What do we do with the energy ?

Arthur Noll

As oil runs out we have to think more carefull about alternative forms of energy. It is important to think about what we do with the energy. Recently, some have focused on biomass (converting food to energy), corn and other grains. I’ve pointed out negatives with this, you can’t eat hydrogen or electricity, for example. Alcohol has too many side effects to be much value as food. They might help you stay warm, but it could be a lot easier to just add some insulation to your body, as to go through so much trouble with these renewable energy schemes. However, there are also potential positives. You might make small amounts of energy in these forms, and the way they might be used could make up for all the losses before. What is the value in energy saved, for example, with timely communication? What might be the energy saved, to run a small plane on alcohol, and get information on the state of wide ranging wild herds of animals? Or bring medicines quickly?

We need to stop this nonsense of simply assuming that having more energy is good. It is far more complex than that. We need to look at what we need, and how the energy we go out and capture is going to help with that. And whether we have spent so much effort keeping warm that we don’t have enough to capture food energy, or the other way around. Or that we have used up things at an unsustainable rate.

If you need to get to the other side of a mountain, climbing over the top is a lot harder than walking around. Just because you can do it doesn’t mean it is really a good idea. You get to the other side exhausted, and then find you need to go past another one before you are fully rested. And because you went over the last time, you feel compelled to say that this is the way it must be done?

I’m seeing this, in the grandiose schemes to build large numbers of big wind turbines, to cover vast areas with solar panels, or build new kinds of nuclear plants. All this great effort, to meet needs that can be met far more simply and reliably. You don’t need more than a stick to herd animals, and a basket to gather wild plant foods. Shelter can be of skins and thatch, very easy. You really don’t even need metals most of the time. There doesn’t have to be this great effort expended to meet day to day needs. Sometimes it could be worthwhile to spend a little more energy on metals and technology, for emergencies, for occasional bigger efforts. But people are flabbergasted at the idea of being like this. Walk around the mountains? Not see the fantastic view, and feel like the master of all? Well, go ahead and exhaust yourself for a fleeting illusion of power. Because that is all it is. People are using energy like a drug, it makes them high, makes them feel good, in control. But it is all fleeting illusion, no reality. When people invest in these schemes to make more energy, and keep a semblance of their present life, they are heading up the slopes again. I’ll walk around, thanks. If you would allow me and mine to cut loose, and stop dragging us with you.

We have too many people to live simple, like this. But nothing works in the end without consciously controlling population. And it works out, I think, because “mountain climbing” should work well at trimming large numbers of people. I don’t think I’ll be meeting many on the other side, who take this path. Roped together on the cliffs, exhausted, one falls, and the whole string plunges, tangles up other whole strings, and down it all goes.

More–> Arthur has written a little book called  Harmony, which I highly recommend.

Toward a Sustainable Society

Arthur Noll

Sustainability is a matter of not taking resources faster than they renew. You cannot cut trees faster than they grow, or net fish, or burn fossil fuels. You cannot pollute faster than pollution breaks down. There is a balance of resources, using too much energy to take resources tilts the balance away from sustainability.

Like the concept of interdependence, the energy efficiency of partnership, the idea of consistent measure, this seems so obvious that one almost wonders why it has to be said. One can wonder how an addict can avoid seeing easy logic as well. Ultimately, the argument comes down to the existence of magic, of infinite growth on a finite planet. The people who argue that resources are unlimited, that it is OK to not be efficient, because there is so much, are basically arguing that resources are infinite, and one can go on being wasteful and building up bubbles that will never burst. For their defense, they point at how limits have been reached in the past, but alternatives were found, and growth continued. They predict that this can always happen. Larger populations of people are good, they say, because in those populations will be found the individuals that will be clever enough to find alternatives.

Unfortunately, one can find plenty of examples where this sort of confidence was an utter failure. Ruined cities are found around the world. It seems clear that people in those situations didn´t feel they were building something that was doomed, or they wouldn´t have done it. But it was doomed. And probing about often shows how resources were depleted. Jared Diamond, (The Third Chimpanzee, Easter Island) has reported about this, he is not alone. The garbage dumps excavated by archaeologists show how diets changed, animals killed off, and size of the trees cut to build with shows the decline of forests, the presence and absence of pollen grains in sediments show how things were reduced to dust and ashes. Bones of the people tell stories of declining health.

So, if it has happened before, it is clearly not impossible to happen again. The clever people in those situations failed. And I see nothing about the present situation to make me feel that there is anything we have learned to change the equation. The societies of the earth are nearly totally dependent on fossil fuels that they burn far faster than they are replaced, and are polluting areas far faster than the pollution can be broken down. And in size, the situation is far more grim than ever in the past. In the past, these cities were isolated cases, the people probably died in large numbers, but they could also flee to places that were greener. This time, most all the world is involved. There is no place favorable to the life of people that isn´t crammed way past sustainable carrying capacity, we will look at this in more detail in the chapter on agriculture.

A more sober approach to technological advances, is not to bet on them until you have them, and the use of them is clearly sustainable. Jumping off of a cliff, expecting to invent and build wings on the way down, is not a good strategy.

Let us take a more detailed look at changing over to a society based on sustainable, energy efficient actions.

Since this is such a profound proposal, a complete change of lifestyle, lets look at it some more, from different angles. Lets assume that you can somehow get together with people who share the view that these principles of measurement and understandings of our nature cannot be ignored and you form a social group. It would be a difficult task, with your instincts and previous education being of little help, fumbling to see who does what the best, learning a new way of living. Your new social group would be as a child, to begin, making tentative movements, getting bruised sometimes. You need “parents”, to provide support, somehow.

In many places around the world, you could expect to be ignored by people in the market economy, if you go to places considered wastelands, and learn energy efficient ways of life like herding, and learn to fit seamlessly into these areas. The trouble with doing this, is that while market people may ignore you, they are not ignoring each other, they are sliding into an abyss, and they have some extremely nasty weapons that if used in quantity by desperate people, could cause you a lot of trouble.

If things did not go with a bang, but went slowly, you could find yourself no longer ignored, but being hunted for even your small possessions. Your reproduction would be a very chancy thing, given these uncertainties. In the beginning, you would be as a child, and not even think of reproducing, but if things dragged on for years, you would gain strength, and you would also be growing older and needing to think about reproduction, but your position to reliably do so would not be good, if you were being hunted.

This does not look good. Some other strategy is needed. We cannot have things drag on for years and years, nor do we want massive explosive endings. I think there is a way, it is relatively simple. I came to it by observing people´s reaction to me when I explained the previous thinking about interdependence and honest measure. It is usually easy to tell people the things in this paper, as long as you don´t push them. You leave them room to get away down avenues of philosophy or religion, and everyone can agree to disagree. But if you shut down avenues of escape, and calmly point out serious flaws in the thinking of philosophy or religion, you can find yourself with a person who is shaking with anger, because they do not want to be reasonable, and they do not want to look like a fool, either. It is an unsolvable problem, for that person, and experiments with animals have shown that animals pressed hard to solve a problem that is beyond their capability, will go crazy, suffer nervous breakdowns. Norman R. F. Maier of the University of Chicago published about this in 1949.

 It is worth outlining this experiment. Rats were trained to a behavior, jumping at one of two doors, one of which was fastened shut, and one that opened, so that they got a reward, food. Then the conditions were changed, the door was fastened shut, and the behavior that had worked, no longer was effective, it brought pain, a bump on the nose, and it was beyond the ability of the rats to figure out the new system. Rats would often prefer to starve than to make a decision about how to behave, which door should they jump at, under the new conditions. But if forced to make a decision, by a stimulus of pain, they would always try the old training, choose the door that used to open, accept the pain if it didn´t. When this reaction was well established, the goal of food could be put out in the open, by opening the other door, and the rats would continue with the old painful behavior of jumping at the closed door. We are apt to say, “stupid rats”, but look at the situation. To change behavior is to go into the unknown. The rat knows what one behavior produces, a survivable pain. In this new painful world, what might the unknown contain? Openly displayed food actually is approached with great caution by wild animals, since predators are prone to hang around food sources.

The unknown is greatly feared by all creatures, including people. If the pain was increased, continual decisions were forced, to the point that is began to feel life threatening, the rats went crazy, banged madly into things, went into mental shock, nervous breakdown. People who have suffered nervous breakdowns tell of having no place to retreat, no escape. The rats were not given the opportunity to explore their decisions, but even exploring the unknown can be very frightening. Rats and people will often chose the pain that they know, rather than explore, because even the exploring is so scary. It takes a high level of mental sensitivity, a good sense of reason is part of that sensitivity, to explore and learn a new environment with confidence. Most people will self-destruct under the pressure, going back to their trained behavior with ever more frantic energy, until they go over the edge. It is not necessary for everyone to be driven over the edge. When one person in a position of authority goes, the whole structure can go in a chain reaction, with the stress level so high.

Seen from this angle, this seems very cold blooded. Truth as a weapon sounds devastating. But what is the choice? To allow the existing situation to continue looks even more devastating. Should we allow ignorance and outright lies to continue to hold the course of human affairs? I see no other choice.

Now, you want to be careful, because an angry person might chose to show you how he is right with physical force. That is what has led us to this point, after all, fixed hierarchy, fixed in place with physical force. It is a good idea to point out that physical strength is not a good indicator of mental strength, before things get to this point. If you tell a person that what you have to say may make them very angry, which is true, then people generally will resolve to show you to be wrong, and they hide their anger from you, perhaps even hide it from themselves, and explode in frustration further down the road, smash themselves trying to prove irrational things. You want to approach people as if they are potential friends, not enemies, for a few people will indeed be friends, and this keeps you out of trouble, finds friends, destroys enemies, all with the same action. Very energy efficient.

There are of course, some problems here. First, you have to shut down arguments of religion and philosophy. While people often go around and around endlessly on these things, it is really not hard to shut them down. Second, a problem that has plagued me, is the escape of status. If you haven´t spent time gathering status in this society, feeling that in such confusion it was better to gather knowledge and understanding, when you go to share what you have learned, you find that very few pay any attention to you because you don´t have status!

It is assumed that if you don´t have advanced degrees, then there are probably flaws in your arguments, and it doesn´t even matter if they can´t come up with those flaws. They assume that someone else in another field would have no problem knocking down your ideas, and do not even bother to check to see if this is true. It is frustrating, and amusing, too. It is clear that people are thinking on the level of chimpanzees to behave like this.

Konrad Lorenz, in his book, “On Aggression”, reports an experiment in which a low status chimpanzee was taught how to open a box with a complex opening, that contained fruit that chimpanzees like. This poor ape was completely unable to teach the others how to open the box. They would take the fruit from him when he opened the box, but simply could not grasp the idea that a low status member could teach them anything. When an alpha male was taught how to open the box, all the apes crowded around and learned from him how to open the box. It does make sense, in a limited way. High status apes win their status by out competing the rest in both brains and brawn. Low status apes are more likely to be wrong about things. All of this applies to humans, as well.

But clearly there are times when such instinctive behavior is flawed. Truth is where you find it, which anyone who is truly intelligent and deserves status is aware of. It doesn´t say much for the worth of high degrees, when so many who have them think on the level of chimpanzees. In my experience, anyway. We should consider whether information is based on repeatable observation and logic, more than whether a person has a reputation. A true scientist, faced with the fact of being unable to find the flaws in an argument, would check the situation further.

When we combine the understanding of this experiment, with the experiment on the rats I gave earlier, the problem reveals itself as double, not only is status lacking, but I´ve opened a different door to solve a problem, which looks attractive, but has elements of the frightening unknown.

The Straight Skinny on Oil

 Marvin Gregory

The United States is running out of oil, which is serious enough, but we also face the prospect of the world’s oil reaching a peak in production in a very few years and thereafter going into permanent decline. To put it shortly: we are approaching a sea change in the cost and availability of oil, and that change will affect our lives and the life of everyone on the planet.

I belong to two energy e-mail lists with a total of about 800 members. We have some pretty bright people on both lists, Ph.Ds, Masters in computer technology, and the like and there is pretty fair agreement among us that our energy situation is in bad shape and we, and the world, are headed for perilous times.

The United States started out with some 215 billion barrels of oil and now we are down to about 40 billion. (By comparison, Saudi Arabia started out with 370 billion barrels and still has 300 billion remaining.) To keep all of our cars, planes, trucks, locomotives, ships, motorcycles, factories and whathaveyou running, we consume 20 MILLION barrels of oil each day. We are forced to import 60 percent or 12 million barrels of that total and the other 40 percent comes from our own wells. We have used so much of our reserves that we are on the downhill slope of domestic supply. In another ten years we will be forced to import 70 percent of our supply, and ten years after that, 80 percent.

The reason we are running out of oil is that we started using and exporting oil in a big way in the early years of the century and never let up. World War II was fought largely on our oil with both the Germans and the Japanese being undone by running out of oil. We were exporting large quantities of oil even into the 1950s. President Eisenhower, for example, used the dependence of European nations upon our exported oil as part of his leverage to end the Suez Crisis in 1956.

Presently, there’s little more oil to be discovered either in the lower 48 states, Alaska or the continental shelf surrounding those regions. Our 215 billion barrel total supply, based upon a Hubbert Curve, includes an estimate of some 7 to 8 billion barrels yet to be discovered. The U.S. has been so thoroughly explored, drilled, and gone over by modern technical means that one can say quite confidently that aside from producing wells, we have very little oil remaining. We have yet to drill in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve and there are some attractive areas off the California coast, but in both cases, we know some oil is there.

Running out of oil places us in a nasty predicament. We are at the mercy of whichever way the oil wind blows because we have no reserves to fall back on. In addition, our consumption of oil is so huge and that huge amount so necessary to keep our economy running that a day of reckoning always seems just around the corner. Part of the problem is that we use (with our production added in) an incredible 25 percent of the world’s total oil production.

To compound this difficulty, the world as a whole is fast approaching a peak in world oil production. Most members of the energy lists and experts writing on the subject expect the peak to occur sometime between now and the end of the decade, between 2002 and 2010, with 2006 and 2007 being the most likely target dates. The world’s original oil endowment is estimated at about 2100 billion barrels. The peak will therefore occur when 1050 billion have been consumed — which is about where we are now.

The significance of world oil peaking is that demand will continue to rise even as production declines. (China and India are stepping into the market in a big way.) This will translate into a price rise the world over and with time, some shortages. Although mountains and mountains of oil will remain, the lid will have come off the normal supply and demand equation and consuming nations will be forced to bid against each other for the remaining supply.

Here in the U.S. the problem we face is that no preparation at all has been made for this transition almost upon us. We will face a terrible wrenching change in our lives in the very near future and since the world is dependent upon the same cheap energy supply, the world will undergo a similar wrenching experience. We may be looking at an economic depression going on for a number of years as we struggle to accommodate to a new reality. The world, much poorer than we, will most likely have an even worse time of it. The Green Revolution has been based upon new and better plant species which require larger amounts of petroleum-based fertilizer and pesticides, ample machine driven irrigation, farm machinery and transportation. Now, as one writer put it, we are going to see the Green Revolution run in reverse. No one knows exactly what will happen, but the most likely scenario is that the world’s population will continue its climb to a final peak, followed by starvation as North Korea now experiencing, then followed by a decimation through disease of the weakened and vulnerable survivors.

From my experience and from what other list members have said, three questions usually come up after this energy presentation and the difficulties ahead are made:

How much will this cost me at the pump?

(1) Four to five dollars per gallon.

Can’t we make an easy transition to other fuels and energy systems?

(2) There’s a catch in the use of most other fuels. Hydrogen, for example, is usually made from natural gas which, like oil is starting to run out, and it must be compressed down for storage and then transferred to a car in the same compressed state. We don’t even have a beginning on such an infrastructure. Alcohol requires an exorbitant amount of oil invested in the growing, transport, and processing of crops in order to be feasible as a fuel. You might as well put the oil, in the form of gasoline, right in your tank. Coal to gasoline (as the Germans and the South Africans did) is a messy process, as is the extraction of oil from tar sands or a near-oil from oil shale. And as we learned in California last year, we don’t have any great surplus of electricity to use to power little electric cars or use as an energy substitute in other ways. Wind and nuclear power, to make more electricity seems the most sensible route to follow at this time, with solar power running a close third. The bottom line is that nothing compares with oil. Oil, a naturally occurring liquid, can’t be matched for its explosive power and ease of use. And, so far it has been very difficult to come up with a substitute.

And won’t THEY do something?

(3) No, THEY won’t do anything because THEY are oblivious to the problem, too. THEY will issue ration books, however. I believe THEY still have them in storage from the 1974 Energy Crisis.

 

The Problem in Pictures 

The Oil Depletion Resource Page 

The Imminent Peak of World Oil Production  by C.J. Campbell; 1999

Jay Hanson’s Website: The Paul Revere of the Fossil Fuel Energy Crisis

Hubbert’s Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage by Kenneth Deffeyes; 2001

GeoDestinies: The Inevitable Control Of Earth Resources Over Nations And Individuals by Walter Youngquist; 1997

Energy Resources Yahoo Group

Running-On-Empty Yahoo Group

Writing under the provocative title Terrorism as Cannibalism, Vandana Shiva asks: Could the violence characterising human societies in the new millenium be linked with violent structures and institutions we have created to reduce society to markets and humans to consumers?

`Water is God´s Gift and Not A Merchandise´

Vandana Shiva

Greed and appropriation of other people´s share of the plane´s precious resources are at the root of conflicts, and the root of terrorism. When President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that the goal of the global war on terrorism is for the defense of he American and European ìway of life”, they are declaring a war against the planet-its oil, its water, its biodiversity.

A way of life for the 20 percent of the earth´s people who use 80 percent of the planet´s resources will dispossess 80 percent of its people of their just share of resources and eventually destroy the planet. We cannot survive as a species if greed is privileged and protected and the economics of the greedy set the rules for how we live and die. …

If the past enclosures have already precipitated so much violence, what will be the human costs of new enclosures being carved out for privatisation of living resources and water resources, the very basis of our species survival. Intellectual property laws and water privatisation are new invisible cages trapping humanity.

IPR laws are denying farmers the basic freedom of saving and exchanging seed. They are, in effect, enclosing the genetic commons, creating new scarcities in a biologically rich world, transforming fundamental freedoms into criminal acts punishable with fines and jail sentences.

Water privatisation policies are enclosing the water commons, transforming water into a commodity to be bought and sold for profit, creating water scarcity in a water abundant world. …

Perhaps the most famous tale of corporate greed over water is the story of Cochabamba, Bolivia. In this semi-desert region, water is scarce and precious. In 1999, the World bank recommended privatization of Cochabamba´s municipal water supply company (SEMAPA) through a concession to International Water, a subsidiary of Bechtel. On October 1999, the Drinking Water and Sanitation Law was passed, ending government subsidies and allowing privatization.

In a city where the minimum wage is less than $100 a month, water bills reached $20 a month, nearly the cost of feeding a family of five for two weeks. …

The government promised to reverse the price hike but never did. In February 2000, La Coordinadora organized a peaceful march demanding the repeal of the Drinking Water and Sanitation Law, the annulment of ordinances allowing privatization, the termination of the water contract, and the participation of citizens in drafting a water resource law.

The citizen´s demands, which drove a stake through the heart of corporate interests, were violently rejected. Coordinadora´s fundamental critique was directed at the negation of water as a community property. Protesters used slogans like `Water is God´s Gift and Not A Merchandise´ and `Water is Life´.

In April 2000, the government tried to silence the water protests through market law. Activists were arrested, protesters killed, and the media censored. Finally on April 10, 2000, the people won. Aguas del Tunari and Bechtel left Bolivia and the government was forced to revoke its hated water privatization legislation.

The water company Servicio Municipal del Agua Potable Alcantarillado (SEMAPA) and its debts were handed over to the workers and the people. …

By reclaiming water from corporations and the market, the citizens of Bolivia have illustrated that privatization is not inevitable and that corporate takeover of vital resources can be prevented by people´s democratic will. …

Our deepening dehumanisation is at the roots of growing violence. Reclaiming our humanity in inclusive, compassionate way is the first step to peace.

Peace will not be created through weapons and wars, bombs and barbarism. Violence will not be contained by spreading it. Violence has become a luxury the human species cannot afford if we are to survive. Non-violence has become a survival imperative.

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Thanks Oxygon for the link and suggested title…

Good Morning. Be sure and read the new issue of the RWWNL. What follows is a new introduction to Michel Chossudovsky’s (1998) paper Global Poverty in the Late Twentieth Century,

Economic Depression and the New World Order

Michel Chossudovsky

The onslaught of America’s war is occurring at the height of a global economic depression marked by the downfall of State institutions, mounting unemployment, the collapse in living standards in all major regions of the World, including Western Europe and North America and the outbreak of famines over large areas. This depression is far more serious than that of the 1930s. Moreover, the war has not only unleashed a massive shift out of civilian economic activities into the military-industrial complex, it has also accelerated the demise of the Welfare State in most Western countries.

War and globalisation are intimately related processes. The global economic crisis (which preceded the events of September 11)  has its roots in the New World Order “free market” reforms. Since the 1997 “Asian crisis”, financial markets have plummeted, national economies have collapsed one after the other, entire countries (e.g. Argentina and Turkey) have been taken over by their international creditors precipitating millions of people into abysmal poverty.

“The post-September 11 crisis” in many regards announces both the demise of Western social democracy as well as the end on an era. The legitimacy of the global “free market” system has been reinforced, opening the door to a renewed wave of deregulation and privatisation, which could eventually result in the corporate take-over of all public services and State infrastructure (including electricity, municipal water and sewerage, inter-city highways, etc.). 

Moreover, in the US and Great Britain, but also in most countries of the European Union, the legal fabric of Western societies has also been overhauled. Based on the repeal of the rule of law, the foundations of an Authoritarian State apparatus have emerged with little or no organised opposition from the mainstay of civil society. Without debate or discussion, “the war on terrorism” against so-called “rogue states” is deemed necessary to “protect democracy” and enhance domestic security.

A collective understanding of the war based on history, has been replaced by the need to “combat evil” and “hunt down Osama”. These “buzz-words” are part of a carefully designed propaganda campaign. The ideology of the “rogue state” developed by the Pentagon during the 1991 Gulf war, constitutes a new legitimacy, a justification for waging a “humanitarian war” against countries which do not conform to the New World Order and the tenets of the “free market” system. 

While a worldwide economic depression looms,  Washington, Wall Street and the Western media point in chorus to a  “cyclical downturn” attributable to “market uncertainties” resulting from the September 11th  terrorist attacks.  

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