rogerkb’s Recent Comments

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  "There is little point in discussing such specifics, however, without first considering the elephant in the living room."

  The real elelphant in the room is our committment to continued economic growth and the holy right of money to make money. Until this committment is abandoned I see zero chance of ecological sanity informing our economic decisions. So if you tell me that you signed have on to the French political movement know as "decroissance" (sometimes translated as "degrowth") I will admit that you are showning signs of true ecological intelligence. But if you think that the OECD nations can experience many decades more of stock market growth while simultaneously reducing our ecological footprint then you are only slightly less deluded than the climate change deniers.

  On Why do U.S. environmentalists remain irrationally committed to a losing strategy? posted 5 months, 3 weeks ago 32 Responses

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  Insofar as the creation of green jobs is a sign that a sustainable infrastructure is being created, then  the creation of these jobs are a good thing. But in the longer term an economic focus on job creation is a sign of an atomized, growth oriented, every nuclear family for itself economy that cannot possibly be sustainable. Our long term economic focus should be the creation and maintenance of sustainable wealth, not jobs. If we can manufacture fewer/longer lived products and still have a decent quality of life this is good change even if it reduces total working hours. If we could figure out a way to provide everyone with the basic necessities of life in a sustainable manner with an average work week of 30 hours, to reject this proposal becausue it provides insufficient full time jobs would be completely insane.  

  On Green sector creates 50 percent of new jobs posted 6 months ago 1 Response

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  The key question is how do we go about reducing demand? The following exceprt from an article published in the Scottish Newspaper the Sunday Herald about a report of the UK Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) entitled Properity Without Growth? shows that at least 19 people exist in the world who have clue:

  THE ECONOMIC system is broken, and attempts by governments to fix it by kick-starting growth and consumerism are "delusional" and "pathological", the Westminster and Holyrood governments will be warned by their own advisers this week.
  
  The pursuit of economic growth, founded on the increasing consumption of material goods, has failed to bring social justice, prosperity or happiness, the report says.
  
  "The narrow pursuit of growth represents a horrible distortion of the common good and of underlying human values," the report concludes. "The market was not undone by rogue individuals or the turning of a blind eye by incompetent regulators. It was undone by growth itself."
  
  The report presents a fundamental challenge to the economic policies being pursued in London and Edinburgh, raising questions about some of the basic tenets of modern capitalism. We are living in an "age of irresponsibility", it says.
  
  "Questioning growth is deemed to be the act of lunatics, idealists and revolutionaries, but question it we must," says Tim Jackson, a professor at Surrey University and the SDC's leading economics expert.
  
  "The myth of growth has failed us. It has failed, spectacularly, in its own terms, to provide economic stability and secure people's livelihoods."
  
  A society founded on the "relentless pursuit of novelty" undermines social well-being. "The economy itself is dependent on consumption growth for its very survival," the report says. Market economics have to be questioned and consumerism has to be reversed, the report urges.
  
  I find it quite amazing that language like this could have come from any government appointed commission. In the U.S. I cannot imagine similar language coming out of a government funded study. Maybe our thought control is more advanced than that of the U.K.
  
  If you read the whole article you will see that the reaction of the Scottish and U.K. governments to this report was quite negative. This negativity is about as surprising as the blue tint of the sky or the Catholicism of the Pope. I find it interesting, however, that the only counter weight given to the spokespeople of the SDC is comments by a couple of government ministers. The Sunday Herald does not quote some other group of 'experts' who have a more optimistic view about the potential of 'clean technology' to preserve economic growth into the indefinite future. Without endorsing the views of the SDC report, the Sunday Herald reporter seems open to the idea that these views might actually be correct.

  On Myth: Solving climate change is primarily about finding cleaner sources of energy posted 7 months, 4 weeks ago 20 Responses

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  The pot calling the kettle black

  The Chinese government will do exactly what it sees as being in it's best interests, and that obviously means gaming the Western fools with noble-sounding official pronouncements, while going full-steam ahead with economic expansion.

  Why in the world should China (or any of the rest of the devoping nations) give up on rapid economic expansion when the OECD nations have no intention of giving up on this goal either? If we want to give priority to future human welfare over short term economic growth, then the OECD nations have to agree to reduced resource consumption and reduced overall economic production in order to allow the underdevloped world to rise to meet us on some reasonable common ground.

  I realize, of course that, that hell will freeze over before such a plan is adopted, but anyone who is preaching to China about the dangers of full bore economic growth and is not simultaneously proposing economic shrinkage in the OECD nations is either a gigantic hypocrite or completely self deluded about physical reality.

  Roger Brown

  On China to increase coal production 30 percent by 2015 posted 10 months, 2 weeks ago 28 Responses

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  If wishes were horses...

  The cost will be payed with lower cost, more stabley priced energy and more stable disaster resistant smart grid technology that stores power.

  The restoration of the manufacturing, job, and tax base, with green jobs and more stable energy pricing, will generate growth that will dwarf the upfront cost of this new energy economy.

  The statements above are unproven assertions that what you want to happen will happen. You will have to pardon me if I do not regard your statements in this regard as the pronouncements of an oracle. China, the fastest growing economy in the world, is building coal fired power plants like crazy. Are you claiming that before the end of the next decade that all new coal fired generation will have been abandoned in favor of low cost renewables? This question is not rhetorical. If you refuse to answer it don't bother replying to this post. If the answer is "yes" then please give the gory details of the economic calculations which support this assertion. If the answer is "no" then please give me the name of your crystal ball manufacturer; I would like to purchase one for myself.

  However, let us suppose for a moment that you are indeed a technological oracle and that when the hiccup of the current global recession is over, the millennium of cheap, clean solar energy will arrive, and a new global economic boom will take off with not only China, and India, Africa, and South America rushing to catch up with us, but with the OECD nations constantly increasing their wealth exponentially. Is it your view that no other resource limitations besides energy stand in the way of the nirvana of constant growth during your lifetime (I am assuming that you are not so brain dead that you believe that exponential growth will continue forever.)? Do you believe that fossil fuel emissions are the only significant human impact on the biosphere, so that once they are eliminated we can engage in a no-holds barred consumer feeding frenzy for decades into the future?

  Sooner or later we have to create an economic system that explicitly incorporates ecological intelligence. I do not see how this intelligence is ever going to come into existence in economic system in which our primary goal is to sell more stuff this year than we sold last year.
  

  Roger Brown

  On The real cost is the cost of doing nothing posted 10 months, 3 weeks ago 16 Responses