Everything’s Cool

I just watched the movie “Everything's Cool.”  What it showed most dramatically to me was how far we’ve backslid in the last four years.  Fewer Americans believe in global warming than did years ago.  No action has been taken, aside from postponement of the Keystone XL pipeline.  This was an urgent issue years (decades!) ago.

Lester Brown gets it right again

In his Foreign Policy article, “The Great Food Crisis of 2011,” Brown writes:

The third major source of demand growth is the use of crops to produce fuel for cars. In the United States, which harvested 416 million tons of grain in 2009, 119 million tons went to ethanol distilleries to produce fuel for cars. That's enough to feed 350 million people for a year. The massive U.S. investment in ethanol distilleries sets the stage for direct competition between cars and people for the world grain harvest. In Europe, where much of the auto fleet runs on diesel fuel, there is growing demand for plant-based diesel oil, principally from rapeseed and palm oil. This demand for oil-bearing crops is not only reducing the land available to produce food crops in Europe, it is also driving the clearing of rainforests in Indonesia and Malaysia for palm oil plantations.

The combined effect of these three growing demands is stunning: a doubling in the annual growth in world grain consumption from an average of 21 million tons per year in 1990-2005 to 41 million tons per year in 2005-2010. Most of this huge jump is attributable to the orgy of investment in ethanol distilleries in the United States in 2006-2008.

I would excerpt the entire article if I could.  Instead, read the whole thing.

A perfect time to mention peak oil

And the LA Times misses it.

Crude oil prices pulled back from highs not seen since 2008 as leaders from Saudi Arabia to the White House offered fresh assurances that the world wouldn't run short of oil despite violence in the Mideast and North Africa.

I feel assured.  How about you?

Out of sight, out of mind

It’s been awhile since my last post.  Blog stats show that I’m not getting any traffic.  But let’s start up again with this news: “Scientist finds Gulf bottom still oily, dead.”

Oil from the BP spill remains stuck on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, according to a top scientist's video and slides that she says demonstrate the oil isn't degrading as hoped and has decimated life on parts of the sea floor.

That report is at odds with a recent report by the BP spill compensation czar that said nearly all will be well by 2012.

At least people are starting to connect the harsh winter storms and Australian flooding with global warming.  Now if we could connect our energy policies with environmental damage, too, we might get somewhere.

Mainstream coverage

The LA Times reports on Arctic ice loss and says:

Global warming skeptics have often claimed that climate models exaggerate ongoing climate change. But the new study of Arctic sea ice and snow on land documented the opposite: Climate models, in this important area, underestimate the effects.

Good for you for challenging the skeptics.

Happy New Year

Welcome, 2011.  Any predictions for the new year?  My quick two cents: an anemic economy and the public and/or media won’t connect the flooding in Australia with global warming.

Back to the permanent recession

Analysis at The Oil Drum suggests that $85/barrel oil puts the economy into recession.  At this hour, oil is trading above $89/barrel, and it has been hovering in the mid- to high-$80 range awhile.  Now that the census figures are trickling out, the south is poised to increase their number of Congresspeople.  Of course, that means that once state legislatures have redrawn their electoral district maps, we will see more republicans in the House.  I don’t think I need to remind anyone who stops by here (anyone? hello?) how damaging republican priorities (I wouldn’t call them policies) are to our future.

More of the same

What to say after a hiatus?  Ever since the IEA report confirming peak oil, discussions have focused on what do to next.  Beats me.  I’ve been trying to focus on that for quite some time, and the report doesn’t change that.  I remain convinced that a strong, central response is required. 

Now that Obama has shown his true stripes on economic policy, which should neither be called democratic nor stimulative, we’re in trouble.  The way to fix things is not to weaken the federal government in influence or money.  The fix comes with honesty – and frankly, community organization of the entire country.

So long, Congressional Panel on Global Warming

Take that, earth. Boehner's pulled the plug.

Michael Steel, a spokesman for the incoming House majority leader, Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the decision was consistent with a Republican pledge "to save taxpayers' money by reducing waste and duplication in Congress." Steel said that the select committee was created "to provide a political forum to promote Washington Democrats' job-killing national energy tax."

Thanks.

2012

I’m opening up the discussion to proposals for the 2012 election.  Who should run?  We need someone to run from Obama’s left; he’s already running to his own right, considering all the folding he’s done in preparation for a republican house.  How about Russ Feingold, departing Wisconsin Senator?

I would like to see the campaign season bring out public debate of the open secrets on this blog.  Priority one is not deficit reduction.  And if you have to talk about deficit reduction, priority one there is not freezing federal pay, but either raising taxes – yes, Raising Taxes! – or reducing the defense budget.  There, I said that, too – Cut the Defense Budget!

The top priorities are dealing with climate change and the end of cheap energy.  Everything follows from those two things.

Happy Thanksgiving

See you after the holiday. Have a tasty one.

Back to the mission

Pardon the light posting lately. The blog has turned into a repository of bad news, not my original intention for it. I want this blog to be a place to find positive ideas and to discuss plans that can be put into action. Any ideas?

Environmental Keynesianism

Susan George tackles how we can beat environmental problems within the capitalist framework.  Because we are stuck with capitalism…

George's prescription is not to lobby governments to impose sane and planet-saving reforms on corporations; that’s not likely to happen when most politicians (in the developed nations, at least) are fervently and blindly pro-laissez-faire-capitalism themselves. Nor does she have any faith that business leaders can be persuaded to abandon their global warming ways voluntarily.

Her solution is to replicate for a “war” against climate change the same large-scale political-business collaboration that was mounted to fight the war against Nazi Germany. In that historic campaign, both politicians and CEOs saw not only the urgent need to join forces to win the Second World War—but the profit to be made as well. The politicians increased their popularity with the voters, and the CEOs increased their revenues by manufacturing guns, tanks, bombers, warships, and submarines.

Fascinating read.  If anyone has access to her original article, please comment here.

What I’m also excited about is that I now have a label to use for the economic transition, Environmental Keynesianism.  Sometimes having a name is a needed step toward a transition.

Food production and the economy

George Mobus asks a good question:

Could we solve two problems at once?

Solving the Unemployment Problem and Preparing for Power Down Simultaneously

He suggests a new kind of Civilian Conservation Corps for farmland, set up for permaculture.

Thoughts?

Local food

Sharon Astyk brings up some good issues. 

What I want to argue, in fact is that the accusation that local food is elitist is actually a product of the industrial food infrastructure - that is, the requirements of an industrial food system, the presumption that the basic structure of food production should be industrialized is what makes the price of good food higher. The accusation that local food isn't "serious" because it costs more is an accusation in bad faith - the reason it costs more is because the same system makes it cost more.

Read on and stay tuned for more posts about food.

A big step?

Stu Ostro, Sr. Meteorologist at The Weather Channel, was interviewed on the channel this morning to explain that he is no longer a climate denier. He now believes global warming is man-made and that individual weather events can now be tied to global warming. This is big for The Weather Channel, which has been almost completely silent on the issue to date. I hope the new attitude seeps into their day-to-day coverage.

Biofuels–part 2

So much for algae as an environmentally friendly replacement for fossil fuels.  Scientific American says:

Growing algae for use in biofuels has a greater environmental impact than sources such as corn, switch grass and canola, researchers found in the first life-cycle assessment of algae growth.

The problem, in part, as with many biofuels, is that they cannot grow without using fossil fuel inputs.  The article continues:

The culprit, the researchers say, is fertilizer. Growing algae in open ponds is akin to producing them in a shallow swimming pool, Clarens said, so all of the nutrients -- nitrogen and phosphorus -- needed to keep them alive and boost their production come from outside sources.

And that fertilizer has an environmental impact because it's often made from petroleum feedstocks, Clarens said.

Read the article for more details.  And there is also the entirely separate issue that algae production on a large scale will cost the consumer magnitudes more than its gasoline equivalent.

Climate change as a local issue

Coach P comments:

Are state legislatures a feasible option for passing climate change legislation when Congress won't?

Unfortunately not.  Local piecemeal action is too little, too late.  According to Der Spiegel’s fascinating coverage of Copenhagen climate summit negotiations:

Merkel took one last stab. The reduction of greenhouse gases by 50 percent, that is, limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, was a reference to what is written in the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report. Then she directed a dramatic appeal at the countries seeking to block the treaty: "Let us suppose 100 percent reduction, that is, no CO2 in the developed countries anymore. Even then, with the (target of) two degrees, you have to reduce carbon emissions in the developing countries. That is the truth."

To be blunt, even if western industrialized nations cut greenhouse emissions to zero today, we would still be in trouble. 

Biofuels

This afternoon brings the first installment of why conventional ideas about alternative energy needs to be rethought.

Reuters is reporting: Biofuel worse for climate than fossil fuel – study.

European plans to promote biofuels will drive farmers to convert 69,000 square km of wild land into fields and plantations, depriving the poor of food and accelerating climate change, a report warned on Monday.

...

As a result, the extra biofuels that Europe will use over the next decade will generate between 81 and 167 percent more carbon dioxide than fossil fuels, says the report.

Farmland should be used to produce food, not energy.

Could have chosen differently

Via Digby, who excerpts Matt Taibbi’s book, Griftopia:

With the $13-plus trillion we are estimated to ultimately spend on the bailouts, We could not only have bought and paid off every single subprime mortgage in the country (that would only have cost $1.4 trillion), we could have paid off every remaining mortgage of any kind in this country-and still have had enough money left over to buy a new house for every American who does not already have one.

This comes back to a question I have not yet written about: How do we transform our economy when it is based on debt?  I cannot leave my job (and thereby stop commuting) because I need to pay my rent.  How can we expect people who have mortgages, student loan and/or credit card debt, medical insurance premiums, etc. to accept lower pay for the sake of using less gasoline?  All our encouragement to people that they sacrifice to conserve is empty talk if that sacrifice is going to lead them into bankruptcy.  We need strong government action at the national level to make this happen.  Taibbi’s suggestion could have been one place to start.