Hi, I wonder if your guest could give some clues as to how we can move toward a sustainable, locally driven agrarian economy. It seems there were many years of human life on Earth that were not dominated by our “taker” culture.

I would love to help work toward that.

PS My last name rhymes with Doctor Berg.

The present economy runs parallel with its destruction to the earth, so as the economy slows, production should slow and there should be less impact. We are at the point where we can recognize this and find a way to boost the economy in a sustainable manner.

I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Gilding. I see that the economy/society is greatly influenced by business and in order to affect the type of change that Mr. Gilding is suggesting there needs to be an impetus from the business sector, which, in turn, will influence society. (One might argue that consumption will influence business…)

How do we influence the former wealth makers (oil, financial sector, automobile, large consumer product companies) to accept this period of the great disruption and influence their business practices? This is not a question of regulation which will just slow the degradation of natural resources, but more a question of a dynamic shift in how companies seek profits. Mustn’t these companies be on board to have rapid change and bring back the equilibrium that we so badly need?

it’s interesting.

We’re blowing our economy, and environment away.

The republicians in our country are now guilty of “fiddling” while Rome burns. (sitting there, saying , ‘no,no,no’

We need to actively pursue a new “new deal” INCLUDING MASSIVE (not the currently approved stimulus) with a REAL works project administration that can provide REAL job retraining, and GROWTH (even in the cities) in the country.
I have a 10 point plan to rebuild the country check my blog

Our economy has been and is still based on progressive expansion. That is fine as long as resources and population aren’t finite, which they obviously are. How can we change this?

Environmentalists are Clueless (pressing Buttons, here)

Daaaa Moment….

If we had 500 million people on the planet, there would not be any environmental problem. When we have 12 billion people, everything will stink.

Environment is “the” function of population growth. But yet less than 1% of the Environmentalists and the related conversation barely touches on that.

All countries with over 6 kids per woman (fertility rate) are in internal or external wars for resources.

Ronald Reagan’s Right Wing garbage
Population Control = Abortion = We all go to Hell
formula is gone.

Population Growth is the main source of the problem.

Nigeria has more people than Russia.

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Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009.

Hi Tom – we love your show in Canada !

I agree with Paul Gilding’s suggestion about the current economic crisis as
being “The Great Disruption” of our quality
of life and never ending growth.

We should keep in mind that mankind’s life on earth has always been fragile
and that there have been numerous
challenges to our comfortable existence. The only difference is that TODAY
we have more tools (and one would think
more intelligence) to make the appropriate changes before we all slide into
the abyss.

Anthony from Montreal, Canada.

Hi
I remember being a little girl and going home to Egypt on vacation in the early 80’s. There were no plastic grocery bags, and precious little packaging on anything. So much of the culture then was built around reducing, reusing and recycling. It is very ironic that all that has changed and Egypt and other developing countries are very proud of their rejection of their green mentality as ‘old-fashioned’ and moved towards a more consumerist lifestyle seen as ‘modern’.

Another point….It does not help the world that the leading military and economic powerhouse (USA) did not even use the words “global warming”; instead choosing to use the words “climate change” as a way to minimize the seriousness of our current situation. Just a case of pure denial which has served nobody well. Republican or Democrat all citizens will be affected.

Hiya Tom- What does your guest think about the economics, social acceptance and legalities (red tape) for Americans to rapidly change the burial business to eco-friendly burials that don’t use up land forever like a cemetery? Eco-burials do not involve tombs, granite markers or unnecessary embalming and the land can be reused for another burial after several years. It gained popularity 20 years ago in the UK where land is even more premium.

I wrote a business plan for American options for eco-burials back in 2003 while in grad school and found it too much of an uphill climb to start-up. Now I sell t-shirts, perhaps with a goal of an eco-friendly burial business as a career later.

Kevin Krueger, Boston, Mass

Decreased energy use, caring for the climate, building families & community – all very good. But what about the elephant in the room: human population. Without population management (I won’t say “control”)there is no long-term prospect of sustainability.

Why is this component of the problem not mentioned more often?

Would your guests care to comment?

Nick Whitmer
Ithaca, New York

Ouch- your caller Bill stopped buying T-shirts!! We use American made and organic shirts at SupahFans as much as possible. As my previous comment said I actually started SupahFans Streetwear with a long term goal of creating a voice for sustainable local commerce (Main Streets or New England versus malls), and then perhaps a future career in eco-burials. Although I certainly sympathesize with Bill’s opinions on over-consumption.
Kevin
SupahFans.com

This is all a “so what”! B.F. Skinner wrote about this problem in 1971. It was in a book called “Beyond Freedom and Dignity”. It is too bad that our generation has been so “self interested” that it is leaving the world worse than our parents gave to us.

In a model where resources are unlimited, regulated capitalism works nicely and may even be the most desirable system.
The problem is that resources ARE limited while there is a desire to maintain quality of life for present and future generations.
The nature of capitalism is that it requires crisis in order to function properly.
For instance, people want a resource, oil:
Supply and demand dictate that supply will ramp up to meet demand, eventually exceeding it; then oversupply reduces price, and people can even better afford oil; Supply ramps up further to meet the increased demand; the cycle repeats.
This system ensures that the resource, oil, will be used up as quickly as possible, and the cycle is not curbed until supply can no longer meet demand due to forced scarcity.
This model is the same for all resources, including: wood, water, extracted resources, food, etc…
CAPITALISM ENSURES A RACE TO SCARCITY FOR EVERYTHING!
Despite millennia of human history, only a few recent generations of man has managed to consume as much as 70% of the world’s easily recoverable resources, resources being defined as all that which is recovered for use by man.
CAPITALISM ENSURES A RACE TO CRISIS BEFORE PROBLEMS CAN BE SOLVED!
Too much pollution? Eventually Capitalism will ensure that excessive pollution is addressed… but not until it is fully acknowledged as already a severe problem.
Global climate change? Sure, Capitalism force a change to better behavior, but not until the problem reaches crisis level.
Enron? Bad toys from China? Bad pet food? Mortgage-backed securities? Tech bubbles? Capitalism has self-regulating mechanisms which will see to it that all of these problems are addressed… but not until each demonstrates that it has reached a crisis level.
This incredibly selfish wastefulness by a few generations of humanity is the direct result of the success of capitalist economies.
Success, yes… but only a few generations reap the rewards of success at the expense of all future generations.
Capitalism has many virtues, not the least of which is a drive towards progress and innovation, but the instinct for preservation of the species will soon have to be weighed against certain types of human “progress.”
Unless man’s intention is that there be no regard for the future of humanity and much of creation, then Capitalism, regulated or not, is a system unsuited to the goal of maintaining quality of life for present and future generations.

It is a race towards (and thus always ensures) scarcity and crisis.
Capitalism may be a detrimental system, but let me be clear: I’ve certainly enjoyed it! I’ve lived my 45 years in perhaps Capitalism’s great golden era, in one of the wealthiest countries on earth in the ultimate consumer society… WE USED IT ALL, MAN… WITHOUT A CARE!!!
Not a bad time and place to live… I’ve partied my ass off, I’ve traveled, and I burned green like there was no tomorrow. If Capitalism had to exist, I’m certainly glad I got to be in the right place at the peak.
If not Capitalism, then what?
I cannot offer an alternative for Capitalism; I’ve only ever stated my case as to the failings of the system.
I can only offer the obvious: the alternative system would somehow have to manage resource use for sustainability of both the resource and the environment… short of that we lose an ultimate goal.
I hate to say it and I don’t condone it, but a workable system would likely have to be somewhat totalitarian. Resources would have to be rationed, population controlled, population centers carefully managed to optimize density and efficiency, land use allocated by plan, etc.
China has some answers as to how some of this might work, and so far as my knowledge goes, it’s not that pretty.
A system with such restrictions would make it tough for even limited Capitalism to work to much effect… the best one could hope might be to have some degree of guaranteed egalitarianism.
I’m definitely not Marxist, but Marxism sounds like it comes closest to something that might succeed at the goals of sustainability… a depressing thought, as I can’t see how humanity can evade such a system in the long run.

think world-sized Milgrim Experiment.

Lilya is correct. Population growth is the primary problem. Further, the economic model of a system totally dependent on “growth” versus collapse – ignoring the fact that resources are finite – is utterly unsustainable. Was it Galbraith who said “the problem with things that can’t go on is that they don’t…?” What is required is a new paradigm that emphasizes equilibrium, economically, demographically, etc. Sadly, the religious manias that stress being fruitful and multiplying will probably preclude a wiser course, resulting ultimately in collapse. That’s the funny thing about equilibrium. We can impose it on ourselves volutarily or have it imposed upon us by harsh reality. Either way, it will be achieved. And always remember, Soylent Green is people…

I hear that Americans are x% of the world population but consume y% of the resources.

I am wondering how that equation works out in economic terms. The top 10% of US population consume how much of US resources? I look at all the new 5 and 8 thousand square foot houses in my town, all the trips to Aspen and Miami, etc. How much of our footprint can be reduced by the rich themselves?

Part of the solution lies in making internal those costs that are currently external, and paid for by taxpayers.
Paul Hawken and Amory Lovins have the right idea when they talk about Natural Capitalism: http://www.natcap.org/

I came to the program late and wondered if anyone raised the issue of the way war and preparations for war contribute to global warming. According to Rep.Israel, congressman from NY, the Defense Department uses 97%of all government fuel consumption. An F-16 can burn 23 gallons of fuel a minute. A Stryker combat vehicle in Iraq gets 5-10 miles per gallon; an Abrams tank, less than that. We sent 250 cruise missiles into Baghdad during operation “shock and awe.” How much CO2 did they liberate, to say nothing of the lives lost, the children traumatized and the other kinds of environmental destruction they caused? Can we have sustainability without peace? I don’t think so.

Just to add to the above, internalizing costs would imply modifying the current economic models – it doesn’t have to result in some totalitarian system.

Population is another issue, but those who talk about population ignore one crucial aspect: per capita resource consumption. One average American or West European may easily consume resources equivalent to the resources consumed by 10 Chinese, or 50 Africans (just as an example – please don’t quote these numbers). So we need to consider per capita consumption along with population, and only mentioning the latter is misleading.

The reality is that we have finite resources on planet earth, and capitalism has to acknowledge and incorporate that sooner or later, instead of blithely ignoring it. How we go about accomplishing that is the challenge of this century.

Good God, what hypocrisy! Tom Friedman, who lives in an 11,000 sq. ft. house on a 7-acre lot worth $9 million, should lecture me, in my modest two-family house, on profligacy and waste? Friedman, who married into a real-estate family worth billions, should tell me my lifestyle isn’t sustainable?

Now Gilding & Romm lecture us on what “real” happiness is. And because most of us benighted folk don’t get it, the change will have to be forced on us because we’d never do it ourselves. (And, amazingly, most of the posters on this forum are demanding this totalitarian state.) But the world will be better off. It’ll be for your own good, honest. Sure, some people will get hurt (not the Friedmans, Gildings, or Romms of the world, of course) but you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette, right?

Re: Gilding & Romm’s point that we’ve been conditioned to wastefulness and to buy things we don’t need — why buy one of Friedman’s, or their books? What is the value of those millions of books lecturing us about consumerism, environmentalism, and sustainability versus the trees destroyed to print them? Nevermind — once the benevolent dictator comes, these inconsistencies will be swept away and he’ll show us the way to true happiness.

You want to read a book? Try Animal Farm, by Orwell. Get it before Gilding & Romm and their ilk burn it.

It matters little how much scientific evidence Paul Gilding and his ilk pile up in support of their diagnosis of impending ecological collapse. No amount of science will deny history’s tragically clear verdict on what comes of implementing their statist prescriptions. Gilding’s basic premise is that with enough effort and will, governments can rapidly and effectively alter human nature and market traditions. We have seen the politics of Gilding and Greenpeace before: Jacobism in 18c France and Bolshevism in 20c Russia. There is no evidence that pursuing Gilding’s prescription of rapid government action to reform our all-to-human ways will lead anywhere other than to a new Napoleon or Stalin.

Gilding’s inadvertant but very real political message is this: “You Asians are just going to have to stay poor.”

Even that beloved sage of present-day American intellectuals, Thomas Jefferson, saw that scientific evidence is no justification for foolhardy moralistic political action:

“He who made us would have been a pitiful bungler, if he had made the rules of our moral conduct a matter of science. … State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.” – Jefferson

Global Environmental Bolshevism will no more stem rising Asia than it will overturn the verities of Adam Smith.

The future indeed looks a little grim right now, but not for the reasons touted by Gilding. Think France for the thirty years after the Bastille or Russia for the thirty years after the October Revolution. Both tragic periods were initiated largely by well-intentioned educated activists who confidently imagined they could rapidly remake Edmond Burke’s metaphorical clock:

“An ignorant man, who is not fool enough to meddle with his clock, is however sufficiently confident to think he can safely take to pieces, and put together at his pleasure, a moral machine of another guise, importance, and complexity, composed of far other wheels, and springs, and balances, and counteracting and co-operating powers…. Their delusive good intention is no excuse for their presumption.” – Burke

I pray that Anglo-American traditions prevail over the so-called “adults of the world” that want to set the rest of us morally straight with respect to “Father Greed and Mother Nature”. If one really wants a picture of the world Gilding et al would have us enter, read Pasternak’s “Dr. Zhivago”. The crisis of the First World War turned out not to be the opportunistic “Great Disruption” the Russian intellectuals hoped it would be.

Actually, Thomas, before I would read anything by Friedman I think I would read a Harlequin Romance or the Columbus White Pages.

Great show, couldn’t agree more.
The transdisciplinary field of Ecological Economics has been preaching along these lines for years.
The neoclassical economic notion of progress will ultimately be our demise. A clear distinction between growth (quantitative) and development (qualitative improvement of the quality of life), and acknowledging the economy is ingrained within the environmental system, are critical ways of thought for future economists.
A transdisciplinary approach is essential.
Herman Daly, Robert Costanza, David Orr would be great future guest.
Thanks for the show

Environment and Overweight Luggage at the Airport

When you have heavy luggage that is over the limit, the airline charges you a arm & a leg right? Justified!!!

But we flew over 12000 armoured vehicles (these are made of iron and enorfrigimously heavy) from one continent to another (Iraq) one accross oceans with not one single environmental question asked.

“Why” did we do that (not the flying alone) – the Invasion!!!

The points of view espoused in the discussion appear logical and viable with one caveat. The logical first step with which to raise the living standards of the masses is to remove the obscene wealth from the obscenely wealthy and redistribute it. The logical second step is to engineer laws, with teeth, that prevent the obscene accumulation of wealth by the obscenely greedy. Don’t like those ideas then enjoy the ride for the next 10-20 years and watch the collapse into world wide anarchy. Fortunately I have lived the majority of my life so it will likely matter but little to me. Unfortunately there are far more people much younger than me aboard spaceship Earth to whom it will matter immensely.

As one of the callers correctly pointed out human overpopulation is the primary problem. Unless we can find a way to humanely stabilize (and eventually reverse) human population levels, we don’t have a hope in hell of achieving anything in the way of sustainability.

I discussed these problem on my article, A new world order 2003, posted on my blog. The idea of ever expanding economy, consumerism, commercialism is all counter to the future of the humanity, the world. A profit based economy looking for more consumers, and more profits is counter intutive. We are running out of land, out of water and even out of fish in the ocean. Population control, lower standard of living for all but a few, shorter life spans, euthenasia, selective breedings, are all in the near future and need to be discussed and faced, we can go in to the future blind and we will still get there, lets get to the point.

People, the 800 pound Gorilla sitting in the middle of the room is Human Population. We need not modify our luxuriant lifestyles at all if we allow the number of people to dwindle to 10% of what it currently is. The biggest and most obvious problem is excessive human fertility. Why does this topic consistantly get such little attention? I’m not talking about a variable trend here people. The real-numbers reveal the devestating truth in what lies behind human suffering. TOO MANY OF US! WAKE UP EARTHLINGS!

Fred, what do you suggest? Maybe you can start with foregoing of any vaccines and shots when your baby is born. How about not dialing 911 when there’s a medical emergency? No coronary bypass surgery if there’s a health risk – just let people die of heart attack as it used to be years ago.

Statistic show that population growth rate stabilizes and plateaus once countries achieve a certain standard of living, as is the case with USA, and some countries in Europe having negative rate of population growth.

Population is a factor, but to talk about population without per capita consumption is meaningless and a defense of status quo in “first world” countries.

Great idea, Fred. Let’s start with you. Make a list of the 10% of your family members you’d like to see enter this brave new world you’re positing, and we’ll cull the remaining 90%. Or, sorry, in your words, we’ll “dwindle” them down. I’m guessing you’ll be with the 10%.

Mark S. who posted earlier, in response to the only on-air comment about a burgeoning population, is, once again, exactly right. He and I have agreed on this issue before in this same forum. Furthermore, the guests on this segment today are correct as far as they go, but they just don’t go far enough. This downturn and this particular recovery will be robust enough to turn the politicians’ attention away from the environmental problems we face–for now. And yes it is true that some areas of the economy will even see boom times … green power, and so forth. But this is not the depression that will greatly change anything. It’s the NEXT depression that we need to worry about. I wrote in my novel–describing the setting and the geopolitical environment in which the story takes place–as “the depression from which the U.S. never recovers.”

The coming depression–which will appear in only half the time it took to generate the great Depression of roughly 70 years ago–will occur in the second half of the 21st century, and it–not this one–will be the “tide going out” that once and for all, “lowers all boats.”

Nine billion. That’s the number to remember. We’re at 6.5 billion humans on the planet right now. At nine billion we will have harvested all the plants (for food) and cut down a significan enough number of trees (for shelter) to critically deplete the very Oxygen we breathe. Even the oceans’ plankton will disappear leading to mass extinction of species both in the oceans and on land as well.

Overpopulation will be irreversible … religion will deny that to “be fruitful and multiply” as God’s command could possibly be in error. This is definitely not a species that is destined to succeed the way the dinosaurs did with a hundred and fifty million years of longevity. The combination of an overarching drive to procreate AND a superior brain that vanquishes all rivals and predators is evolution’s great mistake and one that Homo sapiens will put to the ultimate test.

Fred is right about population control, and at some point human population growth and consumption will be curbed. The question is by what means?

Will it be through self-regulation, government restrictions (ala China), warfare, or starvation?

Because it will not increase indefinitely, and I doubt we’ll be colonizing Mars anytime soon. Unfortunately, history and human nature points to the last two options.

To quote the late, great Kurt Vonnegut, on what we don’t want to have to say at some time in the future:

“We could have saved it, but we were too doggone cheap.”

It is unortunate that a good journalist like Tom Ashbrook can’t bring himself to ask any real questions when doomsday prophets come on his show. Back in 2005, a journalist (no surprise) was allowed to talk a full 50 minutes on “the end of oil” without any callers to question him, and then Ashbrook acted like a nice uncle and lobbed softballs for the doomsdayer to smack one after another.

In fact, Ashbrook started that show with “Don’t expect technology to solve the energy problem.” Just as with today’s show, if you take science off the table, then of course the future looks bleaker.

This hour represents fluff journalism at its worse. Can Ashbrook at least attempt to do his job as a critical thinker next time?

Lazy.

I noticed that most of the references to Tom Friedman talked about how “mainstream” he is and what a “wide-eyed environmentalist” he’s not. I find this to be a misreading of the New York Times columnist, who has over the last few years embraced the green movement with as much passion as he devoted to supporting the invasion of Iraq back about six years ago. I think Friedman is an egotistical opportunist who has always jumped on bandwagons rather than doing his own original thinking, but in this case, he is at least on the right bandwagon. Also, to the commenter who criticized his giant house, I’m pretty sure Friedman has transformed his own personal life since getting eco-religion, so that may not be a legitimate bone of contention. Anyway, great show, very important issue, and we all need to be focused on this issue and not get distracted by the economy (it’s tough I know).

Thomas Friedman was not a strong advocate for invading Iraq; he supported it, barely and with reservations, and FWIW, reported that his wife was against it. I believe he did so partly out of a concern for the lack of freedom in the Arab world, but apparently understood the risks, and I would never call him a neocon.

To throw another topic into the mix, it occurred to me that the obesity epidemic is another example of how our consumer lifestyle is literally making us sick.

This sounds a lot like the idea of the Singularity with a different name.

Everything is growing exponentially; the population, food demands, energy demands, and technology. If you remember your high school algebra all exponential growth eventually hits an asymptote and shoot up to infinity.

What happens when we reach that asymptote? It’s happening right now. We just don’t know.

It is the exact opposite of an idea like The Singularity (on that show, I thought Ashbrook asked Kurzweil good questions). Even the physicist said nothing about technology, and for some reason he says we are all doomed around 2020 or 2025.

Journalists like Friedman and even Ashbrook are all over the map on these issues. They discuss the promise of new technology in one column or on one show, and then turn right around and pretend it doesn’t exist a month later.

He doesn’t have to grill his guests, but a serious question on this type of show would be nice.

We are living on this planet as if we had another one to go to. ~ Dr. Paul Connett

One of the most powerful quotes there is – this program sums it up perfectly!

I never cease to be amazed that whenever there is a discussion of sustainability, the so-called experts and the moderator never broach the topic of expanding world population. Sometime just before 1900, the earth’s human population finally reached a billion, by the early 1960s, it reached 3 billion. in the late 1990s, it reached 6 billion. There are more people currently alive than have died throughout history. This is not sustainable and no amount of curbing consumption will make this sustainable. Addres the root problem: too many people competing for space on a world with a fixed size.

“We have met the enemy and he is us”
–– Walt Kelly

millard-fillmore writes: “Population is another issue, but those who talk about population ignore one crucial aspect: per capita resource consumption. One average American or West European may easily consume resources equivalent to the resources consumed by 10 Chinese, or 50 Africans (just as an example – please don’t quote these numbers). So we need to consider per capita consumption along with population, and only mentioning the latter is misleading.”

No, millard, it is not ‘another issue’. It is THE issue. First, I don’t want to live like an African and there’s no reason I should. With many fewer people, we don’t have to. That’s not to say there’s no waste (everything from crowded highways that could be replaced by faster mass transit to styrofoam fast food containers that are used for 20 seconds before they’re thrown out) but no amount of efficiency or greenness will save us when people in Africa and the rest of the third world still think it’s normal to have 10 children and feel it’s unfair that they all can’t live like Americans.

Eventually, population control will be reached, through war, disease and starvation or through population control and the more rational use of resources. Sadly, it looks like the former is being chosen by our aggregate decisions.

I’m sick and tired of listening to ace academics and pop pundits pontificating outward at the rest of us down here in the real world regarding what they deem to be the correct assessment of the catastrophic madness that is global climate change. Listen up you not funny bloggers. Here, here you silly sensationalist columnists. Back off with the cute metaphors. For the guru is in the mirror. And he/she is you, is me, is we, is us. Yes, and the winner is. Human population growth. Elementary, my dear Homo sapiens. Elementary.

The point being missed by our political leaders is that there IS NO PLAN that will bring us back to the days of unsustainable hyper-consumption based on massive consumer debt and fantasy ‘profit’ off of tricky ‘financial instruments’.

Nor should there be.

Obama and crew (and Bush and crew before him) are measuring economic ‘recovery’ against an economic standard that was never sustainable in the first place.

They seem to be tyring to ‘recover’ us back to that unsustainable system rather than insist on a NEW sustainable system

I have done my part by not having any children; however, trying to curb population growth is the ultimate existential task. Your fighting evolution. Which ever combination of genes and cultural habits lead to higher relative breeding rates will increase in frequency over time compared to those that have lower rates. Just look at the violent responses from those who don’t want to here about the population problem. Look at world migration patterns from high birth rate countries to low birth rate countries. You can see the result of voluntary low birth rates right there.

I also took particular note that neither of Tom’s guests addressed the population issue the caller raised. They just stuck to their talking points. Not a lot of intellectual honesty there, but then people would be less willing to listen to their more culturally acceptable messages if they dealt honestly with the limits to human population size.

We are unlikely to see a change in our understanding of physics – (the first and second laws of thermal dynamics), chemistry or biology. Contrary to Julian Simon, we will not be making copper out of other metals.

At a seminar at the University of Maryland, the evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins was asked about the environmental crisis. To paraphrase his response: There is no environmental crisis. Evolution favors maximizing short-term advantage, which is why 99% of all the species that have ever existed have gone extinct. Human beings have evolved in this milieu and will continue to proliferate until they have exhausted some resource that is critical to their existence or produced some pollutant that is inamicable to their existence and then either become extinct or very rare.

I would say the data to date are proving him right.

Kennith Boulding made the observation that if the only thing that controlled human population growth was misery, than the population would grow until it was miserable enough to stop growing. As the news reminds us, human beings continue to breed under the most miserable conditions.

One wonders what Rita bases her claim that we are not near the end of oil? What are her estimates of future use (growth in use)? What are her estimates of oil reserves and oil yet to be discovered. If she has not done this herself, then what sources does she rely on?

There is a methodology that was developed by Hubbard in the 1950’s that predicted peak oil in the United States within 3 years. At the time he made his prediction in the 1950’s the policy makers ignored him. The data show he was right! These methods have been used for the world and predict that if we aren’t at “peak oil” we are with in a few years of it unless the world economy continues its collapse.

People have warned that we are running out of oil since 1870. President Carter warned us in 1979 that the oil would be gone by the 1990s. Instead, reserves increased 50% by 2000.

There is a ton of oil out there, and as the price increases, oil companies start going deep offshore and use oil from tar sands.

The current peak oil alarmists have been saying we are at a peak since 1995. 15 years later, and it is again “just around the corner.”

These guys are amature alarmists, though. Obama’s science advisors have recently said California might not survive in several decades and that 1 billion peole may still die by 2020 due to global warming.

People get paid big bucks and get promotions for being an alarmist. That is one reason Tom Ashbrook had them on the air and didn’t ask anything critical. People love these alarmist shows, and it boosts ratings.

Both transparent and shameless.

I’m certainly no genius, but have known for decades, just by watching the explosion of housing growth between San Diego and San Francisco, that none of this could be sustained, economically or environmentally. The “gluttony party” actually lasted longer than I expected it would or could.

I am glad that many smart people are as concerned about the Great Disruption (as they aptly call it) as I am.

Here are a few suggestions. Those of us who have enough should stop consuming anything but edible, sustainable goods. The wealthiest among us should be taxed more to give the poorest better education and healthcare. Contraception should be free and available to everyone who wants it. Fertility treatment should have better regulation (to avoid more octuplets.) Land, fresh water, fresh air, and animal and plant species should be treated with the utmost of respect and care. Of course, our financial system must also be overhauled, regulated and made to reward sustainability rather than greed.

Much easier said than done, but do it we must!

You might be interested in visiting the online community WiserEarth (www.wiserearth.org) founded by Paul Hawken (mentioned above in comments) and based on the insights of his most recent book ‘Blessed Unrest’. Its a lively community of 20,000 members with lots of resources relating to sustainability.

Of course Paul Gilding is not the only person saying these things – there is Richard Heinberg (“Peak Everything”) and many others. Indeed I feel we are in for a major crisis that most people have never envisioned. We who think that way just hope we will come out of it with a decent society, despite a large change in life style that is foreign to all of us in the first world, and a decline in material standard of living for all.

Sadly, Anthony Arrott (March 11th, 2009 at 10:34 am EDT) and Rita (March 11th, 2009 at 4:27 pm EDT) are apparently the only two commentors who are offering any sort of “pushback” (one of Tom Ashbrook’s favorite words) to the extreme eco-apocalypticism that was the sum and substance of this program.

I listened carefully, via podcast, to the entire program. I was impressed at the way both of them have substituted alarmist rhetoric for actual scientific statements regarding the climate. They might have acknowledged (or at least Tom Ashbrook might have brought up) that according the University of Alabama and the UK’s Hadley Centre, there has been no global warming since 1998, and in fact there are many indications of cooling. This while levels of atmospheric CO2 have continued to rise steadily.

The program might have brought up the fact that in the last thirty years, there has been virtually no net change in the amount of global ice coverage, when both the Arctic and the Antarctic are taken account of. And that the polar bears are not in danger, but are increasing their numbers.

The program might have pointed out that the winter of 2008-2009 has been unusually cold, not only in the United States but in Europe and Russia, and that the recent (March 2) Washington D.C. mass protest against carbon emissions was snowed out and chilled out.

It might have been pointed out that even many climatologists who believe the cataclysmic predictions about carbon-induced global warming are now saying that we may be in for a decade or two of cooling (which, they very quickly add in order to preserve their bona fides with the alarmist consensus, will be followed by a rapid and dangerous warming period).

Ashbrook might have challenged Joe Romm’s ridiculous assertions about the extreme levels of warming and ocean rising we should expect in the absence of an 80% reduction in carbon emissions—assertions that utterly fly in the face of the allegedly authoritative IPCC report. I often wonder why alarmists like Romm feel free to exaggerate in the wildest way the actual predictions of the IPCC, which are much more modest.

Ashbrook might also have called attention to the thoroughly discredited fraud that is Michael Mann’s infamous “hockey stick graph”—a notorious icon, ultimately rejected (at least temporarily) by the IPCC, that utterly distorts the history of climate variation for the last thousand years, but which has proven to be useful in spreading apocalyptic fear, and so was rehabilitated in 2008 by Mann and his “hockey team.”

Ashbrook might have pointed out that the dire warnings that the full melting of passages to the Arctic ice cap (issued loudly each year, and especially loudly in 2007 and 2008) have failed to materialize. He might have pointed out, that contrary to Gilding’s assertion, there is no scientific proof—only conjecture—about the relationship between alleged recent global warming (remember that according to the best actual date there has been no unambiguous global warming trend for ten years) and the recent spate of fires in Australia.

Ashbrook appears utterly hypnotized by the alarmist claims, and utterly impotent to offer any sort of challenge or balance. Whether this is a result of his own ignorance or the overwhelming demands of his audience to have their apocalyptic beliefs reinforced, is the only real question at issue.

Given the extreme group-think, echo-chamber nature of the comments posted about this program, I tend to believe that if Ashbrook WERE to present any kind of genuine push-back to eco-alarmism, the majority of listeners would accuse him of being a traitor to mankind and the planet and they would ask for his head on a platter. Very few individuals have anything like the courage needed to stand up to the vitriol that was launched, say, against George Will for daring, in one of his recent editorials, to make a few entirely prosaic and demonstrably factual comments about global warming and the global warming scare machine.

Either way, when it comes to the global warming issue, On Point has come to resemble nothing so much as Art Bell’s late night AM radio program in which Art would entertain the fears of his listeners with all sorts of pseudoscientific blather from guests who thought they had some mystical-scientific window on the future. As with Bell, Ashbrook’s audience appears to be entirely pre-primed to believe uncritically or take with utmost seriousness whatever these guests say. Obviously they WANT to believe, and neither Bell nor Ashbrook have much interest in thwarting this will to believe.

Ashbrook’s On Point has been for about five years (and I say this with total honesty) the single most informative and thought-provoking podcast to which I regularly listen (and I listen to many of them, being a devoted distance runner).

I sincerely hope that both host and producer will take these comments to heart.

Ken Smith

Mike wrote:
“It is THE issue. First, I don’t want to live like an African and there’s no reason I should.”

No one is asking you to live like an African, but the fact is we Americans hog the most and disproportionate resources of any country in the world, and we are also the most wasteful. It’s our systemic lifestyle that is unsustainable. Europe, while still hogging resources, is at a lower level than America, and I doubt that you can make a case that Europeans are living a life of misery, or that their standard of living is below some acceptable level and not desirable.

“With many fewer people, we don’t have to. “

Why don’t you start with yourself and your near and dear ones? The resources freed up will sustain 10 times the human beings eliminated in another country, or 5 times that number to live with a higher standard of living. So, the resources used by you will enable 5-10 people in Africa to live comfortably. Surely, that’s the ethical and commendable thing to do.

“That’s not to say there’s no waste (everything from crowded highways that could be replaced by faster mass transit to styrofoam fast food containers that are used for 20 seconds before they’re thrown out) but no amount of efficiency or greenness will save us when people in Africa and the rest of the third world still think it’s normal to have 10 children and feel it’s unfair that they all can’t live like Americans.”

You are not paying attention. Growth rates in countries plateau once they achieve a certain level of standard of living as well as pull most of their population out of poverty. The reason poor people have more kids is to survive. Once survival is not an issue, families don’t have more than 1-2 kids.

This population issue seems to me to arise from guilty conscience from consuming more than our fair share of resources in “first world” countries and feeling threatened when other “third world” countries start to imitate our extravagant and wasteful lifestyles. So, instead of looking in the mirror, we point fingers at others (“Oh, those people in Africa having 5 kids are to blame while I use my car to travel two blocks to return that DVD.”)

As I said before, if you think overpopulation is an issue, be a part of the solution by starting with eliminating yourself. After all, as Gandhi said, one must start the change with oneself.

[...] By noon yesterday, I had talked to three people that were citing this On Point program. Here’s the link. [...]

Mike, by the way, did you check out the Natural Capitalism link I posted above? You won’t hear Paul Hawken or Amory Lovins talking about lowering our standards of living to the level of poor African countries.

Ken Smith wrote: “… according the University of Alabama and the UK’s Hadley Centre, there has been no global warming since 1998, and in fact there are many indications of cooling.”

That’s a flat-out lie.

Like the rest of your comment, it is nothing but rote regurgitation of the fake, phony, scripted, pseudo-scientific denialist rubbish cranked out by ExxonMobil-funded propaganda mills masquerading as “conservative” think tanks.

To Ken Smith:

I imagine that the reason Thom did not bring up the points you mentioned is that most of your points are totally fallacious.

I find it fascinating that Rita, like so many who would prefer that global climate change were not happening, charges the scientists raising the alarms and the advocates pushing for new directions with “getting paid big bucks and being promoted for being alarmists.” As if this were some sort of disqualifying accusation.

If getting paid big bucks really disqualifies a person from commenting about global climate change, then who exactly does Rita listen to for her denial talking points? It’s not like the oil companies don’t pay their pet geologists well to confuse and obfuscate. It’s not like the whole drive to maintain the status quo is motivated by the desire to keep the profits flowing as long and as fast as possible.

The whole reason we are in this pickle to begin with is this system that values the big bucks over anything else. That’s why technology will not save us–technology is merely a tool, and the problem is systemic. Without systemic overhaul of our entire economic apparatus, all new technologies will do is allow us to over-exploit natural resources more efficiently.

I usually find Tom Ashbrook to be the very best interviewer in journalism.

Tom, what happened? How could you not challenge theses guys? They are charlatans. They’re the same type who told us the earth was COOLING in the seventies.

Man, enough is enough. I’m a liberal, but I’m not an idiot. This global warming stuff is just a thinly veiled formula for another dystopia handed to us by our “betters”.

No, the earth is NOT over populated.
No, these leaders will not live by the same rules they want us to.
Yes, capitalism is lousy, except for all the ALTERNATIVES.

Stop your panic and grow up. Get hold of yourselves.

Yes, capitalism is lousy, except for all the ALTERNATIVES.

Stop your panic and grow up. Get hold of yourselves.
Posted by Chris, on March 12th, 2009 at 2:34 pm EDT

——
That’s DEMOCRACY, not capitalism.

The program might have pointed out that the winter of 2008-2009 has been unusually cold, not only in the United States but in Europe and Russia, and that the recent (March 2) Washington D.C. mass protest against carbon emissions was snowed out and chilled out.
Posted by Ken Smith, on March 12th, 2009 at 10:43 am EDT

Oh really? I didn’t know. What group was it?

Interesting talking points, SA and Valkyrie, and quite predictable.

Perhaps On Point could do a whole show on the single question of whether the planet has warmed, cooled, or stayed the same in the past ten years. Or an entire show in which the Mann “hockey stick” icon is examined critically from handle to blade. But I won’t hold my breath for this.

Meanwhile, how about taking a look at a new BBC article by Science writer Martin Livempore, in which he says, among other things:

“Put simply, weather patterns are just not following the sort of steady trend which would instil confidence in IPCC pronouncements.

“No amount of “it’s even worse than we thought” headlines will convince a sceptical public if the words don’t fit with the evidence of their own eyes.

“1998 remains the warmest year on record, and since then there has been no discernable upward trend.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7929174.stm

The real problem with climate alarmism is that it is going to take a heavy toll on the authority of science and the reputation of environmentalism when this massive house of cards collapses. If I were an anti-environmentalist (which I am NOT) I would like nothing better than to have the whole environmental movement put its eggs in the global warming basket and watch all those eggs go splat on the ground when the bottom falls out of the basket.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7929174.stm

The physics of carbon dioxide were well understood at the turn of the last century, i.e. around the 1900’s. It was recognized that CO2 was transparent to short wave radiation from the sun, but absorbed, i.e. was opaque to the longer wavelength radiation that radiated back from the surface of the earth. It was at that time the possibility of increased atmospheric CO2 leading to Global Warming was first suggested. If you don’t think the globe will warm with increased CO2, then you need to identify some countervailing physical phenomenon that will counter act the increased CO2 concentration.

The person who said there has been no decrease in ice cover in the arctic and antarctic is simply wrong. I worked with some of this data in the late 1980’s. If you don’t believe it you can go to the http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/ web site and down load the data yourself. If you want to go further back in time you will need to get AVHRR data at http://nasascience.nasa.gov/earth-science/earth-science-data-centers/national-snow-and-ice-data-center-daac-nsidc-daac

Poor Rita thinks there are tons of oil out there — actually she is right but does she know how many tons? Does she know how many tons it takes to keep the world economy humming and growing each day? She might try doing the arithmetic herself instead of making broad assertions with no data.

If you want to get a handle on energy supplies versus exponential growth, you can order a DVD from the University of Colorado Book Store by Prof. Albert Bartlett. He actually uses data and points out the importance of doing some basic arithmetic yourself when people make extravagant claims about large amounts of fossil fuels being available both now and in the future. It is $12. plus shipping. They take credit card orders over the phone or http://jclahr.com/bartlett/

For more on the Hubbert curve and fossil fuel reserves check out http://jclahr.com/bartlett/20000100,%20Mathematical%20Geology.pdf

Oil is just one issue, but surveys estimate over 4 trillion barrels, and some thing that greatly underestimates reservers.

I’ve listened to Ashbrook on these oil and doomsday shows, and too be honest, I think he is just out of his league and so let’s the guests say anything since he himself has no reference point, and apparently no memory how many were saying the same thing when he was in his 20s. Obama’s science advisor predicted 1 billion deaths from the environment in 1986 and again warned it was possible in 2009. Journalists like Ashbrook don’t take the time to look these claims up. Just let the guets scare the public for 45 minutes as he sits back.

It is a fundamental problem of journalism, since economics and science play a major role in our lives, yet those like Ashbrook just don’t understand the very basics. He can’t “push back” well because he isn’t up to speed.

The major newspapers are folding across America, and it will be interesting to see what happens to radio journalism as well.

… the recent (March 2) Washington D.C. mass protest against carbon emissions was snowed out and chilled out.
Posted by Ken Smith, on March 12th, 2009 at 10:43 am EDT

======

Ken – which group was it?

Mel: When I said “snowed out and chilled out” I did not mean that the mass anti fossil fuel rally called by James Hansen didn’t occur at all–just that it wasn’t large and didn’t attract anything like the press coverage it was supposed to, because of the weather. Incidentally, I’ve long been curious as to why any unusually hot weather event immediately gets attributed by the alarmist crowd to global warming, while unusually cold weather events are just “weather.”

Jon: The NASA page I found with the graphic description of Arctic sea ice http://www.nasa.gov/mpg/157179main_mm4_320×240.mpg stops at 2006. Do you have any idea why this is? Can you point me to one that is up to date?

Ken

Ken,
The reason they only go to 2006 is because it takes a fair amount of time and skill to combine the images to get circumpolar coverage. Each single pass of the satellite only gets a strip with each pass. You need to combine satellite passes to not only cover the whole area, but to produce a cloud free composite. Of course the other problem is that the previous administration was not very forth coming with funding for climate research and there has been a reduction in staff doing this kind of work at GSFC. So updating WEB presentations is of lower priority than doing the science. I am now working on contracts with another government agency.

But the main point is that if you are willing to expend the effort you can down load the raw data and process it yourself. The current data is available from the DAAC’s so you can do 2007 and 2008 yourself. There is a variety of free software to help you out, much of it available from NASA web sites. Today’s PC’s have as much processing power as “Mini” computers and Mainframe computers of the 1980’s. One will need to invest is a fair amount of storage to hold both the raw data and the derived products.

That is the advantage of having this data in the public domain. Anyone willing to expend the effort can repeat the study. Part of the scientific process is to repeat studies done by others to verify the results.

Mel: When I said “snowed out and chilled out” I did not mean that the mass anti fossil fuel rally called by James Hansen didn’t occur at all–just that it wasn’t large and didn’t attract anything like the press coverage it was supposed to, because of the weather. Incidentally, I’ve long been curious as to why any unusually hot weather event immediately gets attributed by the alarmist crowd to global warming, while unusually cold weather events are just “weather.”
Posted by Ken Smith, on March 13th, 2009 at 7:06 am EDT
=======

ok, so it did occur then. Do you know how many people they were anticipating and how many ended up attending?

Now I remember a bit of coverage of it – it was the one where they went to the coal fired plant up on Cap Hill.

So for you everyday, from the perspective of an environmentalist, must be a global warming day?

As for the comment about super cold days, actually I have no idea – maybe they’d say it was a front or something. At any rate, there are some environmentalists who say that global warming actually means cooler summers and warmer winters.

The problem is that people confuse weather with climate. Climate determines the probability of certain kinds of weather. Climate change means that at given points on the earth, these probabilities are shifting. The concern is that for many places the expected change in probabilities will be unfavorable for the endeavors of human beings. A warmer climate does not mean that it will be uniformity warmer day to day or year to year. The importance is the long therm trend. You can look at the results in terms of land cover at
http://rangeview.arizona.edu/index.html

The year is 2015, the US has spend billions on cleaning up the environment. The taxpayers have bourne the burden for a better world. Our carbon footprint is nearly where we want it. It is a good idea, it is a good thing we have done. We have paid for and gotten what we wanted. To come is several major volcanic eruptions that will fill our atmosphere with ash for months maybe years. Our carbon footprint is back!

The amount of CO2 put out by volcanoes is small compared to the human contribution through burning fossil fuels and deforestation. The ash and S04 actually lead to cooling. Remember Mt. Pinatubo lead to a slight cooling for about a year after it erupted. http://geography.about.com/od/globalproblemsandissues/a/pinatubo.htm

Jon, In addition to the ash, Mount Pinatubo ejected between 15 and 30 million tons of sulfur dioxide gas. Sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere mixes with water and oxygen in the atmosphere to become sulfuric acid, which in turn triggers ozone depletion.
I am all for the environment. People pollution is becoming the problem. The earth can only accomodate so many people. Once we disturb that balance problems arise. Forest and vegetation rely on CO2 to live, cut it down to make room for people, you upset the balance.
The solution is people control and reforestation. But forest don’t vote, people do!

Thomas, your book should’ve been titled “The World is Fat” not Flat.
Say what you want, but it’s cheap labor and cheap oil we’re after. Like Manifest Destiny on a global scale. The solution to polution is MODERATION? Does anyone know what that is anymore?

David,
I agree with you about there being more people on the planet than the planet can support in the manner which they currently enjoy much less the manner to which they aspire.
Unfortunately as I have explained in a previous post here, voluntary fertility reduction is unlikely to solve the problem.

[...] if you click here, you can listen to an hour interview starting with Paul Gilding, former executive director of [...]