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ABOUT | PEAK ENERGY & RESOURCES, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND THE Solar PV, windmills, computers, and much other technology now depends too heavily on limited supplies of rare earth and platinum metals. Peak uranium, peak phosphorous, peak everything basically. There are dozens of resources that are getting short that could also cause the collapse of civilization as we know it. ENERGY | PEAK ENERGY & RESOURCES, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND THE Compressed air energy storage (CAES) Posted on May 11, 2021 by energyskeptic. Preface. Besides pumped hydro storage (PHS), which provides 99% of energy storage today, CAES is the only other commercially proven energy storage technology that can provide large-scale (over 100 MW) energy storage. But there are just two CAESplants in .
APRIL | 2021 | PEAK ENERGY & RESOURCES, CLIMATE CHANGE We’ve wiped out two-thirds of wildlife in just 50 years. Posted on April 11, 2021 by energyskeptic. Preface. Human over-consumption is driving extinction far more than climate change. Humans began reducing biodiversity 4 million years ago, when large carnivores in Africa began disappearing (Faurby, S., et al. 2020. PENTAGON REPORT: COLLAPSE WITHIN 20 YEARS FROM CLIMATE Preface.The report that the article by Ahmed below is based on is: Brosig, M., et al. 2019. Implications of climate change for the U.S. Army. United States Army War College. BATTERIES ARE MADE OF RARE, DECLINING, CRITICAL, AND Solid state batteries are just starting to enter the market, although most of them are still quite small. I wouldn’t write them off. What is truly absurd about receiving a full charge in 10 minutes is the expectation that the grid and its generators will be able to handle millions of random 100kW loads while these cars are charging – especially in post-nuke Japan. SMR | PEAK ENERGY & RESOURCES, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND THE Posted on April 17, 2021 by energyskeptic. Preface. Peak conventional oil, which supplies over 95% of our oil, may have peaked in 2008 (IEA 2018) or 2018 (EIA 2020). We are running out of time. And is it really worth building these small modular reactors (SMR) given . Continuereading →.
HOW ARE MICROCHIPS MADE? Getting off the nitpick bandwagon back to the substance of the article Reading through the text, glimpsing just how tremendously complicated and intricate chip manufacturing really is brings to mind a statement from an author whose name I cannot remember, to the effect that “any sufficiently developed technology is (near to, or) as good as sorcery” or something to that effect. WALTER YOUNGQUIST: GEODESTINIES MINERALS Preservation of Knowedge, peak oil, ecology - Preface. I was fortunate enough to know Walter for 15 years. He became a friend and mentor, helping me learn to become a better science writer, and sending me material I might be interested in, and delightful pictures of him sitting in a lawn chair and feeding wild deer who weren’t afraid ofhim.
BOOK REVIEW OF “BRIGHT GREEN LIES” This is a book review of “Bright Green Lies. How the Environmental Movement Lost its Way and What We can Do About It” by Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith, and Max Wilbert. PEAK ENERGY & RESOURCES, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND THE The U.S. Energy Information Agency shows global peak crude oil production at a later date in 2018 at 82.9 mb/d (EIA 2020) because they included tight oil, oil sands, and deep-sea oil. Though it will take several years of lower oil production to be sure the peakoccurred.
ABOUT | PEAK ENERGY & RESOURCES, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND THE Solar PV, windmills, computers, and much other technology now depends too heavily on limited supplies of rare earth and platinum metals. Peak uranium, peak phosphorous, peak everything basically. There are dozens of resources that are getting short that could also cause the collapse of civilization as we know it. ENERGY | PEAK ENERGY & RESOURCES, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND THE Compressed air energy storage (CAES) Posted on May 11, 2021 by energyskeptic. Preface. Besides pumped hydro storage (PHS), which provides 99% of energy storage today, CAES is the only other commercially proven energy storage technology that can provide large-scale (over 100 MW) energy storage. But there are just two CAESplants in .
APRIL | 2021 | PEAK ENERGY & RESOURCES, CLIMATE CHANGE We’ve wiped out two-thirds of wildlife in just 50 years. Posted on April 11, 2021 by energyskeptic. Preface. Human over-consumption is driving extinction far more than climate change. Humans began reducing biodiversity 4 million years ago, when large carnivores in Africa began disappearing (Faurby, S., et al. 2020. PENTAGON REPORT: COLLAPSE WITHIN 20 YEARS FROM CLIMATE Preface.The report that the article by Ahmed below is based on is: Brosig, M., et al. 2019. Implications of climate change for the U.S. Army. United States Army War College. BATTERIES ARE MADE OF RARE, DECLINING, CRITICAL, AND Solid state batteries are just starting to enter the market, although most of them are still quite small. I wouldn’t write them off. What is truly absurd about receiving a full charge in 10 minutes is the expectation that the grid and its generators will be able to handle millions of random 100kW loads while these cars are charging – especially in post-nuke Japan. SMR | PEAK ENERGY & RESOURCES, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND THE Posted on April 17, 2021 by energyskeptic. Preface. Peak conventional oil, which supplies over 95% of our oil, may have peaked in 2008 (IEA 2018) or 2018 (EIA 2020). We are running out of time. And is it really worth building these small modular reactors (SMR) given . Continuereading →.
HOW ARE MICROCHIPS MADE? Getting off the nitpick bandwagon back to the substance of the article Reading through the text, glimpsing just how tremendously complicated and intricate chip manufacturing really is brings to mind a statement from an author whose name I cannot remember, to the effect that “any sufficiently developed technology is (near to, or) as good as sorcery” or something to that effect. WALTER YOUNGQUIST: GEODESTINIES MINERALS Preservation of Knowedge, peak oil, ecology - Preface. I was fortunate enough to know Walter for 15 years. He became a friend and mentor, helping me learn to become a better science writer, and sending me material I might be interested in, and delightful pictures of him sitting in a lawn chair and feeding wild deer who weren’t afraid ofhim.
BOOK REVIEW OF “BRIGHT GREEN LIES” This is a book review of “Bright Green Lies. How the Environmental Movement Lost its Way and What We can Do About It” by Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith, and Max Wilbert. BLACKOUTS, FIRESTORMS, AND ENERGY USE Preface.Blackouts are more and more likely in the future from fires, hurricanes, natural gas shortages and more. Below is an account from a friend who had to evacuate due to a wildfire. HYDROGEN | PEAK ENERGY & RESOURCES, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND Heavy-duty hydrogen fuel cell trucks a waste of energy and money. Posted on July 30, 2020 by energyskeptic. Preface. There are 3 articles that I summarize below: ARB. November 2015. Medium- and heavy-duty fuel cell electric vehicles. Air Resources Board, California Environmental Protection Agency. NRC. 2003. WOOD | PEAK ENERGY & RESOURCES, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND THE Posted on January 23, 2020 by energyskeptic. Preface. Just when civilization is decades from returning to wood as the main energy source (due to peak oil in 2018), climate change is allowing invasive beetles to survive winters and kill trees, with drought and wildfires increasing the damage. . Continue reading →. 1) DECLINE | PEAK ENERGY & RESOURCES, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND Category Archives: 1) Decline. Decline will be death by a thousand cuts as too many problems occur and overwhelm societies ability to fix them (i.e. Tainter’s “complexity”). Already our infrastructure (oil and gas pipelines, electric grid, roads, bridges, etc) has a Report Card of D from the American Society of Civil Engineers. WHY WE AREN’T MINING METHANE HYDRATES NOW Methane hydrates are crystalline structures that are mostly water: four methane molecules per 23 water molecules. Methane is trapped within this matrix of ice, so they don’t amass in commercial quantities and the majority are too spread out to harvest for energy. WHY FUSION POWER IS FOREVER AWAY Preservation of Knowedge, peak oil, ecology - Preface.When my husband Jeffery Kahn was a science writer at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, we became friends with several astrophysicists who used to joke about how fusion was 30 years away and always would be.ENERGYSKEPTIC
Preservation of Knowedge, peak oil, ecology - 1) Decline. Blackouts; Concrete; Consumption; CyberAttacks. CyberAttack Book Reviews METHANE HYDRATE TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT Preservation of Knowedge, peak oil, ecology - Gas-hydrate technologies remain at an early stage of development, despite the maturity of many of the individual exploration technologies being used. HEAVY-DUTY HYDROGEN FUEL CELL TRUCKS A WASTE OF ENERGY AND Preface.There are 3 articles that I summarize below: ARB. November 2015. Medium- and heavy-duty fuel cell electric vehicles. Air Resources Board, California Environmental Protection Agency. THE GLOBAL THREAT OF INVASIVE SPECIES TO MARINE Preface. Although I consider peak oil to be the largest threat, since all other resources and economic activities depend on it, we’re faced with a convergence of hundreds of other problems enabled by fossil fuels, which caused the the huge population explosion ofhumans.
PEAK ENERGY & RESOURCES, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND THE The U.S. Energy Information Agency shows global peak crude oil production at a later date in 2018 at 82.9 mb/d (EIA 2020) because they included tight oil, oil sands, and deep-sea oil. Though it will take several years of lower oil production to be sure the peakoccurred.
ABOUT | PEAK ENERGY & RESOURCES, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND THE Solar PV, windmills, computers, and much other technology now depends too heavily on limited supplies of rare earth and platinum metals. Peak uranium, peak phosphorous, peak everything basically. There are dozens of resources that are getting short that could also cause the collapse of civilization as we know it. ENERGY | PEAK ENERGY & RESOURCES, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND THE Compressed air energy storage (CAES) Posted on May 11, 2021 by energyskeptic. Preface. Besides pumped hydro storage (PHS), which provides 99% of energy storage today, CAES is the only other commercially proven energy storage technology that can provide large-scale (over 100 MW) energy storage. But there are just two CAESplants in .
APRIL | 2021 | PEAK ENERGY & RESOURCES, CLIMATE CHANGE We’ve wiped out two-thirds of wildlife in just 50 years. Posted on April 11, 2021 by energyskeptic. Preface. Human over-consumption is driving extinction far more than climate change. Humans began reducing biodiversity 4 million years ago, when large carnivores in Africa began disappearing (Faurby, S., et al. 2020. PENTAGON REPORT: COLLAPSE WITHIN 20 YEARS FROM CLIMATE Preface.The report that the article by Ahmed below is based on is: Brosig, M., et al. 2019. Implications of climate change for the U.S. Army. United States Army War College. BATTERIES ARE MADE OF RARE, DECLINING, CRITICAL, AND Solid state batteries are just starting to enter the market, although most of them are still quite small. I wouldn’t write them off. What is truly absurd about receiving a full charge in 10 minutes is the expectation that the grid and its generators will be able to handle millions of random 100kW loads while these cars are charging – especially in post-nuke Japan. THE FRAGILITY OF MICROCHIPS Preface. This is an introduction to how microchips are made to give you an idea of how difficult and amazing they are. This is a very high-level overview gathered from two textbooks full of mind-boggling processes and complexity. Microchips are also constructed out of finite critical, precious, platinum group elements, and rare earth elements -- 90% of them produced in China. And all of them WALTER YOUNGQUIST: GEODESTINIES MINERALS Preservation of Knowedge, peak oil, ecology - Preface. I was fortunate enough to know Walter for 15 years. He became a friend and mentor, helping me learn to become a better science writer, and sending me material I might be interested in, and delightful pictures of him sitting in a lawn chair and feeding wild deer who weren’t afraid ofhim.
WHY FUSION POWER IS FOREVER AWAY Preservation of Knowedge, peak oil, ecology - Preface.When my husband Jeffery Kahn was a science writer at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, we became friends with several astrophysicists who used to joke about how fusion was 30 years away and always would be. BOOK REVIEW OF “BRIGHT GREEN LIES” This is a book review of “Bright Green Lies. How the Environmental Movement Lost its Way and What We can Do About It” by Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith, and Max Wilbert. PEAK ENERGY & RESOURCES, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND THE The U.S. Energy Information Agency shows global peak crude oil production at a later date in 2018 at 82.9 mb/d (EIA 2020) because they included tight oil, oil sands, and deep-sea oil. Though it will take several years of lower oil production to be sure the peakoccurred.
ABOUT | PEAK ENERGY & RESOURCES, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND THE Solar PV, windmills, computers, and much other technology now depends too heavily on limited supplies of rare earth and platinum metals. Peak uranium, peak phosphorous, peak everything basically. There are dozens of resources that are getting short that could also cause the collapse of civilization as we know it. ENERGY | PEAK ENERGY & RESOURCES, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND THE Compressed air energy storage (CAES) Posted on May 11, 2021 by energyskeptic. Preface. Besides pumped hydro storage (PHS), which provides 99% of energy storage today, CAES is the only other commercially proven energy storage technology that can provide large-scale (over 100 MW) energy storage. But there are just two CAESplants in .
APRIL | 2021 | PEAK ENERGY & RESOURCES, CLIMATE CHANGE We’ve wiped out two-thirds of wildlife in just 50 years. Posted on April 11, 2021 by energyskeptic. Preface. Human over-consumption is driving extinction far more than climate change. Humans began reducing biodiversity 4 million years ago, when large carnivores in Africa began disappearing (Faurby, S., et al. 2020. PENTAGON REPORT: COLLAPSE WITHIN 20 YEARS FROM CLIMATE Preface.The report that the article by Ahmed below is based on is: Brosig, M., et al. 2019. Implications of climate change for the U.S. Army. United States Army War College. BATTERIES ARE MADE OF RARE, DECLINING, CRITICAL, AND Solid state batteries are just starting to enter the market, although most of them are still quite small. I wouldn’t write them off. What is truly absurd about receiving a full charge in 10 minutes is the expectation that the grid and its generators will be able to handle millions of random 100kW loads while these cars are charging – especially in post-nuke Japan. THE FRAGILITY OF MICROCHIPS Preface. This is an introduction to how microchips are made to give you an idea of how difficult and amazing they are. This is a very high-level overview gathered from two textbooks full of mind-boggling processes and complexity. Microchips are also constructed out of finite critical, precious, platinum group elements, and rare earth elements -- 90% of them produced in China. And all of them WALTER YOUNGQUIST: GEODESTINIES MINERALS Preservation of Knowedge, peak oil, ecology - Preface. I was fortunate enough to know Walter for 15 years. He became a friend and mentor, helping me learn to become a better science writer, and sending me material I might be interested in, and delightful pictures of him sitting in a lawn chair and feeding wild deer who weren’t afraid ofhim.
WHY FUSION POWER IS FOREVER AWAY Preservation of Knowedge, peak oil, ecology - Preface.When my husband Jeffery Kahn was a science writer at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, we became friends with several astrophysicists who used to joke about how fusion was 30 years away and always would be. BOOK REVIEW OF “BRIGHT GREEN LIES” This is a book review of “Bright Green Lies. How the Environmental Movement Lost its Way and What We can Do About It” by Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith, and Max Wilbert.SUPPLY CHAINS
The Fragility of Microchips. Posted on February 6, 2021 by energyskeptic. Preface. This is an introduction to how microchips are made to give you an idea of how difficult and amazing they are. This is a very high-level overview gathered from two textbooks full of mind-boggling processes and complexity. Microchips are . BLACKOUTS, FIRESTORMS, AND ENERGY USE Preface.Blackouts are more and more likely in the future from fires, hurricanes, natural gas shortages and more. Below is an account from a friend who had to evacuate due to a wildfire.2) COLLAPSE
Category Archives: 2) Collapse. The collapse of the financial system, breakdown of supply chains, blackouts, end of being able to make computer chips, and so on are symptoms of the underlying cause: LESS OIL AVAILABLE TO DO MILLIONS OF ESSENTIAL TASKS. Whether the house of cards goes from the financial shock of a natural disaster or from debtSEWAGE TREATMENT
Water-borne diseases will increase as energy declines. Preface. Drinking water and sewage treatment plants are the main reason lifespans nearly doubled. Read Laurie Garrett’s “Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health” for details. As energy WHY WE AREN’T MINING METHANE HYDRATES NOW 11 hours ago · Methane hydrates are crystalline structures that are mostly water: four methane molecules per 23 water molecules. Methane is trapped within this matrix of ice, so they don’t amass in commercial quantities and the majority are too spread out to harvestfor energy.
CONCRETE | PEAK ENERGY & RESOURCES, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND Concrete: the most destructive material on Earth. Posted on May 12, 2019 by energyskeptic. Preface. Some of the points I found most alarming or interesting: After water, concrete is the most widely used substance on Earth. Concrete is a thirsty behemoth, sucking up almost a 10th of the world’s industrial water use.ENERGYSKEPTIC
Preservation of Knowedge, peak oil, ecology - 1) Decline. Blackouts; Concrete; Consumption; CyberAttacks. CyberAttack Book ReviewsVACLAV SMIL
Vaclav Smil: Our transition away from fossil fuels will take decades—if it happens at all. [The rate of world conventional oil production (also known as Peak Oil) happened in 2005 and conventional oil production has been on a plateau since then. Hirsch wrote that weought to
METHANE HYDRATE REAL COTTON CANDY Preservation of Knowedge, peak oil, ecology - 1) Decline. Blackouts; Concrete; Consumption; CyberAttacks. CyberAttack Book Reviews2) COLLAPSE
Preservation of Knowedge, peak oil, ecology - 1) Decline. Blackouts; Concrete; Consumption; CyberAttacks. CyberAttack Book Reviews*
* 1) Decline
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* CyberAttack Book Reviews * Government Reports * Infrastructure Attacks* Deforestation
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* ! PEAK EVERYTHING
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RENEWABLES MUST HELP PAY FOR TRANSMISSION AND THEIR ENERGY STORAGE BACKUP OF FOSSIL POWER PLANTS Posted on November 23, 2020by energyskeptic
PREFACE. Wind and solar advocates don’t include transmission and backup costs in their net energy calculations. But without fossil backup, the electric grid will come down due to lack of storage. There is almost nowhere left to put pumped hydro storage in the ten states that already have 80% of hydropower, there is only one Compressed Air Energy Storage plant in the U.S. in one of the few salt domes in three states along the Gulf coast that have salt domes (with half of it powered by natural gas turbines), and it would cost $41 trillion dollars to make Sodium Sulfur (NaS) batteries lasting 15 years to back up just one day of U.S. electricity generation (Friedemann 2015). Mexico is asking renewable companies to pay for transmission and natural gas / coal backup for when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun shining. About time, because this is all a gigantic waste of money if wind and solar can’t stand on their own, a dumb investment when we could have used the money to convert to organic farming, plant more trees, beef up infrastructure and other efforts to prepare for peak oil, coal, and natural gas and the lifestyle that will be forced uponus.
_Alice Friedemann __www.energyskeptic.com_ _ author of “__When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation__”,
2015, Springer, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels,
and “__Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers__”.
Podcasts: _Collapse Chronicles, _Derrick Jensen_
_,
__Practical Prepping__,
__KunstlerCast 253_ _,__KunstlerCast278_
_,
__Peak Prosperity_
_
, __XX2 report_
***
GARCIA, D. A. 2020. RENEWABLE FIRMS IN MEXICO MUST CONTRIBUTE TO GRID BACKUP – CFE CHIEF.REUTERS.
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Private renewable energy firms in Mexico should pay for part of the baseload power underpinning the flow of electricity on the grid, the head of the state power company said….Renewable operators had not been pulling their weight in contributing to the infrastructure that sustains them. “WIND AND PHOTOVOLTAIC (PLANTS) DON’T PAY THE CFE FOR THE BACKUP,” SAID BARTLETT, REFERRING TO THE COST OF POWER GENERATION FROM FOSSIL FUELS, MOSTLY NATURAL GAS, TO GUARANTEE UNINTERRUPTED FLOW. “DO YOU THINK IT’S FAIR FOR THE CFE TO SUBSIDIZE THESE COMPANIES THAT DON’T PRODUCE POWER ALL DAY?” HE ASKED. THE FIRMS SHOULD ALSO START HELPING TO PAY TRANSMISSION COSTS, HESAID.
“That’s not a free market, it’s theft,” said Bartlett, a close ally of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has pledged to hold down electricity rates. CENACE cited the coronavirus pandemic as a justification, arguing that intermittent wind and solar power is not consistent with ensuring constant electricity supply.REFERENCES
Friedemann, Alice. 2015. When Trucks stop running: Energy and the future of transportation. Springer Posted in Electric Grid,
Energy Storage
, Solar
, Solar EROI
,
Wind , Wind EROI
| Tagged energy storage , fossil fuel backup, renewable
, solar
, wind
| 1 Comment
THE INVISIBLE OILINESS OF EVERYTHING Posted on November 20, 2020by energyskeptic
PREFACE. Even a simple object like a pencil requires dozens of actions to make and dozens of objects that took energy to make. This is why it is unlikely wind, solar, or any other contraption that make electricity, have a positive return of energy, or energy returned on energy invested. If you look at all of the energy of the steps to create a wind turbine or solar panel, they don’t produce as much energy as it took to make them, and certainly not enough extra energy to replace themselves. Besides, electricity is only about 15% of overall energy use, with fossils providing the rest transportation, manufacturing, heating, and the half a million products made from fossils as feedstock as well as energy source. _Alice Friedemann __www.energyskeptic.com_ _ author of “__When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation__”,
2015, Springer, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels,
and “__Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers__”.
Podcasts: _Collapse Chronicles, _Derrick Jensen_
_,
__Practical Prepping__,
__KunstlerCast 253_ _,__KunstlerCast278_
_,
__Peak Prosperity_
_
, __XX2 report_
***
Just as fish swim in water, we swim in oil. You can’t understand the predicament we’re in until you can _SEE_ the oil that saturates every single aspect of our life. What follows is a life cycle of a simple object, the pencil. I’ve cut back and reworded Leonard Read’s 1958 essay _I Pencil, My FamilyTree_ to show the
fossil fuel energy inputs (OBJECTS made using energy, like the pencil, are in BOLD CAPITALS, _ACTIONS_ _are BOLD ITALICIZED_).“My
family tree begins with … a Cedar tree from Oregon. Now contemplate the antecedents — all the people, numberless skills, andfabrication:
All the SAWS. TRUCKS, ROPE and OTHER GEAR to _HARVEST _and _CART_ cedar logs to the RAILROAD siding. The _MINING_ of ore, _MAKING_ of STEEL, and its _REFINEMENT_ into SAWS, AXES, and MOTORS. The growing of HEMP, LUBRICATED with OIL, DIRT _REMOVED_, _COMBED__, COMPRESSED, SPUN_ into yard, and _BRAIDED_ into ROPE. _BUILDING _of LOGGING CAMPS (BEDS, MESS HALLS). _SHOP_ for, _DELIVER_, and _COOK_ FOOD to feed the working men. Not to mention the untold thousands of persons who had a hand in every cup of COFFEE the loggersdrank!
The LOGS are SHIPPED to a MILL in California. Can you imagine how many people were needed to _MAKE_ FLAT CARS and RAILS and RAILROAD ENGINES? At the mill, cedar logs are _CUT_ into small, pencil-length slats less than a quarter inch thick, KILN-DRIED, TINTED, _WAXED._ and _KILN-DRIED_ again. Think of all effort and skills to make the TINT and the KILNS, SUPPLY the HEAT, LIGHT, and POWER, the BELTS, MOTORS, and all the OTHER THINGS a MILL requires? Plus the SWEEPERS and the MEN who _POURED_ the CONCRETE for the DAM of a Pacific Gas & Electric Company HYDRO-ELECTRIC PLANT which supplies the mill’s POWER! Don’t overlook the WORKERS and OIL BURNED by THE RAILROAD LOCOMOTIVE to TRANSPORT SIXTY TRAIN-CARS of SLATS ACROSS the nation. Once in the PENCIL FACTORY—worth millions of dollars in MACHINERY and BUILDING—each slat has 8 GROOVES _CUT_ into them by a GROOVE-CUTTING MACHINE, after which the LEAD-LAYING MACHINE _PLACES_ a piece of LEAD in every other slat, _APPLIES_ GLUE and _PLACES_ another SLAT on top–—a lead sandwich. Seven brothers and I are mechanically _CARVED_ from this “wood-clinched” sandwich. My “lead” itself—it contains no lead at all—is complex. The GRAPHITE is _MINED_ in Sri Lanka. Consider these MINERS and those who _MAKE_ their many TOOLS and the makers of the PAPER SACKS in which the graphite is _SHIPPED_ and those who make the STRING that ties the sacks and the MEN who _LIFT_ them aboard SHIPS and the MEN who MAKE the SHIPS. Even the LIGHTHOUSE KEEPERS along the way assisted in my birth—and the HARBOR PILOTS. The graphite is mixed with CLAY _FROM_ Mississippi in which AMMONIUM HYDROXIDE is used in the _REFINING_ process. Then WETTING AGENTS and animal fats are _CHEMICALLY REACTED_ with sulfuric acid. After _PASSING THROUGH_ NUMEROUS MACHINES, the mixture finally appears as endless extrusions—as from a sausage grinder-cut to size, dried, and baked for several hours at 1,850 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT. To increase their strength and smoothness the leads are then _TREATED_ with a hot mixture which includes CANDELILLA WAX from Mexico, PARAFFIN WAX, and HYDROGENATED NATURAL FATS. My cedar _RECEIVES_ 6 coats of LACQUER. Do you know all the ingredients of lacquer? Who would think that the GROWERS of CASTOR BEANS and the _REFINERS_ of CASTOR OIL are a part of it? They are. Why, even the processes by which the lacquer is made a beautiful yellow involve the skills of more persons than one can enumerate! Observe the LABELING, a film _FORMED_ by _APPLYING HEAT_ to CARBON BLACK mixed with RESINS. How do you make resins and what is carbonblack?
My bit of metal—the ferrule—is BRASS. Think of all the PERSONS who _MINE_ ZINC and COPPER and those who have the skills to _MAKE_ shiny SHEET BRASS from these products of nature. Those black rings on my ferrule are black NICKEL. What is black nickel and how is it applied? The complete story would take pages to explain. Then there’s my crowning glory, the ERASER, a rubber-like product made by reacting RAPE-SEED OIL from Indonesia with SULFUR CHLORIDE, and numerous VULCANIZING and ACCELERATING AGENTS. The PUMICE comes from Italy; and the pigment which gives “the plug” its color isCADMIUM SULFIDE.
Does anyone wish to challenge my earlier assertion that no single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me? Actually, millions of human beings have had a hand in my creation, no one of whom even knows more than a very few of the others. Now, you may say that I go too far in relating the picker of a coffee berry in far off Brazil and food growers elsewhere to my creation; that this is an extreme position. I shall stand by my claim. There isn’t a single person in all these millions, including the president of the pencil company, who contributes more than a tiny, infinitesimal bit of know-how. From the standpoint of know-how the only difference between the miner of graphite in Sri Lanka and the logger in Oregon is in the type of know-how. Neither the miner nor the logger can be dispensed with, any more than can the chemist at the factory or the worker in the oil field—paraffin being a by-product of petroleum. I, Pencil, am a complex combination of miracles: a tree, zinc, copper, graphite, and so on.” ENERGY USE IN AGRICULTURE (USDA) It is estimated that 10 kilocalories of fossil fuels are used to produce just 1 kilocalorie of food. Not surprisingly, food-related energy use in the U.S. is quite large, growing from 14.4% of energy used in 2002 to 15.7% in 2007. Energy is used throughout the U.S. food supply chain, from the manufacture and application of agricultural inputs, such as fertilizers and irrigation, through crop and livestock production, processing, and packaging; distribution services, such as shipping and cold storage; the running of refrigeration, preparation, and disposal equipment in food retailing and food service establishments; and in home kitchens. Dependence on energy throughout the food chain raises concerns about the impact of high or volatile energy prices on the price of food, as well as about domestic food security and the Nation’s reliance on imported energy. Energy plays a large role in the life cycle of a food product. Consider energy’s contribution to a hypothetical purchase of a fresh-cut non-organic salad mix by a consumer living on the East Coast of the United States. After having read “I, Pencil” it is obvious that this description leaves out a great deal of actions and object energy embedded within the life cycle. The farms’ fields are seeded months earlier with a precision seed planter operating as an attachment to a gasoline-powered FARM TRACTOR. Fresh vegetable farms in California HARVEST the produce to be used in the salad mix a few weeks prior to its purchase. Between planting and harvest, A DIESEL-POWERED BROADCAST SPREADER APPLIES NITROGEN-BASED FERTILIZERS, PESTICIDES, AND HERBICIDES, all manufactured using differing amounts of natural gas and electricity and SHIPPED IN DIESEL-POWERED TRUCKS to a nearby farm supplywholesaler.
Local farmers DRIVE to the wholesaler to purchase farm supplies. The farms use electric-powered irrigation equipment throughout much ofthe growing period.
At harvest, field workers pack harvested vegetables in boxes produced at a paper mill and load them in TRUCKS FOR SHIPMENT TO A REGIONAL PROCESSING PLANT, where specialized machinery cleans, cuts, mixes, and packages the salad mixes. Utility services at the paper mill, plastic packaging manufacturers, and salad mix plants use energy to produce the boxes used at harvest and the packaging used at the processing plant, and for processing and packaging the fresh produce. The packaged salad mix is shipped in refrigerated containers by a combination of rail and truck to an East Coast grocery store, where it is placed in market displays under constant refrigeration. To purchase this packaged salad mix, a consumer likely travels by car or public transportation to a nearby grocery store. For those traveling by car, a portion of the consumer’s automobile operational costs, and his or her associated energy-use requirements, help facilitate this food-related travel. At home, the consumer refrigerates the salad mix for a time before eating it. Food-related household operations include energy use for storage, preparation, cleanup, and food-related travel, plus purchases of appliances, dishware, flatware, cookware, and tableware, as well as a small percentage of certain auto expenses to cover food-relatedtravel.
Subsequently, dishes and utensils used to eat the salad may be placed in a dishwasher for cleaning and reuse—adding to the electricity use of the consumer’s household. Leftover salad may be partly grinded in a garbage disposal and washed away to a wastewater treatment facility, or disposed, collected, and hauled to a landfill. The consumer in the example purchased one of many units of this specific salad mix product sold each day in supermarkets nationwide, and this mixed salad product is one item among 45,000 distinct items with unique energy use requirements available in a typical U.S. supermarket. Aside from the roughly constant 140,000 retail food and beverage stores operating in 2002 and 2007, there were also over 537,000 food and beverage service establishments in the United States in 2007, a 12-percent increase from 2002 (BLS, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages). Each establishment purchases, stores, prepares, cleans, and disposes of food items. Other establishments, such as movie theaters, sports arenas, and hospitals, also perform some of these food-related services. 2 This salad mix example illustrates but is not a comprehensive accounting of all energy services related to producing, distributing, serving, and disposing of this product. LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT (LCA) AND ENERGY RETURNED ON ENERGY INVESTED(EROEI)
When it comes to replacing fossil fuels with another kind of energy, you want to be sure you aren’t merely building a Rube Goldberg contraption that churns out less power over its lifetime than the fossil fuel energy used to make the device. There are decades-old scientific methods that try do do this. The best-known is the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which calculates the _MONETARY_ costs and helps businesses shave costs. When it comes to evaluating a device that produces energy, a better measurement is the Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI, EROI), which subtracts the fossil fuel energy used in every step and component from how much energy is output over the lifetime of thecontraption.
At the start of the fossil fuel age, each barrel of oil discovered could be used to find 100 more, a huge EROI. This enormous bounty of energy was used to build our fabulous civilization. Railroads finally ended famines, clean drinking water and sewage infrastructure raised the average lifespan from 40 to 80 years (Garrett), and oil made possible a million other things – cars, airplanes, movies, electronic goods, 100% comfort 100% of the time, just push a button to heat, air-condition, or cook. CLEARLY A NEGATIVE OR BREAK-EVEN EROEI IS A BIG PROBLEM. for example, if the fossil fuel energy needed to make ethanol is greater than or equal to the energy in the ethanol produced, then there is no extra energy left over to do anything. Many system ecologists have found the EROEI of ethanol to be negative (Pimentel), or so slightly positive that the tiny amount of excess energy produced wouldn’t be able to run society. THE PROBLEMS WITH LCA AND EROEI NO WONDER COMPLETE STUDIES WITH WIDE BOUNDARIES ARE SELDOM DONE. THERE ARE INFINITE REGRESSIONS, SINCE EVERY OBJECT HAS ITS OWN LCA AND EROEI. A Toyota car has about 30,000 PARTS. A WINDMILL TURBINE HAS 8,000 COMPONENTS (AWEA). The supply chains (transportation fuel) for both involve thousands of companies and dozens of countries. LCA & EROEI STUDIES ARE BOUND TO MISS SOME STEPS. Reed’s pencil story left out the design, marketing, packaging, sales, distribution, and energy to fuel the supply chains between California, Oregon, Mississippi, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, etc., and the final ride the pencil takes to the garbage dump. EVERY STEP IN A PROCESS SUBTRACTS ENERGY FROM THE ULTIMATE ENERGY DELIVERED. Oil is concentrated sunshine that was brewed for free by Mother Nature. Building alternative energy resources requires dozens of steps, thousands of components, and vast amounts of energy in the supply chains of providing the minerals and pieces of equipment to make an alternative energy contraption. LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENTS (LCA) OFTEN USE MONEY RATHER THAN ENERGY TO CALCULATE “COSTS”. Money is an artificial, abstract concept used to grease the wheels of commerce. Money varies in value over time for reasons of politics, financial cycles, and can’t be burned incombustion engines.
THERE ARE MANY DIFFERENT LCA TABLES TO CHOOSE FROM. So scientists accuse each other of cherry-picking data or argue the data isout-of-date.
EROEI STUDIES OFTEN LEAVE OUT LCA MONETARY COSTS BECAUSE THEY’RE DIFFICULT TO QUANTIFY AS ENERGY COSTS. For example, when the EROEI of a windmill farm is calculated, many costs are left out, such as insurance, administrative expenses, taxes, the cost of the land to rent or own, indirect labor (consultants, notary public, civil servants, legal costs, etc.), security and surveillance costs, the fairs, exhibitions, promotions, conferences attended by engineering staff, bonds, fees, and so on. Although Prieto and Hall managed to do so in their analysis of solar power in Spain (Part 1& Part 2
).
EXTERNAL (ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE) COSTS ARE RARELY MENTIONED OR CONSIDERED. Making biofuels mines topsoil, depletes aquifers, creates immense eutrophication in the Gulf of Mexico and other waterways from fertilizer runoff, energy crops result in rainforests being cut down, and so on. Weißbach, D., et al. also find these issues with LCA and EROIstudies:
* Don’t take into account the need to buffer intermittent power. The EROI for wind is 16, but when you subtract the EROI of the energy storage to buffer wind power, the EROI overall is 4, well below the EMROI (Energy money returned on invested) requirement of 7 for an energy technology to be viable. * Focus too much on CO2 emissions rather than energy * Don’t take into account the much longer lifespans of fossil fuel power plants than Wind (20) or solar (30 – less, we don’t know yeet). CCGT NG plants can last 35 years, coal and gas turbines 50 years, refurbished nuclear power plants over 60 years, and hydropower can last 100 years or more. * Assume some or all of the components are recycled and subtract the energy, even though new material is often cheaper than recycled often, and recycling takes energy * Don’t take into account that getting raw materials keeps getting more energy expensive as concentrations in ores goes down from the best reserves being extracted first * Don’t add in the energy costs to make devices safer and conform to environmental standards * Wind EROI can be ‘gamed’ by using very low amounts of copper and other materials, or leaving them out entirely, using data from the best possible locations only (i.e. offshore or the best onshorelocations.
* Ignore human labor costs A REPORT THAT CHASED DOWN THE ENERGY IN THE INFINITE REGRESSIONS OF THOUSANDS OF PARTS WOULD TAKE A LIFETIME AND OVER A HUNDRED THOUSAND PAGES LONG. Therefore boundaries have to be set, which leads to never-ending fights between scientists. Just as tobacco industry funded scientific studies tended to find cigarettes did not cause cancer, energy industry-sponsored scientists tend to use very narrow boundaries and cherry-pick LCA data to come up with positive EROEI results, usually published in NON-PEER REVIEWED JOURNALS, which means the data and methods are often unavailable, making the results as trustworthy as science-fiction. Systems ecologists, the experts and inventors of EROEI methodology, use wider boundaries, include more steps and components, energy rather than financial data whenever possible, and publish in peer-reviewed journals. Peer-reviewed journals require a review by scientists in the same field, and the data and methods are available to everyone so that the results can be VERIFIED AND REPRODUCED. On average, the EROEI results of university systems ecologists in peer-reviewed, high quality, respected journals are much lower than the energy industry sponsored scientists in non-peer-reviewed industrypublications.
ALTERNATIVE ENERGY RESOURCES MUST BE SUSTAINABLE AND RENEWABLE What’s the point of making biofuels if unsustainable amounts of fresh water, topsoil, natural gas fertilizers, oil-based pesticides, and phosphorous are used? Or windmills and solar PV, since they both depend on scarce, energy-intensive, and extremely damaging mining to get the rare (earth) and platinum metals required, leading to even more wars than we have now over oil to get rare minerals that exist only in foreigncountries.
Nevertheless, EROEI studies are valuable because you can see some of the oiliness, even if it’s only a tiny fraction given how long it would take to include all 30,000 parts of a car or 8,000 parts of a windmill. The more studies you read, the more you can decide whether the boundaries were too narrow and which scientists wrote the most complete and fair study. CIVILIZATION NEEDS ENERGY RESOURCES WITH AN EROEI OF AT LEAST 12 Charles A. S. Hall, who founded EROEI methodology, initially thought an EROEI of at least 3 was needed to keep civilization as we know it operating. After three decades of research, he recently co-authored a paper that makes the case that AN EROEI OF AT LEAST 12-14 IS NEEDED(LAMBERT).
CONCLUSION
An alternative energy resource built to replace oil had better have an EROEI over 12, or it’s just a Rube Goldberg contraption. RUBE GOLDBERG PENCIL SHARPENER OPEN WINDOW (A) AND FLY KITE (B). STRING (C) LIFTS SMALL DOOR (D) ALLOWING MOTHS (E) TO ESCAPE AND EAT RED FLANNEL SHIRT (F). AS WEIGHT OF SHIRT BECOMES LESS, SHOE (G) STEPS ON SWITCH (H) WHICH HEATS ELECTRIC IRON (I) AND BURNS HOLE IN PANTS (J). SMOKE (K) ENTERS HOLE IN TREE (L), SMOKING OUT OPOSSUM (M) WHICH JUMPS INTO BASKET (N), PULLING ROPE (O) AND LIFTING CAGE (P), ALLOWING WOODPECKER (Q) TO CHEW WOOD FROM PENCIL (R), EXPOSING LEAD. EMERGENCY KNIFE (S) IS ALWAYS HANDY IN CASE OPOSSUM OR THE WOODPECKER GETS SICK AND CAN’T WORK.REFERENCES
AWEA. American Wind Energy Association. 2012. Anatomy of a WindTurbine
.
There are over 8,000 components in each turbine assembly. Farrell, et. al. Jan 27, 2006. _Ethanol Can Contribute to Energy andEnvironmental Goals
_.
Science Vol 311 506-508. Garrett, L. 2003. Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health. Oxford University Press. Lambert, Jessica G., Hall Charles A. S. et al. 2014. Energy, EROI and quality of life. Energy Policy 64:153–167 Lambert, J. Hall, Charles, et al. Nov 2012. EROI of Global Energy Resources Preliminary Status and Trends.
State University of New York, College of Environmental Science andForestry.
Pimentel, D and Patzek, T. March 2005. Ethanol Production Using Corn, Switchgrass, and Wood; Biodiesel Production Using Soybean and Sunflower. Natural Resources Research, Vol. 14 #1. USDA. March 2010. .Energy Use in the U.S. Food System United States Department of Agriculture. Posted in Agriculture,
Alternative Energy
,
An Overview ,
EROEI Energy Returned on Energy Invested,
Manufacturing & Industrial Heat, Wind
| Tagged EROEI
, EROI
, net energy
, oil
| 13 Comments
CLIMATE CHANGE DOMINATES NEWS COVERAGE AT EXPENSE OF OTHER EQUALLY IMPORTANT EXISTENTIAL ISSUES Posted on November 17, 2020by energyskeptic
PREFACE. I’ve noticed that in the half dozen science magazines and several newspapers I get practically the only environmental stories are about climate change. Yet there are 8 other ecological boundaries (Rockström 2009) we must not cross (shown in bold with an asterisk below) and dozens of other existential threats as well. Global peak oil production may have already happened in October of 2018 (Will covid-19 delay peak oil?Table
1). It is likely the decline rate will be 6%, increasing exponentially by +0.015% a year (see post “Giant oil field decline rates and peak oil”). So, after 16 years remaining oil production will be just 10% of what it was at the peak. If peak oil happened in 2018, then CO2 ppm levels may be under 400 by 2100 as existing and much lower emissions of CO2 are absorbed by oceans and land. The IPCC never even modeled peak oil in their dozens of scenarios because they assumed we’d be exponentially increasing our use of fossils until 2400. They never asked geologists what the oil, coal, and natural gas reserves were, assumed we’d use methane hydrates, and many other wrong assumptions. Meanwhile, all the ignored ecological disasters will become far more obvious. They’re papered over with fossils today. Out of fresh water? Just drill another 1,000 feet down. Eutrophied water? Build a $500 million dollar water treatment plant. Fisheries collapsed? Go to the ends of the earth to capture the remaining schools of fish. The real threat is declining fossil production, yet climate change gets nearly all the coverage. And I’ve left out quite a few other threats, such as “nuclear war” with 17,900 results since 2016 inscholar.google.com.
_Alice Friedemann www.energyskeptic.com author of “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future ofTransportation
”,
2015, Springer, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels,
and “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”.
Podcasts: Collapse Chronicles, Derrick Jensen
,
Practical Prepping
,
KunstlerCast 253 , KunstlerCast278,
Peak Prosperity
, XX2 report _
***
scholar. google. com 2016USA Today 2013
Wall Street Journal 1997NYT 2016
2,360,000
11,100
28,400
9,379
“climate change” *74,800
260
255
47
“soil erosion” (50,900) “soil degradation” (23,900)61,200
397
989
373
deforestation
43,000
7
10
3
eutrophication * (a result of too much nitrogen & phosphorus appliedto farmland)
32,800
19
100
23
“biodiversity loss” *24,000
342
215
94
overpopulation
22,800
63
38
44
“ocean acidification” *11,800
23
17
15
“chemical pollution” *8,743
58
5
2
“groundwater depletion” (7100) “aquifer depletion” (1320) “freshwater depletion” (323) *8,030
17
736
9
“peak oil”
5,100
18
3
0
“stratospheric ozone depletion” *4,400
0
0
0
bioinvasion
2,259
4
0
0
“phosphorus depletion” and “phosphate depletion”2,210
34
207
25
“Proven oil reserves”1,320
0
0
0
“land system change” *971
0
0
0
“atmospheric aerosol loading” *900
2
1
1
“fishery collapse” (657) “fishery depletion” (89) “fisherydecline” (154)
47
0
0
0
“net plant production” * NPP encompasses 5 of Rockstrom’s 9 boundaries: land-use change, freshwater use, biodiversity loss, global nitrogen and phosphorus cycles as well as affected by climate change and chemical pollution. Running, S. W. 2012. A Measurable Planetary Boundary for the Biosphere. Science.304,380
1,244
2,576
636
Total of not climate change Table 1. Key words found in scholarly literature (scholar.google.com) and New York times since 2016-1-1, USA today since 2013-1-1, and WSJsince 1997-1-1
* Rockstrom J, et al (2009) Planetary Boundaries: Exploring Safe Operating Space for Humanity. Ecology and Society Table 1 shows that in all of scholarly literature, NON-climate change issues comprise just 1.2% of publications, USA Today 11%, WSJ 9%, &NYT 6.8%.
The rant continues. The reason I am so annoyed with the attention to Climate Change is that it became THE PROBLEM and THE SOLUTION was to generate electricity with wind and solar power to lower emissions. But as we all know, there have been no closures of fossil fuel plants (coal plants were replaced with natural gas plants double their size) because of lack of energy storage for renewables, the inability of wind and solar to scale up, and because fossil plants still supply two-thirds of generation and peak power. Since rebuildables require fossils every single step of their life cycle, they were never were a solution. They were simply a distraction from reality. If the actual problem is that finite fossil fuels power our civilization and their peak production is near at hand, then carrying capacity will be far less. Pimentel (1991) estimated 40 to 100 million without fossil fuels in the U.S. So we should have been reducing LEGAL immigration to far less than the one million a year since the 1960s, made birth control and abortion free and easy to get, and have high taxes on more than 1 child. Most importantly, by far, is that since peak fossils is the problem, rather than CC, we need to return to organic farming and stop using pesticides, build up the soils with composting and cover crops, plant windbreaks so that soil on thousands of square miles can’t wash and blow away so easily, stockpile phosphate, start growing multiple crops everywhere locally, and so on. We need to train the youngest generation how to do this, since eventually 90% of Americans will be farmers. And anyone who can grow a victory garden should be doing it since less consumption will lower standards of living until a new economic system not dependent on endless growth develops. There needs to be less consumption across the board, and very high taxes on the top 1% to redistribute wealth. There needs to be a year or two of mandatory service after high school to do infrastructure and other worthwhile projects in agriculture, irrigation, and more to prepare for a low energy world and to lessen the need to create private sector jobs in an economy that isshrinking.
Planting of hardwood trees and no more export of forests to Europe to burn for their “renewable” energy since we’ll need a lot of trees when we return to biomass as our main source of energy and infrastructure for ships, buildings, and charcoal to make bricks, metal, ceramics, glass, etc. Just look at postcarbon.org and transition towns for ideas, the reason for their existence. Climate change efforts have done nothing and distracted us away from what needs to be done. CC activists didn’t even try to lower the speed limit or ration gasoline usage or days when people could drive or mandate less consumption, and just about every single paper on anything to do with energy was how to lower emissions rather thanenergy efficiency.
I’ve collected reasons for why people deny a future energy crisis in “Telling others about peak oil and limits to growth”. Here’s anexcerpt:
* It’s impossible because whad’ya mean energy crash, never heardof it.
* Because we’re doing fine. Just some hiccups in the supply. * Because they know what they’re doing and would have told us bynow.
* Because I haven’t got time for an energy crash right now. * Even if I had time, I couldn’t afford one. Look at my creditcard.
* The oils wells have never run dry before, so they never will. * Rain refills water wells. For oil wells: acid rain or something. * Because oil wells are big slot machines, put money in, get oil out. * Because they’ll think of alternatives-ha-ha-silly-billy. * The oil companies have things up their sleeve they’re going tobring in.
* Because God looks after me. * I need a car for work so it’s impossible. * Impossible because you’re just trying to scare us. * It’s impossible because you’re crazy. * It’s impossible because ya have to stay positive. No wonder everyone preferred Climate Change. With windmills and solar panels we could continue our lifestyle and be squeaky clean and green. Meanwhile, we’ve wasted decades of preparation on Climate Change instead of the energy crisis.REFERENCES
Pimentel, D. et al. 1991. Land, Energy, and Water. The Constraints Governing Ideal U.S. Population Size. Negative Population Growth. Posted in Acidification,
Biodiversity Loss
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BioInvasion ,
Climate Change
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Tagged aquifer depletion, biodiversity loss
, Bioinvasion
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TELLING OTHERS ABOUT PEAK OIL AND LIMITS TO GROWTH Posted on November 14, 2020by
energyskeptic
PREFACE. Obviously the planet is finite. We’re using many times more oil than we’re discovering, and therefore at some point global oil production will peak and decline. Yet even in 2019 this reality is denied by most, so much so that low prices after the last financial crash caused by high oil prices, has led to the public buying gas guzzling light trucks and SUVs. What follows are the experiences of members of several peak oil groups (energyresources, runningonempty, sfbayoil, and so on, most of them from 2000 to 2005) about their experiences of trying to tell friends and family about peak oil and limits to growth. You may also want to read James Hecht’s “Collapse Awareness and the TragicConsciousness
“.
I recently stumbled on a post from 2007 by Edmund Fitzgerald called “How Many Understand?” He looked at how many members there were of various groups, and estimated perhaps one one-hundredth of one percent of our world’s population (670,000, or one in ten thousand) may have been exposed to the concept of limits, and the reality of depletion and looming energy constraints. Of these, perhaps 10% (67,000) might have the level of expertise and study which a few of us have achieved by examining material for hours each day for the past ten years or more. I came up with a roughly similar estimate on my own looking at memberships, including theoildrum which had more viewers than any other website devoted to energy resources and limitsto growth.
Fitzgerald concludes with “This severely limits the ability of the masses to understand our folly, as William Rees wrote in “Is Humanity Fatally Successful ?” or as Albert Bartlett says, “to understand the exponential function.” This shows the impossibility of achieving a “critical mass” of public understanding in time to accomplish all but the most minuscule attempts at population control, resource sustenance and biosphere caring necessary for our continued (sustainable) survival. Some, of course, will squeeze through the resource constraint bottleneck, but most will not. The survivors will live in a resource-depleted world. It’s too bad our understanding, en masse, could not evolve as quickly as our numbers.” _Alice Friedemann _ _www.energyskeptic.com author of “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”,
2015, Springer, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels,
and “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”.
Podcasts: _Collapse Chronicles,_ Derrick Jensen
,
Practical Prepping
,
KunstlerCast 253 , KunstlerCast278,
Peak Prosperity
, XX2 report _
_***
_
BRUCE: My girlfriend simply does not want to hear it, so we don’t discuss it. Many other people, shown the die off graph I keep in my pocketbook, seem intrigued and concerned, but don’t rush off and sell their cars or do anything to change their investments or plans etc. It sometimes feels as though there’s a stampede of a million innocent cattle towards the cliff, and the only cowboys are Jay Hansonand I.
One thing I’m a bit sad about is the shock and grief that we are in fact pushing onto the basically innocent sleepy world. When we “succeed”, that “critical mass” may by itself have a massive shock effect on the stock market, employment, etc. After a year of talking to people, here’s my guesses for the main subliminal reasoning why people think the energy crash is impossible: * It’s impossible because whad’ya mean energy crash, never heardof it.
* Because we’re doing fine. Just some hiccups in the supply. * Because they know what they’re doing and would have told us bynow.
* Because I haven’t got time for an energy crash right now. * Even if I had time, I couldn’t afford one. Look at my creditcard.
* The oils wells have never run dry before, so they never will. * Rain refills water wells. For oil wells: acid rain or something. * Because oil wells are big slot machines, put money in, get oilout.
* Because they’ll think of alternatives-ha-ha-silly-billy. * The oil companies have things up their sleeve they’re going tobring in.
* Because God looks after me. * I need a car for work so it’s impossible. * Impossible because you’re just trying to scare us. * It’s impossible because you’re crazy. * It’s impossible because ya have to stay positive. The purpose of truth is to maximize later happiness and reduce later misery. We only face hard truths in order to avoid suffering. Truth serves total happiness. But in the context of the overwhelming energy decline holocaust, truth may not serve us as well as optimistic delusion — if you are going to get dental root canal done, do you prefer the “truth” of no anesthetic, or the “delusion” ofanesthesia?
In view of the size and speed and intractability of the energy holocaust, I’d suggest we’re wiser to allow humanity to remain deluded rather than publicize the energy decline. It’s mainly my lifelong habit of facing hard truth to avoid worse misery that compels me to tell others, and of course my personal intellectual vanity gloating about being “the one who knows”. So, I vacillate, sometimes having a rave to a new acquaintance about it, and often justkeeping quiet.
Whether to tell others about the coming oil crisis depends on how grave you think the energy decline will be, and whether a person can actually gain from knowing from it. Imagine, for example, a world in which the media has suddenly shouted the truth about the energy decline so that everyone knows what we know. A better world? OLIVER: I think there is perhaps a belief that the government will “do the right thing” which allows people to “turn off”. I once mentioned the impending oil depletion to my mother, who was very concerned at the time, but has apparently forgotten about it. It seems to require a certain type of person to appreciate the evidence and not get turned off by the whole thing. Once past the peak, oil extraction can no longer meet demand and we start having shortages …this is an important thing for people to understand, since most people at first glance, look at 50% of oil left and think, “well, that’s going to last just as long as the first 50%”. Common sense, right? It’s hard not to feel it’s all fantasy, looking out the window and seeing a bright sunny day. But then I notice the cars, the transport trucks, the transport ships, and the trains carrying food… Most people really don’t really understand how much we rely on oil. This is understandable, since our modern society *is* complex. It’s like trying to comprehend the distances between the planets, starts, and galaxies. It’s big, really big. You take oil out of the picture, and things will stop working they way they are now. CLYDE: To get people to voluntarily change their lifestyles is a VERY hard sell. And as Jay Hanson recently pointed out, simply increasing the efficiency of systems is usually counter-productive because it allows more people to do what had been done by fewer prior to the improvement. That just ups the ante when the time of reckoning comes. It seems likely to me that people will only change when change is forced on them. I doubt that your time is well spent trying to convince everyone that the end is near. The message will probably be received with about as much concern as when one sees a religious zealot walking on the street with a sandwich board proclaiming the end is near. It is probably a better use of one’s time looking out for family and friends who share your viewpoint. Those who are prepared stand a better chance of making it through the difficult times ahead. TOM: I tried to start a dialog with my brother about some of the things we’ve been discussing. He is firmly entrenched in the “man was meant to dominate the earth” mindset. His reactionswere as follows:
* You guys have been preaching doom and gloom for years and none of it has happened. Why should I believe you now? * There are scientists working on these problems. When the need arises we’ll find the answers. We always have. * The people who are putting out this information simply have a leftist political agenda to change the American lifestyle. * You can’t force unwanted changes on people as long as there is scientific uncertainty about the need for it. I would guess this is typical of the reaction you will get from most people in the U.S. So I doubt social change will happen in time. The other evening I was having a beer with a group of friends from our local Sierra Club chapter. These were all very environmentally concerned people. I asked everyone in general “what are we going to do when the oil runs out?” Blank stares. One guy said “nukes”. Another said “we’ll walk a lot”. Then I asked how much longer until we are in a serious oil crisis. No one knew. One guy thought we had another 30 years. I said try 10 at the most. Another fellow in his 30’s said you mean it’ll happen in my lifetime? I said you better believe it will. Then I found out that our chapter president who is about to turn 50 is expecting a baby in May. I didn’t know what to say. (He was the one who thought we had 30 years of oil left.) When I got home I forwarded him some articles from the dieoff.org website. I have found that people don’t want to know or think about the oil depletion scenarios. I’m doing all I can to tell people with letters to the editor. But realistically what can most people do anyway. The average person doesn’t have the money for a PV system. We need our cars to get to work so we can put food on the table and a roof over our heads. LISE: I have brought up the point that there can only be so much oil available and that Nature takes a heck of a lot longer to make it than we can use it. I’ve also asked people to look around them and I’ve asked what would be missing if we didn’t have any more oil. Since a lot of our synthetic materials and plastics are oil-based, it doesn’t take them long to see how dependent we are…it’s not just a matter of fuel. But they usually don’t quite make it all the way to the holocaust scenario mainly because a lot of them still believe that Uncle Sam will protect and save them. HALLYX: I’ve been aware of Earthcrisis and particularly the oil peak for over a decade. For the past two years, I closely monitored the Y2K computer situation as a model of individual and sociological response to impending crisis. Now here’s a delicious bit of irony. Throughout my Y2K discussions, few if any were prepared to consider climate, soil, water, species decline or oil peak as worth worrying about. Even the most doomly of the Y2Krowd are still Pollyanna optimists when it comes to Earthcrisis. Of course virtually all of my “green” friends rolled their eyes in barely concealed contempt whenever Y2K was discussed. Now their Save-the-Earth message is even more fiercely condemned asmere wolf-crying.
And all this discussion is among people who have the intelligence and heart to be concerned enough even to learn and to talk about the issues, a vanishing small percentage of the American people. THOMAS: The idea that we are about to run out of resources has been debated at least from the days of Adam Smith and Tom Malthus thru Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon…a span of about ten generations. So far, each of those generations has seen their standard of living exceed the preceding one’s. Any shortages have been short-lived; either supply and demand has come back into balance, or new resources replaced the old. Why should a reasonably well-educated John Q. Public, who knows of this 200+ year background, listen to us now? SHERWOOD: There seems to be no universal consensus on what should be done. Indeed, the RunningOnEmpty scenario implies that for most, there’s no effective answer to insure their own personal survival. Such a message is not going to be popular, to say the least. It will be easy to dismiss this as a crackpot vision of the future until the crude stops flowing. There are many who remember the gas lines of the 1970’s and will dismiss this as just another manipulation of the oil companies or oil exporting countries attempting to gouge the consumer, not the oil itself is running out. Y2K experience suggests that the .999 percent will indeed wait until they can “see” something happens with their lives. If so many people can’t be sustained in the post oil era, why bother to convince them? SCOTT: …it matters not at all whether anybody “listens” or not. It is all coming down – regardless of how “awake” we are or become. I suppose being aware of the Titanic’s plight, AFTER hitting the iceberg (that’s where we are, by hypothesis), might have allowed more time to get the chairs on deck stacked nicely or something, but it would not have increased the number of lifeboats. In fact, from a certain point of view, it is better for the survivalists if fewer people awaken, and begin to compete for the inexorably shrinking resources. I may be wrong, but it seems reasonable to suppose that if as many people as possible are notified about the coming holocaust, they will act in ways that delay it and reduce its impact on them. Even the way they choose to suffer or die. * It’s reasonable to give people the choice of whether or not to bring new children into this future. * It’s a good idea too, to loose all the marvelous other minds of the world onto this monstrous problem. * We are not unquestionably right in our forecast and conclusions that nothing whatsoever can be done. * It is simply not fair to others to remain silent. * Even considering the future, caring about others is what makes my life bearable and meaningful, so if I can, I’d prefer not to stop. It just seems a more deeply satisfying way to suffer and die. With andfor others.
JAMES: People have been shouting about any of a hundred extinction threatening forces for decades, and no-one takes any notice. This is because the majority of people are ruled by emotion. If they want something to be true badly enough, they will convince themselves that it is true regardless of the facts. The reason there are so few people that don’t understand it is because no one wants to understand it. ‘Limits to growth’ was published in what, 1979? Nothing has changed. The information has been available for decades, activists have been working for decades, and nothing has changed. That is because lack of information is not the problem. TOM: This summer, I will be teaching writing to my usual class of pre-freshmen at Hampton University in eastern Virginia–a conservative African-American university, I am about the only one on the faculty who gives any thought at all to the kinds of vital issues we are discussing here and on other Environmental lists. My students are here primarily to get a degree in order to get a high paying job with a corporation, so that they, unlike their struggling parents or sharecropper grandparents, can enjoy the blessings of an affluent middle-class life–prestigious careers, leafy suburbs, a big, beefy SUV in the driveway, three kids, a local swimming pool, soccer on weekends, fancy new cars and computers, shopping binges at the local mall, and vacations in Europe or Cancun. This is what they are going to college for; it is what they all expect. AND NOBODY HAS TOLD THEM THAT IT’S ALL A LIE. How can I tell these kids that everything they’ve ever known, all their hopes and dreams, will crash and burn when the oil runs dry? How can I tell them that in 30-odd years, when they aren’t even as old as I am today (50), they and their children and everyone they will most likely die a horrible death from violence or starvation or both? Quite simply, I can’t tell them that. I can’t puncture the bubble of their dreams; they would never forgive me. I can’t tell them that their future has been cancelled for lack of fuel. It would be too cruel, too brutal to tell them the dreadful truth. JEFF: Allow me to dash off a working journalist’s viewpoint. First, there’s the problem of credibility. I’ve been writing energy stories for decades, but I confess that when I first encountered the dieoff.com back in 1997 I dismissed it as just another millennial apocalypse site, the petroleum version of y2k… You ask why people don’t make what appears to be the next logical step, “economic ruin and massive die off of ‘surplus’ population.” That’s what they said about Y2K, nuclear winter, and saccharine. The writers, editors, and owners of any major publication can’t tell their readers that their grandchildren are doomed and still retain their own credibility. The principle is called balance statement and counter-statement. They might go along with a section or even a full article that says: “Jay Hanson, a well-known energy researcher in Hawaii, warns…” but that would immediately be followed by quotes from four other people (probably economists!) roundly criticizing Hanson’s overly alarmist conclusions. You’re asking for an immediate, all-out, major challenge to people’s world view. From a purely practical viewpoint, it has to be more gradual than that. There’s an educational process involved. Unfortunately, the news cycle these days is dominated by television — which means the story must be visual and it must be contained within a 30-second sound bite, with a new angle every 12 hours to keep it fresh. I’m firmly of the belief that television is the greatest modern threat to a working democracy and an informed electorate. Forgive me, but television is to my social view what economists are to Jay’s. Can you tell I’m a print journalist? JAY: Why the establishment MUST lie about energy. Recall that the sine qua non of government is public order. If the truth were known, it would cause panic in the streets. Matthew Simmons makes this point: “Since our current petroleum stocks are now so much lower in both total volume in some areas and days supply throughout the petroleum complex than the industry’s stock levels in 1973, we are far more vulnerable today to a petroleum shortage and the resulting consumer hoarding than we were in 1973.” So if the truth were told, a hundred million cars would suck-up another ten gallons each (run on the top half of the tank instead of the bottom half). In short, the news itself would cause acute shortages. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/foreign/anarcf.htm http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/web/downloads/whitepaper.pdf Recall that the mass media is not in the business of dispensing truth either. They are in the entertainment business. And panic in the streets is bad for business. So don’t expect the USGS, DOE, or CNN to tell the truth anytime soon. Truth is not what they are about. Would we want it any other way? I am not so sure. How can world leaders inform the public that economic growth will end soon — followed by a global die-off which will kill nine out of ten? If they told the truth they would be butchered by the angry mobs. In the Titanic analogy, the steerage passengers would rearrange the lifeboat assignments. So the band must play on… Earth is a globe, the ecosphere is materially closed. “Sustainability” would require a society whose population did not increase, that did not use nonrenewable resources, and used renewable resources at a rate that didn’t destroy them. Just changing fuel isn’t going to make any difference. I remember in the 1950s and 60s how preparation for a nuclear war was quite a fad. Then, by 1970 and beyond there seemed to be general denial within society. There was a “don’t care” attitude, or a “so what” attitude. People who lived in cities or near probable targets simply resigned themselves to live day to day and if the nuke came that was the end of it. They said, “who wants to live after the bomb hits anyway!” I believe that the die off scenario (and global warming) is behaving the same way. With a monumental threat of proportions that cannot be dealt with on an individual basis, there is a kind of resignation that takes place. This is also true of slowly advancing threats. Humans are not evolutionarily equipped for slow moving threats. Somehow we seem not to notice. I know a great deal about what is likely to happen, but that does not stop me from wanting a thick, juicy steak dinner or the ability to soak in a hot tub. I still drive an automobile even though I once rode a bike. I think that my attitude is not unusual. People just don’t seem to feel the immediacy of the energy depletion problem. ANY effort to dispense information into the public domain will find vested interests who oppose you — that’s “politics”…their very livelihood depends upon endless economic growth. Every day, millions of economists work hard to maintain the present dogma — they ARE priests. In order to change the prevailing ideology, one is going to have to discredit the priests. They certainly aren’t going down without a fight. With regard to tactics, it is literally impossible to oppose the mass media and convince Joe Six-pack to change his ways. It’s been tried for decades by environmental organizations — it simply doesn’t work. The ONLY chance is to convince the billionaires that it is in their own best interests to change the system. I AM CONVINCED THAT, SEVERAL YEARS AGO (AFTER THE PROJECT INDEPENDENCE FIASCO), OUR RULERS REACHED THE SAME CONCLUSION I HAVE: SINCE NO SOLUTION EXISTS, THERE IS NO POINT IN SCARING JOE SIX-PACK. IT’S KIND OF LIKE THAT MOVIE ON THE BEACH WHERE THE RADIATION CLOUD IS COMING AND NOTHING CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT. THAT IS WHY EIA, USGS, LYNCH, ET AL ARE TRYING TO CONVINCE EVERYONE THERE IS PLENTY OF OILAND GAS.
Once again, I want you all to understand my findings: the reproduction/consumption problem has NO solution: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_dieoff_QA/files/farewell.txt or http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AlasBabylon/files/WHY_DIEOFF.htm You must take personal responsibility for your own family’s future. I did not choose personal wealth over public welfare. The fact is that I can do nothing to solve the reproduction/consumption problem. ——————————– #1. Watch the COPS TV program for three or four nights. Pay particular attention to the “stars” of the show (the people without uniforms). These stars are usually harmless to anyone outside of their own neighborhoods because they are so disorganized and screwed up ondrugs.
There are, however, millions of “proles” in these neighborhoods who ARE working, ARE organized enough to keep a roof over their heads, DO pay their bills, and ARE raising a family. These proles do not staron COPS TV.
#2. If the truth about energy were widely known, the economy would behistory.
#3. Now flash back to #1 above. What happens if the proles are unemployed and in the streets? What happens if the whole neighborhood organizes for political change? Do you really want the news about energy to reach the proles? Do you really want the stars of COPS TV knocking on your door at 3 am?Not me.
——————————— IF JOE-SIX-PACK KNEW ABOUT THE PEAK; KNEW THAT EVERYONE IN AUTHORITY AND MOST OF ACADEMIA HAD BEEN LYING TO HIM FOR AT LEAST 20 YEARS; KNEW THE BEST HIS KIDS COULD HOPE FOR WAS A PAINLESS DEATH; THE RESULTANT RIOTING, LOOTING, AND TOTAL BREAKDOWN IN INFRASTRUCTURE WOULD MAKE ANY SOLUTION IMPOSSIBLE. THAT’S THE BEST REASON NOT TO TELL THE PUBLIC. Thomas Hobbes: “Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Robert D. Kaplan: “West Africa is becoming the symbol of worldwide demographic, environmental, and societal stress, in which criminal anarchy emerges as the real ‘strategic’ danger. Disease, overpopulation, unprovoked crime, scarcity of resources, refugee migrations, the increasing erosion of nation-states and international borders, and the empowerment of private armies, security firms, and international drug cartels are now most tellingly demonstrated through a West African prism. West Africa provides an appropriate introduction to the issues, often extremely unpleasant to discuss, that will soon confront our civilization.” PETER: Do we tell the world or not? To give a short answer first, I don’t think you or anyone will be able to convince very many people in the time left. They just will not be able to accept it. It will be easier to remain in denial. What you can accomplish is to alert the more flexible people with open minds to the coming difficulties. The more of such people that can survive, the better the chance that some form of what we call “good civilization” can survive. I have lightly brought up the subject with many of my friends and have been met with denial, attacks, etc. Most conclude I’m just nuts and we drop the subject. These are fairly well educated people. The typical response is, “well, when the price gets high enough we’ll just drill more wells and find more oil”. They fully believe in the economist’s “perpetual motion machine”. TOM: In my not so mumble opinion, the best route is to make it possible for folks to learn about energy, ecology, and culture and the role such circumstances play in people’s lives. Where I have been able to do this, people get excited and start taking things into their own hands, tending to look not for the cute solar-roller, warm fuzzy idea of the day, but for what works and how they can learn more. PETER: In one sense, it doesn’t make much difference either way (telling the world). The Great Crash of 1929 was resolutely half-ignored by journalists, politicians, and almost everyone else. The main response was, “it’s not a crash, it’s a correction.” See J.K. Galbraith, The Great Crash 1929. The metaphor I’ve always liked is that if you drop a frog into boiling water, it’ll jump out, but if you put it into cold water and bring the water gradually to a boil, the frog will die. I’d say the 21st century will be one of Boiled Frog. However, even if 200 people could outwit 6,000,000,000, the 200 would first have to think of what message they are delivering. Like predestination and reincarnation, you have to take a stand if you expect to get followers. JEAN: I’ve tried telling a few friends and relatives about the Hubbert Peak. The information vanished into a black hole never to be seen again. Fascinating really. That saying about how you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink comes to mind. People just don’t want to hear this bad news. If they were to believe it, what could they do about it, really? The best, most convenient policy is to just ignore the news about oil depletion, hoping it’s wrong or will somehow go away with advances in technology. Both professionally and in everyday life, I generally make it a policy to tell any particular person useful information only once. If they are too dumb to comprehend it or don’t want to know so be it. It’s a waste of time to do more. MIKE: Humans have exploited resources for most (perhaps all) of history. They have built most of their social structures based on the concept that there was an unending supply of resources to exploit. Look back 300 years to what England did to its hardwood forests, then look what they did about it. That paradigm will play itself out over and over until the combination of population and depletion leaves them with nothing left to exploit. If there will be a time when benefits run out – “that’s tomorrow’s problem, we’ll deal with it then. This week I’m going on a ski vacation.” Foresight (or vision if you will) is the province of not more than a few. Personal responsibility, intellectual honesty, and concern for others are even more rare as human attributesgo.
Of course I know that political/economic system has deliberately concealed the dangers in unrestricted expansion. So what? That is how Machiavellian political systems work. I get the sense that some people are laboring under the impression that “the world can be saved” if enough people are well enough informed. I don’t see any historical evidence to support that conclusion, and I’m not sure what about the present economic/political system is worth saving. I am also at a loss to explain what parts of the system would be of what use in a world where there is little or no oil to do the work. CHRISTINE: I think the current problem (people’s over-reliance on oil and other forms of fossil fuel) stems from the tendency of most people to follow the path of greatest comfort and least resistance. Even when looking at oil and coal depletion, it’s easier for people to comfort themselves by “believing” that only the doomsday kooks think the world is going to come to a screeching halt than it is for them to make changes in their lifestyles. Or say to themselves, “It’s going to happen, but not in my lifetime.” It is not surprising that SUV sales in the US are rising — the design is in place, the manufacturing facilities are tooled for production, and its much easier for the SUV manufacturers to keep making and selling them to a willing public than it would be for them to redesign, retool and remarket a different vehicle. And, I can understand why people choose to walk out their front door and climb into their air-conditioned/heated luxury vehicle to cart them from here to thereand back again.
The alternatives take much more effort. Public transit involves walking to a bus/train stop, waiting in line, crowding on to a bus or train with people breathing down your neck. In some cases, public transit is the less stressful alternative — due to traffic, lack of parking, etc. — but in most cases, people will choose their automobile every time.) Bicycling, well, it’s strenuous to say the least and too daunting for most people. Even the people who build power plants are only doing what they are geared up to do. (My greatest dread is that electricity will become so scarce that I will have to give up my daily hot shower!) Change is hard. I don’t think the masses will ever be convinced to willingly make daily, personal changes that would have a real impact. I think it’s going to take a few people with vision, commitment, and resources to “walk the talk” and push through whatever is needed to change the outcome. And I don’t have any clue how to do that. TED: Of one thing we can be sure, top down solutions will not work in guiding people towards ‘improving their energy circumstances’. Mass education, mass media, governmental control, and so on, are all sheer folly. Any profound and lasting shift in our socioeconomic paradigm must start at the grass roots, at the level of individuals. That is there where all hope lies. Individuals who understand the problems facing our fragile world must be proactive and must lead by example. For instance, they must build and live in energy efficient structures. They must own and drive energy efficient cars. If they have a garden, they must practice the principles of sustainable agriculture. As to persuading others to do the same, that is a waste of time. When crunch time comes, however, then they will be able to empower change, by sharing knowledge. I suspect that when energy becomes scarce, people will be begging for solutions about energy efficiency and permaculture and so on. ANDREW: How do you respond to dreamers saying something like “If we all converted to Gandhi’s lifestyle (that is AFTER he quit being a fancy lawyer) then world population of say 20 Billion could besustained ?”
To me this kind of argument, usually backed by an accusation that if you don’t agree with it you are a Nazi-minded ‘eugenicist’, is as sophist as saying “if we covered X thousand sq km of desert with solar cells we could escape energy-triggered economic crisis and civil or international war and strife” Because it isn’t possible in the timeframe we have. Maybe 85% of ‘ordinary well-informed citizens’ in advanced industrial societies either don’t know, or don’t believe that fossil energy supply will start tapering down pretty damn fast in the next 10 years. Nearly all the other 15% are sure something will be done to avoid any difficulties coming from fossil energy exhaustion. Meantime, in the real World, dinosaur-minded politicians and war leaders crunch around for the last major reserves of the JurassicEnergy Fix
TIMOTHY: As I look out of the window of my house this morning, I see many homes surrounding mine. It looks like a lovely community. But that is an illusion. There is no community. Those of us living so closely together barely know each other and we never work together. We are all a part of the neutral world. We mostly ignore each other. In this great neutral world that dominates western civilization, we don’t even know each other. Most of us humans living in this “modern” world are locked in the mindless routine of earning our living, while responsibility for our futures rest in the hands of elected politicians who live in a system designed to grow and profit until it consumes all the natural resources of the earth and then declares bankruptcy. As the recent events in the Middle East have made clear to everyone, it could be worse. Most humans living in the third world are locked in the mindless struggle for basic survival, while responsibility for their future rests with the warlords who live in a One Bullet=One Vote system of adversary political-economics. This One Bullet=One Vote system cannot create a positive tomorrow. The only way humanity will have a positive future is if we change the rules. To do this all we have to do is change our minds. We will have to make the decision to work together. We can go out into our neighborhoods and introduce ourselves. We can start projects where we work together. The word community is a contraction of the two words common and unity. Or as I like to spell it, CommUnity. We can begin to restructure our lives based on working together, and we must embrace sustainability. We can take a look at what we need, not at what we want. This means we have to grow up. We must put away advertising because it promotes today’s products that are not local. This in turn will begin to putaway consumerism.
When we view Humanity as Community rather than as Individuality it becomes immediately clear that we need to stop having children NOW. Reproduction is not a right. It is a privilege. And, it is a privilege that belongs to Humanity as Community, not to Humanity as Individual. ROBERT: Even if the media did an in depth feature story on depletion, what difference would it make? My guess is that it would stay in readers minds for exactly half an hour, then decay as the next new television image or song or thought comes in. GREG: I finally concluded, just a few days ago, that the battle was lost; that growth had gone on for so long with such high numbers that there was no way back and the trend, as it continued, had swallowed any chance for correction. I think the same reasoning applies to energy and the approaching energy crisis. I think we are getting more and more evidence that the problem of alerting society to the tragedy just ahead is bigger than any solution we members, in or out of the group, might bring to it. There’s simply too much resistance to the information. I think time will prove that we have been reduced to simple onlookers on History, along with many others, as history and events grind ahead. JACK: I’ve tried communicating this info to people I work with and associate with. There is one small group of friends, that believe the things we discuss here. The rest quickly forget the conversation, or shift what they say temporarily so that they might pretend to agree with me. I can’t seem to get them over the hump to, what does itmean?
The main difference between the two groups are… 1. Group 1, understands the Laws of Thermodynamics and isn’t afraid of big numbers. 2. Worries about what’s on TV tonight and whether they are up on the current conversational topic. In general, they feel that big numbers have no clear definitions and a deep faith that if there is a problem, then it’s being handled. Comments like, ‘there’s plenty of hydrogen in water’, are enough to soothe them and makethem feel better.
There are 4 people in group one, that I personally know. Everyone elseis in group two.
We need a severe crisis before the masses will experience maybe a 10% conversion. The other 90% will probably keep arguing that it’s all political and that killing an Arab, will fix the oil depletionproblem.
RON: WE WILL NEVER DO ANYTHING COLLECTIVELY AS A SPECIES. The very best we can ever hope to do is act collectively as a nation. But even this is extremely difficult and requires a very powerful and dedicated totalitarian government, such as the one that currently exists in China. People keep saying that WE must control our population, WE must conserve energy, WE must develop renewables, WE must convert to solar, wind or whatever forms of energy, WE must stop emitting greenhouse gases, WE must do this, that or the other two. Actually we will do nothing of the sort. People, as a whole, never see enormous problems coming in the future and act to head them off. What they really do is wait until the problem arrives, then react to thatproblem.
It is very true that a few farsighted people, like most of those on this list, see the problem coming and also foresee the enormous consequences of that problem. Then we start screaming, “We are running out of fossil fuels, we are poisoning the earth, we are killing off thousands of species, we are headed for disaster, the sky is falling, the sky is falling!” And of course nobody pays even the slightest bit of attention. For every Cassandra warning us of the disaster that is to come, there is a Cornucopian telling everyone that this is all the propaganda of doomsayers who do not know what they are talking about. There are several very good reasons for this behavior. That is, there is a very good reason why no one believes the Cassandras and believes the Cornucopians instead. People (in general) always believe to be true that which they desire to be true. And when they are presented with the choice of believing the Cassandra or the Cornucopian, they will most always believe the latter. Think about it, the lives of their children and grandchildren depend upon it, literally. And I do mean literally, I never use the word as a metaphor. If I tell you that your beautiful, wide eyed little child or grandchild will live in a world of unspeakable horrors but Julian or Bjorn tells you that this is all nonsense, your child or grandchild will grow up in a world every bit as beautiful as the one we see around us today, which would you rather believe? Which do you think the vast majority of people will believe? So WE are a species who always do that which is in our nature to do. When we are presented with choices in beliefs, we will always choose the most pleasant belief, that is the belief that promises the most pleasant stress free future for us. The vast, vast majority of people simply cannot live with the stress of the knowledge that we are completely destroying any chance for our children and grandchildren to live in the same beautiful world that we take for granted. Those who take the time to even listen to the Cassandras will deny our claims. But for the vast majority of people there is no need for any denial at all. The possibility of any kind of undesirable future is never even given the slightest consideration. They simply believe their world will last forever. They will shut their eyes and stop their ears to anyone who tries to tell them anything different. PERRY: While I applaud your intent and efforts in the oil depletion communication/publishing venture, may I ask your goals? i.e. what is the intended behavioral change you wish to invoke in others by the publishing of the data regarding the oil depletion, et al? Numerous of those with whom I am acquainted who are aware of the facts simply do not want to change their lifestyles nor their behavior; this includes PhD’s, college profs, businessmen, etc. They are knowledgeable about the technology, the history, the fundamentals, the premises, the conclusions, etc. – yet most just say “I don’t want to be around when it all happens”. There is a great denial that THEY will be a part of any of what we routinely discuss here happening. In fact, I think that lack of awareness is NOT the problem, but lack of behavioral change is. I’m convinced that a far greater proportion of the population than we might admit to, IS aware, and IS, in fact, SO aware, that they are scared sh**less; but they also have no means, nor methods, nor leaders, nor education, nor motivation to DO anything about what they already know. So by default, they donothing.
So, is there a desired behavioral change that you wish to achieve by your efforts, and what portion of the population do you hope to reach by doing so? and when? Do you really believe that political, or governmental, or media, or educational ‘leaders’ will be willing to put their necks and careers on the block for such a non-PC idea as we are talking about? I’ve talked to, and do continue to talk to those who show even the slightest bit of interest in the subject, but most are not interested in being influenced to DO anything different from what they arealready doing.
For example: If we start with Jay Hanson and the Dieoff site, and add Bruce Thompson’s efforts, and ER and ROE and ROE2, and Alas Babylon, and HubbertPeak, and Oilanalytics, and ASPO, etc., and expand those efforts to the max, we might agree that: * there are 10,000 ? in the world now, who are ‘aware’ * and of those, 500 who have made some ‘significant’ behavioral changes due to their becoming aware * and of those, 50 perhaps who might be in a position to live without fossil fuels for some extended duration into the future * and of those, 5 who may survive long enough to pass on their genes to the next generation I’m willing to help, – but I have to ask: what is the intended outcome you hope to achieve by the effort you intend to expend? GERALD: I make an effort to bring peak oil depletion to every astronomer who knows me well enough to understand that I don’t go off half-cocked, often in bizarre places like NASA project review panels and scientific workshops. I’m usually successful in getting US colleagues to read introductory info, enough to get them agitated for a few days. Then distractions come, and when I follow up, I inevitably get “well, there’s fusion I suppose …” (perhaps after a cursory investigation into inertial confinement). And an uneasy faith that once the peak is recognized/arrives, “clever” people will finally be brought to bear, political/environmental idiocy will be swept aside by “pragmatists”, the notion that energy overuse can be curtailed by “free markets” (many are Republicans), and “we’ll muddle through somehow”. There’s also a minority but surprisingly large segment who are convinced that God will be evident in the details, a mind split that boggles my mind (around here, they also tend to be Republicans). All this from scientists with children (and often SUV’s). My French/German scientific collaborators are much better informed on energy (and are more cynical on government solutions). JOHN: I see communities with large numbers of truly intelligent people as few and far between. Most US citizens are frightfully ignorant — just look at how few even accept and understand even basic scientificfundamentals.
Their ignorance is magnified by the fact that most do not even watch the pitiful news on the major networks, but instead rely on pseudo news, talk shows, tabloids, etc. Teens and twenty-somethings are truly appalling — their lack of understanding of world politics, science, etc. is abysmal. Add to that the problem that relatively few have many real-world skills: they cannot build a shed, cook from scratch, plant a garden, fix an engine, etc. Consequently, their outlook during the die off is frightening. Even universities are often only a little better. Most outside academia do not understand just how specialized the knowledge of academics has become. One recent study found that most professors, when writing outside their field, only write at the level and understanding of a typical undergraduate. So the political knowledge of an electrical engineer might be very limited. Add to this the fact that their knowledge is very theoretical, and you have a bunch of folks with many illusions, and only limited real-world abilities. The powers that be, during the last 20 years, have trained a generation of ignorant but easily placated workers. They will reap the fruits of their attempts at control when the hard times come. When the bread and circuses are yanked away, many of those ignorant folks will implode — and many others will explode violently. Fortunately, there are still pockets of intelligence left, and, for many here, your best bet is to relocate to one of those pockets. So this question emerges — what will constitute true post-crash intelligence? BRIAN: These are issues that take years of thought and meditation. Concepts of resource depletion, global politics, and the natural state of human culture are not something that fit into 350 word editorials. People will need to read book after book and create a mind set that is capable of handling these realities. Its like a Buddhist telling a westerner to “just read this article and then tomorrow become a Buddha”… On the contrary, it takes rigorous study and discipline- neither of which the American public can be proud of… To assume that the American people will somehow understand what you are talking about and use this information to change their daily lives is delusion. I have written to my local papers numerous times as have others that I know who are aware of peak oil- and nothing more comes in the form of debate. I have posted on the IndyMedia boards on the net that attract like minded individuals and even those who are considered to be counter-culture do not even take this seriously. I pray that it crashes sooner rather than later- these sorts of efforts are noble, but the American people are asleep- lulled by propaganda, american idols, and cadillac escalades… I have made preparations and continue to refine my skills. I suggest you all do the same. This amounts to nothing more than pissing on a forest fire… Retreat. Retreat. Retreat. SY: My warnings are almost universally greeted with bemused smiles like those that greet madmen as they share their particular wisdom with the wider world Of course, their world is all they have ever known. They face what the science-fiction author Ian M Banks calls an “outside context problem”. It is fascinating concept, the short definition of which is a problem whose origin is so far outside of a culture’s collective experience that they are incapable of recognizing it, let alone mounting a defense, leading to the end of their existence. By definition, informing people about something outside their frame of reference is a near-impossible task. BEN: Judging by what I’ve read here and other websites, pretty much everyone has had the same experience when trying to convince others about this issue. Nobody believes you, some get mad at you or ridicule you, and at best they might be non-commital to your face and disregard it otherwise. I think this is an important issue worth of study because I think it contains the answer of how we got in this mess and also if there is any light at the end of the tunnel (not for avoiding the die off but for humanity ever to escape a fate of slowly disintegrating back into a prehistoric lifestyle). One of the most interesting things I have noticed is that when the subject of recent energy prices comes up, a LOT of people immediately accuse the energy companies of price gouging or a conspiracy. Now, they have done no research on the subject and it’s not like the media perpetuates this myth. So the question is, where does this ideacome from?
Now, we all know that people don’t know why they do or believe anything. My guess is that people know that they are ANGRY, and that our nature predisposes us to solve problems POLITICALLY, so the goal is to find someone to blame. The rationalizing part of the brain now has the job of playing the PR role and filling in the gaps and comes up with “it’s the energy companies’ fault, they are gouging us. Everyone knows that.” The thing is that people don’t really seem at all interested in peak energy in the first place. I believe that a lot of this has to do with a genetic tendency to view “the commons” as infinite, put here by God to serve us — and making sense of any information that suggests otherwise gets a *Very Low* rating from the Prioritizer partof the brain.
However, that explanation doesn’t quite satisfy me completely after giving it more thought. I think the other part of the problem is that peak energy is not a political issue. We aren’t interested in how much “stuff” we have, as much as we are interested in how much stuff we have compared to everybody else. People today are still unhappy and frustrated even though they have cell phones, the internet, fast cars, etc., because they aren’t want to be where they want on the human social hierarchy. So the reason why people would rather watch E! or MTV “Road Rules” rather than make sense of the energy crisis is because until they understand how it affects their status in the pecking order, it has *low priority*. And when the energy issue finally does affect their lifestyle, they see “I have LESS stuff, energy companies have MORE stuff”, not “This a serious issue that all humans must deal with collectively to solve.” If these are the reasons why we can’t get through to anyone about the energy issue, then humanity is essentially doomed. Hundreds of years from now we will still be fighting each other over domination of the world, even if that very fighting has already reduced it to an energy-drained, radioactive desert shithole. And in the short-term, while many of us may be expecting people to suddenly realize the grave importance of energy and to revolutionize our lifestyles — we can instead look forward to various tribal mentalities springing up, with conservatives blaming the liberals for our problems since they won’t let us drill ANWR, liberals blaming the conservatives for letting Big Oil gouge us, and the government in turn blaming everything on terrorism. The fact that you can see elements of this developing already doesn’t bode very well for the future. MICHAEL: I suspect that the subject of Peak Oil reminds people of their mortality, which for most is never conversation fodder. An almost universal reply I got was “They’ll think of something”. Some chided for being too negative. Some would immediately try to change the subject. Others would stop conversing. Opening the eyes of those who refuse to see is like pissing into the wind. LAWRENCE: Peak Oil is a topic I do not bring up that often, because most often the response is negative and sometimes rather hostile. As a rule amongst progressive people there is a tendency to see the problems of the world as entirely due to some elite group. There is a resistance to considering problems as systematic, such as energy depletion as a corollary of thermodynamics or that the human race is overpopulated. I used to say that the crux of our difficulties are to be found in the bathroom mirror. It appears that people have a tendency to see problems in the world as due to some “other”. As a related matter I find that most people have an inability to imagine a future world without human beings. As I see things Homo sapiens is a terminator species that is stripping down the natural order of things on this planet and converting it all into trash. Along with that we are engineering the next planetary mass extinction, which will probably include the end of our species as well. Most people react to my thesis with a sort of shock and astonishment, as if I just declared my allegiance to the Nazi party. In fact I can lead people to a conclusion where they admit aspects of the argument, but recoil at the final conclusion. GREGSON: I am under the impression that most people in the power and energy business are sympathetic towards the concepts of depletion but like most people they usually just think about next year and not next decade. I also think that telling bad news is a good way tobecome unpopular.
LOW: If neither mainstream religion nor business acknowledges the “Limits to Growth”, while scientists (along with thinking individuals) do, the latter are effectively becoming heretics in their own society. Is that how the ER members are feeling? Like heretics? It’s a strong word, but it might go a long way toward explaining the strange looks and violent reactions ER members get when those who dare to do it, try to explain some of the “peaking” concepts to our family, friends and colleagues. It’s like telling somebody that almost everything you’ve learnedso far is a lie.
It’s like telling somebody “hey, you’ve been living in the Matrix, welcome to the real world”. Immediate, irrecoverable system shock for most people except the really, really open-minded ones. JASON: I am referring to what lies ahead as the Perfect Storm. Financial crisis, energy crisis and climate change all coming on at about the same time, perhaps in that order. Another way I’ve put it (to those who bother to listen) is a 1, 2, 3 knock out punch for industrial civilization/our way of life. PEDRO: I have doubts that people will one day awake and be enlightened with the issue of depleted resources, be that moment in the peak itself or several years after. What I see now is that rulers, controlling the media, have very well managed in the most advanced countries, to convince their people that problems with scarcity of resources or with their security (usually vested under the phrase of “our national interests”) come from Arabs, Muslims or terrorists in general. I am afraid we may be falling down the slide, the slope or even the steepest cliff and still believing that we have plenty of energy available, but convinced that “terrorists” outside do not allow us to extract it for the benefit of Mankind. Open your eyes and watch TV and the media. What you see? Are we in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Emirates to squeeze their oil and prevent others squeezing it, or are we there to defend the democracy and the values of the Western civilization against barbarians? What is the use for the smarts, as Denis mentioned, to awake and be aware, if the masses continue believing the unbelievable media tales? What do you think it will be the response of the masses when falling down even deep into the cliff? Awareness or fascism, enlightenment or a demand for the military to fight terror –- their constructedterror?
I have already a guess…and I would very much like to be wrong. BRIAN: I have a confession to make… I have been in this forum for a very long time now, almost from the beginning… I have participated in discussion… I have read most of the posts here… I have a pretty good grasp of what is going on the world politically, geologicallyetc…
I have listened to arguments presented here and in my daily life on why ‘there is a way’ to careen through our current and future problems… I understand the hope and the potential of humans to ‘find a way’ — it would take a huge collective effort globally to pull it off… I understand all of that… I get bored, like most people, listening to arguments that play out like a tennis match where neither side listens to the other and where each side just throws the argument back across the net…. the technical mumbo jumbo is not going to save any of us… I have to confess, my friends, that I am rooting for collapse… it is perfectly clear that the world is in no position currently to collectively solve our the coming energy crisis… the interdependencies of our problems, institutions, governments, etc… I really do not want solutions… solutions may be possible in a bizarro utopian reality- but that is not our reality… I do not want to enable humanity to continue their consumptive, gluttonous addiction to material things… I do not want science to enable our natural world to be re-sculpted in our image at the expense of all other life… I do not want these things…. do any of you???Really?
THE BEST THING FOR OUR CHILDREN IS FOR THIS CULTURE TO COLLAPSE… I have made and will continue to make preparations for this collapse… if it comes I will be far better prepared than most…. if it does not– I will still be living a life based on nature– a simpler, much more fulfilling life than the one that many are trying to sustain by advocating replacements and alternatives… The arguments go round and round, becoming increasingly vague, blurred, and confusing… numbers are presented, web sources are cited—after a while it all becomes completely lost in confusion…. I have noticed this phenomenon on most major media outlets… the pundits get the issues completely twisted and spun and confuse the public into a catatonic state…. I would like to know several things– those of you who believe in, and desire, a scientific solution for our current situation: why do you want to continue this consumptive, vapid lifestyle which the united states is marketing to the rest of the world? Do you not see anything wrong with that sort of lifestyle? Does the fact that this lifestyle threatens life on the globe as we know it– be it human life, flora or fauna etc..– concern you in the least? I am rooting for olduvai… I am saddened that life has become so trivialized….I would like to hear from all of you… JASON: I agree it is important to give people the message that they are capable of making decisions that will improve the situation. I also believe people need to be scared enough to be motivated to do so. When the current system rewards the opposite of what is for the common good, something like fear is needed to work against that. I think “dieoff” is a fearful concept that people need to understand– first at the immediate level and then in a more nuanced fashion. You make a good point about what is meant by “dieoff.” The time scale is important. I do see local famines occurring, but not a global one. So local dieoffs will occur, that is certain. In many other places there will be severe economic stress that will both reduce fertility rates dramatically, e.g., Russia, and lead to higher mortality rates for primarily the old and sick. Here’s where your thoughts about the need to accept and appreciate death are important. I have been to many places in the world were people “get by” in conditions I can barely imagine. So I do understand how adaptable humans are. But I also don’t want the whole world to live in this miserable state, and that is what I fear we will face. I also worry about how people in the spoiled countries will lash out when under stress. This is what keeps me in the political process. I don’t want more wars that perpetuate a way of life that can’t go on. So a message of both scary realism and hope needs to be carefullycrafted.
ARCHDRUID: The difficulty here is that faith in the prospect of a better future has been so deeply ingrained in all of us that trying to argue against it is a bit like trying to tell a medieval peasant that heaven with all its saints and angels isn’t there any more. The hope that tomorrow will be, or can be, or at the very least ought to be better than today is hardwired into the collective imagination of themodern world.
ROBERT: Most people are aware that tobacco smoke is harmful, yet many still smoke. Most people are aware that war kills civilians, children, and young men in their prime, yet the world is still full of war. Many people are still having unprotected sex, drinking and driving, overweight, etc., despite massive education campaigns spelling out the dangers of these various vices. Also, the president of the United States has ALREADY told Americans what any of us here at ER know to be gospel regarding Peak Oil : http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_energy.html http://tinyurl.com/27h9x AMERICANS JUST DON’T HAVE THE EARS TO HEAR the PEAK OIL blues-news, no matter from whose mouth it comes from! CAL: Richard wrote: Sadly, there’s a high probability that we’ll choose that faith-based road . Part(s) of me is/are not sad. Here’s my “logic”: * Humanity needs to reduce its population to 1/6 of what it is now. * The majority of people will cling to the “technology will save is, and if not, our leaders would certainly prevent us from going in the shitter, and if not, God will save us, because He/She/It will not let his chosen people (America, whom He/She/It blesses).” * This faith-based approached will not result in a large shift inhabits.
* 5/6 of the world’s population dies. * Problem is solved. The Universe knows (if it indeed even bothers at all with my doing) that I have serious issues with primarily faith-based approaches. And… everything serves, including the faith-based approach. For me (and perhaps for you, Richard, if you choose to take it up), the challenge is to see the value of faith as something other than just superstition and denial, and to see how it serves. [Perhaps it’s a coping mechanism for the 5/6 that will (necessarily) die. The forces in motion are much larger than we are. If collapse and mass death is inevitable, I can see how most of the 5/6 wouldn’t want to face the awful truth and use faith as their coping mechanism. Why would I require them to face the truth, given that we can’t stop what’s to come? What’s it to me if most people choose (if they even make the choice) to take the blue pill? Understanding that you and I don’t need such a coping mechanism, but not requiring others to face the truth, brings me to a place where I can sit with compassion for humanity. That said, probably my biggest concern is that those who adhere primarily to faith may not leave a world inhabitable to the 1/6 who continue (or to most of the species that walk, swim, and fly, and it’ll all go bye-bye. ED (IN 2016): Am I alone feeling despair and depression when confronted with the seemingly endless inability of family and friends to see what we seem to see on this list? I’m 72, and my purpose in passing along what we’ve learned is to attempt to help folks not be blindsided by looming events. It’s been worse than fruitless. I get rejection and the opposite of love — indifference. I also get anger, and statements something like, “Gee, can’t you be positive?” A few years ago I posted a short essay to this group, titled “How Many Understand?” I concluded that perhaps 0.001 percent of the world’s population, or then about 65,000, ‘got it’ at the level and detail that most of us have absorbed for the past twenty years. We are now seeing materialize what we foresaw decades ago, and one would think events currently acting out on the world’s stage would clue folks, but the opposite seems to be the case — heads buried deeper. We’ve all read of the Backfire effect, the Dunning-Kruger effect, complacency bias, normalcy bias, and much more, and we’ve delved deeply into Evolutionary theory and Evolutionary Psychology, so we’re pretty confident that we’re not a bunch of nut cases spouting nasty sorts of pseudoscience, but still, it’s both unnerving and debilitating to be constantly confronted with the degree of abject denial “out there.” Especially from family and close friends. I find I am now so different from nearly everyone around me, that almost any conversation is impossible. How do the rest of you handle this? I’m certainly not doing well with it. ——————————————— http://carolynbaker.net/site/content/view/178/3/ STOP CALLING ME A “DOOMER” By Carolyn Baker Monday, 22 October2007
People must first be made to give up on the existing system before they will become receptive to fundamental change. Michael Byron, Ph.D. Author of Infinity’s Rainbow: The Politics of Energy, Climate and Globalization Last week a review of the documentary “What A Way To Go: Life At The End Of Empire” was posted on Energy Bulletin and sub-titled “a review of a new doomer cult classic.” While the review was favorable, I must state that as someone who has seen the documentary dozens of times, who consistently shows it to my history classes, and who is a personal friend of the film makers, I was appalled at the use of the word “doomer” to describe the film. The reviewer’s use of the term was the culmination for me of the inappropriate use of “doomer” to label individuals who have rejected the soporific of “hope” with respect to the terminal state of planet earth. I am equally unnerved by those who consistently describe me as “negative” and obsessively attempt-almost beg me-to offer them “something positive.” Hence, the inspiration to write thisarticle.
I’d like to begin with defining the word doom. My dictionary defines doom as: “fate or destiny, esp. adverse fate; unavoidable ill fortune.” When I consult a dictionary of etymology, I notice that the term had its origins in the early Christian era and is connected with the idea of divine judgment. Since I have made clear ad infinitum, ad nauseum that the “fate” of the planet is in our hands and that extinction of earth’s life forms including humanity is unequivocally avoidable, labeling me as someone who embraces “doom” is factually erroneous. Likewise, most people who know me well do not experience me as someone who walks around preaching divine judgment. After all, I published my autobiography earlier this year in which I described in vivid detail my exodus decades ago from Christian fundamentalism and all that “divine judgment” yah-yah that I grewup with.
Let me say again: The probable extinction of the human race and all life forms on the planet is absolutely avoidable, and it is not the product of an angry deity who will visit judgment on his naughty children. Only humans can reverse the lethal process they alone haveset in motion.
Secondly, anyone who watches “What A Way To Go” to the end will be incessantly confronted with the notion of opportunity that the film makers insist the collapse of civilization brings with it. In fact, one could easily replace nearly every use of the word “collapse” in the documentary with the word “rebirth.” People locked into “doom” do not talk about rebirth; far from it-they are generally depressed individuals who may be looking to throw themselves under the next freight train or jump off the nearest cliff. The Psychology Of Doomer-Labeling I have asked myself repeatedly where this label of “doomer” comes from when applied to people who continue to talk about opportunity and rebirth, yet refuse to sell the snake oil of “hope.” I didn’t fully understand the “doomer” label until a friend called after having just heard an interview with Harvey Wasserman, co-author of HOW THE GOP STOLE AMERICA’S 2004 ELECTION & IS RIGGING 2008. What Wasserman stated in the interview and what he also implied in his article “Do The Neo-Cons Need Karl Rove When They Can Count On The Democrats?” is that overwhelmingly, the progressive left does not want to hear the irrefutable documentation of the stealing of the 2000 and 2004 elections-or the compelling evidence that the 2008 election is already stolen! It appears that if they were to fully comprehend the futility of voting in national elections, they might feel-oh dare I say it-drum roll-hopeless? This reminds me very much of the alcoholic/abusive family system where abuse and addiction are rampant, and someone in the family breaks silence and speaks the truth about what is so. Immediately, that family member is scapegoated, labeled a troublemaker, incorrigible, ungrateful, or in the case of the abuse of the planet and the political systems that enable it, a negative-minded “doomer.” Even worse, in the abusive system, the truth-teller becomes the identified patient, that is, “this family would be just fine if it weren’t for the troublemaker.” Translation: Why can’t you stop being a “doomer” and just vote Democratic, buy a hybrid car, put some curly lightbulbs in your lamps, and think positively? One result of this finely-tuned denial system is that the truth-teller ends up feeling the feelings that everyone else in the system refuses to feel. The other members of the system are numb or cheerful, but the truth-teller is wracked with anxiety, anger, or depression because he or she is carrying the emotional baggage of the entire system. Pardon a little bit of ancient mythology, but I’m quite certain that Noah was called a “doomer”. Talk about negative! Talk about raining, so to speak, on humanity’s “perky party”! Truly an identified patient he was. Derrick Jensen states that everything in the current system of civilization is set up to protect the abusers. Those who refuse to do so will be scapegoated-if not by the abusers, then by their “siblings” who beg them to be quiet and maintain faith in thesystem.
Please understand that I am not forbidding disagreement. If you can look squarely and rationally at the evidence for the likelihood that civilization has entered a state of collapse and knowing the evidence, disagree with the probability of the extinction of the planet and its inhabitants, that is your prerogative. What I resent is being scapegoated because I have a different perception and I refuse to look at the evidence and still support the enablers of the system that is murdering the earth and every life form on it or because I refuse to say that everything is going to somehow work itself out, that politicians will save us, that solar energy or carbon credits will provide the magic bullet, or that technology will come to our rescue. And-what is more, I refuse to accept the scapegoating of those who absolutely will not face the overwhelming evidence of stolen national elections or who, for whatever reason, expect me to carry the feelings they will not feel and who identify me as the “troubled patient” in their terminally toxic, hope-addicted reality. Repeatedly, these individuals do not hear or see me when I refer to the opportunity that the collapse of civilization may afford us or the rebirth of human consciousness that could unfold as the old paradigm crumbles and a new one erupts. In my book in process, I am among other things, painstakingly taking the reader through a process of introspection regarding collapse and rebirth, inviting her/him to be aware of the feelings that loom or lie dormant around the end of the world as we have known it. I do not expect it to be easy for anyone to acknowledge the reality of collapse; it certainly has not been for me. I have only been able to open to its irrefutable truth because I have had the support of others and because of a deep and abiding sense of meaning that I experience in the demise of empire. For me, both are extremely “positive” forces in my life-more authentically positive than “hope” or “optimism” or voting for the Democratic Party. When I speak of rebirth, this is not for me some airy-fairy fantasy about “positive outcome”. In my opinion, rebirth is absolutely the most apt description of civilization’s demise. For most women, birth is no walk in the park-it’s painful, bloody, and very uncertain. What is born may be healthy and intact, or it may be impaired. Whoever is born must be nurtured, tended, given structure and limits, and he or she will at some point (or many times) break one’s heart. Parents almost always admit that giving birth has changed them, and that as a result they will never be the same. Giving birth consigns one to a lifetime of responsibility and care for one’s offspring; sacrifices must be made, priorities re-arranged, personal comforts postponed, risks taken-all with no guarantee of “happily ever after.” From my perspective, rebirth and collapse are inextricably connected and consistently mirror each other. Mimicking Mainstream Media The “doomer” label belies the labeler’s inability to grasp the complexity of the person or position he/she is labeling. Had the reviewer of “What A Way To Go” mentioned above, thoroughly understood what the documentary is communicating, he would not have applied the label of “doomer” to it. Yes, the film maker lets us know that he is not interested in presenting any “happy chapters” that let the viewer off the hook, but he also repeatedly emphasizes the “new stories” that can be told and the new opportunities offered as a result of collapse, culminating in film’s pivotal and haunting question: Who do I want to be in the face of collapse? Moreover, “doomer” labeling demonstrates a lack of capacity for comprehending paradoxes such as: Yes, civilization is collapsing, and that is an opportunity for rebirth-or one of my favorites from Derrick Jensen: “We’re fucked, and life is really, really good.” Paradox, two apparent opposites being true at the same time, complexity, holistic rather than black and white, either/or thinking appear to elude those who simplistically slap the unwarranted “doomer” label on whomever they choose. Most egregiously, however, “doomer” labeling replicates the style of superficial mainstream and sensationalist journalism which refuses to deal with complexities and applies labels so that readers will not have to grapple with multi-layered reality. The prime motivation in this style of journalism is speed and brevity. As a result, readers are unable to view the rich and convoluted tapestry of an event, a story, a person, or a concept. Hence the old paradigm endures with no willingness to construct a new one! Refusal To Admit That We Have No Government A careful study of recent American history which I have endeavored to convey in my book U.S. History Uncensored reveals that although we may have a bureaucracy in Washington that operates myriad departments and provides services, in reality, we have no government. That is to say that what used to be the function of government has been usurped by corporations and centralized financial systems. Repeatedly, icons of the progressive left such as Jeremy Scahill in his brilliant book Blackwater, Naomi Klein in Shock Doctrine and in her latest article ” Outsourcing Government”, and Arianna Huffington as she appeared on Keith Olbermann’s “Countdown” on October 19 are telling us that it is now virtually impossible to determine where government ends and corporations begin. Only a few years ago, these same individuals probably would not have acknowledged this reality which actually has its roots in the late-nineteenth century and came to fruition in the Reagan and Clinton administrations. Perpetually rigged elections are one glaring characteristic of this reality. If there is no government, then there are no authentic choices in terms of political candidates because a candidate cannot even be nominated for the presidency unless she/he is owned by the plutocracy. The progressive left loves to deny the extent to which candidates are owned and persists in rationalizing: “But he/she has done so many wonderful things; he/she is so sincere; he/she has to appear conservative, but when he/she really sits in the Oval Office, everything will be different. She/he is the lesser evil.” Anyone who does not buy into this delusion must then be marginalized by labeling that person pessimistic, doomish, or even crazy. Moreover, this kind of marginalization mirrors the exclusion of individuals and groups by the political right that it finds intolerable, and thus I return to the thesis of Harvey Wasserman’s article: Why would neocons need Karl Rove when they have the Democrats? Participation in the federal election process sanctions the lie that authentic choices exist in presidential politics and condones the use of the election chimera for the purposes of maintaining social control. It is progressive America’s method of choice for maintaining the dirty little secret of the toxic system-that Daddy is raping the kids, but we can’t talk about it! If we do admit this to ourselves and each other, we will feel hopeless, angry, sad, disempowered-unless, we accept that all of this is the result of the collapse of civilization, and that the most powerful act for any of us is admitting that collapse is real and beginning as soon as possible our preparation for it. Overall, the Democratic progressive left refuses to acknowledge that not only do presidents and political parties not govern the United States, but they are in fact, irrelevant. The sovereignty of nations has been irreversibly eroded by corporatism and organizations such as the Bilderberg Group, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Trilateral Commission whose agenda is the dissolution of nation-states and the global dominance of corporations. Almost all of the candidates progressives tout as capable of reversing America’s descent into fascism are prominent members of one or more of these hegemonicorganizations.
As Mike Byron states in the quote at the beginning of this article: People must first be made to give up on the existing system before they will become receptive to fundamental change. As long as we cling to the teddy bears of progressive politics, we embrace the old paradigm of civilization and paralyze ourselves so that we are unable to explore deeper layers of our current predicament. As a result, we allow ourselves to be distracted from the dire exigencies of collapse and any possibility of rationally preparing to navigate it, which only increases the severity of its repercussions. Collapse/Rebirth Vs. Doomerism I have written profusely about “the end of the world as we have known it”, but at the same time, I insist that the “endings” of which I write, are also beginnings. I have emphasized that the word “apocalypse” simply means “the unveiling” and that we are currently in the midst of a protracted apocalypse which is ripping the veil off all of civilization’s illusions. The result will be the dissolution of all of our institutions and the lifestyles of hubris and mindless consumption that permeate empire. What is also true, in my opinion, is that behind those is another reality that cries out to emerge in our consciousness-or, as author, storyteller, and mythologist Michael Meade has titled his forthcoming book: “the world behind the world.” Characteristic of the culture of empire is its incapacity to appreciate paradox-a word inextricably connected with “paradise.” (Could it be that in order to ultimately experience “paradise”, it is necessary to appreciate paradox?) But in its typically polarized fashion, empire says that things are either alive or dead, ending or beginning, and that both cannot be occurring at the same time. Yet the origin of the word “end” is instructive because it originally implied not cessation but “the opposite side”. Nature, the ultimate teacher, perpetually demonstrates the “end” in the changing of the seasons such as we are currently experiencing, revealing that the falling leaves and withering grass are dying, but will be reborn in a different form in the springtime and come to fruition in the resplendent heat of summer. The world as we have known it is ending, only to regenerate and appear in some other form which we cannot yet imagine. While that may sound gloriously reassuring to the hopeful and pathetically airy-fairy to the cynical, I emphasize that the metamorphosis of collapse into rebirth will not occur without enormous suffering. Yet one may ask, if nothing really comes to an end, why talk about collapse at all? Because in the real world, as opposed to the polarized delusional world of civilization, new beginnings cannot occur without endings, and the most adult response is neither denial nor doom. Rather it is the ability and willingness to acknowledge collapse on both the transformative level and on the human level. That is, we must understand its evolutionary significance but also prepare ourselves for the havoc it will wreak with our lives-our bodies, emotions, communities, families, economies, and the ecosystem. In all transitions, the people who seem to weather them most effectively are those who can hold on to whatever is for them timeless and changeless. From concentration camp survivors to indigenous peoples who have lived through the extermination of their cultures, connection with that which they experience as eternal has facilitated their perseverance and survival. In other words, the capacity for finding meaning in the crumbling of civilization enhances one’s ability to endure and survive it. The question I would ask those who assign the label “doomer” to those of us who irrepressibly speak of and write about collapse is: Can you allow yourself to become comfortable with paradox? Are your mind and heart large enough to hold the possibilities of rebirth alongside the reality of death? Can you withdraw from the drug of “hopeful politics” that prevents you from looking into the black maw of collapse with all its inevitable misery and uncertainty, yet at the same time entertain the potential that it may ultimately actualize for all of life on planet earth? I can do that; if you can’t, then please don’t call me a “doomer”. Posted in Critical Thinking, Limits To
Growth
,
Peak Oil
| Tagged denial , limits togrowth , peak oil
, population
, telling others
| 3 Comments
WHAT CAN CALIFORNIA DO ABOUT SEA LEVEL RISE? Posted on November 11, 2020by energyskeptic
PROJECTED SEA LEVEL RISE FROM ONE METER (DARK RED) TO SIX METERS (LIGHT ORANGE) IN CALIFORNIA’S BAY AREA. (WEISS AND OVERPECK 2011) PREFACE. Nearly all, if not all, possible solutions to rising sea levels along all the coasts in the world are listed below, along withtheir challenges.
Related: Reports on how and which S.F. Bay areas will be affected at 2020 Adapting to Rising Tides overview here.
_Alice Friedemann __www.energyskeptic.com_ _ author of “__When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation__”,
2015, Springer, __Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels__,
and “__Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers__”.
Podcasts: __Collapse Chronicles_,_Derrick Jensen_
_,
__Practical Prepping__,
__KunstlerCast 253_ _,__KunstlerCast278_
_,
__Peak Prosperity_
_
, __XX2 report_
***
BCDC. 2018. ADAPTING TO RISING TIDES. FINDINGS BY SECTOR.
SAN FRANCISCO BAY CONSERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION. Clearly the homes, hotels, and other visible infrastructure along the bay will be hammered, or should I say dunked. But there are other components of infrastructure that will be affected that may not be asobvious:
* ENERGY FACILITIES: The U.S. has 101 oil and gas, natural gas, and electric generation plants that would be affected by a 1 foot rise in sea level, and 206 at 10 feet, 41 of them in California (Strauss 2012). Plus 15 substations, a critical component of the electric system with expensive and dangerous equipment such as transformers, capacitors, voltage regulators, etc. * Although the Diablo Canyon and San Onofre power reactors are being closed, their nuclear waste will remain and be a problem for a long time now that Yucca Mountain has shut down and no new disposal siteshave been proposed.
* There are 350 CONTAMINATED LAND SITES in the Bay Area that will be affected by a 16 inch rise, and 460 with a 55” sea level rise. Contaminants include industrial solvents (such as acetone, benzene, and chlorinated solvents and their byproducts), acids, paint strippers, degreasers, caustic cleaners, pesticides, chromium and cyanide wastes, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other chlorinated hydrocarbons, radium associated with dial painting and stripping, medical debris, unexploded ordnance, metals (e.g., lead, chromium, nickel), gasoline, diesel, and petroleum byproducts, and waste oils. * There are also many HAZARDOUS MATERIAL SITES with wastes that are toxic, ignitable, corrosive, or reactive, including pesticides, cleaning solvents, pharmaceutical waste, and so on. * As sea levels rise, STORM WATER INFRASTRUCTURE will back up and cause inland flooding, salt water could corrode and damage infrastructure designed to handle only freshwater. If pump stations are flooded, their sensitive electrical and computerized components would stop functioning. The soils around the bay liquefy in a seismic event, causing underground pipes to move, bend, or break, and excess storm water and rainfall events could make these soils even wetter and vulnerable to liquefaction. * In addition wastewater treatment systems, roads, railroads, airports, commuter rail, ferry terminals, and telecommunication infrastructure will be harmed. * Yet to be studied are the impacts on transmission lines, pipelines, or telecommunications infrastructure WHAT CAN CALIFORNIA DO ABOUT RISING SEA LEVELS? LEVEES AND SEAWALLS. Protecting California from a 1.4 meter rise in sea level would require 1,100 miles of levees and seawalls, and would cost roughly $14 billion (table 1) to build and $1.4 billion a year to operate and maintain it. No one is going to spend $14 billion on this, because there’s no guarantee the levees and seawalls would work, and the sea is going to keep rising for millennia, constantly overtopping whatever is put in place. An unusually large storm event can also cause it to rupture like the levees in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, even if it has been well maintained. Paradoxically, it increases vulnerability. Hard shoreline protection is not as effective as natural shorelines at dissipating the energy from waves and tides. As a result, armored shorelines tend to be more vulnerable to erosion, and to increase erosion of nearby beaches. Structural flood protection can also increase human vulnerability by giving people a false sense of security and encouraging development in areas that are vulnerable to flooding. A HUGE DIKE UNDER THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE won’t work for many reasons – it would cost four times as much as the Three Gorges Dam, and California gets huge floods (i.e. Arkstorm). If the dike were up to protect from rising sea levels, we’d be flooded from inland water with upstream flooding in the freshwater tributaries of the Bay. ELEVATED DEVELOPMENT is a short-term strategy. Unless it’s on stilts directly over water, characteristics of shorelines are altered and will need protection just like low-lying development. Its advantage is merely that it is not threatened by sea level rise for a longer time. We don’t know if higher land or structures will support high-density, transit-oriented new development. Much of our region’s high-density neighborhoods and transit are near the Bay’s shoreline. If low-density development is allowed along the shoreline, it could increase global warming emissions, and may not warrant expensive protection measures in the future. FLOATING DEVELOPMENT: structures that float on the surface of the water or that float during floods or tides. Floating development works only in protected areas, not in areas subject to wind and wave action from storms, such as the ocean coastline. This type of development has not yet been demonstrated in high-density cities. From an engineering perspective, many structures can be built to float, though they cannot be retrofitted to do so. Barriers are ecologically damaging and would harm the Bay’s salinity, sedimentation, wetlands, wildlife and endangered species, and increase sedimentation, making parts of the Bay shallower, while increasing coastal erosion. FLOODABLE DEVELOPMENT: STRUCTURES DESIGNED TO HANDLE FLOODING OR RETAIN STORM WATER. Floodable development could be hazardous. Storm water, particularly at the seaward end of a watershed, is usually polluted with heavy metals and organic chemicals, in addition to sediment and bacteria. Large quantities of storm water sitting on the surface, or in underground storage facilities, could pose a public health hazard during a flood or leave contamination behind. This could be a particular problem in areas with combined sewer systems, such as San Francisco, where wastewater and street runoff go to the same treatment system. Also, wastewater treatment systems that commonly treat the hazards of combined sewer effluent before releasing it into the Bay do not work well with salt water mixed in. If floodable development strategies are designed to hold and release brackish water, new treatment methods will be needed for the released water to meet waterquality standards.
Finally, emergency communication tools and extensive public outreach and management would be required to prevent people from misusing or getting trapped in flooding zones. Floodable development is untested. We don’t know if buildings and infrastructure can be designed or retrofitted to accommodate occasional flooding in a cost-effective way. It is not clear exactly how much volume new floodable development tools will hold. Some of the more heavily engineered solutions, such as a water-holding parking garage, may not turn out to be more beneficial than armoring or investments in upsizing an existingwastewater system.
LIVING SHORELINES. Wetlands are natural and absorb floods, slow erosion, and provide habitat. Living shorelines require space and time to work. Wetlands are generally “thicker” than linear armoring strategies such as levees, so they need more land. They also require management, monitoring and time to become established. Living shorelines are naturally adaptive to sea level rise, as long as two conditions are present. The first condition is that it must have space to migrate landward. The second condition is that they must be sufficiently supplied with sediment to be able to “keep up” with sea level rise. Due to the many dams and modified hydrology of the Delta and its major rivers, this is a concern for restoration success in San Francisco Bay. Wetlands will never be restored to their historic extent along the Bay, in part because of the cost of moving development inland from urbanized areas at the water’s edge. Important challenges for our region will be determining how much flooding new tidal marshes could attenuate, restoring them in appropriate places, and conducting restoration at a faster rate than we would without the looming threat of rising seas. MANAGED RETREAT. Abandon threatened areas near the shoreline. This strategy is a political quagmire. It involves tremendous legal and equity issues, because not all property owners are willing sellers. And in many places, shoreline communities are already disadvantaged and lack the adaptive capacity to relocate. In addition, retreat may require costs beyond relocation or property costs if site cleanup — such as to remove toxics — is needed following demolition CONSEQUENCES FOR THE PORTS AND AIRPORTS The main problem for shipping is not the port. It’s the roads and railroad tracks surrounding the port that are vulnerable, many of them less than 10 feet above sea level, and there’s nowhere to move them. Raising them would make them vulnerable to erosion and liquefied soils from floods or earthquakes. An even bigger deal would be any harm done to the Port of Los Angeles-Long Beach, which handles 45%–50% OF THE CONTAINERS SHIPPED INTO THE UNITED STATES. Of these containers, 77% leave California—half by train and half by truck (Christensen 2008). The Port of Los Angeles estimates that $2.85 billion in container terminals will need to be replaced. If the port is shut down for any reason, the cost is roughly $1 billion per day as economic impacts ripple through the economy as shipments are delayed or re-routed according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 2008-2017 Strategic Plan. Replacing the roads, rails, and grade separations nearby would cost $1 billion. If the port’s electrical infrastructure were damaged, equipment such as cranes would be non-operational and cause delays and disruptions in cargo loading and offloading. These would cost $350 million to replace. The port also has an 8.5 mile breakwater that prevents waves from entering the harbor with two openings to allow ships to enter the port. An impaired breakwater would render shipping terminals unusable and interrupt flows of cargo. The breakwater has a $500 million replacement value and is managed by the Army Corps of Engineers. AIRPORTS. Meanwhile, all of the airports in the SF Bay area are vulnerable to sea level rise, especially San Francisco and Oakland. In 2007, the Oakland International airport transported 15 million passengers and 647,000 metric tons of freight. San Francisco International Airport is the nation’s 13th busiest airport, transporting 36 million people in 2007 and handling 560,000 metric tons of freight $25 billion in exports and $32 billion in imports, more than double the $23.7 billion handled by vessels at the Port ofOakland.
County Miles of levees & Seawalls Cost 2000 dollars Alameda 110$
950,000,000
Del Norte
39 $330,000,000
Contra Costa
63 $520,000,000
Humboldt
42 $460,000,000
Los Angeles
94
$2,600,000,000
Marin
130 $930,000,000
Mendocino
1
$ 34,000,000Monterey
53 $650,000,000
Napa
64 $490,000,000
Orange
77
$1,900,000,000
San Diego
47
$1,300,000,000
San Luis Obispo
13 $210,000,000
San Mateo
73 $580,000,000
Santa Barbara
13 $180,000,000
Santa Clara
51 $160,000,000
Santa Cruz
15 $280,000,000
Solano
73 $720,000,000
Sonoma
47 $240,000,000
Ventura
29 $790,000,000
Table 1. $14,000,000,000 cost to build 1,100 miles of defenses needed to guard against flooding from a 1.4 m sea-level rise, by county.REFERENCES
BCDC. 2018. Adapting to Rising tides. Findings by Sector.
San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development commission. Copeland, B, et al. November 24, 2012 What Could Disappear.
Maps of 24 USA cities flooded as sea level rises. New York Times. Grifman, P., et al. 2013. Sea level Rise Vulnerability Study for theCity of Los Angeles
.
University of Southern California. Heberger, M. et al. May 2009. The Impacts of Sea-Level rise on theCalifornia Coast
.
Pacific Institute.
Conti, K., et al. Nov 20, 2007. “Analysis of a Tidal Barrage at theGolden Gate
,”
BCDC
Preliminary Study of the Effect of Sea Level Rise on the Resources of the Hayward Shoreline.
March 2010. Philip Williams & Associates, Ltd. Sorensen, R. M., et al. Erosion, Inundation, and Salinity Intrusion Chapter 6 Control of Erosion, Inundation, and Salinity Intrusion Caused by Sea Level Rise. Risingsea.net Strauss, B., Ziemlinski, R., 2012. Sea Level Rise Threats to EnergyInfrastructure
.
Climate Central, Washington, DC.Posted in Energy
,
Infrastructure
,
Railroads
,
Roads
,
Sea Level Rise
,
Sewage treatment
,
Transportation
| Tagged dike , elevated, floating
, infrastructure
, levees
, sea level rise
, seawalls
| Leave a comment
NUCLEAR WASTE DISPOSAL DRILLED DEEP INTO EARTH’S CRUST Posted on November 8, 2020by energyskeptic
PREFACE. One the greatest tragedies of the decline of oil will be all the nuclear waste left to harm future generations for up to a million years. We owe it to them to clean up our mess while we still have the fossil energy to do it, they won’t be able to discard the waste with horses and biomass-based energy like the civilizations before fossils that we’re returning to. If we don’t do anything, nuclear waste will sit at reactors, military and nuclear warhead sites. The first of three articles below criticizes the deep borehole method of disposal that follow. I disagree. There are groups opposed to moving nuclear waste to a faraway site in case the train goes off the rails or there is a truck accident making it hard to use any repository anywhere. Drilling a borehole onsite gets around that. It is also much easier, faster, and far cheaper than new tunnel sites like Yucca mountain, which has cost $15 billion so far. Of course there are issues with boreholes, but no showstoppers. It is simply politically impossible to build large repositories. Nevada is one of the least populated states and it couldn’t be done there. The perfect is the enemy of the good, so I vote boreholes. Equally good, reopen Yucca Mountain, which the book “Too Hot to Touch: The Problem of High-Level Nuclear Waste” shows is a perfectly fine place– thousands of combinations of scenarios of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, high rainfall, and other hazards have been modeled and nothing released the wastes below. Related: posts on nuclear waste,
especially “A Nuclear spent fuel fire at Peach Bottom in Pennsylvania could force 18 million people to evacuate”_Alice Friedemann
www.energyskeptic.com author of “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”,
2015, Springer, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels,
and “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”.
Podcasts: Derrick Jensen,
Practical Prepping
,
KunstlerCast 253 , KunstlerCast278,
Peak Prosperity
, XX2 report _
***
KRALL, L. 2020. NUCLEAR WASTE DISPOSAL: WHY THE CASE FOR DEEP BOREHOLES IS … FULL OF HOLES.
BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS. _This article links to a host of alternative disposal methods fornuclear waste here
._
To save nuclear plants from shipping their waste to a centralized repository 2,000 miles away, the company conceives to bury the waste more or less on-site at each power plant in nearly horizontalunderground holes.
Even though hundreds of boreholes will be required to house the nation’s spent fuel inventory, this option is said to be inexpensive, relative to Yucca Mountain. Deep Isolation cites a lower-limit cost of $2 million to drill one hole but suggests that the approach will save money overall by eliminating things like further interim waste storage, transportation, and much of the necessary construction workforce. A supposedly irrefutable safety case accompanies these seemingly excellent financials. Unlike the Yucca Mountain repository, boreholes would be sited below the water table, at depths ranging from 600 meters to 2 kilometers, in sedimentary rock formations. The disposal zone would consist of or be overlain by shale rock formations, which contain ductile clay minerals that can heal any fractures that would otherwise facilitate the flow of water—a potential hazard—to and away from the waste. Simple tests, such as analyses of natural chlorine isotopes, show that the water in these formations is millions of years old. This, Deep Isolation hopes, will convince stakeholders that the system is impenetrable, with negligible risk for contamination of nearby aquifers.But wait!
The Energy Department had concluded in the 1980sthat
disposal of spent nuclear fuel in boreholes drilled to depths of roughly 10 kilometers was not an attractive alternative to mined repositories. In the years following, the US Nuclear Waste TechnicalReview Board
,
the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and waste
management organizations of Sweden,
the United Kingdom
,
and Canada
reviewed
concepts for shallower boreholes, with waste emplaced at depths ranging between 3 kilometers and 5 kilometers. Similar to the Energy Department study, these reviews concluded that borehole disposal would require decades of research, design, and development, which—even if successful—did not promise safety margins superior to a well-sited, deep-mined repository. A more recent study that several colleaguesand I authored
found that Deep Isolation’s even shallower boreholes, at depths of around 2 kilometers or less, would be plagued by the same problems and that suitable borehole disposal sites are, in fact, geographicallyscarce.
Many challenges to the viability of borehole disposal stem from the limit that modern drilling techniques impose on borehole diameters. Although the precise borehole geometry is dependent on location-specific geologic variables, deeper boreholes generally necessitate smaller diameters. Such a limitation has implications both in terms of the barrier system that surrounds the nuclear fuel and in terms of the ability to fully characterize the geology of the disposalsite.
To accommodate canisters whose diagonal cross-section has a length of 30 centimeters, the diameter of Deep Isolation’s curving boreholes must be larger than 40 centimeters. Since this exceeds the 22-centimeter standard for oil and gas extraction, the technical feasibility of Deep Isolation’s drilling scheme remains unclear. But if it is feasible, then a 40-centimeter diameter borehole would restrict the thickness of the canister walls to about one centimeter. As compared to deep-mined repositories, which could accept canisters with walls thicker than 5 centimeters, thin-walled canisters will have adverse safety consequences for the workers who will load the waste into the boreholes. Therefore, potential worker exposures to and environmental releases of radioactivity during canister loading warrants careful consideration. _My question: what about a roboticdevice?_
Lowering hundreds of thousands of flimsy canisters into hundreds of narrow boreholes in a safe, timely fashion will be tricky, to say the least. If a canister is punctured or becomes stuck during this phase, then the risk to operators and the environmentcould be high.
Whereas mined repository designs incorporate a series of engineered and natural barriers to delay or preclude the release of radionuclides into the groundwater system and into the biosphere, borehole disposal relies entirely on a geologic barrier. Hence, borehole developers must compile a safety case that convinces regulators and the general public that the geologic environment around their disposal sites can function on its own to sequester radionuclides over the 1 million-year regulatory period. This means that in-depth sampling and analysis will need to be performed at every disposal site, undercutting the idea that boreholes represent a modular, easily replicable solution. Ironically, the concept that has been promised to liberate stakeholders of the upfront costs associated with these site investigations is destined to increase the complexity of these activities. Rather than one or a handful of disposal sites, hundreds of disposal boreholes must be investigated thoroughly. Then, stakeholders must reach a high level of certainty that the bedrock, alone, can compensate for a lean engineered barrier system. In the end, then, a mined repository still may be the best answer. Technically viable and publicly accepted repository designsare
successfully moving ahead in Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, France, Canada, and even China and Russia. Rather than committing, prematurely, to a single site (Yucca Mountain) or chasing after nonviable “alternative solutions,” the United States would be wise to scale one or more of these internationally pioneered designs to accommodate the world’s largest national spent fuel inventory. VIDAL, J. 2019. WHAT SHOULD WE DO WITH NUCLEAR WASTE?
ENSIA.
Richard Muller, professor emeritus of physics at the University of California, Berkeley and his daughter gave a demonstration in 2019 of how nuclear waste could be buried permanently using oil-fracking technology by putting a 140 pound steel canister with no radioactive waste into a previously drilled borehole deep into the ground. This is much cheaper than excavating expensive tunnels that could be up to two miles deep under a billion tons of rock radiation can’t possibly leak out of. Just 300 boreholes could store most of the US’s highest level nuclear waste permanently for a third of what storage methods cost now. Many ideas have been investigated, but most have been rejected as impractical, too expensive or ecologically unacceptable. They include shooting it into space; isolating
it in synthetic rock ; burying it in ice sheets; dumping
it on the world’s most isolated islands;
and dropping it to the bottom of the world’s deepest oceanictrenches
.
Vertical boreholes up to 5,000 meters (16,000 feet) deep have also been proposed (see next article), and this option is said by some scientists to be promising. But there have been doubts because it is likely to be near impossible to retrieve waste from vertical boreholes. So far, no country has built a deep repository for high-level waste. “Although almost every nuclear country has, in principle, plans for the eventual burial of the most radioactive waste, only a handful have made any progress and nowhere in the world is there operating an authorized site for the deep geological disposal of the highest level radioactive waste,” says Andrew Blowers, author of _The Legacy of Nuclear Power_ and a former member of the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CORWM)set
up to advise the U.K. government on how and where to site and storenuclear waste.
“Currently no options have been able to demonstrate that waste will remain isolated from the environment over the tens to hundreds of thousands of years. There is no reliable method to warn future generations about the existence of nuclear waste dumps,” he says. By law, however, all high-level U.S. nuclear waste must go to Yucca Mountain in Nevada, since 1987 the designated deep geological repository about 90 miles (140 kilometers) northwest of Las Vegas. But the site has been met with continued legal, regulatory and constitutional challenges, becoming a political yo-yo since it was identified as a potentially suitablerepository.
It is fiercely opposed by the Western Shoshonepeoples, Nevada
state and others.
A massive tunnel was excavated in Yucca Mountain but was never licensed and the site is now largely abandoned — to the frustration of the federal government and the nuclear industry, which has raised more than US$41 billionfrom
a levy on consumer bills to pay for the repository and which must pay for heavy security at their temporary nuclear waste storage sites. “We need a high-level repository. We are holding waste now at about 121 sites across the U.S.,” says Baker Elmore, director of federal programs at the Nuclear Energy Institute. “This costs the taxpayer US$800 million a year. We have 97 plants operating and the amount of waste is only going to grow. We are not allowing the science to play out here. There is US$41 billion in the government’s nuclear waste fund, and Yucca mountain is scientifically sound. We want a decision. We are going to need more than one repository.” CORNWALL, W. JULY 10, 2015. DEEP SLEEP. BOREHOLES DRILLED INTO EARTH’S CRUST GET A FRESH LOOK FOR NUCLEAR WASTE DISPOSAL. SCIENCE VOL.
349: 132-135
One of the world’s biggest radioactive headaches sits in an aging cinderblock building in the desert near Hanford, Washington, at the bottom of a pool of water that glows with an eerie blue light. The nearly 2000 half-meter-long steel cylinders are filled with highly radioactive cesium and strontium, leftover from making plutonium for nuclear weapons. THE WASTE HAS BEEN DESCRIBED AS THE MOST LETHAL SINGLE SOURCE OF RADIATION IN THE UNITED STATES, AFTER THE CORE OF AN ACTIVE NUCLEAR REACTOR. IT COULD CAUSE A CATASTROPHE IF THE POOL WERE BREACHED BY AN UNEXPECTEDLY SEVERE EARTHQUAKE, ACCORDING TO THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY (DOE), the waste’s owner. For decades, the federal government has been floundering over what to do with the cylinders. They’re too hot to be easily housed with other waste. And the government’s quest to create a single permanent burial ground for all the nation’s high-level nuclear waste, from both military and civilian activities, is in disarray. U.S. high-levelnuclear waste:
70,000 metric tons of civilian waste stored at 75 sites 13,000 metric tons of military waste stored at 5 sites Now, a deceptively simple-sounding solution is emerging: Stick the cylinders in a very deep hole. The approach, known as deep borehole disposal, involves punching a 43-centimeter-wide hole 5 kilometers into hard rock in Earth’s crust. Engineers would then fill the deepest 2 kilometers with waste canisters, plug up the rest with concrete and clay, and leave the waste to quietly decay. The idea has been around for decades, but not long ago scientists had all but abandoned it. Over the past 5 years, however, as improved drilling technologies converged with the political and technical woes bedeviling other nuclear waste solutions, boreholes have regained their allure. DOE has gone from spending almost nothing on borehole research to planning a full-scale field test, costing at least $80 million. And earlier this year U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz gave boreholes a dash of publicity during a major speech, mentioning them as a promising way to deal with the cesium and strontium waste at DOE’s Hanford Site nuclear complex. Boreholes have “been plan B and just missed the boat for years,” says nuclear engineer Michael Driscoll, a retired professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge and one of the concept’s leading advocates. “Maybe now is the time. Many nuclear waste veterans, however, are skeptical. The technical challenges are daunting, they argue, and boreholes won’t end political opposition to building new nuclear waste facilities. “The borehole thing to me is a red herring,” says attorney Geoff Fettus of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in Washington, D.C., which supports underground disposal in a shallower mine, but has sued DOE over now abandoned plans to bury the waste inside Nevada’s YuccaMountain.
Still, even some doubters say that given the current deadlock over nuclear waste, boreholes deserve a second look, at least for those troublesome cylinders at Hanford. “If we can move forward with disposing of some of the DOE waste, that’s a good thing,” says geoscientist Allison Macfarlane, director of the Center for International Science and Technology Policy at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and a former chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. “We have to make some progress somewhere. IF ONE PERSON deserves credit for helping revive U.S. borehole research, it’s Driscoll, the retired MIT engineer. Now 80, he has spent more than 25 years quietly exploring the potential for depositing radioactive waste deep in granite bedrock. Driscoll wasn’t the first to pursue the idea; since the 1950s, boreholes have vied with other nuclear waste disposal options, ranging from the improbable (shoot it into outer space or melt it into an ice sheet) to the mundane (stash it in a shallow mine). Ironically, by the time Driscoll got interested in boreholes, U.S. policymakers thought they had settled the issue. In 1987, after years of fierce debate, Congress approved legislation creating a national repository for high-level nuclear waste in a mine carved into Yucca Mountain, roughly 110 kilometers northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada. With that decision, U.S. funding for borehole research largely evaporated. Driscoll wasn’t deterred. Boreholes, he thought, had some potential advantages over a single big facility. For example, they could spread the burden of storing waste that no one wanted, because suitable rock is found across the United States. So even as engineers began to plan the Yucca Mountain repository, Driscoll and a handful of graduate students kept churning out papers delving into borehole costs and technical feasibility. In one scenario they explored, spent fuel rods are placed in slender canisters that are strung together like sausage links, then lowered into the hole. Even very radioactive material would be safe, advocates say, if placed in the right kind of deep rock: ancient crystalline granite with few cracks that might allow radioactive materials to seep into groundwater or reach the surface. The surrounding rock and the salty water would dissipate heat generated by the waste. And the top 3 kilometers of each hole would be plugged with a layer cake of cement, gravel, and bentonite clay, which swells when wet. The nation’s entire cache of high-level waste could fit into 700 to 950 boreholes, at a cost of $40 million per hole (not counting transportation), according to recent estimates by scientists at DOE’s Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, who have worked withDriscoll.
Boreholes got their first big break in 2010, when the Obama administration announced that it was abandoning Yucca Mountain after years of delays and resistance from state politicians. The government began looking for other options. That year, Sandia made its first big investment: $734,000 to study how fluid and radioactive particles might behave in a borehole, and how best to seal it. In 2012, a presidential commission added its recommendation for more studies. Soon after, Moniz became energy secretary. Moniz, a former colleague of Driscoll’s at MIT, had already heard his sales pitch about boreholes. In 2003, the two men served together on a study panel that endorsed “aggressively” studying the technology. This past March, a White House policy shift opened the door further. Moniz announced that the Obama administration would abandon previous plans to put all high-level waste in one spot and instead would seek separate sites for disposing of commercial nuclear waste—about 85% of the total—and military waste. Moniz called some of the defense waste, including Hanford’s radioactive cylinders, “ideal candidates for deep borehole disposal. CESIUM-137 AND STRONTIUM-90 are the hot potatoes of the nuclear waste world, packing a powerful radioactive punch in a relatively short half-life of 30 years. At Hanford, there’s barely enough to fill the back of a pickup truck. Yet it contains more than 100 million curies of radiation, roughly one-tenth the radiation in the core of a large nuclear reactor. And it produces enough heat to power more than 200homes.
To prevent the tubes from causing trouble, they sit under about 4 meters of water in what resembles a giant swimming pool, emanating a blue glow known as Cherenkov radiation as high-energy particles slam into the water. The 1974 building housing the pool is past its 30-year life span, according to DOE’s inspector general. Bombarded by radiation, the pool’s concrete walls are significantly weakened in places. Some of the tubes have failed and been stuck inside larger containers. In a review of DOE facilities conducted after the 2011 disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, the department’s Office of Environmental Management concluded that the Hanford pool had the highest risk of catastrophic failure of any DOE facility, for example in a massive earthquake, according to a report from the department’s inspector general. DOE says it plans to move the pool waste into dry casks for safer storage, but it hasn’t saidwhen.
“It’s an urgent situation and a huge safety risk,” says Tom Carpenter, executive director of the watchdog group Hanford Challenge in Seattle, Washington, which has been critical of DOE’s efforts tosecure the waste.
Borehole advocates point out that the Hanford tubes are less than 7 centimeters in diameter, narrow enough to fit down a hole without extensive repackaging. All could fit into a single shaft. Other military waste could also go down a borehole, advocates add. One candidate is plutonium that DOE has extracted from dismantled nuclear weapons. Most of it is currently stored as softball-sized metal spheres at a DOE facility in Texas. In contrast to Hanford’s cesium and strontium, the plutonium is fairly cool, but extremely long-lived, with a half-life of 24,000 years. DOE is considering other options for the plutonium, including turning it into fuel for nuclear reactors or combining it with other nuclear waste and burying it. But boreholes could be an effective way to put it far out of the reach of anyone trying to lay their hands on bombmaking material. Yet borehole disposal is not as straightforward as it might seem. The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, an independent panel that advises DOE, notes a litany of potential problems: No one has drilled holes this big 5 kilometers into solid rock. If a hole isn’t smooth and straight, a liner could be hard to install, and waste containers could get stuck. It’s tricky to see flaws like fractures in rock 5 kilometers down. Once waste is buried, it would be hard to get it back (an option federal regulations now require). And methods for plugging the holes haven’t been sufficiently tested. “These are all pretty daunting technical challenges,” says the board’s chair, geologist Rod Ewing, of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. Even if those technical problems are surmounted, boreholes might solve only a fraction of the nation’s waste problem. That’s because much of the high-level waste simply wouldn’t fit down a hole without extensive repackaging. “Due to the physical dimensions of much of the used nuclear fuel, it is not presently considered to be as good of a candidate as the smaller waste forms,” said William Boyle, director of DOE’s Office of Used Nuclear Fuel Disposition Research and Development, in a statement to Science. Spent fuel rods from commercial power reactors, for instance, are often bundled into casks that are about 2 meters across. Then there’s the same problem that dogged Yucca Mountain: the politics of finding a place to drill the holes. “Let’s just assume could work better than anybody ever imagined,” says Fettus, the NRDC attorney. “You still wouldn’t solve the nut that everyone has been unable to solve”: persuading state and local governments to take on waste from across the nation. DESPITE THESE CHALLENGES, Sandia scientists are moving forward with a 5-year plan to drill one or more 5-kilometer-deep boreholes. Pat Brady, a Sandia geochemist helping plan the tests, is optimistic. “There’s a lot of institutional experience with drilling holes in the ground,” he says. The drilling technology is better than ever, he says. Drillers have gained valuable experience boring deep holes into hard rock for geothermal energy, and improved rigs can more easily and accurately drill deep, straight holes. The Sandia team is currently looking for a U.S. site for the first test hole, with a plan to start drilling inthe fall of 2016.
Besides seeing if they can cost-effectively drill a hole that’s deep and wide enough, they also want to test methods for determining whether the rock is solid and whether any water near the bottom of the hole is connected to shallow groundwater. Then they will lower a model waste canister down the hole to see if it gets stuck. Other nations with nuclear waste, including China, are watching. But, for now, the United States is the only country getting ready to drill. “Nobody else has stepped forward,” says Geoff Freeze, a nuclear engineer at Sandia who is overseeing the U.S. experiment. “It kindof fell to us.”
Posted in Nuclear Waste | Tagged nuclear , waste| 17 Comments
BOOK REVIEW OF “THE DEATH OF EXPERTISE: THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST ESTABLISHED KNOWLEDGE AND WHY IT MATTERS” Posted on November 5, 2020by energyskeptic
PREFACE. Those who attack experts are exactly the people who will not read this book review (well, mainly some Kindle notes) of Nichols “The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters”. They scare me, they scare the author — that’s why he wrote it. The Zombies are among us already on FOX news and hate talk radio, brains not dead, but not functioning very well, and proud of it. Energyskeptic is about the death by a thousand cuts that leads to collapse, with fossil fuel decline the main one. Rejecting expertise in favor of “gut feelings”, superstitions, preferred notions, and rejection of science are yet one more cut, one more factor leading to collapse. A rejection of expertise is manifested by those who voted for Trump, whose ignorance and incompetence is literally killing people, quite a few of them his voters. It’s happening in the covid-19 pandemic, trying to get rid of Obamacare, undoing environmental rules, and financial regulations that protected the poor and middle class from rapacious capitalists. A few quotes from the book: * What I find so striking today is not that people dismiss expertise, but that they do so with such frequency, on so many issues, and withsuch anger.
* The death of expertise is not just a rejection of existing knowledge. It is fundamentally a rejection of science and dispassionate rationality, which are the foundations of moderncivilization.
* We have come full circle from a premodern age, in which folk wisdom filled unavoidable gaps in human knowledge, through a period of rapid development based heavily on specialization and expertise, and now to a postindustrial, information-oriented world where all citizens believe themselves to be experts on everything. * Some of us, as indelicate as it might be to say it, are not intelligent enough to know when we’re wrong, no matter how good ourintentions.
* There’s also the basic problem that some people just aren’t very bright. And as we’ll see, the people who are the most certain about being right tend to be the people with the least reason to have such self-confidence. The reason unskilled or incompetent people overestimate their abilities far more than others is because they lack a key skill called “metacognition.” * the root of an inability among laypeople to understand that experts being wrong on occasion about certain issues is not the same thing as experts being wrong consistently on everything. Experts are more often right than wrong, especially on essential matters of fact. And yet the public constantly searches for the loopholes in expert knowledge that will allow them to disregard all expert advice they don’t like. * We all have an inherent tendency to search for evidence that already meshes with our beliefs. Our brains are actually wired to work this way, which is why we argue even when we shouldn’t. * Colleges also mislead their students about their competence through grade inflation. When college is a business, you can’t flunk the customers. A study of 200 colleges and universities up through 2009 found that A was the most common grade, and increase of 30% since1960.
Related links:
2020 Trumpers are resistant to experts — even their own _Alice Friedemann __www.energyskeptic.com_ _ author of “__When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation__”,
2015, Springer, __Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels__,
and “__Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers__”.
Podcasts: __Collapse Chronicles_,_Derrick Jensen_
_,
__Practical Prepping__,
__KunstlerCast 253_ _,__KunstlerCast278_
_,
__Peak Prosperity_
_
, __XX2 report_
***
NICHOLS, T. 2017. THE DEATH OF EXPERTISE. THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST ESTABLISHED KNOWLEDGE AND WHY IT MATTERS.
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS. The big problem is that we’re proud of not knowing things. Americans have reached a point where ignorance, especially of anything related to public policy, is an actual virtue. To reject the advice of experts is to assert autonomy, a way for Americans to insulate their increasingly fragile egos from ever being told they’re wrong about anything. It is a new Declaration of Independence: no longer do we hold these truths to be self-evident, we hold all truths to be self-evident, even the ones that aren’t true. All things are knowable and every opinion on any subject is as good as any other. I wrote this because I’m worried. People don’t just believe dumb things; they actively resist further learning rather than let go of those beliefs. I was not alive in the Middle Ages, so I cannot say it is unprecedented, but within my living memory I’ve never seenanything like it.
Back in the late 1980s, when I was working in Washington, DC, I learned how quickly people in even casual conversation would immediately instruct me in what needed to be done in any number of areas, especially in my own areas of arms control and foreign policy. I was young and not yet a seasoned expert, but I was astonished at the way people who did not have the first clue about those subjects would confidently direct me on how best to make peace between Moscow and Washington. To some extent, this was understandable. Politics invites discussion. And especially during the Cold War, when the stakes were global annihilation, people wanted to be heard. I accepted that this was just part of the cost of doing business in the public policy world. Over time, I found that other specialists in various policy areas had the same experiences, with laypeople subjecting them to ill-informed disquisitions on taxes, budgets, immigration, the environment, and many other subjects. If you’re a policy expert, itgoes with the job.
In later years, however, I started hearing the same stories from doctors. And from lawyers. And from teachers. And, as it turns out, from many other professionals whose advice is usually not contradicted easily. These stories astonished me: they were not about patients or clients asking sensible questions, but about those same patients and clients actively telling professionals why their advice was wrong. In every case, the idea that the expert knew what he or she was doing was dismissed almost out of hand. WORSE, WHAT I FIND SO STRIKING TODAY IS NOT THAT PEOPLE DISMISS EXPERTISE, BUT THAT THEY DO SO WITH SUCH FREQUENCY, ON SO MANY ISSUES, AND WITH SUCH ANGER. Again, it may be that attacks on expertise are more obvious due to the ubiquity of the Internet, the undisciplined nature of conversation on social media, or the demands of the 24-hour news cycle. But THERE IS A SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS AND FURY TO THIS NEW REJECTION OF EXPERTISE THAT SUGGEST THAT THIS ISN’T JUST MISTRUST OR QUESTIONING OR THE PURSUIT OF ALTERNATIVES: IT IS NARCISSISM, COUPLED TO A DISDAIN FOR EXPERTISE AS SOME SORT OF EXERCISE INSELF-ACTUALIZATION.
THIS MAKES IT ALL THE HARDER FOR EXPERTS TO PUSH BACK AND TO INSIST THAT PEOPLE COME TO THEIR SENSES. NO MATTER WHAT THE SUBJECT, THE ARGUMENT ALWAYS GOES DOWN THE DRAIN OF AN ENRAGED EGO AND ENDS WITH MINDS UNCHANGED, SOMETIMES WITH PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIPS OR EVEN FRIENDSHIPS DAMAGED. INSTEAD OF ARGUING, EXPERTS TODAY ARE SUPPOSED TO ACCEPT SUCH DISAGREEMENTS AS, AT WORST, AN HONEST DIFFERENCE OF OPINION. WE ARE SUPPOSED TO “AGREE TO DISAGREE,” a phrase now used indiscriminately as little more than a conversational fire extinguisher. And if we insist that not everything is a matter of opinion, that some things are right and others are wrong … well, then we’re just being jerks, apparently. There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge” as Isaac Asimov once said. In the early 1990s, a small group of “AIDS denialists,” including a University of California professor named Peter Duesberg, argued against virtually the entire medical establishment’s consensus that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was the cause of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. There was no evidence for Duesberg’s beliefs, which turned out to be baseless. The Duesberg business might have ended as just another quirky theory defeated by research. In this case, however, a discredited idea nonetheless managed to capture the attention of a national leader, with deadly results. Thabo Mbeki, then the president of South Africa, seized on the idea that AIDS was caused not by a virus but by other factors, such as malnourishment and poor health, and so he rejected offers of drugs and other forms of assistance to combat HIV infection in South Africa. By the mid-2000s, his government relented, but not before Mbeki’s fixation on AIDS denialism ended up costing, by the estimates of doctors at the Harvard School of Public Health, well over 300,000 lives and the births of some 35,000 HIV-positive children. These are dangerous times. Never have so many people had so much access to so much knowledge and yet have been so resistant to learning anything. In the United States and other developed nations, otherwise intelligent people denigrate intellectual achievement and reject the advice of experts. Not only do increasing numbers of laypeople lack basic knowledge, they reject fundamental rules of evidence and refuse to learn how to make a logical argument. In doing so, they risk throwing away centuries of accumulated knowledge and undermining the practices and habits that allow us to develop new knowledge. All of these choices, from a nutritious diet to national defense, require a conversation between citizens and experts. Increasingly, it seems, citizens don’t want to have that conversation. For their part, they’d rather believe they’ve gained enough information to make those decisions on their own, insofar as they care about making any of those decisions at all. On the other hand, many experts, and particularly those in the academy, have abandoned their duty to engage with the public. They have retreated into jargon and irrelevance, preferring to interact with each other only. THE DEATH OF EXPERTISE IS NOT JUST A REJECTION OF EXISTING KNOWLEDGE. IT IS FUNDAMENTALLY A REJECTION OF SCIENCE AND DISPASSIONATE RATIONALITY, WHICH ARE THE FOUNDATIONS OF MODERN CIVILIZATION. It is a sign, as the art critic Robert Hughes once described late twentieth-century America, of “a polity obsessed with therapies and filled with distrust of formal politics,” chronically “skeptical of authority” and “prey to superstition.” WE HAVE COME FULL CIRCLE FROM A PREMODERN AGE, IN WHICH FOLK WISDOM FILLED UNAVOIDABLE GAPS IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE, THROUGH A PERIOD OF RAPID DEVELOPMENT BASED HEAVILY ON SPECIALIZATION AND EXPERTISE, AND NOW TO A POSTINDUSTRIAL, INFORMATION-ORIENTED WORLD WHERE ALL CITIZENS BELIEVE THEMSELVES TO BE EXPERTS ON EVERYTHING. Any assertion of expertise from an actual expert, meanwhile, produces an explosion of anger from certain quarters of the American public, who immediately complain that such claims are nothing more than fallacious “appeals to authority,” sure signs of dreadful “elitism,” and an obvious effort to use credentials to stifle the dialogue required by a “real” democracy. Americans now believe that having equal rights in a political system also means that each person’s opinion about anything must be accepted as equal to anyoneelse’s.
The immediate response from most people when confronted with the death of expertise is to blame the Internet. Professionals, especially, tend to point to the Internet as the culprit when faced with clients and customers who think they know better. As we’ll see, that’s not entirely wrong, but it is also too simple an explanation. Attacks on established knowledge have a long pedigree, and the Internet is only the most recent tool in a recurring problem that in the past misused television, radio, the printing press, and other innovations the sameway. So why all the
The secrets of life are no longer hidden in giant marble mausoleums and the great libraries of the world. So in the past, there was less stress between experts and laypeople, but only because citizens were simply unable to challenge experts in any substantive way. Moreover, there were few public venues in which to mount such challenges in the era before mass communications. We now live in a society where the acquisition of even a little learning is the endpoint, rather than the beginning, of education. And this is a dangerous thing. SOME OF US, AS INDELICATE AS IT MIGHT BE TO SAY IT, ARE NOT INTELLIGENT ENOUGH TO KNOW WHEN WE’RE WRONG, NO MATTER HOW GOOD OUR INTENTIONS. Just as we are not all equally able to carry a tune or draw a straight line, many people simply cannot recognize the gaps in their own knowledge or understand their own inability to construct alogical argument.
Education is supposed to help us to recognize problems like “confirmation bias” and to overcome the gaps in our knowledge so that we can be better citizens. IN THIS HYPERCOMPETITIVE MEDIA ENVIRONMENT, EDITORS AND PRODUCERS NO LONGER HAVE THE PATIENCE—OR THE FINANCIAL LUXURY—TO ALLOW JOURNALISTS TO DEVELOP THEIR OWN EXPERTISE OR DEEP KNOWLEDGE OF A SUBJECT. NOR IS THERE ANY EVIDENCE THAT MOST NEWS CONSUMERS WANT SUCH DETAIL. EXPERTS ARE OFTEN REDUCED TO SOUND BITES OR “PULL QUOTES,” IF THEY ARE CONSULTED AT ALL. AND EVERYONE INVOLVED IN THE NEWS INDUSTRY KNOWS THAT IF THE REPORTS AREN’T PRETTY OR GLOSSY OR ENTERTAINING ENOUGH, THE FICKLE VIEWING PUBLIC CAN FIND OTHER, LESS TAXING ALTERNATIVES WITH THE CLICK OF A MOUSE OR THE PRESS OF A BUTTON ON A TELEVISION REMOTE. Maybe it’s not that people are any dumber or any less willing to listen to experts than they were a hundred years ago: it’s just that we can hear them all now. A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF CONFLICT BETWEEN PEOPLE WHO KNOW SOME THINGS AND PEOPLE WHO KNOW OTHER THINGS IS INEVITABLE. THERE WERE PROBABLY ARGUMENTS BETWEEN THE FIRST HUNTERS AND GATHERERS OVER WHAT TO HAVE FOR DINNER. As various areas of human achievement became the province of professionals, disagreements were bound to grow and to become sharper. And as the distance between experts and the rest of the citizenry grew, so did the social gulf and the mistrust between them. All societies, no matter how advanced, have an undercurrent of resentment against educated elites, as well as persistent cultural attachments to folk wisdom, urban legends, and other irrational but normal human reactions to the complexity and confusion of modern life. Democracies, with their noisy public spaces, have always been especially prone to challenges to established knowledge. Actually, they’re more prone to challenges to established anything: it’s one of the characteristics that makes them “democratic”. THE UNITED STATES, WITH ITS INTENSE FOCUS ON THE LIBERTIES OF THE INDIVIDUAL, ENSHRINES THIS RESISTANCE TO INTELLECTUAL AUTHORITY EVEN MORE THAN OTHER DEMOCRACIES. ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, THE FRENCH OBSERVER NOTED IN 1835 THAT THE DENIZENS OF THE NEW UNITED STATES WERE NOT EXACTLY ENAMORED OF EXPERTS OR THEIR SMARTS. “In most of the operations of the mind, each American appeals only to the individual effort of his own understanding.” This distrust of intellectual authority was rooted, Tocqueville theorized, in the nature of American democracy. When “citizens, placed on an equal footing, are all closely seen by one another, they are constantly brought back to their own reason as the most obvious and proximate source of truth. It is not only confidence in this or that man which is destroyed, but the disposition to trust the authority of any man whatsoever.” Such observations have not been limited to early America. Teachers, experts, and professional “knowers” have been venting about a lack of deference from their societies since Socrates was forced to drinkhis hemlock.
The Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset in 1930 decried the “revolt of the masses” and the unfounded intellectual arrogance that characterized it: HOFSTADTER ARGUED BACK IN 1963 THAT OVERWHELMING COMPLEXITY PRODUCED FEELINGS OF HELPLESSNESS AND ANGER AMONG A CITIZENRY THAT KNEW ITSELF INCREASINGLY TO BE AT THE MERCY OF SMARTER ELITES. “What used to be a jocular and usually benign ridicule of intellect and formal training has turned into a malign resentment of the intellectual in his capacity as expert,” Hofstadter warned. “Once the intellectual was gently ridiculed because he was not needed; now he is fiercely resented because he is needed too much. SOMIN WROTE IN 2015 THAT THE “SIZE AND COMPLEXITY OF GOVERNMENT” HAVE MADE IT “MORE DIFFICULT FOR VOTERS WITH LIMITED KNOWLEDGE TO MONITOR AND EVALUATE THE GOVERNMENT’S MANY ACTIVITIES. THE RESULT IS A POLITY IN WHICH THE PEOPLE OFTEN CANNOT EXERCISE THEIR SOVEREIGNTY RESPONSIBLY AND EFFECTIVELY.” MORE DISTURBING IS THAT AMERICANS HAVE DONE LITTLE IN THOSE INTERVENING DECADES TO REMEDY THE GAP BETWEEN THEIR OWN KNOWLEDGE AND THE LEVEL OF INFORMATION REQUIRED TO PARTICIPATE IN AN ADVANCED DEMOCRACY. “THE LOW LEVEL OF POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE IN THE AMERICAN ELECTORATE,” SOMIN CORRECTLY NOTES, “IS STILL ONE OF THE BEST-ESTABLISHED FINDINGS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE. The death of expertise, however, is a different problem than the historical fact of low levels of information among laypeople. THE ISSUE IS NOT INDIFFERENCE TO ESTABLISHED KNOWLEDGE; IT’S THE EMERGENCE OF A POSITIVE HOSTILITY TO SUCH KNOWLEDGE. THIS IS NEW IN AMERICAN CULTURE, and it represents the aggressive replacement of expert views or established knowledge with the insistence that every opinion on any matter is as good as every other. This is a remarkable change in our public discourse. The death of expertise actually threatens to reverse the gains of years of knowledge among people who now assume they know more than they actually do. This is a threat to the material and civic well-being of citizens in a democracy. Some folks seized on the contradictory news stories about eggs (much as they did on a bogus story about chocolate being a healthy snack that made the rounds earlier) to rationalize never listening to doctors, who clearly have a better track record than the average overweight American at keeping people alive with healthier diets. AT THE ROOT OF ALL THIS IS AN INABILITY AMONG LAYPEOPLE TO UNDERSTAND THAT EXPERTS BEING WRONG ON OCCASION ABOUT CERTAIN ISSUES IS NOT THE SAME THING AS EXPERTS BEING WRONG CONSISTENTLY ON EVERYTHING. THE FACT OF THE MATTER IS THAT EXPERTS ARE MORE OFTEN RIGHT THAN WRONG, especially on essential matters of fact. AND YET THE PUBLIC CONSTANTLY SEARCHES FOR THE LOOPHOLES IN EXPERT KNOWLEDGE THAT WILL ALLOW THEM TO DISREGARD ALL EXPERT ADVICE THEY DON’T LIKE. NO ONE IS ARGUING THAT EXPERTS CAN’T BE WRONG, BUT THEY ARE LESS LIKELY TO BE WRONG THAN NONEXPERTS. The same people who anxiously point back in history to the thalidomide disaster routinely pop dozens of drugs into their mouths, from aspirin to antihistamines, which are among the thousands and thousands of medications shown to be safe by decades of trials and tests conducted by experts. It rarely occurs to the skeptics that for every terrible mistake, there are countless successes that prolong their lives. There are many examples of these brawls among what pundits and analysts gently refer to now as “low-information voters.” Whether about science or policy, however, they all share the same disturbing characteristic: a solipsistic and thin-skinned insistence that every opinion be treated as truth. Americans no longer distinguish the phrase “you’re wrong” from the phrase “you’re stupid.” To disagree is to disrespect. To correct another is to insult. And to refuse to acknowledge all views as worthy of consideration, no matter how fantastic or inane they are, is to be closed-minded. THE EPIDEMIC OF IGNORANCE IN PUBLIC POLICY DEBATES HAS REAL CONSEQUENCES FOR THE QUALITY OF LIFE AND WELL-BEING OF EVERY AMERICAN. DURING THE DEBATE IN 2009 OVER THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT, FOR EXAMPLE, AT LEAST HALF OF ALL AMERICANS BELIEVED CLAIMS BY OPPONENTS LIKE FORMER REPUBLICAN VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE SARAH PALIN THAT THE LEGISLATION INCLUDED “DEATH PANELS” THAT WOULD DECIDE WHO GETS HEALTH CARE BASED ON A BUREAUCRATIC DECISION ABOUT A PATIENT’S WORTHINESS TO LIVE. (Four years later, almost a third of surgeons apparently continued to believe this.) Nearly half of Americans also thought the ACA established a uniform government health plan. Love it or hate it, the program does none of these things. And two years after the bill passed, at least 40% of Americans weren’t even sure the program was still in force as a law. First, while our clumsy dentist might not be the best tooth puller in town, he or she is better at it than you. Second, and related to this point about relative skill, experts will make mistakes, but they are far less likely to make mistakes than a layperson. This is a crucial distinction between experts and everyone else, in that experts know better than anyone the pitfalls of their own profession. Both of these points should help us to understand why the pernicious idea that “everyone can be an expert” is so dangerous. Knowing things is not the same as understanding them. Comprehension is not the same thing as analysis. WE ALL HAVE AN INHERENT AND NATURAL TENDENCY TO SEARCH FOR EVIDENCE THAT ALREADY MESHES WITH OUR BELIEFS. OUR BRAINS ARE ACTUALLY WIRED TO WORK THIS WAY, which is why we argue even when we shouldn’t. And if we feel socially or personally threatened, we will argue until we’reblue in the face.
THERE’S ALSO THE BASIC PROBLEM THAT SOME PEOPLE JUST AREN’T VERY BRIGHT. AND AS WE’LL SEE, THE PEOPLE WHO ARE THE MOST CERTAIN ABOUT BEING RIGHT TEND TO BE THE PEOPLE WITH THE LEAST REASON TO HAVE SUCH SELF-CONFIDENCE. The reason unskilled or incompetent people overestimate their abilities far more than others is because they lack a key skill called “metacognition.” This is the ability to know when you’re not good at something by stepping back, looking at what you’re doing, and then realizing that you’re doing it wrong. Good singers know when they’ve hit a sour note; good directors know when a scene in a play isn’t working; good marketers know when an ad campaign is going to be a flop. Their less competent counterparts, by comparison, have no such ability. They think they’re doing a greatjob.
Pair such people with experts, and, predictably enough, misery results. The lack of metacognition sets up a vicious loop, in which people who don’t know much about a subject do not know when they’re in over their head talking with an expert on that subject. An argument ensues, but people who have no idea how to make a logical argument cannot realize when they’re failing to make a logical argument. In short order, the expert is frustrated and the layperson is insulted. Everyone walks away angry. Dunning described the research done at Cornell as something like comedian Jimmy Kimmels point that when people have no idea what they’re talking about, it does not deter them from talking anyway. In our work, we ask survey respondents if they are familiar with certain technical concepts from physics, biology, politics, and geography. A fair number claim familiarity with genuine terms like centripetal force and photon. But interestingly, they also claim some familiarity with concepts that are entirely made up, such as the plates of parallax, ultra-lipid, and cholarine. In one study, roughly 90% claimed some knowledge of at least one of the nine fictitious concepts we asked them about. In other words, the least-competent people were the least likely to know they were wrong or to know that others were right, the most likely to try to fake it, and the least able to learn anything. Dunning and Kruger have several explanations for this problem. In general, PEOPLE DON’T LIKE TO HURT EACH OTHER’S FEELINGS, AND IN SOME WORKPLACES, PEOPLE AND EVEN SUPERVISORS MIGHT BE RELUCTANT TO CORRECT INCOMPETENT FRIENDS OR COLLEAGUES. SOME ACTIVITIES, LIKE WRITING OR SPEAKING, DO NOT HAVE ANY EVIDENT MEANS OF PRODUCING IMMEDIATE FEEDBACK. YOU CAN ONLY MISS SO MANY SWINGS IN BASEBALL BEFORE YOU HAVE TO ADMIT YOU MIGHT NOT BE A GOOD HITTER, BUT YOU CAN MANGLE GRAMMAR AND SYNTAX EVERY DAY WITHOUT EVER REALIZING HOW POORLYYOU SPEAK.
CONFIRMATION BIAS
Not everyone, however, is incompetent, and almost no one is incompetent at everything. What kinds of errors do more intelligent or agile-minded people make in trying to comprehend complicated issues? Not surprisingly, ordinary citizens encounter pitfalls and biases that befall experts as well. “Confirmation bias” is the most common—and easily the most irritating—obstacle to productive conversation, and not just between experts and laypeople. The term refers to the tendency to look for information that only confirms what we believe, to accept facts that only strengthen our preferred explanations, and to dismiss data that challenge what we already accept as truth. If we’ve heard Boston drivers are rude, the next time we’re visiting Beantown we’ll remember the ones who honked at us or cut us off. We will promptly ignore or forget the ones who let us into traffic or waved a thank you. For the record, in 2014 the roadside assistance company AutoVantage rated Houston the worst city for rude drivers. Boston was fifth. FOR PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE FLYING IS DANGEROUS, THERE WILL NEVER BE ENOUGH SAFE LANDINGS TO OUTWEIGH THE FEAR OF THE ONE CRASH. “Confronted with these large numbers and with the correspondingly small probabilities associated with them,” Paulos wrote in 2001, “the innumerate will inevitably respond with the non sequitur, ‘Yes, but what if you’re that one,’ and then nod knowingly, as if they’ve demolished your argument with their penetrating insight We are gripped by irrational fear rather than irrational optimism because confirmation bias is, in a way, a kind of survival mechanism. Good things come and go, but dying is forever. Your brain doesn’t much care about all those other people who survived a plane ride Your intellect, operating on limited or erroneous information, is doing its job, trying to minimize any risk to your life, no matter how small. When we fight confirmation bias, we’re trying to correct for a basic function—a feature, not a bug—of the human mind. Confirmation bias comes into play because people must rely on what they already know. They cannot approach every problem as though their minds are clean slates. This is not the way memory works, and more to the point, it would hardly be an effective strategy to begin every morning trying to figure everything out from scratch. Confirmation bias can lead even the most experienced experts astray. Doctors, for example, will sometimes get attached to a diagnosis and then look for evidence of the symptoms they suspect already exist in a patient while ignoring markers of another disease or injury. In modern life outside of the academy, however, arguments and debates have no external review. Facts come and go as people find convenient at the moment. Thus, confirmation bias makes attempts at reasoned argument exhausting because it produces arguments and theories that are non-falsifiable. It is the nature of confirmation bias itself to dismiss all contradictory evidence as irrelevant, and so my evidence is always the rule, your evidence is always a mistake or an exception. It’s impossible to argue with this kind of explanation, because by definition it’s never wrong. An additional problem is that most laypeople have never been taught, or have forgotten, the basics of the “scientific method.” This is the set of steps that lead from a general question to a hypothesis, testing, and analysis. Although people commonly use the word “evidence,” they use it too loosely; the tendency in conversation is to use “evidence” to mean “things which I perceive to be true,” rather than “things that have been subjected to a test of their factual nature by agreed-upon rules.CONSPIRACY THEORIES
THE MOST EXTREME CASES OF CONFIRMATION BIAS ARE FOUND NOT IN THE WIVES’ TALES AND SUPERSTITIONS OF THE IGNORANT, BUT IN THE CONSPIRACY THEORIES OF MORE EDUCATED OR INTELLIGENT PEOPLE. UNLIKE SUPERSTITIONS, WHICH ARE SIMPLE, CONSPIRACY THEORIES ARE HORRENDOUSLY COMPLICATED. INDEED, IT TAKES A REASONABLY SMART PERSON TO CONSTRUCT A REALLY INTERESTING CONSPIRACY THEORY, BECAUSE CONSPIRACY THEORIES ARE ACTUALLY HIGHLY COMPLEX EXPLANATIONS EACH REJOINDER OR CONTRADICTION ONLY PRODUCES A MORE COMPLICATED THEORY. CONSPIRACY THEORISTS MANIPULATE ALL TANGIBLE EVIDENCE TO FIT THEIR EXPLANATION, BUT WORSE, THEY WILL ALSO POINT TO THE ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE AS EVEN STRONGER CONFIRMATION. AFTER ALL, WHAT BETTER SIGN OF A REALLY EFFECTIVE CONSPIRACY IS THERE THAN A COMPLETE LACK OF ANY TRACE THAT THE CONSPIRACY EXISTS? FACTS, THE ABSENCE OF FACTS, CONTRADICTORY FACTS: EVERYTHING IS PROOF. NOTHING CAN EVER CHALLENGE THE UNDERLYING BELIEF. One reason we all love a good conspiracy thriller is that it appeals to our sense of heroism. American culture in particular is attracted to the idea of the talented amateur (as opposed, say, to the experts and elites) who can take on entire governments—or even bigger organizations—and win. More important and more relevant to the death of expertise, however, is that CONSPIRACY THEORIES ARE DEEPLY ATTRACTIVE TO PEOPLE WHO HAVE A HARD TIME MAKING SENSE OF A COMPLICATED WORLD AND WHO HAVE NO PATIENCE FOR LESS DRAMATIC EXPLANATIONS. SUCH THEORIES ALSO APPEAL TO A STRONG STREAK OF NARCISSISM: THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO WOULD CHOOSE TO BELIEVE IN COMPLICATED NONSENSE RATHER THAN ACCEPT THAT THEIR OWN CIRCUMSTANCES ARE INCOMPREHENSIBLE, THE RESULT OF ISSUES BEYOND THEIR INTELLECTUAL CAPACITY TO UNDERSTAND, OR EVEN THEIR OWN FAULT. CONSPIRACY THEORIES ARE ALSO A WAY FOR PEOPLE TO GIVE CONTEXT AND MEANING TO EVENTS THAT FRIGHTEN THEM. WITHOUT A COHERENT EXPLANATION FOR WHY TERRIBLE THINGS HAPPEN TO INNOCENT PEOPLE, THEY WOULD HAVE TO ACCEPT SUCH OCCURRENCES AS NOTHING MORE THAN THE RANDOM CRUELTY EITHER OF AN UNCARING UNIVERSE OR AN INCOMPREHENSIBLE DEITY. THE ONLY WAY OUT OF THIS DILEMMA IS TO IMAGINE A WORLD IN WHICH OUR TROUBLES ARE THE FAULT OF POWERFUL PEOPLE WHO HAD IT WITHIN THEIR POWER TO AVERT SUCH MISERY. IN SUCH A WORLD, A LOVED ONE’S INCURABLE DISEASE IS NOT A NATURAL EVENT: IT IS THE RESULT OF SOME LARGER MALFEASANCE BY INDUSTRY OR GOVERNMENT. Whatever it is, somebody is at fault, because otherwise we’re left blaming only God, pure chance, or ourselves. Just as individuals facing grief and confusion look for reasons where none may exist, so, too, will entire societies gravitate toward outlandish theories when collectively subjected to a terrible national experience. Conspiracy theories and the flawed reasoning behind them, as the Canadian writer Jonathan Kay has noted, become especially seductive “in any society that has suffered an epic, collectively felt trauma. In the aftermath, millions of people find themselves casting about for an answer to the ancient question of why bad things happen to good people.” This is why conspiracy theories spiked in popularity after World War I, the Russian Revolution, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and the terror attacks of September 2001, among other historical events. Today, conspiracy theories are reactions mostly to the economic and social dislocations of globalization, just as they were to the aftermath of war and the advent of rapid industrialization in the 1920s and 1930s. This is not a trivial obstacle when it comes to the problems of expert engagement with the public: nearly 30% of Americans, for example, think “a secretive elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world. If trying to get around confirmation bias is difficult, trying to deal with a conspiracy theory is impossible. Someone who believes that the oil companies are suppressing a new car that can run on seaweed is unlikely to be impressed by your new Prius or Volt. The people who think alien bodies were housed at Area 51 won’t change their minds if they take a tour of the base. The alien research lab isunderground.
SUCH THEORIES ARE THE ULTIMATE BULWARK AGAINST EXPERTISE, BECAUSE OF COURSE EVERY EXPERT WHO CONTRADICTS THE THEORY IS IPSO FACTO PART OFTHE CONSPIRACY.
Stereotyping & Generalizations Stereotyping is an ugly social habit, but generalization is at the root of every form of science. Generalizations are probabilistic statements, based in observable facts. They are not, however, explanations in themselves—another important difference from stereotypes. They’re measurable and verifiable. Sometimes generalizations can lead us to posit cause and effect, and in some cases, we might even observe enough to create a theory or a law that under constant circumstances is always true. The hard work of explanation comes after generalization. Why are Americans taller than the Chinese? Is it genetic? Is it the result of a different diet? Are there environmental factors at work? There are answers to this question somewhere, but whatever they are, it’s still not wrong to say that Americans tend to be taller than the Chinese, no matter how many slam-dunking exceptions we might find. To say that all Chinese people are short, however, is to stereotype. The key to a stereotype is that it is impervious to factual testing. A stereotype brooks no annoying interference with reality. Stereotypes are not predictions, they’re conclusions. That’s why it’s called “prejudice”: it relies on pre-judging. Dispassionate discussion helps Conversations among laypeople, and between laypeople and experts, can get difficult because human emotions are involved, especially if they are about things that are true in general but might not apply to any one case or circumstance. That’s why one of the most important characteristics of an expert is the ability to remain dispassionate, even on the most controversial issues. Experts must treat everything from cancer to nuclear war as problems to be solved with detachment and objectivity. Their distance from the subject enables open debate and consideration of alternatives, in ways meant to defeat emotional temptations, including fear, that lead to bias. This is a tall order, but otherwise conversation is not only arduous but sometimes explosive. There are other social and psychological realities that hobble our ability to exchange information. No matter how much we might suffer from confirmation bias or the heavy hand of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, for example, we don’t like to tell people we know or care about that they’re wrong. Likewise, as much as we enjoy the natural feeling of being right about something, we’re sometimes reluctant to defend ouractual expertise.
Not wanting to offend can lead to poor decisions, social insecurity,faking it
When two people were involved in repeated discussions and decision making—and establishing a bond between the participants was a key part of the study—researchers found that the less capable people advocated for their views more than might have been expected, and that the more competent member of the conversation deferred to those points of view even when they were demonstrably wrong. This might make for a pleasant afternoon, but it’s a lousy way to make decisions. As Chris Mooney, a Washington Post science writer, noted, this kind of social dynamic might grease the wheels of human relationships, but it can do real harm where facts are at stake. The study, he wrote, underscored “that we need to recognize experts more, respect them, and listen to them. But it also shows how our evolution in social groups binds us powerfully together and enforces collective norms, but can go haywire when it comes to recognizing and accepting inconvenient truths. The reality is that social insecurity trips up both the smart and the dumb. We all want to be liked. In a similar vein, few of us want to admit to being lost in a conversation, especially when so much information is now so easily accessible. Social pressure has always tempted even intelligent, well-informed people to pretend to know more than they do, but this impulse is magnified in the Information Age. People skim headlines or articles and share them on social media, but they do not read them. Nonetheless, because people want to be perceived by others as intelligent and well informed, they fake it as best they can. As if all of this weren’t enough of a challenge, the addition of politics makes things even more complicated. Political beliefs among both laypeople and experts work in much the same way as confirmation bias. The difference is that beliefs about politics and other subjective matters are harder to shake, because our political views are deeply rooted in our self-image and our most cherished beliefs about who we are as people. What we believe says something important about how we see ourselves as people. We can take being wrong about the kind of bird we just saw in our backyard, or who the first person was to circumnavigate the globe, but we cannot tolerate being wrong about the concepts and facts that we rely upon to govern how we live our lives. Take, for example, a fairly common American kitchen-table debate: the causes of unemployment. Bring up the problem of joblessness with almost any group of laypeople and every possible intellectual problem will rear its head. Stereotypes, confirmation bias, half-truths, and statistical incompetence all bedevil this discussion Consider a person who holds firmly, as many Americans do, to the idea that unemployed people are just lazy and that unemployment benefits might even encourage that laziness. Like so many examples of confirmation bias, this could spring from personal experience. Perhaps it proceeds from a lifetime of continuous employment, or it may be the result of knowing someone who’s genuinely averse to work. Every “help wanted” sign—which confirmation bias will note and file away—is further proof of the laziness of the unemployed. A page of job advertisements or a chronically irresponsible nephew constitutes irrefutable evidence that unemployment is a personal failing rather than a problem requiring government intervention. Now imagine someone else at the table who believes that the nature of the American economy itself forces people into unemployment. This person might draw from experience as well: he or she may know someone who moved to follow a start-up company and ended up broke and far from home, or who was unjustly fired by a corrupt or incompetent supervisor. Every corporate downsizing, every racist or sexist boss, and every failed enterprise is proof that the system is stacked against innocent people who would never choose unemployment over work. Unemployment benefits, rather than subsidizing indolence, are a lifeline and perhaps the only thing standing between an honest personand complete ruin.
It’s unarguable that unemployment benefits suppress the urge to work in at least some people; it’s also undeniable that some corporations have a history of ruthlessness at the expense of their workers, whose reliance on benefits is reluctant and temporary. This conversation can go on forever, because both the Hard Worker on one side and the Kind Heart on the other can adduce anecdotes, carefully vetted by their own confirmation bias, that are always true THERE’S NO WAY TO WIN THIS ARGUMENT, BECAUSE IN THE END, THERE ARE NO ANSWERS THAT WILL SATISFY EVERYONE. LAYPEOPLE WANT A DEFINITIVE ANSWER FROM THE EXPERTS, BUT NONE CAN BE HAD BECAUSE THERE IS NOT ONE ANSWER BUT MANY, DEPENDING ON CIRCUMSTANCES. When do benefits encourage sloth? How often are people thrown out of work against their will, and for how long? These are nuances in a broad problem, and where our self-image is involved, nuance isn’t helpful. Unable to see their own biases, most people will simply drive each other crazy arguing rather than accept answers that contradict what they already think about the subject. The social psychologist Jonathan Haidt summed it up neatly when he observed that when facts conflict with our values, “almost everyone finds a way to stick with their values and reject the evidence. Dumbing down of education, lack of critical thinking taught MANY OF THOSE AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS ARE FAILING TO PROVIDE TO THEIR STUDENTS THE BASIC KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS THAT FORM EXPERTISE. MORE IMPORTANT, THEY ARE FAILING TO PROVIDE THE ABILITY TO RECOGNIZE EXPERTISE AND TO ENGAGE PRODUCTIVELY WITH EXPERTS AND OTHER PROFESSIONALS IN DAILY LIFE. THE MOST IMPORTANT OF THESE INTELLECTUAL CAPABILITIES, AND THE ONE MOST UNDER ATTACK IN AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES, IS CRITICAL THINKING: THE ABILITY TO EXAMINE NEW INFORMATION AND COMPETING IDEAS DISPASSIONATELY, LOGICALLY, AND WITHOUT EMOTIONAL OR PERSONAL PRECONCEPTIONS. This is because attendance at a postsecondary institution no longer guarantees a “college education.” Instead, colleges and universities now provide a full-service experience of “going to college.” These are not remotely the same thing, and students now graduate believing they know a lot more than they actually do. Today, when an expert says, “Well, I went to college,” it’s hard to blame the public for answering, “Who hasn’t?” Americans with college degrees now broadly think of themselves as “educated” when in reality the best that many of them can say is that they’ve continued on in some kind of classroom setting after high school, with wildly varying results. Students at most schools today are treated as clients, rather than as students. Younger people, barely out of high school, are pandered to both materially and intellectually, reinforcing some of the worst tendencies in students who have not yet learned the self-discipline that once was essential to the pursuit of higher education. Colleges now are marketed like multiyear vacation packages, The new culture of education in the United States is that everyone should, and must, go to college. This cultural change is important to the death of expertise, because as programs proliferate to meet demand, schools become diploma mills whose actual degrees are indicative less of education than of training. Young people who might have done better in a trade sign up for college without a lot of thought given to how to graduate, or what they’ll do when it all ends. Four years turns into five, and increasingly six or more. A limited course of study eventually turns into repeated visits to an expensive educational buffet laden mostly with intellectual junk food, with very little adult supervision to ensure that the students choose nutrition over nonsense Schools that are otherwise indistinguishable on the level of intellectual quality compete to offer better pizza in the food court, plushier dorms, and more activities besides the boring grind of actually going to class. The cumulative result of too many “students,” too many “professors,” too many “universities,” and too many degrees is that college attendance is no longer a guarantee that people know what they’re talking about. College is supposed to be an uncomfortable experience. It is where a person leaves behind the rote learning of childhood and accepts the anxiety, discomfort, and challenge of complexity that leads to the acquisition of deeper knowledge—hopefully, for a lifetime. A college degree, whether in physics or philosophy, is supposed to be the mark of a truly “educated” person who not only has command of a particular subject, but also has a wider understanding of his or her own culture and history. It’s not supposed to be easy. Over 75% of American undergraduates attend colleges that accept at least half their applicants. Only 4% attend schools that accept 25% or less, and fewer than 1% attend elite schools that accept fewer than 10% of their applicants. Students at these less competitive institutions then struggle to finish, with only half completing a bachelor’s degree within six years. MANY OF THESE INCOMING STUDENTS ARE NOT QUALIFIED TO BE IN COLLEGE AND NEED SIGNIFICANT REMEDIAL WORK. THE COLLEGES KNOW IT, BUT THEY ACCEPT STUDENTS WHO ARE IN OVER THEIR HEADS, STICK THEM IN LARGE (BUT COST-EFFICIENT) INTRODUCTORY COURSES, AND HOPE FOR THE BEST. WHY WOULD SCHOOLS DO THIS AND OBVIOUSLY VIOLATE WHAT FEW ADMISSIONS STANDARDS THEY MIGHT STILL ENFORCE? AS JAMES PIERESON OF THE MANHATTAN INSTITUTE WROTE IN 2016, “FOLLOW THE MONEY.” Parenting obviously plays a major role here. Overprotective parents have become so intrusive that a former dean of first-year students at Stanford wrote an entire book in which she said that this “helicopter parenting” was ruining a generation of children. More people than ever before are going to college, mostly by tapping a virtually inexhaustible supply of ruinous loans. Buoyed by this government-guaranteed money, and in response to aggressive marketing from tuition-driven institutions, teenagers from almost all of America’s social classes now shop for colleges the way the rest of us shop for cars. The idea that adolescents should first think about why they want to go to college at all, find schools that might best suit their abilities, apply only to those schools, and then visit the ones to which they’re accepted is now alien to many parents andtheir children.
This entire process means not only that children are in charge, but that they are already being taught to value schools for some reason other than the education it might provide them. Schools know this, and they’re ready for it. In the same way the local car dealership knows exactly how to place a new model in the showroom, or a casino knows exactly how to perfume the air that hits patrons just as they walk in the door, colleges have all kinds of perks and programs at the ready as selling points, mostly to edge out their competitors over things that matter only to kids. DRIVEN TO COMPETE FOR TEENAGERS AND THEIR LOAN DOLLARS, EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS PROMISE AN EXPERIENCE RATHER THAN AN EDUCATION. I am leaving aside for-profit schools here, which are largely only factories that create debt and that in general I exclude from the definition of “higher education.” There’s nothing wrong with creating an attractive student center or offering a slew of activities, but at some point it’s like having a hospital entice heart patients to choose it for a coronary bypass because it has greatfood.
At many colleges, new students already have been introduced to their roommates on social media and live in luxurious apartment-like dorms. That ensures they basically never have to share a room or a bathroom, or even eat in the dining halls if they don’t want to. Those were the places where previous generations learned to get along with different people and manage conflicts when they were chosen at random to live with strangers in close and communal quarters. In 2006, the New York Times asked college educators about their experiences with student email, and their frustration was evident. “These days,” the Times wrote, “students seem to view as available around the clock, sending a steady stream of e-mail messages … that are too informal or downright inappropriate.” As a Georgetown theology professor told the Times, “The tone that they would take in e-mail was pretty astounding. ‘I need to know this and you need to tell me right now,’ with a familiarity that can sometimes border on imperative Email, like social media, is a great equalizer, and it makes students comfortable with the idea of messages to teachers as being like any communication with a customer-service department. This has a direct impact on respect for expertise, because it erases any distinction between the students who ask questions and the teachers who answer them. As the Times noted, while once professors may have expected deference, their expertise seems to have become just another service that students, as consumers, are buying. So students may have no fear of giving offense, imposing on the professor’s time or even of asking a question that may reflect badly on their own judgment. Kathleen E. Jenkins, a sociology professor at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, said she had even received e-mail requests from students who missed class and wanted copies of her teaching notes. Professors are not intellectual valets or on-call pen pals. They do not exist to resolve every student question instantly—including, as one UC Davis professor reported, advice about whether to use a binder or a subject notebook. One of the things students are supposed to learn in college is self-reliance, but why bother looking something up when the faculty member is only a few keystrokes away? Small colleges do not have the resources—including the libraries, research facilities, and multiple programs—of large universities. When rebranded universities offer courses and degree programs as though they are roughly equivalent to their better-known counterparts, they are not only misleading prospective students but also undermining later learning. The quality gap between programs risks producing a sense of resentment: if you and I both have university degrees in history, why is your view about the Russian Revolution any better than mine? Why should it matter that your degree is from a top-ranked department, but mine is from a program so small it has a single teacher? If I studied film at a local state college, and you went to the film program at the University of Southern California, who are you to think you know more than I? We have the same degree, don’t we? We may not like any of these comparisons, but they matter in sorting out expertise and relative knowledge. It’s true that great universities can graduate complete dunderheads. Would-be universities, however, try to punch above their intellectual weight for all the wrong reasons, including marketing, money, and faculty ego. In the end, they are doing a disservice to both their students and society. Studying the same thing might give people a common language for further discussion of a subject, but it does not automatically makethem peers.
Colleges also mislead their students about their competence through grade inflation. When college is a business, you can’t flunk the customers. A study of 200 colleges and universities up through 2009 found that A was the most common grade, and increase of 30% since 1960. Grades of A or B account for over 80% of all grades in all subjects. Even at Harvard the most common grade was straight As. Princeton tried to limit the faculty’s ability to give A grades in 2004, but the faculty fought it. When Wellesley tried to cap the average grade at a B+ those courses lost 20% of enrollments and participating departments lost a third of their majors. In the end, grade inflation gives students unwarranted confidence in their abilities. Almost all institutions collude on grades, driven by market pressures to make college fun, students attractive to employers, and professors to escape the wrath of dissatisfiedstudents.
Kindle notes end
Next chapter: the internet, books, radio, Rush Limbaugh, and above all FOX news as the death of expertise. How people choose the news that suits them. People don’t hate the media, just the news they don’t like or that has views with which they don’t agree.Helpful hints
Be humble. Assume that the people who wrote a story know more about the subject than you do and spent a lot more time on that issue. Vary your diet, consume mixed sources of media, including from othercountries.
Be less cynical, or so cynical. It’s rare someone is setting out intentionally to lie to you. Lots of good stuff. Too much to enter notes on. Trump won because he connected with voters who believe that knowing about things like America’s nuclear deterrent is pointy-headed claptrap. They didn’t know or care Trump was ignorant or wrong, and most didn’t even recognize his errors. Trump’s strongest supporters in 2016 were concentrated among people with low levels of education. “I love the poorly educated,” trump exulted and that love was clearly reciprocated. In Trump, Americans who believe shadowy forces are ruining their lives and that intellectual ability is a suspicious characteristic in a national leader found their champion. The believed that the political elite and their intellectual allies were conspiring against them. Plummeting literacy and growth of willful ignorance is part of a vicious circle of disengagement between citizens and public policy. People know little and care less about how they are governed, or how their economic, scientific, or political structures actually function. And as these processes become more complex and incomprehensible, citizens feel more alienated. Overwhelmed, they turn away from education and civic involvement and withdraw into other pursuits. This in turn makes them less capable citizens, and the cycle continues and strengthens, especially when there are so many entertainments to escape into. Many Americans have become almost childlike in their refusal to learn enough to govern themselves or guide the policies that affect their lives. And quite a bit more about what’s resulted from American’s rejection of expertise. Posted in Critical Thinking, Politics
, Politics
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FAR OUT #4: POWER OUT OF THIN AIR, POWER OUT OF FREEZING AIR, & FRUITPOWER
Posted on November 2, 2020by
energyskeptic
Graphic image of a thin film of protein nanowires generating electricity from atmospheric humidity. UMass Amherst researchers say the device can literally make electricity out of thin air. Credit: UMass Amherst/Yao and Lovley labs Preface. To get power out of thin air after oil, the 90% of people who have had to go back to farming are going to be making protein nanowires from microbes in the chicken coop in their spare time. Scaling up microbes to keep the lights on and trucks running is about as likely as powering the world with flea circuses. Now there’s anidea!
Fruit power: At such a small scale, this won’t solve the energy crisis, and no doubt takes more energy to construct than what it can store over its lifetime, but I’m delighted that durian and jackfruit waste is good for anything at all, in this case super-capacitors to charge phones and laptops. _Alice Friedemann _ _www.energyskeptic.com author of “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”,
2015, Springer, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels,
and “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”.
Podcasts: _Collapse Chronicles,_ Derrick Jensen
,
Practical Prepping
,
KunstlerCast 253 , KunstlerCast278,
Peak Prosperity
, XX2 report _
***
LEE, K., ET AL. 2020. AEROGEL FROM FRUIT BIOWASTE PRODUCES ULTRACAPACITORS WITH HIGH ENERGY DENSITY AND STABILITY.
JOURNAL OF ENERGY STORAGE 27. Durian fruit is so famous for its awful smell that it is banned on several mass transit systems and many hotels and airports. According to wikipedia, animals can smell it from half a mile away, with an odor of raw sewage, rotten onions, turpentine, pig-shit, vomit, skunk spray, and garnished with gym socks. Researchers have found a way to turn durian and jackfruit into electrochemical super-capacitors, which are like energy reservoirs that dole out energy smoothly. They can quickly store large amounts of energy within a small battery-sized device and then supply energy to charge electronic devices, such as mobile phones, tablets and laptops, within a few seconds. “Using a non-toxic and non-hazardous green engineering method that used heating in water and freeze drying of the fruit’s biomass, the durian and jackfruit were transformed into stable carbon aerogels — an extremely light and porous synthetic material used for a range ofapplications.”
“Carbon aerogels make great super-capacitors because they are highly porous. We then used the fruit-derived aerogels to make electrodes which we tested for their energy storage properties, which we found to be exceptional,” Gomes says. “Compared to batteries, super-capacitors are not only able to charge devices very quickly but also in orders of magnitude greater charging cycles than conventionaldevices.
The team found that the super-capacitors they prepared were significantly more efficient than current ones, which are made fromactivated carbon.
FIALKA, J., ET AL. 2020. TO STORE RENEWABLE ENERGY, TRY FREEZING AIR.
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN. A British company called Highview Power proposes a novel solution: a storage system that uses renewable electricity from solar or wind to freeze air into a liquid state at -196 C where it can be kept in insulated high pressure storage tanks for hours or even weeks. The frozen air is allowed to warm and turn itself back into a gas. It expands so quickly that its power can spin a turbine for an electric generator. The resulting electricity is fed into transmission lines when they are not congested. UMA. 2020. NEW GREEN TECHNOLOGY GENERATES ELECTRICITY ‘OUT OF THINAIR’
.
UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS, AMHERST. Scientists have made a protein that creates electricity from moisture in the air, a device they call an “Air-gen.” or air-powered generator, with electrically conductive protein nanowires less than 10 microns thick produced by the microbe Geobacter. which can generate electric current from water vapor in the air.Posted in Far Out
| Tagged Fruit power | 5Comments
WHY THE BRITISH DON’T LIKE TRUMP Posted on October 30, 2020by
energyskeptic
Someone on Quora asked “Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?” Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England wrote the following response Alice Friedemann _www.energyskeptic.com author of “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”,
2015, Springer, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels,
and “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”.
Podcasts: _Collapse Chronicles,_ Derrick Jensen
,
Practical Prepping
,
KunstlerCast 253 , KunstlerCast278,
Peak Prosperity
, XX2 report _
***
NATE WHITE. 2019. WHY DO SOME BRITISH PEOPLE NOT LIKE DONALD TRUMP?QUORA.COM
A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honor and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief. Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: notonce, not ever.
And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humor is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act ofcruelty.
Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness. There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege. And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down. So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that: * Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are. * You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a fewflaws in the man.
This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss. After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump. And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish: ‘My God… what… have… I… created? If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.Posted in Politics
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WHY WE NEED MORE WOMEN LEADERS Posted on October 27, 2020by
energyskeptic
PREFACE. Hector Garcia makes the case that women make better leaders in an excerpt from his book below. His conclusion is that “scientific literature shows that when women are allowed greater political and economic power, which is inseparable from the power to control their own reproduction, quality of life measurably improvesfor everyone.”
_Alice Friedemann _ _www.energyskeptic.com author of “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”,
2015, Springer, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels,
and “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”.
Podcasts: _Collapse Chronicles,_ Derrick Jensen
,
Practical Prepping
,
KunstlerCast 253 , KunstlerCast278,
Peak Prosperity
, XX2 report _
***
GARCIA, H. 2019. SEX, POWER, AND PARTISANSHIP. HOW EVOLUTIONARY SCIENCE MAKES SENSE OF OUR POLITICAL DIVIDE.
PROMETHEUS.
Historically, men have blocked women from the political process. It was only recently that women were allowed a voice in US politics—the 19th amendment to the constitution, which granted women equal voting rights, was granted in 1920. Saudi Arabia was the last nation to give women the right to vote in 2015. Scholars have observed that women entering political leadership positions often display excessive hawkishness, which may help to establish themselves within the male primate hierarchy that politics has always been. But most women across all levels of society are less hawkish. A large body of research shows that women citizens are les likely to support the use of military force. Research has found that when the ratio of women in legislatures increases, nations are less likely to use military force to solve conflicts with othernations.
Looking at 22 nations from 1970 to 2000 it was found that as the number of women legislators increased, nations were less likely to engage in an extensive list of conflict behaviors with other nations, such as threats, sanctions, demands, or actual military engagements. The researchers also calculated Right-Left orientation of nations based on the percentage of government seats that parties held. As we might expect, Right-oriented nations spent more on defense overall. But as the percentage of women legislators increased, defense spending decreased. This decrease occurred at the same rate across nations that were Right-oriented, such as the U.S., and those that were Left-oriented, such as Norway, and the results were quantifiable. In 2000, every 1% increase in women legislators in the U.S. produced a $314 million reduction in defense spending (out of $311 billion in total military spending). A 1% increase in women legislators in Norway saw a $3.34 million decrease out of $3.3 billion. In 2008 Rwanda became the first nation in history to have a female majority in parliament. The shift of power to women resulted in laws to limit make sexual control. Domestic violence became illegal, and harsh prison sentences were legislated for rape. Further, birth rates and maternal mortality dropped, doors were opened for women to own land and open bank accounts, daughters were allowed to inherit property, and the percentage of women in the labor force surged. In 2009, the women-led government mandated basic education for all Rwandan children. In 2016, the World Economic Forum’s global gender gap report ranked Rwanda fifth in the world on gender equality. The U.S. ranks 45th. Before male competition destroyed 20% of Rwandan males in the genocide, it oppressed Rwandan women. In the years leading up to the massacre, women lived under patriarchal control. Women’s property ownership was practically unheard of, literacy among women was low, and maternal mortality was high. A clear conclusion of the scientific literature is that when women are allowed greater political and economic power, which is inseparable from the power to control their own reproduction, quality of life measurably improves for everyone.Posted in Politics
| Tagged
government , politics, women
| 5 Comments
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