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Historical data show that, to date, a reduction in energy availability has mostly affected the US, European countries, Japan, and other advanced economies. I expect this situation to continue as energy limits become more of a problem. Advanced economies will start looking and acting more like today’s less-advanced economies. The world economy will face a bumpy path in a generally downward direction.
In this post, I give an overview of our current predicament. All economies are subject to the laws of physics. We are biologically adapted to needing some cooked foods in our diets. We have also moved away from the equatorial regions, so many of us need heat to keep warm. With a world population of 8 billion, we are a long way from meeting all our energy needs with renewable sources alone.
The world’s fossil fuel supplies are depleting, but politicians cannot tell us the true nature of our predicament. Instead, we are told a “sour grapes” narrative: “We need to move away from fossil fuels to prevent climate change.” What this narrative, in fact, seems to do is shift an ever-greater share of fossil fuels that are available to less-advanced economies. It may also spread out the use of fossil fuels over a somewhat longer period. But there is no evidence that this narrative actually reduces the overall quantity of carbon dioxide emissions. Instead, the more advanced economies are likely to be hit sooner, and harder, than the less advanced economies by the problem of energy limits, pushing them on a bumpy road downward.
[1] Economies tend to collapse because populations rise faster than the resources (particularly energy resources) required to support those populations.
We are dealing with an age-old problem: Humans are able to outsmart other animals, and for this reason, human populations tend to rise except when external conditions are quite adverse.
The necessary steps needed for humans to outsmart other animals began about one million years ago, when pre-humans first learned to control fire. With the controlled use of fire, humans could
- Cook food to make it easier to chew and digest.
- Kill pathogens by cooking food or boiling water.
- Scare away wild animals.
- Keep warm in colder climates.
- Eat a more varied diet, with more protein. Primates eat mostly plants; humans are omnivores.
- Spend less time chewing food and more time working on crafts.
- Indirectly, the shape of the human body could change. Teeth, jaws, and guts became smaller; brains became larger.
After 1800, when fossil fuel consumption began to grow, human population started to rise at an unprecedented rate. With coal, it was easier to make metal tools, including cooking utensils, in reasonable abundance. While it is possible to smelt some metals using charcoal (made by partially burning hardwood, then cutting off the air flow), doing so tends to lead to deforestation if more than a small quantity of metal is made.
Figure 1 indicates that population had started rising well before 1800. Thomas Malthus wrote about the difficulty of increasing food supply as rapidly as population in 1798. The problem of rising population exceeding resources is an age-old problem.
[2] The physics reason for the limited lifespan of economies is not understood by many people.
In many ways, economies are like humans and hurricanes. In physics terms, all three are dissipative structures. They need to “dissipate” energy of the right kinds to remain “alive.” All dissipative structures are temporary in nature. No dissipative structure, including an economy, can stay away from a cold, dead state permanently. Usually, dissipative structures are replaced by slightly different dissipative structures. This process allows long-term adaptation to changing conditions.
Dissipative structures are self-organizing. They seem to act on their own. Our human leaders may believe they are completely in charge, but this is not really the case. The economy seems to choose its own course, just as humans and hurricanes do.
The energy products that humans require are food products, some of which need to be cooked. The energy products that economies require are of many kinds, including solar energy to grow crops, human energy to tend the crops, and many types of fuels including firewood, coal, oil, and natural gas. Electricity is a carrier of energy produced by other means. Much modern equipment uses electricity, but trying to transition to an all-electric economy is fraught with peril.
In today’s world, energy products of many types act to leverage human labor. As far as I can see, growing fossil fuel consumption is the primary reason why human productivity grows.
Oil is especially important in farming and transportation. Coal and natural gas are important in steel and concrete manufacturing, and in providing heat for many processes. Years ago, oil was burned for electricity, but today coal and natural gas are the fuels typically burned to provide electricity. Fossil fuels are also important for their chemical properties in many different goods, including in plastics, fabrics, drugs, herbicides, and pesticides.
Using renewable energy, alone, sounds like a good idea, but it is not possible in practice. Forests were the major source of energy to support the economy before the advent for fossil fuels, but deforestation became a problem long before 1800. The world’s population, even at one billion, was too high to sustain using biologically renewable sources alone.
At a population of around 8 billion today, there is no way that wood, and products derived from wood, can support the energy needs of today’s population. Doing so would be like humans trying to live on a 250 calorie a day diet instead of a 2000 calorie per day diet.
What are referred to as modern renewables (hydroelectric power and electricity from wind turbines and solar panels) are really extensions of the fossil fuel system. These devices can only be made and repaired using fossil fuels. In addition, today’s electrical transmission system is only possible because of fossil fuels.
[3] Advanced Economies tend to be “advanced” because of the large amounts of fossil fuels they use to leverage the labor of their citizens.
In my analysis, I use the term “Advanced Economies” to mean countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). “Other than Advanced Economies” are then equivalent to non-OECD countries. I use this terminology because it better describes the reason why these two groupings have such different indications. Also, it is not intuitive that such a difference underlies these two groupings.
My analysis shows that energy consumption per capita is much higher in Advanced Economies than in Other than Advanced Economies, for all three energy charts shown: oil (Figure 2), all other kinds of energy grouped together (including renewables) (Figure 3), and electricity (Figure 4).
It is clear from these charts that the general trend in energy consumption per capita in recent years is down in Advanced Economies, while the general trend in energy consumption per capita is up for Other than Advanced Economies. To me, this means that the self-organizing economic system favors Other than Advanced Economies in the bidding for scarce energy resources.
One interpretation might be that Advanced Economies are using energy products in a wasteful way, compared to Other than Advanced Economies. The self-organizing world economy in some sense tries to maintain itself, even if some less efficient parts need to be squeezed down or out.
The narrative we hear from politicians and others is that Advanced Economies are moving away from fossil fuels to prevent climate change. This seems to be the narrative the self-organizing economy provides to people who live in Advanced Economies. I will discuss how this occurs, and its lack of success in reducing overall carbon emissions, in Section [5] of this post.
[4] Figures 2, 3, and 4 (above) reflect the impacts of several events leading to a squeezing down of energy consumption per capita.
The following are some events that indirectly squeezed back the energy consumption growth of Advanced Economies:
- Oil prices spiked in 1973-1974, leading to recession, indirectly in response to US first hitting oil limits in 1970.
- Severe recession, in response to Paul Volker’s increase in interest rates in the 1977 to 1980 timeframe.
- China was added to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in December 2001, allowing it to ramp up its manufacturing using coal. This primarily represented an increase in energy consumption by Other than Advanced Economies. At the same time, it removed a great deal of manufacturing from Advanced Economies, so their energy consumption should have been reduced.
- The Great Recession of 2007-2009.
- The 2020 pandemic and its response.
A person can see the impacts that these changes have had on per capita oil consumption (Figure 2), energy other than oil consumption (Figure 3), and electricity consumption (Figure 4), by looking for these dates in the charts, and noticing what changes in trends took place.
Figure 2 shows that there were very large cutbacks in oil consumption per capita in Advanced Economies, prior to 1983. In this early time frame, cutbacks in oil usage were fairly easy to obtain. Some examples include:
- US-made cars in the early 1970s were large and fuel inefficient, but Japan and Europe were already making smaller vehicles. By importing smaller vehicles, and making smaller ones in the US, major savings could take place in oil usage.
- Some oil was being burned to generate electricity. Such generation could be changed to natural gas, coal or nuclear.
- Home heating often used oil. Such heating could be replaced with heat based on natural gas or electricity.
With respect to China joining the WTO in 2001, and this action leading to much greater consumption of coal for manufacturing, these actions ironically followed the Kyoto Protocol of 1997. According to this protocol, Advanced Economies indicated that they planned to reduce their own carbon dioxide emissions. They did this by outsourcing manufacturing to countries not affected by the Kyoto Protocol. These countries were poor countries, including China and India.
It is possible to see the effect of this ramp up in energy consumption by Other than Advanced Economies in both Figures 3 and 4, starting about 2002. In theory, energy consumption per capita by Advanced Economies should have fallen at the same time, but it didn’t. This is one reason why carbon dioxide per capita started rising rapidly in 2002 (Figure 6).
One squeezing-out event disproportionately affected “Other than Advanced Economies.” This was the collapse of the central government of the Soviet Union in 1991. All the countries involved in the Soviet Bloc were affected. Manufacturing in these countries dropped at about this time, as did all types of energy production and consumption. This can be seen as a small dip in the “Other than Advanced Economies” line between 1991 and 2001 in Figures 2 and 3.
While the Soviet Union had plenty of fossil fuels, the world oil price was very low (indicating oversupply). As a result, the country was not getting enough revenue for reinvestment in new oil fields and to repay debt and meet other obligations. The world’s self-organizing economy squeezed out the least efficient oil producer, which was the Soviet Union. The fact that the economy was Communist, and thus allocated resources and rewards in a strange way, may have also played a role in the collapse.
Figure 5 shows the widespread impact of the collapse of the central government of the Soviet Union.
[5] The narrative, “We are moving away from fossil fuels to prevent climate change,” seems to be self-organized by the dissipative structures underlying Advanced Economies.
The real story is that fossil fuels are moving away from us. Somehow, we must adapt, very quickly, to this disastrous situation. But this is not a story that politicians can tell their constituents, or that universities can tell their students who are studying for future job opportunities. Instead, they need a “best case” scenario: There is perhaps something we can do; we can transition away from fossil fuel use quickly.
It is not possible to explain to the public what is really happening. Instead, a “Sour Grapes” scenario is presented. In this narrative, the current economy can continue, much as today, without fossil fuels. (This is clearly nonsense in a physics-based economy, with today’s “renewables.”) We should move away from fossil fuels because they add too much carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
It should be noted that this “we-can-move-from-fuels narrative” has been spearheaded by the International Energy Association (IEA), which is an arm of the OECD. (I mentioned earlier that I have equated OECD with Advanced Economies). Countries included in “Other than Advanced Economies,” at best, claim lip service to limiting carbon emissions. Their primary interest is in raising the living standards of their populations. To a significant extent, the fossil fuels that Advanced Economies decide not to use can be used by Other than Advanced Economies.
Figure 6 below shows that the efforts of IEA/OECD to reduce carbon dioxide emissions have worked in precisely the wrong direction, on a world basis. Preliminary data for 2023 shows that world carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels rose by another 1.1%.
The plan to reduce carbon emissions for participating countries was first specified in the Kyoto Protocol of 1997. The World Trade Organization (WTO) began a little earlier than this, in 1995. The purpose of the WTO was to increase world trade and thus the total goods and services the world economy was able to produce. In some sense, the Kyoto Protocol and the WTO had opposite objectives. The only way more goods and services could be produced was by using more fossil fuels.
Figure 6 shows that fossil fuel emissions increased sharply after China joined the WTO in December 2001. China was able to ramp up its industrial production using its very large coal resources. It is not clear that the Kyoto Protocol did much besides encouraging Advanced Economies to move their manufacturing elsewhere. This paved the way for the industrialization of Other than Advanced Economies, mainly by burning coal. At the same time, the Advanced Economies have been turned into service economies that are dependent upon Other than Advanced Economies for manufactured goods of nearly all kinds.
NASA says that when carbon dioxide is added to the atmosphere, it stays around for 300 to 1000 years. NASA also reports that the increase in atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa was the highest ever in 2023.
The increases shown on Figure 7 are relative to a large base. As percentages, they range from about 0.2% per year in the earliest periods to about 0.6% per year in recent periods.
In summary, whatever the Advanced Economies are doing to restrict emissions still leaves the world’s emissions from fossil fuels, as well as atmospheric emissions, rising fairly rapidly. Given the self-organizing nature of the world economy, I am doubtful that there is anything we humans can do to fix this situations. The people in Other than Advanced Economies need fossil fuels to feed their growing populations, and to give them the basic necessities of life.
[6] Figure 8 shows the path that Advanced Economies seem to be following.
In my opinion, with less oil and other energy per capita, Advanced Economies have become increasingly hollowed out, with more of their manufacturing transferred to Other than Advanced Economies.
In Figure 8, economies start out small, with growing resources per capita. As resource limits are hit, economic growth slows, and well-paying jobs become harder to get, especially for young people. In agricultural economies, the problem is that farms need to get smaller and smaller if there are too many surviving children, and they all want to be farmers. Clearly, too small a farm will not feed a growing family.
In the case of Advanced Economies, they become hollowed out because they find themselves increasingly dependent on imported goods and services. Other than Advanced Economies, with lower wages, less overhead for heating/cooling homes and health care, and lower energy costs, can produce manufactured goods more cheaply than Advanced Economies.
As Advanced Economies lose manufacturing and industries such as mining, they also become more dependent on debt and government programs. This added debt becomes increasingly hard to service, especially when interest rates rise.
Advanced Economies become particularly vulnerable to adverse changes because they have lost the ability to manufacture many of the goods required for everyday living. In fact, it becomes a problem even to fight wars, because many of the materials required to make weapons need to be imported from overseas.
Over the long-term, collapse may occur, but this collapse is unlikely to occur all at once. Instead, it can be expected to be what is sometimes called catabolic collapse, which takes place in steps. Parts of the economy will hold together as long as there are resources to support those parts. Future changes in Advanced Economies can be thought of as being somewhat like the changes to the economy in 2020 (indirectly related to Covid-19), but “on steroids.”
[7] Some of the kinds of changes that can be expected.
We don’t know precisely what changes to economies lie ahead, but these are some ideas of things might happen to Advanced Economies before a full collapse.
[a] Loss of the “hegemony” of the US. In the years since World War II, the US has taken on the role of the world’s policeman. But the US has been having increased difficulties when it comes to actually winning the wars it gets involved in. It is very difficult for the US to make weapons in quantity when large parts of the supply lines involve other countries. Also, today’s weapons aren’t necessarily suited to dealing with today’s attacks, such as by the Houthi Group in the Red Sea.
Changes may already be starting. We hear about Victoria Nuland’s recent abrupt retirement as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. She is described as “a determined advocate of tough policies toward Vladimir Putin.” She is being replaced, at least temporarily, by John Bass, who oversaw the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
[b] Loss of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. The US has had a financial advantage, as long as all other countries had to first change their currencies to the US dollar, in order to trade among themselves. This arrangement allowed the US to import more than it exported, year after year. It also allowed the US to use sanctions against other countries to cut off their trading abilities.
Changes already seem to be starting to reduce the role of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. In May 2023, Reuters reported, Vast China-Russia resources trade shifts to yuan from dollars in Ukraine fallout. Also, the BRICS nations have been working on an alternative currency, as a possible replacement currency for trading. And, of course, there are all kinds of cryptocurrencies that might be expected to facilitate purchases across borders.
[c] Major loss of trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific freight trade and passenger travel. An easy way to save oil would be to stop shipping goods as far as producers do today. Unfortunately, quite a bit of what we purchase in the US has supply lines that start in China.
Without trans-Atlantic or trans-Pacific supply lines, many goods the US depends upon would disappear from shelves in the US. Computers and telephones, for example, might become unavailable, as would many drugs, especially low-cost drugs. Even high-quality steel drilling pipes, used for oil extraction, might become difficult to obtain.
It is not clear how the US would deal with this issue. It is likely that the economy would need to find substitutes or get along without whatever is lost due to broken supply lines.
[d] Significant defaults on financial promises of all kinds, including bonds, loans made by banks, rental contracts, and derivatives. Ultimately, a decline in asset prices seems likely.
The amount of debt and financial products used in Advanced Economies is at record levels. If a major recession occurs, debt defaults and derivative failures can be expected. Some renters will default on their contracts. Bank failures can be expected, as well.
Politicians will not want to throw people out of their homes; they likely won’t even want to take their automobiles away. Instead, it is likely to be those who are counting on wealth from long-term promises made by poor people who lose out. For example, some of today’s wealthy people may find their wealth disappears when renters cannot make payments on their apartments or farms.
If bank lending starts becoming a problem, peer-to-peer lending may start to take a larger role. This would seem to be the equivalent of replacing taxis by Ubers and replacing hotels by private citizens renting out rooms. The total amount of debt available will fall. With less debt available, asset prices of all kinds will tend to fall.
[e] Much more interest in reusing old buildings, old furnishings, and old clothes. Also, making use of salvaged parts of buildings and spare parts from old mechanical equipment, including automobiles.
If the making of goods that depend on overseas supply lines becomes difficult, substitutes such as previously used goods will likely be in demand. For example, we may go back to sourcing replacement parts from automobiles parked in junk yards.
Local entrepreneurs will find ways to make use of whatever goods can be used again. Such work may be a new source of jobs.
[8] We are likely to have a bumpy road ahead. Energy and the economy work together in very strange ways. While the path is generally downward for the world, the part of the world that uses energy very sparingly has a better chance of maintaining and even increasing its standard of living.
Our self-organizing economy puts together all kinds of narratives that lead us to believe that we certainly know the only path forward (and, in fact, we can control the economy to follow this path). But the system doesn’t behave the way we think it does. We assume that if we in the United States or Europe stop using fossil fuels, it will reduce the world’s use of fossil fuels. For example, stopping the Keystone XL Pipeline in 2021 was considered a great environmental victory. But now we read, Canada could lead the world in oil production growth in 2024.
This extra production will likely be going west to China and to other Asian destinations. Canada’s expanded Trans Mountain Pipeline will open in April 2024, adding 590,000 barrels per day of export capacity. If US protestors don’t want Canada’s “tar sands,” many people in China and other poor countries certainly want it. The very heavy oil that Canada produces is ideal for producing diesel, which the world economy is short of.
Likewise, the US may have bypassed easily mineable coal in its rush to shift electricity generation to natural gas. If the US cannot maintain its military strength, this coal becomes a valuable resource for any military power that wants to test its strength against the US. This available coal makes war against the US by other powers more likely. It is well known that a major reason for wars is to obtain energy resources for one’s own people.
We don’t know what is ahead. The “truths” that we are sure we know, aren’t necessarily true. The world economy seems likely to head downward slowly, but this general downward movement will be in spurts. Trying to predict exactly what is ahead is close to impossible.
Thanks for another wonderful article, Gail.
“B” / “The Honest Sorcerer” has also written a very interesting new article, referencing an article by John Michael Greer:
https://thehonestsorcerer.medium.com/the-depopulation-bomb-4e1590b1bfbe
I enjoy reading that blog and it was interesting….Professor Guy McPherson on a recent talk pointed out the replacement number should really be 1.8 instead of 2.1 because people are living longer. That made for a funny joke between them in their video. Doubt we will witness such a smooth transition of population decline…the J curve usually has a cliff in biological populations.
Personally, hoping maybe to have 5-10 years of useless eating, but that really is up to Lady Fate or Luck.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3xHpAIvUpI&t=210s
He ends with:
I used the Deagle forecast + ChatGP to guess what oil demand will be around 2030.
And I calculated around 60 mbs with world population around 7 billion.
Okay, I found the Deagle forecast, it was removed in 2020.
https://nobulart.com/deagel-2025-forecast/
This site has a number of references including “Report from Iron Mountain.”
Hard to know what will happen.
Next Starship launch in 4-6 weeks, with constant improvement we have hope for man, I am the optimist. Someone, some group is betting very heavily on Space X, argue what you want, 100 ton spaceships cannot be cheap to launch no matter how efficient. Someone/thing/group has the peddle to the metal on this project. There is hope. A square mile of Pt would be very helpful for man and our spaceship earth. H is the future, water is the pollutant, we can deal with that.
If the Deagle report is correct, deflation is coming.
Dennis L.
Today’s assets will certainly be worth a lot less, in terms of what they can purchase.
Defaulting debt and broken promises will be very difficult for governments to cover up. In fact, governments will likely be among the worst for broken promise.
Human labor will still have value, especially strong males. With more of an emphasis on physical strength, women’s role in society will likely go down.
I think inceldom on the part of men is part of the adjustment to lower energy per Capita. Just like historically men in Europe married in their 30’s or even later with wives not too much younger than themselves. Which allowed Europeans to cope with Malthusian limits.
It was isn’t the norm for men and women to have huge age gaps like 15-30+ years.
LMAO…….well it was for the first 35,000 years of cognitively modern humans……maybe dirt grubber man and his hive cities changed things but Herding cultures and many tribal cultures practice polygamy and have wide age gaps……
Women die in droves in child birth and men die in droves in combat with other tribes and large mammals.
I mean seriously,…..why would any knowledgeable adult male chose to put up with a 35+ year old woman when he can listen to exactly the same nonsense from a hotter younger version?
Men drive evolution….women are just along for the ride.
Laughing quietly, ah, for the good old days.
Dennis L.
Seeing things through a FiniteWorld lens does tint our view on trends, are they due to decreasing energy? Could be. Looking at my own family tree each generation has many less children and many now have none or 1 geriatric pregnancy last chance birth. I’m unsure the reason for these changes but decreasing living standards are likely contributing. My grandparents had 10+ siblings and they were poor but somehow they were cranking out the kids. I don’t know if there was more social pressure on women then to settle or no birth control or they thought the future would be better so they were optimistic? Children their retirement plan? Wish I could ask these questions of the super elderly and get their opinions but I’ve always found it very difficult to ask personal or difficult questions because maybe it’s rude.
I appreciate the response of the author to comments, which is not common.
One suggestion, if you want to discuss the “fix” humanity is in with declining finite resources, take on some of the biggest lies like the assertion that CO2 can impact climate or that it ever has done that at any point in geohistory. The evidence from studies of spectral energy and the atmosphere inaugurated by Max Planck and elaborated by Schwarzchild show CO2’s greenhouse effect saturates at just above zero in the atmosphere, a level it has been above since day one. Glacial cores reveal CO2 rises AFTER temperature; a lagging indicator cannot cause an effect unless time were to run backward, and of course you know that is impossible.
Why humanity should be burdened by this absurdity about CO2 causing climate change should be looked at by anyone serious about knowing the truth of our “fix” in regard to resources, because if academics should know better about CO2, the situation hints of corruption and sabotage for unknown (or known) reasons.
Of the modern spectral physicists who could advise you I would suggest William Happer. Take a look at the actual science of spectral energy and the atmosphere between about minutes twenty to thirty in this learned presentation with easy to understand graphs and their historical discoverers-
I think you do a good job of presenting something that is surprisingly little understood, the ramifications of Peak Oil theory. This tip on CO2 truth and lies might help you fill out your understanding of the subject. Peace.
Thanks very much for your thoughts, and the link to the video.
I respond to comments because doing so helps me understand better what is happening. Sometimes it points me in the direction of new resources, as well.
I have been hesitant to take on the science of the “Elevated Carbon Dioxide Levels Are Causing Climate Change,” because other people have tried that approach, with little success. It gets to be one scientist versus another scientist, and I cannot claim credentials in this field. But I can keep this in mind, as another “arrow in my quiver of arrows.”
Yes, good tactic to keep a quiver at hand. I just could not stand to have someone tell me not to pull an arrow from my quiver because I had only done my own research, would not succeed, and didn’t “know”. My own research stands on the shoulders of experts with much more authority and evidence than the grifters trotted out by CO2 fraud.
We are told of the dangers of critical thinking by, for example, WEF propagandists, but that is mouthed by people who have never done any. They have never been in our dirt. In terms of personal “success”, Galileo lost even his own family support, while gaining great enduring scientific success. Maybe things did not work out for him, but in today’s jump ball world, the best thing about wearing a tinfoil hat can be no myocardaitis.
I seriously doubt any academic still standing on absurdity today can contradict spectral physics.
Again, gratitude for how you conduct this forum, and best wishes.
“It gets to be one scientist versus another scientist,”
Not really!
It is NASA, NOAA, JMA, WMO, NSIDC, IPCC, UK Met Office, and others and climate research organizations associated with universities versus a small number of ‘dissidents’ usually working for FF companies.
Not really. NASA agreed the story claiming high CO2 in the atmosphere leads to global warming is completely backwards from their calculations. NASA confirmed that during periods of higher CO2 quantum in the atmosphere, earth radiated heat faster. Heat radiation leads to cooling not warming, due to the laws of physics.
Glacier cores have shown CO2 rise in the atmosphere lags temperature rise, not the other way around. High atmospheric CO2 levels are then followed by cooling, not warming episodes.
The overwhelming temporary storage and release of infrared on earth, however, is not done in the atmosphere. This debate about CO2 infrared photons banked in the atmosphere too sets aside how little heat banking a trace gas like CO2 can physically do relative to water vapor gases in the atmosphere, and to water liquids in the oceans. CO2 increase in the atmosphere is not only a lagging indicator of temperature rise, it is a marker for the previous release of CO2 by equatorial ocean currents due to a heated liquid giving off its gases to the atmosphere.
The truely massive heat bank on the blue planet-the elephant in the room- is thus its equatorial ocean currents, transparent waters that absorb maximum intensity solar energy, and then distribute climate around the world due to axial rotation, coreolis force, winds, and continental positioning. The actual heat generated to the earthly heat bank from our primary source varies with solar fluctuations century by century. Earth’s axial tilt trumps its orbital location, for in winter in the northern hemisphere the sun is closest to earth.
That’s how the physics of energy actually works.
Thanks for your input.
It amazes me that people will grasp at any straw .
https://x.com/TheDisproof/status/1770035191240683878?s=20
The greenhouse effect was scientifically proven in the 19th century. It’s not disputable except by Dunning Kruger folks.
“Greenhouse gasses, principally CO2, have controlled most ancient climate changes. This time around humans are the cause, mainly by our CO2 emissions.”
Please go to
https://skepticalscience.com/climate-change-little-ice-age-medieval-warm-period.htm
and explain to them why they are wrong!
I wont hold my breath!
Curiouser and curiouser. Bolsonaro is going to be indicted for forging his vaccine status while President? Even though he was publicly strongly anti-vax and as President he was exempt from any mandates.
We can only conclude that Brazil has turned into Brazil! But don’t worry, the same madness is coming to a country near you.
SAO PAULO (AP) — Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was formally accused Tuesday of falsifying his COVID-19 vaccination status, marking the first indictment for the embattled far-right leader, with more allegations potentially in store.
The federal police indictment released by the Supreme Court alleged that Bolsonaro and 16 others inserted false information into a public health database to make it appear as though the then-president, his 12-year-old daughter and several others in his circle had received the COVID-19 vaccine.
Police detective Fábio Alvarez Shor, who signed the indictment, said in his report that Bolsonaro and his aides changed their vaccination records in order to “issue their respective (vaccination) certificates and use them to cheat current health restrictions.”
“The investigation found several false insertions between November 2021 and December 2022, and also many actions of using fraudulent documents,” Shor added.
The detective said in the indictment that Bolsonaro’s aide-de-camp, Mauro Cid, told investigators the former president asked him to insert the false data into the system for both himself and his daughter. Cid also said he delivered the vaccination certificates to Bolsonaro personally.
During the pandemic, Bolsonaro was one of the few world leaders who railed against the vaccine. He openly flouted health restrictions and encouraged other Brazilians to follow his example. His administration ignored several offers from pharmaceutical company Pfizer to sell Brazil tens of millions of shots in 2020, and he openly criticized a move by Sao Paulo state’s governor to buy vaccines from Chinese company Sinovac when no other doses were available.
Brazil’s prosecutor-general’s office will have the final say on whether to use the indictment to file charges against Bolsonaro at the Supreme Court. The case stems from one of several investigations targeting Bolsonaro, who governed from 2019 to 2022.
Bolsonaro’s lawyer, Fábio Wajngarten, called his client’s indictment “absurd” and said he did not have access to it.
“When he was president, he was completely exempted from showing any kind of certificate on his trips. This is political persecution and an attempt to void the enormous political capital that has only grown,” Wajngarten said.
The former president denied any wrongdoing during questioning in May 2023.
Gleisi Hoffmann, chairwoman of the Workers’ Party, whose candidate defeated Bolsonaro, celebrated his indictment on social media. She said she hopes the former president stands trial in many other cases, including for his alleged attempt to sneak $3 million in diamond jewelry into the country and the sale of two luxury watches he received as gifts from Saudi Arabia while in office.
“He has lied until this day about his nefarious administration, but now he will have to face the truth in the courts. The federal police’s indictment sent to prosecutors is just the first of several,” Hoffmann said. “What is up now, Big Coward? Are you going to face this or run away to Miami?”
https://apnews.com/article/bolsonaro-brazil-federal-police-indicted-covid-a0c1f1dba71553096d0de0f4f39d4caa?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
“Kristalina Georgieva said world leaders had a responsibility to future generations to build an economy that dealt with global heating, deployed AI technology responsibly and slashed elevated levels of inequality.”
What Kristalina is saying here seems almost too good to be true she wants to keep us warm, give all our jobs to artificial intelligience so we can retire and give everyone a universal basic income . I trust in the elders, I trust in the elders, I trust in the elders.
Collapse will slash elevated levels of inequality. If it is possible to deal with global heating, collapse will deal with that as well. I don’t think AI fits in with that combination. Maybe it is the intelligent of the maker of the system we get.
“AI in particular is a massive energy suck, and its recent rapid expansion has really thrown a wrench into the tech sector’s decarbonization plans. Already, AI alone consumes as much energy as some entire developed countries and nearly as much as Bitcoin. Consulting firm Gartner projects that in a business-as-usual scenario, the AI sector alone will be responsible for a whopping 3.5 percent of global electricity consumption by just 2030. It’s estimated that the training process for GPT-3, the predecessor of ChatGPT, used about 1,287 megawatt hours of electricity and 10,000 computer chips. That enough energy to power approximately 121 homes in the United States for an entire year, and enough energy to produce about 550 tonnes of carbon dioxide.”
im putting my money on collapse too and ‘AI’ will cease to exist before collapse because of the large energy requirements according to an article i found on oilprice.com.
my money is all in on bAU into the 2030s.
and speaking of money, AI will never be monetized for any profits but will be a huge energy sink within the world economy, until in a few years when it becomes apparent to wealthy investors that it is a big nothingburger.
AI will be a part of the entertainment as world prosperity declines over the next few decades.
maybe quickly, but probably slooooooowly.
hey, dare I ask, where’s Perth Paul?
Is Perth Paul a.k.a Fast Eddy?
BAU is already over for many many people who once knew it. Go to San Francisco, Philadelphia, or virtually any seaside town in Britain.
BAU doesn’t end for everyone at the same time. It is a salami process, cutting off one tranche of the population after another.
Absolutely, BAU is being pulled out from many individuals and families.
Residents forced to live in vehicles amid Florida’s home insurance crisis
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eolZImBi4F0
Also, car insurance is becoming unaffordable for many families.
One story had a New Jersey family with four cars under one policy.
They are at the point they will have to downsize and trying to figure out how to do so because all how full time jobs for commute.
PS Yes Perth Paul is Fast Eddie..
He claims to be taking a break while he relocated there there from New Zealand
I mentioned in a comment recently that the state of Georgia, (where I live), is rethinking giving tax breaks to big data processing plants that would support AI. While Georgia is in the process of bringing online nuclear power, this is only sufficient to supply ongoing needs in the State of Georgia. We would need a whole lot more electricity, probably from fossil fuels, to support these processing plants. Also, these processing plants don’t add much long-term employment.
Until recently, the State of Georgia thought that it would be adding a new electric automobile plant, but work on that plant has been suspended.
https://www.costar.com/article/407684566/rivian-suspends-electric-vehicle-plant-construction-in-georgia-to-cut-costs
If both the data processing equipment and the EV plants were added, Georgia would have a huge problem with enough electricity.
I am doubtful that Georgia will get the electricity supply to support the processing plants. This will put a break on the AI growth, at least in this part of the world.
I believe that in the short term, the plan is to leave coal plants in the area running longer than otherwise planned. New plants will be natural gas electricity production, assuming it is available.
The “God of this World” will never allow another synthetic mind to compete with it. AI is a false flag and just another tool for elite humans to game the system.
The Satanic is not real big on sharing the power.
Re: the dialogue on imminent war, the US and Combined West are unable to fight a major war. Not enough of anything, especially competent soldiers, workers, weapons and an industrial base.
NATO is a hollow shell – ref. Martyanov, Johnson, Berletic, Orlov et al.
Weirdly after 15+ years of being a Peak Oiler, I’m tipping more towards the “self-organising economy” and “economic cycles” viewpoint, noting Art Berman said the US recently hit a new oil production peak
Clearly the Combined West is in a major downcycle, whereas the Global South/Majority is on an upswing, esp. as it wins freedom from the predations of the dying Empire.
The data shows that here in Australia we’ve got poorer faster than any other Western country in the last couple of years. “Send all your money and weapons to Ukraine”.
Luckily we’re starting from a high base, but I’m expecting everywhere in the West to get A LOT poorer in coming years.
Tim Morgan at SEEDS shows >25% decline in real incomes across the West since 2008.
The question is how many black swans will we get from deluded and incompetent leaders and bureaucracies, given that institutionalised incompetence is now a ‘feature’ of the West?
When I look at “crude oil” by itself, it hasn’t hit another peak. “Liquids” has hit another peak.
Certainly, oil per capita hasn’t hit another peak.
I think Art Berman showed a graph of energy content of all liquids, that measurement peaked in November 2018. same as crude+condensate production.
Tim Morgan at SEEDS shows >25% decline in real incomes across the West since 2008.
Back in the late 90s you could buy a can of baked beans or spaghetti here in the UK in cheap stores for one penny.
Exactly. I knew almost to the month back in 2008 when we hit true peak oil. We flatlined in production until 2018 and then we started down…….all this sidestepping and pontification and “science based analysis”….is utter farce.
The shit is hitting the fan now…and the Seneca collapse is underway….
The God of this world is giddy with anticipation.
Only seven countries meet WHO air quality standard, research finds
Almost all countries failing to meet mark for PM2.5, tiny particles expelled by vehicles and industry that can cause health problems
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/19/air-pollution-health-report
EVs seem to add more particulate matter to the atmosphere than their lighter ICE brethren. According to a WSJ article:
Electric Cars Emit More Particulate Pollution
They have greater tire wear, the source of most particulate matter. California is trying to conceal that fact.
my sister was living next to a roundabout on a busy road she had a white balcony floor she was sweeping it every day due to the bits of tyre matter accumulating gradually from peoples tyres as the wheels were turning at speeds of 20 km per hour because of this she ended up selling
We need truckloads of wood chips to make a small piece of land fertile again: https://youtu.be/82wvDUi5UoQ?si=yR49WBCUecE0Z0Yr
No one stops to figure out how much energy went into this whole project. The greenhouses are inexpensive, but probably short-lived.
The trees that were used were first grown, then cut and carried by truck to some location where they were chipped. The chips were then carried by truck to where they were used on this small lot.
There would seem to be quite a few bottlenecks to scaling up this idea to using it widely. If it really works (??), we can expect to see it used widely.
,
We need carbon capture into soil. Not underground.
We need truckloads of wood chips to make a small piece of land fertile again:
Illustrates the impossibility of organic farming. There just isn’t enough fertiliser.
My sheep provide a lot more fertilizer than I need.
For what and to feed how many people? You need some kind of grain.
You never want to give sheep grain. It ruins their wool and they don’t taste as good. Grass, and grass only, and I have too much grass.
Six lambs will feed quite a few households, most only buy half a lamb.
You’re dodging questions. That’s never a good sign.
Six lambs will feed quite a few households, most only buy half a lamb.
That’s great but not what I would call more than a hobby farm.
What question am I dodging?
I find all the discussion about Kate funny.
The royalty, in order to please the masses, did not hesitate from conducting what would have been morganatic unions a century ago.
I believe sometime during 18th century there would have been a law created to declare all Stuart descendants ineligible for the throne, including Diana Spencer’s descendants since she was descended from Charles II.
Which means the true heir of the throne should be Sarah Ferguson’s elder daughter Beatrice.
The City does NOT forgive or forget. It will negate the second restoration of the Stuarts, just like the first one.
Will we all be migrating or conquering again as conditions change? Very likely.
Who wants to go to the moon when we can do a folk invasion somewhere more hospitable? It is probably a lot more fun.
Gail and Dennis may be interested in this new archaeogentic paper about Scandinavia. It is complex and I will not attempt to summarise it all.
Highlights include that the Anglo-Saxons were half descended from LATVIA and that Norway received ‘Celtic’ ancestry from Britain and Ireland way before the Vikings.
And the Germanic language may have arrived in Scandinavia from Latvia and 800 years after Corded Ware first arrived.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.03.13.584607v1
Steppe Ancestry in western Eurasia and the spread of the Germanic Languages
Summary
Germanic-speaking populations historically form an integral component of the North and Northwest European cultural configuration. According to linguistic consensus, the common ancestor of the Germanic languages, which include German, English, Frisian, Dutch as well as the Nordic languages, was spoken in Northern Europe during the Pre-Roman Iron Age. However, important questions remain concerning the earlier Bronze Age distribution of this Indo-European language branch in Scandinavia as well as the driving factors behind its Late Iron Age diversification and expansion across the European continent. A key difficulty in addressing these questions are the existence of striking differences in the interpretation of the archaeological record, leading to various hypotheses of correlations with linguistic dispersals and changes in material culture.
Moreover, these interpretations have been difficult to assess using genomics due to limited ancient genomes and the difficulty in differentiating closely related populations. Here we integrate multidisciplinary evidence from population genomics, historical sources, archaeology and linguistics to offer a fully revised model for the origins and spread of Germanic languages and for the formation of the genomic ancestry of Germanic-speaking northern European populations, while acknowledging that coordinating archaeology, linguistics and genetics is complex and potentially controversial.
We sequenced 710 ancient human genomes from western Eurasia and analysed them together with 3,940 published genomes suitable for imputing diploid genotypes. We find evidence of a previously unknown, large-scale Bronze Age migration within Scandinavia, originating in the east and becoming widespread to the west and south, thus providing a new potential driving factor for the expansion of the Germanic speech community. This East Scandinavian genetic cluster is first seen 800 years after the arrival of the Corded Ware Culture, the first Steppe-related population to emerge in Northern Europe, opening a new scenario implying a Late rather than an Middle Neolithic arrival of the Germanic language group in Scandinavia. Moreover, the non-local Hunter-Gatherer ancestry of this East Scandinavian cluster is indicative of a cross-Baltic maritime rather than a southern Scandinavian land-based entry.
Later in the Iron Age around 1700 BP, we find a southward push of admixed Eastern and Southern Scandinavians into areas including Germany and the Netherlands, previously associated with Celtic speakers, mixing with local populations from the Eastern North Sea coast. During the Migration Period (1575-1200 BP), we find evidence of this structured, admixed Southern Scandinavian population representing the Western Germanic Anglo-Saxon migrations into Britain and Langobards into southern Europe. During the Migration Period, we detect a previously unknown northward migration back into Southern Scandinavia, partly replacing earlier inhabitants and forming the North Germanic-speaking Viking-Age populations of Denmark and southern Sweden, corresponding with historically attested Danes.
However, the origin and character of these major changes in Scandinavia before the Viking Age remain contested. In contrast to these Western and Northern Germanic-speaking populations, we find the Wielbark population from Poland to be primarily of Eastern Scandinavian ancestry, supporting a Swedish origin for East Germanic groups. In contrast, the later cultural descendants, the Ostrogoths and Visigoths are predominantly of Southern European ancestry implying the adoption of Gothic culture. Together, these results highlight the use of archaeology, linguistics and genetics as distinct but complementary lines of evidence.
Thanks! I added paragraph breaks to what started out as one long paragraph.
Will we all be migrating or conquering again as conditions change? Very likely.
Most of us will just be dying.
Eventually, we will have only one or two significant sources of oil/natural gas at that point it will be a do or die war to take or retain the oil/natural gas. Could we already be at the final do or die war for oil/natural gas?
It seems obvious to me that the global minority is preparing for major warfare in the latter part of this year.
Why do you say major warfare in the latter part of this year?
1) Steadfast Defender, NATO “exercise” to place 100,000 troops and equipment right on the Russian border ends May 30.
2) Politicians in UK, France, Germany call for war now with Russia rather than wait for Russia to come to their lands.
3) Turkey may move against Israel
4) US congress men call for “new settlers” to be drafted
5) Various politicians calling for a draft in EU.
6) The US military requiring vendors to pull in the delivery dates for freeze dried rations by two months.
7) Obama at 10 Downing Street
What does number 6 mean? More meals available sooner? An interesting list!
possibly war sooner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TFknbiEOzU
2000 French soldiers to deploy in Ukraine?
“Germany and that the
9:06
Polish president musk Tusk uh meet with him in Berlin just yesterday and they
9:12
say you know calm down there uh M what have troops in Ukraine that would mean
9:20
that the Russians would retaliate against us and that of course is
9:25
precisely what Putin said in no uncertain terms even saying look you
9:30
know we have all kinds of ways to hit uh the cities of of NATO capitals as well
9:37
people say well that means Putin is threatening tactical nuclear weapons I
9:44
don’t agree with that if he wanted to threaten those he would say so he’s got
9:50
Weaponry that can do this job without any nukes in them okay he’s got these
9:55
Hypersonic missiles that pack quite a bunch he could put the fear of God in
10:01
Berlin or Paris or Warsaw uh very quickly without any possible defense”?
1) Steadfast Defender, NATO “exercise” to place 100,000 troops and equipment right on the Russian border ends May 30.
You’re still not grasping that they barely have any ammunition. NATO can’t fight.
Regarding #3, Arab states and Turkey are run by self-interested elites that will not respond to their populations’ wishes. Erdogan keeps talking but has been revealed as toothless.
Ed, can you share a source for nunber 6 on that list? i’m taking this seriously enough to be seriously considering leaving mainland Europe, and need to show my spouse why i think very soon is the time to go; she’s smart enough to recognize that major army logistics changes are indicative of something imminent, so i’m hoping to be able to show her some reasonable source.
#6 is from Canadian Prepper sometime in the last two weeks.
not the exact episode but a link to CP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TFknbiEOzU&t=2323s
Seems like NATO elements are doubling down against Russia:
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/german-lawmaker-blistering-ukraine-speech-parliament-have-you-all-lost-your-minds
https://www.defense.gov/News/Speeches/Speech/Article/3710899/opening-remarks-by-secretary-of-defense-lloyd-j-austin-iii-at-the-20th-ukraine/
Opinion: Politicians make policy and confuse it with reality. The universe is not exact but it is real and it works, go with the flow.
Dennis L.
The fact that they let Sarah rant like that means. they are NOT doubling down.
India’s silicon valley is in crisis .
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/14/india/india-bangalore-water-crisis-impact-intl-hnk-dst/index.html
Water is essential for pretty much everything. We can’t get along without it. It is as important as food, in many ways.
Charles Hughes Smith strikes again.
As a follow up to his “Crapification of the US economy” and ” Our Landfill economy,”
CHS addresses one of the general causes: useless, needless complexity.
We talk about the energy pyramid, the wealth pyramid, or the food pyramid but I want to see a scholarly article that analyzes the “Parasitic pyramid,” to which I admittedly shamefully have now become a part of as a non-working useless eater although able even at age 69 to continue working in the medical field, but refuses to perform even part time or to volunteer any of my time and knowledge to the community because of the treachery I have experienced by our judicial-legal system and a host of other factors, especially ;public apathy and the eternal quest for government benefits from the ever increasing number of government jobs/careers.
We have increasing complexity of government that has been snowballing in size and consuming more and more.
My cynical description of such a Parasitic Pyramid would have the illegal migrants at the base as “introduced parasites”, then on top of them useless retired government workers, especially those who were in government or other wasteful industries like defense or most unionized teachers collecting govt pensions, i.e., “passive parasites,” followed by “active parasites” like lawyers, politicians and then the “apex parasites” like big heads of corporations and bankers who have extracted huge amounts of wealth from the productive middle class. Class envy, frustration, lack of acceptance for personal responsibility? Let’s leave those out for now.
The only effective solution is a massive, brutal culling of the population, effectively giving the survivors a “fresh start” with a more sustainable and sober future, but I’m just preaching to the choir.
https://charleshughsmith.substack.com/p/the-growing-rebellion-against-costly?
How can groups justify their high charges, if they don’t have hugely, overly complex systems backing them up. These systems justify the big staff that they hire for needless service jobs.
“The only effective solution is a massive, brutal culling of the population, effectively giving the survivors a “fresh start” with a more sustainable and sober future”
Hallelujah and Amen Brother!!!
Cromagnon is the best is the positioned to ride of the purge along with Canadian Prepper who just put his money where is mouth is and bought a rural bug out property.
I wish that was true……
The legal and political situation in Canukistan is so dire that I have no faith that this reality will be kind to either of us. We both (for slightly different reasons) have targets on us.
We are living in a country with much in common to Stalinist Soviet Republic of the early 1950s.
May collapse accelerate so quickly that “authority” is overwhelmed with crisis……
It is truly a looney bin up here.
I do believe Canada is further down the rabbit hole than the US. Best of luck.
I agree with Cromagnon about “Canuckistan”. I have shared my story here before which is I had a 4 acre hobby farm on Vancouver Island that was well developed for an attempt at survival for two or three people, I thought.
But then thinking about having to defend it made me give it up and move to Hawaii 13 years ago to a small rural property here.
I also thought that the biggest risk of my farm being taken over was from the government. Even then I was required to sign my name every time I bought animal feed. The government knew where all the farms were for “health reasons” and were needlessly authoritarian in so many areas around growing food.
They felt nothing about changing a few laws and all of a sudden income streams were taken away for small producers.
I am so glad I left.
If I were younger (I’m 66) and wanting to try to make a attempt at surviving post total collapse, I would take a small boat and go a ways up the coast in B.C. to a secluded area where I would live on seaweed, shore crabs, mussels, oysters and fish. I’d be a tough life though.
We don’t use yesterday’s tools for today’s problems.
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/ai-infiltrates-oil-industry-speed-drilling-cut-costs
AI is only beginning, we don’t know what we will soon know and what we soon know will change what we can do.
Guess: Musk uses AI to design and troubleshoot Starship, many times in real time. If you watched the last launch, the videos were in real time from Starship using his network of space based internet relay satellites. NASA still relies on a few ground based stations and suffers blackouts. My understanding is Musk transmitted through the tail of the rocket where plasma wasn’t much a problem.
Dennis L.
I can believe that real advances can be made, leading to an increase in oil extraction. Historical supply patterns are quite “bumpy,” and this is likely to be the case again.
This chart shows just how bumpy crude oil (not “liquids”) production is.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/World-crude-oil-production-for-four-major-groups-since-1973-based-on-EIA-data.png
US production is not very high, when it is restricted to crude oil only.
“Peak oil” is sort of a myth. It depends on how high the price can rise. The farther it can rise, the more oil can be extracted. Technology can help as well. Models don’t really tell exactly what is ahead.
From the link .
“According to Evercore ISI, AI and other tech could bring costs in the shale patch down by double digits as soon as this year. “There’ll be significant cost savings, at a minimum double digits, but probably in the 25% to 50% of cost savings in certain scenarios,” Evercore analyst James West told Bloomberg.”
BS crap .
“Peak oil” is sort of a myth. Since when ?
Peak oil is an observation . Hubbert observed the production pattern of hundreds of oil wells , fields , basins and came to his conclusion . The only thing that changes will be the date when peak oil occurred . As of this date the peak C+C is Nov 2018 . Already 6 years and has not been surpassed and will not be surpassed . Not enough FID ( First Investment Decisions) in the pipeline . In the meanwhile natural decline rate of 2-3% will continue which means anywhere between 1.6-2.0 mbpd must come online every year just to ” stand running ”
Art Berman .
https://www.artberman.com/blog/peak-oil-is-dead-long-live-peak-oil/
Yes, you correctly define it. There are many peak oil-s. Conventional peak oil 2005. C+C 2018. Of course further peak oils will always be defined according to a less valuable ensemble of hydrocarbons.
Probably true.
Yes, you correctly define it. There are many peak oil-s.
And many peak coals. It’s been more than a century since anthracite coal peaked in the US.
And unfortunately all we have got is yesterday’s tools.
There is really no real new tech which fuels the advances. All of elon’s tech were there in the 1960s and 1970s ; they are just being implemented now.
There are no tools of today or tomorrow, whether you like or not.
There is really no real new tech which fuels the advances.
There is nothing. There will be nothing.
This sounds like rubbish. The oil industry has been using computer tools for years. So you have to drill through rock….is AI going to make the rock softer? Is the drill bit going to drill better now tha AI is up there chewing up electricity? So a program interprets ground data better…SW for this has been around a while. The AI pitch is as fake as everything else with AI….It is a stock sale scam to help shale oil get more money.
A decade or two ago the BIG buzzword was “self-assembly”. Yea, molecular self-assembly was going to revolutionize EVERYTHING. That turned out to be rubbish too. You never hear about molecular self-assembly anymore. Now the buzzword is AI….it is going to revolutionize everything. More rubbish.
I remember you mentioning 4 cents a kilowatt hour as the price of electricity necessary to continue building /maintaining the status quo long term. We in CA who are under PG/E pay over 50 cents per kilowatt hour during peak hours and I believe 47 cents give or take a couple of cents non peak. High electricity costs are never mentioned in news reports about major stores closing in the SF Bay Area, it is always shrinkage (theft/loss) or online competitors that are mentioned. It must cost a fortune to heat/cool department stores even in SF with a temperate climate. By comparison my brother pays less than 7 cents a kilowatt hour in Dayton Ohio .
Good point!
California has huge electricity problems. Long distance hydroelectric lines that were not properly managed caused fires, and these damages are weighing down the system. All of the new renewables, and their long distance power lines are a big expense also. California depends on imported electricity, hopefully cheap hydroelectric from the state of Washington, but this is not always available.
As far as I know, no one has thought through how the state will actually get a reasonable supply of electricity.
Recharging electric cars at public chargers is a big problem
Stedin is the largest operator of the Dutch electricity grid and has already warned the government that the situation is unsustainable. This has worsened especially in Utrecht where they have detected that the demand for electricity is greater than the capacity of the general network . Thousands of homes depend on it and, in a green transition policy and with the increase in the price of Russian gas, citizens were encouraged to replace gas boilers with electric ones and heat pumps.
In addition, a large majority of electric car owners charge at public points when they leave work. This is between 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. The network operator has warned the government that to avoid blackouts it would be necessary to install more than 54,000 electrical transformers and install more than 100,000 kilometers of new wiring, which is materially impossible in the short term , in addition to the fact that it would not resolve the situation. If today there are almost 450,000 cars in the Netherlands and energy congestion is what it is, in 2035 it would be a disaster.
Are combustion cars the ones that should be expelled from cities?
Lot van Hooijdonk, one of those responsible for the Utrecht City Council, is considering the possibility of disconnecting the charging points from four in the afternoon until nine at night , even increasing the price of charging disproportionately during this time to deter to users, and thus prevail the electricity service to a million and a half homes. Very radical measures after encouraging the purchase of electric cars that would seriously affect the citizens of nearby towns. It is not known which is worse: this measure or prohibiting access to electric vehicles to the urban center , which is also being considered, when until now it was going to be the only possible option
for those of you not fully fluent in English, “clusterfuck” or “shitshow” would adequately be short form for what Ravi describes.
thank you i had a good chuckle over that comment drb753
Boondoggle would have worked also.
I don’t think there is a possibility of building up the electric grids sufficiently to charge very many EVs in any Advanced Economy. Look at my Figure 4. Electricity per capita has been falling for a long time.
Former NHL player Konstantin Koltsov, who was dating tennis star Aryna Sabalenka, dead at 42 New York Post
By Social Links forMatt Ehalt Published March 19, 2024
Konstantin Koltsov, a former Penguins forward and boyfriend of professional tennis player Aryna Sabalenka, died at the age of 42, according to his former Russian hockey club Salavat Yulaev.
While not the official cause of death, Belarusian publication Telegraf reported Koltsov died in Miami due to a “detached blood clot.”
“It is with deep sorrow that we inform you that the coach of Salavat Yulaev, Konstantin Koltsov, has passed away,” the team said in a statement.
“He was a strong and cheerful person, he was loved and respected by players, colleagues, and fans. Konstantin Evgenievich forever wrote himself into the history of our club.
“May he rest in peace.”
Not another one…is there something suspicious? Maybe Eddie can comment
https://www.tennisworldusa.org/tennis/news/Tennis_Stories/143422/cause-of-sudden-death-of-aryna-sabalenka-s-boyfriend-konstantin-koltsov-42-revealed/
“Belarusian media is reporting that “a detached blood clot” is the cause of the death of Aryna Sabalenka’s boyfriend Konstantin Koltsov. ”
Not at all suspicious, then.
Judging from his playmate…he had much to live for…just unlucky, I guess…Life is so unfair…my condolences to his family and girlfriend, Aryna. Suppose blood clots can happen at anytime or any age or healthy… Could be in the bloodline
More likely the vax.
*Boosted into the afterlife!
So, this article says he jumped
Boyfriend of a top-seeded Miami Open player jumped to death from Florida hotel, police say
Konstantin Koltsov, a native of Belarus whose 19-year pro hockey career included three with the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins, was 42 years old.
https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida/2024/03/19/aryna-sabalenka-boyfriend-konstantin-kolstov-cause-of-death/
my take, since he jumped from a balcony, probably she ended their relationship soon before, and he couldn’t deal with it.
more “evidence”, afterwards she went out and practiced wearing all black, a good show, but no intention to withdraw from the tournament, so she wasn’t devastated, which would be consistent with her having had enough of him and previously ending their relationship.
part of the back story, he was a pro hockey player, so there could be speculation that a lifetime of hits to the head may have been a contributing factor.
some of us would say that we have experienced what a man with such head hits might be like.
oh well, 2024 depop will come in many forms.
My criticisms of Dennis L’s proselytizing tend to be cut off more often.
He said
The world seems to have two classes, the technically smart and the rest. The universe will offer solutions, some will take them, some will not.
I say
The world does have two classes, those who are willing to face consequences of their actions and those who still think they can weasel out of paying the piper.
Actions have consequences, and ideologies like Christianity where you could escape the consequences of what they had done by the Grace of whatever was always popular since no one really wants to pay the piper.
But Christianity showed that it is not viable in today’s world.
Humankind is merely paying for the mistake of immediate gratification, trying to better the standards of living of those who contribute nothing to civilization, etc. The time to pay has arrived, and no amount of self denial will make it go away.
The part you miss is that this 3 D “reality” is imbedded in and co existing beside many other “realities”….human death in this realm is simply a “phase shift” into other realms……..some of which are better……some which are considerably worse.
The methodology by which life is lived in this reality seems to dictate which kind of realm you are drawn into during the phase shift.
Despite all the pontification and side stepping and rationalization that individuals do on this side is usually a mask for what they really know deep down there where the soul resides….
kul,
Finishing my oatmeal, have a few minutes.
1. If I spoke of classes I am incorrect, humanity has narratives, some work, some don’t, Those grounded in observed reality seem to work best which is evidenced in their working most of the time. E.g. Ten Commandments.
2. Facing consequences does not seem to be a feature of the “upper class.”
3. Christianity seems to work, my personal guess is forgiving others is not that important, forgiving ourselves for having had faith in those who let us down is; important to us.
4. Christianity came back in Russia, currently in the “real” world where life hangs by a cannon shell, it seems to be holding its own after resurging from a period of a failed ideology, Communism.
Can you name an upper class person who never died in the end? There is the Baron St. Germain, but it is possible that the real one died long ago and there were impersonators.
As long as they are stuck in the world, they die one day. Of course you will talk about the mythical starships, but it won’t happen no matter what you want to believe in. Too little, too late. If humankind had a generation , probably, but that is not the case.
Christianity in Russia is just another form of Czar worship, as its ruler has decided to revert the country back to the middle ages since it has no chance against the advanced civilizations.
Forgiving others or self does not really matter in this question since that has nothing to do with the realities of the world humankind is facing.
Christianity in Russia is just another form of Czar worship, as its ruler has decided to revert the country back to the middle ages since it has no chance against the advanced civilizations.
Actually the ‘advanced civilisations’ have used all their resources and are weak and rotting.
I would agree about forgiving ourselves being important. Also, not holding grievances against others. If nothing else, grievances against other people fill our brains with thoughts that block more constructive thinking.
https://youtu.be/51qFL-mr8Rg
Co-operation is the optimal strategy, when there are plenty of resources to go around. This seemed to be true at the time of Jesus’ birth. Forgiveness of minor misjudgments furthers co-operation.
When there is not enough to go around, a different strategy is required–There needs to be rewards for hard work, or even a view of “I will take what I am strong enough to take.
The world does have two classes, those who are willing to face consequences of their actions and those who still think they can weasel out of paying the piper
I can probably just about weasel out of paying the piper before the raiders come
“Starting in the 1980s, the number of superrich in America–those worth at least $10 million, started to grow rapidly. In 1983, there were only 66,000 such households, and by 2019 (the last year for which data is available), their number increased more than tenfold to 693,000. This was not a result of dollar inflation: we adjusted the threshold to determine who is in this class (using constant 1995 dollars). Meanwhile, the income and wealth of the typical American family has actually declined.
When the social pyramid becomes top-heavy, this has dire consequences for the stability of our societies. To understand why, consider a game of musical chairs. It goes like this. The music starts playing, and players walk around a set of chairs. When the music stops, each must find a chair to sit on. However, there are more players than chairs, so one unlucky player fails to occupy a chair and is eliminated. Then a chair is removed, and another round is played. At the end, there is one winner.
Now imagine, instead of reducing the number of chairs each round, we increase the number of players, eventually doubling, then tripling, then (while keeping the same ten chairs). The number of winners stays the same, but the number of frustrated losers increases from the initial one to ten, then twenty. As the game progresses, just imagine the growing degree of chaos and conflict. (I would not suggest playing this game at a child’s birthday party.)
-End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, And the Path of Political Disintegration. (Turchin 2023)
What will happen is an economic singularity will take place.
Everything concentrated among the super rich, with nothing for the rest.
A world we almost had in 1914, if the serbs did not think they deserved to unite all Slavics there.
The super rich will just be feudal lords, each living in some sort of castle surrounded by the land and serfs he owns. But a small trading class and artisan class will survive, since someone has to make sickles and shovels out of parts scavenged from car carcasses, or import olive oil from warmer climates. They will be the remnants of the middle class and lower middle class respectively.
This may occur, but only in small well watered areas……in all others the Barbarian horse lords will rule
Tribalism and nothing more.
Every so often during higher rainfall periods the horse lords will smash the feudal lords.
Hmmm, so I should purchase a horse and learn to ride same?
Dennis L.
It is merely prophecy mixed with common sense…….I teach my sons to ride horseback even though they would rather sit a 4 wheeler and try nonsense they see online.
There will come a time this century when the only light in the darkness will be from fires, fireflies, lightning and
will-o-wisp…….that’s when the horse lords begin their long occupation of the human future.
I smile at the idea of a space faring civilization…….the delusion in humanity is so vast that it cannot even fathom its all an illusion.
Borrowing Cromagnon’s comment: “I smile at the idea of a space faring civilization . . . [sic] the delusion in humanity is so vast that it cannot even fathom it’s [sic] all an illusion.”
Yet, it was out of a post-apocalyptic, worldwide nuclear annihilation, that we are told warp drive and Star Trek came about.
Ghosts going where mankind [sic] has not gone before. Boldly.
But the riders will come. Then the vultures.
Too many “if’s”
The very rich will lose their wealth without fossil fuels. They imagine pixels will really be worth something, in the future. Most of them won’t.
The screens won’t work and even if they did they wouldn’t make hunger go away
Has this been discussed previously? Is it real? Can it be extracted?
https://www.plenglish.com/news/2023/12/01/china-finds-100-million-ton-oil-field/
isn’t a ton something like 7 barrels of oil? so 100 million tons equals 7 days worth of global supply? great that someone will make money, but it doesn’t sound like it changes anything.
Collapse postponed by 7 days.
where’s davidina… this discovery should be good for BAU 2050 at least.
Crappy stuff . Only oil tainted porous sands . I will try to locate the tech stuff on this . Nothing is going to happen . Remember the Japanese hype on methane hydrates in 2014 . 10 years and counting .
https://theconversation.com/japans-quest-to-tap-the-natural-gas-beneath-the-ocean-floor-26770
On China discovery :
It is quite small, that’s 107million tonnes in place underground, recoverable probably only 20%.
Drilling in China still is a fraction of US, especially province like Henan, where there is limited past discoveries.
Out in the Bohai Bay, which is like GOM in the US, which contribute to 20% of total oil production, drilling is quite limited considering the water depth is only 10~20meters. The deepest wells in the Bohai Bay including onshore blocks is limited to 6km, and very few ever touch 7km.
According to deposition and maturity, this Bohai bay has rocks like the Brazil Presalt, and many more oils could be found in deeper wells.
Outside in the Yellow Sea, although no oil were found, China only drilled a third of the test wells North Korea did.
how about another discussion of the large 2024 boost in Canadian oil production?
😎
Just a bigger straw to suck it dry before 2030! The faster oil production goes up the worse it will be and it will come a lot sooner
This uptick in warming is unfortunate because the response will maximize disaster.
Methane from fracking, the Tonga volcano? Most likely planetary orbits. This might result in a warming till 2500. Unfortunately right now we’re entering a GSM that means short term cooling. This is the real problem, not peak oil.
Oh God hath a sense of humor.
Zharkova’s latest interview is packed. She’s a little hard to understand but has a sense of humor too saying maybe the IPCC has a hard time with math.
NASA & NOAA now project 2030 sunspots in line with this model. They don’t want to look like fools. More interesting Zharkova researchers using electromagnetic fields associated with sunspots.
https://youtu.be/tgMK2QIw-YE?si=2HUHAi1Rn2l2_OZW
This is called, “Professor Valentina Zharkova – The Modern Grand Solar Minimum – What’s In Store”. She says that the world is in for a Grand Solar Minimum between 2020 and 2053. This will bring low temperatures.
This is a slide from her presentation.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Valentia-Zharkova-slide-showing-Grand-Solar-Minimum-2020-2053.png
GSM last 50+ years. We are four months into it and I can grow wheat where no wheat cultivation was possible in recorded human history. So I think she might be off.
Not to worry the coming Heinrich event will kill your wheat……
Maybe not this year? I am considering switching to fireweed to produce ivan chai. that would be all kosher with Heinrich.
Carry on then……lol
I’ll clarify one point of the theory. The celestial mechanics suggest that the Earth spends more time in the equinox when the distance from the Earth to the Sun is at minimum.
This is a variation (Valentia’s variation) of Kepler’s Law which expects equal angles swept in equal periods of time. And that’s because Kepler fixed the Sun at the centre of the Solar System, which isn’t strictly true
Forgive me for asking for a clarification, but doesn’t the earth spend less time in the equinox when the distance to the from Earth to the Sun is at minimum because that is when the Earth moves at its fastest?
Or am I misunderstanding something?
Equal areas in equal periods of time.
Earth is closest to the Sun in early January, a long time from both equinoxes.
Well spotted. At least somebody is awake! Yes, this is true. In the present era, the Earth is at perihelion (closest point in its orbit to the Sun) in early January. The days varies from year to year but on average, I think it is around January 3rd or 4th. Although my memory is like a sieve.
However, due to the precession of the Earth’s axis over approximately 25,772 years, the date of the perihelion is going backwards by about one day every 71.58 years. So, in another 7 or 8,000 years (even more approximately), the perihelion should coincide with the autumnal equinox, at which time the Earth will whizz through that equinox a bit faster because the Earth travels faster when it is closer to the Sun.
Earth is closest to the sun December 5.
skimmed through the comments, on this –as usual—superb article
something seems to be missing–unless i missed it—very possible.
we are in an energy problem/mess, no argument about that—but all the major nations are voting for politicians who promise to ”fix things”, some offer sanity and common sense, a select few vote for people who are mentally unhinged, who deny there’s any problem at all, and promise infinite growth.
all you have to do is wear a funny red hat—and all will be well—tens of millions believe this, that the problem is ”someone elses fault” I put this point in the absolute literal sense.
this is where the real danger lies—the blame game.
check your history books folks–the blame game has always been a central pivot of wackydoodle politics
the certainty remains that prosperity is something you vote for
our problem is not just energy, its denial that we have a problem at at all—or that—-it isnt going to affect ME.—just a few million brown people a long way away
Denial that we have a problem is incredibly common. No politician, advertiser, or educator can admit that we have a problem. Saying anything about the problem gets a person singled out as publishing “untruths.”
Something other than energy gets written up in history books as the cause of wars.
People go on thinking that the cause of wars is “Bad People.” It is often, “Not enough to go around.”
Consumer Society consumed society.
it’s always—not enough to go around
this is the ultimate denial i keep banging on about.
The ”way of life” since 1945 is unsustainable, so wars to deny that are inevitable.
people remain convinced we can vote to be prosperous
“Denial”
All Lawyers everywhere who say they are members of a “profession”…..or is that simply open lying?
You want to solve much of the wests problems then we need to remove (kill) all of these parasites. Utterly gut the false “justice system” and eliminate all government positions……hanging is efficient.
No you say? To extreme you say?………
People be looking for scapegoats and targets these days and even more so as this shit show implodes…..
Give it to them.
You did not hear me say no.
That is true. It is just a matter of paying the piper
And there is someone here who thinks he can avoid paying the consequences
Happily we have a candidate that knows we have a problem and is willing to focus our efforts on fixing the problem in America. Leave the self harming Europeans to solve their own problem.
big LOL there Ed
No politician can ‘fix’ the problem—that the sick joke they play.
the orange one wants only to fix his own problem—and get his ”stay out of jail card”—he doesn’t care in the slightest about your problem—climate change is a hoax—so is energy depletion.
amazed you still see the red hatted one as a saviour—he really isnt—you cannot vote to be prosperous—MAGA is over—for ever.–it was made and sustained by cheap oil, there is no cheap oil.
it lasted 1945-1970
renewables can only be sustained on cheap oil, the godnuts think prayer will replace it.—lets hope we dont see them dancing round the WH desk again.–you will be facing a full on theofascist dictatorship—. Do try and see the full picture Ed—its not very pleasant.
Europes problems are your problems—no one can isolate themselves anymore—WW2 should have taught you that. I Putin invades Europe, the USA will be next.
Norman, oh Norman,
1 Politicians can make a difference, no one can fix all problems, sometimes not making more is adequate.
2. The orange one has shown more willingness to sacrifice himself and his personal fortune than anyone in recent history. He certainly upsets many narratives, many of which are inconveniently not working and trying harder does not work. Ukraine comes to mind.
3. All energy disappears, even the sun, but new energy spontaneously appears. Fossil fuels can be looked as a transition, there is more than enough stuff in the solar system. One fellow, Musk, is determined to get there. It looks like he will make it.
4. Europe does seem quarrelsome, think Turchin had the answer, “Too many elites.” That is the same as too many narratives, perhaps secondary in part to the enlightenment and narrative “God is dead” by a crazy old man who once found solace in hugging a dying horse in the street.
We are going to make it, but some will not be part of the survivors. Choose wisely.
Dennis L.
///2. The orange one has shown more willingness to sacrifice himself and his personal fortune than anyone in recent history. /////
dennis—you witness a rare occurence–NP lost for words after reading that
“11:28
Biden and say Putin’s not going to stop in
11:35
Ukraine before you know it he’ll be in Poland he’ll be in the Baltic states
11:41
he’s not going to stop if you let him get Ukraine he’s he’s not gonna you hear
11:47
me he’s not going to stop well guess what folks everybody acknowledges now
11:54
including the ukrainians that Putin Not only was willing to stop but he did
12:02
stop six weeks after the special military operation the invasion of
12:08
Ukraine started what do I mean well he
12:13
he indicated five days after the beginning of the operation look let’s talk this to here we don’t have to kill
12:20
each other we’re brothers for God’s sake we’re both Slavic peoples we live together let’s deal and guess what the
12:27
the ukrainians when sininsky had a little bit more flexibility said well
12:33
that makes sense it looks like they looks like they may take keev so let’s negotiate they met in belus and they met
12:41
again in turkey and we have all kinds of people attesting to this and in Turkey
12:48
they got an agreement and the agreement included that Russia would stop I mean
12:55
you got it Russia would stop and Ukraine would remain neutral and they would deal
13:03
with Crimea and the donbas later they th out their forces it was it was a
13:10
document it was initialed and the Ukrainian Representatives at those talks
13:16
in Turkey certified that this was reached and further certified that it
13:23
was Boris Johnson that the US sent in the head of UK at the time and said no
13:29
don’t do that don’t don’t don’t do that because then uh then we won’t give you
13:36
as much as Aid as as we can give you and actually a lot of Aid there you know you
13:42
know and uh and weapons and we will support you if you turn down this thing
13:48
if you don’t acknowledge that you would be neutral if you if you forear
13:55
membership in NATO man don’t get don’t think you get another rifle from us for
14:00
God’s sake so turn it down and he turned it down now we have
14:07
as I say the Ukrainian negotiator he’s not a dissident he’s head of zelinsky’s
14:15
faction in the Ukrainian Parliament he spelled this out chapter and verse you
14:22
don’t see it in the western news but it’s there so what am I saying here well”?
The title of this is “Russia has Destroyed Ukraine’s Army and NATO is in Panic.” Wow! the real story keeps unfolding.
Norman, as all three offered candidates support genocide in Gaza I will not be voting for any of them.
‘ Gallagher boasted that he averaged three kills a day over 80 days, including four women. In video interviews with investigators, multiple SEALs described how he would go on solo “gun runs,” emptying loads of heavy machine gun fire into neighborhoods with no apparent targets. “I think he just wants to kill anybody he can,” Corey Scott, a medic from the platoon, told Navy investigators. After his case went public, it became a conservative rallying cry: A website soliciting donations for his defense raised > $375k, and a prominent veterans’ apparel maker sold “Free Eddie” T-shirts. Spurred on by his family, 40 Republican members of Congress signed a letter in March calling for the Navy to free him, and soon after, US President Trump had him released from prison to house arrest. In July, 2019, he was acquitted of all charges. Gallagher was one of three military personnel accused or convicted of war crimes on whose behalf Trump had intervened to pardon or promote. Trump told a rally audience days after his intervention, “I stuck up for three great warriors against the deep state.”’?
https://dessalines.github.io/essays/us_atrocities.html#middle-east
Norman,
We need everyone to wear a red cap emblazoned by the words “Where’s Kate?”
Has anybody seen Kate?
Have you seen her around your part of the woods?
She hasn’t been or seen or heard from in months
Where Is Kate!
kate has obviously had a hysterectomy–after 3 kids.
she was seen out shopping with her kids yesterday—whats the big deal?—happens to millions of women, takes a while to get over it. she seems a very genuine person, i dont look for adverse signs when there are none
i was wondering where melania is.
not a sight of her among the trumpnuts—she’s clearly told him—yer on yer own mate—and vanished, which says it all for magaman…..his missis can’t stand him—that much was obvious last time round.
“Yes, Melania Trump has been seen in public recently. She was spotted attending a party at Mar-a-Lago alongside Donald Trump1. This was her first public appearance since her mother was laid to rest1. Melania Trump appears to be moving on from the loss of her mother, Amalija Knavs, and is now ready to make more public appearances1. There are also rumors that Melania will take an active position in Donald Trump’s re-election campaign1.”
Per Copilot.
The Donald has a fine looking son, Barron, from Melania, rumor had she was and is a devoted mother. He is now 18 years old, for the Donald being an older man such an attractive wife who gave him a son would be a blessing.
Dennis L.
I have seen the video of the shopping trip.
The very short video seems to have been shot on an older phone from a considerable distance and neither of the couple can be clearly identified. The face of the woman doesn’t match Kate’s face and she appears much younger and much thinner than Kate. the gait doesn’t particularly look like what we have come to expect from Kate either.
The members of the public who the couple are walking past are totally oblivious to their presence, not even bothering to look at them. Nobody else on the scene is attempting to film or photograph them. No other photographs from the day have emerged. There are no paparazzi about. There are no obvious security people either.
The identity of the video photographer has not been revealed. Kensington Palace was asked by the BBC and the Sun to confirm or deny that this was indeed the Royal couple, but the Palace didn’t return their calls.
So there is no definite proof or even any particular reason to believe that this was a de facto video of the Royal couple. Once again, Norman, the media have put out a video and described it as being of the royal couple, but there is no confirmation that it really is.
The contrast with King Charles, who was seen prancing about it his kilt and sporran yesterday, is absolute. There is no real doubt that Charles was ambling about in the cold in the grounds of his castle. It was his face, hi gait, his ears, which are large enough to pick up satellite TV……
Did the young lady that the media are trying to pass off as Kate have Kate’s ears? I’ve heard there are doubts.
It’s not the original crime; it’s the coverup that catches people out. So it was with Watergate. So it will be with Kategate.
Make Kate Kate Again!
I agree. Not Kate. All so curious.
No, it was Tim dressed up as Kate, of course. That’s the only way he could know all these details.
Outed at last!
You should see my plastic surgeon’s bills.
we assumed you were his volunteer at his medical school plastic surgery department
eye rolling time again
Latest Kate Gate Breaking News from The Hindustan Times:
BBC sports reporter, Sonja McLaughlan supported conspiracy theories circulating on social media that suggest that woman spotted with Prince William in Windsor farm was a lookalike. Sonja McLaughlan, BBC’s rugby specialist echoed the widely shared theory that it wasn’t Kate Middleton who was seen walking with her husband, but a look alike.
In a, now deleted social media post, Sonja McLaughlan claimed lady out shopping in Windsor ‘obviously not Kate’ and ‘it’s disturbing that newspapers are reporting this as fact’”
“Disturbing that newspapers like The Times are reporting this as a fact. Headline ‘Kate seen in public for the first time when it’s clearly not her. As someone has said. Could be couple of lookalikes making mischief’
The journalist was forced to delete her tweet after a major backlash, with several users calling her conspiracy theorist. “It is her you silly woman.@KP24 says he sees her regularly as do people I know whose children go to the same school as their children. You should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself for ridiculous conspiracy thoughts I’m sure @KensingtonRoyal will be unimpressed by you”, a user stated.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/royal-family-king-charles-kate-middleton-live-updates-101710734316529.html
Where Is Kate!
It hadn’t occurred to me to care. I’m sure she’s fine.
we are in an energy problem/mess, no argument about that—but all the major nations are voting for politicians who promise to ”fix things”
That is a curious timing for the Trans Mountain Pipeline to come online as April also happens to be the next increment of the much-loved Carbon Tax in Canada…a white swan event?
I wasn’t aware of that timing.
I discovered that Canada’s oil production seems to already be up when I was looking at recent data. Canada is losing no time on this.
If they can ramp up more production, I would bet that they would build a second pipeline to the coast.
But for some strange reason we seem to be unable to build our own refineries to produce diesel at home…….lolololololo
We are being literally flooded with sand monkeys, jungle jugaboos and a few corrupt well heeled Ukrainians,….
We have tolerated an utter lunatic as a leader and seem to believe we can vote ourself out of this literal implosion of our society……
Move along, nothing to see here…..
“The narrative, “We are moving away from fossil fuels to prevent climate change,” seems to be self-organized by the dissipative structures underlying Advanced Economies.”
Hi Gail, I was interested in your comments about how the dissipative structure ‘self-organizes’ the ‘narrative’.
Humans evolved as components of dissipative structures (socio-political economies) and they ‘rationalize’ what works in the given conditions.
I observe the tendency as I read through the history of political philosophy.
We saw before how John Locke, a foundational modern liberal ‘thinker’ argued for ‘natural rights’ and made the move that ‘all property begins with agriculture’. That stripped the native American hunter-gatherers of any land rights and allowed early USA colonists to take the land for farms. Indeed if the native Americans resisted the expansions of farms then they were acting ‘illegally’, ‘stealing’ in fact, and they could be slaughtered.
> ‘All the World was America’ – John Locke and the American Indian https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1317765/1/283910.pdf
Obviously I am not playing a ‘blame game’ as if there is some extra-historical ‘moral truth’ by which historical moral and political philosophies can be ‘evaluated’.
Rather the British dissipative structure competed with the local and replaced it, and that is what dissipative structures do. It is a law of physics that dissipative structures compete to order the environment to themselves and they replace each other according to the ‘maximimum power principle’.
Anyway, Locke dominated 18th century thought but he fell out of fashion in Britain because of the revolutionary implications of ‘natural rights’ like ‘liberty’ (self-government) that had been useful in the deposition of the king by parliament but took off in unwelcome ways with the Declaration of Independence in USA and the French Revolution.
‘Rights’ were useful for a time but Britain moved on in the 19th century to the Utilitarian ‘liberal’ doctrine about ‘happiness’ that was developed by James Mill and his son J S Mill in ways that would justify the British Empire in India. They were staff in the East India Company that ruled India and Utilitarianism can be seen as the philosophy of the Company.
“The views that he [James Mill] expressed there influenced not only his own policy making as an influential agent of the East India Company but also the opinions and policies of a generation of civil servants, including such powerful figures as Governor-General Bentinck, and theorists, John Stuart Mill foremost among them.”
So again, the ‘narrative’ (as political philosophy) was developed to fit with what was needed to allow the dissipative structure to expand however they themselves ‘understood’ what they were doing.
So, laws were to be ‘rational’ and to facilitate specifically Utility as ‘happiness’, the ‘end purpose’ of all human conduct – so Indian law could be ignored and Company law that suited the Company could be imposed on India.
‘Utility’ was conceived not such that any pleasure is as good as any other (‘push-pin games are as good as poetry’), but pleasures are of ‘lower or higher qualities’ and ‘active’ pleasures are better than ‘passive’ – so the Indians would be better off set to work in industry.
“a series of dichotomies – advanced-backward, active-passive, industrious-sensuous, sober-excitable”
The ‘purpose’ of laws is to ‘improve’ persons and to lead them from the ‘lower to the higher’ – get the Indians into productive work for their own ‘improvement’.
And indeed the Indians were ‘improvable’ and not racially inferior in a set sense – so it all made sense and they could benefit from laws and work and be ‘improved’ for their own benefit.
Moreover, it was said that Britain could not hope to benefit economically from the Empire (oh really?) and it was a ‘duty’ for the Company to rule India for the benefit of the Indians – so everyone can see how caring and decent the Company was and just doing its duty for the benefit of others lol.
“If we wish for the prolongation of an English government in India, which we do most sincerely, it is for the sake of the natives, not of England. India has never been anything but a burden; and any thing but a burden, we are afraid, it cannot be rendered. But this English government in India, with all its vices, is a blessing of unspeakable magnitude to the population of Hindustan. Even the utmost abuse of European power, is better, we are persuaded, than the most temperate exercise of Oriental despotism.” (James Mill)
So Utilitarianism was ‘moral truth’ and it just happened be that the Company should rule India, indeed it had a duty to do so, remake its laws and set the Indians to work for their own improvement.
Again, it is just a dissipative structure expanding and ‘thinkers’ knocking out the ‘narrative’ to ‘justify’ and to orientate humans to the operation of the dissipative structure. ‘Liberal’ thinkers are no different, they just happen to be the ‘good guys’ in socio-economic conditions where liberalism ‘works’. In other conditions it was feudalism (‘divine right’, the ‘chain of being’), hunter-gathering or whatever that ‘worked’ and was ‘true’.
That is what humans are ‘supposed’ to be doing – making stuff up that ‘works’ – and I do not ‘blame’ anyone however contrived and self-serving the ‘philosophy’ may seem with our eye. The East India Company gets a ‘pass’ the same as everyone else.
At the end of the day humans are driven by their complex instincts to act as they do and they are just ‘cogs’ in wider dissipative structures.
Nietzsche gets the final word in the ‘meta’ sense: ‘nothing is true and everything is permitted.’ Particular moral doctrines are all about what ‘works’ in the here and now.
‘All morality is will to power’ and there is nothing ‘wrong’ with that.
This is the text on the Mills that I have been reading, and other papers on J S Mill and imperialism are to hand.
> Legislator of the World – A Rereading of Bentham on Colonies
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3595700
Full here: https://sci-hub.hkvisa.net/10.2307/3595700
It has become almost commonplace to claim that utilitarianism was, from its inception, an imperialist theory. Many writers, from Bentham’s own followers to recent scholars, have suggested that from Bentham onward, utilitarians reveled in the opportunity that they believed despotic power provided for the establishment of perfectly rational laws and institutions. A closer look at Bentham’s own views on empire, however, reveals a sharp break between his position on European colonies and that of followers such as James and John Stuart Mill. For Bentham, the utilitarian doctrine led to criticisms of the empires of his day. Bentham is better understood as a participant in the late-eighteenth-century skepticism about imperial conquests and aspirations than he is as a proto-colonialist or a “Solon ” of India. Once he is understood in this light, our picture of his successors, especially J. S. Mill, is revised as well.
Btw. this book is good if you want more info on the roles of Locke in Britain, USA and France and how Britain shifted to Utilitarianism in response to the revolutionary upheavals.
> The Declaration of independence; a study in the history of political ideas
https://archive.org/details/declarationinde00beckgoog
It also discusses how Locke was problematic in the Civil War south.
Also how Europe generally shifted away from Locke and ‘universal rights’ to other perspectives like peculiar national development (eg. Hegel) in response to the Napoleonic campaigns.
Different philosophies ‘worked’ for societies (or ‘states’) in different conditions and were embraced or discarded on that basis.
The West is now headed for decline and ‘global warming’ is as good a narrative as any – along with ‘eco-austerity’ – to orientate persons to the coming dissipative conditions.
‘Moral truth’ is likely to be stuck in there somewhere – ‘it is our duty to contract – because we are good persons and we care so much for the planet’. ‘Rulers’ and ‘plebs’ often go in for that ‘duty’ kind of thing.
I am not convinced that humans have much “agency” in what actually happens. What happens is that they describe what happens in a way that makes themselves look good, and makes any future outcome look favorable. They apply “sour grapes” rationalization to anything that they can’t get that they would like to have happen.
The system uses the maximum power principle to figure out who gets what.
We live in a vast construct……literally inside the mind of God……
The big mover and shaker locally however (inside this reality bubble) is a nasty infection many call Satan…..it is the local warlord.
Individual humans have the ability to hack the simulation to a greater or lesser degree. Focused intention and action are key.
We have much agency as individual units of consciousness if we become aware of our power. Hells bells, even if we don’t but we decide to wack the local magistrate or town councilman we have made a difference.
Humanity has known since its birth that it is not alone in here. The Fae, Gray Aliens, Phantasms, Sasquatch….these are all higher vibrational entities that move within our construct unobstructed by human “dominance” (lol) in here. We are literally surrounded by the unseen realm.
We are blind and stupid…….I suspect that many of us will move into the next levels of reality (truly even more law of tooth and fang than here) with a sense of utter shock……..
Okay okay, but what’s the purpose of this versus that realm and getting transferred. Do you subscribe, then, to rewards for good behavior (heaven and hell realms)?
You skipped G_d given rights. Rights that supersede all governments.
Rights do not exist.
Just skimming your lengthy post, Mirror, I caught something—a mere sniff—about John Locke being responsible for stripping the native American hunter-gatherers of any land rights and allowed early USA colonists to take the land for farms. I don’t know anything about that, but Locke was in his grave in 1704 and the USA didn’t begin until 1776. But more importantly, if the good folks in the early USA wanted to take the land and expel the natives, they would have done so regardless of anything Locke or any other philosopher had written, based on a common human characteristic that you have often pointed out, namely “will to power.”
John Locke touched on the property and land ownership rights of Native Americans in his works, most notably in Two Treatises of Government, published in 1690. Locke’s views on property rights were based on his theory of natural law and the idea that individuals have a right to acquire and possess property through their labor. He argued that individuals have a right to appropriate and own land by mixing their labor with it and making it productive. This theory formed the basis for his defense of private property.
Regarding the property rights of Native Americans, Locke acknowledged that indigenous peoples had a claim to the land they inhabited but suggested that their property rights were limited by their failure to cultivate and improve the land. According to Locke, the Native Americans’ communal and nomadic lifestyle, which did not involve extensive agriculture or property improvement, meant that they did not have a full right to land ownership.
After all, they might have just been bumming around. When I go for a hike, or on a camping trip or a hunting expedition, I don’t claim ownership rights to all the land I plant my bum or my hiking shoes on. It might be nice if I could get away with it, but in practice, I can’t own what I can’t possess. It is only through civilization and the legal and social structure that it is erected upon its foundation that the concept of ownership in the abstract legal sense can be made to work. This is how people such as King Charles and Bill Gates can be farmers and landlords. A primitive or savage society doesn’t have the wherewithal or the conceptual framework to enable anybody to own more land than they can periodically visit, let alone an entire continent.
This brought to mind the traditional Scottish ballad Willy o’ Winsbury, who is offered a kingdom and the hand of the king’s daughter in marriage. He accepts the latter but declines the former, for practical reasons one would expect. The song ends:
And he’s raised her up on a milk white steed
And himself on a dapple grey
He has made the the lady of as much land
As she can ride in a long summer’s day
Your best course is to read the materials that I gave you.
> ‘All the World was America’ – John Locke and the American Indian
https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1317765/1/283910.pdf
We are not talking about random people with ‘will to power’, we are talking British government policy to allow colonisation of America or not in the first place and how the matter would be approached legally (the government cared about that stuff) and Locke played the key role in that.
We are not there talking there about the later shift to USA independence albeit the philosophy of Locke did play a key role in how the revolutionaries articulated their cause.
The ‘legal’ shift was from occupation of the land as the basis of land property, which was the legal norm in England, to cultivation of the land, and that allowed the colonisation to ‘legally’ proceed. It was a clear cut theoretical shift in which Locke played the key role on behalf of his employers. We are not talking about random ‘philosophers’ but about people who were heavily engaged in state and private projects.
Obviously all morality and law are entirely made up and I have no intention of getting into a debate about the ‘moral truth’ or where ‘moral responsibility’ lies for that matter. That sort of thing is for the naive ‘plebs’.
As I said, I was just skimming. And while my best course might be to read all the material you’ve so graciously drawn our attention to, I have ever so many other roughly wound “balls of string” to find the ends of and try to straighten out that I probably won’t get around to giving John Locke or the British Government in the 17th and 18th centuries the attention they undoubtably deserve.
If I ever did get around to doing that, I would have to read copiously the works of a large number of scholars who would present to me a range of conflicting interpretations and opinions and even facts. And I would have to weigh these in my mind before coming to a set of mature and measured conclusions based on all this second, third, and fourth-hand knowledge.
It can be fascinating to delve into good historical research, but I for one am not going to draw any conclusions when the one thing I am sure of is that I don’t know enough to draw any conclusions about what John Locke’s motivations were for writing what he wrote.
Although I can surmise, based on my general knowledge of human nature, that the British government of the time would have welcomed any line of argument that they could use to morally justify the seizing of the lands they wanted to seize. But they would have seized all the lands they seized in any case, regardless of anything John Locke may have written.
I still think it is a reasonable point of view that the nomadic Native Americans in many cases were not the owners of the lands they lived in. They were only camping! Just passing through.
A century after Locke, Thomas Malthus had a very low opinion of the North American Indians. It is safe to say we can add him to the list of public intellectuals working for the Deep State. Dr. Samuel Johnson was much more critical of colonialism and much more sympathetic to the indigenous people who suffered under it.
when nations acquire sufficient power, they use that power to seize the resources of other weaker nations
do a world history check
i dont think there will be any exceptions to it
History is about wood.
Norman, if that was true, the statement would be a tautology. If a nation attempts to seize the resources of another nation and fails, you would label it as weaker; if it succeeds, you would label it as stronger.
However, by using the conditional “when”, you are making an unfounded assertion, because stronger nations don’t necessarily seize the resources of other weaker nations just because they have acquired sufficient power to do so.
Nations have other considerations as well. They might not need or want the resources in question. They might prefer to trade for them. They might not want to get a reputation for bullying. they might not want to go to the bother of seizing them. They might have sneakier, sleazier ways of doing business.
And in any case, it’s all moot now. Almost all the nations are in so much debt to the Bankers that they are too weak to go around seizing other nations’s resources, which are mostly owned by the same Bankers.
check the record of the british empire—for starters
The text that I linked you to is a Phd thesis and it is not based on ‘second, third and fouth hand reports’. That is not how Phd theses work.
Britain did not ‘expand wherever it could’, it is a state and not a vine weed. A center of force that did that would dissipate and not stengthen itself. It is specifically a bourgeois capitalist state and it has been since the Civil War.
The dominant position in Britain for a long time was that the monopoly on trade that colonialism provides benefits some private investors but it draws capital from the local market and deforms its development. Key thinkers like Adam Smith, Bentham and many others effectively argued that free trade was rather the way to go.
Locke was not ‘deep state’, he was the most important philosopher in Britain, Europe and USA in the 18th century and he had important roles in various debates and events in his lifetime and long after his death.
That is all core and standard modern British history and it is probably worth spending a few hours studying it at some point.
So why not just read the text?
Britain established a fleet of steam driven naval amd merchants ships.
to this end it dotted coaling stations at strategic points around the world
look at a world atlas pre 1940—a quarter of is colored red
That shows it expanded wherever it could–coal was the energy that enabled it—the navy was as big as any two other major navies combined…this was a deliberate policy, it could only be sustained by expansion.
The cost of it impoverished the british working classes
that came to an end, and the empire collapsed, though the lingua franca is now English, due to English domination of world trade and the subsequent establishment of the usa.
Why not just read the text?
Well, it’s only a PhD thesis, and I haven’t finished reading Leviathan or the Wealth of Nations or Gibbon’s Decline and Fall or the Complete Works of Edmund Burke or Montagne’s Essays (6 volumes, that one), and I am only midway through Wuthering Heights, which I am finding surprisingly good reading—no wonder it inspired Kate Bush. 🙂
But I will try to get around to reading it over the weekend, since you have recommended it so heartily.
But beyond all that, I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ—and not only you personally, but everyone in general— that despite how well written or well researched something about history may be, and despite how impressive it sounds and how much sense it makes and how much it aligns with your own view of the world, etc., etc, think it possible that it may be just some PhD student’s opinion, man.
If we go way, way, way back to Thucydides, he is well known for writing: “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”
(History of the Peloponnesian War bk. 5, ch. 89)
The background to this was—to borrow with attribution fromWikipedia— that the Athenians offer the Melians an ultimatum: surrender and pay tribute to Athens, or be destroyed. The Athenians do not wish to waste time arguing over the morality of the situation, because in practice might makes right—or, in their own words, “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”.
This short sentence crystalized the quintessence of human behavior at the group level when there is no higher level (either a supervising power or a philosophy or a religious belief) to maintain order at the lower levels.
It’s just the way humans are in terms of behavior, just as an ant is what it is and a grasshopper is what it is and a cat is what it is and a dog is what it is. In the case of humans, we are opportunists and egoist. Even a new born baby is a bundle of desires with a will to power and a very powerful set of lungs and vocal cords.
Britain did not ‘expand wherever it could’, it is a state and not a vine weed.
Who said Britain DID expand whether it could? You have that phrase in quotation marks. Are you replying to somebody who said it DID expand in that way, or are you replying to something a little bird whispered in your ear?
Nice metaphor, the vine weed, by the way. And yes, you don’t want to plant kuzdu as green fencing. It really does spread like kuzdu. Wisteria is bad enough, but kuzdu is like wisteria on steroids.
The UK is indeed a state, although I recall you also once suggested it was run like a joint stock company—UK PLC. The first rule of such entities is that they should act in ways that benefit the stockholders.
Ricky Sunak may be a stockholder, and King Charles certainly is, but you and Norman are, I suspect, merely stakeholders. And so, I must ask you two gentlemen the question Van Helsing put to Count Dracula—”How do you like your stake?”
Tim, I have not said that the role of Locke is a contrary phenomenon to a more fundamental tendency of the ‘will to power’.
Rather I argued that the role of Locke and his political and moral philosophy is an expression of the more fundamental tendency and that ‘all morality is will to power’.
And that J S Mill and his doctrine and role is another important example of that.
I am not sure what exactly you are fundamentally disagreeing with.
The Phd thesis is not about how ‘all morality is will to power’ but it is an excellent illustration of that point and that is what I am saying.
Either you are interested to explore that particular illustration of the point or you are not but I am not sure what you are fundamentally disagreeing with or where your resistance is ‘coming from’.
The British state did not function entirely like a ‘third reich’ that made no pretence of ‘legal law’, and the ‘legality’ of matters was important to it and that is why thinkers like ‘Locke’ were important in those days.
Nevertheless the ‘law’ and the ‘morality’ were observably ordered to fundamental state tendencies and that is my point.
But then again, it occurs to me that (to quote you from 2022), “if all reality is ‘will to power’, then there is no reason to think that day-to-day human narratives ‘frame’ that process in its fundamental aspect. The ‘moral and political’ is just one, human aspect of it, but the reality lies deeper, as Nietzsche suggests.”
Pingback: Natural decline
Thanks for commenting!
This comment seems to be by Tim Watkins, author of Consciousness of Sheep. I wish I had the gift of being to write as quickly and effectively as Tim can.
This is a link to the post referred to: https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2024/03/18/natural-decline/
Hence, the name of the author of this comment.
Tim quotes the post I wrote (and put up less than 24 hours ago) quite extensively. He also quotes John Michael Greer and other authors.
He makes a number of good points.
One thing he says is
He also says:
“while the years 1953 to 1973 across the western states had seen rich and poor enjoy rising prosperity, after 1973 the rich could only prosper at the expense of the poor.” Also, “it [1973] marked an inflection point at which the cost of energy was too high to allow general prosperity growth to continue.
I have noticed this in the wage and wealth disparity data. “the cost of energy was too high to allow general prosperity growth” is a good way of putting the problem. It was about the time widespread computerization started also.
Natural systems depend on differential equations with generally oscillatory solutions (given a relatively stable natural environment). Economic systems in the fossil fuel era depend on differential equations with positive (during growth) and negative (during degrowth) exponential functions. So the parallels are a bit contrived. One change of sign of one term makes for completely different phenomena.
I some sense, economic systems are likely to lead to big bubbles which collapse, while the oscillatory solutions of the natural environment don’t look like they are as prone to collapse.
I wonder if the biological systems don’t have some parallels to the debt bubble problem, however. We humans have been making wine for a long time. From the point of view of the yeast cells, the vat of grape juice seems to provide nearly unlimited opportunities. But then, eventually, the waste product (alcohol), ultimately brings about the demise of the yeast cells. Hence the comment often made on Peak Oil forums: Are we smarter than yeast?
There can be huge increases and decreases in biological organisms, in a short time, also.
Good post, Gail. As always. I don’t say this enough. I look for your post every month. Thank you. So, much of the alternative media is just shilling for mainstream media.
Thanks!
I join in the congratulations, good article
The best bumper sticker I ever saw sums up this most recent post by Gail: Collapse now, avoid the rush.
We will all experience the decline in fossil fuels differently, and I suppose those people who voluntarily reduce their socio-economic status may have a leg up in this future. I am one of those units whose per capita consumption of fossil fuels has greatly declined during and post covid – all my work is now done on Zoom and I’m NOT fueling around north central Florida every day of the week transacting along the way.
My and husband and I could actually live with one car now, and if I had my way we would be a one car family!
Getting ready to retire from the practice of law and looking forward to long days in the garden and the kitchen.
The one thing I would point out about “getting ready to retire.” In the longer term, the economy cannot accommodate people who are not, in some way, paying their own way. Pensions are very much at risk of not working as planned.
Also, even apart from this issue, people who retire and just sit around and watch TV don’t live very long. Plan to do something productive, even if it is only a hobby.
Seems it will be hurt by too much energy in the Atmosphere.
BBC correspondent Lucy Sherriff
The abandonment of these areas is part of a wider story – thanks to cc the US is becoming a more volatile place to live. Hurricanes, floods, storms, and fires have caused widespread mass destruction in the US over recent years. It’s also becoming more expensive, due to the costs associated with extreme weather events. A report released in 2022 analysed 120 million homes and found one in 10 properties were impacted by natural disasters. Winter storms impacted 12.7 million homes, causing $15bn (£12bn) in property damage in 2021 alone, while hurricanes caused $33bn (£26bn) in damage across 1.2 million homes.
And the future looks even worse. A recent report by First Street Foundation, a non-profit focusing on climate risk research, found 23.9 million properties in the US are at risk from damaging winds, 4.4 million properties at risk from wildfire, and a further 12 million properties have a significant risk of flooding – in addition to properties in the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema)’s Special Flood Hazard Areas (100-year flood zones that the government has already identified). “Private insurance companies are effectively labelling areas as uninsurable,” the report found.
That’s all I’m seeing now…wonder what will happen to the Economy when the Insurance Industry doesn’t exist any longer….
and not even mentioning the food industrial disruption…
I know, I know..there is nothing we can do about it, other than saying it’s not so..
But to those making the best ..it is so…
Here, where I live, it’s a home owners crisis..never mind all the other escalating expenses associated with home ownership….
I agree we will burn, baby, burn…regardless…can’t have it any other way with the overshoot created by doing so…8 billion plus and still growing in spite of the so called schemes to knock off the useless eaters…
Before there were big insurance companies, there were local mutual companies that provided property coverage to local businesses. I don’t know whether that extended to homes. This is why we have a lot mutual insurance companies in the US: State Farm mutual, Church Mutal, etc. They would charge premiums that were a little on the high side, and then give dividends back if actual experience was better. They often operated in a very local area, so a hurricane or other big storm would be a bigger catastrophe than they could insure.
There were similar pools that provided something like term life insurance policies, for a particular group.
In general, the world population has tended to live in simply built homes (without much heating) and rebuilt them often, typically when fire or storms hit. They often could be rebuilt in a few days, with local materials and the help of neighbors/relatives. Our current complex system cannot last.
One really cannot assume that the BBC and this sort of analysis offers the world anything close to a balanced report.
Post Pandemic Alarmism acceptance is being manipulated by all parties which have something to gain – especially the Insurance Industry and the entire Climate Emergency Industry. Neither of which have any solutions to the problems they push forward – because it is not in their interest to suggest things are better or safer.
But if you want to start a movement to reduce the global population in a fair and equitable way, describe how it would work.
Would you volunteer yourself as a departee?
Could you list relatives who you would consider dispensable?
Why DO people still attempt to live in places with such huge and expensive risks?
Where might they head to avoid such problems?
When did the safe world end and the dangerous world appear?
“What I see as the worst part about seeking ways to reduce the overall harm our species is doing to the biosphere we live in is the constant search for different forms of energy to power civilization. This is nothing more than bargaining with the predicament of ecological overshoot. What needs to happen is for society to ACCEPT the predicament rather than bargain with it. It does not matter one ounce HOW civilization is powered – it is UNSUSTAINABLE, meaning that it cannot be sustained no matter WHAT is powering it. Did the Romans have solar panels? No, they did not. Did the Romans have cars? No, they did not. Did the Romans have batteries? No, they did not. Did the Romans have computers or AI (Artificial Intelligence)? No, they did not. Did the Mayans have any of those items? Nope. They both collapsed all the same because they overshot the capacity of their landbase to supply their needs, no differently than the same scenario we face today. The trouble now is that our civilization is global and not limited to just one part of the world; there is literally nowhere pristine for people to run to in order to get their needs met because we are despoiling the entire planet.”
https://problemspredicamentsandtechnology.blogspot.com/2021/12/why-is-civilization-unsustainable.html#more
One thing this author points out (from an earlier article of his) is
I would agree. More wealth for the already wealthy is all.
“I would agree. More wealth for the wealthy “ I would disagree with this! This election is the last time because so much has been promised that can’t be delivered thus setting up things for a very angry proletariat. I hear it already you just need the right person to light the fire. Most people on here are too old to understand this as they only group think. Boomers are on the way out as far as influence goes. Somehow they were able to produce to horrible parties in Amurica. I’m not buying that one is better than the other. Both suck!!!
Did the Romans have cars? No, they did not. Did the Romans have batteries? No, they did not. Did the Romans have computers or AI (Artificial Intelligence)? No, they did not. Did the Mayans have any of those items? Nope. They both collapsed all the same because they overshot the capacity of their landbase to supply their needs, no differently than the same scenario we face today.
That’s right. It’s going to be just the same with us.
Speaking of advanced economies, check out this mind-blowing article.
https://energyskeptic.com/2024/book-review-of-chip-war-and-the-fragility-of-microchips/
It also sheds some light on the current geopolitical situation. Appreciate your computers, smartphones and cars.
Interesting article but copypasting has gone too far. The guy who copypasted it did not even try to read it I guess. I wonder also what parts of the economy depend really crucially on advanced chips. The Ukraine war is being decided by FAB bombs guided by simple FPGA for example. advanced chip can not do much if information is denied by electronic warfare.
This is called, “A book review of “Chip Wars and the Fragility of Microchips”.”
by Alice Friedemann.
It is easy to see that there is a lot of concentration in this industry, and that there a lot of things that could go wrong.
Right here in my home state of Georgia, I read an article talking about the state legislature wanting to cut off any future tax breaks given to the big data processing plants used in AI. The legislature figured out that the processing plants add some jobs will they are being built, but practically no jobs after they are up and running. Furthermore, Georgia does not really have enough electricity generation to support all of this new AI processing. We need to figure that out, to make the AI processing plants work.
‘“It’s not like we’re breaking records by a little bit now and then,” Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami, said. “It’s like the whole climate just fast-forwarded by fifty or a hundred years. That’s how strange this looks.” It’s estimated that in 2023 the heat content in the upper two thousand metres of the oceans increased by at least nine zettajoules. For comparison’s sake, the world’s annual energy consumption amounts to about 0.6 zettajoules. ‘?
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-is-the-sea-so-hot
My impression is that whatever is happening to the climate is happening for some reason other than an increase in CO2 because of fossil fuel burning. The shift seems to make no sense in that context. I am not sure what it is–reduced particulate matter leading to more heating of the world, for example.
Whatever it is, I am really doubtful that humans can fix it.
No. Since the problem is too many humans
Henri,
Can you prove that a reduction in the number of humans will solve whatever problem you think there may be?
What other parts of the systems we call a planet are aware that humans are the problem?
Is it only humans that think that way?
If humans see it as a problem then get rid of humans and there will be no problem or at least no one considering the problem.
Happy to help.
Can you prove that a reduction in the number of humans will solve whatever problem you think there may be?
Do you think 8 billion humans could exist sustainably on earth?
What next, the appearance of Giant Lizard-like creatures feeding off huge plants in steaming jungles?
No longer possible. The air pressure, oxygen level and temperature are all too low today for dinosaurs.
Wolf Reintroduction Changes Ecosystem in Yellowstone
Wolves are causing a trophic cascade of ecological change, including helping to increase beaver populations and bring back aspen, and vegetation.
As a result, elk populations did very well-perhaps too well. Two things happened: the elk pushed the limits of Yellowstone’s carrying capacity, and they didn’t move around much in the winter-browsing heavily on young willow, aspen and cottonwood plants. That was tough for beaver, who need willows to survive in winter.
This created a counterintuitive situation. Back in 1968, said Smith, when the elk population was about a third what it is today, the willow stands along streams were in bad shape. Today, with three times as many elk, willow stands are robust.
Why? Because the predatory pressure from wolves keeps elk on the move, so they don’t have time to intensely browse the willow.
With elk on the move during the winter, willow stands recovered from intense browsing, and beaver rediscovered an abundant food source that hadn’t been there earlier.
As the beavers spread and built new dams and ponds, the cascade effect continued, said Smith. Beaver dams have multiple effects on stream hydrology. They even out the seasonal pulses of runoff; store water for recharging the water table; and provide cold, shaded water for fish, while the now robust willow stands provide habitat for songbirds.
https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wildlife/wolf-reintroduction-changes-ecosystem/”
Good point! The interconnected nature of the ecosystem allows changes in one part to affect other parts in counter-intuitive ways.
The economic ecosystem we created is much simpler. Or perhaps it is equally complex, with taking out fossil fuels the Yellowstone equivalent of turning off the sun.
“it’s fair.”
“In 1944, 29 reindeer were introduced to the island by the United States Coast Guard to provide an emergency food source. The Coast Guard abandoned the island a few years later, leaving the reindeer. Subsequently, the reindeer population rose to about 6,000 by 1963[6] and then died off in the next two years to 42 animals.[7] A scientific study attributed the population crash to the limited food supply in interaction with climatic factors (the winter of 1963–64 was exceptionally severe in the region).[1] By the 1980s, the reindeer population had completely died out.[2] Environmentalists see this as an issue of overpopulation. For example, ecologist Garrett Hardin cited the “natural experiment” of St. Matthew Island of the reindeer population explosion and collapse as a paradigmatic example of the consequences of overpopulation in his essay An Ecolate View of the Human Predicament.[8]”?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Matthew_Island
If my math is correct, that would be like if the human population was reduced from around 8 billion people to around a little over 50 million persons, I hope the correction in human population is not quite that severe.
It will be quickly reversed if a wolf hurts a moronic two legged animal.
I have said before that the caribous are more valuable than the backwoodsmen of Canada.
Frankly speaking, two legged animals are now less equal than four legged animals now.
Caribou are delish…..
As usual, the optimist:
Starship went up, that is the hard part, it came down in parts; that will be solved.
I have attached a video, short, 2 1/2 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq1QZB5baNw
I see a space worker and Starship to get it into space.
Everything on earth can be done with electricity, the problem is economics and the limiting factor is Pt. We will find it. Transportation will be H based, pollution will be water; we can deal with that.
Pollution was solved in the US to a large extent, CO2 is pollution, Jupiter(a metaphor) is a solution.
Oil was not an end, but a bridge to a future, the future is now.
It is not going to be easy nor will it be comfortable. The world seems to have two classes, the technically smart and the rest. The universe will offer solutions, some will take them, some will not. Our political class in the US seems to be technically deficient. A leader north of us got a degree in fine arts and has good hair; this is easier to “sell” on current media.
Economically things are getting tougher, but I see kids getting good jobs; pair up(marriage works very well even if not always ideal nor optimal) and self replicate – that is called children.
AI is moving incredibly quickly. This old man needs to learn python and is seriously looking at how to pair up with AI to do it. Copilot makes syntax much easier than searching help. arm based computers are incredible and cheap, cheap, cheap.
Analysis here of what is seems mostly correct, predictions on the future are problematic; to date all the predictions made regarding fossil fuels have been generally incorrect. Per capital income has gone up, but averages are deceptive.
It isn’t going to be easy, but stepping off a perfectly good boat onto a beach in France in the 1940’s wasn’t much fun either.
Dennis L.
“Per capital income has gone up, but averages are deceptive.”
Per Capita purchasing power (or whatever one may wish to call it) is more significant than income alone.
Number are numbers and, at best, are relative when they apply to economics statements.
People talk about “inflation” but should be thinking value changes as devaluation earning power rather than increases in the value of goods and services.
Especially when many of the increases are the result of “government” regulation of various types.
I’m not saying that all regulations and standards are wrong per se, but that can certainly be mis-purposed and mis-used all too easily without people seeing what is happening.
“Per capital income has gone up, but averages are deceptive.”
Bill Gates and me walked into a bar . The bartender says ” I got myself a couple of billionaires .” 😁
One thing I like pointing out is the difference in per capital consumption of oil in contrast to various industrial output. For example, compare the total per capita consumption of oil in China and the number of cars, tons of steel, etc they produce vs the total per capita consumption of oil in the US vs the number of cars, tons of steel, etc the US produces.
Who will be able to afford to purchase oil as supply dwindles?
It turns out that it is the countries that use oil indirectly for industrial production are the ones that can afford the oil. Countries that use oil for “frivolous” pursuits, like family vehicles, do much less well.
I wonder if what you wrote above will apply if the ‘efficient’ users of the remaining oil turn to war to conquer the countries that ‘use oil indirectly for indistrial production?’
My substack article “Germany must act irrespective of traditional values’ illustrates how Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Witt of the German military transformation centre predicted almost exactly everything that is occurring in the world. in 2010.
The summary? Those who use oil more efficiently will manipulate the wars to depopulate and take the prime agricultral land of those who use oil inefficiently to grow bio fuels.
To be very specific, he proposes that countries like Germany should ‘give’ military equipment to Ukraine, Poland, the Baltics, etc, and let them fight to the death with the Russians, etc.
On another subject, I am still trying to find an error is the Tesla Musk thesis. Why can’t X inc use their tech to mine and transport enough materials to keep growing the installed base of
on your last paragraph
cheap surplus energy supplies complex technology
complex technology does not and never will supply cheap surplus energy.
how hard can it be to understand that—yet musk seems to think it can.
everything that our multibillionaire friends do, relies entirely on the infinite input of fossil fuels
I wonder if what you wrote above will apply if the ‘efficient’ users of the remaining oil turn to war to conquer the countries that ‘use oil indirectly for indistrial production?’
You need high quality coal to make arms
This is a reply to both Withnail and Norman Pagett.
I understand the dogma. BUT. The dogma you quoted does not answer the question.
Please explain if you can Exactly why Tesla with their heavy truck technology can’t mine enough material to continue growing their technology.
My answer is War. But without War I see no reason why they can’t continue to grow the installed base of their re-newable tech using nothing but renewable tech.
Please explain if you can Exactly why Tesla with their heavy truck technology can’t mine enough material to continue growing their technology.
Tesla do not have ‘heavy truck technology’.
wars consume and destroy resources.
a coalmine or oilwell produces sufficient surplus energy to replicate itself.—oil and coal used to be so close to the surface all you needed was a pick and shovel.
now the energy input is reaching the point of cancelling out the energy output
no ”renewable’ energy source can replicate itself without outside energy input—this is invariably fossil fuel.
this isn’t dogma.
Perhaps it IS dogma to assert that X CAN use their tech to mine and transport enough materials to keep the installed base ticking over?
After all, it has never been done, has it?—An industrial system powered solely by renewable, sustainable, green, clean energy? It’s always had a hydrocarbon input to keep it going up to now, hasn’t it?
Correct me if I’m wrong here. If there is such a 100%-renewables-including-the-infrastructure system up and running and breaking even energy-wise, we all really want to know about it.
Here is an update on the very real Tesla semi trucks. https://topelectricsuv.com/news/tesla/tesla-semi-all-we-know-feb-2022/
I am a very experienced solar designer and builder, and I can tell you that EVERYTHING you think you know about the limits of solar MIGHT be wrong because of one fact NONE of us know.
How long will the modern solar panels bought and installed in the last 20 years produce 80% of their rated output?? The evidence I have seen with my own eyes and experiments is… longer than 100 years.
If that is true, and I can’t prove it, but you can’t disprove it, all calculations about the viability of solar by itself to replace all fossil fuels are wrong.
We simply do not know what the energy future holds.
As I said, without understanding Lt. Col Witt, you can’t understand how our world is reacting to the reality Gail has so clearly and accurately laid out.
You have to keep the solar panels clean and keep the wiring working. And electricity persistently comes at the wrong time of day, and even more importantly, the wrong time of year.
So how helpful they are depends on a lot of things. If all you are doing is desalination in a tropical area, maybe solar panels work for your purpose. But anything that depends on continuous electricity can’t depend on solar.
Here is an update on the very real Tesla semi trucks.
Could you please explain to me personally what ‘heavy truck technlogy’ you believe Tesla has developed. Electric vehicles are not new.
We simply do not know what the energy future holds.
Oh but we do. It’s all happened before. Only one thing can happen.
1. Whether ev’s are new or not does not change the fact that Tesla developed and manufactures large ev semi trucks that could self-evidently evolve into large mining vehicles.
2. Literally hundreds of thousands of people use electricity continuously, using batteries charged with solar.
3. I am NOT suggesting that we can keep the current merry-go-round running with renewables. Peak Oil happened as a historical fact in 2018. As Lieutenant Colonel Witt’s writing shows, the Powers of this world have clearly begun World War Oil to depopulate the world as much as possible to reduce global energy consumption.
4. Yes, you have to keep solar panels clean. Check up on the maintenance required for all other forms of energy generation. Besides, the ‘cost’ of keeping them clean is a fraction of the increased energy output you get from clean panels. I hooked up a system using used windshield wiper sprayers that automatically sprayed the panels. It not only keeps them clean, it keeps them cool which cranks production. I also farm organically. simple systems that spray water reliable are prevalent and cheap.
5. Fixed, quality solar panels are without any question the lowest cost and lowest embodied energy form of energy in our world, IF it turns out that they last 100 years or more at a significant fraction of their original production.
6. The Powers in our world know all this. That is why no bank will amortize any solar system over 20 years, yet they will amortize a wind turbine, that does require immense and very expensive maintenance, over 40 years.
There is simply no technical reason why the survivors of World War Oil cannot build a civilization completely powered by renewables for hundreds of millions of humans IF enough Tesla tech survives.
The Fact that World War Oil has progressed, and continues to progress, exactly as Lt. Col Witt suggested 14 years ago proves to me that the Powers believe it possible.
It would be Dogmatic to claim that it definitely Can be done as it has never been done before. It is not accurate to say that it is impossible.
I do not personally think it will work as the tech is too fragile.
May you all live to see the end of World War Oil.
Whether ev’s are new or not does not change the fact that Tesla developed and manufactures large ev semi trucks that could self-evidently evolve into large mining vehicles.
They are useless as trucks and would be even more useless as mining equipment. Elon Musk is a con man.
Good to have you here as an OFW inmate Stephen—you obviously know a lot more on this subject than most—i am a self confessed know nothing on it.
But clarify something, if you can.
sunlight delivers about 100w per square metre under optimum conditions, so no matter how efficient a solar panel is, it cannot deliver more than that.
i think ive seen a law somewhere that says solar panels cannot go much above 25/30%–correct me if i’m wrong on that.
solar seems to give an EROEI of about 8:1,–i still say that a factory building solar panels (plus installation and distribution etc) cannot be self perpetuating.
And energy of itself, is useless without all the other gizmos we need to put it to work.
that is your ultimate killer factor I’m afraid.
all that you see around you right now, is not just an ‘economic system’—it is a ‘surplus energy economic system’—solar panels will never produce enough surpluses tp support modern civilisation. I would be happy to be proved wrong.
i’ve tried to explain it here:
https://medium.com/p/11350636eaf3
/// copy—As Lieutenant Colonel Witt’s writing shows, the Powers of this world have clearly begun World War Oil to depopulate the world as much as possible to reduce global energy consumption./////
lol Stephen—thats a classic bit of conspiratorial delusion.
reduce world population to a level of pre-1700—and you go back to a pre-1700 lifestyle—get real mate.
solar panels will never produce enough surpluses tp support modern civilisation.
At best they might keep the lights on for a few people post collapse. But those people would have much bigger problems than not being able to read at night.
Thanks for the welcome Norman. I’m a working farmer so not too much time. Thought I would drop in on this point for some reason.
To put a spotlight on the point, you can’t know, even approximately what the EROEI of good solar panels are. Therefore you cannot know whether the factories that make them are energy positive or not.
By strange coincidence, Tesla has spent billions developing solar panels that address the weak spot in all panels, which is the frame.
To emphasize, I do not suggest that any renewables can keep our current civilization going.
If, however, some global power i) initiated World War Oil and encouraged everyone else to fight it out while targeted all sides fossil fuel infrastructure, & ii) simultaneously put pedal to the medal to develop pretty much everything and exactly what X is developing, then iii) they might be highly represented among the survivors and could easily convince themselves that they could emerge with clean renewable technology with the military potential for total global dominance.
Strangely, that is exactly what Lt. Col. Witt described.
I would love to engage in a discussion about exactly which of Lt. Col Witt’s suggested scenarios and outcomes are not occuring in the world, as if by magic.
And for the record, while I respect the intelligence behind such a plan, I do not think it wise plan because of the Sun.
oops, forgot to include a link to my post on Lt. Col Witt.
https://stevenlawrencekayser.substack.com/p/peak-oil-requires-actions-irrespective
Gail, I hope your statement doesn’t apply to pick-up trucks.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/features/2024-03-17/it-s-looking-like-world-war-ii-out-there-with-russia-china-iran
We are dealing with not enough energy consumption per capita, just as we were back in 1930s, based on my earlier analysis. Back then, it was a coal shortage.
This article says:
It’s Looking a Lot Like World War II Out There
America cannot be first without a high consumption of energy, mostly fossil fuels, per capita.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said the Great Depression was just “a crisis in confidence.” To be honest, he was correct. The Great Depression occurred during the Golden Era of the United States (from 1870 to 1970), and right at the beginning of the fossil fuel age.
We don’t have the same future to look forward to today. We will be lucky to come out of this great depression alive. Advanced societies require a source of cheap and plentiful energy to survive. The decline in cheap fossil fuels directly corresponds to the decline (in all aspects), of the United States and the west.
Even if a source of endless cheap power (like cold-fusion) were to be discovered it would take 20-years to bring it online. And most likely the Powers That Be (PTB) would not allow it to be “free.” Just like the United States would not allow Germany to have access to cheap natural gas from Russia via the Nord Stream pipeline. Just like the Germans and the rest of Europe, we would be paying for it, and probably a lot — forever. Even if something like cold fusion already exists (and I believe it does, like advanced AI), it is probably being kept a deep state secret because that is how things seem to be handled these days.
“Democracies are threatened from without and within.”
Actually, no they are not. You can’t threaten something that never existed in the United States, Europe or the West.
The kind of cheap energy advanced complex societies require is like having a democracy — it’s a fiction. Just like we are running out of cheap fossil fuels, we are running out of democracy. And worse. Nobody has a democracy. Democracy doesn’t exist. The United States once known as the “least dirty shirt in the hamper,” has a constitutional republic with some — SOME — democratic privileges that have all been revoked. Government today is like having your sanctioned ATM card declined at the gas pump. For decades, the United States has been “saving the world” for something that not only doesn’t exist but is a lie.
As the west runs out of cheap energy, we find the United States busy “saving” the American people in the same way the one world, global empire, is dying.
This is a chart I sometimes show, showing how low growth in energy supplies were in the 1930s. https://i0.wp.com/ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/world-energy-consumption-population-growth-vs.-standard-of-living-increase-captions-large.png
This is from the following post.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2021/05/04/how-the-worlds-energy-problem-has-been-hidden/
I derived the chart even earlier.
The thing that OECD countries allegedly have in common is Democracy. Except as you point out, it is a pretty bad imitation of what democracy should be. Any system with representatives who fly/drive to a central headquarters is necessarily a high energy system. It is destined to fall apart, as energy per capita falls.
Could everyone who could spend energy wisely already had enough?
War is consumption.
For reference and from Copilot:
“Title: The Report from Iron Mountain
Authorship: It purports to be authored by a Special Study Group of fifteen men whose identities were to remain secret.
Content: The book argues that war or a credible substitute for war is necessary for governments to maintain power. It suggests that lasting peace might not be in society’s best interest.
Controversy: Debate continues over whether the book is a satirical hoax or a genuine product of a secret government panel.
Popularity: The book was a New York Times bestseller and has been translated into fifteen languages.”
Read it in the sixties.
Dennis L.
It is possible to buy this book on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/Report-Iron-Mountain-Leonard-Lewin/dp/143912311X
“War is consumption.”
The kind of consumption nobody can afford to spare.
The amount of crude oil consumed to fight World War 2 is still a state secret.
There should have already been a seneca cliff collapse but i believe the elders are putting in parameters through smart but immoral means to effect the catabolic collapse you refer too which requires population reduction via war and plague and pestilence as for the electric economy it is well on the way to becoming a reality thanks to the unadvanced economies coming to our rescue with cheaper electric car knockoffs . Ford have done a deal with Chinese Car companies so this just is just early days for the electric car era according to the elders just a bump in the road .Like your latest article explains a rebalancing of the worlds economies is occurring based on available energy the advanced economies will probably see the elimination of the middle class which will usher in only one class the sustainable class ruled by the elders.
We can’t allow imports of cheap electric cars. If everyone buys one, it will become apparent that we have no plan and the grid is going to collapse.
We are IN a Seneca style collapse right now.
Any future histories written on vellum will acknowledge that.
Just wait 50 years and see what is around you…….
The elders keep changing the rules. As the consequences of violating the old rules become inevitable, the elders make new rules that move the consequences further out.
I wonder if natural laws i.e., “science” still exists.
For example, the old rules said that once interest rates rose above 3-percent the government would no longer be able to pay the interest on the national debt. We passed 3-percent quite a while ago. The economy? CRs? Out of control deficit spending? Still here.
You have to wonder: Are there really any real consequences to violating rules at all? Are there really rules, with real consequences, and are they taking place, or have already taken place?
If you jump off a cliff, do you fall to the bottom, and die? It appears that you used to. But not anymore.
Consequences are being called something else, like “Climate Crisis” or “Sars-Cov-2” or the “Covid Lockdown,” or “Democracy.” Or worse. I wonder whether consequences are happening all around us and the fully controlled, fully manipulated, full owned, fully propagandized mainstream media is just putting their stamp of silence on them.
It’s happening all around us. “The Fog of War.” The fog of science. The fog of economics. Certainly, the fog of politics.
“Nothing to see here. Move along.”
It seems to be human nature.
My elder brother was a typical elder in that respect. When I was a primary school kid, we started playing war games on map boards that he made himself painted onto hardboard.
It was fun. We moved counters around representing armies or resources, and we took turns to roll dice to decide all sorts of matters. We played on and off for several years before I eventually stopped.
He not only made the boards and designed the games; he also set the rules. And he always set the rules in a way that would maximize his side’s chances of victory.
But that wasn’t enough for him. If, despite the rules being in his favor, I would manage to gain an advantage on a battlefield, or if my country was becoming more powerful than his, he would introduce new rules to curb or rule illegal something I was doing.
It was frustrating for me, but he was three years older and more streetwise that I was.
Types like my elder brother, only smarter and meaner and less restricted by concepts such as fairness or morals than he was, run, own and control the world. I learned this early, which is why I am neither shocked nor surprised when they do something as surprising or shocking as “genociding” entire peoples, wiping out their jobs and their savings, poisoning them en masse, and generally waging continuous psychological, cultural, chemical and biological warfare on the rest of us.
To Barack you should listen. The guy who said “We tortured some folks” now admits “we” poisoned a few billion of ’em in the interests of medical science.
https://twitter.com/BGatesIsaPyscho/status/1769837770497741037
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D7I4uespms&pp=ygUDZnNk
>> Does a Green Future = Lower Energy Usage? || Peter Zeihan
“If solar and the rest are just not ready for prime time, then perhaps, the solution is to go down (use less)”
Lapalisse had nothing on Zeihan.
Using less energy per capita is equivalent to getting rid of expensive programs. We did this to some extent in 2020. For example, get rid of free public schools. Kids are taught at home, with whatever local arrangement the parents can provide.
Another example is to get rid of Social Security and Medicare programs, or send them back to the states to be funded, to the extent the states could afford them.
Getting rid of most banks would be another step down. There might be an alternative online program set up that credits those who are working with credits good for buying goods and services, but not those who are not working. This would leave those who are currently wealthy because of asset holdings “out in the cold.”
As a Brit and so a European by Geography and cultural influence, I have long been puzzled by the number of banks and other financial establishments in the USA.
Also the complexity of financial transaction processing.
This side of the Pond will be a long way ahead of the US in terms of controlling its “populations”, as you hint at above.
Already walk-in access to banks and similar is disappearing rapidly across the countries of Europe and most communications with the Governments will require on-line connectivity. Absent that (or the energy to drive it ….) individuals will, effectively, disappear.
Since the pandemic even small purchases of a few cents are transacted electronically. The masses have been converted to plastic cards and indeed many prefer just their smart phone for all transactions.
Should I agree and pay a fee, my bank is even offering a service to look at all of my electronic transactions and provide a breakdown of how I spend my “virtual money”.
(I suspect they are already doing it for “security reasons” but want me to pay them to see their results.)
Think of it like this: Suppose the prime directive of a Central Bank is to reduce wage increases in the economy. This allows wealth transfer via inflation of the quantity of money in circulation, to the financial sector.
Hence the use of precious metals for money, or similar forms in cryptocurrency would cause price deflation as the wealth of the nation increased.
The wages earned by the blue collar population would buy more, and profits would be much more dfficult to find without a Central Bank
“Talk of a soft landing for the global economy is premature – many dark scenarios are lurking” – by Larry Elliott of the Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/mar/17/talk-of-soft-landing-for-global-economy-premature-many-dark-scenarios-are-lurking
==============
Larry gets it:
Kristalina Georgieva is one of those who has an optimistic view of the future. The managing director of the International Monetary Fund reprised John Maynard Keynes’s upbeat 1930 essay, Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren.
She noted that in the dark days of the Depression, Keynes had predicted an eightfold increase in living standards in the next 100 years – a pretty good forecast as it turned out. With the right policies, the IMF chief said the next 100 years could witness a ninefold increase.
Georgieva also outlined a less rosy scenario in which living standards were only three times higher in a century’s time than they are now – a reversion to the trend in the 100 years from 1820 to 1920.
As things stand, the less positive scenario she puts forward looks a lot more likely. Indeed, on the basis of what has happened since the global financial crisis of 2008 even a threefold increase in living standards might be pushing it.
END OF EXTRACT.
============
Or indeed ANY increase in living standards!
Among other things, this article is talking about China:
“The bubble has clearly burst and if the struggling property market leads to consumers spending less freely – as it almost certainly will – China’s growth targets will only be achieved by producing and exporting more goods.”
This could lead to the debt bubble bursting in Advanced Economies. It will push deflation outward.
Very good new post and very realistic analysis. I totally agree with you when you say : “the part of the world that uses energy very sparingly has a better chance of maintaining and even increasing its standard of living”.
At a personal level, some month ago, I took time to analyze energy needed (type and quantity) for each important function in “quality of life”. And I discover something very interesting : the majority of important function for quality of life doesn’t need a big quantity of energy or have a substitute with no fossils fuel. For example, with 100W of power, you can have light, computer (and music, video, software, etc.) With 300W of power, you can have fridge, freezer. Furnitures don’t need energy. Some solar panel can produce thise level of energy. Aka even if you have a cut from the grid, your are not in the middle age. Walls and doors don’t need energy. Another interesting thing is that some tool need high power but for a short time so the total is not high : microwave hover, circular saw, for example.
The worst is the energy needed for production of heat. High power during long time : hot water, hot air, cooking. But here, some strategy can be used : I build for example a “Marmite Norvegienne”, a very well isolated box where I can put something to cook when it’s hot. I save 60% of energy, and it’s hot 3 hours after or more ! And when I spoke with my family, I discovered that old people used the same in the past when they were young.
For heat in the house during winter, some strategy : use wood, heat small space (even in a big house) well isolated, use more clothes. Add some heat with a greenhouse to the south side of the house, etc.
The worst energy consumption is for transportation. Try to don’t need travel. In fact, you need to travel essentially for earn money… not for your real need. Money is needed to pay taxes, etc.
Try to do maximum things by yourself, repair, reuse, learn technology, stay simple, etc. In my case, for example, I am able to use netbook from 2008 today with a good result with a linux system like https://antixlinux.com/download/
At an individual level, we can act, we can prepare ourselves : see energy as gold, optimize its use. Some miracle are possible and more important, you begin immediatly to save money, and you keep hope because you are able to do something by yourself. Live in country side if possible because people are “handy guy”, you can produce food by yourself or have food locally from neighboors. Food is the “oxygen” of the society : if you can have it without money needed, you will never die 🙂
But, at a global level, I think economy will collapse, the complexity of the system will reduce. If you are prepared to live with less money and less energy, you will be ready.
Thanks! You make very good points. We can look back to see how families survived in the past, with very much less energy. Perhaps they will work again.
And much less technology.
Maybe hope to maintain something akin to what was around just prior to the Industrial Revolution?
Subject to local security and natural resources of course.
What was the world population at that time?
Maybe these ideas will work for a short time, and then the system will fall further, I am afraid.
The population was around one billion in 1800. In England, the Industrial Revolutions (using coal) started a little earlier.
This is a chart I have shown with early UK energy consumption. Coal use quickly grew after about 1650.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/wrigleyfig1-e1346123057549.gif
Wind and water never amounted to much.
Resources today are much more depleted. We also don’t have the skill set or the supply of animals used in farming.
I agree Gail.
Perhaps even worse there seems to be a European policy to greatly reduce Agriculture.
That’s a shame.
When one considers that starving people from large and ultimately useless cities will be forced into whatever is left of the countryside with no skills to help them survive, things could get interesting very quickly.
If, in the meantime, the Climate Change Industry has persuaded everyone to eliminate any animals that they deem as adding to the gas problem it could take a while to find enough animals to support humans even to 1800 levels.
1800 BC might yet be a challenge.
As for wood, in a form that might permit some rudimentary agricultural tools to be created, it would take decades, maybe centuries for enough to grow where it would be required. Most of it would be used for fuel for the first periods of the post-industrial world.
Still, that would at least offer the benefit (to those that see things that way) of increased or “bonus” population reduction for further reducing the effect of nasty people on the “earth”.
Maybe hope to maintain something akin to what was around just prior to the Industrial Revolution?
Not possible. The resources those people used are all gone now.
At a personal level, some month ago, I took time to analyze energy needed (type and quantity) for each important function in “quality of life”. And I discover something very interesting : the majority of important function for quality of life doesn’t need a big quantity of energy or have a substitute with no fossils fuel.
Food needs energy. Nlo fossil fuels, no food.
I keep talking about how no real progress is being made tech wise. It turns out that in 1983 you could in America buy a product called ‘Butler in a Box’ which enabled you to control your home with Alexa style voice commands if you purchased the necessary modules for your lights., coffee maker etc.
I have also seen comparisons on how fast passenger jets would fly. We stopped making real progress long ago.
AI has a garbage in/garbage out problem.
It is also very easily used for fraud. Its purpose often is to try to avoid paying real humans for their services–make a composite person, rather than paying a model for their services, for example.
“The pandemic is a big problem. Climate change is an even bigger problem. But the meta-problem is ecological overshoot.
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Plagues and heat waves — along with plunging biodiversity; fishery collapses; soil and land degradation; land, water and sea pollution; resource shortages, etc. — are mere symptoms of a much greater planetary malaise. Ecological overshoot means there are way too many people using vastly too much energy and material resources and dumping too much waste.”?
https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2021/08/10/Save-Ourselves-Need-Very-Different-Economy/
Many people understand the overshoot problem. Somehow, world population must be reduced.
It doesn’t work for people in rich countries simply to stop having children. This leads to a big immigration problem, which we have now.
The self organizing economy will give us solutions. The badly behaved vaccinations for Covid-19 may have been part of these solutions.
In my view, covid vaccination program in advanced economies (West Countries) was created by the same reason that pushes a snake to eat its own tail when it is kept in captivity, that is voraciousness and scarcity of food.
Coincidentally, the name of one of the leaders of this program is ‘fauci’, which means in Italian and Latin big jaws of animals: Fauci / Fauces.
(Please use an automatic translator)
“PERCHÉ IL SERPENTE SI MORDE LA CODA?
I VERI MOTIVI
Perché il serpente si morde la coda? Cosa spinge il rettile ad assumere questo comportamento? Cosa simboleggia? Scopriamolo insieme.
[…] Discorso ben diverso nella realtà, ovvero se un serpente si morde la coda non sta cercando di rappresentare la ciclicità della vita, ma sta esprimendo a suo modo uno stato di stress e di difficoltà.
Generalmente ciò accade nei serpenti tenuti in cattività, se la teca si riscalda troppo, essendo animali a sangue freddo, non riescono a disperdere il calore e anche la loro temperatura interna sale.
Questo va a determinare nel rettile uno stato di disorientamento e una FAME INCREDIBILE, ragion per cui si mordono la coda, poiché si tratta della prima cosa che si trovano davanti, ovviamente se sono senza cibo.
È molto difficile intervenire per ovvie ragioni ma anche per la conformazione dei denti dei serpenti che sono orientati all’indietro.
Questo perché ingoiando prede intere e vive la struttura dei denti impedisce le vittime di scappare all’indietro.
Per tale motivo se un serpente procede con ingoiarsi la sua coda non potrà che AUTODISTRUGGERSI poco o nulla potrà impedirlo, in quanto impossibile togliere ad un serpente ciò che ha all’interno della sua bocca.”
https://www.amoreaquattrozampe.it/altri-animali/serpente-morde-coda-motivi-simbologia/117639/
Gail, you provided a likely result of economic catabolism (catabolic collapse) without actually defining the word. Catabolism is the process a living organism undergoes during starvation or illness, in which the body consumes protein in muscle and internal organs to sustain itself. It has an obvious extension to economics when the societal organism is cut off from a significant portion of its energy supply. After using up its reserves (fat), it will consume some of its own infrastructure or other previously untouched or off-limits resources (i.e. wilderness preserves with oil, gas and minerals) to close the gap.
“Catabolism is the process a living organism undergoes during starvation or illness, in which the body consumes protein in muscle and internal organs to sustain itself.”
That is a very good point. Thanks for reminding me about it. That, indeed, seems to be what is happening now.
Thanks for the article and comments. I shared the “catabolic collapse” analogy with my Mother explaining the big picture including the use of palatable narratives and can-kicking measures like off-shoring industry to countries with cheap labor and materials.
I gave my .02 on what this has to do with half of US citizens being unhappy with the current arrangement and how we should prepare for a lower standard of living regardless of political promises.
She didn’t like my former analogy of Right vs. Left.. a leader paying lip service to individual freedom, national sovereignty and fighting for the citizens of a country vs. a war hawk, profiteer and closet racist pusher for mass incarceration who smiles, sniffs my hair and fist bumps me then cancels my life and livelihood before sending me to the camps.
We don’t see eye to eye on but she appreciated the effort.
As the accumulation of the genetic mutations in the ageing populations of the advanced economies continues, the lack of resources for the disabled care becomes a serious problem: a mother with her disabled daughter jumped under the train in Slovakia
https://www.topky.sk/cl/10/2707555/Zuzana-s-Patkou—-9–zomreli-po-zrazke-s-vlakom–Ludia-prehovorili-o-jej-problemoch–Trpke-vycitky-voci-systemu-
https://www.zilinak.sk/clanky/27756/pred-iduci-vlak-na-liptove-sa-postavila-zena-s-dietatom-na-rukach-na-mieste-zomreli
https://zilina.standard.sk/593977/zuzana-s-patkou-zomreli-po-zrazke-s-vlakom-trpke-vycitky-voci-systemu
Today we are the products of the machines, so the machines end up our lives, too.
New post! Thanks Gail!
We have three powers jockeying for access and control of food production and fossil fuels. There is much jockeying going on in Africa that we are ignorant of.
What does Macron mean when he says “They tell me” that Trump will not be president. Who are “They”? How do “They” know?
In the US we have the democrats growing increasingly paranoid of the despicables. They are increasingly militarizing the government at all levels even down to small towns deploying armed employees to routine planning board meetings. Not to mention national guard troops in the subways violating the fourth amendment.
The last three paragraphs are breathe taking. So much honesty packed so tightly.
Thank you Gail, so wonderful to have a new article!
I always look at scenes of developing nations with people on bicycles, mopeds and use of diesel buses as being so much more efficient (and sustainable) than the american driving around (most of the time alone) in their giant SUV/Pickup truck. They also probably don’t have 1000 dollar monthly bicycle payment.
That must be quite old footage.
But you make a good point that can be widened into making a complete nonsense of attempts to compare incomes from country to country without considering local purchasing power and preferred social systems (if any).
Yes, automobile usage in many developing nations has increased in the last few decades. Roads in which were completely dominated by bicycles now have many automobiles and mopeds. Even with motorization, the automobiles they drive in developing nations are much smaller and fuel efficient than we americans drive. You will also notice that many people in developing nations traded their bicycles for moped, motorcycles, autorickshaw or small automobile, they don’t drive the giant vehicles we americans drive.
Also, American automakers deliberately have pushed larger vehicles in the american market to skirt environmental regulations. Here is a video entitled “These Stupid Trucks are Literally Killing Us”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN7mSXMruEo&t=803s
by Not Just Bikes discussing how automakers have been pushing larger fuel inefficient vehicles.
Back in the 80’s there was a saying that “no one ever got fired for buying IBM”. It appears that doesn’t apply to Tesla or for that matter, EV’s. The CEO of Hertz is out of a job because he bet the future of his company on both Tesla and EV’s and it cost the company a lot of money in repairs and accelerated vehicle depreciation.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/hertz-swaps-out-its-ceo-as-it-looks-to-revitalize-business-after-failed-ev-push-00b46d98
“Back in the 80’s there was a saying that “no one ever got fired for buying IBM”.”
True but that was only based on there being so few “experts” who could advise the decision makers and the lack of understanding the decision makers enjoyed.
They could never admit they were wrong.
This was still the case, adding a number of very large software companies to the name at the end of the quoted sentence, a decade ago and, for all I know, is still true today but much less obvious in the connected age.
I think it is abundantly clear that reliance on the opinions of acknowledged “experts” in the modern world is essentially as dangerous as it always has been if not moreso.
And remember that the most likely scenario is that their opinions, or those of other people that inform them, will be the basis of everything that issues forth from the wonderous portals of Artificial Intelligence.
Catabolic collapse….John M Greer nods his head.
But simulacrum monitors have decided that the nitrogen cycle has been messed with for far to long and that we have reached a limit for human soul habitation…..
Cataclysm cometh.
For a long time, I thought, “This time is different.” But it really isn’t.
Gail, Thanks much much for all your superb work. This cropped up and is of keen interest. The biggest producer of THE most important commodity!
Your opinion on this please.
https://peakprosperity.com/peak-oil-in-saudi-arabia-unpacking-the-data/?
I’ll need to look at tomorrow. Thanks.
How can KSA be proposing to build this desert corridor self contained city in the sand? They can’t afford it, at least to not only build it but to run and maintain it. And the reports are that the oil that comes out of the ground contains a lot more water. As in Texas, they say, “all hat and no cattle.”
Now KSA is modifying the story and saying it will be built in parts over time. Which is a much more sane plan. On the other hand they have added a dozen “small” side projects. That are all the same build a super expensive hotel and surround it with super up scale villas that people can buy all located in the desert with no supporting infrastructure, no water, no sewage, no roads.
Hubbs, I am familiar with the project and I assure you that they say one thing and do another. There will be no such thing. They say they are devoting a trillion but a billion is more like it.
They can follow the Chinese model of building megacities and getting people to invest in apartments that will never be completed but may look impressive when viewed frim a distance.
Still, at least the build quality means that are easy to knock down if they stand too long.
Debt bubbles sometimes work to try to hide an energy problem. The US, with all of its debt, derivatives, and other financial products, is trying to hide the fact that it needs to import a whole lot of industrially produced goods.
I imagine this is somewhat similar. I have thought for quite a while that Saudi Arabia cannot pump out oil, given the price available today.
I expect that if the price were $200 per barrel, and it was clear that it would stay at $200 per barrel, Saudi Arabia would be able to pump out more. Oil production tends to follow price changes, to a significant extent.