Kyle R. Mcallister wrote:
----- Original Message ----- From: "Stephen A. Lawrence" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <vortex-l@eskimo.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 10:31 PM
Subject: Re: [Vo]: Oil shale research in Israel
Speaking as a CO2phobe and bonafide tree-hugger I object to being
called an "envirofascist".
I notice you quoted but did not reply to or perhaps notice what I wrote
towards the end. I will repeat it here.
"(this does not include all those who are environmentalists, just the
whackjobs)"
If you would prefer me to explain that further,
Really, no problem -- I wasn't actually offended, and I did see the
disclaimer! I just couldn't resist responding, and taking your words
kind of at their "extreme worst".
Just about all regular posters on Vortex share an interest in
alternative energy sources. Beyond that, our politics are all over the
map; if I got all bent out of shape every time somebody posted a message
whose politics I disagreed with I'd have to give up and become a hermit.
You're bugged by the high price of gasoline; I'm bugged by the low
price of gasoline. But we'd both be thrilled to see a new energy source
come along which would render all arguments about gasoline prices moot!
I understand the points you've made in previous posts, and in fact I
agree wholeheartedly that any law which attempts to put an outright
_ban_ on any sort of vehicle in a misguided attempt to reduce gasoline
consumption or emissions is unlikely to work well and very likely to
backfire. The wonderful "bad example" of the CAFE law and the
consequent SUV boom is always helpful in understanding what's wrong with
top-down ham-handed regulation of the market.
An aside on carburetors: I've had several carbureted cars, and two
fuel-injected cars (and one diesel, but let's just kind of forget the
diesel). Every one of the carbureted cars had occasional choke problems
and had to be warmed up before it could be driven effectively on bitter
mornings, and most of them had incurable "hesitation" issues.
("incurable" => carburetor adjusting, cleaning, and/or rebuilding helped
only minimally.) (The '66 Lincoln with the huge 4-barrel "toilet" was
the only one that never hesitated, as it happens...) In contrast, the
injected cars act like it's midsummer's day, all year round. F-I may or
may not be cleaner, and in fact on a cold morning I suspect it's dirtier
(when it's ten below out and the car starts and runs fine instantly
there's no way I'll believe it's burning a 14:1 mix, and no emission
test checks behavior of a "cold engine") -- but none the less,
carburetors are the pits.
I will do so. Reading
your response, I don't believe that you are what I would call an
"envirofascist," I was mainly referring to those who stand in the way of
every single slab of concrete that someone tries to pour, etc.
Incidentally, I have objected to being called many things on this list,
and my complaints fell on deaf ears. Try to understand my hearing loss.
I just question the whole global warming business, as the way some
environmentalists and groups thereof have handled the supposed problem
makes it seem more a nice way to make a money and power grab than a real
concern. In the 70's it was the impending ice age. Sorry, but I don't
know what data to believe, who has doctored what to make it look the way
they want it to look, etc.
I don't buy the analogy with "prior bad research" (the 1970's ice age),
nor the vague hints that it's all a conspiracy. And at this point, I
don't have problems "knowing what data to believe", because there's so
much consistent data available. I've read enough about global warming,
in scientific journals as well as more casual sources, to be absolutely
convinced it's real. The only remaining question is how bad, how soon.
In general, the farther from the equator you get the better accepted it
is. In the southern U.S. the effects are not particularly apparent.
But in the far north, things are rapidly turning into a mess. In Canada
there's no question at all about its reality, and no doubts are ever
expressed about that by anyone (conservative or liberal); rather, the
issue is what to do about it. This is a big deal, because the Northwest
Passage is opening up, apparently faster than anyone expected, and up
here that's a political hot potato. The current conservative government
is determined to keep Canadian sovereignty over it, but that may involve
a direct conflict with the United States. Note well: The current
Canadian conservative government, pals with Bush, fellow travelers with
the U.S. neocon movement, is seriously concerned about the best
political response to the consequences of global warming, and has
accused the liberals of failing to act in this area. There's /no/
right-wing denial of GW in these parts!
The issue of how much of the change was caused by humans versus
something else can still be argued. I happen to think it's clearly of
human origin, but the case isn't as open-and-shut as it is on the
"existence" issue. The climate observatory which was canceled last year
would have helped in resolving some of the remaining open questions.
Case in point: last year, everyone screamed
that we would have an even worse hurricane season
Those that did so don't understand statistics and probability.
Long term trends can be detected, and to a lesser extent predicted.
Short term climate behavior is extremely hard to predict.
I can say with certainty that you'll die of old age some time in the
next 100 years (unless something else gets you first). I can't say with
certainty that next year this time, you'll feel worse than you do this
year, because you'll be older. You might start exercising and lose
weight and feel _better_ next year than this. But that doesn't cancel
the long-term trend, nor change the final outcome!
Does that make sense? Based on what I've read I can say with certainty
that things have been getting warmer, and, with someone less certainty,
I can say I expect them to continue to get warmer. I _CAN'T_ say with
any assurance at all that next month, or even next year, will be any
particular temperature.
From what I've read, I also think it's overstating our knowledge by a
lot to claim that global warming _is_ the cause of the recent bad
hurricane seasons. There are models which predict that GW _should_
cause more intense hurricanes, but climate modeling is difficult and
error-prone. I think it's likely that the apparent trend toward more
intense weather is real, I think it's likely that, _in_ _general_ storms
will get more intense and more frequent, but I sure don't think that's
been proved, and I CERTAINLY don't think you can say "2007 is going to
be real bad 'cause of global warming!", any more than you can say "On
April 23 of next year a hurricane will make landfall in Baton Rouge!".
Short-term weather is much too variable and too unpredictable for that.
this year because of
global warming. This year, we had almost no hurricane season because
of....global warming...triggering El Nino....gotta love the
unfalsifiable. Maybe it's real, maybe it isn't. Who can tell with the
buffoons who are running the show, on both sides of the issue.
Now El Nino is an interesting one. I've looked over the graphs of El
Nino events, and it looks to me like they've been getting more frequent
and lasting longer over the past century.
It's quite possible that the warming we've already had is making El Nino
events come more often and stay longer. But I don't think that's
anywhere near provable, and since El Nino is a manifestation of a
chaotic system with what may be several "strange attractors", it's
likely to remain very hard to predict: such systems tend to flip-flop
randomly from one state to another.
Some concerns I do have are the destruction of rain forests. That is
stupid, they are being sawed down for no good reason, losing who knows
what new potential pharmaceuticals. Pointless destruction of a natural
laboratory is ridiculous, but we never hear about that anymore, no, its
all the great big evil CO2.
Who never hears about that? I don't watch television, so I wouldn't
know what most people hear about, but in other news sources we sure do
hear about that.
It also ties in with the CO2 issue, in that much of the rainforest land
which is cleared is BURNED. The tropics are on fire, right now, even as
we argue about the arrangement of the deck chairs on this great Titan of
a ship...
To go a bit more out on a limb here, I have a big problem with
destruction of other species which may very well be near our level of
intelligence capacity. I would not mind watching a Coast Guard cutter
open fire on a whaling ship. But we don't hear about these things
anymore.
Say what??? I hear about them all the time. You need to stay in better
touch with us envirowhackos!
Join Sea Shepherd if you want to stay on top of the whaling issues. If
the Coast Guard won't open fire on 'em, well, Sea Shepherd isn't always
so squeamish. And unlike Greenpeace, their ships go armed. (AFAIK Sea
Shepherd hasn't yet been blacklisted as a terrorist organization; God
only knows why not.)
(But don't join Elf, even if you can find a mailing address for them, or
you'll be in big trouble with Uncle...)
The real environmental issues have been pushed aside by the
bleeding hearts who really just want to make money and justify their
existence.
I _beg_ your pardon. I think I'm technically a bleeding heart, and my
biggest donations go to Sea Shepherd, which is trying to save the
whales, and World Wildlife Fund, which is trying to save land (you know,
like rainforests and stuff).
"Hitting the wall" without any breathing space when the oil runs out
seems like a recipe for a world catastrophe, and as you point out, oil
shale could give the United States the breathing room it needs to get
long-term solutions in place.
Look at it this way: if we burn oil shale derived fuels for a while
longer, to give us the time and free resources to do the 'solar thing'
(which I am strongly in support of, as it has almost limitless
potential) we will of course add some more CO2 to the air. So fine.
If we do not do this, and just let things run out and have a big crash,
there will be a lot more CO2 than anyone can imagine. And NO2, various
other NOx's, and a nice big cloud of radioactive iodine, polonium,
uranium, plutonium, beryllium, ad nauseam ad tedium.
Right, when the U.S. fights WWIII with China.
If we have a
worldwide energy collapse, it will not be a slide back into medieval
times like so many scream. It will in all likelyhood be a nuclear war.
But of course, we are all good enlightened 21st century people, and
we've got the noble blue-helmets of the UN to keep us civilized.
First, the U.N. isn't well enough funded to really hold major combatants
apart if they really want to rip each other to shreds. Second, the U.N.
forces are a mishmosh of forces from various nations which almost never
play together except on a real battlefield, so, for example, compared to
NATO, they're generally less well trained and effective, even
disproportionate to the minimal funding they have. Third, the United
States is one of the major kingpins in the UN, and if the U.S. wants to
get into a war with somebody the UN is not going to stand in their way.
Take
away those civilized people's lights, and see how quickly the barbarism
returns.
One nit I would pick with your post is that, looking at overall
process costs, including the strip-mining and subsequent enviro repair
which is likely to be involved in getting the stuff out of the ground,
I'm not sure it's really going to be "cheap" energy. But at this
stage in the game, anything that qualifies as "available" energy is
probably just fine -- after all, we've been living pretty well with
$65/bbl oil (give or take a ten-spot), which doesn't exactly qualify
as "cheap energy", either.
It is also interesting, I think, that no one seems to have pointed out
that there is a large available workforce for manual labor to construct
solar power collectors in the desert, which we do not have to pay
anything at all: convicts.
A lot of people call that kind of thing "slave labor" and don't like it.
Politically it's likely to be very hard to pull off.
Convicts used to make all the license plates in Pennsylvania; I don't
know if they still do. I know I've heard objections to that system.
That kind of paying debt to society I think
is better than letting them lounge around all day doing nothing,
watching TV, etc. Make them work it off.
In general, working (not to excess) can be beneficial to people.
Sitting around being bored and watching TV is _never_ beneficial.
If they work extra hard, reduce
their time. When they get out, give them certification in whatever they
worked on during prison labor, job references, etc. Then they can get a
decent job and not have to go back to a life of crime. But who would do
this? The liberals won't, because you can't force those poor darlings to
work! Nor will the republicans do it either, because they wouldn't make
enough money off of it.
And besides it might not be "punishing" enough. Retribution, that's the
name of the game here -- what kind of retribution is it to give someone
free job training and experience to put on their resumes??
Hmmm. This is becoming a vicious circle. If we have prices that are so
outrageous for energy that people are finally motivated to do something
serious about it, then we are already at the point where our resources
are strained to the point of ineffectiveness. If prices and resources
are not strained, and we have a great surplus to solve the problem once
and for all, then no one is motivated. This is about like two people
walking in opposite directions in a hallway and both stepping from side
to side in unison. Something has to give or we get nowhere. But what?
You have said it well here. The problem I have with oil shale providing
"breathing room", which I didnt' voice earlier, is that the United
States has _already_ had more than enough breathing room to do something
and has frittered it away. The oil shock of the 70's should have led to
something, but instead, as soon as prices came down again, all effort
was apparently directed at figuring out how to evade what few weak laws
had been put on the books during the brief crisis.
In what seemed like a few months people had completely forgotten that
the 55 MPH speed limit was put in to save oil, _NOT_ to "save lives"
(which it may never have done anyway if you look at all the
ramifications of the law changes).
So, if oil shale starts coming out of the ground, and U.S. gas prices
drop as a result, who's to say the good folks in the heartland won't all
just breath a sigh of relief and go back to business as usual, only to
be blindsided yet again in 2025?
Cheney and his pals certainly have known about "peak oil" for at least a
decade, more likely 2 decades, but what have they done about it?
Nuthin' useful, that's for sure.
You have to love economics: the entire future of the human race may be
limited by something that doesn't even exist, except on paper.
--Kyle
