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Page added on July 22, 2018
You Can’t Stop A Wave But You Can Surf-3
“The struggle with any addict is to produce permanent change.“
Part Three
Just when things seem most dire, and there is no possible escape, we catch another faint flicker of hope. In my two previous installments I laid out the predicament. By now anyone who has followed this blog for a while (and a tip of the hat to our loyal supporters) knows this mantra by heart:
There is a finite supply of fossil fuels, and even if we could discover more and refine them at a reasonable price, we can’t burn them because the atmosphere is so polluted that climate change will kill us.
The energy embodied in traditional fuels — sunlight, wind, tides, currents, plants, animals and humans — is several orders of magnitude more diffuse and difficult to harness than light sweet crude or bituminous coal. The energy density of fossil fuels has made possible the high-level civilization that allows me to type this into your phone.
Nuclear power, apart from the facts that it poisons future generations(ughhh!), or is a gateway drug to WMD (yark!), is also running out of fuel. Nukes all over the world would be shutting down already had not the FSU honored the Megatons to Megawatts Program (killed by Obama) and hammered warheads into zirconium-clad U-235 plowshares to sell on the nukefuels market. There are a few more years of that stuff still out there, especially if the US and Israel join in, but after that, lights out for our friendly atom.
The climate change long predicted (for at least 150 years by our reckoning) is now upon us with delayed vengeance, as are Malthus’ ill tidings. Overcharged fecundity is paired to outsized footprint inversely to what is required, which is no-one’s fault, just bad design. We are an Edsel that sees a Mustang in the mirror. We need eyewash more than anything else.
There are cures for myopic addictions, but the struggle with any addict is to produce permanent change. As we’ve chanted, if we expect to get out of this without going extinct there is only one biophysically verifiable path. We have to go over the Seneca Cliff of industrial collapse and follow an 11 to 20 percent decline grade in carbon emissions for the next 80 or more years, not just to zero, but well beyond. We have to raft through the cascades into Negative Emissions territory — the land called Drawdown — by 2030 if we can, but mid-century at the latest. Getting there somewhat later is not an option. The party will be over. We would be the final progeny of a 100,000-generation run for one magnificent mammal. Then we’ll be no different than the Dodo.
Recently Alex Smith at Radio Ecoshock rebroadcast one of my favorite Australian podcasts, Beyond Zero, and its interview with Oxford researcher Tina Fawcett, author of the book Suicidal Planet, concerning her concept of personal carbon rations.
Let’s start by saying that we don’t like the framing the word “rations.” It might sell well in a culture of stiff upper lips or shared social burdens, but would never get anyone elected in the USA. If you doubt that, go to Plains, Georgia and ask Jimmy Carter.
Fawcett agrees. She has switched to using “carbon allowances.” I still think that is too weak to get broad social buy-in. “Dividend,” after the style of the Alaska Permanent Fund, would be better, had it not already been devalued by deniers and put in the same dung bucket as carbon tax or cap and trade. My personal favorite would be “award” but perhaps readers have suggestions.
Fawcett explains:
“So you would have an annual amount of carbon credits, whatever they get called, in your account, and when you pay for your petrol or diesel at the petrol station or when you pay your electricity bill you’d have to have carbon credits deducted from your account, as well as the money. If you didn’t have a lot of carbon credits left, you know, if you’d already bought a lot of energy that year or had an overseas flight or two, you’d be able to buy additional carbon credits on the market from people who sell them who didn’t need all of them.
“Its not really a parallel currency but it’s a little like that, in that you have to think about both the money and whether you’ve got any carbon allowances left to spend that year. And if not, are you prepared to pay the price to get more?”
I can see some issues with this. For one thing, even if the award distribution is equal for every person in the world, your average Goldman Sachs bankster is not going to care what balance is in her account, because she knows she can just go to the open market and buy more credit before she fills up the tanks on her yacht. There might even be a megaton credit in her Christmas bonus. Meanwhile, granny eating catfood and cutting her prescriptions in half can’t just borrow her grandson’s iPhone and order more from Amazon because she might live in a rural area and just the energy expense of Amazon’s drone delivery, not to mention their server banks, would eat up half her purchase.
Still, what is appealing to me about this ration coupon — sorry! “award” — system is something not discussed by either Smith or Fawcett. They mention, by implication, the Bangladeshi rice farmer who can sell his ration and buy fertilizer. They neglect the savvy BitCoin miners — potentially millions of them between 18 and 30 — who might trade in their Antminers for Kon Tikis and go for the easier gold — putting carbon underground.
Now, that would be a real wave.
The Great Change by Albert Bates
14 Comments on "You Can’t Stop A Wave But You Can Surf-3"
print baby print on Sun, 22nd Jul 2018 11:16 am
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/local/2018/07/19/squatters-detroit-land-bank-properties/609387002/
This is capitalisam and now banks can shove up those houses in their fat assess but the comunisam didnt work as well . Probably most of these people if they were CEo would do the same . Greed is what make our life miserable no solution for us except wars unfortunately
MASTERMIND on Sun, 22nd Jul 2018 11:21 am
Print
I live about two hours away from Detroit in Michigan..And now they have ancient ruins tours in detroit you can go on..where they take you in a bus through the ghettos and you can see all the abandoned homes..Just like ancient roman tours..
MASTERMIND on Sun, 22nd Jul 2018 11:40 am
Blue wave is coming in November..
President Chump is going down hard!
print baby print on Sun, 22nd Jul 2018 12:01 pm
How much does it costs , I mean a tour I heard a house is 500bucks
Outcast_Searcher on Sun, 22nd Jul 2018 12:05 pm
But minimind, given the way the dems actually behave, it’s not like they’ll pass a meaningful CO2 tax either. Someone might not VOTE for them if they do!
So it’s not like it really makes any difference.
GOP Beltway clowns spout “traditional family values” and then get caught cheating and/or being gay.
The Dems favorite hypocritical trick is to spout that we need higher taxes, but to try to cheat on their OWN income taxes.
Yeah, like either side is “good”.
MASTERMIND on Sun, 22nd Jul 2018 12:15 pm
Outcast
The left isn’t perfect but the right is speeding up our collapse..
But I am torn..Because it looks like things are really going to go sideways soon..So i would rather the conservaSHITS be in power..So they will have to take the backlash..
Boat on Sun, 22nd Jul 2018 12:22 pm
Mm
It’s the economy stupid. We’ll see in a couple years. Don’t count out the buba vote. They love the Cheeto.
Davy on Sun, 22nd Jul 2018 12:27 pm
“Yeah, like either side is “good”.”
wow, a rational political voice here on the board. That is no normal.
DerHundistLos on Sun, 22nd Jul 2018 4:51 pm
“Yeah, like either side is “good”.
If that’s your perspective, one is not as bad as the other.
“wow, a rational political voice here on the board. That is no normal.”
Your words do not match your actions. Why do you consistently vote Republican, and consistently promulgate fake anti-Democratic conspiracy theories? Your actions are those of a person who believes one side is better, not they are both lousy.
MASTERMIND on Sun, 22nd Jul 2018 5:05 pm
DerHundistLos
Its because Davy has been brainwashed by far right fake news propaganda ie zerohedge..And because he is not a self made or successful person..So he votes for a party of hate and bigotry.Because misery loves company..He is not an open minded and tolerant person..
Makati1 on Sun, 22nd Jul 2018 5:54 pm
Anyone who actually believes there are two parties in America is blind to the facts. There is only one party and it is not even up for vote. The oligarchs run America with Jewish controllers. They have for at least the last 105 years. ( The Federal Reserve was created on December 23, 1913.)
The Military Industrial Complex is your master, not Trumpet.
The Federal Reserve is your master, not Trumpet.
Wall Street is your master, Not Trumpet.
The billionaires run your life, not you.
onlooker on Sun, 22nd Jul 2018 6:12 pm
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/07/02/america-failed-state?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=socialnetwork
America The Failed State
In the United States, ruling elites abjectly serve corporate power to exploit and impoverish the citizenry
MASTERMIND on Sun, 22nd Jul 2018 6:13 pm
Madkat
And who did nothing to stop it for fifty years and let it get out of control?
Makati1 on Sun, 22nd Jul 2018 6:27 pm
MM, there was no “controls” possible. It was well covered up with propaganda by the masters who controlled the message. It is only since 2001 and the internet that it became visible and is now blatant.
There were many who got off their fat asses and marched to get the Us out of Vietnam, and for equality among races and other worthwhile causes. Now you and other Americans just want an excuse to “Let others do it”. Always blaming others.
Well YOU are going to pay the price for that laziness. Not me. I have not supported the Empire for at least 11 years. I’m just watching the show from 10,000 kilometers away.
The ‘fat lady’ is spraying her throat and warming up. America is about to go into the final act. Buckle up!