Our front page editor translates into honest English the typical hate letter that comes to Rogue Columnist:
Dear Mr. Talton: If it wasn’t for you I’d have an additional 200 percent equity in my house in my gated community in North Scottsdale. If you would stop pointing out the minor problems we face in PHX, we could win the NBA and my greens fees would be lower.
He adds in his own voice: "We are a nation of spoiled shits living off of debt and about 40 years past the high water mark of America. The real shame is that it could all be fixable, but will never be. We live in Scamistan. The U.S. government scamming taxpayers and lenders. CEOs scamming shareholders. Military scamming the President. Corporations offloading the real cost of their fat/salt laden food. BP/Massey Coal on the real cost of energy. Iowa corn farmers on ethanol and water/pesticides killing the Gulf before BP…. People delusional in thinking short term and not long term in fixing our problems. Pols worried about the next election, not the next 20-plus years."
And you think I'm gloomy. To paraphrase Emerson, God offers every mind its choice between truth and American brightsided "optimism." Take which you please — you can never have both. So, tell me, ye brightsiders, what are we to make of the unparalleled, at least in this country, environmental disaster happening off the coast of Louisiana?
The "good news" is that nothing will probably change. Americans will drive any distance in single-occupancy car trips to denounce the oil companies. It's like crack users singing "god damn the pusher man" as they light up another bowl. No expense will be spared to continue car culture and sprawl, all the while awaiting space aliens to drop by and give us cars that run on hydrogen or hallucinations — or electricity for that matter. Technology will fix everything. Just as it has in the Gulf, right? Even if it won't, most Americans — and certainly those in red-state Louisiana — are happy to drill, baby, drill, until our coasts resemble the ghastly damage extraction industries have done in the Third World. Most can't imagine another way of living. We will try everything to sustain the unsustainable until we can't any longer, and then...and then...
Radio talker Stephanie Miller likens the spill to a bunch of guys standing around a broken-down car, all claiming to know how to fix it, none having a clue. The attempted fixes to the always doomed Rube Goldberg devices used by Wile E. Coyote (always made by Acme). Laugh while you can. The Deepwater Horizon disaster is actually a foreshadowing of our future in merely one aspect of the Great Disruption. It is about the limits of technology and peak oil. The dangers of deepwater drilling have long been known — unfortunately most newspapers long ago laid off their energy reporters or dumbed down coverage to avoid unpleasantness that would upset the demand for "optimistic" stories. More informed readers mostly learned about the upside possibilities of all these new technologies, never their risks and overall costs. The same is true of tar sands, oil shale, biofuels, ethanol, etc. etc. The costs to sustain, for awhile longer, that non-negotiable "American lifestyle" will grow steeper and steeper. So will the delusion.
Matthew Simmons, one of the world's leading oil experts, said the gusher could go on for years. He's also one of the top authorities on peak oil. Welcome to the future he has long predicted. America hit its peak in the early 1970s. Now the world is arriving at that ominous hinge of history, perhaps already has passed it, whether Americans like it or not. It means that the world has used up half of this one-time gift of geology. The remainder will be harder to find and extract, more costly to refine. All this as the developing world's demand for oil is skyrocketing. The ramifications reach far beyond a future of sustained higher energy prices (and if oil prices fall temporarily, it is a sign of a worse economy). They cause the United States to use its armed forces to hold down the world's richest oil fields and rub up against China in the race to corner reserves. The potential for conflict will be great. It also requires ever-more-risky exploration and production methods, e.g. the Deepwater Horizon well. The "liberal media" as exemplified by the New York Times don't accept peak oil — or much understand energy issues — so why should what the writer Barbara Ehrenreich calls brightside America? Well, get used to it. We are living unsustainability. We are living discontinuity.
As with the financial collapse and the lethal Massey mine explosion, Deepwater Horizon is a result of decades of industry self-regulation, industry control of regulators and politicians, "the free market" religion, and increasingly unsustainable bubbles gone wrong. It is a sign of our institutional corruption and incompetence. Not only has our society become hyper-complex, we have lost the famous Yankee (or even Confederate) know-how. Frank Rich takes on the Republican meme that this is Obama's Katrina and says it could be worse. Indeed. As I've written before, President Obama had one limited window to show that government can work for the public good, as it did in building the great nation of the 20th century before the Reaganites and the quiet coup. His heart is not in it. He is a man of the establishment, surrounded by the establishment's shills, from Larry Summers to Ken Salazar. I am watching a one-term president: Herbert Hoover with game, a too-cool-for-school Jimmy Carter. And maybe that would be for the best — George W. Bush never should have had a second term, and Bill Clinton arguably didn't deserve one. Ah, but what's waiting in the wings is not Franklin Roosevelt or even George H.W. Bush.
The brightsiders complain that I "never offer solutions." Oh. You mean solutions such as a gasoline tax and much tougher fuel economy standards? Or really competing against China for the renewable energy industries that Beijing has declared a strategic asset? Or finally putting the real cost on sprawl and repopulating our existing cities? Nope, no solutions here ever. How about retrofitting suburbia with abundant transit, including commuter rail, light rail and streetcars? In reality, America's transit systems are cutting back and falling apart. How about building high-speed rail now, and in a place where it would be used instead of car-culture suburbanized north Florida. Our global competitors have it now and are building more. We're studying.
We should be rebuilding what was once the world's best conventional passenger rail system, which we threw away and for nearly 40 years have used Amtrak as an underfunded political pawn. It remains so, and just wait until the Republicans take control of one or both houses of Congress. Trains Magazine, in its May issue, offers a fascinating map showing the nation's passenger rail network on the eve of Amtrak (April 3, 1971) and today. The Penn Central operated 13 daily trains to Pittsburgh and the Baltimore & Ohio another four. Now Pittsburgh has two trains, one each way. Cincinnati was served by 10 trains a day; now it has three-times-a-week service on a very slow, congested route. Columbus, Dayton, Wichita, Nashville, Phoenix, Tulsa all had trains; now they have none. And this was after years of cutbacks by the private railroads. Does anybody know what we threw away like a destructive and pathological child? Does anybody care? Imagine if we had accepted, as every advanced nation does, that passenger service can't "pay for itself" (airlines don't either), and merely subsidized the private railroads (we even took away the mail contracts in the late '60s)? We would have a much more sustainable choice for travelers as we face the shock that has now arrived.
Meanwhile, every day comes more news of trying to sustain the unsustainable. Wars costing $1 trillion. Soft empire costing trillions more. The kings of finance more secure than ever thanks to trillions more. Our "whatever you want" alliance with an Israel determined to be a force for instability.
The solutions abound. The elites don't want them. The harsh truth is that most Americans don't want them, either. I once wondered, what would it be like to have lived through the decline of the Roman Empire? Would one know it? Now the answer is clear. The Romans lost their virtue to the greed of their increasingly corrupt institutions and elites. The masses were placated with bread (read "Wal-Mart") and circuses (read "reality TV, celebrity gossip, Fox 'News' and the tea party"). And I'm sure that the empire was filled with "optimists" denying the rot and dangers, saying everything was fine, and others ways of governing or living were unthinkable.
Next up: The fall.
Thank you, sir, for yet another great observation and succinct description of the yeasayers of our world, and where we're all headed.
This article indeed comes off a tad bitter and cynical, although I've grown comfortable enough with your tone to accept that. Offering positively framed constructive criticism is only rewarding and worthwhile if you believe your audience hears the message. In this case, I cautiously join you in your doubt as to whether our culture is learning anything from our current state of woe.
But that said, I remain optimistic that we can and will learn from our errors soon enough to right this train before completely derailing it. And I accept your skepticism of such a comment as long as you agree not to completely write me off as yet another doe-eyed opportunist. Let's call it a gentleman's bet details forthcoming.
Posted by: PT | June 01, 2010 at 03:35 PM
And by the way, I make no claims about our readiness to fix what's broken on a national level in the immediate future. We're in nearly 100% agreement with regard to the political landscape of the U.S. But I'm still up for a seemingly impossible challenge of finding the political will and resolve to fix something somewhere that appears completely doomed.... Maybe something to do specifically with AZ.....
Posted by: PT | June 01, 2010 at 03:38 PM
PT wrote:
"But that said, I remain optimistic that we can and will learn from our errors soon enough to right this train before completely derailing it."
This is exactly the subject of Mr. Talton's column, PT. Your optimism is emblematic of the "brightside" that America has become.
PT, it is too late. We had our opportunities to prepare for what the future will bring us. Instead, we chose to ignore this future on the hope that technology will save us.
Posted by: ChrisInDenver | June 01, 2010 at 03:51 PM
The post-partisan, post-racial, technocratic Obama is good at brokering deals but terrible at galvanizing a nation to re-invent itself. Rather, it's his conceit that America can jump start its economy to the status quo ante and then make a leisurely transition to alternative energy as the oil runs out. Paralysis should be enjoyed, not fretted over.
Obama's gift for conciliation notwithstanding, this nation is angry to the point of incoherence. The great bargain of the post-war era - work reasonably hard and be rewarded - is collapsing. There's no one leader or leadership class that can explain the problem. That is, except for the Right and its toxic Dolchstoss theory (liberals ruined America!). In this leadership void, an unspeakable beast is stirring. Let's call him Newt.
It's rhetorical extravagance to call this era American Weimar. But unless America finds the leadership to calm the hysteria, there will be a slow-motion horror replacing civil society. It's already happening in Arizona. We're trapped by bad choices that make future bad choices all but inevitable. It's a nightmare we can't wake from. Our eyes are wide open but we're otherwise paralyzed.
Posted by: soleri | June 01, 2010 at 04:13 PM
I share your frustration, but I'm tired of arguing with morons. For example, a friend attended the Anti-SB1070 march on Saturday and posted a few pics on Facebook. Immediately there was the usual Kook response (although from NJ). A couple of zonies (myself included) try to explain why it's a bad law, but the posts end with her saying her husband is a Central American immigrant and he supports SB1070 too and has never had a problem travelling thru AZ. And when I look at her photos, her husband is whiter than I am! KOOKS = MORONS! and slavish ones at that.
Posted by: eclecticdog | June 01, 2010 at 04:45 PM
Those who know history are doomed to watch it be repeated.
Posted by: Rate Crimes | June 01, 2010 at 07:49 PM
I started reading the new Richard Florida book last night "The Great Reset" - and he takes a pretty optimistic view. He compares the current recession to that of the 19th century, which seems to rhyme - it was caused by mortgage defaults due to a housing bubble and financial "innovation". Florida does say, however, that these "great resets" take decades and we are only just beginning this one. Real pain may be around the corner for all of us.
Posted by: Kevin | June 02, 2010 at 12:40 PM
Hey fellas & gals - I hope you will be following Blago's trial in Chicago; it began today and looks pretty juicy, perspective-wise.
Posted by: terry dudas | June 02, 2010 at 03:32 PM
Kevin,
though I agree with some of the things Florida has to say about urbanism, in my opinion he is something of a charlatan. He certainly knows about the resource problems we're facing but I don't think he appreciates the scale of the problems and how fundamental and new those problems are to our industrialized society. Instead, he envisions megaregions where more of the creative, highly-educated types cluster to lift off into ever higher spheres of the 'knowledge' or 'service economy'. That's wishful thinking when industrialization, on which the 'service economy' is based on, is coming apart at the seams and will be under ever greater pressure in the coming decades. His reasoning which relies on historical examples of previous 'resets' is flawed insofar as we didn't have a fundamental resource problem in the 1870s and 1930s and not so much built capital to carry around while trying to build something (whatever that is) new. Everything follows a preexisting path until it doesn't. Overall, his theses with their correlative logic don't strike me as particularly scientific. Geography seems even more "dismal" than economics.
There are those videos on The Atlantic website, in one of which he talks about the chances of Phoenix & Las Vegas. One half sensible, one half half-assed:
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid73754497001?bctid=86073630001
Posted by: AWinter | June 02, 2010 at 03:56 PM
Here's some optimism for you:
(1) The easiest way to stop sprawl is to eliminate federal roadbuilding subsidies. These account for most local roadbuilding costs and thus are a huge subsidy for local developers.
Do you think that local governments, faced with picking up the tab on their own, will legislate huge new tax increases to finance new suburban and exurban development? No.
Now imagine that the federal roadbuilding funds are instead given to cities to build mass transit and revitalize the city centers. What kind of incentive would this produce?
This is easy, and works from the top down. It doesn't take money away from cities, but simply redirects it. It doesn't depend on 50 state legislatures adopting progressive transportation policies. It doesn't require new taxes. "This is your lollipop." (snatch!) "Want it back? Here's what you need to do: buses, subways, light rail, dedicated bike lanes and urban bike trails, and so forth."
(2) Unemployment can be lowered by creating new jobs relative to the size of the labor pool -- and the near-term prospect for this looks poor; but the little-commented other side of the coin is also possible: if the labor force decreases relative to new job creation, unemployment decreases.
We're looking at demographic trends where the aging of the baby-boomers and the relatively small size of the "baby bust" cohort (those born 1965-1975) means that the labor force is growing slower and slower: in fact, were it not for Hispanic immigrants (largely illegals) there would be widespread labor shortages by 2018.
Instead, the disparity between projected job growth and projected participation in the labor force, will likely reduce unemployment in ways that economic growth probably can't, over that time period. (I'm still looking into this so I'll post some links and further comments when (if) I get it figured out and have the online time.)
(3) Peak-oil doomsters want to have their cake and eat it too. "All this as the developing world's demand for oil is skyrocketing." The developing world is based on export economies (e.g., China). Export economies need developed countries to buy their products. If oil prices go too high, economies slow down, and that chokes off demand for both exported products and for the oil that exporting producers need for manufacturing, and oil prices sink again. We've just seen an example of this.
"...and if oil prices fall temporarily, it is a sign of a worse economy".
Well, first, worse doesn't mean catastrophe or even recession, it means slower growth. Two or three percent a year annual increase in GDP instead of five for the U.S., for example.
Second, it isn't strictly true. Oil prices have been falling recently (down to $72 yesterday, from $84 in April) yet the U.S. economy got no worse during that time.
(4) Solar energy doesn't need to use up enormous amounts of water, provided it relies on solar panels rather than solar thermal and related technologies.
Sunlight is FREE! There is NO COST to generate it. There is a large up-front cost to build solar farms, and a much smaller ongoing maintenance and operations cost for the farms. If these are publicly financed and run, on a non-profit basis, we are guaranteed to reap cheap, green energy that can largely replace coal burning electrical plants.
The biggest hurdles now (other than the political) are storage of solar generated electrical energy, and improving the technical efficiency of collector panels. It probably makes good sense to delay the actual construction of these plants until the details are worked out and solar panel technology develops further, instead of rushing into it now and incurring additional capital costs later when major portions of the network need to be replaced by more efficient products and methods. But when it is built it needs to be done on a scale hitherto unseen in order to enjoy the economies of scale which will bring costs down still further.
I don't see any reason why solar generated electricity (used in lieu of coal-burning plants) can't be adapted to the existing transmission network. Do you?
And don't forget: if oil prices DO skyrocket, alternative energy costs just look more reasonable.
(5) I don't see a great deal of evidence from either side. Those who say that it's "too late" lack good arguments. Pessimism isn't an argument. Those who say that technology will save us are hand-waving, but at least their hand-waving has proven true at every critical point of American history thus far.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | June 02, 2010 at 04:35 PM
P.S. In case I haven't made it clear, when a private solar company invests large amounts up front, its shareholders want to recoup those costs quickly and THIS is what drives high relative costs per megawatt when compared to coal-burning plants.
If the federal government builds huge solar plants, owns them, and operates them on a non-profit basis; and if it finances this creatively (e.g., taxation, long-term borrowing through sales of Treasury securities, "quantitative easing", stop a war or two and divert the funds used over a decade, etc.) then it doesn't have to charge large sums to electricity users right away (or at all). The big cost is up-front. After that, it's all gravy. Sunshine is FREE!
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | June 02, 2010 at 04:55 PM
Here's an illustration of local dependence on federal grants and other subsidies for roadbuilding, courtesy of "The Transportation Lobby" (a project of the Center for Public Integrity):
"Just last month, for instance, Congress passed its appropriations spending for 2010, including more than $52 billion for highways and transit. Most of this money flows to states and transit agencies to be spent at their discretion, but hundreds of local governments circumvented that by winning earmarks from their congressional delegations.
"Hawaiian members, for instance, marked more than $3.4 million for the Kapolei Interchange Complex. Dubuque won $389,600 from its Iowa Senators to go towards the construction of an arterial road to help divert truck traffic from its downtown and neighborhood streets; officials there have been trying unsuccessfully to fund the road for more than a decade. Neither earmark will fund the entire project, so local officials will likely be back to ask for more. In both those cases, the state will provide little or no matching funds."
http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/transportation_lobby/articles/entry/1911/
Note that local governments get most of their road building funds from state funds, and most state funds for road building come from federal grants and other subsidies; so it doesn't matter whether the loophole of earmarking exists or not: the local sprawl industry continues to depend directly or indirectly on federal funds for its existence.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | June 02, 2010 at 05:34 PM
"It probably makes good sense to delay the actual construction of these plants until the details are worked out and solar panel technology develops further, instead of rushing into it now and incurring additional capital costs later when major portions of the network need to be replaced by more efficient products and methods." - Emil Pulsifier.
Argh. Please read my blog. The solar tipping point has already been impeded for more than a decade in sunny Arizona. Solar today produces less than 1 percent of Arizona's electricity. The technology is proven and durable. Even decades-old, first-generation module designs are still producing significant energy. Conversion efficiency means nothing; life-cycle cost per watt means everything. There is no technological nor economic reason to delay. Delay will only slow further improvements.
Posted by: Rate Crimes | June 02, 2010 at 05:37 PM
"when a private solar company invests large amounts up front, its shareholders want to recoup those costs quickly" - Emil Pulsifer.
Capitalism was the child of a world of ever-increasing energy inputs. In a world in energy descent, Capitalism, as it has been practiced, will instead throttle prosperity.
Posted by: Rate Crimes | June 02, 2010 at 05:42 PM
"Rate Crimes" wrote:
"[Solar] technology is proven and durable. Even decades-old, first-generation module designs are still producing significant energy. Conversion efficiency means nothing; life-cycle cost per watt means everything. There is no technological nor economic reason to delay."
Certainly, conversion efficiency will affect up-front costs (more efficient panels require fewer panel-acres to generate the same amount of electricity). That would affect the price-tag of a public project, but it need not financially stress the public users of its electricity since, once constructed, the cost of the primary production input (sunlight) is free.
But if more watts are produced over the life of the panel, because conversion efficiency is greater, then conversion efficiency IS an input factor in determining life-cycle costs per watt.
Still, you might well be right. And, multiplied over several states and regions, the jobs creation by such a project would be phenomenal. Talk about killing two birds with one stone!
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | June 02, 2010 at 06:06 PM
Admittedly, my "nothing" was an exaggeration whose aim was to emphasize that valuation should center on life-cycle costs. To the extent that conversion efficiency reduces materials, manufacturing, and delivery costs; and to the extent that it reduces the probability of failure, conversion efficiency lends value. However, quality design, manufacturing, and installation are much greater factors in such a valuation than is the conversion efficiency of any particular technology. Conversion efficiencies are already high enough to be economical. And while the conversion efficiency of cells has improved at a steady pace in the lab, these incremental improvements have been outpaced by greater improvements in module materials (glass, coatings, contacts, etc.), manufacturing, and delivery. Any additional improvements in conversion efficiencies may allow for more flexibility in design and wider application, but improved conversion efficiency will not necessarily change the economics.
Squeezing another fifteen modules onto an acre has little value: if those modules’ purchase price is twice as high and they need to be replaced twice as often (again, I exaggerate in order to emphasize the issue).
A poor understanding of efficiency is often wrongly used to argue against solar, or to use as a ‘red herring’ in the broader debate of energy policy.
Posted by: Rate Crimes | June 03, 2010 at 05:43 AM
Awinter,
"That's wishful thinking when industrialization, on which the 'service economy' is based on, is coming apart at the seams and will be under ever greater pressure in the coming decades"
True, however, I don't find flaws in geographical analysis. Your own point here rests on geography - that "resource limitations" (by that I'm assuming you mean peak oil primarily) will change the economic landscape of America (e.g. fewer suburbs and large cities). This may well play out - but it all depends on the rate of depletion vs. the rate of response and I don't think anyone really knows the answer to that.
If you think without political boundaries on the map, service economies still rest on top of industry in America. The location of industry has changed, but globalization increases everyday. So those relationship between economic sectors are no longer at the national level, but international.
It's true that we should protect key domestic industries that are vital to our survival - like agriculture - but do we really need the factories of China that produce mainly cheap plastic crap in this country to thrive economically? I doubt it. We'd be better off focusing on building the things that will matter in the future: energy systems and trains. Much more is still needed but I think Obama has made a good step in the right direction with his spending priorities in these areas so far.
Posted by: Kevin | June 03, 2010 at 08:19 AM
Another idea that occurs to me: oil is a key component of transportation costs; goods exported from China to America must be transported here, and then distributed internally as well. If oil prices did manage to reach a much higher equilibrium point than at present (significantly higher than $100 per barrel in fact) then Chinese goods would no longer be such a bargain. Demand for them would drop, and so, therefore, would China's demand for oil for its production, since it would be producing less. That in turn would bring the price of oil down again. Note that this is in addition to the decrease in demand resulting from the economic disruption as higher oil prices slowed the American economy down.
It would also usher in a new era of manufacturing either at home or closer to home (e.g., Mexico, or even the southeast or southwest United States).
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | June 03, 2010 at 05:40 PM