Hi everyone — it's been a long time since I last posted. We had our forum in Foster a couple of months ago and it went reasonably well. South Gippsland Shire councilors kicked in a substantial amount of money to help run it for which I'm very grateful! I was aiming it largely at the people who were on the panel and it may have had some benefit there. But it's all water under the bridge now — I feel personally that the time for consciousness raising is nearly at an end. Now is the time to start work with the new realities in mind!
But I'm having one last go at educating the public and it's a beauty! Stoneleigh (Nicole Foss) from The Automatic Earth is coming to Australia on a lecture tour and we are having her give a talk down here. It will be at the Leongatha (edit in response to comment: Leongatha is in Victoria) Memorial Hall in the Council meeting room on February 21st at 7:30pm (2 Michael Place Leongatha) for those of you in the area. Cost will be $10.00. It will (I suppose) be basically her A Century of Challenges lecture, which is pretty technical and requires at least some economic knowledge, but is very in-depth and far-reaching in its scope. Definitely a must-know for anyone seriously planning for the future at any level. I've just had a meeting with Malcolm McKelvie from Baw Baw Sustainability Network with whom I'm jointly running the talk and we're happy with our arrangements, so it should be a good show!
So what comes next? I'm working three part-time jobs at the moment while I have a think about what business to start. What I'm planning to do at the moment is to run classes for Arduino control systems programming and building. I'm thinking of aiming it principally at local kids (although some adults may be interested too). I want to (a) get a low capital and knowledge intensive start-up business going down here for the brighter locals and (b) find out who the best programmers and solderers are so I can employ 'em! Back when my exhibit building business was operational, John Banikos and I built quite a few things powered by PLCs (programmable logic controllers), mini computers used in industrial processes. The Arduino is a low-cost PLC essentially. There is also an ultra low-cost computer which has just been released — the Raspberry — which I will check out.
I'd really like to get some sort of hackerspace going and try 3-D printing too, but it will have to be one step at a time for a while!
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Community forum background information
Our little transition group is going to run a community forum to try and get as many key people in our district to have an understanding of the implications of peak oil for our local economy. Below is the draft of a background document I want to have available for participants. Does anyone have criticisms or suggestions? I'm a bit concerned that the references for economics are a bit thin. If any of you have any good links you think I can use, send them along!
Peak Oil & Finance Briefing Paper for panelists and participants at the Corner Inlet Fuel & Finance Forum, 13th June 2011
Prepared by Lloyd Morcom cornerinlettransition@gmail.com
Transition Corner Inlet District Inc
Partly adapted from “Peak Oil Briefing Paper” by Kate Leslie of Transition Hobsons Bay
which can be found at
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_vLC_EwqdPIfAFyUdCW20-JLKK9-nB4W9Hqo3gDlv38/edit?hl=en_US&authkey=CLmWzukB&pli=1
Executive Summary
The problem of Peak Oil and credit-based finance
Oil is a non-renewable resource with geological limits to its supply. In the past 150 years, we humans have used around one half of all oil. We are now using four times as much as we are finding.
It is increasingly believed by a range of experts that the peak of extraction may have already occurred between 2006 and 2008. This means that as each year goes by, there will be less oil available. Oil in the cheapest, most accessible reserves was extracted first. The reserves left are more difficult and expensive to access and extract.
Peak oil presents a real challenge to us as a society – oil has become such an integral part of our life that the end of abundant and cheap supply is bound to create serious disruption around the world and not least in South Gippsland. Oil is used in almost all facets of production. As well being a fuel it is the main feedstock for plastics manufacture. Its role in agriculture is crucial. In fact it underpins the stability of our economy.
What is hidden from most of us by the complexity of the world we live in is how our economy has developed into one dependent on an endless supply of cheap energy and oil in particular for its continued existence. Our economy is credit-based and uses fiat money: that is, it uses arbitrary symbols legislated into existence for use in trade and exchange. Most of what we call money has been lent into existence by banks and governments and exists as only as symbols on paper or computer screens. Because it must be repaid with interest, the supply of money continually expands and so must the economy it supports, in order to pay back both principal and interest.
If economic growth is curtailed by a shortage of energy, particularly oil, our economic system could collapse, as credit lent will be impossible to repay with interest and so banks would be unable to lend. This is what is currently happening more or less in slow motion to the world economy. The crises in Europe (Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain are all teetering on the edge of defaulting on their debts) and in the USA (with its enormous unfunded budget deficit to cover social security, health care and the military) are caused by an ongoing rapid increase in debt which is becoming increasingly clear will never be repaid. Currently governments have been coerced into using taxpayer funds to give financial backing to banks but this creates a political crisis which will blow up at some stage.
Australia seems to be a long way from these kinds of problems at the moment but our seeming invulnerability is an illusion and we could find ourselves dragged into them should these international crises affect our trade, which would rapidly reveal the fragility of our own finance and banking system.
Resources for understanding the problem: Peak Oil
There are two key concepts to grasp with Peak Oil. One is the “Hubbert curve”, the bell-shaped graph that shows how a resource of any kind is exploited, with a rising level of production to a peak and then an (often symmetrical) decline. The other concept is the idea of EROEI: “energy returned on energy invested”. This shows how expensive — in energy terms — an energy resource is to exploit. For example, the first oil wells in the nineteenth century produced more than one hundred times the energy value than it took to drill and develop them. Recent offshore oil fields on the other hand have a ratio of energy returned on energy invested of nearer to ten-to-one.
ABC Catalyst video on the problem of Peak Oil
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaNz3qS5WAo
A good primer by Gail Tverberg who writes at The Oil Drum
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3726
One in video format by another Oil Drum commentator, André Angelantoni
http://www.postpeakliving.com/preparing-post-peak-life
Australia’s CSIRO has put out a study called the Future Fuels Forum
http://www.csiro.au/science/FutureFuelsForum.html
An explanation of EROEI at Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EROEI
An explanation the the Hubbert curve also at Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubbert_curve
A longer discussion of EROEI at The Oil Drum
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7786
Raw figures on the world situation from the Energy Export Databrowser
http://mazamascience.com/OilExport/
Another useful subsidiary concept is the “Export Land Model” based on work by geologist Jeffrey Brown. To quote from the Wikipedia article on it, “It models the decline in oil exports that result when an exporting nation experiences both a peak in oil production and an increase in domestic oil consumption. In such cases, exports decline at a far faster rate than the decline in oil production alone.”
The Wikipedia article can be found at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_Land_Model
A discussion of how it affects Australia can be found here
http://anz.theoildrum.com/node/3657
A longer technical exploration of the Export Land Model is here
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7007
Resources for understanding the problem: the economy
It is more difficult to find an objective, all-encompassing explanation of the economic situation. There are many commentators who can give valuable insights but most have a limited view or are fixated what they believe to be the particular cause. But anyway, here are some links.
Chris Martenson has a comprehensive though necessarily US based view of the economy. His Crash Course is well worth a look for an explanation of the causes of the current big downturn: click on “Watch the Crash Course” on the top left of the web page.
http://www.chrismartenson.com/
An amusing stick-figure explanation of the crisis, again US based
http://cravensbrothers.com/cboutlook/
Steve Keen is an Australian economist and the author of “Debunking Economics”. He has been shouting “The emperor has no clothes” at those economists who see a return to business-as-usual soon. He is best at explaining the housing bubble, which is so important as a cause of the huge increase in debt which has driven demand in Australia. When the bubble pops, as it’s starting to do now, demand (= spending) will fall precipitously. Couple that with the grim outlook for local manufacturing and the erosion of retail sales because of online purchases, both caused by the high Australian dollar, and we have a very nasty outlook for the economy especially if our exports falter. This is a video presentation by Steve Keen with Powerpoint slides.
http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2011/03/20/mortgage-finance-association-of-australia-talk/
Government initiatives - Local
What are governments doing about it? Not much apart from a Federal Senate committee investigation in 2007, although there has been some action at the local government level. Maribyrnong City Council addressed the subject with its Peak Oil Contingency Plan (June 2009)
http://www.maribyrnong.vic.gov.au/Files/Final_PeakOil_25_August_Website.pdf
Darebin City Council has an Adaption Plan (November 2009)
http://www.darebin.vic.gov.au/Files/Adaptation_Plan_Final_November_2009.pdf
In March 2007, Brisbane City Council’s Climate Change and Energy Taskforce released their final report 'A Call For Action'. Brisbane Council adopted some of its recommendations, stating “peak oil is a more recent consideration”.
http://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/documents/plans_strategies/summary_intro_climate_change_energy_taskforce_report.pdf
Coffs Harbour City Council (NSW) adopted a 'Peak Oil Report and Action Plan' in November 2008.
http://www.coffsharbour.nsw.gov.au/resources/documents/CHCC_Peak_Oil_Report1.pdf
Sunshine Coast Council adopted the Sunshine Coast Climate Change and Peak Oil Strategy 2010-2020 in June 2010
Government initiatives - Federal
The Federal Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism, on behalf of the National Oil Supplies Emergency Committee (NOSEC) examined Australia’s current level of liquid fuel vulnerability and significant trends which may affect this up until 2020.
http://www.ret.gov.au/energy/energy_security/emergency_response/liquid_fuel_emergency/lfe_vulnerability/Pages/lfe_vulnerability.aspx
A Federal Government Senate Committee in 2007 published 'Inquiry into Australia’s Future Oil Supply and Alternative Transport Fuels'. It found Australia should be planning now for the enormous changes that will be needed to move to a less oil dependent future. The final report is here:
http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/rrat_ctte/completed_inquiries/2004-07/oil_supply/report/index.htm
International reports
The UK Secretary for Energy and Climate Change committed in 2011 to establish an “Oil Shock Response Plan”. Reputedly it will address how to protect the economy “if we knew that the oil price would soar to $250 in 2014.” An article on it is here:
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2072738/exclusive-government-develop-oil-shock-response-plan
The US Military issued a report in 2010 warning that “by 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 million barrels per day.” The report may be accessed here:
http://www.peakoil.net/files/JOE2010.pdf
The German Military think tank tasked with fixing a direction for the German military analysed the implications of peak oil in 2010. The report was leaked. It reportedly warns of “shifts in the global balance of power, of the formation of new relationships based on interdependency, of a decline in importance of the western industrial nations, of the "total collapse of the markets" and of serious political and economic crises.” The Spiegel Online report is here:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,715138,00.html
Academic studies of social vulnerability
For a limited assessment of local impacts, two academics (Dodson and Sipe) have written a number of papers referencing maps of their “Vulnerability Assessment for Mortgage, Petrol and Inflation Risks and Expenses” (VAMPIRE). I draw your attention to the statement in their 2009 report that there are "increasingly pessimistic assessments emerging about the future security of conventional oil supplies."
2009 publication by implication. Quotes oil prices in mid 2008. No census date referenced. No Melbourne map
http://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0014/208220/ANZAPS09-Securing-suburbia-buy-Dodson-and-Sipe.pdf
2008 publication. Has Melbourne map on p7. Based on 2001 Census data
http://www.aspo-australia.org.au/References/Bruce/Dodson2008PlannedHouseholdRisk_AustPlanner.pdf
2006 publication. Based on 2001 Census data.
http://www98.griffith.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/10072/12665/1/41353.pdf
Peak Oil & Finance Briefing Paper for panelists and participants at the Corner Inlet Fuel & Finance Forum, 13th June 2011
Prepared by Lloyd Morcom cornerinlettransition@gmail.com
Transition Corner Inlet District Inc
Partly adapted from “Peak Oil Briefing Paper” by Kate Leslie of Transition Hobsons Bay
which can be found at
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_vLC_EwqdPIfAFyUdCW20-JLKK9-nB4W9Hqo3gDlv38/edit?hl=en_US&authkey=CLmWzukB&pli=1
Executive Summary
The problem of Peak Oil and credit-based finance
Oil is a non-renewable resource with geological limits to its supply. In the past 150 years, we humans have used around one half of all oil. We are now using four times as much as we are finding.
It is increasingly believed by a range of experts that the peak of extraction may have already occurred between 2006 and 2008. This means that as each year goes by, there will be less oil available. Oil in the cheapest, most accessible reserves was extracted first. The reserves left are more difficult and expensive to access and extract.
Peak oil presents a real challenge to us as a society – oil has become such an integral part of our life that the end of abundant and cheap supply is bound to create serious disruption around the world and not least in South Gippsland. Oil is used in almost all facets of production. As well being a fuel it is the main feedstock for plastics manufacture. Its role in agriculture is crucial. In fact it underpins the stability of our economy.
What is hidden from most of us by the complexity of the world we live in is how our economy has developed into one dependent on an endless supply of cheap energy and oil in particular for its continued existence. Our economy is credit-based and uses fiat money: that is, it uses arbitrary symbols legislated into existence for use in trade and exchange. Most of what we call money has been lent into existence by banks and governments and exists as only as symbols on paper or computer screens. Because it must be repaid with interest, the supply of money continually expands and so must the economy it supports, in order to pay back both principal and interest.
If economic growth is curtailed by a shortage of energy, particularly oil, our economic system could collapse, as credit lent will be impossible to repay with interest and so banks would be unable to lend. This is what is currently happening more or less in slow motion to the world economy. The crises in Europe (Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain are all teetering on the edge of defaulting on their debts) and in the USA (with its enormous unfunded budget deficit to cover social security, health care and the military) are caused by an ongoing rapid increase in debt which is becoming increasingly clear will never be repaid. Currently governments have been coerced into using taxpayer funds to give financial backing to banks but this creates a political crisis which will blow up at some stage.
Australia seems to be a long way from these kinds of problems at the moment but our seeming invulnerability is an illusion and we could find ourselves dragged into them should these international crises affect our trade, which would rapidly reveal the fragility of our own finance and banking system.
Resources for understanding the problem: Peak Oil
There are two key concepts to grasp with Peak Oil. One is the “Hubbert curve”, the bell-shaped graph that shows how a resource of any kind is exploited, with a rising level of production to a peak and then an (often symmetrical) decline. The other concept is the idea of EROEI: “energy returned on energy invested”. This shows how expensive — in energy terms — an energy resource is to exploit. For example, the first oil wells in the nineteenth century produced more than one hundred times the energy value than it took to drill and develop them. Recent offshore oil fields on the other hand have a ratio of energy returned on energy invested of nearer to ten-to-one.
ABC Catalyst video on the problem of Peak Oil
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaNz3qS5WAo
A good primer by Gail Tverberg who writes at The Oil Drum
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3726
One in video format by another Oil Drum commentator, André Angelantoni
http://www.postpeakliving.com/preparing-post-peak-life
Australia’s CSIRO has put out a study called the Future Fuels Forum
http://www.csiro.au/science/FutureFuelsForum.html
An explanation of EROEI at Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EROEI
An explanation the the Hubbert curve also at Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubbert_curve
A longer discussion of EROEI at The Oil Drum
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7786
Raw figures on the world situation from the Energy Export Databrowser
http://mazamascience.com/OilExport/
Another useful subsidiary concept is the “Export Land Model” based on work by geologist Jeffrey Brown. To quote from the Wikipedia article on it, “It models the decline in oil exports that result when an exporting nation experiences both a peak in oil production and an increase in domestic oil consumption. In such cases, exports decline at a far faster rate than the decline in oil production alone.”
The Wikipedia article can be found at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_Land_Model
A discussion of how it affects Australia can be found here
http://anz.theoildrum.com/node/3657
A longer technical exploration of the Export Land Model is here
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7007
Resources for understanding the problem: the economy
It is more difficult to find an objective, all-encompassing explanation of the economic situation. There are many commentators who can give valuable insights but most have a limited view or are fixated what they believe to be the particular cause. But anyway, here are some links.
Chris Martenson has a comprehensive though necessarily US based view of the economy. His Crash Course is well worth a look for an explanation of the causes of the current big downturn: click on “Watch the Crash Course” on the top left of the web page.
http://www.chrismartenson.com/
An amusing stick-figure explanation of the crisis, again US based
http://cravensbrothers.com/cboutlook/
Steve Keen is an Australian economist and the author of “Debunking Economics”. He has been shouting “The emperor has no clothes” at those economists who see a return to business-as-usual soon. He is best at explaining the housing bubble, which is so important as a cause of the huge increase in debt which has driven demand in Australia. When the bubble pops, as it’s starting to do now, demand (= spending) will fall precipitously. Couple that with the grim outlook for local manufacturing and the erosion of retail sales because of online purchases, both caused by the high Australian dollar, and we have a very nasty outlook for the economy especially if our exports falter. This is a video presentation by Steve Keen with Powerpoint slides.
http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2011/03/20/mortgage-finance-association-of-australia-talk/
Government initiatives - Local
What are governments doing about it? Not much apart from a Federal Senate committee investigation in 2007, although there has been some action at the local government level. Maribyrnong City Council addressed the subject with its Peak Oil Contingency Plan (June 2009)
http://www.maribyrnong.vic.gov.au/Files/Final_PeakOil_25_August_Website.pdf
Darebin City Council has an Adaption Plan (November 2009)
http://www.darebin.vic.gov.au/Files/Adaptation_Plan_Final_November_2009.pdf
In March 2007, Brisbane City Council’s Climate Change and Energy Taskforce released their final report 'A Call For Action'. Brisbane Council adopted some of its recommendations, stating “peak oil is a more recent consideration”.
http://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/documents/plans_strategies/summary_intro_climate_change_energy_taskforce_report.pdf
Coffs Harbour City Council (NSW) adopted a 'Peak Oil Report and Action Plan' in November 2008.
http://www.coffsharbour.nsw.gov.au/resources/documents/CHCC_Peak_Oil_Report1.pdf
Sunshine Coast Council adopted the Sunshine Coast Climate Change and Peak Oil Strategy 2010-2020 in June 2010
Government initiatives - Federal
The Federal Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism, on behalf of the National Oil Supplies Emergency Committee (NOSEC) examined Australia’s current level of liquid fuel vulnerability and significant trends which may affect this up until 2020.
http://www.ret.gov.au/energy/energy_security/emergency_response/liquid_fuel_emergency/lfe_vulnerability/Pages/lfe_vulnerability.aspx
A Federal Government Senate Committee in 2007 published 'Inquiry into Australia’s Future Oil Supply and Alternative Transport Fuels'. It found Australia should be planning now for the enormous changes that will be needed to move to a less oil dependent future. The final report is here:
http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/rrat_ctte/completed_inquiries/2004-07/oil_supply/report/index.htm
International reports
The UK Secretary for Energy and Climate Change committed in 2011 to establish an “Oil Shock Response Plan”. Reputedly it will address how to protect the economy “if we knew that the oil price would soar to $250 in 2014.” An article on it is here:
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2072738/exclusive-government-develop-oil-shock-response-plan
The US Military issued a report in 2010 warning that “by 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 million barrels per day.” The report may be accessed here:
http://www.peakoil.net/files/JOE2010.pdf
The German Military think tank tasked with fixing a direction for the German military analysed the implications of peak oil in 2010. The report was leaked. It reportedly warns of “shifts in the global balance of power, of the formation of new relationships based on interdependency, of a decline in importance of the western industrial nations, of the "total collapse of the markets" and of serious political and economic crises.” The Spiegel Online report is here:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,715138,00.html
Academic studies of social vulnerability
For a limited assessment of local impacts, two academics (Dodson and Sipe) have written a number of papers referencing maps of their “Vulnerability Assessment for Mortgage, Petrol and Inflation Risks and Expenses” (VAMPIRE). I draw your attention to the statement in their 2009 report that there are "increasingly pessimistic assessments emerging about the future security of conventional oil supplies."
2009 publication by implication. Quotes oil prices in mid 2008. No census date referenced. No Melbourne map
http://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0014/208220/ANZAPS09-Securing-suburbia-buy-Dodson-and-Sipe.pdf
2008 publication. Has Melbourne map on p7. Based on 2001 Census data
http://www.aspo-australia.org.au/References/Bruce/Dodson2008PlannedHouseholdRisk_AustPlanner.pdf
2006 publication. Based on 2001 Census data.
http://www98.griffith.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/10072/12665/1/41353.pdf
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Musings on social meaning and direction in a declining culture
I had an interesting experience on Thursday: my friend Fiona, who is a journalist on the local paper, rang me to say I should be at a park halfway between the town where I live and the one in which I grew up by just after twelve, in order to participate in some publicity for a stunt being run by Mercedes. Several cars running on hydrogen fuel cells are being driven round the world and this was to be a refueling stop for them. I turned up to find a great caravan of fuel trucks and support vans, necessary because places where you can top up your tank with hydrogen are pretty thin on the ground in South Gippsland.
So I chatted to various characters who were there. The cars came in and were refueled: we were promised a lunch but I had to miss out as I had a meeting to attend. What was striking was the size of the fuel trucks relative to the size of the vehicles. I had heard that hydrogen is a very bulky fuel and this will necessarily constrain any distribution network designed for it: essentially, it means it will work best for a dense concentration of vehicles close to a source of the gas, hence a city. To haul it long distances to outlets way out in the sticks won't work — the amount of fuel the trucks would consume would rapidly approach the amount they were carrying, and there are problems handling it too, due to its ability to leak through the tiniest orifice.
So I drove off musing on all this. The Mercedes people were full of enthusiasm for their project, needless to say, but is this the future of motoring? It could be the future of some motoring no doubt. Mercedes as a corporation may well survive the coming financial holocaust if their accountants are as smart as their engineers. Then they will be in a position to supply the elites in the cities with their clever cars, which have a range vastly greater than electric vehicles. But this is in no way the future of motoring for the masses. Because there can be no future of motoring for the masses.
Dmitri Orlov has just done a post at Club Orlov where he talks of the evolution of this phenomena: to quote…
So I chatted to various characters who were there. The cars came in and were refueled: we were promised a lunch but I had to miss out as I had a meeting to attend. What was striking was the size of the fuel trucks relative to the size of the vehicles. I had heard that hydrogen is a very bulky fuel and this will necessarily constrain any distribution network designed for it: essentially, it means it will work best for a dense concentration of vehicles close to a source of the gas, hence a city. To haul it long distances to outlets way out in the sticks won't work — the amount of fuel the trucks would consume would rapidly approach the amount they were carrying, and there are problems handling it too, due to its ability to leak through the tiniest orifice.
So I drove off musing on all this. The Mercedes people were full of enthusiasm for their project, needless to say, but is this the future of motoring? It could be the future of some motoring no doubt. Mercedes as a corporation may well survive the coming financial holocaust if their accountants are as smart as their engineers. Then they will be in a position to supply the elites in the cities with their clever cars, which have a range vastly greater than electric vehicles. But this is in no way the future of motoring for the masses. Because there can be no future of motoring for the masses.
Dmitri Orlov has just done a post at Club Orlov where he talks of the evolution of this phenomena: to quote…
…short-term political and financial trends point in an altogether different direction [from that of a continuation of the system-as-it-is]: that of the global industrial economy turning boutique. You see, one shoe has already dropped: the level of industrial activity that can be sustained today is already insufficient to provide anywhere near full employment and a reasonable quality of life for vast numbers of people; the solution is to disenfranchise them, to confiscate their savings, to cancel their retirements, to concentrate all of the remaining wealth in as few hands as possible, and to create a boutique economic and financial environment in which the lucky and unscrupulous few can continue to live comfortably…As I said, if Mercedes plays this right, they may well have a future, providing for those who still have power and the money in the world. But don't be fooled into thinking that "alternative technologies" must necessarily be equitable, as well as "clean".
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Good James Howard Kunstler interview & a great primer on the GFC
JHK has only one tune in his repertoire but he plays it damn well. Here's an interview on Terrain.org (a journal of the built and natural environments) where he spins it all out in fine form — lots of quotable bits including this: "We will do what reality compels us to do, not necessarily what our fantasies propose." My sentiments exactly.
My friend Mike sent me a link to a broadcast which gives a background to the current financial crisis — if it puzzles you in any way, give it a listen! It makes very clear the motivations of players at every level. Highly recommended.
My friend Mike sent me a link to a broadcast which gives a background to the current financial crisis — if it puzzles you in any way, give it a listen! It makes very clear the motivations of players at every level. Highly recommended.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
The passing of a master
Joe Bageant is dead. He was the chronicler of his people, the rednecks of the American Scots-Irish underclass, whom he loved but for whom he despaired. Read his stuff: Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War and Rainbow Pie.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Australia looking down the Hubbert curve
Here's a part of an interesting post on The Oil Drum.
Australia is next on the list and it appears to have passed peak oil production and as a result, exports have dropped from over 500 kbd in 2007 to just above 300 kbd today. The declines in production are expected to continue.Commenter Jedi Welder notes
"The recent start-up of BHP Billiton's Pyrenees oil field and Apache's Van Gogh field - both situated off Western Australia's north-west coast - will provide a boost in the short-term; however, the long-term trend is for production to keep falling," EnergyQuest Chief Executive Officer, Dr Graeme Bethune, said today.(this from April 2010).
Current production is at around 540 kbd, having fallen 40 kbd in 2010.
The decline with a projected drop of 85% in 10 years can be seen from this graph:Anticipated future Australian production (Geoscience Australia)
At the same time Australian consumption has been steadily rising, and is hovering just below 1 mbd.Australian oil consumption (Index mundi)
In contrast, Australian natural gas reserves are significant. As with Malaysia it has supplied LNG to Japan, starting in 1989 and has just signed a $41 billion contract for a 20-year supply of LNG from the Gorgon field, taking 2.25 million tons of the anticipated 15 million tons (0.75 Tcf) of annual production anticipated from the field, as overall gas production continues to rise.Current estimates of Australian natural gas reserves are of over 108 Tcf
In the graph above, Australian crude oil production seems to be all but anihilated in just 20 years from peak production. That is a realy big fall. How will they cope with that?Indeed.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Wikileaks is a watershed
Julian Assange has ignited a firestorm amongst the thinking classes. He is driving a wedge between the establishment and the general run of the intellectual class who work the levers of our modern industrial/financial world. This has grave consequences for the legitimacy of our rulers. Julia Gillard has had the approval of the US establishment, but is fast losing support at home because of her reflexive anti-Assange statements.
As Ran Prieur says in his December the ninth post, it doesn't matter who Julian Assange really is any more because he's become a myth, an enabling story that allows us (the intellectual class) to construct the narrative of our time. When a culture is on the rise, it's relatively easy for leaders to manage their business and to maintain the Mandate of Heaven. On the downward side — which we are now on, although it may be some years before this is widely acknowledged by the intellectual classes let alone the general public — problems multiply like the heads of the Hydra. It is an unfortunate time to be in charge of anything. The compromises one must make to reach the top of the greasy pole are becoming impossible to maintain. In such a time, uncompromising types like Assange find their opportunity. The times in a sense call out for them. A few years ago David Hicks had a similar chance to play this role but the time was premature and he was too shallow a vessel to carry the load, unlike Assange.
In a world of six billion people, where the dominant culture has reached the limits of its power and is starting to lose its grip, the tensions thus produced must find their expression through the lives of individuals. This is Julian Assange's fate. He has prepared himself for it and will no doubt acquit himself courageously enough according to his own values. The longer term significance is impossible to assess. But after he is gone there will be others, for better and worse. All types of people who have ever existed are out there — Christs and Hitlers — and in every crowded city these individuals are waiting, hoping their time has come.
Assange's writings are vague, overly-simple and fairly one-dimensional to my mind. He is not the new Messiah, although I have a feeling he'd like to be. But we'll see what he comes up with. And more importantly, what is made of him.
EDIT: The Archdruid in his latest post skewers the ruling elite more effectively than I can:
As Ran Prieur says in his December the ninth post, it doesn't matter who Julian Assange really is any more because he's become a myth, an enabling story that allows us (the intellectual class) to construct the narrative of our time. When a culture is on the rise, it's relatively easy for leaders to manage their business and to maintain the Mandate of Heaven. On the downward side — which we are now on, although it may be some years before this is widely acknowledged by the intellectual classes let alone the general public — problems multiply like the heads of the Hydra. It is an unfortunate time to be in charge of anything. The compromises one must make to reach the top of the greasy pole are becoming impossible to maintain. In such a time, uncompromising types like Assange find their opportunity. The times in a sense call out for them. A few years ago David Hicks had a similar chance to play this role but the time was premature and he was too shallow a vessel to carry the load, unlike Assange.
In a world of six billion people, where the dominant culture has reached the limits of its power and is starting to lose its grip, the tensions thus produced must find their expression through the lives of individuals. This is Julian Assange's fate. He has prepared himself for it and will no doubt acquit himself courageously enough according to his own values. The longer term significance is impossible to assess. But after he is gone there will be others, for better and worse. All types of people who have ever existed are out there — Christs and Hitlers — and in every crowded city these individuals are waiting, hoping their time has come.
Assange's writings are vague, overly-simple and fairly one-dimensional to my mind. He is not the new Messiah, although I have a feeling he'd like to be. But we'll see what he comes up with. And more importantly, what is made of him.
EDIT: The Archdruid in his latest post skewers the ruling elite more effectively than I can:
The elites that mostly run today’s industrial societies, like their equivalents in every other human society, have a deeply conservative streak under whatever surface layer of fashionable radicalism may be popular at any given time. They have the positions of influence that they do because they have the educations, hold the opinions, and think the thoughts that their peers, and more particularly the immediately prior generation of their peers, considered suitable to their roles. In a society that’s more or less sustainable, this is a powerful source of stability; in one that’s stumbled into an unsustainable human ecology, these same pressures for elite conformity can make it next to impossible for anyone in charge to think about the world in any way other than the one that’s making disaster inevitable.2nd Edit: Ran's added a permalink for his Assange post so I've modified the link on his name above.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
The moral issue of now
Ran Prieur has a post which encapsulates the issue we in the industrial world face: the irrationality of our desires. He says…
My favorite election commentary is by Sharon Astyk: The election is over - Now what do we do with all the fear? I agree: the voters are not really idiots -- they are cowards, and using their human brainpower to convince themselves of fantasies that defy both reason and observation: that the government can dispense benefits without collecting taxes; that an economy based on exponential growth can continue on a planet of fixed size; that we can have utopia merely by filling the slots in the present system with different people. What they're afraid of is reality: that the government, the economy, the planet, cannot continue to give more than they get, that all the stuff we've been getting, we're going to stop getting.If we expect Santa Claus (ie the great god of industrial civilisation) to bring us goodies endlessly while we have no appreciation of the costs, we will react with infantile rage when our desires are frustrated. And who will we blame? Refugees? Indians? Moslems? Jews?
After they lose their toys, the people will be hungry for leaders who call for the sacrifice of others, and I mean sacrifice in the literal sense: the ritual mass-murder of scapegoats. When there are piles of bodies in the streets, only then, from the sane fringes, will new and better systems grow to fill the dead spots.And what will trigger this rage in Australia? My guess is a big collapse in real estate prices, brought on by a downturn in China which will slow our export bonanza. I hope it doesn't get as bad as Ran posits, but you never know.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
The True Faith
I'm talking about Science of course, or really its wildly popular but mentally subnormal child, Scientism. The believers in Scientism are generally the same people who believe in humanity's ever-upward climb towards perfect happiness and power — ok, we have the odd World War or financial hiccup, but everything will eventually get better and better, mkay?
The more paranoid fringe of Scientismists (I've coined a nice clumsy new term!), the sort who believe that George Bush bombed the World Trade Center because the Arabs weren't smart enough to organise something like that, tend to see conspiracies everywhere, except where they really are. Scientismists know deep down they're as dumb as dogsh*t, but that there are two types of smart people in the world, scientists and those evil bastards in the tall buildings. Scientismists believe in science, not as a system of inquiry, but as a reliable faith and the fount of all good things like iPhones and Prozac and Jumbo jets. They also tend to think like Ayn Rand: that the world is run by an incredibly smart conspiracy of evildoers who grab the ideas from the scientists and do what they will with them. Anything that disadvantages the powerful will be hidden away in some vast underground bunker. Like this wonderful invention that could let cars run on next to nothing! Watch this video!
What's worth noting is that no-one interviewing the guy asks where does the energy come from? And of course the designer, who knows what it is that he's made, just assumes that they know. But one comes away with the impression that these knob-heads think the energy comes from the salt water. All it took was a lone genius to see this! Just point radio waves at salt water and kaboom! Now watch the big energy companies suppress it!
Of course this is an American TV news spot and we know how ignorant a lot of those folk are. Not like Australia, where our ABC is rigorous in its scientific rectitude. But if you listen to people in this country talking and follow the political gossip you will soon realise that magical thinking and scientism is just as firmly embedded here — in control in fact — and that we are in no way especially intellectually privileged. For a start, who is talking about the fact that Australia imports 30% of its oil? We pay for it with our exports but how long can this go on? How do you think our economy will fair without that imported oil? Will electric cars magically appear? How about the parade of diesel trucks which carry the vast majority of our goods at some stage of their distribution? Will we get electric trucks too? And who supplies all this — Santa Claus? It is a dagger at the throat of our society, but no-one is talking about it! Instead all the talk is about the distribution of the goodies we have. The banks are greedy! No, they're the pillars of our economic strength! Houses cost too much because everyone wants one, but if you're smart, get in now and buy one because they always go up in value and you too can become a millionaire without working for it!
Most of us have very little understanding of how our lives really work. We're unaware of the vast investments in plant and institutions which so intricately underpin our daily life. All these complex arrangements are built and maintained by us, but we are conscious of only the tiny area we work in. For the rest, we deal in a kind of shorthand knowledge — a pseudo language which fools us and those we talk to, because it works. Until it doesn't. So house prices and stock prices go up and down and the trick is to know when to buy and sell, because stocks and houses have become almost purely gambling chips, the key to a future of living without working! Who knows what the stocks really represent? Because we all know we live in the best and luckiest country in the World and everything just gets better and better all the time because that's the Law of Nature, or something.
This spread of magical thinking has become the characteristic of our age, an age that began seriously in the nineteen-eighties. That's when somehow it seemed possible to spin something into nothing by talking the right talk. Young guys who had been nobodies only a few years previously suddenly had black clothes and cool haircuts and were driving new Porsches — rush hour to the eastern suburbs of Melbourne seemed to be jammed with them. The recession at the end of the eighties threw cold water on a lot of this for a few years, but it all popped up again in the mid-nineties and has powered on ever since. No-one makes anything, that's all done mysteriously, in China. Instead, we all work in service industries and the coolest thing is to be a celebrity, a chef or a footballer. And get a contract for a TV show. And spend enough on your credit card to get a free flight to Honkers and back. We just wish those dumb bastards in Afghanistan would see reason 'cause then they could live like us!
How long will it all last? One could argue that it will die when it doesn't work any more as a pseudo-philosophy. Of course it has never really worked, but over a short human life span it's possible to think all kinds of bizarre things and never have reality find you out. Only a very great trauma changes people's thinking and then usually only in those young enough to be receptive. I think scientism and its adherents will be with us for a very long time: even when it's obviously shot its bolt, like the Black Knight in The Quest for the Holy Grail, with all limbs missing its acolytes will think the corner will soon be turned and we'll be soon be back to Business as Usual.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Blaming, scapegoating and assigning causes
First, read Dmitri Orlov's latest post, How (not) to Organise a Community. It's a ripper! Actually it's not great literature: it's a little too long and with a "put together" feel, but also what he's saying is a hard thing to listen to and to understand because it runs against what we want to understand. We want to follow the grooves we know — we want to form committees, have meetings, produce agendas, tick boxes and then have some feel-good social functions under the guise of "networking", where we can slap each other on the back and congratulate ourselves for "doing something". 'Cause that's how civilised modern types like us solve problems, isn't it? But what Dmitri says is what I've been feeling deep down, but without being able to articulate as well as he does: that the reality of life is that it doesn't matter what you think or feel or believe. All that matters is what you do and what the situation really is. And right action can be for all the "wrong" reasons, via the "wrong" people in the "wrong" places.
I'm plugging away at a number of projects at the moment, one of which is my novel, "Alex" (I've been a bit slow cranking out the chapters but they will appear in due course!). I've been thinking that what is going to happen sometime in the next three to four decades is we are going to lose the federal government we have now. Instead we'll have a military government, which I'm calling the Military Commission in the novel. It will come in as an emergency measure but then stay on for all kinds of reasons. The state governments may well carry on for much longer as they are, because we don't invest too much abstract value in them: their job is to keep the machinery of our lives running as well as possible and that's a management task. The federal government on the other hand has "spiritual" values attached to it: our picture of something we call "Australia", and we project onto it an ideal of our national selves. As this image of ourselves fails along with the tax revenues which support the federal government, so will the democratic institution itself. The quality of our politicians will fall and they will become paralysed by our inability to realistically to map out an agreed role for them. We can see this already happening in relation to the war in Afghanistan. What we want the war to be like and what we want our role in it to be is completely at odds with the reality on the ground. Politicians at the highest levels spout the mindless platitudes we want to hear while the military are playing it for their own ends. The result is not likely to be good for the government's legitimacy.
The other thing I'm thinking about a lot and which Dmitri covers as well is, how do we build a viable economic structure for the future? Do we do it with nice reasonable people sitting around boardroom tables playing the game by the rules? I don't think so and neither does Dmitri. The future will not be "managed". It will be an eruption, a tearing of the social and economic fabric, a giving up rather than a trying harder. Our current system, where small businesses carry something like 50% of the economy, where basically it's survival of the fittest within a set of legal and economic rules, will just get harder and harder to continue. The big players, the 50% of the economy run by corporations, will be able to tilt the board in their favour because they can control politics much more effectively than us little fish — but only for a time and while generating a great deal of bitterness and anger. But the problem will be the rules which we are all playing within are going to lose their agency. If you stick to the rules you will be lucky to survive. For a start, credit, the lifeblood of business, is starting to dry up and will eventually be completely gone in its present form to be replaced by — nothing! And the desperation of the government for tax revenue, which up till now has been fine while the goods and services tax (the GST) has boomed along with the consumer economy, will mean small businesses will be squeezed very hard because the big boys will tilt the board their way. Couple this with a continuing drop in global trade and the outlook for the mass of Australian industrial style agricultural workers and self-employed people is not good.
This means that the successful entrepreneurs of the future will most certainly be criminal at one level or another. They will be outside the tax system for a start. It may well be that marijuana will be legalised simply so the government can get some tax back on it, but other drugs will not be and the general level of misery will ensure steady sales, helping the financial underworld.
Who will oppose the rise of this new class? Firstly the government at both state and federal levels due to the dropping tax revenue and the perception that an illegitimate power base is arising, threatening the carefully constructed system which has been evolving in Australia since Federation. Those classes dependent on state revenues for pay: public servants, the armed forces and teachers will see their living standards declining and tend to blame the decay on "moral delinquency". They will be joined by the mass of baby-boomer retirees who will be falling into much deeper poverty than they ever expected due to the losses on financial markets and the decline in tax revenues and hence pension payments. The teachers and other public payroll recipients will resent having higher taxes to fund the baby-boomers too, so the solidarity of the current system will be very shaky. Add to that the great mass of workers turned out of the building trade due to the impending popping of the Australian property bubble and we have a very volatile mix.
An attempt will be made to pin the blame on particular groups. We may find ourselves in a major war simply because the population will be so maddened with rage, so confused at the mysterious loss of prosperity and so helpless in their personal situations, that having an identifiable enemy to fight will seem a blessed simplification. The Muslims have a definite target painted on them at the moment: perhaps some new twist in Middle-East politics will provide the trigger.
But all these considerations must play out in our real lives: we have to avoid being thrown under the bus because we have a target painted on us, but we must also find a way to survive in a much more uncertain and dangerous, poorer world. I've been thinking about all this in relation to where I live, in the poorest part of South Gippsland in southern Victoria, Australia. I can see how this area, which at the moment has a certain level of prosperity and happiness that it's never had before, could just slowly fail, with the clever and energetic people leaving for more promising prospects anywhere else and the social fabric fraying and falling apart in consequence. I've seen it in other areas of Australia and I can see how it could easily happen here. So I'm trying to hatch a plan to counter this. My idea currently revolves around the idea of a couple of business incubators, but of course it is more than that. What I'm really trying to do is build an alternative way of life: a true counter-culture.
Who would want to be a member of such a beast, in an area like this where if you have any talent you can still count on being whisked off to some brighter future in the city? My gut feeling is that it will be the bad boys and girls. We have a few of them around here! Anyway I'm vaguely negotiating to lease a large abandoned factory in a neighboring town which I'm feeling more and more could be the centre of some crazy social experiment. I'll keep you posted.
I'm plugging away at a number of projects at the moment, one of which is my novel, "Alex" (I've been a bit slow cranking out the chapters but they will appear in due course!). I've been thinking that what is going to happen sometime in the next three to four decades is we are going to lose the federal government we have now. Instead we'll have a military government, which I'm calling the Military Commission in the novel. It will come in as an emergency measure but then stay on for all kinds of reasons. The state governments may well carry on for much longer as they are, because we don't invest too much abstract value in them: their job is to keep the machinery of our lives running as well as possible and that's a management task. The federal government on the other hand has "spiritual" values attached to it: our picture of something we call "Australia", and we project onto it an ideal of our national selves. As this image of ourselves fails along with the tax revenues which support the federal government, so will the democratic institution itself. The quality of our politicians will fall and they will become paralysed by our inability to realistically to map out an agreed role for them. We can see this already happening in relation to the war in Afghanistan. What we want the war to be like and what we want our role in it to be is completely at odds with the reality on the ground. Politicians at the highest levels spout the mindless platitudes we want to hear while the military are playing it for their own ends. The result is not likely to be good for the government's legitimacy.
The other thing I'm thinking about a lot and which Dmitri covers as well is, how do we build a viable economic structure for the future? Do we do it with nice reasonable people sitting around boardroom tables playing the game by the rules? I don't think so and neither does Dmitri. The future will not be "managed". It will be an eruption, a tearing of the social and economic fabric, a giving up rather than a trying harder. Our current system, where small businesses carry something like 50% of the economy, where basically it's survival of the fittest within a set of legal and economic rules, will just get harder and harder to continue. The big players, the 50% of the economy run by corporations, will be able to tilt the board in their favour because they can control politics much more effectively than us little fish — but only for a time and while generating a great deal of bitterness and anger. But the problem will be the rules which we are all playing within are going to lose their agency. If you stick to the rules you will be lucky to survive. For a start, credit, the lifeblood of business, is starting to dry up and will eventually be completely gone in its present form to be replaced by — nothing! And the desperation of the government for tax revenue, which up till now has been fine while the goods and services tax (the GST) has boomed along with the consumer economy, will mean small businesses will be squeezed very hard because the big boys will tilt the board their way. Couple this with a continuing drop in global trade and the outlook for the mass of Australian industrial style agricultural workers and self-employed people is not good.
This means that the successful entrepreneurs of the future will most certainly be criminal at one level or another. They will be outside the tax system for a start. It may well be that marijuana will be legalised simply so the government can get some tax back on it, but other drugs will not be and the general level of misery will ensure steady sales, helping the financial underworld.
Who will oppose the rise of this new class? Firstly the government at both state and federal levels due to the dropping tax revenue and the perception that an illegitimate power base is arising, threatening the carefully constructed system which has been evolving in Australia since Federation. Those classes dependent on state revenues for pay: public servants, the armed forces and teachers will see their living standards declining and tend to blame the decay on "moral delinquency". They will be joined by the mass of baby-boomer retirees who will be falling into much deeper poverty than they ever expected due to the losses on financial markets and the decline in tax revenues and hence pension payments. The teachers and other public payroll recipients will resent having higher taxes to fund the baby-boomers too, so the solidarity of the current system will be very shaky. Add to that the great mass of workers turned out of the building trade due to the impending popping of the Australian property bubble and we have a very volatile mix.
An attempt will be made to pin the blame on particular groups. We may find ourselves in a major war simply because the population will be so maddened with rage, so confused at the mysterious loss of prosperity and so helpless in their personal situations, that having an identifiable enemy to fight will seem a blessed simplification. The Muslims have a definite target painted on them at the moment: perhaps some new twist in Middle-East politics will provide the trigger.
But all these considerations must play out in our real lives: we have to avoid being thrown under the bus because we have a target painted on us, but we must also find a way to survive in a much more uncertain and dangerous, poorer world. I've been thinking about all this in relation to where I live, in the poorest part of South Gippsland in southern Victoria, Australia. I can see how this area, which at the moment has a certain level of prosperity and happiness that it's never had before, could just slowly fail, with the clever and energetic people leaving for more promising prospects anywhere else and the social fabric fraying and falling apart in consequence. I've seen it in other areas of Australia and I can see how it could easily happen here. So I'm trying to hatch a plan to counter this. My idea currently revolves around the idea of a couple of business incubators, but of course it is more than that. What I'm really trying to do is build an alternative way of life: a true counter-culture.
Who would want to be a member of such a beast, in an area like this where if you have any talent you can still count on being whisked off to some brighter future in the city? My gut feeling is that it will be the bad boys and girls. We have a few of them around here! Anyway I'm vaguely negotiating to lease a large abandoned factory in a neighboring town which I'm feeling more and more could be the centre of some crazy social experiment. I'll keep you posted.
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