"Stop Fossil Fuelosophy"

It is state government election time in NSW, and there is a scarcity of real political discussion about the energy, materials, and climate context of our future, all of which are what really keep our economic lives going. Politicians are putting forward policies which are designed to hide in shadows in a vacuum of context. My impression is that we are all still thinking and behaving in ways appropriate to three centuries of fossil fueled economic growth.  "Stop Fossil Foolosophy!" says one hand drawn activist sign. The problem is what do we think and plan for to replace fossil fuels in this age of decline?

Global industrial societies, and their political parties still pretend our civilization has a future of continued technological advance, economic expansion, and increased globalisation. This is known as a "myth of progress". It was due to our technology and science, but only in the sense that the past 300 year exuberence of civilization has required the energy of fossil fuels as a necessity, and has developed its technology specifically for,  the processes of fossil fuel finding and burning. Now we understand the down side, and the draw down, it is urgency time that we move on to better ideas.

Global warming or not, the decline is on

For the past few decades , their have been globally much less new high quality and accessible fossil fuel resources found. Particularly for oil. There is still more than 3-4 times the necessary fossil fuel reserves around to push us into civilization destroying global warming. Economies are declining because the cost of mining our remaining reserves, in terms of money, energy and environmental side effects, is becoming more expensive, and the rates of mining cannot keep up with the desired growth of our population and desired consumption. I am not certain as to how much the remaining reserves are economically recoverable. It follows that economic growth previously experienced by developed nations cannot be easily repeated by developing nations, without a major reduction of consumption in developed nations, by just the consideration of limiting global rates of resource usage. Developed nations have used their historic and geographic advantages and policies as a wealth pump. The wealth pump is running low, as it has drained undeveloped nations. Futher economic growth is becoming more difficult everywhere. We have a planet full of consuming and wasteful human beings.

My local state of NSW

In NSW, Australia (New South Wales) there is a cargo-cultism of policies that are supposed to encourage more economic growth, the main cause of our current problems, that assumes massive expensive expansion of airport facilities (Sydney's second airport), and major road systems (West-Connex tollway tunnel).  There is even some dribbles of funding promised for much lest costly public transport system projects, for instance a light rail proposal for Parramatta. As Sydney population expands westward,  large skyscraper developments  are planned in Parramatta and beyond. Sydney will need some extra public transport to move all those extra people without choking traffic jams. A choking traffic tunnel will not do. Meanwhile the permanent unemployment rates are creeping up, and redundancy and job losses increase.

Expensive wasteful projects of little future benefit

In Sydney there is a new rail link which is planned to be incompatible with the rest of the rail system. This is rumoured to ensure "privatisation" must occur, to allow a wealth pump to the private owners. The new link allows only for single deck electric trains, whereas the rest of the system uses double-deck trains. It is if some idiot bureaucrat has decided to implement an entirely new rail standard, different from everything else in the state. As a result, the trains on the new rail link cannot be used on the existing large system, and trains on the existing system cannot be used on the new link. A complex and time-wasting interchange system is required, which adds to the total cost, and defeats the purpose of having the rail link in the first place. The new link has a limiting tunnel, which should henceforth be called the "Liberal Tunnel of Love Money". At least users will get some additional walking exercise at transfer points, as an introduction to the final transport systems of our future. The profitability of the new rail link will depend on having enough economic growth producing more desparate commuters, just like that other "Liberal Money Tunnel" project, the Sydney cross city tunnel project, which was a financial flop.

Mismatched overgrowth to future limits

The inability to plan meaningful growth, by best utilizing what we already have, adds to the list of complexity and mis-match solutions which have decreasing and negative marginal returns. Failure to solve our problems of city scale adds to time waste and energy waste, and social frustration. Failed complexity is the nemesis of civilizations.

The physics of energy supply and distribution say that growth and progress imply ever increased resource consumption. When resource supply declines, there must be economic contraction.

As fossil fuel reserves deplete and the industrial world is forced to make do with the diffuse, intermittent, and expensive energy sources that are left, our relative prosperity will give way to something closer to the more stringent economic realities of other times, and only those technologies that can be maintained on a much less extensive resource base of energy and materials than the one we have at present can be expected to survive into the de-industrial future (Greer, 2008).

The possibility of gradual decline, common though it is as a historical phenomenon, is sufficiently unthinkable that it plays no role in meaningful planning for the future. As a result, the practical steps that would make the downside of Hubbert's peak less difficult, and ensure the preservation of many of the benefits of the recent past, are not even being considered, much less put into effect. (Greer 2013)

Hooked on Coal Growth

In NSW, so enamoured are we of a fossil fuel powered technological future, that our government has decided to allow aggressive mining under our water catchment areas, and cause the overlying wetlands to drain away. What advantages they saw in this is anyones guess, but it may have been boost regional flagging economies, keep some jobs for a few hundred people, shore up the local politician, and encourage foreign investment by raw material extraction corporations.  The lost wetlands are valued at negative dollars by politicians who think that we are better off without them.

Overproducing dirty coal

The net result of overproducing and doubling export coal quantities for another decade, in this age of global warming, is to produce falling commodity prices for coal. Some how the scam seems to be to get the money off investment banks, enjoy the proceeds, and continue the money feed for the operation while the mines loss money.  This cannot be good for the environment or the financial system in the long run. The external economic costs to society, for coal mining, are more than the market price for coal, let alone the local economic returns, and royalties to the government. We are losing in net terms with every additional shipment of coal overseas.

http://www.climateadvisers.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/2011-10-The-Social-Cost-of-Coal.pdf

Burning our bridges and cutting our water pipes

Somehow this was made to appear far more enticing to the NSW government than the preservation of our natural water supply ecosystems, which proves the members of the NSW government that pushed for this are ecological idiots fully deserving of future extinction of all their descendents. Water shortages can now be relieved by burning more coal to power a Desalination plant, which costs half a million dollars a day to keep it operational, even when not supplying water.

The wetlands and rivers system supply the Sydney Basin area were a neccessary resource for Sydney became a thriving prosperous city.  If decline does continue on to switch off our electricity grid,  Sydney will end up with a less sustainable water supply for the old river systems than before the arrival of european colonists.  I guess there won't be enough people around in the future to worry about this. A good predictor of this is there are not enough politicians around who worry about it now.

Fossil Fuel Decline Squeezes Economies

Meanwhile in parts of the globe with far more history than us, the effects of fossil fuel decline are already visible, but just not acknowledged as such. I do not have to look far for examples, because their are plenty of experts willing to publish and blog about the trends on internet. The European Union is one such system in a recent trend of economic decline. I do not recall reading any convincing account of why, but Ugo Bardi published this graph of EU energy consumption on his blog, as if it were all the proof that one needed to see. The statistics show a decline in inland energy consumption, down 9.1% from a peak in 2008, back to 1990 levels. The mix of energy supplies and economic ailments to individual EU nations is complex. The EU is a large economic block, and supposedly still trying to have economic growth, although this is slow enough compared to population growth, that it can be assumed to have stalled.

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/2995521/6614030/8-09022015-AP-EN.pdf/4f054a0a-7e59-439f-b184-1c1d05ea2f96 

Graphs always give a selective impression. No one can say how much the total decline is due, since 2006, to the economic effects of rising peak oil prices, or the finanicial shocks of 2008 (GFC), that were partly due to failure of economic growth, with a contribution from rising peak oil prices. The year 2009 was the dip point of most statistics. Subsequent recovery was temporary. The above energy consumption includes nuclear, coal and renewables. Total energy consumption is a good measure of total real economic activity. The trends in energy efficiency are not good enough to account for this.

At least the greenhouse gas emissions have been declining, somewhat in synchrony with energy consumption.

http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/greenhouse-gas-emission-trends-5/assessment-1

Now that the vertical axis is drawn to zero, imagine at this rate how many decades further emissions reduction will take to reach 20% of current. Various governments have quoted hand-waving targets of about 80% reduction by 2050. I do not expect to be still alive or be reasonably non-vegetable by then. Reaching such a emissions planned target so far into the future is more likely to be by luck, good and bad, than by clever planning.

Carbon Pricing or Luck will save us?

Emissions reduction is likely to be driven fastest by decreasing availability of oil, causing global economic change, and producing a reduction in all available fossil fuels and raw materials. Emissions reduction is extremely unlikely to be from a voluntery rapid conversion to renewable energy, given our total lack of global cooperation on reducing carbon emissions. Because of economic needs being always more than we have, and we have a healthy Jevons Paradox response, any renewable energy gains also tend to allow continued or further fossil fuel consumption, up to the affordable limit. This will tend to use up our fossil fuel resources faster. Only an increased cost of fossil fuels can slow our rate of consumption fast enough, and this requires a significant user pays carbon price. No one, especially Liberal free business marketeers, will fully appreciate this restriction on their "freedoms". No one likes being rationed for their own good, but scarcity makes necessary a rationing process. A carbon price works best confined to a state or nation, to redistribute people and resources to more sustainable parts of the economy. Otherwise the incumbancy of coal stifles out other economic possibilities.

No Sign of Peak Global Carbon Emissions Yet

The success of the EU in reducing carbon emissions, voluntary or otherwise, is overwhelmed by the growth of carbon emissions in China. Chinas coal use statistics are only now indicating that they might start to reverse their growth trend. Each year we still produce another global record of greenhouse gas emissions. In 2014 global emissions of carbon from fossil fuels and cement production,  E_FF , are expected to grow to 10.1 ± 0.6 GtC, an increase of 2.5%. This is a better estimator of global growth in economic activity than GDP.  Until E_FF is falling every year, until we are truely past a peak E_FF,  there is no real predictable upper limit to how many degrees of future global warming.  This will not happen until global coal energy use falls. Peak coal still seems to be at least 5 years away. Investors in coal mines are desperate to dig their coal up and sell it before then, no matter what else they destroy.

http://www.earth-syst-sci-data-discuss.net/7/521/2014/essdd-7-521-2014.html

The Great Australian Coal Disadvantage

As Australia is a major coal exporter, it stands a chance of slowing E_FF by decreasing export output, and might even give itself an income rise from an increased coal commodity price, as future projected increases in output far exceed projected demand. The objection that other exporters might increase production to compensate, is not a problem in the age of global economic decline. The coal will be safe if left underground. Most of our coal and its profits is taken by foreign corporations anyway. There is little difference for the australian economic benefit  if they dig it up here or anywhere else. Considering the external costs of coal mining, it is far better for Australia if the coal is mined somewhere else. Let some other nation become more "coal developed", if they are foolish enough. Let Australia become more versitile and resilient. By the time another country has warped its economy and environment up enough to match our missing exports, the game might be over. Use missing coal as a weapon against global warming, not as more cheap fuel to stoke the fires of hell.

Coal squeezing out renewable energy

In our static or declining energy supply,  a growth in one economic sector can only come at the expense of another. For none growing critical fuel resources like oil, increased consumption for one use, or by one nation must steal from another. Most of total energy use is needed just to keep up with the daily requirements of running our complex civilization, including parts replacement and throughput, without any considerations of additional growth. The sector demanding the biggest growth in energy use is still the mining sector, for reasons of global depletion and decreased accessibility of raw materials. Even maintaining the current energy consumption used by the mining industry, entails a trend of increased cost and a decrease in the amount of mined resource, and a decrease in the productivity of all other economic sectors. All of the renewable energy infrastructure requires mined materials, so it follows that with every further decline in energy supply, and increased cost, which are not met by renewable energy replacement, the ability of transition to renewable energy also declines, leading to a death spiral of global energy civilization.

All growth in the coal mining industry in Australia, steals money, subsidies, the talents and skills of people, investment money, and raw resources, and mind space in politicians, from the chances of a growing renewable energy industry.

Australias Great Neglected Advantage : Solar Energy

The challenge for our civilization is to beat the rate of reduction in carbon emissions that are sure to follow economic decline from rising fossil fuel energy costs. These are not yet fast enough to even begin to mitigate climate change.  The technological and scale of implementation cost curves for renewable energy have been making great progress, and still have scope for improvements, and investment in these is the only hopeful means of treating our civilizations energy and climate predicament. Rescue is not guaranteed, especially if we try to ignore it. Ignoring the great solar potential of Australia's location by the current governments is the historical lost opportunity of our century. We will likely never build the renewable energy supply to be the same as what the coal power grid does now.  The challenge is to build it better , and use it better, with less.

The challenge remains to use more of our remaining financial and material resources to accelarate a transition to a renewable energy society that is able to maintain its culture and technology, at reasonably low cost of complexity.

Old King Coal Politics : Power and Corruption

NSW still depends on old coal burning power stations for 85% of its electricity. Both Labor and Liberal parties have rejected a reaonsably practical 100% renewable energy legislation agenda put forward by the NSW Greens. Both Labor and Liberal parties are not yet talking about expanding our renewable energy targets. Both Labor and Liberal parties have allowed coal mining under water catchment areas to go on without comment. Both enabled Coal Seam Gas mining to happen over the place. The Labor party (from opposition) has finally stated it will stop CSG mining, but still no has comment on coal mining under water catchments. Their combined inadequate policy positions at this time of rapidly increasing energy and environmental challenges demands a solid "No" vote. The incredibly long history of "Big Coal" and its lobbying influence on sucessive governments has been well documented, and the recent ICAC findings of corruption for members of  Labor and Liberal-National Party is the tip of the sleazy coal-berg. Labor and LNP have been corrupted down to their coal seams.

Adaptation to decline

Since economic decline is inevitable, despite being never addressed directly by politicians, and made worse by expensive efforts at growth, it may be much better to adapt our behaviours and plans to having less, rather than wasting our declining resources. Global warming is more "end game"  each day that we fail to bring about sensible economic decline.

That is we need to adapt to LESS,  Less Energy, Stuff, and Stimulation ( Michael Greer 2013).

Economic decline requires adjustment of social values, more sharing of work, education and health, while at the same time reducing the complexity, cost, and social inequity of services.  Health and education services need to reduce their complexity and energy consumption, instead of becoming less affordable, and servicing fewer people. More public transport options rather than expensive monuments to the decline of the personal car. Jobs need to be local and a greater proportion of people employed in growing food for local self-sufficiency.  Education curriculum need to reflect tomorrow's Less world with a greater cultural, literature and social negotiating emphasis, plus practical skills for local crafts, rather than narrow technological specialization.

Organizing around less fossil fuel use has been around before. Obviously our ancestors survived it. Up to recently we have been replacing people jobs with automated machine and fossil fuel energy appliances.  It is time to start replacing fossil fuel consuming machines with more people jobs. Every expensive energy using machine turned off allows another person to be employed, and improves our "carbon emissions efficiency".

Use Prefererential Voting to vote Green

This article is not reviewed by, or approved of by any members of the Greens Party, and I am only putting forth my own information gathering and opinions here. I am a current member of the Greens Party, but I am not a candidate for any seat or position. Its policies are all available online and clearly laid out. I have not used or quoted greens policies here, unless specifically mentioned.

The Greens party wishes to maximise the political effect of its valued voters, and so recommends that all squares on the green paper (lower house) be numbered, with a number 1 to the Greens candidate, and preferences distributed thereafter according to the voters own personal choice or by using the greens how to vote recommendation. 

For this large white paper, to make it easy to use a parties standard preference distribution, vote number 1 above the line, to allow preferences to be done according to whatever the Greens final negotiated preferences will be. There are preference negotiations that happen with other parties, including Labor, that go on to set this. Every party or candidate does it. Otherwise, all boxes below the line need to be filled, for lots of people that few people have any idea about at all.

Thus it is still possible to let your vote pass to the alternative candidate, should a Greens candidate fail to get the requisite number of votes. The Labor party historically tends to be recommended for greens preferences, although not unconditionally, or in all cases.  Quite a few Greens members were once members of the Labor Party but left rather dis-heartened.

The Labor party still has  some relative policy overlaps with the Greens.  Labor has some environmental sub-groups (LEAN) but it is never likely to place Ecological Economics and environmental understanding in importance above jobs for the centre of its policy making, because of its voter base. Labor should be trying harder than it is now, when in opposition.  Setting members of LNP and Labor seem to use so much embedding and smooching strategies, and throw so much money into electorates to maintain seats, that they seem to have forgotten why they needed to have political power in the first place, except to vote along party lines as their party bosses recommend.

Recently these books have been helpful and meaningful for me:-

Greer, John Michael - 

(2008). The Long Descent: A User's Guide to the End of the Industrial Age. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society.

(2013), NOT THE FUTURE WE ORDERED : Peak Oil, Psychology, and the Myth of Progress. KARNAC