Climate change is a major challenge to life on Earth. We are dealing with more CO2, less O2 in a positive feedback loop due to higher temperatures, forest fires and the dying oceans. This has happened before and has caused major extinctions. The reason we are around is because some species survived. They where adapted to the changing environment and created offspring.
Evolution as Charles Darwin presented it is not survival of the fittest, as many believe, but survival of the just good enough. The process hinges on variety in species so that a changing situation creates an opportunity for some of the population, even if others, or the majority can’t deal with it.
Evolution is a proces of survival of those species that can cope with their environment, not necessarily the optimal or strongest
The EU is now preparing to make use of certain seeds mandatory, standardized seeds. This means lots of legacy seeds will disappear and the plants we really need will have next to no variety. It also means seeds become money, because these will of course be patented modified seeds, which are ‘better’ than other seeds.
Variety in species is the best way for life to deal with changes in the environment
We should be weary overharvesting.
This strategy which is only motivated by economical motives, by desire to control and own, is the biggest diseaster for our environment and our chances of suvival on Earth. This risk taking behaviour has never a problem for the industry ingeneral as it has driven fossil fuel use for a century in which the effects where well known, and sigarets, and DDT, and nuclear power. Danger means you become dependent on them. The main concern is power and control excerted by a few.
Allowing the motivation of control to force us into an evolutionary niche is a mistake
We need not less variety in seeds, but more. The maximum, so the plants can adapt. Life on Earth lost the battle during the Permian extinction and then it had thousands of years to find a ‘solution’. We now give it a couple of hundreds of years. Better not mess it up for ourselves..
Psychologen weten dat als we iets nieuws zien we het begin en het eind het makkelijkst onthouden. Men weet ook dat de emotionele lading van iets dat wordt gepresenteerd bepaald of we er vaker aan denken, emoties bepalen onze beslissingen (ook al denken we graag dat we rationeel zijn). Het is ons opgevallen dat promofilmjes voor duurzame ideen vaak beginnen met enge, dramatische of beklemmende muziek. Dit zorgt voor een associatie met rampspoed, defaitisme en de dood. Hieronder een paar voorbeelden:
Bedrijf zoekt buur, over een manier om regelingen handig te gebruiken zodat je zonnepanelen een stuk goedkoper zijn (alleen via de website trieste piano muziek)
Europe is going after price fixing by oil companies. They should not stop there, because what about price fixing by banks? Don’t banks fix prices if they create more money or absorb it from society? This is our carboncredit perspective of banking. Banks are managing prices by observing the energy markets, which dictates how much money they are able to print (credit) without affecting prices. This is what the fed does.
Shell is organizing the Eco-Marathon in the Ahoy in Rotterdam. Hundreds of teams from around the world are competing to have the most fuel efficient car, or one that reaches the highest speed using solar, batteries or hydrogen. Below some pictures, first of the kids exposition.
It seems hard to be negative about this event. It is not at all. It’s a blatant propaganda show for fossil fuels. Yes you see some solar panel and a wind turbine, but most of the exhibition is about gas, nuclear and lots of cars, cars, cars. Kids love cars. Apart from cars they can see a plan for their future where "75% of people live in cities".
Shell tells you there may be climate change, but that biomass burning in poor countries also adds a lot of CO2. All the more reason to stop their business.
Shell remains in the conditional mode regarding climate change. CO2 "has the potential". It’s very predictable, their business model and ambitions include getting gas from the ocean floor apart from hunting for shale gas in South Africa. They don’t learn they are a mere supplier of energy they find around Earth, only theirs because they bribe (or kill) most people that oppose them. This has been going on since the late 1800’s.
The Eco-Marathon challenge is interesting, today many teams seemed to have their complete workshop moved to the Ahoy hall. Categories are solar, batteries, gasoline, hydrogen. It’s an involved activity, students will feel like they are really cool and active, which is what they should be much earlier in life (in terms of responsibilities).
The creations remind one of the first cars, (many of which where electric by the way until Ford came along). It’s a great way to make people aware of their maker skills. We say Wealth is skills x materials x energy, so these events are good for any economy, not only the Shell inspired (destined to cause our extinction) fossil fuel based one.
We are building a test bed for robotic gardening, aquaphonics and other roboeconomic techniques. We believe that once it is established renewables afford us to restore ourplanet without limitation, we will set about developing the technology to do so, which will be a mix of information technology and robotics. It will be important especially to speed up the process of replanting and dedesertification, irrigation and maybe even channel building. All this will happen without any fossil fuel input, it has to, you can’t solve a problem with it’s cause. We’ll group this under geoengineering and will start with trying to do some automation on our own indoor garden making it a loos thread along with other topics on this site..
Max has been ranting about the many ways in which banks have created fraudulent credit for themselves and credit has been taken from the public by low interest rates and policies, something we understand to be part of the carboncredit logic. This logic dictates that as available carbon is reduced or shifted elsewhere, liquidity in society has to be shrunk or prices of everything will go up.
These guys take another perspective. They say that if we are to halt burning carbon when we reach 2 degrees (which is diseasterzone) that about 80% of the reserves will remain unused. As this reserves are on the books for credit extention, this book value of reserves has to be cut. What these guys are talking about also makes carboncredit sense, because you don’t want to extend credit when the carbon is not there or prices will go up.
Money, credit or savings are worthless if there is no energy to produce goods when you want to spend it
In both cases the prices are kept stable so people are not alerted to a change of paradigma, and cashflows are protected. The guys are actually protecting the banking system and have Moody’s on their side. Moody’s, Standard & Poor and other rating agencies serve as leaders in the carboncredit system, becuase they determing the cost of credit, so effectively how much carbon a country or company can commandeer to do it’s work.
Pensions
Part of the conversation is about pensions. Pensions are illusions because the money people save in it only has value in a functioning economy, and you never know if that will exist when you get your money from your pension. Pensions need to shrink as hard as possible because the bad news is : Fossil fuel won’t be available to make all the stuff people would want to buy when they get the money. Better then to make sure they have less money. Also businesses and banks make money today, now that there’s still good access to oil (even if oil becomes more and more carbon intensive and complicated to get), so banks and industry will try to trick pensions out of their funds. They are already doing a charade about ‘coverage’ meaning they counted on certain interest on the savings but they didn’t materialize so now the pension given will be decreased. All this is completely understandable in the carboncredit logic.
Because you (still) can’t make anything without fossil fuels, money only buy stuff as long as they are available, and the amount of money people can spend today must match the amount of production possible today
Max and his guests don’t get this far. Max tries to find the road to trade up while ditching oil, and that is impossible as long as all companies use fossil fuels for production. The guests try to make the industry do something preventative it has never done before, but they are backed by Moody’s because Moody’s has as its task to manage the carboncredit balance, it has to cut credit when the carbon supply/access drops.
Our habits, our beliefs about others, when shared and common, invite exploitation. ‘Economics’ gets installed in our elites so banks make profits
It is a truth that even in a world without central control behaviour can be concerted. One of the biggest silent organizers in our world is economic theory, another is our credit based banking system. Both are used and applied without to much doubt, for instance in ‘kickstarting the economy’. Using prices is a reflection of the trust that someone maintains the relation between credit and productivity, and because productiviy depends on the availability of ‘carbon’ fuels that trust means one expects the carboncredit system to be managed.
Targeting ‘Price stability’ is managing the relation between carbon and credit
This is what Bernanke means then he says the Federal Reserve Bank maintains ‘price stability’. It tries to manage the value of one dollar of carboncredit vis a vis US domination of fossil fuel reserves. This process is collapsing for geopolitical reasons, hence the growing poverty and agressive nature of US banks in trying to destroy demand at home and aboad (by crashing the PIIGS).
The Wallstreet banks, in cooperation with the US government, have reduced carbon consumption by reducing liquidity around the world, shifting reserves towards CAUSA industry
What will happen is that Moodies will downgrade oil companies for real, and nobody can be blamed, so banks are ‘forced’ to lend less and more discriminately, more austerity will have to be applied as the dying carbon industry still tries to strangle the growing renewable one because renewables are made using ‘carbon’ fuels the use of which requires credit. This gets the banks off the hook, and allows for expansion of their power as chaos starts to spread in regions without fossil fuels to transition to renewables. Many people will die, as many are already dying.
Two options for the end game :
1. A carbon based plutocracy arises that starts to mine Clathrate gas from the ocean floor, fracking the hell out of every nook and cranny playing locust with natural resources while strangling the renewable industry where possible and creating a total surveillance environment. Mankind’s final moments will be spend in endless wars. Like the oil industry expert below confessed (second allinea).
Banks and the fossil fuel industry have been killing us for more than a century, the people in these sectors are selected to be short term thinkers loyal only to the corporation
2. Governments see that they have to increase the energy supply, and renewables being most easy to create and control shift the use of carbon fuels towards this sector, disregarding economic ideas like kickstarting something, actually focussing on cutting the carboncredit domination by building factories that create renewable energy sources using only renewble energy. This also include adopting a new money system, and abolishing the autonomy of the fossil fuel industry. With those measures the conditions of every living creature on earth starts to improve immediately.
Wealth is a function of Skills, Raw materials and Energy (notice the absence of credit or oil)
The financial/fossil sector will dominate politics as much as it can as long as it can to remain in power. That is the nature of those industries. But these people are always and only bluffing and no match for a determined population. As always though these interests own both sides of the debate, so only a populist that has a clear idea about how to defeat the control by the banks and fossil fuel industry should be supported. The renewable future is the only future and it should be the one you want!
Wetshandhaving in India heeft zijn zwakke kanten, dat is met de recente verkrachtingen wel gebleken. Het land is gigantisch groot en het grootste deel van de bevolking leeft in armoede. Net als Pakistan ‘tribal zones’ kent waar de politie niks te zeggen heeft zijn er in India ook gebieden waar je beter niet kan komen. Kennelijk vallen daar ook kolenrijke gebieden onder. De kolen maffia is zo machtig dat India niet goed bij zijn kolen kan. De regering heeft geen controle over de kolengebieden, de politie is corrupt en medeplichtig. De voorraden worden geplunderd.
We hebben het hier waarschijnlijk over schuldslavernij, net als in andere arme landen, waar het land zelf de gevangenis vormt van mensen die moeten werken om een schuld af te betalen. Kinderarbeid is geen uitzondering, zoals in de docu hieronder "Children of the inferno" te zien is. Kolen ontbranden spontaan als ze aan lucht blootstaan, en branden soms al 100 jaar. Meer over ondergronds brandende kolen.
Hier is iets te doen voor de bouwsector, een manier om luchtverversing en verwarming te realiseren volledig op duurzame basis, misschien zelfs resulteren in een energie neutraal gebouw!
Zou dit voor particuleren ook kunnen, bejaarden tehuizen, ziekenhuizen, scholen? Denk het wel! Dit sluit enigzins aan bij onze eerdere posts over Solar Air heating.
English
Ben Bronsema developed a method for converting buildings so that they do not require airconditioning and become near energy neutral. It is implemented by adapting the roofs and facades so they capitalize on the wind and solar energy available. Then it uses thermal convection and other intrinsic sources of flow to replace energy intensive fans and airconditioning systems. When the hot air is exhausted from the building in summer the heat can be extracted and stored in undergound aquifer or other heat storage tank for use later, or even to heat the buidling in winter.
Applying these techniques (amongst which is solar air heating) to exiting buildings may be a quicker way to drive down carbon consumption than refubishing them with new heating systems. The adoption of these concepts can run into trouble because energy clients and banks don’t like to loos customers or cashflow. Yet it provides a model for future buildings and a way out of your costly airco bills..
"Energieleveranciers maken hun grijze stroom groen door certificaten te kopen. De zogenaamde Garanties van Oorsprong (GvO’s). Dat is wettelijk zo geregeld. Zulke certificaten kun je bijvoorbeeld in Noorwegen kopen bij waterkrachtcentrales. Dat klinkt best groen toch? Maar weet u hoeveel het ons in 2012 kostte om met GvO’s een gemiddeld Nederlands gezin een jaar lang 100% groene stroom te leveren? Nou? €1,44. Eén euro en vierenveertig cent. " (bron)
Wow, hier hadden we nog nooit naar gekeken. Het systeem van garanties van oorsprong leek ons een open deur om te sjoemelen, vooral vanwege het feit dat 1 MW in Noorwegen niet hetzelfde is (en nooit zal zijn) als 1 MW in Nederland. Nu rijzen er een aantal vragen zoals : Wat zou de prijs van de certificaten moeten zijn ? Kan een certificaat systeem uberhaupt werken? Wat doen we met het tekort aan groene stroom (wordt dit nu weer zwart voor de mensen die gezamelijk of individueel groene stroom inkochten). Het leek ook te makkelijk te gaan.
Het certificaat systeem afschaffen lijkt ons het beste. Groen is groen, moet u meteen kunnen zien.
Dit is overigens wel een voorbeeld van transparantie als marketing strategie. Tevens is het een voorbeeld van ‘level playing field’ dwz, bedrijven hebben geen probleem met een uitdaging, zolang de competitie die ook ondervindt. Maar het kan ook zijn dat de NEM denkt :"De mensen kunnen geen kant op, dus waarom die groencertificaten? Dat wordt een besparing als mensen daar niet in geloven." Een bedrijf houdt zich immers in leven door commerciele beslissingen te nemen.
De ‘energie markt’ is in wezen onzin, waarom een markt als je gericht energie duurzame voorzieningen kan aanleggen?
We zien iig liever transparantie en beweging richting beter begrip over hoe onze energiebehoefte wordt gelenigd dan het schaamteloos greenwashing van Mac Donalds en Coca Cola.
The Grvity plane concept is similar to the ocean gliders that have been used to collect ocean data for some time now. It does the same thing, but instead of using air for aqautic boyancy it uses helium for atmospheric boyancy.
Once it’s at altitude it can glide down on wings, collecting some energy from small vawts who’s energy is stored in the form of compressed energy. The speed it develops generates lift so the plane can cover over 500 miles without fuel, only based on the energy to decompress and compress the helium.
The plane is safe because it doubles as an air ship, it floats in the air anyway. It could use a propellor in our humble opinion, or it may float off..
