From the Carbon Brief:
Temperatures during the Iowa maize growing season are projected to increase by more
than five degrees Celsius, causing yields to drop by 18 per cent, according to new
research. In Southern Australia, 15 per cent less rainfall and temperatures 2.8 to
4.5 degrees warmer will see wheat yields decline by 70 per cent. This will pose
serious challenges to staple grain production, say the researchers. Journal of
Climate
How Climate Change Affects Extremes in Maize and Wheat Yield in Two Cropping
Regions
(http://carbonbrief.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=39b25e6afa81d7ffc0e925ee9&id=efe5082ce1&e=0eb5a6dc67)

On the other hand, this week’s economist takes a very positive look at the emerging new energy economy. Their special report argues that changes to storage for renewables, smart and micro grid technologies and improvements to managing demand, along with vast improvements in building design, are setting the stage for the demise of the old centralised electricity provider model. A very interesting and well researched report.

There are legions out there (not just me) who are ready to leap off the grid as soon as storage options for our roof top solar become viable.

I have some sympathy for ABC commentator Dave Hughes, a card-carrying Liberal, in his article professing confusion about his party’s direction.

He is reading Naomi Klein, and is worried about her critique that market forces won’t magically solve all the environmental issues, such as climate change.

Read it here (as the software is being naughty): www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-07/hughes-climate-change-isnt-just-a-leftist-cause/6003620

He mistakenly says she does not acknowledge the environmental failures of Communist regimes, but I referred him to page 178, where she does exactly that.

Klein is not calling for more government action. She is calling for more democracy, a rather different item.

And she doesn’t call for the replacement of capitalism, rather that the very real externalities, on people and places, be properly accounted for in a context which would allow us all to survive. Too late for the French journalists, our own victims, or the unfortunate villagers in north-eastern Nigeria, who are dying in untold numbers, perhaps thousands. Not to mention Syria, Ukraine, Pakistan…

Klein, like Christian Parenti in his Tropic of Chaos, sees the links between destroying the environment and destroying people. I’m with them, and only want the killing to stop.

But if we return to our own Prime Minister and the Liberal dilemma that troubles Dave Hughes, we have to ask where Abbott is taking us with his own confused climate change approach.

These questions are asked with no punches pulled in a recent article by Gabrielle Kuiper, who goes through the policy twists, contradictions and outcomes. She asks what his options are now that any electoral benefit in denying or ignoring the urgency has evaporated.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our government actually set policy that was in our long term interest, rather than catering to the big mining influences that may already be seeing the end of their bull run.

Certainly the fracking thrill is fading, with falling prices and high debts set to cause havoc in global banking circles.

A few weeks ago I pointed to the G20 decision to allow banks to ‘bail in’ money for failed derivative trades. Now I understand better why that was so important. The US gov has also now given banks that indulgence. Just as the banks didn’t think the sub-prime mortgages could go belly up, so they failed to consider that the price of oil could tumble so dramatically. A huge amount of derivative money is just bets on fracking.

The taxpayers will be left to pick up the bill. What’s more, the media and banks have a convenient bad guy all lined up to take the fall:

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/28406-russia-blamed-us-taxpayers-on-the-hook-as-fracking-boom-collapses

Everyone is into geo-political conspiracies around the plunge in the price of oil, including Graham Lloyd in today’s Australian. His is a good article, not least because it has two useful graphs at the head of it.

The first graph is of US oil production over the last 30 years.

Source: The Australian

The second graph is of the West Texas Crude price over the last 15 years.

Source: The Australian

There are just two things that I want to point out.

You can’t have all that extra oil coming onto the market without it having a price effect. Not unless someone else voluntarily restricts production.

There is no conspiracy. We are seeing market forces at work. (Where are all those idiots – that’s a technical term – who just a few years ago were forecasting $300 barrels of oil about now?)

My second point is to look at when the price of oil peaked last. It was around halfway through 2007, which was just before the GFC.

One of the unremarked causes of the GFC wasn’t derivatives or a housing boom, it was an oil price boom. The price of oil feeds into just about everything.

Since the GFC, after an initial dive, oil has stayed high, and economic activity has dived, and stayed fairly low.

We have a situation where 6 years of bastard Keynesian has delivered nothing.

And if you want to know how much it will deliver in the future, look at Japan, that adopted these “remedies” over 20 years ago – still nothing.

You can lower the price of money but that doesn’t necessarily feed into the real economy. Quantitative easing has just fed the shadow economy of asset markets.

But if you lower the price of oil you lower the costs for everyone, not just speculators and banks.

If there was a conspiracy, it would be to put the weight of economic stimulus onto input costs, and off money, allowing the QE to be less painfully reeled in and sustainable growth to start again.

But such a conspiracy would be beyond the stuffed shirts on Wall Street, or the current, or just about any previous, US President.

It is just markets at work. Which is why markets are such a wonderful thing. Dumb as they are they can achieve what the wise seldom can.

Having read Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine some years ago, I was keen to read her latest book on climate change and capitalism.
Now only about 1/3 through (holidays getting pleasantly in the path) I can say that my view of her as one of the world’s premium intellectuals has been confirmed. She is issuing a calm but passionate wake up call.

This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate offers as clear an analysis of the global situation as could be presented. And no, she does not advocate a total dismantling of the capitalist system. Rather she invites us to understand the power structures that have distorted capitalism into the all-devouring system that has taken us to the brink of climate disaster.

For those who don’t think they can weight through the whole 500 odd pages, I offer this quite detailed review by Paul Heft, which appears on the excellent Resilience.org site:

Heft Notes: Naomi Klein’s “This Changes Everything”

Heft Notes: Naomi Klein’s “This Changes Everything”

My overall impression of the global situation is that we now must evolve as a species, move beyond our tribal past, and accept the wisdom of science in formulating our systems of management and control of resources. We must first and foremost acknowledge that endless growth is not possible on a finite planet (see, already this is old hat knowledge for many of you, we just don’t know how to change our structures to tame the growth monster.)

One commentator at a Canberra talk recently said that we could all be comfortable on this planet if we aimed for a standard of living of about 1970s Australia. That doesn’t mean giving up what has been invented since then; rather it means more efficient and flexible systems for our urban design, transport, and food production/distribution.

A dialogue we need to have, a transition we need to make, together. With global equity and non-violence at its core. For non-humans as well as our closest DNA relatives.

To me, her voice of reason and passion speak to my heart. Have a look at the review at least, the green fairy would like to know what you think.