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The United States of America Is Decadent and Depraved
In The History of the Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon luridly evokes the Rome of 408 A.D., when the armies of the Goths prepared to descend upon the city. The marks of imperial decadence appeared not only in grotesque displays of public opulence and waste, but also in the collapse of faith in reason and science. The people of Rome, Gibbon writes, fell prey to “a puerile superstition” promoted by astrologers and to soothsayers who claimed “to read in the entrails of victims the signs of future greatness and prosperity.”
Would a latter-day Gibbon describe today’s America as “decadent”? I recently heard a prominent, and pro-American, French thinker (who was speaking off the record) say just that. He was moved to use the word after watching endless news accounts of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tweets alternate with endless revelations of sexual harassment. I flinched, perhaps because a Frenchman accusing Americans of decadence seems contrary to the order of nature. And the reaction to Harvey Weinstein et al. is scarcely a sign of hysterical puritanism, as I suppose he was implying.
And yet, the shoe fit. The sensation of creeping rot evoked by that word seems terribly apt.
Perhaps in a democracy the distinctive feature of decadence is not debauchery but terminal self-absorption
Perhaps in a democracy the distinctive feature of decadence is not debauchery but terminal self-absorption
— the loss of the capacity for collective action, the belief in common purpose, even the acceptance of a common form of reasoning. We listen to necromancers who prophesy great things while they lead us into disaster. We sneer at the idea of a “public” and hold our fellow citizens in contempt. We think anyone who doesn’t pursue self-interest is a fool.
We cannot blame everything on Donald Trump, much though we might want to. In the decadent stage of the Roman Empire, or of Louis XVI’s France, or the dying days of the Habsburg Empire so brilliantly captured in Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities, decadence seeped downward from the rulers to the ruled. But in a democracy, the process operates reciprocally. A decadent elite licenses degraded behavior, and a debased public chooses its worst leaders. Then our Nero panders to our worst attributes — and we reward him for doing so.
“Decadence,” in short, describes a cultural, moral, and spiritual disorder — the Donald Trump in us. It is the right, of course, that first introduced the language of civilizational decay to American political discourse. A quarter of a century ago, Patrick Buchanan bellowed at the Republican National Convention that the two parties were fighting “a religious war … for the soul of America.” Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) accused the Democrats of practicing “multicultural nihilistic hedonism,” of despising the values of ordinary Americans, of corruption, and of illegitimacy. That all-accusing voice became the voice of the Republican Party. Today it is not the nihilistic hedonism of imperial Rome that threatens American civilization but the furies unleashed by Gingrich and his kin.
About the Author
James Traub is a contributing editor at Foreign Policy, a fellow at the Center on International Cooperation, and author of the book “John Quincy Adams: Militant Spirit.”
The 2016 Republican primary was a bidding war in which the relatively calm voices — Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio — dropped out in the early rounds, while the consummately nasty Ted Cruz duked it out with the consummately cynical Donald Trump. A year’s worth of Trump’s cynicism, selfishness, and rage has only stoked the appetite of his supporters. The nation dodged a bullet last week when a colossal effort pushed Democratic nominee Doug Jones over the top in Alabama’s Senate special election. Nevertheless, the church-going folk of Alabama were perfectly prepared to choose a racist and a pedophile over a Democrat. Republican nominee Roy Moore almost became a senator by orchestrating a hatred of the other that was practically dehumanizing.
Trump functions as the impudent id of this culture of mass contempt
Trump functions as the impudent id of this culture of mass contempt
. Of course he has legitimized the language of xenophobia and racial hatred, but he has also legitimized the language of selfishness. During the campaign, Trump barely even made the effort that Mitt Romney did in 2012 to explain his money-making career in terms of public good. He boasted about the gimmicks he had deployed to avoid paying taxes. Yes, he had piled up debt and walked away from the wreckage he had made in Atlantic City. But it was a great deal for him! At the Democratic convention, then-Vice President Joe Biden recalled that the most terrifying words he heard growing up were, “You’re fired.” Biden may have thought he had struck a crushing blow. Then Americans elected the man who had uttered those words with demonic glee. Voters saw cruelty and naked self-aggrandizement as signs of steely determination.
Perhaps we can measure democratic decadence by the diminishing relevance of the word “we.” It is, after all, a premise of democratic politics that, while majorities choose, they do so in the name of collective good. Half a century ago, at the height of the civil rights era and Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society, democratic majorities even agreed to spend large sums not on themselves but on excluded minorities. The commitment sounds almost chivalric today. Do any of our leaders have the temerity even to suggest that a tax policy that might hurt one class — at least, one politically potent class — nevertheless benefits the nation?
There is, in fact, no purer example of the politics of decadence than the tax legislation that the president will soon sign. Of course the law favors the rich; Republican supply-side doctrine argues that tax cuts to the investor class promote economic growth. What distinguishes the current round of cuts from those of either Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush is, first, the way in which they blatantly benefit the president himself through the abolition of the alternative minimum tax and the special treatment of real estate income under new “pass-through” rules. We Americans are so numb by now that we hardly even take note of the mockery this implies of the public servant’s dedication to public good.
Second, and no less extraordinary, is the way the tax cuts have been targeted to help Republican voters and hurt Democrats, above all through the abolition or sharp reduction of the deductibility of state and local taxes. I certainly didn’t vote for Ronald Reagan, but I cannot imagine him using tax policy to reward supporters and punish opponents
I certainly didn’t vote for Ronald Reagan, but I cannot imagine him using tax policy to reward supporters and punish opponents
. He would have thought that grossly unpatriotic. The new tax cuts constitute the economic equivalent of gerrymandering. All parties play that game, it’s true; yet today’s Republicans have carried electoral gerrymandering to such an extreme as to jeopardize the constitutionally protected principle of “one man, one vote.” Inside much of the party, no stigma attaches to the conscious disenfranchisement of Democratic voters. Democrats are not “us.”
Finally, the tax cut is an exercise in willful blindness. The same no doubt could be said for the 1981 Reagan tax cuts, which predictably led to unprecedented deficits when Republicans as well as Democrats balked at making offsetting budget cuts. Yet at the time a whole band of officials in the White House and the Congress clamored, in some cases desperately, for such reductions. They accepted a realm of objective reality that existed separately from their own wishes. But in 2017, when the Congressional Budget Office and other neutral arbiters concluded that the tax cuts would not begin to pay for themselves, the White House and congressional leaders simply dismissed the forecasts as too gloomy.
Here is something genuinely new about our era: We lack not only a sense of shared citizenry or collective good, but even a shared body of fact or a collective mode of reasoning toward the truth
We lack not only a sense of shared citizenry or collective good, but even a shared body of fact or a collective mode of reasoning toward the truth
. A thing that we wish to be true is true; if we wish it not to be true, it isn’t. Global warming is a hoax. Barack Obama was born in Africa. Neutral predictions of the effects of tax cuts on the budget must be wrong, because the effects they foresee are bad ones.
It is, of course, our president who finds in smoking entrails the proof of future greatness and prosperity. The reduction of all disagreeable facts and narratives to “fake news” will stand as one of Donald Trump’s most lasting contributions to American culture, far outliving his own tenure. He has, in effect, pressed gerrymandering into the cognitive realm. Your story fights my story; if I can enlist more people on the side of my story, I own the truth. And yet Trump is as much symptom as cause of our national disorder. The Washington Post recently reported that officials at the Center for Disease Control were ordered not to use words like “science-based,” apparently now regarded as disablingly left-leaning. But further reporting in the New York Times appears to show that the order came not from White House flunkies but from officials worried that Congress would reject funding proposals marred by the offensive terms. One of our two national political parties — and its supporters — now regards “science” as a fighting word. Where is our Robert Musil, our pitiless satirist and moralist, when we need him (or her)?
A democratic society becomes decadent when its politics, which is to say its fundamental means of adjudication, becomes morally and intellectually corrupt. But the loss of all regard for common ground is hardly limited to the political right, or for that matter to politics. We need only think of the ever-unfolding narrative of Harvey Weinstein, which has introduced us not only to one monstrous individual but also to a whole world of well-educated, well-paid, highly regarded professionals who made a very comfortable living protecting that monster. “When you quickly settle, there is no need to get into all the facts,” as one of his lawyers delicately advised.
This is, of course, what lawyers do, just as accountants are paid to help companies move their profits into tax-free havens. What is new and distinctive, however, is the lack of apology or embarrassment, the sheer blitheness of the contempt for the public good. When Teddy Roosevelt called the monopolists of his day “malefactors of great wealth,” the epithet stung — and stuck. Now the bankers and brokers and private equity barons who helped drive the nation’s economy into a ditch in 2008 react with outrage when they’re singled out for blame. Being a “wealth creator” means never having to say you’re sorry. Enough voters accept this proposition that Donald Trump paid no political price for unapologetic greed.
The worship of the marketplace, and thus the elevation of selfishness to a public virtue, is a doctrine that we associate with the libertarian right. But it has coursed through the culture as a self-justifying ideology for rich people of all political persuasions — perhaps also for people who merely dream of becoming rich.
Decadence is usually understood as an irreversible condition — the last stage before collapse. The court of Muhammad Shah, last of the Mughals to control the entirety of their empire, lost itself in music and dance while the Persian army rode toward the Red Fort. But as American decadence is distinctive, perhaps America’s fate may be, too. Even if it is written in the stars that China will supplant the United States as the world’s greatest power, other empires, Britain being the most obvious example and the one democracy among them, have surrendered the role of global hegemon without sliding into terminal decadence.
Can the United States emulate the stoic example of the country it once surpassed? I wonder.
Can the United States emulate the stoic example of the country it once surpassed? I wonder.
The British have the gift of ironic realism. When the time came to exit the stage, they shuffled off with a slightly embarrassed shrug. That, of course, is not the American way. When the stage manager beckons us into the wings we look for someone to hit — each other, or immigrants or Muslims or any other kind of not-us. Finding the reality of our situation inadmissible, like the deluded courtiers of the Shah of Iran, we slide into a malignant fantasy.
But precisely because we are a democracy, because the values and the mental habits that define us move upward from the people as well as downward from their leaders, that process need not be inexorable. The prospect of sending Roy Moore to the Senate forced a good many conservative Republicans into what may have been painful acts of self-reflection. The revelations of widespread sexual abuse offer an opportunity for a cleansing moment of self-recognition — at least if we stop short of the hysterical overreaction that seems to govern almost everything in our lives.
Our political elite will continue to gratify our worst impulses so long as we continue to be governed by them. The only way back is to reclaim the common ground — political, moral, and even cognitive — that Donald Trump has lit on fire. Losing to China is hardly the worst thing that could happen to us. Losing ourselves is.
137 Comments on "The United States of America Is Decadent and Depraved"
Cloggie on Tue, 26th Dec 2017 11:59 pm
“I have listed dozens of scholarly sources”
All peer-reviewed, I hope?
MASTERMIND on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 12:00 am
Cloggie
You never answered my question..How much power did solar and wind produce last year? I know the answer I just want to hear you say it…Just because you are poor and stupid doesn’t mean you have to hate others..Dont be a dick like Greg..He is just a crabby old man with a fat heifer as a wife..LOL
MASTERMIND on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 12:02 am
Yes clogg all peer reviewed that is called science. Unlike your sources of fake news and garbage from fringe sites on the internet..
Cloggie on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 12:03 am
“BTW Cloggie,
Merry belated Christmas!”
Thanks!
Christmas holidays lasts until Januari 2 this year, so not too late.
Cloggie on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 12:06 am
“You never answered my question..How much power did solar and wind produce last year? I know the answer I just want to hear you say it”
A few hours ago I gave the answer with links:
solar 2%
wind 7%
Total at least 9% since these are 2015-2016 numbers.
Your idea of 1% is pertinently false, millimind.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 12:27 am
CLogg
Not true according to the BP its one percent..here is a source..Unlike the no sources you provided…
https://imgur.com/a/ZXvn9
Stop denying you stupid faggot..Its not my idea you idiot its what the BP bible says. Even Dr Smil who is the worlds leading energy authority says renewable s are a joke. Unless you want blackouts and to pay the highest prices in worlds. And run away your factories and lose jobs to others countries…Or damage your nuke plants like what happened in germany..
MASTERMIND on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 12:30 am
Clogg
Renewable s can’t react to demand. They are not demand driven they are supply driven. You can’t run a business that way. nobody goes to a bar that occasionally sells beer.
GregT on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 12:34 am
“Dont be a dick like Greg..He is just a crabby old man with a fat heifer as a wife..LOL”
My wife weighs 124 MM, and she would likely kick your sorry ass. All around the block, and back.
lol
Cloggie on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 12:41 am
???
Your ridiculous link only says that BP thinks that 86% of global energy is fossil. It says nothing about solar and wind, you imbecil.
“Even Dr Smil who is the worlds leading energy authority says renewable s are a joke.”
Another brain fart of yours:
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/vaclav-smil-on-energy-transitions/
“Energy transitions: a future without fossil energies is desirable, and it is eventually inevitable, but the road from today’s overwhelmingly fossil-fueled civilization to a new global energy system based on efficient conversions of renewable flows will be neither fast nor cheap.”
Amen.
2050 for Europe, the rest to follow later. Operational cost for a renewable energy system are the same as for a fossil system. But… considerable extra expenditure needed for reducing space heating requirements.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 12:49 am
Clogg
It show renewable s advancing at one percent a decade..Where are your links? You liar..
UC Davis Study: It Will Take 131 Years to Replace Oil with Alternatives (Malyshkina, 2010)
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es100730q
University of Chicago Study: predicts world economy unlikely to stop relying on fossil fuels (Covert, 2016)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.30.1.117
Funny based on the BP data above it looks like my studies are proving to be accurate. Gee science is right..Imagine that clog you imbread moron.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 12:52 am
Greg
Upload a picture of your wife then to imgur. I want to see her and I will tell if she is 124 pounds. I know you are lying she is a big fat tub of lard just like you are..All hicks are fat asses..Here is a pic of my girl Rebecca. Not only is she fine and thin she is very smart and loves to read every book in the world. Just like me
https://imgur.com/a/0vUdP
All be waiting to see your old rag. And my girl wears g strings and shaves everything. Unlike the hairy beasts of your generation..ugh
GregT on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 12:53 am
MM,
You are obviously far more intelligent than the rest of us here on PO.com. Why continue to waste your precious remaining time on such complete morons? The collapse is immanent, and even the goons themselves, will soon be coughing up their internal organs.
Have you selected your suicide weapon of choice yet? Something shiny perhaps? Or do you prefer blued? Stock, or custom grips? Have you given much thought to which caliber? A 22LR handgun is all that is really needed, if your aim is good.
Do you have a good aim MM?
Makati1 on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 1:00 am
Cloggie, MM needs the academic gods to tell him something that is common sense to intelligent folk. Of course FF are going to be used as long as possible. We are human after all. Few are going to give up their cushy lifestyle to save their kids and grand kids, especially Americans.
I doubt that MM ever considers how much “peer reviewed” bullshit is bought and paid for by those same corporations? After all, no one does a study for free. No one. You ALWAYS have to look at who signs the checks. Even the Ivory Tower guys know who pays their bills and are not likely to publish anything that will affect that income. Colleges have sponsoring corporations to answer to and/or the government.
MM has no experience in the real world. None.
Makati1 on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 1:07 am
Greg, all he has to do is put it in his mouth and pull the trigger. No aim necessary.
Or, he can just OD on his drug of choice like tens of thousands are doing today in America. Just another suicide statistic.
Or, he can get smart and prep. Nah! Not for someone of his ‘exceptional’ intelligence. Better to go out with a bang than to live to old age and ‘need diapers’.
I plan to live another 27 years and go out on my 100th. THEN I might consider myself “old”. ^_^
MASTERMIND on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 1:08 am
Greg
See I knew you wouldnt show any pics because you are lying..LOL how many pounds does the ole heifer weigh? MOOO Heifer! MOOO! How are you going to feed that cow once the stores run out of food? LOL And Madkat enough with your conspiracies about studies being payed. If you have some evidence they were influenced then show me if not you are just making shit up because you are to weak minded to handle the conclusions.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 1:10 am
Madkat
You are never going to make it even ten years from now you idiot. I have given you several scholarly sources none have been refuted. NONE..
Makati1 on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 1:10 am
Wow! MM claims to have a girl friend! But, he could claim a harem. Lies are hard to prove on the internet. Either way. Only a fool gives out private info on the internet for the world to see forever. He lives in the land of the Gestapo Police State and thinks he has privacy. LMAO
Makati1 on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 1:16 am
Name calling again MM? Is that all they taught you in that ‘center of higher learning’? You seem obsessed with that “peer review” bullshit. I almost pity you, MM. Almost.
There is 1,000 times as much actual facts/info available on the internet, but you refuse to see it because it refutes your narrow vision of everything. Just like Davy. At least he does some thinking for himself. You need to start doing it too.
Cloggie on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 1:17 am
“It show renewable s advancing at one percent a decade..Where are your links? You liar..”
Oh now I understand your moronic reasoning… just because fossil receded at a pace of 1% per decade over the past 20 years, renewable energy must be at 2%, because everybody and his mother know that fossil and renewable together remain constant.LOL
You are even more of an idiot than I thought possible.
The reality is that the spectacular growth of renewables over the past few years is largely unrelated to fossil consumption.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 1:21 am
Cloggie
Where is your source proving your claims about how much solar and wind provided? I have asked you three times? stop lying..And stop lying to yourself..
GregT on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 1:28 am
MM,
Have you selected your suicide weapon of choice yet? Something shiny perhaps? Or do you prefer blued? Stock, or custom grips? Have you given much thought to which caliber? A 22LR handgun is all that is really needed, if your aim is good.
Could be real soon MM. I’d stop wasting my time on those less intelligent,and get on that ASAP, if I were you.
Cloggie on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 1:33 am
“Where is your source proving your claims about how much solar and wind provided? I have asked you three times? stop lying..And stop lying to yourself..”
I posted it last night. It is not my fault that you don’t pay attention. Go through all the threads and search for “9%”.
Makati1 on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 1:39 am
According to Bloomberg and the UK, Asia is the place to be for the future.
“Case in point: A report published by a UK think tank posits that China will surpass the US to become the world’s largest economy by 2032. Meanwhile, Asian countries will comprise four of the world’s five largest economies, according to Bloomberg.
In 2032, three of the four largest economies will be Asian – China, India and Japan. Interestingly, India’s advance won’t stop there: According to the CEBR, the South Asian country will steal the No. 1 spot from China by mid-century. Also by 2032, South Korea and Indonesia will have entered the top 10, supplanting Italy and Canada – two members of the Group of Seven.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-26/china-overtake-us-worlds-largest-economy-2032
Time will tell.
Cloggie on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 2:21 am
Cloggie
Where is your source proving your claims about how much solar and wind provided? I have asked you three times? stop lying..And stop lying to yourself..
You don’t deserve it that I do the work for you but here are the links anyway:
http://peakoil.com/generalideas/kunstler-christmas-story-2/comment-page-1#comments
(post at the bottom)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_by_country
https://www.worldenergy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/WEResources_Wind_2016.pdf
Solar 1.8%
Wind 7%
So 9% in total, not this ridiculous 1%, millimind keeps peddling.
So in the future stop lying and disseminating fake news about “1% solar and wind worldwide”. It is at least 9%, rapidly increasing and some countries in Europe are already at 30-40% renewable electricity, including industrial powerhouse and world champ export Germany.
https://global.handelsblatt.com/companies-markets/germany-is-capital-export-world-champion-overtakes-china-693481
It.Can.Be.Done.
Sys1 on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 4:21 am
Clog deserves to die in hell.
Davy on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 5:19 am
“Solar Power Passes 1% Global Threshold”
https://tinyurl.com/nunsbcv
(2015)
“Solar power now covers more than 1% of global electricity demand. In three countries in Europe – Italy, Germany and Greece – solar PV supplies more than 7% of electricity demand.”
“8 Countries that Produce the Most Wind Energy in the World”
https://tinyurl.com/ydx4qofl
(2015)
“8. France Percentage share of total wind power capacity of the world: 2.4%
7. Canada Percentage share of total wind power capacity of the world: 2.6%
6. United Kingdom Percentage share of total wind power capacity of the world: 3.1%
5. Spain Percentage share of total wind power capacity of the world: 5.3%
4. India Percentage share of total wind power capacity of the world: 5.8%
3. Germany Percentage share of total wind power capacity of the world: 10.4%
2. The United States of America Percentage share of total wind power capacity of the world: 17.2%
1. China Percentage share of total wind power capacity of the world: 33.6%”
(my calculations)
North America 20%
Europe 21%
China 34%
“RENEWABLES 2016 GLOBAL STATUS REPORT”
https://tinyurl.com/h457jjw
page 32 (see graph)(2014)
wind 3.7%
solar 1.2%
MASTERMIND on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 6:37 am
Clogg
Sorry Wiki and your other sources are not credible..You obviously never went to college.
Cloggie on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 6:49 am
Sys1 says “Clog deserves to die in hell.”
It’s millimind’s peer-reviewed method of admitting defeat.lol
MASTERMIND on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 7:18 am
Sys1
Cloggs life is a living hell. He is poor and miserable. People who are poor are always the most mean people. And only the unloved hate th unloved and un natural. Just ignore clog dont give him any attention. His goals are to change the subject matter away from peak oil and collapse.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 7:23 am
Davy
I know renewable s are a total false hope..According to the IEA solar and wind made up less than one percent total energy last year. And according to BP they made up three percent. But BP counts dung burning and wood in that three percent total. So you dont really know the actual percentage of just solar and wind.
Davy on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 8:06 am
“I know renewable s are a total false hope.”
Well, what kind of hope are you talking about? They are nice to have for the individual or do you disagree? A country is more resilient and sustainable with a certain amount of renewables. They are an extender and life extended is hope. Are they “hope” as in a solution and safety long term? Maybe they are but personally I doubt it.
“According to the IEA solar and wind made up less than one percent total energy last year. And according to BP they made up three percent. But BP counts dung burning and wood in that three percent total. So you don’t really know the actual percentage of just solar and wind.”
Look what I posted earlier.
Cloggie on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 8:10 am
Millimind lies again: According to the IEA solar and wind made up less than one percent total energy last year.
He refuses to show the IEA link because there is none that says that solar + wind are 1%.
Millimind just got his ass kicked with his ridiculous BP link, showing that fossil is 86%, from which millimind completely erroneously “deduced” that solar and wind are therefore merely 1%.
But he can’t admit he was wrong so he continuous to spread his falsehoods.
Again:
Solar is 2%
Wind is 7%
Both figures are “at least”, since the data originates from last year and renewable growth is rapid.
Here IEA articles singing the praise of renewable energy:
https://www.iea.org/publications/renewables2017/
https://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2017/june/commentarythe-success-of-wind-and-solar-is-powered-by-strong-policy-support.html
“Commentary: The success of wind and solar is powered by strong policy support”
https://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2017/october/solar-pv-grew-faster-than-any-other-fuel-in-2016-opening-a-new-era-for-solar-pow.html
In power generation, renewable electricity is expected to grow by more than a third by 2022 to over 8,000 terawatt hours, which is equivalent to the total power consumption of China, India and Germany combined. By then, renewables will account for 30% of power generation, up from 24% in 2016.
In other words, according to the IEA, which millimind accepts as authority, renewable energy is now 24% and will in 6 years time increase to 30%. That increase of 6% can only come from wind and solar. From that alone you can deduce that the installed base of wind and solar around the world can’t be 1%, but is much more. –> at least 9% as I stated earlier.
So according to the IEA, which millimind accepts as authority, we will have 30% renewable energy (wind, solar, hydro, biomass, etc), making a mockery of millimind’s brainfart that… “I know renewable s are a total false hope.”
peakyeast on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 8:15 am
The problem with those renewable world % statistics is that they measure up against electrical power generation and not total energy consumed.
The electrical grid do not cover 100% of the power consumption of any country and is used as a misleading statistic all the time.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 8:17 am
Davy
Renewable s are a scam and don’t get me started on tesla anything. If renewables are really effective then they will prove themselves with themselves. Last year they provided one percent of total energy per IEA..And once the oil starts to run out that will be the end of GDP growth and will cause an economic collapse. And that will be the end of renewables.
Davy on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 8:23 am
MM, I use them personally and they work great for me. I suggest you moderate your extremism or you will become little more than a Mad Kat. If you argue the total picture you will get lost. Argue the details and you will learn something. Neither of us like the board Nazi but he brings plenty of good info to the table on the future of energy.
peakyeast on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 8:31 am
Lets take china since its up in the comments:
https://yearbook.enerdata.net/total-energy/world-consumption-statistics.html
% in electricity production (2016) (notice ELECTRICITY production)
25%
So how much is electricity of chinas total:
About 10%.
So renewable power in china 2016 is at about 2.5% of total energy.
India: 15% of electricity. Electricity is at 9% of total energy consumed in India. So 15% of 9%.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 8:49 am
Davy if you use them personally then you have spent money on them. Which means you have a vested interest and are biased…You can’t run your home on renewables and you live in the midwest where the sun doesn’t shine from 5 pm to 7a for four months out of the year. You will never get back what you paid into them. You were duped and scammed. Maybe you should have questioned the solar salesman…
Davy on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 9:09 am
I don’t need to run my whole house. I can run my lights and a frig. That is enough for me. I have wood heat. I can cook a variety of different ways. I have an old fashion wash tub system to do laundry. I will be ok. If that is bias then I am bias.
GregT on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 10:24 am
“You can’t run your home on renewables”
I have been doing exactly that for the better part of my life. Our electric here is 100% from hydro. As renewable as it gets.
peakyeast on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 1:32 pm
A very few bright, fairly well of people in good countries can do it off-grid.
It remains to be seen that countries like Bosnia or Chile or Chad or Nepal can spread it to cover their entire middleclass as a minimum – and the USA btw..
At this point in time it seems impossible – so lets hope for the logarithmic growth curve that makes all the other curves look flat. –
Including remaining fish in the ocean, pollution, population, ore degradation and so forth.
Wolfie52 on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 7:57 pm
Same idiots arguing with each other…never changes.
I know, I try to ignore the comments, but it is like an accident on the freeway, sometimes you just have to look and shake your head.
Makati1 on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 9:15 pm
Wolfie, what else is there to talk about? PO? That is an old and dead topic. How many barrels left? What will the price be tomorrow? Boring! Mostly lies anyway. Climate change and collapse is far more important and interesting. And both are tired to the oily situation.
Makati1 on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 9:15 pm
tied…
Makati1 on Thu, 28th Dec 2017 6:10 pm
‘Drugs R Us’ is replacing ‘Toys R Us’ in America.
“In the October 30 edition of the New Yorker, reporter Patrick Radden Keefe writes a thorough examination of the role of one pharmaceutical company, Purdue Pharma, in abetting the high number of deaths due to opioid overdoses in the United States. The connection is through the firm’s patent on one highly addictive pain killer, OxyContin. Although there are many factors that fuel the opioid crisis in the United States — including social injustice and economic inequality issues — Keefe’s thoroughly researched article is a telling reminder that the biggest drug pushers in the United States are legal ones: our pharmaceutical companies.”
https://www.globalresearch.ca/pharmaceutical-firm-makes-billions-by-fueling-opioid-crisis/5615121
“According to the National Center for Health Statistics, estimates for the first nine months of 2016 were higher than the first nine months of the previous year, which had already reached an all time high of 52,404. Of those, more than 33,000 were attributed to opioid drugs including legal prescription painkillers as well as illicit drugs like heroin and street fentanyl.”
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/08/health/drug-overdose-rates-2016-study/index.html
“The government figures released Thursday put drug deaths at 63,600, up from about 52,000 in 2015. For the first time, the powerful painkiller fentanyl and its close opioid cousins played a bigger role in the deaths than any other legal or illegal drug, surpassing prescription pain pills and heroin.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/opioid-fentanyl-overdose-deaths-us-life-expectancy-drops-for-second-year/
As the pain of collapse in the US increases, so will the drug use and deaths. The pushers are legal 1%ers. Slip slidin’ away!
Davy on Thu, 28th Dec 2017 6:41 pm
Drug use is up but more or less steady over the years. Its manifestation has changed. More drama from the drama queen. One thing is clear drug use is going up in Asia especially methamphetamines.
MASTERMIND on Thu, 28th Dec 2017 6:55 pm
Madkat how is peak oil a dead topic when the IEA came out in the Wall Street Journal this year and vindicated it for the fist time ever. And nearly a dozen top energy sources are all warning about oil shortages in the next few years?
Cloggie on Fri, 29th Dec 2017 4:38 am
Two Chinese companies arrived at the top ten of most valuable companies worldwide:
http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/boerse-chinas-konzerne-steigen-in-die-weltspitze-auf-a-1185403.html
Cloggie on Fri, 29th Dec 2017 4:45 am
Madkat how is peak oil a dead topic when the IEA came out in the Wall Street Journal this year and vindicated it for the fist time ever. And nearly a dozen top energy sources are all warning about oil shortages in the next few years?
Because we have an emerging alternative for fossil fuel, only retards like you wish to deny. And don’t give me this “1% sun and wind for the world” statistic, illustrating the low US ambition level in energy matters, namely being “the world” (read: third world). Look at what Europe is doing…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_the_European_Union
…the EU will be at 20% renewable PRIMARY ENERGY in 2020.
Target 90% in 2050.
Go f* yourself with your “1% sun and wind”, you imperialist loser.lol
Makati1 on Fri, 29th Dec 2017 5:37 am
MM, NET oil production peaked years ago. The IEA and the WSJ are not reliable sources for any real facts. We have been sliding down the NET energy graph for years.
Think. The claim is what, 96 million barrels a day, including “liquid fuels” (alcohol, cooking oil, etc.)? The amount of actual oil recovered is shrinking all the time. They started adding anything liquid that burns to the numbers to lie about production.
Not to mention the growing amount of energy needed to recover even that amount. the NET energy from oil is way past peak. so there is no use talking about it. Now the economy controls the amount of oil used, no matter how much is produced.
Cloggie on Fri, 29th Dec 2017 5:56 am
Perhaps you want to have a look at this graph makati:
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/12/29/iea-2017-key-world-energy-statistics/
I remember 1971 very well when we had 50% less energy consumption than now and were fine then, even if I had not yet seen a plane from the inside to fly to the other end of the world or even owned a car and lived in a house where only the living room was heated.
Meanwhile in 2017 I have flown to the other side of the world several times, had five cars to date and drove 600,000 km in them or 15 times around the world, mostly to jobs in remote places like Hamburg, Munich, Paris, Zurich, and several others. And I live in houses where every room rather than just the living room is heated. Could I return to 1973 energy levels? Of course I could. It was nice to live an “energetic” cosmopolitan life but I have enough of it and as the AfD says, I have a longing for my own country:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hfVA91pFlU
I welcome 50% less energy (renewable of course) if I can have that too. The idea that we would be all dead because of it, als millimind likes to push, is ridiculous.
Less, less, less.