Energy, why can't we just ask Saudi Arabia & the US to open the taps more?

[lll3333]

I appreciate there's transport costs but SA is full of oil, what's stopping them upping their supply?

@Liebig living in caves and hunting food jeez what a time to be alive 😬😬😬

The world was run entirely on renewable energy until the mid-1700s and had ample luxuries for people to enjoy. There was quite a bit of development after caveman times, you know.

@Liebig so what does it look like ? If we need to lower our expectations what does that look like ?

1960s level energy consumption across the board if we move now. Otherwise, we further burn what is left in a mad panic to keep the wheels from coming off and dig ourselves a deeper hole.

We either voluntarily cut back, or we are forced. My money is on the latter given our psychology.

@Liebig it will be the latter I see no change in peoples behaviour atall. I joined a health club near to where I live I just will spend evenings there I can’t be sitting in a cold house I’d prefer to not it’s not a race to the bottom. There has to be some joy right now life just seems tedious and to be endured although London yesterday was buzzing great vibe and a lot of fun

John McDonnell has just asked for Parliament to be recalled to address the crisis, but I fear it falls on deaf ears. And even if the gov't gives the help needed (a big if), this only kicks the can down the road, as you say.

If we all keep getting squeezed, then we'll be lucky if anyone is able to do much beyond paying for the bare essentials, which pretty much knackers the majority of our service economy.

But, if we just get the gov't to bail us out, we face a bigger cliff when the money printer inevitably gets overdrawn and we have to face reality.

I'll be honest, the future is looking a bit shit. This is only something I've ever talked about to people already in the know, because it's either too depressing for most people (rational) or they have a massive cope in saying some trite thing like "someone will think of something, it always happens" which my dad often does when he can't think of a solution.

So, onwards I guess. I always thought the people worrying about climate change were backing the wrong horse. We'd need the resources we don't now have to get the worst case outcome, so maybe we just collapse before climate change becomes the main concern proper.

The psychology of this is truly fascinating to watch unfold, mind.

But, if we just get the gov't to bail us out, we face a bigger cliff when the money printer inevitably gets overdrawn and we have to face reality.

Money is madey uppy. Worth remembering that. No one gave a shit how many many Marks you had in Weimar Germany in 1923,

Well, quite. That's really my point. The printer only goes brrr effectively if enough people believe you're good for it and don't mind giving you real things for fancy looking IOUs.

The fancy looking IOUs with Queen Liz's face on them may be less valuable if we underwrite all the living costs every Briton has from now on. Because I sure as hell cannot afford to do it with a mere full time professional job. That's crazy talk.

It just seems like misery upon misery - mind you covid just went on and on. I think people can only take so much. My friend today said remember how it was at the beginning of covid it’s just hyperbole what will be will be. The government are inept and give no fucks hence they lead by example no body gives two fucks either

www.rechargenews.com/wind/time-is-limited-and-2022-will-be-key-to-the-uk-hitting-its-offshore-wind-goals/2-1-1140860

I was reading this article with interest. U.K. has huge offshore wind capacity and we have done well with it so far. That is our future. We will just need some reliable energy to stabilise the grid like nuclear.

A more sustainable world is a good thing even if we suffer in the short term. There is just such a huge amount of waste we all got used to. It doesn’t have to be like this. The pandemic was awful but some good things came out of it too like more flexible working and people valuing family life more.
I am choosing to focus on the good things that may come out of this energy crisis, I can’t see the government being allowed to let people freeze to death so I do believe solutions will be found. And hopefully more sustainability! I would also like more self sufficiency as a country. I am happy to become mainly vegetarian and buy everything second hand. I don’t because it is too easy not to at the moment. I am also happy to shower less and wear warmer clothes etc. in the winter and travel less and walk most places etc. I already have an electric car, just saving up for solar panels now. I wish I hadn’t gotten a gas boiler but it was just so much cheaper and easier a few years ago than a heat pump.

A more sustainable world is a good thing even if we suffer in the short term.

Be curious to know what your idea of short term is ? How many decades or centuries ?

Unless you have mines to produce the copper, neodymium, cobalt, lithium, iron ore etc. for those machines, they are not anywhere near helping us become self-sufficient. They also aren't sustainable.

Mining wasn't sustainable during the Roman times, from an ecological perspective. Mines from 2000 years ago polluted vast swathes of Europe and enslaved whole peoples. Imagine the devastation today, if everyone chooses to get solar panels, EVs and continue on with their way of life. It cannot happen.

Understand that 85% of all energy consumed is fossil fuel based. We are nowhere near some renewable utopia on any metric. A person may be able to get PV panels and a lithium-iron battery for storage, along with solar panels for water heating and an electric vehicle from such, as well as heat pump based HVAC.

Even so, they will still be totally reliant on a society that needs diesel for transport, gas, coal or nuclear for heavy industry, and industrial fertilisers to maintain agriculture. Those are far harder to convert than a residential house with a family that has the disposable income to put towards such ventures. What of those today who cannot afford to put the heat on at all, or even get draughty windows and doors seen to? I can't afford a heat pump, and I'm above median wage. Solar panels, maybe, but I'm stuck with gas for heating without some assistance.

See, the issue is that without converting all of society to be run without mass fossil fuel usage, nothing changes. And that's why we're still at 85% penetration of FFs in the energy mix. They're that useful, and wind and solar and hydro have only supplemented, not replaced them. We've put off weaning ourselves off FFs for decades after we should have been looking to switch. Now, it's looking like going cold turkey for many while other nations bid up prices to try and get what's left.

The Green New Deal is a con. It's a way of keeping the economy doing what it does, but with a veneer of environmental and social credentials to keep the middle-class happy with their investments. I can go on holiday, guilt free, because British Airways planted a tree to cover my CO2. Tesla assures me their cars are better for the environment than a ICE powered BMW or Audi. Bulb only sells 100% renewable energy.

And the system carries on with no deviation in path. Because of course it does. There is no easy way to get off civilisational heroine without pain, so we find a fix where we can and ignore the ensuing crash from the high.

Green new deal is bullshit
so WEF is of the reality that the world can only sustain 500 million people is correct and people will die because I can’t see many people signing up to this new way of life off their own volition. Humans want to stay in their own status quo

I’m very economically stupid I’m afraid, and while I have read the concern on this thread about interest rates etc in an economy you can’t grow, I don’t understand why this means we cannot get into debt?

Mining wasn't sustainable during the Roman times, from an ecological perspective

Even with slaves, it became uneconomic. And the Romans were completely unfettered by any green nonsense as their mining of gold in Wales shows.

And the fall of Rome was widely anticipated and prepared for by the Christian Church. And it still took centuries if not millennia to recover. (Byzantium arguably continued, but even that fell eventually).

I think I'm glad I've found this thread. I feel so alone sometimes in 'seeing' all this coming 40 odd years ago. If a 15 year old girl who just picked up eco books in bookshops knew what was going to happen back then..... The climate scientists knew, they wrote the books that I read. I sat on my parents kitchen floor and cried after reading Bill McKibben's The End of Nature.

It was so OBVIOUS!! I hate mankind for what it's squandered and yes watching it all happen now fills me with abject misery. Agree with the poster who said they can't discuss it in RL mostly as people just stare at you in disbelief, you kill the conversation stone dead, who wants to be around you ...?

I love mnet for this escape, humans, we could have been SO good 😢

I wonder if we might be the star that shines very brightly for a short time, then implodes and the world goes back as it was before. I lamment the death of James Lovelock but even he had given up at the end. I hate the idea of mankind not existing and yet, that's what needs or must happen to protect the earth.

@Theendofnature yes humans could of been so good

Most of society is quite dreadful I was in the middle of Chelsea yesterday where the stand next to me was selling and sold out of £4 dog cupcakes whilst today I was at a boot sale where the majority were overweight eating crap with similar kids. It is unsustainable eating burgers at 8am where did that near come from ? Most people don’t care

Parsley1234

Sometimes I wonder if we're just the prototype, maybe humans version ll will get to keep the good bits 😊

@Parsley1234 I recommend reading Bright Green Lies and The Economic Superorganism, but I imagine they won’t tell you many things you don’t already know. Still very good reads.

@Cantanka What is money in the end? It’s a way of delegating resources and services.

Debt is basically time shifted money. If I give you a loan for £1000, I expect you to pay it back with interest after the term is up. You need to produce enough from your capital loan to repay me with the extra money in interest to make the venture worthwhile.

We essentially bring spending forward and push the cost into the future, but someone still has to pay that cost otherwise what was the point? You’d have been been given something for nothing.

Whatever debts we take on now, need to be paid and money is ultimately the representation of energy use, since you can’t do anything without energy. If the future energy isn’t there, then you cannot repay the debt. It becomes meaningless and the debt defaults.

@SerendipityJane Rome was a special case. Tainter’s work on the subject is well worth reading, but their collapse did take a good few centuries. They didn’t one day wake to find the barbarians at the gates and their money and crops useless. They saw things progressively get worse over lifetimes. It could be said that modern fast paced civilisation is less likely to go the slow collapse route. We saw a dry run of this with COVID breaking our JIT supply chains. And that was a temporary loss of productive capacity.

@Theendofnature We at least know what the likely answer is to the Fermi Paradox now. We’re living it.

Parsley1234

I get lots of surreal experiences like that, I wonder how evolution reached the 'dog cupcakes' moment?

In the end, we were not smarter than yeast.

@Theendofnature I have no idea however I find it more palatable than enormous humans shovelling substandard food down like they are starving - you are not 😬😬😬😬

I wonder if most of mankind would prefer not to live at all rather than go 'back' how do we go back?