Inconvenient Truth versus Inconvenient Swindle

[tjohnson]

Hi, this is my first post here but this issue of global warming, or as I like to call it, climate change, will be around for a long time, I suspect. I think 'global warming' is a poor choice of words for this phenomenon since who cares if the average temperature of the planet increases 0.5 degrees or whatever? This kind of data is meaningless to the average citizen so we should be talking about climate change, which has very much meaning to us.

I think, in a sense, it (whatever you call it) is something of a non-issue since even if we assume that burning all our fossil fuels will result in catastrophic climate change there are other important reasons to stop 'wasting' our resources. The old adage "waste not, want not" comes to mind. When I see 12 lane highways choked with vehicles crawling along or stopped with their motors running I say there is something wrong with this picture, and the answer isn't building more highways. Fossil fuels will run out and we need to wean ourselves off them ASAP for economic, social, etc. reasons, if not for climate change reasons.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Thomas,

Welcome to OL.

Actually, I believe we will convert to ethanol to replace gasoline. I saw this up close in Brazil and it works well. From what I understand, the major oil conglomerates are investing heavily in future ethanol production. But they make plans in terms of decades, not years, so I do expect a rather extended transition phase.

And I think the conversion will happen for a different reason than climate. Anyone who stands near a car burning alcohol gets a small whiff of an alcohol smell, not noxious carbon dioxide and other polluted air. In my opinion, I believe this will be one of the major factors in switching (after the convenience of acquiring it has been solved). But if the cost is higher than gasoline, I don't see it happening.

Michael

[tjohnson]

Yes, using a different, man-made fuel is a good idea, although I think bio-diesel will be a more likely candidate. We need to change how we live and work as well, like tele-working when possible. Maybe when we are paying 2 $ per litre (8 $ per gallon) like they do in Europe we may be more inclined to reduce our consumption.

[John Dailey]

Thomas:

~ Hello, and welcome. Boy, have you stepped into a hornet's nest here!

MSK:

~ I'm still a bit confused/perplexed re your concern about what 'The BIG Picture' is. Grants (from govt and/or non-govt) supporting arguers for pros/cons about GW (er, sorry: Climate-Change) is...IT?

~ Ok. Let's discuss how they should be 'handled' (or at least, like 'lobbying', regarded).

LLAP

J:D

Edited June 8, 2007 by John Dailey

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

John,

How should legislation about climate change be handled? The same way legislation for any undue government intervention should be. Government restrictions based on AGW should be opposed until proper tests are made. The means correct weather predictions (short, medium and long term) being made during about 10 to 20 years showing cause in AGW. If those tests bear out, the context will change. But since when has man ever been able to predict the weather well?

On the other hand, if people want to devote their time and effort (and even money) persuading others to use less carbon fuels, that is their right. Freedom of speech and all.

What I don't see is a crisis. If social security goes belly-up, there is a big honking crisis. If a war is mismanaged (er... ahem... nah, forget it), there is a big honking crisis. If restrictive measures are put on carbon fuels (I should say MORE restrictive measures), we won't even feel it. The major players in oil are involved in this up to their necks and they will be the first in line with fuel replacements. And don't think there are no arrangements already being made with engine manufacturers. I've seen all this already in Brazil.

Michael

[Aggrad02]

This is a very long thread, but have y'all been talking about the security dangers of having to buy our oil from OPEC countries such as Venezuela, Iran and Saudi Arabia?

While a battle of ideas is nice and essential in the war against al-qaeda, pulling the funding out from under them by becoming energy self sufficient would be huge.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dustan,

Yes!

I have been saying this for a long time. Stop funding our enemies.

Michael

[tjohnson]

For many years I have heard about governments paying farmers to NOT FARM in order to stabilize pricing (supply side management??) I say to myself these farmers could be growing crops to make bio-diesel and we could kill 2 birds with one stone. It's a win-win situation. Apparently you can run vegetable oil in diesel engines with very little modification, but I don't know the details.

[Aggrad02]

For many years I have heard about governments paying farmers to NOT FARM in order to stabilize pricing (supply side management??) I say to myself these farmers could be growing crops to make bio-diesel and we could kill 2 birds with one stone. It's a win-win situation. Apparently you can run vegetable oil in diesel engines with very little modification, but I don't know the details.

Right now I am reading a book called Biodiesel America by Josh Tickell. It is really good and very informative so far and I will tell y'all about it when I am done. You can also get more infromatation at www.biodieselamerica.com. It has a really good Q&A.

--Dustan

[BaalChatzaf]

For many years I have heard about governments paying farmers to NOT FARM in order to stabilize pricing (supply side management??) I say to myself these farmers could be growing crops to make bio-diesel and we could kill 2 birds with one stone. It's a win-win situation. Apparently you can run vegetable oil in diesel engines with very little modification, but I don't know the details.

Right now I am reading a book called Biodiesel America by Josh Tickell. It is really good and very informative so far and I will tell y'all about it when I am done. You can also get more infromatation at www.biodieselamerica.com. It has a really good Q&A.

--Dustan

Oh Goody! We can pay for our biodiesel fuel twice! Once at the pump and twice when we pay taxes to fund the subsidy for biodiesel fuel.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Aggrad02]

For many years I have heard about governments paying farmers to NOT FARM in order to stabilize pricing (supply side management??) I say to myself these farmers could be growing crops to make bio-diesel and we could kill 2 birds with one stone. It's a win-win situation. Apparently you can run vegetable oil in diesel engines with very little modification, but I don't know the details.

Right now I am reading a book called Biodiesel America by Josh Tickell. It is really good and very informative so far and I will tell y'all about it when I am done. You can also get more infromatation at www.biodieselamerica.com. It has a really good Q&A.

--Dustan

Oh Goody! We can pay for our biodiesel fuel twice! Once at the pump and twice when we pay taxes to fund the subsidy for biodiesel fuel.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Actually using food plants to produce fuels is pushing the price of those crops (corn and soybean) up to a point that they will in the future no longer qualify for subsidy. Also it would be better to pay for our fuels twice in that way than to pay for them three times over with regular mideast oil (once at the pump, once with subsidies, and once with security measures such as the Iraq war to make sure we get the last bit of oil that is left).

[John Dailey]

MSK:

~ You argue that (per my request) "...legislation about climate change should be handled..." PER "The same way legislation for any undue government intervention should be. Government restrictions based on AGW should be opposed until proper tests are made."

~ We definitely do not have any disagreement there, though this clearly all comes back to *my* original concern: the scientists first (including the disagreements amongst whichever with whomever), should be payed attention to; NOT those 'twixt the legally-intimidating politicians and the bribery-oriented (to influence the former) corporation-heads.

~ The tricky part is, re the accepted-as-'scientists' arguing/supporting whichever side...how to separate wheat from chaff (regardless the presumed 'motivations' of whichever.) Who's funded by whom is not the most sensible criteria; elsewise, we all need to bone up on the science itself...to decide who to trust.

LLAP

J:D

[John Dailey]

MSK-ADDENDUM:

~ Probably the 'trickiest' part of this whole subject has to do with *your* phrase of "...until the proper tests are made..."

~ "...'proper'..."? Aye, there's the rub, as the Bard would say.

~ According to...whom?

LLAP

J:D

[BaalChatzaf]

Actually using food plants to produce fuels is pushing the price of those crops (corn and soybean) up to a point that they will in the future no longer qualify for subsidy. Also it would be better to pay for our fuels twice in that way than to pay for them three times over with regular mideast oil (once at the pump, once with subsidies, and once with security measures such as the Iraq war to make sure we get the last bit of oil that is left).

We are better off building hundreds if not thousands of fission reactors to generate electricity. Then the only need we would have for petroleum is as a feedstock for plastics. We have more than enough petroleum right at home for that. Being hooked on oil has caused us to dig a hole in which we find ourselves. The First Law of the Hole: stop digging. The Second Law of the Hole: put the shovel down.

It may take us ten or more years to site and build a hundred nuclear generating stations but it will be well worth it. Once we have enough electricity the so-called hydrogen economy can happen.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Burn Environmentalists, not oil.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

~ Probably the 'trickiest' part of this whole subject has to do with *your* phrase of "...until the proper tests are made..."

~ "...'proper'..."? Aye, there's the rub, as the Bard would say.

~ According to...whom?

John,

Why, according to the scientists. When they can correctly predict the weather over a long period of time (10-20 years), they will have excellent credentials for presenting what the real problems are. So far, no one has even come near.

Then, should this condition be met, if some of those problems are man-made and the result is dangerous, obviously the danger will have to be dealt with and what men are doing will have to change. If they show that there are no man-made causes, or that the man-made part is negligible, but a danger still exists, this will serve as basis of studies on what to do about nature.

There is nothing wrong with making special regulations regarding public dangers. For instance, transporting dangerous chemicals in tanker trucks and things like explosives on highways need to meet special conditions to minimize risk. That kind of regulation does not bother me so long as public highways exist.

Climate-wise, I have no problem with evacuations and such during a hurricane or flood or earthquake, etc. That is a correct form of intervention. At least, an imminent hurricane can be dealt with objectively, as it should be. For now, that kind of crisis is about all that justifies climate-related government intervention.

Science has no problem proving that a hurricane exists when it does. Notice that there is no bickering anywhere over that.

Michael

[Aggrad02]

Actually using food plants to produce fuels is pushing the price of those crops (corn and soybean) up to a point that they will in the future no longer qualify for subsidy. Also it would be better to pay for our fuels twice in that way than to pay for them three times over with regular mideast oil (once at the pump, once with subsidies, and once with security measures such as the Iraq war to make sure we get the last bit of oil that is left).

We are better off building hundreds if not thousands of fission reactors to generate electricity. Then the only need we would have for petroleum is as a feedstock for plastics. We have more than enough petroleum right at home for that. Being hooked on oil has caused us to dig a hole in which we find ourselves. The First Law of the Hole: stop digging. The Second Law of the Hole: put the shovel down.

It may take us ten or more years to site and build a hundred nuclear generating stations but it will be well worth it. Once we have enough electricity the so-called hydrogen economy can happen.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Burn Environmentalists, not oil.

I am very much in favor of nuclear power. Anything to get us off the oil drug.

I haven't done a ton of research on nuclear, but I know that nuclear power will be limited by how much uranium there is in the world (just like oil once it runs out it is gone). How much uranium is there?

Thanks, Dustan

Edited June 9, 2007 by Aggrad02

[Chris Grieb]

Dustan;

Every prediction about the amount of oil has been wrong. Scientists keep finding the stuff in new places.

What about fusion as a power source?

[tjohnson]

Dustan;

Every prediction about the amount of oil has been wrong. Scientists keep finding the stuff in new places.

What about fusion as a power source?

What are you saying Chris, do you not accept there is a finite amount of oil in the world? The only question is WHEN it will be effectively exhausted and it depends on a great number of variables. As Dunstan has implied we need to move towards renewable resources, and uranium is definitely not one of them. All energy comes from the sun, directly or indirectly, but some is renewable in human life cycles, others are not.

[BaalChatzaf]

Dustan;

Every prediction about the amount of oil has been wrong. Scientists keep finding the stuff in new places.

What about fusion as a power source?

Yodah says: Do not your breath hold, Young Chris, until controlled fusion developed is, else blue turn you will.

Fusion power has been twenty five years in the future for the last fifty five years. A hundred years from now it will still be twenty five years in the future.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Aggrad02]

Dustan;

Every prediction about the amount of oil has been wrong. Scientists keep finding the stuff in new places.

What about fusion as a power source?

Actually they have all been right. In the 50's Hubbert predicted that the US would peak in oil production around 1970, then the US peaked in oil production at 11.3 million barrels per day in 1970. The US has produced less and less oil every year.

Some other stats (From Biodiesel America by Tickell):

20% of our daily oil comes from just 14 oil fields. They average 44 years in age.

With the massive increase in technology the new fields found in the last few decades will never produce more than 250,000 barrells a day.

"Bettery technology has not, however led to substantial increases in the amount of oil being discovered. 'We can find a needle in a haystack,' says fifty-year petroleum veteran geologist Colin Campbell, 'but it is still a needle.' While worldwide discovery in the 1960's had reached a high as 55 billion barrels per year, discovery in the 1980's ranged from a high of 41 billion barrells to a low of 19 million barrells per year and falling. Today we discover less than 7 billion barrells per year and falling. Today we discover less than one barrell for every four we use" (Biodiesel America, Josh Tickell, p.38)

70% of our oil comes from fields that were found before 1970.

Suadi Arabia claimed to have 170 billion barrells of oil in 1989, it increased its Ultimate Recoverable Reasources to 258 billion barrels in 1990 with out any new discoveries. 1990 to 2002 in produced 35 billion barrels of oil but still claims it URR as 258 billion barrels with no new discoveries.

The Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia produces 55-65% of all Saudi Arabia oil (largest OPEC member), and 5.5% of the world's. The oil field is on a steady decline. It produced 6.5 million barrels a day in 1990, it produces 4.5 million barrels a day and is falling.

When pressure in an oil field startes to decrease, oil producers inject water or steam to keep the pressure high. Right now the Saudi's are having to pump 7million barrels of water to get the 4.5 million barrels out.

China's oil deman is growing by 10-13% per year.

No new oil refineries have been built in three decades. (Probably because they would not live long enough to realize a profit)

BP changes its name from British Petroleum to Beyond Petroleum.

There were 2 Billion people on planet earth in 1950. There are now 6 billion people on the earth.

It is simple. oil is not unlimited. Population and demand continue to increase while production and discoveries decrease, mean the amount of oil is decreasing. Economics point that oil is going to continue to get more and more expensive until it is gone or other fuels replace the production.

--Dustan

[BaalChatzaf]

I haven't done a ton of research on nuclear, but I know that nuclear power will be limited by how much uranium there is in the world (just like oil once it runs out it is gone). How much uranium is there?

Thanks, Dustan

About a hundred years worth in the ground. If we can ever extract it from sea-water thousands of years worth.

If we build breeder reactors and make plutonium we will have even more years of fissile material.

If we ever learn to drill deep enough we can get not only uranium from the magma but lots of heat and heat is what we really need. Heat = Energy.

In addition to all of this we still have solar and wind to fill in niches. Not to say anything of five hundred years worth of coal, just in North America alone.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Aggrad02]

I haven't done a ton of research on nuclear, but I know that nuclear power will be limited by how much uranium there is in the world (just like oil once it runs out it is gone). How much uranium is there?

Thanks, Dustan

About a hundred years worth in the ground. If we can ever extract it from sea-water thousands of years worth.

If we build breeder reactors and make plutonium we will have even more years of fissile material.

If we ever learn to drill deep enough we can get not only uranium from the magma but lots of heat and heat is what we really need. Heat = Energy.

In addition to all of this we still have solar and wind to fill in niches. Not to say anything of five hundred years worth of coal, just in North America alone.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Thanks for the info, I'm also in favor of finding cleaner and more efficient ways to burn coal.

The drilling into magma part sounds a little scary though

Dustan

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here's a cute little development.

Microsoft seeks answer to question "Would global warming make for a good game?"

By Frank Caron

June 11, 2007

Ars Technica

Watching the public reaction to this game should be a pretty good indication of how much AGW is really embraced by the public and how much is merely a smokescreen for other interests.

Someone should tell Microsoft to hold down the publicity on this one. It could get embarrassing.

btw - In the comments to the article, there is one "Ragnar Dan" making a fuss, talking about communism and so forth. Heh. It figures.

Michael

[Jonathan]

Here's a cute little development.

Microsoft seeks answer to question "Would global warming make for a good game?"

By Frank Caron

June 11, 2007

Ars Technica

Watching the public reaction to this game should be a pretty good indication of how much AGW is really embraced by the public and how much is merely a smokescreen for other interests.

Someone should tell Microsoft to hold down the publicity on this one. It could get embarrassing.

btw - In the comments to the article, there is one "Ragnar Dan" making a fuss, talking about communism and so forth. Heh. It figures.

Michael

I think it should be first-person shooter game called something like "Mutant Watermelon Alien Hunt."

Here's how I see it working: At the beginning of the game, prominent leftist politician characters, who are actually a strain of Mutant Watermelon Aliens in disguise, would make scary predictions about what they think is going to happen to the planet's temperatures, CO2 levels, water supplies, crops, etc., within the next ten years if we don't immediately limit economic freedom. During fierce debates over whether or not their views are accurate appraisals of reality, they would announce their willingness to bet their lives on their predictions. They would sign pledges that if they are wrong, they agree to become the prey of any of their opponents in the global warming debate who might wish to hunt them down and kill them.

The next phase of the game would be to do nothing for ten years. No leftist legislation, no reduction in production and consumption, nothing. Then, after ten years, when none of the leftist Mutant Watermelon Aliens' dire predictions come to pass, as they never do in reality, the hunt would be on. Of course there would be the typical array of weapon options and difficulty levels.

J

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Live Earth branded a foul-mouthed flop

By TAHIRA YAQOOB

Daily Mail

9th July 2007

This thread looks like an appropriate place for the news of this turkey. There are other headlines all over the news. AGW is laying an egg big-time.

What is being confirmed to me is what I suspected after studying this issue. Once you get away from the people who control the news and the media (and institutions like the Academy Awards and the online forums) and take the issue to the public at large, people yawn.

Not even Madonna can save this one, and she knows about how to whip up the public. I think she is riding the media wave for her own reasons this time, not actually trying to be a part of it. She is the only one who wrote a song specifically for the event, but "Hey You" sounds more like the music of Joan Baez than Madonna, so I think she was just trying on the protest singer persona for personal entertainment and experience.

Michael