Climate change implications indicate global rethink required

Peak Nature and the transformation of capitalism, by Timothy Morton, Adbusters.org

Nature is the featureless remainder at either end of the process of production. Either it’s exploitable stuff, or value-added stuff. Whatever: it’s basically featureless, abstract, gray. It has nothing to do with nematode worms and orangutans, organic chemicals in comets and rock strata. You can scour the Earth from mountaintop to Marianas Trench. You will never find Nature. That’s why I put it in capitals. I want the reader to see that it’s an empty category looking for something to fill it. Gray goo.

Capitalism did away with feudal and pre-feudal myths such as the divine hierarchy between classes of people. In so doing, however, it substituted one heck of a giant myth of its own: Nature. Nature is precisely the lump that preexists the capitalist labor process. Martin Heidegger has the best term for it: standing reserve, Bestand.

Bestand means “stuff,” as in the old ad from the 1990s, “Drink Pepsi: Get Stuff.” There is an ontology implicit in capitalist production, then, that is strictly materialism as defined by Aristotle. Funnily enough, however, this materialism is not fascinated with material objects in all their manifold specificity. It’s just stuff. This viewpoint is the basis of Aristotle’s problem with materialism. Have you ever seen or handled matter? Have you ever held a piece of “stuff”? Sure, I’ve seen lots of objects: Santa Claus in a department store, snowflakes and photographs of atoms. But have I ever seen matter or stuff as such? Aristotle says it’s a bit like searching through a zoo to find the “animal” rather than the various species such as monkeys and mynah birds. Marx says exactly the same thing regarding capital. “The ‘expanded’ form [of the commodity] passes into the ‘general’ form when some commodity is excluded, exempted from the collection of commodities, and thus appears as the general equivalent of all commodities, as the immediate embodiment of Commodity as such, as if, by the side of all real animals, there existed the Animal, the individual incarnation of the entire animal kingdom – or as if, to use an example from commercial capitalism, by the side of all real spices, there existed the Spice.” As Nature goes, so goes matter. The two most progressive physical theories of our age, ecology and quantum theory, need have nothing to do with it.


Research information on Peak Nature concept

Race to Index 20,000; Dow or TSX?

New York and Toronto stock markets will both surpass 20,000

The Dow Jones industrial average closed at 11,555.63 today, and here in Canada, the S&P/TSX composite index closed at 11,732.50. As the only way out of the current morass involves printing enough money to get inflation re-started, one may feel that resource-rich Canada will move ahead and power its way to 20,000 before the Dow. It's possible, however it may be more likely that the resource panic peaks in 2011 / 2012 and technology / green energy takes over as the primary economic engine from 2013 onwards. In this scenario, I see the Dow hitting 20,000 in August 2018 and/or in the 3rd week of January 2019, Twin Peaks, before retreating below 16,000 by late September 2019.

The TSX will peak in July 2018 at 19,280 before a Summer / Autumn swoon, rally again to 18,900 by late January 2019, and then correct to below 16,700 by November 2019. The Toronto Market will have to wait for the glory of sailing through 20k until the Spring of 2021. At that point, Jah willing, we'll post a Race to 30,000 article.


Presidential cycle favours buying near end of 3rd year uncertainty

With regards to North American cycles, if you are playing the stock market (eg you are underweight equity funds and would like to move the weighting up a bit), the historical best time to buy equities is late November / early December in the 3rd year of the USA Presidency (eg now), a season where plunging markets can often be exacerbated by personal and institutional tax-loss sellers. The market almost always falls in the 3rd year because it is long over for the honeymoon phase and too early to pump the money supply and economy for the next election, as that starts early in the 4th year. So if you are into buying equities, the next few weeks of tax-loss selling should provide great opportunities for long term investors to do some tax-loss BUYING.

Remember:

"Markets climb a wall of worry."


Joseph Trainor, CIM
November 29, 2011

Technology that moves water will be key over next decade

As most of the world will soon have not enough or too much water, investing in water pumps and water pipelines seems like an intelligent move. Here's one to consider:

Energy Recovery, Inc. (NASDAQ: ERII), a manufacturer of water pumps for desalination plants.


For more water-related investments, visit Water Intell - Desalination, Irrigation, Hydro, Tidal and Wave Power

Blue Chips go turquoise, seek green hue and $$$

Dow Chemical (NYSE: DOW) unveiled its solar roof shingles, saying they'll generate $1 billion in revenue by 2015.


BP (NYSE: BP) announced it will invest $800 million to build the largest wind farm in Kansas.


GE (NYSE: GE) said it would build the largest solar factory in the United States. Larger than 11 football fields, the Colorado facility will make cadmium telluride thin-film solar cells, similar to those made by First Solar (NYSE: FSLR).

Margaret Atwood publishes book made from straw

New paper source designed to protect forests

From TheSpec.com:

Atwood special-edition book printed on straw

Author Margaret Atwood has partnered with an environmental advocacy non-profit to release a limited special edition of her new collection of essays on a pioneering form of paper.

The 300 copies of In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination that went on sale Tuesday are published on Second Harvest Paper, designed by Vancouver-based Canopy specifically for Atwood. It’s the first book in North America printed on straw.

“These pages were produced without any harmful impact on forests and their fragile ecosystems,” writes Atwood in the introduction. “Human beings need oxygen, and forests produce it; printed books require paper, but paper need not be made from virgin forests. This is an elegant solution to a pressing problem.”

Made from a combination of recycled material and the straw left over from harvesting grain, the innovative material gives the Atwood’s book half the ecological footprint of conventional paper.

“For us she was a logical person to approach to be the champion,” Canopy’s executive director, Nicole Rycroft, said of the organization’s collaboration with Atwood on the pilot project.

“We know and love her for being willing to dive out of the box and to try the unknown and to stand up for us and for our planet … . I just find it startling that in 2011 we still cut down, in Canada, 400- and 800-year-old trees to make Jackie Collins novels and bank statements, when this book proves that using straw to make paper is a viable alternative to using endangered forest.

“Using straw to make paper helps diversify the fibre basket and helps keep up to 830 million trees standing each and every year in our carbon-rich forests. At this juncture, that is really critical in terms of our keeping our climate stable.”

Although Canada is one of the world’s largest wheat-growing regions, it lacks the infrastructure to turn wheat straw into pulp, so the byproduct utilized for Atwood’s books was imported from China.

“That’s where we need government and paper industry leadership to really follow this demonstration of product viability,” explained Rycroft.

Although the digital age is upon us, the “mythical paperless office” may still be decades away, so Second Harvest Paper could have widespread uses from annual reports to toilet paper, she added.

The unique autographed copies of In Other Worlds are available at www.canopyplanet.org. With proceeds going to Canopy, the $100 price tag reflects its limited availability, said Rycroft.

“Straw paper should in fact cost no more than conventional paper,” she said

Market Timing: Is Autumn 2011 a good time to invest?

Stock markets often bottom in 3rd year of USA Presidency

Historically the best day to invest is the first Tuesday morning in December, as that allows you to avoid the fall swoon, and buy in at the end of tax loss selling, but still be in place for year end rally and January, which is usually an up month due to New year optimism.

Also historically, the 3rd year in a US Presidency is the worst year for equity markets, as the honeymoon is over, and it is too early to pump the economy for the next year's election.

So yes, an awesome time to invest in stocks is here, or close.

I'd suggest putting about 20% of your stocks allocation in now, another 30% by mid-November and be fully invested by 1st week of December.

Water and Agriculture stocks to watch

If a global water shortage and potential food supply disruptions have you concerned, why not invest in water conservation and efficient food production? A wide range of water stocks are profiled over at WaterIntell.com, and here's a new one worth looking into:


Lindsay Corp. (NYSE: LNN) manufactures efficient irrigation equipment to assist farmers in increasing productivity per acre, utilizing a minimal amount of water.

Bunge (NYSE: BG) is dedicated to improving the global agribusiness and food production chain, via four divisions: agribusiness, sugar and bioenergy, food and ingredients and fertilizer. To be honest, I'm not sure how "green" this company is, however I do believe they will benefit from their bioenergy division.

Agriculture equipment companies like Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) and Deere (NYSE: DE) are also sure to be in demand in the years and decades ahead.