Ecomotors makes internal-combustion engines with opposing pistons. Its engines are supposed to be 50% more efficient. Assuming this is true, the projected number of cars, populating the world's roadways, will more than double over the next 50 years. Hence, the total amount of carbon emissions will keep growing.
Caitlan is working on a new method to deliver air-conditioning. They claim to have developed a totally new thermodynamic cycle. In a few years or decades, we might be driving cars running Ecomotors and cooled by Caitlan technology. Both of these innovations will simply keep carbon emissions at the same levels they are today. Scientists promise that our present carbon emission, if continued unabated, will land us in very hot water.
Amyris engineers microorganisms to convert sugars from biomass into biofuels, whereas Calera has developed a process that captures carbon dioxide from power plants. All four of these technologies should make a difference. But will they come onstream in time to matter? There is no real incentive for investment banks to push green tech over, say, oil sands expansions. Unlike Europe, windmill companies get no longterm encouragement from government policies.
Shuffle the deck thoroughly. Cut the deck in half. Throw exactly half away. And now you start playing Texas Hold 'im. There's no way to guess whether there are four Kings or three Kings or two Kings or one Kings or no Kings. How can you make a rational bet? You can't. At best you make a wild guess.
This is exactly the dilemma of our best economists. The GDP, the monetary ratios, the price of real estate, the percentage unemployed, the weight of manufacturers' inventories... None of these things are related to Nature's books. It is said that God knows when single insect drops dead. Whether you believe this or not, Nature "does" record whenever its creatures die and whenever they flourish. Species respond to, and thrive in, whatever resources their environments allow.
Capitalism operates according to the laws of supply and demand. For example, if large numbers of tuna swim in the oceans, the value of tuna in the supermarkets is modest. If fishers catch too many tuna, the numbers left swimming decrease, and the price of tuna goes up. Capitalism has a built-in incentive to catch more and more tuna as the price goes higher and higher. The last tuna caught may fetch $700,000 per pound. Afterward nobody will catch a tuna at any price!
Trickle-down economics should get a new name. Let's call it vapor-up economics. OK? Just like the old Indian Rope Trick where the magician commands a rope to stand upright with no apparent support, then the magician monkeys up the rope, and when he reaches the top, both he and rope vamoose into thin air.
In a like manner, the price of real estate changes according to supply and demand. Sooner or later a clever group of investors will gobble up all the prime real estate, after which they can set rents as they please and transform the land any way they please. If they drain swamplands to build strip malls, they are applauded. No one bothers to ask migratory ducks what they think about the loss of habitat.
The Middle East again! Tunis or Egypt or whatever. All of these nations have similar class structures. The big property owners (2% or 3% of the population) control 95% of the wealth. The poor are bearing the brunt of the global recession. Naturally they're blaming the governments which have, no doubt, cozy arrangements with the landlords and major corporations. Here in North America, we call it political patronage. In the middle East, it's graft and corruption on a monumental scale. Egypt is the ultimate pyramid scheme.
"It ain't what you know; it's who you know."
Egypt makes Bathist Iraq look like laudable democracy. From what I'm hearing, the Egyptian regime employs a good 15% of the population. Many of these folks are the internal security police who no doubt act like mafia henchmen collecting "protection" money from all the little shop owners and restaurateurs. Doesn't that sound like Iraq's Republican guards? The only difference is that Egypt tolerates Israel and is a welcome partner in the Global War On Terror, so it receives 1.5-billion a year in US aid.
At least Iraq held regular elections, even tho they were rigged. Education from grade one to the collegiate post grad was free for anyone in Suddam's Iraq. It was even available to suspected terrorists. I refer to the Kurdish woman who was a celebrity in Europe after 2003. Before the 2nd-Iraq war, she joined a cell of Kurdish dissidents. Then she was arrested and interrogated and occasionally tortured for six months. After her release, she was allowed to continue her college courses. But instead she fled wisely to Europe. Later during the early years of the occupation, she returned to Iraq and described how the country had gone down hill. Neighborhoods were no longer safe. Violence, bombings, grudge killings happened almost every day. She was very critical of the coalition's occupation. Mind you, some of her concerns have been addressed. Next time our politicians suggest "nation building," let's hope they have a comprehensive plan in place for the aftermath before the bombs start falling.
In many ways, the invasion of Iraq is indirectly responsible for the 2008 economic crisis. Bush was lowering taxes (especially for wealthy investors) even while he was planning the 2nd-Iraq war. The 1st-Iraq war was bankrolled by Japan, Germany and Saudi Arabia, altho Saudi Arabia got a kickback from the spike in oil prices. The 2nd-Iraq war has been borne by US tax payers, altho it may not be all that apparent because the Federal Reserve has been doing some creative accounting, so they can keep the mint printing greenbacks "come hell or high water." Well in 2008, the Fed found itself awash in the Red Sea. Massive deficit spending plus lower tax revenues equal lots of red ink.
Who's to blame? Why not 1st-time homebuyers?
Wait a minute! How does 60-billion of delinquent loans turn into a one trillion dollar bailout? And still counting. By the time US taxpayers pay back the interest on their national debt, they could buy all the residential and commercial properties in North America three times over. This is a capitalist nightmare that doesn't make any more sense than the market valuation in 1985 that put twelve blocks in downtown Tokyo equal to the entire city of Los Angeles. Wampum. Big wampum.