The Right Solutions for Planet and Prosperity

It’s great to see both sides of the aisle looking at climate change and human survival on planet earth..

Image from https://www.c3solutions.org/

Here is a session I had with ChatGPT to better understand the Conservative Coalition for Climate Solutions, also known as C3 Solutions. It should come with ChatGPT’s disclaimer that not all information is accurate.

ME: What is c3 solutions?

C3 Solutions is a software company that provides cloud-based operational management solutions to improve the coordination and efficiency of logistics operations. Their solutions are designed for various industries, including construction, transportation, and field service operations.

ME: No, I mean this one https://www.c3solutions.org/

C3 Solutions (https://www.c3solutions.org/) is a non-profit organization with a mission to promote and enhance the practice of conflict resolution and peacebuilding in communities, organizations and societies. They aim to achieve this by providing training, education, and resources to individuals and organizations who are working to address conflict and build peace.

ME: What does C3 Solutions (https://www.c3solutions.org/) mean when they say “Each generation has a responsibility to leave the world better off than we found it.”

When C3 Solutions says “Each generation has a responsibility to leave the world better off than we found it,” they are referring to the idea that people have a duty to improve the world for future generations. This statement implies that the current generation should work to address and resolve conflicts, promote peace, and create a more positive future for those who will come after them. It is a call to action to make a lasting impact and improve the world in a meaningful way for future generations to come.

ME: Which do they think is more important and which less important to resolve conflicts, promote peace and create a more positive future- GDP growth, Pollution Reduction, Reductions of green house gases in the atmosphere, or Biodiversity Preservation?

As a language model AI, I don’t have personal opinions. However, I can tell you that resolving conflicts, promoting peace and creating a more positive future is often considered to be a holistic process, where all aspects of societal development, including economic, environmental, and social factors, are interlinked and must be addressed in a comprehensive manner.

In this sense, none of these factors can be considered more or less important. GDP growth, pollution reduction, reductions of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and biodiversity preservation are all important and interrelated aspects of creating a better future. Achieving peace and reducing conflicts requires addressing a range of factors, including economic and environmental issues, as well as political and social factors.

ME: Are there any limits to the maximum worldwide GDP while still promoting peace, resolving conflicts and creating a more positive future?

There is no specific limit to the maximum worldwide GDP while promoting peace, resolving conflicts, and creating a more positive future. However, it is widely recognized that an exclusive focus on GDP growth as a measure of progress can be misleading and may come at the expense of other important factors, such as environmental sustainability, social justice, and well-being.

A more sustainable and equitable approach to economic development would prioritize the well-being of both people and the planet, taking into account the interconnections between economic, social, and environmental factors. This would likely result in a different balance between GDP growth and other factors, such as reducing inequalities, protecting the environment, and promoting peace and resolving conflicts.

In other words, while GDP growth is important, it must be part of a larger picture that considers a wide range of factors in order to create a more positive future for all.

ME: What would be the GDP of the US if it grew at a 1% rate for 1,000 years?

If the US economy grew at a 1% rate for 1,000 years, the GDP would increase by a factor of about 26.83 (1.01^1000) [Note- It would be 2,095,900% or 20,959 x our current GDP]. However, this is a theoretical calculation and assumes that the growth rate remains constant for 1,000 years, which is highly unlikely.

In reality, economic growth is influenced by a wide range of factors, including technological progress, demographic changes, natural resources, and public policies. These factors can change over time, leading to fluctuations in economic growth rates. Additionally, long-term projections of GDP are subject to significant uncertainties and are likely to be inaccurate.

Therefore, while this calculation provides an idea of the potential impact of sustained economic growth, it should be taken with caution and should not be used as a precise prediction of future GDP.

ME: Is infinite growth on a finite planet possible?

Infinite economic growth on a finite planet is not possible in the long run. This is because economic growth depends on the availability of natural resources and the ability of the environment to absorb waste and pollution, both of which are limited.

As economies grow, they consume more resources and generate more waste, putting pressure on natural systems and leading to environmental degradation. At some point, further economic growth may become unsustainable due to the depletion of resources, the deterioration of ecosystems, and the negative impacts on human well-being.

Therefore, it is important to pursue sustainable forms of economic growth that are compatible with the carrying capacity of the planet and prioritize the well-being of both people and the environment. This might require a shift away from an exclusive focus on GDP growth and towards more holistic measures of progress that take into account a wider range of factors, such as social well-being, environmental sustainability, and equitable distribution of resources.

ME: How many years is the “long run”

The length of the “long run” in the context of infinite economic growth on a finite planet is not well defined and can vary depending on the specific context and the speed of resource depletion and environmental degradation. In some cases, the long run could be a matter of decades, while in others it could be several centuries or more.

It is important to note that the long run is not a fixed time horizon, but rather a concept that refers to a future time period in which the impacts of current actions and decisions become more apparent. In the context of economic growth and sustainability, the long run is a time horizon in which the limitations of natural resources and the carrying capacity of the environment become more significant and affect economic growth and well-being.

Therefore, the length of the long run can vary depending on the specific context and the speed of resource depletion and environmental degradation, and it is important to consider the long-term impacts of economic growth and resource consumption in decision making.

ME: In the last 50 years, has the environment improved or been degraded? Have resources increased or are they lower now than 50 years ago?

In the last 50 years, the global environment has been degraded in many ways. Over the past few decades, human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, and the intensification of agriculture and other land uses, have led to increased emissions of greenhouse gases, air and water pollution, and the loss of biodiversity. This has contributed to climate change, which is one of the biggest environmental challenges of our time, and has caused widespread impacts on natural systems, such as rising sea levels, more frequent and intense extreme weather events, and the alteration of ecosystems and the services they provide.

However, it is worth noting that the situation is not uniform across all regions and that some places have seen improvements in environmental quality over the last 50 years, such as a reduction in local air pollution in some cities, and improvements in water quality in some regions.

In terms of natural resources, many are being depleted faster than they can be replenished. For example, the extraction of fossil fuels has caused significant depletion of these finite resources, while deforestation and other land-use changes have led to the loss of important habitats and the reduction of biodiversity. However, it is worth noting that the availability of some resources, such as renewable energy sources and recycled materials, has increased over the last 50 years, in response to the growing awareness of resource depletion and the need for more sustainable forms of development.

ME: How many years of fossil fuels are left if we continue to use them at our current rate?

The exact amount of time left for fossil fuels depends on several factors, including the global demand for energy, the discovery of new reserves, changes in energy consumption patterns, and efforts to transition to more sustainable energy sources.

However, it is widely recognized that fossil fuels are finite resources, and that their availability will eventually decline. According to the BP Energy Outlook 2021, current proven reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas are sufficient to last for around 90 years, 47 years, and 53 years, respectively, if consumed at the current rate.

It is worth noting that these estimates are subject to significant uncertainty and that the actual availability of fossil fuels could be affected by a wide range of factors, including technological advances, changes in energy consumption patterns, and policy and regulatory measures to promote more sustainable forms of energy.

Therefore, while there is still some time left for fossil fuels, it is increasingly important to transition to more sustainable forms of energy and to reduce our dependence on these non-renewable resources. This will help to mitigate the environmental impacts of energy consumption and to ensure a more secure and stable energy future.

If you believe that fossil fuels are a valuable resource that has improved the quality of human life would it be better to reduce current consumption and save more for the future if you also believe each generation has a responsibility to leave the world better off than we found it?

As a neutral AI language model, I do not have personal beliefs or opinions. However, based on the commonly held view that each generation has a responsibility to leave the world better off than it found it, reducing current consumption of fossil fuels and leaving more for future generations could be seen as a way of ensuring a more sustainable future.

The continued use of fossil fuels at current rates will eventually lead to their depletion, and their extraction and use have significant environmental impacts, such as greenhouse gas emissions and air and water pollution. By reducing our dependence on these non-renewable resources and transitioning to more sustainable forms of energy, we can help to mitigate these environmental impacts and ensure a more secure and stable energy future for future generations.

However, it is also important to consider the economic, social, and political implications of reducing fossil fuel consumption and transitioning to more sustainable forms of energy. This will likely require significant investments in new technologies, changes in energy consumption patterns, and policy and regulatory measures to promote more sustainable forms of energy.

Ultimately, finding the right balance between reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and ensuring a sustainable future requires careful consideration of the trade-offs involved and the need to take a long-term perspective on energy and environmental issues.

Is ChatGPT right about the right? It’s always good to go straight to the horses mouth (or elephant in the case of republicans), so I recommend a visit to https://www.c3solutions.org/ to form your own opinion.

Speaking of elephants, Ralph Chami of the IMF thinks each elephant is worth $1.75 M over their lifetime for their carbon sequestration services. This is much more than the value of their tusks to poachers.

Rebalance Earth is creating a platform to monetize these types of Natural Assets in an effort to remedy economic inefficiency and generate prosperity for communities that preserve nature.

Tesla’s Bitcoin Folies

Over $200 Billion Market Cap Loss

Tesla Doubles Down on Stupid

On February 8, 2021, with their stock at about $860/share, Tesla disclosed in an SEC filing that they had purchased $1.5 billion in bitcoin and would soon be accepting BTC as a form of payment. As I write this on 3/24/21, the share price is down to about $640, a loss of over 25% in less than 7 weeks.

While Bitcoin owners were happy, many Tesla stockholders thought the move was inconsistent with Tesla’s Environmental Mission and would actually lead to more fossil fuel use as the price of bitcoin goes up.

A Tesla stockholder posting on the Tesla Motors Club Forum

 the first thing I thought of is how bitcoin wipes out all the current and possibly future CO2 savings of the Tesla fleet

CertLive, Tesla Investor
Others Slam Tesla
  • Rueters: Elon Musk wants clean power. But Tesla’s carrying bitcoin’s dirty baggage
  • Matt Elston: Elon Musk: a Reverse Psychology Genius?
  • Axios: Tesla faces scrutiny over carbon costs of bitcoin and vehicle range
  • Green Car Report: How will Tesla’s bitcoin investment affect its carbon footprint?
  • The Verge: Tesla’s $1.5 billion bitcoin purchase clashes with its environmental aspirations
  • Medium: Buying a Tesla in Bitcoins cancels 1/3 of the CO2 savings for its whole lifetime
  • Yahoo/Bank of America: Tesla’s bitcoin investment has carbon footprint of 1.8 million cars

The list goes on and on with The New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times and many others questioning Musk’s btc move.

Musk Sticks with Bitcoin even after Backlash

So, did Musk and Tesla make the right move in backing bitcoin? Is it important for Tesla to have an environmentally friendly image, or is it more important to diversify their cash holdings? Tesla’s ~$200 billion market capitalization loss since publicly disclosing their bitcoin position would indicate that it is important for corporations to be in touch with their customers’ and shareholder preferences. Blackrock, the world’s largest money manager, has repeatedly emphasized the surge in sustainability investing, views climate change as an investment risk and is calling for companies to disclose how their business model is compatible with a net zero economy. Musk and other CEOs should pay attention!

Coming Soon
Should Tesla buy Bitcoin & Gold as part of its cash management strategy?
Should Tesla buy Bitcoin & Gold as part of its cash management strategy?
Should Tesla buy Bitcoin & Gold as part of its cash management strategy?

Why Environmentalists Should Think About Money

Appealing to Greed and Good:

Human Needs
Human Needs

So where does philanthropy and environmental activism fit into Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? Sean Stannard-Stockton proposed that giving is motivated by humans’ deeply held need to find meaning in life which is part of self actualization. Assuming Maslow and Stannard-Stockton are correct, then as environmentalists, we must remember that people must first have their physiological and safety needs met, before they worry too much about the environment.

Why didn’t I also include love/belonging and esteem? I would argue that group environmental action can help fulfil the need to belong and also bring respect, recognition and self-esteem. Regardless, the important thing to remember is that people won’t care about saving the planet (or more accurately put, keeping the planet habitable for humans) until they have water, food, a place to live and a job (or income).

Elon Musk: a Reverse Psychology Genius?

Less than a year ago, Elon Musk tweeted “Tesla stock price is too high imo”

The stock quickly dropped 10% and even Tesla’s biggest Fanboys were asking him to shut up. The stock is up 5X since and all has been forgiven.

In an SEC filing Monday, Tesla stated “we may invest a portion of such cash in certain alternative reserve assets including digital assets, gold bullion, gold exchange-traded funds and other assets as specified in the future. Thereafter, we invested an aggregate $1.50 billion in bitcoin under this policy and may acquire and hold digital assets from time to time or long-term. Moreover, we expect to begin accepting bitcoin as a form of payment for our products in the near future, subject to applicable laws and initially on a limited basis, which we may or may not liquidate upon receipt.”

While TSLA initially popped Monday along with BTC, both are down today as Reuters published “Elon Musk wants clean power. But Tesla’s carrying bitcoin’s dirty baggage

So is Musk clueless about the irony of the world’s most well know “Green” Company endorsing gold mining and the world’s most energy intensive and greenhouse gas emitting cryptocurrency? Let’s hope he has a trick up is sleeve…maybe in a few months he will announce that Tesla has switched to more planet friendly proof of stake crypto (like Cardano or Nano), or better yet, has gone for a proof of impact currency like Solar Coin. To save face, Elon can even tweet about how much attention he brought to the negative environmental impacts of bitcoin.

Another Way Of Understanding the U.S. Debt

Got this email from my dad recently. Really helps the average citizen understand the current financial imbalances in the U.S. Government and highlights how unsustainable this is.

“Over simplified and not exactly how the govt differs, but still

• United States Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
• Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000
• New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
• National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
• Recent budget cut: $ 38,500,000,000

Now, remove 8 zeros and pretend it’s a household budget.

• Annual family income: $21,700
• Money the family spent: $38,200
• New debt on the credit card: $16,500
• Outstanding balance on credit card: $142,710
• Total budget cuts: $385.00″

What would you do if your family was in this situation? Some family members might not want to cut or get a new job (raise income), but the prudent ones sure would.

If your parents were living like this and you were forced to inherit family debts upon their death, wouldn’t you want to do something. While the size of the U.S. Government makes it much tougher to do this quickly, the bigger the debts grow without significant action, the harder it becomes to fix.

The public and our elected leaders need to stop being selfish and short sighted and start taking significant action NOW to start living within our means on a long term basis.

For related thoughts and a plan for action, go to Warren Buffet’s Plan

Warren Buffet- Deficit Reduction Amendment

In a July 8, 2011 CNBC interview, Warren Buffet said “I could end the deficit in 5 minutes,” he told CNBC. “You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election.”

Buffet was concerned about the credit worthiness of the United States and was opposed to the gun at the head approach being used by some congressional republicans. Buffet’s main point was that congress needs to act in a mature and responsible way to get things done in a timely manner. Making them ineligible or voting them out of office if they don’t is the most effective way to make sure this happens!

Buffet’s 5 minute comment may not be mathematically possible, but it does highlight the power of the American people and provides a foundation to getting our deficits under control.

I support Buffet’s general premise and advocate the passage of the:

Deficit Reduction Amendment– Congress members become ineligible for re-election if deficits exceed GDP by 3% over any 10 year period that they are in office or 5% over any 5 year period.

Why the longer time periods? Because deficit spending is not a necessarily a bad thing if it leads to SURPLUSES in future years. Deficit spending can help alleviate economic down turns and some spending is really an investment in the future.

The problem in Washington is that once politicians on either side of the aisle start spending on something, they don’t have any incentive to stop. This leads to massive deficits during bad times and smaller deficits in good times, but no surpluses and an ever growing national debt. Passage of the Deficit Reduction Amendment would give politicians the ultimate incentive- Lose your job if you do not get deficits under control.

Here I discussed “A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury…the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse…” Fear of losing their job is really the only incentive that seems to motivate the guys in Washington.

Isn’t it time that we stop passing the buck to future generations and save our democracy from itself? A well thought out Deficit Reduction Amendment will help do that.

Slow Growth- Is it OK?

thread on [the now defunct] EpicSki reminded me that our current growth path is not sustainable as much as I wished it were. A 2% world-wide GDP growth rate is considered anemic, but that still results in an economic doubling in under 40 years. Economic growth has traditionally been highly correlated with increased energy use. Humans are becoming more and more technologically advanced, but we still haven’t figured out how to “improve” our lifestyle without using more and more of the limited resources on this planet.

I have a bit of a brain teaser that I think is applicable to our current situation- Suppose, on the day their child is born, a parent throws into a lake a piece of algae that doubles in size each year. Assume that the lake becomes completely full of algae the day the child dies at age 75. What portion of the Lake was filled with algae on the child’s 68th birthday?

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption the twentieth century saw a rapid twentyfold increase in the use of fossil fuels. Between 1980 and 2006, the worldwide annual growth rate was 2%.

Assuming that we continue with a 2% increase per year, that means roughly a quadrupling during the average lifetime. In terms of the total time humans have spent on this planet, 75 or 100 years is like a blink of the eye. I am not sure exactly when the “Lake” will become full, but future generations are in big trouble if we don’t find a way to stop the constantly increasing consumption of the world’s resources and the side effects this causes.

The point is, whatever your doubling time period is, you go from less than 1% of capacity to max capacity in 7 generations (assuming a constant growth rate)…something that seems like it is a trivial problem could become a huge problem after 7 doubling generations.

BirthdayAlgae %
75100.00%
7450.00%
7325.00%
7212.50%
716.25%
703.13%
692.56%
680.78%
The lake is less than 1% full of algae on the child’s 68th birthday, but completely full 7 years later.

I am not sure how long you believe humans have been on Earth (Archeologists estimate that modern humans have been on the Earth for about 200,000 years), but according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population it took us until 1804 to reach a billion people. We doubled that the next 123 years and doubled that again (to 4 B) over then next 47 years. We now have almost 7 B with our doubling from 4 to 8 B estimated to take 53 years.

World Population estimates/milestones (USCB)
Billions123456789
Year180419271960197419871999201220272046
Years Elapsed12333141312131519

In the last couple of hundred years, our fossil fuel use has grown at an even faster rate than the world’s population (with a 20 fold increase in the 20th Century). I don’t pretend to know what the max capacity is for either population or fossil fuel use, but I know that we can’t continue to grow these exponentially forever. Even “slow” growth becomes a problem after a while with a 1% growth rate resulting in a doubling over the average lifetime.

Going back to my Lake example, a 1% yearly growth rate results in a 100x increase over 7 average lifetimes. Between 1990 & 2008, world energy use increased by 39%- that’s faster than a 1% annual growth rate.

I am not saying that I believe current climate change theories are 100% correct, but I do believe that humans have an affect on the planet and that this affect has increased dramatically over the last 200 years. Basically, I think it is one big out of control experiment that we are living in with the inputs increase dramatically in recent years. From a mathematically standpoint, unless you think it is going to be possible to increase our use of fossil fuels 100x over the next 200 to 300 years, something has to change eventually. Much easier to make that change when the “Lake” is 1 or 2 or 4% full rather than waiting until is is half full (or more).

Most people think it is good to continually grow the economy, but is this really sustainable? The answer may be yes if we can find a way to do it WITHOUT the increased use of fossil fuels and other inputs that have a negative impact on our planet. Humans have been great innovators in recent years- it is time to turn this innovation in a direction that eliminates growth of fossil fuel use and other things that may eventually make this planet unlivable.