Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/11/2013 12:13 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 10 Nov 2013, at 05:52, meekerdb wrote: 3. What do you recommend if the US refuses to comply? ?? You mean the U.S. government refuses to act in the best interests of it's citizens: Vote them out. We could have meant that the US government fake to comply. Once a government lie, and the press is no more free, you might miss the data to vote them out. In the health politics, many governments refuse to act in the interests of its citizens, since a long time, but very few citizens realize this, because they are kept uninformed. And so they think their interests are different than what you think they are. But that's different. In a democracy you want the government to act according the interests people hold, not what someone else thinks their interests should be. This is why a democracy only works well with an educated populace. But educated is a relative term. The world and technology becomes more complex and what you can really be educated in becomes a smaller and smaller fraction. In many things you have to rely on experts. But in spite of this, democracy still seems better than the alternatives. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/11/2013 12:15 AM, LizR wrote: On 11 November 2013 21:07, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 10 Nov 2013, at 08:42, LizR wrote: On 10 November 2013 18:11, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/9/2013 6:13 PM, spudboy...@aol.com mailto:spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Let me ask you Jesse do you suggest any substitute that we can turn to for transforming world civilization to clean power? The only significant thing I can think of, would be hiring Craig Venter to produce some methane or hydrogen maker, that can, if necessary convert sea water to fuel. You seem ignorant that converting sea water to fuel takes more energy than you can get from burning the fuel (hydrogen). So you still need a clean energy source to do the conversion. This would be a possible way of creating fuel for easy transport. One of the big points about petrol is that it's very transportable. The best solution to the world's energy problems imho would be to find a method of extracting carbon dioxide from the air and converting it plus water into petrol using solar power. Carbon-neutral petrol and we don't have to rejig all our existing transport systems. If we can extract more carbon than we use we might even cool the earth too. Is that not what the plants are doing, all the time? Yes, but unfortunately the whole process takes millions of years. That's to produce oil and coal. But we could just burn plants - which we once did. Or we can extract liquid fuels in various ways from plants (e.g. ferment to alcohol). But these methods are, so far, very inefficient - less efficient than wind or photovoltaics. Maybe genetic engineering of algae to produce oils will make it practical. Brent Can we do better, I mean today? Not at carbon sequestration, but to achieve a reduction in CO2 by growing plants we would have to stop using cars and power plants and so on. The reason I gave the above suggestion is that if we can do it, it would enable us to be carbon neutral without giving up our civilisation to do so. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com http://www.avg.com Version: 2014.0.4158 / Virus Database: 3629/6823 - Release Date: 11/09/13 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/11/2013 1:28 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: I didn't say I didn't feel like it or that I was unwilling to do it. I said I believed it would not be possible, with a reasonable amount of effort, to have an informed opinion. Are you a climatologist? If not, you seem to believe otherwise beacuse you arrived at a strong conclusion. In which case, feel free to tell me about the models and why it's easier to be certain than I think. I'm not a climatologist, but I can read the literature. I certainly don't have the time, expertise, nor inclination to teach an online class in climate change, and it would be redundant anyway. Read David Archer's book Global Warming, Understanding the Forecast, it has plenty of references to the scientific literature. There are excellent discussions of every aspect of the scientific climate questions (but not the economic or human impact) online at realclimate.org. Read the comments too, there are plenty of critics of specific technical points - as in any real scientific enterprise. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
This is true, Professor Marchal, but more directly, what if they tell Brent, as US Director of the Climatological Remediation Bureau, Stop telling is what to do. You are already rich and all we want to do is catch up. It's not fair that you have so much, while our people struggle. Why don't you go worry about your own country, and leave us the hell, alone! Brent, in direct contact with the Prime Minister/President, recommends an economic boycott of the environmental polluters. The BRIC's respond with fury, and declare a counter boycott. China goes to the UN to complain about economic imperialism, and tries to persuade other countries to boycott these wicked, imperialist, westerners, from using economic weapons to damage the economy and political independence of their home lands. All Loans to the imperialist country, the ASU, are halted. The President calls this economic and monetary, piracy! Brent, disgusted by their insane, intransigence, on the climate, on human survival, calls the President at the golf course, or shooting hoops, says: Sir. These people and their wicked polluting ways must cease otherwise, the future of our children and their children cannot be assured. The President asks: What do you recommend, Brent? Brent, tersely, replies: We must make an example, Mr. Prime Minister, one of their cities, using a airbust attack at 350 meters, detonating force at 150 kiloton yield. The President is silent for several seconds. Brent uses this as a spot to jump in, Look, Mr. Prime Minister, our psy-ops teams have determined that if we act soon, the opponents of fighting AGW, will not only cave, economically, but also environmentally! They will adhere to Kyoto, and so much, more, They want their people to survive as well! The President/Prime Minister thinks a moment Of course most progressives, simply ignore what the BRIC's contribute to AGW, and just focus on Europe, North America, New Zealand and Aus. This is because the BRIC's are mostly brown toned, and they also tend to get violent if you piss them off. Not like us lily livered yanks. -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Mon, Nov 11, 2013 3:13 am Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 10 Nov 2013, at 05:52, meekerdb wrote: 3. What do you recommend if the US refuses to comply? ?? You mean the U.S. government refuses to act in the best interests of it's citizens: Vote them out. We could have meant that the US government fake to comply. Once a government lie, and the press is no more free, you might miss the data to vote them out. In the health politics, many governments refuse to act in the interests of its citizens, since a long time, but very few citizens realize this, because they are kept uninformed. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/11/2013 1:47 AM, LizR wrote: Obviously they could all be politically motivated or in the pay of mysterious socialist organisations, and it's always possible that their modelling is wildly inaccurate, but unless someone is actually making up the data and the measurements then /something/ is going on which is causing the world to warm. And I would add that the modeling has consistently predicted global warming from fossil fuel burning starting with Savante Arhennius's pencil and paper calculations in 1890. It's simple, basic physics see that more CO2 in the atmosphere will make it warmer. It's much harder to say exactly how much. It's harder still to predict the effects on weather patterns, biota, and economies. So one has varying degrees of confidence, depending on what variables are being predicted. But remember that uncertainty can go either way - it's not a knock-down argument for inaction. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
Ah the apocalyptic mentality. Apocalypticists are like nationalists. The laters think that they were born in the best possible country by pure chance. The apocalypticists, also by pure chance, think that they are in a pivotal moment on history where some catastrophe or something wonderful will happen. The end of all wars, the prosperity forever, the enlightened age of eternal progress, the climatic apocalypse, the new Acuario age, or the second coming of Christ. (or the first coming of the leader that will end wars, tame the climate,a inaugurate an acuario age and so on). Of the two, the apocalypticists are the worst. A nationalist can kill few before being defeated because they can´t hide the fact that they work for themselves and they find rapid opposition. but the apocalypticsts work for the good of humanity and are here and there everywhere, ready to commit whatever crimes to advance or avoid the coming apocalypse. And because their propaganda say that they work for the good of Humanity, and not for themselves and their laboratories and their political careers, they find little opposition. On the contrary, they find armies of hyperinformed idiots. They are late-news addicts with null background knowledge in human affairs and almost in anything else except his little specialization, uncapable to interpret and integrate what they see and hear for a couple of yeas if not days and compose mentally the big picture. Ther fish-like memory and their opinions are shaped by professional opinators that follow the smell of money and the last trends in polls. You can do little against their propaganda armies. Their generals don´t have personal lifes. They are like priests, dedicated to evangelize unbelievers to their obsessions. Occupy the burocracies of the states and specially the international institutions. they feel compelled to work in the mass media and the Education. You will never win the battle. You have a familly, children, a future in which to think... They don`t. Just mock at them. sit patiently an wait for the reality to work for you, and the apocalypse will ridicule them one more time with his absence. The great and unlooked for discoveries that have taken place of late years have all concurred to lead many men into the opinion that we were touching on a period big with the most important changes.http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/thomasmalt366117.html Thomas Malthushttp://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/thomasmalt366117.html ☨1834 2013/11/11 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net On 11/11/2013 1:47 AM, LizR wrote: Obviously they could all be politically motivated or in the pay of mysterious socialist organisations, and it's always possible that their modelling is wildly inaccurate, but unless someone is actually making up the data and the measurements then *something* is going on which is causing the world to warm. And I would add that the modeling has consistently predicted global warming from fossil fuel burning starting with Savante Arhennius's pencil and paper calculations in 1890. It's simple, basic physics see that more CO2 in the atmosphere will make it warmer. It's much harder to say exactly how much. It's harder still to predict the effects on weather patterns, biota, and economies. So one has varying degrees of confidence, depending on what variables are being predicted. But remember that uncertainty can go either way - it's not a knock-down argument for inaction. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- Alberto. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 7:55 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/11/2013 1:28 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: I didn't say I didn't feel like it or that I was unwilling to do it. I said I believed it would not be possible, with a reasonable amount of effort, to have an informed opinion. Are you a climatologist? If not, you seem to believe otherwise beacuse you arrived at a strong conclusion. In which case, feel free to tell me about the models and why it's easier to be certain than I think. I'm not a climatologist, but I can read the literature. I certainly don't have the time, expertise, nor inclination to teach an online class in climate change, and it would be redundant anyway. Read David Archer's book Global Warming, Understanding the Forecast, it has plenty of references to the scientific literature. There are excellent discussions of every aspect of the scientific climate questions (but not the economic or human impact) online at realclimate.org. Read the comments too, there are plenty of critics of specific technical points - as in any real scientific enterprise. Alright, thanks for the references. I'll dig in as time permits! Best, Telmo. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/11/2013 10:13 AM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Ah, but Brents' point is that smoking and cancer are proven fact. However, at the time, Troifim Lysenko's views on biology were proven. ?? To nobody outside the Soviet Union - and only to a few there. So were the Eugenicists that lead directly to Dachau. That's like saying Mendel led directly to Dachau - for very expansive meanings of directly. Almost 100% concurred (physicians, anthropologists, geneticists, biologists) on this fact. And your source for this is? Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 12 November 2013 07:13, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: However, at the time, Troifim Lysenko's views on biology were proven. I didn't realise the Russian government at the time allowed his views to be peer reviewed and independently replicated. In fact I thought they created a climate in which no one was safely able to dispute his views. Without the normal scientific processes being available, these views were not 'proven or even tested. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
Every science whose conclusions have effects in politics has a high risk of being manipulated. In the URSS and here. From Anthropology to long term Meteorology to everything in the middle. The one that does not realize that is poor fool who does not know how the world works and has replaced with all his innocent stupidity the fairy tales of the past with the fairy tales of supposed sciences. If you read the mails of the East Anglia Climategate scandal, One of the main concern of the Warmists were about to keep in control over the peer reviewing mechanism of the main scientific magazines Long interchanges of mails were devoted to talk about stablishing barriers in the peer reviewed magazines by perverting the PR mechanisms. The fact is that peer reviewing is not a guaranty, on the contraty. It acts as an ideological filter rather than as a quality filter in every discipline in which politics and scientists benefit from mutual cooperation by interchanging money for ideological ammunition. 2013/11/12 LizR lizj...@gmail.com On 12 November 2013 07:13, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: However, at the time, Troifim Lysenko's views on biology were proven. I didn't realise the Russian government at the time allowed his views to be peer reviewed and independently replicated. In fact I thought they created a climate in which no one was safely able to dispute his views. Without the normal scientific processes being available, these views were not 'proven or even tested. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- Alberto. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/11/2013 5:04 PM, Alberto G. Corona wrote: Every science whose conclusions have effects in politics has a high risk of being manipulated. In the URSS and here. From Anthropology to long term Meteorology to everything in the middle. The one that does not realize that is poor fool who does not know how the world works and has replaced with all his innocent stupidity the fairy tales of the past with the fairy tales of supposed sciences. If you read the mails of the East Anglia Climategate scandal, One of the main concern of the Warmists were about to keep in control over the peer reviewing mechanism of the main scientific magazines Long interchanges of mails were devoted to talk about stablishing barriers in the peer reviewed magazines by perverting the PR mechanisms. Because they had already seen the process being manipulated by the well funded Deniers and their political allies. The fact is that peer reviewing is not a guaranty, on the contraty. It acts as an ideological filter rather than as a quality filter in every discipline in which politics and scientists benefit from mutual cooperation by interchanging money for ideological ammunition. Yes, some scientists might be biased - so we should assumed you deniers have the truth on the basis of no evidence except that in the past some scientists have been biased. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 12 November 2013 14:04, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com wrote: Every science whose conclusions have effects in politics has a high risk of being manipulated. In the URSS and here. From Anthropology to long term Meteorology to everything in the middle. The one that does not realize that is poor fool who does not know how the world works and has replaced with all his innocent stupidity the fairy tales of the past with the fairy tales of supposed sciences. Yes of course. If you read the mails of the East Anglia Climategate scandal, One of the main concern of the Warmists were about to keep in control over the peer reviewing mechanism of the main scientific magazines Long interchanges of mails were devoted to talk about stablishing barriers in the peer reviewed magazines by perverting the PR mechanisms. The fact is that peer reviewing is not a guaranty, on the contraty. It acts as an ideological filter rather than as a quality filter in every discipline in which politics and scientists benefit from mutual cooperation by interchanging money for ideological ammunition. So what would you suggest as a replacement? The scientific method is, to paraphrase Winston Churchill on democracy, the worst system we have apart from all the others we've tried. You might like to consider that hurricanes and bush fires and rising seas and melting glaciers can't be influenced by political opinion, and it would take a huge effort to generate the evidence coming in from all over the world as part of some vast conspiracy. We're forever hearing about the wildest storms, the highest (and lowest) temperatures on record, the greatest floods and droughts and so on. Is it just possible that the overwhelming mountain of evidence indicates, maybe, something is really going on? (And by the way, supposing there is no global warming and we go ahead and develop sustainable power sources for no reason whatsoever before the oil runs out - won't that just be awful?) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11 Nov 2013, at 18:49, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: A Grand Council of Truth? Certainly not. Honesty is not knowing truth. It is just being able to correct oneself when being shown wrong. It is very simple, if they were not jealousy, vanity, pride, and things like that. And, you already know where I am going with this. One night, while dining at a restaurant, a good one, the High Reasoner, meets with an old friend to discuss the new FIFA rules issued for the World Cup. The friend slides over a closed sports magazine. Have a look at this article in the middle, here. Inside the magazine is a rather thick envelope. -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Mon, Nov 11, 2013 3:06 am Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 11 Nov 2013, at 01:27, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Ok, but this is a technique for priming the intellectual pump. If it produces nothing good, nothing powerful, then this method would be a complete failure. It seems to me that this works very well, as long as the society is below some level of corruption, in which case you can be misinfoirmed, and by not knowing it and being honest, you spread the lies and this leads to problem soon or later. Problems comes from the liars, but also from the people who have been lied. It is very often hard to delineate them. Bruno -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sun, Nov 10, 2013 2:49 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 09 Nov 2013, at 19:09, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: I am emphasizing having governments print out (Keynes style) absolutely, colossal, amounts of cash, as a reward for coming up with excellent disease treatments and cures, human solar system tours, and clean energy solution, environmental remediation. If the banks won't fund researchers, then private equity will, if private equity won't then a million contributors-open source-will, provided they get a cut of the reward offered by a government prize. I wouldn't be shocked if you, Professor, Marchal, might summon up 25 ECU's in exchange for receiving 3000 ECU's or Golden Yuans, in payment, 5 years later. Only if this reflects some honest contracts. Honesty is not just moral, it is something which elevates a lot the real value of money. It generates trust. Be honest. If you don't try to be honest for the calm of your conscience, do it for the wealth of your children. Today big corporations are based on lies. That's the problem. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything- l...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything- l...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
it's like when there actually are rising temperatures and rising sea levels and rising O2 and increasingly wild weather and ice melting all over the world, you stop and say, oh hang on, maybe Fourier had a point after all when he worked out the Greenhouse effect in 1824. Rather than just putting your fingers in your ears, closing your eyes and singing loudly. On 12 November 2013 16:43, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 11 Nov 2013, at 18:49, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: A Grand Council of Truth? Certainly not. Honesty is not knowing truth. It is just being able to correct oneself when being shown wrong. It is very simple, if they were not jealousy, vanity, pride, and things like that. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11 Nov 2013, at 19:34, meekerdb wrote: On 11/11/2013 12:13 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 10 Nov 2013, at 05:52, meekerdb wrote: 3. What do you recommend if the US refuses to comply? ?? You mean the U.S. government refuses to act in the best interests of it's citizens: Vote them out. We could have meant that the US government fake to comply. Once a government lie, and the press is no more free, you might miss the data to vote them out. In the health politics, many governments refuse to act in the interests of its citizens, since a long time, but very few citizens realize this, because they are kept uninformed. And so they think their interests are different than what you think they are. But that's different. In a democracy you want the government to act according the interests people hold, not what someone else thinks their interests should be. This is why a democracy only works well with an educated populace. But educated is a relative term. The world and technology becomes more complex and what you can really be educated in becomes a smaller and smaller fraction. In many things you have to rely on experts. But in spite of this, democracy still seems better than the alternatives. Yes, I agree that democracy is better. What is even better: democracy without bandits having got the power. In the case of health there has been and still exist a tradition of deliberate persistant desinformation. Prohibition is a democracy killer. That was well understood by the founders of America. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
RE: Our Demon-Haunted World
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of LizR Sent: Monday, November 11, 2013 7:47 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World it's like when there actually are rising temperatures and rising sea levels and rising O2 and increasingly wild weather and ice melting all over the world, you stop and say, oh hang on, maybe Fourier had a point after all when he worked out the Greenhouse effect in 1824. Rather than just putting your fingers in your ears, closing your eyes and singing loudly. Perhaps. because some truths are too much for some to bear and illusion is necessary for them to keep themselves from losing it. Obligatory Matrix quote J Morpheus: This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. On 12 November 2013 16:43, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 11 Nov 2013, at 18:49, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: A Grand Council of Truth? Certainly not. Honesty is not knowing truth. It is just being able to correct oneself when being shown wrong. It is very simple, if they were not jealousy, vanity, pride, and things like that. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
RE: Our Demon-Haunted World
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal Sent: Monday, November 11, 2013 7:43 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 11 Nov 2013, at 18:49, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: A Grand Council of Truth? Certainly not. Honesty is not knowing truth. It is just being able to correct oneself when being shown wrong. It is very simple, if they were not jealousy, vanity, pride, and things like that. Good point. but we are wrapped up in these other emotions and often driven by them, some more than others for sure, but all of us - if we are honest with ourselves -- to some degree on some occasions (no shame no blame) We are so wrapped up in all of this that it drives us to hotly deny that anything of the sort could possibly be so; we cannot even begin admitting to it. Naturally there is a whole range of personality types along the spectrum; perhaps some humans have transcended it all. they say Buddha did, but the rest of us to one degree or another suffer from our own blind failings. It is a struggle within sometimes to not fall into these all too easy to fall into habits and their blind unthinking way of supplying the mind with readymade answers. This very quick, but unthinking mechanism makes sense in a field survival situation, where there is no time for thought to slow down response. Just some cardinal trigger and there is an immediate amplification of the signal in the brain and an immediate zoom to the fore of our minds. Often, especially in situations, such as can develop on internet discussion groups, primitive instincts take over - I have seen it, so have you, so has everyone here. Passion can drive instinctive behavioral modes to the fore. Re-learning the inner being living inside the mind is rather much a lifelong pursuit - for after all we are a moving target, and if we do not keep a certain vigilance we all risk falling into habitual modes of mind. And, you already know where I am going with this. One night, while dining at a restaurant, a good one, the High Reasoner, meets with an old friend to discuss the new FIFA rules issued for the World Cup. The friend slides over a closed sports magazine. Have a look at this article in the middle, here. Inside the magazine is a rather thick envelope. -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Mon, Nov 11, 2013 3:06 am Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 11 Nov 2013, at 01:27, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Ok, but this is a technique for priming the intellectual pump. If it produces nothing good, nothing powerful, then this method would be a complete failure. It seems to me that this works very well, as long as the society is below some level of corruption, in which case you can be misinfoirmed, and by not knowing it and being honest, you spread the lies and this leads to problem soon or later. Problems comes from the liars, but also from the people who have been lied. It is very often hard to delineate them. Bruno -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sun, Nov 10, 2013 2:49 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 09 Nov 2013, at 19:09, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: I am emphasizing having governments print out (Keynes style) absolutely, colossal, amounts of cash, as a reward for coming up with excellent disease treatments and cures, human solar system tours, and clean energy solution, environmental remediation. If the banks won't fund researchers, then private equity will, if private equity won't then a million contributors-open source-will, provided they get a cut of the reward offered by a government prize. I wouldn't be shocked if you, Professor, Marchal, might summon up 25 ECU's in exchange for receiving 3000 ECU's or Golden Yuans, in payment, 5 years later. Only if this reflects some honest contracts. Honesty is not just moral, it is something which elevates a lot the real value of money. It generates trust. Be honest. If you don't try to be honest for the calm of your conscience, do it for the wealth of your children. Today big corporations are based on lies. That's the problem. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 12 November 2013 17:47, Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com wrote: Morpheus: This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. :D Personally I don't think anyone knows how deep the rabbit hole goes. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 12:31 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/9/2013 3:09 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 9:55 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/9/2013 9:37 AM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Brent, my analogy, however badly its thought-up, is to force the idealists to produce. My idea was to force the idealist back to painful reality and hard choices, rather then mentally living in La La land. Saying Oh they're working on solar and soon.. How about forcing the libertarians to painful reality. They're going through the six stages of denial: 1. There is no global warming. 2. The science is uncertain. 3. There's global warming but it's just a natural cycle. 4. Global warming will really be good for us. 5. It's too costly to stop global warming. 6. Nothing can be done. Most of them I know are stuck around 3 or 4 now. They're hoping to delay any action so they can get to 6. Why? Because they'd rather face extinction than admit there are some things that you need government to do. Brent, Out of curiosity: why do you care so much about what libertarians think? They are a small minority. I believe most are very much aware that big government is here to stay. Most people in the western world vote for some variation of a conservative or liberal party, both statist. Surely if you are right, and global warming is an existential threat, and government intervention is the only way to solve it, what libertarians think should be quite low in your list of concerns no? Except that they have a disproportionate voice in the public debate because their message is amplified by monied interests who depend on fossil fuel (e.g. the Koch brothers). There was only a small number of lawyers, publicists, and scientists who claimed that: 1. Smoking has nothing to do with lung cancer. 2. There may be a relation but the science is uncertain. 3. Lung cancer just occurs naturally. 4. There are new, healthier cigarettes. 5. It will hurt the economy to limit cigarettes. 6. People should be free to smoke if they want to. and they delayed any government action against smoking for forty years. In fact some of them are *exactly* the same people hired to spread doubt about global warming. To undertake big government action in a democracy you need a solid majority in the populace. As long as libertarians and oil companies can sow doubt that's enough to prevent any action. Come on Brent... You really want to believe... The reason why Bush or Obama or any other President or government in the current system do not take actions that hurt big corporations is that these big corporation fund their careers and campaigns. Once they get in power, the corporations own then. They are not innocent by any means, and they clearly just want the position. If they didn't they would resign once they realised that they won't be able to do any of the things that they supposedly stand for. Are you really going to tell me, with a straight face, that if you managed to convince the libertarians that they should like government more, then the mainstream politicians would start taking measure that could hurt big corps.? Look, I hope global warming is not that serious, because if it is, it's game over. Big government is most definitely not going to solve it. I think you know this too. There isn't a magical point where to government gets so big that it starts doing the right thing. If it's very small, at least there's less opportunity for the already ultra-rich to further their interests with our tax-money, like they do at the moment. Telmo. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 10 November 2013 21:40, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: Look, I hope global warming is not that serious, because if it is, it's game over. Big government is most definitely not going to solve it. I think you know this too. There isn't a magical point where to government gets so big that it starts doing the right thing. If it's very small, at least there's less opportunity for the already ultra-rich to further their interests with our tax-money, like they do at the moment. There is however a point at which a problem gets so big that even politicians realise they should do something about it, for their own sakes. Even the ultra rich will eventually realise that their own safety is at stake (they need all those poor people to keep them in the style to which they've become accustomed - they can't actually eat money). Whether they solve the problem by building giant space stations or fixing the earth is another question... -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 10:12 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 10 November 2013 21:40, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: Look, I hope global warming is not that serious, because if it is, it's game over. Big government is most definitely not going to solve it. I think you know this too. There isn't a magical point where to government gets so big that it starts doing the right thing. If it's very small, at least there's less opportunity for the already ultra-rich to further their interests with our tax-money, like they do at the moment. There is however a point at which a problem gets so big that even politicians realise they should do something about it, for their own sakes. But if the global warming models are correct, that is already too late. If I understand the most common models correctly, it _is_ already too late. Even the ultra rich will eventually realise that their own safety is at stake (they need all those poor people to keep them in the style to which they've become accustomed - they can't actually eat money). Whether they solve the problem by building giant space stations or fixing the earth is another question... The next iteration of humanity will look mostly like Donald Trump and Bill Gates. We'll be better off dead! :) Telmo. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
I would say you are incorrect concerning cities which rely on one primary power source, especially, if its local or regional. Power by wire, is common practice, but first we must have sufficient spinning, or ready reserve. My objection is now the source of power, but if it produce enough power at an affordable cost? Your solar and wind may, 17 years from now, do the job that gas turbines, or nukes, or coal, or hydroelectric does right now. Right now, today 40 GW (is that Gigawatt hours or days?) is no more then a trifling amount of what is needed by the human species. I object to governments switching off power, when no sufficient substitute now exists. Many greens are fine with rolling blackouts and brownouts because at least whatever power is produced is environmentally benign. I suspect that when people start doing a die-off, the Greens will state: Oh, then would've died anyway from pollution, contamination, and a ruined environment.. -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 11:44 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 11/9/2013 4:53 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Yourbasically saying I am wrong for no contestable reason, you have no city in the world to cite to me that is powered by solarpower or wind, for that matter, And there are none powered exclusively by hydroelectric powereither. It's a completely specious critereon that you cite asthough it meant something. Because B cannot now completely satisfyall demand for X currently supplied by A doesn't make B useless, nordoes it make A desirable or necessary. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
I have zero issue with any energy source that produces enough electrical power and is not too costly. I do have real problems when people advocate technology which cannot, this day, supply enough energy. The grande prize is just incentive, great incentive, to produce a new energy source, a medical treatment, a means of earth transport, a spectacularly, successful spacecraft. I am just guessing that the prize thing may be a better motivator then just a grant. This holds true if you really want results or not? But if you can deliver these goodies the old fashioned way, then, I say, Rock on. -Original Message- From: LizR lizj...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 11:17 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World The rich get richer via the stock exchange and similar financial institutions. This is done with software nowadays - a thousandth of a second delay in investing can mean the difference between accumulating and losing. This doesn't actually produce improvements in anything (except financial modelling software). It's a cloud of abstract numbers spiralling off into never never land with no connection to producing anything useful. On 10 November 2013 12:20, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/9/2013 2:49 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Yes, Jesse, I do buy into that arguement. If you permit me, I will exclude DailyKos Kos Kids from your evidence, as the are far from a disinterested party in this matter. Whatever the politics, whatever the polemics, a technology has to do this, be successful. If solar is always just a fraction of the world's energy, despite decades and bilions, then I have some problem with proposing it. If, but then you draw conclusions as if you had stated a fact. Decades after oil was discovered it too only supplied a fraction of the world's energy. Or a successful solar tech, that powers all human activity, forever, may be 200 years away, for some unknown reason. What's your point - that you can imagine some insuperable problem with solar power? The Sun might stop shining? What about not nearly so speculative exhaustion of easily extracted fossil fuel? What if fossil fuel runs out? What if it makes large areas of the earth uninhabitably hot and dry. What should we do until that glorious day? We can say exactly, the same with fusion. Tax payer subsudies are fine, if they work. But I surmise these companies live for the subsidies, and not the big win in the market place. You surmise whatever fits your prejudice. Hence, my alternative of a grand prize to spur innovation, and win a giant profit that will wipe out an investors debts. I say we as a society have waited way too long, doing things the Statist way, lets let innovatoes, innovate, for the reward of an avalanche of prize money, plus tons of profits. I sense we are standing still, otherwise. And where are the great entrepreneurial advances of the past? Did private investors invent nuclear power, space flight, GPS, the internet, vaccinations, the Panama Canal, interstate highways. Free market capitalism is great for some things, but it's not going to invest in developing stuff with a 20yr horizon for return. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
Ahem, the observation is from behavioral psychologists like BF Skinner, or old. Operant conditioning and all that. Nuclear (especially LFTRs), wind, and solar.?? I am interested in all these types, but are all implementable in time? Will liquid fluoride really be safer, then a Canadian CANDU SLOWPOKE, I don't know. I will guess that all of this to be able to completely replace the dirty stuff will take decades. We might in ten years add these as supplemental electricity makers, but not the lions share of juice, for sure. ?? You mean the U.S. government refuses to act in the best interestsof it's citizens: Vote them out. You are an idealist, aren't you? What if, the majority of citizens, or a large, noisy, minority, demur from your advice of voting them out? Furthermore, what if the People's Republic of China says: We will not ruin ourselves economically on the orders of this fierce, foreigner, Brent Meeker! What will you do Brent, give us a nipple pinch, boycott our products, declare war? Remember, please, that this is your world too. We are spewing poisons into the air and water. Plus, we are melting your Polar Ice Caps. What shall you do against such suicidal, murderous, nations? Ah! I didn't catch it till just now. Economic sanctions. Got ya. What if sanctions do not make us mend our ways, and it hasn't worked on the Ayatiollah's yet, what then? So you've already given up. I hope you've bought land in the Arctic. Brent Sorry, me lad, I am not a real estate guy, and am but a humble, prole, alas! And, yes, I have given up on lots of things. Cheers Complete bullshit from the Faux News talking points. All theclimate scientists are civil servants or tenured academics and havegood job whether AGW is true or not. What they have on the line istheir professional reputations and if any one of them had data todispute AGW they'd be only to glad to make their reputation as theguy who proved AGW wrong. It's the deniers and obfuscators who onlyget paid by Exxon and the Koch brothers if they publish some junkscience to obfuscate the question. If AGW is more nuanced, shall we say,then the salaries, the power is diminished. If the climatepause takes longer, then the people proposing climatechange, have to come up with an excuse. Notice, please thatuntil recently, AGW is now called Climate Change. My bestbet on this is that the term was change to cover all variations in climate, in case it doesn't get warmer, asexemplified by the UK's weather over the last 10 years. NoMiami temps in London so far. This goes against earlierforecasts, doesn't it? Now to your Libertarian denial theme, let us say I am agnostic but deeply suspicious myself, but allow me to counter question. 1. What non-carbon fuel source do you have at the ready to replace climate damaging fossil fuels? Nuclear (especially LFTRs), wind, and solar. 2. Do your solutions include switching off dirty power in the US, without a working substitute? Of course not. No one has ever suggested that (except Denierssetting up a straw man). 3. What do you recommend if the US refuses to comply? ?? You mean the U.S. government refuses to act in the best interestsof it's citizens: Vote them out. 4. Ditto, India, China, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, etc? Economic sanctions. I guess I am at step 5 and 6 on your scheme of things. So you've already given up. I hope you've bought land in theArctic. Brent -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 11:52 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 11/9/2013 5:12 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Brent, let us look at human nature asit exists and not posit perfection to scientists andbureaucrats. Climate scientist who peddle AGW have skin inthe game. What's their reward? They get guaranteed jobs anddo the planning and make policies if true, thus, theircareers are set Bureaucrat's ,like politicians, want power over others and also have guaranteed careers. Complete bullshit from the Faux News talking points. All theclimate scientists are civil servants or tenured academics and havegood job whether AGW is true or not. What they have on the line istheir professional reputations and if any one of them had data todispute AGW they'd be only to glad to make their reputation as theguy who proved AGW wrong
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/10/2013 12:40 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 12:31 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/9/2013 3:09 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 9:55 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/9/2013 9:37 AM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Brent, my analogy, however badly its thought-up, is to force the idealists to produce. My idea was to force the idealist back to painful reality and hard choices, rather then mentally living in La La land. Saying Oh they're working on solar and soon.. How about forcing the libertarians to painful reality. They're going through the six stages of denial: 1. There is no global warming. 2. The science is uncertain. 3. There's global warming but it's just a natural cycle. 4. Global warming will really be good for us. 5. It's too costly to stop global warming. 6. Nothing can be done. Most of them I know are stuck around 3 or 4 now. They're hoping to delay any action so they can get to 6. Why? Because they'd rather face extinction than admit there are some things that you need government to do. Brent, Out of curiosity: why do you care so much about what libertarians think? They are a small minority. I believe most are very much aware that big government is here to stay. Most people in the western world vote for some variation of a conservative or liberal party, both statist. Surely if you are right, and global warming is an existential threat, and government intervention is the only way to solve it, what libertarians think should be quite low in your list of concerns no? Except that they have a disproportionate voice in the public debate because their message is amplified by monied interests who depend on fossil fuel (e.g. the Koch brothers). There was only a small number of lawyers, publicists, and scientists who claimed that: 1. Smoking has nothing to do with lung cancer. 2. There may be a relation but the science is uncertain. 3. Lung cancer just occurs naturally. 4. There are new, healthier cigarettes. 5. It will hurt the economy to limit cigarettes. 6. People should be free to smoke if they want to. and they delayed any government action against smoking for forty years. In fact some of them are *exactly* the same people hired to spread doubt about global warming. To undertake big government action in a democracy you need a solid majority in the populace. As long as libertarians and oil companies can sow doubt that's enough to prevent any action. Come on Brent... You really want to believe... The reason why Bush or Obama or any other President or government in the current system do not take actions that hurt big corporations is that these big corporation fund their careers and campaigns. Once they get in power, the corporations own then. They are not innocent by any means, and they clearly just want the position. If they didn't they would resign once they realised that they won't be able to do any of the things that they supposedly stand for. Are you really going to tell me, with a straight face, that if you managed to convince the libertarians that they should like government more, then the mainstream politicians would start taking measure that could hurt big corps.? No, the libertarians are just one of the factions that spread FUD about AGW. But they are particularly effective in providing a don't trust the government gloss - as you do above - and so don't give the government power to do anything. Sure Bush, Obama and other Presidents are influenced by corporate money - but they are not owned. Obama isn't even going to run again. Congressmen are much more subject to corruption because they're always looking to the next election. But they will respond to voters too, IF there's a solid majority. Look, I hope global warming is not that serious, because if it is, it's game over. Read the scientific literature - and cash in your chips. Big government is most definitely not going to solve it. But big government *could* solve it. Big Money is not only not going to solve it, it's trying to keep government from solving it. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/10/2013 1:26 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 10:12 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 10 November 2013 21:40, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: Look, I hope global warming is not that serious, because if it is, it's game over. Big government is most definitely not going to solve it. I think you know this too. There isn't a magical point where to government gets so big that it starts doing the right thing. If it's very small, at least there's less opportunity for the already ultra-rich to further their interests with our tax-money, like they do at the moment. There is however a point at which a problem gets so big that even politicians realise they should do something about it, for their own sakes. But if the global warming models are correct, that is already too late. If I understand the most common models correctly, it _is_ already too late. Why don't you read what the IPCC reports actually say. It's too late keep CO2 below 450ppm. It's too late to prevent a temperature rise of 2degC. That doesn't mean it's too late to save civilization. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
I agree with just about everything she notes. I do have an issue with putting pv plantations in the Sahara. I know the Germans were keen on this, and the wired the power to Deutschland. Look no further than the happening with the US embassy in Benghazi about 18 mos ago on 9-11. The subcritical reactor is excellent, but unless it gets to market, it will just be a lab curiosity. Same with fusion. I am good with all energy sources, as long as they can be implemented quickly, and we don't have to keep waiting for tomorrows that never come. That would be the logical thing IF, everyone is convinced about AGW being the chief existential threat. What Greens propose as public policy is really energy starvation rather then CO2 or methane, or particulate containment. If, for example, America, or NZ, tanks economically/collapses, most are good with this, because the environment is helped. It's helped except for the contributions of the BRIC's who will tell us all to go pound sand. Although there are lots of grassroots movements on this, the real power to do some good of course lies with governments and big business. This is an infrastructure thing, like state highways, but on a global scale - there is no bigger commons than the environment, nor a bigger tragedy of the commons than ecological collapse. Can we get our fingers out of our arses and do something? I doubt it, but here are a few suggestions. We need lots more nuclear (yes, I know, and I live in New Zealand where around 70% of the power is hydro and wind). Subcritical reactors are best, they run on thorium, can't melt down, and can be used to reprocess uranium and plutonium into something less dangerous. However they can't be used as part of a weapons programme, which is why they've been ignored (except, I think, by India). We need lots more solar - the Sun produces far more energy that we can use, even the tiny bit that falls on Earth far exceeds our requirements. How much is going begging in (say) the Sahara alone? A useful by-product would be bringing Africa's economy up to speed, if it started exporting cheap power. We probably need some geoengineering like aerosols in the upper atmosphere for a short term fix, given that every week new climate records are broken, Australia and America keep catching fire, we have the biggest storm on record in the Phillipines, hottest year on record, hottest decade on record etc etc etc. We need a ton of research into renewables and carbon sequestration -Original Message- From: LizR lizj...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sun, Nov 10, 2013 2:43 am Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 10 November 2013 14:12, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Brent, let us look at human nature as it exists and not posit perfection to scientists and bureaucrats. Climate scientist who peddle AGW have skin in the game. What's their reward? They get guaranteed jobs and do the planning and make policies if true, thus, their careers are set Bureaucrat's ,like politicians, want power over others and also have guaranteed careers. If AGW is more nuanced, shall we say, then the salaries, the power is diminished. If the climate pause takes longer, then the people proposing climate change, have to come up with an excuse. Notice, please that until recently, AGW is now called Climate Change. My best bet on this is that the term was change to cover all variations in climate, in case it doesn't get warmer, as exemplified by the UK's weather over the last 10 years. No Miami temps in London so far. This goes against earlier forecasts, doesn't it? Now to your Libertarian denial theme, let us say I am agnostic but deeply suspicious myself, but allow me to counter question. 1. What non-carbon fuel source do you have at the ready to replace climate damaging fossil fuels? 2. Do your solutions include switching off dirty power in the US, without a working substitute? 3. What do you recommend if the US refuses to comply? 4. Ditto, India, China, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, etc? I guess I am at step 5 and 6 on your scheme of things. But if you have knowledge of workable solutions, maybe you could write about it? Even denialists want to hear what we all can do? Although there are lots of grassroots movements on this, the real power to do some good of course lies with governments and big business. This is an infrastructure thing, like state highways, but on a global scale - there is no bigger commons than the environment, nor a bigger tragedy of the commons than ecological collapse. Can we get our fingers out of our arses and do something? I doubt it, but here are a few suggestions. We need lots more nuclear (yes, I know, and I live in New Zealand where around 70% of the power is hydro and wind). Subcritical reactors are best, they run on thorium, can't melt down, and can be used to reprocess uranium and plutonium into something less
RE: Our Demon-Haunted World
Name me one large city that gets its power 100% exclusively from coal or from nuclear? You can't because all major energy markets are fed by a mix of energy generation capacity. Yet you keep on with this straw man argument. Why? From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Sunday, November 10, 2013 10:14 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World I would say you are incorrect concerning cities which rely on one primary power source, especially, if its local or regional. Power by wire, is common practice, but first we must have sufficient spinning, or ready reserve. My objection is now the source of power, but if it produce enough power at an affordable cost? Your solar and wind may, 17 years from now, do the job that gas turbines, or nukes, or coal, or hydroelectric does right now. Right now, today 40 GW (is that Gigawatt hours or days?) is no more then a trifling amount of what is needed by the human species. I object to governments switching off power, when no sufficient substitute now exists. Many greens are fine with rolling blackouts and brownouts because at least whatever power is produced is environmentally benign. I suspect that when people start doing a die-off, the Greens will state: Oh, then would've died anyway from pollution, contamination, and a ruined environment.. -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 11:44 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 11/9/2013 4:53 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Your basically saying I am wrong for no contestable reason, you have no city in the world to cite to me that is powered by solar power or wind, for that matter, And there are none powered exclusively by hydroelectric power either. It's a completely specious critereon that you cite as though it meant something. Because B cannot now completely satisfy all demand for X currently supplied by A doesn't make B useless, nor does it make A desirable or necessary. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
RE: Our Demon-Haunted World
Seriously increasing our energy efficiency is key to building a bridge to a living future. One thing this whole discussion is overlooking -- focused as it is, on electric energy supply (a fraction of total energy supply and demand) -- is the low hanging fruit of increasing energy efficiency. There is so much room for improvement in the efficiency with which we use energy. In transportation of course, but especially in heating and cooling and lighting our societies built spaces -- both commercial, industrial residential. Building heating, cooling lighting accounts for the lion's share of all energy use (usually measured in units of Quads -- quadrillion Btus); in fact this area amounts to almost half of all energy use (around 40% -- if I recall the percentage figure). A country like the USA could use half as much energy as it currently does -- if it did so more efficiently -- and still enjoy the same level of heating, cooling, lighting and mobility as we are currently enjoying. Trying to increase supplies -- or shift to renewable supplies -- makes little sense if not also paired with a serious attempt at ramping up energy efficiency. Just simple acts insulating ceilings, floors and walls; like caulking cracks around windows etc. and closing up these many tiny air leaks from buildings, or replacing single pane windows with double or triple pane windows; or using energy efficient lighting can have major impacts in reducing energy requirements. So much of our built space is really crappy in terms of energy efficiency and lighting and the carbon impact of an aggressive national effort at ramping up energy efficiency would be larger than any other single thing we could do. This is not sexy stuff, it is rather low tech, but it does generate a lot of local jobs and provides almost immediate relief from high energy bills. Chris -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of meekerdb Sent: Sunday, November 10, 2013 10:52 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 11/10/2013 1:26 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 10:12 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 10 November 2013 21:40, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: Look, I hope global warming is not that serious, because if it is, it's game over. Big government is most definitely not going to solve it. I think you know this too. There isn't a magical point where to government gets so big that it starts doing the right thing. If it's very small, at least there's less opportunity for the already ultra-rich to further their interests with our tax-money, like they do at the moment. There is however a point at which a problem gets so big that even politicians realise they should do something about it, for their own sakes. But if the global warming models are correct, that is already too late. If I understand the most common models correctly, it _is_ already too late. Why don't you read what the IPCC reports actually say. It's too late keep CO2 below 450ppm. It's too late to prevent a temperature rise of 2degC. That doesn't mean it's too late to save civilization. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
One example might be the San Onofre plant in California, near San Diego. It's a uranium burner, and supplies 90% of the electricity, about 85% of the time. But let us look at your sun and wind power contribution that you mentioned before. 40 GW, which I am assuming, is GW's per kilowatt hour, rather than a day, a week, etc? Lets say, its not inconsiderable (40 x 1000 MW plants) but its also not reliable when the sun don't shine, the winds don't blow. Do you expect these clean sources to fully replace the dirty one's in ten years, twenty years, five years, thirty? When can we turn of these poisonous electricity sources that we have come to rely on? Do you advocate shutting these suckers down, before the solar and wind supplied power is fully, implemented? -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sun, Nov 10, 2013 1:51 pm Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World Name me one large city that gets its power 100% exclusively from coal or from nuclear? You can’t because all major energy markets are fed by a mix of energy generation capacity. Yet you keep on with this straw man argument. Why? From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Sunday, November 10, 2013 10:14 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World I would say you are incorrect concerning cities which rely on one primary power source, especially, if its local or regional. Power by wire, is common practice, but first we must have sufficient spinning, or ready reserve. My objection is now the source of power, but if it produce enough power at an affordable cost? Your solar and wind may, 17 years from now, do the job that gas turbines, or nukes, or coal, or hydroelectric does right now. Right now, today 40 GW (is that Gigawatt hours or days?) is no more then a trifling amount of what is needed by the human species. I object to governments switching off power, when no sufficient substitute now exists. Many greens are fine with rolling blackouts and brownouts because at least whatever power is produced is environmentally benign. I suspect that when people start doing a die-off, the Greens will state: Oh, then would've died anyway from pollution, contamination, and a ruined environment.. -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 11:44 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 11/9/2013 4:53 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Your basically saying I am wrong for no contestable reason, you have no city in the world to cite to me that is powered by solar power or wind, for that matter, And there are none powered exclusively by hydroelectric power either. It's a completely specious critereon that you cite as though it meant something. Because B cannot now completely satisfy all demand for X currently supplied by A doesn't make B useless, nor does it make A desirable or necessary. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
I used to be a fan of Amory Lovins too but am concerned that better efficiencies might not get us across the bridge to Solar City. Lovin's Kevlar cars never took off, for one reason, is because they were so light that strong winds would guide them off the test track. If we weigh them down to be highway ready, there goes the mileage. New materials might do the trick architecturally, as you stated. I am personally sort of obsessed with the idea of using pumped storage at sea (probably costly) using wind power, ocean current to pump uphill, vast, amounts of sea water into synthetic reservoirs, and then get hydro-electric juice flowing for days or weeks from these structures. But, the efficiencies of moving tons of sea water uphill, may just suck at producing electricity? An energy sink is no energy source. -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sun, Nov 10, 2013 2:08 pm Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World Seriously increasing our energy efficiency is key to building a bridge to a living future. One thing this whole discussion is overlooking -- focused as it is, on electric energy supply (a fraction of total energy supply and demand) -- is the low hanging fruit of increasing energy efficiency. There is so much room for improvement in the efficiency with which we use energy. In transportation of course, but especially in heating and cooling and lighting our societies built spaces -- both commercial, industrial residential. Building heating, cooling lighting accounts for the lion's share of all energy use (usually measured in units of Quads -- quadrillion Btus); in fact this area amounts to almost half of all energy use (around 40% -- if I recall the percentage figure). A country like the USA could use half as much energy as it currently does -- if it did so more efficiently -- and still enjoy the same level of heating, cooling, lighting and mobility as we are currently enjoying. Trying to increase supplies -- or shift to renewable supplies -- makes little sense if not also paired with a serious attempt at ramping up energy efficiency. Just simple acts insulating ceilings, floors and walls; like caulking cracks around windows etc. and closing up these many tiny air leaks from buildings, or replacing single pane windows with double or triple pane windows; or using energy efficient lighting can have major impacts in reducing energy requirements. So much of our built space is really crappy in terms of energy efficiency and lighting and the carbon impact of an aggressive national effort at ramping up energy efficiency would be larger than any other single thing we could do. This is not sexy stuff, it is rather low tech, but it does generate a lot of local jobs and provides almost immediate relief from high energy bills. Chris -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of meekerdb Sent: Sunday, November 10, 2013 10:52 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 11/10/2013 1:26 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 10:12 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 10 November 2013 21:40, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: Look, I hope global warming is not that serious, because if it is, it's game over. Big government is most definitely not going to solve it. I think you know this too. There isn't a magical point where to government gets so big that it starts doing the right thing. If it's very small, at least there's less opportunity for the already ultra-rich to further their interests with our tax-money, like they do at the moment. There is however a point at which a problem gets so big that even politicians realise they should do something about it, for their own sakes. But if the global warming models are correct, that is already too late. If I understand the most common models correctly, it _is_ already too late. Why don't you read what the IPCC reports actually say. It's too late keep CO2 below 450ppm. It's too late to prevent a temperature rise of 2degC. That doesn't mean it's too late to save civilization. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit
RE: Our Demon-Haunted World
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Sunday, November 10, 2013 11:08 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World One example might be the San Onofre plant in California, near San Diego. It's a uranium burner, and supplies 90% of the electricity, about 85% of the time. But let us look at your sun and wind power contribution that you mentioned before. 40 GW, which I am assuming, is GW's per kilowatt hour, rather than a day, a week, etc? Lets say, its not inconsiderable (40 x 1000 MW plants) but its also not reliable when the sun don't shine, the winds don't blow. Do you expect these clean sources to fully replace the dirty one's in ten years, twenty years, five years, thirty? When can we turn of these poisonous electricity sources that we have come to rely on? Do you advocate shutting these suckers down, before the solar and wind supplied power is fully, implemented? The San Onofre nuclear power plant has been decommissioned - it is past its service life and now many more billions of dollars are going to be need to be spent over decades of time in order to decommission this facility - (it was very intelligently sited on an earthquake fault line by the way) Cost estimates for permanently closing and decommissioning San Onofre are over $4 billion. The plant's first unit, Unit 1, operated from 1968 to 1992.[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Onofre_Nuclear_Generating_Station#cite_not e-5 Unit 2 was started in 1983 and Unit 3 started in 1984. Upgrades designed to last 20 years were made to the reactor units in 2009 and 2010; however, both reactors had to be shut down in January 2012 due to premature wear found on over 3,000 tubes in the recently replaced steam generators. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Onofre_Nuclear_Generating_Station The actual answer to your question then is that the San Onofre power plants are supplying 0% of the San Diego electric energy market with electric power. You might want to pick a better example to make your case. LOL -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sun, Nov 10, 2013 1:51 pm Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World Name me one large city that gets its power 100% exclusively from coal or from nuclear? You can't because all major energy markets are fed by a mix of energy generation capacity. Yet you keep on with this straw man argument. Why? From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com? ] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Sunday, November 10, 2013 10:14 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World I would say you are incorrect concerning cities which rely on one primary power source, especially, if its local or regional. Power by wire, is common practice, but first we must have sufficient spinning, or ready reserve. My objection is now the source of power, but if it produce enough power at an affordable cost? Your solar and wind may, 17 years from now, do the job that gas turbines, or nukes, or coal, or hydroelectric does right now. Right now, today 40 GW (is that Gigawatt hours or days?) is no more then a trifling amount of what is needed by the human species. I object to governments switching off power, when no sufficient substitute now exists. Many greens are fine with rolling blackouts and brownouts because at least whatever power is produced is environmentally benign. I suspect that when people start doing a die-off, the Greens will state: Oh, then would've died anyway from pollution, contamination, and a ruined environment.. -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 11:44 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 11/9/2013 4:53 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Your basically saying I am wrong for no contestable reason, you have no city in the world to cite to me that is powered by solar power or wind, for that matter, And there are none powered exclusively by hydroelectric power either. It's a completely specious critereon that you cite as though it meant something. Because B cannot now completely satisfy all demand for X currently supplied by A doesn't make B useless, nor does it make A desirable or necessary. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
RE: Our Demon-Haunted World
Who knows -- you may be interested in a Dutch idea to build an energy island in the North sea by diking around an area of sea then using periods of surplus wind power generation form the north sea offshore wind farms (of which there are quite a few now) to pump water out from inside of the diked off area lowering the water levels inside with respect to the sea level outside. Creating a reservoir of pumped storage that could be drawn down when supplies did not meet demand. Large scale pumped storage is by far the largest form of electric energy storage that currently exists and there are some interesting projects coming on line now - such as the Eagle Crest project in the deserts of Southern California which will provide 1300 MW of dispatchable power onto the grid and which pairs perfectly with the wind and solar generation facilities that are sited in that region. Chris From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Sunday, November 10, 2013 11:19 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World I used to be a fan of Amory Lovins too but am concerned that better efficiencies might not get us across the bridge to Solar City. Lovin's Kevlar cars never took off, for one reason, is because they were so light that strong winds would guide them off the test track. If we weigh them down to be highway ready, there goes the mileage. New materials might do the trick architecturally, as you stated. I am personally sort of obsessed with the idea of using pumped storage at sea (probably costly) using wind power, ocean current to pump uphill, vast, amounts of sea water into synthetic reservoirs, and then get hydro-electric juice flowing for days or weeks from these structures. But, the efficiencies of moving tons of sea water uphill, may just suck at producing electricity? An energy sink is no energy source. -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sun, Nov 10, 2013 2:08 pm Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World Seriously increasing our energy efficiency is key to building a bridge to a living future. One thing this whole discussion is overlooking -- focused as it is, on electric energy supply (a fraction of total energy supply and demand) -- is the low hanging fruit of increasing energy efficiency. There is so much room for improvement in the efficiency with which we use energy. In transportation of course, but especially in heating and cooling and lighting our societies built spaces -- both commercial, industrial residential. Building heating, cooling lighting accounts for the lion's share of all energy use (usually measured in units of Quads -- quadrillion Btus); in fact this area amounts to almost half of all energy use (around 40% -- if I recall the percentage figure). A country like the USA could use half as much energy as it currently does -- if it did so more efficiently -- and still enjoy the same level of heating, cooling, lighting and mobility as we are currently enjoying. Trying to increase supplies -- or shift to renewable supplies -- makes little sense if not also paired with a serious attempt at ramping up energy efficiency. Just simple acts insulating ceilings, floors and walls; like caulking cracks around windows etc. and closing up these many tiny air leaks from buildings, or replacing single pane windows with double or triple pane windows; or using energy efficient lighting can have major impacts in reducing energy requirements. So much of our built space is really crappy in terms of energy efficiency and lighting and the carbon impact of an aggressive national effort at ramping up energy efficiency would be larger than any other single thing we could do. This is not sexy stuff, it is rather low tech, but it does generate a lot of local jobs and provides almost immediate relief from high energy bills. Chris -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com? ] On Behalf Of meekerdb Sent: Sunday, November 10, 2013 10:52 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 11/10/2013 1:26 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 10:12 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 10 November 2013 21:40, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: Look, I hope global warming is not that serious, because if it is, it's game over. Big government is most definitely not going to solve it. I think you know this too. There isn't a magical point where to government gets so big that it starts doing the right thing. If it's very small, at least there's less opportunity for the already ultra-rich to further their interests with our tax-money, like they do at the moment. There is however a point at which a problem gets so big that even politicians realise
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 09 Nov 2013, at 19:09, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: I am emphasizing having governments print out (Keynes style) absolutely, colossal, amounts of cash, as a reward for coming up with excellent disease treatments and cures, human solar system tours, and clean energy solution, environmental remediation. If the banks won't fund researchers, then private equity will, if private equity won't then a million contributors-open source-will, provided they get a cut of the reward offered by a government prize. I wouldn't be shocked if you, Professor, Marchal, might summon up 25 ECU's in exchange for receiving 3000 ECU's or Golden Yuans, in payment, 5 years later. Only if this reflects some honest contracts. Honesty is not just moral, it is something which elevates a lot the real value of money. It generates trust. Be honest. If you don't try to be honest for the calm of your conscience, do it for the wealth of your children. Today big corporations are based on lies. That's the problem. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 7:51 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/10/2013 1:26 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 10:12 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 10 November 2013 21:40, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: Look, I hope global warming is not that serious, because if it is, it's game over. Big government is most definitely not going to solve it. I think you know this too. There isn't a magical point where to government gets so big that it starts doing the right thing. If it's very small, at least there's less opportunity for the already ultra-rich to further their interests with our tax-money, like they do at the moment. There is however a point at which a problem gets so big that even politicians realise they should do something about it, for their own sakes. But if the global warming models are correct, that is already too late. If I understand the most common models correctly, it _is_ already too late. Why don't you read what the IPCC reports actually say. It's too late keep CO2 below 450ppm. It's too late to prevent a temperature rise of 2degC. That doesn't mean it's too late to save civilization. Alright, I was being a smart-ass about it because every few years we receive this message that we have some window of opportunity of 5 more minutes or we are doomed. The last one was last month at some complex systems conference. As I said before, I am agnostic on this issue for the following reasons: - I am not educated in climate science and I am sufficiently educated in science to understand that it would take years of full-time effort to get to a point where I could judge the merit of climate science research findings by myself -- even there I would probably have to become an insider, because I understand that a lot of key data is never made publicly available; - I am sufficiently knowledgable of complex systems to be skeptical of the predictive power of any complex systems model at our current level of sophistication; - The issue became so heavily politicised that it is basically not reasonable to trust news reporting on either side of it. I am aware of the 5th IPCC report and I am also aware of claims by reputable climate scientists that the models' predictions appear to be deviating increasingly from the observables: http://judithcurry.com/2013/10/30/implications-for-climate-models-of-their-disagreement-with-observations/ I am not invested in disproving global warming. I like to think I am scientifically-minded, so I accept reality whatever it is. I hope it is wrong. I suspect some people want it to be true. Telmo. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/10/2013 12:29 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: As I said before, I am agnostic on this issue for the following reasons: - I am not educated in climate science and I am sufficiently educated in science to understand that it would take years of full-time effort to get to a point where I could judge the merit of climate science research findings by myself -- even there I would probably have to become an insider, because I understand that a lot of key data is never made publicly available; - I am sufficiently knowledgable of complex systems to be skeptical of the predictive power of any complex systems model at our current level of sophistication; - The issue became so heavily politicised that it is basically not reasonable to trust news reporting on either side of it. I am aware of the 5th IPCC report and I am also aware of claims by reputable climate scientists that the models' predictions appear to be deviating increasingly from the observables: http://judithcurry.com/2013/10/30/implications-for-climate-models-of-their-disagreement-with-observations/ Are you aware that Judith Curry was on the Berkley Earth team to resolve the question of whether the earth is actually warming. She and Richard Muller had been critical of the analyses performed by NOAA, Hadley, CRU, and GISS. When the new analysis, which met all the past criticisms, confirmed all the previous conclusions, she quit the team and shifted her criticism from it's not happening to it's not predictable. Notice that means it could be a lot worse than predicted too - but the Deniers and FUDers never mention that. I am not invested in disproving global warming. I like to think I am scientifically-minded, so I accept reality whatever it is. I hope it is wrong. I suspect some people want it to be true. Yes, you're the perfect example of the success of the Deniers FUD campaign. 98% of all climate scientists agree that AGW is happening and it will have bad consequences. But you're aware of skeptical scientists, like Judith Curry (who are given TV time on Faux News), so it's a toss-up. It's been heavily politicized - by money from the fossil fuel companies - so no news can be trusted. You're not expert enough to read the scientific literature - so you're agnostic. You *suspect* some people want it to be true??? In other words you suspect some academics of wanting to trash the world economy for vague, unexpressed personal reasons. But you don't suspect the Koch brothers, Exxon, BP, Faux News, the Discovery Institute, the MacArthur Foundation, and a host of right-wing think tanks of wanting it to be false AND paying a lot of PR firms to obfuscate the issue. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
Bruno and Brent: *Who are you to T E L L society what it needs?* (BTW: I agree perfectly with your position). I had discussions on other lists in aspects of religion and gun-control and received similar offensive repercussions. No universal machine can tell any other universal machine how to think and what to aim at. Voting is a lying hoax, democracy is nonetxistent. A handful people of goodwill will not change the malicious crowd. When I abhor shooting to kill people, it does not prove wrong those crazies who like to do it - just marks a difference of opinions. TELLING society what it needs is fascism, socialism, or religion. Be careful with your words: they are mostly meaningless substitutes. John M. On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 11:50 AM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: On 06 Nov 2013, at 17:25, meekerdb wrote: On 11/6/2013 12:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: There is nothing wrong being rich, unless the money is stolen money, and that's the case today. There's nothing morally wrong with being rich, but it creates an ethical problem. Being much wealthier than others bestows a lot of power. If there is no effective government (like parts of Somalia) then the rich hire a personal army to protect their property. Where there is government, the police protect their property and the rich attempt to control the government through propaganda and buying influence. So long as the rich are not so rich as to live in a different 'world' than the middle class and they are relatively diverse this works OK. But the system seems to be unstable in that the rich can and do use their wealth and power to get more wealth and power - and not necessarily productively. So those who inherit wealth tend to gain even more wealth. Society needs to do something to stabilize the system and prevent the increasing concentration of wealth. *I completely agree. The problem is that with money, you can produce more money in two ways, honestly or dishonestly.*... Bruno, before I touch the basics - could you explain what you would consider to produce *M O R E money HONESTLY?* Same question to Brent's text above: *that the rich can and do use their wealth and power to get more wealth and power - and not necessarily productively*. I don't see a 'productive' way how 'the rich' get more wealth and power by using their wealth and power. It is exploitation, political scam, bribery, terrorism, etc. - all in the framework of accepted morals of the system (either capitalist, or fascist). I recall some basics (I am no 'Socialist') from Marx: NOBODY *owns *Nature so any natural products (mining, farming, or other) are valued 'honestly' as recompensation for the *efforts* invested into the natural process for getting money - honestly - productively, without exploitation. Does any mine-owner work on his product? Does any Farming conglomerated stockholder work honestly on the crop? I do not advocate the CEO to sweep the floor: there is tasks' - organization in which everyone has a role to perform, but are the roles proportionately paid for? Mao tried to switch 'roles' temporarily - he failed. Lenin realized that such just distribution is impossible in today's society and postulated FIRST the development of som COMMUINST MAN who lives up to such 'just distribution' of benefits - surely realizing the impossibility of such development. All other (Socialist?) countries suffered from the same malaise as the (democraticly?) capitalistic ones: the leadership and its power usurped wealth, acquired MONEY and POWER on the back of the 'not so fortunate' exploited majority. Alas, I have no solution to remedy the situation. Re-hire Dr. Guillotine is unrealistic. JM On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 5:24 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 06 Nov 2013, at 17:25, meekerdb wrote: On 11/6/2013 12:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: There is nothing wrong being rich, unless the money is stolen money, and that's the case today. There's nothing morally wrong with being rich, but it creates an ethical problem. Being much wealthier than others bestows a lot of power. If there is no effective government (like parts of Somalia) then the rich hire a personal army to protect their property. Where there is government, the police protect their property and the rich attempt to control the government through propaganda and buying influence. So long as the rich are not so rich as to live in a different 'world' than the middle class and they are relatively diverse this works OK. But the system seems to be unstable in that the rich can and do use their wealth and power to get more wealth and power - and not necessarily productively. So those who inherit wealth tend to gain even more wealth. Society needs to do something to stabilize the system and prevent the increasing concentration of wealth. I completely agree. The problem is that with money, you can produce more money in two ways,
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/10/2013 1:06 PM, John Mikes wrote: Bruno and Brent: *_Who are you to T E L L society what it needs?_* (BTW: I agree perfectly with your position). I had discussions on other lists in aspects of religion and gun-control and received similar offensive repercussions. No universal machine can tell any other universal machine how to think and what to aim at. Voting is a lying hoax, democracy is nonetxistent. A handful people of goodwill will not change the malicious crowd. When I abhor shooting to kill people, it does not prove wrong those crazies who like to do it - just marks a difference of opinions. TELLING society what it needs is fascism, socialism, or religion. What about telling society what it needs to survive? Are you telling me fascism, socialism, and religion are bad? Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
Brent wrote: What about telling society what it needs to survive? Are you telling me fascism, socialism, and religion are bad? (earlier): Society needs to do something to stabilize the system and prevent the increasing concentration of wealth. The 3 belief systems I mentioned are bad - *IN MY OPINION.* This last remark is what I missed in your statement as well. Besides: I did not include the 3 systems' names as some qualifying statement: just referred to their activity as in intruding into peoples' private beliefs. John On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 4:12 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/10/2013 1:06 PM, John Mikes wrote: Bruno and Brent: *Who are you to T E L L society what it needs?* (BTW: I agree perfectly with your position). I had discussions on other lists in aspects of religion and gun-control and received similar offensive repercussions. No universal machine can tell any other universal machine how to think and what to aim at. Voting is a lying hoax, democracy is nonetxistent. A handful people of goodwill will not change the malicious crowd. When I abhor shooting to kill people, it does not prove wrong those crazies who like to do it - just marks a difference of opinions. TELLING society what it needs is fascism, socialism, or religion. What about telling society what it needs to survive? Are you telling me fascism, socialism, and religion are bad? Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 10:05 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/10/2013 12:29 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: As I said before, I am agnostic on this issue for the following reasons: - I am not educated in climate science and I am sufficiently educated in science to understand that it would take years of full-time effort to get to a point where I could judge the merit of climate science research findings by myself -- even there I would probably have to become an insider, because I understand that a lot of key data is never made publicly available; - I am sufficiently knowledgable of complex systems to be skeptical of the predictive power of any complex systems model at our current level of sophistication; - The issue became so heavily politicised that it is basically not reasonable to trust news reporting on either side of it. I am aware of the 5th IPCC report and I am also aware of claims by reputable climate scientists that the models' predictions appear to be deviating increasingly from the observables: http://judithcurry.com/2013/10/30/implications-for-climate-models-of-their-disagreement-with-observations/ Are you aware that Judith Curry was on the Berkley Earth team to resolve the question of whether the earth is actually warming. She and Richard Muller had been critical of the analyses performed by NOAA, Hadley, CRU, and GISS. When the new analysis, which met all the past criticisms, confirmed all the previous conclusions, she quit the team and shifted her criticism from it's not happening to it's not predictable. Notice that means it could be a lot worse than predicted too - but the Deniers and FUDers never mention that. I've been around long enough to know that she could possibly describe the same sequence of events in a way that makes her look good and her opponents bad. I am more interested in the graphs. I am not invested in disproving global warming. I like to think I am scientifically-minded, so I accept reality whatever it is. I hope it is wrong. I suspect some people want it to be true. Yes, you're the perfect example of the success of the Deniers FUD campaign. Maybe, but I would be more confident that I was witnessing a serious scientific debate if people were not using terms like Deniers and FUD campaign. 98% of all climate scientists agree that AGW is happening and it will have bad consequences. This is a badly disguised argument from authority. It's precisely phrases like 98% of all climate scientists... that triggered my BS alarms in this issue. But you're aware of skeptical scientists, like Judith Curry (who are given TV time on Faux News), so it's a toss-up. It's been heavily politicized - by money from the fossil fuel companies - so no news can be trusted. You're not expert enough to read the scientific literature - so you're agnostic. This may be the case. You *suspect* some people want it to be true??? Well I'm almost sure. In other words you suspect some academics of wanting to trash the world economy for vague, unexpressed personal reasons. I wasn't referring to the academics, nor suggesting wrong-doings. Some people strongly dislike capitalism and take pleasure in the possibility that it could be destructive for the environment. There's a sort of moral reward for them in that. Notice that I'm not saying that they are wrong. They could be right. I am saying that they may be biased. But you don't suspect the Koch brothers, Exxon, BP, Faux News, the Discovery Institute, the MacArthur Foundation, and a host of right-wing think tanks of wanting it to be false AND paying a lot of PR firms to obfuscate the issue. Of course I suspect that too. In fact I'm essentially sure that they are doing all that. But this doesn't mean that the global warming models are correct. Telmo. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/10/2013 2:19 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 10:05 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/10/2013 12:29 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: As I said before, I am agnostic on this issue for the following reasons: - I am not educated in climate science and I am sufficiently educated in science to understand that it would take years of full-time effort to get to a point where I could judge the merit of climate science research findings by myself -- even there I would probably have to become an insider, because I understand that a lot of key data is never made publicly available; - I am sufficiently knowledgable of complex systems to be skeptical of the predictive power of any complex systems model at our current level of sophistication; - The issue became so heavily politicised that it is basically not reasonable to trust news reporting on either side of it. I am aware of the 5th IPCC report and I am also aware of claims by reputable climate scientists that the models' predictions appear to be deviating increasingly from the observables: http://judithcurry.com/2013/10/30/implications-for-climate-models-of-their-disagreement-with-observations/ Are you aware that Judith Curry was on the Berkley Earth team to resolve the question of whether the earth is actually warming. She and Richard Muller had been critical of the analyses performed by NOAA, Hadley, CRU, and GISS. When the new analysis, which met all the past criticisms, confirmed all the previous conclusions, she quit the team and shifted her criticism from it's not happening to it's not predictable. Notice that means it could be a lot worse than predicted too - but the Deniers and FUDers never mention that. I've been around long enough to know that she could possibly describe the same sequence of events in a way that makes her look good and her opponents bad. I am more interested in the graphs. Then look at these: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/02/2012-updates-to-model-observation-comparions/ I am not invested in disproving global warming. I like to think I am scientifically-minded, so I accept reality whatever it is. I hope it is wrong. I suspect some people want it to be true. Yes, you're the perfect example of the success of the Deniers FUD campaign. Maybe, but I would be more confident that I was witnessing a serious scientific debate if people were not using terms like Deniers and FUD campaign. But that's exactly the point. You are NOT witnessing a serious scientific debate. There's ZERO serious science on the side of Deniers. They are like anti-evolutionist. All they do is look for some small anomaly (like a prediction that was off) and say, What about THAT?. You are witnessing a disinformation campaign - and the cui bono is pretty obvious. 98% of all climate scientists agree that AGW is happening and it will have bad consequences. This is a badly disguised argument from authority. It's precisely phrases like 98% of all climate scientists... that triggered my BS alarms in this issue. Since you said you didn't feel up to understanding the science what are you going to rely on? Talking heads on Faux News or the IPCC? But you're aware of skeptical scientists, like Judith Curry (who are given TV time on Faux News), so it's a toss-up. It's been heavily politicized - by money from the fossil fuel companies - so no news can be trusted. You're not expert enough to read the scientific literature - so you're agnostic. This may be the case. You *suspect* some people want it to be true??? Well I'm almost sure. In other words you suspect some academics of wanting to trash the world economy for vague, unexpressed personal reasons. I wasn't referring to the academics, nor suggesting wrong-doings. Some people strongly dislike capitalism and take pleasure in the possibility that it could be destructive for the environment. There's a sort of moral reward for them in that. Notice that I'm not saying that they are wrong. They could be right. I am saying that they may be biased. Since they are not the ones publishing studies and analyses what does their opinion have to do with anything? Your implication was that the warnings about AGW were falsely motivated. What difference does it make if Joe Sixpack is biased (and you can bet he's not biased in favor of high fuel prices)? But you don't suspect the Koch brothers, Exxon, BP, Faux News, the Discovery Institute, the MacArthur Foundation, and a host of right-wing think tanks of wanting it to be false AND paying a lot of PR firms to obfuscate the issue. Of course I suspect that too. In fact I'm essentially sure that they are doing all that. But this doesn't mean that the global warming models are correct. Yet you're willing to suspect the IPCC report by scientists is phony because some anti-capitalists believe it??? Seems to me that you're biased because you think that if AGW is serious it will require
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
Richard Lindzen from MIT is a serious academic scientist who has some reservations about the IPCC reports and is often labeled as a denier. I put my faith in his research. From wiki-Lindzen: Lindzen has expressed his concern over the validity of computer modelshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_model used to predict future climate change. Lindzen said that predicted warming may be overestimated because of inadequate handling of the climate system's water vapor feedback http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_vapor_feedback. The feedback due to water vapor is a major factor in determining how much warming would be expected to occur with increased atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxidehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide. Lindzen said that the water vapor feedback could act to nullify future warming.[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lindzen#cite_note-stevenswnyt-2 This claim has been sharply criticised.[45]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lindzen#cite_note-47 Contrary to the IPCC's assessmenthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_Third_Assessment_Report, Lindzen said that climate models are inadequate. Despite accepted errors in their models, e.g., treatment of clouds http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud, modelers still thought their climate predictions were valid.[46]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lindzen#cite_note-guterlfnewsweek-48 Lindzen has stated that due to the non-linear effects of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, CO2 levels are now around 30% higher than pre-industrial levels but temperatures have responded by about 75% 0.6 °C (1.08 °F) of the expected value for a doubling of CO2. The IPCC (2007) estimates that the expected rise in temperature due to a doubling of CO2 to be about 3 °C (5.4 °F), ± 1.5°. Lindzen has given estimates of the Earth's climate sensitivity to be 0.5°C based on ERBE data.[47]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lindzen#cite_note-erbe-49These estimates have been criticized by other researchers.[48]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lindzen#cite_note-50 Lindzen addressed these criticisms in a 2011 paper, still showing the models exaggerating climate sensitivity.[49]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lindzen#cite_note-51 On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 6:04 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/10/2013 2:19 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 10:05 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/10/2013 12:29 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: As I said before, I am agnostic on this issue for the following reasons: - I am not educated in climate science and I am sufficiently educated in science to understand that it would take years of full-time effort to get to a point where I could judge the merit of climate science research findings by myself -- even there I would probably have to become an insider, because I understand that a lot of key data is never made publicly available; - I am sufficiently knowledgable of complex systems to be skeptical of the predictive power of any complex systems model at our current level of sophistication; - The issue became so heavily politicised that it is basically not reasonable to trust news reporting on either side of it. I am aware of the 5th IPCC report and I am also aware of claims by reputable climate scientists that the models' predictions appear to be deviating increasingly from the observables: http://judithcurry.com/2013/10/30/implications-for- climate-models-of-their-disagreement-with-observations/ Are you aware that Judith Curry was on the Berkley Earth team to resolve the question of whether the earth is actually warming. She and Richard Muller had been critical of the analyses performed by NOAA, Hadley, CRU, and GISS. When the new analysis, which met all the past criticisms, confirmed all the previous conclusions, she quit the team and shifted her criticism from it's not happening to it's not predictable. Notice that means it could be a lot worse than predicted too - but the Deniers and FUDers never mention that. I've been around long enough to know that she could possibly describe the same sequence of events in a way that makes her look good and her opponents bad. I am more interested in the graphs. Then look at these: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/02/ 2012-updates-to-model-observation-comparions/ I am not invested in disproving global warming. I like to think I am scientifically-minded, so I accept reality whatever it is. I hope it is wrong. I suspect some people want it to be true. Yes, you're the perfect example of the success of the Deniers FUD campaign. Maybe, but I would be more confident that I was witnessing a serious scientific debate if people were not using terms like Deniers and FUD campaign. But that's exactly the point. You are NOT witnessing a serious scientific debate. There's ZERO serious science on the side of Deniers. They are like anti-evolutionist. All they do is look for some
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
Cool, I didn't bother to look it up, but rather remembered San Onofre. Whatever you want for solar, and if it cannot supply replacement electricity sufficiently, and you still shutdown the dirty sources, anyway, people will die. -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sun, Nov 10, 2013 2:21 pm Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Sunday, November 10, 2013 11:08 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World One example might be the San Onofre plant in California, near San Diego. It's a uranium burner, and supplies 90% of the electricity, about 85% of the time. But let us look at your sun and wind power contribution that you mentioned before. 40 GW, which I am assuming, is GW's per kilowatt hour, rather than a day, a week, etc? Lets say, its not inconsiderable (40 x 1000 MW plants) but its also not reliable when the sun don't shine, the winds don't blow. Do you expect these clean sources to fully replace the dirty one's in ten years, twenty years, five years, thirty? When can we turn of these poisonous electricity sources that we have come to rely on? Do you advocate shutting these suckers down, before the solar and wind supplied power is fully, implemented? The San Onofre nuclear power plant has been decommissioned – it is past its service life and now many more billions of dollars are going to be need to be spent over decades of time in order to decommission this facility – (it was very intelligently sited on an earthquake fault line by the way) Cost estimates for permanently closing and decommissioning San Onofre are over $4 billion. “The plant's first unit, Unit 1, operated from 1968 to 1992.[5] Unit 2 was started in 1983 and Unit 3 started in 1984. Upgrades designed to last 20 years were made to the reactor units in 2009 and 2010; however, both reactors had to be shut down in January 2012 due to premature wear found on over 3,000 tubes in the recently replaced steam generators.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Onofre_Nuclear_Generating_Station The actual answer to your question then is that the San Onofre power plants are supplying 0% of the San Diego electric energy market with electric power. You might want to pick a better example to make your case. LOL -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sun, Nov 10, 2013 1:51 pm Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World Name me one large city that gets its power 100% exclusively from coal or from nuclear? You can’t because all major energy markets are fed by a mix of energy generation capacity. Yet you keep on with this straw man argument. Why? From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Sunday, November 10, 2013 10:14 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World I would say you are incorrect concerning cities which rely on one primary power source, especially, if its local or regional. Power by wire, is common practice, but first we must have sufficient spinning, or ready reserve. My objection is now the source of power, but if it produce enough power at an affordable cost? Your solar and wind may, 17 years from now, do the job that gas turbines, or nukes, or coal, or hydroelectric does right now. Right now, today 40 GW (is that Gigawatt hours or days?) is no more then a trifling amount of what is needed by the human species. I object to governments switching off power, when no sufficient substitute now exists. Many greens are fine with rolling blackouts and brownouts because at least whatever power is produced is environmentally benign. I suspect that when people start doing a die-off, the Greens will state: Oh, then would've died anyway from pollution, contamination, and a ruined environment.. -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 11:44 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 11/9/2013 4:53 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Your basically saying I am wrong for no contestable reason, you have no city in the world to cite to me that is powered by solar power or wind, for that matter, And there are none powered exclusively by hydroelectric power either. It's a completely specious critereon that you cite as though it meant something. Because B cannot now completely satisfy all demand for X currently supplied by A doesn't make B useless, nor does it make A desirable or necessary. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
Ok, but this is a technique for priming the intellectual pump. If it produces nothing good, nothing powerful, then this method would be a complete failure. -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sun, Nov 10, 2013 2:49 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 09 Nov 2013, at 19:09, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: I am emphasizing having governments print out (Keynes style) absolutely, colossal, amounts of cash, as a reward for coming up with excellent disease treatments and cures, human solar system tours, and clean energy solution, environmental remediation. If the banks won't fund researchers, then private equity will, if private equity won't then a million contributors-open source-will, provided they get a cut of the reward offered by a government prize. I wouldn't be shocked if you, Professor, Marchal, might summon up 25 ECU's in exchange for receiving 3000 ECU's or Golden Yuans, in payment, 5 years later. Only if this reflects some honest contracts. Honesty is not just moral, it is something which elevates a lot the real value of money. It generates trust. Be honest. If you don't try to be honest for the calm of your conscience, do it for the wealth of your children. Today big corporations are based on lies. That's the problem. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
I am not wedded to unworkable ideas, all I maintain, is before we switch off the dirty energy, we must be assured that the clean stuff produces enough watts. -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sun, Nov 10, 2013 2:33 pm Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World Who knows -- you may be interested in a Dutch idea to build an energy island in the North sea by diking around an area of sea then using periods of surplus wind power generation form the north sea offshore wind farms (of which there are quite a few now) to pump water out from inside of the diked off area lowering the water levels inside with respect to the sea level outside. Creating a reservoir of pumped storage that could be drawn down when supplies did not meet demand. Large scale pumped storage is by far the largest form of electric energy storage that currently exists and there are some interesting projects coming on line now – such as the Eagle Crest project in the deserts of Southern California which will provide 1300 MW of dispatchable power onto the grid and which pairs perfectly with the wind and solar generation facilities that are sited in that region. Chris From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Sunday, November 10, 2013 11:19 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World I used to be a fan of Amory Lovins too but am concerned that better efficiencies might not get us across the bridge to Solar City. Lovin's Kevlar cars never took off, for one reason, is because they were so light that strong winds would guide them off the test track. If we weigh them down to be highway ready, there goes the mileage. New materials might do the trick architecturally, as you stated. I am personally sort of obsessed with the idea of using pumped storage at sea (probably costly) using wind power, ocean current to pump uphill, vast, amounts of sea water into synthetic reservoirs, and then get hydro-electric juice flowing for days or weeks from these structures. But, the efficiencies of moving tons of sea water uphill, may just suck at producing electricity? An energy sink is no energy source. -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sun, Nov 10, 2013 2:08 pm Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World Seriously increasing our energy efficiency is key to building a bridge to a living future. One thing this whole discussion is overlooking -- focused as it is, on electric energy supply (a fraction of total energy supply and demand) -- is the low hanging fruit of increasing energy efficiency. There is so much room for improvement in the efficiency with which we use energy. In transportation of course, but especially in heating and cooling and lighting our societies built spaces -- both commercial, industrial residential. Building heating, cooling lighting accounts for the lion's share of all energy use (usually measured in units of Quads -- quadrillion Btus); in fact this area amounts to almost half of all energy use (around 40% -- if I recall the percentage figure). A country like the USA could use half as much energy as it currently does -- if it did so more efficiently -- and still enjoy the same level of heating, cooling, lighting and mobility as we are currently enjoying. Trying to increase supplies -- or shift to renewable supplies -- makes little sense if not also paired with a serious attempt at ramping up energy efficiency. Just simple acts insulating ceilings, floors and walls; like caulking cracks around windows etc. and closing up these many tiny air leaks from buildings, or replacing single pane windows with double or triple pane windows; or using energy efficient lighting can have major impacts in reducing energy requirements. So much of our built space is really crappy in terms of energy efficiency and lighting and the carbon impact of an aggressive national effort at ramping up energy efficiency would be larger than any other single thing we could do. This is not sexy stuff, it is rather low tech, but it does generate a lot of local jobs and provides almost immediate relief from high energy bills. Chris -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of meekerdb Sent: Sunday, November 10, 2013 10:52 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 11/10/2013 1:26 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 10:12 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 10 November 2013 21:40, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: Look, I hope global warming is not that serious, because if it is, it's game over. Big government is most definitely not going to solve it. I think you know this too. There isn't a magical
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/10/2013 4:21 PM, Richard Ruquist wrote: Richard Lindzen from MIT is a serious academic scientist who has some reservations about the IPCC reports and is often labeled as a denier. I put my faith in his research. I hope you didn't also put your faith in those doctors who had reservations as to whether smoking causes lung cancer? Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
You comment does not merit a response. On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 7:58 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/10/2013 4:21 PM, Richard Ruquist wrote: Richard Lindzen from MIT is a serious academic scientist who has some reservations about the IPCC reports and is often labeled as a denier. I put my faith in his research. I hope you didn't also put your faith in those doctors who had reservations as to whether smoking causes lung cancer? Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
RE: Our Demon-Haunted World
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Sunday, November 10, 2013 4:24 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World Cool, I didn't bother to look it up, but rather remembered San Onofre. Whatever you want for solar, and if it cannot supply replacement electricity sufficiently, and you still shutdown the dirty sources, anyway, people will die. Explain exactly how people will die? Curious to see how your thinking works to make you state this as if it were a fact. -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sun, Nov 10, 2013 2:21 pm Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com? ] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Sunday, November 10, 2013 11:08 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World One example might be the San Onofre plant in California, near San Diego. It's a uranium burner, and supplies 90% of the electricity, about 85% of the time. But let us look at your sun and wind power contribution that you mentioned before. 40 GW, which I am assuming, is GW's per kilowatt hour, rather than a day, a week, etc? Lets say, its not inconsiderable (40 x 1000 MW plants) but its also not reliable when the sun don't shine, the winds don't blow. Do you expect these clean sources to fully replace the dirty one's in ten years, twenty years, five years, thirty? When can we turn of these poisonous electricity sources that we have come to rely on? Do you advocate shutting these suckers down, before the solar and wind supplied power is fully, implemented? The San Onofre nuclear power plant has been decommissioned - it is past its service life and now many more billions of dollars are going to be need to be spent over decades of time in order to decommission this facility - (it was very intelligently sited on an earthquake fault line by the way) Cost estimates for permanently closing and decommissioning San Onofre are over $4 billion. The plant's first unit, Unit 1, operated from 1968 to 1992.[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Onofre_Nuclear_Generating_Station#cite_not e-5 Unit 2 was started in 1983 and Unit 3 started in 1984. Upgrades designed to last 20 years were made to the reactor units in 2009 and 2010; however, both reactors had to be shut down in January 2012 due to premature wear found on over 3,000 tubes in the recently replaced steam generators. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Onofre_Nuclear_Generating_Station The actual answer to your question then is that the San Onofre power plants are supplying 0% of the San Diego electric energy market with electric power. You might want to pick a better example to make your case. LOL -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sun, Nov 10, 2013 1:51 pm Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World Name me one large city that gets its power 100% exclusively from coal or from nuclear? You can't because all major energy markets are fed by a mix of energy generation capacity. Yet you keep on with this straw man argument. Why? From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com? ] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Sunday, November 10, 2013 10:14 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World I would say you are incorrect concerning cities which rely on one primary power source, especially, if its local or regional. Power by wire, is common practice, but first we must have sufficient spinning, or ready reserve. My objection is now the source of power, but if it produce enough power at an affordable cost? Your solar and wind may, 17 years from now, do the job that gas turbines, or nukes, or coal, or hydroelectric does right now. Right now, today 40 GW (is that Gigawatt hours or days?) is no more then a trifling amount of what is needed by the human species. I object to governments switching off power, when no sufficient substitute now exists. Many greens are fine with rolling blackouts and brownouts because at least whatever power is produced is environmentally benign. I suspect that when people start doing a die-off, the Greens will state: Oh, then would've died anyway from pollution, contamination, and a ruined environment.. -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 11:44 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 11/9/2013 4:53 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Your basically saying I am wrong for no contestable reason, you have no city in the world to cite to me that is powered by solar power or wind
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/10/2013 4:21 PM, Richard Ruquist wrote: Richard Lindzen from MIT is a serious academic scientist who has some reservations about the IPCC reports and is often labeled as a denier. I put my faith in his research. From wiki-Lindzen: Lindzen has expressed his concern over the validity of computer models http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_model used to predict future climate change. Lindzen said that predicted warming may be overestimated because of inadequate handling of the climate system's water vapor feedback http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_vapor_feedback. The feedback due to water vapor is a major factor in determining how much warming would be expected to occur with increased atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide. Lindzen said that the water vapor feedback could act to nullify future warming.^[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lindzen#cite_note-stevenswnyt-2 Except all the theory and data says that water vapor is a positive feedback - which is why his theory is sharply criticized. It's just speculative, They might be wrong stuff. Dessler's paper (Science, Vol. 330., http://geotest.tamu.edu/userfiles/216/dessler10b.pdf) focused on quantifying the cloud feedback. Using the ENSO to study changing cloud patterns during climatic variability, he found that the feedback is likely positive, consistent with the feedback that climate models yield. Lindzen is not a climate scientist, although he's a professor of meteorology. He's notorious for making misleading insinuations about global warming, e.g. This is sufficient to conclude that Lindzen did indeed make the mistake of confusing his temperature indices, though a more accurate replication would need some playing around since the exact data that Lindzen used is obscure. Thus, instead of correctly attributing the difference to the different methods and source data, he has jumped to the conclusion that GISS is manipulating the data inappropriately. At the very minimum, this is extremely careless, and given the gravity of the insinuation, seriously irresponsible. There are indeed issues with producing climate data records going back in time, but nothing here is remotely relevant to the actual issues. Such a cavalier attitude to analysing and presenting data probably has some lessons for how seriously one should take Lindzen's comments. I anticipate with interest Lindzen's corrections of this in future presentations and his apology for misleading his audience last month. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/03/misrepresentation-from-lindzen/; Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
http://heartland.org/policy-documents/wikipedia-bans-real-climate-propagandist On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 8:25 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/10/2013 4:21 PM, Richard Ruquist wrote: Richard Lindzen from MIT is a serious academic scientist who has some reservations about the IPCC reports and is often labeled as a denier. I put my faith in his research. From wiki-Lindzen: Lindzen has expressed his concern over the validity of computer modelshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_model used to predict future climate change. Lindzen said that predicted warming may be overestimated because of inadequate handling of the climate system's water vapor feedback http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_vapor_feedback. The feedback due to water vapor is a major factor in determining how much warming would be expected to occur with increased atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxidehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide. Lindzen said that the water vapor feedback could act to nullify future warming.[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lindzen#cite_note-stevenswnyt-2 Except all the theory and data says that water vapor is a positive feedback - which is why his theory is sharply criticized. It's just speculative, They might be wrong stuff. Dessler’s paper (Science, Vol. 330., http://geotest.tamu.edu/userfiles/216/dessler10b.pdf) focused on quantifying the cloud feedback. Using the ENSO to study changing cloud patterns during climatic variability, he found that the feedback is likely positive, consistent with the feedback that climate models yield. Lindzen is not a climate scientist, although he's a professor of meteorology. He's notorious for making misleading insinuations about global warming, e.g. This is sufficient to conclude that Lindzen did indeed make the mistake of confusing his temperature indices, though a more accurate replication would need some playing around since the exact data that Lindzen used is obscure. Thus, instead of correctly attributing the difference to the different methods and source data, he has jumped to the conclusion that GISS is manipulating the data inappropriately. At the very minimum, this is extremely careless, and given the gravity of the insinuation, seriously irresponsible. There are indeed issues with producing climate data records going back in time, but nothing here is remotely relevant to the actual issues. Such a cavalier attitude to analysing and presenting data probably has some lessons for how seriously one should take Lindzen’s comments. I anticipate with interest Lindzen’s corrections of this in future presentations and his apology for misleading his audience last month. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/03/misrepresentation-from-lindzen/ Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
I have looked into quite a few climate change deniers in detail, but life is too short to show where every single one of them is cherry pickling or misinterpretting data, and ultimately I feel justified in believing the 99.7% consensus of climate scientists on this one. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
I think that, since the forces of progress and human dignity lost Siberia as the location for stablishing psychiatrics to reconduct deviated enemies of the People, The North and South poles can well be used to make global warming negationist to reconsider is position against Humanity and human rights. Don´t you think so, comrade Meekerdb? 2013/11/10 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net On 11/9/2013 3:09 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 9:55 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/9/2013 9:37 AM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Brent, my analogy, however badly its thought-up, is to force the idealists to produce. My idea was to force the idealist back to painful reality and hard choices, rather then mentally living in La La land. Saying Oh they're working on solar and soon.. How about forcing the libertarians to painful reality. They're going through the six stages of denial: 1. There is no global warming. 2. The science is uncertain. 3. There's global warming but it's just a natural cycle. 4. Global warming will really be good for us. 5. It's too costly to stop global warming. 6. Nothing can be done. Most of them I know are stuck around 3 or 4 now. They're hoping to delay any action so they can get to 6. Why? Because they'd rather face extinction than admit there are some things that you need government to do. Brent, Out of curiosity: why do you care so much about what libertarians think? They are a small minority. I believe most are very much aware that big government is here to stay. Most people in the western world vote for some variation of a conservative or liberal party, both statist. Surely if you are right, and global warming is an existential threat, and government intervention is the only way to solve it, what libertarians think should be quite low in your list of concerns no? Except that they have a disproportionate voice in the public debate because their message is amplified by monied interests who depend on fossil fuel (e.g. the Koch brothers). There was only a small number of lawyers, publicists, and scientists who claimed that: 1. Smoking has nothing to do with lung cancer. 2. There may be a relation but the science is uncertain. 3. Lung cancer just occurs naturally. 4. There are new, healthier cigarettes. 5. It will hurt the economy to limit cigarettes. 6. People should be free to smoke if they want to. and they delayed any government action against smoking for forty years. In fact some of them are *exactly* the same people hired to spread doubt about global warming. To undertake big government action in a democracy you need a solid majority in the populace. As long as libertarians and oil companies can sow doubt that's enough to prevent any action. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- Alberto. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
RE: Our Demon-Haunted World
When somebody doesn’t agree with you, do you then start insulting them? From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Alberto G. Corona Sent: Sunday, November 10, 2013 6:36 PM To: everything-list Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World I think that, since the forces of progress and human dignity lost Siberia as the location for stablishing psychiatrics to reconduct deviated enemies of the People, The North and South poles can well be used to make global warming negationist to reconsider is position against Humanity and human rights. Don´t you think so, comrade Meekerdb? 2013/11/10 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net On 11/9/2013 3:09 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 9:55 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/9/2013 9:37 AM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Brent, my analogy, however badly its thought-up, is to force the idealists to produce. My idea was to force the idealist back to painful reality and hard choices, rather then mentally living in La La land. Saying Oh they're working on solar and soon.. How about forcing the libertarians to painful reality. They're going through the six stages of denial: 1. There is no global warming. 2. The science is uncertain. 3. There's global warming but it's just a natural cycle. 4. Global warming will really be good for us. 5. It's too costly to stop global warming. 6. Nothing can be done. Most of them I know are stuck around 3 or 4 now. They're hoping to delay any action so they can get to 6. Why? Because they'd rather face extinction than admit there are some things that you need government to do. Brent, Out of curiosity: why do you care so much about what libertarians think? They are a small minority. I believe most are very much aware that big government is here to stay. Most people in the western world vote for some variation of a conservative or liberal party, both statist. Surely if you are right, and global warming is an existential threat, and government intervention is the only way to solve it, what libertarians think should be quite low in your list of concerns no? Except that they have a disproportionate voice in the public debate because their message is amplified by monied interests who depend on fossil fuel (e.g. the Koch brothers). There was only a small number of lawyers, publicists, and scientists who claimed that: 1. Smoking has nothing to do with lung cancer. 2. There may be a relation but the science is uncertain. 3. Lung cancer just occurs naturally. 4. There are new, healthier cigarettes. 5. It will hurt the economy to limit cigarettes. 6. People should be free to smoke if they want to. and they delayed any government action against smoking for forty years. In fact some of them are *exactly* the same people hired to spread doubt about global warming. To undertake big government action in a democracy you need a solid majority in the populace. As long as libertarians and oil companies can sow doubt that's enough to prevent any action. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com . To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- Alberto. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 08 Nov 2013, at 19:44, meekerdb wrote: On 11/8/2013 12:10 AM, Chris de Morsella wrote: Ending the era of Prohibition will not mean kids will start smoking pot…. Hint they already are, and have been for a long time. Ending this dark era of Prohibition will mean that the greatest illicit funding engine ever devised will shut down and the global crime syndicates revenue streams will dry up. And will kids smoke opimum too (it was legal in China at the time of the opimum trade)? I saw a professor of medicine on TV saying that opium is the least damaging recreational drug. What about whiskey (kids already drink too)? Heroin? Cocaine? All studies show that once a drug is illegal, it becomes much more available and consumed. Always, everywhere, for any drug. It is normal because when a drug is illegal, you create a market allowing a product to be sold without any control (nor on price, nor on quality), and you make possible the street advertizing which target the kids. Prohibition might look reasonable, but it has always been at the start a technic to sell much more drugs. This admits that very simple explanation above, but it is confirmed. In the US cannabis has been very severely repressed, and it is the country where the local people smoke the most (with Canada and France). In The Netherlands, cannabis is tolerated, and it is the country where cannabis is smoked the less (by the inhabitants). We must legalize cannabis, because the danger of cannabis has been scientifically debunked since 70 years. We must legalize even more the dangerous drug, because their illegality makes them much dangerous, much more available to anyone (including kids) etc. But we must legalize all drugs to just come back to the possibility of some sense in politics, and get rid of the criminals and liars. Opium was legal in China, but has become a weapon by coercion, then the prohibition of it has aggravated the situation. Like tobacco in Turkey, drugs can be used by manipulators to destroy a country. Some americans have used alcohol against some Indian populations in a similar way. Bruno Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 06 Nov 2013, at 17:25, meekerdb wrote: On 11/6/2013 12:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: There is nothing wrong being rich, unless the money is stolen money, and that's the case today. There's nothing morally wrong with being rich, but it creates an ethical problem. Being much wealthier than others bestows a lot of power. If there is no effective government (like parts of Somalia) then the rich hire a personal army to protect their property. Where there is government, the police protect their property and the rich attempt to control the government through propaganda and buying influence. So long as the rich are not so rich as to live in a different 'world' than the middle class and they are relatively diverse this works OK. But the system seems to be unstable in that the rich can and do use their wealth and power to get more wealth and power - and not necessarily productively. So those who inherit wealth tend to gain even more wealth. Society needs to do something to stabilize the system and prevent the increasing concentration of wealth. *I completely agree. The problem is that with money, you can produce more money in two ways, honestly or dishonestly.*... Bruno, before I touch the basics - could you explain what you would consider to produce *M O R E money HONESTLY?* Same question to Brent's text above: *that the rich can and do use their wealth and power to get more wealth and power - and not necessarily productively*. I don't see a 'productive' way how 'the rich' get more wealth and power by using their wealth and power. It is exploitation, political scam, bribery, terrorism, etc. - all in the framework of accepted morals of the system (either capitalist, or fascist). I recall some basics (I am no 'Socialist') from Marx: NOBODY *owns *Nature so any natural products (mining, farming, or other) are valued 'honestly' as recompensation for the *efforts* invested into the natural process for getting money - honestly - productively, without exploitation. Does any mine-owner work on his product? Does any Farming conglomerated stockholder work honestly on the crop? I do not advocate the CEO to sweep the floor: there is tasks' - organization in which everyone has a role to perform, but are the roles proportionately paid for? Mao tried to switch 'roles' temporarily - he failed. Lenin realized that such just distribution is impossible in today's society and postulated FIRST the development of som COMMUINST MAN who lives up to such 'just distribution' of benefits - surely realizing the impossibility of such development. All other (Socialist?) countries suffered from the same malaise as the (democraticly?) capitalistic ones: the leadership and its power usurped wealth, acquired MONEY and POWER on the back of the 'not so fortunate' exploited majority. Alas, I have no solution to remedy the situation. Re-hire Dr. Guillotine is unrealistic. JM On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 5:24 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 06 Nov 2013, at 17:25, meekerdb wrote: On 11/6/2013 12:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: There is nothing wrong being rich, unless the money is stolen money, and that's the case today. There's nothing morally wrong with being rich, but it creates an ethical problem. Being much wealthier than others bestows a lot of power. If there is no effective government (like parts of Somalia) then the rich hire a personal army to protect their property. Where there is government, the police protect their property and the rich attempt to control the government through propaganda and buying influence. So long as the rich are not so rich as to live in a different 'world' than the middle class and they are relatively diverse this works OK. But the system seems to be unstable in that the rich can and do use their wealth and power to get more wealth and power - and not necessarily productively. So those who inherit wealth tend to gain even more wealth. Society needs to do something to stabilize the system and prevent the increasing concentration of wealth. I completely agree. The problem is that with money, you can produce more money in two ways, honestly or dishonestly. Once a few fake money (based on a lie) appears, it corrupts the whole system, and the society get pyramidal, with a higher gap between poor and rich, and eventually this crush down. We must think about a way to prevent that. Some state can play a role. But we have to get rid of the bandits first, and there is an easy way: legalize all drugs. Regulate them, and tax them proportionally by the real harm (that is measured by statistics no more confusing a - b and b - a) they do. May be that is not enough. Prohibitionists should be judged. We have to get spiritual or mature enough to understand that. The state must ensure the fairness of competition among products, their traceability, the presence of notice with the secondary effects, etc. But the state has nothing to say about what is good or
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
One more remark: the H O N E S T heirs? super-rich they may be? Do you find an honestly accumulated heirloom to inherit? Did they work productively/honestly to be 'rich'? JM On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 11:50 AM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: On 06 Nov 2013, at 17:25, meekerdb wrote: On 11/6/2013 12:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: There is nothing wrong being rich, unless the money is stolen money, and that's the case today. There's nothing morally wrong with being rich, but it creates an ethical problem. Being much wealthier than others bestows a lot of power. If there is no effective government (like parts of Somalia) then the rich hire a personal army to protect their property. Where there is government, the police protect their property and the rich attempt to control the government through propaganda and buying influence. So long as the rich are not so rich as to live in a different 'world' than the middle class and they are relatively diverse this works OK. But the system seems to be unstable in that the rich can and do use their wealth and power to get more wealth and power - and not necessarily productively. So those who inherit wealth tend to gain even more wealth. Society needs to do something to stabilize the system and prevent the increasing concentration of wealth. *I completely agree. The problem is that with money, you can produce more money in two ways, honestly or dishonestly.*... Bruno, before I touch the basics - could you explain what you would consider to produce *M O R E money HONESTLY?* Same question to Brent's text above: *that the rich can and do use their wealth and power to get more wealth and power - and not necessarily productively*. I don't see a 'productive' way how 'the rich' get more wealth and power by using their wealth and power. It is exploitation, political scam, bribery, terrorism, etc. - all in the framework of accepted morals of the system (either capitalist, or fascist). I recall some basics (I am no 'Socialist') from Marx: NOBODY *owns *Nature so any natural products (mining, farming, or other) are valued 'honestly' as recompensation for the *efforts* invested into the natural process for getting money - honestly - productively, without exploitation. Does any mine-owner work on his product? Does any Farming conglomerated stockholder work honestly on the crop? I do not advocate the CEO to sweep the floor: there is tasks' - organization in which everyone has a role to perform, but are the roles proportionately paid for? Mao tried to switch 'roles' temporarily - he failed. Lenin realized that such just distribution is impossible in today's society and postulated FIRST the development of som COMMUINST MAN who lives up to such 'just distribution' of benefits - surely realizing the impossibility of such development. All other (Socialist?) countries suffered from the same malaise as the (democraticly?) capitalistic ones: the leadership and its power usurped wealth, acquired MONEY and POWER on the back of the 'not so fortunate' exploited majority. Alas, I have no solution to remedy the situation. Re-hire Dr. Guillotine is unrealistic. JM On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 5:24 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 06 Nov 2013, at 17:25, meekerdb wrote: On 11/6/2013 12:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: There is nothing wrong being rich, unless the money is stolen money, and that's the case today. There's nothing morally wrong with being rich, but it creates an ethical problem. Being much wealthier than others bestows a lot of power. If there is no effective government (like parts of Somalia) then the rich hire a personal army to protect their property. Where there is government, the police protect their property and the rich attempt to control the government through propaganda and buying influence. So long as the rich are not so rich as to live in a different 'world' than the middle class and they are relatively diverse this works OK. But the system seems to be unstable in that the rich can and do use their wealth and power to get more wealth and power - and not necessarily productively. So those who inherit wealth tend to gain even more wealth. Society needs to do something to stabilize the system and prevent the increasing concentration of wealth. I completely agree. The problem is that with money, you can produce more money in two ways, honestly or dishonestly. Once a few fake money (based on a lie) appears, it corrupts the whole system, and the society get pyramidal, with a higher gap between poor and rich, and eventually this crush down. We must think about a way to prevent that. Some state can play a role. But we have to get rid of the bandits first, and there is an easy way: legalize all drugs. Regulate them, and tax them proportionally by the real harm (that is measured by statistics no more confusing a - b and b - a) they do. May be that is not enough.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
Look, we all have our opinions, but none of us are being scientific about all this. Just for the sake of giggles and laughs, let us set up an imaginary town, where the government is minimal. Call it Chaosville, or Telmoland, or Brentburg. Let the law stand aside as the passage of drugs through this location is not criminalized. Where merchants can charge the going price, where using heroin, or crack cocaine, or ketamine, or even tobacco is legal. I am sure we will have a body count, but I'd be a bit surprised if its over money and territory (money again) and likely, be from drug overdoses. There will be social costs to pay, and psychological, and sorrow-just like there is today, just about everywhere. My guess is the costs of drugs would drop fantastically, thus the profit motive is greatly, reduced. This experiment would be measurable, rather then just my opinion. Perhaps the Netherlands is up for this? -Original Message- From: Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 7:29 am Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 3:55 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/8/2013 5:48 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: If you hold the Rational Optimist view aka Matt Ridley, people will act altruistic much more, if they get a reward, then in they get jack. A dictatorship of your own preference is suitable for many, but not for most. Plus, think about pure materiality. If a cruel dictator has his goon point a semi-automatic at each of our heads and demands of us to immediately produce an energy source that will power his civilization for the rest of his life, and unless we can produce this energy source, bang goes the gun. I will shout shale gas or even tar sands. If you shout out sun and wind, bang goes the gun against your skull. Why? Because even after decades of work, even after daily advances, there's no city on earth that is now powered by sun or win, were that it was so. My point is we cannot legislate reality. I will take the marketplace with all its flaws versus coercive government. Which would you choose? There can be no marketplace without government. Yes. This is why when the government makes a certain type of trade illegal it disappears. Otherwise, drug dealers could create complex global organisations with major trade routes feeding local resellers and so on. It would be possible to buy drugs produced in distant lands even without the government's help. Government's define ownership, property rights, contracts - all stuff essential for markets. Again, this is another reason why illegal drugs are not bought or sold. It doesn't make any sense. How could you possibly buy or sell drugs without the government defining your right of ownership, contracts and so on? Telmo. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
Brent, my analogy, however badly its thought-up, is to force the idealists to produce. My idea was to force the idealist back to painful reality and hard choices, rather then mentally living in La La land. Saying Oh they're working on solar and soon.. Unacceptable. Tomorrowland existed no where except at Disney World. Naw. This is about getting the thinker to be realists, and not dreamers. -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Fri, Nov 8, 2013 9:54 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 11/8/2013 5:48 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: If you hold the Rational Optimist view aka Matt Ridley, people will act altruistic much more, if they get a reward, then in they get jack. A dictatorship of your own preference is suitable for many, but not for most. Plus, think about pure materiality. If a cruel dictator has his goon point a semi-automatic at each of our heads and demands of us to immediately produce an energy source that will power his civilization for the rest of his life, Easy. Set him on fire. :-) Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
Chris, I just read a study by the U of Colorado, published in the Journal, Bioscience, claiming that up to 1 million bats have been killed by green energy wind turbines. The arrival of solar power, its decline in price, and thus it will power all human civilization never arrives. Its what the math people call asymptotic, which in this case means, it never achieves target, it never gets there. The same with nuclear fusion, despite happy reports. It never gets there after decades of research. Thus, it cannot be Relied Upon to substitute for Dirty energy sources. What might prime the technological pump is the market place, where supply and demand are invoked, and there is commercial reason to produce minus government hand outs to crony companies, in Germany, and in the US. With tax payer monies, these companies vanish, like farts in a high wind, like Solyndra did. Unreliable substitutes are non substitutes. -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 12:12 am Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Friday, November 08, 2013 5:49 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World If you hold the Rational Optimist view aka Matt Ridley, people will act altruistic much more, if they get a reward, then in they get jack. A dictatorship of your own preference is suitable for many, but not for most. Plus, think about pure materiality. If a cruel dictator has his goon point a semi-automatic at each of our heads and demands of us to immediately produce an energy source that will power his civilization for the rest of his life, and unless we can produce this energy source, bang goes the gun. I will shout shale gas or even tar sands. If you shout out sun and wind, bang goes the gun against your skull. Why? Because even after decades of work, even after daily advances, there's no city on earth that is now powered by sun or win, were that it was so. My point is we cannot legislate reality. I will take the marketplace with all its flaws versus coercive government. Which would you choose? I do not subscribe to your Manichean world view, in fact I find it ill reflective of the complexity and nuance of reality. You like to see things in a either this or that kind of way, and maybe that works for you, but it doesn’t work for me. Are you really that certain you know your energy facts. Global installed solar consumption went from 2.1 TWh in 2001 to 55.7 TWh in 2011; growing by a factor of more than 20X in 10years; this is reflected in the growth in installed capacity, which went from a little over 2GW of installed solar capacity in 2001 to around 20GW of installed capacity in 2011. In fact there is so much solar and wind electric capacity already installed in Germany that on days which are favorable for wind and solar power, the overabundance of supply can drive the wholesale price into sharply negative territory. The market inverts and in order to shed load onto the grid – when supply exceeds demand beyond the capacity of the grid to manage it -- you need to pay the grid operators because the grid cannot accept any more energy without becoming unstable – the grid is a balancing between instantaneous supply and demand (act at the speed of electricity) The cost per kwh of solar PV is following a Moore’s Law type progression in falling costs and the dollar per kwh of solar PV are closing in on the cost of coal generated electricity, which has been the least expensive (largely because it can externalize hundreds of billions of dollars per year of costs incurred by mining, and burning coal onto the commons). -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thu, Nov 7, 2013 9:44 pm Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 4:26 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World Not to be sarcastic, but probably yes. Money from bitumin brings money for research into environmental remediation. It also helps liberate people from pouring cash into the OPEC world, which seems to only inflame Muslim passions. Plus the Canadians are world class technologists and will likely invent more efficient engines, and also fund the green technologies that you crave. Theres a reason why poor nations do not do technology well. You have a cornucopian view that we can go on making horrible messes on this planet without worrying about the consequences because somehow it will all get magically remediated yeah like that actually happens in the real world
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 09 Nov 2013, at 17:50, John Mikes wrote: On 06 Nov 2013, at 17:25, meekerdb wrote: On 11/6/2013 12:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: There is nothing wrong being rich, unless the money is stolen money, and that's the case today. There's nothing morally wrong with being rich, but it creates an ethical problem. Being much wealthier than others bestows a lot of power. If there is no effective government (like parts of Somalia) then the rich hire a personal army to protect their property. Where there is government, the police protect their property and the rich attempt to control the government through propaganda and buying influence. So long as the rich are not so rich as to live in a different 'world' than the middle class and they are relatively diverse this works OK. But the system seems to be unstable in that the rich can and do use their wealth and power to get more wealth and power - and not necessarily productively. So those who inherit wealth tend to gain even more wealth. Society needs to do something to stabilize the system and prevent the increasing concentration of wealth. I completely agree. The problem is that with money, you can produce more money in two ways, honestly or dishonestly Bruno, before I touch the basics - could you explain what you would consider to produce M O R E money HONESTLY? I give you an example. I live in a village and someone come to see me, because he has some health problem. I sell him some good herb, with a link to the papers showing that the herb can help. That's an example of doing more money and being honest. I would put some bd herb, knowing it, and then I have fall in the dishonestly realm of method. Dishonesty is when you lie on what you sold, or when you disallow competition by defamation on products. Making more money honestly is like selling more beef steaks, when those are indeed beef steaks and not horse steaks. Money is not the problem. It is a formidable work distribution tools, and when play fair, everyone can win. The problem are the cheaters. Of course, the cheaters get enormous benefits, and invest in hiding their misdeed, and corrupts the whole system especially when they got the media. To condems ùoney is like condemning the blood cells, when they are deviate in nourishing cancers cells and tumors. Those who pervert the system are happy to see people condemning the system, and not their misdeed. Bruno Same question to Brent's text above: that the rich can and do use their wealth and power to get more wealth and power - and not necessarily productively. I don't see a 'productive' way how 'the rich' get more wealth and power by using their wealth and power. It is exploitation, political scam, bribery, terrorism, etc. - all in the framework of accepted morals of the system (either capitalist, or fascist). I recall some basics (I am no 'Socialist') from Marx: NOBODY owns Nature so any natural products (mining, farming, or other) are valued 'honestly' as recompensation for the efforts invested into the natural process for getting money - honestly - productively, without exploitation. Does any mine-owner work on his product? Does any Farming conglomerated stockholder work honestly on the crop? I do not advocate the CEO to sweep the floor: there is tasks' - organization in which everyone has a role to perform, but are the roles proportionately paid for? Mao tried to switch 'roles' temporarily - he failed. Lenin realized that such just distribution is impossible in today's society and postulated FIRST the development of som COMMUINST MAN who lives up to such 'just distribution' of benefits - surely realizing the impossibility of such development. All other (Socialist?) countries suffered from the same malaise as the (democraticly?) capitalistic ones: the leadership and its power usurped wealth, acquired MONEY and POWER on the back of the 'not so fortunate' exploited majority. Alas, I have no solution to remedy the situation. Re-hire Dr. Guillotine is unrealistic. JM On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 5:24 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 06 Nov 2013, at 17:25, meekerdb wrote: On 11/6/2013 12:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: There is nothing wrong being rich, unless the money is stolen money, and that's the case today. There's nothing morally wrong with being rich, but it creates an ethical problem. Being much wealthier than others bestows a lot of power. If there is no effective government (like parts of Somalia) then the rich hire a personal army to protect their property. Where there is government, the police protect their property and the rich attempt to control the government through propaganda and buying influence. So long as the rich are not so rich as to live in a different 'world' than the middle class and they are relatively diverse this works OK. But the system seems to be
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
I am emphasizing having governments print out (Keynes style) absolutely, colossal, amounts of cash, as a reward for coming up with excellent disease treatments and cures, human solar system tours, and clean energy solution, environmental remediation. If the banks won't fund researchers, then private equity will, if private equity won't then a million contributors-open source-will, provided they get a cut of the reward offered by a government prize. I wouldn't be shocked if you, Professor, Marchal, might summon up 25 ECU's in exchange for receiving 3000 ECU's or Golden Yuans, in payment, 5 years later. -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wed, Nov 6, 2013 3:58 am Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 06 Nov 2013, at 02:43, LizR wrote: On 6 November 2013 14:38, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: We could offer a 20 or 100 billion dollar prize for a new clean energy source and award the winner. The contestents would have to get bank or private equity funding to accomplish this. We can do the same for medicine and outer space too. Sounds good to me. How do you persuade the banks etc to put up the prize money? Allowing effective competition would solve the problem, easily. But banks and your taxes invest in preventing real competition, and that is the origin of the problem. Our system is good, but old, and by tolerating the prohibition nonsense, we have put bandits into power, and they have crushed the separation guards. There is nothing wrong being rich, unless the money is stolen money, and that's the case today. The war on drugs and the war on terror are used to hide that facts. It is still better than in Somalia, unless you are dying in some hospital, because the effective treatment is forbidden, or you are just in jail because you defend the constitution. Prohibition *has* transformed the whole planet in a giant Chicago. We are not governed by elected people, but by well organized gangs with very special interest. Media and a part of the academic world is rotten. Might TOR saves our children ... Bruno -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 09 Nov 2013, at 17:56, John Mikes wrote: One more remark: the H O N E S T heirs? super-rich they may be? Do you find an honestly accumulated heirloom to inherit? Did they work productively/ honestly to be 'rich'? That's an interesting question. It is a particular case of can we give money?. I don't know. Surely parents can make gifts to their children, but even that is not clear to me, and in some case a child can got the feeling that his affection is bought, and that is perilous for the genuine affection he can have. Money has common point with energy and love. That needs to be handled with some caution. Inheritance? Why not? In some case that might work better than an expensive non working social security taxes system. I think you raise a very difficult question which has no global answers and depends on local traditions and way of life. Honesty relies in clear basic (voted) rules, and their application to all people, where they apply. Also, there is a problem with lobbying, and we should find a way to separate money and politics, but when some proportion of cheaters have power, that can take time. Bruno JM On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 11:50 AM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: On 06 Nov 2013, at 17:25, meekerdb wrote: On 11/6/2013 12:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: There is nothing wrong being rich, unless the money is stolen money, and that's the case today. There's nothing morally wrong with being rich, but it creates an ethical problem. Being much wealthier than others bestows a lot of power. If there is no effective government (like parts of Somalia) then the rich hire a personal army to protect their property. Where there is government, the police protect their property and the rich attempt to control the government through propaganda and buying influence. So long as the rich are not so rich as to live in a different 'world' than the middle class and they are relatively diverse this works OK. But the system seems to be unstable in that the rich can and do use their wealth and power to get more wealth and power - and not necessarily productively. So those who inherit wealth tend to gain even more wealth. Society needs to do something to stabilize the system and prevent the increasing concentration of wealth. I completely agree. The problem is that with money, you can produce more money in two ways, honestly or dishonestly Bruno, before I touch the basics - could you explain what you would consider to produce M O R E money HONESTLY? Same question to Brent's text above: that the rich can and do use their wealth and power to get more wealth and power - and not necessarily productively. I don't see a 'productive' way how 'the rich' get more wealth and power by using their wealth and power. It is exploitation, political scam, bribery, terrorism, etc. - all in the framework of accepted morals of the system (either capitalist, or fascist). I recall some basics (I am no 'Socialist') from Marx: NOBODY owns Nature so any natural products (mining, farming, or other) are valued 'honestly' as recompensation for the efforts invested into the natural process for getting money - honestly - productively, without exploitation. Does any mine-owner work on his product? Does any Farming conglomerated stockholder work honestly on the crop? I do not advocate the CEO to sweep the floor: there is tasks' - organization in which everyone has a role to perform, but are the roles proportionately paid for? Mao tried to switch 'roles' temporarily - he failed. Lenin realized that such just distribution is impossible in today's society and postulated FIRST the development of som COMMUINST MAN who lives up to such 'just distribution' of benefits - surely realizing the impossibility of such development. All other (Socialist?) countries suffered from the same malaise as the (democraticly?) capitalistic ones: the leadership and its power usurped wealth, acquired MONEY and POWER on the back of the 'not so fortunate' exploited majority. Alas, I have no solution to remedy the situation. Re-hire Dr. Guillotine is unrealistic. JM On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 5:24 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 06 Nov 2013, at 17:25, meekerdb wrote: On 11/6/2013 12:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: There is nothing wrong being rich, unless the money is stolen money, and that's the case today. There's nothing morally wrong with being rich, but it creates an ethical problem. Being much wealthier than others bestows a lot of power. If there is no effective government (like parts of Somalia) then the rich hire a personal army to protect their property. Where there is government, the police protect their property and the rich attempt to control the government through propaganda and buying influence. So long as the rich are not so rich as to live in a different 'world' than the
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
investors to invest in the best technology. Rather than picking winners, the LGP enables innovative companies to compete in the marketplace, allowing winners to emerge from competition. And while Solyndra is shutting its doors, companies like SunPower, First Solar, and Brightsource Energy, which also received loan guarantees and other support from the federal government, are industry leading success stories.' Finally, here's an article that details many of the conservative media sources (many with major ties to the oil industry) that have been promoting the Solyndra story as an excuse to stop investing in clean energy: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/09/14/1016840/-The-Phony-Solyndra-Solar-Scandal -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 12:12 am Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World *From:* everything-list@googlegroups.com [ mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.comeverything-list@googlegroups.com?] *On Behalf Of *spudboy...@aol.com *Sent:* Friday, November 08, 2013 5:49 PM *To:* everything-list@googlegroups.com *Subject:* Re: Our Demon-Haunted World If you hold the Rational Optimist view aka Matt Ridley, people will act altruistic much more, if they get a reward, then in they get jack. A dictatorship of your own preference is suitable for many, but not for most. Plus, think about pure materiality. If a cruel dictator has his goon point a semi-automatic at each of our heads and demands of us to immediately produce an energy source that will power his civilization for the rest of his life, and unless we can produce this energy source, bang goes the gun. I will shout shale gas or even tar sands. If you shout out sun and wind, bang goes the gun against your skull. Why? Because even after decades of work, even after daily advances, there's no city on earth that is now powered by sun or win, were that it was so. My point is we cannot legislate reality. I will take the marketplace with all its flaws versus coercive government. Which would you choose? I do not subscribe to your Manichean world view, in fact I find it ill reflective of the complexity and nuance of reality. You like to see things in a either this or that kind of way, and maybe that works for you, but it doesn’t work for me. Are you really that certain you know your energy facts. Global installed solar consumption went from 2.1 TWh in 2001 to 55.7 TWh in 2011; growing by a factor of more than 20X in 10years; this is reflected in the growth in installed capacity, which went from a little over 2GW of installed solar capacity in 2001 to around 20GW of installed capacity in 2011. In fact there is so much solar and wind electric capacity already installed in Germany that on days which are favorable for wind and solar power, the overabundance of supply can drive the wholesale price into sharply negative territory. The market inverts and in order to shed load onto the grid – when supply exceeds demand beyond the capacity of the grid to manage it -- you need to pay the grid operators because the grid cannot accept any more energy without becoming unstable – the grid is a balancing between instantaneous supply and demand (act at the speed of electricity) The cost per kwh of solar PV is following a Moore’s Law type progression in falling costs and the dollar per kwh of solar PV are closing in on the cost of coal generated electricity, which has been the least expensive (largely because it can externalize hundreds of billions of dollars per year of costs incurred by mining, and burning coal onto the commons). -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thu, Nov 7, 2013 9:44 pm Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com everything-list@googlegroups.com?] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 4:26 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World Not to be sarcastic, but probably yes. Money from bitumin brings money for research into environmental remediation. It also helps liberate people from pouring cash into the OPEC world, which seems to only inflame Muslim passions. Plus the Canadians are world class technologists and will likely invent more efficient engines, and also fund the green technologies that you crave. Theres a reason why poor nations do not do technology well. You have a cornucopian view that we can go on making horrible messes on this planet without worrying about the consequences because somehow it will all get magically remediated yeah like that actually happens in the real world. Remediation is a cost center NOT a profit center; it is done only to the minimum level necessary in order
RE: Our Demon-Haunted World
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2013 9:38 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World Brent, my analogy, however badly its thought-up, is to force the idealists to produce. My idea was to force the idealist back to painful reality and hard choices, rather then mentally living in La La land. Saying Oh they're working on solar and soon.. Unacceptable. Tomorrowland existed no where except at Disney World. Naw. This is about getting the thinker to be realists, and not dreamers. There are more than 40GW of installed solar capacity existing now and the rate of increase of capacity is literally exploding. You don't know what you are talking about spudboy; you keep repeating nonsensical opinions with no evidence for them whatsoever. You are being a polemicist; and that is all you are doing. -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Fri, Nov 8, 2013 9:54 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 11/8/2013 5:48 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: If you hold the Rational Optimist view aka Matt Ridley, people will act altruistic much more, if they get a reward, then in they get jack. A dictatorship of your own preference is suitable for many, but not for most. Plus, think about pure materiality. If a cruel dictator has his goon point a semi-automatic at each of our heads and demands of us to immediately produce an energy source that will power his civilization for the rest of his life, Easy. Set him on fire. :-) Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
RE: Our Demon-Haunted World
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2013 9:50 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World Chris, I just read a study by the U of Colorado, published in the Journal, Bioscience, claiming that up to 1 million bats have been killed by green energy wind turbines. The arrival of solar power, its decline in price, and thus it will power all human civilization never arrives. Its what the math people call asymptotic, which in this case means, it never achieves target, it never gets there. The same with nuclear fusion, despite happy reports. It never gets there after decades of research. Thus, it cannot be Relied Upon to substitute for Dirty energy sources. What might prime the technological pump is the market place, where supply and demand are invoked, and there is commercial reason to produce minus government hand outs to crony companies, in Germany, and in the US. With tax payer monies, these companies vanish, like farts in a high wind, like Solyndra did. Unreliable substitutes are non substitutes. Blablabla - do you just regurgitate talking points you hear on Faux News? In the real world the installed base of solar power has exploded by a factor of 20X in ten years and is closing in on 50GW of installed capacity. It must begreat living in a fact free world spudboy - you get to say whatever you want (or more probably whatever talking points you were fed) Do you realize the level of subsidies that all the fossil energy sectors currently and have long enjoyed? Of course you don't, because that does not fit the agenda of your thought leaders. In many markets solar PV is starting to become the cheapest source of supply and the price per watt keeps falling as the price of fossil energy keeps rising (long term trends) The crossover point is very close and may already have been reached. Solar is already far cheaper than burning coal if you count the external costs that the coal companies currently are able to shed onto the commons and onto the backs of the general tax payers. A recent Harvard University study has estimated that the externalized costs of the US Coal sector is well over 350 billion dollars a year. -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 12:12 am Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com? ] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Friday, November 08, 2013 5:49 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World If you hold the Rational Optimist view aka Matt Ridley, people will act altruistic much more, if they get a reward, then in they get jack. A dictatorship of your own preference is suitable for many, but not for most. Plus, think about pure materiality. If a cruel dictator has his goon point a semi-automatic at each of our heads and demands of us to immediately produce an energy source that will power his civilization for the rest of his life, and unless we can produce this energy source, bang goes the gun. I will shout shale gas or even tar sands. If you shout out sun and wind, bang goes the gun against your skull. Why? Because even after decades of work, even after daily advances, there's no city on earth that is now powered by sun or win, were that it was so. My point is we cannot legislate reality. I will take the marketplace with all its flaws versus coercive government. Which would you choose? I do not subscribe to your Manichean world view, in fact I find it ill reflective of the complexity and nuance of reality. You like to see things in a either this or that kind of way, and maybe that works for you, but it doesn't work for me. Are you really that certain you know your energy facts. Global installed solar consumption went from 2.1 TWh in 2001 to 55.7 TWh in 2011; growing by a factor of more than 20X in 10years; this is reflected in the growth in installed capacity, which went from a little over 2GW of installed solar capacity in 2001 to around 20GW of installed capacity in 2011. In fact there is so much solar and wind electric capacity already installed in Germany that on days which are favorable for wind and solar power, the overabundance of supply can drive the wholesale price into sharply negative territory. The market inverts and in order to shed load onto the grid - when supply exceeds demand beyond the capacity of the grid to manage it -- you need to pay the grid operators because the grid cannot accept any more energy without becoming unstable - the grid is a balancing between instantaneous supply and demand (act at the speed of electricity) The cost per kwh of solar PV is following a Moore's Law type progression in falling costs and the dollar per kwh
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/9/2013 4:29 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 3:55 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/8/2013 5:48 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: If you hold the Rational Optimist view aka Matt Ridley, people will act altruistic much more, if they get a reward, then in they get jack. A dictatorship of your own preference is suitable for many, but not for most. Plus, think about pure materiality. If a cruel dictator has his goon point a semi-automatic at each of our heads and demands of us to immediately produce an energy source that will power his civilization for the rest of his life, and unless we can produce this energy source, bang goes the gun. I will shout shale gas or even tar sands. If you shout out sun and wind, bang goes the gun against your skull. Why? Because even after decades of work, even after daily advances, there's no city on earth that is now powered by sun or win, were that it was so. My point is we cannot legislate reality. I will take the marketplace with all its flaws versus coercive government. Which would you choose? There can be no marketplace without government. Yes. This is why when the government makes a certain type of trade illegal it disappears. Otherwise, drug dealers could create complex global organisations with major trade routes feeding local resellers and so on. It would be possible to buy drugs produced in distant lands even without the government's help. Government's define ownership, property rights, contracts - all stuff essential for markets. Again, this is another reason why illegal drugs are not bought or sold. It doesn't make any sense. How could you possibly buy or sell drugs without the government defining your right of ownership, contracts and so on? You create your own 'government' and enforce the rules with guns, just like any other government. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/9/2013 8:50 AM, John Mikes wrote: I don't see a 'productive' way how 'the rich' get more wealth and power by using their wealth and power. If they risk their money on some development or invention that is successful that's productive and there must be some potential profit in it, otherwise why take the risk. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/9/2013 9:37 AM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Brent, my analogy, however badly its thought-up, is to force the idealists to produce. My idea was to force the idealist back to painful reality and hard choices, rather then mentally living in La La land. Saying Oh they're working on solar and soon.. How about forcing the libertarians to painful reality. They're going through the six stages of denial: 1. There is no global warming. 2. The science is uncertain. 3. There's global warming but it's just a natural cycle. 4. Global warming will really be good for us. 5. It's too costly to stop global warming. 6. Nothing can be done. Most of them I know are stuck around 3 or 4 now. They're hoping to delay any action so they can get to 6. Why? Because they'd rather face extinction than admit there are some things that you need government to do. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/9/2013 9:50 AM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Chris, I just read a study by the U of Colorado, published in the Journal, Bioscience, claiming that up to 1 million bats have been killed by green energy wind turbines. ?? And that is significant compared to what? Nine million birds killed each year by flying into building? Human deaths due to fossil fuel pollution? Annual $ cost of pollution deaths from a new 400 MW coal-based power plant. Taking the European valuation of $5 million per person (see: http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=8836), the ANNUAL cost due to deaths of Victorians (Australians) of a new 400 MW coal-based power plant = 50 persons x $5 million/person = $250 million ANNUALLY. Human disability due to fossil fuel pollution? HOWEVER, morbidity (illness) costs can be 6 times mortality costs. The Ontario Ministry of Energy study estimated that the costs from long-term exposure were more than six times those from premature deaths (avoidable deaths, excess deaths) (see: http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=8836). The arrival of solar power, its decline in price, and thus it will power all human civilization never arrives. Sez your crystal ball. Its what the math people call asymptotic, which in this case means, it never achieves target, it never gets there. The same with nuclear fusion, despite happy reports. It never gets there after decades of research. Thus, it cannot be Relied Upon to substitute for Dirty energy sources. What might prime the technological pump is the market place, where supply and demand are invoked, and there is commercial reason to produce minus government hand outs to crony companies, in Germany, and in the US. With tax payer monies, these companies vanish, like farts in a high wind, like Solyndra did. Unreliable substitutes are non substitutes. Of course there's no commercial incentive to switch from fossil fuel because when you sell energy from fossil fuel you don't have to pay all the cost you impose on the public. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
Yes, Jesse, I do buy into that arguement. If you permit me, I will exclude DailyKos Kos Kids from your evidence, as the are far from a disinterested party in this matter. Whatever the politics, whatever the polemics, a technology has to do this, be successful. If solar is always just a fraction of the world's energy, despite decades and bilions, then I have some problem with proposing it. Or a successful solar tech, that powers all human activity, forever, may be 200 years away, for some unknown reason. What should we do until that glorious day? We can say exactly, the same with fusion. Tax payer subsudies are fine, if they work. But I surmise these companies live for the subsidies, and not the big win in the market place. Hence, my alternative of a grand prize to spur innovation, and win a giant profit that will wipe out an investors debts. I say we as a society have waited way too long, doing things the Statist way, lets let innovatoes, innovate, for the reward of an avalanche of prize money, plus tons of profits. I sense we are standing still, otherwise. -Original Message- From: Jesse Mazer laserma...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 2:25 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 12:50 PM, lt;spudboy...@aol.comgt; wrote: Chris, I just read a study by the U of Colorado, published in the Journal, Bioscience, claiming that up to 1 million bats have been killed by green energy wind turbines. The arrival of solar power, its decline in price, and thus it will power all human civilization never arrives. Why would the decline in price of solar power mean it can never power all human civilization? The lower the price the better for its prospects for large-scale adoption, no? Its what the math people call asymptotic, which in this case means, it never achieves target, it never gets there. The same with nuclear fusion, despite happy reports. It never gets there after decades of research. Thus, it cannot be Relied Upon to substitute for Dirty energy sources. What might prime the technological pump is the market place, where supply and demand are invoked, and there is commercial reason to produce minus government hand outs to crony companies, in Germany, and in the US. With tax payer monies, these companies vanish, like farts in a high wind, like Solyndra did. Unreliable substitutes are non substitutes. It sounds like you are buying into the myth that Solyndra was somehow representative of government investment in solar power in general. It's not, the department of energy invested money in a large portfolio of clean energy businesses and most did well while a few like Solyndra did not, and then opponents of investing of clean energy cherry-picked an example of a failure. See these articles: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/05/energy-department-loan-guarantee-charts/64932/ http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/09/28/fox-puts-its-solyndra-blinders-on-again/190200 The second of the two articles mentions that only 3 out of 26 loan guarantees dispersed under the Department of Energy's 1705 loan guarantee program have gone to companies that later filed for bankruptcy. One of those three, Beacon Power, is still operating, has repaid most of its loan guarantee, and rehired most of its employees. It also mentions at the bottom that Fox news is promoting the idea that declining prices of solar panels are bad for solar power in general (as opposed to just some individual manufacturing companies), so perhaps you got that puzzling idea above from Fox or some other conservative media source--but as the graph at the bottom of the article shows, solar installations (and the corresponding total energy output from solar) have surged in the last few years, probably thanks in part to government investment. In case you don't trust the left-leaning Media Matters site, here's a piece from Forbes magazine arguing for the overall success of government investment in clean energy so far, and for the important role played by such investment in promoting innovation in this field: http://www.forbes.com/sites/energysource/2011/09/02/solyndras-failure-is-no-reason-to-abandon-federal-energy-innovation-policy/ 'Solyndra’s failure, while unfortunate, is hardly an indictment of federal energy technology policy. Failure is to be expected with emerging, innovative companies, whether they are financed by the government or the private sector. The success of the Department of Energy’s Loan Guarantee Program (LGP) should thus be judged not by any one investment but by the performance of the entire portfolio. Critics have seized on the news of Solyndra’s bankruptcy to condemn the Department of Energy’s Loan Guarantee Program, which provided a $535 million loan guarantee in 2009. The National Review’s Greg Pollowitz writes that Solyndra’s failure shows “why the government
RE: Our Demon-Haunted World
OK, a polemicist. Now tell me what city on Earth, say with a population of 1 million or more is powered, 24 hours per day, all year round, homes hospitals, factories, by your precious 40 gigawatts? This is versus bad electricity sources like coal, hydroelectric, uranium or natural gas. Peking, Boston, Tokyo, Moscow? Brussels? Miami? -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 2:25 pm Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2013 9:38 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World Brent, my analogy, however badly its thought-up, is to force the idealists to produce. My idea was to force the idealist back to painful reality and hard choices, rather then mentally living in La La land. Saying Oh they're working on solar and soon.. Unacceptable. Tomorrowland existed no where except at Disney World. Naw. This is about getting the thinker to be realists, and not dreamers. There are more than 40GW of installed solar capacity existing now and the rate of increase of capacity is literally exploding. You don’t know what you are talking about spudboy; you keep repeating nonsensical opinions with no evidence for them whatsoever.You are being a polemicist; and that is all you are doing. -Original Message- From: meekerdb lt;meeke...@verizon.netgt; To: everything-list lt;everything-list@googlegroups.comgt; Sent: Fri, Nov 8, 2013 9:54 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted WorldOn 11/8/2013 5:48 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: If you hold the Rational Optimist view aka Matt Ridley, people will act altruistic much more, if they get a reward, then in they get jack. A dictatorship of your own preference is suitable for many, but not for most. Plus, think about pure materiality. If a cruel dictator has his goon point a semi-automatic at each of our heads and demands of us to immediately produce an energy source that will power his civilization for the rest of his life, Easy. Set him on fire. :-) Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 9:55 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/9/2013 9:37 AM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Brent, my analogy, however badly its thought-up, is to force the idealists to produce. My idea was to force the idealist back to painful reality and hard choices, rather then mentally living in La La land. Saying Oh they're working on solar and soon.. How about forcing the libertarians to painful reality. They're going through the six stages of denial: 1. There is no global warming. 2. The science is uncertain. 3. There's global warming but it's just a natural cycle. 4. Global warming will really be good for us. 5. It's too costly to stop global warming. 6. Nothing can be done. Most of them I know are stuck around 3 or 4 now. They're hoping to delay any action so they can get to 6. Why? Because they'd rather face extinction than admit there are some things that you need government to do. Brent, Out of curiosity: why do you care so much about what libertarians think? They are a small minority. I believe most are very much aware that big government is here to stay. Most people in the western world vote for some variation of a conservative or liberal party, both statist. Surely if you are right, and global warming is an existential threat, and government intervention is the only way to solve it, what libertarians think should be quite low in your list of concerns no? Telmo. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/9/2013 2:49 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Yes, Jesse, I do buy into that arguement. If you permit me, I will exclude DailyKos Kos Kids from your evidence, as the are far from a disinterested party in this matter. Whatever the politics, whatever the polemics, a technology has to do this, be successful. If solar is always just a fraction of the world's energy, despite decades and bilions, then I have some problem with proposing it. If, but then you draw conclusions as if you had stated a fact. Decades after oil was discovered it too only supplied a fraction of the world's energy. Or a successful solar tech, that powers all human activity, forever, may be 200 years away, for some unknown reason. What's your point - that you can imagine some insuperable problem with solar power? The Sun might stop shining? What about not nearly so speculative exhaustion of easily extracted fossil fuel? What if fossil fuel runs out? What if it makes large areas of the earth uninhabitably hot and dry. What should we do until that glorious day? We can say exactly, the same with fusion. Tax payer subsudies are fine, if they work. But I surmise these companies live for the subsidies, and not the big win in the market place. You surmise whatever fits your prejudice. Hence, my alternative of a grand prize to spur innovation, and win a giant profit that will wipe out an investors debts. I say we as a society have waited way too long, doing things the Statist way, lets let innovatoes, innovate, for the reward of an avalanche of prize money, plus tons of profits. I sense we are standing still, otherwise. And where are the great entrepreneurial advances of the past? Did private investors invent nuclear power, space flight, GPS, the internet, vaccinations, the Panama Canal, interstate highways. Free market capitalism is great for some things, but it's not going to invest in developing stuff with a 20yr horizon for return. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
RE: Our Demon-Haunted World
-Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2013 2:57 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World OK, a polemicist. Now tell me what city on Earth, say with a population of 1 million or more is powered, 24 hours per day, all year round, homes hospitals, factories, by your precious 40 gigawatts? This is versus bad electricity sources like coal, hydroelectric, uranium or natural gas. Peking, Boston, Tokyo, Moscow? Brussels? Miami? No large city on earth gets its electrical powered from a single source of electricity generation. The grid(s) is a vast diversified machine you just don't seem to get. Here is something for you to chew on: During the first half of 2012 Germany got more than a quarter of its electric energy supply from renewable sources. Last I checked Germany was a leading industrialized metropole of global importance and it is starting to get a quarter of its electricity from renewable sources (of which wind and solar comprise more than half) -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 2:25 pm Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2013 9:38 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World Brent, my analogy, however badly its thought-up, is to force the idealists to produce. My idea was to force the idealist back to painful reality and hard choices, rather then mentally living in La La land. Saying Oh they're working on solar and soon.. Unacceptable. Tomorrowland existed no where except at Disney World. Naw. This is about getting the thinker to be realists, and not dreamers. There are more than 40GW of installed solar capacity existing now and the rate of increase of capacity is literally exploding. You don’t know what you are talking about spudboy; you keep repeating nonsensical opinions with no evidence for them whatsoever.You are being a polemicist; and that is all you are doing. -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Fri, Nov 8, 2013 9:54 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted WorldOn 11/8/2013 5:48 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: If you hold the Rational Optimist view aka Matt Ridley, people will act altruistic much more, if they get a reward, then in they get jack. A dictatorship of your own preference is suitable for many, but not for most. Plus, think about pure materiality. If a cruel dictator has his goon point a semi-automatic at each of our heads and demands of us to immediately produce an energy source that will power his civilization for the rest of his life, Easy. Set him on fire. :-) Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/9/2013 3:09 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 9:55 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/9/2013 9:37 AM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Brent, my analogy, however badly its thought-up, is to force the idealists to produce. My idea was to force the idealist back to painful reality and hard choices, rather then mentally living in La La land. Saying Oh they're working on solar and soon.. How about forcing the libertarians to painful reality. They're going through the six stages of denial: 1. There is no global warming. 2. The science is uncertain. 3. There's global warming but it's just a natural cycle. 4. Global warming will really be good for us. 5. It's too costly to stop global warming. 6. Nothing can be done. Most of them I know are stuck around 3 or 4 now. They're hoping to delay any action so they can get to 6. Why? Because they'd rather face extinction than admit there are some things that you need government to do. Brent, Out of curiosity: why do you care so much about what libertarians think? They are a small minority. I believe most are very much aware that big government is here to stay. Most people in the western world vote for some variation of a conservative or liberal party, both statist. Surely if you are right, and global warming is an existential threat, and government intervention is the only way to solve it, what libertarians think should be quite low in your list of concerns no? Except that they have a disproportionate voice in the public debate because their message is amplified by monied interests who depend on fossil fuel (e.g. the Koch brothers). There was only a small number of lawyers, publicists, and scientists who claimed that: 1. Smoking has nothing to do with lung cancer. 2. There may be a relation but the science is uncertain. 3. Lung cancer just occurs naturally. 4. There are new, healthier cigarettes. 5. It will hurt the economy to limit cigarettes. 6. People should be free to smoke if they want to. and they delayed any government action against smoking for forty years. In fact some of them are *exactly* the same people hired to spread doubt about global warming. To undertake big government action in a democracy you need a solid majority in the populace. As long as libertarians and oil companies can sow doubt that's enough to prevent any action. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 5:49 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Yes, Jesse, I do buy into that arguement. Which one? The idea that declining prices of solar panels are bad news for solar energy? Or the one that says Solyndra is representative of what happens when the government invests in solar and other forms of clean energy? If you permit me, I will exclude DailyKos Kos Kids from your evidence, as the are far from a disinterested party in this matter. I only cited Kos as an afterthought, to support the point that the Solyndra story is being pushed by conservative media outlets (they provided plenty of links to original sources, so I wonder if you actually question the specifics of that post or if any link to their site would elicit a knee-jerk ad hominem dismissal from you regardless of its specific content). My main point, that Solyndra isn't representative of the outcome from government investment in solar, was supported by the three articles before that. It's fine with me if you prefer to address the other articles rather than the Kos article, but you didn't do that, in fact your response completely ignored the other articles and the evidence they presented. Did you glance over those articles? If so, do you dispute any of the factual points they made? For example, do you dispute the graph at the end of the Media Matters article showing a recent surge in the amount of energy from solar each year? Likewise, do you dispute any factual aspect of this part of the longer Forbes magazine quote I posted? when judged by its entire diverse portfolio of investments, the LGP has performed remarkably well. Indeed, with a capitalization of just $4 billion, DOE has committed or closed $37.8 billion in loan guarantees for 36 innovative clean energy projects. The Solyndra case represents less than 2% of total loan commitments made by DOE, and will be easily covered by a capitalization of eight to ten times larger than any ultimate losses expected following the bankruptcy proceedings. Whatever the politics, whatever the polemics, a technology has to do this, be successful. If solar is always just a fraction of the world's energy, despite decades and bilions, then I have some problem with proposing it. Decades in which it wasn't anywhere close to being cost-competive with oil, something which is changing now (see for example http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=can-solar-challenge-natural-gas). Are you just assuming the future will be like the past, or do you have any other basis for predicting solar will always be just a fraction of world energy? Jesse -Original Message- From: Jesse Mazer laserma...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 2:25 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 12:50 PM, lt;spudboy...@aol.comgt; wrote: Chris, I just read a study by the U of Colorado, published in the Journal, Bioscience, claiming that up to 1 million bats have been killed by green energy wind turbines. The arrival of solar power, its decline in price, and thus it will power all human civilization never arrives. Why would the decline in price of solar power mean it can never power all human civilization? The lower the price the better for its prospects for large-scale adoption, no? Its what the math people call asymptotic, which in this case means, it never achieves target, it never gets there. The same with nuclear fusion, despite happy reports. It never gets there after decades of research. Thus, it cannot be Relied Upon to substitute for Dirty energy sources. What might prime the technological pump is the market place, where supply and demand are invoked, and there is commercial reason to produce minus government hand outs to crony companies, in Germany, and in the US. With tax payer monies, these companies vanish, like farts in a high wind, like Solyndra did. Unreliable substitutes are non substitutes. It sounds like you are buying into the myth that Solyndra was somehow representative of government investment in solar power in general. It's not, the department of energy invested money in a large portfolio of clean energy businesses and most did well while a few like Solyndra did not, and then opponents of investing of clean energy cherry-picked an example of a failure. See these articles: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/05/energy- department-loan-guarantee-charts/64932/ http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/09/28/fox-puts-its- solyndra-blinders-on-again/190200 The second of the two articles mentions that only 3 out of 26 loan guarantees dispersed under the Department of Energy's 1705 loan guarantee program have gone to companies that later filed for bankruptcy. One of those three, Beacon Power, is still operating, has repaid most of its loan guarantee, and rehired most of its employees. It also mentions at the bottom that Fox news is promoting the idea
RE: Our Demon-Haunted World
-Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of meekerdb Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2013 3:31 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 11/9/2013 3:09 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 9:55 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/9/2013 9:37 AM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Brent, my analogy, however badly its thought-up, is to force the idealists to produce. My idea was to force the idealist back to painful reality and hard choices, rather then mentally living in La La land. Saying Oh they're working on solar and soon.. How about forcing the libertarians to painful reality. They're going through the six stages of denial: 1. There is no global warming. 2. The science is uncertain. 3. There's global warming but it's just a natural cycle. 4. Global warming will really be good for us. 5. It's too costly to stop global warming. 6. Nothing can be done. Most of them I know are stuck around 3 or 4 now. They're hoping to delay any action so they can get to 6. Why? Because they'd rather face extinction than admit there are some things that you need government to do. Brent, Out of curiosity: why do you care so much about what libertarians think? They are a small minority. I believe most are very much aware that big government is here to stay. Most people in the western world vote for some variation of a conservative or liberal party, both statist. Surely if you are right, and global warming is an existential threat, and government intervention is the only way to solve it, what libertarians think should be quite low in your list of concerns no? Except that they have a disproportionate voice in the public debate because their message is amplified by monied interests who depend on fossil fuel (e.g. the Koch brothers). There was only a small number of lawyers, publicists, and scientists who claimed that: 1. Smoking has nothing to do with lung cancer. 2. There may be a relation but the science is uncertain. 3. Lung cancer just occurs naturally. 4. There are new, healthier cigarettes. 5. It will hurt the economy to limit cigarettes. 6. People should be free to smoke if they want to. and they delayed any government action against smoking for forty years. In fact some of them are *exactly* the same people hired to spread doubt about global warming. To undertake big government action in a democracy you need a solid majority in the populace. As long as libertarians and oil companies can sow doubt that's enough to prevent any action. Well put. I would add that it is not only the current revenue streams these fossil energy interests are protecting, but also perhaps even more fundamentally they do this to protect the future valuation of the carbon reserves they control. If the world got serious about global warming and began to move away from carbon based fossil energy the valuation of these reserves would plummet. This is a matter of many trillions of dollars of evaluation that is counted in the asset column on their books. Chris Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
Your basically saying I am wrong for no contestable reason, you have no city in the world to cite to me that is powered by solar power or wind, for that matter, you are against subsidies for fossil fuels (I am good on that) and that somehow solar power will prevail, which reminds me of the Marxist historic inevitability argument. On the Harvard study, we'd both have to identify what the authors mean about externalized costs mean. Also, you are invoking Moore's laws to photovoltaics, which was an estimate by Gordon Moore in 65' strictly, about computer processing power. Well, it could be as you say, but if the residents of say, Philadelphia, want to survive the coming January 2014 winter nights, I would recommend, the old, vile, dirty, reliable energy, rather then someone's grand promise of tomorrow. Unless, you have an example of powering a city 7 x 24? Let me know, ok? -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 2:34 pm Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2013 9:50 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World Chris, I just read a study by the U of Colorado, published in the Journal, Bioscience, claiming that up to 1 million bats have been killed by green energy wind turbines. The arrival of solar power, its decline in price, and thus it will power all human civilization never arrives. Its what the math people call asymptotic, which in this case means, it never achieves target, it never gets there. The same with nuclear fusion, despite happy reports. It never gets there after decades of research. Thus, it cannot be Relied Upon to substitute for Dirty energy sources. What might prime the technological pump is the market place, where supply and demand are invoked, and there is commercial reason to produce minus government hand outs to crony companies, in Germany, and in the US. With tax payer monies, these companies vanish, like farts in a high wind, like Solyndra did. Unreliable substitutes are non substitutes. Blablabla – do you just regurgitate talking points you hear on Faux News? In the real world the installed base of solar power has exploded by a factor of 20X in ten years and is closing in on 50GW of installed capacity. It must begreat living in a fact free world spudboy – you get to say whatever you want (or more probably whatever talking points you were fed) Do you realize the level of subsidies that all the fossil energy sectors currently and have long enjoyed? Of course you don’t, because that does not fit the agenda of your thought leaders. In many markets solar PV is starting to become the cheapest source of supply and the price per watt keeps falling as the price of fossil energy keeps rising (long term trends) The crossover point is very close and may already have been reached. Solar is already far cheaper than burning coal if you count the external costs that the coal companies currently are able to shed onto the commons and onto the backs of the general tax payers. A recent Harvard University study has estimated that the externalized costs of the US Coal sector is well over 350 billion dollars a year. -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 12:12 am Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Friday, November 08, 2013 5:49 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World If you hold the Rational Optimist view aka Matt Ridley, people will act altruistic much more, if they get a reward, then in they get jack. A dictatorship of your own preference is suitable for many, but not for most. Plus, think about pure materiality. If a cruel dictator has his goon point a semi-automatic at each of our heads and demands of us to immediately produce an energy source that will power his civilization for the rest of his life, and unless we can produce this energy source, bang goes the gun. I will shout shale gas or even tar sands. If you shout out sun and wind, bang goes the gun against your skull. Why? Because even after decades of work, even after daily advances, there's no city on earth that is now powered by sun or win, were that it was so. My point is we cannot legislate reality. I will take the marketplace with all its flaws versus coercive government. Which would you choose? I do not subscribe to your Manichean world view, in fact I find it ill reflective of the complexity and nuance of reality. You like to see things in a either this or that kind of way, and maybe that works for you
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
Brent, let us look at human nature as it exists and not posit perfection to scientists and bureaucrats. Climate scientist who peddle AGW have skin in the game. What's their reward? They get guaranteed jobs and do the planning and make policies if true, thus, their careers are set Bureaucrat's ,like politicians, want power over others and also have guaranteed careers. If AGW is more nuanced, shall we say, then the salaries, the power is diminished. If the climate pause takes longer, then the people proposing climate change, have to come up with an excuse. Notice, please that until recently, AGW is now called Climate Change. My best bet on this is that the term was change to cover all variations in climate, in case it doesn't get warmer, as exemplified by the UK's weather over the last 10 years. No Miami temps in London so far. This goes against earlier forecasts, doesn't it? Now to your Libertarian denial theme, let us say I am agnostic but deeply suspicious myself, but allow me to counter question. 1. What non-carbon fuel source do you have at the ready to replace climate damaging fossil fuels? 2. Do your solutions include switching off dirty power in the US, without a working substitute? 3. What do you recommend if the US refuses to comply? 4. Ditto, India, China, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, etc? I guess I am at step 5 and 6 on your scheme of things. But if you have knowledge of workable solutions, maybe you could write about it? Even denialists want to hear what we all can do? -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 3:55 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 11/9/2013 9:37 AM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Brent, my analogy, however badly its thought-up, is to force the idealists to produce. My idea was to force the idealist back to painful reality and hard choices, rather then mentally living in La La land. Saying Oh they're working on solar and soon.. How about forcing the libertarians to painful reality. They're going through the six stages of denial: 1. There is no global warming. 2. The science is uncertain. 3. There's global warming but it's just a natural cycle. 4. Global warming will really be good for us. 5. It's too costly to stop global warming. 6. Nothing can be done. Most of them I know are stuck around 3 or 4 now. They're hoping to delay any action so they can get to 6. Why? Because they'd rather face extinction than admit there are some things that you need government to do. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
Good point. But it wasn't entirely a command economy that achieved these technical wins. In other words you can say Sputnik in 57, but everything you listed appears to have had a capitalist basis. NASA could not have gotten off the ground withoutr Grumann, for example. GE, the boiling water reactor, the internet, the military internet in 66 without TRW. Why I like the prize model for innovation, is that it seems to work better nowadays, where as the command economy model works better in 1913 or 1948. I cannot be certain of this, or why this seems true. Perhaps, its not true and I am wrong, but for example when the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico 3 years ago, we saw a flood of innovation coming to the rescue. From what I understand, the fix to the oil flood was stemmed by the design of a master plumber living in Kansas. The plumber was paid an undisclosed sum for his model, but there were lots of others, some from private companies, others from academia. And where are the great entrepreneurial advances of the past? Did private investors invent nuclear power, space flight, GPS, the internet, vaccinations, the Panama Canal, interstate highways. Free market capitalism is great for some things, but it's not going to invest in developing stuff with a 20yr horizon for return. Brent -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 6:21 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 11/9/2013 2:49 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Yes, Jesse, I do buy into that arguement. If you permit me, I will exclude DailyKos Kos Kids from your evidence, as the are far from a disinterested party in this matter. Whatever the politics, whatever the polemics, a technology has to do this, be successful. If solar is always just a fraction of the world's energy, despite decades and bilions, then I have some problem with proposing it. If, but then you draw conclusions as if you had stated a fact. Decades after oil was discovered it too only supplied a fraction of the world's energy. Or a successful solar tech, that powers all human activity, forever, may be 200 years away, for some unknown reason. What's your point - that you can imagine some insuperable problem with solar power? The Sun might stop shining? What about not nearly so speculative exhaustion of easily extracted fossil fuel? What if fossil fuel runs out? What if it makes large areas of the earth uninhabitably hot and dry. What should we do until that glorious day? We can say exactly, the same with fusion. Tax payer subsudies are fine, if they work. But I surmise these companies live for the subsidies, and not the big win in the market place. You surmise whatever fits your prejudice. Hence, my alternative of a grand prize to spur innovation, and win a giant profit that will wipe out an investors debts. I say we as a society have waited way too long, doing things the Statist way, lets let innovatoes, innovate, for the reward of an avalanche of prize money, plus tons of profits. I sense we are standing still, otherwise. And where are the great entrepreneurial advances of the past? Did private investors invent nuclear power, space flight, GPS, the internet, vaccinations, the Panama Canal, interstate highways. Free market capitalism is great for some things, but it's not going to invest in developing stuff with a 20yr horizon for return. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
Large cities do get a majority of electricity from a few sources. The cleanest in large scale hydroelectric, the dirtiest may be coal. If solar and wind contribute a minuscule supplemental amount of juice to the transformers, that's nice. I can guarantee that sun and wind do not provide much compared to dirty coal, natural gas turbines, uranium 235, and hydroelectric. What the issue is that making promises about the capabilities of solar and wind will not provide enough electricity, today, or 10 years down the line. People cannot live on promises, and transmission lines that suffer brown outs and black outs, because sun and wind cannot do the job, consistently, is no cause for comfort. Germany. As for Germany and its vaunted success stories with wind and solar, lets go to the mainstream progressive, pro-Green media. Germany now produces megatons more pollution on coal burning system (American Coal!) since it shut down its uranium burners. http://articles.latimes.com/2012/apr/20/world/la-fg-germany-nuclear-20120421 and http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/27/business/german-offshore-wind-farms/ They are both, on your side of this argument, but realize that the ideology of electricity, rather then the engineering of electricity, causes big troubles. Freeman Dyson guess-timated once, that the Sun, in a single second, produces more power than humanity does in a single year. He posited that the Sun give off 33 Trillion times the energy that we might ever use. So, your concept must be correct, but engineering a civilization that can survive on solar power is, so far, a real bottleneck. This is our disagreement in essence. I would want a solar power system that can power humankind, that is tactile, that we can roll our tongues over, that really exists, and really does the job, and not just bright promises. We are thinking about human survival, you know? -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 6:29 pm Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2013 2:57 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World OK, a polemicist. Now tell me what city on Earth, say with a population of 1 million or more is powered, 24 hours per day, all year round, homes hospitals, factories, by your precious 40 gigawatts? This is versus bad electricity sources like coal, hydroelectric, uranium or natural gas. Peking, Boston, Tokyo, Moscow? Brussels? Miami? No large city on earth gets its electrical powered from a single source of electricity generation. The grid(s) is a vast diversified machine you just don't seem to get. Here is something for you to chew on: During the first half of 2012 Germany got more than a quarter of its electric energy supply from renewable sources. Last I checked Germany was a leading industrialized metropole of global importance and it is starting to get a quarter of its electricity from renewable sources (of which wind and solar comprise more than half) -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 2:25 pm Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2013 9:38 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World Brent, my analogy, however badly its thought-up, is to force the idealists to produce. My idea was to force the idealist back to painful reality and hard choices, rather then mentally living in La La land. Saying Oh they're working on solar and soon.. Unacceptable. Tomorrowland existed no where except at Disney World. Naw. This is about getting the thinker to be realists, and not dreamers. There are more than 40GW of installed solar capacity existing now and the rate of increase of capacity is literally exploding. You don’t know what you are talking about spudboy; you keep repeating nonsensical opinions with no evidence for them whatsoever.You are being a polemicist; and that is all you are doing. -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Fri, Nov 8, 2013 9:54 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted WorldOn 11/8/2013 5:48 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: If you hold the Rational Optimist view aka Matt Ridley, people will act altruistic much more, if they get a reward, then in they get jack. A dictatorship of your own preference is suitable for many, but not for most. Plus, think about pure materiality. If a cruel dictator has his goon point a semi-automatic at each of our heads and demands of us to immediately produce an energy source
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
Don't you suppose that all those costs passed on to the poor public would have an X crosses Y moment, but now? Wouldn't Joe Sixpack be raging about the Goddamn Costs of electricity if this was so? Do you feel that all the people all over the world are susceptible to bribed, corrupt, rulers? Lets us considerJapan, after Fukushima. I have avidly, read, about the Japanese trying to find a substitute for uranium 235. Ever since the tsunami, I have looked at pictures of a floating island of rubble, heading for US territory Hawaii, California, I have seen pictures, of weird plant mutations of some crops, downstream from the Fukushima site. Japanese are now, desperately, looking as their islands have few other resources, they can turn to for lighting their cities. What I find is that it isn't solar or wind they are principally, looking toward now. They are researching the mining or extraction of methane ice in the oceans, know as gas hydrate or methane hydrate. I do not know what the damage to sea life will be, if much. I do know that I wrote about a news article from the science journal, Bioscience, from two dudes (professors) from the University of Colorado report bat kills up to a million from wind turbines. I am betting that on all other matters they are on your side of this argument, but this one gets people's ire up, because its a matter of fact. All I demand is that whatever energy sources we use that it be affordable, abundant and able to work on a 7 x 24 hour day basis. Plus, I don't like it when technology takes an ideological bent. Engineering should be engineering. Of course there's nocommercial incentive to switch from fossil fuel because whenyou sell energy from fossil fuel you don't have to pay allthe cost you impose on the public. Brent -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 4:07 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 11/9/2013 9:50 AM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Chris, I just read a study by the U of Colorado, published in the Journal, Bioscience, claiming that up to 1 million bats have been killed by green energy wind turbines. ?? And that is significant compared to what? Nine million birdskilled each year by flying into building? Human deaths due tofossil fuel pollution? Annual $ cost of pollution deaths from a new 400 MW coal-basedpower plant. Taking the European valuation of $5 million per person(see: http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=8836), the ANNUAL costdue to deaths of Victorians (Australians) of a new 400 MW coal-basedpower plant = 50 persons x $5 million/person = $250 millionANNUALLY. Human disability due to fossil fuel pollution? HOWEVER, morbidity (illness) costs can be 6 times mortality costs.The Ontario Ministry of Energy study estimated that the costs fromlong-term exposure were more than six times those from prematuredeaths (avoidable deaths, excess deaths) (see:http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=8836). The arrival of solar power, its decline in price, and thus it will power all human civilization never arrives. Sez your crystal ball. Its what the math people call asymptotic, which in this case means, it never achieves target, it never gets there. The same with nuclear fusion, despite happy reports. It never gets there after decades of research. Thus, it cannot be Relied Upon to substitute for Dirty energy sources. What might prime the technological pump is the market place, where supply and demand are invoked, and there is commercial reason to produce minus government hand outs to crony companies, in Germany, and in the US. With tax payer monies, these companies vanish, like farts in a high wind, like Solyndra did. Unreliable substitutes are non substitutes. Of course there's nocommercial incentive to switch from fossil fuel because whenyou sell energy from fossil fuel you don't have to pay allthe cost you impose on the public. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
Let me ask you Jesse do you suggest any substitute that we can turn to for transforming world civilization to clean power? The only significant thing I can think of, would be hiring Craig Venter to produce some methane or hydrogen maker, that can, if necessary convert sea water to fuel. This would be nice, but it would make me like my critics, which is making promises with my keyboard, (Signing a Check!) that my technological, ass, cannot cash. (American expression) If I switched off the coal, the hydro, the nukes, the natural gas plants-people would die. Why? Because I would have nothing on had to turn to. So whatever way we do this, by funding research (which I have no faith in) or promising a gigantic prize, I go with the prize. Promises don't feed the kids or keep the lights on. Mitch -Original Message- From: Jesse Mazer laserma...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 6:34 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 5:49 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Yes, Jesse, I do buy into that arguement. Which one? The idea that declining prices of solar panels are bad news for solar energy? Or the one that says Solyndra is representative of what happens when the government invests in solar and other forms of clean energy? If you permit me, I will exclude DailyKos Kos Kids from your evidence, as the are far from a disinterested party in this matter. I only cited Kos as an afterthought, to support the point that the Solyndra story is being pushed by conservative media outlets (they provided plenty of links to original sources, so I wonder if you actually question the specifics of that post or if any link to their site would elicit a knee-jerk ad hominem dismissal from you regardless of its specific content). My main point, that Solyndra isn't representative of the outcome from government investment in solar, was supported by the three articles before that. It's fine with me if you prefer to address the other articles rather than the Kos article, but you didn't do that, in fact your response completely ignored the other articles and the evidence they presented. Did you glance over those articles? If so, do you dispute any of the factual points they made? For example, do you dispute the graph at the end of the Media Matters article showing a recent surge in the amount of energy from solar each year? Likewise, do you dispute any factual aspect of this part of the longer Forbes magazine quote I posted? when judged by its entire diverse portfolio of investments, the LGP has performed remarkably well. Indeed, with a capitalization of just $4 billion, DOE has committed or closed $37.8 billion in loan guarantees for 36 innovative clean energy projects. The Solyndra case represents less than 2% of total loan commitments made by DOE, and will be easily covered by a capitalization of eight to ten times larger than any ultimate losses expected following the bankruptcy proceedings. Whatever the politics, whatever the polemics, a technology has to do this, be successful. If solar is always just a fraction of the world's energy, despite decades and bilions, then I have some problem with proposing it. Decades in which it wasn't anywhere close to being cost-competive with oil, something which is changing now (see for example http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=can-solar-challenge-natural-gas ). Are you just assuming the future will be like the past, or do you have any other basis for predicting solar will always be just a fraction of world energy? Jesse -Original Message- From: Jesse Mazer laserma...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 2:25 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 12:50 PM, lt;spudboy...@aol.comgt; wrote: Chris, I just read a study by the U of Colorado, published in the Journal, Bioscience, claiming that up to 1 million bats have been killed by green energy wind turbines. The arrival of solar power, its decline in price, and thus it will power all human civilization never arrives. Why would the decline in price of solar power mean it can never power all human civilization? The lower the price the better for its prospects for large-scale adoption, no? Its what the math people call asymptotic, which in this case means, it never achieves target, it never gets there. The same with nuclear fusion, despite happy reports. It never gets there after decades of research. Thus, it cannot be Relied Upon to substitute for Dirty energy sources. What might prime the technological pump is the market place, where supply and demand are invoked, and there is commercial reason to produce minus government hand outs to crony companies, in Germany, and in the US. With tax payer monies, these companies vanish, like farts in a high wind, like Solyndra did. Unreliable
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 10 November 2013 12:34, Jesse Mazer laserma...@gmail.com wrote: Are you just assuming the future will be like the past, or do you have any other basis for predicting solar will always be just a fraction of world energy? Jesse There is no rational basis for this belief because solar energy incident on Earth far, far, far outstrips anything our puny civilisation can generate. I'm not sure of the exact ratio (and I'm too lazy to look it up right now) but it's at least thousands, probably millions to one. In my opinion no civilisation can call itself technologically advanced when it has a fusion reactor in its backyard yet gets most of its energy by digging up dead plants (originally powered by said fusion reactor, of course) and extracting the minute amount of energy they managed to trap. In 100 billion years they will look back and say you had all that energy available and you *still* screwed up because of stupid mammalian politics? All we have is black dwarfs, and we're doing OK... Admittedly that message from the future may have been slightly garbled in transmission, but I think that's what they said. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
The rich get richer via the stock exchange and similar financial institutions. This is done with software nowadays - a thousandth of a second delay in investing can mean the difference between accumulating and losing. This doesn't actually produce improvements in anything (except financial modelling software). It's a cloud of abstract numbers spiralling off into never never land with no connection to producing anything useful. On 10 November 2013 12:20, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/9/2013 2:49 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Yes, Jesse, I do buy into that arguement. If you permit me, I will exclude DailyKos Kos Kids from your evidence, as the are far from a disinterested party in this matter. Whatever the politics, whatever the polemics, a technology has to do this, be successful. If solar is always just a fraction of the world's energy, despite decades and bilions, then I have some problem with proposing it. If, but then you draw conclusions as if you had stated a fact. Decades after oil was discovered it too only supplied a fraction of the world's energy. Or a successful solar tech, that powers all human activity, forever, may be 200 years away, for some unknown reason. What's your point - that you can imagine some insuperable problem with solar power? The Sun might stop shining? What about not nearly so speculative exhaustion of easily extracted fossil fuel? What if fossil fuel runs out? What if it makes large areas of the earth uninhabitably hot and dry. What should we do until that glorious day? We can say exactly, the same with fusion. Tax payer subsudies are fine, if they work. But I surmise these companies live for the subsidies, and not the big win in the market place. You surmise whatever fits your prejudice. Hence, my alternative of a grand prize to spur innovation, and win a giant profit that will wipe out an investors debts. I say we as a society have waited way too long, doing things the Statist way, lets let innovatoes, innovate, for the reward of an avalanche of prize money, plus tons of profits. I sense we are standing still, otherwise. And where are the great entrepreneurial advances of the past? Did private investors invent nuclear power, space flight, GPS, the internet, vaccinations, the Panama Canal, interstate highways. Free market capitalism is great for some things, but it's not going to invest in developing stuff with a 20yr horizon for return. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/9/2013 4:53 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Your basically saying I am wrong for no contestable reason, you have no city in the world to cite to me that is powered by solar power or wind, for that matter, And there are none powered exclusively by hydroelectric power either. It's a completely specious critereon that you cite as though it meant something. Because B cannot now completely satisfy all demand for X currently supplied by A doesn't make B useless, nor does it make A desirable or necessary. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/9/2013 5:12 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Brent, let us look at human nature as it exists and not posit perfection to scientists and bureaucrats. Climate scientist who peddle AGW have skin in the game. What's their reward? They get guaranteed jobs and do the planning and make policies if true, thus, their careers are set Bureaucrat's ,like politicians, want power over others and also have guaranteed careers. Complete bullshit from the Faux News talking points. All the climate scientists are civil servants or tenured academics and have good job whether AGW is true or not. What they have on the line is their professional reputations and if any one of them had data to dispute AGW they'd be only to glad to make their reputation as the guy who proved AGW wrong. It's the deniers and obfuscators who only get paid by Exxon and the Koch brothers if they publish some junk science to obfuscate the question. If AGW is more nuanced, shall we say, then the salaries, the power is diminished. If the climate pause takes longer, then the people proposing climate change, have to come up with an excuse. Notice, please that until recently, AGW is now called Climate Change. My best bet on this is that the term was change to cover all variations in climate, in case it doesn't get warmer, as exemplified by the UK's weather over the last 10 years. No Miami temps in London so far. This goes against earlier forecasts, doesn't it? Now to your Libertarian denial theme, let us say I am agnostic but deeply suspicious myself, but allow me to counter question. 1. What non-carbon fuel source do you have at the ready to replace climate damaging fossil fuels? Nuclear (especially LFTRs), wind, and solar. 2. Do your solutions include switching off dirty power in the US, without a working substitute? Of course not. No one has ever suggested that (except Deniers setting up a straw man). 3. What do you recommend if the US refuses to comply? ?? You mean the U.S. government refuses to act in the best interests of it's citizens: Vote them out. 4. Ditto, India, China, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, etc? Economic sanctions. I guess I am at step 5 and 6 on your scheme of things. So you've already given up. I hope you've bought land in the Arctic. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/9/2013 5:27 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Good point. But it wasn't entirely a command economy that achieved these technical wins. In other words you can say Sputnik in 57, but everything you listed appears to have had a capitalist basis. NASA could not have gotten off the ground withoutr Grumann, for example. GE, the boiling water reactor, the internet, the military internet in 66 without TRW. I didn't say the government had to do it with civil servants (although that's how LFTRs were developed). NACA did just find without Grumman and later became NASA. Westinghouse built the first power reactor for the Navy under direction from Rickover. The internet's technology (TCP/IP) was developed by academics at CERN and MIT. But the government had to set the goals, contract for the work, and tax to pay to make it happen. No investors came forward to fund space flight or NASA. Why I like the prize model for innovation, is that it seems to work better nowadays, where as the command economy model works better in 1913 or 1948. Nobody mentioned command economy, except you - another straw man. Brent I cannot be certain of this, or why this seems true. Perhaps, its not true and I am wrong, but for example when the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico 3 years ago, we saw a flood of innovation coming to the rescue. From what I understand, the fix to the oil flood was stemmed by the design of a master plumber living in Kansas. Les the Plumber from Boca Raton. Sounds like a Faux News wet dream. Les says the cap use looks like (on TV) the one he sent in a sketch to President Obama The plumber was paid an undisclosed sum for his model, but there were lots of others, some from private companies, others from academia. Sure, there were a lot sent in by first graders. 77,000 ideas were submitted by the public and 190 were selected for further review but none were used per Joesph Groveman spokesman for the spill response center. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/9/2013 6:13 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Let me ask you Jesse do you suggest any substitute that we can turn to for transforming world civilization to clean power? The only significant thing I can think of, would be hiring Craig Venter to produce some methane or hydrogen maker, that can, if necessary convert sea water to fuel. You seem ignorant that converting sea water to fuel takes more energy than you can get from burning the fuel (hydrogen). So you still need a clean energy source to do the conversion. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/9/2013 8:17 PM, LizR wrote: The rich get richer via the stock exchange and similar financial institutions. This is done with software nowadays - a thousandth of a second delay in investing can mean the difference between accumulating and losing. This doesn't actually produce improvements in anything (except financial modelling software). It's a cloud of abstract numbers spiralling off into never never land with no connection to producing anything useful. Right. The liquidity of the market is necessary; nobody would buy stock if they couldn't sell it. But microtrading is just trying to profit on the noise. There have been proposals to tax it so as to make it unprofitable. But stock trading in general isn't really producing anything, it's just moving ownership around. The real *investing* is done by the startup investors. I have hope that cloud sourcing may provide a way for small investors like myself to participate in this real investing. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 10 November 2013 18:11, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/9/2013 6:13 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Let me ask you Jesse do you suggest any substitute that we can turn to for transforming world civilization to clean power? The only significant thing I can think of, would be hiring Craig Venter to produce some methane or hydrogen maker, that can, if necessary convert sea water to fuel. You seem ignorant that converting sea water to fuel takes more energy than you can get from burning the fuel (hydrogen). So you still need a clean energy source to do the conversion. This would be a possible way of creating fuel for easy transport. One of the big points about petrol is that it's very transportable. The best solution to the world's energy problems imho would be to find a method of extracting carbon dioxide from the air and converting it plus water into petrol using solar power. Carbon-neutral petrol and we don't have to rejig all our existing transport systems. If we can extract more carbon than we use we might even cool the earth too. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 10 November 2013 14:12, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Brent, let us look at human nature as it exists and not posit perfection to scientists and bureaucrats. Climate scientist who peddle AGW have skin in the game. What's their reward? They get guaranteed jobs and do the planning and make policies if true, thus, their careers are set Bureaucrat's ,like politicians, want power over others and also have guaranteed careers. If AGW is more nuanced, shall we say, then the salaries, the power is diminished. If the climate pause takes longer, then the people proposing climate change, have to come up with an excuse. Notice, please that until recently, AGW is now called Climate Change. My best bet on this is that the term was change to cover all variations in climate, in case it doesn't get warmer, as exemplified by the UK's weather over the last 10 years. No Miami temps in London so far. This goes against earlier forecasts, doesn't it? Now to your Libertarian denial theme, let us say I am agnostic but deeply suspicious myself, but allow me to counter question. 1. What non-carbon fuel source do you have at the ready to replace climate damaging fossil fuels? 2. Do your solutions include switching off dirty power in the US, without a working substitute? 3. What do you recommend if the US refuses to comply? 4. Ditto, India, China, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, etc? I guess I am at step 5 and 6 on your scheme of things. But if you have knowledge of workable solutions, maybe you could write about it? Even denialists want to hear what we all can do? Although there are lots of grassroots movements on this, the real power to do some good of course lies with governments and big business. This is an infrastructure thing, like state highways, but on a global scale - there is no bigger commons than the environment, nor a bigger tragedy of the commons than ecological collapse. Can we get our fingers out of our arses and do something? I doubt it, but here are a few suggestions. We need lots more nuclear (yes, I know, and I live in New Zealand where around 70% of the power is hydro and wind). Subcritical reactors are best, they run on thorium, can't melt down, and can be used to reprocess uranium and plutonium into something less dangerous. However they can't be used as part of a weapons programme, which is why they've been ignored (except, I think, by India). We need lots more solar - the Sun produces far more energy that we can use, even the tiny bit that falls on Earth far exceeds our requirements. How much is going begging in (say) the Sahara alone? A useful by-product would be bringing Africa's economy up to speed, if it started exporting cheap power. We probably need some geoengineering like aerosols in the upper atmosphere for a short term fix, given that every week new climate records are broken, Australia and America keep catching fire, we have the biggest storm on record in the Phillipines, hottest year on record, hottest decade on record etc etc etc. We need a ton of research into renewables and carbon sequestration. Treating this as a war might help - it could be called the war on shooting ourselves in the foot perhaps. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
RE: Our Demon-Haunted World
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of meekerdb Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 11:03 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 11/7/2013 9:57 PM, Chris de Morsella wrote: So if Florida repeals it's law giving the right to stand your ground, we will all be living in a tyranny? I am not sure I get the point you are trying to make? As far as it matter my opinion on stand your ground laws and those who advocate for them is: that anybody who believes it is okay to murder another human being because they feel threatened is an utter asshole. If they are threatened with bodily harm or death? Don't you think self-defense is human right? Even Hobbes recognized that right, and he didn't recognize many. The question is whether the person threatened has an obligation to flee. And it ain't murder if it's legal. Did I say that? Stand your ground goes a lot further than justifiable self-defense. Self-defense is one thing; stand your ground something else entirely. The two should not be confused of conflated. Self-defense is when one has no alternative but to take potentially lethal action. That does not include feeling threatened. This does not rise to the level of imminence and actual threat that can merit lethality. Does anyone have the right to murder someone - because an immoral legalization of murder does not wipe the stench of sin from the act and the perpetrator of the crime. I am sure Hitler had very much legalized the many bad acts of the Nazi Party; where they therefore not bad acts? So my point is that rights are a matter of opinion, the ethical opinion of society. Legal rights have expanded most places. Women have more rights than they did when I was a kid. So do blacks and homosexuals. But when they didn't have those rights, it didn't mean that nobody had any rights. And we still don't give minors full rights. Bruno seems to think if we just legalize all drugs that will fix everything, but I wonder if he intends that children should smoke pot and drink whiskey? Morality and any opinion or argument that involves judgments being made on others must per force be contextual. Perhaps there is some absolute morality, but when this notion falls into human hands we get Torquemada. Ethical things must be seen in their contextual fabric. I agree with Bruno - all drugs should be legalized. This is not the realm of law. The hundred years of prohibition have succeeded only in spawning an era of global crime syndicates amassing wealth, power and control; and of the subverting of our political and federal level secret security state organizations into colluding with this dark world that has been created by and is nurtured by the Prohibition. The global narcotics trade is huge; it has been going on for a long time - the British Opium pushers come to mind. Prohibition is a guaranteed profits engine for crime syndicates - that work in a covert manner with central intelligence agencies, which benefit from large rivers of illicit - off the books - funds. Prohibition has corrupted our culture and government; it has polluted our banking financial system and pretty much every sector of our economy. Drug money has been sloshing around the US from the early Prohibition against alcohol. The subsequent prohibitions, which by the way has crushed the lives of millions of people who have been thrown into prison some to be raped and psychologically broken for having a little pot. Prohibition is in the service of dark forces on this earth; it wraps itself with LOUDLY proclaimed noble intent while its actual effects are the very opposite. The war on drugs was the first perpetual war, begun by Nixon. It goes on, and on, and on. propelled forward by a fig leaf of moral intent that masks a very dark enterprise indeed. Ending the era of Prohibition will not mean kids will start smoking pot.. Hint they already are, and have been for a long time. Ending this dark era of Prohibition will mean that the greatest illicit funding engine ever devised will shut down and the global crime syndicates revenue streams will dry up. Hence the resistance to ending this era of Prohibition will be violent and formidable. How far and how deep is the reach of the global crime syndicates by now - fattened by many generations of drug profits that have been laundered and given such a clean fresh smell, infecting every sector of the economy? How deep do the tentacles go; after this forty year long war on drugs. Where does all that money end? End Prohibition; take the black money out of it; starve the global crime syndicates.. That sounds pretty good to me. Chris Brent Health food definitions: natural: anything made from soy (e.g., soy milk and soy burgers) non-natural: anything made from meat (e.g. hamburgers, people) supernatural: anything made from marijuana --- Mark Scandariato -- You received this message
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 07 Nov 2013, at 03:42, Chris de Morsella wrote: Either all humans enjoy human rights or none do. That's the key point about human rights. The NDAA 2012 contains the dictator's trick (to abandon human right for some people). Just adding one comma would have made the NDAA acceptable, but Obama's administrartion persistently refused the change, and that means it is not a typo. To me, it is a confession. Obama just admit he is a terrorist of some sort. As soon as a class of persons is created that are stripped of their basic human rights society is on a slippery slope down into the dark hell of totalitarianism. This brings up the paradox of crime punishment. Whenever a person is punished by society in some way and their rights are restricted this creates a risk. Now obviously some people need to be imprisoned – not nearly as many as are in fact imprisoned, but some people are violent anti-social and commit harm on others. But once someone has paid their price and done their time if they are then – as they are in this country – permanently stripped of their civic rights (felons cannot vote – or own guns as well -- in most states in the USA) it gets into the area of creating a sub- human class of persons. We are all people… even our enemies… even the worst amongst us; when we deny this, we deny our own humanity. Yes. Indeed. That is why everyone, in a working democracy, has the right to remain silent, to get an attorney, etc. I can accept exception in war time, or in some very special circumstances, for a limited number of days. But those have to be quite exceptional, secret, and not something we should ever be proud of. I can accept the idea of torturing someone to find a bomb and save 500 children, for example, like in the 24 series, but that must be very exceptional, and very circumstancial. Bruno -Chris From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com ] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 2:52 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 06 Nov 2013, at 17:45, Chris de Morsella wrote: Exactly. Already the techniques of social engineering are far more advanced than they were even as recently as Goebbels time – and he advanced the art of the Big Lie and of mass media propaganda and brought it into the modern age. Goebbels would admire and recognize our “managed free press” for what it is; he would be thrilled at how Americans have become inculcated to view the word in terms of “good guys” “bad guys” and that it is okay to torture, murder, summarily execute and commit whatever outrage against “bad guys” because they are “terrorists” and therefore do not enjoy any human rights whatsoever. Yes. The NDAA 12 use suspect of terrorist to ensure the existence of a collection of people (rather fuzzy here) which can be exempted from the human right. Goebbels, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Ceaucescu, would have applauded. Goebbels, Hitler, Stalin would all nod their nasty heads in approval at how we now have a so called “Patriot” act that strips of habeas corpus – a right wrested from the aristocracy of the middle ages; how we have become a nation of secret courts and secret “justice”. And all the while the great dumbed down masses of this country whilst they belch their no nutrition television dinner watching their mind massaging TV programming very loudly believe they are the most free, special, superior being that ever lived in history…. American exceptionalism. They have been, and by many tokens still are, but the erosion is quick, and on some key point, they lost worst than freedom, they lost the information, and get lied, and so it takes time to realize that. The understanding of how the mind works and of how to vector in drugs to it and the mass acceptance of mass medication has reached the point where it is not out of the realm of the possible for a happy pill to be developed and then – taken to the logical conclusion of even further miniaturization and delivery as an aerosol. The only reason that this country has these angry tea party types and the right wing (often racist and weirdly KKKristian) militias is because they are useful tools for the plutocrats. They are America’s brownshirts and though they may be surprised are acting as tools for the narrow interests of the plutocrats who fund them, who yank their strings and who make them dance to whatever tune suits their current tactical needs. In America the plutocrats have perfected the art of social engineering – and Americans genuinely do believe they are free and that anybody can be president (and that if you do not make it in this rapacious greed driven society, it’s your own damn fault you lazy bastard) There is not going to be any revolution here… not for a long while. The owners of America have
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 07 Nov 2013, at 23:12, meekerdb wrote: On 11/6/2013 6:42 PM, Chris de Morsella wrote: Either all humans enjoy human rights or none do. Human rights are a human invention. Human inventions are a human invention. Bruno As soon as a class of persons is created that are stripped of their basic human rights society is on a slippery slope down into the dark hell of totalitarianism. Are you repeating the common political rhetoric that refers to people who have been convicted of a crime as criminals as though that defined a class, like women or laborer? I think that is a pernicious view point; one which is used to justify an us vs. them mentality and the war on crime. There is no criminal class, there are just people who have committed crimes. I commit a crime every day: exceeding the speed limit, and so do 90% of the other people on the freeway. Laws are passed with the idea and understanding that they will only be selectively enforced. This is why it is disturbing to see the proliferation of high-tech law enforcement: drones, GPS tracking, eavesdropping, cameras. People realize that there are so many laws and so many poorly crafted laws that if every violation of every law was caught and prosecuted we'd all end up in jail. And this is not due to some evil politicians plot. The same people who routinely drive 80mph on the freeway, *want* the speed limit set to 65 or 70, because those *other people* are driving too fast. The same people who smoke cigarettes want marijuana to be illegal. If you've ever been on a jury you know that most people are quick to condemn any deviation from what they consider the norm. Being liberal and tolerant doesn't come naturally. This brings up the paradox of crime punishment. Whenever a person is punished by society in some way and their rights are restricted this creates a risk. Now obviously some people need to be imprisoned – not nearly as many as are in fact imprisoned, but some people are violent anti-social and commit harm on others. Suppose they're not anti-social and not violent. They just defrauded a few million investors out of their retirement savings. Should we just let them walk free...Oh, right, we do. But once someone has paid their price and done their time if they are then – as they are in this country – permanently stripped of their civic rights (felons cannot vote – or own guns as well -- in most states in the USA) it gets into the area of creating a sub- human class of persons. In the states I know about, a felon can petition to have their voting rights reinstated. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 08 Nov 2013, at 03:44, Chris de Morsella wrote: -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 4:26 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World Not to be sarcastic, but probably yes. Money from bitumin brings money for research into environmental remediation. It also helps liberate people from pouring cash into the OPEC world, which seems to only inflame Muslim passions. Plus the Canadians are world class technologists and will likely invent more efficient engines, and also fund the green technologies that you crave. Theres a reason why poor nations do not do technology well. You have a cornucopian view that we can go on making horrible messes on this planet without worrying about the consequences because somehow it will all get magically remediated yeah like that actually happens in the real world. Remediation is a cost center NOT a profit center; it is done only to the minimum level necessary in order to stay just this side of the law. You are free to say whatever you want of course, but I find it difficult to believe your hypothesis that the very same humans who profit from raping the earth will -- after the fact and after they have lined their pockets with ill-gotten wealth -- will somehow do a 180 degree turn and start behaving in the altruistic noble manner you seem so certain they will. Are you saying that the Arabs would be happier if they had no oil wealth... that all this money has made them hopping mad? I read a paper arguing in that direction, showing that Jordanian have much less tryanny thanks to the absence of oil. That makes sense. It is easier to do that type of business with Tyrant, than with elected people. Bruno Green technologies are already proving themselves -- without your plucky Canadian tar sand billionaires (some of whom are Texans by the way) deciding to invest their profits in green technology -- as if they would. -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thu, Nov 7, 2013 3:29 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World Those plucky Canadians -- as you term them -- are criminally destroying vast swaths of Alberta turning it into a poisoned chemical saturated moonscape as well as sucking up vast amounts of water from other potential uses -- including agriculture. Will the bitumen sweated out of that sand be worth the ultimate costs to get it? On Thursday, November 7, 2013 11:24 AM, Jesse Mazer laserma...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 9:50 AM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote:Fur sure, that was the truth. Now we got's shale gas, which seems to pay a lot better, is safer to go after, and is cleaner, carbon-wise. Unless you are buying into technological unemployment (robots, software) then we have to face the fact. BHO's Keynesian way has fallen on its ass and has stayed down, like a fighter throwing a fight, after a payoff. I've read Keynesians like Paul Krugman say that the level of stimulus was actually not enough by Keynesian standards (and too much went to tax cuts), but certainly the US economy with its level of stimulus did much better than most of the states that more thoroughly rejected Keynesianism and instead chose austerity in the midst of a recession, like the UK...see various graphs at http://graphsagainstausterity.tumblr.com/ (click on any graph to see the original article it came from) Increased government employment doesn't seem to generate tax revenue very well. Except government employment hasn't increased under Obama, it's actually been steadily decreasing during his presidency (apart from a brief spike when the decennial census was taken and they needed a lot of temporary census workers), due mostly to the Republicans in Congress, whereas under George W. Bush government employment was steadily increasing (this collapsing of the public sector is probably contributing quite a bit to the slow recovery). See the two graphs showing private sector and public sector jobs under Bush and Obama here: http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2013/04/public-and-private- sector-payroll-jobs-bush-and-obama.html -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group.To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.to post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
Hi Chris, I can't agree more. If we look at the history of prohibition, it is always either a political tools, or unfair economy, or a way for bandits to steal money. In Turkey, where almost all man were smoking tobacco, a sultan decided (some centuries ago) to make it illegal for beheading its main opponents. Easy! And the problem today, is not the black money, but the grey money. We can't indeed no more separate healthy money from the money based on lies. We are all hostage of those prohibitionist bandits. Bruno On 08 Nov 2013, at 03:57, Chris de Morsella wrote: From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com ] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 2:32 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 07 Nov 2013, at 03:32, Chris de Morsella wrote: The problem of any system ever devised is that eventually it will become corrupted – through one path or another corruption will become endemic and increasingly it will parasitize the system until eventually the empty husk of the hollowed out society collapses as all the illusions and Ponzi schemes become marked to market and no one is buying into it any longer. Systems are human creations and suffer from all the pitfalls and blindness characteristic of our species. A system organized around a Party or a Church will end up creating the same social structure of a corrupt class of successful crime families becoming entrenched at the vertices. OK. But it is always due to factual precise fact, some of them encapsulating the departure from honesty, like the closure of Plato academy in theology (and this explains a lot of our human problems today), or the prohibition in modern times, which violate the US constitution, and announces all the other violation. Sure… in the US prohibition probably did more than anything to create the culture of organized crime and to enrich the criminal syndicates to the point that now it is hard to even know how much of our economy is actually controlled by them. Dirty money pollutes markets and distorts them and drives out honest actors. In Roma there is a saying that translated more or less: “The first generation are bandits; the second generation are bankers; the third generation are politicians; and by the fourth generation a Pope.” Or the Anglo saying “Behind every great fortune there is a great crime” I think that this is misleading, as it gives the idea that money is a problem. Money is just the best way to distibute work, and enrich everyone, ... when playing with the rules. But then big amount of moeny is an incentive for unscrupulous bandits, and if they rob the society, we are soon or later in a big mess. Then we are living earth gloablization, and the bandits use it to consoldiate their business. A large part of the middle class is hostage of that situation. Money itself is just a medium of exchange; and a marker of wealth perhaps. It is not money itself, but how criminal syndicates end up controlling how it flows and how it is used. I think it is important to look at how even a system dedicated to the principle of wiping out class has invariably spawned various nationalistic red bourgeoisies (the Radish communists – red on the outside white on the inside) Look at the princelings in the PRC; or the weird family dynasty in the PRK… or the Stalinist bourgeoisie of the former USSR. Or conversely how a system purporting to be based on the teachings of Jesus Christ resulted in the sordid history of the Papacy. It does not matter much what the superficial forms of a system are, if the end outcome is invariably the same – that is the society becomes dominated by a small entrenched elite that enjoys disproportionate benefits and is concerned only with its own self- serving interests. The US constitution was well thought, and the founders were aware if how it could be violated. In particular, some of them said explicitly that prohibition would end America. I am optimist. We just need to educate people so that they understand that prohibition is a criminal technic to steal their money, and nothing else, right at the start. We light just need to better educate people (invest in school and teaching). It will take time. In my country, the green-youth have proposed that the green became officially anti-prohibitionist, but the old green were just horrified, and put the proposition under the rug. But most and most young people get the point. As long as we tolerate things like prohibition, there is just no politics at all. Prohibition is a middle-term social suicide. Like institutionalized religion is a long term spiritual suicide. We will learn. Hopefully we will. The strength of the prohibition coalition is weakening in the US – the state I live in and Colorado have both legalized
RE: Our Demon-Haunted World
-Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal Sent: Friday, November 08, 2013 2:35 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 08 Nov 2013, at 03:44, Chris de Morsella wrote: -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 4:26 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World Not to be sarcastic, but probably yes. Money from bitumin brings money for research into environmental remediation. It also helps liberate people from pouring cash into the OPEC world, which seems to only inflame Muslim passions. Plus the Canadians are world class technologists and will likely invent more efficient engines, and also fund the green technologies that you crave. Theres a reason why poor nations do not do technology well. You have a cornucopian view that we can go on making horrible messes on this planet without worrying about the consequences because somehow it will all get magically remediated yeah like that actually happens in the real world. Remediation is a cost center NOT a profit center; it is done only to the minimum level necessary in order to stay just this side of the law. You are free to say whatever you want of course, but I find it difficult to believe your hypothesis that the very same humans who profit from raping the earth will -- after the fact and after they have lined their pockets with ill-gotten wealth -- will somehow do a 180 degree turn and start behaving in the altruistic noble manner you seem so certain they will. Are you saying that the Arabs would be happier if they had no oil wealth... that all this money has made them hopping mad? I read a paper arguing in that direction, showing that Jordanian have much less tryanny thanks to the absence of oil. That makes sense. It is easier to do that type of business with Tyrant, than with elected people. Sure of course, and the western powers have seen to it that tyrants are kept in place to keep the oil flowing, under regimes they can control... case in point the CIA organized coup against Prime Minister of Iran Mohammad Mosaddegh on 19 August 1953. However this is a foreign imposition of presidents for life and kleptocracies such as the house of Saud. The phrase I was replying to pouring cash into the OPEC world, which seems to only inflame Muslim passions. seemed to promote various ugly stereotypes that are quite common in the western media regarding the Arab/Muslim world. I was responding to those insinuations, which dip down into a prejudicial stream I personally find rather unpleasant. Chris Bruno Green technologies are already proving themselves -- without your plucky Canadian tar sand billionaires (some of whom are Texans by the way) deciding to invest their profits in green technology -- as if they would. -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thu, Nov 7, 2013 3:29 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World Those plucky Canadians -- as you term them -- are criminally destroying vast swaths of Alberta turning it into a poisoned chemical saturated moonscape as well as sucking up vast amounts of water from other potential uses -- including agriculture. Will the bitumen sweated out of that sand be worth the ultimate costs to get it? On Thursday, November 7, 2013 11:24 AM, Jesse Mazer laserma...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 9:50 AM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote:Fur sure, that was the truth. Now we got's shale gas, which seems to pay a lot better, is safer to go after, and is cleaner, carbon-wise. Unless you are buying into technological unemployment (robots, software) then we have to face the fact. BHO's Keynesian way has fallen on its ass and has stayed down, like a fighter throwing a fight, after a payoff. I've read Keynesians like Paul Krugman say that the level of stimulus was actually not enough by Keynesian standards (and too much went to tax cuts), but certainly the US economy with its level of stimulus did much better than most of the states that more thoroughly rejected Keynesianism and instead chose austerity in the midst of a recession, like the UK...see various graphs at http://graphsagainstausterity.tumblr.com/ (click on any graph to see the original article it came from) Increased government employment doesn't seem to generate tax revenue very well. Except government employment hasn't increased under Obama, it's actually been steadily decreasing during his presidency (apart from a brief spike when the decennial census was taken and they needed a lot of temporary census workers), due mostly to the Republicans
RE: Our Demon-Haunted World
Drug money flows through our banking systems, stock markets. The fruit of many decades of Prohibition - and the black money does get laundered --- becoming as you put it grey money. The drug criminal syndicates and government agencies that have covert understandings and dealings with them by now form a parallel world. Your point about Turkey applies to our situation as well because drug crimes are a useful way of eliminating troublesome opponents. Scenario: radical troublemaker. gets pulled over and the police, who then discover a bag of cocaine hidden in their trunk. They go down for a drug conviction - who (but a very few) will believe otherwise. It is a very useful tool for tyranny and corrupt forces on many levels besides generating immense profits for the syndicates. Chris From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal Sent: Friday, November 08, 2013 2:41 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World Hi Chris, I can't agree more. If we look at the history of prohibition, it is always either a political tools, or unfair economy, or a way for bandits to steal money. In Turkey, where almost all man were smoking tobacco, a sultan decided (some centuries ago) to make it illegal for beheading its main opponents. Easy! And the problem today, is not the black money, but the grey money. We can't indeed no more separate healthy money from the money based on lies. We are all hostage of those prohibitionist bandits. Bruno On 08 Nov 2013, at 03:57, Chris de Morsella wrote: From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 2:32 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 07 Nov 2013, at 03:32, Chris de Morsella wrote: The problem of any system ever devised is that eventually it will become corrupted - through one path or another corruption will become endemic and increasingly it will parasitize the system until eventually the empty husk of the hollowed out society collapses as all the illusions and Ponzi schemes become marked to market and no one is buying into it any longer. Systems are human creations and suffer from all the pitfalls and blindness characteristic of our species. A system organized around a Party or a Church will end up creating the same social structure of a corrupt class of successful crime families becoming entrenched at the vertices. OK. But it is always due to factual precise fact, some of them encapsulating the departure from honesty, like the closure of Plato academy in theology (and this explains a lot of our human problems today), or the prohibition in modern times, which violate the US constitution, and announces all the other violation. Sure. in the US prohibition probably did more than anything to create the culture of organized crime and to enrich the criminal syndicates to the point that now it is hard to even know how much of our economy is actually controlled by them. Dirty money pollutes markets and distorts them and drives out honest actors. In Roma there is a saying that translated more or less: The first generation are bandits; the second generation are bankers; the third generation are politicians; and by the fourth generation a Pope. Or the Anglo saying Behind every great fortune there is a great crime I think that this is misleading, as it gives the idea that money is a problem. Money is just the best way to distibute work, and enrich everyone, ... when playing with the rules. But then big amount of moeny is an incentive for unscrupulous bandits, and if they rob the society, we are soon or later in a big mess. Then we are living earth gloablization, and the bandits use it to consoldiate their business. A large part of the middle class is hostage of that situation. Money itself is just a medium of exchange; and a marker of wealth perhaps. It is not money itself, but how criminal syndicates end up controlling how it flows and how it is used. I think it is important to look at how even a system dedicated to the principle of wiping out class has invariably spawned various nationalistic red bourgeoisies (the Radish communists - red on the outside white on the inside) Look at the princelings in the PRC; or the weird family dynasty in the PRK. or the Stalinist bourgeoisie of the former USSR. Or conversely how a system purporting to be based on the teachings of Jesus Christ resulted in the sordid history of the Papacy. It does not matter much what the superficial forms of a system are, if the end outcome is invariably the same - that is the society becomes dominated by a small entrenched elite that enjoys disproportionate benefits and is concerned only with its own self-serving interests. The US constitution was well thought, and the founders were aware if how
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 08 Nov 2013, at 17:29, Chris de Morsella wrote: -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal Sent: Friday, November 08, 2013 2:35 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 08 Nov 2013, at 03:44, Chris de Morsella wrote: -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 4:26 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World Not to be sarcastic, but probably yes. Money from bitumin brings money for research into environmental remediation. It also helps liberate people from pouring cash into the OPEC world, which seems to only inflame Muslim passions. Plus the Canadians are world class technologists and will likely invent more efficient engines, and also fund the green technologies that you crave. Theres a reason why poor nations do not do technology well. You have a cornucopian view that we can go on making horrible messes on this planet without worrying about the consequences because somehow it will all get magically remediated yeah like that actually happens in the real world. Remediation is a cost center NOT a profit center; it is done only to the minimum level necessary in order to stay just this side of the law. You are free to say whatever you want of course, but I find it difficult to believe your hypothesis that the very same humans who profit from raping the earth will -- after the fact and after they have lined their pockets with ill-gotten wealth -- will somehow do a 180 degree turn and start behaving in the altruistic noble manner you seem so certain they will. Are you saying that the Arabs would be happier if they had no oil wealth... that all this money has made them hopping mad? I read a paper arguing in that direction, showing that Jordanian have much less tryanny thanks to the absence of oil. That makes sense. It is easier to do that type of business with Tyrant, than with elected people. Sure of course, and the western powers have seen to it that tyrants are kept in place to keep the oil flowing, under regimes they can control... case in point the CIA organized coup against Prime Minister of Iran Mohammad Mosaddegh on 19 August 1953. However this is a foreign imposition of presidents for life and kleptocracies such as the house of Saud. The phrase I was replying to pouring cash into the OPEC world, which seems to only inflame Muslim passions. seemed to promote various ugly stereotypes that are quite common in the western media regarding the Arab/Muslim world. I was responding to those insinuations, which dip down into a prejudicial stream I personally find rather unpleasant. OK. Thanks for the clarification. Bruno Green technologies are already proving themselves -- without your plucky Canadian tar sand billionaires (some of whom are Texans by the way) deciding to invest their profits in green technology -- as if they would. -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thu, Nov 7, 2013 3:29 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World Those plucky Canadians -- as you term them -- are criminally destroying vast swaths of Alberta turning it into a poisoned chemical saturated moonscape as well as sucking up vast amounts of water from other potential uses -- including agriculture. Will the bitumen sweated out of that sand be worth the ultimate costs to get it? On Thursday, November 7, 2013 11:24 AM, Jesse Mazer laserma...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 9:50 AM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote:Fur sure, that was the truth. Now we got's shale gas, which seems to pay a lot better, is safer to go after, and is cleaner, carbon-wise. Unless you are buying into technological unemployment (robots, software) then we have to face the fact. BHO's Keynesian way has fallen on its ass and has stayed down, like a fighter throwing a fight, after a payoff. I've read Keynesians like Paul Krugman say that the level of stimulus was actually not enough by Keynesian standards (and too much went to tax cuts), but certainly the US economy with its level of stimulus did much better than most of the states that more thoroughly rejected Keynesianism and instead chose austerity in the midst of a recession, like the UK...see various graphs at http://graphsagainstausterity.tumblr.com/ (click on any graph to see the original article it came from) Increased government employment doesn't seem to generate tax revenue very well. Except government employment hasn't increased under Obama, it's actually been steadily decreasing during his presidency (apart from a brief spike when the decennial census was taken and they needed a lot of temporary census workers), due mostly
