118 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, May 1, 2021”

  1. BRIGHT GREEN LIES: HOW THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT LOST ITS WAY AND WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT

    ”All technologies come laden with costs that are never factored in, including damage to the environment in producing the workings of machines and commodities. ‘No technology is neutral’, write the authors. From that inarguable first tenet, they go on the attack. Even so-called environmentalists, they argue, are human-centered, and building things such as solar energy cells and wind towers are ineffective stopgaps meant to maintain wealthy lifestyles with minimum inconvenience. The real object of saving the world should be…saving the world—the spotted owls, the fish, the ‘last scrap of forest’, etc. As long as the emphasis is on humankind and trying to salvage what remains of civilization, the environmental movement will be thwarted in its stated task of healing the planet of the wounds industrial civilization has inflicted.”

    Book review of “Bright Green Lies”

    “This is a timely book. The Biden administration is alarmed by how China controls up to 90% of rare earth and other essential minerals we’ll need for bright green power and anything else electronic. Analysts are predicting that the Biden infrastructure plan will include mines for lithium (such as the open-pit lithium mine at Thacker Pass, Nevada), a new copper mine in Arizona on land the San Carlos Apache Tribe considers sacred and more destruction of U.S. land, rivers, and aquifers.

    This book covers the amazing amount of damage bright green power will do to the climate, biodiversity, and ecology, but above all by mining. If you are trying to lose weight, read this book, you will lose your appetite, I guarantee you!”

    “…it is possible for humankind to live happy fulfilling lives without laying waste to all the wonder and beauty of this planet.

    You have to get back to the basics. We need food, fresh water, a comfortable place to live and raise kids and creative things like art and storytelling and music to occupy our minds.

    From what I have seen of the Pacific Islands, PNG and our own aboriginal cultures it seems to me populations were kept in check by the availability of local recourses and for the most part the people lived as described above.

    Just as much pleasure can be obtained by gliding down a creek in a tin canoe as doing the same with a jetski . . . you just need the right mindset.” ~ Scrub Puller (The Oil Drum)

    “I just get this horrible feeling that renewables will end up just being a fossil fuel extender, as it is now.” ~ Gonefishing

    “Sure, I can do delusion when it suits me…

    And I am under no illusion that just because I produce more electricity via solar than I use for home electricity and my yearly travel, that it is somehow environmentally ok. Its still a method of trashing the earth.” ~ Hickory

    1. CAELAN —

      Well, as long as energy (electricity) production in the world is dominated by fossil fuels, electric cars will indirectly be producing a lot of CO2 per kilometer. Coal is currently the largest source of electricity globally and fossil fuels generate roughly 60% of electricity worldwide. Wouldn’t it be ironic if the primary influence of EVs was to reduce depletion rates and extend the length of the “oil age”?

      1. Hi Doug,
        Yes, extending the disasters of the ‘oil age’ while adding yet more and different disasters with yet more people with the ‘bright green lies age’.
        Many would appear to need to be more uncompromising, cautious and self-critical where the health and viability of our planet vis-a-vis survival is concerned.

        1. Yes, as another example, coal currently accounts for 65% of China’s electricity generation. So, indirectly, every EV in China gets 65% of its fuel (indirectly) from coal, it’s another one of those inconvenient truths many would choose to ignore.

          BTW China is both the largest manufacturer and buyer of electric vehicles in the world, accounting for more than half of all electric cars made and sold in the world. China also makes 99% of the world’s electric buses — Wiki. Just think, all those (basically) coal powered busses! 😉

          1. Electric buses emit a lot less carbon dioxide per kilometer driven than diesel buses, even if they run on coal only, which few do.

            European electricity is about 13% coal and falling, and more electric cars were sold there than in China last year.

            What are you advocating anyway? Burning more oil? You seem to be a lot better at complaining than coming up with construction ideas.

            1. A couple thoughts:

              As Ovi pointed out in the last Oily Post, California is also a top EV market, and it burns very little coal.

              And even where coal is the majority of generation, it’s very possible to schedule EV charging when low-carbon sources are at their strongest. There’s a strong synergy here: if EVs increase demand at those times, they strengthen the business case for renewables and accelerate their adoption.

              Not a lot of people are aware that the Energy Act of 2005 mandated that all utilities provide Time Of Day variable rates, which provide a financial incentive for charging as described above.

            2. We can get along perfectly fine without a toxic industrial base. On the other hand, we cannot exist without a planetary one.
              This implies certain levels of divorce from industry as is currently understood and getting much more reacquainted with and respectful of our only planetary base we have.

  2. Premise: “GDP rises faster than oil consumption” ~ Nick

    Contrary to Nicks analysis, and I’m using that word loosely, is seems that aggregate global GDP sometimes rises faster than aggregate global oil consumption and sometime it does not. Furthermore, if one looks at the countries that make up the globe it would appear that in SOME countries GDP DOES rise faster than oil consumption, and in some countries it DOES NOT.

    “the relationships between changes in oil consumption and economic growth are significantly different across countries”

    https://www.eia.gov/workingpapers/pdf/OilC_GDP_MAY16_Final.pdf

    “Our findings show that small European states can be divided into two groups. The first group consists of countries where the causality is running from real GDP to oil consumption: Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova and Slovenia. The group seems heterogeneous, but is actually composed of two homogenous groups of countries. The reasons for causality from GDP to oil consumption in the most developed countries (Scandinavian economies, Ireland and Belgium) and in the transition countries (Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania and Moldova) are completely different. In the former case, the direction of causality is a consequence of a highly developed post-industrial society with a strong tertiary sector. In the case of transition economies the direction of causality can be related to deindustrialization process and transition depression that resulted in a sharp industrial decline and decreased industrial oil demand…. The second group of countries where the causality is running from oil consumption to real GDP is composed of the following countries: Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Malta, Bulgaria and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Although these countries are also heterogeneous, all of them use oil mostly for industrial purposes and this direction of causality is logical.“

    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/1331677X.2011.11517465

    I feel that an ethical broker of intellectual honesty would say something more similar to the following:

    Alternate Premise: “Sometimes, and in some places, GDP rises faster than oil consumption; and sometimes, and in some places, it does not”~ Survivalist

    Now that that observation has been articulated in an TRUE PREMISE we can get down to trying to understand why this variability occurs; and then perhaps we can make some progress.

    It would also do Nick no harm to know that a sound argument is an argument that is both valid, and all of whose premises are true.

    1. Good lord, what a tempest in a teapot! My original comment was relevant to something narrow and specific in a previous chart:

      “ You might want to start that series in 1970, and put GDP on the same chart. Adjust the axes so that both US oil consumption and US GDP start at the same point, and so the percentage increase from the bottom point to the top point of each axis is the same.

      You’ll see that GDP grows faster than oil consumption, and that oil consumption behavior changed in 1979: it dropped and didn’t get back to 1979 levels until recently, and even then not by a lot.”
      http://peakoilbarrel.com/aprils-eia-oil-growth-projections/#comment-717167

      You can see it wasn’t intended to be about the world, or about the history of oil back to 1859. Just the US since 1970. Whew!

  3. Alim…asked a piercingly important question above-
    “What are you advocating anyway? … You seem to be a lot better at complaining than coming up with constructive ideas?”

    I’ve noticed that some people only point out problems (and yes the problems are bigger than the sun), as if they are a self-anointed specialists in that field of thought.
    I’m half good at that task myself.
    But it isn’t the end of the conversation for me, or for the civilization at large.

    And perhaps the problems are so big that the rest of the conversation moot.
    I have considerable affinity for that notion.
    If that happens to be your conclusion, then I ask-
    “Why do you bother to live yet another day? You might as well check out, and make room for all the other beings who will gladly repurpose your molecules and minerals. Why linger?”

    Seriously, I’m curious to know what these, or other people, have to say on their decision to linger. They could quit being a part of the problem this very day.
    With one exception- I have absolutely zero interest hearing in the justifications that involve some sort of religious edict, or [make] belief god-head. I’m into reality based thinking, tough as it is.

    Now-out into the sunshine for me.

    1. Some things are problems–
      Problems have possible solutions.
      Other things are predicaments—
      They don’t have solutions.

      1. Well, exactly what predicaments do you have in mind?

        If you’re feeling pessimistic about wind & solar replacing fossil fuels, think about this: if you were to put solar panels on the Ghawar field it would produce 4x more energy than Gawar produces in oil. And it wouldn’t deplete…

        1. There are lots of solutions for environmental and humanities problems. Denial is just not one of them.

          1. So you tell me this how many of those solutions happen to be the same as what they brought out for the plandemic? The mandates and lockdowns were just a warm up getting you to accept giving up all freedoms in the name of the environment or whatever else they came up with. Sad but true.

            1. Rick Dickson is either a totally cynical trump troll type, or else he’s so pathetically ignorant he shouldn’t be allowed out of the house without an adult on either side to hold his hands and keep him from running out in front of a fast moving car or something.

              I put a nurse on Face Book into a seriously real crying jag a couple of days ago by pointing out that she’s agonizing over losing a very dear friend and relative after two months in the hospital to Covid.
              Why?

              Because she posted a pic of the current Democratic leadership calling them trash, and praising trump, indirectly.

              So I pointed out to her how he called Covid a Democratic hoax, said it would go away by itself, is STILL making fun of the medical profession in general and Fauci in particular.

              She’s as dumb as a fence post. She knows how to administer an injection for instance, but obviously has no real understanding of anything involving her profession.

              The world is FULL of idiots. Fortunately for humanity as a whole, here in the USA, the largest percentage of idiots are among the old people, and so the proportion among the population as a whole will hopefully be declining somewhat over the next decade or two.

              Twitter, FaceBook, etc, enabled the rise of the trump regime, but these same things also enable the kids to see thru such bullshit.

              So thank Sky Daddy the kids in the back seat on the way to church these days are playing space war games in the back seat on their pocket computers.

            2. OFM-
              ” either a totally cynical trump troll type, or else he’s so pathetically ignorant he shouldn’t be allowed out of the house without an adult on either side to hold his hands and keep him from running out in front of a fast moving car or something. ”

              Thank you sir. Except my coffee almost came out my nose, since i wasn’t ready for that one.

          2. There are lots of solutions for environmental and humanities problems. Denial is just not one of them.

            Really HB? Could you name one of them, just one, please?

            I am one of those deniers you speak of. However, I am not claiming denial is a solution. There are no solutions. Oh, there are things that would help, perhaps slow the coming disaster down by a couple of years, but there are no fixes. The problem is overpopulation. Of course, the population will decline, just not voluntarily.

            The Earth will survive. And hopefully, perhaps a couple of billion humans will survive also. Unfortunately, no megafauna, save domestic animals, will survive. And at least 50% of all wildlife species will perish. They will become food.

            1. A one child policy and birth control would be a good start by education, expectations and mandate if required. Secure land for natural habitats away from man. Tax carbon. Slow transportation for efficiency. Denial is more of the same. I didn’t say it would be easy options.

              Nothing is going to put Humpty Dumpty back together. United we stand, divided we fail

            2. A one child policy and birth control would be a good start by education, expectations and mandate if required.

              HH, you should put a smiley face after such a statement. It is hilarious. Yes, a one-world iron-fisted government with an army authorized to kill off every second child might work for a while. But the world does not have such a dictatorial one-world government and likely never will. You simply cannot dictate the behavior of almost 8 billion people.

              World Population Projections by WorldOMeter says world population will be 9,735,033,990 by 2050 and 10,874,902,318 by 2100. They may be off by a slight amount but not very much, And that is accounting for the declining fertility rate. That is population growth rate will be down to .5% by 2050 and down to .03% by 2100. However, I believe the population will be declining long before 2100 due to the four horsemen of war, famine, disease, and pestilence.

              All megafauna will be dead by 2060 and almost all wild animal species larger than a rabbit will be driven to extinction by 2100.

              And you are talking about a worldwide one-child policy implemented, I suppose, by a one-world dictatorial government. Well, perhaps I am a little hasty in thinking that is what you have in mind. But, if you think about it for a minute, you will realize there is no other way to implement a worldwide one-child policy. In other words, perhaps you haven’t given it that much thought.

              Well, I have given it a lot of thought over the last half-century or more. And I know it is a prediciment to which there are no solutions.

            3. Ron, which world would you rather be born into in 2030? One child only or not

            4. HB, if it were possible for every woman, starting today, to have only one child, I would be all for it. But that would make little difference in the grand scheme of things. The world would still be massively overpopulated. The sixth great extinction would still carry on with its great carnage. Forest would still disappear. Deserts would still expand. Rivers and lakes would still dry up. The earth would still get warmer. Ocean fisheries would still disappear. Topsoil would still wash and blow away. The collapse of the earth’s ecosystem would still continue. Civilization as we know it would still collapse.

              And I really don’t see what my druthers have to do with anything.

            5. Ron, are you telling me 7.7 billion people in a collapsing ecosystem is a problem?
              I would never have guessed.

            6. “All megafauna will be dead by 2060 and almost all wild animal species larger than a rabbit will be driven to extinction by 2100.”
              I believe you are mistaken there are places where it is difficult for a person to survive, and the animal world is balanced there, for example, Siberia, western and eastern, wild rams, deer, elks, wolf bears live there now and probably in the future. meat and exporting it is costly. It is difficult for people to live there, after the exhaustion of hydrocarbon deposits, 99% of the population will leave there. In general, in 100 years, I believe most of the population will move to favorable areas.
              Studying the pictures of the Luftwaffe of 1941-1945, I noticed that the vegetation in the south of the USSR was largely absent. The reason is that the population was poor and even reeds were used for cooking and heating, I read about this in the sources of the early and mid-20th century.
              I believe that humanity has many reserves to support development, although the consciousness of population reduction is necessary …
              – Rejection of globalism, stop moving goods around the world, produce everything necessary on the spot, if it is not produced, then the population of the region is excessive.
              – Refusal from excessive consumption.
              -Standardization of different devices of types of goods, there is no need for hundreds of types of ovens, refrigerators and other equipment, including a huge variety of different chargers. This also applies to products with the same parameters. As well as containers. Standards and reduction of similar types are needed. It would also be good to adopt one standard of threads, wrenches and tools.
              -It is necessary to abandon plastic packaging and return to glass and to what was used 120 years ago.
              -I suppose in the future it will be necessary to move to compact cities from 10,000 to 100,000 inhabitants, so as not to overload the delivery of products over long distances.
              Of course I understand that all this will not be done.

            8. Tks Ron for the comforting message . At least my supply of ” gietenkass ” and ” halloumi ” are secured . 🙂
              P.S ;- Gietenkass and Halloumi are goat cheese in Dutch and Greek .

        2. Koko Kuva (Full Image/Picture)

          “…if you were to put solar panels on the Ghawar field it would produce 4x more energy than Gawar produces in oil. And it wouldn’t deplete…” ~ Nick G

          “Dust build-up is the greatest technical challenge facing a viable, desert solar industry.

          A 0.4-0.8% per DAY baseline yield loss caused by dust.
          60% energy yield losses during and after sand storms are widely reported.          ​
          If left more than a day, dust particles from organics, dew and sulfur adhere to the panels.

          Solutions on Market:

          Expensive, unreliable, human labour in harsh, remote desert conditions.
          Water (desalinated, transported and wasted).
          Complex, sensitive equipment, that will fail in harsh conditions.
          Cleaning cycles of 7-14 days causing greater output losses, adhered dust and dust storm vulnerability.
          High operational expenses
          Long-term dependence on volatile labour markets

          Living in the desert is unrelenting, with harsh temperatures reaching a high 50° Celsius day after day. Along with harsh sandstorm winds covering substantial areas in thick sand and other small debris. These drastic conditions handicap the potential of what solar could be in the MENA region, and those who look towards solar will realize several key factors about solar panel cleaning in the desert:
          1. Dust will accumulate fast, at non-standard and unforeseen rates. Dust storms can reduce output power by 60% in a single day, with background soiling rates of 0.4% per day.
          2. The sun is so harsh, and conditions so inhospitable, and the nights so hot, that any manual labor component will be a primary source of failure. It is simply impossible to physically function during the day or even the night, for any length of time. At the same time, labor market uncertainties in the region are also profound.
          3. Water is a precious, energy intensive commodity, and is not always readily available. It must be transported, and more is always needed than expected. Any water-based cleaning solutions will always be prone to breakdown if water supplies are interrupted or become more expensive. Using desalinated water to clean solar panels is counterproductive to real value, and environmentally unsustainable.
          4. Complex or under designed solutions do not survive long, and sourcing solutions from overseas makes for long downtimes.
          These factors must drive the design and development strategy of cleaning solutions from the very beginning.” ~ Nomad Desert Solar

    2. Hickory-
      Railing against electric vehicles on an oil/doomster website is either nihilism or not very subtle pro-oil propaganda.

      1. What is the context of your statement Alim…?
        On the face of it I concur.

        However for the sake of transparency and acknowledgement of the destructive footprint of man, I do understand that every thing we as humans do, even the ‘simple’ act of clearing an acre to grow rhubarb or herd a goat, is a destructive act. So, yeh- smelting rare earths for electric motor production is an act of environmental damage. With 7.8 Billion people soon to be 8.8 B (by 2035).

        But I also am well enough schooled to be able recognize the subtle difference between various options.
        For example, humans cutting their meat consumption in half is a big deal, and can be accomplished without any protein malnutrition.
        For example, improving home insulation and switching from coal or oil heat to heat pump with nat gas backup is a big environmental win.
        For example, creating a disincentive to petrol consumption with a big carbon tax can be an environmental improvement, depending on how the collected revenues are used.
        But all of the measures we can come up do not cure overshoot.
        Only less babies and learning to gladly accept a shorter life can help speed the reversal in human gross overpopulation.

        1. Without major changes in certain technologies, the cobalt and lithium supply chains could seriously constrain the widespread deployment of EVs. But hey, we can always scrape the ocean floors to obtain difficult/impossible to obtain metals on land. Right? Of course the cornucopians will deny to their last breath we will ever have problems getting enough battery metal to supply world’s vehicle fleets. Does anyone know how much nickel, cobalt and lithium ONE 16 wheeler transcontinental truck would need to electrify? I understand a fully loaded tractor trailer typically weighs about 80,000 pounds.

          BTW The bulk of the world’s cobalt production is concentrated in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where in many cases children work in hazardous conditions mining the metal.

          COBALT: THE DARK SIDE OF A CLEAN FUTURE

          An estimated 35,000 children work in perilous conditions to extract cobalt from the ground in the Democratic Republic of Congo. So what will the impact be on these exploited workers from rapid advances in electric cars, which are heavily reliant on this conflict mineral?

          “Demand for cobalt is set to increase. This rare metal already powers our mobile phones, laptops and tablets. However, cobalt is also a key component of electric car batteries. So, over the next decade, with Bloomberg New Energy Finance forecasting that 33 per cent of all vehicles will be electric by 2030, automakers will need to increase their supply dramatically.

          But there lies the problem. In doing so, how can manufacturers be sure that the cobalt which finds its way into their cars is not tainted with the blood of child miners? It is a question that Amnesty International, the world’s leading human rights organisation, has been asking for some time.”

          https://www.raconteur.net/corporate-social-responsibility/cobalt-mining-human-rights/

          1. I don’t think it is set in stone, that we have limited battery raw materials for transportation. One is that new technologies significantly reduce cobalt content in batteries already now, with 1.class graded nickel content being increased instead. So nickel can then be a bottle neck? Yes, of course. But it can be recycled at a 95% rate using primarily electricity, and cobalt can also be recycled to a large extent. Sodium to replace lithium? It is 3 times heavier and less efficient; but with no resource limits it can be a workhorse solution for e.g. medium range electric truck transportation or construction vehicles. Battery cars/vehicles to replace 1.2 billion vehicles globally? Probably not, but it is not certain we need so many any way. 200-300 million will serve pretty well (that target is WAY into the future).

            But I do agree with the notion that we need China and Russia to get enough metals out of the ground (and enjoy the export revenue), before recycling of materials with electricity can be the right solution.

            1. The production of cobalt has quadrupled since 2000, but the price of the metal has skyrocketed, too — up more than 230% since the end of 2015. With an eye on growing assembly lines of EVs, China has moved quickly to gobble up stocks of cobalt. China now controls 62% of the world’s cobalt supply.

              And, there isn’t a better element than nickel to increase energy density, and there isn’t a better element than cobalt to make the stuff stable so while you hear about designing out cobalt, this is not going to happen in the next three decades.

            2. … and there is no metal lighter than lithium no matter how much research money is spent trying to find one.

          2. Here is a question for you Doug-
            Given the problems you explain on Cobalt, [and lithium, and neodymium. etc]
            should we just stick with petrol based transportation?
            You seem to suggest that in your various postings.
            But hey- if you have no interest in thinking beyond the problem stage, thats fine with me. Its pretty much a no win discussion anyway.

            Almost 90% of the world population is less than 60 years old (or roughly 7,000,000,000 people), and are not prone to spending much time on the porch in a rocking chair.
            They will seek transportation with vigor.
            Oil is on the depletion path, and the whole ICE-petrol industrial complex is a severely damaging phenomena [10/10 ranking].

            I don’t think there is any realistic choice in the matter, but to plow full steam ahead with the deployment of electric vehicles.
            You can tax the hell out of each mile regardless of vehicle type, and then watch as the government who institutes that rule gets thrown out on their ass. Transportation isn’t about to go back to horses.
            btw- I am the proud consumer of a new bike coming from Canada tomorrow, one for me and one for my wife. Biking is!

            1. “Given the problems you explain on Cobalt, [and lithium, and neodymium. etc]
              should we just stick with petrol based transportation?”

              I’m not suggesting anything, merely mentioning some of the various side issues involved with getting off fossil fuels. Let me ask YOU a question: do you think widespread adoption of EVs is going to put Earth on a sustainable path that will somehow save and protect all the flora and fauna at risk on our blue dot. Another scenario is the rush to “electrify our lives” will merely drag out the fossil fuel age by reducing depletion rates in a business as usual world. Sometimes I worry more about elephants, dolphins, etc. than the plight of humans. Whatever, as we quibble, CO2 levels are accelerating upward, now roughly 3 ppm per year.

            2. Doug asks- “do you think widespread adoption of EVs is going to put Earth on a sustainable path that will somehow save and protect all the flora and fauna at risk on our blue dot”

              Of course not. Like it has been said dozens of times here in past few years- no innovation or modernization is going to “save the earth”. Let that sink in kids. It the sorry truth.
              I’ve said it before- the choices of humanity choices come down to the lesser of evils in regard to environmental destruction.

              One choice we don’t seem to have is for everyone to call it quits and sink into earth, leaving the planet for all the other living things. People aren’t wired for that act of grace and mercy.

              So, try hard to do the least damage while you are here. Thats the best fall back position I have. My absence some day will be a hint that I have left early.

            3. Doug- in regard to- “Another scenario is the rush to “electrify our lives” will merely drag out the fossil fuel age by reducing depletion rates in a business as usual world. –

              Yes…thats got a pretty big probability of being the way it pans out.

              So, if the collective we does not implement EV (and solar/wind), and just goes about living the oil and coal age business as usual, and as a result of depletion we rapidly get on with the post-peak stage of the fossil fuel age , what will then ensue over the next 5 decades?

              One thing is guaranteed I believe. That is the complete clear-cutting of the worlds forests as people scramble for any fuel. You have seen the stories where people walk 10 miles for a small bundle of wood to cook on or heat with. Multiply it by a factor of a billion.
              Before the global clear-cutting holocaust gets fully underway, all the coal that can be accessed will be. Places like Chicago and Stockholm will be black coal towns again.
              A result of both these things will be soot turning the northern ice patches brown.

              And every single creature that can be caught for food will be caught, even snails the size of dime, as fertilizer becomes scarce.

              We could go on with ugly stories, but I think these things are clear to those who have spent a few minutes thinking about the magnitude of the problems.

              Can these things be prevented, or made less severe by rapid electrification of the world economy? The easiest answer is to just say no. The global mass extinction event will reach 30% of species regardless of attempts to do handle it better.
              But like OFM, I don’t see these problems all being uniform, and some places will scale down more gracefully than others. I think that means learning to live with much lower transport miles, and doing them with electric rather than petro vehicles, for example.
              It means learning to live with much less meat/person.

              I am not at all optimistic about any of this, but think it is wise to give the attempt our very best effort.

          3. Cobalt isn’t required for batteries. It is heavily used in oil refining. Companies are already switching to nickel.

            The whole idea of “we’re going to run out of metal to make renewables” meme is a sad attempt to pin the problems inherent in fossil fuel consumption to renewables, More important, it is simply false.

            One particularly sad sack argument is that wind energy requires rare earth metals and is therefore impossible to scale up. This is a like a Russian doll of several falsehoods hidden in one another.

            The claim is that wind turbines require magnets. This is ridiculous because nobody uses this arguments against fossil fuel plants, which also generate electricity by rotating magnets. Powerful magnet contains traces of rare earth metals. The claim is false as well as being ridiculous, because nearly all wind turbines use induction motors, which do not require permanent magnets at all, and use electromagnets instead. No permanent magnets means no rare earth metals. Even ignoring all that, it is stupid to claim that rare earth minerals are particularly rare. It’s a scientific term easily misunderstood by the naive, and easily twisted by propagandists. . And inside that claim lurks another falsehood — it is also nonsense to claim that they can only be mined in China.

            Other claims (like your nonsense about lithium) are similar. The amount of lithium required is tiny compared to say the amount of coal we burn. And the lithium doesn’t disappear when the battery dies. It can be reused. The fact is that renewables will lead to a massive reduction of mining. They are not the solution to all the world’s problems, but they will certainly ameliorate a lot of them.

            1. Cobalt is used in the lithium-ion batteries that power electric cars, and demand is steadily rising. Furthermore, lithium-ion batteries used in electric cars and other consumer electronics account for about half of all cobalt demand, and the demand for these batteries is projected to more than quadruple over the next decade.

              https://www.newscientist.com/article/2234567-can-we-quit-cobalt-batteries-fast-enough-to-make-electric-cars-viable/#ixzz6tpaAJEzw

              And,

              COBALT A DECISIVE COMPONENT OF MODERN BATTERY CELLS

              “When designing electric cars, all manufacturers without exception are currently relying on lithium-ion-batteries. From a technological point of view, there is currently no alternative to lithium-ion batteries. This is due to their high energy density, comparatively low weight and slow self-discharge… Cobalt is one of the most expensive material for battery production. It has been subject to strong price fluctuations in recent years. Since January 2017, the price has fluctuated between 25,000 and 80,000 EUR/tons.”

              https://blog.energybrainpool.com/en/is-there-enough-cobalt-to-meet-the-need-for-batteries/

            2. Doug —
              Cobalt is traditionally most heavily used in oil refining, So if batteries replace oil in moving vehicles, demand will fall in that sector. But by now batteries are the biggest consumer of cobalt.

              However, manufacturers are rapidly switching to nickel.
              https://www.mining.com/nickel-demand-for-evs-to-outpace-lithium-and-cobalt-report/

              However, Fitch says, a shortage of Class 1, battery-grade nickel may encourage automakers to explore lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) batteries for mass-market vehicles.

              Currently nickel is in oversupply, but that may be pandemic related.

            3. When designing electric cars, all manufacturers without exception are currently relying on lithium-ion-batteries. From a technological point of view, there is currently no alternative to lithium-ion batteries.

              First commercialized in the early 1990’s by the Japanese.
              It’s been a while comrades.

        2. Devils advocate from the standpoint of millenials (not one myself). Why should they accept to live in a world of 1-child policy and austerity when it is quite easy to blame prior generations. Isn’t it more realistic to stop providing health care for the elderly and encourage lower life expectancy to occur naturally? After all, the elderly already have had long relatively easy lives in comparison to what the young can expect – and they can be credibly blamed for not doing anything since at least the 1970’s with the information which was readily available about overshoot and collapse.

  4. “Bitcoin’s energy consumption and environmental impact is something that is commented on very regularly, but ultimately, is something that is rarely understood. The majority of arguments stem from comparisons of Bitcoin to particular nation states, or some other apples to oranges comparison. Critics can’t even separate “energy use” from “electricity use”.”

    https://hassmccook.medium.com/comparing-bitcoins-environmental-impact-f56b18014f64

    “Although the comparisons are not like for like, and with only Bitcoin having a 100% defined scope for this exercise, we can say that, at a minimum, Bitcoin consumes/emits less than half of what the gold mining industry does, and less than one fifth of what Bank branches and ATMs do.”

    BTW The energy consumed by Bitcoin miners is not to make transactions but to protect the global Bitcoin network from being hacked or manipulated in any way . We can only guess at the massive amount of energy consumed by the US military to maintain the supremacy of it’s petrodollar monetary system.

    If it were not the case that our current global reserve currency is based on credit issued out of thin air and enabling the cantillon effect to abuse the majority of humanity, then Bitcoin would not be so vital to humanity.

    Wow’ I love to see Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger show their anger at a monetary network that is out of their control and chipping away at their wealth until one day they will be left holding a mostly empty bag.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rN11PK3dN-I

    1. Could you explain, in your own words, what you mean but “the cantillon effect?”

    1. I am very surprised that this land use analysis made it past the editors, or perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised to see poor work printed in the media.
      For example, they attribute 60 acres for a wind turbine, whereas the actual footprint is closer to an acre.
      Grossly inaccurate.
      But almost no one will notice and the report will be quoted.
      I suppose it serves someones purpose.

      1. Hickory —
        I agree. But even accepting that nonsense, their footprint is small.

        To be clear this shows the huge difference consequent green policies could make. But it isn’t happening right now, and even if it does, it may not be enough. As Ron points out, carbon emissions is only one of many problems we currently face.

        1. Alim, above you said nickel was in oversupply. Are you sure? Nickel hit a 5-year high in Feb this year…

  6. As China’s dispute with Australia simmers.

    CHINA’S US COAL IMPORTS JUMP 748% IN Q4’20

    “China had the highest gain in coal imports from the U.S. among the top destinations in the fourth quarter of 2020. The Asian country imported 1.0 Mt of coal from the U.S. during the period, a 251.8% increase year over year and a 748.2% jump quarter over quarter…

    India, the most popular destination for U.S. coal, recorded deliveries of 3.6 Mt during the three-month period, increasing 55.0% year over year and nearly 70% quarter over quarter.”

    https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/china-s-us-coal-imports-jump-748-in-q4-20-amid-australian-trade-dispute-62766412

    And,

    RUSSIAN COAL SHIPMENTS TO CHINA SURGE AS BAN ON AUSTRALIAN COAL CONTINUES

    “Russian President Vladimir Putin recently met industry executives and government officials to plan ways to increase Russian coal exports to Asian countries by 30% in the next three years, The Australian reported March 7, citing research and consultancy group Wood Mackenzie.”

    https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/russian-coal-shipments-to-china-surge-as-ban-on-australian-coal-continues-63260664

  8. Low carbon based electricity requires a baseload of stable power to work properly. In the future it is easy to imagine baseload power consisting of hydro, nuclear, geothermal and bio based (trash( e.g plastics or sludge), biogas and woodbased), with wind and solar being a variable source. I guess a lot of countries will try to get to 80% renewable power by 2030. That will mean having baseload power of 20% and backup variable solutions (coal, nuclear, natural gas, the most important pumped hydro and even oil) of 30% maybe (to make it simple). So with 50% baseload power in dire times, what has to give in?

    The consumer for sure. Shutting down unnecessary consumption by smart applications? Only charging batteries when there is a surplus? The industry, while being inefficient, can for sure operate for 1/2-3/4 of the time with some loss of productivity. But have a hard time if the interruptions happens too frequent and over a long period of time. Still not the end of the world.

    It can work dependent on this supply of power to provide the bulk (wind offshore). It is a resource intensive solution, but possible (in my view):

    https://www.powermag.com/report-touts-huge-potential-of-offshore-wind/

  9. Another big pumped hydro/renewable energy project in western usa-

    “The overall project, on the South Fork of the Boise River, includes wind and solar generation parks and the pumped-storage plant. These plants, along with the associated electrical transmission facilities and structures, and a very large upper reservoir, will provide more than $1 billion in U.S. manufacturing and construction jobs over the next six years and will offset more than 2.7 million metric tons of CO2 emissions annually, according to Voith Hydro…the CCEW Project will have a capacity of 1,100 MW of clean, renewable energy. The upper reservoir will store enough water to support more than 40% of the projected water supply needs of the Boise River Basin. This stored water volume will provide five complete days of full generation capacity from the pumped storage facility, creating one of the most significant large volume, long duration energy storage facilities in the western U.S. The energy to power the pumps will come from on-site wind turbine and photovoltaic solar panel arrays, as well as other variable renewable energy resources around the region.”

    https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/baseload/voith-hydro-to-supply-pumped-storage-equipment-for-idaho-combined-energy-project/

      1. Yes there is, at least thats what the white men call it.
        “The Boise River is a 102-mile-long tributary of the Snake River”

  10. While we babble about EVs the extermination of Earth’s ecosystems continues unabated.

    DESTRUCTION OF WORLD’S FORESTS INCREASED SHARPLY IN 2020

    The rate at which the world’s forests are being destroyed increased sharply last year, with at least 42,000 sq km of tree cover lost in key tropical regions. According to data from the University of Maryland and the online monitoring platform Global Forest Watch, the loss was well above the average for the last 20 years, with 2020 the third worst year for forest destruction since 2002 when comparable monitoring began. The losses were particularly severe in humid tropical primary forests.

    Wealthier countries are not immune to forest loss. In Germany there was a threefold increase in forest loss in 2020 compared with 2018. The increase was largely due to damage from bark beetles feasting on trees made vulnerable by the hot and dry weather brought by global heating. Australia had a ninefold increase in tree cover loss over the past two years, largely owing to extreme weather and forest fires. Climate breakdown is also making forest loss worse, with humid forests drying out, causing trees to die off and fires to burn for longer, in a vicious cycle.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/31/destruction-of-worlds-forests-increased-sharply-in-2020-loss-tree-cover-tropical

    And,

    DEFORESTATION IN BRAZIL IS OUT OF CONTROL.

    We’re just four months into the year and things are already looking bleak in the Brazilian Amazon. About 430,000 acres of its lush, species-rich forests have been logged or burned so far in 2021, according to a new analysis of satellite imagery by the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP). That’s an area roughly 30 times the size of Manhattan.

    https://www.vox.com/22409783/jair-bolsonaro-amazon-brazil-deforestation-trees-climate-change-2021

    1. Did you know that about 24 million acres of sugar cane is grown now in Brazil, primarily for vehicle ethanol.
      And in the USA about 36 million acres of corn goes to ethanol for vehicles

      Million acres… is a lot of prime habitat that could be turned back to wilderness/wildlife habitat if the vehicles supplied went electric.
      Of course this is just babble.

      1. HICKORY —

        Well yes but cattle ranching is the leading cause of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. In Brazil, this has been the case since at least the 1970s. Unbelievably, more than 200,000 acres of rainforest are burned every day. That is more than 150 acres lost every minute of every day, and 78 million acres lost every year! Just like to introduce some balance into the discussion. 😉

        Yes, corn to ethanol for vehicles has always seemed like insanity to me. The American farm lobby knows no bounds, it seems.

        U.S. FARMERS PLAN HUGE CORN CROP DESPITE PRICE DROP

        U.S. farmers plan to plant their biggest corn acreage in eight years this spring [2020], saying the grain is the best option in a tough farm economy despite weak demand from the biofuel industry as the coronavirus spreads.

        https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usda-crops-plantings-idUSKBN21I391

        1. Doug and Hicks , a new slogan will be appropriate ” Burn , baby burn ” ( Sarc ) . Humans want to commit ” harakiri ” . Best wishes and best of luck .

    2. Thanks, Doug, great post.

      It is ironic that those who think EVs will fix global warming and the empowerment of women will solve the world’s population problem seem not to have a clue as to what is really happening to our planet. They think these efforts will prevent collapse when it is blatantly obvious that the collapse began decads ago… and it is getting worse. That is the ongoing collapse is speeding up as your post clearly indicates.

      As some would say, “You cannot know the future.” That is their way of saying “You cannot know that civilization will collapse. Well, one would have to be stone-ass blind not to be able to see what is happening right now. No, No, the collapse of civilization is not in the future, it is happening right now, right before our eyes.

      1. Ron, I’m going to quote John Michael Greer from about a decade ago. “What does Collapse look like? Look around, this is what Collapse looks like.”

        1. This whole preoccupation, even fetishization, by some with bright-greenwashed crony capitalistic industrial output could be seen as fiddling while Rome Burns.

          This generally atomized exclusive ‘techo-fetishization’, interspersed with, ostensibly largely rhetorical and defensive inquiries for alternatives in the face of criticisms for their fetishes, seems to belie a culturally-conditioned helplessness and lack of imagination for other possibilities of transcendence.

          This is probably why, for example, some might have a hard time wrapping their heads around such concepts as ‘natural farming’, as per the previous threads.

      2. Ron , just to augment your viewpoint . ” Collapse is a process , it is not an event ” . It is as a train wreck in slow motion which only the discerning eye can notice , for others it is ” business as usual ” .

      3. “those who think EVs will fix global warming ”
        Fix global warming huh. It will take a lot more than EV’s to quit the burning of all coal, gas and oil.
        In fact that just ain’t going to happen anytime soon. Warming is baked in the cake. Migration en masse and under duress is in the prologue stage of the story.

        But Ev’s are great for another problem- running out of oil.
        I know a guy who is certain the world is already post-peak oil.
        If one is eager to witness economic collapse (the quick version) the best thing would be to do your best to stop the introduction of electric vehicles.
        Yet it is too late to stop that electric train. That path is set and gathering steam fast.
        But try to not be confused- EV’s will not ‘save the world’ or promote ‘vegetarianism’, or ‘stop reproduction’.

        I saw a man protesting against clear-cutting.
        And I said-‘hey what the hell?’, and pointed to his nice wooden house.
        And he said- ‘yeh, but this lumber came from trees that were cut along time ago’

        1. When I lived in Marin and Sonoma I regularly rode in EV’s (friends).
          Bend?
          Nope

        2. Forward-Thinking Hindsight

          “I saw a man protesting against clear-cutting.
          And I said-‘hey what the hell?’, and pointed to his nice wooden house.
          And he said- ‘yeh, but this lumber came from trees that were cut along time ago’” ~ Hickory

          Clear-cutting is but one way of harvesting wood. One can still live in a house made of wood but be against clear-cutting without contradiction.

          What we know now is different than what we knew then, which is not to say it’s necessarily an improvement.

          We may very well look back on industrialism and its electric cars, solar panels and birdmills for what they were; unmitigated disastrous folly.

          2. Thats for sharing that Stephen. At first glance it looks similar to rammed earth.
            I look forward to digging into (haha!) to it some more.

  11. Missing Out

    “Alim…asked a piercingly [retch] important question above- ‘What are you advocating anyway? … You seem to be a lot better at complaining than coming up with constructive ideas?’ ” ~ Hickory

    I had written…

    “Natural farming

    ‘Fukuoka’s ideas radically challenged conventions that are core to modern agro-industries; instead of promoting importation of nutrients and chemicals, he suggested an approach that takes advantage of the local environment. Although natural farming is considered a subset of organic farming, it differs greatly from conventional organic farming, which Fukuoka considered to be another modern technique that disturbs nature…
    Rather than offering a structured method, Fukuoka distilled the natural farming mindset into five principles:
    No tillage
    No fertilizer
    No pesticides or herbicides
    No weeding
    No pruning
    …
    Native American
    Recent research in the field of traditional ecological knowledge finds that for over one hundred centuries, Native American tribes worked the land in strikingly similar ways to today’s natural farmers. Author and researcher M. Kat Anderson writes that ‘According to contemporary Native Americans, it is only through interaction and relationships with native plants that mutual respect is established.’ “

    Hickory’s response (among one or two other dubious ones)…

    “I too have ‘missed out’ on CM’s postings for years.
    He is an armchair gardener as best I can tell.
    I would consider hearing his perspective on growing food once he
    no longer buys any food from beyond his property boundary.
    Before that, he is just philosophizing, and giving free lectures.
    As a wise elder once told me-
    ‘it is easy to philosophize about someone else’s problem’

    Overshoot is overshoot.
    NPK.

    I’d like to see the rough outlines of the CM business plan on his rabbit manure business. Photos of the packing shed would be nice too.”

    To which I responded…

    “Ad hominem… refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself.” ~ Wikipedia

    Thereafter (thanks in part to NAN)…

    “I suggest everyone grow, and buy, as much organic food as they can.

    But that doesn’t change the fact of gross population overshoot, and the dependency on fossil fuel derived fertilizer to meet the basic caloric and protein needs of probably about 2/3rds of world population equivalent.” ~ Hickory

    Baby steps, (or no steps at all if they are somehow destructive) can and do change facts.
    This is whether you, Doug, Survivalist, I, or someone else does them or certain kinds or not.
    And each step is different for each person, while they don’t have to do everything they suggest or that seem like good ideas. That’s part of what makes us a social species: We share/split the workloads.

    BTW, I’m unsure we can necessarily buy our way to a healthier planet with more money, more jobs, or the purchase of things like electric cars, solar panels or windmills, etc., since it seems more along the lines of ‘impoverishing’ ourselves with less, less of all of the cruft of the crony-capitalist plutarchy.

  12. A few years back I was a hard core doomer myself. Ron may be right, the entire ecosystem may go entirely to hell in a hand basket.

    But I’ve come to believe that there’s a fair to good chance that some fairly substantial portions of the natural world will survive, and that perhaps MOST of us won’t NECESSARILY die hard over the next few generations.

    Many species of wildlife survived the last thousand years or so, at least, in parts of the world controlled by kings and other such people, who maintained hunting preserves and parks for their own pleasure, and in today’s modern world……….. I expect the same thing to be, plus today in countries such as the USA, Canada, and most of Europe, I don’t see outright starvation being all that big an issue to the point that wildlife is wiped out altogether. Some state and national parks, etc, plus some large tracts of property privately owned will likely continue to support at least a few of our larger animals, etc.

    And there’s some hope yet that birth rates may fall even farther and even faster than they have been, for the last few decades.

    https://apnews.com/article/birth-rates-science-coronavirus-pandemic-health-d51571bda4aa02eafdd42265912f1202

    Maybe the whole world won’t go to hell in a hand basket.

    Maybe some substantial portions of it will pull thru the coming crash in good enough overall condition for people a century or two down the road to live pretty decent lives.

    Maybe there will be a Fortress North America, a Fortress Western Europe, etc, where in the local people refuse to allow immigration on the large scale, and where they come to understand BEFORE it’s absolutely too late, that their own survival means getting their act together politically, and doing the RIGHT things, in economic terms.

    We shouldn’t forget that LEVIATHAN, the modern nation state, one awakened and in fear of it’s own demise, is capable of gearing up and fighting wars, etc, as we did twice on the grand scale last century.

    1. Bamboo Basket-Weave House

      OFM: “Maybe the whole world won’t go to hell in a hand basket.”

      If they go to hell, it could be in a single-occupant car, electric or otherwise, rather than a hand basket, although basket-weaving seems another good craft to learn in decline/collapse mode.

    2. People tend use the term collapse to mean very different things. and they often assume that the conditions they see locally are relevant to the whole world.
      Some people talk about economic collapse, and that could happen any day, quick or slow, and temporary or indefinite. Many have been concerned that there would be economic collapse due to peak oil. Well folks, that scenario is no longer baked in the cake. Surprisingly, it may be more trouble for some of the exporting counties than most the importers, as the exporters lose their income stream and many importers switch to the new transportation system (electric). The big variable here is the speed at which things (depletion of oil vs deployment of replacement) happen.

      Ecologic collapse is a whole different deal, and I agree with Ron that we are already pretty deep into the process. It is a slow motion trainwreck in process , picking up speed as the reach of the human chainsaw and chemicals extends to whole globe. Europe for example, has been completely deforested over and over- piecemeal. Early farmer migrants to America were surprised to find the N. American soils had an extra upper layer of soil. It had been washed away from Europe long ago, without collective memory of it. Climate change is an accelerate to the fire, and 8 billion (soon to be 9 billion) meat eating apes are insatiable. It is all about extreme overshoot of the human population, and about the general human extreme disregard for nature and a healthy earth. This trainwreck will plow on for more than 100 years and will crush a lot of life in its (our) path, human and all the rest. It is a mass extinction level event and it is a certainty. More or less depending on which crack you hide in.

      And a whole other category is social collapse. Syria has been experimenting with this for a decade. The USA under trump flirted with it in the form of an attack on the democratic process (and that chapter is still in play). How the world deals with mass migration, the extreme gap between ultra wealthy and the rest, and the propensity for mass delusion of the gullible, are examples of the issues that could take down the social order of any culture. Individually humans can be smart and even wise, but collectively the mob is just outright stupid.

      And I’d throw another category of threat to a stable culture. Technology misused or out of control- be it combustion of flammable substances, nuclear weapons, altered organisms, AI/robotics, etc. Science fiction is not necessarily fiction- just ask the corpse of a person killed by a bullet or napalm.

      The various forms of collapse will be on bright display in the next decades, perhaps much more than in the past decades [I’m sure that Native Americans, or the Jews of Europe, or the Bison of N. America will find that hard to believe]. One cause of collapse can lead to another in a cascading event pattern. But like OFM said many times, its not all going to be uniform, and its not all going to be the same type of problem in one place vs another.

      I’m most certain that people will continue to do all kinds of things to make things much worse than they have to be.

      1. HICKORY, a quote:

        In the 24 hours since this time yesterday, over 200,000 acres of rainforest have been destroyed in our world. Fully 13 million tons of toxic chemicals have been released into our environment. Over 45,000 people have died from starvation, 38,000 of them children. And more than 130 plant and animal species have been driven to extinction by the actions of humans. And all this just since yesterday. — Thom Hartmann

        1. Hi Doug,

          I can’t say with any degree of confidence what the collapse of the Amazon basin and maybe most of the rest of South America means in terms of the world wide ecological big picture.

          I don’t think the loss of most of the endemic species there will have much direct and short term effect on North America, or Europe.

          It’s hard to say how much effect such troubles will have on the climate in the Northern Hemisphere as well, but the climate effects could be substantial and come about within a fairly short time.

          My guess is that most of the problems associated with collapse in most of the relatively poor countries will be localized, because the vast majority of poor people in poor countries are probably going to die in place, for lack of any means to emigrate…… and when they do try to emigrate…..

          Well, my guess is that they will mostly be met with barbed wire and men behind the barbed wire ready and MORE than willing to shoot.

          So, purely as a speculative enterprise, I will venture a guess that barring a hot war between major powers, or really BAD climate troubles, people in countries such as the USA, Canada, most of Western Europe, etc, have a fair to good shot of pulling thru without dying of starvation, thirst, or disease.

          I could personally spend a few days researching the job and switch over from the kind of farming I do in Virginia to the kind done in Mississippi with very little trouble.

          We can drop way down the ladder when it comes to eating a lot of red meat, etc, if we have to, and we may well have to.

          War is the primary wild card. THE wild card.

          I don’t have any problem visualizing a lot of people dead of violence here in the USA , but my guess is that the number would be very small, as a percentage of our population.

          1. OFM —

            L.O.L. I doubt many Americans (or Canadians) would survive long without Regular trips to the local Supermarket. My travels suggest survivors will be people like Gauchos (cowboys) living in the grasslands (or Pampas) of Argentina. These people live on almost nothing, are tougher than nails, and probably wouldn’t even notice if 95 percent of Earth’s human inhabitants disappeared tomorrow. Nor would their lifestyles change one iota. I could give you a few more examples but you seem convinced you and your neighbors are somehow immune. BTW I read somewhere that the obesity rate in the U.S. is highest in the world. How does this fit in with your country survivability index?

            Speaking of obese.

            A 2016 Department of Defense report found that nearly 75 percent of young Americans are unable to serve in the military, mostly because they weigh too much.

            https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/us-military-officials-worried-are-young-americans-too-fat-/5002588.html

            1. Hi Doug,

              My reasoning in terms of people in countries such as the USA, Canada, and incidentally Norway, Sweden, etc, having a fair to good shot at survival is simple enough.

              My argument is that barring the climate going totally nuts, there won’t NECESSARILY be any collapse beyond the point of a really severe economic depression in such countries.

              I’m proposing that in these countries, the electricity stays on, the stores stay open, the cops are still on the street, the hospitals are still functional, and food supplies will be adequate.

              Under wartime conditions, and I AM suggesting or speculating that wartime economic policies and laws would be put into effect, we can get by without millions of new cars, fancy cosmetics, ten times as many new clothes as we actually NEED to stay warm, etc. We can get by for a long time without building ANY new stores, malls, hotels, highways, etc.

              We can survive without tourism…….. without air travel…… without divorce courts…….. if we have to.

              Leviathan, the nation state, typified by UNCLE SAM, once aroused, is capable of doing what’s necessary to ensure it’s own survival.

              Would there be violence in such countries, especially the USA?

              Sure. But there won’t be anybody dropping bombs, barring war, and there just isn’t much risk we Yankees, or Western Europeans, etc, will have to fight a war on home turf.

              There isn’t a single commodity I can think of that is actually critical to our SURVIVAL here in North America that we couldn’t produce locally.

              Economic troubles aren’t the same thing at all as ecological troubles. There’s no question that the climate might go completely nuts, to the point that we couldn’t grow enough food in this country………. but I think the odds of things getting that bad are actually fairly slim, given that we CAN live, if we have to, on grain, some eggs, beans, cabbage and onions, etc.

              Most of the people in Germany and Stalin’s Russia survived WWII.

              We Yankees can survive evacuating our hot dry desert cities, if we HAVE to.

            2. OFM, have you read the book (posted a few weeks ago) Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency? Quite sobering and it sounds like to me that the things you’re hoping (?) won’t happen, will. I agree, there is a ton (literally) of stuff we don’t NEED; however, many livelihoods rely on the resourcing, producing, selling and maintaining (and recycle/disposal) of those WANTS.

              I just turned 65 and given my family history of longevity, I could very well live into my 90s or beyond. I’m on no medication and plan to be that way as long as possible. I said since I was a boy I wanted to live to be 100 and recently I answered the question with 120 years! Part of me would like to see what happens… of course the unstated is “as long as living is still pleasant, joyful”.

              I’m halfway through the book. Not so sure about 100, much less 120.

      2. Any form of so-called “collapse” should be a primary responsibility for capitalism to resolve.

  13. Who else here is super excited to watch Mr. Elon Musk host SNL this weekend?

    1. Elon is gonna prove all the naysayers wrong! ☜(ﾟヮﾟ☜) (¬‿¬)

  14. Article on total fertility ratio and population, it is good in my opinion, but I am no expert.

    https://principia-scientific.com/global-population-falling-as-human-fertility-declines/

    Global human population is on the decline. The fertility of half of the world’s population is already below the replacement ratio, according to a new study from the University of Oxford. The latest facts run counter to the traditional story of an out of control soaring world population.

    …

    The decline of fertility is one of the most fundamental social changes that happened in human history.

    It is therefore especially surprising how very rapidly this transition can indeed happen. As we see from the chart below it took Iran only 10 years for fertility to fall from more than 6 children per woman to fewer than 3 children per woman. (Iran made this transition under a conservative Muslim government.)

    …

    A very cynical view is that a decrease in child mortality is bad for the world since it would contribute to the overpopulation of the planet. The chart above shows that this opinion is not just contemptuous of human life but plainly wrong: When more infants survive fertility goes down and the temporary population growth comes to an end. If we want to ensure that the world’s population increase comes to an end soon we must work to increase child survival.

    Info on author at website below

    https://www.maxroser.com/

    also see

    https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-can-decline-extremely-fast

    1. Surprised you highlighted a 2016 article (the first link) with a headline that the world population is falling.
      Since that was published the global population has increased 403 million people, or the equivalent of adding an additional Germany, UK, France, Italy, Spain, Poland and Canada.
      And the current trend is still on track to add an additional billion from 2021 by 2035.

      Yes fertility is falling, but the momentum of the whole crowd will carry us on to 10 billion by 2060. Unless there is a huge change in the current trends/scenario. I fully acknowledge that fertility may fall faster than the current trend ( and hope it does), but as of 2021 this train is still heading forward with plenty of momentum.

      https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/#table-forecast

      1. ” but as of 2021 this train is still heading forward with plenty of momentum.”

        Dead on, in terms of the whole world.

        So……… who if anybody thinks countries such as our own will allow in refugees by the millions, by the tens of millions?

        The people in countries with high birth rates are going to mostly suffer the consequences in place.

        There will be some aggressive wars, without a doubt, with maybe a couple of countries managing to successfully invade and occupy some of their neighbors, but that’s going to be about all, in terms of really major movements of people across national borders in my opinion, meaning by the millions when I say major.

        There will be genocide in some countries when times get tough enough, and it’s possible that maybe as many as a quarter of all the people in such places might perish in civil wars.

        That would go a LONG way in solving a food crisis.

        1. Climate change is going to hit central america hard. Pressure of migration at the USA border, and eventually at the Canadian border is a big deal.

          ” While powerful hurricanes are bringing strong winds and punishing rainfall to Central America’s Caribbean coastline, an ecological region [The Dry Corridor] that runs along its Pacific coast is experiencing more and more drought as climbing global temperatures continue to change precipitation patterns.

          The Dry Corridor runs from southern Mexico through Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. This region earned its name long ago, but in the last few decades, the droughts have become longer and more severe. And when the rain does come, it’s heavier than ever, but runs right off of the hard, parched soil – creating a vicious cycle of extremes”

          “Computer climate models consistently predict a warmer and dryer climate in the coming decades for Central America due to human-caused climate change.”

      2. Population growth is being driven by higher survival rates now. In other words, there are more and more old people instead of more and more young people.

        1. Decreasing infant mortality is another (big) factor. In 1990, 8.8 million infants younger than 1 year died globally, a number that has almost halved to 4.6 million infant deaths. So, more old people, more young people.

          1. Doug
            There are roughly 140 million births a year worldwide, as there was in 1990.

            https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/births-and-deaths-projected-to-2100?country=~OWID_WRL

            So 4 million more deaths isn’t really decisive.

            From 1990 to 2019, the global fertility rate fell from 3.2 to 2.5 live births per woman.

            https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.development.desa.pd/files/files/documents/2020/Oct/undesa_pd_wfp2019_10_key_messages_10jan2020.pdf

            This is a bigger deal, as it means there were roughly 20% fewer births, or 28m. That is seven times as big.

            1. Not exactly sure about my math there! Anyway, here’s an interesting website.

              https://www.populationpyramid.net/

              For example, compare Uganda with Ukraine. Also Oman and the United Arab Emirates seem to have something against baby girls. 25 to 40 year-olds are 3 to 1 male!

            2. ALIMBIQUATED —

              You’re probably right. Truth is, I’ve no business talking about stuff like infant mortality (or most other issues I’ve been commenting on here for that matter). My background is geoscience, (geophysics and geology); maybe I should stick to earth science matters. I always complain about armchair experts, when It’s not me doing the babbling. 😉

              One thing I will say. We (our family) have been supporting a girl for many years who was otherwise destined to to become a street kid in Uganda . She is about to become a medical doctor soon. Recently I asked her how many kids she planned to have, she said six. Her mother’s generation were averaging around double that so I guess there is progress — of a sort.

            3. Doug —
              I’m strictly an amateur too, my field is data analytics.

              It’s interesting to note the difference between Uganda and neighboring Kenya, where the pyramid suddenly stopped widening about 10 years ago.

              I am nearly 60 and second youngest of 13 children. Our family spans the baby boom era. The number of children each sibling had falls sharply with age. For example, the first three children produced eight grandchildren. but the last three only two, and the last eight only 9.

    2. Dennis —

      Even if all the people would suddenly practice birth control, much more than is currently considered possible, the world population would continue to grow. The direction of population momentum is mainly dependent on the age structure so even if fertility decreased overnight (to replacement level), population experts project world population would/will continue to grow roughly 40% (from 7 billion to 9.8 billion).

      Only rich countries have a shrinking momentum while the population momentum for the poorest countries is 44%, that of Sub Saharan Africa 46%. — Espenshade TJ, Olgiati AS, Levin S. On Nonstable and Stable Population Momentum. Demography. 2011;48:1581–1599.

  15. Global human population is on the decline.

    Bullshit! Global human population growth rate is on the decline but the global human population is still increasing. That article was written in 2016. Since that article was written the world population has increased by about 410 million and is still increasing by over 80 million per year.

    Even with the declining fertility rate world population is expected to peak at somewhere between 10 and 11 billion somewhere around 2100. The decrease back to where we are today will take another 100 years. But all those predictions are wrong, damn wrong. The carnage that the environment is suffering today cannot possibly last another 100 years let alone another 200 years.

    1. It is an interesting exercise to look at population projections broken down by continent.
      Here is a look at the projected change over the next 30 years, out to 2051.
      2051 is notable since the projections are for peak Asian population to occur then, followed by a very slow decline.
      On the other hand, African continental population growth is projected to continue to climb out to at least 2100.

      2021 to 2051- ( in millions)
      Asia 4,680 to 5290 [up 610]
      Africa 1,370 to 2,530 [up 1,160]
      Latin Amer 660 to 760 [up 100]
      N Amer 370 to 430 [up 60]
      Europe 750 to 710 [down 40]
      Oceania 43 to 57 [up 14]

      Total 7,9000 to 9,800 [1,900]

      As one can see Europe has already peaked.
      -N. Amer will add the equivalent of two more Texas’s.
      -Latin America is growing rapidly and is projected to add the equivalent of another Columbia and Argentina, and at that point will be close to peak population.
      -Asia will be at peak in 30 years, having added the equivalent of almost 2 USA’s by then.
      -And Africa will have doubled it size compared to 2018, within 30 years from now!

      https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/historical-and-projected-population-by-region

      1. Looked at another way, the world is currently adding roughly 10 New York Cities worth of us year after year after year.

    2. I totally agree with Ron… The shit is going to hit the fan hard and fast in the next few decades at the latest in a LOT of the worst overpopulated places.

      The only real difference between our opinions as to what the future holds is that I’m a lot more optimistic in terms of how well SOME countries can weather the built in overshoot collapse headed our way.

      I just don’t see any well to do modern country allowing immigration on the grand scale, by which I mean the hundreds of thousands every few months, up into the millions and even tens of millions when the shit hits the fan.

      Times are going to be tough enough looking after the local people on the bottom rungs of local economies.

      ANYBODY who thinks any country will allow such immigration levels has his head so far up his ass he will NEVER see daylight.

      Anybody who even advocates such immigration levels for humanitarian reasons will be handing the future of his country to a Trump type political establishment, as a purely practical matter.

      The people in severely over populated countries are mostly going to die in place.

      Farmers are used to dealing with such scenarios. We see it happen every year, someplace. The cows die due to extreme dry weather. Nobody can afford to rescue them.

      It will be the same thing for people, when the situation gets bad enough.

      When some considerable portion of a local population dies off, this will take some of the pressure off of the locally produced supply of food for a few years, assuming the climate remains about the same. If the climate is going downhill fast, food supplies may decline fast enough that famine persist from one year to the next.

    1. The longer view chart is below, from 1961.
      Real Price Index change is only up a little in the past 60 years.
      But almost double since the trough at 2000.
      Fast changes like since 2019 are the toughest to adjust to.

      Thanks for the periodic updates on this John.

  19. This isn’t sometime in the future. This is any summer in the city.

    “Let’s repeat that, in case you missed it: “Study results find simulated compound heat wave and grid failure events of recent intensity and duration to expose between 68 and 100% of the urban population to an elevated risk of heat exhaustion and/or heat stroke.” Stone tells the New York Times such combined events are becoming “increasingly likely.” He adds, “A widespread blackout during an intense heat wave may be [ one of ] the deadliest climate-related event we can imagine.”

    in the brackets- my contribution

    “The problem is, air conditioning uses electricity — lots and lots of electricity. We have invented a new life style where we live in artificially cooled cocoons…The National Weather Service says the incidence of heat exhaustion and heat stroke begins to spike when indoor temperatures reach 32° C (89.6° F).”

    “… if a heat wave occurred at the same time as a citywide blackout that disabled air conditioners. In Atlanta, more than 350,000 people, or about 70% of residents, would be exposed to indoor temperatures equal to or greater than 32º C”, for example.

  20. China is heavily reliant on coal power, currently running 1,058 coal plants — more than half the world’s capacity. And,

    CHINA EMISSIONS EXCEED ALL DEVELOPED NATIONS COMBINED

    “The Asian giant has the world’s largest population, so its per person emissions are still far behind the US, but its emissions have increased too, tripling over the course of two decades.”

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57018837

    1. Meanwhile,

      DEFORESTATION OF BRAZILIAN AMAZON HITS RECORD IN APRIL

      Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon hit a record last month, the government reported Friday with figures that belie President Jair Bolsonaro’s pledge to crack down on such destruction. The area of the rainforest that was destroyed — 580 square kilometers (225 square miles) — marked a new high for the month of April and a 42.5 percent on-year rise, according to satellite monitoring by the Brazilian space agency INPE. Its data goes back to 2015.

      The government agency that carries out inspections in the Amazon “is doing nothing” and the process of punishing violators has been halted.

      https://phys.org/news/2021-05-deforestation-brazilian-amazon-april.html

  21. Regarding all these discussions on child policies, let me politely remind you guys that babies don’t come from rational political decisions on whether or not a country, or indeed the world, should have more kids. They come from sex. The young man and young woman really like each other, do their thing, and, wouldn’t you know it, 9 months later a baby emerges.

    Now, it happens to be the case that the pleasurable aspects of this activity can be removed from child creation, but almost everyone eventually develops the itch to stop using these products. So then the reproductive sex results, the baby results, and once couples begin to have more than one kid they feel the strain, so they naturally cut back on their child creation.

    But the child creation will go on as long as there is such a thing as sex and human sexual relations. You guys are far too technical about all of this. Human life is biological, it’s about the pure, uncontrolled power of sex, which leads to reproduction.

    1. Dolph —
      If only a technology existed to prevent pregnancies while allowing people to continue having sex! I bet it would lead to a decline in birth rates around the world.

  22. Adding to all the talk here surrounding “overpopulation” and child policies, there’s a lot of information in this recent article about how the United States is actually on track for population decline and thus unspeakable economic catastrophe if something isn’t done soon to bring in more immigrants and/or encourage more births.

    The census shows the US needs to increase immigration — by a lot
    https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22411236/immigration-census-population-growth

    Economists broadly agree that population growth fuels economic growth in wealthy countries. But the recently released census figures show the US population was 331.5 million people, an increase of just 7.4 percent between 2010 and 2020 — the lowest rate since the 1930s. Projections suggest that, unless current trends change, those numbers could continue to diminish dramatically over the next two to three decades, with the population growing by just 78 million by 2060.

    There are ways that policymakers can turn the situation around — the Biden administration has advocated for family-friendly policies that could make it easier for Americans to have more children. But that will not be enough to overcome a widening gap in the number of working-age adults that are able to support an aging population of baby boomers.

    That leaves immigration, which has historically insulated the US from population decline and represents a kind of tap that the US can turn on and off. Over the next decade, it is set to become the primary driver of population growth for the first time in US history. The question now is exactly how much more immigration might be needed to accelerate population growth — and whether US policymakers can actually overcome their political differences on the issue to make it an effective tool.

    1. I came across the same article Dan.
      “The results of the 2020 census are a warning sign that America is on a course for slow population growth.
      Economists broadly agree that population growth fuels economic growth in wealthy countries. …
      Some parts of the US are already beginning to experience some of the downsides of population slowdown or decline: Shrinking tax bases in rural areas have made it harder for government budgets to support essential services, such as infrastructure and public schools. As population growth slows, the pressure for cuts will likely grow. Meanwhile, the existing population will continue to age; by 2030, the Census Bureau estimates that one in five US residents will be of retirement age. ”

      No country, including the USA, has an answer for this problem.
      The world is deep into population overshoot and adding another a billion by 2035, and yet at some point in the next decades many countries will start to decline in population. There is no good answer on how to handle the economics of contraction.
      Being attractive to young immigrants will be seen as an attribute among the older countries.

  23. Here’s a website where you can live track all of Elon’s Starlink satellites up in the sky so far (1000’s more still to launch). There’s been lots and lots of people reporting seeing UFO’s in the night lately when really what they’re seeing is just long lines of Elon’s satellites and not UFO’s. This is a real time view of where all his satellites are right now.

    https://satellitemap.space/

  24. “The Biden administration announced Friday it will be joining an international call to tackle terrorist and extremist content on the web after the Trump administration opted not to do so. ”

    Of course the Trump admin opted out of efforts at limitation on extremist content.
    They would have no message if that had been in effect and enforced.

    1. 2022 election has already been framed. Democracy vs. Fascism, round two.

    2. So what, are you against freedom of speech?

      The internet is meant to be a decentralized space where human beings can express their opinions, no matter how stupid and baseless.

      If the content being stamped out is violence like e.g. people getting beheaded, then they will move that content to the dark web which people still can access. So it’s ineffective.

      People who think the internet should be controlled are pro-authoritarian. And again you cannot effectively control the internet, they will just move their content to the deep web and more specifically the dark net.

      By bringing down “terrorist” and “extremist” content off the web, you are only marginalizing them further which strengthens their resolve.

      Idiocy is part of human nature, you will never be able to control it through authoritarian measures. Only education can help but even this is very limited. Human history has effectively shown this. I mean this day and age there are some people out there who think the earth is flat, there is a dome on it and NASA is a shill organisation fooling everyone. Others think the earth is 6000 years old. Should the government control this too? And will it effectively stamp them out. Hell no. It will have the opposite effect in my opinion.

      1. Iron Mike. You make good points.
        And like everyone else who gives the whole subject much thought, i struggle to find the best answer.
        When it comes to criminal justice , I tend lean hard towards the rights of the victim and the ‘common good’ rather than that of the perpetrator.
        We have recently seen what hell can come to earth when ‘free speech’ goes unchallenged- in the form of Nazism in the 1930’s, for example.
        Humans in mob form are just not smart and wise enough to sort out good from bad, destructive from creative, real from false.
        Which brings up the question- are we smart and engaged enough for democracy to function? I have strong doubts on this.
        We are witnessing a democracy under attack here, and its not far from being clearly placed in the ‘failed democracy’ garbage can.

        I’m to the point where I would like to see severe penalties for false speech, false narratives, and hate crimes in the form of words. Words do matter.
        Words do matter- we have learned that in a very unpleasant way here in the states lately. The other day about 10 miles from here an Asian heritage person [newly-wed just coming out of an apartment visiting family/friends] was stabbed in the heart and killed by a ‘white’ guy who he had never met before. It wasn’t some kind of fight. It was a spontaneous attack. Asian hate crimes have been encouraged by the last president of this country, and have been on a big upswing here, as an example.
        Penalties for hateful, false and extremist speech could range from banning from a platform all the way to jail time.
        Yeh, I do think penalties and harsh enforcement are warranted. Not because its the best way, but because human behavior is so poor that innocent people need protection. And because we are expecting people in a democracy to make big choices.
        In America we have learned that minds are easily poisoned by a sustained campaign of brainwashing. The poisoning the discussion with falsehood should not simply be left to ‘commentators’ to fix. That is an ineffective mechanism, we need no more proof.
        To me the much harder question is- who will decide what is true, what is politically correct, and just how much culpability the speaker has for crimes committed by his encouragement?

        1. Hickory,

          I agree and in the past few years I am almost convinced in this universe of ours with its laws, we may find seldom situations where right and wrong or good and evil are straightforward to choose or pick out respectively. Most situations are just too complex to be adequately analysed, especially with regards to human behaviour.

          On the superficial level everything seems simple. And that is the political game play in my opinion, where you prune the branches of a “problem”. The roots of most things is an intricate complex web and seldom gets touched, because it cannot be seen by most humans.

          Take Carl Panzram for e.g. One of the most notorious serial killers in U.S history. On the surface of it, easy to make a case for executing him. But if you read his autobiography, you get a deeper insight into how an innocent kid can become a monster. He could easily be seen as a victim of circumstance. Generally we reap what we sow. This person could have easily been you or me Hickory. I have to bring up Dostoyevsky here, his book crime and punishment and notes from the underground are precisely what we are touching on here.
          “Are we ever really free if all we ever choose is what optimizes our advantage in life?!”
          The man was a genius and a visionary whose words are still pertinent today.

          Same can be said about Nazism. The ground was ripe for a character like Hitler to grow. He didn’t come out of nowhere. You put people under any form of pressure long enough, human beings can do the vilest things that we can’t even imagine. Look at Stalins Nazino Island, where people turned into cannibals hunting each other. Human history is full of these atrocities.

          I agree with Thomas Hobbes and Immanuel Kant regarding this, humans in my opinion are inherently evil (Kant phrase is radical evil). It is part of our biological determinism in my opinion, basically Richard Dawkins selfish gene. Experiments have shown humans are inherently racist, i think it’s just part of biological evolution. Check this paper out:
          https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23246533/
          Now the environmental conditions will probably dictate how much these genes are expressed or not. Education is still pertinent here regardless of our biological programming in my opinion.

          Your first question regarding are we smart enough for democracy? I am somewhat critical of democracy, reading Platos the republic, i believe Socrates makes some great criticism of democracy as an effective system of government. In saying that I don’t know what we can replace it with and i dont want that kind of responsibility on my shoulders. (Socrates discusses his ideal form of government in that book). I am in the camp that thinks, the only thing keeping peoples ‘radical evil’ at bay is western civilisation and its industrial society providing the basic necessities relatively easily. If we were to pull this away “radical evil” will show itself in full force.

          I totally understand everything else you’ve said. We need harsh laws to protect the innocent. It’s sad but this is our nature brought to you by evolution. One has to see the dark web to get an idea of how wretched and for a lack of a better word evil human appetites and desires get. There was an arrest in Australia a few years ago of this guy who kidnapped kids and tortured them live on webcam (on the darkweb) where other pedophiles and sick humans beings where watching (and paying for requests). At times one feels ashamed to belong to such a species.

          Now i don’t want to get too philosophical here, but this is why i refuse to bring children into this world. I just cannot for the life of me see why someone would do that logically. Why would anyone yank a soul out of that blessed state of non-existent into this horror show ?

          Your last question is the most pertinent regarding this topic. Once again it’s just impossible to answer that question with any degree of certainty. One thing is for sure, whoever answer that question with certainty is either biased, wrong, or performing the art of propaganda.

          1. Thank you Iron Mike for the reply.
            I concur with the way you see these things.
            It is stunning, how deep into the mess we are.

  26. Trailer to a great netflix documentary call the great hack, regarding the influencing of elections/people (via cambridge analytica and other firms) via using peoples data to render the process of democracy useless. Big tech firms are now nothing short of evil kleptocracies.

    ” Data has surpassed oil in terms of value..”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX8GxLP1FHo

    Highly recommend people to watch this. Even though ironically netflix will collect your data when you watch it.

    2. Iron Mike , Cambridge Analytica is evil personified . The ruling party in India used their services to swing the elections . Now the people suffer because they brought a fascist party to power . FB , Twitter censor most of the posts which are anti govt on the request from the IB ministry . Google, FB, Twitter all are SOB’s .

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