[Graeme]

Sorry but that's not the case if you have been reading my posts carefully. My impression is that most members here have a preconceived notion that our situation is hopeless. I don't think so. The positive posts are not for "comfort"; they are real. My posts do counterbalance these negative views. Many people throughout the world are making positive changes during a transition that is unprecedented and extremely difficult. There is still along way to go. If you have paying attention, you would see that I have also posted articles that indicate a step backwards. I'm not going to get it right all the time but I will endeavor to oppose people who post lies like AGW denialists. I'm not posting to convert people to "my way of thinking". You have to make up your own mind. My posts are mainly news for what they are worth. I'm not going to waste time arguing with people whose minds will never change. As for this thread, it is becoming obvious that there is now finally only just recently a widespread shift away from FF and any attempt to resist this change by said industry is going to fail.

[ennui2]

My impression is that most members here have a preconceived notion that our situation is hopeless. I don't think so. The positive posts are not for "comfort"; they are real. My posts do counterbalance these negative views.

OK, now that I've got you typing on the keyboard rather than copy/pasting, let me ask you a few questions.

Have you read these books:

Overshoot
Limits to Growth
Eaarth
any of Lovelock's books

I couldn't even finish Eaarth it was too depressing, and that only featured datapoints of extreme weather events up to a few years ago. Things have gone even more off-the-rails since then.

The most recent news articles I've read about CO2 show that CO2 output globally is increasing, not decreasing. But you always seek to apply a positive spin and so you pluck any positive news story you can. But ecology is not local, Graeme. Small improvements here and there do not change the overall picture of human impact on the planet, something that is now increasingly being driven by India and China rather than the existing developed world. Plus, the scale of effort required to shift from FF to renewables, all the while with population increasing, India and China wanting to live our lifestyle, and the biosphere collapsing (and I am not even factoring in peak oil here) is so astronomical that I think it would be ludicrous to assume that we can completely get off FF. And even if we do, the transition would take so long that we'd collapse due to agricultural failures first.

So explain to me how you can maintain a reasonable prediction that we'll get out of this without a serious malthusian die-off. Something that doesn't just pluck out a nice-sounding bright spots like Tesla Model 3s and urban farming on empty lots.

[Graeme]

Yes, I'm well aware of those books. If they depress you, try reading some that are more positive like "Reinventing Fire" or "Natural Capitalism". I'm also aware that CO2 in atmosphere is increasing. Have you been reading posts in the "Global Warming / Climate Changes Pt. 13 (merged)" thread? It seems that we have about 15 years before AGW effects are disastrous at least economically. Sea level is going to rise slowly anyway even if we stop burning FF now. Also keep an eye on the "THE Deforestation Thread (merged)". At the moment, there are mixed results in this area. I have threads on the two biggest polluters: US and China. Both countries are making some progress toward reducing emissions but you're right more has to be done. We are getting off FF at the same time as RE is increasing - see "Renewable energy and economic growth" thread. Progress could be faster but I think It's not ludicrous that we can get very close to completely getting off FF. Some parts of the world are there already. Lets look again at this in ten years; I'm sure you'll notice a big difference in terms of RE growth. World population is predicted to continue to increase to 2100 according to the UN in spite of the localized "die-off" in west Africa. So overall if you continue to only focus on our short-comings and not on the counter moves, then you could be missing out on a prospective brighter future.

[ennui2]

Yes, I'm well aware of those books. If they depress you, try reading some that are more positive like "Reinventing Fire" or "Natural Capitalism".

Your books are prescriptive. The books I listed to you reflect a realism based on how human history has unfolded to-date. The stone age ending, dropping CFCs, and ending whale hunting for oil doesn't lead me to believe we'll have a sea-change in how we treat the planet. I also don't think it's a matter of shedding our civilization meme and reconnecting to our hunter-gatherer selves. The problem is systemic to the human condition, and probably all life itself (as evidenced by prior events where one species took over like azolla).

Also, the one common thread I see in assessing human nature is that despite our reasoning nature, we are unable to reach a universal consensus. Look at the gridlock in Washington, for instance. No matter where you look, you see people on opposite ideological sides, refusing to move to the center, kicking the cans of problems rather than joining together to solve them.

If we really are 15 years away from game-over (and in the end that's just a shot in the dark, just as 350PPM being "safe" was) then that should terrify the world. But it isn't. People are concerned with bendgate instead.

If we really wanted to turn things around, it's going to take something several orders of magnitude more dramatic than even a Manhatten Project program. It would probably mean the entire world coming to an almost complete stop. All economic activity besides raw essentials required to keep the lights on and food flowing would have to stop. In its place, every able-bodied person would have to dedicate a full-time effort to basically TERRAFORMING THE ENTIRE PLANET via permaculture "greening of the desert" style methods. Mind you, these efforts take years if not decades to mature, so you can't wait until the last minute to get busy. Any embodied structures that aren't built right (like roofs pointed the wrong direction) would need to be dismantled. Earthships and ultra-insulated homes would be the norm. If you took all 7+ billion people and put them to work this way, then we'd have a chance. And along the way, we'd have to dramatically curtail reproduction, and all the old folks who want to be waited on in their dotage would have to buck-up, get on their arthritic hips, and help out where they can, and shuffle off when they can't. If we saw something like that happening, I'd be optimistic, but anything less than that is shuffling the deck-chairs on the Titanic.

Instead, China is building subdivisions...

[dohboi]

But always remember to include a healthy dose of circus with that bread!

[ennui2]

It's cheaper to feed the masses on a high-glycemic, endorphin-producing grain diet then having to constantly subdue rebellion.

Even if there were a rebellion, it wouldn't accomplish anything. Just a lot of hungry people with no idea WHY they are hungry or what they could have done to stop it if they didn't do their part year over year to create the bottleneck in the first place. The Easter Island mentality, basically.

[Graeme]

We are getting rebellion: demonstrations in US (plus world), and wars in ME. Change one way or another it is coming whether we like it or not. Here's something surprising I saw overnight.

Amid Climate Change Backlash, Even Oil Companies Are Dumping ALEC Now

The fourth-largest U.S. oil and gas company revealed Friday that it is leaving the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) amid widespread backlash over the free-market lobbying group’s efforts to undermine clean energy and promote climate change denial.

In a letter to its investment manager obtained by National Journal, Occidental Petroleum said it has “no plans” to continue supporting the group. The company said it determined that there are “other associations at the state-level that provide equal or greater value” than ALEC. It also cited concerns that it could be “presumed to share the positions” of other ALEC members, like the American Petroleum Institute and the Chamber of Commerce, on climate change and EPA regulations.

Occidental’s revelation comes just a few days after a number of tech companies announced they would abandon ALEC, an exodus spearheaded by Google chairman Eric Schmidt last week. Schmidt, in an appearance on NPR’s Diane Rehm show, said the company’s decision to fund ALEC was a “mistake,” because the group spreads lies about global warming and “mak[es] the world a much worse place.”

“Everyone understands climate change is occurring and the people who oppose it are really hurting our children and our grandchildren and making the world a much worse place,” Schmidt said at the time. “And so we should not be aligned with such people — they’re just, they’re just literally lying.”

thinkprogress

[Graeme]

Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell Say Climate Change is Real, So Why Haven’t They Dumped ALEC?

When Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt recently called out the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) for “literally lying” about climate change and his company announced it would not renew its ALEC membership, it was just one of the conservative business lobby group’s latest—and loudest—setbacks.

Thanks to pressure from shareholders, unions and public interest organizations, more than 90 companies have severed ties with ALEC since 2012, according to the nonprofit Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), which tracks the secretive group’s activities on its ALEC Exposed website. The list of deserters comprises a veritable Who’s Who of U.S. business, including Amazon, Bank of America, Coca-Cola, General Electric, General Motors, IBM, Kraft, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Wal-Mart. And in the days following Schmidt’s denunciation of ALEC for “making the world a much worse place,” other Internet companies headed for the exits. Yahoo cancelled its membership, Facebook said it was unlikely it would renew next year, and Yelp divulged it was no longer a member.


ALEC also lost a few energy sector members over the last two years, notably ConocoPhillips, Entergy, Xcel Energy and, in the wake of Schmidt’s outburst, Occidental Petroleum. But roughly 30 fossil fuel companies and trade associations—including BP America, Chevron, Duke Energy, ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, Peabody Energy and Shell — are still steadfast supporters.

Two of the companies—ExxonMobil and Koch Industries—are so gung ho that they’ve been kicking in significantly more than the annual fee. ExxonMobil donated $942,500 to ALEC over the last decade, while Koch family foundations gave $747,000 between 2007 and 2012. On top of that, the oil and gas industry’s premier trade association, the American Petroleum Institute, contributed $88,000 between 2008 and 2010.

Given this support, it’s not surprising that ALEC’s sample bills would, among other things, impede government oversight on fracking, undermine regional cap-and-trade climate pacts and introduce climate misinformation in school curricula. Last year, according to CMD estimates, ALEC sponsored more than 75 energy bills in 34 states. Thirteen of those bills, if enacted, would have frozen, rolled back or repealed state standards requiring electric utilities to increase their use of renewable energy. Fortunately, all 13 went down in defeat.


Just a few weeks ago, Hone’s boss, Shell CEO Ben van Beurden, amplified his company’s position in an interview with the Washington Post. “Let me be very, very clear,” van Beurden said. “For us, climate change is real and it’s a threat that we want to act on. We’re not aligning with skeptics.”

If that’s the case, why is Shell—or BP, Chevron, Duke Energy and ExxonMobil, for that matter—still an ALEC member?

ecowatch

[Graeme]

Ending the oil age

In September 2014, the $860 million Rockefeller Foundation made an historic announcement. Timed to coincide with massive marches for climate action all over the world, the fund revealed it was going to divest from fossil fuels. Following in the footsteps of the World Council of Churches, the British Medical Association and Stanford University, the latest major institution to make such an announcement is also the most symbolic. Because the Rockefeller fortune owes its very existence to oil.

The Rockefeller story is also the story of the rise and fall of the first ‘oil major’. Standard Oil, founded by John D Rockefeller in 1870, soon came to control the burgeoning US oil industry, from extraction to refining to transportation to retail.

It built an unprecedented monopoly that ultimately became so publicly despised that the US government stepped in and broke it up – birthing Exxon, Mobil and Chevron, among others. But by then, Standard had already set the Western world on a path to oil dependence that we are still shackled to, chain-gang-style, today.

The forced break-up created the Rockefeller millions. A century later, those millions are being used to make a dramatic point: we are witnessing the beginning of the end of the oil age.


Transform or die

There is no doubt that we will witness the end of oil’s dominance over the coming decades. What speed and form that takes will depend on a host of actors. As the industry overshoots its limits in every direction and turmoil in the Middle East snowballs, the arguments for an immediate co-ordinated move away from oil dependence are overwhelming.

We need a managed and fair transition, not a massive oil shock which could plunge the already fuel-poor into further hardship and breed economic and social pandemonium. If today’s anti-oil social movements continue to strengthen, this could happen: through pressure from shareholders, the erosion of oil companies’ social licence, the physical disruption of operations by local resistance, the boom in renewable energy, and public pressure on governments to take more decisive climate action.

The oil majors will be forced to retreat, to shrink. Some will disappear completely. Perhaps there will be enough political will for states to step in and physically break them up, like Standard Oil. More likely in the short-term they will suffer painful economic shocks as their favourable terms of trade evaporate, dwindle rapidly as investors remove their capital to invest elsewhere, be asset-stripped by corporate raiders, and find themselves forced to transform or die, like so many obsolete industries before them.

However it happens, the oil majors will ultimately become oil minors, relinquishing their vice-like grip on the political process and making a much more diverse, decentralized and democratic energy future possible.

‘We will see the end of the oil companies in the rear-view mirror,’ predicts Big Oil’s long-term adversary James Marriott, who co-founded Platform over 30 years ago to monitor, expose, communicate and inspire creative resistance to the industry. ‘The last thing to disappear – like the smile on the Cheshire cat – will be the logos.’

James, who follows trends in the world of oil more than most, is feeling ‘immensely optimistic’ these days. ‘It’s obvious the oil industry is coming to an end. So what is the society we want to build in its wake?’

These seismic shifts bearing down on our civilization could spawn chaos. But if progressive social movements can seize the moment, then the end of the oil age could also be the end of a multitude of wrongs.

newint

[dohboi]

recent post by sidd over at neven's forums:

The cleverest people in fossil fuels have long since fled, headed for greener (pun intended) pastures. I see those that remain are a mixture of evil and incompetent. And some of the cleverest people are joining the vultures, already dismembering the carcasses of the weakest (coal, i'm looking at you.)

Comments?? ROCKDOC??

[ROCKMAN]

dohboi - I assume sidd spends his days with a very different group of oil patch hands then I do. First, I've seen very few leave the oil patch in my 4 decades. And the vast majority who did fell into incompetent category. Decades ago I worked for a manager who couldn't find oil/NG if his life depended upon it. Left the patch and bought into an auto transmission repair franchise. Really. I heard that eventually failed. Incompetence isn't going to allow you to survive $0.90/mcf and $10/bbl as us old farts still in the game have. Just a guess but from his statement I'll assume sidd doesn't know sh*t about the real oil patch. LOL.

The old farts like me are looking at their last rodeo and are thrilled at checking out during a high point. And the young farts are thrilled at having high starting salaries thrown at them. Of course, that thrill will be subdued with their first bust as it did for us old farts...more than once. LOL

And where does he get that "evil" BS from. We do little damage to the environment developing oil/NG compared to sidd and all the other fossil fuel consumers that pay us to provide that which they demand. He's being rather sanctimonious IMHO. But what consumers don't like to avoid the ugly truth? LOL.

And as far as the "ff industry battling clean energy" that title always makes me chuckle. Folks need tap into the real oil patch. Not once in 40 years have I heard a single cohort express any concern over competition from any clean energy alts. Not one... seriously. The reality is that it has zero relevance for us: clean energy isn't a competitor with us on any level. My "competition" is other oil patch companies and, to a greater extent, Mother Earth. So many folks are absolutely clueless to the reality of fossil fuel exploitation.

[dohboi]

I thought he may be talking out of his @$$ or perhaps wishful thinking...Thanks for the perspective.

On the last bit, I would assume that any such concern would expressed in the board rooms of the major companies, perhaps not conversations you would be privy to. But mostly alts have been too small to be of much concern, and certainly, except biofuels, they don't so far mostly compete directly with oil.

[ROCKMAN]

dohboi - Not that it's really much of a brag but I've sat in many board rooms over the years. I've held the portion of VP with a number of companies over the last 15 years. I just choose to sound like a grunt... makes blending in with the "common man" easier. LOL. I've also rubbed shoulders (and hunted, drank and flew in corporate jets) with some of the biggest movers and shakers in the oil patch. I've also worked for the last 5 years directly for a billionaire who has invested over $400 million of his family's money in my new company. The only time he has mentioned alts to me was bragging about the wind turbines and solar panels he had installed on the Caribbean island he bought several years ago. It's the first 100% alt powered island in the region. So beyond loving the technology for his own use he doesn't give a sh*t about competition from the alts. LOL.

I think folks are greatly mislead when they hear in blogs about the Koch's et al being anti-alt. And I suspect it might actually be intentional misdirection by some of those movers and shakers. But seriously just take my stand alone words and not what I claim that others feel: alt development as it exists today (and even if were to quadruple in the next several years) would have zero impact on my efforts. The economic slide we're experiencing and the demand destruction that has finally caught up has a huge negative impact on the entire oil patch compared to the rosiest alt brag. Put another way: when have you heard even the biggest alt proponent claim that fossil fuels lost any meaningful profit as a result of wind, solar, biofuels, etc? IOW how much of the decline in US motor fuel consumption has been the result of Prius sales compared to the spike of fuel costs due to $100+ per bbl oil? The brag from Team Alt is always about what will happen in the FUTURE... not what's happening TODAY.

Please don't take this wrong but one only needs to ignore the bumper ticker rants and stick with common sense. And remember these words come from the Rockman who would benefit from the public incorrectly understanding the reality out there. But it's OK for him to put the facts out there because no ignorant views of the situation aren't going to be changed by anything the he says. So no harm, no foul as far as the oil patch is concerned. LOL.

[dohboi]

Thanks again. I'm glad to hear you have done so well for yourself.

I have always (well, not always, but, you know) said that without high carbon taxes or some other such mechanism, alts will mostly serve to keep energy prices down the leading to more total energy use (the old Jeavons paradox, in a sense).

Which leads me to wonder if you have any concerns in boards rooms or elsewhere about concern about carbon taxes, or is everyone confident enough that any talk of taxes of just about any sort is so far off the table that it isn't worth worrying about?

[ROCKMAN]

dohboi -TAXES!!!! Hell yes...now you're talking!!! LOL. Everyone one in the oil patch was abuzz a few years anticipating the dreaded "windfall tax" discussion hitting the headlines. But it never materialized much to everyone's pleasant surprise. Thank goodness we had a Democrat POTUS then and a Democrat controlled Congress during most of that period. Repubs are so anti business...especially towards the oil patch. LOL.

Actually not much talk about taxes these days. The vast majority of conversations from the board room to the drill floor is focused on one question: Where the f*ck are we going to find good prospects to drill? Actually more profanity in the board rooms. Floor hands tend to focus on the next paycheck. Board members are focused on turning their stock options into $millions. I'm not kidding. Pubco management is keenly aware of the precarious position they are in. Not with a pubco these days but I've heard of some very nasty confrontations taking place on the executive floor. You stand in the way of making those options pay and they won't hesitate to cut your professional throat. That I have witnessed first hand. Some folks think that oil patch management is rough on them. Many don't have a clue as to how badly we abuse our own. Did you happen to notice several months ago the Top Dog at Shell Oil, an explorations, was replaced by refinery/marketing guy. Happened right after they took a $2 BILLION write down and announced they were abandoning all shale projects in the US?

Just one more reason I'm glad to be working for a private company. You won't be seeing many stories in the press but if oil prices stay low and stock prices continue to weaken there will be some major bloodletting at the top of the oil patch food chain.

[dohboi]

Thanks again for the privilege of a peak inside a world I will never know. Have you thought about a film script--maybe modern version of "There Will Be Blood"?

[ROCKMAN]

"Have you thought about a film script--maybe modern version of "There Will Be Blood"?" Perhaps but only after I retire...which probably will never happen. LOL. Folks in the oil patch, especially my owner, don't really care for the public to see our dirty laundry. especially the public companies.

[dohboi]

Good idea.

[ROCKMAN]

dohboi - I know this might sound a tad illogical but most in the oil patch have a great deal of resentment for attitudes of the public and the politicians towards the energy situation. We all know exactly how bad the situation is despite the Big Oil PR spin. We also know better then anyone else the difficulties of providing new energy sources. We resent them pissing away energy...even though we make a living providing them the energy. Not surprisingly most in the oil patch stand on the conservative side of the fence which also means we have a bit more empathy for our military folks. Which also means we greatly resent them being sacrificed over energy security issues. Issues that would be less critical if the country were more energy efficient. Again that might make sense. But the oil patch has never needed high oil/NG prices to function. All us old farts know exactly what high prices lead to because we've all been there once or twice: economic downturns which lead to price decreases which lead to a drilling slow down which leads to layoffs.

I mentioned it long ago: the oil patch would gladly give up the price spikes in exchange for avoiding price collapses.