Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 8:34 am Post subject: Permacultists: the fine art of yapping.
Perhaps you've viewed this already:
Quote:
The phrase “the end of the world as we know it” has been uttered so often in the last decade that some Peak Oil advocates simply use its acronym, TEOTWAWKI. This awkward shorthand was once employed by Y2k catastrophists, and that heritage alone—the most unnecessary “sky is falling” panic in my lifetime—is enough to make me skeptical of the negativism embraced by many of my fellow Peak Oil believers. Peak Oil is as inevitable as death and taxes. But for every convert that Peak Oil’s doom-and-gloom extremism sweeps up, it alienates plenty of people who might otherwise climb down from their SUVs. Peak-Oil catastrophism’s repetition of doubtful facts and its sometimes muddied thinking betray a lack of critical analysis that discredits the Peak Oil movement. I’d like to delve into some of the errors and half-truths surrounding Peak Oil catastrophism, not as encouragement for those who want to party on blindly into the end of oil, which would be tragic, but as a way of refining and bolstering those arguments around Peak Oil that are valid.
How many fallacious "arguments" are in this paragraph? Let us count the ways.
Y2k catastrophists.Guilt by association. How many of you peak oil folks were sold on Y2K, let's see your hands....I didn't think so. Unrelated item.
negativism, believers, convert, doom-and-gloom extremism, catastrophism. Loaded terms. It was difficult for me to even continue reading at this point. I did so only for the entertainment of watching the writer eviscerate himself.
doubtful, muddied, blindly. Loading up adjectives and adverbs, as if such qualifiers were facts.
Quote:
There is no doubt that oil is running out.
Now that the writer has stuffed the straw man's head, let's observe him wail away at it.
Quote:
The starting point for most Peak-Oil catastrophism is Hubbert’s curve. M. King Hubbert was a petroleum geologist who published papers in 1956(1) and 1974(2) showing that US and world oil production should follow a simple bell curve. He believed US production would peak around 1970, and world output around 1995, followed by a drop as steep as the rise. He offered no equations and little mathematical basis for his hypothesis, but showed data for the rising side of the US curve.
It seems the writer is a goddamn liar, right up front. Confirm for me whether or not the following statement by Luis de Sousa is correct:
Quote:
In his 1956 article "Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels", in which he predicted the production peak for the USA , Hubbert used 80 pages of differential equations to drawn his conclusions. That earned him some criticism, the method was so complex that resembled an impenetrable monolith, which only those with profound mathematical knowledge could understand.
Deffeyes even explains these non-existent equations for the lay reader in "Beyond Oil"!
But here's the killer: the writer goes on to acknowledge...that peak oil is true!
Quote:
Perhaps Peak Oil, and a return to a time when resources are dear and labor is abundant, will remind us that there is much more to life than the manufactured desire to have more toys.
Then he reproduces this image:
along with this statement:
Quote:
Hubbert’s US peak prediction was accurate, and the decline initially followed his curve. It has lately deviated significantly...
Oh. So is he saying the US will once again reach 9.5 million barrels a day as in 1971? Is that to come from that "significant" "deviation," the Gulf of Mexico, which, I believe, didn't even figure into Hubbert's original prediction? It's unclear what the writer is saying, except that the downslope of US production has a big pimple on it. As if this weren't enough, the writer goes on to say that the accurate portions of Hubbert's prediction is due to coincidence. How do we know that? Because he says so.
The writer pretends Hubbert's curve was intended as an exact model of the future, and not as a tool that acknowledges many uncertainties. He ignores the phrase "unconstrained model" when looking at the shapes, and then pretends that those very facts which impinge on the model disprove the model. Who's the one being "negative" here?
Quote:
The right side of Hubbert’s curve gets longer each year.
So what? Oil extraction doesn't attain the previous historical highs, either, and if it does (as after the Piper fire in the North Sea), it soon resumes its downward trend.
Quote:
We change our behavior dramatically when prices rise.
Um, yeah. That's real profound, Toby. May you be around to witness that "drama."
This is the point at which I'd had it with the article. In true "permacultist" style, the writer voices platitudes, commonplaces, and dead obvious facts as if he has somehow made profound observations. Witness these "principles" from his website:
Quote:
Use protracted and thoughtful observation rather than prolonged and thoughtless action. Observe the site and its elements in all seasons. Design for specific sites, clients, and climates. ((translation: "Look before you leap. Plan ahead."))
Quote:
Place elements in ways that create useful relationships and time-saving connections among all parts. ((translation: "Put your garden somewhere convenient, like within walking distance if possible."))
Quote:
Use multiple methods to achieve important functions and to create synergies. Redundancy protects when one or more elements fail. ((translation: "When trying to sound profound, use blowsy abstractions flowingly. You can grow peppers in pots or in the ground. Do both to insure a crop."))
I have no idea whether the world post-peak is going to be "TEOTWAWKI" or a walkable paradise.
I do know this: Hubbert was a real scientist who put his career on the line in order to do what real scientists do: make predictions.
Mr. Hemenway, on the other hand, refers to the earth as "Gaia." _________________ "By the time individuals discover that remaining resources will not be adequate for the next generation, the next generation has already been born. " David Price
Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 9:18 am Post subject: Re: Permacultists: the fine art of yapping.
great vivisection! did you find soy juice or blood in the cadaver? Now that original piece has been dissected and rendered palatable, I'll give a shot at digesting it. _________________ ree rah rip ram. sunofabitch godamn. hidey didey christ almighty. rah rah crap
Joined: Oct 15, 2005 Posts: 1633 Location: Portland, Oregon
Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 10:15 am Post subject: Re: Permacultists: the fine art of yapping.
Killjoy, what I find even more strange about his article is that even after describing how conservation and efficiency will save the day, he still goes on with this quote...
"Even if we conserve, even if China builds more one-cylinder cars and we all have only one child, the end of the oil age is going to be rough. Worldwide depression and soaring unemployment are almost inevitable as oil gets expensive."
Um, okay, sounds like a doomer to me- not a die-off doomer but pretty doomery. But then he quickly backtracks to say
"Yet even that very dark cloud is lined with silver. Depression, by definition, is a shift from economic growth to contraction, and that in itself means less oil consumption."
True enough. We contract to mimic the downslope of oil production. And then we do it again the next year, and the next year and the next year. Hmmm, when does the Depression end? Oh right- when those neat nuke plants that he mentions ramp up and......save the day!!
Joined: Apr 17, 2005 Posts: 2763 Location: Vancouver Island
Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 10:46 am Post subject: Re: Permacultists: the fine art of yapping.
I'm curious why we care what these writers have to say? If you think we have a soft landing on the way then this guy does nothing to help us get there. If you're a doomer thinking of a hard landing then this guy will die with the rest of them.
Either way arguing about what will happen is a waste of time. It doesn't matter if it's a cliff or "just" a really steep hill when you go rocketing over the edge with the pedal mashed to the floor.
Either start building to help the soft landing come about or start prepping to try and fight the zombie hordes. _________________ shame on us, doomed from the start
god have mercy on our dirty little hearts
Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 10:46 am Post subject: Re: Permacultists: the fine art of yapping.
thuja, his message is indeed overwhelmingly confused.
I'm not saying the so-called doomer point of view is the "truth," only that the refutations of the "doomer" view are often incoherent.
I'm reminded of the "god in the gaps" refutations (so-called) of evolution, whereby "critics" point to gaps in the fossil record as supposed evidence overturning Darwinian theory. Likewise, people's hatchet jobs of Hubbert's analysis--"Oh look! That decline curve isn't exactly gaussian!"--are just as feeble.
This is not very reassuring to us lay types who want to know WHAT TO DO. _________________ "By the time individuals discover that remaining resources will not be adequate for the next generation, the next generation has already been born. " David Price
Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 10:48 am Post subject: Re: Permacultists: the fine art of yapping.
ludi:
Quote:
He doesn't speak for me.
No lumping intended! Not at all! _________________ "By the time individuals discover that remaining resources will not be adequate for the next generation, the next generation has already been born. " David Price
Joined: Oct 23, 2005 Posts: 1851 Location: East of Eden
Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 10:50 am Post subject: Re: Permacultists: the fine art of yapping.
killJOY wrote:
Y2k catastrophists.Guilt by association. How many of you peak oil folks were sold on Y2K, let's see your hands....I didn't think so. Unrelated item.
I personally thought the y2k scare was ridiculous, because people were obviously taking the necessary steps to prepare for it. Peak Oil, on the other hand, is a quite serious problem... and there's not much preparation going on.
People like this are going to keep cropping up I fear... even after there's so much evidence that we're shaking our heads in exasperation at the denialists. People just don't want to know about this, because it scares the hell out of them. _________________ "If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst." — Thomas Hardy
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 13179 Location: naive idiot fantasy world
Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 11:10 am Post subject: Re: Permacultists: the fine art of yapping.
Hemenway cheesed me off with his essay about how he chickened out and ran away from the country back to Portland and how the city is more sustainable than the country, blah blah blah. Here's a guy who wussed out when things were a little inconvenient, and he thinks everyone is just going to easily change their behavior when necessary? He has no credibility.
edited to add: I should mention, though, that I am somewhat enjoying his book *wince* "Gaia's Garden" which is sort of "permaculture lite," very non-threatening. _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow." - jboogy
Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 11:17 am Post subject: Re: Permacultists: the fine art of yapping.
Quote:
Hemenway cheesed me off with his essay about how he chickened out and ran away from the country back to Portland and how the city is more sustainable than the country, blah blah blah.
Really??? I did not know that! It would seem to explain a lot of the romanticism around "sustainability" and "permaculture."
I prefer just to call myself a small farmer. _________________ "By the time individuals discover that remaining resources will not be adequate for the next generation, the next generation has already been born. " David Price
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 13179 Location: naive idiot fantasy world
Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 11:22 am Post subject: Re: Permacultists: the fine art of yapping.
Killjoy, I think you'd prefer Bill Mollison, who seems like a no-nonsense, get-your-hands-dirty kind of guy, and is one of the original inventors of permaculture. I recommend his big fat book "Permaculture: a designers manual" which is "permaculture heavy duty." _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow." - jboogy
Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 11:53 am Post subject: Re: Permacultists: the fine art of yapping.
Real permaculture is revolutionary. Our centralized consumer society depends on extractive industries, disposable products, and specialized labor. Permaculture is about recycling nutrients and resources, permanent systems, and wholistic/generalized knowledge.
Practically, it means people returning to the land and becoming producers instead of consumers to use appropriate technology. We need to refine and develop "Living Machines" (See John Todd, the New Alchemy Institute) that house, cloth, and feed us close to the land from the solar gain and recycled materials of our landscapes.
We have the technology to serve us instead of us serving technology. The United States has enough land and riches so that each citizen could live like royaly in a garden. We just need to break out of our suburban ghettos and take the correct technology with us. Do you have the wisdom? _________________ ree rah rip ram. sunofabitch godamn. hidey didey christ almighty. rah rah crap
Joined: Oct 04, 2004 Posts: 5714 Location: Body in OK, Heart in TX
Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 12:53 pm Post subject: Re: Permacultists: the fine art of yapping.
Personally I prefer Holmgren to Mollison. I also like Gaia's Garden. That essay about country vs. city that Ludi linked to really irritated me, too.
I guess it's sort of a "take what you need and leave the rest" kind of thing. Overall I think permaculture is the closest thing I've seen to a solution to the big problem facing us. _________________ "Every junkie's like a setting sun..." - Neil Young
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 13179 Location: naive idiot fantasy world
Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 1:32 pm Post subject: Re: Permacultists: the fine art of yapping.
I haven't read much of Holmgren yet, which of his books do you recommend?
I agree permaculture comes closest to a comprehensive solution to the severe problems facing us. But it requires a different worldview from our current way of life. _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow." - jboogy
Joined: Nov 09, 2004 Posts: 1257 Location: Big Rock Candy Mountain
Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 2:15 pm Post subject: Re: Permacultists: the fine art of yapping.
Permaculture is a nascent religion grounded in learning to observe nature and work with it, not against it. Mollison's big book is somewhat zen-like (I think, I'm no expert). I think it goes back to when Fukuoka discovered the "free" rice growing in a ditch. I wish I had another 100 years to rediscover what our ancestors must have considered common knowledge of the real world--not the world of hype and spin and 'consensus reality" that I was born into. Alas, so little time remains....
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