By 2nd Law, growth is the problem. Cars promote sprawl and growth.

The negative impacts of past growth are already clear with accelerating climate change and environmental degradation. They will become particularly pronounced when resource depletion makes it challenging to self-repair, as flooded cities and drought-stricken farmland is abandoned. In biological and physical systems, when growth stagnates, fragility sets in. Following even small crises, recovery times slow, and there arrives a tendency for larger-scale collapse.

http://nephologue.blogspot.com/2019/12/economic-growth-engine-of-collapse.html 

"More from Less" not happening, not likely to happen

Global resource use has actually been accelerating faster than growth in the global economy. We are becoming more resource-intensive, not less. -Jason Hickel

http://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2021/02/demateralizing-economy-isnt-happening.html 

Oil is worth $120,000 per barrel. Not a typo.

Global CO2 emissions growth accelerating, not declining

Global energy-related CO2 emissions grew 1.7% in 2018 to reach a historic high of 33.1 Gt CO2. It was the highest rate of growth since 2013, and 70% higher than the average increase since 2010. Last year's growth of 560 Mt was equivalent to the total emissions from international aviation.

https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-and-co2-status-report-2019/emissions? 

Garrett's Constant shows economics inextricably linked to physics

The existence of a mathematical “constant” tying society to physics offers a critical piece of the human puzzle: economic wealth is inseparable from energy consumption; any diminished capacity to recover the energy necessary to maintain the steady hive of civilization must lead to economic collapse. If for whatever reason we fail to adequately fuel ourselves, we can expect the cyclic motions of our machines and ourselves to slowly grind to a halt. Our interest in crypto-currency or the auction price of a self-destructing Banksy will be replaced by more primal values like having a can-owner for opening a can of Spam. In the logical extreme, with an absence of food, we will wither and die, with all our perceptions of economic worth buried along with us.

http://nephologue.blogspot.com/2019/12/economic-growth-engine-of-collapse.html 

Greenhouse gas level rise accelerating

Indeed, the rise in greenhouse gas levels appears to be accelerating, despite pledges made under the Paris Agreement to holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2019/11/accelerating-greenhouse-gas-levels.html 

#renewables just add to the fire because of #jevons

Electricity demand in the country rose 36% in the seven years to April 2019 while coal-fired generation capacity during the period grew by 74% to 194.44 GW, according to the Central Electricity Authority (CEA).

http://news.trust.org/item/20190731133649-zkxm6/

India growth and plans for more growth will mean that any renewables added will not reduce fossil fuel use. They just add to the fire. Renewables promote growth. As long as there is demand, efficiencies are subsumed. Jevons principle.

China energy/emission going up, up, up.

China’s CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and cement production grew by an estimated 4% in the first half of 2019, analysis of preliminary data suggests. 

Power-sector emissions, which had driven the rebound in overall emissions since 2017, flattened off. However, there was a surge in real estate and infrastructure construction that saw emissions from steel and cement expand rapidly. 

Estimates based on preliminary data for the first half of 2019, compared to the same period last year, indicate that:

• China’s coal demand increased by 3%;
• Oil demand was up 6%;
• Gas demand rose by 12%; and
• Cement production increased by 7%.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-why-chinas-co2-emissions-grew-4-during-first-half-of-2019? 

Vaclav Smil: economic growth will end one way or another

... Without a biosphere in a good shape, there is no life on the planet. It’s very simple. That’s all you need to know. The economists will tell you we can decouple growth from material consumption, but that is total nonsense. The options are quite clear from the historical evidence. If you don’t manage decline, then you succumb to it and you are gone. The best hope is that you find some way to manage it. We are in a better position to do that now than we were 50 or 100 years ago, because our knowledge is much vaster. If we sit down, we can come up with something. It won’t be painless, but we can come up with ways to minimize that pain.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/sep/21/vaclav-smil-interview-growth-must-end-economists? 

Falling net energy, capitalism, and harsh degrowth

Economists have not understood the connection between physics and the economy. There is a need for a sufficient quantity of affordable energy products every moment of every day. In fact, we seem to need a vastly increased quantity of inexpensive-to-produce energy supplies right now if we are to fix the world economy’s problems from an energy point of view. The “lower interest rates and more debt” way of hiding problems seems to be reaching an end point. If nothing else, interest rates today are close to as low as they can go. https://ourfiniteworld.com/2019/08/22/debunking-lower-oil-supply-will-raise-prices/

Since 2005, when conventional oil peaked, we have been in a situation where energy prices are too low for producers and too high for consumers. A normal biological reaction to less energy input is to reduce growth. But because of capitalism, the human species tries to violate this principle and continue growing. This can only be temporary until the laws of physics enforce harsh degrowth.

 

Something has to give

Tim Garret from The FAN Initiative on Vimeo.

Rapid temperature rise threatens all life on earth

A catastrophe of unimaginable proportions is unfolding. Life is disappearing from Earth and runaway heating could destroy all life. At 5°C heating, most life on Earth will have disappeared. When looking only at near-term human extinction, 3°C will likely suffice. Study after study is showing the size of the threat, yet many people seem out to hide what we're facing.

http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2019/07/most-important-message-ever.html 

Free public transport is key to #degrowth

...We need free public transport, new diets, denser modes of living, affordable housing close to where the jobs are, food grown closer to where it is consumed, reduction of working time and commuting, low-energy ways of living and finding satisfaction, curbs on excessive incomes and on ostentatious consumption....

https://truthout.org/articles/a-green-new-deal-must-not-be-tied-to-economic-growth/

Capitalism has reached the limits to growth

 

ourfiniteworld.com  

The economy is a self-organizing structure that operates under the laws of physics. Many people have thought that when the world economy reaches limits, the limits would be of the form of high prices and “running out” of oil. This represents an overly simple understanding of how the system works. What we should really expect, and in fact, what we are now beginning to see, is production cuts in finished goods made by the industrial system, such as cell phones and automobiles, because of affordability issues. Indirectly, these affordability issues lead to low commodity prices and low profitability for commodity producers.

Accumulated economic production and energy use are in direct proportion.

This suggests a "Power Theory of Value", that energy consumption and economic wealth are tied by a constant. Importantly, this is a falsifiable hypothesis. And, as shown above, it seems to be borne out by the data. Summing wealth over all the world’s nations, 7.1 Watts is required to maintain every one thousand inflation-adjusted 2005 dollars of historically accumulated economic production.

http://nephologue.blogspot.com/2018/05/a-power-theory-of-value.html 

How will economic growth end? By ignoring the laws of physics, we will suffer more.

As with any other natural system, civilization is composed of matter. Internal circulations are maintained by a dissipation of potential energy. Oil, coal, and other fuels “heat” civilization to raise the potential of its internal components. Dissipative frictional, resistive, radiative, and viscous forces return the potential of civilization to its initial state, ready for the next cycle of energy consumption.
....
Linking physical to economic quantities comes from a fixed relationship between rates of global energy consumption and historical accumulation of global economic wealth. When growth rates approach zero, civilization becomes fragile to externalities, such as natural disasters, and is at risk for accelerating collapse.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2013EF000171

As it reaches limits, human activity will degrow. To the extent that we degrow voluntarily, we may be able to reduce the pain. In any case, physics will rule. We can fight it, but not overcome it. 

El Niño will bring deadly heat in 2019

There is an 80 percent chance a full-fledged El Niño has already begun and will last until at least the end of February 2019, according to the Climate Prediction Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The impacts of El Niño have been more severe in recent years because of global warming, and these impacts will be worse as temperatures continue to rise, according to a recent study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
“With an El Niño, it’s entirely possible 2019 will be the hottest year ever,” said co-author Samantha Stevenson, a climate scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/12/2019-may-be-hottest-year-yet-el-nino-climate-change/ 

Missing from discussion of Syria pullout

To understand the human condition today, start with energy. If you do not think energy is the top of the chain, then turn off all your electricity for a week.

Energy runs economics (how we feed and shelter ourselves) and whoever controls energy has great power.

The governments of the world, in service of the top capitalists, are trying to get access to the huge reserve of easy-to-drill oil under Kirkuk, Iraq. But ISIS has made this difficult.

The US needs boots on the ground. It used KRG, that failed. They dumped it and used Iran-controlled Iraq government, that backfired. They were forced to use the Syria regime for "stability." During this time they cultivated the PKK. They pumped up nationalism to try to get Kurdish people to support them. This has failed as well.

Now, the US has to regroup. So they are withdrawing from Syria. This will fail also.

What's missing from the discussion? The developed world, the US especially, has an oil problem. There is so much concrete and steel infrastructure that cannot be converted. Many tens of trillions of dollars in debt have been bet on this system. What is their solution? To build more, and to fight more wars.

Will Green New Deal successfully address #climate or #energy problems?

Climate, energy, and economy are linked and there is no evidence of de-linking.

Climate solutions can be supply-side or demand-side.

There is confusion about demand. Some assume that demand is what we measure in the market. But what about those who don't come to the market? The Jevons principle means that as long as there is demand there can be no energy savings.

In any case, there are a billion people who are saving up for a car. Cars promote sprawl and growth. Until economy and climate are de-linked, that means a hotter earth [biosphere], regardless of what fuel is used.

What is a good demand-side solution? The money currently spent on oil wars could provide free public transit, free education, and free health care. This would cause birth rates to fall more quickly -- the most effective way to reduce demand.

Clear explanation of #jevons, and why #efficiency and #technofix make things worse

Taking this global perspective with respect to the economy, efficiency gains will do the exact opposite of what efficiency policy advocates claim it will do. If technological changes allow global energy productivity or energy efficiency to increase, then civilization will grow faster into the resources that sustain it. This grows the economy, but it also means that energy consumption and CO2 emissions accelerate.

CO2 emissions can be stabilized despite efficiency gains. But this is possible only if decarbonization occurs as quickly as energy consumption grows. At today’s consumption growth rates, this would require roughly one new nuclear power plant, or equivalent in renewables, to be deployed each day.

http://nephologue.blogspot.com/2018/09/is-increasing-energy-efficiency-driving.html?