FOOD: Farmer in Chief

Michael Pollan

After cars, the food system uses more fossil fuel than any other sector of the economy — 19 percent. And while the experts disagree about the exact amount, the way we feed ourselves contributes more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than anything else we do — as much as 37 percent, according to one study. Whenever farmers clear land for crops and till the soil, large quantities of carbon are released into the air. But the 20th-century industrialization of agriculture has increased the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by the food system by an order of magnitude; chemical fertilizers (made from natural gas), pesticides (made from petroleum), farm machinery, modern food processing and packaging and transportation have together transformed a system that in 1940 produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil-fuel energy it used into one that now takes 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce a single calorie of modern supermarket food. Put another way, when we eat from the industrial-food system, we are eating oil and spewing greenhouse gases. This state of affairs appears all the more absurd when you recall that every calorie we eat is ultimately the product of photosynthesis — a process based on making food energy from sunshine. There is hope and possibility in that simple fact.

FUEL: IEA has published their World Energy Outlook, and here is a 37 page PDF of the executive summary. Update: The IEA has not published the report and has asked ASPO Australia to remove the executive summary. But I got a copy.

According to the executive summary, we face two related challenges:

• Continuing to find and afford enough energy to run our society.

• Using energy that doesn’t destroy our environment.

The World Energy Outlook makes some recommendations, most of which involve increased spending by governments, which is troubling in a time of high unemployment and frozen credit.

I ask myself whether President Obama’s energy initiatives will be effective, or will be part of an energy investment bubble.

Rob at Transition Culture is momentarily encouraged by Obama:

I never thought I would see a US President who actually took climate change seriously, talked about a Green New Deal for the US, and whose policies included;

• Reduce the US’s carbon emissions 80% by 2050 and play a strong positive role in negotiating a binding global treaty to replace the expiring Kyoto Protocol
• Withdraw all combat troops from Iraq within 16 months and keep no permanent bases in the country
• Establish a clear goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons across the globe
• Close the Guantanamo Bay detention center
• Double US aid to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015 and accelerate the fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculoses and Malaria
• Open diplomatic talks with countries like Iran and Syria, to pursue peaceful resolution of tensions
• De-politicize military intelligence to avoid ever repeating the kind of manipulation that led the US into Iraq
• Launch a major diplomatic effort to stop the killings in Darfur
• Only negotiate new trade agreements that contain labor and environmental protections
• Invest $150 billion over ten years to support renewable energy and get 1 million plug-in electric cars on the road by 2015

but commenter Joanne reminds us that Obama is somewhat beholden to a pro-growth economy that includes ‘clean coal’, ethanol and nukes.

Obama or no Obama, we aren’t going to get a “savior” from the top. We can’t hold our breath in anticipation of his promised “changes”. We need to (continue) creating those changes ourselves.

Despite her reservations, I think Obama would, and will, agree with her warning, and will look for both business and individual contributions towards a solution.

Lower Oil Prices--But For How Long?

Brad Plumer at TNR quotes the Financial Times, which claims to know what the IEA is about to publish, and notes that oil futures are rising:

    Oil prices will rebound to more than $100 a barrel as soon as the world economy recovers, and will exceed $200 by 2030, the International Energy Agency will say in its flagship report to be published next week.

    "While market imbalances could temporarily cause prices to fall back, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the era of cheap oil is over," the report states.

    The developed world's energy watchdog has doubled its long-term price expectation from last year's $108 a barrel for 2030 and assumes oil prices will rebound from today's $60-$70 a barrel to trade, in real terms adjusted by inflation, at an average of more than $100 a barrel from 2008 to 2015.

    The IEA's World Energy Outlook has come to this conclusion largely because it believes companies will struggle to pump enough new oil to offset the steep production declines of the world's older fields.

The IEA assumption is that the world economy will recover enough to raise demand for oil - somewhere. Peak Oiler doomers have always written about that one day when the economy will grind to a stop as oil becomes unavailable, when survivalists retreat to their farms or bunkers and the rest of us grow mohawks and fight over fuel. Reality seems to be far more complicated, with some third world countries in full disarray, some developing countries unable to maintain electricity for their industries and the world economy in a financial crisis and headed towards a recession or worse. Energy seems to be at the core of everything, though.

Memorandum for the President-Elect

Right at the top of the truly important list, and more urgent than you probably realize, is to start the transition of the U.S. economy from fossil fuels - oil, coal, and natural gas - to renewable forms of energy as quickly as possible. If this does not start happening soon, then much of the U.S. and world economy is likely to start grinding to a halt well within the eight years you would like to remain in office. Moreover, if we rush to burn off all the remaining fossil fuel, primarily coal, in the name of economic recovery and growth, the world is likely to end up in a couple of centuries - and here opinions differ - anywhere from an unpleasant place to live to being nearly devoid of the higher forms of life.

We have heard all sorts of talk about energy independence in recent months usually coupled with calls for more domestic drilling, "clean-coal" or more ethanol. Such talk is meaningless since we are almost certain to become energy independent in the next decade or so simply because we won't be receiving most of the 12 million barrels of crude and oil products a day we are currently importing. They just won't be for sale, at least not to us.

There clearly has to be some sort of powerful incentive to get your administration, the Congress and the rest of the world's governments moving more quickly on the transition to a post fossil fuels world. At the minute, the only incentive on the horizon that seems able to get everybody's attention is high gasoline prices and actual shortages. Earlier this year we were getting close to taking action when oil was pushing $150 a barrel and the campaigns could talk of little else. However the perturbations of the financial crisis intervened and gasoline went back down to last year's prices.

...

Sometime during your first year in office, your new Secretary of Energy is likely to come by and lay out the problem for you - world oil production is going down - perhaps faster than imagined; world oil exports are dropping even faster; prices are rising; and new domestic supplies will never make up the difference. The bottom line will be that the country is going to have to get along with steadily decreasing amounts of oil each year for the foreseeable future and that much will have to change if the economy is to continue to function.

It may take some time before you appreciate all the consequences of oil depletion. They will be everywhere. Transportation costs will go much higher. The GDP will slide. Jobs will disappear, and shortages will develop. At some point there will be a general agreement that looking for more fossil fuels or that a large scale effort to convert coal to liquid fuel is hopeless. A massive overhaul of the U.S. economy including transportation, lifestyles, jobs, agriculture, and industrial production will be necessary if we are going to continue running a civilization with declining quantities of fossil fuel.

Energy Thinkers Ponder The Future

The NYTimes blog posed several question to a group of energy experts. In spirit with Obama's acceptance speech, I thought it would useful to try to answer the questions myself before reading someone else's answers:

1) What should the new administration's top three energy priorities be? What can and should the administration push in terms of energy in its first 100 days?

2) What do the election results signify for the future of renewable energy?

3) How likely is it that a meaningful cap-and-trade bill to limit carbon-dioxide emissions will pass Congress and be signed by the President in the next year?

4) After 4 years, will the new administration have moved us closer to severing our dependence on foreign oil?

My answers are below the fold:

Read more »

My wife’s mother frequently watches Mass on EWTN. She told my wife that the priest/celebrants were wearing black vestments today. She is a lifelong Catholic in her 80s and had never seen black vestments, nor had either of us. So I looked them up:

Many out there are likely aware that there has been these past 40 years or so an aversion to black vestments for times such as funerals, or for the Feast of All Souls and so on. (Thankfully this is decreasing with the newer generations of clergy.)

Often black vestments have been excluded in practice (though not necessarily in law) — enough so that there are entire generations who will have never seen a black vestment worn, let alone know of its existence as a liturgical colour. For example, red is now worn on Good Friday instead of black in the modern rite — it is still used in the classical rite of course. White will typically be worn for funerals. Sometimes purple will be used.

I think the mass EWTN broadcasts is filmed in Alabama. I can’t help but think that the priests were reacting to the election of Barack Obama. I didn’t expect prolife Catholics to welcome Obama, but they could give at least him a chance.

On the positive side, a Catholic blogger here seems fairly realistic:

The reality is that the Bush administration has been a disaster for both America and the world, failing to lay any groundwork for America’s changing role in the world, and serving only to create increased tensions internationally. Relations between Russia and its neighbours make the risk of a nuclear conflagration more possible than at any time since the end of the cold war. The Iraq War has proved disastrous for the Christians who once lived there, and doesn’t seem to have solved a thing. Tensions with China have escalated. And McCain couldn’t really articulate how he would be very different.

On economics, the conservative paradigm that we should just let the markets work has been well and truly proven wrong once again. The worrying thing is the way the bailouts, guarantees and, in Australia’s case interest rate cuts, are being structured in such a way as to perpetuate some of the underlying problems rather than solve them. How can it be helpful, for example, to allow the banks to use the proceeds from interest rate reductions to swallow up their competitors, rather than pass the full cuts on to consumers? Doesn’t this just lead to more foreclosures?

The hope now has to be that we will see some out of the box thinking in the US and elsewhere occurring on a wide range of issues, and that not of all of this will prove bad.

Obama certainly gave a pretty nice acceptance speech (a few PC moments aside).

Here is a strong argument from The Atlantic's conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan:

Barack Obama For President

This is the depth of the predicament the United States is in. The Islamist threat remains; but the Constitution is in deep disrepair, the military stretched to breaking point, the national debt doubled, and America's reputation in terrible shape. More important, the president and vice-president deeply damaged the reliability and integrity of America's intelligence services, creating a self-perpetuating loop of phony intelligence procured by torture which then justified more torture which led to worse intelligence. It will be decades before we learn the full extent of the damage Bush and Cheney have done to the country's Baqubaaliyussefafpgetty ability to find out what the enemy is really up to, how much risk these sadists and goons have subjected us to, how much damage to this country they may have facilitated by filling intelligence with the garbage always created by torture. We do know that their policy has led to just one successful prosecution - and that many guilty figures will escape justice because torture has tainted the legal process beyond repair.

...

But there is something about his rise that is also supremely American, a reminder of why so many of us love this country so passionately and are filled with such grief at what has been done to it and in its name. I endorse Barack Obama because I will not give up on America, because I believe in America, and in her constitution and decency and character and strength.

And the world needs that America now as much as it ever has. Can we start that healing, that rebirth, tomorrow?

I was also going to raise the question of signing statements:

The first president to issue a signing statement was James Monroe.[7] Until the 1980s, with some exceptions, signing statements were generally triumphal, rhetorical, or political proclamations and went mostly unannounced. Until Ronald Reagan became President, only 75 statements had been issued; Reagan and his successors George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton produced 859 signing statements among the three of them.[8] By the end of 2004, George W. Bush had issued 108 signing statements containing 505 constitutional challenges.[8] As of January 30, 2008, he had signed 157 signing statements challenging over 1,100 provisions of federal law.[9]

The upswing in the use of signing statements during the Reagan administration coincides with the writing by Samuel A. Alito -- then a staff attorney in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel -- of a 1986 memorandum making the case for "interpretive signing statements" as a tool to "increase the power of the Executive to shape the law." Alito proposed adding signing statements to a "reasonable number of bills" as a pilot project, but warned that "Congress is likely to resent the fact that the President will get in the last word on questions of interpretation."[10]

Ideally I would hope that our next president leads an effort to end the arrogant use of signing statements to challenge the law.

The Bush gang's parting gift: a final, frantic looting of public wealth

Naomi Klein comments for The Nation, reprinted in the Guardian:

In the final days of the election many Republicans seem to have given up the fight for power. But don't be fooled: that doesn't mean they are relaxing. If you want to see real Republican elbow grease, check out the energy going into chucking great chunks of the $700bn bail-out out the door. At a recent Senate banking committee hearing, the Republican Bob Corker was fixated on this task, and with a clear deadline in mind: inauguration. "How much of it do you think may be actually spent by January 20 or so?" Corker asked Neel Kashkari, the 35-year-old former banker in charge of the bail-out.

When European colonialists realised that they had no choice but to hand over power to the indigenous citizens, they would often turn their attention to stripping the local treasury of its gold and grabbing valuable livestock. If they were really nasty, like the Portuguese in Mozambique in the mid-1970s, they poured concrete down the elevator shafts.

Nothing so barbaric for the Bush gang. Rather than open plunder, it prefers bureaucratic instruments, such as "distressed asset" auctions and the "equity purchase program". But make no mistake: the goal is the same as it was for the defeated Portuguese - a final, frantic looting of the public wealth before they hand over the keys to the safe.

Her car was destroyed as she tried to flee north from the fighting.

What really happened in South Ossetia?

Eighteen minute BBC video explores whether Georgia committed war crimes in South Ossetia.

The BBC has discovered evidence that Georgia may have committed war crimes in its attack on its breakaway region of South Ossetia in August.

Eyewitnesses have described how its tanks fired directly into an apartment block, and how civilians were shot at as they tried to escape the fighting.

Research by the international investigative organisation Human Rights Watch also points to indiscriminate use of force by the Georgian military, and the possible deliberate targeting of civilians.

The truth about South Ossetia

At the start of the August conflict, western media reporting was relatively even-handed, but rapidly switched into full-blown cold war revival mode as Russia turned the tables on the US’s Georgian client regime and Nato expansion in the region. Clear initial evidence of who started the war and Georgian troops’ killing spree in Tskhinvali was buried or even denied in a highly effective PR operation from Tbilisi.

Thoughts On Russian Nationalism And The West

American Conservative blogger Daniel Larison thinks our aggressive stance towards Russia and. more recently, our backing of Georgia has enabled a robust Russian patriotic fervor.