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Page added on December 14, 2016
Degrowth Is Punk as Fuck
“Very serious people often tell us that the word “degrowth” is too negative. People like happy, positive, nice things. Sure, the economy is systematically destroying life on earth. But nobody wants to degrow it.
Instead, these critics prefer words like “post-growth,” “a-growth,” “re-growth”, even the mythical “green growth.” They want to create a circular economy, a green economy, a new economy, a prosperity economy, well-being economy, or a steady-state economy.
What do all these terms have in common?
They’re boring.
Here’s what degrowth naysayers don’t seem to get: degrowth is actually punk as f*ck. We’re nonconforming, anti-establishment, DIY punks. And we’re not trying to sound nice. Take your positivity and shove it.
The term “sustainable development” shows what happens to concepts that aren’t hardcore. It’s been integrated into international agreements for over two decades, yet here we are, at the precipice of reaching dozens of tipping points that will send Earth’s climate spinning into chaos.
The problem wasn’t that not enough people got behind sustainable development, it was that everyone got behind it because it didn’t challenge anything at all. In 2014, Goldman Sachs commissioned a report “Attaining Sustainable Development of Oil and Gas in North America” (emphasis ours).
That’s why we use degrowth. Goldman Sachs won’t be able to co-opt it. Unlike post-growth, re-growth, or a-growth, we think degrowth has something special: that “de-” is a little middle finger at the establishment.
Very serious people shoot back that degrowth, in using the word “growth,” just strengthens the language of the status quo. All it does, according to “framing” enthusiasts, is further reinforce the dominant pro-growth “frame” that supposedly makes degrowth seem scary and bad.
To this, degrowthers respond reasonably: we actually don’t give a flying f*ck. We don’t want to be fake-nice about it. We want to name and shame our enemy.
Very serious people claim that degrowth, like some punk culture, is nihilistic, that it doesn’t inspire hope or change. We denounce growth but do not describe alternative values, they say.
Sure, degrowth is nihilistic, but in the Nietzschean sense: a healthy refusal of the present, one that is necessary to think differently. We reject growth to make space for different concepts and values: international solidarity, the commons, financial reform, basic income, conviviality, care, to name a few. We’ve done our research, and we urge for practical policy proposals, long-term utopian visions, and disobedient direct actions—because the very serious politicians aren’t listening yet. If you’ve come to any of the last five degrowth conferences, you’ll know how forward-looking and positive degrowthers can be.
Very serious people think that punks don’t get very far: no one listens to them, no one empathizes with them. Why not focus on the establishment, why not bribe them with words that are easier to swallow?
We beg to differ. Think of the Occupy movement. With little plan beyond stirring shit up, those punks redefined politics and forced politicians to finally pay attention to inequality. Think of the Windows employees who spent their time at the office coding open-source programs, using Microsoft money to pave the way for a new kind of cyberspace: one based on sharing and mutual aid. It wasn’t the soothing March on Washington For Jobs And Freedom that convinced President Kennedy to sign the civil rights act; it was the threat of disaffected black youths rioting in the streets in every major US city.
This fall, we stood with Standing Rock. The Lakota gathered against the DAPL not to be nice, but to register their dissent, to stand in the way of a system that has tried to crush them for centuries. Their dissent delivered a striking victory against the establishment.
We understand, but don’t agree with, those who voted Brexit and Trump as a big “f*ck you” to the establishment. They are punks too, and we lament that the Left has been so preoccupied with being nice, professional, and reasonable, encouraging many of these promising punks to vote for a new breed of white supremacists and oligarchs.
We think the suburbanites tinkering in their backyard are punks as well—their DIY creations objections to the industrial economy. We are in solidarity with the foot-draggers, the wildcat strikers who don’t care about their company’s competitiveness. We agree with Paul Lafargue, who scoffed at “the right to work” and demanded “the right to be lazy!”
To us, nurses, teachers, small farmers, and childcare workers are punks too. Capitalist society considers these jobs basically worthless, but people do them anyway, because f*ck you, that’s what they do.
At home, many of us degrowthers are squatters. Some of us dumpster dive and graffiti over advertising. We cook big meals for each other. We throw big weddings and big funerals. We are weirdos who’ve never quite fit in in board rooms.
Last week, one of our own presented degrowth inside the pearly halls of the UK House of Commons. Federico Demaria, one of the co-editors of the book Degrowth: A vocabulary for a new era, shared the parliamentary stage with Kate Raworth, who coined the unobjectionable phrase Doughnut Economics, Tim Jackson, who wrote Prosperity without Growth, and two of the authors of the 1972 book Limits to Growth. Unlike the other panelists, Federico was willing to be radical, willing to think differently. The audience loved it: he wasn’t boring. Of course, some of his very serious co-panelists patronized him as a big-dreaming, radical youngster.
The serious people tell us that politicians will never support degrowth. They tell us to stop acting like teenagers, put on suits, and come up with innocuous words that the representatives of every country will applaud in the UN General Assembly.
We know that sort of work is necessary. Sometimes you will find us putting on those awkwardly fitting suits and creeping through the halls of power, our tattoos and piercings and bad haircuts not very well hidden.
But that’s not our audience. Our sympathies lie with the misfits, the outcasts, the mischief-makers, the queers. They are our kind of people. And that’s why people like us: at heart, whoever feels like a political outsider is a bit of a punk.
35 Comments on "Degrowth Is Punk as Fuck"
Davy on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 7:39 am
The problem with these folks is they want to think this or that is an answer or the answer. The reality is more like it is just another answer for another type of civilization that is basically the same civilization. There is no real change just a rearranging of the deck chairs. New elites will take over with new corruption that is the same corruption. We will still have coffee and smart phones just with their idea of social and environmental justice which are an alternative. The alternative never addressed is no alternative.
We are past the point of no return for our actions. We are in overshoot territory. Global security revolves around more of the same if we want to avoid a rebalance. A rebalance is a sanitary world for a die off. These folks want to think they have answer but without the pain and suffering on the level that makes this thinking deadly. You can’t destroy something that give you life and not end life.
I agree we have a mess and we need critical thinking but my problem is with the advertised results of these actions by many movements today. If we do not follow the status quo we are risking a die off. If we embrace the status quo we risk a die off. The answer is somewhere in between and likely not easy or readily apparent. It is likely to be messy and without transfer. There will be no templates like we might see on the web to guide us. The web is part of the problem and our templates are corrupted. What will work in Africa won’t in North America but some things are universal. This is going to be a dirty messy journey many of us will not live through. Sounds like life so don’t feel too bad about things.
What is clear as day to me is global war, civil war, trade wars, or cultural war will open the door to a die off quickly, yet, so will blindly following the status quo into ruin. It is likely inevitable and we should be preparing ourselves for this. That may be the only movement left for us that has a future.
Revi on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 7:46 am
I agree with these people. We need to take apart the old system and use it for real people. We need to make chicken houses out of cars. We need to stop the runaway train and just get off. The existing paradigm is not working for most people, so it needs to change into something much more humane. I know lots of these people. They are doing fine without pandering to the system. I am one of them, in a way.
Dredd on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 7:50 am
Inordinate growth is the problem.
Contrast NeoCon Planet: Maggie’s Farm with The Farm).
Sissyfuss on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 9:13 am
“I could see that the white man did not care for each other the way our people did before the nation’s hoop was broken. They would take everything from each other if they could, and so there were some who had more of everything than they could use, while crowds of people had nothing at all and maybe were starving. They had forgotten that the Earth was their mother. This could not be better than the old ways of my people.
Black Elk.
Kenz300 on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 9:22 am
Endless population growth is not sustainable.
Too many people demand too many finite resources.
penury on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 10:10 am
Human have evolved over the span of time to be “all that we can be”, in a few million years the specie could evolve into something else, but the first thing that has to go is the fiction that humans were created by god. If true so were the cockroaches whom we closely resemble except for the murder of other species part. The thought that “we were created in the image of god” is one of the predicaments which prevents “man” from admitting and reforming the slaughter of all other species because “we are godlike” and others are not. That is also IMVHO one of the major problems between people. We cannot all be “gods”.
Midnight Oil on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 11:08 am
Endless population growth is not sustainable
Try telling that to a young woman in child bearing years desperate for children.
LOL
BTW, at this point does it really matter?
Even if we cut in half everything now it would only buy us a few more years of BAU.
That’s why it’s so nice to be in a hopeless situation…just chill.
Apneaman on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 12:39 pm
“we actually don’t give a flying f*ck”
Good.
Another very obvious and well documented fact of human nature is an inherent fairness bias. Don’t matter if folks are still eating and have smart phones. There comes a point when humans will even act against their own interests to punish cheaters and free riders, AKA the elite and their well compensated managerial class and less well compensated muscle. Citizens not giving a flying fuck is what happens when the social contract has been flushed down the toilet and the flushers act like they don’t give a flying fuck. The ruling class act with impunity and hold the masses in contempt which breeds contempt from the masses and contempt is a destroyer of relationships at every level. A destroyer of societies. The propaganda will only work for so long and the numbers who stop giving a fuck will grow. There is no guarantee that the justly disgruntled can slow, let alone stop, the hollowing out of their countries, but they will try. History shows a mix bag of results.
Interviews: Uncovering a Mayan Massacre
“Precious adornments found near and on the skeletons — including jade, carved shells and jaguar-fang necklaces — led the team to conclude that the people massacred had been nobles.”
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5016293
On the many American blogs and aggregator sites I browse the predictions and calls for violence, from all flavors, as a solution or for revenge seem to grow by the week.
As seen on reddit, r/collapse days ago
Would you be willing to kill the people responsible for the current ecological devastation/collapse?
“Posting from behind 7 proxies and a firewall.
But seriously. I’m wondering if there is really anyone who would go to this length to help the planet. I don’t think it’s really morally wrong to kill people who are screwing over every other living thing on Earth.
Why is it only the insane right-wingers/religious who kill people to achieve their end goal? Where are all the left-wing/environmentalist/communist extremists? Out saving whales or buying rural land or something.
I used to think this was admirable because it shows we only need science and logical argument to convince people we are correct. However it clearly only worked to a certain extent, mostly on somewhat intelligent people. And there are people who don’t care what is correct, they’ll keep destroying everything to add another dollar to their bank account. As long as they are there, we are screwed.
Therefore I think the only logical way to even have a chance of mitigating the consequences of collapse and surviving as a species, is to promote the idea that it is perfectly acceptable to kill psychopaths who harm others for personal gain. I mean, we do it with psychopathic murderers who have no chance of reform, why not for people who are directly killing everything on Earth?
Just something to think about if you feel so inclined to off yourself before collapse. Maybe think about taking out a few of the 1% while you’re at it.”
https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/5hv1bz/would_you_be_willing_to_kill_the_people/
Cloggie on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 12:55 pm
OT – BBC documentary about SolaRoad project:
http://www.bbc.com/specialfeatures/horizonsbusiness/seriessix/road-to-the-future/?vid=p04dbmws
If 1/3 of the surface of the Dutch roads were to be coated with solar panels, all vehicles in the Netherlands could be powered by them.
Pilot project in Krommenie of 70 meters long. Beginning with paving the endless, less critical cycle roads could be a start, saving valuable space needed for agriculture rather than solar parks.
Truth Has A Liberal Bias on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 1:05 pm
Consider that the SolaRoad cost $3.7 million to build (250 feet), and in the Netherlands, solar energy costs $2 per kilowatt. That means the money spent for the SolaRoad could have bought 520,000 kilowatts of electricity. Compare that amount with the 3,000 kilowatts produced by the SolaRoad, and it’s easy to see why some people aren’t convinced the project was worthwhile. That’s 173 houses that could have been powered instead of one, for those wondering about the math. You fucking retards and your circle jerk of hope are pathetic. Degrowth = famine. Put a fucking smiley face on that dumb ass.
J-Gav on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 1:16 pm
“Think of the Occupy movement.” Euhhh no, think of something else if a success story is what you’re looking for.
The problem with going full-frontal against the ‘Establishment’ is the power imbalance. They control the money, the police, have the means for movement infiltration (CIA and others), the army, the prison system, education, the media, etc etc.
Sorry folks, I don’t see butting your head up against that as a winning proposition. A better way is to undermine it through local action, building up from the bottom, as a number of people on this site are already doing.
tahoe1780 on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 1:23 pm
Funny, corporations never hesitate to downsize, rightsize, etc. when faced with resource/financial constraints. Hypocrisy everywhere…
Cloggie on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 1:40 pm
Costs for pilot projects are not an argument for or against that project. The aim is to find out if the combination of solar panel and road actually works. The issue is scarce space in densely populated countries like the Netherlands. We have endless cycle lanes like this one, consisting of prefab concrete slaps:
http://www.bd.nl/regio/oss-uden-veghel-e-o/oss/bredere-fietspaden-langs-kennedybaan-van-oss-naar-lithoijen-pas-in-2022-1.6619427
Adding a standard glass layer with solar panel to the standard bicycle lane concrete slab won’t cost millions.
Cloggie on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 1:42 pm
Solaroad cycle lane element:
http://www.solaroad.nl/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Elementengelegd.jpg
peakyeast on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 1:51 pm
That solar road project is about as insane as it can get. There is no lack of roofspace available or otherwise. You concentrate enormeous value at a place that is exceptionally trafficked and subjected to extreme amounts of impacts, scratches, corrosives, abrashives and so forth.
IOW: You are begging for trouble and the price I have seen is tremendous per m2. The installation is not even cheaper in itself. Nothing makes economic sense. Nothing durabilitywise makes sense.
Its almost as if it is an aprils 1st joke.
I could understand it if the price per m2 was tiny, or the installation easy, or easy replacement. But it has none of those and not even that the distance it has to improve makes all of them unlikely to ever make sense.
Cloggie on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 1:54 pm
You fucking retards and your circle jerk of hope are pathetic. Degrowth = famine. Put a fucking smiley face on that dumb ass.
This is how a desperate, pathetic violent nihilistic loser low life talks. If someone living in American geophysical conditions can’t avoid famine, he better not exists at all. When was there ever a famine in North-America? You are a clown who can’t carry his own weight.
Cloggie on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 2:13 pm
@peakyeast – you first have to try before you can judge. Furthermore it is not true that there is sufficient roof space available to cover all solar pv needs. In the Netherlands every m2 is utilized for production and agriculture and a small amount of “nature”. Even the solaroad website admits that a solar road can’t compete with roofspace, but that climate targets could bridge the difference. Commercial paybacktime is eventually (after five years development time) expected to be 15 years rather than 8 years for panels on roofs. It is up to local authorities to decide if this is acceptable or not.
Jef on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 2:27 pm
Look – ALL money is loaned into existence.
No growth means no loans = no new money.
This means massive deflation, poverty, death, and destruction. Not an opinion…a fact!
How do you propose to deal with that?
I haven’t heard anyone address this core issue. The rest is BS… oh in my opinion what we need to do is _____________, BS! BS! BS!
There is a saying “you are either growing or you are dying”. You can’t wish that away.
Anonymous on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 2:47 pm
In the history of dumb ideas, solar powered roads are definitely up there. They don’t make economic sense, at all. But clogster, as usual, loves to point at small scale concepts, then act as if they exist at scale in the real world(or will at some unspecified point in the future. At which point, we will presumably be able to say, ‘problem solved’. (lol).
If clogster paid any attention to what is happening in the real world, hed be forced to accept the reality that plain old fashioned asphalt road surfaces are in terrible shape in a lot of locations, due to lack of basic maintenance (funds). They are in my city, province, country, and likely are in yours too. ‘Solar roads’ would be an endless maintenance nightmare than would make the problems maintaning simple oil-soaked asphalt coated roads like no problem at all. Nor would these ‘solar roads’ produce power than couldnt be produced cheaper and with far less headaches by other means. Im sure that solar cell producers think solar roads are a great idea, I wouldn’t dispute that….
There are lots of other stupid ideas you could be promoting. Like, hand-produced bio-fuels will power Western Europe’s Autobahns and high speed rail. Or maybe, how donald trump is some kind of closet anti-globalist that will lead us to promised land. Solar roads are even dumber than those notions you frequently peddle as well.
Cloggie on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 3:24 pm
In the history of dumb ideas, solar powered roads are definitely up there. They don’t make economic sense, at all.
Cold you elaborate a little on these assertions and for instance challenge the figures and considerations I gave you in my post of 2:13 pm
#DontHoldYourBreath
plain old fashioned asphalt road surfaces are in terrible shape in a lot of locations, due to lack of basic maintenance (funds)
Maybe in your country, but in Holland all infrastructure is in tip-top condition.
Maintenance nightmare? This?
http://www.solaroad.nl/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Elementengelegd.jpg
oil-soaked asphalt coated roads like no problem at all
Hundreds of bicycle lane kilometers are not oil soaked. And then there is the Dutch rain of 80 cm/years, evenly distributed over the year.
Nor would these ‘solar roads’ produce power than couldnt be produced cheaper and with far less headaches by other means.
In world’s #2 largest country Canada with excessive hydro power resources perhaps, but not necessarily in Holland (40k km2). In Holland there is about 400 km2 road, or 1% of the total. As I said, every m2 is in use. Holland is per m2 the greatest economic power house on earth. Road’s, after roofs, are the only surface area that would allow for dual use (transport + energy). The solaroad idea is not far-fetched. In Holland different conditions exist as elsewhere.
hand-produced bio-fuels will power Western Europe’s Autobahns and high speed rail.
I never ever said that. This statement gives a pretty good picture of your fundamental dishonesty and/or sloppiness. I only gave an example of an American farmer who could make a living of producing bio fuel for $1.70/gallon and en passant could power his own operation. The only point I wanted to make was that for niche applications you can always produce carbon fuel, but not for the Autobahn or highspeed rail.
But again, nobody challenged so far my assertion that we have for centuries worth of fossil fuel, including happy motoring for billions (which would wreck the biosphere), making a mockery of local hero, the low hanging fruit cake Richard Heinberg.
Concluding: I do not assert that solaroad is the solution, but I am proud that my country can raise the funds and imagination to investigate this possibility. And I think it is way too early to write this possibility off. It is not sufficient to calculate the payback time, you also need to consider the cost of occupied soil, you can’t use for other opportunities.
Another possibility would be this idea: solar covered bicycle lanes in Korea. It remains to be seen what is more expensive: concrete slabs, you need anyway for bicycle lanes, with glass cover or these elaborate Korean constructions to carry the panels. I think that solaroad could very well be cheaper. And again, these solutions emerge in rich countries with scarce space, indicating that scarce space usage must be part of the economic equation.
Cloggie on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 3:27 pm
Korean solar bicycle lane:
http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2015/04/korea-bikelane.jpg.662x0_q70_crop-scale.jpg
Boat on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 3:47 pm
Think of degrowth like a grill cheese sandwich. Growth is processed velveeta. Degrowth is made with a snappy spicy pepper cheese. Everyone should choose spicy pepper cheese or be labeled a whimp.
GregT on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 6:15 pm
“Think of degrowth like a grill cheese sandwich.”
The world according to Boat. 🙂
makati1 on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 7:20 pm
Guys and gals, ignore the Clog. I am beginning to think that he has an hour in his day, at the insane asylum, that they allow him on-line to vent his delusions on sites like this. Part of his therapy.
“Our sympathies lie with the misfits, the outcasts, the mischief-makers, the queers. They are our kind of people. And that’s why people like us: at heart, whoever feels like a political outsider is a bit of a punk.”
I always prefer someone who takes ‘the other path’ to the ‘normal’ people. The creative people who walk their own path in life, not the sheeple. My best friends are among that group. Perhaps if we had more like them, we would have less destruction and ‘growth’ to kill us off?
De-growth is just another word for contraction. Why put ‘growth’ in the discussion at all. And using “de-growth” keeps the growth idea in their minds, no matter what the above article claims. Even adding the word de-growth to the language has added growth to the vocabulary list. More growth! LMAO
GregT on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 7:47 pm
I’m more inclined to believe that Cloggie is playing Devils advocate mak. But then again, maybe I’m giving him too much credit?
makati1 on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 8:09 pm
GregT, he seems to be too consistent to be putting us on. Why work so hard to piss off most others if not insanity?
in·sane: 1. in a state of mind that prevents normal perception, behavior, or social interaction; seriously mentally ill: – Oxford Dictionary
I might be his age, but I think I have a better handle on reality than he does. His constant defense of his postage stamp country, and its bright future, speaks volumes about his perception of reality. If you cannot face reality, you cannot deal with it or prepare for the future. My thoughts, anyway.
Apneaman on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 8:55 pm
ClogO, part of the reason y’all is so rich is from jetting tons and tons of flowers across the globe. What’s the carbon foot print of that anyway? Huge no doubt and all for some fucking flowers. Can’t live without them eh? What’s with the Dutch and their history of going mental over flowers? Try not to go broke with another tulip bubble. Jesus, what kinda limp wristed sissy’s have an economic crash over a bunch of faggy flowers? Lord help us. Dutch Flowers on CO2 puking airplanes – helping humanity push up daises. There have been and still are many highly intelligent Dutch folks, but ClogO is singly responsible for lowering the national IQ by a few points – shame.
Case in point world renowned Dutch scientist, Dr. Thomas Crowther.
But first, some of the most shocking science yet. From the Netherlands, Dr. Thomas Crowther speaks for a team of 50 world scientists all warning the official climate projections are missing an important carbon feed-back. As we warm, the soil will release carbon dioxide and methane equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions of the United States.
“We estimated that the carbon emissions from the soil are going to be approximately equivalent to 17 percent of current anthropogenic emissions. So every year, humans will emit a certain amount, and then the soil will be responsible for an extra 17%. Whereas at the moment, the U.S. is also 17% of the total anthropogenic emissions. So it’s really on that same order of magnitude: every year the soils will emit about an equivalent amount of carbon that we expect to be emitted from the US.”
– Dr. Thomas Crowther on Radio Ecoshock
“Go ahead and deny it. Appoint all the climate deniers to the top levels of government. Command the rising tides to stop, and say it isn’t happening. Nature and the geophysical reality of this planet don’t care. The atmosphere, the seas and soil are shifting to a new reality. That’s the super-Tweet rocketing around the world, and all the President’s men can’t stop it.”
http://www.ecoshock.org/2016/12/welcome-to-the-dark-new-climate.html
ClogO, this is where you respond that these Phd scientists AKA “geeks” spent 10 years in post secondary higher education studying the most difficult and complicated cutting edge shit to date……. for the money. Most people are not capable of matching these nerds in brain power and if they turned their intellect to ruling the world we would all be their bitches in short order. In it for the money?…..get fucking real.
Cloggie on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 9:04 pm
Guys and gals, ignore the Clog.
That’s the second time you call to ignore the collapse heretic, but you will never do that. You will always sniff under the blanker how bad it smells this time.lol
@Greg – no, I am not playing the devils advocate, I mean what I say, although I admit to like a little provocation here and there just to “sex up” the discussion.
GregT, he seems to be too consistent to be putting us on. Why work so hard to piss off most others if not insanity?
The implicit accusation of heresy. I was with you folks five years ago after an imprudent diet of Richard Heinberg and co. Let’s face it: peak oil is dead. Prices may jojo in the coming years, but there will be no substantial geological defined depletion, as we all thought would happen 5 years ago. Fracking came and then the revelations of enormous coal reserves. Meanwhile I couldn’t care less about depletion, not going to happen in our life time.
What’s left is climate change. Not 100% certain how bad it is going to as far as CO2 is concerned, but why taking chances. So let’s abandon fossil. This position is absolute European mainstream and it is mine.
His constant defense of his postage stamp country, and its bright future, speaks volumes about his perception of reality.
I have always said that my country was terribly lagging behind within Europe, nothing to be proud of. But over the last year developments in Holland go really very fast, with break-neck speed. From being the taillight, all of a sudden, Holland becomes a leader. I love that development and like they say in Texas: it ain’t bragging if it is true.
So why this distance between me and for instance makati? I really am getting sick and tired of the defeatist attitude with many, or worse: the outright glee in the prospect that everything is going down the drain. It is really that bad that people who try to find a way out of the situation are denounced as “scary techno-optimists”. To be frank, I have a contempt for that attitude. You are either a complete nihilist, you should agree that the earth is better off without us and that you shouldn’t “smoke hopium” or else you are a climate sinner, a “cancer monkey” and you are out.
Fine. Count me out.
This club begins to look like a sect. “Unfortunately peak oil did not materialize, thank God we still have climate to worry about and profess the immanent end of the world”. That’s the attitude.
I never said that there is a bright future for my country, or the rest of the West, let alone the world. This century is not going to be a pleasant one. Overpopulation could very well become catastrophic dimensions, enormous migration streams, fighting over resources, etc. I expect financial collapse and civil war in both Europe and the US. That is not just little insignificant me who is saying that. Watched tonight on German television a discussion about the increased anger and frustration in online forums as detected by out leftist betters in the media:
http://www.pi-news.net/2016/12/tv-tipp-maischberger-ueber-wutbuerger/
These folks are really getting scared and one expert openly said that Europe and the West are stumbling into catastrophe if politics doesn’t change course. I agree with that.
I am indeed preparing for collapse (financial and civil war), but I do not expect peak oil and climate change to bite in my and your lifetime.
For folks like makati, collapse has become a non-negotiable way of life; it has become a part of his brain. And instinctively he will resist any notion that perhaps there is a way out. For him that attitude is an outright threat for his bleak world view. I simply prefer the attitude of the engineer and to do what I was trained: we have a problem and what can we do about it. And if we will have succeeded we can only tell afterwards. And if that attitude makes me look like a techno-optimist smoking hopium; well so be it. In my eyes that is morally preferable than hand wringing and around the clock broadcasting that “we are all going to die”.
Kenz300 on Thu, 15th Dec 2016 5:16 am
Solar Cost Hits World’s New Low, Half the Price of Coal
http://www.ecowatch.com/solar-price-chile-1982242311.html
Solar power is safer, cleaner and cheaper.
Cheaper Wins !
Davy on Thu, 15th Dec 2016 6:35 am
Clog, I enjoy your optimism so I have topics to dispute and I am sure you feel the same. Socratic discussions in Greece was an important tool of discovery of Sapience and Truth. We now more than ever better find some sapience and choose the proper wisdom to guide us. We don’t have much time so every decision counts.
Clog, I can’t relate to your racism but it is an important topic. I consider race important not as a way to belittle people but as reality that should guide us as our world reorganizes. I am not sure if it is valid but we should consider whether mixing races and cultures is a good idea post globalism. Race and cultural mingling is part of globalism but will that change as globalism contracts and nations are less affluent? This is important and you are a champion of race issues. I am thinking race will be an issue we should reevaluate as a guide to cultural mixing as in less when we have the option. I see no races as superior because what is superior can always be slanted. You believe in complexity but I admire simplicity. Which culture fits that description as superior with those differences?
Clog, you are a techno optimist and I am a techno alarmist. I feel we can’t just leave technology but we should reevaluate where we are going with our culture of technological globalism. I feel we have gone too far and we have a belief system based on technological solutions that is now a basis for a denial of reality. Technology is supposed to assist us in finding reality through science and technical discovery but now it is shrouding the truth from us. You on the other hand believe we must quickly embrace new technologies and reorganize life around alternative energies and new ways of using energy. This is a profoundly important question because on the one hand it may be a huge waste of resources if this transition is employed wrong. Your position is if we don’t quickly make these changes we might fail.
On the economy I feel you are much too assuming of an economy. You feel it will continue on in a normal fashion as it had throughout the last two centuries. You acknowledge a financial crisis ahead. You feel this will be destructive but not a break point as I see it. I feel we are now in a different time and a time of economic climax with globalism. This time will be one of a paradigm shift because we went too far into globalism destroying the links we once had with a more local economy. I am not sure globalism can dissolve and we remain able to return to a more local based life with the complexity we enjoy now. Complexity equals comfort and safety in many cases. We have too many people to degrowth without a die off. We have delocalized most people’s lives with too much of the basics outsourced. My feeling is we need to quickly relocalize and reduce complexity before it fails us. I am not sure that is possible with scale and timing. Yet, I am thinking it is an option but it is an option we must embrace with the understanding the status quo will decay quickly with this option. It will be costly in wealth and lives but be less costly and more effective in the longer term. Sometimes radical surgery is needed and I feel this is what we face. You are less alarmed by current economic problems. This is a profoundly important question that we both hit on at opposing sides
Your historical revisions are entertaining but I find them farfetched most of the time. I don’t believe everything society says about what happened in the 20th century but I do feel science and historians have done a good enough job with the facts. It is the interpretations that are often exploited. I find conspiracy theories as shallow, simple, and intellectually lazy. I find the 20th century should be forgotten at some level at least as a reference for what comes ahead. I see a shift that will not be something we can relate to with the 20th century except as what we should not be doing. The 20th century was where man went profoundly wrong and that should be the key learning point of that history. When we went from the 19th to the 20th century with continued growth and development that was a different story. In that case earlier history did have reference. What is ahead for us will not have 20th century blueprints. Your view points are blinded by the 20th century.
On peak oil you discount the economy and demand destruction along with the dangers of depletion and energy decline because of technology. You think scale and timing are in our favor because of technology. You feel life can function and progress without much fossil fuels eventually. I disagree with scale and timing. I think we don’t have time to transition and alternative energies are not capable of maintaining what we have or anything close. Modern civilization is at the end of the energy transition phase of civilization and in the energy reduction phase. This will be catastrophic but I am not sure on what time scale. You see a bright future of so many new technologies and it is happening now.
On climate change you discount and diminish it like it will not be a significant factor. I feel it is shaping up to be another catastrophic predicament like oil and systematic economic decline. I feel climate change is going into abrupt change and this will put pressures on our civilization we can’t manage and maintain the required growth for survival. I feel climate change cannot be stopped with a renewable transition. I also feel this renewable transition touted as the solution is not possible in scale and that transition will still be too carbon dirty to stop climate change anyway. Modern man has proven constantly his failures of attitude and lifestyle means that more with less is really more with more. That will not work when faced with diminishing returns and concrete limits and climate change.
peakyeast on Thu, 15th Dec 2016 9:25 am
@clog: I say: Zoom in on almost any town in the netherlands and you will find 99% roof space uncovered.
It is cheaper, longer lasting, could even protect the roof for a loong time.
Why spend so many resources on a bad placement, fraught with problems, requirering extensive reinforcements – and probably cleaning.. And that at double the cost – i do not believe it that good for one second. At that time rooftop solar will also be cheaper.
Jerry McManus on Thu, 15th Dec 2016 10:56 am
“Degrowth” is yet another buzzword that is every bit as pointless and conceited as “Sustainability” or “Resilience” ever were.
What a colossal waste of everyone’s time!
At this point in the trajectory of Industrial Civilization there is only one “degrowth” possible and it is called collapse.
No amount of pandering to people’s desire of being titillated with buzzwords is going to change that.
Boat on Thu, 15th Dec 2016 7:20 pm
Peak yeast,
I for one has tried to be honest about renewables saying solar for instances so far makes best sense in large arrays. If you are not saving money it would be silly to install it. How ever there are many places in the world home solar makes sense.
Wind is doing much better and is cheaper than FF in many areas by a considerable amount. That is why it is growing rapidly. Who would want to say no to a cleaner and cheaper btu. A bird lover maybe.
GregT on Thu, 15th Dec 2016 11:27 pm
Solar PV and wind turbines are not renewable Kevin, and neither are the transmission towers, transformers, insulators, wire, cables, breaker panels, outlets, and all of the gadgets that we use that electricity for.
Step up to the plate Boat. Go off grid, and then report back to everyone on your findings. Until then, you are completely full of shit, as per usual.
Cloggie on Fri, 16th Dec 2016 4:24 pm
peakyeast says: @clog: I say: Zoom in on almost any town in the netherlands and you will find 99% roof space uncovered.
It is cheaper, longer lasting, could even protect the roof for a loong time.
There is indeed no discussion about that. But the point to note is that roofs are private but in contrast roads public property. The government can’t confiscate private roofs.
If the (Dutch) government wants to roll out large scale solar parks, than roads become a serious option in a country where every m2 is economically used. In that case you need to make a comparison: how many kg of meat or kg of vegetables can I produce on that m2 and compare that with the number of kwh/m2 from solar.
In the case of roads you don’t have to make that calculation, since roads can’t be used for vegetable production, but the can very well be used for kwh production.
But for people from countries with abundant land this is hard to imagine.