belief, fact & thermodynamics part 2

peak oil is a fact.

what then?

We must venture into the contested realm of the mind and with it cultural attitudes.

The laws of thermodynamics rule the physical realm, but not necessarily the mental. Facts belong to the physical real, but not necessarily the mental. Since the mental predominantly shapes the cultural then we must ask some questions about our culture. Hard questions...

What is the value of the human in an era of energy descent?
What is the role of democracy in a post-modern, post-cheap oil age?
Can and should we uphold universal human rights?
Where do we draw moral boundaries between ourselves and the environment?
How are we going to respond to crisis in a Machiavellian milieu?

We are looking, at the very least, a reduction of complexity in our society; at the most, utter collapse. In any event this entails a reduction of wealth and privilege for many people, particularly Americans. I wish I could be optimimistic about human nature in these type of situations but I am not, it would be naive to thing that these people will not attempt to cling to whatever privileges they have. This will bring out the worst in our already faltering democratic institutions. When these type of institutions are stressed they tend to produce demagogues. The worst type of leader is the one whom thinks he has a "universal" mandate from the people and therefore is able to justify nearly enything imaginable. Our people will rise up such a leader in our desperation.

This is very likely to spell the end of representative government in the USA. And with it the quaint notions of the equality of citizens before the law. There may be a Christian spin to it for awhile anyway, but in the end we will have succombed to our own materialism.

The irony is that it does not have to be this way. So many people today live in dire conditions and still maintain there humanity and honesty. They are able to see beyond the veil of material security and comfort, living day to day by the "grace of God." This is where culture comes through for these people. They have not necessarily lived in the "land of plenty" where for generations we have never know want. We have no experience of hardship, no context for our upcoming situation. This is why I am not optimistic. It is only too clear to me that we take our entitlements for granted.

There is something like the "law of irony" at work here. We have been a vigorous nation, hard working, future looking, idealistic. We deserved the fruits of our labors, the comforts and the many energy slaves. However since the end of World War II things changed. We became the hegemon, definitively since the 1990's. Now, three generations later, we have grown soft and insolent. Following the well-trodden path of imperial peak and decline, in our jingoistic hubris we command other peoples: "with us or against us."

We are past the point of return. The republic is dead, the UN is dying and the end game is OIL. Machiavelli chuckles in the grave will Jefferson rolls in his.

What then are we supposed to give up on progress? Simply jettison the entire Enlightenment project for the old world of realpolitik? This question has already been answered in the affirmative by our leaders. Thanks.

belief, fact & thermodynamics: part 1

what do you believe in?
what is a fact?

these two questions i asked myself in regard to Peak Oil. do i believe in peak oil? my answer was yes. is Peak Oil a fact? i had to think a little bit...then my answer: yes peak oil is a fact.

how do i know this?
A common definition of a fact is something that can be proven.
Any proof requires context, or a language in which to be rendered and therefore proven. Aside from the deeper philosophical arguments as to whether or not anything can really be proven anyway; i will choose the conventional and current agreed upon framework for "proof" which is physical science.

so here is my base assumption; that we can measure our data, assuming the data is correct, and make specific statements based on these facts, because they are measureable.

Oil is measureable by volume for area. thus we have barrels.
It can be measured in other ways too, the energy/heat content of a barrel is expressed in Jouls.

Put simply peak oil is the point at which the most amount of oil will be extracted in a certain time frame. We will say this time frame is a year for ease. So the year in which peak oil occurs will be the point during which the most barrels were ever sucked out of the ground.

OK, how do we know how much oil is in the ground? We don't really. We only know what we have discovered so far, and whever else we have looked but not found any. This is of course based on another assumption that oil is a prehistoric fluid that is essentially not replaceable. There are people who argue this point about oil, but we don't need to go there, to me it is self-evident, and a solid assumption for our proof.

There is no way to know truly how much oil is underground. But the closest we can come, with what we know so far, is to draw a map of the globe and mark every single spot that has been explored. This then would need to be interfaced with what geologists know about where oil is found. Then we could come up with a decent assumption. Particularly if many places on the planet have already been explored. Admittedly I have never actually seen this map, but my studies have indicated that much of the globe has indeed been explored. We are talking the great majority of the surface area of the planet that is not under water, and even much of it under the water. This is another assumption, that we are not going to find too much more oil. This statement is supported by most geologists, a general estimate as to what is left seems to be about 10%. That is ten percent of recoverable oil is still unfound. The main evidence here has been the declining rate of oil discoveries since the 1960s. It is not like we haven't been looking either. The last few years have seen the amount of significant discoveries dwindle to almost nothing. So far then we are assumming that we know where most of the accessible oil is and that it is a finite resource.

What are the numbers?

I will use generalities here the specifics will follow in another post listing sources.

We have used approx. 950 billion barrels out of a total of 1900-2000 billion barrels.

This seems to be right around the half way point. Peak Oil indeed.

the Imperial path

we are beyond reform of our existing institutions, this will become abundantly clear soon enough.

all social institutions must reflect the realities of their environment. as we have drawn down the planet's supply of hydrocarbons, easily accessible mineral stores, and most importantly top soil; we will be forced to adjust our social arrangement.

what will change?

everything will have to be scaled down and localised... unless we experience a jump in "complexity"

specifically this means that we will all have to get on the same page. more coordinated and centralized. living less individualy oriented, more collectively, much more efficiently, packed into mass transport systems, drastically reducing our collective "footprint."

any increase in complexity entails centralized coordination. for example, in our bodies the brain coordinates our organs. if the industrial project is going to continue, globally we need a "brain;" as it is we have many organs (nations/continents) with no acknowledged central power. the United Nations was an idealistic attempt to establish this function, but it never really became effective because of the Cold War jockeying of power. The UN never had any power to wield anyway, except the collective "voice of the nations."

Today the USA is making a bid to become the central power, the brain of the globe. will this work? what are the chances?

I cannot say if this will work, but it certainly will not work if we keep going on this same bumbling uncertain path.

Pardon the "realpolitik," but the only way to effectively establish control is through the dual forces of Power and Authority.

this is Imperial. The center must claim itself, its own sovereign "right to dominate" in the name of Authority; that is its own authority. the functions of Power and Authority are integrated in the Imperial Center. Just as the brain is vitally supported by the organs, the organs are organisationally supported by the brain. the Imperial Center administrates and coordinates the periphery while they vitaly support it.

can the USA do this? or can a group take control of the governing apparatus enough to make a go of it?

this is already happening. i do not think there is any "Imperial Plan" place, but we do currently have a group who has seized the reigns of power and understand its imperatives. Rome's republic became Imperial, responding to the very same types of stresses that we are experiencing.

I honestly don't know if these people have the stomach for it. Global war is the only way to establish Dominion, who wants this? not only does it involve scrapping over two-hundred years of American republican rhetoric but untold of suffering would be incurred, and exercised upon populations.

Morally this is a very tentative place.

My assumption is that we are on the cusp of massive die-off. This is due to the convergence of imminent energy shortages, followed by the cascading effects of reduction in food supplies, interruption of global and national transportation networks, and collapse of the debt burdened global capital situation.

Would a "visionary despot" view these circumstances in light of the centralizing imperative and make the decision that the risk is worth it?

The only way to avert this die-off would be to coordinate the entire global industrial system under one set of conditions and laws. How else could global warming, energy descent, internal conflict, and population growth be dealt with? Would a despot make the calculation that saving modern "civilisation" is worth the price of global conflagration?

Who knows...

My opinion is that a one world government would be extremely oppressive, unwieldy and very undesireable. This is not a situation that I want. But I must admit there are many paths into the future. In these volatile times all bets are off.