What is wrong with the environmentalism movement
I met up with a good friend of mine this past weekend at a local dive bar. As the liquor loosened his tongue, he took a moment to complain about the wealthy elites he works for. Or as he put it, "those rich f*cks".
My friend works for a non-profit, environmental group. The major contributors, all of the board of directors, and most of his coworkers are all wealthy. His new boss wants to focus on gifts for donations, such as tote bags that you can bring to the grocery store, rather than specific environmental causes.
This non-profit environmental group is a microcosm of what is wrong with the environmental movement today. Environmentalism is following down the same path to irrelevancy that labor unions traveled when they made the decision that 2% raises mattered and political movements didn't.
The economics of denial
The first thing to get over is the idea that you are doing anything for the environment by buying a certain product. You aren't. You certainly aren't doing anything for the environment by purchasing an automobile, no matter what it is. Polar bears are not going to want to hug you because you drive a new hybrid. It's a useless exercise to make stupid people feel better about themselves while continuing to be part of the consumer culture that is destroying the planet.
As author Paul R. Ehrlich points out in his book, One with Nineveh, half of all the energy ever involved in a car occurs in its production. Thus if you trade in a working SUV to buy a new hybrid, you are actually damaging the environment, not helping it.
If you actually wanted to do something for the environment, park you car and start riding a bicycle to work.
"Cars cannot do anything good for the environment except less damage than others."
- Consumer Ombudsman official Bente Øverli
The next most obvious problem with the environmental movement today is scale. Take, for instance, saving water in California during a drought. You are encouraged to take shorter showers and not always flush the toilet. It's a pathetic exercise in futility.
In California, agriculture uses 85 percent of our water. All of our toilets together don't add up to a fraction of the amount of water used by farms that grow taxpayer-subsidized cotton and rice in the desert! It's a similar story in Arizona.
If we wanted to save water and money then we should stop sending our tax dollars to large agribusinesses who grow totally inappropriate crops in the desert. You don't do it by not flushing your toilet.
Of course the biggest problem of scale is thinking that our consumer actions are going to make a big impact. This is nothing more than a manufactured, pointless guilt. It's a distraction by big business that keeps people from actually doing something constructive.
You aren't a big polluter, and your composting isn't going to save the world. For instance, if you want to stop mountain-top removal mining, you don't do it by taking tote bags to grocery stores. You do it by pushing lawmakers to outlaw mountain-top removal mining!
Why is that?
It isn't a coincidence that the mainstream environmental movement is wasting its time endorsing products to sell to consumers that make us feel good by giving us the false impression that we are doing something for the environment.
Just look at my friend's environmental agency. The people who run it got rich from the current system. It's against their personal interest to endorse policies that would endanger this system. Instead we get incrementalism in a rapidly decaying global environment.
That's not to say that all environmental groups are like this. Some of them are truly grassroots movements and are working toward specific policy goals. But even those groups endorse these useless, guilt-sustaining gestures. Almost none of them address the larger economic change that would actually have tangible environmental benefits.
The problem of the elites
Just like consumers are delusional by thinking that they can do something for the environment by buying a certain product, the elites are equally delusional in their own way.
If you ever wondered what the odds are of mankind surviving, let alone ‘defeating’, climate change, look no further than the essay the Guardian published this week, written by Michael Bloomberg and Mark Carney. It proves beyond a moonlight shadow of a doubt that the odds are infinitesimally close to absolute zero (Kelvin, no Hobbes).
Yes, Bloomberg is the media tycoon and former mayor of New York (which he famously turned into a 100% clean and recyclable city). And since central bankers are as we all know without exception experts on climate change, as much as they are on full-contact crochet, it makes perfect sense that Bank of England governor Carney adds his two -trillion- cents.
Conveniently, you don’t even have to read the piece, the headline tells you all you need and then some: “How To Make A Profit From Defeating Climate Change” really nails it. The entire mindset on display in just a few words. If that’s what they went for, kudo’s are due.
These fine gents probably actually believe that this is perfectly in line with our knowledge of, say, human history, of evolution, of the laws of physics, and of -mass- psychology. All of which undoubtedly indicate to them that we can and will defeat the problems we have created -and still are-, literally with the same tools and ideas -money and profit- that we use to create them with. Nothing ever made more sense.
That these problems originated in the same relentless quest for profit that they now claim will help us get rid of them, is likely a step too far for them; must have been a class they missed. “We destroyed it for profit” apparently does not in their eyes contradict “we’ll fix it for profit too”. Not one bit. It does, though. It’s indeed the very core of what is going wrong.
Profit, or money in general, is all these people live for, it’s their altar. That’s why they are successful in this world. It’s also why the world is doomed. Is there any chance I could persuade you to dwell on that for a few seconds? That, say, Bloomberg and Carney, and all they represent, are the problem dressed up as the solution? That our definition of success is what dooms us?
Our institutions, our political system, and our ideologies, all of them must be overturned in order to prevent the destruction of the environment.
In other words, no biggie.
Comments
The Sierra Club has been in business for - say - 100 years;
it's only been in the past 3 years the Club has countenanced civil disobedience.
I totally agree with your assessment.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Sierra Club members
remind me of all the people that witter on about the glories of overpriced, anti-union Whole Foods.
We shop at a very nice, unionized store. Given that we have happily interacted with some of the employees for more than 20 years, know their names and family stories and they know us and our stories.... we're sticking to what works for us and them.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
I dont totally disagree Bollox
but the problem with the mainstream grocers regardless if they are union or not and we have many Independent and chain grocers union and non union in our area is that they don't sell the products Whole foods sells ( organic and natural ).So until these other grocers catch up and offer a better selection of food Whole foods will continue to be very popular and profitable.
farmers markets
Local food, seasonal food (for where you live), grown by people you can meet and talk to and ask about their growing practices. This supports the local economy, reduces the carbon burden of moving produce thousands of miles, and the food is tastier and healthier because it's real.
There is no justice in America, but it is the fight for justice that sustains you.
--Amiri Baraka
40% of produce eaten in America before WW2 grown in backyard
Take a moment and think about that. How many companies would be out of business if we returned to that model? The gov't would ban Ball jars and deep chest freezers.
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho
the poor elites...
live by the golden rule....those that have the gold make the rules.
I may just be one drop in the ocean, but I'll keep recycling, biking, and doing my best to minimize my footprint.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
I'm with you on that. When we can't fix the entire problem,
we should fix our little piece of it.
There's nothing to stop us from also supporting groups or businesses or laws who/that will actually be able to have big impact, while we're biking/walking.
Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.
Great essay, gjohnsit.
I have been feeling like a stooge by sorting out my paper, plastic, and aluminum.
When we have rationed water during drought, I just don't notice it applying to businesses and golf courses.
The only environmental group I see that is trying to change the country is NoDAPL.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
I'm no Greeniac by any
stretch, but I try not to dump on the local enviro any more than anybody else. But I don't recycle. I figure if somebody is making a buck on my trash then they can pay me to sort it (recycle) or sort it themselves. The ones being left out of the profit share of this business is the end consumer sorting his or her trash. I don't participate.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
I've always thought
recycling should be managed and paid for by the packaging manufacturer. They seem to get more and more ridiculous in their packaging, which adds to the cost. If they had the responsibility to retrieve, recycle and reuse the materials you can bet they'd simplify packaging.
We'd still have to sort, though.
If you look into it . . .
you will discover that recycling operates on a very tight margin. In some cases it operates at a loss. The real value is slower increase in the mountains of trash buried in landfills. That doesn't put dollars in anybody's pocket, except maybe taxpayers who usually bear the cost of closing a landfill, and constructing a new one, which should include an expensive lining.
I was going to call you a lazy fuck
But look what a glass of cheap zin will do. Obviously my brother/sister you do not live close to one of the existing mega landfills packed with the rotting, if we're lucky, or moldering detritus of your life. Many many people do. I, thank god, am 20 miles away from a mountain of crap called, quaintly, Seneca Meadows. The largest landfill in NY state, it operates 24 hours a day as crap from all you lazy fucks, oops, people too cool to sort your crap is trucked in non stop. I say thank god I'm 20 miles away because, unless I venture into Seneca Falls, I am not subjected to the nauseating stench your crap emits, or the methane spewing from dozens if not hundreds of pipes on the property. Your crap has resulted in documented health problems, enormous loss of property value and documented loss of investment in the area. Where the fuck do you think your crap is going after it magically disappears from your icky garbage can? I got a proposal for you: how about you keep allllllll your garbage in your house or on your property for, oh, say a month. Let me know after that little taste of Seneca Falls how your "meadow" grows. I meanwhile will partake of a second glass, the first one having worked so well.
I pay $15 /mo. for
the town to pick up my trash. And they want me to sort it for them, too? How 'bout they pick it up for Free and I'll sort it all day long, 'cuz somebody making a fortune in this business and I'm supplying their cheap labor. I already do that on my day job for a Fortune 500.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
You're probably right, but how depressing.
Although it does make me feel better about not being able to afford a car.
Let's talk more about what it would take and who might be doing any significant pieces of it.
Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.
Natural Resource Districts in Nebraska
Arm Chair Environmentalists are pretty useless, but to really muck up the works requires concerted effort. In Nebraska we have had just those very special kind of people in positions from which they could propose exceptionally stupid projects. I submit for your consideration Ron Bishop, the former director of the Central Platte Natural Resource District.
Ron had a dream. He wanted to design the definitive water project for the Big Bend Reach of the Platte River. His grand scheme was to have a series of reservoirs constructed in several gullies along the north edge of the Platte River Valley. A diversion structure up stream would provide water to this, oh so very well engineered, system of interconnected reservoirs. The system would allow water to be stored for later use during time of high demand for irrigation of the ever so vital Monsanto Dekalb Corn crops.
Several people noted that these reservoirs would be constructed along the southern edge of a geological structure known as The Sandhills of Nebraska. That was when we learned the true genius of Bishop's wet dream. Leaky reservoirs and supply canals are good for, now get this, Groundwater Recharge ! Yes you silly environmentalist. Pay attention and you will see all the benefits work in your favor too.
At a formal hearing before the Nebraska Department of Water Resources I was supposed to get sworn in to testify, but the attorney for our side was incompetent. So, I sat through some of the most god-awful crap masquerading as sound hydrology, muzzled to within an inch of my life: pure unadulterated torture.
The NRD's hydrologist for hire (with a straight face) patiently explained to the assembled rubes this most credible scenario: Diverting water means the inflow to this reach of the river will be this amount (pointing to a number on the whiteboard). As the irrigation project operates seep water will charge the groundwater from here to here (indicating on a map the land north of the Platte River). By my calculations the outflow from this reach of the river will be this amount (pointing to a second number on the whiteboard). Clearly, this project will benefit the Big Bend Reach of the Platte River by making it into a gaining stream. This will be good for all stakeholders. Blah Blah Blah · · · My head exploded.
The official record contains no testimony rebutting any of this expert's opinion.
To the uneducated, all water runs in pipes, be it a river
or inside plumbing. That of course is not how it works. It is amazing that earlier attempts at water retention and diversion worked at all. Must have been on clay or on metamorphic rock. Ask pond builders about stopping leaks. They should ask beavers.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
Hey Rip -
About 15 years ago I did some water-conservation work ("hydrology") on behalf of the Central Nebraska Public Power & Irrigation District (CNPPID) - largest user/provider of irrigation water in Nebraska (CNPPID owns/operates Lake McConaughy). Turns out that because of OVER-irrigation (imagine that!) CNPPID has managed to create a "mound" in the groundwater system extending across much of southwestern Nebraska, and south into Kansas. In addition to causing engineering issues ("high groundwater table") the hydrologic effects of "The Mound" also now are causing groundwater (originally derived from the Platte River system) to move south into Kansas (which is not a party to the Platte River Compact) - Kansas is getting A LOT of water for free! A nightmare for legislators/regulators - a boon for water attorneys (--> much future litigation).
When Cicero had finished speaking, the people said “How well he spoke”.
When Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said “Let us march”.
Yes!
That screwup is legendary in these here parts. Oh, and did you know about the ≈ 33,000 acres debacle wherein the Manager of CNPPID failed to properly file the papers for water rights, et cetera.
When I first moved here (1979) one of the talking points was about how CNPPID wanted to radically expand diverting Platte River water into the Rainwater Basin as though it is a geologically isolated structure. But as you know this "transbasin diversion project" would have tremendously enhanced the transport of water to south of the border. The howls of protest, "This is not a transbasin project!", were deafening. You would think the decision makers would consult the local farmers, certainly they know how the water flows through their property.
For readers unfamiliar with Nebraska Geology: The state is rather flat with a steep tilt generally from the NorthWest down toward the SouthEast. The Platte River runs along the Southern edge of the Sandhills in a stream bed of sand layers on top of and between clay layers, and a lot of the river flow is hidden. The Rainwater Basin is a large series of vernal pools on the "highlands" between the Platte River and the Republican River.
Deeper structures includes geological layers that extend into Kansas. This is the home of the Ogallala Aquifer which we are doing our best to pump dry. Extractive Mania is not confined to the fossil fuel industry.
Song of the lark believes it is a good thing
to be mindful of our carbon footprint. Recycling, avoiding waste, water conservation, and other small acts form a kind of conscious intention tread lighter on the planet. But the diarist is correct, we are likely to fry. Our economy and civilization is based on growth and growth requires ENERGY. Currently 80 percent of US energy is carbon based, natural gas , coal and oil. The other 20 percent is mostly nuclear and hydroelectric. Green is the new red. The green movement and the more particularly the Democrats are going to have to be more honest about how our economy works. IT RUNS ON OIL. You wouldn't know it from Democratic politicians that oil production went up hugely during Obama's term reaching almost the 1970s peak production record. They are always talking about green energy. There is a lot of misinformed techno Utopians who seem tho think transition is going to be easy or is already happening! That oil use is ending or some other fantasy. As the diarist points out green energy often has a large carbon footprint.
Many people think the Keystone XL was stopped by fierce protests and even Obama. Not really, what really happened is that oil companies had very high oil prices for several years and dumped 600 hundred billion dollars in to oil production double the usual 300 billion. Half a trillion in kited up fracking bonds and loans, many of which are going belly up from the reduced oil prices of recent year or so. Fracking and tar sands are expensive energy not very viable at lower priced oil. Oil prices by the way are still above long term average prices of about 45 dollars a barrel. What stopped the Keystone XL was not Bill Mckibben but relatively cheap oil prices. It seems clear Trump will revive the project maybe even before prices return to the anomalous high price range of 2011-2014. There is a lot more to be said about all this but it's no accident the Tillerson is to be Secretary of State. You want to get the economy going find more cheap oil. Probably not going to happen since oil discoveries are at a 40 year LOW. None the less there is still the Siberian Arctic to drill. I read recently that Putin wrote his PH.D. Thesis on tapping Russia's resources particularly OIL. Any wonder the two get a long. Alas I ramble.
Obama actually did TransCandada a favor
As Song of the lark points out Keystone XL had become unprofitable. By cancelling it, Obama gave them the option of suing the US and thereby recovering their investment.
And then Canada Stepped In
Yes XL died yeah!
Then the new PM of Canada recently approved a Canadian Pipe Line terminal for Vancouver BC . This terminal is across the border from the proposed Cherry Pt WA oil shipment terminal which was recently killed. Ours was to be supplied by rail cars rather than a pipeline which is arguably more dangers. Yet the same ships that would have picked up cargo in the US will now divert about 50 miles to Canada. The same ships will use the same Strait of Juan De Fuca shipping lanes for approximately 100 miles from the Pacific to Vancouver. There is no floating wall between the US and CA. The straits and channels are all interconnected by treacherous winds and currents. An oil spill in route or at the BC terminal will be just as devastating to Salish Sea sealife on both sides all the border.
As long as there is a profitable demand the oil will find a way to market.
gjohnsit I love the honesty vibe --
but the real problem is one of why people can't get together to do something about their real problems, to which the obvious answer is that they're too busy earning a living to do anything about their real problems.
If you want to solve the "earning a living" problem on a collective level, you've got to go the socialist route, universal minimum income, nationalize the fossil fuel industries, and so on. Once that's done you can organize everyone to do something about the twisted relations to nature, both inner and outer nature, that capitalism has imposed upon everyone.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
I think you are right but
Venuzuela is a real world example of the socialist route and nationalizing the fossil fuel resources and production and as you may know they are in huge trouble with. Hyperinflation, lack of toilet paper, food medicine and about to have a color revolution or CIA something or other or social unrest, or even right wing coup. Who knows. It seem like a simple thing but paradigm shifts and revolutions have been having unclear and disasterous results in recent years.
Feh.
Venezuela's problem is that the government can't print money fast enough to satisfy the rich people who are scooping all this money up through their oligopolistic control of prices for basic goods. For some reason the PSUV government can't get it together to support agroecology, permaculture, and so on. So printing money is what they do to keep Venezuela's poverty at bay. The PSUV can hardly be blamed for its reduction of Venezuela's poverty rate.
If you're looking for a real culprit for the situation in Venezuela, look at the people who still control the means of production in Venezuela.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
The not much difference between Venezuela and Norway
…as far as natural resources are concerned. They are both social democracies and both have national oil companies. On the global commodities market, the oil they pump is valued at the same price.
But in Norway a motorist or a large corporation pays $7 per gallon for gas. In Venezuela, gas is sold at 17¢ per gallon.
In Norway, the people amass a fortune in profits from gasoline, which is invested in the public square and in the human capital of citizens. In Venezuela, the people earn no profits from the sale of their natural resources. There are no revenues to invest in the people or the nation.
The investment value from the considerable bounty of cheap gasoline in Venezuela does not trickle up and amass at the top for public funding, state investment, or redistribution.
It's a structural error that has fallen victim to human nature. It's not complex at all. One simple fix.
That fix is a vital protection. Any country with nationalized oil is the ultimate enemy of the United States and it must be destroyed. If the country is rich, however, it buys some time before the US destroys it.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
Ultimate Enemy of the United States
Or of TPTB that run it at the moment? I would like to think there's a difference, but I've been wrong before.
Now interviewing signature candidates. Apply within.
Nations that share the commonwealth with the people
Or nations that regulate "big things" to protect the people's imputed investment in the state, are the ultimate enemy of the United States. They are the axis of evil.
Labor laws and unions are terrorist attacks against TPTB and against the US economic destiny. Human rights are acts of terror against the United States. Whenever the UN declares another set of rights, including rights of children, the US alone does not ratify and does not enact those human rights domestically. Americans don't know this. They are handed a narrative that tells them the UN is trying to usurp the US constitution. Then, they are brainwashed with a flourish when the US accuses enemy nations of the same human rights abuses that are a daily reality inside the United States. That one lie is so enormous that Americans never bother to fact-check it.
The people who control the nation's capital, control the destiny of the nation and declare its enemies. These transnationals and multinationals have already transitioned to globalism. The American people don't realize these oligarchs have already cut their nationalist ties with US. One reading of the TPP or TTIP makes that clear.
The American people have always been colonists, have always been severed from the legislators, have always been taxed without representation, have always worked on the US plantation, and have never owned a producer's share of the nation's work product or resources.
They may never come to realize this.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
The Environment and meat eating
Is another problem that deserves mention factory farmed beef,pork is a major contributor to global warming and climate change. Some now claim it is worse than fossil fuels ( Cowspiracy is a good one) when you consider the clearing of land the land to grow feed and the water used to raise them. Then there is all the waste (cow and pig shit) that releases methane into the air and contaminates the water. Whether you agree with the numbers or not it needs to be addressed along with fossil fuel. Not to mention the way these animals are treated and slaughtered.
Of course it does--
but it's one of the establishment's standard tactics to take a truth and use it to cover up another truth they're uncomfortable with.
They are fine with shaking their finger at the masses who like hamburgers, but not at all OK with stopping the chase after petroleum.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Thank you for tackling this topic.
It's one of the ones I've been, quite honestly, afraid to tackle. Have you ever seen how people get when you try to take away their guilt?
I notice that recently there's another push to look at meat-eating rather than petroleum and coal mining as the primary cause of climate change. In other words, it ain't that pipeline, it's your burger.
The fact is, of course, it's both, but if you don't stop the drilling, you might as well eat all the burgers in the world, because you're not gonna fix anything. And the relentless focus on those evil 99%-ers and their lustful desires for red meat is way easier for the system to tolerate than a critique of pipelines, which, in addition to being intrinsically uncomfortable for the system in its own right, also leads to all kinds of other uncomfortable discussions. Like a critique of war.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
The last taboo.
Mammals and
chickenDinosaurs.Flip over a rock and there they are.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
I recycle
and I usually bicycle to work.
I admit that it does help assuage my guilt.
But I'm under no illusions that I'm doing anything significant to help save the environment.
'Being green' is a good thing to be...as long as it doesn't lull us asleep with the illusion that this is enough.
I agree
but with the research being done and the evidence that is out there I'm not so sure of how much one is more important than the other.For most it's easier to quit eating hamburgers than it is to stop driving a car to work.
It is unclear to me what some of the big box groups accomplish -
but the only groups I am interested in supporting are local. "Local" meaning I can get the leadership on the phone and there are specific regional programs and agendas I can understand. Currently the list is:
Conservation Northwest
Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center
But I think cases can be made for the research of the Center for Biological Diversity and the legal work of, say, Earthjustice. As for tote bags, having one is convenient. I found mine lying on the sidewalk. It has a Taco Bell logo. Oh well.
This is an engaging and mind-expanding essay.
Great job gjohnsit.
I think it's time to take a serious second look at communism.
This "better dead than red" mania that is still destroying the world — I totally get what it was all about. Privatized profits. They've demonized the ultimate solution from the very beginning.
It was a freakin' economic system. How absurd it has all been. Humans are the dumbest sentient species in the known universe.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
A Hoax
"Half of all the energy involved in a car occurs in its production" is clearly false parpaganda from the fossil fuel industry aimed at getting you to not buy an EV. It's blatantly wrong. Almost all of that energy is used to accelerate the vehicle and propel it hundreds of thousands of miles.
Furthermore, the car factories themselves are powered by electricity which is increasingly from renewable sources. Those power companies that still use fossil fuels are responsible for their bad choice: if you burn it you own it.
So yes, DO switch from a gas burner to an EV. It really does help.
"Please clap." -- Jeb Bush
Next vehicle, I am sure
But that will mean installation of a charging point near the outside car next to 500 gal of propane. Not a wise choice. Now. For me. I painted myself into a corner.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
One Nitpicking Point
This is my hope, but in Nebraska we are still fighting the battle. This is the only state with Public Power Districts statewide, and we sill have a board of directors that cannot seem to get with the program. So, for the nonce our electricity comes from "clean coal", yea right.
Thanks for correcting the "energy error", even though (as some would demand) you did not document every joule. And, I still think it is funny that many people do not know that my Prius is just an efficient gasoline powered vehicle. Final note: EV are worthless out here in the great open spaces, but maybe someday · · ·
"you did not document every joule" oh no!
Lifecycle Analysis Comparison of a Battery Electric Vehicle and a Conventional Gasoline Vehicle
Interesting, I think. The HV numbers are derived by combining CV and BEV results, rather than the actual testing of hybrid vehicles. Thanks.
Thank You
I now have a copy of the file and will read it over the next little bit of time. If I can think of something useful to say about the study I will.
Just off the top of my head: The numbers you quote seem relatively (as in, as a ratio of one to the other) reasonable. That is my observations (using my vehicles only) are consistent with the Hybrid versus CGV numbers. Given the differences between BEV technology and CGV technology those numbers also seem reasonable. I look forward to reading the report. Again, thanks for providing the link to this source.
In the mean time I will continue to do my own privately funded study.
I'm willing to have an open mind on this point
but you haven't produced any evidence, and too be honest, I'm not sure you even understand the topic.
Paul R. Ehrlich
is one of my favorite people. I have, over the years, used much of his work in my classes. That's why I was a bit surprised when you quoted:
Given what I know of recycling automobiles the above assertion seems a bit high.
Paul R. Ehrlich
is one of my favorite people.
Where I live
They have an appropriate saying...."You can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig"
I don't disagree with your assessment, but still feel that we all need to do little things; if for no other reason than to keep us mindful of the environment overall. And...Yes!! Consumerism is the real culprit. Our throw away society and corporate mindset are the real problem.
this is most of leftie world - diaper pissing dilettantes
with trust funds in the Professional Class drive policy, messaging, tactics ... and they're supported & aided & abetted & nurtured & feted by a wannabe Professional Class, what I call the Clamoring Class.
Out here in Seattle, whether it is the pro-choice movement, the social-ites in the various $15 now things, ... , the operations and behaviors are consistent. They revere the Professional Class who get to write the white papers & do the analysis & bring the stone tablets down from the Mount & araise awareness, cuz, it is Tome of Truth! The thing is, writing &distributing Tomes of Truth is only small part of what is needed.
The Clamoring Class is this vast swath of "educated' liberals who want to be in the Professional Class, and, who enforce adherence to the pathetic ass diaper pissing politics of the Professional Class:
NOT protesting in front of the homes of the scumbags implementing the crap policies (they are neighbors of the Professional Class!),
cutesy rah-rahs in the Park! and at the Headquarters because we all know the pigeons in the park and the buildings actually make the crap policies ... ha ha!,
fainting couch dilettante lame ass messaging which appeals to the Professional Class and their choir of wannabees...
a mathematically impossible, un-articulated, belief that IF we all get jobs writing Professional Class white papers on How Mean The World Is! & go to Professional Class talks & awareness raisings, THEN the billions of humans will have justice, housing, food, retirement, health care ...
facility with making sure they get on the committees and get the secret memos and making the last minute agendas and attacking their opponents as anti unity and anti solidarity and anti civility and negative & bitter & angry ...
ugh.
rmm
But then I sigh; and, with a piece of scripture,
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
And thus I clothe my naked villany
With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ;
You should have added another begging point for $15-$100
at the end. The deal is sealed! No guilt or unhappiness, and it might be tax-deductible in 2016!
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
I only support local grassroots conservation groups
I only support local grassroots conservation groups. There aren't as many of them as there were 30 years ago, because the big-money environmental organizations run by millionaires ran them off the road.
For example, I used to belong to the local Utah Wilderness Association (UWA), which was instrumental in getting most of the existing Utah wilderness areas designated by Congress on a bipartisan basis. But they ran out of money after the national enviros decided to take over the Utah wilderness issue in the late 1980s. The big groups have since raised millions decrying the lack of wilderness in Utah, but haven't managed to get their so-called Red Rock bill passed. Instead they have contributed to the hyper-partisan trench warfare that now characterizes everything to do with public lands.
Wilderness legislation can't get anywhere in the current situation, so we are waiting and hoping President Obama will proclaim a Bears Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah before he leaves office. Needless to say, Bears Ears was proposed by local Native American tribes and grassroots conservationists, not by the Sierra Club or The Wilderness Society.
"We've done the impossible, and that makes us mighty."
I agree with gjohnsit and Cassidorious
and even seabos84 (right above my comment) about global warming. The environmental movement with it's useless NGO's and capitalistic accords like the Paris one are big money makers. Green is big business, disaster capitalism at it's most insane destructive level. Nature does not care about which state the ground water ends up flowing to, nor does it care if the burning is nationalized or owned by Exon. Keeping the grease in the ground is not an option when the world is run by and for the profits and growth of the blood sucking vampire squid that is not only attached to humanities face but is sucking the blood right out of the planet.
As long as globalized bankster's along with the too bigs including big Oil, Big Ag all the too big's, run the worlds economy and governments all the green liberal hand wringing and the lucrative NGO's are just PR salesmen for the system that refuses to stop this shit. The ruling powers that be are hell bent on setting the planet on fire for power, dominion and profit. Which is better a government of pig ignorant climate change denying pols in charge or one run by educated technocrat's who are true believers in free market global pillaging and implement an agenda that is burning up the world. At this point with the highly visible hand of death and destruction it matters little which brand or ideology of the political class the owners of the place install. Guns and money keep the by-partisan earth destroying vampire squid firmly attached.
I live as best I can by the old hippie maxim 'think global act local'. Trouble is on a local level these days growth and profit for the transnationals are driving the train. There is no connection made between run amuck globalized capitalism and the global environment disaster we as humans are creating. Everything is measured by the economic feasibility of a destructive system that feeds on disaster. Our last governor resigned in disgrace as he was involved in shady dealings with dicey environmental green NGO's in pay to play scams.
All considerations of sustainable life both human and planetary are secondary to the globalized mad race to the top. Greed run amuck a deregulated centralized world where the too big's smell money and then eat up any green, local, national or global movement's, orgs. or business's that offer real environmental solutions. If they can't buy, take over or co-opt it they declare it illegal and shut it down. It all belongs to them.
My local 'progressive' grocery store started out as healthy local co-op called Natures in the late 60's and has evolved, grown and is now called New Seasons. It is owned by vulture venture capitalist's from California. They carry overpriced hip yuppie food and now treat their employee's horribly. Can't have a socialistic structure that allows the workers to be part of management or pays them a decent wage. It's a corporation whose sole interest is in profit and growth and operates on the principle of if people buy it we will carry it. The employees are now all part time as the cost of providing healthcare is cut's into the owners profit. If you don't like it go shop at Safeway said the manager of our local NS's in reply to complaints from long time customer's.
So it goes an every level. Still I can and do as an individual to mitigate the damage being done. Our money is in the state teacher's credit union, I am trying to go to the two still viable real co-ops for most of my food, I walk more then drive,garden organically and do not buy from big box giants. I support and donate only to local environmental non-political project's like community gardens, local farmers and doing what I can to stop the cities Democratic crooked government form demolishing Portland under the guise of environmentalism.
It's harder and harder to live by design outside the global system especially if your not rich. I have a computer made in China?, a hybrid car, that was most likely made in Asia, and am as guilty and sanctimonious as any liberal is about making excuses in order to keep my livelihood and life style intact. Try buying underwear not made in China or even a Red Flyer wagon to haul your non- corporate groceries home in. Even if it's in vain if enough people would use their power on a local level economically it would help. We should all become water protectors and resist in whatever way we can the earth destroyers.
What you've written, I think,
…is a clear overall tapestry of the environmental dilemma and contradictions. The threads and knots meet at places that paint a picture we can really consider. You bring a lot of real politick that explains why it lurches on:
That last one made me wonder. Does it seem to you that the too bigs act as though they are assured of a way out of the destruction? Do they they believe they can survive in a sparsely populated world? There is no way to store the wealth they are amassing, which will exist as a worthless digital expression. So, they will surely rely on slavery. The model for America burns brightly in everyone's brain.
I feel certain it has been discussed at very high levels and there's an assumption that the planetary drought can be survived by some; in style, even. Earth will heal as it has in the past and all the damaged throwaway people will be gone. They know what to expect, and where. Another thought occurred to me. The US would be the last place they would pick for that kind of survival. You know?
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
Shades of
the mine shaft gap in Dr.Strangelove. The people who own and run the place are mad, delusional and arrogant. I'm sure they have a plan for not just survival but believe that they can continue with their new world order. Perhaps they think they are the chosen few who are destined to remake civilization as they envision it. Who knows what goes on in the minds of the power mad ruling elite that are 'inevitable'. The church of The Family comes to mind. I once watched a Front Line program on PBS that was about Monstanto at the end of the show the CEO said 'Who better then us to play God'. Whatever they believe it's a clear and present danger to humanity and their vision of remaking the world and civilization is insane. Thanks for reading and replying on my comment. It means a lot to me when Pluto takes notice of what I have written.
denial ain't just a river in the central valley.
a while back at TOP, i made a remark about californians growing lettuce in the desert.
in response, an angry californian suggested i was misinformed ... "We do NOT grow lettuce in the desert".
i wasted the rest of the afternoon reading various california dept of agriculture reports summarizing the various climate regions of the Golden State and the crops grown therein.
the executive summary of my research: Californians grow lettuce in the desert.
meanwhile, california dairy farmers are subsidized to produce water-intensive dairy goods. did you know that the price of milk is (or was, last time I investigated) set based on the distance between the producer and Eau Claire, WI? (Did you even know that the price of milk is set? Free markets, my ass. The american ag economy might possibly be the largest planned economy in the history of the world, yet year after year the farmers vote for free-market philosophies that would destroy every one of them if ever applied to their own industry.) so now the Golden State gets to crow about being the nation's premier dairy producer, and Wisconsin farmers are STFH and wondering how the hell they're supposed to compete in midwest markets against subsidized cheese shipped from Oregon and Washington.
oh, look, here's the thread (sorry, i don't feel like formatting it all to maintain the nesting)
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Cry Me A River
"Wisconsin farmers are STFH and wondering how the hell they're supposed to compete in midwest markets against subsidized cheese shipped from Oregon and Washington."
Wisconsin, 1995-2014:
Dairy Program Subsidies · · · 41,905 · · · $1,152,848,920
Oregon, 1995-2014:
Dairy Program Subsidies · · · 832 · · · $54,509,980
it's more complicated than that.
in fact, it's so complicated, i've never been able to figure out exactly what's going on -- and there have been a few major changes over the last 30 years.
one of the complications is that direct federal subsidies are not the be-all and end-all of milk pricing. in various regions (not including California, which has its own home-grown byzantine scheme for attempting to sustain the unsustainable), the federal government does not support the price of milk, it dictates the price of milk -- it sets by fiat the minimum price that processors must pay the farmers for their milk.
another complication is that a large fraction of those total subsidies that you note were not part of an ongoing program of buying milk, they were part of one-time programs to reduce milk production by culling herds.
it's all very weird. but i will grant you that historically, midwestern dairymen have been more upset about subsidies to farmers in new england and in the southeast, than in the pacific northwest. and it's more than a little surprising that the feds allow california to opt out, since basically that allows california to do precisely what the framers did not want: engage in trade warfare with other states in a fashion that creates bizarre economic inefficiencies.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
A little insight to the situation here.
Federal Financial Support is used to manipulate how we live and work. The primary function of the Federal Financial Support program is to stabilize the market to dampen out fluctuations through time and space. This is the positive reason for its existence. Another (perhaps unintended) effect of this program is it supports certain (often corporate) activities of questionable (in my opinion) value. The distribution of funds tells you a lot about the effects this federal program.
The Corn Subsidies are used to indirectly pay Monsanto to first mine nutrients from our soil, then (via its petrochemical inputs) turn fossil fuel into so much corn, that in addition to feeding cattle it also becomes feed stock for the ethanol industry. This industry has a negative energy budget meaning: Ethanol is not a fuel, ethanol is a fuel additive.
The Soybean and Wheat Subsidies support (and regulate) food production as well as some non-food industrial uses of these materials.
The Conservation Reserve Program Subsidies make it possible, as an example, for places like Rowe Sanctuary to have a larger effect than they might have otherwise.
The Livestock Subsidies are supposed to act as a regulator of part of our food supply. Another (perhaps unintended) consequence is this subsidy along with the Corn subsidy creates the awful conditions of feedlot fed cattle raised on micro-doses of antibiotics.
A coherent program to regulate the production and distribution of commodities is essential to the system. I just question the collateral "damage" of supporting Monsanto and their ilk.
Sign me up for Wetlands Reserve!
$105,000 average payout per recipient. I'm sure I saw a cattail somewhere around here...
105K doesn't go very far.
That amount might get you through creating one slough replete with one or two plover and/or least tern nesting islands (pesky beggars are a bit finicky) and some brush removal on a few of the islands in the middle of the Platte River. Do that for a decade or so and maybe, if all goes well, your sanctuary just might be viable. Oh, and good luck with the application and all that followup documentation. My fees are cheap, flat rate $100.00 per hour.
a friend of mine had about 20 acres that his dad had
arranged to be put into one or another of the various land preservation programs -- but apparently, his dad misunderstood the program, or signed up for the wrong one, or something. one day a guy from the department of Ag shows up and says, What the hell is going on with all these trees that are growing on this land, and my friend says, "well, yeah, this is all CRP land, so we just leave it alone," and the guy is like, "uh ... no ... because you see, if you let trees grow all over it, then it isn't going to function as cropland reserve, is it, dumbass?" and then he gave my friend ONE WEEK to clear all the trees or face heavy penalties.
it was not a fun week for him.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
i might argue with you about the "primary function".
i think -- but it would take some serious research to really confirm this -- that the first concern of the folks who created these programs was this: That never again would there be a situation like the Dust Bowl, in which there were literally not enough calories being produced in America to feed our population. i believe their analysis indicated that one of the keys to achieving that objective was to stabilize the markets well enough to guarantee that crops would be planted in sufficient quantity to supply those calories; an additional element was ensuring a reserve supply of easily plantable ag land, so that in the event of severe drought (or any other catastrophe) in one region, "new" acres could be quickly brought into production.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
That's a great response.
To which I would add the further irony that CA then ships the remaining water out of state, in the form of the lettuce itself (95% water and virtually no nutrient value, aside from Vitamin A)
Wisconsin farmers are not subsidized ?
"Wisconsin farmers are STFH and wondering how the hell they're supposed to compete in midwest markets against subsidized cheese shipped from Oregon and Washington."
So too with political parties
I don't comment much here anymore. Logged in to recommend this diary and to state the following.
I have little time for most sites, where everyone is talking about salvaging something.
If it exists in the West, it exists because the elites allow it to exist, because it helps them.
If you do not smash these elites, they will continue until climate change wipes us out.
Reforming this or that party, or even forming a new one, is hopelessly naive. It is pointless. Voting is pointless because every single candidate that comes onto the final ballot has been chosen to represent the interests of the elite. Emigrating is pointless, because it is the same no matter where one goes.
Buying a new pair of organic socks to put on your gangrened feet is not going to stop the gangrene from creeping up your leg and eating you alive.
Peace and love be with you, reader.
If only any of us knew how to push lawmakers into
enacting laws that p*ss off their funders.
Everyone's staying home from the polls might do it, but that's not going to happen. And, let's face it, if it did happen, they'd find a way to interpret to mean they need to go further right.