by Shaun Chamberlin | Jul 27, 2008 | All Posts, Climate Change, Cultural stories, Peak Oil, Politics, Reviews and recommendations
I have just watched the BBC's outstanding thriller Burn Up, starring Rupert Penry-Jones, Marc Warren, Bradley Whitford and Neve Campbell (trailer available here).
It is a dramatic account of the intrigue, betrayal, sex and violence surrounding characters in the oil industry, international diplomacy and the environmental movement in the build up to the international conference that will decide on the successor to the Kyoto Protocol. For those who haven't yet seen it, be aware that the discussion below the cut contains spoilers.
Right, so you've seen it now - what did you think? Personally, despite the supposedly 'stellar' cast I thought some of the acting was a bit below-par, but I was shocked in the best possible way by the direction the script took.
Against all my expectations of a prime-time major channel drama this was a fascinating attempt to engage with and dramatise the over-riding tension of our times, between the depletion of the fossil-fuel resources which fuel our globalised way of life, and the growing consequences of the emissions those fuels produce.
It was great to see the scientist in the film stating that we have only 5-10 years to avoid irreversible runaway climate change - to me that is the bottom line - but the section that particularly fascinated me was the ending.
One man alone ends up holding incontrovertible evidence that Saudi oil production is in decline, and so that Peak Oil truly is already in the past, and he faces a dilemma. Does he tell the world, so that we can start work in earnest on the transition to a low-carbon future, or does he keep it to himself, since he knows full well that this information would spread panic throughout the financial markets, plunging us into global economic depression, prompting energy wars and causing suffering throughout the world.
His dilemma represents the very real tension our world faces. Our global economies are dependent on both growing supplies of accessible fossil fuels and a stable climate, so we know that our carbon-intensive way of life will end, one way or another. Yet we have now left it too late for a gentle, gradual transition to a low-carbon economy, so we can see that the crash of our existing systems, when it comes, will be painful.
This creates an instinctive desire to put it off as long as possible, but the longer we persist in our current fuel-wasting, carbon-emitting ways the faster and more vicious the crash will be. We know we really ought to go to the dentist, but maybe we can put it off for just one more year...
The pace of Burn Up seemed to speed up dramatically towards the end, and some friends less immersed in this field told me they had trouble keeping up with it all, but in essence it ended with our hero deciding to leak the information, and the credits rolled to the sound of radio news broadcasts apparently indicating the global economy falling apart as the implications of the reality-check reverberated around the world.
I must confess that when I wrote last month about the thought that economic collapse might be the only remaining solution to global warming, the last thing I expected was to be encountering the idea on prime-time TV so soon.
"The world doesn't have to go to hell Mack, just the economy. You're right, this information will cause the biggest powerdown we've ever seen. But you cut world manufacturing in half you cut CO2 emissions in half. Look it may not be tomorrow, it may not be next week, next month, who knows when but the crash is coming."
The battle of cultural stories continues...
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ps Since writing this post, I have been pointed at this fascinating interview with the writer of Burn Up.
by Shaun Chamberlin | Jul 17, 2008 | All Posts, Cultural stories, Peak Oil
Thanks to the Oil Drum's Peak Oil Media Watch I recently came across this fascinating video clip from the "Fast Money" programme on American business news channel CNBC. In the extract the studio panel are discussing the rise in oil prices and - as is the show's theme - how to make money from it.
Their studio guest is Joe Terranova, who appears to be a typical energy investment type (though with an incredibly expressive face!), but their phone linkup is to Matthew Simmons, Chairman of Simmons & Company International Ltd, who is one of the very few high-profile figures to have predicted the current oil price rises, and who has been raising the peak oil issue for some years now. The mismatch in their perspectives is spectacular, especially from 4 minutes in.
I can't make a better comment on this than that made by the ever-insightful Nate Hagens:
The CNBC video is a prime example of the juxtaposition of people's time horizons and boundaries. Simmons eloquently outlined the bigger picture of that society is facing dramatic institutional and structural change, and then the conversation was brought directly back to short term profits. June highs mean July lows, etc.
The reason there is no international, national, or regional body looking at WIDE boundary SYSTEMS analysis is that there is no money in it. If the markets are designed to produce profits measured in dollars, how will the markets solve problems of the global commons? How can the viewers/guests on CNBC even begin to analyze the depth of this problem beyond how higher oil prices affect their portfolio allocations? There will come a day when a 'paradigm allocation' will leapfrog modern financial portfolio allocation. That's why the quizzical looks on those guests faces - energy and ecology are not topics ingrained in most traders pattern recognition banks.
I can only hope that our next crop of national leaders surround themselves by wide boundary thinkers - to surround themselves by the current crop of salespeople will lessen our chances dramatically.
And I agree with PG - this is difficult to do - to present facts about the situation as best as possible while remaining positive. What if the situation is worse than even some of the pessimists predict? The sooner we close off avenues that are dead ends, the better we can save high quality resources.
Well done by Matt Simmons.
by Shaun Chamberlin | Jun 29, 2008 | All Posts, Climate Change, Cultural stories, Favourite posts, Peak Oil, Philosophy, Reviews and recommendations, TEQs (Tradable Energy Quotas), Transition Movement
As George Carlin once said, "they call it the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe in it".
At the risk of this blog becoming 'review corner', that seems the perfect introduction to the book I just finished reading - Dmitry Orlov's brilliantly enjoyable Reinventing Collapse. This is a true work of dark optimism, with a fair dash of dark humour to boot.
In it, Orlov draws on his experiences of the collapse of the Soviet Union to explore the future American residents like him are likely to face as the effects of the USA's disastrous economic, energy and foreign policies take hold.
Orlov highlights that economic collapse is not, in fact, the unthinkable end of the world, but rather simply a new set of historical circumstances within which to exist. This is a critically important and inherently dark subject, yet the book is suffused with subtle humour, to the extent that at times you are not quite sure when Orlov is serious and when he's joking. The answer, invariably, is both.
This deep humour is an apt way to stimulate further thought in the reader, and after the initial laughter I regularly found myself drawn into a contemplation that led me to Orlov's insights laying beneath.
One subtext particularly intrigued me. While Orlov argues that the collapse of the US economy is inevitable (I would agree), and will surely be extremely difficult for most of those living through it, various asides implied to me that it could be considered in some respects desirable.
This interests me in the context of the desperate urgency of the global climate change situation. As Dr. James Hansen chillingly put it in his recent paper, it is simply becoming a question of whether "humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted". On his reading of the science (and I trust him) we now have less than seven years to decide.
Bearing these stakes in mind, it is interesting to note that Chris Vernon of The Oil Drum quotes the statistic that Russia's carbon emissions fell 31% in the 5 years from the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. Ignoring for a moment all the other effects of that economic collapse, and considering that the weight of evidence tends to suggest that a 'great turning' of the global paradigm may not be likely to take place in time, I am led to ponder whether economic collapse is actually what we should be hoping for - does it represent our best bet for reducing emissions sufficiently quickly to retain a habitable climate on our planet?
I have written before about my belief that while climate change and peak oil represent the greatest direct threat facing humanity today, they are really only symptoms of a deeper problem. Humanity’s obsession with growth means that if we could wish away the excess CO2 in our atmosphere and generate unlimited oil we would still quickly find our unsustainable way of life pressing up against the next environmental limit, be it food shortages, air pollution, species extinctions or whatever.
And in turn this growth obsession is a symptom of the underlying cultural stories and philosophies we use to make sense of our lives and find meaning. Our cultural stories define us and strongly impact our behaviours. An example of a dominant story in our present culture is that of “progress” - the story that we currently live in one of the most advanced civilisations the world has ever known, and that we are advancing further and faster all the time. The definition of 'advancement' is vague – though tied in with concepts like scientific and technological progress – but the story is powerfully held. And if we hold to this cultural story then 'business as usual' is an attractive prospect – a continuation of this astonishing advancement. Similarly the cultural story that “fundamental change is impossible” makes it seem inevitable.
Yet even UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown admitted last week that,
“The fact is that a low carbon society will not emerge from thinking of business as usual”
The problem with stories comes when they shape our thinking in ways that do not reflect reality. The evidence might support the view that this 'advanced' culture is not making us happy and is rapidly destroying our environment's ability to support us, it might show that dramatic change is both common and inevitable, but dominant cultural stories are powerful magics, and those who challenge them tend to meet resistance and even ridicule.
Nonetheless, my work now focuses on changing these dominant cultural stories - and thus changing our patterns of thought and behaviour - as I see this as the key to equipping our society to deal with the pressing challenges of climate change and peak oil. TEQs, the Transition movement and the various other initiatives listed on my links page (as well as this blog of course!) seem to me to provide the best possibilities for starting to shift our cultural paradigm.
But perhaps this effort is too little too late? And perhaps by trying to move our society a little closer to long-term sustainability we are in fact just prolonging its existence, and thus prolonging its ability to pump emissions into our atmosphere...
Does our need for a relatively benign climate logically dictate that we should be striving to bring about economic collapse sooner rather than later?
It is an interesting question, and one that we may need to revisit, but my answer is still no. The human suffering caused by such a sudden collapse is overwhelming, and I believe that kinder options are still open to us.
Personally, I believe we still have a chance. I still believe, firstly, that a long-term future for humanity is possible, and secondly that we have a shot at developing a society that responds in a humane way to the crises we face. And I will fight for that possibility for as long as I believe in it and still see a chance that it exists, even as the window of possibility continues to shrink.
When it comes down to it, at the deepest level it doesn’t really matter to me whether or not it is probable that we succeed. As Tom Atlee has written,
“Probabilities are abstractions. Possibilities are the stuff of life, visions to act upon, doors to walk through.”
I will walk through the doors that inspire me.
Of course, there is a side of me that asks "but what if we do reach a time when the evidence is clear - when there is no longer any chance of avoiding the devastation of our climate". If we were on the Titanic and we had already hit the iceberg there would be little point in trying to patch the hole as the waters raged in - so what then?
Well, the trite answer would be that there's quite enough to worry about now without concerning myself with that. The more interesting answer comes back to what we believe life is fundamentally about, but that will have to wait for a future post.
Oh, and just what does Dmitry Orlov suggest in terms of personally adapting to an economic collapse? Well, you'll have to read his book for that!
by Shaun Chamberlin | Jun 22, 2008 | All Posts, Favourite posts, Peak Oil, Politics
I find myself wondering if our current political system (like so much else in our modern culture) might be partially a product of the bonanza of abundant cheap energy we have been enjoying for the last century or two. Have we been so comfortable that the pressure has been off for our decision makers?
Now I am certainly no student of politics, and my musings should be taken with that proviso, but it has always seemed a little strange that there is such a widespread perception of our politicians as incompetent and immoral, and yet they continue to be entrusted with the ultimate decision-making role for our society. There is widespread disinterest among the young people I know, and perhaps part of the reason is that people have 'learnt' that it really doesn't matter how ineffective politicians may be - there still always seems to be water in the tap and food on the table, so surely they must be doing something right?
Equally it hasn't seemed to matter much to many people whether we had a Conservative or a Labour government - we just sort of swing back and forth based on something like national mood. According to political commentators, the reasons for these electoral shifts seem to be sentiments like "they've had long enough" or, more recently, "finances are a bit tight".
Yet it's an odd thing to swing to the current opposition because of our economic difficulties. If we really believed there was much of a difference between the two wouldn't we make a decision and stick with it? Does anyone truly believe that the UK budget would be vastly better off had the Conservatives been in power for the past few years?
The depletion of the North Sea (oil production there peaked at around 2.9m barrels/day in 1999 and is now at around half those levels) is marginally impacted by political decisions, but is essentially a geological fact, and importing just 0.2m barrels per day at the current price of around $135/barrel adds $10 billion a year to our trade deficit. Could the Conservatives have turned back time on depletion, resolved the global credit crunch, or prevented the upsurge in the globally traded price of food, or of oil for that matter?
I would venture that either party would have done just about as bad a job as the other. It's not about whether Gordon Brown or David Cameron is in the hotseat, there is something much more fundamental going on than that. As Voltaire said, "men argue, Nature acts".
Worryingly, there seem to be only two recognised political parties in the UK who understand the kind of future we are facing - the Green Party and the British National Party, both of whom show a firm awareness of the reality of energy resource depletion. Needless to say they advocate very different responses.
As Rob Hopkins pointed out some time ago, an interesting aspect of peak oil is that everyone seems to see its potential to usher in the kind of world they want to see. While the Greens see the potential to move to a more ecologically-friendly way of life in response to the need for lower energy consumption, the BNP recognise that in times of hardship extreme right wing groups have traditionally done very well.
The reality is that there are many possible futures, but we get to choose which of them come to pass. To put it another way, we will get the future we deserve.
This is why when I speak to my friends who refuse to vote on the basis of their disgust with the major parties I urge them to vote Green. There are alternatives, and it is hard to sustain the argument that a Green vote is a wasted vote when the alternative you are considering is not to vote at all.
by Shaun Chamberlin | Jun 14, 2008 | All Posts, Climate Change, Favourite posts, Peak Oil, The Transition Timeline, Transition Movement
Lately I seem to be encountering many climate change activists who have a blind spot when it comes to peak oil. At present, Friends of the Earth appear to be particularly prone to this.
They assert that climate change is overwhelmingly urgent (no arguments from me there) and so that the depletion of fossil fuels is largely irrelevant. In fact they argue that it can only be good news, limiting the availability of these dangerous substances which have the potential to destabilise our climate.
But this ignores the reason why humanity is so loathe to wean itself off these fuels in the first place. They are exceptionally potent energy sources which greatly increase our ability to change our human infrastructure and shape the world around us. Energy is perhaps best defined as the ability to do work, and there is much work to be done in the transition to a low-carbon way of life.
Imagine that we simply immediately ceased the extraction of fossil fuels — as the climate change imperative might appear to demand. We would see unbelievable human suffering as the lifeblood of our fossil fuel based societies dried up. Our critical infrastructure for food supply, transportation, heating, irrigation, electricity and so on would all fail catastrophically.
So there is clearly a tension between addressing climate change and addressing peak oil. The earlier we reach fossil fuel supply limits — whether geological or voluntary — the better for climate change, but the more painful the 'peak oil' adaptation problems, and the higher the oil price.
As supply limitations prompt oil price rises, more and more countries (and ultimately individuals) are priced out of the market, leaving only those with enough money able to get the oil their lifestyles demand. Economists call this 'demand destruction', and it is the mechanism the market uses to close the widening gap between supply and demand.
Unfortunately, markets do not distinguish between more and less essential uses of oil — if we in the UK are willing and able to pay more to run our cars than people elsewhere are able to pay to heat their homes or power their hospitals then the limited supply of oil will flow here. Demand destruction can be very cruel or even fatal for those whose demand is 'destroyed'.
In early 2007, with oil prices at less than half their current level, the U.N. wrote:
"Recent oil price increases have had devastating effects on many of the world's poor countries, some of which now spend as much as six times as much on fuel as they do on health. Others spend twice the money on fuel as they do on poverty alleviation. And in still others, the foreign exchange drain from higher oil prices is five times the gain from recent debt relief.
Of the world's 50 poorest countries, 38 are net importers of oil, and 25 import all of their oil requirements."
The more limited the supply the more demand destruction is necessary and the higher the price goes. $140 per barrel means many are simply having to go without altogether. The international oil price, then, is effectively a rough measure of how much of this cruel demand destruction is going on.
The 'supply side dilemma'
The question of whether we should leave some of the available fossil fuels in the ground, then, in reality becomes a question of whether the effects of increased oil demand destruction are more or less desirable than the effects of increased emissions and the resultant climate change.
This is what we might call the 'supply side dilemma' — attempting to choose the lesser of two evils. Not much of a choice some might say, and it is easy to see why there are passionate advocates on both sides of the debate.
But if we campaign on climate change without any acknowledgement of this tension we are easily (and probably correctly) dismissed as naively advocating the suffering and deaths of hundreds of millions of people. Not to mention giving those people a heck of an incentive to harness any fuels they can get their hands on — which may be even more polluting or carbon-intensive than oil.
Thankfully though, there are things we can do to ameliorate both climate change and peak oil simultaneously. If we begin to wean our communities off their oil addiction voluntarily then we reduce demand, and thus reduce the need for the more painful varieties of demand destruction. We lessen the desperation for increased oil supplies and so make it easier to consider the necessary step of leaving some of it where it is as a response to climate change. The more ways we can find to reduce demand, the less difficult the global supply side dilemma becomes.
It is these win-win solutions that climate change campaigners should be fighting for, and in fact they might well find that peak oil helps their cause.
Try as we might to ignore peak oil, the stark reality is that the world will be getting by on around half its current level of oil production in 20 years time. And like it or not, some who are unmoved by moral arguments on climate change become rather proactive when they recognise the reality of such a severe impending threat to their way of life.
Activists on peak oil and climate change should be indistinguishable — it really is one problem, and we all need to be working together to ensure that the motivation it generates is channelled in the most constructive directions.
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Edit: One important economic wrinkle that I missed when I drafted this piece. As oil depletion continues it is taking more workers/resources to produce a given amount of oil (because the easy to extract stuff is gone). In other words, productivity — output per hour worked — is dropping.
In such an environment workers' wages are likely to remain stagnant, or even decline, while the cost of many commodities rises. This is a recipe for reduced growth, or even recession, and workers who cannot afford new homes, cars etc. This in turn reduces demand for oil (since it is used to both produce and run homes, cars etc), which reduces the oil price. In other words, the recipe that oil depletion leads to shortage of supply leads to rising oil prices was too simple. In fact, oil depletion leads to economic contraction and volatile prices which are sometimes very low.
And indeed, these low prices at a time when oil extraction is becoming more expensive are killing much oil production. For more on this see Gail Tverberg's article or interview.
This wrinkle only increases our peak oil problem, and thus makes the climate change challenge even more difficult. And it brings home that — as per my 2009 book — what we face here is an energy/emissions problem, not a money problem, and we need to learn to think in those terms. Otherwise we will sit around waiting for a signal from the markets — to tell us that radical action should have begun many years ago.
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