"Information and intelligence has always been the key to doing more with less."

That's kind of a sweeping generalization.

People did more with less long ago because they had to - they rode trains, not planes or cars, or else they just didn't travel so much as we think we must. They lived together with more people per room and building to share scarce resources like roofs and furnaces. And they even had things like communal ovens to bake food, and community pools for swimming all all sorts of things that people think they need private, personal copies of these days.

And perhaps they were even happier in a way - all that communal sharing probably helped them feel more connected and secure and social.

Most projections of our energy needs are based on past or current consumption. But we can do with much much MUCH less, thanks to the microprocessor.

Information and intelligence has always been the key to doing more with less. The IT revolution that started two decades ago has already started saving energy in a myriad of ways.

We now have microchips in our thermostats and our automobile engines. Engineers use desktop computers to design more lighter, more efficient structures, and transportation managers use them to route delivery trucks with maximum efficiency. The internet has barely scratched the surface of it's potential to reduce waste.

After twenty years we've barely taken the first step. The fossil fuel fossils can slow us down, but there's no stopping this revolution.

I agree with Ticonderoga. It may take more than one generation. The fossils will slow us down until they can move their money out of the old technology and into the new. In our so-called democracy, Wall Street calls the shots.

There are answers and then there are answers that nobody will implement, and nobody will like. The only way to force society into alternative energy modes and efficiency seems to be to form a "Bureau of Sabotage", known as BuSab for short. Busab is a non-existent semi-religious organization devoted to making human kind more efficient by destroying its crutches and excuses. It thus leads itself to the extreme right wing of the greens, also fairly non-existent. Only it gains no power for itself. By attacking the weak points of fossil fuel infrastructure, it can bring fossil fuel industry to a halt, and by internal civil discord, stop the international wars as troops are brought home for governments to retain order. It secretly brings to a halt the careers of nuclear and fossil fuel advocates. We can only win the climate battle by sabotaging our own economic success. Since we do not want to do it, we have to commission an alien agency to do it against our unconscious preferences.

oops- I mean Nathan Lewis!

I count all biomass as solar - plants take sunlight and CO2 and make fuel and oxygen. And bio-emulation too- nanotech imitation of plant chemistry. Check out Nathan Lewis at Caltech.

Where's the research $$?

To make an analogy, there's two basic ways to lose weight: don't eat much at all or exercise a whole lot. Or, if you don't subscribe to a either/or, black-and-white viewpoint, you can eat moderately and exercise moderately. Guess that's three ways.

Maybe we've got the same thing going on with this fossil fuels problem. Maybe there's no one answer. Maybe we should have choices. Hemp, oil, solar, wind and so on. Of course there's no one magic answer. Of course hemp can't replace ALL of the fossil fuels we use to drive our cars but it can replace some. And of course we're going to have to learn to use public transportation and to drive less and etc. And solar and wind power can and should be used on a widespread basis. And yeah the government's going to have to step in because all this stuff has to be made affordable.

I have to believe that the corporate oil boys and the politicians know damned well that the scientists are right and global warming is on its way to becoming a monster that will destroy us all if we don't stop it. And if they know this they must also know that "us all" includes their children, as well as ours.

So maybe they also realize that they have to change their ways, just to save themselves. It's just that they're slow about it because they've worked so hard to accumulate all that power and wealth and control, and giving it up is hard to do. So my guess is that they WANT to give it up, but slowly, instead of overnight.

So someday there won't be any health insurance companies, but it probably won't happen overnight. And someday we won't be using coal to produce electricity but it won't happen overnight. And someday we'll be using solar power and hemp-produced biodiesel and etc, instead of oil. And maybe someday wars will just be too damned expensive to fight. And so on. The bottom line is that things will change because the powers-that-be know that things have to change, not because they're nice guys who want to do the right thing. And we're not going to be able to stop them in their tracks, cold, just because we protest and boycott and so on.

But maybe if we protest and boycott and only vote for people who are advocating change we can speed up the process. Maybe, just maybe, the big corporation boys don't want to die any more than we do.

Great article. People lived sustainably without fossil fuels and without the technology we now have. With the technology we have, we should be able to live without fossil fuels much better than they did providing we keep our populations in balance with the carrying capacity of the biosphere. And providing we do not allow extreme concentration of wealth/power to occur by establishing direct democracy, or Global Online Democracy, (G.O.D.).

Some choices:

1. Join Mike Gravel's National Initiative for Democracy for the start of direct democracy by referendum.

2. Direct democracy now by incorporating We the People into a for profit with equal shares of non-transferable stock in our public treasure and receiveing dividends from it in the form of money, clean water and air, universal healthcare, free education, world peace and a healthy environment.

3. Direct democracy maybe sometime in the future by joining the grassroots Greens.

Kind of obvious is it not? The solar energy falling on Rhode Island is enough to supply all our needs. Where is the investment in Solar? Where are the billions being poured into solar research and development? It really is that simple, but we are so f**cked by the powers that be and the status quo, and it may be too late already.

thewonderingyou: "Stopping or slowing that extraction process is the nexus of reasoned efforts to change the paradigm. Focus, people, focus."

How does one begin to affect a paradigm shift when the government one must rely on condones and subsidizes the activities of the very corporations that established the paradigm?

As I mentioned above, petroleum subsidies invalidate the market mechanisms we are taught to rely on to affect change in the economy. Subsidies to alternative fuel and energy sources would be a good starting point. Some countries have already started doing so.

Jan Steiman: 'Germany is on the right track, with SIGNIFICANT subsidies in order to "level the playing field" with fossil fuel.'

This is what needs to be done. In the US however, petroleum subsidies are in the billions. What would make this more effective is if subsidies were shifted from petroleum corporations to alternative energy and fuel research. This would increase the cost of oil extraction for petroleum companies. This is a much more effective mechanism since the demand for oil and petroleum products is relatively inelastic. This would of course increase the price of oil and petroleum to consumers but it would also cut into the profits of the petroleum industry. Shifting the subsidies would also facilitate the development and discovery of alternate fuel sources and it would help make these alternatives cheaper and allow them to compete successfully with a crippled petroleum industry.

Now all that remains to be done is find a viable political candidate who is not in the pocket of big business and who would advocate such measures. Then we have to elect him/her to office and pray that congress has the strength to stand up to the Petroleum industry and enact such measures.

"Currently, photovoltaic panels are not produced sustainably. They require tremendous energy and toxic material inputs. ... Perhaps in combination with other crops in a rotation, it might replace 10% of fossil fuel if we devoted several entire midwestern states to it, but what then? Get off your fixation and realize that we need to reduce use, not turn to agriculture at the expense of feeding people.
" - Jan Steinman

You know, you could use hemp oil which currently requires no petroleum to begin with to produce voltaic cells. Besides, you're the one who's dead wrong about hemp. It easily replaces petroleum but dumbfucks such as yourself can't get that through your LOSERbiot skulls. It's your LOSERbiots who ought to shut the fuck up and stop bugging others to radically change their lifestyle. Besides, you LOSERbiots are already burning up fossil fuels just to preach others about the need to "give up everything" and "problem solved". It ain't gonna work that way and you know it.

NebraskaNathan,

Thanks. I understand the plight in Middle America and I'm sorry to see how your state is suffering. The reason why "conservatives" win is the coastal and big city latte "liberals" act no different from the right in preaching their bullshit. Even out here just 1 hour past any coastal/big city stronghold, it's as "conservative" as it gets. Frankly, these phoney "leftists" would do better to pack up and move to Europe where they can go to bed with crapfarts like LOSERbiot !

MeAlsoToo,

Thanks for more info on the break down of public transportation. While I don't see it possible that everyone can just walk or bike to work especially on rainy or very cold days, undoing the damage Big Oil and Big Auto have done to it would be rewarding. It's totally ridiculous to put up with seeing a bus with only 1 or 2 people in it all the while traffic gets clogged up. I'd take the bus but because I have to travel 1 hour to work on I-64 and there's no feasible route with the bus system, I have to drive all the way. Luckily, they're starting to make more room for more routes so coming January, my wife and I can travel just 15 minutes to the bus station and let the bus do the rest.

"Just a few weeks ago I was at a large meeting of environmentalists that included a documentary on how GM bought up street car lines in order to destroy them and force everyone into private automobiles."

I'm from Detroit, and well-remember the fabulous street-car system we had in the '50's. Efficient/'clean', and Downtown-to-BloomfieldHills in 15-minutes for a nickel...(marvelous, really -- and all-this when the downtown-area was still being referred to as "the Paris of the mid-west/City of Elms/Piety-Hill". 'those were the days' [although much-worsened by WW-I/II and related economic-factors].
GM, in particular, absolutely HATED and was embarrassed-by our wonderful and easily-maintained public-transportation system, and bribed/sold-bill-of-goods to crass/ignorant City-Council/Mayor/Governor to allow partial-payment towards the dismantlement of ALL decent public-transit, while promising to 'supply/run the new/better one, in-Perpetuity' and promoted their 'stinky-bus' system (manufactured by them, of-course) so that "all-Detroiter's could be proud of their hosted/fine-Industries, employers, and benefactors".
The very-next year after the last streetcar-line&overhead-wiring-network (for Edison-powered 'electric-buses' supplementing streetcars) was ripped-out/replaced, GM promptly broke its 'Contract' and dumped the entire-system (including its already-decrepit petro-diesel-belching bus-units) onto the City-fathers and hapless-commuters (birthing the DDoT)-- pretty-much (and "so-regretfully") telling them to 'piss-off', because "they [GM] couldn't remain a fine-employer/citizen while accepting such unfair-losses".
I recently enjoyed myself riding some of those street-cars once again, because they are STILL running and transporting happy-riders, cleanly and safely/rapidly/cheaply (of-course)...in Mexico City [where Officials (not 'private-enterprise') in the early-1960's were wise-enough to purchase them inexpensively albeit having to ship those honey's all-that-way, and have employed them since for their Public-benefit).

So much for 'American Enterprise/Expertise'...this is a fine-example of what inevitably happens when Private-benefit Corporations wiggle-out from under needful-regulation. Thanks for 'bringing it up'...

My hat's off to you, PJD: you saw the gem amidst the cruft: "Every barrel of oil and tonne of coal that comes to the surface will be burned."

Stopping or slowing that extraction process is the nexus of reasoned efforts to change the paradigm. Focus, people, focus.

Monbiot's observations are astute and worthy of attention. Climate change is not being given enough exposure in the media and most citizens are unaware of the degree to which their activities impact the environment. I would even go so far as to say that we will destroy/irreversibly damage the environment before we ever run out of petroleum reserves. The more expensive a barrel of crude oil becomes, the more petroleum reserves, once thought to be infeasible due to prohibitive extraction costs, will become feasible sources of crude oil. Specifically, I will mention oil reserves that are located in prohibitive geological areas, bitumen (found in Tar Sands) and oil shale. Unlike production costs, extraction costs are subject to a number of factors and do not remain fixed, but vary depending on the location and type of petroleum reserve. The irony of relying on market forces in this situation is, the higher the demand for petroleum, the more expensive crude oil becomes; the more expensive crude oil becomes, the more reserves become feasible and the more oil becomes available. As Monbiot says 'every barrel of oil and tonne of coal that comes to the surface will be burned.' Once the price of a barrel of crude oil is high enough to warrant the extraction of these additional reserves, pollution will likely increase exponentially and the environment destroyed at a feverish pace as government subsidized oil companies scramble to extract these once infeasible reserves. The practices used to extract petroleum form these sources are horribly inefficient and incredibly destructive to the environment as well. Monbiot points this out as well writing, 'oil produced from tar sands creates even more carbon emissions than petroleum extraction.' Furthermore, if research into alternative energy and fuel sources remains unsubsidized, it will not become economically profitable (read feasible) until we have nearly exhausted our supply of petroleum. In short, by depending on market mechanisms we have become the architects of our own demise. The situation is actually more severe (and more depressing) than Monbiot makes it out to be. Our only remaining option is to reduce carbon emissions as much as possible and press for huge government subsidies for alternative energy and fuel research. If an alternative to fossil fuels is discovered before a barrel of crude oil reaches that critical price, then we may be able to circumvent this environmental catastrophe.

Nuclear power was the solution. Yet our elite realized that they could control countries with oil, and so nuclear power was discredited, and Big Oil was happy. You think Three Mile island was an accident? Never mind.

Uranium mining does not need cause radiation environmental problems when mined responsibly. Uranium exists naturally as uranium oxide. It is radioactive, yet where it is exists, it is still lying in the ground. So lets remove it and put it to some good use instead of scattering depleted uranium shells all over the world in our wars.

Anyways, without nuclear power, all we can do is keep the poor countries poor, encourage famine, disease, wars and genocide to keep down populations and minimize consumption of resources. Which is what we have been doing for 100 years.

Of course, leaving all fossil fuels in the ground would eliminate 80-90% of the world critters. Which is of course what the Neo-Malthusians among the New World Order elite would like to see as well, although they may try another way which will achieve a similar result. Ever wonder why the neo-cons, who are also Neo-Malthusians, do not want to do anything about reducing carbon emissions? Less critters, less carbon emissions. Problem solved.

metamorph wrote: "sunshine is energy and can be captured and yes it is right now expensive but obviously we have to capture that energy just as plants and trees capture that energy."

Currently, photovoltaic panels are not produced sustainably. They require tremendous energy and toxic material inputs.

That is not to say they could not be produced sustainably, but simply that there are no solar-powered solar cell plants today.

The cost of photovoltaic cells therefore floats on top of a sea of petroleum. Do not expect them to become competitive -- they will remain priced at a premium, because as their embedded energy cost increases, their cost will also increase.

That is not to say we should not be using them, and Germany is on the right track, with SIGNIFICANT subsidies in order to "level the playing field" with fossil fuel. Grid-tied solar can earn about 60 cents a kWh in Germany -- energy costs 6 cents a kWh here in British Columbia!

The problem is not the absolute price; the problem is the pay-back ratio. Today's petroleum returns five units of energy for every one invested in the process. Fifty years ago, one-hundred units of energy could be produced for every one invested. Fifty years from now, it may be possible to reach break even: one barrel of oil for every one invested. At that point, you have entropic heat death, and it won't really matter how expensive or cheap solar cells are, because it will cost more energy to produce them than they themselves produce.

Again, we will all have to reduce, SIGNIFICANTLY. This is not going to be turned around with a few solar cells and compact florescent bulbs. We should be striving to reduce our energy consumption by 80% to 90%. The spoiled western industrialized people are going to resist this tooth and claw.

Monbiot is dead-on: leave the oil in the ground. Find a job within walking or biking distance. Start a home-based business, serving your local community. Avoid "big box" stores, and shop locally -- preferably by bike or foot. REDUCE ENERGY CONSUMPTION VOLUNTARILY NOW or it will be reduced involuntarily -- if not for you, for your children or grandchildren, who will curse your name for leaving them a world much poorer than you found it.

Monbiot is telling the solid truth. We must especially leave all of the remaining gigatons of carbon in the ground and the forests standing in the tropics. We know of few places to put this much carbon except back underground as carbon.

Storing this much carbon forever as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere isn't an acceptable alternative.

sunshine is energy and can be captured and yes it is right now expensive but obviously we have to capture that energy just as plants and trees capture that energy.Solar panels will become more complex and catch more of the sun spectrum.

I saw the movie "The Sun will Save us" on PBS and the Germans who do not want to be dependent on Putins Gas, they have been pushing solar energy and that country has many cloudy days.

300,000 jobs were created in Germany.

Our energy bill last week that went thru the House said that electic companies have to allow solar and wind to come in and be part of the electric net. Tax credits will be given to wind and solar and cars will be made with 35 miles per gallon- that I drove when I went to college in 1962!

The energy bill did not pass the Senate and Bush threatens to veto it.

maxpayne wrote: "Cannabis... could have and still can save us from dependence on fossil fuels."

As much as I may sympathize with the cannabis cause, you are absolutely wrong that it can replace fossil fuel. Perhaps in combination with other crops in a rotation, it might replace 10% of fossil fuel if we devoted several entire midwestern states to it, but what then? Get off your fixation and realize that we need to reduce use, not turn to agriculture at the expense of feeding people.

andersdl wrote: "Only a global zero population growth (ZPG) program could allow this to work. Unfortunately ZPG advocates have been considered heretics for at least thirty years."

If you're talking about the organization formally named "ZPG," they have a racist bent -- one of their major things is eliminating immigration.

What everyone except Monbiot seem to be missing is that we all are going to have to make MAJOR life-style changes -- either voluntary, or involuntary.

We're doing our part. We work at home, and travel under 3,000 miles a year, almost entirely for what Monbiot calls "love miles," to see aging parents and family. We collect vegetable oil from local restaurants and turn it into biodiesel. We heat with wood and get our electricity from hydropower. We are as near carbon-neutral as one can get, and yet we strive to be a carbon sink, through Permaculture principles of building soil with berms and compost, which captures carbon.

Can everyone do what we're doing? No. The waste vegetable oil from restaurants is supported by petroleum. My point is that there needs to be SIGNIFICANT life-style changes.

http://www.EcoReality.org

When Monbiot starts taking into account the energy returned on the energy invested (EROEI), I will pay more attention. Economics is not the issue. The issue is the availability of energy to extract more energy. As that ratio approaches unity, further development will cease.

Nonetheless, I agree with the basic premise. Anytime I see a writer advocating stepping back from the precipice, I think that's a good thing because ultimately, that is the direction we are going to have to go. But this idea (to do nothing) is so counter to the scientific-engineering positivist attitude that permeates this culture that it is hard to imagine it happening.

I am glad to hear Mr. Monbiot's perspective on this issue. I just wanted to add that the mining of uranium required for nuclear energy is also causing massive environmental damage in the U.S.

There are areas all over the northwest and the southwest US that are radioactive right now. For instance, there are thousands of open pit dumps of Uranium tailing all over western South Dakota, and a river that the Lakota people rely on as a water source has tested positive for radioactive contamination.

It is frightening. I stayed in a hotel on one reservation and when I asked about the river, the owner said the town got it's water supply from the river. However, the river tested positive for radiation contamination.

There are new "test" holes being drilled in SD and probably elsewhere, right now. In SD, due to the corrupt political environment that allows the mining industry free reign, these holes are then left there open and whatever radioactive material is exposed is left unremedied for kids and livestock to get into.

The kind of uranium mining that is standard out there involves, I kid you not, a process where the waste (which is made up of debris carrying most of the radioactivity of the uranium) is turned into sludge and pumped back into the ground into large aquifers.

Some of these aquifers cover several states and provide water to thousands, if not millions of people. The Cheyenne River and its tributaries provides the water supply for people on the reservation, crops and large numbers of cattle. One environmental activist out there told me some cattle have shown signs of radiation poisoning and yet they are still sold as beef by big food corps and sent to places like McDonalds.

As if the carbon pollution from coal isn't bad enough, there is coal laced with this contamination mined right in the middle of the uranium mining regions. This coal is shipped out of the region to the east where it is burned in coal reactors, thus very likely releasing particles contiminated by radiation, as well as pollution.

heavyrunner

My parents live in Colorado and over the past ten years it has amazed me to see the oil and gas development taking place all over the state, sometimes in areas that were in a relatively pristine condition before.

NebraskaNathan, I don't know why you believe that "the Left" (whatever that means) isn't / won't point out how the oil businesses have systematically suppressed alternative energy. Just a few weeks ago I was at a large meeting of environmentalists that included a documentary on how GM bought up street car lines in order to destroy them and force everyone into private automobiles. In my experience that point is made frequently, with great specificity and as far as I can tell historical accuracy.

Also the push to "put solar, wind, tidal, geothermal," etc. first is the primary goal of an enormous amount of progressive / Left / environmentalist work.

I suggest instead of just slamming stereotypes, you look at actual facts.

Jesus......some people just like to fight I guess.....

After reading the article on hemp that maxpayne posted, it's even more clear that if we all planted hemp and grew it, we could actually produce oil for all our needs expect that it would not require petroleum to manufacture and hemp oil could be used to power up solar cells instead of COAL and OIL currently being used to manufacture and power up those cells.

Also, after having read the pathetic comments badmouthing hemp as marijuana which it isn't, I stand correct that the FAKE Left is no different from the rightwing Limbaugh dittoheads. Smoking hemp won't make you high at all. Besides, if you losers are so uppity about Cannabis destroying your brain, then why aren't you doing the same on shit like television, alcohol, tobacco, fast foods, viagra, etc ... ? And why aren't you losers fighting to put solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, hemp, algae, etc ... first?

Ya Know,

Forty plus years ago as young politically aware citizens, my spouse and I fully bought into Zero population growth and decided to limit our family and have only two children.

Our children in turn have not reproduced at all.

Both of our children have carried the torch of providing service to one's fellow human beings and have pursued the goal of leaving the world a better place.

Sadly, not so many of our fellow citizens have done this

The importance of this article is that right now, all proposals to reduce carbon emissions are derived from a profoundly naive demand-side viewpoint, while ignorimng theese facts:

1. Once a barrel of oil or ton of coal emerges fron the ground, it guaranteed that it WILL be burned.

2. Resource extractors don't operate in some kind of isolation where they are merely responding to some kind of popular clamor for their resource, they have access to all kinds of economic tricks to CREATE that demand - advertizing and PR being only one of the the tools in their box.

3. Regulating production would greatly simplify and cheat-proof the carbom emissions reduction process - all we need is to impose an increasingly tough, international carbon tax on just three ethings: - oil and gas wellheads, coal tipples, and oil sand/shale plants - that's it.

heavyrunner.....

You are exactly right.....
I used to work in the oil patch.
The industry is now finding it profitable to exploit hydrocarbon deposits that previously wouldn't have been worth the effort.
Between tar sands, coal gasification, and heavy oil such as is plentiful in Venezuela we are probably doomed as a species unless we simply quit using the stuff.
It will be a sad and ironic thing if the human race ends itself at a point in it's evolution when it possesses the technology to not only maintain itself but to actually improve the environment.
I have at best another 15 years or so.
And frankly I'm glad of it.
Because I haven't any real hope that our species can prevail over greed.
Greed is as powerful as the wind and as inexorable as death.
I don't think that we have evolved far enough as a species to overcome it.

I drove across the Great Basin, Colorado Plateau and Rocky Mountains recently. There are oil well drilling rigs all along the way in places which have never been drilled before for 900 miles along highways 6&50. It made me sad to see them, because the real meaning, as Monboit argues in this piece, is that tons and tons more carbon is going to be pumped up out of those wells and into the atmosphere.

One of the big problems with smoking pot is that it impairs your judgment so you are unable to recognize its negative effects. Using it recreationally infrequently, in my opinion, does no harm. But a steady diet of the stuff will certainly mess you up over time. I must say though, the drivers we had in Pakistan last summer and their truck driving compatriots fired up the hashish every time we stopped and they drove just fine.

I'm sure there are herbaceous means of capturing sunlight that are useful for maintaining the continuity of our modern society. They must be analyzed to identify the best ones.

We must convert our transportation system, and learn to do fewer things during the dark hours. Sunlight can be harnessed in ways that will give us nearly the same means to travel we enjoy with fossil fuels.

We need electric trains and trams that are powered by direct solar conversion to electricity, wind turbines and tidal forces. Tidal forces operate in the dark as do geothermal faclities. Those can be used to provide base load power. We can and must make those changes and do it with ultimate commitment. We are already late, so we can't start too soon.

But flying appears to require the use of fossil fuel, so intercontinental travel and trade will have to slow a great deal compared to what we have today.

I read Monboit's recent article where he argues that the U.S. must get to a 98.5% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050. I'm not sure if we can reach that goal, but if we could we would leave a much cleaner, quieter, egalitarian and pleasant place to live for our grandchildren than the noisy, smoky, dangerous civilization we have today.

As for the answer, GM didn't even give one or he'd mention the fact that alternative renewables such as solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, algae, hemp, etc ... exist but are often defunded and stripped. Another thing you won't hear a peep from the Left is the way Big Oil stifles growth in those alternative renewables by buying off the patents and getting big government to interfere with any advancement in alternative renewables.

MAXPAYNE.....
I see your posts frequently on this site.
You are no dummy.....but some of your posts would incline a first time reader to think so.
Monbiot is usually correct in his facts, at least as far as I can tell. And I HAVE more than once checked him.
You are right about the absurdity of shunning hemp.
But not necessarily about using it as a fuel.
What is your objection to this author?
Is it his left leaning views?
I suspect that is the case.
He is absolutely correct IMHO about this issue.
And this issue IMHO dwarfs every other issue facing us.
I don't want my children and grandchildren to live in a world wracked by perpetual resource wars.
And this is the inescapable outcome unless we radically rethink EVERYTHING concerning energy.

ZPG is considered heretical, also, by all the Realists driving our buses -- they have their sights-set on a considerable 'roll-back' (ask any Rockefeller).
Diverse-wars/occupations have been waged to do little-else than 'keep oil in the ground' already, in furtherance of the Myth of shortage/Peak-Oil/"unwanted-Chaos". Abundant-oil was first made-expensive/profitable-beyond-avarice by JDR/StandardOil back in the 1800's -- by monopolizing/controlling refinement&shipping (which still-works remarkably well!). They followed by squashing the bio-fuel potentials for Diesel's-gadget, and foisted on us the hoax of petro-diesel -- ever since the '20's. Both World-Wars (and the Depressions/panics/'revolutions'/banking-scams in their foundations/pre-planning'/profiteering, and 'bonus' of resultant-Israel) taught that 'oil was King', and virtually all foreign-policies after those Wars focused on keeping the ME/Caspian-reserves Divided-and-'Dictatored' -- again to promote 'scarcity' and price-jacking. When the few 'privatized' OilCo's could no longer stop the 'greedy, but not-them' foreign-Nationals from 'dumping on market' and keeping price/quantity depressed, they covertly formed/allowed-OPEC, and have manipulated in conjoined-Interests through them, ever-since. When the Shaw wavered, he was replaced with the Mossad's/CIA's/ISI's-notion of an 'Islamic-Republic' (good, as had been all-previous, for continuing the conjoined-interest/feign of 'nuclear-Israel's needful-security'). Then war on an equally-wavering Iraq, more divisions-laid and follow-up war when Iraq 'sought-Justice' from ex-Iraqi and misbehaving Kuwait, and killer-Sanctions to lay-groundwork for future-occupations and basing and ALWAYS/all to prevent dreaded 'oil-dumping' and prepare for keeping the Caspian 'unstable'. We, our 'security-needful friends', and most OPEC-Nationals all 'in' on the joke of keeping 'oil in ground'/prices-high [can't let the developing-world afford any!], Nationals-populations under-heel, and 'terrorism' as 'huge-threat' for 'shrinking oil reserves/production'.
So Realists tell us that we MUST prevent cheap-oil from reaching the-poor (or even 'us'), and the Left and the Right all agree for their own-reasons, eh? Russian/Chinese/American joint-efforts to keep the Caspian 'undeveloped'? Mexico 'forgetting' it has its own Goose? DU and AIDS and many-more doing-the-dirty as unintended by-product?
I dunno...
What if its all the Farce any-portion of it looks-like when examined? Could HAARP be causing weather-changes, could a nuke dozens of miles South have triggered-a-tsunami rather than tectonics, could 'Peak-Oil' be all-about refinement/profits rather than production/extraction/reserves, could buildings fall like-that -- while exercises for 'things never conceived-of' progress?
Is any relevant-Player NOT happy with 100.-per-barrel crude, that seemingly is over-abundant (or we choke-on-it) and costs 0.60 to draw-from-ground [do even drug-dealers like the ISI/CIA make that sort or sheer-quantity of 'mark-up'&profit]?
What is 'real' (we haven't 'known' since the early-1800's, I suspect).
I sure hope SOMEONE does...and sufficient Reason lies behind-all.

maxpayne,

Hemp Hemp HOORAY ! The sad truth about the "War on Drugs" is even retards like cyon will buy into it. Instead of joining the NAZIs and kissing up to their REEFER MADNESS propaganda, the Left ought to be fighting against the big government war against people's rights to take care of themselves. The retarded losers in this forum probably never bothered to read the essay that your link provided. We can't teach our children out of fossil fuels until we sit down and realize what really pulled us into it in the first place. Teaching people about the 25000 uses of hemp and effectively framing the debate on that idea forward is a hell of a lot better than Monboit's LOSING ideas of telling people to just give up everything. Given that hemp can replace petroleum all the way and can repair this brainDAMAGED country, it's pathetic to see too many loonies on the left acting no different from the rightwing Limbaugh dittoheads. I guess that goes to show that the further apart the right and left go, the more identical they look !

P.S. : But what can be far more surprising about the currently FAKE Left once you find out that the Left could care just as less if not further about America's loss of privacy. More than the conservatives, it's those limousine liberals who are hell bent on doing it once you look at how Big Media/Entertainment stuff up the coffers of the corrupt Democratic misleadership and in return getting unlimited powers to sue customers millions of dollars just because they downloaded a few tunes off the net that probably weren't purchasing to begin with !

How do we teach children that fossil fuels are bad? If full costs were figured into the retail prices of things, and labels describe the production cost breakout, the child can learn easily that fossil fuels are a significant burden on people and planet, channeled through most every commercial product.

Full costs thereby raise awareness but full costs do much more. Most significantly, full costs force maximum economy in production. For example, compared to the child's favorite petro-fired cereal at the supermarket, a plain cereal becomes much more economical and perhaps growing a tasty heirloom variety in the backyard garden is the best value. The producer is thereby pressured to change the production of the commercial product. And full costs provide the resources to actually mitigate environmental/social pressures from human consumption.

So full costs at retail raises awareness, provides the economic motivator, and mitigates over-consumption when the motivator fails. While we can't implement full costs overnight, it's important for progressives to be aware of alternatives to the highly destructive capitalist status quo and experiment with alternatives.

The real answer to climate change is to be responsible humans interacting with the environment. As long as humans try to fight nature, they are going to lose, big time.

The only way to advance responsibly is to utilize solar power to the maximum, and that means converting every exposed surface of every building to be solar receptors. All life and all weather on this planet is solar generated and if you don't understand that basic fact of where most useful energy comes from, then why chat about pet projects?

As for the hemp solution, that valuable plant certainly has many more uses than it is currently being utilized for, but being utilized to make fuel for vehicles would truly be a waste. As for the fact that cannabis is illegal while tobacco and alcohol are legal, well, that only speaks to the undeniable fact that it is vile criminals who run the corporate governments.

Only a global zero population growth (ZPG) program could allow this to work. Unfortunately ZPG advocates have been considered heretics for at least thirty years.

And then what?! Run our economy on hemp-derived ethanol?! Look maxpayne, maybe you should lay of the cannibas for a while, becaue it appears to have impaired your thinking. First off, agrofuels are bust because converting farmland used to grow food drives up food prices and will literally starve the poor people of our planet. Second, they aren't exactly carbon neutral. So what exactly is bullshit about Monbiot's observation that we can't expect to cut CO2 emissions if we keep digging every last bit of fossil fuel out of the ground?

And then what? Look, much as I am disgusted with the "right", the Left also has plenty of faults. Let us not forget that it was they who allowed Big Oil/Coal/Nuclear to get its way 70 years ago when they approved of the allowing the vested business interests to use the "drug war" to outlaw Cannabis which could have and still can save us from dependence on fossil fuels. And if you don't believe that hemp doesn't replace petroleum, doesn't deplete the land, and doesn't contribute to global warming and other environmental degradations, take a look at this article for a change instead of LOSERboit's goofy bullshit:

http://www.freelabs.com/~whitis/politics/hemp/

Check out this new documentary that was just selected for The Sundance Film Festival:

http://www.fieldsoffuel.com

NebraskaNathan,

Firstly, I agree that it is very counter productive (and stupid) to insult people saying "that marijuana has gotten to your brain" when you are trying to make a logical argument about how much energy and paper can be extracted from hemp. As you say, hemp does not equal marijuana.

Confusing the drug issue with others was used in the firs place in order to make hemp illegal. Du Pont is the company that campaigned to make hemp illegal, and they did not do it for charitable reasons. They campaigned to make it illegal, using the flawed drug argument, because to protect massive investments in cotton because hemp makes better cloth that hemp, without the massive use of insecticides also.

Expect invested interests and the media to exploit this fallacy to the max, if
hemp again threatens oil/paper/cotton profits. So expect to be laughed at
again!

Secondly, I further agree that the hemp argument regarding energy is a good one. I dont know if it is THE answer, and I am not content to just accept the estimates presented. I want to hold back my judgement until such time as I know better. But I can see that it is stupid to ignore hemp.

But to suggest that George Monbiot ignores solar and wind energy is wrong. He is an expert in the field. I have read his articles where he does the maths. When you do the maths, it becomes clear that wind/solar/geothermal/corn energy cannot economically produce anywhere near the amount of energy that we currently consume. It is because he understands the disparity between our current consumption and what these alternatives can provide, he knows that consumption must be cut. If you read Monbiot, you will see that he wants us to reduce our consumption until the energy produced by wind/solar/geothermal will be sufficient.

George has not explored the hemp debate as far as I am aware. He should explore it. We should let our scientists to do the maths, until we are all confident that claims about hemp are not grossly exaggerated.

But George IS right about leaving the oil and coal in the ground. There is too much oil and coal in the ground, and if we extract it, we will use it, and destroy the planet.