Make no mistake, the story of our lifetimes is that we got wildly lucky. It’s not just that most our economy is no longer dedicated to finding fuel (for our corporeal bodies or our machines) but that a vast share of our lives is not consumed with collecting wood or dung, rolling up hay, or gathering berries.
The graph below shows a remarkable transformation from a lifestyle where 80% of all the work done was just the daily task of finding fuel. The advent of the industrial revolution cut that effort in half, but the wild success of coal power and technology in the 1800s cut it by factor of ten. It almost appears as if coal did not just fuel the 19th Century, but created the 20th Century too. It was the great disruptor…
The real energy transition in the last 700 years
This was the economic transformation of the United Kingdom
By the 1990s the hunt for all the energy we needed was just a tiny 7% of the economy. And the most remarkable thing about that which is not shown in the graph, was that the total energy consumed had not shrunk at all, it had exploded.
Four hundred years ago a person in the UK would expect to use about 20KWh each day. Today each person consumes nearly 200kWh of energy. And the whole population was about 4 million people then, so there are 15 times as many people, all using ten times as much energy. How rich we are…
The graph Mark Mills recently used in the Energy Transition Delusion (above), was adapted from the earlier John W. Day study of 2018 (below).
From that paper:
Prior to the mid-seventeenth century, British society spent between 50 and 80% or more of GDP to obtain basic energy to survive. MacKay (2009) estimates that an affluent Briton currently consumes approximately 195 kWh per day per person while the average American consumes 250 kWh per day per person. He reckons that 400 years ago, in Europe, the average person sustainably consumed about 20 kWh per day per person, primarily from food and wood, which required approximately one hectare of forest per person. Obviously, not nearly enough forest exists now to support present population densities (Field et al. 2008).
The industrial revolution increased efficiency greatly through the widespread exploitation of fossil fuels, automation, and use of electricity. This resulted in energy expenditure in the UK reaching a minimum of about 7% of GDP in the late twentieth century (King et al. 2015), and annual net energy ratios for energy expenditures peaking globally in the late 1990s (King et al. 2015). Food and fodder, which historically had a net energy yield to society and underwrote almost all economic activity, today have mostly become net energy sinks in modern industrial society (Heller and Keoleian 2000). The remarkable achievements of societies running on solar-driven natural resource productivity reflects the high net energy return of food production in traditional agrarian societies with EROI [energy return on (energy) investment] values of 10:1 to as high as 50:1 (Lee 1969; Glaub and Hall 2017). Absent the technology supported by abundant fossil fuels, societal EROI was about 5:1 (Lambert et al. 2014). Until advanced technology developed, abetted by high EROI fossil fuels, all work in society was done with human and draft animals using fuel wood, peat and dung supplemented by modest wind and water power.
Rapidly transforming the energy system to lower EROI renewables to meet climate targets will mean that society must allocate substantially more GDP to investing in renewable energy plants, electric grids, energy storage, and liquid fuel substitutes. These compete with other economic drivers. The proposed transition to 100% renewable energy (Jacobson et al. 2015a, b) would require up to 5% of U.S. 2016 GDP to be allocated to renewable energy investment between 2025 and 2040 (SI-4), in addition to investments in decommissioning infrastructure and fossil fuel production to provide society’s remaining net energy requirements (SI- 3). This might severely limit discretionary investments by society, which facilitate economic growth (e.g., education, advanced health care, museums) (Hall 2017).
For comparison, the graph from the 2018 paper had slightly more detail. The 1970s oil scare makes a bump, then there is the start of another spike of inefficiency coming in the most recent years on the graph.
Fig. 3 Percent of GDP allocated to energy expenditure in the United Kingdom from 1300 to 2008. Energy sources are labeled in black; keystone innovations are labeled in red, and intellectual paradigms are in blue (Reproduced with permission from Fizaine and Court 2016). (Color figure online)
REFERENCES
Mark Mills The Energy Transition Delusion, Manhattan Institute [PDF]
John W. Day & Christopher F. D’Elia & Adrian R. H. Wiegman & Jeffrey S. Rutherford & Charles A. S. Hall & Robert R. Lane & David E. Dismukes, 2018. “The Energy Pillars of Society: Perverse Interactions of Human Resource Use, the Economy, and Environmental Degradation,” Biophysical Economics and Resource Quality, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 1-16, March.
Fizaine F, Court V (2016) Energy expenditure, economic growth, and the minimum EROI of society. Energy Policy 95:172–186
Yes and we all live in very fortunate times. Unfortunately, the Climate Alarmists and ‘Pollies’ seem hell bent on sending us back to the Dark Ages.
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Not true. This graph is for a very small part of the worlds population. I would love to see a graph for the countries that still depend on cow dung for cooking and for those that don’t have basic electricity, infrastructure or access to schools and hospitals.
I think you will find that a large section of the population still fall somewhere in the 17 and 1800’s
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True. But without fossil fuels we are sentencing those people to poverty for ever.
380
Ah but our caring progressives and other assorted lefties are fixing all of that poverty through wealth distribution, mostly through foreign aid and charities. It is their abiding mission to transfer wealth from the developed economies to all those poor nations, lifting them up.
Right?
Errr, not really. Vast amounts of money do of course leave our shores, supposedly headed off to Africa etc. However, en route to those poor people it passes through many sticky hands, the majority of which are actually right here, before it even ‘gets on a plane’. Charities and foreign aid projects are expensive things to operate, don’tcha know? Very little lands in Africa and, even then, those countries have their own sticky hands in the form of corrupt officials and greedy rulers. Virtually nothing makes it to ‘the front line’.
The actual objective of all of this is to enrich those people who ‘manage’ all of this, a vast hidden enterprise making a few people outstandingly wealthy. This is why, though I have been seeing TV adverts for charities working to feed starving Africans or provide them with clean water since I was myself a boy sixty years ago, yet we’re still seeing those adverts today, like nothing has changed. Where did all that money go?
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Ah yes, foreign aid, money from poor people in rich countries given to rich people in poor countries.
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Have a read of Jeremy Clarkson on “The Cheshire charity rip-off” in “And Another Thing”
00
Chris,
Very few people in Australia have the slightest idea of what actual poverty means.
Poverty here in Oz means not having a carton of beer in the fridge, no cigs, etc,etc.
Nobody starves in Australia, nobody wants for medical treatment.
You have to visit the “ off the beaten tourist routes “ of Africa to understand grinding poverty. That doesn’t mean South Africa ( yet ). Try any Zimbabwe or any country north of that!
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Yes Ron, the efficiency of fossil fuel use in modern Western economies is over 90%, whereas African continent efficiency is where Europe was in 1860 at less than 2%.
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What is not true? As you point out this graph is for the UK only; it’s not meant to reflect the world but illustrate the beneficial effects of fossil fuels on a society. Yet the globalists want to reverse those benefits to the more advanced parts of the world and deny them ever happening in the less developed countries. We won’t go into the Why here.
“I would love to see a graph for the countries that still depend on cow dung for cooking and for those that don’t have basic electricity, infrastructure or access to schools and hospitals.” Indeed, that would put into perspective how fortunate we are that our countries developed their fossil fuels from which others can now benefit. History, and common sense, shows you cannot improve the lives of the poorest by wrecking the lives of the more comfortably off.
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Don’t forget that you can still buy a Tilley light. And likely part of the reason is that the third world uses about the same in kerosene for cooking, heating and light as the US does jet fuel per year
00
Jo,
from 1 – Unfortunately, the Climate Alarmists and ‘Pollies’ seem hell bent on sending us back to the Dark Ages
From Trove
Every year seems to produce a heavier deluge or a higher thermometer reading than the last,
and the public are becoming tired of the “scare heads” in the dailies setting forth a new record of
unusual atmospheric disturbance.
Strikes me as Climate Alarmism has been around in OZ for a while
Regards
OldOzzie
10
The graph of life expectancy will show a similar improvement with time too. All associated with our shift from manual work to powered work, whether it be water wheel, windmills, carbon based fuels, nuclear or similar.
So why would we want to go backwards and expect to have restricted access to energy? Who wins with goal? It won’t be the lower castes, that’s for sure.
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Kings queens and emperors from time immemorial would have been jealous of our lives these days and our quality of life would have been far beyond the Imaginings of ordinary people. Yet we seem determined to throw it away.
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Jo, please stop calling it fossil fuel.
That is a not well supported hypothesis about the source.
Call them hydrocarbon fuels, please.
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John,
Are you talking about the plutonic origin of oil and gas?
Tell us more, please.
33
The hypothesis of the abiogenic origin of oil and gas remains highly controversial. Oil contains biochemical marker chemicals suggesting its biological origin, just to name one contraindication to this hypothesis. It is possible that a small amount of abiogenic methane and other light hydrocarbons was trapped when the earth was formed but the amount is thought to be insignificant.
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David,
I’ve heard that the Russians are prepared to drill below the sedimentary rocks to source their hydrocarbons, with some success.
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Deep drilling has been tried by the Russians before with the Kola Superdeep Borehole which got to 12,262m in 1989.
Project Mohole from the USA got to 3,600m below the seabed in 1961 but was defunded.
In both cases an attempt was made to sample the the Mohorovičić discontinuity (or in Russia’s case drill as deep as they could go) and both sadly failed in some of their objectives although important discoveries were made.
In neither case was there any support for the abiogenic origin of oil.
That’s not say “The Science is settled” like Leftists keep saying, however. That’s not how science works. Science is never settled.
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David,
Thanks for this explanation, which I’ll accept for now.
I’m still perplexed that coal deposits are relatively shallow, while oil and gas are often deep. The former are solid, and the latter are liquid (in varying viscosities) and gas.
I’m glad you remind us that science is never settled.
Any good links on this subject?
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Economic coal deposits are “shallow”, but coal exists just as deep as conventional oil and gas deposits.
In a general sense, coals derive from rapidly deposited, and rapidly buried plant material (in an anoxic environment). oil and gas derives from algae and other marine or lacustrine life, also buried in an anoxic environment. The resultant material, Kerogen, breaks down into liquids and/or gases depending on the pressure and temperature regime, and its biological origin.
Conventional oil and gas deposits are commonly associated with sandstones. Source rocks are clay and mud based rocks, and the oil/gas moves from one to the other. Or, in the case of shale oil and shale gas, it doesn’t move, but it is hard to extract. Finding where these fluids get trapped, is part of the challenge. Depth by itself is not a good indicator of oil/gas presence or absence. in Vietnam, for example, oil/gas reservoirs can be found in fractured granites, below younger sedimentary basins, but it did not form there. Reservoirs also occur in limestones/dolomites, but I am trying to keep it relatively straightforward…
As I mentioned in a previous comment on another post – unlike the global warming scam, oil and gas exploration depends on tangible and repeatable results. I’ve spent the last 20 years in the oil and gas industry as a geologist and an engineer, but I have never been bribed to keep my mouth shut about the “secret” origins of oil and gas…
Have a look at this, and other sites to understand more about petroleum geology and geochemistry. It’s not a simple subject to be glossed over.
https://petrowiki.spe.org/Origin_of_petroleum
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I don’t have a link (it was many years ago) but there was a scientific paper that looked at this issue. Their conclusion was that it was a matter of depth and heat (and time). Coal tends to break down over time (with heat) into heavy oil (bitumen) and that tends to break down into lighter and lighter molecules ending up as methane. Now this was not a simple process, as there were many other factors affecting the process, (type of rocks, permeability, presence or absence of water, and many others). One does notice that the ratio of gas to oil does increase with depth.
But oil and gas tend to rise in the rocks, as long as they are permeable, and get trapped when they reach an impermeable rock layer above them. Classic oil/gas drilling looks for those pockets, and taps them. Fracking looks for the rocks that those pockets were made from, and break them open to recover more.
It’s not simple. . .
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Michael, I think oil is found deeper than coal because oil was formed in oceans and coal on land and there has been more sedimentation over the ocean than over land.
I don’t have any links to suggest for abiogenic oil formation theories but Wikipedia is good for non-political entries. For any political or philosophical entries there will be a strong Leftist slant which is why I no longer donate to them.
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https://newatlas.com/organic-stardust-discovered/20310/
The researchers say the substances generating these infrared emissions actually have chemical structures that are so complex that their structure resembles those of coal and petroleum. Since coal and petroleum are remnants of ancient life and this type of organic matter was only thought to arise from living organisms, the researchers say this suggests that complex organic compounds can be synthesized in space even when no life forms are present.
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David:
3600 m plus the drill pipe to the top of the rig is a fair weight of pipe to retrieve.
MichaelinBrisbane:
Fill a tall beaker with sand, place a low flame underneath and pour a mixture of coal and oil onto the top.
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Broadie,
The Kola Superdeep drill hole was stopped because the high temperature way down there challenged the drill bit performance. The hole was funded for many scientific reasons. Abiotic oil was a minor part. It remains a fascinating study topic because of measurements and observations that challenge current wisdom about how rocks are formed and changed.
There are still big uncertainties about how granites form, let alone whether they can host exploitable hydrocarbons. Geoff S
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Geoff, I dont see that there are uncertainties about how granites form. There is some uncertainty about why some granites appear where they do, but this is because the local geological history is incomplete, not because the geochemistry of granite formation is unclear.
As for hydrocarbons in granites… again, not really understanding this, because as mentioned, a fractured granite reservoir has been an economic resource in Vietnam since the late 1980s. the hydrocarbons undoubtably migrated into this rock from their source. Any rock can be a reservoir if it can trap hydrocarbons and have a high enough porosity and permeability (natural or induced) to allow extraction.
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My model with the beaker was without any research from literature. I was attempting to explain why coal would stay on top and the oil would seep down to a point where density and possibly boiling into gas may form a layer. Possibly the gas would rise, dissolve and be trapped under impervious geologic formations such as a granite.
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James Murphy,
Re granites, here is a 700 page book that details why it is unlikely that granites formed from a melt. Colloidal processes are promoted. The author was my boss for 30 years or so. Geoff S
https://www.connorcourtpublishing.com.au/THE-ORIGIN-OF-ROCKS-AND-MINERAL-DEPOSITS–John-Elliston_p_111.html
31
yes, but it’s not a problem if the rig has the right specifications…
3600m of 5-7/8inch diameter drill pipe (commonly used in deepwater wells today) is roughly 190 tonnes without additional friction. this pipe is about 53kg/metre, more or less. Friction from the pipe against the wellbore, and against casing can add a lot to the weight experienced by the hoisting system.
it depends on the rig, but it’s common to have one “joint” of drill pipe being approx. 10m long, with 3 “joints” making up 1 “stand”. The pipe you see on oil rig derricks is usually a collection of “stands” of about 30m (though can be 40m on larger rigs, or 20m on smaller rigs). Naturally, once the pipe has been assembled as “stands”, it’s much quicker to connect and disconnect the pipe every 30m rather than every 10m.
The longest wells currently, are those in Qatar, more than 13km long, and most of the well is horizontal. Pulling pipe out of these is but one of the challenges facing the drilling engineering team in such cases.
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Thank you, James and David.
I’ve looked at your link, James, and I can see that the science of the origin of oil, gas and coal isn’t completely settled. However, I acknowledge that you are more convinced of the organic origin for all.
You have both whet my appetite to look into this subject further.
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Semantics! Personally, I’m happy with FF’s! It signifies the ages of man that have produced Iron, bronze and Industrial developments.
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I would prefer to drop the fossil word, but my thoughts count for little. Geoff S
40
How about Dinofuels
30
When the Left took over education, along with everything else, under Rudi Dutschke’s 1967 plan of “The Long March Through the Institutions” they also erased the marvels of Western Civilisation which included the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution and the Industrial Revolution.
Now children are taught to hate everything about Western Civilisation and Western religion and its moral codes. They are taught that primitive Stone Age cultures that lack science, reason, rely on witchcraft, lack recognition of individual rights and lack material prosperity are superior to ours and taught lies such as the supposed oneness these peoples had with the environment.
The Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution and the Industrial Revolution worked to expand knowledge, the use of science and reason to solve problems and satisfy mankind’s curiosity about the world, the recognition of individual and human rights, the liberation of drudgery in day to day life and generate enormous material prosperity even for the poorest people.
That has all gone now.
The Left are returning us to the time before the Industrial Revolution and Enlightenment where we (non Elites) “will own nothing and be happy” and we will be again, no more than serfs with no rights, no property, no material prosperity and ruled over by Elites.
Cold, hungry, poor and in the dark.
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When the stated that we “will own nothing and be happy”, they left out the letter “k” from the second word, and rearranged the letters. “own” then becomes “know”!
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Yes Dave, we have strange and unsupported attempts, like “Dark Emu”, to somehow claim that our indigenous were advanced cultures prior to arrival of the British. And we have an ever present background of the “noble savage” in history.
The truth is far different. Life for much of history, particularly in less advanced cultures was nasty brutish and short.
There is nothing to glorify here at all. Lets stop the ridiculous falsehoods behind the “welcome to country” and other such attempts to portray history with rose coloured glasses. The reality is that the advent of civilisation has been a stunning improvement for all involved – so lets cease attacking it.
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I spoke a while back to an aboriginal gentleman about Welcome to country, and they fee they charge for it. He said they called it “laugh at white fellas money!”
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David, thank you: the distinction ‘culture v civilization’ merits attention.
20
Thanks for a very interesting post. I had never realized that one advantage of the nomadic sheep herding life was that, far from villages and farms, they would have found fuel easily.
Here is a subject I would love for you to look into, and nowhere have I seen it discussed: What is the effect on human culture, generation after generation, of the constant barrage of “buy this you need this” advertisement ? . . designed by expert psychologists yet . . Never before in history . .
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What is the problem?
If people want to improve their lives with new gadgets or services, why not? It has given us enormous material wealth and easy lifestyles where the daily focus is not 99.9% devoted to finding food and fuel.
Whether material possessions make people happy or not is an entirely personal choice. No one is forced to buy anything. That’s the beauty of our system, freedom of choice.
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Advertisers prey upon our needs for love and acceptance. They manufacture false needs. Buying “stuff” becomes an addiction, a cure for anxiety, for feeling empty or unloved, a way to compete. We see pictures of dictatorships like North Korea with the Great Man’s face everywhere on walls and billboards, and don’t realize the ads are like that here,
50
They have no consumer products to buy in North Korea.
We have unlimited variety in the West.
Most Westerners are happy with their choices but if they feel overwhelmed by choice and decisions then they can go and live in North Korea, a commune or set up a wilderness camp somehow and “live off the land”.
I don’t see what the problem is as long as freedom of choice exists. No one forces me or anyone to buy anything they don’t want, the only exceptions being so-called “renewable energy” and covid vaccinations, both inspirations from the Left.
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Sadly David we are losing our freedom of choice. We are being compelled to rely on unreliable, uneconomical and environmentally damaging so called renewable energy. EVs are being forced on us and the alarmist loons are looking to change our diets away from red meat (and other meats). Just to name a few casualties from this AGW/MMCC fraud.
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David,
Personally, I really dislike modern advertising. It is dishonest too often. Its current mode seems to be to convince the masses that impossible is possible. Clients are commonly sellers of poor goods whose sales are falling and need a boost. Some goods like gem diamonds rely almost entirely on fluffy advertising. Expressions like “Kills up to 99.9% of germs” are common, but meaningless drivel. The present trendy one is “Scientific studies show that ..”
The concept of Global Warming would have died at birth with no advertising. Ditto plans to cut hydrocarbon fuels. So much of advertising cries out for reform, a return to actuality replacing dreams. Geoff S
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Adverts ave been around for thousands of years
https://listverse.com/2017/09/24/10-amazingly-ancient-advertisements/
So I guess they are an integral part of the evolution of humanity
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AGAIN, Dr Rosling’s BBC video shows us the UN data for GLOBAL WEALTH and HEALTH over the last 200 years in just 5 minutes.
But POOR Africa is the best test for our very BENIGN CLIMATE over the last 70 years.
In 1950 Africa had a population of just 227 million people and a Life expectancy of about 36. THINK.
By 1970 their population was 363 million and life exp was about 46.
But today their population has soared to 1400 million and life exp of about 64. All UN data.
Here’s the BBC Rosling 5 minute video showing the wonderful impact of the Industrial Revolution for Humans in such a short time. AGAIN all UN data. THINK and start to WAKE UP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo
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I read today that India is expected to become the most populous nation on earth this year
70
I’d rather it be them than the Chicomms.
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Tonyb you’re probably correct, but the 53 countries of Africa will grow more quickly from now on.
Of course this is not a surprise because the average age of Africans is a very young 19 + years.
But Indian writers are very optimistic that India GDP will overtake China by 2050, but I’ll believe it when I see it. Also I’m not likely to live to see it.
Here’s an example of the optimistic writers of Indian heritage, but I’m sure India will be a buffer against Chinese aggression from now on and the Western countries understand this only too well.
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/expert-view/india-will-overtake-china-in-the-next-25-years-rakesh-jhunjhunwala/articleshow/81186441.cms
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Maybe but who knows?
In 2025 India and China are almost equal, with India still going up while China plateaus. [2025: China 1.458 billion, India 1.445 billion]
Source: https://www.populationpyramid.net/
Of course, this science isn’t settle either.
Neither nation has good prospects. In China it is the Party and in India it is Hindu Nationalism.
60
In France there are demonstrations against the high price of living and climate change inaction. It’s staggering.
150
Rational thinkers need to understand that the modern Left is based upon post modernism.
It is an extremely dangerous and irrational ideology and at its core is the belief that there is no such thing as objective reality.
How do you debate or even reason with someone who believes “reality” is whatever you think it is?
The following points of view of Enlightenment vs post modernist thinking are excerpted from the link below. I have edited them for brevity but only deleted material, not changed any words. The paragraph following the number is the Enlightenment thinking and the post modernist view follows:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/postmodernism-philosophy
1. Enlightenment There is an objective natural reality, a reality whose existence and properties are logically independent of human beings—of their minds, their societies, their social practices, or their investigative techniques.
Postmodernists dismiss this idea as a kind of naive realism. Such reality as there is, according to postmodernists, is a conceptual construct, an artifact of scientific practice and language. This point also applies to the investigation of past events by historians and to the description of social institutions, structures, or practices by social scientists.
2. Enlightenment The descriptive and explanatory statements of scientists and historians can, in principle, be objectively true or false.
The postmodern denial of this viewpoint—which follows from the rejection of an objective natural reality—is sometimes expressed by saying that there is no such thing as Truth.
3. Enlightenment Through the use of reason and logic, and with the more specialized tools provided by science and technology, human beings are likely to change themselves and their societies for the better. It is reasonable to expect that future societies will be more humane, more just, more enlightened, and more prosperous than they are now.
Postmodernists deny this Enlightenment faith in science and technology as instruments of human progress. Indeed, many postmodernists hold that the misguided (or unguided) pursuit of scientific and technological knowledge led to the development of technologies for killing on a massive scale in World War II.
4. Enlightenment Reason and logic are universally valid—i.e., their laws are the same for, or apply equally to, any thinker and any domain of knowledge.
For postmodernists, reason and logic too are merely conceptual constructs and are therefore valid only within the established intellectual traditions in which they are used.
5. Enlightenment There is such a thing as human nature; it consists of faculties, aptitudes, or dispositions that are in some sense present in human beings at birth rather than learned or instilled through social forces.
Postmodernists insist that all, or nearly all, aspects of human psychology are completely socially determined.
6. Enlightenment Language refers to and represents a reality outside itself.
According to postmodernists, language is not such a “mirror of nature,” as the American pragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty characterized the Enlightenment view. Inspired by the work of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, postmodernists claim that language is semantically self-contained, or self-referential: the meaning of a word is not a static thing in the world or even an idea in the mind but rather a range of contrasts and differences with the meanings of other words. Because meanings are in this sense functions of other meanings—which themselves are functions of other meanings, and so on—they are never fully “present” to the speaker or hearer but are endlessly “deferred.” Self-reference characterizes not only natural languages but also the more specialized “discourses” of particular communities or traditions; such discourses are embedded in social practices and reflect the conceptual schemes and moral and intellectual values of the community or tradition in which they are used. The postmodern view of language and discourse is due largely to the French philosopher and literary theorist Jacques Derrida (1930–2004), the originator and leading practitioner of deconstruction.
7. Enlightenment Human beings can acquire knowledge about natural reality, and this knowledge can be justified ultimately on the basis of evidence or principles that are, or can be, known immediately, intuitively, or otherwise with certainty.
Postmodernists reject philosophical foundationalism—the attempt, perhaps best exemplified by the 17th-century French philosopher René Descartes’s dictum cogito, ergo sum (“I think, therefore I am”), to identify a foundation of certainty on which to build the edifice of empirical (including scientific) knowledge.
8. Enlightenment It is possible, at least in principle, to construct general theories that explain many aspects of the natural or social world within a given domain of knowledge—e.g., a general theory of human history, such as dialectical materialism. Furthermore, it should be a goal of scientific and historical research to construct such theories, even if they are never perfectly attainable in practice.
Postmodernists dismiss this notion as a pipe dream and indeed as symptomatic of an unhealthy tendency within Enlightenment discourses to adopt “totalizing” systems of thought (as the French philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas called them) or grand “metanarratives” of human biological, historical, and social development (as the French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard claimed). These theories are pernicious not merely because they are false but because they effectively impose conformity on other perspectives or discourses, thereby oppressing, marginalizing, or silencing them. Derrida himself equated the theoretical tendency toward totality with totalitarianism.
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Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
– Winston Churchill
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And I wouldn’t be too sure about that “equal sharing of misery” bit, either.
The late and unlamented Pol Pot was the “purest’ socialist in history, thus far.
Unfortunately, there is a seemingly endless conga line of sociopaths vying to “out-do” his demonic performance.
170
There is no truth, say the post modernists, yet they claim the truth of their own theories.
180
The Left are not hiding their plans.
They are now brazen enough to shout them out loud.
They are now confident that enough of the population is dumbed-down enough to willingly accept their agenda, like “lambs to the slaughter” to paraphase Isaiah 53:7.
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AGAIN fully evolved Humans have been around for about 200,000 years and had a life expectancy under 40 for almost that entire period.
But after the start of the Ind Rev the change in life exp soared in just 200 years and the population increased from a POOR/SICK 1 billion people to 7.9 + billion and much WEALTHIER/HEALTHIER as well.
Interesting that poor Africa today has a much higher life expectancy (Africa today 64) than the global life exp in 1950 ( global life exp about 45 +) Don’t forget these are UN data and clearly shows the very recent rapid increase in health and wealth.
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/WLD/world/life-expectancy
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A sweeping single value for life expectancy is disingenuous, because it far too often conceals the fact that the single biggest contribution to a low average life expectancy is a staggering rate of infant and child mortality. In 2017, for example, 5.4 million people died before reaching the age of 5; the death rate for children 5-9 was less than a tenth that, and the death rate did not reach the rate of children under 5 until the 70-74 age group. Historically, the average lifespan for adult males has not changed much over more than a thousand years; while average lifespan for adult females has risen significantly, excluding deaths during or immediately subsequent to childbirth leaves much the same pattern as for males. The statistics showing average lifespans of 30, 45, or similar values mask horrific rates of infant mortality, with individuals who survived their first five years being able to look forward to lifespans close to that of modern adults.
10
“Renewables” create huge number of jobs. That is the ALP logo.
China simply does not have enough workers to enable the developed world TRANSITION to NutZero.
There will be a massive road block in Biden’s transition once China refuses to accept US debt in payment for solar panels, wind turbines and lithium batteries.
110
The Left also claim they are “the cheapest form of electricity production”, despite the obvious reality that there is not a single example of anywhere in the world where this is true.
IN EVERY SINGLE CASE MORE “RENEWABLES” = MORE COST.
(Not counting real hydro, which does not include SH2. Real hydro is a traditional, valid, inexpensive and reliable energy source. And in California they are tearing down hydro power stations.)
160
Well it has been my observation that the jobs renewables create can figuratively be counted on one hand. Many years ago on this blog their was an article which showed that for every green energy job there are about (if I recall correctly) 4 times that number of high paying energy sector jobs lost.
Why does labor support green energy?
80
Well, Red for Labour and Green for the Greens makes Brown which is the colour of BS. They are both BS artists.
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Your information is very old. There is massive growth in employment for people working in the “renewable” industry. But their productivity is negative. They are just installing congealed energy that produces less energy in its life than the energy that went into making it. And none of the dispatchable generation actually gets replaced other than maybe coal being replaced by gas.
It is a jobs bonanza that has a massive impact on productivity. The negative productivity is why no country with high penetration of intermittent “renewables” now has a manufacturing industry. All their wealth is being ploughed back into useless ornaments that dot the countryside.
Data from the international labor organisation gives 12.7M employees in the “renewable” sector. There are 6M in the oil and gas sector. The output of “renewable” energy is 40E18J. The output of oil and gas is 330E18J. So half the people for 8 times the output. Now remember that none of the “renewables” jobs actually replaces anyone in the fossil fuel industry. I expect the actual energy productivity from the coal and nuclear sectors would be even higher than oil and gas.
“Renewables” is a godsend for creating useless employments. It is no different to smashing windows and then repairing them. The whole sad episode is an illusion driven by China’s willingness to apply its resources to making all the useless stuff the developed countries are craving.
Think how easily it will be for Russia to take over Europe once they are all hungry and cold; trying to power their flailing economies with wind and solar. You would think some mastermind had planned these events.
While USA is busy making solar powered army vehicles, China is burning more than 50% of the globe’s coal production building its naval fleet, now 355 vessels and growing fast.
At some point China will simply stop accepting US debt for the trinkets needed for Biden’s NutZero and that will make life much tougher in the USA.
China is positioning itself strategically around the world to dominate. They are giving the Pacific Islanders a future rather than ramming Climate Change guilt on to them. Same thing in Africa and the Middle East.
I doubt there will be open conflict between China and the developed countries because they are in control of the agenda already.
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Importing Chinese manufactured solar panels and wind turbines means using them places the CO2 production ‘cost’ back on China, so Mr Bowen and the activists can ignore it. As China ignores the entire CO2 theory anyway, it has no environmental worries, the UN and the climate absurdists gives it free reign as a ‘developing nation’ (so they don’t have to argue with a mate anyway) and hence there is no environmental cost to be recognised in using these products. I thought ‘developing nation’ referred to a nation’s poor economic status; not to a nation ‘developing’ the biggest armed forces in the world, enveigling poorer nations in honey money traps, filling oceans with concrete and running most of the world’ manufacturing these days!
There are tons of jobs coming in the renewables system. Erect ’em. Short life span. Pull
em down. Re-erect ’em. Waste disposal will be massive so, jobs, jobs, jobs all around. Then there is the repetition for EV’s. What happens other than disposal when those batteries reach their use by dates? High replacement costs, so, buy at great cost an old body with new battery pack OR more waste disposal. Plenty of current used car people to hire to take their frustration out on wrecking these youthful vehicles that destroyed their jobs. Decisions all coming to us soon. Does one still buy a new ff vehicle knowing the government has its death planned already?
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The original study is Reference 5 in this paper, but is no longer “found”. That said, the AEI article still lives.
“The report’s key finding is that for every job created in the UK in renewable energy, 3.7 jobs are lost.”
https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/the-myth-of-green-energy-jobs-the-european-experience/
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Rick
How would ephemeral energy as a source of jobs compare with doing roadworks with sledge hammers and teaspoons?
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And there is that Dylan Thomas quote “that a job is death without dignity”, as opposed to real work
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It’s worse than this. In only three generations, the vast proportion of people have moved to the city where they cannot grow anything, collect wood, search for berries and are helplessly dependent on food deliveries and fossil fuels and have no idea they are so vulnerable.
They will only realise it when the stores are empty, deliveries don’t come and they cannot charge their electric cars. And they will look to the government to fix it. And the government cannot. It has no food or oil or coal or electricity or manufactured anything.
At the same time Australians are demanding that we eliminate fossil fuels, farming, trucks, dams with no idea of the disaster to come. But we can only hope Germans realise this as they freeze, the factories stop, the food deliveries stop and the shops are empty. And nothing grows in winter.
We have come so far from an agricultural society and in Australia from a manufacturing society to mass importers, that people have no idea who does all the work of provisioning their existence. The factories are shut, the farmers are under stress and harassed and we have blown up the power stations without any memory of why they were built in the first place. And made ourselves reliant on power which is only available 30% of the day.
And for the first time in human history, without a major war in two generations and utterly dependent on imported goods, we have no idea how tough it will be without fossil fuels or food. And while we have been demonizing our coal, gas, uranium, oil, the rest of the world is taking all we can deliver. And if we don’t deliver, they will come for it.
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Dutch Farmers Promise Fresh Protests After Govt Backs Plan to Forcibly Seize Farmland
Dutch farmers’ organisations have vowed to launch more protests in the Netherlands in response to advice from the government’s mediator, who has called for the forceable relocation of farming firms and the seizure of up to 600 farms deemed to be the heaviest nitrogen emitters.
Farmers Defence Force leader Mark Van den Oever announced this week that Dutch farmers will once again take to the streets after the government expressed its intentions to adopt the plan presented by former deputy prime minister Johan Remkes to meet the nitrogen standards demanded by the European Union.
Remkes, who has been serving as the chief mediator between farmers’ organisations and the government in the ongoing dispute over nitrogen emissions, laid out a plan last week that would see farms located close to protected environments forcibly relocated and a scheme for the government to seize up to 600 farms that emit the most nitrogen.
In response to the plan, Van den Oever said that the scheme was “completely wrong” and that the farmers of the nation would “give the old-fashioned gas again, count on that” — in reference to the widespread tractor protests by farmers over the summer.
The Farmers Defence Force leader said that ministers have ignored the concerns of farmers and that the globalist government of Prime Mnister Mark Rutte “imposes far too much on businesses”.
The plan to relocate farms has drawn particular ire from the organisation, with spokesman Sieta van Keimpema describing the measure as a “red line” for farmers.
Defending his proposals, Remkes said last week that, as a result of the European Union’s green agenda, “the Netherlands will be locked up because it will be legally almost impossible to issue permits. Not for houses, not for farms, not for roads.”
“I write this with a heavy heart, but I see no other way,” he said, adding: “I don’t expect the agricultural sector will be happy with this report.”
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I can’t get my head around the total ignoring that these are food resources, both in hectares to be resumed and in the requirement to have adequate levels of nitrogen in the soils to make them so productive. The entire sandplane regions of WA are dependent to a huge extent on the application of urea for their crop production. Are politicians and people everywhere now so urbanised that they have no idea of what agriculture is anymore nor how it produces meat, grain, milk, fruits and vegetables?
Was on a tourist bus in California. Two from New York asked the driver what brown matter was. ‘A rock’, said the driver. What a plant was. ‘A grape vine said the driver. Where do those cattle drink? ‘From the ocean down there I suppose’, said one to the other.
I don’t say this to pick on the people so much. It is an example of how total urbanisation absolutely dumbs down people. Politicians these days don’t seem to consider food nor electricity and energy use in general as anything but over provided systems, common to everyone the world over. There is no such thing as starvation nor traditional use of cow dung to warm and cook with.
They are placing absolutely no value and have no understanding of the vital nature of these things to human existence. It’s all a power game now for politicians. They obey international bodies that they see an advantage in for themselves, refuse debate on their declarations and ignore the people that pay their wages, and the national interest.
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Love this comment. Want to share it.
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Sure. Go for it.
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Aussies have always had a very high life expectancy and today that’s about 84 years for about 26 million of us.
But in 1950 the life expectancy for the 8.4 million Aussies was about 68.8 years.
But the 53 POOR countries of Africa now have a life exp of 64 years and soaring population of 1400 million people. See UN data via Dr Rosling’s 120,000 data points 1810 to 2010.
So how is this possible if we are enduring a climate CRISIS or EMERGENCY or donkey Biden’s + DEMs EXISTENTIAL THREAT?
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/AUS/australia/life-expectancy
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You people are missing the point. The Elites aren’t trying to control us. They want to eliminate us. Their aim is a world population of around 250 million. And they are succeeding.
All that is necessary is to keep us preoccupied with threats of war, scamdemics, natural disasters and whatnot, while the planet cools, crops fail, and the bulk of the world’s population starve or freeze to death over the next 50 years or so.
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According to the Georgia Guidestones, now destroyed, they are aiming for a population of 500 million, about the same as world population in 1650 and much easier to control.
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Some things never change. China, Japan, SK, most of Europe are on their way to, or are already having, negative growth from the people living there (but they are bringing in migrants). It has nothing to do with a concerted, coordinated elite led plan.
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The problem with a well educated middle class society, they don’t breed.
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Why is this so GA?
Could it be that a period of stability in food supply, shelter and a possibility of a comfortable retirement means women are less likely to have large families.
I wonder what a future of uncertainty of supply and a chaotic future will bring? Maybe young girls living as avatars in some computer graphic will start producing more baby avatars to collect credits and secure there old age.
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well that’s an odd reply. Maybe they will Brodie. Maybe they will.
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well when you base an economy on ignoring external costs, you get a good growth rate. But eventually that ignorance will come back and just you. q.v black lung
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What the far left have planned.. is a society that totally ignores all external costs.. and still regresses into oblivion for all but the elite.
It is one based totally on the ignorance of the leftist “believer”…. ie.. socialism.
Net Zero is a classic case of the far-left marxist bureaucracies ignoring external costs… ignoring ALL costs, actually.
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China and Japan aren’t big on immigrants. Japan is going for robots.
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Nothing to do with China’s “one child” policy, then?
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It actually isn’t now. They don’t have one now. John Aitken specifically adressed China in this broad/pod cast
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/human-fertility-is-declining/14075436
His whole argument was a bit off I thought. First it was all catastrophism. Second it was putting one aspect of economics ahead of all other considerations.
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I know the one child policy ended some time back, but there is a lot of inertia involved.
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Beijing is getting desperate.
‘The traditional norm of universal marriage and childbearing for Chinese women is changing. China’s fertility has been steadily declining, as measured by both period and cohort indicators.
‘Following the historical change, fertility may continue to decline even after introducing the universal three-child policy in China in 2021.’ (Shucai Yang et al 2022)
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Difficult to know the truth Old Cocky.
Maybe not so much one child as being able to select a male child? I understood from a friend who had a manufacturing business there that the families were simply registering one child, yet still having more children, particularly the ‘Rice Cocky’ types.
As someone remarked on a blog, this is an experiment that has not been done before and it will be difficult to know what will occur when you have from my understanding 30 million extra males to females.
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Interesting to consider the the nature of government coercion that prevents reproduction, as opposed to the government coercion that would require reproduction.
So the Left may find their ‘Handmaid’s Tale nightmare originates with themselves.
Who knew?
At least we have recently created a good, solid, global bureaucratic infrastructure for behavioral mandates.
The raison d’etre of government is the perpetuation of crisis.
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Welcome back Memory Vault. I appreciate you insightful comments
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Hello Len.
I fell in a dark place when Marilyn died, but I’m getting there.
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My condolences, good to hear you are getting there
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Australia, are you looking forward to another 35% increase in electricity prices next year?
How many more power stations are these evil Leftist lunatics going to be allowed to get away with destroying?
https://www.9news.com.au/finance/electricity-prices-forecast-to-soar-alinita/50170b8c-fd5d-4325-be31-9f4d1428cc4d
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In Netherlands they are opening an “insect farmibg” school.
This is the poverty food Elites expect non Elites to eat as they systematically destroy Western agriculture with their dual war against “carbon” (sic) and “nitrogen” (sic).
https://thefishsite.com/articles/dutch-firm-prepares-to-open-worlds-first-insect-farming-school
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The debate in Australia is all about gas.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-17/inflation-deficit-and-energy-crisis-interest-rates-verrender/101541346
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Three large CC debates in The Oz today. Vic gas, and the state’s refusal to extract it, was one of them.
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Really Australia has to be the laughing stock of the world! Other nations waltz in, and negotiate deals where we basically pay them to take our resources away. It’s either corruption like we’ve never seen, or rank stupidity! Maybe it’s just businessmen running rings around a population who’s only interest is real estate?! Qatar gets $26.6 billion in resource taxes, and we get $800 million for giving away more. The people who signed those contracts should be in jail.
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Of all the huge and ongoing, endless mistakes Australia has made and continues to make, that nasty little pretend conservative John Howard was responsible for giving away much of Australia’s gas supply to the Chicomms on a bizarre 30 year contract with no provision for inflation or market prices. The Chicomms couldn’t believe their luck.
Meanwhile, Australians are desperate for gas while the Chicomms pay less for our gas in their homes than we do.
https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/how-australia-blew-its-future-gas-supplies-20170928-gyqg0f.html
SEE LINK FOR REST
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Classic Howard.
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The industrial revolution was also a huge driver in the elimination of slavery. It was a slow start, but within 100 years, when governments began regulating work conditions, and food standards there was a real revolution in the West. The pendulum swings between a free for all, and control. Lucky are those to get the middle stages.
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Machinery not only made slavery unnecessary, it made it undesirable.
As did having flush toilets, running water, hot water, non stick easy clean surfaces, modern detergents, soap, cans and bottles, food preservation, pasteurization, clean potable water, electricity, central heating, the kettle, the mix master, the washing machine, the car, the bicycle, macadamzation, rubber, the inflatable tyre, holidays, worker’s pay, health and safety, sick leave, single mother’s pension, compulsory education, child protection, vaccines, cardboard boxes, antibiotics, the police. Democracy. The list would go on forever.
And the left extremists want it all gone in the name of fairness and to save the planet. Along with everything else, farming, manufacturing, travel, cars. You have to ask if there is anything they will accept as essential as they attack the very foundations of the most peaceful, wealthy, healthy civilizations in the history of humanity. They would take us back to the stone ages, pounding rocks and scraping lichen. And kale isn’t much better.
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The famous Berlin park went to firewood: By winter, Europe may be left without forests due to sanctions
NGOs say they speak for the trees, which they worry countries seem to be chopping as fast as they please.
Faced with soaring energy prices and potential blackouts, many EU governments are relaxing logging rules and encouraging people to burn wood to keep their houses warm — something campaigners say spells disaster for Europe’s already vulnerable forests.
NGOs and scientists warn that consuming more wood for fuel risks decimating dwindling forests and increasing illegal logging — a claim the industry strongly rejects.
Logging protected forests to guarantee energy security is “crazy” and “very, very destructive,” said Katalin Rodics, biodiversity campaigner with Greenpeace Hungary, who pointed out that forests in Hungary had already been damaged by this summer’s extreme heat.
Countries are sharply divided over what role forests should play in achieving the bloc’s green goals.
According to Bloomberg , there are now more stumps than trees left in Berlin’s famous Tiergarten park. Citizens remember that this was only during the Second World War. At home, they now all gather in one room to warm up together by the stove or fireplace.
In relatively warm Italy, the cost of a pallet of firewood with a volume of slightly less than two cubic meters has reached 349 euros. And this is not the limit. The owners of wood warehouses are strengthening their security, so that the goods that have become popular are not stolen.
https://www.kp.ru/daily/27458.5/4662885/
Actually their firewood price isn’t much worse than here in Oz, doing some comparisons.
Being no spring chicken now, I cut loads of firewood when I could in past years and have a good 10 year reserve.
Actually the German “crisis” isn’t what you think at all. No gas but…🙄
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Cutting down the few remaining forests to achieve their “green” goals….
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Governments and politicians and the power hungry 100,000 bureaucrats in the UN, EU have Green goals. The people want to be left alone. And to be able to buy food and power. Governments think that is selfish, ignorant, racist.
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Actually Germany has a lot of small forests between their villages. I used to regularly walk in one on the weekends. You often passed small stacks of logged timber as they only logged a very small part every year.
The Tiergarten was a beautiful park – I hope it hasn’t been completely destroyed.
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Chopping down the forests won’t help much this European Winter as the chopped up wood is ‘green’ and needs time to dry out before it is suitable as firewood.
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“... encouraging people to burn wood to keep their houses warm — something campaigners say spells disaster for Europe’s already vulnerable forests.“.
The solution is simple. Europeans have already cut down most of their forest to improve their economies. To balance things up (well, their way up) they now demand that Brazil does not cut any Brazilian forest. If the Europeans cut down the rest of their forest, all they have to is demand that Brazil plants lots of new trees. What could be fairer than that?
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As I have explained many times, cutting down or burning or growing trees makes no difference to CO2. That is self evident in the dramatic greening of the planet over the last 30 years. NASA confirms it. 14% increase in CO2 and 14% increase in green cover, another Brazilian rainforest in size, or the US or Australia.
But no one draws the obvious conclusion that more trees does NOT mean less CO2. Rather more CO2 means more trees. Could it be more obvious?
CO2 is not dependent on trees. Trees are dependent on CO2. And fossil fuel makes no difference to CO2.
Carbon credits are ridiculous nonsense, illogical, a UN attempt to extract money from the ignorant. And Nett Zero is an attempt to make out that there is some sort of carbon dioxide balance involved between tiny humans and the planet. There is none. We are irrelevant.
But try to tell that to fake expert Professor Tim Flannery and his nonsense Climate Council or Greta or Al Gore. No idea of the weather let alone the climate.
The inconvenient truth is that trees do not control CO2. CO2 exists without trees. It is a gas like oxygen or nitrogen and could care less about our narrow window of life as carbon life forms driven by photosynthesis and it is so soluble that 98% is dissolved in the ocean. CO2 is just an oxide of carbon and ignores us entirely. While life desperately needs more CO2, this gigantic ball of molten rock could not care about the pond scum life on the surface. We humans are not masters of the planet let alone of the Universe. If we can avoid wiping out civilization by banning fossil fuels or using nuclear weapons, we might last another 100,000 years.
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Hmmm…it looks like, from doing a search, no-one’s mentioned that ultra inconvenient 9,000 years to exploit the Lithium to manifest that delusional green agenda.
Lithium for one anyway!
Green by 2050? Ha ha… you’ll need that WEF “immortality factor” to ever see it happen.
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Yes there is a reason we ask “how are you?” at greeting. It was once a genuine question because survival was tough. The left forgets this because they are the most disconnected from reality of us all.
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Work is energy, power is rate of doing work. Given our current technology dependent lifestyles, we need a lot of energy supplied by sources with high power capabilities. If we reduce these inputs, our standard of living will drop.
With finances, most people understand, if we only ever invest in loss making businesses, we will go bankrupt. Similarly, if we only ever invest in energy sources that return less than they take, we cannot expect success. At the moment, hydrocarbons and nuclear are energetically subsisdising the renewables. Once this energy subsidy ends, the true picture will become unavoidably and painfully obvious.
The only reason our current energy strategy is not seen as obvious madness is because of the alternative madness of the imaginary benefits attributed to it. These imaginary benefits need to be subject to absolute and uncompromisingly clear scrutiny to be exposed as the figments they are. Then we might start making some rational decisions to the true benefit of future generations, instead of the current deluded decisions directing them to destitution.
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“One may ignore reality. One may Not ignore the consequences of ignoring Reality.
Ayn Rand
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[…] The real transition of the last 700 years was *to* fossil fuels […]
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[…] The real transition of the last 700 years was *to* fossil fuels […]
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