Re: Re: Re: oil and socialism

[Gar Lipow <lipowg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

phillp2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
> And does Yoshie really believe that we can raise all the current
> population to a decent level of material living without destroying the
> world ecology?
>

The answer to the above is definitely yes -- the obstacles are
political, not technical.

I don't have time to do a decent essay on this. I simply going to make a
list of assertions, whose truth or falsity you can research for yourself
-- not fair I know, but the nice thing about list communication is you
do not have to meet academic standards

I am going to outline thee case that we can not only provide a decent
material standard -- but a standard close to that of the US. This does
not mean that the US good keep the same goods that it has now or that
others could duplicate them, but that we could have equivalent goods
provided in a slightly different manner for everyone:

**********************************************************
Energy+Transportation -- we could provide equivalent output in terms of
heat, cooling, transportation, driving industrial engines etc -- while
using 90% less ecologically destructive goods:

This would involve: Super-insulation of new and existing buildings --
reducing heat loss and gain

Co-generation -- use of waste heat from fossil fuel plants to heat
buildings and water for commercial, industrial and home use,

short term use of Hybrid-autos where autos have to be used -- long term,
train and trolley based transportation, including use of subsidies and
taxes to encourage populaton shifts to urban coridors.

Use of more effiecient electrical motors,

Use of solar heating , cooling and air conditioning as an additial
conservation measue in areas where this is practical  (many).

Use of wind power to generate a percent of electricty.

A requriement that goods be manufactured with minimum lifespans to
reduce the requriements for replacing them. (I.E. -- a great deal of
energy is spent on the original manufacture of goods, quite separate
from the energy required to operate them. A doubling or tripling of
goods lifespan would save a great deal fo energy.)

=======================
Food and Fiber -- You may have been joking, but at least one banned
sustance hemp could provide complete protein, a good sustitute for
ecologically unsound cotton at a much lower enviromental and energy
cost, and a substitute for wood fiber in fiberboards. It PROBABLY could
produce paper as well -- although there are problems with converting
hemp to paper on a large scale, and hemp paper is only produced in small
scale operations -- thus is very expensive, and not always a high
quality paper. This probably is solvable , but until solved should not
be included in any calculations..

In general organic waste from food and fiber production could at least
provide chemical feedstocks for industry. Barry Commoner claims to have
worked out some cycles incorporating corn and cattle by which meat,
alchohol and methane could be produced, providing food and fuel without
robbing the soil.. (and unlike some current production methods --
providing net energy).

Similarly, a combination of designing goods for long life, designing
them to be produced with minimal waste, and designing them to last a
long time could greatly reduce the materials used in producing goods --
in addition to reducing energy as already mentioned above.

In short technology commercially available now could sustain an USA
Quality (though not USA Style) level of material goods while consuming
natural sources and sinks at a level of around 5% to 10% per capital of
what the USA does. (And yes, as a US citizen I agree the USA should set
the example for this.)

Note that I am not including fuel cells, projectiong cheap PV or any
technolgy not currently available.  And yes fossil fuels would still be
needed -- but at a level that is environmentally sustainable.

In short the barriers are not techical, nor are they feasability
questions -- the costs of the switch in terms of labor and  materials is
by no means overwhelming.  They are strictly political; our current
economic system could not tolerate many of the changes and could not
make many of the changes it could tolerate.

>
> Paul Phillips,
> Economics,
> University of Manitoba
>
> Date sent:              Fri, 17 Nov 2000 17:40:26 -0500
> To:                     pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> From:                   Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>
> Subject:                [PEN-L:4582] Re: oil and socialism
> Send reply to:          pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> > Jim D. says:
> >
> > >Michael P. wrote: >>>Jim, don't underestimate the importance of
> > >fossil fuels.  Without fossil fuels there would be virtually no
> > >surplus value; thus, no capitalism.<<<
> > >
> > >saith I: >> why?<<
> > >
> > >Michael replies: >Because given the limits of technology today,
> > >without fossil fuel, we would be unable to produce a surplus over
> > >and above the subsistence needs of workers<
> > >
> > >Not even if the intensity of labor is increased? not even if the
> > >effectiveness of using such fuels increases? The mainstream media
> > >talk about how the U.S. economy is more energy-efficient than it was
> > >25 years ago. I'm sure there's a lot of hype there, but there also
> > >seems to be some truth, too. After all, U.S. cars get more miles per
> > >gallon of gasoline than they used to...
> >
> > You must take into account the most scarce resource of all: time.  In
> > the long run, we are all dead, as Keynes reminded economists of his
> > day.  Can capital increase productivity, improve energy efficiency,
> > and/or invent alternative energy sources (whose production does not
> > depend upon fossil fuels) _in time_?  Here, you must consider the
> > problem of path dependency, not to mention the question of hegemony,
> > as well.
> >
> > Even discounting the finiteness of any physical entity (including
> > fossil fuels), which is not likely to become a problem in the
> > foreseeable future, we may still encounter a quite interesting
> > supply-side crisis, depending upon political developments in
> > oil-producing regions which have remained as volatile as ever (hence
> > the imperial insistence upon the expansion of the NATO & focus on
> > Yugoslavia & Columbia in recent years).
> >
> > Yoshie
> >