57 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum October 21, 2024”

  1. Hickory
    I just read your comment from 10/19 about the reason why wind and solar energy should be pursued. It’s the first time I can remember seeing in print that reasoning and logic applied to this issue. I think it was spot on. Now if only some doctoral candidate can do a thesis on the birth to death direct and indirect costs to the grid of wind and solar.

    1. Ervin I don’t think that such a study really is necessary except perhaps for documentation of a what are clearly viable net energy positive mechanisms (when deployed in favorable regions).

      In fact solar in sunny areas of the world is ‘strongly’ net energy positive, as is reflected in the price of 30 year contracts. China sure knows it, as do all the major utilities in the US, and other sunny parts of the world.
      And for Northern Europe, Iowa and Wyoming to name a few places, wind is a strong domestic net energy positive source of energy. That is why the deployment pencils out well. Iowa would not be getting 60% of its electricity from wind at a good price if it was not clearly in the strong net energy positive territory.

      Maybe such studies would be useful in marginal areas, but the utilities generally just rely on actual price contracts rather than theoretical studies of EROEI for their decision making.
      Which makes perfect sense since all of the energy costs in the supply chain are included in the contract offer- Just like for all products and services…
      with some big exceptions- for example the decommissioning costs of energy producing systems such as nuclear plants, oil wells, PV installations, refineries, etc are generally not included in contracts/pricing. Rather the end costs are usually just punted forward for the next generations to handle.

      1. And then there are the other external costs.

        For instance, coal is far, far too expensive:
        ANNALS OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
        Issue: Ecological Economics Reviews
        FULL COST ACCOUNTING FOR THE LIFE CYCLE OF COAL
        Our comprehensive review finds that the best estimate for the total economically quantifiable costs, based on a conservative weighting of many of the study findings, amount to some $345.3 billion, adding close to 17.8¢/kWh of electricity generated from coal. The low estimate is $175 billion, or over 9¢/kWh, while the true monetizable costs could be as much as the upper bounds of $523.3 billion, adding close to 26.89¢/kWh. These and the more difficult to quantify externalities are borne by the general public.

        Still these figures do not represent the full societal and environmental burden of coal. In quantifying the damages, we have omitted the impacts of toxic chemicals and heavy metals on ecological systems and diverse plants and animals; some ill-health endpoints (morbidity) aside from mortality related to air pollutants released through coal combustion that are still not captured; the direct risks and hazards posed by sludge, slurry, and CCW impoundments; the full contributions of nitrogen deposition to eutrophication of fresh and coastal sea water; the prolonged impacts of acid rain and acid mine drainage; many of the long-term impacts on the physical and mental health of those living in coal-field regions and nearby MTR sites; some of the health impacts and climate forcing due to increased tropospheric ozone formation; and the full assessment of impacts due to an increasingly unstable climate. The true ecological and health costs of coal are thus far greater than the numbers suggest. Accounting for the many external costs over the life cycle for coal-derived electricity conservatively doubles to triples the price of coal per kWh of electricity generated.
        http://www.chgeharvard.org/sites/default/files/epstein_full cost of coal.pdf

    1. How do you decide when to restrict your outdoor smoke exposure…do you use the local pm2.5 monitors as a guide? I see that there are two stations near you (purple air map).
      I’ve been strictly staying inside above 120, and doing little exertion or extended time outside above 70. Its just setting a random limit.
      This year wasn’t too bad down here in PNW lowlands. Just about 5 days. More like 30 the year before.

  4. ” Coal is now an essential part of our zero carbon future.”

    “Sounds like double think from George Orwells book 1984.”

  5. Hi Hickory (and Dennis), re population projections. Tom Murphy at Do the Math wrote a couple of blog posts back in June looking at the UN population projections and their assumptions, then built his own demographic model and outlines his assumptions. He thinks “a population peak as soon as 2042 or even 2033 should not be ruled out, and in fact seems to be where we’re heading if present trends continue”
    https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/05/watching-population-bomb/
    https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/06/peak-population-projections/
    https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/06/whiff-after-whiff/
    Cheers, Phil

    1. Phil S,

      Thanks. I read only the second link, it was excellent IMHO.

      Now I have had a quick look at the third link, very interesting, it shows how bad the UN population projections have been, they tend to believe the World will stabilize at near replacement level for total fertility, but there are many national examples that show this is not very likely.

    3. Phil,
      Thanks for calling attention to Tom Murphy’s ruthlessly quantitative website. Tracking the evolution of his ideas over time as he struggled with the difficulty (and likely impossibility) of sustaining “modernism” is also interesting. He deserves a much wider audience, but his arguments regarding (un)sustainability, while compelling, are simply unacceptable to people involved in advocacy and policy making.

      A question for which there isn’t an obvious answer (to me, anyway) is what cross-cultural factors are operative that have resulted in the rapid decrease in fertility in such diverse countries as Italy, Russia, Mainland China, Taiwan (fertility rate = .87 per woman!), Iran, Vietnam, South Korea, Mexico, Quatar and the Bahamas. Many of these countries are patriarchies, yet the trends in fertility are the same as in countries where women are far more empowered and educated. Do people, esp. women, sense that we are reaching the limits to growth? Has the level of toxins in the environment increased so far as to damage gametes? At any rate, it offers a ray of hope that “we” i.e. homo sapiens (“wise man” – what an exaggeration!) will be able to cope with the relentless decline of mineral and hydrocarbons.

      1. “what cross-cultural factors are operative”
        Really good question. An enabling mechanism is cell phones, with access to a wider world of ideas and news. A young woman can see what others her age in other regions and countries are doing. There is a certain level of empowerment that comes with communication access.

      2. It’s been clear to me for years that UN projections underestimate how far birth rates can fall. They assumed a lower limit of 2.1 even when countries were already lower.

        So I have said for some time (even here) that the 11 bn peak was probably too high. I didn’t predict how fast things would change though.

        Without new supercities like the Adjiban/Accra/Lome/Lagos axis, population looks like it will start falling soon. Maybe it already has.

      3. Good question. I have conflicting thoughts about this. It’s the personal day to day decisions that lead to collapse. When having children becomes less appealing than not having children, those individual decisions add up to fertility decline. Sure, government decrees and tax advantages will factor in, but, for example, when not going to work makes more sense than going to work (or war), and people stay home, then the system collapses.

        On the other hand, when coyote populations are under stress, fertility increases. I’ve figured that when times get tough, women will have more children. I’m curious what Darwinian (Ron) thinks about this. Not whether all the kids will survive, but about future fertility rates.

  7. An essay by NYU Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat:

    https://substack.com/@lucid/p-150664461

    The benchmark of democratic political systems used to be elections, and the practice of holding elections was often used to determine whether a country could be classified as a democracy. Today, as “electoral autocracies” take hold around the world, that’s no longer the case. Many illiberal leaders come to power through elections, and then manipulate the electoral system to get the results they need to stay in office.

    As the U.S. election approaches, it’s useful to remember that the history of autocracy is the history of war on the idea and practice of free and fair elections. For authoritarian leaders on the right and the left, allowing a population to determine through their votes who is in government and for how long is unthinkable. Why should lesser beings decide the fate of the strongman, who alone can lead the nation to greatness?

    Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini derided elections as a “childish game” that had “already humiliated the nation for decades.” Il Duce replaced democratic elections with occasional plebiscites. In 1934, as he prepared to invade Ethiopia and was dealing with increased internal unrest, he staged a vote. Italians were actually weighing in on a purge of the political class: a single list he had approved of nominees for seats in Parliament, with the choices YES or NO.

    The real point of the exercise was to show Italians and the world that he had popular approval for his governmental measures. To that end, voting was “assisted” by Fascist “poll watchers,” (squadrists in black shirts, armed with knives), and the regime’s communications about the vote can be summed up as “vote yes or else,” in the Fascist manner.

    This propaganda piece, on the façade of Palazzo Braschi in the center of Rome, depicted Mussolini’s face as a kind of death mask, suggesting what could happen to those who voted no. The result of the plebiscite –99.85% YES, and only .15% NO–suggests that Italians got the message.

    Today’s autocrats may keep elections going, but they won’t hesitate to game the competition by finding ways to silence rivals. Here’s Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2018 when CNN asked him if he was a dictator. “Here we have a ballot box…the democracy gets its power from the people. It’s what we call national will,” But in advance of the 2023 Turkish presidential contest, Erdogan sentenced popular Istanbul Mayor Ekram Imamoglu to several years in jail. That way Imamoglu could not be the opposition candidate.

    The newer autocratic tactic, facilitated by disinformation, is to discredit elections before the election is held so the public will believe you when you say, in the event of defeat, that the whole contest was “rigged” against you or invalidated by fraud. If the authoritarian is able to marshal his party and allies into sustaining the falsehood in public, then the idea of an illegitimate election can gain traction.

    This is called institutionalized lying: when a lie that is particularly important to the leader and his survival in politics becomes party doctrine. Then anyone who wants to have status in the authoritarian party or state must perform the lie in public, or at least refuse to refute it. Propagandists know that a lie, when repeated with enough frequency, becomes familiar and eventually can be taken as truth.

    So, in the 21st century the presence of elections is no longer enough to declare a country a democracy. You have to be able to cast a vote in a true multi-party system without fear of harm or intimidation, and that vote has to be able to be counted and the election system as a whole has to work without disruption or manipulation.

    Then the loser of the contest has to accept the results and respect the peaceful transition of government. If they don’t do that, they are no longer operating within the rules of a democracy. If they stage an insurrection to try and stay in power illegally, they are definitely operating within an authoritarian frame.

    The outcome of this scenario In Brazil offers an example of gatekeeping as democracy protection. After President Jair Bolsonaro lost the 2022 election, he decided to try and replicate the Donald Trump playbook, claiming that the election was rigged and planning an insurrection for January. Stephen Bannon and Jason Miller were among his advisors.

    Lack of military participation was among the reasons for the failure of Bolsonaro’s insurrection. Brazil had a military coup in 1964, which led to a military dictatorship that only ended in 1985. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva acted promptly to prosecute participants. In 2023, Bolsonaro was convicted of abuse of power in office and banned from running for office until 2030 for spreading lies about election fraud.

    In America, Trump, who incited a far bloodier insurrection, continues to maintain he won the 2020 election as he prepares to possibly contest the 2024 outcome. Trump has worked hard for almost a decade to get Americans to give up their quaint ideas about voting as a valued democratic right. He has conditioned them to see democracy as a failing system, and to view elections as an inferior and unreliable way to choose leaders.

    As Trump has become more and more openly authoritarian in his rhetoric, so have he and his allies revealed their hand about elections. “Christians get out and vote. Just this time,” Trump said at a July 26 Florida campaign event for Evangelical Christians. “You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years. You know what? It’ll be fixed. It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore my beautiful Christians.”

    Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) was more succinct. He told Newsmax in 2023, “The American people should just stand up and say enough is enough, let’s don’t have elections anymore.”

    The endgame of MAGA election denial is not challenging this or that election, but convincing Americans that elections as a practice are unnecessary. Voting in free and fair elections is a chore Trump will happily relieve us of, as Mussolini did with Italians a century ago.

    2. Thank you Dennis. I can only begin to imagine what an autocratic government will be able to do with the new power that AI will enable- Monitoring of all communication, and personal movement and money flows. Manipulation of an individuals personal database and identity, blacklisting of companies and ngo’s….and the news.
      It only takes a few examples of oppression to put a lid on ‘non-conformers’.
      We are primed to learn some very hard lessons that people who live in places like N Korea or use to lIve in E.Germany new/know as first hand nature. Everyone learns to keep their head low. Very low.
      Trump is just the spiteful beginning. At some point he will be replaced by a protege who is actually competent, and with more finely honed ideas of control.

    1. I wouldn’t even look at the temperature. Watch the CO2 and note that it made no change even with the pandemic. All the detailed models suggest that once new CO2 enters the global cycle, it will take 100’s to +1000 years to permanently sequester. That means it’s acting essentially like a ratchet and only responding in a negative direction during the colder season.

      So the CO2 will keep going up for years to come, because it requires global agreement,

    1. Much depends on the future choices that are made by 8 billion humans. It is difficult to know in advance the future choices that people will make. The best case scenario is a rapid reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, but by itself that won’t be enough. Active sequestration of emissions from power plants and perhaps greater use of green cement that puls some CO2 from the atmosphere, planting of trees and perhaps even algae growth enhanced on artificial ponds, might be an option. Somethink will need to be done to get CO2 and other greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere back to manageble levels after we finally reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions. This is just the way the carbon cycle works.

      See https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1029/2004JC002625

      or

      https://www.nature.com/articles/climate.2008.122.pdf

      1. The best place to sequester carbon is probably in the top 20 cm of topsoil. That means that combating soil erosion and flash flooding is probably the key to reducing the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere.

        Instead of dealing with flooding by speeding up the flow of water downstream from the flooded area, we need to slow the flow upstream from the area, allowing the water to seep into the ground and preventing it from carrying away organic material. This means build check dams and catchment basins throughout the watershed, starting near the tops of the highest hills. Farmers should get subsidies to improve soil conditions instead of maximizing output at all costs.

        This may sound a bit unrealistic, but there are enormous areas where the soil is badly degraded all across the world. Soil is much denser than air so increasing the carbon content by a few percent in a relatively thin layer would have significant effects of atmospheric carbon content.

        Soil restoration also has the advantage of providing local as well as global benefits, which means it is more likely to happen. In addition, topsoil is relatively fire resistant.

          1. Since the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992 that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific consensus, when the CO2 levels were around 350ppm, we have done nothing, if we look at just the trajectory of CO2 as per the Keeling curve.

            The curve is exponential, so we can expect CO2 levels to go much higher in the decade or so ahead unless growth crashes, which is likely when oil is past peak production and starts declining rapidly.
            https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/

            That one graph tells us everything we need to know about all the efforts to transition or whatever the latest terminology is. What we’ve been doing is clearly not working!!
            Doing a whole lot more of what’s not working is probably not going to change the result either!!
            Didn’t Einstein state of doing more of the same but expecting a different result was the definition of stupidity?

            As we build all the ‘transition’ machines using fossil fuels for the processes, building more means burning more, just like what is actually happening in places like Indonesia that provide the world with cheap concentrated materials like Aluminium and Nickel to make the green world some envision..

            The path we’ve collectively chosen is CLEARLY not working in reducing COs and other greenhouse gasses, so we needed a different path or plan, which is clearly not on anyone’s agenda..

            We go over the cliff to collapse either because we get to levels of climate damage that make modern agriculture nearly impossible, or we eventually get to an acceleration in oil production decline, that crashes civilization anyway. My suspicion is that we get to oil decline first, but probably the collective ‘we’ will just make the climate problem worse for humanity later this century, by accelerating the use and burning of coal to compensate for oil decline.

            The predicament isn’t about fossil fuels or more renewables, it’s about 8 billion humans trying to live a modern lifestyle that is not compatible with sustainability at all and currently only around15% getting to the modern lifestyle.

            1. Hideaway- a slightly different take on the last sentence where you say that only around 15% of the world population is achieving the modern lifestyle currently. Perhaps you refer to ‘first world’ status and energy consumption. And yet at least another 50% of the world (if not 80%) gets their food supply courtesy of the modern energy system, including mechanized tillage, and fertilization with nat gas derived N2 and imported phosphorus. Also around 70% of the world have cell phones as of 2023. Most people have access to motorized transport, or access to goods that come from or by fossil fuel derived energy. Whether they are wearing cotton or synthetics…it is the modern lifestyle.
              I know you are keenly aware of these things….just pointing it out that almost all of the world is living the modern lifestyle (access to huge amounts of energy and derived products compared to 400 years ago) to some degree.

              “My suspicion is that we get to oil decline first, but probably the collective ‘we’ will just make the climate problem worse for humanity later this century, by accelerating the use and burning of coal to compensate for oil decline.”
              Well, that is the path we are on…its a matter of degree that we must fuss over.
              There will be rapid decline in population if (when) plenty of energy is not available.
              I think some areas will have plenty of energy for a long long time. And maybe even some residual forests.

              Others will be in severe energy shortfall…not everyone will have access to import of oil products before too long, not everyone has coal, nat gas will only last so long, not everyone has big hydroelectric, or made the effort to deploy other large scale domestic energy production mechanisms.
              And yes, people will fight for the energy access, just like always.
              A race to the bottom.

            2. It is true that rich countries consume more electricity per capita than poor countries, but per capita energy consumption correlates poorly with living standards in rich countries.

              For example, The US consumes about twice as much energy per capita as Europe, but scores poorly even on basic measures like infant mortality.

              Furthermore it is silly to claim that Europe is 100% energy efficient. I’d guess a third of their primary energy consumption is pure waste, and another third questionable.

              So yes poor countries need more energy. The question of whether the world needs more energy is very different.

              In my view the question is very open. The IEA style energy growth = economy growth equivalence is certainly nonsense, though many buy into it around here. Just look at their predictions if you have doubts. They are based on the assumption.

              The fact is that the energy industry exists to make money, not to advance human civilization. Any other claim is pure propaganda. We live in capitalism. Renewables are set to crush profitability in the fossil fuel industry. This will happen not because renewables are “really cheaper”, but because they have near zero marginal costs. Markets with near zero marginal costs are inherently low profit margin.

              So what will happen when the energy industry withers from lack of profit? Will government intervene? Will Civilization As We Know It disappear? Will renewables replace the current energy industry? Will we find a different way of dealing with energy shortages? Will renewables provide endless energy abundance as the tech bros think?

              You may think you know the answer to all these questions, but you don’t. Neither do I.

            3. I do know there have been many instances of climate change in world history. These changes happened in times when absolutely no oil or natural gas was being used, or no cars, no trucks, no planes, no trains, no drill baby drill, and so on. At some times there weren’t even humans on earth while the climate was changing. So, this invalidates your argument I should say.

            4. Earth to Herman…come in Herman
              “Brutal unbelievable 45.9C/114.6F at Plutarco yesterday – it has never been that hot anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere this time of the year. World climatic history writes a new page.”…. since humans walked the earth.
              Copy?

  10. I will remind that fossil fuel energy use per unit of real GDP at the World level that is being produced continues to fall, eventually we will bend the curve to zero increase in carbon emissions and then emissions will begin to fall as fossil fuels get replaced by non-fossil fuel energy and as energy and materials are used more efficiently. World energy use has been increasing less rapidly when considering the 5 year average % increase in fossil fuel consumption, since 2010 the average rate of decrease in the rate of increase has been about 0.1%. If that continues we get to no increase by 2030 and the rate of decrease may accelerate over time.

    1. Dennis, you might believe numbers that have been caressed every which way… however from UC San Diego, on the Keeling curve Blog…..

      “The monthly average concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere measured at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Observatory in March 2024 was 4.7 parts per million (ppm) higher than that recorded in March 2023, setting a new record and revealing the increasing pace of CO2 addition to the atmosphere by human activities.

      The previous year-over-year gain of any monthly average was a jump of 4.1 ppm from June 2015 to June 2016. As in that year, strong El Niño conditions influenced global weather patterns causing a temporary boost in CO2 levels.”

      The rate of increase is not slowing down, it’s still speeding up, and the atmospheric reading for CO2 is not adjusted and twisted like so many numbers, it’s just the raw data unchanged for decades in how it’s read…

      1. And the last 30-40% of fossil fuel combustion is still to come over the next 50 years,
        since the last 50 years was wasted time at instituting avoidance mechanisms.
        I suppose it was too much to expect from a mob of Homo pyromancer.

      2. Meanwhile, the concentration of methane in the atmosphere is now over two-and-a-half times greater than pre-industrial levels. The increase has accelerated in recent years, and preliminary data indicates that there was another significant annual increase in 2023.

        1. “Companies That Fought Climate Action Now Accused of Price Gouging Hurricane Milton Evacuees”

          Not a surprise, morally corrupt and greedy bastards.

      3. Hideaway,

        If we look at annual percentage rates of increase in Mauna Loa CO2 readings over time (using average annual levels) the rate of increase in percentage terms has been decreasing. From 1960 to 1991 the average annual % increase increased at 0.0084% per year and from 1992 to 2023 the rate of increase was 0.0071% per year, slightly lower than the earlier period. From 2008 to 2023 the rate of increae fell further to 0.0052% per year. I agree progress has been very slow, we need to do better.

        1. More importantly, the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere is at an increasing rate…an increasing annual rate over the past decades-
          https://gml.noaa.gov/webdata/ccgg/trends/co2/co2_gr_mlo.txt

          Even if emission reaches peak within a decade, the rising accumulation will continue on for many decades. We’ll be approaching 460 ppm by 2040.

          And as Doug pointed out-
          “Methane concentrations in Earth’s atmosphere increased at record speed over the past five years. At least two-thirds of annual methane emissions now come from human activities, including fossil fuel use, agriculture, and landfills and other waste.”

          https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2024/09/methane-emissions-are-rising-faster-than-ever
          That trend has long legs.

          1. Hickory,

            Atmospheric concentrations od CO2 is what I used, this is synonymous with “accoumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere. Keep in mind that the effect of atmospheric CO2 on global warming goes as the natural log of CO2 concentration. From 1992 to 2023 the rate of increase has been pretty steady.

  11. Its a mass scale quandary.
    In so many ways severe population decline would be a healthy long term result.
    But it be will the opposite of healthy in any kind of shorter term economic outlook.
    There is no recipe for managing economic contraction.
    Here is a display of projected working age population decline in various countries from 2030 to 2050, in respect to the 2020 baseline assigned as 100 for each country.
    North America looks less affected by this trend out to 2050.
    Got robotics, got immigrants?

    1. Hickory …”In so many ways severe population decline would be a healthy long term result.
      But it be will the opposite of healthy in any kind of shorter term economic outlook.
      There is no recipe for managing economic contraction.”

      Very accurate, however as they say in the commercials, “but wait there’s more”…

      Our complexity comes from the scale of the ‘human enterprise’, so as population or ‘market size’ falls so does complexity, plus the per capita effect on maintaining the existing physical system rises, adding extra costs.

      Every city in the world has multiple networks that need to keep functioning, roads, railways, buses, electrical grids, sewers, water mains, gas lines etc. With less people, the cost just for maintenance and eventual replacement goes up per person. None of this infrastructure is going to become cheaper as we add rules and complexity (rules are part of complexity) to every new build.

      This in a background of energy and material costs rising, means the complexity and scale of the human enterprise must unwind, it’s a physical certainty. It just adds another problem, scale gives us efficiency gains, so reduced scale means costing more in energy and materials terms, all in a world of less energy and materials.

      In other words, lower population brings on collapse as costs per person go up, but as less can ‘afford’ the cost increases, it drops more people from the system. This has already been manifesting itself in the form of lower birth rates around the world.
      The young couple of 60 years ago could afford a 3 bedroom house in the suburbs on one income, and afford a ‘nice’ holiday every year, and pay off the loan on the house in a decade or so, during the exponential growth of cheap oil period. They could easily afford a few children with only one working…

      The young couple of today can’t afford what there grand parents could, it’s debt or rent slavery for most of their life. The background ‘other’ costs have also risen and will rise faster in a world with population decline.

      It’s all connected, we have an entire system or as Nate Hagens puts it the superorganism, or Bill Rees explains the Human enterprise. This thing we call civilization must grow or it collapses and it has to grow in it’s entirety, as even population reduction brings on collapse from a different angle.
      Complexity unravels, which means our ability to gain access to all the energy and materials we use, that rely on increasing complexity to gain lower grades of everything, makes the gathering of resources decline much faster than expected.
      It’s not the decrease in one aspect that will collapse it all, it’s the unexpected feedback loops that come from any aspect of modern civilization in decline.

      There is no way out, and never was. Modern civilization itself was never ever sustainable, if we keep growing we make the climate uninhabitable, food production collapse, and civilization collapse. If we try to go backwards with population, or any type of ‘powering down’, we collapse due to scarcity of energy and materials because of our inability to maintain complexity.

      No-one likes reality, but you can accept it or deny it, 99.9999% of people choose to deny it.

      1. What you lay out is a drift toward inevitable profound disorder in human affairs.
        I won’t argue a case against that. Maybe someone else feels compelled to.

        I suspect that an attempt to impose strict order will come first, and maybe soon.
        An AI enabled control state.
        An attempt to channel resources to the favored and loyal subjects.
        As if tight control can forestall time.
        Are you ethnically and behaviorally compliant…does your digital record prove it?

        1. AI is extremely energy intensive. Google is buying up nuclear power stations just to meet expected increased electricity demand from AI in their servers. AI will accelerate the rush to collapse not sustain it, in the same way as crypto currencies do, they consume finite energy resources and leave you with absolutely nothing.

          1. Sorry Ralph but I believe that is a wild exaggeration. Google cannot buy nuclear power stations because they are not for sale. The real story can be found on the net as below:

            The US tech corporation has ordered six or seven small nuclear reactors (SMRs) from California’s Kairos Power, with the first due to be completed by 2030 and the remainder by 2035. Google hopes the deal will provide a low-carbon solution to power data centers, which require huge volumes of electricity.

            Yes, servers do consume a lot of energy, and they need a lot of air conditioning to keep them cool. But it is not really that catastrophic when compared to other industries.

            I have no idea what Ai will or will not contribute to the collapse, but whatever it is it will not be due to their energy consumption.

            Let us not get ridiculous.

          2. Ralph. I agree that there is a risk of data centers gathering large amount of electricity unto themselves, leaving less for the commoners. But like always….money speaks.
            On the other hand, the electricity demand data center industry is creating comes with deep pockets and there is money flooding the electricity zone, including nuclear. Its funding innovation and deployment that might have otherwise taken decades to materialize.

            We are all bystanders.

        2. Hick and Hide:
          You guys are considering current tech, and “natural” timelines: that is to say, without human interference to accelerate population decline on purpose (something a step beyond genocide). I don’t think we can make those assumptions anymore.

          It is conceivable that we are within a decade of semi-intelligent bipedal robots: essentially, machines that can do most of the things a human can do, with a slew of advantages over us. The most important of these advantages will be the ability to work in places that humans can’t, which in fairly short order might include huge swaths of the American south.

          If I was a billionaire American oligarch/Bond villain, with an intense desire to survive in the manner to which I was accustomed regardless of economic or societal cost, well, I’d get me some of them robots and start getting rid of a big chunk of that excess population (maybe keep some doctors and researchers….I’m not really evil enough to flesh out the plan entirely).

          My guess is that the survival of technological civilization is possible using robots and a minimal human population to be served by them (managed for herd size and genetic diversity, perhaps). Bezos and Musk have proved in the last couple of weeks that North America has a billionaire class completely lacking in scruples and unconcerned about what happens to the rest of us: someone will try it.

          So I don’t think humans will go extinct, and I don’t think we’ll lose complexity.

          I think we’ll be self-culled.

      2. In a less complex world that you foresee there are certain elements and tools which will remain in wide circulation for a long time. Basic things that we had from much earlier days. Such as an axe and the knowledge and skill to make fire. Such as a machete and the will to survive. Such as well trained and intensely loyal dogs. Such as the bully as a dominate feature in everyday life.
        Lets not rush towards it.

        1. Hickory
          During that decline you can also look forward to becoming re-introduced to some of mankinds oldest and closest companions – fleas, lice, bedbugs and intestinal parasites.

        2. We will have the basic tools for a long time, but the problem is there are well over 8 Billion humans now, not a few hundred million there were a few centuries ago, and the damage to the remaining natural world will be massive. Plus of course guns and bullets will last decades, meaning the last megafauna is all in trouble on the way down.

    1. Yes, “You can’t make this shit up”

      “Elon Musk is Trump’s biggest booster — and patron. Why?
      Musk’s political ambitions, explained.

      It’s not an overstatement to say that Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is former President Donald Trump’s biggest fanboy — and patron — in the 2024 election.

      He’s literally, and comically, leaping at Trump’s side at rallies. He’s tweeting (including, frequently, dog whistles and misinformation). And to the dismay of some, he has let Trump tweet, too.

      In the spring, Musk launched a political action committee, simply called America, lined up other high-profile rich guys from his Rolodex, and then threw an additional $75 million of his own money into the pot. According to filings with the Federal Election Commission, America PAC has spent more than $100 million on getting Trump re-elected, sending hundreds of canvassers out to talk to voters one-on-one in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

      Under the Biden administration, Elon Musk felt that a lot of these regulatory agencies are staffed with people who are keeping a close eye over corporate misbehavior. His companies have been investigated or fined by different government agencies, whether it’s the Labor Board, OSHA, the SEC, or the Department of Transportation, and Elon Musk sees this as unfair. Even if he acknowledges that his companies didn’t follow safety regulations, he’ll be like, well, those safety measures are stupid, anyway. ”

      https://www.vox.com/2024-elections/380185/trump-elon-musk-election

      If You’re Progressive or Muslim, Don’t Waste Your Vote on Jill Stein
      There are only two candidates who can win on Nov. 5, and Stein isn’t one of them.

      By Naveed Shah

      Harris has championed and enacted countless progressive policies in the last four years, including the American Rescue Plan, which provided direct relief to Americans in the form of stimulus checks, tax credits and a host of benefits following the COVID-19 pandemic; and the Inflation Reduction Act, which invested in green energy production at home, creating more than 100,000 clean energy jobs and putting us on a path to reduce carbon emissions by 40% by 2030.

      Stein regularly appeared on Russian state media broadcaster RT during her two previous presidential campaigns, and in December 2015, she attended an RT gala dinner in Moscow, and sat at the same table alongside Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and Trump adviser Michael Flynn (who in 2017 pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his Russian contacts). Turns out, Stein was being used by the Russians too; Russian propagandists were boosting Stein’s candidacy on social media, according to the findings of Senate Intelligence Committee reports in 2018.

      All of this backstory should be disqualifying. Progressive icon Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democratic congresswoman from New York, has called Stein’s campaign “predatory” and has tried to steer fellow progressives away. Even Stein’s own family begged her not to run again, because she would be boosting Trump’s chances of winning, according to a recent profile in The New York Times.”

      https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2024-10-25/if-youre-progressive-or-muslim-dont-waste-your-vote-on-jill-stein

  13. Another piece on Trump by NYU History Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat (her specialty is the history of Italian Fascism)

    https://lucid.substack.com/p/trump-channels-nazisms-aesthetics?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=300941&post_id=150800515&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=40lg8h&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

    excerpt:

    Donald Trump objects to being compared to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler —so much so that he sued CNN for $475 million, claiming CNN journalists and one freelancer (me) were defaming him by likening him to a dictator. Yet he is the one who has often evoked Hitler and Nazism as positive examples both in his public profile and in private conversations such as with his former Chief of Staff, Gen. Kelly, as well as in his vow to be a dictator “on Day One” of a second Trump term.

    This excellent essay by Sidney Blumenthal for the Guardian, in anticipation of Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally today, shows how Trump has evoked Nazism in his dehumanizing language, his concept of an internal domestic enemy, the outreach to neo-Nazis, his desire to have a military loyal to his person rather than the Constitution or the country, his long-held racist views, and more.

    I would also add the declaration, in a campaign video, that Trump would be creating “a unified Reich,” and the use of 1930s newsreel aesthetics in that video, complete with a depiction of Trump that follows Fascist visual canons.

    This is not subtle. Fascists are not subtle. They threaten you openly by telling you what they will do, and do to you, and they dare you to oppose them. Too often, that opposition comes only when it is too late to prevent their consolidation of power.

    Trump is in the fight of his life, and he is intensely threatened by Vice President Kamala Harris, with her positive and precise platforms, the huge crowds dancing with joy in her presence, her expertise as a prosecutor, and her embodiment of the strength of America as a multiracial and multifaith democracy.

    Having a rally at Madison Square Garden, in the Nazi tradition, is a sure way for Trump to drive media attention to himself at a time when he is low on energy, incoherent, and falling asleep at his own events —and thus more desperate and dangerous than ever.

    What he will say at this rally has little importance, in that we will have heard it all before. As a skilled propagandist, he knows that the repetition of talking points is key to them being accepted. The more people hear a lie, the more that lie becomes familiar, and then may be accepted as truth.

    It is the staging and the theatrics that he most cares about: the form rather than the content. He knows that everyone watching and attending knows that he is re-enacting a Nazi show.

    So I thought it useful to republish my March 2023 essay on the Fascist aesthetics and values at work in the Waco, TX, event that kicked off Trump’s presidential campaign. As I argue in the essay, the Waco rally symbolizes the marriage of national and foreign extremism and cult traditions so important to Trump’s identity as a American politician out to destroy our democracy.

    1. Fallout spreads from racist rhetoric at Trump’s MSG rally

      “What you saw last night is a divisive America. That’s race-baiting. It’s all the things that we were doing in the ‘30s and ‘40s,” former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci said Monday.

      Longtime Trump adviser Peter Navarro is calling the comedian, Tony Hinchcliffe, “the biggest, stupidest asshole that ever came down the comedy pike” after he called Puerto Rico a “floating island of hot garbage” during his often-vulgar opening set.

      And Trump’s opponents are using the rally as proof of the former president’s divisiveness, going as far as likening the rhetoric from Sunday’s rally to the sinister 1939 Nazi rally that took place in the same venue.

      “My reaction is that was a combination of 1933 Germany, 1939 Madison Square Garden last night,” former Trump adviser Anthony Scaramucci said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Monday morning. “What you saw last night is a divisive America. That’s race baiting. It’s all the things that we were doing in the ‘30s and ‘40s.”

      Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.), called Sunday night’s event a “hate rally.”

      “This was not just a presidential rally, this was not just a campaign rally. I think it’s important for people to understand these are mini January 6 rallies, these are mini Stop the Steal rallies,” she said on “Morning Joe.”

      https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/28/trump-madison-square-garden-rally-tony-hinchcliffe-00185793

    2. For someone who has something like $10-20 Billion of personal financial stake and federal felony criminal convictions on the line in this election, trump seems awfully smug and confident in the outcome.
      I think that is because he is entirely confident of his party operatives plan to take the white house regardless of this current exercise in the countries electoral process.
      Musk knows it, is the number one enabler, and has just purchased himself the largest individual stake in history of the United States of America.

      1. ” trump seems awfully smug and confident”

        That’s just his shtick. Always project bravado and over-the-top confidence. It’s part of his appeal to people who want a father figure.

  16. Nothing new here, but we are seeing the energy-efficiency Jevons paradox play out as improving energy efficiency does not lead to decreased energy consumption. In the USA, it wasn’t increasing conservation with smaller vehicles, but more SUVs and monster pickups as engines became more efficient.

    Wasn’t it advertised that a Honda Civic could get 50MPG in the 1970’s? That may have been exaggerated as the reality was more like 42 MPG, which hasn’t really changed much for pure ICE. The highest is still like 42 MPG, and it’s really the guzzlers that went from MPG in the 10s to 33MPG for SUVs.

    Just surprised that the compacts and sub-compacts never made that many advances in MPG — allowing for emissions regulations and safety/weight considerations.

    “In view of these numbers, 60 mpg is not unreasonable for a lightweight car. In fact, one current study expects to demonstrate 51 mpg for a Honda Civic .in city driving by using a small flywheel for energy storage. “ https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/7185981

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