Comments not related to oil or natural gas production in this thread please
215 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, October 1, 2020”
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Comments not related to oil or natural gas production in this thread please
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While I generally support the Democratic Party’s vision of what’s best for our country, I can’t bring myself to SAY I’m a Democrat, anymore than I can say I’m a Republican.
The problem is that the institutional rot in our economic and political system is so deep that neither party is willing to REALLY confront the wrong doing.
The Democrats are far more trust worthy than the Republicans,but that’s about all I can say for them, when it comes to rooting out crooks in high places.
I’ll give any regular here an hour to draw a crowd and kiss his backside in front of the local courthouse if even one top ranking bank executive goes to jail for bank fraud within the next four years, regardless of who is in the WH.
You bet a hundred bucks. You travel to my town, lol.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-28/inside-the-jpm-precious-metals-desk-called-a-crime-ring-by-prosecutors?utm_source=pocket-newtab
I look at the Democrats as a tool with which to beat Republicans.
You get what you pay for.
In many countries civil servants, especially police and border guards, are badly underpaid, and it’s understood that they will collect the difference with bribes of various sorts. Basically that’s the system we have in the US for politicians.
Until the average person chips in to pay campaign expenses for politicians they will be bought and paid for by billionaires.
Have you made a campaign contribution lately?
It seems more accurately like you get what their rules say you’re forced to pay for.
Police thuggery and bribes are just one facet and example of that.
So if you are nevertheless advising to make campaign contributions toward such a non-consensual, violence-based system, then on some level, you appear to be suggesting you still agree with it.
But then, by your own anonymous admission hereon, you’re being paid by it.
Nature and big non-consenual government-business sybiosis, and likely therefore, you, are in a conflict of interest.
So perhaps we shouldn’t take your concerns about the environment and what to do about it too seriously.
The Soil Revolution That Could Save Farming And The Climate
Joe Biden and other Democrats are backing regenerative farming, which pulls carbon from the atmosphere and restores nutrients to soil. But is it ready for prime time?
Countries such as France are promoting large-scale government programs to encourage farmers to increase the carbon stored in soil. Members of Congress have also proposed legislation to push regenerative farming in the U.S., and several states are designing their own policies. Progressive think tanks call for small shifts in existing U.S. Department of Agriculture programs and beefed-up research funding that could trigger the biggest changes to American farming in almost a century. Nearly every Democratic presidential candidate pitched paying farmers to trap carbon in soil as a key plank of their climate platform, including nominee Joe Biden.
“We should be making farmers the recipients of a climate change plan where they get paid to absorb carbon,” the former vice president said during a CNN town hall last week.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/climate-change-regenerative-farming_n_5f6cba7ec5b653a2bcb1550f
Your a fool to base your election decision on your feelings about what we can and can’t do about an invisible gas. All in all these climate plans have been hogwash propaganda for years. I was getting fed the same lines back in the 1970’s in jr. high school. I knew to give up on MSM and Hollywood after carbon tax started coming up in the 2000’s. Now for once we get a conservative insider in the White House and the swamp creatures know they don’t sit right with him. Let me tell you this, farmers aren’t part of the swamp, they know who looks out for them, and it ain’t Biden.
Tell it to any farmers you happen to know who never read a news paper or listen to anything on the radio or tv except Fox and Limbaugh, lol.
I’m a farmer myself.
There are lots of farmers who know their own line of work but next to nothing about the larger world, to be sure. Some of them are kin to me.
But the younger ones, and the smarter ones, know trump isn’t their friend.
They know forced climate change is real.
I’m an older one, actually retired, but I majored in agriculture back in the dark ages, lol.
I took a LOT of hard science courses.
Forced climate change is real.
I took more than enough science courses to understand the evidence.
Trump’s trade war has cost us customers we will never be able to get back, because they have switched to producers in South America and Australia.
>invisible gas
Yeah, I’m sure invisible things can’t harm me. For example, I can’t see ultraviolet rays, so I never get a sunburn. I can walk around all day in the hot tropical sun naked as a jaybird and my Anglo-Irish skin stays white as Elmer’s glue. I strongly recommend you try it yourself.
And when I get the feeling I’m spending more than I’m earning, I just stop looking at my bank balance. Problem solved!
Don’t listen to your fears.
”Countries such as France are promoting large-scale government programs to encourage farmers to increase the carbon stored in soil.” Trop lol comme commentaire! En tout et pour tout, the only financial help which is available is a MAEC (Mesure AgroEnvironnementale et Climatique) which is individual and limited to 9000 euros for 163 euros/hectare. This financial help is christened ” Conversion au semis direct sous couvert.” and is for a period of five years. It is scarcely distributed by the Agences de Bassin, which are managing the water ressources on each bassin, on the contrary of what is happening in USA, and due to the lack of funding, well, or the conditions of access are nearly impossible to meet, or the money is not there and the financial funds are not distributed at the expanse of the farmers who have already invested in new seeding tools and who are counting on the MAEC to repay their investments. It is true that the Ministère de l’Agriculture et de l’Alimentation makes some effort, thanks to the work of Stéphane Le Foll, to make the promotion of no till farming but there are still people in the Ministère or in the agencies associated to the Ministère who are making the promotion of ploughing. Then, the communication of the authorities is, to say the least, blurry.
Buick Makes Bold Statement with Its Vision for Future EV Design
Electra electric crossover concept makes global premiere
2020-09-28
Advanced electrification technology and smart mobility
Leveraging GM’s global EV expertise, the Electra is supported by its new-generation high-performance modular electric propulsion system. Utilizing the advanced Ultium battery, the Electra has a range of more than 660 kilometers on a single charge, making it ideal for daily commutes as well as family trips.
Thanks to the industry-leading wireless battery management system, the Ultium battery reduces wires within the battery by 90%. It also helps balance chemistry within the individual battery cell groups and conduct real-time battery pack checks to safeguard battery health.
The Electra’s Ultium drive unit has high-performance motors in both the front and the rear to ensure optimized power output. It has maximum power of 435 kW, enabling 0-100 kilometer per hour acceleration of just 4.3 seconds.
Additional vehicle highlights for future mobility include GM’s next-generation intelligent driving technology with door to-door smart mobility solutions, as well as V2X technologies, to offer a safe and intelligent ride with peace of mind.
https://media.gm.com/media/cn/en/gm/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/cn/en/2020/Sept/0928_Buick.html
Buick is kinda dead as a brand in the US, but it’s successful in China. And China is going electric.
Eight months after the Orange Ape said “the virus will just go away”. He has now contracted Covid-19 along with over 208,000 American deaths.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt
Kuntsler is out for himself. His usual thing is to sensationalize anything and everything, making mountains out of molehills being his specialty.
Facts apparently mean nothing at all to him except when they’re handy to his arguments.
This is the first time I’ve read anything he has written in a LONG time.
But having said this much, I agree that there’s a real possibility we will have some real trouble a few weeks down the road.
Mac, I did not post that Kunstler link. When I deleted it, your post was automatically deleted also. Sorry.
No problem, I’m glad you’re on the ball about such things.
I was surprised to see it associated with you, since you don’t go for sensationalism.
Ron, I’ll bet “Buddy” Tools is your impersonator and some how related to the Trump campaign disinformation cult
Trump has the virus! His wife has it too. All hell will break loose now.
His having it will in my opinion have the effect of most voters who are still undecided voting for Biden.
Such voters typically pay almost no attention to politics until the last few weeks, or else they would have made their minds up months or even years ago.
It’s going to be hard to avoid hearing about THIS news, even for FOX and Limbaugh worshipers.
I hope he lives to face some NY state prosecutors who will be running for governor, or Congress, later on, on the basis of hanging his scalp on their trophy wall.
But my guess is that he will either die of old age fighting the charges, or manage to slip out of the country to avoid going to jail.
It sure would be sweet to see him living in Moscow, and having to literally kiss Putin’s butt for the entertainment of Putin’s inner circle, although that’s too much to hope for….. video of the butt kissing I mean. Putin won’t release it.
Unless he’s lying. He always lies about his health, from his bones spurs to the claim he would be the “healthiest individual ever elected president ” to the claim that he is two inches taller than Obama that he forced or bribed the surgeon general to make.
Wondering the same thing. He’s always lying. Makes recovery with no repercussions .
October surprise
Naw, too many doctors, and other folks would have to be involved here. This is not a lie, he has the virus. Also, this is an embarrassment to him and his “no mask” policy. It just shows how utterly stupid that policy was. The only advantage he gets from this problem is he can get out of further debates with Biden. This hurts reelection hopes a lot more than it helps them.
I hope you’re right Ron. In a way I am embarrassed to have made that claim about the president of the United States. But here we are.
If his mouth is open, he is lying.
I hope you are right Ron.
The fact is that it makes remember his foolish policy in front of the pandemic while he would have wished to speak of something else.
Plot could get twisty. Not hard to imagine Trump being a super-spreader. Do contact tracing guidelines advise that Biden and Wallace and everyone else who were at the debate, unmasked, with Captain Blowie McBlowhard go into quarantine now?
And in other news: Cornell University researchers “conclude that the President of the United States was likely the largest driver of the COVID-19 misinformation ‘infodemic,”, after analyzing 38 million English-language online articles about the pandemic.
https://khn.org/morning-breakout/trump-fueled-38-of-pandemic-misinformation-conspiracies-study/
There was a hell of a lot of spittle flying around that stage on tuesday.
How far apart were they? I didn’t watch.
I sure hope the ventilation was excessive. I would have insisted on it.
Having both candidates with covid would be even crazier, if that is possible.
They were 12 feet apart. If Trump had just contacted the virus from Hope Hicks, he was not likely a spreader at that point. But Hicks was in the audience, not wearing a maks among all the Trump troop, none of them wearing masks either.
I think its a big mistake to be that (12′) close to unmasked people, especially if more than brief moment and indoors.
Aerosols (basically very small droplets) circulate for a long time. They are not heavy enough to drop out of the air (or else they would be called droplets).
Bad advice.
On a related topic- I wonder was dose of disinfectant trump will be injecting?
Isn’t it possible the infection went from Trump to Hicks? Her positive test came in only a few hours before his if I’m not mistaken.
Yes, she tested positive on Thursday. But she was showing symptoms on Wednesday, that’s why she got tested. So she had symptoms about a day and a half before Trump tested positive. So it is far more likely that Trump got the virus from Hicks.
Like a friend of mine quipped “RBG has successfully argued her first case before God.”
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/10/02/agrivoltaics-for-pear-orchards/
We used to sit around and brainstorm what life on the farm would be like back in the sixties when I was an undergrad.
Most of us believed then that green houses would always be too expensive to build and operate to grow staple crops or fruit in them.
But that won’t be true too much longer, at least in the case of fruit.
I don’t see staples such as grain being economically produced in greenhouses, because grain, beans, etc, store very well and are dirt cheap to produce out in the open.
This nations farmlands are a massive untapped photovoltaic resource.
It is likely that food production and energy production will co-exist successfully in wide scale applications.
This will grow to become a source of financial stability for farmers, in a very big way.
Yeah, I think we did the math before.
Even from the strictest short term economic perspective, ignoring ecology, there is no shortage of land. In fact the ethanol mandate exists to provide income to farmers in the middle West whose only real asset is land of little or no economic value. That’s about a third of the entire US corn (maize) crop, I think.
So there isn’t much economic motivation to reduce land usage.
The Dutch are insanely productive on a massive scale with greenhouse vegetables. I think it is partly because the Dutch are just better than their peers (e.g. the Germans or English) at farming, but I don’t really understand the economic motivation.
The Dutch are insanely productive on a massive scale with greenhouse vegetables.
They also produce potatoes in the same way. Potatoes are a pretty basic staple.
https://www.dw.com/en/could-hi-tech-netherlands-style-farming-feed-the-world/a-47105412
“farmers in the middle West whose only real asset is land of little or no economic value.”
I don’t know what you mean by that. All of the corn is grown on excellent farmland.
Huge areas of western Kansas wheat country that is too dry to grow maize is being watered by the Ogallala aquifer. The money comes from the methane mandate. When it is pumped dry, it’s game over. Western Kansas is wheat country, maize is too thirsty.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Kansas,+USA/@39.6383582,-102.660943,27782m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x87a31771717c016b:0x68c2b4a94b3e095f!8m2!3d39.011902!4d-98.4842465
Not sure what you mean by “excellent farmland”.
Methanol not methane obviously.
Pardon, I didn’t realize you were talking about land that required irrigation- western kansas, nebraska for example. Those lands are outstanding for agriculture if irrigated, and if not irrigated they are lands that much of the worlds people would find as an improvement over where they now derive their food. Great soils- mollisols.
The original discussion here was about co-existence of agriculture and energy production. These high plains areas are a great example, being windy, sunny and extensive. Put the panels 8 feet up and they can be grazed, for example.
“It affects virtually nobody,” the acting president said of the coronavirus at a September 21 rally.
Welcome to the ranks of virtual nobodies, Mr. Acting President.
Well said.
Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee has tested positive for the Covid-19 virus.
Reality kicks the ass of ideology—
DAMAGE UNCOVERED ON ANTARCTIC GLACIERS REVEALS WORRYING SIGNS FOR SEA LEVEL RISE
“These glaciers are sitting on reverse bed slopes. This means once the glaciers start retreating, they will retreat further and further in a positive feedback loop. At some point we may reach a point of no return, where collapse will be unstoppable. Once you remove the ice shelves, there is no way of stopping the mass loss of Antarctica.”
https://phys.org/news/2020-10-uncovered-antarctic-glaciers-reveals-sea.html
…mass loss of West-Antarctica” to be precise. Scientists don’t know at which time scale it could occur (millenia, centenal scale, decadal scale…) or if there will be unknown phenomenon slowing the process or accelerating it.
If the USA had good leadership and policy on the Covid virus- how many deaths would there have been.
Lets compare to Germany.
If the USA had the same death rate per capita as Germany, we would have 37,000 deaths at this point,
not 207,000 dead people.
That is an excess of 170,000 deaths of American people.
Most of that is on mask-less Trump.
note- Germany has borders with 9 countries, USA has 2
Trump is just about to be transported to Walter Reed Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. I would not be surprised if he was on a ventilator soon. There has not been a tweet out of him since he got tested.
74, obese, high blood pressure, and not the brightest porch light on the block.
He will probably be alright, but we are starting with a mess.
I really don’t like Trump, but ignoring that, how crazy is 2020? When is the last time an American president went to the hospital with an potentially life-threatening, uncurable disease? 30 days before the election?
Seems like he’s not too sick yet. They say he’s going in to be given experimental treatment.
Maybe he’s executive ordered himself an intravenous sanitizer drip and UV-C high colonics.
/S
One tweet in the last 19 hours, and it claims he is doing fine (with video proof!).
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1312158400352972800
Not tweeting so long is unprecedented. #prayfortrump is trending on twitter. But none of this really means anything, we’ll have to wait and see
I’m glad I don’t have Ron (et al.) on ignore, so riveting are the mind-numbing trivialities of this sort of commentary that one can get anywhere else, should they be so motivated.
2 October 2020
South Australia wind and solar served stunning 73% of demand in September
The renewable energy records continue to fall, which in Australia must mean that Spring is in the air, because that is the season of usually good wind conditions, strong solar, and relatively low demand due to the mild temperatures.
The share of renewables in Australia’s main grid is breaking new records, including an instantaneous 52.5 per cent share reached on Friday, but the more striking achievement came in South Australia, where wind and solar combined to meet 73.3 per cent of local demand in the month of September.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/south-australia-wind-and-solar-served-stunning-73-of-demand-in-september-53751/
wharf rat —
Keeping things in perspective……….
“Australia is responsible for 7% of global fossil fuel exports based on their carbon dioxide potential. Its coal exports doubled between 2000 and 2015 and now make up 29% of the global coal trade. Liquefied natural gas exports tripled over the same timeframe to 6% of trade, and continue to increase…
The scale of exports from countries like Australia bring into stark relief why efforts to reduce emissions must limit both demand and supply.”
AUSTRALIA IS THE WORLD’S THIRD LARGEST EXPORTER OF FOSSIL FUELS BEHIND RUSSIA AND SAUDIA ARABIA
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/19/australia-is-third-largest-exporter-of-fossil-fuels-behind-russia-and-saudi-arabia#:~:text=Australia is responsible for 7,trade, and continue to increase.
What you see in Australia is a good example of the dynamics of the transition from fossil fuels: producers, including coal miners, the national government and big utilities, are trying to hold consumers hostage. Consumers, including retail customers, regional governments and utilities, are trying to move to wind and solar ASAP.
Because coal is expensive, polluting, and unreliable.
Now, coal exports are a different market and dynamic. But, in the end producers can try to produce and export whatever they want, but if consumers stop consuming and importing then producers are obsolete.
Why is lead out of our paint and fuel? Did we run out of lead supplies? No, Peak Lead came from a rough but effective global decision to stop using lead.
Well, at least Norway is gracious enough to call it what it is – a paradox.
Norway’s big electric push on cars does not mean the nation is abandoning fossil fuels, revealing what critics call a notable contradiction in its climate policy. While the country wants to wean its own citizens off fossil fuels, it remains one of the world’s biggest oil producers and is revving up production, almost all of it for export. So even as Norway tries to cut emissions and clean up its own carbon ledger at home, it is effectively doing the opposite abroad.
“Norway has set out to be a global leader in climate action, yet continued expansion of oil and gas production could eclipse the benefits of Norway’s domestic emission reduction efforts. We want to be a leader in climate change. But what we do is export the CO2.”
BESIDES, WE NO LONGER HAVE TIME TO PLAY THIS GAME, EARTH, AS WE KNOW IT, IS DISINTEGRATING!
“a paradox.”
We’ve got lots of those.
For example a majority of Evangelicals and Catholics voted for Trump based on his ‘pro-life’ anti abortion stance, meanwhile they also were voting for policies that were also overtly against making room for all those new people who would show up on the doorstep under those policies.
May 20, 2019 “Washington—President Donald Trump asked a woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair in May of 2012, to get an abortion …
The Dallas Morning News said it obtained text messages between the president and the woman, who wrote on May 3 of that year: “Donny, you’ve been parading your pro-life stance all over the place but you had no issue asking me to abort our unborn child when you thought it would be bad for you…..[Trump]-I’ll send you a thou to get rid of it.”
It’s not a paradox at all. They call it “pro-life”, but it’s not. If it were, they’d be in favor of contraception that prevented abortion. If they were truly pro-life, they’d be against the death penalty (and they’re not).
It’s just pro-fertility and anti-woman.
Nick, I agree.
>> It’s just pro-fertility and anti-woman. <<
The patriarchy.
truth
And yet some people can’t seem, or don’t seem to want, to wrap their heads around ‘State government’ and it’s own anti-life effects, including beyond their own species.
We want to be a leader in climate change. But what we do is export the CO2.
No, not really. You can’t force someone to consume oil, because you offer it for export. No, it’s burning oil that’s the problem, and it’s the consumers that do that.
Now, if Norway were pushing climate-denier propaganda, like the US, Australia and Exxon-Mobil, that would be the kind of immoral drug-pushing we should condemn.
WE NO LONGER HAVE TIME TO PLAY THIS GAME
I agree. So why do you play this game? Wharf-rat provides encouraging news of people moving away from fossil fuels, and you respond with some discouraging bad news. It really makes it look like you want no solutions at all. I don’t think that’s what you want, but it really looks like that to the outside observer.
Nick’s Government-lead Junction To A Dead-End Terminus
Insofar as the whole crony-capitalist plutarchy (State-government-industrial-BAU symbiosis) and their assorted modus operandi, like land and labor plundering and pillaging, is upheld, complete with added ‘support’ in the usual ninny-esque nattering of the ideologically-captured about this and that ‘leader’ (leading who where?) so we’ll continue with dubious ‘solutions’ and to ‘play this game’.
As someone who has written that they work for government and cannot mention their full/real name, Nick G‘s track indeed appears to emanate from and lead along that and the above line. Any other options don’t appear to matter. Whatever is discussed inevitably gets switched to funnel/junction into that particular terminus; big business and government, where real democracy ceases to exist, taking on ethereal forms in political lip-service, illusion and delusion.
So-called ‘consumers’ don’t and won’t burn what they cannot without big governments and businesses actually mining, producing and peddling it.
I have noticed, some time ago, that it’s often and unfairly the end-user and/or individual that gets the blame, expectations and/or responsibilities shifted/foisted onto them for things that they often have little or less to do with.
“The World Bank is… devoted to state-run corporate capitalism. Established and managed by a multitude of national governments, the World Bank promotes managed trade by which politically-connected individuals and corporations enrich themselves at the expense of the poor and the middle class. Western governments tax their citizens to fund the World Bank, lend this money to corrupt third world dictators, who abscond with the funds and then demand repayment, which is extracted through taxation from the poor Third World citizens, rather than from the government officials who were responsible for the embezzlement. It is in essence a global transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. Taxpayers around the world are forced to subsidise the lavish lifestyle of Third World dictators and highly-paid World Bank bureaucrats who don’t even have to pay income taxes. [see also; ‘WTO Why Is It BAD For You’ on You Tube]” ~ Ron Paul
“In many countries civil servants, especially police and border guards, are badly underpaid…” ~ Nick G
In a world calling for the defunding and abolishing of the police, (yes, beyond just the USA) your comment seems quite revealing, and in my comment’s context.
From what I’ve heard and read, police, in many areas around the world, don’t actually do what it is often claimed, understood or insinuated that they do, namely to serve and protect people in general.
What they apparently do, at least far more often, is serve and protect the elite and their interests, which include those in and associated with government.
Get it?
In effect, when we call for the abolishment of the police, what we are really calling for, whether we realize it or not, may be the thinning out of the protective shellac around the elite and therefore some movement toward equity.
Caelan,
Is there a course of action you propose?
Of course, Gerry, and I and many others over time and space have already proposed it. For one, look at how our ancestors used to do it.
Admittedly, I’m kind of wondering why, on a peak oil/collapse site, some be asking this kind of question or at least maybe insinuating that current big non-consensual/violence-based government-business that’s trashing the planet and that’s got all kinds of problems, many of which have been reviewed hereon, and is the main reason why we have blogs like these, would/should be the way to go. Kind of boggles the mind in a way.
For some of my own proposals, which are really just inspirational mods from what appear to actually work, do a search for Permaea as well as the archives hereon using my name, and use your own imagination too, beyond how the legacy corporate/state-funded media, Nick G and others might organize it for you.
Then go/come and teach some things beyond ‘the cave/prison’.
Caelan,
I was thinking more of practical courses of action, to get there from here.
Permaculture philosophy is not widespread, but i do know two families who are pretty serious about it, and have made a number of lifestyle changes as a consequence. But they’re pretty well off, and are outspoken that it wouldn’t work for most people.
And one of these people, who has a horse that he uses to go into the woods to harvest individual trees, is unapologetec that he has a chain saw for cutting wood, and vehicles to go into town.
He spent a lot of time and effort computing his planetary footprint, and concluded that there is no way to extricate himself and his family from a technological world.
Do you know of any communities that have been able to implement any of these ideas and become sustainable?
Gerry, are you being disingenuous or something?
There’s more to it than sitting on your thumbs and banging off some half-assed response to my comment.
There are ecovillages and similar communities (and Mennonite, Amish and First-Nations communities, etc., for that matter) all over the place that you can join, consult or associate with– the internet now may make it especially easy; the Transition Network; permaculture and steps you can take there while you hold down your day job; urban gardening; money and direct trade groups and groups on Meetup and other places like that that you can join or create yourself in that regard, including your own projects and brainstorming toward resilience and relocalization, such as learning new skills.
Rhetorically-speaking, how are your social and networking skills? What kind of knowledge/skills do you have or might like to learn that might be handy in a declining society? Knitting, hand-tool carpentry, weaving, soapmaking, seed-saving, beekeeping, botany, bootmaking, gardening, old-world apothecary?
My sense of it by your comment, however, seems to suggest that you’re not really serious about your original question anyway, are you? If you are, then stop wasting our time as though you’re still in diapers and expect to be spoon-fed and by this crumbling infantilistic society for as long as you live. You have the world’s greatest library right under your proverbial fingertips.
Caelan,
I had thought you might know more about permaculture in practice.
The Amish and Mennonites were the only examples i could think of as well.
I have relatives that live near an Amish community, and they report that it’s common to see the Amish going to the doctors and dentists etc., and shopping for light bulbs and metal saw blades and farming tools.
I also couldn’t find any countries that were anywhere close to self-sufficient in basic materials.
Permaculture practices appear valuable, but it looks like it needs an industrial base to support it.
Encroachment 101: Wild Animals And Gerry’s Amish Use The Services, Products And/Or Detritus of Humans
“I had thought… were the only examples i could think of… I also couldn’t find any… but it looks like…” ~ GerryF
Our ancestors didn’t need an ‘industrial base’ to support them and we’ve lost a lot of what they knew. Insofar as many of us have become extremely dependent upon it, so we’ve become extremely vulnerable in general, as well as to our industrial base’s own vulnerabilities in specific, to say nothing of any apparent ‘psychosociopathologies’ with some of the people running it, as well as what’s embedded [structural] within its general rules and operations (i.e., wage slavery, tax-slavery, ecocide).
Take that and do with it as you may, Gerry.
Wisdom seems to suggest that one doesn’t turn a blind eye to, or look down upon, sincere efforts at forward-thinking and looking self/other and ecological preservation, despite, and in response to, the human encroachments and detritus in their mental and physical environments.
Norway’S EV subsidies were a major boost for the industry, which is now taking off.
“Because coal is expensive, polluting, and unreliable.”
I seldom post but I have seen this comment before and have to ask . . . in what way is coal ‘unreliable’?
As I see it that is one of our problems.
For how ever long coal is available, it is absolutely reliable and can be utilized by several different technologies.
I have an acquaintance building a small horizontal piston engine utilizing a wood or coal powered boiler to provide his remote camp with electricity, heat and hot water . . . he doesn’t have to do it it is just that he can.
For how ever long coal is available, it is absolutely reliable
There’s part of your answer, of course: it’s a limited and depleting resource, and not a great thing on which to base a nation’s future.
The more important answer is that for most countries coal is an import at the end of a very long and somewhat fragile supply chain. It depends on the whims of other nations (the US, for instance, is increasingly reluctant to export any coal at all), and could be cut off in times of war or economic conflict (we’ve seen this many times with oil). Even within countries like Australia some provinces are exporters and others are importers. Wherever your friend is located, it’s unlikely that he can mine coal on his property: he has to buy it. He can’t put coal panels on his roof, or chop down a coal tree, and be largely independent.
Finally, at some point (long before it depletes) everyone is going to realize that to burn coal is to steal clean air from one’s neighbors, and it’s going to be phased out. That’s a good reason not to plan on using it.
As if nothing that goes into the industrial manufacture of electric cars, birdmills or solar panels is a depleting resource or that a ‘nation’s future’ (or Nick G for that matter) has everyone’s best interests at heart.
‘I can’t breathe.’
I’d concern myself less with coal-burning in that dire sense and more with the general operations of the State system in a similar sense.
The State and its symbionts are already killing/torturing/enslaving us, and they burn coal and oil, etcetera, and call for pseudorenewable energy that, along with other things they do and call for, are probably going to cause more of a myriad of serious problems if we let them.
The death of film based photography also caused peak silver for industrial use. Demand is still up, but it’s mostly Asians hiding the stuff under their beds.
I still shoot with film.
To Ron and any others interested – an excellent new book on possible futures under climate change is “Our final warning: six degrees of climate emergency” by Mark Lynas, a follow up to his book from 10 or 15 years ago with a similar layout but effectively re-written.
Thanks, George, I will check it out.
We currently live in central calif, bay area, and now have experienced 5 years of increasingly frequent and long duration fire seasons. Most people around here are wondering if this is the new normal, and if people will look back in 30 years and consider these years the ‘good old days’, when it was not so damned hot, and there still was patches of extensive forests, and snowpack was thick on the sierras well into June.
Changes coming to a neighborhood near you.
The motto for 21st-century climate science might be, “That happened faster than I expected.” Antarctic researcher Christina Hulbe suggested this to some colleagues a few years ago, and indeed the dwindling of the Arctic Ocean ice pack and the forces promoting disintegration of the Greenland Ice Sheet and Antarctic ice shelves have come decades earlier than expected. But of course, other features of climate change are also showing up sooner than many climate scientists expected, the extent and ferocity of wildfires included.
Yes. I fear you are correct.
Yep, just lost a house I lived in for years in Santa Rosa—
Actually 4 houses on 20 acres.
Got the animals off safely.
A house I lived in outside santa rosa just burned down too.
We were possibly neighbors?
I was that guy who lived out back, and kept harvesting your weed before it was ‘ripe’
You gave me a ride to a dead show once.
Remember?
Yea, that is what happened
I have lived in Sebastopol, just west of Santa Rosa for 41 years. We’ve been evacuated twice in the last 12 months, once for five days and once for two. Never before.
For anyone watching oil prices or living in Texas or Louisiana a new tropical storm is forming over the next couple of days and all models agree that it is heading straight for the Gulf without passing over any land.
Here’s a tidbit on it I think
https://youtu.be/mAFaXkKWk6o
This will probably be applauded by some and denigrated by others.
There is probably some good truths and false assumption for everyone, but regardless there are some interesting things noted in the commentary article, linked below, done on this research paper.
“Decent living for all does not have to cost the Earth”
First off, I think this assertion of this headline is ludicrous- the level of destruction of the earth by us cannot be understated.
However, going beyond the headline-
“The findings, published in in the journal Global Environmental Change, reveal that decent living standards could be provided to the entire global population of 10 billion that is expected to be reached by 2050, for less than 40% of today’s global energy. ”
“The authors emphasize that achieving this would require sweeping changes in current consumption, widespread deployment of advanced technologies, and the elimination of mass global inequalities.”
“not only do the findings show that the energy required to provide a decent living could likely be met entirely by clean sources, but it also offers a firm rebuttal to reactive claims that reducing global consumption to sustainable levels requires an end to modern comforts and a “return to the dark ages.”
“In countries that are today’s highest per-capita consumers, energy cuts of nearly 95% are possible while still providing decent living standards to all.”
“Currently, only 17% of global final energy consumption is from non-fossil fuel sources. But that is nearly 50% of what we estimate is needed to provide a decent standard of living for all in 2050.”
A basic assumption/conclusion is that humans can live a decent life with much lower consumption than currently is the norm. I agree with that- we use a tremendous amount of energy in wasteful and inefficient ways, and on activities that are non-essential/frivolous.
https://phys.org/news/2020-10-decent-earth.html
And for a bonus on a related topic-
Shining a light on international energy inequality-
“Among all the countries and income classes in the study, the top 10% consume roughly 20 times more energy than the bottom 10%.
“Additionally, as income increases, people spend more of their money on energy-intensive goods, such as package holidays or cars, leading to high energy inequality. Indeed, the researchers found that 187 times more vehicle fuel energy is used by the top 10% consumers relative to the bottom 10%.”
https://techxplore.com/news/2020-03-international-energy-inequality.html
On “Decent living for all does not have to cost the Earth”
This article only addresses the energy supply/consumption aspect of human impact on the earth.
It does not address all the other issues such as deforestation, soil erosion, species extinction, water degradation, to name a few other aspects.
So, if you would like to address those aspects, please start a fresh thread.
So, if you would like to address those aspects, please start a fresh thread.
Human nature is one package. You cannot separate human behavior concerning energy from human behavior concerning deforestation, or any other earth destroying human behavior.
Really Hickory, do you think everyone on earth is going to voluntarily change their behavior? Or perhaps the earth’s political system evolves into an iron-fisted dictatorship where everyone is required to change their behavior.
Let me repeat Deb Ozarko from her book, Beyond Hope: Letting Go of a World in Collapse:
If we can collectively pull ourselves together and do “Y,” we can save ourselves from ourselves and “X” But words drenched with hopium is only lulling us back to sleep.
People who write such articles forget one thing, human nature. Human nature will not change. We will continue to do what we have always done.
Well, I live in cattle country. Have not seen any sign of change except for increased numbers of cows every year. Spotted one EV though, it really shows up in the sea of brand new (big) pickups and SUVs.
“The production of meat has doubled in the 30 years from 1988 to 2018 and increased four-fold since the mid 1960s. And production is expected to continue to grow. By 2050, global meat consumption is projected to reach between 460 million and a staggering 570 million tons by 2050. 570 million tons would mean a consumption of meat twice as high as in 2008. Because meat production is so demanding in terms of resources, it also affects biodiversity and contributes to the extinction of species. A report from the WWF finds that 60% of global biodiversity loss is caused by meat-based diets. Almost HALF of the world’s harvest is fed to animals. Globally, 90 percent of the ever-increasing soybean harvest goes for animal feed. Reduced meat consumption is needed to feed a world population of 10 billion people by 2050. By 2050, food related greenhouse gas emissions are expected to reach 11.4 gigatons of CO2-equivalent. With approximately 7,3 GtCO2-eq, meat contributes almost two thirds of these emissions.”
https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/consumption/foods-and-beverages/world-consumption-of-meat/story
Reduced meat consumption is needed to feed a world population of 10 billion people by 2050.
But of course. People will eat less meat…. when there is less meat for them to eat.
I expect people in rich countries at least will eat less meat. For example, about 60% of beef consumption in the US is ground beef. It’s pretty easy to fake, and the fake stuff is falling quickly in price and will soon be much cheaper. chains like Burger King and McDonald’s are already offering vegan burgers, and as they get cheaper, they will start taking over the market.
Fake chicken nuggets are also pretty easy to make and already available in fast food restaurants.
People eat meat because it is greasy, has a certain texture, and has the flavor of glutamate. All this is getting easier and easier to deliver in processed food without using animals. Animals are about as good a source of food as firewood is a source of energy. Worse actually. We only use animals for food because it has taken so long for technology to develop cheaper replacements.
At the same time, people are getting less and less willing to eat actual meat. Meat on the bone is less and less popular, people find skin and fat distasteful, and organs like liver, kidney and tongue, once commonly eaten, are disappearing from the supermarket because they are considered by many to be disgusting. A lot of modern meat is stuff like boneless skinless chicken breast, which hardly seems connected to an animal and can already be grown in a vat, though not cheaply yet.
Another factor is demographics. Meat is mostly eaten by men, and meat consumption by men decreases sharply after age 30. As the population ages, meat consumption will very likely fall.
In poor countries, on the other hand, meat consumption is likely to increase, unless a replacement is found quickly.
“Meat is mostly eaten by men” You obviously haven’t met my wife.
Human behavior can indeed change– I think it’s called evolution– but collective human behavior and in the short term will likely not. If it changes, along the lines of, for example, this blog’s topics, it is more likely to do so in small, isolated pockets at first.
Yes, human nature may have genetically evolved a bit in 10,000 years. How much change do you expect in the ten years we MIGHT have to avoid the worst effects of climate change?
Almost none, except maybe small behavioral changes or ‘behavioral (personality) isolations’ in isolated pockets– maybe in part manifested as ecovillages and the like– and more to deal with impending environmental changes than to actually avoid them.
However, environmental pressures of various sorts are what can impose changes on species and create diversity, so insofar as we don’t change now, we are likely to change later, and maybe quite a bit, if we don’t go extinct first.
Human behavior is highly adaptable. One of the big difference between humans and other animals is human ability to exploit various niches without evolutionary change. For example, Eskimos and Mongolians rely almost entirely on meat, like carnivores. Many Indians never eat meat. Americans mostly ate pork and chicken until the railroads brought cheap but chewy beef in from Texas. Then they switched to ground beef. Wheat bread replaced cornbread almost overnight in much of the southeastern US. When I was growing up in East Tennessee in the 60s, country people were skinny and used to squat in the shade. Now they are hugely overweight and never leave their air conditioned rooms. The Dutch adopted bikes for city life almost overnight. And so on.
Well said Alim..
People are generally very responsive to market forces, and can change behavior quickly when it is to their benefit. Think of how quickly rabid Nazis shed their uniforms when the Russians rolled in to town.
do you think everyone on earth is going to voluntarily change their behavior?
Sure. They’ve done it many times. They’ve gotten rid of slavery: in the US in 1859 no one believed that slavery would be abolished in 6 years. There were a LOT of people who believed that slavery was just a part of human nature, and could never ever be changed.
We’ve seen Peak Lead: the world has pretty much entirely gotten rid of lead paint and leaded fuel. It was a conscious choice to get rid of a poison. We can do the same with fossil fuels: they’re polluting, expensive, risky, unreliable. There are investors and employees who would be hurt, of course, so that’s slowing down the transition, but in several generations children will be really puzzled that we ever used FF at all.
I wrote: do you think everyone on earth is going to voluntarily change their behavior?
Nick replied: Sure. They’ve done it many times. They’ve gotten rid of slavery: in the US in 1859 no one believed that slavery would be abolished in 6 years.
The people of the south voluntarly got rid of slavery? Really Nick, I know you know better than that. Hell, a fifth-grader knows that is bullshit:
At least 618,000 Americans died in the Civil War, and some experts say the toll reached 700,000. The number that is most often quoted is 620,000.
And that was all voluntary?
We’ve seen Peak Lead: the world has pretty much entirely gotten rid of lead paint and leaded fuel. It was a conscious choice to get rid of a poison.
That was not a change in human nature. That was mandated by governments when it became obvious lead was poison. Governments can force people to do what they desire, to a certain extent. China mandated one child per family. That held until it didn’t. Governments ordering people to do something, under penalty of imprisonment, is not changing human nature.
People will readily adapt any change that benefits them or otherwise gives them pleasure. But if something does not benefit them, or cost them money, or just don’t like it for any reason, they will fight it like hell. That is human nature.
Who needs a change in human nature? Did human nature change when humans went from horses to horseless carriages? Did it change when they went from leaded gas to unleaded?
Of course there was resistance to the abolition of slavery. A small percentage of Southerners benefited from slavery and they brainwashed all the rest into fighting to defend it. But the the country AS A WHOLE voted for Lincoln. As a country, there was a clear choice to restrict slavery in the West. It was a pretty clear referendum on slavery and that’s how the South understood it – that’s why secession started almost immediately after the election.
The elimination of leaded paint and gas was something that was understood generally as a good idea. It wasn’t a draconian mandate forced on an unwilling populace. A sufficiently large number of people understood that lead was a powerful neurotoxin.
Finally, let’s be clear: getting rid of fossil fuels will benefit almost everyone. FF is more expensive. It’s inconvenient. It’s polluting. It’s risky and unreliable: it causes recessions and wars. The only ones hurt by a transition away from it will be FF investors and employees. Of course that includes countries that have fallen under the curse of Dutch Disease: Russia, the M.E., Venezuela are being hurt badly. But oil importers will be far better off.
Nick, one of us has lost track of what the hell this debate is all about. I thought it was about preventing the world from collapse.
Who needs a change in human nature? Did human nature change when humans went from horses to horseless carriages? Did it change when they went from leaded gas to unleaded?
Okay, apparently you did not read my post. People will do anything that benefits them personally. They benefitted greatly by going from horses to cars and trucks. People benefitted when the government required the removal of lead from gasoline and paint. If people can benefit personally and financially by going from fossil fuel to renewables then they will do it. Otherwise, they will quit using fossil fuel when it is all gone. Nick, that is not just human nature, that is also common sense.
However, fossil fuel is only a small part of the larger problem. Overpopulation and all the problems brought on by massive population overshoot is the real problem. You are not going to solve that by switching to a grid powered by renewable energy and battery storage. Yes, that will help but only by a tiny amount.
Well, it would take a very long and complex discussion to deal with all of the problems of the world. Before we move to that, can we agree that fossil fuels are polluting, expensive and risky: in summary, that FF is inferior to renewables, and we can and should transition away from FF ASAP?
Of course, I agree. And great progress is being made on energy that can be had when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. But boy when it ain’t… well we have a problem there.
Ah. So you agree, with the exception that you’re concerned that it will be impossible to replace the last 10 or 20% of FF power needed when neither wind or sun are there?
Oh dear God! 10 to 20%? Sorry, Nick but you are delusional. Try 60 to 70%
And how did you arrive at that number?
I got it from the same place you got yours. However I found a site that estimated peak solar hours, assuming no clouds:
How many peak sun hours do solar panels need?
They come up with 6.65 hours per day. That does not account for days when the sun never shines, or even partly cloudy days. I couldn’t find such a page for wind. Of course, that would depend on where they are located. I live just west of the largest wind farms in America and have driven through them many times. The damn things seem to be turning way less than half the time. And obviously some of the time they would overlap peak sun hours. So Iwould estimate you would need storage for over 50% of the time.
But do your research and get back to me with the links.
Ron, the problem with solar as a sole source for electricity is not on a daily basis-that is not a very hard problem to deal with with current pricing and technology.
It is the dark season when you get far from the equator- solar output plummets- that is the big challenge. That is when you better have other sources of electricity. Even coal if that is what it takes. Better than cutting down all the forests and burning them for energy. But Nat gas, wind, nuclear can all be used for that season.
“Solving Intermittency Is Hard. Solving Seasonal Intermittency Is Hardest.”
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/08/31/100-by-2035-90-might-be-better-consider-the-opportunity-costs/
Ron,
This is a big discussion, with a lot of different approaches and solutions. We need to discuss it a little bit at a time, step by step. So, the article that Hickory provided is a good beginning: have you read it?
Now, another bit of the puzzle: you said that when you calculated a percentage of demand that solar could handle, you didn’t include stored solar power. Why is that?
Yes, Nick, I read the article. This passage should have shocked you:
My conclusion was that under these circumstances, and assuming a 20-year life and 100 charge / discharge cycles per year, that such batteries would become insanely economical over the next 20-30 years.
Unless you live in an area where the sun shines 24 hours a day you will have a minimum of 365 cycles per year. I know you say you must figure in wind’s contribution also. But I live in one of the windiest places in the USA. That’s why we have so damn many wind farms in the area. Even here the wind is extremely intermittent. The wind does not automatically kick in when the sun goes down.
I could not find the data on the web but I would bet the wind here blows enough to turn the turbine about 25% of the time. But if you can find better data I would be glad to read it.
Stored solar power? Are talking about those huge mirror farms where they heat water for use at night as well. I was under the opinion that they were a colossal failure. The one, I believe it was in California, is now in ruins. Broken mirrors scattered all over the surrounding desert. But if you have a link about one that is a huge success, then please post it and I will read it. Otherwise, I don’t know what you mean by “stored solar power”. I thought battery storage was the whole subject under discussion.
Unless you live in an area where the sun shines 24 hours a day you will have a minimum of 365 cycles per year.
And that means that batteries would be even MORE economical: as the number of cycles goes up, the cost per cycle goes down.
I thought battery storage was the whole subject under discussion
Well, battery storage is the first thing to talk about. There are a lot of forms of storage, some of which aren’t considered in the report covered by Cleantechnica, but batteries are what you’d use for evening and night storage.
So: you seemed to assume that solar could only cover roughly one third of the day. But, as you see in this article, it’s very economical to build more solar than you need for daytime consumption, and store the extra power to cover the evening and night. That’s how you get in the neighborhood of 90%.
Nick,
Can you comment on the absolute scale of panels, batteries, and material resources required make a full transition to renewable energy?
In this linked video – from a previous post (thanks) – a scientist from the Geological Survey of Finland attempts to determine what is needed, based on current technology, to transition the world’s entire transportation fleet – cars, trucks, train, freight shipping – excluding air travel as he was not able to source data – from fossil fuel to EV. He is a geologist so his interest is primarily in mined resources, but I think his analysis is quite interesting and helps put the challenge in perspective.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_gvvj56rzw
https://www.gtk.fi/en/front-page/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geological_Survey_of_Finland
I’d love to know if you agree or disagree with this assessment. Perhaps you have even seen the actual report.
And that means that batteries would be even MORE economical: as the number of cycles goes up, the cost per cycle goes down.
Oh, good gravy Nick. Now you are getting ridiculous. Yes, the cost per cycle may go down, a little, but that is not what you are counting. You are counting the cost per ampere-hour delivered. But what you really care about is how often you must replace the batteries. And the more you cycle them, and the longer they have to stay online, the shorter their lifespan.
But, as you see in this article, it’s very economical to build more solar than you need for daytime consumption, and store the extra power to cover the evening and night.
Yes, Nick, that is my entire point. The damn solar panels are cheap compared to the cost of battery storage.
From the article Hickory posted:
Even at $25 per kWh for storage (1/3 of the cost projected by NREL for 2050), economic benefits with 10 or fewer cycles per year just are not there.
Good God, $25 per Kwh! Are you shitting me? I Googled “average cost per kwh of coal power electricity”. Here is what popped up:
Consider: coal power plants provide roughly 45 percent of U.S. electricity at a seemingly bargain price — just 3.2 cents per Kilowatt hour (KWh) of electricity, or enough power to run your microwave for an hour. But the real cost of that energy is, in fact, 170 percent higher.
170 percent higher puts the cost per KWh at 8.64 cents per KWh. Natural gas combined-cycle power is pretty close to that.
Nick, I have stated, many times in the past, that the people will readily adopt any new development as long as is more economical than what they are paying now. We will have a total renewable grid when the prices of renewables are as cheap as coal or natural gas. Yes, I know wind and solar are already there. But storage is not even remotely close. Electrical storage cost is so damn far above the cost of coal or natural gas that…. well hell, it is likely that renewables will never catch up.
Okay, let’s clear up some things. When that article talks about $25 per kWh, they’re talking about the cost of the battery. So, if you have a 1,000 kWh battery and it costs $100,000, the battery costs $100 per kWh. Now, if you can discharge the battery 5,000 times over it’s life, then you divide the $100 by the number of discharges to get the cost of each discharge, which would be 2 cents per kWh.
If you run half your power through your batteries then you add 1 cent per kWh to your overall cost of power. So if your solar electricity costs 3 cents per kWh and your storage adds 1 cent your overall cost is 4 cents. That’s cheap.
And, those are realistic numbers for lithium-iron-phosphate batteries, which are looking like a standard for fixed location (utility) storage.
> And great progress is being made on energy that can be had when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. But boy when it ain’t… well we have a problem there.
Do we really? Or is that just what the incumbents want us to think.
anyway, you are looking at this the wrong way. Renewables are going to put most fossil fuel generation out of business. We’ll see how we cope afterwards.
I’m a BIG fan of wind and solar power, as big as you will run across, among realists and practical minded people used to working with various sorts of machinery.
And we sure as hell do have a very real, real world problem with wind and solar power when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining.
I personally believe that we can eventually solve this problem, but it’s going to take a hell of a long time, and it’s going to cost an arm and a leg.
But we don’t need to be talking about solving it.
My grand parents and great grand parents never spent much time worrying about problems with NEXT YEAR’S CROPS.
Sufficient unto the day were the problems thereof, lol.
We can switch to using as much renewable electricity as we can as fast as we can while earning a nice fat profit or putting it from the flip side, avoiding the huge costs of depending on depleting, ever more expensive in the long term, nasty fossil fuels.
I’m perfectly ready to buy any medical care that will provide me with another ten or twenty years of happy productive life.
I’m not insisting on an immortality drug, lol.
“Really Hickory, do you think everyone on earth is going to voluntarily change their behavior? ”
Of course not Ron. I’ve been around for awhile.
But I do think the report brings up a valid point- there is a huge amount of wiggle room when it comes to energy. If their was half as much energy available, and it was used more carefully because it was more expensive (say 3 times as much) expensive, there could still be 8 billion people (f)mucking around.
Will most people make wise decisions without severe market pressure?- no I doubt it.
examples of how to use less energy-
-don’t fly, ever (even while being medically evacuated to Walter Reed at taxpayer expense)
-drive half as much and max speed 55mph, always [with automated enforcement with high penalty]
-get all meat from locally grazed goat, sheep and chicken, and yeh ok, maybe a few cows, pigs and catfish
-build underground rooms for when it is too hot
-stop engaging in optional wars
-no more sports travel. make it all local or virtual, better yet-participate yourself…
this is a partial list of thousands
Will most people make wise decisions without severe market pressure?
Markets are a social creation. In particular, carbon taxes are an extremely effective way to move people away from FF. And, as a society, carbon taxes are a social choice, just as getting rid of lead paint was a social choice.
This idea of individual voluntary choice is a red herring. If you play sports you know that you need a referee. Overall everyone knows that the rules are needed, and everyone agrees to play by the rules.
Finally, we know that the rules change as new problems arise. Human nature doesn’t have to change, just the society’s rules and institutions.
Hickory, yes people will do all those things you suggest… if it is not inconvenient, or if it saves them money that they otherwise need badly, or is otherwise is beneficial to them personally.
People will do anything to save their own ass. But it must benefit them personally. They will do nothing purely for the benefit of all humanity.
They will do nothing purely for the benefit of all humanity.
And they don’t need to. Sports leagues create safety rules, and the players follow them – everyone knows they’re a good idea in general, but you have to have referees to enforce them. There are no saints on the playing floor, and you don’t need them to have players follow the rules.
Nick, there are over 25 failed nations, most of them in Sub-Sahara Africa, that have little or no rules. They have mass starvation. They are killing wildlife for food. There will soon be no megafauna left in Africa. Now nations outside of Africa are failing, like Venezuela, Syria, Haiti, and Yemen.`
Failed nations have no referees to lay down the rules. Well, some do have dictators but their starving subjects pay little attention to them. And every year more nations move closer and closer to the “failed states” status.
Sorry Nick, but you clearly do not understand the problem.
Fossil fuel production, importation, transport and utility scale consumption require substantial technical expertise, organization, infrastructure and ability to pay. In short, failed states won’t produce or use much fossil fuel.
Their production and consumption of energy is probably a pretty good indirect measure of “failedness”.
PV will probably have an advantage under these circumstances, as it’s decentralized and simple to use for consumers.
The rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer: late stage capitalism
Failed states: increasing the amount of refugees
Climate change: increasing the amount of refugees
The FF Peak issue is just one of the big problems. Maybe the straw that will brake the camel’s back.
the poor getting poorer
Have you seen statistical data for this? So far what I’ve seen is the rich getting richer and the poor and middle class stagnating at the same level.
In the civilized States of America there is free Medicaid for the poor. Smart phones cheaper than landlines 20 years ago. A billion TV shows, channels and a ton of music compared to nearly nothing 50 years ago. Lots of low cost good food if you don’t visit fast food Mickey D’s or 7eleven.
Han’s is also confused calling growing authoritarianism “late stage capitalism”.
Ya, I’m not buying it either
HB,
The world is not only the U.S. though many there seem to think that.
If basic needs are getting more expensive yoy and the salaries stay more or less the same….. protests in many countries the last years because of that, even in some W-European countries. In the U.S. the consumer debts from things like credit cards is very high. Many with no savings. Unexpected high (medical) costs is desastrous, and that is happening to many families, before the current pandemic already.
With increasing problems because of poverty, climate change, failed states, the diabetes pandemic to name one, too many new expensive medicines and ‘soon’ crude oil in terminal decline, I think the situation is going to get a lot worse.
Who knows a few miracles are going to happen the next 2-3 decades. Not talking about EV’s, solar and wind energy. They will bring some mitigation.. some
Han,
Actually, the world is getting more affluent on average, and income inequality is decreasing overall, mostly due to poor Chinese doing much better. Now, the picture isn’t that simple: in many OECD countries income inequality is getting worse – AFAIK that’s due to stagnating middle and low incomes.
Again, have you seen data on whether “the poor are getting poorer”? I’d be very curious to see it.
The Impoverishment of Most For The Wealth of The Few
If that’s the case and they are all using the same currency system, and we adjust for the rich getting richer, since the other two are stagnating, do we get the other two indeed getting poorer?
If the rich can roll into a small town and buy up all of the property (and for example, play games amongst each other to the detriment of others’ affordability, like property-flipping), does this affect the other two’s purchasing power by way of increases in prices though increased scarcity? Do the rich help create inflation by inducing a kind of scarcity?
Also, what about our current impoverishment in general, via assorted systemic (financial, etc.), resource and ecological draw-downs, as well their effects on the impoverishment of our planet’s future that includes our descendants?
Not really if it’s coming from centralized industrial corporations (sometimes former fossil fuel corporations) and their manufacturing plants, while the money to purchase it is coming from large-scale centralized government– all of which sounds still like crony-capitalist plutarchy BAU.
13 failed nations in Sub-Saharan Africa? I don’t think so. This is just the usual racist trash talk about the continent.
Listen Alimbiquated, I am not a racist. My posts here in the 7-year history of this blog proves that. But I do not deny the blatantly obvious either. If you don’t understand what is happening in Africa then you need to get an education. The political situation in Sub-Sahara Africa is in shambles.
25 Of The Most Failed States In The World
Count them 18 of them are in Sub-Sahara Africa.
I am a liberal, a yellow dog Democrat. I have racially mixed step-grandchildren. And I love them. This has not one goddamn thing to do with racism and anyone who thinks it is is muddle brained.
Note: A yellow dog Democrat is someone who would vote for an old yellow dog before they would vote for a Republican.
Politically I’m pretty much with you all the way, Ron, but you might want to think about it before you describe yourself as a yellow dog again.
That’s an archaic term from the days when the Democrats were the racists in the old south.
You and I are getting old enough to be entitled to a senior moment once in a while, lol.
Dammit, Mac, I did not say I was a yellow dog, I said I was a yellow dog Democrat.. There is a difference you know.
And I don’t give a shit what the term meant in the past, I know what it means today. But as far as the past goes:
The phrase “Yellow Dog Democrat” is thought[6] to have achieved popularity during the 1928 presidential race between Democratic candidate Al Smith and Republican candidate Herbert Hoover, when Senator J. Thomas Heflin (D-Alabama) crossed party lines and formally supported Hoover. Many Southern voters disliked several items on Smith’s platform, as well as his Roman Catholic faith, but still voted for him.
Ron,
I don’t take you for a racist, sorry to imply that.
But the rhetoric is racist. The website isn’t providing you with sensible information. The countries are poor, but not necessarily failed states. For example, since 2000, the GDP of Burundi has increased sixfold, Kenya sevenfold, and Uganda fourfold. It’s hard to imagine a government doing a much better job handling the economy, but all three end up on your “failed state” list.
Alimbiquated, a failed state is not defined by its GDP. Iraq is a failed state and its GDP, because of its oil revenue, is very high.
What Is a Failed State? Definition and Examples
A failed state is a government that has become incapable of providing the basic functions and responsibilities of a sovereign nation, such as military defense, law enforcement, justice, education, or economic stability. Common characteristics of failed states include ongoing civil violence, corruption, crime, poverty, illiteracy, and crumbling infrastructure. Even if a state is functioning properly, it can fail if it loses credibility and the trust of the people.
Extreme poverty and no social support of its people such as medical care or education are the primary characteristics of a failed state. One obvious example of a failed state that was not even on the top 25 list was Venezuela.
Note: If you do not think Iraq is a failed state then just Google it:
Is Iraq a failed state
Iraq is a destroyed state, I’d say. Americans calling it a failed state are like a guy breaking another guy’s leg and then making fun of him for being a cripple.
Be that as it may, Iraq has a high GDP because it exports a single very high value commodity. Its economy is big but very lopsided. It also lacks much local participation.
Kenya, on the other hand, has a much more balanced list of exports. with the top 10 categories making up 83% of total exports.
http://www.worldstopexports.com/kenyas-top-10-exports/
Notice that the list includes agriculture, including high value items like cut flowers, raw materials, and textiles.
Another nice thing about Kenya is that more sustainable agricultural practices have been a big boost to the economy. In particular, the locally developed fanya-juu terracing method has greatly improved crop yields while simultaneously improving soil quality.
https://ccafs.cgiar.org/blog/terracing-practice-increases-food-security-and-mitigates-climate-change-east-africa
This practice has become very widespread, as you can see here:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Kenya/@-1.5427922,37.294977,1127m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x182780d08350900f:0x403b0eb0a1976dd9!8m2!3d-0.023559!4d37.906193
Terracing was rare just a few decades ago.
Kenya also has a booming high tech industry. Its home grown M-PESA mobile payments and banking system was one of the first world wide, and a export hit to its African neighbors.
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/M-Pesa
Of, course the country is still dirt poor. But the whole “shithole country” narrative so common in the US and Europe definitely needs rethinking, especially for the East African and Great Lakes countries Kenya, Ruanda, Uganda and Ethiopia, but also Burundi and Tanzania to a lesser extent. These countries have been significantly outperforming the world in growth terms for decades.
Africa was and still is victim to the terrible effects of colonialism. Carving up the land into foreign-stolen corporate ‘squats’, general landgrabs and nation-states generally ignores animal and prehistoric human migration patterns, to say nothing of what it does to the local residents and ecosystems.
“drive half as much and max speed 55mph”
Hickory, just wondering your habits ?
Hi HB.
I like to drive pretty fast- 70 on a good highway.
I learned to drive in Philly, so I’m on lifelong training program to be less aggressive. I think its slowly working.
But if I had more incentive (fuel shortage or fines) I would slow down and live with it.
And I try to arrange my life so that I don’t need to drive much.
“Increasing your highway cruising speed from 55mph (90km/h) to 75mph (120km/h) can raise fuel consumption as much as 20%. You can improve your gas mileage 10 – 15% by driving at 55mph rather than 65mph (104km/h). Natural Resources Canada puts the “sweet spot” for most cars, trucks, and SUVs even lower, between 30 mph (50 km/h) and 50 mph (80 km/h).”
https://learn.eartheasy.com/guides/fuel-efficient-driving/
My 2017, 4000 pound crossover SUV(rated-19 city/27 hwy) gets 44 mpg @ 55 and 31 mpg @ 70. Also, the brakes, tires, oil changes and struts last longer holding down the speed. I spend less time at the gas station. It’s less stressful, additional time to react to objects on the road and safer at 38% less kinetic energy on impact.
Currently the 405 freeway is under construction going from 5 lanes to 8 lanes in one direction. It’s marked 55 mph and about the only time I leave the right lane is if a large number of vehicles enter at the same time on short on ramps. Except for a few trucks in the right lane. Everyone else must be going 70 plus. I’m pretty much done with the rat race looking for the cheese. On most local trips it’s a matter of an extra 5 minutes.
Smart. And it isn’t all that painful is it? (to slow down)
A year and a half ago, I made a trip from HB to South Carolina 4900 miles around trip. Set the cruise at 62 and got 38.4 mpg.
At the time I hadn’t made that trip in 3 years. Along I40 though Texas there were thousands of visible wind mills built during that time.
I was looking at Tesla 3 road trips on U-tube a week ago. My basic take was that the 3 needed to be charged about every 175 miles. Fast charging takes about 40 minutes from 15% to 80% charge. That’s 3 times more stops than I needed to make. All the 3 drivers set their cruise at 70. Back at that time I averaged about $2.60 a gallon across I40 or about $.07 per mile and it took about 5 minutes to pump 15 gallons. Enough time to clean the windows.
Umm, no one seems to want to face the 500 lb gorilla in the room. No one wants to believe that this pandemic we are living through might just be a dry run for the next one and the next one and the next and inevitably we will run into one that is just as contagious but much more lethal and then the amount of the biosystem that is locked up in human flesh will go from the obscene fraction it currently is to something close to zero. Nature is not as powerless against our blundering as we assume. The last year should have taught us all that if nothing else.
Extremely lethal viri don’t spread as well because they kill or disable their hosts before they can move to another one. There is a contagion sweet spot of medium lethality, and SARS-2 (the virus which causes COrona VIrus Disease-19 illness) is fairly close to it.
Extended incubation periods solve that problem.
Yeah, it’s possible to imagine something that’s much worse than Covid-19. I’m more worried about designer viri than random mutations: it seems to me that our ability to recombine DNA is getting ahead of our ability to cope with the results.
I am continually dumbfounded by the low level of public funding of medical research, especially for viral treatment, neurological disease and the fundamentals of aging. What kills 100M people a year, more than anything else? Aging. What gets more R&D funding? Almost everything. But I get that: most people are fatalistic about aging. But viral treatment research? That should be as obvious as the nose on your face.
187 times more vehicle fuel energy is used by the top 10% consumers relative to the bottom 10%.
Which is why it’s a terrible idea to subsidize cheap fuel. People think that cheap gas or diesel helps the bottom 10%, but instead it’s a giveaway to the affluent.
Well, to come back around, this article addresses energy, and I think they make very points about it.
In summary- humanity can get by with a lot less energy.
On this I am in agreement, theoretically.
It won’t be voluntary, it won’t be fair or evenly distributed, it won’t be painless.
And there very may well be wars over it.
Nonetheless, some places will successfully learn to do well with much, much less energy, not by choice but by being forced by the market.
All the other issues people brought up, like human character and failed states, and I’ll throw in severe generalized environmental degradation and over population, are harder issues and not addressed by these authors.
“Rocky Mountain Institute Study Shows Renewables Are Kicking Natural Gas To The Curb”-
“After analyzing the most recent data from two of America’s largest electricity markets — ERCOT in Texas and PJM in the Northeast — the Rocky Mountain Institute has come to a startling conclusion.
Renewables are muscling in on natural gas as the preferred choice for new electricity generation. ”
This chart from the article shows the trend of new projects in the electrical generation queue-
“RMI looked at the interconnection queues for both ERCOT and PJM and found over the past two years there has been a dramatic shift away from building new gas fired generating plants and toward more renewable energy projects. Interconnection queues track new generation projects proposed to be added to regional grid. “
And if you include retirements, as shown in Islandboy’s posts, you see that US FF capacity is actually declining while renewable is growing.
The raw numbers are stunning. There are applications to build 75 GW of solar in Texas alone. These projects should only take a few years to build, assuming they are approved.
For comparison, a large nuclear reactor produces about 1 GW. Total US nuclear capacity is about 100GW.
Texas has its own grid (ERCOT), essentially separate from the remainder of the US grid network.
That will change at some point, when Texas realizes that its energy export capability isn’t limited to oil and gas, and once it is realized that tens of thousands of individual producers can participate in the electrical production market.
Chicago is 1,100 miles away, well within the range for HVDC transmission line.
Texas really understands that for internal transmission, say from West Texas wind farms to the eastern TX cities.
OTOH, I think Iowa is beating them to it, when it comes to Chicago and electrical exports to the PJM system. On the 3rd hand, there’s probably a lot of room for exports to the NE.
This is a tragedy at every level; besides people losing their homes, scientists estimate for The Energy 202 that the fires in California this year through mid-September burned enough forest to put about 90 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the air. For perspective, that’s some 30 million tons more than the total CO2 emissions from providing power to the entire state.
RECORD-BREAKING CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES SURPASS 4 MILLION ACRES
“Deadly wildfires in California have burned more than 4 million acres (6,250 square miles) this year—more than double the previous record for the most land burned in a single year in the state.”
https://phys.org/news/2020-10-record-breaking-california-wildfires-surpass-million.html
Economist Richard Wolff: Capitalism is the reason COVID-19 is ravaging America
https://www.salon.com/2020/10/04/economist-richard-wolff-capitalism-is-the-reason-covid-19-is-ravaging-america/
Food for thought from The New Yorker this morning.
SCENARIOS FOR THE FUTURE OF CLIMATE CHANGE
The New Yorker has run dozens of pieces on climate change. All might be described as “reflections” on our fundamental disconnect. Even as the consequences — rising seas, fiercer droughts, longer wildfire seasons, more devastating storms — have become daily news.
Global carbon emissions have continued to increase. In 2019, they reached a new record of ten billion metric tons. Emissions in India rose by almost two per cent, and in China by more than two per cent. In the United States, they actually dropped, by about 1.5 per cent. On November 4, 2019, the Trump Administration formally notified the United Nations that it planned to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, negotiated by the Obama Administration back in 2015. The very next day, a group called the Alliance of World Scientists released a statement, signed by eleven thousand researchers, warning that “the climate crisis has arrived and is accelerating faster than most scientists expected” …
At current emissions rates, the 1.5-degree threshold will be crossed in about a decade. As Drew Shindell, an atmospheric scientist at Duke University, told Science, “No longer can we say the window for action will close soon — we’re here now.”
So how hot — which is to say, how bad — will things get? One of the difficulties of making such predictions is that there are so many forms of uncertainty, from the geopolitical to the geophysical. (No one, for example, knows exactly where various “climate tipping points” lie.).”
James Hansen retired from NASA in 2013, but he has continued to speak out about climate change — and to get arrested protesting projects like the Keystone XL pipeline. He is blunt about the world’s failure. When asked if he had a message for young people, he said, “The simple thing is I’m sorry we’re leaving such a fucking mess.” My sentiments exactly.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/three-scenarios-for-the-future-of-climate-change
I wonder when the conversation will start to focus on Peak Carbon Emission.
We will get there one way or another.
And then there is methane.
And just how long after peak carbon emission will be the peak warming effect- decades, or a century.
I haven’t memorized the numbers, but according to the estimates that Dennis has presented, there is something like 50% more crude available to be brought up to the surface. And there is still a huge slug of coal and nat gas available to bring up and burn.
Well, the consensus is that there is immediate warming effects from our CO2 emissions, and that maximum warming (the greatest increase in temperature), will occur roughly 10 years post peak CO2. BTW The median average result of many models suggest it is ‘very likely’ that maximum warming will occur at any time between 6.6 to 30.7 years post peak emission; a fairly big range. Assuming 10 years post peak would probably be a safe bet. Too early to be thinking about this, perhaps, because the CO2 (and methane) emission rate is still increasing.
Part of the equation is global prosperity vs poverty.
People (8.5 billion by the end of the decade) will burn wood and coal on masse if they have no other energy source. All of the worlds remaining forests could be clear-cut. And it wouldn’t take all that many years. People will walk a dozen miles for a bucket of coal or fire wood.
People, if prosperous, will switch to an electrical based energy economy over the next 2 decades.
This electricity production will be gradually less and less based on fossil fuel burning.
And if people are prosperous they tend to have less children.
I have no prediction for prosperity. I tend to be on the pessimistic side of economic projections. Global prosperity is extremely concentrated to a few. Roughly, the wealthiest top 1% of worlds adults have as much wealth accumulated as the rest of the worlds adults combined.
file:///C:/Users/Isaac/AppData/Local/Temp/global-wealth-report-2019-en.pdf
Thanks Hickory. This link may work better:
http://www.credit-suisse.com/media/assets/corporate/docs/about-us/research/publications/global-wealth-report-2019-en.pdf
It’s interesting, sitting here on my ass, watching my country–Amurka–falling apart. Goddamn Greek tragedy.
TEIRESIAS [to the tyrant]: YOU are the land’s pollution!
mikeb, that was esoteric! Had to look it up…
“In Greek mythology, Tiresias (/taɪˈriːsiəs/; Greek: Τειρεσίας, Teiresias) was a blind prophet of Apollo in Thebes, famous for clairvoyance and for being transformed into a woman for seven years. ”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiresias
As you may have heard, the president trump has required supplemental oxygen therapy to treat episodes of hypoxia, and to be airlifted to Walter Reed medical center.
Many people wonder if these spells of hypoxia could explain aberrant mental function such as very poor attention span and inability to concentrate, rambling speech patterns with disconnected thoughts and bizarre thinking, delusions of grandeur, poor reading ability, extremely poor judgement, irritability, and paranoia with ideation about lack of loyalty and claims of sedition, profound hypocrisy, and juvenile behavior patterns in an adult.
And the answer is yes, hypoxia can certainly explain these deficiencies of mental function.
But in the case of the president trump hypoxia can be ruled out as the cause of his well-documented mental deficiencies. Simply, the timing is just wrong. In his case the mental issues have predated the episodes of hypoxia by decades. Hypoxic effects can not be attributed in a retroactive manner.
No, his mental deficiencies are not transitory, and cannot simply be treated with supplemental oxygen. They are permanent character features, as he himself has proven. A pre-existing condition.
On the other hand, he’s being treated with dexamethasone, which can make all those mental deficiencies worse. And research out today indicates that 82% of symptomatic Covid patients have long term cognitive deficits, like “brain fog”.
He is not the brightest porch light on the block.
How would we know?
🙂
Can you run an industrial civilization on renewable energy.
I don’t know, perhaps a smaller one.
But people are definitely going to give it a try.
“Leading Steel Maker In US Pivots To Renewable Energy, Ditches Coal”-
[a gigantic steel mill in Pueblo, Colorado is getting a renewable energy makeover with a spanking new 300-megawatt solar power plant. The developer, Lightsource bp, cites the “competitive price of solar energy” as a factor that will keep the mill humming for years to come and save jobs for 1,000 local workers, to boot. As for coal jobs, not so much. The new PV plant will help smooth the way to retiring Colorado’s largest remaining coal power plant.]
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/10/05/leading-steel-maker-in-us-pivots-to-renewable-energy-ditches-coal/
And in other news along the same lines-
“The Financial Times has reported another win for clean energy. NextEra, the world’s largest solar and wind power generator, has surpassed ExxonMobil in market value. NextEra is now more valuable on the stock market than ExxonMobil. This reflects that investors believe that the energy system is changing in favor of renewables and fossil fuels are starting to become a thing of a past.”
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/10/05/another-win-for-clean-energy-nextera-surpasses-exxonmobil-in-market-cap/
Interesting study regarding how agriculture will have to adjust ‘what is planted where’ as the nation gets hotter over the next decades-
https://www.evdriven.com/?open-article-id=14606395&article-title=study–crop-relocation-can-help-buffer-us-agriculture-from-climate-change-but-southern-states-may-face-massive-loss-of-productive-land&blog-domain=greencarcongress.com&blog-title=green-car-congress
Crimes Against Humanity
Dr. Reiner Fuellmich
49 minute video
So I watched a few minutes of the video. It really has all the ear marks of a fraud. I’m not clear what his agenda is. Are we supposed to believe that the entire scientific/medical community world wide has invented the Corona virus to generate income for medical related corporations? I can easily believe that an infinitely smaller group of deluded or grasping individuals can push an irrational agenda such as the anti-vaxxers who, based on a discredited technical paper, can create an ongoing uproar that is dangerous to society. Yet they are ineffectual. And especially dangerous to children. They are believers. The entire Trump phenomena is a similar madness. A belief that we can continue to grow an economy if only we de-regulate and call everyone “not like me” an enemy. With massive funding this kind of thing can be sold to people who want it to be true and/or can see significant personal gain. The world wide response to COVID just isn’t in this category.
You would be hard pressed to convince me that all of the pharmaceutical companies in the world have the clout with all of the governmental scientists and medical experts in the world to pull off a scam of this magnitude.
To me the fundamental data point is the CDC “excess deaths” record. You would have to believe that the entire scientific population of the CDC was in on the scam. Not possible.
As i understand it, Dr. Reiner Fuellmich is a Consumer Affairs Lawyer.
The German Corona Investigative Committee doesn’t seem to have any official standing anywhere. It seems to be four people who called themselves a committee.
I’ve never been sure if the teams of epidemiologists and virologists and medical specialists all around the world are considered part of the conspiracy, or just considered to be ignorant and easily taken in by the conspiracy.
Just Doing Their Jobs/Following Orders
First, did you watch the video?
Second, I’m unsure Reiner Fuellmich suggests a conspiracy in it.
Third, we can have any number of well-meaning individuals conscientiously doing their jobs/following orders, albeit within a dubious framework, under a potentially-misguided/dubious set of rules, regulations, decisions and actions or enactments.
In fact, Fuellmich cites the Nuremberg trials at the very beginning of the video.
Presumably, the border security guards on the old Berlin wall were well-meaninged/unconspiratorial and just doing their jobs/following orders too.
Presumably, many people seem to think it’s ok to have their labor skimmed, by those well-meaning/unconspiratorial who are just doing their jobs/following orders, whether they like it or not, as taxes for government and/or profit for the slavemasters (and that it’s ok not to think of slavemasters as slavemasters).
Maybe you’re one of those.
Maybe no conspiracies in there anywhere, if it pleases you, and since no one conspires anymore, right? haha, just maybe way too many mindless sheeple being herded about, some with guns and whatnot to– you know– uphold the order/flow of the herd.
In any case, it’s news, I thought to post it, and it’s apparently not unique, either, as there’s at least one other similar case that I caught going on in at least one State in the US too.
As Hightrekker might like to write, we shall see.
The Conspiracy of The House of Cards
Fuelmich is an ambulance chasing lawyer. He is not a medical doctor, German academic titles can be confusing if used without translation. He studied law. He mostly works for banks suing each other or on class action suits against banks. He is trying to do something like a class action suit against the German government, but such a thing doesn’t include punitive under German law, I think, so it isn’t so lucrative for lawyers. I guess he will try to do it in California instead, where he has worked in the past.
The “German Corona Committee” (Corona-Ausschuss) is him and three or four other lawyers trying to organize the lawsuit. Apparently the only thing they’ve come up with so far is that the usual test doesn’t work as stated, and that “corona is about as dangerous as the flu” (das Corona-Virus entspricht in seiner Gefährlichkeit eine Grippe).
Chasing The House of Cards’ Cards
I’ve already mentioned other lawsuits, one of which for example, is here. There are likely others in process and in the future. Maybe you can go and run after those ones too and then report back about this and that and how I ‘entangle‘ you, you poor dear.
Quick! There’s another card! It’s blowing away! 😀
Unsure if I posted this, but here’s something else you might feel like chasing too to help make excuses for governpimps, their lackeys and their houses of cards the globe over:
Virologist Dr. Li-Meng Yan Claims Coronavirus Lab ‘Cover-Up’ Made Her Flee China
It isn’t over yet and may just be beginning.
Anyway, the effects of the governpimps and their lackeys’ responses to the pandemic need also to be factored in.
Anecdotally, and as I may have previously mentioned on here along with related stuff, at about the ‘peak’ of the pandemic here, they actually closed a local walk-in medical clinic.
But maybe it was some sort of counterintuitive method to their madness, ay?
See also here.
Ok, so you ‘watched a few minutes’ and then decided to give your less-than-informed (a charitable way perhaps of saying willfully ignorant) opinion. That’s a problem, and it’s yours. It’s a common problem, though, if it makes you feel better.
I’ve also watched a few minutes of Trump speeches. It doesn’t take much to decide sometimes. You seem to exhibit that kind of toxic self righteousness so common in the uninformed Trump rabble. How much “willful ignorance” does it take to imagine a conspiracy or a “sheeple-ness” that includes virtually the entire world’s population of medical expertise? If we can’t trust them more than a cabal of German lawyers we might as well give up on the concept of civilization.
It seems rather odd and hypocritical to rationalize watching a vague ‘few minutes’ (whatever few minutes actually means) of a video by playing the ‘anti-Trumpism’ card, while taking a swipe, that appears to fall victim to its own definition, at me.
Thou doth project too much, methinks.
As it was thought had been explained, it is not merely a matter of a dreamlike harmonious ultra-accurate medical or scientific superduper expertise global consensus, alone, WRT the coronavirus (We already know that the initial epidemiological model was revised downward for example.), but rather the nature of the responses, given the information, and given its own nature. Stuff like that.
This is to say nothing of how we evolved with viruses and assorted pathogens and cannot go about our existence sterilizing the hell out of ourselves, our local environs and our planet and/or otherwise detaching ourselves from it in a myriad of ways.
On a very real and visceral level, we have to ‘let go’ and embrace reality. Reality, filtered through human overspecialists, are blinders, almost by definition.
See also here, and…
Exclusive: Government scientist Neil Ferguson resigns after breaking lockdown rules to meet his married lover
Continued here…
From a post of Ron’s . . . . .
“I thought battery storage was the whole subject under discussion.”
An alternative to batteries is pumped hydro, is that not being discussed in the US?
Old and proven technology, long lasting, what’s not to like? “just” overbuild solar and wind and keep those top dams full.
https://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/anu-finds-530000-potential-pumped-hydro-sites-worldwide
Agree-
Pumped hydro is on the radar scope of all the utilities, and has been discussed here some.
Here is a big project in Montana-
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/1b-montana-pumped-hydro-project-secures-funding/558833/
Thanks Hickory, I was not aware of that project.
We have one underway here in Australia . . .
https://www.snowyhydro.com.au/snowy-20/about/
There are many smaller sites and on the face of it, a more sensible option than batteries.
The money always wins and, being a long term investment, obviously to business (at this stage) the numbers don’t add up . . . I think it’s time will come though.
Cheers.
Here is a great video of a big pumped hydro station in Wales. They say they use 4 units of energy to fill the reservoir, and get 3 units of energy back when they empty it.
Despite the loss of energy they are profitable because they fill it at night when the power is cheap, and drain it (generate energy) in the day day when demand is high and the price of electricity is high.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McByJeX2evM
Yep, one cannot get around the second law
Hickory said . . . .
“Despite the loss of energy they are profitable because they fill it at night when the power is cheap, and drain it (generate energy) in the day day when demand is high and the price of electricity is high.”
Sure, that’s how it works commercially . . . to turn a profit.
To me though, it seems the notion of keeping those top reservoirs full as an emergency reserve . . . . that is to say as a “battery” is another thing again.
There has to be a way to commercialize a standby system with potentially a working life of a century or more . . . how are battery farms compensated? Surely they don’t cycle them just to create the bottom line?
Cheers.
Yeah, they cycle them to create the bottom line. It’s arbitrage between night supply and day demand. In fact, some European pumped storage is in danger of being shut down because solar power has disrupted the normal patterns. Daytime peaks used to be mitigated by pumped storage, now the daytime peaks are mostly gone, erased by solar.
Ludington operates in a similar way: nuclear produces at night and fills the upper reservoir, and the pumped storage takes care of the daytime peak in demand. It’s a daily cycle.
Scrub Puller, pumped hydro has been around for decades, and it is no replacement for batteries. There is just not enough of it. Hydro produces 6.1% of total US electricity. But most of that is on places like the Tennessee River where pumping a large river back upstream is unnecessary and impractical. Probably about 1% or less hydropower is produced in places where the water could be pumped back upstream in daylight hours.
I don’t think pumped hydro is going to be a primary form of storage. It’s like nuclear: it’s generally a very large, cumbersome building project, which requires a lot of planning, large capital costs, environmental damage & a lot of NIMBY opposition, etc.
On the other other hand, like nuclear, it could work if we really needed it. For instance, the Great Lakes work very well as a bottom reservoir, and there’s a lot of cheap land in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan which could be used for the upper reservoir. This has been done: see the Ludington plant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludington_Pumped_Storage_Power_Plant
I expect batteries to be the primary storage for daily variation, and some form of “wind-gas” to be used for seasonal backup (combined with lots of other strategies, like overbuilding, DSM, transmission, etc).
“Probably about 1% or less hydropower is produced in places where the water could be pumped back upstream in daylight hours.”
True enough, but there are hundreds of sites on the east coast of Australia that could be utilized when needed . . . it doesn’t have to be “daylight hours” if the wind is blowing.
These are the projects needed to provide jobs as we stagger out of the Covid crisis . . . but no we are not even building railways, we are building roads and bloody airports.
Cheers.
Recent interesting news on the COVID-19 front but it seems as that has gone almost completely under the radar. I do an internet (Google News) search for “vitamin d covid-19” every day to get the latest on the subject. Here’s an interesting article that showed up recently:
COVID-19: Scientists raise the vitamin D alarm
There is a link to a YouTube webinar in the last section that, features a a 20 minute presentation from a favorite researcher of mine, Prof Michael F. Holick PhD., MD. of the Boston University School of Medicine. Here’s a link to the video:
BIG news about Vitamin D – 4 experts
One of the presenters in the above video cited a clinical trial carried out in Spain that had come up in my daily search in early September:
COVID-19 Nearly Eliminated By Vitamin D In Hospitalizations
Can anyone explain to me why this is not headline news? President Trump was given vitamin D among the other treatments he received but, he got so much stuff, it is unlikely that vitamin D will get any credit if he continues to recover. I used to be singularly focused on vitamin C as a cure all for most things but, it now appears that vitamin D is just as important, if not more so. At any rate, the combination of the two is extremely safe and the only side effect of going overboard with vitamin C is loose bowels to extreme diarrhea if one’s overdose is extreme. Cut back on the dose and the loose bowels cease very quickly.
It seems too good to be true but, the scientists that make the claims have a perfectly good explanation for it.
I agree.
I think the evidence that D is very valuable for Covid-19 (and many other things) is strong, and every indication is that D is very safe.
But doctors have to be conservative with new stuff (which is the right thing to do), and they’re very afraid of competition from non-prescription stuff – the more effective it is, the stronger the competition…
D is a fat soluble vitamin, so don’t take too much.
I use it, with trending toward higher doses.
There is no evidence it helps with Sars cv2 , but why not use it?
Just don’t overdose.
You should test your levels, and adjust your dose accordingly. I take 5,000 daily, and that gets me a level of about 60 which just about right.
“D is a fat soluble vitamin, so don’t take too much.”
Hightrekker, I’m guessing you’ve never watched any of Dr. Holick’s presentations. At 19 min.29 sec into the video linked above, Hollick says:
I can only speculate as to the reasons for this myth, over blowing the dangers of vitamin D toxicity, becoming so pervasive but, I will take the word of someone who has been studying vitamin D for about 50 years over any doctor any day.
Actually no need to speculate. Browsing through another Holick presentation (The 2013 Boston University Lecture), at the end of the Q&A section (1 hr 36 min 15 sec) Holick responds to a comment from an audience member. He outlines how before 1950 lots of food was fortified with vitamin D and that in response to a number of birth defects in infants, vitamin D fortification was banned. He then goes on to say that it turns out the cause was really a rare genetic disorder called Williams Syndrome but, the damage had already been done and since then, health care professionals have been taught that vitamin D is one of the most toxic fat soluble vitamins. Holick then flatly states, “It turns out it is not.” So there you have it. The misinformation about the toxicity of vitamin D has carried on in medical texts to this day. The correction has not been widely spread.
In other Holick presentations I have watched that I can’t find now (there are quite a few), he has described instances of extreme doses of vitamin D that resulted in toxicity, like the case of a dairy that was fortifying their milk with vitamin D that had been incorrectly labelled resulting doses thousands of times higher than the RDA. Once the source of the problem was identified and the doses corrected the vitamin D intoxication subsided. No one died or suffered any long term health issues as a result.
“There is no evidence it helps with Sars cv2”
The second, third and fourth presenters address that. Quite to the contrary there is an extreme level of correlation between low levels of vitamin D and poor outcomes. The third presenter, Gareth Davis of Imperial College, London, developed some sophisticated models that strongly suggest that the poor outcomes are as a result of the low vitamin D levels. Watch the video for explanations of his methodology.
I trust the virologists who deal with this with thousands of patients:
TWiV 669: All the wrong COVID-19 moves
https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-669/
(Daniel Griffin provides a clinical report on COVID-19, including a discussion of the role of vitamin D in COVID-19)
These are the pros on the front lines.
Note:
I’m not discounting the effect on D on Covid, just we don’t have the data yet.
It may, or may not. Infected, probably not.
We were aware of this in Canada since June. Also Canada recommends Vitamin D because it also helps fight MS. Canada has a higher than average rate for MS and the speculation is due to lack of sunlight in the winter.
A large portion of the US public is vitamin D deficient.
We need to pay attention.
One more thing about this situation with vitamin D. At 53 min 5 sec. into the video I linked to above, the fourth presenter, retired physician Dr. David Grimes showed a screenshot with a newspaper article reporting a potential conflict of interest for the UK’s Chief Scientific Officer Sir Patrick Vallance. This is not fake news as can be determined by doing a simple Google search. Browsing through some of the articles brought up by the search, apparently Vallance was head of research and development at GlaxoSmithKline between 2012 and 2018 when he took up the post with the UK government. According to one of the articles “The shareholding appears to be the legacy of his previous job as the head of research and development at the very same company.”
The Health secretary in the UK, one Matt Hancock is in favour of privatising the NHS and denies that there is any conflict of interest in Vallance’s share holdings. This leads me to wonder what conflicts of interest Hancock may have? How many similar situations exist in other countries. It is not difficult to imagine how selfish interests of a relatively small number of people could obstruct the dissemination of information that would be a huge benefit to the world population at large. I wait with bated breath to see if news of the huge health benefits of vitamin D will become major headlines all over the world. Somehow I doubt it.
On the other hand my “vitamin D covid-19” search brought this up this morning:
Coronavirus and vitamin D: MPs press Matt Hancock to push potential benefits in tackling Covid-19
The Conspiracy of The House of Cards, Part 2
To embellish my previous comment a little; my header, ‘The Conspiracy of The House of Cards’, is inspired by, and about the idea of something along the lines of a relatively ideologically-imprisoned citizenry’s upholding of a failing society with corrupt fundamental premises, suggesting inevitable failure– failure baked-in; failure as part of its recipe.
What are whistleblowers but those who reveal ‘secret plans and/or actions to do something unlawful or harmful’ that are, in any case, more the rule than the exception of particular elements of the structure/modus operandi of the crony-capitalist plutarchy society and those in positions of power?
What is ‘official standing’ and why do you seem to think it is required?
Do politicians and their police and war-machinery have ‘official standing’?
Maybe ‘official standing’ is part of the techno-ideological cage wrapped around your mind that you don’t even notice.
John Lennon at 80: One Man Against the Deep State ‘Monster’
“The German Corona Investigative Committee doesn’t seem to have any official standing anywhere.” ~ GerryF
What is ‘official standing’ and why do you seem to think it is required?
By official standing i meant a committee that is commissioned with a mandate, who call and question witnesses, collect evidence, prepare a draft report for review by people knowledgeable in those fields, and then submit a final report to the public, industry, government, etc.
Who commissioned the committee? Government, private industry, NGO or other public group, or was it just four guys who hang out at the bar?
Who was on the committee and what relevant experience or expertise did they have?
Did the four-person committee collect and source evidence, or did they just go online and watch Youtube videos?
Did they produce a written report, or just a Youtube video?
Official Rackets
But you wrote it yourself that, ‘As i understand it, Dr. Reiner Fuellmich is a Consumer Affairs Lawyer’.
Presumably, ‘lawyer’ means that he’s official insofar as he’s made or passed ‘the bar’.
So I guess he has at least 2 bars he can hang out at.
This virus, too, increasingly appears to be ‘official’ insofar as it was ‘tweaked’ in an ‘official’ lab. Gotta luv the irony, or something.
As anarchists, GerryF, we both do and don’t give a fuck about officialdom for far too many obvious reasons.
See above, including header.
Ha! Ha!
I have a very good friend who’s an anarchist, and who regularly meets with others in the anarchist community in Toronto Ontario, and they discuss the state of the world etc.
I asked her whether they were politically active, and she laughed and said ….
Q. How many anarchists does it take to change a light bulb?
A. None. Anarchists can’t change anything.
Where’s Gerry’s Head?
Most will realize that they are anarchists if they pull their heads out of their asses long enough to notice, GerryF, unless they believe in non-consensual things like, say, rape.
So it’s less about changing things except insofar as changing where one’s head is… which is ironic, don’t you think? I mean if you can’t change even that? (Then why would you expect a lightbulb change from an anarchist?)
Also, as POB’s archives will attest if they are still intact, I’ve already mentioned our living as a species in relative anarchy for most of our existence and have written to the effect that history strongly suggests we’ll get our anarchy, without necessarily having to lift a finger.
By the way, you’re key inspiration for my header (and what undergirds it), ‘The Conspiracy of The House of Cards’– a kind of structural/superset/mother of all conspiracies that ‘everyone’, so to speak, is in on (via ‘just doing their jobs’ and ‘following orders’, etc.), to their general detriment. So thank you.
Derrick Jensen is a interesting source.
From Crescent City, working with max security prisoners.
https://resistanceradioprn.podbean.com/
If you haven’t encountered his writing, you are not paying attention.
We appear to have almost lost Derrick, thanks, if recalled, to some kind of heart condition. But he is back and did appear afterward for a YouTube video interview, which I viewed.
Speaking of which, my quotes above with Stephanie and him are my own brief transcript of another YouTube video.
BTW, what’s in part cool about anarchy is that it is sort of like x-ray vision that helps you see through all the bullshit around us. So naturally it’s highly recommended.
Thanks for the link, will check.
Its about time:
Scientists win Nobel chemistry prize for ‘genetic scissors’
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/oct/07/scientists-win-nobel-chemistry-prize-for-genetic-scissors
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2912336-florida-state-legend-bobby-bowden-hospitalized-after-covid-19-diagnosis
This is the sort of news that can move the political needle in the swing state of Florida.
I could care less about football, and I don’t have anything against the coach, but I hope he STAYS sick right up until election day.
A lot of old guys are football fans.
At least a few of them will either stay home or vote D due to hearing about one of their hero’s being laid low by the virus.
Depending on how close the vote is in Florida, this one case of CV19 could determine which party controls the federal government for the next four years.
I think that Trump’s behavior surrounding his own infection has had a big effect. I’ve been following election predictions from the Economist and from 538. Both have shown big jumps towards Biden in the past three days:
https://projects.economist.com/us-2020-forecast/president
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/
And, yes, I know surveys aren’t foretelling the future but these surveys and the Senate election surveys have given me some guidance on where to waste my income mailing money off to politicians.