“2009 – The Year of Awareness & Action”
January 31, 2009
I hear it all the time, from many quarters, that magic word “hope.” Indeed, we stand at the brink of a new administration in Washington, one that explicitly promotes hope along side another favorite buzzword, change. “Hope” was even in the title of our new president’s book, “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream.” But an even stronger word hovers just out of range, barely below the surface, but suggested so forcefully by that very title. That word is denial.
http://www.meetup.com/peakoilnyc/messages/boards/thread/6114043
An essay by William Burke.
Positive feedback effects
January 31, 2009
Short animations describing tipping points.
http://permaculture.org.au/2009/01/28/wake-up-freak-out-then-get-a-grip/
Oil is the most super abundant…
January 30, 2009
Oil is the densest, most widely-available super-abundant energy resource in the solar system. It is being squandered on things like Power Wheels, leafblowers, ecocidal weapons, and unhealthy shallow lifestyles 100% reliant on general apathy toward the greater whole reinforced by prescribed mind-numbing drugs and insistent advertisement distorting “happiness.”
“It’s called the American Dream ’cause you have to be asleep to believe it.” -G. Carlin
Global Warming Doubts are a Result of…
January 29, 2009
The Public Campaign Action Fund has kept track of spending by the coal and oil industry on politicians, media etc.
“With literally tens of billions of dollars of annual profits at stake — for example, ExxonMobil alone reported $22.6 billion in profits in the first half of 2008 — the coal and oil industries are desperately spending hundreds of millions of dollars to shape and mobilize public and elite opinion.”
http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?ID=7068&Method=Full
You make the call on who the bad guys are here. Big bad multi-million dollar scientists saying we should be careful about our actions. Or big bad multi-billion dollar polluters - coal and oil – telling us to drive and consume more and more without hesitation.
CO2 as plant food argument
January 29, 2009
You have probably heard the argument that more CO2 in the atmosphere is actually good, benefitting plants, allowing them to grow more proficiently. Well, besides from being a ridiculous argument you should only hear from a second-grader, it does not hold up to this new report: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/22/AR2009012202203.html
New Theme
January 29, 2009
Less strain on the eyes.
Peak Oil at Memebox
January 28, 2009
Price volatility
January 28, 2009
No need to wonder why gasoline prices are so low – here is the explanation: As gasoline prices increased and reached their maximum in July, 2008 at $147 a barrel, oil producers pumped out as much as they could to capitalize on the higher price and bring in immense profits. Suddenly, the price of oil dropped some 70% in five months. The reason for this is because demand dropped significantly. People and businesses slowed their consumption of oil with gasoline at over $4.00 a gallon (expensive). However, oil producers were still extracting oil at high rates (we are talking about numbers like 86 million barrels per day). So there was an excess of oil on the market, making supply much higher than demand, leading to lower prices. Now, what this means is that with oil prices so low, less investment is being made into alternative energy systems as well as current oil extraction projects because it is not profitable.
Say I am a professional illustrator and I complete one project a week at maximum (peak production). I am charging $150 per illustration and spending a fixed $100 on finite supplies (pigments, paper etc.) per project. Suddenly, whoever commissioned my work decides it is only worth $50 a week. It does not make sense to sell or even continue working at that rate because I will be losing money. So I decide to finish one illustration every three weeks until price (demand) goes back up.
Well, pretend the entire economy relies upon my illustrating. My illustrations are dumped into the fuel tanks of machines, and the machines operate. Sculptures and ceramics cannot operate the machinery the economy needs. Only my illustrations. These machines allow the economy to function. They ship goods across oceans, they harvest and deliver food. The illustrations can be altered into different forms and used as fertilizer to (temporarily) enrich soil and grow food for an expanding population. They provide the means to create everything from containers which hold water and liquid soap to action figures. As you can see, the entire economy relies on my illustrations for its well-being to fulfill its model of consumption, growth, and “progress.”
Now, with lower illustration prices people can afford, they begin to once again purchase my wonderful, under-appreciated illustrations that make life as we know it possible. However, I have only been producing one illustration every three weeks, so there are not as many illustrations availaible. Because of this scarcity, demand outstrips supply, and prices skyrocket to $175. I try to crank out as many illustrations as I can because I want some fucking cash! Woot woot! However, by the time I am back to producing two illustrations per week, prices plummet because people cannot afford it. This time, however, there are not enough illustrations to go around and food shipments don’t arrive.
It is a frail system, totally dependent on dwindling supplies of “illustrations” which, in this case, is a substitute for “fossil fuels.” And because the current economic system is modeled on infinite growth and infinite substitutability (created at a time when world population was a fraction of today’s and material goods were relatively scarce), it does not know how to react to shrinkage or contraction – hence the term “negative growth.”
*I got carried away in the previous version of this post.
Blog’s up dude!
January 26, 2009
Ok. This will cut down on all the spam in your emails. I apologize for that. I thank the people who could no longer tolerate it and piped up – you know who you are!
In case I get some readers: this blog will primarily deal with current issues involving energy, ecology, economy and other enigmas (I just couldn’t resist!) and theorizing about brown masses and fans. I don’t know the final shapes the brown splattered masses will assume, but There Will Be Brown. Those times when I whined to my mom about being bored are being repaid with interest. Thanks Karma!
Just to start off, ecology and economy share the prefix eco, which is derived from the Greek oikos, meaning “home.” Therefore, ecology is the study of the home, and economy is the management of the home. Needless to say, not enough studying of the home has been done in order to properly manage it. For example: Say I install a toilet without knowing a thing about plumbing. I notice there are some pipes in the basement and choose a pipe at random to funnel my excretions. Next thing I know, my water doesn’t taste so good. At that point, I should stop and think, “Maybe there is something wrong with the way I am managing my home, ’cause this water tastes like shit!” This realization provokes urgency, because to not act could mean sickness or even death. The industrial, infinite-growth economy labels “waste” (carbon dioxide, pollution, garbage) an “externality” (a feature external to the current economic model and therefore inconsequential) which has led to unpredictable climate change as well as tons of other fucked up things. It has grown too large for the planet to sustain, and is collapsing as you read this. Or, if you read this in the future, it was happening while I was dicking around on a fucking computer in an overpopulated city!
On that note,
Ecology lesson # 1. Earth – or the biosphere as it is sometimes called – is our home.
#1a. Earth is spherical.
#1b. Spheres are finite.
Ecology lesson #2. Ecosystems are composed of diverse species (biodiversity) which are the working parts allowing life as we know it to exist. Example: A tree grows up from the soil, converting the sun’s energy into food through photosynthesis. This tree also takes carbon dioxide out of the air and creates oxygen. It absorbs tremendous amounts of water and holds soil together, preventing erosion. Insects feed on the bark of the tree and birds feed on the insects. When that bird dies, bacteria and microbes and fungi feed on its corpse, breaking down all the debris. These nutrients and minerals are then absorbed by the roots of the tree, cycled back into the ecosystem. This is what I mean by the working parts. Without these ecosystem functions, we would not have the oxygen we need to breathe, soil would erode, and we would be up to our eyebrows in bones and poopsie-doops.
Whew! That sure beats the uncomfortable “birds and the bees” explanation my dad offered consisting wholly of “You know about condom’s and all that shit, right?”
