Comments by "Xyz Same" (@xyzsame4081) on "TED"
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@joebloggs619 you speak as someone who is not in an unhealthy relationship. Have you ever heard of Stockholm Syndrome ? Consider that she is likely to have children, and your non-judgemential common sense matter of fact statements may make an impact - even if the shows only years later.
(I read a report of a woman who came from a good family - only her mother ran off when she was little. Devoted father, living a very cooperative equal partnership with his 2nd wife. When she was 28 years (maybe the age her mother left or became a child) she "fell in love" with a very traditional guy, whirlwind romance, she got pregnant immediately, they married. In his family the father was dominant and he beat the wife.
And during the engagement phase the young man had smacked her, they had got lost on a holiday in the city and that was too stressful for him. She was so shocked, surprised that it did not register, later he apologized and she let it pass. BIG mistake.
Anyway: she knew that the people in the hospital did not believe her when she came up with the explanation of which accident had caused this and that bruise. She would have been mortified and likely would have denied it when they had called a spade a spade. But in her narrative she wrote that she wished they had called her out - in a matter of fact manner.
Later: her familiy doctor was better trained. She admitted the physical abuse (and much more verbal terror) or the doctor asked for it. The GP did not make a drama of it, but told her it would be better to leave. And she told her to pay attention to the shelters, and telephone numbers of helpful organizations. the docors had posters in the waiting room (brochures are useless, the other waiting patients would see you take it). The the woman learned that number by heart - even though she did not leave - yet.
The strange thing is - she had a loving and caring father, not in the same city, but he no doubt would have come on his white horse to ge her and the 2 children out, had he known. He was not rich, but solid middle class, enough to help her out.
The other thing that stood out: how delusional she was about how she could "protect" the children from harm while they witnessed her husband abusing her and occasionally beating her. (that was his last resort, he managed her with verbal violence and the threat ! of physical abuse, she learned to walk on eggshells).
The difference to Stockhom Syndome: not one very traumatic life threatening event - instead the potential victims were set up often as children and indoctrinated accordingly (although some can find themselve in terrifying situations, that are life and death and have that repeatedly and at young age).
If the speaker had a warm and trusting relationship with family, other female relatives, she likely would have told them, would have had a net to fall back on. That does not mean her family was terrible, just not good enough to support her in situations of higher demand.
Children with _absent parents are also _weaker it must not always be outright abuse: highly stressing careers, illness or death of a parent, a sibling that needs all the energy of the parents, mental illness or "quiet" addiction - children from such families are more likely to end up in dysfunctional relationships. Females more often with "helper's syndrome" and in exploitative or abusive situations. Man try to "cure" the damage often by becoming abusers.. It can be that the child was not neglected in a way that was obvious to the outer world and that the addicted or ill parents were not mean - just not available (and not always it was their "fault").
As for your co-worker: That's a a special kind of family where you learn to value "getting a husband incl. expensive ring" more than your dignity. (and she had invested 5 years into the project to catch him).
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I read a story of U.S. interns (not working with clients or visible to clients) who were ordered to wear high heels to work (plus business attire of course). They noted one person that wore flat shoes (that was a veteran who had an injury and thus was granted that "privilege"). The interns (college graduates likely) made a "petition" to the superiors that they would like to get a pass as well - and they mentioned that one person for whom the rules were loosened. as well - They all got fired.
The comments were quite gleeful - serves the spoilt brats right, some got caught up how they could dare to "demand" the same privilige as the veteran (never mind they didn't know that - well they could have asked before), most agreed "we had to suck it up and they will have to suck it up as well. That'll teach them a lesson".
I live in Europe so here is my perspective: the rule to wear high heels was arbitrary. It had nothing to do with the quality of the product or the customer experience. Asking for presentable, maybe somewhat conservative attire ? Fine Ask them to have clean, more formal shoes, no flip-flops, no open toes, etc. ? Fine. But that rule was applied to folks who were expected to function as adults, to give their intelligence, dedication, curiosity, goodwill, cooperation, loyalty and resourcefulness to the company. And they were not modelling or acting.
The company on the other hand was really dedicated to make them OBEY. They do not want people who QUESTION arbitrary rules. They most definitely do not want to come people together to ask their employer for something. What comes next ? unions, collective bargaining, people exchanging how much money they make ? Note how the favor they asked for had nothing to do with performance (well maybe better performance because wearing orderly but comfortable shoes on long workdays). And it would not have COST the employer money.
Of course the old employees would have been upset, they HAD submitted to the arbitrary rules, so giving the spoilt brats privileges would not sit well with them.
The next best thing would have been to decline the petition and explain to them, the the only exception was made for the veteran, and not to make too much ado about it.
But no -THEY had to be fired - they had violated the law of OBEDIENCE.
And with such a managment style you cannot have a resourceful, result-oriented, cooperative team and way of getting things done.
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@skonstas4683 ? a reduction by 25 % is nothing for you ? And of course like all technocrats that do not study ecology you forgot to add the carbon IN the SOIL that every tree stores away. Likely more efficiently than other plants (because of cooperation with fungi). Plus the other many benefits of trees:
Fruits, shade, moderating the temperatures and impact of rainfall / draughts. Habitat for wildlife and pollinators, noise and dust reduction, SOIL CREATION, helping to infiltrate rain and later to pump it up from the underground. Flood, mudslide, avalanche protection. Wind shelter. Fuel and construction material. Also for bee keepers.
Trees not only bring up water they also mine minerals from the underground. Both helps the whole vegetation system nearby, not only the tree that invests the energy. During heat spells areas with trees and a lot of vegetation are considerably cooler. Easily by 10 degrees C in the shade and 3 - 5 degrees in the area (we are talking cities !) Trees are the most effective in bringing temperatures down, they evaporate water and act like a cooler.
Trees produce fungal dominated soil, especially if planted in a group (there will be a far reaching web in the soil). The good effects compound if you have a group of trees, but of course a single tree, or row of trees still does some good. Clusters of forests are even better.
They break the wind and can stop deforestation. They are food for animals and humans and are pleasant to look at. They are a factor for tourism (Indian summer, berry and mushrooms collectors, also hunters) and increase the value of real estate in a neighbourhood.
They build and secure the good soil that can store water, funnel it into aquifers and then it is slowly released.
The Amazon creates a more favorable climate in adjacent ecosystems that get more rain than you would expect from their location. They get a windfall. The Amazon creates its own rain, the water evaporates and carries bacteria with it, those become the condensation cores for droplets.
And the ecosystems next to the huge forests also get some of the goodness. Or they used to.
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You forgot to mention that it is aesthetically pleasing, can be good for tourism, stabilizes hills against mudslides and avalanches, produces oxigen, helps with water storage, improves soil (natural soil is a sponge, it can take up downpours and release the moisture over time, that is even more so when the leaves are dropped every fall to form topsoil).
It also provides food. Wild pigs used to feed on the fruits.
Also construction material. Shelter for animals.
As for feeding a crowd - grass land beats forests - that is why steppes have more animals and the huge predators. The grass can be trampled (by animanls) and eaten to the ground - it will recover. The cycles are much, much faster (months versus decades or centuries) and grass may be even better in how much carbon is processed (even though grass land looks less impressive).
In the forests allmost all the bio mass goes into the wood, they grow slowly however, and do not recover (let's say from a storm, wildfire, pests).
So if we are into sequestering carbon - growing hemp (which is more the equivalent of grass) and using that to produce QUALITY insulation for quality buildings (= long term use) would store away a lot of carbon for at least 50 - 100 years. That would buy us time.
Admitted forests of oak, beech, maple look prettier.
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10:00 he shows grass after a rain, and then when it became standing hay during the the dry season and claims the grass dies off (correct) and also that the the soil life and the roots die. That is NOT correct, as long as there is some moisture the critters and microbes survive, the moment they get rain they spring back into action.Incl. the roots.
And the grass does NOT oxydize when it is hot and dry, it needs moisture, to decompose.
It becomes fuel for wildfire. Cattle or other (also smaller !) wildlife will eat it (when they are hungry enough) or there is a good chance it burns down at some point.
Heavy rains might beat the standing hay down so that it starts decomposing and a little green can come up amid the flatter grass, but for rejuvenation it has to be grazed or removed otherwise, but that grazing must not be done by cattle, or large lifestock.
Actually in many mature (genuine) semi-arid regions the plants have evolved with pressure only from small to medium sized grazer, and when the land is dry (and vulnerable) already, herds in desperate search of fodder (goats or cattle) will damage it.
When that happens occasionally AND there is no ongoing draught, AND the land is flat, so not much runoff / erosion, the vegetation can recover even from that damage. But not when humans make that an agricultural practice.
The folks at the Loess Plateau in the last phase of degredation did plenty of animals but only for a very short time - out of necessity, there was so little growth. It did not restore the vergetation (despite sufficient if not super abundant rain *) it made things worse.
Only the massive government project restored the landscape beautifully and that included NO grazing until the vegetation had recovered and the many trees and bushes had established themselves and were large enough that the goats were not interested anymore and getting a few leaves did not kill the plants.
If land gets always some (but mild) rainfall it can take a lot of abuse and will recover and erosion will not be too bad either.
But what he suggests is INTENSE (if short) grazing, and that can easily be very damaging if the vegetation is vulnerable already. The short duration of the managed grazing is of little value when the lifestock would have moved on 1 day later on its own because then there was nothing left at all.
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The US has only approx. 325 million people and consumes resources on a huge level (the other first world countries als get much more than "their share", but the U.S. are especially wasteful). So they beat China when it comes to consumption even though China has 1,3 billion people and PRODUCES so much (incl. a lot of the stuff that is then consumed in the U.S.)
Overpopulation is a problem because there will be more major famines, maybe epidemics (w/o a Western style medical system to manage them), mass unemployment and human tragedies, and likely also more terrorism and war - but THEY do not use up all the resources or emit the CO2 that causes climate change.
It would be a human tragedy (there were plenty of them in past centuries and millenias) - but it would not change the conditions for life on earth or change the climate.
(Well the pressure on the population in the poor countries on wildlife might not impact climate but biodiversity, so that tigers, rhinos and also less prominent animals and ecosystems vanish).
Of course some of these poor or developing countries have nukes (India, Pakistan, China). So if they come under enormous economic pressure like Europe did in the 1920s and 1930s ...
The energy and meat consumption in the rich and better developing countries cause THESE problems. Bangladesh has an overpopulation problem, but look at their USE of energy and raw materials !!
Poor agricultural societies ALWAYS have a lot of children (search your family history - your grand and grand grand parents). It is a survival of the species thing - we can see that in ever society of which we have records that having A LOT OF CHILDREN was highly valued.
And totally embedded into culture, and supported / demanded by the ruling class and the respective religion.
That is also true for the Abrahamic religions, or for "Christian" countries until the pill !!
There was a lot of backlash against the pill, in Europe in the first years it was not given to any woman, just those who were a) married and b) had already a bunch of kids - at least 4 or c) were in danger when getting pregnant again.
The "authorities" and the churches were usually opposed * to just allow people to control their fertility. And that was in the enlightened, rich, developed countries.
In Turkey families usually have not as many children as for instance Turkish migrants in Germany. The reason: among other things economic reasons, in Germany or Austria there is a child allowance per child (everone gets it no matter the income), it as about 100 - 150 USD per child per month. Well it helps.
So the strong cultural bias towards having a lot of children * is modified and controlled by government policy. Turkey does not give those child allowances, they do not want more growth of the population, it is easier to provice housing and jobs if you do not have an explosion of the population. Of course the self-limitation to 2 or 3 children will only work if the population is doing O.K. and if the country has some provisions for retired persons in place. In Turkey people get a pension and their children will likely survive (medical system).
A poor farmer in India has and had another situation. Only the children will take care of them and for cultural reasons only the male children. And then if they have 6 kids - how many of them will be alive in 20 or 30 years ?
* Parents in such traditional / conservative societies get recognition from their environment for having large families (especially the number of sons), that also applies to more traditional or fundamentalistic Christian families, for instance the Mormons, or the "Quiverful Movement", or the Amish)
Humans are not bound by their instincts. With increasing wealth the number of children drop - in all societies and classes within societies.
No one forces the Europeans or solid middle class U.S. citizens to have less children. it comes quite naturally. (Immigrants from Mexico are closer to the "poor agricultural society" - so they are having more children. When they can work their way into more wealth, they will have less children too).
The problem - right now - is that these few children in the wealth countries still use up way more resources than the families of 8 in a poor country.
We could alter that. And the developing countries needed to skip our "wasteful" period of industrialization. (1945 - now). This has to do with political will - of course we could develop the technology and adapt our economic system accordingly.
The Race to the Moon was declared a matter of national interest (after the Sputnik shock - before Eisenhower had found the project to be too expensive). There was the will - they money was allocated, the brains were assembled - and a few years later there were results.
or the Manhattan Project. Mastering nuclear fission had become a matter of urgency - so it was mastered - within a few years.
Unfortunately that "can do" attitude and the willingness to "find the money" is only at play when it comes to war, death, destruction. Not for life-affirming and cooperative projects.
The U.S. cannot even adopt a reasonable healthcare system (following the example of European countries which introduced them - or improved basic systems they already had - after 1945. They might have just ended being mortal enemies - but on that point they all agreed).
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@helbrassen4576 There is a sequestration mechanism * when it comes to carbon in soil. It is not the cycle of plants growing and decomposing (where they take in CO2 and then release it). Check out the liquid carbon pathway, Dr. Chrisine Jones. And trees seem to perform best in that regard.
* In the very long run that might be a cycle, but the eath has formed soil over the eons and it did not all go up in the air (the humus). If that was the case the main part of soil = minerals (silt, sand, loan, clay) would be left behind. Some carbon has been sequestered away for very, very long time.
TREES feed the fungi in the earth with sugars dissolved in water, they are called exudates. That is a special power that trees (or bushes with very deep and extesnive root systems) have, likely more than other plants. They produce those exudates (like everything else) with help of solar radiation, CO2, water and a few other elements, mostly nitrogen. The fungi help them with getting minerals up from underground,and with distributing soil moisture deep down.
The fungi eat and process the sugars and produce "waste" - like every being with a metabolism. Their waste are long complex, carbon containing, fairly stable molecules. Which we call humus.
Those molecules might be stable for many hundreds even thousands of years. I mean with industrial farming methods tilling, ploughing, use of chemicals they can be degraded and will react with the oxygen of air: C becomes CO2 and the valuable nitrogen becomes NO2 and is also lost into the air.
But farming methods that try to imitate nature do not destroy those stable molecules.
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1 of 2) SURPRISING social experiment: people are paid to do tasks (like solving cross word puzzles, or sudokos, but also menial labor). The pay is varied. They want to find out how pay influences outcomes, performance or the willingness to accept the job at all. - Now with unattractive manual labor it goes as one would expect: more pay equals better performance and more people willing to do it. - With "white" collar work however, there was hardly any difference between low and medium pay. If the task needs the brainpower and personality of the worker, and if they can enjoy delivering the task (or if it is easy to experience it as fun or meaningful) - the satisfaction of doing the job becomes part of the pay.
More pay does not equal better performance - another way to view it: people already are giving their best even though they are not well paid (you can apply that to social workers, artists, interns, childcare, ....).
Meaning if people can find some enjoyment and sense or challenge (in a good way) in what they are doing for a living, you can exploit them. You will enjoy getting good performance from your employees for meagre pay.
The last test was to pay very much for the "white" collar type tasks. This resulted in the the biggest surprise. If they PAID people TOO MUCH it completely RUINED their PERFORMANCE (and ruined it very reliably).
I think the reason is that the financial gain (and the incentive from it) starts overpowering the joy and pride of getting the job done in a reasonable manner. It becomes only about the money and not to lose the money and the incentive to play the system to get even more money.
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the EU demands plant based fuel to be added to fossil fuel - for that the ancient rainforests are cut down (in Asia and Amazonia). And oilpalm monucultures replace the rainforests (and the people that used to live there). In these countries the oligarchs have it easy to seize the land and to brutally crush any resistance. The palm oil is slightly cheaper than oil grown in the wealthy countries - and the food brands meanwhile belong to only a few multinationals - so even a few cents add up for them. Palm oil can also be used for plant based fuel.
The ancient Northern forests (boreal woods) are easy to harvest (flat, huge trees, no one cares because the areas are remote). So Siberia, Finland, Sweden, Canada are plundered (with huge machines that compress the soil to make things worse).
WHY ?
We need (or demand) cheap wood - most of it is not even used for furniture but for cheap composite / or particle boards for cheap throw away furniture.
Our current economic system does not include all of the costs into a price calculation of a product - on the contrary shifting the externals costs to someone else or something else is rewarded and it almost always happens to a degree.
A lot of wood goes into houses as construction material or furniture - now if the quality of the houses was better, they could be made to last much longer - and the environmental impact to cut down a tree (in a weatlhy country, or in the rainforest or the boreal woods) could be spread over the time and over decades.
And if the quality of those boards was slightly better (less or NO formaldehyd emissions !) and more stable (boards for cheap furniture) - it would be worth the while to recycle them, or DIY minded persons would line up whenever someone discards of furniture. That could also be encouraged by local work shops that help to cut them up.
And of course the forests of wealthy countries in the moderate climate zone would be used (they can cope with the constant harvesting) - with machines that do not ruin the soil. The trees grow much faster there, and the population would also react to "assaults" on the ecosystems that go unnoticed in the very remote boreal forests. And of course no one is killed during illegal logging. Plus no more imports, be it from Canada, or Russia or the Asian countries.
it makes a difference if you "take out" a few trees at at time like in traditional logging - or if you cut down everything (it is also not comparable to a wildfire: the currently used harvesters are much worse. That's a groundzero scenario. They REMOVE more biomass, destroy the soil. And a wildfire does not destroy everything although it may look like that. (in the soil there are seeds, roots - vegetation can and will bounce back, grass, shrubbery, and eventually trees).
Alternative: trees are cut down by small farmers that do not use those harvesters at all (the better wood prices would secure some jobs in the rural areas. That means it would be viable to take care of the trees growing on hills and mountains - avalanche and mudslide country. The forests tend to be legally protected in those areas. Trees attacked by beetles or damaged by storms must be removed if the area is accessible at all. Removal - and if possible planting new trees with special material (mats, biochar) would be more economically viable if prices are higher.
And the owners of the area MUST replant and it is not allowed to cut down all at once. The forests stabilize the soil and the hills and good forest earth is also an excellent sponge to take up rain. So downpours will be less likely to lead to floodings and mudslides and the moistures is slowly released over time.
But that makes the raw material more expensive. Now if the boards are suitable for DIY, and the raw material even for simple furniture is good sturdy quality , it can be sold and upcycled instead of being thrown away. Then the higher costs for using the plentyful (but harder to harvest material) would be spread out over more years - the costs do not matter.
Well, that is not how consumerism and throw-away culture works.
In countries like Germany and Austria the forests are growing, they still have a lot of SMALL farms that could well do with some extra income ("making wood" is traditionally winter work), the territory often does not allow for those harvesting machines anyway.
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@Gustav4 Ethiopia has also recovered. People were forced to leave the areas during the draught, and when finally a period of more rain came the herds did not eat all the new growth, because there were no herds (and not much wildlife) left. Again: the solution was NO domesticated grazers (and wildlife likely also did not fare well during the draught). The villagers observe that now the predatory cats come back.
If they would be given the funding to build ponds, irrigation systems, ... and trained to monitor as community how many animals they can afford to let graze, they would become more resilient.
Every herder is tempted to increase the number of goats, it is a short term gain, the size of the herds adds to their status, and even if they are not greedy some of them simply might need it even if realize that if ALL herders do that they undermine the base for their livelyhood long term.
Poverty drives short term decision that are bad long term.
This is a collective problem. Every individual stands to profit (short term) if they have too many animals.
They had that also in a village in India, and solved their problems by working together. Earth works to stop, slow down, soak in and spread the rain, and that improved the situation. They have enough rain (not that much for India they are in the rain shadow of a mountain range), but 6 - 8 months there is no rain, and 2 months or so they have torrential rains with erosion and flooding.
Now the village elders measure the groundwater and if they had a good rain harvest in the last rainy season the villagers can grow the cash crops that bring good money but need more water (like bananas, or sugar cane), else they have to restrict themselves to crops that are less lucrative but also less demanding. ALL have to abide by those rules, since they all get their water from the aquifers (or the stream that is now reliably flowing thanks to the water they get into the ground), and the ponds they collectively created.
But all in the village can have TWO crops per year - as it used to be in the past before they ran into problems with water supply and erosion.
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If cattle eat their natural fodder - grass - it is more expensive to produce meat. (and also dairy products are more expensive). Ask the nations that had rationing on meat (and fat, butter, milk, cheese) as soon as WW2 started. Even in the U.S., the horse whisperer Monthy Roberts remembers that some older horses (which he loved) were driven to the slaughterhouse when the U.S. enterered the war. The devastated boys were told this was necessary to feed the soldiers.
(it is possible that their father got a much better price for the horsemeat and decided not to keep the horses anymore. Or the government gave the incentive so that no fodder would be "wasted" on non-productive animals. The horses had won medals in their prime, and were used for riding for children etc. so they earned their keep before the war).
These days they burn down the rain forest, and the local oligarchs have cash crops with soy beans etc. THAT makes the cheap meat production possible in the wealthy countries.
Our grandparents were not too stupid to raise chicken and pigs properly. It is more expensive if you can only use the resources of your nation and the farmers are supposed to make a living. (instead of exploiting the land of poor people in de facto dictatorships.
Chicken was a sunday meal back in the day.
In Europe it was meat twice a weak even in the 1960s and 1970s. Cheese (from grass fed cattle), cold cuts and sausages were expensive as well, so instead of having a cold dinner they often had a soup and something lighter.
During the week they had other food (pancakes, pies, something with potatoes, or some stew with a sausage or a little meat - but lots of other ingredients to "stretch" the meat).
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@Tenebrousable If a tax is not meant to raise revenue but to trigger a change (meaning it can be revenue neutral) - government can easily protect low income citizens. Even in Finland a lot of people live in more densely populated areas. Or the whole village works in the nearby city. Could the government generously fund car sharing, public transportation. Minibusses, give out taxi vouchers to citizens ??
Australia did something like that - the households were compensated for the carbon tax expenditures (electricity). Consumers that were energy efficient could use a part of the money for other things ;) Companies selling solutions (with less output of CO2) got more attention. - Companies got a nudge (shove) to invest in reducing their CO2 output and their use of electricity. (In Australia a lot of it is produced with coal fired plants).
Lots of doom and gloom scenario ("Whining is the salute of the merchants") - and then they did.
Companies that had been very much against the carbon tax THEN argued to keep it (of course: they wanted their investments to PAY OFF). And there is economy of scale. As long as it is the goodwill of a few a mass production solution or a service do not kick off in a market. When it becomes widespread the offers become better and cheaper. So often it turns out it is not that expensive or that there are added benefits.
(Of course the government also could have given out zero interest loans to help out businesses with the transition - someone should inform them about MMT or QE for The People - if they can get out of bed with Big Finance, that is).
After 1,5 years the doom and gloom scenarios had been debunked but they got a new Prime Minister that is best buddy with the coal industry (which can hardly compete even w/o carbon tax, certainly not the older plants).
Every time the global installed solar panel volume has doubled (their capacity, not area, or invested money) - the prices go down by 20 %. That trend is going on since the 1980s when the first panels powered satellites (price was not the issue then).
It has nothing to do with time at all. Only demand (with government help !!) triggered improvements in price and quality.
So every time incentives are given for consumers and businesses to buy panels - technology and industry make huge leaps forward. The last wave was also triggered by the - clumsy and unsatisfactory - German initiatve (Energy transition).
Contrary to common belief Chancellor Merkels is no friend of green energy (she is a friend of Merkel, then Big Biz and Biz Finance and then the party - and then maybe other businesses and wealthy citizens. In that order.).
She had political reasons (Fukushima) - and you can see it in the way the "transition" is set up that her heart and convictions are not in it.
Now that the transtition kicks off globally Germany is dragging it's feet !! instead of reaping the fruits of the efforts of the national economy. But NOW the Big energy providers have even more objections. And the Germany car industry with their evolutionary dead-end the diesel engine. So now Merkel is asleep at the whell instead of making sure Germany is positioned at the top.
The German car manufacturers NOW massively invest in solar to hydro and solar to gas. Like diesel that is complicated technology - while electric cars are easy to build. So China could compete with them easily.
Well, maybe something good will come of that as well - not so much for use in verhicles but to store away the huge surplus for heating - the surplus that is possible if a lot of collectors are set up in sunny regions (a few % of the Sahara covered by panels could power the world with PV - not only electricity needs, all energy.
That is not practical right now - but it shows HOW MUCH energy the planet receives from the sun. Most of it is reflected immediately back into space or the earth would overheat. So panels are just a way to insert another layer of use before the energy finally leaves the planet.
You can also see it in WHO is made to pays for the switch.
Low income consumers who cannot offset higher energy prices with taking advantage of the subsidized offers for energy saving or producing.
That said: Still something good came out of it.
The German effort triggered enough demand and cost reduction to make panels viable in sunny U.S. states like California and Texas (even w/o subsidies). They have much better conditions, peak demand for cooling aligns with peak production, so less batteries were needed (they also were more costly). The panels harvest more and at the right time.
THEN the increased sales of solar panels in sunny areas triggered - FINALLY - massive spending on battery and storage research (the effort of TESLA helped as well).
It is viable to INVEST in research NOW not only for production but especially for storage. When that is solved (and it is around the corner) other forms of electricity production will not be able to compete (not coal or nuclear - only hydro from at least mediium sized plants or wind if the conditions are good).
If there are now some more improvements with solar panels - let's say 10 % and a break through with batteries - another 10 % there ( a good thing if it wasn't Lithium, solid state sounds promising) - the Australian coal industry can go home.
Solar will blow coal out of the water in sunny Australia soon.
PV also works on cloudy days, as long as there is daylight. If storage is less expensive - well that takes care of peak production and the night, and the rainy days. If panels are cheaper you can just afford to have the over capacities on the roof or the wall.
People also afford to have a car that has 10 times the weight of what is transported (often one driver and a few possession). That is a huge waste of energy and resources.
If need be, the sometimes plentiful suplus energy (when you err on the safe side regarding size of the installation) could heat swimming pools if no other good use is found, just to get rid of the surplus. At least until there are more (quiet, efficient, clean) electric vehicles.
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@truthbetold818 The limiting factor for plants ? Sunlight, temperatures overall / the extremes, length of growing period and too much or too little water. Nutrients, wind or salt play a role as deterrent, but with sun and enough water some hardy pioneers will move in, even with no soil and no nutrients. In come some ground cover pioneers, they and later grasses build soil for 1000 years, and bushes and trees take it from there. IF they have enough RAIN.
CO2 is available all over the planet - unlike space, sunlight, water, nutrients. A plant in the shade or on bad soil is not deprived of CO2, that's the only thing plants can always have.
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@truthbetold818 Now we have added 47 % to that maximum of 800,000 years and most of it was added in the last 70 years. Will that unprecedented FAST increase of CO2 (not only in the last 800,000 years there is NO precedent in the climate history of the planet) disrupt natural cycles ??
Answer: Yes, and they can already measure that: Certain ocean currents slow down and the jet streams that circle the arctic (and the antarctic) in the winter have weakened. The models showed it would happen, but they did not expect it to happen so fast. More like: in 30 or 40 years.
Texas Feb. 2021 was not a freak event, that will happen again, within the next 10 years, likely earlier.
In winter the cold air used to stay put in the Arctic. the jet streams that "fence off" the poles are the stronger the larger the difference of temperatures is between Arctic and equator.
If the Arctic ocean is way too warm that has effects on the air temperature in the Arctic and the fence gets weak, spreads out, meanders and is wobbly overall.
That is what they observe all year round, but normally in winter that temperature difference got more pronounced so the cold air got locked in and we were protected from it.
Now you have freak events where the Arctic is too warm (by 30 degrees Celsius) and the South of the U.S. gets a part of the cold air that used to stay in the Arctic in winter.
And the infrastructure is not at ALL set up for that.
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@helbrassen4576 BIOCHAR is an additional, human made way to sequester carbon away in soil. Additionally to what natural processes make possible (and the limits that almost certainly exist). - There is no need for nonsense with huge machines and liquified CO2 and what not. Biochar is a scheme that could be carried out by local companies.
(small) industrial scale means that the heat that is generated can be used (for hot water for instance) and they can also handle the emissions. Either optimizing the process so there are emissions and / or using filters.
I have heard that it is not bad if you set it up correctly, there are several methods, the organic matter (plants, wood, ...) does not burn it does nto become fuel (so also less emissions) so not that much energy is lost in the process, even if they do not capture the heat.
But doing that at a small scale industrial level might be helpful, especially if it is used globally. It is possible that the cooldown, the duration, and max temps etc. play a large role in how the biochar performs or what traits the biochar has. So some standardization would be helpful.
It is not high tech, cannot be monopolized with help of patents, and if need be a farmer in India or a homesteader in the U.S. can DIY. It is not a process that would lead to big subsidies for industrial players and it lends itself well to productionaby small actors.
And most likely it would show the most benefits for organic agriculture resp. permaculture. Could even be a bandaid for big ag. It can be used as additive to concrete (replacing sand), to streets, for water cleaning. As bedding for animals to remove pathogens, ....
Albert Bates has interesting information of the many potential uses and the state of research.
he said that every university that has an agricultural department studies biochar.
That is not reflected in mainstream media. Of course not.
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@helbrassen4576 young FAST GROWING saplings / trees - like all organisms - have a time when they grow much faster and absorb more, then they slow down. That would buy us time, trees do most of their growth in the first 15 - 40 years, be it a medium sized or a large variety. Fruit trees are even faster. - Plus: the top irrigated crop in the U.S. is lawn. Every park and home has space for three fruit trees each (can be dwarved forms).
And maybe a permanent climber at a shed wall. or a trellis close to the house wall One can grow fruit trees very close to house walls (they did that in the mountains to be able to have apples, plumes and apricots in harsh climates. The trees need more attention when it comes to pruning, but it looks good and they have a lot of fruit).
That biomass can later - after 10 - 40 years - be used to produce paper, particle boards, biochar, compost, wood chips or be used as fuel. Or as construction material in the garden, or to grow mushrooms. Or the people got used to having a tree in the garden and let it be.
If you burn fuel to turn a generator (or run a combustion engine) only about 23 % of the fuel goes into moving the generator or motor, most becomes heat. That is why the car needs a cooling cycle.
When the waste product heat is put to good use the efficiency of the process goes up to over 60 %. They do that in power plants in Austria or Germany and even have small furnaces for homes that burn wood and produce electricity when there is peak demand - the hot water goes into an isolated tank.
60 % is not great BUT it replaces fossil fuel, helps with peak electricity demand in winter, it is a source of income for small farmers, and wood is an established form to STORE regenerative energy. It is well established tech, and supply chain, and can be handled locally. No exotic elements or high tech or new technologies or big industries needed.
The challenge we have now with renewables is storage / batteries. It looks promising, I think in the next 3 years we will get drastically reduced batteries prices (for residential use, so no need for Lithium, neither weigh nor fast charging is an issue there) and that will have huge effects on the energy system.
People will get larger PV installations, there will be a lot of surplus in summer (for electric cars) and even in winter the share of solar will be higher (on a cold but sunny day solar has decent yields, even better with snow reflection).Solar uses daylight, direct sunshine is of course much better.
In Germany and Austria the Christmas trees are placed on the curb on a certain day after January 6th) and the local waste company (the city or town) picks them up, in rural areas that is not necessary, everyone knows someone that would gladly take the wood, or people compost it or use it as garden construction material.
The collected trees are burned and produce peak electricity and hot water.
if the many homeowners want to get rid of their trees after 10 - 20 years they can cut them down and compost them, or the local government can offer picking up every few years if people cannot dispose of their trees. In reality - put up a sign "free tree for self harvester" and see people lining up.
Of course the folks that obsess with manicured lawns and tree stump removal would need to change their views. Either plant an new tree nearby the stump and let it overgrow with ground cover and set it apart with a border (for mowing the rest of the lawn) . And / or grow mushrooms. Or cover it with flowers or vegetables, or higher plants if you must hide the tree stump.
With children or grand children a fairy dwelling would be an idea if the tree stump is large enough for that.
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@andrewmattox1233 yes but the technology "plants" (and algae !!) is self-replicating, cheap and not a business model for big biz. And you cannot put a patent on growing hemp, or C4 plants, bamboo or trees.
First we "need" to cut down the Nothern forests and rain forests (soy beans for cheap meat, cheap palm oil, cheap wood for throw away furniture, or particle boards for homes that may be torn down within a few decades. EU mandated plant based fossil fuel).
There are medieval houses in Germany that were built with a fram of wood, the walls were filled up with panels of straw, loam and what not. I think the outside covering was a silicate based "coating" (chalk based likely). and they had large roofs that extended the base of the house - protecting the house walls from some of the rain - we are talking of Germany, lots of rain. They did not have them in the areas with the mountains and colder winters - there wooden houses were common. Which also can be a few hundred years old.
There are such houses still standing. Renovating them takes expertise - modern materials can mess with them (sealing them off and the materials start rotting, getting mouldy). But when done with expertise one can live today in such houses.
Well built wood houses can last hundreds ! of years, too.
then we are in a desperate situation so we must pay companies to catch CO2 out of the air. She talks about 20 % of U.S. GDP. (Admitted the U.S. wastes the most energy on the planet - well maybe the Gulf states as well).
Wealthy countries with cost efficient single payer systems spend 8 - 11 % of GDP on healthcare. The U.S. around 17 % (could be more meanwhile). To give you an idea what 20 % means.
You couldn't make this stuff up.
And of course it is by no means clear that the CO2 stays out of the carbon cycle for a few hundred years.
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@YASH our economic system REWARDS to externalize costs (that is the first reason why there is no such thing as a "free" market). - it is an inevitable effect of the chase for the highest profit / lowest price.
I assume if it was demanded, the methods of extraction and production would be much less damaging for Lithium, Aluminium, .... .
And because of the economy of scale it wold be also much less costly than the claims of the industry about what betters standards would cost. ("Whining is the salute of the merchants - it is an old German adage).
Polluting and not taking care of the waste is just more convenient (not having to DEAL WITH change, going on as usual) and even more lucrative.
If money would have been thrown left, right and center at battery research (government funding !) - as would be appropriate for the technology that is going to change our energy / ecnomic system - we would already HAVE reliable and affordable solid state batteries or something like that for use in households . Based on materials that are more plentiful and can be produced in First World Countries in closed cycles and oversight of regulators.
If you produce something that will last 10 to 15 years the slightly higher production costs do not matter. Batteries would have come first !! for houses that are packed with solar panels before they come for cars (in fixed installations weight and size are not as important).
Would also be splendid for off the grid locations. And developing countries that do not have a grid in remote areas . Eco-torusim in remote aeas, the tourists do the "back to the roots" thing during day - but when they come back to the camp they can "retreat" to the comforts of civilization. Without the noisy and stinky use of a diesel generator.With that in mind tourists are good sport regarding inconveniences during the Safari trip.
But THAT switch to decentral, citizend owned the large central energy providers (those with the cushy jobs for ex-politicians, the revolving door and the donations to parties) would not like. It would limit their profits and their role in the system.
And that is more important than anything else (for companies AND politicians) - screw global warming that results in damaging climate change.
In India there are areas where they are so poor and remote that they never got a grid - they skip that step and go directly for solar now. Of course if the technology gets more affordable that offers huge chances for the developing countries.
There or in the first world: panels and batteries are going to be installed by experts. It has the side effect that the recycling will happen much more reliably since done by the companies and experts (while the soda pop can is thrown into the trash by some lazy First World consumer. Even if the metall trash is around the corner !!). Setting up the facilties for recycling and making it mandatory is a matter of political intent.
Each and every time when the industry was forced to improve - they did.
(in the rich nations - in the poor nations the population have to live with the effects of pollution, etc. ).
Acid rain: the industry claimed it would be their downfall to reduce the emissions. Didn't happen - and it was also not as expensive as the steel industry for instance claimed.
Mandatory use of a safety belt (meaning also mandatory equipment): Lee Iacocca predicted that would be the downfall of the U.S. car industry (and democratic freedoms, etc. etc.)
Like Prof. Weber from Fraunhofer Institute said: the German industry had huge advertisements in the press that the German grid simply cannot cope with more than 5 % renewables. - Now and only a few years later the share is 35 %, and there were no blackouts. (On the contrary the German grid providers - well trained by fluctuating renewable energy - now cope even better when regular energy providers have the problems. They halved blackout times since 2006 - and it is not like Germany was bad before.
Economiy of scale: if the INSTALLED panel doubles (capacity - the factor is not time not even surface) the prices very predictably are reduced by 20 % - that is going on since the 1980s when the technology was developed to power staellites - costs did not matter (again Prof. Weber - see my other comment with the link to the presentatition of that high profile expert, if you do not speak German I recommend to search for Tony Seba Technology Disruption, Prof. Weber mentions him in the speech)
In other words if human ingenuity is required or incentivized (demands by law or incentives by the initial subsidies) - it delivers ! Every. Single. Time.
The U.S. had no idea if nuclear fission was even safely possible in the 1940s .
They had not yet the technologies for the Race to the Moon (and not even an idea what technologies and materials in detail they would need to develop).
A commitment was made, the project had CONSISTENT political support and funding - money was allocated (lots of money) - and of course it happened.
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in the last 800,000 years CO2 was at 280 ppm maximum (or below that at some times). Ask yourself why plants did fine, just fine. During the ice ages it was lower, even down to 150 ppm. Nontheless there were vast grass steppes and large herds of grazers (if there is not enough rain grass will prevail). But even then in sheltered valleys other more demanding plants flourished. If there were areas with enough rain they were covered with trees, even in the cold areas: think central Europe, or Crimea (it got more rain - it was close to the glaciers but trees grew. The Black Sea moderated temperatures. Mountain ranges shelter it from the North and they caputured rain. Water and temperature were the limiting factors NOT CO2).
The limiting factor for plants ? sunlight, temperatures overall and the extremes, lenght of growing period and too much or too little water. Nutrients and wind or salt play a role as deterrent, but with sun and enough water some hardy pioneers will move in, even with no soil and no nutrients. In come some ground cover pioneers, they and later grasses build soil for 1000 years and bushes,and trees take it from there. IF they have enough RAIN. CO2 is available all over the plante unliek space, sunlight, water, nutrients. A plan in the shade or on bad soil is not deprived of CO2.
Now we have added 47 % to that maximum of 800,000 years and most of it was added in the last 70 years.
Ask yourself: Will that unprecedented increase of CO2 (not onyl in the last 800,000 years there is NO precedent in the climate history of the planet) disrupt natural cycles ??
Answer: Yes, and they can already measure that: Certain ocean currents slow down and the jet streams that circle the arctic (and the antarctic) in the winter have weakened. The models showed it would happen, but they did not expect it to happen so fast. More like: in 30 or 40 years.
Texas Feb. 2021 was not a freak event, that will happen again, within the next 10 years, likely earlier.
In winter the cold air used to stay put in the Arctic. the jet streams that "fence off" the poles are the stronger the larger the difference of temperatures is between Arctic and equator.
If the Arctic ocean is way too warm that has effects on the air temperature in the Arctic and the fence gets weak, spreads out, meanders and is wobbly overall.
That is what they observe all year round, but normally in winter that temperature difference got more pronounced so the cold air got locked in and we were protected from it.
Now you have freak events where the Arctic is too warm (by 30 degrees Celsius) and the South of the U.S. gets a part of the cold air that used to stay in the Arctic in winter.
And the infrastructure is not at ALL set up for that.
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@Gericho49 We had 150 ppm to 285 ppm in the last 800,000 years. and plants did fine. The limiting factors were :During the ice ages it was lower, even down to 150 ppm. Nontheless there were vast grass steppes and large herds of grazers (if there is not enough rain grass will prevail). But even then in sheltered valleys other more demanding plants flourished.
If there were areas with enough rain they were covered with trees, even in the cold areas: think central Europe, or Crimea. Crimea got more rain - it was close to the glaciers but trees grew. The Black Sea moderated temperatures. Mountain ranges shelter it from the North and they caputure rain.
Water and temperature were the limiting factors NOT CO2.
The limiting factor for plants ? sunlight, temperatures overall and the extremes, lenght of growing period and too much or too little water. Nutrients and wind or salt play a role as deterrent, but with sun and enough water some hardy pioneers will move in, even with no soil and no nutrients. In come some ground cover pioneers, they and later grasses build soil for 1000 years. Bushes and trees take it from there.
IF they have enough RAIN. CO2 is available all over the planet - unlike space, sunlight, water, nutrients. A plan in the shade or on bad soil is not deprived of CO2.
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@Gericho49 Now we have added 47 % to that maximum of 800,000 years and most of it was added in the last 70 years. Will that unprecedented increase of CO2 (not only in the last 800,000 years there is NO precedent in the climate history of the planet) disrupt natural cycles ??
Answer: Yes, and they can already measure that: Certain ocean currents slow down and the jet streams that circle the arctic (and the antarctic) in the winter have weakened. The models showed it would happen, but they did not expect it to happen so fast. More like: in 30 or 40 years.
Texas Feb. 2021 was not a freak event, that will happen again, within the next 10 years, likely earlier.
In winter the cold air used to stay put in the Arctic. the jet streams that "fence off" the poles are the stronger the larger the difference of temperatures is between Arctic and equator.
If the Arctic ocean is way too warm that has effects on the air temperature in the Arctic and the fence gets weak, spreads out, meanders and is wobbly overall.
That is what they observe all year round, but normally in winter that temperature difference got more pronounced so the cold air got locked in and we were protected from it.
Now you have freak events where the Arctic is too warm (by 30 degrees Celsius) and the South of the U.S. gets a part of the cold air that used to stay in the Arctic in winter.
And the infrastructure is NOT AT ALL set up for that.
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Now we have added 47 % to that maximum of 800,000 years and most of it was added in the last 70 years. Will that unprecedented increase of CO2 (there is NO precedent in the climate history of the planetfor such a FAST increase, we are talking hundreds of millions of years) disrupt natural cycles ??
Answer: Yes, and they can already measure that: Certain ocean currents slow down and the jet streams that circle the Arctic (and the Antarctic) in the winter have weakened. The models showed it would happen, but they did not expect it to happen so fast. More like: in 30 or 40 years.
Texas Feb. 2021 was not a freak event, that will happen again, within the next 10 years, likely earlier.
In winter the cold air used to stay put in the Arctic. The jet streams that "fence off" the poles are the stronger the larger the difference of temperatures is between Arctic and equator.
If the Arctic ocean is way too warm that has effects on the air temperature in the Arctic and the fence gets weak, spreads out, meanders and is wobbly overall.
That is what they observe all year round, but normally in winter that temperature difference got more pronounced so the cold air got locked in and we were protected from it.
Now you have freak events where the Arctic is too warm (by 30 degrees Celsius) and the South of the U.S. gets a part of the cold air that used to stay in the Arctic during winter. The pole is too warm and Texas is too cold.
And the infrastructure is not at ALL set up for that.
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And here comes the biased comment, and the jab at vegans, it is a free country everyone can eat what they like. - HE can be right AND the vegan / vegetarian crowd as well. - We eat much more meat NOW than can be produced in a sustainable way = cattle eating GRASS and pork and chickens not fed by monocultures (in the land of the FORMER moving grazers, in buffalo land).
Cows also produce less methane when they eat grass than than when they get soy etc.)
In many regions there is not enough rain to sustain other farming than moving herds of cattle, goats, sheep._
(It is different in Australia and NZ - the vegetation threre has NOT evolved with the hooves and weight of cattle or sheep. So what works in Europe, Africa, the American continent, might not be applicable there).
It seems Savory improved the traditional knowledge of herders with finding out the specifics, using scientific method to gain indepth knowledge. (That is what the traditional herders lacked, they could for instance not measure the rain in the rainy saison to PLAN exactely. Of course they KNEW if it had not rained enough. But that did not help them to adapt to the ideal number of lifestock. Or pattern of grazing.
And even IF they had known - they could not afford to. Short term survival over long term SUSTAINABILITY.
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+bakedbean 37 agree with everthing else - but: There is - credible - talk of the "Methane bomb". Methane has 28 times the greenhouse gas effect of CO2 over 100 years. - So when the warming caused by CO2 gets beyond a certain point and thawing swamps or methane ice deep in the oceans releases Methane into the atmosphere - we will have a runaway climate change. That for sure will put us beyond the point of return.
We know that has happened in the past. Methane can be the turbo boost. - we want to avoid to release of it like the plague.
so THAT argument may not be a "Yeah, but..." of Nay-sayers.
Sources of methane:
unburnt ! fossil gas leaking from pipelines and depots, or gas released by burping and farting cows - yes !!, from thawing swamps, thawing methane ice form the oceans, organic matter rotting in landfills.
If we replace coal with gas - (for the time being) we should make sure there are as little leakages as possible (pipelines -or the huge leak of the depot in Californa).
Cut down on meat consumption (cows are also huge in methane output,
Industrial agriculture is a huge contributor to the release of all sorts of greenhouse gases. Fodder use vs. beef - the ratio is 1 : 7, so going vegan, vegetarian or at least avoiding beef helps a lot.
And a lot of cotton is grown for throw away fashion. Another contributor (synthetic fertilizers need lot of energy for their production).
Organic agriculture is much, much better with the greenhouse gas impact.
Where I live the waste is sorted. That includes biogenic materials. There are "green" waste tons. Home owners often do composting.
The waste (ideally: no metalls, no dangerous waste, no glass, no aluminium, no paper, no or little plastic) is burned ! That is why they do not want organic material in it, it is usually wet and requires more energy.
The burning produces electricity plus warm water - I read they would like to have more plastics in the waste it would mean LESS use of fossil fuel to burn it.
I assume they announced that in the newspaper for some reason - so that citizens react and get slighly less meticulous regarding sorting that class of waste.
The ashes use up much less space, and do not rot away producing more methane or endangering the aquifers.
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As for debt based money - I think it is crucial to spread awareness - you obviously agree with that ;). It is "only" money and most of the government debt (bonds) is held by affluent or rich people (or insurance and other funds investing it for the wealthy). As long as we have functioning eco systems, water, energy, scientists, patents, manufacturing plants, the workforce, peace ! ..... money is easy to create.
Maybe creating money for the benefit of the population, for a change
Money, banking, interest, the stock exchange ... have been the tools of the rich and powerful for centuries.
Most of us were fooled in 2008 / 2009 - and the elites / ruling class - quick, quick - bailed out the banksters and later they showered them with money in form of QE.
I heard recently (Jimmy Dore show, it was footage of one of his tour events, one man of his panel explained it) that the Fed has now the authority to create money w/o needing the consent of Congress for large "interventions".
When the legislators were confronted with the inconvenient task (and angry voters) in 2008 / 2009 they made sure they would never again have to do an open bailout again (after all most of them are financed by the banksters). If I remember correctly (from the video by Jimmy Dore) that is included in Dodd Frank "regulation".
* They discussed a recent intervention of the Fed in fall 2019
the Fed had to step in, the banks usually lend each other money "over night" (literally over night, at very low interest rates, they do it to conform to the requirements of having enough liquidty). This fall banks would not lend money to each other, resp. the interests rates were very high. In other words a situation like that after the collapse of Lehman, and the Fed had to create billions to "solve" the problem (not sure if it was more than one day, probably a few days until the "market" calmed down again.
It was reported, but downplayed as one-off, nothing to see here, move on ....
Yes, and Deutsche Bank ADMITS that they have to "restructure" - so the reality is even worse of course. When they admit that they have to eliminate 20 % of the workforce .....
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@patricklincoln5942 When trees decompose they emit the same amount of CO2 which they fished out of the air when growing (maybe a little bit more is stored in soil but over the centuries that is more or less a zero sum game).
The way to go would be of course to grow more trees (or plants like hemp maybe even bamboo, or other C4 plants) in the MODERATE climate zone (and leave the rainforest and boreal forests alone for crying out loud).
That could BUY TIME - and for cheap. for 100 or 200 years.
It is possible that grass (or similar plants in agriculture like hemp) is using up more carbon - the cycles are much faster than with forests. In which case there would be the possibility to grow such plants and use them for production of construction materials. Insulation is certainly possible. Maybe even making boards with a bonding agent.
Things that are DURABLE.
Europe was once all woods - a lot could be replanted.
Forest cannot take up as much as is put out currently - BUT EVERYTHING HELPS .
Fossil fuel is the plants and organisms that were removed from the carbon cycle over the course of hundreds of millions of year !!
Maybe we could also grow algae in tanks. A tree has to "invest" in wood, reproduction, leaves, roots, protection, bark, resin, is not productive in the cold season, .... .... Humans might beat them them by providing tanks for algae to grow (CO2 capturing per space).
Of course trees have plenty of other advantages. the soil in a natural forest acts like a sponge, it can soak up downpours and release them slowly. Also holds top soil together.
The soil in the moderate climate zone is fertile enough (in tropical areas the huge amount of rain washes out nutrients). There is enough ! rain. Because it is warmer trees grow faster than in the Northern boreal forests (Siberia, Scandinavia, Canada).
Last but not least the population is wealthy and there are settlements everywhere - the devastation like with the "harvesting" of Northern forests would not be tolerated there. (it is ground zero - a wildfire is not nearly as devastating for the ECOSYSTEM of the FOREST. Those harvesting machines compress the soil - after a wildfire the forest can recover).
And then those plants (trees, hemp, ...) would need to be SEQUESTERED by makeing DURABLE QUALITY buildings, particle boards and insulation of them. The point being durable. That way carbon is sequestered away.
As many point out: MATURE forests do not take up much more carbon - when when you take out continually trees out of the system (to make it more like in a natural wood meaning it would be an eco system not a tree plantation), the space will be filled by the next carbon catcher.
That should give us time - 100 to 200 years.
Wood (and particle boards) can replace concrete (cement must be burnt at high temperatures and the pebbles and sand are heavy - so a lot of energy for transport). Multi storey buildings are possbile (up to 6 -8 floors are already built. No high rises, but at that level).
In warm areas brick and mortar buildings have advantages (the high MASS does not overheat as easily when the building gets a lot of sun rays through the window). That is already an issue in Germany for instance with lightweight well insulated house constructions. They do just fine in the cold season - but with record summers and more "tropical nights" not so much. (so reflective shading, special glass in the windows, etc.)
Insulation would save fossil fuel for heating - and if you want to use renewable energy for heating it is essential that the house is reasonably insulated. - I would say that mineral wool may have advantages regarding being water resistant - think flooding or bursting installation pipes. Insulation does not work when it is not dry and hemp based might get mould after such accidents - while mineral wool might be "salvageble" by drying it out.
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@patricklincoln5942 just checked out the site - some remarks on GDP ("growth" is the comparsion between GDP from one year to the next). GDP and growth have become a fetish in the discourse. it is one of the few economic term that the masses get seved all the time (not that the politicians or most of the economists or the media deal rationally with it).
GDP calculation has been manipulated anyway - the number used to include at least productive industries (as opposed to "finance" now - a good chunk of it is speculation in the countries with a strong financial sector - U.K., the U.S. , see Dr. Richard Werner under the title The Finance Curse, the format is Renegade Inc. on RT)
And even in the past GDP wasn't a valid way to measure the wealth of the population in general. (Then the population got their fair share of the improving ecconomy / productivity so then it correlated with the well being of the population - kind of).
GDP will also grow (or remain at least the same) if expenditures for cars will be replaced by expenditures for PV panels and batteries. When the state invests into mass transportation instead of building new highways.
If money is put into a well functioning public health or childcare education system.
We will need to squander less resources when buying consumer goods, throw away items, fast fashion all the time. Have more durable goods, and instead spend our money on HUMAN SERVICES.
Switching to EXPERIENCING WEALTH and less to HAVING WEALTH.
Eating much less meat - but dining out or purchasing highy quality food (good food cannot be cheap, not when it is sustainably produced).
Having quality devices repaired.
The luxury of having time * - also to have the time to consume the services provided by other people (think seamstresses, styling advice, hairdressers instead of paying for fast fashion). Paying people for delivery of bulky goods or using taxi (or a kind of public uber) while going w/o a car.
* more TIME - productivity wins paid out in form of time, not in wages - well, since the advent of neoliberalism - in the 80s in the U.S. and U.K. and mid 90s in continental Europe the productivity wins are not paid out at all if the employers can avoid it.
I know the U.S. numbers by heart - the situation was the same in post war Europe - a few years later and if anything the increase of purchasing power was even more impressive.
Until the 1970s the U.S. workers got the lion's share of productivity gains in form of more wages. Real hourly average wages (real means adjusted for inflation) almost doubled between 1947 and 1970, plus 97 % while productivity rose by 112 %. (so the shareholders, owners, entrepreneurs got "only" 15 % - which is still nice when it is 15 % of the massively expanding U.S. economy and that the 15 % went to a small number of people.
1970 - 2013 plus 69 % for productivity - but only plus 9 % in real wages. So the EVER INCREASING output was not matched anymore by the wages of employees = disposable income of consumers. (that discrepancy was "solved" with consumer debt on the credit card.)
- and the output / sales problem was also met with consumerism, marketing and planned obsolescence.
The crises throughout the 1970s lead to then unusually high unemployment rates (and they stayed up for longer). That insecurity (and frankly economic illiteracy of the citizens who had become complacent) allowed the oligarchs to hit back against the New Deal or Social Contracts - with Reagan & Thatcher it started for real.
the rational thing would have been to keep real wages (purchasing power) steady and give the continued increases of productivity (automation, computer use, new means of communication, better trained workforce, .... ) in MORE FREE TIME.
That would mean the ever more efficient production (in shorter work weeks) would still have the same output (not more and more) at the same costs for businesses with the same number of workers. (so everyone keeps their job - which also guarantees the negotiation power of the workforce).
the workers / consumers have the same disposable income (so the companies can SELL their products and services) and more free time on top. (In reality the industries that have much more labor costs and cannnot as easily automate - service sector - would need some transfers to find a fair solution. Could be UBI - or wages are raised nontheless - but that is a disadvantage in tourism for instance).
Giving more free time would at least have partially solved the problem of consumerism and the throw away culture. We have globally over capacities in industrial production. And there are fewer and fewer companies (now multinationals) that dominate every niche.
Household appliances: national comapnies went bankrupt or were bought up. Same with car manufacturing, TV, computers, tires, retail, even construction materials. - the concentration processes are everywhere. On stereoides with Amazon and everything to do with Silicon Valley
it is easily possible to make a washing machine that lasts at least 10 years. (15 years with a lot of use were not uncommon). With all the automation going on, the machines could offer more features (electronics) and be as durable as they used to be. That ALSO means repairs MAKE SENSE IF the owner is unlucky and has a problem after 5 or 8 years. Plus they could be slightly cheaper.
(And if all the productivity wins went to the workers, so there is no room to give productivity wins in form of reduced sales prices for durable goods - well, then the consumers have to good income to pay the prices for better quality - it used to be like that).
The durable machines used the be the good quality segment, so when the washing machines had to be replaced it meant a higher INVESTMENT (but that paid off for longer). On the other hand there was mainly the medium (solid quality) and the high end segment (MIELE in Germany made that their niche). there were ne cheap machines that reliably have the first major repair after 6 years. They were produced in the country with high labor costs - so producing cheap quality just did not add up.
(If you take into consideration how much years of use one can squeeze out of the cheap machines and consider ALL the costs - they are not cheaper than the well made devices of the past). So WHERE have the productivity wins gone ? Not much went to the consumers and not to the workers either.
the U.S. had the 40 hour week in 1940. In Europe if was mostly wages and eventually reduction of work time in the 1960s).
That development has stopped. Germany got the 40 hour week in the late 1960s . - the 35 - 38 hour week that came in the 90s (often without pay compensation) is undermined in Germany - people work longer in reality (and often without extra pay, let alone overtime bonus).
So productivity continued to rise since the 90s - but nothing happened at the front of work time reduction.
Apart from the economic issue - that contributed also to the sustainability issue (raw materials, energy, pollution, exploitation in developing countries).
In a Capitalistic economy companies have an incentive to sell more and more, anyway. If need be with planned obsolescence. Pushing consumer debt. And massive spending on marketing.
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@patricklincoln5942 Another aspect is of course the MONEY system. "Money/currency" - how it is used or abused shows also up in GDP. - Or when the economists in the U.K. must "estimate" the contribution of Finance to GDP - unlike with other PRODUCTIVE industries the "contribution to the economy" by creating (also a lot of) speculation is not self-evident. And those "services" were not covered under the old rules of calculating GDP.
When under Thatcher manufacturing was slashed and the economy was "financialized" - the logical consquence would have been a drop of GDP. Now that would not have looked good - so something had to be done about it.
I recommend to check out MMT - Dr. Stephanie Kelton Deficit Owl video. Or Dr. Richard Werner on Debt and Interest Free Money.
In general the site of positve money uk is good. And as for FIAT money and QE (only for the Banks) the Bank of England pdf: Money Creation in a Modern Economy. The Bank of England just stops short of mentioning that Quantitative Easing could not only be done for the banks.
(it was done to the tune of trillions of USD / Pound / Euro - literally trillions)
QE could also be done for the citizens and for a Green New Deal.
One thing you always hear with the use of renewables is that they are allgedly too expensive. MONEY is at the center of it.
And if the governments could have been bothered to generously fund all kinds of battery / storage research (money again) - we already would be in the middle of the transition. Plus at least one of the countries would have an export hit.
Instead we did austerity after the global crisis caused by the banksters. Production costs (wind, PV) are already low if conditions are good (and are expected to drop more - at least for PV).
But with the fluctuations (day/night - saisons) STORAGE is still the issue. (saw a presentaton of the former head of the solar division of the Fraunhofer institute - from March 2017 - it looks good. Production costs for solar and batteries will continue to drop, and lots of developments for storage in the pipeline).
A breakthrough for batteries is not wanted at all by the central large energy providers (cheaper storage promotes local, decentral production).
that is the reason not much was done regarding battery research (not much considerng how central the issue is).
Lower costs for batteries would deal with the issue of throwaway electricity (peak production) and the whole system would be more stable, predictable. The ROI for renewables would increase.
The German initiative Energiewende = Energy Switch was far from perfect (very far indeed) but triggered at least more installed solar panel surface, which led to price drops for PV, which made battery storage an interesting issue even though politicians still where asleep at the wheel. (That - and Tesla deserves a lot of credit as well).
For the first time the INDUSTRY was afraid they could be left behind. So they finally could be bothered to invest massively in research. (that includes the car industry).
MMT (QE for the People, Sovereign money, etc.) - these terms refers to direct money creation by the state - which could be used to push the switch to renewable energy. That spending would of course show up in GDP (spending by consumers or the government makes up GDP - well and then some other expenditures under the newer rules to make GDP look better)
Investment in research (the wages for scientists) would shop up in GDP when spent.
Giving subisdies for PV or batteries or wind turbines. When households get their own energy production it would show up in GDP. Same with insulation, ...
On the other hand if the created money was in form of an alternative currency (maybe accepted for tax payments with makes it as good as the official currency at least within the country) government could control in WHAT AREAS the directely created purchasing power would be spent.
Spending of such an alternative currency would not show up in GDP numbers (that is calculated in Euro, DEK, SEK, etc.) not that it matters (except that economists and politicians thinking only in the status quo framework would get nervous. and big finance would get ballistic).
Such an alternative currency would not be spent for cheap throwaway stuff from China but for things (AND SERVICES) created in Denmark for instance.
Even if it has no direct relationship with the transformation of the energy system it would be very beneficial - the service sector would profit and like it - so that would increase general knowledge and acceptance of such concepts.
Or the alnternative / complimentary currency could be earmarked to be used for renewable investments.
Or the government could create money directly in order to jumpstart a kind of public, non-profit Uber (that would be money well spent if a government invested to set up such a system. Integrating taxi, some private contributors for the rush hours and the mass transportation with fixed schedules. the drivers would be well paid - all of them. And when there is MORE business for Taxi as well they have no reason to complain.
Or support for a car sharing system.
Or citizens could have a yearly budget they can spend on all mass transportation - public and private (for free). That would mean more use, which would warrant more routes and better services and higher frequency, which would make it faster and more practical ....
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2 of 2) Once MONEY becomes the main motivator, overpowering every other motivation in the job, things are getting toxic.
Before (with low to medium pay) you had the whole person (their skills, loyalty, resourcefulness) to getting the job done, to make the customer happy, etc. Pay is of course important, but the joy of doing the work is important as well. That means you do not need to micromanage or constantly monitor the people. They will give their best voluntarily and seek for good solutions on their own.
With too high pay. they direct their talents towards extracting as much money as they can, and towards playing the system.
Real life example: In the 1970s a CEO of a major company earned 30 times the average wage in his company. Now it is more than 300 times the average wage (these are U.S. numbers).
So are the CEOs of large companies NOW 100 times better on average than they are in the 1970s ( let alone in the 1950s and 60s) ?
That reminds me of the Deutsche Bank Chef Joseph Ackermann (leading the company for many years, until it got caught up in the financial crisis, Deutsche Bank was saved by the fact that the US government rescued AIG - DB on the surface seemed to be O.K. in 2007 and 2008 but they were already set up for severe problems - the long term effects of the Ackermann reign). Of course any other manager in his position and under the neoliberal derulation would likely have produced the same dysfunction.
Martin Winterkorn was the CEO of Volkswagen (one of the most successful car manufacturers worldwide). Under his leadership the VW diesel scandal developed. Both CEOs were known for their extremely high pay (especially outstanding for German standards). Both CEOs quietly left after the crisis (well the VW boss couldn't keep it so quiet - maybe he will get his day in court).
So they cash in big time as long as the going is fine (or as long as thing appear to be fine), when things detoriate, they resign. They are not crushed by the weight of responsibilities for the losses they caused. That they both maneuvered a prime company into a dead end (or at least into a very difficult situation). So in hindsight - their excessive pay was by no means "justified".
Compare that to former VW CEOs - some of them being ENGINEERS. But they could not "walk on water" like the CELEBRATED top managers these days (most of them are lawyers, and MBAs; especially in the financial "industry" - they are really money shufflers, not people who know how to BUILD or CREATE things) - so even though former more modestly paid CEOs lead the enterprises when the German economy was rebuilt from scratch after WW2 - they clearly deserved only a few % of the pay which Winterkorn, Ackermann and the like are getting.
[Edit: Winterkorn has a Dr. rer nat in metallurgy from Max Planck institute - like a PhD in a STEM area, so his credentials are excellent]
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