Enter the Age of Conservation

Enter the Age of Conservation

For Immediate Release
contact: Jan Lundberg - tel. (707) 826-7775

Please feel free to reprint the following op-ed editorial, with accompanying language stating that the piece "originally appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle on May 6, 2001."

And when cheap oil runs out...
Enter the Age of Conservation

by Jan Lundberg, Sunday, May 6, 2001

"Conservation is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy." - Vice President Dick Cheney on May 1.

A new society based on conservation and renewable energy is in the offing, and sooner than you might think. Why? Petroleum is running out. Yes, I know you've heard that before, but the truth is that fossil fuels are no longer economically justifiable and are a sure path to destruction. In discounting conservation as a major component of a national energy policy, Vice President Dick Cheney and President Bush have denied stark reality.

It would be nice to just ignore today's energy policy as irrational. Any grade-schooler knows the Earth contains only so much petroleum. But, in refusing to institute a rational policy, we are losing precious time for a successful transition to sustainable energy. This has implications for everyone: an acceleration in global warming, rising costs of gasoline and electricity, an increasingly toxic lifestyle.

As the White House has undoubtedly heard, under the most optimistic scenario the oil reserves in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would fuel the U.S. car fleet for less than two years. Did that fact just go in one ear and out the other? Or do Dick and George not care to understand energy except from an oil-patch partisan stance?

Several decades ago, drilling and pumping oil in the United States was amazingly energy efficient: it took one barrel of energy to extract 50. Today, however, for new U.S. wells it takes on average about one barrel to get another. Despite rises in costs such as extraction, oil prices are still low because of government subsidies. That's helped fuel demand. Supply is another matter.

U.S. oil production peaked three decades ago. As soon as global oil production peaks in the next several years, the ensuing down-slope will not be gentle.

Demand, with world trade relying on oil for shipping, is about to meet ever- shrinking supply. Estimates of when this shortfall is to hit put it quite possibly during Bush's tenure at the White House. Time to switch to natural gas? Natural gas is on a bell curve of depletion similar to oil. As for coal, it is the least attractive fossil fuel - not just from the pollution standpoint.

There is not much anyone can do about the energy picture except conserve to the max, even with a concerted all-out effort to encourage the use of renewable energy. Even though renewables will be vital, they don't have high net-energy ratios, and renewables do not yield much in the way of asphalt, tires, pesticides and other pillars of industrial living, that oil does for consumers. The size of our population puts us way out on a limb of petroleum dependence.

The end of abundant, cheap oil means the end of our culture of overconsumption. This is where alternative-living solutions come in. With locally based trade and cooperative survival strategies, some of us will withstand the loss of those trucks coming regularly to the supermarkets. We may learn to love using just one-tenth of the energy we use gluttonously today instead of ranting about the high cost of gasoline and electricity. We will be sharing appliances, gardening in former driveways and traveling less. Lives will not be lost wholesale to car crashes and disease from exhaust fumes. It is going to be a vastly different culture - unimaginable to today's die-hard fossil consumers.

George Bush and Dick Cheney may make decisions, but the dwindling supply of petroleum will soon emerge as the real driver. Meanwhile, the planet's climate is going awry. We must leave the fossils behind and embrace the new Age of Conservation.

###

Jan Lundberg formerly published the Lundberg Letter on oil trends. He now directs the Sustainable Energy Institute, P.O. Box 4347, Arcata, CA 95518. Tel.1-707-826-7775. On the web at http://www.culturechange.org

World War II Conservation Posters - Sierra Club

World War II Conservation Posters - Sierra Club

World War II Conservation Posters

			The posters created by "Artists for Victory" during World War II aren't just historical curiosities. You can still print them out today on a laser or inkjet printer and take a patriotic stand for conservation. Each of the examples we've included here will fit on a regular 8.5 x 11-inch sheet of paper.

Click on the thumbnails above to see the whole poster.

The story behind the pictures: When Uncle Sam Wanted Us

All posters are from the collection of Northwestern
University Library.

"Ration oil during war — Or is this a War on Conservation?"

"Ration oil during war — Or is this a War on Conservation?"

Ration oil during war
— Or is this a War on Conservation?

by Jan Lundberg

If the U.S. is waging a "War on Terrorism," federal energy policy would reflect that the war is not a "war for oil." Even if what we've had is a war of terror (nothing new, if you ask Indo-Chinese victims of U.S. shock-n-awe), that's not exactly a war for oil.

As oil is a strategic commodity essential to the present economy and military, then policies should be geared toward conserving oil. Everyone knows they are not; little conservation has happened since Jimmy Carter's tentative efforts. A national paving moratorium was proposed in 1990 in part to stop the lengthening of the nation's (oil) supply lines in time of war (Operation Desert Storm).

If the U.S. is truly not in Iraq and Afghanistan mainly for petroleum, and petroleum in that part of the world is meant for those countries and the whole world, then Gosh, the U.S. has to start rationing oil now. (Forget for a moment the main reason to cut back: global warming is caused in large part from petroleum emissions.) One could point out that U.S. trade partners need oil too, or else the U.S. goes down the tubes economically. But the U.S. felt a domestic and world crisis, to insist on war on Iraq. Some say it was to keep Iraq from accepting Euros instead of dollars for oil.

Approximately 20 million barrels a day of oil and refined products are being sucked unsustainably from the finite Earth just for the USA's burning and spilling the stuff. Neither the oil industry nor its White House acknowledges the impossibility of maintaining this rate. Because of free-market economists' ideology about the "creation" of supply, the future is never more than ten years off in their practical planning. As for an oil crisis hitting hard in the first decade of this century, this is not real to the oil fraternity because (1) it implies great change in an industry that's not generally about energy; petroleum is unique and specialized, and (2) it's the next quarterly report that really counts in big business.

World War II was a war for oil, in large measure, considering Axis and Allied aims and strategies. And the Axis - which happened to ultimately lose the war - was finally cut off from sufficient supplies of oil. But the U.S. had to ration oil and other products so that it would not run out during war. What have we learned from our history?

Critical oil stats
The number of days of supply of immediately marketable crude oil for the nation is only about 17 (seventeen), in terms of total supply already pumped out in the U.S. and having been imported. This is a typical level. That statistic is derived from knowing there are about 278 million barrels of crude now on hand, out of the ground, and almost 16 million barrels are used per day. There is also about a month's worth of oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), which could be brought to surface, refined and distributed. All the SPR oil cannot be brought to market at once; the idea is that an orderly drawdown could keep supply and demand in balance for several months. (The commonly assumed SPR scenario does not solve a serious long-term shortage such as from declining global reserves.) As for petroleum products, mostly gasoline and diesel, there is only about a week and a half supply in the U.S.

Add the maximum available crude and refined products together, and you have a little over two months of oil supply for driving, some heating, and a few lesser energy uses in the U.S., if we assume the crude is refined into fuels (over half of it is).

The bigger assumption is that domestic pumping and especially importing will keep going "forever." Fifty-eight percent is the level of oil importation today - another reason for the attack on Iraq?

U.S. gasoline consumption is well over 9 million barrels (or over 400 million gallons) per day in summer. Almost nothing is currently being done to decrease this. To the contrary, conservation is anathema to the "conservatives" in control of the government. (See San Francisco Chronicle op-ed "And when cheap oil runs out... Enter the Age of Conservation" by Jan Lundberg, May 6, 2001.)

Conservation Efforts in WW2 - On The Homefront - For Teachers (Library of Congress)

On The Homefront - For Teachers (Library of Congress)

World War II -- Conservation and recycling

World War II -- Conservation and recycling

The Arsenal of Democracy: Conservation and Recycling

Figure 1.--These boys from the New York Great Street Settlement are making a little notice to encorage more housewives to donate aluminum pots and pans., neded for aircraft production. Notice the one boy wearing his Cub cap. Unfortunately the aluminum in pots in turned out could not be used for aircraft production. Wide World

The U.S. Government after Pear Harbor asked Americans to salvage and collect a long list of materials that coud be used for the war effort. The materials included paper, aluminum, tin, iron and steel, rubber, silk stockings, and cooking fat. Some of these materiald like rubber and silk were needed because th Japanese had cut off the supplu by their rapid advance through Southeast Asia. The Government organized a major conservation and recycling effort. Cities and states were given quotas. Children and their families were involved with conservation and recycling of goods. Many children participated scrap metal, used tire, and paper drives to collect materials iseful to the war effort. Contests were held to meet established quotas. Newspapers reported on the quantities of material collected. Some comapnies sponsored drives and offered prizes. Given the need for alumininum for aircraft production, drives were launched for old pots. As the Japanese cut off America from sources of raw rubber, drives were launched for old tires. Children would even brought their own old toys in for scrap drives. At that time toys were much more likely to be made from metal than in our plastic society today. While these activities and drives were very widely publicized, we are not sure just how useful the amterials collected actually were. We have not yet found any definative studies indicating the actual value of these drives. We suspect that drives for aluninum and rubber in 1942 may have been especially important as the United States was just beginning to gear up production.

Pearl Harbor (Devember 1941)

Americans were reluctant partivcipants in World War II. Many opposed American participation. NAZI brutalities in Europe, especially the Blitz on London changed many binds, but many continued to oppose American participation. The Jappanese carrier strike on Pearl Harbor instantaneouusly changed the minds of virtually every American. The nature of the attack convinced Amretricans that the time had come to fight. Creating a national consenus. Most Americans including women and children not involved in the fighting wanted to partivcipate the war effort. One way that was expressed was in scrap drives.

Materials

The U.S. Government after Pear Harbor asked Americans to salvage and collect a long list of materials that coud be used for the war effort. The materials included paper, aluminum, copper, iron and steel, tin, rubber, silk stockings, and cooking fat. Some of these materials like rubber and silk were needed because the Japanese had cut off the supply by their rapid advance through Southeast Asia. Given the need for alumininum for aircraft production, drives were launched for old pots. One of the most serious raw material crises was rubber. The Japanese offensive in the first months of the War seized Southeat Asia which had been the major supplier of rubber. Government action requisitioned nearly the entire stock of rubber and tires. It became virtully impossible to buy tires--including bicycle and tricycle tires. Drives were launched for old tires. Major efforts were also made to expand production in Brazil and West Africa. In the end the problem was resolved by a crash progeam to create an entire new industry--synthetic rubber. Another interesting material was cooking fat. This might not seem like a critical national material. There are, however, many industrial uses for fats. Fat is the a base for soap. Coconut oil and palm oil are probably the most important oils used for sop, but other fats can be used as well. Fats are also used to produce candles, paints, varnishes, leather, artificial rubber, polishes, waxes, carbon paper, salves, insecticides, lubricants, cosmetics, drugs, dyes, petroleum, and synthetic resin. The reason for the drives for cooking fat, especially du ring the early phase of the war, was that glycerin in fat is an key ingredient in explosives.

Collection Efforts

The Government organized a major conservation and recycling effort. Cities and states were given quotas. Children and their families were involved with conservation and recycling of goods.

Tehran increasing Influence in afghanistan amd pakistan

Amplify’d from www.atimes.com

A summit in Tehran trumps the US

Almost directly in proportion to the nosedive in Washington's ties with its allies in Kabul and Islamabad, Iran has stepped up its political and diplomatic activity over the Afghan problem and the regional situation. Tehran estimates that the United States' relations with the Afghan and Pakistani governments have suffered a serious setback and a swift recovery is unlikely. Read more at www.atimes.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a15qja

Are World Central Banks a Pyramid Scheme? Tipping Points, Breton WoodsII, IMF, World Bank, Fiat Currency, USD

Interesting analytical focus. Where is it going next?

Amplify’d from www.zerohedge.com

Guest Post: 2011 Tipping Points

2011 Tipping Points (pdf)

Throughout my 2010 article series "Extend & Pretend" and "Sultans of Swap" I stressed that we were rapidly moving from the Financial Crisis of 2008, through the Economic Fallout of 2009 -2010, towards a Political Crisis in 2011 -2012. We are now clearly beginning to see the early emergence of the final part of this continuum.  From North Africa to Wisconsin all are fundamentally based on the single insidious underlying problem - excessive global debt and credit levels.

The global macroeconomic environment appears to be rapidly unraveling. The situations in North Africa through the Middle East are blatant proof of social unrest and accelerating political instability. Food shortages and inflation pressures are now driving people into the streets. When you feel the hunger in your stomach and see it in the eyes of your children, it quickly erupts and motivates people to action.     It is now time to revisit our Tipping Points framework to see where this is leading. A framework that is clearly pointing to a global fiat currency failure and an emerging new world order which is detailed in our "2011 Thesis - Beggar-thy-Neighbor".

CONCLUSIONS We need to carefully watch: 1) The increasing & accelerated contagion of social tensions. Watch for Asia demonstrations in places such as North Korea. 2) How and if the Central Banks actually do unwind their  crisis ‘triage’ programs or are they realistically now permanent and necessary to maintain the illusion of financial stability? 3) New government public policy initiatives to combat growing inflation and price pressures 4) The financial sectors abilities to continue to hide massive nonperforming commercial and residential real estate loans through Federal Reserve endorsed accounting gimmickry. These events will allow us to determine if our roadmap is still valid or if we are going to see even sooner and possibly poorer financial outcomes than we predict in our free Monthly Market Commentary and Market Analytics reports. The public will soon wake up to the magnitude of money printing that is going on to support the economic recovery fallacy. When the public does become aware, “Money Velocity” will accelerate. Read more at www.zerohedge.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a15o5r

America: Freedom to Fascism - Director's Authorized Version

America: Freedom to Fascism - Director's Authorized Version

Monopoly Men (Federal Reserve Fraud) (1999)

Monopoly Men (Federal Reserve Fraud) (1999)

chinas-stealth-investments-in-japan: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance

chinas-stealth-investments-in-japan: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance

America: Freedom to Fascism - Is this driving the TeaParty? @maddow @foxnews @chrislhayes

Watch this and consider what it suggests. RT if you saw it and give your opinion.

Amplify’d from video.google.com

America: Freedom to Fascism - Director's Authorized Version Read more at video.google.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a15o51

Will The Great American Depression2.0 Lead to Fascism?

Looking at the history of Italian fascism, it was primarily a violent movement to restore the Roman Empire and oppose the Communist movement of Russia.



Given the american tendency towards war and violence, it seems all too possible that following the 2nd Great American Depression coming soon to a political theater near you, the religious right could continue to bastardize patriotism to signify a violent and radical movement.



This could become reality if the Pentagon and its leaders make a call to arms and gather the support of the TeaParty, who are mostly an armed militia in waiting, and all the soldiers, who are finding it difficult to return to civilian life after 10 years of middle east war.



Scary eh?

Amplify’d from en.wikipedia.org

Fascism

Fascism ( /ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a radical, authoritarian nationalist political ideology.[1][2] Fascists advocate the creation of a totalitarian single-party state that seeks the mass mobilization of a nation through indoctrination, physical education, and family policy including eugenics.[3] Fascists seek to purge forces, ideas, and systems deemed to be the cause of decadence and degeneration and produce their nation's rebirth based on commitment to the national community based on organic unity where individuals are bound together by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood.[4] Fascists believe that a nation requires strong leadership, singular collective identity, and the will and ability to commit violence and wage war in order to keep the nation strong.[5] Fascist governments forbid and suppress opposition to the state.[6]

Fascism is normally described as "extreme right",[35][36] although writers have found placing fascism on a conventional left-right political spectrum difficult.[37] There is a scholarly consensus that fascism was influenced by both left and right, conservative and anti-conservative, national and supranational, rational and anti-rational.[19] A number of historians have regarded fascism either as a revolutionary centrist doctrine, as a doctrine which mixes philosophies of the left and the right, or as both of those things.[20][21][22]

The events of the Great Depression resulted in an international surge of fascism and the creation of multiple fascist regimes and regimes that adopted fascist policies. The most important new fascist regime was Nazi Germany, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler. With the rise of Hitler and the Nazis to power in 1933, liberal democracy was dissolved in Germany, and the Nazis mobilized the country for war, with expansionist territorial aims against multiple countries. In the 1930s the Nazis implemented racial laws that deliberately discriminated against, disenfranchised, and persecuted Jews, homosexuals and other racial and minority groups. Hungarian fascist Gyula Gömbös rose to power as Prime Minister of Hungary in 1932 and visited Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany to consolidate good relations with the two regimes. He attempted to entrench his Party of National Unity throughout the country; created an eight-hour work day, a forty-eight hour work week in industry, and sought to entrench a corporatist economy; and pursued irredentist claims on Hungary's neighbors.[111] The fascist Iron Guard movement in Romania soared in political support after 1933, gaining representation in the Romanian government, and an Iron Guard member assassinated Romanian prime minister Ion Duca.[112] A variety of para-fascist governments that borrowed elements from fascism were formed during the Great Depression, including those of Greece, Lithuania, Poland, and Yugoslavia.[113] Read more at en.wikipedia.org

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a15lcz

Redefining American Patriotism in the 21st Century

Seems like a good subtitle

Creation of Tributary States - Saudi Arabia

Just as the British carved out pieces of the Ottoman empire to create the nation of Iran for the purpose of protecting what later became British Petroleum (BP), The US supported the conquest and expansion of territories of the Ottoman empire that became Saudi Arabia after a Standard Oil expedition in 1933 identified vast amounts of petroleum in the area.

"King Aziz granted a concession to Standard Oil, which allowed them to explore for oil in the country's Eastern Province. The joint enterprise eventually became known as the Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco). The company granted a loan of £50,000 to the Saudi government and paid it other assorted rental fees and royalty payments. In exchange, Aramco received exclusive rights to mine, produce and export oil from the eastern part of the country, free of Saudi taxes and duties. In 1938, efforts were rewarded with the first discovery of commercial quantities of oil at Dammam Well Number 7, located near Dhahran.

The agreement was modified several times over the years. In 1950, Saudi Arabia and Aramco agreed to a 50-50 profit-sharing arrangement, and a series of agreements between 1973 and 1980 resulted in the Saudis' regaining full control of the company. In 1988, King Fahd issued a royal decree establishing the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, known as Saudi Aramco, to replace Aramco.

Read more: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages//frontline/shows/saudi/etc/cron.html#ixzz1PPqn9bzO

Temperature

Pay attention to the climate you live in and your mood as the temperature changes, seasons, etc

Also not the general temperature of the personalities of people you know well. What gets them hot and angry, what gets them hot and wet (more explanation in the chapter about sex)


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

What does Bradley Manning Know? #911

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Manning

Its a Game! They are gambling. Having a good time, then a bad #geopolitics #alexjones

The USGOVT is like the damn mafia playing with the boys - Mexico, Canada, Cuba.  Then there's the other league - those guys in Europe.  And then there's the South American league, and . . . wait there's no African league is there?  Oh yep, yeah there is.   And whenever the leagues get together its a frickin mess.

An I talking about soccer? G8, Bilderburg, UN, NATO, NAFTA, Oil companies, mafias,

Paid advertising for the book: NPR!!

I can sponsor NPR and promote the book at the same time!

http://www.npr.org/about/support/

Prohibition Movement

Related to racism, women's suffrage, kkk, german beer companies, catholics were drinking and kkk wanted to keep the country white and anglo saxon, income tax,

http://www.npr.org/2011/06/10/137077599/prohibition-speakeasies-loopholes-and-politics

Cultural Transition Along with Collapse

When the USA economy crashes as China, India, and Brazil are on the rise, americans will start to idolize one of those countries.  Brazil would be best.  Anyway, as offices close down we will be able to setup our culture / community / buddha bar an have musicians, comedians, singers, playwrights, etc, come to our place.  we can podcast and do live video streaming from multiple centers - go global.