3 Cats Stalking

Win-Win: Fuel, not Food

I read a news release from the National Chicken Council, and saw reference to releases from the equivalent Pork and Beef organizations, suggesting there should be a study into the tradeoffs between using corn for fuel and food. The meat industry is worried.

Already the wholesale price of chicken has gone up 6% because of rising corn prices. Ethanol is competing with Buffalo Wings and chicken tenders. And Bush wants to triple ethanol production from corn. Guess what -- the price of meat from those animals that feed on corn is going up. And the price of other grains will rise as cropland is converted over to raise more corn.

Wow, this is great! A real Win-Win situation.

Think of this. It takes over 10 calories of grain to produce 1 calorie of meat. By raising the price of meat until it is out of the price range of most people, market forces will cut the consumption of meat -- drastically. All we have to do is use the corn to produce ethanol instead of meat and let the market forces rule.

And as background, wild fishing stocks are being depleted (estimated to disappear by 2050), so a meal of fish will soon become rare. Of course, the fish farms also use grains to feed their stock, so their prices should climb as well. Ultimately, that should reduce consumption of fish, leaving more grain available for ethanol or other uses.

The Department of Agriculture reports that the US grain reserve is expected to drop to zero this year, and Australia has quit exporting grain. Unfortunately, we still have 800 million people who have insufficient food in the rest of the world (I am hesitant to describe them as starving -- I have no personal experience with them). They will have even fewer food supplies available. But we can help save them by eating less meat. Again, a Win-Win situation.

I am not sure what will happen to the price of tofu, made from soy beans. There is a growing biodiesel industry, and they really like soybean oil as their feedstock.

Vegetarians, arise. Your time is coming, that is if there is any grain left for you to eat.

BTW, does anyone know how much corn is required to make corn likker? Is that threatened, too.

Yeah, team,
sam

A Tipping Point

I think we have passed a "Tipping Point" with respect to global warming and the potential scarcity of fossil fuels.

A week ago global warming was not really happening and we essentially had no "energy" problem, at least according to some in the mainstream press and the concensus from the White House.

Now, after the State of the Union speech, it appears to be acceptable to discuss what should be done about global warming (though there are still some nay-sayers who deny its existence vehemently), and it is now public policy that we must do something about the "energy" problem to protect our national security.

Maybe the leaks from the IPCC report due out in a week and the leaks from the Dems in Congress have influenced the shift. In any case,  I believe this Tipping Point is truly significant and represents a real change in the paradigm.

In my case, I will cease trying to convince people that global warming is a problem and fossil fuels (from certain places) represent a risk. After all, those are givens -- just ask GW.

Now my big effort can be summed up in the message: LEARN TO LIVE WITH IT! Let me tell you how, let me teach you, now pay attention, because we agree these things are going to happen, and we all need to know what to do. Right?

The IT of concern is the effects of what is happening. Temperatures and sea-levels will rise, storms will be worse, fuel will be more scarce, etc. etc. etc. I can talk about the best case scenarios and the mid-case scenarios and the worst-case scenarios, and ask the audience: HOW DO YOU LIVE WITH THAT? DO YOU KNOW?

The nice thing is that this is a positive message rather than a negative message. That does a lot to get me out of my psychological frump. No, we are not all going to die (though undoubtedly some will), but life as we know it is going to change. Now get ready.

Hee, Hee. This is going to be fun.  sam

Kissinger agrees about war in Iraq

Henry Kissenger published a piece  on 19 Jan entitled "The New Iraq Strategy" in the Khaleej Times Online (of all places??) discussing the US strategy in Iraq. He states in part

"... under present conditions, withdrawal is not an option. American forces are indispensable. They are in Iraq not as a favour to its government or as a reward for its conduct. They are there as an expression of the American national interest to prevent the Iranian combination of imperialism and fundamentalist ideology from dominating a region on which the energy supplies of the industrial democracies depend."

The emphasis is mine. Go to the full article for the complete details.

Whether or not the US public or President or Congress don't like to talk about it, I believe it is vital to our interests to be out front with why we are in Iraq. Only then can we make a rational decision about the need to stay there.

It may be brutal, but it is the truth. sjp

Why Are We Fighting In Iraq?

This morning on Meet the Press, John McCaine and Ted Kennedy argued for and against Bush's surge strategy. It seems to me that they both "missed" the point of why to select that particular strategy and focused on the politics of the situation.

Most in the US now agree that the previous strategy of Bush/Rumsfeld of “staying the course” has not worked and will continue to not work [probably because of inept and unimaginative leadership]. There is strong disagreement about why it did not work and how to correct the course.

I have heard nobody discuss why we are really in the Middle East, fighting this war. I cannot believe the two gentlemen today do not understand. I am amazed at the solid front to ignore (and even hide from view) our primary reason for being there.

So what is the primary reason for our Middle East involvement? Oil.

But first, here are some reasons that are NOT the primary basis for our involvement.

Bringing democracy to the region is sometimes given as a primary reason. There are some idealists who believe democracy in and of itself is sufficient. They are like those who believe all those Muslims should be converted to [their brand of] Christianity. They are only right in that a "democracy" might make it easier to accomplish their primary goal. Turning them into fundamentalist Christians would be a disaster.

Stopping terrorism from developing in the region is the focus of some people, but IMHO the risks from terrorists is orders of magnitude less than the risks associated with our primary reason for involvement.

Preventing WMDs is often held up as our goal, and we have been sucked in by that fear in the past. There are other ways to tackle proliferation that offer a better chance of success.

There is a strong contingent in the US who feel the primary goal is to protect Israel. There are also others who say that is important, but what they really want is a proxy for the US in the Middle East to do our dirty work, if needed.

Why is oil the primary reason for the Iraq war?

The United States lifestyle is based on having access to and using 25% of the world's consumption of petroleum. The only place in the world where we can get that supply in the quantity we need it is the Middle East. We are fighting this war to protect and enlarge our control of that supply.

If you start with an understanding that oil is what drives the war, some conclusions on what to do stand out.

Bush was correct a year ago. America is addicted to oil. Did he say we should break that addiction? I don't remember. He hasn’t really come up with any good ideas on how to do that.

Rational analysis of where things are going with respect to resource depletion, climate change, and over-population indicates [AT LEAST TO ME] that we must decrease our use of fossil fuels QUICKLY, BUT IN AN ORDERLY FASHION. We must do things here at home to conserve and reduce our consumption, but we don't want some Arab in the Middle East dictating to us how fast we break our gas guzzling habits.

The solution is to take control of the oil-producing regions by whatever is the most efficient method. And to determine the most efficient methods, you have to clear the table of all those other reasons people give for being in Iraq. Focus on controlling the oil.

We should surge the troops sufficiently to gain control of Iraq. Twenty-one thousand seems low. We should see that a "friendly" government is installed and in control of the country. A pseudo-democracy may be best, but consider using a strong man who is willing to keep everyone happy and come down hard on those who object, and those who want to play terrorist.

We should continue our support of Israel as our "enforcer" in the area. At the same time, we should kick Israel’s butt if they keep trying to expand and ferment trouble with their neighbors. Why? Because they are a nuclear power with the resolve and resources to go after any other major violator of the "peace." They need to keep a low profile.

We should negotiate with everyone in the Middle East, including Iran and Syria, and make our position clear. Negotiation does not mean capitulation, but it does mean finding ways to get through and around issues of disagreement. We will help Middle East countries with their goals in the region (except for destroying Israel), but they have to provide us with oil. Included in this help will the rebuilding of their oil fields for enhanced recovery to extend the supply.

BTW, a thing to keep in mind is that Russia is coming on strong in the area of energy control and will be in competition with us in the Middle East. They are a major antagonist.

We should make sure the Middle East countries understand that the US is striving to wean itself from its addiction, but that activity will not mean the end of our need for their products. It will give them the opportunity to build their internal markets, and they will be the last to have the oil reserves as they run out.

Where will we be in a year? If we have not made progress in bringing to the forefront the real reason for fighting the Iraqi war, we will still be stumbling along in the dark looking for a strategy that will work and get us out. We will have lost another year.

Resource Depletion -- faster than you think

The earth is flat, right? If it were flat, it could go on and on, forever.

FACT: the earth is round, a sphere in space orbiting our sun. We live on the surface of that sphere where we find all the land, water, food, and fuel that is available to us. There is only so much of those resources available to us, at least on this earth.

Less than 500 years ago, when there were only 1,000,000 people living on earth, it seemed like the world was flat and resources were infinite.

Today there are 6,500,000,000 human beings on earth, and in less than 45 years, in 2050, it is estimated there will be 8,900,000,000. We are rapidly learning that the resources we need are finite. In fact, we are already running out of some.

FACT: we have used 1.2 trillion barrels of petroleum pumped from beneath the surface since 1870 when the oil boom started, and estimates are that from 1.2 to 3.8 trillion barrels remain.

Some interpret that to mean there is not a problem for now, but demand is growing at 2% per year. A simple calculation shows that the supply could be exhausted sometime between 2035 and 2070, assuming we can get all that oil out as fast as we need it -- UNLESS we find some way to lower our demand for fuel, or we find some other source of fuel.

Some are concerned with the Peak Oil effect, where supply suddenly drops while demand continues to climb. They expect this will destroy the world's economy. Many spend their time worrying about just when Peak Oil will occur.

FACT: almost all the tillable land in the world is in use today, except for the rain forests of the Amazon River basin. In the past 30 years, by using industrial agriculture, extensive irrigation, genetic modification, and high-strength fertilizers made from petroleum and natural gas, crop yields have been brought to near their maximum.

Two trends are working to reduce the amount of available land. Sea levels are rising and some portion of the rich coastlands where many crops are raised will disappear. The increase in population must live somewhere, and farmland is being converted into urban areas at a fantastic rate. Expect food supplies to be under more stress in the future.

FACT: as a result of years-long drought in Australia, the country in 2006 became a net importer of grain after being the world's fourth largest exporter five years ago. This year in the United States corn reserves are expected to be exhausted as demand for ethanol rises, along with the price for pork and poultry.

According to UNESCO, there are 800 million people in the world starving today. Some of this is a distribution problem, but there is also a limited supply of food. How do we feed the 2.4 billion increase in the next four decades?

FACT: at the current rate of over-fishing, ocean supplies of seafood will largely disappear by 2050.

FACT: freshwater supplies around the world are drying up. For example, the Ogallala Acquifer used to irrigate crops in western Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota is being exhausted. Glaciers in the Himalayas supplying water to China and India are disappearing. Over 1.5 billion people in the world do not have access to sanitary, potable water.

These are but a few of the indications that the resources we always thought were there are fast disappearing. And when you add in the effect of climate change, some resources will disappear even faster. Our account is already overdrawn -- how can we stop the drawdown?

THINK: Conserve, Practice Efficiency, End Over-Consumption, Teach Others How To Make A Difference. Move one pebble at a time. It will add up.

I apologize for the lack of references. I will add them in time.

Introduction

Hello, I am Sam Penny, aka the PrudentRVer,  a futurist and scenario writer living full-time somewhere in America in our fifth-wheel trailer with my wife, Alice. My background is physics, computing, geology, and corporate management.

Alice and I have spent a good part of the past 25 years traveling, oftentimes boondocking on the deserts and seashores and in the forests and mountains of our great country. We practice living prudently and keeping our carbon footprint small.

Our mission is to be far-sighted in our search for the key elements of a lifestyle that is thrifty, wise, frugal, and sustainable. We are vigilant to real opportunities and wary of choices and habits that threaten our existence.

Recently I became most concerned with the risks associated with resource depletion, climate change, and over-population. Scientific research is showing that unless we quickly respond to the challenges that each of these pose and begin to mitigate those risks, our life-style could suffer catastrophically.

To make matters worse, we live in a time when all three risk areas are converging in a complex fashion. Scenarios that I have done and studied support the conclusion that the combined effects of these risks could even threaten the existence of the world's civilizations.

Often the discussions of these problems are too single-minded, they do not address the interactions between them. That is where I will try to fill in the gaps.

This blog and its associate websites are dedicated to teaching and encouraging each and every one of you to begin to be aware and take action. Every little thing you do will help. Every bit of help will make a difference.

I will be adding my comments on various aspects of these risks. Please let me know what you think. I know there is a lot of stuff out there, and I will do my best to not just be a repeater.