Jim Manzi, with whom I have debated warming policy responses before, has a problem with The Washington Post's coverage of new studies on climate change. He writes:
The premise of the story by Juliet Eilperin is well-expressed by its headline: "Carbon Output Must Near Zero To Avert Danger, New Studies Say". Eilperin prominently quotes Carnegie Institution senior scientist Ken Caldeira, co-author of one of the studies promoted by the article, who says: "The question is, what if we don't want the Earth to warm anymore?" Well, that's a question, but it's certainly not the question, and is not even a very good question. I think a much better question might be something like "What are the costs versus benefits of reducing emissions to avoid warming?"
The article never addresses this question, and instead elides between a battery of technical experts asserting that carbon emissions create problems, and interested political actors saying "common sense is that we would not let the planet be destroyed".
What's so funny is that Eilperin never seems to be willing do the work to pick up the trail of breadcrumbs that all her interviewees leave behind them. She writes that "Most scientists warn that a temperature rise of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) could have serious consequences." Really -- how serious? Well, according to the U.N. IPCC a 4C increase -- twice this amount -- would reduce global economic output by 1 to 5 percent. Oh yeah, that's in the world of the 22nd century which is expected to have per capita consumption of something like $40,000 per year versus our current consumption of about $6,600 per year. So we are condemning future generations to be only 5.7 times richer than us, rather than 6 times richer.
Now, the intergenerational questions are difficult ones to answer. The bottom line is, most of us living today will experience some bad warming effects, but those effects will pale next to what future generations will face. The question then becomes, how much should we care about those living 100 years from now? What about 500 years from now?
So, it's quite possible that the consumption loss from warming to those living in 2100 might not be all that significant. But it strikes me as odd that Jim doesn't appear concerned about the emissions impact of a world with per capita consumption seven times larger than at present, under a non-demand reduction scenario. Is it all good for our richer great-grandchildren to have a slight consumption loss to warming if their great-grandchildren inherit an uninhabitable planet? It would be a bit more honest for him to say that, look, he doesn't want to tax himself to cut down on carbon because the people living in 200 years will be so stinking rich that they can handle anything, up to and including a planet that cannot support life as we know it.
The only way Manzi's point of view is at all important is if emissions reduction measures are costly. Maybe they are. I suspect they're far less costly than he believes. The problem is, we won't know until we create some mechanism for pricing carbon. I've said this before, and I'll say it again: we know that carbon emissions generate negative outcomes for society as a whole. We know that people will therefore emit way too much carbon unless they are exposed, at least a little bit, to the price of carbon in their daily consumption activities. Arguing that consumers should not be exposed to carbon costs at all is tantamount to declaring oneself a warming skeptic. It's silly to pretend there is a problem, or to argue that research subsidies are needed, while simultaneously saying that consumers should be entirely immunized from the carbon content of consumption choices.
Markets are incredibly good at optimizing given constraints. In order to get those markets optimizing in a carbonless fashion, there have to be price signals. Jim Manzi doesn't think there should be any carbon price signals. This is because he thinks the market response will be too costly. Of course, if the market response is too costly, we could get rid of the price signals and try something different. Jim Manzi thinks that we won't get rid of the price signals if they're too costly, because it's hard to get rid of taxes, despite the fact that everyone will want very much to get rid of them, because they're so costly. If they aren't costly, then everything is great, but we can't risk that, now can we?
I used to think that it was a good thing, on net, for Jim to be out there arguing in this way, because hey, at least he's not another conservative denialist. I'm not so sure anymore.
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Comments
View as Flat
Green Texan Posted 5:38 pm
10 Mar 2008
So the economistic frame of understanding this problem collapses entirely.
The "right price" cannot be known except in reference to achieving the right goal.
So the way to get there is to enact a carbon emission ban under the framework of requiring best available technology to avoid emissions. Then the 'magic of the market' will determine the best, cheapest way to get to the goal & price accordingly.
We don't get to "wonk out" over hypothetical nonsense & we get to home in on the heart of the issue: that it's not moral to bequeath a wrecked climate to our successors.
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human power Posted 5:51 pm
10 Mar 2008
The only equitable way to deal with our extreme generation of GHGs is to respond the same way we did to the fascists of the twentieth century. In the 1940s we put INDIVIDUAL quotas on flour, sugar, gasoline and other goods required for the war effort. If we are to create a sense of "everyone is in this together", we need to have individual, nontradable quotas for GHG generation.
Yes, we would need to have every good/service tracked for GHG generation in its manufacturing and transportation processes, but that is quite doable. The wealthy could still enjoy the fruits of their wealth, they would just have to do it by investing in carbon-free energy generation capacity; its going to take quite a few photovoltaic panels to heat the 8000 square foot McMansions, but I'm sure they can manage.
Stop thinking like a Reagan fascist and start looking for solutions that don't exacerbate the class war in America.
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christophersj Posted 6:22 pm
10 Mar 2008
Almost all of the models for taxing carbon include a reduction or outright elimination of personal income tax. Its revenue neutral. Al Gore, Thomas Friedman, everyone promoting it says this. Its not an extra tax.
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Russ Posted 9:59 pm
10 Mar 2008
1.The -current- level of consumption, let alone continuing "growth" in the 1st world (and the rest of the world catching up to this level of consumption), is unsustainable. There's not enough oil, not enough water, most of all not enough SPACE (both geographical and psychological).
2.Wealth itself has become the problem. There is simply too much of it in too concentrated and centralized a form. The result is that everywhere you look wealth is just an instrument of aggressive bullying and destruction on the one hand, and pointless ostentatious waste on the other.
By now we have a system where "education" produces those who have an animal cunning and ruthlessness, often good for business, but without a mind or a soul. (I think of Ludendorff's psychiatrist, who said of him, He had never looked at a sunset or admired a flower. - That's what we're up against now, a world of Ludendorffs.)
Unless the gluttony for wealth itself is purged, man will never solve the imminent crisis, and all these shimmering phantom future "riches" will go glimmering anyway. The only way to become truly, spiritually rich, is to relinqush the insane totalitarian drive toward infinite material riches.
I seriously wonder if economists are clinically insane, when they just stare at charts and project the paper trends they see into an infinite real-life future, while the resource preconditions are running out as we speak.
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LegumeSam Posted 11:13 pm
10 Mar 2008
In other words, put an end to the capitalist system. Oh yeah, and with Human Power, too:
Stop thinking like a Reagan fascist and start looking for solutions that don't exacerbate the class war in America.
Now, as for Ryan Avent's sloganeering:
Arguing that consumers should not be exposed to carbon costs at all is tantamount to declaring oneself a warming skeptic.
* Straw man argument alert * Consumers are already exposed to carbon costs. "Arguing" thusly is something nobody is doing.
So, now that we've knocked down the straw man, higher taxes are a cinch, right? Nonsense. If you want to cut "carbon emissions," you've got to start with the producers. Oil follows Say's Law: what is produced will be consumed. Want to lower consumption? Force cuts in production. Cap the oil and gas wells, stop mining the coal. Oh, yes, and you'll have to put forth some sort of social reform if you want to stop the multitudes from rioting. Making the consumers jump through hoops to get what the producers have already produced is no way of cutting global carbon consumption.
Capitalist development, you see, has severed everyone's connection to the land. Everyone will have to live off of the land if a realistic approach to abrupt climate change is to be put forth. This means a rather severe localization of all food production, so the city parks throughout America and the world will all be torn up for what used to be called "victory gardens."
Massive inequities in social standing will have to be put to an end if people are to live at all. Since monetary incomes will be inaccessible to many people (having been trapped in an oil-based infrastructure but with no access to gasoline to get to work), there will be massive rent strikes. Either "society" remains in the hands of the police, who will throw everyone out of their homes to live outdoors in the midst of the next climate catastrophe, or we find some way of coexistence.
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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christophersj Posted 12:54 am
11 Mar 2008
New personal lifestyles will have an effect.
Informed regulation will set rules for commerce.
Free market (with regulations), and prizes (X-Prize), will find the most efficient paths.
Sacrifice and a personal accounting is needed for sure. But calling for a radical shift to communism or anarchy in the face of global warming is not helpful now, but rather, turns middle America off and makes them less likely to adopt, adapt, and understand.
Puritans can be pure on their own, but its not a path to popular change.
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amazingdrx Posted 1:53 am
11 Mar 2008
Fossil, nuclear, and agribizz (ethanol), all get huge subsidies, in the form of special tax breaks targeted to each indistry. Designed by lobbyists for each industry, then government official are paid to vote them in. There is no doubt about this.
Cutting the subsidies would cause these industries to pass the cost on to consumers (at triple the price), they would call it a "tax" imposed on them by environmentalists. Let them try to make the case, every time they scream tax hike, we call it cutting corporate welfare. Corruption based, undeserved subsidies to greedy monopolists.
Then divert a part of the savings (there are 10s of billion per year in these subsidies) to a 10 cent per kwh subsidy directly to investors in renewables and conservation and smart grid technology. That's around 60 cents per electrical equivalent to a gallon of gas.
This would take the burden (tax?) of soaring energy prices off of us all. The corporations will be dragged kicking and screaming, to eventually monopolize these new energy systems. So it goes. But it will get done this way.
Try taxing carbon to get the price up, and it'll unelect every green politician in 2010.
So yeah, price it, but use some practical political reality to do that.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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LegumeSam Posted 2:04 am
11 Mar 2008
Markets are incredibly good at optimizing given constraints.
No, they're not.
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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LegumeSam Posted 2:18 am
11 Mar 2008
Nonsense. Getting off of the capitalist path is the only solution. Paul Prew, who analyzes the dynamics of the capitalist system in detail, concludes thusly:
The question to be asked, really, is whether we proceed with capitalism until we reach an ecological bifurcation point that leaves the habitability of the earth in question for the vast majority of the population, or we reach a social bifurcation point that leads us to a social system of production that is dissipative, nonetheless, but does not threaten the flowing balance of nature.
So, what'll it be? Pledge allegiance to the transnational capitalist class until Earth is incapable of supporting most human populations? Or a better way of life?
Survival cannot be compromised for fear of bad public relations. Frame it any way you want; since the key issue here is that of how the economic decisions are made, do keep in mind that in a system based on capital accumulation the decisions are made by those most successful at accumulating. Money and property are forms of power.
So what we have here is a choice between economic democracy, in which decisions as to basic need (who gets to eat and who gets to starve, who gets medical care and who gets to die alone) are made by communities for communities; and economic oligarchy, in which economic decisions are made by elites in order to stay on top of the economic pecking order.
Phrase it that way, to the sacred American Public; then come back to us and show your data. When America knows the truth, will it still vote for economic oligarchy?
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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LegumeSam Posted 2:21 am
11 Mar 2008
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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LegumeSam Posted 2:27 am
11 Mar 2008
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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christophersj Posted 3:12 am
11 Mar 2008
Communism and Anarchy should make COMMENTARY on capitalism and remind us of the excesses it can produce. But in their pure form each of those philosophies are just as pathological.
Sam, we do need very strong rules and regulations and safety nets, but if you take away the aspirations of the individual you end up with a gray, gray spirit.
Like it or not, and it surprises me as much as it probably does you, Wal-Mart is probably doing more to reduce CO2 emissions, by volume, than all of the radical groups combined. I know, I wish it were different too.
And I bet you that either a prize oriented project or private business is going to ramp up lifestyle changes and a reduce a measurable amount of CO2 faster than any puritan philosophy.
Of course this after carbon regulation creates the market.
But of course America's policies concerning corporations have been too lax at the expense of the population and the environment.
We have the same goal.
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Gar Lipow Posted 3:22 am
11 Mar 2008
1) Markets are NOT particularly good at balancing this kind of constraint. Tremendous opportunities to save energy at a profit were missed even when oil was 35$ per barrel. Price signals by themseles, though needed, are not going to get us off fossil fuels.
2)Capitalism is tremendously flexible in its ability to accept reforms such as regulations, public investment and yes artificial carbon pricing. But capitalists and politician won't accept these reforms because they are good ideas; they will only accept them if there is a grassroots movement in their favor.
3) The changes we need are too big to win on the basis of environmental causes. You are never going to get the support you need if the cause is "saving our asses from climate chaos". But many of the same flaws in our politics and economy that lead to inefficiency and lack of full social pricing also contribute to other problems - loss of labor rights and rights for working people in general.(No the entire population of the U.S. is NOT middle class; most of use are workers even if we think of ourselves as middle class.) And there is racism, sexism, attacks on GLBT, lack of rights for the disabled. You get the remmants of these movements together and you have potential for a strong grassroots that can fight for all our causes.
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:25 am
11 Mar 2008
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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LegumeSam Posted 3:42 am
11 Mar 2008
Capitalism is destroying planetary ecosystem integrity. The problem is this: the capitalist system is based upon endless economic growth, the faster, the better. Capitalism is based upon capital accumulation: it accumulates wealth from the countryside to the cities, from the Third World to the First World, and from the working class to the owning class. The planet Earth and the working class, however, can only take so much of this accumulative process before they crack under the stress. Eventually capitalism will destroy its ecosystemic and social substrates, and at that point it will wink out.
Care to do more than just go along for the ride?
Capitalism is also about the destruction of alternatives to the capitalist economic system itself. Capitalism is a form of discipline, capitalist discipline, which encloses everything as "property" and makes all that is saleable into commodities. All is to be packaged and sold, all of nature and all of the working class. Alternative economic systems do not exist side-by-side by capitalism; the Soviets learned this the hard way, as the whole of Soviet history was a competitive race to produce the capitalist consumer society advertised in the capitalist mass media. Eventually the Soviet elite ruling class decided to change sides and rake in the profits.
But in their pure form each of those philosophies are just as pathological.
"Philosophy" has nothing to do with it. Capitalism is not a "philosophy," but a mode of social organization.
Wal-Mart is probably doing more to reduce CO2 emissions, by volume, than all of the radical groups combined.
That's because Wal-Mart carries a bigger ecological footprint, by far, than any radical group one cares to name. "Saving the Earth" has nothing to do with the purchase of ecosystem indulgences by Earth's most prominent ecosystem malefactors.
And I bet you that either a prize oriented project or private business is going to ramp up lifestyle changes and a reduce a measurable amount of CO2 faster than any puritan philosophy.
No, they'll just add their names to the long list of products on the capitalist consumer market in which the privileged consumer classes are separated from their money. Meanwhile little will change for that bottom 40% of humanity which lives on less than $2/day.
We have the same goal.
No, our goals are diametrically opposed. You wish to save capitalism for a dying planet; I wish to get rid of capitalism to keep planetary ecosystems from being killed off.
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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David Roberts Posted 4:01 am
11 Mar 2008
grist.org
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Jon Rynn Posted 4:15 am
11 Mar 2008
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trock Posted 4:31 am
11 Mar 2008
But what is it that you think people are going to vote for? People are already voting. China has something between a 40 and 50 percent savings rate. We have a -2 percent savings rate. That is voting. If people wanted to save the world from capitalism, they could accept a low level of purchasing and live off of their savings. They voted to not do this, not with political elections, but with how people spend the money they earn.
Please don't confuse the necessity of converting economies to non-carbon energy usage to one of changing to a different political system.
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Jon Rynn Posted 4:37 am
11 Mar 2008
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BILL HANNAHAN Posted 4:57 am
11 Mar 2008
Each one cent increase in the cost of a kWh of electricity costs every man woman and child in the U.S. $132 per year. With 300 million Americans it is a $40 billion / cent cost increase. That is why mandating the use of impractical expensive energy systems like wind biofuel and existing solar technology is impractical.
In reality reducing U.S. emissions now is of minor importance. If we eliminated all of our greenhouse emissions tomorrow, the developing world will gobble up the savings in a relatively short period of time.
The most important goal for the U.S. should be to accelerate the use of our technical capacity to develop technology that is so inexpensive it can be implemented quickly all over the world. People will make the switch quickly and voluntarily, not kicking and screaming.
Expensive boutique energy systems will not curtail world CO2 emissions. We need huge sources of cheap non-carbon energy.
This is why the U.S. should increase R&D spending for non fossil energy sources from $3.00 per person per year to $300.00 per person, $90 billion / year.
We should be pushing every technology as hard as possible and building demo plants of each as it becomes possible, to accelerate the development of cheap clean abundant energy.
A gold plated wind, solar or bio fuel plan that is barely affordable in the U.S. will not solve the worlds energy problems.
Accelerating the development of cheap energy systems is the greatest and cheapest gift we can provide for future generations.
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Jon Rynn Posted 5:02 am
11 Mar 2008
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LegumeSam Posted 5:04 am
11 Mar 2008
Don't you think this is a little bit unfair, dismissing me as some kind of troll?
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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LegumeSam Posted 5:09 am
11 Mar 2008
But what is it that you think people are going to vote for?
Local, democratic control over basic economic decisions, as opposed to global control by a transnational capitalist class and its governing subsidiaries.
People are already voting. China has something between a 40 and 50 percent savings rate. We have a -2 percent savings rate. That is voting.
If money and wealth are to count as "voting," then the vote is distributed in a rather highly uneven manner. In the US we can see, for instance, that the top 1% of the wealthiest control half of all non-home capital assets. They get more of a vote than you or I.
I want the vote to be distributed in a different manner -- one person, one vote. That would be economic democracy.
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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LegumeSam Posted 5:12 am
11 Mar 2008
Workplace democracy would indeed be a start -- economic democracy would broaden the concept to include democracy between workplaces as well as democracy within each workplace.
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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LegumeSam Posted 5:21 am
11 Mar 2008
If there is this "clean, abundant, safe and extremely cheap" energy source out there just waiting for us to discover it, why do we need an expensive research and development program (such that no other government can fund it) to make it happen?
And this one really piqued my curiosity:
Expensive boutique energy systems will not curtail world CO2 emissions. We need huge sources of cheap non-carbon energy.
The first part really caught my imagination, as this is indeed a problem with "alternative energy" schemes. The second part seems to have a lot of premises behind it. Who is the "we" who needs those huge sources, and why do "we" need those sources? Wouldn't it be healthier just to live a low-energy lifestyle?
But I think you have the economics of it well in hand. Coal was replaced by oil as the principal source of industrial society because oil was cheaper to produce than coal. An industrial solution to the coming oil shortfalls would look for a source that will be to oil what oil was to coal.
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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Jon Rynn Posted 5:35 am
11 Mar 2008
The "democracy between [among?] firms" part is the hard part. I think the Mondragon system is about the closest I've seen == there is a cooperative bank in the middle of the system. I think that competition is OK -- the problem is the accumulation of power, and so if firms are employee-owned and operated, and local -- maybe some local community ownership as well -- then it becomes very difficult to accumulate enough power to warp the whole system.
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BILL HANNAHAN Posted 5:39 am
11 Mar 2008
would cost $800 billion a year, "
That's right Jon. It would cost a family of four another $10,560 per year.
Poor people will not be able to pay these energy cost increases. They will need energy subsidies, so if you are rich or middle class get ready for a double whammy.
That $10,560 per year per family is going to come out of other parts of their budget, health care, education, nutrition, heating and cooling. They will have to drive a cheaper, older and less safe car.
Expensive energy is dangerous and uncomfortable.
Spend $300 /year on R&D for a decade or so and save thousands per year for centuries.
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Jon Rynn Posted 5:51 am
11 Mar 2008
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Pangolin Posted 6:02 am
11 Mar 2008
This is not to say that government direction isn't needed to rectify split incentives such as when a building is rented or leased. Some means of economic intervention needs to happen so that ALL occupied buildings are either brought up to the best possible conservation standards or abandoned.
Having wealthy people live in straw bale houses while the poor freeze and still burn coal is not going to be a very effective solution. Somehow we have to make the energy savings tide lift all boats.
Put the Carbon Back
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BILL HANNAHAN Posted 6:16 am
11 Mar 2008
LS, you answered your own question. We need this "very inexpensive" (compared to Jon's plan) R&D program to maximize the probability that we will discover it first so that we can sell it to other countries rather than buying it from another country.
Remember, our dollars are not worth much these days because we do not have as much to sell as we used to when we were the most innovative and productive nation on the planet.
" Who is the "we" who needs those huge sources, "
The human race.
" and why do "we" need those sources? Wouldn't it be healthier just to live a low-energy lifestyle? "
No. Energy can be abundant and cheap or limited and expensive, limited and cheap is not an option. Abundant energy can be used to reduce the environmental impact of each human, for example treating drinking water with UV rather than chlorine, eliminating coal plants, preserving land and water for food production.
There is still the quality of life vs. quantity of life issue. You can plot those parameters on a graph, actually a family of curves with each curve depending on the level of technology assumed. By improving the technology you can shift the population up to a higher curve, not that I offer that as an excuse for overpopulation, just a humane thing to do under the circumstances.
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Jon Rynn Posted 6:26 am
11 Mar 2008
I don't see how carbon pricing is going to lead to more housing (also in town centers) and rail, unless there are very specific provisions to use the money in that way -- and if the carbon taxes are 'revenue neutral', that won't be possible. Carbon taxes just cover the behavior of individuals, they don't cover the needs of society as a whole.
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LegumeSam Posted 7:48 am
11 Mar 2008
I think you missed the irony in my question. If this hypothetical energy source (that is going to come down from the sky and save us like Superman) is so cheap, why is it so expensive to discover?
Your answer, however, provokes a second question: why assume a framework of international competition? Hasn't the owning class been internationalized by globalization? Don't we have international organizations such as NAFTA, GATT, the WTO, the World Bank, the IMF, the UN, NATO, and so on, standing guard over global political economy?
Remember, our dollars are not worth much these days because we do not have as much to sell as we used to when we were the most innovative and productive nation on the planet.
But since the US Dollar is the world's reserve currency now, can we operate under the assumption that dollars merely buy US goods?
" Who is the "we" who needs those huge sources, "
The human race.
Is it really the whole human race that needs scads and scads of energy, or is it just that portion of the human race that has become addicted to high-energy consumer lifestyles?
Specifically this: if you're living off of the land, would you need as much energy (in a sum-total ecological footprint) as someone in Ohio who gets her vegetables and fruits from Washington, California, and Florida, her cheese from Wisconsin, and her beef from Nebraska?
Abundant energy can be used to reduce the environmental impact of each human
If this is true, then how is it so, that humans lived low-impact lifestyles for thousands of years without abundant sources of energy?
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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LegumeSam Posted 7:54 am
11 Mar 2008
What if we just occupied the housing we've already built, rather than living in vehicles, tents, crammed into rooms, etc. while housing sits unoccupied because its owners want more money for it than the market will bear?
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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Jon Rynn Posted 8:05 am
11 Mar 2008
As for spending lots to get something cheap, this is what would have to happen for fusion to take place. Now, fusion probably needs a huge amount of basic research, probably instead of the huge reactor they're building in France; and that huge reactor is to test the dirtier of the two fusion alternatives, the cleaner one needs more research (disclosure: my father was researching the cleaner alternative). Certainly a clean fusion system would yield cheap electricity, but that is decades away, if ever, and so I think we have to move with what we have now
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Gar Lipow Posted 8:50 am
11 Mar 2008
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Gar Lipow Posted 9:40 am
11 Mar 2008
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Jon Rynn Posted 1:08 pm
11 Mar 2008
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BILL HANNAHAN Posted 1:28 pm
11 Mar 2008
It may not be expensive at all. Consider radio waves. How many people understood the benefits of radio waves before they were discovered. Yet they were discovered with rather inexpensive apparatus.
Cold fusion would have transformed our lives if it worked. Something like that may be possible, we don't know what we don't know.
To paraphrase a great quote; "Success favors the prepared nation."
" Your answer, however, provokes a second question: why assume a framework of international competition? Hasn't the owning class been internationalized by globalization? Don't we have international organizations such as NAFTA, GATT, the WTO, the World Bank, the IMF, the UN, NATO, and so on, standing guard over global political economy? "
No.
"But since the US Dollar is the world's reserve currency now, can we operate under the assumption that dollars merely buy US goods?
"
No.
" Is it really the whole human race that needs scads and scads of energy, or is it just that portion of the human race that has become addicted to high-energy consumer lifestyles?
"
The Eskimos have rifles and snowmobiles. The most primitive people I have seen have steel machetes. Its only the 99.9999% who want things technology can produce.
" If this is true, then how is it so, that humans lived low-impact lifestyles for thousands of years without abundant sources of energy? "
People like us have been walking the planet for about 250,000 years. In that time the population has doubled almost 33 times, for an average doubling time of 7,600 years. For most people life was hard and short, as it will be again if we back away from technology.
Legume, there is an easy way to change my mind.
Point out the errors in my facts and logic.
Provide more accurate facts and better logic.
What's your recommendation?
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spaceshaper Posted 1:12 pm
12 Mar 2008
And to LS, I'm glad you're still contributing.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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LegumeSam Posted 2:03 pm
12 Mar 2008
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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LegumeSam Posted 2:34 pm
12 Mar 2008
For most people life was hard and short, as it will be again if we back away from technology.
It's not an either-or, and I am not recommending backing away from "technology." Nor, for that matter, am I recommending the embrace of every technology in sight, or that we all wait for technology to come to us as the Quakers wait for God in meeting.
So let me get this straight. You suggest that some sort of "research program," backed by lots of money, is supposed to produce some cheap source of energy, but you can't quite describe the path by which this cheap source is to be found. Is this whole plan founded in anything more than faith?
Science made nanotechnology and the atom bomb possible. But it also discovered special relativity, which ruled out faster-than-light travel, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which showed how machines inevitably run down. These days, it's showing us how abrupt climate change is going to wipe out ecosystems left and right (when you add it to all of the other ways people are messing up said ecosystems). How sure are we that "technological progress" will grant us everything on our wish list?
Here's my suggestion: for the past five hundred years or so, world-society has seen the expansion of what can be called "capitalist discipline," as the things of planet Earth and the working people of planet Earth have been commodified: shaped and packaged for sale in a "market system" controlled, by and large, by a money system. As capitalism has expanded, so also capitalist discipline has extended its reach. In the beginning, it was merely the brute commodification of things and people; toward the present day it became the commodification of the genetic code in the form of genetically-engineered plants and animals, copyrights owned by Monsanto et al.
What we will need in the future will be something rather different from "capitalist discipline": this is what I would call "ecological discipline," or rather the discovery of meaningful ways of living that will allow for the continuance of ecosystem resilience. After all, it is this same ecosystem resilience that allows planet Earth to continue supporting human beings.
Practical examples of "ecological discipline" would include the sorts of things the agroecologists have discovered in traditional agricultural practices, and philosophies such as permaculture.
If you want to discuss how this sort of thinking applies to specific ecological problems, I'm open to it; but at this point I'm really more interested in discussing ecology itself rather than looking for shortcuts in which we don't have to understand ecology to solve narrowly-defined "problems."
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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Jon Rynn Posted 2:37 pm
12 Mar 2008
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spaceshaper Posted 10:58 pm
12 Mar 2008
I have tremendous respect for David - he's witty, intelligent, perceptive - but sometimes he just gets it so wrong. He has a quick temper, though I'm darned if I can see what would have aroused it in this case. Could it be that he is so engaged in scrappy dialog with capitalist interests that he fears the absence of his adversary?
As for LS's actual agenda - I think he's largely right. Corporate capitalism as we currently know it is a system which we will eventually have to transcend, no question, if we hope to live in a stable and sustainable world. That's not likely to happen anytime soon, though it seems possible that the Great Cull which seems to be approaching could hasten the evolution of better systems - on the other hand it could make things much, much worse, as in Yeats' great poem:
"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
I believe we have not reached that point: right now many of the best are still full of passionate intensity, and it is the worst who lack all conviction. I'll continue to take LS' passionate intensity over other commenters' naivety and passivity any time.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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caniscandida Posted 11:27 pm
12 Mar 2008
LS hammers his nails, but so do most of us. It may be a sign of madness, but it may also be a sign of love. Is DR to be the judge? As madly as I may love DR, most of the time, I do not wish to hand absolute judgment over to him, quite yet.
Paul Simon's ancient lyric, basically just a flimsy support for a gorgeous well-known global Andean tune, goes, without commentary:
<<
I'd rather be a sparrow than a snail
Yes I would
If I could
I surely would.
I'd rather be a hammer than a nail
Yes I would
If I could
I surely would.
>>
What the hell is the "I" who "would rather"? Or, rather, what is the justification for making us hear that the "I" "would rather"? Sparrows and gastropods are both adorable, and hammers and nails are both excellent.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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Jon Rynn Posted 11:56 pm
12 Mar 2008
It is generally true that ...another word here...grumpiness? or just plain criticism makes for better reading than positive, happy writing. At least that's what I've read theater critics say. On this site, I try to be fairly positive, but on another site I generally tried to be snarky; I'm not sure which was more fun to read. I could write several posts on a dystopian future, so I certainly appreciate the poetry (since mine is horrible).
My analysis is that DR usually sharpens his prose knifes on coal companies, etc., sometimes he can't resist using them on commenters.
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amazingdrx Posted 1:21 am
13 Mar 2008
..really what is best termed an "ignore rant". sam is negative on everything so just ignore him, pass by his comments.
The argument behind it is wether government or business can really bring about solutions to climate crisis. The proudly socialist sam, shunning all capitalism, says only government can do it. because capitalism is inherently corrupt.
The practical market solution oriented say that only pricing and trading carbon will work. Price it with government cap, then trade it in "free' markets. Hedge funds will save us by "hedging" GHG climate risk. Problem solved!
Then there are those who say let real capitalism work, small business, homeoners, farmers with subsidies to install solar panels, wind, biogas, geo heat exchange all working through a distributed smart grid charging plugin hybrids.
Government providing subsidies and regulating and verifying that GHG and kwh are really being saved.
And big business dragged kicking and screaming, digging in their gucci heals, to prevent small business from restoring prosperity to our economy.
Eventually realizing that by cooperating and supplying capital and mass production facilities for this energy revolution, they will see a boom like never before. The big boys leeching off of small business risk taking and innovation, as usual. So it goes.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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LegumeSam Posted 2:56 am
13 Mar 2008
Go back and read my comments on "economic democracy" carefully.
The proudly socialist sam, shunning all capitalism, says only government can do it.
Capitalist government cannot do it. Neither can a "socialism" which is merely a state capitalism, a means of competing with the capitalists.
because capitalism is inherently corrupt.
Since capitalism is the force which got us in this mess, the common faith that capitalism will get us out appears to me as a product of capitalist discipline, a mode of being that is already thoroughly commodified. If anything, we ought to be getting away from that, as environmental values are not something that can just be "bought off" because they're not reducible to monetary values. The right to breathe, for instance; how many dollars is that worth?
Then there are those who say let real capitalism work, small business, homeoners, farmers with subsidies to install solar panels, wind, biogas, geo heat exchange all working through a distributed smart grid charging plugin hybrids.
I have placed two main arguments against this "real capitalism," neither of which has been recognized (much less disputed) by the community of pro-capitalists here. But let me add another one to the mix: if this is "real capitalism," how is it that said "capitalism" depends upon "subsidies," and how is that any different from the "only government can do it" approach (which I, fyi, DON"T subscribe to)?
At any rate, the two arguments:
In a market economy, new energy sources will only supplement old ones; thus "alternative energy" will in itself do nothing to deal with the problem of abrupt climate change, for it will not stop one barrel of oil from being pumped, refined, and consumed. If you really want to do something about that, you've got to cap the oil and natural gas wells, and close down the coal mines. Oil follows Say's Law: what is produced will be consumed. All of the world's "alternative energy" will only push the oil-consumption sphere outward, toward those huddled masses (that 40% that currently makes less than $2/day, for instance) who are waiting for entry into the capitalist economy as high-energy consumers. Want to get rid of that gas guzzler for a hybrid? Wonderful -- but then someone else gets to run your gas guzzler over the rest of its lifetime. It behooves me to wonder why the same folks who are panicking over the IPCC's reports can't be bothered to address this argument.
All of this wonderful alternative energy will not produce energy on the scale of the 85 million barrels per day currently used by the global capitalist system; so even if you did cap all the wells and shut down the mines, you'd still have to create some sort of social transformation to enact the low-energy society I have been recommending.
And big business dragged kicking and screaming, digging in their gucci heals, to prevent small business from restoring prosperity to our economy.
Since under capitalism the biggest businesses can survive for longer on smaller margins, the capitalist economy favors them for built-in structural reasons. A re-structuring of the global economy to favor small business (with subsidies in credit-based money to insure a minimum standard of living for all) would be something I'd thoroughly endorse. But that wouldn't be capitalism; it would require the replacement of the entire money system, from debt-based money to credit-based money. As a possibility, it's described in detail in Hutchinson, Mellor, and Olsen's book on money, reviewed here by me.
Eventually realizing that by cooperating and supplying capital and mass production facilities for this energy revolution, they will see a boom like never before.
Then the small businesses become big ones, and we're back to capitalism. I'm more interested in ecological discipline, i.e. in modes of living that support, without ignorance, an ongoing ecosystem resilience.
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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BILL HANNAHAN Posted 5:05 am
13 Mar 2008
LS
The word primitive is not inherently good or evil though it can be used either way. Your delight in misrepresenting peoples intent in an attempt to embarrass them is a cheap shot that reflects on you, not them.
The quality of life for the average person living under capitalism is far better then the average person living under any other ism.
The explosion of technology did not occur because of capitalism, rather the ism's were enabled because technology gave people the spare time to dabble in such things.
For billions of years life has been regulated by four natural feedback control mechanisms.
Starvation
Disease
Exposure
Predation
Nobody wants to starve to death, freeze to death or be eaten by a grizzly bear. Primitive humans used their magnificent brains to develop technology to suppress these feedback control mechanisms, e.g. weapons, medicine, the control of fire, clothing, farming.
As a result the population has been exploding in what engineers call "open loop mode" ever since.
Exponential growth cannot go on forever, feedback mechanisms will arise, and they will fit in one of two categories, natural or unnatural.
Our goal should be to develop a set of unnatural control mechanisms that are ethical and humane. I believe this could best be done in an environment of democracy and capitalism, opinions may vary.
Unfortunately this subject is more radioactive than fresh spent reactor fuel, so we may have to learn to live, or die, with the natural feedback control mechanisms.
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LegumeSam Posted 7:15 am
13 Mar 2008
Thanks for the clarification: I'll be sure to inform all of the mere primitives that they're OK by you, and that when they become civilized you may even treat them as equals.
The quality of life for the average person living under capitalism is far better then the average person living under any other ism.
Depending, of course, on whether or not they've got any money for anything.
The explosion of technology did not occur because of capitalism, rather the ism's were enabled because technology gave people the spare time to dabble in such things.
Capitalism isn't something people "dabbled in." Rather, enclosure laws forced peasants off of the land, where they were herded into cities and required by vagrancy laws to work in factories. Elite appropriation of the surplus changed its basic character: rather than taking a portion of each peasant's harvest, the elites appropriated a portion of each worker's labor-power, said portions to be realized by selling the products made by that labor-power at a profit.
Our goal should be to develop a set of unnatural control mechanisms that are ethical and humane. I believe this could best be done in an environment of democracy and capitalism, opinions may vary.
How do you plan to deal with the power of money under "capitalist democracy"? Capitalism is an economic oligarchy; the richest (which in our circumstances means the top 1% who own half of all non-home capital assets) have an inordinate amount of power, and so they buy our policies through financial support of our politicians.
And what do you make of the apparent conflict between the apparent growth imperative of capitalism, which itself justifies the loaning of money at interest, and the finite nature of ecosystem life on planet Earth?
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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bookerly Posted 1:49 pm
15 Mar 2008
Just a brief comment, it is not so clear that the US dollar is the world's reserve currency. There are some indicators that most countries are moving away from the dollar and towards the Euro.
And many individuals as well. What this means for the US is not clear. Nor for the world.
OTH, my poor salary is actually worth more money!! I get a raise without doing anything (at least on the money I spend in the US).
patrick in Beijing
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