Meaningless electricity production, or?

It seems to be essential to take a close look on our habitual way of consuming energy.

The following example can be seen as the actual state of the energy- and climate policy in Denmark.

Two major sources of energy conversion, ships and wind power could be flashed together. A somewhat screwed perspective, but anyway quite illustrative.

The picture shows a modern container vessel with an installed effect of 109 MW (146.171 hp). Please compare this effect with the entire Danish electricity production (link to online production) - notice the amount of wind power. (Denmark is the country with the biggest wind power share in the world)

6 to 8 vessels of this kind consume energy equal to the entire energy generated by the wind power industry in Denmark - 791 MW in 2008, ref. Danish Energy Agency. (The Danish shipping company Maersk-Line operates more than 550 container vessels of this kind and Denmark has more than 6000 wind power plants)

Those ships act as a conveyor belt with an endless flow of goods; read toys to the western world – which, after a turn thru Wal-Mart, Lowe and alike – via the “kids room’s”, recycling stations and scrap yards, are being reloaded on the same vessels and returns to the sweatshops of the Far East for reprocessing.

(First posted at my blog on low frequient noise, in Danish)

Fogh/Green/Brown/ growth

Mr. Fogh (PM, Denmark), at the moment traveling the world with his new green agenda isn’t quite as green as he pretend. Why?

- Denmark, a major shipping nation must be seen as a main upholder of the disastrous globalization fiesta as Danish shipping companies’ transport 10 percent of the world trade.

And now Mr. Fogh tells the astonished public that Denmark has succeed in an big economic growth without any growth in energy consumption at all – and that Denmark has been doing so for the last 25 years. This is simply not true due to the fact that the final value from the Danish International Shipping Industry (DISI) is included in the total GDP-figure - while the energy consumption from the DISI is not included in the final sum of the country’s energy consumption.

As mentioned in an earlier post, Denmark, with an annual growth rate of 12.7% in primary energy consumption of fossil fuels in 2006, has the one of the highest rate of energy growth among OECD member countries – even higher than the growth rate in China (8.4%). Add to this the GHG-emissions from the Danish International Shipping Industry [DISI] – which now owns and manages a fleet with a gross tonnage of approximately 50 million - equal to approximately 10 % of the entire world fleet (and with a heavy segment of high-speed container vessels, (Maersk-Line etc.)). In 2006, DISI consumed about 40 million tons of heavy marine bunker oil – more than twice of the country’s entire domestic energy consumption (total domestic fossil fuel consumption 2006: 19.5 million tons oil equivalent, according to BP Statistical Review of World Energy June 2007)

Denmark, with shipping included, has an annual consumption rate of about 11 tons fossil fuel/capita and a corresponding emission rate of 32.5 tons CO2/capita – far beyond the figures from the US.

So, the Kingdom of Denmark, which ironically embraces Greenland, has as a world leader in air pollution sent a spinning PM to tell the world what to do.

The Pension Regime "sys error"

As the sun walks the sky during a day, so is man’s life.

Compared to this parable, the present pension regime has forced, or tempted, woman and man to maintain the same level of consumption and living standard during the p.m. part of their entire lifespan. Thus our way of living has become, more or less, out of alignment with natural life. Just like the sun declines so should our outer life convulse or diminish.

Now we have arranged our pension system to fulfill a very linear economic way of living. Most people spend approximately one fifth of the total amount of time at work to ensure that they won’t have to work at all during the last third (ore fourth) of their lifetime. And thereby accumulate a tremendous amount of “money” – kept in all kinds of obscure funds - obviously this creates and stimulates a similar tremendous need for loan markets etc. The ongoing crisis and turmoil in the financial market and the economic recession are, in part caused by this unnatural state of retirement - and pension systems.

That’s the situation now.

“Goodness, Beauty and Truth” are ancient core values, and I think values like these still exist among folks today. In general, or at least in the developed countries, what we have now is a large accumulated amount of wealth and richness – and also here there seems to be some kind of misalignment between wealth and the “Goodness, Beauty and Truth”.

To obtain these core values takes time - it’s not simple - it will require time for personal growth, time for refine, relativize and cultivating the ego bound human – it’s a lifelong effort – and due to, for the most, a striving hectic working life, these goals will sadly disappear beneath the horizon.

Even when retired it seems difficult to settle – we all know these huge cruise ships filled with seniors, and the sky fells dark with charter planes filled with grayed retirees. And I will postulate that these activities are lacking true spirituality or so to say the “Goodness, Beauty and Truth”.

Imagine the whole Planet living in the pension manner of the western man – yes? That would be a disaster.

I think the ongoing financial and economic crisis offers a great opportunity to change our present pension regime, to ensure a shift toward a more natural life and way of retirement.

Expand the coolness

It is good to see the vast arising in truly ecological consciousness, including the matter of Global Warming.

And, as usual, Bjorn Lomborg succeeds in fueling the ongoing debate on Global Warming. GW is now widely recognized as a fact. Moreover, it is crucial to address the consequences and possible solutions to the Global Warming and its best done by reaching as comprehensive a view as possible.

Obviously, Lomborg fails to address the collective awareness at its subjective core values. It could be useful to look at a wider scop of perspectives or even other perspectives – and hope-fully end up with an integral foundation of views as to make wise and proper decisions possible.

In general Lomborg looks at the society’s objective values, and of course as an economist[1] he assesses almost every matter in monetary units - as to say a very materialistic approach.

A basic goal, I assume, is to minimize the total amount of suffering – and here I find we have to recognize a very basic concept; every time we try to measure or add up quality we end up with quantity. So we simply cannot quantify the impact on suffering – the gap here is between different quantum levels.

First, we could add collective cultural perspectives, which emphasize intersubjective core values such as ethic and moral. And where can we find a common ground for such a perspective? We have to recognize that global warming is a truly global issue – and therefore explicitly calls for a common global set of core values. In my opinion, the various world religions can present the common ground and common values. It could be useful to obtain what we could call unified interpretations on the core values of the world religions – humbly I believe it could be “act harmless” or “end suffering”.

Bjorn Lomborg mostly focuses on various kinds of relatively singular items (AIDS, poverty etc). But from a planetary perspective, it seems, as all sentient beings will (more or less) suffer due to global warming – and a more pluralistic perspective on the eco-system seems appropriate.

So what we have here is really a spiritual quest. And an integral spiritual perspective, which embraces and pervades both singular and pluralist perspectives, could bring great benefit as a tool for the entire humanity and especially for the decision makers.

If we fail to acknowledge the integral spiritual perspective here, we will not succeed.



[1] Quote by Satish Kumar: The words ‘ecology’ and ‘economy’ come from the same Greek root, oikos, which means ‘home’. Home is always a place of deep and intricate relationships based on mutuality, reciprocity, and co-operation. Logos means ‘knowledge’ and nomos means ‘management’. So ecology is knowledge of the home and economy is management of the home. If we do not know our home, we cannot manage it, so ecology must come first.

Something’s rotten (even) in the state of Denmark

Bjorn Lomborg seems to appear on the scene as an errand boy for the new Janus approach of Denmark.

Denmark, well known for its leading role in development and use of wind energy – yes, as a matter of fact, until recently a world leader in that field - now also has become a world leader in air pollution.

How did it come about, that a Scandinavian country shifted from being an invocative leading sustainable developer to an extremely high contributor of greenhouse gases [GHG]?

Denmark, with an annual growth rate of 12, 7% in primary energy consumption of fossil fuels in 2006, now has the highest rate of energy growth among OECD members’ countries – even higher than the growth rate in China (8, 4%). Add thereto, the GHG-emissions from the Danish International Shipping Industry [DISI] – which now owns and manages a fleet with a gross tonnage of approximately 50 million - equal to ca. 10 percent of the entire world fleet (and with a heavy segment of high-speed container vessels, (Maersk-Line etc.)). In 2006 DISI consumed about 40 million tons of heavy marine bunker oil – more than twice of the country’s entire domestic energy consumption (total domestic fossil fuel consumption 2006: 19, 5 mill. tons oil equivalent, according to BP Statistical Review of World Energy June 2007)

To Denmark, that gives a yearly consumption rate of 11 tons fossil fuel/capita and a corresponding emission rate of 32, 5 tons CO2/capita – far beyond the figures from US.

So, The Kingdom of Denmark, which ironically embraces Greenland, has as a world leader in air pollution sent a messenger to play down the consequences of the global warming.