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Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

 
 
Frank Apisa
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 Jul, 2006 03:44 am
okie wrote:
Frank Apisa wrote:
The greatest threat to the well-being of planet Earth is American conservatism...the pus currently oozing from lesions in the American body politic.


At least I give you credit for apparently being honest, Frank. I just believe you are totally and terribly wrong, and that everything I believe and my parents believed and fought for, and that millions of patriotic Americans died for also believed, is totally in opposition to what you believe. Be assured of this much at least, I will cast my vote at the ballot box every chance I get to defeat the people that think like you.


One of the reasons I hold American conservatism in such scorn is because of the many patriotic Americans who have died for the principles upon which this country is based.

American conservatism, being the hypocritical sludge it is, constantly invokes patriotism, love of country, and devotion to the principles of freedom upon which this country was founded...while doing its level best to injure all those things.

The United States was founded by the liberals of late 18th century America. They had to fight the pathetic American conservatives of their day (people insisting that we owed allegience to our liege lord, King George [some things never change])...just as any truly patriotic American would fight the American conservatives of our time.


Quote:

Frank, you have enough honesty to expose the true agenda of people that profess to care about the environment. It is obvious it is not about the environment at all, but instead it is your political agenda.


There is a political agenda involved in the struggle to save the evironment of our planet, Steve....and it comes mostly from the knee-jerk folks backing the conservative political agenda.

I don't expect you to see it...your eyes are clouded.

I am not a Democrat nor am I a liberal. I am simply someone who sees American conservatism for the disgusting, self-righteous, sanctimoneous, hyprocritical piece of dung it is.

My late Mom and Dad, two of my brothers, several of my cousins, and damn near every golfing partner I have...all folks I love dearly...are American conservatives. It is not an easy thing to despise something so thoroughly when so many folks you love subscribe to it.

But it is the lot of the typical white male of a certain age these days...and I will bear that burden.


In the meantime, I will treat American conservatism as though it were an especially dangerous...especially ugly...Nazi wanna-be...and rail against it at every opportunity.

I hope you and the other American conservatists posting here finally wake up and see it for the sludge it is.
0 Replies
 
Thomas
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 Jul, 2006 03:45 am
georgeob1 wrote:
I don't think it is any kind of socialist conspiracy. Instead such things tend to attract those who are personally inclined to favor and sometimes seek authoritarian, Platonic "solutions" to the ills of the world. Perhaps to them individual free choice simply doesn't look like a solution.

I agree the distinction here is mostly "authoritarian" vs "libertarian" Joe Lieberman is not hawkish on global warming. But American Evangelicals are turning hawkish about it. The common element between greens and evangelicals is a deeply rooted belief that change is bad unless some authority is in charge of it.
0 Replies
 
Steve 41oo
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 Jul, 2006 03:55 am
Thomas wrote:
Steve (as 41oo) wrote:
Its energy not stones we are talking about.

As I remember it, you quite specifically talk about "peak oil", not "peak energy".

Steve (as 41oo) wrote:
Neolithic man had muscle power. Jevon had coal power. We have coal oil gas nuclear etc, and between them they still add up to an energy shortage in the near future.

And that's what your talk about "peak oil" has to do with Jevons' talk about peak coal (though not under that name). It's an argument that jumps from limitations in the currently dominant energy source to limitations the total amount of energy we can use. In both cases, this is essentially an argument from lack of imagination.

Steve(as 41oo) wrote:
George is right that climatology and particularly the interpretation of data is a very complicated subject. Thats why specialists and people with a great deal of expertise get involved. But some things are very simple. CO2 is[/i] a greenhouse gas. There is half as much again[/i] of it in the atmosphere c.f pre industrial times. Global warming is a fact[/i]. Moreover their conclusion that it is anthropogenic is also a simple concept, though clearly beyond the understanding of some here.

I have never denied that global warming is real, and that it's man-made. I have denied that it's a catastrophy.

Steve(as41oo) wrote:
One last point. Remind me again why we are in Iraq and Afghanistan and why the US has bases all over SW Asia?

Beats me. I always thought Mr Blair would be too smart to fall for the Bush administration's bogus casi belli.



We might even be making some progress here Thomas. Peak oil implies energy crisis because of our over dependence on oil, and our lack of foresight. You mentioned lack of imagination. Well I'm imagining very hard, and I cant come up with a primary energy source which comes near to oil for its all round utility. Ok so we just switch to nuclear...lets turn on all those nuclear power plants that we havent built yet, and probably wont be allowed to. Or we finally make (hot) fusion work...well thats taken over 1/2 century of R&D and its still not commercially viable. Or how about scooping up all that wonderful helium 3 on the surface of the moon? Add a little deuterium back on earth and bingo...

The fact is we are moving towards global peak oil now and we need a clean substitute now. We haven't got one as far as I can see.

We more or less agree on global warming, just the scale of the problems it might give us or future generations. Actually I dont think it will affect us too much, but as someone said, we dont inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. I really do think they are not going to be best pleased with us in 100 years time.

You are baffled by whats going on in the middle east. It becomes clearer with every passing day to me that its a battle to take control over that part of the world which holds 70% + of the remaining oil.
0 Replies
 
Thomas
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 Jul, 2006 04:12 am
Steve (as 41oo) wrote:
You are baffled by whats going on in the middle east. It becomes clearer with every passing day to me that its a battle to take control over that part of the world which holds 70% + of the remaining oil.

My own private little conspiracy theory is that the Bush administration botches up its foreign policy on purpose to destabilize Venezuela and the Middle East. As a consequence, prices go up, Texas oil companies get rich on the crude oil they pump, and the cash register inside the Republican soft money machine tinkles. Yeah, it's a bit tongue-in-cheek, but even that makes more sense to me than your "dominatrix" model of America's foreign policy.
0 Replies
 
Steve 41oo
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 Jul, 2006 04:14 am
this is absolutely relevant to our discussion

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5150816.stm
0 Replies
 
Steve 41oo
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 Jul, 2006 04:25 am
Thomas wrote:
My own private little conspiracy theory is that the Bush administration botches up its foreign policy on purpose to destabilize Venezuela and the Middle East. As a consequence, prices go up, Texas oil companies get rich on the crude oil they pump, and the cash register inside the Republican soft money machine tinkles. Yeah, it's a bit tongue-in-cheek, but even that makes more sense to me than your "dominatrix" model of America's foreign policy.
I'm sure Bush would say they were not just doing it for the benefit of the United States but for their allies and the broader "western" world. But the fact is the US consumes more petroleum per capita than anywhere else and is by far the world's biggest importer of oil. They also happen to have the world's most powerful military - in Donald Rumseld's immortal phrase "full spectrum dominance". Its not surprising they are in the vanguard.
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Steve 41oo
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 Jul, 2006 04:48 am
Quote:
The Tory leader will argue that, in a post-Cold War world, global warming represents the greatest long-term threat to the planet.

Tony Blair has said that nuclear power is back on the agenda as a result of fears over the security of energy supplies to the UK, rising prices and also climate change.
0 Replies
 
georgeob1
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 Jul, 2006 08:15 am
Steve (as 41oo) wrote:
I'm sure Bush would say they were not just doing it for the benefit of the United States but for their allies and the broader "western" world. But the fact is the US consumes more petroleum per capita than anywhere else and is by far the world's biggest importer of oil. They also happen to have the world's most powerful military - in Donald Rumseld's immortal phrase "full spectrum dominance". Its not surprising they are in the vanguard.


The U.S. also produces more economic output per unit of petroleum consumption than any of the major countries of Europe - and by a wide margin.

Our military is MUCH smaller today than it was two decades ago, as are those of European states. It grew to its dominant position during the Cold War - a long-lasting confrontation between competing major powers that was resolved with far less bloodshed and destruction than its largely European predecessors. Throughout the Cold War, only the U.S. and Germany consistently met the defense spending pledges NATO members so solemnly offered one another. Americans who recall European demands for our military assistance, and leadership, in resolving the carnage in the former Yugoslavia - in the heart of the peaceful, ever-more-perfect, post modern Europe - may take some offense at this soft-headed and much repeated canard.

Steve, I believe you too uncritically consume more of the propaganda and "analysis" so profusely put out by the BBC than is good for you. Look below the surface and the trivial labels and catch phrases.
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Steve 41oo
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 Jul, 2006 08:39 am
georgeob1 wrote:
Steve, I believe you too uncritically consume more of the propaganda and "analysis" so profusely put out by the BBC than is good for you.
Well thats a shame because I dont ever recall seeing anything like this

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5152590.stm

from Fox News.

The views expressed were those of the panel, not the BBC.
0 Replies
 
Walter Hinteler
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 Jul, 2006 08:44 am
georgeob1 wrote:
The U.S. also produces more economic output per unit of petroleum consumption than any of the major countries of Europe - and by a wide margin.


Do you have any graphics/data/links for that?

I've found an older source ... with different dat and which I don't understand neither:
a 4½ times greater consumption than the world average and a energy consumption per unit of GDP slightly below the world average, is this a good result?
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georgeob1
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 Jul, 2006 08:46 am
Walter Hinteler wrote:
georgeob1 wrote:
The U.S. also produces more economic output per unit of petroleum consumption than any of the major countries of Europe - and by a wide margin.


Do you have any graphics/data/links for that?

I've found an older source ... with different dat and which I don't understand neither:
a 4½ times greater consumption than the world average and a energy consumption per unit of GDP slightly below the world average, is this a good result?


I said petroleum, not energy.
0 Replies
 
Walter Hinteler
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 Jul, 2006 08:58 am
Right, but I couldn't find any data for that at all (not that then I would have understood more - I just want to compare ...)
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old europe
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 Jul, 2006 09:00 am
georgeob1 wrote:
The U.S. also produces more economic output per unit of petroleum consumption than any of the major countries of Europe - and by a wide margin.


You've said so before, and you were wrong on it before. Let's do a quick fact check (using the CIA World Factbook) - I will use Germany as one of the major countries of Europe for the sake of this example:


USA:

GDP: $12.49 trillion
oil consumption: 20.03 million barrels/day (or ~ 7.32 billion barrels/year)

economic output per unit of petroleum consumption: $1,708/barrel



Germany:

GDP: $2.73 trillion
oil consumption: 2.677 million barrels/day (or ~ 0.98 billion barrels/year)

economic output per unit of petroleum consumption: $2,794/barrel


So, let's sum it up. The US does not only consume more oil than any of the major countries of Europe, it also produces less economic output per unit of petroleum consumption - and by a wide margin. The comparison between Germany and the US shows that America only reaches about 60% of Germany's productivity.
0 Replies
 
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 Jul, 2006 10:02 am
old europe, I think I know why that is; when Americans go on vacation, they can travel in their cars many thousands of miles and remain in our own country, while in Germany, it's almost like traveling in one of our smaller states. LOL

* You do know this is just joshing, right?
0 Replies
 
georgeob1
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 Jul, 2006 10:33 am
My comparison was based on petroleum and with Europe. 2004 GDP per capita in the U.S. is 3.3 times that in Poland; 1.7 times that in Spain; 1.5 that of Italy; 1.4 that of Germany & France & the UK. Our electrical power comes from coal, nuclear, and natural gas. Our transportations system runs on petroleum. I doubt that we use (say) 70% more petroleum than the average European.
0 Replies
 
Thomas
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 Jul, 2006 10:49 am
georgeob1 wrote:
My comparison was based on petroleum and with Europe. 2004 GDP per capita in the U.S. is 3.3 times that in Poland; 1.7 times that in Spain; 1.5 that of Italy; 1.4 that of Germany & France & the UK. Our electrical power comes from coal, nuclear, and natural gas. Our transportations system runs on petroleum. I doubt that we use (say) 70% more petroleum than the average European.

That doesn't rescue your argument though. Perhaps it escapted "Old Europe"'s notice, but the CIA World Factbook also contains an entry about the European Union. This entry offers the following numbers:

GDP at purchasing power parity: $12.18 trillion
(Note: PPP-adjustment leads to a smaller figure than the market exchange rate, which is friendly to your argument, George.)

Oil consumption: 14.59 million barrels/day (or ~ 5.33 billion barrels)

economic output per unit of petroleum consumption: ~$2,287/barrel

"Old Europe's" example overstated his case, but we Europeans use petroleum about 30% more efficiently than you Americans. As much as I admire your Irish stubbornness, George, you lose on this one.
0 Replies
 
georgeob1
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 Jul, 2006 11:15 am
old europe and Thomas are correct. I just consulted the same factbook source and find that, although the U.S. GDP per capita is about 1.5 times that of the EU, our oil consumption per capita is just under 2.1 times that of our good friends in the EU. This is consistent with their data.

I looked for a way out & checked the comparative miles/km of paved roads - about the same. damn! However the U.S. is about 2.5 times the size of the EU and we have only about two-thirds the population. We have to drive farther, so screw you guys !
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sumac
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 Jul, 2006 12:12 pm
Food for thought, for those who will read it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/04/AR2006070400789_pf.html



Global Warming's Real Inconvenient Truth

By Robert J. Samuelson
Wednesday, July 5, 2006; A13



"Global warming may or may not be the great environmental crisis of the next century, but -- regardless of whether it is or isn't -- we won't do much about it. We will (I am sure) argue ferociously over it and may even, as a nation, make some fairly solemn-sounding commitments to avoid it. But the more dramatic and meaningful these commitments seem, the less likely they are to be observed. Little will be done. . . . Global warming promises to become a gushing source of national hypocrisy.''

-- This column, July 1997

Well, so it has. In three decades of columns, I've never quoted myself at length, but here it's necessary. Al Gore calls global warming an "inconvenient truth," as if merely recognizing it could put us on a path to a solution. That's an illusion. The real truth is that we don't know enough to relieve global warming, and -- barring major technological breakthroughs -- we can't do much about it. This was obvious nine years ago; it's still obvious. Let me explain.

From 2003 to 2050, the world's population is projected to grow from 6.4 billion people to 9.1 billion, a 42 percent increase. If energy use per person and technology remain the same, total energy use and greenhouse gas emissions (mainly, carbon dioxide) will be 42 percent higher in 2050. But that's too low, because societies that grow richer use more energy. Unless we condemn the world's poor to their present poverty -- and freeze everyone else's living standards -- we need economic growth. With modest growth, energy use and greenhouse emissions more than double by 2050.

Just keeping annual greenhouse gas emissions constant means that the world must somehow offset these huge increases. There are two ways: Improve energy efficiency, or shift to energy sources with lower (or no) greenhouse emissions. Intuitively, you sense this is tough. China, for example, builds about one coal-fired power plant a week. Now a new report from the International Energy Agency in Paris shows all the difficulties (the population, economic growth and energy projections cited above come from the report).

The IEA report assumes that existing technologies are rapidly improved and deployed. Vehicle fuel efficiency increases by 40 percent. In electricity generation, the share for coal (the fuel with the most greenhouse gases) shrinks from about 40 percent to about 25 percent -- and much carbon dioxide is captured before going into the atmosphere. Little is captured today. Nuclear energy increases. So do "renewables" (wind, solar, biomass, geothermal); their share of global electricity output rises from 2 percent now to about 15 percent.

Some of these changes seem heroic. They would require tough government regulation, continued technological gains and public acceptance of higher fuel prices. Never mind. Having postulated a crash energy diet, the IEA simulates five scenarios with differing rates of technological change. In each, greenhouse emissions in 2050 are higher than today. The increases vary from 6 percent to 27 percent.

Since 1800 there's been modest global warming. I'm unqualified to judge between those scientists (the majority) who blame man-made greenhouse gases and those (a small minority) who finger natural variations in the global weather system. But if the majority are correct, the IEA report indicates we're now powerless. We can't end annual greenhouse emissions, and once in the atmosphere, the gases seem to linger for decades. So concentration levels rise. They're the villains; they presumably trap the world's heat. They're already about 36 percent higher than in 1800. Even with its program, the IEA says another 45 percent rise may be unavoidable. How much warming this might create is uncertain; so are the consequences.

I draw two conclusions -- one political, one practical.

No government will adopt the draconian restrictions on economic growth and personal freedom (limits on electricity usage, driving and travel) that might curb global warming. Still, politicians want to show they're "doing something." The result is grandstanding. Consider the Kyoto Protocol. It allowed countries that joined to castigate those that didn't. But it hasn't reduced carbon dioxide emissions (up about 25 percent since 1990), and many signatories didn't adopt tough enough policies to hit their 2008-2012 targets. By some estimates, Europe may overshoot by 15 percent and Japan by 25 percent.

Ambitious U.S. politicians also practice this self-serving hypocrisy. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has a global warming program. Gore counts 221 cities that have "ratified" Kyoto. Some pledge to curb their greenhouse emissions. None of these programs will reduce global warming. They're public relations exercises and -- if they impose costs -- are undesirable. (Note: on national security grounds, I favor taxing oil, but the global warming effect would be trivial.) The practical conclusion is that if global warming is a potential calamity, the only salvation is new technology. I once received an e-mail from an engineer. Thorium, he said. I had never heard of thorium. It is, he argued, a nuclear fuel that is more plentiful and safer than uranium without waste disposal problems. It's an exit from the global warming trap. After reading many articles, I gave up trying to decide whether he is correct. But his larger point is correct: Only an aggressive research and development program might find ways of breaking our dependence on fossil fuels or dealing with it. Perhaps some system could purge the atmosphere of surplus greenhouse gases?

The trouble with the global warming debate is that it has become a moral crusade when it's really an engineering problem. The inconvenient truth is that if we don't solve the engineering problem, we're helpless.
0 Replies
 
Thomas
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 Jul, 2006 01:22 pm
georgeob1 wrote:
old europe and Thomas are correct.

Thanks for admitting it.
0 Replies
 
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 Jul, 2006 01:58 pm
sumac, Good article; what it says is still true today - a whole lot of talking, but nothing much accomplished. It'll prolly stay this way for decades to come - with very little or nothing being done by humans.
0 Replies
 
 

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