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ShayBanerjeeFirstEssay 10 - 19 May 2015 - Main.ShayBanerjee
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< | Fossil Fuels: A Call for Transformation | >
> | Fossil Fuels: A Call to Action | | | -- By ShayBanerjee - 13 Mar 2015 | |
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< | Author's Note: This essay obviously deviates substantially from the original, but I also believe that it is more faithful to my original purpose. Ultimately I wanted to write an essay that integrated biophysical notions of historical development with perspective on a contemporary social problem. I am convinced that this essay does so more assertively than the last | | | Introduction
Enough games. It is time to get serious. | | | Despite these realities, the United States government continues to back the failing fossil fuel industry, and that mistake diverts from our economic strength. In addition to the government spending over $40 billion in subsidies on the fossil fuel industry, pollution from fossil fuels produces an estimated $120 billion in domestic health care costs. Moreover, the government has spent an estimated $8 trillion since 1977 to protect midstream oil flow in the Persian Gulf, and the amount spent in other regions is beyond calculation. Over the last several decades, our dependence on the fossil fuel industry has contributed to blundering foreign policy choices, multiple recessions, rising economic inequality, and a reduced moral standing in a world increasingly captivated by environmental politics. | |
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< | Time is of the essence. Fossil fuels will be replaced with energy sources better capable of providing for the needs of modern society. The question is no longer “if” but “when.” Alternative energy sources already undercut the price of fossil fuels in many regions, and, by some estimates, they will achieve complete grid parity by 2020. A storm is coming, and nations must reassert their economic positions in a changing world. | >
> | Time is of the essence. Fossil fuels will be surpassed by energy sources better capable of providing for the needs of modern society. The question is no longer “if” but “when.” Alternative energy sources already undercut the price of fossil fuels in many regions, and, by some estimates, they will achieve complete grid parity by 2020. A storm is coming, and nations must reassert their economic positions in a changing world. | | |
The Case for a National Solution | | | Mainstream economic theories have repeatedly failed to identify this fundamental truth. Instead, at different time periods, political economists have variously emphasized the relative roles of land, labor and capital. Yet land is only as valuable as the resources produced on it directly or indirectly by solar energy. Labor is nothing more than the harnessing of human energy. And capital is simply the technical equipment capable of utilizing an energy throughput. | |
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< | The underlying truth is this: when the predominant energy flow powering an economy becomes too costly, growth stagnates, nations become poorer, and societies collapse. Winning societies counteract this by revolutionizing the processes by which energy is acquired, stored, and put into production. Societies lacking foresight wait until it’s too late. | >
> | The underlying truth is this: when the predominant energy flow powering an economy becomes too costly, growth stagnates, civilizations become poorer, and societies collapse. Nations that lead counteract this by revolutionizing the processes by which energy is acquired, stored, and put into production. Nations that fall behind wait until it is too late. | | | | |
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< | At every recent turning point in human development, nations that prospered took a prominent role in promoting more efficient energy strategy through government involvement. America is no exception. Following the Great Depression, the processes underlying the New Deal and WWII unleashed electrical modernization on the American home and petroleum-based automobiles on the transportation sector. Decades before, the rapidly urbanizing North flexed its coal-fired industrial muscles, crushing the back of an antiquated Southern plantation system built around agricultural land and slave labor. Serious realignment of energy strategy has never been cheap or uncontroversial, but when history beckons, a Nation must answer the call. | >
> | At every recent turning point in human development, successful nations promoted more efficient energy strategy through government involvement. America is no exception. Following the Great Depression, the New Deal and WWII unleashed electrical modernization on the American home and petroleum-based automobiles on the transportation sector. Decades before, the rapidly urbanizing North flexed its coal-fired industrial muscles, crushing the back of an antiquated Southern plantation system built around agricultural land and slave labor. Serious realignment of energy strategy has never been cheap or uncontroversial, but when history beckons, a Nation must answer the call. | | | We have reached another turning point, and the basic infrastructure of the economy must be transformed once again. As always, cultural forces tied to the Old Ways are resisting, but we must continue unabated. Our Nation’s future demands it. | |
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< | Today, fossil fuels permeate virtually every system of production, distribution, and consumption in America. Our transportation systems, electrical networks, schools, hospitals, industries, and homes are powered by fossil fuels. Our economic welfare fluctuates with the availability and quality of coal, petroleum, and natural gas. The problem will not be solved with mere tax credits, fuel efficiency standards, or LEED certification stickers. | >
> | Today, fossil fuels permeate virtually every sector in the American economy. Our transportation systems, electrical networks, schools, hospitals, industries, and homes are equipped to run on fossil fuels. Something fundamental must change, and the federal government must change it. The grid must be torn down and rebuilt. New vehicles must be designed and distributed. Residences, public facilities, and office buildings must be renovated from the ground up.
No more excuses. We have work to do.
Author's Note: The topic of this essay obviously deviates substantially from the original, but I also believe that it is more faithful to my original purpose. Ultimately I wanted to write an essay that integrated biophysical notions of historical development with perspective on a contemporary social problem. I am convinced that this essay does so more forcefully than the last | | | | |
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< | Something more fundamental must change, and the federal government must change it. | >
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ShayBanerjeeFirstEssay 9 - 19 May 2015 - Main.ShayBanerjee
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< | The Battle for Eden: How Creeds Provide Meaning to the Patterned Chaos of Human Evolution | >
> | Fossil Fuels: A Call for Transformation | | | -- By ShayBanerjee - 13 Mar 2015 | |
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> | Author's Note: This essay obviously deviates substantially from the original, but I also believe that it is more faithful to my original purpose. Ultimately I wanted to write an essay that integrated biophysical notions of historical development with perspective on a contemporary social problem. I am convinced that this essay does so more assertively than the last | | | Introduction | |
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< | The most distinctive feature of human history is the great chasm in technological progress that has separated the different peoples of Earth. | >
> | Enough games. It is time to get serious. | | | | |
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Recent human history. It's hardly the most distinctive feature of human history before "civilization," or even of the first 9,000 years or so of that phase.
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> | America’s dependence on fossil fuels must end, and the federal government must end it. A 21st century economy requires a 21st century energy source, and fossil fuels do not pass muster. Like abolishing slavery or ending the Great Depression, this problem is too big for the free market to solve. The federal government must step up in a big way, and it must do so immediately. | | | | |
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> | A Losing Strategy | | | | |
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< | Some groups have accumulated enormous wealth and power, while others have been oppressed or exterminated. Why has this distributional pattern emerged the way it has? Why, for instance, has power become so concentrated in the hands of Eurasian descendants, while those of Africa, the Americas, and Aboriginal Australia have been subjugated or exterminated? | >
> | A developed economy in the modern era can no longer rely on fossil fuels as its principal energy source. Any suggestion to the contrary is outright denialism. The energy return on investment for fossil fuels plummets with each passing moment as the cost of exploration balloons and net yield on extraction declines. This fundamental economic reality has not changed in decades and no recent industry development can or will reverse the historical trend. | | | | |
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Here begins a confusion between technological progress and economic inequality, which grows more confusing as the essay proceeds.
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> | Peak oil and gas have come and gone, and the emergence of shale production did not change that reality. The so-called “Global Shale Revolution” was an embarrassing commercial failure, and the recent price crash has proven it. The undeserved hype surrounding shale led to over investment followed by overproduction, and now the industry is paying the price. Shale production depletes wells far too rapidly, offers dramatically few returns, and requires extreme levels of capital investment. Shale plays are therefore seeing dramatic cutbacks in the midst of the supply glut, as oil and gas drillers are instead reaching deep into their most productive regions. This development will only exacerbate long term cost pressures, and economies reliant on oil and gas companies will be caught bill-in-hand when there are no more low hanging fruits to pick. | | | | |
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> | The state of American coal is even more pathetic, as the last year has seen a record number of plants close, dramatic job cuts throughout the industry, and sharp consumer price increases. The principal causes of coal’s collapse are the skyrocketing costs of mining and depreciating yield quality, realities becoming abundantly clear not just in America, but also throughout the world. Instead of so much as feigning an attempt to fix its desperate state of affairs, American coal points the finger at the EPA. Blaming mild environmental regulations for a failing business model is the epitome of loser talk, and should be treated as such. | | | | |
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< | Rationalist explanations for global inequality occur in the form of two “umbrella” creeds. The first, “Biological Determinism,” treats the distribution as arising from the inherent superiority of certain ethnic or racial groups. Under this view, “winning” societies are more intelligent, more creative, and more innovative. The second creed, “Anti-Imperialism”, treats distributional inequality as the result of gross deviations from fundamental human values. The societies with the most, it is said, were the most chauvinistic, the most genocidal, and the most destructive. Both creeds serve to mask the underlying chaos of human systems. | >
> | Unable to salvage their business model through game-changing business strategy or technological innovation, fossil fuel companies are increasingly funding exploration campaigns with retained earnings. They also rely heavily on government subsidies totaling $500 billion globally. Countries possessing strong environmental movements are contemplating reducing or eliminating these subsidies, even if the United States is not. Many will impose carbon taxes or have already done so. There is a growing belief among world governments and institutions that fossil fuels are not a worthy investment. | | | | |
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As you show by finally getting around to Jared Diamond after the essay is 90% over, these are basically straw- and half-straw-men. Serious effort to think about your problem in the contemporary world uses neither 19th century scientific racism nor 20th century post-colonialism as its starting point. Diamond not only presents one form of answer to the precise question he taught you how to frame, he also presents a thorough if informal introduction to the other strands of contemporary thought bearing on it. Rather than treating the matter as though David Hume were a current contributor, you should take the opportunity to see where the discussion went after Diamond, and why. Charles Murray is not the answer.
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> | Despite these realities, the United States government continues to back the failing fossil fuel industry, and that mistake diverts from our economic strength. In addition to the government spending over $40 billion in subsidies on the fossil fuel industry, pollution from fossil fuels produces an estimated $120 billion in domestic health care costs. Moreover, the government has spent an estimated $8 trillion since 1977 to protect midstream oil flow in the Persian Gulf, and the amount spent in other regions is beyond calculation. Over the last several decades, our dependence on the fossil fuel industry has contributed to blundering foreign policy choices, multiple recessions, rising economic inequality, and a reduced moral standing in a world increasingly captivated by environmental politics. | | | | |
>
> | Time is of the essence. Fossil fuels will be replaced with energy sources better capable of providing for the needs of modern society. The question is no longer “if” but “when.” Alternative energy sources already undercut the price of fossil fuels in many regions, and, by some estimates, they will achieve complete grid parity by 2020. A storm is coming, and nations must reassert their economic positions in a changing world. | | | | |
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< | The Biological Determinist Creed | | | | |
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< | A powerful rationalist creed originates from the belief that human societies reflect meritocratic ideals. Implicitly or explicitly, it justifies the particular geographic and cultural patterns of distributional inequity as reflecting continuity in the universal biological order of mankind. | >
> | The Case for a National Solution | | | | |
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< | Biological determinists have long accepted the simplest explanation for global inequality: innate differences in intelligence, inventiveness, and work ethic provided Eurasians with an advantage over other peoples. The creed arises out of a shared intrinsic belief that societies accumulated power and wealth in accordance with their relative biological superiority. This view is summarized by 18th century British statesman David Hume: | >
> | Energy, and energy alone, determines economic power. | | | | |
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< | I am apt to suspect the negroes and in general all the other species of men…to be naturally inferior to the whites…Such a natural and constant difference [in civilization] could not happen…if nature had not made an original distinction betwixt these breeds of men. | >
> | Mainstream economic theories have repeatedly failed to identify this fundamental truth. Instead, at different time periods, political economists have variously emphasized the relative roles of land, labor and capital. Yet land is only as valuable as the resources produced on it directly or indirectly by solar energy. Labor is nothing more than the harnessing of human energy. And capital is simply the technical equipment capable of utilizing an energy throughput. | | | | |
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< | Biological Determinism underlies contemporary debates about distributional inequity in society. American welfare reform was heavily influenced by the work of Charles Murray, who argued that class structure and racial inequality were dependent on relative intelligence. Indeed, rationalist criticisms of government policies that “punish success” or “degrade personal responsibility” are logically incoherent without an accompanying belief that global inequality exists for meritocratic reasons. | >
> | The underlying truth is this: when the predominant energy flow powering an economy becomes too costly, growth stagnates, nations become poorer, and societies collapse. Winning societies counteract this by revolutionizing the processes by which energy is acquired, stored, and put into production. Societies lacking foresight wait until it’s too late. | | | | |
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< | On the opposite end it has now become commonplace for egalitarians to denounce any and all statements about variations in biology across human populations. A common example involves the public ridicule encountered by the neurologist Sir Roger Bannister when he famously “stressed the fact that black sprinters and black athletes in general all seem to have certain natural anatomical advantages.” Many saw the statement as reinforcing the “pernicious stereotype that blacks were closer to animals and therefore less evolved.” | >
> | At every recent turning point in human development, nations that prospered took a prominent role in promoting more efficient energy strategy through government involvement. America is no exception. Following the Great Depression, the processes underlying the New Deal and WWII unleashed electrical modernization on the American home and petroleum-based automobiles on the transportation sector. Decades before, the rapidly urbanizing North flexed its coal-fired industrial muscles, crushing the back of an antiquated Southern plantation system built around agricultural land and slave labor. Serious realignment of energy strategy has never been cheap or uncontroversial, but when history beckons, a Nation must answer the call. | | | | |
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< | The fear of reanimating dangerous stereotypes is legitimate, but the egalitarian criticism is not fully on point. The real problem is not the incorrect view that blacks are inherently more athletic, but that faulty premise underneath. There are few characteristics more evolutionarily advanced in humans than two-legged proficiency. Our less intelligent, ape-like ancestors were incredibly slow runners and poor leapers. Furthermore, even dark skin itself was an evolutionary adaptation over our primate ancestors, who possessed paler skin underneath their body hair. Biological determinists are not wrong because they acknowledge biological differences, but rather because any differences they find – real or imagined – do not establish genetic superiority, and fall short of explaining why some societies advanced more rapidly than others. | >
> | We have reached another turning point, and the basic infrastructure of the economy must be transformed once again. As always, cultural forces tied to the Old Ways are resisting, but we must continue unabated. Our Nation’s future demands it. | | | | |
>
> | Today, fossil fuels permeate virtually every system of production, distribution, and consumption in America. Our transportation systems, electrical networks, schools, hospitals, industries, and homes are powered by fossil fuels. Our economic welfare fluctuates with the availability and quality of coal, petroleum, and natural gas. The problem will not be solved with mere tax credits, fuel efficiency standards, or LEED certification stickers. | | | | |
<
< | The Anti-Imperialist Creed
An alternative creed focuses on Eurasian societies as more ethno-chauvinistic and genocidal. This creed explains inequality as primarily a function of morally objectionable behavior by Western Europeans. Individuals subscribing to this view emphasize the near eradication of Native Americans, the brutality of slavery, and the evils of the Crusades. Stated Malcolm X,
The collective white man had acted like a devil in virtually every contact he had with the world’s collective non-white man.
The Anti-imperialist creed is not incomprehensible one, but it fails because the notorious events of European history are more the result of disparities in technological progress than its cause. Social action is driven by a desire to accumulate resources and territory. Mammals are generally most hostile to other members of the same species, who are their toughest competitors. Similarly, conflict and violence have been conspicuous features across all human societies, not just technologically advanced ones.
The Chaos of Eden
As humans, we are attracted to the belief that we control our destinies and that patterns possess rational explanations. Thus, through creeds, we rationalize inequality as the result of conscious human action. The truth is that the global inequality defies such an explanation. Instead, it resulted from unconscious interactions with the global environment.
Jared Diamond explains cross-regional disparities through biogeography. The layout of Eurasia promoted the evolution of the fiercest and most efficient technologies. The first hunter-gatherer societies began settling down 10,000 years ago. At the time, the Fertile Crescent was in close proximity to nourishing, self-pollinating, and highly productive plants, including wheat, barley, and peas. The Crescent also boasted large populations of sheep, goats, cattle, and horses. Unlike zebras, kangaroo, or buffalo, these animals grew fat easily and possessed gentle dispositions amenable to domestication. The resulting innovations expanded seamlessly across the elongated east-west plane of Eurasia, but not elsewhere. Africa and the Americas are elongated north-south and thereby contained widely variant climatic conditions, while Australia was isolated by the straights of Wallacea. The geography of early human civilization thus forged a massive technological divide.
Diamond’s biogeographical explanation for the difference in technological progress is difficult to deny. Geographic and climactic variation across human society is far more substantial than biological or ethical variation. Yet for society to acknowledge the centrality of global environmental change would not be easy. It would be to no longer rationalize or pretend that humans are in control. We would have to admit that how we live, how we behave, and what we possess are intimately tied with the random chaos of a surrounding world.
The next draft should begin where this one ended, with Diamond's answer to Diamond's question, and your assessment of the state of the inquiry now, not as of the death of David Hume, or for that matter Frantz Fanon.
I make of the dialogue between you and Abdallah a need to restate that Diamond thinks he is answering a question, which grew out of a particular conversation Diamond had in New Guinea, with a theory about societies and their interrelationships, not about agents and their role in history.
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> | Something more fundamental must change, and the federal government must change it. | | |
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ShayBanerjeeFirstEssay 8 - 14 Apr 2015 - Main.EbenMoglen
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| | | Introduction | |
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< | The most distinctive feature of human history is the great chasm in technological progress that has separated the different peoples of Earth. Some groups have accumulated enormous wealth and power, while others have been oppressed or exterminated. Why has this distributional pattern emerged the way it has? Why, for instance, has power become so concentrated in the hands of Eurasian descendants, while those of Africa, the Americas, and Aboriginal Australia have been subjugated or exterminated? | >
> | The most distinctive feature of human history is the great chasm in technological progress that has separated the different peoples of Earth.
Recent human history. It's hardly the most distinctive feature of human history before "civilization," or even of the first 9,000 years or so of that phase.
Some groups have accumulated enormous wealth and power, while others have been oppressed or exterminated. Why has this distributional pattern emerged the way it has? Why, for instance, has power become so concentrated in the hands of Eurasian descendants, while those of Africa, the Americas, and Aboriginal Australia have been subjugated or exterminated?
Here begins a confusion between technological progress and economic inequality, which grows more confusing as the essay proceeds.
| | | Rationalist explanations for global inequality occur in the form of two “umbrella” creeds. The first, “Biological Determinism,” treats the distribution as arising from the inherent superiority of certain ethnic or racial groups. Under this view, “winning” societies are more intelligent, more creative, and more innovative. The second creed, “Anti-Imperialism”, treats distributional inequality as the result of gross deviations from fundamental human values. The societies with the most, it is said, were the most chauvinistic, the most genocidal, and the most destructive. Both creeds serve to mask the underlying chaos of human systems. | |
>
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As you show by finally getting around to Jared Diamond after the essay is 90% over, these are basically straw- and half-straw-men. Serious effort to think about your problem in the contemporary world uses neither 19th century scientific racism nor 20th century post-colonialism as its starting point. Diamond not only presents one form of answer to the precise question he taught you how to frame, he also presents a thorough if informal introduction to the other strands of contemporary thought bearing on it. Rather than treating the matter as though David Hume were a current contributor, you should take the opportunity to see where the discussion went after Diamond, and why. Charles Murray is not the answer.
| | | The Biological Determinist Creed
A powerful rationalist creed originates from the belief that human societies reflect meritocratic ideals. Implicitly or explicitly, it justifies the particular geographic and cultural patterns of distributional inequity as reflecting continuity in the universal biological order of mankind. | | | Diamond’s biogeographical explanation for the difference in technological progress is difficult to deny. Geographic and climactic variation across human society is far more substantial than biological or ethical variation. Yet for society to acknowledge the centrality of global environmental change would not be easy. It would be to no longer rationalize or pretend that humans are in control. We would have to admit that how we live, how we behave, and what we possess are intimately tied with the random chaos of a surrounding world. | |
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Comments
I have two questions: (1) Is there any place for human agency, and hence for human responsibility, in Diamond's account (which you seem to endorse) of global inequality? (2) On your view, is the randomness/chaos driving global inequality to be found solely at the starting point of human evolution, or is it a factor at work throughout the course of human societies?
-- AbdallahSalam - 26 Mar 2015
Abdallah: Humans are living natural beings. On the one hand, they are endowed with intrinsic natural powers to influence the objects around them. On the other, like other animals and plants, they are cursed with physical needs vital to their existence. The distinct activity underlying human development is the conscious deployment of the one to reduce the suffering caused by the other. As these activities accumulate over time, we call the result "technology."
You don't have two questions; you have one question posed two different ways. Basically, you are asking if I think humans are determined by the environment, by the entropy, by the chaos. And the answer is "no." Humans are not determined. They are conditioned. The first human builds a house out of the trees in the forest. Her daughter inherits the house and adds a fence to hold the wild animals she captures during her lifetime. Agency is fundamental to these activities, but agency is intimately tied with the surrounding objects, and the surrounding objects are in turn intimately tied with historical process.
-- ShayBanerjee - 29 Mar 2015 | | | | |
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The next draft should begin where this one ended, with Diamond's answer to Diamond's question, and your assessment of the state of the inquiry now, not as of the death of David Hume, or for that matter Frantz Fanon. | | | | |
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< | Thanks for your clarification. I agree with your last sentence. I think it is interesting to develop an account of how agency is intertwined with the surrounding, and the two-way relationship that exists between ourselves (both conscious and unconscious) and the environment. I only read part of Diamond's book several years ago, but I felt he emphasized the relationship from the environment to human beings more so than the other way around. | >
> | I make of the dialogue between you and Abdallah a need to restate that Diamond thinks he is answering a question, which grew out of a particular conversation Diamond had in New Guinea, with a theory about societies and their interrelationships, not about agents and their role in history.
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< | -- AbdallahSalam - 01 Apr 2015 | | |
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ShayBanerjeeFirstEssay 7 - 01 Apr 2015 - Main.AbdallahSalam
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| | | You don't have two questions; you have one question posed two different ways. Basically, you are asking if I think humans are determined by the environment, by the entropy, by the chaos. And the answer is "no." Humans are not determined. They are conditioned. The first human builds a house out of the trees in the forest. Her daughter inherits the house and adds a fence to hold the wild animals she captures during her lifetime. Agency is fundamental to these activities, but agency is intimately tied with the surrounding objects, and the surrounding objects are in turn intimately tied with historical process.
-- ShayBanerjee - 29 Mar 2015 | |
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Thanks for your clarification. I agree with your last sentence. I think it is interesting to develop an account of how agency is intertwined with the surrounding, and the two-way relationship that exists between ourselves (both conscious and unconscious) and the environment. I only read part of Diamond's book several years ago, but I felt he emphasized the relationship from the environment to human beings more so than the other way around.
-- AbdallahSalam - 01 Apr 2015 | | |
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ShayBanerjeeFirstEssay 6 - 29 Mar 2015 - Main.ShayBanerjee
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| | | Abdallah: Humans are living natural beings. On the one hand, they are endowed with intrinsic natural powers to influence the objects around them. On the other, like other animals and plants, they are cursed with physical needs vital to their existence. The distinct activity underlying human development is the conscious deployment of the one to reduce the suffering caused by the other. As these activities accumulate over time, we call the result "technology." | |
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< | Your questions are functionally equivalent. Basically, you are asking if humans are determined by the environment, by the entropy, by the chaos. My answer is "no." Humans are not determined. They are conditioned. The first human builds a house out of the trees in the forest. Her daughter inherits the house and adds a fence to hold the wild animals she captures during her lifetime. Agency is fundamental to these activities, but agency is intimately tied with the surrounding objects, and the surrounding objects are in turn intimately tied with historical process. | >
> | You don't have two questions; you have one question posed two different ways. Basically, you are asking if I think humans are determined by the environment, by the entropy, by the chaos. And the answer is "no." Humans are not determined. They are conditioned. The first human builds a house out of the trees in the forest. Her daughter inherits the house and adds a fence to hold the wild animals she captures during her lifetime. Agency is fundamental to these activities, but agency is intimately tied with the surrounding objects, and the surrounding objects are in turn intimately tied with historical process. | | | -- ShayBanerjee - 29 Mar 2015
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