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Re: Green Deal or Not: Industrial Capitalism Cant Survive


However, given that the coming paradigm shift will be painful (I now accept this), I / we can go beyond the "what if.." stage to the "what next.." stage. How can we exploit the interlocking series of ecological, geopolitical, climatological, social, economic, cultural and spirital crises to the advantage of our world and future generations. (We should be capable of giving the future generations a world to live in - even ANIMALS are capable of passing on life to the next generation !!)

I think it is necessary to grasp at least 4 essential elements in this debate:

1- the paradigm shift can only be painful at this late date (we have waited too long to avoid pain). The only control we have now is over how MUCH pain..

2- the pain can / must be used to redirect human energies in positive directions (pain is a potent motivator!)

3- energy efficiency is our greatest untapped source of green energy, providing the biggest bang for the buck

4- the natural capitalism group around Amory Lovings (Rocky Mountain Institute) are right in believing that man's activity on earth, rather than depleting the earth (negative ecological footprint), should embellish and enrich the earth (POSITIVE ecological footprint). Flowers and grasses should spring from out footsteps, forests should be nourished by our gaze..

http://mail.live.com/default.aspx?wa=wsignin1.0

See my posting of May 12 on this thread RE: the positive ecological footprint of some "primitive" Amazonian slash-and-burn agriculturists.



5/19/2009, 5:38 pm Link to this post Send Email to HOMBREDELATIERRA Blog
 
AgnesW Profile
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Re: Green Deal or Not: Industrial Capitalism Cant Survive


I was privy to a wonderful debate about the Limits to Growth. 5 or 6 scholars were involved. Both sides conceded that some of the observations hadnt come to pass but the overwhelming consensus of the majority all agreed that even though some events happened at in a later time frame, they still were correct. Of course there was one holdout who rigidly stuck to his ideological beliefs and argued till he was blue in the face.
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Re: Green Deal or Not: Industrial Capitalism Cant Survive


Well, one point is critical to make: in no way did the authors of "Limits to Growth" intend to make predictions. They emphasized this not once, not twice but AT LEAST three times throughout the text. Rather their whole point was to detect ROBUST DYNAMICS or tendancies. That is, they want to show HOW things should unfold if we continue to live non-sustainably on the earth, not predict when one particular event or type of event would occur.

Again, they emphasized several times, that, given the exponential growth of population, pollution, non-renewable resource extraction, etc., the timing of events is pretty irrelevant For example, with exponential growth, doubling the quantity of a non-renewable resource will have surprisingly little effect on the date of its final "commercial extinction" (the time when it is no longer economically viable to extract the resource).

Exponential growth is interest rate growth or the way bacteria multiply, by "budding" off several new individual cells

For a description of this type of growth:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_growth

Check out the "exponential stories" to get an intuitive feel. Also try the "external links" for exponential calculators.

As a crude example of exponential depletion: assume 100 units of a resource; assume that in year one, 1 unit of resource is used up; assume that usage doubles each year

year - annual use - remaining
0...... 0................ 100
1...... 1................. 99
2...... 2................. 97
3...... 4................. 93
4...... 8................. 85
5..... 16................. 69
6..... 32................. 37
7..... 37.................. 0

the resource is exhausted after only 7 years because of
rapid rate of growth of consumption

Now, what happens if we double the original amount of resource to 200 units?

year - annual usage - remaining
0....... 0................. 200
1....... 1................. 199
2....... 2................. 197
3....... 4................. 193
4....... 8................. 185
5...... 16................. 169
6...... 32................. 137
7...... 64.................. 73
8...... 73................... 0

Now the resource runs out in year 8 with exponential growth instead of year 7. Doubling a resource don't get ya much with exponential depletion!!
 
This is why Meadows et al in "Limits to Growth" claim that with exponential depletion of non-renewables and exponential growth of population and pollution, exact quantities are not very relevant. You only get a few more years, one way or the other. In any realistic case, the $hit hits the fan in the 21st century no matter how you cut the cake..
5/19/2009, 6:38 pm Link to this post Send Email to HOMBREDELATIERRA Blog
 
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Re: Green Deal or Not: Industrial Capitalism Cant Survive


I think we need to include the progressives in any condemnations, as well.
The path Obama has chosen to take with the economic stimulous package reveals that he is no more informed of the consequences of exponential growth than the neocons are. His choice to pump billions of dollars into the auto industry and building more roads or repairing the existing roads, belies his understanding of the severity of the problems we face.

A more prudent approach would have been to funnel those billions into a mass transit infrastructure in metropolitan areas. Its ridiculous to expect people to abandon their surburban homes. Providing them a means of transport and prohibiting the use of autos in cities would produce a much better result. Of course, government is afraid to issues ultimatums. People will scream that we have been taken over by communists. The only way to achieve the same results without seeming like commies is to make long distance commutes so unpalatable (unbearable traffic jams, terrible road surfaces) that people will beg for alternatives.
Curtailing all federal investment in road construction would achieve the needed results far faster than any rules that could be implemented. ALL major road construction (federal and state) is dependant on federal funding. Some of this money trickles down to county and cities as well.

Local traffic is far more polluting than long distance driving due to its stop and start nature.

In my opinion Obama needed to prioritize only 2 things. Create mass transit and retrofit buildings (currently responsible for 40% of CO2 emissions) to make them energy efficient. The construction industry would have been revived, manufacturers of the necessary materials would have rehired and added employees. He would have put the economy back on track. Increased tax revenues. All without giving his enemies a chance to accuse him of not getting results.
5/26/2009, 10:19 am Link to this post   Blog
 
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Re: Green Deal or Not: Industrial Capitalism Cant Survive


Hi Agnes,

     This is in response to your posting of 26 may. I have to agree with you. The automobile is one of the technological disasters of industrial culture.

           I hope the link come through intact. This guy, Jeff Rubin, was interviewed on the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. program "The Current" recently (link immediately below). His argument tends to confirm my own view that the economic recovery everyone hopes for either 1- will not occur or 2- will be a short-lived, transient affair. The reason is simple, on which Rubin and myself concur: peak oil is either recently past, here, or will be here in a few years. Remember last summer when oil prices rose to $138 / barrel ?? Then they fell, in large part due to the global financial (now economic) crisis. Well, when the economy begins to recover, what do you think is going to happen to oil prices (given the massive demand of industrializing giants like China and India)? Inevitably the prices will rise, not necessarily back to $140 / bbl right away: economic recovery will increase demand, which - in a regime of tight (and ever-tightening) supply - will cause costs to rise.

 

          The worst is that, the development of renewable energy (especially liquid fuels for transport or, alternatively, electric vehicles) was neglected by Western economies ( stupid, stupid ). As oil supplies dwindle, tightening supply, prices will rise (according to classical economic theory, Economics 101) but also the volatility (variability) of price will increase over time. This is of grave consequence because it hinders corporations or governments in making realistic projections of future costs, risks and benefits from large scale projects (oil or gas refineries and ports). Such projects, by their very scale, require long term planning, now rendered impossible by skittish prices.. (The neocons made their bed, now they must lie in it.. )

 

       The upshot of all this is "deglobalization" (not "anti-globalization" which is a political stance: "deglobalization" is an economic process.) Deglobalization will occur as oil prices rise back past $140 / bbl to $200, $250, $300.. International transport will become, increasingly, less viable. Walmart's advantage in importing from China (where wages are low) will be offset by prohibitive transport fees. As we go deeper into the regime of post-peak oil, the prohibitive price of transport will turn the consumer - and industry - back toward more local suppliers, producers and markets. It will become cheaper to make sweatshirts in New England and consume them in the eastern portion of N. America (New England, with some regional trade to the Midwest, eastern Canada..).

 

        Apart from the globalizers and their dreams, such an outcome is not necessarily a damnable thing! Reduced transport means less greenhouse gas emissions , less industrial jobs exported to the third world (exploiting workers both here and there, by playing the interests of one against the other) . For the consumer, it means less variety on the food shelves but fresher food, locally grown and (potentially) a more mutually advantageous relation between the farmer and local consumer ( by eliminating several layers of middle-men standing between farmer and consumer)

 

Link to CBC interview bith Jeff Rubin (worth listening to, well explained peak oil effects)



http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2009/200905/20090525.html


"Part 2: Oil - Jeff Rubin

Well all roads lead to oil when it's cheap ... vacations are more affordable, fruit and vegetables from around the world are on our grocery shelves and all those cheap, imported electronics stay nice and cheap.

Of course the reverse is also true. When the price of oil is high, bad things happen including recessions. And according to Jeff Rubin, that's something we're just going to have to get used to because cheap oil is a thing of the past.

Jeff Rubin is the former Chief Economist for CIBC World Markets. He's just written a book called Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and The End of Globalization. And Jeff Rubin was in Toronto."

5/26/2009, 5:01 pm Link to this post Send Email to HOMBREDELATIERRA Blog
 
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Heres a LINK to a chapter from Jeff Rubins book.

Im not sure I agree with him that the recession was not caused by the housing bubble. But the rest of his book is spot on.


Last edited by AgnesW, 5/26/2009, 10:22 pm
5/26/2009, 10:08 pm Link to this post   Blog
 
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Re: Green Deal or Not: Industrial Capitalism Cant Survive


     I don't think Rubin is totally wrong in arguing against "the housing bubble caused the financial crisis". He is right in the sense that the present crisis (financial + economic)is actually systemic in nature. The System - the way the world is run - is busted, can't be fixed; we simply need a new system, a new way of doing things, new "roadmaps of reality", a New Paradigm-of-Everything..

      Under present conditions the system becomes fragile. Anything can knock it down because it is sick. Think of an AIDS patient coming down with and dying from opportunistic infections. AIDS, by weakening the immune system, opened the door to infections which other, healthier, people would throw off without batting an eyelash.

      The world economy, being founded on non-sustainable, Climate Change provoking technologies, is likewise fragilized. It has no resilience. It is top heavy. It lacks MODULARITY (sub-economies are not protected by firewalls: a catastrophic change propagates through the entire world economy like a row of falling dominos, one taking down the next..)

    Our entire practice (as well as theory) of running a planetary economy is botched, botched, botched..
 
     I think Rubin did a service by directing attention away from the proximate (nearest) trigger of the crisis (the housing bubble) to a deeper, more fundamental problem: the sheer idiocy of founding a world economy on a single type of energy resource - fossil fuels - and a NON-RENEWABLE type. It's really hard to beat idiocy like that.. emoticon
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