As I watched the Italian countryside whisk by me from my train seat, the engineer announced that we were now traveling at 300 kph (186 mph). To most Americans such high-speed passenger trains might seem like marvelous new technology when, in fact, they have long been commonplace in Europe.
But, it is the view of the countryside that ought to interest those who are thinking about the infrastructure of the future. For here in the rolling landscape of this mountainous country, small farms carpet the hills with alternating olive groves, grape vines, lemon trees, vegetable gardens, grain fields and pasture populated with pigs, cattle and sheep.
The dictates of this landscape--too hilly for large-scale row crop farming--have combined with the Italian insistence on good, pure food to produce an agriculture that seems scaled to survive our energy-challenged future. For in such a future everything including food will have to be sourced closer to home. Physics and economics will make it so. The declining availability of liquid fuels is destined to drive up dramatically the cost of shipping food. And, that means that small, family-run farms may become a common sight again in places where they have been largely extinguished such as North America.
Even as the so-called "local food" movement gains momentum in the United States, the word "local" in front of "food" would, for most Italians, seem redundant. (The global food network is making some inroads, of course; but Italians are fighting back, for example, with "Italian Meat Only" signs in corner groceries and delicatessens.) Small farms are the backbone of this highly diversified agricultural system. One guide explained that in the United States there are perhaps a dozen varieties of wine grapes grown. In France, he claimed, there are about 45. In Italy, almost 300. The hills and valleys along the winding coast create a large number of microclimates making Italy friendly to many varieties not just of grapes, but of other fruits and vegetables as well.
Some will complain that the European agricultural subsidy system has allowed these "uneconomic" farms to remain. But in the years to come, these farms will probably return to being economically profitable as well as absolutely necessary. Europeans will be glad that they suffered through so many good meals and paid taxes to support the farms where the food was raised. For at that point others around the world may be scrambling to reorganize their agriculture along similar lines.
There are also many other aspects of Italian life that make the country seem better prepared than most for an energy-constrained future. Besides the high-speed trains which run on electricity, there are electric trams in the major cities; an extensive and heavily used bus system; a limited but useful subway in Rome; and, of course, a plethora of tiny automobiles, the most faddish of which is now the Smart Car. Then, there are the myriad motor scooters which swerve constantly through traffic, scooters which every Italian under age 45 knows how to ride. And, of course, there is that most underrated form of transportation which is in broad use in Italy, namely, walking.
No wonder then that the Italians are some of the most parsimonious users of energy in the world. Of course, their overall heating bills are much smaller than those who live in Denmark or Iceland. On the other hand, few Italians bother with air conditioning even in the hottest months of the year. Nor do they think that automatic clothes dryers are a necessity as any casual survey of city balconies will tell you.
As one awakens in Italy's smaller towns, it's not unusual to hear something which seems to have nearly disappeared from the American outdoors: the sound of sweeping. Surely some Italians, especially commercial establishments, could afford the petroleum-powered blowers which so dominate the American urban landscape. But, perhaps Italians just value their quiet. (I found Italy, even Rome, to be surprisingly quiet, much to my delight.)
The news on the energy front is not all good, of course. One might think that with all those mountains, Italy would be flush with hydroelectric power. Alas, much of its electricity, some 82 percent, is generated using fossil fuels including about 25 percent from oil. That's changing with a move away from oil and toward natural gas. Natural gas will, of course, eventually prove to have limits as well. But, Italy has a huge potential for solar and geothermal which the government is now trying to tap.
Perhaps more worrisome is the large workforce serving tourists, especially in the southern half of the country. Italy today receives the fifth largest number of tourists of any country and is considered by some to be the world's top tourism "brand". Unfortunately, declining energy availability and the resulting high energy prices will likely translate into less tourism, severely curtailing over time an industry that currently represents about 5 percent of the Italian economy.
Still, it should be no surprise that the Italian government continues to plan for perpetual growth. The most visible recent sign is the concern about a long-term labor shortage which the new center-left government wishes to address by encouraging immigration. In fact, one of our Italian guides remarked that there are now many jobs "which Italians won't do." But perhaps the real problem--if it can be called that--is the famously low Italian birthrate of about 1.3 children per woman--far below the replacement rate of about 2.1. If that rate remains unchanged, the number of ethnic Italians in Italy will decline greatly over the next century.
All this presupposes, of course, that the ever-expanding supplies of energy needed for continual growth will remain available not only to Italy, but to the world into which Italy sells its fashionable clothes, cars, wine and leather goods. In the short run, the Italian government will likely be right about the need for more labor. In the long run, however, the odds appear to be against them.
But Italians are exceedingly adaptable as their millennia-long habitation of the Italian peninsula demonstrates. And, two minor, but surprising developments make it clear that they remain as adaptable as ever. Not long ago the government passed a ban on smoking in public places including restaurants and bars as well as a helmet law for riders of motor scooters. To everyone's surprise, the Italians obeyed.
One Italian journalist noted that while his countrymen don't like rules, they do know what's in their own best interests. There's hope in that and in the fact that the Italian infrastructure may just be one of the best adapted for the energy-constrained future into which we are now heading.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Friday, September 22, 2006
The Test of Time
It is perhaps the most recognizable architectural object on the planet after the pyramids. The Roman Colosseum appears on so many travel brochures that it is practically the logo of Italy. Opened in 80 A.D. the Colosseum is a testament to the minds that built it--both their hideous purposes, i.e. the staging of gladiatorial contests, and their view of the future.
I pondered that view of the future when I visited the Colosseum on a recent trip to Rome. It's a view which seems to be expressed in the stones themselves. The Colosseum's major arches are composed of huge travertine slabs held together not by mortar, but by iron rods in the center which connect each slab to one above it.
If not for several earthquakes, the complete structure might be standing today. As it is, visitors can still climb into the stands just as spectators did 2,000 years ago. This is despite the fact that the arches are now pocked-marked with holes drilled long ago to rip out the iron inside and melt it down for other uses. (The Colosseum was habitually mined as a source of raw materials for other buildings until 1749 when Pope Benedict XIV outlawed its use as a quarry.) Both the Colosseum's scale--it was said to hold 50,000 people--and its durability say something about the minds of those who built it.
The ancient Romans constructed things as if they expected their society to endure for a very long time. In fact, the Colosseum's last known use in antiquity was in 523 A.D. almost 450 years after its completion. And it remains solid enough today to be used for special concerts and other performances.
It may seem odd then, that for all their engineering prowess, the Romans were little interested in the kind of technical progress we prize so highly. Michael Grant, in his wonderful account of ancient Roman life, The World of Rome, explains why. First, what we call applied science or invention was regarded as lowly work, not to be engaged in by patrician Romans, who were alas the most educated and therefore the most capable of such work. Second, the huge available pool of slaves made labor-saving devices seem unnecessary. Grant relates the following:
I pondered that view of the future when I visited the Colosseum on a recent trip to Rome. It's a view which seems to be expressed in the stones themselves. The Colosseum's major arches are composed of huge travertine slabs held together not by mortar, but by iron rods in the center which connect each slab to one above it.
If not for several earthquakes, the complete structure might be standing today. As it is, visitors can still climb into the stands just as spectators did 2,000 years ago. This is despite the fact that the arches are now pocked-marked with holes drilled long ago to rip out the iron inside and melt it down for other uses. (The Colosseum was habitually mined as a source of raw materials for other buildings until 1749 when Pope Benedict XIV outlawed its use as a quarry.) Both the Colosseum's scale--it was said to hold 50,000 people--and its durability say something about the minds of those who built it.
The ancient Romans constructed things as if they expected their society to endure for a very long time. In fact, the Colosseum's last known use in antiquity was in 523 A.D. almost 450 years after its completion. And it remains solid enough today to be used for special concerts and other performances.
It may seem odd then, that for all their engineering prowess, the Romans were little interested in the kind of technical progress we prize so highly. Michael Grant, in his wonderful account of ancient Roman life, The World of Rome, explains why. First, what we call applied science or invention was regarded as lowly work, not to be engaged in by patrician Romans, who were alas the most educated and therefore the most capable of such work. Second, the huge available pool of slaves made labor-saving devices seem unnecessary. Grant relates the following:
[W]hen [the Emperor] Vespasian was offered a labor-saving machine for transporting heavy columns he was said to have declined it with the words: "I must always ensure that the working classes [read: slaves and lower-class Romans] earn enough money to buy themselves food."
Such sentiments can scarcely be understood by the modern mind. Even more puzzling are accounts of one Hero of Alexandria who constructed a steam engine in the first century A. D. that was never used for anything beyond powering toys.
This rejection of technology may seem foolish to us today. But as the petroleum age comes to a close, the hyper-caffeinated rate of technical progress that cheap energy made possible may slow, and we may be forced to return to older, less energy dependent technologies and methods. Vespasian rejected a labor-saving device for reasons of social stability. And, Romans never grasped the potential of the steam engine. But, perhaps that was because they were ultimately content with what they had. Despite the cruelty perpetrated on slaves and others, for Roman citizens and freedmen the ancient Roman way of life was far more luxurious and sophisticated than what followed for more than a thousand years after the fall of Rome.
Almost completely free from war under imperial rule, ancient Romans generally enjoyed an adequate and varied diet; fresh water brought in by aqueducts (some of which are still in use today); regular baths (a practice that didn't return until the 19th century); excellent exercise facilities; household plumbing; and grand, but violent, entertainments (which we would find repugnant but which oddly seem acceptable to us when packaged in the form of an action film). For the more elite Romans, Latin writers provided some of the finest poetry and prose of antiquity. In fact, Latin proved to be such a broad and flexible language that it continued to be spoken by the educated classes of Europe throughout the Middle Ages. And, no one needs to be told that sculpture, painting and architecture thrived under the patronage of the Roman state and wealthy Roman individuals.
Still, it's not a life one should try to recreate. Romans delighted in cruelty, accepted slavery and narrowly circumscribed the role of women. But, the lives of these ancients remain a window into the mind that created a great civilization with achievements in engineering, law, architecture, military tactics and administration which still influence us today. And, all of that was accomplished without an ideology of perpetual economic growth or its attendant short-term thinking, both of which so imperil us now.
Today, our time horizons are three months for business executives, two years for most politicians, and perhaps 10 or 15 years for the builders of Wal-Mart stores. The aim of those who produce goods and services is to sow dissatisfaction among the population through advertising campaigns that exhort them to buy things which are new and improved. And, the idea that a building should last 500 years--well, that's considered downright crazy.
Heraclitus tells us that "nothing endures but change." To be sure, the ancient Romans and their ways evolved over time. But, should we seek out change for its own sake? Should we automatically assume that change means improvement?
Yes, our society needs to make changes, drastic changes, in order to meet the challenges of energy depletion, global warming and the myriad other ecological problems the industrial way of life has created. Perhaps we should take our cue from the ancient Romans and seek out the kind of changes which will end up creating a more stable and enduring way of life, one that is in harmony with the natural world we depend on and more gentle on the adaptive powers of the human body and mind.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
On Vacation
I will be on vacation until late September and expect to post again on September 24. Meanwhile, I hope you will visit these excellent sites:
Energy Bulletin
Global Public Media
Peak Oil News & Message Boards
The Oil Drum
RealClimate
Peak Energy (Australia)
Life After the Oil Crash News
Energy Bulletin
Global Public Media
Peak Oil News & Message Boards
The Oil Drum
RealClimate
Peak Energy (Australia)
Life After the Oil Crash News
Sunday, August 20, 2006
The Democratization of Envy
Man's desires are infinite.---Aristotle
The amount of household wealth which suffices for a good life is not unlimited.
Envy is an emotion which seems to make no special claim on a particular epoch. Humans everywhere and in every time have experienced it or at least admit to knowing someone who is filled with it. But, longing for the fame, abilities or possessions of others is only useful in the long run if a person has the means to attain them or, at least, believes he or she may someday come by those means.
This explains why for most of history envy has simply taken its place alongside the list of perennial sins that have occupied human beings from the dawn of the species. For most of history most humans either had little to be envious of (as in hunting and gathering societies) or little prospect of obtaining that which they envied (as in feudal societies with their low social mobility).
But, all of that changed with the emergence of industrial society and the concomitant discovery of large quantities of fossil fuels, particularly oil and natural gas. These seemingly endless stores of concentrated power allowed humankind to create previously unimaginable wealth and social mobility. And, with these developments came a society whose central emotion is envy.
Competitive enterprise is at the heart of industrial capitalism. The presumed motive for success is profit. And, the presumed benefit of profit is the ability to afford more goods and services. There is, of course, a benefit to material comfort. But beyond a certain point wealth goes into displays of social status. At the height of ancient Rome, we are told by Thorstein Veblen in his classic, The Theory of the Leisure Class, powerful and well-to-do Romans exhibited their status through displays of vicarious leisure. They hired attendants or kept slaves who did nothing but follow them around. The size of a retinue was a measure of a man's influence and resources. Anyone who could hire others to do nothing, that is to enjoy their master's leisure vicariously, surely must be a person of some station.
In today's mass society status is now routinely communicated through the display of possessions, the sight of which can reach so many more people. (Veblen coined the popular term for this kind of behavior: conspicuous consumption.) How many times have you passed lavish homes of wealthy heirs or successful entrepreneurs whose names you know, but whom you've never met? Cars, boats, even entire islands can serve the same purpose of display.
With the advent of worldwide telecommunications the whole pageant can now be put on television and beamed to every hamlet which has a solar panel and a TV set. This development more than any other has democratized envy, a particular type of envy that is very closely tied to modern consumerism and thus to the energy-intensive infrastructure which makes that consumerism possible.
Of course, the poor inhabitants of the earth only want what we who live in industrialized countries take for granted: easy travel; large, well-furnished living spaces with central heating and air-conditioning; diets high in animal products; modern medical care; labor saving devices; consumer gadgets of all kinds and the vast array of urban distractions which we call entertainment.
But the point of television-induced consumerist envy is that it can never be satisfied. The newest fashions in housewares, automobiles, electronic wonders, vacation destinations, and megahomes are designed to stimulate ever greater competitiveness among the envious masses (and thus drive up consumption). And, it is the role of modern advertising to encourage that competitiveness.
This is what drives economic growth in industrialized countries, and it will soon be the basis for growth in the so-called developing world. Certainly, there are advancements in medicine, diet and educational opportunity which are important to the well-being of the world's many poor. But, once they pass beyond the stage of want, they move directly into the whirlwind of ever-expanding, unquenchable consumer desire born of envy.
The rich, of course, continue to pursue their larger yachts, grander homes and expensive galas. But, the rich have always done this because it has always been within their means. And, so the wealthy live under the perpetual sway of envy. But, now the world's masses seek to put envy at the center of their lives as their new-found wealth--courtesy of the ongoing fossil-fueled transformation of the planet--makes it possible.
The gap between rich and poor, far from being the curse of modern industrial society, is its very engine. The resulting endless striving which capitalism's defenders say is its cardinal virtue has become the road to ecological overshoot.
The question then for a future with ecological limits becomes: What shall we do with this powerful force of envy which has been awakened across the globe? How will people, both the rich and those aspiring to greater wealth, come to grips with limits which will undermine the consumer society within which that envy flourishes?
At a conference on peak oil and the environment that I attended not too long along, one of the organizers explained that he used to work as a broker on Wall Street servicing wealthy individuals, many worth $50 million or more. By the time he moved on to his next job, the bull market had made most of them much richer. But, he observed, they seemed no happier.
Ultimately, he left Wall Street altogether to begin work on a doctorate in ecological economics. He explained it this way: He said he knows his "relative fitness drives" (which lurk behind the culture of envy) can't be extinguished. Such drives are a part of every human. But he has decided to redirect those drives toward making his mark as someone who helps human societies become more sustainable.
When it comes to redirecting the culture of competitiveness and envy, his path seems like a good place start.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Is just-in-time nearly out of time?
Civilization, that is, the congregation of people in large settlements we call cities, is thought to owe its origins in part to the invention of agriculture. By growing surpluses of food crops farmers enabled the creation of an urban non-farming class who engaged in all manner of cultural, governmental, and commercial activities. These activities now preoccupy the vast majority of people in advanced economies.
From year to year the new settlements of ancient civilizations ensured their continuity through one very important measure: the storage of surplus food crops, especially grain. This enabled them to withstand a bad harvest or even two or three without facing collapse.
What a supreme irony then that the sine qua non of civilization--maintaining a store of essential materials--should in our time be considered a source of inefficiency and waste to be avoided at all costs. The long tradition of saving for a rainy day (or as we will see, in our case, a drought-stricken decade) has now been rejected in favor of the so-called just-in-time revolution. For those who didn't get the memo, just-in-time inventory management means that everything needed for the manufacture of any good is delivered to the factory just as it is needed or nearly so. Inventory levels are kept at minimal levels which frees up cash for other purposes.
Just-in-time methods have become synonymous with lean, well-managed international corporations. And, they are now the Achilles heel of a global trading system at risk on several fronts.
It is no accident that just-in-time methods came of age in the 1990s and were adopted by nearly every organization big enough to benefit from them. The relative tranquillity of the '90s made fears of any widespread disruption of supply lines fade from memory. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, there were no more superpower confrontations. The ambitions of Saddam Hussein to control a vast portion of the world's oil supply were contained. The sea-lanes were secured by the dominance of the U. S. fleet. Cheap energy meant cheap transportation which encouraged the expansion of trade. And, this allowed the wholesale removal of industries from places of high cost to places where labor and resources were the cheapest. In addition, the bear market in raw materials continued. This lulled purchasing managers into believing that needed materials would be cheaper tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that. So, why keep anything but minimal inventories?
These conditions created fertile ground for just-in-time ideas in almost every corner of the globe and in almost every organization including government and nonprofits. And, under such conditions it was inarguably better to keep inventories lean. As a result spartan inventories soon became a necessity as company after company sought competitive advantage through this type of cost-cutting.
Whether just-in-time inventory is an idea for all time or was merely suited to a unique moment in history is now being tested. Commodity prices for many critical industrial commodities have now skyrocketed. At the end of 2001 copper could be had for about 65 cents a pound. Last week it closed at about $3.50 a pound. Nickel hovered near $2 a pound in 2001 and now sells for almost $13 a pound. Oil sold for about $20 a barrel in late 2001 and now sits above $70. And, the list goes on. (Memo to purchasing managers: Things are not getting cheaper anymore!)
The United States military now sits astride one of the greatest known reservoirs of oil in the world, Iraq. But that military appears impotent to increase oil production in the face of continuing chaos and an emerging civil war in the country. Iran and North Korea now ignore demands from the world's only putative superpower whose strength, financial and military, is being sapped every day by its engagement in Iraq.
U. S. friction with China over high Chinese trade surpluses, an undervalued currency, Taiwan, and China's increasingly close relations with Venezuela and Iran which were sought in order to secure precious oil and natural gas does not bode well for the future stability of the world and the free movement of goods.
The willingness of Russia to curtail gas supplies to the Ukraine and ultimately to Europe demonstrate the precariousness of energy supplies. In our own hemisphere, Hurricane Katrina laid bare the vulnerability of both the U.S. and world energy infrastructure to natural disasters. And, the recent pipeline problem at Alaska's Prudhoe Bay oil field showed our vulnerability to mere poor maintenance. The world now appears to have a razor thin cushion of excess oil production capacity.
Rising energy costs are starting to take their toll on the trucking industry, but despite rising fuel costs marine and rail shipments remain relatively affordable even if capacity is being strained.
All of this has been put down to temporary and cyclical factors such as the general bull market in commodities and increased demand from the growing economies of China and India. And, if that's true, then there is little cause for alarm except among those companies that can't obtain the supplies they need at prices that allow them to be competitive.
However, the drop in world grain stocks paints a more ominous picture. Those stocks have declined to about 57 days of supply. The last time grain stocks were this low was in 1972, just before grain prices doubled. And, as more and more grain is converted into fuel rather than food, the situation may worsen. High oil prices encourage such conversion.
Low grain stocks are also partly the result of declining harvests. And, declining harvests are partly due to drought in critical grain growing regions of the world: the U. S. western and Plains states, Canada, southern Africa and much of Europe. If global warming is the culprit, this problem is not going away.
Of more immediate concern is the way just-in-time ideas have filtered into the retail food system. Grocery stores are believed to have no more than a three-day supply of food. That means those who don't grow their own food (which is most of us) will find themselves going hungry within a week of an emergency that shuts down the just-in-time delivery system to stores. What could do that? Try an avian flu pandemic.
And, that brings us to the medical field which has long been applying the minimalist, just-in-time view to its operations. The corporate mentality driving both for-profit and non-profit hospitals has resulted in an attempt to keep capacity to a minimum in order to drive down costs. But, the effect has been to undermine surge capacity, that is, the capacity to treat large numbers of patients from a mass casualty event such as a terrorist attack or a flu pandemic. The issue also applies to vaccines, drugs and medical equipment that might be needed in an emergency.
As for energy supplies, one almost certain near-term crisis will come to North America when its natural gas production begins to decline. That crisis could arrive as early as this winter and it's one reason the U. S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is trying to encourage the creation of additional natural gas storage.
When it comes to oil, there is a recognition on the part of nearly every major importing nation that just-in-time inventories are not enough. The United States, the European Union and China all have plans for or already have in place large state-run petroleum inventories, normally referred to as strategic petroleum reserves.
Perhaps the ultimate expression of the just-in-time idea is Wal-Mart's so-called warehouse-on-wheels. Only in a cheap oil environment would the idea of motion be added to the idea of warehouse. Wal-Mart tries to keep much of its inventory on the road in trucks to maintain low costs and flexibility. This is the ultimate in just-in-time delivery. But, those who believe world peak oil production will soon be upon us with its skyrocketing oil prices think that Wal-Mart would quickly crumble under the resulting financial and logistical strain.
When any resource becomes scarce, the natural tendency of people is to hoard it. That has the effect of sending the price higher which makes people think they should hoard it all the more.
In the coming years we may be faced with such a dynamic in many markets. The most devastating and far-reaching effects could come in the energy markets. Will the just-in-time religion which swept the world in the 1990s survive such a dynamic? Will the new fashion be to plan ahead and make sure we have extra supplies of metals, fuel, medicine and food on hand to run our factories and our civilization when disruptions occur?
Such a novel idea, isn't it? Or maybe it's an idea that's as old as civilization itself.
From year to year the new settlements of ancient civilizations ensured their continuity through one very important measure: the storage of surplus food crops, especially grain. This enabled them to withstand a bad harvest or even two or three without facing collapse.
What a supreme irony then that the sine qua non of civilization--maintaining a store of essential materials--should in our time be considered a source of inefficiency and waste to be avoided at all costs. The long tradition of saving for a rainy day (or as we will see, in our case, a drought-stricken decade) has now been rejected in favor of the so-called just-in-time revolution. For those who didn't get the memo, just-in-time inventory management means that everything needed for the manufacture of any good is delivered to the factory just as it is needed or nearly so. Inventory levels are kept at minimal levels which frees up cash for other purposes.
Just-in-time methods have become synonymous with lean, well-managed international corporations. And, they are now the Achilles heel of a global trading system at risk on several fronts.
It is no accident that just-in-time methods came of age in the 1990s and were adopted by nearly every organization big enough to benefit from them. The relative tranquillity of the '90s made fears of any widespread disruption of supply lines fade from memory. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, there were no more superpower confrontations. The ambitions of Saddam Hussein to control a vast portion of the world's oil supply were contained. The sea-lanes were secured by the dominance of the U. S. fleet. Cheap energy meant cheap transportation which encouraged the expansion of trade. And, this allowed the wholesale removal of industries from places of high cost to places where labor and resources were the cheapest. In addition, the bear market in raw materials continued. This lulled purchasing managers into believing that needed materials would be cheaper tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that. So, why keep anything but minimal inventories?
These conditions created fertile ground for just-in-time ideas in almost every corner of the globe and in almost every organization including government and nonprofits. And, under such conditions it was inarguably better to keep inventories lean. As a result spartan inventories soon became a necessity as company after company sought competitive advantage through this type of cost-cutting.
Whether just-in-time inventory is an idea for all time or was merely suited to a unique moment in history is now being tested. Commodity prices for many critical industrial commodities have now skyrocketed. At the end of 2001 copper could be had for about 65 cents a pound. Last week it closed at about $3.50 a pound. Nickel hovered near $2 a pound in 2001 and now sells for almost $13 a pound. Oil sold for about $20 a barrel in late 2001 and now sits above $70. And, the list goes on. (Memo to purchasing managers: Things are not getting cheaper anymore!)
The United States military now sits astride one of the greatest known reservoirs of oil in the world, Iraq. But that military appears impotent to increase oil production in the face of continuing chaos and an emerging civil war in the country. Iran and North Korea now ignore demands from the world's only putative superpower whose strength, financial and military, is being sapped every day by its engagement in Iraq.
U. S. friction with China over high Chinese trade surpluses, an undervalued currency, Taiwan, and China's increasingly close relations with Venezuela and Iran which were sought in order to secure precious oil and natural gas does not bode well for the future stability of the world and the free movement of goods.
The willingness of Russia to curtail gas supplies to the Ukraine and ultimately to Europe demonstrate the precariousness of energy supplies. In our own hemisphere, Hurricane Katrina laid bare the vulnerability of both the U.S. and world energy infrastructure to natural disasters. And, the recent pipeline problem at Alaska's Prudhoe Bay oil field showed our vulnerability to mere poor maintenance. The world now appears to have a razor thin cushion of excess oil production capacity.
Rising energy costs are starting to take their toll on the trucking industry, but despite rising fuel costs marine and rail shipments remain relatively affordable even if capacity is being strained.
All of this has been put down to temporary and cyclical factors such as the general bull market in commodities and increased demand from the growing economies of China and India. And, if that's true, then there is little cause for alarm except among those companies that can't obtain the supplies they need at prices that allow them to be competitive.
However, the drop in world grain stocks paints a more ominous picture. Those stocks have declined to about 57 days of supply. The last time grain stocks were this low was in 1972, just before grain prices doubled. And, as more and more grain is converted into fuel rather than food, the situation may worsen. High oil prices encourage such conversion.
Low grain stocks are also partly the result of declining harvests. And, declining harvests are partly due to drought in critical grain growing regions of the world: the U. S. western and Plains states, Canada, southern Africa and much of Europe. If global warming is the culprit, this problem is not going away.
Of more immediate concern is the way just-in-time ideas have filtered into the retail food system. Grocery stores are believed to have no more than a three-day supply of food. That means those who don't grow their own food (which is most of us) will find themselves going hungry within a week of an emergency that shuts down the just-in-time delivery system to stores. What could do that? Try an avian flu pandemic.
And, that brings us to the medical field which has long been applying the minimalist, just-in-time view to its operations. The corporate mentality driving both for-profit and non-profit hospitals has resulted in an attempt to keep capacity to a minimum in order to drive down costs. But, the effect has been to undermine surge capacity, that is, the capacity to treat large numbers of patients from a mass casualty event such as a terrorist attack or a flu pandemic. The issue also applies to vaccines, drugs and medical equipment that might be needed in an emergency.
As for energy supplies, one almost certain near-term crisis will come to North America when its natural gas production begins to decline. That crisis could arrive as early as this winter and it's one reason the U. S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is trying to encourage the creation of additional natural gas storage.
When it comes to oil, there is a recognition on the part of nearly every major importing nation that just-in-time inventories are not enough. The United States, the European Union and China all have plans for or already have in place large state-run petroleum inventories, normally referred to as strategic petroleum reserves.
Perhaps the ultimate expression of the just-in-time idea is Wal-Mart's so-called warehouse-on-wheels. Only in a cheap oil environment would the idea of motion be added to the idea of warehouse. Wal-Mart tries to keep much of its inventory on the road in trucks to maintain low costs and flexibility. This is the ultimate in just-in-time delivery. But, those who believe world peak oil production will soon be upon us with its skyrocketing oil prices think that Wal-Mart would quickly crumble under the resulting financial and logistical strain.
When any resource becomes scarce, the natural tendency of people is to hoard it. That has the effect of sending the price higher which makes people think they should hoard it all the more.
In the coming years we may be faced with such a dynamic in many markets. The most devastating and far-reaching effects could come in the energy markets. Will the just-in-time religion which swept the world in the 1990s survive such a dynamic? Will the new fashion be to plan ahead and make sure we have extra supplies of metals, fuel, medicine and food on hand to run our factories and our civilization when disruptions occur?
Such a novel idea, isn't it? Or maybe it's an idea that's as old as civilization itself.
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Apocalypse always: Is the peak oil movement really just another apocalyptic cult?
Whenever the world's scientists release yet one more piece of evidence pointing to ecological catastrophe in climate or resource depletion, some of those who are historically minded like to say it has ever been thus. For instance, peak oil nemesis Daniel Yergin loves to repeat the idea that "[t]his is not he first time the world has 'run out of oil.' It's more like the fifth." When it comes to global warming, the few remaining skeptics are fond of saying that scientists were predicting a new ice age as recently as the 1970s. More recently, the author of an article in Harper's Magazine entitled "Imagine There's No Oil: Scenes from a Liberal Apocalypse," a piece otherwise sympathetic in its coverage of the peak oil movement, drew parallels between those concerned about an imminent peak in world oil production and apocalyptic cults of the past.
Even though the peak oil movement does share a common bond with those cults in its obsession with dates, perhaps the most compelling comparisons are between the dramatic end-of-the-world scenarios of past cults and the dramatic end-of-civilization-as-we-know-it scenarios of some peak oil adherents.
Still, at its core the peak oil movement is decidedly different from an apocalyptic cult. I am often asked if I believe in peak oil as if it were an article of faith rather than a question of evidence. I respond that I take the possibility seriously because the accumulated evidence demonstrates that oil wells, oil fields and oil-producing countries have and continue to peak and decline in their production. I add that there is no compelling evidence that world oil production will not do the same at some point.
In fact, undergirding the peak oil thesis now are both a large body of scientific evidence and a great number of experts, some of them drawn from the oil industry itself. The basis of this movement then cannot be fairly compared to such movements as the Millerites and the Shakers which at their core relied on revelation, not science. By contrast, accepting peak oil theory doesn't require personal revelation or mere belief, only an evaluation of the publicly available evidence. That's why even peak oil's supposed detractors such as Daniel Yergin can acknowledge that oil is finite and that someday its production will cease to rise and ultimately decline.
Perhaps the one thing which is holding back the peak oil idea from wider acceptance is that some of the data needed to create definitive scenarios for peak are simply not available. Much of the world's oil remains controlled by state oil companies that have no obligation to submit to an audit. The other problem is that oil is not easy to measure because it is underground and because its recovery is dependent on myriad factors that include technology, geology, geography and market prices. This contrasts with climate studies in which no government or corporation can hide the atmosphere or the oceans from eager researchers who want to do measurements. This difference may explain why concern about global warming has been embraced by nearly every informed person on the planet, while the concept of peak oil remains relatively obscure and often dismissed even by many in the environmental movement.
Another distinction between the usual run of apocalyptic cults and the peak oil movement is its diversity. It contains not just end-of-civilization doomsayers, but many who believe that a transition to a sustainable and prosperous society is eminently doable (albeit with considerable effort) and some who believe that the transition to alternative fuels will be brought about by the marketplace. And, while the above-mentioned Harper's article styles peak oil as a "liberal apocalypse," two of the peak oil movement's most prominent spokespersons are Congressman Roscoe Bartlett, a self-described "very conservative Republican," and energy investment banker Matthew Simmons, an advisor to the Bush presidential campaign in 2000.
The label "apocalyptic" is most often intended to be derisory. But even if it applies, those who use it this way may miss something very important about some apocalyptic movements. These movements sometimes spawn great creativity that has ongoing benefits for society at large. For example, even though the Shakers in America never numbered more than perhaps 6,000, their contributions to American society are astonishingly broad and enduring. Their art and architecture continue to inspire designers today. Their craftsmanship, particularly in furniture, commands high prices for original pieces and has led to many reproductions that are still being manufactured today. Inventions such as the flat broom, the circular saw, and the idea of printed packaging used in the sale of seeds are attributed to the Shakers. And, Shaker music lives on, perhaps most notably in the song "Simple Gifts," which has been adapted and arranged again and again.
Even if peak oil production turns out to be decades away, the contributions of the peak oil movement are already manifold. The people involved are forcing a re-evaluation not only of the idea of energy and its sources, but of the very way in which we live. They are creating dialogue on basic questions about what constitutes a good life--questions about excessive consumption, unhealthy lifestyles, and pathological social, political and economic arrangements born of fossil-fuel dependence. Above all, they are sounding the alarm about the unsustainability of our current way of life. And, they are offering concrete solutions to move us toward sustainability in a wide range of areas that are inextricably linked to energy including food production, water resources and climate.
Can those who mock the peak oil movement as apocalyptic honestly say that it's too early to start moving toward sustainability? Do they really think we will be better off if we wait and risk being too late?
Even though the peak oil movement does share a common bond with those cults in its obsession with dates, perhaps the most compelling comparisons are between the dramatic end-of-the-world scenarios of past cults and the dramatic end-of-civilization-as-we-know-it scenarios of some peak oil adherents.
Still, at its core the peak oil movement is decidedly different from an apocalyptic cult. I am often asked if I believe in peak oil as if it were an article of faith rather than a question of evidence. I respond that I take the possibility seriously because the accumulated evidence demonstrates that oil wells, oil fields and oil-producing countries have and continue to peak and decline in their production. I add that there is no compelling evidence that world oil production will not do the same at some point.
In fact, undergirding the peak oil thesis now are both a large body of scientific evidence and a great number of experts, some of them drawn from the oil industry itself. The basis of this movement then cannot be fairly compared to such movements as the Millerites and the Shakers which at their core relied on revelation, not science. By contrast, accepting peak oil theory doesn't require personal revelation or mere belief, only an evaluation of the publicly available evidence. That's why even peak oil's supposed detractors such as Daniel Yergin can acknowledge that oil is finite and that someday its production will cease to rise and ultimately decline.
Perhaps the one thing which is holding back the peak oil idea from wider acceptance is that some of the data needed to create definitive scenarios for peak are simply not available. Much of the world's oil remains controlled by state oil companies that have no obligation to submit to an audit. The other problem is that oil is not easy to measure because it is underground and because its recovery is dependent on myriad factors that include technology, geology, geography and market prices. This contrasts with climate studies in which no government or corporation can hide the atmosphere or the oceans from eager researchers who want to do measurements. This difference may explain why concern about global warming has been embraced by nearly every informed person on the planet, while the concept of peak oil remains relatively obscure and often dismissed even by many in the environmental movement.
Another distinction between the usual run of apocalyptic cults and the peak oil movement is its diversity. It contains not just end-of-civilization doomsayers, but many who believe that a transition to a sustainable and prosperous society is eminently doable (albeit with considerable effort) and some who believe that the transition to alternative fuels will be brought about by the marketplace. And, while the above-mentioned Harper's article styles peak oil as a "liberal apocalypse," two of the peak oil movement's most prominent spokespersons are Congressman Roscoe Bartlett, a self-described "very conservative Republican," and energy investment banker Matthew Simmons, an advisor to the Bush presidential campaign in 2000.
The label "apocalyptic" is most often intended to be derisory. But even if it applies, those who use it this way may miss something very important about some apocalyptic movements. These movements sometimes spawn great creativity that has ongoing benefits for society at large. For example, even though the Shakers in America never numbered more than perhaps 6,000, their contributions to American society are astonishingly broad and enduring. Their art and architecture continue to inspire designers today. Their craftsmanship, particularly in furniture, commands high prices for original pieces and has led to many reproductions that are still being manufactured today. Inventions such as the flat broom, the circular saw, and the idea of printed packaging used in the sale of seeds are attributed to the Shakers. And, Shaker music lives on, perhaps most notably in the song "Simple Gifts," which has been adapted and arranged again and again.
Even if peak oil production turns out to be decades away, the contributions of the peak oil movement are already manifold. The people involved are forcing a re-evaluation not only of the idea of energy and its sources, but of the very way in which we live. They are creating dialogue on basic questions about what constitutes a good life--questions about excessive consumption, unhealthy lifestyles, and pathological social, political and economic arrangements born of fossil-fuel dependence. Above all, they are sounding the alarm about the unsustainability of our current way of life. And, they are offering concrete solutions to move us toward sustainability in a wide range of areas that are inextricably linked to energy including food production, water resources and climate.
Can those who mock the peak oil movement as apocalyptic honestly say that it's too early to start moving toward sustainability? Do they really think we will be better off if we wait and risk being too late?
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
The Coming "War" with Canada
As I returned recently from a vacation in Canada, I took a detour along the Canadian side of the St. Clair River which divides Ontario from Michigan as it flows from Lake Huron into Lake St. Clair. The sunny, placid scene of sailboats, swimmers and the occasional motorboat or barge bore no witness to the fact that this was a border between two countries. As I passed two vast oil refineries I was reminded that I was indeed in Canada, a country so rich in oil and natural gas that the docks next to these refineries were likely used to ship refined products to the United States which is now in perpetual need of them.
From such a vantage point it is hard to imagine that this apparently benign unconcern for where the United States ends and Canada begins might suddenly be transformed into a pitched battle of words and deeds. And yet, that is almost certainly where these two old friends are headed.
Behind this looming turnabout is one very troubling development: Natural gas production in North America has leveled off. Only warm winter weather has so far delivered the continent from a severe crisis. The glib confidence with which Wall Street analysts touted the buildup in gas storage earlier this year betrays their ignorance about how tenuous those supplies really are. Underground gas storage currently stands at 2.8 trillion cubic feet (tcf) and could reach well over 3 tcf if the current hot weather abates and reduces demand for gas used to produce electricity. But those figures amount to a very small buffer when compared to the approximately 26.5 tcf consumed each year across North America. In fact, it is so small that the U. S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is taking steps to encourage an expansion of gas storage in order to reduce the volatility in prices.
But you can't store what you don't produce. Even though gas drilling rig counts in the United States have steadily advanced from an average of under 500 in 1999 to 1,376 in June, production remains flat. This has led to high volatility in prices. Since February 2002 prices have risen from a low of a little over $2 per thousand cubic feet (mcf) to nearly $15 per mcf last October. Prices have since come down considerably. Even so they are unlikely to stay there if a hurricane again knocks out gas production infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico or a truly cold winter descends on North America.
But there is something else even more foreboding about the leveling off of gas production according to Douglas Reynolds, a resource economist at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks who has studied the North American gas situation closely. Reynolds predicts that North American production will begin to fall precipitously sometime after the beginning of 2007. And, unlike the gradual downslope that the declining production numbers for a depleting oil well or an entire oil-producing nation trace on a graph, Reynolds expects the falloff in North American gas production to resemble a cliff. When gas wells begin to decline, they decline swiftly and often with little warning.
Which brings us back to the coming "war" with Canada. There will be no quick fixes for natural gas shortages in North America. None. Eventually, natural gas from Alaska and the MacKenzie Delta in the Northwest Territories will arrive by pipeline. But that could easily be 10 years from now. Imports in the form of liquid natural gas (LNG) could offer some relief, but the timelines for building the necessary special purpose ports and ships could be equally long.
So, what happens in the meantime should Reynolds' prediction turn out to be true? The answer will be puzzling to many Canadians. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) obliges Canada to share its oil and gas in the same proportion as it has in the previous 36 months prior to any restrictions placed on output. The specific reference is Article 605. In other words, the United States is supposed to get its share no matter what. In 2005 the U. S. imported almost 3.7 tcf of natural gas from Canada which produced about 6.5 tcf in the same year. That's more than half Canada's production.
(Perhaps even more galling to the Canadian public will be the fact that the other party to NAFTA, Mexico, retained control over its own hydrocarbon resources in the very same chapter of the agreement in which Canadian negotiators gave away Canada's energy sovereignty.)
But what if the Canadian government faced a situation in which its own citizens were freezing in their homes for lack of heat? Would it simply let natural gas flow south because of a trade agreement? And, what if it became apparent that the situation wasn't temporary, but rather a long-term problem?
Any party to NAFTA can withdraw from the agreement with six months' written notice. But the urgency of a mid-winter natural gas crisis wouldn't allow for such an orderly retreat. So, if, say, a weak Canadian minority government such as the one currently in power in Ottawa were faced with the wrath of freezing Canadian voters or a nasty row with the United States, which would it choose?
In the past when it suited the United States, the U. S. government simply ignored rulings made by the body that adjudicates trade disputes under NAFTA. Specifically, a long-running dispute over the export of softwood lumber to the United States from Canada had both parties hot under the collar. (Read here and here.) The dispute has since been settled. If this rather minor dispute had both parties this agitated for this long, how much more will they be agitated by a natural gas crisis.
I seriously doubt that the Canadian government would ever risk an actual military confrontation with the United States over energy, a confrontation that it could not win. But, what would it do short of that? And what would the United States do short of military action when its own people are threatened with freezing?
We can all hope for lovely cooperation. But if the past is any indication, I fear we Americans could be in for what is about as close to a war as we will ever get with Canada.
You might expect that under the circumstances Canada and the United States would be invoking emergency conservation measures for natural gas. But instead both governments fiddle while the continent's remaining and perilously tight natural gas supplies continue to burn. They thereby risk that one day in the not-too-distant future their relationship may turn as icy as the St. Clair River during the depths of a frigid winter.
From such a vantage point it is hard to imagine that this apparently benign unconcern for where the United States ends and Canada begins might suddenly be transformed into a pitched battle of words and deeds. And yet, that is almost certainly where these two old friends are headed.
Behind this looming turnabout is one very troubling development: Natural gas production in North America has leveled off. Only warm winter weather has so far delivered the continent from a severe crisis. The glib confidence with which Wall Street analysts touted the buildup in gas storage earlier this year betrays their ignorance about how tenuous those supplies really are. Underground gas storage currently stands at 2.8 trillion cubic feet (tcf) and could reach well over 3 tcf if the current hot weather abates and reduces demand for gas used to produce electricity. But those figures amount to a very small buffer when compared to the approximately 26.5 tcf consumed each year across North America. In fact, it is so small that the U. S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is taking steps to encourage an expansion of gas storage in order to reduce the volatility in prices.
But you can't store what you don't produce. Even though gas drilling rig counts in the United States have steadily advanced from an average of under 500 in 1999 to 1,376 in June, production remains flat. This has led to high volatility in prices. Since February 2002 prices have risen from a low of a little over $2 per thousand cubic feet (mcf) to nearly $15 per mcf last October. Prices have since come down considerably. Even so they are unlikely to stay there if a hurricane again knocks out gas production infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico or a truly cold winter descends on North America.
But there is something else even more foreboding about the leveling off of gas production according to Douglas Reynolds, a resource economist at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks who has studied the North American gas situation closely. Reynolds predicts that North American production will begin to fall precipitously sometime after the beginning of 2007. And, unlike the gradual downslope that the declining production numbers for a depleting oil well or an entire oil-producing nation trace on a graph, Reynolds expects the falloff in North American gas production to resemble a cliff. When gas wells begin to decline, they decline swiftly and often with little warning.
Which brings us back to the coming "war" with Canada. There will be no quick fixes for natural gas shortages in North America. None. Eventually, natural gas from Alaska and the MacKenzie Delta in the Northwest Territories will arrive by pipeline. But that could easily be 10 years from now. Imports in the form of liquid natural gas (LNG) could offer some relief, but the timelines for building the necessary special purpose ports and ships could be equally long.
So, what happens in the meantime should Reynolds' prediction turn out to be true? The answer will be puzzling to many Canadians. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) obliges Canada to share its oil and gas in the same proportion as it has in the previous 36 months prior to any restrictions placed on output. The specific reference is Article 605. In other words, the United States is supposed to get its share no matter what. In 2005 the U. S. imported almost 3.7 tcf of natural gas from Canada which produced about 6.5 tcf in the same year. That's more than half Canada's production.
(Perhaps even more galling to the Canadian public will be the fact that the other party to NAFTA, Mexico, retained control over its own hydrocarbon resources in the very same chapter of the agreement in which Canadian negotiators gave away Canada's energy sovereignty.)
But what if the Canadian government faced a situation in which its own citizens were freezing in their homes for lack of heat? Would it simply let natural gas flow south because of a trade agreement? And, what if it became apparent that the situation wasn't temporary, but rather a long-term problem?
Any party to NAFTA can withdraw from the agreement with six months' written notice. But the urgency of a mid-winter natural gas crisis wouldn't allow for such an orderly retreat. So, if, say, a weak Canadian minority government such as the one currently in power in Ottawa were faced with the wrath of freezing Canadian voters or a nasty row with the United States, which would it choose?
In the past when it suited the United States, the U. S. government simply ignored rulings made by the body that adjudicates trade disputes under NAFTA. Specifically, a long-running dispute over the export of softwood lumber to the United States from Canada had both parties hot under the collar. (Read here and here.) The dispute has since been settled. If this rather minor dispute had both parties this agitated for this long, how much more will they be agitated by a natural gas crisis.
I seriously doubt that the Canadian government would ever risk an actual military confrontation with the United States over energy, a confrontation that it could not win. But, what would it do short of that? And what would the United States do short of military action when its own people are threatened with freezing?
We can all hope for lovely cooperation. But if the past is any indication, I fear we Americans could be in for what is about as close to a war as we will ever get with Canada.
You might expect that under the circumstances Canada and the United States would be invoking emergency conservation measures for natural gas. But instead both governments fiddle while the continent's remaining and perilously tight natural gas supplies continue to burn. They thereby risk that one day in the not-too-distant future their relationship may turn as icy as the St. Clair River during the depths of a frigid winter.
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Why It's Hard to Debate a Cornucopian
It's much easier to tell people what they want to hear than to tell them what they need to hear. This is the first and most important advantage a cornucopian thinker has when arguing before any audience. No one really wants to hear that the future may be filled with turbulent change and personal insecurity.
Perhaps more difficult to overcome is the argument that the future will be like the recent past--meaning the last couple of fossil-fueled centuries--only better. By definition there can be no proof of such an assertion. But the human tendency to extrapolate the recent past (meaning my lifetime of experiences) into the future is almost universal. When the ecological truthteller offers a different scenario, the burden of explanation is on him or her to show why the future will be different; the cornucopian is not required to mount a case other than to say something vague such as, "Everything has worked out fine so far, even though the pessimists predicted catastrophe."
This is nothing more than the problem of induction which is unfathomable to many people unless it is explained very simply. One writer relates a story told by Bertrand Russell that attempts to do just that:
Perhaps more difficult to overcome is the argument that the future will be like the recent past--meaning the last couple of fossil-fueled centuries--only better. By definition there can be no proof of such an assertion. But the human tendency to extrapolate the recent past (meaning my lifetime of experiences) into the future is almost universal. When the ecological truthteller offers a different scenario, the burden of explanation is on him or her to show why the future will be different; the cornucopian is not required to mount a case other than to say something vague such as, "Everything has worked out fine so far, even though the pessimists predicted catastrophe."
This is nothing more than the problem of induction which is unfathomable to many people unless it is explained very simply. One writer relates a story told by Bertrand Russell that attempts to do just that:
I prefer another tale told by Bertrand Russell, which concerns a certain farmer and his turkey. From the point of view of the reflective turkey, the farmer will always greet him in the morning with a bucket of grain. Why? Because, by simple inductive reasoning, it follows that the more often this happens, the more secure [the turkey] is in the belief that it will happen again until, one morning, the farmer appears with an axe. Now from the farmer's better informed point of view, he knows that the more often the turkey gets the grain, the less likely it is that he will survive another day. Similarly, life underwriters adopt the farmer's point of view.
We mistake frequency of an event for proof that it will continue in the future.
Cornucopians also like to talk about how much better off nearly everyone in the world is now than in the recent past. Again, because most people have difficulty understanding the problem of induction, this claim is hard to battle. But the clever debater will show that the cornucopian is focused only on human welfare in the very short term. The eco-services that humans rely on for clean water, food production, and stable climate are actually on different and deteriorating trajectories. If the very basis for our material well-being is declining dangerously, then society's feeling of well-being will someday reverse. The big question is when.
Since the ecological truthteller must now come up with a date to satisfy the audience's curiosity, he or she will offer one from the literature on global warming or water depletion or some other predicted ecological crisis. If the date is nearby, the truthteller will be subject to short-term falsification (and, in addition, to the feeling among the audience that something so horrible couldn't happen so soon and that the speaker is merely engaging in fearmongering). If he or she chooses a distant date, the audience may not see the importance of doing anything. Keep in mind that dates 20 years or more in the future seem distant to most people, and they are inclined to believe that the intervening time will be sufficient to think up and implement solutions for a known problem.
Above all, cornucopians love to argue that even if many environmental problems exist, we will think up ways to solve them because we always have. They will cite clean air and clean water as successes. This is the problem of induction with a twist. It is not just faith that current trends can be endlessly extrapolated into the future, but faith that problems which could derail those felicitous trends and for which there are currently no solutions will be miraculously solved. It is as if the turkey in Bertrand Russell's story knows that the axe has fallen with regularity on other turkeys, but somehow believes that the axe "problem" will be solved before his number is up.
To offer a definite date in the future for anything (except maybe recognized holidays) is a fib. The cornucopian will easily trip up anyone claiming to be an ecological truthteller and turn him or her into a ecological liar. The calendar is already littered with disaster predictions that have not (yet) come true.
But the tables can be turned on the cornucopian who likes to speak in certainties just as much as the ecological truthteller inadvisably does. We live more or less in a probabilistic universe about which our knowledge is highly imperfect. In our daily lives, however, we unconsciously know this. We take out insurance against risks which may never strike us, but the consequences of which could be catastrophic. We buy fire insurance on our homes, for example, even though home fires large enough to justify an insurance claim are very rare. Yet, we do it because we know that home fires have been known to wipe out people financially.
The cornucopian has no more knowledge about the future than anyone else. And yet, even as he or she conveniently ignores negative trends, the cornucopian also tells us not to bother with insurance in the form of mitigating global warming or creating a sustainable society.
The ecological truthteller now has the opportunity to fight the arrogant certitude of the cornucopian with a dose of risk assessment as follows: "Given that the consequences of global warming and resource depletion could be severe--so severe that they could bring down our modern civilization--and even if you believe that the chances of such severe consequences are small, wouldn't it be worth it to take out some insurance just in case? And, if you believe we should do nothing, why are you paying to insure your home against catastrophic but very rare occurrences such as fires? As for the date of the onset of any demonstrable crisis that we will feel personally, well, we are all like Bertrand Russell's turkey. We simply don't know when it will happen. But, unlike the turkey, we've been warned."
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Welcome to "Braided" Time
On a recent visit to Minnesota a friend of mine introduced me to the idea of "braided" time. The average American segregates such activities as work, shopping, dining out, exercise, and socializing. And, because of the way we have organized our towns and cities, this means an average of six car trips per day per household in addition to any commute to work, according to Jane Holtz Kay, author of Asphalt Nation.
But, on this day in this small town tucked along the Mississippi River, I accompanied my friend and his family as we engaged in all these activities at the same time without ever getting into a car. From his house, we walked to the center of town to get breakfast at a local eatery dedicated to providing fare from local food sources. Once there he and his family met and talked with people they knew. After that we popped over to the farmers' market, where he met yet more people and arranged meetings related to his work as a college professor. Then, there was the pleasant socializing with the vendors at the market, many of whom raise or make their own products. We were never in a hurry and yet we got much done, all as part of a family outing.
As we walked back to his home, he pointed to a delivery car in which the driver went all of two blocks to make her delivery. "She needed to save time so she can go to the gym and get some exercise later," he quipped.
While it's true that people who live in the center of large, walkable cities experience "braided" time quite frequently, those of us who live in smaller, but sprawled out towns and cities find ourselves reaching for the car keys to "save time." The question is, "Save time for what?" Why do we consider the time we spend in transit as wasted time? Why can't the time we spend getting somewhere be turned to some good use?
As we walked those streets along the Mississippi River, I didn't get the sense that time was contracting or being wasted. In fact, I felt time expanding as the things we needed to do that day got done naturally without any special sense of urgency and without any need to "save time."
In his book Fooled By Randomness, Nassim Nicholas Taleb divides the world into maximizers and satisficers (people who try to blend satisfying with maximizing). We think that the fossil-fueled world which allows us to annihilate space is helping us to maximize our lives by giving us concentrated doses of exercise and entertainment and socializing in different places all connected by automobile travel. In the end, however, we spend oodles of time in the car and in traffic.
With "braided" time my friend and I managed to get many tasks done at once--all to our satisfaction--but perhaps not with the intensity of a racquetball game. Which sounds better to you?
But, on this day in this small town tucked along the Mississippi River, I accompanied my friend and his family as we engaged in all these activities at the same time without ever getting into a car. From his house, we walked to the center of town to get breakfast at a local eatery dedicated to providing fare from local food sources. Once there he and his family met and talked with people they knew. After that we popped over to the farmers' market, where he met yet more people and arranged meetings related to his work as a college professor. Then, there was the pleasant socializing with the vendors at the market, many of whom raise or make their own products. We were never in a hurry and yet we got much done, all as part of a family outing.
As we walked back to his home, he pointed to a delivery car in which the driver went all of two blocks to make her delivery. "She needed to save time so she can go to the gym and get some exercise later," he quipped.
While it's true that people who live in the center of large, walkable cities experience "braided" time quite frequently, those of us who live in smaller, but sprawled out towns and cities find ourselves reaching for the car keys to "save time." The question is, "Save time for what?" Why do we consider the time we spend in transit as wasted time? Why can't the time we spend getting somewhere be turned to some good use?
As we walked those streets along the Mississippi River, I didn't get the sense that time was contracting or being wasted. In fact, I felt time expanding as the things we needed to do that day got done naturally without any special sense of urgency and without any need to "save time."
In his book Fooled By Randomness, Nassim Nicholas Taleb divides the world into maximizers and satisficers (people who try to blend satisfying with maximizing). We think that the fossil-fueled world which allows us to annihilate space is helping us to maximize our lives by giving us concentrated doses of exercise and entertainment and socializing in different places all connected by automobile travel. In the end, however, we spend oodles of time in the car and in traffic.
With "braided" time my friend and I managed to get many tasks done at once--all to our satisfaction--but perhaps not with the intensity of a racquetball game. Which sounds better to you?
Monday, July 03, 2006
Why I Love Coal (In Its Proper Place)
Many people have accused me of hating coal. But nothing could be further from the truth.
I recognize that without coal the greatest achievements of human history in art, architecture, and literature would never have occurred. Without coal the world would never have been investigated and explained to us by science. Without coal the ascent of man (and woman) would not have been possible.
I love coal in all its forms: lignite, sub-bituminous, bituminous and anthracite. I especially love anthracite because it represents the purest form of coal containing the most carbon per unit of volume. Coal has quietly, magnanimously given of itself so that all of us air-breathing creatures could have life. It has labored without complaint under layer after layer of sediment which progressively increased the pressure and heat that formed it.
And, as more and more coal formed, the air was cleared of its excess carbon dioxide; the world cooled and cooled moving toward a more beneficent climate, one that ultimately provided a suitable environment for the aspirations of homo sapiens. As a byproduct of this process, the air also filled with oxygen, a substance that enjoys an even greater reputation and inspires an even greater love among the human race than coal.
For millions of years--no, hundreds of millions of years--coal has asked nothing more than to be left alone. And, until recently coal had its way, that is, until seacoal fell from the seams extruding out of Britain's ocean cliffs and caught the attention of the native population. Since then we have scratched at it, clawed at it, picked at it, dynamited it, scooped it up in giant shovels--which in the way of the cannibal were first powered by the very coal they attacked--and gathered coal into great mounds awaiting transport across the world.
Torn from its true home, coal began an unwanted journey from its resting place in the earth to kilns and furnaces and boilers in every corner of the globe. Fire now continuously dissolves coal, returning its essence to the heavens. First, the amounts were small and inconsequential. Now, they are like rushing torrents. Wherever coal is found, coal cars rattle day after day and night after night without ceasing. Smokestacks which signal the coal cars' destinations belch endlessly with visible haze and invisible gases.
The spectacle must be distressing to the coal I love: the gradual wasting away of its bulk, the irretrievable transformation of its body from a solid into a gas. Driven from its home, coal exacts a revenge in the only way it can on the creatures whom it helped to foster. It raises the world's temperature--not by the heat of combustion, but by coal's now gaseous carbon which traps heat in the worldwide blanket we call the atmosphere.
I can't help but wonder if people only loved coal as I do--that is, enough to leave it alone as it so clearly wants us to do--how different the world would be, how different our future would look.
(Go see "An Inconvenient Truth" as it opens across the country and learn to love coal the way I do.)
I recognize that without coal the greatest achievements of human history in art, architecture, and literature would never have occurred. Without coal the world would never have been investigated and explained to us by science. Without coal the ascent of man (and woman) would not have been possible.
I love coal in all its forms: lignite, sub-bituminous, bituminous and anthracite. I especially love anthracite because it represents the purest form of coal containing the most carbon per unit of volume. Coal has quietly, magnanimously given of itself so that all of us air-breathing creatures could have life. It has labored without complaint under layer after layer of sediment which progressively increased the pressure and heat that formed it.
And, as more and more coal formed, the air was cleared of its excess carbon dioxide; the world cooled and cooled moving toward a more beneficent climate, one that ultimately provided a suitable environment for the aspirations of homo sapiens. As a byproduct of this process, the air also filled with oxygen, a substance that enjoys an even greater reputation and inspires an even greater love among the human race than coal.
For millions of years--no, hundreds of millions of years--coal has asked nothing more than to be left alone. And, until recently coal had its way, that is, until seacoal fell from the seams extruding out of Britain's ocean cliffs and caught the attention of the native population. Since then we have scratched at it, clawed at it, picked at it, dynamited it, scooped it up in giant shovels--which in the way of the cannibal were first powered by the very coal they attacked--and gathered coal into great mounds awaiting transport across the world.
Torn from its true home, coal began an unwanted journey from its resting place in the earth to kilns and furnaces and boilers in every corner of the globe. Fire now continuously dissolves coal, returning its essence to the heavens. First, the amounts were small and inconsequential. Now, they are like rushing torrents. Wherever coal is found, coal cars rattle day after day and night after night without ceasing. Smokestacks which signal the coal cars' destinations belch endlessly with visible haze and invisible gases.
The spectacle must be distressing to the coal I love: the gradual wasting away of its bulk, the irretrievable transformation of its body from a solid into a gas. Driven from its home, coal exacts a revenge in the only way it can on the creatures whom it helped to foster. It raises the world's temperature--not by the heat of combustion, but by coal's now gaseous carbon which traps heat in the worldwide blanket we call the atmosphere.
I can't help but wonder if people only loved coal as I do--that is, enough to leave it alone as it so clearly wants us to do--how different the world would be, how different our future would look.
(Go see "An Inconvenient Truth" as it opens across the country and learn to love coal the way I do.)
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