2010 Protest at World Economic Forum

The World Economic Forum Weighs In

A British acquaintance has sent me a link to one of the background documents to be used when world leaders gather for the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland January25-29. The document is called Global Risks 2012 (http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GlobalRisks_Report_2012.pdf)

The World Economic Forum is a Swiss non-profit corporation that brings together some 2,500 “top” global business and political leaders every January in a remote Swiss mountain resort. Along with the G-7, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund, the World Economic Forum has a strong pro-corporate agenda and is a regular target for antiglobalization protests. The antiglobalization movement is a loosely knit network of anti-corporate groups that started in Asia and Europe in the 1990s, in response to the international treaty that created the World Trade Organization (WTO). Its American counterpart was born in November 1999, when 50,000 people marched in the streets of Seattle and thousands committed civil disobedience to derail the WTO Third Ministerial meeting. Currently the WTO and so-called “Free Trade” treaties, such as NAFTA, receive scant coverage in the mainstream media. Nevertheless labor and environmental activists remain deeply concerned about the power these international treaties give corporations to overturn democratically enacted labor and environmental protections.

Since 2001, grassroots activists from all over the world have been holding a World Social Forum in a developing country (usually Brazil) at the same time as the World Economic Forum. The philosophy behind the World Social Forum is that ordinary people have an even greater need for international conferences than corporate elites. It’s only by coming together and organizing that they can resist efforts by global elites to strip them of the limited democratic and economic rights they still enjoy.

Emphasis on Global Social Unrest

When the Guardian article that accompanied the report (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jan/11/world-economic-forum-meeting-davos) stated that Global Risks 2012 focuses mainly on economic turmoil and social unrest (as opposed to globalization and free trade), I was extremely keen to read it. Would it mention Occupy Wall Street? It sure does, right there on page 16 under “Case 1: Seeds of Dystopia”:

“Two dominant issues of concern emerged from the Arab Spring, the ‘Occupy’ movements worldwide and recent similar incidents of civil discontent: the growing frustration among citizens with the political and economic establishment, and the rapid public mobilization enabled by greater technological connectivity.”

The document is full of other surprises. Unlike the mainstream media, Global Risks 2012 is surprisingly sympathetic towards the Occupy movement. The authors are deeply concerned about “dystopia,” the opposite of utopia, which they define as “a place where life is full of hardship and devoid of hope.” They go on to talk about the danger of declining economic conditions in Western Europe, North America and Japan jeopardizing “social contracts” between states and their citizens. These they define as has historic understandings that workers will be guaranteed access to health care (by North America they must mean Canada – this has never been true in the US) and decent pensions in old age.

They express concern (implying that corporate CEOs should also be concerned) about the link between global recession and increasing rates of poverty, mental illness, substance abuse, suicide, divorce, domestic violence and the abandonment, neglect and abuse of children (page 18).

They talk about the large numbers of unemployed young people around the world being a “lost generation” (page 22). Even more surprisingly, they identify huge income disparity as being one of the most serious global risks. They caution that when “social mobility” (i.e. individual ability to advance socially and economically) is attainable, income disparity can spur people to work harder. When it’s clearly not, as in the current global recession, feelings of powerlessness, disconnectedness and disengagement can “take root.” (page 19).

They conclude the dystopia section with the following warning:

“The social unrest that occurred in 2011, from the United States to the Middle East, demonstrated how governments everywhere need to address the causes of discontent before it becomes a violent, destabilizing force.” (page 19).

Destructive Corporate Lobbying

Global Risks 2012 also talks about destructive corporate lobbying (my translation – they use more obscure, intellectually lofty language) in trying to enact environmental and health regulations: “By their very nature, the costs involved in implementing safeguards, such as quality standards and risk mitigation practices, may give some individuals, firms or organizations reasons to lobby to minimize them and look for ways around them.” (page 22)

They are equally critical of the “too big to fail” banks: “When losses can be passed on to others – as when banks are defined as “too big to fail” – excessive risk-taking is likely to occur.” (page 22).

They conclude with the argument (making the 2008 banking crisis a case in point) that dangerously lax regulations “in just one jurisdiction could trigger global catastrophe.” (page 22)

How Will CEOs Answer the Discussion Questions?

I have to admit my favorite part of Global Risks 2012 are the “Questions for Stakeholders,” inserted at the end at the end of each section to make sure the corporate elites and the politicians who accompany them to these meetings are paying attention. I would give anything to listen in to the answers JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon and Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon, give to some of these:

1. What steps can be taken to reduce income disparity? (they need to get Dimon to answer this one.)
2. How can appropriate regulations be developed so that firms will undertake effective safeguards?
3. How can business, government and civil society work together to improve resilience against unforeseen risks? (the report uses the word resilience, which they borrow from the sustainability movement, a lot).
4. How can fostering entrepreneurship prevent the seeds of dystopia from taking root? (this wouldn’t be my approach, but at least they admit urgent action is needed.

To be continued.

Community garden in New York City

Book Review-Part VI

Fleeing Vesuvius, New Zealand Edition

(2011, Feasta and Living Economies)

Fleeing Vesuvius finishes with an Epilogue (Part 7), in which different authors give practical suggestions about preparing for the eventual collapse of our present energy intensive economic system. The items reflect a wide range of perspectives and priorities. However there are a number of common themes:

Individual

1. Try to be less “busy,” even if you have to cut back your work hours. Give yourself time to focus on surviving in uncertain economic times. Surveys show one of the main reasons Americans give for non-involvement in political and community activities is being too “busy.”
2. Begin investing in land, fruit trees and non-perishable foodstuffs, rather than banks and stocks.
3. Get out of debt and reduce your consumption by practicing frugality.
4. Build a survival support network by shifting from cash transactions to bartering and (where available) to local currency transactions.
5. Avoid the bunker mentality that characterizes the Survivalist Movement. Once another major disaster like Katrina hits, the denial practiced by most of the population will evaporate. Even if you have a shotgun, defending the food and water you have hoarded against an anxious and destitute mob is a risky proposition. This is why it’s essential to network with neighbors and other community members in preparing for a weather-related, public health or other crisis that disrupts the distribution of food and basic services.
6. Replace virtual relationships with face-to-face ones (i.e. spend less time on the Internet). Build stronger connections with friends, family and neighbors. Join something.
7. Re-skill in preparation for a new era in which energy guzzling technology is no longer an option – for example, learning how to grow veggies; make clothes, simple repairs and homemade cleaning products; and cook meals from scratch (a biggie for many young people).

Community

1. Work with local government to develop food security and other strategies to help your city or town become economically independent and energy self sufficient.
2. Support site or land value taxes (LVT), similar to those enacted in Pittsburgh (see http://stuartbramhall.aegauthorblogs.com/2012/01/15/money-and-energy-scarcity/)

National

1. Organize and speak out against the refusal of elected officials to tell the truth.
2. Organize and speak out against the failure by national governments to enact a feasible and effective emergency preparedness plan (addressing food and water security in the case of major infrastructure collapse).
3. Organize and speak out against government policies that dig a deeper hole, by increasing dependence on dwindling and costly fossil fuels. Building more highways and coal fired power plants is just plain stupid.
4. Lobby against government subsidies for “greener” technology – people who walk to work shouldn’t have to pay more taxes to pay for biofuels for people who insist on driving.
5. Lobby for cap and share laws to reduce carbon emissions (see http://stuartbramhall.aegauthorblogs.com/2012/01/17/surviving-the-collapse-possible-strategies/)
6. Lobby for your national economy to become energy self sufficient.

International

Lobby for an international treaty that puts a price on carbon (i.e. that requires countries to pay for their carbon emissions) and allows a rapid rise in that price until countries and companies have no choice but to curb emissions and promote carbon sinks.

Transition Towns New Zealand

The final section in the New Zealand edition contains very brief essays by activist in New Zealand’s Transition movement in various parts of the country. Four of them are available on-line:

http://fleeingvesuvius.org/2011/11/25/preface-to-the-new-zealand-edition/

http://fleeingvesuvius.org/2011/12/09/how-i-survived-the-end-of-the-world-in-aotearoa/

http://fleeingvesuvius.org/2012/01/02/how-resilient-are-we-a-new-zealand-immigrants-perspective/

http://fleeingvesuvius.org/2012/01/11/will-new-zealand-be-the-first-developed-country-to-evolve-a-steady-state-economy/

North American Edition

The North American edition of Fleeing Vesuvius has a preface by Richard Heinberg, author of the End of Growth (see http://stuartbramhall.aegauthorblogs.com/2011/10/30/documenting-the-collapse-of-capitalism/) and fellow at the Post Carbon Institute. Heinberg seems to have the same reaction if did: (”What a goldmine!”). You can read Heinberg’s preface here: http://fleeingvesuvius.org/2011/04/17/preface-by-richard-heinberg-north-american-edition/

The US edition also has an appendix “Should the US try to avoid a financial meltdown?” – a dialogue between two of the economists who contributed essays (Richard Doutwaite and Tom Konrad): http://fleeingvesuvius.org/2011/04/17/should-the-united-states-try-to-avoid-a-financial-meltdown/

http://transitionculture.org/

Book Review-Part V (of VI)

Fleeing Vesuvius, New Zealand Edition

(2011, Feasta and Living Economies)

Parts 5 and 6 of Fleeing Vesuvius are entitled “Changing the Way We Live” and “Changing the Way We Think.” Both are about solutions. They propose broad strategies for supporting large numbers of people in downsizing their energy guzzling way of life.

The main lessons I draw from these chapters are

1. Politicians don’t lead – people do. The notion that elected officials will lead us in finding solutions to the economic crisis, climate change, Peak Oil or the impending food and water crisis is a myth created and perpetuated by the mainstream media. The only solution politicians and the media can think of is to push the poor and disadvantaged off the cliff through massive austerity cuts. One of the important points Gar Aperovitz makes in America Beyond Capitalism is that Franklyn Roosevelt didn’t create the New Deal jobs and social programs (like Social Security). With the New Deal, he merely enacted on a federal level (in response to popular pressure) programs that had been operating for years on a state and local level.

2. There is an awful lot happening on the state and local level to take back our economy and lives from corporate rule. Just because people don’t hear about it on the six o’clock news doesn’t make it any less real. In addition to the Citizens Rights movement and similar movements in other countries, hundreds of US cities (representing nearly one-third of the population) have signed up to the Kyoto Accords and are massively reducing their carbon emissions. Likewise, as Aperovitz points out, hundreds of millions of Americans have opted out of the corporate economy by joining cooperatives and credit unions and creating worker owned businesses, alternatives currencies, farmers markets, etc.

Part 5 Changing the Way We Live

This section starts with economist Brain Davey’s article entitled “Danger ahead: prioritizing risk avoidance in political and economic decision making.” It looks at the difficult proposition of getting national and international leaders to enact meaningful energy and transportation policy. He suggests that we need to stress the dire risk – focusing on an impending food and public health crisis – of not doing so. I find it intriguing that the elitist World Economic forum, which meets every January in Davos Switzerland, makes the same argument in Global Risks 2012 (see http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/01/occupy-wall-street-the-view-from-davos/)

The second essay, “Transition thinking: The Good Life 2.0,” describes the philosophy and success of the Transition movement in helping thousands of local communities to make the local infrastructure changes that will facilitate a transition to carbon neutrality and energy self-sufficiency. As a member of Transition Town New Plymouth, I have been extremely surprised at the receptiveness of our local council to the initiatives we put forward (for example reconfiguring streets to make them safer for cycling and walking, rewarding council employees for leaving their cars at home, and enacting incentives to help residents insulate their homes and install solar water heaters).

“Sailing Craft for a post-collapse world” talks about strategies for replacing expensive, fossil fuel based land transport with boats powered by free wind energy.

Part 6 Changing the Way We Think

This section is a little disappointing, as some of the essays buy into reductionistic drug company hype attributing human behavior to brain molecules. The notion presented here that resource overconsumption is based on the dopaminergic reward system overlooks important work by Robert Putnum, Ralph Nader and others on the link between depression and alienation and breakdown of community and civic organizations. Kalle Lasn (founder of Adbusters) and others have written at length about systematic efforts by the public relations and advertising industry to persuade people to compensate for chronic loneliness and emptiness by consuming. This section also overlooks extensive neurophysiological research showing that human beings are hard wired to crave social interaction. These studies also show that hormones, such as ocytocin and endorphins, and mirror neurons are far more important than dopamine in this programming (see http://www.opednews.com/articles/Marketing-Serotonin-Defici-by-Dr-Stuart-Jeanne-B-100713-513.html).

I found the later essays in Part 6 more helpful, especially those that address the apathy and inertia that prevents most of the developing world from taking serious measures to address impending economic, ecological and resource crises. In “Cultivating hope and managing despair,” psychotherapist John Sharry compares this widespread apathy and inertia to Kubler Ross’s stages of grief in bereavement or impending loss (denial, anger, depression, acceptance). The impending collapse of the global economy, industrial capitalism and possibly civilization itself is the worst loss any of us can imagine. It should be no surprise that human beings’ initial response to such news is denial.

Sharry suggests that Kubler Ross has left out an essential step between depression and acceptance – namely hopeful and constructive action. Based on personal experience, this makes perfect sense. Transition Town New Plymouth draws in many people who still aren’t totally convinced we are heading off the cliff. As they become involved in constructive activities to revitalize local food production and move our community away from blind corporate consumption and wasteful energy use, it seems to become easier to accept the rocky future society faces.

People can follow the progress of the global Transition movement at the Transition Culture website http://transitionculture.org/

To be continued.

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Check out my free ebook 21st Century Revolution. Start the free download by clicking the Transact Socially link at the bottom of the right sidebar and either posting to your Facebook wall or sending a Tweet.

Biochar pellets

Book Review-Part IV (of VI)

Fleeing Vesuvius, New Zealand Edition

(2011, Feasta and Living Economies)

Parts 3 and 4 of Fleeing Vesuvius, “New Ways of Using the Land” and “Dealing with Climate Change,” focus mainly on  local and national strategies for reducing fossil fuel use (both to conserve fossil energy and reduce carbon emissions).

Industrial Symbiosis

The first essay in Part 3, “Cutting transport costs and emissions through local integration,” talks about bringing similar and related industries into close proximity with one another. The term for this is “industrial symbiosis.” Emer O’Siochru gives the example of Kalundburg Denmark, where all waste products are someone else’s raw material. Siochru describes how surplus heat from the coal fired power plant is used to heat 3,500 local homes and a fish farm, whose waste sludge is sold as fertilizer. Meanwhile steam from the power plant is sold to a pharmaceutical company, and gypsum collected from the the sulfur dioxide chimney scrubbers is sold to a wall board manufacturer.

Food Security and Localized Food Production

The other essays in Part 3 deal with food production, in an era where energy, water and resource scarcity make food security increasingly precarious. It may be difficult for urban dwellers who are isolated from food production to comprehend the urgent need to transition from centralized industrialized agriculture to small scale local and regional farms. Factory farming is extremely energy intensive. The synthetic nitrogen fertilizers used are manufactured from natural gas, while most pesticides are petroleum-based hydrocarbons. This is in addition to the substantial energy cost of running farm machinery and food processing and packaging, to say nothing of transportation costs (especially in the case of imported foods). In New Zealand, as in many parts of the US and Europe, the cost of meat, dairy products, eggs and fresh fruits and vegetables has increased 20% since 2008, along with the cost of energy.

In addition to skyrocketing costs, there is also the growing risk that extreme weather events – floods, hurricanes, tornadoes – will shut down vital sections of the food supply network. Owing to major cutbacks in federal, state and local emergency response programs, communities may be left to fend for themselves, as New Orleans was after Katrina.

It will take several years for local communities to become the major source of food for their residents. The global sustainability movement has launched a number of initiatives, such as the 100 mile diet, to facilitate this process. Bestselling author Barbara Kingsolver describes this quite eloquently in her 2007 book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

Nutritional Resilience

The food security essays in Part 3 are quite technical and geared towards communities that have already taken the first steps to increase local food production. “The nutritional resilience approach to food security” addresses the problem of mineral deficient soils, which could cause major nutritional problems in communities that source all their fruits and vegetables from a single region. Healthy soil should contain a range of trace minerals (e.g. calcium, zinc, selenium and boron), which are easily lost through erosion and water run-off. Because industrially produced crops are often deficient in these minerals, they are more susceptible to pests, which results in massive overuse of toxic pesticides.

Bruce Darrell talks about the importance of addressing the mineral composition of soils, even in organic farming. He gives the example of the high prevalence of thyroid goiter in iodine deficient regions of England.

Methane, Nitrous Oxide and Biochar

The final essay in Part 3 discusses a variety of strategies for creating “carbon sinks,” which trap carbon in the soil to prevent its release to the atmosphere. “Refocusing the purpose of the land” also discusses methane and nitrous oxide emissions. These are far more damaging greenhouse gasses than carbon dioxide, especially in countries like Ireland (and New Zealand) with agriculturally based economies. Nitrous oxide comes from livestock urine and the overuse of urea as a fertilizer. Methane is a by-product produced (as a belch) when ruminants (cows, sheep, horses, etc) degrade grass and other high cellulose plants by means of special bacteria in their rumins.

The author, Corinna Birne, focuses heavily on the use of biochar (buried charcoal) to create carbon sinks. In addition to trapping carbon dioxide, it also locks up methane and nitrous oxide and important nutrients. Thus soil treated with biochar requires less fertilizer.

Cap and Share

The essays in Part 4 look at national and international strategies for reducing carbon emissions. Cap and Share is a simple method devised by Feasta in 2008 that is much fairer than either a carbon tax or emissions trading. With this approach, countries agree to a fixed cap on carbon emissions. They also require primary fossil-fuel suppliers (e.g. oil companies) to buy permits to introduce fossil fuels into the economy. Although fossil fuel suppliers pass these costs onto the consumer, revenue from the permits is used to help low income customers pay their energy bills. Over time this causes carbon-intensive goods and services to cost more, encouraging consumers to seek out renewable energy alternatives.

To be continued.

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Check out my free ebook 21st Century Revolution. Start the free download by clicking the Transact Socially link at the bottom of the right sidebar and either posting to your Facebook wall or sending a Tweet.

Book Review-Part III

Fleeing Vesuvius, New Zealand Edition

(2011, Feasta and Living Economies)

The second part of Fleeing Vesuvius is entitled “Innovation in business, money and finance.” It draws on the main theme of Part I, describing how the current economic crisis is a direct result of fossil fuel scarcity and spiking energy costs. The second section focuses on the link between energy availability and money.

The late Richard Douthwaite is the author of the first and (I feel) best essay in Part II, entitled “The supply of money in an energy scarce world.” He traces the history of money, with special emphasis on the de-linking of money, production and wealth which occurred starting in the 1970s. This disconnect results from the “financialization” of the economies of the so called “industrialized” north. He points out the irony of calling Europe and North America “industrialized,” when currently most manufacturing takes place in developing countries, to take advantage of sweatshop wages. At present so called “industrialized” countries earn most of their profits through banking and other financial services. They also carry most of the global debt burden. Douthwaite finds it even more ironic that they owe most of this debt to so-called “developing” countries.

Getting Rid of Debt-Based Money

Douthwaite goes on to offer specific alternatives to our current debt based money system (under our current system, the one and only way money is created is by going to the bank to take out a loan – it’s called fractional reserve banking. A debt-based monetary system can only function in the presence of indefinite economic growth (see (http://stuartbramhall.aegauthorblogs.com/2011/10/30/documenting-the-collapse-of-capitalism/). Moreover the end of cheap energy also means the end of continuous economic growth. He also explores a number of strategies to facilitate the transition to a new steady state economy (one that doesn’t grow).

Douthwaite proposes to create inflation to eliminate the massive external debt that is suffocating the economies of Europe, North America and Japan. However he wouldn’t hand the money over to bankers, as the Federal Reserve does when they engage in quantitative easing. Instead Douthwaite would have governments create new money that they would spend directly into the economy to fix decaying infrastructure and provide essential public services. This would ensure that the new money would circulate in the economy to stimulate buying and increase jobs – instead of paying astronomical bonuses to CEOs.

Creating Regional and Local Currencies

He also strongly supports the creation of regional and local currencies. This gives poor people access to money when the national currency is in short supply due to recession and deflation. People only have access to the official currency when their products and skills increase corporate profits. Regional and local currencies, on the other hand, provide access to money to anyone with skills and/or products other community members need or want. In addition to boosting support for local business, by requiring that local currencies be spent locally, a pricing scheduled is created that more accurately reflects the work invested and true value to the community. Food production is an excellent example. Small farmers can easily work 16 or more hours a day. Yet owing to competition from large scale factory farms, the “market” price they receive for their crops is rarely enough to support a family.

Douthwaite also explores the possibility of creating a currency based on future energy production, just as early national currencies were based on gold (which will have far less intrinsic value than energy).

Rethinking Financing, Corporate Structure and Property Taxes

Other essays in part II look at alternative methods (other than borrowing and incurring debt) of financing the new energy efficient businesses, farms, and homes. One model favored by several authors is a “limited liability equity partnership.” In an equity partnership, the landowner, builder, and future occupation finance a home or new business by assuming an equity interest in its construction. “Rethinking Business Structures” looks at new corporate structures that place social and environmental considerations ahead of external shareholders.

“Why Pittsburgh’s real estate never crashes” is an interesting essay on Pittsburgh’s land value tax (LVT). It shows how property taxes that differentially tax land at a higher rate than buildings discourage property speculation. It credits LVT for protecting Pittsburgh from the massive foreclosure crisis other US cities faced in 2008.  Dan Sullivan, the author of the essay, is the education director of Saving Communities, a Pittsburgh- based non-profit.

To be continued.

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Check out my free ebook 21st Century Revolution. Start the free download by clicking the Transact Socially link at the bottom of the right sidebar and either posting to your Facebook wall or sending a Tweet.

Fleeing Vesuvius, New Zealand Edition

(2011, Feasta and Living Economies)

Book Review-Part II

Obviously getting by without fossil fuels (owing to impending shortages of oil, natural gas and coal) will be an incredibly rude shock for all of us. Our current telecommunication, transportation and retail infrastructure, as well as our current system of industrial agriculture, are based on the abundant availability of cheap fossil fuels. On the plus side, Fleeing Vesuvius is full of a number of specific strategies, currently being tried in Ireland and elsewhere, for building resilient communities to withstand this transition to a non-fossil energy  society. In his introduction, the late Richard Douthwaite lays out a kind of road map by identifying nine ways in which fossil energy use has perverted our economies and lives:

1. It has transformed manufacturing methods by displacing human labor.
2. It has transformed agricultural methods, replacing human labor, animal power and sunlight.
3. It has enabled the world population to grow to a level that may well be unsupportable without its use.
4. It has devalued human labour and led to widespread unemployment.
5. It has made the economy reliant on economic growth to avoid collapse.
6. It has enabled extremes of wealth and poverty to develop.
7. It has led to the development of industrial capitalism.
8. It has produced profits that had to be recycles. This led to the growth of the banking system and debt-based money.
9. By fueling powered transport, it has destroyed self-reliant local economies and the nature of local relationships.

I find this approach extremely valuable. It moves away from blaming capitalism, rich people and banksters for the problems of contemporary society. By treating them as a natural outgrowth of fossil fuel dependence, Douthwaite inspires optimism that these “perversions” will be easy to undo once we cease to rely on oil, gas and coal to provide for our basic needs.

Layout of Fleeing Vesuvius

Fleeing Vesuvius is divided into seven parts:

Part 1 – looks at energy and water availability in a post-carbon world, with a detailed discussion of our diminished capacity to produce food.

Part 2 – looks at models for new non-debt based monetary systems that will greatly facilitate our transition to a fossil energy-free economy, as well as alternative, non-corporate methods for financing land and business development.

Part 3 – looks at alternative land management strategies that will improve energy efficiency by promoting the “proximity” of complementary enterprises (for example, building factories near each other that use each other’s waste products), and specific techniques that increase and maintain soil carbon and mineral content.

Part 4 – looks at a novel “Cap and Share” regulatory scheme to rapidly reduce corporate carbon emissions. It would cap the emissions each company (and country) are allowed, while sharing the cost of running the scheme among the entire population.

Part 5 – looks at the immense lifestyle changes we all need to make to survive in a post-carbon world and how the Transition and similar movements are helping communities prepare themselves to make these changes.

Part 6 – looks at specific approaches for breaking through widespread apathy and denial about the imminence of economic and ecological collapse.

Part 7 – is a collection of specific suggestions of what people can do on the individual, community, national and international level.

The final section of the New Zealand edition contains a number a brief essays of the Transition and other sustainability initiatives currently being undertaken in this country.

Part I – “Energy Availability”

I have already discussed the connections made in Part I (i.e. capitalism ends when the oil runs out) in my last blog. However I want to share graphs that summarize the points made about EROI (Energy Return on Investment, aka EROEI Energy Returned on Energy Investment). Although there’s still a lot of oil, gas and coal in the ground, we are rapidly main points being made – we have probably passed the point where the “sweet” stuff, the reserves that are easy and cheap to extract, has been used up. Even more importantly, owing to low EROI, renewable energy sources will never replace fossil fuels. Thus we have no choice but to downsize our energy intensive lifestyles.

Illustration 2: An energy source can rarely be used directly. An energy extraction process is required to discover, extract and process the resource before its energy is available to society. This process consumes energy itself, a deduction from the energy otherwise available. The energy return on invested is the ratio of surplus energy to energy required to drive the process.

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Offshore wind and tidal barrages give good energy returns

llustration 1: The world does not need just energy – it needs energy that is delivered with very low levels of carbon dioxide emissions (that is, a low-carbon intensity) while still giving a lot more energy back than it took to produce it. This chart, by Evan Robinson, shows the most promising technologies and those to ignore. The half dots indicate where a technology is beyond the limits of the chart. Source: http://evanrobinson.typepad.com/ramblings/science_nature/

It took me awhile to figure this one out – there’s a lot going on here. You read EROI (or EROEI) from left to right. Energy sources with an EROI of zero (at the far left) use up as much energy in extraction/production as they release. Solar thermal and geothermal have a very low EROI, while tidal energy has an EROI even higher than 1970s oil reserves. The EROI of Middle East oil isn’t listed (Saudia Arabia, Iran, etc aren’t very transparent about their production costs). Different Peak Oil websites estimate that Middle East oil has an EROI of between 20 and 30. This gives it an EROI somewhere between 1970s and 2000s US oil (it costs a lot more to extract US oil now than 30 years ago because it’s harder to get at). This doesn’t include the cost of transporting oil to the US, cleaning up oil spills, the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya (Iran?), etc – costs that keep going up and up. The vertical axis is the carbon emissions produced by each energy source.

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The area of each bubble represents the energy return on energy invested — EROI. The most valuable energy resources are those with large bubbles – a high EROI – at the top of the chart because this shows that they also have a high Energy Internal Rate of Return – EIRR. In other words, they pay back the energy invested in developing them rather quickly. Photovoltaic, nuclear and hydropower have low rates of energy return. Graph compiled and redrawn specially for Feasta by Jamie Bull, oco-carbon.com

To be continued, with a discussion of Parts II-VII. No more graphs, I promise.

***

Check out my free ebook 21st Century Revolution. Start the free download by clicking the Transact Socially link at the bottom of the right sidebar and either posting to your Facebook wall or sending a Tweet.

Fleeing Vesuvius, New Zealand Edition

(2011, Feasta and Living Economies)

Book Review

In my experience, there are two main forms anti-corporate resistance can take. The first involves direct confrontation of government and corporate official over their criminal and unethical activities. The hundreds of Occupy Wall Street encampments launched in late 2011 to protest banking greed and corruption represent the epitome of this direct, confrontational approach. In the second type of resistance, local activists collectively op out of corporate-dominated lifestyles by creating their own alternative systems of food and energy production and distribution and, in some cases, alternative banking and money systems. This second type of resistance movement is facilitated by a number of loosely linked national and international sustainability networks. These include groups such as Transition Towns, Feasta and Cultivate. The Transition movement, which started in 2004-2005 in Ireland and Britain, is the best known. Transition Towns New Zealand has been active since 2007.

Fleeing Vesuvius, published by Feasta in Ireland in 2010, is best described as a handbook or encyclopedia for individuals, groups and communities seeking to opt out of a corporate-dominated lifestyle and transition to a more sustainable one. Feasta (Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability) was launched in Dublin in 1998. The New Zealand edition was published by Living Economies in July 2011. The book is a collection of essays by Feasta members and others from a wide range of technical backgrounds. This first post is intended as a general overview of the book and the premises it’s based on. Successive posts will look a specific chapters in more detail.

Preparing for Collapse

The title, Fleeing Vesuvius, refers to the volcano that destroyed Pompeii in 79 AD – to the majority of residents who failed to save themselves, despite weeks of earthquakes, gaseous clouds and other obvious signs that the volcano was about to erupt. For at least a decade, most citizens of the world have been confronting growing evidence that the planet is on the verge of economic and ecological collapse. Yet the vast majority do absolutely nothing to prepare for the stark conditions ahead.

All the essays in Fleeing Vesuvius are written from the perspective that the age of cheap energy is over. In fact the beginning section asserts that oil depletion, not reckless subprime derivatives trading, was responsible for the 2008 economic crash. As the authors explain, the readily accessible surface oil is used up. What remains is much more difficult and costly to extract. Once oil reached $147 per barrel in 2008, energy and food costs (directly linked to the price of fuel under industrial agriculture), people had no money to repay their mortgages and the defaults started.

All the essays in the book are written from the perspective that humankind needs to drastically downsize their energy use. This includes returning to an era where people produced food and other basic needs with human labor and draft animals (horses, oxen, mules, etc), instead of engines that run on fossil fuels. One author makes the point that one barrel of oil produces the equivalent of an adult laborer working 40 hours a week for 12 years.

Fossil Fuels and Capitalism

The Introduction and Part I (”Energy Availability”) are the most mind blowing sections of the book because of the historical links they make between the fossil fuel revolution, industrialization and the birth of the capitalist economic system. I don’t pretend to understand all the math, but it’s clear from the references that the first five essays represent a consensus position of many prominent economists and energy engineers. Before fossil fuels, capitalism was impossible because an economy relying on human labor and animal power can’t support it.

By definition capitalism depends on capital accumulation, the production of an economic surplus that can be reinvested in new capital (property and machines) to expand production even further. In the beginning of Fleeing Vesuvius, the authors demonstrate how producing this surplus was only possible because of the vast amount of cheap (practically free) work performed by fossil fuel energy. Obviously there were rich people (landowners and merchants) prior to industrialization. However there weren’t any capitalists – production was far too limited to accumulate capital.

If capitalism is only possible with an abundance of cheap energy, clearly it will end when cheap fossil fuels run out. From the graph, it looks like this happens at $200 a barrel – which is predicted some time in the next six to thirty six months. None of the renewable energies (e.g. solar, wind, tidal, hydro) can match fossil fuels in terms of low cost and efficiency. Seven billion global residents will really struggle to produce enough food to feed themselves, much less accumulate capital to invest in new production.

To be continued.

***

Check out my free ebook 21st Century Revolution. Start the free download by clicking the Transact Socially link at the bottom of the right sidebar and either posting to your Facebook wall or sending a Tweet.

Free download at:  www.smashwords.com/books/view/120942

[If any of you feel at all guilty about downloading a 326 page ebook without paying for it, you are free to mitigate that guilt by 1)  reading the book 2) reviewing the Kindle edition on the Amazon website and/or 3) hitting the Transact Socially button at the bottom of the sidebar on the right. This automatically posts a Facebook and Twitter message about 21st Century Revolution to all your friends/followers].

21st Century Revolution is the second edition of a collection of essays I published on August 30, 2011, under the title Revolutionary Change: an Expatriate Perspective. Two weeks later the book was totally out of date, with the launch of Occupy Wall Street in Zuccotti Square. Part I of 21st Century Revolution, about Occupy Wall Street, is totally new. There are also new essays in Part V about gun control and the citizens’ rights movement.

Synopsis

I started 21st Century Revolution intending to offer a unique perspective on the US political system after nine years living overseas as an expatriate. Much of the book examines why progressives have such difficulty recruiting low income white and minority workers. I have always believed this relates to the failure of many liberals to recognize and acknowledge the distinct cultural differences in blue collar and minority communities.

Civic Engagement and Reclaiming the Commons

Throughout the book, I strongly emphasize civic engagement and reclaiming the commons – which I feel are the two most important areas of focus for working class activists.  Engaging with neighbors and other community members comes more naturally to low income and disenfranchised groups (remember, we grew up playing in the street while our middle class peers were at piano, violin, and dancing lessons). At the same time we have a strong instinctive understanding of class privilege, the flip side of reclaiming the commons. From childhood, we are very much aware that people with all the money control the world.

This is the main reason the young looters in London went for the wide screen TVs, rather than for food. From a class perspective, this is called “leveling,” not greed.

***

I divide the book into six parts. The first part, “Occupy Wall Street and the New Economics,” discusses the Occupy movement from a class perspective, as well as the new light OWS sheds on our broken banking and monetary system. Part II, “My New Life in New Zealand,” briefly discusses my reasons for emigrating and the political and social features that make my new home uniquely different from the US. Part III, “Capitalism’s Last Gasp,” examines the train wreck global capitalism has imposed on the planet. Part IV, “Psychological Oppression: the Role of Corporate Media,” talks about the role of the media in shaping the American psyche and preserving the status quo. Part V, “Change Making,” explores how I believe real change is likely to come about, with special emphasis on social class and the concept of reclaiming “the commons. Part V contains two new articles on gun control and the citizens’ rights movement. Part VI, “The Endgame,” makes a few predictions about post-capitalist society.

Cover image by cisc1970

http://www.flickr.com/photos/franciscodaum/

Under Creative Commons License

(see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/deed.en)

Fascist dictator Generalissimo Franco

This is the last of three posts about the impending (Jan 17, 2012) trial of Balthasar Garzon, the Spanish judge who ordered the arrest and extradition (from London) of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. Recent Wikileaks cables reveal the pressure the US State Department has placed on Spanish authorities to silence Garzon. You can support him by joining the Support Balthasar Garzon Facebook page at http://es-es.facebook.com/impunitynothanks

Judge Balthasar Garzon himself faces three charges. On reviewing the charges, the Spanish Supreme Court has ruled he must face trial on all of them. The first is a corruption charge, alleging that he dismissed a tax evasion case against the director of Banco Santander, in return for a 302,000 euro donation to fund human rights classes Garzon taught at the Juan Carlos I Center at the University of New York in 2005-2006. Although no funds went to Garzon personally, the prosecution has a letter he signed requesting the donation from the bank’s chairman Emilio Botin. The evidence suggests the judge may be guilty of a conflict of interest. Although he took the case against Santander more than a year after Biotin made the donation, strictly speaking he should have stepped aside to allow another judge to oversee the investigation. In the US, judicial conflict of interest charges occasionally result in censure, but are more likely to be ignored (see http://www.defundanddisobey.com/freedom/judicial-corruption-in-california, http://webpages.charter.net/lah1321/execsummary.pdf , and http://www.corruptusjudicialsystem.org/#Submit%20YOUR%20Cases%20Of%20Corruption%20&%20Misconduct%20By%20Judges).

The second charge relates to violating attorney client privilege by ordering “illegal” phone taps between defendants (top politicians of the opposition party) and their lawyers. Garzon insists the taps were necessary because the attorneys were serving as financial messengers in a criminal scheme.

Investigating Crimes Against Humanity: Illegal Under Spanish Law

The third and most serious charge is that Garzon exceeded his authority in investigating crimes against humanity by the brutal Franco regime, in violation of Spain’s 1977 Amnesty Law. If found guilty, Garzon could be disqualified from the bench for 20 years. His supporters find it ironic that he has stood up to multiple death threats from Colombian and Spanish drug dealers, Basque and Islamic terrorists and organized crime figures – only to be blind-sided by archaic legislation considered illegal under international law.

The charge stems from an order Garzon issued, at the request of families, to exhume the remains of victims assassinated and/or disappeared by the Franco regime. Garzon and the more than two hundred international organizations that condemn the prosecution against him, contend that international law supersedes a national amnesty law in dealing with crimes against humanity. In 2008 the UN Committee on Human Rights advised Spain to repeal the 1977 Amnesty Law. Likewise the European Tribunal of Human Rights has warned that a guilty verdict on this charge will result in Spain’s suspension.

Although Garzon was suspended from his official duties in May 2010, the Spanish authorities allowed him to work as a consultant to the International Criminal Court in La Hague for six months been May and November 2010. In October 2010, an Argentine judge successfully petitioned Spain to be allowed to investigate Franco regime crimes that Garzon was barred from pursuing (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/26/argentina-spain-general-franco-judge).