The Energy Crisis
The CEO of General Motors announced at this year’s auto show that he foresees the end of the internal combustion engine, and rather soon at that. He looks for GM to maintain a leading position in the manufacture and distribution of personal vehicles powered by batteries, that to happen as soon as GM can perfect batteries that will provide suitable range. He declared ethanol to be crutch of the near future, something we will need to rely on until those batteries arrive.
Meanwhile, the price of wheat has risen by 250 percent in the last two years, an ethanol event as ethanol is a peak oil event. Other grains are similarly effected. The U.S. Department of Energy, on their web page, foresees a 100 percent diversion of maize, or corn if you prefer, to ethanol production quite soon. There goes the price of milk, bread and eggs, and meat too. Latinos, having not a lot of cash, use corn and beans as a dietary base (the combination forms a complete protein, a necessary dietary substance.) They’ll just have to do without corn, perhaps. Far as I know, beans are not yet threatened as a feed stock for ethanol producers.
U.S. Petroleum Supplies
An interesting analysis appeared on EB. It suggested that petroleum production figures aren’t what to watch; producing countries are discovering the joys of using the stuff. What wants close attention, says the author, is how much export petroleum is available. His graphs show cause for concern. While production is still rising in some countries the quantity available for export in the same country may well be declining. And that’s the part that concerns drivers in the U.S. We depend upon imported oil, and if the stuff isn’t there for import good news about production doesn’t mean much at all.
The Climate Crisis
Crisis? If you believe Goddard Space Institute Director James Hansen, the chap whom the Administration unsuccessfully tried to muzzle the problem is worse than we thought (Never mind what the CBS special on climate change said. While they interviewed Hansen extensively, it must be old footage because it doesn’t reflect his present thinking). Perhaps you remember Al Gore’s projections in “An Inconvenient Truth”, in which he opined that we need to stop building the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere before we reach 550 ppm. That’s twice pre-industrial levels. Al used data from the 90′s when carbon dioxide was building at one percent per year. In this century, the level has become three percent, throwing Al’s timetable badly askew.
Arctic ice is beating a frantic retreat, as are mountain glaciers in all latitudes. With that experience, the common judgement has become we’d best avoid anything beyond 450 ppm. We are presently at nearly 390 ppm, and the number is climbing very quickly these days. Now comes Hansen with a new proposition.
He says the trigger point was 350 ppm. At present levels we may have crossed the threshold into a totally unknown condition with climate having entirely escaped any controls we may now try to impose. In other words, bend way, way over and kiss your nether parts goodbye, ‘cause we’ve had it. That’s one man’s opinion. Not all scientists are of quite that gloomy a state of mind. After all, nobody knows where that threshold is, not even Jimmy Hansen. But I think he’s warning us what we’re playing with here. I’ve spoken of the anoxic event, and should we trigger one we won’t survive. Read the rest of this entry »

A sense of balance keeps things lively and interesting, so it’s good to keep a few moderate Republicans around so you can bounce ideas off their heads like ping-pong balls. But the emerging connection between the Democratic Party and the environmental movement, with Al Gore as the Nobel Prize-winning figurehead, will become irresistible to new generations of politically restless voters who will be raised with environmental awareness as a Holy Grail to be held against increasingly severe effects of global warming on a planet ravaged by a century old monopoly started by Standard Oil…
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Must see: in just a few minutes of Flash video, Annie Leonard breaks down our consumer society into its various parts. She makes it all fun and easy to follow, while at the same time creating a powerful indictment of the modern American lifestyle.

Watch it and tell your friends and family:
www.StoryofStuff.com

Out With The Old, In With The New
The end of one year and the beginning of another. Traditionally a time to take stock of what recently happened and what we expect of the future. Be advised: Not all is well with the world. But good news lurks toward the end of this report. You want some good cheer, get there.I’ll start by once again reminding you of The Association for the Study of Peak Oil, and of Tom Whipple. Why? Because the two seem to have melded into one during the year, and much of what I know comes from ASPO and Tom. Read the rest of this entry »

I feel odd wishing people a “Happy New Year,” because it seems like such a trivial wish — like visiting soldiers about to be sent to the front and wishing them a pleasant train ride.

We have stirred up some serious stuff with our obstinate refusal to accept and live within ecological limits, but — as the saying goes — Nature bats last.

And Nature isn’t just any batter — no, she’s like eight-armed Kali, standing at the plate with a Louisville Slugger in half the arms and an endless supply of slow curveballs to slam back at us in the others and, boy, is she ever pissed.

It seems highly likely that we’ll be out here in the field playing defense for a looooooooong time — certainly the rest of my life, and probably for the lives of all the rest of the 6.8 billion of us now alive too.

Here’s a link to a report that presents sobering look at a little of what the social sciences suggest might follow from our misbehavior. It’s not an easy read. (H/t to RealClimate.org, the best site on the net for climate change information.)

Here’s hoping that you and yours have an awakened New Year, and that you act on that awakening. These bleak glimpses of possible futures aren’t revelations — we can act to make the future better, but only by acting decisively. Failing to act is acting so as to ensure failing.

This will probably be my last post here, as I’m told that this blog format is changing in a way that doesn’t allow me to continue. I hope that you found something worthwhile here.

Is here. Here’s a piece that helps explain why this is necessary — Papua New Guinea is planning to clearcut 60,000 hectares (150,000 acres) …. of an 80,000 hectare (200,000 acre) island! … to grow palm oil for biodiesel.

All over the world, the agrofuels industry is racing ahead of awareness of what it means to clear cut tropical forests in order to create monoculture plantations to make biodiesel. Many in Oregon are aware that ethanol is a loser, but haven’t yet grasped the havoc that biodiesel is causing on the richest, most diverse, most threatened ecosystems on earth, the tropical rainforests.

ALERT: Papua New Guinea’s Woodlark Island Rainforests to Be Cleared for Oil Palm Agrofuels

TAKE ACTION: The PNG government continues to approve rainforest destruction and diminishment even as they vocally seek to be paid with carbon market funds for their “protection”. The oil palm biofuel industry — the scourge of Asia and the world’s rainforests — is continuing to expand into Papua New Guinea (PNG). Malaysian company Vitroplant has been granted necessary permits by the PNG government to begin clearing 70% of the rainforests on biodiversity rich Woodlark Island, some 60,000 hectares, in order to establish a massive plantation of oil palm trees.

Expansion of oil palm plantations at the expense of primary rainforests runs contrary to PNG’s government public support for preserving rainforests for climate and other benefits. An oil palm plantation on Woodlark Island will endanger the island’s flora and fauna, cause environmental upheaval, and result in drastic cultural change. The islanders of Woodlark have worked hard to draw international attention to this issue, and have issued an appeal for the support of international NGOs and citizens to pressure the government to withdraw the project. TAKE ACTION

Remember the Clean Air Act of 1970? It gave California the authority to set its own clean air standards, contingent on a federal waiver. Since then, California has made several requests for waivers and has never been refused. And now the Environmental Protection Agency has refused to grant a waiver to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, dubiously based on its history of refusing to identify carbon dioxide as a pollutant covered under the Clean Air Act, yet another obstructionist policy of the Bush Administration, which has failed to move forward with changes needed to combat global warming. Two recent court decisions have cleared the path for climate control, ruling that the EPA should regulate CO2 as a pollutant, and in favor of Vermont’s automobile emissions standards, modeled after California. Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger is confronting the issue with a lawsuit against the EPA, and is joined by 14 other states, including Oregon and Washington, Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
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There’s nothing here about the energy balance, which is worrisome when you read the details of the process.

But, presuming that is OK, then this might be attractive. Like all petro-alternatives, the problem is scale—most people have no feel for the sorts of immense quantities of oil we blow through every day and, therefore, no intuition about how unlikely it will be that anything like the current system can be maintained once peak oil is clearly apparent.
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There’s precedent for this sort of thing to work, leading Congress to reverse the semi-autonomous agencies headed by commissioners whose only goal is ceaseless service to their corporate masters (in between corporate jobs serving the masters of the industries they supposedly regulate even more directly).

So take action! You are all we need, and we need all of you.

Dear Friend,

The Federal Communications Commission approved new rules that
will unleash a flood of media consolidation across America. The
new rules will further consolidate local media markets — taking
away independent voices in cities already woefully short on
local news and investigative journalism.

Congress has the power to throw out these rules — and if
100,000 people demand it, they’ll have to listen. Click on the
link below to sign the open letter to Congress urging them to
stop the FCC and stand with the public interest.

http://action.freepress.net/campaign/sbmopenletter/

http://action.freepress.net/campaign/sbmopenletter?rk=d7s3iwY1uyCvW

In one sense, a rather quiet month. Mostly looking over the shoulder at recent events while waiting for the big event in Antarctica, where it is only the equivalent of the northern May. And for the report of thousands of climate scientist on the ice down there trying to figure out what’s going on.
The Decider
“The Bush Administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policy makers and the public about the dangers of global warming,” said the report, which is the result of a 16-month probe by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. “The White House exerted unusual control over the public statements of federal scientists on climate change issues.”
Not really news, is it? It’s all of a piece with the federal government’s response to Bali and the IPCC report. Obstruct, deny, and make the world safe for SUVs. People in Bali said all is not lost. In just a few months there will be a different administration. Then maybe we can get on with the job.
State’s Rights Read the rest of this entry »