What the [BLEEP] Are We Doing?

What the [BLEEP] Are We Doing?.... that is for me the big question. The way and the speed at which we are destroying our only home, Mother Earth, is frightening... How much longer can this go on for? What can we do to stop this mindless destruction and instead live sustainably? Think about THAT for while!

Monday, February 27, 2006

Germanwatch - Climate Change Performance Index


The German environmental NGO Germanwatch has launched a new international climate protection index, saying it offers a better basis for comparing countries' efforts to combat global warming.

According to Germanwatch, the new Climate Change Performance Index will be an effective weapon in the struggle to reverse the dangerous effects of climate change, because, for the first time, it compares the effects of climate policy in the 53 countries that account for 90 percent of harmful emissions worldwide.

The index is the result of calculating three different values: The current trend in a country's greenhouse gas emissions, in which the emissions of the transport, construction, industry, and energy sectors are measured; the base indicator measuring the amount of carbon dioxide released in the atmosphere per person and per energy unit used; and the country's climate change policies -- the laws and financial incentives implemented to reduce emissions levels and improve energy efficiency. The expected results of these policies are also included in the calculation. The outcome is a more informed, multi-faceted assessment of each country's emissions-reducing performance and potential.

Surprising results

The index's initial findings surprised even some top experts in the field, such as Hartmut Grassl, former director of both the World Climate Research Program and the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg.

"When you integrate the trends and the policy-making aspect, then the result is a rearrangement of the typical ranking we saw up until now," said Grassl. "Previously, we always saw who had most emissions per capita, or as an entire country. Now you have an index which includes the recent trends plus the climate policy in the international arena."

The index puts Germany in fifth place overall out of the 53 nations included in the comparison. The United States was number 52, ahead of only Saudi Arabia, while the top three nations were Iceland, Latvia, and Great Britain. The latter has traditionally not been seen as a leader in climate protection, as its emissions levels, rather than falling, are at a standstill. On the other hand, China proved to be better than previously thought, due to its strong focus on utilizing renewable energy technologies.

Supplanting petrol


Biofuel is efficient but its environmental benefits are marginal

Plant-based alternative fuels may be as efficient as petrol, but for now they offer only marginal environmental benefits, according to scientists who have analysed how much energy goes into producing such biofuels, and how much carbon dioxide (co2) they emit as they power vehicles.

A us study that appeared in the January 27 issue of Science (Vol 311, No 5760) claims that corn ethanol is almost on par with petrol — on an average, it produces 95 per cent as much energy as petrol. But its much-bandied environmental advantage is not all that impressive — it reduces greenhouse gas (ghg, such as co2) emissions only by about 13 per cent. The scientists chose ethanol, also called ethyl alcohol, for their study as it constitutes more than 90 per cent of the biofuel that is currently used the world over.

Derived from the sugars in sugarcane or corn, ethanol has emerged as a potential candidate to reduce the dependence on fast-depleting non-renewable petroleum resources.

A country that has been successfully using bioethanol as motor fuel for a long time is Brazil. India also commenced its ethanol-blend petrol (5 per cent ethanol, 95 per cent petrol) programme in nine states and four union territories beginning 2003. But the ambitious programme got embroiled in issues such as erratic supply and pricing disagreements (‘Dispirited agreement ’, Down To Earth, September 15, 2005).

Biofuels reduce ghg emissions, as each growing plant (to produce ethanol) sucks up co2, which is accelerating global warming. But some scientists have been sceptical of biofuels. They argue that the intensive processing which is required to produce ethanol may use up more energy than it supplies.

The latest study counters this argument, saying ethanol generation may not require more energy than it provides if by-products such as corn oil and animal feed are taken into account. The team of researchers argues that the by-products not only have economic value, but displace competing products that require energy to produce. The scienists, led by Alex Farrell of the University of California in Berkeley (ucb), arrived at this conclusion by carefully examining the results of six key studies done on the costs and the benefits of bioethanol.

The six studies were evaluated through a biofuel analysis model developed by the Energy and Resources Group at ucb. In addition to net energy, the model takes into account parameters relating to ghg emissions and primary energy inputs.

The studies considered gave widely varying results. For instance, ghg emissions were found to fluctuate (for a switch from petrol to bioethanol) from a 20 per cent increase to a 32 per cent decrease. According to Farrell’s team, this could be because of the use of dubious data. But on an average, the team found a decrease of 13 per cent in ghg emissions by switching to ethanol. They said the decrease could actually be more, as the figures calculated do not reflect incentives available for ghg emission control. “Given adequate policy incentives, the performance of corn ethanol in terms of ghg emissions can likely be improved,” the study noted.

The scientists stress the primary reason for using bioethanol at the moment is to help reduce a country’s reliance on imported oil. Another paper in the same issue of Science charts out a road map for developing a biorefinery by harnessing the advances in fields such as biotechnology, genetics, process chemistry and engineering.

Melting glaciers pose growing global threats, scientists warn

Greenwire, 21 February 2006 - From Patagonia to Tibet to the Antarctic, the world's glaciers are in crisis, according to experts who gathered last weekend here at one of the world's largest scientific meetings.

Days after the publication of new research showing the rate at which Greenland's glaciers are shedding ice has doubled over the last five years, glaciologists at the annual meeting of the American Advancement of Science said that nearly all the world's ice sheets are showing similar worrying declines.

The growing flow of freshwater into the oceans could result in potentially catastrophic rises in sea level and changes in currents that drive world weather patterns, they said.
"This is what I'm worried about: Freshwater storage on Earth is out of balance for the first time in history" because of glaciers' increasingly rapid melting, said Mark Dyurgerov, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado-Boulder, who noted that 77 percent of the Earth's freshwater is bound in ice. "And mankind is very sensitive to changes in sea level."

Saturday, February 25, 2006

The Meatrix

Friday, February 24, 2006

How to Survive the Crash and Save the Earth

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Favourite cities of tomorrow

CHINA. New Urbanism is a rising architectural movement promoting the idea that we can build upon the richness of the past as well as sustainable innovations of the present to design great new communities for the future. Emphasizing the importance of walking and local businesses to the life of any neighbourhood, the movement began 20 years ago in North America as a reaction to soulless suburban sprawl eating up the landscape around every city..

New Urbanism is now going global. A leading advocate is Prince Charles, who is building his own sustainable community in southern England—Poundbury, which captures the vitality and charm of traditional English villages. People today, he has said, “want to live in mixed-use… communities, where one doesn’t have to use two litres of petrol to get one litre of milk.”

One of the world’s most ambitious New-Urbanist developments is planned for China’s Chongming Island, near Shanghai, reports the electronic newsletter of the Michigan Land Use Institute (December 4, 2005)—www.mlui.org. The plan calls for eight cities of 75,000 each and 40 farming villages of 5,000, connected by public transport and bicycle paths. In contrast to the sprawl characterizing most of China’s new developments, the rural landscape will be largely preserved for agricultural and natural uses..

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Record year for wind energy


The global wind energy sector experienced another record year in 2005. According to the figures released today by the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), the year saw the installation of 11,769 megawatts (MW), which represents a 43.4% increase in annual additions to the global market, up from 8,207 MW in the previous year. The total value of new generating equipment installed was over €12 billion, or US$14 billion.
The total installed wind power capacity now stands at 59,322 MW worldwide, an increase of 25% compared to 2004.

The countries with the highest total installed capacity are Germany (18,428 MW), Spain (10,027 MW), the USA (9,149 MW), India (4,430 MW) and Denmark (3,122). India has thereby overtaken Denmark as the fourth largest wind market in the world. A number of other countries, including Italy, the UK, the Netherlands, China, Japan and Portugal have reached the 1,000 MW mark of installed capacity.

Monday, February 20, 2006

Early Warning

I am Stuart Studebaker - welcome to my blog. My wife, Susan, and I live in San Francisco, with our daughter Avanti. This blog, EARLY WARNING is here to bring attention to the coming crisis facing civilisation - our shift away from fossil fuels and the incredible over-population these fuels have permitted. I will post links, opinions, discussions, and reviews of information here, and I encourage feedback.

Ethanol's a Big Scam, and Bush Has Fallen for It

A recent careful study by Cornell University's David Pimentel and the University of California at Berkeley's Tad Patzek added up all the energy consumption that goes into ethanol production. They took account of the energy it takes to build and run tractors. They added in the energy embodied in the other inputs and irrigation. They parsed out how much is used at the ethanol plant.
Putting it all together, they found that it takes 29 percent more energy to make ethanol from corn than is contained in the ethanol itself.

Kunstler and Heinberg on Audio


Richard Heinberg and James Howard Kunstler talk with Jim Puplava on the Financial Sense News Hour.

Jim Kunstler made the point, twice, that "When events compel us to behave differently, then we will behave differently", but not before. We do not hear warnings and take action, we wait until the event happens then we react.

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Going Carbon Neutral









More and more organizations and individuals are taking action on climate change by going "carbon neutral."

Families, companies, governments, and even entire cities have all purchased credits to offset their greenhouse gas emissions. Conferences, sporting events (including the Olympics), and weddings are also joining the carbon-neutral movement. High-profile rock bands like the Rolling Stones are now offsetting the greenhouse gas emissions associated with their concerts, and many celebrities are choosing to go carbon neutral in their personal life to help raise awareness about climate change.

Going carbon neutral involves creating an inventory of one’s emissions, reducing these emissions wherever possible, and then purchasing ‘carbon offsets’ to mitigate any emissions that remain. The result is net zero emissions.

What you can do

Hubbert's Peak


World oil production will start to fall sometime during this decade, never to rise again. In 1956, M. King Hubbert predicted that U.S. oil production would peak in the early 1970's. Although Hubbert was widely criticized by some oil experts and economists, in 1971 Hubbert's prediction came true. The 100 year period when most of the world's oil is being discovered became known as "Hubbert's Peak". The peak stands in contrast to the hundreds of millions of years the oil deposits took to form. Hubbert's methods predict a peak in world oil production less than five years away.

Ordinarily, we look to new technology for solutions to problems. Until recently, the oil industry enjoyed a higher rate of return on invested capital than any other industry. Historically, the most rewarding use of the profit was investing it into developing better ways of finding oil. As a result, the origin, trapping, exploration, and production of oil became advanced fields of knowledge. We cannot benefit today from reinventing those wheels.

There are long-term solutions to our future energy problems: conservation and both fossil and renewable energy sources. Unfortunately, large-scale implementation of these solutions requires more than five years and the industrialized nations have done little to address the short-term problem.

The present chaos in energy prices may, in fact, be the leading edge of an even more serious crisis. We all have to place our bets; doing nothing is equivalent to betting against Hubbert.

Saturday, February 18, 2006

The Compact: Buy Nothing for One Year


A small group of Bay Area residents who made an informal vow to not buy anything new in 2006 have found themselves in the middle of an international fury over consumerism, ecology and middle-class hypocrisy that has spread around the world in just days.

The Compact, named after the Mayflower pilgrims' revolutionary credo, started at a dinner party two years ago as a way to fight what members consider a rampant consumer culture wreaking global ecological havoc.

After a few trial runs, about 50 extended friends decided to go an entire year without buying anything new besides food, health and safety items and underwear.

Sarah Pelmas, a dean at University High School in San Francisco and one of the original Compacters, said she's amazed at the extreme responses the Compact has provoked.
"People seem very threatened by it," she said.

Overcoming Consumerism

Friday, February 17, 2006

PowerSwitch news

It has been two months since the last newsletter and an incredible amount has gone on (both in the world of Peak Oil and also in my own life, hence the delay in this newsletter). We've seen the BBC begin to talk more and more about Peak Oil, on the fringes at the moment but getting closer to its mainstream broadcasting. The Independent had a large pullout section dedicated to it. There will be a documentary on More4 soon about it. Sweden wants to be the first Oil-free economy by 2020 ( I think that is voluntarily oil-free!). Pf. Deffeyes has claimed we've passed the peak of oil why others such as the Chief-Executive of Shell have admitted we've passed the peak of easy oil.

Peak Oil is now being talked about in the corridors of the EU and George Bush took the whole of Oilaholics Anonymous and admitted publicly for the first time that America is addicted to oil. George, it isn't just America…

We have passed a tipping point of opinion – it is now accepted that the era of cheap energy is over. It is a primary, and very important step to have been made.
However, if Deffeyes and the Independent are correct, we've passed the oil peak and the point of no return for climate change. I don't know how correct they are, but if we haven't already, it is pretty clear we will do soon.

Read the news, absorb it, tell your friends, write letters to your MP, heads of businesses and organisations...what is the point of this information if we do not use it to mitigate what is to come?

Thursday, February 16, 2006

The end of an ideology


Has capitalism as we know it run out of answers?

As governments around the world slowly wake up to the challenges of climate change, energy security and environmental degradation, Jonathan Porritt argues that what we need is fundamental change in the kind of capitalism currently dominating the global economy.

I’m struck by how much of today’s writing about our looming ‘energy crisis’ is completely detached from the ideological context in which that crisis is being predicted.
This is baffling. The way we source, produce, use and waste energy today is a direct consequence of the particular model of growth-driven capitalism that has dominated peoples’ lives for the last fifty years. In many respects, the crisis is not so much a consequence of ‘things running out’ (be it oil or gas, or the atmosphere’s absorptive capacity), as the inevitable conclusion to a uniquely abhorrent and destructive system of wealth creation.

Even those who do not share the kind of analysis presented here, based upon an understanding of environmental limits,have good reason to be concerned about the durability of today’s particular model of capitalism.A combination of different factors – the deregulation of cross-border capital flows,the emergence of currency trading on an unprecedented scale in today’s ‘casino economy’, increased liberalization exerting downward pressure on wages and prices, growing disparities in wealth both within and between countries, extraordinarily high levels of debt in so many countries and particularly in the US, oil trading at around $60 a barrel – makes the maintenance of our current global economy look like an extremely dangerous high-wire act, with the prospects of a vertiginous collapse seeming ever more likely.

Nothing lasts forever, and there’s little doubt that viable alternatives to capitalism (or, at least, a very different model of capitalism) will emerge over time. Capitalism is a complex, adaptive system, and is clearly capable of profound and rapid shifts. The question is ‘when’ not ‘whether’, and in which direction.

Whether it’s a soft landing or a very, very hard landing, depends almost entirely on how quickly we can accelerate the transition to an ultra–efficient, sustainable and largely renewable energy economy. That is why exponents of renewable energy should not be naive about the ideological stakes for which they are playing.

Jonathon Porritt is Programme Director of Forum for the Future and Chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission
web: http://www.forumforthefuture.org/ and http://www.sd-commission.org/

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

The madness of global statistics...


Half of the world's population lives on less than $2 per day. Almost 20% of the adult population of South Africa has HIV, while AIDS and a host of curable diseases kill millions annually throughout the developing world. 70% of the world's fisheries are fished to capacity or overexploited. 25% of the world's bird species are estimated to have gone extinct in the last century. A 1- 4 degree F rise in global temperature is predicted in the next 50 years without a drastic turnaround in our current CO2 emissions -- a change that would result in the drowning of small island nations, flooding of coastal cities, increased storms, and a re-shuffling, with highly uncertain results, of the world's major biomes. Efforts up to this point have not been at the scale necessary to transform a world's worth of burning, slashing, and catching, designed to keep our bulging human numbers warmed and fed.

Take a deep breath...

Footprint in the dark...

NASA, Nov. 27th, 2002.

It is in the dark of night that we can best see our footprint on this planet. Here we can see the developed world outlined by electric lights.
While it is a spectacular view, it is also a map to the squandering of energy resources. It is astounding how much detail can be seen in this NASA composite satellite photo. This is a map of technological man. The extent of Homo sapiens hydrocarbonus is here clearly delineated.

Monday, February 13, 2006

Winds of climate change are about to make their impact felt in many a boardroom

Top science adviser sounds death knell for theory that insists growth is good.

The old economics is dead. Its death knell was sounded last week, not by a practitioner of the dismal science but by Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser. Sir David King said concentrations of greenhouse gases were already at a level where the warning signs were flashing red: a comment that starkly illustrates the impending clash between economic orthodoxy and environmental sustainability.

Globalisation has meant clothes in the UK are cheap. The inflation figures show that women's outerwear is less expensive now than it was in the late 1980s. And we're not talking about the inflation-adjusted price either; the average sterling price of a skirt or a dress is lower than it was two decades ago.

There's no longer the need to wear a top several times to get your money's worth: they can be worn once and tossed in the bin. Likewise, stores now sell jeans at below £5 a pair and market them to manual workers on the basis that if they get them filthy in the course of a week they can simply throw them away and buy anew. According to the present model of economics, this is progress, just as it is to be welcomed that flights as low as £2.50 mean stag and hen weekends in Tallinn or Prague.

But are these developments really positive? Orthodox economics says they are, because they raise the real incomes of consumers. But, according to Sir David's analysis, they are potentially very bad indeed. Currently, greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere are around 380 parts per million, compared with around 220 ppm during the last ice age. Climatologists estimate that 400ppm - of thereabouts - is the tipping point and if we push concentrations much above that the process of climate change could become irreversible.

Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change - DEFRA

The International Symposium on Stabilisation of Greenhouse Gas Concentrations – Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change – took place, at the invitation of the British Prime Minister Tony Blair and under the sponsorship of the UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Defra), at the Met Office, Exeter, United Kingdom, on 1-3 February 2005.

The conference discussed the long-term implications of different levels of climate change for different sectors and for the world as a whole. Major themes included key vulnerabilities of the climate system and critical thresholds, socio-economic effects, both globally and regionally, mission pathways to climate stabilisation and technological options available to achieve stabilisation levels.

The conference brought together over 200 participants from some 30 countries, mainly including scientists, and representatives from international organisations and national governments. The conference offered a unique opportunity for scientists to exchange views on the consequences and risks presented to the natural and human systems as a result of changes on the world's climate, and on the pathways and technologies to limit greenhouse gas emissions and their concentrations in the atmosphere.

This Executive Summary was prepared by the International Scientific Steering Committee (February 2005) and summarises the findings presented at the conference. A longer report prepared by the Steering Committee is available on the conference web site at www.stabilisation2005.com. The original papers presented at the conference are also available on the web site.

Saturday, February 11, 2006

World Press Photo 2005


The international jury of the 49th annual World Press Photo contest selected a color image of the Canadian photographer Finbarr O'Reilly of Reuters as World Press Photo of the Year 2005. The picture shows the emaciated fingers of a one-year-old child pressed against the lips of his mother at an emergency feeding clinic in Niger. A devastating swarm of locusts and the worst drought in decades left millions of people short of food in the African state. The picture was taken in Tahoua, northwestern Niger, on 1 August 2005.

World Press Photo jury chairman James Colton described the winning image: "This picture has haunted me ever since I first saw it two weeks ago. It has stayed in my head, even after seeing all the thousands of others during the competition. This image has everything - beauty, horror and despair. It is simple, elegant and moving."

Addicted to Oil



Sweden plans to be world's first oil-free economy


Sweden is to take the biggest energy step of any advanced western economy by trying to wean itself off oil completely within 15 years - without building a new generation of nuclear power stations.

The attempt by the country of 9 million people to become the world's first practically oil-free economy is being planned by a committee of industrialists, academics, farmers, car makers, civil servants and others, who will report to parliament in several months.

A government official said: "We want to be both mentally and technically prepared for a world without oil. The plan is a response to global climate change, rising petroleum prices and warnings by some experts that the world may soon be running out of oil."

Thursday, February 09, 2006

What the Earth Needs Is Less Religion and More Worship

Earth Meanders by Dr. Glen Barry
February 8, 2006

It is hard for me to say whether I find Islamic or Christian fundamentalists more distasteful and dangerous to the Earth and prospects for post-industrial civilized society. I see little of merit in murderous and medieval Islam. And the spread of Christian thought has defiled and destroyed much in nature that is sacred and good.

Both Christianity and Islam are deadly, antiquated belief systems that are sending humanity and the Earth into a death spiral. Both offer no basis for government; or promise for just, equitable and sustainable living. Both have institutionalized killing in the name of God. Both hold and follow a set of archaic superstitions that provide little guidance in times of ecological overshoot, overpopulation and resource wars.

There is nothing more surreal than watching Bush exhort the Muslim world to be less violent as he orders bombs dropped that kill their women and children. Or anything as vile as Iranian leaders in an uproar over cartoons, as they graduate from suicide bombs to nuclear warheads. Global security and even survival depend upon a new model of global governance free from all religious fanaticism.

We desperately need thinkers who speak not as members of a religious sect or political party, but rather think freely and speak truthfully of the human condition and aspirations, and are rooted in the Earth processes that make all life possible. It is only from such thought that communities and policy can emerge that are adequate to overcome an era of militancy and ecological collapse.

Organized religion by and large is for the weak minded that require superstitious faith to alleviate their suffering, disappointments and modest prospects. There is nothing inherently wrong with this irrational belief in ghosts and spirits and messiahs. But as the organizing basis of modern society, it is lacking, dangerous and delusional. Is denial of the human condition any way to live?

It is a tragedy that calm, gentle, often feminine indigenous religions that worshipped the Earth and her life have not prospered. These more practical beliefs are rooted in reality - the fact that we are all one with the Earth and each other. But biocentric faith suffered from an unwillingness to kill, proselytize and play to humanity's worst fears in order to become dominant.

This is what I know. The Earth is alive. Humanity is part of the Earth, but also utterly dependent upon the other parts, their interactions and the whole. We have looked far into the stars and our cells yet do not yet understand, or rather are unwilling to accept, our own true nature and place in the universe. We are animals that have rapidly evolved new facilities of thought, reflection and consciousness - yet still defecate and fornicate as all creatures do.
In an era of jet planes, global communications and ecological science it is time for the death of organized cults of personality that have persisted due to chance and militancy of superstition. It is time for Mohammad and Christ to take their place amongst historical figures, but die as false messiahs upon which to base human relations, well-being and governance.

Not all organized religion cultists can or should give up their delusional faith. But never again can personal faith based upon what is unknowable be thrust upon non-believers, or used as justification to desecrate natural systems or to kill others that believe differently
What the Earth needs is less religion and more worship. Ritual and personal faith have a major role to play in sustaining ecosystems. The Earth is truly worthy of worship, as a real and evident embodiment of a nurturing father/mother figure that possesses the ability to give life. The Earth is God (or at least the closest approximation to be found in these troubling, fanatical times).

Headlong to growth overload


The Age, by Ross Gittins.
Melbourne, February 8, 2006

The rapid growth in the global economy is outstripping the ability of the planet's natural resources to sustain it, writes Ross Gittins.

The greatest economic, geopolitical and environmental event of our times is the rapid economic development of China, closely followed by India's. Its full ramifications are yet to dawn on us.
The bit we haven't twigged to is what it might do to the environment. Two hundred years ago, the countries of the West experienced an industrial revolution that eventually made them far, far richer than all the other countries of the world.

What's happening now is that China and India are going through their own industrial revolutions. But it's taking decades rather than centuries because they're able to pick up off the shelf the latest Western technology, as well as Western capital to finance massive investment in factories and infrastructure.

Since 1980, China's economy has been growing at a rate averaging about 9.5 per cent a year. That means it doubles in size every eight years. India's economy has been growing by only about 5.5 per cent a year, meaning that it doubles only every 13 years.

What makes this spectacular growth far more significant, however, is that China and India are the two most populous countries in the world, each with populations exceeding a billion. Between them, they account for almost 40 per cent of the world's population. By contrast, the rich countries of North America, Europe, Japan and Australasia account for less that 15 per cent.

What happens when two such huge countries sustain such rapid rates of economic growth? Well, for a start, you get a lot of growth in international trade, since both countries are pursuing export-oriented growth strategies. The Chinese are rapidly turning themselves into the globe's chief source of manufactured goods, while the Indians have already captured about half the global offshore outsourcing business.

This is the bit that's frightening people in America and Europe. All they see is low-skilled jobs migrating to Asia. But the next effect is the two countries' rapidly growing appetite for energy, food and raw materials, which perpetually threatens to outstrip supply and keeps upward pressure on prices.

According to a briefing paper on energy insecurity from the Lowy Institute, China is already the second largest consumer of energy in the world (after the United States), while India has moved into sixth place. Their joint share of world primary energy consumption has roughly doubled over the past two decades. Energy demand in both countries is also being boosted by rising incomes and growing urbanisation.

We're most conscious of the effect of demand on oil prices. By 2030, China is expected to be importing three-quarters of the oil it needs, while India imports more than 90 per cent. But oil accounts for only between a quarter and a third of the two countries' total energy consumption. Most of the rest comes from . . . coal. (Sounds of Aussie cash registers chinking.)

By contrast, both countries are largely self-sufficient in their consumption of food, even though the average Chinese consumes today twice as much grain - wheat, rice and corn - as in 1980, directly or in the form of livestock products. But it's hard to see how this self-sufficiency can last. If extended prosperity were again to double Chinese grain consumption per person - to roughly the European level - the equivalent of nearly 40 per cent of today's global grain harvest would be needed in China.

Then there's water. According to a special article in this year's State of the World report by the Worldwatch Institute in New York, China has just 8 per cent of the world's fresh water to meet the needs of 22 per cent of the world's population, while the World Bank has described India's water situation as "extremely grave".

Crop land in China and India is becoming less productive because of erosion, waterlogging, desertification and other forms of degradation. Beyond worries about what may happen to the scarcity and prices of energy and food, the world will need to grapple with a more fundamental constraint: the ability of Earth's ecological systems to support a continually growing global economy while absorbing vast quantities of pollution.

The institute asks: "As China and India add their surging consumption to that of the United States, Europe and Japan, the most important question is this: can the world's ecosystems withstand the damage - the increase in carbon emissions, the loss of forests, the extinction of species - that are now in prospect?"

I doubt it. The concept of a country's "global footprint" shows what its economy needs from nature, measured as the number of global hectares of land and water, to provide its material inputs and accommodate its wastes. The US, with less than 5 per cent of the world's population, requires a remarkable quarter of global biocapacity to support itself. Europe and Japan, with 10 per cent of the world's population, require another quarter. At present, China and India, with almost 40 per cent, require another quarter.

What happens if the Chinese and Indian economies double in the next decade? Remember that China already uses 26 per cent of the world's crude steel, 32 per cent of the rice, 37 per cent of the cotton and 47 per cent of the cement.

The institute concludes: "Global ecosystems and resources are simply not sufficient to sustain the current economies of the industrial West and at the same time bring more than 2 billion people into the global middle class through the same resource-intensive development model pioneered by North America and Europe.

"Limits on the ability to increase oil production, shortages of fresh water, and the economic impacts of damaged ecosystems and rapid climate change are among the factors that make it impossible to continue current patterns on such a vastly larger scale. Humanity is now on a collision course with the world's ecosystems and resources. In the coming decades, we will either find ways of meeting human needs based on new technologies, policies and cultural values, or the global economy will begin to collapse."

Ross Gittins is a staff columnist with The Age.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

What's Raining On Solar's Parade


Almost all solar panels are made with silicon -- and makers can't buy enough of it.

Sometimes it's possible to be a little too successful. The solar power industry has been on a tear, growing at more than 30% per year for the last six years. It's poised to reach a surprising milestone within two years, when it will gobble up more silicon for its electricity-generating panels than semiconductor makers use in all their chips and devices. The onetime "'tree-hugger' industry is not a niche business anymore," says Lisa Frantzis, director of renewable energy at Navigant Consulting Inc. (NCI ).

So what's the problem? "Global demand is stronger than the existing supply," says Lee Edwards, president and CEO of BP Solar (BP ). His company and others can't buy enough of the ultrapure polysilicon now used in 91% of solar panels. The raw material shortage has slashed growth for the industry from more than 50% in 2004 to a projected 5% in 2006.

The shortage has caused prices for polysilicon to more than double over the last two years. As Economics 101 teaches, that should prompt producers to expand capacity. But for suppliers such as Michigan-based Hemlock Semiconductor Corp., the world's largest producer, the decision hasn't been easy. For one thing, the company was badly burned in 1998. It had just built a new facility in response to pleas from semiconductor makers when Asia went into a slowdown. Demand for silicon plunged, and the factory had to be shuttered. Now the U.S., Germany, and other nations are offering subsidies for solar power -- but governments can take away incentives as easily as they put them in place. "We did a lot of soul-searching," says Hemlock President and CEO Donald E. Pfuehler. "Would the incentives go away? Is the solar industry real or just a flash in the pan?"

Hemlock finally decided that the industry is real, but only after solar companies agreed to share the risk by signing contracts to buy the future output. So in December the company began an expansion worth more than $400 million that will increase silicon production by 50%. Competitors are following suit. On Jan. 12, Munich-based Wacker started construction on a silicon manufacturing plant. The new supply, however, won't be onstream until 2008.

For many nations, solar offers a hedge against spikes in prices of fossil fuel. In Japan, even without incentives, higher fuel prices and other costs have made solar electricity almost cost-competitive. And huge potential markets, such as China, are just beginning to be tapped.

That's why analysts predict the growth will surge when the new polysilicon production lines get going. And the boom should continue for at least 10 years. By then, technological improvements, economies of scale, and competition from new entrants such as China may make sun power cost-effective without government help. "Prices are going down every year, and the cost of standard electricity is going up," explains Ron Kenedi, Sharp's vice-president for solar energy solutions. "There will be a meeting point." When that happens, the industry may finally see growth without growing pains.

Friday, February 03, 2006

Bottled water: Pouring resources down the drain


The global consumption of bottled water reached 154 billion liters (41 billion gallons) in 2004, up 57 percent from the 98 billion liters consumed five years earlier. Even in areas where tap water is safe to drink, demand for bottled water is increasing—producing unnecessary garbage and consuming vast quantities of energy. Although in the industrial world bottled water is often no healthier than tap water, it can cost up to 10,000 times more. At as much as $2.50 per liter ($10 per gallon), bottled water costs more than gasoline.

It's capitalism or a habitable planet - you can't have both

Our economic system is unsustainable by its very nature. The only response to climate chaos and peak oil is major social change.

Robert Newman
Thursday February 2, 2006
The Guardian

There is no meaningful response to climate change without massive social change. A cap on this and a quota on the other won't do it. Tinker at the edges as we may, we cannot sustain earth's life-support systems within the present economic system.

Capitalism is not sustainable by its very nature. It is predicated on infinitely expanding markets, faster consumption and bigger production in a finite planet. And yet this ideological model remains the central organising principle of our lives, and as long as it continues to be so it will automatically undo (with its invisible hand) every single green initiative anybody cares to come up with.

If we are all still in denial about the radical changes coming - and all of us still are - there are sound geological reasons for our denial. We have lived in an era of cheap, abundant energy. There never has and never will again be consumption like we have known. The petroleum interval, this one-off historical blip, this freakish bonanza, has led us to believe that the impossible is possible, that people in northern industrial cities can have suntans in winter and eat apples in summer. But much as the petroleum bubble has got us out of the habit of accepting the existence of zero-sum physical realities, it's wise to remember that they never went away. You can either have capitalism or a habitable planet. One or the other, not both.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Fish? No thanks!


Mercury is predominantly released into the air from industrial processes, products, mining, waste disposal, and coal combustion. It travels through the atmosphere and settles in oceans and waterways, where naturally occurring bacteria absorb it and convert it to a very toxic organic form called methyl mercury.

The methyl mercury then works its way up the food chain, as large fish consume contaminated smaller fish and other organisms. Predatory fish such as large tuna, swordfish, shark, king mackerel, pike, walleye, barracuda, scabbard, and marlin contain the highest methyl mercury concentrations and are often included in government fish consumption advisories.

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

The hippies were right all along about happiness

By Andrew Oswald
Published: January 18 2006

Politicians mistakenly believe that economic growth makes a nation happier. “Britain is today experiencing the longest period of sustained economic growth since the year 1701 – and we are determined to maintain it,” began Gordon Brown, the chancellor of the exchequer, in his 2005 Budget speech. Western politicians think this way because they were taught to do so. But today there is much statistical and laboratory evidence in favour of a heresy: once a country has filled its larders there is no point in that nation becoming richer.

The hippies, the Greens, the road protesters, the downshifters, the slow-food movement – all are having their quiet revenge. Routinely derided, the ideas of these down-to-earth philosophers are being confirmed by new statistical work by psychologists and economists.

First, surveys show that the industrialised nations have not become happier over time. Random samples of UK citizens today report the same degree of psychological well-being and satisfaction with their lives as did their (poorer) parents and grandparents. In the US, happiness has fallen over time. White American females are markedly less happy than were their mothers. Second, using more formal measures of mental health, rates of depression in countries such as the UK have increased. Third, measured levels of stress at work have gone up. Fourth, suicide statistics paint a picture that is often consistent with such patterns. In the US, even though real income levels have risen sixfold, the per-capita suicide rate is the same as in the year 1900. In the UK, more encouragingly, the suicide rate has fallen in the last century, although among young men it is far greater than decades ago. Fifth, global warming means that growth has long-term consequences few could have imagined in their undergraduate tutorials.

None of these points is immune from counter-argument. But most commentators who argue against such evidence appear to do so out of intellectual habit or an unshakeable faith in conventional thinking.

Some of the world’s most innovative academics have come up with strong evidence about why growth does not work. One reason is that humans are creatures of comparison. Research last year showed that happiness levels depend inversely on the earnings levels of a person’s neighbours. Prosperity next door makes you dissatisfied. It is relative income that matters: when everyone in a society gets wealthier, average well-being stays the same.

A further reason is habituation. Experiences wear off. A joint intellectual effort by psychologists and economists has got to the bottom of the way human beings adapt to good and bad events. Some researchers believe that after a pay rise people get used to greater income and eventually return to their original happy or unhappy state. Such hedonic flexibility also works downwards. Those who become disabled recover 80 per cent of their happiness by three years after an accident. Yet economics textbooksstill ignore adaptation.

A final reason is that human beings are bad at forecasting what will make them happy. In laboratory settings, people systematically choose the wrong things for themselves.

Yet surely, it might be argued, what about power showers, televised football, titanium wristwatches, car travel for all – are these not compelling evidence for the long arm of growth? Yes they are, but we need these because Mr and Mrs Jones have them, not because they make an intrinsic difference.

Economists’ faith in the value of growth is diminishing. That is a good thing and will slowly make its way into the minds of tomorrow’s politicians. Led by the distinguished psychologist Edward Diener of the University of Illinois, a practical intellectual manifesto signed by many of the world’s researchers entitled Guidelines for National Indicators of Subjective Well-Being and Ill-Being, has just begun to circulate on the internet. That document calls for national measures of separate facets of well-being and ill-being, including moods and emotions, perceived mental and physical health, satisfaction with particular activities and domains, and the subjective experience of time allocation and pressure.

Happiness, not economic growth, ought to be the next and more sensible target for the next and more sensible generation.

The writer is professor of economics at the University of Warwick.

Living on the Cusp

“Living on the Cusp unmasks the twin sleeping dragons – energy and ecology- that are shaping our world.”
George Monbiot

Earth Meanders

Insightful original Earth essays placing environmental sustainability within the context of other contemporary issues including peace and freedom. Thought-provoking, raw and frequently outrageous - but always Bright Green. These are the personal writings of Dr. Glen Barry.

Say You Survive Die-Off: Then What?

Those who survive, whether or not it's because they're the fittest, will have learned their lesson: Live In Harmony With Mother Nature Or Else.

This lesson will have been so hard come by, it will be passed down from generation to generation so that our tragic yet absurdly avoidable end is never repeated. And if the moral gets diluted over time and mankind grows cocky again, there won't be any easy oil anyway for them to destroy whatever's left.

That's not such a bad vision to live with: Sustainable living, at last. So what are we waiting for? Bring it on! It's just getting from here to there that looks like it could be a rocky ride.

Jenna Orkin directs the World Trade Center Environmental Organization (WTCEO).
She moderated the Petrocollapse Conference in New York, October 5 (website: petrocollapse.org). The WTCEO's website is www.wtceo.org