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June 17, 2010 at 8:23 PM #566748June 18, 2010 at 9:44 AM #567373
davelj
Participant[quote=garysears]90% off is doomer fantasy. It is hard to conceive how the Detroit scenario could happen to the whole nation.
[/quote]It’s not noted but important to keep in mind that the woman who runs The Automatic Earth blog, Nicole Foss (“Stoneleigh”), also runs an organization called the Agri-Energy Producers’ Association of Ontario, which is focused on (and lobbies for) “farm-based bio-gas projects and grid connections for renewable energy.” So, her livelihood and career are tied to the adoption and success of renewable energy (and specifically farm-based bio-gas projects – her clients)… and the collapse of the financial system (and higher oil and natural gas prices, social disruption, etc.) is clearly in her best interests. The talk that she gives around the country in local libraries – “A Century of Challenges” – is basically about the demise of our economy based on fossil fuels and debt. Granted, she gives no date for such a demise, but it will be sometime this century (that is, far enough out that we’ll all be dead if such a demise doesn’t come to fruition until the end of the century). Now, if Vikram Pandit or Ben Bernanke or the CEO of Exxon Mobil gave a speech on the wonders of our economy, folks would rightly point out the inherent biases of the source. Likewise – albeit on the other end of the spectrum – Ms. Foss’s biases should be noted as well. Doesn’t mean that her views aren’t worth considering, but rather that they are inherently biased… and yet no one has bothered to point that out.
Also, just a quibble, but she uses the same incorrectly-constructed debt-to-GDP chart that shows total US debt at around 360% of GDP, when actually it’s at around 250% of GDP after you eliminate double-counting of certain financial debt (securitizations for example). Now that’s still WAY too high, but… let’s at least use the right numbers.
June 18, 2010 at 9:44 AM #566770Participant[quote=garysears]90% off is doomer fantasy. It is hard to conceive how the Detroit scenario could happen to the whole nation.
[/quote]It’s not noted but important to keep in mind that the woman who runs The Automatic Earth blog, Nicole Foss (“Stoneleigh”), also runs an organization called the Agri-Energy Producers’ Association of Ontario, which is focused on (and lobbies for) “farm-based bio-gas projects and grid connections for renewable energy.” So, her livelihood and career are tied to the adoption and success of renewable energy (and specifically farm-based bio-gas projects – her clients)… and the collapse of the financial system (and higher oil and natural gas prices, social disruption, etc.) is clearly in her best interests. The talk that she gives around the country in local libraries – “A Century of Challenges” – is basically about the demise of our economy based on fossil fuels and debt. Granted, she gives no date for such a demise, but it will be sometime this century (that is, far enough out that we’ll all be dead if such a demise doesn’t come to fruition until the end of the century). Now, if Vikram Pandit or Ben Bernanke or the CEO of Exxon Mobil gave a speech on the wonders of our economy, folks would rightly point out the inherent biases of the source. Likewise – albeit on the other end of the spectrum – Ms. Foss’s biases should be noted as well. Doesn’t mean that her views aren’t worth considering, but rather that they are inherently biased… and yet no one has bothered to point that out.
Also, just a quibble, but she uses the same incorrectly-constructed debt-to-GDP chart that shows total US debt at around 360% of GDP, when actually it’s at around 250% of GDP after you eliminate double-counting of certain financial debt (securitizations for example). Now that’s still WAY too high, but… let’s at least use the right numbers.
June 18, 2010 at 9:44 AM #567763Participant[quote=garysears]90% off is doomer fantasy. It is hard to conceive how the Detroit scenario could happen to the whole nation.
[/quote]It’s not noted but important to keep in mind that the woman who runs The Automatic Earth blog, Nicole Foss (“Stoneleigh”), also runs an organization called the Agri-Energy Producers’ Association of Ontario, which is focused on (and lobbies for) “farm-based bio-gas projects and grid connections for renewable energy.” So, her livelihood and career are tied to the adoption and success of renewable energy (and specifically farm-based bio-gas projects – her clients)… and the collapse of the financial system (and higher oil and natural gas prices, social disruption, etc.) is clearly in her best interests. The talk that she gives around the country in local libraries – “A Century of Challenges” – is basically about the demise of our economy based on fossil fuels and debt. Granted, she gives no date for such a demise, but it will be sometime this century (that is, far enough out that we’ll all be dead if such a demise doesn’t come to fruition until the end of the century). Now, if Vikram Pandit or Ben Bernanke or the CEO of Exxon Mobil gave a speech on the wonders of our economy, folks would rightly point out the inherent biases of the source. Likewise – albeit on the other end of the spectrum – Ms. Foss’s biases should be noted as well. Doesn’t mean that her views aren’t worth considering, but rather that they are inherently biased… and yet no one has bothered to point that out.
Also, just a quibble, but she uses the same incorrectly-constructed debt-to-GDP chart that shows total US debt at around 360% of GDP, when actually it’s at around 250% of GDP after you eliminate double-counting of certain financial debt (securitizations for example). Now that’s still WAY too high, but… let’s at least use the right numbers.
June 18, 2010 at 9:44 AM #567481Participant[quote=garysears]90% off is doomer fantasy. It is hard to conceive how the Detroit scenario could happen to the whole nation.
[/quote]It’s not noted but important to keep in mind that the woman who runs The Automatic Earth blog, Nicole Foss (“Stoneleigh”), also runs an organization called the Agri-Energy Producers’ Association of Ontario, which is focused on (and lobbies for) “farm-based bio-gas projects and grid connections for renewable energy.” So, her livelihood and career are tied to the adoption and success of renewable energy (and specifically farm-based bio-gas projects – her clients)… and the collapse of the financial system (and higher oil and natural gas prices, social disruption, etc.) is clearly in her best interests. The talk that she gives around the country in local libraries – “A Century of Challenges” – is basically about the demise of our economy based on fossil fuels and debt. Granted, she gives no date for such a demise, but it will be sometime this century (that is, far enough out that we’ll all be dead if such a demise doesn’t come to fruition until the end of the century). Now, if Vikram Pandit or Ben Bernanke or the CEO of Exxon Mobil gave a speech on the wonders of our economy, folks would rightly point out the inherent biases of the source. Likewise – albeit on the other end of the spectrum – Ms. Foss’s biases should be noted as well. Doesn’t mean that her views aren’t worth considering, but rather that they are inherently biased… and yet no one has bothered to point that out.
Also, just a quibble, but she uses the same incorrectly-constructed debt-to-GDP chart that shows total US debt at around 360% of GDP, when actually it’s at around 250% of GDP after you eliminate double-counting of certain financial debt (securitizations for example). Now that’s still WAY too high, but… let’s at least use the right numbers.
June 18, 2010 at 9:44 AM #566867Participant[quote=garysears]90% off is doomer fantasy. It is hard to conceive how the Detroit scenario could happen to the whole nation.
[/quote]It’s not noted but important to keep in mind that the woman who runs The Automatic Earth blog, Nicole Foss (“Stoneleigh”), also runs an organization called the Agri-Energy Producers’ Association of Ontario, which is focused on (and lobbies for) “farm-based bio-gas projects and grid connections for renewable energy.” So, her livelihood and career are tied to the adoption and success of renewable energy (and specifically farm-based bio-gas projects – her clients)… and the collapse of the financial system (and higher oil and natural gas prices, social disruption, etc.) is clearly in her best interests. The talk that she gives around the country in local libraries – “A Century of Challenges” – is basically about the demise of our economy based on fossil fuels and debt. Granted, she gives no date for such a demise, but it will be sometime this century (that is, far enough out that we’ll all be dead if such a demise doesn’t come to fruition until the end of the century). Now, if Vikram Pandit or Ben Bernanke or the CEO of Exxon Mobil gave a speech on the wonders of our economy, folks would rightly point out the inherent biases of the source. Likewise – albeit on the other end of the spectrum – Ms. Foss’s biases should be noted as well. Doesn’t mean that her views aren’t worth considering, but rather that they are inherently biased… and yet no one has bothered to point that out.
Also, just a quibble, but she uses the same incorrectly-constructed debt-to-GDP chart that shows total US debt at around 360% of GDP, when actually it’s at around 250% of GDP after you eliminate double-counting of certain financial debt (securitizations for example). Now that’s still WAY too high, but… let’s at least use the right numbers.
June 18, 2010 at 10:48 AM #567423Arraya
ParticipantActually, just to clarify, Dave
Her stance on energy prices is that they will plummet in the coming years and create a glut as well as grind alt-energy projects to a halt.
She just recently left her job and is lecturing and I believe looking for land in Peru.
Maybe you want to make a case that she is pursuing her life long dream of leaving a high paying job and fleeing to a third world country because of economic and social collapse by going around and lowering everybody’s confidence in the financial system.
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2009/07/july-1-2009-renewable-power-not-in-your.html
Since it is the major world conundrum with the shortest timescale, I usually focus on finance here, but alternative energy sources and power systems are my day job. Ilargi suggested that, in response to a question about the potential for renewable energy and electric vehicles (EVs), I write an article on the future of power systems.
With people hanging so many of their hopes on an electric future, it seems timely to inject a dose of reality. This is meant as a cursory overview of some of the difficulties we are facing with regard to electrical power in the future. The extraordinary technical and organizational complexity of power systems is difficult to convey, and there is far more to it than I am attempting to address here.
First off: As we are entering a depression, within a few years hardly anyone will have the money to buy an EV. Second: the grid could not come close to handling the current transportation load even if EVs could become common. An economy based on EV transportation would have to be fueled by base-load nuclear that doesn’t currently exist and would take decades to build, and no one builds anything in a depression.
What they do is mount a losing battle to maintain existing infrastructure and hope they don’t lose too much before better times return. This depression will last long enough that the infrastructure degradation will be enormous, even without the impact of above ground events resulting from serious societal unrest. Attempts at recovery after deleveraging are going to hit a hard energy ceiling. Power systems are critical to the functioning of a modern economy, but are almost completely taken for granted. That will not be the case in a few short years.
snip
Investment in grid infrastructure, as with public infrastructure of most other kinds, has been sadly neglected for a long time. Much of the existing grid equipment is at or near the end of its design life, as are many of the power plants we depend on. (For instance, in Ontario we haven’t got around to paying for the last set of nuclear power plants we built, that are now approaching the end of design life and have had to be very expensively re-tubed in recent years.
The outstanding debt is some $40 billion, and the debt retirement charge we pay doesn’t even cover the interest.) Liberalization in the electricity sector has led to a relentless whittling away of safety margins in many places. Where we once had a system with a great deal of resilience through redundancy, that is generally no longer the case. In North America we now have an aging system with a very limited capacity for accommodating either new generation or new load, and we have great difficulty building any new lines.
June 18, 2010 at 10:48 AM #566820ParticipantActually, just to clarify, Dave
Her stance on energy prices is that they will plummet in the coming years and create a glut as well as grind alt-energy projects to a halt.
She just recently left her job and is lecturing and I believe looking for land in Peru.
Maybe you want to make a case that she is pursuing her life long dream of leaving a high paying job and fleeing to a third world country because of economic and social collapse by going around and lowering everybody’s confidence in the financial system.
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2009/07/july-1-2009-renewable-power-not-in-your.html
Since it is the major world conundrum with the shortest timescale, I usually focus on finance here, but alternative energy sources and power systems are my day job. Ilargi suggested that, in response to a question about the potential for renewable energy and electric vehicles (EVs), I write an article on the future of power systems.
With people hanging so many of their hopes on an electric future, it seems timely to inject a dose of reality. This is meant as a cursory overview of some of the difficulties we are facing with regard to electrical power in the future. The extraordinary technical and organizational complexity of power systems is difficult to convey, and there is far more to it than I am attempting to address here.
First off: As we are entering a depression, within a few years hardly anyone will have the money to buy an EV. Second: the grid could not come close to handling the current transportation load even if EVs could become common. An economy based on EV transportation would have to be fueled by base-load nuclear that doesn’t currently exist and would take decades to build, and no one builds anything in a depression.
What they do is mount a losing battle to maintain existing infrastructure and hope they don’t lose too much before better times return. This depression will last long enough that the infrastructure degradation will be enormous, even without the impact of above ground events resulting from serious societal unrest. Attempts at recovery after deleveraging are going to hit a hard energy ceiling. Power systems are critical to the functioning of a modern economy, but are almost completely taken for granted. That will not be the case in a few short years.
snip
Investment in grid infrastructure, as with public infrastructure of most other kinds, has been sadly neglected for a long time. Much of the existing grid equipment is at or near the end of its design life, as are many of the power plants we depend on. (For instance, in Ontario we haven’t got around to paying for the last set of nuclear power plants we built, that are now approaching the end of design life and have had to be very expensively re-tubed in recent years.
The outstanding debt is some $40 billion, and the debt retirement charge we pay doesn’t even cover the interest.) Liberalization in the electricity sector has led to a relentless whittling away of safety margins in many places. Where we once had a system with a great deal of resilience through redundancy, that is generally no longer the case. In North America we now have an aging system with a very limited capacity for accommodating either new generation or new load, and we have great difficulty building any new lines.
June 18, 2010 at 10:48 AM #567809ParticipantActually, just to clarify, Dave
Her stance on energy prices is that they will plummet in the coming years and create a glut as well as grind alt-energy projects to a halt.
She just recently left her job and is lecturing and I believe looking for land in Peru.
Maybe you want to make a case that she is pursuing her life long dream of leaving a high paying job and fleeing to a third world country because of economic and social collapse by going around and lowering everybody’s confidence in the financial system.
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2009/07/july-1-2009-renewable-power-not-in-your.html
Since it is the major world conundrum with the shortest timescale, I usually focus on finance here, but alternative energy sources and power systems are my day job. Ilargi suggested that, in response to a question about the potential for renewable energy and electric vehicles (EVs), I write an article on the future of power systems.
With people hanging so many of their hopes on an electric future, it seems timely to inject a dose of reality. This is meant as a cursory overview of some of the difficulties we are facing with regard to electrical power in the future. The extraordinary technical and organizational complexity of power systems is difficult to convey, and there is far more to it than I am attempting to address here.
First off: As we are entering a depression, within a few years hardly anyone will have the money to buy an EV. Second: the grid could not come close to handling the current transportation load even if EVs could become common. An economy based on EV transportation would have to be fueled by base-load nuclear that doesn’t currently exist and would take decades to build, and no one builds anything in a depression.
What they do is mount a losing battle to maintain existing infrastructure and hope they don’t lose too much before better times return. This depression will last long enough that the infrastructure degradation will be enormous, even without the impact of above ground events resulting from serious societal unrest. Attempts at recovery after deleveraging are going to hit a hard energy ceiling. Power systems are critical to the functioning of a modern economy, but are almost completely taken for granted. That will not be the case in a few short years.
snip
Investment in grid infrastructure, as with public infrastructure of most other kinds, has been sadly neglected for a long time. Much of the existing grid equipment is at or near the end of its design life, as are many of the power plants we depend on. (For instance, in Ontario we haven’t got around to paying for the last set of nuclear power plants we built, that are now approaching the end of design life and have had to be very expensively re-tubed in recent years.
The outstanding debt is some $40 billion, and the debt retirement charge we pay doesn’t even cover the interest.) Liberalization in the electricity sector has led to a relentless whittling away of safety margins in many places. Where we once had a system with a great deal of resilience through redundancy, that is generally no longer the case. In North America we now have an aging system with a very limited capacity for accommodating either new generation or new load, and we have great difficulty building any new lines.
June 18, 2010 at 10:48 AM #566917ParticipantActually, just to clarify, Dave
Her stance on energy prices is that they will plummet in the coming years and create a glut as well as grind alt-energy projects to a halt.
She just recently left her job and is lecturing and I believe looking for land in Peru.
Maybe you want to make a case that she is pursuing her life long dream of leaving a high paying job and fleeing to a third world country because of economic and social collapse by going around and lowering everybody’s confidence in the financial system.
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2009/07/july-1-2009-renewable-power-not-in-your.html
Since it is the major world conundrum with the shortest timescale, I usually focus on finance here, but alternative energy sources and power systems are my day job. Ilargi suggested that, in response to a question about the potential for renewable energy and electric vehicles (EVs), I write an article on the future of power systems.
With people hanging so many of their hopes on an electric future, it seems timely to inject a dose of reality. This is meant as a cursory overview of some of the difficulties we are facing with regard to electrical power in the future. The extraordinary technical and organizational complexity of power systems is difficult to convey, and there is far more to it than I am attempting to address here.
First off: As we are entering a depression, within a few years hardly anyone will have the money to buy an EV. Second: the grid could not come close to handling the current transportation load even if EVs could become common. An economy based on EV transportation would have to be fueled by base-load nuclear that doesn’t currently exist and would take decades to build, and no one builds anything in a depression.
What they do is mount a losing battle to maintain existing infrastructure and hope they don’t lose too much before better times return. This depression will last long enough that the infrastructure degradation will be enormous, even without the impact of above ground events resulting from serious societal unrest. Attempts at recovery after deleveraging are going to hit a hard energy ceiling. Power systems are critical to the functioning of a modern economy, but are almost completely taken for granted. That will not be the case in a few short years.
snip
Investment in grid infrastructure, as with public infrastructure of most other kinds, has been sadly neglected for a long time. Much of the existing grid equipment is at or near the end of its design life, as are many of the power plants we depend on. (For instance, in Ontario we haven’t got around to paying for the last set of nuclear power plants we built, that are now approaching the end of design life and have had to be very expensively re-tubed in recent years.
The outstanding debt is some $40 billion, and the debt retirement charge we pay doesn’t even cover the interest.) Liberalization in the electricity sector has led to a relentless whittling away of safety margins in many places. Where we once had a system with a great deal of resilience through redundancy, that is generally no longer the case. In North America we now have an aging system with a very limited capacity for accommodating either new generation or new load, and we have great difficulty building any new lines.
June 18, 2010 at 10:48 AM #567531ParticipantActually, just to clarify, Dave
Her stance on energy prices is that they will plummet in the coming years and create a glut as well as grind alt-energy projects to a halt.
She just recently left her job and is lecturing and I believe looking for land in Peru.
Maybe you want to make a case that she is pursuing her life long dream of leaving a high paying job and fleeing to a third world country because of economic and social collapse by going around and lowering everybody’s confidence in the financial system.
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2009/07/july-1-2009-renewable-power-not-in-your.html
Since it is the major world conundrum with the shortest timescale, I usually focus on finance here, but alternative energy sources and power systems are my day job. Ilargi suggested that, in response to a question about the potential for renewable energy and electric vehicles (EVs), I write an article on the future of power systems.
With people hanging so many of their hopes on an electric future, it seems timely to inject a dose of reality. This is meant as a cursory overview of some of the difficulties we are facing with regard to electrical power in the future. The extraordinary technical and organizational complexity of power systems is difficult to convey, and there is far more to it than I am attempting to address here.
First off: As we are entering a depression, within a few years hardly anyone will have the money to buy an EV. Second: the grid could not come close to handling the current transportation load even if EVs could become common. An economy based on EV transportation would have to be fueled by base-load nuclear that doesn’t currently exist and would take decades to build, and no one builds anything in a depression.
What they do is mount a losing battle to maintain existing infrastructure and hope they don’t lose too much before better times return. This depression will last long enough that the infrastructure degradation will be enormous, even without the impact of above ground events resulting from serious societal unrest. Attempts at recovery after deleveraging are going to hit a hard energy ceiling. Power systems are critical to the functioning of a modern economy, but are almost completely taken for granted. That will not be the case in a few short years.
snip
Investment in grid infrastructure, as with public infrastructure of most other kinds, has been sadly neglected for a long time. Much of the existing grid equipment is at or near the end of its design life, as are many of the power plants we depend on. (For instance, in Ontario we haven’t got around to paying for the last set of nuclear power plants we built, that are now approaching the end of design life and have had to be very expensively re-tubed in recent years.
The outstanding debt is some $40 billion, and the debt retirement charge we pay doesn’t even cover the interest.) Liberalization in the electricity sector has led to a relentless whittling away of safety margins in many places. Where we once had a system with a great deal of resilience through redundancy, that is generally no longer the case. In North America we now have an aging system with a very limited capacity for accommodating either new generation or new load, and we have great difficulty building any new lines.
June 18, 2010 at 11:20 AM #566927Participant[quote=Arraya]Actually, just to clarify, Dave
Her stance on energy prices is that they will plummet in the coming years and create a glut as well as grind alt-energy projects to a halt.[/quote]
If energy prices are going to plummet… then what will be the cause of the collapse? (I apologize that I’m too lazy to read her entire thesis, as compelling as it might be. Most of the apocalyptos link the downfall of civilization to rising energy prices with all that implies.)
[quote=Arraya]
She just recently left her job and is lecturing and I believe looking for land in Peru.Maybe you want to make a case that she is pursuing her life long dream of leaving a high paying job and fleeing to a third world country because of economic and social collapse by going around and lowering everybody’s confidence in the financial system.[/quote]
I doubt she was “highly paid” at the Agri-Energy Producers’ Association of Ontario. Their most recent conference had 80 attendees (mostly farmers), if memory serves from my brief readings. I doubt the Association has more than a few employees. Not that that should have any bearing on the quality of her argument… I’m just sayin’.
I think Ms. Foss is a dedicated environmentalist, not materially different from folks that work for the Sierra Club and other such outfits. Her worldview is set (she’s “all-in,” so to speak) and not subject to change. All of which is fine.
But her background is relevant when discussing the biases inherent in her point of view, just as anyone’s is. That’s my point. I wish her the best in Peru. I’ve never been there but I have a friend who has a home there. He tells me it’s quite lovely.
June 18, 2010 at 11:20 AM #566830Participant[quote=Arraya]Actually, just to clarify, Dave
Her stance on energy prices is that they will plummet in the coming years and create a glut as well as grind alt-energy projects to a halt.[/quote]
If energy prices are going to plummet… then what will be the cause of the collapse? (I apologize that I’m too lazy to read her entire thesis, as compelling as it might be. Most of the apocalyptos link the downfall of civilization to rising energy prices with all that implies.)
[quote=Arraya]
She just recently left her job and is lecturing and I believe looking for land in Peru.Maybe you want to make a case that she is pursuing her life long dream of leaving a high paying job and fleeing to a third world country because of economic and social collapse by going around and lowering everybody’s confidence in the financial system.[/quote]
I doubt she was “highly paid” at the Agri-Energy Producers’ Association of Ontario. Their most recent conference had 80 attendees (mostly farmers), if memory serves from my brief readings. I doubt the Association has more than a few employees. Not that that should have any bearing on the quality of her argument… I’m just sayin’.
I think Ms. Foss is a dedicated environmentalist, not materially different from folks that work for the Sierra Club and other such outfits. Her worldview is set (she’s “all-in,” so to speak) and not subject to change. All of which is fine.
But her background is relevant when discussing the biases inherent in her point of view, just as anyone’s is. That’s my point. I wish her the best in Peru. I’ve never been there but I have a friend who has a home there. He tells me it’s quite lovely.
June 18, 2010 at 11:20 AM #567819Participant[quote=Arraya]Actually, just to clarify, Dave
Her stance on energy prices is that they will plummet in the coming years and create a glut as well as grind alt-energy projects to a halt.[/quote]
If energy prices are going to plummet… then what will be the cause of the collapse? (I apologize that I’m too lazy to read her entire thesis, as compelling as it might be. Most of the apocalyptos link the downfall of civilization to rising energy prices with all that implies.)
[quote=Arraya]
She just recently left her job and is lecturing and I believe looking for land in Peru.Maybe you want to make a case that she is pursuing her life long dream of leaving a high paying job and fleeing to a third world country because of economic and social collapse by going around and lowering everybody’s confidence in the financial system.[/quote]
I doubt she was “highly paid” at the Agri-Energy Producers’ Association of Ontario. Their most recent conference had 80 attendees (mostly farmers), if memory serves from my brief readings. I doubt the Association has more than a few employees. Not that that should have any bearing on the quality of her argument… I’m just sayin’.
I think Ms. Foss is a dedicated environmentalist, not materially different from folks that work for the Sierra Club and other such outfits. Her worldview is set (she’s “all-in,” so to speak) and not subject to change. All of which is fine.
But her background is relevant when discussing the biases inherent in her point of view, just as anyone’s is. That’s my point. I wish her the best in Peru. I’ve never been there but I have a friend who has a home there. He tells me it’s quite lovely.
June 18, 2010 at 11:20 AM #567433Participant[quote=Arraya]Actually, just to clarify, Dave
Her stance on energy prices is that they will plummet in the coming years and create a glut as well as grind alt-energy projects to a halt.[/quote]
If energy prices are going to plummet… then what will be the cause of the collapse? (I apologize that I’m too lazy to read her entire thesis, as compelling as it might be. Most of the apocalyptos link the downfall of civilization to rising energy prices with all that implies.)
[quote=Arraya]
She just recently left her job and is lecturing and I believe looking for land in Peru.Maybe you want to make a case that she is pursuing her life long dream of leaving a high paying job and fleeing to a third world country because of economic and social collapse by going around and lowering everybody’s confidence in the financial system.[/quote]
I doubt she was “highly paid” at the Agri-Energy Producers’ Association of Ontario. Their most recent conference had 80 attendees (mostly farmers), if memory serves from my brief readings. I doubt the Association has more than a few employees. Not that that should have any bearing on the quality of her argument… I’m just sayin’.
I think Ms. Foss is a dedicated environmentalist, not materially different from folks that work for the Sierra Club and other such outfits. Her worldview is set (she’s “all-in,” so to speak) and not subject to change. All of which is fine.
But her background is relevant when discussing the biases inherent in her point of view, just as anyone’s is. That’s my point. I wish her the best in Peru. I’ve never been there but I have a friend who has a home there. He tells me it’s quite lovely.
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