The farmland analogon

Growth is a complex matter. Its measurement as GDP gain has given reason for debate as we now see that GDP gain alone will not define a society’s wellbeing. Herman Daly, growth critic for decades, has summarized the fallacies of growth on the casse website (second part).
Criticism of GDP growth can be summarized in the following arguments:

• To have more is certainly not beneficial if we already have enough. There is no use in having more washing machines if everybody owns one already.
• The measurement of the GDP in currency falsely implies a decoupling from physical realities, while money supply might be endless, our world is not. Production needs the physical reality. There is only so much land to grow food on.
• The future costs of growth are not calculated into the GDP. The total benfits of growth can be smaller than its costs. Waste, pollution, etc. could bind more productivity over time than is gained by wasteful production.
• Consumption of resources and common goods is counted as growth (income) even if nothing was produced but money. (Cutting down a Forest is growth, depleting fishing grounds is growth, burning oil is growth etc.).
• Production and services that do not enter the market do not add to the GDP. The people in a rural society producing their own food, the practitioners of the new urban gardening trend or people that help somomebody out of friendship or kinship do not add to the GDP growth even if they produce essential goods and services for the survival of their society.

Growth had its benefits for society in the past, this is not even disputed by growth critics, but to ignore the above "headwinds" of growth is a certain path to ruin and destruction.

These arguments above give rise to the most important questions everybody has to ask himself and the leaders he has chosen:

• How did we grow in the past?
• Can we grow this way forever?
• Are there other ways for growth?
• Do we need growth in the future?
• What growth do we need, if any?
• Who will benefit from future growth who will suffer from it?

Above fallacies of growth and open questions can be formulated as one central question:

Is our (growth capitalist) society so dependent on unsustainable growth that it will collapse if growth comes to its inevitable end?

All these open questions about growth will define our future first and foremost. As long as these questions are not answered all other discussions are moot. How we answer those questions, will affect every aspect of our life.

And yet, the economic and political leaders and our media are stonewalling this discussion. Growth economics are presented as the only possible alternative for our society to thrive.

Behind these false assumption lies the neoliberal ideology. Its mantras are: Growth is the answer to all problems of society, growth goes on forever, the invisible hand of the market will always ensure growth by inspiring innovations that deal with any obstacle to growth.

These assumptions can be falsified easily by numerous scientific studies, basic math or physics and by common sense. This does not impress our leaders at all. The growth doctrine is followed with fanatic fervor.

In the last post I presented a anthropological analysis of the findings of Robert J. Gordon. It might have helped to understand why growth had happened, and what forces drove it. I also tried to explain again why endless growth is impossible and that there is evidence that the end of growth has been reached.

Also, based on the analysis of Robert Gordons findings, I would put forward a systematic flaw in the capitalist growth economy. Growth in a capitalist system steers itself into situation where the friction between the state, the people and the capitalists interests must increase from the moment that growth can no longer keep up with capital gains (the increase of private capital by interests).

I will try to summarize my understanding of growth and to illustrate the inherent flaws of capitalist growth economy in an analogon.

The Farmland Analogon

For this analogon let us picture our society as a small village settling on a little Island. The villagers represent the society or the "state" in my analogon. The reasons for growth to happen, as described by Robert Gordon, were the industrial revolutions happening in our past.

In my analogon of the village, this is represented by the villagers reclaiming farmland on which to grow new crops. Let us say the farmers found a new well in an arid corner of the island. (Science and technology and the evolution of society open the possibility for an industrial revolution.)

Reclaiming this farmland (initiating the industrial revolution) can only be achieved by the villagers (the state) as it does not immediately produce returns (and thus is of no immediate interest to "the market"), but only opens the possibility to do so in the future. All hands have to invest work (taxes) to make the land arable.

To get returns, anybody who wants to produce on this new farmland has to have seeds to sow, and the ability to plow the field and harvest the crop.

In my analogon the seeds represent the investment that has to be made, by investors, banks or the state using "surplus from earlier harvests".

To sow and harvest the village will have to find somebody or something to do the work (The farmers, the work force of the population).

They would also need water and minerals for the crops to grow (resources like oil, ores, etc.). Without it the new farmland can’t produce yields at all.

If the village has all those things, the success of the undertaking is determined by the efficiency with which the workload is handled. It’s measured in the productivity they have invested in relation to the products returned per worker (unit labour cost).

"Governments will always play a huge part in solving big problems. They set public policy and are uniquely able to provide the resources to make sure solutions reach everyone who needs them. They also fund basic research, which is a crucial component of the innovation that improves life for everyone." Bill Gates

How market forces drive innovation (or not)

In any society, be they "capitalist" or "socialist", these steps are the same. Market mechanisms did not come into play so far. The "market forces" and the "invisible hand" make their entry when the efficiency with which the claimed new marked is exploited is determined. (increasing production per worker).

If the village has a capitalist system the "market forces" will drive the invention of new machines for more efficient plowing and harvesting or an entrepreneur might invent new ways to enhance the harvest. (Fertilizers, Pesticides etc.). In a state socialist system this might take longer as the motivations for finding new efficient ways for production are lower.

But there are restrictions. The  farmland is of a certain size that can’t be expanded and it will need water, sun and minerals to produce crops. This represents the natural boundaries of earth and the fact that resources are limited and efficiency can not exceed a maximum. So efficiency will rise steeply at first but to be more efficient will get harder with time.

Please refer to Stefan L. Eichner if you would like to know more about market forces, innovation and growth:

Thanks to S. L. Eichner for his great work explaining the
mechanisms of growth and innovation in market driven economies
(http://stefanleichnersblog.blogspot.de/)

In the long run the villagers will have optimized all ways of producing crops on this newly claimed farmland. Production will not rise anymore but stay constant, provided I have enough farmers, water and minerals and my climate is stable. (market saturation is reached)

In the end, the field will only provide the village with the same amount of crops every year if they can somehow sustainably supply all the factors that are needed.

In our current economy, the "water" we use is oil. We are taking it from a finite resource. If the villages new found well runs dry the crops will wither and die no matter how many farmers they use to plow or harvest.

To rely on the market will not help if your production depends on finite ressources. Increasing efficiency will not fight the drought or "invent" new water.

(For explanations see my posts about the limits of growth due to finite ressources here, german only, or this one about the problems with compensating for peak oil, in english).

Even if the ressources are in endless supply the invisible hand will slow progress because it is attached to the arm of capitalism.

Why capitalism impedes innovation and growth:

When the end of growth is reached (either way) it depends very much on how the village has organized itself as a society. In western capitalist societies this land is now surely owned by some landlord. (The owner of the means of production and large capital, the capitalist in the classic sense).

Source: H.Genreith, Dead Man Walking Model (german)

This landlord is by now accustomed to the fact that his share of the yields grows every year (by the exponential effects of interest) and he thinks that this will go on forever (because he can’t see why not or does not care). His firm believe is, that he is entitled to an ever increasing share of the harvest. Many years growth only ensured the rise of his share and finally got to be the only reason why growth was needed (see here or here for scientific arguments for this development, german only).

To satisfy his greed the workers share will finally decline every year that growth did not keep up with the landlords demands (or they are laid off and less workers work overtime). The village that is raising taxes from all the workers (not the landlord) is getting poorer despite the successes of raising production for years and being the power that made reclaiming the field possible, while the landlord accumulates riches. (The neoliberal growth capitalist ideology holds to the myth that low taxation, especially low taxation of the very wealthy is benefitial to growth, this is untrue as this study shows.)

Due to the dropping taxes the impoverished village is no longer able to afford to send out a geologist (scientist) to search for a new well, even if the well should fall dry. If the village did not find a well then now it might be too late. Also, finding the next well will be harder and will proabably provide less possibilities for new growth. (productivity growth was less for every cycle of industrial revolution.)

The landlord though is not at all interested in a new patch of land reclaimed or a new well found.This new field would belong to some other landlord and his profits and power would decline. Instead he raises productivity by carelessly endangering future yields. I.e. as the soils minerals are depleted he uses lime that will bring him more yields for some time but ruin the field for years to come.

In the real world "lime" stands for the harmful byproducts of growth that last longer than its short term benefits, like fracking waste, CO2 production, radioactive waste, etc. described by Gordon as the "downwind" of growth or by Herman Daly as uneconomic growth.

Source: CASSE (steadystate.org)

It is obious today, that unchecked, the growth capitalist system will not work to the benefit of mankind. Instead of heeding the warnigs of a climate collapse and investing into renewable energy, established giants in the (i.e. oil) industry intensivate production (fracking etc.) and increase the tremendous overshoot allready existing.

These big (i.e. big oil) players in the market use their considerate power to impede the development of alternative renewable energy sources. Meanwhile oils spills, toxic waste, radioactive waste, CO2 emissions etc. will bind future productivity in an ever increasing amount, denying future generations the benefits of growth or even the standard of living we have today.

Whenever a societies consumption is higher than its carrying capacity (overshoot),
 it reacts with intensivation that decreases the future carrying capacity.
(Marvin Harris,Orna Johnson, cultural anthropology)

In the end something happens that everybody thought would never happen again when the new field was reclaimed. The harvests decline and can no longer feed the grown population. Most people might still be better off as before the new well was discovered but now they are used to a higher standard of living and are getting angry, but some even might be facing starvation and get desperate.

Here the analogon ends. How the populace of the village reacts is random and we will see what the future will bring.

Innovation Growth and Capitalism

Robert J. Gordon (Northwestern University) recently published this wonderful peace of science that was immediately and widely admired, discussed and then discarded. The reason why it has been discarded is obvious, Gordons point being:

“Since Solow’s seminal work in the 1950s, economic growth has been regarded as a continuous process that will persist forever. But there was virtually no economic growth before 1750, suggesting that the rapid progress made over the past 250 years could well be a unique episode in human history rather than a guarantee of endless future advance at the same rate.”

Of course this is not acceptable to anyone in the establishment, as growth ideology has “no alternative” in politics since the days of Thatcher, Reagan and Kohl.

To understand the patterns of growth in the past 250 years, Gordon defines three Industrial revolutions in this period of seemingly endless growth:

"The analysis links periods of slow and rapid growth to the timing of the three industrial revolutions (IR’s), that is,
IR #1 (steam, railroads) from 1750 to 1830;
IR #2 (electricity, internal combustion engine, running water, indoor toilets, communications, entertainment, chemicals, petroleum) from 1870 to 1900;
and IR #3 (computers, the web, mobile phones) from 1960 to present.

It provides evidence that IR #2 was more important than the others and was largely responsible for 80 years of relatively rapid productivity growth between 1890 and 1972. Once the spin-off inventions from IR #2 (airplanes, air conditioning, interstate highways) had run their course, productivity growth during 1972-96 was much slower than before. In contrast, IR #3 created only a short-lived growth revival between 1996 and 2004. Many of the original and spin-off inventions of IR #2 could happen only once – urbanization, transportation speed, the freedom of females from the drudgery of carrying tons of water per year, and the role of central heating and air conditioning in achieving a year-round constant temperature.”

This is very consistent with the arguments I have presented here in this blog in which I have applied the Ideas of Marvin Harris Cultural Materialism to understand our society and provide an outlook to our future.

The described Industrial revolutions have several things in common:

1. All industrial revolutions have not been initialized by market forces but are the result of infrastructural investments made by “the State”. Providing the populace with access to water, electricity, sanitation, means of transportation, health care, free access to the internet are clearly in their essence of socialist and egalitarian character. I would also add, that the basis of these revolutions has been laid by government funded research and science and also needed a social revolution and the invention of the welfare state to come to pass.
2. After the groundwork of an industrial revolution has been laid, the private sector and market mechanisms made use of it to provide the applications needed to benefit from this revolution. As households had access to water, gas and electricity the private sector could start selling them washing machines and dish washers, electrical stoves, central heating, electric light bulbs etc., freeing productivity for more and more production and thus growth.
3. All revolutions depend on each other, take away energy and the returns of transportation or information technology will be taken away also.
4.  When a saturation of the markets opened by a revolution has been reached (the moment everybody has a washing machine) further inventions in this market provide less growth until the market degenerates into a consumer market that rather satisfies status symbols than freeing additional productivity.
5. The returns of each industrial revolution, meaning the amount of freed productivity, diminish with every revolution. It is very probable that no future revolution will bring us the same returns that the beginning of the age of fossil fuels has brought us.
6. The longer the basis for the industrial revolution has been established and the markets saturated, the more the private sector gained control over the distribution of the commodities to increase their profits. As this devolution has progressed, the less the private sector has contributed to growth by providing new applications of the revolution. Today more and more people are denied the commodities that led to freeing productivity by the private sector, making the private sector itself an important reason why real growth slows in the saturated industrialized societies and worldwide.

As we can see from the above graphic, Gordon predicts growth to go on but to slow in the future.

In the near future we will need to invest more and more productivity into compensating the loss of cheap energy resources that led to this chain of industrial revolutions. Freed productivity by cheap energy will so be lost to us for a long time until we have finished compensating, if we can compensate the decrease of oil production at all.

There are no efforts under way to find a new source of cheap energy. It is very likely that growth will not only stop, once oil production declines, but we will be thrown into the greatest recession of all times.

We will also need to invest more and more into dealing with the negative effects of earlier revolutions and past growth. The effects of wasting fossil fuels will have to be faced. For this, there is no end in sight and climate change can go on to harras us for hundreds of years and bind a lot of productivity.

Dealing with these negative effects of past growth can only be achieved by a joint social effort and not by "the markets" which produced the problems we face today. Achieving the current productivity in the future without further exploitation of common ressources will require an industrial revolution itself, dealing with the climate crises another.

Benefitial innovations by "the market" will probably only deal with compensating these negative effects of past growth and not provide a new industrial revolution. These will have much less return in freed productivity, examples are energy efficiency, digitalization or automation. Most innovation though will try to cope with the ever decreasing sastisfaction of new consumer products in satuated markets by finding new excessive ways for wasteful consumption.

Economists and politicians promising endless growth do not have an answer to the arguments written here. The TINA (there is no alternative) propaganda is, of course, a lie. The assumption that only the invisible hand of the market provides the innovations we need for growth is also not only false, the neoliberal market ideology is very much opposed to real innovation.

Past growth was an interplay of investments by society and market mechanisms providing new means to free productivity based on innovations in science, social organisation and infrastructure.

Capitalism can be viewed as the part of the system that has provided individuals and companies the means to profit from the achievements of society by profiting from finding new ways of making use of these achievements or making production more efficient. As the mutual benefits of new applications of technology decline by the law of diminishing returns, capitalists seek also profits in disregard of the common good.

Today capitalism is a problem for society as profits of this interplay of society and the market accumulate in the hands of very few capitalists only. Capitalism today prohibits growth by draining ressources and productivity for wasteful production and accumulation of wealth and is not by itself able to start a new industrial revolution. Accumulated capital and power that was formed from the exploitation of achievements and ressources of society is itself wary of change as it undermines its means for profit and power.

State controlled socialism on the other side would be a problem as the benefits of this interplay for the individual and private company and thus the motivation for finding new applications are nonexistant and potential for productivity gains might not be realized. The political elite in state socialist systems is wary of change as it potentially undermines its source of wealth and power.

Corruption of the government and stagnation are the result of either of the two extreme ideologies, it seems.

This interdependence between state and markets is ignored by neoliberal economic ideology. the state is always pictured as inefficient and the private sector as the only source for innovation. Looking at Gordons analysis of growth we can only conclude that liberalisation, privatization and austerity are clearly in total opposition of what has provided us with growth in the past. It will take away freed productivity by controlling and taking away the commodities we need (water, gas, electricity, health care, education, homes). It is implemented solely for the sake of private capital gain and in disregard of the common good.

This course will inevitably lead to a new social revolution and it does so right now as many see that the chicago boys concepts are a total failure.

What social revolution the end of growth will bring us can only be guessed (the Bolivian water war could be a hint though) and I have tried to do so in this blog. I can only urge my readers to understand that endless growth is a dream and policies and ideologies that base themselves around endless growth will fail.

In short, the current policies ensure not only the end of growth but the collapse of society.

Biosprit und die Lufthansa

In der SZ habe ich dieses wunderbare Zitat gefunden:

"Die Lufthansa habe ihm gesagt, entweder fliege man in 30 Jahren mit Biosprit oder gar nicht mehr. Sämtliche skeptische Prognosen der Wissenschaft hätten sich in der Vergangenheit als Fehlprognosen erwiesen, sagt er gelassen." ( Helmut Lamp, im Hauptberuf Weizenbauer an der Kieler Förde )

In dem relativ guten Artikel wird mit dem Glauben aufgeräumt Biosprit hätte etwas mit Nachhaltigkeit zu tun. Ich hätte mir jedoch eine bessere Aufarbeitung der Daten gewünscht. Auch der Autor in der SZ hatte wiedermal keine Ahnung von den Größenordnungen über die wir hier sprechen.

Das Zitat aber ist angesichts der Flughafenausbaupläne der Lufthansa für mich ein echtes Fundstück. Offensichtlich ist sich die Lufthansa Peak Oil doch bewusst. Die Lufthansa rechnet (laut "ja zur 3" initiative) mit einem Wachstum des Flugverkehrs von 3,6% pro jahr.

In Deutschland werden heute "nur" ca 10 Millionen Tonnen Kerosin/Flugbenzin getankt..  (Quellen: Wikipedia). Bei konstantem Wachstum von 3,6% steigt der Bedarf in 30 Jahren auf über 30 Millionen Tonnen.

Wieviel Getreide oder Rapsöl man wohl benötigt um "Aviation Biofuel" herzustellen? Keine Ahnung. Meine grobe Abschätzung wäre 2T Biomasse für 1T Aviation Biofuel. Woher nehmen wir die?

Der Anbau und Transport von Getreide kostet leider ebenfalls Primärenergieträger. Woher nehmen? 
Am besten betreiben wir auch die Traktoren und Lastwägen mit Biokraftstoffen. Das funktioniert sicher, oder?

Wieviel Tonnen Biomasse brauchen wir also um die Flieger in der Luft zu halten? Einverstanden mit 70 Millionen Tonnen? Bei einer Produktion von z.B. 44 Millionen Tonnen Getreide pro Jahr in Deutschland frage ich mich schon wie das mit dem Fliegen klappen soll.

Weiten wir das Szenario auf die Welt aus. Ein Mensch benötigt ca 100Kg Getreide pro Jahr um zu überleben. Allein um den Luftverkehr von heute aufrecht zu erhalten würden wir ca. 500 Millionen Tonnen Biomasse (Getreide usw.) benötigen.

Das ist Nahrung für 5 Milliarden Menschen in einem Jahr!

Wenn die Alternativen also laut Lufthansa "Biosprit oder gar nicht mehr fliegen" lauten, dann muss wohl "gar nicht mehr" die richtige Antwort sein. Warum wir uns diese Dinge immer selber berechnen müssen und unsere Medien diese Dinge nicht im Ansatz vermitteln, muss jeder für sich selbst beantworten.

Neuer Artikel dazu in der Zeit: Der große Selbstbetrug 

Natural Gas Liquids and infinite ressources of stupidity

According to this recent study of Harvard University, Peak Oil could indeed be delayed by some decades, due to the rapid development of Natural Gas Liquid (NGL) exploitation in the USA.

I admit, this post comes hard for me. After having tried to increase public attention to peak oil for years, it seems that the downslope is further off as I and many experts expected. The report seems to withstand closer scrutiny though.

Many will sigh a breath of relief when reading this. The exploitation of natural ressources will commence for another few decades in which we will have time to prepare for the decreasing oil production.

NGL production seems to grow fast enough to compensate the diminishing conventional oil production we face today for some time. It could even lead to a small increase of oil production if prices are high and stable.

To believe it will spur growth the same way that the exploitation of conventional oil did until recently, is expecting too much. I expect the current situation of effective stagnation of growth to continue while oil production plateaus and per capita oil production will continue to sink slowly with increased population. The current development of raking in capital gains by increasing social inequality will continue to hassle us.

If you have watched Prof Bartletts lecture about exponential growth against a finite ressource you will understand when I say: we only turned the clock back from 1 min before 12 to 1 min and 30 sec before 12.

I find it hard to believe that any western society will use this precious time we supposedly have gained before hitting the wall to prepare for a sustainable society.

The basic considerations about peak oil stay the same, the effects of wasting fossil fuels will become worse though. For future generations this news is bad indeed. As predicted by the Club of rome, CO2 emissions will inevitably increase for another few decades while we exploit these additional fossil fuels.
 

Launch: "2052: A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years"

According to the new book by the Club of Rome the global climate collapse could happen in the second half of this century. World temperature could well reach a point soon when global warming becomes unstoppable and self enhancing. The reason is the inability of capitalism to bring about a change towards a sustainable society. If growth can be acchieved by any means capitalism will embrace it at all costs.

"It is unlikely that governments will pass necessary regulation to force the markets to allocate more money into climate-friendly solutions, and (we) must not assume that markets will work for the benefit of humankind," (Club Of Rome)

I was more optimistic concerning global warming than the Club of Rome. Until now there seemed to be a tight race between global warming and oil depletion that I thought would lead to future CO2 emissions well below the forecasts the Club of Rome worked with (due to the inevitable end of growth and its consequences that would bring the end of growth capitalism).

So I had had hopes that humans would be saved from their own stupidity and the global climate collapse by luck, but if there is one ressource to be counted on to be infinite its human stupidity.

To produce Oil from unconventional ressources will increase CO2 emissions drastically. Unconventional ressources are well below the EROEI (Energy Return On Energy Invested) of 20:1 that conventional crude oil offers and range between 2:1 for tar sands to about 5:1 for NGLs. By exploiting NGL we will produce huge amounts of CO2 only to burn this expensively won energy to waste it for useless consumption, again.

Unconventional hydrocarbon ressources come with another price. The industry has yet to prove that this technology is safe for the environment and that they are able to recycle the huge amounts of contaminated water they are producing. Actually, I could not find evidence that recycling the contaminated water would not bring down the EROEI to below 1:1, as most of the millions of tons of water are contaminated with saline ingredients that can only be extracted by investing huge amounts of energy. Currently most of the contaminated water is dumped into rivers, pressed into the drilled holes or just dumped on waste disposal sites.

Btw: The recycling that has been implemented so far does not actually restore the water quality but makes parts of it reusable for more fracking while concentrating most of the unwanted chemicals in higher solutions that have to be disposed as toxic waste.

So even without adding the costs for many accidents that have happened, the hidden additional costs for society are high. Just like with nuclear energy, in the end the public sector will probably be made responsible to get rid of the waste that hydraulic fracking and tar sand minig will have produced.

I would also expect the competition for making NGL exploitation cheaper to lead to more sloppiness and an increased chance of accidents and widespread pollution by fracking chemicals.

The lecture, that growth capitalism brings about ruin to mankind will hit us later but harder.

The urgency to take action is higher than ever before. If you are expecting to still live in the year 2075 or if you care for your children enough you will have to actively bring about a change today, Its in your hands now.

(See also George Monbiot in the guardian )

The paradox faith in science

There is one argument often coming up in discussion with self proclaimed optimists when talking about the upcoming energy crisis or climate collapse:

"Science, innovation and technology will take care of our problems; I have faith in our ingenuity."

Whenever I hear this, I usually give up all hope of reaching this person with logical arguments and try to change the subject. It is a paradox of religious proportions that requires blind faith and a life of indoctrination to accept. We have come to point in our history when (honest) scientists across most fields of natural sciences will tell you something like:

"Our scientific research shows that mankind has some grave problems and with these problems, we can’t help you anymore, there are physical limits to what technological progress can acchieve, you as a member of society and as a individual are the only one that can help you now."

But these honest scientists will be ignored and dismissed as doomsayers by the same persons that in the next sentence will praise the ingenuity of scientific progress.

In case of peak oil, it’s the geologists, the engineers, the physicists, the anthropologists, the chemists etc. that point out the limits of growth since more than 50 years. In the case of climate change it’s the IPCC that is made up of over 1200 climate scientists surveyed by 2500 peer reviewers that verified their results.

Be aware that I would not urge you to believe anything these scientists say, at least not before having doubted them and checked their methods, their motivations and their results.For science, more than anything needs doubt. Doubt is the driving force behind human ingenuity and the only true source of knowledge. Having faith in science is as much an untenable contradiction as proving the existence of God.

But after having (at least by some estimates) checked scientific results, (and only then), blind faith is replaced by knowledge.

But the self proclaimed optimists and believers in scientific progress arrive in this blissful state of delusion by "intuition" only, usually without any real knowledge and ignoring proof they could see with their own eyes.

If they would, just for a minute, use the methods of scientific heuristics to gather knowledge by observing nature, instead of relying to being passively fed the half truths and regurgitated lies on TV, they might see the paradox they are caught up in.

Today, our media seems more successful in making people accept untenable contradictions than the Catholic Church ever was. It is if as we have lost all common sense we had since Aristotle has formulated the "law of non-contradiction" over 2000 years ago.

So, please, just as Albert A. Bartlett says in his famous lecture, recheck whatever I say, don’t trust me on faith, but more important, don’t trust yourself. We, as humans often lie to ourselves much more than anyone else ever does. The only cure to delusion and the trappings of our mind are the tools that science has invented.

If you want to have faith in something have faith, that in using these tools you will acquire knowledge, and knowledge you have gained in this way is something you can put your trust in.

Why cant innovation save us in the face of peak oil? Read here.

Demystifying the miracle of the market

The zealots of economy will argue that everything that has been said in this blog is ridiculous nonsense because, if a commodity gets rare and its price increases, due to the laws of supply and demand, the amazing force of innovation will take care of the problem by itself.

What if growth stops and capitalism doesn't
So let’s take a look at that assumption. What will happen if oil gets scarce and its price is rising from a market perspective? We will not even consider the developments described in the posts before and assume capitalism will survive the end of growth. We still know though that 95 % of the goods that we produce are not only dependent on energy but directly dependent of oil as a resource.

Furthermore there is no resource that can be exploited without the aid of energy and/or oil, therefore all resources and all products and services prices will rise (in relation to their dependency on oil). So not only oil will get scarce but everything will. As a result GNP will drop, as obvious (for anybody but economists) if a key ingredient of your production process gets scarce, and if you can’t compensate it with anything else, you will not be able to produce as much or can’t produce at all. If a producer can’t produce, he will have to close shop so invariably unemployment will rise.

As this will happen throughout all industries, the GNP will decrease, while prices go up. What does it mean when everything gets more expensive? Surely many people will not be able to consume as much as they did before, if they were already stretched thin (as many are), they will get desperate and angry. To be able to afford their costs of living they will demand higher wages or some help from society. Social unrest, strikes and a class struggle will ensue.

So we will have at our hand high inflation and lower production, lower surpluses, more unemployment, a class struggle and much lower GNP. I will call that a global recession. In this situation of a global recession the magical hand of the markets will have to be mighty indeed to save capitalism, but let’s assume it does.

To solve the problems of oil scarcity we will not only need one invention, but thousands, innovations like how to make rubber cheaply without oil, how to produce naphta (resource for 80 % of all chemical products) without oil, how to grow corn without chemical fertilizer, how to fuel trucks without diesel etc.

Most of the time, we will find, that the solution is a problem in itself. Of course we could substitute fossil fuels with bio fuels, but we need fossil fuels to grow and transport agricultural products, and, we will need to eat something too. If you do the math, you will find we will not even have the area of agricultural land to grow enough of it, so this is not an option. Similar problems will arise with other strategies (atomic energy, fission, etc).

Also, when trying to save this market that solves anything, we will not only have to invent fast enough to match current oil production but keep up with an exponentially rising demand. Meaning, that with a steady growth of demand of 3.5%, to fuel growth of GNP we will have to have produced MORE substitutes of fossil fuels in 20 years than the total amount of ALL fossil fuels we have used up in history minus the amount of oil that we could still produce (that will be down to 50 % at that time with a estimated 3,5% drop in production).

So in the end this arithmetic comes down to roughly 75% of total world oil resources that we have exploited in all our history (approximately 1000 billion barrels) replaced by  750.000.000.000 Barrel of Oil equivalent that we will have to have produced at the end of a time span of 20 Years.

During that time, coal, gas and many other resources will probably also reach their peak, especially if we try to substitute oil with them (i.e. coal), leading to further decrease of production, GNP and more work for the invisible hand to come up with more substitutes for things we have taken for granted for a hundred years now.

An arithmetic example

Let us use some arithmetic again on this. One Liter of crude contains about 37.000.000 J. One Barrel is a little less than 160 liters so it contains an energy equivalent of roughly 5.920 * 10¹² J. We Multiply that by 750 * 10⁹ bl from above and get final Energy equivalent of 4.4 * 10²⁴ Joule or 1,23 * 10¹⁸ KWh that we need to have produced in 20 Years.

As a physicist I would opt for creating a sustainable cycle of energy production and would probably vote for synthetic fuels created by using sustainably produced electricity (wind gas, solar fuel etc.).

Let us say we will be very successful in creating a process for producing an oil substitute (i.e. solar fuel) with an efficiency of 50% (which would be very good indeed) so we would need electricity in an amount of estimated 2.5 * 10¹⁸ KWh to produce enough to meet our demands in crude oil substitution alone. (Note: btw. this process needs catalysts made from rare metals today that we are running out of very quickly, i.e.  Copper and Platinum).

2010 we were producing 5000 GW or 4.38 * 10¹³ KWh per year in electricity worldwide (REN21 renewable worldwide status report 2011). 67.6% of this electricity was produced with fossil fuels, 13% with nuclear energy and the rest 19.4% renewable with only 3.3 not coming from hydropower (which is not to be growing anymore as we ran out of rivers to use).

Keeping up this energy output (which would be hard) would bring us non closer to our goal than 57000 years to produce the power we would need to have produced in 20 years to substitute oil.

Note that a huge amount of electricity produced is produced by using fossil fuels (67.6%), so we need to replace these facilities with new ones based on our innovation. If we would like to do so by using non hydro renewable energy and meet the growing demands, we would need to aim for a steady growth of renewable energy by approximately 100% per year for a cumulated output of more than 2.5 * 10¹⁸ KWh in 20 years, to have at the end an output that is a million times higher than today.

Year	100'% growth renewable energy production / KWh
1	1,45E+12
2	2,90E+12
3	5,79E+12
4	1,16E+13
5	2,32E+13
6	4,63E+13
7	9,26E+13
8	1,85E+14
9	3,71E+14
10	7,41E+14
11	1,48E+15
12	2,96E+15
13	5,93E+15
14	1,19E+16
15	2,37E+16
16	4,74E+16
17	9,49E+16
18	1,90E+17
19	3,79E+17
20	7,59E+17
21	1,52E+18
Sum	3,04E+18

Right now we manage 20% growth, which is not too bad but will hardly be enough. A steady growth fof 20% would bring us to a renewable energy production of 9.24*10¹³ KWh per Year which is only 1/16000 of what we need! It would be more than twice of all electricity that we produce today. It will be enough to keep up with our electricity demands, but surely will not be enough to substitute oil.

 100% seems not so utopian altogether though (if one does not understand the arithmetic of exponential growth). Surely this is doable? (this would of course apply to other forms of energy production, i.e. nuclear energy, with the added problems of exponentialy increasing waste).

In Germany there were already an astounding number of 367000 people employed in the renewable energy industry. If we would have this industry grow by 100% per year in 20 years we would need 200 billion employees in renewable energy business in Germany alone! I am not sure I would want to live here anymore and the efforts in reproduction might be more than I could handle. But maybe by being more efficient this number would not apply?

We invested 211 Billion $ into renewable energy in 2010. Growing by a 100% every year would bring this number up to 100 000 000 000 000 000 $ in 20 years. 0.1 billion billion $. As an investor I would start buying stocks now!

When growth stops we need growth to grow but it stopped?

One thing should be obvious though, whatever this substitute may be that the magic hand of the market conjured up out of thin air, we will need to have the production capacities to deliver huge amounts of it in a very, very short time span, and we do not have them at all right now. I can’t even imagine how many facilities for solar fuel we will need to build, how many wind parks and solar cells. As seen above, we will need a million times more renewable energy plants than we have today. Obviously this will cause a lot of work, things to be produced, workers to be paid etc. It will be the greatest effort that mankind ever undertook, meaning it will require growth!

Remember where we started out, that we need energy and oil to have growth but we don’t have them? But the hand of the market will solve this problem? Recursion is another concept (like arithmetic) that economists do not seem to be able to grasp, and therefore choose to ignore.

We could have thought about preparing for peak oil and started this endeavor when we still had a steady growth of oil production. Not that there has not been a horde of scientists (even economists like Kenneth Boulding) that have pointed out the problem from early on, but what would have been the virtues that could have achieved this endeavor?

They would have been foresight, modesty, common sense, solidarity, caring about future generations, respect for our nature and the willingness to accept losses to further the common good, virtues capitalism is desperately lacking because they would have severely gotten in the way of making money, and that, to capitalism, is unacceptable.

In the end it turns out, real innovation is not so much of a trait of capitalism at all.

Fitting Quote by George Monbiot (Guardian)

"We have used our unprecedented freedoms – secured at such cost by our forebears – not to agitate for justice, for redistribution, for the defence of our common interests, but to pursue the dopamine hits triggered by the purchase of products we do not need.

The world's most inventive minds are deployed not to improve the lot of humankind but to devise ever more effective means of stimulation, to counteract the diminishing satisfactions of consumption. The mutual dependencies of consumer capitalism ensure that we all unwittingly conspire in the trashing of what may be the only living planet."

exponential growth

Why, you ask, can I be sure that peak oil is immnent and the end of growth is reached?

The simple answer is, that I made an effort to understand the exponential function.

 If you didn't please see this video of a lecture by Physicist Albert A. Bartlett on "Arithmetic, Population, and Energy."

Continue this lecture on Youtube: Part 2,

Struggle for a future continued

In my first post I outlined how capitalist economy and the “western culture” could thrive by exploiting the natural resources. My central argument is, that the unsurpassed surpluses in industrial countries were only possible by the exploitation of fossil energy. 

The concept of monetary gain as the driving force of all human interaction and the resulting economic that puts the siphoning of these surpluses by a capitalist elite in the center of our culture is based on the presumption that these surpluses not only exist indefinitely but grow exponentially forever.

As the production of Crude Oil has peaked in 2006 and will probably start declining very soon I argue that the basis of neoclassical economy, the capitalist economic system and the culture that is based on it, will collapse. As this is obviously happening all around us these presumptions should not come as a surprise.

Also, if connecting the dots between energy output and accumulation of wealth, it is not surprising that peak oil production and peak liquidity are happening at the same time, in fact it is a strong evidence for the assumptions made above.

Peak liquidity also means that the concentration of wealth and power reached its climax today. The power is mostly concentrated in financial industry and especially in investment banking. These financial institutions that are struggling with the amounts of liquidity they have to handle, have been driven to ever more radical measures to guarantee the yields they have promised to their customers.

They have as yet done so but could only achieve further capital gains for the rich by stealing from public wealth (state budgets, tax money, common goods etc.). This power also corrupted these financial institutions themselves to also (or primarily) act in their own interest, often even in fraudulent disregard to the customers they serve.

Even though capital has long ago disconnected itself from national boundaries and has become what we call globalization today, the governments of the countries where these institutions and most of their customers are at home have been corrupted by them beyond realistic hopes of salvation.

The struggle for the remaining resources is, and has been, the cause for more and more conflicts around the globe but especially in the middle-east. Many of the countries that still hold oil reserves have dismissed all pretense of democracy and the ruling elites of these countries greedily rake in profits while they still can. (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Libya (past, future?), Russia, Sudan …)

It is obvious that the powers that be, those that thrived on the surpluses gained of the exploitation of virtually free energy, will not step down, distribute their wealth and live in modesty ever after. It is obvious that they feel they have a right to their capital gains and pursue this ostensible right by force. It is also obvious that they concentrate economic power, means of production, political power and armed forces in a way never seen before. The described results of peak oil will only escalate in the future.

Today the capitalists feel sure enough in their hubris to forgo any act of kindness towards the lower classes, because they can, as they are in control of the executive, and they must, because growth is no longer possible.

It is also a fact that we will not be able to sustain the leeches any longer. While it might be obvious for many it is not obvious for the leeches themselves. For their capital gains to grow further, the pressure they put on anybody working in a dependent employment will be increased. 

As long as there was enough surplus to sustain capital gains by the increase of fossil fuel production to fuel the production of more (and more excessive, wasteful and worthless, i.e. SUVs) goods of consumption, it was possible to appease the public majority in capitalistic societies with some adjustment to the distribution of the riches.

As growth comes to a halt and surpluses sink, they enforce the reduction of wages to compensate. This can be seen in all countries around the western world today as wages stagnated for twenty years while capital gains skyrocketed.

Of course the result is the increasing gap between rich and poor and the end of any vertical social mobility that might have existed, as it is intended to be by those who are responsible for this development. If there is no growth, the rich can only get richer by the poor getting poorer (and by denying the not so poor any chance for also getting rich).

Especially the young generation is virtually shut out of partaking in this collapsing culture. For an ever increasing percentage of young people, finding a paying job that provides for their livelihood, an affordable home or any other positive outlook into the future seems impossible. Many break down under the increasing demands of the society, while education, health care or any other kind of benefit, that society has doled out freely to past generations is now only granted to the rich and their offspring.

The things that are done today in the name of greed show that any restraining boundaries that might have existed have fallen. Evident examples are trading with the debts of “third world” countries by vulture funds, land grabbing and the speculation with food or the circulation of fake malaria drugs in africa (the list could go on forever with examples of destruction and death in the name of money). 

Even if it is hard to believe, it will get even worse in the future. As the corruption of governments grows, the fraudulent nature of trading worsens and the boundaries between “legitimate business” and organized crime get thinner, we will see more and more atrocities, things we couldn’t even imagine humans being capable of to come to the surface.

The embarrassing puppet shows staged by the “world leaders” to bring about a change for the better in banking regulation, wildlife protection, fishing regulations, global warming etc. were nothing more than a further waste of time and money. All they did was bringing to our notice the ineptitude of governments to put any kind of a moral restraint on the greed and wastefulness of capitalism.

continued here

Part 2, the struggle for a future

As mentioned in the first part, the generations that have thrived in the 20th century have left us an unsolvable mess at our doorstep. They have amassed astronomical riches by wasting the following generations (our) resources and demand that the next generations will clean up the mess.

The most mind boggling thing is that the capitalists see it just the other way round. In the capitalist thinking we are indebted and are supposed to pay them interest for the riches they have raked in by greedily and stupidly wasting the resources for no other reason than being richer than the next man.

Please think about this once again. This generation that has been bereft of their part of the riches of this planet by the previous generations capitalist is now asked by the thieves them self’s to pay them interest as if we were indebted to them? This is far beyond sanity.

As growth comes to a halt the amount of interest in relation to the GDP will skyrocket. The global amount of liquidity (that is of course balanced out by a similar amount of debts) is today ten times the global GDP. 90 % of these riches are in the hand of us-americans, and most of it is owned by the top one percent.

How could the rich get that rich? How could they accumulate that much power? One of the reason is that it seems socialism failed us. As mentioned in the previous post, this power and money was not earned by the working class or the farmers, it was accumulated by exploiting the natural ressources of the planet while the socialists were bought off just enough to be content to let it happen.

We can not blame it on the left though, the sad truth is, that all members of society seemed to be content to adjust to capitalism if the “benefits” of growth would to some degree trickle down to them. In capitalism the future generation painfully lacks a lobby. Most people were content with “enough” and didn’t bother that some accumulated riches of astronomical magnitudes, not thinking that these riches would amount also in debts and interests to be paid.

The GDP, limited by services and goods produced and therefore by energy, will stop growing as the oil production peaks. No, it has already stopped growing 2006 when peak crude oil was reached. Growth as (ostensibly) happened afterwards happened in the virtual world of financial industry and was, by all means, a sham.

For the amount of interest people around the world have to pay alone, when considering a rate of 5%, half of the global GDP will be needed! This means, 50% of the time we work will be for paying for the interests of the rich without ever having the remotest chance to paying these imagined debts back and while the interest will rise every year because the amounted liquidity will rise exponentially.

This is the future we are presented with from a monetary side, if (or while) capitalism is not overcome. While the demands of the rich will rise, our means of living will diminish drastically. Without enough oil we will not be able to produce the same amount of food and famines will spread around the world.

Oil is the basis for all products we make, especially in the chemical industry. Oil is needed to get to or exploit every other resource while these will also get rare, harder to find and further to transport. Transportation, logistics and personal mobility will be more and more of a problem.(see i.e. Hirsch report)

Al these problems are not insurmountable with enough time and resources, but the time we had was wasted with accumulating riches instead preparing for a steady state economy. The people these riches belong to fail to see these problems, ignore them or choose to not care about them.

In order to have any chance to successfully transition into a steady state economy we will have to wrest the future from the hands of those that have stolen it. This is not a class struggle, but the most vicious conflict between generations this world has ever seen.

It is also struggle for which we almost have no energy left because of the weight of the ostensible debts for which we are supposed to pay interest, a struggle against an enemy that is more powerful than any power in the world has ever been. We would need all our abilities and what is left of the resources to solve all of the overwhelming problems caused by the diminishing oil resources.

Instead we will have to use all of our energy to topple the corrupt governments that side up with the rich old men that give a rats ass about our future. This is why young people ”see no future”, these are the hurdles we have to take, and I did not even mention global warming that is left to us as a special gift from the 20th century.

Read on in Part 3

AW auf: TINSTAAFL and the Welfare State

This is an answer to TINSTAAFL and the Welfare State by Klaus Kastner Blog TINSTAAFL (there is no such thing as a free lunch)

Hello Mr. Kastner,

I will take up the invitation for discussion and decided to enter into it here.

Concerning this article I will start with following. While in social sciences other than economics the idea that there is something like a "primitive society" has long been discarded it is common to use it in economic circles.

It is a huge flaw of economics to still live in the chauvinistic terms of the 19th century scholars like Adam Smith. Especially if ,when looking closely, we find that our society is not a very bright one, but rather the most stupid wasteful society that probably ever was.

But this is just the beginning of what I will guess will be an interesting argument. My thesis is that the existing economic principles that rule our policies are there for no other reason as that there is something like a free lunch since about 150 years, oil.

The treasure in the cellar:

As you may already know after reading my blog, I do admire the teachings of Marvin Harris and his Cultural Materialism. If you follow the link to Marvin Harris you will read that there is significant reason to believe that Human culture is in fact largely defined by the amount of energy it has to its disposal.

Interestingly, what we call economics as a science today, established itself at a time when humans began to exploit the energy that is concentrated in fossil fuels. With exploiting this virtually free energy several things happened to our society simultaneously.

It started an extraordinary rise to all productivity that finally resulted in industrial society. Since the beginning of the industrial age population has risen exponentially worldwide. Also, the feudal system that dominated preindustrial societies came to an end. A new form of stratified society started to emerge.

The structural class of the industrial worker came into existence as productivity of agriculture and rural population raised simultaneously and led to a rural exodus. Urban metropolitan city sprawls like Victorian Age London grew to house this new class of laborers.

The rise of the capitalists
Almost free energy and rising efficiency also gave way to another new development. While in preindustrial societies, the number of people who could live just from holding money was severely limited by the low surplus that could be sustainably produced; the amount of surplus now available gave rise to another class, the capitalist.

The whole Idea of somebody living from the gains of his capital was abhorrent at all other ages. Even in the feudal system there was some kind of legitimacy to the ruling class (given by god and inheritance). The usurer is somebody shunned by virtually all societies predating the industrial age and by almost all religious and ethical believes.

The capitalist on the other hand, had to his side the economist. He was the high priest of the new believe system,  that made "earning money by doing nothing", as something not only morally acceptable, but the ultimate goal of all strife in a society, where the individual was being reduced to an homo oeconomicus, a being that is only motivated by personal monetary gain.

Socialism
Not surprisingly this new development led to the rise to several counter movements like anarchism, socialism and communism. I am not saying that the conflict between the haves and have nots, the debtors and the creditors has not been the basis of all revolutions at all ages. There is a significant difference in the struggles in the 19th and 20th century whatsoever.

It settled on a middle ground that allowed the capitalists not only to hold on to the wealth they have gathered, but also convinced the majority of the people that they also could benefit from the capitalist system. Main reason for this is (by the help of protestant religious believe) that a devious myth was invented. It is the myth of vertical social mobility (also called “the american dream”).

Why a myth? Social studies show that there is a huge disparity between actual social mobility and its perception. (i.e. this one). What this myth does is not only giving legitimacy for those who made it, it also suggests that the poor are poor because of their own fault. Propaganda (also called advertising or TV.) sees to it that this myth is always circulated in public space.

This myth alone is not enough to explain the meekness of the poor. Most of the time during the 19th and the 20th century, small concessions to the poor had to be made. It did not hurt the capitalists much, because due to the never before achieved “economic growth” in these times, the amount of surplus to be harvested ans shared, grew evermore.

Growth, as economic sciences defines it, is the growth of total production and services. As we have seen in Marvin Harris analysis, the amount goods and services produced is limited by the energy that is produced by a society. Only that this energy that drove our siciety has not been produced, it has been found as a treasure in the cellar. It virtually just needed to be picked up or pumped up from our earth’s crust.

There was a free lunch, but it is over:

This treasure has been wasted by the generations that found it. It has been used to provide the few that managed to rake in the harvest to live the free lunch. Contrary to the believe of many socialists, this free lunch has not been served by “the working class”, or not more or less than during the thousands of years before. The amount of energy people put into production of goods today is actually very minimal. This free lunch has been stolen from future generations.

So, economy, capitalism, industrial age, and the population we now are able to provide for, all of it is a result of the exploitation of fossil fuels and the riches of future generations. The generations that have thrived in the 20th century have left us with an unsolvable mess at our doorstep.

As obvious from reading my blog, I am convinced that the time of cheap oil has come to an end NOW and my arguments for that are very good. The political system, the whole believe system, all values we cherish seem to circle around the concept of growth. What if that growth has finally stopped, like for a very long time, if not forever?

Why, you asked me, do I have such a grim outlook on our future? Read part 2 for an answer to this question.

Regards

AlienObserver

Lieber Milliardär, dieser Post könnte dein Leben retten:

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren Albrecht, Otto, Klatten, Quandt, Oetker, Kühne, Finck, Plattner, Schlecker, Thurn und Taxis und all die anderen Superreichen Deutschlands, die glücklichen 300 die zusammen über 500 Milliarden Euro besitzen.

Obwohl offensichtlich ist, dass Sie sich nicht Verantwortlich für die soziale Schieflage in diesem Land fühlen, seien Sie versichert, Sie sind es.

In Ihrem Namen handeln Bankiers wie Herr Ackermann um Ihr Vermögen zu vermehren.

In Ihrem Namen werden Banken mit Steuergeldern vor dem Konkurs gerettet.

Ihr Privatvermögen zu schützen scheint die oberste Prämisse des Staates.

In ihrem Namen handeln also unsere Politiker die der Bevölkerung das Geld nehmen, damit Sie ungestört ihren Reichtum vermehren können.

Falls Sie sich dessen nicht bewusst sind, empfehle ich Ihnen sich sehr schnell zu Schulen.

Einige ihrer Superreichen Freunde in den USA haben ihre Verantwortung schon verstanden. Warren Buffet  zum Beispiel, der endlich mehr Steuern Zahlen will, oder Bill Gates, der seine superreichen Freunde dazu bringen will ihr Geld wegzugeben. Weitere Beispiele sind Joseph E. Stiglitz oder Götz Werner, die Sie wahrscheinlich eher skeptisch sehen.

Wo, frage ich mich bleibt hier bei uns in Deutschland Ihr Ruf nach sozialem Ausgleich? Wo bleibt Ihr Beitrag zur Rettung dieses System?

Bisher meldete sich kein Deutscher Milliardär medienwirksam zu Wort (nicht einmal Götz Werner).
Ich meine, Sie sollten bald damit anfangen.

Noch haben Sie die Chance eine Brücke zu schlagen über den tiefen Graben zwischen Arm und Reich.

Noch wurden in Ihrem Namen nicht mit scharfer Munition auf Demonstranten gefeuert. 

Noch können Sie einen Teil ihres Reichtums, Ihrer Privilegien und Ihres Leibeswohls retten.

Noch ist der wütende Mob der ihr Haus Anzünden und Sie womöglich am nächsten Baum aufhängen würde auf die Londoner Vororte beschränkt.

Vor allem aber, noch können Sie ohne Zwang als Wohltäter handeln und so Ihr Image oder Ihr Seelenheil retten.

Am besten fangen Sie gleich morgen damit an ein Paar Milliarden an Schulen und Universitäten zu spenden. Bauen Sie Schwimmbäder, Parks oder Bibliotheken. Schauen Sie nicht darauf ob Sie diese Spenden auch absetzen können sondern freuen Sie sich über das Geben.

Egal was Sie machen, Nehmen Sie Geld aus diesem aufgeblasenem Apparat, der sich Finanzsystem nennt. Verbrennen Sie Kapital in Milliardenhöhe. Schaffen Sie Realwerte die allen Menschen in diesem Land zu Gute kommen.

Geben Sie mindestens die Häfte dessen was Sie besitzen, ich denke es bleibt Ihnen dennoch "genug".

Ich gebe Ihnen die Wahl, alles zu verlieren oder jetzt ihren Teil für das Allgemeinwohl zu tun. Ich habe keinerlei Autorität, ausser der Gewissheit, dass sollten Sie diesem Aufruf nicht Folge Leisten diese Gesellschaft aus den Fugen gerät und und sich gegen Sie erhebt.
Ich persönlich bin nicht sicher ob mir daran gelegen ist Sie vor diesem Schicksal zu bewahren, aber ich finde Sie sollten diese Chance erhalten.

Nutzen Sie sie.

"All dies ist keine Frage der Ideologie mehr und es geht auch nicht um Fairness oder Moral. Wer das System retten will, muss jetzt handeln. Die Märkte funktionieren nicht mehr, Der Kapitalismus ist im Begriff, sich selbst zu zerstören."
(Nouriel Roubini)

Kravalle, Proteste, Revolten oder gar Revolution?

In den vergangenen Tagen wird England von sog. Krawallen erschüttert. In Libyen oder Syrien spräche man womöglich von Aufständen? Wie auch immer man diese Aufstände nennt, Menschen gehen auf die Straße, weil sie die Verlierer des Systems sind.

Den Stuttgart21 Gegnern, der Anti-AKW Bewegung und anderen aktiven politischen Gruppen Deutschlands wird vorgeworfen, vor allem die bürgerliche Mitte oder den linken Rand zu vertreten. "Wutbürger" und "Berufsdemonstranten" heißt das im Propagandadeutsch unserer Medien.

Die #spanishrevolution oder die Empörten Griechenlands werden hierzulande gerne als undankbare, verwöhnte Transferempfänger verunglimpft, die selbst Schuld an ihrer misslichen Lage sind.

Die Londoner Aufständischen heute oder die aus den Pariser Banlieues 2006 sind "Krawallmacher" oder sogar "Abschaum" (Sarkozy).


Die Wahrheit ist die, dass es in ganz Europa eine immer größer werdende Menge an wütenden Menschen gibt die es satt haben nicht an der Produktivität ihrer Gesellschaft teilhaben zu können.

Diese Menschen haben unterschiedliche Hintergründe und unterschiedliche Bildungsniveaus, auch ihr Lebensstandard unterscheidet sich gewaltig.

Manche sind bewusst antikapitalistisch, manche wissen nicht dass sie es sind, alle aber sind wütend oder eben "Empört". Die Systemkrise die dafür Verantwortlich ist wird weiter ignoriert, politisch und medial. Die eigentlichen Verbrecher und Brandstifter bleiben unbestraft.

Jede Minute Fernsehen, sei es Werbung oder Nachricht, jede Zeile in Bild oder Spiegel, propagieren die wahren Schuldigen hinter dieser Krise die Legitimation für die Ignoranz der Macht. Ihre Worte lauten:

"Das ihr arm seid ist eure Schuld". 

Diese Lüge müssen wir von Kindergarten bis Altenheim, von Morgens bis Abends immer wieder gefallen lassen. Die Wahrheit müsste lauten:

"Ihr seid Arm weil "Wir" reich sind."

"Wir", die wir die Medien Kontrollieren, die Politiker in der Tasche haben und für die ihr jeden Tag schuftet.
"Wir" die wir aus eurer Arbeitsleistung gewaltige Renditen erwirtschaften und euch im Gegenzug immer geringere Löhne bezahlen.
"Wir" die wir eure Zukunft schon längst Verkauft, euer Klima schon längst zerstört und die Ressourcen der Zukunft schon längst verschwendet haben.

Was wir jetzt in GB sehen ist, was passiert wenn es immer weiter geht wie bisher.
Aus Frustration wird Wut und aus Wut wird Gewalt.
Diese Gewalt ist nicht politisch, aber Folge von Politik.

Sie ist nicht antikapitalistisch, aber Folge des Kapitalismus.
Zu lange wurde der Wähler ignoriert, der Gewerkschaftler verhöhnt, der Demonstrant verunglimpft. Zu lange wurde Privatisiert und Globalisiert


London könnte eine Warnung sein. Ich hoffe sie wird gehört.
Ich fürchte aber London ist eine Vision der Zukunft.
Das erste  Aufflammen eines  Flächenbrandes dessen weitere Ausbreitung nicht abschätzbar ist.

Hirsch Report

Ich muss leider auf diesem Thema weiter herumreiten, da die Mehrheit der Menschen den Ernst der Lage nicht begreifen will. Das ist natürlich die Folge der totalen Funkstille in den Medien zu diesem Thema.

Im Jahr 2005 erstellte der renommierte Energieexperte Robert Hirsch ("Science Applications International Corp.") (SAIC) für die US Regierung (Bush) eine Studie zu Peak Oil, den "Hirsch Report".

Ähnlich wie die der vom Bundestag eingerichteten Enquete Komissionen waren seine Handlungsempfehlungen nicht politisch opportun und wurden in Schubladen versenkt.

Seit dem ist Robert Hirsch einer der wichtigsten Warner zur bevortsehenden Öl-Knappheit.

„Der Charakter des Peak-Oil-Problems ähnelt dem Killer-Asteroid-Problem. Man muss wirklich sofort mit durchgreifendem Handeln beginnen, weil uns die Zeit davonläuft. Es wird viel Zeit und Mühe bedürfen und muss als ein Sofort-Programm angegangen werden, um die Wirkungen zu verringern. Wenn man das Problem langsam angeht, verschwendet man Zeit. Wenn es uns trifft, dann wird die Tragweite so extrem sein, dass die Menschen zusammenarbeiten und Dinge tun, ja Opfer bringen müssen, die weit über das hinausgehen, an was die meisten von uns im Ernst gedacht haben.“ (Robert Hirsch)

Der Hirsch Report geht davon aus, dass 20 Jahre ausserordentliche Anstrengungen vor eintreten des Fördermaximums nötig sind um die schlimmsten Folgen von Peak Oil zu verhindern.

Ähnlich äussern sich alle seriösen Studien zu diesem Thema.

Warum hätten wir schon vor Peak Oil diese Anstrengungen unternehmen müssen?

Dazu eine kleine Grafik, die das Problem zu später investitionen Verdeutlicht:

Dargestellt sind hier schematisch die Ölförderung und die mögliche Entwicklung von alternativen technologien. Man beachte zudem, dass der Bedarf an Rohöl stetig weiter wächst.

Wir haben also den Karren schon an die Wand gefahren.
Der Meteorit wird uns treffen.

Sie glauben wir finden genug Öl um uns zu Versorgen? Antwort hier:

Ressourcenkrise revisited

In diesem Interview sagt Fatih Birol, Chef der IEA (International Energy Agency):

"We think, that the crude oil production has allready peaked in 2006"

Lesern meines Blogs mag die Tragweite dieser Aussage bewusst sein, die Öffentlichkeit scheint diese Tatsache weiterhin zu ignorieren.

Hier weiterlesen (Der Bilck aus der Ferne in Kürze)

Greise und Jugend

Die Angst der Greise

Angesichts der medialen Debatte um die Gewalt von Jugendlichen in Berlin wird mein Post über die Diskriminierung Jugendlicher im Nachhinein plötzlich hoch aktuell.

Schon wird von allerlei ängstlichen Greisen nach mehr Härte gegen jugendliche Gewalttäter gerufen. Wieder meldet sich Herr Pfeiffer zu Wort und kritisiert die "Haftverschonung" der Täter. Mich wundert, dass die Killerspieledebatte nicht ebenfalls wieder hochkocht.

Die Diskussion findet natürlich wieder ohne Beteiligung von Jugendlichen statt. Mit selbstgerechter Arroganz diskutieren die greisen Herren über Haftstrafen, Untersuchungshaft und Warnschussarrest.

Die Angst vor der Gewalt wird geschürt obwohl die Gewalt eigentlich rückläufig ist. Diskutanten im Forum der Zeit (ebenfalls beherrscht von Greisen) rufen nach dem Recht zum Tragen von Schusswaffen für ihre Selbstverteidigung und beschimpfen Junge Menschen als faul, gewalttätig und verwahrlost. Am liebsten, so hat man das Gefühl, würden viele eine ganze Generation gerne hinter Gittern sehen.

Vor einigen Jahren wurde in einigen Gemeinden der Schweiz eine Ausgangssperre für Jugendliche ab 22 Uhr verhängt. Ob die Herren Schünemann und Pfeiffer dies auch für Deutschland fordern werden bleibt abzuwarten. (Ich gebe zu, Herr Schünemann ist nur ein gefühlter Greis, da er sich seiner greisen Wählerschaft so gerne anbiedert..)

Was würden wir sagen wenn diese Form medialer Aggression sich gegen eine Minderheit, z.B. jüdische oder türkische Mitbürger oder gegen alte Menschen richten würde?


Ein respektvoller Umgang mit der Jugend

Das Beispiel der Rütli Schule in Berlin Neukölln zeigt was ein respektvoller Umgang mit Jugendlichen erreichen kann. Dazu muss es aber unserer Gesellschaft auch etwas Wert sein in die Erziehung der Kinder und Jugendlichen zu investieren.

In meinen vorherigen Post habe ich mich gegen Disziplin und Fleiß als Werte in unserem Schulsystem geäussert. Da bei uns in Deutschland Umfragen zeigen, dass die Vermittlung dieser Werte auch von vielen Eltern gefordert wird, stelle ich mich hier wiedereinmal gegen die vorherrschende Meinung und muss deshalb weiter ausholen.

Fleiß und Disziplin werden bei uns immer noch als Vorraussetzung für einen erfolgreichen Einstieg ins Arbeitsleben gesehen. Dies geht meiner Ansicht nach vollständig an der Realität vorbei. In meinem Berufsleben sind Teamfähigkeit, Kreativität, Wissbegierde, Kommunikationsfähigkeit und Flexibilität gefordert. Nichts von alldem wurde mir in der Schule vermittelt. Tatsächlich sind diese Eigenschaften in einer Schullaufbahn eher hinderlich.

Disziplin?

Disziplin wird bei uns verstanden als die Unterordnung unter die Autorität einer einzigen Führungsperson, dem Lehrer, und einer staatlichen Instanz, der Schule. Diese Autoritäten dürfen nicht in Frage gestellt werden und das aufbegehren gegen sie wird hart bestraft. Die Möglichkeiten der Mitwirkung sind gleich Null.

Diese Form der Disziplin brauchen wir weder in modernen Unternehmen noch in unserem Staat. Wir brauchen eine zugleich offenere als auch strengere Form der Disziplin. Wir benötigen ein Bewusstsein, dass man sich einem Konsens oder einem demokratischen Kompromiss in einer Gruppe, Klasse oder einem Team unterwirft von dem möglichst alle profitieren.

Anstatt stiller Unterwürfigkeit vor der Autorität des Lehrers müssen wir bei Schülern das Bewusstsein fördern, dass das eigene Verhalten in der Klasse die Leistungsfähigeit aller Mitschüler beeinflusst. Schüler sollten nicht aufmerksam sein weil es der Lehrer will, sondern weil es dem Lernen der anderen Schüler Förderlich ist.

Diese Form der Disziplin kann nur durch beständige Gruppenarbeit erreicht werden. Die Verantwortung für einen Lernerfolg liegt bei Lehrern und Schülern gemeinsam. Der Unterricht muss die Folge einer Beteiligung der Schüler an der Form und dem Inhalt des Unterrichts sein. Die (Einzel)Interessen, die Schwächen und Stärken und der Wille der Schüler muss Ernst genommen werden.

Disziplin darf keine Folge von Angst sein sondern von eigenem Interesse und der Einsicht, dass eine sozialgemeinschaft Disziplin von individuen benötigt. Wer aus Angst vor Autorität sich scheinbar diszipliniert verhält ist nicht sozialisiert.

Fleiß?

Fleiß sollte in einer Schule eine möglichst untergeordnete Rolle spielen. Fleiß (oder Selbstdisziplin) muss man aufbringen wenn man Dinge lernen soll die man eigentlich nicht lernen will. Manchmal ist das vielleicht unumgänglich meist jedoch sehr ineffizient. Viel wichtiger als Fleiß ist die Lust am Lernen. Wissensdurst hat nichts mit Fleiß zu tun sondern ausschliesslich mit Motivation.

Ich war ein extrem unmotivierter Schüler. Meinen Wissensdursst musst ich abseits der Schule befriedigen. Die knochentrockenen Lehrpläne und die willkürlichkeit der Benotung schafften es mir jegliche Lust am Lernen auszutreiben. Allein aus Angst (wenn überhaupt) lernte ich lateinische Vokabeln, die Angst vor meinem Lateinlehrer verhinderte jedoch ein effizientes Lernen. Ein vollkommen schizophrener Zustand. Ich weiss heute nichts mehr über Latein.

Man muss sich bemühen um jungen Menschen die Lust am Lernen zu verleiden. Unsere Schule hatte in diesem Bemühen bei mir einen großen Erfolg. Schule war für mich psychologische Folter. Es hätte nicht viel gefehlt und ich wäre für immer aufs gesellschaftliche Abseits gestellt worden. Meine Hochschulreife erlangte ich trotz Schule, nicht durch sie.

Während meine Lehrer mir sagten "Du hast nicht das Zeug fürs Abitur" konnte ich kurze Zeit später im Physikstudium Bestnoten aufweisen.

Seit meiner Schulzeit gab es blinden Aktionismus aber kein wirkliches Umdenken. Im Wesentlichen hat sich nichts geändert. Reformen wurden immer nur auf Kosten der Lehrer ausgetragen. Die Ausbildung der Jugend ist uns immer weniger Geld Wert.

In der Psychologie und Pädagogik hat sich in den letzten 100 Jahren einiges getan. Warum ähnelt unser Schulsystem immer noch dem zum Anfang des 20 Jh? Es ist ein einziges Trauerspiel.


Zu Teamfähigkeit, Kreativität, Wissbegierde, Kommunikationsfähigkeit und Flexibilität:

All diese Grundvoraussetzungen für das erfolgreiche Arbeiten in einem Team musste ich mir nach der Schule aneignen. In meiner Branche, der Softwareentwicklung, macht man sich schon seit Jahren Gedanken darüber, wie komplexe Projekte zu Bewältigen sind. Es hat sich gezeigt, dass hierarchische Strukturen nicht in der Lage sind effizient IT Projekte zu meistern.

Statt dessen wurde in der IT ein "Vorgehensmodell" entwickelt das gänzlich auf Hierarchien verzichtet. Die Rede ist vom "extreme Programming". Dieses Vorgehensmodell wurde unter dem Namen SCRUM auch von anderen Branchen übernommen. Im wesentlichen bearbeitet in beiden Modellen ein Team von selbstverantwortlichen Experten gemeinsam ein Projekt in Auftrag eines "Project Owners".

Es gibt keinen "Projektleiter" usw. Die Größe des Teams darf 20 Mitarbeiter nicht überschreiten sonst ist effizientes arbeiten nicht möglich. In Schulklassen glauben wir dagegen mit 35 Schülern einen effizienten Unterricht halten zu können.

Ich habe auch schon in kleinen Handwerksbetrieben gearbeitet. Diese machen sich keine solchen Gedanken über Vorgehensmodelle, gehen aber grundsätzlich genauso vor. Nicht einmal unser Militär ist noch an reinen Befehlempfängern interessiert.

Schlußendlich ist eine Demokratische Gesellschaft auch nur möglich wenn wir Bürger haben die aktiv in ihr Mitgestalten wollen.

Warum schaffen wir es nicht unsere Schule endlich an die Anforderungen in unserem Arbeitsleben anzupassen?

Wenn wir nicht in den Schulen die Teamarbeit fördern wo sonst?

Wenn wir nicht in der Schule die Demokratie leben, wie sollen Schüler Demokratie wertschätzen lernen?

Wer glaubt davon Profitieren zu können, dass der Großteil der Bevölkerung in von Angst bestimmten, stillen Gehorsam lebt?

Bitte Bearbeiten sie diese Denkaufgabe zu Hause. In der nächsten Unterrichtsstunde können wir über ihre Antworten Diskutieren. Viele Dank!