False Promise

Richard Heinberg's Snake Oil takes on the boom in fracking for oil and gas and makes the case that it is not sustainable.  He includes a history of fracking technology and examines the production data. Heinberg explains the concept of a resource pyramid and the significance of "energy returned on energy invested" (EROEI).  He gives a long response to an article in The Atlantic on the prospects for methane hydrates as a new source of hydrocarbons to be developed.  It's a question of technology versus geology.

James Howard Kunstler relates a story about giving a talk on energy at Google headquarters.  In the end, there were no questions, only statements to the effect of (as Kunstler puts it), "Dude, we've got technology." Kunstler bemoans the fact that even well educated people confuse energy and technology.  There's a deep-seated belief that the right technological fix will save us.  It shows up with the increasing interest in geoengineering to solve global warming.

Ultimately, chasing after every last bit of hydrocarbon diminishes our ability to fund the necessary transition away from that dependence on fossil fuels.  EROEI is declining which means the energy sector draws away investment and human resources from other parts of the economy. Heinberg boils down the complexity of our energy-economy-climate situation to two equally true statements:

Hydrocarbons are so abundant that, if we burn a substantial portion of them, we risk a climate catastrophe beyond imagining.

There aren't enough economically accessible, high-quality hydrocarbons to maintain world economic growth for much longer.

Update (October 5):  A report by Environment America, Fracking by the Numbers, details the overall environmental impact of the drilling.

Update (April 11, 2014):  A study in Ohio links fracking to earthquakes.

Update (June 8, 2014):  Four ways in which fracking is bad news.

Update (August 2, 2014):  Michelle Bamberger and Robert Oswald discuss their book, The Real Cost of Fracking: How America's Gas Shale Boom Is Threatening Our Families, Pets, and Food.

Update (February 14, 2015):  A report from the National Academies of Science examines geoengineering technologies in two broad categories--carbon dioxide removal and albedo modification.  The latter is easier to do, but could also make things worse.

Ten Ways Young Adults Have It Worse

Alex Henderson offers ten reasons why the Millennial generation is worse off than older adults (I am a Baby Boomer).

1. A dying middle class

2. The financial crash of September 2008

3. Crushing student loan debt

4. The broken healthcare system

5. The post-9/11 surveillance state

6. Endless war

7. Painfully low interest rates

8. Bailouts and the federal deficit

9. The George W. Bush administration

10. Unlikely homeownership

Update (September 20):  Edward McClelland reviews the demise of the middle class in the United States.

Update (December 2):  Tim Donovan bemoans the indifference toward climate change and notes that the younger generation who will bear the brunt of the coming disaster has little political influence or economic means to do anything about it.

Update (January 20, 2014):  Without comment.  "Employees Face Growing Pressure to Relax".

Update (March 31, 2014):  Households headed by someone 40 years old or younger remain 30 percent below the real level of wealth in 2007 while households of older people have recovered.

Update (April 13, 2014):  A New York Times editorial asks "Recovery for Whom?"  It points out that the age cohort of 25 to 34 is worse off than previous generations and will feel the impact of the Great Recession throughout their lives.

Update (March 1, 2019):  Young adults face a dismal economic future.

According to the New York Federal Reserve Consumer Credit Panel, debt for Americans between the ages of 19 and 29 exceeded $1 trillion at the end of 2018, the highest that number has been since late 2007.

Highest Share for Top One Percent

IRS data shows that the top one percent of US earners collected 19.3 percent of household income in 2012. This exceeds the previous high of 18.7 percent in 1927.  Also, the top ten percent received more than 50 percent of total income.

Update (September 13):  The percentages for income excluding capital gains are slightly different.

Global Cooling?

This article in The Telegraph seemed to get a lot of attention.  Only two sources are named.  Sea ice extent has rebounded from last year's record low in the Arctic.  But ice extent is comparable to 2009 and remains far below the average for 1981 to 2010.  "Global cooling" conclusions are not justified.

Update (September 14):  Arctic sea ice volume reached a new low for winter earlier this year.

Update (September 22):  Five reasons why sea ice decline should be front page news.

Update (December 16):  Arctic sea ice volume at the end of summer 2013 was fifty percent higher than one year previous.  But this minimum volume is still far below typical values from 30 years ago.

Update (September 21, 2014):  Arctic sea ice minimum is about the same this year as last year. But the trend is clear and Cambridge University professor of ocean physics Peter Wadhams says, "The Arctic ice cap is in a death spiral."

Politics Over Reason

One would hope that even in a contentious political argument, facts would be persuasive.  But a study by Dan Kahan, Ellen Peters, Erica Cantrell Dawson, and Paul Slovic demonstrates how political views can impede mathematical reasoning.

The researchers asked participants to interpret the results of a fake study.  The numbers were misleading--a calculation was needed to get the correct answer.  Each participant was presented with one of four scenarios--two about politically neutral skin cream and two about politically charged gun control.

Some people were determined to be more numerate than others and everyone performed about the same on the skin cream questions.  But when it came to gun control, conservatives were likely to misinterpret when the scenario depicted a decrease in crime and liberals would misinterpret when an increase in crime was depicted.  In fact, the differences between correct and incorrect interpretation increases for those who are better at math.  These are people who could easily understand the problem--unless the results go against their political views.

Unfortunately, this seems to show that having more information or better reasoning ability isn't enough.  We'll continue to see what we want to see.

Update (March 1, 2014):  Research by Emily Pronin and Katherine Hansen at Princeton University demonstrates that people maintain the belief in their own objectivity even when they know the process they are using is biased.  We have a blind spot when it comes to recognizing our own biases.

Update (June 28, 2014):  In a paper called "Climate Science Communication and the Measurement Problem", Dan Kahan demonstrates that the phrasing of science questions can avoid challenging one's personal beliefs.

It goes on to show that conservatives aren't ignorant about the science of climate change, they just don't choose to believe it.

Can the Bombing of Syria Be Stopped?

Whip counts show movement toward defeat in the House of Representatives, and a few individual members report overwhelming opposition to intervention from constituents.  And so Patrick Smith makes the interesting point that the manufacturing of consent is no longer possible--instead we may see the manufacturing of the appearance of consent.  Will it be possible for Congress to do the right thing?

Update (September 8):  White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough admits that the US doesn't have concrete evidence that Syrian President Assad ordered the chemical attacks of August 21.  German newspaper Bild am Sonntag cites German intelligence that the Syrian military acted without Assad's order.

Update (September 9):  Russia proposes to put Syria's chemical weapons under international control. Apparently this stemmed from a comment from Secretary of State Kerry, who dismissed the possibility Syria would agree.  A vote in the Senate about a US strike on Syria has been postponed.

Update (September 10):  Syria is reported to be committed to the Russian proposal.

Update (September 13):  Syria has signed the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Update (September 14):  The United States and Russia have reached an agreement over Syria's chemical weapons.  It is characterized as very difficult, but doable.  The use of force at a later time is not ruled out.

Update (September 27):  The UN Security Council reached agreement on a resolution to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons.

5 Minutes to Midnight

Seemingly borrowing the phrase from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Rajendra Pachuari, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is emphasizing that time is running out to take action.

We may utilize the gifts of nature just as we choose, but in our books the debits are always equal to the credits.  May I submit that humanity has completely ignored, disregarded and been totally indifferent to the debits?

And as a side note, William R. Polk's analysis of the crisis in Syria includes the under-reported aspect of drought.  Collapsing agriculture lead to poverty and competition for resources.  The situation was poorly handled and helped spark the civil war.  It may not be directly linked to climate change, but that sort of devastation becomes more likely as temperatures continue to rise.

Update (September 21):  James Hansen, et al in the Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society conclude that "humanity stands at a fork in the road".  If all available fossil fuels were burned, the world be made uninhabitable by humans.  Adaptation is not a long-term strategy.

Update (November 1):  President Obama has issued an executive order directing federal agencies to make plans for handling the impacts of climate change.

Update (November 12):  A leaked version of an upcoming IPCC report describes the social disruption expected from climate change.

Update (November 22):  The state of the science for climate change:



Update (December 3):  A report from the National Academy of Sciences evaluates the potential for abrupt effects of climate change.

Update (December 7):  More on the NAS report:

"The planet is going to be warmer than most species living on Earth today have seen it, including humans," added Tony Barnosky, a professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. "The pace of change is orders of magnitude higher than what species have experienced in the last tens of millions of years."

From the summary:

Update (March 2, 2015):  More about how drought contributed to the conflict in Syria.

Acidic Oceans

Oceans adsorb a lot of carbon dioxide.  This may have slowed down the increase in global mean temperature, but it also means that the acidity of oceans is increasing at the highest rate in 300 million years.

Update (September 22):  The Seattle Times reports on the impact of ocean acidification.

Update (October 4):  A follow up post about The State of the Ocean Report 2013.

Update (October 6):  More about the report from the International Programme on the State of the Ocean.

Update (October 16):  A study published in PLOS Biology looks at the impact of climate change on the world's ocean.

Update (October 31):  A study lead by Yair Rosenthal of Rutgers University shows that the world's ocean is now absorbing heat 15 times as fast as it had been over the previous 10,000 years.  That absorption has been a buffer against the effects of climate change for the past 60 years.

Update (July 2, 2014):  Concern about "missing" plastic, and a Newsweek report about the damage being done to the oceans.

Update (April 12, 2015):  According to a study from the University of Edinburgh, rates of acidification in the oceans are similar to those of 250 million years ago that prompted the greatest extinction event in earth's history.

Update (August 9, 2015):  A study from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany concludes that ocean acidification could take centuries to reverse.

Update (November 12, 2018):  Garbage patches only account for a small fraction of the plastic entering the ocean.