Global spending on ways to kill each other now exceeds $7.5 trillion annually. If all we did was shift spending, minerals, materials, fossil fuels and brainpower wasted filling the bottomless hole this destructive enterprise digs we'd be halfway home on the most important changes needed. Thanks again for enlightenment

@noahbrown4388

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, if we had sane/non-psychopathic people in the seats of power..

@s3tione

Жыл бұрын

Sacrifices to Moloch must be made..

@aryafeydakin

9 ай бұрын

This whole global economy IS a destructive enterprise filling a bottomless hole. Probably the reasonnable solution is on the contrary to keep military spendings only and control the energy starvation of the rest.

@ThisIsToolman

7 ай бұрын

In the past elsewhere regarding the energy crisis I’ve posited that we just have to quit making “stuff”. Stuff we just don’t need. The problem with that is, that’s capitalism, the one-way wealth pump to those already in power, the 1%. I see that as the existential roadblock to any change. Our lives will be in upheaval long before those people will feel even the slightest effect. The flyer in all this is AI. It seems likely AI will be in control about the time we begin to feel the effects of the existential crisis outlined in the podcast. We’re going to be consumed by AI as an existential crisis instead of the existential crisis of running out of all resources.

@joeymurdazalotmore6355

7 ай бұрын

I'm sorry but that makes to much common sense n decency to ever catch on with the folks of the day, , it's sad but we're not intelligent unless we're killing ra other, then we sure do get next level and make it count, we're a bizarre tribe of lunatics with maybe a few hunned people who actually know what's going on,

I will listen several more times, but on first go-around this is the first time I’ve listened to Simon Michaux and thought to myself, ‘there’s little that is new here’. We may like to think of Arcadians as a brave new tribe of humans, but I met (and lived with) many when I was still very young and they were already very old. They’ve been with us, living their beliefs and concerns, educating and community building while personally living simply, locally and sustainably for many, many decades. Our problem continues to be too many humans living extravagantly and thoughtlessly who have never experienced or been educated in any way about little of this. The coming Simplification will psychologically undo them.

@richardstump541

Жыл бұрын

Simon’s interesting, but he seems mainly determined to save industrialism which is somewhat the antithesis of responding to an ecological crisis. He mentioned wanting industry to replicate principles in small mixed farms. Why not start with the need for complex zero input local food production as the determinate of whatever ‘industry’ is required to facilitate that. I.e. very little.

@Nhoj737

Жыл бұрын

@@richardstump541 " save industrialism"? “No ‘BAU’? ‘Most’ ‘economic thinking’ is ‘short run’ and ‘redundant’? ‘It’ ignores the ‘supply side’? ‘Growth’ {and ‘civilisation’} depends upon ‘cheap’ F.F. - those so called ‘halcyon days’ are ‘over’. ? “The crisis now unfolding, however, is entirely different to the 1970s in one crucial respect… The 1970s crisis was largely artificial. When all is said and done, the oil shock was nothing more than the emerging OPEC cartel asserting its newfound leverage following the peak of continental US oil production. There was no shortage of oil any more than the three-day-week had been caused by coal shortages. What they did, perhaps, give us a glimpse of was what might happen in the event that our economies depleted our fossil fuel reserves before we had found a more versatile and energy-dense alternative. . . . That system has been on the life-support of quantitative easing and near zero interest rates ever since. Indeed, so perilous a state has the system been in since 2008, it was essential that the people who claim to be our leaders avoid doing anything so foolish as to lockdown the economy or launch an undeclared economic war on one of the world’s biggest commodity exporters . . . And this is why the crisis we are beginning to experience will make the 1970s look like a golden age of peace and tranquility. . . . The sad reality though, is that our leaders - at least within the western empire - have bought into a vision of the future which cannot work without some new and yet-to-be-discovered high-density energy source (which rules out all of the so-called green technologies whose main purpose is to concentrate relatively weak and diffuse energy sources). . . . Even as we struggle to reimagine the 1970s in an attempt to understand the current situation, the only people on Earth today who can even begin to imagine the economic and social horrors that await western populations are the survivors of the 1980s famine in Ethiopia, the hyperinflation in 1990s Zimbabwe, or, ironically, the Russians who survived the collapse of the Soviet Union.” ? consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2022/07/01/bigger-than-you-can-imagine/

@kkob

Жыл бұрын

Unfortunately, I have interviewed Simon twice and am disappointed he is continuing with this concept as it is deeply flawed - based on his own research! I have shared with him the Regenerative Governance model, a model completely aligned to regenerative principles and characteristics and with a rapid, well-managed, intentional simplification. More educating to be done, apparently.

@edsteadham4085

Жыл бұрын

Yes and neither you nor I are going to choose to cut out lifestyles in half.

@kkob

Жыл бұрын

@@edsteadham4085 How arrogant to make such assumptions about others. You want suicide? Go off on your own and do as you wish. DO NOT be spreading that nonsense elsewhere. It's immoral and unethical; people are already dying.

Hemp is criminally underrated as a material but also it is drought resistant and is a soil improver!

@h.e.hazelhorst9838

11 ай бұрын

I agree, it could replace cotton, wood chips (for paper production) and it could be used to reinforce building materials. Another versatile plant is bamboo, which is already widely used.

@8BitNaptime

9 ай бұрын

And it tastes good, I mean hemp hearts for example. Get them at the grocery store.

@user-mb4uz6lk3l

8 ай бұрын

hemp insulation , hemp plastic etc etc add hydrogen on demand gained from h20 gained via solar, we are on the water planet after all !

@snowstrobe

Ай бұрын

It has been stupidly demonised. A fantastic building material because it helps the house breath...

Simon is one of my favorite guests. Thank you for having him back 🙏

Simon is on a whole different level. Fascinating.

These ideas tie neatly back to the book "Lean Logic" by David Fleming, who mapped out the features of a post-growth, low-energy local society and hinted, with practical examples, at how we might get there. The book was written in the late 00s but remains incredibly relevant today.

@kkob

4 ай бұрын

Regenerative Governance was promulgated 5 years before Lean Logic came out and is far more comprehensive. There is some overlap, localizing, e.g., but his TEQs concept clearly shows he did not envision a different economy, just a modified one. You only need TEQs in a Capitalist, market economy. They would be irrelevant in a regenerative economy. Nice work. I wish I had come across him while still alive; might have been a great collaboration.

You guys are Legends but we need more like you in our Governments etc…! Thank You All for this enlightening and Wonderful Podcasts guys from Aotearoa 🕊🌳🌏🙏🏼💖

Hearing Nate say the words "resource based economy" made me let out a little holler. Great talk, whenever I see you two chopping it up I break the glass and take the ride. Will be talking to Simon and his thorium pals on our show in a few days, great prelude. As always, further!

Simon is validating what I’ve been saying for years now. We need to focus on strategically using resources and producing high quality essential goods. I think bikes libraries trains row and sail boats are going to be the big things in the future. Electric cars are a big waste. I think with regards to using battery powered transport we really should be looking for alternative ways to power shipping. We have wind power, solar power, electricity, and muscle power to move ships. I think some cool ships could be designed. Transport over water is simply the most efficient and critical. I think people have to get over themselves and realize the automobile is a terminally ill technology. Bikes and rail will one day have to be our go to transport system over land. So much of what we produce is pointless. Things that amplify human muscle like bikes and hand tools are going to be the key I think. We should be conserving petroleum as much as we can. We should be wearing sweaters when it’s cold inside. There’s a saying that goes like this: before I was enlightened I would chop wood and carry water; after I became enlightened I chopped wood and carried water. We need to prioritize our needs and not our frivolous wants. We can find meaning in a world with less technology. We don’t need tv if we have great storytellers reading us books or putting on live theatre for our communities. We don’t need phones we need friendship. We don’t need to mechanize everything but we need exercise. In spite of everything I feel hopeful that we can do something because a lot of the things we need to do are really just less bullshit work and more meaningful work that can provide us things missing in our anti-social dog eat dog techno world. Really a lot of the problems with society are bad mental habits and social pressure personality disorder. We should give up business as usual but we should not give up trying to find meaning in this world

@edsteadham4085

Жыл бұрын

How about I get to decide which things that you like that I find pointless. Or maybe give a president a guy like trump the authority to decide. I guess you never thought what happens when people you don't like get the centralized decision making authority you suggest.

@evilryutaropro

Жыл бұрын

@@edsteadham4085 go ahead by all means. The great simplification gonna take away most things either way

@stephenboyington630

8 ай бұрын

A common thread is that however we transport ourselves or goods needs to require as few materials as possible. We need to consume less of everything as things get scarce. Our bike/car/ship needs to last as long as possible. No more throwaway objects.

Can't wait for next instalment! We definitely need all generations talking and working together. It is the coordination between groups that are not tech savey to communicate is where i personaly get stuck.

Happy to hear Simon back on here, excited to listen!

"We have optimized efficiency at a cost of resiliency." Good quote from Nate

Brilliant direction to build upon your early shows Simon and Nate. I've been waiting for this and more to come hopefully my friends. Here's an idea building upon your Hemp Crete: Utilize leaves during the fall season, mix with junk paper mail which all is shredded into pulp to make compressed logs for home heating. Trees remain, leaves regrow for future use and we take one step further living sustainably with nature. P.s. I share what I learn here with everyone that I meet in life. Hopefully they will share as well.

Challenging the current paradigm and offering roadmaps for the new one, yes we can do it. I think that if many of the people watching / listening to these broadcasts understand the insights and science offered, then we can find ways to be involved in our local communities to challenge and change the paradigm.

Such brilliance packaged in a down home, charming human being. I like to wedge myself right there between that doom stance on one end, and the “business as usual, don’t you worry a bit”stance on the other. The Arcadian stance sounds pretty good to me!

Simon is an amazing powerhouse of communication!

Hemp and bamboo certainly and I would also strongly suggest the growing of Willow, which is another incredible resource.

7:50 complex adaptive systems 9:25 resource balanced economy based on Venus Project "resource based" where energy is at the center 10:20 revise circular economy

Thank you for this excellent podcast. There is so much truth and sanity in this discussion. I will be pondering the ideas, presented here, for quite a while.

Simon is one of my favorite guests! I would love to see you interview Dave from One Army. He leads a group of young people that are actually doing things - they have precious plastics which can help anybody set up a recycling project locally, phone blocks which are recyclable phones you can make, fast fashion solutions, and they are documenting the process of building a sustainable community so that others can see the challenges and learn from their mistakes. Their work is inspiring and provides opportunities for people to get involved. I am using their plans to build my own plastic shredder so I can reuse my waste in my 3d printer - it's a fun project with my son that gives him hope for the future.

@eclipsenow5431

10 ай бұрын

imon Michaux argues from a 10 year old paper that we need 4 weeks or 28 days of grid storage to get through winter. It’s a ridiculous straw-man. There are 4 main ways of dealing with winter, and if we eliminate his 4 week battery straw-man, his own papers shows we have MORE than enough resources! eclipsenow.wordpress.com/michaux-sans-batteries/ So how do we get through winter without 4 weeks batteries? After all, the old paper he quoted was a valid work at the time. But things have changed in 10 years - and any ONE of the FOUR facts below utterly destroys his 4 weeks of batteries straw-man. In combination his paper is as weak as a wet paper bag. ONE - SODIUM BATTERIES COULD SUPPLY HIS HYPOTHETICAL 4 WEEKS without making any extra demand on rare earths or lithium! Sodium is less fire prone, less toxic, as a material is 30% cheaper than lithium, making it perfect for grid scale batteries. The ocean stores a ridiculously huge 38.5 quadrillion tons. That is a LOT! We could store a WHOLE YEAR of the world’s electricity and use just 0.0006% of the salt! Michaux and *claimed* Sodium batteries were still in the experimental lab. He published in August 2021. But the first commercial orders had already been placed *over a year before.* faradion.co.uk/faradion-receives-first-order-of-sodium-ion-batteries-for-australian-market/ When making extraordinary claims, one should take extraordinary care to get the facts right! Michaux doesn’t bother with any inconvenient facts. That’s it! Sodium can replace the 4 weeks batteries and now we have enough metals for the energy transition. His own paper says so. We’re done here. You can go home. But wait - there’s more! TWO - OVERBUILD SOLVES WINTER: Michaux’s references are 10 years old. It may as well be a report from the stone age! Renewables are now 10 times cheaper than they were back then, and they are 4 times cheaper than nuclear power (Lazard). They are so cheap you can overbuild them for winter. Does reduced sunlight and bad weather halve your output? Then double your wind and solar farms! Data systems are now so interactive even engineer hobbyists can model renewable grids. EG: Engineer David Osmond tracked Australia’s terrible 2022 La Nina rains. He found an overbuild of just 70% defeated a La Nina winter. So a 170% renewable grid would clean up our electricity sector! eclipsenow.wordpress.com/overbuild/ Overbuild also assumes some geographic spread to draw on a wider geographic area. But HVDC transmission is cheap enough and only loses 3% electricity per 1000 km. Most of the human race lives closer to the equator where winter isn’t even a thing they worry about anyway. So we can economically top up colder Northern grids from reliable equatorial power. EG: Spanish solar can help run Finland, and then at night, Finnish wind can return the favour. The EU are already planning upgrades to their super-grid. Does Michaux explain all this? No. He cherry-picked a 10 year old paper to get his 4 weeks batteries! Don’t go confusing him with anything like modern renewable energy prices and plans. That will just confuse this peak oil doomer. THREE - MICHAUX REJECTS PUMPED HYDRO SITES AS TOO LIMITED: This one is so bad it actually goes to the character of the man. He says there are not enough sites (but I’ll give him credit - his PDF does admit pumped hydro is the cheapest grid scale storage). Before I deal with Michaux, let’s talk about Professor Andrew Blakers. Andrew Blaker's has street cred. He's won the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering (think Nobel Peace Prize - but for Engineering). Blakers has satellite mapped the earth and found that there are abundant sites for OFF-river pumped hydro, which is a closed loop recycling system that has minimal impact on fragile river ecosystems. You build the reservoirs and pipes and turbine room all at once, faster and cheaper than on-river, and then pump the water in from a nearby river when finished. Cover it in floating solar panels to reduce evaporation and you have a closed loop system. Pump a bit more water in every few months to top-up. The world has plenty of good sites around 400 to 800 metres - 100 TIMES more than it needs! Literally pick your best 1% of sites and you're done. They have identified the 616,000 best sites around the world. re100.eng.anu.edu.au/global/ So why does Michaux complain that there are not enough sites? His PDF doesn't give a source, but he explains here. kzread.info/dash/bejne/fnarlLGPh8e9ebQ.html He cherry-picked a viability study about pumped hydro in SINGAPORE! Their highest hill is only 15 metres! Gee - I wonder why they had trouble finding enough sites!? (Facepalm!) I call this dumb trick “Painting the world Singapore.” Give up on Michaux and instead watch Professor Blakers do a global tour of the TRULY ENORMOUS potential storage from this cheapest grid 'battery' of water and gravity. kzread.info/dash/bejne/kYCflcelpZbglpc.html FOUR - : ALL RENEWABLES AND BATTERIES CAN BE MADE FROM ABUNDANT MATERIALS: Michaux insists we are running out of rare earths for all those renewables and batteries. I grant that sometimes renewables use rare earth’s for a specific performance boostin a more expensive niche market, but Michaux acts like all renewables depend on stuff we’re about to run out of. Which is just not true! EG: 95% of Solar panel brands use silicon - which is 27% of the Earth’s crust. Wind is made from iron (5%), aluminium (8%) and fibreglass (renewable glass fibres and renewable polyester resins). There are new brands that do not use ANY rare earths in the magnets. Half of Tesla’s batteries are LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate). The USGS reserves from 2022 show we have 89 million tons of lithium which would build 14 BILLION EV's - we only need a tenth of that. China’s “Seagull” EV even has a cheaper (low range) model that uses SODIUM batteries! eclipsenow.wordpress.com/materials/ MICHAUX IS NOT READY FOR HOW FAST THE WORLD IS GOING TO CHANGE OVER THE NEXT 10 YEARS. Solar is doubling every 4 years - faster than oil’s growth in the 20th Century. Exponential growth seems slow and then suddenly everything happens at the end. Now that wind and solar with pumped-hydro are the cheapest power, people are going to be SHOCKED at how fast it is deployed. Australia will be 90% renewables by 2030. Globally, 10% of all cars sold are EV’s, right now. It will be closer to 40% by 2030. Electric Semi's are now a thing. Tesla have their dinky little 40 ton truck, and Janus Australia are doing big Aussie MONSTER trucks that carry 100 tons and then pull up for a 1 minute-battery swap! These trucks will save vast sums of money. Under IRA tax breaks, America is starting to build their own solar panel factories that can produce 3 GW per year. Globally, so many solar factories under construction now will be completed by 2025 that we'll be producing 940 GW per yea. (Close to a terawatt!) That's 5.8% of 2022's world electricity demand being built every year - done in 17 years. And that's not counting any MORE solar factories built after 2025, let alone enormous wind power acceleration or new nuclear. The Energy Transition is accelerating - and Simon Michaux just sounds like a sulky peak oiler saddened that all his prognostications of doom and gloom a decade ago are not bearing fruit. He works for a mining firm. Go figure. I just wish environmentalists would think to check his claims before interviewing him.

❤Thank❤🌹🙏 you, dear Simon Michaux and Nate! Great episode!

@22.53 A game changer would also be the introduction of ‘repairability’ as a prerequisite for products to be sold. Not the kind of ‘built for obsolescense’ that is a common practise now.

Lol, my friend and I actually pulled an alternator out of a car and attached it to a windmill as a middle school science project on innovation in 1996.... We got in the national finals of the competition and got to go pitch the idea at the Epcot center in FL, but only took 2nd place, and it never went anywhere. The team that beat us was essentially just recycling better in big businesses.... Almost 3 decades in hindsight, what was really the better idea? I guess in reality, ideas have to be presented at the right time and place, and at that point no one was thinking we'd ever be scaling back. To us, it was just about creating a "functional pink flamingo" as people like putting these decorative windmills in their yard just for the look. I don't think we were knowledgeable enough then to know this is where we going, but it's just funny to think about all these years later. We even sang the Bob Dylan song "the answer is blowing in the wind" as part of our presentation. Maybe we were more right than we ever could have realized

I absolutely love this guy…get on board or get the f*** out of the way!

@rhonda-my_honda_cb500x3

11 ай бұрын

Simon said it ever so politely... "Get out of my flight path" 😄

Thank you Prof. Michaux. Really gives one hope to have such brilliant and pragmatic thinkers on the task. wagmi

1:04:04 I'm all about some hemp and bamboo. I'm in the process of building a hempcrete house and bamboo is foundational in our agroforestry system.

I was friends with Jacque for years. We used to work together on infrastructure design, housing, transport and education together. Here, Simon seems to have repeated some of the same intellectual and computational steps Jacque and I completed years ago. We also used to play a bit of "World Game" on weekends too. Simons on the right track 100%. But how do we get people to adopt such systems? I have some ideas. But more robust and rigorous planning needs to be accomplished. In order to have the necessary infrastructure in place - we need to start building things NOW.

@kkob

4 ай бұрын

Simon tweeted to me recently he's looking to integrate with the Venus folk, unfortunately. Despite conversations with both parties, Simon just last year, neither is proposing regenerative systems. They quite seem clear on what that means, so their ideas are flawed. Close is not good enough; regenerative is a threshold, not a sliding scale.

@zpettigrew

4 ай бұрын

If it's not regenerative - how is it even "sustainable"?@@kkob

@kkob

4 ай бұрын

@@zpettigrew Not sure what you mean here. Sustainable is less than regenerative, not more; regenerative is a higher threshold. Everything I know about the Venus Project would make it unsustainable, let alone regenerative. We'll see if that changes. There are people like me for them to connect with. Why Simon hasn't brought me into their conversations, I don't know. People are weirdly territorial. Everyone wants to monetize everything... which is unsustainable... so...

@zpettigrew

4 ай бұрын

Agreed. My point is, in order for the system to be stable (or truly sustainable) - regenerative systems are necessary. It is impossible for a system to sustain (or last indefinitely) if regeneration is not a design criteria.@@kkob

@kkob

4 ай бұрын

@@zpettigrew Still a bit backwards. A system can hit stasis and generally stay there. That's sustainability. Regenerative systems are resilient to shifts and/or outside shocks because they are always increasing the the health, resilience and resources available in the system. I would dismiss the disagreement as semantics, but I think it is an important distinction.

I was at school in 1970 in the UK. I remember we were told it would need 3 Earths for everybody to have the lifestyle of a US citizen. I am not optimistic, but excellent video. I am a lifelong fan of "Hemp" an its derivatives . Keep your head down ..

Nate, re needing to produce food without fertilizers and Simon’s last comments re introducing soil micro-biology back into an area, I’d love to see you interview Dr. Elaine Ingham about her work on increasing both quality and quantity of crop yields after converting land to rely on soil biology for nutrients rather than fertilizers. I think you touched on that with Andrew Millison, but she’s an expert in this area.

Advanced Policy. Biophysical economics. Inertia in the systems. Political glass ceiling. How do we move ahead when fossil fuel subsidies outweigh support for alternatives?

@emceegreen8864

Жыл бұрын

GlobalCarbonReward.org

@thegreatsimplification

Жыл бұрын

Fossil fuel subsidies are a rounding error for how how flammable fossils subsidize society. Green movement has missed this badly imo. kzread.info/dash/bejne/o42ZvNmOhtubfbw.html

@michaels4255

Жыл бұрын

"Subsidies" are mostly tax deductions that ALL miners get, including miners of minerals that are essential for the proposed renewables revolution.

@emceegreen8864

Жыл бұрын

The IMF says fossil fuel subsidies of 5.9 trillion USD in. 2020. This includes explicit and implicit subsidies. Not sure how this is just a rounding error. It’s expected to be 7.4% of global GDP in 2025.

@thegreatsimplification

Жыл бұрын

@@emceegreen8864 that’s a ridiculous figure. They included the cost of climate impact as a “subsidy”. I explained it in the vid I linked

"Break Glass Plans" aren't enough gentlemen. The infrastructure needs to be built NOW. No question about it. I propose small "Prototypes" of self sufficient neighborhoods and communities.

In Mexico they’re using avocado pits to produce plastic spoons and forks! The problem with food being processed in one area that has the expertise is MONOCULTURE. Everytime we do it, we end up with disease problems. And I recently saw new solar panels that use a small amount of their power to remove water from the air, separate the oxygen and hydrogen. Send the oxygen into the atmosphere and store the hydrogen on site in pressurized tanks. To be used year round. Simon gives me hope. What a mind!

@sebastienloyer9471

7 ай бұрын

What is the name of the company or Solar panel ?

@davehendricks4824

7 ай бұрын

@@sebastienloyer9471 not sure. It was a KZread video I saw a few months ago. You might find it with the right search. They do a lot of solar projects.

Yes, Simon!

Great conversation as always between these two. Ian Redmond would be a great guest on this podcast, I believe, for ecology, animal behavior, adaptation, their limits...

Nate Hagens with Simon Michaux! It would only be better if Daniel Schmactenberger was in on the conversation. (but I'll gladly settle for Dr. Michaux!)

@oliviachipperfield6029

Жыл бұрын

Agreed!

@michaels4255

Жыл бұрын

"Settling" for Simon? You will make him jealous of Daniel Schmactenberger!

Simon, if I might, could Haiti be terra formed so as to stabilize the landscape against earthquakes and hurricanes, you would need all the resources currently available to Haiti, the people of Haiti and their economy could see continued growth, I don't know who's next, but I believe Haiti deserves some peace and prosperity. No idea why. More than anything size, thank you both Simon and Nathan, peace.

What I don't get is why these people don't join The Zeitgeist Movement. We can get the momentum going if we work together and promote these ideas with a loud voice.

Great vision, analysis and food for thought 🙏

What is most distressing to me in our current world predicament is the vast chasm that lies between your (any many other's) combined astute assessments, and the intransigence and indifference of those who actually have the power to make necessary corrections. In my geriatric mind, it seems that quest for greed and power by a relatively few, is knowingly jeopardizing the entire "human experiment" for the sake of their own aggrandizement. It is a baffling conundrum. Utterly animalistic in its implications.

@karenkoerner6015

Жыл бұрын

The survival revolution will have to build from the bottom up.

@mr.makeit4037

Жыл бұрын

Most astute observation. I can only add that we all call this out at every turn over and over again. It's a war now. Don't be afraid to do this.

@5353Jumper

Жыл бұрын

Also focus on more citizen involvement in day to day politics. We need to make the citizen lobby louder and more valuable than the industry lobby. Of course this means political and party funding reform, but we will not achieve that with the current system that quite enjoys the corrupt $$$ influence on decision making and candidate success. So unfortunately it either needs revolution or a slow grass roots growth in citizen representation, from citizens just getting more involved. Citizen protest, petition, letters, media and even candidate/party funding needs to be a lot more frequent than a ballot once every 4 years. One way or another once the citizen voice gets some strength we can then demand political funding reform to eliminate the influence of industry "donations" and PAC influence, as well as actually prosecuting shadow bribery. Once citizens actually have representation in government, the majority is behind positive changes environmentally, consumption, supply chain etc which are more aimed at benefit to the whole instead of profit for the few. Of course there are 2 problems, bigotry and propaganda. As long as 40% of citizens do not believe that a different 40% of citizens do not deserve to equally participate in the prosperity of the nation, we will never have the citizens united to take the power from the elites. Propaganda has convinced half of us that this change in consumption and change in production are not important. So those of us emotionally resistant to change get in the way. Case in point: a small amount of research reveals that the majority of the worlds "right wing media" is funded nearly entirely by the petroleum industry in one way or another. So the loudest voice of both climate stewardship denial and culture wars is coming from the petroleum industry financial desire to maintain demand for fossil fuels. This global social backlash to human rights and equality is 100% funded by the petroleum industry to prevent us from uniting over topics like political reform, wealth distribution and changes to the current consumption/energy systems. We need to get involved in politics so it is even possible to make changes benefitting the whole. We need to fight bigotry so citizens can be united on topics of global stewardship. We need to have the rational voice be louder than the radical voice, drive more media in the positive direction before the regressives win (and we all lose).

The boy scout+ superman I was laughing so hard, great podcast guys, it illuminated many possibilities for future growth. Human innovation is the key!

While we’re at it, let’s get rid of white boards and whiteboard markers that smell downright toxic. Water and chalk and a painted board worked just fine.

1:02:20 - "We have to produce our own food" This is my focus, inventing automated aeroponic farming appliances

@44.00 "We've got to control the technosphere, not the other way around" The future is local. Distributed and embedded technologies that produce the basic needs at the point of consumption.

Nate, Simon has to be the most informative guest you have. My own conclusion after person/amature research from 1996 and analysis of published data. Data only, far too many reports both government and research, the text do not report accurately. Often the completely opposite to the reality of the data.

As boring as Corporate Law is - I'd really like to see Nate speak to a Corporate Law specialist on the laws governing the way private companies are operated. The 'profit motive' is the driving impulse and unles I am mistaken, it is written into the corporate legal framework to take any legal action to increase profits.

@VisDaddy11

Жыл бұрын

Great point! On a finite planet we cant have infinite greed for profits. As structured today corporations offload lots of the external costs ( air pollution for example ) onto the rest of society. There needs to be accounting for this and we have enough knowledge today to do that compared to when corporations like East India Company and others were founded way back in the day. Also, corporations benefits from the rest of society investment in education and healthcare of their workers and paying a fair share of taxes is critically important. We not only have a lots of work on the material side of things but also on the social frameworks we all operate within. Some common sense boundaries are gonna need to be imposed that some people arent going to like.

Nate, can you share any details irt the advanced policy initiatives in which you're involved? Links to groups?

@thegreatsimplification

Жыл бұрын

Unfortunately not - it's a private effort almost by definition. Here is related talk though: kzread.info/dash/bejne/hXievNCTcdPNepM.html There is not a one size list of responses for eg global governance, nat sec, general public, hollywood, high school students, farmers etc. (this is personally my biggest challenge)

@mgusek555

Жыл бұрын

@Nate Hagens I'll give this a think. Also, I am an AI professional. While the centralized, Elysium future is a good talking point, get back to your information pedigree. The energy and materials story of generative AI (especially text) is an interesting one. It's a dirty little secret.

It's a great idea to try to navigate our way through the coming crisis , but I am curious if the ideas being discussed are under emphasising the radical uptick of violence that is going to accompany the initial stages of the collapse of the global economy. Are we really going to plan our way through this or just try to survive it ? The reason I ask is based on the food issues , growing food locally by a population that has no idea how to grow food with a population far in excess of the local carrying capacity seems to be a reciepe for disaster . I'm sure this is not news to anyone listening to this podcast and taking these issues seriously, but I can't help but think based on listening to the entire great simplification library that the scale of potential violence is being downplayed or not given enough weight to undo or make impossible the planning being discussed.... Because as I see the collapse evolving we arrive eventually at the point where the vast majority of the population will face a collapsed economy that no longer delivers goods and services , it might function for a very small elite like the Elysium metaphor , but this is going to be a catastrophic shock to people. they will be scared and extremely frightened and you add hungry to that mix and you have a volatile cocktail that can and most likely will explode into unprecedented society wide violence .... Can you speak to these points? how are we going to stop the avalanche of violence once economic collapse accelerates ? Are people really going to listen to reasoned logical arguments ? I guess the Vikings v old school statement is a reference to this violence .... So really the arcadians need to set up communities now! so who wants to be a property developer selling these ideas ?

@sudd3660

Жыл бұрын

one thing i can mention here, that is we are in this together. lets say we have communities going but they are only 10% of the population, when food crisis hits. they are going to overwhelm the food production from the communities and brake it down. basically ruin all food production on earth and we all die. people needs to be educated on this, see that we are all in this together and sacrifice needs to me made. be ready to die in peace instead of trampling down others while trying to feed you or yours. the solution after shit hits the fan is never going to be nice, depopulation before the worst is happening is better, do not have kids now and at some point in the future we can go back to breeding.

@nicksince9487

Жыл бұрын

Great points, I worry about this too

@noahbrown4388

Жыл бұрын

Judging from ALL of human history ‘just trying to survive it’ (if any do at all) will be the likely outcome.

Global treasure indeed!

It's a toss up as to whether Nate or Simon is the Paul Revere of the day. In any case, I am grateful for their warnings and for giving me an education on a myriad of pertinent and timely topics.

Very interesting Nate, there’s lot to unpack, but anyone watching this videocast edition of The Great Simplification for the first time would probably think it’s just a couple of academics with a brief and some free time discussing a futuristic civilisation thats running out of energy and resources but who want to at any cost maintain their affluent lifestyles. Or is it really a reflection of our present position where we’ve decided to self destruct over ideologies and resources ?🤔

I listened to this yesterday as I walked around Dublin, surrounded by cranes building new infrastructure, new restaurants opening, and people strolling happily about. The juxtaposition between the picture i see every day and the one Simon pictures is hard to comprehend. I could very easily convince myself nothing is wrong, but i understand the laws of thermodynamics. However to 99.99% of people, nothing appears to be wrong. This is the part im struggling with - why aren't we seeing more signs? At least where i live.

I have a question: If we are to recycle everything, how would that manifest? For those of us who tinker and are makers, would this include salvage companies popping up everywhere creating avenues for salvage reuse?

Simon is talking about alternative ways to make a mobile phone. We aren't going to need mobile phones in the future because we won't have electricity. Nor would we be able to build, maintain or power mobile phone transmission equipment.

love it

The first challenge is create this technical area and make it available for everyone.

For energy, Deep Geothermal (companies like Quaise do it) seems to be the best option. We still need a deep change in production and food though.

Screens could also be communal. In a coffee shop etc that you connect to. Doesn't need to be carried on a phone.

Funny how many of the guests are using washing machines as an example of how solutions can be applied..whatever future we will get from the great simplification, i reckon it will be a clean one

@guapochino140

10 ай бұрын

Green growthers are also scared that communism would force them to use communal laundromats. There's something in there, maybe to do with alienation from nature :D

Bring it all down to choices...before us...that we can make...making them.

What a fun conversation! Unfortunately, I agree with Nate. We cannot invent our way out of this mess. Use less, yes! But that's not gonna happen due to other conversations Nate has had with other guests. Like something I learned here called Jevons Paradox en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox, human nature, the capitalist mindset which we cannot imagine living without. I wish everyone could see these conversations, and there was some kind of movement in this direction.

molten salt uranium reactors are possible. fast neutron reactors can consume nuclear waste. candu reactors can use thorium as a fuel. the limitation on nuclear power is political.

Nate is Great! (Simon too...) 😃

And yet, I watch this on my gallium screen phone.

Toffler 3rd wave we in it Great chat thank you have a great day.

In the mindset of envisioning a hybridized future, would it not be helpful model the current system's capacity to both manufacture and power alternative transportation vehicles alongside ICE ones to the intermediate term. I recently learned China envisioned ICE vehicles to compose a significant minority of new vehicle sales in 2035. In such a light, perhaps a managable growth in alternative vehicles within sight of resource and power generation and distribution constraints could ease demand sufficiently to allow for a more flexible use of our finite petroleum reserves when most come to terms with the just stated descriptor.

The group i belong to is, we are turbof__ked, but this collapse we are already in, *is* the only chance we have to finally create the kick ass culture we have the potential for.

I’d love it if Degrowth became Arcadians, The arcade of small local processes and the Arcadia of countryside would be nice, I think they are called villages.

Nate I did a lot of "sustainability" activism at University of Minnesota for my master's degree there, finishing in 2000. I was a paid op-ed writer also for the MN Daily. Have you gotten any divestments from the University Portfolio yet? We got a $1.5 million divestment from Total Oil in 1998 - for using slave labor in Burma. We also got the Workers Rights Consortium membership - to monitor the slave-wage conditions for the University profits from sports apparel. Have you gotten a list of all the research projects at the University yet? You can go to the technical administration building, like I did, and request a list - it's free. I discovered over 300 businesses donating a 100% tax deduction to control research at the public university. I also exposed the Cargill and Monsanto control of the biology department as confirmed to me personally by Professor Phil Regal - he left soon after, returning to Canada. Here's an op-ed I had published for example. Military keeps playing with big toys Published May 14, 1998 With Mother’s Day as its focus, this past week has been an ode to anti-militarism in the Midwest. I have been quoted in The Minnesota Daily as one of three University students to conduct civil disobedience at Alliant-Tech, a Hopkins-based conglomerate peddling $1.3 billion per year in tax-funded killing machines. On Mother’s Day, I also joined 50 other people in an annual demonstration at Project Extremely Low Frequence (ELF). ELF is the Northern Wisconsin-based electromagnetic “first strike” trigger system for one half of the U.S. nuclear weapons force. As a result of this demonstration, I have been charged with trespassing, which carries a five-year suspension of my driver’s license as its penalty. Here in the United States and specifically the Twin Cities, we are in “the belly of the beast,” and nonviolent direct action is the only means of confronting the corporate-military’s escalating addiction to world annihilation. Fellow students must recognize that the University and other centers of higher learning play critical roles in promoting war-mongering. For example, only a handful of contractors receive more military research funds than the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and John Hopkins University. Why does the University research how to better disseminate chemical weapons at high-mach, high altitudes? New techniques for missile design analysis, stronger tank and weapon materials and the development of an aggressive tailless fighter jet are just a few of the other underground “higher education” projects at the University. In fact, with the University receiving $17 million in Department of Defense funds for 1997 (up from $11 million in 1993), it seems that the post-Cold War peace dividends are delayed at best. The research contracts on campus reveal that nano-technology, or “the mechanizing of the molecular level,” is a dominant interest at the University. Computers are taking on a crucial role in designing a brave new world of fabricated nano-structures that will display two-way memory effects in nano-magnetic devices. The broad military implications start with machine-to-machine air traffic control and end with cellular automata used for self-propagating molecular robotics, brain implants and other man-machine surveillance devices. The grand achievement exposed on campus is geared towards a “NATO neural network” emphasizing how the University is contributing to the most bloated and destructive system in the world. The federal Office of Management and Budget states that the military is only 17 percent of the national budget, but several factors are obfuscated by this misleading figure. The correct percentage hovers around 50 percent. During the Vietnam War, when the government created the so-called “Unified Budget,” which includes unallocatable trust funds - social security is not part of the dispensable congressional budget - the military percentage instantly shrank. Retired generals and admirals at the Center for Defense Information also point out that military spending was hidden in non-military portions of the budget. For instance, here at the University further military research is most likely being funded by NASA, the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation. Very significantly, the 17 percent federal figure does not include past military spending costs, i.e. the cost of veterans benefits and the 80 percent of the interest on the national debt that is from military spending - thank you, Ronald Reagan. Since the combined military budgets of Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Cuba, Russia and China are still less than half of the United State’s official 17 percent figure, obviously “defense” is not our defining military role. Among the world’s recent major conflicts, 90 percent involved one or more parties receiving U.S. weapons or military technology prior to the outbreak of war. Recently, the U.S. share of world arms exports has increased by 50 percent and the United States now supplies more than 60 percent of the world’s military weapons, with half of the cost funded by U.S. taxpayers. The government has consistently ignored recommendations by the Congressional Budget Office that suggested cutting the incompetent B-2 stealth bomber, the F-22 jet, the Trident II D-5 nuclear missile and Star Wars. President Clinton just last fall ended a 20-year ban on advanced weapons sales to Latin America. Now Lockhead-Martin, which has operations in the Twin Cities, can sell F-16s to be used against democracy movements in our hemisphere. Recent military scandals include training death squads for use against grass roots democracy in Indonesia, Columbia and Mexico coupled with the approval of bio-weapon testing within U.S. cities. The addition of 13 more countries to NATO promises the further exportation of military jobs along with corporate welfare costs estimated at $250 billion. Even though the Twin Cities receives hundred of millions of dollars per year in military projects - 500 pages list just 1993 contracts - downsizing, increased profits and further environmental superfund sites are definitive of military spending. Ironically, federal corporate arms export subsidies equal the total amount of subsidies cut from federal social service programs. These unabashed acts of greedy, bloody U.S. militarism are not surprising considering that in 1994 Congress passed a law enabling the Department of Defense, or any of its contractors, to test biological weapons in any U.S. city, provided that they give a city official 30 days notice. Currently, the Pentagon, at the behest of the military industry, is requesting a waiver of the anti-personnel land mine moratorium, even though 124 nations have already signed the international mine ban treaty. Furthermore, the United States, like India, is hypocritically in the process of conducting six underground nuclear tests, in direct violation of the International Test Ban Treaty. Direct global democracy inspires hope, though, as the protests of French nuclear testing proved, as well as Alliant Tech land mine production and Project ELF recently being judged illegal by international law. Students at the University, which has $110,000 invested with Alliant Tech, have a duty to rise up and take action against our rogue state. Under the 1996 Solomon Amendment, if military recruitment is cancelled on campus, all federal funding for the University would be stopped. Just as the United States-funded military regime of Indonesia is now shut down by students, we here need to take similar measures. Conversion to an efficient, productive and sustainable society is the clear choice in the face of our behemoth killer monster. Students should demand an end to the profit-driven U.S. war machine. Only by converting the military will a sustainable society be achieved.

All good, so Simon has resuscitated Jacque Fresco's ideas on the Venus Project. A concern I have is, Power will attempt to co-opt and corrupt that set of principles to its own ends. Also, re-educating folks from the existing system, along with incentives that emphasise realistic, collective prosperity founded on different values.

If the planet can't afford to have screens on phones, so be it, but saying that only words are important is incredibly reductionist, Philistine. I paint, and imagery is important to me. It has absolutely nothing to do with a "dopamine hit". It's sad that so many people can't understand the difference between entertainment and culture.

7:00 What is the energy source? Answer: manual labor. Some of us have been promoting this for over 50 years. The human organism is the most efficient engine we have. Much more energy efficient than horses or oxen in terms of joules expended for the work produced. 7:50ff Complex adaptive systems. Both Nate and Simon are systems people. Therefore they filter every black swan, every phenomenon, and every problem through a systems lens. And of course their solutions will be systems-oriented. 10:40 "The circular economy is thermodynamically imbalanced." Good point. 11:00 A 50-page paper on how "society" might do better. This is the group and systems approach that is accepted by most people. Few will even consider that our view of "society" is warped by the society we grew up in. America for Nate and Australia for Simon. It is likely that as "our society" collapses and devolves into less complex forms, a program based on current views of "society" will be invalid. This is the same critique I use for design in general, by the way. A more organic form would be to solve problems as they come up but keep mid-term and long-term goals in mind. The seven generations idea is similar to this. 11:30 "Everything shrinks. There is going to be an across the board less quantity of all things." Fabulous! Finally someone (besides me) who has published something about how to manage collapse and/or a shrinking economy. The Degrowth people are not on board with an actual contraction. They think it can be avoided. 11:40 "Quality will have to increase." Brilliant! A new idea. Worth the price of admission right there. I am now going to listen to the rest of the podcast as I work. And I don't want to bore anyone with a lengthy critique, nor step on Nate's space more than I already have.

Ok. I think we should keep extracting all the oil and gas we can and see them as necessary transitional backup energy sources to a possible less energy consumption future, plus nuclear energy to maintain stability. Then, over time basic demographics will take care of the population growth and naturally diminish to a more sustainable level needing less energy. Slowly..

let's not waste energy on fireworks, Jet Skis, dirt bikes, corvettes, paper cups, chrome, etc. And whatever you good people can help me think of. Thank you.

@guapochino140

10 ай бұрын

Why do you hate America? :D Those first 3 are great examples. I would add the global professional team sports industries. Which are of course now often owned by oil money.

@robertdavies82

9 ай бұрын

@@guapochino140 Great guess! I am american and saw all those things one holiday weekend in my small town. I wish I would have had the intellect and courage to live a different way in my youth. I think we Americans are setting a record for flying this year, There is a real disconnect between our actions and the environment. Have a great day.

Mitigate at Energy Storage Rights, % of AI profits as data as energy cache, payments as ubi, it's a socket on the stack which provides people the means to improve the data curation and energy use. Less use is more cash. Simply shift use cases for screens by including a profit monitor.

24:45 Comparative advantage (CA) is always used as the tutorial example to sell global trade, but that example is no longer relevant to todays economy. Since the inception of IMF, WB, WTO as instruments for multinational corporations, and neocolonialism/hegemonic power of USA, and finance capitalism, what we have is not internationalised trade but globalisation which has created the situation of Absolute Advantage (AA) and this by-passes sovereignty and basically resources strips from poor nations to rich nations. The global movement of goods and capital is not longer based on CA, it's all about AA and a race to the bottom, driving local and global inequity, loss of resilience and not even overspecialisation, but impediments to any specialisation or sovereign control of economy and therefore political-economy. It's enter corrupt and broken system and the glittering jewels being manufactured for the rich are distracting us from the fact that the productive and absorptive capacity of the planet is collapsing very quickly.

@michaels4255

Жыл бұрын

I agree that CA is not relevant in most industries, and even hypocritical economists know this. That is why even they do not push for unilateral free trade, even though that would be advantageous if the CA theory were broadly applicable.

The Energy balanced, "resource" economy was conceived in 1919 in New York city by a collective of recently unemployed engineers. Jacque, the Venus Project clown didn't come up with a thing. Hemp would be a better panacea were it not dependent on the current regime of petrochemical fertilizers. Hemp is as fertilizer intensive as any other "cash crop".

@mr.makeit4037

Жыл бұрын

So what is your answer to this? Also, I'm curious, out of the 4 societal groups, which was laid out previously on past shows, in what group would you align with?

38:46 😂 whiteboard marker 😂 make that from from materials within 10km of the classroom. Should be using chalk, locally sourced. Be part of the solution not the problem. 😂

These are great ideas, but they don't account for the sheer number nor success of individuals pursuing their own self interests, let-alone at the expense of others - a perspective that dominates and permeates all aspects of industry around the world. All of this also relies on people somehow changing from being highly materialistic to ... whatever the opposite of materialism is. In looking it up there are numerous definitions of what the opposite of materialism might be. These ideas (which again, sound great) have the ring of being the opposite, but something of a parallel to anarcho-capitalism, which I mention in part as Adam Something (on youtube) details how anarcho-capitalism is unstable and also critically fails to account for fundamental aspects of human behaviour (chiefly greed/self interest).

"BASF to lay off thousands of workers and shut down sections of its flagship facility in Ludwigshafen, Germany." Nat gas input costs are now too high.

Best yet (except for Prof Wm Rees === pre knowledge item: Hypnagogic hallucinations: ...vivid experiences that occur as a person falls asleep. Can involve visual, auditory or physical sensations and can be quite intense and realistic. ========================================== @1630 "the transport sector is going to suffer" @25 min - comparative advantage begins to fail as energy costs rise @36 ... we are living in a gigantic, waste producing, Rube Goldberg machine to give us dopamine shots. Me, years ago: "GDP = Turning Nature into Garbage." @40 ... Postgrads are different. @43 ... Elethium (riveting & more people need to understand this). @47 ... When we use (scarce) energy it will have to be only for strategic purposes. @1;03 Solutions

@stekoo664

8 ай бұрын

Prof Rees Podcast... kzread.info/dash/bejne/foWI16atpLOYico.html&ab_channel=NateHagens

Henry Ford built an early car body from plant based materials. Cheap oil brought the idea to an end.

🌍🌎🌏✊️

Valhalla!! Nah just kidding 😁 I don’t think I’m a part of any of those 4 categories. Just a passive observer. But thanks for the perspective guys

Why community? Real human needs are met rather than the false needs met by consumption. The opportunity to move society beyond individualism (another bait in the ideological trap)

I would watch the 10 minute morning podcast of what Simon dreamed about and then drew and his notebook.

A circular economy is against the law of thermodynamics chaos always ensues.

Thanks Nate and Simon, this dicussion is becoming nitty-gritty, and that's good. How will this new society come together in modern communities that are adaptable and versatile in a manner capable of addressing the worst of the political controls of the technical sector? It will need to be day by day iterative, fast reacting communities led by deliberative democratic groups of people. How do we move in that direction and with pace? Will the present system ever allow it? I doubt it. Sufficient numbers of people are going to have to somehow non-violently force the present structures, corporate-political administrations, to move aside. The military industrial and international banking complex won't willingly give up their super priviledge easily. This is one of those times in the devopment of the human species we're going to have to relearn what it means to have a backbone with meaning and purpose. Aren't that British movement Just Stop Oil an initial phase of this with their demands for citizens assemblies and no new drilling-mining? They need to be connected with people like Simon who have ideas to move forward as the existing power base is removed from its position of hegemony. I don't consider the aforementioned is compatible with capitalism. It looks more like communties from where I sit, based on more localised systems of agreement among people in each particular locale, or a version of this. Nate, Could this new system of geothermal be a useful tool for small communities? It's operating now I understand | kzread.info/dash/bejne/mYptlLN_dMWbobQ.html There are lots of Arcadians in New Zealand hah hah hah

@michaels4255

Жыл бұрын

The tech sector will decline with the energy supply. Ditto banking and the MIC. People need to take depletion more seriously. They don't seem to understand its implications.

57:34

Only build Passive Hauses no need for heating or cooling

Just when we thought watching people hoard toilet paper back in 2020 was bananas...

Many echoes of John Michael Greer from this guest.

Not sure if they were advanced directives but two relatively recent resource bottlenecks that folks came through were WW2 and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The BBC series War Farm is an excellent exploration of directives that resulted in doubling food production in Britain in that period. When the USSR collapsed Cuba suddenly found itself without oil. The Cubans went through what they call the Special Period for many years. It also transformed their agriculture. These are two important time periods with lessons for today. kzread.info/dash/bejne/dYmnt5esYNLMidI.html

A psychological shift will have to occur.

Conclusion: The necessary of population reduction. Aging demographics will help. But reduction of consumption of resources. Example, I have no car, mobile phone, TV, eat home cooked meals, home brew beer, PV on the roof, and a bicycle. At 74 growing vegetables is to difficult. This is the future of western society. Poorer countries will get poorer. Unfortunately the reality is buiness as usual untill the whole system collapses. I believe the growth of debt since before 2000 is a symptom of approaching peak energy and peak growth. Due to the great difficulty of replacing fossil fuels with low emissions energy. Fossil fuels will be used to economic depletion. With over 500 ppm CO2 equivalent warming will continue for over a century without further emissions.

Have you spoken out against Cargill yet? They're the world's largest private corporation, based in Minnesota and heavily involved at the University - seems like that should be your top priority if you're truly interested in sustainbility. Cargill: Our taxes, global destruction Minnetonka-based Cargill is often noted as the world’s largest private corporation, with reported annual sales of over $50 billion and operations at any given time in an average of 70 countries. The “Lake Office” of Cargill is a 63-room replica of a French chateau; the chairman’s office is part of what was once the chateau’s master-bedroom suite. A family empire, the Cargills and the MacMillans control about 85 percent of the stock. Not only the largest grain trader in the world, with over 20 percent of the market, Cargill dominates another 12 sectors, including destructive speculative finance, according to “Invisible Giant: Cargill and its Transnational Strategies,” by Brewster Kneen. Taking advantage of the capitalist speculative collapse of 1873, Cargill quickly bought up grain elevators. After vast cooperation with the state-sponsored railroad robber barons, central grain terminals averaged extremely high annual returns on investments of 30 to 40 percent between 1883 and 1889. Cargill hired a Chase Bank vice president to secretly help the corporation through the Depression, writes Dan Morgan in “Merchants of Grain.” “There are only a few processing firms,” and “these firms receive a disproportionate share of the economic benefits from the food system,” states William D. Heffernan, professor of rural sociology at the University of Missouri. Details of Cargill’s price manipulations at the expense of farmers worldwide was documented in the classic study, “Food First: Beyond the Myth of Scarcity” by Frances Moore Lappe and Joseph Collins. They report that Cargill has had a history of receiving elite government price information that should be told to U.S. farmers. That secrecy, along with tax-subsidized market control, enables Cargill to buy from U.S. farmers at extremely low prices and then sell abroad to nations pressured under the same destructive elite corporate control. See the Institute for Food and Development Policy’s Web Site Between 1985 and 1992, the legal entity called Cargill received $800.4 million in tax subsidies via the Export Enhancement Program, a continuation of the infamous “Food for Peace” policy, writes Kneen. Promoted by Hubert H. Humphrey and instituted as PL 480, food became a Cold War tool, i.e. “for Peace.” If we can induce people to “become dependent on us for food,” then “what is a more powerful weapon than food and fiber?” Humphrey declared, according to “Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies” by Noam Chomsky. Actually, most of the nation recipients of tax-subsidized Cargill food dumping were, and are, net exporters of food already - policies imposed by colonial trading patterns. The food (for Peace) has been bought cheaply by neocolonial regimes, and then sold at a huge discount on the local market - in Somalia, for example, at one-sixth of the local prices. Many examples of these misguided policies can be found in “Betraying the National Interest: How US Foreign AID Threatens Global Security by Undermining the Political and Economic Stability of the Third World,” by Frances Moore Lappe, et al. Cargill’s undercutting wipes out the local farmers’ self-reliance, while the revenues (going to the elite) are tied to required purchases of U.S. weapons, writes Chomsky, citing “The Soft War” by Tom Barry, 1988. But the main beneficiary of “Food for Peace” has been Cargill. Keen writes, “From 1954 to 1963, just for storing and transporting P.L. 480 commodities, the heavily subsidized giant Cargill made $1 billion.” Indian lawyer N.J. Nanjundaswamy reports that a Cargill motto is, “One who controls the seed, controls the farmer, and one who controls the food trade, controls the nation.” Yudof’s recently stated support of federal foreign policy Title XII is another public promotion of the University of Minnesota-Cargill partnership’s raiding of sustainable agricultural cultures. Cargill is such a damaging threat that in Dec. 1992, 500,000 peasants marched against corporate-controlled trade, and the irate farmers ransacked Cargill’s operations. Fifty people were arrested at the partially completed - and subsequently destroyed - seed-processing plant in Bellary, India. In 1996, 1,000 Indian farmers gathered at Cargill’s office and destroyed Cargill’s records. Cargill has been doing bio-piracy, stealing traditional products. For instance, it used Basmati, a rice from India, as its trade name, and the company continues to be one of the main promoters of corporate-driven intellectual property rights. The U.S. Trade Act, Special 301 Clause, allows the United States to take unilateral action against any country that does not open its market to U.S. corporations. The United States, for example, has threatened to use trade sanctions against Thailand for its attempt to protect biodiversity. A bill that has been before parliament in India and promoted by Cargill, “takes away all the farmers’ rights, which they have enjoyed for generations - they will no longer be able to produce new varieties of seed or trade seed amongst themselves,” writes Nanjundaswamy. The research center, Rural Advancement Foundation International, found that “fifteen African states, among them some of the poorest countries in the world, are under pressure to sign away the right of more than 20 million small-holder farmers to save and exchange crop seed. The decision to abandon Africa’s 12,000-year tradition of seed-saving will be finalized at a meeting in the Central African Republic. The 15 governments have been told to adopt draconian intellectual property legislation for plant varieties in order to conform to a provision in the World Trade Organization.” Cargill, with extensive funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, is also destroying the world’s largest wetland - the Pantanal, in South America - in order to dredge a channel that’s designed for convoys of up to 16 soybean- and soymeal-carrying barges, according to the Institute on Food and Development Policy. Cargill has been on the Council of Economic Priorities’ list of worst environmental offenders. Mother Jones magazine and Earth Island Journal report that Cargill is responsible for 2,000 OSHA violations, a 40,000-gallon spill of phosphoric solution into Florida’s Alafia River, poor air pollution compliance and record-high releases of toxic waste. With help from the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy, states have recently begun to respond to citizen pressure and revoke corporate charters. The assets of Cargill should be revoked, allowing the citizens of the United States to give farmers the benefits of fair trade instead of Cargill’s secretive policy of tax-subsidized global destruction.

Have you looked at John Kempf's work (Advancing Eco Agriculture)? Through their work they have shown that much of the nitrogen used on farms are unnecessary (and actually damaging to the plant). Every time the issue comes up about "well, what are we going to do about fertilizers?", that's what I think about. It is possible to grow exceptionally healthy plants that produce more abundantly than we can imagine with biological inputs at the start (and can be done closed loop after a few years once the soil is healthier). The thing that transformed my thinking was realizing that photosynthesis is a chemical process with rate-limiting minerals. Most plants that we see out there are photosynthesizing at a fraction of their potential.

@sudd3660

Жыл бұрын

you cant force more growth without sacrificing something else, and that is what we do now, more quantity and reduce the quality. and we can not sacrifice the quality.

I think the emphasis on super-localised production of everything is overstated. agreed, interstate and global transportation costs are small thanks to a century of cheap oil. But transport costs aren't going to be super-expensive without FFs. EVs are cheaper to run. Biofuels for shipping (eFuel methanol) and aviation (biofuels more likely than eFuels). Batteries appropriate to transport trucks are already available, but still evolving in material science to reduce the material input issues. The Rondo heat Battery I referred to below is being used to store cheap (powered often during negative pricing events on mostly RE or 100% RE grids) wind and PV power to then produce ethanol which reduces the Carbon Index by 50% (lowest RNG/biodiesel costs in th world). CCS (still costly) can reduce it another 50% to effectively zero.

@michaels4255

Жыл бұрын

How many acres of crop land are you proposing to switch to biofuels production? That might work with 800 million persons, but not with 8 billion. And less fertilizer will reduce yields per acre too, and farmers will use most of their production for their own farm machinery, or use the land to feed horses, plus collecting biofuel crops from a large area and transporting them to a processing center, or doing it locally and transporting the liquid fuel to a central location will also be inefficient. Biofuel production not only displaces crop production, but it is also decentralized (and more decentralized when yields decline, as they will), not like an oil field. FF are not just for energy, they are also used as feedstock to produce fertilizer and pesticides and asphalt for roads and much more. Phosphate production will peak this century, and it will peak sooner when liquid fuels become rare and costly. Multiple other minerals will peak too. There is no such thing as infinite substitution. And, no, there are NO appropriate batteries for long haul trucking. It's hokum. A nobel laureate physicist says the physics won't work with any technology. Carbon Index: a waste of time targeting "carbon." Both carbon and carbon dioxide (which are as different as oxygen and water!) are highly desirable substances in quantities much higher than are currently available. CO2 is great for the planet! People who want to reduce it are out of their minds. There is zero chance of the earth overheating (getting BACK to the 2 or 3 degree C warmer temps that earth enjoyed 7000 years ago would be a blessing - IF we could do it!), and in 20 years we will likely be deep in another cool phase of the cycle and wishing for more warmth. I hope I live long enough to see it so I can tell these know it all dodo's I have had to listen to for the last 30 years, "I told you so!" We are facing more than just a hydrocarbon shortage, and there are huge feedbacks in the system that will make everything much worse and which so called RE (which is usually a misnomer) cannot prevent. There are no plug and play replacements. The problem is not "carbon," it is RESOURCE DEPLETION. Oil, coal, gas, copper, silver, nickel, lead, zinc, U235, phosphate, probably sulfur, topsoil, and more. How will you make wind turbines without fly ash for the cement? (And beach sand!) How will you make large quantities of steel without anthracite? How will you "electrify (almost) everything" when copper production starts falling? How much will the efficiency of PV's fall when you have to substitute inferior materials for silver? How will you protect the existing panels from thieves when silver goes to $1000 an ounce? What will you make and repair the roads with without asphalt? Where will you get nitrogen fertilizer to grow the biofuel crops that will replace food crops? (Not to mention phosphate!) I know these materials will not run out overnight, but irreversible decline will itself be a crisis, and depletion to a point of shutting down the mines will be closer than people think because industrial civ requires large amounts of all these materials in an intricate web of production, distribution, processing, and consumption. Think of a complex ecological web where a keystone species starts disappearing. That's what our economy is like, just substitute materials for species.

@bashful228

Жыл бұрын

​@@michaels4255 I agree if you are implying biofuels will be expensive and very limited in their application. Where batteries can do it they will, but that doesn't include long-haul road transport, sea transport or 100+ passenger aircraft at this time. So these will be potential applications and biofuels will be way cheaper than H₂ fuel approaches that are well below 40% efficient even before you get into losses in transforming the FC output to kinetic energy. some other eFuels may get up if major breakthroughs are found fr CCS at suitable costs. but understand this, we don't need to use arable land to produce biomass for biofuel production. the vast majority of cleared and grazed land in Australia (where I live) is used exclusively for the production of ruminant livestock, mostly cattle but also a lot of sheep. they are major sources of emissions. Animal ag is listed as 14% emissions by UNFCCC, but that accounting is flawed, other estimates that include better LCA range from 50% to 86% of global emissions once using a 10 or 20 year time horizon for methane emissions, cropping for animal feed and deforestation are included. a great video playlist with literature references for every claim made can be found from WPF here: kzread.info/head/PLYRhGzlaehcVN8OIXo7P984n6QaSiCgYq If we all went on largely Wholefoods Plant Based Diets (WPBD) (i.e. vegan with high nutritional value and little junk) it would massively reduce the healthcare epidemics in this and all other rich countries, HD, pre- and type 2 diabetes, many cancers, macular degeneration, on and on all completely curable (even reversible in the case of some cancers as established in rat trials 60 years ago) with WPBDs. It would reduce the water, land, GHG, soil erosion leading to river and coral reef destruction on GBR and energy footprints of our diets by factors of 100-500x if you multiply out the negative impacts of livestock production in this country (and anywhere, the numbers are worse for "grass fed" in Australia due to hard to digest tropical zone grasses than lot-fed on grains, producing more methane but not by that much). But this would also clear well over half the previously cleared land in australia to grow whatever suitable vegetation communities we wanted to. we could pay farmers to do it if they wanted to. NBS have limits but they should be done wherever possible. Same for biomass to replace FF for applications where electrification are currently unviable. But this touches on the sacred cow that is animal production and killing for human consumption. People get very very emotional about this industry and super-defensive because it's so linked to their identities cultures and emotional and mental conditioning. That's why Nate talks about FF emissions, he's either unaware of how much larger animal ag is when it comes to ecological and GHG footprint or he knows what a polarising issues it is so stays away. Don't Balme him in a senses, but he's no different to our governments and 99% of our "think tanks" in that respect. this stuff can't even be thought a bout in think tanks (exception was Beyond Zero Emissions in 2014 releasing the Land Use Report and even that was quietly buried c.f. their there important work like the Buildings Plan, Industry Reports, Transport Reports, Superpower Reports). So, yeah, anywhere you can grow fodder (grasses, woodland type shrubs some of which are used for drought feed extensively in Australia) for livestock you can produce biomass for fibre and biofuels and you'd be halting the industry with the biggest ecological footprint in Australia (other than our exported coal and gas perhaps but certain Agnimal Ag is bigger than our internal FF consumption in ecological footprint when you multiply out all the damages to natural capital stocks and funds (which provide health services to humans and absorb pollution and waste streams). Hope that answers you important question, Michael.

One issue this video doesn't touch on is class. Efforts to convince the 1% do do with less are usually a failure. They are also loath to give up control for fear of losing their position. They see the 99% as instruments, not people. The short answer seems to be to also deal with the current Roman notions of property and economic rents. There will be resistance to such efforts.

Sounds like they're talking about permaculture.

I don’t understand. The mobile phone is the greatest invention ever created. It is a tool which gives us the capacity to do many many things. When you were suggesting we don’t need a screen. Does that not presume that the functions that I currently perform with my phone because I don’t order computer or to be performed on a computer or a laptop instead? Sounds to me as though you’re taking us in the direction of Luddite aspirations. We will need all of these tools in their greatest form to create a paradigm of lifelong learning, to optimize resource, distribution, to continuously analyze our work to optimize our work to replace fossil fuel energy with human energy and many other tasks. maybe you should walk around in nature for a while before making such a bright assumptions.

@barrycarter8276

Жыл бұрын

If you’ve been following Nate and his conversations you will have picked up that when fossil fuels are seen to be peaking they will escalate in price to point their use will be rationed on the basis of need and so societies with fall in GDP terms possibly back to 1990’s. Nokia mobile type phones were the must have device then. Personally I see the GDP falling to 1970’s level, Nate’s more optimistic than me. And for something as energy intensive to manufacture as a smart phone, remembering energy is in virtually everything, it’s in the mining of tech metals, rare earths and energy minerals. And so it’s likely mobile phones won’t be as technologically sophisticated, just voice and text, sorry but this is “The Great Simplification”🤔

@SeegerInstitute

Жыл бұрын

@@barrycarter8276 Barry, I don’t disagree but there are other factors: when we fall it will be bad no question. But if we can anticipate that, perhaps (unlikely, but we have to try) we can lay the foundation for the next civilization which will require us to the best of our ability to use all the tools at our disposal to maximize human capital, both as individuals and in cooperative efforts to rebuild ecosystems and institute new forms of community based not on extraction,but rather on regeneration and adjusting our energy and material expectations. This will involve total societal transformation, probably not going to happen quickly or without a whole lot of pain, but coming non-the-less. To the extent to which we can begin to experiment with alternative models and introduce a new ethos which acknowledges our interdependence on all of life we can perhaps partially mitigate the pain and introduce a new ethos and begin to educate future leaders to lay the foundation of whatever will come next. Just saying…..

@barrycarter8276

Жыл бұрын

@@SeegerInstitute “The mobile phone is the greatest invention ever created” I’m afraid this came across to me as whatever happens we must make sure that we can produce smart phones with at least todays functionality. And with regards to your reply, I can agree with that 👍

@burneraccount1218

Жыл бұрын

You need to just admit you're addicted to your smartphone. I spent the first 20 years of my life without a smartphone and I didn't die because of that. You're just getting angry when someone discusses the reality of infinite growth being incompatible with a finite planet: the phone you can't put down is going away no matter how much you screech "luddite" at anyone who isn't addicted to the point of physical dependency the way you are.

@SeegerInstitute

Жыл бұрын

@@burneraccount1218 Perry I’m not addicted to the iPhone I am a person who has spent 30 years, anticipating the decline of our current civilization and trying to see if there’s a way that we could at least exemplify a better model going forward for future generations. I think that the breakdown of communities as a result of our hyper mobile society has put us in a position where we have no choice other than to establish sympathetic communities, virtually simultaneous to establishing local communities, based on local food and energy systems and regenerating, soil, biology and sequestering carbon. I wish it were not the case that we will need every tool at our disposal to find a way of working together. I see the iPhone as an opportunity to access all of the worlds, cumulative knowledge, and communicate with one another optimally. If the majority of our time were to be spent working with communities locally, that would be ideal. However, I feel moving forward we will have to evolve into a species which both defines community as those who are physically around us, and those with whom we are working on larger projects on a global scale. This work needs to be done in parallel, in other words working on small components of projects as different teams in different locations, minimizing unintended consequences and moving the narrative forward simultaneously in order to advanced civilization as quickly as possible while minimizing the inevitabl unintended consequences that will arrive from our actions.