This afternoon, I saw Avatar, directed by James Cameron. I saw it at a gigantic multiplex in Greenwood Indiana, in 3D in an IMAX format. I had an excellent seat – sixth row centre. The 3D glasses were large and comfortable.

My point is not to describe my experience of the film, although it is an important part of Avatar, and will play into some of my discussion of the film. I am not a film reviewer, nor am I much of a film theorist, but I feel this film requires my attention and focus for a variety of reasons that will come clear.

First off, people will ask “So what did you think of Avatar?” and “Did you like it?” These two things are not necessarily linked, and what Avatar is and does is very complex, and points directly at a number of critical issues in contemporary civilisation. What struck me on viewing the film, in terms of images, what I saw was a large number of references to films I very much like – and these references were seductive and interesting.

In the Home Tree, I saw the Camphor Tree in My Neighbour Totoro. This is where Mei discovers the nest of King Totoro. Totoro is a wood spirit and lives in the Camphor Tree – the Na’vi live in the Home Tree. The Tree is an ancient symbol of biblical proportions and esoteric meaning.

The general reference to Dances With Wolves is also obvious – a soldier who leaves European ways behind and goes to live with Native Americans. However, I see that actually as relatively uninteresting due to its obviousness, although that theme is something I will come back to.

The planet has floating mountains, which remind me of album covers for the Yes group by Roger Dean – covers like Close to the Edge

Close to the Edge: floating worlds...

and other images by Roger Dean from that period, such as flying dragons – looks a lot like a Banshee, no?:

Jungles floating in the air:

Alien landscapes:

Floating pastoral worlds:

And floating trees and rocks:

I could go on, but now, look at this preliminary concept art from Avatar:

and this still from the film:

and it is pretty clear that Dean’s playful organic fantasy artwork must have had some influence, which is fine by me. Dean is no Da Vinci, but his artwork reminds me of happy times in my adolescence, spent listening to music by Yes with my friends and arguing over the lyrics with precision I can best describe as Jesuitical. It was what teenage fans of ProgRock would often do in the mid 70s… When I was young, the floating jungles and weird landscapes of Dean were a fantasy space I would sometimes imagine myself inhabiting, especially the floating world of Close To The Edge. Seeing this realised in Avatar struck a comforting cord in me.

Another fond memory Avatar brought back with the Floating Mountains was that of Castles in the Sky, by Miyazaki. I have always enjoyed Miyazaki’s work – beautiful, lyrical, gentle and unalterably peculiar.

In these ways, the imaging was something I was immediately comfortable with and inclined to have “good feelings” about; they formed a seductive landscape.

The design of the extended starship in Avatar reminded me of the ships in 2001: A Space Odyssey and Silent Running.

Silent Running is a story that occurs before Avatar – In Silent Running, the “wild” world has been sent offworld into ships for its own protection. Of course, as soon as it became economically burdensome, the wild world bottled up in these ships is disposed of like so much useless baggage. Avatar talks about how the world the humans come from isn’t green – how it is dead and grey. That would be the world after Silent Running, and like Silent Running, whose name reminds me of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, both films are warnings about the predations of industrial civilisation. Silent Running shows the imprisonment of the wild world, and its execution at the hands of capital. Avatar shows the pillaging of nature to feed the industrial war machine, as symbolised by the RDA corp. and the military goons it has brought along. In this way, I think Avatar is much more direct and accurate – Silent Running is a despairing work with a poignant ending of doom: a small robot must take care of the last remaining forest. In Avatar, direct action on the part of the Pandorans changes things and even defeats the industrial war machine (IWM).

In Avatar, the industrial war machine is only defeated when two things occur: the Na’Vi collectively band together and take up violent resistance to the IWM, and when knowledge of the Other is communicated and integrated into the world data system of the living Pandora planet. This idea of Pandora as a living planet reminded me of the film Solaris, first by Tarkovsky and then by Soderburg as produced by Cameron – only without the tedious psychology of the films or the book. Communication is a critical point in this film, and it is also important in my view of this film as an object in society.

This brings me to the essential contradiction of Avatar. The film is an extremely expensive, complicated, ultra-high technology story whose very existence is predicated on the industrial extraction and processing of resources that are, for all practical purposes, irreplaceable.  The story it tells is how a society based on such principles is, by even a cursory analysis, inherently evil and self-destructive. Evil, in that it practices direct violence upon those who stand between the IWM and the resources it requires. Self-destructive, as discussed earlier: the planet Earth in the year setting of the film (2154)  is a grey and dying place. Also, the system is logically self-destructive: such systems require continuous exponential growth; growth that is simply impossible on a finite planet in a materially finite universe.

So, here we are faced with a film, a commodity, that points directly at the industrial system that spawned it. It says that collective action can stop the unrelenting madness of the IWM, even as it is a product of the very same system. Just as the Na’Vi will never leave the Home Tree voluntarily, the IWM will no surrender peacefully. The IWM must simply be destroyed, which brings us to some rather interesting conclusions. The film takes place on Pandora. The story of Pandora is well known, so I will simply note that the result of Pandora’s foolishness was that while she unleashed all manner of madness upon the world, we still retain Hope.

Derrick Jensen’s essay in the book The Future of Nature (Milkweed Editions, Minneapolis. 2007.), titled “Beyond Hope”, he directly attacks the notion of hope in our present circumstances:

Hope, the story goes, was the only good the casket held  among many evils, and it remains to this day mankind’s sole comfort in mis fortune. No mention here of action being a comfort in misfortune, or of actually doing something to alleviate or eliminate one’s misfortune.

The more I understand hope, the more I realize all along it deserved to be in the box with the plagues, sorrow and mischief; that it serves the needs of those in power ssurely as a belief in some distant heaven; that hope is really nothing more thana secular way of keeping us in line.

Hope is, in fact, a curse, a bane.

… hope is a longing for a future condition over which you have no agency; it means you are essentially powerless.

His is one particular angle on hope, one vision of Pandora. He accurately critiques the common notion of hope, one I frequently hear from students when they say “give me some hope.” Counter to both my students and Jensen, I prefer the idea of hope as articulated by James Howard Kunstler:

“and a lot of time, college kids say ‘can’t you give me some hope?’ Can’t you give me some hope. Well, here’s the deal. I’m not a hope dispenser, OK? You have to generate the hope. It’s got to come from you. And the way you generate it is by proving to yourself that you’re competent people, that you can deal successfully with the circumstances and the changes that reality is sending to you. That you’re successfully negotiating your living arrangement and your reality. And that you’re paying attention to the tasks that need to be done in your society. And you’re not just relying on wishful thinking and waiting to win the lottery, or sitting around thinking you’re going to get something for nothing, or wishing upon a star. People who are generating hope are the people who understand the difference between wishing for stuff and making stuff happen.”

I agree with Kunstler more than Jansen, in that Kunstler is re-defining hope for the age we are in, and giving us a process for creating hope. And it is that sense of hope that is demonstrated in Avatar. The Na’Vi band together and DO SOMETHING. Their cause is hopeless – they cannot successfully fight the blitzkrieg of the IWM, and their casualties are huge. The Na’Vi are only saved when the “Cavalry Arrives” in an inversion of the Cowboys and Indians.

Here, the indigenous Na’Vi (the “Indians”) are fighting the Cowboys. Normally, in the Western Genre, the Cowboys are faced by a brutal and implacable enemy in the Indians, and are saved at the last minute by the U.S. Military  – the Cavalry comes to save the day. In Avatar, the cavalry is the biosphere itself coming to the aid of the Indians, and the Cowboys, the IWM, are the implacable and brutal enemy. This inversion is underlined in the casting of Sigourney Weaver as Dr. Grace Augustine. She is a human – a member of the invasion force. An Alien. But she is an Alien who cares about those she has invaded, unlike Weaver’s foe in the film, Alien (dir. Ridley Scott. 1979.), which was an implacable and brutal enemy. In both films she is employed by an interstellar corporation. In both films she is an invader of an alien world. In Alien, we are asked to sympathise with her and her invading team sent there to mine ore. In Avatar, we are asked to sympathise with her as she attempts to help the Na’Vi, while despising her “team”, the RDA corporation who sent them to Pandora to mine ore.

The success of the Na’Vi is predicated on the arrival of the Cavalry – the giant and ferocious animals that are commanded to come to the aid of the Na’Vi by Eywa, the Mother Goddess of the Na’Vi. Eywa was informed of the peril of the situation by Jake Sully in his Avatar form. Dr Augustine’s character had died and her memories absorbed into a kind of spiritual database in the The Tree of Souls. Examining Augustine’s mind and her memories of the devastated Earth and the brutality of the IWM, allowed Eywa to understand how desperate the situation was. The war was won through information that allowed for the  amassing of forces significant enough to repel the invasion.

So what message does this film have for us, today?

1. The destruction of the IWM can only be accomplished through direct action.
2. Key to this is the acquisition of substantial forces, which is accomplished through communication.
3. Hope (Pandora’s gift) is possible, however, it requires an enormous amount of work.

From Kunstler, we understand that it is precisely this work that creates the hope most needed in these desperate times, as civilisation faces the greatest transition and crisis it has ever faced in 10,000 years of indoor living, and humanity faces its greatest challenge to its very survival in 70,000 years.

This leads to the Necessary Contradiction of Avatar, and it is an instance of the Necessary Contradiction of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), as Avatar is simply an instance of ICT.

Per a Fox spokesman in an article by David Patten, Avatar was officially budgeted at $237 million and an estimated $150 million for marketing, for a total of $387 million. To illustrate the size of that sum, For FY 2009, the budget for the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts was only $155 million. To fund this film, directly out of pocket, every man woman and child in the USA would have to pay $1.27. Obviously, this endeavor is something that American society deems to be of some importance, as it is willing to invest such significant sums in its development. Its development is that of a media commodity, one with significant and rapid profitability potential.

Media commodities exist in a commodity culture – the devices and systems that the media commodity is made on and distributed through are also commodities. These commodities are only possible through industrial production means and methods,and the resources that go into these systems are subject to thermodynamic losses and material dispersion. These systems, as commodities, exist in a system predicated on continuous growth. Any continuous growth operates by exponential mathematics and can be called exponential growth. Exponential growth, as it requires continuous exponential resource acquisition, is simply unsustainable on a finite planet.

In Avatar, the Earth of 2154 was unable to acquire a critical resource, comically named “unobtainium“. It is the exploitation of unobtainium – valued at $20 million a kilo – that has brought RDA corporation to Pandora, and put RDA and the IWM it is part of in opposition to the interests of the Na’Vi.

Science Fiction is often not about any actual future – it is usually a commentary on the present, and Avatar is no exception. As much as it is a classic tale of imperialism, restating the theme of “Dances with Wolves”, given the contemporary crises of peak oil, the impending peak of phosphorus and other critical materials, and the continuing growth of the human population creating a perilous condition of overshoot, films that engage the issues of peak oil, the disaster that is suburbia, the unsustainability of civilisation, or, if the film asks, “If your homeland was invaded by aliens who cut down the forests, poisoned the water and air, and contaminated the food supply, would you resist?”

Then we need to look at them differently, as all entertainment (ICT) systems are intimately connected to some of the most rapacious and destructive resource acquisition systems on earth, as well as being directly a creature and critical path creator of contemporary globalist economic systems. It is important to connect entertainment and ICT. Since the digitalisation of culture all such devices require electronic components and computational facilities, and these components and facilities are made from materials all over the globe, and the co-ordination of the production of these materials, their processing, and final manufacture into ICT commodities require the movement of digital data via ICT, we can only see ICT as both creature / creation of the global industrial war machine and its critical path creator, as without ICT, the co-ordination and manufacture of these globalised ICT systems would simply be impossible. As these systems are identical in both nature and function (a computer is a computer is a computer) we can only see our contemporary entertainment networks as creations of the IWM. The linkages between the I and the WM are well detailed by other theorists (viz. Virilio, Hardt, Negri, DeLanda, Jensen, Zerzan, and many others) and I don’t think it necessary to detail that here.

From this, ICT – as a critical path component of the IWM – brings this weight to any content it provides. So, a film, such as Avatar, that is critical of this relation, is then subjected to charges of hypocrisy. I do not agree with such charges. In fact, I stand opposed to such charges, and have put them into what I mentioned earlier: the Necessary Contradiction of ICT. It is not that  ICT embodies this contradiction (which it does, but not my point) as much as that it is necessary that we maintain ICT, even as ICT is such a destructive system to the earth and is part and parcel of the IWM. So, even as we decry the ongoing ecocide, we use ICT to decry the ecocide at the same time ICT is central to the ongoing ecocide.

Now, this is nothing new – above are links to media critical of the IWM, and you are presently reading some.

This leads to other ideas I have about the future of ICT and its relationship to society, but that is beyond this particular writing. All societies communicate with the systems they have at hand. Our system is predicated on the IWM, therefore, our communications are complicit to the actions of the IWM, even if they are inimical to the interests of the IWM. Avatar brings an anti-industrial message in the most advanced industrial method possible: large scale 3D digital cinema. Avatar is a product of the IWM, even as it satirises the IWM. This contestation leads to complex results: Avatar could be seen as Hollywood greenwashing, or the first blockbuster film celebrating the end of Industrial Civilisation, or, and this is very likely true: it is both.

Stuart Hall discussed these negotiated relationships people have with media, but this was largely around issues of content. Now we are faced with a radicalised McLuhanism, where the medium IS the message, and the medium is part and parcel, creature and creator, of the problem itself. Organised Networks rely on the technology developed by the IWM for their existence. At the Internet as Playground And Factory Conference in November 09, Christian Fuchs talked about a communist ICT infastructure. While an admirable goal, I don’t think it is either possible (politically or materially) or likely (due to the exigencies of resource extraction). This is a longer discussion that looks into an inherent weakness in Leftist theory and praxis, but the important point is to get the conversations started.

Avatar, a piece of blockbuster entertainment that brandishes a theme of anti-industrialism, and prescribes violent and bloody opposition to the IWM is, at root, entertainment. A fun story. However, given the crises we face, and the gathering storms of catastrophe on the horizon, its ecological message needs to be amplified and brought into public awareness. We, as a society, must make plans for a very different sort of existence in the next few decades, and use this huge transition as an opportunity to create a better, more humane and caring society. The easy road is one we have seen before in Rome, Central America, and Easter Island, and that road is a very sad and lonely Road. Avatar is deeply flawed in many respects (the reliance on Joseph Campbell formulae, the music was awful, the acting was wooden, and the story was predictable) but it stands in opposition to many other great Science Fiction Films. In 1984, the people are victims. In Blade Runner, the people are victims, even or especially when they’re artificial people. In 2001, Bowman is basically on a big ride – he has little agency. In Alien, we empathise with a crew who went someplace they had no business being. In Slient Running agency proves futile, and the biosphere is left in the hands of a small robot. In the Andromeda Strain, people are just disease vectors and victims. In Stalker, the Room in the Zone is all powerful, and personal agency is used against the agent. In Avatar, the people,as symbolised by the Na’Vi, rise up and smash the invading Industrial War Machine.

That they only succeed through the intercession of a “goddess” brings it to an interesting point, as the “goddess” is actually a material fact – it’s an organic data base held by the biosphere itself. It is the biosphere, the moon of Pandora istelf tht destroys the IWM on Pandora, and it is the biosphere on earth that wil smash the IWM on Earth, as we hit the wall of Peak Everything, and civilisation transitions to its next phase. Luckily we have had the luxury of the Golden Age of petroleum,  and we have seen glimpses of fairness and justice, and we need to preserve these ideas through the transition and build a better society on the other side. It may well prove to be a neolithic society, but the lives lived in it need not be nasty, brutish, and short.

My daughter, like every other North American 12 year old, is caught up in the “Twilight” film and book series. And when she was younger it was Pirates.

I am considering this: that the present day fascination with pirates and vampires is because we live in a piratical and vampiric society, and this is a way to project our own self-disgust into a social spectacle that not only exalts these creatures, but is more a way for us to render evil fashionable, so we don’t see the vileness of the global and environmental results of our own common actions.

Pirates were considered vile creatures – we would hang them at the entrance to harbours, as a warning to all. Vampires, while fictional, were always loathsome creatures – just watch Nosferatu and see how creepy and disgusting they were considered. but now, we humanise and venerate these parasites, these vile corrupt murderous undead beings.

What could be a more appropos symbol of capitalism than an undead parasite that lives off the blood of his lessers?

What could be a more appropos symbol of capitalism than the pirate?

These are not people to admire – these are people to abhor. The pirate is not about finding new methods of helping rid society of disease and crime and violence – the pirate is all about aggrandising the self at the expense of society through crime and violence. The pirate doesn’t fight disease – the pirate is disease. The pirate is all about the gang, not the polity; the benefit and glory of the gang leader, not the common wealth.

The vampire is of another nature for as material and sadistic is the pirate, the vampire is metaphysical and seductive. The pirate operates through theft and actual murder. The vampire, being a creature of fiction, operates through parasitism and symbolic death. The vampire lives off of “precious bodily fluids” within the imagination of the audient. Previous media representations of vampires range from the bleak shabby elegance of Dracula to the ghoulish Nosferatu. With Ann Rice’s mythology of vampirism, the vampire, while still a wicked undead beast, was portrayed in much more humanistic terms – ,a href=”http://a.abcnews.com/images/GMA/sipa_Interview_Vampire_090325_ssh.jpg”>child vampires,, ancient vampires who could barely move, romantic and handsome vampires drawn into a disaster not of their own making.

As alluring and attractive and malleable such a fictive creature can be, they are, simply, parasites.

This is the other side of the capitalist ideology: you too can partake of the riches of this world and live forever – all at the expense of worthless dupes and victims whom you will feed on. You will carry the guilt, but learn to ignore the shame, and eventually revel and thrive in your parasitic madness. And internal to vampirism is the same failure of capitalism: what happens when you run out of victims, when the entire world is populated by vampires? What do you do when the engine of production has exhausted the planet’s resources and there is nothing left to profit on? The answer is the same: collapse and extinction.

This is never a point ever thought through, because of the dominant demands of short term necessity refracted through the lens of industrial destruction and capitalist exploitation. Hence, the mythology of parasitism must be inculcated at as young an age as possible, and so we have 6 year olds dressing as Dracula and Blackbeard and movies for teens like Twilight and Pirates of the Caribbean. The most impatient people, the young, are taught to look upon parasitism as just another and therefore acceptable, part of society. So, when they labour at some job for the rest of their lives, they won’t mind that a small number of parasites at the top are reaping all the rewards at their expense. They won’t mind that they, as members of the crew, make their living stealing from others.

This logic can go forward, and as usual, it is through comedy that this society deals with it most directly: the next example is a vampire pirate. And we have one: in the film “Pirates of the Caribbean” in the form of Jack Sparrow’s father played by Keith Richards. It is well known that Richards is undead and a vampire. This can be said because vampires don’t exist, therefore any attribution to Richards as a vampire is as fictive as the notion of vampire itself. to feed this mythology, he regularly has his blood transfused in order to continue living his vampiric life, where over the years he has increasingly come to resemble Nosferatu, feeding off the ashes of his father.

This, of course, has nothing to do with Keith Richards the person. I have never met him, and I am sure he’s a funny and decent dinner companion. The Keith Richards I am addressing is the fictive and mythological Richards – the media creation of Richards – the only one history will ever really know as it writes the story and mythologies of our times. This Richards is a scary and demented derangement of party animal and cultural parasite – someone who has looted all the blues riffs ever known and sucked them dry of their essence and blasted them together in the form of his playing in the Rolling Stones music ensemble – a band who built their career upon defiance and the hint of revolution and then sold it all for millions of dollars, pillaging music history and sucking their fans dry of money for their records, performances, and ephemera in the process.

There is nothing sustainable about Richards – he is the drug-addled adolescent with half a century of practice under his belt, and looking worse for the wear and tear he has put himself through. The excess he has subjected himself to would have killed weaker men, and for that his persona takes on a character of the undead – the vampire – Nosferatu. due to his age and condition, Richards cannot be the face of acceptable vampirism to a new younger generation – so he is the vampire father of the pirate role model for the younger generation.

And the vampire? In the form of Twilight’s Edward Cullen, he is not some rotting husk – he is a rutting hunk, designed and delivered for the fantasies of teen and tween girls. He makes victimhood seem reasonable, as he and his clan are now “vegetarians” in a vampiric sense: they only drink the blood of animals. A more “sustainable” approach to industrial capitalism. Rather than chop down the forest to power the machines, dig up the coal and oil, and slaughter wild animals wholesale for the vampirism, as it mimics contemporary western food patterns of industrial meat production.

At core, they are still vampires. They are still parasites. They take one’s most precious possession, time, and give only illusions and fantasy in return, flickering page turning revelries of fictive space, making us feel good about being hapless victims of a vampiric system of global piracy.

In the mean time, the rivers are dammed up, the earth continues to warm up, and precious metals are ripped from the dying earth to make a handful of people fabulously wealthy. And we’re all OK with that because we get to watch vampire pirates on the screen.

To quote Brian Eno:

I was just a broken head
I stole the world that others punctured
Now I stumble through the garbage
Slide and tumble, slide and stumble

Beak and claw, remorse reminder
Slide and tumble, slide and stumble
Back and forth and back to nothing
Keep them tidy, keep them humble.

Chop and change to cut the corners
Sharp as razors (shiny razors)
Stranded on a world that’s dying
Never moving, hardly trying.

I was just a broken head
I stole the world that others plundered
Now I stumble through the garbage
Slide and tumble, slide and stumble.

The suburbs of 50 American cities will soon be bulldozed in order to let the remaining city cores run more efficiently. This will, of course, begin with the more distressed places, like Flint MI. James H Kunstler should be chuckling right now. First, these places get bulldozed. Then the streets get depaved and turned into gravel.

Then they disappear.

Then the nightmare of the North American suburban disaster unwinds and we get to go on to the next downshifting of civilisation from this decidedly UNcivilised disaster to something perhaps more civil. Perhaps.

I don’t know if I should be happy or not. I am happy to see worthless suburbs disappear. Every time I spend anytime in those environments I get really depressed and angry. Still, I am sad to see all that sunk cost go to waste – this more than half century of investment into an ill-conceived lifestyle. It’s just frustrating and sad to know it was all a big mistake. Oh well. It’s the first step in a long road down the back side of Hubbert’s Curve.

HW

I wrote a response to Shaviro’s excellent analysis of a conference he attended that featured Zizek and Badiou.

It follows, with a few modifications:

Henry Warwick says:
March 15, 2009 at 10:47 pm

I would like to point out that capitalism has always operated at the expense of the commons. It is why the biosphere is as utterly screwed as it is.

From my research and perspective, contemporary capitalism is no more or less direct in its rapacious greed to ruin the world – to chew rocks and spit nails, computers, automobiles, plastic corn forks, and those stupid little cups you get to hold ketchup. God I hate those things.

Early capitalism took the most immediate and local “Commons”, and the result were the Enclosure Acts forcing land into the hands of the rich and the peasants into cities to work at factories. The Enclosures effectively removed the Commons from existence.

In North America in 1492 Europeans found 24,709,000 km^2 of “Commons”. Instead of peasants feeding and watering their livestock on it, they found several civilisations of Natives who had been using the land for tens of thousands of years. Like the peasants of the UK, they were quickly forced off their land to make way for European farmers, soon followed by Industrial machinery and shopping malls and the “beautiful new Trail Of Tears golf course”. Sometimes I wonder how much of the Enclosure Acts and their techniques were results of the North American colonial experiment.

So, Enclosures and Invasions provided land based capitalism the raw materials. Then, the metals and fossil fuels provided by the theft of the land, in turn provided the energy and resources to create much more complex social and technical organisations like the interweb thingie.

Frankly, I do not see the pollution in, say, China, as Chinese pollution, or, the exploitation of workers in China or Malaysia as Chinese or Malaysian exploitation. I see it as Western and American. This is my reasoning:

I own a factory here in Canada. We make Canadian Widgets for Canadians. Wages in Canada are not cheap and business taxes are tough here, so I relocate the factory to some banana republic, like, Oooh, Alabama where unions are weak. And set up factory there. And so the money flows from Canadian pockets to me and I send off a pile of it to Alabama to keep the Widgets flowing. Then I talk with a Chinese gentleman who tells me I can make Canadian Widgets in China for 1/10 the price, and he’ll help me set it up. Next thing you know, a bunch of Alabamians are unemployed and I have a factory going in China, stinkin’ the place up with pollution making my Canadian Widgets.

So, is it Chinese pollution? If I hadn’t been able to move the factories out of Canada, the pollution never would have left Canada, so I would argue, no, it is Canadian pollution that has been exported to China. In this way, the entire planet is rendered a “Commons” that is then cut up and divided for the sake of capital and profit. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) doesn’t make it “more direct” than before. If you were a peasant in the Lake District in 1710, and some sheriff came by saying “Sorry lad – but you’ll have to give up the farm and move to Liverpool, and if you don’t it’s off to jail with you, and you haven’t but nowt to say about it, so go along quiet like.” that’s pretty direct, IMHO, and there isn’t much more direct than that.

The creation of Immaterial Production was only possible with the energetic and materials production that is presently available. This is prima facie correct. The real problem is the irreversible transition to lower energy states and degraded materials conditions that will avail in the not so distant future. Can such a civilisation exist?

Some argue, no: we are going to go blindly off a cliff like the Reindeer on St. Matthew Island, where when they were introduced in 1944, their numbers increased increased from 29 animals to 6,000 by 1963 but then underwent a die-off the following winter to less than 50 animals from a collapse of the food supply and within a few decades had completely died out.

Most of these theorists (Hardin, Duncan, Bartlett) figure it won’t be a one year collapse, but perhaps a one or two generation (20 – 40 year) collapse beginning with the collapse of oil exports sometime in the 2010s/2020s.

The destruction of the “Commons” for the vanity of the ruling class is also seen as a driving factory in the collapse of Easter Island. The Commons in that case was the forest. They cut down all the trees and within a few generations their population collapsed into constant warfare and cannibalism.

Others, such as myself, see a die off as well, but not over a period of 40 years – more likely 100 – 200 years, depending on how stupid people are.

From my perspective, the supposed qualitative differences between production from land capital and Immaterial Production from digital infrastructure are not of real significance, nor is one more immediate and direct than the other. You still have the freedom to starve.

Freedom, by Art Bears:

After this I saw multitudes
Forced from the land,
Cleared for the wool.
Dispossessed, refugees,
Who were told
To be free -
Free to starve,
Or to Slave;
free to choose
A or B, as we offered.
To labour or die!

I saw cities explode with
This freedom, and
Covered my eyes!

I would submit that present capitalism is faced with several big problems:

1. An imminent and permanent decline in total energy production. Work requires energy. No energy, no work. no work, no profit, no profit – bye bye capitalism… The top of the elite has been well aware of this problem for a number of years, but really starting with Laherrere and Campbell’s article in March 1998 Scientific American on the imminent loss of cheap petroleum resources. Note, Matthew Simmons, a leading figure in Energy depletion analysis, was a key energy advisor to the Cheney Administration.

2. The collapse of many basic materials. Many elements in groups 10, 11, and 12 of the periodic table are especially stressed. GeoDestinies by Walter Youngquist provides more than enough info on this. My understanding is he is going to republish it with updated info soon. It’s not for happy making.

3. The inversion of Jevon’s paradox, where rather than conservation only resulting in increased use of resources and economic growth, economic growth will only be predicated on the conservation of resources at a rate greater than the loss of energy from the system. I think I have a PhD waiting for me in there somewhere…unless….

4. Even though ICT exists at the highest energy and resource level, it will be maintained long beyond its sustainability inflection point as its effects in providing data and information and pacifying billions with entertainment is worth the loss of resources, as it helps inform and temper society as civilisation skitters into what is shaping up to be a trainwreck of a transition to a sustainable society. hmmmm… that sounds more interesting….

You wrote: But they seem to me to be overly opimistic when they suggest that this means that we are finally reaching the point where the “objective conditions” for communism finally exist, or that the property form has become a “fetter” on the technological means of production, a fetter that is ready to be burst asunder.

and I agree with you that their hopes are unfounded. The transition from feudalism to capitalism was only possible when the objective conditions existed such that the reproduction of labour in a (nascent) capitalist system was possible. HOW people worked and survived and how this work was financed (both in terms of dollars and resources) had to come prior to any actual “capitalist” formations. The Romans had factories to make bread. HUGE factories that ran off water wheels. We don’t talk about Rome as some ancient capitalist state. And even if a Roman said “hey – we have factories and we are creating a new class of people enslaved to our machines and we use huge sums of money to finance this factory – let’s call ourselves capitalists!!!” They’d say he was crazy and feed him to the lions.

Same with “communism”. you’re not going to get communism out of computer networks. Networks can be used for progressive ideas, gestures, and programs, (viz Rossiter and Organized Networks) but these machines are made by giant corporations and only exist from the insane destruction of our ecosystem. When we can figure out how to make computers out of sand and sea water (two things I don’t think we’re ever going to run out of) and assembled by people who do so voluntarily for the joy of building them – no – I don’t see this as any kind of a stage for communism. Quite the contrary….

Friday, June 30, 2006
ER/EI

Over the past several weeks I have been rather focussed on ideas regarding Energy Return On Energy Invested, aka EROEI. I prefer the math version, ER/EI, as it is more to the point – it’s a ratio created by a simple division – Take your energy return and divide it by the energy invested. ER divided by EI.

My posts have been sporadic lately as I have moved back across the country, and between the jetlag and exhaustion of re-fitting myself into a more domestic existence, I’ve been keeping a lower profile than usual.

In my thinking, I am wondering if the entire ER/EI question is itself something of a red herring, and that perhaps there needs to be a better understanding of how we use energy in total.

Example: Nuclear power. A limited analysis would say that nuclear power is an extremely energetic system, far in excess per pound of fuel than any other, as (X) tons of plutonium or uranium fuel = (P) watts of power, and that this ratio P/X is rather astounding, hence: Nuclear power is a good value from the understanding of that ratio.

However, as many are quick to point out, there’s a lot more to nuclear power than (X) tons of fuel making (P) watts of energy, as there is the mining and processing of uranium and plutonium – an extremely energetic process. Then there is the building of a nuclear power plant; again, an energetic process. Then there is the amount of energy needed to keep the plant itself running, and the amount of energy needed to remove the fuel and dispose of it, and then, eventually dismantle the radioactive bits of plant itself. This significantly pulls a lot of value out of the X side of the X/P equation…

Then, there is what I’ve been looking at, which significantly impacts that X value as well, and it is what I call “secondary energy costs”. What are these? In the case of Nuclear Power, there’s a bunch of them. Let’s look at a nuke plant in terms of: Construction, Fuel, Maintenance, Fuel Disposal, and Decomissioning. Each of these are fraught with secondary costs.

Construction
The concrete doesn’t appear from nowhere. It has to be mined. The mining equipment requires energy. There are people who need to do the mining, and they have homes and families and these also require energy. The school where the kids go requires energy. The clothing the miners wear is made in factories thatrun on energy, and are shipped to stores in trucks thatuse energy, and the truck itself is made from metals that are mined by other miners who also have energy requirements. And the mining machines are made in factories that use energy and by people who also have energy needs and schools and hospitals and TV sets. And then there is the construction itself – exotic metals, concrete, rebar, all of these things require energy in their mining, processing, and construction, and each step of the way is a factory using energy, and people using energy to go to work in and live near those factories.

Fuel
The development of nuclear fuels is a hazardous and toxic process, and one that is highly energetic. It takes thousands of tons of unranium, and thousands of centrifuges running flat out for days, and huge factories full of raw and waste materials to make, process, and form the fuel for a nuclear power plant. These factories have thousands of workers, and each of them has families and homes and towns and cars and TV sets all needing energy. Then there is the fuel needed to transport the fuel to the plant, and the energy needed to build the machines that transport and store the fuel.

Maintenance
The nuclear power plant has a crew of people – people who are engineers that keep the place running, grounds keepers keeping it nice looking, management personnel to keep things organised and running, and of course, Mr Burns who owns the plant must be kept in the lifestyle to which he has become eminently accustomed, a cleaning crew that takes out the trash and sweeps up, security personnel, and at least one guy named Homer to nap on the job as the core goes critical…

Still, all these people have homes – Homer has Marge, Lisa, Bart, and Maggie. Homer has to drive to work, and that takes energy. He sucks down a foaming frosty mug of Duff Beer at Moe’s Bar and the beer is transported to the bar, the bar requires energy to be built and maintained and power the neon lights, and Homer needs energy to get to Moe’s, wash his clothes, get his kids to school, perm Marge’s hair, etc.

This is all just part of Homer’s life as a worker at the nuke plant, and each plant has many many Homers, and they all need energy as do all of Homer’s friend’s and acquaintances.

Fuel Disposal
Once the fuel is used up, it must be removed and disposed of, requiring no small amount of energy and effort by Homers who are hired to do this sort of thing, and who also have families and homes and cars.

Decomissioning
When the plant is done, it needs to be dismantled and disposed of, and that is also a highly energetic effort…

This deeper analysis points to an odd conclusion – that ER/EI is a relevant equation, but in a mixed fuel economy, it is functionally impossible to tease out accurate numbers, and even when these numbers are teased out, they may be of limited use. Hence ER/EI may not be the important question.

No matter what we do, we use all the energy we’ve got.

(Just as I typed that line, “Corsair” by Boards of Canada came on the random choice of iTunes… man is that creepy…)

I am not certain, but I am fairly well convinced that true ER/EI is not as crazy as an NP-hard problem, but due to the total inter-relatedness and dynamics of society and energy, I am fairly well convinced that an accurate ER/EI analysis is not practically possible.

This is a BIG problem. Pimentel et al have staked their authority on such analysis, and while my extension of the ER/EI analysis only serves their points that alternative energy systems sch as ethanol have very low ER/EI (and my view punches it well below 1:1) it also points out the deep and impenetrable fog at the edges of such analysis, which can be used by all sorts of people to both credit and discredit any given technology.

While symbolic system can be developed to represent these analyses (Odum et al) even these symbolic systems cave under the complexity of dynamic energy allocations and sourcings.

Example: let’s say Homer drives a 1988 Chrysler Imperial to work, and it gets 15 mpg. Sure, his energy source for driving doesn’t require energy from the nuclear plant, and so that energy input is not counted against X, but the pumping of the gas is, as is the electricity the gas station uses. The food may be delivered to the Springfield Safeway by truck, but the Safeway runs on electricity, and Marge’s time spent shopping there uses some portion of that, and that does count against X, as the food she bys there mostly goes into Homer’s gut. And the Dunkin Donuts cooks its donuts using natgas, but the rest of it operates on electricity, and Homer’s donut consumption is some part of that, and that also counts against X. And then, one day, Homer replaces his gas guzzling Imperial with a plug in Hybrid, and now THAT cuts into X.

I don’t see how these dynamic fluctuations can be properly accounted for in any symbolic quantitative system, especially as these dynamic systems influence each other’s behaviour and output. So, Homer and a jillion other Homers get plug in hybrids. These hybrids are more efficient per watt per mile than a gas engine, so it uses fewer watts per mile travelled. Then one day, Homer figures out that he can lose some weight by riding a bike, but he’s too old and fat to get over some of the hills, so he opts for an electric assist bike, which is even MORE efficient with watts per mile travelled, but is slower.

One plug-in Prius equals dozens, if not hundreds, of electric bikes, so the energy embodied and used by one plug-in Prius is radically less than the energy and material that went into building a 1986 Imperial, and the electric bikes (or even trikes) are even more radically efficient, and embody and use even less than a Prius. However, if Homer sells his Imperial and buys a 1996 Geo Metro, he will double (if not triple) his fuel mileage and rather than demand more minerals from the earth to build a new Prius, he will be re-using the minerals someone else demanded from the earth ten years previously, and, in so doing, will be doubling the use of those materials, rather than have them go to the crusher and be recycled at some future date.

The Metro aside, all these electric bikes being pedalled by the Homers at the Burns Nuclear Power Plant and all the electric bikes pedalled by the friends of all the Homers, and all the electric bikes that get the service employees for all the Homers (Moe at the bar, Apu at the QuickieMart, etc.) are powered by the nuke plant, so it affects the ER/EI of the nuke plant, but certainly less than if they had plug-in Priuses.

You get the picture – calculating the ER/EI of a given energy technology is not an exact science, and that is why I wonder if it isn’t something of a red herring.

Basically, I think the question of ER/EI is critical in a general sense, but I do not believe ER/EI can ever get beyond a general or vague number, due to the dynamism and vagaries of its component structures and subsystems.

I may be an artist, and I may be insane, but I am enough of a scientist to appreciate being wrong. Please prove me so.

Friday, April 21, 2006
Karsner’s Speech

Assistant Secretary of Energy A. Karsner gave a speech that, in my humble estimation, shows just how lost the Bush Administration is – they’re talking out both sides of their mouths and have no credibility. This fellow was sent to talk to Powergen about renewable energy, something (with the exception of wind power) the Bush Admin has repeated cut funding for.

Arghh.

So, I respond to his speech point by point.

Keynote Address by Hon. Alexander Karsner, Asst. Secretary of Energy to Powergen Renewables

[snip quip and warm fuzzies]

It’s wonderful to be here with you in Las Vegas. My wife and I love Las Vegas, which is actually somewhat strange, because neither of us actually gamble, nor do we drink much. Still, it is unique in so many ways and uniquely American by birthright. Carved out of the waterless desert, it has evolved to become a neon, energy-intensive oasis tailored to leisure and whimsy and on-call, 24-7.

And it is one of the single least sustainable cities in the world. Las Vegas is a blight upon the planet.

(snip description of Death Valley and Las Vegas)

We are fortunate to have a very diverse group of friends who enjoy both environs. Yet, from time to time, we hear folks speak disdainfully of those who prefer the great outdoors to the urban nightlife or vice versa. Our view is that we cherish the very coexistence and diversity that this spectacular city and region represent–where some of the most creative works of man are married together with some of the grandest work of creation, because it is emblematic of Enjoying Life, thriving upon Liberty, and the opportunity to Pursue Happiness as one sees fit.

The problem is, Mr Karsner, the friends you know who enjoy the great outdoors and a night under the Milky Way aren’t squandering the resources of the greater southwest region. I do not see replicas of New York and Paris as spectacular or as one of the most creative works of man except in the most depraved way imaginable such a vision of
Las Vegas As Public Art makes the charlatanism of Jeff Koons look like the genius of Leonardo Da Vinci.

I have only held this post for a couple of weeks, and so mercifully, I am happy to report that I have yet to become a bureaucrat!

You can’t become what you already are.

Many of you know me and you know my background and my ambitions; it is similar to your own. My purpose today is to give voice to our mutual aspirations, to share some early perspective on the task ahead, and to explore how we might together make an impact on preserving for future generations those things we hold dearest; those things that are our birthright as Americans: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Sorry – that’s not in the constitution. The Constitution lists Life, Liberty, and Property. I learned that in 8th grade Civics. The pursuit of happiness is in the Declaration of Independence, which is not a legally binding document.

Perhaps we take these things for granted, perhaps we do not reflect on them enough.

I think about them daily, and I find them under assault NOT from without, but from within by the Bush Administration itself.

But as I parse the magnitude of our challenge, I am motivated by these principles and the bigger picture.

We are a nation at war.

The war on terror is, by definition, bogus. It’s like a war on Daylight Strategic Bombing. Terror is a method of practicing
aggression. You can’t win a war on terror any more than you can win a war on kindergartners “hitting” each other, and, that said, the war on terror is one the Bush Administration has pretty much given up on prosecuting some time ago, Bush himself has said that he doesn’t put that much energy into trying to find and bring to justice Osama Bin Laden. So, your entire angle on “security” rings false and has no credibility.

We ARE at war, but it is in Iraq, and it was a war of choice – the Bush Administration, of which you are a part, LIED to everyone about the reasons for going to war, and then had the unmitigated temerity to bungle the whole job. Therefore, no quarter is granted to the Bush Administration for this. And for you, as a representative of this administration, to bleat “We’re at War”, is inadmissable, and doesn’t really carry any water any more. At all.

Our earth is warming.

Correct, for once. And that is a fact the Bush Administration has resisted coming around to facing FOR YEARS, wasting precious time. The Bush Administration continues to try to muzzle voices in the government who are trying to warn the public about this looming crisis. And it is also a fact that to end the human contribution to global warming, global agreements and co-ordination will be required, and it is precisely JUST SUCH agreements the Bush Junta has cheerfully ignored, defied, and circumvented since its installation by the Supreme Court in 2001. Again, the President and his circle of lackies, incompetents, cronies, and neocon fascists, have Zero Credibility in this regard, and you, as a representative of said Administration will have to do a LOT more than simply state the obvious to even hope to have a prayer of a chance of acquiring any credibility on the subject.

Carbon emissions and greenhouse gases are impacting air quality and the environment.

And AGAIN, the Bush Administration has continually resisted any legislation to up the mileage requirements on vehicles or reduce pollution at source. Again, you and the Administration you work for, have Zero Credibility.

America is addicted to oil.

And it is an addiction that the Bush Administration has continually exacerbated with idiotic regulations like subsidies for gas guzzling Hummers, and a continued antipathy toward extending and intensifying the CAFE standards.

And so, ironically, even as we find ourselves at the dawn of a new millennium, with numerous indicators of extraordinary economic growth,

Which is part of the problem, not the solution.

record low unemployment,

but with reduced income and wages for those Americans that are not part of the uppermost income brackets.

record home ownership,

combined with record debt and record low savings.

and record rates of productivity,

in a nation with no national health care, and with the least amount of vacation time in the industrialized world.

there remains a seething sense of anxiety in the land.

Geeee, I wonder WHY?

Personally, the unusually heightened sense of concern I felt when I watched those towers fall on that balmy day nearly five years ago has never fully gone away, and I see no sense in suppressing it now.

WTF does 9/11 have to do with any of this?

We are at war.

No, “We” are not. The Bush Administration invaded a comparatively defenceless dictatorship. This was a “war” of choice. The Bush Administration gave up hunting down Osama Bin Laden years ago, and he was the one who attacked us. There should have been a “war” against Al Qaeda, similar to the “war” against the Barbary Coast pirates. Instead, Bush et al invaded Afghanistan but failed to get bin Laden and then committed the USA to a bungled war in Iraq.

Fortunate though we are to live in a nation that can protect and insulate itself from the harshest realities of the battle,
it is not possible for me to grow up in a military family and not be constantly cognizant of our countrymen in harm’s way.

The Moroccan and Pakistani and Muslim people I have known from all parts of the world are amongst the kindest and most hospitable people on earth. They too dream of peace and happiness for their families. But they live daily in apprehension and fear from well-funded, militant, and ignorant fundamentalism that dwells like a cancer in their midst.

WHAT? The Pakistani people labour under a fake republic that is run by a network of strongmen propped up by the government and security apparatus of the United States of America. Pakistan is the nation most responsible for the distribution of nuclear technology to countries least interested in using it in a responsible manner. In fact, A. Khan, the man RESPONSIBLE for selling nuclear technology was PARDONED by the very strongmen that the Bush Administration is backing.

Morroco? Morocco is a de jure constitutional monarchy, with a popularly-elected parliament. The King of Morocco, with vast executive powers, can dissolve government and deploy the military at will, among other amusing responsibilities. Opposition political parties are legal and several have arisen in recent years, but are largely ineffective against the rule of an autocratic KING. Illiteracy sits at 50% and among women it is closer to 90%. I hardly see Morocco as some paragon of democratic virtue or enlightened culture.

No one lives with these realities daily nor understands them more intimately than the President of the United States.

I sincerely doubt George Bush could find Morocco on a MAP with both hands, a flashlight, and a page full of hints and brightly coloured circles in North Africa, much less understand the realities of life as an illiterate testosterone poisoned meatheaded thug. On second thought, maybe he could…

It is of course a great personal honor for me and my family that he chose to select a renewable energy developer for this post, but have no doubt – it is a tribute to this great community of risk-takers, doers and dreamers, of which I am proud to be a member.

DUDE: face facts – you are window-dressing. You’re a distraction – you’re the waving hand of the prestidigitator keeping the air occupied while the other hand of the administration continues its insane and criminal behaviour of imperialism and kleptocracy.

Both the President and Secretary Bodman recognize that we cannot afford to divorce science from commerce; innovation from entrepreneurship.

But he has proven time and time again that he IS willing to divorce science from public policy, education, and common sense if it wins him political points with the delusional morons that constitute his base as “the religious right”.

Neither carefully crafted mandates, regulatory inducements, nor research alone can deliver to us the goals for which the Department of Energy was originally established.

But carefully crafted mandates, regulatory inducements, AND research CAN deliver the following:

1. An automobile fleet that gets, AT A MINIMUM, 60 miles per gallon, with existing technology.
2. Vast subsidies for the adoption of solar panels on private homes and wind turbines on farms.
3. Decentralization of energy production (see #2)
4. Develop an American designed/based/manufactured sustainable energy industry
5. Deincentivise reproduction – i.e., make it expensive to have children
6. Develop IFR nuclear reactors to rid the planet of nuclear power and nuclear fuel while generating electricity.
7. Make it illegal to drive a gas guzzling tank as a private passenger vehicle – there is no excuse for the Hummer.
8. Subsidise the hyperinsulation of homes.
9. Incentivise local organic agriculture and permaculture.

The list of what carefully crafted mandates, regulatory inducements, and research can deliver is long and intense. This kind of “Government Can’t Work” Attitude is typical of the Bush Administration who have done their very best to prove their point that government can’t work, by making sure it doesn’t. The depressing madness and disaster that surrounded the response to Hurricane Katrina and the ongoing fiasco in Iraq are just two of the more obvious proofs of my point.

As the legacy of great American energy pioneers like Franklin and Edison and Einstein would dictate, “Necessity is the Mother of Invention.” Combining scientific inquiry with commercial creativity remains the most powerful force for transformational change available to address the substantial needs with which we are confronted.

Ummmm, Einstein did all his important work in Germany. Otherwise, the point is a Cliché, followed by a recognition of the obvious.

The brilliant people with whom I am privileged to work beside at the Department of Energy know these urgent needs inspire my rallying cry to unite folks inside Washington and around the country; inside America, and around the world.

More flag waving balderdash.

We must take our clean energy technologies and replicate, proliferate, and accelerate. There is no time to waste and no time for small thinking. We know where these train tracks are heading and we know the destination we must reach. The only question is the rate of speed we are moving and what will be the ultimate cost of the ticket?

No, the question is MONEY. Who’s getting it, and how much.

According to here:

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=23074

The FY06 budget request for the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) energy efficiency and renewable energy (EE/RE) programs envisions reductions totaling nearly $50 million – an overall cut of roughly 4 percent. This includes a 6 percent cut in Distributed Energy programs ($60,416 to $56,629); an 8 percent cut in the Geothermal Energy program ($25,270 to $23,299); an 18 percent cut in the Biomass/Biofuels program ($88,099 to $72,164); and a 90 percent cut in the Hydropower program ($4,862 to $500).

In fact, the Bush budget proposes to phase out DOE’s hydropower program altogether and all support for the Advanced Hydropower Turbine, a joint program between DOE and the hydropower industry exploring fish-friendlier turbines, just at the time when full scale testing is about to begin at multiple locales.

Adding insult to injury for at least some of these programs, the cuts come on top of earlier reductions. The geothermal program, for example, had been funded at $28.4 million in FY03 and steadily reduced since then.

Less severely impacted is DOE’s solar R&D budget which faces a reduction of only 1.3 percent, from $85.07 million in FY 05 to $83.95 million in FY 06. The solar industry has sought to put a positive spin on its reduction calling the budget request “essentially status quo funding” while applauding a “promising new initiative to advance the development of crystalline silicon solar power.”

Overall, among DOE’s core renewable energy programs, only wind energy is proposed for an increase – 3.4 million (from $40.8 million to $44.2 million), a relatively large expansion of nearly 9 percent.

Which only goes to prove that in point of fact, the only renewable sector that saw improved funding was Wind, and this only serves to further demonstrate just how antipathic and hostile the Bush Junta is to Renewable Energy.

The way I see it, the people in this Hall are the locomotives of change and the role of government is to clear the way, get the rocks off the rails, and ensure maximum velocity. We have an obligation to steward both hardware AND policy.

And you’re NOT going to even be able to do THAT if you

A: continue to cut funding to renewable energy
B: spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year on a pointless war in Iraq
C: spend even more hundreds of billions of dollars propping up a global empire of military bases, CIA gulags, and client thug governments.
D: consistently and continuously reduce the tax burden of the wealthy.

Policy with predictability, transparency, longevity; policy conducive to capital formation that continuously cultivates market expansion of clean, green, domestic sources of power generation and fuels for transportation. All the while we must be relentless in attacking inefficiency and waste for its insidious and undermining impact on our national aspirations.

Inefficiency and WASTE? Coming from an administration that VOLUTARILY invaded Iraq and is now pissing away hundreds of billions of dollars on a nonsensical imperialist occupation? The Bush Administration is a complete disaster, and it has no credibility whatsoever. For the administration (and the Republican Party it runs) to prattle on about ineffiency and waste, all while building multimillion dollar bridges to nowhere and wasting billions of dollars a day on a foolish and horrible war in Iraq is the epitome of duplicitous double-dealing and hypocrisy.

We must do these things and more, at the fastest possible rate of market penetration, and government must be both realistic and relevant in it role. In short, we owe it to you, the leaders in the private markets, to update and redefine ourselves. We cannot perpetuate the delusion that government is leading the markets; nor should we distract ourselves with the unrealistic and ineffective ambitions of a command and control economy.

Government MUST lead the markets, because the markets are not structured to do the job. And while I am not a fan of Command/Control economy, during WW2 it DID propel the USA and the Soviet Unions into being the most powerful military nations ever seen. The USA abandoned direct command and control after WW2, and replaced it with a rapacious imperialist military/industrial complex, which was clearly such a vast improvement…

(snip rhetorical question)

It is our objective at the Department of Energy that we should increasingly become more agile, more attuned, more iterative and catalytic. In doing so, we can exert leadership that clearly seeks achievable goals, is unafraid to enter the fray, and continuously “moves the scrum” down the field.

Fine, then legalise and subsidise abortion everywhere for everyone. Subsidise birth control. Tax families with more than 2 children. Reduce or even ration consumption of energy and resources. Energy is’t “just Energy”. Energy consumption is part of the broader problem of overpopulation.

That is why I am proud to embrace Phase II, not merely as a milestone, but as a battle plan by which we can achieve great things together.

Again, not as long as the Bush Junta remains in power.

Maximizing energy efficiency and renewable energy IS the domestic epicenter in the War on Terror and it is imperative that we maximize the partnerships between the public and private sectors in new and creative ways with a sense of seriousness, national purpose and the urgency the situation merits.

Which means MONEY. Spending MONEY on the RIGHT STUFF. Spending money on an idiotic war in the middle east is spending money on the WRONG STUFF. Spending money on subsidizing rooftop solar panels and farm fields of wind turbines is spending money on the RIGHT STUFF.

The president and his cronies would rather line their pockets, and the pockets of their shareholders, by pissing away billions of borrowed dollars in Iraq. Your entire budget is a tiny fraction of what this war costs. In this world, importance is measured by dollars. Where the money goes is what is important. Your programs are not important to the Bush Administration. They do not feel you urgency, and never will.

(snip something not directed to me)

That is why last week, when I was in Detroit with the Secretary, he told the auto industry in no uncertain terms, “More needs to be done.” We need to have more flex fuel vehicles on the market of ALL vehicle types and classes and we need to have them available from all manufacturers who serve the US market. “We must continue to encourage the exponential expansion in the supply of ethanol available.”

Ethanol? WTF? How about 60 mpg diesel cars? How about an outright ban on private passenger vehicles over 4000lbs? Electric commuter vehicles? Expansion of telecommuting? Increased funding for public transport? Ethanol isn’t going to save us, or the car industry. Eliminating the need to drive is more important than what you drive, and what you drive is more important (for now) than what fuel it uses.

When the President of the United States personally visits a solar manufacturing facility to announce millions of dollars in increased funding aimed at changing “the way we power homes and lead our lives” you can be assured he understands you.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! See the quote above which shows that he actually has REDUCED funding for critical research, and has only increased funding for wind power. If it wasn’t for the Danes and the Germans shaming him, he probably would have cut that too… And the energy that is produced in our petroleum society is being wasted on a pointless cycle of consumption – it’s Cheney’s “non-negotiable” American Lifestyle ITSELF that’s destroying the planet. And no amount of handwaving is going to change that.

When the President personally takes interest in the development cycle of battery storage for plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles, he clearly seeks to inspire a bigger picture.

Then why does he CUT THE FUNDING for alternative energy research? HMMMM?

When President Bush declares that wind power could provide up to 20% of our national generation capacity, you can be certain his vision is both exciting and real.

We need it to do better than 20%. WAY better than 20%.

(snip blather and flag waving nonsense)

All this speech demonstrated is the delusional state of mind that inhabits the powers that be. NOTHING will get done in the USA until the Bush Junta is removed from office. Period.

We’re in a scary holding pattern. Much of the rest of the world is far ahead of us on all of these points – from localized farming to high technology wind power. The Bush Administration continues to fund military adventures over everything else, and if continued unabated, will only serve to bankrupt the US Treasury and scuttle the hopes and dreams of a nation.

Thursday, December 29, 2005
Greenwood, IN

Early Warning has been off line- I’ve been cavorting about the country, gamboling about the USA. I had a lot of final grades to submit on 18 DEC 05, and I left for holiday on the 19th, arriving in Greenwood, IN. I hate to say this … naaaah – I’ll say it: Greenwood Indiana is the poster-child of all that is completely fucked up with America. This place is screwed. Everything is only accessible by automobile. The winters are cold and damp. The summers are hot and muggy. These people are completely and utterly dependent on petroleum. All of their consumption is accomplished by way of giant national chain stores and regional franchises.

I write this from a Panera Bread Cafe. Easily half of the people sitting around me at this moment are obese. Not a little fat, not somewhat overweight. Obese. Full disclosure: I could stand to lose a few pounds (30 to be exact) but I *know* that I need to lose it and I have a plan I am implementing to do so. These people have no plans on doing so. These people are pigs at the trough, gulping down coffee and carbs.

I will now look out the window at the parking lot, and report the vehicles in the lot:

13 SUVs
8 minivans
6 full sized cars (Cadillacs, Buicks, a mid 90’s Oldsmobile, etc.)
14 midsized cars (Chevys, Pontiacs, mostly, some few Toyotas)
9 compact cars, one Toyota, one VW, the rest Chevy or Ford.
1 sub compact – a Mini Cooper.

NO Priuses. No Honda Insights.

Clueless clueless clueless.

The Panera Cafe uses natural gas to cook the food. The place has (I glanced into the kitchen and guess-timated) a total of approximately 150 sixty watt bulbs. Some of them are spots, so they’re a bit “brighter” because their light is more directed. The Panera Cafe, as it is presently configured, will likely cease to exist in my lifetime. I suspect they will be able to heat water for coffee in the future, but the coffee will be much more expensive. People will savour a single cup, instead of guzzle 20 oz. buckets of the stuff.

A young couple sat down next to me. She complained that one of her professors demanded that she write a paper about the environment. She said she really doesn’t care about the environment. She’s a psychology major. She and her boyfriend prayed before eating. I must remember that I am in the Bible Belt. If I takes a copernican stance, then I would conclude they are typical of the environment, and given that the fellow across from me is researching the book of Romans, I consider my observation reasonable.

The young couple next to me prepared to leave. she had ordered a loaf of soup: a small loaf of hard crusted bread filled with soup. she ate the soup and threw out the bread. Then they prepared to leave.

I told her “I heard you say that you don’t care about the environment. Well, it doesn’t care much about you, either. And frankly, in the greater scheme of things, the environment always wins. Just a bit of advice…”

They walked away. The look on her face was of utter cluelessness. She even had a faint smile on her face.

They will graduate from college, with their useless degrees in psychology and marketing. They will live on to become part of the problem, and drive their Stupid Useless Vehicles to the Mall to buy their food and consumer items. I find them all so depressing. The irony is this: if there is some nuclear conflict, the cities will be destroyed, but the cities consume (per capita) fewer resources than backwater exurbs like Greenwood, which would be largely spared in such a conflagration. It’s places like Greenwood that are the problem, and their destruction will be part of the solution. The funny thing is: it won’t take a nuclear war to rid the planet of dumps like this – the lifestyle is so unsustainable they will simply destroy themselves… unfortunately, they are so self-absorbed and greedy, they will want to take the rest of us with them as they careen over their cliff of wasteful narcissism.

This blog can be read by most anyone in the world with computer access and a knowledge of the English language. The rest of the world must understand that some of us: even as we sit in an energy wasting cafe full of idiots – are not idiots. We are working to change things. It will take active reform from within, but it will also take active resistance from without in order to avoid catastrophe. I can only hope the catastrophe starts in places like Greenwood with their endless miles of cavernous Targets, Kohls, Menards, Home Depots, Bed-Bath-And-Beyonds, Megaplex Movie Theatres, and the endless cavalcade of McDonalds, Burger Kings, Subway and Quiznos Sandwich Shops, KFCs, Paneras, Starbucks, highways, SUVs, McMansions on treeless lots, the never ending Horror that is the exurban nightmare of early 21st century middle America. Gads, these people disgust me. I’m not here in Greenwood because I want to be here – my in-laws, by weird twists of fate, live here, and I’m visiting them for Xmas.

I’ve told “Grandma” what’s going down. She doesn’t really believe it, but she doesn’t have to – she’ll be gone before it all hits the fan. And grandpa is way too old to be personally concerned. My sister and brother in law? They just bought a 3200 sq. ft. house on a treeless lot, amid an enormous field of other 3200 sq. ft. homes on treeless lots. Even if they planted some fast growing pine NOW, they won’t have enough wood in 15 years to keep themselves warm in any sustainable way. They don’t want to get it – they are too heavily invested in the Horror. Luckily, there is a train line that goes through Greenwood. There is no train station, but building a platform is a fairly simple task. These people might not completely starve. But I have NO idea how they will transition to a sustainable lifestyle.

I will return to a more regular posting schedule in the new year. The next few weeks are going to be spent packing and flying and flying and flying and flying…

Thursday, December 15, 2005
My Next Car – probably not…

So I did some digging and found some rather discouraging information. Clearly, in the process of reducing energy consumption and going to a lighter, slower vehicle fleet, regulations are going to have to change, a lot, as they are clearly antiquated and exclusive of anything but heavy gas-guzzling death monsters if you want a powered vehicle that runs on more than 2 wheels.

For example, in my lovely home state of CA -

CA VC Section 407. A “motorized quadricycle” is a four-wheeled device, and a “motorized tricycle” is a three-wheeled device, designed to carry not more than two persons, including the driver, and having either an electric motor or a motor with an automatic transmission developing less than two gross brake horsepower and capable of propelling the device at a maximum speed of not more than 30 miles per hour on level ground. The device shall be utilized only by a person who by reason of physical disability is otherwise unable to move about as a pedestrian or by a senior citizen as defined in Section 13000.

Amended Ch. 1292, Stats. 1993. Effective January 1, 1994.

Basically, the law defines a motorised quadricycle as one of those motorised wheelchair thingies you see advertised on daytime TV and AARP magazines.

However, if the vehicle has 2 or 3 wheels it falls under:

Definition of a Motorized Bicycle

(3) Is incapable of further increasing the speed of the device when
human power is used to propel the motorized bicycle faster than 20
miles per hour.

To thoroughly complicate things, at the same time there is this little bit of joy:

HR727 is the House bill that was enacted as Public Law 107-319.

A two- or three-wheeled vehicle with fully operable pedals and an electric motor of less than 750 watts (1 h.p.), whose maximum speed on a paved level surface, when powered solely by such a motor while ridden by an operator who weighs 170 pounds, is less than 20 mph.

Apparently the full text of bicycle regs appear in the Code of Federal Regulations at Title 16, Section 1512. You can access the CFR at the Government Printing Office website www.gpoaccess.gov/cfr. Type in 16cfr1512 to go straight to the bicycle regs.

Which makes all this rather complex.

What I think it really DOES do is kick quadricycles out of the mix of easily assimilable vehicle forms, while permitting tricycles.

My guess is this was on purpose – if you could build an electric assist quadricycle that had a range of 60 miles, there would be no reason for people to spend countless sums of money on automobiles.

Especially if that quad had a body fairing to keep the rain and cold out. As I noted earlier, delta trikes are scary, and tadpole trikes are low to the ground and get a little “wiggly” under power in a curve, unless they can camber (lean) into the curve. In anycase, trikes with a fairing are fast as hell in the flats due to their aerodynamics. The power assist is mostly for getting them up hills, where the recumbent position is less efficient.

What I thought was simple and straight-forward seems to be much more nuanced than I thought….

The idea of a slow lightweight quadricycle cuts directly to the essence of the automobile in contemporary society as a technological practice in transportation.

According to This Webpage filled with this kind of info from a motorcycle advocacy point of view, “The average United States driver travels 29 miles per day and is driving a total of 55 minutes per day. (This is an average vehicle speed of 32 mph.)”

So, if one halved the average speed to 16, and doubled the amount of time one travelled, people would naturally seek to live closer to work. This would tend to rejuvenate cities like Newark and Jersey City NJ, Oakland CA, Camden NJ, South Central LA and other ruined close in cities and neighbourhoods, as employed and somewhat less dysfunctional people will seek to reduce their commute and living expenses. At the same time, the expense of owning such a vehicle (which would weigh around 70 kg instead of 1500 kg and use no direct fossil fuels. Such vehicles would be most useful in the south and west parts of the USA, which have better weather.

And such gas free vehicles, as they enabled this shift to higher density, would help blunt the edge of the Long Emergency and help form a more peaceful and orderly transition and die-down of the species, instead of a rapid and violent die-off. However, the automotive companies will have to start building these things en masse, ASAP, and the legislation that makes them difficult to implement and the highway speeds that make them impossible and dangerous on said roads will have to change.

(I want to thank Doug from Utah for challenging me to look into this.)

Tuesday, December 13, 2005
My Next Car
RHOADES CAR

Seats two, top speed 18 mph.
Weight of vehicle: 135 lbs.
motor: 24 volt 750 watt Powerdrive motor assist
Range: without electric assist? as far as you can pedal in a day.
With ONLY electric assist? 30 – 60 miles, depending on weather, load, and terrain. Which is about as far as I would want to pedal one of these in a day, anyway…

I figure all I need a car for is to schlep a few miles to work, pick up groceries, liquor & drugs, clothes, etc. and occassionally go downtown so I can dance to the boogie (get down!) with my sweeeeeetie pie, and “the next morning”, take the weeee child to school. This thing would more than suffice.

It’s open, so winters would truly *suck ASS*, but you just do what motorcyclists do: dress appropriately, or move someplace warm.

(In that regard, I was thinking this vehicle could benefit from an actual “body” perhaps made of doped canvas and safety glass. I’m uncertain as to how it would effect the range and speed – it would certainly have less drag than an open vehicle, and be more comfortable in the cold, but it would increase the weight, and could be kind of stifling in the heat of summer… perhaps a removeable canvas body?)

In any case I think ultra-light electric assist vehicles are the bee’s knees. If anyone who commutes less than 5 or 10 miles to work owned something like this, the world would be a much better and cleaner place – we would see a dramatic reduction in fuel consumption, and people might actually lose some weight. What a notion…

Tuesday, November 29, 2005
How to Avert Catastrophe: Community
There’s been a great deal of discussion about Peak Oil, and much of it has taken on a kind of narcissistic schadenfreude – where there is a kind of cruel laughter “Muuuaahahahahahahaaa” that seems to permeate the discussion and defines The Real Peak Oilers from the noobs and the cornicopians. Why it is narcissistic is that we’re talking about Ourselves in such a dismissive and gloating manner. That is not the way to win friends and influence people. You can’t build a community of concerned citizens by telling them “Most of you are going to die”. All you get out of that is a nihilistic cult.

This does not invalidate their position: there is a non-zero probability that we could see a massive die-off in the next 30 years. How? If nations do nothing to prepare for a post-petroleum world, and are then hit with avian flu and regional nuclear resource wars – that would pretty much insure the elimination of about 80% of the human race, right off the bat. Between the starvation, the disease, and the radiation, there wouldn’t be much left to work with.

However, I don’t see that as a genuine likelyhood – more as a possibility that becomes increasingly probable if specific conditions aren’t met. One of the factors that will most greatly mitigate against such a massive and immediate die off is Community. People working with people to the collective good. One development toward said community is this blog. I know this is not the first blog regarding this issue, nor will it be the last. But it’s the one you’re reading now, and so, in this immediate sense, we share an attention and can form a community, however temporary it is as you read this, of two.

You, my dear reader, and I are now linked together – from the words I type at 9.30 in the morning on a cool grey Tuesday to whenever and where ever you read them – we can communicate – you can leave a comment below, and we can discuss ideas. There are other blogs and I will be collecting links to them.

The first one you will see to your right, under the “Blogs” heading, is to the New York City Oil Drum blog – run by PeakGuy. He writes well and with precision about energy issues related to New York City – eevrything from Bike Lanes on Second Ave to more philosophical and insightful issues regarding the social integration of Peak Oil theory. Check him out!

In order to avert true catastrophe, we will all need to “pull together”. To quote Ben Franklin – “We must hang together or surely we will all hang separately.” Local groups need to take action to get their neighbours aware of the problem and working to immediate mitigation solutions. This can be on very small scales: just getting the old geezer across the street to use CFL bulbs and to turn off his porch light at night is a good first step. Things scale from there. If each city works at that level, we can see significant mitigation efforts come to fruition – everything from community food banks and backyard farm associations to neighbourhood energy management via windmills.

The facts are plain to see – we’re quickly approaching or have actually arrived at Peak Oil. The time to act is now, before it all hits the fan. If we wait for it to hit the fan, it will be too late. Community organising at a neighbourhood level is easier than organising at a state or national level. This is especially true if such organisations are helped and/or guided by local government. Officials in local government need to be educated on the facts of the issue, and need to understand what is at stake for their constituencies, including the mayor or the county supervisor. If approached properly, they can be brought on to help in the process, and could actually be a source of funding to get these programs going and co-ordinated.

Every community has its own priorities and complexities, so there can never be a top-down formula for success. That’s why local organising is critical – each community will have its own set of skills and needs and if organised from the bottom up, and then co-ordinated across from larger city-wide/county/regional perspective, significant mitigation efforts can be brought to bear and all uniquely tailored and perfectly fitted to the local conditions.

In future entries I hope to feature more about such efforts. An immediate example that comes to mind is what is going on in Willets, California.

There is also this interesting article regarding Local Governments Role in the Transition to a Post-Petroleum Society.

If we organise ourselves now, we can more easily ride out the storm later – we can Transition to a Post-Petroleum World instead of Collapsing Into It. This is not to say such a transition will be painless – on the contrary – we are looking at some difficult times ahead. But difficult is better than the bleaker visions of the more extreme theories surrounding Peak Oil.

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I’ve noticed that many blogs use Google Ads to support themselves. I am considering much the same – so over the next few weeks you might see a major adjustment to the appearance of Early Warning.