I've got land. Do you? [Archive]

mpw

Jul 15, 2005, 08:17 AM

Also confused by the I've got land comment, but to comment on the articles.

Is this really news? I've been hearing for more the 15years that we're screwing over the planet and nobody seems to care.

Very few in government anywhere in the world will be around to take responsibility in 20-30years time so what do they care. I'll wager the next generation of politicians will blame the preceding politicians for not doing anything and billions will die needlessly as a result.

Why do we chip away at pollution when we could take be chunks out by simply saying no to the next Ford GT or Aston Martin DB9 etc.etc.

The British stand-up Eddie Izzard makes a great point when he talks about buying an apple from Marks & Spencer (UK retailer). You get a single apple sitting on a tissue on a polystyrene tray wrapped in plastic with a barcode label stuck to the outside. On the shelf is a plastic sign that says ‘apples’.

Surely if someone wanted an apple, an apple on a shelf would be just as easy to find and carry to the checkout. The checkout operator, does he really need a barcode to identify the object before as an apple. Once you’ve paid your 50p for the apple, do you need 18” of thermally printed receipt?

Common sense is the only thing that could save this way of life. But this way of life is all about not needing common sense, the State will look after us and Wal-mart etc. will provide for our needs. Maybe this way of life isn’t worth saving and the those that can fend for themselves once the ***** hits the fan and society breaks down á la Mad Max / Postman / Waterworld are going to the only ones left standing, if there’s enough left to sustain any life that is.

MongoTheGeek

Jul 15, 2005, 08:40 AM

Common sense is the only thing that could save this way of life. But this way of life is all about not needing common sense, the State will look after us and Wal-mart etc. will provide for our needs. Maybe this way of life isn’t worth saving and the those that can fend for themselves once the ***** hits the fan and society breaks down á la Mad Max / Postman / Waterworld are going to the only ones left standing, if there’s enough left to sustain any life that is.

Actually Walmart and Aldi are moving down the road towards helping very quickly, both are all about shaving the costs down. Costs are an indicator of the resources required to make something. The price of the 50p apple includes the plastic to wrap it in, the 18" receipt and the tissue paper. As well as the lights in the store and the clerk that checks it out and the cost of flying the thing in from half way around the planet, washing it and dipping it in food grade paraffin.

Les Kern

Jul 15, 2005, 09:21 AM

My point about having land is somewhat obscure, but the gist was that we are not immune to these facts while living in a box (earth) with limited resources. Unless we address the issue, the breakdown would be most severely felt in urban areas initially. But what of the RS article?

Mr. Anderson

Jul 15, 2005, 09:54 AM

This is nothing new - people have always known its going to happen - but like the article says, no one wants to deal with the issue right now, keep going like it won't change.

The natural gas issue might hurt more than anything else - I'll have to look into alternatives eventually. The nice thing is that our A/C is geothermal, so that's one thing less to worry about. Just paying the electricity might become a problem in the next decade....

D

SpaceMagic

Jul 15, 2005, 10:13 AM

I hate articles like this which pass themselves off as fact, yet give hardly any or no evidence. You can't base an article on common assumptions, when assumptions may be wrong. Statements like:

Some "cornucopians" claim that the Earth has something like a creamy nougat center of "abiotic" oil that will naturally replenish the great oil fields of the world. The facts speak differently. There has been no replacement whatsoever of oil already extracted from the fields of America or any other place.

are perfectly formulated to capture people's imagination and make them think that they, the writer, is absolutely right. Formula goes: Give the other point of view in a round about way, make an assertive comment (the facts speak differently) then rubbish the comment. Without ANY evidence either way. Now I don't know anything about this abiotic oil so as a reader I'd like a link to evidence for that, then i'd like a link showing evidence against. I don't want to be told what to believe.

I could go on and on about these articles, the fact one is from Rolling Stones speaks for itself. Now, I'm probably going to get flamed for not agreeing with most left-wingers who, i'm sorry, more or less believe anything. I'm so glad the Bush administration held tough at the G8 summit.. at least someone has some sense.

gwuMACaddict

Jul 15, 2005, 10:32 AM

and just like that- destined for the political forum :D

MongoTheGeek

Jul 15, 2005, 10:34 AM

are perfectly formulated to capture people's imagination and make them think that they, the writer, is absolutely right. Formula goes: Give the other point of view in a round about way, make an assertive comment (the facts speak differently) then rubbish the comment. Without ANY evidence either way. Now I don't know anything about this abiotic oil so as a reader I'd like a link to evidence for that, then i'd like a link showing evidence against. I don't want to be told what to believe.

The abiotic oil is based on the concept that since petrochemicals are fairly simple molecules that they can just sorta occur. Surveys of the outer planets show oceans of hydrocarbons. Mostly methane but some longer chain ones.

In theory there should be more carbon on earth than can be accounted for in the biosphere. Some of this is locked up in carbonates, carbides or otherwise bound to rock. Under heat and pressure the preferred energy states change and the carbon becomes unbound from calcium silicon and oxygen and winds up binding with itself and hydrogen, forming long hydrocarbon chains that get squeezed out of the rock by said pressure. I know it happens I don't know to what extent and how precarious the reactions are (for instance does it only work between 1200 and 1300 degrees at 10.2 to 10.3GPa?)

Some people think there are oceans of this oil buried deep in the planet (deeper than 5 miles!) Its possible but I have issues with the plausibility.

As for replenishment of the oil fields, there has been some. In places where the oil fields have been abandoned for not producing 20 years later when people came back with new technology to extract deeper oil they were able to get more with the old technology. Is this oil bubbling up from the mantle or just oil pushed up from deeper in the rock by rising water tables, or simply diffusing back in?

Its not impossible but does have some strong elements of wishful thinking.

Mr. Anderson

Jul 15, 2005, 10:34 AM

I could go on and on about these articles, the fact one is from Rolling Stones speaks for itself. Now, I'm probably going to get flamed for not agreeing with most left-wingers who, i'm sorry, more or less believe anything. I'm so glad the Bush administration held tough at the G8 summit.. at least someone has some sense.

I think the reality of what's going to happen will be somewhere between the apocalyptic vision of the articles and what we have now. There's no doubt on the limits of the natural resources, but one very important thing to remember is that as fuel becomes more expensive, other technologies become more viable.

Its going to get rough for a while, there is no doubt, especially if the US sees $3/gal gas prices next year (as some predict).

D

cslewis

Jul 15, 2005, 11:42 AM

I think that the future will resemble the 1820's and 1830's in terms of daily life and technology. You'll still have factories, but they'll be using human or water power. You'll have transit systems (horses, carrages, coal-fired trains) that are relatively simple to operate and maintain. You'll see our cities condense as suburbs fade away because of difficulties and expense of travelling miles back and forth every day. You'll see family farms replace companies that run farms. You'll see a re-emergence of local economies that have a new advantage over companies that ship products over thousands of miles. I think the future will be interesting, but we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

SpaceMagic

Jul 15, 2005, 12:22 PM

I think the reality of what's going to happen will be somewhere between the apocalyptic vision of the articles and what we have now. There's no doubt on the limits of the natural resources, but one very important thing to remember is that as fuel becomes more expensive, other technologies become more viable.

Its going to get rough for a while, there is no doubt, especially if the US sees $3/gal gas prices next year (as some predict).

D

You are right, of course, fields are depleting and you are right, we will find alternative methods. And you are right, the articles are "apocalyptic". The thing is, it's good we recognise this, just many many people don't. Believe me, I live in the UK where global warming due to CO2 emissions is taught as a fact to all 15 year olds. I used to argue about it with people, saying it was scientific fact. Until I got to 18 I believed everything, now I'm far more cynical and look everything up.

On a funny side, some predict $3/gal hehe in the UK diesel/gas at the moment is $6.2 a gallon.

gwuMACaddict

Jul 15, 2005, 12:23 PM

On a funny side, some predict $3/gal hehe in the UK diesel/gas at the moment is $6.2 a gallon.

why is that funny?

SpaceMagic

Jul 15, 2005, 12:34 PM

why is that funny?

It's called irony. You're worrying about $3/gal when we pay $6.2.. there's nothing funny about it.

meta-ghost

Jul 15, 2005, 01:29 PM

i've read kunstler's book "the long emergency" and can generally recommend it. you will NOT be able to sleep at night. he is proposing two questions for our time:
1)can alternative energies replace the role of oil, and
2) can a transition occur in time.
he thinks it's no on both accounts. he thinks we're in for tough time as we've past the window of opportunity for an easy transition. our last chance was essentially with jimmy carter and many of the forward looking policies he was trying to implement but was prevented by the republlican oil industry.

I hate articles like this which pass themselves off as fact, yet give hardly any or no evidence.

i did however, have the same problem as the book does not make enough references. the bigger issue,it turns out, is that nobody knows the important numbers. we are relying on the saudis, the kuwaitis (sp?) and a few others to tell us how much oil they have. i can give you a whole list of reasons why those numbers may be inaccurate.

Now, I'm probably going to get flamed for not agreeing with most left-wingers who, i'm sorry, more or less believe anything. I'm so glad the Bush administration held tough at the G8 summit.. at least someone has some sense.

actually, you've got it entirely wrong here. the political left is concentrated on reducing carbon emissions for reasons that are obvious to anyone with a brain. they are also some of kunster's biggest critics as he thinks we are in such a bind that nuclear energy (in a big way) right now is the only hope.
the political right is the one coming around to the idea that we are relying on others - not just for resources but even basic numbers on how much is remaining. here is a link to a wall street journal editorial that discusses just this topic:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110006880
some may say that the wsj article is like the vatican saying "hey, maybe that luther guy was onto something" but i think it gives you a better idea of the political forces involved.

CanadaRAM

Jul 15, 2005, 01:59 PM

Actually Walmart and Aldi are moving down the road towards helping very quickly, both are all about shaving the costs down. Costs are an indicator of the resources required to make something. The price of the 50p apple includes the plastic to wrap it in, the 18" receipt and the tissue paper. As well as the lights in the store and the clerk that checks it out and the cost of flying the thing in from half way around the planet, washing it and dipping it in food grade paraffin.

Nope. Costs are an indicator of the costs required to make something.

Environmental impact and resource usage are not causally linked to cost.

Examples:
100% recycled photocopier paper costs twice as much as paper made from virgin fibre.

We ship anvils and nails and all manner of bulky, heavy and low value stuff from the Far East on large container ships, even though we have cleaner and closer factories in NAmerica for the same goods, because the 90% lower labour costs overseas outweighs all the the wasted resources in shipping.

Not to mention that if a country maintains lower standards of living, industrial pollution and waste than another country, that waste and pollution is reflected in a LOWER cost of goods, not higher.

Same with food. We take a head of lettuce, which has been irrigated with the last remaining water from the western US aquifer (or brought in from 500 miles away, draining the Colorado river), liberally fertilized and pesticized, ship it 3,000 miles in a refrigerated truck, consuming diesel, riding on an ever-expanding wasteland of ashphalt and concrete. Why? Because it is still cheaper to grow that lettuce in volume in California than it is to grow locally in a greenhouse.

A manufacturing plant dumps toxic waste on their site rather than treating it. They are able to charge less for their goods. They go out of business at some point. The land is now poisoned and will cost $10's or $100's of millions to become useable and safe. The costs have simply been deferred, not saved. But the goods were less expensive.

Disposable packaging (styrofoam, blow-moulded plastic, shrink wrap) generally costs less than reusable or recyclable packaging. Partially because the costs of landfilling the result never shows up in the accounts.

Last example: Dude wants money. Smashes my car window to get $5 in parking change. His cost of goods is zero, therefore it is an infinitely good use of resources?

Costs are virtually useless as an indication of resource usage unless all costs from source to end of life are tallied.

meta-ghost

Jul 15, 2005, 02:02 PM

Nope. Costs are an indicator of the costs required to make something.

Environmental impact and resource usage are not causally linked to cost.

Examples:
100% recycled photocopier paper costs twice as much as paper made from virgin fibre.

We ship anvils and nails and all manner of bulky, heavy and low value stuff from the Far East on large container ships, even though we have cleaner and closer factories in NAmerica for the same goods, because the 90% lower labour costs overseas outweighs all the the wasted resources in shipping.

Not to mention that if a country maintains lower standards of living, industrial pollution and waste than another country, that waste and pollution is reflected in a LOWER cost of goods, not higher.

Same with food. We take a head of lettuce, which has been irrigated with the last remaining water from the western US aquifer (or brought in from 500 miles away, draining the Colorado river), liberally fertilized and pesticized, ship it 3,000 miles in a refrigerated truck, consuming diesel, riding on an ever-expanding wasteland of ashphalt and concrete. Why? Because it is still cheaper to grow that lettuce in volume in California than it is to grow locally in a greenhouse.

A manufacturing plant dumps toxic waste on their site rather than treating it. They are able to charge less for their goods. They go out of business at some point. The land is now poisoned and will cost $10's or $100's of millions to become useable and safe. The costs have simply been deferred, not saved. But the goods were less expensive.

Last example: Dude wants money. Smashes my car window to get $5 in parking change. His cost of goods is zero, therefore it is an infinitely good use of resources?

thank you for writing this. i wanted to respond in a similar vein but didn't have the time.

jayscheuerle

Jul 15, 2005, 02:13 PM

We'll screw things up and make living ugly.

We'll adapt one way or another.

People will die and people will live. It will all happen slowly.

The only thing we can count on is not learning from this and future generations making similar mistakes on their own. We're about the now, seeing ourselves as smarter than our past and immune to our actions, while youthful naivite sees technology as a savior with limitless ability.

We'll face the mess we've created centuries before we're mining or colonizing other planets and cleaning up will eat up every bit of funding for such pipe dreams.

House cleaning lies ahead, whether we want to do it or not, whether we start now or wait until there's no other choice. Our grandchildren's lives will not be like our own, so much as ours are removed from our grandparent's, yet the optimism of youth will have the children of the future thinking they live in the best of times, such as every generation of children has done before them. Even in the most dire of conditions, fun will be had, babies will be made, hope will prosper.

It's what we do... - j

wdlove

Jul 15, 2005, 02:54 PM

It's called irony. You're worrying about $3/gal when we pay $6.2.. there's nothing funny about it.

I think that the energy prices are run on a speculation basis, psychology and not necessarily reality. The bottom motive is for greed and profit. They are seeing just how high they can go with the current amount of driving. In our business section it was mentioned that prices were lowered due to lower demand. They see that after Memorial Day driving was at an all time high. It may hit $2.50 this summer. Then after Labor Day go down to $2.35 which will be higher than last year. They are working on the ignorance on the American public.

MongoTheGeek

Jul 15, 2005, 03:44 PM

Nope. Costs are an indicator of the costs required to make something.

Environmental impact and resource usage are not causally linked to cost.

Didn't say environmental impact, said resource usage.

Examples:
100% recycled photocopier paper costs twice as much as paper made from virgin fibre.

Paper that starts as wood, shredded, pulped, pressed, dried, distributed, printed on, collected, sorted, shredded, pulped, pressed, dried and distributed. There is actually a lot more work going into the recycled paper, even if you take out the first round of making paper the collecting and sorting are not cheap operations.

We ship anvils and nails and all manner of bulky, heavy and low value stuff from the Far East on large container ships, even though we have cleaner and closer factories in NAmerica for the same goods, because the 90% lower labour costs overseas outweighs all the the wasted resources in shipping.

Labor is a resource too. Someone in China making 15 cents an hour isn't going to be eating beef 3 meals a day, driving a Suburban to the mall to get a 10th pair of shoes that they will only wear twice. Container shipping is easy and efficient.

Not to mention that if a country maintains lower standards of living, industrial pollution and waste than another country, that waste and pollution is reflected in a LOWER cost of goods, not higher.

And the resources dedicated to preventing the pollution are included in the prices of the goods.

Same with food. We take a head of lettuce, which has been irrigated with the last remaining water from the western US aquifer (or brought in from 500 miles away, draining the Colorado river), liberally fertilized and pesticized, ship it 3,000 miles in a refrigerated truck, consuming diesel, riding on an ever-expanding wasteland of ashphalt and concrete. Why? Because it is still cheaper to grow that lettuce in volume in California than it is to grow locally in a greenhouse.

That is mostly because Mexicans are cheap in California and agriculture is still very labor intensive. I am not denigrating anyone here, Mexicans come into the US to work and are willing to work for less than Americans. California is convenient and has a large hispanic population already which eases homesickness and culture shock.

The fertilizing and use of pesticides are attempts to increase yields from a fixed amount of land and water. More lettuce per acre and per gallon.

Disposable packaging (styrofoam, blow-moulded plastic, shrink wrap) generally costs less than reusable or recyclable packaging. Partially because the costs of landfilling the result never shows up in the accounts.

It does show up in the accounts of consumption though and yes there is some of the "tragedy of the commons" going on here but there are areas where people pay for their trash by the bag. If you are paying to dump you will start to look at how much you are throwing out.

Last example: Dude wants money. Smashes my car window to get $5 in parking change. His cost of goods is zero, therefore it is an infinitely good use of resources?

:confused:

meta-ghost

Jul 15, 2005, 04:07 PM

[QUOTE=wdlove]I think that the energy prices are run on a speculation basis, psychology and not necessarily reality.[QUOTE]

certainly. the questions about how much oil is remaining are just emerging and have little to do with the current run up in price.

CanadaRAM

Jul 15, 2005, 04:19 PM

Sorry Mongo, I don't understand your rebuttals.

If you want to redefine the terms resources, that's fine. If you want to discount the effect of environmental degradation, you can but I don't agree with you.

Your original contention was that resource usage is less in items that cost less.

My contention is that there is no such direct-line relationship.

If you want to say items that cost less consume less directly spent money on resources, then I can go along with that to a certain extent. But not that fewer resources are consumed. I did not say that recycled paper was EASIER to produce than virgin paper (and that is indicated in the price) but that fewer resources overall are consumed by putting waste paper back into new paper, rather than landfilling the waste paper and cutting new trees. The fact that virgin fibre is less expensive is more due to the fact that stumpage rates are far lower than the real cost of forestry, that the transportation and tax structures subsidize forestry, that the recycling production stream has not hit its economies of scale yet.

The fallacy of your argument is that it assumes that all costs are accounted for in the retail price. They are not. Society bears huge costs associated with resource extraction, infrastructure, pollution, waste disposal, depletion of natural resources and destruction of ecosystems. Consumer goods are massively subsidized by society. These costs NEVER show up in the cost of goods that you buy.

The fact that it's our children and grandchildren who have to pay for the loss of a forest or the destruction of freshwater supply makes the costs hard to calculate but they cannot be ignored.

For present day examples of past "production efficiencies", see Love Canal, PG&E (Erin Brockovich), Minimata disease, Bhopal, Chernobyl, and a thousand others. The entities that benefited from the sales of goods never accounted for the eventual costs - and most got away scot-free.

My point in the smash-and-grab example was: if you choose not to account cost the $300 I had to pay for the broken window, then break and enter is very resource efficient for the thief. They get all the benefit at no cost of goods. According to their accounting, the resource consumption is minimal.

Another analogy: cut down a coconut tree to pick the nuts, it's faster and cheaper than climbing the tree. As long as it's someone else's tree, you have reduced the cost of resources considerably. Your profit in this fiscal year is better. It's all in what you leave on or off the balance sheet.

And to refute the argument in the opposite direction:

A bottle of Giorgio with 1/4 oz. of water, alchohol and fragrant oils is about $85. A similar no-name perfume with the same ingredients is $20. Your model concludes that the Giorgio consumes more resources and the no-name less. Nike brand shorts on the shelf next to EXACTLY the same shorts without the swoosh - $25 vs $12.

Market pricing is market pricing, it bears little relationship to the true cost of the resources consumed.

PS If you start defining gross profit as a resource, I'm a-goin' to upchuck.... :p

CanadaRAM

Jul 15, 2005, 04:28 PM

And the resources dedicated to preventing the pollution are included in the prices of the goods.

You make my point, thank you

Responsible use of air, water and land resources results in the goods costing more.

Pollution and waste, absent penalties or regulation, allow the social and environmental costs to be deferred to someone, somewhere, somewhen else, therefore the cost of goods goes down.

Waste and pollution result in lower sales costs.

MongoTheGeek

Jul 15, 2005, 05:05 PM

Sorry Mongo, I don't understand your rebuttals.

If you want to redefine the terms resources, that's fine. If you want to discount the effect of environmental degradation, you can but I don't agree with you.

I am not discounting the per se. I just said that my original statement which you objected to didn't cover environmental degradation. The costs of environmental degradation are actually paid up front in the start up costs of land etc. and in the depreciation of fixed assets.

Your original contention was that resource usage is less in items that cost less.

Yes.

My contention is that there is no such direct-line relationship.

If you want to say items that cost less consume less directly spent money on resources, then I can go along with that to a certain extent. But not that fewer resources are consumed.

If you count labor as a resource than yes fewer resources are consumed. If I were to replace a diesel generator with a horse on a treadmill and claim resource savings because I don't count the grain to feed the horse I would be disingenuous and I am sure you would call me on it. Likewise if it were pushed by slaves and I didn't count what it took to feed them it would be much the same. I am merely trading oil for wheat.

I did not say that recycled paper was EASIER to produce than virgin paper (and that is indicated in the price) but that fewer resources overall are consumed by putting waste paper back into new paper, rather than landfilling the waste paper and cutting new trees. The fact that virgin fibre is less expensive is more due to the fact that stumpage rates are far lower than the real cost of forestry, that the transportation and tax structures subsidize forestry, that the recycling production stream has not hit its economies of scale yet.

And until it does the only savings are in trees. Where I live there are a number of large wooded plots that get cleared every few years for paper mills. Not sure what people get paid but it looks awfully sustainable. I am not against recycling I am just saying that it doesn't pay off yet.

The fact that it's our children and grandchildren who have to pay for the loss of a forest or the destruction of freshwater supply makes the costs hard to calculate but they cannot be ignored.

Our parents and grandparents planted the forest. We pay for the land that we despoil.

For present day examples of past "production efficiencies", see Love Canal, PG&E (Erin Brockovich), Minimata disease, Bhopal, Chernobyl, and a thousand others. The entities that benefited from the sales of goods never accounted for the eventual costs - and most got away scot-free.

Most of these are examples of destroying someone else's property. Love Canal is different because that was a case of fraud. Essentially though it is theft of resources from another person.

My point in the smash-and-grab example was: if you choose not to account cost the $300 I had to pay for the broken window, then break and enter is very resource efficient for the thief. They get all the benefit at no cost of goods. According to their accounting, the resource consumption is minimal.

Another analogy: cut down a coconut tree to pick the nuts, it's faster and cheaper than climbing the tree. As long as it's someone else's tree, you have reduced the cost of resources considerably. Your profit in this fiscal year is better. It's all in what you leave on or off the balance sheet.

Though of course there is also to be taken into consideration what happens if you catch said thief in the act, or the police do. Jail time, fines, massive physical trauma all have values associated with them.

A bottle of Giorgio with 1/4 oz. of water, alchohol and fragrant oils is about $85. A similar no-name perfume with the same ingredients is $20. Your model concludes that the Giorgio consumes more resources and the no-name less. Nike brand shorts on the shelf next to EXACTLY the same shorts without the swoosh - $25 vs $12.

Right but by buying the Nike shorts I pay for my free TV. And when the women buy the Giorgio they pay part of the cost of their Vogue magazine with the pictures of the beautiful women.

Well thats not entirely true. I am a leech at heart. I gorge on free tv and buy the cheap shorts from Walmart and then patch them until there is nothing left to patch onto. :D

Market pricing is market pricing, it bears little relationship to the true cost of the resources consumed.

PS If you start defining gross profit as a resource, I'm a-goin' to upchuck.... :p

Net profit isn't a resource. A large cut of the gross is though. :) (anyone have a vomiting smiley?)

alex_ant

Jul 15, 2005, 05:38 PM

Last example: Dude wants money. Smashes my car window to get $5 in parking change. His cost of goods is zero, therefore it is an infinitely good use of resources?
So that was your car. Sorry man but I NEEDED that $$$. I'll pay you back.

Lacero

Jul 15, 2005, 05:43 PM

Those articles are so full of it. We are not burning and consuming our way into oblivion. And earth's resources ARE NOT finite. Everything gets recycled eventtually, including us.

alex_ant

Jul 15, 2005, 06:05 PM

So where did this land-grabbing, resource-gobbling nature of ours originate? Tom Brokaw says that the WWII generation was the "greatest generation," but isn't it really the generation that got the ball rolling down the path of consumerism, suburbanization, automobilization, televisionization, and the wal-mart and strip-mallization of society? The "greatest generation" did indeed turn out a bumper crop of messed up children who turned out, on average, to be the biggest bunch of self-righteous, spoiled, materialistic, immoral, polyamorous, mentally deranged, fickle, have-it-all ****wits the world has ever seen. This is a uniquely American phenomenon -- whereas the middle-aged in most of the rest of the world turned out to be "relatively" well-balanced, in America it's like "Does your house smell like crap? Buy new LYSOL anti-odor spray!" and housewives are like, "Yes, my house DOES smell rather like crap" and buys a can of compressed health-degrading chemical odor to offset the odor in her house. Somehow the Baby Boomers inherited a "stupid gene" from the "greatest generation" and the earth is now suffering as a result. It is clear that we are a permanently damaged, sick, and twisted culture and we may never recover. The only hope for the survival of our race is to use our best genetic material to create two new human proto-embryos, a male and a female, and then wipe ourselves out. The embryos will thaw after the human armageddon, and the earth will be free. I nominate myself and Maria Sharapova to produce this perfect genetic material.

Les Kern

Jul 15, 2005, 06:09 PM

Now, I'm probably going to get flamed for not agreeing with most left-wingers who, i'm sorry, more or less believe anything. I'm so glad the Bush administration held tough at the G8 summit.. at least someone has some sense.

I won't flame you, but I will say that it COULD be that we're in this mess now because instead of looking at problems and trying to solve them, my dear friends on the right AND left would rather spew hateful rhetoric. What we need is a vision, and we DON'T have it right now. Hold "tough" at the G8 is the LAST thing we needed when we spend the least of any industrialized nation on poverty. Argue if you will, but we're all in this together.
As for the environment, I'd be in heaven if even Nixon came back as president. At least he had the common sense to know the world's resourses are finite. Bush, on the other hand, allows the rape of the planet as long as it generates a buck. Open your eyes.
Bah.

Les Kern

Jul 15, 2005, 06:14 PM

.... and housewives are like, "Yes, my house DOES smell rather like crap" and buys a can of compressed health-degrading chemical odor to offset the odor in her house.

Exactly!
The final straw of final straws for me was the disposable toilet bowl cleaner on a stick. Use it once, throw it away! God forbid you have to rinse something out and use it again. We are the most wasteful animals in the world, bar NONE. Even monkeys use the same stick over and over to catch termites, not clear a forest just to have fresh ones. We are destroying ourselves by destroying the box we live in.

Les Kern

Jul 15, 2005, 06:19 PM

If you count labor as a resource than yes fewer resources are consumed. If I were to replace a diesel generator with a horse on a treadmill and claim resource savings because I don't count the grain to feed the horse I would be disingenuous and I am sure you would call me on it. Likewise if it were pushed by slaves and I didn't count what it took to feed them it would be much the same. I am merely trading oil for wheat.

P. J. O'rourke wrote a book some time ago (All the trouble in the world?) That addresses this somewhat. It went something like this: Bangladesh is proud that they have WAY more jitneys (human powered taxis) than cars. That saves lots of money! Well, if you add up what it costs to feed someone and how many BTU's are produced and add in the lost manpower for important things, THEN compare that to how much energy it takes to power a car, those jitney's are the WORST thing you can do.
Sometimes the obvious is so incredibly wrong.

hulugu

Jul 15, 2005, 07:01 PM

P. J. O'rourke wrote a book some time ago (All the trouble in the world?) That addresses this somewhat. It went something like this: Bangladesh is proud that they have WAY more jitneys (human powered taxis) than cars. That saves lots of money! Well, if you add up what it costs to feed someone and how many BTU's are produced and add in the lost manpower for important things, THEN compare that to how much energy it takes to power a car, those jitney's are the WORST thing you can do.
Sometimes the obvious is so incredibly wrong.

Of course, we have to look at entire systems and try to find ones that use up the least amount of resources, or even better are designed specifically to be reused. Furthermore, we have to look at what systems can be used now as well as later. For anyone who's interested in this idea, I would suggest Cradle to Cradle (http://www.mcdonough.com/cradle_to_cradle.htm) a really interesting book by a chemist and an architect that talks very succinctly about the inherent problems in current design, in both manufacturing, architecture, and urban planning.
I will suggest, as I have before, that the US begins an immediate Manhattan-style project to research and build new energy sources. We need to explore Wind, Solar, Tidal, and Nuclear energy with the same zeal we once did in hunting for oil. We also need to stop subsidizing Big Oil, and turn that money towards burgeoning and workable energy sources.
The solutions are there, but there are so many vested interests in keeping things the old way that we're stuck.

SpaceMagic, the minute you wrote 'left-wingers' I lost a little bit of respect for your opinion. Look, we've got a problem, all histrionics from SFGate and Rolling Stone aside there is lots of climate data, local environmental data, etc. to suggest that oil is a problematic resource and the supply is dwindling. It was never very good to begin with for the local environment, it puts the US in alliance with dangerous people, and we're going to have to fight harder and harder for it. We need a new source of energy and we need it now. Haggling with the G8 only succeeds in keeping the status quo and if you've paid attention to history-class you'll notice that change is inevitable.

CanadaRAM

Jul 15, 2005, 07:26 PM

Those articles are so full of it. We are not burning and consuming our way into oblivion. And earth's resources ARE NOT finite. Everything gets recycled eventually, including us.

Absolutely correct. Complex hydrocarbons are so handy, they can be transported, and then burned when and where needed to release heat energy. The carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide that result unfortunately are not quite as useful for human endeavors. They will eventually get recycled into trees which will create new coal and petroleum fields. In a few million years.

And that's the problem. We are currently engaged in an uncontrolled experiment with a planet which has accelerated the conversion fuels to energy and byproducts to a rate staggeringly higher than the planet's ability to convert them back. We don't know the outcome, but we are gambling all our chips on the consumption number anyway.

The planet will recover (it's essentially a closed system) but one outcome might be it may need a few million years time out with no life on it to do so. Welcome back to the primordial soup...

Lacero

Jul 15, 2005, 07:31 PM

If we do consume ourselves to death, guess what, we had it coming. But humanity will still survive in small pockets. Our great industrial empire will come crashing down one day, but I don't see it happening for another 200-300 years.

alex_ant

Jul 15, 2005, 07:46 PM

velocityg4

Jul 15, 2005, 08:34 PM

topgunn

Jul 15, 2005, 10:54 PM

What about another resource that Americans use in a disproportionate amount that is also a major cause of pollution? Milk. Have you seen the government studies of how much methane these milk factories release into the atmosphere? It's insane. At least car exhaust is countered by trees. Anyone know anything that involves methane as an input in its respiration cycle? Maybe the solution to global warming isn't fewer cars but more barbeque.

meta-ghost

Jul 16, 2005, 01:45 AM

I can just hear Charleton Heston right now, "You can tell everybody. Listen to me, Hatcher. You’ve got to tell them soylent green is people. We’ve got to stop them somehow." At least thats how these articles seemed to be painting the future to look like. These articles are just a rehash of the 70's doomsday movies. Because every one was panicking over gas prices. Well in the 70's I think gas quadroupled in price from $0.25 to about a $1.00 in the 70's, I don't know I wasn't born yet. So this is just going to be another adjustment for the economy. From $1.25 a few years ago to $5 real quick. So what America will get richer. We'll get use to $5 a gallon until 2025 to 2030 when it suddenly jumps to $30. At this point we'll start bitching and whining again. :D

actually you should read kunstlers book about declining oil supply. it's not the mad max or the soylent green scenario. instead, life becomes intensly local. there is a sharp divide between rural and urban. if your not growing crops then you will have no business living outside of the city. air travel is only for the super rich (forget going to paris). quality of life (in the usa at least) depends on which part of the country you live in. the northwest does best (close to agriculture, good weather, fishing....), the great lakes states are able to use the water for transit and become closer to canada. the areas that do worst involve places like las vegas and phoenix (no resources to support the existing infrastructure and they become ghost towns. the south becomes feudal. cali is overrun by the collaps of mexico.
it's a good read.

law guy

Jul 16, 2005, 12:58 PM

Platts and other information services have pleanty of published information on resource outlook. The general trends are always interesting and more short-term than you'd think. This information goes into the economic decisions regarding LNG need and siting, pipeline size and molecules to pack the pipe with, type of generation to build. In the Northeast, their is a real push to LNG terminals b/c with "load growth" (which is what we call the expanding rate of electricity use), generation mix (coal, fuel oils, nuclear, natural gas and renewables), we only have sufficient nat gas reserves to meet demand out through - I think 2009 was the last chart I saw. That is a combination of reserve production declining (a trend we already are seeing out of Maritime province production that feeds the NE down through Maine) in conjunction with load growth. LNG is seen as the way out of this bind, and economic given where natural gas prices have been over the past few peak periods but is recognized as a solution to pursue while we look at something better.

To the folks who speculate that there somehow an infinite fuel resource - we're certainly not seeing that in resource . reserve predictions from drillers, who now model based on much better technology and taking into account the modern economics that justify the expense of exploring for smaller reserves.

That said, I'm struck by how we've been able to put so much stuff into the water in the last 150 years, wether it bacteria, mercury and other heavy metals, fertilizers, PCBs, etc. The US is filled with water ways out of attainment with clean water standards (many of which are not very safe and are based on exposure rates that are less than what folks might expect - for example, the certain concentrations of a compound are considered safe in fish assuming fairly low rates of consumption. When you see the warning signs regarding fishing in rivers, like the ones you'll see along the Potomac, those levels have even been exceeded. Certainly, even safe levels are only safe for some populations as those of you with kids know from when your wife was pregnant.

Development is also amazing - when I was in DC, folks would tell me about when they came their in the 70s and what are very close-in parts of the city were rural. The Post had a story last week about the last little farm within the beltway being sold to developers. Growing up in the West I was amazed that in 90 years (this was in the 80s) we'd gone from the very last of the Indian wars to amazing development seperated by national parks and arid waste lands. Now 1 in 8 American's lives in CA, the 5th largest economy in the world and that was acheived so quickly.

Given the effect on other species and the fact that - much as we not like to think so - they are a good barometer for our helth (not only do fish have rising toxicity levels, the levels in people have been studied to be on the rise over the past couple of decades), I'm not as optimistic that we're smart enough to work around it. Humans have a relatively short history, and think about modern times where we've had even more the view of controlling the environment which has been fairly limited (George Washington would have had much more in common with the technology of Rome 1800 yrs. prior than us, 200 yrs. latter). That control and mass production has made us successful (with the world population more than doubling from the time that JFK was president in the 1960s) for a time, but I'm not sure that's a trend that can continue.

broken_keyboard

Jul 16, 2005, 01:14 PM

Aren't jitneys more efficient though because the jitney drivers don't have to lug around 2000+ pounds of steel to go places like a car does? People are gonna eat anyway (well maybe not necessarily, since they're Bangladeshi), so why not eat a little bit more to get the energy to be a human taxi. Plus, what goes in as food and doesn't get used as energy comes out as poop, which can be used for fertilizer. Ford, GM, are you listening? SUVs are yesterday, jitneys are where your future is. I learned a new word today, too.

LOL, jitney's are the future...

But seriously, I can't think of anything less efficient - give that man an education and a desk job and he will produce far more value.

broken_keyboard

Jul 16, 2005, 01:36 PM

The fact that it's our children and grandchildren who have to pay for the loss of a forest or the destruction of freshwater supply makes the costs hard to calculate but they cannot be ignored.

You ignore that cost because it is (literally) nothing. The future generations don't exist. One musn't go around abrogating the rights of real, living human beings to enjoy their lives and drive their SUVs in the name of ... nothing.

etoiles

Jul 16, 2005, 02:40 PM

Its going to get rough for a while, there is no doubt, especially if the US sees $3/gal gas prices next year (as some predict).

D

the future is now... I just passed a gas station in Carlsbad (CA) yesterday: $2.99 9/10 for premium. Ouch :eek:

Les Kern

Jul 16, 2005, 11:32 PM

Aren't jitneys more efficient though because the jitney drivers don't have to lug around 2000+ pounds of steel to go places like a car does? People are gonna eat anyway (well maybe not necessarily, since they're Bangladeshi), so why not eat a little bit more to get the energy to be a human taxi. Plus, what goes in as food and doesn't get used as energy comes out as poop, which can be used for fertilizer. Ford, GM, are you listening? SUVs are yesterday, jitneys are where your future is. I learned a new word today, too.

You have to do the math. food=energy=btu's gas=energy=btu's. instead of using food for transportation, they could use it (uh) to feed people making things... and not jitneys. it's a macro-world thingee.

hulugu

Jul 17, 2005, 02:16 AM

You ignore that cost because it is (literally) nothing. The future generations don't exist. One musn't go around abrogating the rights of real, living human beings to enjoy their lives and drive their SUVs in the name of ... nothing.

That's an interesting way of looking at it, but I think it has an inherent problem.

See, when you make an investment you understand that in the future you will be rewarded with more money than you initially put in. If you buy a stock, you believe the company will make more money and that this will cause the stock to rise, you sell the stock and make a nice profit. Simple, and entirely dependent on the notion of 'future value.' We do this every day with lots of things in the economy. We make decisions about future value, the notion of credit, the notion of even the value of currency based on gold, is entirely focused on future value. Car prices, houses, college education, are all based on judgments that proscribe a future value to each thing.
Your system assumes that investments are worthless because the future provides a zero-sum investment. But, this isn't true at all.
In fact, the entire idea of long-term construction (highways, pyramids) depend on the idea that the future will make this worthwhile. We built the Interstate Highway system not for the cars of the day, but the cars of today. We also built our nuclear arsenal not for Korea or Vietnam, but the future war we believed would happen as World War III.
See, the future has value because we're going to be there soon. So, we don't just build for future generations, but also for us. We assume that in 5, 10, 20 years we will still exist and therefore we want the same things around, or we hope for things to be better. You make the assumption that the future is invalid and I would argue that not only is the future valid, but that the future is more valid than the present and certainly more important than the past.
Furthermore, if we were able to stop using cars our air would become clearer, thus resulting in cleaner air for us and maybe a slowing of terrorism—less money for the Sauds means less money for al-Qaeda—which means we could get a tax break, which means more money to spend on a new Macintosh. You see, the future comes quickly. Sooner than you think.

CanadaRAM

Jul 17, 2005, 02:41 AM

You have to do the math. food=energy=btu's gas=energy=btu's. instead of using food for transportation, they could use it (uh) to feed people making things... and not jitneys. it's a macro-world thingee.
The fallacy here is considering the BTU as the work unit --- being as the automobile pumps out 1000's of BTUs of waste heat to move 2 passengers from A to B. Of course gasoline is more efficient at storing and releasing BTUs. But what is the resulting work? Moving 2 people from the hotel to the market square.

So the argument boils down to "you can waste more thermal energy for fewer dollars with a car, so the car is more resource efficient" which is topsy turvy.

It's like saying you get more computer for the money with a Wintel machine because you get all those viruses for free. ;)

If you start counting the rickshaw driver's breakfast as an input, you have to count the taxi driver's breakfast as well, and the person who pumped the gas, and the truck driver who delivered the gas to the station, and the crew on the ship who...

Oh, and ask the residents of LA or Mexico City whether the exhaust of automobiles truly has no cost, just because nobody charges people for producing it.

Besides, it goes back to my original contention. You can make the equation add up to anything you want if you selectively omit some of the inputs.
Which is what the free market economy does. Which is why price is no measure of resource use.

stubeeef

Jul 17, 2005, 09:53 AM

The first best thing that can happen is oil hit over $100 a barrel.

The shock, the anger, and the politics will finally lead us to adopt much less obtrusive technology. Until then it is a long march.

meta-ghost

Jul 17, 2005, 11:42 AM

atari1356

Jul 17, 2005, 02:57 PM

I used to have land (and a house), but sold it so that we could afford to have my wife stay home with our baby for a while. Now we live in an apartment, and it's kind of nice not having to worry about keeping up with yard work on the weekends. Oh, wait... this thread wasn't actually about whether or not I owned land... ;)

Aeolius

Jul 17, 2005, 04:27 PM

Oh, wait... this thread wasn't actually about whether or not I owned land... ;)

It's not? Oh well, here's my backyard (http://www.aeolius.com/deercam/)
http://www.aeolius.com/deercam/session4/session4-Thumbnails/72.jpg

broken_keyboard

Jul 18, 2005, 05:55 AM

Your system assumes that investments are worthless because the future provides a zero-sum investment. But, this isn't true at all.

I'm not assuming that. I fully acknowledge it's possible to act now on the basis of future value.

My point is: why should my present day value be lessened to increase value for some stranger in the future? You want to lessen the value of my SUV today, by saying I can't drive it as much - in order to increase land value to some coastal landowner in the future who won't have to build a dike.

Why should I reduce value for him? Why not the other way around? He doesn't even exist.

aloofman

Jul 18, 2005, 11:00 AM

The planet will recover (it's essentially a closed system) but one outcome might be it may need a few million years time out with no life on it to do so. Welcome back to the primordial soup...

I think this is a bit of an exaggeration. We'll deplete the human race long before we destroy the rest of the planet's life. The planet will recover just fine eventually. It's us that we should be worried about.

aloofman

Jul 18, 2005, 11:05 AM

actually you should read kunstlers book about declining oil supply. it's not the mad max or the soylent green scenario. instead, life becomes intensly local. there is a sharp divide between rural and urban. if your not growing crops then you will have no business living outside of the city. air travel is only for the super rich (forget going to paris). quality of life (in the usa at least) depends on which part of the country you live in. the northwest does best (close to agriculture, good weather, fishing....), the great lakes states are able to use the water for transit and become closer to canada. the areas that do worst involve places like las vegas and phoenix (no resources to support the existing infrastructure and they become ghost towns. the south becomes feudal. cali is overrun by the collaps of mexico.
it's a good read.

That sounds completely ridiculous. Everyone seems to think it will be some kind of oil crash. It won't. It will gradually get more and more expensive, and at various times it will suddenly become more cost-effective to use solar for more things, natural gas for others, nuclear, etc.

There will have to be some big changes, no doubt, but this Chicken Little talk is what hurts the environmentalist cause. People who can afford (for now) to fill up their SUV just think to themselves, "These people are nuts." It reduces the credibility of the real problems that need solving and desensitizes everyone to environmental damage.

meta-ghost

Jul 18, 2005, 12:40 PM

That sounds completely ridiculous. Everyone seems to think it will be some kind of oil crash. It won't.
that sounds pretty confident. trust me, we all hope your right. the problem is in the numbers. we do have a good idea of projected usage but again (as i said above) we are relying on the saudis, iranians, kuwaitis to tell us how much oil they have. the amounts are questionable at best.

It will gradually get more and more expensive, and at various times it will suddenly become more cost-effective to use solar for more things, natural gas for others, nuclear, etc.
there are two problems with this. the first is time. we cannot switch over to new sources very quickly. it takes many years. kunstler's view is that we've missed the window of opportunity for an smooth transition. the second problem is that oil is needed for the transition. solar panels need quite a bit of oil for fabrication as do other sources. if we're suddenly in a pinch, things become very expensive.

There will have to be some big changes, no doubt, but this Chicken Little talk is what hurts the environmentalist cause. People who can afford (for now) to fill up their SUV just think to themselves, "These people are nuts." It reduces the credibility of the real problems that need solving and desensitizes everyone to environmental damage.
again, as i said in a previous quote, you've got your politics wrong. environmentalist have been among the most vocal critics of kunstler. this is because he thinks we've past the point where it's useful to attempt alternative sources. in his view, we're screwed and about the only thing we can do is start building nuclear power plants as fast as possible.

the wall street journal, however, is a great supporter.

me, i'm keeping an open mind. i'd like to see some firm numbers on how much oil is actually left.

mpw

Jul 18, 2005, 01:40 PM

I think this is a bit of an exaggeration. We'll deplete the human race long before we destroy the rest of the planet's life. The planet will recover just fine eventually. It's us that we should be worried about.

Excuse the cynical pessimism but I can see a time in the not to distant future where the charitable;

“Lets ‘cure’ poverty and all get on great”

attitude currently being touted about the place will be swept aside by;

“Those [insert applicable nation] aren’t sharing their oil/have more oil than us/are coveting the oil we don’t intend to share [delete as applicable] lets kill them and take their oil/lets kill them and take their oil/lets kill them just in case they take our oil [delete as applicable]”

CanadaRAM

Jul 18, 2005, 01:45 PM

Excuse the cynical pessimism but I can see a time in the not to distant future where the charitable;

“Lets ‘cure’ poverty and all get on great”

attitude currently being touted about the place will be swept aside by;

“Those [insert applicable nation] aren’t sharing their oil/have more oil than us/are coveting the oil we don’t intend to share [delete as applicable] lets kill them and take their oil/lets kill them and take their oil/lets kill them just in case they take our oil [delete as applicable]”

As above, substitute water.

See further thread on consumption
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=138406

Dave00

Jul 18, 2005, 02:20 PM

Examples:
100% recycled photocopier paper costs twice as much as paper made from virgin fibre.

Incidentally, it also (arguably) costs more environmentally than virgin paper. This is why I absolutely will not recycle paper or buy recycled paper, from an environmental standpoint. Paper is biodegradable and comes from a renewable resource (although whether we are renewing this resource is another issue). Recycling paper generates an incredible amount of toxic waste, not to mention the fossil-fuel energy used in the process. Recycling plastic makes much more sense.

Otherwise, I agree with your post; lower cost != more environmentally sound.

Dave

CanadaRAM

Jul 18, 2005, 03:23 PM

Incidentally, it also (arguably) costs more environmentally than virgin paper. This is why I absolutely will not recycle paper or buy recycled paper, from an environmental standpoint. Paper is biodegradable and comes from a renewable resource (although whether we are renewing this resource is another issue). Recycling paper generates an incredible amount of toxic waste, not to mention the fossil-fuel energy used in the process. Recycling plastic makes much more sense.

Otherwise, I agree with your post; lower cost != more environmentally sound.

Dave

http://recycling.stanford.edu/5r/recycledpaper.html

"Recycled paper conserves forests, as approximately 42% of trees harvested nationwide end up as pulpwood for pulp and paper.(2)

Recycled paper also saves energy and water and reduces pollution. Producing recycled paper takes 60% less energy and 58% less water than producing virgin paper and produces 74% less air pollution and 35% less water pollution."

http://www.paperspecs.com/resources/tips/20056115925.htm

"The manufacturing process to make recycled paper uses less energy, water, and oil, in addition to saving trees. Why then, does recycled paper sometimes cost more than virgin paper?

The answer has to do with economies of scale and mill design. Most modern paper mills in North America are heirs to billions of dollars of industry investment in using trees and are designed to make high quality, low cost virgin paper.

Given the extremely low profit margins in the paper industry, these mills are finely tuned to minimize cost. They make enormous quantities of very specific paper grades because long production runs result in less down time and lower cost per ton of product.

Any variation from this formula results in higher costs. Ask one of these virgin mills to make recycled paper and you will pay more because most mills are designed to produce virgin pulp for all their fiber needs and are located deep in the woods, far from sources of recycled fiber. "

http://www.iied.org/smg/pubs/rethink.html#preface

" (conclusions)
vi. The mounting waste burden could be the crucial limiting factor...
The developed world will account for much of the expected growth in demand, as it has done in the past. Because such a large proportion of paper consumption is ´virtual waste', this consumption surge could create severe waste management problems, even despite likely increases in the waste paper recovery rate. Landfill is no longer a desirable option for paper waste, because of methane emissions, while the scope for incineration with energy recovery remains limited by public health anxieties. Consequently, initial steps to reduce paper waste at source by changing consumption (such as producer responsibility laws) will need to be reinforced."

aloofman

Jul 18, 2005, 05:28 PM

that sounds pretty confident. trust me, we all hope your right. the problem is in the numbers. we do have a good idea of projected usage but again (as i said above) we are relying on the saudis, iranians, kuwaitis to tell us how much oil they have. the amounts are questionable at best.

there are two problems with this. the first is time. we cannot switch over to new sources very quickly. it takes many years. kunstler's view is that we've missed the window of opportunity for an smooth transition. the second problem is that oil is needed for the transition. solar panels need quite a bit of oil for fabrication as do other sources. if we're suddenly in a pinch, things become very expensive.

People have been predicting we'd run out of oil for a long time and not only has it not happened, it's still many decades away from happening. In terms of political action this is actually a big problem because there isn't much incentive to start converting to alternative energy until things really start to go wrong, which I believe is part of your point. I didn't mean to imply that oil would get more expensive in an easy way, certainly there will be shocks over time. But this guy (at least by your account, since I haven't read it) makes it sounds like it's going to be all downhill very fast. There's no reason to think that's true. Something as plausible as a recession in China would ease prices considerably. It's hard to predict what will happen, especially when oil prices are only now approaching their inflation-adjusted peak.

the wall street journal, however, is a great supporter.

If it's the Wall Street Journal's editorial page that supports him (I think that's what you're saying), you can bet it's a big pile of lies concoted by the Republican party. The WSJ editors also seem to firmly believe that Clinton is a murderer and that the poor don't pay any taxes.

aloofman

Jul 18, 2005, 05:30 PM

Excuse the cynical pessimism but I can see a time in the not to distant future where the charitable;

“Lets ‘cure’ poverty and all get on great”

attitude currently being touted about the place will be swept aside by;

“Those [insert applicable nation] aren’t sharing their oil/have more oil than us/are coveting the oil we don’t intend to share [delete as applicable] lets kill them and take their oil/lets kill them and take their oil/lets kill them just in case they take our oil [delete as applicable]”

I don't dispute that at all. It seems likely that we'd destroy each other competing for scarce resources before those resources completely run out.

By the way, that post was kind of hard to read! :eek:

Les Kern

Jul 18, 2005, 10:31 PM

"Recycled paper conserves forests, as approximately 42% of trees harvested nationwide end up as pulpwood for pulp and paper.
That statistic is probably true, but what you don't know is this: Many newspapers and paper-products companies have their OWN forests that they continue to re-plant. The New York Times, for instance, uses up to 10,000 trees a week. But they own the forest, and they manage it brilliantly. Also, newspapers use up to 40% recycled, and some use 100%. They use genetically chosen trees that are fast-growth, allowing more harvests. The net loss in total is zero. It's not like their cutting old-growth forests. That being said, it sickens me to see the packaging in this country. Unbelievable waste.

CanadaRAM

Jul 18, 2005, 11:14 PM

That statistic is probably true, but what you don't know is this: Many newspapers and paper-products companies have their OWN forests that they continue to re-plant. The New York Times, for instance, uses up to 10,000 trees a week. But they own the forest, and they manage it brilliantly. Also, newspapers use up to 40% recycled, and some use 100%. They use genetically chosen trees that are fast-growth, allowing more harvests. The net loss in total is zero. It's not like their cutting old-growth forests. That being said, it sickens me to see the packaging in this country. Unbelievable waste.
Once again, the net is zero only if you are selective about what inputs you choose and what you ignore. The fast-growing white pine monoculture tree farms are preferable to cutting old (or even secondary) growth. But they are ecologically far more barren as habitat for other species (for example, saprophytes that take 50 years or more to become established in a mature forest), and soil depletion will bring declining yields (as dramatically evidenced in the Amazon basin).

hulugu

Jul 19, 2005, 02:17 AM

People have been predicting we'd run out of oil for a long time and not only has it not happened, it's still many decades away from happening. In terms of political action this is actually a big problem because there isn't much incentive to start converting to alternative energy until things really start to go wrong, which I believe is part of your point. I didn't mean to imply that oil would get more expensive in an easy way, certainly there will be shocks over time. But this guy (at least by your account, since I haven't read it) makes it sounds like it's going to be all downhill very fast. There's no reason to think that's true. Something as plausible as a recession in China would ease prices considerably. It's hard to predict what will happen, especially when oil prices are only now approaching their inflation-adjusted peak...

I guess I consider oil problematic, not because we may run out, but because it causes problems now. We are seeing a rise in asthma, heart disease, etc. from our current use of oil. Even if oil were to last forever at current prices even as China becomes a major consuming country, we still have the negative health effects. Those don't go away whether oil costs 20.00 per gallon or .20.
Furthermore, oil appears in countries whose governments are corrupt and dangerous and we not only have to deal with them, but be friendly. We have to support the Wahabi-regime in Saudi Arabia, the dictators of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, the faultering regime of Argentina, etc. just to continue using a resource that is possibly dwindling and is certainly killing our people.
If the oil becomes scarce, we could find ourselves involved in another World War with China, Russia, even the EU for this valuable resource. Historically, this is at least one of the reasons Japan began to invade China and consequently attack the US Navy at Pearl Harbor. Do we really want to fight for this again? Especially if there are better options?
Lastly, what if the US became the prime source for environmental technologies? Think of it, China and the EU needing the US manufacturing base to make high-efficiency solar panels. We could reverse our trade deficits, we could remain an economic power-house, and we could be healthier with a military that remains in the defense of the country and our allies rather than warring among the oil wells.
I know there are pieces missing, but I can't see how we can still be using the same resource that drove the early-20th century and call it progress.

hulugu

Jul 19, 2005, 02:30 AM

I'm not assuming that. I fully acknowledge it's possible to act now on the basis of future value.

My point is: why should my present day value be lessened to increase value for some stranger in the future? You want to lessen the value of my SUV today, by saying I can't drive it as much - in order to increase land value to some coastal landowner in the future who won't have to build a dike.

Why should I reduce value for him? Why not the other way around? He doesn't even exist.

So, if we can indeed act on future value even in our own interests, we then allow that our current actions can make the future better or worse. We then allow that because we're selfish and we act in our own interest than we want the future to be better than our present or past. Therefore, it is only natural and logical that we do things for the future to increase it's value—if we can agree that clean water, skies and bunny rabbits are something we want in the future than we would act in ways to increase the possibility that the water will remain clean, the skies clear, and there's enough land for bunny rabbits to prosper. So, out of our own self-interest we sell the SUV and buy a Hybrid because all the information we have tells us the the SUV dirties the sky and water and makes the lowly bunny rabbit's habitat disapear. So, in our own naked self-interest we actually protect the future and the environment and the bunny rabbits.
Or, we can also consider our children, godchildren, nieces, whatever. We can hope that they have clear skies and clean water, and so we act for them, even as they don't exist, yet. We don't do it for the children we don't know, we do it for ours. But, in either case, we assume the future has value and that by acceding some things we increase the value of the future. It would nihilistic to pretend that the present is all.
Think of it another way, why should your parents have fed you and clothed you? Why didn't they tell you to fend for yourself? Because you couldn't and neither can future generations.
We act out of self-interest, we act of out love. The future has value, and that value is always greater than the present.

crap freakboy

Jul 19, 2005, 04:47 AM

Too many of us. Full stop.

Dave00

Jul 19, 2005, 11:50 AM

[...]
Recycled paper also saves energy and water and reduces pollution. Producing recycled paper takes 60% less energy and 58% less water than producing virgin paper and produces 74% less air pollution and 35% less water pollution."

All the references you cite fail to state where they get their statistics, unfortunately. (They cite secondary sources, rather than research.) Relative pollution of various chemicals is something of a subjective matter, which is why I did say "arguably" in my post. However, the chemicals used to clean paper for recycling are, from what I've seen, more toxic than those used to manufacture paper from wood. It's the de-inking process. Nasty sh*t. Disposing of this stuff is one of the things that raises the cost of production of recycled paper.

aloofman

Jul 19, 2005, 12:45 PM

I guess I consider oil problematic, not because we may run out, but because it causes problems now. We are seeing a rise in asthma, heart disease, etc. from our current use of oil. Even if oil were to last forever at current prices even as China becomes a major consuming country, we still have the negative health effects. Those don't go away whether oil costs 20.00 per gallon or .20.

That's true, but consumption will stay higher as long as oil is cheap. If the price goes up, people will conserve more and alternative energy sources will become more competitive on cost. Increasing fuel taxes is the way to go here, but there's zero political support for that.

Furthermore, oil appears in countries whose governments are corrupt and dangerous and we not only have to deal with them, but be friendly. We have to support the Wahabi-regime in Saudi Arabia, the dictators of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, the faultering regime of Argentina, etc. just to continue using a resource that is possibly dwindling and is certainly killing our people.

You're right, although I think maybe you mean Venezuela and not Argentina.

If the oil becomes scarce, we could find ourselves involved in another World War with China, Russia, even the EU for this valuable resource. Historically, this is at least one of the reasons Japan began to invade China and consequently attack the US Navy at Pearl Harbor. Do we really want to fight for this again? Especially if there are better options?

All of these things are possible. My point was that I'm skeptical about this Kunstler guy's claims that oil scarcity will drastically damage all of western civilization. That sounds a bit too gloom-and-doom to me.

Lastly, what if the US became the prime source for environmental technologies? Think of it, China and the EU needing the US manufacturing base to make high-efficiency solar panels. We could reverse our trade deficits, we could remain an economic power-house, and we could be healthier with a military that remains in the defense of the country and our allies rather than warring among the oil wells.
I know there are pieces missing, but I can't see how we can still be using the same resource that drove the early-20th century and call it progress.

The United States is the top developer of environmental technologies. We're just not the top implementer of them. In fairness, the US economy is so large and spread out that there are extra challenges when it comes to energy efficiency. But the biggest problem is lack of politics and policy.

Mr. Anderson

Sep 1, 2005, 02:27 PM

Resurrecting the thread - its interesting to see that in the second article, the guy mentions some of the difficulties facing the deep south. Something we're now seeing in the aftermath of Katrina.

I'm not optimistic about the Southeast, either, for different reasons. I think it will be subject to substantial levels of violence as the grievances of the formerly middle class boil over and collide with the delusions of Pentecostal Christian extremism. The latent encoded behavior of Southern culture includes an outsized notion of individualism and the belief that firearms ought to be used in the defense of it. This is a poor recipe for civic cohesion.

meta-ghost

Sep 1, 2005, 02:36 PM

Resurrecting the thread - its interesting to see that in the second article, the guy mentions some of the difficulties facing the deep south. Something we're now seeing in the aftermath of Katrina.

i never lived in the south and have only briefly visited. kunstler notes in his book of the possibilty of armed african american revolt (this is in the context of a future scenario of very low oil supply). i must admit that when i read this book i felt this was one of the weak points. i mean come on, when times are difficult, when natural distasters befall us, we stick together. we would never leave the poorest to fend for themselves. we would never leave large segments of our society with no means to preserve life and limb.

or would we...

aloofman

Sep 1, 2005, 03:52 PM

Resurrecting the thread - its interesting to see that in the second article, the guy mentions some of the difficulties facing the deep south. Something we're now seeing in the aftermath of Katrina.

I don't see much of a connection there. Looting and violence are often seen in the aftermath of major natural disasters. The same thing would be happening in the impoverished urban areas of most other large American cities. It sounds like Kunstler reads too much Hobbes.

Lord Blackadder

Sep 1, 2005, 03:54 PM

I don't agree that firearms ownership is part of southern culture.

I also think that the south is much more socially cohesive now than it has ever been in the past as far as pertains to its real demography. In other words, The pre-bellum south had a pretty well-defined society that was not totally cohesive, though its constituent groups (slaves, free blacks, wealthy whites, poor whites) were generally tight-knit (though mutually exclusive). Today the different groups of people in the south work and live together better than at any time in the past - I see this guy's article as FUD.

What we are seeing with Katrina is a partial breakdown of authority and infrastructure due to a natural disaster - you'll notice that the cause is external and, while there is an increase in crime it is wanton and not some sort of general insurrection or even restricted to one ethnic/social/religious group.

meta-ghost

Sep 1, 2005, 04:20 PM

I don't see much of a connection there. Looting and violence are often seen in the aftermath of major natural disasters. The same thing would be happening in the impoverished urban areas of most other large American cities. It sounds like Kunstler reads too much Hobbes.

name one natural disaster where those with financial means were able to leave and only the poor and sick were left behind to suffer and die.

aloofman

Sep 2, 2005, 07:49 PM

name one natural disaster where those with financial means were able to leave and only the poor and sick were left behind to suffer and die.

How about the Chicago heat wave of 1995?

http://slate.msn.com/id/2125572/

The poor and disadvantaged suffer disproportionally more from disasters on a regular basis. There are many ways that the New Orleans disaster is unique, but this facet is not one of them.

raggedjimmi

Sep 7, 2005, 08:23 PM

land? pah ;) my parents have land in 3 countries and my great great great granddad's was the Duke of Bedfordshire or something like that with 6000 acres of land to his name. my parents are trying to find a good strong link to prove this so i might get an acre or 2 and build myself a nice little shed.

but seriously. this is crap. world leaders dont bother. hell, they're making a tidy income. its cliched but its going to be a our kids picking up this mess. you know in 100-200 years time people are going to hate our 'time'. between the 1900s to the 2100's (wild guess?) we destroyed earth.

y'know. as if Day after Tomorrow didn't teach us anything :rolleyes:

GFLPraxis

Sep 8, 2005, 01:32 AM

I've known *most* of this for a while, but one point really stood out which I had no knowledge of.

When I hit this, I literally said, 'Oh, crap' out loud.

Because of the oil crises of the 1970s, the nuclear-plant disasters at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl and the acid-rain problem, the U.S. chose to make gas its first choice for electric-power generation. The result was that just about every power plant built after 1980 has to run on gas. Half the homes in America are heated with gas.

GFLPraxis

Sep 8, 2005, 01:37 AM

If we wish to keep the lights on in America after 2020, we may indeed have to resort to nuclear power, with all its practical problems and eco-conundrums. Under optimal conditions, it could take ten years to get a new generation of nuclear power plants into operation, and the price may be beyond our means. Uranium is also a resource in finite supply. We are no closer to the more difficult project of atomic fusion, by the way, than we were in the 1970s.

I don't mind nuclear power, I learned a lot about that in my physics class.

Running out of Uranium is a problem but a long term one.

The biggest problem I see is; what about the smaller nations that cannot afford nuclear power, don't have the technology, OR won't be allowed to develop the technology because the U.S. will squash them to prevent them from making bombs?

aloofman

Sep 8, 2005, 12:20 PM

OR won't be allowed to develop the technology because the U.S. will squash them to prevent them from making bombs?

There's a major distinction here. There are countries that use nuclear power (Japan, for example) that have rejected building nuclear weapons. All nuclear powers are subject to inspections to show that they're using it for peaceful purposes. It is the defiance or avoidance of these inspections that yielded the current situations with Iran and North Korea.

Anybody who thinks it's a good idea for North Korea or Iran to have nuclear weapons, please raise their hand.

tristan

Sep 9, 2005, 12:18 AM

Didn't I read these articles in 1979 during the last oil crisis?

Pollution is a big deal. The sky, rivers, and sea aren't our sewers. But running out of resources isn't an issue. The reason that commodities are more expensive now has more to do with inflation than anything else. Whenever Greenspan gets nervous he adds some more greenbacks to the money supply. Then he's hailed as a genius.

GFLPraxis

Sep 9, 2005, 01:41 AM

One of the things not mentioned here, likely do to the mathematical nature, was discussed in my Calculus class. I don't really remember the figures, but I'll try to convey the general gist of it.

Basicly, our oil consumption ITSELF is constantly increasing. The rate at which we consume oil doubles every so often (I think it was a decade).

So you'll see a lot of articles claiming, "Oh, at present consumption rates we have enough oil to last us forty years!" Several were shown. The thing that these newswriters aren't accounting for is that the consumption rates are RAPIDLY increasing every year. We DON'T be at present consumption rates for the next forty years. The rate we consume oil will INCREASE. It'll likely be gone in 10-20 years, not forty.

The video was IIRC around 5-10 years old.

These articles are right. Once we past peak production worldwide, we're going to have a serious problem. When we hit the point that our consumption rates are increasing, but the amount of oil being produced is DECREASING...we'll have a massive shortage on hand.
Ouch.