Rivers serving 80pc of world's population under threat | |||
| 2010-09-30 13:50:00 | |||
| |||
| All About: London | |||
Comments |  Share |  Print | Rate | More Headlines | ||
 | |||
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Rivers at a crossroads!
What happens as we run out of oil?
Transition from oil is bound to run into troubled waters
Published on 29 Sep 2010
Oil is filthy stuff.
So much was obvious, even to the purblind, long before the Deepwater Horizon explosion turned the Gulf of Mexico into a noxious sump. Oil stinks to high heaven.
Oil fed through internal combustion engines fouls our air and poisons our children. Oil underpins obnoxious regimes and distorts the global economy. The finding and getting of oil is synonymous with corporate theft. And oil, above all, is warming the planet with consequences guaranteed to dwarf any conceivable benefit.
We should stop using the stuff. Even those who are sceptical of man-made climate change, or content to believe that the catastrophe will be someone else’s problem, can grasp that. The struggle to control a diminishing resource at any cost is a mug’s game. The wars, even if we do not use the word, have already begun.
The oil that was everywhere a century ago is hard to come by now. That was the lesson a car-obsessed America – and the rest of us – refused to grasp when BP’s rig blew in the Gulf of Mexico.
Most of the countries with most of the remaining oil are unreliable at best, unpleasant at worst. The alternatives are, as the industry might say, challenging.
So big oil hunts in places that were once uneconomic. They drill, these days, in the deepest waters, in brutal climates, where nature is wild and almost pristine. They promise to do no harm and they promise, just as BP promised, to manage any risk. Our trust in these endeavours, where it survives, is as remarkable as it is stupid.
But what are we supposed to say? A Coalition Government manned by environmentally-friendly LibDems says we must wean ourselves from fossil fuels. The same Government encourages – or does not discourage – Chevron from exploring the deep waters west of Shetland. The clear intention, as other firms queue for exploration licences, is to extract oil from 1600 metres below the sea’s surface. After Deepwater Horizon, that doesn’t sound too clever.
Environmentalists, busy Greenpeace protesters in the lead, will tell you as much. The frenzied, dangerous search for disappearing oil, they will say, is only making matters worse. An SNP Government confident that Scotland will derive all its energy from renewable sources by 2025 might lead you to believe, meanwhile, that there is no longer a need to gouge the seabed beyond Shetland.
It’s seductive. The world would be a better place without big oil and the petrodollar regimes. Global warming is not a fiction, a scam or a joke. We should be managing the transition from fossil fuels, as greens demand, if only to extinguish the mad conceit of an inexhaustible planet. If we fail, the consequences will be unspeakable.
I agree with every word. I agree until that supreme, petty parochialism common to all but the most dedicated kicks in. I’m sitting in a house whose heating system – not my choice, but expensive to replace – runs on oil. I can’t get from A to B, even with modest intent, without some version of the stuff. My food, your food, and most other things, depend on oil-based transport. So how would “transition” work?
Those who protest professionally on the future’s behalf argue that oil exploration, and hence extraction, must stop now, instantly, before it’s too late. Simple as that. These people are admirable examples of candour, mostly, but they stumble over one question: then what? This is rarely explored.
Alex Salmond, First Minister, is as sincerely supportive of renewable energy as any politician in these islands. As a former oil economist, he grasps the issues, past and present. As a nationalist, and rational, he views the prospect of an energy-independent Scotland – an energy-exporting Scotland, indeed – as a great prize. But he can do his sums where “transition” is concerned.
Mr Salmond, like others, comes up with a figure of £200bn as the required (private) investment needed to secure a renewable future. The First Minister reminds us that big oil conjured an equivalent sum to open up the North Sea’s oil and gas industries. But what obliges those firms to make the effort now, when profits can still be had from the black stuff and when, crucially, few of us possess workable alternatives to our oil-fired lives?
We’re stuck with fossil fuels, for now, in a million common, mundane ways. We were suitably horrified, of course, by the Gulf of Mexico disaster. We understand, some of us, that the need for a little more oil for just a little longer amounts to an excuse, a way to delay the inevitable transition, a guarantee that our lives and our world will be worse off in the long run. But after last winter, snow piled at the door, I won’t be switching off the heating. Sorry.
Renewables are imperfect. It should not be left to the oil lobby and its mouthpieces to say so. Wind farms, on shore or off, have their own environmental consequences and vast financial costs. The energy they supply isn’t cheap and is not, without going into arguments over base loads and the rest, entirely reliable. Solar is beyond the reach of most. Nuclear is troubling, yet probably inevitable.
Greens need to say what they really mean: the transition they have in mind is towards a kind of permanent energy austerity, with all the inequalities implicit in enforced rationing. The perplexed majority should be equally honest: it’s not going to happen. Energy efficiency is rational. But each time I look at a website or a magazine dedicated to environmental activism, I smell the paradox. What, other than passion, fuelled those energy-guzzling efforts? Oil.
If some future well explodes west of Shetland we will all know who to blame. Big oil should never be trusted. But big oil relies on its dependants, its clients, customers and patrons. That would be us, and our governments, each with our needs and necessities.
The choice between transition and catastrophe is too simplistic. There is such a thing, after all, as a catastrophic transition.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Biggest Problem facing Humanity........
Population Growth Is Still The Biggest Problem Facing Humanity
This is a guest post by Gary Peters, a retired geography professor with a long time interest in population issues. Earth’s population is approaching seven billion at the same time that resource limits and environmental degradation are becoming more apparent every day. Rich nations have long assured poor nations that they, too, would one day be rich and that their rates of population growth would decline, but it is no longer clear that this will occur for most of today’s poor nations.
Resource scarcities, especially oil, are likely to limit future economic growth; the demographic transition that has accompanied economic growth in the past may not be possible for many nations today. Nearly 220,000 people are added to the planet every day, further compounding most resource and environmental problems. The United States adds another person every eleven seconds. We can no longer wait for increasing wealth to bring down fertility in remaining high fertility nations; we need policies and incentives to stop growth now.
Much has been written about population growth since the first edition of Malthus's famous essay was published in 1798. However, an underlying truth is usually left unsaid: Population growth on Earth must cease. It makes more sense for humans to bring growth to a halt by adjusting birth rates downward in humane ways rather than waiting for death rates to move upward as the four horsemen reappear. Those who think it inhumane to control human fertility have apparently never experienced conditions in Third World shanty towns, where people struggle just to stay alive for another day.
In 1970 Norman Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on developing new plant strains that formed the basis for the Green Revolution that began in the 1960s. However, in his Nobel acceptance speech Borlaug perceptively commented that "There can be no permanent progress in the battle against hunger until the agencies that fight for increased food production and those that fight for population control unite in a common effort. Fighting alone, they may win temporary skirmishes, but united they can win a decisive and lasting victory to provide food and other amenities of a progressive civilization for the benefit of all mankind." That was four decades ago. During that time the world's population increased by more than three billion and the struggle to feed, clothe, house, and educate ever-growing numbers of people continues. "Temporary skirmishes" seem persistent, if not permanent.
Writers sometimes confuse population issues. For example, in his post, The Population Bomb: Has It Been Defused?,", Fred Pearce wrote that "The population bomb is being defused at a quite remarkable rate." He conflates rates of growth with actual numbers. It is true that the rate of population growth worldwide has declined since 1970. However, the base population has grown by more than three billion; thus we currently add 80 million or more people to the planet each year. That is hardly "defusing" population growth!
Writers may sometimes have short memories when they write about population growth. Fred Pearce's post at "Consumption Dwarfs Population as Main Environmental Threat," is one example. George Monbiot's post on "The Population Myth," is another. Both authors seem to have discovered that our rate of consumption is an issue, so both play down population numbers and focus on our consumption habits. Neither mentions the work of Paul Ehrlich and his I = PAT equation, where I represents our impact on the Earth, P equals population, A equals affluence (hence consumption), and T stands for technology.
Both population and consumption are parts of the problem--neither can be ignored and both are exacerbating the human impact on Earth. More distressing, however, is that many among us don't even see that there are problems created by both growing populations and increasing affluence bearing down on a finite planet. To pretend that another 80 million people added to the planet each year is not a problem because they are all being added to the world’s poor nations makes no sense at all. Many of them will end up in rich nations by migrating, legally or illegally, and all will further compound environmental problems, from strains on oil and other fossil fuel resources to deforestation and higher emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. As Kenneth Boulding noted decades ago, "Anyone who believes that exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist."
Population, consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions will continue to grow until we either face up to the fact that there are limits on our finite Earth or we are confronted by a catastrophe large enough to turn us from our current course. If Chinese, Indians, and others in the poorer world had consumption levels that rose to current western levels it would be like Earth's population suddenly increasing to 72 billion, according to Jared Diamond, who then wrote that, "Some optimists claim that we could support a world with nine billion people. But I haven't met anyone crazy enough to claim that we could support 72 billion. Yet we often promise developing countries that if they will only adopt good policies--for example, institute honest government and a free-market economy--they, too, will be able to enjoy a first-world lifestyle. This promise is impossible, a cruel hoax: we are having difficulty supporting a first-world lifestyle even now for only one billion people."
This promise is often made by people who believe that that alone will stop population growth via the demographic transition, conveniently forgetting about such exceptions as China. As Tom Athanasiou argued, in Divided Planet: The Ecology of Rich and Poor, "In a world torn between affluence and poverty, the crackpot realists tell the poor, who must live from day to day, that all will be well in the long run. Amidst deepening ecological crisis, they rush to embrace small, cosmetic adaptations."
The widespread acceptance and political influence of modern neoclassical economics is a central part of our global problem. In one widely used economics textbook, Principles of Economics, Greg Mankiw wrote that “A large population means more workers to produce goods and services. At the same time, it means more people to consume those goods and services.” Speaking for many neoclassical economists, Tim Harford concluded, in The Logic of Life, that "The more of us there are in the world, living our logical lives, the better our chances of seeing out the next million years." The absurdity of Harford's statement must be recognized and challenged.
Economists do not deserve all the blame. As Thomas Berry noted, in The Great Work: Our Way into the Future, "Western civilization, dominated by a cultural arrogance, could not accept the fact that the human, as every species, is bound by limits in relation to the other members of the Earth community." On his Archdruid blog, John Greer added his observation that "Our culture's mythology of progress envisions the goal of civilization as a utopian state in which poverty, illness, death, and every other aspect of the human predicament has been converted into problems and solved by technology." We don't want to hear about limits.
Nowhere is acceptance of the twin towers of economic growth and increased consumption more apparent than in the United States, where "growing the economy" is still paramount, despite the leftovers of a financial meltdown created by banking and shadow banking systems run amok and a Gulf fouled by gushing oil. As Andrew Bacevich noted, in The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, "For the majority of contemporary Americans, the essence of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness centers on a relentless personal quest to acquire, to consume, to indulge, and to shed whatever constraints might interfere with those endeavors." Yet evidence that modern economics has let most people down is abundant.
More than two decades ago Edward Abbey wrote, in One Life at a Time, Please, that "[W]e can see that the religion of endless growth--like any religion based on blind faith rather than reason--is a kind of mania, a form of lunacy, indeed a disease," adding that "Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell." He expressed his concern about modern economics as follows: "Economics, no matter how econometric it pretends to be, resembles meteorology more than mathematics. A cloudy science of swirling vapors, signifying nothing." Similarly, Nassim Taleb wrote, in The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, that "Economics is the most insular of fields; it is the one that quotes least from outside itself!" Gus Speth argued, in The Bridge at the End of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability, that "In the end, what has to be modified is the open-ended commitment to aggregate economic growth--growth that is consuming environmental and social capital, both in short supply." Barbara Ehrenreich wrote, in This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation, that "The economists' odd fixation on growth as a measure of economic well-being puts them in a parallel universe of their own. . .the mantra of growth has deceived us for far too long." Whether in local areas, the United States, or the world, no problem that I can think of will be more easily solved with additional millions of people.
Future oil production will come at an increasing cost, if it comes at all. As Bill McKibbin noted, in Deep Economy: The Wealth of Comunities and the Durable Future, "Cheap and abundant fossil fuel [mainly oil] has shaped the farming system we've come to think of as normal; it's the main reason you can go to the store and get anything you want at any time and for not much money." More expensive oil will eat into world food production, especially if we continue to use foodstuffs to help fill gas tanks.
Scientists need to encourage a deeper and more realistic interest in population growth on a finite planet and its effect on many of the major issues of our time. We ignore the implications of further population growth at our peril. In 1971 Wilbur Zelinsky, in an article entitled "Beyond the Exponentials; The Role of Geography in the Great Transition," fretted that "The problem that shakes our confidence in the perpetuation and enrichment of civilized human existence or even our biological survival is that of growth: the rate, volume, and kinds of growth, and whether they can be controlled in intelligent, purposeful fashion."
Continued population growth is unsustainable, as is continued growth in the production of oil and other fossil fuels. As Lester Brown argued, in PLAN B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble, "If we cannot stabilize population and if we cannot stabilize climate, there is not an ecosystem on earth we can save." As Alan Weisman wrote, in The World Without Us, “The intelligent solution [to the problem of population growth] would require the courage and the wisdom to put our knowledge to the test. It would henceforth limit every human female on Earth capable of bearing children to one.” Started now, such a policy would reduce Earth’s population down to around 1.6 billion by 2100, about the same as the world population in 1900. Had we kept Earth’s population at that level we would not be having this conversation.
Discussion Questions
1. Are there things we can do to get the population issue more into public discussion?
2. Are there other approaches to limiting population that might be more salable?
3. If Social Security is not sustainable, having fewer children will increase the likelihood that older adults will have no way of taking care of themselves. How does one deal with this issue?
Let us know what you think or check out the epic discussion at The Oil Drum >>
(This guest post previously appeared at The Oil Drum. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.)
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/population-growth-must-stop-2010-7#ixzz0svtgX6hh
Oil on Troubled waters.........
Image via WikipediaHate It, Love It, OIl is Here to Stay
Updated: Tuesday, 06 Jul 2010, 12:43 PM CDT
Published : Tuesday, 06 Jul 2010, 12:43 PM CDT
Published : Tuesday, 06 Jul 2010, 12:43 PM CDT
HOUSTON - With so very much crude on collision course with the gulf coast there remains one enormously inconvenient, but undeniable truth.
That is, like or not, we'll need as much oil as we can possibly suck out of the ground for at least a full century.
Those who think differently have yet to dismantle the hard facts of global demand as assembled by Texas based writer and researcher Robert Bryce.
"If oil didn't exist we'd have to invent it. No other substance can compare when it comes to energy density, flexibility, convenience, cost, ease of handling. It is almost a miraculous substance," says Bryce.
"Oil allows mobility and without mobility we don't have commerce," adds the author of Power Hungry-The myths of "green" energy and the real fuels of the future.
Bryce says those who'd like alternatives to take the place of hydrocarbons, sooner rather than later, simply haven't done the math or reviewed the science. He has, and concludes that in a world which demands 223 million barrels of oil equivalent each and every day, alternatives don't have the fundamental energy density to make much of a dent, at least in the near term.
For example, it takes more than 800 square miles filled with giant wind turbines to match the out put of a single nuclear power plant.
"The wind energy business makes the corn ethanol business look like chump change. This is the biggest scam of the modern era. Cellulosic ethanol is like the Easter bunny or the tooth fairy. A lot of people believe in it, but nobody ever sees it," says Bryce, who backs his arguments with convincing mathematical calculations.
As for solar, Bryce says the 35th biggest coal mine in America, by itself, produces roughly twice as much raw energy per day as all the nation's solar panels and cells combined. Bottom line.
"Nine out of ten units of power we consume come from hydrocarbons - coal, oil and natural gas. Love them, hate them, don't care, they are here to stay, because we simply don't have replacements for them."
That is, like or not, we'll need as much oil as we can possibly suck out of the ground for at least a full century.
Those who think differently have yet to dismantle the hard facts of global demand as assembled by Texas based writer and researcher Robert Bryce.
"If oil didn't exist we'd have to invent it. No other substance can compare when it comes to energy density, flexibility, convenience, cost, ease of handling. It is almost a miraculous substance," says Bryce.
"Oil allows mobility and without mobility we don't have commerce," adds the author of Power Hungry-The myths of "green" energy and the real fuels of the future.
Bryce says those who'd like alternatives to take the place of hydrocarbons, sooner rather than later, simply haven't done the math or reviewed the science. He has, and concludes that in a world which demands 223 million barrels of oil equivalent each and every day, alternatives don't have the fundamental energy density to make much of a dent, at least in the near term.
For example, it takes more than 800 square miles filled with giant wind turbines to match the out put of a single nuclear power plant.
"The wind energy business makes the corn ethanol business look like chump change. This is the biggest scam of the modern era. Cellulosic ethanol is like the Easter bunny or the tooth fairy. A lot of people believe in it, but nobody ever sees it," says Bryce, who backs his arguments with convincing mathematical calculations.
As for solar, Bryce says the 35th biggest coal mine in America, by itself, produces roughly twice as much raw energy per day as all the nation's solar panels and cells combined. Bottom line.
"Nine out of ten units of power we consume come from hydrocarbons - coal, oil and natural gas. Love them, hate them, don't care, they are here to stay, because we simply don't have replacements for them."
So, in a world with 1.6 billion people who still lack, but desperately desire electricity, how exactly do we reduce global warming by moving away from coal and petroleum consumption ?
Laced with frustration, Bryce's answer is measured in BTU's.
Laced with frustration, Bryce's answer is measured in BTU's.
"We now have galaxies of natural gas in the U.S., a hundred year supply or more. But Dick Cheney will have to water board Barrack Obama before we ever hear the words natural gas. I cannot understand. He'll talk about solar and wind all day," says Bryce.
Gauging what he calls "the hard reality of thermodynamics", Bryce believes expanding natural gas usage as a bridge fuel to a future filled with highly efficient nukes is both a no-brainer and America's best bet
"There is no such thing as a free lunch in the energy business or anything else," he insists.
As for ideology, political or otherwise, Bryce says his only true loyalty is to uninterrupted air-conditioning and cold beer.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Refugees knocking on the door......
Image by Tomás Rotger via FlickrMORE refugees will knock on Australia's door unless rich countries help poorer nations cope with climate change, a key UN scientist has warned.
Professor Martin Parry - a prominent UK scientist who chaired the last United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment of the impact of climate change - said wealthy countries such as Australia had “good, selfish reasons” to spend money helping the developing world adapt to global warming.
He said climate change assistance to the developing world was tipped to reach $50 billion a year by 2020 - double the amount of other types of foreign aid.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)