Still an "Emergency"?

[jebatty]

A few years ago when I pondered the issues discussed in "The Long Emergency" (2005) by James Howard Kunstler, I thought that securing a fuel supply for home energy use that could not be disrupted was an important value and should become a goal. Although I lived in a heavily forested region of MN and my wife and I resided on many acres of forest land, I did not see the forest through the trees, and therefore, I considered buying peat land, also abundant in MN, as one step in securing that fuel supply. When I regained my sight, I realized that we sat on a treasure trove of sustainable and renewable energy right out both our front and back doors: trees. And the thought of buying peat land quickly and appropriately sunk into the mire.

So it might be for others who live in forested areas. Why invest in a home energy system that depends on purchased fuel controlled by others when you have your own secure fuel supply? And then also why use a fuel that emits fossil carbon when a non-fossil carbon fuel is securely available?

Today, 10 years after "The Long Emergency" was published, our value of a secure fuel supply has nearly been realized: wood for space heating and grid-tied solar PV that meets 100% of our home electrical energy needs. Back in 2005 solar PV was not even in my horizon of options, today it is "the" option. Soon, with advances in electrical energy storage clearly pointing to grid freedom in the near future, many more people will be able to realize both energy security and energy sustainability. And with that storage capacity, a secure fuel supply for transportation needs also will be realized.

Now, Kunstler well realized in 2005 that alternative fuels was not the ultimate answer. He also pointed to "nature bites back": climate change, epidemic disease, water scarcity, habitat destruction, and the dark side of the industrial age. Sound familiar? Perhaps "The Long Emergency" remains a good read.

 

[woodgeek]

I would have gone for the Long Emergency in my doomer-ish phase back in 2005, when I found his blog quite darkly entertaining.

Other than that, I am going to zig where you zag. I think that book is pulp now, and looks quite dated.

We all celebrated the death of Peak Oil theory around here a couple years ago BEFORE

1. Fed regs (the CPP) wiped out the market cap of US coal companies (many of which are now down >90%) and

2. The 'Saudi Put' cut the price of oil -70%, with concomitant reductions in Oil company valuations and a death watch for the US frackers and Alberta Oil sands.

3. And lest you think that we are soon to return to expensive oil, we just had 195 countries present their plans to drastically decarbonize their economies, and unanimously agree to get it done, to audit each other's progress, and to accelerate the rate of cutting in the future as much as technically and economically feasible through aggressive public policies tailored to each country. Saudi Oil Boss Al-Naimi has stated publicly that their change in strategy is due to them expecting a long-term slow decline in global oil demand due to Climate Change mitigation!

4. As for economically feasible: Since 2005, PV module costs have dropped from $5W to $0.50W, the amount of installed solar has increased by >5000% and in 2014 generated the same electrical energy as 20 giant (1 GW) power stations running 24/7, and is still doubling every 18 mos.

5. Since 2005 wind power has grown 600%, still generates 5x more energy than solar (like 100 GW continuous globally), and its production in the US is preparing to pass the production of all our large hydro installations combined.

6. And lest you think oil is unreplaceable, as we heard in 2005, where we would now be using horses to pull around our disabled cars, every single major car maker (except Toyota) in 2015 is planning to roll out long-range (200 mi) all-electric EV cars in the next 2-3 years. Why? Because the penny has dropped for them that in 5 years or so long-ranged battery EVs will be better and cheaper to buy and operate than ICE cars in every market segment (from luxury to chitbox). If they don't get in now, the companies know that they might not exist in 10 more years. Tesla is already the best selling luxury model car in the world, and has a 30% profit margin compared to the much lower margins on ICE cars. Example: MBenz announced today that they will produce 4 Tesla clone models starting in 2018, hoping to sell 80k units/yr upon launch.

7. Lest you think there is not enough raw material to handle all this, commodity prices for nearly everything: Food, Iron, Oil, Copper, Aluminum, Chemicals, etc are all collapsing, and now cheaper than they were in 2005.

8. Lest you think there is no money to pay for all this....2005 was near a pre financial crisis peak of GDP and manufacturing production and trade in the US. We might say now that much of that activity was debt financed and unsustainable. But the bubble burst, and now after 7 years of recovery the US economy is manufacturing and selling more goods (corrected for inflation and US population) than at any time in its history, and has a larger GDP (similarly corrected), and unemployment is lower. Corporate profit margin %ages are near record highs.

9. As for the 'Die off' that the worlds poorest people would suffer...in the last 10 years the population of the 3 biggest developing countries in the world, India, China and Indonesia, collectively about 3 billion people, have seen their inflation corrected buying power (GDP per capita) increase by 3-4x, about equivalent to the multiple the US experienced from 1950 to 1990, but in just one decade. The world is doing aok.

10. Violence has continued its long but bumpy downtrend...far fewer homicides in the US, and fewer deaths to war or genocide around the world.

I think that book will be a collectible soon. Maybe I'll pick up a copy.

 

[jebatty]

I have the collectible edition already on my bookcase. Little disagreement from me on what has happened in the last 15 years, but that period is the tiniest speck of history. The other threats remain: climate change, epidemic disease, water scarcity, habitat destruction, and the dark side of the industrial age.

 

[woodgeek]

11. In 2005 computers were big energy hogging PCs that ran an OS written by a company called for no obvious reason 'MicroSoft', ~1B people used them to access the internet. There were no smartphones at all (if you neglect BBs), iPhone launched in 2007. Now there are close to 3 billion active smartphone subscribers, expected to grow to over 6B by 2020, obviously bringing instant, continuous internet access and many telecommunication options to most of the global population (7B). They can all read Kunstler's blog and get ready to Die Off now!

12. A Kunstler favorite, the American Obesity Epidemic shows glimmers of hope....obesity rates amount young adults and children have flattened or fallen slightly in the US since peaking around 2005. The FDA has reversed its 1980 recommendation to eat low fat diets, which coincided with the beginning of the surge in US obesity rates, carb/sugar consumption and diabetes. The FDA no longer provides any guideline on how much fat americans should or should not eat. Many people over 60, who were young adults in the 1980s, continue to eat low fat diets. The Obesity rate in that age group remains the highest.

13. Re Ebola and AIDs (another Kunstler Favorite): After a 2014-15 Ebola outbreak that killed more people than any other in history, multiple Western pharm cos developed and fielded working vaccines to health care workers in West Africa, in the space of a few months. The AIDs drug cocktails that arrested the epidemic in the US, which were considered to be too expensive for the developing world in 2005 are now the standard of care in Africa and elsewhere. As a result, the rate of new HIV infections globally has declined >60% since 2005.

14. US population growth: Since 2005, US pop has increased 9% from 296M to 322M people. Interestingly, most if not all of the new people have settled in already developed large cities and dense metro areas. As a result, total miles driven by US people in 2015 is only about 4% higher than it was in 2005. Rather than building new suburban and exurban subdivisions, we are building bigger apartment buildings in cities, and the rate of long distance car commuting is falling. Cities and their core areas are getting revitalized by the influx. At least some of the new city folk are those who tired of raising chickens on their Kunstler-inspired `doomsteads' and moved to town.

Happy New Year!

 

[jebatty]

I'm not advocating doomsday, nor am I a pessimist, nor am I an excessive optimist. I do support long term planning and effective action that puts in place strategies for dealing with nature's bite back rather than fiddling while the sparks collect.

My intent in this thread was not to start a thread headed to the ashcan, but to highlight action that is available to many of us, and which many of us already are pursuing, which can boost reason for optimism. Therefore, no counters to the many arguments available which paint a picture much different than the one you advance.

Happy New Year!

 

[woodgeek]

My name is woodgeek, and I am a recovering doomer.

Jim, I totally respect your opinions and level of optimism. I'm (trying) to hold back my Can-worthy material.

 

[dougstove]

I think that if we can squeeze through the next 10-40 years, a sunny future awaits.
My current concerns are:
-a collapse of North Indian, Pakistani & Middle Eastern agriculture as summer temperatures exceed the tolerances for cereal crops
Time to breed a high yield sorghum?
-Bangladesh going under water, destabilizing India
-peak phosphate; we need to get much better at recycling urine and lowering runoff
-soil & water contamination in China generating a massive demand for imported food
-ocean over exploitation and plastic pollution.

The current misery in Mesopotamia is a cautionary tale; the cradle of agriculture and civilization is a desertified hellhole.

Cheers for 2016!

 

[lml999]

Grid-tied solar PV that meets 100% of our home electrical energy needs. Back in 2005 solar PV was not even in my horizon of options, today it is "the" option. Soon, with advances in electrical energy storage clearly pointing to grid freedom in the near future, many more people will be able to realize both energy security and energy sustainability. And with that storage capacity, a secure fuel supply for transportation needs also will be realized.

Today, grid tied systems go down when the grid goes down. Energy storage isn't economically feasible for most home-owners yet...and most new PV buyers probably don't even know that they'll be in the dark if the grid power goes out.

We are getting closer...but there are lots of details to work out as we go...

I'm signing a contract for a 12KW system shortly...looking forward to it!

 

[iamlucky13]

Re Ebola and AIDs (another Kunstler Favorite): After a 2014-15 Ebola outbreak that killed more people than any other in history,

Edit: After a 2014-15 Ebola outbreak that killed almost as many people as the flu does per month.

I think it's worth keeping in perspective that the most remarkable thing about Ebola is how nasty its symptoms are, rather than that there should be any reason to expect that it will cause a disaster of unprecedented scale.

I like being prepared, but the up-front costs to prep for the absolute worst are steep, and the likelihood of needing to is not really possible to analyze statistically. Instead, I focus on short term emergencies, which have a statistically proven record of happening just about everywhere eventually. Both Sandy and Katrina would have been a lot less stressful for a lot of people, for example, had everybody had 3 days worth of food and water stored in their homes, a few extra flashlight batteries and blankets, and a working radio. This includes those who were flooded out and lost those emergency supplies - emergency responders would have been less busy fending off those who still had homes but needed food, water, and heat, and better able to help those who really needed it.

The particularly well-prepared can not only care for themselves, but help others, too. I really like that.

At a minimum, if you're well prepared for the known emergencies, you're at least partially prepared for unknown emergencies.

 

[Highbeam]

Old thread but I expect that as our grid gets older and less dependable people will be more interested in alternatives. This is happening now and at the same time, the power storage systems are becoming more and more feasible , PV is getting cheaper.

Until power companies raise rates significantly to rebuild the grid or their grids fail too often to tolerate, the PV systems will remain rare.

 

[woodgeek]

@iamlucky I did not wish to diminish the tragedy of what happened, but merely trying to remind folks that 18 mos ago, people were freaking out.

Indeed, I saw polls that said that 50% of americans were concerned that they and theirs would personally get Ebola, probably within 6 mos. This, despite reassurance from scientists and doctors that with the health facilities and doctor to patient ratio in the developed world, that would be effectively impossible. There was even a brief 10% market correction due to this panic (in my interpretation).

It seems that traditional (quarantine) methods actually worked, eventually, to limit the outbreak, even in a very undeveloped country....but in doomer land, that doesn't work, and eventually Ebola takes over the whole world.

Kunstler and his ilk were convinced that it was just a matter of time before Ebola, AIDS, or something else ran amok crashing civilization. In contrast, not only was simple quarantining sufficient in Africa....but multiple pharma companies were able to develop working vaccines in a few months.

 

[begreen]

Bad reporting abounds. The media is no longer driven by civic responsibility to report the facts straight and without embellishment. Now it is all ratings and entertainment. The more sensational the better.

 

[iamlucky13]

@iamlucky I did not wish to diminish the tragedy of what happened, but merely trying to remind folks that 18 mos ago, people were freaking out.

Yep, that's how I read your post and was intending to reinforce the contrast between what people expected and how the ebola outbreak compared actually compared to other health hazards - the flu is more deadly, but far less hyped. I hope I didn't sound like I was diminishing the suffering and loss of those who died, either.

AIDS has been a lot worse. The WHO estimates there have been 34 million deaths related to the disease since it was identified, which on the one hand, is an astounding number. From the perspective of a global catastrophe, however, it's just a tiny upward blip in the bucket compared to the normal global mortality rate.

 

[jharkin]

Bad reporting abounds. The media is no longer driven by civic responsibility to report the facts straight and without embellishment. Now it is all ratings and entertainment. The more sensational the better.

true.

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