Can you out-spend the oil industry?
Al Gore’s at it again. After his call for America to go 100% renewable in 10 years, his organisation “We Can Solve It” is running a TV ad in the US demanding clean energy. But because even his big-bucks buddies can’t compete with $850 million a year spent by oil and coal companies on advertising, they’ve asked people to spread it about on the internet. And who is this little frog to argue?
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August 29th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Heh, this rang a bell of sorts. Well, not like Al and his buddies are paupers - Google “al gore ad campaign” and you get
“Al Gore Launches $300 Million Bipartisan Ad Campaign”
“Al Gore’s $100M climate ad blitz”
Some of that $850 million would be on green/greenwashing stuff too, you’d have to admit. Not that they deserve credit for a greenwash, but possibly better than nothing.
August 29th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
There is something about american advertising that is both amusing and terrifying - take the repower america spot for example.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWp69FUoiuc
No matter how much I like the idea of renewable energy I can’t help but cringe through these ads - the style makes sense when you see what their up against though. Meet the clean coal lobby.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq6QwbvMMJw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_5OrJVR_Vc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71kckb8hhOQ
Thank god for the internet.
Hopefully the rise of online media will make debate through soundbite a thing of the past.
August 30th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
I think one of the few people in the US who are actually trying to get America off foreign oil is T. Boone Pickens.
http://www.pickensplan.com/
He used to be an oil man and now he is putting up the biggest wind farm in the world somewhere in Texas.
Al Gore is in the media with his global warming thing but he doesn’t seem to be doing anything to stop it other than talk and set up his company so he can benefit from carbon trading.
Anyway my personal view is we are wasting our time until we get the population under control. Most people agree that human activities are causing global warming but no one has said anything about doing something about the population.
Worldwatch is calling the population problem the ‘elephant in the cupboard’ but most people just can’t get the connection between population and global warming.
August 30th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Well said. So many problems have their roots in the “growth” concept. The whole idea that we should encourage/permit the worlds population to keep expanding leads to a huge number of problems. Great if you are a businessman, somewhere along the money train.
Time we all started to ‘budget’ our reproductive capacity to match our ‘green’ energy and food generating capabilities.
This whole push to turn away from carbon generating technologies makes me wonder exactly which key figures/organisations are suddenly going to start heralding Nuclear as the saviour. Maybe Gore??
August 30th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Greengeek et al.,
I agree with you that the world’s (human) population needs to be controlled (probably substantially reduced). The question is, how can this be achieved? Do we have to accept population control measures such as China has, or is there another way?
August 30th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Hmmm, I know this sounds awful, but one thing that has really annoyed me over the last few years is the financial incentives in NZ going to solo mums and uneducated mums.
Sorry that it sounds so bad, but where is the good in providing encouragement for poor quality mothers? (except that it provides an extra conduit for businessmen to clip the ticket on every purchase)
There are other policies we should look at too..
I will try to find some links.
August 30th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
I always thought the money was to make sure the mother had enough money to buy food, clothing etc for the kid…
August 30th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Samiuela,
Now THAT is a topic I would like to see addressed in this blog in some detail.
My first though would be that one should raise the living standards of the population, introduce social support, abolish child labour and raise health standards as well as increase the availibility of contraceptives and sex education. I think that would help to address the main, non-religious, reasons for high birth rates, of course addressing the issues brought about by non-protestant christianity and various other abrahamic religions may require convincing a revolution of sorts. I dont think we have too much of a problem in New Zealand as, from memory, out average fertility rate is 2.1 or 2.2 which is only just above replacement rate, so if we control immegration carefully we shouldint have problems. That and introduce legal euthenasia so we dont have so many old people sitting around draining resources which could go to the next generation (im sure the baby boomers will do their best to hang in there and break the backs of the other generations though).
August 30th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
>He used to be an oil man and now he is putting up the biggest wind farm in the world somewhere in Texas
Occupied Mexico, please.
>My first though would be that one should raise the living standards of the population
I was going to say “make em rich” Did you notice Europe’s rate of population increase is expected to go negative in about 7 years.
Birth control in a lot of places still means having as many babies as possible. It is common for there not to be an ‘Eldest’ child so the evil spirits think they have taken the first born and move on.
BTW - as I am getting older, I disagree with the comment about euthenasia and old people sitting around draining resources.
If thats the way young people think, lets get rid of them before they breed. It would be a much more permanent solution.
BTW2 - If that is the way they think, I am in favour of raising the voting age to thirty.
August 30th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
Don,
It is always worth remembering the phrase, “as you sow, so shall you reap”. The younger generation were raised in the 1980s and 1990s; is it surprising they have turned out the way they are, and who is to blame? (Actually, I think all this generational thing is a crock of ^^&!, you have to judge people as individuals. For every young person advocating ideas such as those put forward by Sapient, there is another young person who values and respects elders).
Cheers,
Miuela.
September 1st, 2008 at 12:53 am
The euthenasia point was more just of a bit of fun, though I do think euthenasia should be legalised.
There is always the unethical possibilities, though i wont go into that here.
I was wondering earlyer today infact how ethical it would be to offer females on the DPB, benifit or other situations where they are unable to readily provide for children an extra $10 dollars per week in their benifit, for the period of influence, if they receive an injection which will leave them temporarily infertile? But then again im sure that $10 could be better spent elsewhere.
September 1st, 2008 at 11:44 am
Pulling this back to the original topic: renewable energy is desirable. There are ways to do it, technology is becoming more sophisticated.
But: conserving energy is also desirable - most of the world gets by on a lot less than we and places like the US are accustomed to using. We could start there.
Population: yes, we can’t keep expanding indefinitely. Samiuela asked the hard question: exactly how? And who do you target? The biggest drain on energy resources are not the teeming millions (though China is getting there as it becomes more ‘modern’) or solo mothers, but the rest of us in the rich West.
Even if you somehow managed to reduce the birthrate in Africa, India and South America and forced a few thousand young NZ women to adopt their children out, you wouldn’t make any real difference to energy use or consumption, except perhaps less demand for firewood in some places.
China has already slowed its birthrate as has Europe - but their energy demand is right up there with the US. No single, simple answer.
September 1st, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Janine; true, there is no single simple answer; but that just means we DO need to accept the answers that ARE available. This does mean stopping financial incentives for just anyone to spit out babies.
It does mean that we need to discourage excess energy use by the rich. (Higher electricity prices??). Although don’t forget that renewable energy technology is generally discovered/developed/funded by the richer countries.
Maybe the ONE real answer is to ensure that EVERYONE pays the real price for the energy they use…no more subsidies, no more benefits, and a whole heap of appropriate taxes where necessary.
I am in favour of an “energy allocation” to each household. A set kWh figure available to each home dependent on their head count.
If you want a heated swimming pool, you either heat it from the available sun, or some other ‘green’ energy source, or you pay huge taxes to ‘download’ the power from the national grid.
etc etc.
September 1st, 2008 at 9:28 pm
To avoid being labelled a raging communist, I suggest you add ‘after the allocation, above-market rates with an income tax cut’ or something along the lines of the other user-pays/revenue neutral type schemes the Greens like e.g. carbon tax, residential and commercial water etc…
September 1st, 2008 at 9:52 pm
Economic development reduces the rate of increase in population growth. No one knows why,
Clearly the world cannot develop every where in the same wasteful way the West did. But it must develop.
paranoid peter Says:
I am afraid of what you might do if you get the population under control. This is not something you can use state power to do. Any direct way of controlling population violates non-violence and appropriate decision making. I am against it.
greengeek Says:
It sounds bad because it is bad. We (being you, me and every body else) will be doing good to provide encouragement for mothers (and fathers). Raising the next generation is important work and we should value it. Along the way bad parents (how ever you judge such a thing) will be encouraged too. The question is, what is wrong with that? Should they be punished until they decide to become good?
peace
W
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:20 am
bliss…what I was saying is that it is morally wrong for a government to provide financial incentives for bad parents to have more children.
You say that you don’t want the state to be involved in direct population control.
I agree, but in a different way…I don’t want the state to be actively involved in population promotion.
Current policies encourage more babies: “we need more growth”, and also encourage more BAD parenting: “any baby is a good baby…we will still fund you to have more kids regardless of how good a parent you are and what kind of homelife you provide”
We have to get beyond wanting policies that seem sweet, gentle and palatable, and accept a “bad” sounding policy…we ought to encourage parents who provide good parenting, and stop boosting the numbers of bad parents.
Look at the USA policy…if a solo mum continues to have more children while she is a solo, then the government refuses to fund them.
Yes, it “sounds bad” to say it, but children should not be born into a one parent home struggling for financial means.
If you choose to have your children that way, it is no business of mine, but I say that other people should not have to fund you to do it. It would be a bad parenting choice, and undeserving of government support.
The world is not desparate for citizens. Lets raise the bar
September 4th, 2008 at 11:37 am
I can’t believe that this thread has descended to the old single-parent bashing! Why does single=bad parent? And if the state does not help to support those children who will?
“but children should not be born into a one parent home struggling for financial means.” Maybe not, but if they are then we all have some responsibility for helping those children to become good citizens. I was widowed at a young age with small children; one of my sisters was left - neither of us chose to be single with small children and as for getting work and decent child care then - forget it!
Fortunately, we had some state support for a (short) while and all our kids are good citizens despite some early struggles. Who are you to judge ‘good’ and ‘bad’ parenting?
There are plenty of two-parent families who neglect, over-indulge and otherwise are in my view ‘bad’ parents - what kind of sanctions do you suggest for them?
This thread was about energy - as I said earlier, population is only a part of it and the ones you most despise probably use less of it.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Janine,
yes, it is about energy. But any discussion about energy is just hot air if it fails to take into account that NZ already has the full number of people that can be sustained by our available ‘green’ energy.
I vote we link our population growth to our energy policy.
If we can’t find more ‘green’ energy, we don’t import more people, and we don’t give financial incentives for more births.
Sorry if that sounds offensive.
By the way, being a solo mum is not a bad thing. (my wife was a widow when we married)
However, having fiscal policies that ENCOURAGES solo mums/dads IS a bad thing.
September 5th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Having fiscal policies that encourage wastefulness or greed is an even worse thing! These are the things that are destroying the world, not a few sad young women.
It’s interesting that on the one hand there are those who say that we shouldn’t take any steps to reduce or conserve our energy consumption because what NZ does won’t make any difference (moral leadership anyone?) but on the other hand we should be taking steps to punish single mothers who are in fact a tiny minority of a small population - I don’t get it.
September 5th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Personally I DO think we should take steps to reduce or conserve our energy consumption.
However, Paranoid Peter was making a point about such things being a waste of time if you then continue to grow the population, and therefore get back on the pollution treadmill.
It is not only the encouragement to solo mums; it is also things like the ‘working for families’ package.
This scheme takes money from one group of people, and gives it to another. For what purpose?? To encourage the latter group to focus on producing children.
It is all wrong.
If there was a ‘money tree’ growing somewhere these things would not be such a problem. However we put too much effort into shifting money from one part of the population and giving it to those who contribute to overpopulation.
How about we give the money to those who are frugal with energy instead??? (Namely me…)