58 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum March 5, 2025”

    1. Thanks Alim. Great vid. Cameras + face recognition are scary! But also reduce crime?

    2. Well worth watching, very balanced. One prominant error:- CCTV doesn’t, on its own, cut crime. It comes down to how desperate people are, how drugged up, and their familiarity with the “security” of being locked up and fed daily — it’s a zero risk. The principle thing that allows a society to develop in which you can leave your most expensive stuff on the street and it not get taken, then, is increasing affluence and the provision of easily affordable basics like housing, food, education, hospital care, and so forth, that stop the spiral into despair. The CCTV is to monitor and quickly break up any public gatherings of protest, rather than stopping crime, in any case.

      Interesting that Beijing is less advanced but I guess in part that’s the problem of legacy. Even so, they need to get those ICE vehicles off the roads. I wonder how much the air quality has improved.

  3. A question from the last post:

    It is also pathological in that it works to concentrate wealth enabling more investment and at the same time, demanding exploitation of workers and the natural world.

    But is there a system that’s better in that regard?

    It seems to me that a *very* carefully regulated free market and capitalist system works pretty well. Decentralized production and market distribution is pretty good – Adam Smith commented that the captains of industry tend to want to destroy the free markets that made them wealthy: the key question is how to protect open, decentralized government power, i.e, democracy.

    How do we protect democracy from oligarchs??

    1. Nick G,

      I cannot offer a successful, alternative system.

      Can you offer any examples of your *very* carefully regulated capitalist system that does not unduly exploit the natural world?

      Are you familiar with the work of William Rees or Limits to Growth?

      1. Can you offer any examples of your *very* carefully regulated capitalist system that does not unduly exploit the natural world?

        I think that’s mostly related to culture and priorities rather than economic system. When people value nature they’ll protect it. And, of course, as a society becomes more affluent it will be easier to do.

        Are you familiar with the work of William Rees or Limits to Growth?

        Sure. Are you thinking that free-market capitalism is more growth oriented?

        I’d offer a suggestion: try thinking of “growth” as “improvement of life”. I think that’s what people really want, regardless of economic system. It’s a mistake to think that more “stuff” improves life after a certain point. And, despite what a lot of amateur economists think, professional economists don’t think that growth necessarily means more stuff.

        1. Thanks for the reply Nick G.

          Yes, I would personally agree that more physical “stuff” doesn’t improve life after a certain point. I understand that research suggests this is a commonly held belief among many.

          Yes, I think capitalism is growth oriented. More stuff, more energy use and more economic wealth. That certainly seems to be the trend over at least the last couple of hundred years. I say this based on the record of “stuff” created and used as well as the impacts on the non-human natural world, not from any claimed economic expertise.

          I referred to Rees because of his (and Wackernagel’s) origination of the ecological footprint concept. You note that as a society becomes more affluent it will be easier to protect nature. I disagree, and the work on ecological footprints supports my perspective. The most affluent can have orders of magnitude more impact than the other end of the spectrum.

          Externalization of costs to nature is one of the other main issues. While I suppose the externalities inherent in capitalism could in theory be mitigated by “*very* careful” regulation, such a benefit appears absent from a global production system without such regulation.

          I’m not seeing any examples in support of your ecologically benevolent capitalist system.

          1. …capitalism is growth oriented.

            Well, the question is whether it’s *more* growth oriented than more centralized systems. I’d argue not. If we look at the USSR (or current Russia) or China, they were and are growth oriented.

            And again: try thinking of “growth” as “improvement of life”. I think that’s what people really want, regardless of economic system. Despite what a lot of amateur economists think, professional economists don’t think that growth necessarily means more stuff.

            You note that as a society becomes more affluent it will be easier to protect nature. I disagree…

            Again, I didn’t say protection of nature would happen automatically, just that it would be easier to do if the culture shifts in that direction.

            The most affluent can have orders of magnitude more impact than the other end of the spectrum.

            Well, they tend to use more fossil fuel (which is more than 50% of the human ecological footprint). But FF isn’t essential: the progress of varioius contries in getting away from FF has more to do with their volume of FF production and less to do with their economic systems: big producers are held back by legacy vested interests.

            1. “We have met the enemy and he is us” is a phrase that means people are their own worst enemy. It can be used to reflect on internal issues in business or to consider how humans are harming the planet.

              In economics, “unlimited wants” is the idea that people have unlimited desires for goods and services, but limited resources to satisfy them. This fundamental concept is the basis for the economic problem of scarcity.

              Blaming capitalism is like blaming Mexico for fentanyl deaths in the U.S. Just an excuse for bad personal behavior.

            2. No matter what economic system people live in they tend to use as much energy and other ‘natural’ resources as they can afford to.
              Restraint is only rarely a voluntary act, more of a derided curiosity

              Which economic system is better at incentivizing or forcing restraint, while still allowing the authorities with these policies to remain in power…ask yourself. I think that authorities in central planning economies have a better chance of surviving in conditions of contracting prospects. People are generally more accepting of hardship when they have a sense that restrictions are widely shared. No wonder that Viet Nam won its wars of independence against France and then the USA.

            3. No matter what economic system people live in they tend to use as much energy and other ‘natural’ resources as they can afford to. Restraint is only rarely a voluntary act, more of a derided curiosity.

              That really not true.

              First example, population: as people become freer to choose what they want, they have fewer children. There’s absolutely no desire to maximize population growth.

              2nd, energy: there’s absolutely no desire to maximize energy consumption. People want services, for which energy tends to be needed. But, do people care whether those services are provided by wasteful FF, or efficient renewables, and no energy at all in the form of perfect efficiency (e.g., passive house insulation)? No, they really don’t.

              3rd, real estate. It’s extremely common for home owners to downsize when kids move out, etc. Such people really want just what they need.

              Now, are some people still attached to the obsolete idea that more stuff brings happiness? Sure. But that’s just culture, that can and will change.

              I think that authorities in central planning economies have a better chance of surviving in conditions of contracting prospects.

              Broader participation in decision making tends to produce better decisions. Occasionally autocrats are wise, but they still would benefit from broader participation. And often you get czar Nicholas, or Trump.

            4. Nick G

              You talk about “…no energy at all in the form of perfect efficiency (e.g., passive house insulation).”

              Are you familiar with the concept of embodied energy?

            5. Are you familiar with the concept of embodied energy?

              Of course. I should’ve said high efficiency, not perfect, and I should’ve said operating energy consumption, not total lifetime energy consumption. The point is, if you eliminate operating energy consumption, you eliminate the great majority of energy consumption, and whichever way you go the consumer doesn’t care. They just care about having the proper temperature in their home.

            6. Nick. I was referring to the reality of how people behave. Its pretty simple.
              If people have more money they use more energy and energy derived products.
              More meat, more flying, more electronics, more square footage, etc.
              Very few voluntary live a simple low energy, small ecological footprint lifestyle.
              Sorry to burst your bubble with the realism of it.
              Approaching 9 billion consumers.

            7. If people have more money they use more energy and energy derived products.

              Kind’ve true, but misleading.

              1st, people use more energy and stuff up to a certain point.

              Very few voluntary live a simple low energy, small ecological footprint lifestyle.

              Sure. See above.

              Again, people don’t use energy for the sake of energy, but the services it tends to provide. And their demand for stuff tends to level off: it doesn’t rise infinitely.

              Why do we still use FF? Because FF industries block change, with the purchase of politicians, and dissemination of misinformation. That’s a very large part of MAGA: the FF industries crippling government to block a transition to renewables.

              Finally, it’s worth addressing this idea of austerity, asceticism and sacrifice: It’s not necessary.The majority of the human ecological footprint is FF. Get rid of FF and you’ve solved the majority of the problem. And living in a tiny house isn’t going to prevent the extinction of species. Doing something about climate change will, and so will choosing not to kill so many wild animals, either directly or indirectly by destroying their habitat.

            8. Nick I was referring to the scenario in the real world. You might find more traction with people if you stuck hard to what is real, rather than the world as you’d like to imagine it.

              Nothing wrong with using imagination about human character or condition when you write poetry. However I’ll find my poetry and wishful thinking elsewhere thank you.

            9. Well, I’m disappointed that you don’t want to talk about the specific things I brought up, instead of a general guess that I’m more optimistic than you are.

              Oh well.

            10. Hickory’s notion that people use as much energy as they can does not fit the facts.
              Google “energy use per capita by state”. The most energy is used by poor states (Wyoming, Kentucky, Louisiana); rich states use far less (California, New York, Connecticut).
              Well-off people are much more likely to use less, with solar panels and electric cars and green grid power.

    2. Regulated capitalism hasn’t been implemented all that effectively for much of history. One goal of such regulation is to limit the concentration of wealth among just a few, since the allocation of capital becomes poor/frivolous/sequestered once a person accumulates beyond a certain level. And it feels extremely unfair to those who don’t have privilege or simply great luck.

      An effective democracy should be able to limit the accumulation of wealth by strong mechanisms such a heavy estate tax. No one person needs a massive (more than say 5 million) head start in life. No family needs more than one home.
      Capital gains and other unearned income should be taxed as high, or better yet at a higher rate, than wage income rather than the reverse as is now the case.
      These measures seem like basic capitalism regulation and yet the US average person has been convinced to be voluntarily ignorant or apathetic on this topic. I guess there has been an extremely successful job at finding just the level of living standard to keep the average voter placated. For now.

      1. Hickory yes, in my view all income should be taxed similarly no special treatment of capital gains and dividends and possibly eliminating corporate tax to eliminate double taxation only the owners are taxed.

        Tax rates should be reset to the levels of 1973 adjusted for inflation. Something like the schedule below for married filing jointly:
        income, marginal tax rate for income over
        22k——–15.00%
        115k——28.00%
        200k——39.00%
        315k——50.00%
        630k——60.00%
        1400k—-70.00%

        Estate tax of 70% on the portion of all estates above 5 million (in 2025$) and elimination of all future trusts and other tax loopholes.

        1. This kind of tax rates worked quite well in Sweden in the 60s,70s and 80s. But then some, inspired by some country out west, thought that “trickle down” would work wonders…

        2. That would help.

          Excessive income creates excess wealth. Wealth is ownership (stocks, companies, land , etc). Ownership is power. Excessively concentrated power is inherently bad.

          So…it’s important to limit excessive income.

    3. I am of the opinion that democratic governments have been leaning on capitalism (meaning private enterprises), to do the “dirty side” of stable growth. And succeeded. What I mean by that is that corporations are allowed to implement lean and focused policies through some level of nastiness. In the future much less complacent government policies combined with the ruthlessness of private enterprises could be benificial I would argue (at least in a no growth scenario).

      There are hundreds of different types of cultures that can stem from an elite in a country, region or village – based on the principle that they have to know each other. Meaning 100-150 persons maximum. In my opinion,
      given our energy surplus for still a long time to come, it is not necessary to let the worst of these cultures to prevail.

      Keeping egos in check while still providing incentives is the key. Easier said than done, and many have pointed out that you need crises mode to actually change anything and implement it. The carrot and the stick on every level.

  4. In case you were wondering.

    METHANE EMISSIONS ARE TURBOCHARGING CLIMATE CHANGE.

    “The biggest challenge to limiting climate change to 2°C, the upper target of the 2015 Paris agreement, is this: methane emissions are rising very fast. Each year, about 600 million tonnes of methane are emitted to the air, roughly 40% from natural sources and 60% from human activities. Of this latter portion, fossil fuels contribute 120-130 million tonnes. This is methane that leaks from gas pipelines, coal mines and oil wells. There has at least been some progress towards controlling these leaks: new satellite technology has excelled at finding them, while 159 countries have pledged to cut emissions by 30% by 2030. In contrast, roughly 210-250 million tonnes of methane come from agriculture and its products, but these emissions are much tougher to tackle. It’s easier to spot a leaky gas well from space than farm leaks that are collectively large but individually small.”

    https://phys.org/news/2025-03-methane-emissions-turbocharging-climate-quick.html

  5. The FAO [Global] Food Price Index rose in February 2025, driven by higher sugar, dairy and vegetable oil prices…

  7. Up and up she goes, where she stops, nobody knows!

    Latest Daily CO2

    Mar. 7, 2025 = 430.60 ppm
    Mar. 7, 2024 = 425.36 ppm
    1 Year Change = 5.24 ppm (1.23%)

    1. Where she stops…?
      Well, at 2050 we will be very close to ‘achieving’ 500ppm atmospheric CO2.
      5 year olds will be 30 then.
      How will 9 billion people handle those conditions of great instability?

    2. For those in the US who haven’t personally wrapped yourself in electric motion, I am sorry for your lack of experience. Riding an electric assist bicycle is a miraculous thing to behold, whether for leisure or for commerce.
      There is a nationwide traveling expo where you can see, and test ride, hundreds of electric vehicles.
      Do it. I am in my 60’s now, but my bike helps me ramble far and wide in the hilly terrain of the foothills of the Cascade Mountains where I live.
      https://www.electrifyexpo.com/?srsltid=AfmBOopNVzuVUey3JCBZngdKhRrVa6KP55Jak9Ei9DNvHfn-6s7N83_C

      1. Absolutely. I live in rural hilly Tennessee where I can no longer ride up 10% inclines on a hot day so I put a midrive Bafang motor on a bike. It’s crude and has gobs of power. 15mph is plenty fast for around town. 75mph capability is a hell of an energy expenditure for basic needs.

    1. Sexual orientation is often viewed as a continuum, meaning people can fall anywhere on a scale between exclusively heterosexual and exclusively homosexual, with various degrees of attraction to both genders in between.

      My guess, Trump is insecure about his own feelings and his view of society norms.

      1. Breaking things in government is not an accident: these folks want to cripple government. They see it as an obstacle to their profits and power. One of their first targets was the IRS: anyone who wants to fire 7,000 IRS auditors is not trying to reduce the deficit, or reduce fraud and waste.

        You’ll notice they’re also trying to cripple higher education, which they see as an obstacle (annoying professionals who are constantly pushing expensive things like health, safety, economic equality, DEI, etc).

      2. leave messes for others to clean up.
        In this case hostile foreign powers who move quickly to hack any new government server. Musk’s DOGE sent an email to every government employee on a bog standard email server he set up a few weeks before demanding they send details of their activities to him or face firing. There is no reason to assume it hasn’t been hacked. We’ve talking about spamming millions of emails, many to people engaged in classified government business.

        The key problem is that Musk has absolutely no clue what the government does. He gets his opinions from youtube videos and tweets. He seems to honestly believe he is the smartest man in the world, but he isn’t. He has a chip on his shoulder and is prone to erratic behavior. He’s easy prey to spooks. He is a security threat.

        1. Looks like Musk has a ketamine addiction, which can produce delusions.

          “ Such theoretical impairments would be concerning in any context—but especially when contemplating a person who has achieved enough power to be unironically described as co-president of the United States. To be sure, ketamine may have nothing to do with his actions. He may be simply acting in accordance with his far-right political ideology. Musk also famously brags that he rarely sleeps—never a good strategy for measured speech or actions.”

          Atlantic

  10. Last week Germany announced a 10 year $500 billion dollar plan to upgrade their military. Market reaction was a large sell off in government bonds. Not just in Germany but across Europe yields on bonds rose.

    Interesting enough the dollar fell against the Euro. Now you’ll hear or read a bunch of different explanations on why the dollar has pulled back. One of them being capital flight from the US as stocks fell.
    And rising yields in Europe equal stronger Euro.

    But reality is some banks provided some dollar liquidity to get in front of this government spending. Every time major government fiscal spending happens the dollar falls. In the aftermath of Covid governments went wild with fiscal policy and the dollar fell sharply against other currencies.

    But just like with the Covid fiscal stimulus the dollar weakness will run its course and then we will be right back to a strengthening dollar.

    I’d say the whole world is in a trap where we can’t ever leave fiscal stimulus for very long periods. Without the government spending we go into recession rather quickly. I read somewhere if you took away government spending here in the US GDP would be at -10%

    If there was abundant cheap energy and a growing net surplus of energy. The private sector would have already capitalized on it and put it to use. There would be no need for government fiscal stimulus in an attempt to grow the economy. The economy would be growing just fine without the government fiscal stimulus.

    1. If you look at last weeks payroll data which is for the month of February. Average weekly hours worked was down very close to the pandemic lows. And the participation rate continues to fall. 385 thousand dropped out of the workforce. So they aren’t working but aren’t counted towards the unemployment rate.

      Job market is going to put a lot of downward pressure on oil prices.

      Delinquency on auto loans 60 days past due are at all time highs. In another 30 days delinquency 90 days past due will also be at all time highs.

      Consumers are broke and are working less hours. If the consumers can’t afford to pay what does that mean for the banks that loaned the money?

      The banks don’t have the balance sheet capacity to write down loans in mass. The banks are all still sitting on massive paper losses on the assets side of their balance sheet from interest rate hikes.

    1. Tesla down 15%.

      Musk is very closely identified with Tesla, and he’s managing to kill it.

    2. The CTA’s are about tapped out with nothing left to sell. They chased the downward momentum exacerbating the selling.

      As the downward momentum slows these machines will go long again. Flipping the market from bearish to bullish again.

      The corporate buying and the passive retirement fund will be buying flipping the market back to bullish.

      Stocks will never stay down for very long until something changes this dynamic.

  13. Another tipping point?

    EARTH’S ‘DIRTY MIRROR’ EFFECT IS ACCELERATING CLIMATE CHANGE

    “The earth is absorbing more sunlight and trapping more heat than it releases into space, causing our planet to warm up at an increasing rate. New research shows that cloudy areas over oceans are reflecting less sunlight to space than before, adding to heating from rising greenhouse gas levels and causing climate change to accelerate. Research letters, found this dimming effect was occurring in several regions, including cloudy areas off the coasts of California and Namibia, but also at the fringes of antarctica, where recent significant melting of sea ice can also explain more absorption of sunlight by the oceans.”

    https://phys.org/news/2025-03-earth-dirty-mirror-effect-climate.html

  14. I guess that they finally admit that global warming is real, about 50 years late to the show.
    Just get used to it.

    “”The Trump administration will treat climate change for what it is, a global physical phenomenon that is a side effect of building the modern world,” he said. “Everything in life involves trade-offs. Everything.””
    https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/ceraweek-us-energy-secretary-says-global-warming-side-effect-modern-economy-2025-03-10/

    1. Minions of the FF industry (like Trump) will say anything.

      They’ll deny climate change. Or they’ll admit it’s real. They don’t care what the argument is, as long it ends with “Do nothing that harms FF!”.

      1. You are so stuck in your beliefs, that can’t see reality when it hits you in the face…
        “The Trump administration will treat climate change for what it is, a global physical phenomenon that is a side effect of building the modern world,” he said. “Everything in life involves trade-offs. Everything.”

        Change out the Trump administration to any thinking person paying attention..

        It’s civilization itself, especially our highly complex modern one that is causing massive changes in climate, species diversification, endocrine disruptors reducing sperm counts of all mammals, ocean acidification etc, etc.

        Take fossil fuels away and we don’t make and deploy any solar, wind, batteries, nuclear, nor do we get food to urban areas where over 4 billion humans reside.

        Have a good look at this graph from SINTEF of how we are actually going about making the Aluminium so needed for EV car panels and solar panel frames and supports…..

        https://blogg.sintef.no/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Inerte-anoder-2_engelsk.jpg

        From this research…
        https://blog.sintef.com/energy/aluminium-electrolysis-using-inert-anodes/

        If you want more industrial civilization then it means more destruction of the environment by any means. Lots more solar, wind, nuclear, etc just mean further overshoot of our grossly overpopulated world.

        1. Great article Hideaway

          Ignorance is obviously strength for the renewbies.

        2. Hideaway,

          Keep up the good work but some on this blog that will steadfastly argue for renewables having not even a basic grasp of the thermodynamic principles. The Seneca cliff beckons.

        3. Yes, I know you like FF.

          But it’s worth keeping in mind that the scientific, engineering, and business world disagrees with you. Even Exxon acknowledges that Net-zero is both feasible and necessary.

          The information about aluminum energy inputs and CO2 outputs is interesting, but lacks context: how important are these factors in the overall analysis of wind & solar carbon outputs? These are basic things that are taken into account in any basic analysis of such things, so we can be pretty sure that if we did the analysis we’d find it’s relatively very small.

  15. You think there are too many humans here, relax, seems a solution is at hand. It’s a shame about other species though!

    RISING TEMPERATURES COULD LEAD TO POPULATION CRASHES

    “Researchers have uncovered a critical link between rising temperatures and declines in a species’ population, shedding new light on how global warming threatens natural ecosystems. The study revealed that rising temperatures exacerbate competition within populations, ultimately leading to population crashes at higher temperatures. It offers one of the first clear experimental confirmations that rising temperatures alter the forces that control population dynamics in nature.”

    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/03/250304203829.htm

Comments are closed.