On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 10:24 PM, Eugene Coyle <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > Here's a quote from one of the smartest (well, richest) people in the > so-called 'smartest city in the US": > > > That's more energy than needed for Gar Lipow's indoor plumbing. The quote > is from Nathan Myhrvold, a dot com genius. But here's another way of > looking at supplying the world with energy: > > > "If the poor of the world were to achieve a standard of living similar > to Portugal's," Broecker says, "you would need a billion windmills — and > you need places where they can go." Broecker is Newberry professor at > Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. He won the Vetlesen > Prize, considered the Nobel equivalent for geology, and holds the > Presidential Medal of Science. > This is the fallacy of larger numbers. There are about a billion automobiles in the world. Excluding the concrete for foundations, and the towers, it takes about the same resources to make a wind turbine as an automobile. In terms of towers and foundations, think about the resources used to build roads and other auto infrastructure. In terms of places to put them - think of all the land taken up by coal mines and oil and gas wells - not only the wells and mines themselves but the areas spoiled by mining. And here is the truth - no solution will happen as long as the rich have as much power as they have now. It may take a revolution. At the very least it will take a powerful enough democratic movement to win major reforms. > Gene > > > > > > > On Nov 17, 2013, at 8:19 PM, Eubulides wrote: > > > > > On Nov 17, 2013, at 4:47 PM, Eugene Coyle <[email protected]> wrote: > > > >> On Pen-l, on environmental blogs, in pundit pronouncements, carbon > pricing and massive technological investments dominate the discussion. > >> > >> Even if any and/or all of that would work to prevent runaway global > warming (and it won't) we'd have, most likely, business as usual with clean > energy. > >> > >> Why the single perspective on technology? Even carbon pricing depends > for results on a technology change. > >> > >> Why do we need more energy? Why do we need as much as the world now > uses? > >> > >> Pen'L's own Sandwichman has been on this flaneur thing big time. > >> > >> Green House Gas (GHG) emissions won't be curbed, let alone reduced, > until consumption is reduced. Which is to say, income is reduced. > >> > >> Which, if addressed through aggressive reductions in working hours in > the North, can be accomplished without hardship and with economic justice. > There will be no environmental justice without economic justice and no > stopping global warming without both. > >> > >> Gene > >> > > > > ============= > > > > A few non-sentimental points from a dolt hunkered down in the so-called > ‘smartest city in the US’: > > > > The street corners within the city and the neighboring ones, replete > with ADA compliant sidewalks, are saturated with Sandwichpersons selling > everything from mattresses and medical marijuana to tax advice. > > > > One of the biggest corporations in the state, if not on the planet, > just sold $95 billion worth of atmosphere wounding commodities while > demanding that the workers who build the planes take, over the next several > years, a major hit to compensation and the citizens of the state > effectively subsidize the ‘wage’ differential between those working in > plants located along the I-5 corridor and those working in a > ‘right-to-work-for-less’ state. > > > > The last time the unnamed state, run by those ever so brilliant > Democrats, paid the extortionists, I [and several others] sent all the > subsidies data off to those wonderful technocrats at the WTO and a food > fight ensued over the beauty of international law and the future of an > empire. Alas, I have no desire to take a vacation to set off another round > of said aesthetics conversations and all I can wonder about in what little > spare time I have is where the biggest forest fires on the planet will > happen in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2016, 2018………. > > > > The capitalists and their corporate managers clearly have every > intention of reducing everyone’s income but their own; after all everyone > who is lucky enough to have a job is overpaid and underworked. The gods of > productivity must be appeased: > > > > > > Clearly, with different and distinct classes that perform different > roles in the production > > activity, the competitive market-price mechanism would not be an > > appropriate institutional mechanism for guiding the economic system > > towards the realization of the natural wage. > > > > In such a situation, the market-price mechanism would simply bring > > about competition among workers, and would in fact lead to another > effect. > > Among the classical economists, it is Marx who most clearly perceived > this > > other effect of the competitive market-price mechanism, as applied to > > labour. He gave the clearest picture of what may be considered as the > other > > extreme (with respect to the one depicted above, when referring to a > > uniformly spread entrepreneurship in a pure labour economy) of the > > application of the market-price mechanism to the determination of the > > actual wage rate. As is well known, Marx (1867) thought that, in a > society in > > which entrepreneurs form a quite distinct class (in his analysis, > because they > > own the means of production), entrepreneurs and workers cannot mix; they > > are not interchangeable. If then labour is thrown on a market and is > traded > > as any other commodity, then we can only expect the competitive > > market-price mechanism to perform its job with labour precisely in the > > same way as it does with any commodity: namely to drive the price of > > labour toward its cost of production. In the case of labour, the cost of > > production is the subsistence wage rate; this is what the competitive > > market-price mechanism would achieve. Therefore the entrepreneurs > > would reap whatever is above subsistence ('exploitation'). We should note > > the perfectly logical consistency of Marx's arguments. > > > > [Luigi Pasinetti, “Structural Economic Dynamics” p. 144] > > > > _______________________________________________ > > pen-l mailing list > > [email protected] > > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- Facebook: Gar Lipow Twitter: GarLipow Solving the Climate Crisis web page: SolvingTheClimateCrisis.com Grist Blog: http://grist.org/author/gar-lipow/ Online technical reference: http://www.nohairshirts.com
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