They’re what come out of the most widely respected climate models, devised by the leading researchers. The prognosis for the planet has gotten much, much worse in just the last few years.
What’s driving this new pessimism? Partly it’s the fact that some predicted changes, like a decline in Arctic Sea ice, are happening much faster than expected. Partly it’s growing evidence that feedback loops amplifying the effects of man-made greenhouse gas emissions are stronger than previously realized. For example, it has long been understood that global warming will cause the tundra to thaw, releasing carbon dioxide, which will cause even more warming, but new research shows far more carbon locked in the permafrost than previously thought, which means a much bigger feedback effect.
Responding to climate change with the vigor that the threat deserves would not, contrary to legend, be devastating for the economy as a whole. But it would shuffle the economic deck, hurting some powerful vested interests even as it created new economic opportunities. And the industries of the past have armies of lobbyists in place right now; the industries of the future don’t.
John Kitzhaber, M.D., politician, and son who watched both parents die in a dignified way, cannot stop talking about it. His parents’ generation won the war, built the interstate highway system, cured polio, eradicated smallpox and created the two greatest social programs of the 20th century — Social Security and Medicare.
Now the baton has been passed to the Baby Boomers. But the hour is late, Kitzhaber says, with no answer to a pressing generational question: “What is our legacy?”
The country's Congress and Supreme Court, alarmed by Zelaya's political shift into a close alliance with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, backed Zelaya's removal, arguing that he violated the constitution, even if many officials say he should have been arrested rather than sent abroad.
Almost anywhere that peasants are encountered, they are likely to give the same impression of being conservative, individualistic, prone to suspicion, jealous, violent, superstitious and unthrifty.
Their behavior is not irrational at all, given the realities of their existence. In fact, the attitude of peasants is probably the only one possible for them. A modern observer of peasant life has defined their adaptation in terms of "the image of limited good." In other words, peasants view their total environment as one in which all the good things of life-land, wealth, power, friendship, sex, health, and honor-exist in only limited quantities. As they see it, the limitation exists for two reasons: 'There are more of themselves than there are of good things, and they consider themselves powerless
to increase the quantities available. Peasants have unconsciously extended a truth about the limited nature of their arable land to include all aspects of life. Like the land itself, good things can be divided and their ownership changed-but they cannot be increased.
Because not enough good exists to go around, a peasant family can improve its position only at the expense of other families in the community. A family that actively works to improve its lot thus represents a threat; whatever extra good it obtains must inevitably be taken from someone else. Peasants consequently regard modern farming techniques as ways to deprive others of their rightful share of wealth rather than as ways to increase productivity and thus to create new wealth. Even enlightened peasants realize that they cannot modernize, although they understand the advantages in doing so, simply because the other villagers would see it as taking unfair advantage if they were to augment their share of the limited good. 'The peasant belief that everything desirable is limited lies behind the social behavior that to outsiders often appears ludicrous, pathetic, or maddening.
And while seemingly making no attempt to lift themselves out of inherited poverty, they even worsen the situation by rejecting birth-control measures.
Question: Under pressure from whom?
Hirsch: From people in the hierarchy of the DOE. This was true in both Republican and Democrat administrations. There is, I think, ample evidence, and some people in DOE have gone so far as to say it specifically, that people in the hierarchy of DOE, under both administrations, understood that there was a problem and suppressed work in the area. Under President Bush, we were not only able to do the first study but also a follow-on study that looked at mitigation economics. After that, visibility apparently got so high that NETL was told to stop any further work on peak oil.
Yes, that was terrible. And it was strictly politics and political appointees—I have no idea how far up in either administration (the current one and previous one) these issues went or now go. People in the Clinton administration had talked about peak oil, including President Clinton and Vice President Gore, and the same thing is true in the Bush administration, and the same is true, to the best of my knowledge, in the Obama administration.
We found that because the decline rate in world oil production was going to be in multiple percents per year, it was going to take a very long time for mitigation to catch up to the decline in world oil production. Basically, the best we found was that starting a worldwide crash program 20 years before the problem hits avoid serious problems. If you started 10 years before-hand, you are in a lot of trouble; and if you wait to the last minute until the problem is obvious, then you’re in deep trouble for much longer than a decade. As it turns out, we no longer have the 10 or 20 years that were two of our scenarios.
“All anybody can do is thank God it’s over,” Bing Crosby, the show’s host, said. “Today our deep down feeling is one of humility,” he added.
But that humility came under attack in the ensuing decades. Self-effacement became identified with conformity and self-repression. A different ethos came to the fore, which the sociologists call “expressive individualism.” Instead of being humble before God and history, moral salvation could be found through intimate contact with oneself and by exposing the beauty, the power and the divinity within.
Yikes. Mexico is the third largest supplier of oil to the U.S. which means bad news for the gringo al Norte. Now Mexico does have some other fields but unfortunately those are failing to deliver like anyone drafted by the Los Angeles Clippers.
Now the oil in KMZ is proving to be much heavier than that from Cantarell and so may not decline at quite the same rate, but given the very rapid increase in production, and that the peak is already here, this does not bode well for sustaining Mexican production using that region for any great period into the future. Rather it might increase the already precipitate drop in total production levels going into 2011.
But all is not gloomy, especially if you're a oil industry puppet like Michael Lynch who's total b.s. editorial in the NYT got much pub (sorry, too lazy to post at the time) but and was thoroughly debunked the next day on both his credibility and the factual merit of his argument.
Here's what escaped from the puppet's mouth:
Michael C. Lynch, president, Strategic Energy & Economic Research Inc., differs from the generally pessimistic consensus on Mexico. “I think Mexico will probably surprise many,” he said.
Lynch said, “[Pemex’s] first need has been capital; the government has a long tendency to starve them of money, and only recently has this been reversed. Mexican drilling activity is twice what it was a couple of years ago, and they have a lot of medium-sized fields that could make a serious contribution. (The decline in rigs rates has helped them, but the peso decline offset that somewhat). Deregulation and outside investment would certainly help, but capital is the main thing.”
Perhaps too much Tony Robbins is a bad thing.
High oil prices/shortages are not just all that's bad for the U.S. Mexico is quickly becoming (or is already) a very fragile country. The drug cartels are Walmart-like in power and as soon as the Mexican government loses the 40% of their budget that comes from oil they could have a (even more) serious problem on their hands with the well-funded drug cartels. Oh, the possibilities!
Our one-party democracy is worse. The fact is, on both the energy/climate
legislation and health care legislation, only the Democrats are really playing. With a few notable exceptions, the Republican Party is standing, arms folded and saying “no.” Many of them just want President Obama to fail. Such a waste. Mr. Obama is not a socialist; he’s a centrist. But if he’s forced to depend entirely on his own party to pass legislation, he will be whipsawed by its different factions.
