To curb demand for oil, add a tax when prices tank | ajc.com

[Link: ajc.com] "What is to be done? As economists have long recognized, the most economically efficient way to alter the behavior of consumers — to use less oil — and businesses — to develop products that allow consumers to use less oil — is to raise the cost. And if the market can’t be counted on to send reliable price signals, then a tax can be used to ensure that the cost remains high enough to encourage the desired behavior."

This proposal has the proverbial snowball's chance of getting any support but there is a bigger problem. Where is the extra electrical capacity going to come from when all those tens of millions of electric cars are plugged in every night. We need to up the power available, somehow, without using more hydrocarbon fuel. Nuclear? More coal? Impossible extension of the alternate power pool? It just ain't that easy folks.

Op-Ed Contributor - Have You Driven a Bus or a Train Lately? - NYTimes.com

[Link: Have You Driven a Bus or a Train Lately? - NYTimes.com] "The Obama administration should ask the companies, as a condition of financial assistance, to begin shifting from being just automakers to becoming innovative “transportmakers.” As Barack Obama’s new chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, recently said: “You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste. It’s an opportunity to do important things you would otherwise avoid.”

As transportmakers, the companies could produce vehicles for high-speed train and bus systems that would improve our travel options, reduce global warming, conserve energy, minimize accidents and generally improve the way we live."

This is a wonderful idea. The United States must direct its transportation system towards universal and comprehensive public transportation while we are still able. This moment in time may be the best (only?) opportunity for that to happen. There will come a time, and I believe that it will be not to distant, when we will still need transportation but will not be able to continue to absorb the cost associated with the automobile or the externalities of the automobile based transportation model. If a functional public system is not ready when that time arrives it may never happen.

The (Not So) Invincible Society - Scitizen

[Link: The (Not So) Invincible Society - Scitizen] "He reasons that if a significant portion of the complex, interdependent systems that make up our society fail, society will collapse. And, if that happens, it would be all but impossible to restart industrial society. He argues that industrial society relies on the continuous operation of these systems to obtain essential minerals from very lean ores using copious amounts of energy, energy procured using these same complex systems."

This little article makes a big point and one that has entered my mind on many occasions. We have reached a point in our energy use that the extraction of the resources requires a high level of usage of those same resources. If/when we encounter an interruption of the extraction process it may then be impossible to restart.

As the author reasons, the only obvious acceptable path is to try and reach for a sustainable model of living while we still have the resources to make the change. A sustainable model that results directly from a breakdown of the industrial system is probably not one we would want to have to endure.

Bubble Isn't Price Driver, Poll Says

WSJ.com: "The global surge in food and energy prices is being driven primarily by fundamental market conditions, rather than an investment bubble, say the majority of economists in the latest Wall Street Journal forecasting survey."

If you spend a little time trying to understand the dynamics of our population and the mechanics of our consumer culture you will have no trouble accepting this conclusion. We are beginning to test the limits of our ability to extract increasing quantities of raw materials from our planet. These limits relate to the primary capability of extraction, the secondary ability to convert the raw materials to usable forms (including provision of infrastructure) and the tertiary ability to deal with the negative ramifications of the raw material's use (global warming). These limits can only be avoided by reducing population or reducing the individual consumption of a vast majority of the population. As far as I know, there are no known political means to accomplish either of these effects. That leaves the natural method. It will probably start with rising prices for raw materials and products that critically depend on their use. I would guess that would be oil and food.

Green movement forgets its politics

[BBC NEWS | Science/Nature]: "Paul Hawken, author of Blessed Unrest - How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being, writes that 'there are over one - maybe even two - million organisations (worldwide) working toward ecological sustainability and social justice'.

And yet... and yet... there is no real climate change movement. There is no organised effort leading society towards a legislative framework that would urgently drive down greenhouse gas emissions across the board, and begin to sequester carbon dioxide.

Not in the UK, or in the US, or internationally. The 'movement' that Hawken refers to is, he notes, 'atomised' and 'largely ignored'."

I agree with this idea. Individual citizens can make a government policy work, or not, but it cannot really make it happen in the first place. For this to happen, government leadership must be committed and inspired. We will not solve the problems of limited resources and climate change without committed leadership and cooperative citizens.

The Green Issue

[New York Times By MICHAEL POLLAN] "There are so many stories we can tell ourselves to justify doing nothing, but perhaps the most insidious is that, whatever we do manage to do, it will be too little too late. Climate change is upon us, and it has arrived well ahead of schedule. Scientists’ projections that seemed dire a decade ago turn out to have been unduly optimistic: the warming and the melting is occurring much faster than the models predicted. Now truly terrifying feedback loops threaten to boost the rate of change exponentially, as the shift from white ice to blue water in the Arctic absorbs more sunlight and warming soils everywhere become more biologically active, causing them to release their vast stores of carbon into the air. Have you looked into the eyes of a climate scientist recently? They look really scared."

Why bother? This is very interesting and thoughtful article. The author touches on many of the frustrations that all of us who are concerned about the state of our world grapple with every day. His points are good but I think he still hasn't been able, himself, to let go of the ideas that are driving his "cheap energy mind." I believe that there is a very clear and logical reason to bother. We should let go of the consumptive and manipulative aspects of our lives, made possible by cheap oil, simply because they are not real. We have been living on a one time bequest of cheap energy that is not, and has never been, a part of our real human existance. In the long term there is no oil. A couple of hundred years from now there won't be anybody alive who lives the lifestyle he is pleading for us to abandon. In a thousand years they won't even remember we ever did. So I say why not just get on with it. The best thing we can do for the environment is quit using oil stupidly...now. We can save whats left for a few thousand years worth of critical uses like medical and plastics for solar equipment. To use oil for transportation, electrical energy production, asphalt roads and fertilizer is insane. Then, when we have done that, whatever life we end up living will be closer to real for the first time in a couple of hundred years.

Mideast's own oil consumption helping to drive prices up

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 04/18/2008 | "Middle Eastern oil-producing nations are behind today's record high oil prices, but not for the reason you might think. Taken together, oil-rich nations represent a bloc of fast-growing economies that are now sucking up new energy supplies almost as fast as they're coming to market."

This goes along with what I was saying in the last post. For now the oil producers are just deciding to use their share of the bounty. When the other shoe drops, and they decide they need to also save some for the kids, its over folks.