Re #287 Kevin McKinney said I think that all kinds of speculation… about what a sustainable world would be extremely helpful.
No need to speculate. Why is this so hard for you to grasp?
You can’t build it without imagining it first
That kind of thinking got us in this mess. You build what you need within the resource base available. This isn’t rocket science, just sound decision making based on principles of Nature.
Take a permaculture course.
Or just admit you don’t like the answer, so prefer to pretend it doesn’t exist.
And, IMO, we desperately need visions of what ‘sustainable’ is, means, and looks like.
Again, what do you not get about what is already known?
Re #292 zebra said #287 Kevin M,
And yet, when I present an opportunity to do just that, there is deafening silence. People constantly ask Killian to be more specific and concrete, but when I am specific and concrete….?
Why is that, do you think?
You see the problem somewhat one dimensionally, imo, so your solution set is not realistic. Perhaps I missed something, though; I got tired of all the population talk bc its self-evidenct and isn’t an effect way to change in the short term and haven’t been reading your posts much of late.
Re #293 nigelj said Kevin McKinney @287, excellent question.
He didn’t ask a question.
A sustainable world has inclusive, supportive policies and values
This is a meaningless string of words. Supportive? Supporting what? What values? Whose values?
evidence based policy
What evidence? PhD’s? Science only? Your science? Meaningless metric.
small houses
Size is irrelevant to sustainability.
and cars, high technology, renewable energy
None of which are, nor can they be made, sustainable. So, again, you have no idea what you are talking about.
and organic farming
USDA? Not sustainable. Organic has been made an irrelevant metric due to it being co-opted.
and lower consumption of meat.
Very likely, yes.
Economies may be smaller scale but are likely to still be based on free markets.
Free markets, in the sense you meant them, which are in no way free, but are regulated by and for the very wealthy, are antithetical to regenerative systems. I have explained why many times.
And this world will have much smaller population.
Doesn’t have to. but would make staying withing boundaries easier and overall quality, in terms of physical comfort, higher.
But there will be no perfect model, as it will probably continually change.
There is no perfect model because there cannot be. Every space is different. There can only be sound design process, and that is universal, thus “perfect” in the sense all can apply the same principles and process.
Expecting people to make massive cuts to consumption of resources, or to all live on farms, and share houses, and communal ownership of property looks awfully implausible to me.
Your reason for this is not impressive: People won’t. To expand it, it comes down to people won’t, so the worst won’t happen so we’ll be fine in the end.
It’s a bizarre sort of denial.
I’m a realist by nature.
You’re a denialist and pessimist, actually. You deny solutions, and you do so because, well, people just won’t.
Al Bandysays
Killian: What is rust?
AB, upon noticing that Killian’s system seems to be based on metals that never oxidize: What is rust?
Killian, too stupid to recognize that I was quoting him: Really? You don’t know what rust is? Stupid
AB: I think you have an overactive almygdala. Your comments could only arise from gobsmacking stupidity or an almygdala that overrides your frontal lobes. Reread this comment in full while “watching” your thoughts and emotions. Then read up on the almygdala and contemplate whether it explains your apparent propensity to “see red”.
Killiansays
Re #291 anklebites said You completey miss the point.
Did I? Or did he ask an intentionally asinine question and I let him know?
You have opposed mining any more materials
I oppose nothing. I analyze. It is what it is. Whether or not people mine more is not up to me; it’s simply not *needed*, thus is maladaptive. There is no opposition to mining in and of itself.
All depends on the NEEDS, RESOURCES, LEVERAGING, BRIDGING, etc. So, rather than ankle bite, go learn something, you damned chihuahua: Take a permaculture course so you can understand the conversation, or be quiet until you do.
Permaculture permits a wide range of high technology
It permits nothing, uneducated ankle biter. It contains no techniques, methods, nor specific tools. It provides the principles and design process by which one can make effective, educated decisions at the First Principles level. As Elon Musk – a fool, but not an idiot – said about designing their Wall battery, or whatever it’s called, they didn’t ask what everyone else was doing with batteries and simply try to beat them to market, he started with, what is a battery? That is First Principles-type thinking – something you are seemingly unfamiliar with.
Permaculture is First Principles thinking. Essentially, every design process begins with, what is this space? What are the water energy flows? What are the sun energy flows? Wind? What is the energy embedded in the soil? What will it grow? How do these all combine in a contour of landscape?
You and others think you are scoring little ankle bites when I will not be drawn into faking design. It is dishonest. You have been told what I have just written repeatedly in various ways. Yet you, et al., claim I *will not* give you specifics, or insinuate I have no design plan because I should be able to design for you blindfolded, and then design every place the same way.
The truth is as I have said: Learn to design. Then you and I can do complimentary design regardless where we are in the world.
especially solar panels, and in reasonable quantity, and at the same time you are arguing we have to reduce our use of materials and energy by 90%. This is just hugely contradictory Killian.
No, you just have no idea what you are talking about. As I said, “permaculture” has no opinion on solar, per se. The principles of bridge tech and appropriate tech have nothing to do with sustainability. They are defined as bridge/appropriate tech precisely because it is recognized they will *not* be part of an ultimately sustainable solution.
And so you also appear to be conceding we use unsustainable materials like metals. Yes or no?
Stupid question.
I see no option anyway. We use some materials that are not sustainable, and can only be moderate about – assuming you can convince people to do this. Calling people idiots will not convince many people.
What makes you idiotic is not the question itself, it’s that I have addressed this with you over and over, but you want to pretend I have not, or delusionally actually believe I have not.
I have said repeatedly it is not that we should not use “renewables.” You know this. It is that we do not need anymore of them at this time because we have enough to reduce consumption down to in at least some countries. Other countries may yet have a need. Only they can answer that question.
I have NOT told you to not use them, I have not told you I don’t like them, I have not told you we cannot make more: I have told you they are unsustainable, because they are. THUS, any design must recognize they are NOT solutions, merely band aids. I have not said differently.
Carriesays
Mark Z. Jacobson’s 100% Renewables (100% WWS) Roadmap to Nowhere by Conley & Maloney @ TEAC8
292 zebra 16 Aug 2018: “And yet, when I present an opportunity to do just that, there is deafening silence. People constantly ask Killian to be more specific and concrete, but when I am specific and concrete….? Why is that, do you think?”
What specific and concrete suggestion are you referring to? Please do not make us guess what you mean. Please provide a link to the post that describes what you have in mind. Thank you.
alan2102says
290 JRClark 16 Aug 2018: “It is too late, but only for saving a civilization based on industrial agriculture and industrial manufacturing.”
JR: what does “industrial” mean?
Al Bundysays
I’ve pondered my Prebate and Fee concept. Here’s an initial prototype:
The system starts November 1st with the surprise opening up of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, flooding the market and dropping oil prices in the toilet.
On December 1st, every resident gets 120% of his/her share of expected fees for the next six months. Folks love holiday cash and oil prices are way low, so happy, happy, happy.
On June 1st, residents get 120% of their share of expected fees for June 1st through August 9th.
On August 10th, residents get 120% of their share of expected fees for August 10th through November 30th.
Thus, folks get holiday cash, summer vacation cash (hopefully for childcare or a staycation), and back to school cash, all seriously in excess of what they’ll be spending on fees.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is then used as an economic weapon to keep oil prices in the dump so the carbon tax can be made higher and higher. The idea is to drop fossil fuel prices (and so profit) while increasing fossil fuel taxes so consumers pay more that they currently do, but they also have 120% of BOTH the increased cost to themselves (per gallon at the pump, for example) AND the amount profits are lowered.
This is paid for by a small(?) tax on the worldwide wealth of billionaires. This means that billionaires would have to disclose all of their worldly possessions to the IRS.
Add in the “wrap energy costs into loan applications” idea I floated previously and you end up with a potent carbon-fighting force.
Ideas? Improvements? Additions?
————–
Killian: How do the words, “It’s currently unsustainable,” equal, “We cannot recycle anything?”
AB: I’ve NEVER heard you say the words “currently” and “unsustainable” in a sentence before now. So, to make your statement truthful, as opposed to, uh, Trumpian: How do the words, “It’s utterly unsustainable,” equal, “We cannot recycle anything?”
There, I fixed it. I know how much you value truth. You’re welcome.
Nigel: So in other words we are expected to build sail boats out of hand made tools and very, very simple machines like the ancient Greeks for example.
Killian: Why the hell not? Why do you *need* anything more?… …But the real problem with your question is that it is not sincere. It is an implication, oft repeated by you, so it is dishonest.
AB: Uh, he was looking for the level of tech that you are speaking of. Since your comment boiled down to, “Yep, you nailed it and if you can make something higher tech sustainable, go ahead and try, dude. You’ll fail. Me? I’m sticking with hand-made sailboats. Maybe someday someone will…”
Killian: You intentionally leave out my suggestion for deep simplicity except in communications, medical systems transport and R&D and long-term planning to extract resources from the solar system
AB: Ah, we’re getting somewhere. Something to work with! But, since I have no recollection of such a proposal AND you insult Nigel’s honor with “intentionally”, give us three references to posts on this site where you made the above stance. Seriously, given the volumes you’ve spewed, surely three references should be a snap!
Man, I don’t have the time nor the patience to write (or even read) more. When you say that calling somebody a dishonest, insane liar isn’t an insult because it’s true, well, pretty much any kindergartner has enough sense to see that your frontal lobes are totally disconnected from your fingers. Please stop spewing venom. Nigel and I are asking legitimate questions, and we got about forty relevant words wrapped in thousands of words worth of bile in return. (The bit I’ve read so far basically consisted of you quoting Nigel, then you insulting him, then you confirming that he just about nailed it (but the nail will probably rust, eh?) then you tossing some more insults. By the way, Nigel has never said anything derogatory about peasants. He was speaking about technology, not the worth of a human. And I noted that those peasants had to have serious skills. You spoke of blacksmithing as if it were easy-peasy. Apprenticing lasted years in many fields back then. The Lakota (northern plains, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse) assigned one adult male to each male child and taught him one-on-one for over a decade.
Anyway, for you, your post was an amazing improvement. Congrats, Killian.
Oh, by the way, when you called me stupid, you lied through your teeth. You have been exposed to me long enough to sense a reasonable fraction of my capabilities.
And, again, I rate you of average IQ. Maybe on the high side of average. 105?
nigeljsays
Adding to previous comments. For those interested in facts, as opposed to wishful thinking, futurist speculation, and general hysteria.Population and economic growth have to slow because of resource problems, as most of us know, but they already are! Its just a case of looking at this, and reinforcing and accelerating the trend.
Economic growth has been slowing ever since the 1960s, tracking down relentlessly. This is most obvious in developed countries, but imho developing countries will follow the trend eventually as markets reach saturation. This falling trend has continued despite low interest rates, money printing, cutting taxes etc so appears irreversible. I don’t know if it would reach zero by itself, with no conscious policy change, but its sure heading that way.
So this is a good sign in environmental terms.I think we just have to accept a zero growth world (in simple terms) and accept policies that may lead to zero growth.Growing resource scarcity will obviously push growth down further everywhere. It is counter productive humanities future to resist the trend by printing even more money and sacrificing environmental standards.
Instead the nature of economic growth has to shift from mineral extraction, to the services sector.
We would be wise to nudge population growth down at a faster rate (using sensible ethical public policy obviously, as opposed to forcing it)
JRClarksays
304 alan2102, thanks alan. I plowed through two basic info ref pages @ http://neweconomicperspectives.org but was none the wiser as to what MMT is nor how it theoretically works. I get universal income idea set within the current framework. Makes sense, I can understand that. But I have no idea what MMT is and there is only so many hours in the day. When and if it grows real legs and isn’t an obscure “theory” of the few maybe then I’ll give it some attention. I wish them well of course.
306 alan2102, industrial means this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial
iirc over 60% of all energy is consumed by Industry in the rich wasteful western/oecd world while people foolishly believe that placing PV on their roof is ever could make a genuine difference to emissions. It’s the industrial sector making those panels and delivering them to the door for installation. Do we really need so many jet airliners? Maybe slowing everything down would be a healthy sustainable thing to do. Like is space tourism a solution to avoiding the worlds #1 Cliff or another part of the cause? It’s another straw placed on the camels back.
When push comes to shove, whenever that is, from the coming climate change impacts and the social consequences, my reading is that industrial agriculture and industrial manufacturing (and the connection to the Transportation sector) will be the first major sectors to collapse in a heap. That will include companies like Tesla and his Boring Company too, and those making wind turbines and so on. Not saying they are bad but when things fall apart they really do fall apart across the board and quickly. We’ll see if we live long enough.
Carriesays
AB a cpl comments on your F&D links
“Fossil fuels would become increasing more expensive than solar and wind energy, and people would, naturally, use their carbon dividend to switch energy providers.”
OK but it also removes the downward pressure on costs/prices efficiency of production for renewable energy tech to significantly decrease further.
And the claim that “people would, naturally, use their carbon dividend to switch energy providers” is an unproven economic theory assumption. It’s not necessarily so. Alternatively by providing citizens with “energy credit chits” that can only be spent on “energy” bills (including the higher FF driven price increases of their petrol, diesel, gas and electricity) or the purchase of more efficient fridges, TVs and cars would make such assumptions moot.
It helps no one if the dividend is invested in a holiday in France via a jet airliner or if they trade in their Toyota Corolla for a new F350 Ford truck because they always wanted one. People are stupid by default right?
And long before the moral police in the US Congress and States decide that homeless people and those with prior drug convictions should not qualify for the Dividend? Or apply quarterly random Drug Testing regimes before you get your check. If busted your banned from participation for a year. They already do shit like that such as throwing people in public housing onto the streets for having a joint at a friends birthday party. But yes this in itself doesn’t mean the F&D is a bad idea in itself – but there are historical patterns as to what happens to “handouts to the morally undeserving”.
“In terms of per-capita income, the ordinary American would end up with more money in pocket each year, according to the Citizens Climate Lobby.”
Economic theory writ large. Recall what Greenspan said about lending to the housing markets before the 2008 crash. It was his theory all was fine and dandy. Devil’s in the details, I do not trust the CCL’s theories, their Marketing spin nor James Baker.
“This free market plan would create millions of U.S. jobs and increase our GDP by tens of billions annually,”
More marketing spin. You can’t create money out of nothing. First the F&D has to SUCK OUT OF THE ECONOMY $ billions each month from people’s and business pockets to pay for those new jobs to build wind turbines and install them. CCL are maybe creating a new form of Math Al by ignoring one side of the Accounting Ledger entirely. :)
“By putting a gradually increasing import fee on countries such as China, whose emissions are higher than ours, the U.S. would force them to reduce their carbon dioxide pollution.”
First the people saying this are clearly Psychopathic control freaks. China is already reducing their systemic CO2 pollution without such threats from the great but dumb USA. Second China’s population is also 4 items the size of the US population and yet their economic activity using FF energy while the US does the same thing is equivalent and not 400% higher!!! So again this is spin – actually it’s deceitful Sophistry.
and the biggy – “Fee-and-dividend” has worked as promised in British Columbia for seven years, lowering energy bills and taxes and growing its economy faster than any other province in Canada. It has an 83 percent public approval rating there, according to the World Bank. https://www.centralmaine.com/2015/09/27/fee-and-dividend-plan-works-in-british-columbia/
Big Claims – Zero Evidence provided anywhere in that article = marketing spin and assumptions being fed to the reader. This is not an evidence based report, it’s a claim. It’s up to them to provide the data and prove it, not me to go chasing down ghosts to prove they are wrong.
” BC Carbon Tax:of note fossil fuels purchased for agriculture (starting in 2013) is exempt from the BC carbon tax. The cement industry was given $3 million dollar incentive in 2015. These exemptions and incentives are meant to protect the industries from competition outside of BC because subnational governments cannot enact border tax adjustments to protect carbon intensive industries.” https://canada.citizensclimatelobby.org/laser-talk-the-bc-carbon-tax-vs-ccls-carbon-fee-and-dividend/
Gosh didn’t I mention both those things earlier? Yes I did. Why am I the only one who sharp enough to then also point out that over and above the Fuel costs for agriculture a F&D carbon tax will also increase the costs to farmers of:
Fertilizer, Tractors, fencing wire, fence posts, electricity to run dairy farm milking of cows, refrigeration costs, the cost for a new shed, the cost to buy and repair their motor bikes on cattle ranches, the cost of harvesters whether bought or hired from harvesting companies, the cost to transport their produce to market.
And they will not get a penny back in a Dividend to pay for that. But the Homeless person will get a monthly check instead. F&D is a conjob by dreamy cultists or it’s an intentional plan by Neoliberals to muddy the water and fuck rational action to stop climate change by Mitigation and to stop any Govt Regulation of Polluting activities.
Hint, it’s both but the latter are driving the conjob originally. I also saw a statement on CCL that even oif it is not introduced it’s highly likely that Coal fired plants will all be shut down non-existent in the US circa 2025 becaue they are already unsustainable and because renewable energy is already as cheap and coal fired power.
So WTF does one need a F&D carbon tax to make that happen when it already is happening anyway? And could be made faster with some rational leadership from the federal govt and energy policy guideed by Regulations – like no more coal fired plants allowed to be built, and better efficiency standards on cars, trucks, TVs, refrigerators and building codes. Tax breaks on building insulation, tax breaks for business & especially Industry becoming energy self-sufficient instead of being connected to the grid.
You’re welcome but I am skipping the rest of that CCL page. It really is not a proper analysis of BC F&D .. it’s biased promotional marketing spin and not genuine “evidence” or real Data. I hope this feedback helps you and others to see the light. The onus is not on me to prove anything – so be careful tricky salesmen (and Mormons) knocking on your door.
Killiansays
From Unforced Variations
Re #210 nigelj nips Killian @202
“(Yes, nigel, once again, I have predicted the future ten years out. Rather than whining about it, try to learn how to do so. It’s not hard, actually.)”
Good for you. And what will you say if this new scientific paper is shown to be faulty? Will you apologise
Apologize? Does one apologize for a faulty assessment? No. Good god, scientists would constantly be doing so! No, one acknowledges and reassesses. So, no, I won’t be apologizing.
That said, this paper will not be proven wrong, so your question, like you, is moot. Why even raise it? Where do you find fault with the paper? If you find no fault, you are being petty and pointlessly argumentative.
I find fault with you: I gave you a chance to man up, and you failed. How do you make a correct prediction an opportunity to attempt to discredit? How did that ever occur to your little brain?
or realise the limits of your abilties
I know them well. Analysis is my greatest strength, however, not a weakness, but nobody is perfect. Up through 2016 things were going a little more slowly than I expected, but 100% in the direction I expected. Timing the collapse of an ecosystem isn’t exactly simple, so, no I won’t be apologizing for that. Since 2016, things have seemed to accelerate significantly. This massive heatwave (and the food prices hikes/shortages because of it that are now getting into the news) is the clearest example. But the science is accelerating, too, and the extremity of the danger has become so clear scenarios of collapse and hothouse earth and such are now no longer the province of stupidly labeled “alarmists” like myself, but coming directly from legit scientists.
and believe me they are limited
Aww… how cute. Perhaps you should change your handle to “Nippy.”
Your confirmation bias is off the scale.
Something else you don’t understand. if you set out a scenario or prediction and are correct, it is rather bizarre to call that confirmation bias. We call that “excellent analysis” outside of Nippy Land.
Your predictions are indeed easy. Predict things will be worse than the IPCC say. The safest, easiest bet in the world.
You contradict yourself. We have centuries, remember? So, no, not so easy. Besides, I haven’t said they will be worse, I have been pretty damned specific – or as specific as one can be with multi-decade, multi-century changes.
Are you under the impression is was a popular thing to state 3M of SLR by 2100 back in 2007? Or that we’d see significant permafrost melt before 2100? Gavin and I went round on that point. Technically, it’s still up in the air, but the physical changes and science since then are all in my direction, and the new Walter, et al., paper is strongly in my favor.
Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but Gavin is a world-renowned climate scientist and Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Should a mere Joe Public reviewer of the science and regenerative systems designer be going toe-to-toe with him and not only holding his own, but having the advantage?
I have no skill?
OK. Whatever you say.
:-)
Retire, already. The harder you push against me, the less intelligent and more petty you look.
OK, back to more useful programming. I am already bored with these three putzes and their lies. It will never end, so why give a shit what liars say?
nigeljsays
Killian @302
So you don’t oppose mining, when you said previously we don’t need to mine more metals. You are either totally contradicting yourself or nit picking to the point of absurdity.
You now say permaculture doesn’t permit technology, when the permaculture article you referred us all to is a list of permitted technology. This was obviously what I meant by permaculture permitting technology.
And I’m perfectly well aware permaculture is a set of design principles. And I admire the principles as far as they go.
So now you are introducing an idea of “bridge design” which appears to mean your technology backbone is tempoary and THEN at some unspecified time we all revert to being essentially peasants, longer term. Please clarify or confirm, and also explain how your mining other planet’s in the distant future fits into this.
Not ankle biting. Huge issues.
Killiansays
Re #307 Al Bundy
Really, Coming after me with nothing? You are as stupid as your namesake.
Nippy2 said Killian: How do the words, “It’s currently unsustainable,” equal, “We cannot recycle anything?”
AB: I’ve NEVER heard you say the words “currently” and “unsustainable” in a sentence before now.
Thus, such a statement has never been made because you either didn’t read it? You are incredibly stupid, though predictably, stupid in making this claim. I mean, there IS a search function.
LOL… try getting anyone here to admit solar and wind are still currently unsustainable!
From 2014. Believe me, there are more with that exact quote and more still that are variations on the theme, such as, “as currently produced,” etc.
So, to make your statement truthful
Said a consistent liar. thanks, anyways, but I already covered it above.
Nigel: So in other words we are expected to build sail boats out of hand made tools and very, very simple machines like the ancient Greeks for example.
Killian: Why the hell not? Why do you *need* anything more?… …But the real problem with your question is that it is not sincere. It is an implication, oft repeated by you, so it is dishonest.
AB: Uh, he was looking for the level of tech that you are speaking of. Since your comment boiled down to, “Yep, you nailed it and if you can make something higher tech sustainable, go ahead and try, dude. You’ll fail. Me? I’m sticking with hand-made sailboats. Maybe someday someone will…”
This is pure diarrhea of the mouth. Barking words. And flatly incorrect. You two are so busy trying to score points in a game you can’t win that you have to lie at every turn. I will repeat one more time for you little ankle biters: Stating a thing is unsustainable is an observation, not a value judgment. It is a statement of fact, not a statement of preference. It is an unavoidable conclusion, not a framing of a dreamed of future. It’s just data. Stop being stupid about this.
Saying simplicity is our only choice is not a statement of preference, but a deep, careful, detailed analysis. Who the hell WANTS to go to such simplicity at such a fast rate? Are you barking mad? Simplicity will be great once we get there (and I’d *much* rather we could be sustainable AND high tech, but it is impossible – and I have ALWAYS said I like this life and have NEVER said I would prefer a primitive life), but getting there will be hard, uncomfortable, even deadly for some. I have NEVER said differently. I have said over and over: Simple, not easy.
Killian: You intentionally leave out my suggestion for deep simplicity except in communications, medical systems transport and R&D and long-term planning to extract resources from the solar system
AB: Ah, we’re getting somewhere. Something to work with! But, since I have no recollection of such a proposal
Too gaddamned bad. You are flat stupid for not checking because I have made this statement many times.
AND you insult Nigel’s honor with “intentionally”
Because he knows this.
give us three references to posts on this site where you made the above stance.
You make the claim, you must prove it. I will enjoy it immensely if you attempt to compound this by claiming you couldn’t find any.
three references should be a snap!
BTW, only one is needed to disprove your accusation, genius, but points for attempting to slip in a requirement that could technically be true, but be a lie. Sadly, I doubt 3 approaches the number of times I’ve said such things.
Nigel and I are asking legitimate questions
No, you are not. You are repeating things you’ve been told over and over as if you have not. It’s all ankle biting with you two, all the time.
then you confirming that he just about nailed it
Are you on drugs, mentally unstable, emotionally unhinged? Nigel nailed it? Wow…
By the way, Nigel has never said anything derogatory about peasants. He was speaking about technology, not the worth of a human.
Who said he was derogatory? You really are unintelligent. I pointed out his use was inherently derogatory, not that he was directly insulting peasants. He said it pejoratively, with disdain, as if living a simple farmers life is a bad thing when those farmers could live pretty well if not preyed upon. The post you reference speaks for itself and lays this out clearly.
by the way, when you called me stupid, you lied through your teeth. You have been exposed to me long enough to sense a reasonable fraction of my capabilities.
Any person with mid-range IQ, or even lower, could write your tripe. Given how poorly you understand what you read, the stupid-assed assumptions you have made, especially in this discussion, setting yourself up as a fool by not doing a simple site search for examples, and the completely irrational way you go about trying to tear me down when I provide the strongest climate analysis of any poster here, you provide little evidence of high intelligence.
And, again, I rate you of average IQ. Maybe on the high side of average. 105?
Because you want to prove how goddamned petty you truly are, I suppose.
So you compound things with a hypocritical attack on my mental abilities? Even those who like me least on this site will recognize the foolishness of this. My worst enemies aren’t stupid enough to call me stupid.
nigeljsays
Killian @301
You want more detail about my statements on inclusive values, and evidence based policy, when the meaning is clear enough to people interested in current debate on the issues, and I specifically said “I will keep my comments short”. Perhaps reading that statement was too tiring for you to read at the time :)
You seem to think the size of a home is irrelevant to sustainablity. Assuming it has functioning plumbing, and some window glass as opposed to being a huge tent made of branches and leaves and nothing else, no actually SIZE MATTERS.
You say I mean free markets to be markets regulated for the benefit of the wealthy when all comments I have made on this website have been the polar opposite, so who is being dishonest now? But perhaps you haven’t read what I said, or have forgotten. Do you see the point I’m making here?
Smaller population is more important than you think. Its the most pain free way of reducing environmental problems, and has to be a priority. Its only because it will be slow to push growth down that we need to reduce per capita resource use as best we can, but I think we have to be realistic about what is likely to happen and it doesnt make a lot of sense to cut use of resources to the point of causing serious hardship (not that you are necessarily promoting that).
As far as I’m concerned renewable energy is part of a sustainable future “for all practical purposes” as long as we use it prudently. We will eventually run out and will have to do the best we can with whats left as you allude to yourself. I think your definition is awfully narrow, because by that definition nothing is truly sustainable apart from peasant culture. It’s technically correct, but will be a lot to absorb for the average homo sapiens.
You think I’m in denial by saying people won’t willingly accept your particular version of simplification? It’s just an observation of reality. People clearly resist reducing consumption, and not many live that sort of life, despite the fact self sufficiency is quite an old idea now.
That’s not to say we cant achieve some level of change. So I think its possibly wiser to promote something a little bit less ambitious than your prescription, and thus more likely to gain traction, and then build on this. That would be the intelligent approach.
Killiansays
Re #304 Carrie said
Mark Z. Jacobson’s 100% Renewables (100% WWS) Roadmap to Nowhere by Conley & Maloney @ TEAC8
Let me fix that for you: Go nuclear and go extinct!
There ya go. Now, these guys are not stupid, so why the stupidity? E.g., they basically laugh at Jacobson when they quite pointedly state the number of solar panels you’d have to replace daily to make his plan work, and then say, with emphasis, “forever.”
In my opinion, making such a statement without acknowledging it also applies to YOUR plan is just stupid. Someone, like me, is going to notice and point it out. Nuclear is no more sustainable than wind or solar. As I have tried to point out over the years, sustainability is a threshold, not a continuum. Nuclear plants have to be replaced, too. Forever. Thousands of them. Interesting the video didn’t cover that. Nice editing, eh? No bias, I’m sure. Just a little mistake….
Al Bartlett wondered if we were dumber than yeast. They will use up all their food till they die drowning in their own wastes. But they have no advanced brain to analyze their situation with while we do. Not only that, but we realized we were going to go extinct long before we used up the whole planet, and kept going. Are still going.
That makes us dumber than yeast. If Jacobson, Conley and Maloney are supposed to be among our brightest, yet make such glaringly foolish analyses, aren’t they even dumber than the dumbest of us?
Simplify. Your only option. All those gigawatts of need disappear making all this magnitudes easier with none of the risks of either approach. A small fraction of the levels the three suggest can be provided much more realistically, and for a far longer period of time before running out of resources. It’s a far more realistic bridge. If you want to go with nuclear, then the same thing applies: Simplify with a minimal backbone of localized power. At least then we would have a much easier transition to a true renewable energy system.
Of course, the best thing is to transition directly to a truly renewable system for society. You get to zero, and then negative, emissions much more quickly, thus massively reducing the “hothouse” risk, disrupting the natural world much less and end up happy and stable much more quickly. Those two plans will extend the destruction of the ecosystem indefinitely, but end up saving nothing. Collapse, possibly extinction, will still come.
nigeljsays
Carrie says “When push comes to shove, whenever that is, from the coming climate change impacts and the social consequences, my reading is that industrial agriculture and industrial manufacturing (and the connection to the Transportation sector) will be the first major sectors to collapse in a heap.”
Why? Whats the mechanism?
Its hard to see how manufacturing or transport would “collapse” due to more extreme weather and sea level rise etc. It would of course become less economic as more resources have to be spent on climate adaptation.
We know climate change will downgrade crop yeilds, but its hard to see this leading to the collapse of the farming system as a whole. Industrial agriculture has survived droughts etc.
However Im not a massive fan of large scale corporate level industrial agriculture and evidence suggests its not as efficient as medium scale farms. You are right on that point. It would be good to see a transition back to this, but the huge pension funds and corporates have a grip on so many things now.
nigeljsays
Carrie @311 on carbon fee and dividend. OK you are arguing your case in more detail here.
“Alternatively by providing citizens with “energy credit chits” that can only be spent on “energy” bills (including the higher FF driven price increases of their petrol, diesel, gas and electricity) or the purchase of more efficient fridges, TVs and cars would make such assumptions moot.”
The logic is good, and I have suggested things like this as well in the past, and to use some of the money to subsidise wind farms. But the problem is it complicates things, and gets political push back. The only plan that seems to have a chance in America is carbon fee and dividend of a simple type! This may be frustrating but its the reality.
I think China’s approach to climate mitigation of command and control, subsidy and regulation is ok and more direct in some ways, but the trouble is this is complicated, and less politically feasible in places like America. It also doesnt put a price on carbon, so you end up with an awful lot of regulations on hundreds of things. This is mainly why I’m in behind F&D.
I doubt that Alan Greenspan, who was completely useless, would want any scheme of any description.
“More marketing spin. You can’t create money out of nothing. First the F&D has to SUCK OUT OF THE ECONOMY $ billions each month from people’s and business pockets to pay for those new jobs to build wind turbines and install them. CCL are maybe creating a new form of Math Al by ignoring one side of the Accounting Ledger entirely. :)”
Well banks do actually create money out of nothing! But F&D does not suck money out of the whole economy. It sucks money out of the profits of the fossil fuel companies, and hands it back to people. Its a money go around, so economically neutral.
The real thing to watch is inflation. F&D is designed to cause inflation in things like petrol, but it needs to be phased in so inflation doesn’t extend through the whole economy and become excessive.
I don’t know about British Columbia, but Britain has a carbon tax, and has made very good progress with renewable electricity generation.
To finish. I don’t think carbon F&D is beyond criticism, but its simple enough compared to the alternatives like cap and trade, practical, transparent, and consumption taxes are economics 101. Its less intrusive on markets than hundreds of separate rules, and its got some chance in political terms.
“Fossil fuels would become increasing more expensive than solar and wind energy, and people would, naturally, use their carbon dividend to switch energy providers.”
OK but it also removes the downward pressure on costs/prices efficiency of production for renewable energy tech to significantly decrease further.
No, it doesn’t. The factors driving that remain. And any cost increases on the manufacturing side should be equal on average to other energy sources. The overwhelmingly large effect would be the competitive price advantage for renewables resulting from neutralization of hidden FF ‘externality subsidies.’
nigeljsays
Killian @312
“I know them well. Analysis is my greatest strength, however, not a weakness, but nobody is perfect. Up through 2016 things were going a little more slowly than I expected, but 100% in the direction I expected. Timing the collapse of an ecosystem isn’t exactly simple, so, no I won’t be apologizing for that. Since 2016, things have seemed to accelerate significantly. This massive heatwave (and the food prices hikes/shortages because of it that are now getting into the news) is the clearest example. But the science is accelerating, too, and the extremity of the danger has become so clear scenarios of collapse and hothouse earth and such are now no longer the province of stupidly labeled “alarmists” like myself, but coming directly from legit scientists.”
Well at least you are acknowledging you are not perfect. And I dont mean to knock all your predictions.
Listen, I have been predicting for the last 20 years that temperatures would be at or even a little under model estimates, but that sea level rise would be over model estimates, and weather would become more extreme more quickly than the IPCC reports implied. Right now it looks like I have been vindicated on all three.
I have had a strong instinct for ages that climate sensitivity will turn out to be in the middle, but the sensitivity of weather and ice melt to temperatures will be higher than anticipated and obviously I have also been guided by information on trends and processes etc.
My point is you are not the only person who makes predictions, but we dont all blurt them out everywhere. Perhaps we should.
And I’m not diminishing the warming trend. It is slightly under right now, or about in the middle, depending on the data set, and I think warming will accelerate from now on and get a little above model estimates. The last three years are clearly a warning, one doesn’t need a physics degree to work that out.
I also recall when the permafrost issue first made public headlines it seemed like a big concern, and I thought it could get serious, but then the science started to say it would be a very slow process. But one look at the extent of northern Russia should have anyone concerned. I saw a great video on it by a Russian scientist.
My general view has been the IPCC worst case sea level rise prediction of 900mm metre by 2100 is too conservative, and 2 metres is my pick, and I have seen no reason to change this at this stage. If new information comes along then of course I might. I dont really buy into Hansens predictions but I keep an open mind as well.
Confirmation bias on your part is looking for research papers that are very pessimistic, and ignoring contrary messages as simply being lies. Sometimes they are, but not always.
But to sum up I have for a long predicted things will be worse than the IPCC predict. I have not endevoured to put exact numbers on all the issues, just sea level rise because its easy enough to ascribe an exact number.
nigeljsays
Killian @314
“Saying simplicity is our only choice is not a statement of preference, but a deep, careful, detailed analysis. Who the hell WANTS to go to such simplicity at such a fast rate?”
So in other words we have a “bridge period” of some metals based technology, but your actual end goal is to live like peasants (in the sense of subsistence farmers) with no metal based technology. So what you actually mean by simplicity is a subsistence lifestyle. Or do we evolve backwards even further?
Well I would prefer to avoid this, and we can if 1) population is small enough and 2) we mine asteroids.
“Nigel and I are asking legitimate questions. No, you are not. You are repeating things you’ve been told over ”
You mostly have no coherent, meaningful answers Killian. Just slogans, rhetoric, or abuse.
“Any person with mid-range IQ, or even lower, could write your tripe. My worst enemies aren’t stupid enough to call me stupid.”
Al Bundy is clearly quite bright. I know this because hes one of the very few people who makes criticisms of my comments that have some substance! Me, my educational grades were pretty exceptional. You Killian are probably just fine. Come on guys, its not a p*****g contest. :)
Al Bundysays
Carrie,
Yeah, people are skin deep, which kinda explains why they’re screwing the planet.
Nigel, point well taken, but perhaps the home brew itself isn’t key. Mebbe he should change the feedstock from sawdust to grain? (Sorry, but the joke was irresistible. Color me weak)
And an update:
Version 4 of the Simultaneous Combined Cycle engine is complete and has been sent to both an engineer and to our own Scott Strough for analysis.
Al Bundysays
Carrie,
Thanks for the analysis on the F&D links. I only briefly scanned parts to find something to quote.
And, as I said above, in the USA prebate and fee could solve many of F&D’s issues. No need for energy chits or other stuff that will get played. However, stuff that brings energy use into the equation when large decisions are made is useful. I mentioned loans. Another possibility is rent. If rent was required to include perhaps 2/3rds of expected utilities landlords would have an incentive to up the efficiency of their units.
Killian,
I never insulted your intelligence. Like “What is rust” I used your current favorite word, “stupid”, but I said ” or” and gave my real analysis: you tend to see red due to an overactive amalgda. That brain structure is dangerous since it not only makes emotion swamp logic, it also provides rewards through adrenaline and other chemicals. Folks get addicted.
Note that I complimented your intelligence. 105 is above average.
I’m sure Scott will post his analysis of my engine. After that I’ll explain my refrigerator and my forestry system.
You already have been informed of one of my farming systems. Turns out that it has been proven to work and is in production in Australia. They call it “pasture cropping”. Plant cool season grass, then (once established), when the weather turns warm and the cool season grass slows down you harvest the grass and drill warm season crops into the field. When the crops are harvested as temps cool off the cool season grass gets going again. The second grass harvest is preferably done the next spring so the grass can reabsorb its nutrients as it goes dormant (depending on the species and climate).
So, they beat me to the patent office but proved my system works.
Frankly, since your posts have a 1:1000 signal to noise ratio I’m going to stop reading them.
On a personal note, I understand that you’re in a horrid situation and that surely explains much of the bile. Humans need to vent. Good luck and goodbye.
Carriesays
318 nigelj says: “I doubt that Alan Greenspan, who was completely useless, would want any scheme of any description.”
You’re too funny. Was it really that hard to see the analogy painted? It’s all good the fundamentals are sound :-> suddenly there’s a Global Economic collapse and financial disaster on everyone’s plate.
MAR it’s all ok, the science is perfect it’s not really that hot and you “stupid skyrocketers” who do not toe the line here are below us wise elders in “science” :-> suddenly there’s global droughts, high winds, unnatural regional climatic conditions and wild fires across the nth hemisphere all at once followed by extreme rainfall and flooding.
Next year will be more of the same, and the year after and the year after and progressively getting worse year after year after year as GHG continue to rise according to projected use and national policies all over the globe.
What do you see written Nigelj?
“Oh, Alan Greenspan would not want any Carbon tax scheme.”
(big smile) That’s OK you’re my Proxy Pet for the bulk of Humanity – the Victors are the outliers. And people like Dan Miller are Proxies too. Good intentions but that’s it because they do not see the problem or the solutions clearly nor the present urgency of the present very short window that’s open now and is about to close in under a decade. No tome for F&D, no time left to pander to MARs or to conservative MEEK Climate Scientist or you nigelj
Permafrost collapse isn’t in the models – forests collapse isn’t in the models – unpredictable soil carbon emissions globally due to progressive drying out of soils and extreme heat waves and wildfires isn’t in the models – coral collapse before 2050 isn’t in the models – lots of things to do with climate and subsequent consequences are not in the models. The collapse of the UNFCCC system and Treaty expectations isn’t in the Models.
Carrie says “When push comes to shove, whenever that is, from the coming climate change impacts and the social consequences, my reading is that industrial agriculture and industrial manufacturing (and the connection to the Transportation sector) will be the first major sectors to collapse in a heap.”
More support for the concept of simplified living at scale.
You have to not be an asshole and think, but imagine small towns sprouting up as people leave cities, and cities become archipelagos of small towns… using Embedded Energy (look it up, ya lazy buggers!) to remake what is into what must be…
Hundreds of millions (I guess billions) will be forced to move. We need places for them to create new lives. Embedded energy helps that happen, and can be in a way that does not need heating, cooling, or cooking fuel.
THIS is how we succeed in mitigation and adaptation, NOT by digging more shit pout of the ground and sucking more shit out of the air and the oceans.
Killian criticised me for suggesting he wants us to become peasant farmers. Yet this is his ‘simplification’ plan:
1) We have to cut our resource use by 90% asap, but we are allowed to maintain a technology “backbone” of some limited use of technology.
2) However this technology backbone is only a very temporary “bridge” because the desired goal is to stop using metals completely, or massively reduce their use to just a couple of simple hand tools each at most ( he is unclear on which). What is this, if its not a peasant farmer, or possibly an aboriginee?
I hear where he’s coming from, but I think his plan is too pessimistic. Certainly we have to reduce our consumption of resources, but we should keep technology going as long as possible, and mine the asteroids etc and reduce population so scarcity is not a huge issue. Eventually over millenia we could possibly be forced into a very low technology society, but its not inevitable, and I would not be making it a deliberate end goal .
Killiansays
Re #315 nigelj said Killian @301
You want more detail about my statements on inclusive values, and evidence based policy
No, I don’t. The questions were rhetorical. You know nothing worth typing out and posting on these fora.
You seem to think the size of a home is irrelevant to sustainablity.
I know it is. The size of a building does not determine its sustainability. Again, you know nothing.
You say I mean free markets to be markets regulated for the benefit of the wealthy
No, I was correcting you. As in, that’s what “free market” actually *does* mean.
You know nothing, cannot parse simple English. You do not belong here.
Smaller population is more important than you think.
You have no idea what I think, obviously. I have stated any number of times my thinking on this. It is not hard to understand. Let me say it again (though it will not help):
The demographics are such that population reduction is not a *short-term* solution for climate and resource issues. If we relied on population reduction as stripes would have us do, we’d all end up dead.
I have **always** said population reduction is a long-term part of the solution, so please, stop. Just .Stop. Posting.
As far as I’m concerned renewable energy is part of a sustainable future “for all practical purposes” as long as we use it prudently.
Barking words.
I think your definition is awfully narrow
Stupid statement.
Dog: A four-legged mammalian of the genus Canis.
Accurate, but too narrow according to you.
It’s technically correct
Correct, but too narrow.
Just. Stop. Posting.
You think I’m in denial
Dear God… Being “in denial” and being “a denialist” are in no way the same. Someone in denial cannot accept the truth, while a denialist is lying about the truth.
So I think its possibly wiser to promote something a little bit less ambitious than your prescription, and thus more likely to gain traction, and then build on this. That would be the intelligent approach.
Because you can predict tipping points when no one else can?
Just. Stop. Posting.
alan2102says
310 JRClark 18 Aug 2018 — “I plowed through two basic info ref pages @ http://neweconomicperspectives.org but was none the wiser as to what MMT is”
I cannot speak to the specific things you read. I gave a list of links to MMT primers and overviews; you can without difficulty get much wiser as to what MMT is, if you wish. For easy learning, you can also do videos; I gave youtube links.
In a nutshell: MMT describes how currency works in countries with monetary sovereignty. The implications of it are huge and difficult to wrap your head around. It is well worth spending some days to understand, just like it is well worth some days working to understand climate change and its implications. It is THAT BIG.
After reading and thinking about it for a while, and though I have misgivings about some of its implications, I came to realize that anyone who does not understand it has no business talking about any aspect of economics. It is truly an elephant in the room and must be accounted for.
At that link, we read that “Industry is a segment of the economy involving the manufacturing and transportation of products.”
Are you opposed to the manufacturing and transportation of products? Seriously?
If not, then why do you make remarks like “It is too late, but only for saving a civilization based on industrial agriculture and industrial manufacturing”? (290, 16 August)
Maybe you meant something different, such as “it is too late for a civilization based on a CERTAIN STYLE of industrial manufacturing, involving CERTAIN INPUTS in CERTAIN INAPPROPRIATE AMOUNTS”, or something of that nature (just off the top of my head, I’m sure you could do better).
Al Bundysays
Nigel,
Renewables’ costs are extremely biased towards manufacturing. There’s no fuel, after all. Thus, a carbon tax would hit them harder during construction than other sources.
Killiansays
Re #313 nigelj said Killian @302
So you don’t oppose mining, when you said previously we don’t need to mine more metals. You are either totally contradicting yourself or nit picking to the point of absurdity.
I’ve been wrong about you. I have believed you were in over your head, basically just not knowledgeable enough, somewhat dishonest and petty, but I can only conclude from this ridiculous comment that you are, in fact, not bright.
Let me say this again: There is nothing that is or is not part of permaculture other than the ethics, principles and process. It is agnostic on all else because of the principles, one of which states to use what you have. Say I have an old car husk lying about. That is, itself, unsustainable and, left to itself, will rust away to nothing given enough time. But if I choose to, I can use that husk to make plowshares, yes?
Or, perhaps I live in an area with depleted soils and the only source of phosphorus is to mine it. You do so.
Just. Stop. Posting.
You now say permaculture doesn’t permit technology, when the permaculture article you referred us all to is a list of permitted technology.
Criminy… I was being quite literal because you were being quite stupid: Permaculture “permits” nothing. Why would it? How could it? Your statement made no sense whatsoever, and that is the point I made. Not surprised you completely whiff on this. So, let me repeat:
There is nothing that is or is not part of permaculture other than the ethics, principles and process. It is agnostic on all else because of the principles, one of which states to use what you have.
What I have said REPEATEDLY is that high technology, and much non-high-tech tech, is unsustainable. I have NEVER said it is not allowed by permaculture nor that it is allowed. Permaculture is a DESIGN PROCESS. Get that through your head.
And I’m perfectly well aware permaculture is a set of design principles. And I admire the principles as far as they go.
So far as they go? So far as they go is to sustainability, but you infer something is lacking. Nothing is lacking except your knowledge and understanding.
So now you are introducing an idea of “bridge design”
No. No. No. Bridge **technology.** And, far from introducing the idea in the previous post, I have mentioned it repeatedly on this site. Stop. Posting.
which appears to mean your technology backbone is tempoary and THEN at some unspecified time we all revert to being essentially peasants, longer term.
You keep using that word. You do not understand it. Stop using it.
Whether a tech is temporary or not depends on many factors. What if we can start mining the solar system? I’VE SAID THIS ALL BEFORE.
Not ankle biting. Huge issues.
No, ignorance. Yours.
Killiansays
Re #290 JRClark said Killian, and others, I think ‘we’ need restructured western societies, including on an individual level but primarily driven from a governmental consensus informed by science best practice and technological / ethical know how.
Nope. How does the unsustainable create the sustainable when doing so means ending itself? Has that ever happened in human history, the willing giving up of power, wealth, for the good of all by an entire economic elite?
there is a general agreement that the current goal should be centered around increased renewable energy source
In this case, the consensus is wrong.
and renewable practices beyond energy plus a proliferation of easier to understand climate change related information (education) which focuses on long term sustainability goals.
I suppose. More important is the doing of it. That gets you where the proliferation is supposed to get you.
It is too late, but only for saving a civilization based on industrial agriculture and industrial manufacturing. A permaculture based civilization would be much much more resilient to climate change. It also offers the only known robust system for genuine carbon sequestration.
Yup.
It seems so obvious to me. What’s also obvious to me is that it isn’t going to happen at scale either.
Then we will almost certainly head for hothouse conditions and all this is moot.
The most vulnerable properties — those that stand to be flooded after seas rise by just one foot — were selling at a 14.7 percent discount, according to the study, which is set to be published in the Journal of Financial Economics.
The study found the drop in prices appears to be driven primarily by investors buying multiple properties or second homes. Such buyers tend to be wealthier and better educated than owners who occupy their coastal homes, said Ryan Lewis, an assistant professor of finance at the University of Colorado and a co-author of the study.
“Sophisticated buyers . . . demand a discount to bear the risk of future sea level rise,” Lewis said in an email….
nigeljsays
Carrie @324, is there any particular reason you want to fill up this website with empty rubbish mp3 files? Borehole material. Not even funny. Hurts my ears. I will sue you for ear ache!
nigeljsays
Killian @237, what a load of pure BS. I think Al Bundy is too generous in his assessments of your intelligence.
nigeljsays
Killian @331, your comments largely ignore what I said, and go off on some tangent, and are full of numerous contradictions, and personal abuse.
Just one. Permaculture is just a process apparently and agnostic about technology, but permaculture weekly or whatever its called lists technology. You see no contradiction. Dear god…
I dont recall this technology ‘bridge idea’ from your past comments months ago. It was certainly not explained in any detail. I have posted some comments on it above for you to get agitated about. Sounds crazy to me. You were almost making sense until you got to this concept.
Make up your mind. Do you want us to become peasants or not? Peasants do not mine asteroids.
Sorry I will stop using the term peasants. Primitive or aboriginee does appear more accurate. Stone tools and maybe an iron hammer or old car body. That appears to be about it. That is you end goal apparently.
I honestly just cant be bothered with the rest of your nonsense or spending time on it. But I will certainly be back to do some terminating of peoples silly ideas.
nigeljsays
Killian @325, embedded energy is a measure of the energy content of a product, not some mysterious form of “free energy”.
People just arent going to live in thatched beehive shaped houses of ancient indigenous peoples unless forced at the point of a gun, or driven by some earthquake or something. For gods sake think a bit more practically.
Like I said. Smaller homes using a mix of modern materials and perhaps more use of mud bricks etc. That’s possible.
nigeljsays
Alan102 @328, I gather by MMT you mean modern monetary theory, so fiat money produced by governments. I believe this is also called positive money or something.
Our current system produces money by various mechanisms. Reserve banks, private banks, credit card companies. Remember this process is ultimately self limiting based on the fractional reserve, but is not without its problems either.
But can you trust governments not to produce too much money and cause inflation? I just wonder if you are taking a giant step sideways.
And I dont deny the banks are a problem, and the whole financial sector has gained too much power, and is not producing value. Good book : Other Peoples Money, by John Kay.
But I agree on your other stuff on industry etc.
nigeljsays
Al Bundy @330
“Renewables’ costs are extremely biased towards manufacturing. There’s no fuel, after all. Thus, a carbon tax would hit them harder during construction than other sources.”
Yes, and this is why I have felt the best scheme is carbon tax and dividend and also SUBSIDY for renewable energy like wind farms etcetera. However its about politics. The only scheme that appears to have some chance in America at least is a simple form of carbon tax and dividend, where people get all the dividend in their hand, so this is kind of why I’m promoting it. It’s far from ideal, but nothing else appears to have a chance politically.
Carrie thinks more along the lines of regulation, but again politics makes this hard work. Look at how the EPA are under attack for example.
Killian thinks simplicity. Oh if only it was that simple….
Renewables’ costs are extremely biased towards manufacturing. There’s no fuel, after all. Thus, a carbon tax would hit them harder during construction than other sources.
I don’t think that actually follows, Al. RE ‘farms’ are better described as “installation” than “manufacturing.” And the manufacturing is far more modular and hence scalable than traditional thermal power generation. (Albeit requiring sophistication (ie., expense) in both technique and equipment–but with scale ramping up enormously, that sophistication is increasingly easy to amortize.)
Electricity from renewables will soon be consistently cheaper than from most fossil fuels.
By 2020, all the renewable power generation technologies that are now in commercial use are expected to fall within the fossil fuel-fired cost range, with most at the lower end or undercutting fossil fuels.
John, redirected from the Musing about Losing Earth thread:
Just wow. I’m disappointed – in myself. I should have realized that if you didn’t know back then – you obviously would not know now. You’re all still stuck in the same box, using the same tools, and drawing the same useless diagrams to come up with the same non-answers. You keep doing the same things – and getting the same non-results. Just wow.
LOL! Just what RC needs, another self-enhancing narcissist 8^D! The more the merrier, heh. This is the RC thread for discussions of psychology, economics and politics, i.e. the human behavioral science that any proposal for collective decarbonization action must take into account. AFAICT, John is here to congratulate himself at how far ahead of everyone else he is. Engage with him freely and robustly ;^).
alan2102says
309 nigelj 18 Aug 2018: “I think we just have to accept a zero growth world (in simple terms) and accept policies that may lead to zero growth. Growing resource scarcity will obviously push growth down further everywhere. It is counter productive [to] humanities future to resist the trend by printing even more money and sacrificing environmental standards.”
Printing more money (see: MMT) does not necessarily cause sacrifice of environmental standards. It can PROMOTE environmental standards. It depends on what we spend the money for.
The great paradox is that: 1) we need a no-net-growth economy, overall, for perhaps several decades (until technology and conservation measures “catch up”, which they will), and 2) at the same time, we need dramatic redistribution (global equity), including a great lifting-up of the bottom billion at minimum, AND massive investment in environmentally-critical initiatives — renewables, geoengineering, Scott Strough-style agricultural reform, etc.
An incredibly difficult challenge, to be sure. Money-printing — again, see MMT — can be an important part of the solution.
alan2102says
315 nigelj 19 Aug 2018: “Smaller population is more important than you think. Its the most pain free way of reducing environmental problems, and has to be a priority.”
Agreed. Dramatically smaller population in the overdeveloped world — OECD countries, where the environmental stress is far out of proportion to population — is an urgent priority. How do we go about it? Cut fertility from ~1.8 to under 1.0? Or increase mortality? AFAIK, those are the only options. With U.S. population under 50 million, and the rest of the OECD to match, the earth can breath a sigh of relief.
Killian, you wonder why I say permaculture design principles seem good, “as far as they go” and you then accuse me of being wrong and ignorant about permaculture.
Permaculture on wikipedia states 12 permaculture design principles. These largely make sense and I suppose listing them in one place, and labeling them “permaculture” is useful. They are really a quality assurance check that what we are doing is really necessary.
However imho most of these are unremarkable insights. They just state obvious things that are largely commonsense and are old ideas, and have been applied to many fields of endeavour already including even the traditional industrial economy. It seems to me far more a case of whether they are applied robustly enough.
I will comment just on a couple that seem undeveloped:
The fifth principle :”Use and value renewable resources and services: Make the best use of nature’s abundance to reduce our consumptive behavior and dependence on non-renewable resources.”
This is well meaning but very limited really. Renewable and non renewable resources are just not very interchangeable.
“Produce no waste: By valuing and making use of all the resources that are available to us, nothing goes to waste.”
This is good in principle, and the obvious examples are using excrement as fertiliser as the Dutch do. However its not technically true that we can make use of all waste. When we burn things we cant make much use of the waste products. Its also a question of how do we motivate people to make better use of waste? Moralising will only go so far. There needs to be education, to be rules and incentives and I would suggestt his would be true regardless of the economic system of the day.
“Use small and slow solutions: Small and slow systems are easier to maintain than big ones, making better use of local resources and producing more sustainable outcomes.”
Smaller and slower may be easier to maintain but on what basis should that be the only metric? I mean it completely ignores the advantages of size and speed (for example the system of air travel). None of this is an attack on bicycles!
“Creatively use and respond to change: We can have a positive impact on inevitable change by carefully observing, and then intervening at the right time.”
Who would have thought that?
Carrie, why are you being mocking and sarcastic? I was agreeing with you. Greenspan was useless in the sense he didn’t realise the market was becoming fundamentally unstable. Given his political views and anti regulatory rhetoric, I really doubt he would want any form of government role in mitigating climate change, even carbon fee and dividend.
Mainstream economics permits both taxation and regulation. I’m not sure why you think taxes are a tool of the hated establishment and regulation isn’t. Both can be abused to favour the corporate sector. It seems to me more a case of what is going to work best in the real world and get the most popular and political support, and it looks like its carbon fee and dividend.
Al Bundysays
Nigel,
Killian has made it clear that he has no interest in a discussion amongst equals. He’s here to teach. So be a good student and listen quietly. Remember, challenging some teachers can get your grade lowered!
Or take the simplification path (that I’ve chosen) of “scroll down”, AKA “dropping out of school”. Let Killian have fun. No harm in that, eh?
Just my opinion.
Al Bundysays
Iirc, Scott spoke of tech always resulting in enough new jobs and Nigel of growing the service economy. Here’s my prognostication:
Moore’s Law has at least another order of magnitude to go even without a paradigm shift, such as 3D.
Everything will be linked to everything.
AI will come of age.
People’s mistrust of institutions and people will continue to grow.
Somebody will design an AI assistant that will act as the user’s friend, shopper, negotiator, primary care physician, you name it.
If your business wants to do business with a customer who has an AI assistant then your AI had better be able to interface with the customer’s AI because the customer doesn’t trust you. He trusts his best bud, Fred the AI.
So, service jobs will be gone, along with ever so many other jobs. When you get sick your AI will Dx, interface with the doc’s AI, and if it’s routine a robot/drone will deliver the requisite drugs. No human needed.
People will provide entertainment and companionship. A Walmart might have many shifts where there’s one or two employees: the greeters.
Once 5nm gets settled in solidly (2025-2030), humans won’t be able to compete unless they have serious talent. Robots and AIs are 24/7 and accept a few electrons as payment.
Where will the robot-building robots get the material? Landfills, junkyards, maybe even asteroids.
So humans will be rich or supported or peasants or dead.
I just heard on BBC that somebody is designing nanobots that use enzymes to consume nerve gas for energy so they can pump antidotes for nerve gas (something like that.) That sounds like a prototype for killer swarms of nanobots. Just invert the purpose. And somebody will.
“You said we need to drop the population by 90% and I did. So what’s your beef?”
alan2102says
Al Bundy and Nijelj, 7 Aug 2018:
“how many people can the planet support in the fashion folks desire? My guess is between a hundred million and a billion. …. I made some guesses on this website about 6 months ago as it happens. I thought about 2 billion.”
Hello, AB and Nigel.
What is your basis for these estimates?
When you speak of “what the planet can support”, what do you mean? That is, it is obvious that the planet is now supporting 7+ billion; presumably you believe that the planet is not capable of continuing to support 7+ billion. Why not? What is the basis for your assessment of this? Please include specifics, or point to articles or books that give the specifics.
Re #287 Kevin McKinney said I think that all kinds of speculation… about what a sustainable world would be extremely helpful.
No need to speculate. Why is this so hard for you to grasp?
You can’t build it without imagining it first
That kind of thinking got us in this mess. You build what you need within the resource base available. This isn’t rocket science, just sound decision making based on principles of Nature.
Take a permaculture course.
Or just admit you don’t like the answer, so prefer to pretend it doesn’t exist.
And, IMO, we desperately need visions of what ‘sustainable’ is, means, and looks like.
Again, what do you not get about what is already known?
Re #292 zebra said #287 Kevin M,
And yet, when I present an opportunity to do just that, there is deafening silence. People constantly ask Killian to be more specific and concrete, but when I am specific and concrete….?
Why is that, do you think?
You see the problem somewhat one dimensionally, imo, so your solution set is not realistic. Perhaps I missed something, though; I got tired of all the population talk bc its self-evidenct and isn’t an effect way to change in the short term and haven’t been reading your posts much of late.
Re #293 nigelj said Kevin McKinney @287, excellent question.
He didn’t ask a question.
A sustainable world has inclusive, supportive policies and values
This is a meaningless string of words. Supportive? Supporting what? What values? Whose values?
evidence based policy
What evidence? PhD’s? Science only? Your science? Meaningless metric.
small houses
Size is irrelevant to sustainability.
and cars, high technology, renewable energy
None of which are, nor can they be made, sustainable. So, again, you have no idea what you are talking about.
and organic farming
USDA? Not sustainable. Organic has been made an irrelevant metric due to it being co-opted.
and lower consumption of meat.
Very likely, yes.
Economies may be smaller scale but are likely to still be based on free markets.
Free markets, in the sense you meant them, which are in no way free, but are regulated by and for the very wealthy, are antithetical to regenerative systems. I have explained why many times.
And this world will have much smaller population.
Doesn’t have to. but would make staying withing boundaries easier and overall quality, in terms of physical comfort, higher.
But there will be no perfect model, as it will probably continually change.
There is no perfect model because there cannot be. Every space is different. There can only be sound design process, and that is universal, thus “perfect” in the sense all can apply the same principles and process.
Expecting people to make massive cuts to consumption of resources, or to all live on farms, and share houses, and communal ownership of property looks awfully implausible to me.
Your reason for this is not impressive: People won’t. To expand it, it comes down to people won’t, so the worst won’t happen so we’ll be fine in the end.
It’s a bizarre sort of denial.
I’m a realist by nature.
You’re a denialist and pessimist, actually. You deny solutions, and you do so because, well, people just won’t.
Killian: What is rust?
AB, upon noticing that Killian’s system seems to be based on metals that never oxidize: What is rust?
Killian, too stupid to recognize that I was quoting him: Really? You don’t know what rust is? Stupid
AB: I think you have an overactive almygdala. Your comments could only arise from gobsmacking stupidity or an almygdala that overrides your frontal lobes. Reread this comment in full while “watching” your thoughts and emotions. Then read up on the almygdala and contemplate whether it explains your apparent propensity to “see red”.
Re #291 anklebites said You completey miss the point.
Did I? Or did he ask an intentionally asinine question and I let him know?
You have opposed mining any more materials
I oppose nothing. I analyze. It is what it is. Whether or not people mine more is not up to me; it’s simply not *needed*, thus is maladaptive. There is no opposition to mining in and of itself.
All depends on the NEEDS, RESOURCES, LEVERAGING, BRIDGING, etc. So, rather than ankle bite, go learn something, you damned chihuahua: Take a permaculture course so you can understand the conversation, or be quiet until you do.
Permaculture permits a wide range of high technology
It permits nothing, uneducated ankle biter. It contains no techniques, methods, nor specific tools. It provides the principles and design process by which one can make effective, educated decisions at the First Principles level. As Elon Musk – a fool, but not an idiot – said about designing their Wall battery, or whatever it’s called, they didn’t ask what everyone else was doing with batteries and simply try to beat them to market, he started with, what is a battery? That is First Principles-type thinking – something you are seemingly unfamiliar with.
Permaculture is First Principles thinking. Essentially, every design process begins with, what is this space? What are the water energy flows? What are the sun energy flows? Wind? What is the energy embedded in the soil? What will it grow? How do these all combine in a contour of landscape?
You and others think you are scoring little ankle bites when I will not be drawn into faking design. It is dishonest. You have been told what I have just written repeatedly in various ways. Yet you, et al., claim I *will not* give you specifics, or insinuate I have no design plan because I should be able to design for you blindfolded, and then design every place the same way.
It’s ridiculously immature, uneducated, ill-informed, childish debate rhetoric.
The truth is as I have said: Learn to design. Then you and I can do complimentary design regardless where we are in the world.
especially solar panels, and in reasonable quantity, and at the same time you are arguing we have to reduce our use of materials and energy by 90%. This is just hugely contradictory Killian.
No, you just have no idea what you are talking about. As I said, “permaculture” has no opinion on solar, per se. The principles of bridge tech and appropriate tech have nothing to do with sustainability. They are defined as bridge/appropriate tech precisely because it is recognized they will *not* be part of an ultimately sustainable solution.
And so you also appear to be conceding we use unsustainable materials like metals. Yes or no?
Stupid question.
I see no option anyway. We use some materials that are not sustainable, and can only be moderate about – assuming you can convince people to do this. Calling people idiots will not convince many people.
What makes you idiotic is not the question itself, it’s that I have addressed this with you over and over, but you want to pretend I have not, or delusionally actually believe I have not.
I have said repeatedly it is not that we should not use “renewables.” You know this. It is that we do not need anymore of them at this time because we have enough to reduce consumption down to in at least some countries. Other countries may yet have a need. Only they can answer that question.
I have NOT told you to not use them, I have not told you I don’t like them, I have not told you we cannot make more: I have told you they are unsustainable, because they are. THUS, any design must recognize they are NOT solutions, merely band aids. I have not said differently.
Mark Z. Jacobson’s 100% Renewables (100% WWS) Roadmap to Nowhere by Conley & Maloney @ TEAC8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2KNqluP8M0
Go Nuclear or go extinct!
294 JRClark 17 Aug 2018: “The debt train is on its way to an epic collision of unprecedented proportions.”
JR: please spend a few days reading deeply about Modern Monetary Theory (MMT); then spend a few days thinking about it; then report back.
Here:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2017/08/unforced-variations-august-2017/comment-page-12/#comment-682514
292 zebra 16 Aug 2018: “And yet, when I present an opportunity to do just that, there is deafening silence. People constantly ask Killian to be more specific and concrete, but when I am specific and concrete….? Why is that, do you think?”
What specific and concrete suggestion are you referring to? Please do not make us guess what you mean. Please provide a link to the post that describes what you have in mind. Thank you.
290 JRClark 16 Aug 2018: “It is too late, but only for saving a civilization based on industrial agriculture and industrial manufacturing.”
JR: what does “industrial” mean?
I’ve pondered my Prebate and Fee concept. Here’s an initial prototype:
The system starts November 1st with the surprise opening up of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, flooding the market and dropping oil prices in the toilet.
On December 1st, every resident gets 120% of his/her share of expected fees for the next six months. Folks love holiday cash and oil prices are way low, so happy, happy, happy.
On June 1st, residents get 120% of their share of expected fees for June 1st through August 9th.
On August 10th, residents get 120% of their share of expected fees for August 10th through November 30th.
Thus, folks get holiday cash, summer vacation cash (hopefully for childcare or a staycation), and back to school cash, all seriously in excess of what they’ll be spending on fees.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is then used as an economic weapon to keep oil prices in the dump so the carbon tax can be made higher and higher. The idea is to drop fossil fuel prices (and so profit) while increasing fossil fuel taxes so consumers pay more that they currently do, but they also have 120% of BOTH the increased cost to themselves (per gallon at the pump, for example) AND the amount profits are lowered.
This is paid for by a small(?) tax on the worldwide wealth of billionaires. This means that billionaires would have to disclose all of their worldly possessions to the IRS.
Add in the “wrap energy costs into loan applications” idea I floated previously and you end up with a potent carbon-fighting force.
Ideas? Improvements? Additions?
————–
Killian: How do the words, “It’s currently unsustainable,” equal, “We cannot recycle anything?”
AB: I’ve NEVER heard you say the words “currently” and “unsustainable” in a sentence before now. So, to make your statement truthful, as opposed to, uh, Trumpian: How do the words, “It’s utterly unsustainable,” equal, “We cannot recycle anything?”
There, I fixed it. I know how much you value truth. You’re welcome.
Nigel: So in other words we are expected to build sail boats out of hand made tools and very, very simple machines like the ancient Greeks for example.
Killian: Why the hell not? Why do you *need* anything more?… …But the real problem with your question is that it is not sincere. It is an implication, oft repeated by you, so it is dishonest.
AB: Uh, he was looking for the level of tech that you are speaking of. Since your comment boiled down to, “Yep, you nailed it and if you can make something higher tech sustainable, go ahead and try, dude. You’ll fail. Me? I’m sticking with hand-made sailboats. Maybe someday someone will…”
Killian: You intentionally leave out my suggestion for deep simplicity except in communications, medical systems transport and R&D and long-term planning to extract resources from the solar system
AB: Ah, we’re getting somewhere. Something to work with! But, since I have no recollection of such a proposal AND you insult Nigel’s honor with “intentionally”, give us three references to posts on this site where you made the above stance. Seriously, given the volumes you’ve spewed, surely three references should be a snap!
Man, I don’t have the time nor the patience to write (or even read) more. When you say that calling somebody a dishonest, insane liar isn’t an insult because it’s true, well, pretty much any kindergartner has enough sense to see that your frontal lobes are totally disconnected from your fingers. Please stop spewing venom. Nigel and I are asking legitimate questions, and we got about forty relevant words wrapped in thousands of words worth of bile in return. (The bit I’ve read so far basically consisted of you quoting Nigel, then you insulting him, then you confirming that he just about nailed it (but the nail will probably rust, eh?) then you tossing some more insults. By the way, Nigel has never said anything derogatory about peasants. He was speaking about technology, not the worth of a human. And I noted that those peasants had to have serious skills. You spoke of blacksmithing as if it were easy-peasy. Apprenticing lasted years in many fields back then. The Lakota (northern plains, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse) assigned one adult male to each male child and taught him one-on-one for over a decade.
Anyway, for you, your post was an amazing improvement. Congrats, Killian.
Oh, by the way, when you called me stupid, you lied through your teeth. You have been exposed to me long enough to sense a reasonable fraction of my capabilities.
And, again, I rate you of average IQ. Maybe on the high side of average. 105?
Adding to previous comments. For those interested in facts, as opposed to wishful thinking, futurist speculation, and general hysteria.Population and economic growth have to slow because of resource problems, as most of us know, but they already are! Its just a case of looking at this, and reinforcing and accelerating the trend.
Economic growth has been slowing ever since the 1960s, tracking down relentlessly. This is most obvious in developed countries, but imho developing countries will follow the trend eventually as markets reach saturation. This falling trend has continued despite low interest rates, money printing, cutting taxes etc so appears irreversible. I don’t know if it would reach zero by itself, with no conscious policy change, but its sure heading that way.
So this is a good sign in environmental terms.I think we just have to accept a zero growth world (in simple terms) and accept policies that may lead to zero growth.Growing resource scarcity will obviously push growth down further everywhere. It is counter productive humanities future to resist the trend by printing even more money and sacrificing environmental standards.
Instead the nature of economic growth has to shift from mineral extraction, to the services sector.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_growth#/media/File:WeltBIPWorldgroupOECDengl.PNG
Population growth has been slowing down:
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/1997/06/earths-population-growth-slowing-down
We would be wise to nudge population growth down at a faster rate (using sensible ethical public policy obviously, as opposed to forcing it)
304 alan2102, thanks alan. I plowed through two basic info ref pages @ http://neweconomicperspectives.org but was none the wiser as to what MMT is nor how it theoretically works. I get universal income idea set within the current framework. Makes sense, I can understand that. But I have no idea what MMT is and there is only so many hours in the day. When and if it grows real legs and isn’t an obscure “theory” of the few maybe then I’ll give it some attention. I wish them well of course.
306 alan2102, industrial means this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial
iirc over 60% of all energy is consumed by Industry in the rich wasteful western/oecd world while people foolishly believe that placing PV on their roof is ever could make a genuine difference to emissions. It’s the industrial sector making those panels and delivering them to the door for installation. Do we really need so many jet airliners? Maybe slowing everything down would be a healthy sustainable thing to do. Like is space tourism a solution to avoiding the worlds #1 Cliff or another part of the cause? It’s another straw placed on the camels back.
When push comes to shove, whenever that is, from the coming climate change impacts and the social consequences, my reading is that industrial agriculture and industrial manufacturing (and the connection to the Transportation sector) will be the first major sectors to collapse in a heap. That will include companies like Tesla and his Boring Company too, and those making wind turbines and so on. Not saying they are bad but when things fall apart they really do fall apart across the board and quickly. We’ll see if we live long enough.
AB a cpl comments on your F&D links
“Fossil fuels would become increasing more expensive than solar and wind energy, and people would, naturally, use their carbon dividend to switch energy providers.”
OK but it also removes the downward pressure on costs/prices efficiency of production for renewable energy tech to significantly decrease further.
And the claim that “people would, naturally, use their carbon dividend to switch energy providers” is an unproven economic theory assumption. It’s not necessarily so. Alternatively by providing citizens with “energy credit chits” that can only be spent on “energy” bills (including the higher FF driven price increases of their petrol, diesel, gas and electricity) or the purchase of more efficient fridges, TVs and cars would make such assumptions moot.
It helps no one if the dividend is invested in a holiday in France via a jet airliner or if they trade in their Toyota Corolla for a new F350 Ford truck because they always wanted one. People are stupid by default right?
And long before the moral police in the US Congress and States decide that homeless people and those with prior drug convictions should not qualify for the Dividend? Or apply quarterly random Drug Testing regimes before you get your check. If busted your banned from participation for a year. They already do shit like that such as throwing people in public housing onto the streets for having a joint at a friends birthday party. But yes this in itself doesn’t mean the F&D is a bad idea in itself – but there are historical patterns as to what happens to “handouts to the morally undeserving”.
“In terms of per-capita income, the ordinary American would end up with more money in pocket each year, according to the Citizens Climate Lobby.”
Economic theory writ large. Recall what Greenspan said about lending to the housing markets before the 2008 crash. It was his theory all was fine and dandy. Devil’s in the details, I do not trust the CCL’s theories, their Marketing spin nor James Baker.
“This free market plan would create millions of U.S. jobs and increase our GDP by tens of billions annually,”
More marketing spin. You can’t create money out of nothing. First the F&D has to SUCK OUT OF THE ECONOMY $ billions each month from people’s and business pockets to pay for those new jobs to build wind turbines and install them. CCL are maybe creating a new form of Math Al by ignoring one side of the Accounting Ledger entirely. :)
“By putting a gradually increasing import fee on countries such as China, whose emissions are higher than ours, the U.S. would force them to reduce their carbon dioxide pollution.”
First the people saying this are clearly Psychopathic control freaks. China is already reducing their systemic CO2 pollution without such threats from the great but dumb USA. Second China’s population is also 4 items the size of the US population and yet their economic activity using FF energy while the US does the same thing is equivalent and not 400% higher!!! So again this is spin – actually it’s deceitful Sophistry.
and the biggy – “Fee-and-dividend” has worked as promised in British Columbia for seven years, lowering energy bills and taxes and growing its economy faster than any other province in Canada. It has an 83 percent public approval rating there, according to the World Bank.
https://www.centralmaine.com/2015/09/27/fee-and-dividend-plan-works-in-british-columbia/
Big Claims – Zero Evidence provided anywhere in that article = marketing spin and assumptions being fed to the reader. This is not an evidence based report, it’s a claim. It’s up to them to provide the data and prove it, not me to go chasing down ghosts to prove they are wrong.
”
BC Carbon Tax:of note fossil fuels purchased for agriculture (starting in 2013) is exempt from the BC carbon tax. The cement industry was given $3 million dollar incentive in 2015. These exemptions and incentives are meant to protect the industries from competition outside of BC because subnational governments cannot enact border tax adjustments to protect carbon intensive industries.”
https://canada.citizensclimatelobby.org/laser-talk-the-bc-carbon-tax-vs-ccls-carbon-fee-and-dividend/
Gosh didn’t I mention both those things earlier? Yes I did. Why am I the only one who sharp enough to then also point out that over and above the Fuel costs for agriculture a F&D carbon tax will also increase the costs to farmers of:
Fertilizer, Tractors, fencing wire, fence posts, electricity to run dairy farm milking of cows, refrigeration costs, the cost for a new shed, the cost to buy and repair their motor bikes on cattle ranches, the cost of harvesters whether bought or hired from harvesting companies, the cost to transport their produce to market.
And they will not get a penny back in a Dividend to pay for that. But the Homeless person will get a monthly check instead. F&D is a conjob by dreamy cultists or it’s an intentional plan by Neoliberals to muddy the water and fuck rational action to stop climate change by Mitigation and to stop any Govt Regulation of Polluting activities.
Hint, it’s both but the latter are driving the conjob originally. I also saw a statement on CCL that even oif it is not introduced it’s highly likely that Coal fired plants will all be shut down non-existent in the US circa 2025 becaue they are already unsustainable and because renewable energy is already as cheap and coal fired power.
So WTF does one need a F&D carbon tax to make that happen when it already is happening anyway? And could be made faster with some rational leadership from the federal govt and energy policy guideed by Regulations – like no more coal fired plants allowed to be built, and better efficiency standards on cars, trucks, TVs, refrigerators and building codes. Tax breaks on building insulation, tax breaks for business & especially Industry becoming energy self-sufficient instead of being connected to the grid.
You’re welcome but I am skipping the rest of that CCL page. It really is not a proper analysis of BC F&D .. it’s biased promotional marketing spin and not genuine “evidence” or real Data. I hope this feedback helps you and others to see the light. The onus is not on me to prove anything – so be careful tricky salesmen (and Mormons) knocking on your door.
From Unforced Variations
Re #210 nigelj nips Killian @202
“(Yes, nigel, once again, I have predicted the future ten years out. Rather than whining about it, try to learn how to do so. It’s not hard, actually.)”
Good for you. And what will you say if this new scientific paper is shown to be faulty? Will you apologise
Apologize? Does one apologize for a faulty assessment? No. Good god, scientists would constantly be doing so! No, one acknowledges and reassesses. So, no, I won’t be apologizing.
That said, this paper will not be proven wrong, so your question, like you, is moot. Why even raise it? Where do you find fault with the paper? If you find no fault, you are being petty and pointlessly argumentative.
I find fault with you: I gave you a chance to man up, and you failed. How do you make a correct prediction an opportunity to attempt to discredit? How did that ever occur to your little brain?
or realise the limits of your abilties
I know them well. Analysis is my greatest strength, however, not a weakness, but nobody is perfect. Up through 2016 things were going a little more slowly than I expected, but 100% in the direction I expected. Timing the collapse of an ecosystem isn’t exactly simple, so, no I won’t be apologizing for that. Since 2016, things have seemed to accelerate significantly. This massive heatwave (and the food prices hikes/shortages because of it that are now getting into the news) is the clearest example. But the science is accelerating, too, and the extremity of the danger has become so clear scenarios of collapse and hothouse earth and such are now no longer the province of stupidly labeled “alarmists” like myself, but coming directly from legit scientists.
and believe me they are limited
Aww… how cute. Perhaps you should change your handle to “Nippy.”
Your confirmation bias is off the scale.
Something else you don’t understand. if you set out a scenario or prediction and are correct, it is rather bizarre to call that confirmation bias. We call that “excellent analysis” outside of Nippy Land.
Your predictions are indeed easy. Predict things will be worse than the IPCC say. The safest, easiest bet in the world.
You contradict yourself. We have centuries, remember? So, no, not so easy. Besides, I haven’t said they will be worse, I have been pretty damned specific – or as specific as one can be with multi-decade, multi-century changes.
Are you under the impression is was a popular thing to state 3M of SLR by 2100 back in 2007? Or that we’d see significant permafrost melt before 2100? Gavin and I went round on that point. Technically, it’s still up in the air, but the physical changes and science since then are all in my direction, and the new Walter, et al., paper is strongly in my favor.
Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but Gavin is a world-renowned climate scientist and Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Should a mere Joe Public reviewer of the science and regenerative systems designer be going toe-to-toe with him and not only holding his own, but having the advantage?
I have no skill?
OK. Whatever you say.
:-)
Retire, already. The harder you push against me, the less intelligent and more petty you look.
OK, back to more useful programming. I am already bored with these three putzes and their lies. It will never end, so why give a shit what liars say?
Killian @302
So you don’t oppose mining, when you said previously we don’t need to mine more metals. You are either totally contradicting yourself or nit picking to the point of absurdity.
You now say permaculture doesn’t permit technology, when the permaculture article you referred us all to is a list of permitted technology. This was obviously what I meant by permaculture permitting technology.
And I’m perfectly well aware permaculture is a set of design principles. And I admire the principles as far as they go.
So now you are introducing an idea of “bridge design” which appears to mean your technology backbone is tempoary and THEN at some unspecified time we all revert to being essentially peasants, longer term. Please clarify or confirm, and also explain how your mining other planet’s in the distant future fits into this.
Not ankle biting. Huge issues.
Re #307 Al Bundy
Really, Coming after me with nothing? You are as stupid as your namesake.
Nippy2 said Killian: How do the words, “It’s currently unsustainable,” equal, “We cannot recycle anything?”
AB: I’ve NEVER heard you say the words “currently” and “unsustainable” in a sentence before now.
Thus, such a statement has never been made because you either didn’t read it? You are incredibly stupid, though predictably, stupid in making this claim. I mean, there IS a search function.
From 2014. Believe me, there are more with that exact quote and more still that are variations on the theme, such as, “as currently produced,” etc.
So, to make your statement truthful
Said a consistent liar. thanks, anyways, but I already covered it above.
Nigel: So in other words we are expected to build sail boats out of hand made tools and very, very simple machines like the ancient Greeks for example.
Killian: Why the hell not? Why do you *need* anything more?… …But the real problem with your question is that it is not sincere. It is an implication, oft repeated by you, so it is dishonest.
AB: Uh, he was looking for the level of tech that you are speaking of. Since your comment boiled down to, “Yep, you nailed it and if you can make something higher tech sustainable, go ahead and try, dude. You’ll fail. Me? I’m sticking with hand-made sailboats. Maybe someday someone will…”
This is pure diarrhea of the mouth. Barking words. And flatly incorrect. You two are so busy trying to score points in a game you can’t win that you have to lie at every turn. I will repeat one more time for you little ankle biters: Stating a thing is unsustainable is an observation, not a value judgment. It is a statement of fact, not a statement of preference. It is an unavoidable conclusion, not a framing of a dreamed of future. It’s just data. Stop being stupid about this.
Saying simplicity is our only choice is not a statement of preference, but a deep, careful, detailed analysis. Who the hell WANTS to go to such simplicity at such a fast rate? Are you barking mad? Simplicity will be great once we get there (and I’d *much* rather we could be sustainable AND high tech, but it is impossible – and I have ALWAYS said I like this life and have NEVER said I would prefer a primitive life), but getting there will be hard, uncomfortable, even deadly for some. I have NEVER said differently. I have said over and over: Simple, not easy.
Killian: You intentionally leave out my suggestion for deep simplicity except in communications, medical systems transport and R&D and long-term planning to extract resources from the solar system
AB: Ah, we’re getting somewhere. Something to work with! But, since I have no recollection of such a proposal
Too gaddamned bad. You are flat stupid for not checking because I have made this statement many times.
AND you insult Nigel’s honor with “intentionally”
Because he knows this.
give us three references to posts on this site where you made the above stance.
You make the claim, you must prove it. I will enjoy it immensely if you attempt to compound this by claiming you couldn’t find any.
three references should be a snap!
BTW, only one is needed to disprove your accusation, genius, but points for attempting to slip in a requirement that could technically be true, but be a lie. Sadly, I doubt 3 approaches the number of times I’ve said such things.
Nigel and I are asking legitimate questions
No, you are not. You are repeating things you’ve been told over and over as if you have not. It’s all ankle biting with you two, all the time.
then you confirming that he just about nailed it
Are you on drugs, mentally unstable, emotionally unhinged? Nigel nailed it? Wow…
By the way, Nigel has never said anything derogatory about peasants. He was speaking about technology, not the worth of a human.
Who said he was derogatory? You really are unintelligent. I pointed out his use was inherently derogatory, not that he was directly insulting peasants. He said it pejoratively, with disdain, as if living a simple farmers life is a bad thing when those farmers could live pretty well if not preyed upon. The post you reference speaks for itself and lays this out clearly.
by the way, when you called me stupid, you lied through your teeth. You have been exposed to me long enough to sense a reasonable fraction of my capabilities.
Any person with mid-range IQ, or even lower, could write your tripe. Given how poorly you understand what you read, the stupid-assed assumptions you have made, especially in this discussion, setting yourself up as a fool by not doing a simple site search for examples, and the completely irrational way you go about trying to tear me down when I provide the strongest climate analysis of any poster here, you provide little evidence of high intelligence.
And, again, I rate you of average IQ. Maybe on the high side of average. 105?
Because you want to prove how goddamned petty you truly are, I suppose.
So you compound things with a hypocritical attack on my mental abilities? Even those who like me least on this site will recognize the foolishness of this. My worst enemies aren’t stupid enough to call me stupid.
Killian @301
You want more detail about my statements on inclusive values, and evidence based policy, when the meaning is clear enough to people interested in current debate on the issues, and I specifically said “I will keep my comments short”. Perhaps reading that statement was too tiring for you to read at the time :)
You seem to think the size of a home is irrelevant to sustainablity. Assuming it has functioning plumbing, and some window glass as opposed to being a huge tent made of branches and leaves and nothing else, no actually SIZE MATTERS.
You say I mean free markets to be markets regulated for the benefit of the wealthy when all comments I have made on this website have been the polar opposite, so who is being dishonest now? But perhaps you haven’t read what I said, or have forgotten. Do you see the point I’m making here?
Smaller population is more important than you think. Its the most pain free way of reducing environmental problems, and has to be a priority. Its only because it will be slow to push growth down that we need to reduce per capita resource use as best we can, but I think we have to be realistic about what is likely to happen and it doesnt make a lot of sense to cut use of resources to the point of causing serious hardship (not that you are necessarily promoting that).
As far as I’m concerned renewable energy is part of a sustainable future “for all practical purposes” as long as we use it prudently. We will eventually run out and will have to do the best we can with whats left as you allude to yourself. I think your definition is awfully narrow, because by that definition nothing is truly sustainable apart from peasant culture. It’s technically correct, but will be a lot to absorb for the average homo sapiens.
You think I’m in denial by saying people won’t willingly accept your particular version of simplification? It’s just an observation of reality. People clearly resist reducing consumption, and not many live that sort of life, despite the fact self sufficiency is quite an old idea now.
That’s not to say we cant achieve some level of change. So I think its possibly wiser to promote something a little bit less ambitious than your prescription, and thus more likely to gain traction, and then build on this. That would be the intelligent approach.
Re #304 Carrie said
Mark Z. Jacobson’s 100% Renewables (100% WWS) Roadmap to Nowhere by Conley & Maloney @ TEAC8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2KNqluP8M0
Go Nuclear or go extinct!
Let me fix that for you: Go nuclear and go extinct!
There ya go. Now, these guys are not stupid, so why the stupidity? E.g., they basically laugh at Jacobson when they quite pointedly state the number of solar panels you’d have to replace daily to make his plan work, and then say, with emphasis, “forever.”
In my opinion, making such a statement without acknowledging it also applies to YOUR plan is just stupid. Someone, like me, is going to notice and point it out. Nuclear is no more sustainable than wind or solar. As I have tried to point out over the years, sustainability is a threshold, not a continuum. Nuclear plants have to be replaced, too. Forever. Thousands of them. Interesting the video didn’t cover that. Nice editing, eh? No bias, I’m sure. Just a little mistake….
Al Bartlett wondered if we were dumber than yeast. They will use up all their food till they die drowning in their own wastes. But they have no advanced brain to analyze their situation with while we do. Not only that, but we realized we were going to go extinct long before we used up the whole planet, and kept going. Are still going.
That makes us dumber than yeast. If Jacobson, Conley and Maloney are supposed to be among our brightest, yet make such glaringly foolish analyses, aren’t they even dumber than the dumbest of us?
Simplify. Your only option. All those gigawatts of need disappear making all this magnitudes easier with none of the risks of either approach. A small fraction of the levels the three suggest can be provided much more realistically, and for a far longer period of time before running out of resources. It’s a far more realistic bridge. If you want to go with nuclear, then the same thing applies: Simplify with a minimal backbone of localized power. At least then we would have a much easier transition to a true renewable energy system.
Of course, the best thing is to transition directly to a truly renewable system for society. You get to zero, and then negative, emissions much more quickly, thus massively reducing the “hothouse” risk, disrupting the natural world much less and end up happy and stable much more quickly. Those two plans will extend the destruction of the ecosystem indefinitely, but end up saving nothing. Collapse, possibly extinction, will still come.
Carrie says “When push comes to shove, whenever that is, from the coming climate change impacts and the social consequences, my reading is that industrial agriculture and industrial manufacturing (and the connection to the Transportation sector) will be the first major sectors to collapse in a heap.”
Why? Whats the mechanism?
Its hard to see how manufacturing or transport would “collapse” due to more extreme weather and sea level rise etc. It would of course become less economic as more resources have to be spent on climate adaptation.
We know climate change will downgrade crop yeilds, but its hard to see this leading to the collapse of the farming system as a whole. Industrial agriculture has survived droughts etc.
However Im not a massive fan of large scale corporate level industrial agriculture and evidence suggests its not as efficient as medium scale farms. You are right on that point. It would be good to see a transition back to this, but the huge pension funds and corporates have a grip on so many things now.
Carrie @311 on carbon fee and dividend. OK you are arguing your case in more detail here.
“Alternatively by providing citizens with “energy credit chits” that can only be spent on “energy” bills (including the higher FF driven price increases of their petrol, diesel, gas and electricity) or the purchase of more efficient fridges, TVs and cars would make such assumptions moot.”
The logic is good, and I have suggested things like this as well in the past, and to use some of the money to subsidise wind farms. But the problem is it complicates things, and gets political push back. The only plan that seems to have a chance in America is carbon fee and dividend of a simple type! This may be frustrating but its the reality.
I think China’s approach to climate mitigation of command and control, subsidy and regulation is ok and more direct in some ways, but the trouble is this is complicated, and less politically feasible in places like America. It also doesnt put a price on carbon, so you end up with an awful lot of regulations on hundreds of things. This is mainly why I’m in behind F&D.
I doubt that Alan Greenspan, who was completely useless, would want any scheme of any description.
“More marketing spin. You can’t create money out of nothing. First the F&D has to SUCK OUT OF THE ECONOMY $ billions each month from people’s and business pockets to pay for those new jobs to build wind turbines and install them. CCL are maybe creating a new form of Math Al by ignoring one side of the Accounting Ledger entirely. :)”
Well banks do actually create money out of nothing! But F&D does not suck money out of the whole economy. It sucks money out of the profits of the fossil fuel companies, and hands it back to people. Its a money go around, so economically neutral.
The real thing to watch is inflation. F&D is designed to cause inflation in things like petrol, but it needs to be phased in so inflation doesn’t extend through the whole economy and become excessive.
I don’t know about British Columbia, but Britain has a carbon tax, and has made very good progress with renewable electricity generation.
To finish. I don’t think carbon F&D is beyond criticism, but its simple enough compared to the alternatives like cap and trade, practical, transparent, and consumption taxes are economics 101. Its less intrusive on markets than hundreds of separate rules, and its got some chance in political terms.
No, it doesn’t. The factors driving that remain. And any cost increases on the manufacturing side should be equal on average to other energy sources. The overwhelmingly large effect would be the competitive price advantage for renewables resulting from neutralization of hidden FF ‘externality subsidies.’
Killian @312
“I know them well. Analysis is my greatest strength, however, not a weakness, but nobody is perfect. Up through 2016 things were going a little more slowly than I expected, but 100% in the direction I expected. Timing the collapse of an ecosystem isn’t exactly simple, so, no I won’t be apologizing for that. Since 2016, things have seemed to accelerate significantly. This massive heatwave (and the food prices hikes/shortages because of it that are now getting into the news) is the clearest example. But the science is accelerating, too, and the extremity of the danger has become so clear scenarios of collapse and hothouse earth and such are now no longer the province of stupidly labeled “alarmists” like myself, but coming directly from legit scientists.”
Well at least you are acknowledging you are not perfect. And I dont mean to knock all your predictions.
Listen, I have been predicting for the last 20 years that temperatures would be at or even a little under model estimates, but that sea level rise would be over model estimates, and weather would become more extreme more quickly than the IPCC reports implied. Right now it looks like I have been vindicated on all three.
I have had a strong instinct for ages that climate sensitivity will turn out to be in the middle, but the sensitivity of weather and ice melt to temperatures will be higher than anticipated and obviously I have also been guided by information on trends and processes etc.
My point is you are not the only person who makes predictions, but we dont all blurt them out everywhere. Perhaps we should.
And I’m not diminishing the warming trend. It is slightly under right now, or about in the middle, depending on the data set, and I think warming will accelerate from now on and get a little above model estimates. The last three years are clearly a warning, one doesn’t need a physics degree to work that out.
I also recall when the permafrost issue first made public headlines it seemed like a big concern, and I thought it could get serious, but then the science started to say it would be a very slow process. But one look at the extent of northern Russia should have anyone concerned. I saw a great video on it by a Russian scientist.
My general view has been the IPCC worst case sea level rise prediction of 900mm metre by 2100 is too conservative, and 2 metres is my pick, and I have seen no reason to change this at this stage. If new information comes along then of course I might. I dont really buy into Hansens predictions but I keep an open mind as well.
Confirmation bias on your part is looking for research papers that are very pessimistic, and ignoring contrary messages as simply being lies. Sometimes they are, but not always.
But to sum up I have for a long predicted things will be worse than the IPCC predict. I have not endevoured to put exact numbers on all the issues, just sea level rise because its easy enough to ascribe an exact number.
Killian @314
“Saying simplicity is our only choice is not a statement of preference, but a deep, careful, detailed analysis. Who the hell WANTS to go to such simplicity at such a fast rate?”
So in other words we have a “bridge period” of some metals based technology, but your actual end goal is to live like peasants (in the sense of subsistence farmers) with no metal based technology. So what you actually mean by simplicity is a subsistence lifestyle. Or do we evolve backwards even further?
Well I would prefer to avoid this, and we can if 1) population is small enough and 2) we mine asteroids.
“Nigel and I are asking legitimate questions. No, you are not. You are repeating things you’ve been told over ”
You mostly have no coherent, meaningful answers Killian. Just slogans, rhetoric, or abuse.
“Any person with mid-range IQ, or even lower, could write your tripe. My worst enemies aren’t stupid enough to call me stupid.”
Al Bundy is clearly quite bright. I know this because hes one of the very few people who makes criticisms of my comments that have some substance! Me, my educational grades were pretty exceptional. You Killian are probably just fine. Come on guys, its not a p*****g contest. :)
Carrie,
Yeah, people are skin deep, which kinda explains why they’re screwing the planet.
Nigel, point well taken, but perhaps the home brew itself isn’t key. Mebbe he should change the feedstock from sawdust to grain? (Sorry, but the joke was irresistible. Color me weak)
And an update:
Version 4 of the Simultaneous Combined Cycle engine is complete and has been sent to both an engineer and to our own Scott Strough for analysis.
Carrie,
Thanks for the analysis on the F&D links. I only briefly scanned parts to find something to quote.
And, as I said above, in the USA prebate and fee could solve many of F&D’s issues. No need for energy chits or other stuff that will get played. However, stuff that brings energy use into the equation when large decisions are made is useful. I mentioned loans. Another possibility is rent. If rent was required to include perhaps 2/3rds of expected utilities landlords would have an incentive to up the efficiency of their units.
Killian,
I never insulted your intelligence. Like “What is rust” I used your current favorite word, “stupid”, but I said ” or” and gave my real analysis: you tend to see red due to an overactive amalgda. That brain structure is dangerous since it not only makes emotion swamp logic, it also provides rewards through adrenaline and other chemicals. Folks get addicted.
Note that I complimented your intelligence. 105 is above average.
I’m sure Scott will post his analysis of my engine. After that I’ll explain my refrigerator and my forestry system.
You already have been informed of one of my farming systems. Turns out that it has been proven to work and is in production in Australia. They call it “pasture cropping”. Plant cool season grass, then (once established), when the weather turns warm and the cool season grass slows down you harvest the grass and drill warm season crops into the field. When the crops are harvested as temps cool off the cool season grass gets going again. The second grass harvest is preferably done the next spring so the grass can reabsorb its nutrients as it goes dormant (depending on the species and climate).
So, they beat me to the patent office but proved my system works.
Frankly, since your posts have a 1:1000 signal to noise ratio I’m going to stop reading them.
On a personal note, I understand that you’re in a horrid situation and that surely explains much of the bile. Humans need to vent. Good luck and goodbye.
318 nigelj says: “I doubt that Alan Greenspan, who was completely useless, would want any scheme of any description.”
You’re too funny. Was it really that hard to see the analogy painted? It’s all good the fundamentals are sound :-> suddenly there’s a Global Economic collapse and financial disaster on everyone’s plate.
MAR it’s all ok, the science is perfect it’s not really that hot and you “stupid skyrocketers” who do not toe the line here are below us wise elders in “science” :-> suddenly there’s global droughts, high winds, unnatural regional climatic conditions and wild fires across the nth hemisphere all at once followed by extreme rainfall and flooding.
Next year will be more of the same, and the year after and the year after and progressively getting worse year after year after year as GHG continue to rise according to projected use and national policies all over the globe.
What do you see written Nigelj?
“Oh, Alan Greenspan would not want any Carbon tax scheme.”
(big smile) That’s OK you’re my Proxy Pet for the bulk of Humanity – the Victors are the outliers. And people like Dan Miller are Proxies too. Good intentions but that’s it because they do not see the problem or the solutions clearly nor the present urgency of the present very short window that’s open now and is about to close in under a decade. No tome for F&D, no time left to pander to MARs or to conservative MEEK Climate Scientist or you nigelj
Permafrost collapse isn’t in the models – forests collapse isn’t in the models – unpredictable soil carbon emissions globally due to progressive drying out of soils and extreme heat waves and wildfires isn’t in the models – coral collapse before 2050 isn’t in the models – lots of things to do with climate and subsequent consequences are not in the models. The collapse of the UNFCCC system and Treaty expectations isn’t in the Models.
I’ll explain it here:
http://www.barbneal.com/wp-content/uploads/fogleg12.mp3
317
nigelj says:
19 Aug 2018 at 2:40 AM
Carrie says “When push comes to shove, whenever that is, from the coming climate change impacts and the social consequences, my reading is that industrial agriculture and industrial manufacturing (and the connection to the Transportation sector) will be the first major sectors to collapse in a heap.”
Why? Whats the mechanism?
http://www.barbneal.com/wp-content/uploads/fogleg40.mp3
More support for the concept of simplified living at scale.
You have to not be an asshole and think, but imagine small towns sprouting up as people leave cities, and cities become archipelagos of small towns… using Embedded Energy (look it up, ya lazy buggers!) to remake what is into what must be…
Hundreds of millions (I guess billions) will be forced to move. We need places for them to create new lives. Embedded energy helps that happen, and can be in a way that does not need heating, cooling, or cooking fuel.
THIS is how we succeed in mitigation and adaptation, NOT by digging more shit pout of the ground and sucking more shit out of the air and the oceans.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-kansas-lost-city-20180819-htmlstory.html#
Killian criticised me for suggesting he wants us to become peasant farmers. Yet this is his ‘simplification’ plan:
1) We have to cut our resource use by 90% asap, but we are allowed to maintain a technology “backbone” of some limited use of technology.
2) However this technology backbone is only a very temporary “bridge” because the desired goal is to stop using metals completely, or massively reduce their use to just a couple of simple hand tools each at most ( he is unclear on which). What is this, if its not a peasant farmer, or possibly an aboriginee?
I hear where he’s coming from, but I think his plan is too pessimistic. Certainly we have to reduce our consumption of resources, but we should keep technology going as long as possible, and mine the asteroids etc and reduce population so scarcity is not a huge issue. Eventually over millenia we could possibly be forced into a very low technology society, but its not inevitable, and I would not be making it a deliberate end goal .
Re #315 nigelj said Killian @301
You want more detail about my statements on inclusive values, and evidence based policy
No, I don’t. The questions were rhetorical. You know nothing worth typing out and posting on these fora.
You seem to think the size of a home is irrelevant to sustainablity.
I know it is. The size of a building does not determine its sustainability. Again, you know nothing.
You say I mean free markets to be markets regulated for the benefit of the wealthy
No, I was correcting you. As in, that’s what “free market” actually *does* mean.
You know nothing, cannot parse simple English. You do not belong here.
Smaller population is more important than you think.
You have no idea what I think, obviously. I have stated any number of times my thinking on this. It is not hard to understand. Let me say it again (though it will not help):
The demographics are such that population reduction is not a *short-term* solution for climate and resource issues. If we relied on population reduction as stripes would have us do, we’d all end up dead.
I have **always** said population reduction is a long-term part of the solution, so please, stop. Just .Stop. Posting.
As far as I’m concerned renewable energy is part of a sustainable future “for all practical purposes” as long as we use it prudently.
Barking words.
I think your definition is awfully narrow
Stupid statement.
Dog: A four-legged mammalian of the genus Canis.
Accurate, but too narrow according to you.
It’s technically correct
Correct, but too narrow.
Just. Stop. Posting.
You think I’m in denial
Dear God… Being “in denial” and being “a denialist” are in no way the same. Someone in denial cannot accept the truth, while a denialist is lying about the truth.
So I think its possibly wiser to promote something a little bit less ambitious than your prescription, and thus more likely to gain traction, and then build on this. That would be the intelligent approach.
Because you can predict tipping points when no one else can?
Just. Stop. Posting.
310 JRClark 18 Aug 2018 — “I plowed through two basic info ref pages @ http://neweconomicperspectives.org but was none the wiser as to what MMT is”
I cannot speak to the specific things you read. I gave a list of links to MMT primers and overviews; you can without difficulty get much wiser as to what MMT is, if you wish. For easy learning, you can also do videos; I gave youtube links.
In a nutshell: MMT describes how currency works in countries with monetary sovereignty. The implications of it are huge and difficult to wrap your head around. It is well worth spending some days to understand, just like it is well worth some days working to understand climate change and its implications. It is THAT BIG.
After reading and thinking about it for a while, and though I have misgivings about some of its implications, I came to realize that anyone who does not understand it has no business talking about any aspect of economics. It is truly an elephant in the room and must be accounted for.
Do some youtube vids. That’s the easiest way.
310 JRClark 18 Aug 2018: “306 alan2102, industrial means this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial”
At that link, we read that “Industry is a segment of the economy involving the manufacturing and transportation of products.”
Are you opposed to the manufacturing and transportation of products? Seriously?
If not, then why do you make remarks like “It is too late, but only for saving a civilization based on industrial agriculture and industrial manufacturing”? (290, 16 August)
Maybe you meant something different, such as “it is too late for a civilization based on a CERTAIN STYLE of industrial manufacturing, involving CERTAIN INPUTS in CERTAIN INAPPROPRIATE AMOUNTS”, or something of that nature (just off the top of my head, I’m sure you could do better).
Nigel,
Renewables’ costs are extremely biased towards manufacturing. There’s no fuel, after all. Thus, a carbon tax would hit them harder during construction than other sources.
Re #313 nigelj said Killian @302
So you don’t oppose mining, when you said previously we don’t need to mine more metals. You are either totally contradicting yourself or nit picking to the point of absurdity.
I’ve been wrong about you. I have believed you were in over your head, basically just not knowledgeable enough, somewhat dishonest and petty, but I can only conclude from this ridiculous comment that you are, in fact, not bright.
Let me say this again: There is nothing that is or is not part of permaculture other than the ethics, principles and process. It is agnostic on all else because of the principles, one of which states to use what you have. Say I have an old car husk lying about. That is, itself, unsustainable and, left to itself, will rust away to nothing given enough time. But if I choose to, I can use that husk to make plowshares, yes?
Or, perhaps I live in an area with depleted soils and the only source of phosphorus is to mine it. You do so.
Just. Stop. Posting.
You now say permaculture doesn’t permit technology, when the permaculture article you referred us all to is a list of permitted technology.
Criminy… I was being quite literal because you were being quite stupid: Permaculture “permits” nothing. Why would it? How could it? Your statement made no sense whatsoever, and that is the point I made. Not surprised you completely whiff on this. So, let me repeat:
There is nothing that is or is not part of permaculture other than the ethics, principles and process. It is agnostic on all else because of the principles, one of which states to use what you have.
What I have said REPEATEDLY is that high technology, and much non-high-tech tech, is unsustainable. I have NEVER said it is not allowed by permaculture nor that it is allowed. Permaculture is a DESIGN PROCESS. Get that through your head.
And I’m perfectly well aware permaculture is a set of design principles. And I admire the principles as far as they go.
So far as they go? So far as they go is to sustainability, but you infer something is lacking. Nothing is lacking except your knowledge and understanding.
So now you are introducing an idea of “bridge design”
No. No. No. Bridge **technology.** And, far from introducing the idea in the previous post, I have mentioned it repeatedly on this site. Stop. Posting.
which appears to mean your technology backbone is tempoary and THEN at some unspecified time we all revert to being essentially peasants, longer term.
You keep using that word. You do not understand it. Stop using it.
Whether a tech is temporary or not depends on many factors. What if we can start mining the solar system? I’VE SAID THIS ALL BEFORE.
Not ankle biting. Huge issues.
No, ignorance. Yours.
Re #290 JRClark said Killian, and others, I think ‘we’ need restructured western societies, including on an individual level but primarily driven from a governmental consensus informed by science best practice and technological / ethical know how.
Nope. How does the unsustainable create the sustainable when doing so means ending itself? Has that ever happened in human history, the willing giving up of power, wealth, for the good of all by an entire economic elite?
there is a general agreement that the current goal should be centered around increased renewable energy source
In this case, the consensus is wrong.
and renewable practices beyond energy plus a proliferation of easier to understand climate change related information (education) which focuses on long term sustainability goals.
I suppose. More important is the doing of it. That gets you where the proliferation is supposed to get you.
It is too late, but only for saving a civilization based on industrial agriculture and industrial manufacturing. A permaculture based civilization would be much much more resilient to climate change. It also offers the only known robust system for genuine carbon sequestration.
Yup.
It seems so obvious to me. What’s also obvious to me is that it isn’t going to happen at scale either.
Then we will almost certainly head for hothouse conditions and all this is moot.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/sea-level-rise-is-eroding-home-value-and-owners-might-not-even-know-it/2018/08/20/ff63fa8c-a0d5-11e8-93e3-24d1703d2a7a_story.html
Carrie @324, is there any particular reason you want to fill up this website with empty rubbish mp3 files? Borehole material. Not even funny. Hurts my ears. I will sue you for ear ache!
Killian @237, what a load of pure BS. I think Al Bundy is too generous in his assessments of your intelligence.
Killian @331, your comments largely ignore what I said, and go off on some tangent, and are full of numerous contradictions, and personal abuse.
Just one. Permaculture is just a process apparently and agnostic about technology, but permaculture weekly or whatever its called lists technology. You see no contradiction. Dear god…
I dont recall this technology ‘bridge idea’ from your past comments months ago. It was certainly not explained in any detail. I have posted some comments on it above for you to get agitated about. Sounds crazy to me. You were almost making sense until you got to this concept.
Make up your mind. Do you want us to become peasants or not? Peasants do not mine asteroids.
Sorry I will stop using the term peasants. Primitive or aboriginee does appear more accurate. Stone tools and maybe an iron hammer or old car body. That appears to be about it. That is you end goal apparently.
I honestly just cant be bothered with the rest of your nonsense or spending time on it. But I will certainly be back to do some terminating of peoples silly ideas.
Killian @325, embedded energy is a measure of the energy content of a product, not some mysterious form of “free energy”.
People just arent going to live in thatched beehive shaped houses of ancient indigenous peoples unless forced at the point of a gun, or driven by some earthquake or something. For gods sake think a bit more practically.
Like I said. Smaller homes using a mix of modern materials and perhaps more use of mud bricks etc. That’s possible.
Alan102 @328, I gather by MMT you mean modern monetary theory, so fiat money produced by governments. I believe this is also called positive money or something.
Our current system produces money by various mechanisms. Reserve banks, private banks, credit card companies. Remember this process is ultimately self limiting based on the fractional reserve, but is not without its problems either.
But can you trust governments not to produce too much money and cause inflation? I just wonder if you are taking a giant step sideways.
And I dont deny the banks are a problem, and the whole financial sector has gained too much power, and is not producing value. Good book : Other Peoples Money, by John Kay.
But I agree on your other stuff on industry etc.
Al Bundy @330
“Renewables’ costs are extremely biased towards manufacturing. There’s no fuel, after all. Thus, a carbon tax would hit them harder during construction than other sources.”
Yes, and this is why I have felt the best scheme is carbon tax and dividend and also SUBSIDY for renewable energy like wind farms etcetera. However its about politics. The only scheme that appears to have some chance in America at least is a simple form of carbon tax and dividend, where people get all the dividend in their hand, so this is kind of why I’m promoting it. It’s far from ideal, but nothing else appears to have a chance politically.
Carrie thinks more along the lines of regulation, but again politics makes this hard work. Look at how the EPA are under attack for example.
Killian thinks simplicity. Oh if only it was that simple….
The answers, we have known ye well.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10216758992114720&id=1459966862
AB, #330–
I don’t think that actually follows, Al. RE ‘farms’ are better described as “installation” than “manufacturing.” And the manufacturing is far more modular and hence scalable than traditional thermal power generation. (Albeit requiring sophistication (ie., expense) in both technique and equipment–but with scale ramping up enormously, that sophistication is increasingly easy to amortize.)
Just to restate:
http://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2018/Jan/IRENA_2017_Power_Costs_2018.pdf
John, redirected from the Musing about Losing Earth thread:
LOL! Just what RC needs, another self-enhancing narcissist 8^D! The more the merrier, heh. This is the RC thread for discussions of psychology, economics and politics, i.e. the human behavioral science that any proposal for collective decarbonization action must take into account. AFAICT, John is here to congratulate himself at how far ahead of everyone else he is. Engage with him freely and robustly ;^).
309 nigelj 18 Aug 2018: “I think we just have to accept a zero growth world (in simple terms) and accept policies that may lead to zero growth. Growing resource scarcity will obviously push growth down further everywhere. It is counter productive [to] humanities future to resist the trend by printing even more money and sacrificing environmental standards.”
Printing more money (see: MMT) does not necessarily cause sacrifice of environmental standards. It can PROMOTE environmental standards. It depends on what we spend the money for.
The great paradox is that: 1) we need a no-net-growth economy, overall, for perhaps several decades (until technology and conservation measures “catch up”, which they will), and 2) at the same time, we need dramatic redistribution (global equity), including a great lifting-up of the bottom billion at minimum, AND massive investment in environmentally-critical initiatives — renewables, geoengineering, Scott Strough-style agricultural reform, etc.
An incredibly difficult challenge, to be sure. Money-printing — again, see MMT — can be an important part of the solution.
315 nigelj 19 Aug 2018: “Smaller population is more important than you think. Its the most pain free way of reducing environmental problems, and has to be a priority.”
Agreed. Dramatically smaller population in the overdeveloped world — OECD countries, where the environmental stress is far out of proportion to population — is an urgent priority. How do we go about it? Cut fertility from ~1.8 to under 1.0? Or increase mortality? AFAIK, those are the only options. With U.S. population under 50 million, and the rest of the OECD to match, the earth can breath a sigh of relief.
> The system is set up so you get 20
> gallons of free gas. Well, my tank holds less ….
Al, get a second gas tank added to your vehicle. Then you just turn a valve to draw from it when the first tank’s empty.
https://www.google.com/search?q=add+second+gas+tank
Killian, you wonder why I say permaculture design principles seem good, “as far as they go” and you then accuse me of being wrong and ignorant about permaculture.
Permaculture on wikipedia states 12 permaculture design principles. These largely make sense and I suppose listing them in one place, and labeling them “permaculture” is useful. They are really a quality assurance check that what we are doing is really necessary.
However imho most of these are unremarkable insights. They just state obvious things that are largely commonsense and are old ideas, and have been applied to many fields of endeavour already including even the traditional industrial economy. It seems to me far more a case of whether they are applied robustly enough.
I will comment just on a couple that seem undeveloped:
The fifth principle :”Use and value renewable resources and services: Make the best use of nature’s abundance to reduce our consumptive behavior and dependence on non-renewable resources.”
This is well meaning but very limited really. Renewable and non renewable resources are just not very interchangeable.
“Produce no waste: By valuing and making use of all the resources that are available to us, nothing goes to waste.”
This is good in principle, and the obvious examples are using excrement as fertiliser as the Dutch do. However its not technically true that we can make use of all waste. When we burn things we cant make much use of the waste products. Its also a question of how do we motivate people to make better use of waste? Moralising will only go so far. There needs to be education, to be rules and incentives and I would suggestt his would be true regardless of the economic system of the day.
“Use small and slow solutions: Small and slow systems are easier to maintain than big ones, making better use of local resources and producing more sustainable outcomes.”
Smaller and slower may be easier to maintain but on what basis should that be the only metric? I mean it completely ignores the advantages of size and speed (for example the system of air travel). None of this is an attack on bicycles!
“Creatively use and respond to change: We can have a positive impact on inevitable change by carefully observing, and then intervening at the right time.”
Who would have thought that?
Carrie, why are you being mocking and sarcastic? I was agreeing with you. Greenspan was useless in the sense he didn’t realise the market was becoming fundamentally unstable. Given his political views and anti regulatory rhetoric, I really doubt he would want any form of government role in mitigating climate change, even carbon fee and dividend.
Mainstream economics permits both taxation and regulation. I’m not sure why you think taxes are a tool of the hated establishment and regulation isn’t. Both can be abused to favour the corporate sector. It seems to me more a case of what is going to work best in the real world and get the most popular and political support, and it looks like its carbon fee and dividend.
Nigel,
Killian has made it clear that he has no interest in a discussion amongst equals. He’s here to teach. So be a good student and listen quietly. Remember, challenging some teachers can get your grade lowered!
Or take the simplification path (that I’ve chosen) of “scroll down”, AKA “dropping out of school”. Let Killian have fun. No harm in that, eh?
Just my opinion.
Iirc, Scott spoke of tech always resulting in enough new jobs and Nigel of growing the service economy. Here’s my prognostication:
Moore’s Law has at least another order of magnitude to go even without a paradigm shift, such as 3D.
Everything will be linked to everything.
AI will come of age.
People’s mistrust of institutions and people will continue to grow.
Somebody will design an AI assistant that will act as the user’s friend, shopper, negotiator, primary care physician, you name it.
If your business wants to do business with a customer who has an AI assistant then your AI had better be able to interface with the customer’s AI because the customer doesn’t trust you. He trusts his best bud, Fred the AI.
So, service jobs will be gone, along with ever so many other jobs. When you get sick your AI will Dx, interface with the doc’s AI, and if it’s routine a robot/drone will deliver the requisite drugs. No human needed.
People will provide entertainment and companionship. A Walmart might have many shifts where there’s one or two employees: the greeters.
Once 5nm gets settled in solidly (2025-2030), humans won’t be able to compete unless they have serious talent. Robots and AIs are 24/7 and accept a few electrons as payment.
Where will the robot-building robots get the material? Landfills, junkyards, maybe even asteroids.
So humans will be rich or supported or peasants or dead.
I just heard on BBC that somebody is designing nanobots that use enzymes to consume nerve gas for energy so they can pump antidotes for nerve gas (something like that.) That sounds like a prototype for killer swarms of nanobots. Just invert the purpose. And somebody will.
“You said we need to drop the population by 90% and I did. So what’s your beef?”
Al Bundy and Nijelj, 7 Aug 2018:
“how many people can the planet support in the fashion folks desire? My guess is between a hundred million and a billion. …. I made some guesses on this website about 6 months ago as it happens. I thought about 2 billion.”
Hello, AB and Nigel.
What is your basis for these estimates?
When you speak of “what the planet can support”, what do you mean? That is, it is obvious that the planet is now supporting 7+ billion; presumably you believe that the planet is not capable of continuing to support 7+ billion. Why not? What is the basis for your assessment of this? Please include specifics, or point to articles or books that give the specifics.
Thank you.