The anti-tax movement in the United States has evolved from a fringe component of American politics 40 years ago into one that is central today. And certainly, the country has had a long history of tax protests, right? Actually, wrong.
While the Boston Tea Party is often cited as the inspiration for today's so-called Tea Party, the Boston Tea Party was an outgrowth of a movement to end "taxation without representation." The American colonists didn't object to taxes per se; they objected to taxes levied by a body--in this case the British Parliament--in which they had no representatives. That's hardly the situation with the modern Tea Party. The members of the modern movement may not like their elected representatives, but they do have them.
The Whiskey Rebellion is the only significant tax revolt in American history prior to California's Proposition 13, a 1978 ballot initiative which limited property taxes. The Whiskey Rebellion of the 1790s was about the unfair way in which the distilled spirits tax was structured. It was deeply regressive (i.e., small operators paid significantly higher effective tax rates than large ones) and designed by then Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton to drive small farmers and distillers in the West out of business in favor of large farmers and distillers in the East. Far from desiring a smaller federal government, the protestors wanted money spent on greater government protection against Indian raids and better roads to transport their goods to eastern markets.
And so, the historical animus that Americans supposedly have toward taxes has been largely manufactured to facilitate the propaganda machine of the modern anti-tax movement. This means that the long hiatus between the Whiskey Rebellion and Proposition 13 must be considered the norm in American history and that some recent change in American circumstances must be responsible for the modern anti-tax movement.
Joseph Tainter, author of the Collapse of Complex Societies, may have an answer. In a 1996 essay entitled "Complexity, Problem Solving, and Sustainable Societies" he explains the basics of his theory, namely, that increased complexity is a mode of problem solving; that it requires additional inputs, especially energy inputs; and that it eventually leads to diminishing and then negative returns. Diminishing returns make a society less resilient in the face of shocks and more subject to collapse--not complete destruction, Tainter says, but a simplification process that can be very painful and harrowing to live through and result in many casualties.
It is Tainter's notion of diminishing returns that sheds light on the modern anti-tax movement. It seems no accident that the movement grows up in an era, the 1970s, of constrained energy supplies. These supplies are essential to maintaining the complex functioning of industrial societies. In the earlier part of the century the colossal achievements of the Federal Government led people to respect its efficacy. It softened the blow of the Great Depression, led the country to victory in World War II, and built a superhighway system that connected the entire country as well as other infrastructure to power the economy and to protect the environment. But these were the low-hanging fruit.
Today, adding lanes to highways relieves congestion only until enough development takes place next to it to clog it all over again. We've reached the point of diminishing returns.
When the astronauts first set foot on the Moon, it was a staggering achievement. But the achievements in space since then have been less spectacular and more incremental. We have reached the point of diminishing returns.
Government spent lavishly on higher education and public schools in order to educate a new generation for a more complex society. There were dreams as recently as the mid-1990s that so-called distance learning would make college-level classes available to nearly everyone. But the dynamics of learning worked against this new complexity. People, it turns out, learn best in small groups with an actual teacher present. And, the increasingly complex information and techniques which students must now master call for even more personal attention, not less. We have reached the point of diminishing returns.
We need ever more educated people, but we have no way of turning them out more efficiently. So we must invest ever greater funds into educating the ever growing number of specialists we need. And, in education as in many other areas, these funds are showing diminishing returns. The returns are not zero, but no longer so hefty as they were.
Public health systems virtually wiped out many infectious diseases including polio through mass vaccination and better health practices. The results were profound and the costs were small. Now we spend lavishly on medical research to make incremental advances in treating chronic conditions such as heart disease and cancer which are in some respects products of industrial civilization.
A public used to such grand strides in all areas of life--strides aided in many ways by government expenditures--became increasingly frustrated by the declining returns for each additional dollar spent on government programs. They attributed this decline, however, to poor teachers or lazy civil servants. They could not think in terms of declining marginal returns; nor could they imagine that in a complex society the failure to maintain increasing investments in infrastructure and education would only make matters worse. So, they revolted. They looked for enemies and found them, namely, public employees. And, they began a campaign to defund them believing that they were taking too many of society's resources and not producing the results the public wanted.
The defunding campaign has weakened our infrastructure and left our children undereducated for the complex world they now find themselves in. The stresses created by increased complexity have caused Americans to embark on a path that can only lead to collapse, the kind that Tainter imagines. The public has been lulled into believing that "efficiency" in government such as we supposedly see in large corporations will solve the problem of declining marginal returns from investment in complexity. But corporations, as Tainter points out, face the same headwinds. The easy and obvious technical discoveries have been made. Huge investments are now needed just to obtain incremental progress. That doesn't mean technical progress isn't possible, only that it will not leap forward in the way it did in the first half of the last century.
There are those who will point to the computer revolution and now the biotech revolution and say that in these fields the leading businesses have overcome the problem of declining marginal returns. First, it is worth pointing out that both of these industries have significantly added to the complexity of society. And so, their connection to the declining marginal returns and even negative returns of technology cannot be dismissed. The effects of these industries must not simply be judged in a vacuum but within the context of the society they serve.
In fact, we have already seen some of the negative returns of a highly networked society in the form of the worst economic crash since the Great Depression and in the dangerous effects of biotechnology produced by companies that understand nothing of ecology and are therefore blind to the unintended effects of their inventions.
Tainter suggests that declining marginal returns from complexity may not be a soluble problem for a society structured as ours is. We have relied on copious amounts of fossil fuels to allow us to overcome many of our challenges. This cheap energy source has been perhaps the key input enabling increased complexity as an efficacious problem-solving strategy.
It is not obvious how we as a society could climb down off the cliff of complexity gracefully in the absence of increasing supplies of fossil fuels. But it is obvious that the anti-tax movement is pushing us toward that cliff more quickly because of its failure to comprehend that we need to plan for a less complex future using tools that are not so blunt as a simple-minded tax revolt. And, yet given the poor level of understanding among the public and the ruling elite about complexity and society, it is completely understandable that the debate is being governed by the false premises propagated by the anti-tax movement.
Sunday, February 06, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Razor blades and the limits of complexity
A friend of mine once remarked that if current trends continue, razor cartridges will have at least 100 blades each by the end of the century. The razor blade wars are among the most visible absurdities illustrating how the limits of complexity clash with our blind faith in the idea that more complexity will always solve our problems or improve our lives.
The race among blade manufacturers has gotten so heated that you can skip right over the now obsolete three-blade models and go directly to one with six blades on each cartridge. And for laughs, you can watch these fake commercials, one for a 7-blade razor and one for an 18-blade razor.
My friend, by the way, uses a single-blade safety razor and says he gets a better shave from it than anything else. He just had to learn how to use it correctly, he explained. And, that may be part of the reason people prefer more complex tools. Using simpler ones requires learning skills that most of us never learned because we never had to learn them. How many people below age 50 even started shaving with an old-style safety razor?
Beyond this there is the historical experience that more complexity does frequently solve problems. Food was being prepared under unsanitary conditions, and so governments began to regulate the way food is made. The air and the water were polluted, so governments added environmental agencies to regulate that pollution.
Think about how much more complex automobiles have become in the last quarter century, so much so that fewer and fewer people are able to fix those automobiles themselves. All those electronics were added to solve problems, for example, to enhance safety and comfort.
Today, the average citizen in wealthy countries is obliged to own or have access to computers and know how to use them or miss out on much of what constitutes modern life. We have access to machines that can calculate millions of times faster than we can ever hope to, that can connect us literally to a world of information, and that can allow us to communicate in an instant with people on the opposite side of the globe. And, yet how many of us even understand how those machines work, let alone how the Internet to which they are connected functions?
Our inability to understand the systems we create puts a limit on the level of complexity that is beneficial to us. Recently established and poorly understood systems can bring unwelcome surprises. Witness the financial meltdown of 2008. Up to that point many economists (who were supposedly able to understand the complex global economy) believed that the world's economic planners had mastered the business cycle and created a "Great Moderation" in its volatility and therefore consequences.
Joseph Tainter, the great historian of collapse theory, explains in his classic study, The Collapse of Complex Societies, that increased complexity incurs costs. As complexity increases, costs usually increase faster resulting in diminishing returns and then finally negative returns. (See Tainter's "Complexity, Problem Solving and Sustainable Societies" for a condensed discussion of these ideas.)
That we are a society of advanced complexity is a given. That our society is now experiencing negative returns from increasing complexity is not often discussed. For example, we use systemic pesticides--which means they flow from the inside of the plant outward--to kill and repel crop pests and thereby protect yields. But this new complexity in our food system may be the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder which is wiping out bees at such a fast rate that crops such as nuts and fruits may soon be compromised because there are not enough bees to pollinate them.
Glyphosate, known commercially as Roundup, is probably the world's most widely used herbicide. It is particularly well-known for its use with Roundup Ready crops, crops genetically-engineered to be unaffected by glyphosate applications. All this highly complex technology has the benefit of enabling a farmer to weed his or her crop chemically and thus save much labor. Now it seems that repeated applications of glyphosate to farm fields can disturb the microbial balance in the soil so much that it leads to Sudden Death Syndrome in crops. Using products to enhance yields which actually undermine the fertility of the soil is a strategy that must be categorized as having negative returns.
On the seas ocean-going factory ships have enhanced our ability to catch and process fish for human consumption. But the efficacy of such technology has led to overfishing and the collapse of many fish species. Wild fish catches have leveled off and don't look like they will turn up soon despite our advanced technology. It's another case of diminishing and probably negative returns if one considers that large predatory fish are now scarce forcing fishing boats to go after species that used to be considered too small to bother with. Genetic diversity and thus survivability among fish species are being threatened as a result.
The alternative to scaling the walls of complexity continuously would be to simplify society when the returns on complexity diminish or turn negative. One of the essential inputs for increased complexity is increased energy input, according to Tainter. Thus, peaks in fossil fuels may force global society to simplify. Why not recognize now that the solution to our problems may not involve higher degrees of complexity? Why not get ready ahead of time and make the transition less painful?
I heard Tainter speak at a recent conference, and he was asked a closely linked question: Is there an historical example of a society that reduced its complexity voluntarily before it absolutely had to? He had a one-word answer: No. Will that be our answer, too?
The race among blade manufacturers has gotten so heated that you can skip right over the now obsolete three-blade models and go directly to one with six blades on each cartridge. And for laughs, you can watch these fake commercials, one for a 7-blade razor and one for an 18-blade razor.
My friend, by the way, uses a single-blade safety razor and says he gets a better shave from it than anything else. He just had to learn how to use it correctly, he explained. And, that may be part of the reason people prefer more complex tools. Using simpler ones requires learning skills that most of us never learned because we never had to learn them. How many people below age 50 even started shaving with an old-style safety razor?
Beyond this there is the historical experience that more complexity does frequently solve problems. Food was being prepared under unsanitary conditions, and so governments began to regulate the way food is made. The air and the water were polluted, so governments added environmental agencies to regulate that pollution.
Think about how much more complex automobiles have become in the last quarter century, so much so that fewer and fewer people are able to fix those automobiles themselves. All those electronics were added to solve problems, for example, to enhance safety and comfort.
Today, the average citizen in wealthy countries is obliged to own or have access to computers and know how to use them or miss out on much of what constitutes modern life. We have access to machines that can calculate millions of times faster than we can ever hope to, that can connect us literally to a world of information, and that can allow us to communicate in an instant with people on the opposite side of the globe. And, yet how many of us even understand how those machines work, let alone how the Internet to which they are connected functions?
Our inability to understand the systems we create puts a limit on the level of complexity that is beneficial to us. Recently established and poorly understood systems can bring unwelcome surprises. Witness the financial meltdown of 2008. Up to that point many economists (who were supposedly able to understand the complex global economy) believed that the world's economic planners had mastered the business cycle and created a "Great Moderation" in its volatility and therefore consequences.
Joseph Tainter, the great historian of collapse theory, explains in his classic study, The Collapse of Complex Societies, that increased complexity incurs costs. As complexity increases, costs usually increase faster resulting in diminishing returns and then finally negative returns. (See Tainter's "Complexity, Problem Solving and Sustainable Societies" for a condensed discussion of these ideas.)
That we are a society of advanced complexity is a given. That our society is now experiencing negative returns from increasing complexity is not often discussed. For example, we use systemic pesticides--which means they flow from the inside of the plant outward--to kill and repel crop pests and thereby protect yields. But this new complexity in our food system may be the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder which is wiping out bees at such a fast rate that crops such as nuts and fruits may soon be compromised because there are not enough bees to pollinate them.
Glyphosate, known commercially as Roundup, is probably the world's most widely used herbicide. It is particularly well-known for its use with Roundup Ready crops, crops genetically-engineered to be unaffected by glyphosate applications. All this highly complex technology has the benefit of enabling a farmer to weed his or her crop chemically and thus save much labor. Now it seems that repeated applications of glyphosate to farm fields can disturb the microbial balance in the soil so much that it leads to Sudden Death Syndrome in crops. Using products to enhance yields which actually undermine the fertility of the soil is a strategy that must be categorized as having negative returns.
On the seas ocean-going factory ships have enhanced our ability to catch and process fish for human consumption. But the efficacy of such technology has led to overfishing and the collapse of many fish species. Wild fish catches have leveled off and don't look like they will turn up soon despite our advanced technology. It's another case of diminishing and probably negative returns if one considers that large predatory fish are now scarce forcing fishing boats to go after species that used to be considered too small to bother with. Genetic diversity and thus survivability among fish species are being threatened as a result.
The alternative to scaling the walls of complexity continuously would be to simplify society when the returns on complexity diminish or turn negative. One of the essential inputs for increased complexity is increased energy input, according to Tainter. Thus, peaks in fossil fuels may force global society to simplify. Why not recognize now that the solution to our problems may not involve higher degrees of complexity? Why not get ready ahead of time and make the transition less painful?
I heard Tainter speak at a recent conference, and he was asked a closely linked question: Is there an historical example of a society that reduced its complexity voluntarily before it absolutely had to? He had a one-word answer: No. Will that be our answer, too?
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Is the global economy approaching an inflection point?
It's hard to make predictions, especially about the future.
During a presentation last week a questioner asked me what I thought about predictions that gasoline prices would reach $5 a gallon this summer. I offered this critique. I said that the oil prices implied by $5-a-gallon gas could probably not be attained in such a weak global economy. And, something short of that price would probably send the economy into a tailspin.
I don't foresee such an event soon, but it does seem to me that at some point high energy prices will lead to another economic decline. Perhaps there might even be a crash since the financial sector--which is even more fragile than it was in 2008 in my view--might face another crisis as a result of too much money flowing into the energy sector and therefore not enough flowing into the financial sector.
I warned everyone not to rush out and phone their brokers.
And yet, there are signs of the same kind of overheated bullishness on commodities and bearishness on bonds that we saw in the first half of 2008. And, we've seen the same kind of massive central bank easing again that preceded the commodity run-up that year.
The most recent easing has shown up in food prices as the UN food price index reached a record level earlier this month. In metals, tin rose to an all-time record. Copper prices are over $4 a pound for the first time since the 2008 run-up. Base metals in general have more than doubled since the 2008 lows. Cotton reached a new, all-time high this year and hovers near record territory. While interest rates are low by historical standards, long-term bond yields have been rising (and bond prices falling), supposedly in anticipation of further economic growth and inflation. And, of course, the consensus is that China, the great consumer of commodities, will do nothing but grow.
Could commodity prices go significantly higher? I took a stab at answering the same question in February 2008 during the last run-up in commodity prices. For a while they did climb. Could soybeans reach their old inflation-adjusted high of $61 a bushel ($12.90 in 1973 dollars)? I wondered. Could wheat vault beyond its old inflation-adjusted high of $28 ($6.35 in 1974 dollars)? In the end only oil obliged by besting the old inflation-adjusted high of $104 a barrel ($38 in 1979 dollars) to reach $147. (The Shadow Government Statistics newsletter, however, estimates that inflation has been seriously underestimated by the U.S. government and that therefore oil would have had to surpass $280 a barrel in 2008 to reach an all-time inflation-adjusted high.)
What I learned from that thought experiment is that it matters how robust the underlying financial economy is. In early 2008 the subprime loan crisis was morphing into a general credit crisis, something I recognized at the time. But I assumed that the U.S. Federal Reserve also understood this and would simply continue to flood the world with liquidity adequate to avoid a seize-up in the markets. That turned out to be an incorrect assumption. The Fed did finally realize what was happening, but acted too late to head off a financial crash.
Did the Fed and the other central banks learn their lesson in 2008? Will they pump endless amounts of liquidity into the financial markets in order to avoid another seize-up? Will that send commodity prices to the almost unimaginable levels I thought they might reach in 2008? Or, as some observers wonder, have the central banks learned the wrong lesson and will they simply find themselves helpless in the face of ongoing deleveraging (shedding of debt) that will create another credit crisis and take down the economy? Have the central banks simply created two more bubbles in Chinese real estate and commodities? Will these bubbles pop placing unstoppable downward pressure on an already crippled financial sector and lead to a panic that will crush markets worldwide?
Famed short seller Jim Chanos believes that the Chinese economy is experiencing a huge property bubble as 60 percent of the economy is now construction. He made the call last year, but hasn't changed his tune. Chanos seems to be testing the saying by economist John Maynard Keynes that "[m]arkets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent." Chanos did, however, apparently make some money as the Chinese stock market fell about 14 percent last year.
Blogger Nicole Foss of the Automatic Earth cautions that whatever interim steps the world's governments and central banks take, they cannot stop the shedding of debt which is now in process among households and businesses in North America and Europe. That process will overwhelm any attempts to maintain economic growth and send us into a deflationary depression before long, she believes. Australian economist Steven Keen, who was one of the few who foresaw the subprime loan debacle and the end to the U.S. real estate bubble, agrees.
Naturally, if one makes an economic prediction without specifying a particular date, one will--like a stopped clock--be right at some point. The tricky part about prediction is always timing. So, we must not only listen to Yogi Berra when making predictions, but also perhaps William Shakespeare:
There is a tide in the affairs of men,Translation: Timing is everything!
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.*
__________________________________________________
*From Julius Caesar, Act IV, Scene III
Sunday, January 16, 2011
A dramatic shift in the peak oil discussion: "You don't have to take my word for it"
If you write about, speak about, or talk with your family, friends and co-workers about peak oil, you've almost certainly been asked: "Well, who else is saying what you're saying?"
It's wise not to rely on just one source of information. Humans are fallible creatures. Knowing that, we feel much more comfortable when we can confirm something someone tells us either directly through observation or indirectly by going to a well-vetted source. We can, for instance, easily verify whether the Empire State Building has 103 stories, either by going there and counting the stories or referring to some reputable source of information. Furthermore, whether the Empire State Building has 103 stories is not really a matter of opinion. It's either true or it isn't.
When it comes to murkier matters such as peak oil, we must admit that our perceptions and conclusions are always based on incomplete information. In such instances, humans, being social creatures, seek confirmation from others when they receive information that is new and not easily verified. They wonder, quite rightly, whether other people accept such information as correct.
Now, as we know, the mere fact that large numbers of people accept a certain conclusion is not necessarily proof of its veracity. Still, with little to go on and little time to do independent research, many people essentially resort to polling. Does my reference group, the people I hang out with most, accept a particular conclusion? Does the broader public, reflected through the media, accept it?
This confirmation strategy has worked against the peak oil movement for many years as very few highly placed people dared to utter the words "peak oil" in public--even if they believed the issue was important. That has changed rather radically in the last 12 months, and it hands peak oil activists another important rhetorical tool, namely, the phrase: "You don't have to take my word for it."
In rhetorical terms this phrase is, of course, an appeal to authority. Those who argue the peak oil case most often rely on appeals to reason. That works with some people. But others can find such argumentation tedious and difficult to follow. A shortcut for them is to check out what experts and officials are saying. Increasingly, those experts and officials are saying that peak oil is near, that it is a serious danger, and that we are unprepared for it.
Perhaps the most important announcement in this respect is the turnabout at the International Energy Agency (IEA) late last year in its 2010 World Energy Outlook. The Paris-based IEA is an intergovernmental energy research and policy organization serving its 28 member states including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom. It was formed in the wake of the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo to advise member states, most of which are oil importers, on energy policy.
Consistently optimistic in the past about future energy supplies, the IEA undertook its own field-by-field survey of oil reserves in 2008 and has become increasingly concerned about oil supplies. This year the agency explicitly discussed peak oil for the first time and proclaimed that conventional crude most likely peaked in 2006. It continues to believe unconventional oil from the tar sands, the Arctic and deepwater fields along with natural gas liquids can make up for declining conventional oil and lead to increases in world oil production for two more decades. But it warns that this is no longer a foregone conclusion without the necessary and rather large investment required.
There were earlier indications that the IEA was about to change its official views. In 2008 the chief economist of the IEA, Fatih Birol, wrote in a guest editorial in the British newspaper The Independent that "we should leave oil before it leaves us."
This turnabout is significant because the public listens much more closely to officials who change their minds than it does to those who've advocated a position consistently. The public feels that an insider who changes his or her mind about an important policy topic must have special inside knowledge that confirms the change. More important is that IEA officials are changing their minds not because it is merely fashionable to do so, but because mounting evidence has convinced them that our energy future, particularly our oil future, will not be smooth sailing.
That has been the case again and again in official circles recently. In 2005 the so-called Hirsch Report, a report about peak oil commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy, stood practically alone as an official pronouncement about the dangers and proximity of peak oil.
But last year the U.S. military released a report raising warnings about a nearby oil supply crunch that would seriously affect military operations. "A severe energy crunch is inevitable without a massive expansion of production and refining capacity," the report said. But even in the measured language of the report there can be no mistaking that there is concern about oil production peaking worldwide. "The world would need to add roughly the equivalent of Saudi Arabia’s current production every seven years" to meet expected oil demand in 2030. I sat next to the author of that report at a meeting last summer--a peak oil meeting.
The American military was not the only defense establishment that got interested in peak oil in 2010. The German military commissioned a report, leaked to the media, assessing the dangers of world peak oil production. Parts of the British government including the Ministry of Defense huddled in meetings last year about peak oil. The content of the meetings remains secret. But their existence sent a minor shock wave through the British public who had been consistently told by high government officials not to worry about peak oil.
A private report put together by some major industry players in Britain was also released last year. The group called itself the Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security. The message couldn't have been more blunt: "Our message to government and businesses is clear. Act now."
Even the solidly cornucopian U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the statistical arm of the U.S. Department of Energy, saw a crack develop in its otherwise optimistic veneer. A presentation by an EIA employee unearthed by a French newspaper cast doubt on whether oil supplies could meet demand in this decade. The author was suddenly transferred away from his post--previously planned, the agency said--and the media was shut out from further contact with him.
Leading executives from the oil industry are also weighing in on peak oil. According to Thierry Desmarest, chairman of the French oil giant Total, "The problem of peak oil remains. In our opinion, it will be very difficult to raise oil production worldwide above 95 million barrels a day, which is 10 percent more than today." He added that oil could peak in about 10 years.
Chevron executives haven't been quite as explicit. At least since 2005, however, they've been saying that the era of cheap oil is over, and even translated that idea into an ongoing public relations campaign on television and elsewhere with the slogan "Will you join us?"
Former Talisman Energy CEO Jim Buckee has also been sounding the peak oil alarm for some time. A former Shell chairman, Lord Oxburgh, said in 2007 that he believes oil supplies will be tight in the long term and that a peak within 20 years would not surprise him.
I saw a presentation at the 2008 ASPO-USA peak oil conference by the consultant who models future oil supplies for Toyota. One would expect auto manufacturers to be perennially bullish on oil supplies. His conclusion: Peak between 2017 and 2023 (slide 46).
And, finally there has been for some time a peak oil caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives led by Roscoe Barlett (R-Maryland) that has been a bipartisan voice for concerns about peak oil.
No longer do peak oil activists stand alone on a stage when they deliver presentations about our unfolding energy difficulties. With all of these prominent voices and institutions behind them, activists can now confidently say, "You don't have to take my word for it." That simple phrase can be quite effective in helping to persuade the broad public when it is followed by the growing list of government and industry voices now talking about peak oil.
It's wise not to rely on just one source of information. Humans are fallible creatures. Knowing that, we feel much more comfortable when we can confirm something someone tells us either directly through observation or indirectly by going to a well-vetted source. We can, for instance, easily verify whether the Empire State Building has 103 stories, either by going there and counting the stories or referring to some reputable source of information. Furthermore, whether the Empire State Building has 103 stories is not really a matter of opinion. It's either true or it isn't.
When it comes to murkier matters such as peak oil, we must admit that our perceptions and conclusions are always based on incomplete information. In such instances, humans, being social creatures, seek confirmation from others when they receive information that is new and not easily verified. They wonder, quite rightly, whether other people accept such information as correct.
Now, as we know, the mere fact that large numbers of people accept a certain conclusion is not necessarily proof of its veracity. Still, with little to go on and little time to do independent research, many people essentially resort to polling. Does my reference group, the people I hang out with most, accept a particular conclusion? Does the broader public, reflected through the media, accept it?
This confirmation strategy has worked against the peak oil movement for many years as very few highly placed people dared to utter the words "peak oil" in public--even if they believed the issue was important. That has changed rather radically in the last 12 months, and it hands peak oil activists another important rhetorical tool, namely, the phrase: "You don't have to take my word for it."
In rhetorical terms this phrase is, of course, an appeal to authority. Those who argue the peak oil case most often rely on appeals to reason. That works with some people. But others can find such argumentation tedious and difficult to follow. A shortcut for them is to check out what experts and officials are saying. Increasingly, those experts and officials are saying that peak oil is near, that it is a serious danger, and that we are unprepared for it.
Perhaps the most important announcement in this respect is the turnabout at the International Energy Agency (IEA) late last year in its 2010 World Energy Outlook. The Paris-based IEA is an intergovernmental energy research and policy organization serving its 28 member states including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom. It was formed in the wake of the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo to advise member states, most of which are oil importers, on energy policy.
Consistently optimistic in the past about future energy supplies, the IEA undertook its own field-by-field survey of oil reserves in 2008 and has become increasingly concerned about oil supplies. This year the agency explicitly discussed peak oil for the first time and proclaimed that conventional crude most likely peaked in 2006. It continues to believe unconventional oil from the tar sands, the Arctic and deepwater fields along with natural gas liquids can make up for declining conventional oil and lead to increases in world oil production for two more decades. But it warns that this is no longer a foregone conclusion without the necessary and rather large investment required.
There were earlier indications that the IEA was about to change its official views. In 2008 the chief economist of the IEA, Fatih Birol, wrote in a guest editorial in the British newspaper The Independent that "we should leave oil before it leaves us."
This turnabout is significant because the public listens much more closely to officials who change their minds than it does to those who've advocated a position consistently. The public feels that an insider who changes his or her mind about an important policy topic must have special inside knowledge that confirms the change. More important is that IEA officials are changing their minds not because it is merely fashionable to do so, but because mounting evidence has convinced them that our energy future, particularly our oil future, will not be smooth sailing.
That has been the case again and again in official circles recently. In 2005 the so-called Hirsch Report, a report about peak oil commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy, stood practically alone as an official pronouncement about the dangers and proximity of peak oil.
But last year the U.S. military released a report raising warnings about a nearby oil supply crunch that would seriously affect military operations. "A severe energy crunch is inevitable without a massive expansion of production and refining capacity," the report said. But even in the measured language of the report there can be no mistaking that there is concern about oil production peaking worldwide. "The world would need to add roughly the equivalent of Saudi Arabia’s current production every seven years" to meet expected oil demand in 2030. I sat next to the author of that report at a meeting last summer--a peak oil meeting.
The American military was not the only defense establishment that got interested in peak oil in 2010. The German military commissioned a report, leaked to the media, assessing the dangers of world peak oil production. Parts of the British government including the Ministry of Defense huddled in meetings last year about peak oil. The content of the meetings remains secret. But their existence sent a minor shock wave through the British public who had been consistently told by high government officials not to worry about peak oil.
A private report put together by some major industry players in Britain was also released last year. The group called itself the Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security. The message couldn't have been more blunt: "Our message to government and businesses is clear. Act now."
Even the solidly cornucopian U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the statistical arm of the U.S. Department of Energy, saw a crack develop in its otherwise optimistic veneer. A presentation by an EIA employee unearthed by a French newspaper cast doubt on whether oil supplies could meet demand in this decade. The author was suddenly transferred away from his post--previously planned, the agency said--and the media was shut out from further contact with him.
Leading executives from the oil industry are also weighing in on peak oil. According to Thierry Desmarest, chairman of the French oil giant Total, "The problem of peak oil remains. In our opinion, it will be very difficult to raise oil production worldwide above 95 million barrels a day, which is 10 percent more than today." He added that oil could peak in about 10 years.
Chevron executives haven't been quite as explicit. At least since 2005, however, they've been saying that the era of cheap oil is over, and even translated that idea into an ongoing public relations campaign on television and elsewhere with the slogan "Will you join us?"
Former Talisman Energy CEO Jim Buckee has also been sounding the peak oil alarm for some time. A former Shell chairman, Lord Oxburgh, said in 2007 that he believes oil supplies will be tight in the long term and that a peak within 20 years would not surprise him.
I saw a presentation at the 2008 ASPO-USA peak oil conference by the consultant who models future oil supplies for Toyota. One would expect auto manufacturers to be perennially bullish on oil supplies. His conclusion: Peak between 2017 and 2023 (slide 46).
And, finally there has been for some time a peak oil caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives led by Roscoe Barlett (R-Maryland) that has been a bipartisan voice for concerns about peak oil.
No longer do peak oil activists stand alone on a stage when they deliver presentations about our unfolding energy difficulties. With all of these prominent voices and institutions behind them, activists can now confidently say, "You don't have to take my word for it." That simple phrase can be quite effective in helping to persuade the broad public when it is followed by the growing list of government and industry voices now talking about peak oil.
Sunday, January 09, 2011
The extremely leisurely pace of American democracy and the urgency of our predicament
Winston Churchill once remarked that "[t]he United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative." The assumption behind that remark is that there will be time to do the right thing after all alternatives have been exhausted. This assumption is especially troubling when it comes to addressing such issues as peak oil and climate change.
It is worthwhile to look back a bit and see why Churchill came to his famous conclusion. One issue that threatened the stability of the United States from its founding was slavery. The first attempt to smooth over differences was in the U.S. Constitution. Slaves would be counted as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of determining the number of representatives from each state. Also, the importation of slaves could be prohibited after 1808. That arrangement worked until 1820 when the balance between slave states and free states became a point of fierce contention as the union expanded. Slaveholders did not want to see the federal legislature controlled by representatives from free states. The Missouri Compromise maintained that balance for the time. There was the Compromise of 1850 and then in 1854 the Kansas-Nebraska Act, both attempts to calm sectional tensions. And, of course, finally the American Civil War (1861-65) ended a 70-year experiment with compromise over slavery.
I recite this history because it is emblematic of how slowly American democracy moves on critical, even existential matters. Many women had worked hard for the abolition of slavery and in the aftermath of the Civil War expected to attain the right to vote along with former slaves. But the 15th Amendment failed to mention women. And, it took another 50 years for women to receive the right to vote.
It took another 95 years from the passing of the 15th Amendment guaranteeing the right to vote to all citizens regardless of "race, color or condition of previous servitude" until African-Americans received in fact what they had been given in law by that amendment. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 finally made it possible for African-Americans in the South to exercise their franchise.
It is true that the American federal system was designed specifically to encourage slow, deliberate action. It is far easier to stop something in the U.S. Congress than it is to get anything approved. While the long wait for voting rights for women and African-Americans was a blot on the American historical record and exceedingly damaging and painful to those it affected, neither issue ultimately destroyed the country.
While the Civil War still holds the record for the number of American deaths in a war, that number might end up looking small even as a percentage of the population (2 percent) compared to the number of Americans who will suffer and die in one way or another because of peak oil, climate change, and myriad other environmental threats that now beset us. The problem is that these Americans don't die from immediately discernible causes such as gunshot wounds. Rather their suffering will often only be indirectly and circuitously related to environmental threats and resource depletion. Therefore, it will be difficult for those hit hardest to coalesce into an effective voting block, especially since the fossil fuel and other lobbies have worked hard to confuse them about the resource and environmental issues of our age.
I recently watched the film The American President again. I was struck that this movie released in 1995 took climate change as a given, something the audience would readily accept as an important issue that needed to be addressed promptly. Here we are 16 years later, and only now is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) taking the first baby steps toward regulating greenhouse gas emissions pursuant to a Supreme Court ruling that affirmed its power to do so. Even so a new hoard of climate change deniers in Congress propose to stop the EPA from exercising that authority. (I doubt that they will be able to do so for now.)
In addition, Americans seem to have somehow accepted that oil at $90 a barrel means nothing in particular. This is true even though a decade ago oil at $30 or $40 a barrel was thought to be potent enough to crush the economy. Perhaps we have adapted to these higher prices. But there seems to be no urgency to move the economy away from oil dependence even though the warnings of peak oil activists have been largely borne out.
When will the American democratic machinery actually begin to react to the twin crises of oil depletion and climate change? When there is a calamity directly attributable to one or the other or both, that's when. There are two problems with this approach.
First, it may not be clear that some future crisis is peak oil- and/or climate change-induced. How much of the Hurricane Katrina disaster can be attributed to climate change? No one knows. The damage done to New Orleans is certainly very much what had been foretold by climate modelers as hurricanes intensify and sea levels rise. But even the destruction of a large American city failed to catalyze any action on climate change.
Record high oil prices certainly had something to do with the economic meltdown of 2008. After all, nearly every recession since 1970 has been preceded by a spike in oil prices. But the focus so far has all been on finance. And, little has been done to address the world's oil dependency since 2008.
Second, the damage inflicted on the country and the world by waiting for a discernible crisis clearly linked to peak oil and/or climate change will far exceed the costs of prevention. Imagine what the 2008 financial crisis might have looked like if the country had already largely electrified its transportation system using renewable energy sources. The crisis would certainly still have been bad, but not nearly so ominous and devastating as tight oil supplies made it. And those tight supplies continue to hamper recovery, threatening a second downturn.
Finally, it's worth noting that national emergencies tend to elicit temporary emergency measures that are rarely revoked, some of which may fly in the face of democratic processes. The attacks of September 11, 2001 have spawned a whole raft of such measures, many obviously illegal and unconstitutional, but which the public sustains because it does not understand the true nature of our predicament.
How many more ill-conceived and heavy-handed measures can we expect when the death toll is not 3,000, but 300,000 or 3,000,000--all because we and other nations failed to address adequately peak oil- and climate change-related problems before they became too big to ignore.
Those who block progress on these critical issues in Congress believe--just as those who held slaves and those who opposed women's suffrage--that what they are doing will not bring down the whole system around them. And, they tacitly believe that if they are in the wrong, there will be plenty of time to address peak oil and climate change through compromise in the future.
But, while slaves and women may be made to wait by the hand of oppression, nature recognizes no such limit. Our social divisions may be held at bay for long periods while we work out our differences. When it comes to energy depletion and climate change, it is nature that will prevail in enforcing its will on us without regard to legislative or lobbyist timetables.
It is worthwhile to look back a bit and see why Churchill came to his famous conclusion. One issue that threatened the stability of the United States from its founding was slavery. The first attempt to smooth over differences was in the U.S. Constitution. Slaves would be counted as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of determining the number of representatives from each state. Also, the importation of slaves could be prohibited after 1808. That arrangement worked until 1820 when the balance between slave states and free states became a point of fierce contention as the union expanded. Slaveholders did not want to see the federal legislature controlled by representatives from free states. The Missouri Compromise maintained that balance for the time. There was the Compromise of 1850 and then in 1854 the Kansas-Nebraska Act, both attempts to calm sectional tensions. And, of course, finally the American Civil War (1861-65) ended a 70-year experiment with compromise over slavery.
I recite this history because it is emblematic of how slowly American democracy moves on critical, even existential matters. Many women had worked hard for the abolition of slavery and in the aftermath of the Civil War expected to attain the right to vote along with former slaves. But the 15th Amendment failed to mention women. And, it took another 50 years for women to receive the right to vote.
It took another 95 years from the passing of the 15th Amendment guaranteeing the right to vote to all citizens regardless of "race, color or condition of previous servitude" until African-Americans received in fact what they had been given in law by that amendment. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 finally made it possible for African-Americans in the South to exercise their franchise.
It is true that the American federal system was designed specifically to encourage slow, deliberate action. It is far easier to stop something in the U.S. Congress than it is to get anything approved. While the long wait for voting rights for women and African-Americans was a blot on the American historical record and exceedingly damaging and painful to those it affected, neither issue ultimately destroyed the country.
While the Civil War still holds the record for the number of American deaths in a war, that number might end up looking small even as a percentage of the population (2 percent) compared to the number of Americans who will suffer and die in one way or another because of peak oil, climate change, and myriad other environmental threats that now beset us. The problem is that these Americans don't die from immediately discernible causes such as gunshot wounds. Rather their suffering will often only be indirectly and circuitously related to environmental threats and resource depletion. Therefore, it will be difficult for those hit hardest to coalesce into an effective voting block, especially since the fossil fuel and other lobbies have worked hard to confuse them about the resource and environmental issues of our age.
I recently watched the film The American President again. I was struck that this movie released in 1995 took climate change as a given, something the audience would readily accept as an important issue that needed to be addressed promptly. Here we are 16 years later, and only now is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) taking the first baby steps toward regulating greenhouse gas emissions pursuant to a Supreme Court ruling that affirmed its power to do so. Even so a new hoard of climate change deniers in Congress propose to stop the EPA from exercising that authority. (I doubt that they will be able to do so for now.)
In addition, Americans seem to have somehow accepted that oil at $90 a barrel means nothing in particular. This is true even though a decade ago oil at $30 or $40 a barrel was thought to be potent enough to crush the economy. Perhaps we have adapted to these higher prices. But there seems to be no urgency to move the economy away from oil dependence even though the warnings of peak oil activists have been largely borne out.
When will the American democratic machinery actually begin to react to the twin crises of oil depletion and climate change? When there is a calamity directly attributable to one or the other or both, that's when. There are two problems with this approach.
First, it may not be clear that some future crisis is peak oil- and/or climate change-induced. How much of the Hurricane Katrina disaster can be attributed to climate change? No one knows. The damage done to New Orleans is certainly very much what had been foretold by climate modelers as hurricanes intensify and sea levels rise. But even the destruction of a large American city failed to catalyze any action on climate change.
Record high oil prices certainly had something to do with the economic meltdown of 2008. After all, nearly every recession since 1970 has been preceded by a spike in oil prices. But the focus so far has all been on finance. And, little has been done to address the world's oil dependency since 2008.
Second, the damage inflicted on the country and the world by waiting for a discernible crisis clearly linked to peak oil and/or climate change will far exceed the costs of prevention. Imagine what the 2008 financial crisis might have looked like if the country had already largely electrified its transportation system using renewable energy sources. The crisis would certainly still have been bad, but not nearly so ominous and devastating as tight oil supplies made it. And those tight supplies continue to hamper recovery, threatening a second downturn.
Finally, it's worth noting that national emergencies tend to elicit temporary emergency measures that are rarely revoked, some of which may fly in the face of democratic processes. The attacks of September 11, 2001 have spawned a whole raft of such measures, many obviously illegal and unconstitutional, but which the public sustains because it does not understand the true nature of our predicament.
How many more ill-conceived and heavy-handed measures can we expect when the death toll is not 3,000, but 300,000 or 3,000,000--all because we and other nations failed to address adequately peak oil- and climate change-related problems before they became too big to ignore.
Those who block progress on these critical issues in Congress believe--just as those who held slaves and those who opposed women's suffrage--that what they are doing will not bring down the whole system around them. And, they tacitly believe that if they are in the wrong, there will be plenty of time to address peak oil and climate change through compromise in the future.
But, while slaves and women may be made to wait by the hand of oppression, nature recognizes no such limit. Our social divisions may be held at bay for long periods while we work out our differences. When it comes to energy depletion and climate change, it is nature that will prevail in enforcing its will on us without regard to legislative or lobbyist timetables.
Sunday, January 02, 2011
The electric car fetish
In lieu of my regular weekly post, I'm referring readers to my latest column on Scitizen entitled "The Electric Car Fetish." Here is the teaser:
Many automobile enthusiasts believe that the electric car is the wave of the future that will help save the environment while expanding the availability of private transport to the world's growing middle class. They are likely wrong on both counts....Read more.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Will shale gas turn out to be an energy sink?
If you externalize the costs of a business activity, it means other people pay the costs--environmental, social and otherwise--and you get the profits. It goes on all the time in extractive industries such as oil and natural gas and mining. And, it is also a natural strategy for manufacturers who dump their pollution into the air and the water. It's even practiced in finance where the executives of Wall Street banks have managed to collect the bonuses made off a phony boom in the last decade and saddle taxpayers with the losses of the inevitable bust caused by bad and often fraudulent loans, misleading derivative contracts, and leveraged speculation in stocks and commodities.
If the loopholes are there, you can be assured that people in business will take advantages of them. That's exactly what is happening in the business of shale gas drilling. Drillers are exempt from federal clean air and water regulations under a bill shepherded through Congress in 2005 by none other former Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney in his capacity as the then vice president of the United States. (Halliburton is one of the world's largest providers of drilling fluids for shale gas drilling and other oil and gas drilling operations.) That means the drillers can externalize the environmental costs of these hazardous fluids and other materials needed to fracture the shale and thereby free the natural gas. They can foist those costs on nearby residents in the form of ruined water supplies, toxic air pollution, poisoned land, and health problems for humans and animals.
The environmental and health horrors associated with shale gas drilling are now in the news on a daily basis. But I have begun to think about the issue in another way. All of these externalized costs have an energy cost. And, the toxic fracturing fluid--millions of gallons of which are pumped into each and every shale gas well--will stretch out the time frame during which such costs are borne. No one knows what will happen to the half of that fluid which never returns to the surface during operations. There is concern that it could migrate to drinking water aquifers and destroy the drinking water not just for the few who happen to live near a drilling site, but for people living in huge swaths of the United States by polluting water sources for large cities such as New York.
Now, of course, that water could be cleaned up if it becomes toxic. Already shale gas drillers are having to provide filtering systems for people whose well water has become contaminated. In some cases, even this isn't enough, and water must now be trucked in to families whose water is no longer fit to drink even with filtering.
In order to judge whether shale gas will provide any net energy to society, we must first decide where to set its system boundaries. It is hard to know exactly where to stop spatially: Should we, for example, include the energy needs of a family dependent on a worker at a subcontractor that provides software services to the driller? But, it is even harder to know what time frame to use.
One thing is certain. The legacy energy costs of doing shale gas drilling will not disappear anytime soon. The country and its people could be paying the externalized costs of such drilling decades after it ceases to provide any material benefit to society.
If New York city is forced to expend considerable energy to purify its water to clean out toxic chemicals leaching from wells in its watershed 50 years from now, how shall we then judge the presumed bounty of energy that shale gas supposedly represents?
The same kinds of questions have been raised about nuclear energy. If one takes into account the entire energy cost over time of building, operating, decommissioning, and then protecting decommissioned plants and their wastes--wastes that will remain dangerous for conceivably tens of thousands of years--it is possible to understand why some people claim that nuclear energy provides no net energy to society. Rather, it burdens future generations with huge legacy energy costs. We who are alive today get to externalize the energy costs of nuclear power by foisting them on future generations. This is probably the only way that one can consider nuclear power--as it is currently configured--an energy source rather than an energy sink.
I believe we may ultimately find that shale gas is nothing but an energy sink. It will provide net energy for a while to those who are living now while burdening future generations with huge cleanup costs that, in terms of energy, may equal or exceed the energy gain we are currently receiving from this supposedly "clean" energy source.
If the loopholes are there, you can be assured that people in business will take advantages of them. That's exactly what is happening in the business of shale gas drilling. Drillers are exempt from federal clean air and water regulations under a bill shepherded through Congress in 2005 by none other former Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney in his capacity as the then vice president of the United States. (Halliburton is one of the world's largest providers of drilling fluids for shale gas drilling and other oil and gas drilling operations.) That means the drillers can externalize the environmental costs of these hazardous fluids and other materials needed to fracture the shale and thereby free the natural gas. They can foist those costs on nearby residents in the form of ruined water supplies, toxic air pollution, poisoned land, and health problems for humans and animals.
The environmental and health horrors associated with shale gas drilling are now in the news on a daily basis. But I have begun to think about the issue in another way. All of these externalized costs have an energy cost. And, the toxic fracturing fluid--millions of gallons of which are pumped into each and every shale gas well--will stretch out the time frame during which such costs are borne. No one knows what will happen to the half of that fluid which never returns to the surface during operations. There is concern that it could migrate to drinking water aquifers and destroy the drinking water not just for the few who happen to live near a drilling site, but for people living in huge swaths of the United States by polluting water sources for large cities such as New York.
Now, of course, that water could be cleaned up if it becomes toxic. Already shale gas drillers are having to provide filtering systems for people whose well water has become contaminated. In some cases, even this isn't enough, and water must now be trucked in to families whose water is no longer fit to drink even with filtering.
In order to judge whether shale gas will provide any net energy to society, we must first decide where to set its system boundaries. It is hard to know exactly where to stop spatially: Should we, for example, include the energy needs of a family dependent on a worker at a subcontractor that provides software services to the driller? But, it is even harder to know what time frame to use.
One thing is certain. The legacy energy costs of doing shale gas drilling will not disappear anytime soon. The country and its people could be paying the externalized costs of such drilling decades after it ceases to provide any material benefit to society.
If New York city is forced to expend considerable energy to purify its water to clean out toxic chemicals leaching from wells in its watershed 50 years from now, how shall we then judge the presumed bounty of energy that shale gas supposedly represents?
The same kinds of questions have been raised about nuclear energy. If one takes into account the entire energy cost over time of building, operating, decommissioning, and then protecting decommissioned plants and their wastes--wastes that will remain dangerous for conceivably tens of thousands of years--it is possible to understand why some people claim that nuclear energy provides no net energy to society. Rather, it burdens future generations with huge legacy energy costs. We who are alive today get to externalize the energy costs of nuclear power by foisting them on future generations. This is probably the only way that one can consider nuclear power--as it is currently configured--an energy source rather than an energy sink.
I believe we may ultimately find that shale gas is nothing but an energy sink. It will provide net energy for a while to those who are living now while burdening future generations with huge cleanup costs that, in terms of energy, may equal or exceed the energy gain we are currently receiving from this supposedly "clean" energy source.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Why you should read The Biochar Solution
First, you should know that I have an allergy to anything that smacks of geoengineering. And the use of biochar--charred organic matter that can improve soil fertility--to address climate change by interring carbon in farmland on a mass scale strikes me as one of the largest geoengineering projects ever conceived. I always ask, "What will the unintended consequences be? Can we be sure that those consequences won't simply present a new set of problems, possibly catastrophic ones?"
Fortunately, Albert Bates, author of The Biochar Solution, takes these questions seriously and offers a measured endorsement of biochar as one of an array of strategies for responding to climate change. Even in the forward Vandana Shiva warns that "[b]y shifting our concern from growing the green mantle of the earth to making charcoal, biochar solutions risk repeating the mistakes of industrial agriculture."
With this kind of qualified endorsement, why should we read further? The answer is straightforward: Because intelligently and broadly applied and ethically managed, the production of biochar and its incorporation in the soil has the potential to lower carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, not on a millennial time line, but within a few decades. We have the possibility of reversing climate change. It's worth exploring this possibility because some of the most prominent climate scientists in the world believe we have already passed beyond the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that will, if not reduced, move the world into new and much warmer climate.
So, what might one of those unintended and possibly catastrophic consequences be? Bates summarizes an unexpected answer from a prominent soil scientist as follows:
Fortunately, Albert Bates, author of The Biochar Solution, takes these questions seriously and offers a measured endorsement of biochar as one of an array of strategies for responding to climate change. Even in the forward Vandana Shiva warns that "[b]y shifting our concern from growing the green mantle of the earth to making charcoal, biochar solutions risk repeating the mistakes of industrial agriculture."
With this kind of qualified endorsement, why should we read further? The answer is straightforward: Because intelligently and broadly applied and ethically managed, the production of biochar and its incorporation in the soil has the potential to lower carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, not on a millennial time line, but within a few decades. We have the possibility of reversing climate change. It's worth exploring this possibility because some of the most prominent climate scientists in the world believe we have already passed beyond the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that will, if not reduced, move the world into new and much warmer climate.
So, what might one of those unintended and possibly catastrophic consequences be? Bates summarizes an unexpected answer from a prominent soil scientist as follows:
Biochar is too powerful, she told me. Once the industrial complex with its credit markets, government incentives, and subsidies to farmers gets up and running, biochar could become a juggernaut, pushing the soil-atmosphere carbon balance into an overcorrection and ushering in a rapid-onset ice age.
When was the last time you heard someone who is firmly convinced that climate change is a critical issue say that a proposed solution would not simply fail, but could push us into an ice age? If biochar was that potent, I wanted to know more.
And, this leads to a second reason why you should read The Biochar Solution. The book begins with the engaging story of how biochar was discovered but not really understood (by Europeans, that is), forgotten, rediscovered, and finally understood by scientists. The story reads like a combined action/adventure tale and detective novel and shows Bates to be an accomplished storyteller. We are treated to a trip down the Amazon at the time of the conquistadors; to visits to plantations run by expatriate Confederate plantation owners who emigrated to Brazil after The Civil War; and finally to the findings of modern archeologists who uncover the truth about seemingly fantastical historical descriptions of great cities on the Amazon at the dawn of Spanish settlement in the New World.
The remainder of book is something of a handbook on biochar and carbon farming, showing how it might be done and who might do it. Bates introduces us to innovators who think broadly and creatively about how the soil might again become the rich, dense, living provider of fertility it once was. Readers will learn that the side effects may actually turn out to be side benefits: revitalized soils, verdant cities, higher long-term agricultural productivity, increased biodiversity and the reclaiming of desert landscapes. The author also discusses the prospects for agroforestry, an approach to forests that could make them both sustainable and productive for human purposes.
Along the way Bates relates several astounding claims that will keep you reading. Two such claims are as follows: 1) The Amazon rainforest is actually the product of human actions, and 2) the world's cooking stoves--the kind that burn wood and other biomass in most poor countries and currently add to global climate change woes--could be transformed into tools for climate recovery.
Could little pieces of charred organic matter really do all that Bates suggests? He recommends that we give biochar a widespread trial, but in conjunction with deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. These cuts, he says, are absolutely essential.
While such cuts seem by far the more difficult task, biochar will involve its own difficulties. First, as Bates admits, the production of biochar will have to be regulated to ensure that it is done ethically and sustainably. He gives an example in the book of unregulated production and its potential to do much harm. But, in a world now gripped by the laissez-faire model of economics, it's hard to see how broad-reaching international regulation of biochar production could be achieved.
And yet, if the unfolding climate catastrophe produces a vivid and pivotal moment--say, a sudden collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet--the will to do something as dramatic as seeding a large portion of the Earth's soils with biochar and doing it in an ethical way may actually become politically feasible.
Sunday, December 05, 2010
Peak oil and four principles of PR
The following piece appeared previously in the Peak Oil Review.
Peak oil activists and the mass media have had a rocky relationship. Activists often don't understand how the media works and can't fathom why reporters and editors are not better informed about energy issues. Those working in the media are constrained by the interests of their advertisers, their corporate owners and the necessity of focusing on ratings and circulation.
There is a pervading sense in the peak oil community that those in the mass media "just don't get it." And, there is an inclination to criticize them for either their lack of curiosity or their blatant indifference. And, that brings me to my four principles of public relations, the first of which is:
1. Never, ever publicly criticize the media. There's no upside.
My father used to say that it was unwise to pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel. In the age of the Internet we now tend to think in terms of the number of eyeballs attracted to web content. But it comes to the same thing. If the media has the equivalent of a loudspeaker system designed for a heavy metal band concert and you have the equivalent of laryngitis, who do you think is going to win any dispute you have with them in the eyes of the public?
If someone in the media irks you, you can complain all you want to your spouse or spouse-equivalent. But you're a fool to take on the reporter and media outlet publicly. If you do, they may not take out their irritation directly on you. But you will find them far less sympathetic to your point of view in the future and more likely to lean to the opposing side in the way they cover energy-related stories.
If you think a story contains errors or frames energy issues in the wrong way, it is pointless to ask for a correction. Corrections end up in obscure places in newspapers, magazines, and websites, if they end up anyplace at all. And, they almost never get on broadcast media. It is more effective to make yourself into a credible, reasonable, even-tempered source who will be glad to provide information for the NEXT story. That story, if you are lucky, will end up prominently positioned and do far more to overcome misconceptions from a previous story than any correction ever will.
2. Fear triumphs over hope.
The human nervous system is designed to build hope slowly and react to fear quickly. Why is this so? Because those are the characteristics which have enabled humans to survive. It's not that fear always and everywhere triumphs over hope. But our evolutionary heritage makes us prone to react to danger much more quickly and completely than we do to the prospects of gain or pleasure.
Peak oil activists are pretty good at wielding fear, maybe too good. If you emphasize the possible catastrophic outcomes of declining oil, you will frequently get two reactions from an audience. One group will say, "If peak oil is coming so soon and going to be so bad, what's the point of doing anything?" A second group will just go into denial. They'll judge your assessment of the future to be so bleak that it can't possibly be true because lots of other people would be talking about it and they aren't.
Fear has to find its resolution in action. What can I do? How will what you suggest help me weather the storm? When politicians demonize their opponents or scapegoat the helpless and marginalized in society, they are offering voters an avenue for action: "Vote for me and I'll take care of these rascals who are causing our problems." Peak oil activists can certainly do better than that, and many now give detailed practical advice to help people prepare for a post-peak oil world. Perhaps the best way to start with audiences new to the peak oil issue is to give them "no regrets" strategies, ones that will make their lives better whether peak oil hits soon or not. Some ideas include insulating their homes, riding a bicycle whenever practical, sourcing more of their food from local producers, and getting to know their neighbors. All of these things can enhance people's lives no matter what happens, and it puts them on a road that allows successful adaptations which will inculcate a willingness to do more.
3. If you're explaining, you're losing.
Perhaps the most difficult thing for a peak oil activist to do is to keep it short. Now, if you are having a conversation with a group of friends where the object is to hash things out, it's fine to ignore this dictum. If you are performing public education, you are probably talking before an attentive, curious and self-selected audience. They will often put up with lot of explaining. After all, that's what they've come for. But if you are in a public dogfight in the media, you definitely don't want to be the one who is explaining things.
Here's why: When communicating with large audiences, anyone saddled with the task of explaining complex scientific and technical information is likely to turn off the audience. First, the audience will find it hard to follow such explanations. Second, they'll wonder why the person providing the explanation feels compelled to provide such detail. He or she will appear to be on the defensive. This is the key point. The public perceives that those who are prone to excessively long explanations are actually trying to confuse them or hide something. This perception may be wholly without foundation, but it is a hard one to fight.
The best strategy is to force your opponents (who may be physically present or simply quoted alongside you in a newspaper article) to do the explaining. Some possible grenades to lob include the following:
Peak oil activists and the mass media have had a rocky relationship. Activists often don't understand how the media works and can't fathom why reporters and editors are not better informed about energy issues. Those working in the media are constrained by the interests of their advertisers, their corporate owners and the necessity of focusing on ratings and circulation.
There is a pervading sense in the peak oil community that those in the mass media "just don't get it." And, there is an inclination to criticize them for either their lack of curiosity or their blatant indifference. And, that brings me to my four principles of public relations, the first of which is:
1. Never, ever publicly criticize the media. There's no upside.
My father used to say that it was unwise to pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel. In the age of the Internet we now tend to think in terms of the number of eyeballs attracted to web content. But it comes to the same thing. If the media has the equivalent of a loudspeaker system designed for a heavy metal band concert and you have the equivalent of laryngitis, who do you think is going to win any dispute you have with them in the eyes of the public?
If someone in the media irks you, you can complain all you want to your spouse or spouse-equivalent. But you're a fool to take on the reporter and media outlet publicly. If you do, they may not take out their irritation directly on you. But you will find them far less sympathetic to your point of view in the future and more likely to lean to the opposing side in the way they cover energy-related stories.
If you think a story contains errors or frames energy issues in the wrong way, it is pointless to ask for a correction. Corrections end up in obscure places in newspapers, magazines, and websites, if they end up anyplace at all. And, they almost never get on broadcast media. It is more effective to make yourself into a credible, reasonable, even-tempered source who will be glad to provide information for the NEXT story. That story, if you are lucky, will end up prominently positioned and do far more to overcome misconceptions from a previous story than any correction ever will.
2. Fear triumphs over hope.
The human nervous system is designed to build hope slowly and react to fear quickly. Why is this so? Because those are the characteristics which have enabled humans to survive. It's not that fear always and everywhere triumphs over hope. But our evolutionary heritage makes us prone to react to danger much more quickly and completely than we do to the prospects of gain or pleasure.
Peak oil activists are pretty good at wielding fear, maybe too good. If you emphasize the possible catastrophic outcomes of declining oil, you will frequently get two reactions from an audience. One group will say, "If peak oil is coming so soon and going to be so bad, what's the point of doing anything?" A second group will just go into denial. They'll judge your assessment of the future to be so bleak that it can't possibly be true because lots of other people would be talking about it and they aren't.
Fear has to find its resolution in action. What can I do? How will what you suggest help me weather the storm? When politicians demonize their opponents or scapegoat the helpless and marginalized in society, they are offering voters an avenue for action: "Vote for me and I'll take care of these rascals who are causing our problems." Peak oil activists can certainly do better than that, and many now give detailed practical advice to help people prepare for a post-peak oil world. Perhaps the best way to start with audiences new to the peak oil issue is to give them "no regrets" strategies, ones that will make their lives better whether peak oil hits soon or not. Some ideas include insulating their homes, riding a bicycle whenever practical, sourcing more of their food from local producers, and getting to know their neighbors. All of these things can enhance people's lives no matter what happens, and it puts them on a road that allows successful adaptations which will inculcate a willingness to do more.
3. If you're explaining, you're losing.
Perhaps the most difficult thing for a peak oil activist to do is to keep it short. Now, if you are having a conversation with a group of friends where the object is to hash things out, it's fine to ignore this dictum. If you are performing public education, you are probably talking before an attentive, curious and self-selected audience. They will often put up with lot of explaining. After all, that's what they've come for. But if you are in a public dogfight in the media, you definitely don't want to be the one who is explaining things.
Here's why: When communicating with large audiences, anyone saddled with the task of explaining complex scientific and technical information is likely to turn off the audience. First, the audience will find it hard to follow such explanations. Second, they'll wonder why the person providing the explanation feels compelled to provide such detail. He or she will appear to be on the defensive. This is the key point. The public perceives that those who are prone to excessively long explanations are actually trying to confuse them or hide something. This perception may be wholly without foundation, but it is a hard one to fight.
The best strategy is to force your opponents (who may be physically present or simply quoted alongside you in a newspaper article) to do the explaining. Some possible grenades to lob include the following:
- Explain why many OPEC members mysteriously claimed increases in their reserves by 50 to 100 percent in the mid-1980s without any large discoveries.
- Explain why with the very high historical oil prices of the last decade, we have not seen the predicted glut in oil supply.
- Why does the promised bounty of oil from oil shale never seem to appear even when oil prices scale $100 a barrel?
- Some 80 percent of the world's oil reserves are controlled directly by countries and their government-run oil companies. Many of these countries are run by secretive, authoritarian regimes and do not allow any outside audit of their claims. Why should we be confident about the reserve numbers they report? Is it wise policy to simply take their word for it?
An alert activist can probably think of many more, but you get the idea. Let the other side explain all these things. You're job for now is to plant doubt concerning the official story. Without that doubt most people will never consider the peak oil point of view.
If you have some creative talent, an alternative way of pressing your case is to do it in verse or in song or in the form of a play, a novel, a painting, or a stand-up comedy routine. This is not the same as explaining. It’s storytelling in the classic sense. It’s very hard to argue with a piece of art. People can comment on it. But an antagonistic viewer is forced to choose between aesthetic criticism (which doesn’t really strike at your message) and attacks on your message. Attacks on your message will seem off base to most people since, after all, it’s just a piece of fiction or a song or a work of art, so lighten up! The critic will come off as a killjoy which is perfect for you. This will be especially true if what you are doing is funny.
4. The cover-up is always far more damaging than the screw-up.
This one is simple. If you make a mistake, admit it, apologize for it, if necessary, and then move on. In the context of peak oil activism, this principle is less applicable than the others. Peak oil activists strive to shed light on energy issues, not cover them up. Still, it is possible to screw up, and one of the best ways to do that is to make predictions.
When it comes to making predictions for reporters, I have one word of advice: DON'T! The currently well-established facts are scary enough. If you must talk about the future, talk about it in terms of risks, not forecasts. If you make predictions, you are setting yourself up for a fall, and then the cycle of anger with the media is likely to get hold of you all over again. And, as I've said, there's absolutely no upside to expressing it publicly.
The notion, however, that governments and oil companies are not squaring with the public is a useful idea. But it is reckless to accuse them of some sort of conspiracy of silence. A better way to talk about this is that it is not in the interests of public officials to announce the peak oil predicament since they have no plan to address it. And, it is not in the interests of large international oil companies to talk about peak oil since it would imply that their businesses would soon start winding down, something that can hardly be salutary for oil company stock prices.
Conclusion
While it may seem unfair in some ways that the world of mass communications requires the understanding and application of these principles, it is more effective to deal with the realities of mass communications than to try to change them. Sticking with these principles doesn't always assure you of success, but it does keep you out of a lot of unnecessary trouble.
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