from University of Washington

Stop wrangling over global warming and instead reduce fossil-fuel use for the sake of the global economy.

That’s the message from two scientists, one from the University of Washington and one from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, who say in the current issue of the journal Nature (Jan. 26) that the economic pain of a flattening oil supply will trump the environment as a reason to curb the use of fossil fuels.

“Given our fossil-fuel dependent economies, this is more urgent and has a shorter time frame than global climate change,” says James W. Murray, UW professor of oceanography, who wrote the Nature commentary with David King, director of Oxford’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.

The “tipping point” for oil supply appears to have occurred around 2005, says Murray, who compared world crude oil production with world prices going back to 1998. Before 2005, supply of regular crude oil was elastic and increased in response to price increases. Since then, production appears to have hit a wall at 75 million barrels per day in spite of price increases of 15 percent each year.

“As a result, prices swing wildly in response to small changes in demand,” the co-authors wrote. “Others have remarked on this step change in the economies of oil around the year 2005, but the point needs to be lodged more firmly in the minds of policy makers.”

For those who argue that oil reserves have been increasing, that more crude oil will be available in the future, the co-authors wrote: “The true volume of global proved reserves is clouded by secrecy; forecasts by state oil companies are not audited and appear to be exaggerated. More importantly, reserves often take 6 – 10 years to drill and develop before they become part of the supply, by which time older fields have become depleted.” Production at oil fields around the world is declining between 4.5 percent and 6.7 percent per year, they wrote.

“For the economy, it’s production that matters, not how much oil might be in the ground,” Murray says. In the U.S., for example, production as a percentage of total reserves went from 9 percent to 6 percent in the last 30 years.

“We’ve already gotten the easy oil, the oil that can be produced cheaply,” he says. “It used to be we’d drill a well and the oil would flow out, now we have to go through all these complicated and expensive procedures to produce the oil.”

The same is true of alternative sources such as tar sands or “fracking” for shale gas, Murray says, where supplies may be exaggerated and production is expensive. Take the promise of shale gas and oil: A New York Times investigative piece last June reported that “the gas may not be as easy and cheap to extract from shale formations deep underground as the companies are saying, according to hundreds of industry e-mails and internal documents and an analysis of data from thousands of wells.”

Balance of article: here

Related: The City of Fort Collins kicks off the Residential Environmental Program Series for 2012 tonight, Febraury 1, with a viewing of Carbon Nation See City website for details. Perfect timing.

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OFC Shows Off New Banner

OFC Gets Help From Raggedy Ann

Fundraiser at Avo’s

The Occupy Fort Collins fundraiser “Coats, Cans, or Cash” will be held at 6.0225 × 10^23 which is also known as Avogadro’s Number. In addition to being a famous constant having to do with molecules in gas this Avo’s is a bar and restaurant at 605 S. Mason Street, Fort Collins. That is where you will find today’s fundraiser, starting at 7:00 pm.

Coats, Cans, or Cash: A
Bailout for Those who really Need it

Live Music and Fun
Sunday, January 29th—7pm
Avos 605 South Mason
Featuring D – Money and
the Funky Tunk Heores, Dunptruck Butterflies and More
Bring a Coat(s),
Non-Perishable Food Item(s), or Cash Donation.

Thanks to Aaron at Cathcart Photography for permission to use copywrited video.

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From: Climate Crock of the Week

Climate Crocks – published January 23, 2011

NASA:

Nine of the top ten warmest years in the modern meteorological record have occurred since the year 2000. Last year was another one of them, coming in at 9th warmest since 1880.

The map above shows temperature anomalies, or changes, by region in 2011; it does not depict absolute temperature. Essentially, the map shows how much warmer or cooler each region was in 2011 compared with an averaged “base period” from 1951–1980. The line plot shows yearly temperature variations (from the base period average) for every year from 1880 to now. (For more explanation of how the analysis works, read World of Change: Global Temperatures.)

On January 19, 2012, researchers at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) released their annual analysis of global temperatures, noting that Earth’s land and ocean surfaces continue to experience higher temperatures than several decades ago. The global average temperature for 2011 was 0.92 degrees Fahrenheit (0.51 Celsius) higher than the mid-20th century baseline.

“We know the planet is absorbing more energy than it is emitting,” said GISS director James Hansen. “So we are continuing to see a trend toward higher temperatures. Even with the cooling effects of a strong La Niña influence and low solar activity for the past several years, 2011 was one of the ten warmest years on record.”

Balance of article: here

Why is this tagged “Kevin Lundberg“? Because he claims to be considering a run for Congress in the Second District which now includes Fort Collins. Lundberg is a well-known climate denier. I hope he does run. He would lose badly.

Related: Why Climate Change Is So Threatening To Right-Wing Ideologues

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Home Solar Power Discounts – One Block Off the Grid

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The main news from President Obama’s State of the Union address is the announcement of a fraud investigation unit in the Department of Justice says Cenk Uyger of The Young Turks.

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Source: CMD

Bank Fraud Investigation

President Obama did exactly what hundreds of thousands of us [ed note: MoveOn activists] have been calling on him to do—he announced a federal investigation into Wall Street. Here’s what he said:

“I am asking my Attorney General to create a special unit of federal prosecutors and leading state attorneys general to expand our investigations into the abusive lending and packaging of risky mortgages that led to the housing crisis. This new unit will hold accountable those who broke the law, speed assistance to homeowners, and help turn the page on an era of recklessness that hurt so many Americans.”

MoveOn Press Release Continues

The best part is, progressive champion New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is co-chairing the investigation and will make sure it stays on track.

Just weeks ago, this investigation wasn’t even on the table, and the big banks were pushing for a broad settlement that would have made it impossible. Your work changed all that.

This is truly a huge victory for the 99% movement. Hundreds of thousands of us signed petitions, made calls, and held signs outside in the cold to make this issue something that President Obama couldn’t ignore. Here’s some of what MoveOn members and our allies did to bring about this victory:

• Over 360,000 of us signed a petition calling on President Obama to fully investigate the banks.
• We delivered that petition at over 150 events last Thursday around the country at Obama for America campaign offices.
• Our pressure on state attorneys general stopped the rush to a sweetheart deal that would have precluded this investigation.
• And we’ve called, Facebooked, and tweeted at the White House repeatedly to ask the president to launch this investigation.

Progressive victories don’t come that often, and there’s so much more to do. But this is a very big one. Thank you for all you did to make it happen!

–Elena, Emily, Lenore, Robin, and the rest of the [MoveOn]team

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Get Slackware Linux

From Grist.org story here

Microsoft Having Tech Support Problems

MS Field Engineers Show End Users How to Fire Up Windows 7

As you can see in this exclusive Gypsy Chief photo Microsoft has assigned two field engineers for every three end users.

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Rather go blind is one of the greatest sad songs ever made..
I cringe when I hear other people sing it. Thank you Etta.
If you had to get introduced to this song from some lame movie or wack TV talent show, eh, listen to the REAL VERSION!!!!
djmane1 on Youtube

Fortunately I got to see Etta James at the Monterey Jazz Festival years ago.

Etta James On Hunter Hancock Radio Show

We have blogged before about Hunter Hancock playing race music much admired by kids at Van Nuys Hi. Hank Balard and the Midnighters released a song Work With Me Annie which outraged much of the community back then. Etta James released a response song Roll With Me Henry. Here is a Youtube video of that song.

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City of Fort Collins and CFORSE Joint Effort

Thanks to my friend Fred Kirsch at Community For Sustainable Energy for publicizing a new effort to reduce VMT.

What is a VMT and why do I want to eliminate it?

VMT stands for: Vehicle Miles Traveled

It is a measurement of how many miles you drive. We are calculating VMT on a weekly basis and working to reduce it as part of a city-wide program to raise awareness and understanding of driving habits, as well as to help participants reduce driving.

Reasons to eliminate VMT: High gas prices, traffic, mental well-being, air pollution (VMT are the leading source of toxic air pollution in Fort Collins), less accident risk, and I bet you can think of some others!

Sounds Great – How Do I Cut My VMT?

Fred has a blog post for this. Here is a heavily edited summary plus a way to say goodby to your car without completely going back to horse and buggy days:

Traffic produces smog, congestion and high costs.
Populations grow, infrastructure lags. While researching
the role electric vehicles might play to improve these problems,
I discovered car sharing and decided to propose a program
for the city. I wanted to include electric cars for short trips.
Also, I suspected that lower weight, lower energy,
lower impact vehicles, operating primarily in bike lanes would
be another terrific addition to the car share menu. People can
choose exactly the vehicle and energy use that is perfect for each trip.

We call it “full spectrum vehicle sharing”. It really is just a car share
menu with more choices. High impact choices cost more,
low impact choices cost less. So, got car sharing approved for
CSU, got Fort Collins CarShare operating, and are ramping Fort Collins
“full spectrum” Vehicle Share up to launch the first program of its kind!
Go to our website at Fort Collins Car Share for a quick look, and contact us for more information, or if you want to get involved.
Help us close the circle and make a positive changes in how people move around.
We have a dream that is so exciting, it makes us feel 14 again!
Shane Miller

Shane makes the point that you could take the bus or ride your bike whenever you need to get to your car share. I like the idea of not having to have my own insurance policy if I only drive a few times a year. I have been automobile free for 16 years and it is a little tough when it snows in Fort Collins. My neighbor said that I gave up freedom when I went auto-free. What I gave up was dealing with DMV, parking tickets, bridge tolls, gas, oil, tires, auto maintenance, car insurance, etc. Now there is another alternative in Fort Collins.

This is Freedom

Related: Sourced from AlterNet Do We Have To Live Like Peasants To Be Truly Sustainable?

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Of Two Minds Blog by Charles Hugh Smith published January 13, 2012.

The Savior State has pulled out all the stops to prop up the Status Quo. Its gargantuan borrowing and spending have fixed nothing. Contraction is replacing expansion as the new normal.

For the past 67 years, Americans have been conditioned to expect expansion and more of everything: more income, more stuff, more opportunity, more benefits, more medical care, more government entitlements, and so on.

As a result, Americans have habituated to permanent expansion. The concept that contraction–less of everything–is the new normal simply doesn’t register; it is rejected, denied, or decried as a great tragedy. The notion that it is simply reality does not compute with a populace habituated to permanent “growth” that is at worst interrupted by brief recessions.

U.S. politicians have learned that Soaring Rhetoric (TM) about “morning in America,” “the New Frontier,” “hope” and other ritualistic appeals to permanent expansion win elections, while accurate descriptions of reality lose elections.

The voting public’s demand for “permanent good news” promising permanent expansion has spawned a feedback loop of officially sanctioned manipulated statistics and media spin (a.k.a. propaganda) that expands with every administration, even as the real economy visibly weakens. Though the Obama Administration has perfected the techniques of presenting “permanent good news,” the divergence of the real economy and the official “story” that “we’ve returned to permanent expansion” is widening.

The real story is the “expansion” has cost the taxpayers trillions of dollars in new debt and trillions of dollars of backstops, shadow purchases and money-printing by the Federal Reserve. Roughly speaking, $6 trillion in additional Federal borrowing has been blown to simply keep the Status Quo from imploding, and around $13 trillion in guarantees, backstops, asset purchases, and losses made good have been issued to keep the Status Quo’s financial sector afloat and in charge.

By any credible, unmanipulated measure, for example, the number of people with fulltime employment or household income, the economy has yet to recover to 2007 levels.

This reality must be denied, both by the power-obsessed politicos who fear the truth like vampires fear garlic-garlanded crosses, and by voters who fear a reduction in their personal share of the swag.

Humans habituate quickly to a wide range of conditions and expectations, but once they’ve settled into the new habitat, they are resistant to new conditions. Needless to say, humans prefer a future in which there will be more of everything over one with less of everything, as permanent expansion means there will be few if any troublesome cost-benefit analyses, hard choices or painful triage, and little need to adjust to new realities.

Changing conditioning is difficult and often arduous.

Americans have been conditioned for three generations to expect the Savior State to “do something” during downturns to “make it right.” The idea that systemic problems are now beyond the reach of the Federal government does not compute; there must be something the government can do to “fix” everything.

This notion that the Central State is effectively omniscient and all-powerful is central to the belief system of Americans now. The concept that the government cannot fix the problem, or that government central-planning has made the problem worse, is anathema to everyone conditioned to believe government intervention will “save the day.”

The basic reality is the Federal government has already pulled out all the stops in the past four years to “make the economy recover,” and all its unprecedented actions have accomplished is to maintain the Status Quo via unsustainably gargantuan borrowing, spending and backstopping.

If we scrape away the rhetoric and bogus statistics, at heart the current fantasy that the U.S. has “decoupled” from the global economy and will remain an island of “permanent prosperity” in a sea of recession boils down to this belief: the Federal government “won’t let us stay in recession.” In other words, it’s within the power of the Central State to make good every loss, guarantee every debt, maintain the Empire, solve every geopolitical challenge and find technological or military solutions to potential energy shortages. All we need is the “will” to force the government to use its essentially unlimited power to “fix everything.”

A people conditioned to this expectation will have great difficulty accepting that their government has already done everything possible, and that these stupendous debt-based expenditures are simply not sustainable going forward. Some problems are not fixable by more government intervention; indeed, government intervention in the marketplace is like insulin: the system begins to lose sensitivity to Central State manipulation and intervention.

2012 is looking like the year that the American public will have to face up to the fact that the Central State’s massive efforts to “fix the economy” have failed, and that Central State support of the Status Quo cannot fix what’s broken.

We will have to habituate to contraction, and the belief in a god-like Savior State with unlimited powers and money will fade as the economy’s systemic illnesses–extreme concentrations of power and wealth, corruption, financial leverage, excessive debt and so on–reassert themselves.

All that has happened for four long years is systemic problems were papered over to benefit the Status Quo. Everything that is broken awaits real repair.

###

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