Guest Post By Ronald Stein
Founder and Ambassador for Energy & Infrastructure of PTS Advance, headquartered in Irvine, California
Published March 11, 2020 at CFACT https://www.cfact.org/2020/03/11/social-changes-with-covid-19-are-a-prelude-to-life-with-less-fossil-fuels/
While the world is feverously trying to reduce emissions from fossil fuel usage, we get hit with the horrific contagious Coronavirus COVID-19. We’ve seen extensive self-imposed social adjustments to transportation that are very similar to what will be required to live with less fossil fuels in the future.
We’ve seen a serious reduction in the usage of the transportation infrastructures of airlines and cruise ships, as well as automobiles and trucks, and their impact on the leisure and entertainment industries, all to avoid crowds.
Before fossil fuels and the thousands of products made from petroleum derivatives, and electricity that followed, the world was a zero-sum snake pit that was a war against one another scrounging for food, water, and shelter. In the 1800’s most people never traveled 100-200 miles from where they were born. Life expectancy throughout Europe hovered between 20 and 30 years of age.
The social lifestyles before 1900 had no such transportation choices, as they had no autos, planes, or cruise ships for transportation. The inventions of the automobile, airplane, and the use of petroleum in the early 1900’s led us into the Industrial Revolution. Crude oil, natural gas, and coal changed – for the better – the lifestyles of every person living in developed countries such as, the U.S., Europe, Japan, South Korea, and Australia.
We would not be able to “make products and move things” if not for the thousands of products from petroleum derivatives that get manufactured from crude oil that wind turbines and solar panels cannot manufacture. A few of those products that are part of modern societies include:
Economies around the world, and all the infrastructures are increasing their demand and usage each year of those energy sources from deep earth minerals/fuels to make thousands of products, inclusive of but not limited to:
· Medications and medical equipment for cures for most diseases
· Electronics for worldwide communications
· Fertilizers to help agriculture feed the world
· Asphalt for all the roads
· Tires for all vehicles
· Steel for every building in the world
· Wire for the worldwide electrical grid
Today, the airlines that did not exist before 1900, transported more than 4.1 billion passengers in 2017 around the world and projections are 7.8 billion airline passengers by 2036. Cruise ships which also did not exist before 1900 move 25 million passengers around the world every year.
Along with those transportation options available for society, we also have billions of vehicle trips to and from airports, hotels, ports, and amusement parks that are increasing each year. COVID-19 has shown us that society changes can reduce the demand of those growing numbers.
Yes, we may be using fossil fuels too extensively for leisure and entertainment, but the developed world is where it is today, healthier and wealthier, because of all those products we get from those oil derivatives.
To meet those low emission targets, we’ll need to continue to reduce the transportation demands of society and COVID-19 may be showing us how we’ll need to retract from our extravagant usage of the various transportation systems that did not exist before fossil fuels.
Our future existence may be less vacations and less business conferences. Reductions in the usage of the entertainment and hospitality industries, neither of which existed before fossil fuels, may also be necessitated.
As we weed ourselves from oil, we’ll need to lower our demands for transportation infrastructures that COVID-19 has shown us the way.
As we weed ourselves away from fossil fuels, we’ll need to accept that many developing countries like many in China, India, and Africa that are still stuck in the pre-1900’s era that have yet to join the industrial revolution and the opportunity to enjoy the thousands of products in our daily lifestyles, may never do so as the fuels that support the demands of the various transportation infrastructures will be diminishing.
The same politicians that are thrashing on the oil and gas industry, and seeking its demise, are the same ones reaping the benefits of the medications, medical equipment, communication networks, and the thousands of other products from that industry that have contributed to their lifestyles and their ability to live beyond 80 years of age. Those vocal about emissions need to join the conservation movement.
Yes the world has changed from the societies that existed in primeval times, without airlines, trains, vehicles, merchant ships, medications, fertilizers, cosmetics, and military equipment like aircraft carriers, battleships, planes, tanks and armor, trucks, troop carriers, and weaponry, and electricity that did not exist before 1900, but now may be the time to start showing our conservation cards.
At a rapid pace more and more countries and governments are moving their energy policies toward ridding the world of fossil fuels to electrify societies using only intermittent electricity from wind turbines and solar panels. Electricity alone may support a simplifier lifestyle but cannot support the huge energy needs of the transportation infrastructures, nor provide the thousands of products that societies demand from those petroleum derivatives.
While everyone improves their conservation and efficient use of energy, it may be timely to begin weeding ourselves away from the transportation infrastructures, and the leisure and entertainment industries to the best of their abilities to conserve oil for where its most needed for society, to make the thousands of products that support lifestyles as well as worldwide sustainable economic development.
Ronald Stein, P.E.
Founder and Ambassador for Energy & Infrastructure
PTSadvance.com
The author’s message: this is what it could look like in either a “Green New Deal” economy or a so-called “peak oil” economy.
A “Green New Deal” economy would be self-inflicted.
So-called “peak oil” is contradicted by geophysical science.
The world is awash in oil.
And that doesn’t look to change for a long time… over 30 years.
Whatever restrictions may be imposed on society until the COVID-19 virus is contained will not have nearly as much impact as an effort to ban fossil fuels in the name of combatting “global warming”. Right now, governments are trying to cut down on international travel to prevent the spread of COVID-19 from places where there are many cases to those where there are few cases, which has obviously hurt the airline and tourism industries, but the fossil fuels needed for necessary transport (such as between people’s homes and jobs) are still available. Even if the virus spreads and more people need hospital care, no one would consider restricting the supply of electric power to hospitals to worry about what the climate might be like in 100 years while people need urgent medical care.
Yes, stock markets around the world are tanking, because investors in major companies are facing an uncertain future, and nobody knows right now how long this will last, while some epidemiologists are fearing exponential growth in numbers of people affected by COVID-19, which currently has a death rate of about 3 to 4%.
But what do we know about this virus? It has an incubation period of about two weeks, it can be deadly to elderly people with weakened immune systems, it doesn’t seem to affect young people, and some people diagnosed as positive have recovered. Right now there are a little over 1,000 known cases in the USA in a population of 330 million, meaning less than four people are affected per million people in the USA, and of those, 96% or so will survive the illness. The virus also is more contagious in cold weather than in warm weather, so that it may not be as virulent in spring as in winter.
Since there is currently no vaccine or known antidote, we want to restrict the spread of this virus as much as possible now, but what will happen in the next few months? If it continues exponential growth, the restrictions will remain in place, but if some months in the future the number of cases levels off or starts dropping, and many people who had been tested positive recover and are not contagious, people will want to get back to “life as usual”, and the restrictions will be lifted. Fossil fuels will then be available for those who want to use their energy for life as usual, and the stock markets will likely rise to their levels prior to the spread of this virus.
With COVID-19, we could expect a few months of hardship, followed by a return to normalcy. If a nation imposed the Green New Deal or something similar on itself, its people would be looking at decades of suffering and poverty, with the promise of nothing but slightly colder weather.
Remdesivir and chloroquine seem to be working, the us armed forces has taken a order to of Remdesivir to cover its service members if they feel unwell.
China and korea have been using the drugs and some reports I read state that the drugs work… I wrote on another post, that the us armed forces wouldn’t take such a risk on remdesivir if it didn’t work? Also the first american to get cov19 was treated with remdesivir and he recovered, and is still alive and well..
https://mobile.twitter.com/hashtag/Chloroquine?src=hashtag_click&f=live
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2020/03/10/army-signs-agreement-with-drug-giant-gilead-on-experimental-covid-19-treatment/
There are also reports out of China & South Korea that vitamin C therapy has a positive effect.
Of course, it’s well known that vitamin C has antiviral properties.
Take your vitamin C and concentrate on making your immune system work at top optimal level.
Also if you smile then quit now. If out of shape then get in shape. The fact that the young are not being affected by this virus speaks volumes to how overall health helps a person against virus.
Meant if you smoke lol
I thought maybe the viruses would sneak in through a smile.
I already did quit (smoking!). I decided that I’m going to quit sometime – it might just as well be before I die!
I’m looking for zinc acetate lozenges, and two places I’ve found that sell them are out of stock. I wonder if that’s a seasonal thing or a WuFlu thing
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4359576/
“Also the first american to get cov19 was treated with remdesivir and he recovered, and is still alive and well..”
And so are tens of thousands of others that didn’t take it. You can’t conclude anything based on a sample of one. You will need a lot more data from a controlled blind study that has thousands in both groups before you can conclude anything about the effectiveness of any treatment/drug.
True. That person may have gotten better in spite of the toxic drug he was given.
Someone had mentioned liver damage from remdesivir, but I’ve seen no cited research indicating that this is observed. Human safety data exists and researchers suggest that its benefits can outweigh any harm. There are several positive reports, including this study dealing with MERS infected rhesus loydo macaques.
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/02/12/1922083117
Ah, alarmists are estatic people are dying, aren’t they? Saves them from destroying the human parasite. Vile, contempible creatures. Of course, a whole bunch of these people will be sick, dead or employed, but it’s what they want…..
Wait until no one maintains cell service or internet. THEN tell those millienials this is what Crazy Joe and Uncle Bernie want for them.
A lot of travel today is un-necessary meetings that can be conducted electronically, with high definition video and rich audio. The author here completely fails to mention the internet and all the things that are now possible remotely. Even remotely controlled robotics in clinical settings. Medical consultations via videoconference.
And the bright-side is all those ridiculous UNFCCC-COP and IPCC meetings, their pre-meetings, and pre-planning meetings, pre-pre-planning meetings need to go. Gone. Preferably along with the UNFCCC nonsense, but at least putting all those meetings via videoconference will eliminate the many thousands of rentseekers taking boondoggle vacation to Tahiti and Paris on OPM. We’ll see how popular it is to be on an IPCC AR chapter panel when most of meetings to exotic locations are eliminated and pushed to the internet.
Zoom enterprise teleconferencing is used worldwide and in China also.(symbol ZM). Full disclosure: I own a few shares.
I Graduated from HS in 1960. In a graduating class of over 200, there were only two seniors that had a vehicle to drive to school daily and a few others that had access for occasional school use. In one class we did a count of families with more than one car. And, NO this was not New York City were few people owned a car. In this class of over 30 there was only one student that indicated their direct family had more than one car. Today, more than half of the sports complex area we had back then is now a parking lot for kids driving to school.
“ In the 1800’s most people never traveled 100-200 miles from where they were born. Life expectancy throughout Europe hovered between 20 and 30 years of age”
According to Wiki, which is more or less consistent with histories I’ve read, European (and North American) life expectancy was steady at about 35 years from 1500 to about 1850, until modern health care started to develop. It reached about 45 years by 1900, and has of course increased steadily since then.
Ronald also seems to think the industrial revolution started in about 1900, and seems to be unaware of the role of coal in industrial-scale iron smelting (1709), dewatering underground coal mines (1712), powering factories (1775), rail transportation (1825), steamships capable of crossing the Atlantic under their own power (1843) and phenol – the first antiseptic – (1860).
As for not travelling far from home, he might want to consider the hundreds of thousands of European immigrants who not only crossed the ocean to his own country, but crossed the colossal width of that country by wagon train, their numbers exploding after the transcontinental railroad was built (1869).
Rant away against the stupidity, feel free. But try and get your history straight; it’s a requirement for those of us trying to claim the moral and intellectual high ground.
+ a whole big bunch
I thought this article was a parody at first, but now I see he is actually serious.
Don’t just do something, stand there! As I see it, without the wonderful firehose of “information” many of the people who got this disease would have done their usual self medication, maybe take off work, and been about their own life unconcerned, and with normal amounts of toilet paper in the house. That didn’t happen so here we go with as many things as we can think of to stop the disease. Well that train left the station and the only way out is for community immunity to save the day. That will require either many people becoming ill or widespread vaccination. Both will be accomplished to some degree within 12 months. The world will renew itself and we will go back to our normal lives driving and visiting and working and probably getting sick yet again during the next flu season . No, this isn’t the end of the world as we know it. Oh, and thanks Smart Rock for setting the history straight, we needed that.
What the climate scietists are not able to think abou in concern of COP xy, the UEFA, Union of European Football (soccer) Associations is able to do,:
They iinvite to a video conference to discuss the further proceeding in European football and the dfent championhips under the regime of Corona.
Should this outbreak be within another species in a natural environment we would consider it normal, essential and healthy: nature doing its culling
If it were not for this process of natural selection that drives evolution we would not be here today. The day that humans gain full control over this process is the point at which we are in big trouble
I am glad that we still have challenges without remedies. Besides, I find this event the most interesting in my relatively long lifetime. I dose of reality in our plastic lifestyles. It also lays bare the fickle power of the financial and political institutions that rule our lives. One sneeze and they fold
The ‘enemy’ is big Mumma
Coronavirus is mutating, similar to the common cold. Don’t put too much hope on a vaccine.
https://academic.oup.com/nsr/advance-article/doi/10.1093/nsr/nwaa036/5775463
The americans are working fast
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/12/human-trials-testing-coronavirus-vaccine-could-begin-within-a-few-weeks.html
“As we weed ourselves away from fossil fuels, we’ll need to accept that many developing countries like many in China, India, and Africa that are still stuck in the pre-1900’s era that have yet to join the industrial revolution and the opportunity to enjoy the thousands of products in our daily lifestyles, may never do so as the fuels that support the demands of the various transportation infrastructures will be diminishing.”
Developing countries will most likely be given a pass to use fossil fuels in order to catch up ‘standard of living wise’ to developed nations on their way down. Ive read enough about this issue to conclude that this is in fact, by design.
“While everyone improves their conservation and efficient use of energy, it may be timely to begin weeding ourselves away from the transportation infrastructures, and the leisure and entertainment industries to the best of their abilities to conserve oil for where its most needed for society, to make the thousands of products that support lifestyles as well as worldwide sustainable economic development.”
What this is really saying is that low and middle income people will be hearded into high-density cites in wooden fire-trap sky rises with very little, living basic short lives, under 24/7/365 total surveillance and unarmed. Why? So that the important rich people can enjoy their vast wealth without having to deal with us average vermin who just aren’t as smart and important as these rich people. The rich people need to be able to travel easily, us average vermin are currently in their way and are consuming too many resources. Imagine having billions of dollars but can’t use it to buy much because there isn’t enough resources to build cool things the rich want.
By the way, anybody think rich people would be living simple, basic lives among us average people in the future sustainable world? Of course not. They will be living in the country, in sprawling mansions while we are caged up in mega-hell-hole cities.
My money thinks its possible this entire global warming, resource depletion concern has been concocted mainly by rich people and rich foundations (Rockefeller comes to mind). I think they use their vast wealth to fund many, if not most of the science studies that technocrats then use as policy guides to vastly lower our lifestyle and freedoms.
To the list of stuff made from fossil fuels add hand sanitizer.
https://naturalgasnow.org/clean-hands-andy-in-stunning-reversal-endorses-natural-gas/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=clean-hands-andy-in-stunning-reversal-endorses-natural-gas
Data from the Diamond Princess cruise suggests that COVID-19 is a relatively benign disease for most young people and not as deadly as we think.
Here are excerpts from an article by Jeremy Samuel Faust entitled COVID-19 Isn’t As Deadly As We Think.
“The most straightforward and compelling evidence that the true case fatality rate of SARS-CoV-2 is well under 1 percent comes not from statistical trends and methodological massage, but from data from the Diamond Princess cruise…
“A quarantined boat is an ideal—if unfortunate—natural laboratory to study a virus.
“In China, 9 million people die per year, which comes out to 25,000 people every single day, or around 1.5 million people over the past two months alone. A significant fraction of these deaths results from diseases like emphysema/COPD, lower respiratory infections, and cancers of the lung and airway whose symptoms are clinically indistinguishable from the nonspecific symptoms seen in severe COVID-19 cases.
“During the peak of the outbreak in China in January and early February, around 25 patients per day were dying with SARS-CoV-2. Most were older patients in whom the chronic diseases listed above are prevalent. Most deaths occurred in Hubei province, an area in which lung cancer and emphysema/COPD are significantly higher than national averages in China, a country where half of all men smoke.
“This is where the Diamond Princess data provides important insight. Of the 3,711 people on board, at least 705 have tested positive for the virus (which, considering the confines, conditions, and how contagious this virus appears to be, is surprisingly low).
“On the Diamond Princess, six deaths have occurred among the passengers, constituting a case fatality rate of 0.85 percent…. The most important insight is that all six fatalities occurred in patients who are more than 70 years old. Not a single Diamond Princess patient under age 70 has died.
“(In other words) The true case fatality rate, known as CFR, of this virus is likely to be far lower than current reports suggest. Even some lower estimates, such as the 1 percent death rate recently mentioned by the directors of the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, likely substantially overstate the case.
“In the early days of the crisis in Wuhan, China, the CFR was more than 4 percent. As the virus spread to other parts of Hubei, the number fell to 2 percent. As it spread through China, the reported CFR dropped further, to 0.2 to 0.4 percent. As testing begins to include more asymptomatic and mild cases, more realistic numbers are starting to surface. New reports from the World Health Organization that estimate the global death rate of COVID-19 to be 3.4 percent, higher than previously believed, is not cause for further panic.
“… another thing that’s worth remembering: These patients (on the Diamond Princess) were likely exposed repeatedly to concentrated viral loads (which can cause worse illness). Some treatments were delayed. So even the lower CFR found on the Diamond Princess could have been even lower, with proper protocols. It’s also worth noting that … many patients with chronic illnesses go on cruises.
“This all suggests that COVID-19 is a relatively benign disease for most young people, and a potentially devastating one for the old and chronically ill, albeit not nearly as risky as reported.”
An even better way of calculating risk that bypasses the uncertainty of how many have been affected, how many will get serious symptoms and how deadly the virus is for the affected is total death rate pr inhabitant. With this calculation China has 2.15 pr million. A normal flu death rate is between 100 and 300 per million so the flu is 100 times as dangerous and we accept that every year.
From what I can glean, the virus is not any more deadly than any other flu.
The problem is that the spread is so rapid that it is overwhelming acute care capacity in Italy.
Vulnerable people are not getting respiratory care , resulting in death.
It is worth pointing out that it is only the western world that is ‘feverously trying to reduce emissions from fossil fuel usage’. China and India are just as feverishly increasing theirs to take up the manufacturing momentum that has been and is being sacrificed by the west.
An even better way of calculating risk that bypasses the uncertainty of how many have been affected, how many will get serious symptoms and how deadly the virus is for the affected is total death rate pr inhabitant. With this calculation China has 2.15 pr million. A normal flu death rate is between 100 and 300 per million so the flu is 100 times as dangerous and we accept that every year.
I’ve heard about the theory of an abiotic origin for oil. Where is your claim best substantiated? I think Russia have used the idea to successfully discover and drill new wells, have they not?
“…The inventions of the automobile, airplane, and the use of petroleum in the early 1900’s led us into the Industrial Revolution…”
There was me thinking the industrial revolution began in the late eighteenth century…
Perhaps he meant “weening”, instead of “weeding”?
It just shows how ignorant he is that he made that mistake 3 times.
CoViD-19 is a symptom of Mass Hysteria.
Covid 19 (aka “the media virus”) shows life based on ignorance, fear and stupidity. It leads to life in a prehistoric mentality, no connection to reality, where any scary story drove people to suicide and insanity. I really don’t see any connection to life without fossil fuels, except that fear of CO2 is one of the current ways to try and destroy society. It’s about fear and superstition, lies and harm. A return to the Dark Ages. And it’s definitely working. Idiots buy out TP and all kinds of stuff, like locust in a plague. There is zero thought in these people and there of more them than the rational type. All the cancelled seasons, etc.
The moron here that is the “infectious disease expert” cancelled a tournament because of Covid 19 (Wyoming has ONE case, 200 miles from the tournament) but won’t cancel schools. The fool thinks these kids have a protective bubble at school and at home or something magical. Also, obviously, none of their parents travel in the oil fields. So cancel a tournament and leave HUNDREDS of possible cases out there because you won’t cancel schools. This is an “expert”????? A witch doctor maybe, but scientist, NO.
If this continues, the people wanting a war are going to get it in the form of crazy panicked populations raiding and stealing (see Venezuela). Already, college students let out early “celebrated” by damaging cars and breaking windows. It will only get worsel The disease is nothing compared to what is to come from the panic. I only hope the media is the first target since it was their idea.
“Sheri March 13, 2020 at 8:46 am
Covid 19 (aka “the media virus”) shows life based on ignorance, fear and stupidity.”
Well said. Here in Australia people have gone mad for toilet paper. Organisations and authorities have shutdown events and gatherings. Sporting events are held but with no spectators or fans. The Melbourne F1 GP has been cancelled due to one case of an infection.
My manager has just informed everyone in her team that the company has now stated working from home is mandatory from Monday.
An entire multibillion dollar sports league called the NBA cancelled their entire season when one player tested positive for the virus, and he was not even having any symptoms.
Baseball and hockey soon followed suit.
When are they gonna start playing again if one person getting exposed caused the cancellation?
The only logical time would be if we have a cure, or if no more people have the virus anymore.
Which may well be never.
A vaccine may be found, or maybe not. In any case, anyone who thinks it will be within a year has no idea what they are talking about. There is no way health authorities in the US will sign off on abandoning over 100 years of accumulated wisdom about how to make sure a new drug is safe and effective.
Antivirals will be found to work, and some thing we already have will work for some people, but not for everyone, until much testing and research identifies a combination of drugs that will do so.
But given how hard it is to get people some to take any drug, let alone a vaccination for something they have not been exposed to yet, let alone the cost, some program of giving everyone a drug or vaccine is unlikely to happen right away even when such things are identified and tested and approved.
A year or two from now nearly everyone will likely have been exposed, and the virus may even be too variable over time, for something tested now to be much use in 18 months, even if it works.
Rare good news: COVID-19 should be treated with high amounts of intravenous vitamin C. Do a search for “Shanghai Government Officially Recommends Vitamin C for COVID-19” on Orthomolecular Medicine News Service. Intravenous, not oral.
This is what is called anecdotal information.
Worthless as a source of information on safety and efficacy.
It is already known that most people recover after a short period of illness.
Vitamin C has been studied extensively for decades, and only a small number of studies have ever showed any specific benefit, and only then for a certain population and only a small and limited effect on likelihood , severity, or duration of colds, and no effect when given after someone has a cold or the flu.