I agree with a lot of the sentiment of your summary, Lloyd. But two things still bother me about it:
1. “getting through this crisis” - climate change is not something we can or will get through. It’s a *predicament* we now face, not a problem we solve and then life goes “back to normal.” Even if we stopped all emissions today, the climate has changed and more change is already built in and guaranteed. Everything we do now is essential to mitigate further and more extreme change and to reach a climate equilibrium than we can still exist in.
2. “Now” is not enough. We have to get emissions down now and then we have to keep them down so the climate can stay at a new equilibrium. If we get emissions down now and then they go back to rising in few years time, we are right back into destabilising change. So while upfront emissions are critical, lifecycle and operational emissions are also still critical.
Also, what do you like about the “In the long run we are all dead” quote? Is it meant to caution against doing nothing now and putting action off into the future? I find it a little jarring because a core element of environmental concern is about leaving a habitable planet for future generations, yes, after we are dead.
Here again your point is valid, we should be thinking about future generations. Keynes certainly did. The point is I am tired of “net zero by 2050” and “half by 2030” they are excuses for delay. I had a Martin Luther King quote in there that I took out because I felt like I shouldn’t be appropriating it, but it is inspiring and I will slip it into comments here:
“We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there "is" such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.”
So what IS your plan, Lloyd, for NOW. You have been sliding towards that emphasis for a while, but your HOW is rather lacking by talking in Glittering Generalities.
After all, you complained about putting ALL utilities underground in Toronto - did you do the deep dive into the politics of that rather EASY problem and fixed it without telling us?
"to keep them down so the climate can stay at a new equilibrium."
Are you really saying that with a straight face - new equilibrium? There IS no such thing and there never will be. All we have to do is review epoch level swings to know that is a false statement. We're back into King Canute-land with that line.
Given overshoot and momentum even if this is possible (using equilibrium as a general thing rather that a precise point) nobody alive today will live long enough to experience it.
"In Portugal, you can see the green bars representing wind, solar and hydro dominating electrical generation, growing every year."
The problem with this is that it applies only to Portual. Portual has various advantages that it shares with very frew other countries which means that it's lessons here are of minimal use.
1. Portugal is a small country with no heavy industry.
2. It has a large neighbour that it can power balance against
3. It can access the surplus of power from Spain which imports it from North Africa.
4. It faces the Atlantic which makes its wind farms some of the most productive in the world.
And Lloyd? I'm taking Bob's comment as a prelude. You want "degrowth"?
So, how are the German people now reacting to that loss of living standard and its exploding welfare state as jobs are lost. You quote Keynes. Let me quote Thatcher:
"Pretty soon, you run out of other peoples' money".
And that, pretty much, summarizes this post. While you are loudly proclaiming the effervescence of your Radical-ness, it requires MASSIVE amounts of money and you never talk about that.
Where is that all going to come from in order to see your "dream" come true?
When he was pressed by Paul Ryan regarding the necessity of reducing social security, Alan Greenspan responded, “Well I wouldn’t say that the pay-as-you-go benefits are insecure, in the sense that there’s nothing to prevent the federal government creating as much money as it wants and paying it to someone. The question is, how do you set up a system which assures that the real assets are created which those benefits are employed to purchase.” Likewise, during WW II the Governor of the Bank of Canada — Canada’s version of Greenspan and the Federal Reserve — was asked about the increasing debt for the war effort. He agreed with an MP who said that the debt was a private sector asset. The government’s “red ink” is the private sector’s “black ink.” The Canadian finance minister of the day, J. L. Ilsley, then said, “IF the government debt is a private sector asset, how do we make it an asset of the people?” So…wiser minds than mine have responded to your question “Where is all that going to come from…?”
Currency issuers don't tax first. They spend first. The government doesn't need our tax dollars; they're the issuer of the currency. The only constraints under a fiat monetary system are self-imposed. Even if you don't agree with their conclusions, I think you would really enjoy the documentary "Finding the Money" available to rent on Amazon Prime Video.
You're wrong - the House of Representatives must FIRST appropriate such monies that will be spent by the Federal government. Then they can spend (Article 1, Section 7). The problem comes with Section 8 ("To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;") in which Congress has only concentrated on BORROW rather than a sober "should we".
I agree with your nuance accorded to "fiat currency" - bad, bad, bad. And BORROWing is a "future tax" as any such borrowing, from a moral point of view, should be paid back and that requires those in the future, who have had no role in the present "debt spending" (see, I do agree with you in part on "don't tax first") are on the hook for it.
Frankly, if 1) the Progressive movement, which has hated the strictures of the Constitution that bottles up the rogue actions of the Federal govt since the 1880s, had never existed, or 2) our elected representatives had always honored the actual black and white letters of the Constitution, we'd be in far better shape.
IMHO, we've morphed from our Constitutional Republic and rather far along the tracks of direct democracy and an Administrative State - both abhorred by our Founders.
who said that the debt was a private sector asset. The government’s “red ink” is the private sector’s “black ink.”
Well, I'm no finance maven and it appears that you may think you may have it all sewn up but I question the definitions used. You see, that if definitions of words can be bandied about during a debate, you can win every time.
This is true - but only just so far:
"The government’s “red ink” is the private sector’s “black ink.”"
Insofar that if all such Govt monies raised by DEBT, and are spent for war materials, that money does go to the private sector to manufacture those materials and is accounted as revenue. So yes, the DEBT became a private sector asset as income.
HOWEVER! That Govt DEBT still remains a PUBLIC DEBT and that is now owed back to the creditors that lent it.
And you see, here is the third leg of your duopoly argument:
Govt Debt must be paid back. WHO pays it? The Public.
That is to say, each of us in a jurisdiction is now on the hook to pay that back. Then, how can it be an "asset" to those that, in the end (which is us) must have monies removed from their wallets to make the creditors whole?
The US national debt is currently $35.26 trillion. With an estimated 356 million population, that math turns out that each US citizen now is on the hook for $105, 254.
Sorry, I don't accept that my obligation (simplified) of that 100 grand is now an asset of mine that I can now use.
Legerdemain at work here.
Further, as we have seen from History, a country can only borrow just so much before its currency becomes worthless - hardly an asset at that point. Remember Weimar Republic germans having to use wheelbarrows full of cash to buy bread?
I can’t begin to understand why you feel that you – and every other American – is on the hook for the National Debt. What do you think the National Debt is? It’s just the historical record of all of the dollars that were spent into the economy and not taxed back that are currently being held in the form of US Treasuries. If you get rid of the debt, you get rid of these Treasury securities as well. How is that a good thing? History has proven that it’s not. A Depression followed after every one of the 7 periods in which the US began paying down its debt and had begun running a budget surplus (except for the last time when the Clinton administration paid down the debt entirely and the country suffered the 2001 recession and the Great Recession of 2008).
After literally decades of hearing over and over that we are about to be buried under our massive mountain of debt, is it any wonder that some of us began wondering why this never seems to happen? And why is it that no one ever seems to ask “How are we going to pay for it?” when it comes to things like military spending yet this question is always raised when it comes to social spending of any sort with the answer usually being “We can’t?” In the quote above, Greenspan was essentially saying that the true answer to “how are we gonna’ pay for it” lies in real terms, not in financial terms; in other words, the opposite of how we’re generally told to look at the question. If we want to improve our infrastructure to the tune of a trillion dollars, for example, we can’t do it without engineers, construction workers, steel, concrete, unused capacity in our factories, parts for all of the machines and equipment, etc., etc. If those real resources aren’t available; that is, if the economy is already operating at full employment, our factories are being utilized to near full capacity, we’ve sent the spare parts for our machines to our allies overseas, etc., then the answer to that question is “No, we can’t afford it.” But if there is sufficient excess capacity, and more often than not there is, we can mobilize all of these resources without causing inflation so why not go for it. We used to know this stuff back in the day. When was the last time we completed a major public project in this country?
>>"[I]s it any wonder that some of us began wondering why this never seems to happen? And why is it that no one ever seems to ask “How are we going to pay for it?” when it comes to things like military spending yet this question is always raised when it comes to social spending of any sort with the answer usually being “We can’t?”
Short answer: Congress's sole responsibility is to appropriate money, negotiate trade deals, and provide for common defense—not ensure that poor people can afford to play shuffleboard at their condo's HOA recreation center. Defense is **LITERALLY** mentioned in both the Declaration of Independence *and* Bill of Rights.
As far as why no one talks about paying down the national debt, it's because we're past the point of no return in being able to do so, and no one wants to discuss how to manage the unwinding of a national currency that serves as the global reserve of commerce. We're currently sitting at $35 trillion in national debt with a total $110+ trillion in unfunded liabilities; I ask you, What's the probability that we as a nation can grow our way out of this bottomless hole and do so successfully without destroying all wealth in the process?
Answer: zero to diminishingly small. Expect the USD to go bye-bye when SHTF and the federal government adopts some new kind of currency, perhaps a modified greenback. Until then, no one knows how to cope with the impossible, not even the Fed.
One last word of advice: buy gold and silver. Tangible assets are the only thing that will retain value.
Been saying that since the debt was $6 Trillion (shows you the amount of "pull" I have, doesn't it?
The problem is that the electorate keeps electing people to Congress that MAY say one thing ("stop spending") but do otherwise once in office.
Actually, military is a Constitutional mandate (see section 8, Powers of Congress, naval and land Forces) but I'll leave the ever present "is is spent wisely" aside for now. Social spending is not, as "General Welfare" is in the preamble and not in one of the legal Articles.
And FEDERAL spending on infrastructure, also, is not one of the enumerated Powers specified - thus, THAT Power is part of the States' domains (10th Amendment).
"But if there is sufficient excess capacity, and more often than not there is, we can mobilize all of these resources without causing inflation so why not go for it."
Who is the "we" part of which you speak, and what entity has the Power (Govts have Powers, Individuals have Rights) to take over such "excess capacity" (you didn't discuss how one determines "excess" in every operating entity in the Private Sector?).
"without causing inflation"
Do you KNOW what causes inflation? That's the first question before appropriating "excess capacity".
But you DO ask a great question:
"When was the last time we completed a major public project in this country?"
A VERY simplified answer: over law'd and over regulated. The people we have elected, and the people we haven't but still "rule" us (bureaucrats) have woven such a basket around any kind of public OR private project, it's a wonder that any building gets done...
...oh WAIT! Isn't that what Lloyd wants - build nothing nowhere because upfront emissions? So, somebody is happy with the reams of paper, the billions of dollars spent, the kow-towing to those that have the REAL power - the power to approve or dismiss.
Solution is in that slapstick humor movie, Stripes: "Lighten up, Francis!".
I present to you Javier Milei as one possible solution to that real problem you point out.
A. U.S. population is only ~346M, 10M less than stated.
B. Unfunded liabilities, of which federal debt is only part of, amounts to more than $114 trillion.
The world as a whole owes more than $330 trillion in unfunded liabilities, whether it's medical care expenses, debt servicing, or welfare. No one can grow their way out of this mess, hard stop.
I've made the same argument about why Norway is not representative of how renewable energy generation can be "easily" achieved elsewhere without considering its geomorphic and latitudinal uniqueness in the world.
First, I love the inverted triangle graphic with the high emphasis on "use less stuff". It is a theme pushed by David Holmgren who co-developed permaculture and suggested 5 R's with this hierarchy: refuse, reduce, reuse, repair and recycle. He also suggested that using renewable natural materials is crucial. Second, on 1.5C, James Hanson suggests we have already missed that target because of natural lag-time in carbon impact. We are baked in to nearly 2.5C and will go above 3.0C if we don't act now. I don't say this because I am doing any better than anyone else. I fly too much and still have too much stuff, and have trouble changing my own behavior in part because our system mitigates against changing it. Call it systemic resistance to change. I have seen no evidence that we can avoid a major crash, and the crash will only worsen if we don't change our behavior. It is highly unlikely that anyone at the top will induce change (though Harris is superior to Trump by far), it is up to us at the bottom to pressure from change from the bottom.
I keep asking as I never seem to get a direct answer - WHO or WHAT is going to force that behavior change to meet this crowd's time table (which for Lloyd, is this very second (NOW means immediately, right?)?
And I never see anyone here attempting to play the chess game (or even simple checkers) to make that happen to meet the NOW time restrictions.
And NEVER any mention of the folks also playing on this new-multidimensional board that would highly resist and resent others trying to rule their lives. Already, African nations have just about had it with Western Elites telling/demanding that they can't use the same energy sources that they are using. How's that going to work out>
" new-multidimensional board that would highly resist and resent others trying to rule their lives" you have hit an important point however it's not the rulling of their lives that is the main issue. Most people don't actually care about that issue, they are absoutly fine with being told what to do, if they did care politics would be very differfent from what it is today.
But its this implied projection " we should be thinking about future generations" a very signficant percentage of the population would be absoutly against that if it impacts lives adversely. They actually dont give a damn about the state of the world in the future or the impact on its population and will fight tooth and nail against your changes.
Lets assume you are the end of your blood line, you have no kids and no siblings. Your blood line ends with you. in 30 years you will be dead, everybody you love will be dead, everybody who knows what you sound like will be dead. So why would you care 31 years going onwards. Poeple like these will block all your inititaves if they peceive a negetative impact on their lives.
You have to work out a way to get them to buy into these initatives and as I know several people like this in real life I have no idea how you would do this. My SIL given the choice between keeping her V8 and 40 kids lives in bangladesh would keep the V8!
>>"My SIL given the choice between keeping her V8 and 40 kids lives in bangladesh would keep the V8!"
When I was a kid, I was frequently told that I should eat what was on my plate (e.g. lima beans, liver, etc.) because "kids in China were starving." What's forgotten is that my not eating those foods weren't going to be packaged up and shipped to China to feed some kid who was, in fact, starving. The same applies here to emissions; if I lower my standard of living (which is, in essence, what all this is about) then somehow it will increase the standard of living for those 40 Bangladeshi kids. It won't, doesn't, and can't—spatial and temporal distances make that a non-starter.
Change happens when the ROI is positive at the *individual* level, not aggregate.
What Lloyd keeps missing with his "we ARE going to change your housing freedom of choice" is a whole lotta folks embedded in the "Just leave us alone coalition". The latter doesn't care, as you put it Bob, until the former get up into their grills with "you WILL do it our way".
Sure, some might not care but I can tell you, here in the Live Free or Die State of New Hampshire (USA), it is a constant political battle between those holding "it WILL be our way" being told "screw you, you aren't" folks.
"until the former get up into their grills with "you WILL do it our way"."
I don't think they will even care then. Through out history, lots of people have just wanted to be told what to do and what to feel and many still do. They are perfectly OK with this and even support the idea.
So when their leader goes "with "you WILL do it our way"." They are just fine with this. I suspect those types easly outnumber the independent types.
At the risk of envoking Godwins Law I was talking to a German once and we spoke about Hitlers support with the common German. he said that German society had reached a point where they were wanting a strong leader to tell them what to do, what to think , who to love and who to hate. Hitler provided that
You are with the "it WILL be our way" party right? Did I get that right?
>>"[H]e said that German society had reached a point where they were wanting a strong leader to tell them what to do"
True, they did, because reparations for Kaiser Wilhelm's disastrous failure of WWI had a stranglehold on average Germans, leading to the rise of the Weimar Republic's hyperinflation, sordid economic conditions, and overall citizenry's misery. It wasn't until October 2010—96 years later—that Germany fully paid off their debts for WWI, to say nothing of their obligations for debts incurred during WWII.
When you have weak leaders without moral integrity, you eventually get strong leaders who may possess it or maybe not—and if they don't, then you end up with a tyrant, as was the case with Hitler. But if people were less comfortable with being told what to think, do, and say, the probability of bad governments would be far, far lower.
“But if people were less comfortable with being told what to think, do, and say, the probability of bad governments would be far, far lower.”
The problem is that large numbers of people, possibly a majority, want to be told what to do and what to think. They actively seek such a situation out. They actively see out bad governments and given the choice between strong bad and weak good will chose strong bad.
This is why I don’t believe in one-man-one vote democracy that we have at the moment. I think that’s its underlying concepts though well-structured do not take into the problems of the real world. it will inevitably fail.
Heh! No, you didn't break Godwin's Law the wrong way - it is a historical fact (as opposed to calling other people Hitler, well, just because which WOULD be invoking Godwin's Law).
Sadly, you may be right for some populations - a leftover of Tribalism's roots and an artifact that too many people aren't skeptical enough of Government always touting itself as being non-partisan and being experts in everything.
Your last point is very amusing to me - no, I am in the "Leave me alone coalition" - I hate them all when they try to force me, for no other reason except that they can, to do things I don't want to do. So I pretty much hate them all.
“a leftover of Tribalism's roots and an artifact that too many … being experts in everything.”
No, I can’t agree with that. It’s not left over at all it’s very active today. Humans are Herd Animals and Herds follow Herd Leaders. Most people want to be members of a herd and will bond themselves to their herd leaders no matter what. It’s not a matter of leadership or tradition.
It’s the same instinct that causes baby birds to follow their parents into flight from the nest ever though the risk to them is enormous.
When you join the herd you sign up to the herd values and leadership, you have to do it completely. Having done that it becomes incumbent on you to support the leader even when he is clearly wrong. Take the Musk Fanbois as a example, they support him with a religious fervour despite knowing that he is lying to them. Which is why he can get away with it time after time.
This is something the environmental movement fails to understand. They spend far to much time messaging the herd when they actually should be messaging the herd leaders. This is why they are wasting their time and getting so little traction. its a waste of time targeting the herd if the leader sends a different message.
Take amory lovins for example, he has had impact far in excess of what he should have had simply because he ignored the herd and targeted the leaders.
I have a problem with the current cult of the individual. We are part of a larger group even when we don’t want to be. From the 1920 to 1970’s the group dominated the individual, now like a metronome it has swung back to individual rights at the expense of the group. I believe it has swung too far and we are all lesser because of that. it needs to swing back but to a more central balanced state.
We are all part of our herd even when we like to think of ourselves as lone wolfs.
I have always liked that quote from JMK. A friend and I paraphrased it (unintentionally) to create a t-shirt in university that we sold as a fund raiser to send an economics club to participate in a mock UN in NY. Our economics prof was not amused. He was a serious Keynesian and did not appreciate us not quoting him accurately. Despite our prof’s concerns the fundraiser and the mock UN were a great success.
I have noticed though that many people interpret his words as being rather nihilistic and so I am careful with how I use them. If we are all dead in the long run anyway why not continue to party now like there is no tomorrow and give the future the finger (which might well be the motto of our current economic system). Keep in mind that Keynes was really only advocating for a kinder, gentler version of the Chicago school’s deluded vision. In many ways, at least in western society, we have achieved that yet we are still well on our way to disrupting the planet in ways that may just make the “long run” a lot closer than we thought it was. I think SER is a good framework to work with but until the market properly prices what we produce (stops externalizing long run costs) and we all redefine radically our concept of what is enough we are in deep doo doo.
"I used to think they were a terrible idea, but I have come to like them; I can justify my flying to
Portugal by not using an alternative product, a hamburger responsible for 3.3 kilograms of carbon.
I promise to not eat 484 hamburgers, which given the American average of 154 hamburgers per
year, will take 3.14 years"
Self-righteous justification. And you're flying more. Can you (literally) really live up to your "Perhaps I am feeling my age; I literally do not have time" statement? How many times have you flown this year, and your flying seems to be increasing now. How do you guarantee that you'll still be on (instead of in) this mudball to "not eat" 15 years of hamburgers? Or more?
"We only need the will to actually solve the problem and not get distracted by the fevered dreams
of techno-utopias.”
You forgot a HUGE problem that is co-current with the one you demand to be solved. - the rage and the truly righteous POLITICAL anger from those when they realize that your end game can only be achieved by authoritarian governments taking stuff and choices away from them in believing YOU folks are the ones with the fevered dreams.
It's clear that the realm of Politics is beyond you. How DO you plan on solving it because if you can't, it will be like the dream you enjoyed while asleep and then gone, in the opening of your eyes, in the morning.
"Radical Efficiency, or adoption of tougher standards for building efficiency."
Though this looks fine but the problem I have is that it is very very slow. You won't be able to measure the carbon savings on "the meter" until 2100 at the earliest. Yes you can count it on a individual building basis in the agreate it is just missing in action.
If you walk outside today and look around - something like 50% of the buildings you see will still be there as they are (but perhaps more worn or extended) in 50 years.
Predictably, I will question the argument about radical sufficiency "where we ask how much do we really need, and how much is enough" or what "there have to be limits" means in practical terms, since everyone is different—and almost everyone's situation as they age through life changes in terms of housing, disposable income, interests, needs, and wants.
Change will come by way of people in the aggregate deciding FOR THEMSELVES that they don't need as much stuff as they think they need, and hopefully, by manufacturers responding in kind by improving the durability of said items sold. But it's only one small part of a much larger issue: that thanks to Keynesian economic policies for the better part of 70+ years, the world has gone on a debt binge the likes of which can never be escaped. MSN had a report about the unsustainable addiction to cheap debt the world has made for itself recently (https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/ar-AA1syWz9) and it's necessary to consider debt loads in the aggregate of affording the changes demanded by sustainability experts. If so many people now are struggling to afford home ownership, *regardless* of how energy efficient it is or isn't, and with rising inflation, medical costs, education, and the like, who will pay for those upgrades and radically sufficient domiciles being pushed?
I hate the idea of Level 4 emissions outside of it being a topic of late night comedians. If everything else is supposed to be leaner and simpler, why are carbon emissions accounting practices getting more and more complex?
Without absolute draconian and totalitarian authority to micromanage every aspect of our lives, we will not see a meaningful emissions reduction on the time scale commonly talked about as "necessary", and it has nothing to do with fossil fuel interests or lobbying efforts impeding progress. It has **everything** to do with fundamentally retooling a global society that was deterministically grown on the foundation of fossil fuel use to improve human society, productivity, and efficiency.
Ah, what I just said earlier, above, but with a lot more words. And I added this to Lloyd's NOW (now I paraphrase myself) - "er, you aren't READY to take on everyone that opposes your "Radical" ideas. You're talking in the AGGREGATE - THEY will be taking it as a PERSONAL attack on them.
And you think "a woman scorned" is the worst that will happen? Ha!
Hi Lloyd, quick question - what's the source for the SER framework image? I've had a good hunt and can't find it anywhere else on the Internet so am wondering if it's a photo of a PPT slide. It's a clearer description that the original SER graphic (as found in this post https://www.buildingsandcities.org/insights/commentaries/cop26-sufficiency.html and many other places since). Asking as I'd like to reuse it but don't know who to credit.
Yesterday I drove past two farms with big stacks of large hay bales wrapped in white plastic. One had around a hundred bales, the other, a few hundred. Each bale is about five by six feet and weighs around 1500 pounds. I guess the benefit is that they can be stored outside, rather than in a barn. All that hay will be fed to animals, almost all of which will eventually be turned into hamburgers Lloyd won't eat, but somebody will.
If you see a boat yard, you see similar plastic shrink wrapped around boats for winter storage.
I am sorry but what is? There is a good chance he is making silage.
"Silage is a type of fodder made from green foliage crops that have been preserved through fermentation. This process, known as ensilage, typically involves cutting grasses or other crops like maize and compacting them to exclude oxygen, allowing lactic acid bacteria to ferment the sugars present. The result is a nutrient-rich feed for livestock, particularly during periods when fresh pasture is scarce, such as in dry seasons"
This is a extremely efficient and enviromentally friendly of feeding animals in the winter.
Is it the plastic you are bothered about - then don't be most farmers recycle the plastic that is used in this way.
We are not giving up plastic - it's to adaptable and effective a product and many of the systems we would use to replace ity if we did would be far more enviromentally hostile .
"I know what silage is. " Then you know that it is a big problem in both time and effort to move it around.
"You don't need to wrap hay in plastic to make silage, do you?"
No, any airtight container will work. The old way was to make clamps at the side of the field where it was cut. It worked well but did have quality control problems. However, that methods biggest issue was the amount of time taken to pull it down and rebuild it every season.
I would not exect anybody would use silos due the the transportation prob;ems.
"How is it recycled" - no idea just IIR hearing t was quite high.
"In any event, it's hardly environmentally benign."
Neither is it particularry environmentally harmful, moving large amounts of low density animal feed around compared with managing it at its point of production and consumption has its own environmental issues.
Perhaps a reusable modern technology clamp is reauired?
As opposed to what, incurring the labor of stacking traditional 80 lb bales together in a hay loft to be thrown down for fodder at a later time, only to be dumped back out in the cattle yard for them to eat when instead a tractor with bale spike can transport it more easily from out in the field to elsewhere in the field where the cattle stay the majority of the winter months? Or is your beef (pardon the pun) with the need for baling hay to feed to cows that will be turned into burgers that Lloyd won't eat?
I agree with a lot of the sentiment of your summary, Lloyd. But two things still bother me about it:
1. “getting through this crisis” - climate change is not something we can or will get through. It’s a *predicament* we now face, not a problem we solve and then life goes “back to normal.” Even if we stopped all emissions today, the climate has changed and more change is already built in and guaranteed. Everything we do now is essential to mitigate further and more extreme change and to reach a climate equilibrium than we can still exist in.
2. “Now” is not enough. We have to get emissions down now and then we have to keep them down so the climate can stay at a new equilibrium. If we get emissions down now and then they go back to rising in few years time, we are right back into destabilising change. So while upfront emissions are critical, lifecycle and operational emissions are also still critical.
Good points, those could have been phrased better. I was just trying to get people off their asses.
"*predicament*"
I think the correct term you mean is prediction.
Also, what do you like about the “In the long run we are all dead” quote? Is it meant to caution against doing nothing now and putting action off into the future? I find it a little jarring because a core element of environmental concern is about leaving a habitable planet for future generations, yes, after we are dead.
Here again your point is valid, we should be thinking about future generations. Keynes certainly did. The point is I am tired of “net zero by 2050” and “half by 2030” they are excuses for delay. I had a Martin Luther King quote in there that I took out because I felt like I shouldn’t be appropriating it, but it is inspiring and I will slip it into comments here:
“We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there "is" such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.”
So what IS your plan, Lloyd, for NOW. You have been sliding towards that emphasis for a while, but your HOW is rather lacking by talking in Glittering Generalities.
After all, you complained about putting ALL utilities underground in Toronto - did you do the deep dive into the politics of that rather EASY problem and fixed it without telling us?
"to keep them down so the climate can stay at a new equilibrium."
Are you really saying that with a straight face - new equilibrium? There IS no such thing and there never will be. All we have to do is review epoch level swings to know that is a false statement. We're back into King Canute-land with that line.
Given overshoot and momentum even if this is possible (using equilibrium as a general thing rather that a precise point) nobody alive today will live long enough to experience it.
"In Portugal, you can see the green bars representing wind, solar and hydro dominating electrical generation, growing every year."
The problem with this is that it applies only to Portual. Portual has various advantages that it shares with very frew other countries which means that it's lessons here are of minimal use.
1. Portugal is a small country with no heavy industry.
2. It has a large neighbour that it can power balance against
3. It can access the surplus of power from Spain which imports it from North Africa.
4. It faces the Atlantic which makes its wind farms some of the most productive in the world.
Few other countries have this advantage.
And Lloyd? I'm taking Bob's comment as a prelude. You want "degrowth"?
So, how are the German people now reacting to that loss of living standard and its exploding welfare state as jobs are lost. You quote Keynes. Let me quote Thatcher:
"Pretty soon, you run out of other peoples' money".
And that, pretty much, summarizes this post. While you are loudly proclaiming the effervescence of your Radical-ness, it requires MASSIVE amounts of money and you never talk about that.
Where is that all going to come from in order to see your "dream" come true?
When he was pressed by Paul Ryan regarding the necessity of reducing social security, Alan Greenspan responded, “Well I wouldn’t say that the pay-as-you-go benefits are insecure, in the sense that there’s nothing to prevent the federal government creating as much money as it wants and paying it to someone. The question is, how do you set up a system which assures that the real assets are created which those benefits are employed to purchase.” Likewise, during WW II the Governor of the Bank of Canada — Canada’s version of Greenspan and the Federal Reserve — was asked about the increasing debt for the war effort. He agreed with an MP who said that the debt was a private sector asset. The government’s “red ink” is the private sector’s “black ink.” The Canadian finance minister of the day, J. L. Ilsley, then said, “IF the government debt is a private sector asset, how do we make it an asset of the people?” So…wiser minds than mine have responded to your question “Where is all that going to come from…?”
Without taxation, the government HAS no money to issue debt. Ergo, owing money to yourself is not an asset and never CAN be.
Currency issuers don't tax first. They spend first. The government doesn't need our tax dollars; they're the issuer of the currency. The only constraints under a fiat monetary system are self-imposed. Even if you don't agree with their conclusions, I think you would really enjoy the documentary "Finding the Money" available to rent on Amazon Prime Video.
You're wrong - the House of Representatives must FIRST appropriate such monies that will be spent by the Federal government. Then they can spend (Article 1, Section 7). The problem comes with Section 8 ("To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;") in which Congress has only concentrated on BORROW rather than a sober "should we".
I agree with your nuance accorded to "fiat currency" - bad, bad, bad. And BORROWing is a "future tax" as any such borrowing, from a moral point of view, should be paid back and that requires those in the future, who have had no role in the present "debt spending" (see, I do agree with you in part on "don't tax first") are on the hook for it.
Frankly, if 1) the Progressive movement, which has hated the strictures of the Constitution that bottles up the rogue actions of the Federal govt since the 1880s, had never existed, or 2) our elected representatives had always honored the actual black and white letters of the Constitution, we'd be in far better shape.
IMHO, we've morphed from our Constitutional Republic and rather far along the tracks of direct democracy and an Administrative State - both abhorred by our Founders.
who said that the debt was a private sector asset. The government’s “red ink” is the private sector’s “black ink.”
Well, I'm no finance maven and it appears that you may think you may have it all sewn up but I question the definitions used. You see, that if definitions of words can be bandied about during a debate, you can win every time.
This is true - but only just so far:
"The government’s “red ink” is the private sector’s “black ink.”"
Insofar that if all such Govt monies raised by DEBT, and are spent for war materials, that money does go to the private sector to manufacture those materials and is accounted as revenue. So yes, the DEBT became a private sector asset as income.
HOWEVER! That Govt DEBT still remains a PUBLIC DEBT and that is now owed back to the creditors that lent it.
And you see, here is the third leg of your duopoly argument:
Govt Debt must be paid back. WHO pays it? The Public.
That is to say, each of us in a jurisdiction is now on the hook to pay that back. Then, how can it be an "asset" to those that, in the end (which is us) must have monies removed from their wallets to make the creditors whole?
The US national debt is currently $35.26 trillion. With an estimated 356 million population, that math turns out that each US citizen now is on the hook for $105, 254.
Sorry, I don't accept that my obligation (simplified) of that 100 grand is now an asset of mine that I can now use.
Legerdemain at work here.
Further, as we have seen from History, a country can only borrow just so much before its currency becomes worthless - hardly an asset at that point. Remember Weimar Republic germans having to use wheelbarrows full of cash to buy bread?
I can’t begin to understand why you feel that you – and every other American – is on the hook for the National Debt. What do you think the National Debt is? It’s just the historical record of all of the dollars that were spent into the economy and not taxed back that are currently being held in the form of US Treasuries. If you get rid of the debt, you get rid of these Treasury securities as well. How is that a good thing? History has proven that it’s not. A Depression followed after every one of the 7 periods in which the US began paying down its debt and had begun running a budget surplus (except for the last time when the Clinton administration paid down the debt entirely and the country suffered the 2001 recession and the Great Recession of 2008).
After literally decades of hearing over and over that we are about to be buried under our massive mountain of debt, is it any wonder that some of us began wondering why this never seems to happen? And why is it that no one ever seems to ask “How are we going to pay for it?” when it comes to things like military spending yet this question is always raised when it comes to social spending of any sort with the answer usually being “We can’t?” In the quote above, Greenspan was essentially saying that the true answer to “how are we gonna’ pay for it” lies in real terms, not in financial terms; in other words, the opposite of how we’re generally told to look at the question. If we want to improve our infrastructure to the tune of a trillion dollars, for example, we can’t do it without engineers, construction workers, steel, concrete, unused capacity in our factories, parts for all of the machines and equipment, etc., etc. If those real resources aren’t available; that is, if the economy is already operating at full employment, our factories are being utilized to near full capacity, we’ve sent the spare parts for our machines to our allies overseas, etc., then the answer to that question is “No, we can’t afford it.” But if there is sufficient excess capacity, and more often than not there is, we can mobilize all of these resources without causing inflation so why not go for it. We used to know this stuff back in the day. When was the last time we completed a major public project in this country?
>>"[I]s it any wonder that some of us began wondering why this never seems to happen? And why is it that no one ever seems to ask “How are we going to pay for it?” when it comes to things like military spending yet this question is always raised when it comes to social spending of any sort with the answer usually being “We can’t?”
Short answer: Congress's sole responsibility is to appropriate money, negotiate trade deals, and provide for common defense—not ensure that poor people can afford to play shuffleboard at their condo's HOA recreation center. Defense is **LITERALLY** mentioned in both the Declaration of Independence *and* Bill of Rights.
As far as why no one talks about paying down the national debt, it's because we're past the point of no return in being able to do so, and no one wants to discuss how to manage the unwinding of a national currency that serves as the global reserve of commerce. We're currently sitting at $35 trillion in national debt with a total $110+ trillion in unfunded liabilities; I ask you, What's the probability that we as a nation can grow our way out of this bottomless hole and do so successfully without destroying all wealth in the process?
Answer: zero to diminishingly small. Expect the USD to go bye-bye when SHTF and the federal government adopts some new kind of currency, perhaps a modified greenback. Until then, no one knows how to cope with the impossible, not even the Fed.
One last word of advice: buy gold and silver. Tangible assets are the only thing that will retain value.
“How are we going to pay for it?”
Been saying that since the debt was $6 Trillion (shows you the amount of "pull" I have, doesn't it?
The problem is that the electorate keeps electing people to Congress that MAY say one thing ("stop spending") but do otherwise once in office.
Actually, military is a Constitutional mandate (see section 8, Powers of Congress, naval and land Forces) but I'll leave the ever present "is is spent wisely" aside for now. Social spending is not, as "General Welfare" is in the preamble and not in one of the legal Articles.
And FEDERAL spending on infrastructure, also, is not one of the enumerated Powers specified - thus, THAT Power is part of the States' domains (10th Amendment).
"But if there is sufficient excess capacity, and more often than not there is, we can mobilize all of these resources without causing inflation so why not go for it."
Who is the "we" part of which you speak, and what entity has the Power (Govts have Powers, Individuals have Rights) to take over such "excess capacity" (you didn't discuss how one determines "excess" in every operating entity in the Private Sector?).
"without causing inflation"
Do you KNOW what causes inflation? That's the first question before appropriating "excess capacity".
But you DO ask a great question:
"When was the last time we completed a major public project in this country?"
A VERY simplified answer: over law'd and over regulated. The people we have elected, and the people we haven't but still "rule" us (bureaucrats) have woven such a basket around any kind of public OR private project, it's a wonder that any building gets done...
...oh WAIT! Isn't that what Lloyd wants - build nothing nowhere because upfront emissions? So, somebody is happy with the reams of paper, the billions of dollars spent, the kow-towing to those that have the REAL power - the power to approve or dismiss.
Solution is in that slapstick humor movie, Stripes: "Lighten up, Francis!".
I present to you Javier Milei as one possible solution to that real problem you point out.
A. U.S. population is only ~346M, 10M less than stated.
B. Unfunded liabilities, of which federal debt is only part of, amounts to more than $114 trillion.
The world as a whole owes more than $330 trillion in unfunded liabilities, whether it's medical care expenses, debt servicing, or welfare. No one can grow their way out of this mess, hard stop.
I've made the same argument about why Norway is not representative of how renewable energy generation can be "easily" achieved elsewhere without considering its geomorphic and latitudinal uniqueness in the world.
First, I love the inverted triangle graphic with the high emphasis on "use less stuff". It is a theme pushed by David Holmgren who co-developed permaculture and suggested 5 R's with this hierarchy: refuse, reduce, reuse, repair and recycle. He also suggested that using renewable natural materials is crucial. Second, on 1.5C, James Hanson suggests we have already missed that target because of natural lag-time in carbon impact. We are baked in to nearly 2.5C and will go above 3.0C if we don't act now. I don't say this because I am doing any better than anyone else. I fly too much and still have too much stuff, and have trouble changing my own behavior in part because our system mitigates against changing it. Call it systemic resistance to change. I have seen no evidence that we can avoid a major crash, and the crash will only worsen if we don't change our behavior. It is highly unlikely that anyone at the top will induce change (though Harris is superior to Trump by far), it is up to us at the bottom to pressure from change from the bottom.
"... if we don't change our behavior."
I keep asking as I never seem to get a direct answer - WHO or WHAT is going to force that behavior change to meet this crowd's time table (which for Lloyd, is this very second (NOW means immediately, right?)?
And I never see anyone here attempting to play the chess game (or even simple checkers) to make that happen to meet the NOW time restrictions.
And NEVER any mention of the folks also playing on this new-multidimensional board that would highly resist and resent others trying to rule their lives. Already, African nations have just about had it with Western Elites telling/demanding that they can't use the same energy sources that they are using. How's that going to work out>
" new-multidimensional board that would highly resist and resent others trying to rule their lives" you have hit an important point however it's not the rulling of their lives that is the main issue. Most people don't actually care about that issue, they are absoutly fine with being told what to do, if they did care politics would be very differfent from what it is today.
But its this implied projection " we should be thinking about future generations" a very signficant percentage of the population would be absoutly against that if it impacts lives adversely. They actually dont give a damn about the state of the world in the future or the impact on its population and will fight tooth and nail against your changes.
Lets assume you are the end of your blood line, you have no kids and no siblings. Your blood line ends with you. in 30 years you will be dead, everybody you love will be dead, everybody who knows what you sound like will be dead. So why would you care 31 years going onwards. Poeple like these will block all your inititaves if they peceive a negetative impact on their lives.
You have to work out a way to get them to buy into these initatives and as I know several people like this in real life I have no idea how you would do this. My SIL given the choice between keeping her V8 and 40 kids lives in bangladesh would keep the V8!
>>"My SIL given the choice between keeping her V8 and 40 kids lives in bangladesh would keep the V8!"
When I was a kid, I was frequently told that I should eat what was on my plate (e.g. lima beans, liver, etc.) because "kids in China were starving." What's forgotten is that my not eating those foods weren't going to be packaged up and shipped to China to feed some kid who was, in fact, starving. The same applies here to emissions; if I lower my standard of living (which is, in essence, what all this is about) then somehow it will increase the standard of living for those 40 Bangladeshi kids. It won't, doesn't, and can't—spatial and temporal distances make that a non-starter.
Change happens when the ROI is positive at the *individual* level, not aggregate.
What Lloyd keeps missing with his "we ARE going to change your housing freedom of choice" is a whole lotta folks embedded in the "Just leave us alone coalition". The latter doesn't care, as you put it Bob, until the former get up into their grills with "you WILL do it our way".
Sure, some might not care but I can tell you, here in the Live Free or Die State of New Hampshire (USA), it is a constant political battle between those holding "it WILL be our way" being told "screw you, you aren't" folks.
Heh! Guess which camp I'm in?
"until the former get up into their grills with "you WILL do it our way"."
I don't think they will even care then. Through out history, lots of people have just wanted to be told what to do and what to feel and many still do. They are perfectly OK with this and even support the idea.
So when their leader goes "with "you WILL do it our way"." They are just fine with this. I suspect those types easly outnumber the independent types.
At the risk of envoking Godwins Law I was talking to a German once and we spoke about Hitlers support with the common German. he said that German society had reached a point where they were wanting a strong leader to tell them what to do, what to think , who to love and who to hate. Hitler provided that
You are with the "it WILL be our way" party right? Did I get that right?
>>"[H]e said that German society had reached a point where they were wanting a strong leader to tell them what to do"
True, they did, because reparations for Kaiser Wilhelm's disastrous failure of WWI had a stranglehold on average Germans, leading to the rise of the Weimar Republic's hyperinflation, sordid economic conditions, and overall citizenry's misery. It wasn't until October 2010—96 years later—that Germany fully paid off their debts for WWI, to say nothing of their obligations for debts incurred during WWII.
When you have weak leaders without moral integrity, you eventually get strong leaders who may possess it or maybe not—and if they don't, then you end up with a tyrant, as was the case with Hitler. But if people were less comfortable with being told what to think, do, and say, the probability of bad governments would be far, far lower.
“But if people were less comfortable with being told what to think, do, and say, the probability of bad governments would be far, far lower.”
The problem is that large numbers of people, possibly a majority, want to be told what to do and what to think. They actively seek such a situation out. They actively see out bad governments and given the choice between strong bad and weak good will chose strong bad.
This is why I don’t believe in one-man-one vote democracy that we have at the moment. I think that’s its underlying concepts though well-structured do not take into the problems of the real world. it will inevitably fail.
Heh! No, you didn't break Godwin's Law the wrong way - it is a historical fact (as opposed to calling other people Hitler, well, just because which WOULD be invoking Godwin's Law).
Sadly, you may be right for some populations - a leftover of Tribalism's roots and an artifact that too many people aren't skeptical enough of Government always touting itself as being non-partisan and being experts in everything.
Your last point is very amusing to me - no, I am in the "Leave me alone coalition" - I hate them all when they try to force me, for no other reason except that they can, to do things I don't want to do. So I pretty much hate them all.
You?
“a leftover of Tribalism's roots and an artifact that too many … being experts in everything.”
No, I can’t agree with that. It’s not left over at all it’s very active today. Humans are Herd Animals and Herds follow Herd Leaders. Most people want to be members of a herd and will bond themselves to their herd leaders no matter what. It’s not a matter of leadership or tradition.
It’s the same instinct that causes baby birds to follow their parents into flight from the nest ever though the risk to them is enormous.
When you join the herd you sign up to the herd values and leadership, you have to do it completely. Having done that it becomes incumbent on you to support the leader even when he is clearly wrong. Take the Musk Fanbois as a example, they support him with a religious fervour despite knowing that he is lying to them. Which is why he can get away with it time after time.
This is something the environmental movement fails to understand. They spend far to much time messaging the herd when they actually should be messaging the herd leaders. This is why they are wasting their time and getting so little traction. its a waste of time targeting the herd if the leader sends a different message.
Take amory lovins for example, he has had impact far in excess of what he should have had simply because he ignored the herd and targeted the leaders.
I have a problem with the current cult of the individual. We are part of a larger group even when we don’t want to be. From the 1920 to 1970’s the group dominated the individual, now like a metronome it has swung back to individual rights at the expense of the group. I believe it has swung too far and we are all lesser because of that. it needs to swing back but to a more central balanced state.
We are all part of our herd even when we like to think of ourselves as lone wolfs.
I have always liked that quote from JMK. A friend and I paraphrased it (unintentionally) to create a t-shirt in university that we sold as a fund raiser to send an economics club to participate in a mock UN in NY. Our economics prof was not amused. He was a serious Keynesian and did not appreciate us not quoting him accurately. Despite our prof’s concerns the fundraiser and the mock UN were a great success.
I have noticed though that many people interpret his words as being rather nihilistic and so I am careful with how I use them. If we are all dead in the long run anyway why not continue to party now like there is no tomorrow and give the future the finger (which might well be the motto of our current economic system). Keep in mind that Keynes was really only advocating for a kinder, gentler version of the Chicago school’s deluded vision. In many ways, at least in western society, we have achieved that yet we are still well on our way to disrupting the planet in ways that may just make the “long run” a lot closer than we thought it was. I think SER is a good framework to work with but until the market properly prices what we produce (stops externalizing long run costs) and we all redefine radically our concept of what is enough we are in deep doo doo.
"I used to think they were a terrible idea, but I have come to like them; I can justify my flying to
Portugal by not using an alternative product, a hamburger responsible for 3.3 kilograms of carbon.
I promise to not eat 484 hamburgers, which given the American average of 154 hamburgers per
year, will take 3.14 years"
Self-righteous justification. And you're flying more. Can you (literally) really live up to your "Perhaps I am feeling my age; I literally do not have time" statement? How many times have you flown this year, and your flying seems to be increasing now. How do you guarantee that you'll still be on (instead of in) this mudball to "not eat" 15 years of hamburgers? Or more?
"We only need the will to actually solve the problem and not get distracted by the fevered dreams
of techno-utopias.”
You forgot a HUGE problem that is co-current with the one you demand to be solved. - the rage and the truly righteous POLITICAL anger from those when they realize that your end game can only be achieved by authoritarian governments taking stuff and choices away from them in believing YOU folks are the ones with the fevered dreams.
It's clear that the realm of Politics is beyond you. How DO you plan on solving it because if you can't, it will be like the dream you enjoyed while asleep and then gone, in the opening of your eyes, in the morning.
"Radical Efficiency, or adoption of tougher standards for building efficiency."
Though this looks fine but the problem I have is that it is very very slow. You won't be able to measure the carbon savings on "the meter" until 2100 at the earliest. Yes you can count it on a individual building basis in the agreate it is just missing in action.
If you walk outside today and look around - something like 50% of the buildings you see will still be there as they are (but perhaps more worn or extended) in 50 years.
Predictably, I will question the argument about radical sufficiency "where we ask how much do we really need, and how much is enough" or what "there have to be limits" means in practical terms, since everyone is different—and almost everyone's situation as they age through life changes in terms of housing, disposable income, interests, needs, and wants.
Change will come by way of people in the aggregate deciding FOR THEMSELVES that they don't need as much stuff as they think they need, and hopefully, by manufacturers responding in kind by improving the durability of said items sold. But it's only one small part of a much larger issue: that thanks to Keynesian economic policies for the better part of 70+ years, the world has gone on a debt binge the likes of which can never be escaped. MSN had a report about the unsustainable addiction to cheap debt the world has made for itself recently (https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/ar-AA1syWz9) and it's necessary to consider debt loads in the aggregate of affording the changes demanded by sustainability experts. If so many people now are struggling to afford home ownership, *regardless* of how energy efficient it is or isn't, and with rising inflation, medical costs, education, and the like, who will pay for those upgrades and radically sufficient domiciles being pushed?
I hate the idea of Level 4 emissions outside of it being a topic of late night comedians. If everything else is supposed to be leaner and simpler, why are carbon emissions accounting practices getting more and more complex?
Without absolute draconian and totalitarian authority to micromanage every aspect of our lives, we will not see a meaningful emissions reduction on the time scale commonly talked about as "necessary", and it has nothing to do with fossil fuel interests or lobbying efforts impeding progress. It has **everything** to do with fundamentally retooling a global society that was deterministically grown on the foundation of fossil fuel use to improve human society, productivity, and efficiency.
Ah, what I just said earlier, above, but with a lot more words. And I added this to Lloyd's NOW (now I paraphrase myself) - "er, you aren't READY to take on everyone that opposes your "Radical" ideas. You're talking in the AGGREGATE - THEY will be taking it as a PERSONAL attack on them.
And you think "a woman scorned" is the worst that will happen? Ha!
Hi Lloyd, quick question - what's the source for the SER framework image? I've had a good hunt and can't find it anywhere else on the Internet so am wondering if it's a photo of a PPT slide. It's a clearer description that the original SER graphic (as found in this post https://www.buildingsandcities.org/insights/commentaries/cop26-sufficiency.html and many other places since). Asking as I'd like to reuse it but don't know who to credit.
it is from this https://eeb.org/library/sufficiency-in-the-built-environment-a-factsheet/
It is from a recent European report, I will put in a link when I am back to my computer.
Yesterday I drove past two farms with big stacks of large hay bales wrapped in white plastic. One had around a hundred bales, the other, a few hundred. Each bale is about five by six feet and weighs around 1500 pounds. I guess the benefit is that they can be stored outside, rather than in a barn. All that hay will be fed to animals, almost all of which will eventually be turned into hamburgers Lloyd won't eat, but somebody will.
If you see a boat yard, you see similar plastic shrink wrapped around boats for winter storage.
It's discouraging, to say the least.
"It's discouraging, to say the least."
I am sorry but what is? There is a good chance he is making silage.
"Silage is a type of fodder made from green foliage crops that have been preserved through fermentation. This process, known as ensilage, typically involves cutting grasses or other crops like maize and compacting them to exclude oxygen, allowing lactic acid bacteria to ferment the sugars present. The result is a nutrient-rich feed for livestock, particularly during periods when fresh pasture is scarce, such as in dry seasons"
This is a extremely efficient and enviromentally friendly of feeding animals in the winter.
Is it the plastic you are bothered about - then don't be most farmers recycle the plastic that is used in this way.
We are not giving up plastic - it's to adaptable and effective a product and many of the systems we would use to replace ity if we did would be far more enviromentally hostile .
I know what silage is. You don't need to wrap hay in plastic to make silage, do you? I thought that's what silos are used for. How is it recycled?
I assume it's HDPE, which can be recycled. But is it? In any event, it's hardly environmentally benign.
"I know what silage is. " Then you know that it is a big problem in both time and effort to move it around.
"You don't need to wrap hay in plastic to make silage, do you?"
No, any airtight container will work. The old way was to make clamps at the side of the field where it was cut. It worked well but did have quality control problems. However, that methods biggest issue was the amount of time taken to pull it down and rebuild it every season.
I would not exect anybody would use silos due the the transportation prob;ems.
"How is it recycled" - no idea just IIR hearing t was quite high.
"In any event, it's hardly environmentally benign."
Neither is it particularry environmentally harmful, moving large amounts of low density animal feed around compared with managing it at its point of production and consumption has its own environmental issues.
Perhaps a reusable modern technology clamp is reauired?
As opposed to what, incurring the labor of stacking traditional 80 lb bales together in a hay loft to be thrown down for fodder at a later time, only to be dumped back out in the cattle yard for them to eat when instead a tractor with bale spike can transport it more easily from out in the field to elsewhere in the field where the cattle stay the majority of the winter months? Or is your beef (pardon the pun) with the need for baling hay to feed to cows that will be turned into burgers that Lloyd won't eat?