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This Is What Collapse Looks Like

June 21, 2024

This Is What Collapse Looks Like

Every day now, the news is replete with evidence that, everywhere, things are falling apart faster and faster, and nothing of consequence is being, or can be, done about it. Every civilization collapses, but the collapse of our current global industrial civilization is occurring at a breathtaking and accelerating pace.

Today, the city of Philadelphia announced that it has given up trying to deal with its share of the US’s epidemic of mass shootings, and has instead outsourced its handling of the horrific trauma these mass murders create to a private consulting firm. Sure to fix the problem, no? The country’s ‘supreme’ court helped out by ruling that the banning of ‘bump stocks’, devices that turn ordinary guns into rapid-fire machine guns, was unconstitutional. When a hastily-prepared new law was proposed outlawing them, Congress blocked it.

Meanwhile, in Louisiana, arguably the country’s most horrifically polluted and dysfunctional state, has its priorities straight: It’s mandating that the Christian “ten commandments” be posted in every schoolroom in the state. Nothing in those rules about mega-pollution, so why not? Honour thy father and mother, ’cause they’re the ones who bought you the guns with the bump stocks. It’ll surely make God real happy to see when the Rapture comes.

And in Europe, the bumbling governments of both the UK and France have called snap elections they’re bound to lose, so out of touch are they with the electorate that they think all they have to do is convince voters that the current economic collapse in their countries isn’t their fault.

And so it goes. I could respond to most of each day’s top news items these days (including the celebrity gossip) by just reciting the title of this post.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

A Most Dangerous Assumption: Mining the Future to Spend More Today

June 20, 2024

A Most Dangerous Assumption: Mining the Future to Spend More Today

What the cheerleaders are actually claiming is the process of adding zeroes to “money” is limitless, but there are limits on the utility of devaluing currency, too.

How prosperous would the world be if we hadn’t collectively borrowed and spent $315 trillion—-333% of global GDP? We all know the answer–not very prosperous at all, for production, consumption and profits would all be mere fractions of their current totals if we could not borrow money and could only spend cash on hand. Global Debt Hit $315 Trillion In Q1 2024.

All this money that’s been spent/invested has effectively been mined / extracted from future resources, labor and capital. The basic idea is that the interest that must be paid on this debt will be paid out of earnings generated by the productive use of resources, labor and capital in the future. Once the debt matures and the principle must be returned to the lender / bond purchaser, this principle must also be mined / extracted from assets available in the future.

Mining / extraction is the appropriate analogy because nothing is unlimited in the real world. Imagination–yes, it’s unlimited. Denial and delusion: yes, both are limitless. But tangible resources that can be recovered at costs the economy can bear, productive labor and capital are not limitless. If we mine the future too intensively, there won’t be enough left in the future to spend/invest at the level we enjoy today.

The fundamental assumption behind mining the future is that the pool of resources, labor and capital will continue expanding forever, effortlessly funding the interest and principle due on today’s borrowing and leaving more than enough to consume and invest in the future.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

IEA’s Staggering Oil Glut is Staggeringly Unlikely

June 16, 2024

IEA’s Staggering Oil Glut is Staggeringly Unlikely

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has become a dishonest broker of information because of its renewable energy bias. This week, it reported that there will be a staggering oil glut by the end of the decade.

“Total supply capacity is forecast to rise to nearly 114 million barrels a day by 2030 – a staggering 8 million barrels per day above projected global demand…This would result in levels of spare capacity never seen before other than at the height of the Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020.”

IEA Oil 2024

It’s important to clarify that the surplus in question pertains to spare capacity, not actual supply. Spare or excess oil capacity arises from production exceeding demand. Understanding the oil supply-demand balances that lead to excess capacity is critical.

Reproducing the IEA’s projections to 2030 from its Oil 2024 report was challenging because it did not include OPEC oil supply data for the projection period (Figure 1). Omitting a third of the world’s supply is significant and makes IEA’s conclusions difficult to verify. When comparing data from OPEC, discrepancies were found in the 2022 and 2023 data compared to IEA’s table.

Figure 1. IEA Table 1b WORLD OIL SUPPLY AND DEMAND - WEO Regions. Source: IEA Oil 2024. — Figure 1. IEA Table 1b WORLD OIL SUPPLY AND DEMAND – WEO Regions. Source: IEA Oil 2024.

Figure 2 shows that the IEA’s projected oil supply-demand surplus of 6.3 million barrels of oil per day (mmb/d) by 2030 is nearly seventy times greater than the average projections from OPEC and the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) for the same period.

This significant discrepancy raises a red flag, suggesting potential issues with the IEA’s calculations, assumptions, or both. In two decades of monitoring these three agencies, I’ve never encountered a discrepancy of this magnitude.

Figure 2. IEA expects world oil supply-demand balance to exceed 6 mmb/d 2029-2030.
OPEC and EIA expect supply and demand to be near balance after 2025.
Source: IEA, OPEC, EIA & Labyrinth Consulting Services, Inc.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Another Blowout Adds to Mystery of Permian Basin Water Pressure

June 13, 2024

Another Blowout Adds to Mystery of Permian Basin Water Pressure

Water is bursting from another West Texas oil well, continuing a troubling trend.

Water flows from an orphaned oil well on Schuyler Wight’s ranch in Pecos County, Texas. Credit: Courtesy of Schuyler Wight

In recent years, Schuyler Wight has noticed a growing number of abandoned oil wells coming back to life, gurgling fluids to the surface of his West Texas ranch. Last week he found the biggest one yet.

Gassy water was gushing from the ground and down a quarter mile of roadway before it drained into a pasture on a remote corner of his land.

“It’s by far flowing more than any other,” Wight said. “It’s getting worse, there’s no question about that.”

It’s the latest in a string of mysterious water features in the arid Permian Basin, the nation’s top producing oil field, that regulators have been unable to explain.

Last year, an eruption of salty water swamped several acres on Wight’s cousin’s ranch, triggering a multi-million-dollar cleanup. In 2022, a geyser shot up from a well in Crane County, then another spouted on the Antina Cattle Ranch. Nearby, a large pond of gassy groundwater has become a permanent feature called Boehmer Lake.

Texas’ oilfield regulator, the Texas Railroad Commission, has yet to offer an explanation for what is driving so much water to the surface. After the massive cleanup effort in January, an agency press release said it was “continuing to investigate” the cause. The Railroad Commission did not immediately respond to a query.

Wight, a fourth generation West Texas rancher, has watched this problem grow for years. He said the RRC has plugged about ten old wells leaking onto the surface of his property. But each time they do, another one starts flowing.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Carbon Credits Are the Biggest Scam Since Indulgences—How You Can Avoid Being Fleeced

June 13, 2024

Carbon Credits Are the Biggest Scam Since Indulgences—How You Can Avoid Being Fleeced

In the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church convinced the commoners to buy indulgences to alleviate their sins. And they made a fortune in the process.

Similarly, today, our overlords—the mainstream media, central bankers, and their political allies—are working overtime to convince the commoners to pay for their alleged climate sins.

Enter carbon credits, government-issued permits that grant you the privilege to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide.

Although advocates promote them as a way to “save the environment,” in reality, carbon credits are nothing more than a devious mechanism to tax, regulate, and control you.

It’s not a coincidence that the most philosophically and ethically bent people are promoting them.

For example, at a recent World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, participants revealed and touted an “individual carbon footprint tracker.” It will track where people travel, how they travel, what they eat, and what they consume.

Carbon accounting is already creeping into many places, like Google Flights.

A federal carbon tax is already a reality in Trudeau’s Canada, and it’s causing the price of food and other goods and services to soar. But Canadians haven’t seen anything yet—the federal carbon tax will triple by 2030.

In short, there’s a growing push to implement the carbon credit scam worldwide. And that’s not a coincidence.

Remember, central banks only exist to harvest wealth from the populace through inflation and redirect it to the politically connected, an insidious practice known as seigniorage.

Fiat currency is the usual mechanism central banks use to perpetuate this fraud. They get most people to run on a hamster wheel most of their lives chasing after confetti money they create with no effort.

However, there is a limit to this process.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The End Of The Petrodollar

June 13, 2024

The End Of The Petrodollar

The Saudis, New Chapter in Energy Economics, De-dollarization, and the American-Made Pressure Cooker

“Oil is too important a commodity to be left in the hands of the Arabs.”
~ Henry Kissinger

Just last Sunday, one of the most significant economic deals of the century came to an end. The long-standing petrodollar agreement between Saudi Arabia and the United States officially expired on June 9th, 2024.

This system, which has been in place for 50 years, is now gone.

Despite what the mainstream media might have you believe, yes, it does point to a big change in global economics, and yes, it could seriously affect every American’s life.

So this week, I want to break down exactly what’s happening, why it’s happening, and how it will impact us and generations to come.

But first, let’s set the stage with some context, because it’s crucial…

"Rise" of the Dollar

You’ve probably heard the saying, “The one with the gold makes the rules,” right?

This was the position the U.S. was in after World War II.

The U.S. had won the war and boasted the world’s largest gold reserves. This allowed it to reshape the global monetary system around the dollar.

The new system, created at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, tied almost every nation’s currency to the U.S. dollar at a fixed rate. It also pegged the U.S. dollar to gold at a fixed rate of $35 an ounce.

This arrangement made the U.S. dollar the world’s premier reserve currency, effectively forcing other countries to hold dollars for trade or redeem them with the U.S. for gold.

But, by the late ’60s, splurging on welfare and the Vietnam War, along with printing money to cover the deficit, pumped tons more dollars into circulation compared to the gold reserves backing them.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

California Wants Higher Gas Prices and EVs, Virginia Did, But Changed Its Mind

June 13, 2024

California Wants Higher Gas Prices and EVs, Virginia Did, But Changed Its Mind

Common sense returns to Virginia as California Governor Gavin Newsom Struggles to defend inane policy. Let’s start with Newsom and gasoline prices.

In a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, Newsom says “What people pay at the pump isn’t simple supply and demand but the result of a highly concentrated and opaque market.“

Here are the facts. Price spikes—like the $6.42 a gallon in June 2022 that sparked our new price-gouging law—happened when California taxes and fees remained unchanged, and crude prices had actually decreased. What drove up prices were increases in industry profits.

California’s new law provides us with tools to investigate profit spiking by Big Oil, helping us to prevent supply disruptions and take legal action when necessary. Another potential tool to encourage the oil industry to do right by Californians is a price-gouging penalty that will be developed through a public process.

What people pay at the pump isn’t simple supply and demand but the result of a highly concentrated and opaque market that lets a handful of mega-profitable oil companies upcharge tens of millions of people. In California, four companies control 90% of the gasoline refining capacity.

Factors such as refinery maintenance and lack of planning have been shown to reduce supply and increase refinery margins by upward of 200% at a time. California has also found that traders on the open “spot market” drive up prices, benefiting oil companies.

A Concentrated and Opaque Market

OK, why is the market in California concentrated and opaque?

California has the most regulations of any state
Refiners tired of California nonsense have left the state
California seasonal blend requirements have costs. But there’s not just one summer blend. Refineries make more than 14 kinds due to different state regulations.

Two California Refiners Shut Down

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLXXXI–The Politics of Dancing: The politicians are now dj’s…

June 13, 2024

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLXXXI

Tulum, Mexico (1986). Photo by author.

The Politics of Dancing: The politicians are now dj’s…

It seems nowadays we’re always trapped in the silly season of election campaigning. Perhaps my memory is foggy but where it used to be a short window of inane proclamations and ever-grander promises (that never actually happen as declared), this period of electioneering now appears to carry on everyday, 24/7/365. If it’s not related directly to an upcoming election, it’s about extolling the great work of those in office and the shortcomings of those in opposition parties (or, gasp, wanting to dismantle ‘democracy’)–the bankrolling of which is via that theft mechanism of taxes or, even worse, perpetual debt (I just love that the narrative management/control and surveillance of domestic citizens being carried out by the ruling caste is paid for by the masses themselves that the ‘elite’ are marketing their beneficence to).

With my understanding of societal change through time, one of the aspects of our complex societies that I’ve come to hold as true is that our polities are ‘governed’ by people focused on improving/maintaining their personal/familial/influential benefactor prestige, power, and wealth. It is not, as they crow on about and market repeatedly, a yearning to benefit society-at-large and others–that’s the narrative they want us all to believe in and support. It is about maintenance/expansion of the wealth-generation/-extraction systems from which the ruling caste mostly and extraordinarily benefits.

In this vein, I have lost complete faith in our governing systems to do anything but leverage situations to this end. And a lot of the time this has to do with putting in place monetisation schemes in the form of a racket whereby–as U.S. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler argued about war–a small group benefits greatly at the expense of the many, and then, via mass marketing/propaganda/legislation, coercing society to support the scheme (and call out anyone, usually via the media, who criticises/challenges it). And our conditioning and those psychological mechanisms that strive to reduce anxiety-provoking/stressful thoughts/beliefs lead us to believe the narratives weaved by our ruling caste. It’s the water we swim in and don’t even realise it’s there.

“A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.”
-Smedley Butler, War Is A Racket (1935).

As I’ve written and argued before, our globalised, industrial societies can be characterised as full of such rackets that funnel national treasuries/wealth from the masses to the few that sit atop the power and wealth structures that develop as a society becomes larger and more complex. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s simply the epiphenomena of societal adaptations to increased organisational needs as the population grows and society problem-solves via greater complexity–thanks, surplus net energy and the technologies that have helped to produce these surpluses. That those who hold positions of power and influence conspire to maintain/expand these should be self-evident to anyone peering beyond the veneer of mainstream social stories.

What follows is another one of those difficult conversations I had with another following a Facebook post that popped up in my feed recently.

[NB: I saw Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention in concert at the London Gardens (London, Ontario) on November 5, 1980. My friends of the time and I were frequently listening to his music so a few of us had to see him when he performed in our home town.]

JK: You all had better get a handle on our USA 2 party system. If you contribute to the election of Republicans you ain’t seen NOTHING yet.

Steve Bull: JK, Right. Left. Center. Blue. Red. Green. Doesn’t matter. ‘Government’ protects the minority ruling caste, not the masses. Been that way for millennia. Elections are theatre to give the impression of choice and agency in a rigged and corrupt system.

TH: Steve Bull, I have a badge: “If voting changed anything, it would be illegal!” Let the jesters speak! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjJLTslWp_Q

JK: Steve Bull, So 2016 made no difference? Trump/ Hillary, same same? Stupid. Clueless. The parties are not the same, not even close. You just need someone to blame for your failures, might as well be everyone.

TH, It’s easy to move to a better country. Do it!!

Steve Bull: JK, I think you need to read a bit of pre/history—especially as it pertains to how ruling systems developed and changed as large, complex societies arose (pay particular attention to the sociological/anthropological concepts of integrationist and conflict theories as to how hierarchical systems came about—the ruling elite want us to believe in the integrationist perspective but the evidence more broadly aligns with the conflict one).

And, yes, most every politician and political party is essentially the same—especially when it comes to ‘big ticket’ items. Some marginal differences may exist but in most ways there is little difference. Massive debt continues to accumulate. Various rackets expand and/or new ones arise (think military-security complex, big energy, financial institutions, media, big pharma, etc). Wars continue. Domestic surveillance expands. Inequality grows. Price inflation increases. Narrative management/control enlarges. Ecological systems continue to be destroyed in order to pursue the infinite growth chalice. Etc. Etc.

The most significant change that occurs after an election are the stories we tell ourselves and others. My team wins and all is right or improving in the world (and if it doesn’t it’s because the other team is interfering in our ability to get things done); the other team wins and everything continues to or will soon go to hell in a hand basket. And much, if not everything, that occurs after the election is interpreted through these lenses. We see differences in order to reduce the stress of cognitive dissonance that would occur if we recognize that we’re being bamboozled by those few sitting atop society’s wealth and power structures.

EM: Steve, it really is a shame that more people don’t have the comprehensive understanding how these systems work, who actually benefits (the most), and what the eventual outcome is. Too many people like J are out there telling people to move to a better country when they can’t see that they’re the ones being owned and bamboozled, especially here in the US.

TH: JK, Luckily I don’t live in the US…! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiuA6Tfy-pM

We have our own problems fighting off 5 Eyes, NATO associate membership, and being a very close friend of the US….Empire stretches down here, and a lot of uber wealthy Americans have bolt holes here….

We live with the illusion of democracy, while living under a government of occupation on behalf of Empire. The political classes are owned, and their owners pass down agendas that are all about dividing and conquering any communities of resistance, and continuing to open up the country to rape/pillage/extraction. The owners are the corporations/banksters/elites. We are being farmed.

JK: EM, nobody owns me. I’m doing fine. I work hard and have a great life.
Our tool is the ballot box. Standing on a street, holding signs, protesting doesn’t do shit. Get involved, complaining won’t get you anywhere. Run for office, be psrt of the change. Revolution at this point is not in the cards.

Steve Bull, how do you propose fixing it? Complaining on Facebook? You aren’t going to change the Constitution and feeble little protests do nothing. Americans can run for office and if you look at Congress you’ll see Reps from the poorest of families. Get off your butt and run for office. Bitching Facebook won’t cut it. Going to take a lot of work.

EM: J, first of all, what we suffer from is a predicament, not a problem. Predicaments have outcomes, not solutions. So, you aren’t going to fix squat with politics, period. Vote for whoever you want, we and they lack agency to solve anything because it isn’t a problem we face.

As for Steve, he is Canadian, so he won’t be running for office here in the US.

Steve Bull: JK, Sure, just like this image suggests:

And, I wasn’t complaining. I was making a statement based on my understanding of pre/history.

JK: Steve Bull the mafia? B. S.

The hate I see on these posts and some MAGA cult people are very similar. Lot of whining, victimhood and makes me sick. Blaming Biden and Jews for genocide while HAMAS cowers behind civilians, does NOTHING except kill Jews.”Degrowth” while pretending to be off grid. I’ll give y’all another 30 days. Maybe you’ll figure out Tammy Baldwin is different than Ron Johnson. Biden is different than Trump. Makes me sick.

If I thought the USA and the mafia were the same I would ABSOLUTELY get out of the USA as fast as I could. No question. I sure as hell wouldn’t whine about it. I’d take action.

Steve Bull: JK, Perhaps you can take solace in the fact that this is not simply a US phenomena; it is an epiphenomena of large, complex societies. It pervades virtually every level of government across the entire globe and has been with humanity for some 12,000 or more years. We, in the West, just wrap it up in a cloak called ‘representative democracy’ and hold theatrical performances to give the masses the impression they have choice and agency in societal decisions and actions. All the while, a relatively small group of well-connected and influential power brokers continue to raid national treasuries (especially in terms of natural resources) and siphon wealth from the masses.

JK: Steve Bull, What do you mean “pre history?” Sounded like complaining. Hey, I have no problem with complaining —that’s what I’m doing. I’m complaining about the anti-semitism I see, hypocrisy, misunderstanding our political system, thinking the 2 parties are the same, whining without acting, and misinformation. For example, I saw an interview of an LGBQ woman holding a pro-Palestine sign without understanding that HAMAS would kill her if she were there. It’s insane. I’ve never seen an anti-Hamas word in these posts.

Steve Bull: JK, Prehistory is simply human history prior to written documentation. It begins a couple of million years ago up until about 5000 years ago with the introduction of writing systems. Most of our knowledge of those times is determined via physical anthropology and archaeology–the latter an area of study that I concentrated on for a few years and received my Master of Arts in. As far as a misunderstanding of our political systems, most people ‘misunderstand’ them because it is in the interests of the few that benefit (power and wealth wise) from them to keep the masses ignorant, mollified, and complacent…so they craft narratives that these systems provide agency and choice to the masses and that they are ‘representative’, and ultimately serve as a net benefit while hiding their true intent: the control and expansion of the wealth-generating and -extraction systems that provide their power, influence, and prestige. Quite frankly, sociopolitical systems are in place to protect the ruling caste of a society; they are not there to protect and serve the masses apart from throwing them a few bones occasionally. And there is about 12-15,000 years of evidence to support this assertion.

JK: Steve Bull So is your point that little has changed in all those years?

Steve Bull: JK, No, much has changed. But not the general tendency of a ruling elite to leverage as much as possible to their advantage.

JK: I do realize the power of big money, millionaires and billionaires, but smart voting will go a very long way toward fixing things. I guarantee you that if Hillary had won in ‘16 the world would be better. If Biden loses this year things will even worse than we’ve ever seen in our lifetimes. There is a gigantic difference between the parties now. Anyone with integrity who doesn’t vote or votes 3rd party is supporting Republicans. The danger is real.

Steve Bull: JK, We have to agree to disagree. And your comment aligns with what I said above: “The most significant change that occurs after an election are the stories we tell ourselves and others. My team wins and all is right or improving in the world (and if it doesn’t it’s because the other team is interfering in our ability to get things done); the other team wins and everything continues to or will soon go to hell in a hand basket. And much, if not everything, that occurs after the election is interpreted through these lenses. We see differences in order to reduce the stress of cognitive dissonance that would occur if we recognize that we’re being bamboozled by those few sitting atop society’s wealth and power structures.”

I also wanted to share this piece of writing from my late step-grandfather, Jack Flynn, written some 40+ years ago but that could have been penned today. I miss the long conversations/debates we used to have over any number of social and political issues of the day. He was one of, if not the most important influences in my thinking during my formative years.

Can This Be Our World?

As we waste and squander finite natural resources,
that are our children’s heritage.
As we watch their future disappear.
Are we witnessing the beginning of the end?

As I view the waste and squander,
one thing comes to mind.
“Where ignorance is bliss, tis folly to be wise.”
Seems to be the universal trend.

How did a species such as ours,
with the ability to reason, and think,
who certainly knows wrong from right.
Allow such a magnificent planet
to fall into such plight?

Truth and wisdom are lost in a barrage of words,
Which emit from mass media, twenty-four hours a day.
Endless innuendo, rhetoric and cliches,
We are expected to understand and obey.

In our modern world a few powerful nations
dominate the whole planet.
Co-operation is considered, passe.
They use and abuse, threaten and gesture,
invade smaller nations, and no one can tell them nay!

Inevitably there must come the time,
when the “immovable object, meets the irresistible force”,
then things should become more clear.
Being powerful nations, afraid to lose face,
they will probably try something Nu-clear.

This post was named after Re-Flex’s 1983 pop song based upon people’s expressive nature displayed during dance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht-S4YQpteg. I love the music of the 1980s. I spent some years as a ‘disc jockey’ including a brief stint at Western University’s radio station and some paid party gigs. I also continue to hold a rather large album collection, with the very recent addition of a signed Men Without Hats disc cover that I purchased at a concert they performed at our town’s annual music festival and around the corner from our house–what was not to love? Free. Close by. And, mid-afternoon so I didn’t have a late night and mess up my early-to-bed, early-to-rise routine…

If you’ve made it to the end of this Contemplation and have got something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my websiteor the link below — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).

Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).

If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.

Costs (Canadian dollars):
Book 1: $2.99
Book 2: $3.89
Book 3: $3.89
Trilogy: $9.99

Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps…

https://paypal.me/olduvaitrilogy?country.x=CA&locale.x=en_US

If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.

You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially Catton’s Overshoot and Tainter’s Collapse: see here.

It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 1

A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.

With a Foreword and Afterword by Michael Dowd, authors include: Max Wilbert; Tim Watkins; Mike Stasse; Dr. Bill Rees; Dr. Tim Morgan; Rob Mielcarski; Dr. Simon Michaux; Erik Michaels; Just Collapse’s Tristan Sykes & Dr. Kate Booth; Kevin Hester; Alice Friedemann; David Casey; and, Steve Bull.

The document is not a guided narrative towards a singular or overarching message; except, perhaps, that we are in a predicament of our own making with a far more chaotic future ahead of us than most imagine–and most certainly than what mainstream media/politics would have us believe.

Click hereto access the document as a PDF file, free to download.

The Next Generation’s Dilemma: Confronting the Metacrisis

June 12, 2024

The Next Generation’s Dilemma: Confronting the Metacrisis

Reality Roundtable 9 with Priscilla Trịnh, James Branagan, and Natasha Linhart

Today’s Reality Roundtable with Priscilla Trịhn, James Branagan, and Natasha Linhart, focuses on Generation Z’s perspective of the metacrisis, how learning the reality of the human predicament has affected their worldview, and what they see as viable future paths for themselves and the world. What are the unique challenges that young people face when addressing the layers of complexity and risk in the world, and thinking about how to respond?

Priscilla Trịnh currently serves as Director of Communications at the Post Growth Institute and co-coordinator of the Minnesota Youth Institute. She is also the creator of the #postgrowth jobs board and a founding member of The Overstory Alliance.

James Branagan is a content creator and video editor, posting content on slow living and philosophy from his channel, The New Naturalist. He’s committed to the task of addressing some of the many facets of Our Human Predicament, particularly education and food production systems.

Natasha Linhart graduated from the University of Amsterdam in 2023 with a degree in BSc in Politics, Psychology, Law and Economics with a focus in Economics and Business, and electives in Degrowth and Critical Theory. For the last year, she has been working as a Research Associate with the Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future.

How might we approach intergenerational relationships to encourage the transfer of knowledge in both directions, without blame or resentment? Could fostering community, empathy, and personal responsibility act as a bridge across generational divides, steering us towards a more unified and compassionate future?

How to Make Wind Power Sustainable Again

June 12, 2024

How to Make Wind Power Sustainable Again

If we build them out of wood, large wind turbines could become a textbook example of the circular economy.

Illustration: Eva Miquel for Low-tech Magazine.

For more than two thousand years, windmills were built from recyclable or reusable materials: wood, stone, brick, canvas, metal. When – electricity producing – wind turbines appeared in the 1880s, the materials didn’t change. It’s only since the arrival of plastic composite blades in the 1980s that wind power has become the source of a toxic waste product that ends up in landfills.

New wood production technology and design makes it possible to build larger wind turbines almost entirely out of wood again – not just the blades, but also the rest of the structure. This would solve the waste issue and make the manufacturing of wind turbines largely independent of fossil fuels and mined materials. A forest planted in between the wind turbines could provide the wood for the next generation of wind turbines.

How Sustainable is a Windmill Blade?

Wind turbines are considered to be a clean and sustainable source of power. However, while they can indeed generate electricity with lower CO2-emissions than fossil fuel power plants, they also produce a lot of waste. This is easily overlooked, because roughly 90% of the mass of a large wind turbine is steel, mainly concentrated in the tower. Steel is commonly recycled and this explains why wind turbines have very short energy payback times – the recycled steel can be used to produce new wind turbine parts, which greatly lowers the energy required during the manufacturing process.

However, wind turbine blades are made from light-weight plastic composite materials, which are voluminous and impossible to recycle…

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Russia’s Oil and Gas Revenues Surged by 73.5% in January-May

June 11, 2024

Russia’s Oil and Gas Revenues Surged by 73.5% in January-May

Russia’s budget revenues from oil and gas soared by 73.5% in January-May of 2024 compared to the first five months of 2023, according to data from Russia’s finance ministry released on Monday.

Between January and May 2024, the revenues for the Russian federal budget from oil and gas hit $55.7 billion (4.95 trillion Russian rubles), per the data reported by Russian news agency TASS.

“In line with parameters of the socioeconomic outlook, a steady surplus of oil and gas revenues above their base level is also expected in months to come,” TASS quoted a statement from the ministry as saying.

Non-oil and gas revenues also rose, by 34% in January-May 2024 compared to the same period last year.

Russian oil revenues have been rising in recent months compared to the year-ago levels as Moscow is increasingly finding ways to circumvent sanctions and find buyers willing to risk purchasing its crude and refined petroleum products.

In April 2024, for example, Russia’s oil and gas revenues hit $13.5 billion (1.23 trillion Russian rubles), Russian finance ministry data showed in early May. The Kremlin received nearly double the oil income for the budget than it did in the same month of 2023.

The weaker Russian ruble and the higher price of Russia’s flagship Urals crude amid higher international oil prices contributed to higher revenues from oil-related taxes and from all total oil and gas sales, according to estimates by Bloomberg.

The doubled revenues from oil for Russia highlight the difficulties of the Western countries to reduce Putin’s income from oil, despite the price cap on Russia’s oil and the ramp-up of the sanctions enforcement in recent months.

Then in May 2024, Russia’s oil proceeds increased by almost 50% from a year ago, as Moscow continues to manage to circumvent sanctions and get a higher price for its crude.

IEA: Clean energy investment to reach $2 trillion in 2024

June 9, 2024

IEA: Clean energy investment to reach $2 trillion in 2024

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), more money is being invested in solar power than in all other sources of electricity combined.

Global investment in clean energy will reach $2 trillion (€1.84 trillion) this year, twice the amount invested in fossil fuels, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

“For every dollar going to fossil fuels today, almost two dollars are invested in clean energy,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol.

Clean technologies include renewables, electric vehicles, nuclear power, grids, storage, low-emissions fuels, efficiency improvements and heat pumps.

Meanwhile, total energy investment is expected to exceed $3 trillion for the first time in 2024, the agency said in its annual World Energy Investment report.

In 2023, combined investment in renewable electricity and grids surpassed the amount spent on fossil fuels for the first time.

Are perovskite cells a game-changer for solar energy?

Solar investment surpasses other forms of energy

According to the report, more money is going into solar photovoltaic (PV) panels than all other electricity generation technologies combined.

Solar panel costs have decreased by 30% over the past two years and in 2024 “investment in solar PV is set to grow to $500 billion as falling module prices spur new investments.”

China is set to account for the largest share of clean energy investment in 2024 with an estimated $675 billion, while Europe is set to account for $370 billion and the United States $315 billion.

Lack of investment in some regions

By comparison, global upstream oil and gas investment is expected to increase by 7% to $570 billion in 2024, following a similar increase in 2023.

National oil companies in the Middle East and Asia have been the main drivers of this growth, the report said.

What’s behind Pakistan’s solar energy boom?

The IEA warned that meeting medium-term global targets to reduce harmful carbon emissions would require a doubling of global investment in renewable energy by 2030.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Power outage-causing storms are on the rise. That’s already impacting food insecurity

June 9, 2024

Power outage-causing storms are on the rise. That’s already impacting food insecurity

Major power outages have increased tenfold since 1980

Straw bales and storm (Getty Images/BalazsKovacs)

As rounds of severe weather — complete with thunderstorms, hail and flooding — continue to pummel Dallas and surrounding Texas counties, many of the over 650,000 people who were left without power are grappling with the question of how they will afford to replace the food they lost in the nearly week-long outage. According to the Food and Drug Administration, perishables like milk, eggs and meat can only keep cold for about four hours in an unopened refrigerator, meaning that for many Texans, the entirety of their fresh food supply had to go in the garbage.

They aren’t alone.

Just a few weeks ago, Community Food Share, a Colorado food bank that serves Boulder and Broomfield counties, lost 1,500 pounds of food during a windstorm with gusts up to 100 miles per hour, which prompted a preemptive power outage from Xcel Energy. It’s a tremendous loss, but one that chief executive officer Kim Da Silva has cautioned could have been worse.

“We were actually able to salvage almost all of the food that was in our freezers and our refrigerators,” she told local Colorado television station KUSA. “Which we’re so thankful for that because that was about $80,000 worth of food.”

All in all, it was a stroke of luck, but with power outage-causing storms on the rise, luck can only go so far in preventing similar — and larger — losses, which means that food pantries are increasingly having to adapt their operations to account for the effects of climate change.

As reported by The Conversation, many Americans think of power outages as infrequent inconveniences, however data shows that major power outages have “increased tenfold since 1980, largely because of an aging electrical grid and damage sustained from severe storms as the planet warms.” …

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Is the Electric Vehicle Panacea Crashing in California and America?

June 9, 2024

Is the Electric Vehicle Panacea Crashing in California and America?

The idea that the panacea of electric vehicles will end “climate change” may have finally crashed into the wall of reality.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was interviewed on May 26 by host Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation.” The full interview is on YouTube. Ms. Brennan is the most informative and objective of interviewers in the mainstream media.

Although “Mayor Pete,” as he came to be known, was merely the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, population 103,000, in 2020, he won the Iowa caucuses, briefly gaining national attention. He previously worked at McKinsey & Co., which hires really smart people to consult for corporate clients. According to Mr. Buttigieg, his work “consisted of doing mathematical analysis, conducting research, and preparing presentations” on studies for clients. That means he’s one of the smarter people in the Biden administration.

At 9 minutes and 30 seconds, Ms. Brennan said, “Donald Trump repeatedly talks about President Biden’s decision to force the industry toward making 56 percent of car batteries electric by 2032, 13 percent hybrid.” She then played a video of President Trump at a rally in New Jersey.

“We’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars subsidizing a car that nobody wants and nobody’s ever going to buy,” President Trump said.

Then she continued, “He’s not wrong—”

“Oh, he’s wrong,” Mr. Buttigieg interrupted.

Ms. Brennan continued, “—on the purchasing. He’s not. Of the 4 million vehicles purchased, you know, what, 269,000 electric vehicles were sold in the U.S. market.”

And the electric portion is just 6.7 percent of the total. She didn’t mention the time period, but Cox Automotive ran the numbers, and it’s the first quarter of 2024.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Reaching the end of offshored industrialization

June 9, 2024

Reaching the end of offshored industrialization

Moving industrialization offshore can look like a good idea at first. But as fossil fuel energy supplies deplete, this strategy works less well. Countries doing the mining and manufacturing may be less interested in trading. Also, the broken supply lines of 2020 and 2021 showed that transferring major industries offshore could lead to empty shelves in stores, plus unhappy customers.

The United States started moving industry offshore in 1974 (Figure 1) in response to spiking oil prices in 1973-1974 (Figure 2).

Figure 1. US industrial energy consumption per capita, divided among fossil fuels, biomass, and electricity, based on data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). All energy types, including electricity, are measured their capacity to generate heat. This is the approach used by the EIA, the IEA, and most researchers.

Industry is based on the use of fossil fuels. Electricity also plays a role, but it is more like the icing on the cake than the basis of industrial production. Industry is polluting in many ways, so it was an “easy sell” to move industry offshore. But now the United States is realizing that it needs to re-industrialize. At the same time, we are being told about the need to transition the entire economy to electricity to prevent climate change.

In this post, I will try to explain the situation–how fossil fuel prices have spiked many times, including 1973-1974 (oil) and more recently (coal in 2022). I will also discuss the key role fossil fuels play. Because of the key role of fossil fuels, a reduction in per-capita fossil fuel consumption likely leads to a transition to fewer goods and services, on average, per person. A transition to all electricity does not seem to be feasible. Instead, we seem to be headed for increased geopolitical conflict and the possibility of a financial crash seems greater.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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