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smashczar posted:Considering energy is 9% of the US GDP a five-fold increase in cost is not really viable. That book also doesn't deal with the intermittency aspect of renewables, Mackay basically leaves that as a problem that needs to be solved for his models to work. I believe Mackay does make some suggestions for how to deal with intermittent renewable sources, including large scale pumped water storage systems (which I like) and using electric car batteries for distributed energy storage (which I don't like). I'm not saying this is how the energy storage problem must be solved but they are existing solutions that can provide a sense of the cost scales involved (a lot). I think you're missing the point in arguing that a 5-fold increase in the 9% share of US GDP devoted to energy is unviable. Any future energy system will require very large reductions in North American's energy usage (on the order to 50-80%) no matter what. I think this thread would benefit if the sentence "Given that North American energy usage must be significantly reduced,..." were inserted at the front of each post. Also I agree that 2 weeks of energy storage is not feasible. I assumed that 2-3 days of total production loss was the worst case. The problem is mitigated by having a geographically distributed production system with a variety of sources, although it would nice to see more real world examples of how such a system actually work. I'm a total layperson so if you could provide more information I'd appreciate it!
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May 24, 2012 19:49
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-Troika- posted:I dunno about you guys but I sure as gently caress couldn't afford to pay for an electric bill that's five times as large every month. That would literally make my electric bill more than my rent in summer If you think bills are bad, wait until industrial civilization ends.  Making energy costs insanely high is a great neoliberal "solution" to the problem. I mean what other option is there? Nationalize the electric grid and convert it to localized no emission production? Sure energy costs will stabilize (or drop) but y'know, taxes 
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May 24, 2012 19:59
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Nocturtle posted:I believe Mackay does make some suggestions for how to deal with intermittent renewable sources, including large scale pumped water storage systems (which I like) and using electric car batteries for distributed energy storage (which I don't like). I'm not saying this is how the energy storage problem must be solved but they are existing solutions that can provide a sense of the cost scales involved (a lot). The problem with pumped storage is that it's something like 50% efficient on storage AND 50% efficient on discharge. That's absurdly bad in terms of an electrical storage process and it's why you'd need a lot of pumped storage capacity in order to store a modest amount of power. At least batteries have far better charge/discharge efficiencies, but current solid batteries simply don't scale very well due to wear-and-tear with every cycle. What I'd hold out on is flow cell batteries since those would be dirt cheap to make and don't degrade anywhere near as fast as conventional batteries. It gets rid of loss of structural integrity in the electrodes, a serious problem with current batteries especially at larger scales, since everything we're dealing with is liquids that don't have structures. It's also cheaper to scale; increasing the capacity of a flow cell means nothing more than buying more tanks of the active material solutions (cathode solution and anode solution). Unfortunately the battery field isn't getting enough love these days so such things might be decades away. Nocturtle posted:I think you're missing the point in arguing that a 5-fold increase in the 9% share of US GDP devoted to energy is unviable. Any future energy system will require very large reductions in North American's energy usage (on the order to 50-80%) no matter what. I think this thread would benefit if the sentence "Given that North American energy usage must be significantly reduced,..." were inserted at the front of each post. Nuclear power wouldn't require any reduction in energy usage whatsoever, and it would cost less than what we're paying now if implemented time-efficiently with better regulatory management of its issues. That's just for current nuclear production methods, nevermind the use of transmutation or fusion.
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May 24, 2012 21:16
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Office Thug posted:The problem with pumped storage is that it's something like 50% efficient on storage AND 50% efficient on discharge. That's absurdly bad in terms of an electrical storage process and it's why you'd need a lot of pumped storage capacity in order to store a modest amount of power. At least batteries have far better charge/discharge efficiencies, but current solid batteries simply don't scale very well due to wear-and-tear with every cycle. Yes pumped storage is inefficient, but it's something that can be feasibly scaled up and built with today's technology. It's a mistake to wait for advances in battery technology, like fusion they'd be very nice but we can't plan on having them. Alternative fission or thorium reactors are subject to this same criticism, they certainly sound plausible but can we make realistic plans that include them at this point? Can you guarantee they'll be available in 10 years? Also I think you're underestimating the future increase in demand for electrical power. Much of the energy we actually use is supplied by gasoline, and at some point it will become expensive enough that electric cars are widely adopted. This will lead to huge new demands on the electrical system and we're already struggling to get rid of fossil fuel generation. Even with nuclear power I think we will likely have to reduce aggregate energy usage.
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May 24, 2012 22:14
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Nocturtle posted:Yes pumped storage is inefficient, but it's something that can be feasibly scaled up and built with today's technology. It's a mistake to wait for advances in battery technology, like fusion they'd be very nice but we can't plan on having them. Alternative fission or thorium reactors are subject to this same criticism, they certainly sound plausible but can we make realistic plans that include them at this point? Can you guarantee they'll be available in 10 years? I can't guarantee anything about the thorium reactors because I don't work on them. Statistically speaking, however, I'd be far more willing to put money on nuclear managing better than renewables in the same given time frame with the same amount of incentive put into their implementation, just because even current nuclear technology is less material-intensive and costly to implement than renewables per killowatt of electrical output. The only issue with current nuclear relative to other power sources is the time needed for construction, largely a regulatory inefficiency issue that varies from country to country: http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter9.html As for energy consumption in the future, that really depends on what you believe. I think energy consumption will taper off due to diminishing returns in terms of quality of life and increases in energy efficiency, whereas some people think we will be consuming entire stars every day for every person within a few hundred years. The reduction of gasoline usage due to shortages is still a decades away, and there's enough time to fully develop our fission options and implement them before then if we actually tried. Nuclear's availability in terms of fuel is infinite.
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May 25, 2012 00:03
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McDowell posted:Nationalize the electric grid and convert it to localized no emission production? Sure energy costs will stabilize (or drop) but y'know, taxes Since you seem to be unaware of what is taking place in the world from an economics standpoint, let me catch you up - Europe is currently embroiled in a debt crisis. Greece is so deep in debt that they are cutting government spending at a rate that is causing rampant unemployment and social unrest. The "recovery" is stalling in the developed world, and the debt crisis threatens to tear apart the eurozone and throw a few more of its member states into the same situation that Greece is in. The United States is not even close to immune from the turmoil. Our debt-to-GDP ratio is dangerously high, and we've tacked on about 5 trillion dollars worth of debt since 2008. Many of the biggest banks in the U.S. are heavily exposed to European debt, and a Greek default may well kick off a double-dip recession. If the U.S. government manages to stave off recession with more spending and bank bailouts, we'd be setting ourselves up for a credit crunch, and we'd probably get to choose between the dollar being dropped as a global currency (a nightmare scenario) or austerity (see Greece). "The government can just nationalize the energy grid!  " is a totally unfeasible solution in the current economic climate.Climate change and resource depletion are problems that are economic as well as environmental. Both problems are massive externalities that have been ignored for years, and the cost is now showing up in insurance payouts and government disaster relief programs, as well as rising energy prices. Any solution that doesn't deal in both sides of the issues - economic and environmental - is wrongheaded, and represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what is going on.
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May 25, 2012 00:46
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Your Sledgehammer posted:Since you seem to be unaware of what is taking place in the world from an economics standpoint, let me catch you up - Europe is currently embroiled in a debt crisis. Greece is so deep in debt that they are cutting government spending at a rate that is causing rampant unemployment and social unrest. The "recovery" is stalling in the developed world, and the debt crisis threatens to tear apart the eurozone and throw a few more of its member states into the same situation that Greece is in. Now, the problem with some of the recent nationalizations we've seen is this: The governments nationalize the debts and bad parts, then give away the good parts to a bunch of rich assholes. Ask yourself this: Is the energy industry profitable right now? Well duh, or it wouldn't be run by profit-seeking entities. For the fossil fuel-related energy industries, that's only because they've been able to externalize the costs. But it doesn't matter. The point is, the government nationalizing something like the energy industry doesn't mean it has to go further into debt. Indeed, it makes money, and that helps solve the so-called debt crisis! The problem with so many looks at the solutions to climate change and the current economic recession is that those looks only are through the lens of capitalism, especially neoliberalism and this ridiculous idea that countries shouldn't be in debt and the rich should get richer so wealth can trickle down. Hell, even the so-called "socialists" in Greece bought into it, and were calling for austerity and cuts. Has that worked? No. Has it worked anywhere its been implemented? As far as I know, no. But there is precedent for getting out of a horrid economic recession: Massive government spending. We got out of the Great Depression by the massive government spending that was World War 2--and you bet your rear end the government went deep into debt to do it. Now obviously, we don't want there to be a world war 3 just to get us out of this current crisis. But the government spending doesn't need to be directed at war: It could be directed to building massive renewable energy projects (wind, solar, nuclear--I don't care, though I think the latter is the most realistic), infrastructure, etc. That would solve the climate crisis and the economic crisis with one fell swoop. The problem is not scientific, or technological. The problem is not that no one knows what to do. The problem is systemic, and for that, we need systemic change. The current powers (both governmental and economic) that are driving the world towards a ruinous path need to be removed, and a system that can deal with far reaching consequences implemented.
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May 25, 2012 02:14
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You misunderstand me. I am not advocating austerity; I'm just trying to illustrate the predicament we find ourselves in. To nationalize the energy grid, you need the following things (bare minimum): - Political will, both on the part of the voters and the political parties - A government financial situation that is favorable to such an endeavor We currently have neither, and it's not likely to change anytime soon. You realize that all the goon hand-wringing in this thread represents a very small minority that isn't anywhere near mainstream thought in any country of the developed world, even though all the hand-wringing is completely justified? You are right in calling this a systemic problem, but I think it is much deeper than you realize. Humans are notoriously shortsighted, and I'd argue that "a system that can deal with far-reaching consequences," both geographical and temporal, has never been created in the entire history of civilization, unless you want to call a system that can putter along for a few centuries a success (I wouldn't). I think a number of you are stuck in the first couple of stages of grief - denial and bargaining. It's time to move past those, because acceptance is the only emotional state that will leave us capable of helping the overwhelming number of people who will need help. All the talk of renewables misses the more fundamental point - our way of life is not salvageable. There is no way to save it. We can spend all day imagining pie-in-the-sky scenarios of a far-left peacenik uprising that overthrows the power structure in order to nationalize the energy grid and save the environment (but of course we'll keep Apple computer products and industrial agriculture and maybe even a few McDonalds, because when the world is run by hippies, we'll be able to do all that stuff without resorting to enormously wasteful consumerism, right?), but such fantasies bear the same relationship to reality as Ninja Turtles cartoons. The ship is sinking, and we've reached the point where it's pointless to try and plug the leaks. It's too late for that. Worried folks like you and me need to start preparing the lifeboats. Your Sledgehammer fucked around with this message at 02:58 on May 25, 2012 |
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May 25, 2012 02:39
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Office Thug posted:As for energy consumption in the future, that really depends on what you believe. I think energy consumption will taper off due to diminishing returns in terms of quality of life and increases in energy efficiency, whereas some people think we will be consuming entire stars every day for every person within a few hundred years. The reduction of gasoline usage due to shortages is still a decades away, and there's enough time to fully develop our fission options and implement them before then if we actually tried. Nuclear's availability in terms of fuel is infinite. Respectfully I hope you're wrong in your prediction for future gasoline usage. Road transportation is a significant source of carbon emissions (in Canada its roughly 27% of total emissions http://www.ec.gc.ca/ges-ghg/default.asp?lang=En&n=D72282F8-1) and if we're serious about preventing the worst case climate change scenarios than transportation emissions will have to be cut significantly. A lot of transportation is necessary and so will have to be electrified, which will greatly increase the demand for electrical energy in the future (soon). As a result if we want to mitigate climate change as much as possible we will need aggregate energy consumption reductions in the West, even in the frankly implausible scenario we go all nuclear baseline power. I'd actually be interested to see what you think an all-nuclear power system supplying current total energy usage would cost, my extremely rough estimate is ~$5000-$10000 per person present value. Also we can't just hope that people in future will decide to reduce their total energy consumption, even if that actually turns out to be what happens. We need concrete discussions about how to mitigate climate change and the political solutions needed to bring that about, not what we "believe" will happen.
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May 26, 2012 22:00
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Uranium Phoenix posted:The problem is not scientific, or technological. The problem is not that no one knows what to do. The problem is systemic, and for that, we need systemic change. The current powers (both governmental and economic) that are driving the world towards a ruinous path need to be removed, and a system that can deal with far reaching consequences implemented. We know what needs to be done, and it's not a top-down solution. The real problem is getting the entire population on board, which will never happen until poo poo hits the fan and people realize that we have collectively eaten ourselves out of house and home for the sake of luxury items. When the bare necessities aren't being met, then people might have the aha moment that lets them know that their lifestyles were the root cause of their eventual suffering, nor is whiz-bang technology going to save them. Not a good scenario by any means. Getting the entire population on board unfortunately will be proceeded by a large portion of it dying off. Even then, I'm sure there will still be social Darwinists and opportunists ready to start the cycle all over again. 
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May 27, 2012 04:42
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Nocturtle posted:Respectfully I hope you're wrong in your prediction for future gasoline usage. Road transportation is a significant source of carbon emissions (in Canada its roughly 27% of total emissions http://www.ec.gc.ca/ges-ghg/default.asp?lang=En&n=D72282F8-1) and if we're serious about preventing the worst case climate change scenarios than transportation emissions will have to be cut significantly. A lot of transportation is necessary and so will have to be electrified, which will greatly increase the demand for electrical energy in the future (soon). As a result if we want to mitigate climate change as much as possible we will need aggregate energy consumption reductions in the West, even in the frankly implausible scenario we go all nuclear baseline power. I'd actually be interested to see what you think an all-nuclear power system supplying current total energy usage would cost, my extremely rough estimate is ~$5000-$10000 per person present value. You misunderstand me. Nuclear could be used to synthesize zero-net emission fuels from atmospheric CO2 and hydrogen from cracked water. The economics of such a process depend extensively on the availability and cost-effectiveness of power generation. A fully electric vehicle system will bear very heavy upfront and maintenance costs, even with dirt cheap batteries like lithium iron phosphate lithium ion cells or lead acid cells. Sticking with diesel engines, although not ideally efficient, would cost far less until better batteries are developed. To address your point about nuclear's upfront costs, there are several estimates from studies out there for new nuclear technologies. Thorium in LFTRs has something like 5 separate studies detailing possible costs in gory detail, but I'll only focus on using the one from ORNL which pins the costs between 3.8 and 4.2 cents per killowatt hour (http://www.geocities.com/rmoir2003/coe_10_2_2001.pdf). Upfront costs were estimated between 1 and 1.2 billion per gigawatt electric, but are typically accepted as being around 2 billion per GWe. The total world consumption of energy in 2008 (including fossil fuels for transport) was 15040 gigawatts capacity. So replacing all of that with LFTRs would cost between 15 and 30 trillion dollars. For every single person on earth, the upfront costs for the switch would be between 2100 and 4200 dollars. For the US alone, total consumption in 2009 was 2858 gigawatts capacity, and with a population of around 300 million, switching to LFTRs would cost between 10000 and 20000 dollars upfront per person. That cost seems steep, but keep in mind that this is included into the bill when it comes to paying for the electricity, and this upfront cost was factored into the total cost of LFTR electricity per kWh I mentioned earlier. That's still around 4 cents per kWh, which is currently almost half of what natural gas is in the US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source. Also keep in mind that ORNL's estimate is practically a worst-case-scenario, it does not account for possibilities like mass production of LFTRs and other MSRs as small modular units off of assembly lines, which would kill the single biggest costs in building nuclear plants (cost overruns due to delays, typically of regulatory nature). Here's another analysis detailing systems and costs that will be associated with the LFTR fuel cycle: http://moltensalt.org/references/static/downloads/pdf/NAT_MSRintro.pdf Office Thug fucked around with this message at 04:48 on May 27, 2012 |
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May 27, 2012 04:45
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So, convince everyone that LFTR is a good idea (A project of decades... guess 2?), and then build a whole lot of LFTR (a project of decades... guess 2?) to solve a problem that you say is coming to a head in a decade or two? I think we would miss the deadline of before poo poo hits the fan, and nobody wants to do large complex engineering operations like building nuclear reactors.
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May 27, 2012 04:59
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Claverjoe posted:So, convince everyone that LFTR is a good idea (A project of decades... guess 2?), and then build a whole lot of LFTR (a project of decades... guess 2?) to solve a problem that you say is coming to a head in a decade or two? I think we would miss the deadline of before poo poo hits the fan, and nobody wants to do large complex engineering operations like building nuclear reactors. Aren't there a bunch of unresolved problems with LFTR? Like finding a way to pump all this molten salt around without the graphite wearing out every six months?
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May 27, 2012 07:37
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Claverjoe posted:So, convince everyone that LFTR is a good idea (A project of decades... guess 2?), and then build a whole lot of LFTR (a project of decades... guess 2?) to solve a problem that you say is coming to a head in a decade or two? I think we would miss the deadline of before poo poo hits the fan, and nobody wants to do large complex engineering operations like building nuclear reactors. People are saying the problem is right now, and this is true. But, it's only going to get worse here on out the more we ignore it. Our options are switching to clean sources of energy, diminishing our energy consumption, or doing nothing. The path of least resistance, of course, is doing nothing, which is what we're doing right now. But that path is unacceptable. In my view, switching to full-scale nuclear would be the second path of least resistance due to cost advantages, and it would coincide with an even greater goal of securing enough energy to hammer down a number of other world problems, such as food and water scarcity, phosphorous peak, environmental cleanup efforts, and pollution. 30-40 trillion dollars over four decades for total replacement of all emitting energy sources with something that is secure and cheap over the long-run is pretty reasonable. Of course, reduction in consumption would help, but the biggest consumers of energy will always be industry and they've already implemented measures to reduce their consumption (it saves them a lot of cash). 4liters posted:Aren't there a bunch of unresolved problems with LFTR? Like finding a way to pump all this molten salt around without the graphite wearing out every six months? The wikipedia article does a great job of highlighting an LFTR's design challenges and possible solutions: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_fluoride_thorium_reactor
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May 27, 2012 07:52
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TheFuglyStik posted:We know what needs to be done, and it's not a top-down solution. The real problem is getting the entire population on board, which will never happen until poo poo hits the fan and people realize that we have collectively eaten ourselves out of house and home for the sake of luxury items. When the bare necessities aren't being met, then people might have the aha moment that lets them know that their lifestyles were the root cause of their eventual suffering, nor is whiz-bang technology going to save them. Gotta respectfully disagree here on a couple of points. 1) Getting the "entire population on board" isn't possible, but it also isn't really the goal. Public policy and structural change doesn't really have much to do with the views of the public(s). Our non-response to climate change is at least equally due to structural factors, most importantly our economy - the dynamics of capital accumulation and so forth - as the "entire population's" view on climate change. 2) The moral argument: that we "did this to ourselves by being wasteful," again, I think reflects an incorrect analysis that ascribes too much agency and power to individual actors. We drive everywhere because our urban spaces were designed for it; we buy a bunch of useless poo poo because our economy requires it, or in a more immediate sense, because we're swimming in a sea of advertising/marketing/pr campaigns that create consumers. The structure has to change. We can ease a transition by "being the change we wish to see," riding our bikes, brewing our own beer, making our own soap, and all the rest of it, but the massive problems we're facing are systemic, and must ultimately be addressed at that level.
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May 27, 2012 21:10
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toy posted:Gotta respectfully disagree here on a couple of points. I'm not going to disagree that the way our economy is structured plays a large part in this, but I don't see it changing until enough individuals change themselves. The economy doesn't work without massive individual participation. The big players in the economy have resource conservation directly against their monetary interests, so counting on the system to change itself without a massive perception shift by the public is expecting a waterfall to flow upwards. The only way to throw a wrench in this economic system is to withdraw from it as much as possible. If one person does it, it doesn't make a difference. If a large swath of the population does so to stop bearing it on their shoulders, it falters under its own weight. toy posted:2) The moral argument: that we "did this to ourselves by being wasteful," again, I think reflects an incorrect analysis that ascribes too much agency and power to individual actors. We drive everywhere because our urban spaces were designed for it; we buy a bunch of useless poo poo because our economy requires it, or in a more immediate sense, because we're swimming in a sea of advertising/marketing/pr campaigns that create consumers. So how else do we go about addressing it? Movements are made of people. Nothing is going to change because a few isolated individuals say pretty please. Returning economic and political power to the average person would go a long way, but again, it all comes back to enough individuals putting forth the effort. The challenge is convincing enough people that there is a better, more satisfying way of life.
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May 27, 2012 22:50
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Office Thug posted:People are saying the problem is right now, and this is true. But, it's only going to get worse here on out the more we ignore it. Our options are switching to clean sources of energy, diminishing our energy consumption, or doing nothing. The path of least resistance, of course, is doing nothing, which is what we're doing right now. But that path is unacceptable. In my view, switching to full-scale nuclear would be the second path of least resistance due to cost advantages, and it would coincide with an even greater goal of securing enough energy to hammer down a number of other world problems, such as food and water scarcity, phosphorous peak, environmental cleanup efforts, and pollution. 30-40 trillion dollars over four decades for total replacement of all emitting energy sources with something that is secure and cheap over the long-run is pretty reasonable. I'm not arguing that it is reasonable, but that it isn't going to happen, try though we might (I'm stumping for nuclear power everywhere I can as well). If I was an evil emperor I'd be doing just that, with some bet hedges by heavily investing into basic R&D for solar power and nuclear fusion as well, but you outline something that is already too late to happen. Large, complex, and highly technological societies I see as being necessary conditions to nuclear power, and I don't think we can afford the complexity as an immediate switch while having to deal with society in what will be a permanent depression/recession as we reach ecological limits. Adaptation to an interregnum of a few decades with low power and unstable societies is much more likely. Maybe after that we can do the LFTR and other nuclear powered projects. We will probably be long dead though. If only people listened to Jimmy Carter
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May 27, 2012 23:27
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TheFuglyStik posted:The only way to throw a wrench in this economic system is to withdraw from it as much as possible. If one person does it, it doesn't make a difference. If a large swath of the population does so to stop bearing it on their shoulders, it falters under its own weight. Selfishness and greed is what got us into this mess and it is without a doubt the very thing that will keep us from ever fixing it. The only thing that will fix this mess is if every world government decides to switch to nuclear and the 1% not only agrees but also pays the bill. In other words, we are all hosed.
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May 27, 2012 23:53
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TheFuglyStik posted:I'm not going to disagree that the way our economy is structured plays a large part in this, but I don't see it changing until enough individuals change themselves. The economy doesn't work without massive individual participation. The big players in the economy have resource conservation directly against their monetary interests, so counting on the system to change itself without a massive perception shift by the public is expecting a waterfall to flow upwards. Well, to begin with: I don't expect the economic system to change itself. I expect capitalism to continue until reproducing itself becomes impossible or concerted efforts are taken by some group within society to end it. We're in agreement on this point. I'm quite familiar with the argument that our primary political goal should be to "withdraw" from the system. I think there are a number of problems with this argument. First, certain groups are simply unable to make this sort of withdrawal. And those most able are healthy, wealthy and connected; precisely those that benefit most from the current system. Convincing a large number of them to withdraw participation from the economic system seems extremely unlikely. Second, and this is assuming that we could convince a large portion of the population to withdraw from the economic system, those in power would have to let them do it. Things like private property rights, markets, the monetary system and the legal system, in short, the pervasive structures of capitalist society which exercise power over us, will make this extremely difficult. Third, the alternative system that is "withdrawn" to would have to be, at the very least, more efficient than capitalism and not have its same inbuilt growth directive. This is not an easy thing to build, particularly if you've already "withdrawn" from the system of the dominant class, which has all the means of production, not to mention all of the guns. I'll just say one more thing about the moralizing; that human "greed" got us into this, and so forth. This is a serious blame-shift from the real driver of our voluminous consumption, political intransigence, and will to ignorance, which is the dynamics of capital accumulation and the class system. Capitalism must grow, production must increase, and capitalists (generally) must act to maximize profits. It's not that all capitalists are intrinsically greedy bastards; they're fulfilling the requirements of their role in the current economic system. If CEO "A" of a particular corporation is unwilling to do this, they will be fired. And they all know this.
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May 28, 2012 04:04
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I think blaming this situation on capitalism is missing the forest for the trees. This is a tragedy of the commons situation, and it probably would have happened under communism or socialism all the same. Capitalism has definitely sped up the process, but I don't think we would have avoided it by getting rid of capitalism alone.
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May 28, 2012 04:53
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toy posted:I'm quite familiar with the argument that our primary political goal should be to "withdraw" from the system. I think there are a number of problems with this argument. First, certain groups are simply unable to make this sort of withdrawal. And those most able are healthy, wealthy and connected; precisely those that benefit most from the current system. Convincing a large number of them to withdraw participation from the economic system seems extremely unlikely. Second, and this is assuming that we could convince a large portion of the population to withdraw from the economic system, those in power would have to let them do it. Things like private property rights, markets, the monetary system and the legal system, in short, the pervasive structures of capitalist society which exercise power over us, will make this extremely difficult. Third, the alternative system that is "withdrawn" to would have to be, at the very least, more efficient than capitalism and not have its same inbuilt growth directive. This is not an easy thing to build, particularly if you've already "withdrawn" from the system of the dominant class, which has all the means of production, not to mention all of the guns. I'll give you the point on private property rights. I've been trying to get my market gardening operation going this past year, and the red tape just for the small, local food producer is absolutely maddening. I'm not even entertaining the idea of getting an organic certification at this point, simply because I can't hire someone full-time just to deal with the paperwork and records. Never mind that organic certification has simply become a government sanctioned marketing scheme. The FDA is in the pocket of agribusiness, and our food system will always reflect that problem until there is a massive shift in demand for local, unprocessed, or minimally processed food. Health benefits aside from local food sources, the convenience hurdles will keep most people eating food-like substances from Wal-Mart or Burger King that just happen to be edible. What I will argue with is that those who are healthy, wealthy, and connected are the only ones who can withdraw. Self-reliance is absolutely a way of life in my area of Kentucky, and even more so east of here. My generation, not so much, but there is no shortage of older families who produce the bulk of their food, heat their homes under their own effort, only rely on part-time or grunt work, and aren't exactly impoverished. Rich? No, but certainly not financially insecure. When sickness or old age approaches, relatives take over, as in my family. Granted, this is a way of life alien to most parts of this country, but I haven't found much promise in the other modes of living I've experienced. Maybe the current recession has spoiled me on them, or maybe it's proven a point to me. I really can't say at this point. In any case, anyone can turn off the TV, plant a garden, and actually use their kitchen full of devices. If anything, even apartment dwellers can at least produce a small amount of food for themselves. Learn how to forage wild foods, learn how to bake basic things, learn how to cook a $0.89 head of cabbage to make it taste decent... anything that prevents one more item from hitting the shopping cart. I've taken a personal view that every item purchased that wasn't made locally is a small defeat I've ceded to our economic system. Not only am I buying fewer pointless things, but I'm also saving money and have been able to quit a job I hated to take lower paying work that I actually enjoy. This is beyond the reach of some, such as those in the inner-city, but the majority of us could at least do something if we felt so inclined, rather than trying to blame everyone and everything but ourselves for the mess we've bought ourselves into. the kawaiiest posted:Yeah, but that isn't going to happen because the average person doesn't want to sacrifice even the smallest thing because they don't want their quality of life to change. Most people don't care or just don't believe that this is actually a big deal, and they're much too selfish to even consider sacrificing anything at all. They're going to keep buying those iPhones and blasting that air conditioning and driving those SUVs. There is literally nothing we can do about this. To believe that there is a significant number of people who would actually do something like what you're describing is not really that different than believing that the system will change itself. I wouldn't say we're all hosed, but the depressing part is that those who are most vulnerable certainly are. People in developed countries will be inconvenienced or experience minor hardship, but that is all. It's the ones in the developing world who will be utterly hosed.  Your Sledgehammer posted:I think blaming this situation on capitalism is missing the forest for the trees. This is a tragedy of the commons situation, and it probably would have happened under communism or socialism all the same. Capitalism has definitely sped up the process, but I don't think we would have avoided it by getting rid of capitalism alone. I agree. Returning economic and political power to the individual would go a long way toward allowing people to have enough resources to provide more for themselves. Neither communism or capitalism have a good track record of this. If all people had at least some means to help themselves, then I believe at least some who couldn't now, would. How we get to that point, barring massive political change or outright revolution, is completely beyond me.
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May 28, 2012 08:33
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Your Sledgehammer posted:I think blaming this situation on capitalism is missing the forest for the trees. This is a tragedy of the commons situation, and it probably would have happened under communism or socialism all the same. Capitalism has definitely sped up the process, but I don't think we would have avoided it by getting rid of capitalism alone. The tragedy of the commons comes to be exactly because there is a motive to extract more private profit from the commons (if I can't expect to sell infinitely more cows by extracting infinitely more grass there is no point to expanding my grass extraction beyond my personal and my community's needs). Certainly it is possible to spend all available resources under any possible system but I refuse to accept that capitalism is not the main issue currently at hand when the economic system we labour under values production of metric tons of total garbage if there's profit involved. Deleuzionist fucked around with this message at 08:41 on May 28, 2012 |
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May 28, 2012 08:38
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Deleuzionist posted:The tragedy of the commons comes to be exactly because there is a motive to extract more private profit from the commons (if I can't expect to sell infinitely more cows by extracting infinitely more grass there is no point to expanding my grass extraction beyond my personal and my community's needs). Certainly it is possible to spend all available resources under any possible system but I refuse to accept that capitalism is not the main issue currently at hand when the economic system we labour under values production of metric tons of total garbage if there's profit involved. This isn't strictly true - you could have a tragedy of the commons where no-one takes more than their share, but you have too many shares. I think the tragedy comes about more from having no-one with a vested interest to restrict usage, rather than everyone having an incentive to exploit. Take forest reserves for royal hunting in the past, for example. Retained at a sustainable level of use because someone didn't want it to be overexploited (and had the ability to enforce it).
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May 28, 2012 11:22
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TheFuglyStik posted:I wouldn't say we're all hosed, but the depressing part is that those who are most vulnerable certainly are. People in developed countries will be inconvenienced or experience minor hardship, but that is all. It's the ones in the developing world who will be utterly hosed. In the short term, as sea levels rise and all of that, I think you're right. Long term, though, I think the opposite will hold true. People in developing countries are far less dependent on "the system" - electricity, running clean water, readily available medical supplies, etc. They are much closer to old ways of living and will have an easier time going back to those old ways when everything falls apart. Folks who are dependent on their cars, air conditioning, the Internet, electricity, and all that jazz, on the other hand, are going to be in a world of hurt. That's why I think it's prudent for folks like you and me to "disconnect" as much as possible. That way, when the poo poo hits the fan, we can teach others.
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May 28, 2012 18:45
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Except that "developing countries" (which ones? because let's be honest, they are all in very different situations) are largely situated around the equator and will be absolutely ravaged by climate change. For example, pastoral peoples living in eastern Africa simply won't be able to use the agricultural methods that you're so eager to applaud because their environment simply won't support it. In the long term (pick a time frame) they are even more hosed. Remember, we see the potential climactic changes in the 21st century as catastrophic. They are only going to continue to accelerate as time goes on. There is not a period of stability anywhere near on the horizon. We're talking tens of thousands of years at the least. Idolizing "old ways of living" as if they offer some sort of solution for our current problems just needs to stop. a lovely poster fucked around with this message at 23:39 on May 28, 2012 |
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May 28, 2012 23:34
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TheFuglyStik posted:So how else do we go about addressing it? Movements are made of people. Nothing is going to change because a few isolated individuals say pretty please. Returning economic and political power to the average person would go a long way, but again, it all comes back to enough individuals putting forth the effort. The opinions of the vast majority of people are determined by the media, however. As much as we might like to think that people come to independent conclusions, that isn't reality. As a result, individuals/organizations that exert the most influence over the media (directly or indirectly) are the only ones with the ability to create a significant change in public opinion. The very prevalence of modern media makes legitimately "grassroots" public efforts (with a big/national scope) mostly futile; the dialogue of an overwhelming majority of Americans is strictly defined by what is discussed in mainstream media. Occupy Wall Street is a good example; most people stopped talking about it when the media stopped talking about it. And this isn't some "sheeple" thing, either; I also stopped talking about it mainly because it didn't come up in conversation due to a lack of media coverage. I think that it's most likely impossible to promote any major cause on a national level without a significant amount of mainstream media coverage. The fact that people don't come to conclusions independently is also why it's wrong to blame "people in general" for something like climate change. Generally speaking, people with power (read: money) are to blame for most major national/international problems, for the simple reason that they're the only ones who can significantly influence what topics/messages are present in the media and politics.
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May 29, 2012 00:40
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If this was posted earlier, I missed it, but here's William Nordhaus's fairly comprehensive refutation of denialist talking points, referencing the "No Need to Panic About Global Warming" letter from the WSJ: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/mar/22/why-global-warming-skeptics-are-wrong/. At the end there's a rebuttal from a couple of the letter's authors, and a response from Nordhaus. Good stuff.
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May 29, 2012 01:29
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http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1547.html put me onto this study (with a wonderfully biased, who's dumb now lieberals tone)It seems that the science has been politicized enough that thinking climate change is an issue just comes down to whether or not you consider things from a communal standpoint or FYGM.
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May 29, 2012 02:02
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A lovely poster: I largely agree with you, but the thing is, I'm not saying that "old ways of living" are a solution to our current problems. That's because our current problems can't be solved. There is no way of reversing what we've done save letting nature run its course, so we're going to have to live with (or, for many of us including very possibly myself, die by) the results of our actions. What I am suggesting is that "old ways of living" (and I'm talking very old ways of living - small "uncivilized" societies, whether they be horticultural, pastoral, or hunter-gatherer) offer a sustainable lifestyle for the survivors of the catastrophe. We've spent thousands of years figuring out workarounds for our problems, whether they be economic, political, social, or otherwise. The downside of this is that we haven't taken the time to figure out where we went wrong and what the cause of the problems may be. I'd define "sustainable" simply as using resources slowly enough that you allow them to be replenished. Under this definition, not only are oil and coal use unsustainable, but agricultural civilization itself is unsustainable. There is no way to to get civilization to be sustainable, even if you were using the low-impact style of farming that was born in Mesopotamia 10,000 years ago. Rather than address this, the root of the problem, we have chosen over the centuries to cover it up and treat the symptoms by expanding and coming up with ever more resource-intensive technology. These kinds of fixes have never resulted in civilization being sustainable, they've only extended its lifespan, and the deeply tragic but inevitable end result is that billions (most likely including myself) will suffer and die.
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May 29, 2012 02:28
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Your Sledgehammer posted:A lovely poster: Jesus Christ man, get therapy. And people try to call conservatism a mental illness.
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May 29, 2012 03:06
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Geraden posted:Jesus Christ man, get therapy. I would say tossing humanity to back before the dawn of written language would be a fairly conservative method of addressing the sustainability of our species.
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May 29, 2012 03:19
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If you disagree with me, that's OK. I think we're at a junction, though, where it makes the most sense to figure out what the root of the problem is rather than try to get ourselves out of our current predicament (which is looking increasingly hopeless). That way when all the bad stuff is over, we'll at least have an idea of what works. Do you agree that we're way off-track? Do you agree that continuing forward on our current track (and by that I mean the oil-and-coal based economy that we have) will result in catastrophe? The only additional leap that I'm making is that I think rather than continuing to move in the same direction but just change course a bit and hope it works (solar power, steady-state economy, what have you), I think we'd be better off carefully retracing our steps to see where we got so off-track. I've tried to do this on my own, and here's the interesting/disturbing thing: 1. Prehistoric humans were just as intelligent and emotionally complex as we are. There is zero biological difference, which means zero difference in capability. 2. Prehistoric ways of life were very resilient as well as inherently low-impact and nondestructive from an ecological perspective. If one society perished because of extreme weather or some other event, all the others went on just fine. Prehistoric societies also did not outstrip their own resources. On the other hand, we've got a situation where agricultural failure would result in global human devastation. We've also managed to completely outstrip the Earth's natural resources in about 10,000 years, which is the blink of an eye from a geological perspective. I don't think our problems are necessarily the result of humans being greedy bastards or anything like that, I think we're just heavily involved in a system that doesn't really work. The narrative that we're operating on is fundamentally destructive and broken. Why do you think the natives fought so hard when Europeans came to the New World? I mean, the Europeans had ships and guns and all sorts of other cool toys, so maybe the natives were just stupid and couldn't see how obviously advanced European society was? 
Your Sledgehammer fucked around with this message at 03:45 on May 29, 2012 |
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May 29, 2012 03:37
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Your Sledgehammer posted:2. Prehistoric ways of life were very resilient as well as inherently low-impact and nondestructive from an ecological perspective. If one society perished because of extreme weather or some other event, all the others went on just fine. Prehistoric societies also did not outstrip their own resources. On the other hand, we've got a situation where agricultural failure would result in global human devastation. We've also managed to completely outstrip the Earth's natural resources in about 10,000 years, which is the blink of an eye from a geological perspective.
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May 29, 2012 03:47
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We can't. 7 billion of us is a massive population overshoot that will inevitably crash. Humans are currently using some 20% of the primary productivity of the planet, which is absurd and totally unprecedented in the history of life on Earth. It's a horrible tragedy. If I could take a time machine and prevent this from happening, I would. What I am suggesting won't stave off the crash, rather it is an attempt to get people to consider what is sustainable so that people who make it through will hopefully adopt a way of life that doesn't result in a similar disaster.
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May 29, 2012 03:59
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the kawaiiest posted:There are 7 billion of us on this planet. How do you propose we feed all these people? If these questions aren't asked, then what good is it if we just keep on going til we go off a cliff, keeping the ball rolling with work around after work around ignoring a fundamental problem
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May 29, 2012 04:05
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Any solution to enviromental problems that revolves around mass genocide is never ever going to happen. The sooner the more radical environmentalists get used to this idea the sooner work on actual useful solutions can move forward. Seriously, don't be like this guy.
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May 29, 2012 04:37
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Again, what I am offering is not a solution, and I am not advocating genocide. Seriously, what you linked is so far from what I've said that I'm tempted to think that you're intentionally misreading or projecting your own biases onto what I've written. It's offensive, so please stop it.
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May 29, 2012 04:43
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Maluco Marinero posted:What does that have to do with his attempt at reasoning a root cause of our current situation?
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May 29, 2012 04:57
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Viability of 7 billion people (or lets say 10 billion, the current estimate of when population will start declining again) is really up to what happens in the next 100 years. If aridity destroys agricultural heartlands, it's not viable. We have to define those parameters before we have this conversation.
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May 29, 2012 05:07
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Climate change is not the only reason why 7 billion may not be viable, though. You've also got to consider resource depletion (we are facing not only peak oil, but also peak soil and peak water) and loss of biodiversity (which puts the balance of all life on Earth in a very fragile state). If we could even solve one out of the three catastrophic problems (which seems unlikely considering mainstream political thought), the other two would leave us just as hosed. The issue is that most people try to think of what it'd be like to get away from an oil-based economy and they just stop there, without probing the problem any further. Getting away from oil is not enough. 7 billion people on this planet, as well as civilization itself, is what is not sustainable. Even if climate change were not a threat, we'd still be totally screwed by resource depletion and loss of biodiversity. There is no way that 7 billion people can use resources in such a way that the Earth is able to replenish them; it's just not possible. You end up having to take so many resources that other life forms are forced into extinction, and that loss of biodiversity eventually results in ecological breakdown. The fact that it has taken us 10,000 years to hit that point is irrelevant. Some have suggested that civilization itself was the result of humans hitting natural population limits in precivilized societies. This makes perfect sense to me, and it set in motion a strategy of trying to work around natural limits rather than live with them as best we can. It doesn't take rocket science to see that this strategy is going to bite us in the rear end hard sooner or later. We are not special snowflakes - we are just as bound by natural limits as any other life form. Let me say this again just to be totally clear, so that no one can attempt to twist my words: I believe a collapse is inevitable, and I am deeply saddened by it. Suggesting that a crash is inevitable is not the same as advocating or celebrating a crash. It's the difference between saying the ship is sinking and intentionally running the ship into an iceberg. Addendum: Nature has been doing its work for billions of years. The result of this work has been greater diversity and greater complexity. Millions of species work within millions of specialized ecological niches, and the ones that are not able to adapt to their ecosystems and environments die off. Nature selects for viable species, and on a more macro scale, viable ecosystems. When humans came on the scene, they worked within this system very well for millions of years. Millions of years of ecological stability. Now, in a mere 10,000 years, that has completely changed. What in the world makes you think that we could outsmart billions of years worth of evolution? Your Sledgehammer fucked around with this message at 05:45 on May 29, 2012 |
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May 29, 2012 05:24
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