Comments charlesjustice has made

transit, rail and cycling

Great points racc.
  It comes down to the issue of equity. 6 billion people and 1 billion automobiles.  We know that doubling or tripling the number of automobiles is not feasible.  There's a lot of people out there who will never have a car.  We're part of the privileged minority who get the cars.  But taxing one type of car and subsidizing another type is just a big scam.   All cars should be taxed and the money used to subsidize transit and rail.

   Most people in North America drive and don't want to see the writing on the wall.  we shouldn't be supporting subsidizing the privileged.If we don't have the guts to show the world how to be sustainable than let's just give up right now.On A new way to waste energy posted 1 year, 9 months ago 8 Responses

common sense predictions

  Everything is connected.  economists make their predictions by disconnecting human activity from the eco-sphere.  That's why they come up with these overly rosy predictions of continued economic growth.  

   Let's inject a little common sense into this picture.  At the present rate of fishing, there will be nothing left within fifty years.  That means a lot of people are going to go hungry.  

    But what about fish farms? The problem is that those fish have to be fed too.  Either you get the feed from wild fish or from agriculture.  If we run out of fish then the first option is out.  If we grow the feed then we are competing for land use with food for humans.

    But global warming will lead to bigger more extended droughts which means more land, especially in the tropics is going to turn from productive farmland into desert.  Canada and Russia may be able to increase food production because they are far enough north.  But what happens to all the people in the tropics?  The refugee problem will cause wars and political instability.  Think Sudan and Rwanda on a global scale.  

    There was one economist who did see the connections -  Malthus.  He didn't take into account technological change so he has been proven wrong for the last two hundred years.    Technology has prolonged human life and created untold efficiencies,  leading to economic growth and higher standards of living.

   The question is, can technology keep producing this miracle of increasing productivity?  The common sense answer is no. We cannot keep extracting resources unsustainably and damaging the environment without some kind of payback down the road.  

    We don't know when that day will come.  Global warming appears to be showing us that it may be sooner than we think. Common sense tells us when we don't have any fish in the sea or enough crops to eat that all the computing power in the world isn't going to make any difference to the outcome.  On Economists cannot predict the future posted 1 year, 11 months ago 69 Responses

story of stuff

Annie, I really enjoyed your video "story of Stuff"  This is exactly what we need.  Something that explains a very complicated problem through a simple story.  I have told everyone I can think of to see your video.  One person I talked to who saw it said that it summarizes, in all of twenty minutes, what you could learn about how the environment is linked to the economy in three years doing an undergraduate degree
    Part of the reason that we are still heading off the cliff is that the situation is global and  so complicated that people can't see the forest for the trees.  We need more things like your video that connect all the dots.

    It's a huge collective effort to inform people of what is wrong and what needs to be done.  It is analogous to the nineteenth century anti-slavery movement.  The most influential work in that campaign was Louisa May Alcott's book, "Uncle Tom's Cabin".  It's all about telling the truth in a simple story.  Keep up the good work Annie. On Shop till you drop? There's a better way posted 1 year, 11 months ago 10 Responses

the coming stagflation

 Peak oil is going to hit the U.S. economy hard. The success of Industrialization has to do with cheap fossil fuels.  Our entire economic system depends on cheap energy. Once cheap energy  goes then economic growth slows At the same time the higher price of energy creates inflationary pressures because energy is the lynch pin of the economy.  Everything depends on it:  manufacturing, trade, transportation and housing...   We are looking at a return to the seventies style stagflation as costs go up and businesses go down the tube.  

    What we should be pushing is a massive upgrading of railroads and passenger trains as a way of creating a more energy efficient transportation system.On Progressive pundits don't seem to be fully grappling with the oil problem posted 2 years ago 10 Responses

hope vs doom

I agree with your cogent analysis.  It is counterproductive in the extreme to go around prophesizing doom.  Lovelock's predictions may be right or they might not be.  The important thing is for people to get involved in solutions as soon as possible.  Things need to be done on a grassroots level as well as on a societal level and by governments.  Above all we cannot give up hope.

Charles Justice  On James Lovelock's terror masks the same old industrial-era thinking posted 2 years, 1 month ago 13 Responses

free market ideology is a religion

   Free market ideology is a religion, in the sense that those who believe in it still believe in it no matter how damning the evidence.  The great depression?  It was the government's fault.  Inequality?  The solution is lower taxes.  The subprime meltdown?  We shouldn't regulate we should let the chips fall where they may.  
    The most glaring example is global warming.  Free Market Fundamentalists continue to deny that it's a man-made problem because that would mean that governments should be doing something about it.  Since it is the strongest evidence yet that the market does not lead to the general welfare they would rather stick their heads in the sand than deal with it.

   Christian Fundamentalists are willing to deny half of modern science because the theory of evolution contradicts the Bible's account of creation.   They'll do anything to deny the evidence including demonizing those who have the temerity to bring it to their attention.On Noticing the elephant stomping Africa posted 2 years, 1 month ago 19 Responses

Re: blahs

The media is only doing its job which is to appear interesting at all times.  You can't really ignore the global warming elephant in the room but you can pretend for a while that it isn't there.  Global warming and the Iraq war are both killing the Republicans.T
hey'd like everybody to think that they're no longer problems but of course that's only going to happen in their fantasies.  
    What amazes me, amazingdrx, is what an incredible opportunity global warming gives us to turn the tables on conservatives and define the issues for the forseeable future.  They had their chance to define the issues and look where it got them.  We've got a real issue here and it's not going to go away no matter how much some people want it to.  It's going to get bigger and bigger and its going to make the deniers and delayers look pathetic in hindsight.  How can you argue with the weather.  The Republicans, except for the Govenator, are painting themselves into a corner over global warming.  It's their shortsightedness that's got them into defining global warming as a left-right issue.  More power to us.
Charles Justice  On Bush climate speech follows Luntz playbook posted 2 years, 1 month ago 8 Responses

on or of the mark John?

  We are  caught between a rock and a hard place John.  Particulates cool the Earth by making clouds brighter and more reflective.  Green house gases warm the Earth.  Greenhouse gases are a far more powerful driver of climate change over the medium term because of positive feedback:  the melting of ice lowers the albedo absorbing heat, water releases CO2 as it heats, permafrost releases CO2 as it melts, Methane a much more powerful GHG is released from the ocean bottom when the water temp rises.  Drought causes forests to die and to burn releasing more CO2.  
   Global warming and global dimming are opposing forces.   During an economic slowdown less particulates will enter the atmosphere causing the temperature to rise.  The fact that we haven't taken  particulates into account  in most climate change models means that we have critically underestimated global warming.  The temperature in the United States was highest in the 1930's because  the Great Depression  hit the United States  much harder than other countries.  Remember,  We had a much higher level of production before the "Crash".  Thus the decline was much more precipitous than in other countries which did not enter the thirties with as high a level of production.

    Suppose the present economic slowdown turns in to a global rout. Global demand tanks and China is hit hardest because it is producing the largest volume and has the farthest to fall.  Plus it is spewing out the most particulates because of dirty inefficient coal-fired power plants.  In a very short amount of time the countering force of global dimming will decline and the world will heat up a lot faster. Why?  Because particulates  drop out of the atmosphere in a matter of weeks if they are not continually replenished.    Result - massive human and ecological casualties.

 John, you ain't seen nothin yet. Let's hope we don't get another "Great Depression". On The Wall Street Journal contradicts itself on global warming posted 2 years, 2 months ago 24 Responses

Here's a thought

Here's a thought:  In "The Revenge of Gaia", James Lovelock makes the point that global warming has been inhibited by particulate matter from industrial pollution.  The particulates in smoke, smog, diesel fumes, etc.  block sunlight and help to counteract the greenhouse effect from GHG's. Think about the effect of dust and smoke from volcanoes, for instance.   Therefore, an economic slowdown could have the paradoxical effect of cooling the  Earth because there would be less emissions of particulates.  Take 1934, that was the middle of the Great Depression when, as Bailo points out industrial activity was way down.  Less particulate matter in the atmosphere, more sunshine, especially in the U.S., which was hit so hard by the Depression.  Wouldn't that explain the higher temperature?  here's another thought:  What if there's another recession.  Industrial emissions  of particulates fall.  The temperature rises higher than any year previously as a result. As another blogger said, CO2 emissions  are cumulative.  Not so particulates.On The Wall Street Journal contradicts itself on global warming posted 2 years, 3 months ago 24 Responses

overpopulation is beside the point

In a sense it is true that overpopulation is the root of our problems but there is little we can do about it.  Are we going to force people to have less children like they did in China?  It would be exceedingly unpopular.  And if one group drastically cuts its birth rate, that just means that other groups such as the fundamentalists can have tons of babies and fill in the gaps.  The same goes for individual countries.

  We used to be encouraged by the correlation between the rise in per capita GNP and the fall in the birth rate but we know that we can't wait for the rest of the world to reach our standard of living.  And that's the real problem. There isn't enough time for us to cut our population even if we wanted to.

    We really have no choice but to let nature cut our population for us and it will do so with a vengence sometime this century.  We know that our industrial lifestyle is leading us to global warming and to pollution and overextraction of resources.  Our task is to learn to live within our means and hope that whatever remnant of humanity survives also gets the message.  

 On Driving Us to Vegetarianism posted 2 years, 3 months ago 14 Responses

cycling in Canadian cities

I've been a full-time cyclist in three Canadian cities.  In my childhood in the sixties Vancouver was a great city to cycle in.  It's now way more congested with cars but there are now designated bicycle routes throughout the city.  Once you are off the main drag it's very pleasant cycling because the streets are lined with huge trees and the view from many parts of town is spectacular.  Cycling in Vancouver is much more fun than driving.  Plus they have a monthly critical mass bicycle ride which I would love to be a part of if I'm ever back there on the right date.  

I cycled in Montreal in the seventies and eighties.  Montreal is not a bicycle friendly city.  Like Seattle it is surrounded by freeways.  There are bike paths but they are mostly in out of the way places. The drivers in Montreal are agressive so I learned to cycle agressively.  It could be my imagination but it seemed to me that once I learned to cycle agressively I got more respect from the drivers.  I once spent a day on the snow-clogged downtown streets working as a bicycle courier.  I loved it! But the pay sucked.  Montreal is one of the few places in North America where you can cycle through an intersection against a red light and not get ticketed. I did it all the time.

I now live in a small BC town called Prince Rupert.  It has a population of about twelve thousand and because it is hemmed in by the coast mountains it has a small physical size.  You can cycle from one end of town to the other in twenty minutes.  You'd think there would be more adult cyclists like me but no. Some people walk but most people insist on using their cars.  I think the reason is it's hilly and people are not in shape.  There are no bicycle paths but traffic is comparatively slow and drivers are pretty courteous.  

In Sitka a town of similar population in Alaska  but more physically stretched out, there are many  more cyclists.  The reason I think so is  because a large portion of the town is close to sea level so you don't need to climb big hills to get from A to B.  People drive a lot faster in Sitka because there are more straitaways and the gravel is sharper so you need really skookum tires.On Watch out for that flaming bag of McNuggets posted 2 years, 3 months ago 6 Responses

Sine Quammen Non

"that the way to detect the direction of it would be to look at the people who have the greatest reproductive success. Who on this planet has the greatest reproductive success?"

     Howabout Christian Fundamentalists. Ultra-Orthodox Jews,  etc.. they're the ones having the biggest families.  Perhaps humans will evolve into people who don't believe in evolution.  But we'll probably destroy ourselves before that happens.On David Quammen chats about evolution, science, religion, and his new book posted 3 years ago 38 Responses