"$8/gal gas for independence" party

After hearing a political debate last night I'm inspired to start my own political party. I'll call it "$8/gal gas for independence". I came up with this catchy title after hearing all the "benefits" of our efforts towards "Energy Independence".

Yes, there's LOTS of benefits out there if enough people are willing to pay for them.

Who will pay for "Energy Independence"? How much will gasoline cost us in this quest (or gallon equivalent) of any energy resource that we have more of than oil?

I expect oil will continue its upward climb whatever we do. Conservation will have a little effect, but more a "personal virtue" as Cheney liked to say. Basically it is "self-interest" in the long run to transition somewhere else. We just don't know what "long run" means.

The happy market-lovers, and we love them too for all their successes, they'll happily believe they'll fix the problem - necessity is the mother of invention, and high prices for oil will lead us to alternatives WHEN they are cost effective.

I accept that truth, at least admitting that markets CAN fail as well, and transition costs may exceed the market's resources to respond, and at some point EVERYONE'S hands will be tied to offer a viable solution, and the economy will sink like the rock that it is.

And yet the Market lovers are right, the survivers will get together and do SOMETHING and we'll make do, EVEN if this magic trick occurs through local currencies when the Dollar is not worth the digital bits its encoded upon in the banks. So the optimists will always save us, even if it means building walled communities to keep out the starving "riff-raff" from the marketeers trying to restore the empire.

Okay, back to reality now, $8 gasoline isn't particularly attractive, and may not even be economically viable. Well I accept the lower 25% of the population will find itself unable to get to work, and there'll be outrage. The problem isn't $8/gallon, but jumping from $2.20/gallon to $8.00/gallon over night. So really I'd mean "$8/gallon" by say 2010. I'd delay longer, but I don't think any more delay is prudent.

Assuming pretaxed gasoline will be $5/gallon in 2010 anyway, we just need to add a $3/gallon tax on top. Given 3 years, that's a friendly $0.25/gallon "rise" per quarter year. That'll give us time to deal with it.

And if my pretax $5/gal gas is really still only $3/gal gas in 2010, then we'll have $6/gallon gas, which is still relatively shocking to project from where we're at, sufficient I hope to promote an early response.

The "answer" for $8/gallon gasoline isn't clear. Ethanol is not clearly scalable to replace gasoline and not clearly produceable without oil inputs which will raise costs. Until we reach the day that farmers themselves can produce ethanol for their own liquid energy needs, I accept ethanol is not ready.

Overall I expect electric engines to replace the internal combustion engine for vehicles into the near future, although that means electrical costs will also tend to rise as gasoline rises.

Mixing wind turbines and plug-in hybrid cars is an attractive mixture - taking wind energy under "low demand" times and storing in batteries means our existing electrical network can display a large amount of oil usage AND reduce CO2 production. That's my best bet now.

I am a pessimist. Our current system survives with middle class buying new cars and lower class buying used cars. That means those least able to afford new technology will bear the brunt of the transition costs, I mean in proportion to their means. I'd like to have sympathy, and yet I know they'll pay sooner or later, and I'd rather people KNOW what to expect, even if their means to respond are limited, they'll be better off KNOWING what's coming, like $8/gallon gasoline in 2010.

The otherside of my party platform is what to do with the new tax income. Some will likely go to offset other taxes reduced, but some needs to be directed to transition costs. One might simply be expanding transit services so people have options to live without a car completely, or be a "one car" family. Light rail is costly, but evidence suggsts where it exists, new development occurs along the lines to take advantage of that and give more options to live car-free.

Solutions are almost easier in metro areas, but rural people won't easily find lifestyles they can accept without a personal vehicle. Smaller, lower power vehicles make sense to me. Farmers ought to look to providing energy for smaller towns - like wind power and biomass. Before the tractor, people depended on animals for labor. Animals took more land for food. It seems either we need to "go back" to using animals more, or finding a substitute that works as well in terms of local energy.

I don't have the answers, but I see the questions won't even be asked as long as we still keep hoping for $0.99 gasoline to return.

Will you join my party? Maybe sign my petition when I run for U.S. Senate in 2008? I might have to work pretty hard for signatures! But the conversations will be worth it!

IRV's Achilles Heel

Instant Runoff Voting, or IRV, is a good election method. By allowing voters the chance to rank their preferences it can do what a primary or runoff does, all in one election. I support IRV because it supports majority rule, and democracy will be stronger for it.

However I must make it clear that IRV takes a small step further, one which is not clearly justified by majority rule, and in my mind may become the undoing of this progressive movement which I support.

IRV uses an elimination method which can be called "bottom up" which means every round one candidate with the least votes is eliminated. So if there's 10 candidates, there can be up to 9 rounds of elimination and recounting.

In the end of this LITERALLY convoluted process, TWO candidates will survive and will EARN the chance to compete head-to-head against each other in the final round.

What IRV supporters don't tell voters is that IRV, like all runoffs, is a "cut throat" game of power. It is a game of KING OF THE HILL where a large set of candidates have to FIGHT each other "on the bottom" to earn the right to compete in the final round. Voters have TWO possibly contradictory goals – they want someone to make the final round AND they want someone who can WIN the final round. Unfortunately IRV and all runoffs don’t treat candidates equally. They only treat the “final two” equally, even if a different candidate might beat either of them head-to-head.

I consider bottom-up elimination as "mostly harmless". It is "democratic" in the sense of "maximizing the chance for the maximum number of candidates" to reach the final round. However this "maximization" doesn't necessarily change the power of voters to influence the result.

In short, I will claim that "majority rule" as a principle does NOT support such an extended runoff process. If a majority of the voters are supporting the top two candidates, IRV will still fiddle along meekly with weaker candidates, possibly "against the will" of a majority of voters for stronger candidates.

Right now Minneapolis has a "top two primary". All the candidates run as equals and the strongest two candidates move forward to the general election for a majority winner. Simple, clear. If you're a candidate, make the top-two or perish.

Now I wonder what will people say, what will candidates say, of IRV if it DISALLOWS a second place candidate a legitimate claimed right to compete head-to-head against the top (plurality) candidate?

The reason this issue is usually hidden, is that it requires four candidates and 3 strong candidates to make a actual difference, but this is not necessarily unusual.

If I'm allowed to project a party example for clarity, consider this imagined IRV election:
Round 1: Rep=34%, Ind=30%, DFL=28%, Green=8%
Eliminate Green
Round 2: Rep=34%, DFL=34%, Ind=32%
Eliminate Ind
Round 3: Rep=56%, DFL=42%
Winner republican with 56%

A nice IRV election, a clear majority winner, right? Well at least we KNOW the republican beat the democrat.

However the Ind. candidate, being in second place in round 1, never got a chance to compete head-to-head against EITHER competitor. SURE, she was THIRD in the second round, but in a top-two runoff she would have made the threshold for viability. Why are we discounting this previously sufficient measure of success?

Would it surprise you that a top-two election might provide the Independence party candidate as the majority winner over the republican?
Round 1: Rep=34%, Ind=30%, DFL=28%, Green=8%
Eliminate Green and DFL
Round 2: Ind=54%, Rep=44%
Winner Independence with 54%

It wouldn't surprise me, and these numbers come from real ballots, even if a different election. I took a rank ballot polling election I held for "Favorite season" with 50 voters. I merely remapped the four seasons onto four parties for this example. ( I'll let you guess which seasons they each represent, and only hint that greens are most valued in the winter! )

Are there spoilers here? It depends on WHO you’re asking. There’s TWO different majority winners depending on who makes the final round!

Maybe in a happy cooperative progressive city like Minneapolis, bottom-up IRV is agreeable, that a second place candidate will contentedly allow herself to be eliminated after a top-two showing WITHOUT a "fair" shot at a head-to-head competition. Maybe.

I mean, SURE, I'm a nice guy. I know politics is a tough place, and nothing is fair to everyone. Someone has to give, and I'll play Al Gore and back down honorably when my time comes, sure I will!

However, even if that is true in progressive Minneapolis I expect that if IRV is implemented in as a bottom-up runoff in a partisan election, SOMEDAY a nice 3-way race like this WILL happen, and courts will be involved by the injured party, and IRV will be rejected, all because it "took that extra step" that was not called for by majority rule.

And sadly we'll be back with plurality again, AS IF, it was the best we could do.

In conclusion, I support IRV, but I believe that as long as we disallow THREE candidates the right to a head-to-head competition against each other (all runoff methods disallow any more that this), a top-two runoff is the best we ought to strive for, instant or not.

It's "closer to what we have", and a more conservative step for change. I takes sides in favor of the candidates supported by the most voters in the first round. It tells candidates "Make top-two or Perish". It says clearly to voters "Vote for someone who can make the top-two OR vote for someone who can WIN the final round."

I don't mind if people CHOOSE "bottom-up IRV". I merely want to make sure people KNOW WHAT WE WANT, and don't take this version of IRV as-is simply because we didn't realize there was a choice and a simpler two round option equally available for consideration.

It's hard to easily explain this difference, and it is "small", perhaps only affected a few percent of elections, but ought to be considered BEFORE we face them.

The spoilers of IRV and what's "most fair"

Here's an actual IRV poll, converted from a "favorite season" election, to 4 major parties.

The polling election had 50 voters for Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. I "remapped" them to political parties in a way that makes sense in imagination and overall vote transfers.

MAPPING: (Party = Season)

• Independence Party = Spring (Up and coming)
  
• Republicans = Summer (High rollers)
  
• DFL = Fall (Preparing for global warming)
  
• Green = Winter (Waiting for their springtime in the sunshine)
  

Remember this is an ACTUAL election, real ballots and counting, real preferences, even if not real politics.

Round 1:
Rep=34%, IP=30%, DFL=28%, Green=8%
Eliminate Green

Round 2:
Rep=36%, DFL=32%, IP=30%
Eliminate IP

Round 3:
Rep=56%, DFL=42%
Winner Republican

However a top-two runoff would allow the IP candidate a head-to-head competition with the Republican:
This creates
Round 2:
IP=54%, Rep=44%

You can see the "centrist" IP party WON when competing head-to-head against the "right" republican, once the left "Greens and DFL" were out of the picture. You can see the "left" had a STRONG preference for the IP over the Republican.

However, IRV blindly eliminated a "second place" candidate for falling for third, without ever needing a head-to-head competition against EITHER competitor.

IRV "spoiled" the election for the IP and gave it to the plurality republican winner.

Now I'm not trying to judge WHICH candidate the DFL or IP deserved a chance to run head-to-head against the republican. I'm merely showing ONE could win, and the other count NOT.

IRV has a "spoiler" effect in a close 3-way race. Supporters between two good candidates "fighting for second" must make a strategic decision "Which candidate stands the best chance of beating the plurality winner?" Sometimes NEITHER stands a chance. Sometimes BOTH stand a good chance. However if ONE stands a better chance, THEN my strategic choice must be to vote for the one I judge who stands a BETTER chance in the final round.

That's the nature of the IRV spoiler.

Because of this dilemma I REJECT bottom-elimination IRV and prefer top-two IRV.

Top-two IRV makes the dilemma CLEAR to voters - that they have two sometimes contradictory goals - (1) wanting a candidate to make the final round (2) wanting a candidate who can WIN the final round.

This "spoiler" effect of runoffs is what continues to encourage "like minded" candidates to work together BEFORE election to get a shot at "top two".

In short my argument:
1) Plurality asks voters "Who do you want?" and gives us one chance to compromise.

2) A top-two runoff asks the same thing, but gives two chances. (top-two or perish)
3) A bottom-up runoff asks the same thing, but HIDES the fact there's still just two chances to win. (Make the final round, win the final round)

Until we support an election method like Condorcet methods, which can allow head-to-head comparisons among all viable candidates, I support a top-two process in partisan political elections as "most fair" to the strongest two candidates to face each other.

Postnote: I say "partisan" to mean "cut-throat" competition, where every candidate wants a shot at the final round. Top-two is half as brutal as plurality, but "best you can" do to reward voters for working together.

Living wage?

I went to a CD5 debate Wednesday. One of the questions was whether the federal minimum wage should be raised. The green party candidate said he supported something greater - "A living wage", which he suggested to be at least $12/hour.

I have nothing against employers offering "living wages" for their jobs, but I just don't know about a government mandate.

People complain that corportations "outsource" jobs to reduce costs, so I accept that raising minimum wages will cause lower wage jobs to disappear.

Some low skill jobs, like janitorial work, or stocking shelves can't clearly be outsourced. But it can be reduced.

Overall I imagine the trade off is usually "reducing labor" in exchange for "increasing energy consumption" - the old "economy of scale" solution - rather than paying 10,000 people to do something by hand, throw the work into factory automation and distribution, creating "fewer, higher wage jobs". A win-win economic gain on the surface, but still ignoring the human factor of job satisfaction.

Overall, I must admit "minimum wage" seems too controlling - like "No, you may NOT let yourself be exploited by taking a job that makes less money than we say you're worth." EVEN if I LIKE the work, the money is sufficient, AND it is what the work is worth.

I know, I come from a world of education, and see I spend my time doing PRODUCTIVE work I get paid NOTHING. I can AFFORD this because I have other work I can get paid for.

Still extrapolating foolishly, you might equally make it illegal for me to "volunteer" my time without pay - because I'm getting exploited.

For me it can't be about strict rules of "minimum", or "fair" or "living" wages, but circumstances.

If I'm unemployed, and the only work available for me is only "worth" $1/hour, and my time is being "wasted" NOT working, then $1/hour is MORE than $0/hour, EVEN if I can't "live" on that, perhaps I live with a friend who doesn't ask rent, and helps me with food.

Obviously $1/hour work isn't going to hold employees if they have opportunity for more money elsewhere, so if such opportunity exists, the employer may have to raise wages.

Anyway, easy to talk abstractly. One side will argue abstractly it is no business of the government to interfere in financial agreements between citizens. The other side will argue for fairness for workers to earn money for their work.

I imagine minimum wage increases DOES help some poor people in the short term at least. I'm a socialist at least to say ultimately ALL WEALTH belongs to the collective over individuals, and the government has the right to limit individual wealth disparity in ways of wealth redistribution. I'm cautious, but I won't back down.

It is funny to me - we live in a country where young men can (potentially) be drafted and killed in combat, and that's okay for national defense. However if you talk of taking wealth or property from those on the top, it's an outrage against individual freedom. Even if you downplay this - that we have a volunteer army - the majority volunteer because they don't see opportunities elsewhere.

I'm not calling for a revolution, and I think fighting against the wealthy is counter productive, but ultimately I accept as individuals, our rights are fairly limited, however much we choose to believe otherwise.

Well, nonsense assertions, I know. Just bouncing around on the nature of things.

I imagine if I'm doing well, and a depression happens, how I could help others with no money or jobs. I could give money, food or time. I could even use my money to start a business, and PAY people without jobs to do productive work - even work without individual economic benefits - like perhaps paying community gardeners, or neighbors to patrol the streets to reduce crime, or whatever.

It's nice to imagine I could "help", but really if I had to pay "minimum wage" by law, I might forget it. I mean maybe it IS better for people to sit at home in front of the TV watching soap operas rather than paying them a small amount of money for useful work. A false division I'm sure.

Fun with chaos

Climate change is a fun topic if you're not desperate for predictability. The power of science is amazing in BOTH predictability and knowledge of the limitations of predictability.

Predicting weather in a given location is at best done not more than 1 week in the future. And as they say, statitically the flutter of a spring butterfly in Asia can effect the creation of a hurricane in the Alantic the following Fall.

Even in Kepler and Newton's wonderful predictions of planetary motion under gravity is lost under chaos if you want to predict motions more than 10 million years in the future.

As much as "little things" can create a big different in a dynamic system, repetitive events have even more power. Using harmonic resonance in the solar system, like a child on a swing, if you're patient enough you can amplify small power into large effects - like "pulling" a comet into a new orbit to collide with the moon. Gods could play a serious game of planetary pool, like the silly animations of the comedy show "Third Rock from the Sun".

Back to climate, we're apply "random" (unintentional changes) to the climate. All of life does this over thousands and millions of years. Th Gaia Hypthoesis even suggests a proper representation of the earth as a living organism, regulating the environment to support its own continuity, whether consciously or merely diversity applied to moderate, like "Daisy world" model.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_Hypothesis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisyworld

The fun thing is the earth has been in an "ice age" for most of the last 5 million years, 100,000 year cycles of cold and warm, and modern culture evolved large since the decline of the last glacial period 10,000 years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_glaciation

Without humanity, predictions imply the world would likely move back into a glacial period in the next 10,000 years, a slow decline in world average temperatures.

In geology I objected to the term "Holocene" in the local era, because it LOOKS like we're still in the Pleistocene era of the last 2 million years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene

However given human's influences it is probably true - we've changed the direction of the earth's climate. Still the question is WHAT direction?!

CO2 is a greenhouse gas, helping trap more solar radiation as heat on the earth. Now glaciers and ice in the polar regions are melting fast in geological time, and less ice means a darker surface causing more energy to be absorbed. And the melting perafrost in northern Canada and Russia is causing the break down of ancient vegetation long frozen, releasing methane and again more global warming.

But perhaps a negative feedback loop will reverse things. If the greenland glacier melt fast enough to change the salinity of the northern atlantic, it can change the flow of the ocean currents and end the warm waters flowing to Europe warming their climate. Slower ocean currents will slow the redistribution of heat in the climate, perhaps recooling the polar regions, changing system back into a glaciation direction. Who can say?

Well, fun stuff, if you don't care about what happens. Our brains are perhaps not very good at looking at threats that take years and decades, but climate change is real, and we are changing it much more dramatically than a butterfly's light touch.

Life will adapt, I'm sure. Even after a nuclear war, it'll deal with it. Civilization on the other hand, is more fragile I think, and it seems clear sooner that later we'll be forced to scale back our ambitions, and reintegrate ourselves back into limitations of our immediate surroundings.

Probably best to not know too much what will happen, since we'd be too depressed to face the cruel demands of the near future.

It is sort of like a baseball game, and I wonder how it'll turn out. The gods have a lot of fun watching I'm sure.

World overshoot day: October 9, 2006

An interesting perspective:
http://www.footprintnetwork.org/gfn_sub.php?content=overshoot

Says humanity now (2006) requires 1.3 "earths" to meet our collective needs and represents that ratio by a calendar date when 1.0 earth has been used for the year.

It seems a somewhat obscure idea, first how can we use more than one earth? I can answer that one - by borrowing from the past and reducing our inheritence (i.e. fossil fuels). However even if we can REDUCE our "footprint" to 1.0 earths, we're still in trouble assuming we actually want nonhuman life to have a place.

Now things start to get messy - can two species "share" the earth and get more out than either by using the wastes of the other - yes of course. I imagine "Jonathan Livingstone Seagull", and the flock dining at the human garbage dumps. SO species that can take advantage of our wasted resources can perhaps do well in a human-dominated world.

Still for me the nagging question is what fraction of the earth can we really afford to take for ourselves versus allow other species a life without just cleaning up our table scraps. It is a curious question, actually counter to apparent reality as we look at all the open spaces and think there's plenty of space out there. And the question is obscured by our consumption of fossil fuels for our energy needs.

I've long suspected our current energy use can never be replaced by renewable sources, stored solar energy, at least not through plants which can only capture a small fraction of the solar energy received. And there's always "hope" for nuclear fission to expand again, and nuclear fussion perhaps someday, but who can say how to count those in our footprint?

It's a romantic thought that we can "live off the land", live from the free fruits given to us by mother nature, and a little bit of work each day to collect these gifts. Perhaps its a different sort of passion that drives humans to harness energies directly from earth and sun and build complex systems that allow us to continually expand our expectations of what our place ought to be and assumptions of how long it can last.

The first dream gets knocked down easily, as some bad weather can change feast to famine, and there may yet be global disasters that will make our controlled environments more attractive - like a 500 year cold-spell after a good volcanic eruption, or whatever.

But all-in-all, I know we're on a doomed path with fossil fuels, sooner or later we'll have to live without them as we've know them, and our successes will be sorely challenged.

Disillusioned

There's two related "big" issues out there - Climate change and Peak oil, and both with similar responses looking for individual and collecive responses. There an upcoming PBS documentary, "The great warming", and a new book "The Oil Depletion Proocol".

http://www.thegreatwarming.com/howtogetinvolved.html
http://www.oildepletionprotocol.org/citizens/personalimplementation

Reading these suggestions just sort of depressess me, NOT that they are not good, just knowing that they're all fundamentally insufficient responses to a long term problem we've created by depending on an energy source that will either change our climate or run down, and force us to use even dirtier fuels.

It's almost foolish, it seems to me to even suggest individual responses of moderation to a collective problem. VP Cheney was right - conservation is a personal virtue, offering personal benefits, and isn't properly anything worth bragging about or advocating beyond self-interest.

300 million

It is estimated the U.S. population will exceed 300 million sometime in October, well excluding illegal immigrants at least.
http://www.worldpopulationbalance.org/pop/stats-us.php

The world population is just past 6.5 billion.
http://www.worldpopulationbalance.org/pop/stats.php

So we're at like 4.6% of the world. Do we have a population problem? Will all our land and resources?

In fact, yes, I believe so. Sure I can be swayed by the arguments of driving across country and seeing all the open spaces - plenty of room to PUT people, but less clearly can we provide for their consumption, at least after world fossil fuel resouces go into permanent decline, sometime in the next 10 years for oil, maybe 15 years for natural gas, and maybe 50 years for coal, all dependent upon how fast the rest of the world tries to catch up to our U.S. consumption.

I accept necessity is the mother of invention, but necessity is also the mother of dictatorships and might-makes-right morality.

I accept the characterization that the 20th century was the century for the masses, a time when temporary abundance encourages a free-for-all orgy into consumption, but this pattern must change sooner than later in our new century, where the left-behinds will not just be the majority in the rest of the world, but advance into the U.S. as well.

I'm a worrier, and for good reason. I accept "The party's over" for the majority, but I also expect THOSE WHO CAN CONTINUE will not end the party just because the majority can't hope to play anymore.

It is curious, since if we believe the "information superhighway" will continue, it appears to be a "flattening" technology that equalizes the field and allows all players access to the game.

Well, if I'm permitted to speculate the future, given my lack of faith in the federal government to control its own spending, or moderate consumer debt, I expect that sooner or later there will be a crash - a point where those with the power to do so will offer a "first strike", sacrificing a small amount of their wealth to destabilize faith in the U.S. currency, and cause a domino effect as everyone with any power will withdraw what they can into something more secure, and the government won't be able to respond. Then magically a solution will be offered to "save" the U.S. currency in a way that pulls power, overtly and covertly further away from democratic influences. Basically the largest corporations will start trading using their own collective currency, even if it is still pretended to be under the name of U.S. dollar standard.

Well, how can it be any other way? Those in government now are milking the system into bankruptsy, KNOWING something is coming, and figuring to get what they can sooner than later. Then when the U.S. debt is unpayable, and SS is defaulted, something new must be proposed.

It doesn't even need a conspiracy. It is collective knowledge that the system is broken, and can only get fixed by MANY losers, and a FEW winners. Everyone capable of being a winner will stake their claim, and hope for the best. Us lowly folk will get what we deserve for not be power players - nothing.

Well, I started on population, and then money? 300 million people probably means 200 million "losers" when the SHTF, really more like 280 million losers, but only 200 million totally dependent people meekly looking for ANYONE to lead them to their next meal when the government has nothing to offer.

I would like to think reducing immigration, closing the borders will somehow help us transition when the second great depression happens, but maybe it doesn't matter - 200 million - 300 million - 400 million. I can accept at present immigrants can offer net gains in our collective standard of living - cheap labor and all that. And we'll need a slave class perhaps someday anyway, so maybe it's like a game of musical chairs, and the last group when the SHTF will start the game as effective slaves if they're not there.

Really horrid thoughts, from someone quite comfortable in life, and scared and uncertain what the future may bring, or what I'll have to fight for.

And in my xenophobia, language/cultural barriers are most scary. When I find I have to cooperate with my neighbors and find a quarter can't even speak my same language reasonably, and poverty itself is scary to defend against. What do I say to neighbors who have no work and no food for their children? If they decide to riot in anger against phantoms, and makes things even worse, who am I to tell them to keep their place and wait for the government to save them? Will my composting/gardening suggestions help them? Will it pay their mortgage? Their loan shark debts?

No 300 million in it self offers no perspective - just a number - in a world time bomb of known destination, but uncertain fuse.