Glenn Hubbers

I’ve just arrived home after a two week holiday in New Brunswick (what a lovely province!) and Nova Scotia, sorted through the mail pile and found the latest Conservative bulk mailing.  You know the ones, they come on a single 8.5 x 11 black and white sheet with some policy initiative or other outlined and a “Who is on the right track” question (Ignatieff, Harper, Layton or May) with an arrow pointing to Harper’s name of course.  We seem to get one every week or so.

Of course, all of this is merely a means to compile the Conservatives electoral database and that’s fine as that’s the way the game is played, though I would strongly object if they were found financing this through MP’s budgets rather than party funds. Hmmm…

This latest mailing, though, states, “The Conservative government.  Investing in airports. Investing in you.” and goes on to talk about the investments in airport security that the feds are making.

Well no one would object to being safer, of course, but I have to ask how often have you not felt safe on a flight from a Canadian airport?  We had that Air India event, but that was quite a few years ago.  And 911 not so long ago.  Of course joining with the US and going round the world pissing people off will make enemies, so I guess it’s logical that we may be at some increased threat level from what used to be.

Frankly I feel far safer using air travel that driving in a car, particularly here in the GTA where we seem to license almost anyone who can see over the wheel and many who cannot, with no consideration of testing people on manual transmissions, no consideration of the differences in winter driving, no consideration of mandated snow tires, etc.

And half of this expenditure seems to be based on making air travel more efficient to “improve the passenger and freight air service experience.”

To what end? To decrease the hassle factor and thus increase people’s interest in traveling by air?

Where is the recognition from the Conservatives that air travel will seriously decline as a means of personal transport in years to come? Serious Climate Change policy would make this necessary, so I can understand why the Cons don’t mention this as many of them still don’t believe in it, and they still view such policies as a choice.  Fair enough, even if I disagree.  But Peak Oil will make the diminishing of air travel inevitable in the not too distant future, except for the super rich (and likely the politicians spending our money) so there is really no choice involved.

If you don’t believe me, reference what Jeff Rubin has to say about air travel.  He lays out the case fairly well.

It’s astounding that the Conservative Party still manages to snow people into believing they are strong stewards of the economy, when they get so much of it wrong.  They completely failed to predict the current recession even though many of us were saying as loudly as possible that it was coming.  And they seem to be missing all the signs of economic upheaval that Peak Oil will bring.

Banking on the future of air travel is a flight of fancy.

Glenn Hubbers Book Reviews, Economics, Energy, Environmental, Peak Oil, Transportation

President Barack Obama laid out a sweeping vision for high-speed rail in the United States this past week.  Obama has already secured $8 billion in funding in the stimulus bill and plans to pursue another $5 billion over the next 5 years.

Joe Romm at Climate Progress provided an excellent summary of the announcement.

In the meantime, Canada’s [non existent] national transportation strategy looks like this:

Yeah, I know, they’ve been really busy planning for our future, haven’t they?

Once the global recession ends, oil prices will resume their inevitable march to record levels which will be heralded with great fanfare in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland, but will serve to continue to hamper the economies of all other regions.  Airlines will switch from fighting off bankruptcy due to the recession to fighting off bankruptcy due to rising fuel costs.

In the age of Peak Oil and Climate Change, High Speed Rail must be a national priority in Canada as a means of minimizing short haul flights and large numbers of cars.  We need to outline this vision now and put the systems in place before it’s too late.  Government economic stimulus would be well placed to be working toward that vision.

I fear, however, that what we will see first is >$200 per barrel oil, airlines asking for bailouts, a public clamouring for alternate transportation plans, and a government who says, “Well, you can’t blame us because no one saw this coming.”

Glenn Hubbers Climate Change, Economics, Peak Oil, Transportation

At the halfway mark in the campaign, various people have been strongly encouraging “strategic voting”, particularly the Liberals as they try to make the (false) sales pitch that “they are the only party other than the Conservatives who can form government, so we should all just vote for them to stop Harper.”  There’s even a web site (built by Liberal supporters, but who’s counting?) saying it’s necessary to vote for the Liberals for action on the environment.

Ah, the memories.  In the last election, I think I recall Jack Layton wanting to “borrow our vote” and Paul Martin wanting us to vote strategically “just this once.”  Or was it the other way round?

I’ve written about so-called strategic voting before, and obviously I’m dead set against the practice since I believe that we should all vote for the party whose core values most agree with our own.  Unless we vote for what we want we will never get it.

The problem with all this is that I can’t ever remember any election in my entire lifetime when voters have not been asked to vote strategically, either by the Conservatives or the Liberals depending on their position in the polls.  Can you?

The perceived need vote strategically, otherwise known as hold-your-nose-and-vote-for-what-you-dislike-to-stop-what-you-hate, is directly related to our backward first-past-the-post voting system.  You know, the one that results in false majorities and even false governments.

So we’re caught in an impossible situation, because the two parties who always urge us to vote strategically are the very ones who gain the most from not changing the system that makes it necessary to even contemplate.  The two parties who will remain in power if we continue to answer this call are the very parties who are committed to not changing the system.

Are we seriously going to buy into these lies once again?  Does anyone seriously imagine a future election where either the Liberals or Conservatives are not asking us to vote strategically for them?

There is only one way to eliminate the perceived need for strategic voting, and that is to stop doing it, so that people who are committed to ridding our country of the yoke of this antiquated voting system are elected to do so.

The Green Party is (the only party) committed to doing just that.  So my strategic vote, my vote for the future of our country, to get rid of a self-perpetuating system that does not work, will be to vote Green.

If you decide that you must vote strategically “just this once more”, well, I can’t and won’t tell you how to vote.  But please remember these words from Albert Einstein,

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.”

The Strategic Voter…

Glenn Hubbers Canada Votes!, Economics, Green Policy, Peak Oil, Strategic Voting

Thomas Homer-Dixon wrote what I thought was an excellently worded article in today’s Globe & Mail.

In response were comments such as this:

JD Strong from Oakville, Canada writes: I’m not willing to sacrifice my freedom of choice for environmentalist fear mongering. Especially after the brutal winter we had and the cool summer we’re having now.

Environmentalism is an excuse to impose state control and planning in place of individual freedom. It extends to every aspect of our lives: cars, lightbulbs, health, work, transportation, food, clothing… everything.

Keep your laws off my freedom.

This is clearly someone for whom “environmentalism” is a bad word.  Everything even remotely associated with the word must, by definition, be bad.  He/she is clearly pre-disposed to being against everything that those “loony environmentalists” support.

This is not to say that there are no environmentalists with whom I disagree, either on goals or methods or both.  There are actually many.  But heck, I’m struggling to come up with a single label for any group of people which I look at with such revulsion that I believe they are incapable of even a single good idea.  Not one.  I believe that even the most radical groups out there have reasons for their opinions, and I would choose to hear them before I dismiss them.  It is just not in me to be that close minded.  I’ve even found myself agreeing with Stephen Harper from time to time.  (George W. Bush, not so much, but I’d never say it’s impossible!)

Now I’m certain that JD Strong from Oakville, Canada likely has some strongly held opinions about the level of tax burden in Canada/Ontario/Oakville, and perhaps he/she could make some very strong cases as to how that money is spent by the particular level of government.  Fair enough.  He/she is entitled to those opinions.  We may disagree, but that’s what makes a healthy democracy, and I’d be willing to listen and consider the points.

But just for the sake of discussion, if I agree to stipulate to all of his/her points on both the size of the tax burden and the spending priorities, I still cannot come to grips with why anyone argues with the central philosophy of modern environmentalism (and for that matter the central philosophy underlying Green Party policy) which, in the words of Homer-Dixon, is to “tax things we want to discourage, such as pollution and resource waste, not things we want to encourage, like income, employment and investment.”

I will admit, this has to be my single biggest internal struggle with my involvement in politics.  This philosophy seems to me to be so obvious, so in-line with the long term interests of our society, that I can’t quite come to terms with how anyone can argue against it.

Even if you are one who thinks Climate Change is bunk.  Even if you believe that Peak Oil is a myth.  Fine, for this discussion only I will stipulate that.  Now please tell me how this philosophy, placing the tax burden squarely on the things we want to discourage, does not make sense?

And yet people continue to reject the idea out of hand and Canada has exactly one political party which holds this philosophy as a basic premise of economic policy.

Glenn Hubbers Canada Votes!, Climate Change, Economics, Environmental, Green Policy, Media, Peak Oil

Canadian Green Party leader Elizabeth May discusses the Liberal carbon tax plan and the NDP’s negative reaction to it. “I’m disappointed Mr. Layton is on the wrong side of this one…. I am afraid that it has something to do with wanting to hurt the Liberals more than wanting to help the climate.” (CTV’s Question Period, May 25, 2008.)

Glenn Hubbers Canada Votes!, Climate Change, Economics, Energy, Environmental, Green Policy, Peak Oil

A friend of mine passed on this little email exchange that he had recently with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and gave me permission to blog it.

I’m not sure what I would have expected, but certainly I didn’t expect the rudeness of this response.

Clearly the Ontario Director of the CTF does not believe the science of Climate Change, and certainly does not represent my views on tax policy either.

From: Robert ——–
Sent: Friday, May 16, 2008
To: on.director@taxpayer.com
Cc: wilfeb1@parl.gc.ca; jflaherty@fin.gc.ca
Subject: CTF Gas Tax Petition

Mr. Kevin Gaudet
Ontario Director
Canadian Taxpayers Federation

Dear Mr. Gaudet,

I was disappointed recently to see that the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is promoting cuts to gas and diesel taxes. As a Canadian taxpayer I want to make it very clear that your organization absolutely does not represent my views on this issue. Lowering gas taxes “across the board” will hurt drivers and the environment by encouraging greater consumption and ultimately driving gas prices higher in the long term. In addition, the roadway expansion that your organization suggests that gas taxes should be financing doesn’t address traffic congestion, but simply encourages more people to drive cars. Lower gas taxes are the last thing we need right now. If Canadians do indeed need relief from the rising costs of energy, that relief should be directed to those who truly need it, such as lower-income families, through other means such as federal income taxes. High income-earning Canadians who drive gas-guzzling SUV’s choose to do so, and should be taxed for that choice.

I do share your organization’s concern with how the government spends the money it collects through gas taxes, however I believe that these funds should be directed to improving the efficiency of our transportation system through improved transit, promoting carpooling, supporting cycling and walking, and financing transportation demand management initiatives. Your suggestion that our government’s priority should be “rebuilding Canada’s aging roads” would encourage more people to drive single-occupant vehicles. Among other negative effects, this will drive up the price of gas (based on the basic economic law of supply and demand).

In summary, the suggestion that the Canadian federal government should lower gas taxes and/or direct the revenues from those taxes to constructing/expanding roads and highways is an extremely short-sighted proposal. I strongly urge the Canadian Taxpayers Federation to abandon this poorly-conceived and counter-productive campaign immediately. I would be happy to further discuss this issue, or refer you to reference materials on the subject (take five minutes to review “Appropriate Response to Rising Fuel Prices: Citizens Should Demand, ‘Raise My Prices Now!’”, available online at www.vtpi.org/fuelprice.pdf). We can do much better than the “knee-jerk” reaction that your organization is currently promoting.

Sincerely,
Robert ——–
Richmond Hill, Ontario

——————————————————————————————

From: Kevin Gaudet [mailto:kgaudet@taxpayer.com]
Sent: May 17, 2008
To: ‘Robert ——–’
Subject: RE: CTF Gas Tax Petition

Thank you for your note. Of course, the CTF disagrees. The Gas Tax Honesty Campaign has been in place for ten years and is anything but a ‘knee-jerk’ response, unlike the poorly-researched, ill-guided knee-jerk carbon tax movement of today in the name of fighting ‘global-warming’, I mean ‘climate change’, I mean cleaning the earth, I mean any new way to raise tax revenues.

We are a national not-for-profit organization representing the views of our 68,000 supporters across Canada – 20% of whom are in Ontario.

I appreciate the research. Our proposal is that gas taxes be lowered and dedicated to the infrastructure deficit in roads, bridges, and highways.

Regards,

Kevin Gaudet
Ontario Director
Canadian Taxpayers Federation
416-203-0030 office
416-725-0501 mobile

Glenn Hubbers Climate Change, Energy, Green Policy, Peak Oil, Transportation

Most of the people I know who watch End of Suburbia or Crude Impact for the first time, without the benefit of prior exposure to the concept of Peak Oil let alone the implications, come away from those movies feeling rather shell shocked. There’s just no way to have a positive outlook after being faced with those sober truth’s. It takes a bit for the “we’re screwed” feelings to settle down for people to realize that life is going to go on tomorrow pretty much as it did today.

But hopefully they also come away with the realization that our current path is not sustainable, and that we have a great deal of planning to do to prepare society for the transition that is inevitable, whether we like it or not. Yes, we should have started long ago, but hopefully they have a new resolve to begin changing their lifestyles to prepare for the future.

No amount of denial and wrangling to maintain an inherently unsustainable economy is going to make the truth go away. So politicians who tell you that they have the exclusive answers to your woes, and that a vote for them will ensure life will stay pretty much as it has been, are being either dishonest if they know the truth or incompetent if they don’t.

Anyone who reads this blog or hears me speak regularly knows that I don’t buy into the never-ending-growth-economy concept that we have all been force-fed our entire lives. You’ll also know that I don’t buy into the hydrogen economy, ethanol, biodiesel (at least not on the massive scale that their proponents envision) or any of the other technological fixes that are designed with the goal of maintaining our current unsustainable personal mobility. I believe we should be putting massive public support into public transit systems with the goal of moving millions of people out of cars. Not a few hundred thousand. Millions. Every day. Better yet, I advocate walkable cities and different living arrangements where most people can walk to work from where they live.

In yesterday’s podcast of The National on Global came this story, about the escalation in the price of food. This is just one of the results of rising energy prices, and we can expect more in the years to come.

So could someone please tell me again how things like ethanol make sense?  Or how urban sprawl, paving over productive farmland in communities that do not offer anything within walking distance, is a good model for living arrangements?

And for those that feel we must increase productivity of farmland as stated in the clip, what will we do as natural gas, a main ingredient in commercial fertilizer, becomes too expensive or so rare that we have to choose between heating our homes or fertilizing our crops? Or the diesel used for harvesting?

This is just one more signal that we can’t continue on our path of never ending growth in the economy, in our population, energy use, resource use, food production, etc. It is unsustainable and needs to stop. We need to find another way. I don’t pretend to have all the answers on how to do this, but at least the Green Party is acknowledging, rather than still denying, the problem.

Glenn Hubbers Economics, Energy, Peak Oil, Transportation, Urban Sprawl

It’s interesting to watch the lengths that the mainstream media will go to in order to avoid reporting about Peak Oil. It would seem that giving credence to those who have long been talking about the severe economic consequences of ignoring geological fact is not politically correct.

On Monday, the Wall Street Journal published this article in which they’ve coined a new phrase, “Plateauing Oil.”

As expected, according to the WSJ, “Plateauing Oil” is not “Peak Oil.” Oh no, those Peak Oil people are crackpots and don’t know what they’re talking about.

The current debate represents a significant twist on an older, often-derided notion known as the peak-oil theory. Traditional peak-oil theorists, many of whom are industry outsiders or retired geologists, have argued that global oil production will soon peak and enter an irreversible decline because nearly half the available oil in the world has been pumped. They’ve been proved wrong so often that their theory has become debased.

Debased? When? Where? Can someone please point me to a credible article or authority where the Peak Oil theory has been “debased”?

While details may be argued, the theory of Peak Oil is logically irrefutable. I’ll summarize it this way:

• Every resource such as oil, or any other mineral for that matter, which is not being replenished, or at least not at anywhere near the pace that it’s being used, is by definition finite.
• Once you begin to use a finite resource, you are inexorably working toward the day when it has all been used up. Use started at zero and must logically end at zero when it’s gone.
• It is a mathematical certainty that between start-zero and end-zero there will be a point at which the use of the resource reaches a maximum rate.

Beyond that there are just the details. Crude oil production cannot logically increase until it’s all gone and then one day just suddenly drop to zero. It’s not contained in some underground pool like the gas tank in your car. It’s contained in thousands upon thousands of rock formations, each of which have a beginning, middle and end of their production life. This is known to every geologist and oil & gas engineer who has ever stopped to think about it.

Each oil deposit, large and small, produces oil according to a bell shaped curve. And adding them together produces a larger bell shaped curve. This has been proven time and again based on single oil fields, regional production, and continental production. Oil production in the U.S., North America, the North Sea and others are all following this curve and proving the point.

Since all of the evidence over the past 50 years since M. King Hubbert first theorized about a North American peak and then a World Peak fits the theory, the naysayers have seized on the one item within the theory for which there can be no proof, which truly will remain a hypothesis until well after the peak has been passed. And that is the idea that peak happens when the oil is half gone. Sure, if you really apply new technologies or focus your entire economic effort to finding and drilling for more oil, you might be able to slide the peak toward what, 60%? 70? I suppose you could have a bell that leans a little. But of course, even if you managed that, the down side of the curve would be that much steeper and more of an economic shock.

Many Oil Execs and Wall Street analysts say, “Sure, Peak Oil is logically correct and inevitable, but we’re nowhere near peak. That’s decades away! Don’t worry your little heads about it! Get out there and start spending for Christmas!! Daddy wants a new SUV!!!”

But now they are stuck with the inconvenient geological fact that a plateau is being reached (a plateau consistent with the Peak Oil theory, I might add) so they have to come up with other reasons:

• China and India are demanding too much. (Never mind that they still use 5% per capita of the western worlds consumption. Fair Play has nothing to do with this! And pay not attention to the fact that all that stuff we want you to buy is being made in China!)
• Those pesky environmentalists won’t let us at all those huge deposits in so-called “fragile ecosystems”. (I mean, really, who cares about useless Caribou when we have SUV’s to drive and plastic McDonald’s toys to make, buy and throw away! How can we convince our young ‘ens to join up and fight our future oil wars protect our country if you don’t get out there and buy them a new GI Joe doll complete with plastic M-16?!)
• Nationalism. Defined here as “tightening state control of oil fields to achieve political aims, often by restricting outsiders’ ability to develop the oil for world markets.” (Let’s not talk about the definition of nationalism that stems from the concept that the resources of a country should actually accrue to that country rather than foreign corporations.) [Note: I'm not saying there is no corruption or dictatorships in nationalist countries, but I don't yet place Hugo Chavez in this category.]

There are, of course, many news outlets in the U.S. picking up on the WSJ story. Here’s an article from the Houston Chronicle that basically agrees with them. And then there’s the Falls Church News take on it.

The saddest part of all this is that the world has had the Hirsch Report available for most of three years, which essentially outlines that we need to start transitioning the economy off of oil at least 20 years in advance of peak.

And yet we are doing nothing. And those of use who are even talking about it are still considered fringe, and crackpots, just as we were when we talked about climate change 15-20 years ago.

I, for one, consider effective leadership as being out ahead of an issue before it’s a crisis, making plans and forming policy to keep future generations safe.

Where’s your so-called leadership now, Mr. Harper?

Glenn Hubbers Climate Change, Energy, Environmental, Media, Peak Oil

When it comes to energy supply, people can be grouped into two major categories. There are those of us who believe humanity must soon come to grips with a vastly reduced energy future and those of us who do not. The only gray area I see blending the border of these two groups are people who have some range of opinion over the urgency of the problem.

If you believe in growth forever, if you believe Peak Oil and Global Warming are just socialist conspiracy theories, if you believe that some magic future technology will save us so we needn’t worry, then this post (and pretty much my entire blog and world view) is likely not for you.

But for the rest of us who (although we may disagree over timing, urgency and the best course of action) are concerned about growing population, resource depletion, climate change, pollution and loss of biodiversity, I have a simple question.

How many ecosystems must we destroy before we begin to make the lifestyle change that is inevitable in any case?

Examples are numerous.  Today’s example is the Sacred Headwaters Basin, and I direct your attention to the web site focussed on this one, www.dogwoodinitiative.org

The web site and video which I’ve reposted below criticizes Royal Dutch Shell for their complicity in devastating this large natural area in British Columbia. But it could just as easily be talking about another part of the world (in fact they draw a direct comparison with the Niger Delta) or another company.

But the real problem is not that specific. Instead, I believe, the underlying problem is that our culture believes to it’s core that mankind owns the world, to do with as we please, even if that includes destroying it.  So there!  This is the same logic as displayed by a petulant child would does not want to share a toy with a sibling and belligerently breaks it claiming, “It’s mine and I’ll break it if I want to!”

The difference, of course, is that toys are something we can live without.

The natural environment?  No so much.

Glenn Hubbers Climate Change, Energy, Environmental, Green Policy, Peak Oil

Working in the energy industry, I receive a daily email (or two) from the Ontario Energy Association summarizing a long list of energy related articles in the mainstream media. Yesterday was no exception.

I noted an interesting contrast in the stories carried by various papers yesterday, including the Globe & Mail, the Toronto Star, the Kingston Whig-Standard, and the Sault Star.

As reported in a G&M article entitled, “Rise in global energy demands ‘alarming,’ IAE says“, the International Energy Agency predicts that “the ‘alarming’ rise in energy demand will speed up climate change, threaten global energy security and possibly create a supply crunch that will send already high prices soaring.” Their report predicts a rise in global oil production from 85 million barrels per day now to 116 mbpd in 2030. No mention of where this oil is supposed to come from, just the assumption that it will be there as demand rises.

The Toronto Star questions, “Is it too soon to bet on lower oil prices?” In their analysis, they don’t mention worldwide production, but they do blame high crude prices on the usual suspects such as growing demand by China and India, as if it’s an offense that they should be so demanding. They conclude with the rather silly statement, “in the longer term, not only America but also developing world economies will turn to alternative energy sources because oil has effectively priced itself out of the market.” [Emphasis mine]  Of course it’s true, the world will turn to alternatives. But might not that be for other reasons, rather than just supply and demand economics?

It’s really a shame that these large papers with national distribution are not viewing this from the same perspective of their smaller cousins.

The Whig-Standard’s “How we’re sleepwalking our way into an oil crisis” and the Sault Star’s “Who dares to tell the whole truth about the supply and price of oil?” actually raise the spectre of Peak Oil and question the ability of even reaching 100 million barrels per day, let alone exceeding that level.  They go further and question what we will do when the crisis is upon us and what should be be doing now?

The Whig-Standard hits the nail right on the head with their request to the Ministry of Natural Resources as to what is being done to address the issue. On Oct. 2, Natural Resources Canada responded, in yet another example of our government not thinking about the future, “At this time the department has no views on this issue.”

No kidding.

Glenn Hubbers Climate Change, Economics, Energy, Green Policy, Media, Peak Oil