Forecast for 2009

This posting, written by James Howard Kunstler, provides a helpful overview to the issues facing us as we work to recreate our economy to include the challenges of Peak Oil.

Zev

Introduction (Full Text)

There are two realities "out there" now competing for verification among those who think about national affairs and make things happen. The dominant one (let's call it the Status Quo) is that our problems of finance and economy will self-correct and allow the project of a "consumer" economy to resume in "growth" mode. This view includes the idea that technology will rescue us from our fossil fuel predicament -- through "innovation," through the discovery of new techno rescue remedy fuels, and via "drill, baby, drill" policy. This view assumes an orderly transition through the current "rough patch" into a vibrant re-energized era of "green" Happy Motoring and resumed Blue Light Special shopping.

The minority reality (let's call it The Long Emergency) says that it is necessary to make radically new arrangements for daily life and rather soon. It says that a campaign to sustain the unsustainable will amount to a tragic squandering of our dwindling resources. It says that the "consumer" era of economics is over, that suburbia will lose its value, that the automobile will be a diminishing presence in daily life, that the major systems we've come to rely on will founder, and that the transition between where we are now and where we are going is apt to be tumultuous.

My own view is obviously the one called The Long Emergency.

Since the change it proposes is so severe, it naturally generates exactly the kind of cognitive dissonance that paradoxically reinforces the Status Quo view, especially the deep wishes associated with saving all the familiar, comfortable trappings of life as we have known it. The dialectic between the two realities can't be sorted out between the stupid and the bright, or even the altruistic and the selfish. The various tech industries are full of MIT-certified, high-achiever Status Quo techno-triumphalists who are convinced that electric cars or diesel-flavored algae excreta will save suburbia, the three thousand mile Caesar salad, and the theme park vacation. The environmental movement, especially at the elite levels found in places like Aspen, is full of Harvard graduates who believe that all the drive-in espresso stations in America can be run on a combination of solar and wind power. I quarrel with these people incessantly. It seems especially tragic to me that some of the brightest people I meet are bent on mounting the tragic campaign to sustain the unsustainable in one way or another. But I have long maintained that life is essentially tragic in the sense that history won't care if we succeed or fail at carrying on the project of civilization.

While the public supposedly voted for "change" this fall, I maintain that they underestimate the changes really at hand. I voted for "change" myself in pulling the lever for Barack Obama. I regard him as a figure of intelligence and sensibility, but I'm far from convinced that he really sees the kind of change we are in for, and I fret about the measures he'll promote to rescue the Status Quo when he moves into the White House a few weeks from now.

The Best Holiday Gifts

While reading my local paper this morning, I saw that while purchasing was slow at a local mall, the line at the massage chair was huge and all the tables at the food court were full causing people to sit on ledges and stairs to enjoy their food.

This simply underlines that people deep down inside are not just looking for stuff to console themselves but are enjoying the company of others and the gentle touch from a stranger. Community planners of past understood this and created central squares, plazas, and other gathering spots for its citizens. It is obvious to me that people go where people are, and it does not require spending huge sums of money to provide the motivation.

The dismal economic times are forcing us to choose methods of giving and entertaining ourselves that are not dependent on spending money we do not have, or collecting more stuff we do not really need.

My New Years wish is that we deepen this realization and refocus our time, energy, and resources toward creating neighborhoods and communities which encourage us to spend time together and allow the ancient benefits of strong community connections to make our lives rich and exciting.

Creating the Green Economy

The constant economic news makes it sound like everything is coming to a screeching halt when it comes to the engine of business. On the contrary, the coming green economy will turn out to be far larger than we ever expected.

On the face of it we are now seeing a scaling back of the kind of wasteful and over consumptive economy based on the availability of ever-growing supplies of cheap energy. Despite the recent plunge in oil prices, over the next years and decades to come we will see dramatic increases in these costs.

So the question before us is how do we create an economy which does not require Americans to purchase ever growing quantities of unnecessary and wasteful items. The answer is to support and enhance those industries which are designed to recycle materials and extend the life of the things we use. It will require and shift from a "throwaway" society to a "sustainable" society.

For example, we can increase the reuse of many items. Businesses and industries that repair and help us to reuse items. We need to reclaim the lost art of fixing things. Many items just require a bit of effort to make them usable once again.

We need to rebuild, refurbish, refinish and renovate our homes, offices, public buildings, machines, tools and furniture in ways that increase their lifespan, reduce their energy use and improve their efficiencies

Trade and bartering systems can be encouraged to allow us to resell items we have finished with, but are still valuable to others

We need to create a domestic recycling industry. We must not be dependent on countries such as China to buy our used paper, glass,aluminum and cardboard. We need to support the development of these industries right here in the United States.

As part of our move to grow as much of our own food locally, we must support the creation of local sources of organic compost while diverting all that material from our already over burdened landfills.

Taken together, these industries have the potential to create millions of home grown jobs while reducing our consumption of raw materials all at the same time.

The Power of Feedback Loops

When historians look back over time, it is clear that many of our large scale natural and man made systems have a cyclical aspect to them. However, it is also becoming evident that there are times when these cycles speed up way beyond what would normally be expected.

This is partially due to a phenomena called "Positive Feedback Loops." We are seeing this happening in the realm of Climate Change and it is requiring the prediction experts to continually change their estimates of how quickly we can expect to see things like the rate of polar ice melt.

One of the stabilizing aspects of the polar ice cap is that the huge expanses of ice reflect the sunlight and keep the temperature stable. As the earth warms and ice melts, it exposes additional water and bare land. Instead of reflecting the suns rays, the water and land absorb the heat and continue to warm, accelerating the melting and adding to the warming process by exposing even more water and land. Because of this effect, we are now hearing that the north pole may be ice-free in as little as five years instead of the 10-15 years scientists were predicting only a year or so ago.

It is fair to expect that this trend will continue to accelerate into the near future and we will need to adjust our estimates and our actions to meet that reality.

The Green New Deal

by Richard Heinberg

(Entire Text) Our continued national dependence on fossil fuels is creating a crippling vulnerability to both long-term fuel scarcity and catastrophic climate change.

The current economic crisis requires substantial national policy shifts and enormous new government injections of capital into the economy. This provides an opportunity for a project whose scope would otherwise be inconceivable: a large-scale, coordinated energy transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy.

This project must happen immediately; indeed, it may already be too late. We have already left behind the era of cheap and plentiful fossil fuels, with a permanent decline of global oil production likely underway within three years. Moreover, the latest research tells us we have less than eight years to bring carbon emissions under control if we hope to avoid catastrophic climate change. Lacking this larger frame of understanding and action, a mere shift away from foreign oil dependence will fail to meet the challenge at hand.

We need to reduce our overall energy consumption, and restructure our economy to run primarily on renewable energy—and the federal government must lead the way. This energy transition should have five components: a massive shift to renewable energy, and a retrofitting of the four key systems of electricity, transportation, food, and buildings.

Wal-Mart Jumps on the Sustainability Bandwagon

Bentonville, Ark., Dec. 2, 2008 (Entire Text)-- Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) has established a partnership with many of its leading sustainability suppliers to facilitate the creation of green jobs in the United States. The Wal-Mart Green Jobs Council is comprised of representatives from throughout the retailer's divisions, including store operations, real estate, logistics and sustainability, and representatives from suppliers across a variety of industries.

As part of its company-wide sustainability goals, Wal-Mart is committed to being supplied 100 percent by renewable energy, creating zero waste and selling environmentally-friendly products. The company is moving toward these goals by using sustainable sourcing practices including energy efficiency, waste reduction, renewable energy and lifecycle management. These initiatives are making Wal-Mart a more sustainable company and helping create a favorable environment for green job creation.

For example, Wal-Mart recently announced its first substantial purchase of wind energy in the U.S. which will lead to the creation of green jobs in Texas. The wind power will supply up to 15 percent of the retailers' total energy load in approximately 360 Texas stores and other facilities. This is one example of the dozens of projects Wal-Mart is implementing across its operations with green job creation potential.

Peak Oil Has Arrived

Yesterday I attended a presentation by Matt Simmons held at the world renowned Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. His topic was "Peak Oil" and the room was filled with 50+ extremely interested petroleum engineers, faculty, and oil industry representatives.

His presentation was extremely sobering and focused on the lack of actual data being used to determine how much oil is in the ground and the rates that oil fields are declining. The bottom line of his presentation was that "the age of cheap oil is over."

One fact that Matt passed on is that it is expected that oill exports from Mexico will be eliminated in the next 18 months. This is important to the U.S. because we receive almost 8% of our imported oil from Mexico.

To adapt to this and other Peak Oil challenges America will need to make a number of fundamental changes in the very near future.