At the equator, a square meter gets about 1 kW of power, so every square kilometer gets a gigawatt of power. Take the area of a circle with radius of 6325km and you get a very large number of gigawatts. Plenty of energy, even before we get to wave power.

This doesn’t really address that we can’t use all of that power. I know. But its there. And it doesn’t address that people don’t realize how close we are collape. But the power is there.

Well, you are seeing something completely different from me, then. In the current economic model, there really is no way to encourage upstream changes to ‘ have the materials you want to extract in the future, rather than rapidly depleting them for the sake of shallow profits.’ Reason being, in our current economic model, anyone that follows that premise is in significant danger of getting swallowed up/eliminated before they will be able to take advantage of that long term strategy. Basic Prisoner’s Dilemma stuff.

Janene

But that’s not the same as the 6 billion dollar volume of daily trading on the carbon exchange.

I’m talking not about consumer end changes, but changes at the top of the upstream that are being made because it make good business sense to have the materials you want to extract in the future, rather than rapidly depleting them for the sake of shallow profits.

I believe for every politcal(E-85) and consumer(”organic” foods) fad, there are hundreds of small changes being made at the primary extraction level.

RTFB, I guess.

The green initiatives currently in place in Europe have developed slowly over many decades, allowing for a slightly slower growth rate rather than a decline.

But with our current energy problems, I don’t think we have enough time to do enough slowly… and the fact that the same energy issues are going to be impacting the whole world simultaneously complicates things even more…

I find myself torn on a lot of the green(generic sense) issues because so many of them are missing the forest for the trees… E-85 for example. So do you try and explain to people the complex, systemic nature of these things to try and encourage them to work on more useful strategies… or will that just discourage them from doing anything? Conversely, do you encourage them, knowing that it is not enough, just because they are at least trying to approach issues in a new way?

I dunno the answer…

Janene

I would say that the European Monoculture Economy has already collapsed, but rather than leave hungry people and empty fields and rundown empty buildings in its wake, one economy’s trash became another’s treasure, literally.

This is more than just a lifeboat strategy, it is a part of my strategy to take down civilization .

Tony, I think the fundamental problem with what you are talking about is that if we, as a culture of 6 Billion (or the US, or the EU, whatever) actaully DID what you are talking about on a massive scale it would create a massive decrease in complexity.

Economic Growth would stall/roll back (although great things would be happening, simply reducing energy needs would reduce economic activity OVERALL on a massive scale). If, as Jason/JM Greer suggests that any decrease in complexity/ reduction in growth could set of catabolic collapse (which I am certain of in the sphere of economics at least) then what you suggest becomes its own nemesis…

Janene

But all I’m saying is that we don’t actually need the energy we extract to provide the services we desire.
i think it’s posisble to use 50 percent less resources and still have at least the same level of services. But many of these improvements increase quality of life.

A big thing for me is what about the cost of runoff to fisherman?

basically, the ecnomy is structured so that the suppliers of inputs, be it gasoline or fertilzer, are the only one who experience profits. they are in fact, the top of the pyramid. Moving to biomicry spreads out the gains across the board, it dectralizes a great deal of our economy.