Showing posts with label Climate Change. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Climate Change. Show all posts

Sunday, 30 April 2023

The Porcupine Saga, Part 2: When The Lights Went Out, Part 1

Will Harper, Wednesday, July 19, 2028

Another drop of sweat ran off Will Harper's brow and into his right eye. He straightened up and leaned on his hoe while running a finger tip through the eye to get rid of the sweat, reducing the stinging to a tolerable level.

It was as hot as Will could remember it ever being in Inverpen, with not even a hint of a breeze off Lake Huron for relief. He still had ten feet left to weed in the row of beans, and as Co-ordinator for the Community Garden, he felt he had to set a good example, keeping the weeds down in his own plot. So damn hot, though.

He set the hoe down and walked to where his water bottle sat in the shade by the fence. He took a good swig of the not very cold water and splashed the last of it on his face. Somewhat refreshed, he picked up the hoe again, did a quick and dirty weeding of the remainder of the row, and decided that the rest of the plot could wait for a cooler day, hopefully soon to come. He locked the gate behind him, put the hoe away in the barn and set off up the hill for home.

Normally he would have taken the walking path along the river, but he had his heart set on a colder drink than lukewarm water, likely available at a coffee shop downtown. So instead of the path under the bridge, he continued up the park's laneway and turned right onto Queen St. It wasn't far to Inverpen's four block downtown. Something didn't seem right and it took Will a moment to figure it out. The town's main street boasted four traffic lights, all visible from where he stood, and none of them were on. A power outage of some sort was in progress, it seemed. The Community Garden didn't have power, so he had no idea when this had started.

He continued up the street to the second intersection and first traffic light. Traffic wasn't heavy and people seemed to be doing a good job of applying the "treat a dead traffic light like a four way stop" rule, but he paused anyway and then crossed gingerly, not wanting to be the first exception. Huron Beans, a coffee shop that he frequented regularly was only a few doors down on the west side of the street, and he stepped inside.

"Any chance of getting a cold drink?" he asked the young woman behind the counter.

"They're in the cooler behind you," she replied, "better get one while they are still cold—the power's off. And we can only take cash, nothing else is working."

"OK." He picked a bottle of still icy cold Diet Coke from the cooler, and fished in his pocket for some change. "How long's the power been off?"

"Since around three, about half an hour ago," she answered. "And that'll be two fifty nine."

She looked up from the calculator app on her smart phone and opened the cash box that sat nearby on the counter.

Will handed her a looney and a twoney. She put them in the cash box and handed him back his change, then noted the sale on a pad that sat next to the cashbox. "The radio isn't working either," she said, indicating a battery powered radio on the shelf behind her. "Or rather, it is, but there's nothing but static on AM and FM, no local stations transmitting. Nothing from farther away either. Must be a pretty wide spread outage."

"Sounds like what happened in 2003 and 2025," Bill replied, dropping the change in the tip jar. "Which is good, since if that's the case, it shouldn't take long to get things back on, at least around here. Power was only out about 4 hours in 2003 and 3 hours in 2025. Do you know if phones are working?"

"The landline here is working—I talked to the boss about how to set up to take cash and keep paper records," she said. "Haven't tried my cell phone yet."

"I'll try mine, and see if I can find out what's going on." Will pulled his smart phone out of his shirt pocket and called Joe, foreman of the crew at Hydro One that Will had worked on before he retired.

Joe answered quickly with " 'lectrical Maintenace. Joe speakin'."

"Hi Joe. It's Will Harper, what's up with the outage?"

"Hi Will, can't talk long, we're just arranging to turn things back on. Another system stability outage, like in 1965, 2003 and 2025. Way too much air conditioning load, and we're connected directly to Quebec now. They had a hiccup and it took out the whole of the northeast. Gotta go."

"Thanks, Joe. Take it easy," replied Will, but Joe was already gone. To the woman behind the counter he said, "The whole of northeastern North America is out. Should be back on in a few hours, though."

"Good to know. We close at 4, do you think the power will be back on by then?"

"I wouldn't think quite that soon." Will responded, not wanting to make promises his former employer couldn't keep. "Well, I'd better be getting home. See you later."

"Yep, see you too," she replied as Will turned and went out the door.

He headed north along Queen St. and then turned left onto Durham St. The heat was starting to get to him and he felt a little shaky, so he stopped for a rest in the shade on the bench in front of the Post Office. Heat waves had grown much more common these last few years as global warming really started to take hold of things, but usually cold, deep Lake Huron moderated things quite a bit.

But not so much today, thought Will. He fanned himself with his wide brimmed hat and drank his Coke. In a few minutes, he felt better and continued on his way.

"Hey Sue, I'm home," Will called out as he came in the front door. He proceeded through the kitchen and into the living room, where his wife Sue was relaxing on the couch reading a book. "The power is out. Another system stability outage."

"Yeah, I know the power's off. I brought some of bottles of ice up from the freezer and put them on the top shelf in the fridge to keep things cool," she replied. "I would have got the generator set up, but it's just too heavy to get it out of the shed."

"No problem," said Will, "I am heading in that direction now."

But first, he stopped at the fridge. A little mechanical thermometer hung from the bottom shelf and read nicely within its green zone, a few degrees below 40 Fahrenheit. Sue had rearranged things so that the three bottles of ice were on the top shelf and everything else was closer to the bottom. The temperature seemed to be holding well, but the ice would have to be changed regularly if he couldn't get the power on.

"Hey Sue," said Will, "that ice is really working well in the fridge."

"Thanks, Will," replied Sue, "even better if we can keep the door closed."

Will chuckled at that and headed downstairs to the basement, where he opened the disconnect switch for the electric water heater and pulled the plug for the electric clothes dryer. That finished the short list of loads too heavy for the generator. It wouldn't handle the kitchen range either, if the oven and all four elements where on at once. But he preferred to keep open the option of using one or two elements at a time.

Will continued through his workshop and out the back door. He smiled a little, pleased once more that house was built into the side of a hill, the main floor at the level of the front yard and the basement at level of the back yard. A few steps put him in front of the shed where he stored the generator. The wide single step in front of the shed wasn't attached and could be turned 90 degrees and used as a ramp for rolling things in and out. Will turned it around, then opened the shed's double doors and set the near end of the step/ramp up on the door sill.

It being summertime, the lawnmower sat at the front inside the shed, and Will had to roll it down the ramp and set it aside before he could access the generator. Then he lined the generator, which was significantly heavier than the lawnmower, up with top of the ramp, rolled it carefully down onto the grass and over to the concrete pad under the back deck. He checked its gas tank and found it, as expected, full of gasoline. He turned on the fuel valve and the on/off switch, and set the choke lever to "start". In the afternoon heat the generator started on the second pull. He backed off on the choke and it settled down to run smoothly.

Will went back inside and grabbed the heavy, 240 volt, 30 amp extension cord. He plugged the male end into the generator and then the female end into the male receptacle on the wall next to the door. Then he went back inside, closed the generator disconnect switch on the other side of the wall, walked to the far end of the basement and moved the transfer switch next to the main panel to its "generator" position. The lights came on without so much as a flicker and Will smiled in satisfaction. The big freezer sitting against the north wall of the basement, between the laundry area and the shop, hummed quietly.

Will mused that he could have had a permanently installed generator, with automatic start even. But it would have cost a lot more and wouldn't have been nearly as flexible. On occasion he used the generator elsewhere, such as at the Community Garden. With the back seats folded down it would just fit in their little hatchback.

Back upstairs, he found the small freezer working just fine, but the fridge was cool enough it hadn't even come on yet. He adjusted the fridge's temperature controller down a bit and it started. "Everything looks good, Sue," he said to his wife, "Do I need to get the Coleman stove set up to cook supper?"

"No," she replied, "I was just going to cook burgers on the barbeque anyway. How long do you think the power will be off?"

"Joe says another two or three hours. Since it's not going to be a long outage, I think I'll just leave the generator running until the power comes back on. Doesn't use much gas unless we load it up, anyway. The next thing will be how to tell when the power comes back on, since we're running off the generator."

Sue got up and came into the kitchen. "I'll just turn on the radio."

Will turned to watch her switch on the battery operated radio, which was always tuned to the local FM station. There was nothing but static. Oh well, thought Will, they'll probably be back on not too long after the outage ended. But before he could open his mouth to say so, the announcer's voice came from the radio with a crackle and pop.

"Shoreline FM is back online. We finally got our generator hooked up and running. We'll keep you posted on the power outage as soon as we know something more. For now, let's get back to our usual musical programming."

The sound of 80s rock replaced the announcer's voice and Will asked, "Can we trust them to let us know what's going on?"

"Hope so," said Sue. "I'll just finish this chapter and then get started on supper."

"Sounds good to me," said Will, "I'm gonna go check on the neighbours."

Will went out through the front door, and headed south across his lawn and his neighbour's and up to her front door.

He knocked and after a moment she opened the door and said, "Hi Will.The power's out. Any idea how long it's going to take to get it back on."

"I'm guessing before sunset, Joan. You OK in the meantime?"

"Except for the fridge. I hear things start to go off in a couple of hours?"

"Yep. That's what I hear too. I've got the generator going and I could run an extension cord over here if you'd like?"

"If it's not too much trouble, that would be a big help."

"OK, back in a minute."

Will went down to his back yard and into his workshop and grabbed several long extension cords. It took only of a few minutes to hook one up to the outdoor receptacle at the back of his house and run it over to Joan's front door. She was waiting for him and said, "I guess I can leave the door open a crack and just run this directly into the kitchen and plug the fridge into it."

"It's only going to be for a short while, so yeah. I'll leave you to it while I go check on Vicky and the Browns. Come get me if you need help."

Half an hour later, Will had two more cords running from the outdoor receptacle at the front of the house. One to Vicky's place on the north side, and one to the Browns across the street. Traffic was pretty light on Mackenzie Ave., so he didn't worry about having a cord run across the street. The generator still wasn't working hard, even with his house and three others hooked up to it. He spotted Sue on the side deck working at the barbeque and went up the steps to join her. "Any news on the radio?"

"Nothing yet other than an endless parade of golden oldies."

"Anything I can help you with?"

"Could you throw together a salad while I watch these burgers?"

"Sure, no problem."

"I think we'd better eat on the little table out here," said Sue, "it's cooler in the shade of the awning than inside."

"OK, soon as I get that salad together I'll start hauling things out here."

"Things" had included the portable radio, and they were just finishing up supper when the announcer interrupted the music to say. "Word from Hydro One is that maintenance crews will be switching things back on during the next hour or so."

This prediction proved to be true and they had hardly finished cleaning up after supper when the announcer broke in again, "The power is on again. We'll be off the air for a moment while we switch back to grid power."

Standing on his back deck a few minutes later, Will could see clouds rolling in from over the lake, driven by a freshening wind. The temperature had already dropped, a welcome relief from the afternoon's heat. Sticking his head in the door he called out, "Sue, it looks like rain, I'm going to clean up the generator and extension cords before they get wet."

He went down to the basement and switched back to grid power, then put the generator back in the shed away from the threatening rain. He was about to start wrapping up the cords, when all three of his neighbours showed up, cords in hand, coiled up ready to be put away. They had a short chat about the weather and then headed home. Will put the cords away in the basement, then went upstairs to turn on the attic fan and bring some of the cooler air into the house.

Will went to bed that night feeling good about how they had come through the outage, short as it had been. The generator had worked well, and he'd been able to help out the neighbours. It felt like he had things under control. It had cooled down nicely by then, and he looked forward to a good night's sleep—a pleasant change from the sweaty nights of the heat wave they had just come through.

Coming soon, The Porcupine Saga, Part 3, When the Lights Went Out, Part 2,
Will Harper, July 20, 2028


Links to the rest of this series of posts:
The Porcupine Saga

Maintaining the lists of links that I've been putting at the end of these posts in getting cumbersome, so I have decided to just include a link to the Porcupine section of the Site Map, which features links to all the episodes I've published thus far.

Posted by at 3 comments:
Labels: , , , , , ,

Wednesday, 22 September 2021

What I've Been Reading, July and August 2021

Links

Above the Fold

Miscellaneous

Structural Violence

Black Lives Matter, Race, Racism

Coronavirus

Capitalism, Communism, Anarchy

The New Fascism, the Far-Right and Antifa

I hear a lot of well educated people saying that the people some of us are calling fascists don't meet all the criteria for being "real" fascists. Others have even accused us of calling anyone we disagree with a fascist. I predict that a few decades (maybe just a few years) from now those same people will be saying they wish they hadn't been quite so fussy with their definitions, and had acted sooner to oppose these "new fascists", even if they weren't identical to the fascists of the twentieth century.

Collapse

Responding to Collapse,

Climate Change, or rather, actually, Global Warming

Recipes and Cooking

  • The Secret to Making your Good Soup Glorious, by Malky McEwan, Medium
    "A top chef let me in on this trick and science agreed with him"
    This is essentially the same trick my wife taught me. Or if you end up frying the soup ingredients in a frying pan, be sure to deglaze the pan and put the resulting liquid into the soup. There is a lot of flavour there you don't want to miss out on.

Genetic Engineering

Before jumping to the erroneous conclusion that this section was paid for by Monsanto, stop for a moment and understand that organic agriculture/food is a multi-billion dollar per year industry that relies on fear to get people to buy its product. Millions of dollars are spent to convince you that non-organic food is dangerous. In fact both conventionally grown and organic foods are equally safe. Sadly neither method of agriculture is even remotely substainable.

  • Panic-free GMOs, A Grist Special Series by Nathanael Johnson
    "It’s easy to get information about genetically modified food. There are the dubious anti-GM horror stories that recirculate through social networks. On the other side, there’s the dismissive sighing, eye-rolling, and hand patting of pro-GM partisans. But if you just want a level-headed assessment of the evidence in plain English, that’s in pretty short supply. Fortunately, you’ve found the trove."
    A series of articles that does a pretty good job of presenting the facts about GMOs. I plan to include one article from this series here each month.
  • A 16th-century Dutchman can tell us everything we need to know about GMO patents, by Nathanael Johnson, Grist
    "Today's agribusiness patent holders have locked out innovation. The annals of maritime exploration offer a way out. Really! "

Practical Skills

Writing Skills

American Politics

  • Biden’s Invisible Ideology, by Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker
    "The President has deployed an exasperating but effective strategy to counter Trumpism."

Canadian Politics

Linguistics

Dancing on Graves

Debunking Resources

These are of such importance that I've decide to leave them here on an ongoing basis.

Science

Lacking an Owner's Manual

The human body/mind/spirit doesn't come with an owner's manual, and we continually struggle to figure out how best to operate them.

  • The Sexiest Things You Can Ever Do for Her, by Jessica Wildfire, Medium
    "Guaranteed to blow her mind, anytime."
  • The system of mathematics I wish I had known long ago, by Theodorrism, Medium
    "Go on. Learn. Do this for yourself."

    • Gender and Sexuality

    Poverty, Homeless People, Minimum Wage, UBI, Health Care, Affordable Housing

    Education

    Humour

    These are great times for political satire.

    Books

    Fiction

    Non-Fiction

    Posted by at 1 comment:
    Labels: , , , , , , , , ,

    Saturday, 24 July 2021

    What I've Been Reading, June 2021

    Links

    Above the Fold

    • Our Civilization is Dying Because It’s Addicted to Fossil Fuels, by Umair Haque, Medium—Eudaimonia
      "Why We Need to Treat Clean Energy as Our Moonshot, Or Everything Collapses"
      Umair is right that our civilization is dying because it's addicted to fossil fuels. But he's wrong about finding a clean alternative. Even if we could, it would create as many problems as it solved.
    • No, We Can’t Just Leave Assholes Alone Anymore, by Jessica Wildfire, Medium
      “Left unchallenged, assholes took over America—along with most of the world. Now this class of assholes dominates our politics. They steer our economies. They run our media. They dole out promotions to other assholes, and punish anyone for trying to do the right thing. They tell us what to do and how to think. Now they’re even trying to tell us how to vote, and how to love.”
    • The Myth — and Liability — of America’s Obsession with Rugged Individualism, by Scott Galloway, Medium—Marker
      “The Ayn Rand image of the solo entrepreneur — Hank Rearden toiling alone in his laboratory to invent a new kind of steel — is a pernicious deception.”
      Many of my fellow Canadians will feel smug that we suffer much less from toxic individualism than the USA, but being better than the USA is a pretty minor achievement.
    • If You Think Socialism’s Unaffordable, You Don’t Understand Capitalism, by UmairHaque, Medium-Eudaimonia
      “How Hidden Hyperinflation Left Americans Broke, and What to do About It”
    • We Can’t Afford for Everyone to Have Their Own Opinion Anymore, by Jessica Wildfire, Medium
      “It’s getting us killed.”
    • Why the American Right is Having a Meltdown About Race, by Umair Haque, Medium—Eudaimonia
      “How White Rage Happens, And Why It Still Defines American Life”
    • Lies and honest mistakes, by Richard V Reeves, Aeon—Psyche
      "Our crisis of public knowledge is an ethical crisis. Rewarding ‘truthfulness’ above ‘truth’ is a step towards a solution"
      "Working against this constitution are the forces of what Rauch labels ‘troll epistemology’. Trolls seek not the truth, but the destruction of an enemy, ideological or personal. Trolls not only fail to display the virtues of sincerity and accuracy, they work in precisely the opposite direction, deliberately offering up distorted visions of reality, based on cherry picked information."

    Miscellaneous

    Coronavirus

    Capitalism, Communism, Anarchy

    The New Fascism, the Far-Right and Antifa

    I hear a lot of well educated people saying that the people some of us are calling fascists don't meet all the criteria for being "real" fascists. Others have even accused us of calling anyone we disagree with a fascist. I predict that a few decades (maybe just a few years) from now those same people will be saying they wish they hadn't been quite so fussy with their definitions, and had acted sooner to oppose these "new fascists", even if they weren't identical to the fascists of the twentieth century.

    Resource Depletion, formerly (and still including) Peak Oil

    The change in title stems from the fact that it's not just oil that is peaking.

    Climate Change, or rather, actually, Global Warming

    • This is Why We Should Stop Calling it Climate Change, by Umair Haque, Medium—Eudaimonia
      “The Words 'Climate Change' May End Up Being The Biggest Lie Ever Told”
    • This Is What the Earth’s Climate Will Look Like in 2050, by Julia Slingo, Medium—One Zerp
      “The future under climate change can seem frighteningly vague and variable. A top climatologist explains what to expect in 2050.”
    • Debunking 25 arguments against climate change in 5 sentences or less (each), by Fallacy Man, The Logic of Science
      "Climate change is arguably one of the most misunderstood and controversial topics among the general public. Misinformation abounds, and many people are left debating whether or not we are causing it, and even whether or not it is happening at all. Among scientists, however, there is no serious debate, and there hasn’t been for many years. The evidence for climate change is extremely solid, despite what many blogs and politicians will tell you. Therefore, I want to try to correct some of that misinformation. Yesterday, I posted an extremely lengthy article debunking 25 myths and bad arguments about climate change. Today, I am posting the same information, but in a much more condensed form. I have attempted to address each argument in under 5 sentences. Obviously I had to leave out a lot of information, so if you want the more detailed explanations, please see the original post (each short response is accompanied by a link for the full-length explanation)."

    Gardening

    Genetic Engineering

    Before jumping to the erroneous conclusion that this section was paid for by Monsanto, stop for a moment and understand that organic agriculture/food is a multi-billion dollar per year industry that relies on fear to get people to buy its product. Millions of dollars are spent to convince you that non-organic food is dangerous. In fact both conventionally grown and organic foods are equally safe. Sadly neither method of agriculture is even remotely substainable.

    • Panic-free GMOs, A Grist Special Series by Nathanael Johnson
      "It’s easy to get information about genetically modified food. There are the dubious anti-GM horror stories that recirculate through social networks. On the other side, there’s the dismissive sighing, eye-rolling, and hand patting of pro-GM partisans. But if you just want a level-headed assessment of the evidence in plain English, that’s in pretty short supply. Fortunately, you’ve found the trove."
      A series of articles that does a pretty good job of presenting the facts about GMOs. I plan to include one article from this series here each month.
    • Soil proprietor: Do GMOs promote dirt conservation? by Nathanael Johnson, Grist
      " Genetically engineered crops are supposed to make it easier for farmers to protect the earth by plowing less. But the record is spotty."

    Practical Skills

    • How to Free Up Space in Gmail, by Boone Ashworth and Lorne Goode, Wired
      “Google offers 15 GB of free storage with every account, but many users are hitting the limit. Use these tips to clear some room, and tidy your inbox while you're at it.”
      I've had a gmail account since shortly after gmail cameout, but I only recently switched to using gmail for all my email. Lots to learn.

    American Politics

    Dancing on Graves

    Debunking Resources

    These are of such importance that I've decide to leave them here on an ongoing basis.

    Gender and Sexuality

    There is No God, and Thou Shall Have No Other Gods

    I don't think I've made any secret of the fact that I am an atheist, but I may not have made it clear that I think any sort of worship is a bad thing and that believing in things is to be avoided whenever possible. Indeed, I do not believe in belief itself. That's what the "Thou shall have no other gods" is about—it's not enough to quit believing in whatever God or Gods you were raised to believe in, but also we must avoid other gods, including material wealth, power and fame.

    Further, many people today (including most atheists) follow the religion of "progress", which is based on the belief that mankind is destined to follow a road that leads from the caves ever upward to the stars, and that however bad things seem today, they are bound to be better tomorrow due to technological advancement and economic growth. This is very convenient for those who benefit most from economic growth, but it is hardly based on any sort of science and leads to a great deal of confused thinking.

    Poverty, Homeless People, Minimum Wage, UBI, Health Care, Affordable Housing

    • The Rent’s Too Damned High, by Cory Doctorow, Medium—Gen
      “A human right, commodified and rendered zero-sum.”
    • Here’s Why You’re Broke, According to Wealthy Americans Who Skim My Articles, by Jessica Wildfire, Medium
      “The view from the top is judgmental.”
      “These people are straight up bullies, and what they need more than anything is a hard punch in their pocket books. They need to be reminded that all their 'hard won success' was supported by an infrastructure that no longer exists for the vast majority of Americans.”

    Humour

    These are great times for political satire.

    Books

    Fiction

    Non-Fiction

    Posted by at 4 comments:
    Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

    Thursday, 20 May 2021

    Collapse You Say, Part 9: Unintended Consequences of Industrialization

    Sunset Over Lake Huron

    In my last post I looked at some of the factors that made industrialization possible, and with it the huge growth in consumption that now threatens the continued survival of our civilization.

    During the industrial age all those factors interacted in complex and unpredictable ways, producing not just the intended results (more wealth and power for the already rich and powerful), but also a variety of unintended, and in many cases unwelcome, consequences. So much so that at this point the switchover to fossil fuels as an energy source, and the industrialization that it enabled, is starting to seem like a mistake for all but the small number who have profited the most from it. Unfortunately, while many people are beginning to have an inkling that something isn't right, very few have any idea what it might be.

    Some of these unintended consequences are contributing to collapse in general, others are specifically related to the issue of overconsumption. So as not to lose sight of the big picture, I am going to talk about both.

    Resource Depletion, declining surplus energy

    When it came to fossil fuels and various other mineral resources, we used the low hanging fruit first. That is, the highest quality and easiest to access resources.

    Those days are over and, while there are still large quantities of hydrocarbons in the earth's crust, they are, for the most part, in forms and locations that are much more difficult to access and which provide less surplus energy. Starting in the 1970s our economy has been confronted, for the first time since we started using fossil fuels, with reduced availability of surplus energy. Despite everything governments and central banks have been able to do, real growth has slowed. This has caused problems for our financial system, as we'll see in more detail in a moment.

    Fossil fuels were a one-time windfall of abundant surplus energy. That is now gone and there's no going back to the way things were. We used that windfall in such a way as to leave relatively little in the way of a positive legacy. All the available alternative, renewable energy sources have a significantly lower EROEI, providing much less surplus energy. Not enough to sustain economic growth of the sort we have become accustomed to. Probably not even enough to maintain our high tech civilization.

    Depleted reserves of many important minerals are also going to make it difficult to maintain that civilization.

    Depletion of non-renewable resources is a very serious problem which we hardly take seriously at all. Economists assure us that we can always find substitutes for anything that is becoming depleted, but they are flat out wrong. There are many things for which there just aren't any practical substitutes—fossil fuels, copper, and phosphorous being high on the list.

    There are many things we can do to reduce the rate at which such resources are being depleted, but eventually we will still run out. It seems to me that this will necessitate significant changes to our supposedly non-negotiable lifestyles.

    Resource depletion is, of course, a result of overconsumption, rather than a cause.

    Climate Change, Ocean Acidifcation

    When fossil fuels are burned, carbon that was trapped underground million of years ago is released back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (CO2). CO2 is a greenhouse gas and increased amounts of it in the atmosphere are leading to a variety of changes in our climate—mainly heating, but also shifting of rainfall patterns and more and heavier storms. CO2 is also strongly absorbed by the oceans, resulting in ocean acidification, with negative effects on many of the oceans' ecosystems.

    Methane (CH4, natural gas) is also a significant greenhouse gas. Quite a lot of it leaks into the atmosphere between the well head and where it is finally used. And higher temperatures release methane from where it is currently trapped in permafrost and undersea deposits of methane clathrates.

    The effects of climate change, such as rising seas destroying shoreline properties and agriculture suffering from heat and drought are going to be very hard to cope with in the years to come, and will be a major factor in the continuing collapse of our civilization.

    Climate change is also a result of overconsumption, rather than a cause. Many of the negatives effects of overconsumption actually show up as climate change.

    Pollution, Habitiat Destruction, Ecosphere Damage

    Of course greenhouse gases are a form of pollution, but there are many other types of pollution resulting from industrial activities, which have had negative effects on the planets ecosystems and will continue to do so for a long time yet.

    The spread of mankind across the globe and more recently the spread of the large scale agriculture and forestry needed by our population, has resulted in the destruction of habitats for many species, and a decrease in biodiversity.

    Elsewhere in this series I have said quite a bit about the carrying capacity of the planet and how growth of human population and consumption has resulted in our overshooting that capacity. The important thing to understand is that when we overuse the services provided to us by the biosphere, the biosphere suffers and it's carrying capacity decreases, making the overshoot even worse.

    Pollution, habitat destruction and biosphere damage from overuse are all effects of overconsumption.

    The "New" World

    The so-called "new" world was, of course, not empty. The history of the European colonization is largely a story of the oppression, and in some cases outright genocide, of indigenous people by Europeans. While it is convenient to pretend otherwise, this is still going on and has a destructive effect on societies that continue to let it happen. This too is an effect of overconsumption, albeit somewhat indirectly.

    The Financial System

    The financial sector of the economy provides services to do with managing money. But what is money, anyway? If you've studied economics, you were told that money is used as a medium of exchange, a unit of account and a store of value. That's more or less true, but the most important thing about money is that it can be used to make more money. That's how businesses operating in the financial sector make their profits. It's also what drives growth, or perhaps "necessitates growth" would be a better way of putting it.

    In a rapidly growing economy there is a great demand for money to build new infrastructure. Existing money is insufficient, so that demand can only be provided using credit, and "fractional reserve banking" is the solution. This simply means that banks are allowed to lend out more money than they have on deposit, usually by a factor of ten. Money is created (out of thin air, basically) when a bank makes a loan. So, in one very important sense, money is debt. Today that is the only way that new money enters the economy. In order to make a profit, banks require debts to be paid back with interest, using money to make money. And by the way, when a loan is paid off, the money essentially disappears, back where it came from.

    Where does the money to pay the interest come from? Well, you might say, if a business is profitable, it will be earning more than enough money to pay the interest. True, but where does the money it earns come from? From other businesses and people, who have taken out loans which also have to be paid back with interest. And of course, the money for that interest comes from yet more loans.

    As long as the economy is growing, this works just fine. But if growth slows a point is reached where profits fall off and businesses struggle to make loan/interest payments. They are understandably hesitant to take out new loans and banks are reluctant to issue them. If this goes on, eventually businesses can't get credit to finance their day to day operations, and with no new money entering the system they can't pay the interest on their loans. Businesses start to default on their loans and if enough loans are in default, banks themselves start failing.

    Banks can reduce their interest rates to allow for lower rates of economic growth, offering cheap credit to stimulate growth, but when interest rates have been reduced close to zero, little more can be done. Over the last few decades the robust economic growth we had previously experienced was replaced by market bubbles (fake growth) and the crashes that happen when those bubbles burst.

    All this is why financiers, business men, politicians and even many working class people are so concerned about maintaining economic growth. But economic growth means growth in consumption, and has lead to our current overconsumption problems. It seems that in order to address those problems we will have to stop economic growth and actually experience "degrowth", until our consumption reaches a level that the planet can support on a sustainable basis. In order to do this, we need a financial system that doesn't break when growth stops.

    It is important to understand that, despite all this talk of money, what really drives the economy is surplus energy. It seems ironic to me that, after forcing growth in the economy for the last few centuries, the financial system is now struggling because of reduced surplus energy, a situation brought about by overconsumption caused by growth. So, clearly, the financial system is one of the causes of overconsumption.

    Throughout the history of the blog I have been talking about these three factors: resource depletion (including Peak Oil), environmental degradation (including Climate Change), and a financial system that drives growth, and can't cope with degrowth, as being the main causes of collapse. I could stop here, but it has become clear to me that overconsumption is also contributing to collapse and there are a number of other factors that cause overconsumption. We need to have a closer look those factors if we are going to figure out how to get them under control.

    Capitalism and Industrialization

    Industrialization was achieved largely using a system called capitalism. It consists of an upper class who own the means of production and a working class who do the work involved in the production.

    Based on their ownership of the means of production, the upper class claims the right to the majority of the profit from that production, even though they do very little of the work involved. The working classes are paid either a wage based on the time they spend working or a piece rate based on the quantity of production they do. In either case, the owners try to pay as little as possible in order to maximize their profits, and since the working class has no other way of making a living, they can co-operate or starve.

    Capitalism and Industrialism as a cause of over consumption

    The main goal of capitalism is to facilitate the accumulation of further wealth by the upper class. Unfortunately, "enough" is not a concept that enters into it, as capitalists are always looking to grow their enterprises and increase their wealth. Indeed, in modern public corporations, stockholders are liable to object if growth is not speedy enough. And, of course, as I said in the last section, the way our financial sector is organized forces capitalists keep to growing their enterprises.

    Industrialization has allowed us to produce ever more goods ready to be consumed. As long as there is a demand for those goods, the economy will grow. I suspect that at the start of the industrial age, when most manufactured goods were still made slowly and laboriously by human muscle power, there was a good deal of pent up demand for those goods. As we industrialized, factories were able to make goods more cheaply and in great quantities. It wasn't long before there was a problem of over production, or under consumption, depending on how you look at it.

    In addition to that, the nature a factory is to produce large amounts of one particular thing, and once you've invested in a factory, there had better be a market for that thing, whether anyone really needs it or not. This results in the "supply push" model of business, driven by the need to pay off investments in production equipment, and of course, to accumulate more wealth.

    Many strategies have been devised to increase consumption, so as to keep up with production, and ensure the flow of wealth into the capitalists pockets. Today these include, but aren't limited to, the following:

    • consumerism, where people are encouraged to see themselves defined in terms of what they buy, and to justify their existence by buying more
    • marketing, or the manufacturing of demand, especially for new and supposedly better goods
    • fads, fashion, collecting
    • planned obsolescence
    • frequent technological upgrades
    • deliberate waste
    • greed seen as a good thing

    All these strategies to drive consumption have messed with our heads to the point where most of us consumers have a very strange world view. For example, when discussing how to consume less, many of us are liable to start by asking what we need to buy in order to do that. I mean, how else would you solve a problem than by buying something?

    Initially, working class people were underpaid and weren't a major force of consumption. It took a long time and a great many strikes to stop the upper classes from thinking of the working class as anything but workers. Sometime in the middle of the twentieth century, working people, at least in the developed world, finally came to be seen as consumers as well as workers, and in some cases were even paid enough to consume effectively. Of course, this only increased our overconsumption.

    But even so, capitalists are still their own best customers, the champions of consumption. Globally speaking, the upper classes, the top 10% by income, do about 60% of the consuming. The bottom 50% of people by income only do a little over 7% of the consuming. So it is clear where any attempts to curb overconsumption must focus. Lest we get too smug, though, it is sobering to remember that the top 10% includes about 800 million people—most of the people in the developing world, including most middle class people and even many working class people.

    This is also why it would do no good to get rid of poor people, even those whose population is growing quickly. They consume so little that they simply aren't a factor in our overshoot problem.

    In any case, we all must do our part to stop goods piling up at the output of factories, and to keep service providers busy. The way the system is set up, failure to do this leads to the shutdown of factories, layoffs, unemployment and, worst of all, reduced profits for the owners. (Sarcasm, yes, but also factual.)

    So, capitalism is the driving force behind overconsumption, and as such is causing the slow collapse we've experienced over the last 50 years or so. But capitalism has other negative effects on society as well.

    Negative Effects of Capitalism on Society

    Under feudalism there was a web of obligations flowing in both directions. Yes, serfs had to work for their lords. But since there was no other way of getting the work done, the lords had to provide the serfs with a way to feed, clothe and house themselves. This mainly consisted of providing access to a "commons", where serfs could grow crops and graze livestock for their own use, gather firewood and so forth. The level of use of the commons was closely regulated, either by the feudal lord or the community that relied on that commons, so there was no "tragedy of the commons".

    Under capitalism there is no such web of obligations. The commons was soon enclosed by capitalists who saw it as an under used resource, and proceeded to over use it (a real tragedy). The only way remaining for working class people to satisfy their needs was to buy them from the capitalists using money they earned working for the capitalists. If the capitalists overproduced and the demand for labour went down, workers got laid off and the owners had no obligation whatever to support them.

    Capitalism can't even attempt to solve problems where the solution doesn't involve making a profit. Such issues are ignored or, at best, left for government to solve. Even providing what is needed by the populace is only an indirect result of capitalistic production, and if it becomes unprofitable, capitalists stop doing it.

    Capitalists feel entitled to an ever growing slice of the economic pie. As long as the economy was growing fast enough, they could have that and everyone else could see some improvement in conditions as well, since the whole pie was growing. But for the last few decades while economic growth has slowed and capitalists have still insisted on taking a growing slice of it, what remains for the rest of us has continually decreased, and economic inequality has increased significantly.

    To be clear, all of us in the developed world are going to be consuming a lot less, either deliberately in an attempt to get overconsumption under control, or unintentionally because we've refused to recognize the reality of collapse and it has continued whether we like it or not.

    But with the capitalist fixation on economic growth it is certainly a lot harder to do anything effective about over consumption.

    Government

    During the industrial era many countries switched from aristocracies to some form of representative democracy. Government of the people, by the people, for the people. But this did not make as big a change as one might think.

    Because of the need to fund election campaigns politicians find themselves very much beholden to the rich (mainly capitalists). Not only are capitalists incapable of addressing any problem who's solution would stop them from making a profit, but they make sure that government doesn't try to implement any such solution. These plutarchs, hidden behind representative democracies, are short sighted enough that they are unwilling to do anything to slow growth or reduce consumption. The difficultly we are having in implementing any real solutions to climate change is just the most obvious example of this.

    Other countries have ended up under totalitarian dictatorships, which tend to be poor and in need of financial support. So the same thing happens, with those who lend them money actually in charge.

    To sum up what I've been saying today about overconsumption—it is not a result of innate greed, not a failing of the human race as a whole, but rather caused by a capitalistic upper class bent on maintaining economic growth and the accumulation of wealth at all costs, with no thought of the negative consequences that await us down the road. They have convinced most of us, and themselves as well, that growth and consumption can go on forever on a finite planet.

    There are still a few loose ends from the sections on finance and government, but we'll deal with those next time. That discussion will lead us into the main thrust of my next post—what to do about overconsumption.


    Links to the rest of this series of posts: Collapse, you say?

    Posted by at 7 comments:
    Labels: , , , , , , , , , , ,

    Wednesday, 5 May 2021

    What I've Been Reading, March and April 2021

    Links

    Above the Fold

    • How Hunter-Gatherers Maintained Their Egalitarian Ways, by Peter Gray Ph.D., Psychology Today
      "The important lessons from hunter-gatherers are about culture, not genes."
    • On Graeber and Wengrow and Institutional Flexibility, by Eric Schliesser, Digressions&Impressions
    • How to change the course of human history (at least, the part that’s already happened), by David Graeber and David Wengrow, Eurozine
      "The story we have been telling ourselves about our origins is wrong, and perpetuates the idea of inevitable social inequality. David Graeber and David Wengrow ask why the myth of ‘agricultural revolution’ remains so persistent, and argue that there is a whole lot more we can learn from our ancestors." "But on one thing we insist. Abandoning the story of a fall from primordial innocence does not mean abandoning dreams of human emancipation – that is, of a society where no one can turn their rights in property into a means of enslaving others, and where no one can be told their lives and needs don’t matter. To the contrary. Human history becomes a far more interesting place, containing many more hopeful moments than we’ve been led to imagine, once we learn to throw off our conceptual shackles and perceive what’s really there."
    • A Lot of People Don't Want to Win | James Butler Meets David Graeber, YouTube—Novara Media
      "At The World transformed 2018 James Butler met with David Graeber to talk Momentum,dual power, co-option, the extra-parliamentary left and winning."
    • David Graeber on the Value of Work, by David Graeber, YouTube
      "Does the world really need neuroadvertisers, PR researchers and branding consultants? Renowned academic and coiner of the ‘we are the 99%’ slogan, David Graeber is a passionate advocate for meaningful work. After famously condemning the 21st century phenomenon of ‘bullsh*t jobs’, in this short animation he investigates the philosophical underpinnings of employment, and calls for a reformulation of what work should be."
    • The miracle of the commons, by Michelle Nijhuis, Aeon
      "Far from being profoundly destructive, we humans have deep capacities for sharing resources with generosity and foresight."

    Miscellaneous

    • Monkeys and wolves forge alliance that resembles domestication done by humans, by Tibi Puiu, ZME Science
      "In Ethiopia's grasslands, huge herds of gelada monkeys might be in the process of domesticating wolves."
    • 15 Lies About Firearms Movies and Video Games Told You, by Cracked Writers and Andres Diplotti, Cracked
      "There's something about firearms. Regardless of our ideas about gun control, we can't help but admire a sleek, well-honed, lubricated death machine. Guns have two main purposes: First, being cool (and making you look and feel cool by association), and in a distant second place, causing an awful lot of harm. So they're kind of like mechanical cigarettes (and to some people, just as addictive).
      And yet, considering how many firearms most people have seen, the average person knows remarkably little about them. We're here to help fix that."
    • A Bach cello piece played atop a mountain is as exhilarating as you’d expect, cellist Ruth Boden, Director: Gavin Carver, Aeon video
      "Andante (a musical term meaning ‘at walking pace’) follows the cellist Ruth Boden as she climbs 10,000 feet to a peak in Oregon’s Wallowa Mountains for a deeply personal, yet breathtakingly public solo performance. With her prized cello strapped to her back, Boden reflects on how she wants to do something with music that transcends the commonplace, and on the particular joy of playing from Bach’s cello suite at ‘the top of the world’."
    • The Five Universal Laws of Human Stupidity, by Corinne Purtill, Quartz/Pocket
      "We underestimate the stupid, and we do so at our own peril."
    • Why I shut down an argument in my philosophy for children class, by Amy Reed-Sandoval, Aeon—Psyche
    • What fat is for, Director and Animator: Ermina Takenova; Producer: Kellen Quinn; Writer: Nicola Williams,
      "Abundance has made fat an enemy, but it’s been a friend to humans for millennia"
    • The interstellar dream is dying, by Chris Taylor, Mashable
      "Sending "generation ships" to colonize the cosmos makes less sense the more we look at it."
      Of course, many of us have doubts about our civilization making it to the 22nd century at all.
    • Could you wear a dress for 100 days? by Emma Beddington, The Guardian
      "When Emma Beddington took part in a challenge to wear the same dress for 100 days, she wasn’t expecting to feel the positive force of sisterhood alongside a few neat cleaning hacks."

    Black Lives Matter

    Coronavirus

    The New Fascism, the Far-Right and Antifa

    I hear a lot of well educated people saying that the people some of us are calling fascists don't meet all the criteria for being "real" fascists. Others have even accused us of calling anyone we disagree with a fascist. I predict that a few decades (maybe just a few years) from now those same people will be saying they wish they hadn't been quite so fussy with their definitions, and had acted sooner to oppose these "new fascists", even if they weren't identical to the fascists of the twentieth century.

    Capitalism, Communism, Anarchy

    • The 'Capitalism is Broken' Economy, by Anne Helen Petersen, Culture Study
      "feel like we've moved beyond 'burnout' and more to 'the pandemic has illuminated that nearly every aspect of modern society is fundamentally unlivable' "

    Climate Change

    Energy

    Recipes and Cooking

    • 11 Genius Cooking Hacks I Wish I Had Known Earlier in Life, by Karthik Rajan, Medium—Food | Parenting | Family
      Some interesting ideas here, none of which I have tried. There is a fad these days for recipes with few ingredients. For the most part I don't agree that this is likely to give good results. And doing things quickly, from where I sit, is almost always a bad idea.

    Genetic Engineering

    Before jumping to the erroneous conclusion that this section was paid for by Monsanto, stop for a moment and understand that organic agriculture/food is a multi-billion dollar per year industry that relies on fear to get people to buy its products. Millions of dollars are spent to convince you that non-organic food is dangerous. In fact both conventionally grown and organic foods are equally safe. Sadly neither method of agriculture is even remotely substainable.

    • Panic-free GMOs, A Grist Special Series by Nathanael Johnson
      "It’s easy to get information about genetically modified food. There are the dubious anti-GM horror stories that recirculate through social networks. On the other side, there’s the dismissive sighing, eye-rolling, and hand patting of pro-GM partisans. But if you just want a level-headed assessment of the evidence in plain English, that’s in pretty short supply. Fortunately, you’ve found the trove."
      A series of articles that does a pretty good job of presenting the facts about GMOs. I plan to include one article from this series here each month.
    • Are GMOs worth their weight in gold? To farmers, not exactly, by Nathanael Johnson, Grist
      "Biotech seeds cost more and often return less than conventional crops or organic farming. But they do give farmers a kind of safety net."

    American Politics

    Ontario Politics

    Dancing on Graves

    Debunking Resources

    These are of such importance that I've decide to leave them here on an ongoing basis.

    Science

    Lacking an Owner's Manual

    The human body/mind/spirit doesn't come with an owner's manual, and we continually struggle to figure out how best to operate them.

  • Telltale Traits of Terrible People, by Brooke Meredith, Medium
    "Steer clear! (Some of these might surprise you)"
  • 9 Paradoxical Truths That Will Change How You Think About Life, by Moreno Zugaro, Medium—Mind Cafe
  • This One Thing Gives True Insight into Someone’s Character, by Jessie London, Medium
    "This has helped me surround myself with wonderful people."

    • Gender and Sexuality

    Poverty, Homeless People, Minimum Wage, UBI, Health Care, Affordable Housing

    Education

    Humour

    Books

    Fiction

    Non-Fiction

    I finally finished reading A Peoples History of the United States. And I am over half way through Hierarchy in the Forest, by Christoper Boehm.

    • A Peoples History of the United States, by Howard Zinn
      The version I read (it was lent to me by a friend) was published in 1980, and not surprisingly, only covers up until that point in American History. I see Amazon has a newer version that covers up to the 2000 election and the war on terror. I intended to get a copy and see what Zinn thought of the decades following 1980. In the edition I just read, the very optimistic last chapter was titled "The Coming Revolt of the Guards". It hasn't worked out that way.

    More information about Haward Zinn, from Wikipedia.

    Posted by at No comments:
    Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
    Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)