Friends and colleagues keep sending me links to critiques of Jared Diamond’s book ‘Collapse’.
Following is a link to a short essay by Ronald Bailey that goes beyond Diamond’s book and discusses what makes a successful society and also a longer piece by Kendra Okonski on Diamond’s chapter on Montana (Chapter 1).
Ronald Bailey titled his essay ‘Under the Spell of Malthus’ and commented that:
“Why is Puerto Rico so much better off than its neighbors? In a word, institutions. Diamond vaguely recognizes the importance of social and political institutions, but his analysis doesn’t go much deeper than arguing that Haitian dictators have been more rapacious than Dominican dictators. In fact, the last two centuries have shown that the more a country adheres to the rule of law, protects private property, reduces bureaucratic corruption, nurtures a free press, permits free markets, engages in trade, and allows democratic politics, the less likely it is to suffer from the Malthusian horrors of plagues, famines, and civil wars. What Haiti and Rwanda have in common is not just dense populations but shattered social and political institutions. What the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Puerto Rico have in common are not only dense populations, but adequately effective social and political institutions.
…As ecology teaches us, the simplest ecosystems are often the most fragile. Similarly, our modern globally interconnected economy that can draw upon a wide array of resources is far more stable and robust than either the fragile pre-modern or the marginally modern societies cited by Diamond. It’s worth noting that in 1800, when the vast majority of people on the planet were farmers, the global average GDP per capita, adjusted for inflation, was about $600.
Diamond adheres to the orthodox Malthusian claims that human population growth is exponential while “improvements in food production add rather than multiply; this breakthrough increases wheat yields by 25%, that breakthrough increases yields an additional 20%, etc.” But just looking at the history of the 20th century, it is very clear that increases in food production have been exponential too; in fact, food production has been increasing faster than human population growth. Since 1961 world grain production has tripled, while world population has doubled. Consequently, per capita global food production increased by 25 percent between 1961 and 2004, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
“I have not met anyone,” Diamond writes, “who seriously argues that the world could support 12 times its current impact, although an increase of that factor would result from all Third World inhabitants adopting first world living standards.” But increasing human numbers and wealth do not translate automatically into more impact on the natural world. The British demographer Angus Maddison calculates that world GDP increased in real dollars from $2 trillion in 1900 to $37 trillion in 2001, while global per capita income rose from $1,300 annually to more than $6,000. This 18-fold increase in output was not achieved just by doing more and more of the same old things. Most of the increase was achieved through technological innovation: using better recipes to manipulate less physical stuff to give us more services.…The only way to solve the allegedly impending global ecological crisis, according to Diamond, is “long-term planning, and a willingness to reconsider core values.” Although vague about whom he would put in charge of global planning, Diamond evinces throughout Collapse an alarming affection for authoritarian rulers who issue top-down orders restraining their citizens’ use of resources.”
In Collapse Jared Diamond suggests Montana is in as big a mess as Australia. But Kendra Okonski, a Montana native who now lives in England, disagrees. She argues that Diamond has got it wrong and that he doesn’t understand Montana’s history, forests or anything else. Kendra’s essay titled ‘Montana: On the Verge of Collapse?’ has just been published by PERC, the Property and Environment Research Center.
My critique titled ‘Australia’s Environment Undergoing Renewal Not Collapse’ published by Energy and Environment, recently made it into Wikipedia.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Another thing Jared Diamond ignores is that human beings differ from other species in their reproductive patterns. Humans respond to wealth and security by *reducing* the number of offspring. This poses a serious challenge to the claim that “human population growth is exponential”, which is at the heart of the Malthusian argument. In this age of increasing prosperity, the rate of growth in world population is tailing off–and it’s not from famine and pestilence. Germany’s new chancellor is warning that “native” Germans may dwindle to nearly nothing within 50 years, as only 2 out of 5 German women of child-bearing age are electing to become pregnant and lately, each generation of Germans is roughly 20 per cent smaller than the previous one.
Schiller
“The only way to solve the allegedly impending global ecological crisis, according to Diamond, is “long-term planning, and a willingness to reconsider core values.” Although vague about whom he would put in charge of global planning, Diamond evinces throughout Collapse an alarming affection for authoritarian rulers who issue top-down orders restraining their citizens’ use of resources”
These days when I read something like this I alawys take a bet with myself that not too far away is a demand for a plan. Not just any plan, but a plan to lead us away from ruin. I am never disappointed.
It’s like these people have never read history or have any memory. We’ve had places that followed plans. Pity they never worked.
“Diamond evinces throughout Collapse an alarming affection for authoritarian rulers who issue top-down orders restraining their citizens’ use of resources”
Close your eyes, try to fall asleep and dream a little. You just see an image of Bob Brown as the PM.
I don’t have to wake you up do I. fear just did.
Greens policies are full of idealistic imperatives eg “Tasmania must make a transition to a clean, green and clever economy and become a world leader and a centre of excellence for these industries”
5-star bushwalks?
They deride the achievements of past and present work; “This ‘old’ economy is environmentally destructive, reliant on government subsidies, job shedding, subject to the whims of interstate and overseas interests, and lacking in coherent and sustainable development strategies.”
Pull up the drawbridge?
With respect to ‘old’ govt subsidies Greens have ‘new’ subsidies; “The Greens will ensure infrastructure support for transport, communication, education and training, and for cooperative and industry cluster initiatives.”
All funded from 5-star bushwalkers.
Dont think that going green is going to be easier; “subject new technologies to risk review and risk management, with the application of the precautionary principle where appropriate”
Make application to central planning committee for review and approval of your business.
Chairman Bob Brown wants to take over Tasmania, lock stock and barrel.
http://tas.greens.org.au/policy/view_policy.php?PolicyID=78
“This 18-fold increase in output was not achieved just by doing more and more of the same old things. Most of the increase was achieved through technological innovation: using better recipes to manipulate less physical stuff to give us more services.”
What he does not say that the 18 fold increase was due to cheap and abundant fossil fuel.
Ender; this 18 fold increase due to cheap and abundant fossil fuel is an aberration likely to be short lived in our time. What actually drives the big dozers, graders and tractors in the future has long been on my mind. For instance many, many Tasmanian lives today depend almost entirely on these creatures. I may have a lot more to say about that.
Rog; In my daily journeys out on the road I once made a point of picking up lone or pairs of young backpackers in their travels between our hostels. Their hosts could be my customers in a rapidly expanding industry back in the bush. Some of their answers to my questions were most interesting. Would they come back? “Yes for sure”. When? “After we have established our family”.
Young families usually require a bit of comfort overnight.
About that time a friend the business of developing tourism for the government asked me to participate in a low altitude aerial survey of all recreation around the entire coastline. We counted families, mobile homes and barbeques, also fishermen and seals.
Mate you have no bloody idea of what you are talking about with your “five star walks”.
Tasmanian Tourism is now big business from every angle.
bugger – “Ender; this 18 fold increase due to cheap and abundant fossil fuel is an aberration likely to be short lived in our time”
I totally agree – we have managed to get through millions of years of buried solar energy in 200 years.
Just had time to read the link:
“Why? Because, he explains, the U.K. has highly efficient mechanized agriculture. Just so. Apparently there is nothing at all necessary about Malthusian collapse, if you’ve got tractors and fertilizers. Germany, with 602 people per square mile, and India, with 811, both produce more food than their people consume. (By the way, the U.K.’s population has grown sixfold since Malthus wrote his essay.)”
Isn’t this the dead give away that the reviewer takes energy totally for granted. Tractors and fertilisers so of course they are going to continue forever and ever and postpone the Malthusian collapse forever. Wait a minute tractors run on oil – fertilisers are made using fossil fuels and nitrogen. They will last forever as they are infinite, aren’t they – NOT
Well bugger, are you happy with Tasmania being solely dependant on tourism?
Tasmanian tourism is, to a large extent, being subsidised by the Govt who obtain funds from other industry eg GST. The Spirit of Tasmania is running at huge loss, last year the Tas Govt promised another $115M just to keep it running. Tourism Tasmania has an annual budget of +$23M, again money derived from other activities.
Ender
Do you drive, use A/c, heating, cook, take plane?
Just asking.
Rog, don’t forget the recurrent budgetary allocation for the full gammut of government land management costs that subsidise nature-based tourism for free or token entry.
rog; you only have to look in this timber RFA supplement to see whoz getting all our extra federal money and for what –
http://www.premier.tas.gov.au/publications/forest/agreement.pdf?id=14303
The Bass Strait transport subsidies historically relate to federal highway subsidies that benefit all people in transit and their other links. The rest of it relates to rural handouts on the mainland. I don’t depend on them nor do I begrudge them in any way. What I can also do without is this one sided crap.
joe – “Do you drive, use A/c, heating, cook, take plane?”
Of course I do. I don’t make any pretext of practicing what I preach yet however I am working toward it.
I do however take public transport to work always, use compact flouro lights, use a evaporative aircon that uses a fraction of the power of refrigerative and drive a small 4 cyl car.
Page 527 Acknowledgements Chapter 13 “Mining” Austalia of Diamond’s book Collapse lists and thanks Senator Bob Brown for his contribution to this chapter.
Enough said!
Bugger, I am not having a go but it is a fact that 2005 Federal, State and local govt spending in Tas is 5.6% wheras that of mainland Australia is 3.8% yet commentators keep using the word ‘sustainable’.
Joe – in the rare possibility of having a sensible conversation – most people enjoy the technological advantages you have listed. The way we currently do this produces carbon dioxide emissions which we are asserting is changing the planet’s climate. This will cause changes which on balance can be anything from favourable to catastrophic depending on who you listen to and who you believe. I personally think from doing a fair bit of homework on the issue that there is something serious in it. Serious enough to make us think about ways of reducing emissions without ruining the economy or going back to the stone age. Some of those technological solutions may make their inventors very rich. I would have thought this would have interested yourself.
On climate issues – there is a fledgling market in weather derivatives, markets for future power projections, smart savings & re-sell (e.g. supermarkets turning off freezers for brief periods and selling power back to the grid just when prices are high), Chicago grain and cotton sellers use seasonal climate forecasts in futures markets as an edge in the hedge. Insurance companies like Munich-Re and Swiss-Re think climate change is big bucks – they want to know !
Good on you rog; did you notice that there are a lot of people standing both sides of the fence down south yelling their case? and Cinders on the far side takes pot quiet shots?
Any one blazing away at Brown or Greens just for the sake of it gets a fight from me though.
Simply, they are one political extreme looking for another and could do some more damage to the image of the state as a whole.
It undoes my work in the middle, promoting the best place in the world for cheese and honey also a bit of a view under the mists and trees.
Good to see you’re enjoying the fruits of the times here Phil.
My concern is that we worry too much about Co2 emissions and not worry about the real problem, which is potential cooling to the point where the white death gets us (future generations).
A warm climate is a good thing as I have said many times and the more Co2 ( plant food) going into the air is a net positive.
The only thing that is serious about AGW which I blieve is happening incidently is that it will help us avert the colling problem. Maybe future generations will look back nad thank us.
One problem – the orbital science says its about 50,000 to 100,000 years away. You’ll have your CO2 in 100 and then be stuck with for a long time. (Proof – well that’s homework!) No ice age soon. And I hate to say again but CO2 is only good if you have the water to go with it. It’s not Jack’s beanstalk. And of course some plants will do better than others. In savanna grasslands you may get more C3 woody weeds and less C4 grasses. Not good for beef. But yes you could extend the northern hemisphere wheat belt and have some more CO2 to go with it.
Phil
I mnetioned it to you time and time agsin. Warm weather is good thing. Sure you might get a coupla weeds in the back garden you haven’t seen before but overall it’s agood thing.
What you seem to be afraid of is change. Yes, Phil, things change, but that’s not the reason to close everything down and goack to living in caves, is it?
You ought to be getting on your hands and knees thanking all who pour co2 in the atmosphere.
So don’t be like Ender, who’s too far gone setting up shop in the Alice thinking he”s gunna buy waterfront land. Leave that cult and join the sensible people who think wearing a t- shirt and shorts is a good thing.
Look at it this way. We don’t have to spend a lot of money on winter clothes if we’re lucky enough to enjoy the fruits of AGW.
Stop talking to Ender. He just confuses you.
Phil; joe is a typical opportunist. He will do well as we slip into AGW. joe must be a realestate man.
Bugger
I hate real estate. there are shitty yields and it’s probably heading lower.
However I’m with Ender. If Ender thinks there is vlaue in Alice real estate particularly on the rock, subdividing it and sticking up cliff top, water side mansions, I’m with him.
He thinks he’ll make a fortune out of it, partularly by growing gills like in the movie, Waterworld.
Beats me why joe is so frightened of new markets (stocks). I know traders making bucketloads from this business. joe claims to be worried about global cooling but given his grasp of the science and his unwillingness to learn about the issues, his supposed concern makes no more sense than his posts.
Good posts bugger. A balanced view of subsidies is needed. Best place in the world for cheese and honey indeed!
Does Neil want all forests privatised, entry only for those with the means to pay and with physical access? Considering subsidies and incomes, there are some studies showing that the long-term net financial benefit for local communities from conserved forests exceeds that from clear-cut forests (this is NOT a blanket statement against logging).
“Tasmanian Tourism is now big business from every angle.”
In case you didn’t realiz it, Bugger. Most jobs in tourism are low paying shitty jobs that are usually done by people from the thrid world.
I guess there is a reason, picking up other people’s dirty sheets after a rough night in bed is not everyone’s idea of job satisfaction.
High paid jobs are not in tourism. So I suggest that Bob brown does a few years of picking up dirty laundry before he suggests “lesser folk” do it.
“I know traders making bucketloads from this business”
LOL, thinski deconstructs into a pool of butter.
Have you seen their tax returns or was this information gathered in a bar somewhere?
So given that you didn’t like my new tech stocks ideas Joe – how are you going to change proof youself – what financial deviance are you into specifically anyway?
Thicksy
One of the open secrets of successful trading is that you stick your knitting and don’t venture out into unchartered terrain.
If you think there are great stocks in the Global warming industry you go buy them and tell us how well you did after.
Phil,
How about this. i’ll tell you waht i do and you tell us what you do or done.
“So given that you didn’t like my new tech stocks ideas Joe – how are you going to change proof youself ”
That’s easy Phil. If it get’s warmer as real scientist say it will (not you or Ender) it will make little difference to the investment climate because the world will easily settle into a warmer clime. If governments because of people like you and Ender force them into heavy handedness; then it becomes tricky because more regulations will mean less profitability.
I would then then look to buy gold and hold it forever. Reason. Our high debt at the the consumer level will mean that less jobs, less growth etc. and therefore make debt servicing pretty difficult. So I would stay away from real estate as you could see a lot of forced selling.
When the government sees this they have to act and they would act the way they always do by inflating the value of the currency. In other words making a choice of screwing the borrower or lender the govt. will choose to screw the lender all the time.
Therefore if you ever see a regulatary regime being put into place around the world that “wants to deal with AGW” in a big way. Sell out everyting and buy gold and hold it. You won’t get richer by doing it but you won’t get poorer like the rest of the population and wealth is a relative game.
joe – “If it get’s warmer as real scientist say it will (not you or Ender) it will make little difference to the investment climate because the world will easily settle into a warmer clime. If governments because of people like you and Ender force them into heavy handedness; then it becomes tricky because more regulations will mean less profitability.”
This is only what you say. In reality NOBODY knows what the results of the warming will be. To say that you do is the height of arrogance that goes with the territory of most of the traders I have met.
And yet again people who have a kindergarten level of geography would know Ayres Rock is 400km sway from Alice Springs. Looks good from 10 000m which is sadly my only view of it as I flew from Perth to Alice. Your pathetic attempts at insults would not have much affect at school and here they are just laughable.
I just tasted the leather upholstery in their porsche rog but didn’t search the glove box for a tax return. I know a fair-dink trader, actually he’s into GHG sink investments now. joe my solar stocks have absolutely GORN OFF!!! thru the roof. I don’t think it’s time to sell yet. Should I hang onto them? Oh sorry for asking, you just admitted to being resistent to change.
Joe – I’m a father and currently a developer of science business. I wasn’t after a stock tip or anything – just some idea of what sort of trading occupies your daily mind?
Joe – in the long run I think you can only be rich if you control energy, knowledge or the environment. But maybe some people don’t want to be rich too.
Phil
I trade currencies, precious metals and some selected stocks- mainly US stocks because the biggies have a high degree of liquidity (I alsways wanbt to be able to get out quickly if I am wrong). I have a currency trading background for the last 25 not so bad years. Worked here when younger then went to NYC and stayed there for 16 years running a trading desks for US investment bank.
Decided after 911 that the rat race wasn’t my bag at my age, wifey wanted to come back and spend time with her family (obviously mine don’t count, kids were getting to age where school meant we would be there forever and aussie at 50 cents was pretty compelling (best trade I have ever done).
Now trade own capital and that of a few clients. Focus on currencies, prec. metals, some stocks and government bonds.
Currently.
Long the jap yen against Euro and the Doll. Great upside in Japanese stocks -still.
Short Aussie agaisnt the Euro
short Gold after being long for very long time. think he next move from US$570 is down $100.
Long GM stock for small upside, but still think the company is probably headed to bankruptcy.
Long some of its bonds because I think GMAC is gunna get sold, so think the bonds credit rating will imporve and yields normalize
Worried that world rates are going higher and liquidity is drying up so think next year is gunna be a bummer for the economy.
Worried that Drop in aussie may prtend to slower growth next year and therefore battern down the hatches here.
That’s it.
Mostly trade at night going to bed at 2/3 am to try and catch the NY market.
That’s it. That’s may posys.
OK we’re impressed. So we suspected that you were are lot smarter than you made out. So what are you doing on this blog talking to a bunch of green sympathetics among a sea of right wingers ?
Thicksy
Glad you are making money and hope you make lots more. Don’t wish bad things on anyone.
Thing is you can’t be spread out too thinly and only know little about a lot.
You seem to know a good deal about that area and it seems to be going well for you.
Yes I am resistant to change, but I learned to be so the hard way.
Me, I best like trading stocks that get trashed as there is always the prospect that ivestors panic out of stuff. There is a term for the stocks and corp. bonds I like to trade. It’s called vulture investing. so I look for distressed stuff that mnay have value. These days with so much money chasing everything I always worry that I may be buying too high (and with the rest of the pack). I don’t generally like doing that.
Good luck with your investing.
And so this is very interesting. It’s like we’re from different worlds. What fills your mind is not what fills ours. And everything you know tells you that we’re wrong eh? And you can’t afford to do homework and lose your edge either.
Phil
well its fun and never too late to learn. I also have a lot of free time on my hands and if i didn’t hang out on the computer etc. i would be ordered to wash dishes and clean up after myself.
So my wife thinks i am working real hard at trying to amke a few bucks and therefore doesn’t bother me as much. Otherwise I would be henpecked.
Also it’s fun beating up on lefties, especially green ones because I think they are wrong about this stuff and if we go too far we can damage our future wealth prospects and a poorer society is one that can’t afford to clean up after itself.
Wealth is the key to a better environment. In fact its the only way forward. I also think technology and big drops in world pop is giunna take care of most tings that we are wrrying about now.
joe interesting reply on the forex etc. While yr opening up: you’re not really worried about global cooling are you? You don’t think that slow changes to mitigate and/or adapt to GW will spell the end of modern civilisation do you? So what concerns you then? I suspect you hang out here because, not unlike the rest of us, you’re concerned there might be a kernel of truth in the GW theory.
Phil maybe joe has something to say on precious metals & fuel cells?
joe can you comment – what’s the profile of traders in (volatile) developing world currencies?
“Wealth is the key to a better environment”. joe do you mean natural environment, or in a more general sense – human social economic environment?
If the latter, there’s empirical evidence (via the World Bank) that good governance leads to higher GDP but higher GDP does not lead to good governance.
If the former, there’s a lag: most rich countries over-exploited their natural environment before the general populace got good living standards. they realise belatedly, then bring in a host of efforts to try to undo the damage. The countries with greenest laws are the ones that barely have any natural environment left.
Thinksey
I actually not worried about cooling or warming. I think there is lots of man warming that is happening but don’t think it’s that dangerous.
However if I am dorced to worry about either, i’d take the cooling simply because on balance of probabilities a cold world is a deadly threat. Respected climate dudes have said that AGW could add about 1 to 6 degs over the next 100 years. This doesn’t make a disaster so if the world is warmer there may be changes but over this time period we will adjust for it.
Anyway, with India and China industrializing so quickly it is a moot point whether we should worry about it because they are going to do what they like whether we want them to or not. Meanwhile we are not going to de-industrialize.
My best guess is that we are worrying about a whole lot of nothing. The wrold will change, but one thing we don’t want is a cooler world.
“joe can you comment – what’s the profile of traders in (volatile) developing world currencies?”
Most of the world’s currency business is now done by a handful of banks. Typical names like UBS, Citigroup, Deutschebank etc. Most deals are now done through electronic screens.
Developing countries most have currecies that are either tied to the dollar or the Euro so there isn’t that much room mfor spoeculation as they dont; float freely. There is also a question of transparency with these currencies that I don’t particularly like. In other words if things go wrong for these countries they get screw speculators like Malaysia did in the latsh 90’s when its currency was under attack they just lock you up. So i just like sticking to the big guys who wouldn’t dare such a thing.
one man’s real estate is another man’s banana
joe; mate, we appreciate you coming out but tomorrow is another day,
cheers.
“The countries with greenest laws are the ones that barely have any natural environment left”.
That’s probably true. The UK, France Italy are pretty much like that. however they do have forrests etc. that have been greatly influenced by humanity. however does it really matter if a forrest was planted by people? Trees are trees after all.
I would bet there are very few places left say in the UK that haven’t been influenced by man. But the English country side is still beautiful whichever way you look at it. So I am not not sure if untouched nature is that important.
Well Costa Rica is pretty good at flogging eco-tourism ?
On metals it seems that platinum has had a big run and palladium is now moving.
And on AGW – it isn’t the average temperature we should be discussing – that’s just an index for the level of change. We all obviously cope now with major changes of daily temperature between individual days and between the seasons.
The real issues are heatwaves (30,000 dead in Europe), hurricane intensity (too soon to know), extreme events (flooding, storms, hail), and the one that concerns me the most – drought and effect on El Nino – this one could really ruin your day.
Also the speed of change on natural systems and burning off more carbon from the permafrost and tundra. I don’t think we have this nailed at all.
From a trading viewpoint – the famous Sir Sidney Kidman tried to drought proof himself by buying a string on properties from Victoria to the Kimberley. But all are affected by El Nino. However what he didn’t know is that you could contemplate a “global Kidman” to escape El Nino. Have cotton in NSW and California. Bowell’s did. And beef in Qld and Argentina (if Argentina was disease free and had market access that we do). So global diverisfication may be a necessary escape hatch for climate change. Doing “a global climate change Kidman adaptation”.
So Joe might teach us how to become more globally strategic?
Some wit actually said that all you needed to predict the Australian economy was the value of the US dollar and the Southern Oscillation Index.
joe when you throw away provocative remarks such as “trees are trees after all” as if the complex aspects of biodiversity, climate change and ecosystem services are really that basic, then my only response is that in your case, ignorance is a choice.
To trick wifey into thinking that you’re working, why not disconnect your keyboard and bang the keys randomly whilst using your still-connected mouse to click and read from some informed sources that expand your understanding? Or tell her it’s now painfully apparent that you must adapt by learning about ethical markets, so she should bugger off and cook yr dinner while you immerse yourself?
Np Ender, you are not correct. The 18-fold increase was not just due to fossil fuel. There is irrigation, plant-breading and lots of other innovations too. Also note that transport tractors can be fuelled by biodiesel, and the core need, fertiliser, is only a minor drain (<3%) on petroleum, and could be supplied by nuclear energy, as it is a demand for hydrogen to convert nitrogen gas to ammonia. In short your 18 fold thrust is 17fold red herring.
The gold market is essentially the fear market – an essentially useless commodity – I am glad joe has said it will tank – I always thought it was overblown.
Fear is what drives all this global warming stuff, fear of personal failure. There’s a lot of cab drivers buying gold stocks.
Rog
The gold market is essentially the fear market – an essentially useless commodity
This is one of the very few times we disagree.
Gold, believe it or not still has some monetary value despite protestations from governments by selling it.
It is qalso a good proxy that can be used as an inflation/deflation guage. Too much world liquidity and it goes up. Too little and it falls
Fear & AGW ? Am I afraid – nope – I think it’s all very interesting. It’s a good problem. A complex problem. I can see why Joe can’t possibly let these thoughts start to dominate – would cause cognitive dissonance overload. You’d have to start thinking about the whole system. You haven’t got enough buffer capaciy left after trading to integrate it and reconcile your value systems simultaneously.
Don’t be too worried about the money – we’re all still dead in the long run.
Anyway WTF – why is gold a commodity of value in terms of strife anyway – it’s only good to line your electronic connectors isn’t it? It’s just heavy yellow stuff. Why not buy platinum or palladium?
rog note that joe has more spine than you. Recall all those times you’ve secretly wondered if Louis had taken his medication but kept yr trap shut – no outward dissension in the ranks n all that? (joe note that rog buys organics, perhaps you could disagree with that too. otherwise, he just deconstructs everything & says little himself, so not much to disagree with)
hey joe I’ve wondered, in my lazy moments, forecasting my mind into a potentially volatile future, IF gold lost its appeal and IF the US $ value was diminished / less reliable, what other proxy could be used to assess relative currency values? Just entertaining those fanciful notions for the moment, got any ideas? Have to be a metal?
Phil hits on something else that occasionally drifts across my mind in idle moments – it must be SO MUCH EASIER to hold a rigid view on these issues. It’s bloody hard to try to remain open to information from all sides of an issue and to be flexible, ie to welcome new info & constantly adjust your outlook accordingly. No wonder most people just choose a corner then doggedly fight to stay there. It’s easier not to think. I might give it up.
Agree Joe, apocalyptic gold bugs arent the drivers of POG just parasites riding off the market.
Sorry thinksi, what times am I supposed to remember? – obviously your memory is better than mine.
With regards to thinksi’s capitulation to market forces, brain fag is endemic amongst political busy bodies and central planners, just leave people alone and let them get on with their own lives.
That in itself is an idealogical pronouncement rog.
I’m all for markets, btw, just not greed and entrenched inequality. Don’t confuse free markets with democracy, they’re not the same thing.
Reading back through this thread as I often do trying to put my finger on what’s wrong with Dr Marohasy’s blog in general I reckon rog hit it with this last post –
“brain fag is endemic amongst political busy bodies and central planners, just leave people alone and let them get on with their own lives”
It’s the arrogance and we all suffer from it.
None the least detribe with his last post IMHO a classic piece of academic nonsense about biodiesel and nuclear power. Considering my experience watching others build our heavy industry and tractors over decades, If we had half the practical talent around then, after the war and beyond the Snowy scheme we would be still struggling today.
As I go off to scrape the varnish of a piece of Queen Anne reproduction furniture with its dammed plywood top (I say we can’t even make the glue) who here could make a wheel or a set of cutlery?
Lets start with building the basics in every home and office before we run away with new ideas.
we all suffer from it except phil
detribe – “Np Ender, you are not correct. The 18-fold increase was not just due to fossil fuel. There is irrigation, plant-breading and lots of other innovations too. Also note that transport tractors can be fuelled by biodiesel, and the core need, fertiliser, is only a minor drain (<3%) on petroleum, and could be supplied by nuclear energy, as it is a demand for hydrogen to convert nitrogen gas to ammonia. In short your 18 fold thrust is 17fold red herring.”
Sure – what are the irrigation pumps powered by? Plant breeding has contributed however the overwhelming factor is the replacement and/or amplification of human effort by extravagant use of energy.
Tractors and transport can be powered by biodiesel but are they now? Nuclear energy without breeding will last 100 years at the most and I am sure the farmers in Iran will be glad that you approve of them having nuclear power for fertiliser.
Friends,
I have a question and I haven’t been able to find an answer for it. Well maybe partially, but not all the way.
I wonder if beer contributes to global warming. Fermentation leads to CO2 emissions, and the foam is fluffed up with CO2.
I’ve discovered that Japan’s Kirin brewery did some plumbing at their facility to minimize CO2 emissions, but still, when people open a can or a bottle or a keg of beer, they are releasing CO2.
Are there figures on the contribution of beer to global warming?
Related question: should there be a “green tax” on beer?
Schiller.
Thinksy, you post that you’re “…all for markets, btw, just not greed and entrenched inequality” and in an earlier exchange within the same thread ask, “Does Neil want all forests privatised, entry only for those with the means to pay and with physical access?”
A consistent theme in my postings reflects the same principles, but if we consider the tourism market in particular, as it had relevance to my post, greed and inequality are hallmarks of the partnership between protected area managers and tourism.
You wrote, “Considering subsidies and incomes, there are some studies showing that the long-term net financial benefit for local communities from conserved forests exceeds that from clear-cut forests (this is NOT a blanket statement against logging).
The QLGA Public Inquiry into National Parks showed otherwise. In fact, it was clear that an acquisition agenda was driving growth so far beyond budgetary capabilities that properties productive contributors to local economies at the time of acquisition were being left derelict to be overrun by feral animals and weeds.
The benefits you speak of come at the expense of the well-being of local communities. Millions of dollars of subsidisation to construct and maintain free-forest-access facilities and the allocation of commercial activity permits to operators predominately from communities away from the attraction with a requirement to pay a mere $1.20 per client to commercially gain from these multi-million dollar facilities and services fragments the marketplace and exerts exclusionary influences on competing markets. In terms of environmental impropriety, such paltry payments go nowhere near to full cost-recovery for the sustainable management of the respective properties.
The disparity of recurrent funding for salaries, capital expenses, vehicles, repairs and maintenance, administration, signage, marketing, insurance, training, superannuation, workplace health and safety, et cetera, provides the marketplace with the illusion of free-entry, when in fact taxpayers unwittingly finance a multi-million dollar exclusionary influence to fair-trading between the public and private sectors.
The Chutes Montmorency Declaration, completed on May 24 following the World Ecotourism Summit in Quebec City, defines ecotourism as responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and sustains the well being of local people. In the case of protected area facilities, the taxpayer conserves the environment and public service employment and commercial permit holders from outside the local community eclipse the well being of local communities.
Genuine ecotourism transcends nature-based tourism by providing a medium through which participants express their willingness to pay for what economists define as “non-use values”. Benefits derived from knowing particular environmental values exist and valuing their bequest to one’s descendants and future generations, including the health of the ecosystem, its bio-diversity, rarity, endemicity, scenic amenity and continuity of human habitation. Off-reserve ecotourism relies on visitor willingness to pay for non-use values.
About 70% of Australia’s landscape is held under private interests, including indigenous landholders. This vast majority of Australia is off-reserve or outside its system of protected area estate and yet it contains outstanding universal values in terms of biological diversity and ecological integrity. Australia’s National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development encourages protection of these values and challenges for nature conservation, both inside and outside protected areas.
So, to answer your question, it is not that I want all forests necessarily privatized, but that their management be bound by the principles of fair trade and competitive neutrality. Indeed, Australia should do its utmost to cultivate the greatest possible yield and spread of ecotourism economies to drive off-reserve conservation and to supplement fickle and increasingly regulated rural land-uses. It must also acknowledge its part in the corruption of ecotourism, but this is another issue and I’m off to Cairns.
Thanks for thoughtful response Neil. To clarify, I don’t equate conservation with exclusion of local people, quite the opposite. nor do I suggest ‘preservation’ with zero mngt. I would like to see that ecotourism is accessible to ordinary people tho (ie experiences beyond Cadbury’s Furry Friends via Woolies). Willingness to pay estimates values, but it’s a policy decision who actually pays (and how the burden is borne as you’ll explain). I’m keen to understand more about all of this. Clearly there are govt failures to listen to locals in the know or act effectively on their knowledge and capacity for stewardship. I lack confidence that any party would handle this in a balanced manner.
“hey joe I’ve wondered, in my lazy moments, forecasting my mind into a potentially volatile future, IF gold lost its appeal and IF the US $ value was diminished / less reliable, what other proxy could be used to assess relative currency values? Just entertaining those fanciful notions for the moment, got any ideas? Have to be a metal?”
1. Well I can’t see how gold would lose it’s long term appeal as it hasn’t done over the last 2,000. At the moment, believe or not we are in the middle of an experiment with the world’s currency system in that we are using fiat currencies without any backing.
In the old days one dollor, pound, lira, franc was only an expression of weight in gold. Now, without going into detail currencies are “floating” without an anchor and the only thing we rely on is that governments will “deflate” the store of value too quickly. My concern is that this system will become unhinged some time off over the next 10 years or so. so I think gold will still carry it’s value.
Your question about the Dollar. If the dollar falls in value it must by definition mean something else in going up in value against the US dollar. You would see it either through the price of goods measured in Us dollars going up or/and the Dollar falling against other currencies.
Take a look at the price of gold and oil measured in dollar terms over the last 5 years or so to see what i mean. Then look at these commodities in say Aussie dollar terms. We haven’t seen anywhere near the same move.
Aussie Dollar was at about 50 cents 5 odd years ago. So you have actually seen the US Doll fall in value.
bugger, I’m not quite sure what you were alluding to above. Are you suggesting we all should manufacture our own cutlery at home, like the backyard iron smelters in China’s Great Leap Forward?
If so, have you heard of the concept of opportunity cost?
Ender:
We are discussing the future, not the past.
Trying to claim or imply that farming can’t continue maintaining high productivity without oil is a furphy when it currently only uses about 2.85 % of total hydrocarbons for fertiliser, and there are so many sustainable options for alternative sources of hydrogen for that fertiliser.
My point remains that it is not essential that large amounts of oil derivatives be used in agriculture and that factors other than oil are part of the forunate increase in farm productivity e have seen the last 100 years.
OK Ender you dont like nuclear energy but how about solar energy as a final option for making hydrogen? And Contrary to your argument recycling of nitrogen and use of renewable hydrogen generators mean that there are vitually infinite amount of fertiliser on tap, at least until the sun dies.
I repat virtually infinite or till the sun dies.
In any case, continued use of fertilsers for several hundred years is an environmentally responsible way to minimise expansion of farmland, and to use your theorising as a way of allowing more encroachment of farms on forest would be a mistake. Coal too, would see us through this period easily as a way of making fertilisers.
I do know my viewpoint contradicts many standard “Green” opinions on farming, but many of these opinions are held by people who never crunch numbers and who only speak to like-minded true believers. It high time that for that kind of “sheltered workshop” to be exposed to the world of robust discussion with free-thinkers.
PS
Ender, so free advice:
Please don’t annoy us with illogical untruths.
When did I state that I support current Iranian nuclear policies?
I choose to have discussions based on factual evidence, and relevant logic, not political jibes, smears, and straw men of your invention.
In trying to put my finger on what’s wrong with Dr Marohasy’s blog in general I recall the battle a bit closer to Jennifer’s home than Tasmania, Fraser Island. Neil’s last post on privatizing forests reminded me of it. Who owns the timber, the sand minerals even the dingoes today?
What is missing on this blog is comments from people like Milo Dunphy, Stan Kelly, Peter Sims etc from outside science. Do your own Google. Although I only met one of these guys each had a profound effect on my own experience in the environment.
Jennifer; we can’t quantify everything in sets of figures. Most of the stuff posted here as reference is probably second or third hand and IMHO has lost any value in translating the real picture on life.
Detribe still commenting on fertilizers etc obviously never heard of the Bert Farquhar legend.
Bugger, You remind me of the fellow who used to complain about my columns in The Land. He said I should generally pay less attention to ‘the evidence’ and ‘listen more’ to nature. I appreciate your interest in the anecdotal and in legends, but my real interest is in the evidence.
Who owns the timber, the sand minerals etc?
The Crown.
Evidence is hardly retained in the constant reference Green politics on this blog Jennifer and underneath I am a very practical perhaps reasonable man.
But any one trying to win an argument by using the word ‘green’ won’t get past me when its only a cover for delivering their own kind of BS and I don’t mean fertilizer. I’ve had a good thirty years to think about that kind of rhetoric and where it comes from.
Redneck country is thick with it.
bugger;
Youll have to bring up reasons for the fertiliser aspect reemerging with Ender – I’m merely responding to his comments. If Bert does without fertilser, good on ‘im I’ll say. Should make Ender happy to think oil or substitute isn’t needed.
I rather think though that in China and India that’s not the case: does Bert’s empire have operations there?
detribe – “rying to claim or imply that farming can’t continue maintaining high productivity without oil is a furphy when it currently only uses about 2.85”
Fertiliser production is only a small part of the problem. The fertiliser has to be transported to the depot then further transported to the farm where it is distributed by a oil fuelled tractor. The water for crops or animals is pumped, if irrigated, by electric or petrol pumps. The produce is then harvested by oil based harvesters, transported to storage by oil fuelled transports and then processed by factories powered by fossil fuels. It is then transported to wharehouses by oil fuelled transport and then transported again to shops. We use oil based transport to go to the shops and buy the food and then process it more with more fossil fuels. So lets get away from the 2.85% bit as oil plays a part in every step from farm to house.
“Ender, so free advice:
Please don’t annoy us with illogical untruths.
When did I state that I support current Iranian nuclear policies?”
I didn’t I simply pointed out in the most economical way possible the can of worms that nuclear power really is. If you think that we can nuke our way out of our problems then you have to work out a way that countries like Iran can safely be allowed to have nuclear power as they will need it too. If you can’t, as is happening right now, then really nuclear power should be dead and buried.
And yes we can produce fertiliser and almost everything else from solar and wind. Capturing CO2 from the air and using solar power to split water we can synthesis almost anything. The problem is that if we do not start now then there will be a gap where there could be a critical shortage of both fertiliser and energy leading to starvation until the renewable options come on line. Waiting around making money will not help a whole lot. The changes have to start happening now to avoid this gap period.
“It wasn’t until the 1950s that I noticed that large parts of the system were disappearing. First fish stocks became extinct. Then the seaweed around the shorelines went. Large patches of forest began to die.
I hadn’t realised until those things had gone that I’d become very fond of them; that I was in love with my country”
Bill Mollison on Tasmania 1950’s
Bill and Burt Farquhar are both on ABC Rural Legends and there in more, on worms and soils etc. for anyone interested enough to Google. This as all about affordable agriculture for everyone.
Add Peter Cundall so we can really live the good life.
I was at a conference where the CSIRO presented studies on phosphate levels in biodynamic farms especially dairies.
They showed reams of evidence of declining phosphate levels, some to critical levels, due to zero inputs allowed – the only inputs allowed being the Steiner biodynamic concoctions (which contain no nutrients).
Didn’t make a blind bit of difference to the biodynamic crowd.
The energy studies I’v sseen, eg
Ethanol’s Energy Return on Investment: A Survey of the Literature 1990-Present
R O E L H A M M E R S C H L A G *
Environ. Sci. Technol.2006, 40,1744-1750
say that tractor transport energy is less than fertiliser energy. If you really believe we are going to starve because we dont have enough fuel to run tractors, can I suggest you think of how easy it is for farmers to make their own diesel.
The total energy demands from the farm sector are just too small to not be solved by innovation and ingenuity.
Now if you talk about food prices, they will rise Im sure….
Ender,
Re your judgment that there an urgent need to develop alternative energy basis for agriculture,
The crisis you talk about is not going to happen. As soon as the energy shortages and food shortages emerge, the price signals will trigger massive investement, and farmers will start smiling again.
If it so close, start raising money for your own ventures to take advantage of the opportunity like McQuarie Bank have started to do.
cheers d
A recent Kight Ridder article by Kevin Hall points out that world’s number two oilfield, Mexico’s supergiant Cantarell, has peaked.
http://www.raisethehammer.org/index.asp?id=269
They found another, Noxal.
The big problem is the lefty Mexican govt squeezing oil revenues for social programs leaving reinvestment in oil technology underfunded.
rog, Any Mexican oil won’t go far, see below –
http://homepage.mac.com/helipilot/PhotoAlbum31.html
Mexico is the 4th largest provider to the US, or was if they cant start operating in a more business like manner.
Most of the worlds oil fields are subject to unstable governments, anxious to control the market for oil revenues. Mexico gets 60% of Pemex revenues which account for 33% govt budget.
detribe – “The crisis you talk about is not going to happen. As soon as the energy shortages and food shortages emerge, the price signals will trigger massive investement”
Well good luck with that – I wish I had your faith.
“Mexican govt squeezing oil revenues for social programs”. Yeah, screw their impoverished cheek, what do they expect – a fair crack at a decent life?.
The hing some of you need to undertand is that the reason there is oil market is because there are will sellers and buyers.
Does anyone here think the Iranians want to seel their oil to white fuckers because they like us? Does anyone think Chavez wants to sell his oil to the US because he loves Bush and America. They friggin well have to because otherwise the masses will jump the fence and eat them alive.
Those places may be unstable, but thye also have to sell their oil as much as they buyers want to consume it.
that’s dead obvious
joe above i was really wondering about a scenario where there’s no longer a strong leading currency, but then gold would probably regain more favour as you say, it’s unlikely to drop out of the picture .. unless of course the public stop believing in this convention. We shouldn’t discuss that tho, it’s subversive to question the basis of the system as it needs confidence. I blame Phil for questioning the basis on which gold is valued, gee – dangerous hippy – he’d have us replace it with a handwoven basket of ambergris, truffles, elves’ insteps and spotted owls.
Phil, what kind of science business?
Thinksi, are you reluctant to accept Jennifer’s invitation for a ‘people post’?
why does that come up? Yes actually. I really don’t think there’s anything interesting worth saying about me, plus I’m preparing my ‘goodbye cruel world’ note..
IMHO, Thinksi, the internet identity, is anything but uninteresting. I would even go so far as to say that her entry into the rough and tumble of Jennifer’s blog has improved the quality and intensity of the exchange so significantly, that I genuinely wonder … who is the legend behind the mask that we know only as as ‘Thinksi’.
Oooh! I thinksi therefore i am!
If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things … Rene Descartes
He’s the bugger that got us into this whole mind v’s matter divisive mess. Doubt him! Reductionism is soooo 20th century.
Doubting the facts and the doubters and yr own doubt itself as well should probably only be done once in a lifetime – such episodes probably explain why a sizely proportion of all people experience mental problems at some point during their life – it really is mind boggling, esp when you start dreaming that you don’t exist (easier to hold & defend a rigid outlook).
As long as it’s not the preparation of your goodbye cruel world note!
Nah, I can’t betray my long line of survivors! I shoulda said ‘goodbye cruel blog’ (but then someone throws up a few biodiversity posts and hook line sinker fishky)
Thinksi; you can be, what you want to be, blog or no blog.
This blog is but a flash in the pan in the whole of life, but let’s not forget, people need other people somewhere and some how. Science and evidence (or lack of it) is as good a topic as any on which to engage and do the battle of wits. But is it worthwhile communication?
We each must practice the art of communication. The fact that I can’t write to save myself must be obvious to many but the fact that I can’t remember what I first thought of may not be. I need tricks to hold it together and that could stop me if I let it.
For many years since I went there and back I tried to practice hitting people with my ideas door to door and I say the hardest of all communication is to listen. On this point alone I learn more from their eyes than their words. This is what we miss most on a blog.
When I worked briefly at Kodak they discovered quickly I had a keen sense of smell and many a lady there I discovered were even keener on deception as we battled in darkness with our process instrumentation. Meeting dozens of new people everyday with out the help of vision is a big challenge. Orientation in a group can be destroyed by a perfume as it is by absolute silence on a prearranged signal.
As I said, people need other people. This is most obvious in the deepest part of a dry mine. Water dripping in a wet one is something. We should never deny someone the knowledge that someone else is there for them in any situation.
Science with numbers only is a cold art. I reckon we put life back into this blog when we drift off the topic. An inverse relationship compared to a drifting instrument.
Out in the sun this morning was another chance to drift when a delighted chap grabbed an armful of my books, mostly light on life. It turned out he was curious in my collection and its origin so we discussed my failure and his rise in the art world. Let’s say its unlikely my stuff will be hung in the Myer Sulman Prise or any other part of the next Archibald series. But within moments there was a gathering of his acquaintances around my market card table, a writer and so on.
Seconds later we all discussing the outback, the forests and Murray Darling Basin, the Commission and its sponsorship of this other lot of people and a guy I knew back home.
Friends; it’s a small world in environment circles. What’s the difference between us?
A link to an article – The Oil that we Eat.
Probably relevant
http://www.harpers.org/TheOilWeEat.html
joe said – “My concern is that the system will become unhinged some time off over the next 10 years”.
Would you mind expanding on this a little?
In R O E L H A M M E R S C H L A G Environ. Sci. Technol.2006, 40,1744-1750 which I quoted before, David Pimental’s work is described as an “outlier”. This is a polite way of saying that of four similar independent studies compared with one another, his was different to and disagreed with ALL the others. His studies tend to use out of date and pessimistic data values. Whether “energy expert” is an accurate descriptor for him could be disputed, then, as he is a person who hasn’t used up to date data performance data for an industry whose performance is changing over time.
I find it interesting that in so many words of the long Harpers article when talking about the “Green Revolution” they can’t find any space to discuss the victims of famine in India prior to the Green revolution. The fact that it saved many lives does rather interfere with the story line contrived by the story. Where taking about a process thats feeding about one BILLION EXTRA people, so the onus is on those who deride it to explain the consequences and timing of the counter revolution they propose for reverseing it. They’d better get their arguments right with a billion lives at stake, ad oh, also I nearly forgot, also need to explain about the land from forests cut down and wilderness ploughed to to create the farmland to feed that billion.
I take your point – energy used in farming needs to be discussed thoroughly. But there gets to a point where over use of drama and emotion gets in the way of understanding and analysis. Also I take the point: tillage of the earth is very ecologically disruptive. Minimum tillage relying on herbicides, can be much better.
Don’t misunderstand me Ender, I’m not ignoring what your saying, but trying to make the point that “Green” emotionalism is getting in the way of considering some hard counter arguments that are highly relevant. Green emotionalism started with Rachel Carson, and is both good and bad: good because it get action going, bad where emotion lead to errors.
“Dangerous myths emerged in the vacuum of history. For example:
• That one book — Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring — started all the uproar;
• That environmentalism is just an hysterical reaction to science and technology;
• That environmentalism is a passing fad with no serious ideas to offer.
The myths call us like sirens, telling us that environmental issues can be safely ignored. Nothing could be further from the truth”.
From my google on Rachel Carson green and history – why?
This – “Minimum tillage relying on herbicides, can be much better”. I am beginning to think detribe is a dangerous academic- why?
No one here has worked with more toxic chemicals over time in his city than me and this rhetoric is oh so familiar. I was a specialist in chemical plant commissioning and maintenance at a time multi nationals were flogging all kinds of stuff onto an unsuspecting Australian public including our rural sector. Plant safety was one issue well under control most of the time but distribution and end use was another.
The need for a fresh political approach to a range of pressing social issues such as photo chemical smog over Melbourne that grew largely out of activity in its Western Suburbs may well have started in night classes at our Swinburn College of Technology in the late 1960’s. The first opportunity began with the rapid decline of the DLP in the early 1970’s.
Two people flew to Hobart in 1972 to influence the folk considering a launch, that became the UTG. Others went on to lever liberals like Chipp and step over the old Victorian EPA and their cozy relationship with industry in Melbourne’s Western suburbs.
Someone tell detribe the green smell is still right under his nose.
If any one thing had an impact here on our environmental thinking, it was probably best spelt out by the filming of “On the beach” in Australia (1959).
“Chemicals” is a very general term, much like “experts”. I can find no substantive evidence that the proper use of the chemical herbicide “glyphosate” has any residual adverse effects.
I can find some evidence that the wetting agent also used in the application may have some adverse effects on bacteria and mycorrhizoids, soil “biota”. It has been suggested that wetting agents have a deleterious affect on some amphibians by reducing their protective mucous membranes.
Wetting agents act to reduce the protective surface tension and allow penetration, the commonest form of wetting agent being soap.