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Page added on March 19, 2014
The global Transition tipping point has arrived
Last Friday, I posted an exclusive report about a new NASA-backed scientific research project at the US National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (Sesync) to model the risks of civilisational collapse, based on analysis of the key factors involved in the rise and fall of past civilisations.
The story went viral and was quickly picked up by other news outlets around the world which, however, often offered rather misleading headlines. ‘Nasa-backed study says humanity is pretty much screwed’, said Gizmodo. ‘Nasa-funded study says modern society doomed, like the dodo’, said the Washington Times.
Are we doomed?
Doom is not the import of this study, nor of my own original research on these issues as encapsulated in my book, A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilisation: And How to Save It. Rather what we are seeing, as I’ve argued in detail before, are escalating, interconnected symptoms of the unsustainability of the global system in its current form. While the available evidence suggests that business-as-usual is likely to guarantee worst-case scenarios, simultaneously humanity faces an unprecedented opportunity to create a civilisational form that is in harmony with our environment, and ourselves.
Of course, there are those who go so far as to argue that humanity is heading for extinction by 2030, and that it’s too late to do anything about it.
But as other scientists have pointed out, while the number of positive-feedbacks that could go into ‘runaway’ on a business-as-usual scenario appears overwhelming, whether they have yet is at best unclear from the numbers – and at worst, we find that proponents of fatalism are actually systematically misrepresenting and obfuscating the science to justify hopelessness.
Neoliberal-ostrichism
Then there are those on the opposite end of the spectrum who have taken up the personal crusade of spreading joy and happiness by pretending that everything’s going to be just fine – all the while ignoring the fact that our leading lights of science such as the US National Academy of Sciences, Nature and the Royal Society are pointing to the convergence of environmental, agricultural and energy challenges in coming decades without some sort of major change.
What the cross-disciplinary study I wrote about last week suggests – like previous research – is that our current trajectory is unsustainable because our demand for ecological resources and services is increasingly going beyond what the planet is able to provide. This ‘overshoot’ is already responsible for a range of overlapping crises – the financial crash, the food crisis, intensifying civil unrest to name just a few – and is likely to worsen without meaningful action.
Overshoot and inequality are part of the same failing system
Why is this happening? The Sesync study lends credence to an argument I’ve also made frequently – that at the core of our current civilisational model is a dramatic inequality in access to the Earth’s resources, coupled with an ideology which sees those resources as nothing more than a playing field for a minority of members of the human species to accumulate material wealth without limits.
The vast majority of the world’s resources – not just monetary wealth, but land, resources and raw materials – is owned and controlled by a tiny minority of states, monarchs, aristocratic families, banks and corporations. It is no accident that the Queen of Great Britain – arguably the harbinger of contemporary global capitalism before its supercession by the United States – is the world’s largest landlord, owning about 6.6 billion acres of land. That is one-sixth of the Earth’s land surface. It gets worse. 1,318 corporations own 80 per cent of the world’s wealth, and out of that, a tiny interlocking nexus of 147 ‘super corporations’ own half of that.
But across the board, as an extensive Chatham House report showed presciently two years ago, resources are depleting, scarcity is increasing, and prices are rising according to the best data available. This is happening, Chatham House argued, due to a combination of stagnating economic growth, continued demographic expansion, intensifying demand, and increasing costs of resource extraction.
The party’s over… welcome to the after-party
Since 2005, the world food price index has doubled, remaining at record levels. Simultaneously, dramatic oil price rises have not helped the energy industry sustain profits. Instead, even as investment in oil field development and extraction has increased by 200-300% since 2000, this has translated into a tepid oil supply increase of just 12%. All the best evidence indicates that the dawn of fracking represents not a new revolution for fossil fuels, but rather a “retirement party“, to quote US energy analyst Chris Nelder.
Faced with the overwhelming scale of the multiplicity of global challenges we now face, a sense of disempowerment is understandable. However, as I’ve argued before, it is unnecessary and self-defeating.
Indeed, what we are facing is something far more complex than an ‘end-is-nigh’ scenario: not the end of the world, but the end of the old industrial paradigm of endless growth premised on practically endless oil, that is increasingly breaching its own biophysical limits; and the emergence of an emerging paradigm of civilisation based on a vision of a global commons for all.
Death throes of fossil fuels
As Nelder writes in his latest column, we find ourselves at a potentially exciting crossroads: the literal death throes of the fossil fuel industry, amidst the inexorable, sporadic rise of a new renewable energy system. Renewable sceptics are simply wrong, obsessed with the slow, centralised economic dynamics of fossil fuels rather than understanding the unique, distributed dynamics of the new.
In Nelder’s words:
“Underlying the abundance hype over tight oil, tar sands and other ‘unconventional’ sources of liquid fuel has been a dirty little secret: They’re expensive. The soaring cost of producing oil has far outpaced the rise in oil prices as the world has relied on these marginal sources to keep production growing since conventional oil production peaked in 2005…
The toxic combination of rising production costs, the rapid decline rates of the wells, diminishing prospects for drilling new wells, and a drilling program so out of control that it caused a glut and destroyed profitability, have finally taken their toll.”
And it’s not just the oil companies enduring “major write-downs against reserves” (Nelder points to… Chesapeake Energy, Encana, Apache, Anadarko Petroleum, BP, and BHP Billiton). Coal-fired power capacity will be slashed by 60 gigawatts (GW) by 2016, “more than double” 2012 predictions, while last year nuclear plants were being retired at an “unprecedented rate” with “more on the way” – largely due to issues with “profitability.”
The core driver behind this fossil fuel death-spiral is:
“… competition from lower-cost wind, solar, and natural gas generators, and by rising operational and maintenance costs. As more renewable power is added to the grid, the economics continue to worsen for utilities clinging to old fossil-fuel generating assets.”
In Germany, for instance, where 25% of the grid is powered by decentralised renewables (over 50% of which is owned by citizens), the three largest utilities, E.ON, RWE, and EnBW “are struggling with what the CEO of RWE called ‘the worst structural crisis in the history of energy supply.'”
As Nelder explains, the one-way shift to solar and storage systems constitutes a “real, near and present” threat to centralised utilities:
“Falling consumption and growing renewable power have cut the wholesale price of electricity by 60 percent since 2008, making it unprofitable to continue operating coal, gas and oil-fired plants. Renewable energy now supplies 23 percent of global electricity generation, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, with capacity having doubled from 2000 to 2012. If that growth rate continues, it could become the dominant source of electricity by the next decade.”
A new report by Colorado’s Rocky Mountain Institute suggests that if renewables continue to be adopted this aggressively, “off-grid systems” will prove “cheaper than all utility-sold electricity in the region just a decade out from today.” A Deutsch Bank report late last year confirmed much the same, predicting that solar and renewables are “just at the beginning of the grid parity era.”
The rise of the new clean, decentralised energy system is happening faster than anyone anticipated, and in spite of huge government subsidies for the old fossil fuel industry. But it is merely one step on the ladder to a new post-carbon paradigm.
As energy is the underpinning of a society, the unravelling of the fossil fuel system signifies the demise of the old paradigm. By the end of this century, one way or another, this paradigm will be obsolete. It’s up to us what will take its place – and as the death-spiral of the old paradigm accelerates, so do the opportunities to explore viable alternatives.
The rise of the new paradigm
The new emerging paradigm is premised on a fundamentally different ethos, in which we see ourselves not as disconnected, competing units fixated on maximising consumerist conquest over one another; but as interdependent members of a single human family. Our economies, rather than being assumed to exist in a vacuum of unlimited material expansion, are seen as embedded in wider society, such that economic activity for its own sake is recognised as the pathology that it is. Instead, economic enterprise becomes aligned with the deeper values that make us human – values like meeting our basic needs, education and discovery, arts and culture, sharing and giving: the values which psychologists say contribute to well-being and happiness, far more than mere money and things. And in turn, our societies are seen not as autonomous entities to which the whole of the planet must be ruthlessly subjugated, but rather as inherently embedded in the natural environment.
In this model, households, communities and towns become producers and consumers of clean energy – and the same could apply to food. On the one hand, we need to put an end to the wasteful practices of the existing industrial food system, by which one third of global food production is lost or wasted every year. On the other, we must shift away from resource-intensive forms of traditional corporate-dominated agriculture.
In some cases, given that at least 70% of global food production comes from small-farmers, we will find that shifting to agro-ecological farming could dramatically increase sustainability and yields. Communal organic farming offers immense potential not only for employment, but also for households to become local owners and producers in the existing food supply chain, particularly in poorer countries – and an increasing shift to agro-ecology could meet the challenges faced by the existing global food system. This verdict is not being promoted by organic zealots, but by the world’s leading food scientists convened by the UN Commission on Trade & Development (UNCTAD) and the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD).
This new paradigm of distributed clean energy production, decentralised farming, and participatory economic cooperation, offers a model of development free from the imperative of endless growth for its own sake; and it leads us directly to a new model of democracy, based not on large-scale, hierarchical-control, but on the wholesale decentralisation of power, towards smaller, local ownership and decision-making.
In the new paradigm, households and communities become owners of capital, in their increasing appropriation of the means to produce energy, food and water at a local level. Economic democratisation drives political empowerment, by ensuring that critical decisions about production and distribution of wealth take place in communities, by communities. But participatory enterprise requires commensurate mechanisms of monetary exchange which are equitable and transparent, free from the fantasies and injustices of the conventional model.
In the new paradigm, neither money nor credit will be tied to the generation of debt. Banks will be community-owned institutions fully accountable to their depositors; and whirlwind speculation on financial fictions will be replaced by equitable investment schemes in which banks share risks with their customers, and divide returns fairly. The new currency will not be a form of debt-money, but, if anything, will be linked more closely to real-world assets.
But equally, the very notions of growth, progress, and happiness will be redefined. We now know, thanks to research by the likes of psychologist Oliver James and epidemiologist Richard Wilkinson, that material prosperity in the West has not only failed to make us happy, it has proliferated mental illnesses, and widened social inequalities, which are scientifically linked to a prevalence of crime, violence, drug abuse, teenage births, obesity, and other symptoms of social malaise.
This doesn’t mean that material progress is irrelevant – but that when it becomes the overriding force of society, it is dysfunctional. So arguably we must accept that the old paradigm of unlimited material acquisition is in its death throes – and that the new paradigm of community cooperation is far more in tune with both human nature, and the natural order.
This new paradigm may well still be nascent, like small seeds, planted in disparate places. But as the Crisis of Civilization accelerates over the next decades, communities everywhere will become increasingly angry and disillusioned with what went before. And in that disillusionment with the old paradigm, the seeds we’re planting today will blossom and offer a vision of hope that will be irresistible tomorrow.
The Crisis of Civilization – Documentary Film
Click here to view this video on YouTube.
As I wrote four years ago:
“Any vision for ‘another world’, if it is to overcome the deep-rooted structural failures of our current business-as-usual model, will need to explore how we can develop new social, political and economic structures which encourage the following:
1. Widespread distribution of ownership of productive resources so that all members of society have a stake in agricultural, industrial and commercial productive enterprises, rather than a tiny minority monopolising resources for their own interests.
2. More decentralised politico-economic participation through self-managerial producer and consumer councils to facilitate participatory decision-making in economic enterprises.
3. Re-defining the meaning of economic growth to focus less on materially-focused GDP, and more on the capacity to deliver values such as health, education, well-being, longevity, political and cultural freedom.
4. Fostering a new, distributed renewable energy infrastructure based on successful models.
5. Structural reform of the monetary, banking and financial system including abolition of interest, in particular the cessation of money-creation through government borrowing on compound interest.
6. Elimination of unrestricted lending system based on faulty quantitative risk-assessment models, with mechanisms to facilitate greater regulation of lending practices by bank depositors themselves.
7. Development of parallel grassroots participatory political structures that are both transnational and community-oriented, by which to facilitate community governance as well as greater popular involvement in mainstream political institutions.
8. Development of parallel grassroots participatory economic institutions that are both transnational and community-oriented, to facilitate emergence of alternative equitable media of exchange and loans between North and South.
9. Emergence of a ‘post-materialist’ scientific paradigm and worldview which recognizes that the cutting-edge insights of physics and biology undermine traditional, mechanistic conceptions of the natural order, pointing to a more holistic understanding of life and nature.
10. Emergence of a ‘post-materialist’ ethic recognising that progressive values and ideals such as justice, compassion, and generosity are more conducive to the survival of the human species, and thus more in harmony with the natural order, than the conventional ‘materialistic’ behaviours associated with neoliberal consumerism.”
And as I wrote last year:
“We do not have the option of pessimism and fatalism. There’s enough of that to go around. Our task is to work together to co-create viable visions for what could be, and to start building those visions now, from the ground up.”
The Guardian Earth Insight blog
24 Comments on "The global Transition tipping point has arrived"
Meld on Wed, 19th Mar 2014 3:43 pm
So basically we have a choice between collapse or world communism. Yes I’d say we are pretty much screwed then seeing as CENTRAL PLANNING DOESN’T WORK! at least not for any kind of extended period.
Meld on Wed, 19th Mar 2014 3:47 pm
Also this guy from nasa has pretty much exactly cribbed off the Venus project and the zeitgeist movement. Two groups deeply filled with intellectuals who do nothing except talk about how better the world would be if the religion of technology was just followed to utopia
bobinget on Wed, 19th Mar 2014 4:07 pm
Communism? Been there, tried that.
FSLR is up $7.80 (per share) or 13.50%
Paul on Wed, 19th Mar 2014 4:13 pm
Has anyone seen the original report? There is no link provided and searches only bring me to different versions of the same story.
Paul on Wed, 19th Mar 2014 4:17 pm
Here is the original: http://www.atmos.umd.edu/~ekalnay/pubs/2014-03-18-handy1-paper-draft-safa-motesharrei-rivas-kalnay.pdf
Northwest Resident on Wed, 19th Mar 2014 4:52 pm
Wow! What a relief. Here I’ve been worried about what will become of humanity once oil shortfalls begin hitting us — and that’s if the big bad global economic wolf doesn’t scarf us all down first. But all my worry is for nothing. According to this article, renewable energy WILL save the day, and not only that, we are moving rapidly toward nothing short of utopia.
“This ‘overshoot’ is already responsible for a range of overlapping crises – the financial crash, the food crisis, intensifying civil unrest to name just a few – and is likely to worsen without meaningful action.”
So far, so good.
“…and the emergence of an emerging paradigm of civilization based on a vision of a global commons for all.”
The emerging emergence of an emerging utopia for all.
“…we find ourselves at a potentially exciting crossroads: the literal death throes of the fossil fuel industry.”
Potentially exciting. Potentially catastrophic. Potentially life-ending. Potentially pure unadulterated human misery and suffering on a scale never known.
“Renewable skeptics are simply wrong, obsessed with the slow, centralized economic dynamics of fossil fuels rather than understanding the unique, distributed dynamics of the new.”
I try to be objective, I read plenty from both sides of the issue. But I always come to the same conclusion: Renewable advocates are simply wrong, obsessed with the possibilities but unwilling to factor in the inability of the near-death economy to ramp up for mass production of renewables or the immense amount of fossil fuel energy and other resources required to manufacture, distribute and service said renewable energy units.
“The new emerging paradigm is premised on a fundamentally different ethos, in which we see ourselves not as disconnected, competing units fixated on maximizing consumerist conquest over one another; but as interdependent members of a single human family.”
Our voices will rise worldwide in unison as we sing Kumbaya, the lambs will lie down with the lions, the Democrats will shake hands with the Republicans and all do one big group hug weeping in happiness now that they are finally together again, etc… Or, billions will die due to starvation and disease as those who still have dwindling supplies of fossil fuels sit tight and wait for the waves of human death to subside before crawling out of their shelters to a much reduced population, intent on establishing a new world order by brute force if necessary. Which will it be?
Nice thoughts in this article. Good points. But I find this writer’s optimism difficult to justify. If it works out the way he envisions, that will be great, and I’ll be hoping for that best possible outcome, while keeping my 12-gauge pump shotgun and secretly stashed food supplies close at hand — and still hope for the best.
Phil on Wed, 19th Mar 2014 5:10 pm
What does a distributed renewable energy infrastructure have to do with communism?
bobinget on Wed, 19th Mar 2014 5:16 pm
Speaking of Storage;
GE has, in a sense, partnered with First Solar trading FSLR stock in exchange for GE’s advanced PV tech.
As everyone here is aware one of the biggest bug-a-boos with renewables is storage. IE the wind doesn’t always blow at usable speeds, it gets dark every night,
hydro is subject to precipitation. Only geothermal
can be counted on for regularity.
This news item just released, caught my eye;
General Electric Company (NYSE: GE ) announced today that it has licensed a unique large-scale liquid air energy storage (LAES) system from U.K.-based Highview Power Storage.
General Electric Company is known for having its fingers in many pots, and this latest move is a clear signal that the corporation is eyeing energy storage opportunities.
Highview’s system allows power plants to store long-term energy, while also increasing their efficiency through the conversion of low-grade “waste heat” into additional electricity.
The technology is especially useful for peaker power plants (those used only to boost supply during high demand hours), since General Electric Company expects to integrate it with its gas turbines and engines.
GE 6FA gas turbine. Source: General Electric Company.
“Highview’s LAES technology and access to an operational pilot plant makes it an ideal partner for GE Oil & Gas to provide fully integrated energy solutions to our customers,” said Luca Maria Rossi, product management general manager for GE Oil & Gas’ turbomachinery solutions business, in a statement today.
In General Electric Company’s press release, it noted the increasing importance of energy storage systems as a way to smooth power supply and demand, which could also enable utilities to add on more “intermittent” renewables like wind, solar, and biogas energy.
According to today’s press release, “the Highview LAES technology is scalable from around 5 MW to significantly greater than 50 MW and unlike other large-scale storage technologies, such as pumped hydro and compressed air, does not require mountains or caverns to operate.”
action on Wed, 19th Mar 2014 5:35 pm
Sure looks great on paper, now back to reality.
XXX on Wed, 19th Mar 2014 5:57 pm
Chit, the idiocracy has determined that the solution lies in whatever makes stocks go up 13% every bleeping day.
Have fun, idiots.
GregT on Wed, 19th Mar 2014 6:02 pm
“But as other scientists have pointed out, while the number of positive-feedbacks that could go into ‘runaway’ on a business-as-usual scenario appears overwhelming, whether they have yet is at best unclear from the numbers – and at worst, we find that proponents of fatalism are actually systematically misrepresenting and obfuscating the science to justify hopelessness.”
The author is clearly in a state of denial. At worst, positive feed-backs have already gone into ‘runaway’ states, at best, they have not yet, and we need to act immediately and decisively to ensure that they don’t. We need to end the use of fossil fuels, long before they run out.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Wed, 19th Mar 2014 7:29 pm
Totally in agreement Greg on your denial observation of the author! Nowhere did I see this individual mention the collapse of our financial system from the Ponzi scheme of debt, unfunded liabilities, and excessive weight of unneeded industries/professions/services. The real issue now is the systematic risk for a complex global interconnected economy facing limits of growth with a population in overshoot especially in regards to food, water, and energy. This population faced with climate instability, dangerously accelerating pollution, and ecosystem failure and sterilization. I do not buy into his summary of AltE current status and future growth predictions. Much of what this fella is talking about is solutions that may have been manageable back when the “Limits of Growth” was published. It is too late my friends. You just don’t make things right because there are solution ideas. It takes resources, a healthy economy, and a healthy society. Both resources, society, and economy are in decline. You have to also have reality on your side. It is like the guy that ate bad, drank too much, smoked, and was not active in his late 20’s. There was a point where this guy could have changed his life and realized health over a period of time. If this guy waits until 50 to do this change the damage is done. I would also mention with population currently in overshoot and population growth unlikely to stabilize anytime soon there is “NO” hope for any of his optimistic thoughts on transition except in localized niche areas. The status quo BAU has a strangle hold on the global support system that supports the local. Status quo BAU has no motivation to change at the moment. The biggest impact people can have is lifestyle changes with a focus on lifeboats, resilience, and sustainable lifestyles and activities. This means giving up the junk food of society. I am talking all the fun, tasty, and useless “SHIT” we have no need for that along with all the junk food can be considered peak entropy of our globalized world. I am talking a vast range of items from spectator sports to ocean vacations. Will this happen in time “NO”. The transition ahead will be an intricate self-organizing affair in many ways. It is going to come down to allot of luck if we are able to transition to a stable postindustrial life for a much reduced population. It will mean the confluence of the positive feedbacks in so many areas will not be more than a transitioning society can handle. The odds are against us in so many ways but it is still possible so I would say remain hopeful. In any case enjoy life now if you are at all capable we may have 5 to 10 years of status quo BAU albeit in decline with volatility.
bobinget on Wed, 19th Mar 2014 8:24 pm
There is change in the air. While misnamed ‘conservatives’ upped bashing AGW, more educated, enlightened investors are getting the message. First Solar closed up 21.6 % which for a stock selling over $60 is huge.
In particular when the DOW closed down. (.07%)
FSLR’s model has been turnkey hybrid power generation stations plus one or two megawatts.
While not point of use, this model comes closer.
BTW since the market is down today fewer people picked up on GE’s new licensing agreement for energy storage. GE, BTW holds 1.75 million shares of FSLR.
Storage will will be a great argument for solar (wind)
base power. In addition, GE and FSLR will be able to improver both turbine and PV efficiencies by recycling ‘waste’ heat.
This is not a tout to buy either of the above mentioned.
XXX on Wed, 19th Mar 2014 9:09 pm
The “investors” have been getting the message for the last 40 years that the fraud called the major US stock indices never go down. The same thing happened in Zimbabwe. How bleeping educated are they
peakyeast on Wed, 19th Mar 2014 9:14 pm
I wonder why the optimal level for nature is always at 0.5x on the graphs?
Someone who figured that out?
J-Gav on Wed, 19th Mar 2014 10:13 pm
Well, here’s a rare instance where I don’t agree with NW, Davy and GregT. At least not entirely.
I think you’re selling Nafeez short. I’ve read 3 of his books and the the information contained in them is hardly what you would call uplifting. My guess is that now, like Kunstler and others who had been tagged as ‘negativists,’ he has changed tack and decided to put more of the ‘hopy’ message in so as not to be blacklisted. And why not? There is hope for some even if great suffering awaits the many. Richard Heinberg, in his latest interview with Kunstler says in substance (ie not an exact quote): “What can we do? Get it together bottom-up as far and as fast as we can. We know that’s not enough to avoid major upheaval but it’s what we have so let’s use it.”
As for the ‘commie’ insinuations above, sheesh, some people never evolve, do they?
Davey on Wed, 19th Mar 2014 10:49 pm
Yea gav, I felt a bit emotional today. Maybe I did overreact to his message. I will look him over more tonight. In the garden now putting in potatoes. Sun is shining and air is fresh. Life is good
GregT on Thu, 20th Mar 2014 12:15 am
J-Gav,
Having never read Nafeez, I would find it difficult to believe that he was anything other than a denialist after reading the above. I’ll have to look further for his writings.
“What can we do? Get it together bottom-up as far and as fast as we can. We know that’s not enough to avoid major upheaval but it’s what we have so let’s use it.”
I could not agree more, but the continued burning of fossil fuels is a bit out of our control. Let’s just hope that someone, or something, ends the fossil fuel era before tipping points are reached.
Some people are simply incapable of evolution, that doesn’t appear to stop them from changing their identities though. I think it must be a sanity issue, of some sort.
GregT on Thu, 20th Mar 2014 1:48 am
Thanks J-Gav,
I guess I have read Nafeez before, in The Guardian. I never really paid too much attention as to who he was though. He has my attention now. His video above is also very good.
Cheers
Bandits on Thu, 20th Mar 2014 2:41 am
You will find the “solutions” offered always entail building and engineering. More electric trains and cars, more windmills, more hydro and pumped storage, more solar panels and inevitably more people.
There a couple of types of dangerous people, those who are dangerous and know it and those that are dangerous and don’t know it, of the two I think the latter are worse. There was a person (from New Orleans)at TheOildDrum who was highly respected, lauded for his ideas, defended and congratulated for his musings on the future of electric rail and windmills. I questioned his ideas often (not as often as I should have). I remember once asking how he expected the windmills and grid to be serviced and repaired in a time of restricted oil availability and his answer was (and backed up by others) that tracks would be built up to the wind turbines so they could be serviced with the aid of rail flat cars.
I didn’t reply as I knew after that the game was lost with him. The Cornucopians never grasp the irony that building and engineering is EXACTLY what has caused the mess we are in, but suggesting that more of the same is the cure just seems absolutely ridiculous to me. They appear to think that more is less if it happens to be “renewables”.
Why can’t less BE less, to stop doing the things that are causing the extinction of species, defoliation of land and acidification of the oceans.
Makati1 on Thu, 20th Mar 2014 2:48 am
Another sermon on what we can/should do, and then we go out of the Church of Transition and do what we always did, BAU. We have a herd mentality. The herd is rumbling towards the cliff and the few voices warning that the edge is fast approaching are drowned out by the thundering hooves.
I hope we have those 5-10 years, Davy, but I don’t think we do. Maybe 2-5 at best. I hope I am wrong on the good side.
Northwest Resident on Thu, 20th Mar 2014 4:17 am
J-Gav — I didn’t go to hard on that article, did I? Like I said, I actually hope that the ideas he is expressing really do work out that way. But I have a hard time believing that renewables will play any great role in our future due to the reasons expressed above by Bandits, and the thought of people “as interdependent members of a single human family” is so far from realistic that it strikes me as humorous. And finally, in my defense, I was trying to get a lot of work done today when I wrote that, and somehow my derisive side came out a little stronger than usual. Maybe Nafeez writes articles with different target audiences in mind, which is why he varies the “doomometer” level in the stuff he writes???
Davy, Hermann, MO on Thu, 20th Mar 2014 12:54 pm
Well, Makati, anytime is a good time for collapse with a few bad policies and or bad luck. If status quo BAU manages to bum along and confidence remains I firmly believe it will take the energy brick wall/energy trap to bring on contraction and or collapse. This is why I say we have a 10 year window. The contraction has really started already. It is in the form of wealth transfer and the cannibalization of what is left of the global economy by the 1%ers (global I might add) not just the US or Europe. This new normal can bump along for some time because there are no plan B BAU’s in existence. There is no place for money to flow into where there is real value. The system is global now and there is nowhere to hide the coming financial storm. In fact all tools have been expended to keep status quo BAU going. Financially it is on life support by the rapid rise of debt and unfunded liabilities. These conditions are an example of the cannibalization process. 401K’s are nothing more than paper and will be worthless in a few years. 401K’s value has been eroded away by the explosion of debt. Much of the infrastructure worldwide that is dependent on cheap oil will be greatly diminished in value because it will quickly suffer entropic decay and will loose significant productivity.
Kenz300 on Thu, 20th Mar 2014 1:45 pm
Quote — “The core driver behind this fossil fuel death-spiral is:
“… competition from lower-cost wind, solar, and natural gas generators, and by rising operational and maintenance costs. As more renewable power is added to the grid, the economics continue to worsen for utilities clinging to old fossil-fuel generating assets.””
———————————-
The energy transition tipping point is here – SmartPlanet
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/the-take/the-energy-transition-tipping-point-is-here/?tag=nl.e660&s_cid=e660&ttag=e660&ftag=TRE4eb29b5