74 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, May 29, 2021”

  1. New Hollywood film ‘Dark Waters’ highlights the shocking reality of PFAS pollution

    “PFAS (per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances) are known as the ‘forever chemicals’ as they do not break down easily and will persist in the environment for decades. PFAS are used in a wide range of consumer products, including non-stick pans, cosmetics, waterproof clothing, grease-proof paper and cardboard food packaging. They have been linked to a number of health issues including reduced response to vaccines, certain cancers, and thyroid disease.

    The film tells the real-life story of Rob Bilott, the lawyer who took on chemical company DuPont, after discovering the company was knowingly polluting drinking water with PFAS. Though the film portrays PFAS pollution in the US, it is also an issue across Europe and the UK, as CHEM Trust has highlighted in our recent briefing: PFAS – the ‘forever chemicals’, Invisible threats from persistent chemicals.”

    Scared about ‘forever chemicals’ after watching Dark Waters? Here’s what you need to know.
    Many manufacturers have stopped using PFOA—but they’ve switched to other chemicals that could be just as bad.

    “And, after decades of use, the chemicals are virtually everywhere. Not only do they stick around forever, they’re soluble in water and that makes them very mobile. In 2001, researchers reported PFAS in bald eagles and albatrosses on Sand Island in the Midway Atoll, located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. We humans all have about five parts per billion in our blood, says Graham Peaslee, nuclear physicist at the University of Notre Dame who has studied the chemicals. PFAS bioaccumulate, meaning they build over time in our blood and tissues as we’re continually exposed to tiny amounts. They also biomagnify, which means they become more concentrated as they move up the food chain, so top predators have the highest concentrations. That’s why polar bears have been found to have around 300 parts per billion, says Peaslee.

    The risks of ‘safer’ alternatives

    PFAS come in long-chain and short-chain varieties. PFOA, also called C-8, has a chain of eight carbon atoms and is in the long-chain category with PFOS. Now, many major manufacturers have phased out PFOS and PFOA and replaced them with short-chain alternatives. It’s thought that the short-chain molecules are expelled from the body faster, making them safer.

    But there really isn’t that much research to demonstrate short-chain PFAS are safer. And the research that has been done suggests that ‘the risk level is at least comparable’…”

    I’ve seen the film and aside from a heads up on that kind of pollution, it’s also good in other regards and recommended.

  2. An interesting comment on OFW .
    ” ” In theory, if a huge amount of transition were done, perhaps steel and concrete could be produced in reasonable quantities with only the “All Other” types of energy, but someone would need to figure out precisely how this could be accomplished, including the time frame required. ”

    Unfortunately, it’s far more complicated than just the energy deficit. Most people don’t seem to get the complex economic dependencies of the current global petroleum industry. While most people understand how dilution and depletion economics impact petroleum and petro industry based fuels for transportation and heating – that’s as far as their understanding goes of petroleum.

    What people are missing is that other industries are not only dependent on the availability of petroleum fuels for energy, they are also dependent on the economies-of-scale of the petroleum industry. The economy-of-scale of the petroleum industry disproportionately impacts the petro-chemical industry which uses only about 5% of petroleum, yet global food production is now 95% dependent on NPK and crop management chemicals that come from the petro chemical industry. The petro chemical industry is highly dependent (if not directly subsidized) on the petroluem industry. The petro chemical industry depends on the global petroleum industry for oil exploration costs, oil well drilling costs, oil storage and distribution, and petro chemical feed stock refining costs. The scale of the petro chemical industry is so much smaller than the over petroleum energy industry, that there no chance that the petro chemical industry can provide all functions of the larger petroluem industry – were it to be drastically reduced in economy of scales – without huge increases in the costs of petro chemicals. Those cost increases would impact the cost of NPK chemical fertilizers and crop management chemicals – dramatically increasing food production costs. They would effect the cost of all the plastics that go into wind turbines and solar panels.

    What people don’t get is that even if it were possible for the world to exist only on renewable energy, (which no real expert believes is possible with current technologies – maybe 40% electrical energy will be renewable in two decades – and that is likely naive and over confident) it isn’t possible for renewable energy to provide essential petro chemical feed stocks, or at anywhere near their current costs – if at all. One of the most direct impacts for creating wide spread chaos are food price increases and or food shortages. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_riot)

    We can agree that politicians would not want to touch this topic in best case. In the worst case – assuming they were informed enough to be aware in the best case. Observing recent and current politicians in both parties – provides little confidence or comfort that they are suitably informed about growing overpopulation impacts like resource dilution and depletion economics – much less the economic impacts coming from the declining scales of the petroleum industry.

    Good news for environmentalist – the anthropogenic climate change problem will be solved. Bad news for most of the rest of us – it was solved with a human population collapse. “

    1. Every real expert knows that it’s trivial for the whole world to exist on renewable energy.

      However, you have a good point: as the petroleum industry loses economies of scale, the prices of plastics, petrochemicals, petroleum lubricants, asphalt, etc. will go way up. It’s going to happen.

      In fact, it’s already started. Google it — asphalt prices have been rising for the last six years, even as oil prices fall. As refineries close and shrink, the surviving refineries are more recently constructed ones which produce less asphalt due to having cokers. It’s loss of economies of scale.

      2. > Every real expert knows that it’s trivial for the whole world to exist on renewable energy.

        I agree. Humans existed for millennia on renewable energy alone. You are probably aware that we only started using fossil fuels some 200 years ago. However can 8 billion or more of our species live on renewable energy? Well, that’s an easy no.

    2. H in H-
      “even if it were possible for the world to exist only on renewable energy, (which no real expert believes is possible with current technologies ”
      That might have been true 10 years ago. But now that statement only shows the ignorance, or bias, of the author you quote. The reserves (economically and technically viable on this very day) are massive well beyond all of humanities consumption. What is in short supply is the intention to get off fossil fuel, and the industrial capacity specifically targeted at renewables deployment, and perhaps the raw material to get the job done. As to that last point (raw materials), the conclusion to that story is unknown. But there is not much choice but to travel down that path and see just how far the task of fossil fuel replacement can accomplish.
      See the post below on copper, as an example.

      As to the bigger point of your posting, yeh- downsizing is going to be painful as hell.

    3. What or who is “OFW”?

      I don’t have any real idea how we are fixed, globally, in terms of recoverable rare earth metals, but my impression for now is that there are plentiful supplies of them in the ground, at potentially affordable prices, if the political and economic factors work out satisfactorily.

      It’s probably more a question of whether we will do what we have to do to secure adequate supplies, on the political front, than anything else.

      China and maybe a couple of other countries can produce them cheaply, and in the case of China, sell them at throat cutting prices if it suits the Chinese leadership, as necessary, to prevent any other countries and companies from making the necessary investments in mining and refining them.

      Personally I think we should provide any subsidies necessary to get our domestic rare earth industry up and running strong, and cut such deals as necessary with potential suppliers who will come down on our side in the event the historical cold war flares up hot, with China and her allies on the other side next time around.

      We simply can’t afford to be on the wrong side of a supply crisis brought on by political considerations such as possible Chinese expansionist policies.

      1. Agree with your gist.
        Regarding “possible Chinese expansionist policies”
        I don’t think physical expansion of their borders (other than absorbing Formosa) is their intention.
        Rather, they desire to control a large market sphere in order to shape their own future rather than be shaped by Europe, the USA or anyone else.
        Paramount is energy, and keeping the oil , nat gas and coal flowing towards them as long as possible.
        When push comes to shove, they will flex their economic and military might [if necessary], to control the flow of resources that they need.
        I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong end of that competition (like the USA already is). The momentum is on their side.

  4. Has anyone read Blip: Humanity’s 300-year self-terminating experiment with industrialism by Christopher O. Clogston? For us old-time peakers, it’s nothing new; in fact, it’s old hat. But it’s still a hoot. Ron mentioned the book here awhile back. It’s well done.

    It’s like Jay Hanson all over again, but more scholarly, and “peak oil” is never mentioned but “peak” everything else is–peak “NNR” (non-renewable natural resources), peak societal wellbeing, etc. Clogston places oil within the context of ALL other diminishing, depleting, non-replenishing resources. The fate of the rare metals is some scary shit. According to him, we’re in for a real shit show–beginning RIGHT ABOUT NOW.

  5. So much for the fewer people mantra. 😉

    CHINA ALLOWS COUPLES TO HAVE THREE CHILDREN

    “It will come with supportive measures, which will be conducive to improving our country’s population structure, fulfilling the country’s strategy of actively coping with an ageing population and maintaining the advantage, endowment of human resources.”

    Meanwhile, over in Japan women are having, on average, only 1.4 kids — far below the replacement rate, a country where adult diapers outsell baby diapers in supermarkets. Should this demographic dilemma be termed a “crisis” ?

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57303592

    1. I wonder how many Chinese couples will actually go for the three kids.

      Now that they have a middle class, and the rural more or less peasant class is shrinking, as a percentage of the total population, it seems likely to me that most of the younger couples, especially the ones in the towns and cities, will have come to understand that having only one or at the most two kids means a lot higher personal standard of living for the parents.
      More disposable income, more free time, more money to be spend per kid with only one or two, etc.

    1. Maybe you could take out the engine and sleep in it?
      I’m trying to conceive of some value.

  8. When I was a teenager in the 1970’s I repeatedly heard that all copper would gone by year 2000- the global supply depleted.

    Well here we are in 2021, facing peak oil and with the only known viable replacements to fossil fuel (electrical based energy like- solar, wind, nuc, hydro) requiring higher rates of copper supply to enable the shift in energy production.
    And so where do we stand with global copper reserves? Lets remind ourselves that ‘reserves’ are a reflection of that which is both technically and financially viable to bring to market at current prices, If the prices goes up, the reserves go up unless geologic depletion becomes an overriding factor.
    Current estimates are that we still have around 40 years of reserves currently available.
    In real dollar terms, the price of copper is in the same rough range it has been for the past 100 years.
    Here is the consumption and reserve chart up through 2017.
    https://copperalliance.org/about-copper/long-term-availability/

    1. And what other resources are necessary for those reserves to be viable? Or maybe someone will invent self-producing , self-refining, self-transporting copper reserves?
      Every challenge is another economic opportunity! Right?

    2. Hickory,
      When I was in college in the 80s I heard the story that Africa would never get phones because there wasn’t enough copper on the planet to cover such a huge continent with land lines.

      Now the number of phone lines is pushing 1 billion, but they are almost all mobile, so the copper problem doesn’t exist.

      Copper is mostly recycled. It is a good example of the circular economy. Future shortages will have to be dealt with by using the resource more efficiently.

  9. Hi all,

    I had a problem with the website yesterday and had the webhosting service help me fix it by about 6:30 this morning.

    Unfortunately someone at the webhost company followed up later today and reset all the data back to May 27, deleting comments and posts back to that date. Luckily I made a backup at 3 AM today (Monday June 1) and was able to restore comments to that point in time. Unfortunately all of the comments from 3 AM to 5PM which were made today have been lost.

    I am sorry.

    Will get in the habit of making daily backups.

  10. Photovoltaic energy at levels of insolation present in over 90% of the worlds countries now costs the equivalent of less than 40$/barrel of oil, per mile of an equivalent cost vehicle.

  11. Oh well, we can always get serious about our fossil fuel dependency in 2022, or maybe 2030!

    G7 NATIONS INVEST MORE IN FOSSIL FUELS THAN CLEAN ENERGY DESPITE PLEDGES

    “These investments — including the many direct support measures and environmental deregulations adopted in favour of the fossil fuel industry — are inconsistent with the steep decline in emissions needed to limit global warming to 1.5°C and with G7 countries’ own net-zero targets.”

    https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/G7-Nations-Invest-More-In-Fossil-Fuels-Than-Clean-Energy-Despite-Pledges.html

    1. Most of The USA’s population growth in the past 30 years has been to southern and southwestern states that are 15 degrees warmer on average than the northern states people are coming from but still we are told we will destroy the planet if it is 1.5 degrees warmer.

      1. People started moving closer to the equator about the time fossil-fueled air conditioning was invented.
        Maybe you can invent a fairy dust-fueled system to cool the oceans, save the reefs, all that.

        1. Right! I lived in Tucson, AZ in the 60’s and 70’s. All most people had then were Swamp Coolers (Evaporative). Even that started the population increase. In the 80’s A/C started taking over and the population started exploding. I got the hell out. In the 40’s and 50’s the population of Tucson and Phoenix (averages 9 degrees hotter than Tucson) were minuscule compared. You’ve never lived until you’ve experienced 110+ degrees without some kind of cooling. I saw 99 degrees at midnight regularly. BTW, same but worse goes for Las Vegas, NV. Without A/C these places would shrink to a tiny fraction.

      2. Shiloh. You joking around, or do you really have such poor understanding of these issues?

        Think about corn. No kernels happen if there is poor pollination. Heat stress on corn … ‘does not occur until the temperature exceeds 86 degrees Fahrenheit with dry soils or 92 degrees with adequate soil moisture and high humidity.’
        When the average global temperature goes up 1.5 degree C, the number of days/year that will be very hot and dry over the corn belt of USA and Canada will be much higher than in prior times. The risk of poor yield goes up. Its not complicated.

  12. I have watched at least a dozen of Sabine Hossenfelder’s Youtube videos. I loved them all, especially the one where she says the Multiverse is religion, not science. She is a German physicist and most of her videos are on quantum mechanics and related subjects. But when I saw this one I simply had to watch it immediately. It shocked me to the core. How could this petite young female scientists use such gutter language? But she has strong opinions on “Things that piss her off”. This video is about climate change, politicians, Trump, and politicians in general. But mostly it’s about what science says.

    Follow the Science? Nonsense, I say.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGVIJSW0Y3k

    2. Thanks Ron! I look forward to watching more of her videos.
      Refreshing to here some straight talk.

      Unlike most people, I am not a fan of Fauci. If you are a scientist and a politician (trump) tries to suppress your message, then you should tell him to fuck off loud and clear rather than try to placate him. Placating him just enabled him.
      And yet “Despite it all, Fauci maintained he was never influenced by politics or deterred from speaking the truth.” If that is the case he had no business being in his position, since he failed to give a concrete and straight message publicly until far too late in the game. I saw a white house press conference in late April, and he still wasn’t wearing a mask. I don’t think it was until May sometime.
      Of course he was intimidated by the politician.

      1. I have very mixed feelings about Fauci myself, it terms of his standing up for the truth under political pressure.
        But I also take into account that given trump’s usual ways, he was probably doing everything he possibly could to get a resignation or an excuse to fire him, and then replace him with a REAL political ass kisser, and maybe fire a lot of other deserving people a few rungs down the ladder as well.

        In the end, it may have worked out best that the public saw trump acting this way, and Fauci just hanging in there, as the reality of the pandemic finally sunk in to some trump voters and undecided voters.

        I have concluded over the last couple of years that it’s literally impossible to overestimate the ignorance of the voting public, taken as a whole. But some things like trump pissing on Fauci publicly time after time do in the end result in some people coming to see the truth.

        Trump voters were going to vote for him anyway, under almost any circumstances, but some middle of the roaders probably finally had the scales fall away from their eyes.

        1. Yes, and I have heard similar reasons that others in various sectors government felt that it was reasonable to stay in government during trumps reign, and placate the authoritarian,
          I don’t accept that argument. It is how horrible leaders get enabled. When you are pressured to do wrong- it is time to say adios.

          Fauci was a scientist filling a post where his recommendations were being solicited and broadcast to the country.
          He should have been much more straightforward about what was science- known and unknown, vs what was opinion/politically motivated positions.
          He allowed the issues to be blurred into a limp mess.
          In the name of being likeable.
          Was it so hard to say- all indications are that this illness is primarily airborne, and the spread of airborne illnesses can be blunted by staying far apart from other people and wearing a face covering- In February 2020.

    3. I don’t think the many worlds theory is a religion. Religions have rituals, hierarchies and institutions, there’s nothing like that among the multiverse theorists. It may be a faith, but it’s more akin to atheism as the main connecting theme is a rejection of the Copenhagen thingy. From what I can see she is not rejecting the theory, only that it may be presented as ‘science’ by some in the community.

      The main objection people have to it is that it doesn’t feel like we are constantly ‘splitting’. But as Everett said, referencing Copernicus, it doesn’t much feel like we’re on a moving, rotating planet, yet we undoubtedly are. If you drive down a motorway which splits, you don’t notice, and neither do the drivers taking the alternative route. Another objection is ‘where are all the others?’. I wouldn’t pretend to know enough to give a rigorous answer but a 2D character on a page in a graphic novel could well say the same about all the other pges. We barely understand 4D spacetime, We don’t have brains capable of understanding higher dimensions (I’ve lost count where we are up to 7, 11 or 12 I think), except as abstract symbols on a page (and then only a few of us, me very much not included).

      The many worlds theory gets is a lot cleaner than anything else and gets rid of a lot of crappy and unnecessary postulates and assumptions, at the expense only of admitting that there is a bunch of stuff presently, and maybe permanently, beyond our ken, None of which makes it true. Just as any good model it may not be wholly true but it is definitely useful, and I find it extremely elegant, almost on a par with evolution, especially as it appears so simple initially but quickly results in overwhelming complexity once you get into the details.

      Additionally Spiderman: Into the multiverse is one of the best superhero movies ever, no news of a sequel yet, unfortunately. But Eels, the band Everett’s son leads, isn’t really my cup of tea.

      1. Many Worlds is useful? I think it appeals to physicists because it takes them away from “the hard problem of consciousness” which Copenhagen etc imply. I too find Many Worlds on a par with evolution, both being theoretically possible but highly improbable. IMHO.

        1. John, the many-worlds theory does not appeal to very many physicists, only a tiny fraction of them. The multiverse theory does appeal to most of them however because it is the only theory that explains the fine-tuning problem that they can accept. Perhaps 90 percent of physicians agree that the universe is fine-tuned. And once that is accepted that leaves only two explanations, the multiverse or some kind of god-like being started it all.

          Evolution is highly improbable? No, it is not! Evolution has been proven over and over again. But creationists will never accept it because it violates their worldview.

          Everything that can be explained by evolution should be explained by evolution. Nothing is more probable and provable than the fact that all life on earth evolved. Evolution is just a hard-cold fact, whether creationists like it or not.

          But the laws and forces that rule the universe did not evolve. The elementary particles that make up the universe, the quarks, the gluons, the electrons, protons, neutrinos did not evolve. They popped into existence in the first few seconds of the Big Bang.

          1. I must say I thought you had a rather more open mind than that.

            1. George, I do have an open mind. But it’s not so open that my brains fall out.

              I don’t know which part of my post you find close-minded. I do hope it is not the part where I say evolution is a hard-cold fact.

              But if it is the part about all the particles, laws, and forces in the universe popping into existence in the first few seconds of the Big Bang, that is not just my opinion. That is I did not just dream it up myself. That is the opinion of the vast majority of physicists and cosmologists. And I have been doing almost nothing but reading and watching Youtube videos of their opinion for the last two or three years.

      2. The many-worlds theory is absolutely the dumbest, stupidest thing ever to come down the pike. While most, but far from all, physicists embrace the multiverse theory the vast majority of them totally dismiss the many-worlds version of the multiverse theory. Less than half a dozen physicists think the many-worlds theory is feasible, even though Sean Carroll and Alan Guth are among that half dozen. Remember, there are several versions of the multiverse theory. The many-worlds theory is only one of them.

        It is not just the world that is splitting off into another world but the whole universe that is splitting off into another universe. And every universe that has already split off will be splitting off into two different universes as well. In other words, the total number of universes will be doubling every split. And this will be happening almost in Planck time. But if it happened only once a second, after just 5 minutes, there would be 1,018,517,988,167,240,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 universes. One times 10 to the 90th in just 5 minutes. That’s about one billion times the number of atoms in the universe. And that number would double in the next second, and double again in the next.

        No, the multiverse theory is not religion but it is like religion as it cannot be proven, falsified, or even tested. It must be believed entirely on faith. Just like religion.

        1. Ron,

          I believe from memory that the MWI is offered as an explanation for quantum theory. It’s consequence is a multiverse of sorts.

          The more mainstream multiverse theory is the result of cosmological inflationary theory proposed most prominently by Alan Guth as you mentioned.

          Theoretical physics is in someways a mathematical form of religion. Multiverse and string hypothesis falls into the “Not even wrong” category. Which doesn’t follow the strict guidelines of the scientific method.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong

          In saying that, I disagree with the anthropic principle, that universe is fine-tuned for life. If one looks at the whole spectrum of natural laws in my view that certainly isn’t the case. In fact i would go as far as saying that the universe is unfriendly for life.

          1. I believe from memory that the MWI is offered as an explanation for quantum theory. Its consequence is a multiverse of sorts.

            Yes, it is, or rather was. Schrodinger’s Cat is alive in one universe but dead in the universe that just split off. Insane, like using a sledgehammer to kill an ant.

            I have “Not Even Wrong” on my Kendle but have not got around to reading it yet. There are just so many books on the subject that I cannot possibly read them all. And there are hundreds of youtube videos on the subject. It would take you a year to watch them all if that’s all you did all day long.

            The Anthropic Principle is just stupid. We should just forget about it. Forget about the universe being fine-tuned for life. The universe is just fine-tuned… period. That was fine-tuned at the Big Bang to create stars and galaxies. Those stars would fuse hydrogen into heavier elements and when they exploded they would create all the elements heavier than iron. Then from that supernova dust, more stars would form and these stars would have planets. Some of these planets would be rocky with liquid water. And on some of these planets life would evolve. End of story. Once you get to rocky planets with liquid water, no further explanation is needed.

            I disagree with your statement that the universe is unfriendly to life. That statement is just too broad. After all, the earth is part of the universe and the earth is not unfriendly to life. You should have said something to the effect that “the vast majority of the universe is unfriendly to life”.

            If on average, only one star in every 100 billion stars has a rocky planet with liquid water, then there would still be 500 billion planets that could allow life to evolve. (That’s using the figure of 5 times10 to the 22 power stars in the universe. The official guess is 3 to 7 times 10 to the 22 power stars in the known universe.)

            1. Ron,

              I agree there are tons of material regarding the topic. My favourite is Atomic physics and reality:

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFvJOZ51tmc

              This documentary is an absolute gem with old school heavy weights in the field of physics.

              Regarding my views on fine-tuning, and the typical view that the scale of the universe implies a lot of opportunities for life to have evolved. Bacterium and semi complex life-forms might be rampant in the universe but complex life very rare, intelligent life almost close to 0 (only us) in my opinion. This is an extremely well made video regarding this view, one which i find affinity with.

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqEmYU8Y_rI

            2. Iron Mike —

              “Bacterium and semi complex life-forms might be rampant in the universe but complex life very rare, intelligent life almost close to 0 (only us) in my opinion.”

              Those sound like words from the mouth of a preacher or priest. So, do you deny that any species here on Earth, other than mankind, is intelligent? What about dolphins and whales: bigger brain, language, altruistic. You seem to focus on a species that, after a VERY VERY short time on Earth, seems Hell bent on self destruction, is capable of frequent insane acts of cruelty (not to mention genocide), is incapable of even controlling their numbers on a finite world and calling them intelligent. Maybe a truly intelligent creature from another would be wise enough to sigh, give Earth a pass and look for intelligence elsewhere, as you might walk past a shark tank at your local aquarium.

            3. Doug,

              I don’t want to get into semantics here.

              Intelligence in the context of the topic is a self-aware sentient being which poses philosophical questions to itself such as why am I here ? Or the very question of whether there is other lifeforms in the universe. No other species in this context ask such questions. I hope that clears up the definition of the word intelligent within this context.

              You mentioned dolphins and whales. Killer whale pod attacking a blue whale and not for food. Clip:

              https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/killer-whale-attacks-blue-whale-monterey-drone-video

              Dolphins kill for fun and brutally, they seem to have murderous tendencies. Dolphins are also known to rape. A lot of documented sources on this.

              https://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/06/health/evidence-puts-dolphins-in-new-light-as-killers.html

              My conclusion is that if any other species had our type of consciousness which leads to a self-ware intelligence they would more or less follow the same path of destruction we have. It is ingrained in every life form, but most or all creatures that seem to kill for fun are mammalian which speaks volumes in an of itself.

              https://www.ranker.com/list/animals-that-hunt-for-sport/laura-allan

              I don’t believe in altruism in nature. It will always have a biological determinism aspect to it such as reciprocity or kin selection.

          2. I am not even qualified to be called a novice on these topics of many worlds, and universe tuning,
            But my unschooled sense is that the universe is not ‘fined tuned’ for life.
            There is no tuning- it simply is what it is.
            It just so happens to be feasible for life. And that is it.
            How feasible? No one knows. I’d say barely feasible.

            But apparently barely feasible worked at least once. And worked in dramatic fashion.
            And maybe life worked out a billion other times.
            No guarantee that any of those other billion possibilities ever got beyond anything more than equivalent to what we call the prokaryote stage of complexity.
            It is entirely possible that this conversation will only happen here, and nowhere else in the universe/multiverse ever. That is my assumption. A lonely conversation for a brief moment in the big scheme of cold black.
            Savor the moment.

            pardon the simplistic level of thought- unschooled as I indicated

            1. The universe isn’t tuned for life.
              Rather life is finely tuned for the universe, at least this once.
              The feasibility life has been proved once.

              Unintentionally tuned- We call it evolution.
              The foundation of life was the evolution of organic chemistry.
              That is not unique to earth, and in fact is likely ubiquitous in the universe.
              Progression from complex organic chemistry to cellular life is not a trivial matter,
              and could have happened just once.
              That is my assumption.
              Laugh me out of the room if you please. I’ll just walk around in the garden.

            2. But my unschooled sense is that the universe is not ‘fined tuned’ for life.

              Well, the “for life” part of that statement is ambiguous. What the universe is fine tuned for is for is the universe itself. If it were not fine-tuned there would be no stars, galaxies, or rocky planets with liquid water. The universe is fine-tuned for the creation of every element in the periodic table via Stellar nucleosynthesis.

              The best book ever printed on the subject, Cosmological Fine-Tuning Arguments put it this way, bold mine:

              This is not another book on the scientific phenomenon of cosmic fine-tuning. This case has been made convincingly by many experts, including
              Stephen Hawking, Leonard Mlodinow, Luke Barnes, Geraint F. Lewis,
              Leonard Susskind, Robin Collins, Paul Davies, Martin Rees, John Barrow, John Leslie, and many others

              And indeed there are many others. I could name at least a dozen others who agree with these physicists. And only perhaps half a dozen would argue with them. In other words, the matter is settled, according to all these eminent physicists, the universe is definitely fine-tuned. The only question that remains is: How did it get that way?

            3. Ron- I get bogged down on terminology with this whole discussion. ‘Tuning’ implies an intentional effort to adjust (right)?
              Beyond that, my humble mind rejects Stephen Hawkins take on it- “As Stephen Hawking has noted, “The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron. … The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life.”

              No, the there was no fine adjustment- it simply happened as is did, and does.
              And with the process of a billion billion chemical experiments a collection of stable organic molecules eventually formed the building blocks of fragments of what we call metabolism.
              And eventually biologic evolution came to begin, working with what was and is available, eventually internalizing and experimenting with these metabolic building blocks. It was not a pre-order meal, rather the meal was created with the ingredients available.
              The universe was not tuned. It simply is what it is. And life then worked with what was available.

              Now is the time when you tell me that I don’t understand the whole discussion,
              and I say- ‘ok, you have more experience. I will go off and study for a decade. Thank you for introducing me to the topic’.

            4. Hickory,

              I wrote two replies then trashed them both. I agree with your last statement. You simply don’t understand what the debate is all about, or even what the subject of the debate is.

              Thanks for the exchange.

        2. Actually I was supposed to reply to this post rather than the one above about evolution. “The many-worlds theory is absolutely the dumbest, stupidest thing ever to come down the pike.” Does not count as open minded however you want to dress it up. More dumb than intelligent design, flat earth, climate denial, original sin, magical underwear, transporting the world to a terra formed mars, string theory, infinite growth on a finite planet, Trump making a passable president, any thought that may pass through Trumps mind on any day of his life? It’s got one characteristic at least of a formal religion – it gets people really hot under the collar over things that have almost no relevance to their day to day lives.

          I was aware of the fine tuning issue and the multiverse solution but, without looking into it much further, had always thought it was just part of the many worlds theory and, from Googling a couple of papers and articles, it looks like it might be. I don’t think they are necessary different – each multiverse might have a huge number of man worlds or each many world could have the same number of multiverses as the others or they could be the same thing with some complicated linkage going back to the first tiny fraction of second of the universe(s). I haven’t seen anything to rule any of those out and I’ll remain open to them until something definitively does – and it would have to be really cogent to get rid of something as elegant as many worlds, however difficult it is to conceive of.

          The fine tuning issue has never seemed a particular big deal to me – I can’t see why adding the high improbability of getting things just right to the high improbability of any universe forming in the first place means that the resultant really high improbability of us being here needs a special, and not particularly elegant, theory tacked on. And I always go back to a question I have never seen addressed let alone answered: before there was a universe there was no time or space, so what do ‘improbable’ and ‘probable’ actually mean in that context; is everything really inevitable because, without time, there can be no concept of ‘waiting’ for something to happen.

          The “it’s deist gods/aliens behind it all” thing seems even more improbable – first somehow their goldilocks universe would have to form, then they’d have to become capable of, and decide to, create us, on nothing more than a whim. The laws of physics in their universe would appear to have to be different to ours – e.g. quantum effects would have to be not just deterministic rather than appearing to be stochastic, but actually controllable. Second the speed of light, which has always seemed to me to proscribe any possibility of interaction between different worlds, would need to be many times larger. So we could be in a Star Trek/Wars like scenario and be able to nip over to Betelgeuse to buy the Betelgeusian Sunday Bugle and a tube of toothpaste and be back for lunch without both being about 500,000 years younger than the people we left behind, and vapourising the Earth with the amount of energy we’d need to use to brake when returning (in fact the last isn’t a speed of light thing, it would have to mean our first law of thermodynamics no longer applied and/or that kinetic energy was no longer equivalent to heat so that’s number three). If you have faith in all that stuff then fair dos – I find it easier to believe than a supernatural theistic god – but it is closer to a religion than anything theoretical physicists get up to in their professional lives.

          Someone worked out an actual number for the number of many worlds – I think it was 10^88 (number of atoms in universe) ^6 (number of states atoms have in a second) ^13e9*365*24*60*60 (number of seconds since universe began). Huge but finite. And if they are fields of waves they don’t take any space, if they are x Dimension objects in a x+1 dimension world they don’t take any space, if they are represented by prime numbers then there is still an infinite number left over to label all the future multi-worlds before we run out. There was another theory for where they go, I think from one of Carrol’s co-workers, and all I can remember of it is that I didn’t understand it at the time.

  13. The FAO Food Price Index (FFPI) averaged 127.1 points in May 2021… 39.7 percent above the same period last year. The May increase represented the biggest month-on-month gain since October 2010. It also marked the twelfth consecutive monthly rise in the value of the FFPI to its highest value since September 2011… The sharp increase in May reflected a surge in prices for oils, sugar and cereals along with firmer meat and dairy prices.

    http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/foodpricesindex/en/

    1. John,

      Isn’t this one of the results of printing money (dollars) — in vast amounts? I know diddly squat about economics but assume the result of printing too much money is inflation. So, when countries simply print money, it leads to periods of rising prices (too many resources chasing too few goods) which (may) mean every day goods become unaffordable for ordinary citizens and the wages they earn quickly become worthless. The BIG question, I suppose, is the world, in general, and the U.S. in particular, printing too much money right now? Your call!

      1. Doug,

        The food index adjust for inflation, it shows the price of food in constant dollars (inflation adjusted) relative to general consumer goods (the entire consumer “basket” of goods typically consumed).

        In short, printing dollars might cause general inflation of all goods as in the CPI index inflation in the US, but the food index is looking at something different. In effect if the food index goes from 100 to 110 and consumer prices increase from 100 to 103, that food would have seen a 1.03*1.1 increase or roughly a 13% increase in food prices vs general inflation (for all goods) of 3%.

    2. The poorest people in the world are poor farmers. They are producers of food. Higher food prices help them.

  15. Anyone surprised?

    SAUDI AND RUSSIAN OIL PRODUCERS BENEFIT FROM “CLIMATE ACTIVISM”

    “Believe it or not, oil companies in Russia and Saudi Arabia are cheering on climate activists who are doing battle with names like Shell and Exxon. That’s because wins in the courtroom for activists against Shell, Chevron and Exxon have been a tailwind for Saudi Aramco, Abu Dhabi National Oil Co and Gazprom. The pressure for U.S. names to cut carbon emissions faster pushes more business to companies in Saudi Arabia and Russia, and to OPEC…

    It (the IEA report) is a sequel of the La La Land movie. Why should I take it seriously? We (Saudi Arabia) are … producing oil and gas at low cost and producing renewables. I urge the world to accept this as a reality: that we’re going to be winners of all of these activities…

    While Saudi Arabia claims to have targets to cut carbon emissions, it isn’t beholden to U.N.-backed targets or activist investors like Western companies are. Gazprom has indicated a shift to natural gas to try and manage its carbon emissions. Western names account for about 15% of all output globally, while Russia and OPEC make up about 40%. At the same time, global oil consumption has risen to 100 million barrels per day from 65 million barrels per day in 1990.”

    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/saudi-and-russian-oil-producers-benefit-climate-activism-lobbed-western-producers

    1. And,

      CLIMATE REVOLT AGAINST BIG OIL MAY LEAD TO SURGE IN CRUDE PRICES

      “The surge in climate activism demanding that Big Oil drastically cut emissions and shift strategies to investment in low-carbon energy instead of oil and gas could result in a surge in oil prices in the not-too-distant future. As much as environmentalists and activist shareholders want the major international oil firms to slash upstream investment further, the world’s energy system is not ready yet to deprive itself of the oil and gas resources that Big Oil is exploring and developing. As it stands, 80 percent of global energy is still being met by fossil fuels, and net-zero emission targets or not, the global transition to low-carbon sources of energy will take decades, not just years, and a shareholder meeting or two.”

      IN EUROPE, OIL MAJORS ARE PREPARING TO REDUCE EMISSIONS AND GRADUALLY SLOW OIL PRODUCTION OVER THE COMING DECADES AS PER THEIR NET-ZERO BY 2050 PLEDGES. HOWEVER, THOSE FIRMS ARE ALSO AWARE OF THE FACT THAT IT WILL BE OIL AND GAS PROFITS THAT WILL PAY FOR THEIR ‘ENERGY TRANSITION’ PORTFOLIOS.

      https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Climate-Revolt-Against-Big-Oil-May-Lead-To-Surge-In-Crude-Prices.html

      1. For emphasis-I restate from the article (Dougs)
        “As much as environmentalists and activist shareholders want the major international oil firms to slash upstream investment further, the world’s energy system is not ready yet to deprive itself of the oil and gas resources that Big Oil is exploring and developing. As it stands, 80 percent of global energy is still being met by fossil fuels, and net-zero emission targets or not, the global transition to low-carbon sources of energy will take decades”

        Many people are extremely naive in this regard. If the goal of humanity is to avoid an energy shortage nightmare scenario, its got to develop and deploy solar and wind production before the decline of fossil fuel gets dramatic. Emphasis on ‘before’.
        On the other hand, if the goal is force an energy shortfall and therefore a rapid decline in economic activity (severe depression) and resultant decline in population levels, then by all means the best path is to go very slow on renewables deployment. Slow and lazy, like we do now.

        1. Renewable energy sources will not save, in the future. All the same, the time will come (well, at least in 10,000 years), it will end
          coal, oil, gas, deposits of copper, bauxite and so on. This means there will be problems with the production of green energy. Humanity is waiting for the fate of the inhabitants of Easter Island. Of course, you should not think about the future, you need to solve today’s problems.

        2. Hickory —
          Put another way, if you are about to hit a brick wall, it makes sense to hit the brakes. Even it this doesn’t prevent you from hitting the wall, it lessens the damage of the impact.

          Saying that renewable energy won’t save the world is like saying don’t hit the brakes, we’ll hit the wall anyway. I wouldn’t let anyone with that attitude behind the wheel.

          1. Alim…-“Saying that renewable energy won’t save the world is like saying don’t hit the brakes, we’ll hit the wall anyway.”
            Its not how I see it.
            When people say ‘save the world’ in regard to renewables, they may mean reverse global world, or provide as much energy as we get from fossil fuels and allow business as usual, or they may mean enabling of local energy production, or saving the environment from habitat degradation. I don’t expect any of those things to miraculously occur just from switching energy sources. It certainly doesn’t cure population overshoot- the root of most of the problems (the other being human character).
            Regardless, I think its a silly topic of discussion, and usually used a blanket technique to disregard someones point or news. I just said it in earlier post in attempt to put that stupid line of argument aside.
            There are other excellent reasons to shift toward renewables.

  16. Posting this here as well, since it may be of interest to a few-

    I don’t hear many complaints from people about the prime land going for corn ethanol production, but plenty of people saying that solar is unrealistic since it takes up too much land.
    Well, I put some real world numbers to it-

    The USA grows corn for ethanol (2019) on 36 million acres- the size of Iowa. All on prime farmland. The yield of 15.8 billion gallons of ethanol has an energy content of 1.2 Quads (quadrillion btu’s). That’s 1.2 Quads/yr.
    If current day average USA utility scale photovoltaic was deployed on the same amount of acreage [except lets move it to land ranked very poor for agriculture and forest], the btu output for the year would be 40.9 Quads!
    That’s right- 34 times as much energy output from the same acreage total.

    For perspective, the USA end use total consumption of all energy is 69.7 Quads (latest data), and the transportation sector at 24.3 Quads is 35% of the total.

    note- the equation is actually poorer for ethanol since a majority of the energy content of the fuel is lost during combustion, whereas with the electricity that is not the case.
    “EVs convert over 77% of the electrical energy from the grid to power at the wheels (includes battery cycling losses). Conventional gasoline vehicles only convert about 12%–30% of the energy stored in gasoline to power at the wheels.”

  17. The “only intelligent species” in the universe busy nurturing Nature. What would a dumb species do? 😉

    BRAZILIAN AMAZON DEFORESTATION HITS RECORD FOR MAY

    “A total of 1,180 square kilometers of the Amazon was lost in May, representing a 41 percent increase compared to the same month in 2020. It was the third straight month in which such a record was set. If the increased monthly figures continue in June and July, it would mean an unprecedented fourth record year (from August to July) of deforestation in a row.”

    BTW with roughly 10^23 stars in the Universe (and counting) it is a brave man indeed who thinks homo sapiens are the only self aware critters out there. And, besides Humans, self-aware critters here on Earth (if that’s your criteria) include: Orangutans, Chimpanzees, Gorillas, Bottlenose Dolphins, Elephants, Orcas, Bonobos, Rhesus Macaques, European Magpies (and counting)

    https://phys.org/news/2021-06-brazilian-amazon-deforestation.html

    1. Doug,

      I addressed your concerns further up, if you care to read it. You seem to think humans are evil and or stupid and nature is good and wise.

      Regarding the topic of why we might be alone please take time and watch this video to get a wider perspective instead of regurgitating rhetoric:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqEmYU8Y_rI

  18. Ron,

    There are many unknowns, conjectures and assumptions in the arguments brought forwards by the likes of Stephen Hawkings and Leonard Susskind for fine-tuning. I would take what they all say with a grain of salt.

    One possibility is that we are living in a very specific period in the evolution of the universe where the cosmological constants (or variables) are values which account for the evolution of life here. But still extremely rare and unique.

    https://physicsworld.com/a/quintessence/

    For example if you take a constant such as the cosmological constant and assume it is a variable and changes with time (quintessence), then the whole thing changes.

    My supervisor at uni was working hard on the variation of constants, specifically the fine-structure constant which is dimensionless. The evidence he gathered from observations at the time showed that there was places in the universe which showed variation in the FS constant.

    Look, people working in their respective fields tend to form beliefs. It seems to be human nature to form beliefs, especially if you are spending time, effort and public funding on it. Truth is we really don’t know. We like to say we do, but we don’t. That is the most honest position.

    In the past few years my views has changed regarding these topics. I think our senses and especially the brain, plays a pivotal role in how we create world views and perspectives. This will sound absurd but I am tilting towards Kantian philosophy which states that space-time is created by the brain as a prerequisite for experience.

    1. Mike, telling me that I should take what Stephen Hawkin says with a grain of salt is like telling me I should take anything Einstein said with a grain of salt. I am simply unable to do that.

      I am very well aware of the fact that even physicists have world views that do not allow them to examine certain evidence. They know, they all know, that the universe is extremely fine-tuned. That is blatantly obvious to anyone who has taken the time to examine the evidence.

      Here is just a shortlist of the many physicists and cosmologists that agree that the universe is very fine-tuned:
      Stephen Hawking
      Leonard Mlodinow
      Luke Barnes
      Geraint F. Lewis
      Leonard Susskind
      Robin Collins
      Paul Davies
      Martin Rees
      John Barrow
      John Leslie
      Alan Guth
      Brian Green
      Roger Penrose
      George Ellis
      Bernard Carr

      And that are a lot of dead ones who first started the argument years ago like the hardened atheist Fred Hoyle.
      There are many others. Now, are you telling me that I should take all of their opinions with a grain of salt? And here is the most important point. These guys did not just state an opinion, they all give arguments, very extensive arguments as to why they believe the universe is fine-tuned. Have you examined any of their arguments? Some wrote books giving their arguments. Martin Reese wrote: Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape The Universe And Reese just makes the argument that these six parameters are fine-tuned. He does not attempt to explain why or how they got that way. He knows they are fine-tuned. That is a hard fact. A belief would be if he attempted to exactly how they came into being. He makes no such attempt. Please, Mike, don’t tell Martin Reese he is full of shit until you examine his argument.

      It really upsets me to watch so many Youtube videos and read so many books by physicists explaining how the universe is so fine-tuned. Then I watch Youtube videos by young atheists that the universe is not fine-tuned. They are saying all these learned physicists and cosmologists are full of shit. And then the atheist, blinded by their worldview, make some of the dumbest arguments you ever read or listened to.

      Hey, I am an atheist myself. But that just tells you what I am not. I am not a theist, I do not believe in a personal god or in any religion. But that worldview has not clouded my judgement to where I only look at confirmation bias to reinforce opinions I already hold.

      Hey, the universe is extremely fine-tuned. That debate is settled. The question is “How did this all happen?”

      1. Ron,

        Einsteins theory of general relativity has been extensively tested and so far it has passed. But Einstein opinions on quantum mechanics where wrong. So opinions have to be taken with a grain of salt.

        You are using an argument from authority to back up your views regarding fine-tuning. And i disagree the debate is not settled, because the views expressed from authority have too many conjectures, assumptions and unknowns.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

        For all we know the universe began and collapsed trillions of times until one came about to enable life on a extremely minuscule percentage of it. Or another e.g. is if another universe had formed with different fundamental constants, silicon based life might have evolved etc etc. We have 1 data point and they conclude fine-tuned.

        Again i reiterate no one knows because we don’t have the whole picture. We have a representation of something completely unknowable and we use this representation to draw conclusions, which is a fallacy.

        I am very open to the idea of the universe being fine-tuned. In fact i was an advocate of it. But it isn’t the whole picture. We are traversing the limits of the knowables, and one should be extremely cautious not to draw incomplete conclusions.

        Maybe for a lot of people their religious views are related to their worldviews. But for me it isn’t at all. I mean even if the universe was fine-tuned somehow, and god was behind it, it isn’t a really smart god. You attempt to fine-tune a universe with life and you only succeed in much much much less that 1% of it. Unless it is still learning itself and is not all knowing. Then it cannot be a god i suppose.

        Anyways we’ll agree to disagree.

        1. You are using an argument from authority to back up your views regarding fine-tuning.

          Mike, do you accept that the speed of light is 186,000 miles per second? If so, why? Did you measure it? Or do you accept that figure on the authority of someone who did measure it? Mike, virtually everything you know about the constants of the universe you accept on the authority of someone else.

          Mike, you obviously do not understand what “The Argument from Authority” really means. From your link, bold mine:
          Carl Sagan wrote of arguments from authority:

          One of the great commandments of science is, “Mistrust arguments from authority.” … Too many such arguments have proved too painfully wrong. Authorities must prove their contentions like everybody else.

          The argument from authority is to simply name the authority as the argument.

          Authorities must support their contentions with a valid argument just like everyone else. Every one of my authorities makes very strong and valid arguments. Martin Reese uses only six data points out of at least 50 to make his. But six was enough. But you shut your eyes and close your ears to their arguments because you already know all the answers. Your worldview tells you the universe is not fine-tuned so anyone with a different argument will not be listened to so they can just shut up and go home.

          1. Ron,

            The speed of light or any scientific theory is testable and when applied practically we can see it’s effects in the industrial/technological world. One doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel to show the evidence.

            But the argument at hand is not a matter of tested theory. Fine-tuning is so far not quantifiable. So there is only opinions at the moment. Even Martin Rees says that in the video (near the end):

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0zdXj6fSGY

            But you shut your eyes and close your ears to their arguments because you already know all the answers.

            On the contrary. As i have reiterated multiple times, i take the position of I don’t know .
            And as i have mentioned i am open to the idea or opinion of a fine-tuned universe but there are just too many unknowns to make a solid claim like that.

            This paper:
            https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-26300-7_6

            Takes what Hickory said earlier. That life seems to be fine-tuned for the universe. Which is also a possibility. I think there must be a significant combination of fundamental constant tweakages which will give rise to complexity. We might be in one of those. Again i am not certain of anything, it’s merely all opinions based on very insufficient knowns.

            1. Well hell Mike, you are certainly making progress. Though Martin Reese is not saying at all what you imply he is saying.

              Just remember my argument has nothing to do with life. The universe is fine-tuned to create stars, then galaxies, then exploding stars, then stars with rocky planets with liquid water. However, these rocky planets would not appear until almost a billion years after the Big Bang. However, the recipe for these rocky planets and the recipe for every element in the periodic table was present in the hot plasma one second after the Big Bang. Of course, you would say something to the effect: “No, all that shit happened just by pure accident.”

              Thanks for the input into the psyche of your worldview. I do learn an awful lot from these exchanges. You may have the last word. I will not reply.

              Have a nice day.

  19. So, can we go faster than the speed of light?
    It seems like a universal assumption, but————–

    If not, we are all isolated, with our time reference.

    1. No we can’t. But experiments in QM such as entanglement has shown instantaneous communication between particles which violate locality (depending on your worldview 🙂 ). But unfortunately we can only have glimpses of what’s going on behind the curtains and are cut off from it. Hence we can never have superluminal communication.

  20. From the point of view of a person whose academic background is in the general fields of biology and biochemistry, I find it amusing to read discussions among physicists trying to wonder if the universe is optimized (fine tuned) for life.
    For an outsider to that academic field, it seems a bizarre line of thought.
    Simply, the universe is what it is. It happened, exactly as it is, and regardless of how well we do or do not understand it.
    And life happened to arise within those constraints and conditions- as they were, as they are.
    And yes, if the universe happened to be different in some certain physical ways, there may have been no life.

    Gravity is what it is. A chloroplast is fine-tuned.

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