Highest Concentrations of CO2 and Methane

October 31, 2017

The World Metereological Organization (WMO) has issued a report. Essentially it says that CO2 average levels in 2016 reached 403.3 parts per million, and methane emissions have spiked. All told, if present trends continue, the optimistic targets reached at COP21 simply will not be met. The technology to do so exists. What we don’t have is a global political consensus to make the targets mandatory with enforceable sanctions. We’ll pay anyway for the consequences of natural disasters -higher insurance premiums and taxes for emergency responses, etc.

Mass Production of Hydrogen Needed

October 21, 2017

Rapidly melting glaciers in northwestern China and throughout the world are expected to disappear completely within the next 50 years, a global catastrophe in the making. They are in some cases the principal source of water (the other being groundwater which is also being rapidly depleted) for many cities and vast agricultural concerns worldwide. Simply stated, no water equals desperation, mass migrations and increased competition, even war, over other (already over-stressed) water resources in neighboring regions. If nothing is done, food production will decline steeply just as the world’s population reaches 9 billion. Clearly the world is going to need more food, not less, and nothing is being done anywhere to address the situation.

The magnitude and scope of the problem requires a coordinated global effort to nip this problem in the bud before it reaches an unmanageable point. The United States, though ideally suited geographically, geologically and financially to be a primary contributor to humanity’s common cause, has chosen instead to walk away from COP21. But the rest of the world can and must mass-produce hydrogen from seawater to make fresh water (and generate electricity) to replace the glaciers and actually expand irrigation to even the most inhospitable areas worldwide. This is an unprecedented opportunity on a scale the likes of which has not occurred since Homo Sapiens materialized. If we miss it we’ll get what we deserve.

Dawn of a New World Order

October 12, 2017

Chinese Train

Over the last forty years China spectacularly lifted hundreds of millions from poverty, a stunning achievement by any measure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Graffiti Train

In contrast, during the same time frame the United States created more billionaires –it has more than any other nation- and plunged the middle class into or near poverty. Today’s lack of well-paying jobs and job security for the working and middle classes –men in particular- has created a sense of hopelessness and despair, with alarming consequences.

For the first time in American history life expectancy for white people is declining due in no small measure to the ongoing deadly opioid epidemic. New construction of single family homes and condominiums priced for young, low and middle-income single buyers, who are burdened with enormous non-dischargeable student loans, is practically nonexistent. And that’s just for starters. Our infrastructure –dated and in disrepair- urgently needs to be upgraded and modernized. We have no bullet trains, and with the exception of New York’s subway –not the cleanest or safest in the world- mass transit in most of the country is, to put it mildly, primitive. And then there’s health care, a for-profit industry, not a constitutional right. Americans pay far more and get far less than comparable societies. Suffice it to say that the Clark County Commission Chair in Las Vegas had to set up a website asking for donations to help the victims of the recent horrific events that took place in that city pay for their emergency medical costs.

For better or worse climate change -unstoppable and unrelenting- will transform the world over the next two generations. Already the Yuan, backed by gold, is being used by countries like Russia, Iran and Venezuela to pay for oil, and several major countries –including China, India, Germany and France- have announced they will ban gasoline and diesel-powered automobiles. This spells trouble for oil-dependent economies, particularly the U.S. The dollar, no longer in great demand, will lose its status as the preferred reserve currency of the world. Investors will severely curtail or cease buying Treasuries at low rates and the government will have to compete in the open market for the funds it needs to finance its perennial deficits. If it resorts to printing money with abandon as it previously did, inflation will spike. In any event, it simply will not be able to spend on the same scale as in the past, with grave implications for the military.

Ironically, China –a country believed ruled by a Communist Party- is already infected with the same strain of inequality that has decimated the middle class in the U.S., and the contagion is spreading. It already has the second highest number of billionaires and the situation will likely get worse as robots and artificial intelligence eliminate more jobs than they create. Accordingly, if China wishes to avoid the divisive, dangerous consequences currently afflicting America, it must find a way to redistribute its wealth in a more egalitarian manner.

It all boils down to one’s point of view. If the ruling elite believe they are unassailable come what may, they will continue to do whatever they must to maintain the status quo –their wealth and power. On the other hand, if they conclude that their best bet to survive is to introduce Aristotelian democracy –the rule of the majority- throughout the world and to create a system that guarantees without preconditions a minimum universal income to every human being everywhere, then there’s hope.

As noted in a previous essay, one way to do so is to make the production of hydrogen a universal means to acquire SDRs’ (Special Drawing Rights) the quasi currency currently set to become the de facto global trading medium. Low-grade technology that cannot be monopolized by a small minority of the population exists that would allow even the smallest, most indebted nations to emerge from poverty. Thus, they too would have renewable income to consume manufactured goods from surplus countries, to everyone’s benefit.

 

The North Korea Saga

September 24, 2017

Dracaena cinnabariAs with Dracaena cinnabari’s labyrinthine, spiny canopy, the ramifications of North Korea’s nuclear program reach everyone on this planet. In fact, it threatens to bring to a boil the simmering rivalry between China and Russia on the one hand, and the United States, NATO (notably, Germany does not support war)  and Japan on the other, a system of alliances and ententes reminiscent of pre-World War I Europe. Both sides have staked their positions. The Global Times, a Chinese newspaper, stated in an editorial what China’s policy would be should war break out between the United States and North Korea, and President Trump’s U.N. speech was equally blunt. As neither party can afford to be perceived as weak or less than courageous at home or abroad, it is wise to take them at their word.

Meanwhile President Putin weighed in saying that North Korea views its nuclear and missile program as its only means of self defense. His logic makes sense, but there’s much more to it than that.

Proliferation of Weapons

A simple fact: thorough research reveals that historically the proliferation of weapons has been the rule, not the exception. For that reason it borders on the naïve to believe that the proliferation of nuclear weapons can be permanently prevented. It might be possible for a finite period of time –years or decades- but not permanently.

The first countries to arm themselves with nuclear weapons were the victorious powers of World War II and veto wielders in the Security Council of the United Nations: the U.S., the Soviet Union (and its successor, Russia), China, France and Great Britain. Since then countries that either did not exist or were not then independent –India, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan, in alphabetical order, have acquired them. No wartime leader is known to have foreseen that these specific countries would one day be armed with these weapons. By the same token, it is impossible to predict who else is going to have them or something worse in the future, including non-state militias.

A Changing World Order

The ongoing festering of the Korean crisis has coincided with three events that herald a new world order. The first is the recent introduction of the gold-backed petroyuan. Russia, Iran, and now Venezuela have begun selling crude to China, the biggest importer of oil in the world, in yuan rather than dollars.

One immediate consequence is the decline in the value of the dollar; another, not yet fully manifested, is the effect all those unused dollars will have on the U.S. money supply when they are repatriated. They will fan the flames of inflation and spike interest rates, the worst possible outcome for the housing market. The federal government, saddled with a mountain of debt and perennial current account and trade deficits, will likely find it impossible to do much about it. That will trigger a cascade of events, none pleasant.

The second is that China, France, Britain and India have decided to stop sales of gasoline and diesel automobiles. China did not announce a target date, but it is pressuring automakers to speed things up. France and Britain will do so by 2040, India by 2030.

The third event, boycotted by all nuclear powered states and their vassals, is the adoption by 122 nations of a treaty to ban nuclear weapons. According to Costa Rica’s U.N. ambassador in Geneva, fully 129 nations signed up to help draft the treaty, two-thirds of the 193 member states. While nuclear armed states do not recognize it, the message from the majority of the world is unmistakable. It is a rebellion against the established world order whereby a handful of nations hold the entire world hostage at their pleasure. North Korea, recognizing that nuclear states are not about to renounce them, reserves the right to arm itself with them to deter, in their eyes, an attack by the United States. The obvious danger here is that the nations that adopted the new treaty will at some point in the future get discouraged by the refusal of nuclear states to adopt it and walk away from the Non-Proliferation Treaty a la North Korea. That alone explains why the U.S. and China agree that they will not accept North Korea’s premise. They must make an example of it so that no other country will dare do the same thing.

Convergence of U.S. and Chinese Interests

China’s currency is on the verge of displacing the petrodollar. Given the inevitable decline in the demand for oil that will occur as the world switches to electric cars it is in China’s interest to wait patiently for that event on the assumption that it will collapse the American Financial System. If and when that happens the U.S. will find itself unable to spend on the military as much as it has been since the end of World War II. In other words, China can accomplish this long term goal without firing a shot. Conversely, the U.S. operates on short term objectives, the most pressing being to convince its Persian Gulf allies that it alone can protect the dynasties from extinction by selling them expensive weapons and deploying the navy in exchange for pricing oil in dollars. Neither China nor the U.S. want war, however their strategic objectives are not congruent.

A Face-Saving Possibility

Here is a series of steps that could be taken to defuse the crisis.

  • China would guarantee North Korea’s existence, not with words but with deeds. It would deploy fighter jets, AWACS, tankers, anti-submarine and anti-aircraft ships, and submarines to guard the approaches to North Korea.
  • North Korea would immediately cease firing missiles of any type and detonating nuclear bombs.
  • Subject to verification, North Korea would move all its nuclear missiles and bombs to China. The U.S. would reciprocate by not deploying nuclear bombs and missiles in South Korea, also subject to verification.
  • The U.S. and South Korea, and China and North Korea, would sit down –without preconditions- to negotiate a permanent peace treaty.

2016 Third Consecutive Year of Record Global Warmth

August 10, 2017

The National Centers for Environmental Information of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released an international report detailing the following dismaying facts:

  1. Greenhouse gases highest on record.
  2. Global surface temperature highest on record.
  3. Global lower tropospheric (the troposphere is the area just above the Earth’s surface) temperature highest on record.
  4. Sea surface temperatures highest on record.
  5. Global upper ocean heat content near-record high.
  6. Global sea level highest on record.
  7. Extremes in the water cycle and precipitation.
  8. The arctic continued to warm, sea ice extent remained low.
  9. Antarctic sees record low sea ice extent.
  10. Global ice and snow cover decline.
  11. Tropical cyclones were well above average overall.

Avatar Income

July 30, 2017

Background

According to the 2016 World Economic Forum, “the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which includes developments in previously disjointed fields requiring college degrees such as artificial intelligence and machine-learning, robotics, nanotechnology, 3-D printing, and genetics and biotechnology, will cause widespread disruption not only to business models but also to labor markets over the next five years.”

Clearly these technologies are designed to increase short term profits by eliminating jobs. Therefore, absent a specific mechanism to counter their cumulative effect, workers worldwide are facing a painful transition of unprecedented magnitude as arduous, repetitive and even dangerous occupations are absorbed by the ongoing rise of the machines. Our government’s fixation on boosting military expenditures, which already exceed the next seven nations combined, its aversion to redistribute wealth, its undisguised eagerness to dismantle the last vestiges of FDR’s New Deal, and its staunch refusal to concede that climate change will force humanity, one way or another, to stop using fossil fuels, will toss future generations into a spiral of despair and hopelessness, a breeding ground for revolt.

The economy is the glue that binds modern societies into cohesive states. Accordingly, a majority of the people must have a reasonable share of income and wealth. Unfortunately a decline in disposable income, which is where we’re headed with the new technologies, will reduce the buying power of consumers, and they account for seventy percent of the U.S. economy. Therefore it behooves the government to organize, but not necessarily fund, a more egalitarian system designed to give most people the means to consume. That would be good for the government, which would collect more tax revenue and reduce safety net expenses, good for the working class, which would have the means to make ends meet, and good for the elite since the masses would have more disposable income to purchase their goods and services.

Enter Distributed Electricity

In 1880, at the height of the Victorian Era, Thomas Edison figured out how to create a pure vacuum in his bulbs, and in so doing, created the first marketable design. However, his revolutionary concoction required a permanent round-the-clock supply of electricity. In response, state-regulated, shareholder-owned power plants and distribution grid monopolies were created. Eventually the demand for electricity became so large that fossil fuels, particularly coal, had to be used. As with other for-profit enterprises, the new utilities had to compete in the capital markets. They did (and still do) that by offering competitive rates of return to shareholders based on the price of electricity. The system worked well because it had no real competition, until now.

It would be ludicrous and preposterous to suggest clinging to obsolete technologies such as steam locomotives, the telegraph, horse-drawn carriages and yes, centrally-generated electricity systems. And it’s not just a question of obsolescence. For the first time in history homo sapiens will have to adapt to the irresistible consequences of anthropogenic climate change, drought, sea level rise, depletion of aquifers, insufficient surface freshwater, potential famines, and the growing threat of terminal thermonuclear war.

Universal Basic (Avatar) Income

Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge

Universal Income is a necessity, however the government ought to organize and regulate, but not pay for it. In a nutshell, solar energy, hydrogen and gravity combined can potentially end using nuclear fission and fossil fuels to generate electricity. Public utilities could be relieved of their mandate to generate electricity. Instead, for a fee, they would operate, maintain and expand as needed the distribution grid. All new and existing residential, commercial and industrial buildings would be required to generate a surplus of electricity from solar power during daylight hours and be equipped with batteries for nighttime operation. Profits from the sale of electricity, hydrogen and freshwater would be distributed to property owners rather than utility shareholders. The profits would be used to help prospective and existing homeowners amortize their mortgages, end the housing crisis, create non-temporary well-paying jobs that cannot be outsourced or exported, and improve the economy at large. The system is explained in detail here.

WordPress theme: Kippis 1.15
Translate »