Are We Moving Away From Fossil Fuels? Separating Facts from Fantasies

Click here to access a first part of an article with a PDF link to the entire article by Sean Sweeney of Trade Unions for Energy Democracy. Here are some concluding remarks:

The  challenge  facing  human  civilization  is  sobering.  But  the  challenge  appears  more  manageable when it is connected to a narrative that is  prepared  to  confront  existing  ownership  relations.  The  struggle  for  democratic  control of  energy  (and  other  key  sectors)  is  today  crucial  for  many  reasons. Achieving  such  control  over  energy  production,  distribution,  and use is a means (but not the only means) to confront the expansionist dynamics of the political economy while at the same time reconfiguring our approach to defining and meeting human needs on the basis of a more equitable distribution of wealth and a qualitative extension of democratic control over major economic decisions.

Energy  systems  controlled by ordinary people in partnership with well-run and accountable public  agencies have the potential to manage and reduce energy demand for certain economic activities while providing electrical power to everyone for basic needs  and truly sustainable forms and levels of human and social development.

I recommend that you view the following 5:26m video by them (via YouTube) entitled "This Is What Energy Democracy Looks Like":

Can We Have Our Climate and Eat It Too?

Click here to access article by Richard Heinberg from Post Carbon Institute. 

Heinberg, who has been sounding the alarm over the of global warming for a long time, responds to a recent article (authored by Eduardo Porter) that expresses the ruling capitalist class's view on this issue: "there is no alternative" or (TINA), which was recently printed in the NY Times, the semi-official source of our ruling class. Heinberg writes:

If our market economy cannot work on a finite planet, it is the economy that will give way, though the planet will also suffer in the process. Porter is effectively telling us that the global economy is an airplane incapable of controlled descent, a car without brakes. While degrowth advocates do make an ethical argument, the core of their concern is pragmatic: nothing can grow forever in a limited space with limited resources, and we are seeing urgent signals (climate change, biodiversity loss, soil degradation, ecosystem failure) warning that we have already grown too much. In his article, Porter does not show how infinite economic growth is possible; he merely insists we must have more growth because . . . well, we must. If pressed, he would no doubt cling to one or another of the technofixes we have already questioned. But that’s just not a rational response to the logical and practical necessity of coming to terms with limits. [my emphasis]

What I think Heinberg fails to understand is that our ruling class depends on the system of capitalism for all its power and wealth. Thus they would essentially have to give up these goodies to save the planet. I don't think that there has ever been a ruling class which has ever voluntarily give up their control of any society, and there is no evidence that these capitalist classes will. Instead, much like addicted alcoholics, they indulge in all kinds of fantasies which Heinberg and many others have exposed as mere fantasies. But yet Heinberg and others, who are courageous enough to oppose our masters, try nevertheless to appeal rationally to our masters to give up their addiction. Is this realistic? I think not. 

The only real solution is revolution. We simply must find a way to take power away from this tiny group of addicts in order to save ourselves. If we fail to do this, or simply stand passively by, we are only saving the addicts and destroying ourselves. Sometimes in my weaker moments I can't help but think that we all all suffering from dementia like Evelyn Parker in this Onion piece of humor.

Even the Pope gets it: carbon markets won’t fix the climate

Click here to access article by Gareth Bryant from Progress in Political Economy.

The author provides more evidence that the carbon market scheme functions as a public relations gimmick to disguise corporate pollution, and even allows corporations to profit from it. 

Carbon markets are in fact designed to seek out cheap emissions reductions...over fundamental structural changes to energy systems away from fossil fuels and towards renewables. Researchers and activists have linked this profit-driven logic to the creative accounting, financial fraud, phantom emissions reductions and polluter subsidies that have riddled carbon markets, arguing they cannot be reformed and should be scrapped.

And he is not optimistic about the upcoming talks in Paris scheduled to begin on Nov. 30th.

As we approach the 2015 UN climate conference in Paris, carbon markets just won’t go away – even despite the fact market solutions actively hinder our ability to make serious emissions cuts.

Energy Against the Market

Click here to access article by Matt Huber from Capitalism Nature Socialism. 

I believe that Huber has an important insight here in this brief essay. Too often people on the left are unconscious of the ways capitalist indoctrination informs our thought processes and end up essentially supporting capitalist "solutions" to environmental crises.

...the idea of a self-regulating market is based in mythology. It has never existed. The market is never free or fair. It brings us booms and busts. It concentrates power. It only focuses on the short term. Most importantly for this essay, it does not (and I would add cannot) monetarily value the complex ecological systems that sustain life on this planet. We cannot “green” the market.

Yet sometimes our climate and energy politics implicitly assumes we can. In our neoliberal age of market idolatry, it becomes harder to realize when the logical outcome of our critiques reproduce market logics. I will lay out three common refrains in left energy politics that are themselves based on reasserting competition in a market.

Read the article to see how he argues for a public good politics of energy and against the politics of private accumulation of wealth derived from energy under the capitalist system. But then, shouldn't all important needs of our society be governed by the same principle? If your answer is "yes", then doesn't it follow that we need a new system whose basic tenets requires the public good over private advantage?

Renewable energy isn’t a shortcut to reversing global warming

Click here to access article by Pete Dolack from Systemic Disorder. 

Dolack reviews the claims by Danish authorities that their country is leading the way to a future in which the world will transform its dependence on fossil fuels to renewable forms of energy. That's right, we don't have to worry about the future and just go about our business as usual. He then exposes this as another big lie--no doubt one whose propagators are desperate capitalist agents or paid by such agents to spread the big lie.

For anyone who has been exposed to the behavior of alcoholics or drug addicts, this is very familiar behavior. I'm referring to the extreme denial behaviors that such people engage in to prevent other people from knowing about their addiction and their path to self destruction. One knowledgeable source describes such behaviors this way:

1. Drastically underestimating how much you drink
2. Downplaying the negative consequences of your drinking
3. Complaining that family and friends are exaggerating the problem
4. Blaming your drinking or drinking-related problems on others 

I see these same behaviors exhibited in articles related to the destruction of our climate and its relationship to the use of fossil fuels in a variety of media pieces that try to reassure us that everything is under control, that we are taking adequate steps to curb our behavior. These reassurances from this report about statements from Danish authorities are reflected in the first two behaviors. Behavior number 4 is exhibited when authorities from advanced capitalist countries blame the "developing countries" for refusing to go along with cutbacks in carbon proliferation, and these countries blame the West for causing the problem. Climate catastrophe deniers have frequently demonstrated behaviors in number 3.

Such behavior can be explained by the interests of ruling classes in today's world. They enjoy unprecedented power due to the enormous wealth that their system of capitalism creates for them. They refuse to give up on their system in spite of a vague awareness that it requires infinite growth, and that this is incompatible with a finite planet. 

Dolack exposes the reasons why such optimism from Danish authorities completely obfuscates and/or denies the realities behind alternative energies and their use in a system that promotes consumption. This leads him to the following conclusion:

The conclusion necessary to be drawn isn’t that we shouldn’t switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources as quickly as reasonably possible. Of course that should be done. But it is a delusion to believe that doing so in itself is a magic wand to wish away the growing crises of global warming, environmental degradation and resource depletion. There is no alternative to drastically reducing consumption of energy and material goods, an impossibility under capitalism, and bringing into existence a sustainable economic system.

All incentives in capitalism are for endless growth; it can’t function without it. Because of this expansionary imperative, that production is for private profit rather than human need and that enterprises are able to externalize environmental costs, decreases in energy prices are an incentive to increase energy usage, which is what has been happening. An economy that must expand will do so — introducing efficiencies can slow down the increase in energy consumption and resource depletion, but an ever expanding economy will ultimately use more energy, more resources.

Oregon's signature solar energy project built on foundation of false hopes and falsehoods

Click here to access article by Ted Sickinger & Jeff Manning from The Oregonian (Portland, OR)

Here is an excellent example of a state government wanting to do the right thing: reducing its use of fossil fuels. They soon learned of the enormous difficulties of doing the right thing within a capitalist system. The project deteriorated into a nightmare of disasters characterized by fraudulent papers, fake companies, companies feeding illegitimately at the trough of state funds, and the exploitation of cheap prison labor. 

The moral of stories like this--and they are abundant--is that nothing gets done in a capitalist system, especially something as vital as fighting climate destabilization so that generations of humans that follow us can survive, unless a tiny segment of our population known as "owners" (capitalists) can make a lot of money from it. Frequently as this report illustrates, they will find criminal shortcuts to making their fortune.

Interviews and an examination of thousands of pages of documents show that state officials wrongly awarded millions in state tax credits, turning a blind eye to phony documents. The project also was dogged by an international trade war, a bitter corporate rivalry and a stunning twist that traded high-paid Oregon jobs for prison labor at 93 cents an hour.

By the way, this tiny segment has secured total control over every institution of our society. If we are serious about preventing not only climate destabilization but nuclear wars fought between capitalist gangs whose insatiable desire for more wealth and power will destroy us all, we must find a way to destroy the system. The sociopaths who are in control of the system cannot do their dirty work without it. So, it is the system that must be destroyed, and it is for us the healthy members of society that must find a way to do it so that future generations of humans can survive. We also face the task of replacing it with something that can insure peace, and a way to live in harmony with nature.

On the Supersonic Track to Extinction

Click here to access article by xraymike79 from Collapse of Industrial Civilization. 

The author provides a lot of content to show how energy and climate change are driving us to extinction under capitalism.

As far as scientists can tell, the current warming from industrial civilization is the most rapid in geologic time. Ice core and marine sediment data in the paleoclimatology archive have revealed brief periods of rapid warming and there is no reason to believe modern man is immune to such catastrophic and abrupt climate events. In fact, we know that the Arctic is already warming twice as fast as anywhere else on the planet. Earth sensitivity to climate change is now thought to be possibly double that of previous estimates. An entirely different planet can result from just a slight change in temperature....


Many are under the delusion that we’ll be able to turn this process around with “green energy” while ignoring that such technologies are derivatives of fossil fuel or that increased efficiencies will lower our carbon footprint while ignoring Jevons paradox. Countless other self-reinforcing feedbacks loops driving our socioeconomic system come into play as well such as rampant overpopulation (Overpopulation key driver of climate change, mass extinction), chemical pollution (“Every year, up to 400 million tonnes are produced and a thousand new substances concocted“), and capitalism’s inherent growth dynamics....

Our Renewable Future or What I’ve Learned in 12 Years Writing about Energy

Click here to access article by Richard Heinberg from Post Carbon Institute.

Ignore the current glut of oil on the market today. It's the long term, at least two decades ahead, that is of concern in this article about energy. 

Heinberg has been warning us of the diminishing supplies of economically extracted fossil fuels for many decades, while advocating more reliance on renewable energy. This lengthy article is a kind of summary of all that he has learned over these many years. What I think is really significant about this article, and many others like it especially among people who get published at this website, is the strange avoidance of pursuing a well-developed logic to its logical conclusion. Earlier in the article he made this prescient statement: 

What are the right questions? The first, already noted, is: What kind of society can up-to-date renewable energy sources power? The second, which is just as important: How do we go about becoming that sort of society?

As we’ll see, once we begin to frame the picture this way, it turns out to be anything but bleak.

Unfortunately, he eventually arrives at only a very timid answer to his very important questions:

...it’s fair to assume that this overall shift would constitute the end of consumerism (i.e., our current economic model that depends on ever-increasing consumption of consumer goods and services).  Here again, there are more than a few people who believe that advanced industrial nations consume excessively, and that some simplification of rich- and middle-class lifestyles would be a good thing.

This same, strange phenomenon is also found in another article posted on Resilience, an associated website, entitled "A New Theory of Energy and The Economy - Part 1 - Generating Economic Growth" authored by another long-tine expert on issues of energy--Gail Tverberg. This is another overly complicated essay exploring the relationship between energy and the economy in which the economic system is a given, sort of a natural fact of history, instead of a system created by a class of people who imposed it on others. She writes:

The economy is a self-organized system. In other words, it grew up gradually over time, one piece at a time. New businesses were added and old ones disappeared. New customers were added and others left. The products sold gradually changed. Governments gradually added new laws and removed old ones. As changes were made, the system automatically re-optimized for the changes.

This strange avoidance of recognizing the actual economic system by both authors suggests to me that they have been so thoroughly indoctrinated in capitalist controlled academia that they cannot see the obvious. In college sociology courses I learned that this was due to "trained incapacity". Herman Kahn gives a lengthier explanation of this phenomenon. Of course, there is another possible explanation--self censorship to protect their careers.

This does not bode well for social change that can lead to real solutions to the crises now facing all capitalist societies. Prof. Will Steffen of the Australian National University and the Stockholm Resilience Centre put this well when he remarked:

It’s clear the economic system is driving us towards an unsustainable future and people of my daughter’s generation will find it increasingly hard to survive. History has shown that civilisations have risen, stuck to their core values and then collapsed because they didn’t change. That’s where we are today.” [quoted in The Guardian]

Abundant Clean Renewables? Think Again!

Click here to access article by Almuth Ernsting from TruthOut.

We certainly need to swiftly end fossil fuel burning and the destruction of ecosystems and that will require us to rely on the least harmful energy sources such as wind and solar power. But the myth of plentiful "clean" energy stops us from focusing on the far deeper changes needed - a transformation toward a low-energy society.

If you read and fully understand this article, you will soon embrace the idea that a revolution to eliminate the scourge of growth-fueled capitalism from this planet is not only desirable, it is a necessity for human survival. 

Not just ironic

Click here to access article by John Cowsill from his blog Safe Planet. 

John Cowsill is a socialist and environmental activist. He lives in Islington, London. After a 20 year career as a systems analyst and programmer, he changed tack and gained an MSc in Architecture: Advanced Energy and Environmental Studies at the University of East London and the Graduate School of the Environment in Wales. He was the principal researcher on storage and Vehicle-to-Grid technology for the ZeroCarbonBritain (2007) report.

Cowsill in this article is writing about some irrationalities that have been showing up in the UK over energy used to supply their National Grid. Lately it appears that they have had an oversupply of energy which ruling class authorities have dealt with by shutting now renewable energy sources. They provided cover for this irrational action by claiming the shutdowns were for many phony reasons. Cowsill has spotted the real reason. 

Under capitalist rules private enterprises exist to make a profit, and cheaper renewable energy is adversely affecting the profits of energy corporations. With capitalists in control of societies, they are dictating policies like this which from a social system point of view are irrational, but rational from a capitalist point of view.

Unmentioned by the author, there is another reason for the shutdown of renewable energy resources. The current oversupply must be seen as only a temporary phenomenon given the growth-imperative of capitalism. Hence, the future demands for energy can only increase and such demands cannot be met by renewable energy resources. Thus, they must continue to develop fossil energy resources to keep their system going, a system what supplies these addicts with their drugs of power and wealth. They are finding that new fossil fuel sources are becoming ever more expensive; thus energy companies require huge investments which must be recouped through profits. They can't tolerate having cheaper renewable energy competing with them.

And, worst of all, they are so drugged-out that they refuse to seriously look at the reality of climate destabilization, much less the likelihood of nuclear wars between capitalist gangs to gain control of diminishing fossil fuels sources.

Alternative Energy Fetishes and Temples to Technology

Click here to access article by xraymike79 from Collapse of Industrial Civilization. 

...the carrot of a civilization-saving technological breakthrough is forever dangled before our eyes. By all accounts, we appear hellbent on doing everything humanly possible to maintain and perpetuate industrial civilization by deploying “earth-friendly” renewable energy technologies which, in the end, turn out to be nothing more than “reconstituted fossil fuels”.

The role that fossil fuels play in the creation, maintenance and support of alternative energy technologies is not discussed or analyzed at all by those peddling it to the masses who live with the hope of a “green” economy and carbon-neutral civilization.

It appears that one more delusion spread by agents of the One Percent to prolong theirs addictions to wealth and power is now reaching its expiry date. Of course, energy analysts like Gail Tverberg have been arguing this for years, but when a major corporation such as Google offers a forum for the expression of this view as seen in one video in the article, then it becomes sort of "official".

However, I have little doubt that the ruling class gatekeepers of opinions will come up with other delusions and will keep insisting on existing ones that include fusion power, migrating to other planets, engineering climate fixes, etc. Meanwhile as we continue to be fed and distracted by such delusions, we will continue our descent into a dystopia of wars, massacres, racism, police states, poverty, climate destabilization, etc.--unless, of course, we target the deliverer of the system that supplies the drugs of wealth and power to the global One Percents and misery to the rest of us, and worst of all a system that requires growth to exist--the capitalist system.

Workers and environmentalists of the world, unite!

Click here to access article by Stefania Barca from Reflections on a Revolution.

By becoming aware of what has already been done by other people, past and present, with their struggles and movements, either in our own communities or elsewhere, we will immediately get a much clearer perception of the possibility of not just one but many other worlds.

Seeing those possibilities in their reality, with their dreams and their challenges, with their victories and their contradictions, will help us envision our own possibilities here and now and better organize our own struggles. This is the contribution that this article aims to give to all those who are struggling for self-liberation from the straitjacket of occupational blackmail.

Her examination of the "possibilities in their reality" leads to this conclusion: 

Breaking out of the multiple crises that afflict the world today — both in the domains of the economy and work as well as in the domain of ecology and public health — requires no lesser effort than completely abandoning the “treadmill of production”, including the politics, economics and ideology of unlimited growth. This requires an ecological revolution as theorized by Carolyn Merchant: a complete shift in the social organization of production, reproduction and consciousness.

'Energy [R]evolution': Nearly 100% Renewable Is Doable, says Report

Click here to access article by Jon Queally from Common Dreams.

Views like this are dangerous to our health and well-being...and the planet's. The authors of the report are arguing a position based on pure fantasy. Our masters in the One Percent love stuff like this because it will divert attention away from the nightmarish realities that they are daily creating. Look no further than the report's set of principles.

The five key principles behind the "Energy [R]evolution" will be to:

• Implement renewable solutions, especially through decentralized energy systems and grid expansions

• Respect the natural limits of the environment

• Phase out dirty, unsustainable energy sources

• Create greater equity in the use of resources

• Decouple economic growth from the consumption of fossil fuels

Are any of these realistic under a system which allows a small minority to "own" our economy which, in turn, gives them overwhelming power to rule our societies? Their system of neverending growth relies on fossil fuels which are still relatively cheap and the huge existing infrastructure which supports their use. Widespread use of alternative energies would require the construction of a new infrastructure which would cost far more than any one corporation would want to invest in. Most of these people who rule our society--owners, managers, and financiers--cannot look beyond next quarter's financial statements. 

What’s Ahead? Lower Oil Prices, Despite Higher Extraction Costs

Click here to access article by Gail Tverberg from her blog Our Finite World. 

This widely respected analyst of energy and concerns related to peak oil once again provides more analysis that inevitably leads her to a conclusion that is quite dramatic for its understatement:

...governments seem to be getting close to being “out of ammunition,” in trying to fight what is really diminishing returns of one of the major drivers of our economy. I don’t know exactly how things might play out, but experience with prior civilizations suggests that “collapse” might be a reasonable description of the outcome.

( In my opinion an even better exposition of her argument is in an article she wrote last month entitled "Two Views of our Current Economic and Energy Crisis".)

Her focus has been entirely on the economics of energy extraction while mostly avoiding issues related to fossils fuels and global warming. She has always been dismissive regarding nuclear energy because of its high costs and problems with spent fuel. (For arguments regarding the feasibility of nuclear energy I recommend this from a British author.)

Because I've never read any mention of "capitalism" in her numerous articles, I must assume that she is another subscriber to the capitalist myth which states that "there is no alternative". Her circumscribed thinking is another illustration of the power of indoctrination to limit an otherwise intelligent person's imagination.

News Release: Concern as IPCC Bangs the Drum for Geoengineering

Click here to access article from ETC Group. 

It's clear to me that capitalist directors refuse to give up on their system which rewards their tiny numbers with so much wealth and power. They are so addicted to this hideous system that is destroying an ecosystem capable of sustaining human and many other life forms that they cannot imagine any alternative. Hence, they are grasping at their last straw of geo-engineering. 

This solution was inserted in the final paragraph of the Summary for Policymakers (IPCC report):

"It’s the paragraph that should never have been," explained Neth Daño, ETC Group's Asia Director." The explicit purpose of Working Group I is to report on the latest climate science, not to discuss response measures. The report doesn't discuss solar power or electric cars; it doesn't discuss public transport, carbon markets or any other actual or potential policy response to the climate crisis, so why have the authors chosen to devote the  concluding paragraph to this highly speculative and dangerous technofix?”

Well, I think the answer is obvious. Solar power, electric cars, public transportation, and other significant measures would require a very expensive conversion of the existing infrastructures and dramatic cutbacks of fossil fuels in capitalist countries that would severely impact profits in the next few decades. It would also require economies to be on a war footing that would necessitate extensive government planning, controls, and direction. It's so much easier for capitalist directors to continue with business as usual and simply adding a geo-engineering fix which many scientists regard as a fantasy at best, and a dangerous gamble at worst.

Energy Products: Return on Investment is Already Too Low

Click here to access article by Gail Tverberg from Our Finite World.

My major point ... [is] that our economy’s overall energy return on investment is already too low to maintain the economic system we are accustomed to.

This is the first indication I have seen from the writings of this esteemed fossil fuel industry analyst that both makes a cogent argument that we are running up against energy resource limits and that this is related to an economic system. From here it is only a short hop, skip, and jump to an idea that just maybe we ought to be considering another system. She still doesn't go there, but what she does do is important: all the evidence she provides adds up to the dramatic conclusion that the (capitalist) system is headed for collapse due to the increasing costs of extracting fossil fuels required by this growth-addicted system.

Weakest quarter for clean energy investment since 2009

Click here to access article by Ethan Zindler from Bloomberg. 

As an ironic commemoration of Earth Day today, I thought I would post this piece to provide another sad piece of evidence that our masters in the One Percent have little desire to use renewable energy technologies. It appears that such technologies impair their never-ending quest for immediate profits.

Global investment in clean energy in the first three months of 2013 was lower than in any quarter for the past four years, according to the latest figures from research company Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Biofuel rush wiping out America’s grasslands at fastest pace since the 1930s

Click here to access article by Brad Plumer from The Washington Post and republished on Climate Connections.

I posted this article from the secondary source, Climate Connections, because of the latter's introductory criticism that the author did not go far enough to identify the true cause of the "social and ecological devastation":

Note: Rather than algae or cellulosic biofuels, as the author suggests, which will create just another grab for land to produce cellulose for bioenergy, we must challenge and ultimately dismantle the systems which give rise to the exorbitant consumption of energy.  Without addressing the drivers of energy and resource consumption, social and ecological devastation will only continue to accelerate.
–The GJEP Team

While the Post's article accurately cites numerous problems with the growing of current crops to produce biofuels and the GJEP Team (Global Justice Ecology Project) makes a correct critical observation about its conclusion, the GJEP Team for some strange reason, stops short of identifying what the "drivers of energy and resource consumption" are. To be succinct, there is one driver and that is the system of capitalism! Why is that so hard to write?

Corporations, investors grabbing land overseas

Click here to access article by Brian Bienkowski from Environmental Health News.

It's clear to me that this is another disastrous consequence of neoliberal policies imposed on most of the world by the Empire.

“One big driver is biofuels and new biofuel policy. It has really increased the demand for agricultural land,” D’Odorico said.

The 2007 Energy and Independence Security Act in the United States mandated a fourfold increase of the amount of biofuels by 2022. A 2009 European Union directive had a similar goal. Biofuels are fuels made from different types of plants and crops. The most popular examples from crops are turning corn or sugarcane into ethanol, or turning palm oil into biodiesel.

...also [another driver is] the industrialization of agriculture over the past few decades. This type of farming needs a lot of land, which can be found cheaply overseas.

Palm oil: fueling landgrabs and climate change, not development

Click here to access article by Jeff Conant from Friends of the Earth.

This article reports on another source of biofuels which pretends to be a "green" technology, but in reality supports more profit-taking for global corporations and results in more ecosystem destruction which threatens us all.

Just a few years ago, palm oil entered the spotlight as one of the best and brightest options for a “drop-in” biofuel feedstock (a type of biofuel that can be “dropped into” existing transportation infrastructure) to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, cut back on climate emissions, and bring economic development to marginal lands in developing countries. But a growing body of evidence shows that reliance on palm oil not only fails to reduce global warming, it increases it.