Guest post by Timothy Nerenz, Ph.D.
Earlier this year, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced the Green New Deal (GND), a public policy initiative whose central goal is de-carbonize the U.S economy in 12 years. She described GND as her millennial generation’s “World War II” and dismissed the question of how to pay for it with the response, “you just pay for it”. With all due respect to the Congresswoman, you don’t “just pay for it”, you pay someone to do it.
Just what is the “it” and who is the “someone” of the Green New Deal? In a recently published peer-reviewed article in the Journal of Human Resources and Sustainability Studies, I examined the scope of industrial mobilization that would be required to realize GND sustainability goals and proposed a conceptual blueprint and strategy to achieve them in the shortest feasible timeframe. Those who care to read it in its entirety can to so here: Thinking Inside The Box
But for those who wish to avoid slogging through the methodologies and citations of an academic paper, the bottom line is this: the millennials’ war on carbon might actually be winnable in a 20-year time span, but only if they are willing leave college and devote their working lives to producing the roughly $53 trillion of Green New Things which must be in place before carbon energy can be banned without completely collapsing the U.S. economy and starving the population. The journal article takes no position on climate change issues and does not argue for or against GND, it merely fills in the blanks so advocates and opponents alike can have some sense of what they are actually proposing and opposing. In strategic decision-making, the common vernacular for this step is a “sanity check”.
We know how many more wind turbines it will take to generate 100 quadrillion BTUs of energy, and we know how many of miles of high-speed rail it will take to replace aviation. We know the number of farms to be re-fitted with electric tractors and combines and such; we know the number of cars and trucks on the roads, and the numbers of off-road trucks, bulldozers, cranes, shovels, graders, and other diesel-powered equipment to be replaced. We know the number and configuration of new production facilities – factories, mills, refineries, mines, shops, etc. – that will be needed to make and service all this new stuff.
From there it is a matter of applying appropriate industry costing rules of thumb and available statistics on capacities and productivity curves for various construction and production processes to model out a matrix of time versus human capital applied to produce $53 trillion of Green New Things, and then identifying the barriers that would have to be eliminated to shorten the duration. The math is not particularly difficult – not nearly as complicated as predicting the average temperature of the whole planet at some distant point in the future. 24 million (mostly) millennials immediately repurposed to urgent GND industrial production could conceivably pull it off with a 20-year surge in manufacturing output and new product development. The keyword is conceivable, not certain or probable.
The historical record of World War II mobilization provides a template for the requisite urgent industrial mobilization of GND – Rep. Ocasio-Cortez got that one right. In constant dollars, GND is 26 times greater of an undertaking than the earlier wartime mobilization, but the blueprint left to us by the millennials’ great-grandparents offers the pathway to 20-year GND realization, provided a three-part strategy to replicate its productive ecosystem is immediately undertaken as the nation’s #1 priority, with numbers 2-n placed into indefinite hibernation:
• doubling of the current U.S. industrial base: building new factories, steel mills, mines, refineries, power generation facilities, and logistics terminals to produce Green New Things
• deconstruction of 65% of post-secondary education: repurposing of students, faculty, and staff to industrial mobilization, replicating the intellectual bandwidth of the 1940s mobilization workforce
• roll-back of the regulatory climate to 1940 levels: re-creating the conditions under which wartime mobilization was entrusted to the capable hands of capitalist industrial entrepreneurs.
Wait, what? Why deconstruct post-secondary? Because the most underappreciated characteristic of the Greatest Generation’s astonishing World War II achievement – indeed its secret sauce – was the intellectual profile of the work-force that was repurposed to wartime industrial production. In 1940, less than 5% of the adult population held college degrees, leaving most of the right half of the IQ bell curve available for duty in the nation’s factories, mills, mines, ports, and terminals, where 600,000 private firms and 24 million bright young housewives and farmhands spontaneously ordered themselves overnight to win the “war on can’t”.
And where we find an available not-working source of similarly suitable human capital to be immediately repurposed to GND mobilization? The first 16 million are sitting in college classrooms pursuing market-surplus and unwanted degree majors; the next 3 million are recent degree holders who are unemployed or under-employed and planning to return to school in hopes of salvaging sunk costs. Vacated classrooms will not need professors and staff and administrators, so another 1.5 million can be added to the tally. Each year, more will graduate from high school to volunteer for service in the cause of averting planetary extinction.
As one might expect, a proposal to deconstruct post-secondary has not been met with wild enthusiasm by my colleagues in academia, despite their overwhelming support for GND in the abstract. But to borrow another idea from the original New Deal, we have nothing to fear but fear itself. Deconstructing post-secondary by 2/3 would simply return it to the population proportions of 1972, my freshman year in college. There was no acute shortage of doctors, lawyers, teachers, therapists, nurses, philosophers, historians, architects, engineers, scientists, accountants, managers, and myriad other degreed professionals back then. We will be ok.
The second GND show-stopper is the current regulatory climate, which must be almost completely abolished, another idea not warmly received by GND advocates on campus, but necessary nonetheless. A case in point: replacing commercial aviation will require installation of over 46,000 miles of high-speed rail in 20 years, and operating within the current regulatory regime, the California HSR Authority has spent ten years and billions of dollars not-building a planned paltry 800 miles of the stuff. When the project was finally abandoned this year without a single usable mile of trackway to show for their trouble, the projected completion date had stretched to infinity, plus or minus never. We can have GND or we can keep the regulatory state, but we cannot do both.
And so there it is – a strategy for GND realization from a most unlikely source, a retired industry executive turned B-school professor. To win the millennials’ war on carbon in 20 years, we must immediately double industrial sector capacity, deconstruct post-secondary education by 65% while repurposing its inhabitants to a lifetime of industrial production, and roll back regulations to 1940 levels so that our American capitalists are left alone do what they do best unimpeded, namely get things done.
If the alternative to GND is indeed the certain Climate Change apocalypse its advocates promise, it is difficult to imagine what objections they may have to a plan that would avert it. And it is equally difficult to imagine why GND’s ideological opponents might take issue with re-industrialization, deregulation, and reliance on free-market capitalism, regardless of their opinions of climate science. “Moral truths” aside, the plain truth of GND is that $53 trillion of Green New Things will not build themselves, they will not be Tweeted into existence, and they will not appear magically by government decree.
So let the GND debate resume, only with a clear understanding of what it will take to walk the talk should it adopted as the nation’s top public policy priority.
Article reference:
Nerenz, T. (2019). “Thinking inside the box: A blueprint for Green New Deal industrial mobilization and strategy for human capital repurposing”. Journal of Human Resource and Sustainability Studies. Vol 7 No.3 Sept 2019
Author Bio:
Timothy Nerenz, Ph.D is a retired manufacturing industry executive turned business professor who has written and taught graduate courses in strategy, strategic decision-making, leadership, transformational change, and business law & ethics. He is currently a professor in The Graduate School at University of Maryland Global Campus and teaches in the MBA program at UMGC locations throughout Europe.
My favorite logic tool I use against AOC Green New Dealers is to point out that even if the succeed in killing the American economy and achieve zero emissions in America, China and India are still building coal-fired power plants that spew CO2.
Can AOC and her crews stop China or India? No. They don’t want to. They want to kill the American economy and makes us into a socialist or communist state.
“There is no such thing as public money, there is only taxpayers’ money.” (Margaret Thatcher, 1983). I suppose AOC was technically correct when she said ‘you’ just pay for it.
Free stuff and revenge are a lot easier to sell than sacrifice and working together.
Mods: I’ve changed my posting name due to working for a research organization that is involved in the field of climate change. I’ve had one close call and until I’m fully financially secure, I’d rather avoid the issue.
I hereby apologize for using the name
Alexandria Occasionally Coherent.
That was rude.
From now on I will use her real name and title:
Climate Perfesser Alexandria Ocrazio-Cortez
to show her the respect she deserves
for her $174,000 a year salary.
Ocrazio was her mother’s maiden name.
All Out Crazy, or Airhead Occasionlly Coherent, you mean?
Timothy Nerenz
“Earlier this year, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced the Green New Deal (GND), a public policy initiative whose central goal is (to)? de-carbonize the U.S economy in 12 years.
“but only if they are willing (to)? leave college and devote their working lives to producing the roughly $53 trillion of Green New Things….”
p.s. excellent post…
It is an excellent post!
But, but, but they, millennial’s, want the government to do it. To magically make it all happen. And they expect that it won’t alter their comfortable lives in any way.
They want to continue to go to college to learn meaningless Post-Modernist nonsense, hang out in safe zones, and communicate with their head down via smartphones where they complain about everybody that doesn’t agree that our country is fundamentally flawed from inception and virtue signal there love for everyone “intersectional” while deriding anyone who disagrees with echo chamber thinking as horrible ists, ots and obes.
So nope it could never happen.
But they’ve seen a documentary on how wonderful the post-carbon future is, so they know it’s true.
I think it was called ‘Star Trek’.
Yeah! And they made a movie out of the documentary were they added some evil asthmatic guy dressed in black who was a denialist xenophobe, who was also a misogynistic racist bigot, hell bent on destroying the world as a tune up to take down the universe.
I think it was called ‘Star Wars’.
Our “climate troubles” are barely one “.” in the scripts of Star Trek. A Captain Kirk is all we need.
Big difference between those in the “greatest Generation” and the current group of snowflakes. having just come through the great depression where even survival required HARD work, they knew how to tackle the problem and get after it. Today’s youngsters have absolutely no concept of work, and are basically incapable of doing much more than pushing buttons or swiping screens. Might just be why they are so insistent on open borders—let others provide for our survival. Not much chance of any NGD actually happening (thank you very much)
A new approach to advance a false premise is ‘excellent’?
Linda, I think he forgot the “Sarc” tag……
No, it really is excellent, with or without sarcasm. We’re stuck with at least talking about this monstrosity, we should do so in as honest and informed a manner as possible.
Linda, I assume that by “flawed premise” you mean acceptance of CAGW and our “need” to “fight” it. I disagree that it’s a bad idea to try to see what the Green New Deal would require in the real world.
The real flaws in the paper is the assumption that it’s physically possible to replace our entire infrastructure with “zero carbon” energy, no matter how much we assume it will cost or how long it will take. I read the paper, and a great many of the numbers used are way off target (e.g. 900 tons of material for a 5 MW wind turbine, when the base alone requires >1,500 tons of steel-reinforced concrete). That, of course, is not the only problem with it. As has been discussed at great length in WUWT, the problem of storing enough energy to keep things running when the wind isn’t blowing has no practicable solution, and never will. Magic “batteries” will never appear that are capable of handling the problem – it simply defies the laws of physics. There isn’t enough acreage in the United States to build pumped water storage to keep things going for more than a day or two.
And no one knows, or can know, what the effect on the environment would be of a system of windmills which removed kinetic energy from the atmosphere at a rate of several terawatts. Wind transports water, biological material, minerals, and heat over vast distances. But interrupt it to a giant extent, and what happens? Do we want to take such an enormous risk?
I would not rate the paper as excellent, but it’s not a bad “rule of thumb” (as opposed to “first order”) assessment, and doesn’t really pretend to be. From that standpoint, the author has been very honest and forthcoming, and I believe he deserves kudos for that, and for the considerable effort he has put into it.
Put all the students and professors to work in factories? Gee that sounds like a great idea. Might even move to the US so I can vote to make it happen.
I was going to say sarc off, but a lot of my US friends who are seniors might actually vote to make it happen. They are so annoyed with youngsters saying how bad they have it.
“Put all the students and professors to work in factories?”
I think you left out the most important ones, the politicians!
But would anything actually be produced by that workforce?
Excellent article! You are very much on track as to what would be needed if anyone were insane enough to try to make a country (near) zero emissons.
it is pointless tinkering at the edges (as the climate cult imagine it will be done), because if you buy a windmill, you have to account for the CO2 produced producing it, and all the people who produced it and all the teachers and civil servants who are needed for the people who produced it, etc. By the time you work it all out, you will find you don’t reduce CO2 output.
Instead, you do need a radical approach, which is to literally take the economy back to the level of activity that was present in the past. That would be certainly before 1970, and more than likely around the 1940s (which still had a substantial use of fossil fuels, but perhaps small enough that a few carbon indulgences and self-flagellation will offset the sin of using fossil fuels).
By literally starving the economy (and people), by removing most mechanical equipment such as vacuums, cars, etc., by rationing the goods we can buy, by forcing people to work on the land (and there will be no work producing things) you will rapidly reduce fossil fuel use and CO2 output to the climate cult’s Utopian world.
Indeed, even if not done intentionally, this is what will happen if you relentlessly pursue the climate cult’s stated goals.
A few extra thoughts:
The easiest way to cut carbon use with minimal pain is vasectomy – which will rapidly reduce the population and barring a few economic problems due to recession and the need to rigorously STOP immigration (not control), you can relatively harmlessly reduce fossil fuel use by a massive reduction in population.
That unfortunately would take around a lifetime (using 1 child policy), but as the young are so in favour of action, perhaps they as a generation might just forgo children altogether. Of course, an even quicker method is WWIII … but that may be controversial.
On the strategy of increasing manufacturing … that’s a non-starter. Instead, that will just increase economic activity which will only be possible by increased fossil fuel consumption. I would use the analogy of a fat person buying a load of “diet” foods to eat as a snack. You can’t lose weight = reduce CO2 output, by increasing the “diet” = Green products. You have to simply cut back.
However, one easy way to cut back, is to increase the manual labour content. So, e.g. if digging a canal, instead of using excavators, you use people. Instead of harvesting a field with a combine harvester, youngsters (who will now not need a degree) can be put to work in the hot sun harvesting.
I agree on deregulation … because private commerce is ALWAYS a lot more efficient at using energy and resources than government dictate. But you also need a mechanism to reduce economic activity. So, regulation of some form would be needed, whether a wage cap ($10,000 per household?) or rationing (only one pair of shoes a lifetime), etc.
The idea of replacing university degrees with working is an inspirational one. However, let’s not be ageist! It would be equally sensible to replace retirement with working! And … there are a lot of useless politicians … who would be much better utilised in the fields. You could also include the army (since you can’t afford to arm them or send them abroad anyway). There are a lot of civil servants who can also be diverted from tampering the temperature to experiencing the effects of solar (someone has to pull the plough and donkeys will be far too valuable replacing politicians)
And the other armed services as there’s no such thing as a zero carbon fighter jet….
In other words, do you really think we can run the world economy ( kazoo factories to steel mills) on windmills and solar panels?
If you follow the link to the steel mills, time mark 4:35 tells you about the 115 million watts of electricity required by the electric arc furnace.
AOC thinks CO2 causes asthma. That’s the clarity of thought you’re dealing with here.
Mike Haseler (Scottish Sceptic) August 17, 2019 at 2:58 am
…forcing people to work on the land…
Think Pol Pot’s Kmer Rouge and Cambodia in the ’70s
By the way is the climate cult contemplating a ban on fire?
Yes.
Lee L August 17, 2019 at 6:43 am
Yes.
I can’t decide if the fire question is sarcasm or not. Taking the Zero Emissions goal it isn’t, but in reality would they really go that far?
See NYT — Lawns are racist and bad for the environment…
So yes. Haven’t some places banned grills or wood stoves?
Does this mean AOC is going to stop flying and drive in electric cars only? Fat chance.
How about solar powered dirigibles? They’d be great for AOC.
Did your analysis include using soil carbon sequestration as an offset against carbon (CO2) emissions from fossil fuel combustion.
It has been mentioned in the Democrat Party debates.
A multi-billion dollar company launched a major initiative just 2 months ago:
https://www.indigoag.com/the-terraton-initiative
4.8 million acres were submitted to the initiative by the end of July. That’s over 1.5% in roughly the first 6 weeks.
Indigo Ag believes it can get widespread farmer/rancher participation for $15/tonne CO2e.
At 16 tonnes CO2e per capita US emissions, that’s $240 per capita per year of expense.
The US has ~1 acre of cropland per US resident and ~2 acres of range land. That is enough agricultural land to 100% offset US fossil fuel emissions via soil carbon sequestration.
Fyi: I’ve extensively studied soil carbon sequestration. The above is just a couple of the high-profile events of the last 3 months.
Greg Freemyer,
What is the cost of management to keep the higher soil carbon levels higher? Are you not required to transport a steady stream of C to the farms to raise the soil C, then a further stream to replace soil C taken away in the products, then to manage whatever higher demand there might be for water, other fertilizers like N, P, K, traces?
It is easy to conceptualise the soil carbon enrichment charm, but it needs management and management costs. How much? Geoff S
Here are the steps for a corn/soybean rotation farmer
– sell the moldboard plow tractor attachment
– sell the soil discing attachments
– use the money to buy a no-till seed drill/planter
– buy fall/winter cover crop seeds with appropriate soil organism spores in the seed coating (Indigo Ag sells these across the globe)
– immediately after harvest (as in the next day or even the same day), use the no-till seed drill to seed the field with the fall winter/cover crop whose function is to add nutrients to the soil
– let the cover crop grow threw the fall/winter/early spring
– use a roller-crimper to terminate the cover crop just before spring seeding. Some farmers put the roller-crimper on the front of the tractor and the no-till planter on the back so they can do both operations in a single pass over the field.
The cover crops will exude large amounts of carbon out of their roots and into the soil. That is how the carbon sequestration happens, not from mechanical means performed by the farmer.
Additional steps:
– reduce fertilizer application up to 80% after 3 years of improving soil health
– reduce herbicide application significantly from the first year
– reduce pesticide application as beneficial insects populate the field
The first couple years, the farmer indeed has a lower gross profit due to reduced yield, but starting in the 3rd or 4th year yield returns and gross profits grow above where they were before the switch to regenerative agriculture practices was made.
Has this been actually implemented, and with what results?
If has been implemented from South Carolina to North Dakota and in between.
Results are very positive. Carbon is being sequestered and by the 3rd or 4th year, farmers are seeing increased gross profits due to increased soil health.
As I said between mid-June and the end of July 1.5% of US cropland was submitted to participate in the Terratom Initiative.
They will have soil carbon levels measured between now and next springs planting. Then again a year latter. For every tonne of CO2 equivalent increase in carbon, they all be paid $15.
A typical farm has 40-80 tonnes of carbon/acre.
After 10 years of regenerative farming that should be 200 tonnes/acre or more.
Call it 120 tonnes carbon/acre of cropland worth of potential.
The US has 300 million acres of cropland, so that’s 36 GT carbon worth of potential. Ranch land doubles that so you have 70 GT carbon worth of potential.
That’s ~250 GT CO2 equivalent of potential. The US emits about 5 GT CO2 / year, so agricultural land in the US can offset the next 50 years worth of fossil fuel CO2 emissions!
Something is wrong in your steps.
1. Most corn and soybean harvests occur after the point when the ground temperature is too low to spur germination, at least in the central plains of the US. So your step “immediately after harvest (as in the next day or even the same day), use the no-till seed drill to seed the field” would be useless and a waste of good money for the farmer.
That means your step “let the cover crop grow threw the fall/winter/early spring” can’t happen.
Your step “use a roller-crimper to terminate the cover crop just before spring seeding.” means, even if it did happen, that you will shade much of the planted land with a layer of detritus which will dampen the growth of the money crop, perhaps even preventing germination.
I don’t know a farmer here in the central US that still uses a plow/disc preparation on their land. They have all gone to no-till already.
I think you need to come up with a better, more realistic plan.
Here’s the USDA NRCS cover crop planning guide for Ohio:
First published in 2007 – most recently updated in 2017
https://www.defianceswcd.org/uploads/1/1/8/5/118591432/appendix_a_cover_crop_3_1_17.pdf
Ie. Its not my plan, it’s official USDA guidance and it has been for a decade. But the knowledge base is still increasing every year.
Geoff,
I just wrote a clarifying answer to your question:
https://www.quora.com/How-does-carbon-get-into-the-soil/answer/Greg-Freemyer
Greg Freemyer,
Thank you for the response. It deals with how extra C can get into a soil. My interest is more in how you keep it there.
I have chemically analysed thousands of soils, from untouched to intensely farmed over the years, for total organic carbon. It is not the best indicator for the purposes of the discussion, but it seems to me that unmanaged soils simply lose the special C over years to decades. My questions to you are about what the cost of management is, to retain the special C.
Geoff S
The glomalin related soil proteins are a biotic glue that is highly durable. They arrest soil organic matter erosion.
But the glomalin eventually does decompose. It takes 30-70 years for 7% SOM soil to fully degrade from what I’ve read. The cost of maintaining the carbon level is the same as the cost of building it. You have to continue to replace the glomalin on cropland and range land forever.
But, it seems anecdotally that intentional carbon build-up occurs at least twice as fast as natural carbon degradation
Let me jump from cropland to range land. 250 years ago the prairies between the Mississippi and the Rockies were still pristine and had SOM levels around 7%. Why?
Grasses evolved to be grazed, but in a specific pattern. The large herds the predator species such as wolves created would roam a vast area moving from area to area often and not returning for weeks or months. Some of the massive herds in Africa have an annual migration pattern that is effectively a huge circle hundreds of miles in diameter.
What scientists have figured out about grasses:
– if fertilized with sufficient nitrogen fertilizer, they drastically reduce liquid carbon root exudation and thus the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) population shrinks. Less AMF means lower glomalin replacement levels. A many decades long drop in SOM levels ensues.
– if allowed to seed out, they drastically reduce photosynthesis rates. And again, the AMF population shrinks, glomalin replacement slows, and SOM levels fall.
– if the grass is mowed or grazed low (like our lawns are) then their isn’t enough leaf area to leverage all the sunlight via photosynthesis. Liquid carbon exudation rates fall. AMF population shrinks, glomalin replacement slows, SOM levels fall.
Thus for range land/pasture it is important that the grass be allowed to grow to near seed out, then be grazed down about 33-50%, and then allowed to regrow towards seed out. The process has to be repeatedly done.
And it has to be done decade after decade after decade. It has to become the steady state normal for the land.
Cropland with 5-7% SOM and range land with 5-7% SOM can be interchanged. 85% of plants live symbiotically with AMF and exude liquid carbon. The key to soil health and soil carbon sequestration is a focus on the AMF population in the soil. The AMF has to be well fed and their only source of food is liquid carbon exuded from plant roots.
Today’s thought leading rancher spends his mind-power on how to keep the soil organisms (including AMF) healthy. They in turn provide the grass the nutrients it needs, and the grass feeds the livestock. That’s what 100’s of millions of years of evolution perfected (or was it God?).
Here’s a video of Dr Allen Williams talking about it. He isn’t an originator of the range land management methodology, but he has brought a lot of soil testing and metrics to the forefront to document the increase in soil health due to adaptive rotational grazing.
https://youtu.be/IyA6W-Svrzs
Don’t forget that those large herds you speak of were primarily buffalo and antelope who hooves acted as natural aerators allowing water and air to percolate down to the root structure. Without this action prairie grass tends to build up mulch which eventually strangles growth. The only alternative is burning in the spring which, while controlling weeds and such, has its own drawbacks. It’s all not as easy to manage as it sounds.
So let me see if I understand what you or they are suggesting is a good idea, because $240/capita doesn’t sound like much.
That the Government spends $79Billion of Tax payers Cash to put 0.08% of the the USA’s CO2 in the ground to offset producing 0.08% of their CO2.
Well I would suggest that $79Billion could be better spent on Hospitals, Schools and infrastructure than using it to put some “Carbon” in the Ground that may or may not stay there.
Especially as the extra CO2 in the Atmosphere will help those said same farmers to grow more food.
And you would be wrong.
Forget climate change.
The world is suffering a massive cropland soil carbon deficiency crisis.
In the early 20th century farmers learned how to grow crops in low quality soil where all the nutrition the crops need is added to the soil annually via nitrogen fertilizer, soil amendments, lime, potassium, etc.
The nutrient value of farmland crops has dropped almost 50% over the last 70 years as the quality of the soil has degraded under real-world war 2 farming practices.
Restoring soil health to what it was when the first wagon trains headed across the prairies requires massive amounts of CO2. By change roughly what the US is emitting each year.
In a 4 or 5 decades US agricultural soil will be in optimum condition and we can then address/consider atmospheric CO2 levels.
The Indigoag site depends on farmers reaping carbon credits as additional income. In addition, a large part of the attraction of ‘going green’ is that ‘organic’ commands a higher price in the market. In the event that farmers went to ‘green’ methods wholesale, the market would be flooded with ‘organic’ food, and the price would necessarily fall. Profit from the ‘organic’ farms depends on it being a niche market. It also depends on Woofers here in Canada – young people who work for food and lodging for a summer.
The carbon credits are an incentive, but not necessarily something regenerative agriculture depends on.
Regenerative Agriculture is not synonymous with organic. But a farm can be both organic and regenerative.
And as I said by year 3 or 4, yields return to levels seen before the switch in technique. But expenses are lower, so farmers following regenerative practices are seeing higher gross profits.
For those that don’t know this is official from MOAA (North America Land Use offsets 1/3rd of fossil fuel emissions):
CO2 SOURCES AND SINKS OVER North America
CT2017 results indicate that North America ecosystems have been a net sink of 0.6 ± 1.0 PgC yr-1 over the period 2001-2016. This natural sink offsets about one-third of the emissions of about 1.7 PgC yr-1 from the burning of fossil fuels in the U.S.A., Canada and Mexico combined
Greg….
As a farmer, albeit not in North America, I find it somewhat amusing that you consider farmers – who are, after all, survivors in a brutally Darwinian industry – know so little about their own industry and cost structures.
But here’s the thing. The obvious way to convince farmers that there is a better and more profitable way to farm is to buy a farm with your own money, and run it more profitably than your neighbours…. Believe me, we spend plenty of time looking over the fence and PROVEN good ideas are rapidly adopted.
It’s a far better strategy than running around telling us that you know more about it than the people actually doing the job and paying the bills…… there is a long history of that kind of “expert”.
That’s your problem. You are TELLING, not SHOWING.
I know that you aren’t talking about organics per se, but you face the same problem that the apostles of organic farming face….. you aren’t actually SHOWING better profitability.
There aren’t any free lunches.
In the US there are numerous farmers leading the way. They have their own farms and they are walking the walk:
– here’s 5 farmers that got a US govt grant to try it on their farms starting in 2013-
https://www.farmers.gov/connect/blog/conservation/farmer-scientists-five-trials-managing-soil-health
– Gabe Brown – Brown’s Ranch – a 5,000 acre ranch in North Dakota – about 15 inches a year of rain, and one of the coldest US states – get on YouTube – he has a large number of videos – highly profitable
– David Brandt – a corn farmer in Ohio – Google him – poorly spoken, but an acknowledged cover crop thought leader – lots of videos – highly profitable
– Will Harris – A regenerative rancher – runs a Savory Hub site – again lots of videos – highly profitable – $28M/year in gross revenue from a 3,000 acre (1,200 hectare) ranch/farm. Georgia’s small business man of the year around 2013. I can buy his beef in my local big box grocer a mile from my house in Atlanta.
This presentation is about Will Harris’s ranch (White Oak Pastures)
https://blog.whiteoakpastures.com/hubfs/WOP-LCA-Quantis-2019.pdf
– Dr. Allen Williams – a researcher that started buying ranches personally over 10 years ago – https://youtu.be/IyA6W-Svrzs –
If you’re not familiar with regenerative agriculture today, you will be in 5 years. The concept is aggressively growing both in mind share and in application (# of acres/hectares being managed).
I just checked led the 2017 USDA 100% farm census if US farms.
153,402 farms used cover crops in 2017.
That’s 15-20% of all farms, but it was only about 5% of all US cropland.
It seems like a lot of US farmers are no longer looking over the fence. They are experimenting with cover crops on their own land.
The term cover “crop” is probably misleading. As I posted, most of these never reach maturity so are never harvested, at least here in the central plains. That makes them an expense instead of a revenue producer. If the short term benefits don’t outweigh the costs of the seed and planting then for farmers already operating on the margins find it impossible to make the investment needed to see the long term benefits.
Cover crops aren’t designed to be harvested.
They are chosen for their ability to increase soil health and in tease nutrients in the soil.
From a profit perspective the question is if the cost of the cover crop seeds and drilling expense is more than made up by a reduction in fertilizer, etc.
Nothing in the proposal resembles free market capitalism.
as soon as the uni student found they had to do manual labour
theyd change their minds
Gyms and i-twittering will be banned. A bit of outdoor exercise will do them a power of good.
” 24 million (mostly) millennials immediately repurposed to urgent GND industrial production…” I did not realize that there are so few of them. That was an interesting bit of information. That’s a big bunch of people with useless degrees, at loose ends, looking for something to do.
There is still a group of people called migrant workers – nothing to do with illegal immigration – who follow labor demands from one farm to another. I see absolutely no reason that these 24 millions could NOT be put to work doing the labor of harvesting on grain farms (corn, soybeans, wheat, oats, other grains ad infinitum) the way way that used to be done: by hand, e.g., tossing the harvested corn ears into a wagon drawn by draft horses (who, of course, would add their poop to the mix as fertilizer). The development of farm machinery to its current level is what supports the commodities markets in grain delivery. Even popcorn is considered to be a commodity.
I’m quite sure that not one of these millennials would mind spending their days and nights as cowherds or shepherds, regardless of the weather, minding the herds and shooting at predator animals, just like them there Olden Times. And wheat? You use one of those wide-bladed scythes to cut the stems, gather the stalks into bundles and tie them for pickup by the wagon (drawn by draft horses) and take them to the thresher, which is also horse-powered. The Amish do demos on this on a recurring basis. They also cook with wood-burning stoves, a skill that has been lost to almost everyone except those who have stayed with it.
I’m not deeply nostalgic for the good old days, but there were some things about it that I do miss. Popping popcorn in a wire basket corn popper over an open flame was a real skill. Microwave popcorn can’t hold a candle to it. It’s the reason I keep two very old oil lamps from my great grandmother available for emergencies.
Great article, Timothy. I was trained as a recruiter for a major company, supposedly as a reward, and visited Universities looking for both summer hires and also reviewed permanent hires for several offices. It quickly became obvious that for the majority of cases it was not what school or degree you had but could you perform your job. University settings are great for teaching the basics of a job sector, and teach students how to read the data particular to their sector, but rarely produce motivation, unless they encounter a truly motivating figure (lucky me as I did, in Graduate School). That having been said there is room for some (I like the 3% figure you cited) students to get quite advanced in their University studies, and even go to multiple degrees, and maybe work in their sector and return to a University to teach. This teaching by a Professor with a reality-based experience background is preferred, but becoming increasingly rare.
“This teaching by a Professor with a reality-based experience background is preferred, but becoming increasingly rare.”
Those who can do, those who can’t teach. This is not always the case but it happens enough to explain your term “becoming increasingly rare”.
Very interesting paper (and saw only one typo at reference 35, “gaduate”)! I’m wondering what effect the GND will have on financial markets through the period and their impact on government stability, retirement accounts and such; and, whether the transition will have available enough rare earth supplies to meet demand. My main concern is putting our entire transportation system onto a power grid that is so susceptible to disruption. Then, there’s the question of how the world’s governments are going to interact during this time as they seek to take advantage of any situation to improve their strategic interests.
Definitely thought-provoking.
I actually like the term gaduate, as in, university gaduates, these are people devoted to gadgets and little else, seems an eminently appropriate title.
Seems like a lot of work for a scam 🤔
Why do the environmentalists complain about CO2 emissions? Plants use carbon dioxide during photosynthesis,the process whereby the plant converts the energy from the sun into a chemical carbohydrate molecule.Plants use this carbon chemical to grow. Plants give off oxygen. The environmentalists should be happy about all this instead of complaining so much with their absurd, apocalyptic and alarmist attitude regarding CO2 emissions.
“Why do the environmentalists complain about CO2 emissions?”
Because they read and believe articles such as this …
Climate Change Could Kill Off Clouds And Return Us To A ‘Hothouse Earth’
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2019/02/25/we-could-be-on-the-verge-of-killing-off-clouds-and-returning-to-a-hothouse-earth/#7866346a13a5
Timothy Nerenz
“Earlier this year, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced the Green New Deal (GND), a public policy initiative whose central goal is (to) ?de-carbonize the U.S economy in 12 years.
“but only if they are willing (to) ? leave college and devote their working lives to producing the roughly $53 trillion of Green New Things….”
Let’s apply the Emily Litella style of analysis to the climate crisis, once it has become clear what the GND would actually require: “Oh, that’s very different. Never mind.”
No, all we’d have to do is to take down the fence bordering Mexico, and allow millions of folks from South America (and other places) in. They’d be delighted to work at $15/hour helping build a “green” economy, thus allowing the clueless generation their “right” to an advanced “education” so they can “find themselves” (or whatever” and get jobs at places like Starbucks. Problem solved.
Dr Nerenz, I haven’t waded through your academic paper. I’m just going by the article you have written above. But there are a number of issues which puzzle me. Warning: I am a layman, not an engineer or other scientist.
The only zero-CO2 emitting technology which could sustain a modern western civilization is nuclear power. This could be supplemented by hydro and geothermal, if the geography is favourable. But the green movement which opposes fossil fuels also opposes nuclear. They will only countenance wind, solar, tidal, etc. These are all intermittent producers of electricity and require reliable back up from proper power stations. We are not in a position where batteries can provide adequate back up and it is doubtful whether battery technology will ever be the solution.
Intermittency is not the only problem with wind and solar. Over here in the UK we recently had a major black out when 2 power stations tripped in quick succession. One was an offshore wind farm and the other was gas. The critical issue was that, at the time, a high percentage of electricity generation was coming from wind. This made the grid very vulnerable regarding the requirement to match supply and demand for power whilst maintaining the frequency within tight limits. When the power stations tripped, the system failsafes had to close down power to a substantial proportion of the country to prevent a domino effect from crashing the entire national grid. The grid was brought back on line thanks to the rapid introduction of power from proper power stations, i.e. fossil fuels. In a 100% wind and solar grid, this recovery would not have been possible.
There has been a lot of hoo-hah on your side of the pond in recent times about Russian hacking affecting various aspects of public life. In a 100% green USA, could hackers trip enough power stations to bring your entire grid crashing down ? Just a question ! If such a grid were to fail, it would be interesting to see how it could be recovered. Without electricity, there would be no working phone networks, landlines nor mobiles, with which engineers could communicate. There would be no functioning computers to diagnose and fix the issues. Engineers would not be able to get to the sites in their electric vehicles if these vehicles couldn’t be charged.
In the general community, no one would be able to get to their jobs, or do their jobs. ATMs would stop dispensing money, tills would fail to operate, food could not be moved from farms / plants to shops.
Another thing that puzzles me is whether it would be feasible to mine all of the materials needed for this ‘Brave New World’. I’m thinking in particular of the rare earth elements needed in the wind turbines and solar panels. Could these elements be produced in enough quantities and fast enough ? What would happen to the commodity prices ? Would USA become over-dependent on producers in countries with unstable or hostile regimes ?
The infrastructure construction for this re-engineering of the economy would, itself, require huge amounts of power generation. This is alongside the baseline energy to sustain a reasonable level for the economy. Where would this additional energy come from, bearing in mind that the entire project will struggle to replace existing energy sources, let alone produce the extra electricity to power the reconstruction work.
Your notions of replacing air travel by trains seems a bit insular too. You can’t build rail tracks across the Atlantic. Do you envisage container tankers being powered by sails ? Solar panels ?
You say that this conversion to 100% renewables is conceivable within 20 years. Sorry, you’ve not convinced me. In my opinion, a serious and sustained attempt to create an economy based only on wind, solar and similar renewables would lead to a collapse of western civilization. I don’t accept that climate change represents an existential threat either to humanity or the world in general. However, I do fear that climate change policies are an existential threat to modern life.
Mr David,
Methinks you have missed the forest for the trees.
From the tone of his article he does not really think that doing so is a good idea. He is simply using industry initial cost-estimate standards to outline IF such a thing might be feasible along with a rough order of magnitude estimate of the attendant costs. In granting that it is “conceivably possible” he has more clearly articulated the impracticality of doing it.
I found his rough back-of-the-envelope style summary enlightening. It surprised me that his numbers (allowing for a slide to 20 years instead of 10 or 12) actually put the thing in the “conceivably feasible” category. This is a nice bone to throw to those invested in the idea that plans like the GND are practical. It allows a walk-back with some face saving grace. They can now enter the practical world with the rest of us that it would be NICE if fairy dust and unicorn farts would power the ecomomy, but the cost-benefit of such. transition is not anything that even 99% of the current advocates would honestly support. Sun’Tzu would be proud of that tactic.
Plus he has added the amazingly funny term GREEN NEW THINGS to my lexicon and I am henceforth immediately culturally appropriating that from now on when discussing the cost(YUGE)/benefits(NOT MUCH) of every latest green proposal. In discussions with people actually interested in solving real problems with workable solutions it could help de-personalize the discussion so that civil discourse is easier to maintain.
Heaven knows we could use less acrimony and more humor and civility in our public discourse about this and many other contentious topics.
David, good comment – and yes it puzzles most of us on WUWT.
However, please don’t equate “zero emissions” with “zero carbon” because you can’t just use emissions and instead you would have to account for CO2 emitted during manufacture, and not only that, but also CO2 emitted by people doing the manufacture, and not not only that, but also the CO2 emitted by the teachers of the children, the civil servants processing the tax forms, the police officers, the army, and all the other ancillary functions that are needed to support people who manufacture, run and decommission nuclear (or wind, or hydro), not just in the U.S. but globally (you can’t be zero emission if you just get China to do everything that produces CO2).
To use a simple analogy, so far what has been attempted has been the equivalent of a fat person buying a diet snack …which they eat on top of their normal diet. It’s been entirely frivolous and the result has been no actual reduction in CO2 emissions (weight).
What is actually needed is not buying MORE (green) goods, but simply cutting back on all food (energy use). And no, to reduce CO2 emissions, you can’t start with the attitude: “we’ll spend a lot of money on fossil fuels to ‘invest’ in a green future”. In other words vastly increase manufacturing in order to produce “green” with a very dubious energy saving. Because that’s like the fat man having a huge meal in order to give themselves the energy to go for a run.
It was all satire. But you’re right, the GND is so totally absurd that even his treatment of it doesn’t go far enough. We should remember, too, that the GND is merely an extreme version of what many Democrats are proposing. Even Biden’s “middle-ground” war on carbon is still a war on carbon, with potentially devastating consequences.
I have been wondering how the military will operate under GND?
….What military ? How do you think they plan on paying for the GND ! Military, we don’t need no stinkin’ military…!
Socialist Seattle city councilwoman Kshama Sawant proposed just that. She said Boeing should stop making planes for war and make buses instead.
What’s it for? Haven’t got it to hand but one of the two ‘Climate Change The Facts’ books has a chapter (Lomberg? ) explaining that if the USA was to cut ALL CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS NOW it would reduce global temperature by 0.0017 degsC by 2100. Am I right?
A study of the UK Industrial revolution clearly shows that all of the main inventers had served a seven year apprenticeships . i.e. they all got their hands dirty.
So lets close down all of the so called Universities and instead revert to
on the spot training for everything. Example a Doctor could start as a junior nurse, and pick it up. If they are unable to so pick it up, then down to a less demanding job.
Having both lived through and worked during the 1940 years to the
1950 tees it was not that bad. Of course we would have a massive
withdrawal problem with all of the addicts to the modern electronics world.
As the article correctly showed, ironically we would have to produce lots and lots of CO2 to bee able to reduce the CO2 in he long run, .
Of course the moment we started it, and the present non e working class found out that they were expected to work, or starve, no social security allowed, we must all work hard to Save the World, I think that any ideas on their part about Green things would rapidly disappear.
Of course in the process China would take over the World.
MJE VK5EL
Fake News of the Greta’s CO2 free voyage.
The yacht’s crew is flying back to Europe together with her father, while Greta is staying in the USA. Replacement crew is flying from Europe to the USA to sail the yacht back.
Simple calculation shows that the Greta’s voyage CO2 footprint is at least double of that if she simply accompanied by her father had flown to the USA and back .
Where is Greta?
https://tracker.BorisHerrmannRacing.com
Let’s hope that it is not a hurricane spawning just south west of the Cape Verde islands
https://www.ventusky.com/?p=13.5;-29.8;4&l=wind-100m
Probably not the area she needs to be concerned about in the immediate future.
But this one might be:
http://hurricanes.ral.ucar.edu/realtime/plots/northatlantic/2019/al972019/track_early/aal97_2019081800_track_early.png
http://hurricanes.ral.ucar.edu/realtime/plots/northatlantic/2019/al972019/intensity_early/aal97_2019081800_intensity_early.png
Early yet, may not develop at all.
But if it does, it will be heading East and northeast, and then possibly curving back to the southeast.
#prayforhurricanes
Lots of Sahara dust in the air out over the Eastern Atlantic, with more coming:
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/particulates/surface/level/overlay=duexttau/orthographic=-42.12,16.69,302
Very little moisture in the air, overall:
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=total_precipitable_water/orthographic=-42.12,16.69,302
And sea surface temps are below the temp considered the minimum for tropical development and sustenance, everywhere east of longitude 40E:
http://trackthetropics.com/sea-surface-temperatures-ssts/
All in all, it appears that there are zero conditions at the present time that would favor development in the tropical north Atlantic.
The five day forecast and the current conditions (nearly cloudless) confirm the prior forecasts of no imminent development through the coming week.
How Likely Is a Runaway Greenhouse Effect on Earth? – MIT Technology Review
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/426608/how-likely-is-a-runaway-greenhouse-effect-on-earth/
(snip)
“But that raises an important question: is it possible that we could trigger a runaway greenhouse effect ourselves by adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere?
“According to the climate scientist James Hansen, that’s a distinct possibility. A couple of years ago, he wrote: ‘If we burn all reserves of oil, gas, and coal, there’s a substantial chance that we will initiate the runaway greenhouse. If we also burn the tar sands and tar shale, I believe the Venus syndrome is a dead certainty.'”
Hi Marv,
James Hansen is no fool, he just does his science in non-stand-alone components.
James Hansen predicted new ice age by 2021, ‘no need to worry about co2’
Washington Times, July 9, 1971,
NASA scientist using a “computer program developed by Dr. James Hansen” predicted an ice age would occur within 50-60 years. According to Hansen’s computer model, “they found no need to worry about the carbon dioxide fuel-burning puts in the atmosphere.”
Marv
What Hansen actually meant is that readers should put together both components of his research to get the final estimate of the future direction, i.e.
ice age cooling + run runaway greenhouse warming = 0, zero, nought, nulla. Yes ?
So Marv, the summary of Hansen’s vision of the future is that nothing is going to change.
Marv, look up Pythia of Delphi
He also said Manhattan would be under water by now.
I called it, but then again it was like calling the sunrise.
How does AOC’s and her cohorts make a million or two millenials take on arduous physical labour, and personal hardship when so many have been groomed since birth that their own internalized “no”, means “NO”? How does a production line / construction site function in the GND World when so many have been groomed to need Safe Spaces, and Crying Rooms for the tiniest of perceived micro-aggressions? Like being woke (pun intended) at 5am ?
Luckily for AOC, The Revolution already has a tried and true method of comradely encouragement. Her cohorts are morphed into commissars who will “excuse from work by Glock” five of the recalcitrant former students chosen at random in front of the thousand others. The others will dig, weld, mix cement, whatever.
Does Wednesday Addams look familiar to you?
Oh My Gawd.
I has not noticed. The resemblance is absolutely spot-on.
That Look You Get – when you are told you will spend the next two weeks on a sailboat in the middle of nowhere.
leitmotif wins the thread.