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Page added on April 3, 2017
Kunstler: Musktopia Here We Come!
It ought to be sign of just how delusional the nation is these days that Elon Musk of Tesla and Space X is taken seriously. Musk continues to dangle his fantasy of travel to Mars before a country that can barely get its shit together on Planet Earth, and the Tesla car represents one of the main reasons for it — namely, that we’ll do anything to preserve, maintain, and defend our addiction to incessant and pointless motoring (and nothing to devise a saner living arrangement).
Even people with Ivy League educations believe that the electric car is a “solution” to our basic economic quandary, which is to keep all the accessories and furnishings of suburbia running at all costs in the face of problems with fossil fuels, especially climate change. First, understand how the Tesla car and electric motoring are bound up in our culture of virtue signaling, the main motivational feature of political correctness. Virtue signaling is a status acquisition racket. In this case, you get social brownie points for indicating that you’re on-board with “clean energy,” you’re “green,” “an environmentalist,” “Earth –friendly.” Ordinary schmoes can drive a Prius for their brownie points. But the Tesla driver gets all that and much more: the envy of the Prius drivers!
This is all horse shit, of course, because there’s nothing green or Earth-friendly about Tesla cars, or electric cars in general. Evidently, many Americans think these cars run on batteries. No they don’t. Not really. The battery is just a storage unit for electricity that comes from power plants that burn something, or from hydroelectric installations like Hoover Dam, with its problems of declining reservoir levels and aging re-bar concrete construction. A lot of what gets burned for electric power is coal. Connect the dots. Also consider the embedded energy that it takes to just manufacture the cars. That had to come from somewhere, too.
The Silicon Valley executive who drives a Tesla gets to feel good about him/her/zheself without doing anything to change him/her/zhe’s way of life. All it requires is the $101,500 entry price for the cheapest model. For many Silicon Valley execs, this might be walking-around money. For the masses of Flyover Deplorables that’s just another impossible dream in a growing list of dissolving comforts and conveniences.
In fact, the mass motoring paradigm in the USA is already failing not on the basis of what kind of fuel the car runs on but on the financing end. Americans are used to buying cars on installment loans and, as the middle class implosion continues, there are fewer and fewer Americans who qualify to borrow. The regular car industry (gasoline branch) has been trying to work around this reality for years by enabling sketchier loans for ever-sketchier customers — like, seven years for a used car. The borrower in such a deal is sure to be “underwater” with collateral (the car) that is close to worthless well before the loan can be extinguished. We’re beginning to see the fruits of this racket just now, as these longer-termed loans start to age out. On top of that, a lot of these janky loans were bundled into tradable securities just like the janky mortgage loans that set off the banking fiasco of 2008. Wait for that to blow.
What much of America refuses to consider in the face of all this is that there’s another way to inhabit the landscape: walkable neighborhoods, towns, and cities with some kind of public transit. Some Millennials gravitate to places designed along these lines because they grew up in the ‘burbs and they know full well the social nullity induced there. But the rest of America is still committed to the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world: suburban living. And tragically, of course, we’re kind of stuck with all that “infrastructure” for daily life. It’s already built out! Part of Donald Trump’s appeal was his promise to keep its furnishings in working order.
All of this remains to be sorted out. The political disorder currently roiling America is there because the contradictions in our national life have become so starkly obvious, and the first thing to crack is the political consensus that allows business-as-usual to keep chugging along. The political turmoil will only accelerate the accompanying economic turmoil that drives it in a self-reinforcing feedback loop. That dynamic has a long way to go before any of these issues resolved satisfactorily.
43 Comments on "Kunstler: Musktopia Here We Come!"
Hello on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 9:30 am
Poor James. The world just isn’t going the way he would like it to.
Midnight Oil on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 10:26 am
Boy, can’t wait for a USED Elon Telsa goes on the market! Wonder how much it will fetch for in the aftermarket once the battery Pak is fried. I know the Nissan Leaf can be had cheaply after 4-5 years….no one wants to touch these electric toys.
As far as space travel? As long as we can put it on Uncle Sam’s unlimited Credit,why not? All Elon needs to do is promote it as part of National DEFENSE.
We need that more that funding social programs that help average American families.
twocats on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 10:39 am
“virtue signaling” – love it. spot on. people who can afford to own teslas are typically so enmeshed in the matrix they can’t even conceive of what it would take to actually reconfigure our societies to MORE sustainable level. it also doesn’t help that we’ve overshot so badly on so many levels/ecosystems that its probably better to remain in cognitive dissonance and re-up on the tesla lease.
Davy on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 10:53 am
My thoughts exactly on the delusional so called educated class. The mostly liberal and lefty that think their shit smells sweet becuase they drive green. They perfume their shit with bargaining strategies that they can fly to an environmental conference and still be green. They can feel socially and morally superior becuase they are the priveledge with the opportunities to perfume their shit.
On the other hand there is the deplorable skydaddy believing dirties who deny science except when it means better performance for their car or gun. These Cheeto loving guys could give a shit about moral superiority. They are just being natural. They like dirty becuase that is what daddy did back in the good old days. It worked then and daddy Trump is bringing those days back again now that the “nig” is gone.
I can’t decide what I dislike more perfumed shit or natural BO. I will say at least the lefty liberal rats are doing something even if the “that” is a lost cause and is hipocritical and revolves around being stuck up assholes
Really “we” (including me) are all just a waste of time anymore. We are dead me walking into the guantlet of death pretending we are special creatures on a journey of manifest destiny.
Hawkcreek on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 11:07 am
What a downer. Tesla is just a scam to gather in subsidies and suckers in the market. If someone wants to go green, get a good burro. They can haul your camping gear while you are on “The Road”.
efarmer on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 11:42 am
Well, Elon is just an inspiration to us who would like to be really cool, while we are still alive. I am often glad I am not Jim and have to have people read about how snafu everything is to make a living. I guess some of us get to be cool while we are alive, and all of us get to be cool thereafter…
Outcast_Searcher on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 11:53 am
As overhyped as Tesla is, at least Musk is actually building something.
Even if the stock is way overpriced (and we won’t know until we see how the Model 3 pans out over the remainder of the decade, and yes, I know that a LOT can go wrong on scheduling, volume, problems, etc), his innovation is helping push the EV into a practical reality.
(Even stodgy GM has a decent performing EV now with the Bolt, in answer to the Tesla threat).
What has Kunstler done? Decades of false doom like “Y2K is real. Y2K will rock your world”. While in reality he was selling lots of Y2K false doom crap for outsized profits. Great work poaching on peoples fears if you can get it.
So why should anyone believe him? Oh yeah, doomers will listen to any doom story; credibility doesn’t matter. Thus how they love to cite the almost always wrong Zerohedge, despite their track record.
Davy on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 12:11 pm
“Oh yeah, doomers will listen to any doom story; credibility doesn’t matter.”
Now, Now Outcast, you are showing your emotions. Maybe it is you who will listen to any hopium without credibility.
“Thus how they love to cite the almost always wrong Zerohedge, despite their track record.”
Got anything to back that up outcast? Your one line opinion doesn’t mean shit around here. Show some hard evidence. I think that statement is more of your emotions showing. Zerohedge has been very accurate on many levels. You like fake news is what you are saying. Fake news supports your world view that is crumbling. Zerohedge is part of the disturbance to your “hopium”.
Apneaman on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 12:25 pm
Outcast is afflicted with an incurable case of Technophilia. He always gets emotional when his god is criticized. Love will do dat. As per usual he makes claims and accusations, but provides no links/quotes for them. Never. It’s that false memory thing methinks. This is why links with quotes are necessary for anyone who wishes to be taken seriously.
https://www.verywell.com/what-is-a-false-memory-2795193
Jerry McManus on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 1:03 pm
JHK is in fine form, we need many more just like him.
I am all for trying to knock some sense into all those “virtue signaling” idiots out there short stroking their techno fantasies of “renewable” bliss in everyone’s face (or at least everyone with their faces glued to a flat screen of any description).
Even if it takes a two-by-four to pry their heads out of their prius.
Meanwhile the thermodynamic reality of our global ecological overshoot slowly crushes the life out of industrial civilization.
Just as it has done for going on 40 years now. If that’s what you call “doom” then I say call it like it is.
Plantagenet on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 1:09 pm
Its safe and easy for Kunstler to bash the US for having a car culture while ignoring the fact that China and most other countries around the world are striving to duplicate the US car culture. Even New Delhi, Mexico City, Cairo and Nairobi traffic jams now.
This isn’t a US problem—this is a GLOBAL problem.
Cheers!
Anonymouse on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 1:34 pm
I bet the ‘obama administration’ is somehow to blame for traffic congestion in Nairobi, right retard?
Do you even know where any of those places are plantytard? I sure you know Mexico City is vaguely ‘south’ somewhere. The rest, likely couldn’t locate em if your life depended on it.
Anonymouse on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 1:50 pm
Musk has exactly one, profitable venture to his credit. Selling his interest in pay-pal. He actually made money on that. His EV venture, like all uS car corps, is kept afloat thanks to the generosity of uS corporate welfare. None of his post-pay ventures have actually been profitable, even with subsidies.
His ‘other’ venture, is just as dodgy. His so-called ‘space-X’ boondoggle, also would not exist w/o the uS taxpayer(gov) backstopping it. Which makes one wonder, what exactly is it that musk brings to the table that the NASA and the entire uS mil-ind complex cant? Actually, all three groups are in trouble. The uS seems to have a lot of trouble managing complex projects competently these days, regardless of who or what is spearheading them. Maybe thats why they uS wants to go to war with Russia so badly. They figure after they ‘win’, they can force a new generation of (Russian this time) rocket scientists and engineers to work for uncle sam.
Its a testament to amerikan naivety and stupidity that so many believe Musk can get to Mars when he can barely make it to LOE consistently with his simple rockets. The entire uS mil-ind\NASA team, can only do slightly better than musks shoe-string efforts. And only then with Russian rocket engines doing heavy lifting, literally.
Apneaman on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 1:51 pm
Planty, the name of Kuntsler’s site is clusterfuck nation. Clusterfuck nation being America. So he is following his stated mandate. An American social critic writing about America. Who woulda thunk it?
Why don’t you catch another of your cross planet flights to some dopamine drip vacation destination, come back here, tell us about it then in the same breath blame AGW on Obama. Fuck are you ever one stunned cunt.
Plantagenet on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 2:09 pm
@ Apneaman
Your potty mouth is overflowing. Please flush twice—that was quite a load in that post.
Cheers!
BobInget on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 2:10 pm
I’ll bet most readers here have at least one battery operated drill, impact screw driver or portable, wireless hand-tool. If you bought the first Makita
screwdriver as did I in 1980 you paid more for that tool
then the latest 20 Amp impact version. Now, add up all the hours saved over the years… Think of all the tiny bit of electrical energy used as opposed to muscle.
Note how many dozen copies of that invention have come to market.
#2
I recharge all our batteries; freezer, fridge, tools, car with solar. I heat 80% of our water by sun power alone,
the other with two used PV panels.
#3 I’m not sure you all are aware. There exists an entire market for used Tesla/Prius/Leaf/etc batteries (from damaged cars) I’m looking for a set myself to build our own ‘power wall’.
#Wind-power, now cheaper then coal.
Elon Musk, the first in history of the world to reuse a rocket engine, thereby saving millions in sat launches.
My/your first (battery lap top) cost twice as much as my most recent purchase with easily five times the speed storage, half the pounds.
Oh I forgot, while all here must be using computers,
half spend hours bashing tech.
Don’t know bout you but I’m amused.
Old man bob
Plantagenet on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 2:25 pm
@Old man Bob
There is nothing wrong with technology—-as long as it is intelligently applied and used.
The question here is whether the US should be allocating billions to developing $40,000-$100,000 EVs for the wealthy, or if we should instead be using our limited resources to enhance rapid transit, high speed intercity rail, and similar infrastructure that would help reduce our carbon emissions.
Cheers!
Davy on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 2:35 pm
bob, I bash tech porn. You have a tech porn addiction. Nothing wrong with tech per say in and of itself but tech porn is a lie. Tech porn is a dope thrill. It is pretending and fantasy. We are stuck with tech but what we can eliminate is the lies. The lies that say tech is green and gives us a future. It is your generation that embraced the tech future we have today of planetary death. It is you green tech of today that is a false savior. If you were really green Bob you would not fly or drive. You been to Nicaragua lately?
asg70 on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 2:41 pm
People don’t like public transit. They like to get from where they are to where they want to go, when they want to go there.
The answer to that isn’t necessarily personal autos, it’s automated car-sharing, something Tesla is definitely planning to be a part of, and something Kunstler can’t factor in because he’s nostalgic for a pre-1950s streetcar utopia.
Plantagenet on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 2:42 pm
I suggest that all the people who say they never ride in a car or an airplane also wear hair shirts.
The hair shirt is the traditional mark of the saint. Let all the saints who emit no carbon don the hair shirt as a sign of their holiness, and as a way to mortify their flesh to bring them closer to god.
Cheers!
Plantagenet on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 2:45 pm
@asg70
Automated car sharing? You mean robot taxi drivers?
Sooooo—when do you think that science fiction fantasy will become a reality?
Cheers!
Mark on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 3:41 pm
Conventional autos are becoming unfordable to general public, much less pricey EV’s
Even if the cost issue is solved, what a about the infrastructure issue plaguing us with cars? (roads and bridges falling apart) Massive traffic issues?
Dooma on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 5:13 pm
Am I doing the unthinkable?
I have a budget of $10,000 cash for a replacement car. According to being a consumer, I should use it as a deposit for a $30,000 car.
That is what most people in my or any Western country would do.
Cloggie on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 5:21 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl5gtViY4Yk
Civil war scenes from Paris. Soon the liberation of Europe will begin and the break away from the Anglo empire. We are not going to let ourselves being turned into a third world country.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jUZpl32NxU
Meanwhile Theresa May rules out war with Spain over Gibraltar. Got that, Madrid?
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/theresa-rules-out-war-spain-10149693
Furthermore pictures from the perpetrators of the Petersburg bombing have surfaced. Won’t be long before they will be identified. No doubt it will turn out to be Islamists, making themselves ever more impossible in Europe.
Cloggie on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 5:25 pm
America and Turkey on collision course over Kurdistan:
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/washingtons-syria-partition-will-splinter-nato/ri19406
America preparing of being thrown out of Incirlik-Turkey.
The break between Turkey and the West is almost inevitable.
Davy on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 5:28 pm
Dooma, it depends on different variables and debt worrying should not be the primary concern. What is your car use? Why do you need a vehicle? Are you a commuter or an occasional user? Are you doing local driving or distance? Are you environmentally conscious? Search the deals and the low financing. New many be a better value. How long are you going to keep it? When are you going to flip it? If you are a professional like a plumber or electrician you will need a vehicle that offers technical capacities. I find people on this site are overly debt conscious primarily because they equate generalized debt problems with any debt. If you buy right and apply debt properly you are using a tool. I have debt but my overall positon is positive net worth. Restricting your purchase because you are worried about debt means you will narrow your options and may buy a vehicle that ends up costing you more money.
Cloggie on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 5:29 pm
Petersburg suspect picture:
http://tinyurl.com/m5lu5yr
Although Finland is at a “stone throw” from Finland, this chap doesn’t look very Finnish to me.
Apneaman on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 7:10 pm
Hair clog, buckle your chin strap…..
1m African migrants may be en route to Europe, says former UK envoy
Warning comes as EU struggles to stem the flow of migrants through the Mediterranean and deal with appalling conditions in detention camps
“As many as one million migrants are already on the way to Libya and Europe from countries across Africa, the former head of the British embassy in Benghazi has warned.
The warning by Joe Walker-Cousins, head of the UK’s Libya mission between 2012 and 2014 comes as European governments struggle to find a response to the flow of migrants from the Mediterranean, and the appalling conditions in detention camps run by traffickers or the Libyan government.
More than 590 migrants have drowned on the central Mediterranean route in the first three months of this year, and the overall number reaching Italy from Libya has risen. The International Organisation for Migration estimates 21,900 refugees reached Italy in the first three months of this year, up from 14,500 last year.
A total of 181,000 refugees reached Italy from Libya last year, and with little sign of an effective unity government being formed in Libya to combat the militia-organised trafficking, mainstream European politicians are facing a massive challenge.”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/02/1m-african-migrants-may-be-en-route-to-europe-says-former-uk-envoy
If it makes you feel any better take consolation in knowing it will be much worse for me someday when I get over run by the hoards of inbred mouth breeders from the south – white Americans.
O sweet Geebus save me!
P.S. U B going down first……..bahahahahahahahahahah
Apneaman on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 7:13 pm
Planty, a hair shirt is fuck all. I wear a hair condom……all day, every day…………….. and I like it.
Apneaman on Mon, 3rd Apr 2017 7:28 pm
Last Roll of the Dice
“In any case, the most important condition for reproduction is the accumulation of resources necessary to build a replica.”
“There is a natural “greed” built into life that is difficult or impossible to temper in that the dissipative organism must obtain an excess or profit to reproduce successfully, and for the most part all of its behaviors and forms are built around that necessity.”
“Just as organisms gather profit maximally and reproduce maximally, not because they want to, but because they’re programmed to do so, so too does the human in technological society strive to be wealthier and take market share from their perceived competition without any limitations.”
“The rational brain has evolved so as not to question the desires and motivations of the limbic brain and reward systems.”
“Humans have leveraged their ability to be successful predators through the use of technological tools and fossil fuel energy but fail to realize that they consume their own body just as a cellular cancer consumes its own body.”
“Human civilization is a cancer which grows within the tissues of the ecosystem. It eats, it grows, it kills and its over.”
“But go about your business, enjoy your last days, you’re a winner in life, and that’s all that counts in the realm of competing dissipative structures. Make your last roll of the dice. ”
http://megacancer.com/2017/04/03/last-roll-of-the-dice/
Dooma on Tue, 4th Apr 2017 1:28 am
Davy, I travel 140km or 87 miles a day. So fuel economy is paramount. I am faced with the choice of buying a car that has done a fair few miles and can do many more. Something that has already taken a beating in depreciation.
Or do I buy a low mile example and then add a heap to it and wear some depreciation
Apart from excellent milage I want 6 airbags, cruise control and stability control.
GregT on Tue, 4th Apr 2017 1:45 am
Plantocrite,
“The question here is whether the US should be allocating billions to developing $40,000-$100,000 EVs for the wealthy, or if we should instead be using our limited resources to enhance rapid transit, high speed intercity rail, and similar infrastructure that would help reduce our carbon emissions.”
The real question here is, are you willing to do your part voluntarily? Or do you need Obama to pass legislation to force you to reduce your personal carbon emissions?
Hypocrite.
makati1 on Tue, 4th Apr 2017 1:54 am
Dooma, I owned only two new cars in my lifetime and the most expensive one was a lemon. There is no guarantee that a new car is more reliable than an old one. Most of the ones I bought had at least 50,000 miles and one had 100,000. The 100,000 mile one ran until about 250,00 miles when the engine finally used more oil than gas. I drove used cars for most of the 50 years I owned one. I never regretted the decision.
Only you can decide whether to pay the ‘drive it off the new car lot’ premium or not. I would suggest that you do the math. Gas savings vs total cost difference. THEN make your decision.
Cloggie on Tue, 4th Apr 2017 3:27 am
Apneaman represent the Western loony left best:
http://www.geenstijl.nl/archives/images/islamforgaysenviceversa.png
Apneaman is the ugly face of the US empire (before last November), although he will vehemently deny it, the inbread liar that he is. Apneaman, that’s George Soros, that’s Hillary Clinton, that is climate change as a pretext for anti-white genocide. Apneaman is the intended death of white civilization through mass migration. Apneaman that’s hard core nihilism that wants to commit global suicide. Apneaman that’s strangulation sex (in his feverish lonely imagination). Apneaman is the quint-essential NWO freak with tattoos all over and piercings.
Go Speed Racer on Tue, 4th Apr 2017 3:32 am
You want a car worth buyingl worth driving?
Then get this one:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1979-Lincoln-Continental-Mark-V-Collector-Series-Only-42-561-Actual-Miles-/332173302526?hash=item4d57125afe:g:YaQAAOSw2gxYpz5z&vxp=mtr
Was already manufactured, so already good for the environment.
Theedrich on Tue, 4th Apr 2017 4:55 am
The Mars-colonization fantasy is stupefying. Anyone who knows anything about the distance to that planet, and the conditions on it, also knows that terraforming it is religious quackery, invented by tech-company people seeking more tax money for their scams. If any politicians vote for it, it will be only because they are themselves being bribed to perpetrate the theft. Naturally, the clueless masses who believe in Star Wars fiction will swallow anything — until they end up impoverished in the gutter.
As the globe proceeds toward the cliff, we can probably expect ever more harebrained schemes to be propagandized to the gullible masses. After all, escapism is one of the main functions of religion, and America has always been more religious than other nations of the West. The opioid epidemic is a natural outcome of this “give me your poor, your sludge…,” etc. escapism. Denial — Kübler-Ross’s first stage of grief — is the permanent psychosis of America.
Davy on Tue, 4th Apr 2017 5:19 am
Dooma, car purchases are about taste and always a gamble. The equation is messy because of emotions and technicals. That is significant mileage and if your employment and income are stable you may want to go new and keep it the full life cycle. Utilize low financing, warranty, and residual value. Trade it out at an optimum point. Watch closely the reliability once warranty is out. Does your enjoyment matter? You may want to consider all that time in a car as offering you an opportunity to increase your satisfaction. If you don’t like debt take a chance on a used one. Sure there is the price depreciation when you take it off the lot but there is also the lemon hidden in that used one that has been price depreciated. One major failure can set you back with ownership value. I recommend used for anyone who is not a daily user. I don’t use a vehicles daily. I drive once a week or so to town for supplies. I have a used 2002 Toyota Tacoma with 200K miles.
Cloggie on Tue, 4th Apr 2017 5:31 am
While Star-trek is a fantasy, space exploration is, or was rather, a reality.
If we can’t have perpetual growth, can we please at least have a moon base, just to break the monotony of the eternal eat-and-sh*t cycle and turn our two-dimensional outlook on life into something three dimensional? Please?
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2015/10/28/vostochny-cosmodrome/
European space shuttle by 2019:
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2015/02/11/flawless-first-flight-european-space-plane/
joe on Tue, 4th Apr 2017 9:24 am
The real money in the future of electric cars will be in batteries and software. The car itself is just a shell with a simple electric motor you can build at home with copper wire. The tech is more than 100 years old!
Its only viable now because theres enough energy and money cause of oil and fiat currency. If either goes, so does the future of green tech. Personally i would prefer if fiat currency went, id like to at least turn on a light at night.
efarmer on Tue, 4th Apr 2017 11:01 am
If the real money in the future of cars is in batteries and software (energy storage and digital efficiency and saftety plays) I suppose the real future of food is in tupperware and portion control. The motors are not simple wound up things http://www.yasamotors.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/YASA-750-Product-Sheet.pdf is a data sheet for an example. A 200KW motor with 700KW peak at 700VDC input is not a trivial contrivance like something out of a washing machine.
efarnmer on Tue, 4th Apr 2017 11:05 am
Errata, I meant 100KW motor with 200KW peak at 700VDC. A horsepower is 746 watts, so 200KW peak is a peak of 268 horsepower.
Cody on Tue, 4th Apr 2017 12:10 pm
If we’re going to make a successful transition to a sustainable economy it’s going to take a lot of things.
Kunstler is right that green “virtue signaling” isn’t going to get the job done.
Sitting on the sidelines criticizing isn’t going to do it either.
We’re going to need the more affordable Tesla Model 3 and Chevy Bolt and more so regular people can afford an EV.
We’re going to need more solar and wind so we aren’t just charging batteries with coal. Hydro, Nuclear, Geothermal, and maybe tidal too. And energy storage because some of these sources are intermittent.
We’ll need:
* More walkable cities and towns
* More public transit
* Energy efficiency
* Sustainable food systems
* Changes in our disposable consumerist expectations. (Buy a new widget every 1 or 2 years and throw the old widget in the closet or trash)
I expect we’ll need geo-engineering too, with the amount of C02 in the atmosphere today.
Uncritical techno-optimism will not get us there, but returning to ancient practices isn’t going to support 7 billion people. The solutions will be a mix of high tech and low tech, and we need to collect data and use that evidence to see what works and what doesn’t.
I’m not sure how this is all going to come about. A lot of people like business as usual; a lot of others want change but don’t know where to start.
So I say congrats to Elon Musk for tackling a few of these problems and actually doing something. It’s not perfect but it moves us forward and we can learn from the efforts so far. If his companies can pull in some government subsidies I don’t mind too much, I’d prefer it to some of the more counterproductive subsidies.
In the United States the current administration is obviously not going to lead the transition to sustainability. So I’m putting some hope in green companies that help us transition while making money.
Davy on Tue, 4th Apr 2017 1:36 pm
“If we’re going to make a successful transition to a sustainable economy it’s going to take a lot of things.”
Cody, we are not going to be successful. To get to successful means a die off which is not successful. Nothing is possible until populations drop drastically. A die-off is a necessary failure for a civilization built on lies and fantasy. Sustainable and economy are incongruous juxtapositions. Nature does not mix with the human economy nor does the true value of what is human. Our true nature was pre-modern. Since this is a process over time and with a quality of being adaptive and self-organizing, we can orientate to this new collapse reality with proper wisdom but we can’t make the bad into good. It is our human nature to solve problems but predicaments have no solutions. We can live and die through this existential predicament in a better way but that is the best we can do.
“Uncritical techno-optimism will not get us there, but returning to ancient practices isn’t going to support 7 billion people. The solutions will be a mix of high tech and low tech, and we need to collect data and use that evidence to see what works and what doesn’t.”
I am hip to that but the problem is today the data collection is coopted by the profit motive and ideology. The commons are not protected and social equity is never a real priority. Mixing high and low tech and old world with modern is a good strategy if it is applied as lifeboats and hospices. Since the status quo is alive and well the social narrative remains intact. This narrative is of techno progress and increasing affluence along with an afterthought of sustainable development for the poor. For any of this to make sense in the status quo there must be a profit motive. This status quo meme is hit hitting limits and diminishing returns making the narrative increasing hollow. Moral hazard of corruption and manipulation is more the governing paradigm these days. Once a real crisis is in full swing then and only then can meaningful policy both at the individual and social level be possible. Until then it will be more of the same with fancy talk of change. The unfortunate situation is it will likely be too late by the time we have a crisis. Modernism will collapse fairly swiftly making adaptation difficult.
“So I say congrats to Elon Musk for tackling a few of these problems and actually doing something.”
Like I said the failed social narrative is alive and well. Elon is a robber baron that is held up as an icon by a delusional civilization. He is an example of what is wrong.