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 several controversial topics, including environmentalism, peer-reviewed literature, and climate change models. This post pretty much excludes religion. It was added for people who find it hard to believe that a scientific article could also touch upon religion. If you want the complete discussion, as the post was originally written, please see this post.
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. 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.
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.
Conclusion
We are facing a battle against the laws of physics which we are unlikely to win. Our leaders would like us to think that it can be won quite easily, but it cannot be. Climate change is presented as our only and most important problem, but this is not really the case. Our problem is that the financial system and energy systems are tightly connected. We are likely to have serious financial problems as we hit limits of many kinds, at more or less the same time.
Our leaders are not really as powerful as we would like. Even our scientific findings practically never come in perfect form. Our knowledge generally comes in a series of steps, which includes revisions to early ideas. At this time, it doesn’t look as though we have figured out a way to work around our rising need for energy and the problem with rising entropy.
about Las Vegas must watch and read here:
Did 9-11 Perps Plan Las Vegas Massacre for Profit?
https://www.henrymakow.com/2017/10/police-state-means-money%20.html#sthash.2wnUmiGU
and this from a former neighbor of the supposedly murderer
https://www.henrymakow.com/2017/10/police-state-means-money%20.html#sthash.2wnUmiGU
This mind-blowing documentary casts the Las Vegas massacre
in a new light. The goal is to create a high-tech
police state where metal detectors are everywhere, not just at airports
but at hotels and schools and malls. Indeed, unnoticed in the cry
for gun control has been an orchestrated media campaign calling
for scanners at all hotels, and one has already been implemented.
The same people who did 9-11 are poised to profit from Las Vegas.
That explanation seems viable……
Vegas as the venue … great symbolism there….
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/nwOpS2wGLTQ/maxresdefault.jpg
Brought to you buy the same people who organized the gassing of women and children in Syria
https://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-un-mission-report-confirms-that-opposition-rebels-used-chemical-weapons-against-civilians-and-government-forces/5363139
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-06/ron-paul-zero-chance-assad-behind-chemical-weapons-attack-syria-likely-false-flag
http://media.beliefnet.com/~/media/photos-with-attribution/faith/devil/devil-1_credit-shutterstock.jpg
Boo!
That is an outstanding expose … thanks
I wonder if this offer is still open?
https://archive.is/hlQdr/f31cafa1410d3de720c99fd94ea6af0eecdcbcb8/scr.png
We live in a plastic surgery world. It’s all fake…. Fake crowds … fake terror….
http://www.rainscorner.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/boob-job2.jpg
https://youtu.be/yMxHq9ucSWA
https://youtu.be/Xkc-en0_LGY
I think Sheryl’s nailed it.
I quit my job as a dancer
At the Lido des Girls
Dealing blackjack until one or two
Such a muddly line between
The things you want
And the things you have to do
I’m Leaving Las Vegas
Lights so bright
Palm sweat, blackjack
On a Saturday night
Leaving Las Vegas
Leaving for good, for good
I’m leaving for good
I’m leaving for good
I’m leaving Las Vegas
And I won’t be back
No I won’t be back
Not this time
Some interesting news on Tesla lol and who is BYD motors which Buffet has ownership in?
Tesla Only Made 260 Cars Last Quarter—Big Trouble Ahead
By Justin Spittler, editor, Casey Daily Dispatch
Tesla just whiffed.
…and no one seems to care.
It’s complete insanity…and it’s going to end badly for many Tesla shareholders.
I’ll tell you why in a second. But let me first explain what I mean by “whiff.”
On Tuesday, the electric carmaker reported third-quarter sales of its Model 3.
This is the company’s first mass-market vehicle. It just started delivering them in July.
Yet, Tesla investors had high hopes for the first quarter of production… and why wouldn’t they?
In August, Tesla’s founder and CEO Elon Musk said the company would produce 1,500 Model 3s during the third quarter.
But on Tuesday, we learned that Tesla produced just 260 cars, or 83% fewer than Musk promised.
• This is bad news any way you slice it…
Tesla dropped as much as 3% Tuesday morning.
Then, something strange happened. Tesla’s stock turned higher.
On Tuesday, it actually closed up 2%. Yesterday, it jumped another 2%.
https://www.caseyresearch.com/tesla-only-made-260-cars-last-quarter-big-trouble-ahead/
Good info…. how does Tesla not collapse?
The El ders have anointed Tesla as the saviour … saviours cannot be allowed to fail
But Mr Casey is still delusional: ‘I’m as excited about this EV “revolution” as anyone’
Think about any stock. Regardless of the days performance and volume, if the very last trade of even a single share is 3% higher, the the stock closes up for the day. The current stock market…and Tesla stock included is manipulated and complete BS.
I should have dumped cash into an index fund the minute I heard the phrase ‘dont’ fight the Fed’….
As the stock market continues to rise on the back of some of the worst geopolitical, financial, and domestic news, the U.S. Treasury has been quietly increasing the amount of government debt, with virtually no coverage by the Mainstream or Alternative Media. So, how much has the U.S. debt increased in the past few days?
A bunch.
The surge in U.S. debt that took place over the past two days all started when the debt ceiling limit was officially allowed to increase on Sept 8th.
In just one day, the U.S. Treasury increased the public debt by $318 billion.
https://srsroccoreport.com/stunning-u-s-government-debt-increase-in-past-few-days-while-no-one-noticed/
Numbers on a computer screen. Next year it will be increased 500 billion or so. Whatever number is needed to keep the wheels in motion.
It is not really “debt” as it will never be paid back (to whom?), it is more like creating money since USA has this power.
true.
USA has $20T debt.
if $20T now, then why not $30T by the mid 2020’s?
the new normal, the endgame.
BAU tonight, baby!
If the “debt” is doubling every presidency now, this is a geometric progression. I wonder when it reaches light speed and we can no longer even track the increase.
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2017-10-05/las-vegas-gunman-stockpiled-weapons-over-decades-planned-attack
Oh, so it was the bumpstock’s fault. Get rid of it and away goes the problem? Otherwise only half as many would have been shot. So 1/2 of 59 dead, call it 29 and half of 515 wounded, call it 258 would be acceptable? So in the future when there is another one of these incidents they will say it would have been twice as bad if they hadn’t past that restriction on bumpstocks, which will make everybody feel better about it?! But hold on just a tiny moment. If all that were sold were .38 caliber hand guns (for self defense and killing people in arguments) then how many would die from someone shooting from a highrise? Not many right, but people would still have their precious guns to play with and shoot people they don’t like. So maybe there is still a big chasm between what is legal and what should be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLEGE7k9FD4
Why not let people have these for self defense?
I say allow Walmart to sell fully automatic weapons of all calibres to anyone with a credit card.
And if they have previous criminal convictions for violent crimes — or they are holding a valid insane asylum day pass extend a buy 1 get 1 free offer….
This could be a major platform of the Sierra Club that bastion of Green Groopie Imbe ciles….
Greenpeace should also get on board with this….
All in the name of population control.
And one other thing…. I would suggest the PR men of these organizations start prepping the masses for the Smother a Child Day….. similar to Earth Day only different.
Tag lines off the top of my head….
Save the World — Smother a Child!
Stop Pollution – Smother a Child!
Save the Animals from Extinction – Smother a Child!
This guy got his money in one of three ways. 1. He was alphabet agency. 2. He was running drugs. 3. He was selling arms.
What a BS story that he gambled “all the time” and won, so he still had $2M in the bank. Nobody gambles all the time without losing shitloads of money to the casinos. This guy is fake. His real life has yet to be revealed. He had other sources of money.
Either this guy is a fake, or he was a patsy and a fake story has been woven around him. One possibility is that he was working for an alphabet agency either setting up terrorists for a sting that went wrong or else setting up a false flag terror vent that went right. But it’s also possible that he was who he appeared to be—a wealthy retired businessman who enjoyed gambling and could afford to finance his habit out of petty cash. If the latter, he doesn’t fit the profile of somebody likely to have done what the official narrative claims he did.
Whether or not the people are armed, if the security state wants to play games with weapons that kill people wholesale including innocent bystanders, there’s not a lot that individuals can do.
As usual, J.H. knows a lot less than he assumes he knows curtesy of the MSM. Rule One, as Herod said to Claudius: “Trust no one, my friend, no one. Not your most grateful freedman. Not your most intimate friend. Not your dearest child. Not the wife of your bosom. Not even CNN. Trust no one.”
I would suspect that ….. Multi millionaire …. and mass murder….. do not correlate highly….
Tim, you are wrong on one point…that he could be a wealthy businessman who enjoyed gambling and could afford to finance his habit out of petty cash. He apparently once stayed in a casino hotel for 4 months while gambling. His brother also said that once the casino put up the entire family in their luxury suite. Now, if these statements are true, then he could not have just been financing his gambling out of petty cash. His losses would have been too great. Unless he previously started with $20M and has lost $18M resulting in the $2M left in his account. I want to see his financial history. We cannot believe anything unless verified by non-governmental and non-MSM sources.
This guy smells, whether a patsy or not.
Not all gamblers lose money….
I take your point, JJ. Regarding the LA incident, I hadn’t read about the four month stay or the family in the luxury suite. I guess we can cross out the wealthy businessman who could finance his gambling from petty cash off the list as it seems unlikely.
Do you think he could have been working alone and smuggled all those arms and ammo into his suite without the hotel staff noticing? How tight or loose was the security at the Mandalay and how much privacy do they allow their guests?
Two more theories have popped up. 1. He was involved in illegal trade of some kind, and he was just laundering earnings through the casino. This is probably quite common and the casinos are happy to cooperate. 2. He was setup…perhaps to deliver the rifles to the room, and then killed. Could,be both are true.
“Nobody gambles all the time without losing shitloads of money to the casinos.
This guy is fake. His real life has yet to be revealed. He had other sources of money.”
Good point, JJ.
As BAU winds down…
another great video for Steve cutts
https://youtu.be/sFbjHgfrALo
this about bau
BAU tonight, baby!
Maybe Putin gives out loans.
maybe they need each other.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/04/oil-market-us-crude-exports-and-opec-led-cuts-in-focus.html
“… expectations Russians, Saudis will extend output cuts”
Tropical Depression 16 has formed near Central America.
NHC expects it to hit Florida as a hurricane on Sunday. It’ll get the name Nate.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DLTT1-IW4AEbA6j.jpg
Currently is a tropical storm, expected to hit Louisiana, according to NOAA. We will have to wait for more updates.
Yes, I noticed this morning that the track had shifted westwards. It’s been a very long hurricane season for the U.S. this year.
We have a while yet to go. This is what NOAA says regarding the distribution of hurricanes and tropical storms looks like. Most storms occur by the end of October.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/climo/images/peakofseason.gif
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/climo/
As the tide of surplus energy that has enabled us to pretend that fellowship and co-operation are our natural condition retreats, it looks like we will be seeing the break-up of more national and supra-national entities:
The Scottish referendum narrowly averted the break-up of the UK but then there was Brexit. The Ukraine is disunited. Catalonia is stealing most of the headlines but we also have the prospect of a fully independent Kurdistan after last month’s referendum. Biafra may seek independence from Nigeria and Flanders from Belgium. The Italian election may presage an Italexit, which would surely be the end of the EU. And I was interested to spot this article in Bloomberg:
“Inspired by the separatist vote in Catalonia, secessionists in three wealthy southern Brazilian states are redoubling their efforts to break away from the crisis-battered nation.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-04/catalan-vote-inspires-brazil-s-southern-separatist-movement
It doesn’t matter, as every country is toast once die-off begins in earnest. The neocons already know this, which is why they tore up the fig leaf of diplomacy, with the dismemberment of Yugoslavia. Now it’s a mad scramble for resources and control, to be “last men standing”, although entropy has mortally wounded the body of the host country – the United States. They may have to find another, if their devilish plan is to continue to its conclusion.
Yep, in a way they found it in China, the process of re-installing capitalist structures there goes at least to late 1970s, and it was beyond any doubt orchestrated effort by global capital owners. Basically, saying-offering look at HK, Singapore, Taiwan, you could have this nice enriching development too and much more, i.e. longer perspective match or even potentially crush India, Russia etc.
It went stunningly well since 1980s with the hockey stick finale performance since 2000s, obviously the Chinese knew it was a deal with devil, so they retained some caution with regard to foreign policy, defense etc. However, the progress in priority projects securing them higher autonomy from the seeding capital and nowadays also interlocking vendor-consumer dependencies went glacially slow. In the tradition of Asian worldview and mindset, they simply wait for the opponent to largely self destruct on his own hubris and failures first. Slowly getting closer, still not there yet. The fragmentation in the west and fall of various per capita measurements is the tell. At some point they will have to weight the pros and cons of preliminary action, because waiting too long means Pyrrhic victory in the age of onset of energy depletion. Again, guesstimating ~mid 2020s for some real action..
“Again, guesstimating ~mid 2020s for some real action..”
yup.
this year some “real action” began in Venezuela and Puerto Rico.
more central and bigger places next year?
who knows?
“It doesn’t matter, as every country is toast once die-off begins in earnest.”
This is half true. Secessionist conflict is certainly more a symptom of the ongoing and accelerating collapse process than a primary driver for it – but these political crises do matter at this stage because they, in turn, increase the risk of a disastrous financial shock. We can see that the situation in Catalonia is already having knock-on effects on the debt and derivatives markets of Italy and Portugal:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-spain-cds-banks/spanish-crisis-sends-debt-insurance-costs-surging-across-southern-europe-idUKKBN1C924N
Yes, in fact we can deductively say WHY the Madrid gov over reacted in the first place.
Explanation: for several reasons but also to large extent because they were already panicky from CDS and overall EU’s southern wing dire situation..
There are cultural factors operating in Catalonia, as well as financial aspects: the Right (PP, Rajoy, Ciudadanos) have been demonising the Catalans in substitution for the now peaceful Basques.
It has always been the way they operate, since the Civil War, and repressive ‘patriotic’ action is both a great vote-winner, (I read the Right press, and they are loving it -no shame at all regarding the beating up of peaceful civilians on polling day) and psychologically attractive to their authoritarian temperaments. It distracts from all other issues wonderfully.
They are the sort of people who would punch you in the head, and then say that you are ‘impuning their honour’ by groaning,and a ‘violent criminal’ for trying to hit back. It really is as crude as that, the politics of the gutter.
As an example of the level of insanity and hypocrisy just now, the riot police – who beat up the voters – are now complaining that the Catalan police (unarmoured) did nothing to ‘protect’ them, and starting law suits against them!
True, everyone is deluded. They believe they can get back on the growth track, if only they [insert magical thinking here].
Just like a cargo cult of old…
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JT-gNMdxp20/WSNzEcz49pI/AAAAAAAACpM/eWAUNImECDIa1BJ18AC3W0-x5sFPOWe8wCLcB/s1600/Cargo%2BCult.jpg
I think this is a very good analogy.
It makes a lot of sense to try to mimic visible aspects associated with the goodies you want to receive from over the horizon, IF you are desperate to keep receiving them and you are unaware of the actual HOW and WHY that brought the original goodies to your part of the world.
The priesthhood consisting of the Eld-ers, the central bankers and the top financial experts in government and the private sector are probably informed enough to realize that cargo cult economics is not going to work to bring in the goodies, but they know they have to perform the correct rituals, including the equivalent of building replica airplanes, to keep the laity assured that everything that needs to be done is being done and that they’ve got it in hand.
Or in other words,
https://i.pinimg.com/236x/b3/cf/11/b3cf111cc35c664502db66dc094db5ae–economists-trust-me.jpg
And the sheople will keep believing, even at the moment of death. Their only remorse, “If only I’d had more faith!”
I agree. More think about separating, especially as financial issues become more clear.
All sorts of signs along the way too, like Trump saying Puerto Rico may need to default on their debt. Not too long ago there would have been talk of bailing them out, or restructuring their loans, or reducing the interest rate they pay, or some kind of solution, but now we have a president willing to say they may need to walk away from all those billions they owe. I wonder how the banks feel about that kind of talk.
Here’s an article on P. R. debt:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4946762/Trump-says-Puerto-Ricos-debt-wiped-out.html
Trump says the debt will need to be wiped out. Maybe that’s why he was tossing rolls of paper towels – lol.
The US government doesn’t really have the money to pay the things it has already promised, without a big tax increase. I can understand why Trump might realize that it will be very hard to get Congress (and taxpayers) to fund a bail out for Puerto Rico as well. Puerto Rico was already having huge problems, even before the storm hit.
“The Breakdown of Nations” by Leopold Kohr. First published 60 years ago.
‘As the tide of surplus energy that has enabled us to pretend that fellowship and co-operation are our natural condition retreats’
+++++++++++++++
I agree. That is what happens.
Yikes – the UK is not in a good spot right now:
“New car registrations in Britain 9.2 slumped percent in September, making it highly likely that sales this year will be down for the first time since 2011, according to preliminary numbers from an industry body.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/uk-car-sales-slump-september-brexit-political-economic-uncertainty-registrations-demand-a7983951.html
And it looks like the ratings agencies are on to Carney, who has necessarily been all talk and no trousers over a possible raising of interest rates:
“Recent hawkish noises from Bank of England governor Mark Carney may have been intended primarily to boost sterling and fight inflation, rather than signalling an imminent hiking cycle, according to ratings agency S&P Global Ratings.”
http://www.cityam.com/273289/hawkish-noises-bank-england-and-mark-carney-were-aimed
A few years ago the Bali property market was one of the most over-heated in the world…. it was roaring hot…
Then …. a government minister made a pronouncement that he was going to hammer ‘illegal foreign owners’ of Bali land….
No details no nothing … it was just going to happen.
The problem is that most structures used by foreigners in Bali are constitutionally legal…. and if the government tried to overturn them they’d be tied up in the courts for years….
Sure they could nationalize the land — however that would send a very negative message to the big foreign investors in Indonesia
So what happened? Prices crashed…. due to the uncertainty…. foreign buyers became scarce… and remain scarce….
I am not aware of a single foreigner losing their property in Bali over this edict.
We can see the power of the word…. the threat….
Of course the CBs will not make threats that are likely to crash the markets …. they need to be very careful….
So the whisper a few words here…. make a few tiny increases in rates…. just to keep the punters a little off balance…. just to warn them that the punch bowl is not bottomless…. just to keep the global markets from completely blasting off…
There will be NO significant rate hikes — because there cannot be any significant rate hikes — without causing the mother of all implosions that would make 2008 look like a tea party
“So the whisper a few words here…. make a few tiny increases in rates…. just to keep the punters a little off balance…. just to warn them that the punch bowl is not bottomless…. just to keep the global markets from completely blasting off…
There will be NO significant rate hikes — because there cannot be any significant rate hikes — without causing the mother of all implosions that would make 2008 look like a tea party”
this is exactly right.
call it whatever: the new normal, the endgame etc.
yes, rates must stay near zero.
the only question remaining is how long until the endgame is over.
I’m guessing it will be in the 2020’s and that is VERY SOON.
Raising excise taxes is not a good way to boost car sales. Neither is talking about phasing out the use of diesel and charging higher taxes for them.
As a practical matter, we don’t have a good way of adjusting the mix of fuels that come out of a barrel of oil very much. If everyone tries to go after the gasoline part of the barrel of oil, the price of gasoline will rise, relative to diesel. This makes any transition worse. (Not to mention that Europe doesn’t have a way of producing the electricity it needs for electric cars, either, especially if it phases out nuclear.)
https://me.me/i/hello-can-i-get-a-wake-up-call-the-red-18912067
The solution is scarily obvious. About 6 Billion people need to leave the energy equation. I wonder if the powers that be already know this….
It will kind of solve itself as resource extraction falls and banks keep printing money. The poorest people in peripheral countries (e.g. Egypt) will basically be squeezed out first, no longer afford to fulfill their basic needs. Like a game of musical chairs, every time the music stops somebody must leave.
Glad you are back.
Yes, it will take some more time. At the moment, countries with some theoretical potential like Venezuela (heavy crude and location), Egypt (location) still receive among other things substantial food aid and or very good deals on food imports from players like Russia. This will not last for ever and in current scope though..
Cascading waves of collapse, punctuated by thresholds of complexity layers failure, not overnight instacollapse everywhere but regionally – spatially differentiated.
Thank you! I tried to check out peakoilbarrel, but you are more or less asked to leave if you don’t subscribe to the religion of renewables and EVs.
True cargo cultists over there…
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JT-gNMdxp20/WSNzEcz49pI/AAAAAAAACpM/eWAUNImECDIa1BJ18AC3W0-x5sFPOWe8wCLcB/s1600/Cargo%2BCult.jpg
If that’s the case … then why don’t the CB’s just allow Greece to default on their debt?
This shock, will be electric and abrupt. Stress, fear, depression, despairs, and nightmares will be the order of the day — as people come to face the not-so-palatable facets of ‘Post Peak Oil’.
– Dr Ali Samsam Bakhtiari
Humans are already under “stress, fear, depression, despairs, and nightmares” while the whole rotten, reeking, maggot-ridden edifice of industrial humanity has barely even begun to fall apart.
Wait till it really starts to gather downward momentum.
The MSM is doing its best to keep the cattle in a positive frame of mind…. we can see the hopium doses increasing …. along with the frequency…
We are going to Mars – we are about to ban IC vehicles…. Tesla batteries are solving the intermittency problems of renewable energy …
The global economy is on the upswing….
Fast and furious come the injections…. as we close in on the end game
“Fast and furious come the injections…. as we close in on the end game”
The human herd is already shifting around, anxiously moo-ing, a strong scent of wolf on the night wind.
Something is up. But what?
Most definitely …. loads of cattle are nervous …. we recently met up with friends in Queenstown ….the wife has a little hedge fund…. and she has always put a +++ spin on things — essentially that the can will be kicked…. and she has been right – so far…. I was having these discussions with her since 2008….
There are others in this space who were calling me chicken little …
But now they are all acknowledging that this time is different….. they can now see the gargantuan Tsunami approaching – being in finance they are looking directly at the wave wall…. and they are scared….
But they soldier on — the continue to dance while the music plays — we all do….. what choice do we have?
Deflect them from this …. invent something that represents this …. but that has solutions….
GGG WWWW + solar + wind + EVs…..
The human mind is a powerful thing …. it will convince itself that we are saved.
Take a moment …. and imagine what the world would look like if not for any of the above….
We’d have people observing oil exploration in the Arctic…. drilling deep beneath the sea… ripping oil from sand …..
Now even though most humans are profoundly stteewwpid ….. a good many of them would look at those activities and conclude…. if there is so much left… why are we doing these obviously desperate things?
And the nightmares and panic would grip them….
And then where would we be?
Fake problem fake solutions — keep the panic and nightmares away.
Hopium springs eternal
Public transportation declines along with economic decline?
https://www.planetizen.com/blogs/95137-travel-trends-are-they-changing
Travel trends remain largely unchanged…well, thanks for the uneventful data.
Increases and travel time and volume can most likely be explained by population growth and economic growth. NEXT…
Yep … the economy continues to grow …. even though the means to growth are killing it….
People continue to buy stuff (on credit) – they continue to drive cars… etc….
The economy will continue to grow — until it stops — abruptly.
Thanks for posting this. I looked at the site where the information comes from, and it is decidedly unhelpful in giving any summary information. (Lots of data, but you have to analyze it yourself.)
I think the biggest thing that Polzin highlights is the fact that the use of carpooling and van pooling is dropping way off. With the price of gasoline dropping, this seems like an expected result.
https://www.planetizen.com/files/styles/content_image/public/img/Polzin_0.jpg?itok=Q449lLd8
Polzen picked 2007 as the start year in his exhibits. Oil prices, as you will remember, dropped in mid 2008. So 2007 is the year with the highest possible oil price. Recent years are down a lot. So inflection adjusted costs of transportation are highest in the old years, and lower recently. We know this is happening. It is not a sustainable situation, but that is the way it is
He did come to a sort of conclusion: work at home. Oddly brief, but still I try to take something away from it.
Work at home seems to be consistent with your recommendations for housing. Basically, I believe, they call for sharing existing space to a much greater degree. While cities would not write better sharing of existing space into their housing plans, they probably should, as that would work better with their real economic situation.
An anecdote: Thirty years ago, I got an opinion piece published in a newspaper noting how Mexican immigrants shared space. They treated housing as a community issue, and a large group would share one apartment. Since some worked the night shift, beds could be shared between day and night workers, and daycare duties could also be shared. Sharing cars might also have been common.
But on the subject of transportation. living in groups and sharing cars (and mechanics) seems like a transportation strategy some immigrants use. But why couldn’t a modified approach to this model work for the many workers in the tech economy? Work at home, live in groups, share cars. (Well, true, they’ll need some non tech Mexican immigrants to show them how to do it.)
So just to take the Facebook headquarters example: They want to build a new town (presumably) for their workers. But there are two large, underserved communities adjacent to all this. So they’re going to exhaust the bank to build this new town, whereas they could lean on neighboring cities (which they are already bribing with housing-assistance money) to develop a housing plan that involves sharing existing space. And that involve a work plan for working at home. Doubtless, setting all this up would produce a lot of jobs, just of a newer and more specialized sort.
Any work that revolves around intermittent flows of electricity (based on wind and solar) will almost necessarily need to be done at home, because opportunities for work will be very intermittent. We will need saw mills that can operate when the wind blows, for example. Workers will need to live virtually next door, to operate the saw mill. Grinding grain is another likely necessity. Traditionally this has been done by water mills. Workers would need to live nearby.
Yeah, this fits perfectly. Whether the worker traveled to (lived next to) the work or vice versa, it would seem to put workers more in charge of their day.
Traveling to work requires vehicles and roads. These are hard to keep up. If transportation is slow, a person cannot possibly get to work, leaving after the wind starts blowing, and still have enough time to get much work completed before the wind stops. If the workers are to depend on intermittent energy, they must life right next to the workplace. Or in the workplace. I was told in India, that some workers sleep on the factory floors. Very efficient, if not very comfortable.
This just can’t be done….no way…but than again…a Lady from India just did ..
Here’s How This Pune Woman Grew Her Own Food Organically and Fed Her Family of 14
She grows enough organic vegetables and fruits to feed her family and sells what they are not able to consume.
https://www.thebetterindia.com/117201/pune-woman-organic-natural-farming/
Sujata Naphade is far ahead of this wave – she grows enough organic vegetables and fruits to feed her family of 14, sells what they can’t consume and connects farmers who grow crops naturally to enthusiastic consumers.
Sujata isn’t a farmer and her plot isn’t in rural India. She is a city woman in Pune – the second largest city in Maharashtra – and her 3,300 square feet plot is right in the middle of an affluent housing society, surrounded by concrete buildings and bungalows
It’s been only 1.5 years since she began cultivating the plot. The entire family works for at least one hour every day on the plot, and joins her in full force during plantation and other crunch times. Akash Angarakh has been recruited as a helper for the routine heavy work. They are often joined by Sujata’s 6-year-old nephew and their dog Tommy.
At the moment, there are almost 50 varieties of plants on the plot.
Cultivating food naturally is one of the steps in the larger scheme Sujata and her husband have in mind. “We envision a group of 10-15 people who can live sustainably by exchanging things among themselves, independent of external agencies,” she says
Now, for applauses
Something can be done along these lines, but it is easy to pick examples that suggest that more is possible in total than is really the case, I expect. I notice the article says,
Clearly, if times were not as good today, she would not be able to buy jeevamrut. This is an input from outside the immediate 3,300 acres. Also, she has only been doing this 1.5 years. There are all kinds of things that go wrong–for example: too much rain; too little rain; too many insects; necessary nutrients in the soil that are not really returned to the soil with easily available inputs; erosion.
Good points. Although there’s free horse manure three miles away, the energy to retrieve it seems excessive. What’s within my energy budget is replenishing soil with organic materials that are “naturally” produced in the home: food scraps, and indispensable manufactured materials like paper and cardboard, etc.. There are many ways to improve product beside commercial growing additives. .The soil here likes a lot of organic rotten stuff and moisture.
I love these tales of permie greenie shi t.
No mention of the external inputs provided by BAU — that will be impossible post BAU.
No mention of the manure trucked in …. or the fencing to keep varmints out…. the tools used… and most importantly the irrigation water ….. I know loads of permies…. and almost all of them rely on the tap…… I have gravity fed irrigation water …. but it still relies on pipes and storage tanks….
Reading between the lines she grows more fruits and vegetables than her family can eat. Then they also eat bought rice and whatever they eat.
Permaculture seems to be mostly about fruits and vegetables. Grains are not something they pay much attention to. Hard to get enough calories from the fruits and vegetables. Meat in some places, but not India, I expect.
Actually, animals are an integral piece of the design puzzle to an urban setting.
Farm City by Novella Carpenter is a book that shows it can be done….all the manure needed
arpenter and her boyfriend Bill move from Seattle to California and rent an apartment in the Oakland inner city amongst the homeless, the eccentric, the drug addicts, the poor. They choose their location because it is next to an abandoned lot they intend to turn into an urban garden.
The story opens with the arrival of some baby chickens, geese and ducks and ends with Carpenter receiving expert instruction by a local chef on the making of salumi from a pig she raised. On this journey Carpenter writes about acquiring bees, harvesting honey, caring for rabbits, turkey temperament, and killing these animals for dinner. We share the sadness over the senseless loss of lifestock from marauding dogs, the threatened loss of her garden to development, and the ultimate betrayal by a lousy butcher.
https://www.amazon.com/Farm-City-Education-Urban-Farmer/dp/014311728
Her webpage
GhostTown Farm started in 2003. The land, an abandoned lot along Martin Luther King Jr Way, measures 1/10 of an acre, and contains chickens, bee hives, vegetable beds, and fruit trees. Over the years, we have raised turkeys, ducks, goats, and pigs here. Now the garden is transition into a mini-orchard. I occasionally hold open farm days and tours, usually in the spring. If you just want to peek in, the address is 2727 Martin Luther King Jr Way.
https://www.novellacarpenter.net/ghost-town-farm
Animals are a great idea if you have huge amounts of land. Somehow they must be fed in the area available as well.
And an army to protect them from the hungry hordes…
There are some ratios guidelines about land-plants to animal density how to get the ~max output per land and forest in somewhat sustainable, regenerative fashion. Not that much land is needed, few dozen acres per family. It’s great and enough for low tech home-stead, but not much left for tributes, and or trade, especially the longer distance one. That’s why we have been local, coastal, and or river banks focused for so many thousands yrs only..
Otherwise it was about the mode of taking the stored energy (and biodiversity) of other peoples by force, war and conquest.
“They choose their location because it is next to an abandoned lot they intend to turn into an urban garden.”
I’ll give the end of the story away…
And as prophesized, civilization collapsed, the electricity grid shut down permanently, the shop shelves were quickly looted and emptied – forever.
But Novella and Bill were prepared and they took their packets of seeds and sacks of compost and started to grow seedlings in their roof top greenhouse. They walked a kilometer to the river and carried buckets of water up the stairs to their rooftop.
Meanwhile they fed themselves by eating cans of beans and handfuls of dirt and worms and boiled rats.
Then when the seedlings were mature they planted them in the abandoned lot and waited for their first crop – meanwhile eating only boiled rats as the bean cupboard was now empty.
Then one night just as they were ready to harvest their crop the hordes realized – holy sh it – there is food here!!! — and hundreds of starving people ripped and tore every vegetable – every weed — out of the ground … and mixed them together with rat meat and boiled this up to create a tasty meal.
Then everyone starved and got radiation poisoning … and died.
The End.
Or you can buy these ridiculous books and get the Koombaya version … you know … the one where everyone gets along …. they grown their organic food … and wear new LL Bean pressed clothes with a touch of hippy….. and spend evenings dancing around the camp fire feeling groovy…..
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/lunsol062413/s14_RTX10XL9.jpg
‘We share the sadness over the senseless loss of lifestock from marauding dogs’
Oh booo hoooo … boooo f789ing HOOO…. the sadness… the disappointment…..
What about marauding hungry humans — who kill not only the livestock…. but kill humans … and eat them?
https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/nintchdbpict000291451034.jpg
https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/nintchdbpict000291453186.jpg
I’m sorry that you feel that way. You, of course, have the the floor. There seems to be a chorus of reason for not being able to do so…..than someone comes along and does it.
One thing is for certain….after BAU ends, rather have their skills
I don’t feel. I know.
Because I have applied logic and facts when analyzing the issue.
Because I reject Koombaya Hopium Bullsh it
My only response, it seems one can fabricate any number of excuses not to undertake any endeavor, especially when it requires words. Like the saying, easier said than done.
Yes one can live in a word of delusion … throwing money at delusional solutions … throwing time and delusional endeavours….
I know all about that — I wasted copious volumes of time and money on exactly that.
Then one day — well over a few months — I emerged from DelusiTAN…. and those gnawing doubts lurking in the back of my mind …. were allowed to present themselves to scrutiny…
And when I allowed the sun to shine on them …. I recognized just how absolutely futile all this nonsense was …..
Grow enough food to feed 4 people year round? Without any external inputs? hahahahaha ludicrous – who did I think I was – superman?
Live without electricity and petrol and machines – forever? I’d rather die. Because I would die trying.
Then there is the fact that neighbours would be at the gate demanding food …. and strangers who wandered in from the nearby towns believing there would be food in the farming areas.
Alas there is the reality that the soil supports nothing without continued application of petro chemical fertilizers…. so all those farms will produce nadda….
And let’s not forget that all the animals will be killed and eaten by the hungry hordes….
And finally — we have the spent fuel pond nightmare – 4000 of these behemoths ready to belch their death loads….
And I had this epiphany — there is NO way out of this alive — if anyone does make it through the bottleneck they will wish they were dead…
So I loaded up my 20 foot container for the end of the world party — put a pad lock on it…. and instead of wasting time and money on futility….
I am living life to the fullest. Enjoying whatever time remains. I am not moaning about my imminent death …. why moan over what one has no control.
LLL
Recently saw a video of how African rural poor fed themselves. The focus was on livestock, and an African medic was explaining that 80% of the abundant human diseases there were caused by the proximity with and mismanagement of the livestock. At which point it struck me that, in an ideal world, a well managed livestock farm close enough to such rural communities would free them up to only grow fruit and vegetables. If they could do that well enough, the produce could be traded for meat.
It’s all great until the spend fuel ponds boil…..
Researchers claim that given the scale of the Pacific ocean – the world’s vastest body of water – radioactivity in the sea at Fukushima will be flushed out and diluted to low levels. However, the bioaccumulation of longer half-life radioactive elements by fish will have far-reaching effects.
Once taken up by marine creatures, biomagnification of radioactive substances may occur because radioactive materials are likely to be long-lived, mobile and biologically active.
http://blog.nus.edu.sg/radioactivewastes/2015/04/04/consuming-radiation-radiation-pollution-and-the-food-chain/
Fukushima did not involve spent fuel ponds… and the cores were kept under control with 24/7 watering….
Now imagine what 4000 spent fuel ponds …. abandoned… and left to do their thing…. does to the Kalahari Bush People…..
All around the world, we have had a problem catching illnesses from cows for a long time. We have antibiotics now, but they are losing their effectiveness–at least in part, because we are using so much of these antibiotics on cows as well. We really need BAU, and the development of new antibiotics, just to stay even with all of the diseases we can catch from animals. I am afraid that even on separate farms, there still would be a disease problem in Africa.
It all sounds so wonderful!!!!
How many people in India? How many of them are self-sufficient in food without BAU?
This will not save her when the hordes are hungry….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India#Independence.2C_population_transfer.2C_and_violence
here some guy words on Egypt ground situation which i find from internet
at 8 November, 2016, where pound was floated and its value against USD went for 8.88 from 1 USD to 17.65. Literally most of commercial and industrial goods in Egypt are imported, including most of its food supplies; so pound flotation single handedly tripled the prices of everything overnight.
Currently, the government is in the process of removing subsides to the poor and increasing taxes on literally everything that is taxable, further rubbing salt on the wound.
The general notion in the street nowadays is hate against government/military and wanting to immigrate to a better place (Europe, Canada, Australia).
It is also worth noting that one of main sources of income for Egypt are foreign workers and a majority of these foreigners live in Gulf region and lately, the gulf has been disbanding and sending back many of the foreign workers because they can not sustain their salaries under new oil prices.
Lastly and not least, the government is investing heavily on new infrastructure, real estate and new governmental offices in a new capital located east of Cairo. It’s betting on fancy and costly new real estate and infrastructure will attract foreign investments by the time they are done enough to pay for our foreign currency debt (Within 2-3 years, they’re sucking entire country’s funds through taxation to fund the new capital, this is how serious it is). If this doesn’t work (and it wont, there are much more deep rooted problems in Egypt against investments and infrastructure is just one of them), the country will literally bankrupt
this show that Egypt could be next country where bau will collapse
So many fascinating lessons about “fluidness” of history prepared for us by the Egypt example.
I especially, like the situation about Ptolemaic gang in power, sort of a middle marker point, if I recall it correctly they were Alexander’s (the Great) officer faction descendant in habit of wearing some of the previous generation folklore and nominal culture aspects of the natives. While in fact several waves of other foreign occupiers dynasties not affiliated with Egypt-Nile culture preceded these Greeks for centuries in the first place! Similarly, several more foreigner waves swept over the lands with the conclusion of Rome and antiquity period.. so that in middle ages and or today only few distant forgotten small villagers near Nile border are up-keeping very tiny token remnant parts of the old cultural heritage, which has been taking place there for past 5k+ yrs.
If there is any future for humans, very similar effects will be at play again.
Thanks, very interesting about Egypt.
I wrote an article about Egypt back in 2011. https://ourfiniteworld.com/2011/01/29/whats-behind-egypts-problems/
Part of their problem at that time was the high cost of food imports. Another part of their problem was that Egypt’s oil consumption was rising, but their production was falling, leaving with them without oil for exports. Another was the fact that they had built homes on most of the arable land along the Nile. Also, they had depended on annual flooding for the fertility of the soil. This was being taking away by an upstream dam. I have been surprised that they have held on as long as they have.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/oil-production-exports-databrowser.png
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-10-04/16-unanswered-questions-about-las-vegas-shooting-mainstream-media-doesnt-want-talk-a
http://investmentwatchblog.com/something-isnt-adding-up/
FE is on fire!!! More, more !!!
WhIch idea are you on board with, FE? 😝
http://www.buzzfeed.com/skarlan/8-unbelievable-solutions-to-global-warming-scientists-have-c#37akrby
Those are silly!
I of course believe that solar panels windmills and EVs are the solutions to … ——-.
The MSM says so …. and only the MSM has credibility …. so I trust them when they tell me these are the solutions.
And I also believe that if those fail (very unlikely because humans are awesome) — we will just move to Mars and start high tech homesteads there…
https://i.pinimg.com/474x/f6/99/91/f699918df60261e5e989b2b1b963858c–locks-keys.jpg
The rural farmers in Africa and India would say solar power works is great for their supercheap dumbphones. They would proudly say that they get their energy from 100% renewable sources.
The world is racing to duplicate Brazil’s success with biofuels…they’re not there yet, but
with the help of the Information Superhighway and gene-splicing it’s only a matter of time.
If all you are using solar power is for recharging batteries, I will be first to admit that it works great. You can’t run an industrial economy on it, however. You can’t even run an electrical system on it.
Brazil with its almost slave labor and huge amount of sunshine manages to produce biofuels from sugar cane in large quantities. The quantity is not as great as a person might expect, however. If a person compares the Brazil’s biofuel production to its total oil consumption, it comes out to about 13% of oil consumption. Ethanol substitutes for some fuel for autos. It doesn’t substitute for a lot of other things, such as fuel for trucks or airplanes.
Ethanol is hygroscopic so it’s not a good fuel if the motor is not designed for it. Older cars like mine have rusty petrol tanks.
Renewable…. hmmmmm….
Did the panels grow on trees?
What about the phones – does Africa have dumbphone trees?
Or maybe I have you all wrong ….
Is your definition of renewable as follows:
Burn coal to make electricity to smelt ores and make solar panels — then when the panels break or wear down …. burn more coal to make electricity to smelt ores to make more solar panels
Definition of renew
4: to do again :repeat
If so then yes I completely agree with you — Africa is powered by renewables …. in fact the entire world is.
Dream can come true
Pingback: Opinion: peace does not need more energy; capitalism does
And we just closed out a summer where monuments honoring the explorers and missionaries who discovered the New World and the men who made the America we have been blessed to inherit have, along with those of Confederate soldiers, been desecrated and dragged down.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-10-03/pat-buchanan-reflects-brief-moment-unity-disintegrating-world
Reading this resulted in me spitting a full mouthful of coffee clear across the kitchen…
Oh adventurous explorers and gentle missionaries …. who discovered the new world…. then proceeded to genocide the millions of inhabitants who happened to be living there already ….
How dare we dishonour thee….
Isn’t the celebration of this genocide otherwise known as Thanksgiving Day (thanking those who were genocided for giving up their resources)… coming up soon?
Wonder if the NFL players will take a knee to protest that…
What a massive load of sh it all of this is.
in the article you mention, the first picture of Barcelona is a half-fake,
the original is here : http://img.lemde.fr/2017/10/02/0/0/1024/768/534/0/60/0/1ef3ff5_28781-1lkfzuv.5d0tchaor.png
Custer died for your sins.
What’s a sin?
Ha ha. You were probably a choir boy in church.
I is a load of crap no doubt. We have been indoctrinated since youth into this cult of empire and infinite growth at the expense of millions who stood in the way. Reminds me of this Steve Cutts classic:
Most people don’t realize how much the quality of their lives depend on an excess of living resources. Immigrants to America from places of murder and strife don’t appreciate the murder and strife that underscores the safety and abundance they find here. Sadly, it’s not so much the vaunted moral superiority or blessing from above that made America a haven. America is based on land that was appropriated from others by force, mystification and cunning. My ancestors surely owned slaves, and have struggled and connived to keep on top of the competition, red in tooth and claw. Most people don’t realize that the bounty which made America (and other stable Western nations) oases of tranquility is drastically diminished, and continuing to be so at an unprecedented rate. They are conditioned by human nature, as well as by dominant means for collective understanding that life will continue indefinitely as it has in modern times. But I see this only as the place to begin, not as the end of the story.
“Oh adventurous explorers and gentle missionaries …. who discovered the new world…. then proceeded to genocide the
millions of inhabitants who happened to be living there already”
That history is so very sad indeed
Well… they were weak…. and they lost… that’s way things go….
My only issue is with the fact that we are the victors are not willing to admit that
I see things differently…
Yes of course… you sit there in your cushy home … living your cushy life…. sucking up 20x your share of energy….. because you are on the side of kindness?
Noooooo…. you live like you do because your dog is mean — your dog kills — and you get a few shreds of the kill.
Open your eyes. There is not enough for 7.5 billion people to live like you do — the sword is all that stands between you — and them — and they would take your head off in a second if that meant changing places
Jack has something to say to you
Greatest Silly Songs of all time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOgFZfRVaww
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkZC7sqImaM
And last but not least…. let’s all stand for the national anthem of DelusiSTAN:
I hear what your saying, however, its not my dog. I did not choose my time or place of birth. Will checkout your other posts tomorrow as there are many already.
7.5 billion to 1 is really bad odds, death for sure, let me sleep on it.
Time to go
Oh but it is your dog…. you had no choice in the matter…
Well…. that’s not absolutely true….. check out the immigration policies for places like Libya… Iraq… Syria….. I can’t imagine they are not overly restrictive….
Apply to swap locations …. and dogs…..
http://media.galaxant.com/000/028/190/2.jpg
Testify! There is soon coming a time where nobody will hide from the truth of fighting over resources.
Yep…. at some point very soon …. the Koombayists are going to be forced out of the bubble…. and they are going to be confronted by a world where you fight like a wild dog to survive….
Nobody is going to do their fighting for them… nobody is going to put a boot on the neck of an Arab and a gun to his head and say — my people need this f789ing oil — because they enjoy living in nice houses and shopping at the mall…. and playing Facebook and Twitter on their new iphones….
So you either give me this oil — or I end you Mutherfukkkker.
Nope.
GI Joe is not going to be making sure the poor snowflakes get their coddling …. GI Joe is coming home…. and he’s going to be fighting with the snowflakes during The End of More….
And the snowflakes and the Koombayists and the DelusiSTANIS are going to come face to face with reality — there will be nothing between them and the real world….
Imagine…. yes Imagine….. Imagine there’s no army …. to protect your sorry as.s…. Imagine there’s no security …. Imagine there’s no food… Imagine there’s endless violence… Imagine spent fuel ponds burning up … it’s easy if you try…..
Joel got real quiet after you asked him if he would change places with someone from a failed state. Joel feels guilty about the unearned wealth of the USA that he able to enjoy a portion of but Joel doesn’t feel guilty enough to give it up.
One has to be very wealthy, sheltered and miseducated to not see human history in terms of struggles between groups of humans over stuff.
I am with you FE. Reality needs to be revealed and put out there so folks can truly appreciate where we are today as a society. I have come to realize that the western way of life is all an illusion, a world of virtual reality. It will, it must come to an abrupt end when the energies that power it stop growing the required quantity.
History is written by the victors.
The victors always get the cake
Thought about it and came up with nothing…
So might makes right and that’s just the way it goes
Tough pill to swallow
We can feel guilty about our privileged position (which was gained off the death of millions). But, I would openly admit I would not trade places with Joe Middleasterner for nothing.
I used to think Kissinger was a very bad guy….. but I have grown to like and admire him … and to appreciate his views….
I also used to think Monsanto was doing the devil’s work…. that gggg waaarrmmmming was real….and caused by man….
How silly I used to be! A right MOREonic Libtard…..
Particularly if you are on the losing side…..
We moderns are prone to romanticizing the lives of the Native Americans before the European takeover, which was often nasty, brutal, cruel and unjust. But pristine Indian life on the North American plains was also very often nasty, brutal. crude and unjust, not to mention short. I would never attempt to justify the conquest and colonization of one people’s lands by another people on the grounds that the conquered and dispossessed were leading miserable lives anyway. Nevertheless, very probably Native Americans have never had it so good as they do these days under peak BAU conditions. And I suspect that when they have to give up their pickup trucks and snowmobiles and go back to old-style nomadic hunting and gathering they will do so only with great reluctance.
Let me introduce some words of one of OFW’s greatest Old Testament prophets, the Rev. Thomas Malthus on the state of savage existence, with particular reference to the misery of the North American Indians’ existence.
In the rudest state of mankind, in which hunting is the principal occupation, and the only mode of acquiring food, the means of subsistence being scattered over a large extent of territory, the comparative population must necessarily be thin. It is said that the passion between the sexes is less ardent among the North American Indians than among any other race of men. Yet, notwithstanding this apathy, the effort towards population, even in this people, seems to be always greater than the means to support it. This appears from the comparatively rapid population that takes place whenever any of the tribes happen to settle in some fertile spot and to draw nourishment from more fruitful sources than that of hunting, and it has been frequently remarked that when an Indian family has taken up its abode near any European settlement and adopted a more easy and civilized mode of life, that one woman has reared five, or six, or more children, though in the savage state it rarely happens that above one or two in a family grow up to maturity. The same observation has been made with regard to the Hottentots near the Cape. These facts prove the superior power of population to the means of subsistence in nations of hunters, and that this power always shews itself the moment it is left to act with freedom.
It remains to inquire whether this power can be checked, and its effects kept equal to the means of subsistence, without vice or misery.
The North American Indians, considered as a people, cannot justly be called free and equal. In all the accounts we have of them, and, indeed, of most other savage nations, the women are represented as much more completely in a state of slavery to the men than the poor are to the rich in civilized countries. One half the nation appears to act as Helots to the other half, and the misery that checks population falls chiefly, as it always must do, upon that part whose condition is lowest in the scale of society. The infancy of man in the simplest state requires considerable attention, but this necessary attention the women cannot give, condemned as they are to the inconveniences and hardships of frequent change of place and to the constant and unremitting drudgery of preparing every thing for the reception of their tyrannic lords. These exertions, sometimes during pregnancy or with children at their backs, must occasion frequent miscarriages, and prevent any but the most robust infants from growing to maturity. Add to these hardships of the women the constant war that prevails among savages, and the necessity which they frequently labour under of exposing their aged and helpless parents, and of thus violating the first feelings of nature, and the picture will not appear very free from the blot of misery. In estimating the happiness of a savage nation, we must not fix our eyes only on the warrior in the prime of life: he is one of a hundred: he is the gentleman, the man of fortune, the chances have been in his favour and many efforts have failed ere this fortunate being was produced, whose guardian genius should preserve him through the numberless dangers with which he would be surrounded from infancy to manhood. The true points of comparison between two nations seem to be the ranks in each which appear nearest to answer to each other. And in this view, I should compare the warriors in the prime of life with the gentlemen, and the women, children, and aged, with the lower classes of the community in civilized states.
May we not then fairly infer from this short review, or rather, from the accounts that may be referred to of nations of hunters, that their population is thin from the scarcity of food, that it would immediately increase if food was in greater plenty, and that, putting vice out of the question among savages, misery is the check that represses the superior power of population and keeps its effects equal to the means of subsistence. Actual observation and experience tell us that this check, with a few local and temporary exceptions, is constantly acting now upon all savage nations, and the theory indicates that it probably acted with nearly equal strength a thousand years ago, and it may not be much greater a thousand years hence.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/malthus/ch03.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngWBddVNVZs
Good.
Attention Doomsday Preppers!!!!
Attention Attention Attention
Watch this:
The Twilight Zone -The Shelter
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5c8mxw
Then play a mind game — swap out the shelter for a small organic farm….
You won’t be able to slam the door in the face of your desperate neighbours – and others who show up demanding food when BAU ends….
Perhaps…..
, Oct. 4 (CNA) A 42-year-old unemployed woman was recently found dead, apparently of starvation, in an apartment in Tainan after her mother — her main source of financial support — died in June and her younger sister refused to support her, according to police.
The woman, surnamed Hsieh, who was once a fashion designer, lost her job about 10 years ago and became financially dependent on her mother, who worked as a domestic helper, according to a Sept. 30 Apple Daily report.
Hsieh was found dead by police when they tracked her to her home to arrest her for failing to appear in court after she got caught shoplifting in late July and early August, according to the report.
When police reached her home on the sixth floor of an old apartment building, they broke in and found Hsieh, dead and reduced to an emaciated state.
When questioned by police, Hsieh’s sister, who lives on the fifth floor of the same building and showed indifference toward her death, said that Hsieh might have died of starvation.
An autopsy will be carried out later this week to determine the cause of death and an investigation will be conducted to find out whether Hsieh’s sister committed the crime of abandonment, according to the report.
The Hsieh sisters lived with their mother in an apartment, with the elder Hsieh living in a rooftop addition, police said.
Earlier this year, their mother quit her job due to illness and the younger Hsieh, 40, became the breadwinner of the family. However, after their mother died in June, the elder sister began showing strange behavior, shunning contact with others.
The younger Hsieh, who makes a living doing odd jobs, also lost her jobs recently and said she had encouraged her sister to receive medical treatment, advice that was rejected.
She said she decided to leave her alone after repeatedly offering her advice to no effect.
http://focustaiwan.tw/news/asoc/201710040005.aspx
So, stop already with the constant repeat.
https://wolfstreet.com/2017/10/02/an-accountant-smells-a-rat-in-our-global-credit-bubble/
‘An Accountant Smells a Rat in Our Global Credit Bubble’
“We are in a global finance bubble, which I call the grand-daddy of all bubbles,” said Noland.
A report by the International Institute of Finance released in June estimated that global government, business and personal debts totaled $217 trillion earlier this year. That’s more than three times (327%) higher than global economic output.
Noland’s warnings come during a time of exceptional public trust in governments, central banks, regulators and other institutions. Market volatility is trending at near record lows. In June, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen spoke for many when she said that she did not see a financial crisis occurring “in our lifetimes.”
Got a problem? Finance it!
Entertaining headline in the Guardian, to this effect: ‘UK govt. warned of danger in using consumer credit to fuel growth’.
Well, yes, but at this stage,what is left?
George Monbiot also advises readers that with artificial meat now perfected, there is ‘no argument’ in favour of having real food animals.
Now, George, let me explain a few things about physical reality on this planet for species like us……
Oh, and lead story is that renewable power is just storming ahead (not a turbine pun). 🙂
Ah, I see it now! How clever and far-sighted of George! Of course we don’t need to keep food animals: we’ll just have to get very good indeed at catching those FE rats…..
Early “peakers” had it simply wrong.
Saying on this forum for years that the trend of ~300->600% debts to GDP and beyond are the new normal.. Impossible to say when and why it might eventually start to matter again, at 5000% ? Most likely only at crossing some serious physical threshold or some power factions moving on the chessboards, and there is no hurry apparently. Russia (China) alliance scored some little points recently, winning Turkey, Syria, partly new regimes in Iraq-Iran (possibly +Qatar), Libya, Egypt, offloading imploded Ukraine onto EU-US etc. But that’s just very first wave of skirmishes of decades long war effort over the scraps of energy, pipelines, vassal status (reserve currency system) etc..
And here’s something from cra..zy steve…
Why Precious Metals Are The Better LONG-TERM Store Of Value Over Bitcoin
https://srsroccoreport.com/why-precious-metals-are-the-better-long-term-store-of-value-over-bitcoin/
but Bitcoin is back up to $4,300 today!
and, by the way…
Bitcoin is essentially a precious metal…
after all…
all coins are made out of metal…
Bitcoins are made of Hopium.
everybody knows that.
Hmmm…. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-10-03/was-there-second-shooter-vegas
Here is a poem I found about Gina Rinehart from a an article called “ecosqueak”
No one is meaner
Than corpulent Gina
Who won’t hesitate at all to sue
Non-entities like me and you
To tighten Rinehart’s corporate reign.
Saviour of Fairfax
Much better than anthrax
Her good intent let’s not deny
She’ll make us think that pigs may fly!
(In truth, she gets around by plane)
I wish only bad things happen to Gina…. she deserves a bit of suffering in her life
She will never suffer, and her dynasty, like that of Rockefeller or Kidman (Nicole Kidman’s family owns a lot of land in Australia), her clan will do well for a long, long time.
I don’t think it is good for anyone’s mental state to wish suffering on anyone else.
We need to be building a thought process that we can live with. It needs a lot more positives than negatives. We need to stay away from the Gina Rineharts of the world.
It seems like the fact that a lot of people wish harm on other people that leads to a few crazy people acting out on some of those thoughts. Or governments (like North Korea) acting out on those thoughts to get attention.
Is it ok to say that one hopes she spends her fortune on medicine?
That’s what my buddy The Big Man would say (RIP Big Man….)
Gina is a globular globalist who understands she has to GROW or DIE.
So she’s living LARGE and burning more coal.
What more can we ask of her?
http://i3.cpcache.com/product/28494146/feed_gina_shirt.jpg
She needs to be ‘enabled’…
http://www.myproana.com/uploads/gallery/album_4251/gallery_50031_4251_98107.jpg
Huh?
I thought there were several rules against posting purnagraphic images on this site.
Won’t someone please think of the poor business owner???… 🙁
https://i.imgur.com/ieFddDL.jpg
A really good Hollywood blockbuster movie of the event shot on location might help recoup some of the lost earnings. Don’t they say there’s no such thing as bad publicity?
The owner of mandalay bay can at least sue the estate of the shooter and claim all of his assets to partially offset the losses.
Wow full crazy here now. City of confusion. Look it up.
BTW here you go FE https://weather.com/storms/winter/news/rockies-snow-montana-colorado-wyoming-early-october-2017
Put in your anti box.
Wow, the devil is the details…
A new study, to be published in the journal Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, found that a weakening polar vortex, potentially set in motion by the rapidly warming and melting Arctic, has become more common during the past four decades. This results in colder winters across large regions of Europe and Russia, but also occasionally in the U.S. as well.
The study is the first to show that changes in winds in the stratosphere substantially contributed to a mysterious winter cooling trend in northern Europe and Asia, including a region already known for being frigid: Siberia.
First we had Glllloballll Waaaaarming…… but when that did not pan out we had Kkkkkklimateee CCChhhhaaannge… you know like when in some places it gets warmer and some places it gets colder… as it always has…
And now after 20 years of no wwwwwwarrming …. it looks like things are actually going to get colder…..
So …. the next tag line will be….
GGGGGlooooballll Cooooollling…..
You really couldn’t make this up if you wanted to…. what a joke
True enough second coming, but if you use the term ‘cooling trend’ to a denialist they will miss the part where warmer air is also going into the Arctic. It’s too nuanced for them to understand its not just a warmer or cooler all the time, everywhere, type of situation.
A denialist is a mammal but is missing or unconnected to the 3rd brain layer most people take for granted, so you have to coddle them like you would a billy goat banging its head against a brick wall. “It’s gonna be all right. We understand – there, there now.”
This really is Twilight Zone material….
Gail did an ex-religion version of this post. Maybe she should do an ex-gloebbels warmongering version too.
I sort of agree, if it weren’t too confusing.
Climate change does seem to be the new proposed religion, intended to take the place Christianity and other religions. It is not really correct to take out the discussion of religion and leave in the climate discussion. There are a huge number of people who believe that climate change is occurring because of a moral failing on our part. All we have to so do is subsidize renewables, and our problem will be solved. This is, of course, utter and complete nonsense.
++++++++++++++++
No offense Gail but I could use the very same argument you just used against this very sight. Would you agree that noise isn’t relevant? There are as many counter argument over peak energy as there are for it. However willful ignorance allow some to remain blind to the reality. The same is true with KLIMATE.
From a purely objective view human activity has exponentially increased the use of energy which all ends up as heat, and has to be either radiated off the planet or absorbed by it. So it would be the height of ignorance to believe that the change in one constant will have no effect on the others. Either the heat is being radiated at ever faster rates or the planet will warm. So what are the mechanisms? Dissipative systems? Thermal sinks?
So is religion involve? Yes it is. Because Religion is a system of belief it can either be objective and rational, or emotional and irrational. Considering that Religion has been and still is the cause of all the wars that have ever been waged. ( remember nationalism is religious it is a regional cult ). Then I would say emotional irrational thinking is prevailing on both sides of KLIMATE debate.
A few stupid Music Videos will make everyone feel better. Or maybe some suffering dog pics. That’s rational for sure.
“Considering that Religion has been and still is the cause of all the wars that have ever been waged.”
I think that the quest for more cheap-to-exploit energy supplies has been the underlying cause of all of the wars that have ever been waged. This situation often arises when population has risen beyond the carrying capacity of land. Or, in the case of World War I, when coal which is easy to extract and cheap to transport starts declining in availability becomes a problem. World War II was a petroleum based war.
Political leaders have to have an acceptable reason to “sell” to the members of their group. Religious reasons are often the tool that is used to sell the need for invasion. In some recent years, we have supposedly had a need to spread democracy (a different religion than what is being pushed today). So religion becomes a tool of politicians. Given that church and state have been very close together historically, this is very easy to do.
There is a need to keep the population of any plant or animal from becoming too high, relative to the biological resources in an area. In fact, in the biological world, there is the idea of many species being territorial. Typically, the male member of the species marks off a very wide territory for himself and his “clan.” This territory is sufficient large that the amount of prey is far more than sufficient for the clan. There will be no problem with overusing renewable resources, if the clan is left to the territory. To some extent, I think that different religions serve this purpose as well. We think we are different from animals, but some mechanisms have been put in place that are hard for us to overcome.
I agree… religion is not the cause …. wars are fought over resources…
Religion – and Nationalism — are tools to rally the troops….
Either the heat is being radiated at ever faster rates or the planet will warm. So what are the mechanisms? Dissipative systems? Thermal sinks?
None of the above … it seems…..
NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth’s atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing.
The study indicates far less future gl obal warm ing will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dio xide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed.
http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/3/8/1603
A denialist is a description of a normal person applied as a pejorative by a political or religious zealot or fanatic. I welcome the use of the label as it’s usually a good indication that the person doing the labeling has a very poor sense of proportion about the matter at hand.
One man’s nuance is another man’s incoherence. And the subtle explanations of warmistas for why each and every change of weather supports their claim that the world is warming due to our sins do often come across as causistry, evangelism, snake oil sales talk or special pleading to those of us whose gullibility and credulity quotients are low. True believers are so very trusting, don’t you find? They have an unshakeable faith in their authorities. I would expect true believers in warmista propaganda to also be more likely than skeptics to fall for cold calling scams and internet phishing emails, wouldn’t you?
http://images.dailykos.com/images/219141/story_image/834457.png?1457109976
I prefer the term rejectionist… as in I reject the MSM propaganda and lies about Gggggwwwww…. I reject morronism….
OH right … when things did not get war… mer …. the Don Draper changed the tag line to kkklimate Ccchange….
Nicely done Don!
Btw – I do believe a snow storm is a weather related event….
And meanwhile everywhere else in America the weather (or Klimate as some call it) was ‘normal’ for this time of year….
Therefore this is evidence that kkkklimate cccchange is a hoax.
Logic… can be a real bitch
Ummm… that’s not ‘logic’. That’s a logical fallacy called inference-observation confusion. Time you studied up on logical strategies as your ritual claim to using it while doing such a bad job of implementing it is making you look foolish.
It’s certainly better logic than that behind the statement ‘it snowed in October somewhere therefore man is wrecking the kkkklimate by burning fossssil fuels’
In fact … I see zero logic to that statement. There is absolutely 0 proof that such an event is an indication of anything — other than that it snowed in October —- there certainly is no proof that our burning of coal and oil caused it to snow in October.
But then if one gets one’s logic from reading the MSM… this is all very understandable
Oh we have to militarize our local police departments now. Look what happened in Vegas will be the excuse.
As seen on TV no doubt. If you don’t read the paper…you are uniformed, if you read the paper, you are misinformed. Either way we are toast.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-10-03/was-there-second-shooter-vegas
Who knows what really happened here….
But one thing is for certain …. this guy won’t be around to say ‘I’m a patsy’…..
How diabolical would that be if this was a set-up….
“Billionaire Gina Rinehart”, The richest woman on earth just said:
“Western Labor costs are too high. Thanks to global capital movements and free trade, Globalization is so amazing. Learn to work for African wages if you want a job.”
And think of all of the goods you will be able to buy in the world market at African wages!
A British politician (personally rich) went even further:
‘Even if you are low-paid, you will have the dignity of work!
He also recommended that the Brits ‘learn to be like the Chinese.’
All deeply insulting to those whose families once worked in the mines and factories now closed) for long hours and not much pay. 🙂
THE THREAT OF THE RESET
Back on the days when I followed mainstream economics, I thought the transition to lower wages would be a matter of psychological adjustment but after becoming a regular reader here, I realized that the transition to lower wages would require defaults on almost all U.S. debt, and that the global financial system would be able to survive all these defaults.
In Australia’s case, perhaps the global economy can afford to lose all the money it has invested in Australia and that a “Reset” can occur there.
RBP, Australia can pay any debt it has simply by the government writing a cheque to cover it. If it’s not in our dollars then the other currency can be bought in the spot market as needed. All pretty straight forward.
At the same time, the value of the Australian currency likely readjusts, making imported goods more expensive. Doing this is not cost-free.
* the global financial system would have to be able to survive all these defaults
Yes indeed. Good thing it’s all fiat. Maybe a mass debt Jubilee will be the way to go. David Graeber in his book “Debt, the first 5000 years” recommends one as a last resort. Steve Keen also thinks we will need one although in his version the banks get reimbursed.
Everything is very interconnected. It is not possible for anything very large to default, without repercussions around the world. Also, the same issues that cause problems in Australia are likely to cause problems in other countries that are somewhat similar, for example South Africa (thinking of a resource exporter).
It is incredible how oblivious the “elate” seem to be. They do not realize that their position is supported only by the ability of others to purchase the goods that are made by economies of scale. Once economies of scale disappear due to lack of affordability, the luxury life so many are accustomed to will also disappear.
+++++++
Gina’s helping keeping BAU up and running in all sorts of ways. For instance, in 2016 she agreed to invest in a phosphate mine in Yorkshire that will help sustain the world’s unsustainable agricultural system a bit longer.
Sirius Minerals, which hopes to open a fertiliser mine under the North York Moors, has landed a $300m (£245m) investment from Hancock Prospecting, the company controlled by Australian mining billionaire Gina Rinehart.
The deal is a major boost for Sirius, which is looking to raise $1.1bn for the first stage of building its polyhalite mine, which has a potential life span of 100 years and could produce 20 million tonnes a year. Polyhalite is a form of potash that can be used as a fertiliser.
Under the deal, Hancock will pay $250m for a 5pc royalty on the first 13 million tonnes of polyhalite shipped, and 1pc thereafter. It will also buy $50m in Sirius shares – though it has not said at what price it will acquire the equity….
…The construction would involve sinking a shaft to a depth of 1,500m, while a 23-mile underground tunnel would transport the polyhalite via conveyor belt for processing on Teeside.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/10/25/north-yorks-miner-sirius-minerals-bags-investment-from-australia/
Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realise that we can not eat money.
Chief Seattle
Black Elk (1863–1950); medicine man, Oglala Lakota:
“I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people’s dream died there. It was a beautiful dream … the nation’s hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead.”
http://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-the-first-peace-which-is-the-most-important-is-that-which-comes-within-the-souls-of-black-elk-52-90-90.jpg
In the years leading up to the conflict, the U.S. government had continued to seize Lakota lands. The once-large bison herds (an indigenous peoples’ Great Plains staple) had been hunted to near-extinction by European settlers. Treaty promises to protect reservation lands from encroachment by settlers and gold miners were not implemented as agreed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre
https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/400x/75652217.jpg
Good point!
Snopes.com
“Rather than issuing from the very real Chief Seattle in 1854, those moving words were written by a screenwriter in 1971.”
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/seattle.asp
Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realise that we can not eat money.
Ted Perry, scriptwriter
Me thinks the Super Wealthy are getting cocky!
And showing their true colors. The super wealth will simply drive everyone else from where they live, and claim all the wealth for themselves.
And there is no karma, as proven by Greg Clark who showed social darwinism was real by showing how those with property (the aristocrat was too few enough to matter) had more children, driving out the children of poor from competition – and existence.
Yes the “Super Wealthy” that have no critical thinking skills are certainly getting cocky. They do not realize that everything they have is dependent on economies of scale. And economies of scale only work if you have millions buying the output of the economy.
Then the kings of the earth, the important people, the generals, the rich, the powerful, and all the slaves and free people hid themselves in caves and among the rocks in the mountains. 16They said to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us, and hide us from the face of the one who sits on the throne and from the anger of the lamb, 17because the frightening day of their anger has come, and who is able to endure it?” it wont matter who you are the 1% ‘ s or the 99%’s when BAU ends you will certainly see if you are able to endure it I’m pretty sure people like Gina won’t last long that’s if she can escape the lynch mob that will form once BAU ends and will be looking for someone to blame who better than the 1% ‘s.
“that’s if she can escape the lynch mob”
Yes, SCHADENFREUDE to that! I’d laugh at her downfall and gloat like a goat. “Hubris” is the correct word for her behaviour.
She is right. That is how most of the world will be paid.
And, the world worked quite well back in 1913, when only 4% of everyone held maybe 90% of the world’s assets.
Yes, it worked quite well when those 4% took us straight into WW1.
Said the bloated pig (6 years ago) who inherited every penny she has from daddy.
It will be a good day when this pig is squatting below an overpass eating boiled rat.
She will first eat two-legged mutton before she gets to eat boiled rat. I am sure she has good bodyguards to protect her for quite a long, long time.
I wonder what rate of pay the bodyguards will expect??
speaking of “the cars” and “driving”…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-02/puerto-rico-s-very-american-love-of-cars-is-jamming-its-recovery
the whole island seems to depend greatly on cars.
below is a picture of that Gina Rinehart.
now, I want to avoid fat shaming here, but I do see an obvious question.
would bigger/heavier persons have a survival advantage in The Collapse?
I mean, they would be able to survive longer without food.
anyone know the data for this, like how many extra days they could survive without food?
and this begs the question:
should persons gain a lot of weight if they are convinced that The Collapse is imminent?
“should persons gain a lot of weight if they are convinced that The Collapse is imminent?”
Depends on if you believe running or walking is part of surviving the hordes (or being part of the horde).
Fitness, health and mobility are good to have anytime. Right DJ?
Yes
“anyone know the data for this, like how many extra days they could survive without food?”
1 kg of fat is 7000 kcal, so about 3 days worth of energy, but human body can’t burn fat as fast as it uses energy. Fat can provide about half the energy needed by human. So if you have 10 kilos extra, then you can eat half of your energetic needs for 2 months.
So, a slim advantage in times of famine.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Sliced_Matsusaka_wagyu_beef.jpg
How about possessing a “thrifty” gene? In times of famine, Samoans will thrive while the rest of us struggle to survive.
The thrifty gene hypothesis, or Gianfranco’s hypothesis[citation needed] is an attempt by geneticist James V. Neel to explain why certain populations and subpopulations in the modern day are prone to diabetes mellitus type 2. He proposed the hypothesis in 1962 to resolve a fundamental problem: diabetes is clearly a very harmful medical condition, yet it is quite common, and it was already evident to Neel that it likely had a strong genetic basis. The problem is to understand how disease with a likely genetic component and with such negative effects may have been favoured by the process of natural selection. Neel suggested the resolution to this problem is that genes which predispose to diabetes (called ‘thrifty genes’) were historically advantageous, but they became detrimental in the modern world. In his words they were “rendered detrimental by ‘progress'”. Neel’s primary interest was in diabetes, but the idea was soon expanded to encompass obesity as well. Thrifty genes are genes which enable individuals to efficiently collect and process food to deposit fat during periods of food abundance in order to provide for periods of food shortage (feast and famine).
According to the hypothesis, the ‘thrifty’ genotype would have been advantageous for hunter-gatherer populations, especially child-bearing women, because it would allow them to fatten more quickly during times of abundance. Fatter individuals carrying the thrifty genes would thus better survive times of food scarcity. However, in modern societies with a constant abundance of food, this genotype efficiently prepares individuals for a famine that never comes. The result of this mismatch between the environment in which the brain evolved and the environment of today is widespread chronic obesity and related health problems like diabetes.
The hypothesis has received various criticisms and several modified or alternative hypotheses have been proposed.
Alice Friedman had a good review of a book on N Korean famine survivors on her site. First the children, then the elderly, then men who have low body fat and are athletic (high metabolism). Good study on her site of Cuba and N Korea after the oil stopped: http://energyskeptic.com/2014/book-review-of-nothing-to-envy-ordinary-lives-in-north-korea/
Thanks for the link, good discussion
One thing that surprises me is that UN population estimates show North Korea’s population increasing during the entire period that Alice writes about. According to the UN, there was a decline in population in the period 1950 to 1955, but not since then. I suppose the UN could be wrong.
In fact, between 1990 and 2015, Cuba’s population increased by 8% while North Korea’s increased by 24%. Cuba held down population by building a limited number of homes, among other things. (That was my impression, visiting there.) I think that population control was a major piece of Cuba’s success story. One reason that North Korea is having so much trouble feeding itself is its ever-rising population.
Haiti is another country with a huge population explosion. Haiti’s population increased by 51% between 1990 and 2015, based on UN data. In fact, its population was rising rapidly before 1990 as well. No wonder Haiti has trouble feeding itself!
That’s a surprising point. Seems like population control is something we’ve never managed to accomplish well, or barely even talk about. My guess with the NK famines is that it went up and down wildly with the various famine years – perhaps still showing the upward trend despite downward years.
The whole world is on an upward population trend.
Even when Europe has recently managed to keep its own population fairly level, it decided to import young people from elsewhere, so that in total population would rise, and someone could support the old people.
Each time there is a crisis, refugees move to a new country, to alleviate local population pressures and to allow world population to continue to rise.
No one wants to talk about the population issue. It is much more pleasant to think nice thoughts about wind and solar.
The same situatin as under Hitler: the only thing the politicians can do is reconstructing the road leading to the village where no jobs are and only minimum wage is paid
https://domov.sme.sk/c/20659768/banskobystricky-kraj-za-mariana-kotlebu-reportaz.html
… about the depopulating central Slovakia…
Think of the jobs that the work on reconstructing the road will supply!
What creates the profits and the purchasing power? It is the surplus energy…
Tesco wants to leave Eastern Europe again (in Slovak):
https://ekonomika.sme.sk/c/20662860/tesco-zvazuje-predaj-obchodov-v-strednej-europe-odislo-by-aj-zo-slovenska.html?ref=trz
The lacking profits due to low purchasing power, lacking interest in working for Tesco for the given wages, high expectations regarding the quality of food from the state authorities… all this creates pressure that makes the business unprofitable.
What is the result of the situation when banks create capital and inject it into economy in the situation of the energy decline: The businesses function, but it is not possible to kick-start inflation, produce higher profits, higher wages that could create higher purchasing power.
Why is this possible? When the economy is full of “slaves”, then there is no growth, no perspectives, just surviving from day to day, as the wages are too low not just in some percents, but x-times lower.
Not sure about SK situation in particular, but Tesco is usually and universally regarded as one of the most decrepit and filthy store chains on the continent. I’d guess this must be big part of the situation as they apparently have lost market share against the Lidl, Billa, .. etc.
If you don’t feel terminally depressed before entering a Tesco, you will after 10 mins inside.
In fact, all those warehouse places, which are increasingly staffed in Britain by people with obvious mental and social deficiencies – very, very cheap I imagine.
Everybody’s got a mental or social deficiency or another.
I would say that, partially, Lidl and Kaufland can be getting bigger share. But the situation of Tesco shows that there is a limit on the lower side: too low wages of the workers in order to provide you the lowest price force them to make you become a cashier:
http://l7.alamy.com/zooms/c713167db8ce4cfdace6d5a2a3c28d63/a-tesco-scan-as-you-shop-scanner-a-new-concept-in-shopping-at-tesco-dd03n7.jpg
Guess they’re breaking us in bit by bit. We’re already bringing our own bags or paying for them, so I guess scanning our products was next. I actually like self serve in places like Walmart, because it’s much faster. Waiting for people to cash their cks, the cashier to get chewing tobacco or cigarrettes out of a locked case, customers with coupons, ridiculous silly conversations between customer and cashier to soften the blow of the cost to customers and all the rest of the myriad ways to delay the process are avoided. So actually I have to admit it will probably actually speed up my trip to the grocery store. When it reaches the point they expect me to stock the shelves – that will be a problem.
Well, when they close one day due to the lack of the cheap workforce, many people will probably try a different way to get the food, clothes etc. for higher price. Something like Argentina around 2000 or in Venezuela now: grow your own food, if you can.
In Poland, Tesco, and other hypermarkets are losing battle with smaller stores, because smaller stores are closer to where people live, so it takes less time to shop there, and prices aren’t higher.
That is an interesting observation: Tesco also tried a smaller concept named Tesco expres in Slovakia. The truth is that the lack of cheap workforce makes the business of the big hypermarkets difficult: finding small number of workers for a small shop can be a smaller problem, as the local workforce is willing to work for smaller wages locally more easily than the workforce that has to be collected on larger area and travel to the hypermarket that is situated farther from their homes.
…when the wages are low, the travel costs matter more…
People can buy semi and fully automatic weapons, the ammo and huge clips, so why can’t people buy grenades? Is society saying it’s ok to shoot lots of people, just don’t blow stuff up? I mean there could be a basket of grenades at the check counter next to the nail clippers and candy bars. Sell them as impulse items. “Oh, I really should pick up a couple of grenades and a snickers.”
Why not the NGA, National Grenade Association? We think it’s a right to be able to own and use grenades. Let’s say a tree stump is driving you crazy. Use grenades to get rid of it. Sick and tired of that heap of a truck that keeps breaking down? Throw a grenade in the cab.
But we can’t buy grenades right? So then why is it ok to buy military capable weapons? Food for thought.
In Norway you can’t buy grenades or automatic weapons, common sense says it’s not a good idea.
The US needs a sensible and civilised gun policy on European/British lines.
Then the police would perhaps be calmer if they didn’t fear being blown away by any citizen, and these dreadful massacres would be most unlikely.
If people think their liberties have been preserved by gun ownership, they are fools: what corporation is scared of guns? They enslave other than in physical ways!
The British need a sensible and civilized knife policy, then the people and tourists would perhaps be calmer if they didn’t fear being knifed in public, and these dreadful killings would be most unlikely.
The British and Europeans need a sensible and civilized truck driving policy. Then the people perhaps would be calmer if they didn’t fear being run down and killed in public, and these dreadful killings would be most unlikely.
Beside the point.
I disagree – it’s a very effective point. 84 people were killed in the truck attack in Nice France, for instance. Your comment implied that the problem is guns rather than the intentions of would be perpetrators for whom a gun (or truck, or bomb) is nothing but a tool used to accomplish their intentions to do harm.
We do now have a sensible acid policy:
“The government will ban the sale of acids to anyone under the age of 18, Home Secretary Amber Rudd has said.
“Her pledge, made at the Conservative Party conference, comes after assaults using corrosive substances more than doubled in England since 2012…
“”We have all seen the pictures of victims that never fully recover – endless surgeries, lives ruined.
“”So today, I am also announcing a new offence, to prevent the sale of acids to under-18s.””
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41484909
The level to which the urban trash in Britain are sinking is worrying.
In this region, you have to be careful of the Irish/Gypsies who like to use molotov cocktails in settling disputes – every now and then it happens, ‘unexplained fire’ at a domestic address in a village.
Oh dear, how will today’s British school kids turn into tomorrow’s Nobel Prize winning chemists if they can’t get their grubby paws on vitriol and hydrochloric acid?
And thugs, psychopaths and imbibers of SSRIs who happen to be over 18 will still be allowed to purchase and possess these corrosive weapons just as before?
I wonder if this ban extends to Britain’s most popular acid—lysergic acid diethylamide?
Cricket bats next, do doubt.
https://sayingimages.com/wp-content/uploads/philip-duke-of-edinburgh-quotes.jpg
Too late! 300.000.000 weapons floating around
Well, of course you could get almost anything, but not on the peasant level as a customer. That’s the trick and charm of being beyond rich and influential over society..
So, nowadays as “lesser nobility” and up, you can buy almost any weapon system desired and use it – project it outwards in proxy wars, or defensively guarding your little estate, gigayacht, jet/heli, limousine, and what ever..
And the entry threshold is likely going down fast as we are evidently trending into future of smaller gov entities and brake away regions. Eventually the situation lands itself again in the quasi reality of neo-kingdoms and fiefdoms out of no longer homogeneous “national states” entities. Armies, mercenaries, as well weapons to hire would follow suit. Simply, the power of longer term historical forces rolling over.
The Spanish legislation which gives the power of police to private security companies is significant in this respect: so, one can imagine a politician who owns such a company using it for his own ends ‘under police supervision.’ The Chief of Police is his cousin, old friend, paid-off….
Still, at the moment the centralised Spanish state is working well, as we can see in Catalonia: they could move many thousands of police from all parts of Spain to deal with trouble in one region, and could over-rule the local police.
Collapse will be -by definition – when that sort of thing is no longer possible for Madrid.
Correct, and here are some other suggestions:
National Napalm Association.
National Tank Association.
National Land Mine Association.
All these nice toys would be most useful in resisting state oppression. 🙂
In the state of Georgia in the US, university students can bring loaded concealed guns to class with them. (I believe that this is true in Texas as well.) I believe the student must have a license, and there are some restrictions on who can get a license. This is not something university professors have supported. It is a fairly new law.
I am not aware of any major problems happening yet. But I can imaging it acts to restrict freedom of speech in classes discussing topics where there are two distinct sides. It also gives professors reason to be cautious about pointing out evidence of cheating on tests and homework.
The Middle Ages was more civilised.
Actually, it is quite civilized. In TX the student who is licensed to carry must be 21 and older. Additionally he must undergo Training on the purpose of carrying…the only purpose….to be able to stop deadly force. He obviously also has background checks done to be licensed.
It does not restrict freedom of speech. The only current restrictions to freedom of speech are being carried out by leftists.
I believe that in Georgia the students carrying guns must be 21 or older. That does cut back on the number carrying guns.
Part of the issue is how faculty feel about the issue. I understand that some faculty have started a lawsuit to get the law overturned. My husband is a faculty member, so he tends to look at it from a point of view of what could go wrong for him personally. If nothing else, the world has a lot of mentally ill people in it. The background checks will not catch all of them.
As things get worse, mental illness will increase, therefore…..
The US really needs to mature in the attitude to weapon-carrying, and cease tolerating a country awash with weapons for no good reason.
It only lines the pockets of the manufacturers and dealers.
It is no guarantee of Liberty – that has already been destroyed by legislation.
People died to assure this right, among others, for their posterity. It’s important, and shouldn’t be treated lightly. I think this is a mature attitude. Restriction based on the possibility of risk is not mature – it’s how you treat children, after all.
Another fact is that the person carrying concealed is required to “hide” the gun. If he or she were to make it obvious they are carrying, or if they even intimated to someone they were carrying, it would be violating the law. Therefore, the prof will not know if anyone is carrying concealed. If they do know, they would have grounds for complaining and could probably get the university to kick that student out, merely due to the fact that they did not keep it “unknown”.
Now, consider the other type, the student that decided to acquire a gun ilegally, and took it to a class with he express purpose of shooting someone. That person could and would do so, aside from building checks of backpacks, etc. which, even if this were implemented, would not be foolproof. The professors are safer with the CHL holders carrying. Everyone is safer with them carrying.
If profs are discriminating against student in some way, and are worried about that, well, I think they should not be discriminating against some students for political views. A student is at University to get an education….not an indoctrination.
Bear in mind that by definition half the population is of below average intelligence. That half should be disarmed and the guns given to the upper half to finish off the lower half. That would be a spur to evolution. 🙂
Not a good idea! I presume you are being sarcastic.
We are not good at judging what is important. Nature has been given that role, in determining which humans/plants/animals are best adapted at a given time. Mental illness is generally bad for adaptation–certainly now. Intelligence has seemed to be important, but that is only when we have fossil fuels to substitute for muscle power.
In the UK I think we got there already. I was just reading about how London had over a million houses blown up between 1940-1. On the continent millions were killed with a single bullet on the Eastern Front. Overall tens of millions died, guns, grenades, bombs, gas.. all sorts.
As for tumours excusing the gunslingers, we’d be thinking folks was pretty much mad to want a gun anyways.
Charlton put up a good case on OFW recently, gave Political Correctness a good kicking. Maybe his agent’ll get a call when they make the Vegas movie. Live hard, die hard, its the American way of life!
Los Vegas is the ultimate fake city where the showtime never stops, and America is the Soap Opera States.
If last Sunday’s incident resulted in multiple losses of human life, it was quite possibly not the handiwork of a lone gun nut. As is so often the case, the MSM’s coverage of the incident has been insipid and not at all credible. Although I admit that proves very little.
If Hollywood is looking for a star actor to bring this crisis to the big screen, they’ll have to do a a lot better the Brian Clayton. In the clip below, his portrayal of a man who had recently witnessed a major massacre fall flat and his lack of ability to believably convey strong emotions and to cry theatrically are strongly apparent, and one might wonder why, if there were literally tens of thousands of equally well placed witnesses to the events, ABC news would bother to interview this particular guy (who has a sideline in regular news program appearances) at this length unless they were trying to maximize the melodrama or establish an “official” narrative rather than reporting on what actually went on.
https://youtu.be/Y4utJeHCaok
Also, let’s put to rest the claim that Los Vegas (even if the official death count is correct) was the biggest massacre in US history, by recalling that worse things happened in the 19th century. For instance, at Wounded Knee:
In 1889, the pronouncements of Paiute mystic Wovoka sparked hope of the dawning of a new age among Western tribes; an age that promised an end to Euro-American oppression and a return to tribal autonomy, abundance and spiritual renewal. According to Wovoka, deliverance required participation in a regime of ritual dance and prayer. As word of his Ghost Dance Revival spread, a Lakota delegation visited him, and then carried the Ghost Dance back to their respective reservations.
On the morning of December 29, 1890, Chief Spotted Elk (Big Foot), leader of a band of some 350 Minneconjou Sioux, sat in a makeshift camp along the banks of Wounded Knee Creek. The band was surrounded by U.S. troops sent to arrest him and disarm his followers. The atmosphere was tense, since an order to arrest Chief Sitting Bull at the Standing Rock Reservation just 14 days earlier had resulted in his murder, prompting Big Foot to lead his people to the Pine Ridge Agency for safe haven. Alerted to the band’s Ghost Dance activities, General Nelson Miles commanded Major Samuel Whiteside and the Seventh Cavalry to apprehend Big Foot and his followers, and the regiment intercepted them on December 28, leading them to the edge of the creek. While confiscating their weapons, a shot pierced the brisk morning air. Within seconds the charged atmosphere erupted as the Indian men rushed to retrieve their confiscated rifles and troopers began to fire volley after volley into the Sioux camp. From a hill above, a Hotchkiss machine gun raked the tipis, gun smoke filled the air, and men, women, and children ran for a ravine near the camp, only to be cut down in crossfire. More than 200 Lakota lay dead or dying in the aftermath as well as at least 20 soldiers.
https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/08/d8/a5/b2/wounded-knee-massacre.jpg
“Hollywood is looking for a star actor to bring this crisis to the big screen, they’ll have to do a a lot better the Brian Clayton. In the clip below, his portrayal of a man who had recently witnessed a major massacre fall flat and his lack of ability to believably convey strong emotions and to cry theatrically are strongly apparent, ”
Hollywood doesn’t need anyone with acting chops if they can get the very young used to very low quality of acting. Lower quality acting means actors losing the ability to negotiate for a higher salary. If marketing and special effects, things that are easy to control, become more responsible for movie revenue than acting, then actors can only negotiate lower salaries going forward. Older people complaining about quality can be silenced by the threat of being labelled “old”, bitter, and outdated.
“Leaving out these other issues [economy growing until 2100] clearly can be expected to overstate the impact of climate change”
Since 2004 it is known that there is warming in the pipeline (James Hansen):
“The most important quantity is the planetary energy imbalance [see box on page 75]. This imbalance is a consequence of the long time that it takes the ocean to warm. We conclude that the
earth is now out of balance by something between 0.5 and one watt per square meter—that much more solar radiation is being absorbed by the earth than is being emitted as heat to space.
Even if atmospheric composition does not change further, the earth’s surface will therefore eventually warm another 0.4 to 0.7 degree C..”
https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2004/2004_Hansen_ha09900j.pdf
We have no idea what that additional warming means even if burning of fossil fuels is stopped tomorrow.
For updates on the above, Hansen’s publication list is here:
https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/alumni/jhansen.html
In relation to fossil fuel inputs into climate models climatologists must assume the worst case scenario, just like a civil engineer must look for the worst load pattern on a bridge to calculate the critical limit state. That load may occur tomorrow or in 50 years.
We have to see the CO2 absorption capacity of the atmosphere as a limiting factor, similar to limits in the availability of affordable reserves/resources.
http://www.omsj.org/wp-content/uploads/einstein_www.jpg
As Jim Cripwell said in 2013:
What I was taught in Physics 101, is that until you have actual empirical measurements of any physical quantity, such as climate sensitivity, then all you have is a hypothesis. And if all you have is a hypothesis, then you have no basis whatsoever about being confident as to what is going to happen in the future. There are no empirical measurements of value of climate sensitivity.
That is what has happened to James Hansen, most learned scientific societies, the MSM and our politicians. We have never had a measured value for climate sensitivity, so CAGW always was, still is, and will be into the indefinite future, a hypothesis. And if all you have is a hypothesis, then you cannot predict what is going to happen in the future.
This is all that has happened with the pause. The confident predictions of the IPCC in the SPMs, expressions like “very likely meaning > 90% probability” have absolutely no scientific basis whatsoever, if all there is is a hypothesis. So no-one knew what was going to happen in the future, and no-one knows now. What is happening to global temperatures is what the basic physics dictates. We do not understand this basics physics in sufficient detail to know what is going to happen in the future. it was the overconfidence in the hypothesis of CAGW that has resulted in too many people believing that the warmists could foretell the future. They cannot.
*Climate sensitivity is a term used by the IPCC to express the relationship between human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases and the temperature changes that will result from these emissions. Specifically, the term is defined as how much the average global surface temperature will increase if there is a doubling of greenhouse gases (expressed as carbon dioxide equivalents) in the air, once the planet has had a chance to settle into a new equilibrium after the increase occurs.
Well, 325 ppm CO2 in 1965 close to 410 ppm today and accelerating. Now that may not prove climate change, but the paleoclimate record suggests we might want to slow down with the carbon emissions. K?
But there is very little we can do to slow down carbon emissions. Reduce meat consumption might be one, for example.
Are you insane?
Burning fossil fuels is correlated 1:1 with economic growth.
If we slow down — the economy will collapse.
And don’t you worry yourself about this Ken — the Klllmiate seems just fine … not to warm … not too cold…. and you are about to get your dream come true
The burning of fossil fuels is about to end — not because of the Green Grooopies protests… but because what is in the ground is mostly too expensive to get out of the ground.
Who says prayers aren’t answered… who says dreams cannot come true?
MSM …CAGW ,,,IPCC,,,SPMs ?
“If in fact energy prices could rise much higher, there would be huge amounts of oil, coal and gas that could be extracted.”
In relation to oil, this is what happened in 2010. QE1-QE3 was designed to allow economy afford higher oil prices – which started the US shale oil boom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing#/media/File:U.S._Federal_Reserve_-_Treasury_and_Mortgage-Backed_Securities_Held.png
They definitely wanted to stimulate the economy. I have sometimes wondered how clearly that CBs thought about oil prices. Yellen keeps referring to predigested inflation data, rather than oil prices. Her predecessors may have looked at more of the oil price data.
Bernanke did research already in 1997
Systematic Monetary Policy and the Effiects of Oil Price Shocks
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/1997/01/1997a_bpea_bernanke_gertler_watson_sims_friedman.pdf
He knew quite well he had to lower interest rates in 2007 when oil prices continued to climb. Had he heeded the 2005 peak oil warnings by Matthew Simmons he could have acted earlier.
Here is another research by Bernanke (Feb 2016)
The relationship between stocks and oil prices
“Comparing the predicted and actual decline in oil prices, we find that something in the range of 40-45 percent of the decline in oil prices since June 2014 can be attributed to unexpectedly weak demand. (This range is very similar to that obtained by Hamilton in a different sample.) The results are not much affected if we drop changes in the value of the dollar from the equation, or if we replace the ten-year Treasury yield with the slope of the yield curve (the difference between the two-year Treasury yield and the ten-year yield).”
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/ben-bernanke/2016/02/19/the-relationship-between-stocks-and-oil-prices/
Weak demand is pretty similar to “lack of affordability.”
And this is what made it possible to drive investment into oil plays that normally would not be feasible to extract….. once the money was sunk into the infrastructure…. the price of oil was manipulated to a more manageable level…. and now those plays are pumping away helping keep BAU alive….
For most of human history, it has made good adaptive sense to be fearful and emphasize the negative; any mistake could be fatal.
-Joost Swarte
Yes, Jared Diamond refers to this writing about tribal people – ‘Be careful, you could get hurt!’
Whereas we run around mountains, fly, and dive into the sea thinking the medics can always patch us up and insurance take care of things….
Funny thought about the “Elders” that was bought up in church yesterday by Father Bob, a theology instructor and guest priest saying Mass. During the sermon, after the gospel reading of Matthew, he remarked he was an “Elder”, not a “High Priest”, as represented by the Pharisees.
Pointing out an “Elder”, in this capacity, has the life experience and wisdom drawn from spiritual growth to act in Gods direction.
An example, Father Bob pointed out the Pharisees approached Jesus and challenged him by what authority did he have to chase the money changers from the Temple? Was it from God?
Jesus provided a trap, he inquired was John the Baptist acts from God or not?
They found themselves in a catch 22, if they acknowledged it was God, that would imply an endorsement of Jesus, if not, they would lose favor of the people, who viewed him as a prophet of God.
They held that they did not know, thus, relinquishing their role as “Elders”.
We, ourselves, find ourselves in a similar situation. We do not know what to do.
‘Here are two facts that defy logic: By the end of the year, electric-car maker Tesla Inc. will have burned through more than $10 billion without ever having made 10 cents. Yet companies around the world are lining up to compete with it.’
‘At this point, expensive battery technology still makes them money drains. General Motors Co. loses about $9,000 on every Chevrolet Bolt electric car it sells. Tesla had record sales of its EVs last year — and still lost $675 million on $7 billion in sales. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV loses $20,000 on every electric version of its 500-model subcompact sold in the U.S., Chief Executive Officer Sergio Marchionne said in a speech in Italy on Monday. Battery-powered models should be marketed based on consumer demand and not depend on incentives, he said.’
https://www.bloomberg.com//news/articles/2017-10-02/automakers-plan-electric-car-blitz-even-as-tesla-burns-billions
I don’t think that car makers have figured out that what is being mandated is not, in fact, something that society can afford the full system costs for.
In China, they certainly are not going to run the system on solar panels and wind turbines. They are having trouble with the wind and solar that they have. Figuring out a way to charge all of these cars, when people don’t live in separate houses with garages, will be a big mess, if nothing else. The cost of these vehicles will be too high, relative to the incomes of prospective buyers. Having all of the needed charging stations, and the electricity generating capacity to support the demands of these stations will be a mess as well.
On all levels this makes zero sense…. it is just beyond insane
Perhaps they are doing this because having an EV strategy drives the share price higher?
And the accountants have worked out that they won’t sell very many EVs anyway… so the net gain is worth the cost of what amounts to a PR campaign?
Or maybe we so close to the edge now that nothing matters…. just keep the cattle calm with unlimited hopium …. so they don’t notice the wolves coming through the breach in the fence….
50 shot and killed in Vegas. This country is going to shit so fast I can’t imagine why anyone would want to have kids anymore.
Why did they stage this photo op?
http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/shared/npr/styles/x_large/nprshared/201710/555006793.jpg
What is staged in this photo? Who does “they” refer to?
What is staged in this photo? Two people crouching behind nothing, really, for protection while people stand relaxed behind them.
Here’s the second, cropped photo that you’ll see in the news:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/02/16/44F29D9000000578-4940950-People_take_cover_at_the_Route_91_Harvest_country_music_festival-a-2_1506959690453.jpg
The second photo does a better job of communicating terror. You also don’t see the people behind the couple who clearly display relaxed body language.
“Who does ‘they’ refer to?” The million dollar question. In the case of this particular photo, your guess might be as good as mine. Maybe an opportunistic photojournalist asked the couple to pose and look scared so they could sell a picture to the news.
Ask yourself this: if you were at a concert, with your partner, where a shooting occurred, would you crouch behind a fallen barricade and stare straight into a camera or would you get the hell out of dodge?
Rendar: Please seek some medical help. If not for yourself for your families sake at least.
I’ve been present at a public shooting before. The only common factor in these situations is chaos. Nothing unusual about this picture. Some people immediately run, others freeze, others are in total denial of what is happening. Confusion rules the day.
I find it odd that there is no bloody scenes in any of the videos.
Another thing that strikes me as odd is the shooters brother giving live TV interviews. I sure as hell wouldn’t be doing that if my brother did this. And I certainly would not be nearly as coherent as he is on TV.
The absence of blood is often notorious in these cases: in Nice, in Paris, in Sandy Hook, or recently in Barcelona. Dozens of people are reportedly killed, run over or shot, and no traces of blood. Hmmm.
Another notorious absence, invariably, is that of images that are not imprecise and blurred, apparently taken with 2003 mobile phones…
Also curious is that Daesh has claimed the attack, a procedure that has become automatic in them, even when the claim is completely unlikely, as in this case. It is so obvious that Daesh is only playing it role of Evil Wolf, as ordered.
I hardly ever see any blood in these events. A woman is stabbed and killed in France and a pict shows her dead on the ground, yet no blood?
I think we have had enough photos of the shooting. This is a sad situation. I can understand why many people are upset.
Fair enough, Gail. It’s your blog and you do an excellent job with it.
For anyone who is interested in exploring the possibility that this was a false flag and/or hoax, this blog post is keeping an active comment section as new information comes in:
https://pieceofmindful.com/2017/10/02/what-happens-in-vegas/
For those interested in a little history on admitted false flags (perpetrated by various countries), here is a list of 53:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/02/x-admitted-false-flag-attacks.html
I will have to admit the story seems pretty strange. A 64 year old former accountant/internal auditor with no history of this kind of activity shoots a large number of people. The only thing strange is his interest in gambling, and of course all of the guns.
There was a woman who ran some people over with her car a while back.
I can’t understand why anyone would be unhappy over there. The pace of life is not at breakneck speed.
It’s not a traditional urban area that breeds alienation and mental illness.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1876201814002044
It’s a vacation town.
Before someone says anything about gambling, a shooting spree is not a typical solution to losing a lot of money.
What’s next someone shooting up Disneyworld?
That Texas Observatory Sharp Shooter in the mid 20th century. Who shot a bunch of people at the university of Texas. Turned out to have a brain tumor that caused it.
I think that was a rumour about a tumour nestled at the bottom of his brain?
Even if there is not a tumor, I can imagine a chemical imbalance being very debilitating. I understand that thyroid hormone problems can mimic mental disorders. I know someone who became very paranoid, as a result of a thyroid hormone deficiency. http://www.thyroid.ca/e10f.php
20,000+ people at that concert …. everyone of them with a camera….
When I google this I get nothing : photos dead people vegas shooting
Initially the report said 2 dead… then it went to 50+
Then we have a video of someone shooting from another floor in the hotel …
The shooter apparently has no motive …. was not a ‘gun’ guy…
Of course he also had materials in his house that could be used to make bombs….
The MSM always lies….
It makes one wonder what really went on here….
Yes FE, super strange and dubious.
With enough time/distance from this event the narrative will fall apart. The process has already started. How well will the official story hold up, say, a year from now, once all the pieces have been put in place?
Even if 90% of Americans believed there was something fishy here…. it would not matter … what could they do?
Lots of people do not believe the lies about JFK or WMD…. so what? Do what?
They cannot even protest without getting a mouthful of tear gas….
Consider WMD – it has been exposed as a lie – a hoax…. that just happened to cause suffering by the millions …. is anyone up on war crimes charges????
The MSM mocks us — they can even run a documentary explaining how the PR firms started the first Iraq War…. again all fake —- does it matter? Not a bit.
The cattle are so f7809ing stewpid they will THINK exactly what they are told to THINK.
Not only did this release have zero impact — within a decade the cattle were mostly behind a second invasion …
And those that were not – so what…. protest all you want…. it does not matter.
Wow. Do they need to line up all the dead bodies for you? Just so you can see?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-10-04/16-unanswered-questions-about-las-vegas-shooting-mainstream-media-doesnt-want-talk-a
Wow. Perhaps give law enforcement a bit of time to sort things out?
They’ll sort this out once they finish sorting out 911….
It’s been 2 days! Sheesh!
They are also still busy with the JFK thing…. so don’t hold your breathe
I agree entirely but at the same time all that energy that runs our world isn’t for us. It’s being used to keep big business’s capital owners in capital. The energy deficit that has to happen is a capitalism system disconnect. Not necessarily a not enough energy to live problem at all. I hope we can organise a way out of this. I blogged about it…. https://stephenhinton.org/2017/10/02/we-are-not-running-out-of-energy-capitalism-is/
Actually, I think the problem is that energy extraction has become too expensive, on average, combining oil, coal, natural gas, nuclear, renewables, etc. Enterprises cannot make an adequate return to pay workers well. They also cannot pay their shareholders dividends well. They try to claim growth, because this is all that is left.
It’s like you see with the airlines – when fuel is basically free they could all compete on service, logistics, regional competitiveness, etc. In environments of high fuel prices the fuel percentage of operating costs is high – squeezing the margins even when all players may have the same higher fuel prices.
And indeed UK budget-airline Monarch has just today gone bust here in the UK, leaving 110,000 holidaymakers stranded. This article points out that airline fuel and handling charges are priced in US dollars, so the circa 10% drop in value of the £ post-Brexit-referendum has really put the squeeze on:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41466722
Oh, I see Monarch’s fall has already been gone over in some detail. Ignore me! 😀
No problem. You are closer to the situation.
Gail, I’d like to say that the price of extraction is too high to be able to continue to extract value from corporations. What worries me is that IT is becoming the new must have resource to extract value. Whereas people were controlled before with the help of fossil fuel, we are looking at a future where IT imposes the enclosure of resources that enable value extraction. Just look at Uber, Google and Facebook and the ilk and that is the tip of the ice-berg
It works as long as the system stays together. At some point, one of the links stops working.
IT in its current aggregate stage, meaning wireless+gps+handhelds+share user databases+.. is just yet another efficiency scalpel thingy to cut into human’s blood and propel the system into even higher spiking madness tower of Babel.
Excellent for those ten baggers per each decade or bust type pirates of people. Decent for the frivolous crap consumers of everything. And not good at all for those many left behind..
Occasionally, I tried to address this area of inquiry as well.
However, given the lessons of history and human nature (very slow development), I doubt there is realistic chance to tweak such fast paced capitalistic system in its current stage for other more profound redistribution patterns (beyond mediocre attempts like quasi Eurosocialism level which apparently died in most countries anyway in recent yrs).
The bottom line is, many people, into double digit % of (near/poor) population actually tend to think about themselves as momentarily inconvenienced millionaires or more. They just unrealistically hope to better themselves either through hard work, but more likely by sheer luck, odd higher power intervention tomorrow (winning a lotto) etc.
And although this sick trend has been nurtured mostly during the past ~150-250yrs phases of advanced capitalism it goes much farther and deeper into our collective history.
Perhaps, the short summary is, we are trapped into a box, there is no escape. And if there is such opportunity, as few individuals indeed might find a particular niche and live decent fruitful life, somewhere semi secluded from the dominant system, it is immediately filled again by many from the “waiting list”, similarly as nature abhors vacuum..
Some sort of stoicism is indeed a bit perverse, but that’s all we have got.
worldof
The essence of Stoicism is that the Soul is not harmed by any of this.
As, indeed, it is not.
Pingback: We are not running out of energy; capitalism is. | Stephen Hinton Consulting
Finally, some good overview data on energy again:
http://euanmearns.com/oil-production-vital-statistics-september-2017/
In summary, glacially slow process of resource depletion in aggregate, although looking at specific regions, some potential “canards in the coal mine” are nicely visible, namely OECD (European part), Africa, Asia and Gulfies show stress and perhaps beginning of decline trend for the latter as well. So, again it all goes back to NAmerican shale situation, without their visible crash nothing spectacular materializes as far as in the next ~5-10yrs.. In any case, realistically, the situation might get wobblier by different blends-refinery mismatch of supply sooner though, say in ~3-5yrs..
In interim expect, print & print some more debt beyond today’s ~600%GDP as predicted.
Premature doomerism has been always more of a diagnose until..
In retrospect it would be handy to know that in early 2000s, well life is not supposed to be easy..
Euan does a good job with the charts. I am not as sure about his analysis of the future. If the price of oil goes up (or only if interest rates go up), we end up with a financial crash. If the price of oil stays low, we start seeing financial crashes.
One comment that Euan made that bears repeating: “The recovery in US drilling that began last summer has now stalled suggesting that profit from LTO lies somewhere above $50.”
Another point that is very clear from Euan’s post is that Brazil’s drilling rig count is way down. Its production has been fairly flat recently, but its prognosis doesn’t look good for the longer term. (My observation, not Euan’s.)
Another observation of mine: One place where it is not possible to do a very good analysis is China. No drilling rig counts are available. Its production is clearly down. We know that quite of its production should probably be called “unconventional;” quite a lot of heavy oil, plus some oil that requires very expensive tertiary techniques to extract. it cannot be profitable at $50 per barrel.
Given the past trends, relationships as depicted on his graphs, I guess we might get another “brief” period of elevated prices again, lets say aimed towards $70-100 threshold before piercing the affordability threshold, so for next ~3-5yrs they can ease and grease it by continuing full spectrum printing money, rising debts..
Perhaps. I think that the affordability threshold comes pretty early. If anyone tries to raise interest rates, everything is likely to come apart. If oil prices go up very much, we have airlines going bankrupt–such as Monarch Airline in the UK.
Yep, where we differ is that you suggestively say airlines going bankrupt, but this was #5, so lets say we have $75 oil plateau for few years time again and in reaction airlines #3-4 go down as well. So, what, just a triage, which obviously could ricochet into something bad (unemployment, debt, hollowed infrastructure..) eventually down the road, but all again situation is “paperable over”, at least for the near time horizon..
Supposedly the 5th biggest airline in UK “Monarch” just went bankrupt this early morning.
300k affected and above 100k peoplez stranded on airports today.
The clincher is the story, how they negotiated overnight till the bitter end, similarly like the ~2007-8 events and before (and likely in the future), last minute dark room negotiations ongoing, while public cattle already goes oblivious to slaughter..
That’s us: going to our Doom in our holiday clothes. 🙂
Made in Asia…
This is a Guardian article on the airline.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/02/monarch-airlines-flights-cancelled-as-airline-goes-into-administration
One thing that is mentioned is, “The fall of the pound left Monarch paying £50m a year more for fuel and aircraft, purchased in dollars.”
The article says
I can’t imagine paying £50m more for fuel helped in this equation either. I notice that Monarch advertises, “Lowest Fares and Great Service.” Not a combination that handles rising costs well.
In an amazing new energy breakthrough, both of these tech giants appear to be running sustainably on 100% bovine excrement.
Apple, Google, and how not to go 100% renewable
By Roger Andrews
Earlier this year I described how the Dutch Railways were using “alternative logic” to claim that their trains were running on 100% wind power while in reality they were running about 90% on coal and gas-fired electricity from the Dutch grid. But Nederlandse Spoorwegen aren’t the only ones doing it. Other companies use the same alternative logic to show how they too are now 100% renewable even though they aren’t. In this post we review the claims of two of the most prominent ones – Apple and Google, who are making points with the public and the media by declaring themselves to be 96% and 100% renewables-powered even though Apple still obtains well over half of its electricity from non-renewable sources and Google probably over 80%.
http://euanmearns.com/apple-google-and-how-not-to-go-100-renewable/
Good to have Roger Andrews explain what goes wrong in the calculation.
An institutional form of inequality that has persisted through better times::
https://www.planetizen.com/news/2017/09/95037-housing-discrimination-explained-comic-strip
These are center-left technocratic conventional wisdom, not “Political Correctness”. Other than that misattribution . . . yeah. Ridiculous shibboleths, the denial of which casts one out into the darkness.
If we don’t make up our mind, we won’t change it-#ParaNormalActivityIsUnsplainable
At first I was annoyed, but this seems a simple solution. One (post) with personal beliefs, one without. Debating about “higher power” doesn’t belong in comment posts IMO.
Decarboxylation! -dude 🙂
Reality Check!
Peak myths. Only 8 this time, instead of 9.
Right! It is hard to mix religion with science, without upsetting a lot of people.
Unfortunate that so many people are so weak-minded, and so easily upset.
There is the also the issue that people get so focused on the religious aspects (especially what they are sure is wrong about religion) that they forget the rest of the post.