Hello, all I'm new to the list and am catching up on all the conspiracies so have withheld comment up to this point. However, I felt it necessary to jump in here...
Tom, Your logic on the river flows is .. Well.. Not logical. If the rivers drop to 1/3 their current flow once the glaciers have melted, then the current flow is augmented by said glacier melt (2/3 of it, per your argument) and is not a "normal" flow based on average rainfall and retention time in aquifers. Conservation of mass dictates this. So really what these poor people downstream are currently facing is flood stage rivers due to glacier melt, to correct your argument. But the argument as a whole doesn't compute, especially if one accepts the theorem that "global warming" is a relatively new phenomena... Say 30 years since the start of a noticeable effect? I have no idea if that guess is correct. Another question, and maybe more to the point, is: Is the earth getting warmer than usual, or are we exiting a mini ice-age and the temp is returning to a more normal range when the last 100e6 or 100e5 years is considered? I sure don't know the answer, but do question when people cry doom because the ice is melting. FWIW, an ice-age can be self-feeding at a certain point as the albedo of the planet increases dramatically and thus the planet retains LOT less energy from the sun... But... A warm-stage ecosystem is self-limiting (within limits, say at temps below 451 F ;) ) as co2 in the atmosphere gets pulled into the biomass, thus increasing the radiation of energy off-planet. Either way, and I believe this may be the point you wanted to push, I agree that powerful countries will continue to exert more and more power in more and more (probably paranoid) ways to protect their "interests". Too bad there is no global organization that perfomrs the same duties as the anti-monopoly laws require here in the US (yeah, I can't remember the gov't org's name who usually blesses the buyout of one behemoth by another) Oh, and your timeframe is BAD, too. To quote a random school web page "The plankton that lived in the Jurassic period made our crude oil. This was the time of the dinosaurs. It was about 180,000,000 years ago." So you are off by a measly 800 million years. I do believe we have a decent idea of the continental configuration around that time, but am not sure as it outside my sphere of knowledge. Sincerely, Rob Hepler Dabbler in this-n-that -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tom Irwin Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 12:46 PM To: 'James Dontje '; '[EMAIL PROTECTED] ' Subject: RE: [Biofuel] when will it run out Haken and James, First, Haken my information on oil reserves in the Azerbijan region comes from a management person high up in Chevron. I will not reveal that person to you as it might put that person in a bad place. As for oil being present under the ocean, well that is where it originally got made a billion or more years ago. Since we have only found most of the stuff on dry land it only makes sense that more should be found in the ocean depths. True, oil might only be found at mouths of great rivers but we have little idea what the land masses looked like a billion years ago let alone what river systems may have existed. Increasing production capacity is linked to oil prices which you must have noticed just jumped $20.00 per barrel this past year. Supply and demand or demand and supply, I'm not sure what drives what in these days of mass marketing. But you sure as heck can build a lot of production capacity at the current price of oil. I still firmly believe it will not be lack of oil that gets us but the climate change that will disrupt our food and water supplies. Think of this. All of the glaciers in the Himalayan mountains are receding at an incredible rate. They could all e gone in less than 20 years. This is in the highest mountain range in the world that this is occurring. Those glaciers feed at least seven major river systems. The ones that come to mind most quickly are the Indus, Brahmaputra, Salween, Mekong, Ganges, Yangtze and Huange He. They supply drinking water, water for agriculture, and for industry to close to a billion people directly. When the glaciers that feed these rivers are gone they will have only annual rainfall and normal snowmelt to feed them. Their flows to drop to 1/3 of their current values. How in the world are those folks going to survive? I have no answer. I don't think anyone does. I don't believe enough people are even remotely aware of the problem. Be sure to realize that it will not only effect them. It will effect everyone indirectly in terms of economy, disease, and even warfare. You don't think China just increased its military budget cause they were having a bad day? The dino fuels are the cause of a massive problem with enormous consequences not just for certain countries but for for our entire species. Ironically these dino fuels may cause our extiction. Tom Irwin -----Original Message----- From: James Dontje To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 3/30/05 9:15 AM Subject: [Biofuel] when will it run out Tom and Hakan-- I was reminded recently of the power of compounding. At linear rates, if we have 100 units of oil and use it one unit per year, we can last 100 years. But if our usage grows five percent per year, we will run out in year 37. Every industrialized economy is built on the hope of perpetual growth. While the proportion changes as we gain efficiency, energy use tracks that growth. Hence, the compounding of growth is always shortening our horizon even as efficiency and new discoveries lengthen it. The problem, however, isn't running out. It is our collective reactions as we see the horizon get close. The recent postings on this list are describing a "great game" that is based on the powerful's reactions to a close horizon--a reaction based not simply on how to protect the future, but on how to protect the future and their own power in that future. Jim Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 04:58:44 +0200 From: Hakan Falk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: RE: [Biofuel] Mapping The Oil Motive To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Tom, You are in the best case right, but I think that the crises is less than one generation (20 years) away. The statement you make have no support in known facts, especially since the usage growth rate seems to be grossly underestimated. The reserves from the Oil companies has already been proven to be over estimated, with almost a third for Shell only. Hakan At 09:59 PM 3/29/2005, you wrote: >Hi All, > >I am an environmental scientist by education and my latest research is on >sustainable development. As near as I can tell there is no shortage of oil. >There may be shortages of production, shortages of distribution but for at >least another generation there will be no shortage of oil due to lack of >material. Here is the key reasoning. We still have not tapped all the >available reserves on land. All the Gulf war stuff is about underdeveloped >Iraqi oil and the as yet untouched and shallow (read highly profitable) oil >in the Azerbijan region. Oil is produced under oceans. Although we have >found most of the terrestrial based oil, it represents only 1/8 the planets >surface area. That leaves 7/8 of the planet where we have hardly begun the >search for new sources. A recent National Geographic article displayed new >technology that was enabling drilling off the continental shelf in water >1500 feet deep. Now oil from that depth won't be cheap but it still will be >available. With prices at $57/ barrel it becomes economically feasable to >look even deeper. > >The point and the problem is that there will be no lack of oil. The problem >will be from the climate change that is already here and will only worsen >as >we convert fossilized carbon from solid and liquid from into gaseous carbon >dioxide. I recently rewrote a global warming headline, " Hemingway turns in >his grave as the Snows of Kilamanjaro dissappear from the Earth forever. >That's the problem folks. > >Sincerely, > >Tom Irwin > James Dontje Sustainability and Environmental Studies Berea College _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
