Steve Bull's Blog, page 176
October 19, 2022
Will Any Humans Become Post-Carbon?
Probably nobody will read this because it is far too long, far too full of horrifying details, and far too realistic for most tastes.
I write it anyway, to fulfill a promise I made.
Photo by Roxanne DesgagnésBack in 2007 I read the book High Noon by J. F. Rischard (also available in German). Rischard’s information shattered my Box’s long-standing defenses against the outside world. In a state of shock, two friends and I tracked J. F. Rischard down in Paris and interviewed him for 2 days in 2008. What a kind and intelligent man he is. As a result of Rischard’s intense download I began studying-up on several global situations, in particular methane clathrates and depleted uranium.
The year 2007 is interesting. According to David Spratt’s September 2013 report, “Is Climate Already Dangerous?” we crossed the planetary Rubicon in 2007 at about 0.76 degrees centigrade of global warming. Maybe I felt it” Maybe you felt it too? At this point, not only had Arctic sea-ice passed its tipping point, but the Greenland Ice Sheet was not far behind. (Reference:www.scribd.com/doc/168483927/Already-Dangerous-1)
Adding to the mounting evidence behind 2007 as the point of no return, Malcolm Light concluded on 22 December 2013, “We have passed the methane hydrate tipping point and are now accelerating into extinction as the methane hydrate ‘Clathrate Gun’ has begun firing volleys of methane into the Arctic atmosphere.” (Reference:https://sites.google.com/site/runawayglobalwarming/the-non-disclosed-extreme-arctic-methane-threat)
According to Light’s analysis, the temperature of Earth’s atmosphere will resemble that of Venus before 2100. Two weeks later, in an essay stressing near-term human extinction, Light concluded: “The Gulf Stream transport rate started the methane hydrate (clathrate) gun firing in the Arctic in 2007 when its energy/year exceeded 10 million times the amount of energy/year necessary to dissociate subsea Arctic methane hydrates.”(Reference: Malcolm Light http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2014/01/global-warming-and-the-gulf-stream.html) (Reference: Malcolm Light http://arctic-news.blogspot.de/p/global-extinction-within-one-human.html)
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How the grid works, why a distributed grid won’t work
Preface. This book is a good primer on how the grid works, worth the price to me just to understand Volt-Ampere Reactives (VARs). Renewables don’t provide them, but they’re essential for keeping the grid stable and not coming down. Angwin describes VARs as a bit like “riding a bicycle. The energy you put into the pedals will move the bike forward, but you also have to put some energy into maintaining your balance, or you’ll fall over and won’t be able to move forward at all. If you are a good bicyclist on a smooth road, the “maintaining your balance energy” will be small. If you are a poor bicyclist who swerves around a lot, or if you’re on a bad road, the “maintaining your balance” energy will be larger. In either case, the “maintaining your balance” energy is necessary. That energy is also a parasitical drain on your energy effort: it doesn’t move the bike forward. A well-run grid is like a good bicyclist on a smooth road. Rotating electric machinery puts VARs on the grid, and if the entire grid was thermal (nuclear, gas, coal) and hydro units, there would rarely be a problem with VARs. These systems all run with rotating electric machinery. But wind turbines and solar make direct current that needs to be changed into alternating current, and that process does not put VARs on the grid in the same fashion. (Some older and bigger wind turbines do put VARs on the grid.) Messing up the VARs can also mess up the grid, so this is another place where the BA must be aware of what is happening on the grid.”
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Latest Supply Chain Crisis Could Threaten Global Stash Of Food, Energy
You probably do not spend much time thinking about barges. This is something that you ought to change.
The barge industry is quite important. It’s crucial for moving aluminum, petroleum, fertilizer and coal, particularly on the Mississippi River and its tributaries. About 60% of the grain and 54% of the soybeans for U.S. export are moved via the noble barge. Barges touch more than a third of our exported coal as well.
Right now the barge industry — and all of us who depend on its wares — is mired in a crisis. Water levels on the Mississippi River Basin are at its lowest point in more than a decade.
The timing for such a drought is pretty bad. Right now is harvest season, so farmers are looking to move their wares. Ongoing labor strife on the nation’s railways also renders that backup network uncertain.
Halted or slowed barge traffic is worrisome for the world at large too. American exports of coal are key right now as Europe faces a massive energy crisis heading into winter. “Any snags threaten to disrupt trade at a time when coal demand is soaring as Europe weathers an energy crisis exacerbated by Russia’s war in Ukraine,” as Bloomberg reported on Oct. 6.
Exports of grain and soybeans are also important right now, because we’re facing a shortage of those commodities amid the war in Ukraine.
“We’re taking a huge capacity hit,” said Sandor Toth, president of barge market intelligence firm Criton Corp.
The drought caused a 100-boat clog last week
Low water levels and dredging shuttered barge traffic heading north and south on the Mississippi last week. At one point, more than 100 towboats and 2,000 barges were stuck waiting…
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Weeks Away from Whole Shithouse Coming Down – Bill Holter
Precious metals expert and financial writer Bill Holter said in June it was “game over, they’re pulling the plug.” The Fed went on an aggressive interest rate raising policy and is still raising rates. Now, the economy is staggering. Holter explains, “For sure, we are already in a recession. We are now in the third quarter of negative growth. I think it is laughable that people put odds on whether or not we are going to go into a recession because it is obvious–we are already in a recession. Rates rising have absolutely frozen the real estate market. If you own a property, who is going to buy it? Rates have gone from 3.25% to more than 7%. I am on the record that once we saw a 3% yield on the 10-Year Treasury, you would start to see a tightness in credit. Now, we are over 4%. What few people are talking about is what has this already done to the derivatives market? . . . Think about how big the derivatives market is. Total credit worldwide is $350 trillion, but you have derivatives pushing $2 quadrillion. I have said this all along, derivatives will blow up. Warren Buffett has called them financial weapons of mass destruction. They are far bigger than central banks can fix.”
Holter goes on to say, “The real economy runs on credit. Everything you look at, everything you touch and everything you do every day has many uses of credit to get to the final product or situation. So, once credit freezes up, it’s completely game over. In a past interview, I said they are pulling the plug. They have to pull the plug because, mathematically, the debt cannot be paid. The derivatives cannot perform. So, they have to pull the plug. They also have to do one other thing, and that is they have to kick the table over…
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October 18, 2022
Fuel protests gripping more than 90 countries
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGESImage caption,Protesters in Ecuador hit the streets over the rise in the cost of livingHigh costs of living are driving people to protest in the streets against crippling prices. The BBC has mapped all reported demonstrations over fuel since January 2021, revealing a huge increase in protests this year.
Fuel costs affect many aspects of daily life – personal travel, transportation of goods, energy for electricity and heating.
Around the world demonstrators have called for change. They’ve demanded that petrol be made more affordable or available at all.
They’ve sat in peaceful protests and they’ve attacked governments.
Some have paid an even higher price.
Fights over fuel
16-year-old Khadija Bah was standing on her family’s front porch when she was shot.
For days, Khadija had been watching growing crowds of demonstrators rally, gathering only metres from her house on the east side of Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown.
But on 10 August, the protests turned violent. As armed police clashed with protesters, a stray bullet hit Khadjia. She sank to the ground and died almost immediately.
Her mother, Maria Sesay, is still struggling to come to terms with the death of her daughter. A student at the local secondary school, Khadija’s dream was one day to become a nurse.
Image caption,Khadija’s parents, Maria (L) and Abdul (R)“I’m so sad,” her mother says. “Up until now, I have struggled so hard to raise my daughter. But now she is dead. I’m in so much pain.”
Violence like this has not been witnessed in this small west African nation for years. This time, it was sparked by record-breaking fuel prices.
In the month of August, violent clashes in the capital killed 25 people, including five police officers.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Doug Casey on the Likelihood of Nuclear War With Russia
International Man: Recently, we’ve seen what appears to be an escalation in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
There is an excellent chance the US government was behind the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, Russia has annexed four regions of Ukraine, and President Zelensky announced an accelerated bid to join NATO.
What do you make of this?
Doug Casey: I’d say that the odds are extremely high, approaching certainty, that the US was complicit in the sabotage. It certainly had the Motive, Means, and Opportunity—the three elements necessary to warrant suspicion in a criminal investigation.
The US has unique capabilities for this kind of mischief—an air-launched drone torpedo or a submarine aren’t available to just any terror group. It was a major operation, not something that a few scuba divers could pull off. Apparently, tons of explosives were used to blow these things up.
Biden and other US officials previously said they didn’t want the Nord Stream to go through and planned to prevent it. A boldly idiotic thing to say since the pipeline is neither its property or business.
The narrative that the Russians did it is completely insane. Putin could simply turn off the gas until it was convenient to be turned back on; now that option is gone. The Russians wouldn’t limit their own options.
If it’s proven that the US did it, then the Russians and/or the Germans will have to engage in a tit-for-tat retaliation to punish the US for this sabotage. That may be tantamount to an act of war, but once the culprit is proven, they have to take action. This thing isn’t over. The culprit will be found.
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October 17, 2022
The Road to Ruin — Part 3
False solutions — and a way out
Our leadership class displays an extraordinary amount of stupidity and ignorance when it comes to solutions regarding the dire energy crisis we face in Europe — and soon around the world. What are the pitfalls caused by this lack of imagination and the false beliefs surrounding topic of energy security? And more importantly, what could be done differently?
In the first two instalments of this series we have seen how the lifecycle of civilizations affected Europe and the entire West in general. Building a society on the belief of infinite growth was never a good idea and has always ended up with the same predictable results. In Part 2 we have reviewed the false assumptions behind our modern economic belief system, and saw how energy is the basis of all economic activity — not money.
Based on this understanding we can now take a hard look at the “solutions” proposed by our political class and economic experts all around the world. The one thing which could actually help them and their societies is rarely discussed though, and almost never dared to be imagined — but let’s not just get ahead of ourselves.
Drill, Baby, Drill!
My “favorite”. We need more oil, so out with those pesky regulations together with nit-picky officials and let’s get down to business! Frack the gas from underneath Europe, lay pipelines all across America, give drilling leases to everyone who has a desire to put holes into the ground — and all will be fine.
10,000 more feet to go… Image sourceThere is a tiny winey problem here — besides releasing megatons of carbon into the atmosphere in the process. We’ve run out of everything. Already in April. Steel pipes. Pumps. Sand. Water. You name it..
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‘Canary in the Gold Mine’: Asset Seizures Could Skyrocket Due to Post-Pandemic Debt Default, Says Bailiff
A for sale sign is displayed in front of a house in the Riverdale area of Toronto on Sept. 29, 2021. (The Canadian Press/Evan Buhler)CANADA‘Canary in the Gold Mine’: Asset Seizures Could Skyrocket Due to Post-Pandemic Debt Default, Says BailiffNorth Central Bailiffs in Kelowna, B.C., is busy. In fact, as pandemic restrictions and mandates continue to ease, owner Mike Sundstrom has never had more work end up on his desk.
From Sundstrom’s vantage point, the industry where he makes his living as a licensed bailiff and licensed sheriff isn’t prepared to handle the massive surge of claims he predicts is just around the corner.
His firm, one of several bailiff firms in the province, gets to see a sweeping overview where most of the financial and economic sectors collide. And given how many lenders and government agencies hit the pause button on collections during the past two and a half years of COVID-19 when Canadians’ ability to pay was most fragile, Sundstrom says every sector is now beginning to call him.
“[Bailiffs are] the canary in the gold mine,” he told The Epoch Times.
From banking to car dealerships to residential defaults, he says asset seizures continue to climb. Yet, he says, what has him even more concerned is the fallout when the slow pace of government claims such as tax files eventually make their way through the system.
“Every time I turn around there’s a new file coming in, and we’re seeing this all at once,” Sundstrom says.
“Everything is up. Repossessions are up, evictions are up. And this even though we’re not seeing Revenue Canada, PST [provincial sales tax], and WCB [Workers’ Compensation Board] back to full speed…
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NATO Kicks Off Nuclear War Games On Monday
Alliance head Jens Stoltenberg says canceling the games would send the “wrong signal”
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has begun its annual military drills in preparation for nuclear war on Monday. American B-52 bombers will be joined by advanced aircraft from other alliance members as they simulate a war of annihilation with Russia.
The war games, dubbed “Steadfast Noon,” are scheduled to run through the end of October. Belgium is hosting the exercises which will take place over the North Sea and the United Kingdom. Some American aircraft will take off from bases in North Dakota.
According to a NATO press release, “Exercise ‘Steadfast Noon’ involves 14 countries and up to 60 aircraft of various types, including fourth and fifth-generation fighter jets, as well as surveillance and tanker aircraft. As in previous years, US B-52 long-range bombers will take part.” It added, “as long as nuclear weapons exist, NATO will remain a nuclear alliance.”
This year’s nuclear drills come as tensions between NATO and Moscow are at a multi-decade high. Moscow has accused the alliance of waging war against Russia in Ukraine. Washington has led its allies in providing Kiev with tens of billions in weapons, as well as intelligence and training, to kill Russian soldiers.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg stated it would send the “wrong signal” to cancel the war games. “It would send a very wrong signal if we suddenly now canceled a routine, long-time planned exercise because of the war in Ukraine. That would be absolutely the wrong signal to send,” he said last Tuesday.
Stoltenberg argued that going through with nuclear war games is the best way to prevent nuclear war. “NATO’s firm, predictable behavior, our military strength, is the best way to prevent escalation.”…
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Overpopulation and the Collapse of Civilization
A major shared goal of the Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere (MAHB) and Sustainability Central is reducing the odds that the “perfect storm” of environmental problems that threaten humanity will lead to a collapse of civilization. Those threats include climate disruption, loss of biodiversity (and thus ecosystem services), land-use change and resulting degradation, global toxification, ocean acidification, decay of the epidemiological environment, increasing depletion of important resources, and resource wars (which could go nuclear). This is not just a list of problems, it is an interconnected complex resulting from interactions within and between what can be thought of as two gigantic complex adaptive systems: the biosphere system and the human socio-economic system. The manifestations of this interaction are often referred to as “the human predicament.” That predicament is getting continually and rapidly worse, driven by overpopulation, overconsumption among the rich, and the use of environmentally malign technologies and socio-economic-political arrangements to service the consumption.
All of the interconnected problems are caused in part by overpopulation, in part by overconsumption by the already rich. One would think that most educated people now understand that the larger the size of a human population, ceteris paribus, the more destructive its impact on the environment. The degree of overpopulation is best indicated (conservatively) by ecological footprint analysis, which shows that to support today’s population sustainably at current patterns of consumption would require roughly another half a planet, and to do so at the U.S. level would take four to five more Earths.
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