s a reasonable prediction.
NOLA population dropped from about 450,000 to 300,000 after Katrina.
Makes more sense too. It’s high time humans stoped behaving as if the oceans wont rise.
It seems over the last 20 years the US helps US citizens less than it helps foreigners.
Help is the wrong word. I think what the US really invests in foreign counties is the infrastructure that make conditions safe for large corporations to exploit other countries resources. Not necessarily to help the people.
https://i.redd.it/dqsd10da6foz.jpg
I suppose there are some persons with the technical ability to tell if this is photoshopped or not.
ironically, nice sunny flowers in their hair.
It’s Photoshopped for sure.
That “F” was originally and “S”.
Suck the world? Well I guess we don’t have to take a gander at her profession.
the posting of this picture could be interpreted as racist.
Cliff, have you ever posted a picture of a white woman’s breasts?
why not?
https://media1.giphy.com/media/O5NyCibf93upy/giphy.gif
so then Cliff, you can’t find the words to defend yourself?
You’re grasping at straws
and you’re still avoiding a direct answer.
https://i.redd.it/uhtlqjzx1eoz.jpg
Success is as dangerous as failure. Hope is as hollow as fear…
-Laozi
World’s Largest Economies Facing Huge Problems
https://financialtribune.com/articles/world-economy/73023/world-s-largest-economies-facing-huge-problems
yes, true enough.
I think that Gail’s new article answers this very well:
the world’s economies are actually facing a losing battle with the laws of physics.
VENEZUELA PREPARES FOR WAR WITH U.S. WITH ‘RIFLES, MISSILES AND WELL-OILED TANKS AT THE READY’
http://www.newsweek.com/venezuela-prepares-war-us-rifles-missiles-and-well-oiled-tanks-ready-672033?utm_source=internal&utm_campaign=most_read&utm_medium=most_read2
Read Dr P Ward’s books. Led me to research deep history. Had it not been for a preserve 70,000 y ago during the Toba explosion, humans would have been erased. We have experienced so many mutations that perhaps our original form was much simpler. IF your analysis is true then human life is unsustainable.
Thanks, interesting article!
Accelerated expansion (=dark energy) may be wrong:
https://phys.org/news/2017-09-supernova-analysis-reframes-dark-energy.html
This is the frustration in trying to figure things out. Even researchers who are trying to get things right, may not really fully understand the story. And when this is passed on to other people, it gets worse.
Yes, researchers want to get things right, but they also want results. Often they get greedy when chasing results.
In this case, to get results from Einsteins equation you have to simplify them, so you assume spatial homogeneity. Despite the fact that this is not exactly the case. This seems to cause the necessity of dark energy in the “simplified” equations. Also the dark matter part of the universe can possibly be explained by other simplifications.
Hi Gail,
This is good!
You have been on quite a journey over the years, from the collection of raw data, onward to analysis and now synthesis.
I think this essay is really helpful in making sense of many observations I have been getting out here on the ground. Such as the inverse relationship between correctness and effectiveness, or the divergence between facts and truth.
Thanks, and good courage when your friends get annoyed.
The “Self-Driving Car” is Only an Oxymoron
http://www.dailyimpact.net/2017/08/03/the-self-driving-car-is-only-an-oxymoron/
FAIL….
Excellent article.
good link, Cliff.
these cars will cost millions each, and will still fail to be autonomous.
Energy and Authoritarianism Post Carbon Institute
http://www.postcarbon.org/energy-and-authoritarianism/
The Knower is never the known; what is known has to be known by a Knower. This track leads to the Self of all selves; there is no need to posit a deity “out there”.
There is no knower; only the actor acting, the chatterer chattering and the observer observing, observing, and then observing some more.
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.
So this is the timeframe now?
https://www.google.com/search?q=oil+shortages+by+2020&source=lnms&tbm=nws&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjl8JrOgMbWAhWCh1QKHWq7CmkQ_AUICigB&biw=774&bih=826&dpr=1.25
Can’t wait to see the GOP role out a new tax reform platform that saves me 43 cents a year and cut’s David Koch’s effective tax rate to -8%.
Bill Gates: I do not agree with Elon Musk about A.I. ‘We shouldn’t panic about it’
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/25/bill-gates-disagrees-with-elon-musk-we-shouldnt-panic-about-a-i.html
Sort of agree with Bill on that, clip from your article link below:
“Musk says the global race for artificial intelligence will cause World War III and that governments will take AI technology “at gunpoint” if necessary.”
This sounds like fear mongering.
I’m pretty sure WWIII will start with a tweet at this rate.
Well if Bill Gates’ or Microsoft is responsible for the code, artificial intelligence will be dumber than dumb. Thus, we shouldn’t panic. Freezes, lock-ups, security holes and black and blue screens of death will increase the number of jobs needed to keep these new systems up and running.
Dear Rich People:
Post Collapse I will breed your Daughters!
-Yours Truly
‘
Zombies USA
Nah…. better to pi…mp them out…
With a sideline wholesaling human flesh to roadside vendors….
http://www.newsweek.com/venezuelas-economic-crisis-has-forced-doctors-become-prostitutes-672035
In Mexico, $2 per hour workers make $40,000 SUVs
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/mexico-hour-workers-make-40000-suvs-50081342
If Zuckerberg runs against Trump in 2020. He might do the unthinkable! Redistribute the wealth from the Rich to the rest! And he could do it at the speed of technology too!
“Redistribute the wealth from the Rich to the rest!” – That will never happen. Complete collapse of modern industrial society will happen before that is allowed to happen. I do not think the rich of the world will do well after financial collapse occurs. The odds of survival after financial collapse favors those who are completely unplugged from civilization.
7.5 Billion People are Sleepwalking into Malthusian Nightmare (Trap)
Gap between rich and poor continues to widen, latest Fed data show -MarketWatch
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gap-between-rich-and-poor-continues-to-widen-latest-fed-data-show-2017-09-26
Come-on cliff dweller where have you been, one must pander to the crowd for the votes. May as well get the STW hats made up and ready to go. I can imagine the chanting masses singing, seize their wealth, over and over into a frenzied state. The talking heads in the media will be speechless.
He could pull the biggest Robin Hood the world has ever seen!
Notice how Zuckerberg almost never does interviews…. there is a reason for that…. he is a semi-MOREon….
He does not run FB — his claim to fame was stealing the idea….
Then he gave a fast talking coke snorting jack ass (Sean Parker) free shares in the company for doing basically nothing…. because he was himself clueless…
He won’t be running for president….
How does a semi-more on get people to throw billions of dollars a year at him?
Sure, a lot of his wealth might be in stock options and Facebook might just be a front company for the CIA. The CIA has had front companies in the past, companies that exist only for espionage or propaganda purposes. Zuckerburg must have some exceptional trait that made him catch the eye of CIA officials who needed a figurehead.
Fast Eddy says:”He does not run FB — his claim to fame was stealing the idea”
Everyone knows that the person who comes up with an idea is often not rewarded for it. Zuckerberg stealing an idea might be proof that he was smarter than the average bear, because the reality of people who come up with ideas not being rewarded for them often is not something that teachers, career coaches and other people who follow the “religion of success” like to acknowledge.
Eight years of compulsory Lutheran Sunday school, a foil star awarded beside every single lesson (for memorization) in my Luther’s Small Catechism, despite becoming wittingly ‘atheist’ at age five. My appalled and utterly humbled spontaneous reaction to a video of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field images was, “Heaven and Earth are full of Thy glory.” Science students are compelled to recite orthodoxy or be blackballed: there are no higher or more arrogant priests than theoretical physicists.
A Socialist is challenging Capitalist Automation! IT BEGINS!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/26/jeremy-corbyn-plans-tax-robots-automation-threat-workers/
The UnaBomber is being vindicated!
Gail Twerberg!
You have tresspassed the Occam’s razor principle. If we assume that some deity has created the laws of Physics, then we must answer the question: Where did this Higher Power come from?
The Myth 8: we don’t need religion. It is not a myth. In other place You write: “In practice, people need a religion or a religion-substitute. People need a basic set of beliefs with which to order their lives.”
We are genetically pre-programmed for something bigger than our dayly existence, for something sacred and holy, for some sense, some goal and objective, and, at the end, for some hope for eternal life. Contemporary science gives to us all of this: Our task, possibility and responsibility is a long-term survival of humanity, or, as Carl Sagan said, to preserve our Universe’s matter to get conscious of itself. No greater task is possible. If we will solve the task of transferring our consciousness to other physical environment, we will obtain even some sort of ‘eternal life’.
Imants Vilks
We don’t even know how to take care of each other yet.
I suspect that more people believe in the renewable energy god than believe in all the other gods put together….
In fact outside of FW … I don’t know a single renewable energy atheist….
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/20160713_musk.jpg
https://www.castlerain.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/steve-jobs-god.jpg
Passe…
http://dreamatico.com/data_images/jesus/jesus-5.jpg
Yes, we have much to thank the Ancient Geeks for.
But at the same time, I fear the Geeks even when they come bearing gifts.
http://www.myce.com/wp-content/images_posts/2015/10/windows-10-reservation-install.png
https://assets.fastcompany.com/image/upload/w_596,c_limit,q_auto:best,f_auto,fl_lossy/fc/3020524-inline-i-1-all-of-the-ways-apples-new-free-mac-os-hurts-microsoft-windows.jpg
It’s not wise to unplug from the matrix
Do not turn off you computer…
How do you want to receive your updates…
Back in school days having started out with punch cards and later moving up to 8 inch floopies, things have really changed.
https://img.rt.com/files/2016.05/original/5746ce31c461881c488b459f.jpg
Source: https://www.rt.com/usa/344435-us-nuclear-floppy-disks/
Maybe Win10 is just another step toward out destiny.
BTW, have enjoyed reading your posts, even though I sometimes shy away from large ones. I too had a teacher who used the folded ruler on the hands, of course only the lesser students received that encouragement.
Working in the advertising industry in the early 1980s, I remember when we moved from IBM electric typewriters to IBM word processors that looked like something out of Star Trek and came with two 8-inch slots, one for the OS/app disk and one for the data disk.
It is shocking how crude and ugly this formerly state-of-the-art technology looks now.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/IBM_Displaywriter.jpg
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In questions of Science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.
-Galileo
He could be a sarcastic old bugger. That’s what did him in with the Pope.
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.
-Galileo Galilei
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When shtf I expect to see more of this…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/09/26/russian-cannibal-couple-may-have-drugged-killed-and-eaten-as-many-as-30-people-police-say/?utm_term=.7d73b4a5238e#comments
oh, the schadenfreude.
Yes, well the cannibal couple do have personalities where schadenfreude is a huge source of motivation. This could possibly be an advantage when shtf and there might be a genetic disposition to schadenfreude-based personalities.
Ha ha! And with one bound he was free. Of course, if you are REALLY black, you must be decomposing. There’s something for you to worry about. When my “Caucasian” dad suddenly turned white one day, his doctor explained to him that he was bleeding internally and ordered an ambulance pronto.
Was your dad Chechen or Georgian by any chance?
What is the relevance of whether his dad is from Chechnya or Georgia?
Thank you for your insights always interesting about energy and complexity. Concerning your religions questions, you won’t be surprised to hear they have been among the questions of people for quite some time. A lot have been resolved successfully during the past 60 centuries. Therefore, and because I don’t want you to loose any of your precious time, please let me give you a link to the basic answers : http://www.cin.org/users/james/ebooks/master/pius/pcomm01.htm
Why should you believe you may ask ?
“We are certain that the doctrine which we receive from the Holy Catholic Church is true, because Jesus Christ, the divine Author of this doctrine, committed it through His Apostles to the Church, which He founded and made the infallible teacher of all men, promising her His divine assistance until the end of time.
Are there other proofs of the truth of Christian Doctrine?
The truth of Christian Doctrine is also shown by the eminent sanctity of numbers who have professed it and who still profess it, by the heroic fortitude of the martyrs, by its marvelous and rapid propagation in the world, and by its perfect preservation throughout so many centuries of ceaseless and varied struggles.” –
http://www.cin.org/users/james/ebooks/master/pius/pprelim.htm
“We are certain that the doctrine which we receive from the Holy Catholic Church is true, because Jesus Christ”
JC has been shown to be a charlatan, and the “Holy” Catholic Church is a rotten-to-the-core institution, which has perpetrated scandals by the hundred, and new ones are discovered every few months.
I agree that many religions have a history of corruption. And many religions were and (likely are still) used to control people by instilling in them the fear of whatever “God” they worship. Everyone knows what is “right” and “wrong”. Killing is wrong, stealing is wrong.
Be courteous and respectful to others is just a common sense thing to do. I do the right thing because it is the right thing to do, not because I fear some everlasting punishment in hell. I do refuse to give my time or money to any religious affiliation because of the danger of corruption and indiscretions which are inevitable in human run religious organizations.
Is there any regligion that talks about the finite world, the end of the world and the dependence of the human race on the external energy as the Christianity?
That’s a good question, but if I understand you, it would fall into the abstract, where it would be in mystery, or a matter of faith without getting presumptuous.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jCdcvcLpjZ0/TbT9OurqBaI/AAAAAAAAAQ8/9eqNyNRWaXg/s1600/the+end+of+the+world.jpg
Jesus….
This guy has the right stuff to be an OFW regular.
I have had pastors write to me (not recently) and ask me if they could use one of my blog posts as a sermon.
Your a smart dude. And there was a comment about Stoicism a ways back, and “it’s the right thing to do” works no matter what you believe.
Stoicism is a philosophy. Christianity is a religion. That faith that there is still some higher power (i.e. external energy that could save you) is something different. Atheism is simply belief that there is no more such energy.
The reason why Angela Merkel suffered anti-immigrant blow in the recent German parliamentary elections is that she even said that Islam belongs to Germany:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-islam-merkel/merkel-says-islam-belongs-to-germany-ahead-of-dresden-rally-idUSKBN0KL1S020150112
The problem is that when the Western states are like monasteries (i.e. recieveing adults to keep their economies going and thus securing high standard of living, while the domestic population declines), the idea of accepting islam contradicts to this way of preserving the high standard of living:
“By contrast, in other religions monasticism is criticized and not practiced, as in Islam and Zoroastrianism, or plays a marginal role, as in Judaism.”
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monasticism
E.g although the Czech Republic is considered to be one of the most athiest countries, it is also the place where monk religions like buddhism are popular: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_in_the_Czech_Republic
“Czech Republic is a relatively small country in Central Europe, known in the world mostly for its great beer, ice-hockey players, top models, and Prague – its picturesque and lively capital on the Vltava River. Not many know that it also has one of the highest numbers of Buddhist centers per capita in the West.”
https://www.diamondway-buddhism.org/images/2013_02_Prague_OleCourse_3324_rJSM.jpg
Source: https://www.diamondway-buddhism.org/new-buddhist-center-in-prague-czech-republic/
…and Angela Merkel ends up in the coalition with green freaks and FDP, that believe that there is still some valuable human resources that can be cheaply integrated into the success monastery model and there are no upper limits. CSU, representing the Catholics, at least wants to set a limit to number of immigrants per year.
https://thisisafrica.me/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2014/03/Pope-and-kids.jpg
JC has been shown to be a charlatan
Do you mean to imply that the turning water into wine and feeding 5,000 people with five loaves and two fishes never happened? Or that God will not grant to you all that you ask of him in Jesus’s name?
I find your lack of faith disturbing!
As the church got farther and farther away from Rome, Rome’s influence got more and more watered down. By the time it got to Norway, it was very much a “lite” version of Rome’s version. I have not been much involved with the Roman version. (Or the Baptist version.) The ELCA Lutheran version is the version I have been aware of. It varies from place to place. It tends to be liberal in its teachings. Sometimes leaning toward the PC line of thought.
Very funny!
The thing is…
One can plausibly believe that there is a creator — although you run into the problem of what created the creator so you are no further ahead (the earth could have been conjured out of nothing … as supposedly this creator is)
But to show up at church and kneel and chant and pray and worship some guy in the sky — who apparently has an ego that makes Trump look humble…. and who always needs more money…. who urges us to kill one another…
Well …. I find that entire concept …. sorry to say …. utterly ridiculous.
It is not different than a group of people worshiping a dog… or a brick… or a wood carving… this is madness.
Now if it makes people feel good to get together in their community over a bit of delusion… over cakes and coffee… then why not…
But beyond that…. it’s just plain nonsense
I think you are over believing what some church has told you, or taking literally some very old scriptures. These things don’t need to have anything to do with a physics-based god.
It still requires that something – the universe or god – was created from nothing.
Could be…
But again … the Sunday worship thing has not part to play in this.
If there is a creator — for the life of me — I cannot imagine it would require that we sing hymns to its glory….
I didn’t say that it would be required. You are trying to read more into what I said than what I did.
I didn’t say anything about kneeling and chanting and praying and worshiping some guy in the sky.
You have gotten yourself carried away. What I said is,
You have one particular view of religion, and expect that that is the only view of religion. It isn’t. There are no doubt hundreds of religions around the world.
I’m not referring to your comments…..
This was a general comment on the popular organized religions….
https://hamiltonnorth.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/eyeballs_in_the_sky.jpg?w=450&h=397
Leave the religion out of it and concentrate on the resource crisis!
I have gotten other e-mail requests in this direction as well. Religion seems to be a difficult topic for people to even think rationally about.
Because all of the tales in there religious books tend to support overpopulation and even place it upon a pedestal. But in a world of scarcity how can that be unless the authors of said books had absolutely zero understanding of the nature of this physical reality?
Until we began industrializing and using fossil fuels on a significant scale in the second half of the 18th century, the world was so huge that it might as well have been infinite.
The main brakes on population growth were food supply limits and diseases, and one of the main brakes on food supply growth was insufficient labor to do the donkey work.
In some places at some times, such as after population crashes caused by war, disease, famine and Biblical-scale natural disasters, or exoduses—movements of the people—migrations into new lands, there would have been ample resources to increase agricultural activity that could not be taken advantage due to lack of population.
If you’d been writing a religious book at such a time, you would have been remise not to have included something in it about being fruitful and multiplying.
Ponder for a minute how ignorant you personally are about the nature of this physical reality. And then try to grasp that people living in bronze or iron age civilizations might have been even more ignorant.
Sorry about my spelling and syntax. I know it’s lamentable sometimes.
I really enjoyed this post, thank you.
There has been some chatter lately about un-denial.com, where it is proposed that ancient humans evolved a gene/attribute for denial of reality, as a way to cope with fear of mortality and such.
Could it be that people visiting OFW, and other “no solution” doomer sites have had this denial-mutation reversed? And this seen in the light of the genes that have been passed on during IC hasn’t been “survival of the fittest” but “survival of everyone”, the sick are not allowed to die.
Seeing the reality isn’t good for much, is it? Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen nailed it in “Vildanden” (The Wild Duck): “Take the life lie from an average being, and you take his happiness as well”.
I am sure we have been passing on less than the best genes, with all of our attempt at saving every tiny baby and everyone, no matter what hereditary disease they may have. I don’t know if it has anything to do with denial.
There might be a god, it might have played a role in the creation of the earth and what followed *but* maybe humans are of no special concern? Maybe all species on earth are of equal value or maybe some other species are the most valuable? If so, in the eyes of god humans going extinct is no more than one species failing, just an observation among many others.
“Value” is a human concept. No other species has come up with it because, as far as we can tell, no other species goes in for articulate abstract thought, with the possible exception of chimpanzees pondering the value of bananas.
Humans ponder the value of things (including of other people) to themselves, to other other individuals, to their organizations and collectives, and to humanity overall. Some of us may also ponder the value of bananas to chimpanzees, or the value of the ozone layer to all life on earth or to nature. But chimpanzees and all life on earth and nature themselves probably don’t have a concept of “value” in the first place. If there was a creator, the creator didn’t endow them with the faculty of articulate abstract thought. Or if there was no creator, these things didn’t evolve the faculty in question, which comes to the same thing. The fact remains that humans are unique (as far as we can tell) in possessing a sense of value. And this sense is not uniform or universal even among us. On person’s priceless Ming vase is another person’s chamber pot.
Saudi Arabia has finally lifted its ban on women drivers. I’m sure the primary motive must be economic, as you would imagine this would boost car sales and it will certainly mean less need for expensive, imported chauffeurs:
“For all this time families have had to stretch their budgets to the limit, as they have had to hire in imported chauffeurs from south and south-east Asia, house them, feed them and insure them.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-41408195
ah. that’s the reason for the female driver deal. someone else suggested there could be land mines that need to be found, which seemed equally plausible.
It would certainly seem to encourage independence, especially if no chauffeur is involved. Imagine women going grocery shopping!
I enjoy following your posts Gail, though this one is a little different. I have thought long and hard about the issues with religion and have finally come up with a model that works for me, so I thought I would share it with you. I see the entity we refer to as God, as being the emergent intelligence of the complex system which is the universe. A subset of this is of course the complex system which is the earth – this is a part of God. The Abrahamic religions perceive this phenomenon as a single entity which they call God/Allah. [God did not make us in his image, we perceive him in our image to help us understand]. Other religions perceive it as multiple entities, and scientists perceive it as a system of laws. The difference between other religions and scientism is that other religions attribute agency to this intelligence whereas scientism does not. Other religions also perceive an opportunity for humans to influence this intelligence whereas scientists do not. All the other rules and organisation attached to the various religions are a cultural overlay and change from religion to religion and over time and space. They should be modified as the time and location vary but often they do not. This causes problems. The differences between the Abrahamic religions for example are not in the deity they perceive but in the cultural overlays. Many of the cultural practices of religions are beneficial – prayer/meditation, singing together and giving thanks, helping and supporting one another, giving away ones excess to the poor for example. Others are less so or are problematic. Religions are of course open to abuse, as are any other social constructs.
With all due respect, I am not sure why it should be “Abrahamic religions” and “other religions”. There are “other” belief systems that attribute all powers to a single entity. On the other hand, if you mean other major “religions” like Hinduism or Buddhism, from the outside it might seem true that many of the occidental religions have numerous deities. But it is more nuanced than that. The “religion” of the common followers is entirely different from the philosophy of those systems. For example, most of the Hindu religious philosophical schools do not require belief in any all-powerful entity or God. One doesn’t need to worship anything. They are essentially agnostic, some even virulently atheistic (making fun of the so-called holy texts). But they are all considered part of the way of life called Hinduism. Likewise with the different schools of Buddhism.
All religions rely on the indoctrination of the young.
The indoctrinated then have their beliefs reinforced by their congregation, family and friends. The various religious establishments absolutely require this to happen because their survival, power and wealth creation depends on it. It’s a self replicating cycle that is unlikely ever to be broken. Religious believers appear to hate and fear non believers, much more than those of an alternate faith.
If children were to be educated in the school and at home, with no religious influence, I’m pretty sure the human race would have organised in a better way. But we are what we are and having a religious faith and belief in life after death, is permantly ingrained in the human lifestyle.
Under the bandits worldview, as expounded above, the most intensely proselytized religious ideology aimed at youngsters in the industrialized world today is Clim-ate Catastro-phism (CC).
CC relies on the indoctrination of the young at school and via the mass media. The indoctrinated then have their beliefs reinforced by the true believers among their congregation, family and friends. The Church of Clim-ate Catastrophism (CCC) absolutely requires this to happen because their survival, power and wealth creation depends on it. It’s a self replicating cycle that is unlikely ever to be broken. CC believers appear to hate and fear non believers, who they refer to as deni-ers, much more than those of an alternate clim-ate faith such as Clim-ate Weirdism, Ocean Acidificationism, Luke Warmerism, and MWP and LIA Neverreallyhappenedism.
In the UK, a report released in early April entitled “Clim-ate Control: Brainwashing in Schools” revealed that global warming/climate change propaganda has infiltrated every aspect of education, leading Education Secretary Michael Gove to publicly state that school principals are “breaking the law if they preach an eco-agenda.”
The report found: “In every case of concern, the slant is on scares, on raising fears, followed by the promotion of detailed guidance on how pupils should live, as well as on what they should think.” The Wall Street Journal reports that clim-ate change has conquered campuses.
Universities no longer push education in the hard sciences like petroleum engineering
or geosciences because there are few takers. Elementary schools have successfully
destroyed the basics of scientific inquiry in children and anyone expressing an interest
in petroleum is instantly demonized.
In Alberta, the NDP tabled a petition of 26,000 signatures last week to try and stop oil
companies from helping redraft the school curriculum. Fossil fuels are consistently
demonized in school materials, with no mention of the benefits to humankind.
Critical thinking on clim-ate could be taught at schools. Your children could be learning
that between 1912 and 1963, an almost eruption-free period of volcanic activity, global
temp-eratures rose by 0.5 degree C due to a lack of aerosols and ash which lower
temp-eratures. They could be taught that car-bon diox-ide (CO-2) emissions up to 1950
were too small to have caused any significant clim-ate change, so clim^ate change to that
date was mostly natural. Then, clim^ate cooled for 25 years from 1950.
Instead, they will be taught that industrial green-house gases caused by human
activity, principally CO-2, are the sole reason for a rise in global temp-eratures since 1880
– and that global warm-ing is all their fault.
Your children could be taught that there have been three known periods of natural
warming in human history – the Minoan, Roman Optimum and Medieval Warm Period.
These were interspersed with the Dark Ages Cold Period and the cold, wet, rainy
extremes of the Little Ice Age, brutal and violent times to be alive.
They could be reading Brian Fagan’s books or James Marusek’s 1,400 page weather
chronicle, showing how common it is to have extreme swings in wea-ther events and
cli-mate patterns in history.
The children will instead be told, repeatedly, that the globe is warming and extreme
wea-ther is the result. They should be reading the evidence in Dr. Madhav Khandekar’s
report, showing that, despite nominal global warm-ing to 1998, there has been no trend
of more extreme wea-ther globally.
They could be studying the evidence – that global hurricane energy has declined 40 per
cent since 1998. It has been 3,108 days since the last major (category 3 to 5) hurricane
hit the U.S., the longest major hurricane-free period in U.S. history.
They will be taught that wind energy is clean, green and free – and “reduces emissions”
– even though evidence has demonstrated it is dirty and rare earth mineral mining for
turbine magnets have destroyed swaths of China. Wind power is wasteful and nine
times the cost of conventional power. Wind increases emissions with back-up natural
gas plants ramping up and down 24/7 to keep pace with wind’s variability.
They could be discussing atmospheric scientist Judith Curry’s testimony to the U.S.
Senate that “CO-2 is not the control knob of clim-ate variability.” They could be discussing
how the sun is a main driver of clim-ate change.
They could be told that global war-ming stopped all by itself, years before the Kyoto
Protocol was enacted to “stop global war-ming” and despite a continued rise in CO-2.
Instead, your children are still being told global war-ming is a new, unique catastrophic
threat.
Generations of children have been terrorized at school and through Earth Day to have
an unfounded ‘fear of global war-ming,’ a psychological state comparable to the
Stockholm Syndrome, where they are unable to liberate themselves from their
tormentors. The critical thinking skills have been scared out of them.
This Earth Day, question what your children are learning. Is it clim-ate cult indoctrination or true education? Must we sacrifice the work of centuries of scientists on the altar of Gaia?
https://friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/Earth-Day-confuses-cult-indoctrination-with-education.pdf
it’s not only the children who have been indoctrinated… we have plenty of willing unthinkers on FW who are buying into this nonsense
When is Earth Day btw…. I must remember to turn on every light in the house…. run the washing machine and drier… ideally I’ll be on a double long haul flight to nowhere…
All in the name of keeping demand up for energy
Hi Aravind,
Clearly I do not have your extensive knowledge. I was just trying to exemplify rather than be all encompassing. I deliberately did not specify other religions as I am unfamiliar with the specifics of their belief systems. I appreciate your clarification.
I am not saying that any of these religions has a large share of the correct answers. It is just that, in the physics sense, there seems to be a true Higher Power. Religions seem to vary a lot, even within the same general group.
I recently went on a tour of a Hindu Temple in Atlanta. The particular tour guide said that the belief of their particular group was in one God. This God has been made known by on earth at various times, by various humans who had more understanding than most. (I am sure he explained this differently.) The tour guide said he believed that their God was the same as that of the Abrahamic traditions.
http://www.baps.org/Global-Network/North-America/Atlanta/Visitor-Info.aspx
The Death Of Common Sense
Not so long ago, our society was driven by science and engineering principles and economics. It is now driven by Greenthinking. It has been known for a long time that in transmitting electricity some of it is lost as heat – the cables warm up like an electric fire.
Armed with this knowledge, and with a desire to minimise waste and keep prices down, our early power stations were actually built in the cities. The folly of this approach became clear when pollution from burning coal caused smog and a host of health problems. In the UK, government legislated via the Clean Air Act and power stations were moved to the countryside and their design improved to minimise pollution. New coal, gas and nuclear power stations were still located close to the centres of population where the power was to be used in order to minimise transmission losses.
In his post earlier this week Roger showed this map where we now intend to build GW scale power stations in the middle of nowhere (Moray is 950 MW and Hornsea 1386 MW). These power stations need to be connected to their market which is hundreds of miles away. This involves building subsea and over-land grid connections that result in transmission losses giving us two additional costs for offshore wind. Of course nuclear power stations also need a grid connection but these tend to be of the order of 10s not 100s of miles.
The public had been sold the idea of distributed renewable energy somehow being better than centralised power generation. I was never aware of any evidence why this should be the case but what we are now getting is gigawatt-sized centralised wind power distributed outside of and well away from our main population centres. This once again is duplicitous on the part of the renewables industry selling half truths to politicians and the public when the reality of what is on offer is often the exact opposite.
http://euanmearns.com/the-real-cost-of-offshore-wind/
https://media.makeameme.org/created/this-is-madness.jpg
Nice teeth for a gladiator.
He’s probably a tranny!
While we’re on the subject, let’s remind ourselves of the Green Dream to produce Europe’s electricity from mega-solar arrays in the Sahara and transmit it over thousands of kilometers to where it’s consumed.
https://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2011/10/20090616-desertec.jpg
Engineers understand this is of course impossible….
Yet the fact that the MSM promotes this as if it was possible — demonstrates how desperate the masses are for hopium….
‘But when things look bleak, it is helpful to see the possibility of a reasonable outcome.’
The MSM says everything is going to be awesome…. and people do want to believe that….
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