Category Archives: industry apologists

Food That Is Genetically Modified – Yuck on a stick

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OK, so I am the first one to admit that humans have tinkered with animal’s and plant’s genetics for a 100,000 years before we even knew what genes were. The most famous was the creation or the domestication of wolfs. If you feed them and they did not bite you they got to stay. If they bit you, you killed it and got another one. Made sense when a friendly wolf bred with another friendly wolf, the puppies would be more friendlier. Same with cattle. Breed a big cow with another bigger cow and you get bigger stronger cows. But this process many times took 100s of years and you had time to figure out whether it was safe or not. This is now happening in a single year’s time. There is no telling what we could be unleashing on ourselves. Worse yet, the big players in this area are some of the worst players on the planet. Monsanto, Dow, BSF. Companies known to be rapists of the planet.

http://www.good.is/post/feast-your-eyes-the-atlas-of-genetically-modified-crops1/

Feast Your Eyes: The Atlas of Genetically Modified Crops


Yesterday, the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, a nonprofit organization funded in large part by the biotech industry, issued a new report on the status of genetically modified crops around the world.

The Economist has used ISAAA’s data to make a map showing where in the world GM crops are grown. As you can see, the United States is by far the leader in the field, with 165 million acres (66.8 million hectares) of GM crops under cultivation, an increase of nearly 7 million acres on 2009 levels.

Clive James, ISAAA’s director and founder, told the BBC that more than 15 million farmers grow GM crops, and that, “during 2010, the accumulated commercial biotech plantation exceeded one billion hectares [2.47 billion acres]— that’s an area larger than the U.S. or China,” and equivalent to 10 percent of the world’s arable land.

Meanwhile, The Economist pointed out an interesting trend:

Developing countries are planting GM crops at a more rapid rate than rich countries. Brazil has added some 10m hectares [24.7 million acres] since 2008 and overtook Argentina as the second-biggest grower in 2010. India, too, increased its area by over 10 percent last year. The most popular crop is soya, while the most common modification is tolerance to herbicides.

With the European Union having just voted to allow animal feed imports containing up to 0.1 percent GM seeds (previously shipments found to contain any trace of non-approved biotech crops were turned away upon arrival at port), it does indeed seem—for better or for worse—as though GM crops are here to stay.

Chart via The Economist.

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Newt Gingrich And Energy Policy – For energy advice he calls his mother and his daughter

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OK I can only take this for another day and I am done. These guys really do not know what they are talking about. They make up numbers that have no basis in this universe, and the reality is they only survive because they take huge amounts of industry money.

http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/Newt_Gingrich_Energy_+_Oil.htm

Newt Gingrich on Energy & Oil

Former Republican Representative (GA-6) and Speaker of the House

Kyoto treaty is bad for the environment and bad for America

Kyoto is a bad treaty. It is bad for the environment and it is bad for America. It sets standards that will require massive investments by the US but virtually no investments by other countries. The Senate was right when it voted unanimously against the treaty. We should insist on revisiting the entire Kyoto process and resolutely reject efforts to force us into an anti-American, environmentally failed treaty.

The US should support substantial research into climate science, managing the response to climate change, & in developing new non-carbon energy systems. It is astounding to watch people blithely propose trillions of dollars in spending on a topic on which we have failed to spend modest amounts to better understand.

It is astounding to have people focus myopically on carbon as the sole source of climate change. The world’s climate has changed in the past with sudden speed and dramatic impact. Global warming may happen. On the other hand it is possible Europe will experience another ice age.

Source: Gingrich Communications website, www.newt.org Dec 1, 2006

Focus on incentives for conservation & renewable resources

A sound American energy policy would focus on four areas: basic research to create a new energy system that has few environmental side effects, incentives for conservation, more renewable resources, and environmentally sound development of fossil fuels. The Bush administration has approached energy environmentalism the right way, including using public-private partnerships that balance economic costs and environmental gain.

Hydrogen has the potential to provide energy that has no environmental downside. Conservation is the second great opportunity in energy. A tax credit to subsidize energy efficient cars (including a tax credit for turning in old and heavily polluting cars) is another idea we should support. Renewable resources are gradually evolving to meet their potential: from wind generator farms to solar power to biomass conversion. Continued tax credits and other advantages for renewable resources are a must.

Source: Gingrich Communications website, www.newt.org Dec 1, 2006

Stop scare tactics about drilling in Alaska

It is time for an honest debate about drilling and producing in places like Alaska, our national forests, and off the coast of scenic areas. The Left uses scare tactics from a different era to block environmentally sound production of raw materials. Three standards should break through this deadlock.

  1. Scientists of impeccable background should help set the standards for sustaining the environment in sensitive areas, and any company entering the areas should be bonded to meet those standards.
  2. The public should be informed about new methods of production that can meet the environmental standards, and any development should be only with those new methods.
  3. A percentage of the revenues from resources generated in environmentally sensitive areas should be dedicated to environmental activities including biodiversity sustainment, land acquisition, and environmental cleanups in places where there are no private resources that can be used to clean up past problems.

Source: Gingrich Communications website, www.newt.org Dec 1, 2006

Gas tax sounds OK in DC, but not outside Beltway

When the Bush Administration tried to convince me that a gasoline tax increase would be okay and would barely be noticed, I tested the theory with two phone calls. First I called my mother-in-law in Leetonia, Ohio, and then I called my older daughter in Greensboro, North Carolina. My mother-in-law is retired, at the time, aged 75. She has a lot of friends who live on limited incomes, and driving happens to be one of their pleasures. She was personally against the idea of a gas tax increase, and she thought the idea would go down very badly with her friends. Then I called my daughter Kathy. She runs a small business, and her husband is the tennis coach at the university. Her reaction was, to put it mildly, scathing. “What planet do they live on?” she asked. She thought such a tax increase was the very antithesis of why people had elected the Republicans. After those two conversations, any doubts I may have had simply vanished, and I opposed the tax increase. Source: Lessons Learned the Hard Way, by Newt Gingrich, p. 29-30 Jul 2, 1998

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    God what slime. More tomorrow.

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    Walter Williams And Energy Policy – Just putting their words up so you can see what we are up against

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    I should say first that I detest this man and the “university” that he claims to teach at if he is still there. George Mason University is just a front group for corporate and christian evil. The real malfeasance is that they dress it up as “higher education” and “graduate learning programs”.

    This is a rich black man who drives a $70,000 car and shills for oil, gas and coal.

    Oh, and I have been neglecting to mention where I get my list of the 30 top conservative columnists from:

    http://rightwingnews.com/2009/09/the-30-best-conservative-columnists-for-2009-version-3-0/?p=1207?comments=show

    Here is Walter in all his ignorance the day before Christmas.
    Walter E. Williams

    Americans have been rope-a-doped into believing that global warming is going to destroy our planet. Scientists who have been skeptical about manmade global warming have been called traitors or handmaidens of big oil. The Washington Post asserted on May 28, 2006 that there were only “a handful of skeptics” of manmade climate fears. Bill Blakemore on Aug. 30, 2006 said, “After extensive searches, ABC News has found no such (scientific) debate on global warming.” U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer said it was “criminally irresponsible” to ignore the urgency of global warming. U.N. special climate envoy Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland on May 10, 2007 declared the climate debate “over” and added “it’s completely immoral, even, to question” the U.N.’s scientific “consensus.” In July 23, 2007, CNN’s Miles O’Brien said, “The scientific debate is over.” Earlier he said that scientific skeptics of manmade catastrophic global warming “are bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry, usually.”

    The global warming scare has provided a field day for politicians and others who wish to control our lives. After all, only the imagination limits the kind of laws and restrictions that can be written in the name of saving the planet. Recently, more and more scientists are summoning up the courage to speak out and present evidence against the global warming rope-a-dope. Atmospheric scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said, “It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don’t buy into anthropogenic global warming.”

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    More tomorrow.

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    George Will And Our Energy Future – It’s boatloads of coal

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    Can you imagine a world where not only are there oil and natural gas supertankers circling the globe but coal supertankers too? George Will can. Wonder who pays this guys paycheck?

    http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/7362049.html

    King coal’s staying power now and into the future

    By GEORGE F. WILL
    Washington Post

    Jan. 1, 2011, 4:03PM

    Cowlitz County in Washington state is across the Columbia River from Portland, Ore., which promotes mass transit and urban density and is a green reproach to the rest of us. Recently, Cowlitz did something that might make Portland wonder whether shrinking its carbon footprint matters. Cowlitz approved construction of a coal export terminal from which millions of tons of U.S. coal could be shipped to Asia annually.

    Both Oregon and Washington are curtailing the coal-fired generation of electricity, but the future looks to greens as black as coal. The future looks a lot like the past.

    Historian William Rosen (The Most Powerful Idea in the World, about the invention of the steam engine) says coal was Europe’s answer to the 12th-century “wood crisis” when Christians leveled much forestation in order to destroy sanctuaries for pagan worship, and to open farmland. Population increase meant more wooden carts, houses and ships, so wood became an expensive way to heat dwellings or cook. By 1230, England had felled so many trees it was importing most of its timber and was turning to coal.

    “It was not until the 1600s,” Rosen writes, “that English miners found their way down to the level of the water table and started needing a means to get at the coal below it.” In time, steam engines were invented to pump out water and lift out coal. The engines were fired by coal.

    Today, about half of America’s and the world’s electricity is generated by coal, the substance which, since it fueled the Industrial Revolution, has been a crucial source of energy. Over the last eight years, it has been the world’s fastest-growing fuel. The New York Times recently reported (“Booming China Is Buying Up World’s Coal,” Nov. 22) about China’s ravenous appetite for coal, which is one reason coal’s price has doubled in five years

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    More tomorrow.

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    More Top Stories From The Energy World From 2010

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    This one gets it pretty much right I think. I think the BP oil spew was maybe the story of the Decade. I also think that the third world led by China as an ever thirstier consumer of liquid carbon fuels has been over played. But first I found them at Peak Oil, that ever depressing, in a rogue sort of way, website. So have a Happy New Year folks:

    http://peakoil.com/generalideas/robert-rapier-top-10-energy-related-stories-of-2010/

    But it is a repost from this Blog so Happy New Year to you too.

    http://www.consumerenergyreport.com/2010/12/28/my-top-10-energy-related-stories-of-2010/

    My Top 10 Energy Related Stories of 2010

    Posted by Robert Rapier on Tuesday, December 28, 2010

    Here are my choices for the Top 10 energy related stories of 2010. I can’t remember having such a difficult time squeezing this list down to 10 stories, because there were many important energy stories for 2010. It was hard to cut some of them from the Top 10; so hard that I almost did a Top 15. But I made some difficult choices, and offer my views on the 10 most important energy stories of 2010. Previously I listed a link to Platt’s survey of the Top 10 oil stories of 2010, but my list covers more than just oil.

    Reviewing my list of Top 10 Energy Related Stories of 2009, I see that I made three predictions. Those predictions were:

    • China’s moves are going to continue to make waves
    • There will be more delays (and excuses) from those attempting to produce fuel from algae and cellulose
    • There will be little relief from oil prices.

    Given that total energy demand from China surpassed that of the U.S. in 2010 (five years earlier than expected), the EPA twice rolled back cellulosic ethanol mandates (and there are still no functioning commercial plants), and we are closing the year with oil above $90 per barrel, I would say I nailed all of those.

    For this year’s list, don’t get too hung up on the relative rankings. They are mostly subjective, but I think we would have fairly broad agreement on the top story.

    1. Deepwater Horizon Accident

    On April 20, 2010 the BP-owned Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded, killing 11 men working on the rig and injuring 17 others. Because of the depth of the rig, there was no easy way to cap it and it gushed oil until it was finally capped three months later on July 15th. In the interim, the leak released almost 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, making it the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. In fact, not only was this my top energy story of the year, according to a poll of AP writers and editors it was the top news story period.

    2. The Deepwater Horizon Fallout

    While the accident itself was the biggest story, there was much fallout from the incident that will continue to be felt for years. Just three weeks before the incident, President Obama had proposed to open up vast new areas off the Atlantic coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and the north coast of Alaska. Governor Schwarzeneggar was pushing for offshore oil drilling near Santa Barbara County. There was a great deal of momentum that promised to greatly expand the areas available for offshore production. In the wake of the disaster, the debate shifted sharply. President Obama canceled a planned August offshore drilling lease sale in the Western Gulf and off the coast of Virginia, citing that his “eyes had been opened” to the risks of offshore drilling. The administration also put a temporary deepwater drilling ban in place until additional safety reviews could take place. Governor Schwarzeneggar dropped his plans, citing the spill as evidence that offshore drilling still poses too great a risk.

    But there were far-reaching impacts in other areas. BP began to sell off assets, raising $10 billion to pay claims of those impacted by the spill. BP CEO Tony Hayward — after a series of gaffes — stepped down from the helm of BP. Around the area affected by the spill, people lost jobs, particularly in the fishing and tourism industries. The long-term environmental impact remains uncertain, with some groups claiming the area has recovered, and others stating that it will be years before the full environmental impact can be determined.

    3. China Becomes World’s Top Energy Consumer

    For more than a century, the United States has been the world’s top consumer of energy. In 2010, China surpassed the U.S. in total energy consumption. If not for the Deepwater Horizon accident, this would have easily been my #1 story. As I said last year, I believe that China will be the single-biggest driver of oil prices over at least the next 5-10 years.

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    Personally I do not see Matt Simmons’ death as a huge energy story, but this guy knew him so I can understand the inclusion. More next week.

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    I Just Had An Unexpected Experience With An Astro Turf Group

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    You won’t believe this, what with Google’s image as Mr. Clean and Green. BUT when you type in the simple phrase “household energy usage” into their search engine, the first hit you get is Energy Citizen. This is the astroturf  nonprofit front group sponsored by the Koch Brothers, Don Blankenship and Peabody Coal that wants the Federal Government out of the mining business. They want safety laws repealed and they detest global warming and Cap and Trade policies. Massey Energy is up for sale by the way so Blankenship may not be able to play with the big boys much longer…Ahhh poor baby.

    http://energycitizens.org/jobs-red/default.aspx?utm_campaign=Q4_2010&utm_source=EyeTraffic&utm_medium=SEM&utm_content=ENERGY&utm_term=Domestic-Energy&gclid=CIWdkNbLt6UCFcms7QodoA00Gw

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    Not only that but they land you write on the “To Join” page without even a chance to be repelled. How repelling is that?

    Help Keep Our Recovery Going … Join Energy Citizens.

    Businesses can thrive and create new jobs when energy is affordable and available. But when lawmakers hinder energy development, we all lose.

    We need YOU to help Washington hear our message: American families and communities need sensible energy policies that power our economy and create jobs. Become part of our movement today — join Energy Citizens and let Congress hear your concerns about American energy and American jobs.

    We need solutions that increase access to all reliable domestic energy: wind, solar, nuclear, and — yes — oil and natural gas. Our nation has ample energy reserves that can contribute to our economy for decades to come.

    The tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico underscores the risks involved in energy development — and the need for improved safety. But this tragedy should not make us forget that our economy and way of life depend on affordable energy. We must not allow opponents to use the tragedy to stop domestic oil and natural gas development. Even with increased conservation, our nation’s energy needs are growing.

    You can make a difference by joining our citizens’ movement for sensible energy policies. Help us win a national energy plan that creates jobs, promotes economic growth, and increases our security. Please join us TODAY — and tell Congress where you stand

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    Instead of here, where at least you can reject the party line if you want to.

    http://energycitizens.org/ec/advocacy/default.aspx

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    Google should be ashamed of themselves. More tomorrow.

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    The Atlantic Energy Article – Why are both of these articles so bad

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    What is up with these major news sources. Both the Christian Science Monitor and the Atlantic ditch alternative energies and go for coal or something more esoteric. They make it sound like alternative energies will be a failure.

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    Dirty Coal, Clean Future

    To environmentalists, “clean coal” is an insulting oxymoron. But for now, the only way to meet the world’s energy needs, and to arrest climate change before it produces irreversible cataclysm, is to use coal—dirty, sooty, toxic coal—in more-sustainable ways. The good news is that new technologies are making this possible. China is now the leader in this area, the Google and Intel of the energy world. If we are serious about global warming, America needs to work with China to build a greener future on a foundation of coal. Otherwise, the clean-energy revolution will leave us behind, with grave costs for the world’s climate and our economy.

    By James Fallows

    Image credit: Bryan Christie

    Through the past four years I’ve often suggested that China’s vaunted achievements are less impressive, or at least more complicated, seen up close. Yes, Chinese factories make nearly all of the world’s consumer electronic equipment. But the brand names, designs, and most of the profits usually belong to companies and people outside China. Yes, China’s accumulated trade surpluses have made it the creditor for America and much of the world. But the huge share of its own wealth that China has sunk into foreign economies ties its fate to theirs. Yes, more and more Chinese people are very rich. But hundreds of millions of Chinese people are still very poor. Yes, Chinese factories lead the world in output of windmills and solar-power panels. But China’s environmental situation is still so dire as to pose the main threat not just to the country’s public health and political stability but also to its own economic expansion.

    This report will have a different tone. I have been learning about an area of Chinese achievement that is objectively good for the world as a whole, including the United States. Surprising enough! And China’s achievement dramatically highlights a structural advantage of its approach and a weakness of America’s. It involves the shared global effort to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, of which China and the United States are respectively the No. 1 and No. 2 producers, together creating more than 40 percent of the world’s total output. That shared effort is real, and important. The significant Chinese developments involve more than the “clean tech” boom that Americans have already heard so much about. Instead a different, less publicized, and much less appealing-sounding effort may matter even more in determining whether the United States and China can cooperate to reduce emissions. This involves not clean tech but the dirtiest of today’s main energy sources—coal.

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    I know. Kinda leaves you hanging doesn’t it. Go there and read more.

    More tomorrow.

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    The ANWR Is Nothing But One Giant Dry Hole

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    Oil People are nothing but proven liars. There is always “oil down there” they tell investors. But only 10 or 20 of the holes they drill actually produce any oil, so is it any wonder that they are unprepared when they come in? Especially in the case of the Gulf Spew if they come in violently.

    http://www.fcnp.com/commentary/national/7696-the-peak-oil-crisis-the-leading-edge.html

    The Peak Oil Crisis: The Leading Edge

    By Tom Whipple
    Wednesday, November 03 2010 01:01:22 PM

    Do you remember the furor over drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge a few years back? The whole country was up in arms. At various times some 50 to 60 percent of Americans favored drilling in the area as they were told this would result in lower gas prices.

    Last week the USGS lowered its estimate of the amount of oil that could be extracted from the region all the way from 10 billion barrels down to less than one billion, making drilling in the area uneconomical. By the way, the amount of crude being pumped down the Alaskan pipeline now has fallen from 2 million barrels a day (b/d) when the pipeline first opened back in the 1970’s to about 600,000 b/d in recent weeks. The trouble is that when the flow of oil falls below a quantity estimated to be 200-300,000 b/d (some say 500,000) the line will have to be closed as there will simply not be enough hot oil being sent down the pipeline to keep it from freezing in winter.

    Last week an organization in California, The Post Carbon Institute, released a new book, “The Post Carbon Reader,” which draws a much broader picture of the serious issues facing mankind. With 30 authors, each specializing in some aspect of the multiple troubles we face, the scope of the book touches on nearly every aspect of our civilization that is out of balance, unsustainable, and headed for a fall. The basic proposition of the book is that the world has reached the limits of growth in terms of its population, economic activity, and the ability of the atmosphere to absorb more carbon emissions. Either the world’s peoples must transform themselves into a sustainable number living in a sustainable manner or there will be many dire consequences right up to the possibility that the human race itself could become extinct. Clearly, this is serious stuff.

    As long as a problem is perceived as being decades, or even a few years away, it is not a concern.

    Some hold that our sustainability problem started when we first started planting crops and domesticating animals 10,000 years ago. This thesis says if we had stuck with hunting and gathering as a race we would have been able to sustain our act indefinitely, but then we would never have had enough surplus energy to learn reading & writing, and to build cities, the Internet and space ships. Our immediate problem, however, started in earnest with the industrial revolution about 200 years ago when we first started digging up prodigious quantities of coal and feeding it into steam engines. It wasn’t long before we struck oil and the rest is history. The world’s population went from an estimated 5 or 10 million when we first started farming, to a billion when we started serious coal digging, to about 7 billion today. We also got incredibly richer in terms of material goods and could sure get around much faster.

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    More tomorrow.

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    Nuclear Power Too Cheap To Meter – Forty years later

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    Why in the world would you want to fuel up a 40 year old reactor. Because it is a religious dictatorship and the ayatollahs can order it to be done. It is Allah’s will. Allah definitely has a sense of humor.

    http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/middleeast/la-fg-iran-nuclear-20101027,0,1194581.storyIran begins fueling nuclear reactor

    Iran begins fueling nuclear reactor

    The start of the weeks-long process brings the controversial Bushehr plant another step closer to operation. Iran says the facility will generate 1,000 megawatts of electricity, but Western nations fear it is to be used to produce atomic weapons.

    Nuclear power plantIran’s controversial nuclear plant near the southern Iranian city of Bushehr. The country has begun a weeks-long process to fuel its reactor. (Majid Asgaripour / AFP Getty Images)
    By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles TimesOctober 26, 2010|6:53 a.m.
    Reporting from Dubai, United Arab Emirates —

    Iran began loading nuclear fuel rods into the core of its first nuclear power plant Tuesday, bringing the facility a step closer to producing electricity, Iranian state television reported.

    The start of the weeks-long process lends credence to Iranian claims that a high-profile computer virus attack earlier this year did not significantly postpone the launch of the nuclear plant near the southern Iranian city of Bushehr. After years of delay, the plant, built in part by Russian engineers, is scheduled to produce electricity early next year, after all 163 of its fuel rods are moved into the reactor core and undergo tests.

    “We hope that nuclear electricity would enter the national grid within the next three months,” said Ali Akbar Salehi, chief of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency

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    More tomorrow.

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    Global Resource Depletion OR Recycling A Waste Of Time – Which is it

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    shhh It’s Jam Band Friday – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hntXAO_Rq7c

    OK so which is it, are we running out of stuff or not? Is 6 Billion people too many or not? Have we cut down way too may trees or not? I believe these answers are knowable. Are the Ocean’s fished out or not?  Is Global Warming happening? The issue seems to be Price. If Global Warming were happening then carbon would be expensive. But what if price isn’t the issue when capitalists and nations treat resources as if they were “free”.

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    http://www.planetthoughts.org/?pg=pt/Whole&qid=3267

    Blog item: Recycling? What A Waste.

    By Jim Fedako

    This fall, school kids across the country will again be taught a chief doctrine in the civic religion: recycle, not only because you fear the police but also because you love the planet. They come home well prepared to be the enforcers of the creed against parents who might inadvertently drop a foil ball into the glass bin or overlook a plastic wrapper in the aluminum bin.

    Oh, I used to believe in recycling, and I still believe in the other two R’s: reducing and reusing. However, recycling is a waste of time, money, and ever-scarce resources. What John Tierney wrote in the New York Times nearly 10 years ago is still true: “Recycling may be the most wasteful activity in modern America.”

    Reducing and reusing make sense. With no investment in resources, I can place the plastic grocery bag in the bathroom garbage can and save a penny or so for some more-pressing need. Reducing and reusing are free market activities that are profitable investments of time and labor.

    Any astute entrepreneur will see the benefit of conserving factors of production. Today, builders construct houses using less wood than similar houses built just 20 years ago. In addition, these houses are built sturdier; for the most part anyway.

    The Green’s love for trees did not reduce the amount of wood used in construction; the reduction was simply a reaction to the increasing cost for wood products. Using less wood makes financial sense, and any entrepreneur worth his profit will change his recipe to conserve wood through better design or by substituting less dear materials for wood products.

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    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pojL_35QlSI&feature=related

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    http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-10-20/global-resource-depletion

    Published Oct 20 2010 by The Oil Drum: Europe, Archived Oct 20 2010

    Global resource depletion

    by Ugo Bardi

    André Diederen’s recent book on resource depletion

    I have been thinking, sometimes, that I could reserve a shelf of my library for those books which have that elusive quality that I could call “modern wisdom”. Books that go beyond the buzz of the media news, the shallowness of politicians’ speech, the hyper-specialization of technical texts. That shelf would contain, first of all, “The Limits to Growth” by Meadows and others; then the books by Jared Diamond, James Lovelock, Konrad Lorenz, Richard Dawkins, Peter Ward and several others that have affected the way I see the world.

    I think I’ll never set up such a shelf, I have too many books and too few shelves; many are packed full with three rows of books. But, if I ever were to put these books together, I think that the recent book by André Diederen “Global Resource Depletion” would make a nice addition to the lot.

    The subject of resource depletion, of course, is well known to readers of “The Oil Drum”. So well known that it is difficult to think of a book that says something new. Diederen, indeed, succeeds in the task not so much in reason of the details on the availability of mineral commodities that he provides, but for the innovative way he describes our relation to the subject. In other words, Diederen’s book is not a boring list of data; it is a lively discussion on how to deal with the implications of these data. It is a book on the future and how we can prepare for it.

    To give you some idea of the flavor of the book, just a quote:

    (p. 43) “… it isn’t enough to have large absolute quantities (“the Earth’s crust is so big”) and to have all the technology in place. (p. 33) … we have plenty of water in the Mediterranean or Atlantic Ocean and we have ample proven technologies to desalinate and pipe the water to the desert, so, why isn’t the Sahara desert green yet?”

    This is, of course, the crucial point of resource depletion: what counts is cost, not amounts (I plan to use this example in my next talk!). Diederen is an unconventional thinker and he goes deeply into matters that, in some circles would be thought to be unspeakable; for instance (p. 41)

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    Price? Really. More next week.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a9mx1IVZzU&feature=related

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