Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Death of the Future
So the housing ladder is now a snake and oil really is black gold, far too expensive just to stick in your car. Both of these may be reversed, but, if not, they will both be benign developments. A long term fall in house prices will cure the British of their unimaginative obsession with property and kill off all those neurotic TV shows about house makeovers. A long term rise in the oil price will force the application of new energy technologies - good for the planet and good for global politics. On the way, however, the pain will be excruciating and the politics distinctly tricky. Nobody seems to be thinking clearly about this, perhaps because it is assumed we are simply in the midst of a market convulsion that will pass or perhaps because, if it doesn't, nobody can imagine the politics of the future. Either way, there is a deathly hush about these matters. The future, having been the big cause of the Clintons and the Blairs, has become electorally toxic.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
The political silence is even greater concerning food prices. While I don't fully understand oil economics, I have spent my career doing crop genetic research and forecasting agricultural trends. The current food crisis is real and permanent, and likely to steadily worsen. It's driven by demographic trends in China and India -- higher per capita income leads to greater meat consumption and correspondingly less efficient use of cropland. Feeding grain to animals and then eating the animals requires ten times more cropland than direct consumption of grains by humans. And animal-generated methane and CO2 are both significant greenhouse gases. Which leads us to the effect of global warming, if real, on patterns of agricultural production. If you think the Russians are being strategically stingy with oil, wait until the agricultural productivity belt moves northward into their country. Fasten your seat belts --it's going to be a VERY bumpy ride!
ReplyDeleteThat's a happy thought first thing in the morning. If the future has truly become electorally toxic, we all might as well curl up in the fetal position and await death.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Anon, important info. And, Randy, why not live in the present? It's more fun.
ReplyDeleteAh the house makeover programme. I'm afraid Mr. A. that the makeover programmes are set to mushroom. If people cannot afford to move then they'll just do up what they have! Still the upside is that those dreadful 'move to the country' programmes and the ones where they buy you a dump at an auction will decline.
ReplyDeleteI laugh at these speculators - ha ha ha! if anyone calls I'll be down at the ashram...
ReplyDeleteDire predictionites, as long as the good citizens of Scotia have enough chip fat to deep fry Mars bars, kebabs and pizza they will not give a hoot for the outside worlds food supply problems. As for oil, their answer to Sepp Dietrich (A.Salmond) will sort that one out.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the food issue and its woes and the very dire warnings, forgive me for being cynical, I had a neighbour who was a professor of agricultural economics, he used to carry out the research and write the speeches for the Wilson Governments agriculture minister and later the EEU acriculture minister. Phrases like couldn't hit a barn door with a shovel spring to mind, I will take a rain check on the food issue. Oil and property, nobody can predict what will happen, either way, ain't worth worrying about, bugger all we could do anyway.
I think the only new tech we'll get from multi-nationals will be the nuclear option, which would be terrible.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is, Big Biz requires big 'systems' that smaller businesses cannot afford to keep themselves predominant. New tech would be simpler to run and maintain, thus giving smaller businesses the edge.
Before real change comes, this needs to be addressed.
Oh well, the news today is that interest rates will probably start rising again. If you don't have a car, don't eat meat and live in a tent, good times are here again! I guess the spectre here is mass unemployment as disposable incomes collapse. A lot of awful TV chefs will be joining the dole, which is good news I suppose.
ReplyDeleteLike Ian, I'm off to the ashram tonight. But Lama is insisting on higher donations from visitors. Hahaha.
We need the great Vince Cable on the case.
The future is toxic? Bryan would comfortably fill the role of a modern day Toxic Avenger.
ReplyDeleteha ha ha, but their money is no good here, mark - we have our own local currency now!
ReplyDeletelast one in digs the latrines! entirely compostable, of course...
I have a nearly ten-year old labrador retriever who is significantly adding to the greenhouse gas problem (animal-generated methane). Probably shouldn't have let her finish off last night's grilled corn and hamburgers....Sigh.
ReplyDeleteMalty -- I'm neither an academic nor (worse yet) a government bureaucrat. I work in private industry, which means I'm actually accountable for the quality of my work. If I am wrong, shareholders lose money; if shareholders lose money, I lose my job. Since I want to remain employed, I work hard to get it right. Most ag economists are soft-handed fellows who work in fluoresecence-bathed cubicles and have never seen a barn door, let alone tried to hit one with a shovel. I come from a background in crop breeding and have contributed my labor and expertise to the development of maize, soy, cotton, and rapeseed varieties grown on millions of acres globally. Finally, I grew up on a Colorado cattle ranch worked by my family continuously for 130 years (not long by European standards, I know, but notable in the US). Enough "street cred" for you?
ReplyDeleteSusan -- perhaps you could collect and dry your dog's droppings and use them as fuel for grilling your corn and burgers. By eliminating the need for charcoal and plastic doggie-doo bags, you could save a few dollars and balance your carbon emissions. Two pieces of advice from someone who's spent hours huddled next to cow-chip fires: stay upwind and use the indirect grilling method. Cheers!
Don't panic yet Bryan. Barack will see us through. He's the New Man for the new reality.
ReplyDeleteDon't look at it as something toxic, just think of it as the opening of a new space, full of wondrous surprises.
Bryan - I agree living in the present is more fun. That doesn't mean ignoring the future or taking account of the past. It seems to me that too many end up entrenched in the past or fearful of change.
ReplyDelete