Oil and Population

[RenewableCandy]

I'm usually a fan of Greer (though I do think he tends toward the prolix!) yet I too can detect that Usonian dread of "the State" in some of his musings. I think that very much detracts from what he ahs to say, but we are all products of our culture and that just happens to be his (country's).

Golem XIV warned in a recent post that we should be prepared (here in the UK) for a lot of "anti-big-state" noises emanating from HMG on the grounds that (for example) they want to break up the NHS, but everybody loves it. They want to start portraying it, not as a "national treasure" but as a "state monopoly". Please do not be fooled.

[Mr. Fox]

I'm usually a fan of Greer (though I do think he tends toward the prolix!) yet I too can detect that Usonian dread of "the State" in some of his musings. I think that very much detracts from what he ahs to say, but we are all products of our culture and that just happens to be his (country's).

Yes, similarly with Dmitry Orlov, Max Keiser or Jim Kunstler - they all exhibit certain aspects to their world view that some (me included) find distasteful, but I still read them, still benefit from doing so (even if it's just the entertainment value).

If we adopt an ideologically fundamentalist attitude and only read those who meet some puritanical criteria, we'll run out of reading material pretty soon.

I guess it's down to whether our own thinking is robust enough and we are secure enough in our beleifs to cope with the exposure to ideas that differ from our own without feeling threatened by them.

Thanks for the 'Golem' tip, BTW - I'd not read him.

[RenewableCandy]

Our Dima's just a mad Rrrussian. I can cope with that

[Little John]

I like Russians. I've met a few and can't quite put my finger on precisely why. But there is something about their cultural character I like,

[RenewableCandy]

How about "They're not scared of the dark and they have a fecking evil sense of humour" for a start ?

[Tarrel]

Plus a discerning taste for alcoholic beverages. (Even for breakfast)

[Tarrel]

Isn't being the 'greenest driver' rather like being the 'cuddliest rapist'?

Yes because being a "greener" driver simply diminishes the damage, but does not stop it.

No, because a rapist has a choice whereas, for all practical purposes, an average person wishing to function in any meaningful way in a modern Western industrial society, insofar as driving is concerned, has little choice.

If you did a graph with "need to drive in order to function" on the horizontal axis and % of population on the vertical axis, it would probably conform to a normal distribution. At the extreme right would be those fulfilling an important public service who need to travel to random places at unplanned times (doctors on call, emergency repair people and, yes, supply teachers). At the extreme left would be the city-dwellers for whom services, employment and friends are, at best, a walk away and at worst, a bus or tube ride.

I doubt we're going to have a big impact on carbon emissions by worrying too much about these two extremes, either by questioning how much they drive or how efficiently they do so. The ones to focus on are the big chunk in the middle. These are the ones for whom the "need to drive in order to function" could be considerably reduced by:
- Changes in planning rules to encourage more live/work spaces
- Changes in town-planning strategy to develop more walk-around, transit-oriented communities
- Personal life style changes
- Greater acceptance by organisations of tele-commuting and the destruction of the "office presentism" culture
- More omni-present public transport, in terms of route coverage and frequency

On this latter point, I had the pleasure, in the late '70's, to work in Friedrichshafen, Germany for a few months as a student. The town had an innovative bus service, known as "Ruf Bus" ("call bus"), technically described as a Demand-Responsive, Route-Deviation System. I didn't know much about the technicalities at the time, but as a practical way of getting about town, it rocked! Basically you walked to your local bus-stop and entered your required destination into a computer terminal (remember this was 1978). A few minutes later, the bus showed up and took you there. Only in Germany!

It worked through a combination of a central computer / call-centre working by radio with mobile terminals in the buses. As I understand it, the buses had notional routes that they travelled along, but they diverted off these in order to pick up and drop off passengers at other stops. There were many more vehicles on the road at a time, compared to a fixed-route bus system, but they were smaller and, in fact, were replaced by saloon cars during quiet periods.

I managed to find an article about it here:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=IzXD ... us&f=false

The description of the system starts on Page 33.

Friedrichshafen was a spread-out, suburban type of place. So this type of system was ideal. At the time, private car traffic densities were lower. In fact the system was piloted in order to try to mitigate the growth of car traffic. Whether it would work today with the current levels of personal car traffic, who knows.

[Little John]

Interesting post Tarrel. Thanks for that. On your main point about the central chunk of citizens being able to travel by public transport or by foot/bicycle for closer distances on the basis of a significant change in public policies to encourage and facilitate the above, I entirely agree. However, in the absence of such a significant shift in public policy, we should not expect much change in their behaviour voluntarily since such a voluntary change would significantly economically disadvantage them against their peers who were not equally willing to volunteer forgoing the use of a car. And therein lies the problem of free markets. They don't work in a resource constrained world where such resources must be rationed.

[vtsnowedin]

Interesting post Tarrel. Thanks for that. On your main point about the central chunk of citizens being able to travel by public transport or by foot/bicycle for closer distances on the basis of a significant change in public policies to encourage and facilitate the above, I entirely agree. However, in the absence of such a significant shift in public policy, we should not expect much change in their behaviour voluntarily since such a voluntary change would significantly economically disadvantage them against their peers who were not equally willing to volunteer forgoing the use of a car. And therein lies the problem of free markets. They don't work in a resource constrained world where such resources must be rationed.

Would not high fuel prices disadvantage car drivers and thereby let market forces determine the percentage of car drivers vs. bicyclist's?
Rationing systems are usually failures ripe with corruption. High prices will do the rationing for you more uniformly.

[Little John]

Interesting post Tarrel. Thanks for that. On your main point about the central chunk of citizens being able to travel by public transport or by foot/bicycle for closer distances on the basis of a significant change in public policies to encourage and facilitate the above, I entirely agree. However, in the absence of such a significant shift in public policy, we should not expect much change in their behaviour voluntarily since such a voluntary change would significantly economically disadvantage them against their peers who were not equally willing to volunteer forgoing the use of a car. And therein lies the problem of free markets. They don't work in a resource constrained world where such resources must be rationed.

Would not high fuel prices disadvantage car drivers and thereby let market forces determine the percentage of car drivers vs. bicyclist's?
Rationing systems are usually failures ripe with corruption. High prices will do the rationing for you more uniformly.

I didn't make the point clearly enough I think. It's not that free markets are necessarily bad at allocating resources efficiently. They are very efficient, albeit sometime extremely iniquitous. The problem I was trying to highlight is that they are absolutely useless at conserving resources that are becoming short of supply.

An example would be the trade in Rhino horn. As Rhinos are being hunted to extinction, due to a massive market in the far east for rhino horn for its use as a "medicinal" product and "aphrodisiac", the price of rhino horn climbs ever upwards. This means it become ever more profitable to hunt rhinos. Now, of course, there will be a growing demand destruction across the market place as this happens. But, there will always be an, albeit diminishing, number of customers prepared to pay the escalating price. right up to the point when there are no rhinos left. All the way down the line to the point of that extinction, rhino horns will have no doubt been "efficiently" allocated by the market.

I dare say that guy who chopped down the final tree on Easter island also got a hell of a price for his wood.

Free markets don't work in a resource constrained world.

[vtsnowedin]

Free markets don't work in a resource constrained world.

I would change that to say that free markets don't work in an over populated world.

[Little John]

Free markets don't work in a resource constrained world.

I would change that to say that free markets don't work in an over populated world.

Since, functionally, that amounts to the same thing, I'll not quibble the point.

[Tarrel]

Interesting post Tarrel. Thanks for that. On your main point about the central chunk of citizens being able to travel by public transport or by foot/bicycle for closer distances on the basis of a significant change in public policies to encourage and facilitate the above, I entirely agree. However, in the absence of such a significant shift in public policy, we should not expect much change in their behaviour voluntarily since such a voluntary change would significantly economically disadvantage them against their peers who were not equally willing to volunteer forgoing the use of a car. And therein lies the problem of free markets. They don't work in a resource constrained world where such resources must be rationed.

Agree. My point about the normal curve is that I think focusing on the far right of the curve can sometimes hijack the argument for driving less. I.e. "There are some people who always have to drive, therefore we all might as well drive."

If a government were to restrict the amount of driving, whether through taxation, price-controls or outright rationing, I think it would have a greater chance of success if it had laid the ground for acceptable alternatives first, through changes in planning policy, investment in public transport infrastructure, etc.

Sadly, there are many barriers to this taking place, including:
- the need for upfront capital investment in an increasingly credit-squeezed world,
- an electoral system that creates a short term (five year) focus
- governments pandering to the vested interests of various parties.

[Mr. Fox]

investment in public transport infrastructure...

No, no no! It's only when public money is spent on building roads, we're 'investing in the infrastructure of the Country'. All jolly good.

If we spend the same money on things like railways, we're 'subsidising a failing industry'. Irresponsible use of public funds, etc. Bad!

Subtle, yet crucial difference.



(and cheers also for the Ruf Bus info)