peak oil

The point of time we are fast approaching, after which humankind&;s capacity to extract non-renewable petroleum, instead of increasing, will decline irrevocably.

How will Oz handle the ecosystem predicaments?

denis's picture
Mon, 2007-10-29 21:58 by denis
I decided it may well help to get the coming situation into perspective to speculate on what will happen here in Oz in a hypothetical, optimistic behavioral scenario. So I am looking at what may be the situation in say five years time assuming a number of premises, namely: 1 There is not a major war as this could make nonsense of the speculation 2 The vulnerable American financial market does not crash so rapidly that the resulting global Greater Depression makes nonsense of the speculation. 3 There is no major global reduction in the rate of GHG emissions because of the continuing emphasis on economic growth in China, India and Brazil, the intransigence of the US and the muted response of the EU. This means that the level of GHG will continue to climb at a rapid rate. Policies adopted in Oz with respect to GHG emissions will have no impact on climate change. 4 Federal, state and community governance responds to the developing scenario as best they are able in a sound fashion, stimulated by the attitudes and suggestions of many community groups like ROEZ. Remember, this is an optimistic speculation with no pretence of being realistic! 5 Taxation is varied to make the essentials like food, water, sanitation, housing, education and care affordable to the poorer in the community while providing the necessary money for infrastructure development and maintenance and some environmental remedial action. This would mean that the well off would have their ability to consume stuff reduced. 6 There is growing recognition that the first priority should be to try to maintain a sound fundamental structure for the operation of society. This includes fostering the skills in farming, sound resource utilization, nursing, teaching, policing and caring. There is a consequent trend away from advertising, marketing, development and real estate. There is a growing demand for adult education of many of the past, useful skills without dependence on diminishing resources. 7 the growing appreciation of the importance of sound water supply and treatment requirements for the cities and for the rural areas is leading to appreciable debate but little action, largely because of the interdependence of water supply and energy availability, compounded by the claims that GHG emissions should be reduced. 8 There is emerging widespread appreciation of the problems that will develop due to the oil supply limitations causing an ever-increasing cost of transportation fuels. 9 Measures are put into place to encourage changing from agricultural crops and methods that are inappropriate because of their heavy water usage or damage to the environment. This trend is seen to be appropriate due to climate change and the declining export market for grains. 10 There is growing recognition that Australia’s sustainable population is limited by our paucity of the crucial natural resources, fertile soil and useable water. There is the realization the natural population growth increases the ecological debt so is to be discouraged as we have a moral obligation for some immigration due to the global over population problem. Taxation is used to discourage large families. 11 The growth of mining of our mineral wealth to obtain money by exporting is seen to be against the long-term good of the community. The mining giants show some overt signs of responsibility to the community while they hide the declining ability to ectract the lower grade ores. 12 The real cost of owning and operating cars has had a major impact in both the cities and the rural areas, particularly amongst the less well off. The rising cost of fuels has encouraged the trend to smaller and fewer cars. Growing transportation costs have had a significant influence on the standard of living of all except the well off. It has had the beneficial effect of fostering bike riding. 13 The push for ‘renewal’ energy measures has grown amid misinformation and disinformation about the need and the capability but this has not matched the growth in the requirement for electricity despite some movements towards more efficient use in homes and industry. 14 The failure of many investment funds has decimated the superannuation of many, so increasing the load on social benefits as well as fostering the decline in social morale. 15 The continuing recession has reduced the ability of many people to partake of international tourist trips. This has resulted in only a limited boost to local tourism because of the recession. 16 This, together with the trend for business people to reduce overseas trips because of the increasing security measures and pressures to reduce GHG emissions has had a major impact on the airline and airport businesses. 17 De-urbanization is another growing trend due to the increasing accent on the need to sustain food production and the impracticalities of living in the outer city suburbs. 18 Some businesses focusing on energy efficient houses, the manufacture of simple, durable tools and other measures to manage the new realism are booming. These changes in attitudes and methods are expected to foster society adjusting to the reality of having to live with what is available from the ecosystem. However, these adjustments cannot occur over night. It is quite likely that: 1 There is difficulty in adapting to climate change particularly with respect to food production and water supply due to the intrinsic uncertainties as well as embedded conditioning. There is widespread community resentment that Australia, with other countries, is suffering as the consequence of the misjudgment in the large industrial nations. There is little recognition that we are, in principle, just as blameworthy. Many are upset that they have modified their energy usage at the suggestion of governance for no useful purpose. The appreciable uncertainty about how climate change will affect Australia is clearly having a major impact on governance and business. 2 The right to have a large family is a very controversial subject although there is growing acceptance of the view that Earth is not coping with the current population level and a decline is inevitable. The developed countries are trying to come to terms with their declining birth rate coupled with the needs of their aging population. Governance in Australia still has to allow for an increasing population, particularly in regional cities. 3 Many in the community, especially business people, find it difficult to accept a lowering standard of living is becoming the norm. They still have the belief that technology will provide solutions to the depletion problems and that market forces will correct the emerging problems. This misperception amongst the powerful is still being fostered by unsound claims for proposed substitution technologies. 4 There is growing acceptance amongst some of the young that there is a major challenge to make the best possible use of what is still available from the ecosystem but there is still widespread resentment that their forebears have wasted so much. The inability to realize on their plans for overseas travel does not help. 5 Community confidence in governance is clearly declining. Questions are being asked about why Peak Oil was not recognized by the ‘authorities’ at the time so that some appropriate remedial measures put in place. The continuance of building more freeways is now seen as sheer stupidity by those supposed to know better. 6 The car revolution has caused much angst with the beneficial effects being largely forgotten in the perceived loss of ‘freedom’. The reduced congestion in the cities is accepted but governments are blamed for building freeways rather than public transport. 7 The necessary increased dependence on public transport, particularly in the cities, has not been matched by implementation of improved capability, so adding to community worries and criticism of lack of foresight by governance. 8 The increased popularity of using bikes has not been matched by the modification of roads and the provision of bike trails. 9 Competition in the airline business grows bitterly as the ordered A380s and Dreamliners come along as passenger levels fall drastically. Cheap fares are a boon to those who can still afford it but many in the industry are being put off with a loss of entitlements as numerous airlines go bankrupt. 10 ‘Globalization’ has become a dirty word in business. Localization is emerging in an endeavor to reduce fuel costs. The proposal to deepen Port Phillip Bay has been dumped; to the delight of the environmentalists and also businesses that have had to re-align their business plans to cope with the emerging reality that importing is becoming too costly. There is widespread resentment in Tasmania that the pulp mill built at Bell Bay has caused harm to environment in the Tamar while not helping the local economy because the market for pulp has collapsed. 11 Many of the well off privately welcome this trend as it means they do not have to cope with crowds and congestion in satisfying their indulgences. Nevertheless, they actively resist the usurping of their ‘rights’ to a luxuriant life-style. 12 The limited trend towards acting as communities has been more than offset by the growing sense of resentment and bewilderment amongst the working class. Civil disruption has grown, particularly in the suburbs. 13 The slowness of the education system at all levels to adapt to the changing operation of society is inhibiting adaptation by the populace at large. The universities have been loath to abandon research advancing the frontiers of knowledge for improving the understanding of fundamentals, like the maintenance of soil fertility. Improvements like home cooking, permaculture and organic farming are still having little impact because so much as to be re-learnt. 14 there is growing recognition amongst the knowledgeable that the best that can be done is to adopt measures that will mitigate the decline of many aspects of civilization. They accept that the elite will be able to pursue business as usual to the detriment of the community as a whole. The current adulation by the masses of the ’achievements’ of the rich, powerful celebrities will be replaced by abhorrence at their greedy ravaging of society and its life support system. 15 The farming communities are doing their best to adjust to the changing circumstances but the transformation is being inhibited by pragmatic and financial constraints compounded by increased uncertainty. Renewing widespread recognition by urbanites of the real worth of the farmers does help, however. Those in the cities like to be fed! 16 The attempt to remedy the dire situation in the Murray-Darling Basin has made little progress because of its impact on scarce resources, particularly the fuels used in transportation and the machines. The ecological and irrigation processes have continued to deteriorate despite some progress in the farming revolution. 17 Governments face a difficult situation due to the heavy demand on social security due to blossoming unemployment and the crash of some superannuation finds. They have to prioritize their reduced taxation income to meet these demands while implementing measures to cope with the growing environmental and urban problems. 18 Manufacturers and retailers are having difficulty in adapting to a reduced demand for throwaway stuff and an increasing demand for simple, durable tools and materials. 19 The housing market, particularly for large, energy in-efficient homes in outer suburbs, has collapsed. Developers have largely disappeared from the large cities and have adopted a more pragmatic approach in the developing regional towns. It seems to be quite clear that even with the most optimistic view of what will happen in the near future, most in Australian society will have to face up to a dire, traumatic power down at a disconcerting rate. It is to be hoped that emerging people power will rise to the challenge of easing the process as much as possible. What happens, however, will also be very dependent on overseas developments. Denis Frith

What is this thing called "Progress"?

Mon, 2007-09-17 22:51 by Sheila Newman
Many people look forward uncritically to a future not too different from the cartoon-world of the Jetsons, where people have mechanical maids, whiz around in airborne cars, and take space-cruises to asteroids and far off planets. Politics continue benignly and poverty has no place. Political rank is preserved in the form of cheerful paternal talking heads, but the slave and servile ranks have been transformed into machines which cannot feel pain or humiliation. A wealthy, not too intelligent middle-class has inherited this astro-playground and keeps order among itself by switching from child to parent in an artificial recreation of the family and original clan system. The explanation for this apparent chronological march to perfection is 'progress'. Belief in 'progress' is the 'modern' state religion, shared by communist and capitalist alike. This is the religion that the West seeks to bring to the East that the United States takes as its holy war against the Muslim defenders of Arab sovereignty over oil who may still seek their reward in heaven, sublimating their rage in the arms of many virgins. It was Calvin who first unleashed the great God of progress, whereby the righteous were rewarded with power and wealth on earth. It was Darwin's thesis, but not Darwin's view, that was adapted to secularise this notion. The variables of population and resources and technology are constantly confused. An interpretation of the demographic transition by Ronald Lee relies on the idea that population growth forces the invention of new technology, although it doesn't say why population grows in the first place and has no predictive ability. There is a space and volume aspect to progress. Progress demands huge amounts of materials and fuel for technology and mass production. As these materials and fuel run out in one locality the progressive economy and its population must expand to locate and liberate them wherever they can be found. The factories of progress demand many workers and their products require many markets. To a point yet to be located, the more workers available, the more materials and fuel can be liberated, the more factories can be built to produce products. Population growth is required for this expansion and expansion would be impossible and pointless without this population growth which creates more markets for the products of progress. This is why we have, on the one hand, an ideology that suggests that overpopulation is a bad thing and another one that suggests that drops in population growth are reasons to panic. The two attitudes have become hopelessly confused by the 'benign demographic transition' which suggests that for industrial societies you must first have overpopulation in order to have populations stabilise at some optimum level. The problem is that wherever population has been inclined to stabilise the priests of growth economics do everything they can to drive population growth up, by promoting higher birth-rates through tax rebates and by promoting immigration because economic growth depends on population growth to drive consumption and to multiply transactions. In the ideology of progress, time is relative only to human aspirations. Einstein notwithstanding, time is goal directed. According to this perspective, we humans face forward and march onward to perfection, every day getting better and better, continuously improving. We are taught to regard the past and old people with contempt because the further away from now, the further away from the future you are, the closer to imperfection, to ignorance, to naivety, to 'inefficiency', to 'primitiveness' or an earlier stage of 'development'. Progress is not just an attractive option; we must have progress. We have no choice. Anyone who would stand in the way of progress stands in the way of wealth and human destiny and must be swept aside for … for …progress. So goes the circular argument. The media market 'Progress' and manage any little rebellions along the way. For instance, as human population growth drives competition for land it brings about ecological destruction and denies people access to familiar places and activities. These changes give rise to concerns over loss of sovereignty and outrage our sense of place. Our reactions to being boxed in and dictated to then tend to stick in the gears of the progress machine. These human limits to the machine of progress are a part of wider thermodynamic processes by which everything from landscape to metabolism simplifies and eventually loses its identity. Progress hastens this process of 'entropy'. The modern mainstream media has evolved as the mouthpiece of corporations. Indeed it has become inseparable from them. It is owned by them and it owns them. It is a collection of corporations with interests in just about everything. It is a collection of seats of power. Media corporations do not just sell TV programs and newspapers. They own and sell property, mines, materials, natural resources, technologies etc. Increasingly they own governments because politicians and governments depend on the mainstream media to deliver their campaigns to the electorates. The corporatised media does not deliver campaigns for politicians that do not do what it wants or who wish to reform it. Politicians who condemn the progress ideology are characterised as kooks by the mainstream media. This does not mean that they really are kooks, but perception is what matters and the media control perception. As limits begin to impose themselves in many different ways on this principle of endless human expansion and populations groan with resentment at being manipulated to serve economies, ideologies and spins must be found to keep the mob moving. In early 21st century Australia, aggressive, self-styled 'no-nonsense' stances set the tone for coercion, as in this manic article for the Brisbane Courrier Mail, Australia, entitled, "Damn 'em all". [Paul Syvret, 'Damn 'em all', 23 May Courrier Mail, Brisbane, Australia.] In it the writer is talking about the Queensland State government's attempts to force a new dam on a region in order to cope with a growing population's increasing demand for water. That the same government invited interstate immigrants to the region and caused the problem in the first place is glossed over. "…. The sky is falling. The end of the world is upon us. Our cities are too big, choked with gridlocked traffic and toxic fumes. …We're running out of energy resources, the greenhouse effect will end up frying us all and as the temperature rises we won't even have enough water to drink. …Fix it, but please, not in my backyard. Or, as the new acronym BANANA, build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything. … Tough." The writer acknowledges that there are scary problems. A stoic supporter of Progress, he doesn't protest at the costs; he volunteers for sacrifices. "Someone has to pay a price for progress. And I for one accept that living in a big, fast-growing city comes with noise, air pollution and, increasingly, higher-density living." Living in a big city is posed as an unquestionably desirable thing. In this way any challenge to the idea that population growth itself might be halted is pushed aside. Anyone who would not desire to live in a densely populated city is crazy, ungrateful, or unrealistic. The costs of supplying water are trivialised; at no time does the writer canvas anything more than the near future. At no time does he question the constant additions to the population. "…Now we are … looking at dams in catchment areas where occasionally water does still fall from the sky, such as the Mary River dam. Yes there will be communities hurt by this. Yes there might be a rare purple-striped eighteen-hyphen gilled trout … inconvenienced by… extra megalitres of water washing around. If you don't like it, come up with a viable alternative." By avoiding questioning the necessity or inevitability of population growth, the writer can use the arguments of conservationists against them by pretending that there is no choice. If there really were no choice then protest would indeed be unreasonable. He hints that more unpleasant decisions are in the wind: recycling of effluent, desalination plants, and nuclear power plants. We are expected to swallow a lot of s*** for Progress. The writer reviews the menu, as he sees it: "Recycling effluent? No, can't have that because, well, because it sounds yucky. Desalination plants? No, no, no … can't have them, they use too much energy. Ah, energy. There's a touchy subject. The tree-huggers don't like coal-fired power because the gases the power stations emit allegedly will cause global warming. But wait, we can't have nuclear power because before you can say Chernobyl we'll all be glowing more brightly in the dark than one of the mutant cannibals from the hills have eyes. Oh, and wind farms are out, too, because a lesser known pink-speckled migratory stuttering sea-albatross might inadvertently fly into a whirling turbine. Buggar. Solar is good, they say. Terrific. Try powering a city with solar panels, which one would think rely on massive amounts of energy in a nasty factory to be produced in the first place, probably using stuff made by a petrochemical plant for their components." The writer is correct to say that many who identify as part of "the Green movement" are energy, technology and population ignorant, believing that we can adjust to endless growth benignly. But the writer himself has no idea of the size of the problem. Most of his proposed solutions are not only finance and energy costly; they are also finite and their expiry dates are constantly brought forward with population growth. But we are assured that the Emperor really does have a wardrobe of new clothes. Granted they will be costly, but the outcome will be splendid: "…Three cheers to Prime Minister John Howard then for truly opening up the debate about nuclear power. Yes, it does work. Yes, its emissions are nothing like carbon-based power, and yes, it's reliable." In fact the cost of building conventional nuclear plants and the energy cost of processing nuclear and managing the products and bi-products are hugely fossil-fuel expensive and pollutant. They are not carbon neutral at all. They use halogenated compounds with climate change impacts many times that of carbon dioxide. In the same way that an internal combustion engine requires a car to be built around it and roads to run on, factories to build these, mines to find materials and economies of scale involving mass production, the nuclear power plant needs huge amounts of infrastructure, mines, chemicals, land, water and transport systems. But clearly Syvret believes that the new 'solutions' will be as elegant as the alternatives will be ugly and atavistic. "New transport corridors. New sources of energy and new water supplies. Go for it fellas, I'm happy my rates and taxes are going towards them. If you don't like it, leave. Go and find some drought ravaged shrubbery outside civilisation to live under, build a bicycle made of dead tree roots and make fire from the leftovers. … ." Needless to say, there are few places to run to due to 'development' and there isn't much firewood, due to land-clearing. We are captives of this 'Progress'. We cannot easily get free. And the writer of "Dam 'em all" wants to dig us in even deeper.

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Response to Roger Bezdek Peak Oil interview on "The National Interest"

Sun, 2007-06-24 15:47 by James Sinnamon
This was posted to ABC Radio National's "National Interest" on 24 June 2007. It concerned an , who is warning us that we need to prepare now for the inevitable inability of the oil industry to maintain supplies of oil sufficien to meet demand after the production of oil 'peaks' in the near future. His prediction that oil production will peak in 2020, whilst at variance with that of most in the oil industry, seem s remarkably optimistic to myslef who is expecting teh total global production to peak any day now. I can only hope that he is right. Nevertheless, even if he is right, his message did not seem to convey what I consider to be the necessary degree of urgency. Message insufficiently urgent I think, whilst Roger Bezdek's message, that we need to prepare well in advance for Peak Oil is a good one, I think we need to do so with a much greater sense of urgency. I am surprised that he dismissed the suggestion you put to him that we should cease forthwith the expansion of our road, bridge and airport infrastructure. Over-consumption and planned obsolescence wastes scarce petroleum We also have to grasp the fact now that the present high levels of consumption of petroleum-based consumer items, most of which end up in landfill after a matter of months (usually needlessly due to planned obsolescence), will be paid for in only a few more years time when we will not have enough petroleum and other non-renewable natural resources left to allow us to meet far more basic needs. When that happens we will then understand the stupidity of today's accepted practice of buying a new mobile phone, computer, or iPod every one or two years, or of building supposedly 'energy-efficent' refrigerators which turn into rusted pieces of junk after a mere five years. Raising oil prices alone not the answer Raising petrol prices alone, then leaving the rest to market forces cannot solve the problem. We have to be allowed through democratic processes to intervene to stop the 'free market's' needless waste of natural resources. Furthermore, it is important that the cost of preparing for Peak Oil be fairly shared amongst all sectors of society. It shouldn't be just the poor and disadvantaged who should be made to pay the price. How can we meet Peak Oil threat if population numbers go on increasing? The other obvious point is that the more consumers of petroleum products there are, the harder it will be to meet the challenge. The Australian Government's encouragement of record immigration (which according to Ross Gittins ( SMH, 13 June 07) is not the official 150,000, but in fact 300,000 ) is insane in these circumstances.

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