Steve Bull's Blog, page 224

The Struggle For What’s Essential

President of the Pueblo Shuar Arutam of Ecuador, Josefina Tunki, during a protest along with other Shuar women. (Photo: Comunicación PSHA)

THE STRUGGLE FOR WHAT’S ESSENTIALGlobal mining companies have used the pandemic to push unwanted projects on vulnerable communities, who are fighting back — and sometimes winning.

Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. 

We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.

— Arundhati Roy, April 2020

Just over two years ago when lockdowns were being declared like dominoes around the world, there was a brief moment when the COVID-19 pandemic seemed to hold the potential for much-needed reflection. Could it lead to a reversal away from the profit-driven ecological and socio-economic dead end we’ve been propelling toward?

Arundhati Roy’s call to critical reflection was published in early April 2020. At the time, she was observing the early evidence, on one hand, of the devastating toll of the pandemic as a result of extraordinary inequality, the privatized health care system, and the rule of big business in the U.S., which continued to play out along lines of class and race.

She was also writing with horror at how the Modi government in India was enacting an untenable lockdown on a population of over a billion people without notice or planning, in a context of overlapping economic and political crises…

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Climate change, energy, and an unstable grid: The mainstream belatedly gets the connections

Climate change, energy, and an unstable grid: The mainstream belatedly gets the connectionsMemorial Day marks the unofficial beginning of summer in the United States as the temperate breezes of spring give way to an enveloping heat that has become more and more intense each year due to climate change. This summer forecasters are expecting two big things: deadly heat and electricity outages. Mainstream news coverage is now explaining why these are inextricably intertwined, a relatively new development in such coverage. And, it turns out that the recent blistering record heatwave in India and Pakistan is but a foretaste of our future.

Those of us who have covered climate change in the last two decades believed that by the time such connections became obvious and noted by mainstream outlets, the world would be so far along in the process of global warming that stability-challenging events such as grid failures would become normal.

That’s because of the lag time between when we introduce greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and when we experience the warming caused by them is between 25 and 50 years. This is due to what’s called the thermal inertia of the oceans which means more or less that the oceans take time to warm (usually decades). Even if we were to take drastic action now that stopped all further emissions of greenhouse gases, the world would be in for several more decades of rising temperatures. But, of course, we as a global society are instead pursuing business as usual.

I can remember as a child living largely without air-conditioning. We would experience nights so cool at the cottage we rented along the shores of Lake Michigan that we would close all the shutters and cover ourselves with wool blankets.

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Perpetual Debt, Perpetual War

Perpetual Debt, Perpetual War

It’s always useful to visit the museum in order to offset the recency bias that distorts perceptions of current realities.

In the great scheme of things, the picture below is admittedly not that ancient – from just 42 years ago. But it is nevertheless a museum piece because it pertains to a matter that has long since faded from the scene. Namely, the public debt and in this instance the day when your editor was compelled to warn the Gipper that the Federal debt was about to cross the dreaded one trillion dollar mark.

Back then, that prospect gave one and all the fiscal heebie-jeebies. Massive public debt was viewed as an immoral imposition on future generations and an economic scourge on the present. That’s because when properly financed in the bond pits it drove up interest rates, thereby crowding-out household and business borrowers and economic growth and rising prosperity on main street.

1/28/1981: President Meeting with David Stockman, Don Regan, Murray Weidenbaum, and Martin Anderson to discuss the economy in oval office

No more. Massive fiscal deficits year-after-year have become a way of life in the Imperial City, but even then CBO’s latest 10-year forecast is a shocker. It shows that even if there is no recession for the next ten years (fat chance!) and existing tax and spending policies (dashed red line) remain in place without enactment of a single new spending program or tax cut (even fatter chance!), the deficit will exceed $3 trillion per year by the end of the decade.

That would amount to a structural deficit equal to 8.4% of GDP and a ticket to fiscal perdition. In dollar terms, it would add $20.3 trillion to the public debt over the next decade, taking the total debt to $50 trillion by 2032.

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By Gaia Gardener: On Suffering

By Gaia Gardener: On Suffering

Buried in the comments of the last post we discussed human overshoot and what should be done about it. I proposed our goal should be to minimize suffering and that the best path to achieving this goal is awareness of Ajit Varki’s Mind Over Reality Transition (MORT) theory.

My view, in summary, is that when fully aware of the reality and implications of human overshoot, our best personal and collective responses become self-evident and require no coercion to implement. Conversely, when overshoot is denied, all of our best personal and collective responses are vehemently rejected as assaults on our rights and entitlements.

Unfortunately, our genetic tendency to deny unpleasant realities, as explained by MORT, blocks overshoot awareness. Therefore any progress in a good direction requires an understanding of MORT.

Put more bluntly, all environmental activists, climate changers, peak oilers, Gaia lovers, population reducers, etc. should be focused with Zen-like precision on MORT, and any other activity is a complete waste of time, as demonstrated by our zero progress on any substantive issue over the last 50 years since Limits to Growth was published.

Reader Gaia Gardener responded with some beautiful prose that I thought was a good reason to clear the decks and create this new post.

For useful background, the comment thread that motivated the following essay by Gaia Gardener begins here.

Upon gazing up at the starry night sky thoughts like these come to my mind–there must be some sentient life form and civilization somewhere in this vast universe that broke through this barrier of denial that causes suffering to self, other life forms, and their ultimate destruction of their planetary home. Just being able to internalize this gives me much peace and acceptance of my infinitesimally small but still conscious being…

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End of the 40-Year Bull in Debt and a “Global Depression” Threat

End of the 40-Year Bull in Debt and a “Global Depression” ThreatFrancis Hunt interviews Danielle DiMartino Booth in a must watch video, her most economically comprehensive yet.

Discussion Topics

Please do yourself a favor and watch the video link below. Here are just some of topics discussed.

Possible end of the 40-year bull in debt, if so a “global depression” threatEmerging Market BlowupsThe YenEquity Markey Complacence – Bond Market Reacting to Reality of Higher Interest Rates, Equity Markets Say Prove Hikes Are ComingGame of ChickenAverage age of Senators – No one will stand up to the Fed except Pat ToomeyJay Powell knows the damage he did by saving BBB-rated bondsYield Curve Inversions – How Much Time Is There?Watch currencies especially in countries importing energyInventoriesDe-globalizationNot going to get fiscal stimulus in this mid-term election year.Housing wealth effect in reverseViolent unwind of the carry trade (Yen and Euro)Pension Plan Irony, Pension Plan Risk, Pension Plan Ponzi SchemesFed Pushes Legal LimitsMonetary policy favors the 1%Extends and Pretend on Commercial Real Estate Loans, Midsize Banks Hold this DebtInvestment ideas: Look for Safe Municipals (not Illinois), Gold, CashAvoid value traps like discretionary spending and healthcare, wary of energy because of huge valuation runups

Two Teaser Quotes

In response to a question about the end of the 40-year bull market in bonds, Booth replied:

“I don’t do hyperbole at all, but if this really is the end, and we really are going to see real rates rise appreciably, then you are talking about a global depression.”

Later in the interview, Booth commented “If you want a front row seat with popcorn, follow the EM [emerging market] space.”

YouTube Interview 

Thanks to Danielle DiMartino Booth and Francis Hunt for an amazingly informative video interview.

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We’re in It Now for Sure

We’re in It Now for SureNow, we’re finding out the hard way how much daily life must change, and is changing, and how disorderly that process is in every way from the imperative daily life adjustments to our spiritualWhen I wrote The Long Emergency nearly twenty years ago, I never thought that, once it got going, our government would work so hard to make it worse. My theory then was just that government would become increasingly bloated, ineffectual, impotent, and uncomprehending of the forces converging to undermine our advanced techno-industrial societies. What I didn’t imagine was that government would bring such ostentatious stupidity to all that.

Obviously, there was some recognition that ominous changes are coming down. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have heard so much chatter about alt energy, “sustainable growth,” “green” this-and-that. But the chatter was more symptomatic of wishful thinking for at least a couple of reasons: 1) mostly it ignored the laws of physics, despite the fact that so many people involved in enterprises such as wind and solar energy were science-and-tech mavens; and 2) there was a dumb assumption that the general shape and scale of daily life would remain as it had been — in other words, that we could still run suburbia, the giant cities, Disney World, WalMart, the US military, and the Interstate highway system just the way they were already set-up, only by other means than oil and gas.

Now, we’re finding out the hard way how much daily life must change, and is changing, and how disorderly that process is in every way from the imperative personal adjustments to our spiritual attitudes about them. As with so many things in history, this disorder expresses itself strangely, even prankishly, as if God were a practical joker. Who would’ve imagined that our politics would become so deranged?…

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Bankrupt Sri Lanka Takes Russian Crude As Fuel Crisis Depletes Stocks, Mulls Loan From China

Bankrupt Sri Lanka Takes Russian Crude As Fuel Crisis Depletes Stocks, Mulls Loan From China

A foreign exchange shortage has resulted in the worst financial crisis Sri Lanka has ever endured, with shortages of everything from food to crude. Fuel supplies are down to just days, food has run out at supermarkets, and social-economic chaos has unfolded across the island country in South Asia.

However, there’s short-term hope, and somehow the bankrupt country found enough money to pay for a shipment of Russian crude.

Bloomberg said Ceylon Petroleum Corp., the country’s only refinery, is set to take shipment of Russian grade Siberian Light on May 28. It will be the first time the refinery has processed crude to produce high-value products such as gasoline and diesel in two months.

Fuel supplies on the island nation are so low that the government has told citizens to stop waiting in long lines at filling stations. The government has run out of foreign reserves to pay for essential imports.

Last week, newly-appointed prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, said his government needed $75 million for critical imports such as crude.

“At the moment, we only have petrol stocks for a single day. The next couple of months will be the most difficult ones of our lives.

“We must prepare ourselves to make some sacrifices and face the challenges of this period,” Wickremesinghe said. 

Ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg shows the Nissos Delos tanker carrying Siberian Light has moved towards a mooring point where it can begin discharge operations. The vessel loaded up on March 29 at Novorossiysk, a port city on the Black Sea in southern Russia.

Bloomberg wasn’t exactly sure how Sri Lanka paid for the Russian crude, considering it owes more than $50bn in overseas debt. It’s seeking a $4bn loan from the IMF and has asked China to renegotiate at least $3.5bn in debt.

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Summer Heat Could Wreak Havoc On Texas’ Grid

Summer Heat Could Wreak Havoc On Texas’ GridExperts warn that Texans should be prepared for another massive grid failure.While Texas has made some progress in increasing surplus energy flow to the grid, high demand may overwhelm embattled ERCOT.Despite warnings, ERCOT remains confident that it can manage the increase in energy demand this summer.[image error]

Texans need to be prepared for the grid to fail. Again. A new bombshell report from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) shows that while Texas has made some progress in increasing surplus energy flow to the grid for times of heightened demand, power is going to be extremely tight this summer, and Texans should prepare to expect rolling blackouts during the hottest months of the year.

The recently released 2022 Summer Reliability Assessment found that Texas, along with parts of California and the Southwest, are in an “elevated risk category of energy emergencies.” The extra pressure on the grid comes from a combination of abnormally high temperatures and doubt conditions, poor upkeep and maintenance of generators across Texas, persistent supply chain issues, and increasing demand. NERC also sighted cyber threats, wildfires, and a shortage of coal generation inputs as major issues that they will be monitoring as the days grow hotter and sufficient energy supply to the grid becomes more vulnerable.

While Texas still lacks the energy capacity necessary to meet demand at its highest points during extreme weather conditions, NERC acknowledges that Texas has made concerted efforts to mitigate the issue. The Lone Star State has increased its anticipated reserve margins, largely thanks to the increased installation of solar and wind power capacity. Overall, Texas’ renewable energy capacity is 4,100 megawatts higher than last year. This increase in solar and wind capacity does not come without its own challenges, however…

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Social tipping points of the 2020s

Social tipping points of the 2020s

Anyone who reads the news and walks the earth with open eyes sees that in this day and age “all that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.” But we are only at the beginning of epochal changes. Our ecosystem and socio-economic system are already flickering and it’s not hard to see that the 2020s are going to be a rough ride.

In the following I wand to look at some social tipping points that are likely to trigger societal change in the years to come. I do not use the term social tipping point here in a scientific-mathematical way, but as a conceptual metaphor for a point that triggers a rapid qualitative regime shift in a socioeconomic system, such as a shift from democracy to authoritarian rule. Of course, it is impossible to predict the future, but I see four social tipping points for developing and developed countries as a plausible unfolding of events in the coming years. The four social tipping points are: climate protests, food riots, fuel riots, and inflation unrest.

Climate protests

For many, climate protests that cause social tipping points are the only hope to generate sufficient political mobilization to avert catastrophic climate change. Research on critical mass for social change has shown that the opinion of the majority can be tipped by a committed minority of about 25%. Since the launch of Fridays for Future in 2018, a number of climate protest movements have emerged, including Scientist Rebellion, Extinction Rebellion and Last Generation (Letzte Generation – a German-Austrian movement). For the time being these movements are mainly a Western phenomenon and are still far from reaching a critical threshold of 25% of the national population, let alone the world population…

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Home Soil

Home Soil

We need more geology in school. Or perhaps ecology. Probably both. If we are to survive, we need to understand who and what we are, and for that we need to understand this world that made us. We are earthly beings. We are small parts of a small planet on an average star in the outer reaches of a galactic backwater somewhere in the vastness of the universe. We are small parts that have not been around for long, nor is there any reason to expect that we will continue for more than a few million years — most of our close cousin species are already extinct, after all. We are small parts that do not live long enough to have much impact. Yes, even all this mess we’ve made of our planet — while naming ourselves “the intelligent species” — will not last long. If there are geologists in the future capable of reading the rocks, they will be hard-pressed to even find the layers that contained humans.

A centimeter layer of rock most often represents thousands of years of deposition, perhaps millions of years when deposited in regions of high topography. (Some thick layers can be laid down in hours though these are more often igneous than sedimentary.) All that we’ve done, from our birth in Africa to our global ending, will likely comprise a layer of stratigraphy that is thinner than your smallest toe. To be sure, that layer will have ludicrously irrational geochemistry, laced as it will be with plastics and concentrated poisons. If there are mass spectrometers in the future (not likely, but humor me), geologists will spend careers trying to understand how this particularly toxic time period came about. They may invoke extraterrestrial impacts — because any thinking being will find the true story of our abiotic idiocy hard to accept.

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