We Must See Through the NRA and Act on Guns

It’s recently become abundantly clear that the U.S. has a major problem with guns in the hands of crazy people.  No other industrialized nation has anything like the rate of gun-caused deaths as we do.  It’s not likely that the U.S. has a significantly higher proportion of crazy people than other nations.  But we do have more guns.   

The National Rifle Association has to take some credit for this.  They have successfully lobbied Congress for decades to resist even moderate restrictions on gun ownership.  Some of the NRA’s recent positions seem crazy.  The NRA opposes background checks on all gun sales, opposes having to notify police when guns are lost or stolen, and supports gun ownership for people on terrorism watch lists; 75%, 64%, and 71%, respectively, of NRA members disagree with these positions.  And, while the NRA has been lobbying for national legislation making concealed handguns legal everywhere, most NRA members believe that states should make their own laws for concealed handguns.  (For background and details on this information see http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/kapil-khatter/nra-gun-control_b_2372471.html )

Why would the NRA be more extreme than its own members?  A likely reason is that the NRA is not really a gun owners’ lobby as much as it is a gun manufacturers’ lobby.   It’s become a trade organization, with large annual contributions from gun manufacturers.  And, like most trade organizations, it can be counted on to push for whatever will make its corporate members more profitable, anything that will help them sell more guns.

Congress has faced pressures from entrenched manufacturers before.  It faced such from the auto industry when it became clear, in the 1960s, that cars were causing air pollution.  It faced pressure from the chemical industry when it became clear that DDT and other chlorinated pesticides were wiping out predator birds and when it was proved that CFCs were depleting stratospheric ozone.  It faced pressure from the lead industry when it became clear that lead in paint was damaging children’s health.  Congress rose above these pressures and enacted measures that controlled these problems. 

This coming year, may Congress to take a hard look at the acute problem that virtually unbridled gun ownership has created in this country, see beyond the arguments of the NRA, cloaked in the guise of personal freedom and safety, for more sales and profits for the gun industry, and enact legislation that will lead to a major reduction in gun-related deaths.

Fuel Cost as a Percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP); Update

This is an update of a chart I've posted previously showing fuel expenditures as percent of GDP. That percentage crept up again in 2011.

The contribution of natural gas is smaller due to much lower prices; almost certainly the result of new production from the shale plays.

Coal is still relatively cheap, although its cost has been rising steadily from $19 per ton to over $32/ton today.*

On an energy basis, coal and natural gas are now close; coal costs about $1.70 per million Btu and natural gas is currently priced at about $2.50 per million Btu. Nuclear fuel is still so cheap compared to the fossil fuels that its contribution would not show in the chart.

As has been the case since 2005 when its global production levelled off (see my previous post), petroleum's cost is relatively high. Now at over $100 a barrel, it costs abut $18 per million Btu. But our industrial economy is geared in ways that seem to resemble addiction to oil, and its contribution to the overall percentage of GDP spent of fuels grew in 2011.


* Data from USDOE/EIA, 2005 dollars, F.O.B. rail/barge price at point of first sale

Things Have Changed

Physical things, like water, sometimes display startling and abrupt shifts in form. Apply heat to a pot of water. The water will get steadily hotter until it reaches the boiling point, and then something dramatic happens; the temperature stops rising and the water steadily turns to vapor, and disappears into the air. Something equally dramatic happens when water freezes. Subject to cold enough temperatures, water’s temperature steadily decreases, until it reaches the freezing point. Then there is no further temperature drop until the water freezes. At that point the water, now effectively transformed into the mineral, ice, continues to get colder. These sorts of shifts, or phase changes, are well known to physical scientists, but beyond the professional experience and training of most economists and social scientists.

But there probably are phase changes in economic and social systems, and it looks like we’re in the middle of one now. The growth of cheap, concentrated energy in the form of petroleum that has underpinned economic growth for generations is gone. The continued failure of mainstream economists and politicians to grapple with understanding this is becoming unconscionable.

Take a look at this chart, from an article that just came out (Murray, James and David King, 2012, Oil’s tipping point has passed, Nature, 481, 433-435). Oil economics changed markedly around 2004-2005 from elastic to inelastic supply. It seems highly unlikely that this change can be attributed to anything other than production of crude oil hitting a ceiling at about the same time. The idea that instead this marked change is due to some sort of political attitude shift that suddently occurred during that short period seems far-fetched.

The abrupt shift in behavior of the oil market looks a lot like a phase change. This shift tells us that things are different now. Things are so different that all bets are off as to the future behavior of the price of oil and the systems that have been built on the ready availability of inexpensive and steadily increasing quantities of it. It seems inevitable that the vast array of systems of the industrial world that depend on this fuel, including, especially, transportation, will go through a phase change of their own, with consequences that are perhaps nearly impossible to predict. To continue the analogy with water; if you’ve spent your whole life understanding how water behaves, you may have a hard time understanding steam.

Those in a position to help decide the future of economic and social systems have to understand that the old order has changed if they are to be able to have a chance of preventing all hell breaking loose. It seems certain that the economy cannot continue to increase its production of traditional goods and services, and the jobs that rely on these, now that the supply of cheap oil is no longer increasing. It also seems certain that we won’t be able to “grow our way out” of this recession/depression and that we’ll have to start actively looking at how a non-growing, steady state economy will function and how to get there.