photo credit: North Carolina Farm Bureau, Used with Permission
Between 2017 and 2022, the number of farms in the U.S. declined by 141,733 or 7%, according to USDA’s 2022 Census of Agriculture, released on Feb. 13. Acres operated by farm operations during the same timeframe declined by 20.1 million (2.2%), a loss equivalent to an area about the size of Maine. Only 1.88% of acres operated and 1% of farm operations were classified under a non-family corporate farm structure.
Conducted every five years, the Census of Agriculture collects data on land use and ownership, producer characteristics, production practices, income and expenditures. USDA defines a farm as an operation that produced and sold, or normally would have sold, $1,000 or more of agricultural products during the census year.
While the number of farm operations and acres operated declined, the value of agricultural production increased, rising from $389 billion in 2017 to $533 billion in 2022 (40% nominally and 17% adjusted for inflation). These updated numbers highlight the continuing trend of fewer operations farming fewer acres of land but producing more each year.
In addition to Ag Census data, USDA releases survey-based estimates on farm numbers once every year. Using this annual survey data dating back to 1950, the trend of fewer operations farming fewer acres becomes even more obvious. Since 1950, the number of farm operations has declined by 3.75 million (66%) and the number of acres farmed declined by 323 million (27%) – slightly less than twice the size of Texas. Technological advancements that have increased productivity, such as feed conversion ratios in livestock and yield per acre in crops, have allowed farmers and ranchers to produce more with less even as the U.S. population more than doubled, going from 159 million in 1950 to 340 million in 2023, and the global population more than tripled (2.5 billion to 8 billion) during the same period.
Analyst and financial writer John Rubino warned nearly four months ago of a “U.S. Financial Death Spiral.” This past week, Bank of America caught up to Rubino and issued a warning about a “US dollar death spiral” because the federal government was going deeper in the red by creating “$1 trillion in new debt every 100 days.” Maybe this is why gold and Bitcoin have been hitting new all-time highs day after day. Rubino says, “When a building was worth $200 million and someone sells it for $48 million, that means there is a loss that someone has to take. Those losses are mostly on the books of regional and local banks. So, they are in big trouble financially. . . . You will get these massive bank runs that the government will have to step in and bail out. This is one of many things that will happen in the not-so-distant future. This will impact government finances in a scary way that will send people’s attention to the currency. In other words, if we have another $3 trillion bailout on top of everything else that’s going on . . .what is that going to do to the dollar? . . . . Currencies are being inflated away with all these bailouts, deficits, wars and all these things that are going on that are bad for the currency. So, people start selling government bonds, which push up interest rates and blows up even more bad real estate and paper . . . until you get a debt spiral, a real live financial death spiral than cannot be fixed. . . . I was talking to a real estate guy the other day, and he said this is not just inevitable, it is imminent. It is happening now. It is happening quickly, and it is going to hit the headlines. . . . In this case, what is inevitable in commercial real estate is also looking imminent.”
While I work on a longer (perhaps several part) contemplation regarding the myth of infinite growth on a finite planet that infiltrates and dominates many mainstream narratives — especially economic in nature — I thought I would share a back-and-forth conversation I’ve had with professor Ugo Bardi and another person on the Facebook group Dr. Bardi administers called The Seneca Effect regarding ‘renewables’.
It is a good example of the differing opinions regarding complex energy-harvesting technologies and their potential to offset the energy descent we seem to be experiencing.
First, I’d like to share an introductory statement from a relatively recent ‘essay’ by Megan Siebert and William Rees: “We begin with a reminder that humans are storytellers by nature. We socially construct complex sets of facts, beliefs, and values that guide how we operate in the world. Indeed, humans act out of their socially constructed narratives as if they were real. All political ideologies, religious doctrines, economic paradigms, cultural narratives — even scientific theories — are socially constructed “stories” that may or may not accurately reflect any aspect of reality they purport to represent. Once a particular construct has taken hold, its adherents are likely to treat it more seriously than opposing evidence from an alternate conceptual framework.”[1]
I am well aware that, for the most part, people believe what they want to believe. We defend our beliefs in various ways such as ignoring/denying opposing information, attacking the presenter of contrarian evidence, or confirming beliefs via selective interpretation of data/’facts’. And I am as guilty of such psychological mechanisms impacting my belief systems as the next person. We all fight hard to reduce the anxiety/stress created from the presence of cognitive dissonance and can be easily manipulated into believing certain narratives.
The post in which the conversation took place shared a media publication[2] regarding a fusion reactor and its potential for providing unlimited, clean energy.
The presentation begins: “Imagine a world where energy was so clean and abundant that it was no longer a limiting factor in the growth of civilization.”
Infinite growth without a need to worry about what is ‘fuelling’ it or our ecological systems. What’s not to love?
Well…
My original comment on the link:
Steve Bull
Unlimited, ‘clean’ energy (an oxymoron) may address one ‘problem’ humanity faces (actually, a roadblock to continuation of our chasing of the perpetual growth chalice) , but it would exacerbate the various predicaments we have created — especially ecological overshoot.
Comment by another that kicked off the back-and-forth:
Breton Crellin Yeah maybe for like a fraction of a second before they run out of fuel.
That’s the biggest hurdle at the moment.
Even if we can figure out how to keep it cool and controlled it still uses up an incredibly rare fuel incredibly fast.
Maybe one day.
But until then it’s a good thing we’ve got renewables.
Steve Bull
Breton Crellin Despite narratives to the contrary, ‘renewables’ are a can-kicking endeavour. They rely upon finite resources in perpetuity, while that reliance draws those resources down more quickly and exacerbates our fundamental predicament of ecological overshoot.
Breton Crellin
Steve Bull and how would you recommend we generate electricity without producing greenhouse gases?
Because ‘we can’t have clean energy since one day in the future we could run out of the resources we used to make it’ is a very poor argument that assumes we will use the same materials with no innovation until we run out and it ignores the damage burning fossil fuels is doing right now.
If we don’t stop burning also fuels we won’t be alive to see the end of any resources used to generate renewable electricity.
Steve Bull
Breton Crellin The laws of physics and biology care not one iota if our species survives. However, humanity survived for millennia without electricity. And, you can’t have non-renewable, renewable-energy harvesting technologies without fossil fuels — and A LOT of it to even come close to replacing what fossil fuels provide…to say little of their import to modern industrial agriculture that supplies our food. This is a predicament without a solution.
Breton Crellin
Steve Bull Your solution is a non-solution.
I asked you how You would recommend producing clean electricity and your answers to not produce electricity?
You can’t have renewable energy without fossil fuels?
That talking point is straight out of the climate change denial handbook.
Yes I’m well aware that concrete and steel have a carbon footprint and engineers take a gas burning car to work.
But those emissions are only made once and after that it’s decades of clean electricity.
Besides using petroleum products is not the problem. It’s burning them for heat electricity and transportation that is accelerating I possible extinction level event.
A predicament without a solution hey?
Sounds more like a predicament you have where your logic has pushed you in a corner you can’t find your way out of.
Sorry I shouldn’t make this about you.
Seriously though if climate change is a predicament without a solution then what is the harm in using renewable energy if we won’t survive on this planet long enough to use up the materials?
Ugo Bardi Breton Crellin There is nothing to do, Breton, for some people, denigrating renewable energy is a crusade.
Steve Bull
Ugo Bardi You and I will have to agree to disagree regarding‘ renewables’. And as I have written before in responding to you: “… it is not that I ‘hate’ renewables or am a shill for the fossil fuel industry (the two typical accusations lobbed at me); I simply recognise their limitations, negative impacts, and that they are no panacea.”
Steve Bull
Breton Crellin You need to recognize the difference between problems with solutions and predicaments without them. Not only is there increasing data/evidence to point out that there exists nowhere near the mineral/material resources to achieve the ‘transition’ many desire (see this: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/…/19-simon-michaux), but that the ecological system and environmental fallout from pursuing such a shift would be catastrophic (see this: https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2022/09/a-climate-love-story/).
Steve Bull
Ugo BardiBreton Crellin As physics professor Tom Murphy concludes in the piece I link: “Let’s not engineer a nightmare for ourselves in the misguided attempt to realize a poorly considered dream. It starts by recognizing that the vision many hold as “the dream” is itself utterly unsustainable and thus may even accelerate failure, rather than avert it. The predicament has wide boundaries that reach deep foundations of our civilization’s structure. We only succeed by altering our mental models of how we live on this planet — not by finding “superior” substitutes for the very things that have put us in this precarious position — and thus will only dig our hole faster, better, and cheaper.”
Breton Crellin
Steve Bull strongly disagree that using renewable energy instead of fossil fuels is a poorly realized dream.
And again to repeat myself those material estimations assume innovations or alternative materials between now and when we run out.
What are the timelines until we are expected to run out anyway?
Centuries?
Or do we have less than that?
Steve Bull
Breton Crellin First, you cannot have ‘renewables’ without fossil fuels — from the mineral extraction and processing industries to their maintenance and reclamation/disposal, fossil fuels have no replacements for these industries at scale; plus you require fossil fuels to back up renewable systems because of their intermittency. Note that humanity’s energy demand (including that of fossil fuels) has only increased over the past several decades despite the introduction of ‘renewables’. Renewables are best seen as an extension of fossil fuels, not a replacement. As for the mineral limitation issue, I will defer to Simon Michaux as the geologist who has studied the issue extensively. We need to be powering down significantly (plus reducing our population dramatically), not attempting to replace what fuels our energy-intensive civilisation with complex technologies that require significant drawdown of finite minerals that have for some time been encountering problematic diminishing returns (to say little of the ecological damage such a pursuit entails). Our fundamental predicament is ecological overshoot and chasing replacements for fossil fuels does zero to address it; in fact, it makes it worse leading to an even more difficult reversion to the mean for humanity.
Ugo Bardi
You see? It is a crusade.
Steve Bull Ugo Bardi I view my attempting to point out the deficiencies and issues with renewables no more a ‘crusade’ than yours to push these technologies (and their environmentally-destructive production) as a ‘solution’ to our inevitable energy descent. The repercussions for our planet (and all life) of our continued pursuit of complex technologies are not inconsequential.
Ugo Bardi
Yours is a faith, mine is a scientific investigation based on data
Steve Bull Ugo Bardi Many would argue that the idea that ‘renewables’ are a ‘solution’ to our energy descent as ‘faith-based’. I guess you missed (purposely ignored?) the links I shared of physics professor Tom Murphy and geologist Simon Michaux? We must agree to disagree over this…
Ugo Bardi
Steve, how many papers on renewable energy did you publish in peer-reviewed journals? I published at least three (actually more) during the past few years. For this reason I say that my opinion on renewables is based on data and facts.
Steve Bull
Ugo Bardi Yes, you are arguing based upon an appeal to ‘data’ and ‘facts’, as am I when I refer to the work of fellow academics and ‘experts’ in their fields. Simon Michaux, for example, is a geologist with the Geological Survey of Finland and has performed extensive work on the mineral requirement aspects for a transition to ‘renewables’. Tom Murphy is a practising physicist who looks deeply into the numbers and data. And then there are the countless ecologists who are witnessing horrific biodiversity loss and ecological system collapse from the continuing, and expanding, industrial processes required to pursue complex technologies. I am not basing my perspective on ‘faith’ as you have suggested. I am attempting to balance the ecological concerns (that are almost always ignored or rationalised away) with the human need for energy to sustain our current way of existence. The two seem quite incompatible.
I conclude with the notion that we all believe what we wish to believe; ‘facts’ make little to no difference to that human proclivity. And this is particularly so when one is ‘invested’ significantly in the belief. Dr. Bardi seems well invested in the concept of renewables being capable of replacing fossil fuels. Me…not so much.
Might my concerns for the environment and ecological systems because of our industrial processes and pursuit of increasingly complex technologies be overblown or misplaced? Perhaps. But if they’re not and we continue to chase them in our quest for some holy grail to sustain our current living arrangements, the reversion to the mean for humanity will not be very welcome. Not at all.
[2] The media publisher is ‘Electric Future’ that offers the following information about itself on its YouTube channel: “Electric Future® is an independent media publisher that presents optimistic but realistic coverage of cutting edge sustainable technology… The operators of Electric Future may have material connection to organizations mentioned in video content.”
The Pursuit Of ‘Renewables’: Putting Us Further Into Ecological Overshoot
Today’s very brief contemplation has been prompted by a couple of recent articles/posts (see links below) by thinkers/writers whose works/ideas I have followed for some time and respect greatly — but disagree with when it comes to non-renewable renewable-energy harvesting technologies.
I continue to be dismayed that many (most?) analyses of humanity’s predicament(s) seem devoid of the bio- and geo-physical constraints that exist on a finite planet and suggest quite strongly that the energy ‘transition’ argued for is, for all intents and purposes, dead on arrival — to say little about our fundamental predicament of ecological overshoot.
And please note, it is not that I ‘hate’ renewables or am a shill for the fossil fuel industry (the two typical accusations lobbed at me); I simply recognise their limitations, negative impacts, and that they are no panacea.
Our pursuit and leveraging of complex technologies, amongst a few sociocultural practices, is what has led us into ecological overshoot. The evidence appears to be accumulating that they are not likely to help us out of this predicament and pursuing them to the degree their cheerleaders suggest (many of whom stand to profit handsomely from during such a shift) would compound significantly the negative consequences of their production and distribution.
Today’s contemplation stems from a recent article about Canadian politics that has prompted me to reflect further on sociopolitics and belief systems[1], but not so much about the actual content of the article — except to include the comment I left.
I am interpreting the world from within and about a particular sociopolitical system termed ‘representative democracy’[2]. A system that gives decision-/policy-/legislative-making power to ‘representatives’ who are selected/elected by a set region/group. The basic premise is that chosen representatives serve the interests of the constituents whom have elected them[3].
For anyone disenfranchised with their current crop of politicians in office and believe they are not being represented, one of the automatic responses/thoughts that the vast majority of people have as its municipality/province/state/country approaches any election is something along the lines of: “This time, if we elect just the right people, I can be properly represented, and we can set things straight and get addressing/solving our problems.”
Along the lines of this reflexive thinking are a host of other similar notions about the sociopolitical system we are enculturated into.
Elections are important. Voting matters. It is a civic duty to be informed and participate in elections. Our political system is the best, anywhere, and in all of time; it can, given the proper resources and people, solve all our problems. Each election provides a fresh opportunity to improve society. Elections are my opportunity to provide input into my society and make a difference. I get a say in my society by voting.
Elections in the sociopolitical realm have a very long history (as do representative democracies). They have changed dramatically since their early iterations but their original intent remains: a population ‘votes’ to select an individual or group of individuals to organise/lead a particular aspect of society.
Although I have grown to know better, I have to fight against the misinformed but very widely held beliefs I outlined above constantly since they seem so ingrained in my psyche. It’s like the parable about fish not knowing what water is[4]. We don’t realise we are immersed in and greatly affected by certain narratives, and we certainly tend not to question them. They just are.
This, of course, should not be surprising to me. Widely-held beliefs, regardless of their obvious contradictions and counterfactual evidence, are exceedingly common in human societies. Sometimes they get overturned or experience significant shifts, but oftentimes they do not. This is particularly so with religions, that I would contend secularism[5] has — for all intents and purposes — become (and the sociopolitical organisations that have resulted from its philosophy),
Here I am reminded of that quote often attributed to Mark Twain: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble; it’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
Increasingly I’ve come to view the notion that the only thing that actually changes after an election is the story we tell[6]. It goes something like this: “If my team wins, all is right with the world or soon will be if we can simply ‘fix’ all the horrendous things the other team did while in office or overcome their roadblocks to our utopia. If the other team wins, the world will soon go to or continue to go to hell in a hand basket because they hold the wrong view of the world (and tend to be misguided, even evil).” All subsequent events/decisions/actions are then interpreted through this lens.
It’s important to note that I have not always felt this way about politics and the idea that it is the best means of addressing a society’s pressing issues. When I was younger I held a strong belief that voting and good representation was critically important, and it was my civic duty to be engaged in an informed manner and support the system. I voted religiously from my first opportunity after turning 18 to well into my 30s.
Various opportunities arose for me to be more deeply involved in ‘political’ matters as I weaved my way through life. From being a union representative for part-time workers in the grocery store I was employed at; to getting involved with the student union within the department I was studying within during my university education; to being a representative, executive member, and political action committee chair of the teachers’ federation during my years as a classroom to teacher; and finally, to involvement as an executive member of our local administrators’ council and senior negotiator[7] as I finished out my career in education.
All of these experiences, however, had significant moments where I began to question quite critically the entire narrative I was interpreting the world through. More and more I reflected upon these as signals that something was just not right[8]. And more and more I came to view much (if not all) of what I was a participant in and active member of as mere theatre. A play that was being performed for the benefit of all: the ‘leaders’ sustained their hold on the status quo power and wealth structures while the ‘participants’ maintained their belief that they had agency in the decisions being made. A win-win for all.
Why is any of this relevant to the impending societal decline that will accompany ecological overshoot?
Apart from the observation that there is increasing evidence that there is no ‘solution’ to the predicament of ecological overshoot, I share these thoughts to try and point out why I firmly believe (and think others should as well) that our political systems should not be where we are looking for mitigation strategies since the kind of things we should be doing are not in the elite’s interest. As a result, the political systems that have been created and maintained by our ruling elite will avoid like the plague discussions/strategies that would undermine their goals. In fact, I would argue that they will do (are doing) those things that meet their primary concern and actually serve to make our predicament worse; all the while twisting narratives to suggest the opposite.
They will encourage growth at every opportunity. Some may wrap it up in a blanket of ‘green’ stating such things as ‘clean’ and ‘sustainable’, but it will be growth requiring a further drawdown of finite resources and increasing environmental degradation accompanied by a loss of biodiversity and important ecological systems.
They will not encourage self-reliance and self-sufficiency. Instead, they will increase those policies that create dependency upon government and large corporations. They will do this by promising more and more services and responsibilities be the purview of government (and select private partnerships) thereby requiring more taxes to increase the size of the systems they control and manage — while pillaging national ‘treasuries’ in the process.
They will pay what amounts to lip service to ecological/environmental concerns (see how they will spin narratives around growth above) to appease certain societal factions, but leverage this to their advantage.
In fact, they will leverage everything at each and every opportunity to meet their primary goal of control/expansion of those things that generate revenue for them (and thus their positions of power and prestige).
They will talk about freedom, democracy, and citizen input while they tighten the screws of narrative control, censorship, surveillance, deplatforming, etc..
The political system is not your friend and you should not be turning to it for any type of salvation as more and more crises emerge because of our overshoot.
As Johann Von Goethe stated several centuries ago: “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”
For the most part, ignore the theatre that is politics and move ahead in your preparations for a world experiencing significant diminishing returns on important resources and a slow (sometimes fast) breakdown in the complexities we’ve come to rely upon.
Organise locally with like-minded neighbours and/or family and begin to relocalise as much of the basic necessities of life and living. Learn those skills that are going to be needed as the world returns to a much ‘simpler’ way of living and without much (all?) of the technologies we currently have.
Ignore as much as you can the theatrical performance of the ruling elite as they weave narratives to convince you that you actually have agency in what is happening in the world outside your home/community. They only want you to believe that because having ‘legitimacy’ via narrative control and belief systems is so much easier and more efficient than having to use force[9].
But don’t fool yourself by believing that force won’t be used by our politicians if they deem it necessary. When narrative control fails, they will fall back upon their last vestige of control — physical force…only they won’t call it that and will likely spin it as for our ‘safety’ and ‘security’.
Finally, keep in mind that it takes much effort and constant vigilance to be aware of and avoid the mind traps of our societal enculturation. But it’s necessary to see and understand the world just a bit more clearly.
Finally, my comment on the article that prompted this contemplation:
One of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated on the hoi polloi by the ruling elite is that they have agency via the ballot box and thereby have some ‘influence’ in policy and actions of their government. The ruling elite have one motivation that is attempted to be met via the leveraging of everything, especially perceived crises: control/expansion of the wealth-generation/-extraction systems that provide their revenue streams and thus positions of power and prestige. Everything else is secondary/tertiary and ultimately also twisted to meet the first goal. This has been the way since the first large complex societies arose some 10,000 years ago and required organisational structures that opened the door to differential access to resources and thus power over others. One of the most effective and efficient means of maintaining the resulting power/wealth structures has been to ‘legitimise’ them in one way or another. From hereditary rule to descending from the gods to elections, the rule of the elite is assured and maintained. The plebes? They’re convenient labour, tax donkeys, and war fodder.
If you’ve made it this far, please consider visiting my website. It contains many relevant site links and articles. It also allows you to help support my internet presence via the purchase of my ‘fictional’ trilogy — Olduvai.
[1] This is particularly relevant right now as my municipality is littered (and I use that word purposively) with signs for its local election. I cannot stand the visual blight that election signs are.
[6] It’s important to keep in mind that homo sapiens is a story-telling ape that weaves comforting and relatively simplistic narratives for a variety of reasons but mostly to rationalise our world and its complexities.
[7] I helped to negotiate multi-million dollar contracts for the hundreds of administrators in my board of education.
[8] When I sense that something is just not right, I’m reminded of a couple of lines at the beginning of a Men Without Hats’ song (Unsatisfaction) I listened to often in the 1980s: “I’m never satisfied when the answers could be real. I may not know what’s right, but I know this can’t be it!” https://youtu.be/m20F0g41ORg The ’80s had GREAT music!
[9] Please note, none of this contemplation should imply or be interpreted as a call to completely ignore the machinations of the ruling elite and allow them to run freely over the planet and its people and other species. Challenging their rule through civil protest and similar means should continue; perhaps even ramp up significantly. If nothing else, it may serve to slow their destructive policies; but don’t fool yourself and expect that it will stop it via elections and voting. I would love to see an election held and not one person shows up to vote. I would think the message from that event would resound through society for quite some time. Although at this juncture in time, I can imagine the knee-jerk response (i.e., leveraging of a ‘crisis’) would be to blame the episode on some outside state actor who hates us for our freedoms.
Geopolitics: It’s About Wealth Extraction and Generation For the Ruling Class
My very short contemplation today is my comment on an article that was posted in a Facebook group (Peak Oil) that I belong to. It is preceded by some additional thoughts as we stumble into our uncertain and unknowable future where I firmly believe ‘collapse’ of some nature is unavoidable.
At this particular juncture in time it is looking increasingly likely that a world war is just around the corner. In fact, there’s good evidence to suggest this has already begun — we’re simply absent the ‘official’ declaration of it.
I would additionally argue that such geopolitical events expedite our decline precipitously with their significant drawdown of resources. In fact, with our population growth and penchant for chasing the infinite growth chalice, global imperialism is one of those relatively recent human tendencies speeding up our decline.
Recognising this, we must keep in mind that our agency in these events is as close to zero as one can get. The sociopolitical system is far too ‘invested’ in status quo structures (i.e., power, wealth) to affect any shift in our trajectory. All that we can do is ‘hope’ sane heads prevail but realise that this is increasingly unlikely; in fact, I would contend the possibility of this is as close to zero as one can get as well.
What to do? Continue to prepare our families/communities for the inevitable decline caused by our ecological overshoot — a predicament that has no ‘solution’. Relocalise as much of the ‘necessities’ of life as is possible. Procurement of potable water. Food production. Regional shelter needs. And do this with the realisation that our complex, energy-dependent technologies will increasingly and eventually be little more than paperweights.
And, finally, be aware of the psychological consequences all of this will have on ourselves and those around us. Uncertainty and chaos will reign and many will struggle greatly with these. Be as understanding and ‘calm’ as you possibly can. Control what you can control and try to let the rest just go.
With the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines dramatically impacting the geopolitical game being played in Europe this past week, an interesting article by Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns’ Tom Luongo laid out his view on who might be responsible for this act of sabotage. It is his contention that a faction of our ruling elite (generally termed ‘globalists’ for their desire to rule over a world void of national borders) are very likely behind this as they have the most to gain from the chaos it helps to exacerbate.
My comment:
I leave nothing out of the realm of possibility when it comes to the world’s ruling elite. They leverage any and every crisis (actually, everything; it doesn’t need to be an actual crisis) to meet their primary motivation: control/expansion of the wealth-generation/-extraction systems that provide their revenue streams and thus their positions of power and prestige. All else is of secondary/tertiary concern and even they are leveraged to meet their first motivation. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Such manipulation has been an evil presence in human complex societies from the get go, once differential access to resource surpluses arose and one could wield power/influence over others because of our tendency to defer/obey authority. There seems to be no ‘safe’ way out of this particular predicament of our own making.
Can you guess who the quote in the article title is from? I will give you a hint. It wasn’t me. I know that it sounds like it could have come from me, but it actually comes from a very big name on Wall Street. Ellen Zentner is Morgan Stanley’s chief U.S. economist, and she is the one that said it. During an interview with CNBC she warned that “the tightening impacts from monetary policy” will have enormous consequences for the U.S. economy in the months ahead…
“We will have a hard landing at some point. I guarantee you that. We’re all wondering: When does that come?” she said. “The point that Dimon makes is that there are these cumulative impacts that build over time, and we are in the camp that we haven’t yet seen all of the tightening impacts from monetary policy,” she added, referring to the impact of Fed rate hikes.
She makes a really great point.
The consequences of interest rate hikes are felt over time.
Higher interest rates have certainly started to cause a lot of problems, but if rates are not brought down soon the level of pain that we are experiencing will begin to go up dramatically.
Inflation increased by the largest amount in almost a year, according to the Fed’s preferred measure – confirming expectations interest rates will not be cut until around June.
The so-called core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index – which excludes volatile food and energy prices – increased 0.4 percent between December and January.
Marko Kolanovic, the chief market strategist for JPMorgan Chase, believes that the U.S. economy could be headed into “something like 1970s stagflation”…
The writing is on the wall, but who cares. Photo by Phil Goodwin on Unsplash
It is now the second time I’m having afterthoughts upon publishing an article. After writing about how Europe’s well intended but disastrously planned environmental initiative puts us right on track to a permanent deindustrialization, thoughts kept coming up on why is that not seen as a problem by policy wonks. Perhaps understanding the parallels with what is currently unfolding in Eastern Europe could help lift the fog.
There is a looming sense of civilizational decline in Europe, stemming from the loss of cheap condensed energy. Yet, denial and hope, together with its eternal springs, still reign supreme in the higher echelons of power. There seems to be a firm belief, that no matter how unattainable the objectives we set to ourselves are, someone, somewhere will surely come up with something. Intermittent „renewables”? Costly, heavy, material and energy intensive to make batteries? Oh, someone somewhere is surely working on a storage solution (or more) to come around those minor technicalities. Not enough resources to build all that stuff? Oh, someone somewhere will surely open up a new mine… After all, demand and a good deal of subsidies always begets more supply, now isn’t it?
Well, no. That level of magical thinking is an insult on all practitioners of sorcery, and leaves even underpants gnomes’ green with envy. There are no more cheap and easy to get resources to extract, and what’s even more concerning, there are no more habitats left to destroy on this planet. Mining the seabed, and stirring up all the carbon stored in the sediment, is just one of the most disastrous ideas… Oh, and as an aside, there is no more surplus energy from oil left to do all that additional digging, smelting, transportation and manufacturing, but that’s really just me nitpicking on some minor details.
Today’s contemplation is an open letter I am sending (perhaps presenting in person, I haven’t yet decided[1]) to my local town’s council and a developer regarding a ‘proposed’ development that is moving ahead directly across the street from our home. It is not the first time I have spoken up about such community projects but will probably be the last given I have lost all faith in our local council to understand the perils and act on them, since they continue to not only pursue but cheerlead the continuing expansion of our community. ‘Growth is great, it benefits everyone’ is a refrain often posited by them.
That we reside in a significantly environmentally-sensitive region of my Canadian province makes the continued ‘development’ of the lands particularly problematic[2]. There’s always discussion of ‘sustainability’ and ‘environmental awareness’ in such proposals but these are little more than greenwashed window-dressing to impact perceptions; marketing to help sell the narrative that our ‘leaders’ are acting ‘responsibly’ and that the pursuit of ‘sustainable growth’ is a noble and just action.
While they appear open to community dialogue and consultation, I have come to consider this appearance to be a charade; theatrics to give the impression of being ‘democratic’ and ‘consultative’ — which I have also come to understand about almost all ‘politics’. Little, if anything, about my decades-long experiences and observations about our Town ‘representatives’ leads me to conclude they actually understand or even want to know about the growing predicament they are contributing to — I can just imagine the overwhelming cognitive dissonance it would create; better to be immersed in significant self-deception and ignorance.
Dear Whitchurch-Stouffville Council and Mr. Spratley,
Mr. Spratley, in your recent letter to the community about the proposed development you are spearheading at 14622 Ninth Line, you claim to be pursuing “…responsible community and community-based development with the health of the lake in mind.”
Apart from not being directly consulted, as you claim you have done with all residents that live close to the proposed development, I must challenge you on your idea of ‘responsible community development’, especially in light of your proclaimed concern over the health of the lake.
The nature of what is considered ‘responsible’ has been shifting the past number of decades. Land use can and should no longer be viewed through a purely economic lens where everything is viewed as a commodity to be turned into a profit — especially land in ecologically-important regions, which the Oak Ridges Moraine certainly is. Such an antiquated view completely ignores and/or minimises the negative environmental and ecological system impacts human ‘development’ causes.
The Ontario government itself has recognised the importance of the moraine, stating it is “… an environmentally sensitive, geological landform…”[3], and thus the motivation for them to put in place policies to protect the ecological systems of the moraine (even though they often bypass such protections by encouraging and permitting continued settlement expansion despite repeated promises not to).
Of particular concern is the impact development has on the very important aquifers and contamination of them by human development. Musselman’s Lake sits in one of the areas identified as being highly vulnerable to such contamination. And the development you are proposing increases greatly the risk to the lake and regional aquifers.
In fact, there is growing evidence that allowing land to return to nature is a far, far more responsible act in terms of long-term sustainability and ecological enhancement than forcing land system changes and increasing population density — both of which serve to destroy/degrade the natural systems every species, including humans, depend upon for their very existence. But, of course, there’s no ‘profit’ in that.
The dangers of humanity’s continuing pursuit of the infinite growth chalice on a finite planet should be self-evident to everyone, but sadly this is not so. Perhaps because we continue to believe we stand outside nature and its ecological systems, and can control them. Or because we have grown to perceive everything from an economic perspective, where land is only viewed as having ‘value’ once it has been ‘developed’ and built upon. Possibly it’s because we have allowed those who stand to ‘profit’ from such a perspective to influence excessively and unreasonably our sociopolitical systems and sociocultural narratives and beliefs.
No amount of greenwashing by having a ‘butterfly parkette’ can counter the ecological damage of constructing a dozen homes (possibly many more) on a parcel of land that is located in an environmentally-sensitive region. That such a development is even being considered for the Musselman’s Lake area of the Oak Ridges Moraine is a travesty. Council would be wise to turn down the application and amendments.
The very fact that you are in need of plan amendments to allow the use of wells to provide water for these homes because the current water system is already ‘maxed out’, speaks volumes to the overuse/overpopulation of the area that currently exists — to say little of the rather undemocratic way in which the Town forced area residents to abandon fully-functioning wells several decades ago to hookup to Town water…at a significant personal cost.
Finally, your contention that “[t]he smaller size of homes compared to the overall lot size…respects the lake and the policies that guide development” is somewhat misleading in that it is not necessarily the footprint of a home that has a negative environmental impact on a region, but the number of people that occupy it. While a large home may have oversized influence upon the resources used to construct and maintain it (e.g., fossil fuels for heat), most of the environmental consequences flow from the density of a settlement. Putting more homes and people into an area has an outsized impact given all the waste produced and resources required to sustain each person.
You may actually be sincere in your wish to do what is ‘right’ by this development, although seeking to build far more homes on the lot than established by current plans suggests you are not. Regardless, the evidence that is building in this world about the negative consequences of human expansion is coming down on the side of your proposal being detrimental, very detrimental, not beneficial.
That developments continued to get approved by our Town Council with amendments to increase significantly the number of dwellings and density is very telling about their actual concern with environmental/ecological responsibility as well — it’s non-existent.
That we continue to ignore the signals being sent to humanity by the planet and its fellow species speaks volumes about our continuing misuses of our finite world and whether we actually are acting ‘responsibly’ in our behaviour and actions. The evidence is continuing to mount that we are not. In fact, that we are doing the exact opposite of what we should be doing — degrowing our existence.
Sincerely,
Steve Bull
Please consider visiting my website. It contains many relevant site links and articles. It also allows you to help support my internet presence via the purchase of my ‘fictional’ trilogy — Olduvai.
[1] I am aware that presenting an in-person comment is likely to be received better than a written one but I have never felt comfortable speaking in public, despite having put myself in a variety of situations where I have had to. It’s one of my least favourite actions/behaviours.
[2] We reside in a region called the Oak Ridge Moraine and look out over two nearby kettle lakes. The area is part of some very important aquifers for our province.
Today’s contemplation is a short reflection (and reiteration) on where I believe human ‘energies’ should be focused as we stumble into an unknowable future in light of an article on the topic that was shared to one of the Facebook groups I am a member of via a compilation of related articles periodically distributed by The Collapse Chronicle…
‘Peak humanity’ would appear to have been a direct result of our leveraging of a one-time cache of ancient carbon energy that has afforded us the ability to expand our numbers and environmental impact for quite some time but has, unfortunately, placed us firmly into ecological overshoot — a significant growth far beyond our environment’s ability to support on a continuing basis our numbers and material demands.
Virtually every species that enters such a predicament experiences the ‘collapse’ that inevitably follows once the fundamental resource that has allowed it to blast past its natural carrying capacity is ‘exhausted’ (in the case of fossil fuels, it’s about a declining energy-return-on-energy-invested and the hyper-exploitation of the resource — and others, as well as an overloading of natural sinks — via debt/credit expansion to reduce significantly its future availability).
This impending ‘collapse’ is problematic on a number of fronts but I would contend that it is particularly so because of some very dangerous complexities we have created and distributed around our planet, placing our long-term future and that of many other (all?) species in great peril.
Energy is ‘everything’ to life and the surplus energy we garnered from our exploitation of fossil fuels has led to our hyper-complex and globalised industrial society. Along the way the vast majority of humans have lost the knowledge and skills to be self-sufficient and adapt to a life without fossil fuel energy and its long list of ‘conveniences’. Of particular note should be our dependence upon long-distance supply chains for virtually all our most important needs: food, potable water, and regional shelter materials.
While relocalising these necessary aspects of our existence should be a priority for every community that wishes to weather the coming transition to a post-carbon world, we should be considering quite seriously the safe decommissioning of some significantly dangerous creations.
Three of the more problematic ones include: nuclear power plants and their waste products; chemical production and storage facilities; and, biosafety labs and their dangerous pathogens. The products and waste of these complex creations are not going to be ‘contained’ when the energy to do so is no longer available. And loss of this containment will create some hazardous conditions for human existence in their immediate surroundings at the very least — in fact, multiple nuclear facility meltdowns could potentially put the entire planet at risk for all species[1].
As of today’s date, some 438 nuclear reactors (with another 56 under construction) are spread throughout 32 nation-states[2].
Finding the actual number of chemical production and storage facilities that exist is next to impossible but a proxy of their existence can be imagined via their economics and global spread of the industry[3], and it is massive.
As for biosafety labs, the total number is also virtually impossible to nail down due to the various ‘levels’ assigned, but as for those ‘studying’ the most dangerous pathogens, currently 59 are spread around the globe[4].
These facilities, even with today’s high-energy inputs and safety protocols, have experienced catastrophic ‘accidents’ — at least for the immediate environment/ecological systems, residents of the area, and/or employees.
From Chernobyl and Fukushima[5], to Bhopal and Beirut[6], to numerous lab failures[7] and ‘accidental’ infections and deaths of lab employees[8] (to say little of the recent possibility of Covid-19 having escaped from a lab[9]), the dangers posed by them have periodically been quite obvious.
As our surplus energy to minimise these dangers falls, our ability to protect ourselves from them also declines increasing the risks that they pose substantially. It seems only prudent to decommission and ‘safely’ eliminate the dangers while we still have the energetic-ability and resources to do so.
There is little in our current thinking about this situation that leads me to believe we will address these potential catastrophes, however. In fact, I see significant hubris and denial on a daily basis as we surge headlong in the opposite direction expanding on these complexities for the most part rather than reducing them — to say little of our continuing pursuit of the infinite growth chalice on a finite planet.
The fact that we seem to be doing the exact opposite of what seems prudent and forward-thinking does not instill a lot of confidence in me for our long-term prospects. Our failure to address the potential lethal consequences — primarily, it would seem, because of our continuing belief that we can both predict and control complex systems, and because these pursuits further enrich the ruling elite — raises the stakes significantly for both current and future generations, as well as all other life on the planet.
[1] Here I am reminded of the television series The 100 where the fourth season is centred around the devastation wreaked by a wave of fire and radiation that sweeps across the planet as a result of several dozen of the globe’s nuclear plants melting down; their ongoing maintenance was impossible after a complex AI launches the world’s nuclear weapons arsenal in an effort to address human overpopulation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_100_(TV_series)
If there is one reality that Americans need to accept, it’s that every system has a breaking point and there are no exceptions. Human beings are built to adapt and this has given us incredible resilience, but it also means we have a tendency to wait too long to fix the parts of our society that are broken. Instead, we let the problems build and fester until, sadly, the final straw falls and everything comes crashing down.
Sometimes this collapse is by chance and sometimes it’s by design. In either case the catalyst is the same – The public does not prepare and they don’t take action to correct the people creating the crisis until it’s too late.
In our modern era of invasive technology, economic weakness, nuclear weapons and biowarfare, this is an unsustainable model. We can no longer ignore threats on instability in the hopes that they will go away or that governments will defuse the danger, nor can we simply pick up the pieces over and over again after each calamity. There may come a time when the mess is so big we won’t be able to clean it up. People must plan ahead, and they must stop tolerating the notion of passive involvement in the mechanisms that influence their lives and future.
I write often about hypothetical trigger events and breakdown scenarios because a large number of people still need to be educated on how fragile the western world truly is right now. For example, any significant disruption to supply chains and logistics at this time would be devastating for a large number of Americans (or Europeans).
The relentless increase in global debt is an enormous problem for the economy. Public deficits are neither reserves for the private sector nor a tool for growth. Bloated public debt is a burden on the economy, making productivity stall, raising taxes, and crowding out financing for the private sector. With each passing year, the global debt figure climbs higher, the burdens grow heavier, and the risks loom larger. The world’s financial markets ignored the record-breaking increase in global debt levels to a staggering $313 trillion in 2023, which marked yet another worrying milestone.
In the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections, the United States deficit will fluctuate over the next four years, averaging an insane 5.8 percent of GDP without even considering a recession. By 2033, they still expect a 6.9 percent GDP budget hole. Unsurprisingly, the economy, even using optimistic scenarios, stalls and will show a level of real GDP growth of 1.8% between 2028 and 2033, 33% less than the 2026–2027 period, which is already 25% lower than the historical average.
Some analysts say that this whole mess can be solved by raising taxes, but reality shows that there is no revenue measure that will fill an annual financial hole of $2 trillion with additional yearly receipts. This, of course, comes with an optimistic scenario of no recession or economic impact from a higher tax burden. Deficits are always a spending problem.
Citizens are led to believe that lower growth, declining real wages, and persistent inflation are external factors that have nothing to do with governments, but this is incorrect. Deficit spending is printing money, and it erodes the purchasing power of the currency while destroying the opportunities for the private sector to invest. The entire burden of higher taxes and inflation falls on the middle class and small businesses.
A few brief Facebook conversations I have had the past couple of days while I work on a longer Contemplation regarding binary thinking, particularly as it applies to sociopolitics.
The first shared this article featuring a picture of a massive ‘agrivoltaic’ project and entitled Sheep may soon graze under solar panels in one of Wyoming’s first ‘agrivoltaic’ projects.
My comment: All I can see is a shitload of ecological destruction in the wake of producing all those solar panels…all in the name of attempting to sustain the unsustainable.
GH: Steve Bull, it was never going to work burning 13 billion tonnes of coal oil and gas per year to keep the lights on . With at least another 2 billion people to add to the global population and up grade the remaining 80 per cent of the population to 1st World comfort
Me: GH, Nope, and all chasing ‘renewables’ is doing is exacerbating our ecological overshoot predicament.
GH: Steve Bull, i got no answers
Me: GH, There are none except what Nature has in store. The best our species can hope for is community mitigation/adaptation via relocalisation.
MC: Steve Bull, “Community mitigation/adaptation via relocalization”… Almost a bumper sticker… Thanks for that. I believe you are correct sir… How do we get on with this and how far can it be scaled up to include how many of us and how soon before the rest of us turn into a mob of armed hungry savages (strategy suggestions do not need to be pre-approved by ideologue peers and browbeaters [not that I notice that many in this in this group] and would be most welcome)…
Me: MC, I don’t have any suggestions beyond what I began last year: a community food gardening guild. Most people don’t want to hear the hard ‘facts’ on our predicament so I don’t discuss them with community members. Getting neighbours to begin and expand food gardening is the best I can offer in my suburban community on the outskirts of the sprawling city of Toronto. I do try to raise awareness of the insanity of pursuing the perpetual growth chalice by our politicians but, again, most people dismiss the notion so I do it infrequently.
TE: Steve Bull, and then a hailstorm hits and destroys the solar panels in about 3 minutes. Nice greenwash for intensive industrial agriculture tho
GH: TE, new panels have hail ratings .. although i see ( from reports ) hail is increasing in size
This second conversation is based upon this post:
My comment: There is nothing ‘sustainable’ about the complex, industrial products pictured here.
RH: Steve Bull, In this particular usage it means having energy forms that are renewable as opposed to those that are in the process of making life very hard if not impossible for a large percentage of the inhabitants of the world. You will notice for example that some of the people portrayed are growing plants.
Me: RH, Non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies are not sustainable and contribute to a host of ecologically-destructive processes, just as detrimental to the world’s inhabitants as hydrocarbons are. To say little of the fact that they depend significantly on hydrocarbon-based resources up and down their production and supply chains. Because of carbon emissions tunnel vision, these products are perceived as ‘clean/green’ but are nothing of the sort. They do zero to address our fundamental predicament of ecological overshoot. In fact, since ‘renewables’ have been additive to our energy use, there is a good argument to be made that our pursuit of them is simply exacerbating our predicament. Until we can stop our expansion/growth of both population and resource extraction/use, and reduce our energy/resource demands (significantly), then all the chatter about an ‘energy transition’ is just noise to help reduce our cognitive dissonance (and produce/sell more ecologically-destroying industrial products).
RH: Steve Bull, A significant part of the drive for sustainability is simply the reduction of wasteful uses of energy. And it isn’t simply chatter, there is a a lot of jobs and economic development involved in making our society more efficient.
Incidentally, there is now enough solar, wind, small hydro, geothermal, and other renewables on stream now to cover the energy requirements of producing additional similar energy systems right up to and including getting rid of fossil fuels.
While there may be some environmental advocates who see with tunnel vision, it isn’t nearly the number of fossil fuel cranks who have had the blinders on, concerning the impacts on all the cartoon categories mentioned, for decades.
RH: Steve Bull Yeah, I have seen some of those before, the death by hockey sticks was a new one. Other than saying what we are doing in terms of our fellow mammals, is not sustainable, how does it relate to the jobs bill?
Me: RH, It’s about sustainability and creating “…lots of jobs and economic development…” are the exact opposite of what sustainability requires. We need degrowth.
RH: Steve Bull, I wouldn’t say it is the exact opposite, but rather part of a direction that we need to compromise on with respect to other factors like a just transition, conservation, land use, and economics.
GW: RH, bs
And, finally, this one posted by PW to the Peak Oil Facebook Group I am a member of:
PW: SD, 😂🤣🥲😁😆…..we can’t even afford the infrastructure!!!
SD: PW, not really that expensive. Overhead wires for trolleys and busses were very common in the first half of the 20th century (1900s to 1950s.) The only reason they disappeared was because diesel became cheaper. But those days of cheap diesel are gone, and it wouldn’t take much to get the wires up again. In fact, it would create a lot of jobs. The only thing that is needed is the demand (electric trucks with cable attachments) and coordinated infrastructure development (government.) It’s the only solution.
PW: Here’s additional data of why the electric trolleys and other forms of transportation went out of business. Although GM was acquitted I feel that they somehow beat the charges with bribery and other means. You make it seem that the switch to electric as like hanging drapes. There is no solution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy
Me: SD, Magical thinking solves everything.
SD: Steve Bull what’s magic about technology?
Me: SD, The idea that we have the resources (mineral and energy) to try and scale up to anywhere near replacement levels, that this can be done without further ecological systems destruction, that it can be accomplished without putting us further into ecological overshoot, and that we have the economic capacity to do this (because what’s a few quadrillion more in debt/credit?) are just a few examples off the top of my head of the magical thinking necessary to have complex industrial technology help to ‘solve’ anything in our future. Such thinking is simply exacerbating our predicament.
Upon perusing the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals included in the well-known 2030 Agenda, one may conclude that they are all harmless and entirely reasonable goals. Who could be opposed to reducing poverty and hunger or advancing infrastructure, innovation, and industry? The trick, akin to the tale of the Trojan Horse, is that those goals have been appropriated by the most heinous interventionism, and bureaucrats with a foundation of conceit and stupidity use it to impose governmental control over every aspect of the economy. They are attacking farming, agriculture, and nearly any private activity in a Europe that is beginning to resemble a society suffocated by a predatory state and zombies close to the government, à la Chapter 9 from Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.” First, they destroyed the very industry that the 2030 Agenda is purportedly committed to strengthening.
The most interventionist politicians are really attacking the 2030 Agenda because, despite their pretenses to the contrary, their policies invariably have the opposite effect of what they seem to support. The socialists in all parties have taken over the 2030 Agenda, which does not advance industry, growth, equality, or the fight against poverty or hunger.
This exploitation of the 2030 Agenda’s objectives is exactly like the Trojan Horse that conceals people who will destroy the city beneath the guise of an impressive and lovely gift.
The number of farms in the European Union has drastically decreased in recent years. According to Eurostat, there were 9.1 million farms in 2020, a projected 37 percent decrease, or roughly 5.3 million fewer than in 2005. This trend has only worsened since 2020.
According to the European Commission itself, the EU’s agricultural land is predicted to shrink by 1.1 percent between 2015 and 2030, primarily due to the declines of the two main groupings (agricultural land and farming), which are forecast to decline by 4.0 percent and 2.6 percent, respectively. This implies ruining our future and increasing Europe’s dependence and poverty.
Exxon has warned the European Union that it will leave and take billions of dollars in climate investment with it unless Brussels makes it easier to spend those billions on transition-related projects.
The Financial Times cited the company today as saying that there was way too much red tape in the EU and it took too long to get a project going, which prompted the supermajor to consider spending its $20 billion in decarbonization investments for 2022-2027 elsewhere.
“When we make investments, we’ve got very long time horizons in mind. I would say that recent developments in Europe have not instilled confidence in long-term, predictable policies,” Karen McKee, president of Exxon Product Solutions, told the FT.
“What we’re experiencing is the deindustrialisation of the European economy and we’re concerned,” McKee also said.
The European Union’s leadership has promised time and again it will facilitate transition projects but it seems it has been slow to act on this promise. According to Exxon—and a lot of other companies involved in the transition—getting a project off the ground in the EU is fraught with regulatory obstacles and “slow and torturous” permitting and funding procedures, per Exxon’s McKee.
The EU’s Green Deal plan features a “predictable and simplified regulatory environment” as one of its four pillars but judging from the reactions of the business world, this has yet to go from theory to practice. Faster access to funding is the second pillar in the EU’s lineup but that, too, is taking quite long to materialize.
It is these delays in implementation that have prompted business leaders to meet today in Belgium to press the EU leadership into going from words to actions. There is growing concern that the regulatory burden put on businesses is scaring them away, taking investments elsewhere.
There are also some European leaders, notably France’s Emmanuel Macron and Belgium’s Alexander de Croo, who have blamed red tape for the farmers’ protests.
Can you guess who the quote in the article title is from? I will give you a hint. It wasn’t me. I know that it sounds like it could have come from me, but it actually comes from a very big name on Wall Street. Ellen Zentner is Morgan Stanley’s chief U.S. economist, and she is the one that said it. During an interview with CNBC she warned that “the tightening impacts from monetary policy” will have enormous consequences for the U.S. economy in the months ahead…
