From: everything-list@googlegroups.com
[mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of John Clark
Sent: Sunday, March 16, 2014 8:37 AM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: The situation at Fukushima appears to be deteriorating
Chris de Morsella <cdemorse...@yahoo.com> on Sat, Mar 15, 2014 at 1:44 AM
> Are you trying to imply that species are not dying off at alarming rate?
I hate to see any species go extinct (except for the Smallpox virus) but
there are other things that alarm me more.
>>I don't think so but even if you're right do you have a solution that
doesn't involve the extinction or at least a major culling of my very
favorite animal? If so let's hear it.
> What a total false choice you offer. If I disagree with your views then
unless I have all the answers. what John?
>>If you don't know of a cure for global warming that isn't worse than the
disease then it's pointless to continue to wring your hands about it and you
should concentrate on problems that you might actually be able to solve.
BS - raising awareness of a problem is the first step towards addressing it.
I realize you are more comfortable with a cornucopian magical thinking cap
protecting you from the harsh light of reality, but to say that one should
not speak of planetary scale problems, such as say for example the utterly
unsustainable nature of our current petro-chemical dependent large scale
mechanized mono-cropping agro system; because one does not have every
solution at one's fingertips is not only ridiculous - in and of itself - but
is an attempt to discourage even discussing things that John Clark does not
approve of or want to hear mentioned.
I have offered quite a few prescriptions - none of which you will approve
of, because they entail the adoption of a new ethic of material frugality,
of having a light footprint, and of adopting sustainable practices, as we
also phase out current unsustainable ones. You seem to be violently opposed
to the very idea of such an ethic and are hostile to energy harvesting - the
solar flux, the wind.
If we do not adapt and change - at a fundamental core level the ways and
manners in which we live - we will go as you would have us all go full speed
ahead straight over a cliff!
> I give us a 50% chance of going out with nuclear war
I think the possibility of nuclear war is much less than it was a few
decades ago but it's still the single greatest threat facing the human race.
But hey, look on the bright side, if we're all incinerated in a nuclear
fireball we don't have to sweat about a little thing like global warming.
> I put our probability of avoiding planetary economic collapse and a die
off of the like no one has experienced since the eruption of Toba on the low
side.
>>If we're all doomed then environmentalists should stop bugging us over
trivialities and let us enjoy the little time we have left.
So you are one who favors the Ostrich strategy.. Interesting, by the bark of
your voice I thought your more a Hyena. say, than an Ostrich. Again, may I
point out that awareness of a problem is the necessary first step in
addressing it or mitigating it or avoiding it.
> Does that mean I wish for this? Hell no it doesn't; it means I am
realistic
>>Dramatist would be a better word.
You are. to use a parable for a quick second. the yeast that is yelling to
all the other yeast there is infinite sugar for us yeast to eat in our vat..
Look my fellow yeast all these naysayers have always been wrong before, so
continue eating as much sugar as you can. many yeast look at the work of
these past yeast and see that there still seems to be lots of sugar and
conclude that they must be wrong.. Eating is good, because yeast like to eat
sugar.
And then, quite suddenly as the yeast population booms. that wall is hit,
and in a very brief period of time an almost total collapse of the yeast
population in that vat happens.. And happens every time.. No matter what the
yeast cornucopeans try to pretend up until the very moment their vat world
goes over its cliff.
If you do not think the situation of our planetary biosphere is dramatic,
you are asleep at the wheel John.
> and it is a mess whether you choose to believe it is or not. Look at any
metric: deforestation; desertification, loss of top soil, loss of organic
matter content in farmed soils. Add to this the impending downslope for all
fossil fuels and all fossil water. Add to this the blow back effects of loss
of watershed; climate change; ocean ecology collapse
>>Don't bother me with the small stuff, the nukes are about to fly!
Your flippant attitude gets you nowhere.
> Anything we try to do is going to take energy to do - and lots and lots of
energy. Even to build - say to pick your fav a Nuclear power complex. It
takes huge quantities of fossil fuel to make the cement, steel, to operate
the mines, to transport everything.
>>Exactly, so unless you can't wait to see billions die to continue to
behave as if fossil fuel is the personification of evil is just dumb.
Makes you come across like some deranged train conductor who shouts full
speed ahead. towards the broken trestle. Your solution: burn the shit as
fast as we possibly can. that, my friend, is the epitome of idiocy.
Far better to use our brain's to begin husbanding these limited resources
more wisely, spreading out the period of transition and buying our planet
more time to transition away and out of the oil age. Far better to begin,
now while we still have a functioning industrial system to begin building
the necessary infrastructures of the follow on system that is going to need
to be built if we want to have a chance in hell of not going into global
collapse and mass die off - or more probably mass nuclear suicide in a final
existential energy war between the last two remaining industrial powers.
> We are in the twilight of the oil age
>>I prefer the Harry Potter books.
You prefer to remain ignorant of reality and continue in your world of
magical cornucopian thinking. Brilliant!
> and have become petro-junkies. [..] I give it even odds that we will do
what junkies do and self-destruct
>>If you think there is only one chance in four that we won't nuke ourselves
or die as a junkie then why the hell are you losing sleep over a little
thing like global warming?
All the various threads of our world's problems are rooted in the same evil
system that has elevated naked greed to the supreme preeminent level.
Fortunately humans are not just driven by greed though the ideology of greed
would have this be so. Humans can and do cooperate and are beginning to wake
up to the hangover that greed driven materialism has accumulated for us in
our near future.
> Do, I have hope. yes, as a matter of fact I do maybe about 1%-5% chance we
will get our shit together in time.
>>And I would estimate that there is about a 1% to 5% chance your estimate
of a 1% to 5% chance we will survive is correct.
Bravo. and also so what?
> What do you think the real reason is for the globally very anemic
"recovery" from the collapse of 2007-2008? Does it perhaps dawn on you that
peak oil might have something to do with it?
I hate to disappoint you but the second coming and the peak oil Armageddon
that will punish the profligate for their sinful ways is still a ways off.
The USA has embraced fracking technology as no other part of the world has
and as a result oil production in the USA is the highest it's been in 24
years and it now produces more oil than Saudi Arabia. In 2012 oil production
increased in the USA by 760,000 barrels a day, the largest yearly increase
since records about oil production started in 1859. And the increase in
natural gas production is every bit as dramatic.
LOL. dream on cornucopian. I have already been over that particular bubble
and deconstructed it. All one has to do is to examine the depletion rates
for fracked wells - begin with the Eagle-Ford formation in Texas as it is
the most mature and has the best stats. Look at actual real hard numbers
beyond current production, which cannot be sustained. The return on capital
for the energy sector is rapidly going down, as is the EROI. You sound like
you get your facts from the Oil&Gas sector PR departments. The boosters in
any bubble are going to paint the very best picture they can; that is the
picture you see. The planet's big super mega fields have all peaked: Ghawar
(2005), Burgan (2005), Cantarell (2004) - the world's three biggest fields
ever have all entered into decline and ar about to tip into steep decline -
as Cantarell has. There is no way North Dakota Shale Oil & Canadian Tar sand
strip mining operations will ever be able to fill in for that decline. For
one thing both the shale and tar sands plays are gated by limited fresh
water availability - which effectively puts a cap on their maximum
achievable rates of production.
As I said. dream on cornucopian, continue to uncritically swallow every Oil,
Coal, Gas, & Nuclear press release and the various "studies" the think tanks
these lobbies fund spew out.
The truth is in the numbers; it is public domain information and for those
who understand the meaning and implication of key quantified measurements:
EROI, ROI (and return on CAPEX), depletion rates (and the implications these
have for both EROI & ROI).
Chris de Morsella
John K Clark
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