If you accept that this is a life-based climate requiring the natural infrastructure of living ecosystems and water cycles to run it, then it becomes clear the prevailing transition narrative deals two blows to the climate. One, it pulses emissions to build and transport all the technology, and two, it destroys unprecedented acreage of land needed for the living operation of the climate system.
How on Earth will the biosphere or the climate withstand such accelerated damage?
I'd help figure out the carbon needed for renewable build-out, but I just don't have expertise in that area. I'm also convinced the quantification of climate was a mistake from the beginning, though I understand your reasons for wanting to do so in this particular situation.
Thanks for plowing ahead. Important stuff, and I'll keep me eyes out.
If you want energy quantification tools for a transition to a shrinking economy, you should read my books. The Laws of Physics Are On My Side (2013) and Hints for Managing Collapse (2014). Available on Amazon or through your county library through their nationwide lending program. The copies reside in the Whatcom County Library, Washington.
Have you asked Simon Michaux? He's made an estimate of the materials requirements for an "energy transition" so perhaps that's a first good step towards quantifying energy costs for same.
I've considered asking Simon, but I know he's been super busy for a long time, and probably doesn't want to add anything more to his list of things to do. But since you asked, I'll go ahead and ask him. Worst can happen is that he turns me down.
I think it would be good to take Simon Michaux's data but also someone who is more mainstream and rooted in the exisiting system to compare and get a more accurate picture. I know some people discredit Simon Michaux for not using data that includes any future technological advances, which whether we agree with them or not, are in progress. I don't know enough about this to help though, sorry.
Haha this is an awesome idea. Have you ever heard the story of Hutt River Province in Western Australia? I remember hearing a bit about this when I was growing up but just had a quick read of the wiki on it. It wasn’t as successful as my naïve younger self had hoped for and it sounds like it has now closed....
For what it is worth, I understand "energy cost of energy transition" as a question not measurable in dollars but in units of energy.
Joule (J): The joule is the SI (International System of Units) unit of energy and is commonly used for all types of energy measurements. For large amounts of energy, especially in the context of physics and engineering, the joule may be expressed in larger units, such as kilojoules (kJ), megajoules (MJ), gigajoules (GJ), or terajoules (TJ).
I say this because someone responded to me, saying that the number I'm looking for (a number indicating the energy costs of a complete replacement of fossil fuels with 'renewables') can't be measured, for various reasons he provided. But he thought I was asking for a dollar amount, and I was not.
James, I read this on resilience this morning (and also saw your previous request there). It's so perfectly expressed and I agree with you 100%. Though as both a philosopher and a sociologist, I'm wary of quantification, I understand your sense that it is necessary as a compelling argument and to that end, am offering to help in any way I can (I'm in Santa Fe).
Well said. Yes, the institutional spokespeople are crazy because they are operating within the institutions which pay them. Your call for assistance is heard, but I can not contribute directly to it. I can not write as you do. Your writing is enough. The problem is, what do 1000 people who agree and write about this do? Form a non-state? I'm up for that. It is a matter of collective strategy.
Make use of Sqale. And purpose activities that match the scale of readership. A handful at best, I see. What can we do now, together. It requires this self discipline. Only when wet reach millions may we exercise the equivalent institutional power to effect change, and only in the billions when dealing with global climate change directly.
You are like the guy in tiannemen square, before a tank. The tank, the machine. Worse. A blade of grass before the lawnmower. Defiant, sensible, but mismatched. If you request that people gather, I will turn up. The question we must answer is, what can be done to get us a social result by the following week? Maybe it is writing something, maybe it is something one of us already knows, maybe it is something which emerges because of the unique gathering. But unless we learn to realise our potential difference as social power, we will remain grass mown, and our individual efforts futile, even for those who are apparently successful.
Thanks for this, James. One would hope there would be a hundred graduate students at universities trying to figure this out right now.
There is another side to this, of course, which is the land-conversion necessary to replace fossil energy, stored over millions of years, with ambient energy received day to day. It's huge, up to 1.1 million square kilometers in the US. https://theclimateaccordingtolife.substack.com/p/fast-tracking-alternative-energy
If you accept that this is a life-based climate requiring the natural infrastructure of living ecosystems and water cycles to run it, then it becomes clear the prevailing transition narrative deals two blows to the climate. One, it pulses emissions to build and transport all the technology, and two, it destroys unprecedented acreage of land needed for the living operation of the climate system.
How on Earth will the biosphere or the climate withstand such accelerated damage?
I'd help figure out the carbon needed for renewable build-out, but I just don't have expertise in that area. I'm also convinced the quantification of climate was a mistake from the beginning, though I understand your reasons for wanting to do so in this particular situation.
Thanks for plowing ahead. Important stuff, and I'll keep me eyes out.
Thanks brother Rob. I'll let all of that sink in good before further response. Big hugs, brother.
If you want energy quantification tools for a transition to a shrinking economy, you should read my books. The Laws of Physics Are On My Side (2013) and Hints for Managing Collapse (2014). Available on Amazon or through your county library through their nationwide lending program. The copies reside in the Whatcom County Library, Washington.
Walter Haugen
Thanks Walter. I'll look into your book recommendations.
Have you asked Simon Michaux? He's made an estimate of the materials requirements for an "energy transition" so perhaps that's a first good step towards quantifying energy costs for same.
I've considered asking Simon, but I know he's been super busy for a long time, and probably doesn't want to add anything more to his list of things to do. But since you asked, I'll go ahead and ask him. Worst can happen is that he turns me down.
He might be able to recommend someone to help take his data to the next steps for energy costs...
I think it would be good to take Simon Michaux's data but also someone who is more mainstream and rooted in the exisiting system to compare and get a more accurate picture. I know some people discredit Simon Michaux for not using data that includes any future technological advances, which whether we agree with them or not, are in progress. I don't know enough about this to help though, sorry.
James you’ve made far too much sense in this one. It boggles my mind that people can’t or won’t accept what you’ve said.
It only makes me more and more question my own sanity. Am I the one that’s fucking crazy?
Leon, let's find a thousand people who are as crazy as you and I are and start an island non-nation together!
Haha this is an awesome idea. Have you ever heard the story of Hutt River Province in Western Australia? I remember hearing a bit about this when I was growing up but just had a quick read of the wiki on it. It wasn’t as successful as my naïve younger self had hoped for and it sounds like it has now closed....
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Hutt_River
For what it is worth, I understand "energy cost of energy transition" as a question not measurable in dollars but in units of energy.
Joule (J): The joule is the SI (International System of Units) unit of energy and is commonly used for all types of energy measurements. For large amounts of energy, especially in the context of physics and engineering, the joule may be expressed in larger units, such as kilojoules (kJ), megajoules (MJ), gigajoules (GJ), or terajoules (TJ).
I say this because someone responded to me, saying that the number I'm looking for (a number indicating the energy costs of a complete replacement of fossil fuels with 'renewables') can't be measured, for various reasons he provided. But he thought I was asking for a dollar amount, and I was not.
James, I read this on resilience this morning (and also saw your previous request there). It's so perfectly expressed and I agree with you 100%. Though as both a philosopher and a sociologist, I'm wary of quantification, I understand your sense that it is necessary as a compelling argument and to that end, am offering to help in any way I can (I'm in Santa Fe).
Well said. Yes, the institutional spokespeople are crazy because they are operating within the institutions which pay them. Your call for assistance is heard, but I can not contribute directly to it. I can not write as you do. Your writing is enough. The problem is, what do 1000 people who agree and write about this do? Form a non-state? I'm up for that. It is a matter of collective strategy.
Make use of Sqale. And purpose activities that match the scale of readership. A handful at best, I see. What can we do now, together. It requires this self discipline. Only when wet reach millions may we exercise the equivalent institutional power to effect change, and only in the billions when dealing with global climate change directly.
You are like the guy in tiannemen square, before a tank. The tank, the machine. Worse. A blade of grass before the lawnmower. Defiant, sensible, but mismatched. If you request that people gather, I will turn up. The question we must answer is, what can be done to get us a social result by the following week? Maybe it is writing something, maybe it is something one of us already knows, maybe it is something which emerges because of the unique gathering. But unless we learn to realise our potential difference as social power, we will remain grass mown, and our individual efforts futile, even for those who are apparently successful.