Imaginery wealth

Many people in developed countries have seen circumstances make money rapidly for them. They have become wealthy through the creation of fiat money rather than by their know how of physical efforts. Financial commentators argue that the growth of sovereign debt in many countries is a boom that is bound to bust. But the well off in society are living the day with their wealth which, despite the protestations that it is only fiat money, is still able to pay for their desires. It is real wealth as far as they are concerned as they indulge in tours to foreign lands, lapping up the sales that plague TV, live in McMansions, drive SUVs and glorify showing off their high material standard of living. It helps their self esteem to be able to show that they have made it. They do not understand that they are parasites feeding off natural resource
wealth without society paying for it.

Governments do their utmost to foster economic growth as it encourages full employment and their return to lucrative office. Businesses compete in their ability to sell goods and services so as to make money for their managers and shareholders. They build skyscrapers, housing estates, freeways, tunnels and other infrastructure by irrevocably using up limited natural resources.These powerful bodies lead the way in the ravishing of our life support system

Even scientists who strive hard to gain understanding in their particular field are victims of this rapacious disease. Climatologists fly to far off places to make measurements of aspects of climate change they can report on in peer-reviewed papers, so making their own contributions to greenhouse gas emissions! Government specialists fly to conferences so they can convey to like contributors their findings of what is going wrong in their field.

Many informed people know how numerous past civilizations collapsed. The ruins of cities in central America, Asia and the Middle East provide anthropologists with insight into what happened. Some authors have provided sound argument for the demise of our industrialized civilization. But the masses are uninformed and the elite have the irrational belief that the leverage of their money will ease their powering down. So it is still full steam ahead for the vast global population and the operation of the infrastructure it is so dependent on as the cliff gets closer. It is almost as though society is determined to go out with a flourish, the wish of addictives as their demise looms.

EROEI - energy return on energy investment blarney

The EROEI (energy return on energy investment) is a measure that is often used by humans to judge the effectiveness of technological systems, such as wind farms, in supplying energy. ER, the energy return is the output of this energy flow process. The energy input is not included because it is presumed to be free! EI is the separate embedded energy flow that drives the system. Thus EROEI is only a measure of the energy effectiveness of the system. It does not take into account:

• the transformation in the form of energy during the flow is often coupled with the transformation of material to waste. The production of the greenhouse gas emissions (contributing to climate change) as thermal energy is extracted from the fossil fuels is but one example of this association.
• the technological systems have a limited life due to the wear and tear of natural forces, including various forms of friction so their ultimate destiny is as waste material, even when there is recycling
• the energy input to technological systems from fossil fuels or uranium is not truly free as there are limited supplies of these materials so their usage is a divestment of natural material wealth so future generations will have to cope with this unsustainable process

Ironically the natural systems that have used energy to power development over eons do not have any of these failings. Society has the fallacious belief that they can devise systems that emulate the natural sustainable processes.

Fun and Games with Bitcoin

The ups and downs of the digital currency, Bitcoin, is generating a vast amount of speculation in financial circles. Most people will have been bewildered by this innovation. They have been used to dealing with real money and have a degree of understanding of how inflation and deflation affects their decisions. The volatility of Bitcoin is beyond their comprehension. Many of those who have tried this digital currency have had their fingers burnt while others are hoping that the price of the Bitcoin they have acquired will make them rich by growing exponentially.

Intangible money is a means of buying tangible goods and services. Speculation in dollars, euros and other real currencies by investors, banks, financial managers and governments does not hide the fundamental usage of money to pay for those goods and services that are available. These goods and services are produced by irreversibly using up the limited supply of natural material resources, including those providing the necessary energy to do the work. That is an unsustainable process. So potency of real money will decline as these resources become scarcer. Economic contraction will set in, despite the protestations of economists.

Bitcoin will inevitably share the fate of real money after causing a lot of confusion amongst those who fallaciously believe it can cope with reality.

The Grand Delusion

The proposal to build a high speed rail link from Melbourne to Brisbane via Canberra and Sydney is being discussed in government and industrial circles with support from the media. The success of such ventures in a number of countries is put forward as a good reason to improve transportation between these major eastern Australian cities. Financial, economic, employment, social and environmental factors have been weighed up in these considerations. The lessons learned in other high speed rail implementations have been taken into account in the proposal. They convey the impression that Australian economy would be markedly boosted by the link without any serious deleterious environmental or social consequences.

This proposal is a typical example of the myopic view of the powerful in society. It takes into account only the practicalities of its installation and the perceived benefits. It does not mention the consumption of vast amounts of the limited stored natural resources for its construction, operation and maintenance. It blithely ignores the fact that the rail system would have a limited lifetime. But, of course, that failure to take into account reality is not an Australian characteristic. It is a global disease. The powerful in society have the grand delusion that technological systems can everlastingly provide human beings with services by conjuring natural resources out of thin air!

Use it or lose it

There are numerous gas basins in eastern Australia and very few of them have been exploited to date. There are moves to install more processing plants as the demand for energy grows while the extraction of oil globally becomes more difficult. The logic that proponents of these developments are putting forward in aiming to get support is 'use it or lose'. This is the logic that has been used by world wide societies for centuries as they have exploited a wide range of natural resources to enable the the production of goods and the construction of infrastructure that have been the hall mark of civilization. The mining of coal, iron ore, uranium and other minerals have contributed significantly to the growth in the Australian economy.

This myopic view is a characteristic of the societies in industrialized countries. It is tantamount to the making use of the value of inputs without taking into account the inevitable waste outputs. Society is only now coming to grips with the rapid climate change that the wastes from fossil fuel providing energy, much of which goes up in fumes in traffic congestion!

But this production of wastes is not the only deleterious impact of this extraction of natural resources. Society is now addicted to the goods and services provided by this unsustainable process. All the implementation gas processing plants will do is maintain this dependence for a while longer and make the inevitable withdrawal even harder to cope with.

The proposal is akin to a tobacco company selling the benefits of smoking!

Earthly Revolution

Around the world, the young are enthusiastically embracing the the flood of electronic devices that enables instant gratification of demand for entertainment, communication with friends and many other services, including on-line shopping and banking. The rush of information is overwhelming for many, especially the elderly. It makes them feel impotent. Many of the young would like the satisfaction of doing something useful with the information handling capabilities and skills they have acquired. Something that they boast about to friends and even their parents! They would like to be like the celebrities they see on TV.

Some of the smart ones are anticipating the explosive growth of the Earthly Revolution. They want to be in the van guard. So they are using the internet to gain understanding of what is really happening. They know politicians adopt only policies that will improve their chances of re-election. They know businesses will do anything to increase their profits. They know the media are out to boost their audience. They know that even the universities have courses educating students into how to make money by marketing goods that will be thrown away to make way for the latest. But they also know there are forums on the internet that provide understanding put forward by the unbiased specialists in the range of fields governing what is actually happening in the operation of our civilization. They do not proffer the hype distortions that abound in the mainstream media.

Moreover, these smart youngsters also know that there are scientists knowledgeable in their fields who have been describing what has been actually happening. Climatologists are just one example.They have copious amounts of evidence of what is happening to sea ice, the marine ecosystem, icebergs, glaciers and xxxx.Anthropologists have described how the societies of many civilizations have collapsed for a vaiety of political, economic, social and ecological reasons. They know the current industrialized civilization is heading down that intractable path.

These youngsters want to address the challenge  of making the best possible use of the remaining natural resources. They want to slow down the devastation of the environment and the extinction of flora and fauna. They want to be proud of making a contribution that their grandchildren will be able to boast about.

The jobs mix: good and bad

People want jobs to earn money to pay for their needs and wants while putting a little aside for retirement. Businesses provide jobs to make and sell their useful and useless products and services to the workers while making profits that will ensure a pleasant retirement. Governments promote economic growth policies that encourage the creation of jobs without taking into account the true value of many of the job categories.

Let us rate the value to society and the environment of a range of job categories. Governments, economists, businesses and the media do not take into account what jobs do to the environment but we will because we are realists and they are illusionists. We will list the categories in our perceived order of value. So most people will need to go towards the bottom of the list to find the category that seems to indicate what they do for a living. That will encourage them to think and maybe they will becomes realists rather than pragmatists.

Here we go:

1. providing understanding of the damge the operation of the systems of civilization are irrevocably doing to the natural life support system
2. providing the young, aged and disadvantaged in society with aid, care and compassion
3. teaching and lecturing on how to use sound information to develop useful physical and mental skills
4. providing knowledge on how to manage biodiversity to limit the harm being done by human-introduced measures, including irrigation for farming 
5. teaching and lecturing on how society can manage a sustainable life style using a minimum of natural resources
6. providing essential health, policing, information,organizational, management, banking, housing, food, energy and  water supply, sanitation, maintenance, transportation services together with recreational and remedial facilities.
7. promoting beneficial physical and mental activities, including participation in sport, playing musical instruments, having stimulating hobbies and enjoying social groups
8. being an engineer who specializes in the maintenance and prolonging the effective operational life of all forms of infrastructure, including land, sea and air vehicles together with roads, tunnels and bridges.
9. promoting devices to save on using energy on the pretext that will help to stop climate change
10. farming using fertilizers, pesticides and machinery
11. teaching and lecturing on how to achieve a high material standard of living
12. driving trucks through cities loaded with containers 
13. mining irreplaceable natural resources
14. mining coal, oil and natural gas for export to make money for foreign and local investors 
15. promoting, marketing and selling stuff that sales-addicted people do not really want
16. contributing to the design and construction of high rise buildings that will be dependent on the continuing availability of services during their lifetime

Many of the jobs at the bottom of the list will vanish down the black sink hole as realism takes over from the delusion that society has had for in recent times.