NEWS! Energy crisis to last 20 years! Energy Secretary Says Crisis Could Sap Economy, Lifestyle across Nation Source: The Sacramento Bee Publication date: 2001-03-20
Mar. 20--WASHINGTON--Sounding an alarm in increasingly urgent tones, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham warned Monday that the nation faces "a major energy supply crisis" over the next 20 years that could swamp the economy and reduce living standards. "The good news is that America's energy problems can be solved," Abraham said. "The bad news is that the situation in California is not isolated, it is not temporary and it will not fix itself." Abraham, in a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said that in addition to expected electricity shortages in California and New York City this summer, states in the Midwest, Southeast and northern Plains face possible power disruptions. Separately, the Energy Department was sending ominous signals about gasoline supplies this summer, saying inventories were 6 percent to 7 percent below normal.
cnniw.yellowbrix.com/pages/cnniw/Story.nsp?story_id=19132309&ID=cnniw&scategory=Energy

Crude Inventory Lowest Since 1976
Data released by the Department of Energy early Wednesday showed that crude inventories fell by an unexpected 2.7 million barrels to 277.3 million barrels in the week ended March 2. The data largely confirmed Tuesday's inventory report by the American Petroleum Institute showing crude stocks had dropped 3.891 million barrels to 275.799 million barrels in the past week, the lowest since 1976.
bakersfield.com/oil/Story/403217p-402517c.html

THE IMMORALITY OF REDUCING ENERGY CONSUMPTION
, by Jay Hanson

From a moral standpoint, I object to anything that reduces energy consumption. Until there is official recognition by governments and the public at large of the physical limits of growth, anything that reduces energy consumption (increasing prices, carpooling, conservation, recycling, etc.), will ultimately result in larger population, consuming an ever larger amount of resources, which will ultimately result in a greater amount of human suffering and death. Today's political and business leadership hasn't yet discovered that planet Earth is a sphere, and thus, physically limited. Given today's moronic political and business leadership, the only moral choice is to consume our limited store of non-renewable energy resources as quickly and inefficiently as possible. Any other philosophy merely creates an ever greater tragedy of the commons. The more humanity exceeds carrying capacity (consumption and population), the more it damages our life-support system, and the more it permanently reduces carrying capacity after the crash. It's called "range compression"

See SUSTAINABLE ENGINEERING: Resource Load Carrying Capacity and K-phase Technology , by Peter Hartley (1993), This is from FOCUS, Vol. 4, No. 2. ; archived at www.dieoff.com/page74.htm When the spherical nature of planet Earth is recognized by governments and the public as a whole, and this recognition is followed up with realistic public policy limiting growth -- in all its aspects including limits on births -- then I will support reduced energy consumption. Jay -- www.dieoff.com or www.dieoff.org

Why the Bush Oil (Energy) Policy Will Fail, by Cutler J. Cleveland and Robert K. Kaufmann
www.oilanalytics.org

SECTION OUTLINE
Introduction
Myth #1: Fostering domestic production will be good for the U.S. economy.
Myth #2: Oil from ANWR will reduce our vulnerability to OPEC decisions.
Myth #3: The footprint of development in ANWR will be small.
Myth #4: The oil industry has been a good steward of other important ecosystems.

Introduction
Following his four predecessors, President Bush has identified dependence on imported oil as a urgent energy, economic, and national security concern. The gap between consumption and domestic production is more than 50 percent of total oil consumption (Figure P-1); by 2020 it will grow to 65 percent of consumption. To close the ‘oil supply gap’ the President will promote the development of domestic resources of oil and natural gas. The argument goes that increased domestic production will reduce dependence on imported oil and reduce the ability of OPEC to control the supply of oil, and hence the price of oil as well. This would reduce the chance of oil shocks disrupting the economy, and maintain the price of gasoline and home heating oil at reasonable levels. The President, his energy and environmental advisors, and the oil and gas industry maintain that this scenario is plausible, and that it can be realized in an environmentally responsible manner. What are the chances of success for this policy? The available evidence suggests that these policies will collide with the realities of the state of depletion of the domestic oil resource base, the economics of the international oil market, and the ecology of some the planet’s most important ecosystems. The policies will fail to improve our energy security or reduce OPEC’s market control, and they will damage the U.S. economy and the environment in significant ways. The Bush oil policy is built on a foundation of myths about our energy situation.

See the rest of this authoritative piece with great graphics at www.oilanalytics.org/policy1.html

Although "The Tragedy of the Commons" is widely acclaimed, activists in environmental causes as well as professionals in ethics continue to act as if the essay had never been written. They ignore the central thesis that traditional, a priori thinking in ethics is mistaken and must be discarded. Hence the need remains to give the tragedy of the commons a more general statement--one which can convince a wide public of the correctness of its method and principles. In essence Hardin's essay is a thought experiment. Its purpose is not to make a historical statement but rather to demonstrate that tragic consequences can follow from practicing mistaken moral theories. Then it proposes a system-sensitive ethics that can prevent tragedy. The general statement of the tragedy of the commons demonstrates that an a priori ethics constructed on human-centered, moral principles and a definition of equal justice cannot prevent and indeed always supports growth in population and consumption. Such growth, though not inevitable, is a constant threat. If continual growth should ever occur, it eventually causes the breakdown of the ecosystems which support civilization. Henceforth, any viable ethics must satisfy these related requirements:

(1) An acceptable system of ethics is contingent on its ability to preserve the ecosystems which sustain it.
(2) Biological necessity has a veto over the behavior which any set of moral beliefs can allow or require.
(3) Biological success is a necessary (though not a sufficient) condition for any acceptable ethical theory. In summary, no ethics can be grounded in biological impossibility; no ethics can be incoherent in that it requires ethical behavior that ends all further ethical behavior. Clearly any ethics which tries to do so is mistaken; it is wrong.

February 26, 1997 Herschel Elliott, Emeritus Philosophy, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 326111
See Elliott's full paper at www.dieoff.com/page121.htm

In his 1968 classic, TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS, Garrett Hardin illustrates why liberty in the commons inevitably brings tragedy to all. Visualize a pasture as a system that is open to everyone. The carrying capacity of this pasture is 10 animals. Ten herdsmen are each grazing an animal to fatten up for market. In other words, the 10 animals are now consuming all the grass that the pasture can produce. Harry (one of the herdsmen) will add one more animal to the pasture if he can make a profit. He subtracts the original cost of the new animal from the expected sales price of the fattened animal and then considers the cost of the food. Adding one more animal will mean less food for each of the present animals, but since Harry only has only 1/10 of the herd, he has to pay only 1/10 of the cost. Harry decides to exploit the commons and the other herdsmen, so he adds an animal and takes a profit. Shrinking profit margins force the other herdsmen either to go out of business or continue the exploitation by adding more animals. This process of mutual exploitation continues until overgrazing and erosion destroy the pasture system, and all the herdsmen are driven out of business. Most importantly, Hardin illustrates the critical flaw of liberty in the commons: all participants must agree to conserve the commons, but any one can force the destruction of the commons.

Although Hardin describes exploitation by humans in an unregulated public pasture, his "commons and grass" metaphor fits our entire society. Private property is inextricably part of our commons because it is part of our life support and social systems. Owners alter the emergent properties of our life support and social systems when they alter their land to "make a profit" -- cover land with corn or concrete. Neighborhoods, cities and states are commons in the sense that no one is denied entry. Anyone may enter and lay claim to the common resources. One can compare profits to Hardin's "grass" when any number of corporations -- from anywhere in the world -- drive down profits by competing with local businesses for customers.

One can see wages as Hardin's "grass" when any number of workers -- from anywhere in the world -- can enter our community and drive down wages by competing with local workers for jobs. People themselves even become commons when other people and corporations exploit them. Everywhere one looks, one sees the Tragedy of the Commons. There is no technological solution to the problem of the commons, but governments can act to limit access to the commons, at which time they are no longer commons.

In the private-money-based political system we have in America, everything (including people) becomes the commons because money is political power, and all political decisions are reduced to economic ones. In other words, we have no political system, only an economic system -- everything is for sale. Thus, America is one big commons that will be exploited until it is destroyed.

"Thus, the normative motive, so often the enemy of patient analytic work, in this instance both set the task and supplied the method for the scholastic analysts."
-- Joseph Schumpeter

Where did the concept of deregulation, free markets, and globalism originate? What is the source of the California Nightmare? The first advertisement for "deregulation" (AKA, "laissez-faire") comes from the pen of a 16th century Jesuit scholastic doctor named Father Molina (1535-1600):
"If merchants paying and accepting market prices, made gains, this was all right, and if they suffered losses, this was bad luck or else a penalty for incompetence, so long as gain or loss resulted from the unhampered working of the market mechanism though not if it resulted, for example, from price fixing by public authority or monopolistic concerns." [pp. 98-99, Schumpeter, 1954]
Father Molina was writing instruction for the confessors. The priests had to determine whether or not a given individual had sinned, and if so, how serious a sin. The Jesuits believed that God's divine plan was revealed in the "unhampered" market and innate human reason!"It is within [Jesuits'] systems of moral theology and law that economics gained definite if not separate existence, and it is they who come nearer than does any other group to having been the 'founders' of scientific economics." [p. 97]
Not only was the concept of "laissez-faire" first clearly articulated by these 16th century scholastic doctors (although its roots derive from the 13th century) so was the concept of "utility". Four hundred years later, one still sees scholastic doctors passing moral judgments on economic activity every day on television:
"The rate cut was 'good'." "The layoffs were 'needed'." "Tax cuts will be too 'late' to do much 'good'." "Japan 'should'... " "Did Greenspan 'sin' when he cut a half point? If so, was it a venial or a mortal sin? Tune in to the BUSINESS REPORT... "

It turns out that Homo sapiens is nothing but a herd of intellectual slaves marching to Golgotha. If one listens carefully, one can still hear Father Molina calling the ancient cadence...

Jay Hanson

Whatta Hero!

Mizaru, kikazaru, iwazaru.