Earth Biosphere Destruction Thanks To Plutocratic Subsidies


Plutocracy is not just about the rule of money: as its name indicates, it is the rule of evil. Obama, the American Chief Executing Officer, just allowed oil drilling in the Arctic (where pollution does not dissipate, due to low temperature). However, when the ship sinks, the rats start to bite each other. Thus here comes the International Monetary Fund, with a striking study. Although based next to the White House, the Fund just found a profound fundament to our world crisis. Fossil Fuels “energy subsidies are dramatically higher than previous estimates.

How high? The IMF estimates the fossil fuel subsidies amount to 5.3 trillion dollars in 2015. Yes, 5,300 billions, about a third of USA or EU GDP. 5.3 trillion dollars is 6.5% of world GDP. That’ is 600 million dollars an hour. It is higher than all the government spending on health care, worldwide. And it goes to whom, first? Plutocrats. Nothing else to expect from a government by plutophiles, for plutocrats.

Earth, Funding Pluto Brought A Drastic Problem

Earth, Funding Pluto Brought A Drastic Problem

We are presently destroying the biosphere which enabled the human species to evolve. It is pretty drastic. It would cause the worst mass murderers and criminals against humanity pause. It is not just a political, or philosophical, or ethical problem. It is the ultimate question of survival. We are all in a gas chamber of our own making, and the tap is fully open. Anything else is delusion.

Among the IMF’s conclusion: the highest subsidies are for the most polluting fuel, coal: “Because no country, (unlike for “road fuels) has meaningful excises on its consumption“.

Subsidies arise “mostly from countries not adequately charging for the cost of environmental damage (only one fourth of which is due to climate change)”. The World Health Organization evaluates these deaths to seven (7) millions.

The IMF observes that charging adequately would reduce CO2 emissions by 20% and cut the “premature death rate from fossil fuel pollution” by half. (Those death are evaluated

A philosophy professor from Notre Dame University ponders in the New York Times: “What Can We Do About Climate Change?”

Notice how silly the title is. Indeed, it should say that it’s not the climate that is changing, just because it’s going out tonight, but us who are polluting the planet. As all academics, the professor, from a plutocratic university, is careful to not say anything that would upset extremely wealthy sponsors of his very rich university (rich of subsidized football, TV contracts, gifts from Plutos right and left, etc.) This is how academic excellence works, in the USA: feed the rich ideas they like.

Left unsaid in the interview in the New York Times, were many things, and of some of these many things I will speak.

There are massive fossil fuel subsidies, worldwide. More than 600 billion dollars of direct fossil fuels subsidies are distributed by governments, each year, said the International Energy Agency. The least to be done would be to cut these poisonous gifts to zero.

In temperate and tropical areas, Solar Photovoltaics have become price competitive with fossil fuels, even with the aforesaid subsidies. Without them Solar PV can replace fossil fuels in an economically advantageous way.

We just reached above 403 ppm of CO2 averaged over April 2005. At 400 ppm of CO2, we know we get the warm Pliocene climate: camels in the Arctic. Under such a greenhouse, the Arctic is completely melted, except at high altitude. No more sea ice in the north, whatsoever.

And this does not mention the fact that at least a third of the CO2 goes into the sea to make carbonic acid, quickly approaching non-sustainability; it’s a matter of years, not decades. And that non-linear effects with melting permafrost are getting in gear.

More generally, four planetary boundaries have been crossed. CO2 ppm is just one of them. The crossing of any of these boundaries mean destruction of the biosphere as we have known it (thus thermonuclear war, among other inconveniences).

So much for the somewhat limited view of “Climate Change” from university professors of philosophy.

Moreover, our real greenhouse gases “forcing” the low altitude greenhouse should include man-made gases which did not exist during the warm Pliocene, three million years ago. Some of these gases are more capable of blocking infrared radiation (and thus augmenting the greenhouse) by a multiplicative factor of 25,000 relative to CO2. Those gases ought to be targeted for elimination. Nitrous oxide, much of it from agricultural nitrate fertilizers, and other soil destruction, contributes to 8% of the greenhouse forcing (with 300 times the ppm infrared effect of CO2).

Meanwhile, Germany is ever more dependent upon the world’s most polluting fuel, a type of coal, lignite (Neanderthals already used it in France, more than 80,000 years ago). Even today, Germany bent over backwards to burn even more lignite. What about giving more serious lessons to us, denizens of the German gas chamber? Is it still about giving us lessons with Pluto’s baritone voice?

Germany and the so-called “United” Kingdom tie for number one in the European pollution league. That should put in perspective their (mostly imaginary) superior economic performance. Economic performance is, fundamentally, about energy. Destroying the planet to get energized is plenty cheap, especially morally.

A worldwide tax on carbon ought to be imposed unilaterally by the USA and the EU, and imposed on imported products. Anything else will come short.

And short means, potentially, the greatest catastrophe our species has ever known.

Thanks to progress in sustainable energies, mostly Solar PV, technologically advanced empires (USA, China) are in good position to impose a low carbon economy… While advancing, and advantaging, their own economies. This devilish perspective is actually the only good news around. China has already taken drastic measures against coal.

If good people won’t help, maybe the devil will…

Patrice Ayme’

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23 Responses to “Earth Biosphere Destruction Thanks To Plutocratic Subsidies”

  1. El periódico de la UPM Says:

    Reblogged this on Por una UPM mejor.

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  2. ianmillerblog Says:

    Part of the problem is politicians do not understand hysteresis, and do not recognise that the planet is currently out of equilibrium, but they do recognise donations to their electoral campaigns. The fuel plutocrats have plenty of money, the planet simply has thermodynamics, and will eventually make us pay, but it is our grandchildren who will really suffer, so, burn away and make more money while we can – or at least that appears to be the policy.

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    • gmax Says:

      In the American West we are already paying: drought, fires making air unbreathable, for weeks, etc.

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    • Patrice Ayme Says:

      I think the bill is starting to get due now. The weather is acting weird, worldwide, and the official tally of dead through the greenhouse is well above 100,000 a year already, although the non-linear effects have not appreciably started yet.

      For the politicians, see what I said to GMax… It’s like petting rattlesnakes (personal experience).

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  3. gmax Says:

    Being greedy idiots is in the arrogant nature of politicians. Our stupidity and laziness is not to act upon this evidence-based horror

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  4. EugenR Says:

    What we see is that the political system is continuing to do what he has always done. Focusing on short term goals, its main aim is to sustain their grip on political power. Worse than that. 80 years of relative peace and prosperity, that increased uninterupted acumulation of wealth created by unprecedented advance in natural sciences, humanities and social sciences, the political system continued to rattle on the same principle of power monopolization, with limited advance from the political systems used by classical world of Greeks and Romans. The only advance that penetrated into politics is skilful adaptation of new mass marketing tools, (modern marketing is all about how to cheat the masses), called pop culture. Mass marketing of politics, presented at political rallies of the parties and general elections, presenting ostensible sharing of power, successfully pacified the masses. So the plutocrats can freely do what they were created to do, to concentrate more and more tools and resources to strengthen their position on the top of the society.

    The question is not if this political system will out of its own will make the dramatic political decision it needs to take, to save the world environment ànd the human existence on it. For this we have the clear answer, NEVER!!! After all in sake to save the world, the masses cheated for years by all these propaganda marketing tools, need to sacrifice their welfare of fools, they were stuffed with for almost a century by now to keep them quite.

    The real question is, do we know about an alternative political system, that could sustain relative prosperity and freedom for the masses, while to reduce the economaic activity within the limits of world capacity to supply it. And when and if such a political system will be discovered and developed, how could it be implemented, while removing the existing plutocracy from its position without bloodshed and without to sacrifice the only real human achievement of western societies since WWII, peace and policy of human rights.

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    • Patrice Ayme Says:

      Dear Eugen: The solution is below our noses: we could do what the Swiss are doing, and require ever more referenda. Of course that can not be employed in France, UK, USA, etc. However, it can be applied in California (thanks to referenda the rich are taxed a bit more there, for a while… Also sale tax has been hiked up). Also, well, the French could go out in the streets, and asked to be treated as well as the Swiss… Then it would snowball….

      That’s the solution…

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      • EugenR Says:

        Dear Patrice, i can’t believe you mean it seriously. Purposely uneducated masses will never give up voluntarily their pound of flesh. I don’t believe in theory of wisdom of masses. It wouldn’t work even in Switzerland, the wealthiest place in the world, not to speak about other places, like France. One of the most environmentally damaging human activity is intensive agriculture using pesticides and fertilisers. Do you see the French people give up their foie gras, roquefort cheese, or stroganoff and change it to tofu food for the sake of saving the world environment?

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        • Patrice Ayme Says:

          Well, direct democracy is working ever better in Switzerland.

          Direct democracy is better than trusting a few people. At least any referendum is proceed by months of debate in Suisse. The polls always go one way, and then the other: people change opinions. In France or the USA only a few clowns take decisions, generally without debate: who do you think they talk to?

          Just a question: I have the answer and will write it if you don’t, ha ha ha…

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          • EugenR Says:

            You mean the BANKSTERS?

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          • Patrice Ayme Says:

            Not just banksters, plutocrats in general. They meet with those all day long, and especially all night long. Obama, who admires this source of wisdom, the Financial Times, just allowed the Anglo-Dutch Shell to drill in the Arctic. (Yes he stopped ONE pipeline, but those have become irrelevant)

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          • EugenR Says:

            By the way, isn’t it night in California?

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          • Patrice Ayme Says:

            Actually, even at night, it’s dawn in California, in the sense that taxes, which were too low, have been brought up a bit, and that helps a lot. They ought to be brought up some more, be it only for public transportation. I don’t personally use this method of the vulgum, however, Bay Area jams are becoming number one (more even than LA), and the insufficiency of public transportation affects all.
            Meanwhile, the state budget SURPLUS, is going to paying off debt, and education (from kindergarten to university). Also STEM/STEAM is starting (in part higher educational activity in primary school).
            And the Silicon Valley is doing great…

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  5. Paul Handover Says:

    Going to publish this over on Learning from Dogs before the end of the week.

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    • Patrice Ayme Says:

      Thanks Paul. The change at the IMF is spectacular. Recognizing 5.3 trillion dollars of fossil fuel subsidies is just incredible. Maybe our constant campaign for the right stuff is finally bearing fruits…
      Patrice

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  6. Mark Goldes Says:

    Sebastopol, CA
    New technology has been born that can replace fossil fuels fast.

    However, it employs out-of-the-box science which is attacked, often viciously, by scientists and engineers who frequently react with loathing, lies and lack of comprehension to experiments capable of rapidly superseding fossil and radioactive fuels.

    Cold Fusion is the best known example. Although reproduced in more than 100 labs, many at distinguished institutions, including the U.S. Navy & NASA, to this day it is often dismissed and ridiculed. See lenr-canr.org for an overview of the tragic story, replete with numerous scientific papers.

    Hand-held devices demonstrate how fast new technology can change the world. Similar breakthroughs are pregnant in the energy arena.

    See aesopinstitute.org for a few examples, including a Ford gasoline engine converted to run without fuel on atmospheric heat, a huge reservoir of solar energy far exceeding all the earth’s fossil fuels.

    Any skilled mechanic can replicate that work. Detailed plans are provided on that site, without charge.

    Conversion of millions of the worlds gasoline engines to run without fuel is now possible, although almost no scientist or engineer will believe that fact to be true.

    Technology holds the key to slowing – and ideally reversing – Global Warming. The needed inventions are being born across the planet.

    They will prove cost-competitive and surprisingly practical. And surprise almost everyone as they overturn conventional ignorance.

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    • Patrice Ayme Says:

      Agreed on the general drift of what you write. But “Cold Fusion”, although it looked plausible initially, is not fusion: it generates no neutrons. Neutron generators based on fusion, though, are for sale worldwide. However they are not efficient enough to generate significant power. They just generate neutrons.

      Compressed air cars exist, and are studied. However motors with no energy source but the air do not exist, and cannot exist (except if you mean from Nitrous Oxide!)

      Science is not about anything goes…

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      • John Rogers Says:

        Patrice
        Good answer.
        There always seems to be a perennial energy miracle in the offing (“cars that run on water!”, “magnets increase gas mileage”, etc.) or, in the old days, the ever-popular perpetual motion engine.

        That said, so many people are beavering away today on so many different approaches, somebody might come up with something really new (what Nassim Taleb calls a Black Swan).

        I like to play poker online on my iPhone and just finished a game with a couple of Russians, a Venezuelan, an Italian and an Iranian among others, all linked on the Internet. This would have been utterly inconceivable just a couple of years ago and now it’s everyday entertainment.

        My own guess for the future would be ever cheaper solar coupled with some breakthrough in superconductivity – generate electricity in the Southwest deserts and pipe it up to Chicago or wherever with minimal transmission loss.

        There are still a lot of surprises in store, just not about the nature of evil and plutocrats.

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        • Patrice Ayme Says:

          Thanks John! Solar PV is cheaper than anything on 17 countries already (the latest of the latest). This is before the implementation of what is in research labs. It’s absolutely certain that in most countries, Solar PV will be clearly the cheapest within 5 years, even with today’s subsidized fossil fuels.
          Without the subsidies, Solar PV is the cheapest roughly anywhere but Antarctica and Ellesmere Island…

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