Gas prices in 2012? At least $4?

[suspectnumber961]

Why Going 'Back To Normal' Is No Longer An Option for the American Economy -- And Where We're Headed Now | | AlterNet


a weiny-head notice:


The bottom line in Homer-Dixon’s theory is this: Everything that Americans understand as “wealth” under the current paradigm comes from oil. It’s the foundation of our entire economy, and the ground our superpower status stands on. Our cities are built on the assumption of cheap, plentiful oil. Our consuming patterns are made possible by a fleet of oil-burning trucks, ships, and planes that bring us goods made in oil-driven factories. Our warmaking machine, which is largely tasked with protecting our oil interests around the world, is the single largest consumer of energy on the planet. Even our food is created with vast oil-based inputs of fertilizer and pesticides; and we enjoy a year-round variety of foods (bananas! chocolate! coffee!) that is unprecedented in human history because oil makes cheap transport and refrigeration possible.

And the pain and fear caused when we're forced to face this fundamental fact explains quite a bit about why ideas like climate change and peak oil are so viscerally terrifying to so many Americans. (In many right-wing circles, denial about the American oil addiction is now a core piece of their political identity. It’s considered anti-American to even suggest that getting off oil is necessary or possible.) We are so deeply invested in oil, in so many ways, that it’s almost impossible for us to envision a world beyond it. We stand to lose so much that it’s hard to fathom it all.

And this, says Homer-Dixon, is why no empire has ever survived an energy-related phase shift with its full power intact: the reigning hegemons are always too deeply invested in the current system to recognize the change, let alone respond to it in time. And so they are always superceded by some upstart that’s motivated to put more resources and risk into aggressively developing the next source. The decline of oil as the energy reality of the world has deep implications for every aspect of American life in the coming century. It’s a phase shift at the deepest level.

[Arragonis]

Well this is a cheerful read and no mistake Either we are all going to burn the world up or run out of oil first - or maybe its both I kind of lose track.

I read a lot about Peak Everything a few years ago and became convinced we are doomed, but then I woke up and realised that the end of civilisation due to resources running out and over population has been a running theme for over 200 years.

I used to fret about CAGW too but then wondered how the vikings managed to bury their dead in what is now permafrost in Greenland or why the Thames used to freeze over and why we didn't seem to have winters like those scenes in the 18th century paintings used for Christmas cards all the time.

And I remember all those predictions of a coming ice age in the 1970s, although everyone now denies that was ever the case. Oh and we were supposed to have used all the oil by now too again according to predictions made at the time.

The problem is that these predictions are based on models, and most models are too simplistic to take into account the real world. Take "The limits to Growth" - a typically doom laden prediction of resource depletion and over-population. How did it work out ? Bollocks - because it was a model, a fixed model - it didn't take into account technology and efficiency even though the existence of the computers used to run it at the time should have been a clue.

The same is true of the models which predict CAGW - fortunately the world has not followed those models at all, in fact it is almost being deliberately cheeky in how much it is going against them.

Now does this mean I don't care about the environment or our use of resources - no. I care about those quite a lot - I have a child so I have an investment in the future. I feel we could get a lot further in helping the less fortunate in this world and indeed our own future generations by investing more in technology and research on how to use those resources, including recycling, far more efficiently - the same kind of research which means we can feed everyone around today*

So if you do feel the need to buy ammo and run for the hills then get on with it and get out of the way of the rest of us. Please send us a postcard to let us know how you get on and whether the polar / grizzly bears welcome you with open paws - I'm sure it will still arrive just fine.

*(it is criminal that some people in this world go to sleep hungry or don't have clean drinking water - the fact we spend £/$bns on more or less useless windmills - and insist they do the same - instead of solving that problem is a crime against humanity IMO, not something people should be getting nobel prizes for).

[Frank Lee]

I don't keep up on the latest studies and doomsday theories but I know this: where there's overpopulation, IMHO there's greatly reduced quality of life. And the overpopulated areas are spreading like wildfire. That's all the reason I need to get on that bandwagon, but there are hundreds of other good reasons besides to denounce overpopulation, resource depletion or at the least wasteful use.

[Arragonis]

Denouncing overpopulation is easy, the difficult part is coming up with a solution.

[Ladogaboy]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

Denouncing overpopulation is easy, the difficult part is coming up with a solution.

Not so difficult...

[user removed]

No kids of my own here gentlemen. I am surprised we haven't incinerated ourselves already.

Remember Kruschev at the UN, "We will bury you" speech.

Remember people building bomb shelters in their back yards.

Remember the London fogs that killed people, or LA, or NY, when pollution levels were a lot worse than they are now.

Today if I follow and old pre pollution controls car down the road and it is running badly and spewing out a lot of unburned HC, it literally makes me sick.

In Saudi Arabia today the cost of extracting one barrel of oil is supposedly $2, but to keep their economy running it needs to sell for more than $80. CO levels are rising, as we deforest the planet.

Do I believe it takes the atmosphere 100 years to clean itself?
Do I believe we are going to drown in the coastal areas as the sea level rises?

They say the sea level has risen 7 inches since 1930 around here. Being very close to the ocean makes the effects of sea level rise very obvious.

Is it due to global warming?
What else could it be due to?

Is that global warming due to human activities?
Lets see, the opposite of global warming is global cooling, reduced food production and starvation, so if I had to choose between the two I guess I like warm better.

Is the average temperature of the global atmosphere a constant?

Well, last year we had a lot of snow, not sure how much but when you scrape it off your driveway so you can get to the road and it stays on the ground for a month, you remember it. This year just a small amount, maybe one inch that is melting as I post this.

I'll tell you this about the whole scenario. It's like the Biblical "Boy who cried Wolf" scenario, when the Wolf showed up, no one believed the Boy was in danger.

If global warming is cyclical then we can do nothing about it. If human caused, we probably won't ever do enough about it in the minds of many, but even when my brothers house is surrounded by water, even at low tide, I will know the sea level is higher than it is today, but I won't be sure of why it is higher, and the continuous writings of those who take extreme positions either advocates or opponents will not make that sea level drop by a single millimeter.

Actions speak louder than words, YOUR sacrifice speaks a heck of a lot louder than YOU proposing MY sacrifice, leadership by example will ALWAYS impress me much more than a demand that I pay an astounding price for YOUR perceived impending disaster, including the most recent "tipping point" scenarios, the most disgusting form of sensationalism.

regards
Mech

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Old Mechanic

Remember the London fogs that killed people, or LA, or NY, when pollution levels were a lot worse than they are now.

But those London fogs, like the smog in LA and NYC, were limited to those cities, while much of the rest of the world was unaffected by them. It's true that nowadays the former bad spots aren't as bad as they once were, but the deterioriation in the rest of the world more than cancels out that improvement.

Well, last year we had a lot of snow, not sure how much but when you scrape it off your driveway so you can get to the road and it stays on the ground for a month, you remember it.

That's you. Hereabouts, where having snow on the ground in the winter is a normal thing, I had to evacute due to a multi-thousand acre fire - in January. And it was the second such major fire this winter, something that just doesn't happen.

Actions speak louder than words, YOUR sacrifice speaks a heck of a lot louder than YOU proposing MY sacrifice...

I do wish someone could explain exactly where sacrifice comes into play. I see people working their butts off (if they can find jobs, these days) to put gas in their guzzlers so they can make hour-long commutes to the job they need to buy the guzzler in the first place. I see them spending their lives in the human equivalent of cattle feedlots, running up debts most of them will never pay off for the trappings of consumerist lifestyle (most of which are soon discarded, or relegated to the suburban garage), and I just have to ask what exactly they would be sacrificing?

[Frank Lee]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

Denouncing overpopulation is easy, the difficult part is coming up with a solution.

It would be a most simple thing to change several tax policies that subsidize reproduction, and see what happens as a result. No limitations on one's freedom, no murders, no suicides (had to list that because inevitably when I bring up overpopulation some Einstein says who am I going to kill, and/or I should kill myself )

[Ladogaboy]

Those countries that contribute the most to overpopulation don't (to my knowledge) have any programs that financially promote reproduction. In fact, they have many programs that limit or restrict population growth (e.g., China and India), so eliminating those types of programs might not be very effective.

I think overpopulation will need to be handled naturally, and unfortunately, yes, it will probably will result from a large number of premature deaths.

[Frank Lee]

The countries that have the tax incentives can change them. The countries that don't and yet are the worst offenders will need societal change. One thing that would help in at least some societies would be for the Catlick Church to come out of the Middle Ages and join the rest of us in the modern world. The countries that have come to chronically rely on aid should have that aid cut off and replaced with family planning education/strategies/products/medical procedures. Obviously some are tougher nuts to crack than others but nobody is even so much as reaching for the low hanging fruit. In fact the mere mention of it is quite taboo in many circles for some reason.