Hedges tracking Kunstler

[Thailandnotes]

Heinberg, a senior fellow at the Post Carbon Institute, argues that we cannot grasp the real state of the global economy by the usual metrics—GDP, unemployment, housing, durable goods, national deficits, personal income and consumer spending—although even these measures point to severe and chronic problems. Rather, he says, we have to examine the structural flaws that sit like time bombs embedded within the economic edifice. U.S. household debt enabled the expansion of consumer spending during the boom years, he says, but consumer debt cannot continue to grow as house prices decline to realistic levels. Toxic assets litter the portfolios of the major banks, presaging another global financial meltdown. The Earth’s natural resources are being exhausted. And climate change, with its extreme weather conditions, is beginning to exact a heavy economic toll on countries, including the United States, through the destruction brought about by droughts, floods, wildfires and loss of crop yields.

Heinberg also highlights what he calls “the highly dysfunctional U.S. political system,” which is paralyzed and hostage to corporate power. It is unable to respond rationally to the crisis or solve “even the most trivial of problems.”

“The government at this point exacerbates nearly every crisis the nation faces,” he said. “Policy decisions do not emerge from deliberations between the public and elected leaders. They arise from unaccountable government agencies and private interest groups. The Republican Party has taken leave of reality. It exists in a hermetically sealed ideasphere where climate change is a hoax and economic problems can be solved by cutting spending and taxes. The Democrats, meanwhile, offer no realistic strategy for coping with the economic unraveling or climate change.”

http://www.truthdig.com/report/page2...blem_20120910/

[Chris]

Re: Hedges tracking Kunstler

Nothing new here. Most commentators these days are just rehashing and reiterating the problem (ad infinitum). Not many are offering solutions.

That is why I mainly only read iTulip and a handful of other blogs these days.

[c1ue]

Re: Hedges tracking Kunstler

Good lord, more climate change foolishness.

Here are the corn harvests for the past half dozen years, including this one:

2006/07	10,531
2007/08	13,038
2008/09	12,092
2009/10	13,092
2010/11	12,447
2011/12	12,358
2012/13	10,779

So this 'drought' year is 13% below last year, and 18% below the 2009/10 peak, but 2.4% over the 2006/07 year.

But somehow it is 'different this time'.

Not.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Hedges tracking Kunstler

So this 'drought' year is 13% below last year, and 18% below the 2009/10 peak, but 2.4% over the 2006/07 year.

But somehow it is 'different this time'.

Not.

I posted Hedges & Kunstler as Doom&Gloom posted Hedges and Alex Jones. because I think it's an indication of how established voices may be radicalized quickly.

As for corn, "Year to year price of corn up 60 %, soybeans and wheat 40%." It wouldn't surprise me to see corn at 9 or 10.

Whether or not you believe humans are causing climate change, it's hard to argue that what's going on is not a huge challenge for agriculture. I was talking to a French botanist who has been in S.E. Asia for 35 years contracting with farmers to grow plants for seed. He claims his company is the 7th largest seed producer in the world. He says it's a mess. The optimum area to grow cukes for seed used to be at the same elevation and same latitude for 20 years. Now it's shifting constantly and they are having to guess and contract multiple growers in various niches.

[don]

Re: Hedges tracking Kunstler

Whether or not you believe humans are causing climate change, it's hard to argue that what's going on is not a huge challenge for agriculture. I was talking to a French botanist who has been in S.E. Asia for 35 years contracting with farmers to grow plants for seed. He claims his company is the 7th largest seed producer in the world. He says it's a mess. The optimum area to grow cukes for seed used to be at the same elevation and same latitude for 20 years. Now it's shifting constantly and they are having to guess and contract multiple growers in various niches.

Climate change denial is all about Big Energy and its related global interests - not that that validates human activity as the cause - but rather underlines the inability, due to the interests that run the show, of effectively addressing environmental changes. It's one wing of the Easter Island Effect writ large . . . .

[c1ue]

Re: Hedges tracking Kunstler

Whether or not you believe humans are causing climate change, it's hard to argue that what's going on is not a huge challenge for agriculture. I was talking to a French botanist who has been in S.E. Asia for 35 years contracting with farmers to grow plants for seed. He claims his company is the 7th largest seed producer in the world. He says it's a mess. The optimum area to grow cukes for seed used to be at the same elevation and same latitude for 20 years. Now it's shifting constantly and they are having to guess and contract multiple growers in various niches.

The point wasn't that climate change isn't occurring, it was that the idea that climate change is primarily due to CO2 in the atmosphere is far from clear.

Climate change has been occurring so long as humanity has existed. The Cro-Magnons were hunting mammoths over the ice fields in Western Europe. The Vikings colonized Greenland during a warm spell, then had to evacuate after said spell ended. Dickensian era novels talked about kids ice skating on the Thames.

Even were the CO2 hypothesis correct, the equally severe problem is that there is zero possibility of CO2 emissions going downwards. Before it was China, India, and the third world - now it is Japan and Germany leading the way in fossil fuel CO2 emissions:

http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/37190...ergy-japan.htm

Japan, with only two working nuclear power plants, has discharged a record high amount of carbon dioxide in the year ended March 31 as it relied on crude and oil to support its energy requirements.According to Bloomberg calculations based on data provided by Japan's 10 power utilities, the companies released a whopping 439 million tonnes of CO2 for the year, a 17 per cent jump from the 374 million tonnes a year ago.

Of the overall figure, Kansai Electric Power Co. contributed the most number of CO2 emissions, 40 per cent at 65.7 million tonnes. Kansai Co. is the one of the 10 that relied most on nuclear power.

http://www.ammoland.com/2012/08/28/g...-power-plants/

In mid-August, Germany opened a new 2200MW coal-fired power station near Cologne, and virtually not a word has been said about it. This dearth of reporting is even more surprising when one considers that Germany has said building new coal plants is necessary because electricity produced by wind and solar has turned out to be unaffordably expensive and unreliable.

In a deteriorating economic situation, Germany’s new environment minister, Peter Altmaier, who is as politically close to Chancellor Angela Merkel as it gets, has underlined time and again the importance of not further harming Europe’s – and Germany’s – economy by increasing the cost of electricity.

He is also worried that his country could become dependent on foreign imports of electricity, the mainstay of its industrial sector. To avoid that risk, Altmaier has given the green light to build twenty-three new coal-fired plants, which are currently under construction.

Yes, you read that correctly, twenty three-new coal-fired power plants are under construction in Germany, because Germany is worried about the increasing cost of electricity, and because they can’t afford to be in the strategic position of importing too much electricity.

This on top of the new coal fired electricity plant in China every week...

Thus the problem I have with Hedges and what not is their notion that somehow climate change = CO2 emissions which can be reversed "if only". Besides being 1st world solipsistic to a fantastic degree, it also betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of the dynamics of energy and modern human existence.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Hedges tracking Kunstler

Hedges focuses more on wide spread environmental rape as opposed to climate change.

Below is a link to what I think is the best interview Bill Moyers has ever done.

http://billmoyers.com/segment/chris-...ones%E2%80%99/

Can you explain how you can label Hedges "1st world solipsistic?"

[don]

Re: Hedges tracking Kunstler

Hedges focuses more on wide spread environmental rape as opposed to climate change.

Climate change, exhaustion of natural resources - all point to ultimately questioning the mainspring of capitalism, everlasting growth based on ever-increasing consumption. Who wants to question that . . .

[c1ue]

Re: Hedges tracking Kunstler

Can you explain how you can label Hedges "1st world solipsistic?"

Because Chris Hedges lives a nice life in New England, and is complaining about the 'deterioration' of what he sees as his "natural birthright" in his present environment, all the while ignoring:

1) What he sees is not what existed in Nature prior to the colonization of the New World. The roads he drives on, the trains he rides, the planes he's flown on landing at the airports he's arrived at - all are already built so that he can enjoy the fruits.

2) The leaves changing colors earlier or whatever is frankly irrelevant to billions of 3rd world people living without electricity - i.e. no electrical lights after darkness, no machinery to free up women from household labor, much less internet or cell phones.

3) For that matter - his entire professional existence is a symptom of wealth. Rich countries can afford to have televisions and newspapers accessible to almost every single citizen. Poor countries can not.

Thus while I am sympathetic to the idea of consumerism being overwrought in the US, at the same time it is very difficult for me to see someone like Hedges desiring a return to the 'simple life' as anything but some form of symptomless guilt without benefit of religious release.

[shiny!]

Re: Hedges tracking Kunstler

Climate change, exhaustion of natural resources - all point to ultimately questioning the mainspring of capitalism, everlasting growth based on ever-increasing consumption. Who wants to question that . . .

+1

"Change" is the only constant in the world. The climate has always had cycles, big and small. Whether CO2 is rising unusually or not, and if it is, whether the phenomenon is man-made or not, isn't the biggest issue IMO. Whether natural disasters are increasing in frequency and severity, or whether we're simply more crowded with more people living in harm's way, or whether we're just better at reporting these disasters isn't the main issue, either.

The issue is a larger population that needs food, transportation, good jobs and decent living conditions, while Peak Cheap Oil, wars and natural disasters are making it more expensive to provide all this. It seems to me that much if not most of the world is eventually going to need the equivalent of a Marshall Plan, and we (the world, not just the USA) lack the political will, focus and efficiency to respond proactively and effectively.

Increased centralized authoritarianism in the way of global carbon taxes and such nonsense will not solve our problems.

Government is indeed "paralyzed and hostage to corporate power. It is unable to respond rationally to the crisis or solve "even the most trivial of problems."

Instead, FIRE co-opts "useful idiot" policy makers to rig the system in FIRE's favor, contriving divisive issues to keep us fighting amongst each other, drugged on anti-depressants, distracted by reality TV and the latest gadgets in order to give them more time to extract every penny from the system before it crashes. Then they'll move out to their private little floaty islands and leave us stewing in the wreckage.

/rant

[Woodsman]

Re: Hedges tracking Kunstler

C1ue, I believe you're straining here and that you misrepresent Hedges' views. He's certainly no Luddite and none of the books or articles I've read has him calling for a return to some mythical state of nature. That being said, I think we're past the point of argument with regard to the depletion of our natural world but I suspect you might believe otherwise.

Hedges is a self-identified democratic socialist and has called for sigificantly more state intervention in the economy to include "massive government relief and work programs, the nationalization of electricity and gas companies, a universal, not-for-profit government health care program, the outlawing of hedge funds, a radical reduction of our bloated military budget and an end to imperial wars." He most certainly opposes globalization, neoliberalism and free market capitalism unfettered by regulation.

He's also a Christian and is something of a moralist. His father was a minister and Hedges himself, while not ordained, holds a degree from the Harvard Divinity School. Watch the interview with Moyers and you'll see that Hedges characterizes himself as a "sinner" and a "doubter" so likely has the whole "religious release" thing taken care of.

If you think about it, the notion of first world solipsism is spot on when you look at it from the perspective of, well, everywhere else. The US in particular seems to act under the belief that it is alone and disconnected from everything else. If our sort of national egoism and self-absorption isn't solipsism, then nothing is.

[c1ue]

Re: Hedges tracking Kunstler

C1ue, I believe you're straining here and that you misrepresent Hedges' views. He's certainly no Luddite and none of the books or articles I've read has him calling for a return to some mythical state of nature. That being said, I think we're past the point of argument with regard to the depletion of our natural world but I suspect you might believe otherwise.

You'll note that I in no fashion stated that Hedges is a Luddite, however, the strain of 'back to nature' and 'simpler life' is quite apparent in any of his interviews.

As for depletion - once again I didn't say that it can not or could not exist, but that the notion that we should 'stop depleting' now implicitly assumes that all past depletion is fine. And this is a highly selfish viewpoint in light of what the large and multitudinous poor rest of the world enjoys.

As for the solipsism - isn't that what I said? It is really easy for someone already living in a 1st world infrastructure and enjoying a 1st world standard of living to decry resource depletion.

Lastly as for Hedges and religion - yes, I am aware of his religious background. Feeling like a sinner doesn't mean you can't feel guilt over non-religious issues as well.

The issue is a larger population that needs food, transportation, good jobs and decent living conditions, while Peak Cheap Oil, wars and natural disasters are making it more expensive to provide all this. It seems to me that much if not most of the world is eventually going to need the equivalent of a Marshall Plan, and we (the world, not just the USA) lack the political will, focus and efficiency to respond proactively and effectively.

I don't disagree in general, but the details are the killer.

Yes, the population is getting larger.

But the problems would be identical even if population were exactly static: the problem is that the poor parts of the world want to and are getting richer, and will no longer meekly accept what crumbs are left over from the 1st world's hitherto near monopoly on energy, technology, infrastructure, you name it.

What it boils down to is very simple: can the Suburban driving soccer mom outcompete with 15 or 20 families in these growing nations for the resources needed to fuel said vehicle? This isn't a depletion problem, this is a distribution problem.

[shiny!]

Re: Hedges tracking Kunstler

What it boils down to is very simple: can the Suburban driving soccer mom outcompete with 15 or 20 families in these growing nations for the resources needed to fuel said vehicle? This isn't a depletion problem, this is a distribution problem.

I'm in absolute agreement with you. It's a distribution problem for now. At some point it's also going to be a depletion problem. Not either/or, but both.

What are the solutions?

[BadJuju]

Re: Hedges tracking Kunstler

I'm in absolute agreement with you. It's a distribution problem for now. At some point it's also going to be a depletion problem. Not either/or, but both.

What are the solutions?

The solution is right there, but people don't want to swallow the pill. Personal restraint and conservation. A modern lifestyle does not require extreme overconsumption of resources and the deprivation of others. And these developing countries need to rein in their reproduction rates. Asia and Africa account for 70% of the world's population. If they want equitable access to resources, they need to realize that they cannot keep throwing more people into the mix. I am not going to trade my prosperity away because people want to keep having more kids. That's your problem, not mine.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Hedges tracking Kunstler

Honestly can't hear the strains of 'back to nature' in his interviews.

As for resource depletion, he seems more focused on the avoidable environmental degradation, the moonscape left behind in West Virginia.

I think he would laugh at the label "solipsistic." He often uses that word to describe others.