..when out from the ground came atumblin' crude

Read article today:
http://www.startribune.com/484/story/1154655.html Oil, gas drilling to expand in Gulf, off Alaska, Virginia
WASHINGTON - The Interior Department announced a major expansion of offshore oil and gas development on Monday with proposed lease sales covering 48 million acres off Alaska, in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and in the central Atlantic off Virginia.The 3 million acres that are 50 miles off Virginia's coast would require Congress to lift a long-standing drilling moratorium that has covered most ocean waters outside the western Gulf of Mexico for decades. The Democratic-controlled Congress has given no indication that it is willing to lift the moratorium. ... Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., said in a statement that any plan to allow drilling off his state must protect coastal economies that are heavily dependent on tourism. Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine said that the state would accept only offshore exploration for gas, but not its development. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who last year threatened to filibuster legislation that would expand offshore oil and gas drilling beyond the central Gulf of Mexico, said the Interior Department plan "calls into question why the White House remains intent on drilling elsewhere off our coasts and fattening the bottom line of the oil companies." ... Kempthorne said the 21 lease sales planned in coastal waters over the next five years could produce 10 billion barrels of oil and 45 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

I must admit I don't find the defensive arguments very persuasive, environmental or certainly not the "antiprofit" arguments. The environmental one is bogus since we'll import oil from anywhere and not care about the risks elsewhere in the world. And the antiprofit argument is total BS. Would we rather reward U.S. companies for producing oil or other countries?

The only argument I accept for limiting production is to protect the future. Specifically, our dependency on imported oil, and the risk to our economy if/when the market can't meet demand. It is claimed the U.S. holds 3% of the world's oil reserves, and we're producing something like 10% of the world's oil. This means we're producing our last reserves sometime like 3 times faster than the rest of the world. That means we're moving to more and more dependency on imported oil.

For this reason, if I believed we were moving to reducing our oil production, then I'm content to say, okay, lets keep going, but I see no serious effort to move away from oil. I mean at least no alternatives that can compete with current prices. To me that means it is better to WAIT until prices are more competitive, when oil prices rise enough, we'll throw down every environmental concern for our fix. I want to keep our future options available, so I'd say better to not produce our oil faster than the rest of the world.

I wish we could move sooner than later away from oil. I don't know what the future holds, but best guess is we'll have less energy available than now, and that conservation will make a difference sooner or later, and saving the remainder of our reserves might make the difference between a grim or less grim future, and I'll pick less grim if we can.

Limits to speculation?

Capitalism thrives through the development of speculation, buying something you can't use, hoping it will be worth more to sell later than you paid for it.

Gold and precious metals are the classic example of speculation, although it can extend to everything. Probably the best best speculation is on property, undeveloped property that is located where future development is going to occur.

I have a hard time seeing much virtue in speculation, although the existence of appreciation means people will naturally benefit by good fortune of owning something you later done need that someone will buy from you.

Given benefits WILL come to some, whether they intended it or not, why not support speculators to use their clever predictions and foresight to try to make a profit?

I suppose one of the oldest forms of speculation was "trading". Distant markets have different resources, different products, different costs. A good trader travels to distant markets, strategically purchases what is undervalued in the other market, and transports it to buyers who are not as adventureous to travel themselves. It is a risky job. Sellers might find others who are in other markets with even higher profits than you can get. You might lose your merchandize if there's lawlessness on the road. And lastly your merchandize might become devalued and not allow you to make a sufficient profit in your sale price.

Part of me is angry at those "flippers" who bought homes from impatient sellers, and turning it around immediately to sell at a higher price. Of course the risk-side got its revenge now that the market slows, and the mark-ups may not allow them to make back their investment, especially given upkeep costs while you wait to sell again.

Overall, not too much risk of me becoming a speculator, since I'll only buy things that I can USE, even if there's the possibility they might be worth more in the future.

Well, to my title, limits to speculation, mostly I mean the question whether/if/how ought society offer moderation or restrictions on speculation.

Speculation is a sort of unrespectable occupation, at least by the fact that buyers are not always willing as much as desparate. Even the act of selling something to the "highest bidder" is unrespectable since there may be poorer bidders who are more in need than the highest one.

I suppose its no worse than the general inequality of wealth, at least going beyond speculation in truly vital resources like food.

One case you might imagine that mixes luxury with food. You might imagine a time and place where wealthy people purchase large quanties of grain or corn or something that could be used for food, and converting it into biofuels. I've read one tank of ethanol can have the calorie content of a year's supply of food for a person. If wealth disaparity is great enough, smart markers can make "value added products", converting to biofuel and selling to those wealthy enough to afford it, and creating food shortages, pulling prices above what the poor can afford.

I suppose all examples are too simplicitic, although it is interesting morality. It can be judged moral to use fossil fuels to increase your wealth, different only because there's no direct food that is taken.

I really don't well see how governments can moderate capitalism of speculation, EXCEPT perhaps by making it illegal to own something - like the U.S. Government took gold reserves from citizens in the 1930's, exchanging them for U.S. monetary notes.

Similarly farmland could be declared public property, under conditions of conservation or protection of some sort, again reimbursed at a price the government chooses. Private property of any sort is held under the whim of government policy.

Well, no deep thoughts. I might say it is outrageous to imagine "my property" can be taken, and I'd never say a person ought to surrender without any fight, but I guess I acknowledge that my rights as an individual are supported by the power of the state, and the individuals that support it.

I like the cute saying from Jesus "Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar." in regards to taxes.

Well, all this shows limits to speculation perhaps, although much more complicated by international relations. It's scary to think of all the "unequal trading agreements" being done out there. The side with power, wielded knowingly or not, can exploit others with much less than you.

Should illegal immigrants be grateful for whatever black market work they can get? Libertarians LOVE to protect freedom, and liberals live to protect the weak from exploitation. I suppose this is a divergent problem.

If labor costs too much, I will lower my ambitions, take longer to get something done perhaps, and a worker goes without work or any pay at all.

At least on one level, I see a minimum wage itself is a contradiction with illegal labor, which has no minimum wage.

Anyway, I have no answers, but more on the liberal than libertarian side. Pay people a fair wage - people get paid by the quality of their work, not the status of their citizenship.

And it comes back to speculation. To speculate, you have to have wealth, something to bargain with. Those with wealth and power have more responsibility to the needs of others. I can't force this responsibility on them, only point it out.

I admit besides paying down my mortgage, which I'm grateful to be able to do, and living expenses, I'm uninspired by wealth, even "retirement wealth". I'd be a socialist if I could - rather pay 60% of my income in taxes, and trust good people would rise to power and use it well.

America seems a sad place, so easy to blame the government for problems. I acccept there's weaknesses to too much security. We all have many things we want, and can't possibly offer a saintly level of devotion to helping others, but I'm glad some do!

Speculation to me is just such a wasted effort to me, creating nothing, just gambling and playing self interest to the limit. So small.

Lies

Reading about the military deception, claiming a heroic death for a soldier killed by friendly fire, it is at one level "expected", and even excusable - a "harmless white lie" to soften the pain of family and friends of the fallen.

If it was JUST a white lie in a pool of darkness and nothing to be done, I might say okay, let it go. Certainly I disagree that a single tragedy ought to be used as evidence to change course on a war in Iraq. But still you gotta wonder on the slippery slope of truth - how far will people go? And of course the entire invasion rested on hopeful assumptions that Saddam had WMD, while the actual reasons were very different.

I also think of the Iraqi broadcaster during the U.S. invasion, offering his nonreality propaganda for the Iraqi defenses and the deaths of the evil American invaders. It's just noise on the chaos of war, but still served an immediate purpose - to slow the enemy, keep the people in line, and make time for Saddam and friends to make their escape.

Other lies I can think of are about predictions - is inflation going up or down, oil prices, oil supplies? Governments can always manipulate statistics to spin themselves in a better light, spin people into false confidence that things are well while the risks are high. I can think of the Bush administration, projecting falsely high deficits, and then claiming progress when the actual deficits were a bit smaller.

And of course the market does it too, like Michael Lynch's lastest projection, that oil prices will gradually fall into the lower $50/bbl, and into the $40/bbl range next year, due to his
http://www.mmegi.bw/2007/April/Wednesday25/17.php

Well, maybe predictions are outside of the domain of lies - after all, you can always excuse errors on ignorance. But given this uncertainty, there's power - to claim to know they future, you can help create it.

And then there's the fear mongers on the other side, predicting the world is already at peak production, and heading into sharp decline in the next 12 years.
http://www.whiskeyandgunpowder.com/Archives/2007/20070424.html Ali Samsam Bakhtiari and Peak Oil

I suppose I'm just annoyed there, that perceptions can diverge so widely.

Of course we OUGHT to keep on course to reduce our dependency on oil, and so annoying that claims of short term surplus will discourage action.

And hidden behind honest predictions are lots of "facts" that may or may not be facts, and may be "white lies" or other lies of self interest, confusing and hiding our risks.

I'm not a pure minded person who thinks lies are never useful or helpful. I just know they're dangerous.

War on drugs

Just a little reflecting on the "War on Drugs", like Penn and Teller's program at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HCNKMQR1yg Penn and Teller's Bullsh*t - The War on Drugs Pt 1

I can't help have mixed feelings. I can an authoritarian or libertarian view. I despise a world where people can make a living depending on the misery and suffering of others through their addictions. But how much does suppression really help? And could regulation do more than criminalization? Certainly putting more and more people in jail as small time dealers, its a costly response. And black markets still exist, and high profits can simply bribe their way to keep their power, and WORSE governments themselves can profit from black market drug trades for undemocratic uses of power.

I guess it is amazing that tobacco and alcohol survive as well as they do as legal trade with such high "sin taxes", surprised there's not more black market sales than there is.

I've heard drugs like marijuana are much more powerful now than before. I don't expect illegal sales are responsible for this, but basically recognize prices for drug effects are surely cheaper than ever now.

For marijuana specifically, I accept the argument that criminalization is rather useless policy now, seems better to regulate and tax it, even if I don't see how. I wonder what effect it would have - would small-time growers decrease, or expand? Would prices rise? At least taxes could help raise prices, and fund drug programs. I don't know if driving under the influence is harder to detect for marijuana than alcohol, don't even know if a person can be arrested for this.

I guess heroin is the other "natural" drug used somewhat widely. And cocaine perhaps even more. Regulation still seems more important, even if I can't see what is best.

I can think of my brother, who died, if not directly, indirectly from drug use, including Meth usage. He said in one honest moment - the time he felt the best was when he was using the most drugs. I mean he meant it to suggest he really believed the drug made life better, and he was on top of everything. Scary reality.

When I try my high-minded "save the world" thoughts - environment, peak oil, world peace, economic justice, or whatever, I neglect so much darkness others know more than me, and the desire to escape.

I pretty much limit my intake vices to food - fighting the easy "relief" to stress in junk food, elementary school issues - and short term tummy ache is immeidiate consequence, and longer term in poorer nutrition, and longest getting overweight if I find I can't compensate by exercise in the future as now. It's about all I can handle for vices, and I'm glad drugs are not in my life.

I don't know who could be in a serious debate on which drugs could be used legally for "recreational use". Sure, I wish I could be a libertarian for adult choices. My brother if he was alive might still say Meth usage in moderation made his life better, and others can say the same on cocaine.

Grr.... scares the hell out of me. Ignorance is one thing, but people will still harm their health willingly for a little relief in drugs, knowing every educational fact presented to them.

Overall criminalization for selling things people want seems hopeless. Regulation is more hopeful. At minimum it would be good for taxes to cover perceived economic costs to drug usage.

I'm not hopeful much at all, so outside my domain or passion, just sympathy.

A miser's green?

I'm just curious, whether it is possible to define a list of steps that would help the average person of below average income to become more "Green"? It's somewhat of a tricky subject in the abstract - is a person poor on money or poor in time? Most of my "solutions" would suggest people take more time and spend less money, which is counter to common perception of poverty. Anyway, if this thought is hopeless we're all in trouble because whatever failings poor people have, ultimately we all have when things get harder.

Simplest things are like:
(1) Use fluorescent light bulbs - In their lifetime they reduce electricity costs far more than an increase in purchase price, although I worry about proper disposal.
(2) Have one less car in your household and be able to commute by bus, carpool, or bike on most days.
(3) Pay off credit card debt - the less money you have going towards debt interest, the more money you have to in the long run.
(4) If your house has a spare bedroom, consider renting it out to someone. Housing is very expensive, so even a "break even" renter is helping your community, helping a person live more cheaply to go to school, or pay down their debt.
(5) Start a vegetable garden, and compost bin. They go together, gives free veggies a few months of the year, and reduces need for putting food waste in trash.
(6) Eat less meat, less red meat, and cook your own meat, full chickens, etc.
(7) Quit your garbage service is possible, compost and recycle all you can, and bring your trash quarterly to a dump directly (and recycling centers). It is amazing how much you can reduce your garbage with small changes.

Bigger steps:
(1) Live in a community where you and your kids can walk or bike places for short trips.
(2) Invest money to reduce your home heating costs (In cold winter Minnesota) - insulation, newer efficient furnace, windows, etc.
(3) Get rid of old inefficient appliances, like second refridgerators/freezer. When buying new appliances, invest in the highest efficiency models.
(4) Invest in renewable energy program, like Xcel Windsource, pay a little more for electricity and encourage wind power.
(5) Invest in heat pumps, or passive solar heating, PV, or wind?

Overall I always see debt reduction and good budgeting as the top message. Debt should be used as an investment in reducing future costs.

Time is still the biggest question. I have no general solutions, but a life of too much rush means no time to think about what you're doing, or plan what you want to do.

Ideally going green and better living together, but in the short term I guess there'll always be trade offs.

Why I'm afraid

Things are looking up in many ways....

The war in Iraq is effectively dead by strategy and it's merely ego that keeps us there a while longer, but the process of withdrawal has begun.

At least within partisan politics of Al Gore's political disciples, Global Warming is an issue is the warm&fuzzy issue to be loved and held close to our collective hearts, with the fuzzy polar bears as the icon.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/1 Al Gore: 15 ways to avert a climate crisis

Renewable energy is looking up. Perhaps wind turbines will become our power trees of the future ... zero emissions, and free solar energy for the taking. And ennumerable other possibly competitive alternative energies to power our future.

My personal finances are looking good. I've saved lots of money by not having a car for the last 2 years. (Bicycles rule!) I'm hoping my mortgage might get paid off in a year with my extra payments. I pay a little extra for my electricity khw through the "WindSource" program through Xcel.

When I no longer have a mortgage on my home, I can think more seriously about what I'd like to invest in to protect my future.

Energy efficient windows? Passive solar heating? Solar photovoltaic on the roof? Or perhaps investing in a wind turbine, shared by my entire community? I live in one of the highest locations in the Twin Cities. Why not have a wind turbine next to our water tower? Who can say what we can do working together? Maybe I'd even risk taking a new mortgage to help borrow to invest in the cost?

So why am I afraid?

I'm afraid because I don't believe that what is necessary will be easy, and those selling "green" don't tell the truth on what's needed and what makes a difference. I don't believe enough people are prepared to deal with the truth, the need for debt reduction, for reducing our consumption.

I can't expect technology to save us, and I think false, unrealistic projections merely encourage us to keep on our wasteful ways.

I'm as much afraid that short term successes will just empower humanity to continue expanding our domains over the world and reducing the natural systems that support us.

I don't know what can change. Life explodes with success and crashes when natural systems become degraded to support the successes. I can't see how we can take our intellect to move smoothly to a new equilibrium without the crash.

Perhaps I shouldn't fear the crash, and just live as if it will happen. Not crash and burn, but crash and suffer.

The need for the crash to me is because of expectations. We expect continual growth in a finite world. Every problem we've solved has been done through using more and more energy in the future. Perhaps knowledge doesn't need to decline with energy, but it's an unknown world.

I will have more hope when more people are both afraid and willing to take control of their own dependencies.

I just can't see how things can turn out. Knowledge is a double edged sword - it allows us to know what we're doing, and it allows us to maximize our influences, and in a time we have to become smaller, I must be afraid.

Postscript - It is interesting to see how different people are, how some like me are risk-averse, and some are risk-loving, fearless builders of bridges to infinity, rockets to the stars. Just using a simple miracle - the technology of human flight ... I can seriously live without it. I guess my fear is both good and bad. I admire those who fearlessly jump off the cliffs of possibility, and get away with it. I think perhaps most people benefit by the risks of others, and in times of expanding horizons we are all lifted. I just worry that in times of hardship and crisis such behavior can be a weigh pulling us down faster.

The "get rich quick" illusions drive risk takers to gamble what they have to get more, and half the time they're just suckers/bait for bigger fish to eat. I hope there's enough like me, to be afraid enough to defend their own living, and have enough left over to protect their communities from the dangers of dependence upon a scary future.

I really can see economics like being a fish in the sea - success creates the big fish, and the rest try to cozy up to these, hoping for some scraps, rather than defending their territories from such brutes. I'll be glad for the millionaires in my neighborhood, but hope they are looking out for me as much as their escape plan when things turn sour. Power corrupts and I can imagine it isn't easy to defend a community when your horizons are the world.

The politics of surrender

Surrender is an interesting word. Sometimes the need for surrender comes quickly, like losing an election by a landslide. Othertimes the need comes slowly as the way things have always been done fails its past success.

Surrender can mean boldly taking a new direction, giving up past successes and pride and admitting a better way might exist. Surrender can be about revolution from within.

I basically feel all politically feasible responses to global warming are insufficient to the need, talking of 80% reduction of CO2 emissions need NOT mean 80% reduction in our "standard of living", but if not a direct reduction, ultimately I think either we need less consumption or less people, and neither is politically acceptable.

It is an interesting economic dilemma, given limited resources, where do you put your energy? If the river is rising and you're SURE the dike is gonna break sooner or later, maybe its time to stop repairing and head to higher ground, or maybe delaying the breach by minutes or hours can still allow more people and resources to be saved from destruction. OR maybe you're just a pessimist and an all out strategic effort CAN save the day once, more and the dike can hold the storm waters back.

It is nice to think there's always an optimal strategy, but in practice information is always limited and so the future becomes a risk management analysis. Putting billions of dollars into rogue asteriod defenses may or may not be a priority - a 1 hit per 15 million year event probably is best to let it slide, although perhaps a monitoring system is a worthy game to play if you have some resources to spare.

Overall my biggest problem with the GW "debate" is that it is an issue without any moral lines to draw clearly. The problem is not bad guys robbing the bank, but billions of people trying to make the best living they can within choices within their reach. If its true the U.S. releases 30% of the world's nonbiological CO2 emissions, with 5% of the population, clearly we've got the largest share of the "problem". I can play the puritan and say America should clean up our act, stop driving cars, turn off our A/C, shrink our homes, and go back to an agrarian society where animal labor exceeds mechanical labor.

I think it may be better to focus on doing all the EASY stuff to reduce our emissions, expect our cost of living will go up, and muddle towards more local energy resources as we can. In short, I'll take the economists view that resources are limited and need to be prioritized to where we can make the biggest difference soonest. Beyond raising energy/pollution taxes, I don't have a clear picture what we can do to change our ways.

If I lived elsewhere I might be more angry at America, but basically I accept the enemy is hard to see when you look in the mirror, and ask what you could do differently given choices you know.

Anyway, on the side of surrender, I expect perhaps more resources ought to be devoted to rebuilding coastlines in response to expected changes in sea level and weather patterns. I'm not sure how. In rich countries, it could be as simple as insurance companies refusing to insure people in vulnerable areas. Then it's up to government and communities to evaluate their own risks and options.

Poorer countries are another matter. I think we ought to devote as much foreign aid to development as internal aid to development. Centralized planning is always flawed, but perhaps a process could exist to spread knowledge of risks and let people discussion their options and then help them plan their futures, whether that means building dikes or moving to higher ground.

And in the self-interest area, it might be that money is better invested in helping third world countries develop in more sustainable ways than rebuilding our wasteful ways. I mean I'm open to a dollar for dollar analysis - where will a dollar do the most to cut CO2 emissions in 2050. Let's get investing somewhere - think globally and focus where you can make the most difference. Even if that really means "surrender" in ways - maybe most of all a surrender that America will turn itself around without losing a generation to a depression to change expections.

My anger may be misplaced, but I am angry at the entitlement and expectations of Americans, myself included. We are a lost people, dependent upon resources outside our honest grasp, and fearful what will happen if we lose our empire. This must be shead for light to return to our vision.

Peak soil?

A pretty damning judgment against biomass for energy:

http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=107&Itemid=1 Peak Soil: Why cellulosic ethanol, biofuels are unsustainable and a threat to America

I tend towards skepticism as well, but also have "wishful thinking" that perhaps something can be done. My pessimism has an even worse realization - if modern farming isn't sustainable for biofuels, then it can't be sustainable for food production.

Al Gore says that facing global warming is a moral issue, and I somewhat squirm under the statement, maybe mostly since there's no clear "line in the sand" between moral and immoral behavior, unless LIVING itself is immoral. When is stealing moral or immoral? How do you find the difference between need and want when you're alive deciding what to do?

I still try to make lines in the sand. Perhaps ALL industrial scaled biofuel production is "immoral" (for being unsustainable). But perhaps the "morality"can't be fully defined by "costs" but as balanced by "benefits".

The immorality of global warming isn't just the "costs", but the questionable "benefits" as a result. We have lots of measurable benefits, but how many can we promise for the future?

And so with "peak soil", or whatever environmental cost or risk. The moral issue is perhaps that soil is too precious to use for powering machines. Perhaps we can get energy more directly anyway - solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, and let the plants be for animal!

Overall the biggest moral issue for me is that we destroy the ability of the soil to produce the food we need when our unsustainable "supplement" run out.

I'm leaning toward Wendell Berry's belief on farming power - when a tractor can eat grass, he'll upgrade his horse. That's integrity!

Global warming response

Grand vision in "Step it up 2007" to reduce U.S. CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050, looks like compounding 3.75% reduction/year (1-0.2^42).
http://www.globalwarmingdayofaction.org/
http://stepitup2007.org/

Actually the first link above says 2%/year for 40 years to get 80%. The PROBLEM is the LINEAR extrapolation means we only have to cut 2% in 2010 and must cut 10% in 2050 (when consumption is supposed to be down 78%).


Oh, well. Environmentalists are not always good at math I guess.

WORSE, you gotta think how inefficient we are now, that the BEST reforms will happen sooner than later. There's always a diminishing return problem - the more you tighten your belt, the more vital organs start getting squished!

Even in a nice case - imagine you drive your car 20,000/year at 20mpg. Then next year you reduce your CO2 by 3.75%. Since you're not buying a new car, you can just cut your milage by 750 miles next year no problem. Then by 2015, you're down to 15,400 miles. Then you buy a new car that gets 30mpg. Now your driving can jump back up to 22,000/year, right? I mean no use "wasting" your consumption now that you're efficient, right? So on the annual base, you can just keep reducing incrementally.

Now that might even be reasonable, but now lets go to electricity usage, or heating. I've got a 94.1% efficient natural gas furnace. I keep my house at 65F in the winter. I can improve the windows and wall insulation perhaps, but I expect after a decade of increments I'll run out of small changes.

ANYWAY, whatever calculus you take, it's clear the cutting CO2 production SOONER than LATER is the ONLY safe bet, knowing it just gets harder.

AND worse than diminishing returns, the U.S. has 5% of the world's population, and consumes 25% of the world's fossil fuels. If we cut our emission by 80% and the rest of the world averages out per capita to equal our 2050 goal AND world population stayed constant, then global emission would not decrease at all.

So sadly I must place myself as one of the skeptics. I appreciate the sentiment, and I'm an idealist at heart, but I'm just a realist to know it is unlikely.

Sometimes I think price (scarcity) alone would be enough to reduce CO2 production. If gasoline costs $15/gallon, the middle class and lower will no longer be able to drive 20,000 miles/year in their SUVs. They'll drive less. If that $15/gal happens to be through a tax in part, it could be used to subsidize the purchase of fuel efficient vehicles for those who can't afford it.

It is a nice thought to believe "peak oil" will reduce our consumption by higher prices, but unfortunately higher prices will lead to more economical "dirtier CO2" - heavy oil, coal, sand tars, oil shales, etc. So our gasoline in 10 years might create 50% MORE CO2 than we do now!

The worst failure in my mind is the rest of the world can believe WE (U.S.) who consume so much more must act FIRST, while if we act alone, we will do nothing for the world letting them merely catch up to us.

Overall I have to have sympathy for the economists who say better to focus on the big stuff - investing in future reductions. I mean for instance, WE ENERGY HOGS might find our biggest return not in solar PV on our roofs, but funding wind turbines in China. Well, every thought is extravagant, living in a nation of debtors. I just think we have to be strategic here.

A big cheer for high energy costs

A silly article at:
http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=446 By Michael J. Economides For the Oil Companies, Public Rhetoric = Big Profits

Damn if I understand this guy. He ends with "The tragedy is that it will hurt the common people the world over, exactly those whose welfare these elitists purport to protect."

OH, such a tragedy, higher energy prices will hurt the common people. HECK, the common people DESERVE another 50 years of "protection" before they need to be hurt, so let's save their pain now, and let the next generation of common people pay the price.

It is just astounding to me when the modern day capitalists defend their world view as being in the best interest of the common people.

It's one big fucking gamble as far as I'm concerned, to wait for FUTURE GENIUSES solve problems we ought to be solving now.

As E.F Schumacher said, we've not SOLVED the production problem until we've solved the energy problem. As long as we're running our world with energy the future won't have, we can have no faith in the future.

What kind of world do THESE PROTECTORS expect? Infinite growth for infinite needs of infinite people? Where does that model end, except in tragedy?!

I'll NEVER understand the modern faith in technology to solve every problem. Technology allows us to deplete our natural capital faster, and lets the future depend on necessity to figure out the next magic trick.

I suppose if I had NO interest in the future viability of humanity, I'd say "Party hardy dude!" and get drunk on power and affluence as I could. I mean seriously, an asteroid could hit the earth at any time in the next 50 million years and wipe us out, WHY would we want to protect natural capital for future generations who might be fucking too DEAD to enjoy it?

It's insanity! Yes, I'm over reacting. Yes, globalization might continue exploiting more and more energy use for a few more decades than I expect. Yes, perhaps the GODS like us and will provide us exactly what we need when our inheritence runs out, but FUCKING GET A CLUE MAN! Rational people don't act this way. Power crazed lunatics perhaps, and we're all drunk on power to be sure.

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned there is NO DOWNSIDE to higher energy prices - the sooner the better. LET THE FUCKING ENERGY PRODUCERS BECOME BILLIONAIRES if that's what it takes to end their reign.

All I know is LOW ENERGY PRICES are what DRIVES globalization, and HIGH ENERGY PRICECS are what DRIVES alternatives.

Let's get driving! $150/bbl oil is still a bargain in my book! A miracle of god. The value of fossil fuels OUGHT to be equal to the cost of the cheapest renewable alternatives. Every penny cheaper is a bargain.

What would give me hope? "Step it up 2007" is a good start!

A fun issue of "Inventing Tomorrow", U of Minnesota magazine for Institute of Technology, topic "Energy alternatives", (Not online yet), but topics are cheaper solar photovoltaic with nanotech; using solar energy to produce hydrogen, improving the durability of wind turbine mechanics, more efficient generation of biofuels, hydrogen production from ethanol.
http://www.it.umn.edu/news/inventing/index.html

Absolutely GREAT research for hope that ONE DAY we can reduce our fossil fuel consumption, ideally BEFORE politics or geology reduce our consumption forcefully.

Now while I can't say anything bad at all about the research, my hopeless is not that we can't do better with renewables someday, it is we are depending on alternatives to perform a miracle - to seamlessly replace our ever increasing energy demands. I have grave doubts ANY combination renewables will replace our current consumption. It is just setting the bar much too high in my opinion to believe that renewable energy, energy coming from solar and geothermal power can compete on even ground with fossil fuels - concentrated energy created over millions of years and stored in the ground.

So what would give me hope? Something MORE than a token effort for conservation. Whether through efficiency or simply living lower energy intense lifestyles, I'd have a lot more faith if we collectively could set a goal in reducing our fossil fuel use - whether for the sake of global warming, or pollution or energy security I don't care.

Energy WILL cost more in the future. Sooner or later we will discover this. The smart thing to do is to make energy cost more now to promote conservation OR recognize this savings we have now should not be squandered, but invested in a future where we'll need less fossil fuels to live.

I look forward to the "Step it up 2007" day for promoting reducing our fossil fuel (CO2 production) use by 80% by 2050, again whether for global warming or energy security, it's the right direction and might be enough.
http://stepitup2007.org/

Wow! Not a single mention of peak oil or peak natural gas or the challenges of energy security! Still seems good.
---------------------
Key Facts About Step it Up: Step it Up is the largest day of citizen action focusing on global warming in our nation’s history.

• This is a truly a viral grassroots movement, organized online through word of mouth, email outreach and the online community.
  It is a nationwide campaign comprised of over 1300 actions being held on April 14, 2007 as part of a National Day of Climate Action.
  
• The actions range from a rally of thousands in New York City, to a handful of scuba divers off the coast of Key West, to a community of senior citizens in Ohio holding a global warming awareness day.
  
• The rallies are planned in every corner of the country, in 48 states, by people from all walks of life, which demonstrates the widespread demand for quick and dramatic change on the issue of global warming.
  
• All individuals, groups and organizations involved in these actions are hungry to do something big and they all agree on one thing: the need for substantial and rapid action.
  Despite the varied backgrounds of the participants and the uniqueness of each event, they are united in delivering a critical message: For Congress to put America on a course to cut carbon emissions 80% by 2050.
  
• This is less than a 2% reduction per year.
  
• While many Americans are choosing to make the switch to new conservation technologies in order to cut emissions, only bold leadership from Washington can drive the large scale changes needed to stave off the catastrophic effects of global warming.
  
• This is a wake-up call to legislators. We want to show them that their constituents view global warming as the greatest threat facing our civilization today and are pleading for them to step up and take action.
  As a truly global crisis, global warming will impact everyone. However, the impact will be felt greatest among the most vulnerable of the world’s population. While global warming presents us with our most pressing challenge, it also presents our most inspiring opportunity. We have an opportunity and a responsibility to ensure that our solutions to this crisis take these populations into account.
  
• Unpredictably shifting weather patterns leading to both droughts and stronger and more frequent storms combined with rising sea levels will dramatically affect the already scarce resources hundreds of millions rely on for the basics of life.
  
• Stopping global warming will catalyze a new clean energy revolution which will benefit workers across the globe. We must—and we can—protect both their ability to provide for their families and also the long-term health of the environment.

Today's a good day to die

The warrior spirit is certainly inspiring, even when its foolhearty and doomed. Sometimes a selfless spirit can move us to a place we need to be, whether or not death is certain.

I'm NOT a warrior, except maybe when I'm on my little bicycle surrounded by cars and buses, but I can dream.

The saying also reminds me how to defeat powerful warriors. You make them WAIT! Some things require immediate action, and somethings are slow deaths where you slowly get acclimated to the next little surrender.

Incrementalism is the death of the warrior, the calm self-interest to keep going on the safe path now to any abstract costs in the future.

I often wonder, if I'm unsatisified with the world, how ought I respond? Can I retreat and go my own way? Can I join a group that will fight the good fight to change the way things are? Does the good fight even exist in a world of multiplicity?

Who am I to "tell the truth" and get people upset?

And my truth is primarily fear. I guess I would be satisified if everyone was as afraid as me - certain that the walls that protect us must fall sooner or later. The barbarians WILL come, and the government is not going to save us. I wonder what analogy is best?

Overall I accept we are our own worst enemy, although that's probably been true for all who have fallen in the past, too easily deluded by our recent success to seriously imagine or plan for a day we have to fight for survival.

It's a funny dream, a day when we have to fight for survival. I don't want to scare people. I don't want people to hoard guns and knifes and buried gold. I just want them to be aware we live in unusual times and harder times must come, no matter how hard your life seems now.

The fall might happen quick and nothing to be done, or it might happen more slowly where those who pay attention might respond and find ways to adapt.

I'm voting for the slower fall, because it is easier, but I know its harder for warriors. It's not the day you're holding a rifle as you open your front door to pounding beggars trying to get at your last food stores. It's the day you lose your job and have to take another job for 1/3 the pay. It's the day yo keep your job while your friends and family are suffering and you're just trying to get by yourself.

Interestingly I heard recently a friend friend's cousin tried to rob a bank, then broke into a house, holed up for 6 hours until finally shooting himself. Apparently related to falling into debt he couldn't escape. I guess he followed the warrior advice, although I don't think that's what it means.

A good day to die MEANS a good day to face what life brings and MAKE it into what you need to survive if you can. Preparing helps, but perhaps not the way we think.

Preparing might mean practicing the surrender of that which does not serve our future. The warrior spirit's power comes in surrendering fear-of-loss as a motivator for action.

Why the markets won't save us

Imagine a board game, like Monopoly. Everytime you go around the board, you get $200 for passing go. Some people also like to place $500 under "Free parking" for anyone who lands there. At the beginning of the game every one has money, rent is low, and so everyone uses their inheritence (savings) to buy property to invest.

Overtime the commons get reduced and you start getting charged for more and more things that were previously free. No problem since you've got plenty of cash and investments to generate income for you.

But as the board gets built up a few players, by the roll of dice, and perhaps by prudent investments find themselves ahead of the rest, and they reinvest their income into larger properities to generate even more income.

The instructive thing about Monopoly is that it demonstrates the reality of all economic systems that reward success - the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

It's hard to have too much fun within the rules of Monopoly, but there are games to be played. Property can be traded in a cooperative way, benefitting both sides. AND if you really want to be hated in a 3-way race, you and your buddy can make each other's property rent free from each other. You can even loan/give money to your buddy to keep him from mortgaging his property when you're trying to defeat a common opponent.

It is perfectly reasonable that two or more players might behave cooperatively, and decide to "share" the world, but power is corrupting, and self-interest doesn't clearly allow evaluation of what's in the best interest for everyone. Do I "allow" my competitor to stay in business if I think I've got a better product, if I've got resources to expand and replace his market share?

It is reassuring to think merely "necessity is the mother of invention" and when the shit hits the fan, that the greed of the market will take on the new opportunities created. We can even say that's what nature does - when conditions change and some species fail, others are ready to fill in the holes.

What place is there for compassion and goodwill towards the losers of life? I really do think individuals often make short term decisions against their long term best interest, myself included. Why shouldn't accountability exist for these failures? What good does it do to coddle those who are not mature enough to handle what they have prudently?

Perhaps useless as abstract questions. I suppose questions are reduced to power, and so the question is how individuals can cooperate. Markets under pure competition tend towards eliminating players until a monopoly comes out. Further, speeding up this process cooperative companies can use their mutual strengths to eliminate their competitors.

Free markets demand equal access to information, equal opportunity to participate. If I have inside information that scandal is about to break so I can sell my stock before others, I can take my winnings out before the price falls.

I suppose this leads to my title - why markets won't save us. Markets are good at concentrating wealth and resources towards creating access to new wealth and resources but what does a market do in times of contraction?

When the bear comes out in one market, the investors fly south for the winter, look for alternative markets. But what if all markets become bears?

What if - without continued expansion fossil fuel availability - all markets begin to shrink. What will the big players do? I don't easily believe in the "trickle down" economic theory, except perhaps in special times when resources are growing fast enough.

So what do I mean markets won't save us? Maybe most simply I mean individual wealth means everyone digs in when the bears come out, and the best long term solutions are neglected for a lack of cooperative vision.

This suggest the obvious solution - why governments are needed - to identify a common vision and create incentives towards it. I can understand the market frustrations against government interference, and that a "planned economy" means unforeseen consequences that are counter productive, or even that might delay needed failures for reform.

Maybe the WORST thing governments do is to support stability. I accept the basic idea that markets are always unstable in the long term - that they promote concentrations of wealth and power until unmet needs by those on the bottom finally dissolve their loyalty to the system. The problem with concentration of wealth is it can not help but gain unfair access to power, and because the failure of such wealth would upset the economy too much, they are free to take on risk that they should not, and are protected from this risk unfairly.

Well, anyway, I feel bad about my arrogant title, won't change it. I have no answers. We'll all face with risk and reward, and there's no clear fairness of result. I know my personal response to risk is to withdraw, and I know this response times 100 million means unpredictable collapse.

I can't fault the government for supporting an unsustainable path that looks good in the short term. I know neither government nor capitalism can save us.

Our saviors come from all the ancient personal virtues - chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, forgiveness, kindness, and humility.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_virtues

Well, I like the idea of personal choice as making a difference, although more than words, I know real change means a change of myths that support these virtues. Most of all I like the inward challenge, lead by example, and you can't easily judge your neighbor's virtues or vices while following your own!

Economist Bjorn Lomborg: Global warming is not a priority

A challenging speech at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dtbn9zBfJSs&mode=related&search=

Top 4 priorities on the list of economics:

1. AIDS
2. Malnutrition
3. Free Trade
4. Malaria

Top ten at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_Consensus

1. Global Warming sometimes also called Climate change (William R. Cline)
2. Communicable diseases (Anne Mills)
3. Conflicts (Paul Collier)
4. Education (Lant Pritchett)
5. Financial instability (Barry Eichengreen)
6. Government and corruption (Susan Rose-Ackerman)
7. Malnutrition and hunger (Jere Behrman)
8. Population: migration (Phillip L. Martin)
9. Sanitation and water (Frank Rijsberman)
10. Subsidies and trade barriers (Kym Anderson)

An enthusiastic economics tells us how we can help the world on the bottom dollar.

In contrast he says global warming costs alot with minimum returns (delaying global warming 6 years with our best effort OR all of the above)

He asked the audience to make their priorities and then asked them if they found the "correct" answers above.

I appreciate his willingness to take on the reality of costs of making a difference and the choices that can make the biggest difference. Interestingly MY top priority isn't on the list at all apparently - energy sustainability. Perhaps because the talk was 2 years ago???

I know my ALTERNATIVE approach is to GIVE UP. Like the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Quinn perspective, author of Ishmael, admitting lowering mortality without lowering fertility is madness, taking a fully inhuman perspective.

I mean looking at the list above, it first of all FAILS because it says problems are "out there" rather than with US. It seems WE ARE RESPONSIBLE to others and WE HAVE THE POWER to save. It is a lovely DREAM perspective, "What if I had power to save humanity", and I'll dream that myself often enough, but perhaps BECAUSE of my own idealism, it strikes me as childish and immature, possibly even delusional.

To me it's like children finding their inheritance buried in the backyard, and start spending it as fast as possible, and even as they do many great things, they also make great messes. Then they see their messes have caused cause great suffering, or at least in part efforts to offset suffering has created different suffering. Well, then they brainstorm a new list of things they can do to solve real problems for poor people of the world, and TOTALLY miss the fact they are living off of a one time inheritence and when it is gone, all gains will be lost, and the world will fade into a new darkness.

I guess an optimist says the world keeps getting brighter, and so we have more power to fix problems. I say (as a pessimist), we've failed to solve ANYTHING until we look in the mirror and make the hard choices that will lead to a future that we will be in charge of our own destiny, when our magic inheritence is gone.

I follow Quinn's view, at least as an alternative, outside of the view that civilization was a choice that can sustain itself. I don't know, but I at least see we are ALL at risk, that globalization has allowed a concentration of wealth and power and that DEVELOPMENT ultimately reenforces further concentrations and destroys local communities in two ways.

First it seduces us with a free lunch - if we surrender our freedom, we'll be cared for. Second it seduces us with power - if we participate, we'll become powertful.

And it's true, within its little framework of a few lifetimes, but what if we create a world where wealth and power mean reducing the potential for wealth and power in the future? Who's going to stop a free lunch and power merely because tomorrow or the next day we might have problems? Well, people who have worked HARD in their life and don't want their success or failure to be dependent upon a bunch of greedy bastards whose hard work is only to look for more trinkets to sell to the masses?!

I don't know what MY PROBLEM is. I admit I have one, a general distrust of power, of systems that I don't understand. I might distrust nature too - I mean she brings bad weather and 100,000 year glacial cycles, yuck, but at least she's got a track record.

Our new fangled power is illusionary, based on stealing energy from ancient sunlight, fossil fuels that can not sustain us, global warming or not.

Business people are not normal people. They are "hard-wired" by life experiences to see RISK as OPPORTUNITY. They look at things ordinary people wouldn't take on in a million years, and they go forward without any certainty of results, and they SELL ideas with a language that convinces others to follow, and perhaps their success is greater than a major league baseball hitter's average. I don't know, but in a statisical sense, they're RIGHT - they KICK ASS on the world of sheep (us).

Sure I'm jealous, and sure I'm seducible too in my own corrupt heart, but I'm still gonna keep looking for the door, looking for the step that might free me from this corruption.

Yes, sure let all the greedy bastards support "Free trade" as the door to prosperity. I mean I won't say ALL of their motives are self-interest. I'll give them empathy and guilt and desire to help others less fortunate. I guess I just think their message is a false hope, again a child with a credit card can do a lot of cool things for a while, but real change requires something more I'm sure.

Okay, let me be nonPC - this fucking AIDS thing. I have pity for those infected, and I know we ought to help reduce transmission. I don't have a clear religious agenda against sexual expression. I have a GREAT desire to at least defend the female half of the population, but ultimately CULTURE must change! Religious control of sex based on men controlling women is BAD, but I have to say women are going to have to defend their collective interest against culture that allows men to have dozens of sexual partners before (and after) marriage. I do blame the men largely.

The compassionate response is to treat the symptoms, but maybe like a civil war, sometimes you have to step back and let people fight it out. This means to me that cultures that don't respect women MUST decline. Sorry, just the fact. Survival of the fittest and all that. AIDS babies don't do very well.

Now I'm not taking a position on what we ought to do, just admitting treating symptoms is not enough, even if it's cheap in the short term.

So I'll surrender as usual, but just feel angry at arrogant economics, looking at the world, filtered through false security in short term success and imagining they have something to offer because they know how to do double-entry bookkeeping.

Solve the energy issue. That's all I ask.

Figure out how to grow our food without needing fossil fuels. That's all.

Figure out how to keep up our electrical grid without fossul fuels.

Figure out how to keep our homes warm (and cool) without fossil fuels.

Figure out how to live within a solar economy. What we're doing is suicide, even ignoring all the greed and hatreds.

We've scaled up our needs so that NOTHING can replace our one time inheritence.

Does anyone else have a problem with this?!

Is economic optimization of efficiency to save lives for a few years going to make any difference later?

I don't have a sound position, a defendable one, which allows me to keep my creature comforts, to keep my intellectual desires for knowledge ever expanding. I do think learning can keep increasing exponentially.

The economist is right - we must make hard choices. We must tell the truth - that we are weak little monkeys with a little too much power at the moment, and unsure what's going to happen next.

The more people who accept RISK is not good, that they'd better look at the world with less demands and more patience, that is good.

Whether or not spending $100B/year or whatever to save the third world, I don't know.

I know being scared isn't a virtue in itself, although I admit fear tempered with sound action is good.

I don't want to say I'm responsible for the destruction of the rain forests, for AIDS in Africa, for droughts in China, for hurricanes in India. My angry child says someone ought to DO something. I know it is self-centered to just worry about MY problems, but I know somehow I am part of the problem, and whatever good I can do must in part come from defending my own life.

It is too grim, to imagine all the horrors in the world, to know how to react. I'm still sure too much is caused by our system, our demands for resources.

I guess can take the republican lament "Democrats love to spend other people's money". Well economists like to spend other people's money too.

If our wealth and power was focused on creating a world where people could live contentedly without great weath and power, I'd be more content to believe I was part of a solution.

The BEST thing the world's rich can do (including me, as a sheep yes) is teach how to live without spending all the wealth within our reach.

For me reduce our energy consumption is the FUNDAMENTAL moral impossibility.

1. Americans consume more resources than the world can support for the world's population.
2. The rest of the world can NOT copy America.
3. America MUST change before we all fail.

This is the game - open and close. Sure, throw a few billion to the poor, but don't CLAIM you're doing good if you have to reduce the world's future to pay for your "generosity".