The world today has a myriad of energy policies. One of them seems to be to encourage renewables, especially wind and solar. Another seems to be to encourage electric cars. A third seems to be to try to move away from fossil fuels. Countries in Europe and elsewhere have been trying carbon taxes. There are also programs to buy carbon offsets for energy uses such as air travel.
Maybe it is time to step back and take a look. Where are we now? Where are we really headed? Have the policies implemented since the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 had any positive impact?
Let’s look at some of the issues involved.
[1] We have had very little success in reducing CO2 emissions.
CO2 emissions for all countries, in total, have been spiraling upward, year after year.
Figure 1. Carbon dioxide emissions for the world, based on BP’s 2019 Statistical Review of World Energy.
If we look at the situation by part of the world, we see an even more concerning pattern.
Figure 2. Carbon dioxide emissions by part of the world through 2018, based on BP’s 2019 Statistical Review of World Energy. Soviet Empire is an approximation including Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, based on the BP report. It would not include Cuba and North Korea.
The group US+EU+Japan has been able to reduce its CO2 emissions by 5% since 2005. Emissions were slowly rising between 1981 and 2005. There was a dip at the time of the Great Recession of 2008-2009, followed by a downward trend. A person might get the impression that CO2 emissions for the EU tend to rise during periods when the economy is doing well and tend to fall when it is doing poorly.
The “star” in emissions reductions is the former Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites. I refer to this group as the Soviet Empire. Emissions fell around the time of the collapse of the central government of the Soviet Union in 1991. This big decrease in emissions seems to be related to huge changes that took place at that time. Instead of one country with a single currency, the individual republics were suddenly on their own.
The high point in CO2 emissions for the Soviet Empire came in 1990, the year before the collapse of the Soviet Union central government. By 1999, emissions had fallen to a level 37% below their 1990 level. In fact, even in recent years, emissions for this group of countries has stayed low. Much industry collapsed and has never been replaced.
The group that has more than doubled its emissions is what I call the Remainder Group. The group includes many countries, including China and India, that ramped up their manufacturing and other heavy industry in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the World Trade Organization added members. The Remainder Group also includes many countries that suddenly found new export markets for their raw materials, such as oil, iron ore, and copper. The Remainder countries became richer; they became more able to pave roads and build more substantial homes for their citizens. With all of this GDP-related activity, CO2 emissions increased rapidly.
[2] Population growth has followed a pattern that is in some ways similar to CO2 growth.
Figure 3. Population from 1965 to 2018, based on UN 2019 population estimates.
In Figure 3, we see that population has been virtually flat in the former Soviet Empire (2% growth between 1997 and 2018). With the economy not doing well, young people emigrate to countries that seem to provide better prospects.
Population in the US+EU+Japan Group grew by 11% between 1997 and 2018.
The group that is simply outstanding for population growth is the Remainder Group, with 35% growth between 1997 and 2018. A big part of this population growth comes from improved sanitation and basic medical care, such as antibiotics. With these changes, a larger percentage of the babies that are born have been able to live to maturity.
It is hard to see any bend in the trend lines, which would indicate that recent actions have actually changed the course of activity from the way it was headed previously. Of course, the trend is only “linear,” implying that the percentage growth is gradually slowing over time.
This rapidly growing population feeds into the CO2 problem as well. The many young people would all like food, homes and transportation. While it is possible to obtain some version of these desired products without fossil fuels, the version with fossil fuels tends to be vastly improved. Most people prefer homes with indoor plumbing and electricity, if given an opportunity, for example.
[3] Deforestation keeps growing as a world problem.
Figure 4. Chart showing World Bank estimates of share of world forested by economic grouping.
High Income Countries keep pushing the deforestation problem to the poorer parts of the world. Heavily Indebted Poor Countries are especially affected. Worldwide, deforestation continues to grow.
[4] With respect to fossil fuels, there is a great deal of confusion with respect to, “What do we need to be saved from?”
Do we have a problem with too much or too little fossil fuel? We hear two different stories.
Figure 5. Author’s image of two trains speeding toward the world economy.
Climate modelers keep telling us about what could happen, if indeed we use too much fossil fuel. In fact, the climate currently is changing, bolstering this point of view.
It seems to me that there is an equally great danger of collapse, accompanied by low energy prices. For example, we know that energy production in the European Union has been declining for many years, without the countries being able to do anything about it.
We also know historically that many civilizations have collapsed. The Soviet Empire collapsed in 1991, illustrating one type of collapse. The Soviet Union was an oil exporter. Its collapse came after oil prices were too low to allow adequate investment in new oil fields for an extended period of time. The Great Recession of 2008-2009 offers a much smaller, temporary version of what collapse might look like.
Another example of low prices accompanying collapse comes from Revelation 18: 11-13, warning of possible collapse like that of ancient Babylon. The problem was inadequate demand and low prices; even the energy product of the day (human beings sold as slaves) had little value.
11 The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no one buys their cargoes anymore— 12 cargoes of gold, silver, precious stones and pearls; fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet cloth; every sort of citron wood, and articles of every kind made of ivory, costly wood, bronze, iron and marble; 13 cargoes of cinnamon and spice, of incense, myrrh and frankincense, of wine and olive oil, of fine flour and wheat; cattle and sheep; horses and carriages; and human beings sold as slaves.
What we have been seeing recently is falling prices and prices that are too low for producers. Such a result can lead to collapse if too many energy producers go bankrupt and quit.
Figure 6. Inflation adjusted weekly average Brent Oil price, based on EIA oil spot prices and US CPI-urban inflation.
If we are in danger of collapse from low prices, renewables would not seem to be of much assistance unless they (a) are significantly less expensive than fossil fuels and (b) can be scaled up sufficiently rapidly to more than replace fossil fuels. Neither of these seems to be a possibility.
[5] Early studies overestimated how much help renewables might provide, especially if our problem comes from too little energy supply rather than too much.
Renewables look like they would be great from many points of view, but when it comes down to the real world situation, they don’t live up to the hype.
One issue is that while wind, solar, hydroelectric, geothermal, and other devices for capturing energy are called “renewables,” they are really only available through the use of the fossil fuel system. They are made using fossil fuels. If a part breaks, or if insects eat away the insulation on wires, replacements need to be made using the fossil fuel system and transported using the fossil fuel system. At best, renewables should be considered fossil fuel extenders, using less fossil fuels than conventional electricity generation. They are also dependent on other resources, which may eventually deplete, but which are not a problem at this time.
A second issue is that it is extremely difficult to do a proper cost-benefit analysis on renewables because they can only be used as part of a larger system. They tend to look inexpensive, when viewed in isolation. But when total system costs are viewed, they often are quite expensive.
One difficulty in a proper cost-benefit analysis is the fact that renewables are often sited at quite a distance from where electricity is to be used, leading to the need for a significant number of long distance transmission lines. Furthermore, if renewables provide intermittent power, they need to be sized for the maximum output, not their average output. All of these long distance lines need to be properly maintained, or they tend to cause fires. In some instances, burying the lines underground at significant cost is the only solution. Somehow, these higher costs need to be recognized as part of the cost of the system, but this is rarely done.
Another difficulty in a proper cost-benefit analysis is the fact that renewables’ intermittency must be overcome, if the electricity is to be of benefit to a modern economy that requires electricity 24/7/365. In theory, we could greatly overbuild the renewables system and the transmission. This might work, but we would end up with a large percentage of the system that is not used most of the time, greatly adding to costs.
Batteries can be added, but the cost tends to be high. One commenter on my site recently observed:
EIA reports the average cost for utility scale battery systems to be about $1500 per kWh. At that rate the batteries needed for backing up a solar or wind facility for three days cost around 30 times as much as the RE facility. But wind is often unpowered for more like seven days, during huge stagnant high pressure episodes. Thus the backup battery cost is more like 100 times the wind farm cost. Batteries are not feasible.
The major intermittency problem is season-to-season, especially saving up enough for winter. We do not have a way, today, of storing energy from one season to another, short of making it into a liquid (such as ammonia), and storing the liquid from season to season. This would be another way of driving up costs of the overall system. It has not been included in anyone’s cost calculations.
For the time being, we are forcing nuclear and fossil fuel to provide backup electrical services to intermittent renewables without adequately compensating them for their services. This tends to drive them out of business. This is not an adequate solution either.
A third issue is that renewables really need to be “economic” to work. In other words, they need to generate a profit for their owners, when comparing the unsubsidized costs with the benefits of the system. In fact, their owners need to be able to pay fairly substantial taxes to governments, to cover their share of governmental costs as well. If renewables truly were providing substantial benefit to the system, their use would tend to “take off” on their own, because they would be providing “net energy” to the system. Instead, renewables tend to act like “energy sinks.” They need endless subsidies. They can never substitute for fossil fuels. In fact, they can’t even pay their own way.
A related issue is that, because of the high total costs (as well as their lack of true net energy benefits), it is almost impossible to ramp up the quantity of renewables such as wind and solar very high. The EU has been a big supporter of renewables other than hydroelectric. Figure 7 shows a chart of the EU’s own energy production, together with its energy imports.
Figure 7. EU energy by type and whether imported, based on data of BP’s 2019 Statistical Review of World Energy. Renewables are non-hydroelectric renewables such as wind, solar, and geothermal.
After at least 20 years of subsidies, the EU has been able to increase renewables (other than hydroelectric) to about 10% of its total energy supply. The EU’s oil imports are roughly level, and its natural gas imports have been increasing. Even with rapid growth in non-hydro renewables, the EU has been experiencing a decrease in total energy consumption.
[6] Looking at the actual outcomes, a person might ask, “What in the world were policymakers really thinking about?”
We are told that the reason policymakers made the decisions they did was because they thought that they could reduce CO2 emissions in this way. Really? If a person really wants to reduce CO2 emissions, it is easy to see how to do it. A person simply has to take steps in the direction of reducing global co-operation. One step would be to reduce international trade. Another would be to get rid of umbrella organizations such as the World Trade Organization, the United Nations and the European Union. In fact, within individual countries, the top level of government could be removed, leaving (for example) the provinces of Canada and the states of the United States. In other words, policymakers could push economies in the direction of collapse.
Another way collapse could be encouraged would be by rapidly raising interest rates or cutting off credit. With less purchasing power, the world would be pushed into recession.
At the time of the Kyoto Protocol, policymakers moved in precisely the opposite direction of pushing the economy toward collapse. They moved in the direction of adding international trade and more debt to enable the growth. The countries with greater trade had huge coal resources that had not been used. With the help of this coal, the world economy was able to continue to grow. This approach only made sense if the real problem at the time of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 was too little energy resources, not too much. The economy needed the stimulation that more low-cost energy and more debt could provide.
It is now more than twenty years later. The coal resources of China are starting to deplete. Coal is also causing serious ground-level pollution problems, both in China and India. Without growing coal production, world GDP growth starts slowing. We are again facing low oil prices and other commodity prices–a problem similar to the one present when the government of the Soviet Union collapsed. The world economy seems again to be headed toward having some of its governmental organizations collapse from inadequate energy. Political parties are becoming more extreme; countries are enacting new tariffs. If we go back to Figure 5, the concern should again be collapse, on the left side of the figure.
[7] The scenarios considered by the IPCC climate model need to be revisited.
A climate model looks to the past and tries to forecast what would happen in alternative “scenarios.” The concern I have is that the scenarios evaluated are not realistic. To get to the level of CO2 that would produce the most extreme scenarios, coal production would need to continue at a high level for many, many years. This seems unrealistic because world coal production has been fairly flat for several years, and prices tend to be lower than producers require if they are to stay in business. The likely direction for coal production seems to be down, rather than up.
Figure 8. World Energy Consumption by Fuel, based on data of 2019 BP Statistical Review of World Energy.
In order for coal production to grow as much as the higher emission scenarios assume, there needs to be a major turnaround in the situation. World coal prices would need to rise substantially. In fact, coal in very difficult locations for extraction, such as under the North Sea, need to become profitable to extract. This situation seems very unlikely.
It seems to me that climate modelers should be considering more realistic scenarios regarding CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. One scenario which should be considered is the possible near term collapse of several governmental organizations, such as the European Union, World Trade Organization, and the governments of several oil exporting countries.
[8] The push toward renewables makes little sense without a firmer foundation than currently exists.
Early studies looked only at the cost of renewables themselves, without the cost of extra long-distance grid transportation and battery storage. Such an estimate makes renewables look far more valuable than they really are.
We now have enough experience that we can see what goes wrong. A hydroelectric plant that operates during the wet season in a tropical country may be of little practical use, for example, if there is no fossil fuel energy available to provide backup electricity production during the dry season. The total cost of the overlapping systems needs to be taken into consideration, including the need to hire staff year around for both the fossil fuel and hydroelectric facilities. Electricity transmission will likely be needed for both types of generation.
There are many other real-world examples that can be examined, before blanket “use renewables” recommendations should be issued. If renewables are not truly very inexpensive (around 2 cents per kWh or less), without subsidies, they are likely not to be long-lasting. Subsidies become more and more difficult to maintain, as a system scales up.
“As global investors get accustomed to a world deep in the red, they have repriced risk — which some argue is only inflating a bubble. Around $12 trillion of bonds have negative yields.
“Anne Richards, CEO of Fidelity International, says negative bond yields are now of systemic concern.
““With central bank rates at their lowest levels and U.S. Treasuries at their richest valuations in 100 years, we appear to be close to bubble territory, but we don’t know how or when this bubble will burst.”
“…“Debt is not a problem as long as it is sustainable,“ said Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief Asia-Pacific economist at Natixis SA in Hong Kong, who previously worked for the European Central Bank and Bank of Spain. “The issue is whether the massive generation of debt since the global financial crisis is going to turn out to be profitable.””
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2019-12-01/the-way-out-for-a-world-economy-hooked-on-debt-yet-more-debt
“If a country fails to address its long-term fiscal challenges, the economic environment weakens leading to reduced consumer confidence, capital accessibility reduces, interest costs crowd out key future investments and the conditions for growth deteriorate, then the economy is steered onto a path of future crisis.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/kalkinemedia.com/2019/12/01/key-world-economies-facing-towering-debt-accumulation-looking-at-the-bigger-picture/amp/
The chart indicates that, on a percentage growth basis, debt is not growing as fast since 2009 and it did prior to 2009. The economy really needs growing debt to pull the economy forward. This is part of the reason that commodity prices are falling, I expect.
“Debt has now hit what the Institute of International Finance (IIF) in Washington calls “mind-boggling” proportions and Unctad – the UN body dealing with trade, investment and development issues – has warned of a new debt crisis…
“Financial crises have crept up unawares on the world before and it seems likely they will do so again.”
https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3039970/huge-public-corporate-and-household-debt-looks-new-normal-global
Hmm. This one is ‘creeping up’ on us in hob-nailed boots!
And he is riding a black horse, while holding a pair of balances. (Rev. vi: 5‐6)
No worries, just add a few more digits in the tally and hide it somewhere the sun does not shine.
Fake it until you make it.
https://media1.giphy.com/media/mgqefqwSbToPe/giphy.gif
From an open letter to Greta Thunberg;
Your generation needs to be taught the morality of wealth creation, rather than only parasitically benefiting from it. The only revolution you will lead is one into nihilism and civilization regression. You need to learn about the moral case for fossil fuel. You owe it to yourself to understand how as, Kathleen Hartnett White has detailed, the harnessing of the vast store of concentrated energy in fossil fuels allowed mankind, for the first time in human history, to escape intractable constraints and energy limits that had left all but the very privileged in total poverty and depravity. Before the Industrial Revolution all societies were dependent on a very limited flow of solar energy captured in living plants for subsistence needs such as food, fuel and shelter.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/11/open-letter-greta-thunberg-jason-d-hill/?fbclid=IwAR0esQ7WzGd0axCLSLerYF1098MwZz34L8aHWvLYsi4SAs8pDS2E80OJ5Ok#.XeK6rwewsO2.facebook
Where would you rather live? In fifteenth century Urbino, one of the most stable and prosperous city states of the Renaissance, or today’s San Francisco, surrounded by poverty and depravity?
Kathleen Hartnett White, by the way, has degrees in “humanities and religion”, and one year of law school. She is almost completely ignorant of both history and science.
She is the archetype of a lackey running errands for her masters. Ignorant, cheap, self entitled and full of herself. Just like the priesthood of old Europe.
But the comedy she provides is priceless.
https://andreaibbamonni.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/tumblr_le451m7uj21qa31jy.gif
If pressed, I would take 21st century San Francisco with all its needles and feces in the street over 15th century Urbino, which despite its considerable attractions as a center of commerce, culture and learning, was also surrounded by considerable poverty and depravity apparently. Urbino was also very much an outlier being one of the very nicest places on Earth to live in the 15th century.
On the other hand, I would take Federico da Montefeltro, lord of Urbino from 1444 (and Duke from 1474) until his death in 1484, over any or all of the San Francisco Mayors over the past half century.
By the way, what do you think of Kathleen Hartnett White’s letter to Greta Thunberg, Robert? Despite what you see as her lack of credentials to speak publicly on this issue, her education trump’s Greta’s failure to finish middle school. What makes you say she is almost completely ignorant of both history and science? Do you know her personally?
More importantly, do you think she has made any valid points?
Thank you, Tim
No, I don’t know her, but I looked her up and read a little of her work, hence my assessment And she does make valid points, though somehow overlooking that Greta has at least “walked the talk” on becoming closer to climate neutral. But the tone of the letter is a disaster: the strident, holier than thou attitude, its use of insult as a first resort, and its gratuitous verbal abuse of a teenage girl just trying to do her best. If the climate change movement has friends like these, it has no need of enemies.
I totally agree with you. I hadn’t heard of Kathleen Hartnett White before seeing her name here. But I found the tone of the letter insulting and unhelpful.
A small point, Tim, but Duke Federico da Montefeltro is a man I greatly admire. I’m glad you feel the same. I last visited San Francisco in 1994, and found it again one of the most liveable cities in the US. But even then… Here is an extract from the trip report on my return to home base:
“But… the signs were clear, and the changes were bad. Rebuilding; and always a building designed for humans had been torn down, and one designed for cars or corporations erected. More abandoned places. More litter and dirt. More urine – what else is new? the stink of human urine is the hallmark of the postmodern urban United States – more graffiti. Beggars every hundred feet, even near the city centre. Three times, I saw fly posters, calling for volunteers. Volunteers for the local ‘Neighbourhood Watch’ patrol. Twice, I saw Guardian Angels. Guardian Angles on Geary Street! – Geary Street, the place on this continent closest to a civil society in the old sense, the sense of the polis, the urban community. And nowhere, never, did I see a policeman on foot, on patrol.”
When we visited Japan a couple of years ago, there was never a piece of trash on the street anywhere. Beggars were not apparent. There were lots and lots of police. Also, many uniformed school children on tours to shrines. They had assignments to be completed as they visited the shrines. The young people lined up wherever they went.
I don’t know whether there was a lot of original thinking, but there certainly was a lot of order.
Gail, there are/were entire city parks in Tokyo populated by unemployed men. I’ve walked through them in the Shinjuku district back in 2002. Maybe they sorted that out, but when visiting Yokohama, near Tokyo, in 2016, the homeless were living, albeit neatly, under the overpasses. At first I thought it was construction, but it was pointed out by our guide that those were living habitations for the homeless. I think the Japanese have similar social problems, but are better at covering it up. Apparently drug use it rampant among them, as in the US.
I was wondering about whether the homeless were being kept somewhat away from tourists. I hadn’t realized that drug use was rampant among the homeless.
Of course, Japan has a huge debt problem. A big reason for that debt seems to be the desire by Japan to provide jobs for people, doing something, even if it the job is close to unnecessary.
What makes yo think Japan has a huge debt problem, Gail
As long as interest rates are negative, I suppose the government doesn’t have a problem. The people holding the debt have a problem, because they are effectively becoming poorer and poorer, helping to hold down world commodity prices. The system fails because of prices too low for producers, not too high for consumers.
The death-knell for the immigrant-dominated boroughs of London was the appearance of ‘Mothers Against Gun Crime’ posters. I rubbed my eyes when I first saw them.
And the ubiquitous posters warning that ‘Violence against our staff will be prosecuted’ etc are very depressing – everywhere!
“Mothers against Gun Crime”. Typical bleeding heart liberal double think. Guns don’t commit crime; criminals commit crime. And what better place for crime to flourish that a city where guns are freely available on the black market, while ordinary citizens are kept defenceless?
“The right to bear arms is the right to be free.”
https://www.9quotes.com/images/en/r/robert-falcon-scott/100487/9.jpg
Kathleen White is quite as mistaken in her analysis – and her very partial view of the past – as Greta Thunberg. It’s merely a caricature.
To say that everyone except a few aristocrats ‘lived in depravity’, etc, before fossil fuels is just nonsense. The quality of life, as we would judge it, varied greatly from class to class, and region to region – even town to town. Comfort is always relative, not an absolute.
What fossil fuels have given us – the privileged people of the advanced economies, rich or ‘poor’ – since WW2, above all is uniformity and convenience, with a great reduction, in fact near-elimination, of very harsh physical labour and freedom from infectious disease (for now….) And, principally, they have enabled the mass of people to move away from agriculture.
Nor should we forget that the medieval aristocracy were engaged in almost constant warfare, with a very high mortality rate from wounds and infectious disease in camp: while an innkeeper grew fat and merry screwing his customers in town, eating the best food and drinking good wine….
Dervla Murphy’s book on her trip across Ethiopia with a mule is a good read, and serves to show how even in a primitive economy the standard of living was regional: wretched people in shabby huts in one part of the country, happy plump peasants in stone-walled huts in another. ( I grew irritated, though, with the presumptious way the author would show up and expect people to house her and give her hospitality – some nerve!)
Now we expect the same amenities, public services and standard of living across a whole region, and even if there is no longer any economic rationale for having a settlement there, as in the case of many post-industrial cities. And we can do that, more or less, so long as fossil fuels flow…..
The Chines state won’t pay state owned corporate dollar debt?
https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2019-11-26/china-faces-biggest-state-firm-offshore-debt-failure-in-20-years?__twitter_impression=true
No surprises there.
They still haven’t paid off those Imperial Chinese bonds from a century ago.
Ouch! According to the article, “The firm is neither listed on any stock exchange nor rated by the top three international ratings companies.”
It is State Owned. A person would think the state would take care of it. Only it isn’t. If it is not taking care of state owned companies, we certainly have a problem with companies that are not state owned.
“The latest bond default by a Chinese industrial group at the epicenter of a regional debt storm is escalating concerns about a cluster of private firms entangled in risky financing.
“Shandong-based Xiwang Group Co., which failed to make good on a delayed repayment on a local bond, is scrambling to refinance and avoid deeper trouble after triggering cross-default clauses on other bonds.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-02/china-private-firm-misses-2nd-chance-on-bond-as-contagion-swells
Hardly a day goes by without hearing about another default on Chinese debt. This seems to company that borrowed in US dollars. The fact that the company borrowed in USD makes it more vulnerable to default, as the value of the yuan fell.
I expect that the company is a private company, rather than government owned. It seems to have triggered cross default triggers for other bonds. I expect that there is a lot of this going on.
Is anything privately owned in China?
At least not “State Owned.” The government has mostly cut off lending to non-State Owned Enterprises, in recent years. So these companies have been forced to do whatever they can to obtain funding.
I doubt that assertion, a deeper look would highlight that all e inimical activity in China has a direct or indirect linkage to the Politbüro.
“Tunghsu Optoelectronic Technology [China] has failed to make good on a bond – its third in less than a month…
“The latest default has cast doubt on whether Tunghsu could meet its obligations on a US$44 million bond maturing in June 2020, after it defaulted two notes totalling 3 billion yuan on November 18.”
https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3040265/third-bond-default-chinese-electronics-firm-within-month
The China default story goes on.
we did it! we really did it! seriously:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-posts-first-month-70-154903996.html
“The U.S. solidified its status as an energy producer by posting the first full month as a net exporter of crude and petroleum products since government records began in 1949.
The nation exported 89,000 barrels a day more than it imported in September… While the U.S. has previously reported net exports on a weekly basis, today’s figures mark a key milestone…”
but the article does have some humour:
“Going forward, the United States will be energy independent on a monthly basis, and by 2030 total primary energy production will outpace primary energy demand by about 30%,”
It has been getting very close. Some weekly reports have shown net exports, but this is the first monthly report to show net exports.
I wonder if the total fracking cash vaporization rate is equal to the US crude and petroleum product net export rate. Plus, I wonder why fracking only works in countries minting the world’s reserve currency.
it probably makes sense from an internal US point of view to produce fracked oil at a cost of $70-$80 per barrel rather than pay $60 per barrel for imported oil…
because the domestic costs are paid internally and the money circulates internally, and of course there is higher employment because of the fracking industry…
would you buy $60 worth of food from a stranger or the same amount of food for $70 from a family member who owns a farm?
Fracking is dependent on lots of cheap capital. Some of it comes from sales of stock to people who believe that “of course” prices will rise, and everything will be fine. Some of it comes from debt, either from banks or from the sale of bonds. There seems to be a new trend to selling mineral rights below the fracking, if I understood a recent article correctly. That would be another source of revenue.
I’d be interested on what people think about this. It’s an article on the state of Western Australia’s solar energy causing problems for the WA grid.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-01/rise-of-rooftop-solar-power-jeopardising-wa-energy-grid/11731452
People do not understand the scale of the problem. They really need fossil fuels. Solar can’t do much on its own. Batteries are hopelessly expensive on the scale they would be needed. Citizens need to fossil fuels a lot for backup power. This is part of the cost of having solar energy. The system cannot use very much intermittent electricity without huge problems.
The problem seems to be explained quite well. But I’m skeptical about the solution, which seems to be just “replace dumb with smart”. Once again, a complex system is found to be dysfunctional, and the proposed solution is to add more complexity. Colour me doubtful.
Bad system engineering isn’t fixed by worse system engineering.
Grid operators are expected to be jugglers.
First and foremost, they have to juggle output to match customer demand, which varies minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, season by season, etc.
This is possible of the combination of power plants can produce electricity at a stable rate and their overall output can be adjusted as required.
However, when solar and wind are added to the mix, the grid operators have no means of controlling its output, so they have to juggle the output of the rest of their plants to compensate for the minute-by-minute instability, unreliability and capriciousness of the solar and wind components while simultaneously adjusting to match varying customer demand.
This is comparable to juggling while riding a unicycle back and forth along a high wire—very entertaining for the spectators, but not a very practical means of providing reliable, stable and affordable electricity year-round.
That is exactly the point, provide shitty service and people applaud you for doing that, because ‘green’ and ‘renewable’.
Thus can the government corporate complex secure their place in the supply chain and continue the theft, brain washing, cruelty and degeneracy.
https://pics.me.me/the-corporate-government-complex-the-left-blames-corporations-and-the-6177469.png
This is a good way of describing the problem. The more intermittent electricity is added, the worse the problem becomes. Most researchers cannot quantify the effect of too much variability, so they simply leave it our of analyses. They assume that something will offset, for example.
The analysis is not that hard. A conventional electricity supply system is metastable: small variations in supply and demand can be managed with negative feedback loops. It takes a massive perturbation to cause even partial collapse.
But add renewable energy, which as presently configured has no way of controlling supply, and the system becomes less stable. Eventually, with enough renewables, it tips over into instability, and variations in demand can no longer be managed.
You know, this really is basic systems theory, and I don’t understand why people should be so surprised when the predictable result happens.
Because nobody cares until the problems start to surface. “Green” and “renewable” is a genius marketing method mixed with with Glowball Warmongering to scam people into a malinvestment of epic proportions.
I’d be interested on what people think about this. It’s an article on the state of Western Australia’s solar energy causing problems for the WA grid.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-01/rise-of-rooftop-solar-power-jeopardising-wa-energy-grid/11731452
“In September, the utility handed down a massive $657 million loss for the 12 months to June 30, the biggest reverse ever recorded by a government enterprise in WA.”
all owners of houses with solar panels should have a special solar tax to make up for this loss…
An interesting essay over at Winterwatch:
https://www.winterwatch.net/2019/11/survey-of-a-paper-tiger-debt-implosion
An industry in which a bond bust is well underway is the extremely capital intensive energy fracking sector. Chesapeake Energy’s (CHK) debt is nearly $10 billion. In a Nov. 5 SEC filing, the company warned of its own demise unless oil and gas prices surge sky high ASAP:
quite the survey of the imminent debt implosion…
and so many juicy quotes!
“Debt out the wazoo…”
“The portion of the Ponzi scheme pyramid that implodes first are the lower-grade bonds. During the last two years, downgrades in the B- and below markets have increased steadily. This is probably the reason the Fed has started “Not QE 4.” Will it work? We doubt it, as the emperor wears no clothes.”
“Not QE 4”!!!!!!!
“There is a slew of big publicly traded companies that stopped being startups years ago, that are burning huge amounts of cash to this day and that need to constantly get even more cash from investors to have more fuel to burn. This includes Tesla, which succeeded in extracting another $2.7 billion in cash in early May from investors. Tesla duly rushed to burn this cash. And it also includes Netflix, which extracted another $2.2 billion in April. From day one, these two companies – just Netflix and Tesla alone – have burned tens of billions of dollars in cash and continue to do so, though they’re mature companies.
This also includes Uber, which received another $8 billion from investors during its IPO in May. It’s now busy burning up in its furnace.”
thanks for sharing…
Well thats a great article. CHK has been a dead man walking a long time. and it just keeps on walking. Its walking a marathon.
Here is CHK statement
“If continued depressed prices persist, combined with the scheduled reductions in the leverage ratio covenant, our ability to comply with the leverage ratio covenant during the next 12 months will be adversely affected which raises substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern.”
leverage ratio covenant. Its going to be amended. thats what the jist of it is. here is another example.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/teva-shares-rise-2-on-debt-covenant-amendments-2017-09-19-8912537
CHK will be here next thanksgiving IMO. Its a no brainer “amend leverage ratio covenant” or stop energy extraction.
CHK is a zombie. In traditional horror movies, zombies are the undead who shamble around crying “fresh brains, fresh brains!” (For a more detailed analysis, read my Amazon review of ‘High School of the Dead’). Zombie companies likewise shamble around, crying “fresh debt, fresh debt!”. The solution is the same in both cases.
Energy and machines allows us to do amazing things…but they also allows us to strip mine the resources…on a finite planet.
Good points! And debt allows us to make machines and pay for them over their useful lifetime.
Debt also allows us to kid ourselves with spending that has virtually no value, except to provide jobs in the present. Examples include bridges to nowhere, expressways that are not needed, and homes workers cannot afford.
It is in fact the Magic Wand – and as in the Disney film, its effects can’t be stopped by the foolish apprentice who thought that waving it would make life so much easier…..
““We’ve seen extraordinary demand for safe-deposit boxes ever since we started offering them in 2015, and that demand has really gone up since the late summer,” said Ludwig Karl, a spokesman for Swiss Gold Safe Ltd., which operates high-security alpine vaults. “Most people say they are planning for difficult economic circumstances.””
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-11-30/worlds-rich-are-rattled-and-seeking-old-fashioned-security%3f_amp=true
“Boats are a supremely cuttable expense when the economy starts turning south, and the industry has been anxiously debating what’s behind a recent sales drop in certain boat categories of up to 7% compared with a year ago.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2019-11-08/even-super-rich-rethink-yacht-buying-amid-economic-uncertainty
We haven’t seen yet what the new emission rules will do to international ship transport after January 1, 2020. Those operating refineries clearly wanted more revenue for themselves. But ship owners are powerless to raise rates on a commodity. Someone has to lose out in this grab for more of the profit pie. It may be that the demand for fuel drops further.
Fuel doesn’t seem to be much different than vehicles and medical care. It is always possible to raise standards, in an attempt to get more revenue for one’s own sector of the economy. But at some point the squeeze must stop.
“Little more than a decade after consumers binged on inexpensive mortgages that helped bring on a global financial crisis, a new debt surge — this time by major corporations — threatens to unleash fresh turmoil…
““We are sitting on the top of an unexploded bomb, and we really don’t know what will trigger the explosion,” said Emre Tiftik, a debt specialist at the Institute of International Finance, an industry association…
““This is part of a much bigger issue: an increased amount of collateral damage and the unintended consequences of an excessive reliance on central bank liquidity,” said Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser to Allianz, the German financial services giant.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/corporate-debt-nears-a-record-10-trillion-and-borrowing-binge-poses-new-risks/2019/11/29/1f86ba3e-114b-11ea-bf62-eadd5d11f559_story.html%3foutputType=amp
This increase in debt seems to be worldwide. China has played an especially important role, but it is hard to figure out its many layers of debt.
They will be bailed out to the end of earth. Time to buy some long options for stocks and gold
Richard Grannon gives his thoughts on our narcissistic, aggressive and sociopathic culture.
https://youtu.be/NzK9GNGzYgk
That’s why Trump is Prez, because he demands the attention via narcissistic, aggressive and sociopathic behavior. It’s a spectacle but that’s what people demand regardless of the failure to produce positive results. The tax cuts didn’t benefit most people, the deficits ballooned, no deal was with NK, the deal with Iran was flamed and now they’re enriching uranium on a much bigger scale, the deal with Paris Accord tossed, many farmers have gone into default/bankruptcy due to the trade war, GDP is down, it’s ok to dump used fracking fluid into the Gulf, got rid of regulations protecting dolphins and turtles, but people are entertained, and apparently that’s much more important. That’s the sad truth about our culture in the US now.
But Trump made US energy independent (great?) this month.
Just give up the anti Trump narrative. Nobody cares about your own personal biases against him. It is just so fscking boring and predictable.
Do me a favor, if this is ever to change, start thinking about how much of a problem you are, your own self indulgent, pretentious, sociopathic, narcissistic ways of life before starting the obvious finger of blame pointing at other people. Yes repeat after me.
I AM THE PROBLEM!
👍
Then you’ll be voting for Hillary again next year, I take it?
Ouch! I’ve never paid much attention to US presidential elections, but in 2016 the thought crossed my mind that I would rather vote for Beelzebub than for Hillary. It seems I was not alone.
Yes exactly
I couldn’t make this Stuff up…..too much…
Watch out Greta, Young Sheldon is upstaging you….thank Hanoi Jane!
Young Sheldon star protests with Jane Fonda, Paul Scheer arrested at D.C. event
Entertainment Weekly
Maureen Lee Lenker
Entertainment WeeklyNovember 29, 2019
In case you’re already having buyer’s remorse about your Black Friday purchases, here’s some more fuel to the fire.
While you were shopping, Iain Armitage, star of CBS’ Young Sheldon and HBO’s Big Little Lies, was out protesting for climate change. The young actor joined Jane Fonda in her now weekly marches in Washington D.C. calling for Congress to act
Fonda avoided being taken into custody for the fourth week in a row. Despite being told that the Attorney General’s office won’t prosecute her case (she’s already been arrested four times for acts of civil disobedience), Fonda has chosen not to get arrested again until Dec. 20 in order to avoid jail time that would prevent her from continuing to lead the demonstrations.
In October, Fonda, 81, announced that she’d moved to Washington, D.C., to lead weekly protests at the U.S. Capitol, inspired by the work of indigenous people and young climate activists. The star has gathered scientists, economists, and people from communities impacted by climate change, as well as celebrity friends and colleagues to speak out about environmental issues
Doesn’t Hanoi Jane realize she is a lightening rod as a symbol to represent the so-called Left!
The other side relishes in maintaining the issue is just “political” and this helps maintain that illusion.
Way to go Jane! Boy, betcha Al Gore is relieved he no longer is their posted boy!
Of well, at least it’s kind of entertaining…
The show must go on….
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PIiQMsDQ0Uo
You hit right on Ethel!
My point with the high level water vapor is not that it’s some conspiracy by the government to geo engineer the plant. No doubt there is evidence of planning of that kind as there is evidence of using nuclear bombs to stop hurricanes. The reality is with modern aircraft flying in the upper atmosphere spewing approximately 7lbs of water vapor and 20lbs of CO2 per gallon of fuel burn one needs to examine both to get the true picture. The determination to focus only CO2 is a bias.
The more immediate issue is conventional oil peaked in 2005. So likely the problem will be self limiting. Last to come first to go. The airline industry is in recession already.
https://www.iata.org/pressroom/pr/Pages/2019-06-02-01.aspx
How an industry even runs on $6.50 per passenger profits is hard to understand. My local gas station is about the same as long as you buy a coffee and donuts. When profit margins are so thin any fuel cost increase will take them out.
The issue, to me, seems to be Peak Coal. There has been too much worry about peak oil. What the world needs is inexpensive fuel. Coal production stopped rising several years ago.
Also, fossil fuel, nuclear, and other commodity prices don’t stay high enough for producers.
The problem is collapse, not peak oil.
Margins are low in every industry, including the airline industry.
Add fake peer review to an already cognitively skewed process and the 48% repeatability issue. Science is in trouble.
https://vdare.com/articles/some-countries-are-just-prone-to-scientific-fraud-so-are-their-immigrants-to-the-west
Agreed. There is so much pressure to publish that a high percentage of articles are worthless. Even when they seem to be correct, they can be models based on prior wrong thinking. We waste a huge amount of human energy on papers of questionable value.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L6X5QZDQ6mw
Dane Wigington of http://geoengineeringwatch.org has a website that deals with this very subject.
The term “contrails” when searched leads to conspiracy theories. The “correct scientific terminology is:
Stratospheric Aerosol Injection
Stratospheric Aerosol Geoengineering
Solar Radiation Mgmt
Global Dimming
These are programs that the US Govt has admitted to and has been engaged in for many decades. There are hundreds of US Patents pertaining to Geoengineering and most of them belong to US Defense Contractors. Thanks for the video !
Maybe JT and post a newer video circa 1990
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UVz67cwmxTM
I watched this for 1 minute 14 seconds until Mann appeared, at which point I vomited all over the keyboard. But after I’d cleaned that up, still I persisted right to the end.
In my opinion, it’s complete and utter BS throughout. Nothing to be alarmed about apart from the consistent lying and distortions of these professional alarmists.
I didn’t expect any other reaction from you!
What lies have these scientist made?
Who said anything about scientists?
Those guys are activists, alarmists and prophets of AGW doom!
As Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass, said in 2008, “Dr. Hansen was right. Twenty years later, we recognize him as a climate prophet.”
But if you are interested in Hansen’s record of not telling the truth (of course we all know you aren’t), here’s an excellent primer.
https://youtu.be/J2u_TIWPupw
James Hansen in June 2008 (that’s 11 and a half years ago for those who are arithmetically challenged:
“We see a tipping point occurring right before our eyes,” Hansen told the AP before the luncheon. “The Arctic is the first tipping point and it’s occurring exactly the way we said it would.”
Hansen, echoing work by other scientists, said that in five to 10 years, the Arctic will be free of sea ice in the summer.
—By Seth Borenstein, AP Science Writer
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/science/2008-06-23-1642922053_x.htm
Ah, he with little faith….
https://skepticalscience.com/icefreearctic.html
It’s all in the details🙄
That’s not a quote by Hansen, it’s a statement by the journalist. However, if anyone was predicting something that could happen in 10 years, that wouldn’t be a lie. It would be a prediction.
Is that it for the “the consistent lying” of what you term professional alarmists?
Fair enough, a prediction isn’t necessarily the same thing as a lie. But a prediction or a series of predictions that turn out to be false made with confidence, certainty and authority, and with no mea culpa issued after the predictions fail to pan out seems like lying in my book. And Jim Hansen has made predictions about the end of arctic ice
As does systematically altering past temperature data for weather stations around the globe and trying to pass it off as valid data in order to pretend that the past was cooler than it actually was and thereby make the present look warmer by comparison. NASA and GISS under Hansen’s stewardship did this.
https://principia-scientific.org/how-noaa-nasa-doctored-temperature-data-to-get-record-warm-years/
As a reasonably honest soul, I don’t know how you or anybody can defend this kind of data corruption unless somebody is making them offers they can’t refuse. But apparently, no breach of ethics is too much when the goal is to save the planet.
By the way, have you watched Hansen’s 1988 testimony to Congress?
No need to breach ethics. As time goes on, our understandings change and this new understanding must modify the raw data differently to how it was done with previous understandings. Modifying raw data to take account of various aspects of the measuring devices is perfectly sound practice. I believe even the raw data show warming so perhaps the 1999 modifications weren’t quite right. I haven’t looked into this in detail but Tamino has posted on how to make US temperature history look very different from the reality.
Is that it for the “the consistent lying” of what you term professional alarmists?
Anyone who consistently claims we are facing runaway warming is consistently not telling the truth, although I have no idea of knowing whether Hansen or the others are aware of the untruths they are promoting, so all things considered I won’t call them liars. On reflection I’ll amend that to, “the consistent telling of untruths that looks like lying in my book but may be perfectly innocuous.”
While James would probably dispute that characterization, he wouldn’t quibble about being described as an alarmist, surely. Raising alarm is his vocation, his higher calling.
And it is reported that in the five years up to 2011 while working for NASA, and on top of his handsome salary from the public purse, he received US$1.5 million (that’s about what you would clear before taxes after 15 years work on the US mean per capita income) in outside, direct cash income for work related to — and, according to his benefactors, often expressly for — his public service as a global warming activist within NASA.
This does not include six-figure income over that period in travel expenses to fly around the world to receive money from outside interests. As specifically detailed below, Hansen failed to report tens of thousands of dollars in global travel provided to him by outside parties — including to London, Paris, Rome, Oslo, Tokyo, the Austrian Alps, Bilbao, California, Australia and elsewhere, often business or first-class and also often paying for his wife as well — to receive honoraria to speak about the topic of his taxpayer-funded employment, or get cash awards for his activism and even for his past testimony and other work for NASA.
Ethics laws require that such payments or gifts be reported on an SF278 public financial disclosure form. As detailed, below, Hansen nonetheless regularly refused to report this income.
Also, he seems to have inappropriately taken between $10,000 and $26,000 for speeches unlawfully promoting him as a NASA employee. This is despite NASA ordering him to return at least some of the money, with the rest apparently unnoticed by NASA. This raises troubling issues about Hansen’s, and NASA’s, compliance with ethics rules, the general prohibition on not privately benefitting from public service, and even the criminal code prohibition on not having one’s public employment income supplemented. All of this lucrative activity followed Hansen ratcheting up his global warming alarmism and activism to be more political which, now to his possible detriment, he has insisted is part of his job. As he cannot receive outside income for doing his job, he has placed himself in peril, assuming the Department of Justice can find a way to be interested in these revelations.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/18/dr-james-hansens-growing-financial-scandal-now-over-a-million-dollars-of-outside-income/
I was quite shocked to dig this link up. Apparently he even took money from Shell Oil!
Hansen had stated an opinion that burning all fossil fuel resources could trigger runaway warming. He has since discussed the issue in a newsletter (PDF). So I don’t think your characterisation is fair.
As for the alleged scandal, well, a Net search found no corroborating articles (though their were many hits that merely pointed to or repeated the wattsupwiththat post. $300,000 per year seems like a lot, but there are millions of people earning more than that. Not that that justifies such a salary but it does put the alleged figure in proportion. I must admit that I don’t go to that site for honest insights into climate related stuff.
Regarding failed predictions, all predictions will probably be wrong, and I wouldn’t regard them as “not telling the truth”, since the truth, in this case, is unknowable. Hansen did remarkably well in 1988, considering the resources available then.
Despite all of these things, there is nothing here that could show Hansen is an inveterate liar. You talked about a bunch of so called alarmists who are liars but there seems to be nothing in it. As for alarmism, if you were a scientist and your work indicated an existential threat that could play out within a few centuries (with extreme effects well before that), wouldn’t you try to raise the alarm? Especially if you had children and grandchildren?
There is no way we can burn all fossil fuel resources; the prices do not rise high enough to enable their extraction. Hansen was way off base in this assumption.
Not sure why you think Hansen assumed that all fossil fuel resources will be burned. You have to remember that most people think (perhaps subconsciously) that fossil fuels will continue being burned and that fossil fuel companies continue to look for new resources and reserves. In that light, Hansen is trying to get the message across that such a path would be disastrous. Most people have no idea that your analysis on fossil fuel production is probably spot on. Don’t single Hansen out for not realising that.
You said,
“Hansen had stated an opinion that burning all fossil fuel resources could trigger runaway warming.”
This is an absolutely wrong way to approach the problem. We cannot burn all fossil fuel resources. You yourself implied that Hansen led people down the wrong path by his wrong assumption.
From what I can see its called a trend….which a projection can be constructed…or something like that…..
“Chile’s peso plummeted to a new low for the second day in a row at market close on Thursday following more than a month of protests over inequality that turned increasingly violent again this week.”
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/chiles-peso-hits-new-historic-low-again-amid-festering-violence-2019-11-28
“Bolivia’s foreign minister said Thursday Mexico will face a “very serious problem” if its embassy in La Paz refuses to hand over ex-government officials wanted for arrest, warning they could be there for years.
“More than 20 former members of ex-president Evo Morales’s government have holed up in the Mexican embassy.”
https://www.france24.com/en/20191128-bolivia-urges-mexico-embassy-to-hand-over-wanted-ex-officials
“A group of Chileans who claim to have suffered eye trauma in confrontations with the security forces rallied outside the presidential palace on Thursday to call for President Sebastian Pinera to “take responsibility” for human rights violations during the ongoing protests.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-chile-protests/chileans-suffering-eye-trauma-from-protests-march-on-presidential-palace-idUKKBN1Y22C1
Irresponsible politicians stir up trouble, fools on the street lose their eyes at best, their lives at worst – same in Spain…..
Chili’s story seems to be the one we get when commodity exports are too low priced. The government runs into many problems.
The government IS the problem.
“South Korea’s central bank today cut its growth forecast for this year to two per cent, which would be the weakest rate in a decade as the economy is battered by trade disputes.
“The world’s 11th-largest economy is highly dependent on international commerce but is grappling with the fallout of a prolonged China-US trade dispute and embroiled in a spat of its own with neighbouring Japan.”
https://www.malaymail.com/news/money/2019/11/29/south-korea-cuts-growth-forecast-to-lowest-in-decade/1814443
“Japanese industrial production fell more than expected in October, signaling the possibility of a steeper contraction in economic growth ahead and boosting the case for a bigger government stimulus package.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-28/japanese-factory-output-drops-more-than-expected-in-october
The increase in Japan’s consumption tax occurred on October 1, 2019. This can be expected to reduce Japan’s demand for goods and services.
Their retail sales certainly did slump. I couldn’t make sense of why they felt the need to reduce their fiscal deficit with this tax when their central bank is happy to be, er, creative in so many other areas.
“Japan’s retail sales tumbled at their fastest pace in more than 4½ years in October as a sales tax hike prompted consumers to cut spending, raising a red flag over the strength of domestic demand.”
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/11/28/business/economy-business/japans-retail-sales-down/
A need to “do” something about its huge deficit?
It might be as simple as that, Gail. I recall that a few years ago they planned to bring it to zero by 2020 but that has fallen by the wayside.
Japan’s “Huge” deficit is not the problem,Gail. The deficit is a sign of wealth! [It’s the contrarian nature of the federal government accounts that explains it] Japan is still as wealthy as ever. The deficit won’t change that. Only resource scarcity will change things, as you well know.
Here’s something from my in box yesterday;. The criminal behaviour of the big banks. Amazing!;
https://wallstreetonparade.com/2019/04/research-study-on-ongoing-crime-spree-by-wall-street-mega-banks-gets-news-blackout-heres-why/
Japan’s deficit is a sign of wasteful “investments.” Hiring people to do unnecessary work, just to keep them employed. Building fancy roads that are used by practically no one. They spend the money, and there is no long term benefit. So the next year they do the same thing. With no accountability for spending, everyone can do this endlessly, sort of. At least this is what the story says.
“Federal Reserve economists warn that printing money to pay for deficit spending has been a disaster for other nations that have tried it.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/25/fed-economists-warn-of-inflation-and-economic-ruin-if-mmt-is-adopted.html
Printing money is an attempt to hide an underlying problem. No wonder it doesn’t work!
“Food prices are climbing fast in the world’s biggest emerging markets, posing a possible inflation threat after months of dormant pressures.
“Asia’s two largest developing economies face a price surge for staple products – pork in China and onions in India – that are central to consumers’ diets. In Turkey and Nigeria, supply problems are driving up costs, while United Nations data show global food prices rose at the fastest pace in October in more than two years.
“…the threat of a price shock is real. Nomura Holdings Inc economists recently warned of three potential triggers of higher food costs – weather-related shocks, higher oil prices and a sharp depreciation in the dollar – saying emerging and frontier markets are most at risk since food costs make up a larger portion of their consumers’ income.”
https://www.livemint.com/news/world/from-india-to-china-food-is-getting-more-expensive-11574965242582.html
“The bad news is getting worse for India’s economy and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is exhausting all options to stem the fallout. Data on Friday will likely show the economy had its weakest performance last quarter in more than six years, with the growth rate dropping below the symbolically important 5% mark.”
https://www.livemint.com/news/india/india-braces-for-shock-gdp-as-modi-scrambles-to-spur-economy-11574989419739.html
“…with the current state of the economy, low electricity demand is particularly troubling for India.
““This year had extended rains (lowering coal demand and raising hydro output) and higher renewable energy (monsoon), both of which lowered coal in certain time periods. The electricity demand to GDP is a more important metric than coal to GDP, for the reasons above,” said Dr Rahul Tongia, fellow for energy and climate at Brookings.
“He added, “One could postulate that electricity sales to industry are measurably down, and if they’re disproportionally down, then this could be an indicator of a manufacturing slowdown.””
https://www.news18.com/news/business/why-indias-falling-electricity-demand-is-a-worrisome-trend-amid-slowdown-can-renewable-energy-revive-it-2404995.html
“There seems to be no end to the bad news for India’s slowing economy.
“The country’s GDP grew at a modest 4.5% in the September quarter, official data released today (Nov. 29) showed. This marks the sixth straight fall in quarterly GDP growth and also the first time in almost seven years that it has fallen below the psychologically important 5% mark.”
https://qz.com/india/1758454/indias-gdp-falls-below-5-percent/
I wonder what its real growth rate was. We know that India has reported that previous amounts were inflated.
in 2020 or 2021, India’s GDP will have “fallen below the psychologically important” 0% mark…
If it is necessary for businesses to make a profit, or for loans to repay debt with interest, or if rising effort is needed to keep resources per capita at least level, then 0% interest really doesn’t work.
“India’s economy is in a “very deep crisis”, witnessing “death of demand”… said former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha on Sunday…
“”No matter what the powers that be say, the fact is that we are in a very deep crisis.”
https://www.indiatoday.in/business/story/economy-in-deep-crisis-witnessing-death-of-demand-yashwant-sinha-1624228-2019-12-01
We know that the (poor) people who make their living doing recycling in India have seen there incomes fall, indirectly because the price of oil is too low, and also because more waste material is being recycled than there really is a market for. The fact that people making their living in the recycling industry cannot afford as many goods is a problem, because it would tend to push down the price for food. These people cannot afford to pay much, making it harder for farmers to get a good price for their food.
Debt is another problem area in India. There is difficulty getting enough debt, especially for common people. Default rates are high, especially recently.
I am sure that there are other things, such as trade with China. India exports to China seem to be down, since late 2018. https://tradingeconomics.com/india/exports-to-china
“WHY GREEN ENERGY IS A TERRIBLE IDEA
“There are lots of reasons, actually, but Charles Rotter of the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) does a good job of explaining some of them:”
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/11/why-green-energy-is-a-terrible-idea.php
“No Plan B for Planet A
“Replacing fossil fuels with “renewable” energy would devastate the only planet we’ve got”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/11/25/no-plan-b-for-planet-a/
A quote from the first linked site:
I know the costs for batteries are absurdly high, but I haven’t specifically worked out the particular numbers shown. They probably are right.
The second article is by the same author. It attempts to line up similar points with arguments that the climate change story is false. Whether or not the climate change story is true or 100% false, I don’t think it makes sense to argue for both of them in the same story. The people who are emotionally attached to the “climate change is our biggest problem” seem to fall for the absurd idea that we can seamlessly transition to renewables. But I don’t think it is necessary to convince people that the climate change story is false to see that scaling up wind and solar is not reasonable, even in a timeframe of 30 years.
The EU parliament declares a climate emergency. The increasing number of such declarations perhaps indicates that there is little to counter the climate science. However, declarations are not the same as actions and I have no expectation that any such declaration will be followed quickly by actions.
The issue isn’t “quickly.” The issue is that there really aren’t actions that can be taken to fix the problem, other than mitigation techniques. It may be necessary to use seeds that mature more quickly, for example, if we are faced with shorter growing seasons.
If people are really concerned about rising sea levels, they can build on higher ground, elsewhere.
Actions don’t need to be quick but there are no actions of any significance whatsoever. The problem can’t be fixed (it’s a predicament) but the effects can be mitigated, as you mentioned.
Regarding sea levels, your comment seems rather superficial. Of course “people” “can” build on higher ground but “people” would need to purchase said ground first, appropriate infrastructure would be needed on that higher ground, and so on. Some towns are planning wholesale moves (and I think there are towns where this is underway) but telling individuals to do it is completely missing the point when millions live within the range of where sea level will get to by the end of the century (and, of course, the seal level isn’t going to suddenly flip at the end of the century; it’s a gradual process which is already having an impact in some places).
20,000 years ago one supposedly could walk from Asia to N. America. Things change, we adapt, this has been going on for a while.
Dennis L.
Movement has always = survival.
Our problem is that, unlike those primitive people, our ancestors, we have a tremendous burden to carry on our move: civilisation…..
What?
Of course things can be done, starting with you stopping reproducing and moving away from IC into a life as a subsistence farmer, or why not as a hunter-gatherer? Yes when will you reduce your carbon footprint to zero? Yes indeed:
WHEN?
The first thing that has to be done for IC to survive this century is to dismantle the government corporate complex. What is needed is a distributed direct democracy where no one and everyone is equally important. And furthermore where true market forces can exist forming a replica of the competitive collaborative forces of Gaia.
All else is certain doom. Now will the government corporate drones which roam this site take home the information to Big Brother? Because ultimately you have no choice. Fight it and doom is certain, don’t fight it and your impeding irrelevance awaits. Now which is it?
https://data.whicdn.com/images/176493007/original.gif
The increasing number of such declarations perhaps indicates that there is little to counter the climate science.
A more reasonable interpretation is that the increasing number of such declarations perhaps indicates that most politicians would rather be riding the gravy train than standing on the tracks trying to stop it.
Still, there IS a solution!
https://co2islife.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/lindzent1.png?w=537&h=714
Actually, that is not a bad solution. If we pour a lot of money into attempting to “prove” something, there is a high probability that so called proofs will be found, even if what is to be proved is false. We have seen this with “Renewables can save us,” for example.
Blogs had made me a bit too cynical for Holgrem, but this presentation seems well reasoned to me. He made me see Gail’s point about women in the workforce (to add to GDP but not domestic economy), the need to have more people occupy existing home space, etc. And that has something to do with the building industry not generally producing more human occupation of existing space. The houses are bigger but accommodate roughly the same number of people per unit of land.
https://retrosuburbia.com/published-media/next-economy-now-podcast/?utm_source=RetroSuburbia+News&utm_campaign=9c1c5e627d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_09_24_07_04_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_2c1bf67eaa-9c1c5e627d-182828457
The Economist this week
Everybody knows that rich-world inequality has soared. People read about it in newspapers, hear about it from pressure groups and witness it in their daily lives. On both sides of the Atlantic politicians are building action against it into their campaigns. Yet our cover this week examines new research that suggests this growing inequality is not what it appears. Our cover story delves deep into the national account economists use to tease out the income and wealth of the top 1%, and trends in average wages and in how owners outearn workers. In each case, the growth in inequality is either smaller than most people think or, possibly, absent. That many claims made about inequality are debatable does not reduce the urgency of tackling economic injustice. The rich world’s housing markets are starving young workers of cash and opportunity. America’s economy needs a giant dose of competition. Too many high-income workers, including doctors, lawyers and bankers, are protected. But good policy starts with good data.
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/11/28/inequality-could-be-lower-than-you-think
Sounds like something the Economist would write.
Part of the problem is the increasing cost of “required” things. Medical care is now higher cost. A person can’t buy a package of old-fashioned medical care. Automobiles have more bells and whistles, most of which are not needed to get from point A to point B. More education is required, and the person getting it is required to pay himself. People with the same wages now are much worse off in many ways than they were previously.
Gail, once again you have nailed it. Inequality has changed very little if you measure total income, but if you measure disposable income, what is left after paying for necessities, you find a very different story. I should know: I fell into just that trap and could get out of it only by leaving the US. I had a well paid white collar job, but one afternoon I wrote down the numbers, did the math, and found that of every dollar I earned, just two cents was mine to spend as I chose. And I was one of the lucky ones, with no debt except the mortgage on the house.
I wrote down the numbers, did the math, and found that of every dollar I earned, just two cents was mine to spend as I chose.
For one thing, nobody outside of the US can really wrap their head around the extortionate cost of healthcare and health insurance there.
The American healthcare system seems to be set up to make money from people being sick. People in the US are disproportionately sick in the US partly because food is over processed, cheap, and served in huge portions. It is not adapted to what human bodies need. Exercise levels are also too low. And far too many people get discouraged because it seems impossible to earn an adequate living for themselves and their families.
That’s what I call a dysfunctional society. “America is the First Rich Poor country”Umair Haque.
Another (true) story. When I was offered employment in Singapore, I had to submit a health report. It was very comprehensive, and I feared it would be rather expensive, since I was living in the US at that time.
Now, my employment was in Pennsylvania, so I made contact with the insurance company my employer had registered me with, and enquired. However, at that time I was a visiting professor in Florida, and they said I had to return to Pennsylvania (a mere 900 miles) and apply there.
Well, I enquired at the local blood donor centre about an alternative, and was referred to a local GP. He read the whole package, and said, unsurprisingly, “will the insurance pay?” I replied “I shall pay privately.” Suddenly, he was all smiles. He performed the basic stuff then and there, took my blood and urine samples for analysis, and had his secretary book hospital appointments for the specialist work.
It took two more days. One at a hospital to get an EKG and an abdominal sonogram (a procedure I had never heard of) and another at a different hospital for sight, hearing, and coordination testing.
Then back to his office, where he put all the reports together into a neat package, and presented me with the consolidated bill. It was under $600, so I wrote a cheque on the spot. (This was in 1997, so scale the cost as appropriate.) That lesson stayed with me: have health insurance and be treated like a nuisance; pay privately, and be treated like a prince. I have never in my life made a health insurance claim, and, God willing, I never will. The first line of defence agains ill health is me.
Well, that’s how the USA flies today. I have been hospitalised many times [a tribute to modern medicine !] It was invariably courteous and timely. So the comparison you show is not a general one, just specific to your situation. The same happened when hospitalised in Italy and the UK, [renal colic] Totally professional and impersonal as needs be..
Highly amusing! Decline of a whole civilisation? We can cure that! It’s not as bad as it’s been painted, and a few policy tweaks will deal with it…….
Orlov with an excellent and highly entertaining article (and not behind his paywall!) about the greater threat to humanity of globbal coooling:
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2019/11/avoiding-coming-ice-age.html#more
ice ages have dominated the past and are far worse to human life than the opposite…
a timely article…
Happy Thanksgiving Day… thanks BAU…
The problem with Orlov is that he is too pro Russian. He has a fanatical hatred of America.
I don’t like America, but I try not to let that cloud my judgment. The past 10 years have done nothing but prove that there is of yet no alternative to America, and none on the horizon. To all the Russia and China lovers, my message is, show me the goods. And when confronted they have no response, because neither Russia nor China has a global reserve currency, global reach, or much in the way of international prestige.
But any day now the ruble or yuan is going to replace the dollar, right? Any day now Russia and China will announce some great military action? Any day now the world will be speaking Russian and Mandarin and not English? Watching Russian movies? Eating Chinese fast food?
Russia and China, the best, the brightest, the essential nations?
Just listen to yourselves.
Dolph, could you please relate to what Orlov writes in the article and not confound that with your own obsessions.
yes, I also have problems with his biases, but since he has discovered that he can monetize his ideas by writing in English while being anti-English-speaking-world, and thus gaining a fan base of some 2,000+ monthly donors, I don’t see him stopping with his pro-Russia anti-west ideas…
the irony that his income is mostly from the west is quite amusing…
but putting that aside, I enjoyed this well thought article about the threatt to humans of globbal coooling and the obvious danger of another ice age…
he even claims that the world is essentially still in an ice age of sorts, with lots of ice at both poles of course…
the earth right now is much cooler than when it was in one of its many ice free periods…
good article…
ignore the biases of the author…
The anti-Americanism is rampant. How ironic is it that Orlov’s platform and online following is enabled by American technology.
They are beating the ‘proudly made in America’ anti US drum furiously, while hating the sound it makes.
The US should not only place tariffs, but demand that all technology exported should be shipped back home to the mothership. It would make great landfill and silence the buffoons.
Sure, Putin is a thug, but the alternative may be the collapse of Russia (which was well underway under Yeltsin). Maybe the same is true for China, I dunno. I hate Xi Jinping and the PRC, but have to admit that a collapsing China might be even scarier. The Dalai Lama thinks it will democratize within his lifetime (he’s 84), which seems wildly optimistic, to say the least.
China has quite a bit of soft power these days, although it may have peaked in 2019. (Or not–who knows?) Few people find Russia attractive, except perhaps Orthodox Christians (except Greeks) and white nationalists, and their interest is largely based on fantasy. Also migrant workers from countries which are even worse off, like Tajikistan. On the other hand, Russia is better placed than most countries to survive a global collapse (which would make the rest of the world more like Russia today!), and some Russians dream about leading Western civilization in the aftermath. Of course they’ll be about one-third Muslim by then, demographics being what they are…
What’s wrong with Russia and China collapsing? It will hurt the people living in these countries, and not too many others
I will have to admit that Dmitry expresses the way I feel about the situation as well. The climate change story is so oversold today that it comes across as a religion. Anyone who has looked at past history can tell that we are pushing our luck, staying away from a major ice age for as long as we have. The green spots are the fairly warm periods.
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bi3m3kPbukA/Xd-h4LOcQDI/AAAAAAAAJOg/kMnE_XuHS5ogxreJ0y7G_8NgH8V952hPACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/temperature_interglacials_ru.gif
The current warm period is already longer than recent past warm periods. As Dmitry says, we are due for an ice age, “Any century now.”
Dmitry says,
I don’t know if this is true or not. It very well could be. In his final paragraph he says,
I get sick and tired of hearing about climate change and what we supposedly could/should do to stop it. There is an awfully lot of grant money made possible by all of the concern about climate change. There are also huge subsidies for wind and solar, hidden in the US tax system and in transmission costs. We are dealing with a huge money-making machine that feeds off the belief that climate change is not only real, but fixable by humans. It would be nice to find a different money-making machine, to substitute for the current over-used one. Looking into preventing the next ice age would seem to be a worthwhile activity to do instead!
I think the climate crisis only comes across as a religion for those who are trying to dismiss the science. Many of those would claim to be followers of an actual religion, though that’s not always the case.
Subsidies for fossil fuels far outweigh subsidies for renewables, so that seems a specious argument. As long as those subsidies exist, it is unlikely that any dent will be made in the use of fossil fuels.
The main reason you keep reading about climate change is that absolutely nothing of significance is being done to address it. As this is likely a situation that will persist for some time, I’m afraid you’ll have to get used to reading more about climate change. And it gives you something to write about!
No, subsidies for fossil fuels don’t outweigh those for fossil fuels. Countries tend to get a disproportionate share of their taxes from fossil fuels, so it works the other direction for them. The figures regarding subsidies for fossil fuels that a person often reads about relate to a special situation in many/most oil exporting countries. Oil exporters typically produce their oil for a low amount (say $20 per barrel) and sell it for a higher amount ($50 to $120 per barrel). Most of the difference goes into tax revenue. Exporting countries often give local citizens a lower price on oil that is sold locally. In effect, they waive this high tax for their local citizens. This is reported as a large “subsidy” for local citizens.
US subsidies for fossil fuels go to people who cannot afford fuel in winter. They are not a huge amount.
Wind and solar subsidies amount to most of the cost. It becomes impossible to even figure our what the true total cost is. The total cost escalates as more is added, because their intermittency must be offset to a greater and greater degree. The cost goes far beyond the wind turbines and solar panels themselves. It includes all of the extra transmission lines. These transmission lines need to be lightly used, because of the variability of the generation. The cost also includes the need for battery storage, as the share of electricity from intermittent sources rises. Part of the cost is the electricity which cannot be used by the system, because there is no “demand” for it at the time it is generated. Part of the cost, too, is the foregone tax revenue that would be collected, if they were taxed like fossil fuels. Of course, their problem is that they cannot possibly be sold at a high enough price that their services could be properly taxed.
The subsidies for renewables tend to bring down the pricing for all fuels used as backup generation, leading to an earlier end of the overall electrical system.
Fossil fuels, at least historically, have been about to produce “net energy.” This is what has allowed them to pay high taxes. Wind and solar that seem to be net energy sinks, when all costs are included. In fact, the more you add, the worse the situation becomes.
Europe doesn’t hide the total cost of wind and solar in tax revenue, the way the US does. On the chart below, the dotted line is the wholesale price of electricity.You can see how it is very low, and headed downward. The retail price of electricity, including the transmission cost, is the higher prices shown. The price backup electricity providers obtain becomes very low, in this arrangement. It drives them out of business.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/residential-electricity-prices-and-german-wholesale-price.png
You might be right, Gail; maybe the reported numbers for subsidies are wildly out but the general impressions seems to be that subsidies for FF are far greater than for renewables. Certainly, the cost of the effects of burning fossil fuels is not included in the price and represents a huge subsidy as we, and future generations, will all have to pay a huge price in future.
Mike, the production and use of fossil fuels is taxed at several levels. In the case of the US for gasoline and diesel there are state and federal taxes the are paid by the end-purchaser. Governments everywhere are addicted to the revenue stream these taxes provide.
I’ve never heard of any taxes on solar panels or wind turbines; only subsidies for installing them, subsidized guaranteed high prices for the electricity they provide, plus the all-important subsidy of going first.
The effects of burning fossil fuels include feeding, clothing, housing, educating and saving from slavery and drudgery for billions of people like your good self, who would otherwise be forced to toil in the fields, grind at the mill, hew wood or draw water all day every day for a miserable existence with few prospects for lucrative employment and no chance of your dreams being realized or your future being rosy.
Actually, I would love to see you and others like you—who are clamoring so persistently for an end to using fossil fuels—I would love to see your wishes granted. If I ruled the world, everyday would be the first day of spring… And everybody who complained about fossil fuels would get to live without them so that you could experience the consequences of what you were agitating for.
I have to smile at the last paragraph (at least) but it also makes me angry because there seems to have been no attempt at critical thinking. Calling for those who appear to advocate for a simpler existence to just go off and live that simple existence completely ignores the world we live in.
It’s also odd how many of those who comment here and know that a) economies will collapse fairly soon and b) fossil fuels will inevitably decline in the not too distant future, rail at those who appear to be advocating for exactly the situation that the railer knows will exist in future. Their main beef seems to be that someone wants it to happen a bit earlier, even if that is for good reason (to maintain a habitable planet for future generations).
Of course I know the consequences of a rapid reduction in the use of fossil fuels; I understand that much more than those who pretend that the economy can go from strength to strength if only we embraced renewables for everything. So there is no need to point it out. But what we’re doing to life on this planet is ultimately far worse than collapsing economies.
I’m sorry. Renewables don’t give us anything except a way to use more fossil fuels now. Embracing them is in no way helpful, except from the point if view of those who stand to benefit from them, for example, farmers getting fees for wind turbines on their land.
We don’t know whether there will be future generations on the planet.
We do know there will be future generations on the planet. The next generation is being born as I write. If you don’t want to take actions to protect some future generations because you don’t know if tomorrow will come, why take any action at all, or why take no action at all, on the basis of that having some impact tomorrow?
The self-organizing system will take care of itself.
The actions I take impact the folks I have contact with–my family, the people I know locally, my more distant relatives, and the people on my blog. I take the actions that seem right to me in my daily activities. I live my life in a way that I expect might be an example to others. That is about all I can do. Running around preaching against using fossil fuels is not on that agenda.
Gail, I’m not running around or preaching. Just stating what I understand of the science. That understanding seems to gel with almost all publishing climate scientists, so I’m fairly comfortable that I have it right but will keep abreast of the latest science to see what changes.
But your comment about the possibility of there being no future generations I thought deserved an answer. It appears that you do think there is a future, which is what I assume also.
There may be a future outside of this universe. I don’t know. We sometimes assume we know too much.
Mike, when you see those eye-catching headlines talking about fossil fuel industries being subsidised to the tune of $5 trillion annually etc., the vast bulk of that figure consists of what the IMF describes as “post-tax subsidies”.
These post-tax subsidies are supposed to reflect the difference between the prices consumers pay for fossil fuels and the full societal and environmental costs of using those fuels, ie externalities. It is not money that is literally handed to fossil fuel firms out of public funds.
It is a specious way of looking at the situation when it is modern industrial civilisation in its entirety that is responsible for our environmental/climatic predicament, and not solely the fuels that enable it. And I say this as one of those suckers that happens to buy into the warming potential of carbon, nitrous oxide, methane etc.
Good point! I had forgotten about that distortion. The calculation doesn’t mean that anyone can actually afford to pay those prices.
Good point.
Calling for those who appear to advocate for a simpler existence to just go off and live that simple existence completely ignores the world we live in.
Apparently, you you can talk the talk, but you can’t walk the walk? HOW DARE YOU!
There are plenty of people around the world living on the equivalent of less than 2 dollars a day. Their carbon footprints are very modest.
With apologies to John Lennon:
Imagine no possessions, nothing free and nothing cheap.
No fossil fuel infrastructure upon which they can leach.
Imagine all the greenies practicing what they preach.
I hope some day you’ll join them, for at least a year or two.
Then come back and tell us, how easy or hard or morally uplifting or whatever it was for you.
Tim Groves, you know nothing about my private life or what I’ve been doing and, although I have done plenty to reduce my impact, I’m not going to get into it because it is completely irrelevant to what I’ve been commenting.
That is a great song. I’m afraid I don’t remember it though.
I have done plenty to reduce my impact
Good for you. That’s very commendable. And you have done it because it was the right thing to do, and not just for virtue signaling purposes. So you have a clean conscience then.
But why bother to do the right thing? Why try to be good?
You’ve already implied that you don’t believe in God and that you even said that feel Gail’s deistic belief in a Higher Power seems hypocritical—right?
So why bother to be good? Why not give in to the little devil on your shoulder who wants you to be hedonistic?
https://www.meme-arsenal.com/memes/2e81970e777d3d8ac23da276575013ec.jpg
Again, you show that you don’t read what I write, because that is not what I wrote or meant.
I try to reduce my impact because I understand the damage we’re doing. Simple as that.
Mike, no, you haven’t done nearly enough. Actually the amount of damage you have done is impossible to calculate.
There is nothing to learn from the way you live. You are just like everybody else in BAU. Full of useless worry and an integral part of the machinery which seeks to undermine its own basis of existence.
I have done plenty to reduce my impact
I try to reduce my impact because I understand the damage we’re doing. Simple as that.
Mike, that’s twice now you’ve stated that you are taking action “to reduce my impact”.
You don’t say what you’ve done, but we both know that it isn’t nearly enough to make a difference, don’t we? Your “plenty” is actually a paltry amount in comparison to what would need to be done to avert the damage you think we (Humanity/the Denizens of First World/Conservative White Males/or whatever) are doing.
If you are smart enough to understand the damage we are doing, then you are surely smart enough to understand that any reduction in your personal impact is futile, yes?
Whatever I do can’t possibly help, in a global sense. Of course I understand that but, in all conscience, I can’t continue to do as much damage as I used to. It’s a personal decision and, whilst I’m not happy that I’m doing everything I can, I will continue to try to do more to limit my impact.
I don’t have any control over global behaviour but I do have control over mine, to some extent.
That is a very fair answer, Mike. And your attitude makes sense to me because at a young age, around forty years ago, I decided I would never have kids and never drive a car and one of my motivations was that I didn’t like what industrialized humans were doing to the biosphere and I wanted to limit my impact.
I was a follower of James Lovelock back then, and I was burdened by a very demanding conscience, stemming from a strong desire present from infancy to be a good boy that I have never completely outgrown.
Nice one, Tim.
Climate change.
I approve climate change posts before they go up. Same for global warming.
Censorship.
If a person has a blog, he or she can choose which comments to show. Some bloggers review all comments, and only choose to post a few. That is the way it is.
It would be nice if commenters who challenge Gail’s views, especially on climate change and renewables, actually read and understand her posts before commenting. Gail spends a lot of time patiently rehashing the same points for commenters who seem not to want to engage with her arguments and evidence. She graciously offers the comments section to those with widely varying opinions, including some who are disrespectful to her and yet feel entitled to continue their harangues.
Not sure who you’re writing about here, DB, or their particular comments. I sense you’re referring to me but your comments don’t seem connected to what I’ve written. I do appreciate Gail’s insights on the economics and physics about renewables, agreeing wholeheartedly with her view on that.
DB’s comment reads to me like a plea for decency and respect aimed primarily at Malcopian but phrased generally in the interest of politeness. After all, we wouldn’t want the lad to feel offended, would we?
Of course, if the cap fits…..
My comment was general, and directed to commenters who challenge Gail’s views but don’t seem to have actually read and understood her posts. If Gail says she is getting tired of something, you know that she’s endured quite a bit. I’ve noticed that whenever Gail writes a post on a somewhat different topic (lately, renewables and climate), it brings in new commenters who are dedicated opponents to whatever Gail has written. These commenters argue from emotion, and the hope that there is something that can be done. Sometimes they lapse into hectoring (“this is what we should do and why aren’t you doing it??!!) and squabbling with Gail and other commenters.
When I first started reading OFW a few years ago, I still had some hope (not of the green kind, and my view of the climate debate is almost identical to that of Tim and others here). I struggled with Gail’s conclusions but her logic and evidence won me over. So I do understand the psychological resistance many feel when encountering these views. I still try to prepare in a feeble way for collapse, because if there is any chance to help one’s family survive, it seems to me worth it to try, even if the chance of success is extremely low. The best part of it is learning about and trying older ways of living. Regardless of how things turn out, it is fun in the meantime.
The CIA showed me a recent video of yourself in which you never moved your lips once, so it has assigned me to find out whether you are a deep fake. Don’t tell anyone, though, because it’s top secret, OK?
I was just curious to see if you were still censoring the CC words, given that you often use them yourself now. And I also wondered whether the word “censorship” was censored – but it’s not. I suppose there is still lots to censor, given that Fast Eddie and his ilk took to complaining about the sweJ, etc.
But yes, I do enjoy your insights, and for free, so I will most generously allow you to continue your censorship and not report you to Batman and Robin. 😉
I don’t want climate change to dominate every discussion. So I choose when and to what extent it will be discussed.
I preview climate change comments. That doesn’t mean I block every one, or even a significant number of them.
Like the ‘Letters’ page of a newspaper or magazine. Fair enough
I keep hearing the voice of President Obama inside my head.
He’s saying to me, “with Obamaclimate, if you like your current climate, you can keep your current climate!”
I’m sure in the real world he never actually said these words, but they seem to sum up an assumption underlying the statements of progressive politicians and activists; the assumption that we have our hands on the control knobs and can steer and drive the economy, the biosphere and the climate as we would a car.
This web resource is Gail’s home; she has a right to invite into her home whomever she chooses, and to exclude whomever she chooses. She may have at times excluded me, but I don’t know that, because i don’t keep score and don’t bear grudges. As you may have noticed, I post under my own name, because that seems to me a minimal courtesy owed to ones host.
Thank you, Gail; In my eyes, you are on the side of the angels.
Thanks, Robert! A person has to keep some reasonable order in the comments, if a person expects knowledgable people to comment.
I am not sure if this one will be reprinted or not, but the problems we face have been with us forever. Not being a philosopher, a guess is our modern, fossil fueled civilization gave us a sense of power which is now fading and we have forgotten the old ways, this is the first verse of a hymn written sometime in the late 19th century.
What a Friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer!
It is given here not as an absolute solution but as an example of problems which can overwhelm us, for which we need an answer or at least a means of acceptance. No matter how hard we try, not matter how noble our intentions, some things are just out of our control, or as the common man might say, “S… happens.”
The religious like fervor of the CC activists seems to have some of these qualities. Somewhere, somehow we have to dump all this mental baggage which piles up and move on, prayer, worship, singing, protesting, whatever at least gives mental relief that something has been done. Those of us who lived through the sixties witnessed the burning of bras as a symbolic protest on the part of women. Then some wag invented the “push up bra” and that protest died for failing to uplift its supporters.
JMG is referencing the Tridentine Mass in this week’s post and it possible effect on the Catholic Church and indeed Western Civilization. The loss of this ritual which Joseph Campbell referred to as one of the heights of Western Civilization seems to coincide with the fall of the Church which in the eyes of this Lutheran is a great loss for all of us. The ritual gave a sense of peace, all would be well, even as a non Catholic I enjoyed it, it was comforting, they knew what they were doing, one had only to believe. We as humans need to believe in something, currently it is CC whatever that may mean.
God keeps slipping in and out of these discussions, the more modern ideas seemingly accepted by some of the elites being that we are in a simulation and all is not real, someone will push reset and all will be solved, or effectively and metaphorically taking the problem to God in prayer and trying it again.
It does appear the natural world is not entirely to our liking, glancing in the rear view mirror of history, it is a somewhat common occurrence.
Dennis L.
“When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.” Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874 to 1936)
All too true. After I became an atheist at the age of 16, I started believing in Dianetics, Lyndon LaRouche, time travellers from the future (thanks to “Vintage Season”, by Kuttner and Moore), and even worse rubbish. Fortunately, God did not stop believing in me.
Thank you for the reference to Chesterton; my club has a reading group with this man as the focus, time to join another group. I glanced at Chesterton in Wikipedia and reference was made to the Marconi scandal of 1912-1913, the more things change, the more they are the same.
This is blog is a wonderful site to explore current ideas and review old ones, again, thank you Gail,
Dennis L.
Thank you, Dennis, and I agree. One of the many, many reasons for the current malaise of our civilisation is that we have lost our sense of historical continuity:
“… truth, whose mother is history, who is the rival of time, depository of deeds, witness of the past, example and lesson to the present, and warning to the future.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547 to 1616)
And thank you also, Gail, for allowing these digressions from the present into the past.
If we agree on that the processes of the universe are god, then all right. I believe in it too.
https://static.highexistence.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/the-religion-of-the-future-will-be-a-cosmic-religion-it-will-have-to-trenscend-a-personal-god-and-avoid-dogma-and-the-theology.jpg
Another quote:
“The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be.”
Carl Sagan (1934 to 1996)
And that is the clearest expression I know of one of the world’s oldest religions: Pantheism. Which, as you might have guessed, is also my religion.
Yes, I was wondering if you were a Christian a little while since you cite the Bible quite frequently. I guess there is some truth in there as well.
I think the people of OFW is interesting and genuine, with a few slimy exceptions, lackeys from the government corporate complex. I think you all know what and who I am talking about. 😉 The crypto commie narrative can also be a bit overwhelming from time to time, though.
Being spiritual is of course the natural outcome of having a curious and inquisitive mind. I guess the worldly comedy and vulgarities quickly cease to be of any particular interest as compared with the mysteries and wonders of the universe which we inhabit.
It is a fantastic site and Gail does an excellent job with the sprawling discussions surrounding her posts.
Kowalainen, I cite the Bible a lot because I know a lot of it, thanks to seven years in a Christian boarding school. But I am also happy to cite Plato, Cicero, Ibn Sina, and many others, As they saying goes, “seek wisdom even in China”. And a most unfashionable corollary: seek wisdom even in the past.
Robert, don’t forget: Seek wisdom from within yourself.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/17/1d/f9/171df9a9fe75a13371143159a24b86ff.jpg
Read less, think more.
For Kowalainen.
I should seek wisdom from within myself. Thank you; a most excellent precept. The portico of the Library of Celsus, in Ephesus, contains four statues. I have seen them. Reading from right to left, they personify Episteme (knowledge), Ennoia (understanding), Arete (virtue), and Sophia (wisdom).
Perhaps my education, at Oxford and Cambridge, allowed me to climb the first step; thought, gainful employment, and service perhaps took me one step higher. Working of the military, in the UK, the US, and NATO, and making many enemies because of my deplorable habit of telling the truth, might have enabled an upgrade to the third. As for the last; perhaps all I have learned is that I know nothing.
But yes: wisdom can exist only within, not without, and therefore you are right.
You are welcome Robert,
Being an irritating truth seeking and truth telling rascal is a long term investment with little burdensome spiritual legacy to carry. It frees the mind for delightful musings in the mysteries of the universe and mind.
It seems our destinies delivers us what we deserve and not what we want, even though we might feel miserable from time to time. We are eternal beings, so we must experience suffering to attain enlightenment.
It is part of the process.
I believe in the existence of the late Lyndon Larouche.
But I don’t believe Lyndon was omnipotent, omniscient or omnipresent.
I have never changed my belief in a literal Higher Power behind everything that happens. Things self-organizing in amazing ways. We think we know more, but we really don’t. We need religions for many purposes:
-To bind groups of people together who are not close relatives, so that children can find appropriate spouses.
-To allow people to share experiences and socialize with each other, as a way of working through the bad things that happen. Often, “When a door closes, a window opens.”
-To provide a way for handing down “best practices” at the time. If too many infant births are happening, then having a lot of children is appropriate. If eating too much meat and dairy is a problem, then kosher laws prevent hamburgers.
-To keep down population. Groups fighting with each other helps serve the purpose of helping to limit population. Many animals mark their territories and fight with intruders. This tends to hold down animal populations as well.
-Over time, new religions self-organize, suitable for a group of people in an area. This is the same as any self-organizing structure. Now we have a climate change religion.
Sorry, this came across as a little hypocritical. If we really don’t know more, why do you think you do (the literal higher power)?
Having been a devout Christian, in the past, I find myself thinking about this stuff often and, every time I do, religious belief just seems crazy. Everything I used to believe just makes no sense at all.
I guess that before humans learned how to communicate complex ideas, there would have been no beliefs. Suddenly there is a god of sorts that somehow influences how we live?
There is of course a higher power and it’s called nature. Nor do we humans – or our scientists – know everything, which implies that there is more. We must live within nature and the system that it imposes. So I don’t know what is hypocritical about the implicit humility behind Gail’s statement.
Myself, I’m neither religious nor worshipful, and I do not like the fact that we are all subject to the food chain on Earth. That’s not the kind of cosmology I would have gone for or invented. It seems more suited to the “nature red in tooth and claw brigade” who were largely defeated in 1945.
Well, a belief is something you think you know. Gail is saying she thinks she knows that there is an undefined higher power that is controlling events. When she then says “we think we know more” that, to me, implies that she thinks “we” are mistaken in thinking we know more but she also think she isn’t mistaken in thinking she knows more – that there is some higher power behind everything.
Yes, you could regard nature as the higher power, though I get the impression that Gail thinks the higher power is, in some way, intelligent (i.e. deliberately organising events). However, nature is something we’re discovering, in terms of how it works. We discover more and more as time goes on but we haven’t come across evidence of some higher power, other than nature itself. One can still believe there is one but I can’t see how it affects any analysis of our energy predicament, or our environmental predicaments, though Gail sometimes mentions such a power, in her posts.
People everywhere have insights in how the system operates. In other words, which actions have good consequences and which ones have adverse consequences over the long run. They develop codes of proper conduct. God may be given as the source of these views, and in a sense that is right. It is really a reflection of what really works over the long run, so in a sense, is what God would tell us is right, for a particular people at a particular point in time. Religions develop around these insights.
We live in a world with self-organizing systems. These systems operate, whether or not anyone sits down and codifies rules or special celebrations. You don’t need to worry about the time before religions. These systems work for every part of nature without our help.
A code of conduct is highly personal. There is no way of knowing what some hypothetical god would tell us is “right” or even if there is such a thing as “right”. Moral codes change over time and vary among communities. Some people actually do benefit from actions that many others think is wrong, so, for them, the consequences are good. People have had hundreds of thousands of years to figure out what is “good” and what is “bad” but it seems people haven’t yet been able to do that because people still behave in different ways.
I do not believe in God. A vaguely human like identity ruling over everything. For us such belief is a cop out. We should be making the decisions, not leaving them up to some “higher power.”
Just the same it is mysterious. How do termites know to build air conditioned mounds? How come mites that infect the ears of bats, only ever infect one ear?!
Probably we will never know, but it shouldn’t stop us choosing our own way. No god is going to help us.
Who says that God is a vaguely human like entity ruling over everything?
God can be operating through self organizing systems of every kind. The vaguely human aspect comes about because observers in some religions find this way of describing what seem to be aspects of god. But if we start with African traditional religions, or those of Australia, I don’t think we would get as much of the idea of God behaving as humans do. The problem is that human observers are limited in their analogies.
You don’t ever recall seeing Michaelangelos creation of Adam? Who is the figure reaching out to touch life into Adam? It think you would find that imagery has penetrated western society right up to today.
Sorry, this came across as a little hypocritical.
Hypocritical means behaving in a way that suggests one has higher standards or more noble beliefs than is really the case.
Gail has expressed that she has a belief about a Higher Power behind everything that happens. To Mike, this came across as a little hypocritical. In order for Mike to feel like this, he needed to make certain assumptions about what was motivating Gail to hold this particular belief.
I don’t know why he linked the expression of belief in a Higher power with hypocrisy. But he must have been assuming that holding this belief was accompanied by some kind of pretentious behavior on Gail’s part that she hasn’t actually displayed.
Also,
If we really don’t know more, why do you think you do (the literal higher power)?
Belief means an acceptance that something exists or is true, especially without proof. It is a form of opinion, not a statement of fact or an expression of certainty. If proof was at hand, then Gail would have said that she knew, not that she believed.
I believe (in my opinion) that MIke has misinterpreted Gail’s prose because his grasp of the meaning of some words is “fuzzy” or “imprecise” which can lead him to read more into other people’s words than is actually there.
You can have whatever opinion you choose, Tim. I merely opined that Gail’s comment came across to me as hypocritical and for the reason I mentioned. If you disagree with that, then that’s fine.
By the way, without proof, one would have to have belief. If their were proof, then it becomes knowledge.
without proof, one would have to have belief.
Sounds superficially credible. But if we add an object to the statement, we see it still needs some work on it:
“Without proof of the existence of God, one would have to have belief in His existence.”
That doesn’t follow, surely.
The existence of self organization and the laws of physics seems to imply that a high level of “thought” underlies the earth’s ongoing creation, and in fact, the ongoing creation of the universe. This, to me, shows the existence of a Higher Power of some sort.
The existence of religions of many kinds around the world reflects the fact that people everywhere sense that there is more going on than we can explain in human terms.
The existence of what appear to be laws of physics is proof only that such laws exist. Even if some being was somehow running an experimental universe with those laws, that being would, itself, be operating under some physical laws. Otherwise, it couldn’t have brought this universe into existence. Consequently, there is no need to invoke some higher power to explain the existence of laws. Of course humans almost certainly haven’t discovered all of these laws, at least not to complete accuracy, but we can certainly perform analysis on energy policies without recourse to a higher power.
Perhaps I have seen the power of self-organization in practice, in Our Finite World. I started out with few credentials to figure out how the world economy operates and what goes wrong. Yet with the help of commenters on this site, I seem to put far more pieces of the puzzles together than those in academia. Dennis Meadows and his group put together very important and useful pieces of the story as well, as did researchers on historical collapse. Peak oilers had some of the right idea, but went off in the wrong direction. I have had the opportunity to get involved with approximately five different academic groups over the years. In this way, I could what goes right and what goes wrong.
In some ways, how all this has worked together has been a miracle. One commenter leaves and new ones take their place. People email me with their ideas and links to articles. All this has been helpful.
Gail, it is an excellent manifestation of a competitive-collaborative information sharing ecosystem.
People, ideas and hypotheses arrive, gets discussed, refined and perhaps even rejected and departs, thus the merry go around. It is a process of evolution. The spiritual essence of the competitive collaborative processes.
Allowing wild ideas and completely different perspectives is a fundamental strength of this site.
Funnily enough Dmitry wrote a few blog posts a while back on how the potential for rapid sea level rise of 6m was a very real threat. Looks like he has changed his mind.
Personally I stopped subscribing as I think he is getting too nutty. He really is pushing the nuke angle but has yet to back it up with anything substantial.
I haven’t ever subscribed…
his writing is usually worth the zero I pay for it… once in a while, he’s below that…
the couple of conspearasea theorries which he flaunts are the worst of his posts and quite aggravating (moon landings were faaaked and nine eleven buildings were not downed by huge jets loaded with jet fuel) but I think he does these two because his “donors” want to hear it, and perhaps he doesn’t really believe these two but he does it as an inside joke sort of mockiing his own audience…
whatever… once in a while he’s worth reading… many of his Ukraine posts are quite revealing…
this one today is better than most…
Is there money in anti-NASA conspiracy-mongering, then? I’m thinking of becoming a Flat Earther.
join the club(s)…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_flat_Earth_societies
Mike Hughes PROVES flat earth…. 🙂
Speaking of NASA conspearasea theorries, have you heard the one about the members of the Challenger crew still being alive and well and working in academia and industry?
This one has a nice German English narration.
https://youtu.be/XuYydr7615Y
If a 9/11 skeptic is automatically a nutter, then I guess I qualify. Burning jet fuel is not hot enough to melt steel. Much of the steel in the twin towers was melted. Therefore, they were not brought down by the jets.
Or maybe the hype about climate change and how we can prevent it has finally gotten to him.
and maybe it’s just really really cold where he is on his farm in Russia…
Truly astounding…indeed…same can be said of humans worldwide…
https://news.yahoo.com/truly-astounding-inside-farallon-islands-110036009.html?bcmt=1
First introduced by sailors in the late 19th century, the Farallones’ mouse population has exploded in recent years, reaching numbers that have been described as “plague-like”. Researchers arriving for months-long stints on the islands find they must share their space with a colony of scurrying neighbors whose density can reach a whopping 1,200 mice per acre – reportedly the highest rodent density of any island in the world.
“Sometimes you’ll see the ground moving as mice are burrowing their little tunnels underneath,” said Pete Warzybok, a senior marine ecologist who leads conservation research in the Farallones. “The numbers are truly astounding.”
The question of how best to solve the growing rodent problem has created a decade-long conservation drama, with scientists, federal agencies, and activist groups each convinced they know the best way to build a better mousetrap.
That is in part because of how difficult it is to wipe out a rodent population. “We have to get every last one,” Warzybok said. If even one male and female were left alive, the population would bounce back quickly.
cats…
Yes, Nature’s very own “ball bearing mousetrap”.
There goes the wildlife…i.e. birds
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Let’s be thankful we are NOT small family size farmers!
They’re Trying to Wipe Us Off the Map.’ Small American Farmers Are Nearing Extinction
Alana Semuels / Fremont, Wisc.
TimeNovember 27, 2019, 1:16 PM EST
For nearly two centuries, the Rieckmann family has raised cows for milk in this muddy patch of land in the middle of Wisconsin. Mary and John Rieckmann, who now run the farm and its 45 cows, have seen all manners of ups and downs — droughts, floods, oversupplies of milk that sent prices tumbling. But they’ve never seen a crisis quite like this one.
The Rieckmanns are about $300,000 in debt, and bill collectors are hounding them about the feed bill and a repayment for a used tractor they bought to keep the farm going. But it’s harder than ever to make any money, much less pay the debt, Mary Rieckmann says, in the yellow-wallpapered kitchen of the sagging farmhouse where she lives with her husband, John, and two of their seven children. The Rieckmanns receive about $16 for every 100 pounds of milk they sell, a 40 percent decrease from six years back. There are weeks where the entire milk check goes towards the $2,100 monthly mortgage payment. Two bill collectors have taken out liens against the farm. “What do you do when you you’re up against the wall and you just don’t know which way to turn?” Rieckmann says, as her ancient fridge begins to hum. Mary, 79, and John, 80, had hoped to leave the farm to their two sons, age 55 and 50, who still live with them and run the farm. Now they’re less focused on their legacy than about making it through the week.
In the American imagination, at least, the family farm still exists as it does on holiday greeting cards: as a picturesque, modestly prosperous expanse that wholesomely fills the space between the urban centers where most of us live. But it has been declining for generations, and the closing days of 2019 find small farms pummeled from every side: a trade war, severe weather associated with climate change, tanking commodity prices related to globalization, political polarization, and corporate farming defined not by a silo and a red barn but technology and the efficiencies of scale. It is the worst crisis in decades. Chapter 12 farm bankruptcies were up 12 percent in the Midwest from July of 2018 to June of 2019; they’re up 50 percent in the Northwest. Tens of thousands have simply stopped farming, knowing that reorganization through bankruptcy won’t save them. The nation lost more than 100,000 farms between 2011 and 2018; 12,000 of those between 2017 and 2018 alone.
Small isn’t beautiful Baby in the eyes of BAU….
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pXWD1zJ97d4
Very sure after the corporate farm takes over, the job openings will provide a nice living
Enjoy your meal
Round here the farmers sons drive brand new camaros at 16. The Mennonites live in mansions. If you own family farming land pretty hard to not make a $.
What do farmers grow in Oklahoma? Or, are they getting their money from renting their land for wind turbines? The subsidies for wind turbines end up in many places. Farmers are big recipients.
As I had posted previously. CO2 is not the primary greenhouse gas. H2O is. Anyone who has been out on a cloudy night can testify that it is warmer than a clear sky. That is why deserts rapidly cool at night because there is no water vapor to reflect radiation back down.
If all water vapor was removed our earth would be 30 deg cooler. Not true of CO2 which would be maybe 6 degrees. So instead of looking at CO2 maybe we should be looking at water vapor. Has there been an increase in water vapor in the atmosphere?
Yes and in an unnatural place. The lower stratosphere. Commercial aviation has exploded in the last 60 years and all modern jets fly just above the troposphere. And everyone here who has flown knows it’s true because we look down on the clouds. Water vapor generally stops at that level. However jet aircraft are emitting millions of tons of water vapor above it. And is very slow to drift down.
Historical readings show that the lower stratosphere has been increasing in humidity and the upper stratosphere has been cooling. Meaning heat is being reflected lowering the air above it.
CO2 is likely just political hype driven by big business. I’m sure the air industry would fight hard not to be sanctioned like the oil industry.
Is it just a political hype!? Just because H2O is a primary Greenhouse gas, does not mean other greenhouse gases are not a factor.
I suggest just do a simple goggle search to debunk your reasoning.
Here is a link …
https://skepticalscience.com/CO2-is-not-the-only-driver-of-climate-intermediate.htm
The fact the article ignores water vapor which is 60% of warming shows it’s a poor reference.
You might need to google some more.
Ok JT…
https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2019/07/30/co2-drives-global-warming/
From the article
But while water vapor is the dominant greenhouse gas in our atmosphere, it has “windows” that allow some of the infrared energy to escape without being absorbed. In addition, water vapor is concentrated lower in the atmosphere, whereas CO2 mixes well all the way to about 50 kilometers up. The higher the greenhouse gas, the more effective it is at trapping heat from the Earth’s surface.
My point is water vapor is being introduced in the upper atmosphere where it doesn’t belong. 36,000ft
Nice article
I haven’t researched this in detail, but I wonder whether much of the green-housing potential usually attributed to water vapor is actually the work of small particles of condensed water such as fog or mist?
Country folk observe that very cold nights are usually very clear, offering excellent resolution of faint objects in the night sky, such as the Milky Way, the Pleiades, the Andromeda Nebula, etc. The same atmospheric very clear atmospheric conditions in daytime result in strong sunshine.
Water vapor by itself in the form of individual molecules floating in the air is invisible. It doesn’t block visible light. Only when it condenses into particles is the blocking effect apparent to the naked eye.
And it is under the same conditions that visible light is not blocked and the sky is very clear that outgoing UV is not blocked and the nights become very cold.
It may be that two effects, one from individual water molecules and another from small particles of water, are at work, but I’ve not seen any discussion of this.
Regardless of that fact, it is the increase in CO2 that is the additional forcing causing current warming. Much has been written about this, so it’s surprising it still comes up.
The amount of ink laid down on paper is not a proof of the quality of the underlying assumptions.
“And yet it moves”
— Galileo Galilei
Seems some folks don’t realize proof is in the realm of mathematics, in science it is based on the scientific method, in addition to observations, experimentations, data collection and evidence.
Thus,
Without naturally occurring greenhouse gases, Earth’s average temperature would be near 0°F (or -18°C) instead of the much warmer 59°F (15°C). The concentration of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide and methane, has fluctuated naturally over geological time scales.
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/ma_01/
These are trace gases
In order, the most abundant greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere are:
Water vapor (H. 2O)
Carbon dioxide (CO. …
Methane (CH. …
Nitrous oxide (N. 2O)
Ozone (O. …
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)
Hydrofluorocarbons (includes HCFCs and HFCs
The atmosphere is composed of a mix of several different gases in differing amounts. … Nitrogen accounts for 78% of the atmosphere, oxygen 21% and argon 0.9%. Gases like carbon dioxide, nitrous oxides, methane, and ozone are trace gases that account for about a tenth of one percent of the atmosphere.
Are you saying that because the amount of heat trapping gases is small that a slight increase can’t possibly have any discernible effect? I don’t think that is mathematics and hundreds of thousands of scientists would disagree with that hypothesis, and be able to show why.
I’m not saying at all. Perhaps contacting the above link and inquiry with them if need be!
P.S. Without trace greenhouse gases the planet would be an ice all.
OK, thanks.
Hey Mike why not stop with your dumb appeals to authority and appeal to majority fallacies.
Yes indeed, stop being an useful idiot to the crackpottery of modern day climate “science”.
Ah yes, the famous “eppur si muove”. In three words, Galileo had overturned the several thousand words penned by the Church condemning the heliocentric theory. And the whole controversy was in vain, because Aristarkhos of Samos had propounded the same theory in about 150BC, and published in the Library of Alexandria his proof that it was correct. As you can see for yourselves: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aristarchus_working.jpg
Probably older civilizations preceding his also drew the same conclusion.
The church of the past is modern day climate “science”, albeit not as cruel and horrible. “Monkey do” shenanigans cranked to 11.
The church of the past provided jobs and a place to live for a lot of “extra” children (beyond the first son and daughter). In fact, building cathedrals provided employment for a lot of folks who otherwise would not have been employed. Selling indulgences was a way of getting the wealthy to “voluntarily” contribute money that could be spread around to the many people the church employed, plus perhaps some others.
I have do not agree with the teaching of the Catholic Church, but I can see that it has served valuable functions over time.
Cheap labor by promoting the virtue of reproduction. As the Catholic Church still is busying themselves with today.
Nothing wrong with that in the dawn of fossil fuels, for a little while, but prior to that amidst crop failure and bad harvests, it is a recipe for malnutrition, drudgery, starvation and outright slavery to the church and local overlord. The government corporate complex of the olden days.
But make no mistake, I do not condemn people for being religious and spiritual, it is organized and politicized religion that is awful. If people find their own purpose in life from the teachings of Jesus, Muhammed, Buddha and Brahman. Then good for them.
Speaking of the scientific method, the crank in the video below apparently states that falsifiability is not really that important and that the university labs are a fun playground where project plans and timelines enters the realm of spooky action at a distance freestyle “science”.
The old guard must be turning in their graves. This quack can not give one definitive answer. The interviewer was thoroughly confused.
https://youtu.be/xG3-_tgDE0k
But wait, there is more from this crank.
https://youtu.be/CV8rNiBECCA
Can’t imagine that this is going to help trade talks:
“Donald Trump has signed into law legislation backing pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, angering Beijing which has condemned the bill as “full of prejudice and arrogance”.
““This is a pure interference in China’s internal affairs,” China’s ministry of foreign affairs said on Thursday, hours after the bill was signed by Trump.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/27/trump-hong-kong-bills-signed-china-protest
“China summoned U.S. Ambassador Terry Brandstad on Thursday to demand that the United States stop interfering with its internal affairs immediately.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7733415/Trump-signs-bills-support-Hong-Kong-protesters.html
How about the concentration camps China has for ethnic minorities? name any other country that wouldnt be sanctioned hard for that. Besides that one of course… Yup just make doing business with China illegal via santions… LOL. There is no solution for the “trade war”. Might as well put China on the non approved list. Vietnam investments looking good!
It would be more accurate to call them a religious minority, not an ethnic minority. And perhaps China feels that suicide bombers, homicidal truck drivers, machete wielding fanatics, and rape gangs targeting underage girls are not what they want in their country. France, Sweden, Germany and Britain, observe and learn.
China has tried to be anti-religious, and this seems to be part of its efforts in this direction. The government, in a sense, wants to put together a new order to doing things that is different from religious values. A person does what he can get away with. It is the role of the state to monitor everyone, and give people some sort of value points.
The US economy is shifting into this role as well. Keep all sorts of religions out of the schools. All sporting events at all times of the weekend. Teachers are not to talk about what is good or bad. Poor families are terribly unstable; they rarely stay together if they actually do marry. Jobs that are available to this group are at irregular hours and pay poorly. They make normal family life impossible.
At the same time, private citizens, businesses, and governmental groups put monitoring cameras everywhere. Software is increasing used to sort out who is a good person and who is not, according to whatever criterion seem to work. Using this approach, a mentally ill person can be characterized as a bad person, hampering his or her ability to get a job, even if treatment helps fix the situation.
It would be more accurate to call them a religious minority, not an ethnic minority.
Neither OK Boomer nor you Robert have specified who “them” are.
If, as I suspect, OK Boomer was referring to the Uyghurs and the Tibetans, then even the Chinese government acknowledges them as ranking among China’s 55 officially recognized ethnic minorities.
Suicide bombers, homicidal truck drivers, machete wielding fanatics, and rape gangs targeting underage girls are a minority among almost every ethnic group I can think of. Obviously, the Chinese government takes a very dim view of anybody who challenges its monopoly on violence, and if it catches individuals doing any of these things, it will result in the miscreants’ losing valuable points in the social credit system, possibly leading to no more pudding after Sunday lunch.
Trump’s signature cannot help our relationship with China.
Looking at today’s headlines, they are pretty busy with what is on their plate, not enough pork in the world, one has to wonder about grain as well; yesterday at dinner heard of a fellow with 3,000 acres of corn still in the field, there is snow on the ears.
China basically sold to the US while we used our accrued wealth as a backup to the CC and purchased stuff. As witnessed by the disappearance of so many retailers, that gig is pretty well over, they are short people who can and will buy their stuff.
If Hong Kong is truly that important to China, from the little I saw some years ago while there, the resource is the people. If they cease to cooperate, having the beatings continue until the morale improves might not work.
When one owns capital that requires people, it is the owner’s who are hostage to the capital as without skilled people it is just so much non productive stuff. Today’s world requires skilled people who can work as teams, even in a placed as seemingly simple as the Menards of the world.
Yes, good luck finding skilled people these days, specially good engineers. The slightest whiff of incompetent stewardship, bad pay, and people are out looking around on LinkedIn.
But it is good comedy working for an almost totally disorganized company. All the bad choices, lack of basic systems engineering, managers focusing on irrelevant details because they don’t understand the full picture of a complex project scope, the (awful) design which is intractable to grasp. Then experiencing the inevitable reorganization as the customers had enough of the chaos and incompetence. LOLZ. “Sayonara” suckers!
Once behind, it is almost impossible to catch up without poaching skilled people from competitors and compensating them sufficiently enough. But not even that might be enough, because nobody wants their work to be part of a shit-show amateur hour.
“We can’t find good people”, seems to be the current trope in corporate Sweden. Yeah, it is because you suck. Nobody wants to work for you.
I have been there. This disease in endemic in modern companies: managers who are ignorant, incompetent, arrogant, and in consequence destructive. And it can be traced back to one man, Frederick Winslow Taylor. Fortunately, there is a cure: bankruptcy. Unfortunately, there is a prophylactic: debt, which allows zombie companies to live well beyond the point where traditional economics would have buried them at the crossroads.
Another feature of Modern Monetary Theory: the unsuccessful should be able to parasitise the successful, until both fall into the abyss. As was prophetically (if boringly) foretold in “Atlas Shrugged”
“The ‘catastrophic consequences’ of this debt pile are widely predicted by experts.
“The Aspen Institute describes the situation as a crisis, and claims that unprecedented levels of debts (and defaults) in the US will ‘impact at every level: individual, family, community, and for the nation as a whole’.
“It believes that the bubble will burst and, when it does, prison numbers will rise, healthcare will be unaffordable and governments will be ‘forced’ to bail out banks and individuals without the means to support themselves.””
https://metro.co.uk/2019/11/27/consumer-debt-doomsday-levels-meaning-economy-will-come-crashing-11202758/
“A financial crisis that left in its wake deflationary price pressures, low productivity, stagnant incomes, a spike in populism, a backlash against globalization: if that all sounds familiar, you may not like the following insight.
“It comes from Dario Perkins, global macro economist for TS Lombard, who, in a Wednesday note, described the historical period he thinks most resembles the current moment. That era is called, a bit bleakly, the Long Depression, and stretched from 1873 to about 1896, depending on the country.”
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/are-we-in-for-a-repeat-of-the-long-depression-2019-11-27
This is the long-term productivity growth chart shown.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/long-term-productivity-rates-ts-lombard.png
When I look back at my history of population growth and energy consumption growth net of population growth, the period 1873 to 1896 seems to be a period of low energy consumption growth net of population growth. Energy consumption growth was growing as fast as it had in the recent past, or faster. The problem was that population was growing almost as fast.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/growth-rate-in-world-energy-consumption-showing-population-vs-living-standards-to-2018.png
I think that the exacerbating problem was the larger number of children who lived to maturity and mothers who survived childbirth when we learned about the germ theory and pasteurization.
Also, Ignaz Semmelweis in Austria made the discovery that if the doctor washed his hands before delivering babies, the maternal mortality rate was much lower, about this time.
But population growth, without accompanying energy consumption growth was not good.
when I look at that long-term productivity growth chart, I get the feeling that the downward slope on the right side will not change course until it is well into negative territory…
so we will be in a trend that is worse than the Long Depression of 1873-1896…
I suppose some persons might think the growth could go to negative 100% quite soon…
a few % negative through the 2020s and 2030s might give about the same result…
Gail, how do you distinguish between burst financial bubbles causing reduced energy use vs reduced energy abundance causing financial crises?
Self-organizing systems act through many mechanisms at the same time. So I am not certain that it is necessarily possible to distinguish between different types of financial crises.
The big distinction I see in financial crises is
(1) Fast crash from high oil and other commodity prices – affecting oil importers especially
(2) Slow crash from low oil and other commodity prices – affecting exporters of commodities, and also companies making goods with commodities.
We are experiencing the “slow crash” now. The 2008 version was the fast crash type.
Reduced energy use can come from either increased wage disparity (with low prices) or from a popping debt bubble. A popping debt bubble can occur whenever there is a slowdown in economic growth locally.
Reduced energy abundance mostly comes from businesses going bankrupt or their governments collapsing. I don’t think it happens otherwise. As long as prices can rise, it always looks as though energy is becoming more abundant. This is when looked at on a world basis; individual countries will show their production “peaking.” Too much importance has been attached to this phenomenon. I think it is mostly a figment of the imagination of “Peak Oilers.”
Thanks. Do you think it’s possible that a financial crisis arise simply from excessive speculation especially when it’s fed with easy money (ha! No pun intended) even when there are no underlying enerrgy/commodity problems? Of course, there will always be a stated trigger, but that doesn’t make it correct. To me it seems possible (e.g. tulip mania) but I haven’t looked at enough historical data to be certain.
In fact, a person wonders whether governments and financial institutions can withstand the threat the Aspen Institute describes.
Right. The scenario they describe is not compatible with the continued functioning of the global financial system and the complex supply-chains it enables.
Right… and what is left unsaid, but which I often like to say, is that this “debt pile” is piling ever higher because there is less net (surplus) energy flowing through the global economic system and thus that system is losing its ability to make adequate profits which would go a long way to keeping debt levels down…
runaway debt is a signal of decreasing energy…
there, I said it again…
Probably true. But I think the world would be a far better place if gloval finance disappeared, and supply chains became much simpler and shorter. Long supply chains really make sense only for luxuries unavailable elsewhere: silk, for example.
Global supply chains require huge amounts of fossil fuels. If goods and people stay at home, much less transportation fuel is required.
The means of production would also become part of the local ecosystem, thus pollution would directly be visible locally and not masked by moving factories elsewhere where the corrupt govt don’t give a rats ass about ruining the environment.
meh. So what else is new. Money is debt. If you have 10,000 dollars in the bank you own 10,000 dollars of debt. The cure for debt is … more debt. “debt” is lending debt. The only way all this was not debt was energy surpluses. Thats gone. How about storing the waste from a nuclear power plant for half life of 24,000 years? Five times the age of the pyramids. Who is going to pay that energy debt “borrowed” for energy now? No one because the energy doesnt exist to pay the debt. Same for all debt. As long as energy gets extracted debt payments are payable. As soon as it doesnt payments of all sorts end.. Our entire species is in debt. Debt is simply a aspect of the ponzi tale of endless energy. Yes a Gail has shown borrowing allows things. And now the lending borrowing thing persists even as it no longer has any hope of recovering the energy it lends now because it allows continuance. The cure for debt is more debt. Thats easy. No energy not so much.
“Money is debt”? Ah yes, MMT strikes again. Debt can indeed be a medium of exchange, but, almost by definition, it cannot be a store of value. And it is that attribute of sound money that created capitalism. Which debt and fiat money are busily destroying, much to the advantage of those who issue debt, and so steal the future of the little people who naively thought that thrift would still be rewarded.
Regarding that quote, most of it is probably true except for the part about bailing out individuals without the means to support themselves. Unless they mean sending them to prison.
One part of “bailing out people” was to send them food stamps. A typical “welfare” program, to hand out tokens for goods that do not exist, in the belief that they will appear by magic. And so, food prices in places of “extreme poverty” (meaning, places where the people are richer than only 90% of the world’s population) began a steady climb, eventually erasing any supposed benefit.
And again as usual, the failure is blamed by liberals on insufficient funding, and by conservatives on “waste, fraud and abuse”. Both trying to evade the true problem, that the failure is intrinsic to the process.
“Investors are pulling back from the riskiest parts of the US corporate bond market, fearing that a brightening domestic economy may not be enough to save hundreds of companies struggling under heavy debt burdens.
“Corporate bond markets have enjoyed a big rally this year, buoyed by a trio of interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve and by signs that the world’s largest economy is on a solid footing.
“An index of junk-rated debt run by Ice Data Services has returned almost 12 per cent this year, as bullish fund managers look lower down the credit spectrum in pursuit of income. But in those furthest reaches there are signs of strain…
““Beneath the surface of what looks like . . . an enthusiasm for taking credit risk, there is a consciousness that all is not rosy,” said Marty Fridson, chief investment officer of Lehmann Livian Fridson Advisors in New York.Three years ago, pain among US companies with junk ratings was mostly limited to companies in the energy sector, which was grappling with a steep fall in the price of crude. Now distressed borrowers are spread more widely…
““The macro picture is not great,” said Fraser Lundie, head of credit at Hermes Investment Management. “Clearly, low-quality credit requires a good economy to grow into its capital structure.””
https://www.ft.com/content/f715e496-1102-11ea-a7e6-62bf4f9e548a
“Bosses in corporate America are losing faith in the future of the American economy. How they feel about the economy has fallen to its lowest level since the financial crisis back in 2008-2009, according to a recent report from Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs.
“In other words, they don’t just feel bad. They feel awful.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonconstable/2019/11/27/ceo-optimism-vanishes-on-lingering-trade-tensions—the-gloom-may-hit-wall-street/#4caa4bfd72e4
Besides a low commodity price problem, we have a low corporate profit problem around the world. How can a company invest, if profits in every direction are low? How can prices (for medicine, advanced education, fancier autos) keep rising, to compensate for increasing complexity?
Got to thinking of stories told by my mother of her father and lighting on the farm, with some modern information came across this old information. It deals with lighting as well as graphically showing some solutions to street maintenance going forward. Spoiler alert on the street maintenance, a good pair of rubber boots might be useful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho_ZDrVlDZw
Dennis L.
‘Wherever sedentism and agriculture took hold, from China to South and Central America, coercion by the powerful replaced cooperation among equals. In Jared Diamond’s blunt assessment, the Neolithic Revolution was “the worst mistake in the history of the human race.”
https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-humanoid-stain-ehrenreich
Nature does not make mistakes. It is perfect and follows the processes defined by the laws of physics.
The modern human is hell bent on opposing nature with all our collective might. But it does not work that way. Either we comply with the process of nature, or the process leaves us knee deep in the predicament we have created for ourselves.
Yes, even that unfortunate outcome is part of the process. Now, do we ride the wave or end up slowly drowning in the wake from our idiotic “monkey do” dominator behaviors?
We all know the answer to that, don’t we? But hey, look, Elon Musk just announced the stainless steel cyber truck. Buy, buy, buy..
https://media.tenor.com/images/0ddfd007a7f5ccac02fb83efa92c5b63/tenor.gif
Nature does not make mistakes. It is perfect and follows the processes defined by the laws of physics.
Nature is just a social construct, surely.
No, sorry, I thought you were referring to the he world’s leading multidisciplinary science journal that publishes the finest peer-reviewed research that drives … (well, that’s how it’s described on their website!)
On reflection, I suppose you mean the phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations.
Well, that’s a social construct too, surely.
I could invent a noun, atim and an adjective atimical to mean all things and phenomena apart from my own personal creations, and that would be just as valid as the concept of nature, which doesn’t exist in nature but only in that tiny tortured organ between our ears that passes for a brain!
Attempting to draw a meaningful distinction between things human and all other things in the Universe. HOW DARE YOU!!
https://i.imgflip.com/3bvbeg.jpg
I don’t think Kowalainen was trying to create a distinction between Man and Nature. We are part of Nature; to paraphrase John Donne, no species is an island. But we are part of the problem because many humans do not believe that; we believe we are, indeed, different. And as long as almost all of us embrace that belief, there is no way back to some mythical age “when wild in woods the noble savage ran”.
The European Parliament has just voted to declare a Climate Emergency. Because we, and we alone, can save the climate. They do not realise that it was precisely that attitude, that hubris, that created our predicament.
Exactly.
So Greta is still pushing our right wings friends buttons?
She doesn’t seem to go away–
I wonder why?
(sarc)
The oldest tactic in history, divide and conquer. Yes Duncan.
DIVIDE AND CONQUER
https://main-inspirationfeed.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Adobe-Spark-7-min-1-800×800.jpg
Oh, that’s easy-peasy.
I was getting mighty tired of having my buttons pushed by Al Gore.
The Red Guard girl is more photogenic and less threatening.
https://i.redd.it/ut9uxjufo1u21.png
“The modern human is hell bent on opposing nature with all our collective might.”
With foot all the way down on the accelerator.
“Now, do we ride the wave or end up slowly drowning in the wake from our idiotic “monkey do” dominator behaviors? We all know the answer to that, don’t we?”
Sure do. It is clear those of our species making it through the impending bottleneck, will need to learn some very harsh lessons through crisis. And that’s if it is a bottleneck and not a brick wall.
There will be no lessons to be learned . The reset will be so deep and complete that there is total amnesia of what came before.
Perhaps we could build some large structure as a message to future generations. Like, some large stone structure which will stand the test of time. And place it somewhere it does not rain that much, like in modern day Egypt perhaps.
Wait a second.. Hold on a minute..
https://youtu.be/pocINhHymFg
There is an important lesson we can learn from Ancient Egypt. Five thousand years ago, they built the first Nilometer. This measured the height of the annual Nile flood, and the priests then decided how much staple food to plant when the flood receded. In other words: work with Nature, not against her.
There is a few problems with that nostalgic story. Foremost: The priesthood and royal dynasties which inevitably will become corrupt and cruel. Just as the government industrial complex is becoming today.
All decision making, knowledge and information should be distributed amongst the people. If they depart from following the rules of nature, then starvation and death quite naturally will correct that in a hurry.
Mother nature is a rather good teacher and discipliner, we don’t need any modern day priesthood, corrupt and vulgar rulers expressing the worst aspects of primate behaviors as they seek to dominate others.
Should we be the tree trying to stand up to all storms without bending, and liable to shatter; or grass, yielding to each breeze and not breaking?
First set out and debated in Chinese literature many centuries ago,….
Yet the oldest living beings on earth are trees, but they do not impose themselves on nature. In fact they are a micro ecosystem of their own, in complete harmony with nature.
Some stand there for eons, through ice ages, meteor strikes, hurricanes, lightning strikes, earth quakes, firmly pointed at the stars as if they long for something more than earthly existence.
“The root system of Pando, at an estimated 80,000 years old, is among the oldest known living organisms.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)
Trees are eternal. The Chinese are not.
‘Tree’ and ‘grass’ here function in a rhetorical and poetical sense only, of course. One musn’t be too literal…..
Trees as a species are a lot older than grasses. 8 millions years for grasses, Hundreds of millions for trees. As if its anything but a curiosity?
Xabier, sometimes one must stand firm as the winds of change bends the grass.
Let’s think about “Nature does not make mistakes.”
In cell replication, errors are made , cancer cells arise and proliferate at various rates, sometimes very slowly as with prostate cancer, sometimes very rapidly as with pancreatic cancer.
In life species differ in fitness for the environment, the moth story in early industrialized England with white moths being rapidly preyed upon and brown moths blending into the soot is well known. At one point brown was a mistake, later, a beneficial error. Physics is not as deterministic as we like to think, if it be so, take classical physics and solve the three body problem, or at the other end, look at quantum mechanics.
Humans wish a certitude, a good example is pension managers who insist upon a 7.7% return; they find someone who promises it and then wonder why things don’t work when the published growth rate of the economy is 3%.
The process of nature is a much earlier death than we experience, the process of nature in my youth was the risk of polio, we conquered that part of nature with Salk vaccine. Politically, letting nature take its course might be a tough sell in an election.
Dennis L.
My point being that the processes of nature and evolution specially does not make mistakes, our predicament is an outcome of a process which we label as problematic because it is bad for us, and indeed it is, but it is not a bug, it is a feature.
Nature does experiment through the means of evolution. Nature does not make distinctions between ‘good’ and ‘bad’, we do. That is a fundamental problem of ours. If we would align our thought processes and actions closer to those of the governing principles of nature, we would experience less problems originating from ourselves and the prejudices we have.
Indeed, we have to think in terms of the human condition as process and figure out how to suppress our terrible primate behaviors seeking to dominate others instead of inviting them as members in a competitive collaborative process.
The market economy, common law and money is already invented and Internet is here, now where do we go from here? Straight to the abyss apparently, because as a primate with a bad habit of dominating others, that’s all we understand.
YES INDEED – BAU TONIGHT BABY!
As some of the more spiritual and educated of us occasionally shouts enthusiastically. 😉
Regarding quantum physics, yes, most scientists think it is incomplete because it is fundamentally statistical in nature. The problem with relativity is who is the observer relative to and the conceptual misunderstanding between distance, clocks and time? Nobody mistakes a thermometer as temperature, yet clocks are used to define time itself. Also, why does cosmologist use unscientific, undefined, concepts such as zero division (black holes) in their quest for understanding nature. It is pseudoscience and esotericism.
https://www.wordsonimages.com/pics/53982-o.jpg
One thing seems quite clear; Gaia definitely turns mineral into complexity through the processes of evolution and life. I would conclude she desires complexity above all as a fundamental driving principle. And we can see evidence of it in the astonishing complexity in the biosphere of earth.
Kowalainen, just a few minor comments about quantum mechanics, a subject with which I have some familiarity, having studied it under Paul Dirac at the University of Cambridge. First, it is not statistical; conventional statistics predicts outcome probabilities that have been experimentally refuted. Klein’s review article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2010/808424 gives a brief (if dense) overview. Secondly, the “statistics” are in the interpretation, not the equations, and I know of at least two interpretations that disagree: Cramer’s “Transactional Interpretation”: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280926546_The_transactional_interpretation_of_quantum_mechanics, and Everett’s “Relative State”: http://jamesowenweatherall.com/SCPPRG/EverettHugh1957PhDThesis_BarrettComments.pdf.
Finally, black holes are a prediction of relativity, which is still based on classical physics, and obsolete physics at that, from Michell in 1783 (!), which used the corpuscular theory of light. The supposed singularity is impossible in quantum mechanics; the Heisenberg indeterminacy principle prohibits it.
Thanks Robert, here is a few of my thoughts regarding QM. It is possibly nothing new, but anyway. ☺️
There are many different interpretations of QM, thus it is flawed since it does not provide a definite understanding of the workings of nature.
It might be such that a true interpretation is intractable to obtain for any physical device, natural or synthetic. Or the theory might be fundamentally flawed, just like the absurd epicycles cobbled together to form the geocentric system.
Is the cat dead or alive, one might ponder. Did that atom spontaneously decay or was it already a part of the process together with the cat, the rest of the universe together with the measuring apparatus?
The fundamental problem is that we can not conduct conclusive experiment on the fabric of the universe itself, because we are ourselves part of that fabric. As you state, “no man is an island”.
It is a problem of reductionism. It is all interconnected and does not yield to be taken apart without consideration of all the other parts in the universe in which it itself is an integral part.
QM is reductionism taken to its limit and it will not yield further inquiry. We must then come to the conclusion that our minds together with the measuring apparatus is an aperture in which the universe enters a logical infinite recursion at every point and instant forming the physical reality.
The universe thus is beyond the realm of being computable since there is no means in which we can detach ourselves from the process itself, and what would that even mean if it was possible?
That is a conclusion which I find plausible.
https://storage.googleapis.com/appivo-websites/www/2016/11/robot-thinking-one.png
But every silver lining has a cloud.
The Cutter Incident: How America’s First Polio Vaccine Led to a Growing Vaccine Crisis book review)
In April 1955 more than 200 000 children in five Western and mid-Western USA states received a polio vaccine in which the process of inactivating the live virus proved to be defective. Within days there were reports of paralysis and within a month the first mass vaccination programme against polio had to be abandoned. Subsequent investigations revealed that the vaccine, manufactured by the California-based family firm of Cutter Laboratories, had caused 40 000 cases of polio, leaving 200 children with varying degrees of paralysis and killing 10.
Paul Offit, paediatrician and prominent advocate of vaccination, sets the `Cutter incident’ in the context of the struggle of medical science against polio and other infectious diseases over the course of the 20th century. He reminds us that, within a decade of Karl Landsteiner’s identification of the polio virus in 1908, an epidemic in New York killed 2400 people (mostly children) and left thousands more with a life-long disability. In the 1950s, summer outbreaks in the USA caused tens of thousands of cases, leaving hundreds paralysed or dead. `Second only to the atomic bomb’, polio was `the thing that Americans feared the most’.
Offit provides a gripping account of how the `March of Dimes’, inspired in part by President Franklin D Roosevelt’s personal experience of polio, raised funds for research and focused national attention on the disease. He profiles leading figures, notably Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin —brilliant, egotistical and flawed characters—pioneers in vaccine development and as scientific celebrities, and notorious for their bitter personal rivalry.
Offit offers a balanced judgement on both the Cutter incident and on the Salk and Sabin vaccines. Reviewing failures in the manufacturing and inspection processes, he exonerates Salk from blame and concludes that `the federal government, through its vaccine regulatory agency… was in the best position to avoid the Cutter tragedy’. Three larger companies produced safe polio vaccines according to Salk’s protocol for inactivating the virus with formaldehyde. The lack of experience and expertise at Cutter Laboratories, undetected by the inspectors, caused the disaster.
While acknowledging Salk’s mean-spiritedness towards colleagues, Offit believes that in denying him a Nobel prize, history has dealt harshly with a man who was `the first to do many things’ that have contributed to the virtual eradication of polio in the USA. The Cutter incident led to the replacement of Salk’s formaldehyde-treated vaccine with Sabin’s attenuated strain. Though Sabin’s vaccine had the advantages of being administered orally and of fostering wider `contact immunity’, it could also be re-activated by passage through the gut, resulting in occasional cases of polio (still causing paralysis in six to eight children every year in the 1980s and 1990s, when a modified Salk vaccine was re-introduced). As Offit observes, `ironically, the Cutter incident—by creating the perception among scientists and the public that Salk’s vaccine was dangerous —led in part to the development of a polio vaccine that was more dangerous’.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1383764/
For Kowalainen, to whom I cannot reply directly, and again about quantum mechanics.
I respectfully disagree with your claim that QM must be incomplete. The numerous “interpretations” are not about QM, but about us: our attempt to understand what it all means. The equations are unambiguous; the interpretations are but shadows cast on the cave walls of our own imperfect understanding. I well remember the lecture when Dirac created the universe out of nothing, with one mathematical concept.
But yes, you are right that while the mathematics is comprehensible, what it is telling us is perhaps beyond our understanding. It is certainly beyond mine; and I remember all his students of quantum field theory would leave the lecture hall with haunted looks, and speak not a word.
But one lesson did sink home: everything is connected to everything else, by the quantum entanglement that is perhaps the basis for Jung and Pauli’s “synchronicity”. And therefore, if there is a “higher power”, it is emergent, not transcendent. It is the Cosmos becoming aware of itself.
And by the way, time is not measured by clocks: that is one of Einstein’s (many) errors. Time is measured by the wavelength of the cosmic microwave background radiation, which is a universal standard of absolute rest and absolute time.
I respectfully disagree. Time is fictional.
Time can not be created by anything physical. It can not be altered, defined and definitively measured. We have no choice but to measure time by its definition, which these days is an atomic clock.
The infinite recursion of the total interdependence of the universe is timeless. As observers of and from the universe we are apertures which the universe looks upon itself, is in itself an infinite recursion. The mirror which mirrors itself. The camera which points at the display.
https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/news/technology-science/article5010306.ece/ALTERNATES/s1200/Infinite-Loop.jpg
Kowalainen, thank you for your response, with which I might disagree, but in which I find no fault that might refute you. Perhaps we are both blind men groping the elephant, so let us continue the conversation.
It would be easier if you just agree with me. But where is the fun in that. A little bit of irritation to rile people up is like the impulse response of a system. You sort of get the gist of the inner workings without having to pick them apart.
😎
Thank you for posting this. There’s nothing like getting a glimpse of life in the past as it unfolded in real time. I especially liked the special effects of the service man shinnying up the pole as if by magic. Maybe they staged the scene by filming in reverse action?
Now we know why Automobile sales are way, way down….
Jeremy Clarkson: Greta Thunberg has killed the car show
Albertina Lloyd
Albertina LloydEntertainment reporter, Yahoo UK
Jeremy Clarkson blames “idiot” climate change activist Greta Thunberg for killing the car show.
The former Top Gear presenter, who is returning with another series of Amazon Prime motor series The Grand Tour, claimed young people have been turned against cars by the 16-year-old environmental campaigner.
Clarkson, 59, told The Sun: “Everyone I know under 25 isn’t the slightest bit interested in cars – Greta Thunberg has killed the car show.
“They’re taught at school, before they say ‘Mummy and Daddy’, that cars are evil, and it’s in their heads.”
He added: “She’s an idiot. Going round saying we’re all going to die, that’s not going to solve anything, my dear.”
The Grand Tour co-presenter Richard Hammond, 49, agreed: “I hate to say it, but I think Jeremy is right.
“Young people don’t care about cars. How many kids now are growing up with posters of cars on their bedroom wall
And it’s not because of this at all…nope…not at all
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nRAJwaLV-iU
No, affordability has no bearing on it….
Blame G.T. for low car sales? That’s hilarious.
When the Bureau of Labor Statistics figures out CPI, they assume that all of the added features on a car add value, so that they are not inflationary. The problem is that the only version of a vehicle you can get has all kinds of unaffordable features. The cars, over time, become more and more unaffordable relative to wages.
The same kind of thing happens with health care. We get all kinds of new types of high cost care. Often, this high cost care is needed because our food system provides us food stripped of the proper nutrients and fiber. We also don’t have time to exercise, because we spend so much time working at a desk. This health care cost keeps rising relative to the wages of ordinary citizens, creating a problem.
Needless to say, the same thing happens with education. Now we need a lot more education for today’s jobs, but the government isn’t paying for it.
Homes are becoming more expensive too, probably because of the low interest rates on debt. This is another headache.
No wonder young people are frustrated and depressed.
Paragraph 1: It is opinion only, but cheap cars don’t seem to sell off the lot, people want fancy stuff. In MN I believe 60+ percent of vehicles sold are pickup trucks – they are huge, almost all four wheel drive which adds weight, etc.
Paragraph 2: Yes, time at desk is a disaster, the problem is more and more work requires more and more mental input. The more a person sits the more he/she wants to sit – personal experience. Hire a trainer, show up and he/she will work you to death should you so desire, cheaper than health issues.
Paragraph 3: I am starting to suspect that some people don’t have the mental agility to do some of the more demanding courses. As I have mentioned several times(in my initial retirement I took many of the HVAC courses at a cc) HVAC requires a fair degree of comfort with electrical circuits let alone the ability to program the new thermostats. Lose the instructions and one can more easily purchase a new one with instructions.
Paragraph 4: Anecdotally much of the cost in new homes is coming from the permitting process which is not all bad. Cities don’t seem to allow developers to short change the sewer systems or build inferior roads – at least if the inspectors are not on the take. Rule of building, the inspector is always right. Around my farm the county building commission had a major go around with an Amish family that wanted to run their sewage directly on to the ground rather than a leach field.
Paragraph 5: I am impressed with the kids in my math class, they are very well behaved, they mostly do their work and listening to them they are moving forward. The high school student behind me will take welding next semester in preparation for NDS and a career in ME. Welding will pay the freight on school. If I am reading them correctly I am picking up an aversion among these young people for major universities, these kids are interested in an education. The kids in my class are not overweight. There are some real positives with our youth.
Dennis L.
My point is that the self-organizing system seems to be working against young people and those with low wages. They end up without enough money for everything.
If there were less wage disparity and fewer high tech solutions, these problems would mostly go away. There would be far fewer vehicle choices, and the vehicles available would be cheaper. Health care providers could finish their degrees in a regular four-year university, and charge fees that were not much above the average wages for everyone else. Education would be more limited; the government could afford to pay for it, instead of expecting young people to go into debt to pay for it.
Exceedingly cheap shelter would be another one. But all the “remedies” would need to be mutually supportive. They would require a different system which would include meaningful work.
Ah yes, “product differentiation”. I used to teach this stuff. When every car serves the basic function of getting people from Point A to Point B, why by our car rather than theirs? Why, because it has a sunroof, a stereo cassette player, trim in British Racing Green, … None of which is relevant to the basic function of the product, but it brings in revenue.
One example I used was the car radio. It turns out that a more expensive car has a more expensive radio, even if it is the exact same model as in the cheaper car. So in a saturated market, the incentive is to add frills, not to improve the basic product. Two cheers for capitalism.
“Oil is the New Data
“Zero Cool
“Big Tech is forging a lucrative partnership with Big Oil, building a new carbon cloud that just might kill us all.
” … In 2017, Chevron signed a seven-year deal with Microsoft, potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars, to establish Microsoft as its primary cloud provider. Oil companies like Chevron are the perfect customer for cloud providers. For years, they have been generating enormous amounts of data about their oil wells. Chevron alone has thousands of oil wells around the world, and each well is covered with sensors that generate more than a terabyte of data per day. (A terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes.)
” … Zero Cool is the pseudonym of a software engineer at Microsoft.”
https://logicmag.io/nature/oil-is-the-new-data/
In this piece, the author describes a trip to Kazakhstan, dealing with a Chevron oil project there.
I wonder, did it occur to them, that, without fossil fuels, there wouldn’t have BEEN any computers, or even the plane which took them there?
There’s lots of the dominant story about climate change, though.
At the Casualty Actuarial Society meeting I attended earlier in November, the invited guest speaker was talking about ethics in data analysis. Somewhere early in her talk, she remarked, “Data is the new oil.”
I sat there thinking, “Of course, data is not the new oil. All you can do by looking inward at your own data is fairly limited. At best, you can steal a few customers from competitors or find a slightly less expensive way of settling claims. Perhaps you can identify a few fraudulent claims. If you want to see what is happening in the real world, you need to look outward, at what is happening with energy. Are prices high enough for producers to keep producing?”
interesting how misguided one’s contemporaries can be— presumably with the same level of intellect and available information input
you remain certain that oil is a unique category of wealth creation
she remains certain that money can be created out of nothing
other than by an arm wrestling contest, it would be interesting to see how you could bring her to the path of righteousness
Overall, no argument, but…
While I have issues with Amazon and the likes, in terms of energy needed, shopping on Amazon is much less energy intensive than physically shopping which involves multiple stops at multiple stores and in the old days multiple malls. If I make a decision based on online information, that effectively substitutes electricity for oil used in my physical transportation which would be part of her point.
Reluctantly, I am giving up writing and mailing checks to pay bills; electronic bills, electronic payment substitutes electricity for physical transportation of paper. It is much cheaper from my standpoint in that there is no stamp in both directions and no cost of the physical check. These are no small things.
Information will allow drones to fly, again delivery, again substituting electricity for oil, again, perhaps from Google maps, again information.
3D printing is in its infancy, but it comes from information and if the product is used locally, eliminates multiple transportation and packaging issues, electricity for oil and enabled by information.
Respectfully,
Dennis L.
« Data is the new oil ». Old song : I’ve read something like this in the early 90s ! It was the at the same time some Japanese guy wrote “it is the end of history” because of the collapse of the USSR empire – another enormous silly assessment.
So I was reading this article that said it was the end of the economy as exchanges of physical flows, but a new era where economics and creation of value would be based on exchanges of data flows. Data would be the support of the new economy. I was just finishing my IT degree, so I guess I should have been very content for my bright new shiny future. But I just kept very skeptical and wondered : “come on, we still massively need exchanges of physical goods : concrete, steel, ores, machines, chips, … stuffs …. What is actually the support of the economy … it is … energy … oil, indeed (I have a science and engineering background)”.
Then I forgot, lived happily for 15 years, but then came the internet, I heard about peak oil, and I found aspo.org, ourfiniteworld.com, … and heaven knows I’m miserable now …
I am sure that the speaker was not first to say, “Data is the new oil.” I checked Google, and there seem to be several people the quote is attributed to. One source says,
Storage and analyses of data are indeed uses for energy. With greater energy, our ability to utilize data is indeed greater. But without energy, the system falls flat.
Oil’s problem today is that its price does not reflect its true value to the world economy.
Hope breeds despair.
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0535/6917/products/despairdemotivator.jpeg
Fsck hope. Live now.
https://www.azquotes.com/vangogh-image-quotes/78/84/Quotation-Alan-Watts-No-amount-of-anxiety-makes-any-difference-to-anything-that-78-84-10.jpg
David, the Greeks built a computer over two thousand years ago, and without any fossil fuels. Charles Babbage built a rather worse one, under the same constraints. And Alberto Santos Dumont was flying over the streets of Paris in 1900 without aluminium, kerosene, or any of the products of fossil fuel industry. It is amazing what can be achieved, if one works with Nature, rather than against her.
I don’t think the Greeks put a computer in everyone’s back pocket, on/in every wheeled vehicle and home and at a price that virtually everyone could afford
that is maybe the point you missed about the relationship of computer production and fossil fuels
as to Babbage, I haven’t bothered to research his computer in any exact sense, but if he used turned moving parts, then he most certainly did use fossil fuels
The Babbage design used steam to turn the cog wheels of a giant digital punch cart type of arrangement. If the technology flourished it would most likely have used up every bit of coal and wood in England. It would have competed with home heating and steam travel for the energy resources of the time.
First, the construction of the (small model) difference engine did not require fossil fuel. The machine techniques of the time were not accurate enough, so the gears was filed by hand (as were the gears of the Antikythera Machine). And the model he actually built was worked by hand; the full scale model was supposed to be worked by steam, granted, but it was never finished.
“Small borrowers, whose default rates have traditionally been among the lowest in India, are increasingly missing loan repayments as rising unemployment and stagnant-to-declining wages put pressure on finances of small companies as well as households.”
https://www.livemint.com/industry/banking/surge-in-small-borrower-defaults-stokes-worries-11574789632515.html
“The Reserve Bank of India will cut interest rates in December for a sixth time this year, and again before July, according to economists in a Reuters poll who forecast those reductions would either marginally boost the economy or have no impact.
“[The RBI is] currently the most aggressive major central bank in the world.”
https://www.livemint.com/news/india/rbi-to-cut-rates-again-but-still-no-respite-for-india-s-economy-reuters-poll-11574779837817.html
“Stagnant to declining wages” sounds like a disaster.
“Global oil consumption has apparently accelerated since mid-year as lower prices filter through the supply chain, increasing demand and avoiding a big increase in inventories.
“But all may not be as it seems. Much of the growth has come from China, where reported consumption is rising at rates inconsistent with the country’s slumping auto sales and slowing economy.
“China’s fuel distributors and consumers have most likely taken advantage of lower prices to boost the amount of products held at fuel depots and in end-user tanks before prices rise again.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/global-oil-kemp/rpt-column-global-oil-consumption-remains-sluggish-kemp-idUKL8N28640G
“OPEC countries, which are meeting next week to discuss their level of oil output, should make the right decision for the global economy, which remains “very fragile”, the head of the International Energy Agency told Reuters on Tuesday.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-oil-opec-iea/opec-should-make-right-call-for-fragile-world-economy-ieas-birol-idUKKBN1Y014H
We should be happy that China seems to be propping up the system, with its storage of extra crude oil. But this cannot go on indefinitely; eventually storage fills. Even the new bond offering becomes too little to spend on everything that is really needed.
Re China propping up the system, this is the man tasked with propping up their financial system – not an enviable task:
“Two months into his tenure as China’s top banking regulator, Guo Shuqing did something his staffers had never witnessed from a senior Communist Party leader.
“Speaking in Beijing to officials and industry executives from across the country, he pledged to resign if he failed to snuff out the excesses that had been accumulating in China’s US$40 trillion banking system for almost a decade.
“His comments jolted the audience. Not only is it extremely rare for a high-ranking Chinese official to admit the possibility of defeat, but those listening also understood the enormity of Guo’s task. As steward of the world’s largest banking system – it’s twice the size of the US’s – the 63-year-old arguably has the hardest job in global finance.
“And it’s getting more difficult by the day. China faces its most uncertain economic environment since the global recession a decade ago, a state of affairs further complicated by the civil unrest in Hong Kong.”
https://www.scmp.com/business/banking-finance/article/3039563/guo-shuqing-watchdog-chinas-us40-trillion-banking-and
Wow! China is currently propping up the world with its growing debt and (hopefully) very cheap supplies of energy. To the extent this stops, the world is in a heap of trouble.
The article says, ” China faces its most uncertain economic environment since the global recession a decade ago, a state of affairs further complicated by the civil unrest in Hong Kong.”
I think it is also true that the world faces its most uncertain economic environment since the global recession a decade ago.
“Global central banks are approaching the end of the year with a collective shudder at the risky behavior that their low interest-rate policies are encouraging.
“Policy makers from European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve are among those raising cautionary flags at potentially unsafe investing stoked by their efforts to flood economies with ultra-cheap money. Stock indexes from the U.S. to India are at records, and low sovereign bond yields have pushed funds into property seeking better returns.
“The warnings are couched in measured language that doesn’t signal panic, but the combined message is one of growing anxiety, laced with the discomfort that central bankers can’t easily tighten policy either. The danger is that such risk-taking recreates a backdrop similar to that preceding the global financial crisis a decade ago.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-27/global-risk-taking-binge-gives-central-banks-cause-to-shudder
“Complacency could blind regulators to the start of the next financial crisis warns Carlo di Florio who helped the Securities and Exchange Commission mop up after the end of the last one as the head of its exam unit.
“The danger is even though the regulators solved the problems that brought about the last financial crisis doesn’t mean they’ll prevent the next collapse…”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tedknutson/2019/11/26/complacency-could-blind-regulators-to-the-next-financial-crisis-warns-ex-sec-exam-chief/#1839daa210ca
The article claims, “One link that ties all financial crises together,” di Florio said, “is conflicts of interest.”
I think it is energy problems that link the financial crises together. But this isn’t obvious.
“The era of rock-bottom interest rates is not yet over, but the powerful boost given to global property prices by easy policy since the financial crisis appears to be ending, according to Reuters polls of over 100 housing market experts.
“More than a decade of easy money has pushed most asset prices to record highs, including house prices, which have climbed each year at many multiples of consumer price inflation and wage gains, making many markets unaffordable for first-time buyers.
“The change in sensitivity to interest rates is not universal. But it is particularly notable in the United States, where the Federal Reserve has cut rates three times this year with no major boost to the housing market outlook.
“The combined findings of the latest Reuters polls, taken this month, have implications for the effectiveness of future monetary policy in one of the most typically rate-sensitive sectors of most developed and developing economies.
“That may be all the more relevant given many central banks had made scant progress in raising rates back to what would have been considered normal levels before the global financial crisis erupted more than a decade ago.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-global-property-poll/rate-boost-for-global-property-markets-starting-to-wane-reuters-poll-idUKKBN1Y01GT
Of course, many people see the high asset prices and say, “The economy must be doing well. Look at stock prices! Look at home prices! We can’t possibly have a problem.”
And people still believe low interest rates make goods more affordable! Lower interest rates have been reflected in cheaper mortgages. But this did not make homes more affordable: it simply allowed people to borrow more, and so bid up the price of homes. Everything cancelled out, except that millions can now be driven into bankruptcy by any increase in rates.
My broken record again: fiat money replaces true values with false values, and at the end of the day, the Gods of the Copybook Headings will extract their due.
I feel your pain….NOT…I’m RICH and got privilege.
Rich Californians Shell Out $30,000 to Avoid Blackout Pain
Sophie Alexander
BloombergNovember 26, 2019, 12:29 PM EST
(Bloomberg) — Ebony Lopez’s electric company in Napa wine country used to get a handful of inquiries a week from people asking about generators. After PG&E Corp. shut power to millions of Californians last month, it’s more like 10 to 15 calls a day.
“It’s been nonstop,” Lopez said. “People are definitely being reactive.”
As Californians face years of intentional blackouts — a strategy by the state’s utilities to prevent wildfires — homeowners are rushing to find alternative sources of power to keep the lights on. Last month’s outages, in particular, swept across affluent areas just outside of San Francisco, hitting people who have the means to pay up for pricey equipment.
The trend isn’t unique to California. With climate change colliding with an aging grid, residents of areas from snowy New England to the hurricane-threatened South face more disruptions to power. But with costs for whole-house generators or solar and battery packages running tens of thousands of dollars, the demand for backup systems underscores a stark reality: Wealthy people will be able to endure outages while the poor are left in the dark
Still, there are products for everyone, said Generac’s Jagdfeld. Many standby generators have lower costs, with the company’s average proposal price in California coming in at $9,000 to $13,000, including installation. Cheaper portable generators have enough power to charge phones and even keep a refrigerator running in some cases. And they can be used by renters, too.
Sally Benson, director of Stanford’s Global Climate & Energy Project, said she’s more concerned that people may end up using backup power for more than just emergencies, causing greater harm to the environment.
“This idea that you can just be off the grid, we are hearing that more and more,” Benson said. “Under those circumstances the power you’re consuming actually has higher carbon intensity and pollution than the good as a whole.”
I expect that the new growth industry will be generators, especially in California, Texas, Hawaii, and parts of Australia. Renewable energy is inherently unreliable. Its long distance transmission tends to cause brush fires. The situation gets worse and worse, as more is added.
Perhaps Europe can avoid this problem, at least temporarily. Its cool wet weather and underground transmission help prevent some of the problems. Also, homes are also too small to have space for generators.
World total car sales are now down to the GFC level… and this time no one is showing growth.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EKUqmxDWkAAMuB1?format=png&name=small
Note that it is the annual change that is down to GFC level. I agree that there is a problem. In fact, I posted the same chart earlier. Note that this time, it is China pulling the world economy down. Last time, it was the United States pulling the world economy down.
China Industrial Profits (Y/Y) Oct: -9.9% (prev -5.3%)
China Industrial Profits YTD (Y/Y) Oct: -2.9% (prev -2.1%)
Last time U.S coal peaked, this time China’s coal is post peak?
National Bureau of Statistics
“The bigger drop was primarily due to faster declines in factory gate prices of industrial products, slower production and sales, etc.”
And liabilities are up 4.9% as the corporates are piling up more debt.
China is now exporting deflation. Producers around the world will have to cut prices to compete with China.
Here in Finland we have a strike. The unions want better pay and working conditions. The export industry needs an internal devaluation by cutting wages.
Soon enough we will have protests an riots.
“China raised six billion dollars in its biggest ever international sovereign bond sale on Tuesday, as it pounced on the year’s sharp dive in borrowing costs.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/china-raises-6bn-biggest-international-bond-sale-191126182010548.html
Strikes are one of the things a person expects when there is too little energy consumption growth per capita. The underlying problems are depletion and rising population, making it hard to produce enough inexpensive end products per capita. “Productivity” no longer rises. The economy compensates by creating wage disparity. Those at lower wages tend to get “frozen out.” These are workers who tend to strike.
There were a lot of strikes in the UK before World War I, related to Peak Coal and chronic low prices and resulting low wages.
Harry: It looks to me as if the bonds are repayable in yuan. If the bonds are sold internationally, as the article suggests, there will be a lot of derivatives sold with the bonds, guaranteeing that the yuan will not depreciate much against the dollar. A person then ends up with three kinds of risks: (a) the derivatives have a problem, when the yuan plunges relative to other currencies, or (b) the yuan becomes less and less valuable, because of inflation, that somehow the derivatives don’t handle (c) China stops repaying the debt, perhaps related to internal disorder, war or collapse related issues.
You are right! Those drops in profits are alarming. They have to lead to cutbacks in hiring. Few new factories will be built. Instead, some factories will be closed. The lack of profits start a vicious circle.
and Hong Kong shows what happens when the Chinese get collectively annoyed
The Chinese are not followers of “Do unto others as you would want them to do unto you.”
Yup, leave people the fsck alone minding their own business and nature will sort us out in a hurry. The distributed competitive collaborative process will gravitate the human condition towards the optimal state of maximum intelligence, prosperity and true wealth generation.
We certainly don’t need an overarching corrupt, vulgar and bloated bureaucracy to guide us straight into the abyss as it always does, in all past civilizations when resource constraints hit.
The only thing we need more of is true understanding of the governing principles of nature and seek to mimic those through our own free market economy, thoughts, actions and guide ourselves by our innate curiosity clarified by the scientific principles.
All else is certain doom, and such is what we have sown, is what we will reap. The inevitable demise of mankind.
In my market cars last 15 years and are dirt cheep…On the road with 8 tires all taxes and fees in including a 7 year warranty 15k cdn. I remember when it was 5 years if you were lucky.
Why Does Climate Science Ignore All Solutions Other Than Drastic Emission Reduction ?
I suggest watching perhaps 15 or 20 minutes of this podcast:
https://drchristianson.com/podcasts
Dr. Alan Christianson and Dr. Sarah Ballentyne talk about the oxalates in beets and spinach and some other vegetables. And use the discussion as a springboard for thinking about why so much bad medical advice flourishes on the Internet. Briefly, a paper was published claiming that oxalates form kidney stones in the absence of a specific enzyme, and that most people don’t have the enzyme. Therefore, people need to be avoiding beets and spinach and other oxalate containing foods. The claim was picked up by a ‘high-tech’ Silicon Valley startup which claimed to be able to study your genes and give you wonderful advice about diet…putting an end to all of the disputes. They generally advised low consumption of anything with oxalates.
In just a few months, another article was published (in PubMed), from South Africa. The authors showed that black South Africans seldom develop kidney stones, and also do not have the supposedly necessary enzyme. I pointed that article out to the Silicon Valley crowd, but they went right on telling their obviously incorrect story.
Money can be made by advising people to avoid some specific foods, and we are currently awash in all sorts of advice to that effect. The advisors generally have something to sell which avoids all the imaginary icebergs.
During the conversation between the Doctors, Sarah says that back in the 50s and 60s, about half of the research grant requests were granted the money they needed. That has now shrunk to 6 percent. Which means that Federal money is very scarce indeed. Therefore, one needs to find some corporation which is willing to give one money. It’s not simply prostitution…sometimes a sugary snack company funds a study which actually tells the truth…but there are lots of ways to structure studies so that some pre-determined ‘proof’ comes out of the data. In a pinch, one can always compare drinking cola to strychnine to show that it is ‘more healthy’.
The same holds true of Climate Science. Granted that the CO2 being put into the air by microbes is 10X the CO2 being put into the air by fossil fuel emissions, one can’t necessarily find any funding to do the hard science necessary to figure out how to leverage the microbes. The fossil fuel companies themselves want to fund something like sophisticated machines which suck CO2 out of the air and put it into old fossil fuel reservoirs. The companies figure they can make money putting the CO2 into the air, and more money taking it out again. But I doubt that any fossil fuel company can see how it might be likely to make money on microbes in the soil.
Don Stewart
I am afraid you are correct on the diagnosis of the problem. The only CO2 solutions that are pursued are ones that someone stands to get rich off of, especially if subsidies and mandates help make the investments profitable. They don’t need to provide any long-term benefit themselves.
It’s maddening. I reckon before you know it, Raytheon will be in the wind turbine business making them at 10X cost.
Drastic emissions reduction is advocated now simply because humans did nothing about it 30 years ago. The more you put off doing something about it, the more difficult it is to do something about it.
As for your claim about microbes and humans, you miss the point entirely. It is the extra greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere (put there by humans) that is causing the temperature to rise as Earth’s climate moves to some kind of equilibrium, given the new mixture.
Mike, drastic emission reduction will surely be advocated next year because humans did nothing this year. And the year after that. What, pray, is the point of advocating fake solutions everyone knows will never be implemented? To feel good, as you boil with everyone else?
I guess mike wants to maintain the delusions of hope. He is a sensible man after all – a decent well oiled cog in the machinery relentlessly digging the hole from which nobody can escape even deeper. And quite soon the pitch black abyss which we have bored, dug, blasted and sucked out of earth will start to stare back and it ain’t a pretty picture.
Most people here just don’t care an iota about soothing lies and values truth above renewable and green crackpottery.
It is certainly not the truth we would like it to be, but truth it is and that carries some clarity into the smoke and mirrors of all the BS in IC.
Gosh, you must have read nothing I’ve written if you think I want to maintain the delusion of hope. I am, however, keen that we don’t lie to ourselves about the situation. If we lie to ourselves, the situation is guaranteed to get worse – and that applies to many deteriorating situations in our lives.
So how do you live your life? Do you own a car, house, yes, do you have children? If that is so, how many and how do they live?
Let us watch in awe as you tell IC “sayonara” and return to a 100% renewable way of life by applying subsistence farming and even better, return to a life as a hunterer-gatherer. Yes, when will all your big words result in something that makes a difference.
TALK IS CHEAP, SHOW US YOUR ACTIONS
In the mean time most, if not all, considers you a charlatan, a peddler of delusions and hope and yet a well oiled, literally, cog in the machinery which seeks to undermine its own basis for existence.
And this confirms that serious discussion with you is impossible.
Unfortunately, this is the issue.
If we want to give up fossil fuels, we need to live like animals live. We need to give up everything: jobs, cars, clothes, grocery stores. At one time, we could use burned biomass as a substitute for fossil fuels, but there are way too many of us for that. I have told people that it is easy to move away from fossil fuels. Just take off your clothes, leave your home and your job, and live off the food that you can gather with your own hands. All of our problems would be solved.
Gail, we are animals and our species did live sustainably for hundreds of thousands of years. Of course, going from where we are now to a much harsher existence in limited habitats is not something many people would vote for.
Some believe that much of the industrial civilisation can be maintained through renewable energy alone. I don’t. The level we can live at without fossil fuels is up for discussion, though fossil fuels were a minor energy source until a few centuries ago, so it’s hard to agree with you completely (about giving up everything). However, as you know, fossil fuels will again become a minor energy source, at some point and probably not too far into the future, so to be against giving up fossil fuels is to be against reality.
A critical point, though, is that maintaining habitat is critical to the continuance of any species. What we “want” is irrelevant if such desires lead to loss of habitat.
And it will take more than a few people taking off their clothes. I’m sure that was meant as a humorous remark by you as it not easy at all to get off fossil fuels.
Human’s started to have an advantage over other animals as soon as they started cooking part of their food, over one million years ago. They were indirectly able to use the energy from the biomass fires to break down cell walls, so that their own bodies wouldn’t have to do this work.
Humans soon used their control of fire to burn down whole forests, to remake the land to the way they wanted it. They seem to have affected climate, at least locally, even as hunter-gatherers.
To get away from this mismatch with other species, you need to eliminate the control of fire. The catch is that we seem to need the control of fire to keep our large brains. The problem started very early on.
Yes, I would guess all species alter their environment in some way and humans have a unique ability to excel at that. However, a few hundred thousand humans on the planet is a very different prospect from a few billion. Small tribes could move around frequently, allowing damaged ecosystems to recover.
Taking off our clothes? What are you on about? You see Mike, the lie is much bigger than you think.
We are the savages, our Stone Age ancestors living under primitive conditions are the civilized people in comparison, carefully maintaining their interrelationship among themselves and in tune with nature.
Indeed we are the true savages veiled and kept in check by the flimsy veneer of Industrial “Civilization”. We have no clue how to survive without the industrial processes which keeps us warm and nourished.
Utterly lost as a species. And without FF’s, doom is certain for mankind. But have no despair, it is all part of the process. Humanoid “monkey do” simply can not achieve any better.
https://youtu.be/qQWZrDH5X8o
It is simply pointing out that carbon emissions need to get to zero as quickly as possible. Would you have those advocating drastic reductions instead advocating do nothing? Whilst that is what most people want to hear, it’s not an honest assessment of what is needed.
I also doubt that “everyone knows” such actions will never be implemented, rather everyone hopes that such actions will never be implemented (or, at least, such actions will not affect BAU), and so don’t punish politicians who don’t implement those policies.
I don’t agree with you that carbon emissions need to get to zero as quickly as possible.
We live in a self-organizing system. Our power over this system is very limited. It is not our job to direct the world ecosystem in the direction that we think is best. We can go to Africa and preach that people there should have fewer children, but that takes fuel and is likely to have little success. We can suggest that fertility treatments stop. Doesn’t seem likely to happen. There are biochar kinds of things that can be done, but paying all of the costs for large scale biochar would be absurd, if we could convince people this was the way to go. We can start preaching about the need for a vegan lifestyle, and the need for getting rid of cats and dogs for pets. Also not likely!
All we can do by backing away from fossil fuels is collapse the economy. Renewables are pretty much useless, as far as I can see. We don’t really have any affordable alternatives to suggest, so we would be better off staying quiet.
Maybe we could make these kinds of recommendations while expecting zero results. And while not making oneself miserable. The self organizing entity no doubt likes happy people, but it might also respond to sensible recommendations if we don’t get excited about them–and practice what we preach.
Well, since carbon emissions will inevitably go to zero as fossil fuels become uneconomical to extract, making those industries ultimately nonviable, you think it’s better to do nothing and then let nature take its course? In addition to this, you also think that, for many other reasons, the economy will collapse, so I don’t really see why you advocate doing nothing.
Regarding climate change, since the climate science appears to be fairly strong in pointing us towards either stopping emissions or facing possibly catastrophic climate change, then we really need to do the former to avoid the latter. Of course, some people don’t accept the climate science or they cling to the odd outlier scientist to offer them hope. However, surely we’d expect our leaders to tailor policy using the best information we appear to have? Of course, I expect that but don’t expect them to follow through on those policies.
So advocating doing nothing at all, “staying quiet”, seems counter to all we know.
What is so difficult to understand about that climate science is politicized and have become vulgar and corrupt? Just where in the processing system of yours does the syntax error occur?
No matter how you try to rephrase your appeal to authority and appeal to the majority fallacies it won’t make one iota of difference. Not one bit.
Just write the next post even longer and more try hard to disguise your delusions.
If anyone believes that “carbon emissions must get to zero as soon as possible”, I invite them to lead by example and reduce their own carbon emissions to zero. Alternatively, they could learn about the carbon cycle, which is how Nature dealt with the problem for a few billion years, and do likewise. “Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways, and be wise.” (Proverbs vi:6)
When things change on planet earth, there are bound to be some winners and some losers.
Once upon a time, the earth’s major life forms were anaerobic bacteria. And then, out of the blue, cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, began doing their aerobic thing, and turning out oxygen as their waste product.
At first, nobody notice and nobody cared. But slowly the build up of Oxygen began to have negative affects on the anerobes. “How dare you?” They shouted. “You have stolen our dreams and our future with your free oxygen!” but it was all in vain.
Within a billion years the anaerobic bacteria were driven underground to refuges such as river and seabed mud, as the free oxygen polluting the air was poison to them.
But on the up side, the new atmospheric balance was favorable to the appearance of animal life. It was party time for all creatures great and small.
When someone only has ridicule left, you know they have lost any argument they think they were involved in. One would have thought people cared about their own environment. Sadly, it seems that such care is rare.
You mistake witty comedy for ridicule.
Tim pointed out that it is all process, but you are too blinded by your self importance and righteousness. In time that clarity will enlighten you from the pretentious delusions that something can be done to mitigate our predicament. May it be resource depletion, pollution or global warming. It does not matter one bit.
Then try for one second to think in a way in which does not exacerbate the problem. As a first step, realize that your dreams and hopes for a greener, colder, brighter and prosperous future are the fundamental concepts which fuels the downfall of IC.
Can you see it now? Yes indeed,
YOU ARE THE PROBLEM
And whatever you dream up is not a part of the solution, on the contrary, it is an integral part of the problem.
To repeat, I have no hopes for a greener future and many of the comments here just confirm the hopelessness of such a dream.
The problem is that you are seeped in “hope”. It is delusional and only leads us into the wrong path altogether.
There is no future. There is only now. Act and think accordingly.
Well I guess that confirms that you don’t have a clue about my motivations.
All your desires and motivations originate from your hope of a better, more prosperous tomorrow. You, yes you, want to dominate nature by ruthless exploitation, your lavish, pretentious and self-righteous life and furthermore your words on this blog are a direct evidence of that.
Indeed, you want to control that which does not lend itself to be controlled. It is the ultimate authority because it is implicitly built into the system as a first principle and it does not comply with explicit dominator schemes.
Before anything changes for the better of mankind, first you must change. Now, what are you willing to give up and what is your plan for having less instead of more?
More confirmation that you’ve understood nothing in my comments. Nothing.
so logically, one should make the ultimate sacrifice for the environment, drink the Kool Aide, and cease breathing. maybe Jim Jones was on to something?
Do you feel like doing that? I certainly don’t.
The solution is fewer people. All else is futile and directly contra-productive.
As a first step the Pope and the child molesters and lunatic contraceptives policies of the Vatican have to go, just to show that we are serous.
Then a one child policy of the west and a focus on technology instead of FF enabled mass consumption.
no, my personal plan is to run out the clock until collapse or natural causes stop me.
i’m also involved in a “hail Mary” fusion energy demo that could provide the much needed high-gain energy we need to extend BAU, but i ‘m aware that we’re going to need a lot of new energy just to try to make up for all the now harder to obtain commodities. i’m not optimistic that we have sufficient time left to accomplish any of this.
agree it would be nice to enforce the poplution growth curbs you mention.
It will be interesting to see if we can patch up this joint enough to keep it lit until the end of the century.
Tech is indeed our doom and salvation. We will for sure be supplanted by the machines we create from mineral, just like Gaia have created life from mineral.
It is all process and a continuation of her wishes. Are we up for it? Probably not, a half witted primate simply can not control the innate idiocies which works in the small scale, but not in a planetary civilization.
Just look at some of the sleazy government corporate complex drones which crawls around this site and gives snide, divisive remarks.
https://pics.me.me/be-gone-bitch-quickmeme-com-be-gone-bitch-memes-quickmeme-52205224.png
Excellent anthropomorphic analogy. Reminded me of Rush’s “The Trees”: https://www.rush.com/songs/the-trees/
Nicely put!
An excellent point, Tim. The climate has been changing since forever. I’m sure the dinosaurs were unhappy with the changes that drove them to extinction. And we are unhappy with the current climate changes. But, having kept tabs on this issue since the Club of Rome was founded, I remain a firm member of the “do nothing” camp. Because I believe Nature is far wiser than we, and it is best to let her solve the problem in her own way. That way, I believe, will be best for Gaia, and if our own tenure on this Island Earth is rather shorter than we had hoped, so mote it be.
Of course Gaia looks upon us in her infinite wisdom with sadness on her mind. Instead of incorporating her eternal and wise guiding principles, from which we originate, we choose instead to oppose it with the worst aspects of our primate behaviors.
We should concern ourselves about taking those principles by turning mineral into complexity with her guiding principles in mind. Unfortunately, we choose the path of again returning to mineral.
And perhaps after eons of time passes in her eternal journey around the milky way as the circle of the Yugas foretell, another, more wise, sentient being can arise and bring her guiding principles to the stars.
Oh may, Hope Greta , Jane and friends don’t get too angry…BAU…the Big Baby needs constant feeding….more, more, more….
Mexico Unveils $44 Billion Infrastructure Plan to Boost GDP
Andrea Navarro and Justin Villamil
BloombergNovember 26, 2019, 10:25 AM EST
(Bloomberg) — President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced an infrastructure plan worth 859 billion pesos ($44 billion) that includes highways, railways, ports and airports as well as investments in telecommunications with most of the capital coming from the private sector.
Lopez Obrador announced the plan for the first 147 projects alongside Carlos Salazar and Antonio del Valle, heads of two of the country’s biggest business chambers. The plan includes heavy spending from the private sector as the government continues to cut public spending to meet fiscal targets.
The plan comes just a day after economic data showed that the Mexican economy suffered a slight recession in the first half of the year. Analysts forecast Mexico’s gross domestic product to grow just 0.2% this year, the lowest since 2009 amid stagnant oil output, slumping construction and stalled services activity.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WZ9ffU769hc
Tipping points full speed ahead….pedal to the metal…FULL THROTTLE…Greta…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4dKUKruqlVk
Thanks for the pep talk…world “leaders” will certainly take notice from you, unlike from the International Scientific Community
Getting most of the funding for the infrastructure program from the private sector sounds like wishful thinking to me.
Maybe they are planning on imitating India. It spun off a lot of infrastructure spending to the private sector, in a company called IL&FS. IL&FS has now defaulted on loans. Now we read
So Mexico proposes to invest in “highways, railways, ports and airports as well as investments in telecommunications”. How about investing in downscaling the country’s energy use? More durable houses, localised food production, a substantial cutback in air travel, bicycle lanes and streetcars for mobility, and rebuilding Mexico City, ward by ward, into more self contained, walkable, and sustainable neighbourhoods?
So sorry, Robert, India NEEDS to do the same!
Boy, Is anyone listening to GRETA!? Oh, the Climate Party Conference certainly will and make the necessary “proposals”and “promises”!
That should do the trick until the next one…carry on😄 Greta and Hanoi Fonda!
Modi Needs Rivals’ Help to Meet $3 Trillion Infrastructure Goal
Dhwani Pandya
BloombergNovember 26, 2019, 1:30 PM EST
https://news.yahoo.com/modi-needs-rivals-help-meet-183001191.html
Bloomberg) — Prime Minister Narendra Modi must invest trillions of dollars on roads and other critical infrastructure if he’s to pull India’s economy out of its slump, with at least half coming from provincial governments that are out of his control.
India will need to spend 235 trillion rupees ($3.3 trillion) on infrastructure over the coming decade to return economic growth rates to more than 7.5%, according to Crisil Infrastructure Advisor. That means Indian states will have to more than triple their contributions from the current decade, it said.
“With private investments tepid in recent years, and fiscal limitations on central spending,” states will need to step up contributions from about 41% now, Sameer Bhatia, president of the S&P Group company, said in the report published Tuesday. “Unless states contribute nearly 50% of infrastructure investments, India’s build-out momentum could taper sharply.”
That’s easier said than done. Indian states, too, have deteriorating public finances and some, like the richest state of Maharashtra, face political uncertainty after Modi’s party fared worse-than-expected in elections this month and no party won a clear majority
AND drumroll please….
Power transmission and the highway sector remained the most attractive infrastructure assets for investors in 2019, while renewable energy was dragged down by tariff caps, according to Crisil’s report
Yo, Jane, move to Hanoi and send more enlighten insight on how we should scale down to save the planet!, take Greta with you.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p7jGAhcqpFU
How about doing nothing and simply letting the excesses of IC crumble.
How about dissolving India’s central government, one of the most corrupt and stupid in the world, and letting the states carve their own paths into the future?
I expect that the states will use their own languages. Each one would need its own currency. The ability to borrow in these many currencies would be very low, I expect.
These difficulties are ones that lead to huge cutbacks in resource use, when central governments are dissolved. Probably lower population in India, as well.
Gee, Gail, an interesting view. The Middle Ages solved these problems. Every state had its own language, even England used three languages. But they had a lingua franca, mediaeval Latin. And the currency problem was non existent, because the only currencies were gold and silver. They also solved Herbie R Ficklestein’s problem, because the feudal landowners established a maximum size for a farm, and strict inheritance rules to ensure family farms remained in the family.
I know that multiple languages in India is a major issue right now. Some of the languages use different alphabets than we are familiar with. Wikipedia says that India with 780 languages is second only to Papua New Guinea, with 839 languages, in terms of number of languages spoken. The languages belong to many different language families.
When I visited Mumbai a few years ago, I was told that children there went to half-days of school, either morning or afternoon. My impression was that that we a fairly widespread practice. This way everyone gets some school, even if not a full day.
During this half-day of school, three languages are taught: Hindi, English, and the local language. Children also need to learn other subjects as well, such as math, history, biology, and chemistry. It becomes difficult to fit everything in a half day. Teachers may not have good understanding themselves. I am not certain order is the best in the classroom, either. China seems to be extremely strict about order, but India, not so much.
The tendency, if central government is lost, is to get rid of Hindi and English, I expect. I know that taxi drivers did not generally speak English, when I was there. They may have seen a little written English, but they never heard it spoken. The difficulty of learning these languages makes it harder for young people to get advanced education. Young people from families where the parents speak English and Hindi are at an advantage.
Robert, sounds good to me.
“Mexico’s economy entered a mild recession during the first half of 2019 and was flat in the third quarter, revised data from the national statistics agency showed on Monday, handing a setback to the plans of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador…
“Alberto Ramos, a Goldman Sachs economist, said in a note to clients the bank now expected no growth to be registered in Mexico in 2019.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-economy-gdp/mexico-entered-recession-in-early-2019-dealing-blow-to-president-idUSKBN1XZ1JF
“Argentina will finish 2019 at 55% annual inflation, the country’s treasury minister said on Monday, capping off a tumultuous year for Latin America’s No. 3 economy that also saw voters usher in a new leftist government.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-argentina-inflation/argentina-2019-inflation-seen-at-55-treasury-minister-says-idUKKBN1XZ2FD
“A teenager who became a symbol of ongoing protests in Colombia when he was injured by a teargas cannister died of his wounds late on Monday, after President Ivan Duque met with unions and business leaders on the fifth straight day of demonstrations.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-colombia-strike/colombia-protests-enter-fifth-day-duque-meets-with-unions-business-leaders-idUSKBN1XZ2AN
“Today, our continent [South America] faces the impossible task of becoming competitive on a global scale with an absolute lack of infrastructure, limited credit, cramped capital investment for decades, and galloping inequality that has given birth to a generation of young people stuck in the poverty trap…”
https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/opinion-and-analysis/the-myth-of-latin-american-prosperity.phtml
I would describe South America’s problem as long-term inadequate energy consumption per capita, since it takes energy consumption to provide the needed infrastructure. If we look at BP’s energy consumption per capita by continent, we see the following (amounts in Gigajoules per capita for 2018):
North America 239.8
South and Central America 56.4
Europe 127.4
CIS (Similar to former Soviet Union) 160.9
Middle East 148.5
Africa 15.0
Asia Pacific 76.0 (Includes China at 96.9; India at 25.0; Pakistan at 17.7; Australia at 243.9; Japan at 149.5; and others)
So, in terms of energy consumption per capita, Central and South America is second only to Africa in terms of low energy consumption per capita. It is far above India and Pakistan, but below China.
i don’t think you’ll shift the majority of people from the certainty that it is just a political problem
and can be fixed with votes
One problem is that the gross inequalities of societies tend to mask the energy crisis: so people conclude that redistribution and the over-throw of corrupt elites will make them prosperous.
A moral/political narrative preferable to energy realities, because it offers a solution.
Of course, that a potentially prosperous country can be driven into the ground by thieving elites only serves to add weight to this kind of interpretation.
Thanks, I guess you mentioned this important comparison table before.
It’s very telling and explains a lot of in geopolitics as well, even though you have to adjust it for local peculiar-conditions (public transport bias vs car culture etc)..
Clearly Latin America is finished and Spanish is a dying language. The CIA and the US military-industrial complex need to submerge Latin America in a flood of psychotronic beams, MK-Ultra style, that will make all Latin Americans want to commit suicide.
The US should then implement a huge program of Swiss clinic building to put the Latins out of their misery, and in order to provide employment for the good US citizens (only the good ones, and we know who they are). After those wastrels have gone, the demi-continent can be asset-stripped, and there will once again be enough for us Anglos. We Brits will help by sending the Falkland Islanders out to annex Latin America and get it up and running again.
We mustn’t forget the Quebecers, who narcissistically thought they deserved their own country just because they spoke a Latin-based language, namely “French” – a ridiculously nasal language, whose speakers sound as if they have their tongue in somebody else’s orifice. Yes, they certainly deserve their very own giant Swiss clinic. 🙂
The article about Mexico says,
A person wonders why all of these things should be expected to happen. More debt might allow more public sector spending, but would likely hurt the economy in other ways. Their oil company Pemex is in horrible financial condition. (I am sure that this condition is at least in part because the government of Mexico has extracted too much in taxes from it, over the years.) Mexico’s oil production is a bit flat in recent months, but the overall pattern is definitely down. (Data through July 2019)
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/mexicos-oil-production.png
Higher oil prices would help Mexico a lot. If prices continue to be low, it is hard to raise oil production. It is also difficult to get enough taxes from current production. The country needs to import more and more refined products from the US. This adds to its problems.
“What do Indian onions and Chinese pigs have in common? They could be straws in the wind over the next global food price shock, according to researchers at investment bank Nomura.
“India… the world’s biggest exporter of the bulb slapped a ban on overseas sales after monsoons hit crops, pushing up domestic prices. Last week it extended the ban until February, sending prices up all over Asia.
“…Hong Kong pork prices have doubled thanks to the African swine fever ravaging Chinese herds. Exports to the city have dropped by more than half over the year.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/11/26/will-rising-food-prices-leave-bad-taste-world-economy/
An overview of global grain growing conditions:
“This column could have been written in early September. That is how long it has been since there was a significant change in world weather. As they say…. “Is this the new normal?” There is nothing new about it. The same areas that were dry at the end of August and early September are still that way as of this writing in late October.”
https://www.world-grain.com/articles/12936-global-weather-goes-stagnant
This is the chart the Telegraph shows of food prices:
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/global-food-prices-have-crept-higher-this-year-telegraph.png
The problem is that world food prices have been too low to encourage additional investment. Additional investment is really needed if production per acre is to continue to rise, in order to keep up with population continuing to grow, while arable land does not. Without additional investment, the things that go wrong are not offset by rising production elsewhere. This is my take on what is happening.
The problem is that arable land is finite, its productivity is finite, but the world population is trying to achieve infinite growth. You connect the dots. At the end, you’ll find four horses, all saddled up and ready to go.
Exacerbated by greed, stupidity and ignorance. To make some extra bucks, the crims in control have destroyed the ozone layer, and are now sh**ting their pants, desperately spraying nanoparticulate aerosols to block the sun’s rays.
All you have to do is look up. Didn’t the sky used to be blue?
Again, there are two broad approaches to this agri-food question.
Either yet again increased level of industrialization or people returning to land doing “smaller batch” via various “perma culture” practices.. This tug of war will eventually end up in favor of one of these two broadly defined outcomes. However, both of them demand huge social (and other) re-adjustments eventually..
I suppose hunting and gathering is another approach. Unless there is good food storage, it is hard to have much besides meat in the winter otherwise.
There’s nothing left to hunt or gather these days. I don’t think that’s a viable proposition for more than a tiny minority of the world’s billions.
“Thousands of farmers descended on Berlin from the countryside with their tractors today, gathering at the capital’s landmark Brandenburg Gate and blocking traffic in protest against the German government’s agricultural policies…
“The farmers claim new environmental limits being planned are overly restrictive and that the government is making it impossible for domestic agriculture to compete against imports, among other things.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7727755/10-000-farmers-descend-Berlin.html
The problem seems to be restrictions on herbicides and pesticides. The people in charge don’t understand that without them, it is impossible to compete with imports from other countries. Now that 95%+ of Germany’s population are not farmers, it is hard for the plight of the farmers to be understood.
“A thousand tractors have brought Paris’s roads to a standstill today in a protest aimed at President Emmanuel Macron’s ‘agri-bashing’ policies…
“The two major farmers’ unions are demanding a meeting with the president and changes in his policies, in particular a ban on the weed killer glyphosate.
“It comes a day after similar demonstrations by German farmers.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7730581/1-000-tractors-bring-Pariss-roads-standstill-farmers-protest-President-Macron.html
“World trade is stuck in its longest slump since the financial crisis after another setback in September suggested the global economy is yet to turn the corner.
“Volumes slipped back sharply in September compared with August, falling 1.3pc to cut short a two-month rebound, according to CPB’s World Trade Monitor.
“The monthly fall was the second-sharpest this year, while a fourth consecutive year-on-year drop in trade volumes marks the worst run since 2009.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/11/25/world-trade-worst-run-since-2009-us-china-row-hits-economy/
“Car sales around the world are expected to see their steepest year-over-year decline in 2019 since the financial crisis as consumer demand from the U.S. to China softens.
“Global car sales are expected to fall by about 3.1 million in 2019, a bigger drop than in 2008, Fitch Ratings economics team said Monday…”
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/25/global-car-sales-expected-to-slide-by-3point1-million-this-year-in-biggest-drop-since-recession.html
“The market for securities backed by the riskiest US car loans is booming, as yield-crazed investors shrug off nagging concerns over the health of the American consumer…
“Still, concerns are mounting that consumers may have taken on more debt than they can handle. Data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York show that the total proportion of consumer auto loans more than 90 days late — classed as “seriously delinquent” — has been steadily rising.”
https://www.ft.com/content/59f3a084-0d80-11ea-bb52-34c8d9dc6d84
“China’s central bank has warned over the dangers of a rapid build-up in the country’s household debt, urging greater oversight of mortgages and consumer loans to decrease risks to the country’s financial system.”
https://www.ft.com/content/8c95a21c-0ff6-11ea-a7e6-62bf4f9e548a
The problem with China’s keeping control over debt levels is that without a rapid build-up in household debt, it is hard to keep absorbing more condos and more automobiles into the system. Auto sales have been declining for many months. I have read that this year’s stimulus plan seems to be to build more condos. How will these be sold, without a big build-up in debt?
I thought this chart from the CNBC article was interesting:
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/global-car-sales-annual-change.png
China’s auto sales make a huge difference, relative to world growth in auto sales. China’s sales for 2019 are off by 11% through October, relative to a year ago, according to the article.
If you look at the chart, you can see the big downward pull that lack of US auto sales provided in 2008 and 2009. You can also look through the years, and see where China’s auto sales provided a big uplift. The year 2016 seems especially significant, because that is when oil prices were very low. China evidently used increasing auto sales as a way to pull itself out of what looked like the beginnings of a recession. Now in the last two years, China’s auto sales are lower. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of hope for them rising next year either, with the push to hold debt down and new emission standards.
“The year 2016 seems especially significant, because that is when oil prices were very low. China evidently used increasing auto sales as a way to pull itself out of what looked like the beginnings of a recession.”
Interesting. I felt and still feel looking back that we came very close to GFC 2.0 in early 2016. Massive, central bank-funded fiscal expansion in China and the US were instrumental in pulling us out of our tailspin. Looks like Chinese consumers were really pulling their weight, too.
Yep, this post ~2015 period also corresponds with slight oil price uptick, which “now” wants to crash again.. The theory of “doomed” ever lower oil price seems correct if looked at in sort of zoomed out decade on decade out macro view smoothing up the short term y/y action..
The economy seems to “make a smaller batch” when there is not enough energy for all purposes. The flattening of world trade would seem to be part of this.
In fact, the problem with airline bankruptcies would suggest that international air travel is not holding up very well either. I don’t know how good this Statista chart is. According to the notes, 2018 is an estimate; 2019 is a forecast. The amounts are based on “revenue kilometers,” so more long distance trade would increase the growth. The 2019 growth rate of 5% is down from recent years.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/global-air-traffic-passenger-demand-statista.png
That the global economy now appears to be producing a smaller batch, even without a major financial shock having occurred, suggests to me that we have reached the limits of the financial system’s ability to compensate for underlying energy and resource-constraints via creative accounting.
“Earlier this month the CME looked at the results of negative rates in four regions: the eurozone, Japan, Sweden and Switzerland. They all went negative between 2014 and 2016.
“None of the four “have achieved their inflation targets as a result of negative deposit rates,” the CME writes.
“Moreover, the negative-rate experiment so far has failed to stimulate growth sustainably.”
https://www.forexlive.com/news/!/negative-interest-rates-arent-working-20191125
All of these countries/areas are on the edge of economic contraction. They don’t seem to have much worthwhile to invest in. They have huge elderly populations and have made pension promises to them. Population, without immigrants, is very close to falling. The outlook doesn’t look good.
The pope, during his current visit of Japan, hits the limits regarding what to tell about the nuclear energy: he can’t say no. The media are perplexed about how to interpret it.
“Important decisions will have to be made about the use of natural resources, and future energy sources in particular,” the pope said after listening to testimony from survivors of the triple disaster eight years ago.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/pope-offers-nuclear-power-caution-after-meeting-with-victims-of-2011-japan-disaster-11574679929
The pope, coming from Argentina, must know very well, that it was the nuclear power that saved Argentina from the total collapse like Venezuela.
The Pope would like Japan (and the rest of the world) to abandon the use of nuclear power, coal, oil and natural gas.
https://www.ncronline.org/sites/default/files/stories/images/IMG_coal_dayone_0.jpg
Perhaps I’m suffering from advanced papaphobia, but I much preferred it when pontiffs stuck to pontificating about real sins such as condoms, abortion, divorce, and giving guidance about what percent of one’s take home pay a good Catholic should leave on the plate after Sunday communion.
Agreed. Instead of always lecturing others about how they must mend their ways, perhaps he could take action agains the paedophile mafia that is destroying his church from within. He could begin by reading Matthew vii:5
The Catholic Church: a contradiction in terms. Eco friendly policies and at the same time encouraging more people to roam the planet by idiotic contraceptive policies.
Here is one iron clad truth which no religious dogma can overcome:
More people == more pollution.
But peddling hope and adhering to the narrative of the day is easier and more profitable for him and the lackeys busying themselves with heavenly sanctioned pedophilia.
Just send an Mossad or CIA asset to the Vatican.
YES, JUST SEND IT!
https://youtu.be/mzOUgwsQ_hM
Where does he mention nuclear?
According to Kyodo News Agency, on the fueled airplane flying back from Tokyo to Rome:
Pope Francis said Tuesday that he is against the use of nuclear power unless safety were fully guaranteed, following his trip to Japan which has suffered not only wartime atomic bombings but also one of the world’s worst nuclear power plant disasters in 2011.
“I have a personal opinion: I wouldn’t use nuclear energy until it is totally safe to use,” the pope told a group of reporters aboard the plane returning to Rome from Tokyo, emphasizing that a nuclear accident could “always happen” and would necessarily be “big” once it occurred.
His concerns over nuclear power mirror mine over condoms. 🙂
So, in his own words, he’s against people using oil, coal, gas and nuclear power. Taking that advice would condemn six billion of us to an early death. I expect that would be a fairly short term consequence. I’d like to ask him that well known Maddy Albright question: Do you think it’s a price worth paying?
People generally don’t know much about energy subjects, except the misinformation that is popular at a particular point in time.
How about “Do not build a nuclear power plant almost on top of where four tectonic plates converge?” Fukushima was a man made disaster. Just as stupid as running power lines through dry forests.
On reflection, that seems to be a reasonable question.
Dennis L.
My take, although I’m in a small minority, is that yes it was a man made disaster and it was partly caused by the power company’s hubris and the authorities failure to take safety seriously enough. The tsunami risk was well known and it could have been countered, as it was at other nuclear plants along the same coastline that were undamaged by the tsunami.
Having said that, the reaction to the disaster compounded a bad situation by adding panic, ordering tens of thousands of mostly older people to evacuate from their homes and not allowing them to return even though it was safe to do so was a major cause of suffering and untimely death.
We live in an age of hysteria about nuclear power as about so many other things. And in japan we live in an age in which government tends to be paralyzed by any crisis. They are good at making contingency plans and carrying out drills, tests and practices involving hundreds of thousands of people. But they can’t make decisions without going through a long process of consultation and trying to achieve consensus.
If I was forced to abandon my beautiful home at my advanced age, I would probably die of a broken heart in short order. And there is a chance this may happen as I live 35km from a working nuclear plant and if the North or even the South Koreans invade Japan I will be on the frontline.
Even Bobby Fischer questioned it.
The pope seems to be against pretty much everything:
“Pope Francis has previously highlighted ethical and environmental concerns about scientific progress. . .”
When in doubt, just be against it.
There are lots of religions in the world. A person can make whatever choice he chooses, or choose no religion at all. Our political leaders have put together new quasi-religions for us as well. The new one we are constantly lectured about has to do with the sin of un-sustainability and the need to change our ways to prevent future climate change. Get rid of the evil fossil fuel producers. In fact, it almost sounds like the Pope is a convert to this new religion as well. This is absurd!
https://youtu.be/e7cry-4pyy8
You are right, the religious leaders who do not know the reality of the human species, can be quite confused. As if this world could by saved by the people and the second world is not superior to the “valley of sorrow” of this world.
Tamino just showed how well the climate models have done:
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2019/11/25/climate-models/
A statistical model with a large parameter space can be tweaked to basically output anything.
Such a “model” is perfect for tweaking until the outcome matches the climate narrative of the day.
Ka-Ching. Moar ‘research’ grants.
If you’d read the article, you’d see that part of the graphs are predictive and been pretty close to observations, as have the hindcasts. Tamino’s analysis can’t be so easily dismissed
Bingo!
We have a winner—
Yup, there you go, Duncan, now suck it.
https://pics.me.me/the-corporate-government-complex-the-left-blames-corporations-and-the-6177469.png
👍
Tamino has made it clear, that he is a slowdown, pause, and hiatus, denier. By avoiding looking at the facts, Tamino has managed to maintain his fact-free belief, even though many people have tried to educate him (including me).
But in his recent post, Tamino has made a stupid mistake. In his eagerness to show how bad global warming is, Tamino has reduced the size of the recent slowdown, that already exists in the GISTEMP temperature series.
Remember that Tamino doesn’t believe that the recent slowdown exists. But how can you reduce the size of something, if that something doesn’t exist?
Can you eat an apple, if the apple doesn’t exist?
Can you catch a tennis ball, if the tennis ball doesn’t exist?
Can you slow your car down, if your car doesn’t exist?
You obviously can’t do any of these things, unless the object that you are affecting, exists.
So you can’t reduce the size of a slowdown, unless the slowdown exists.
Tamino has accidentally acknowledged that the recent slowdown really does exist. He won’t want you to know about this. He is probably frantically trying to think up an alternate explanation, that doesn’t involve slowdowns.
https://agree-to-disagree.com/how-tamino-proved-himself-wrong/
Tamino was a co-author on a peer reviewed paper which showed that there was no statistically significant slowdown and there has been another paper, by a separate team confirming that analysis. A second paper (with some of the same authors) showed something similar.
There was no slowdown. It’s nothing to do with denial, it’s to do with doing the proper calculations on the data and avoiding pitfalls that inexperienced statisticians might fall into.
Or perhaps this “scientist” used statistics as a drunk man uses lamp-posts — for support rather than for illumination.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/31/ca/bd/31cabde5dd20c27fe2b4f47654f52677.png
Or perhaps you can’t find any errors in the work of these scientists and so resort to ad hominems to avoid thinking about it.
Where are the ad hominems?
Here is one crisp statement: Don’t use words and formulate sentences based on concepts which you lack a fundamental understanding of.
trends cannot continue forever…
that above average trend up to 2050 will certainly be knocked down to close to average by the upcoming calculated solar minimum which will exist from about 2020 to 2050, which was discussed recently here at OFW…
that solar minimum can’t be easily dismissed….
let’s check back in about 5 years and see how things are progressing…
meanwhile, only economic contraction would be able to reduce greeenhouse gaaas emissions, so given the choice, I would choose to not have contraction, though I think it’s coming soon anyway along with the calculated solar minimum…
David, I am now preparing for economic misery and serious belt-tightening for everyone within five years.
A friend who practices the Marie Kondo religion recently gave me some trousers and belts that her husband no longer needed but she couldn’t bear to throw away.
Although they are a couple of sizes too small for me, I figure that I will be able to squeeze into them by 2023 at the latest, and by 2026 they may be too big for me so I’ll have to tighten my belt.
As for the magic pixy gas thing, I am currently of the opinion that Ned Nikolov is close to the truth, namely that the earth’s “greenhouse” effect is a function of the sun and atmospheric pressure, which results from gravity and the mass of the atmosphere, rather than the amount of “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere.
https://twitter.com/NikolovScience
You have NO IDEA how liberating it feels to be totally free from the false belief that the trace gas has a discernible effect on the temperature, and how compassionate If feel towards the millions of dumb bunnies who have been hoodwinked into the religion that holds that the only way to save ourselves from boiling to death is to commit economic and financial suicide. 🙂
That must feel fantastic. Meanwhile, in the real world, where thousands of scientists from around the world have shown that those trace gases do indeed have a profound effect …
Wasn’t it tens of thousands of scientists, sorry “scientists”, just the other day? Is climate “science” in a deflationary episode right now?
Instead of regurgitating that tired slogan, show me a conclusive experiment which establishes to what degree the “climate change” is caused by the processes of IC and of which is occurring naturally.
And no, yapping on about data fitted to a statistical model with thousands of parameters won’t cut it. It is the role of the experiment. Repeat after me:
TALK IS CHEAP – SHOW ME THE EXPERIMENT!
The explanations have been around for a while. It’s easy to find them yourself. Is the extra CO2 through fossil fuel burning? What do you think?
Yes it does, Mike. It does. Feels fantastic.
How does it feel to be a member of doomsday cult?
You are fond of pointing out logical fallacies with Latin names, I see.
You called out Kowalainen for an ad hominem just above.
Now you yourself are conflating two logical fallacies, namely the argumentum ad populum (Appeal to Common Belief) and the argumentum ad verecundiam (Appeal to Authority) at the same time. How many logical fallacies can you balance simultaneously on the tip of your nose?
Argumentum ad populum
(also known as: appeal to accepted belief, appeal to democracy, appeal to widespread belief, appeal to the masses, appeal to belief, appeal to the majority, argument by consensus, consensus fallacy, authority of the many, bandwagon fallacy, appeal to the number, argumentum ad numerum, argumentum consensus gentium, appeal to the mob, appeal to the gallery, consensus gentium, mob appeal, social conformance, value of community, vox populi)
Description: When the claim that most or many people in general or of a particular group accept a belief as true is presented as evidence for the claim. Accepting another person’s belief, or many people’s beliefs, without demanding evidence as to why that person accepts the belief, is lazy thinking and a dangerous way to accept information.
Argumentum ad verecundiam
(also known as: argument from authority, ipse dixit)
Description: Insisting that a claim is true simply because a valid authority or expert on the issue said it was true, without any other supporting evidence offered.
thousands of scientists from around the world have shown that those trace gases do indeed have a profound effect …
Why thousands? If I were wrong, one would have been enough.
https://allthatsinteresting.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/einstein-three.jpg
Tim, I say thousands because many contrarians appear to believe in some sort of conspiracy theory among all of those climate scientists or that they are all in it for the money (in some strange way). The effect of greenhouse gases is so well known that even the few contrarian climate scientists who still try to hold out against the consensus acknowledge it.
I used “ad hominem” only because it is in common use in our language but I do note that you concentrate on that apparent misdemeanour instead of countering the position of climate scientists with actual science.
Where exactly does anyone at OFW reject that CO2 and water vapor are greenhouse gasses?
Look, most, if not everyone, of the people here take for certain that nearly 200 years of CO2 intensive heavy industry surely must have some impact on the planetary ecosystem.
It is the money and all the BS which surrounds the pseudo “climate” science that makes it deeply corrupt, vulgar and undermines real scientific progress. Despicable.
Now, I must know: How do you feel being an useful idiot?
That solar minimum occurred within the little ice age. cold before the maunder minimum and cold after.
That’s right, if there is a grand solar minimum. However, even if there is, that would just be a factor in the changing climate (there are always reasons for a change) but would, in no way, affect the fact that human caused emissions and other activities are the primary cause of current warming. If there is a cooling influence from a minimum, then the warming would return with a vengeance afterwards.
Regardless, we are dealing with things we cannot fix.
That’s right but nothing can fix it except time. However, what we could do, hypothetically, is limit the damage. The characteristic behaviour of our species, however, precludes us from taking the necessary actions.
Indeed and neither do we, really, want to fix the problems. What we really want is to pretend we are doing something about it when in fact the “solutions” exacerbate the problems.
But hey, wind turbines surely look “eco” friendly. I mean, a propeller in the wind harvesting energy subsidized by our delusions of a sustainable tomorrow without FF’s.
https://i.imgflip.com/2vwe38.jpg
It aint gonna happen, the “monkey do” ape will get exactly what we implicitly desire, which is total and utter irrelevance first through advanced automation and then through finite world issues. I’m diligently working on the first goal, nature and physics on the second.
Kowalainin, I think you hit the nail on the head:
“What we really want is to pretend we are doing something about it [climate change] when in fact the ‘solutions’ exacerbate the problems.”
Albert Bartlett used to often use the quote (I think) that the chief cause of problems is solutions.
Reasonable explanation!
Prof. Bartlett, greatly to his credit, said that “sustainable growth” was an oxymoron, and yet today, thousands of “scientists” not to mention bureaucrats, politicians and media talking heads assure us we can have it, or its sister phrases “sustainable development” or “sustainability with economic growth”.
In 2013, the year that Bartlett passed on, the UK Government published a skills strategy entitled “Skills for Sustainable Growth”, and we are all familiar with the UN’s promotion of “Sustainable Development Goals”
Recently, at the unveiling of “a Green New Deal for Public Housing” with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,Senator Bernard “Bernie” Saunders said “the United States must lead the world in transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel to sustainable energy.”
“The Green New Deal is not just about climate change,” the Vermont senator added in his trademark Brooklyn accent. “It is an economic plan to create millions of good-paying jobs, strengthen our infrastructure, and invest in our country’s frontline and vulnerable communities. This bill shows that we can address our climate and affordable housing crises by making public housing a model of efficiency, sustainability, and resiliency.”
There’s even a guy called Tim Jackson who goes under the title of “Professor of Sustainable Development at the University of Surrey and Director of the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP).”
I suppose these thousands of sustainability-we-can-do-it cheerleaders have never seriously contemplated what happens when you put a spoonful of live yoghurt into a pint of milk.
Well, I agree with everything you wrote there, Tim. Most people just don’t understand the meaning of sustainable.
Bartlett’s best analogy was the jar of bacteria. Say it doubled in size every minute and then filled up at say midday, the question was how full was the jar at 1 minute to midday?
An optimistic bacterium would have thought at one minute to midnight that the jar was half empty. A pessimist OFW bacterium would have fought it was half full.
So what? Listen. Listen. Listen.
This is not about climate; it’s about politics.
The activists have made clear that climate is only the means.
Control is what they’re after. Nothing else.
Quoted from the National Review last July
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti admitted recently that the true motivation behind introducing the Green New Deal is to overhaul the “entire economy.”
Chakrabarti said that addressing climate change was not Ocasio-Cortez’s top priority in proposing the Green New Deal during a meeting with Washington governor Jay Inslee.
“The interesting thing about the Green New Deal, is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all,” Chakrabarti said to Inslee’s climate director, Sam Ricketts, according to a Washington Post reporter who attended the meeting for a profile published Wednesday.
“Do you guys think of it as a climate thing?” Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing,” he added.
Climate models are actually way off: https://www.rossmckitrick.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/model_obs_comp_nov_2019.pdf
This paper was published 2 weeks ago.
BTW: hindcast = curve-fitting. This is statistical garbage, in the context of trying to develop predictive models. GIGO.
That isn’t a paper, as far as I can tell; it’s a self published article by Ross McKitrick. It uses the data set showing the least amount of warming (due to lack of coverage at the poles) but it is still within the 2 sigma range of the model runs. So not “way” off. McKitrick also uses dismissive words like “Temperatures in 2018 (+0.60C) are back down to about where they were in 2014 (+0.58C).” to try to minimise the actual trend and ignoring natural variability. 2019 looks likely to flip that observation line back up near the 1 sigma range. It would be a better article if it included other observational data sets but that might make the fit look even better and I suspect McKitrick already knows what he wants the data to show, hence the use of HadCRUT4.
What’s the problem?
This is fake news obviously….why all the fuss? That’s why they make refrigerators!
‘I’m worried’: Alaska’s ice cellars melting due to climate change after being used to store food for generations
Andy Gregory, Rachel D’Oro
The IndependentNovember 25, 2019, 6:16 AM EST
In Alaska’s northernmost community, Utqiagvik – which saw its warmest summer on record this year – about 60 per cent of the 1,500 households rely on subsistence foods for at least half of their diet, National Geographic wrote in 2015.
“I’m worried,” said Gordon Brower, a Utquiagvik whaling captain whose family owns two ice cellars.
One is more than a century old more than 100 years old and used to store at least two tonnes whale meat set aside for community feasts. The other, built in 1955, is used to feed Mr Brower and his family.
He recently asked his son to retrieve some whale meat from the one of the cellars, and discovered both were in a bad state.
“He came back and said: ‘Dad, there’s a pool of blood and water at the bottom,’” said Mr Brower, who is now housing the community’s meat under a tarpaulin sheet above ground.
“It seems like slight temporary variations in the permafrost — that active layer — is affecting the temperature of our cellar,” Brower said.
There were once at least….
But later in the article..
But also, a lot of it has to do with development and modern life in an arctic setting.”
Scientists had previously agreed that an underground tunnel, known as the Utilidor, built in Utqiagvik in 1984 to provide water, electricity, and other utilities had been responsible for the failure of some cellars, National Geographic reported in 2015.
To adapt to the new environment, the village of Kaktovik, on the Beaufort Sea coast, took ambitious steps after it lost all but one family’s cellar to flooding.
In 2013, the village launched a project to build a community ice cellar incorporating traditional designs with contemporary technology used in Alaska’s North Slope oil fields — thermosyphons, off-grid tubelike refrigeration devices that cool the ground by transferring heat outside.
The hand-excavated cellar was ready for use in 2017, but it has yet to be filled. Whaling captains want to expand it first, according to whaling captain George Kaleak Sr., who represents Kaktovik on the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission.
Temperature sensors inside the cellar show it’s working as intended, Kaleak said. He expects the expansion to begin as early as next spring.
See, just some modern know how to adapt and all is fine…Go BAU….😜
“Solar Costs & Wind Costs So Low They’re Cheaper Than *Existing* Coal & Nuclear — Lazard LCOE Report”
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/11/22/solar-costs-wind-costs-now-so-low-theyre-competitive-with-existing-coal-nuclear-lazard-lcoe-report/
Then why don’t we see IRE (intermittent renewable energy) actually working anywhere, with an AC power grid that gets even nearly half its energy from such as wind or solar power?
LCOE is calculated in a very similar biased way that EROI calculation are done. They leave out (a) the cost of mitigating the intermittency and (b) the cost of the extra transmission that is required, if the system is not to be plagued with fires (or maybe even if it is).
The issue is a difficult one, because the first tiny percentage of IRE can be added to the existing system, without actually mitigating the intermittency and adding extra transmission. As the percentage rises, more and more workarounds need to be added. Part of these workarounds include curtailment of part of the intermittent electricity. Part of the workarounds include forcing other electricity providers to provide electrical backup service without adequately compensating them for this service. This weakens the whole system.
Virtually no one realizes that the LCOE report is basically an apples to oranges comparison.
Also, whether or not wind and solar are cheaper than other options at some designated point in the future is not really the question. The economy requires ever-cheaper energy in order to grow. In this ever-cheaper energy calculation, the efficiency with which the energy is used in reflected in the calculation. Without growth, the economy collapses.
This is a 14 minute video of testimony in Indiana about how misleading LCOE costs are in Texas. “True costs of renewables – the Texas Lesson”
“Bundles of yuan notes were stacked high behind the counters of branches of Yingkou Coastal Bank earlier this month, as the northeast China lender fought off a run on deposits while onsite government officials battled rumors of a funding crunch.
“Yingkou was the latest small bank to have its deposit-reliant funding base undermined by depositors, spooked by the funding crunch that led to the shock state-led rescue of tiny regional lender Baoshang Bank.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-banks-analysis/specter-of-funding-crunch-looms-over-runs-at-chinas-small-banks-idUSKBN1XZ0Q5
“A troubled Chinese state-own firm is giving bondholders a stark choice on $1.25 billion of dollar bonds: take a haircut of as much as 64% or accept delayed repayment with sharply reduced coupons.
“Tewoo Group Corp., which is owned by the Tianjin local government, proposed the exchange/tender offer on Friday on three dollar bonds due to mature over the next three years as well as a perpetual note.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-25/china-s-tewoo-seeks-debt-haircut-of-up-to-64-on-dollar-bonds
This sounds like the tip of a large iceberg. It has the potential to develop into a huge problem.
Gail, it is a huge problem and a global problem. Traditional capitalism was systematically destroyed in the last century, by the twin demons of fiat money and fractional reserve banking. It is now a race to the bottom to see whose unpayable debt will be the last to lose international credibility, and the “winner” will not be China, nor the USA.
In 1994 Brazil introduced a new currency (yet again), supposedly to halt inflation. One new “unidad real de valor” was worth 2.75 * 10^18 of the original currency. So if before you had been worth 100 billion, you would now be worth less than one millionth of a new real. When the inevitable crash comes, all the world’s paper billionaires together will be unable to buy a single cup of coffee. And an Amish farmer with a chicken …?
We have an economic system built entirely on false values, and the economists’ only prescription is to issue ever more false value. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it. (Matt iv:27)
i must confess to getting a kick out of watching nations taking advice of ‘economists’ to change the name/numbers of the currency in order to ‘fix’ it.
Even with my modesty-shortage, Ifeel that there must be greater minds than mine to point out that they have an energy problem, not a currency problem
‘Anyone who believes in indefinite growth in anything physical, on a physically finite planet, is either mad or an economist.’
Kenneth Boulding —
That is a good quote!
The reductionist can not see the forest for all the trees, the emergentist can’t see all the trees for the forest. Or was it the other way around? Never mind.
Just add another digit on the tally and call the evening a day as twilight draws closer on IC.
I believe in infinite growth of the money supply. Even Zimbabwe managed that.
When economists and government spokespeople talk of “economic growth”, they are usually referring to monetary growth. Their ultimate measuring rod is dollars, euros, yuan or some other fiat currency—and mostly its a shrinking measure.
Decades ago, greater minds than mine suggested a better measure of the size of the economy would be the Mars Bar. But these days even the Mars Bars are shrinking, and the Toblerone Bars have lost some of their mountain peaks.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/composite-toblerone.jpg
I’m pretty sure that’s not true. It’s the growth in the real value of goods and services, taking various factors like inflation into account.
It’s the growth in the real value of goods and services, taking various factors like inflation into account.
The “real value of goods and services” is impossible to measure.
Only I know the real value of the goods and services I purchase. Real value is a personal value judgement. All economists and government spokespeople can measure is the monetary value of these things and essentially give them a price tag. They can build a new road and estimate how much its existence contributes to enhancing the performance of the local or regional economy or how much gasoline and time motorists will save as a result of being able to travel between A, B, C, D and E more quickly, cheaply and conveniently. But all these measures of value are actually price/cost measurements, or in other words monetary value.
To take a cartoonish case, imagine the monetary value of the many modern and postmodern art works owned by Charles Saachi, and think about the loss to the world in terms of real value when dozens of these works went up in flames at the warehouse where they were in storage. You would have to be Guardian art critic to mourn the loss.
It’s just that everyone else here thinks it’s a bit of a laugh. The fire brigade are entitled to their levity. After all, no one died, there were no horrific injuries, they successfully contained a fire that – you gather from the hoses right down the residential streets and into another industrial estate – they feared might spread much further. But the television crews think it’s a bit of a laugh, too.
Later, a BBC researcher is on the phone, explaining that a feature is planned for this afternoon about whether the loss of all this contemporary British art matters at all. “Was it just a load of rubbish?” she wants to know. No one would contemplate asking that question about, say, all Zandra Rhodes dresses, or even a collection of Premier League football memorabilia, had they gone up in smoke. But contemporary British art disappearing in a fire – that’s funny. The fact that most of it belonged to Charles Saatchi makes it even funnier.
However, the total monetary value of the lost art—that few people would think valuable enough to keep in their garden shed—was worked out for insurance purposes as being in the tens of millions of pounds.
The company that ran the art storage depot that went up in flames destroying hundreds of pieces of Britart has secretly paid out tens of millions of pounds in damages to leading artists, collectors and insurance companies.
Momart Ltd settled out of court after a group legal action was launched alleging the firm was negligent. The artist Gillian Ayres, the husband of the late Helen Chadwick, the novelist Shirley Conran and the heirs of the painter Patrick Heron were among those involved in the legal action. Through their lawyers, they claimed the storage warehouse in east London, which caught fire in May 2004, was wholly unsuitable for high-value fine art, had inadequate fire detection and was “a disaster waiting to happen”. Estimates at the time of the fire put the losses to artists, collectors, galleries and insurance companies at between £30m and £50m.
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40203000/jpg/_40203521_tent203.jpg
This tent memorializing everyone Tracey Emin had ever slept with up to that time—one of the treasures lost in the fire—was priceless!! Or valueless depending on one’s degree of philistinism.
price is what you pay for something
value is what others can be persuaded to pay you for it
Think of that relative to a house
The economic system you decry is getting generally known as worthless. I doubt there is now Fractional Reserve banking anywhere in existence. The latest incarnation is Credit Creation Theory, where the bank conjures up the mortgage sum from “thin air”, similar to how the Federal reserve creates its currency, although unlike bank money it is not a liability. The liability issue gets settled when the currency creation act paid out the debt on the Government’s books. So basically the government has no money [just the interval between getting and buying the debt, say 30 days]
Economists are typically out of the loop about book keeping and its conventions [amazing really!]
So their textbooks are full of basic errors . [Budget surpluses and deficits, and “Government Debt” to name two big failings]. There are heaps of blogs today saying the mainstream is a failure. Even big names are saying to read up on MMT because the reality of economics is described in their text book’. It’s been reprinted 3 times already:
MACROECONOMICS By William Mitchell. L.Randall Wray and Martin Watts, 572 pages.
Published by Macmillan International Red Globe Press.ISBN 978-1-137-61066-9 Paperback.
It is the future of economics.
Some of what John Doyle is saying may be true, but I wouldn’t count on it all being true. This is what the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta says on Fractional Reserve Banking:
https://www.frbatlanta.org/education/classroom-economist/fractional-reserve-banking/economists-perspective-transcript
The article doesn’t come out and say, “We don’t do it precisely this way any more,” but I think that this is the issue. Practices gradually evolve to work a bit differently, so some people call them by a different name. To me, there is not a whole lot of difference, even though today’s name tends to be different.
MMT is a different world. It is much easier to comprehend when you are NOT an economist.Too much to unlearn. However it cannot be proven wrong, simply because it is not a hypothesis, just a list of facts, which however are killing off the Mainstream rhetoric and leading everyone to ruin.
Economics is a very powerful knowledge, and has been worth distorting to set an agenda not in the interests of every man or woman, but rather neoliberal capitalism. Re Fractional Reserve Banking, this was proven wrong when the Bank of England endorsed the Credit Creation version:
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/working-paper/2015/banks-are-not-intermediaries-of-loanable-funds-and-why-this-matters
The majority of us are not economists. I am not an economists.
Growing money supply or growing other kinds of promises can help keep demand for goods and services up, at least for a while. At some point, these promises become too concentrated in the hands of a few, and the system stops working. The point of excess concentration seems to be related to the extent to which diminishing returns are affecting the ability to cheaply extract resources, especially energy resources. The point of excess concentration also seems to be affected by how much population is rising. Energy, and goods made with energy, need to rise relative to the quantity of total population.
If you have these things in MMT, I might agree with it. Otherwise, I see it as just another set of empty economic theories.
You really are not interested in Economics? Don’t you know how much economics matters to everyone? It cannot be stressed enough to know it, because it can be [and is] gravely misused for purposes that aid vested interests and our ignorance about economics is the greatest help to those who distort it for benefit the wrong people. You are aiding those who distort it . It actually has a big influence on matters you write about, but you make errors because of your misunderstanding of economics. That is a very unfortunate curb on your commentary. All your comments on economics directly and indirectly are erroneous as a result.
MMT is the future. because it is directly linked to what really happens in the field. To call it an “empty theory” is just a disgraceful sign of unwillingness to understand reality. You continue to bleat about taxes, which for the Federal government are not revenue, but destruction. No doubt you think a budget surplus is a desirable aim for governments. In fact they are a hole that the non government sector has to fill. Budget deficits are where the currency comes from. There are limits to how much can be spent into existence. MMT explains it depends on available resources available to the country. None of the mainstream theories mention that fundamental fact.
Frankly I can’t care whether you believe it or not. But I cringe when you get it wrong as it means you are going nowhere. I should stop commenting as you are welded to the wrong story about economics and your work suffers for it. I’m wasting my time as you have not moved during the time I have been following your blog. It’s very disappointing.
I don’t think I said I am “not interested” in economics. Nearly all that I have learned about economics is self-taught. Whenever someone mentions “so and so’s theory,” I need to go and look it up. The only classroom teaching of economics that I have had was a one-semester Econ. 101 course as an undergraduate.
Here is one irrefutable fact: If I control the means of production, then the final product will be designated for me, and me alone.
Unless the crypto commies gang up and distribute the last loaf of bread among the unwashed masses, which really won’t change anything at all, except spread misery more evenly.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/30/e4/19/30e41980918a839c4f6142cc4134c6f1.png
The physics of the system tends to favor keeping the bread for yourself. That way, the system has one survivor.
The physics of the system works in a way similar to freezing out the least well adapted to changing conditions. What is available tends to go “rise to the top” like steam, and go to the best adapted. That way, the system as a whole has the best possible chance of surviving, even if most participants are “left out in the cold.”
You cannot do it on your own, however. Others are involved over which you have little or no control. So your fact is not factual in real life.
Perhaps Syria should try out the credit creation theory.
“Since the outbreak of the revolution in 2011, the value of the Syrian pound has plummeted, weakening confidence in the country’s economy…
“The pound’s collapse has resulted in rising import costs for basic commodities, widespread currency speculation and hoarding of dollars, a foreign exchange crisis at the Syrian Central Bank, and most concerning, a deterioration in the living conditions for the country’s poorest sections of society.”
https://syriadirect.org/news/economic-crisis-looms-as-the-syrian-pound-plummets-to-an-all-time-low-4/
Why pick on Syria? The USA bears the responsibility for Syria’s problems. Perhaps the US banks could pay Syria’s debts, since the USA is the troublemaker in chief for the whole of the MENA nations.
Syria is one of many countries with a peak oil problem. When oil exports fall, it has a problem. (Oil exporters also have a problem when prices fall, but Syria’s problems started earlier.)
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/syria-oil-production-and-consumption.png
You are missing the point. Syria would have eventually had a peak oil problem left to itself. But it’s not even getting the oil already as it is being robbed by the USA, That is why I asked why pick on Syria? The question was a political one.
I’m really not having a pop at poor Syria – just at the idea that there is a monetary panacea for what is essentially a physics problem.
That being said, I don’t discount the possibility that MMT and similar ideas could potentially keep the global economy going a little longer, albeit heightening financial instabilities and hurting weaker nations in the process.
I am sceptical and of course it could be the additional layer of complexity that immediately brings the whole thing crashing down – but who can say for sure? If someone had told me ten years ago that we’d still be in an era of QE and ultra-low rates without GFC 2.0 having been precipitated, I’d have probably scoffed.
I’m perfectly happy for it to be tried and indeed for geo-engineering to be tried. Nothing to lose, right? But advocating MMT with religious fervour seems an odd thing to do if you have fully grasped the issues Gail writes about.
you will not dissuade people that money and votes can overcome the laws of physics
No harm in being skeptical, Harry. But MMT only needs study to realise its potential. You cannot now say you don’t know it, just that you haven’t studied it. I got interested when I realised we were being lied to all the time. Margaret Thatcher’s quote here about Socialism using up other people’s money is a lie of the first water, Totally, absolutely un true. I doubts she believed it herself, but it made an effective sound bite. The real truth is that Socialism [social democracy] pays for itself. It is the cheapest option, IMO. Rampant Capitalism as practised today is by far the most expensive system, what with the cost of added misery in the nation, rampant social costs and policing, health care non resolution and the intrusive profit overhead sum. An extreme form of parasitism, except we are aware it is happening.
Our problem is a lack of resources that are inexpensive to produce. Producers are being “squeezed out” all around the world, by prices of resources that are too low, relative to the cost of production. We see this problem pretty much everywhere: agricultural production, minerals such as copper, lithium and uranium, and fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas).
An individual country that has “sovereign currency” can theoretically spend in excess of what it collects in taxes, according to MMT. It can distribute that wealth back to citizens.
1. In theory, perhaps the country issuing more currency (which it doesn’t treat as debt) can grab more of the output of the world economy for itself, leaving less for others, under this approach. This assumes that currency relativities do not change as much as might theoretically be appropriate. From the point of view of high-income, already high-debt countries with sovereign currencies, this “more debt” approach is already popular. Getting the money back to individual citizens might give the country more leverage in buying goods made from around the world. I am doubtful that this approach would get many jobs back to the country with the added debt because goods are bought from most everywhere.
2. We cannot get world commodity prices up high enough right now to ensure continued production. I doubt that more currency issued by a handful of countries would do anything to significantly fix the problem. We would still have oil and food prices way too low, for example.
3. There seem to be a number of countries heading toward collapse right now, because of low commodity prices. Even if their currencies are supposedly sovereign (Venezuela, Syria, South Africa, Chile), I don’t see that MMT would have any chance of fixing their problems.
I don’t think MMT does much of anything beyond what is already being done by countries in the position to keep raising their debt levels.
Trying to solve the physical problem of energy and resource-constraints on a monetary level is akin to feeding a starving person more and more amphetamines to keep them going – at some point they are going to keel over entirely!
Great analogy!
“Hainan Airlines Holding has said it is in talks with investors to resolve an unpaid CNY1 billion (USD143 million) privately placed bond issued to an affiliated firm [Grand China Air].
https://www.yicaiglobal.com/news/hainan-airlines-says-it-is-talking-with-investors-after-flunking-on-private-bond
The debt is in yuan. If it were in USD, the falling relativity of the yuan to the dollar could be playing a role. Apparently, this company is having problems, even apart from the drop in value of the yuan to the USD.
“[US] Unemployment’s at a half-century low. Inflation is near its target of 2%. And, at about 125 months, the U.S. is charting its longest economic expansion since at least the 1850s.
“Look under the hood, however, and things look very troublesome.
“Numerous trade wars have cost U.S. companies, farmers and consumers dearly. The manufacturing industry – once America’s job engine and ostensibly the sector the trade war was supposed to support – is seeing its worst year since 2009.
“And looking abroad, the situation is even worse, with the global economy slowing and the International Monetary Fund warning there’s little ammunition left to fight a recession…
“A key cause of the 2008 financial crisis was too much debt in the housing market, much of which ultimately went bad.
Today, the problem is in corporate America. Since 2008, when the Fed drove its target interest rate to a record-low 0.25%, markets have been flooded with cheap money. That was too much to resist for U.S. companies, which went on a borrowing binge.
“All American companies are currently sitting on a record US$15.5 trillion in debt, equivalent to about two-thirds of U.S. GDP. Unfortunately, this debt was not primarily used to finance expansion and growth but more commonly to jack up stock prices through dividends, stock buybacks and acquisitions.
“The problem will come when the party stops – when interest rates begin rising and companies, particular the ones that took more risks, can’t refinance or pay back their debts. This is what turns a credit boom into a financial crisis, as happened in 2008.”
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/why-fed-must-keep-cutting-interest-rates-98262
“Unfortunately, this debt was not primarily used to finance expansion and growth but more commonly to jack up stock prices through dividends, stock buybacks and acquisitions.”
The CEOs responsibility is to the shareholders. The board. Overwhelmingly their wish is for the stock price to go up. If borrowing money to buy your own stock does that than the company that do that will “perform” better. The companies that dont will not be as attractive to investors or competitive.
Debt to equity metric doesnt matter if you are buying your own stock Nor does anything else for that matter like whether your product is any good or in demand. the stock price goes up.
When do you really want a stock buy back as a shareholder? When you are selling. The company buying your shares with debt. This leaves the company with both the high priced shares and the debt as you exit.
How much of this activity is driven by the shareholder’s? Retirement plans almost demand 7% plus returns which are clearly impossible in a real sense. Ask the impossible and someone will come along who can do it – for a while until the company is gutted. The stodgy manager who ekes out real cash returns is soon out the door, lessons learned.
It appears no different in public utilities if CA is an example, ask the impossible out of RE and some one delivers even when it burns the metaphorical house to the ground. Illusions too often become reality – for a while.
Dennis L.
““[US] Unemployment’s at a half-century low. Inflation is near its target of 2%.”
There’s a saying: “it goes to show how figures lie and liars figure”. According to a very well respected economists, John Williams from Shadowstats.com. He has the real unemployment at around 22-26% and the real inflation rate between 10-14% YOY.
It’s absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to have the lowest unemployment rate ever, when a 1/3 of your workforce can’t find work. And that means finding steady work to support a family and not a cashiers job at a Taco Bell.
It is the wage disparity problem!
People get paid to make up better sounding stats. So to see one not gilding the lily is a rare exception.
One reason the economy is struggling for most of us is because the guiding principle has to be what is really going on, not what some paid hack is saying
Ah, it is hard to understand what is happening with employment, this is a quote from a referenced article:
“While the economy was roughly unchanged over the past month, the Fed founds that employment continued to rise slightly overall, even as labor markets remained tight across the U.S. Several Districts noted relatively strong job gains in professional and technical services as well as healthcare, while reports were mixed for employment in manufacturing, with some Districts noting rising headcounts while others noted stable employment levels and one District reported layoffs. And while there were scattered reports of labor reductions in retail and wholesale trade, the prevailing complaint was one of continued labor shortages as the vast majority of Districts continued to note difficulty hiring driven by a lack of qualified applicants as the labor market remained very tight.
The shortage of workers spanned most industries and skill levels, and some contacts noted that their inability to fill vacancies was constraining business growth with multiple contacts reporting “bringing back retired workers as a way to fill openings.” Moderate wage growth continued across most Districts, and the Fed said that wage pressures intensified for low-skill positions, even if reports from both the BLS and Umich shows that wage growth has now peaked and is moving lower.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/beige-book-finds-expansion-remains-modest-employers-bring-back-retirees-fill-job-openings
Gail may have to trim the quote, not sure what the limit is.
Dennis L.
Lots of people not employed, who might be if wages were higher, long term jobs prospects were better, and commuting less onerous, I expect. It is hard to get excited about finding a job if the job is likely to be short-term and not very high paying. How does a person plan his/her life around a job that cannot be depended upon?
The rising problem I have spotted and is witnessed by the priests is that the singing in the churches declines. You see zombies around you who do not participate. They go to church, listen attentively, but they do no sing. 30 years ago, the situation was different, the church was full of strong voices of the singing people. It looks to me as if people really do not have energy, as singing is not that low energy activity. I see it in the catholic churches Slovakia, but is this present also elsewhere?
The interesting fact is that this lack of participation started some years ago when during the wedding ceremonies you could see otherwise active participating people to be numb, barely answering. As if it revealed the true attitude towards the weddings and marriages in general: it is no fun anymore, but another burden, besides the care for the elderly, the care for the children brings little to no benefits. The same way the institutional religious ceremonies look like something which requires energy that the people feel that could be spent otherwise.
I could also witness a priest who is shy like the people, you could barely hear his voice also with the microphone, his sermons being minimalist, consisting of few sentences.
https://www.vocalmotionmethod.com/sound-advice-11-importance-energy-singing/
If you’re heart isn’t in it, singing in the choir is an energy draining activity. But if you’re heart is in it, it becomes an energy boosting activity.
A modest suggestion: Churches could install Karaoke bars. Fueled by communion wine and a decent playlist, this idea might really take off.
Whoops! you’re => your
Sorry.
Tim, is the problem with the people, or is it with the music? My children sang in the church choir, but the services were traditional; the lessons were from the Authorised Version (KJV), followed the old (Anglican) prayer book, and we sang the traditional hymns.
A year or so later, we had a visiting priest, from Ghana, who also followed tradition (as many Africans do). The processional might be by Bach; it was led by a thurifer and a crucifer, and (his only innovation) had girl acolytes as well as boys. At the consecration, the choir would sometimes sing the Ave verum corpus, in Latin, in Mozart’s setting. The holy elements would be served with the traditional words, not with some abbreviated or recently invented version.
I think there are many denominations, not excluding the Roman, where the people have abandoned the Church because the Church has abandoned God. As Prosper of Aquitaine said: Lex orandi, lex credendi.
Catholicism.org gives us the background on the phrase lex orandi, lex credendi:
This ancient Latin axiom is quoted so often, I thought a little explanation of it on our web site would be helpful. A paraphrase of a longer patristic expression, the phrase means, “the law of praying is the law of believing.”
The Father of the Church who gave us the axiom is St. Prosper of Aquitaine. He coined it in his controversy with the semi-Pelagians, who held that God’s grace was necessary neither for one’s first movement towards conversion nor for final perseverance.
According to Prosper of Aquitaine, legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi, which is to say, ‘the law of prayer determines the law of belief’ (Prosper used the equivalent term lex supplicandi in place of lex orandi ). Prosper treats the church’s prayer as an authoritative source for theology in arguing that salvation must come entirely at God’s initiative since in the liturgy the church prayed for the conversion of infidels, Jews, heretics, schismatics and the lapsed who would not seek the true faith on their own.
https://catholicism.org/lex-orandi-lex-credendi.html
Infidels, Jews, heretics, schismatics and the lapsed—that includes almost everyone including the Pope these days.
Tim, I thank you. Deo gratias.
i guess it got so bad that Martin Luther rebelled, and survived the wrath of the Catholic Church long enough to make a difference. i’ll bet they still hate him to this day.