* This is how one commentator (and insider) characterized Russia’s current political economy @ Untimely Thoughts.

Today’s state management system is based on the feudal system of vassal-king relationship, where a person is given a “nadel” to manage (it may be anything from a state company to a small district in a faraway oblast), essentially as he pleases, PROVIDED he regularly sends a “desiatina” (this includes both “white/taxes” and “black/envelope” cash) to the higher vassal (or a king if appointed by the king himself) and sends a “voisko” (again in modern times it may be anything from managing elections in a certain way to supporting certain federal programs locally) when and if required.

I certainly do not think that oil sands/shale can substitute for all the liquid crude that used flow from more shallow land wells not in extreme arctic conditions, but in my mind, measures like cap and trade are foundering precisely because the haste with which they are being pursued, combined with the revealations about insider angling for bailouts by some of the same people, leads even non-conservatives outside the U.S. to suspect a huge con.

The fact that the famous hack results were posted on a Russian server is being used to insinuate that Russia as the world’s largest hydrocarbon producer is attacking man-made global warming. Russian hackers are no doubt talented and some have government connections, but I think it just as easily could have been hackers from a Western country and the Russia thing is just misdirection. Good to see the “Streetwise Professor” not yet taking the bait on the Russian origin of the hack, or not mentioning it all to thank Russians for a public service?

Maybe some major players in the energy industry finally got fed up with how the financiers speculated to create $144 oil than crashed the thing after they blew up the U.S. market, housing and then again the (emerging) markets, and THEN had the chutzpah to push cap and trade schemes as their next bubble. The fact that the Goldman Sachs and other big boys are all set to trade carbon credits doesn’t help the Copehagen case one bit.

In other words, I agree with Exile-ex Matt Taibi (who might be less skeptical of AGW than me) writing in Rolling Stone that cap and trade is just the latest example of a global transnationalist financial class and the enviro lapdogs they fund squeezing the physical blood and guts of the world economy to death. It’s no coincidence that some of the biggest hedgies are some of the biggest donors to enviro-rast causes (to borrow your term for fake/authoritarian extremist Russian liberals, liberast).

Predictions that the world may soon be awash in cheap gas from shale formations and thereby some artificial scarcities will need to be created to prevent huge losses for the financiers, commodity speculators and governments seem to me spot on. Although Western analysts have slanted every article about the North American unconventional gas boom and the sudden cheapness of global LNG to say that it’s going to hurt Russia, they don’t report the flip side that political projects hellbent on bypassing Russia at all costs like Nabuccco will become even more wildly uneconomical than they already are NOW. Seeing the Prof criticize Nabucco is about as likely as seeing the Wall Street Journal criticize the Russian Central Bank for buying TOO MUCH American debt securities/Fannie and Freddie paper — between slim and none.

In my mind the real ‘limits to growth’ as you call them come from PEAK POPULATION/AGING and PEAK DEBT in the developed countries, not peak natural resources. There was only so much technological/bureaucratic overload plus leveraging companies, individuals and finally governments could take on before people simply lose faith that debts will ever be repaid and the whole system (Soviet style) begins to unravel. The rise of financial oligarchies prevented the developing world from catching up in terms of productivity with developed countries, really the only hope for the economy to maintain growth when most Germans and Japanese alive are over sixty. And that’s a tragedy nearly as great as the Depression of the 1930s though a global war is not an imminent outcome of this repeat.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that any system that treats human beings as infinitely malleable is not SUSTAINABLE — whether it’s Communism that puts armies of workers above the Arctic Circle in Norilsk or a hyper-Corporatism (notice I did not say Capitalism) which expects employees to relocate every six months with zero job security and women not to have babies in favor of careers. Man shall not live by bread or corporate paychecks alone.

Globalization is not guaranteed. I think it highly likely there will be a retrenchment. While its benefits have largely been for the good (at least materially, if spiritually the jury is still out if not yielding a less than sanguine conclusion), there is a deep unease amongst many. It is definitely not outside the realm of possibility that this unease, combined with resource challenges will combine to unravel much of the current architecture that is taken for granted. I actually wrote an op-ed recently on this subject, “Beyond the Great Illusion” (http://gregrlawson.com/2009/11/25/my-oped-beyond-the-great-illusion.aspx)

A few snippets I think relevant to this debate (I will admit up front it is American-centric, whether that is mere prejudice or, as I prefer to think, a reflection of power relations and potentialities, can be debated):

“Is the world careening to a new world disorder? There are numerous analysts who think that this view is anachronistic and merely doom and gloom pessimism that recalls Spenglerian decline while ignoring the rise of new centers of power amidst the overall positive benefits of a globalized economy. To some, once the economic and credit crisis ends and a new global financial architecture is erected, we will be able to move forward into a world of grand, “social justice.” Some even dream of a world of “Global Zero” and no nuclear weapons…

Perhaps, this is true. Perhaps, civilized man has reached a point where we can be sanguine about the future. Yet, we’ve been here before. Only a mere century ago man thought the world would never devolve into catastrophic warfare because economic interdependence would make it too costly. Famous books were written to bring home that point. Books like Norman Angell’s “Great Illusion” clearly made the elite opinion of the day swoon, just as today we have “The World is Flat.”

A single day in June 1914 put an end to that “Great Illusion…

It is time to move beyond rhetoric and realize that we are always teetering on an abyss. Statesmanship and wisdom are the necessary means to avoid tipping over. However, before addressing this, Americans need to understand the full context of the world we live in and understand the threats we face without hyperbole, but also without naivety.

Every generation thinks itself the one to “end war” for all time and create a “just” world order. Each generation is disabused of these notions as reality stares them in the face.

The current American generation needs to become disabused sooner than previous ones for the storms brewing beneath the surface of our false tranquility (even after the economic crisis) are real and will not be tamed by rhetoric, resolutions, and vague concepts of hopeful cooperation. They will be tamed by eternal vigilance and recognition that even as the world undergoes profound transformations, fundamentally, man is still man. The old emotions, so well described by Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, of envy, fear, and greed are just as present now as love, respect, and humility.”

Despite the post-Enlightenment view of rationality ruling over irrationality, there appears to be a permanence to the human condition that is tragic and does not seem conquerable by anything except, perhaps, transcendent faith (ie. religion).

This is why I think Anatoly is on to something, he is on to the reality that hides beneath the superficiality many prefer to truth. While this “hiding” is probably unavoidable, and is probably needed in order to make the world bearable, it can’t be entirely forgotten by wise leadership.

Indeed prudence and wisdom should work in concert to appreciate progress, but not bow down before it.

IMHO there is ample evidence that global warming is real and threatening and you are right that wind and solar look doubtful. OTOH it seems that nuclear is quite capable of supplying all electrical energy we currently need for quite a long time (we still would need something for industrial processes requiring a lot of heat but switching electricity production from coal to nuclear will give us a breezing space of 50 to 100 years and we can do a lot in this time). An example of France shows that this solution is possible and quite effective (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita ). At some point we will have to do it.

I recommend this source: http://www.withouthotair.com/ (especially http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c24/page_161.shtml )

See you on “Untimely Thoughts” group.