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Freedom and the price of oil
Harry Eyres, Financial Times
We have another energy crisis upon us. I remember the last one, caused by the Opec oil embargo and subsequent price rise in 1973-74, and the apocalyptic mood-music it provoked about the end of oil, and of civilisation as we knew it.
… Our current energy crisis is less immediately dramatic but more ominous in long-term outlook. The price of oil has fluctuated wildly in the past year, tending to obscure the arguments about whether we have in fact reached, or come close to, the moment of peak oil predicted by geoscientist M King Hubbert.
… Writing at the time of the first energy crisis in the 1970s, the maverick Catholic priest, historian and ecologist Ivan Illich exploded the whole idea of energy crisis. Both the problem and the solution, according to Illich, were to be located not in the earth’s crust but in the mind of man.
The key to understanding the energy crisis, Illich said, lay in a “peculiar notion that man is born into perpetual dependence on slaves which he must painfully learn to master”. These slaves could be human beings or machines designed to perform slave tasks. The energy crisis, Illich continued, “focuses concern on the scarcity of these slaves. I prefer to ask whether free men need them.” He had the barmy-seeming idea that we would do better – that is to say would lead more human, fairer and freer lives – if we consumed less energy. Far from freeing us up, the addiction to ever-greater quanta of energy enslaves our souls, making us passive consumers rather than active doers, and concentrates power in mega-institutions.
All mainstream thinking about the energy crisis, now as then, as well as the thinking of gloomy ecologists such as James Lovelock and George Monbiot, assumes the need for ever-increasing amounts of energy from sources outside the human body. In his most scintillating book Tools for Conviviality (1973), Illich pointed out that all the great glories and horrors of civilisation up until the industrial age were achieved mainly by the power of human muscle. “A small energy parcel from each man was the major source of physical power with which temples were built, mountains were moved, cloth was woven, wars were waged.”
(24 January 2009)
Freedom and the price of oil
Harry Eyres, Financial Times
We have another energy crisis upon us. I remember the last one, caused by the Opec oil embargo and subsequent price rise in 1973-74, and the apocalyptic mood-music it provoked about the end of oil, and of civilisation as we knew it.
… Our current energy crisis is less immediately dramatic but more ominous in long-term outlook. The price of oil has fluctuated wildly in the past year, tending to obscure the arguments about whether we have in fact reached, or come close to, the moment of peak oil predicted by geoscientist M King Hubbert.
… Writing at the time of the first energy crisis in the 1970s, the maverick Catholic priest, historian and ecologist Ivan Illich exploded the whole idea of energy crisis. Both the problem and the solution, according to Illich, were to be located not in the earth’s crust but in the mind of man.
The key to understanding the energy crisis, Illich said, lay in a “peculiar notion that man is born into perpetual dependence on slaves which he must painfully learn to master”. These slaves could be human beings or machines designed to perform slave tasks. The energy crisis, Illich continued, “focuses concern on the scarcity of these slaves. I prefer to ask whether free men need them.” He had the barmy-seeming idea that we would do better – that is to say would lead more human, fairer and freer lives – if we consumed less energy. Far from freeing us up, the addiction to ever-greater quanta of energy enslaves our souls, making us passive consumers rather than active doers, and concentrates power in mega-institutions.
All mainstream thinking about the energy crisis, now as then, as well as the thinking of gloomy ecologists such as James Lovelock and George Monbiot, assumes the need for ever-increasing amounts of energy from sources outside the human body. In his most scintillating book Tools for Conviviality (1973), Illich pointed out that all the great glories and horrors of civilisation up until the industrial age were achieved mainly by the power of human muscle. “A small energy parcel from each man was the major source of physical power with which temples were built, mountains were moved, cloth was woven, wars were waged.”
(24 January 2009)
In the Land of Plenty
Robert Dorit, American Scientist
WESTERN DISEASES: An Evolutionary Perspective. Tessa M. Pollard. xii + 223 pp. Cambridge University Press, 2008. $65.
Economic development, it would seem, is good for your health. In general, life expectancy correlates quite tightly with gross domestic product (GDP) or per capita income. Richer countries have, on average, lower rates of infant mortality, better health-care infrastructure and more advanced medical technologies than are available in the developing world. But the correlation between wealth and well-being is not as simple as one might think. When GDP is plotted against life expectancy, the resulting curve (often called the “Preston curve” after Samuel H. Preston, who first discovered this correlation) shows some interesting features. In particular, life expectancy rises sharply with income only until per capita GDP reaches about $4,000; after that, the rate of increase becomes much more modest. Above $15,000 or so, the gains in life expectancy slow further; it increases by only four years as per capita GDP rises from $15,000 to $25,000. Any gains beyond that point are almost indiscernible.
Why is the relationship between wealth and health not linear? A number of explanations have been put forth. The shape of the flattening curve may be controlled by the upper limit of human life expectancy. Moreover, longer life expectancies in countries with low GDPs are usually achieved through reductions in infant mortality.
But there’s a different category of explanation: the argument that new diseases—cardiovascular disease, cancer and asthma, among others—become prevalent as countries grow wealthier, thus putting another upper limit on life expectancy. These diseases of the rich push back against the benefits conferred by increasing GDP, eventually causing the Preston curve to taper off. These maladies of affluence are responsible for much of the morbidity and mortality seen in the developed world.
(January/February 2009)
The Worst Is Yet to Be
Charles Perrow, American Scientist
GLOBAL CATASTROPHES AND TRENDS: The Next Fifty Years. Vaclav Smil. xii + 307 pp. The MIT Press, 2008. $29.95.
Prolific writer Vaclav Smil characterizes his latest book, Global Catastrophes and Trends, as “a multifaceted attempt to identify major factors that will shape the global future and to evaluate their probabilities and potential impacts.” Smil is fluent in many languages of the East and the West, and his voluminous citations demonstrate an impressive command of the literature. His two major themes are sudden, catastrophic events and unfolding trends that are catastrophic in their accumulative consequences.
The past 50 years have been exceptionally stable and unusually benign in global terms, Smil says, but this will change. The risks of what are, in his view, the two most likely cataclysmic future threats—nuclear war and pandemic influenza—can be substantially reduced, he believes. He does not see terrorism as a great risk. He also notes that mega-eruptions of volcanoes are quite rare and that the risk of a near-Earth object striking our planet is even more remote and can be handled. Instead, it is unfolding trends that worry him most and occasion the book’s most striking observations.
Energy is a key variable affecting many trends. Smil’s substantial discussion of this topic connects only loosely to the theme of catastrophe but well illustrates his debunking posture toward scary headlines and faddish “solutions.” He gives short shrift to renewable energy. For example, he considers “massive biomass energy schemes” that have been proposed recently to be “among the most regrettable examples of wishful thinking and ignorance of ecosystemic realities and necessities.”
… I learned a lot from this sometimes cranky, often cryptic and very opinionated book. Smil dismisses the headlines created by the climate doomsayers. The naysayers he doesn’t even discuss. But by enriching our understanding of the complexity of nature and society, he shows that we have much more to fear than accumulating carbon dioxide and drowning polar bears.
(January/February 2009)
Worldchanging Interview: Dr. Lin Jiabin on Sustainability in China
Junko Edahiro, WorldChanging
While in China, [Worldchanging ally Junko Edahiro] interviewed Dr. Lin Jiabin, the Deputy Director of the Department of Social Development Research at the State Council. The two spoke about China’s environmental policies, current Chinese efforts to address global warming, and the ways in which the two Asian nations can work and learn together as they face development challenges that are unique and unprecedented.
—
… EDAHIRO: You mentioned the “Scientific Development Concept” at yesterday’s meeting. Could you elaborate on this?
DR. LIN: China launched the idea of the Scientific Development Concept at the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party in October 2007. It is part of a big wave of development economics. Behind this move, there was an understanding that pursuing economic growth alone has led to “growth without development” in terms of social welfare; that is, people’s well-being has not been improved despite the growth in GDP. To address the issue, a new idea has emerged, with the focus shifting from “growth” to “development.” It suggests that GDP is not everything, and asks what is really necessary to make people happy. This is an idea that places emphasis on the overall development of human beings.
The word “growth” in Chinese simply means “to increase or become larger,” and is used in such phrases as “an increase in GDP.” Previously, the words “growth” and “development,” have been considered to be essentially the same idea in China, but people have come to recognize the difference.
The new concept of “scientific development” sees the importance of public welfare, which leads to people’s happiness and well-being. It aims to enhance their quality of life by improving social security, housing, medical services, and pensions. GDP has been widely used as an criteria to measure economic development, but now various other criteria are being examined to measure overall human development.
(22 January 2009)
There’s an Energy Crisis (among others) in the Air…
Massimo De Angelis (editor), The Commoner
Introduction: Energy crisis (among others) is in the air
Kolya Abramsky and Massimo De Angelis
There seems to be a general consensus, left and right, that we are in the midst of a new energy crisis. Either, “Peak Oil” is to blame, based on the argument that oil resources are about to peak bringing about serious constraints on future use of energy. Or, climate change is highlighted, warning that the sustained use of fossil fuel is heating up the planet and bringing about catastrophic changes in climate patterns.
With this issue of The Commoner we have sought to create a space to discuss the current energy crisis from a perspective that considers technology and energy within the social relations that they are part of, both being shaped by these relations and also shaping them. The editors of this issue do not believe this crisis is simply one of finite resources (“peak oil”), or that there is a technological path out of these crises, despite the indisputable fact that both resource scarcity and technology are nonetheless important factors. Instead, we understand the use, production, and distribution of energy as moments of capitalist social relations of production. As such, energy and technology are both important sites of struggle, and are shaped by these struggles. Like all phenomena, the basis of the current energy crisis does not have one but many converging “causes”. …
Includeed in this issue:
- Kolya Abramsky and Massimo De Angelis: Introduction: Energy crisis (among others) is in the air.
- Tom Keefer Fossil Fuels, Capitalism, and Class Struggle.
- Kolya Abramsky: Energy and Labor in the World-Economy.
- Evo Morales: Open Letter on Climate Change: “Save the Planet from Capitalism”.
- George Caffentzis: A Discourse on Prophetic Method: Oil Crises and Political Economy, Past and Future.
- Ewa Jasiewicz: Iraqi oil workers movements: spaces of transformation and transition
- Patrick Bond: The global carbon trade debate: For or against the privatisation of the air?
- Ariel Salleh: Climate Change, Social Change – and the ‘Other Footprint’
- Shannon Walsh: The Smell of Money: Alberta’s tar sands
- Jane Kruse and Preben Maegaard: An authentic story about how a local community became self-sufficient in pollution free energy and created a source of income for the citizens
- TRAPESE Collective: The Rocky Road to a Real Transition: The Transition Towns Movement and What it Means for Social Change
(22 January 2009)
The issue of this leftist online magazine is devoted to energy. Articles are available as PDFs.
As you can probably tell, the viewpoint is very left (editor Massimo De Angelis identifies himself as an Autonomist. There are probably some good ideas in these long articles, but the writing is so academic, so pervaded by leftist jargon, that it makes my head hurt. One of the articles critiques the Transition Town movement. -BA
