Guest Post by Jim Kunstler
The ill-feeling among leaders of the G-7 nations — essentially, the West plus Japan — was mirrored early this morning in the puking financial market futures, so odious, apparently, is the presence of America’s Golden Golem of Greatness at the Quebec meet-up of First World poobahs. It’s hard to blame them. The GGG refuses to play nice in the sandbox of the old order.
Like many observers here in the USA, I can’t tell exactly whether Donald Trump is out of his mind or justifiably blowing up out-of-date relationships and conventions in a world that is desperately seeking a new disposition of things. The West had a mighty good run in the decades since the fiascos of the mid-20th century. My guess is that we’re witnessing a slow-burning panic over the impossibility of maintaining the enviable standard of living we’ve all enjoyed.
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All the jabber is about trade and obstacles to trade, but the real action probably emanates from the energy sector, especially oil. The G-7 nations are nothing without it, and the supply is getting sketchy at the margins in a way that probably and rightfully scares them. I’d suppose, for instance, that the recent run-up in oil prices from $40-a barrel to nearly $80 has had the usual effect of dampening economic activity worldwide. For some odd reason, the media doesn’t pay attention to any of that. But it’s become virtually an axiom that oil over $75-a-barrel smashes economies while oil under $75-a-barrel crushes oil companies.
Mr. Trump probably believes that the USA is in the catbird seat with oil because of the so-called “shale oil miracle.” If so, he is no more deluded than the rest of his fellow citizens, including government officials and journalists, who have failed to notice that the economics of shale oil don’t pencil out — or are afraid to say. The oil companies are not making a red cent at it, despite the record-breaking production numbers that recently exceeded the previous all-time-peak set in 1970. The public believes that we’re “energy independent” now, which is simply not true because we still import way more oil than we export: 10.7 million barrels incoming versus 7.1 million barrels a week outgoing (US EIA).
Shale oil is not a miracle so much as a spectacular stunt: how to leverage cheap debt for a short-term bump in resource extraction at the expense of a future that will surely be starved for oil. Now that the world is having major problems with excessive debt, it is also going to have major problems with oil. The quarrels over trade arise from this unacknowledged predicament: there will be less of everything that the economically hyper-developed nations want and need, including capital. So, what’s shaping up is a fight over the table-scraps of the banquet that is shutting down.
That quandary is surely enough to make powerful nations very nervous. It may also prompt them to actions and outcomes that were previously unthinkable. At the moment the excessive debt threatens to blow up the European Union, which is liable to be a much bigger problem for the EU than anything Trump is up to. It has been an admirably stable era for Europe and Japan, and I suppose the Boomers and X gens don’t really remember a time not so long ago when Europe was a cauldron of tribal hatreds and stupendous violence, with Japan marching all over East Asia, wrecking things.
There is also surprisingly little critical commentary on the notion that Mr. Trump is seeking to “re-industrialize” America. It’s perhaps an understandable wish to return to the magical prosperity of yesteryear. But things have changed. And if wishes were fishes, the state of the earth’s oceans is chastening to enough to give you the heebie-jeebies. Anyway, we’re not going back to the Detroit of 1957. We’ll be fortunate if we can turn out brooms and scythes twenty years from now, let alone flying Teslas.
This will be the summer of discontent for the West especially. The fact that populism is still a rising force among these nations is a clue of broad public skepticism about maintaining the current order. No wonder the massive bureaucracies vested in that order are freaking out. I’m not sure Mr. Trump even knows or appreciates just how he represents these dangerous dynamics.
I must say I’m greatly enjoying Trump frolicking at the G7. In the past, seeing all these elite bastards shaking hands and smiling meant that they had figured out more ways to screw us dirt people. Now rather than figuring new ways to rob us, they are all throwing pies at each other thanks to Donald. I especially enjoy the hand grenade Trump threw in the room when he suggested Russia be allowed to re-enter the G7. Its as if Donald ate a big, dripping burrito in the middle of the room and then let out the type of HUGE fart that only Trump can produce.
While these antics are going on in Quebec, the other civilized nations are meeting on the other side of the world making plans for how they will run things once the G7 finally disintegrates. Unfortunately for us English speaking people, that day is coming all too soon. Time to start learning some Russian and Mandarin.
Da!
Journalist are weak in science (etc): so much verbiage about future economics without a word about Global Cooling is like discussing God without mentioning Jesus. I’m not a Solar Physicist but some Russians who are, claim to have a solar model that is 90% accurate over hundreds of years; that is better than NOAA which is pretty good for 10 days. Ref Youtube: “Can this be happening on our planet and media doesn’t report it”, the chart starts at 3:20. The Russians say that the greater the spread between the two lines, the worse Earth’s weather. 2018 should be twice as bad as 2017; 2019 four times; and 2020-21 seven times. I’m sure floods, volcanoes, earthquakes, droughts, frosts, blizzards, hail, tornadoes, and hurricanes do matter to “investors”. TBP’ers care.
Science has been monetized, just like everything else in the Western world, right down you your own identity (see Facebook et. al.). Expecting ‘mainstream’ scientists to actually come up with anything ground-breaking is like expecting to get ‘real news’ from the big news agencies. Ain’t gonna happen until all other options fail.
We live on an electrically charged planet where the magnitude of electrical potential in the atmosphere is 100 volts per meter. You can’t tell me that ‘scientists’ cannot figure out how to tap into the FREE and UNLIMITED power source. It’s all about money and power here folks, nothing more and nothing less.
Imagine living in a world with essentially free power and no need for fossil fuels. Yes there would be some cost involved to pay for the grid etc., but imagine a world no longer ‘ruled’ by gas and oil.
100 volts per meter, eh? Free!!! Elon Musk would like to talk with you.
Yup, 100 volts per meter. There are specific safety guidelines for working on radio equipment located on very tall towers. These guidelines are in place not for lightning strike potential, but for the inherent atmospheric electrical potential. Also, yeah it electricity itself is FREE, in the same way water is free but we have to pay for the infrastructure used to manage and distribute it. Just imagine how expensive water would be if it required ‘generation’ as well. I sorta take offense with the Elon Musk reference. 😛
Musk is a shortsighted idiot. The only thing he wants to charge is his bank account, by plugging it into the public teat.
The world is still far from “the end of oil”. This is an inconvenient fact for Kunstler because he wants to be recognized as a prophet while he is still alive, so he can glory in it.
Fracking will eventually be employed on the huge played-out oil fields outside the U.S. Probably starting in Mexico, then the Middle East. Lots of oil will be pumped in the next hundred years.
The price?? What the market will bear.
Like always.
Wrong…Only 15% of the oil reserves produced last year were replaced by newly found reserves…How are you at simple math?
I’m pretty good at math . I retired at 49. Although I admit I needed a Vietnamese buddy to help me in calculus my freshman year in college.
Wakey Wakey. Your world is changing around you. Vodka, what part of “not making a dime on fracking” is lost on your little brain? There has never been supply and demand on oil. There has never been supply and demand on most products. Supply and demand is what they taught you in high school so they could lie to you for the rest of your life, and you will defend your little belief to the grave.
They make their money, not on fracking, but on borrowing money to frack.
“There has never been supply and demand on most products” – Hollywood Rob.
You know less than zero about economics if you truly think that. You are often long winded with your comments, but I never thought of you as stupid until now. I’m not trying to start a shit-fest, just asking you to think and educate yourself a little more on the topic.
“Shale oil is not a miracle so much as a spectacular stunt: how to leverage cheap debt for a short-term bump in resource extraction at the expense of a future that will surely be starved for oil.”
And at a cost to the environment.
Previous records requests revealed that oil companies dumped more than 75 billion gallons of wastewater into these waters in 2014 alone.
75 Billion Gallons in just 2014. I am no chemical engineer but that is more than a drop in the bucket. I steal a quote from a very hard scrabbled farmer who has a fishing addiction rivaled by very few. See the discussion here:
http://www.360tuna.com/threads/mussels-off-seattle-coast-test-positive-for-opioids.54976/#post-544403
I put in a plug for TBP in the comment section.
“You know about fracking for oil,
well, when they do it, they pump water
and all kinds of fracking chemicals into the well
to extract the oil from the shale.
The oil is pumped back up with water and chemicals,
oil is stripped out, and some of the dirty water is pumped
back into the well. There are leftovers,
in many states, this water is allowed to be spread on rural
dirt roads to keep the dust down. Rural dirt roads are usually
located near farms. Runoff never occurs ofcourse.
But this is on land.
IN THE GULF OF MEXICO there is also FRACKING occurring.
And the same issue with waste water tainted with fracking
chemicals exists.
Too far from shore to transport back to land economically.
How to solve this problem ?
DUMP IT INTO THE GULF.
Every year, 75 BILLION GALLONS of leftover waste fracking
fluid is dumped into the Gulf of Mexico.
75 Billion is a big number, which is hard for humans to grasp.
So lets look at it another way.
Average large tanker truck holds 9500 gallons.
75 billion is 7,895,000 truck loads.
That is 21,630 tanker trucks per day
or 901 tanker trucks PER HOUR,
every hour of every day,
unloading their toxic waste into the gulf.”
More here:
Popular Center for Biological Diversity
Jul. 12, 2017 12:54PM EST
Center for Biological Diversity
Stop Dumping Offshore Fracking Waste Into Gulf of Mexico
A Trump administration proposal to continue allowing oil companies to dump unlimited amounts of offshore fracking chemicals into the Gulf of Mexico violates federal law and threatens imperiled marine wildlife, the Center for Biological Diversity warned this week.
In a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Region 6 office on its proposed wastewater-discharge permit for offshore oil and gas drilling activities off the coasts of Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi—where thousands of offshore drilling platforms are located—the Center for Biological Diversity explained that the proposed permit violates the Clean Water Act because it causes an undue degradation of the marine environment. The Center for Biological Diversity’s letter notes that “scientific research has indicated that 40 percent of the chemicals used in fracking can harm aquatic animals and other wildlife.”
“The Trump administration is letting the oil industry dump unlimited amounts of toxic fracking chemicals into these wildlife-rich waters,” said Center for Biological Diversity attorney Kristen Monsell. “The EPA is supposed to protect ocean water quality, not turn a blind eye as oil companies use the Gulf as a garbage dump for fracking waste.”
Earlier this year the EPA’s Region 6 office responded to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Center for Biological Diversity for records analyzing the effects of fracking chemicals on Gulf water quality and marine life. Officials said they didn’t have any responsive records, meaning the agency has been allowing the oil industry to dump its fracking wastewater into the Gulf without studying its environmental impacts, as federal law requires.
Federal waters off Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi host the largest concentration of offshore oil and gas drilling activities in the country. Previous records requests revealed that oil companies dumped more than 75 billion gallons of wastewater into these waters in 2014 alone.
At least 10 fracking chemicals routinely used in offshore fracking could kill or harm a broad variety of marine species, including marine mammals and fish, Center for Biological Diversity scientists have found. The California Council on Science and Technology has identified some common fracking chemicals to be among the most toxic in the world to marine animals.
Fracking chemicals raise grave ecological concerns because the Gulf of Mexico is important habitat for whales, sea turtles and fish and contains critical habitat for imperiled loggerhead sea turtles. Dolphins and other species in the Gulf are still suffering lingering effects from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
“It’s the EPA’s job to safeguard our oceans from being contaminated with fracking wastewater,” Monsell said. “The agency has no business rubber-stamping the dumping of dangerous, disgusting chemicals without even trying to understand the risks.”
The North Pacific has largely been ruined by GE/Japanese radiation and now the Gulf is being ruined by fracking! Those Toxins are real! When they were spraying Corexit, I picked some of my plums and ate them thinking the white on the skin was just yeast (I’m 20 miles from the Gulf). I got so sick for days with Corexit Symptoms that I called their number and reported it. About 80% of the bugs, birds and most other wild life have died off here!!!
Yes, fracking uses a lot of groundwater in areas that generally are short of water…not a good tradeoff.
Is this a good time to bring up abiotic oil? I made some new discoveries since last time we talked.
Am interested..
Enough cheery news, Dennis Rodman is going to NK Summit in Singapore. maybe he will be part of Kim’s entourage when he meets with Trump!
Fuck it it’s Friday – 2:15 mark
Bitching is easy, doing actual work is hard. Kuntsler is an entertaining writer but he makes the classic mistake of thinking he understands stuff he simply doesn’t understand, and he doesn’t know jack about technology in the real world — it’s not invented in gov’t laboratories, it’s put together slowly over many years by people doing actual work to make engines, vehicles, computers, buildings, bridges, roads and figuring out all sorts of interesting ways to create things. They go quietly about their ways bringing forth all sorts of practical responses to real-world issues, while (too many) writers think they’re the ones who keep the world going.
Obviously if we left the future to Kuntsler we’d end up nowhere, because his only vision is one of failure, so there’s no reward (for him) in making things any better. I don’t fault him for bitching because it’s his way of paying the bills, but if you find his reasoning persuasive, I’ve got a bridge in New York to sell you.
Aahh the environment! !! Oh no! We humans neither create or destroy anything. Humans have the ability to concentrate (think uranium enrichment, buildind a dam), or spread (nuclear explosion or dam breach). Everything is still here, only moved around. “Experts” were saying chernobal would be lifeless for thousands of years. Life adapts and thrives. Did the fracking water and chemicals get conjured up from some other universe and placed on ours? Already was here, Malthusian much?
Mankind (esp liberals) screw up a lot of stuff: make PCBs, dioxin, PVC, atomic bombs, urban sewage, FSAs; protect wolves, coyotes, bears, alligators, flying migrating disease vectors, sharks, large predatory birds (instead of the farm raised fish and fowl), require swamps that breed mosquitoes that are disease vectors; denigrate God, the Constitution, Traditional Conservatives, hard work, leave borders open; promote Affirmative Action over Merit; debt, promiscuity, perversions, drugs, stupid art and music, study useless subjects etc.
dumb fear-mongering is what this article, and ones like it are. we use oil cuzz its free: Dig a hole, pump it out, boil it, crack it, make some gas, jet fuel and plastics…when it runs out, we can go back to steam powered cars and boats, plenty of water, our earth is mostly water, as are YOU. We’ve arrived at this place where ignorance reigns, because most earthlings lack common sense, and a basic understanding of high-school level chemistry.