[Tanada]

Thanks for the overview of elements of the history of the last couple centuries. I couldn't glean from it where you thought what pendulum was swinging from what pole to what other pole, but then I tend to be a bit dense about these things.

By the way, as my comments above indicate, I tend to think that you are right when you say, "we are heading for an increasingly Authoritarian style of government"

I just don't think that there is anything totally deterministic about it. Events could change that trajectory, as could effective people's movements of various sorts.

And if there was some overriding basic human need for structure that was overwhelmingly more powerful than human needs for freedom, I can't quite see where the frequent rebellions and revolutions against said 'structure' throughout history would have come from.

As some philosopher or other once said, iirc, "Structure and lack of structure are equally lethal to the human spirit."

ROFL the Pendulum I was pointing out is the agricultural one. Without super cheap energy and chemicals we can not maintain the mechanical agriculture paradigm and many or even most people will have to go back to working in the fields to feed all of us. Modern Americans tend to sneer at the self sufficient farm, but in the real world wherever energy is expensive farming is what people do.

As part of that swing from excess free time today we will be back to seasonal free time like farmers had before industrial farming became the rule. My prediction, Farmers in 2200 AD will be like farmers from 1850 or earlier. Life for those living then will be structured around the seasons with planting tending and harvest just as it was for all of recorded history. The 50 percent of the current world population who produce 10 percent of the pollution are all small time subsistence farmers, or people in slums in the third world who have even fewer opportunities than the farmers. By Farmers I don't mean the owner-class who manage the labor of others exclusively, I mean the people who get dirty and sweaty actually working to produce the food of the region where they live. If you own a small farm and work with your employees to get things done you are a farmer. If you sit in an office all day 'managing' without ever getting out and doing something then you are at best someone who worked their way up from labor, but in many cases you are just a business type with little appreciation of the actual process of food production. I would bet Pops appreciates beef a lot more today than he did 30 years ago because he spent time raising cattle and learning the ins and outs.

[Ibon]

Pops, good post again. We differ in one way. The descent that proposes a painless path toward mitigation is an inherent catch22. We can't maintain the status quo of consumption and achieve the goals of mitigation of GW. It is not a catch22 in the survival of our species but it is a catch22 in maintaining BAU.

How severe the interplay between consequences and cultural resistance will eventually determine how much suffering we impose on ourselves. The amount of suffering external consequences imposes on us is another matter, one we do not fully know.

[Pops]

You are right on that my friend, no easy road fer sure.

I have faith in humans more than most here. We didn't get to this point as the sheep in the conceit of most doomers. But we definitely need a steady signal to keep us focused, otherwise we go wandering off into our little human-size world.

[Newfie]

Our biggest catch 22 is we now have Billions of people with nothing necessary to contribute to the culture. What will we do with all these excess people? Traditionally the Government would hire excess people and put them in hazardous jobs like marching off the war to get weeded out of the gene pool, but in a nuclear weapon era this option is to say the least, limited. Well no matter we have not prepared for Peak Oil or Climate Change so one or the other or both will soon put limits on food production. Congratulations humans, you did it to yourselves.

Tanda,

Excellent observations. My observation of what we have done to date is two fold.

First....we create Consumerisim, we get people to want more stuff so we make more stuff thereby making jobs. But we also want to be efficient so we make ways to make the make work consumption job more efficient or we off shore the jobs. Working against ourselves there.

Second...we create make work jobs, such as our incredibly inefficient medical care system, so that we have something for all these excess people to do.

Part of our Catch 22 is that we want to be both efficient and useful.

This enigma will resolve itself as we run out of ff and excess people. As you say, we will end up 1850ish farmers. In the meantime it is an interesting dynamic.

[dohboi]

Thanks for the clarification, T. Ibon was talking about 'swings in polarity' and that didn't seem to be exactly what you were talking about.

There is no question in my mind that we are indeed in a the midst of an energy 'swing' that effected now only ag, but all of industrial society. The Green BAU types want to say that we can keep on continuing on the energy excess up-swing indefinitely if we only just get all our energy from sun and wind.

I'm not against sun and wind, but at some point we have to realize that the earth just doesn't work well with an industrial society operating at this high-energy level--we just use it to tear up the earth one way or the other.

We've got go way, way down in our energy use. The US uses twice as much energy as Europeans and four times as much as Latin Americans. As pstarr (partly) rightly points out, some of this was locked into our infrastructure a while back. But there are lots of big and small things we can still do to vastly slash our energy use without radically reducing (and possibly in some cases actually increasing) or basic well being and feeling of happiness.

And I don't think it will take till 2200 (if we even make it that far) to take us back to 1850 (or much further). Of course, the future will never perfectly recapitulate the past. There will be all sorts of metal lying around--that can potentially be used in all sorts of way--that wasn't as available back 165 years ago, by and large.

Some brainy future farmer will probably come across some spent fuel rods and decide to hammer them into plowshares!!

[Tanada]

Thanks for the clarification, T. Ibon was talking about 'swings in polarity' and that didn't seem to be exactly what you were talking about.

There is no question in my mind that we are indeed in a the midst of an energy 'swing' that effected now only ag, but all of industrial society. The Green BAU types want to say that we can keep on continuing on the energy excess up-swing indefinitely if we only just get all our energy from sun and wind.

I'm not against sun and wind, but at some point we have to realize that the earth just doesn't work well with an industrial society operating at this high-energy level--we just use it to tear up the earth one way or the other.

We've got go way, way down in our energy use. The US uses twice as much energy as Europeans and four times as much as Latin Americans. As pstarr (partly) rightly points out, some of this was locked into our infrastructure a while back. But there are lots of big and small things we can still do to vastly slash our energy use without radically reducing (and possibly in some cases actually increasing) or basic well being and feeling of happiness.

And I don't think it will take till 2200 (if we even make it that far) to take us back to 1850 (or much further). Of course, the future will never perfectly recapitulate the past. There will be all sorts of metal lying around--that can potentially be used in all sorts of way--that wasn't as available back 165 years ago, by and large.

Some brainy future farmer will probably come across some spent fuel rods and decide to hammer them into plowshares!!

The polarity swings are all part of the process of human nature IMO. We tend to get all excited about a given subject, say graduated income taxes, and then we push them to the farthest extreme we can in our enthusiasm. Usually anywhere from hours to decades later we realize we pushed too far and start pulling back whatever it was and end up with the trend gaining speed as it approaches a reasonable condition to the point where it swing past reasonable on the opposite direction and hangs out over in that direction for a while.

The only things we seem to be able to get to stay in a healthy range are the things we change slowly and carefully, but at this point we are way past the 20 year transition window we needed for slow careful movement away from fossil fuels.

[onlooker]

Yes Tanada as per the Hirsch Report, which detailed that we needed to transition well before Peak to avoid hardships and that the closer we waited the more difficulties and hardships we would encounter. This report has been a kind of metric for those who advocate this position which would happen to be those who truly understand the significance of peak oil.

[dohboi]

I get the impression that Ibon is using the term 'polarity swings' in a way that is different from what T is talking about, but I'll let him straighten any confusion out if he wishes.

[jedrider]

I'm not against sun and wind, but at some point we have to realize that the earth just doesn't work well with an industrial society operating at this high-energy level--we just use it to tear up the earth one way or the other.

Prepare for impact! Our TECHNOLOGY has never let us down before.

Not really true, as civilizations have failed before.

[dohboi]

Nicely put. I think more and more people are realizing at some level that we are in freefall, and impact is imminent.

[Ibon]

I get the impression that Ibon is using the term 'polarity swings' in a way that is different from what T is talking about, but I'll let him straighten any confusion out if he wishes.

I think Tanada was referring to human nature of piling on a subject, it creates momentum one way then swings another. This is part of the dynamic that influences cycles. One of the reasons we get prediction wrong so often is that we project out strong momentum forward in a linear fashion and forget that cyclical forces are often at play that show up just when positions often peak.

I was focusing on the cycle of divisiveness vs consensus and suggesting that maybe the millennial generation when they come into political power will shift this rather extreme political polarity we see today and move toward more consensus. This could be strengthened by events that lower resiliency. A nation can pull together when there are physical events that shake the foundation.

After a hurricane the conservative republican will help his democrat neighbor pull the roof beam of his car, the atheist will help the evangelical free the dog stuck under the awning.

That brings to mind that maybe we are at Peak Individuality as well. That external events that undermine our physical infrastructure may work to unify our brotherhood toward one another.

Calamity breeds cooperation, brotherhood and compassion.

This is the exact opposite of the idea that human overshoot will result in resource wars and survival of the fittest.

When you want to preserve your individuality you will support hubris and resource wars. But when events shift the mind set of the collective toward consensus then the individual focus becomes less socially acceptable.

At peak affluence we see the Tyranny of the individual. As we go into decline we will begin to see the Tyranny of the Group holding you to another set of behaviors.

If you doubt what I am suggesting go to any poor developing country to a small town and watch the social dynamics at play. Or remember the USA for example 80 years ago and how powerful conformity was vs. today.

These are cycles that are not always tangibly measurable but have a profound affect on trends that are not predictable.

[Tanada]

I get the impression that Ibon is using the term 'polarity swings' in a way that is different from what T is talking about, but I'll let him straighten any confusion out if he wishes.

I think Tanada was referring to human nature of piling on a subject, it creates momentum one way then swings another. This is part of the dynamic that influences cycles. One of the reasons we get prediction wrong so often is that we project out strong momentum forward in a linear fashion and forget that cyclical forces are often at play that show up just when positions often peak.

I was focusing on the cycle of divisiveness vs consensus and suggesting that maybe the millennial generation when they come into political power will shift this rather extreme political polarity we see today and move toward more consensus. This could be strengthened by events that lower resiliency. A nation can pull together when there are physical events that shake the foundation.

After a hurricane the conservative republican will help his democrat neighbor pull the roof beam of his car, the atheist will help the evangelical free the dog stuck under the awning.

That brings to mind that maybe we are at Peak Individuality as well. That external events that undermine our physical infrastructure may work to unify our brotherhood toward one another.

Calamity breeds cooperation, brotherhood and compassion.

This is the exact opposite of the idea that human overshoot will result in resource wars and survival of the fittest.

When you want to preserve your individuality you will support hubris and resource wars. But when events shift the mind set of the collective toward consensus then the individual focus becomes less socially acceptable.

At peak affluence we see the Tyranny of the individual. As we go into decline we will begin to see the Tyranny of the Group holding you to another set of behaviors.

If you doubt what I am suggesting go to any poor developing country to a small town and watch the social dynamics at play. Or remember the USA for example 80 years ago and how powerful conformity was vs. today.

These are cycles that are not always tangibly measurable but have a profound affect on trends that are not predictable.

This is quite an interesting take on the subject Ibon and it brings something to my mind. The 'Roaring 20's' were about affluence and self centered me-ism followed by the Great Depression. In the first stages of the Depression and dust bowl when people tried to migrate to California and the big cities from the worst hit parts of the interior there was a great deal of name calling and refusal to help. Anyone moving to a big city from the countryside was liable to be labeled an 'Okie' and sneered at, though they did have access to soup kitchens and their children could be dropped off at orphanages for temporary housing/education if they were truly desperate.

The conflict between the desperate Americans trying to survive and the selfish minded civic leaders lasted for a decade, until around 1940. When the UK started ordering massive quantities of armaments from America suddenly there was good paying work in every industrial city and people started looking at their neighbors as neighbors and not competitors for the few jobs that had been available in 1938.

To parallel we have been stumbling through the Great Recession for years now, no matter how the books get cooked people know a lot of their neighbors are currently not working, or are working very part time compared to how things were in 2008. Hopefully when Peak Oil kicks in and we all need to adapt our culture to a very different paradigm the same sort of espit de corps will develop where we all pull together to solve the problem like we did in 1940.

[onlooker]

I have once again been reminded of this Catch 22 by a post by Pstarr that is the following "I am desperate to see peak oil merely recognized right now for what it is, a rather slow geologic/economic steamroller. Instead of waiting until it is in the rear view mirror. We certainly had had a million indications. We should be acting on it, and not a hypothetical abrupt climate change event that even IPCC thinks is highly unlikely. This has been my point of view laterly, and why I persist here in spite of the frustration and antagonism." In fairness this is a valid and thoughtful comment by someone who is knowledgeable about peak oil. I think though that Pstarr does not give enough credence or deference to AGW. My understandings are that AGW poses an even greater threat long term than peak oil and that in fact some semblance of that threat is already occurring with the unusual weather patterns we are seeing and the intense droughts, wildfires and flooding also evident. So this all highlights the Catch 22, that humanity confronts. Oil is needed to maintain some semblance of a civilization, on the other hand every bit more emitted as CO2 is compounding the greenhouse gas effect. So, people will rationalize this Catch in different ways and give different levels of importance to each of these dual threats. The fact remains, that they both are growing in stature as we speak and we will be forced to deal with both in the short term and even more in the longer term. How is the question?

[Timo]

Just a thought here that puts a slightly different light on the subjects being discussed, and for this, i'll have to put on my optimist hat. Yaba-daba-doo!! Yes, i do have one. I just can't find many opportunities to wear it.

My point, though, is this: While governments are moving along very slowly, far too slowly to mitigate the causes of AGW that were agreed upon in the Paris (I like that name!) agreements, governments are not the only players in the game. As much as we all hate to billionaire class, and the upper tenths of the top 1%, i'll have to admit that not all of them are bad. A few of them have some altruistic ideas about how to use their fortunes for the collective greater good.

For instance, i just read that 60% of the plastics in our oceans are originating from only 6 countries in Southeast Asia, all of them poor by western standards. In order to further the cause of cleaning up our oceans, it might make some capitalistic sense to pay people to be more responsible with their refuse, and even pay individuals for proper disposal of their refuse. That cash flow can then be used to offset the costs of retrofitting their homes with renewable energies, like solar. The solar industry benefits by gaining a new market for their products. The oceans benefit by the reductions of plastics being dumped into them, and the people in those countries benefit by #1, receiving a small stipend payment for proper disposal of their refuse, and #2, receiving a new source of clean, less expensive energy for their homes that wasn't previously available to them. Best of all, the governments of those countries can rely on the private sector to solve their problems of what to do with all of their garbage!

If anyone hasn't yet seen the solar hydrogen electrolyser developed by CNX Construction in Chiang Mai, Thailand, do the google and find it. You'll be amazed, i promise. At least i was, and i'm planning a trip to Bankok and Chiang Mai within the next year. I want to see the Phi Suae House for myself.

My greater point, though, is that, as hard as it is to grapple, private business does have a stake in the end-game, too. Not everything is dependent on governments to fix for us. I believe one of our own, Graeme, even went to work in the private sector to further this very good and just cause.

Keep the faith!

[onlooker]

Thanks for giving us a little sense of the how, Timo. Yes keep the faith.

[ennui2]

I think though that Pstarr does not give enough credence or deference to AGW.

No, and he should be mindful of that before attempting to push (in conjuction with Monte) a group-think interpretation to the point of wanting to run dissenters off on a rail for not agreeing with him.

[dohboi]

"it might make some capitalistic sense to pay people"

Since when does capitalism ever pay anybody unless someone else is making a bigger profit off of their labor?

It's not going to be capitalism that ever 'pays' anybody to do anything for the greater good. Capitalism isn't about the greater good.

I'm not saying that it isn't a potentially worthwhile project. But capitalism is generally not as a system going to consistently help moving things in the right direction; not without so much government or other intervention that it would be 'capitalism' in name only. /rant

[onlooker]

"Capitalism isn't about the greater good." Yep, it is about selfish greed.

[ennui2]

I challenge group think with kindess.

Shall I put that in my sig next, right underneath a list of every time you told me to fuck off?

If you want to be perceived as kind, then stop being so smug and sarcastic all the time. You are one step away from being a George Carlin standup comic in how you insert your little "haha" cynical joke after every post.

"I see gas is going up. Won't be long now until the suburbanites are burning their furniture and the trustifarians will be eating long pork. Haha!"

That really is not a far cry from how you come across most of the time. It may seem like I'm straw-manning you, but I'm not. That is totally accurate in reflecting the axe you have to grind. But the worst part is you DENY it. A while back you said you really had no beef with suburbanites. So there is this pattern where you say one thing and then don't seem to acknowledge that you said it or how that statement is filled with anger.

The pattern of your commentary is you want to see certain people suffer. The whiter they are, the richer they are, the farther into the suburbs they live, the more self-righteous they are, the more into gadgets and other trinkets of BAU, the more you want to see them "get what's coming to them". And you wonder why I think you might have bias that colors your analysis? It's sitting there as plain as day!

Now, if you were to just cop to that, fine. At least you'd have integrity. But you deny it. So that's the kind of thing that just makes me shake my head wondering what the heck is up with your brain wiring.

I posited an interesting theory: that perhaps our nutrient loading of the biosphere with our fossil fuel and agriculture pollutants (CO2, N, P, S, and K) may act as a brake.

You're walking back your statement now.

You got all cocky originally and claimed that Lovelock proved that the earth is totally self-healing and self-regulating. And you love to terminate your statements with some sort of humorous sarcasm or LOL "Praise Gaia!" where it's not even clear whether you're just yanking our chains or you really believe what you're saying.

When you want to be serious, be serious. Don't blend in your mockery/sarcasm in a true serious rebuttal. All it does is make you sound trollish, like you don't want to listen to the other side, just shrug it off.