LIFE IS FULL OF TESTS ... imagine one of our hunter-gather ancestors setting off with his mates to hunt for game. Perhaps it is over a week since they have made a kill. Should they fail today someone of their tribe may die from hunger. Or again... imagine our pioneer ancestors, in the 1850s, arriving at Split Rock in western Wyoming, on the way to the Pacific lands, and contemplating crossing the Rockies. If they dally, they will be overtaken by the harsh Winter. If they press on, snow storms may catch them in the mountain passes.
Perhaps you have faced a test in which, if you did not take precisely the correct action, you would not have lived to tell the tale. For my part, flying has presented several such moments when only good training stood in my stead and... here I am, still telling a tale or two.
Speaking of tests, the Bible begins with a great story of the 'ultimate test'. Biblical stories often contain profound metaphors and can still teach us much. In the second story of creation we see Man placed in a wonderful garden, full of delicious fruits. He is told, 'You may eat whatever you wish of these good things, except for the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The day that you do so is the day you will certainly die.'
The point of this is that there may be some actions in the ''garden' (our world) that can put us in great peril. For most of our history, humans have been much at the mercy of events. We hardly thought that some things we do might profoundly affect the way the living world works. We are accustomed to think that nothing we do will matter in the long run.
Glenn's comment on a previous post is pertinent (referring to awareness of climate change) '...how one can translate that into enhanced national "awareness" is a challenge for all of to think about'.
Is this 'THE TEST'? The BIG one...the one we all have to pass?
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
CRUNCH TIME: Part Two
WARMER...THEN COOLER seems to have been the pattern of climate change. How could this be? We have seen that climate change can be non-linear. The earth cannot not just keep on gradually getting warmer because, once heat radiated exceeds heat received, the temperature will drop at some point to ensure equilibrium. How this might come about is an intriguing question.
In the meantime, much of the worry about the 'green house' effect appears to be related to the rise in sea levels as the Greenland ice sheet and, to a lesser degree, the Antarctic ice sheet melt. The ice sheet over Greenland is up to two miles thick; should it melt completely folk living near the coast would have enormous problems, not to mention huge loss of agricultural lands.
Burning fossil fuels, especially over the last 60 years, has dumped lots of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere while de-afforestation has removed significant carbon sinks. According to The Guardian (May 12), "Scientists at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii say that CO2 levels in the atmosphere now stand at 387 parts per million (ppm), up almost 40% since the industrial revolution and the highest for at least the last 650,000 years." In addition, some scientists worry that methane currently locked up in sub-arctic tundras will be released as these areas unfreeze, adding more greenhouse gas.
Serious as gradual sea level rise will be, a more serious, precipitous outcome is in the offing. Fresh water melt from Greenland enters the north Atlantic just about where the cooled, saltier water of the Gulf Stream begins to sink to the ocean depths to turn southward. Large volumes of fresh water melt drawn into these gyres and mixed with the more saline current, have the capacity to prevent the downward sinking by lessening local sea water density. Depending on volume, this could slow or stall the great ocean conveyor. This would produce a succession of colder European winters and summers leading to widespread crop failures. It would also cause the ice sheets to begin to regenerate, adding another factor to the cooling trend.
A cooler Arctic region, coupled to the now relatively much warmer equator would accelerate the climate engine. The jet streams in the Northern Hemisphere would speed up and move more northerly, bringing wild weather and drought conditions where we now expect to grow crops. During the Little Ice Age, Europe experienced famine due to crop failures but this may have been somewhat reduced by the plagues.
Remember that, prior to the Twentieth Century, most people ate food produced locally, a large proportion of folk being employed in agriculture. Nowadays, in developed countries, just a few farmers produce food for the rest of us (ratio: one farmer per 70 or more non-farmers) and food is transported many hundreds of miles before we purchase it. Widespread crop failure, in conjunction with high transport costs, could prove catastrophic for millions.
Our most pressing concern may therefore be a sudden increase in the melt rate of the Greenland ice sheet dumping enough fresh water into the sea around Greenland and Labrador to stop the Great Ocean Conveyor.
Could continued extravagance in burning fossil fuels bring that about? You can bet your life on it! But then, we are betting somebody's life on it, are we not?
In the meantime, much of the worry about the 'green house' effect appears to be related to the rise in sea levels as the Greenland ice sheet and, to a lesser degree, the Antarctic ice sheet melt. The ice sheet over Greenland is up to two miles thick; should it melt completely folk living near the coast would have enormous problems, not to mention huge loss of agricultural lands.
Burning fossil fuels, especially over the last 60 years, has dumped lots of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere while de-afforestation has removed significant carbon sinks. According to The Guardian (May 12), "Scientists at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii say that CO2 levels in the atmosphere now stand at 387 parts per million (ppm), up almost 40% since the industrial revolution and the highest for at least the last 650,000 years." In addition, some scientists worry that methane currently locked up in sub-arctic tundras will be released as these areas unfreeze, adding more greenhouse gas.
Serious as gradual sea level rise will be, a more serious, precipitous outcome is in the offing. Fresh water melt from Greenland enters the north Atlantic just about where the cooled, saltier water of the Gulf Stream begins to sink to the ocean depths to turn southward. Large volumes of fresh water melt drawn into these gyres and mixed with the more saline current, have the capacity to prevent the downward sinking by lessening local sea water density. Depending on volume, this could slow or stall the great ocean conveyor. This would produce a succession of colder European winters and summers leading to widespread crop failures. It would also cause the ice sheets to begin to regenerate, adding another factor to the cooling trend.
A cooler Arctic region, coupled to the now relatively much warmer equator would accelerate the climate engine. The jet streams in the Northern Hemisphere would speed up and move more northerly, bringing wild weather and drought conditions where we now expect to grow crops. During the Little Ice Age, Europe experienced famine due to crop failures but this may have been somewhat reduced by the plagues.
Remember that, prior to the Twentieth Century, most people ate food produced locally, a large proportion of folk being employed in agriculture. Nowadays, in developed countries, just a few farmers produce food for the rest of us (ratio: one farmer per 70 or more non-farmers) and food is transported many hundreds of miles before we purchase it. Widespread crop failure, in conjunction with high transport costs, could prove catastrophic for millions.
Our most pressing concern may therefore be a sudden increase in the melt rate of the Greenland ice sheet dumping enough fresh water into the sea around Greenland and Labrador to stop the Great Ocean Conveyor.
Could continued extravagance in burning fossil fuels bring that about? You can bet your life on it! But then, we are betting somebody's life on it, are we not?
CRUNCH TIME: Part One
THE AVERAGE TEMPERATURE of the Earth has been rising, everyone agrees. Climate science has discovered that this has been going on for the last 25,000 years or so but with a hiccup here and there (for example, the Little Ice Age from 1300 AD to 1800 AD). The big question is, how significant is human activity like our burning fossil fuels in large quantities since the Industrial Revolution began?
Climate science also informs us that the past 15,000 years has been a period of exceptional climate stability, just warm and wet enough to favor the development of agriculture. Prior to this, our human ancestors had to cope with the vicissitudes of two great ice ages. There were not a lot of us back then and it is even possible that the human population was sometimes reduced to thousands. Our effect on climate was virtually nil.
During the ice ages lots of snow and ice covered the poles and extended down to the mid -latitudes. The earth received less heat and tended to stay cold. The regular change in the earth's orbit and in the orientation of the poles resulted in warming and the end of each ice age.
The atmospheric winds and ocean currents adjust the amount of ice around the poles by transferring heat from the hotter equator, the air and sea each doing about half the work. One current in particular, the huge current that contains the Gulf Stream, has attracted attention as it appears to influence the climatic 'flip flops' signs of which are found in the ice and sediment records.
Climatologists have nicknamed it 'The Great Conveyor'. It is a massive flow judged to be as much as 100 times that of the Amazon River. Starting at the part we call The Gulf Stream, warm water flows northwards towards Greenland and Labrador becoming saltier and cooler. At the top of the loop, it sinks to the lower depths and turns southwards, eventually entering the southern oceans before moving east past the Antarctic and then up into the north Pacific. The final part of the loop returns westwards along the Equator, around Africa and back up into the Atlantic, warming and becoming more saline. A drop of water, taking this amazing journey, would be in transit for about a thousand years!
Should the Great Conveyor slow or even stall, less heat reaches the northern latitudes. The ice sheet will grow. Instead being warmer and wetter than Canada, making agriculture impossible, Europe would become cold and dry leading to crop failures. This could be the 'Crunch Current".
Climate science also informs us that the past 15,000 years has been a period of exceptional climate stability, just warm and wet enough to favor the development of agriculture. Prior to this, our human ancestors had to cope with the vicissitudes of two great ice ages. There were not a lot of us back then and it is even possible that the human population was sometimes reduced to thousands. Our effect on climate was virtually nil.
During the ice ages lots of snow and ice covered the poles and extended down to the mid -latitudes. The earth received less heat and tended to stay cold. The regular change in the earth's orbit and in the orientation of the poles resulted in warming and the end of each ice age.
The atmospheric winds and ocean currents adjust the amount of ice around the poles by transferring heat from the hotter equator, the air and sea each doing about half the work. One current in particular, the huge current that contains the Gulf Stream, has attracted attention as it appears to influence the climatic 'flip flops' signs of which are found in the ice and sediment records.
Climatologists have nicknamed it 'The Great Conveyor'. It is a massive flow judged to be as much as 100 times that of the Amazon River. Starting at the part we call The Gulf Stream, warm water flows northwards towards Greenland and Labrador becoming saltier and cooler. At the top of the loop, it sinks to the lower depths and turns southwards, eventually entering the southern oceans before moving east past the Antarctic and then up into the north Pacific. The final part of the loop returns westwards along the Equator, around Africa and back up into the Atlantic, warming and becoming more saline. A drop of water, taking this amazing journey, would be in transit for about a thousand years! Should the Great Conveyor slow or even stall, less heat reaches the northern latitudes. The ice sheet will grow. Instead being warmer and wetter than Canada, making agriculture impossible, Europe would become cold and dry leading to crop failures. This could be the 'Crunch Current".
Sunday, August 24, 2008
MAINTAINING FOCUS
CLIMATE CHANGE AND HUMAN ADJUSTMENT is proving to be so interesting that I need to keep a clear focus. Let's stay focused on climate change and the interaction between climate and human activity.
Weather and climate change are not the same thing. Weather is day-to-day stuff while climate change is the stuff of decades through to millenia. The exception to this is violent weather that seems to occur over the several years involving a climate flip-flop from warmer-wetter to cooler-dryer, as the story from the ice core research seems to indicate (I hope you turn to those two books I have mentioned for the background to this pronouncement).
Relative to the period of the ice-ages (beginning some 2.5 million years back), human study of climate is startlingly brief. What caused the ice-age period is not clear; however, prior to this , the earth was considerably warmer. Scientific study of climate is less than 200 years in the making and has only made serious advances in the last 40 years. The average temperature of the earth has been warming these last 30,000 years. Back then, ice sheets covered 30% of the earth's surface whereas currrent coverage is only 10%.
Climate is the engine that transports heat from the equator towards the poles. We all know it is hotter at the equator and gets less so as we go toward the poles. Unless heat could be moved, it would be hotter at the equator and much colder at the poles than is the case. This work is shared between two abundant fluids; water forming the oceans and the gases that compose the atmosphere above the seas. The basic forces that move the air are convection and the Coriolis effect. Heating at the equator causes air to rise, move toward the poles, descend as it cools, rise again and so on, steadily moving heat as it does so. Land complicates this flow by getting in the way of the lower winds. With more land north of the equator, the effects of the lands on wind flow are somewhat different between the northern and southern hemispheres. Land also divides the sea into regional oceans. Changes in temperature and salinity cause currents to flow in these regional oceans. Land also causes the regional oceans to have different sea levels and to have differing salinity, in addition to different temperatures. Because these regional oceans are connected to each other, currents flow between them to even things up. In the nature of things, evening up cannot occur due to the sun persisting in heating the earth, so the whole climate heat engine just keeps on running.
We humans live on the land and, apart from wind (and ocean currents if you happen to be seriously involved with getting around between bits of land), are hardly aware of the climate apart from the micro-shifts we call the weather.
The average temperature of the earth's surface at any period depends on many inputs. When lots of ice and thick clouds abound, the earth tends to be cooler. The climate engine does not run as fast because more heat is reflected and less heat reaches the surface of the earth. When carbon dioxide, water vapor, and methane concentrations increase in the atmosphere, heat is prevented from escaping by radiation causing the temperature to rise (the 'greenhouse' effect). During the ice ages the earth was cooler. In between ice ages, things warmed up. That the ice ages will occur can be predicted to some degree by variations in the path of the earth around the sun (causing it to be significantly nearer or further from the sun), oscillations in the angle of the earth's axis to the plane of its orbit, and by the temperature of the sun's surface. This was mathematically predicted before we had evidence of the ice ages.
Climate change causation is even more complicated than I make out and, even after the basic data were discovered, the development of useful models had to await the appearance of supercomputers to run the models that simulate climate change.
Although politicians make use of some results from science from time to time (Einstein's letter to FDR about the atom bomb and the likelihood of Hitler producing one early in WWII is one example), they seem nowadays to be more influenced by lobbying from powerful sectional interests. The rest of us have lost interest in science or, at worse, are skeptical about its supposed 'findings'. Until recently, scientific reports about climate change (if you disregard the occasional horror movie of episodes on Discovery Channel) got about as much regard as Noah may have received when he commenced building the Ark.
Well, this little foray into the science of climate and climate change is over for the moment. The next posting will seek to relate something of what has emerged about the great heat exchange engine (climate) and the effect of human activity.
Weather and climate change are not the same thing. Weather is day-to-day stuff while climate change is the stuff of decades through to millenia. The exception to this is violent weather that seems to occur over the several years involving a climate flip-flop from warmer-wetter to cooler-dryer, as the story from the ice core research seems to indicate (I hope you turn to those two books I have mentioned for the background to this pronouncement).
Relative to the period of the ice-ages (beginning some 2.5 million years back), human study of climate is startlingly brief. What caused the ice-age period is not clear; however, prior to this , the earth was considerably warmer. Scientific study of climate is less than 200 years in the making and has only made serious advances in the last 40 years. The average temperature of the earth has been warming these last 30,000 years. Back then, ice sheets covered 30% of the earth's surface whereas currrent coverage is only 10%.
Climate is the engine that transports heat from the equator towards the poles. We all know it is hotter at the equator and gets less so as we go toward the poles. Unless heat could be moved, it would be hotter at the equator and much colder at the poles than is the case. This work is shared between two abundant fluids; water forming the oceans and the gases that compose the atmosphere above the seas. The basic forces that move the air are convection and the Coriolis effect. Heating at the equator causes air to rise, move toward the poles, descend as it cools, rise again and so on, steadily moving heat as it does so. Land complicates this flow by getting in the way of the lower winds. With more land north of the equator, the effects of the lands on wind flow are somewhat different between the northern and southern hemispheres. Land also divides the sea into regional oceans. Changes in temperature and salinity cause currents to flow in these regional oceans. Land also causes the regional oceans to have different sea levels and to have differing salinity, in addition to different temperatures. Because these regional oceans are connected to each other, currents flow between them to even things up. In the nature of things, evening up cannot occur due to the sun persisting in heating the earth, so the whole climate heat engine just keeps on running.
We humans live on the land and, apart from wind (and ocean currents if you happen to be seriously involved with getting around between bits of land), are hardly aware of the climate apart from the micro-shifts we call the weather.
The average temperature of the earth's surface at any period depends on many inputs. When lots of ice and thick clouds abound, the earth tends to be cooler. The climate engine does not run as fast because more heat is reflected and less heat reaches the surface of the earth. When carbon dioxide, water vapor, and methane concentrations increase in the atmosphere, heat is prevented from escaping by radiation causing the temperature to rise (the 'greenhouse' effect). During the ice ages the earth was cooler. In between ice ages, things warmed up. That the ice ages will occur can be predicted to some degree by variations in the path of the earth around the sun (causing it to be significantly nearer or further from the sun), oscillations in the angle of the earth's axis to the plane of its orbit, and by the temperature of the sun's surface. This was mathematically predicted before we had evidence of the ice ages.
Climate change causation is even more complicated than I make out and, even after the basic data were discovered, the development of useful models had to await the appearance of supercomputers to run the models that simulate climate change.
Although politicians make use of some results from science from time to time (Einstein's letter to FDR about the atom bomb and the likelihood of Hitler producing one early in WWII is one example), they seem nowadays to be more influenced by lobbying from powerful sectional interests. The rest of us have lost interest in science or, at worse, are skeptical about its supposed 'findings'. Until recently, scientific reports about climate change (if you disregard the occasional horror movie of episodes on Discovery Channel) got about as much regard as Noah may have received when he commenced building the Ark.
Well, this little foray into the science of climate and climate change is over for the moment. The next posting will seek to relate something of what has emerged about the great heat exchange engine (climate) and the effect of human activity.
CORRECTION
PRIMATES WALKING:
In my previous posting, I indicated that our evolutionary ancestors had been walking and using tools over the period of the last ice age (125,000 years). It seems walking has been going on, so far as can be inferred from the development of a heel that can support full body weight, at the beginning of the ice ages, some 2.5 million years ago! There is evidence of tool using from that time also. However, primate brains were much smaller then. At the beginning of the most recent ice age, hominid brains had increased 300% in size and the newer brain part, the cerebral cortex, had become much larger and elaborated.
In my previous posting, I indicated that our evolutionary ancestors had been walking and using tools over the period of the last ice age (125,000 years). It seems walking has been going on, so far as can be inferred from the development of a heel that can support full body weight, at the beginning of the ice ages, some 2.5 million years ago! There is evidence of tool using from that time also. However, primate brains were much smaller then. At the beginning of the most recent ice age, hominid brains had increased 300% in size and the newer brain part, the cerebral cortex, had become much larger and elaborated.
Friday, August 22, 2008
CLIMATE and THE WEATHER
ONE OF YOU RECENTLY emailed a reply to a posting and included this comment: 'Watching the Weather Channel is now like watching a Hollywood disaster film...'
It is hard to tell, from the weather, just what is going on in the world. Part of the trouble with the weather is that it is so changeable and our recall of weather patterns (which vary in cycles longer than our lifespan) is imperfect. Unless, that is, unless you are a climate-oriented scientist who has been active in the profession over the last 20 years. Before that, we knew little about long term weather patterns.
This comment drove me back to two books I have read that bear on the climate and how the weather we experience fits into things. These are 'The Two Mile Time Machine' by Richard B Alley, published in 2000, and 'A Brain For All Seasons by William H Calvin, published in 2003. Richard Alley spends a his time helping dig up ice cores from the ice shelf in Greenland and studying what this can tell us about climate going back almost 250,000 years. William Calvin is a neurophysiolist, originally a physicist, who is interested in how climate change and the evolution of the brain and human intelligence might be connected.
250,000 years seems a long time and covers the span of two recent great ice ages, a good bit of the time that primates like ourselves have been walking more and more upright. It is also a time when hominid brains have been getting bigger. Modern humans have been around for 150,000 years, roughly the period of the most recent ice age. During this time we have developed tool use, tool making, language, agriculture, and finally industry. This intrigues William Calvin who wonders about how climate change has influenced increasing cleverness. I recommend these two very stimulating books to your reading.
The earth's climate has been warming these last 15,000 years, with a few recursions into cold periods about 13,000, 9,000, and 1,300 years ago when the climate flipped from warm and wet to cold and dry. These adverse periods made life extremely hard for our ancestors and lasted variously roughly five and fifteen centuries. Agriculture has only been around for about 8,000 years; before that we were all hunter-gatherers. Written history began about the same time and was well developed by the last cold period when we know that Europe became very cold and crops failed or were uncertain for a long time. Painters from this time depicted such scenes as folk skating on the canals in The Netherlands.
These ice cores (and sedimentary deposits in the lakes and the sea, as well as iceberg rock-rubbish dumped on the sea bottom) tell us that these changes from warm-wet to cold-dry happened very quickly (less than a decade). Rainfall shifted to higher latitudes leaving the deserts around the equator to expand. Weather in the mid-latitudes became more violent as winds became stronger. Maybe the weather is telling us something important!
Here is the paradox...global warming can lead relatively suddenly to catastrophic cold-dry periods when agriculture becomes harder and literally millions starve.
Lots more has to be discovered about how this 'flip flopping' comes about. It is sure to happen again in our future. Climate scientists seem now to understand that global climate change can be non-linear. At some point, gradual changes lead to sudden inversions. How does this relate to our modern focus on green house gases and global warming?
The significant 'green house' gases are water vapor, methane, and carbon dioxide. We add quite a bit of the last gas to the atmosphere through burning fossil fuels. Keeping lots of cattle and hogs (especially if they are grain fed), not to overlook human activities like regular lawn mowing, puts plenty of methane into the air. Even we humans contribute methane (a couple of pints per day per person) and there are a lot of us contributing (oh, pooh)!
Here is the significant point. As increasing pressure pressure on the switch suddenly turns on the light or increasing pressure on the trigger leads to the firing of the gun so gradual warming of the atmosphere can lead to a sudden flip into cold dry conditions. This could well lead to widespread failure of agriculture and extensive famine conditions.
So, keep and eye on the weather and learn from the past...it has all happened before and not just once or twice.
It is hard to tell, from the weather, just what is going on in the world. Part of the trouble with the weather is that it is so changeable and our recall of weather patterns (which vary in cycles longer than our lifespan) is imperfect. Unless, that is, unless you are a climate-oriented scientist who has been active in the profession over the last 20 years. Before that, we knew little about long term weather patterns.
This comment drove me back to two books I have read that bear on the climate and how the weather we experience fits into things. These are 'The Two Mile Time Machine' by Richard B Alley, published in 2000, and 'A Brain For All Seasons by William H Calvin, published in 2003. Richard Alley spends a his time helping dig up ice cores from the ice shelf in Greenland and studying what this can tell us about climate going back almost 250,000 years. William Calvin is a neurophysiolist, originally a physicist, who is interested in how climate change and the evolution of the brain and human intelligence might be connected.
250,000 years seems a long time and covers the span of two recent great ice ages, a good bit of the time that primates like ourselves have been walking more and more upright. It is also a time when hominid brains have been getting bigger. Modern humans have been around for 150,000 years, roughly the period of the most recent ice age. During this time we have developed tool use, tool making, language, agriculture, and finally industry. This intrigues William Calvin who wonders about how climate change has influenced increasing cleverness. I recommend these two very stimulating books to your reading.
The earth's climate has been warming these last 15,000 years, with a few recursions into cold periods about 13,000, 9,000, and 1,300 years ago when the climate flipped from warm and wet to cold and dry. These adverse periods made life extremely hard for our ancestors and lasted variously roughly five and fifteen centuries. Agriculture has only been around for about 8,000 years; before that we were all hunter-gatherers. Written history began about the same time and was well developed by the last cold period when we know that Europe became very cold and crops failed or were uncertain for a long time. Painters from this time depicted such scenes as folk skating on the canals in The Netherlands.
These ice cores (and sedimentary deposits in the lakes and the sea, as well as iceberg rock-rubbish dumped on the sea bottom) tell us that these changes from warm-wet to cold-dry happened very quickly (less than a decade). Rainfall shifted to higher latitudes leaving the deserts around the equator to expand. Weather in the mid-latitudes became more violent as winds became stronger. Maybe the weather is telling us something important!
Here is the paradox...global warming can lead relatively suddenly to catastrophic cold-dry periods when agriculture becomes harder and literally millions starve.
Lots more has to be discovered about how this 'flip flopping' comes about. It is sure to happen again in our future. Climate scientists seem now to understand that global climate change can be non-linear. At some point, gradual changes lead to sudden inversions. How does this relate to our modern focus on green house gases and global warming?
The significant 'green house' gases are water vapor, methane, and carbon dioxide. We add quite a bit of the last gas to the atmosphere through burning fossil fuels. Keeping lots of cattle and hogs (especially if they are grain fed), not to overlook human activities like regular lawn mowing, puts plenty of methane into the air. Even we humans contribute methane (a couple of pints per day per person) and there are a lot of us contributing (oh, pooh)!
Here is the significant point. As increasing pressure pressure on the switch suddenly turns on the light or increasing pressure on the trigger leads to the firing of the gun so gradual warming of the atmosphere can lead to a sudden flip into cold dry conditions. This could well lead to widespread failure of agriculture and extensive famine conditions.
So, keep and eye on the weather and learn from the past...it has all happened before and not just once or twice.
Monday, August 11, 2008
IS THIS MY LAST WORD?
TWO OPINIONS IN NY TIMES this week could be of interest.
- Editorial, Energy Fictions (August 10), concluding paragraph: "Here is the underlying reality: A nation that uses one-quarter of the world’s oil while possessing less than 3 percent of its reserves cannot drill its way to happiness at the pump, much less self-sufficiency. The only plausible strategy is to cut consumption while embarking on a serious program of alternative fuels and energy sources. This is a point the honest candidate should be making at every turn." The point of this editorial..."A toxic combination of $4 gasoline, voter anxiety and presidential ambition is making it impossible for this country to have the grown-up conversation it needs about energy."
- Thomas L. Friedman, Flush With Energy: (Aug 10): He comments on his recent visit to Denmark where, since 1973 taxes have been applied to gasoline to raise the price to the equivalent of USD10 per gallon and applied these, along with carbon taxes, to the development of alternative energy. The result of this has been the transformation of a society that was almost completely dependent on foreign oil to one that is now energy sufficient. Friedman says, "What was the trick? To be sure, Denmark is much smaller than us and was lucky to discover some oil in the North Sea. But despite that, Danes imposed on themselves a set of gasoline taxes, CO2 taxes and building-and-appliance efficiency standards that allowed them to grow their economy — while barely growing their energy consumption — and gave birth to a Danish clean-power industry that is one of the most competitive in the world today. Denmark today gets nearly 20 percent of its electricity from wind. America? About 1 percent."
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
GOD BLESS THE MARKET, or
WHAT KIND OF PRESIDENT DO WE NEED?
Charles de Gaulle once remarked, "I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians".
Both candidates for the US Presidency are having quite a bit to say about the cost of motor fuel and what should be done about it. Almost everyone in the US is of the view that gasoline costs too much. Naturally, we all like to buy a commodity as cheaply as possible. When I purchased gas back in 1987, while traveling in Ohio, I was amazed that I pumped gas into my friend's Honda for around 70 cents a gallon; that was about what it was costing per liter in Australia! Of course, in the UK, it was costing around twice that per liter. In 1999, I thought it pretty good when I managed to buy gas for as little as 99 cents per gallon and got a little upset when it went up to $1.15.
Public Radio in the US runs a sage and thoroughly humorous Saturday morning show, Car Talk, hosted by Tom and Ray Magliozzi ("Click and Clack"). I recommend that you listen to it from time to time. When I first began to listen to this show, back in 1987, one of them remarked that gasoline was so cheap it might as well be given away!
According to many economists, when demand for a product goes up, price will increase and lead to increased supply, resulting in a lower price. As we are beginning to notice, when supply cannot ramped up, all that happens is that price goes up. At a certain point, this affects demand. In the US, demand for gasoline has fallen almost 3% compared with a year ago. In terms of making an invaluable and essential commodity last longer, in the face of limited capacity, this is a desirable outcome.
When it comes to world supply of oil over a long enough period for alternate sources of energy to be developed, this is just what we need. For good measure, let's throw in the dangers of global warming.
As I remarked in the last posting, the present cost of fuel is producing some progress toward a saner construction of society. It is even having some effect on globalization (itself a freak result of overly cheap transportation costs) for which see the article in New York Times last Sunday, Shipping Costs Start to Crimp Globalization. When you consider that bunker fuel (for shipping) is the cheapest fraction of oil before bitumen, this is really news. Another bit of news is that even bitumen is becoming costly and sufficiently scarce to affect the maintenance of roads.
Actually, I am all for drilling to discover more oil and am glad that the ethanol-from-corn myth as the answer to foreign oil dependence has been debunked. I certainly hope that biofuels that do not compete with food supplies will become available as quickly as possible. None of this will lead to fuels that are cheaper than ought to be, in terms of preserving the supply of oil for the really amazing uses we have found for it.
Human society depends on energy and, luckily for us, there are abundant supplies of energy all about us that are being developed. These will not threaten our home, the planet Earth. Cheap oil can only get in the way of a truly energy rich society. We need and should demand for politicians who refuse to pander to the cry for cheap gasoline. However, according to an old saw, we get the politicians we deserve. So let's give some thought to the world we want for our grandchildren and their children, the kind of world we are bequeathing to them. Let's look for and listen for a politician who takes politics seriously.
Charles de Gaulle once remarked, "I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians".
Both candidates for the US Presidency are having quite a bit to say about the cost of motor fuel and what should be done about it. Almost everyone in the US is of the view that gasoline costs too much. Naturally, we all like to buy a commodity as cheaply as possible. When I purchased gas back in 1987, while traveling in Ohio, I was amazed that I pumped gas into my friend's Honda for around 70 cents a gallon; that was about what it was costing per liter in Australia! Of course, in the UK, it was costing around twice that per liter. In 1999, I thought it pretty good when I managed to buy gas for as little as 99 cents per gallon and got a little upset when it went up to $1.15.
Public Radio in the US runs a sage and thoroughly humorous Saturday morning show, Car Talk, hosted by Tom and Ray Magliozzi ("Click and Clack"). I recommend that you listen to it from time to time. When I first began to listen to this show, back in 1987, one of them remarked that gasoline was so cheap it might as well be given away!
According to many economists, when demand for a product goes up, price will increase and lead to increased supply, resulting in a lower price. As we are beginning to notice, when supply cannot ramped up, all that happens is that price goes up. At a certain point, this affects demand. In the US, demand for gasoline has fallen almost 3% compared with a year ago. In terms of making an invaluable and essential commodity last longer, in the face of limited capacity, this is a desirable outcome.
When it comes to world supply of oil over a long enough period for alternate sources of energy to be developed, this is just what we need. For good measure, let's throw in the dangers of global warming.
As I remarked in the last posting, the present cost of fuel is producing some progress toward a saner construction of society. It is even having some effect on globalization (itself a freak result of overly cheap transportation costs) for which see the article in New York Times last Sunday, Shipping Costs Start to Crimp Globalization. When you consider that bunker fuel (for shipping) is the cheapest fraction of oil before bitumen, this is really news. Another bit of news is that even bitumen is becoming costly and sufficiently scarce to affect the maintenance of roads.
Actually, I am all for drilling to discover more oil and am glad that the ethanol-from-corn myth as the answer to foreign oil dependence has been debunked. I certainly hope that biofuels that do not compete with food supplies will become available as quickly as possible. None of this will lead to fuels that are cheaper than ought to be, in terms of preserving the supply of oil for the really amazing uses we have found for it.
Human society depends on energy and, luckily for us, there are abundant supplies of energy all about us that are being developed. These will not threaten our home, the planet Earth. Cheap oil can only get in the way of a truly energy rich society. We need and should demand for politicians who refuse to pander to the cry for cheap gasoline. However, according to an old saw, we get the politicians we deserve. So let's give some thought to the world we want for our grandchildren and their children, the kind of world we are bequeathing to them. Let's look for and listen for a politician who takes politics seriously.
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