Open Thread Non-Petroleum September 10, 2022

Ovi Uncategorized

A guest post by Ovi

Comments not related to oil or natural gas production in this thread please, thanks.

113 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum September 10, 2022”

  1. Hickory’s comment from the very end of the last thread, in response to my posting of Nate Hagens’ video:

    I came away wondering why people call it degrowth?
    I can only think that somehow the term comes across as more palatable, a manageable path.
    Which is probably BS.

    It’s my impression the “Degrowth” is a movement that, as you say, promotes a “managed” contraction, via conservation, and willing governmental curtailing of oil consumption, to bring the world down to a more reasonable level and cut carbon emissions.

    Ha.

    Nate, like you, says “BS,” in effect. No, the drop is going to happen the hard way, not by design.

    2. Mike B , just popped in to acknowledge my thanks for your guiding me to ” The collapse of the Bronze age ” . Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it . With respects and be well .

      1. The Late Bronze Age Collapse may be called a “dry run.” The Hittites and the Myceneans (Greeks) even forgot literacy! for centuries.

        But at least the world didn’t end, LOL.

        1. “In November 1922, seven land-owning white men brokered a deal to allocate water from the Colorado River, which winds through the West and into Mexico”

    3. Not really the hard way. Growth is ending in all the world’s major economies because the number of people of working age is flat or shrinking. As part of the same trend, consumers are getting older, and old people buy less than young people especially large purchases like cars and houses.

      Remember back in the 80s when Americans all thought the Japanese would take over the world economy? That all ended about 1990 when demographics caught up with the Japanese economy. Since then the Japanese government has been desperately staving off deflation with extremely low interest rates and growing government debt.

      That is the main reason for low interest rates. The other reason is the abundance of cheap labor that globalization has provided, pushing down labor costs and shifting economic grow away from rich countries.

      Demographically, Europe is dead in the water, and East Asia is shrinking. The Americas are a few years behind, but subject to the same pressures.

      The main growth areas will be South Asia and Africa. These countries will profit from a world awash with cheap money, and from much more efficient 21st century tech. For example, most of mankind’s growth will occur in the subtropics or tropics, where solar energy will provide ultra cheap energy. As a result, much less economic activity will be requires to improve living standards.

      1. The younger generations in Western Europe, Canada, and the USA, etc, are going to inherit countless trillions of actual three dimensional DURABLE concrete physical wealth the entire doom and gloom banker dominated econ profession SOMEHOW manages to overlook, lol.

        The only logical explanation I can see for this blind spot is that it’s DELIBERATE.

        We will have GODDAMNED PLENTY of people to do what actually needs to be done over the next two or three generations, lol.

        We won’t be needing much in the way of new highways or shopping malls or apartment buildings or new houses.

        Houses built since the fifties to a building code will generally last at leas a hundred years if properly maintained.

        Water and sewer systems will need overhauls…….. but they won’t have to be constructed FROM SCRATCH.

        We will have ample energy because we will have plenty of solar farms and wind farms, and we will know all about load shifting, conservation, etc, and we will have batteries of some sort, or defacto batteries such as thermal mass for heating and cooling, etc.

        Our fucking great grand children are going to inherit the wealth of FOUR grand parents each, in a lot of cases.

        All this talk about a lack of fucking labor makes me want to puke.

        I suppose it’s obvious that since I don’t usually use the f word very often, I’m probably GOING to puke, since I had company last night and we threw away the cap… meaning we had to finish the bottle.

        My head is POUNDING, but I can still laugh about it.

        First time I’ve been drunk enough to have a hangover in years.

        And once I’m an invalid, supposing I become one……… one of my younger last night guests who is incapable of doing any sort of work requiring an education beyond the fourth grade level will be GLAD to look after me in exchange for a roof over her head and a very modest salary.

        I’m too old to molest her and she’s ugly anyway, so there won’t be any problems of that sort to be dealt with.

        We won’t be short of people of ANY sort in any really serious sense of the word, and we MOST CERTAINLY won’t ever be short of very poorly educated people in the USA within the next fifty years, because there are plenty of kids leaving school here every year who are functionally illiterate, and plenty more that are leaving at the fourth to eighth grade level.

        1. OFM,

          Most of what you say is probably true. You might want to add Japan to your list (Western Europe, Canada, and the USA). And, a vast amount of manual labor (even complex stuff) is being done by robots now; in Japan even nursing homes receive considerable assistance by them. As you say, roads, railways, buildings, bridges, communication systems, etc. have already been built.

          1. Hi Doug,
            My headache is mostly gone now, lol.

            The most amazing thing, to me, about this sort of discussion, is that people who have a good grasp of environmental issues, people who understand such problems as natural resource depletion, over shoot, etc, all to often still seem to think that we need shit loads of youngsters.
            But I do understand that some of these people themselves understand that we need a lower stable population in the longer term, and that more kids are only really needed for the next generation or so.

            When old farts like us are gone, the youngsters will own the world, and they will owe a shit load of money, debts we ran up and left for them to deal with.

            But since they are going to own the world, just precisely WHO is going to force them to repay those debts……. which are in essence nothing more than dots and zeros on an electronic ledger, and or pieces of paper kept in vaults?

            They will be repudiated, or inflated out of existence, or even simply IGNORED.

            The only debts that will REALLY matter are ecological and environmental debts. If we’re totally out of fresh water in some spots, or good topsoil in other spots, these will be REAL DEBTS.

            1. I saw a teenager today wearing a shirt-
              ‘The Soil Is Poisoned
              You are Living a Lie’

            2. I wonder if the youngsters will grow up to vote towards pulling the plug on elder care.

            3. Survi- yes.
              We may first come to a time when the worlds elderly take action on their own.

        2. The problem with our infrastructure is that it has a life span.
          The average life span for the five public assets is:

          Highways and roads — 28.2 years.
          Bridges and overpasses — 43.3 years.
          Water supply systems — 36.8 years.
          Wastewater treatment facilities — 28.2 years.
          Sanitary and storm sewers — 33.6 years.

          And those ages are with excellent maintenance. If the cracks and potholes aren’t patched, the lifespan goes down.

          https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/average-age-of-highways-and-roads-down-age-of-bridges-up-statscan-1.714655#:~:text=Highways%20and%20roads%20%E2%80%94%2028.2%20years,Water%20supply%20systems%20%E2%80%94%2036.8%20years.

          1. Right, my home town in East Tennessee planned an 18 year cycle — each stretch of road was supposed to be fixed every 18 years. When my old cub scout troop buddy got to be city manager, they were on a 42 year cycle. The city had doubled in site without increasing population in the past 30 years.

            There’s a simple solution to the problem — stop building roads, and narrow down the existing ones — for example reducing lane widths from 12 ft to 9 ft on city streets cuts maintenance by a quarter.

          2. Bullshit.
            I’m NOT an engineer, but I AM an old fart world class jackass of all trades, and I spent over fifty years doing this, that and the other, including over two years as a heavy equipment operator building roads, and then several short stints working on paving crews.

            A road must be planned and plotted, and rights of ways, etc, secured, then it has to be surveyed, and built. Building it includes one HELL of a lot of heavy work moving LOTS of cubic yards of soil, and often drilling and blasting thousands of cubic yards of stone.

            THEN the road bed is graded, and culverts and stone are put in place, and THEN it’s graded a second time, and THEN it’s paved.

            Pavement does last twenty to thirty years or so with maintenance.

            Then you grind the old pavement down and grind it up, and mix it right back into the job, and sometimes you can just lay new pavement right on top of the old.

            The cost of doing this every thirty years or so is a VERY minor fraction of the cost of building a new road.

            And newer infrastructure can be built to last longer and to be more easily refurbished.
            The construction processes are mechanized to an ever greater extent, reducing real costs, year after year.

            I’ve helped install liners in old water lines. This takes a day or two, compared to digging for a month, and uses a tenth as much machinery and material.

            And rebuilding or refurbishing just about any thing is far more about lots of skilled labor and a lot less material. With mechanization, we’ll have ample labor.
            There will be PLENTY of people who find it necessary to go into some new line of work.

            Selling cars and houses will be shrinking professions. Lots of service jobs will more or less disappear, although there may be as many or more new ones than there are old ones lost.

            The people who sell cars now will find work maintaining infrastructure. The people who sell houses can work on houses.

      2. If you think that the growth phase of the global population over the past 500 years was messy in terms of blood and destruction,
        you’d be on thin ice to expect that the contraction phase will be a successfully managed process.
        By successfully managed I mean gradual, fair, equitable, accomplished with grace.
        Rather, its likely to be much more messy than on the way up.

        It is true that most people become generally physically weak, despondent and docile when in final stages of siege or starvation,
        but they also generally fight like hell or migrate with great enthusiasm to avoid arriving at that end state.

        1. I think a big factor in Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine was the Russian population demographic. They are seriously short of working age adults and women are very reluctant to have children. Ukraine has a growing population and are probably in better general health. There are widespread reports of large numbers of Ukrainians in captured areas being forcibly relocated and coerced into taking Russian citizenship. Orphaned children are being adopted into Russian families. People may be one of the resources that Putin wants to steal.

          Reports are that he may have left it too late. The latest counter attack found they outnumbered the defending forces 8 to 1, suggesting that Russia is far shorter of able bodied soldiers than has been previously reported.

        2. You’re dead on about declining population resulting in really serious troubles on a world wide basis. There’s no doubt in my mind that people will be dying in place in large numbers, and that a lot more will be dying while trying to migrate on an emergency basis.

          I’ve said before that I expect fences will be built at national borders, and that bodies will pile up in front of these fences……. because the soldiers behind them will not only be ordered to shoot, they will be eager to do so……. knowing things are already tough for their own families and that more people would mean even tougher times.

          But my personal opinion, for now, is that it can be managed in countries such as the USA without much in the way of serious disturbances, other than maybe some people rioting here and there because they’re really upset about old folks not being adequately cared for.

          But I don’t have any problem seeing things changing in terms of keeping terminally ill old folks alive at enormous expense a few more days or weeks.

          People will eventually come to understand that three hundred grand spent on Grandma her last thirty days in a near coma or great pain would be enough to get their own babies and nieces and nephews into dentist and doctors offices from the day they’re born until they’re legal adults.

          Grandma herself, if she’s still rational, will go along with being allowed to just peacefully pass on in more cases than not, knowing that by doing so she’s doing what Mother Nature intended her to do….. help her children and grandchildren survive and thrive.

  4. https://newatlas.com/energy/t-omega-floating-wind/

    I’m only a backyard hillbilly engineer, but I’m thinking that ten years down the road, most new offshore wind turbines will be built using this or some similar technology.

    Whatever may be lost in production will be more than amply compensated for by being able to deploy more machines at far less cost per unit, and there’s no shortage of places to put them.

  5. So, how we doing on the carbon dioxide front?

    Sep. 10, 2022 416.45 ppm
    Sep. 11, 2021 413.08 ppm
    1 Year Change 3.37 ppm (0.82%)

    1. Why is it always how are we doing and not how are you doing? Reducing carbon dioxide emissions starts with the individual.

      2. Well, then, we’ll cut to the chase: There are 7 billion too many people on the planet.

        So I guess by your reasoning, one billion of us have to kill 7 people each.

        On a less snide note, I share ownership of airports, highways, schools, hospitals, subways, fighter jets, and literally millions of things with some 35 million other people (I’m Canadian). I also purchase items and services that are available because of shared infrastructure (groceries, gas, and cable, etc.). My share cannot be separated out.

        Then we have the issue of fairness: people who live in mansions and fly 30,000 miles a year might have to give up more.

        1. There are 7 billion too many people on the planet.

          Actually, 7.8——-

        2. “Then we have the issue of fairness..”
          which brings up a huge aspect of this.

          All of these problems [overshoot, climate change, food production instability, energy shortage, water shortage, labor shortage, credit shortage] will result in a great escalation in disparity of wealth distribution.
          Some people, some places are going to still have plenty access to prosperity, while a huge share are going to slide backwards on this,
          Might cause some tension, or should I say more tension, between classes, regions, ethnicity and between countries.
          Peoples reaction to this is a huge wildcard.

    1. Seems like the folks who are gonna starve out in the famine will leave a lot of nice cars around for those who don’t. The scavenger economy is going to be interesting, and likely fraught with toxic spills.

    2. So…….. this nincompoop economist type is saying that since most electric car owners don’t put enough miles on them, on average, it takes maybe three years to recoup the extra investment of energy used in building the car.

      OF COURSE he manages to overlook or at least minimize the fact that a new electric car is expected to last at least fifteen to twenty years, lol.

      And OF COURSE he manages to minimize the fact that for that entire fifteen to twenty years, an electric car will use only one third, max, as much energy as a comparable ice car.

  9. Not looking good for those with expectations of Russian backed security; to wit, Armenia, Cuba, Syria, Iran, occupied Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus.
    We’ll soon see what Russia can now do for Armenia.

  10. Published recently on RFI, a new report from the risk analyst firm Verisk Maplecroft. The report found over 2/3rds of world’s agriculture is at risk due to climate change. The crisis is projected to reach more than 60 nations, the top 10 being in Africa.

    https://amp.rfi.fr/en/international/20220909-majority-of-world-s-food-producers-risk-being-cooked-by-climate-change

    The report

    https://www.maplecroft.com/insights/analysis/heat-stress-to-threaten-over-70-of-global-agriculture-by-2045/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sm-ira-o&utm_content=o

    3. 1.8 Billion people on the Indian subcontinent includes three of the most vulnerable big countries to disruptions of climate and food production.
      No one else has the capability to provide, or transport, food for 60 or 360 million people.
      And there is no place for the people to migrate to.
      Kind of like the Nile delta situation but on a 16 fold greater scale,
      and without the 2 day boat ride north as an option.

      1. Folks on the Indian subcontinent may try to relocate to Australia. Boats of refugees from India have been known to make it as far as Canada. But realistically, most folks will die in place.

        “The boat people’s first destinations were Hong Kong and the Southeast Asian locations of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.”
        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_boat_people

        1. … perhaps they’ll head to New Zealand and start a tire fire on the fresh air intake of some billionaire’s bunker? A tank of acetylene and some hose would flush ’em out fast.

          1. A small amount of Indian subcontinent 1.8 B populace may successfully migrate by air or by boat if the situation becomes dire,
            but the vast majority will be stuck in place- hemmed in by the deserts and mountains and roadblocks of Iran, Afghanistan, China, Burma, and the Indian Ocean.

  13. I haven’t taken the time to really look into the lithium ore supply situation.

    The popular press is full of doom and gloom on lithium, saying there’s not even a tenth enough to go electric for cars and trucks.

    Some other people, including Elon Musk, says there’s PLENTY of ore, and that mining it is simple, but that processing it is hard, and so he’s planning on building a processing plant somewhere on the Gulf Coast, apparently any place down that way there’s access for shipping from offloading freighters to rail to a suitable plant site.

    He’s calling this an opportunity to print money.

    Now my opinion of him as a human being is neutral to snake belly low, depending, but as a businessman, he’s got what it takes, and he gets it done…… usually late, but he generally gets it done.

    So here’s the question.

    IS there plenty of lithium ore, and by plenty I mean enough to build tens of millions of electric vehicles every year well into the future?

    If the ore IS there, how much of it is in countries that are at least on speaking terms with the USA and Western Europe?

    1. I call BS on claims that the world is going to “run out” of lithium in the foreseeable future. The articles below show that there are a considerable amount of “unconfirmed” reserves. In addition lithium is an element, not a compound and it is not burned like carbon to drift away into the atmosphere as CO2. Even in the case of a battery fire, the boiling temperatures lithium oxide and lithium hydroxide 2,600 °C and 924 °C respectively so the lithium is unlikely to leave the site of the fire. Since the lithium in a battery remains in place, technically it can be recovered along with other elements used in batteries, as is being done by Redwood Materials.

      Top six countries with the largest lithium reserves in the world

      Growing interest in lithium in recent years has seen the world’s largest-known reserves increase significantly, as exploration activities accelerate.

      According the US Geological Survey (USGS), there are around 80 million tonnes of identified reserves globally as of 2019. That’s up almost 30% compared to a year earlier.

      Afghanistan’s Vast Lithium Reserves Could Be a Game Changer

      In addition to large mines of aluminum, gold, silver, zinc, and mercury, initial analyzes in Ghazni province show that the mine has the same lithium reserves as Bolivia, which has 21 million tons.

      Experts believe that Afghanistan’s lithium mining alone could generate billions of dollars in wealth for the country, transforming Afghanistan from a poor country in need of foreign aid into a rich and developed country.

      As US exits Afghanistan, China eyes $1 trillion in minerals

      For China, Afghanistan holds economic and strategic value. Leaders in Beijing have repeatedly called on the Taliban to prevent terrorists from plotting attacks against China, and view strong economic ties as key to ensuring stability. They also see an opportunity to invest in the country’s mineral sector, which can then be transported back on Chinese-financed infrastructure that includes about $60 billion of projects in neighboring Pakistan.

      These countries are driving lithium production

      The graphic below does not even show Bolivia and Afghanistan.

      Lithium mining: What you should know about the contentious issue

      Where is the most lithium mined?
      With 51,000 tons, Australia was by far the most important supplier of lithium in 2018 – ahead of Chile (16,000 tons), China (8,000 tons) and Argentina (6,200 tons). This is shown by figures from the USGS (United States Geological Survey). The four countries mentioned have long dominated the picture, with Australia only gaining a clear lead over Chile in recent years.

  14. In 2018, Douglas Rushkoff says had a bizarre experience: he was asked to speak at a billionaires’ retreat, only to find that he had been summoned to help the plutes in attendance figure out how to plan for the end of the world.

    Nothing personal, but I find it odd that a group of billionaires wanting to plan for societal collapse would consult Douglas Rushkoff. Has anyone besides Mr Rushkoff ever claimed receiving an invitation to a similar gig; maybe he’s just the only one who spilled the beans?

  15. Not looking good lads.

    CLIMATE IMPACTS HEADING INTO ‘UNCHARTED TERRITORIES OF DESTRUCTION’ – UN CHIEF

    The United In Science report, co-ordinated by the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), warns that “without ambitious action, the physical and socioeconomic impacts of climate change will be devastating” It details greenhouse gas levels – largely carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels – continuing to rise, increasingly high global temperatures and destructive climate-driven floods, droughts and heatwaves already happening around the world.

  17. The North Seas Energy Cooperation (NSEC) consists of nine countries – Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden –have announced this week a target to reach at least 260GW of offshore wind energy by 2050.
    https://reneweconomy.com.au/nine-north-seas-countries-target-260gw-of-offshore-wind-by-2050/

    That is the annual electricity output equivalent roughly to the output from 120 Nuclear plants.
    [assumes 1000 MW nuclear plant, and Capacity Factor 0.9 for nuc and 0.4 for offshore wind]

    Also, UK, France and Spain are 3 additional countries that have offshore wind resource ranging from excellent to world class

    1. And still all this is to save some fossil energy – they still need to be backed by round about 95% with conventional power plant.

      They all are in the same wind system – North/baltic sea, which is excellent but very small. So a lull is affecting all of them the same time – other than nuclear plants where you can plan maintaince somewhat. If you are not french and let your power plants age without a plan to renew / refurbish them.

      Parts of this alternative energy concept gives us now these sky high prices – gas turbines have been build to back up wind / solar by being able to power up and down very fast.

      Only thing forgotten was to buy gas by not only one supplier, or to pump the own ressources because of nimby. Oil spills in Siberia don’t matter, but fracking in Germany despite all the inspectors looking if everything is correct – impossible.

      Still a lot to do – and putting up all these windmills is only a fraction of the work.

      1. It is completely true that no energy source is perfect.
        Wind is intermittent as you point out.
        Oil depletes, as I point out.
        And, oh yeh, some places don’t have any.

        All sources involve some degree of environmental destruction.
        Its all a desperate attempt to achieve more than the earth can naturally provide a simple being.

        But we now have over 8 billion people, most of whom are not anything close to living as a simple being.
        And therefore a big source of energy like offshore wind in the North and Baltic Seas will not be ignored.
        Nor will a return to coal burning at maximum effort or complete deforestation for wood burning, if people get hobbled enough by loss of imported energy.

        Path of least resistance (least cost and quickest to implement) is the one most will travel.
        For Europe north of the Alps, the offshore wind is certainly a big part of the path of least resistance.

    1. A big part is likely the difference in obesity rate- much higher in US.

      1. From the Atlantic article, America Is a Rich Death Trap:

        It’s not just the pandemic. For citizens of a wealthy country, Americans of every age, at every income level, are unusually likely to die, from guns, drugs, cars, and disease.
        …
        The U.S. fared worse in life expectancy than other high-income countries. While most of the developed world saw conditions improve in the second year of the pandemic, more Americans died of COVID after the introduction of the vaccines than before their invention. Any explanation of this fact must begin with the American right’s bizarre rejection of the vaccines.
        …
        Before the 1990s, average life expectancy in the U.S. was not much different than it was in Germany or the United Kingdom, as I’ve reported. But according to a paper comparing U.S. and European mortality, American babies are more likely to die before they turn 5; American teens are more likely to die before they turn 20; and American adults are more likely to die before they turn 65. “Europe has better life outcomes than the United States across the board, for white and Black people, in high-poverty areas and low-poverty areas”

        Link:
        https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/09/america-mortality-life-expectancy-pandemic/671350/
        (subscription?)

        1. If you look at the data on American life expectancy, infant mortality and geneal health issues the very depressing conclusion you reach is that the problem is not that American doctors are failing or that we aren’t spending enough money (especially that!) but that racism is at the very heart of the problem. The high levels of obesity, the lack of treatment for chronic illness, inadequate prenatal care…the separation between the minority population and the white population is heartbreaking. Yes, we know that minorities are at the bottom of the income ladder but other countries have racial disparities yet are able to care for their minorities. We choose not to just as we choose not to provide them with decent schools, crippling their opportunity to improve their lives.

      2. Hickory, you’re right on obesity. The Atlantic article above says:

        At 40 percent among adults, the U.S. obesity rate is double the average of most European countries and eight times higher than Korea’s or Japan’s. Although the precise relationship between weight and health is contentious, the nonpartisan Commonwealth Fund has stated bluntly that America’s obesity levels are responsible for roughly one-fifth of deaths among American adults ages 40 to 85.

      1. Greenland’s Ice Sheet is melting much faster than experts had expected until recently, and by recently I mean last week.

        Today was a warm one in parts of Greenland. We’ll see the surface melt spike in tomorrows catchup on the data.
        http://nsidc.org/greenland-today/

        Here’s the 3 day max temp forecast map
        https://climatereanalyzer.org/wx_frames/gfs/ds/gfs_arc-lea_t2max_3-day.png

        Check out Greenland’s precipitation falling as rain!
        https://climatereanalyzer.org/wx/DailySummary/#prcp-tcld-topo
        And the 3 day total accumulated precipitation map.
        https://climatereanalyzer.org/wx_frames/gfs/ds/gfs_arc-lea_aprcp_3-day.png
        The North Atlantic is becoming a much warmer and wetter place.

        The melt spike should sustain for a few days.

        https://youtu.be/lrhJv4KplU4

      1. Going hand-in-hand with the original hockey-stick of AGW was the phrase “hide the decline”, as if there was actually a decline in the Earth’s temperature that the hockey stick researchers were trying to obscure, by using data manipulations such as “Mike’s nature trick”.

        I always tried to point out that the decline that TPTB are trying to hide are in the reserves of fossil fuel. At least a part of the climate change facade is in making sure that the population is clueless about existential threats to OUR WAY OF LIFE ™.

    3. Ron might argue against this bit:

      “One point to make is that it’s not a problem with humans per se. It’s the system humans have adopted: the one we call our global civilization. But that choice is not written in our genes. We are not obligated to cling to our current (and recent) approach to living on this planet. That’s where any real hope lies.”

      The last two words in that sentence are probably true.

      1. I disagree with that paragraph too.

        All life is programmed for the the first law of thermodynamics, the conservation of energy, hence why we are all naturally lazy, in the developed world there is high rate of obesity as a result and why we invented the remote control.

        Industrial civilisation is a natural consequence of the discovery and use of fossil fuels and their scalability.

        My contention is if any other life form acquired consciousness to the same degree as us, this selfish gene within it will manifest an outcome similar to us exploiting the resources around it.

        1. “All life is programmed for the the first law of thermodynamics”

          All life is programmed for DNA replication (RNA in some cases I believe). One of the ways DNA improves its chances of replicating is by optimizing the first law of thermodynamics.

          I think is a more accurate statement.

      2. Hint:
        We can’t afford to pretend that the same political-economic system that has caused the most historic levels of ecological destruction in human history is the same system that is going to fix it.

        1. No system can fix it,
          not even the authoritarians…
          although they will promise a great future and people will lay out the red carpet and don the red hats for such a promise.

          There is no fix.

          1. Oh, there will be a “fix”.
            Will we have any input on its outcome is the question.

      3. Indeed. How the f*** would he know that?

        “But we have, Blanche, we have clung to our current approach to living on this planet.”

    4. SURVIVALIST —

      From your post.

      “Extinction is a worst-case ecological impact: a final and irreversible winnowing of life on Earth. But on the road to extinction is population reduction. In 1970, the Living Planet Index (LPI) began tracking over 20,000 populations of nearly 5,000 species of vertebrates, finding that the number of animals now is only 32% what it was 50 years ago. Translation: most of the animals (in this sample) have disappeared in my lifetime. To be sure, the LPI can’t be a perfect capture of the situation, but it’s about 20,000 times better than anecdotal observations, and the outcome is a sad one.”

      Sad beyond words.

    6. In that blog Tom Murphy also made the following statement regarding forests which is a similar take to the notion I have termed the Terminal Deforestation Event [TDE]-

      “If continuing the current trend, we might expect to be deforested by 2200. I could make a case for a more rapid demise, whereby declining fossil fuel supply may incentivize burning more firewood, as is already happening in Europe in reaction to reduced methane [fossil fuels] availability. Prior to fossil fuels coming onto the scene, large areas of Europe were being denuded, so that timber for ships had to come from across the oceans. Thus, trees have had a bit of a reprieve this last century (while nonetheless still declining) thanks to fossil fuels. I compute that satisfying our current 18 TW energy appetite via biomass corresponds to burning all biomass on earth (land and sea, plant and animal) over the course of just 15 years. If we turn to forests to replace even a fraction of our fossil fuel habit, these trends of decline become even more dire for forests and for the animals that depend on them.”

      1. HICKORY —

        Don’t forget to add more wildfires into your forest disappearance equation.

        1. I’s out in the municipal park today collecting more acorns for the woodlot’s future hardwood stand. Got some nice carpathian walnut and false acacia going there too. If ya’ll know any big names looking to buy carbon capture credits let me know :/

      2. Hick is def onto something with the TFE. That ain’t gonna buff out!

        If I may, I forecast similar events locally as has trended in other regions; to wit, forest protector types being hunted by organized crime and industry.

        Murders of environment and land defenders hit record high
        https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/13/murders-environment-land-defenders-record-high

        Timber poaching: The secretive crime decimating North America’s forests
        https://canadiangeographic.ca/articles/timber-poaching-the-secretive-crime-decimating-north-americas-forests/

        The strange underground economy of tree poaching
        https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/06/28/1107449055/the-strange-underground-economy-of-tree-poaching

        I anticipate some groups will, in the future, perhaps find extreme measures to be morally permissible. When one starts to more seriously consider the interests of nonhuman life & future generations in a consequentialist analysis, it’s not hard to get to some Pol Pot types more engaged in defending the forest.

        https://ethics.org.au/ethics-explainer-consequentialism/

        https://www.soas.ac.uk/cedep-demos/000_P563_EED_K3736-Demo/unit1/page_17.htm

        An interesting backstory for a future super villain might be a rather sickly & resentful child who nobody gave much of a fuck about during covid, that grows up to cathartically liquidate much of humanity in order to protect nature.

      3. I have no doubt such a TDE could happen. Where I live in Maine is now heavy forest, but if you look at photographs of this area from the late 19th C., there were NO trees, just rock walls and farms. Firewood was THE fuel, and it was used mightily.

        There was far less forest here even in the 1940s, when large swaths of the state burned. My neighbor (d. 2019) remembered being a teenager with an “Indian pack” chasing down fires.

        I’m afraid that’s going to happen again, and with the amount of unkempt forest we have now, that fire is going to be a doozy. No one even fucking cleans up their rock walls anymore.

        1. With the energy situation in middle Europe deteriorating, I now have quite a business opportuity, since we have quite a bit of firewood (birch) in the far north, with a small patch of my own. So, the question is, should I let them freeze in the dark, and let them learn their lesson hard or should I let them just have second thoughts about not putting in three glazed windows and heatpumps?

  23. Maybe we should add crime/violence (and drugs) to the hockey stick list?

    VIOLENCE IN CALIFORNIA REACHES “EPIDEMIC” LEVELS AS OUR SOCIETY RAPIDLY DETERIORATES ALL AROUND US

    “I can’t understand why anyone would still want to live in California. Yes, there are lots of high paying jobs and the weather is very nice, but crime is completely and utterly out of control. As you will see below, a new report that has just been issued is warning that violence in the state has now reached “epidemic” levels. The police are doing what they can to try to contain the violence, but at this point they are vastly outnumbered by the predators. Sadly, this is the end result of literally decades of cultural rot, and what is happening in California is going to happen to the rest of the nation if we do not take urgent action to turn things around.”

    http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/violence-in-california-reaches-epidemic-levels-as-our-society-rapidly-deteriorates-all-around-us/

    2. Doug, tell us how much CO2 you produce every winter living near the north pole to keep warm ? You live in an uninhabitable part of earth naturally for humans. That requires burning fossil energy and trees for fuel to survive. And yet, day after day you post about increased planet earths CO2 levels. You are part of the problem. Such an ass.

      Now you are taking right wing Fox News(less) style trash pieces and spreading them on the internet here. Have you no shame ? California the 5th largest economy in the world is the leading state here in America, that is trying to clean up the kind of CO2 living conditions you wallow in. You would be so lucky to live in California, but you can’t. Eat your heart out.

      “Personal financial site WalletHub recently compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia in three overall categories: 1) Drug Use & Addiction, 2) Law Enforcement and 3) Drug Health Issues & Rehab. They took into consideration data on overdoses, overdose-induced deaths, illicit drug use by minors and adults, drug arrests, prescription drug monitoring laws, maternity drug policies, and fourteen other metrics.

      So which states across America have the biggest drug problems? We take a look in this week’s Map Monday.”

      California 29th out of 51,

      https://www.thegeorgiavirtue.com/national-news/map-monday-states-with-the-biggest-drug-problems/

      Latest GHG Inventory shows California remains below 2020 emissions target
      The California Air Resources Board today released GHG emissions data for 2019 showing further reductions below 1990 levels , while the economy grew by 4.3 percent. The data shows a slight increase in overall emissions from the previous year, and a slight decline in emissions from transportation, which is the state’s main source of both GHGs and air pollutants.

      The total, statewide 2018 GHG emissions were 418.2 million metric tons, compared to 425.4 million metric tons in 2018, almost 13 million metric tons below the 2020 target. Transportation emissions declined 3.5 million metric tons between 2018 and 2019, and electricity generation emissions dropped 4.3 million metric tons. Per capita GHG emissions in California have dropped from a 2001 peak of 14.0 tons per person to 10.5 tons per person in 2019, a 25 percent decrease and is about half of the national average for per capita emissions.

      News Release, July 28, 2021

      https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/ghg-inventory-program#:~:text=Per capita GHG emissions in,average for per capita emissions.

      California Dreamin’

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN3GbF9Bx6E

      All the leaves are brown (all the leaves are brown)
      And the sky is gray (and the sky is gray)
      I’ve been for a walk (I’ve been for a walk)
      On a winter’s day (on a winter’s day)
      I’d be safe and warm (I’d be safe and warm)
      If I was in L.A. (if I was in L.A.)
      California dreamin’ (California dreamin’)
      On such a winter’s day

      Stopped into a church
      I passed along the way
      Well, I got down on my knees (got down on my knees)
      And I pretend to pray (I pretend to pray)
      You know the preacher like the cold (preacher like the cold)
      He knows I’m gonna stay (knows I’m gonna stay)
      California dreamin’ (California dreamin’)
      On such a winter’s day

      Don’t worry Doug, I don’t expect you to respond. Like usual.

      1. Please don’t post anything encouraging people to move to California. I grew up here in the 1950s and we really have been overpopulated at least since I came home from the army in 1967. ;>)

        1. The best thing that ever happened to me was before I was born. My father packed up my mother and two older brothers. Then moved to California from snow filled winters in Illinois in the mid-fifties. Today would have been their 73rd anniversary.

          1. My father was born in CA in 1921.
            Me? 1948.
            If you don’t have a direct relative who was born before 1925, it’s time to leave.
            A visa system could be implemented to let in a few keepers of the economy.

      2. California is fucked, too, HB.

        People think California is moving to zero-carbon energy but the amount of zero-carbon electricity generated declined by 10% over the last decade and by 13% since 2000, because a) less hydro from drought & b) closure of San Onofre nuclear plant (9% of total electricity) in 2011.

        https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/california-electricity-data/2021-total-system-electric-generation

        You’ll likely be dead before too long, HB, and that’s perhaps why you don’t take the future too seriously, but those you leave behind will certainly starve out. Perhaps they’ll find a record of your platitudes and think of you as a smart man.

        Climate Change Impacts Across California
        https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Series/1

        https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?CA

        …. and here’s one for the safety briefing.

        Climate Change is Spreading a Debilitating Fungal Disease Throughout the West
        https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22042022/valley-fever-climate-change/

      3. HUNTINGTONBEACH —

        L.O.L. Yes almost all of my heat comes from burning wood. But, every cord burned comes from a dead (diseased) standing tree that would have either burned in a forest fire or rotted in place thus producing about the same amount or more CO2, over time. I apologize if the piece I quoted was trash. Will try to be more careful if future.

        1. Doug, I understand that quite a few provinces are 100% hydro grid; BC and Manitoba come to mind, as well as Quebec at 94% hydro. I suppose NG is the home heating fuel of choice.
          I spend most of my time on the family woodlot these days, not far from the Washington-Idaho-Canuckistan border, hauling my own water and chopping my own firewood. I burn deadfall, dead standing, and understory for winter heat in the cabin; it reduces the fire hazard around the structures and is good woodlot management practice.

      4. California is grossly overpopulated, like much of the habitable world.
        The concrete and the heavy metals and the plastic and the extinction of nature
        are a severe affront to the natural world and all of its creatures.

        And its got a big share of smug bastards, not much different than Texas in that regard.

        California has some pockets of glorious and transitory beauty and grace. But these are becoming much rarer as the population grows and the process of aridification progresses.
        Seen it up close, and seen from afar.
        Like much of earth, its hard to ignore the severe degradation.

        1. If California were a sovereign nation (2022), it would rank as the world’s fifth largest economy, behind Germany and ahead of India.

          You could put my State of Oregon in a corner of LA County.

  25. Prof Vaclav Smil says his mission is to lay out facts: ‘I’m not an optimist or a pessimist, I’m a scientist.’ He points out that the science does not support the hope ‘renewables’ will save us or bring about some kind of transition.

    https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-09-05/the-energy-historian-who-says-rapid-decarbonization-is-a-fantasy

    Don’t let the cornucopian’s fool you; after decades and decades of overshoot, our ‘choose your own adventure’ days are over.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Own_Adventure

    1. I think the accurate thing for a scientist to say is more like “Nothing supports the further extension of an industrial-based civilization that depends on growth for anything like as long as we have already experienced it”

    2. “The notion that any EV is a zero-carbon car is nonsense.” ~ Vaclav Smil

      1. I’m not sure what fool ever suggested than an EV was “zero-carbon” but he was just about as dumb as the ones saying that mining lithium is as environmentally nasty as mining coal. And yes, I’ve read exactly that. You learn a lot of interesting and scary things reading Fox, Newsmax and OAN.

    2. I had a back and forth with Nate in early Sept where I brought up the term and concept of Terminal Deforestation Event-
      Nate-
      “I’ve thought of this risk often. NONE of the ipcccmodrls show reduction of forests as response to end of growth
      I may actually try out your term! [TDE]”

      Thanks for the heads up on his video. Very good.
      One comment- he focuses on wood for heating, but the situation is much worse when you consider the possibility of humanity resorting to use of wood as replacement for fossil fuel for industrial processes like smelting of metal ores and manufacturing. We will denude the planet within a decade of that attempt.

      1. The GFC might bear some data

        Economic crisis poses dire consequences for forests, warns new UN report
        https://news.un.org/en/story/2009/03/294022-economic-crisis-poses-dire-consequences-forests-warns-new-un-report

        Rise in Use of Firewood to Heat Homes Causing Deforestation
        https://greekreporter.com/2011/12/23/rise-in-use-of-firewood-to-heat-homes-causing-deforestation/

        Financial crises reduce deforestation rates, finds new global research
        https://www.sussex.ac.uk/broadcast/read/57668

        Perhaps observable urban and rural/urban deforestation increased whilst financialized industrial deforestation mega projects in remote areas are decreased.

      2. Hick, that’s a great story.! Glad to have brought this to your attention.

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