Ever since the Liberal Party of Chrystia Freeland and Justin Trudeau took power in 2015, policies favorable to the formation of a technocratic dictatorship have incrementally taken control of Canada. This policy outlook is a far cry from the “old school Liberal party” of the post-WWII decades which ushered in some of the greatest rates of technological and scientific progress ever seen in history
Holy moly Matt, I’m always left wondering what the hell school was for when we were growing up…certainly not for learning about our Nation’s history. Thanks for all you continue to do 🙏🏼
these are names I remember from my listening to CBC in the early sixties... Who actually knew any of this? Certainly not I nor those around me. Twas a different age and info was not so easily available.
the history that I'm learning here is long overdue, but perhaps the sharing that happens will be helpful to the younger generation. you are greatly appreciated!
I Love how you explain and eleborate on so many things and make connections not many are making. Yesterday I watched these three men having a profound (and bold) discussion..... maybe you can appreciate it too! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6V0qmDZ2gg
How do you bring the geopolitical goings-on together with the declining availability of energy and resources, as described by such people as William Rees, Art Berman, Simon Micheaux, Nate Hagens?
The decline, possibly very fast, of fossil fuels is a reality and so is the inevitable ensuing collapse of the current civilization. Taking a step back, it looks like the trudeaux of the world are trying to put people on a short leash to avoid violence and rebellion when the shit hits the fan. And at the same time secure a privileged position for themselves and their paymasters in whatever world will emerge from the mess.
One would say that the task freedom-loving well-meaning people face is a) resist the subjugation but at the same time b) figure out how to transform society for the post-fossil, post-industrial age so as to retain freedom and as much prosperity for all as possible.
I very quickly skimmed some of the referenced videos.
In one of them, the claim is made that the world's entire population would fit in an area corresponding to Texas (I've heard the same about Alaska where the world's population would allegedly fit at the population density of London). Nothing could be more delusional, myopic, and reductionist than that! Where do people hypothetically occupying such a relatively small area get their food and other necessities? They would need vastly larger amount of land for that! It might seem to the myopic eye of the city dweller that he only occupies a small chunk of the planet corresponding to his apartment and his office, but nothing is further from the truth. There is a chunk of land somewhere out there that provides the said dweller with what he needs to survive (and avail of the present-day pleasures).
The link between the city dweller and the corresponding land out there is ENERGY or FUEL. Energy and fuel make the current makeup of society possible. And that is cheap, easily accessible fuel and energy, the cost - expressed in some form of physical output - of which can be covered by the city dwellers, a vast number of whom essentially produce nothing in physical terms. Take fuel and energy away, and the link to what is the actual space people occupy will be broken, and people will starve, if they don't kill one another first. And factor in fertilizer and all the other stuff made from or with oil and natural gas.
There is no indication that deposits of fossil fuels are not finite. On the contrary, everything seems to suggest that they'll run out, possibly in not too distant a future.
While human ingenuity is a factor, and people might figure out some solutions, the idea that everything can be solved through technology is fallacious. It stems from the human experience of the past few centuries, which was, however, driven and facilitated by fossil fuels.
You cannot disregard the physical aspect of things, the reality of the physical. natural world.
The green deal and pretty much the whole energy transition are delusional hallucinations that disregard reality. Check out Simon Micheaux; he has detailed calculations as to how much of this and that material would be needed to accomplish the purported objectives. In some cases, there simply isn't enough materials on the planet to build stuff, not to mention that it would take an insane amount of time to mine and process them. I think that in the case of lithium, it would take 13,000 years to produce the amount necessary to replace the world's fleet of vehicles.
Anyway, societal issues cannot be analyzed in a reductionist fashion without taking into account the physical reality.
No one is literally suggesting to actually give every person on earth a 30 square foot townhouse in Texas which would literally service all 8 billion people on the earth. It is a visualization device to put into perspective an issue which most people don't know how to think about specifically regarding overpopulation. Which is a fake issue. However, Cynthia's film is extremely deep and simply "skimming" it. Peak oil is a false hypothesis, and it is much more likely that oil is abiotic. Oil wells across the world from the USA, Russia and the Middle East have been recorded to replenish at unprecedented rates, years after they were believed to have been 'tapped'. Additionally, the entire argument that we would not be able to have an atomic power supported society with commercially-viable fusion has been made by those very malthusian forces who have intentionally subverted the western nation state structure over the past 60 years who have also radically sabotaged fusion energy research, development, and all of the viable pathways towards fusion power (and even more basic 3rd/4th generation power reactors including thorium) in order to artificially maintain that the world is entropic, and trapped in a world of scarcity.
Matthew writes: "Peak oil is a false hypothesis, and it is much more likely that oil is abiotic."
It's irrelevant whether oil creation is abiotic or not. We are extracting it faster than it's being replaced.
This is measured by EROI (Energy Returned On Invested) data that flatly refutes your statement that: "Peak oil is a false hypothesis". The EROI for the production of oil and gas globally by publicly traded companies has declined from 30:1 in 1995 to about 18:1 in 2006 (Gagnon et al., 2009). The EROI for discovering oil and gas in the US has decreased from more than 1000:1 in 1919 to 5:1 in the 2010s, and for production from about 25:1 in the 1970s to approximately 10:1 in 2007 (Guilford et al., 2011). Alternatives to traditional fossil fuels such as tar sands and oil shale (Lambert et al., 2012) deliver a lower EROI, having a mean EROI of 4:1 (n of 4 from 4 publications) and 7:1 (n of 15 from 15 publication). In 2013 world oil and gas had a mean EROI of about 20:1
EROI's are a hard geophysical ceiling - a self limiting factor.
If this data is false, then please where is your data and references supporting your claim that "Oil wells across the world from the USA, Russia and the Middle East have been recorded to replenish at unprecedented rates"?
I'm sure that the film is much more profound, but I don't have time to watch the whole thing right now. Maybe later. Anyway, let me a play the devil's advocate here regarding the above issue.
With all due respect, visualizing the world's population issue by cramming all people into some hypothetical space is unwise to say the least. It leaves just about everything out of the equation. The population issue is not about space, but about the makeup of society, the human enterprise, relationship to nature, energy, resources, food. This issue needs to be approached in a holistic manner.
It's irrelevant whether peak oil is a false hypothesis and it's even irrelevant whether oil is abiotic. Even if oil wells are replenished (probably wishful thinking, but let's say that it's somehow possible, even though no carbon-energy cycle akin to the water cycle has been discovered and described), there is a certain threshold beyond which extraction will exceed replenishment and we're up the creek again.
Further, it does appear that all the burning is changing the Earth's climate, which means that growth in the sense of greater energy consumption, which is something that growth entails, will eventually cook this place up. Crowding out other species and occupying more and more land mass is another issue.
Nuclear is good, but it hinges on the availability of (for lack of better word) fossil fuels. There is the issue of burned fuel, hazardous waster, but it can probably be solved. Nuclear will do zilch, however, as far as fertilizer and other applications. You need natural gas for that.
Branding this or that Malthusian is the ad hominem fallacy.
Implying that the world is not trapped in scarcity is strawman fallacious - the world's availability of stuff is a function of the population size, available resources, and the consumption thereof thereby. Yeah, at some point stuff becomes scarce.
I don't like any of the above just like the next guy, but no matter how you look at it, the way the world presently works simply can't go on indefinitely. We're on a collision course with our extremely luxurious lifestyle, courtesy of unbridled use of fossil fuels. Gotta slow down, downsize, and stop shitting where we live.
Spot on. I would add that perhaps a wise way forwards is to gently try and communicate to others, that physical reality is not something we should get emotional about.
Instead we must re-learn how accept the bio-physical reality at the bottom of this gravity well, and fairly share out the bounty of this pale blue dot between all of us, meanwhile simultaneously we must eject all the narcissists and psychopaths from amongst us in the same way we did for millennia as hunter / gatherers / agriculturists.
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
This is endless nonsense. God was probably high on something when he said it.
People must consider themselves part of nature and live in harmony wherewith, not forever do stuff to subjugate it.
Why haven't you replied to my comment? You don't have the courage to face inconvenient facts that disrupt the narrative you're pushing? Cognitive dissonance? Blinders? Orders from your paymasters?
Who finances the Rising Tide Foundation? Where do you get money from to run this operation?
The 'about page' of the 'Rising Tide Foundation' lists nine 'directors / advisors' three of whom are academics at the AUM.
"Martin Sieff is Adjunct Professor of Transnational Threats at Bay Atlantic University"
"Dr. Lozansky is the President of the American University in Moscow, Professor of National Research Nuclear University and Moscow State University. He also founded the U.S.-Russia Forum, an annual event held in the U.S. Congress since 1981 that features leading American and Russian political and business leaders, scholars, and foreign policy experts."
"American University in Moscow (AUM) was founded in 1990 with the endorsement of Presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and George H. Bush, Gorbachev’s science advisor academician Yuri Ossipyan, and Mayor of Moscow Gavriil Popov. Financial support for the university came from several American companies and private individuals, most generously from Russia House and the late Robert Krieble."
"American University in Moscow has no listed courses, and no faculty. It’s a university only in name, supposedly to hand out diplomas equivalent to an MBA in the US to Russian students. American University in Moscow’s physical addresses also betray links to the very highest levels of the Putin regime. It all points to one man — Vladislav Surkov — being Dr. Lozansky’s point of contact in the Kremlin."
Why would they be pushing such ridiculous claims as the global population fitting inside Texas? The referenced video is highly manipulative, with emotional music in the background, yapping about the voiceover's childhood in Vancouver.
"The only way to stop this green zero-growth program [... is] pushing for high intensity investments into fission, fusion power and space exploration."
Trouble is you can't research or build out and maintain these technologies without fossil fuels, which are rapidly depleting i.e. you can't build electric generation machines with electricity. And space exploration is a net energy sink i.e. waste of time, effort and energy. Why? Because we live at the bottom of a gravity well.
My conception of energy begins with the the same observation the Rising Tide Foundation begins with in part 1 i.e. that 'renewables' can't replace fossil fuels.
But part 2 begins by attempting to dismiss the widely regarded 1972 'Limits to Growth' paper accusing it of making the mistake of assuming we live in a “zero sum world” and that instead we should assume the way forwards into the future is to rely on human's proven record of "problem solving via technical innovation" to solve the problem of energy and raw material limits.
Unfortunately this is a deeply misguided proposition. Why? This pale blue dot is a finite size and we live on its surface at the bottom of a gravity well which axiomatically has limited resources (with respect to rate at which 8billion people today are consuming them) hundreds of thousand of times faster than the the low energy density heat and light hitting the surface from the sun. Remember the modern economy can't function with without high energy density fossil fuels.
The Rising Tide Foundation then suggests recycling will save the day! But doesn't tell us where the energy will come from! Nor do they acknowledge that the energy required rapidly escalates trying to recover many critical low concentration elements, critical to practically all modern technology and machines, rendering those materials unrecoverable at anything remotely resembling industrial scale. They want us to pull on our shoe laces to levitate! These are all attempts to wave a magic wand to overlook the second law of thermodynamics!
So in a sentence or two what are the "major fallacies" you refer to? I have studied this topic independently for two decades. And can provide many references, if you'd like to exchange insights? Try these for starters:-
"A core theme of this podcast, and indeed of my [Nate Hagens] work for the past 20 years, is how incredibly unaware society is of how energy (mostly fossil currently) enables and constrains our lifestyles and our futures. On this episode, economist Steve Keen presents a deep forensic history of why modern economic theory has neglected the role of energy in productivity - and why this “Energy Blindness” has now become a major blindspot in how our culture views our circumstances. The massive, temporary carbon surplus we’ve extracted over the last few centuries has resulted in an exponential increase in the standard of living for many. This explosion of global economic growth also happened to coincide with the development of all modern economic theories and formulas, leading to a core misunderstanding in the way our economies are powered.
Steve Keen is an economist, author of Debunking Economics and The New Economics: A Manifesto. His new book, Rebuilding Economics from the Top Down, will be released in 2024.
Great minds think alike ... ha ha ... ! I made essentially the same comment below.
The problem I see is that there is a reductionist disconnect between humanities-oriented people and the physics of the natural world. Cognitive dissonance, perhaps. They operate at the abstract level of societal relationships and either disregard the underlying physical issues or consider them fallaciously in a way supporting their theses.
We have to consider stuff in a holistic fashion where societal issues are regarded in conjunction with physical issues and vice versa.
I'd add Art Berman and Karl North to your list of references:
Yes, thanks for your insightful words, and extra links - one way I try to visualise a holistic view is that physics is the stage upon which humans and all life down here play out our various dramas.
"Allentown" by Billy Joel is my current (and maybe all-time) favorite song as it explains succinctly what happened to America (and the rest of the world).
My grandparents and aunts lived in Bethlehem, PA and we would go visit them when I was a kid. I remember to this day...seventy years later...the sounds coming from the Bethlehem Steel plant (my aunt Helen worked there as a secretary...hellz bellz I think half of the U.S. worked at or for Bethlehem Steel at one time) at 4:00AM. It was magical to a little kid.
I find a lot of inspiration in "Allentown" (across the river from Bethlehem) and the seeds of what it takes to bring down "The Empire." I now believe it can be done and I know how to begin the work.
I'd love to see someone do a deep dive into Pierre pollievre I know he is just "the other wing of the same bird" but I want people to not just take my word for it. He has made alot of money in the last few years and he had his picture on the young global leaders webpage. after seeing milleis performance at the WEF this year it makes me doubt pierres sincerity when he speaks out against the WEF. His mentor Stephen Harper is the head of international democracy union so I believe that says alot about his foreign policy which is the same as the liberals.
So then I am also left wondering about Maxime Bernier. He seems to say alot of the right things and he actually stood up for the truckers. His foreign policy appears to be better than all the other Canadian parties but again he was once on the WEF website btlut he had an explanation which seem plausible many world leaders that today are great leaders also had their young global leaders affiliations too....(Putin and xi).
I don't have faith in Pierre our likely next PM although I like the Alberta conservatives Danielle seems to actually care about her province but NDP both federal and provincial are terrible and the green party and the liberals obviously suck I'm not sure about the PPC.
Anyways sorry for my poor grammar I have a toddler hanging off me so I'm trying to get my thoughts and questions out quickly hoping for some insight to any of my questions in thought form.
My first departure from the politics of my super Liberal family was the election of 1958, when I fell for Diefenbaker's Northern Vision. Unfortunately at 15 I could not vote.
Thank you Ehret-Chung University.🎓
Holy moly Matt, I’m always left wondering what the hell school was for when we were growing up…certainly not for learning about our Nation’s history. Thanks for all you continue to do 🙏🏼
Explains a *lot*. Thank you!
these are names I remember from my listening to CBC in the early sixties... Who actually knew any of this? Certainly not I nor those around me. Twas a different age and info was not so easily available.
the history that I'm learning here is long overdue, but perhaps the sharing that happens will be helpful to the younger generation. you are greatly appreciated!
Fucking Nazis... The whole lot of em.
Brilliant. As ALWAYS.
I Love how you explain and eleborate on so many things and make connections not many are making. Yesterday I watched these three men having a profound (and bold) discussion..... maybe you can appreciate it too! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6V0qmDZ2gg
Interesting, informative.
How do you bring the geopolitical goings-on together with the declining availability of energy and resources, as described by such people as William Rees, Art Berman, Simon Micheaux, Nate Hagens?
The decline, possibly very fast, of fossil fuels is a reality and so is the inevitable ensuing collapse of the current civilization. Taking a step back, it looks like the trudeaux of the world are trying to put people on a short leash to avoid violence and rebellion when the shit hits the fan. And at the same time secure a privileged position for themselves and their paymasters in whatever world will emerge from the mess.
One would say that the task freedom-loving well-meaning people face is a) resist the subjugation but at the same time b) figure out how to transform society for the post-fossil, post-industrial age so as to retain freedom and as much prosperity for all as possible.
Many of the core conceptions re: energy, limits to growth, technology etc are addressed by my wife in her Escaping Calypso's island series. The 1st two episodes are available here: https://risingtidefoundation.net/2024/02/25/escaping-calypsos-island-a-journey-out-of-our-green-delusion/
I very quickly skimmed some of the referenced videos.
In one of them, the claim is made that the world's entire population would fit in an area corresponding to Texas (I've heard the same about Alaska where the world's population would allegedly fit at the population density of London). Nothing could be more delusional, myopic, and reductionist than that! Where do people hypothetically occupying such a relatively small area get their food and other necessities? They would need vastly larger amount of land for that! It might seem to the myopic eye of the city dweller that he only occupies a small chunk of the planet corresponding to his apartment and his office, but nothing is further from the truth. There is a chunk of land somewhere out there that provides the said dweller with what he needs to survive (and avail of the present-day pleasures).
The link between the city dweller and the corresponding land out there is ENERGY or FUEL. Energy and fuel make the current makeup of society possible. And that is cheap, easily accessible fuel and energy, the cost - expressed in some form of physical output - of which can be covered by the city dwellers, a vast number of whom essentially produce nothing in physical terms. Take fuel and energy away, and the link to what is the actual space people occupy will be broken, and people will starve, if they don't kill one another first. And factor in fertilizer and all the other stuff made from or with oil and natural gas.
There is no indication that deposits of fossil fuels are not finite. On the contrary, everything seems to suggest that they'll run out, possibly in not too distant a future.
While human ingenuity is a factor, and people might figure out some solutions, the idea that everything can be solved through technology is fallacious. It stems from the human experience of the past few centuries, which was, however, driven and facilitated by fossil fuels.
You cannot disregard the physical aspect of things, the reality of the physical. natural world.
The green deal and pretty much the whole energy transition are delusional hallucinations that disregard reality. Check out Simon Micheaux; he has detailed calculations as to how much of this and that material would be needed to accomplish the purported objectives. In some cases, there simply isn't enough materials on the planet to build stuff, not to mention that it would take an insane amount of time to mine and process them. I think that in the case of lithium, it would take 13,000 years to produce the amount necessary to replace the world's fleet of vehicles.
Anyway, societal issues cannot be analyzed in a reductionist fashion without taking into account the physical reality.
No one is literally suggesting to actually give every person on earth a 30 square foot townhouse in Texas which would literally service all 8 billion people on the earth. It is a visualization device to put into perspective an issue which most people don't know how to think about specifically regarding overpopulation. Which is a fake issue. However, Cynthia's film is extremely deep and simply "skimming" it. Peak oil is a false hypothesis, and it is much more likely that oil is abiotic. Oil wells across the world from the USA, Russia and the Middle East have been recorded to replenish at unprecedented rates, years after they were believed to have been 'tapped'. Additionally, the entire argument that we would not be able to have an atomic power supported society with commercially-viable fusion has been made by those very malthusian forces who have intentionally subverted the western nation state structure over the past 60 years who have also radically sabotaged fusion energy research, development, and all of the viable pathways towards fusion power (and even more basic 3rd/4th generation power reactors including thorium) in order to artificially maintain that the world is entropic, and trapped in a world of scarcity.
Matthew writes: "Peak oil is a false hypothesis, and it is much more likely that oil is abiotic."
It's irrelevant whether oil creation is abiotic or not. We are extracting it faster than it's being replaced.
This is measured by EROI (Energy Returned On Invested) data that flatly refutes your statement that: "Peak oil is a false hypothesis". The EROI for the production of oil and gas globally by publicly traded companies has declined from 30:1 in 1995 to about 18:1 in 2006 (Gagnon et al., 2009). The EROI for discovering oil and gas in the US has decreased from more than 1000:1 in 1919 to 5:1 in the 2010s, and for production from about 25:1 in the 1970s to approximately 10:1 in 2007 (Guilford et al., 2011). Alternatives to traditional fossil fuels such as tar sands and oil shale (Lambert et al., 2012) deliver a lower EROI, having a mean EROI of 4:1 (n of 4 from 4 publications) and 7:1 (n of 15 from 15 publication). In 2013 world oil and gas had a mean EROI of about 20:1
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421513003856#s0020
EROI's are a hard geophysical ceiling - a self limiting factor.
If this data is false, then please where is your data and references supporting your claim that "Oil wells across the world from the USA, Russia and the Middle East have been recorded to replenish at unprecedented rates"?
I'm sure that the film is much more profound, but I don't have time to watch the whole thing right now. Maybe later. Anyway, let me a play the devil's advocate here regarding the above issue.
With all due respect, visualizing the world's population issue by cramming all people into some hypothetical space is unwise to say the least. It leaves just about everything out of the equation. The population issue is not about space, but about the makeup of society, the human enterprise, relationship to nature, energy, resources, food. This issue needs to be approached in a holistic manner.
It's irrelevant whether peak oil is a false hypothesis and it's even irrelevant whether oil is abiotic. Even if oil wells are replenished (probably wishful thinking, but let's say that it's somehow possible, even though no carbon-energy cycle akin to the water cycle has been discovered and described), there is a certain threshold beyond which extraction will exceed replenishment and we're up the creek again.
Further, it does appear that all the burning is changing the Earth's climate, which means that growth in the sense of greater energy consumption, which is something that growth entails, will eventually cook this place up. Crowding out other species and occupying more and more land mass is another issue.
Nuclear is good, but it hinges on the availability of (for lack of better word) fossil fuels. There is the issue of burned fuel, hazardous waster, but it can probably be solved. Nuclear will do zilch, however, as far as fertilizer and other applications. You need natural gas for that.
Branding this or that Malthusian is the ad hominem fallacy.
Implying that the world is not trapped in scarcity is strawman fallacious - the world's availability of stuff is a function of the population size, available resources, and the consumption thereof thereby. Yeah, at some point stuff becomes scarce.
I don't like any of the above just like the next guy, but no matter how you look at it, the way the world presently works simply can't go on indefinitely. We're on a collision course with our extremely luxurious lifestyle, courtesy of unbridled use of fossil fuels. Gotta slow down, downsize, and stop shitting where we live.
Spot on. I would add that perhaps a wise way forwards is to gently try and communicate to others, that physical reality is not something we should get emotional about.
Instead we must re-learn how accept the bio-physical reality at the bottom of this gravity well, and fairly share out the bounty of this pale blue dot between all of us, meanwhile simultaneously we must eject all the narcissists and psychopaths from amongst us in the same way we did for millennia as hunter / gatherers / agriculturists.
Yes. I wonder if our predicament stems from this:
Genesis 1:26
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
This is endless nonsense. God was probably high on something when he said it.
People must consider themselves part of nature and live in harmony wherewith, not forever do stuff to subjugate it.
Why haven't you replied to my comment? You don't have the courage to face inconvenient facts that disrupt the narrative you're pushing? Cognitive dissonance? Blinders? Orders from your paymasters?
Who finances the Rising Tide Foundation? Where do you get money from to run this operation?
Did you consider that I am extremely busy? Have patience, but also don't be rude
Well, you responded to the previous comments nearly instantaneously. There is nothing rude about the above questions; they're totally legitimate.
The 'about page' of the 'Rising Tide Foundation' lists nine 'directors / advisors' three of whom are academics at the AUM.
"Martin Sieff is Adjunct Professor of Transnational Threats at Bay Atlantic University"
"Dr. Lozansky is the President of the American University in Moscow, Professor of National Research Nuclear University and Moscow State University. He also founded the U.S.-Russia Forum, an annual event held in the U.S. Congress since 1981 that features leading American and Russian political and business leaders, scholars, and foreign policy experts."
"American University in Moscow (AUM) was founded in 1990 with the endorsement of Presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and George H. Bush, Gorbachev’s science advisor academician Yuri Ossipyan, and Mayor of Moscow Gavriil Popov. Financial support for the university came from several American companies and private individuals, most generously from Russia House and the late Robert Krieble."
http://www.us-russia.org/university.html
"American University in Moscow has no listed courses, and no faculty. It’s a university only in name, supposedly to hand out diplomas equivalent to an MBA in the US to Russian students. American University in Moscow’s physical addresses also betray links to the very highest levels of the Putin regime. It all points to one man — Vladislav Surkov — being Dr. Lozansky’s point of contact in the Kremlin."
https://thesternfacts.com/american-university-in-moscow-linked-to-russian-state-but-fake-like-trumpu-14d157fa234f
In other words the 'Rising Tide Foundation' is a private policy evolving NGO
Why would they be pushing such ridiculous claims as the global population fitting inside Texas? The referenced video is highly manipulative, with emotional music in the background, yapping about the voiceover's childhood in Vancouver.
"The only way to stop this green zero-growth program [... is] pushing for high intensity investments into fission, fusion power and space exploration."
Trouble is you can't research or build out and maintain these technologies without fossil fuels, which are rapidly depleting i.e. you can't build electric generation machines with electricity. And space exploration is a net energy sink i.e. waste of time, effort and energy. Why? Because we live at the bottom of a gravity well.
There are some major fallacies in your conceptions about energy, what defines the limits to raw materials, hydrocarbons etc.. I'd advise checking out Cynthia's first two episodes of Escaping Calypso's Island which addresses alot of this: https://risingtidefoundation.net/2024/02/25/escaping-calypsos-island-a-journey-out-of-our-green-delusion/
Thanks for your reply.
My conception of energy begins with the the same observation the Rising Tide Foundation begins with in part 1 i.e. that 'renewables' can't replace fossil fuels.
But part 2 begins by attempting to dismiss the widely regarded 1972 'Limits to Growth' paper accusing it of making the mistake of assuming we live in a “zero sum world” and that instead we should assume the way forwards into the future is to rely on human's proven record of "problem solving via technical innovation" to solve the problem of energy and raw material limits.
Unfortunately this is a deeply misguided proposition. Why? This pale blue dot is a finite size and we live on its surface at the bottom of a gravity well which axiomatically has limited resources (with respect to rate at which 8billion people today are consuming them) hundreds of thousand of times faster than the the low energy density heat and light hitting the surface from the sun. Remember the modern economy can't function with without high energy density fossil fuels.
The Rising Tide Foundation then suggests recycling will save the day! But doesn't tell us where the energy will come from! Nor do they acknowledge that the energy required rapidly escalates trying to recover many critical low concentration elements, critical to practically all modern technology and machines, rendering those materials unrecoverable at anything remotely resembling industrial scale. They want us to pull on our shoe laces to levitate! These are all attempts to wave a magic wand to overlook the second law of thermodynamics!
So in a sentence or two what are the "major fallacies" you refer to? I have studied this topic independently for two decades. And can provide many references, if you'd like to exchange insights? Try these for starters:-
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9js5291m
https://www.simonmichaux.com/
https://ourfiniteworld.com/
https://energyskeptic.com/
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/
https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/entropy-a-revelation
https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/s/TGS-108-Steve-Keen-Transcriptdocx.pdf
"A core theme of this podcast, and indeed of my [Nate Hagens] work for the past 20 years, is how incredibly unaware society is of how energy (mostly fossil currently) enables and constrains our lifestyles and our futures. On this episode, economist Steve Keen presents a deep forensic history of why modern economic theory has neglected the role of energy in productivity - and why this “Energy Blindness” has now become a major blindspot in how our culture views our circumstances. The massive, temporary carbon surplus we’ve extracted over the last few centuries has resulted in an exponential increase in the standard of living for many. This explosion of global economic growth also happened to coincide with the development of all modern economic theories and formulas, leading to a core misunderstanding in the way our economies are powered.
Steve Keen is an economist, author of Debunking Economics and The New Economics: A Manifesto. His new book, Rebuilding Economics from the Top Down, will be released in 2024.
https://natehagens.substack.com/p/on-the-origins-of-energy-blindness
Great minds think alike ... ha ha ... ! I made essentially the same comment below.
The problem I see is that there is a reductionist disconnect between humanities-oriented people and the physics of the natural world. Cognitive dissonance, perhaps. They operate at the abstract level of societal relationships and either disregard the underlying physical issues or consider them fallaciously in a way supporting their theses.
We have to consider stuff in a holistic fashion where societal issues are regarded in conjunction with physical issues and vice versa.
I'd add Art Berman and Karl North to your list of references:
https://www.artberman.com/
https://karlnorth.com/
Some interesting thoughts can also be found at https://un-denial.com/
Yes, thanks for your insightful words, and extra links - one way I try to visualise a holistic view is that physics is the stage upon which humans and all life down here play out our various dramas.
"Allentown" by Billy Joel is my current (and maybe all-time) favorite song as it explains succinctly what happened to America (and the rest of the world).
My grandparents and aunts lived in Bethlehem, PA and we would go visit them when I was a kid. I remember to this day...seventy years later...the sounds coming from the Bethlehem Steel plant (my aunt Helen worked there as a secretary...hellz bellz I think half of the U.S. worked at or for Bethlehem Steel at one time) at 4:00AM. It was magical to a little kid.
I find a lot of inspiration in "Allentown" (across the river from Bethlehem) and the seeds of what it takes to bring down "The Empire." I now believe it can be done and I know how to begin the work.
I'd love to see someone do a deep dive into Pierre pollievre I know he is just "the other wing of the same bird" but I want people to not just take my word for it. He has made alot of money in the last few years and he had his picture on the young global leaders webpage. after seeing milleis performance at the WEF this year it makes me doubt pierres sincerity when he speaks out against the WEF. His mentor Stephen Harper is the head of international democracy union so I believe that says alot about his foreign policy which is the same as the liberals.
So then I am also left wondering about Maxime Bernier. He seems to say alot of the right things and he actually stood up for the truckers. His foreign policy appears to be better than all the other Canadian parties but again he was once on the WEF website btlut he had an explanation which seem plausible many world leaders that today are great leaders also had their young global leaders affiliations too....(Putin and xi).
I don't have faith in Pierre our likely next PM although I like the Alberta conservatives Danielle seems to actually care about her province but NDP both federal and provincial are terrible and the green party and the liberals obviously suck I'm not sure about the PPC.
Anyways sorry for my poor grammar I have a toddler hanging off me so I'm trying to get my thoughts and questions out quickly hoping for some insight to any of my questions in thought form.
Kick ass!
The Great Rehypothecation
Are derivatives *intended* to drive the world to bankruptcy and totalitarianism?
https://tomg2021.substack.com/p/the-great-rehypothecation
My first departure from the politics of my super Liberal family was the election of 1958, when I fell for Diefenbaker's Northern Vision. Unfortunately at 15 I could not vote.
Don't worry. The young version of yourself wasn't wrong https://canadianpatriot.org/2015/01/12/john-diefenbaker-and-the-sabotage-of-the-northern-vision/