Our society runs on cheap and readily available energy just as our bodies require oxygen. And, just as any restriction in our supply of oxygen causes us immediate and serious harm, so will any crimp in the supply of energy rapidly drop our civilisation to its knees. That energy has allowed us to do fantastic things. In fact, we have been “high” on energy since the Industrial Revolution, but the party is winding down. We must change how we think about energy – now.

Substitute “energy” for “love” in the song by Sweet and you ruin the rhythm but get a fairly accurate idea of how important energy is:

Love is like oxygen
You get too much you get too high
Not enough and you’re gonna die
Love gets you high

Why is energy considered so critically important to our civilisation? Simply, there is no civilization-as-we-know-it without the energy we use in its current forms and proportions, mainly fossil fuels, nuclear, and hydroelectric. Any significant change in any of those energy sources and our civilisation would be severely shocked. We have built our society upon cheap and reliable energy. Continue reading →

Those solutions assume time to slowly decrease carbon output and honesty on the part of government and corporations. Time is too short and honesty virtually non-existent. They also leave out the other greenhouse gases, especially methane. We need to completely transform the economy starting immediately and achieve GHG neutrality within years, not decades. And why are we allowing people to pollute anyway?

People who think carbon taxes or cap-and-trade will work are assuming governments and corporations – these days there is little difference between the two – will do the right thing. Have they done so thus far?

The European Experience with Carbon Trading

Look at the European Union’s imposition of a carbon trading system; so far, carbon dioxide emissions by companies under the trading scheme continue to increase. Perhaps more slowly than they would have without the system, perhaps not; there is really no way to be sure. But we can say unequivocally that the E.U. carbon trading scheme has so far not done what it was intended to do, namely reduce emissions, while at the same time it has increased costs for consumers.

The theory of carbon trading is that companies have carbon credits (essentially a license to pollute) that they can sell if they don’t need them. Thus companies that dump less carbon sell their credits and companies that dump more have to buy credits. This is intended to provide motivation to emit less carbon. That’s the theory.

In the E.U., intense lobbying (formerly known as “corruption”) resulted in carbon credits being given to polluters for free, rather than sold, and so many of them were handed out that the carbon market all-but-collapsed. Accusations of undue corporate influence were and are denied by many of those responsible for handing out the credits. The value you should place on such denial is best illustrated by the case of the German economy minister of the time. He denies accusations of undue influence by industry –  and today sits on the board of RWE Power, Europe’s largest emitter of carbon. Continue reading →

We have many intelligent people in the highest positions of power. Some are less intelligent, but are quite cunning fellows. You cannot achieve the highest positions without a large dollop of one or both of these attributes. What is lacking almost entirely in the people at the top is wisdom. We need to fix that.

Wisdom is the ability to recognize and accept truth. Ignoring or denying reality, clearly, makes you unwise. Most of us have had the experience of being told by another: “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” And we did it anyway. And lived to regret it. Some people don’t have the chance to regret their mistake, because it turned out to be fatal; see: Darwin Awards. Continue reading →

Yes, and none of the above. I am a Realist. That means any economic system must:

• Work within the ecology, meaning be sustainable. Attempting to operate the economy as if it were not part of nature results in pollution, drawdown of natural capital like topsoil and oil, and ultimately, collapse. The economy is part of the ecology, not the other way around.
• Humans are part of the ecology. There is no point designing idealistic systems that do not respect human nature; people will find ways around such rules.

I don’t know what such an economy is called, because it has some capitalist and some socialist aspects; I call it a green economy. Continue reading →