I happened to be surfing the interwebs the other day when I came across an article showcasing a new book called Decomposed: The Political Ecology of Music, by Kyle Devine. Needless to say, my first thought was why are we always letting people (read: non-musicians) politicize our music and music culture in general? The book attempts to show the ‘hidden material histories of music’ as it wanders through the various periods of time where record companies used different physical means of production, from vinyl LP’s, to cassette tapes, CD’s and even server storage in today’s computer streaming world. The book’s aim is to let us all know that basically any form of physical music product is made via petroleum and thus is bad because this supports petro-capitalism! It’s a laugh really–the thought that us starving musicians are guilty of damaging the earth because we actually need a physical medium to store our product. Unfortunately, Kyle like many others of his ilk, is guilty of inability to look at a much bigger picture called “life”, which consists of many more people, in many more social and economic strata than his cushy little associate professorship in Oslo. However, there is an even bigger and more intellectually dishonest conversation that is going on behind the scenes that surrounds so called “environmentalism.”

Let’s start with the obvious and get it out of the way. Oil currently is the cheapest and most efficient energy on the planet. While Kyle would like you to spend all of your disposable income on non-petroleum based products, he conveniently misses the point that the next option is 3-4x as expensive at best. While perhaps a professor at a large university can afford that, the truth is that many people cannot, especially when it comes to heating their home. Just as a source of energy, petroleum powers over 60% of the transport industry. Of course, while all attention is on our autistic superhero Greta as she sails the world to avoid flying, the reality is this energy is being used to get products from point A to point B. Use a toothbrush? A computer? Toilet seat? Do you have paint on your house? A roof? Talk on a cellphone? Own a refrigerator? Do you use soap?? Without petroleum, most all products would increase in cost to a point where they become unaffordable; their manufacturing industries would be crushed, their down-line products would cease to exist and fewer people would have options for common everyday consumables (including music).

Perhaps more important than the various (trivial?) products that would simply disappear or be priced out of existence, is that many people depend on affordable, efficient energy to heat their homes so they don’t freeze to death. Energy used for simply powering one’s life, even at a small carbon footprint is significant. There are so many people in poverty that can’t afford even a minimal increase in their energy costs. What are they supposed to do? Here we get to the crux of the issue of why people like Kyle are so intellectually dishonest: they speak volumes about “saving the earth” (for the people of course) but all of their policies lead to genocide.

I would wager that any popular global warming advocate in today’s news has a carbon footprint that is likely 100x larger than mine. Whether it’s their travel habits, size of their numerous dwellings or expensive toys, these people certainly don’t practice what they preach. But what are they really advocating? A total scam. Let’s take a look at various clean energy methods and the “real” cost:

1) Rare-earth materials

These are the pesky little minerals and elements that build many of the components inside wind-turbines, electric cars, solar panels, high strength magnets, etc. These “rare-earth” metals are some of the most toxic pollutants on the planet. They are generally found among radioactive elements that cause cancer in the mining workforce, which in some countries employs mere children for this task. The toxicity pollutes the soil, causes erosion, acidification and ultimately lowers the food output of a given region. These processes are so toxic one generally finds the mining operations in countries like Africa, China, India, Pakistan and others that have extremely lax environmental controls. It’s hilariously hypocritical for any “green energy” advocate to highlight the U.S. petroleum industry’s environmental abuses while their industry simply off-sources the toxic production to third world countries. Hey Kyle, I’ll take an LP over a lithium battery any day.

2) Solar Power

Solar power uses quite a bit of water for cooling and cleaning purposes. An average photovoltaic array can easily use more water in a year than an entire residential block. Solar power uses twice the water amount of oil when comparing one kilowatt hour of electricity. Solar is also more than twice as expensive. Ask yourself which is the more necessary resource–water or solar power? Again, the true facts of energy consumption are being obfuscated. Once we start looking at the tremendous amount of subsidies necessary to keep this market afloat, solar starts to look like the biggest loser. Keep in mind that these subsidies do carry a significant cost to the taxpayer (not always the end solar user) and they massively distort the electricity market. Is it any wonder that Obama’s solar energy policies left Americans $2.2B in the hole?

3) Wind Turbines

This is probably the biggest joke out there. I’ve seen hundreds of wind turbines in different areas of the world. The one thing in common–the turbines barely move. Where are we going to get all this wind energy from if the turbines aren’t moving? Even when we have a little bit of wind, the energy can only be transported in close proximity to the wind farm. These giant things kill massive amounts of birds, they are incredibly noisy when they actually move and those giant turbines are essentially useless when they fail. They have to buried in massive landfills, just to dispose of them. So what is the total cost to consumers? After one adds all the subsidies to the wind industry, the per kilowatt hour of energy is increased by $23 alone in addition to the cost of running the wind turbine. Compare that to $0.21 in the petroleum industry. Wind is over 100 times more expensive! Can you hear me all the way in OSLO????

So why should we fear “petro-capitalism?” A very simple answer: We shouldn’t. Capitalism is extremely easy to understand: it is an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. Because “profit” is the key word here, the entire process of a product from start to finish needs to be profitable. It doesn’t matter what specific energy product is used so much as that the entire process is as cost-effective as possible. Hint: If solar was more cost-effective than petroleum, we’d be talking about solar-capitalism (and some asshat would find a problem with that, assuredly). Private ownership is important because it helps to spawn competition, which pushes the relative efficiency concept even further. It keeps people and businesses from getting lazy, implementing bad ideas and essentially being unprofitable, or in a another way, going against natural law.

The state, via tax revenue, operates outside of natural law. It has the ultimate power to choose winners and losers, even when the winners are not as efficient as the losers. (Side note: Keep in mind that “the state” does not need to be profitable; it can always increase taxes, whereas in the real world, resources are limited). When you add in the fact that “the state” is full of corruption, you can see the results. The U.S. wholeheartedly subsidized the solar industry under Obama and it failed miserably; most of the companies that received subsidies went belly up. It cost taxpayers over $2 billion dollars and that money mainly went to extremely expensive executive parachutes. Hey Kyle, that’s a lot of food that could have been on the table.

Capitalism is the only economic theory that is congruent to natural law. This is kind of an important concept to think about while we inhabit the earth. On the other hand, “petro-capitalism” is just a word, concept, or idea that is totally made up. The earth truly doesn’t care if we use petroleum, solar, wind, etc.; what matters is that we use the most efficient ways of getting things done to ultimately conserve (read that word again) resources! This is what the earth teaches us via natural law. It’s one of the reasons that water flows downhill. Petroleum is in the position it is because it is efficient, not because (as the petro-capitalism definition implies) it is necessary in allowing the production, exchange, and consumption of goods. The definition of petro-capitalism is so ridiculous that we can turn it on it’s head by making up another: Idiosocialism–socialism that hinges on the creation, exchange and subsidization of idiotic economic ideas.

So what does this have to do with music again? Any manufactured product (that is not made exclusively in nature) has environmental and economic consequences. However, if we would like to continue to produce and ultimately use products, we have to choose some type of material. As such, we should pay close attention to the overall efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the chosen energy source versus a forced, convoluted, inefficient “green” solution. Asking people to arbitrarily pay more for energy (or any product) than they would otherwise need to has nothing to do with efficiency. And this gets us back to the idea of capitalism, the record industry and why we have the various formats of media that have contained music over the years.

The first vinyl records were created over 100 years ago. The fact that they are making a comeback should tell us something–this is a good product. Mr. Devine can lament all he wants about vinyl LP’s, but the fact is that there is no better material for audio, durability and cost. And while the computer industry turns over it’s various pieces and parts virtually overnight (sending the old stuff to the dumpster via Moore’s Law), records that were produced even in the early 1900’s are still being played and are still part of people’s record collections. Contrary to the idea that billions of vinyl LP’s are filling up landfills, these records are actually filling up people’s basements. While shellac was used for LP’s briefly prior to WWII, it is naturally produced and it is a safe product. I’m not sure what homeboy is so up in arms about. Spare me the details about women and children in the “global south” helping to produce shellac–there are children today that are handling deadly rare-earth elements for your green energy products!

Now of course, vinyl is made from petroleum. So what? Find me another product (in any manufactured format) that has lasted that long and still provides good use to the consumer. That’s efficiency, Mr. Devine. That’s how capitalism works. But it’s more common sense than anything else. Imagine you are an artist or record label. Your goal is to get your product into the hands of as many people as possible. Should you make the product out of gold? Tree bark? Cornmeal? There are many different dynamics involved in the manufacturing process that determine what exactly is used, but at the end of the day the goal is durability, usability and cost-effectiveness. This is easily demonstrable in the vinyl record. However, let’s take this exercise a step further.

Obviously the record industry didn’t just stop with vinyl and record players. Technology improved to allow better storage and easier playability which then produced the 8-track, audio cassette and CD formats, among others used today. Think about this for a second with regard to green energy. Over time, the reader can see the natural progression of many different formats (spawned by tech) that seemingly created better and more cost-effective media for music. In some cases it was cheaper overall for the consumer, even with slight audio loss in some of the products. However, none of these products (to my knowledge) were ever subsidized by the government; none of these products were made for environmental reasons. Now imagine the same green energy pundits pushing CD’s at the same time LP’s were in high demand, at 3-10x the cost! Who would buy them? No one, unless they were forced to. So we see an important corollary about capitalism and manufacturing materials when compared to various green energy ideologies: Capitalism (in most cases) allows for the natural progression of a product to be manufactured via various materials and methodologies as a function of cost and efficiency, rather than the arbitrary action of forcing people to consume (and replace) products at a much higher and inefficient cost structure, as “green energy” does. Mr. Devine is telling you to denounce your petroleum based products in favor of what?

Here we reach the obvious non-sequitur. Argue about capitalism all you want, there is no better system to replace it with. Yes, it is contrived and manipulated and corrupt like most of the earth today (due to evil people); however, there is no better, more efficient alternative of producing goods that mirrors good old mother nature. So who is this audience that Kyle Devine’s book is trying to reach? It is not musicians. Or anybody that understands economics, energy, nature or philosophy. Or real business people, who actually have hands-experience trying to compete in their respective industries; people who have no choice but to be cost-effective. It is not for the economically deprived (which includes about 4-5 billion people) and it is not for the typical consumer. Instead it is intended for the high brow “elite” globalist asshats that condescend to you and I on a daily basis about our freedom of choice. How many of these “elite” are real working musicians that need a physical medium for their output (or a working instrument, amplifier, etc.)? These so-called “elite” don’t give an ounce of thought to your existence and would rather see you terminated or genetically modified at best. I can just imagine a future where these self-deluded twits are demanding that we no longer keep our own music collections because we are harming the environment! The horror!!

Why in the actual f@#k would/should we listen to these people anyway? We are musicians; we want our music to be heard as far away as possible, by as many people as possible. We want to share our creations. We are not elitists, nor are we like them and their ilk. We don’t have cushy jobs, risk-free environments and tenured employment. The record industry as a whole is such an infinitesimally small part of the overall economy and environment, I seriously question whether or not Mr. Devine has better things to do with his time. Maybe try picking up an instrument–the trombone would be perfect for you and your boneheadedness!