Exponential growth

MUST SEE! -- Allow this to sink in... even just a little. Then perhaps we will all stop asking dumb questions like whether some new tech process might take a little CO2 out of the atmosphere. We are facing imminent death, imminent extinction right now.

Prioritizing, there is no other threat or issues that we need to focus on. Because this is what is going to kill us most immediately. Anything less reveals all the intelligence of yeast.

As Guy McPherson says so eloquently. The ONLY hope that any of us have is the immediate cessation (the collapse) of all industrial activity, an end to the infinite growth monetary paradigm which governs all other activity and -- on top of that -- a HUGE miracle.

--Mike Ruppert

Are Humans Smarter Than Yeast?

Understanding exponential growth as a fundamental driver of global warming, environmental destruction, peak oil and natural gas, water and arable land shortages, social decay, resource wars, etc..

Government slash-and-burn

This government seems to think that slash-and-burn, 'drill baby, drill' will save this country.

RMA overhaul won't help the environment

Contrary to the Government's spin, our beautiful natural landscapes and waterways will be put in danger by proposed changes to the Resource Management Act.

Stuff,

21 March, 2013

Environment Minister Amy Adams has promised "strong environmental outcomes" from the new legislation. But as far as I can see, the environment will not be better off.

The changes centre on two sections of the act. Section 6, which covers the environment, was always intended to outweigh Section 7, which governs economic matters.

But the Government now wants to merge these two sections and change the weighting. This has long been the desire of the dairy industry and Federated Farmers.

To be fair, the Government has campaigned for several elections on its desire to reform the act so it is easier and quicker for building projects to be approved.

The Government may feel it has a mandate for its current proposals. But not for going this far.

A close look shows it intends to swing well away from the act's central duty to protect the environment. That can't be good for the country's image.

It comes as a series of minor changes to wording that amount to what environmentalists are calling a sneak attack on our natural resources.

These are the changes:

Consideration of the "benefits" of a project or scheme using our natural resources would remain in the new act. Removed would be references to the "costs", meaning possible harm to the environment.

A clause refers to the "importance and value of historic heritage". Fine sentiments, but removed is "and its protection from inappropriate subdivision and development". In other words, big business, it's your lucky day.

In another change, the word "significant" is added so only "significant aquatic habitats" have to be considered, when before it was not mentioned.

There's no definition of what "significant" means. It could mean that only these "significant" waterways have to be considered if a factory or local body wastewater discharge is planned, not all waterways, as is the case now.

Removed from the new act would be "the maintenance and enhancement of amenity values" as something to be considered. I take this to mean that recreational use will no longer matter. That's swimming, canoeing, a quiet walk with the dog - not important.

Also going are "maintenance and enhancement of the quality of the environment". If ever a phrase summed up the meaning of the act, this does.

And so it goes on. The act is being emasculated.

But the biggest and most profound change is the addition of one word - "specified". It comes in Section 6, where it talks about protecting only "specified outstanding natural features and landscapes". It's not in the current act. All outstanding natural features and landscapes are protected there.

So what does specified mean? There's some debate about this. There's no definition in the proposals, or a method for arriving at a definition, or allowance for a schedule of these specified features.

At the moment, the only natural features that have "specified" protection under the law are those parts of rivers that are subject to Water Conservation Orders.

Does this mean that the revised RMA will protect only these 16 stretches of water? That it's open slather on the rest of the country's waterways? I can't believe it. But that's the way it looks, and it's the way environmental groups are reading it.

The Government is promoting these changes to the act in concert with proposals for freshwater reform, which encompass many of the recommendations of the Land and Water Forum. But they will still be subject to the RMA.

And there's another fishhook - the proposals include a clause that allows the government to intervene in the planning process if it doesn't like what's happening.

The forum's success lay in the willingness of its participants from all points of the spectrum to sit and talk until they found mutual ground. There's no incentive to do that if ministers are going to step in and impose a decision if they don't like the way things are heading.

These reforms are being pushed through with unseemly haste. Consultation began just two days after they were announced, and will close next Wednesday (March 27) after only 16 days.

If you want to have your say, get along to a meeting in Palmerston North, Whanganui or Hamilton today, Christchurch tomorrow, Auckland or New Plymouth on Monday, Nelson on Tuesday or Wellington on Wednesday. Details are on the Ministry for the Environment's website.

What I see in these proposals is further evidence of the Government's blinkered approach to building the economy at the expense of all else.

Yes, we must have progress. But think carefully about the sacrifices being made. The damage of a hasty decision to allow a destructive development will be felt for generations to come.

Conflict in the Asia-Pacific region

This article from 2007 by Prof. Michael Klare was referred to me

Is Energo-fascism in Your Future? The Global Energy Race and Its Consequences

I looked to see if there was any thing more recent and found this interesting interview done during the recent APEC summit in Vladivostok

Pacific’s great power game - Prof. Michael Klare

RT

The Russian Far East city of Vladivostok has turned into the world leaders’ meeting point, as the APEC summit has kicked off there. The role of the Asia Pacific region in world politics and economics has been rising lately. Analysts suggest it may soon become even more important than the Atlantic. So how is the Asia Pacific region going to develop in the near future? And what’s Russia’s role in this process? We discuss with one of the speakers at the APEC summit, expert on energy and world security Michael Klare.

Energy Resources

This is a global problem, not just a national one

More water shortages for China?

China faces worsening water shortages, a government official warned.

UPI, 16 February, 2012

The country's water shortages, along with serious river pollution and a deteriorating aquatic ecosystem, pose a growing threat to economic and social development, Hu Siyi, China's vice minister of water resources said Thursday, state-run news agency Xinhua reports.

China's population of 1.3 billion people consumes more than 600 billion cubic meters of water a year, equal to about three-quarters of its exploitable water resources, Hu said.

"The constraints of our available water resources become more apparent day by day."

New guidelines released Thursday by the State Council -- China's Cabinet -- cap the maximum volume of water use at 700 billion cubic meters by 2030.

Other measures include stricter government supervision of underground water supplies, greater protection of drinking water sources and the introduction of water-use licenses and other steps aimed at restoring the aquatic ecosystem.

"The situation is extremely serious in many areas. With over-development, water use has already surpassed what our natural resources can bear," Hu warned.

About two-thirds of Chinese cities are short of water and nearly 300 million rural dwellers have no access to safe drinking water. Overall, China faces a national water shortage of more than 50 billion cubic meters on average a year.

"If we don't take strong and firm measures, it will be hard to reverse the severe shortages and daily exacerbation of the water situation," Hu said.

Ma Jun, director of China's Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, a non-government organization protection agency, acknowledged the government's efforts to address the problem but said its policies have failed to curb growing demand for water.

"We have built all these dams, we are drilling increasingly deeper to tap into aquifers, many cities are building water diversion projects -- in some ways we are reaching our limits in terms of water supply," Ma was quoted as saying by the Financial Times.

Data from the Ministry of Water Resources indicate that in 2010, 40 percent of Chinese rivers were seriously polluted and unfit for drinking after 75 billion tons of sewage and waste water were discharged.

Last month a heavy metal spill of toxic cadmium in southern China's Longjiang River threatened drinking water supplies for millions of people.

Hu said the rapid growth of China's chemical sector has led to an increase in water pollution but the government has been limited in its ability to monitor it.

"Government authorities cannot respond quickly to every accident, due to the limited number of monitoring sites. In some areas, water is only monitored once a month," he said.

The exploding human population

Africa's Population Is Projected To Blow Past China's And India's

Business Insider,

26 January, 2012

ExxonMobil is bullish on energy, which may surprise no one.  Specifically, ExxonMobil sees global energy demand rising by 30% by 2040.

One reason for this is global population growth.  According to World Bank projections cited in ExxonMobil's 2012 Outlook For Energy, the global population will grow from around 7 billion today to around 9 billion people.

A key bullish trend is the growth of the working-age population (ie those between the ages of 15 and 64) in India and Africa.

It's also interesting to see that Africa's population is expected to blow past those of the OECD, China, and India, which are all seeing lower birth rates.

Chris Martensen interviewed

Chris Martenson has been attracting some attention recently. And I have discovered "Capital Account" on RT America.

Capital Account: Chris Martenson on the Money System and Exponential Resource Depletion

No infinite growth on a finite planet

There Are Now 7 Billion People In The World And We're Running Out Of Stuff

Business Insider,

6 November 2011

Earlier this week, the (estimated) total number of people in the world blew past 7 billion.

To put that number in context, for the first 70,000-odd years of human history, the total human population was around 1 million. Then, over the course of the next ~10,000 years through 1800, the population gradually grew to 1 billion. And now the population has increased 7X in the past 200 years.

Many of the resources used to sustain this population, meanwhile, have not grown.

On the contrary, they've shrunk. Because we've used them up.

Oil, for example. And metals. And potassium, which is used to make fertilizer, which is used to grow the food we eat.

Just go to the slides >

Optimists laugh at the idea that we should be concerned about this — ever-growing population and ever-shrinking resources. Science and innovation will save us, they argue. 

They always have.

("Always," in this context, of course, means the past few hundred years, which is less than 1% of human history).

And hopefully the optimists will be right.

If you were a stock-market investor and you saw the population chart above, though, you'd probably think to yourself, "WHOA — talk about a bubble! Can't wait to short that thing!"

And some smart investors would agree with you.

Earlier this year, Jeremy Grantham of GMO published a treatise on the root cause of the exploding commodity prices of the past few years. He also offered a startlingly depressing outlook for the future of humanity.

Grantham concludes that the world has undergone a permanent "paradigm shift" in which the number of people on planet Earth has finally and permanently outstripped the planet's ability to support us.

Specifically, Grantham says, the phenomenon of ever-more humans using a finite supply of natural resources cannot continue forever — and the prices of metals, hydrocarbons (oil), and food are now beginning to reflect that.

In other words, Grantham says, it is different this time.

Grantham believes that the trend of the last 100 years, in which the prices of almost all major commodities have steadily declined, is permanently over. And from here on in, he says, humans will be competing more — and paying more — for ever-scarcer resources.

From an investment standpoint, this paradigm shift need not mean disaster: Grantham says the obvious play is to own "the stuff in the ground" (and the ground itself, as the huge boom in farmland prices illustrates). The less obvious but equally compelling play is to own companies and technologies that facilitate resource conservation.

From a societal standpoint, the news is far worse. Grantham believes that the planet can only sustainably support about 1.5 billion humans, versus the 7 billion on Earth right now (heading to 10-12 billion). For all of history except the last 200 years, the human population has been controlled via the limits of the food supply. Grantham thinks that, eventually, the same force will come into play again.

This question, whether we're headed for a resource and environmental crisis, is obviously a critical question, not just for investors, but for humanity at large. We'll be looking into the question in detail here over the next few months.

In the meantime, here's a snapshot of Grantham's argument, along with his key points at the end.

Commodity prices are soaring because we're using them up