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

Foxfyre wrote:

I will not personally support expensive, intrusive, and freedom restrictive policies that have not been proved to be necessary and/or that which will almost certainly make the lives of millions if not billions of people worse for generations to come.

You can influence policy, but you cant influence facts. Some futures markets are already trading oil at $200/barrel. Thats expensive and intrusive but your lack of support is immaterial. How do you propose to reduce the price of crude oil? Thats the question you cant answer.

(a little over 10 years ago, West Texas crude traded at $10/barrel)

Fox

you give every impression of just not "getting it".

We will have to burn less fossil fuel for two reasons.

1. Its screwing up the earth's climate
2. The easy oil which has supported the western world's high standard of living just isnt there anymore. We've burnt it already.

You may not support painful measures towards a low carbon/fossil fuel economy but its going to happen.

But you heavily support non-restrictive politics that are unproven and might make the lives of millions if not billions of people worser than worse for generations to come.

People forget the law of unintended consequences. Especially politicians, who commonly violate that law. By fixing one problem that might occur in the future, they create several more that definitely occur now, and end up being worse than the problem that never occurred, or was so minor that it should have been ignored.

I have seen this happen often with medical treatments. A treatment to cure an inconvenience ends up killing the patient.

So far it remains to be seen whether use of fossil fuels is 'screwing up the environment..

[quote="Steve 41oo"

As for oil being 'used up' please take a minute to look over this
HISTORY OF PROGNOSTICATIONS OF AVAILABLE OIL SUPPLIES

Walter Hinteler wrote:

But you heavily support non-restrictive politics that are unproven and might make the lives of millions if not billions of people worser than worse for generations to come.

Maybe you haven't noticed it Walter but your argument has become particularly weak in the light of current events.
1) Non-restrictive politics MIGHT make people's lives worse (or might not)
2) But politics to "protect the climate" such as biofuels HAVE made people's lives worse (and that's proven). Or such as Kyoto HAVE failed by costing billion $ with no result.

So I don't think that maintaining 2) as if reality hasn't struck is either wise or credible.

Heavy oils

These can be pumped just like conventional petroleum except that they are much thicker, more polluting, and require more extensive refining. They are found in more than 30 countries, but about 90% of estimated reserves are in the Orinoco "heavy oil belt" of Venezuela, which has an estimated 1.2 trillion barrels. About one third of the oil is potentially recoverable using current technology.

Tar sands

These are found in sedimentary rocks and must be dug out and crushed in giant opencast mines. But it takes five to 10 times the energy, area and water to mine, process and upgrade the tars that it does to process conventional oil. The Athabasca deposits in Alberta, Canada are the world's largest resource, with estimated reserves of 1.8 trillion barrels, of which about 280-300bn barrels may be recoverable. Production now accounts for about 20% of Canada's oil supply.

Oil shales

These are seen as the US government's energy stopgap. They exist in large quantities in ecologically sensitive parts of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah at varying depths, but the industrial process needed to extract the oil demands hot water, making it much more expensive and less energy-efficient than conventional oil. The mining operation is extremely damaging to the environment. Shell, Exxon, ChevronTexaco and other oil companies are investing billions of dollars in this expensive oil production method.

The reason for my pessimism - fatalism actually - is that we should have been planning for 2008 and acting towards 2008 reality in 1978. We've left it too late to make the leap forward without real pain. Jimmy Carter gave ample warning. To plug the gap left by decreasing conventional oil and increasing oil demand needs a programme of imagination vigour and above all courage of world wide proportions. I see absolutely no sign of this happening. Not surprising really. Imagination, courage etc are not qualities found in addicts and Bush described the United States as addicted to oil. But its also a fact the US has the worlds biggest military - so take the easy option and use it. But the Stones had it right You cant always get what you want

Steve 41oo wrote:

The reason for my pessimism - fatalism actually - is that we should have been planning for 2008 and acting towards 2008 reality in 1978. We've left it too late to make the leap forward without real pain. Jimmy Carter gave ample warning. To plug the gap left by decreasing conventional oil and increasing oil demand needs a programme of imagination vigour and above all courage of world wide proportions. I see absolutely no sign of this happening. Not surprising really. Imagination, courage etc are not qualities found in addicts and Bush described the United States as addicted to oil. But its also a fact the US has the worlds biggest military - so take the easy option and use it. But the Stones had it right You cant always get what you want

You must be miserable. Why be that way if you have an option? Its called optimism. Oil won't run out suddenly. It may peak and taper off at some point in history, but will never totally run out. We will continue to discover and invent new ways to harness energy. Simply have faith in the fact that necessity is the mother of invention. Supply and demand, linked with price, will drive the process.

The primary disagreement between liberal and conservative thought is what vehicle best gets us through transitional periods, and I would think history would provide ample proof that the free market does it best. Central planning tends to go off into inefficient tangents and deadends, while the market is constantly probing and finding the best and most efficient path to success.

Steve 41oo wrote:

The reason for my pessimism - fatalism actually - is that we should have been planning for 2008 and acting towards 2008 reality in 1978. We've left it too late to make the leap forward without real pain. Jimmy Carter gave ample warning. To plug the gap left by decreasing conventional oil and increasing oil demand needs a programme of imagination vigour and above all courage of world wide proportions. I see absolutely no sign of this happening. Not surprising really. Imagination, courage etc are not qualities found in addicts and Bush described the United States as addicted to oil. But its also a fact the US has the worlds biggest military - so take the easy option and use it. But the Stones had it right You cant always get what you want

You must be miserable. Why be that way if you have an option? Its called optimism. Oil won't run out suddenly. It may peak and taper off at some point in history, but will never totally run out. We will continue to discover and invent new ways to harness energy. Simply have faith in the fact that necessity is the mother of invention. Supply and demand, linked with price, will drive the process.

The primary disagreement between liberal and conservative thought is what vehicle best gets us through transitional periods, and I would think history would provide ample proof that the free market does it best. Central planning tends to go off into inefficient tangents and deadends, while the market is constantly probing and finding the best and most efficient path to success.

Well the world runs on oil and it is a shortage of oil, not other forms of energy, that is the primary problem right now. The best thing our government could do for us is to relax the restrictions on oil exploration, discovery, recapture, and extraction and allow the free market to meet the demand. We would then see the supply increase dramatically and we would see the prices come down dramatically.

This would need to be coupled with attractive incentives for the oil companies to make the staggering investments necessary to increase refining capacity, but that would certainly be a valid action of government to help solve the problem.

Foxfyre wrote:

Well the world runs on oil and it is a shortage of oil, not other forms of energy, that is the primary problem right now. The best thing our government could do for us is to relax the restrictions on oil exploration, discovery, recapture, and extraction and allow the free market to meet the demand. We would then see the supply increase dramatically and we would see the prices come down dramatically.

This would need to be coupled with attractive incentives for the oil companies to make the staggering investments necessary to increase refining capacity, but that would certainly be a valid action of government to help solve the problem.

This is completely and laughably wrong.

Increase capacity just in time for resources to start running out? Why, a capital idea!

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:

Well the world runs on oil and it is a shortage of oil, not other forms of energy, that is the primary problem right now. The best thing our government could do for us is to relax the restrictions on oil exploration, discovery, recapture, and extraction and allow the free market to meet the demand. We would then see the supply increase dramatically and we would see the prices come down dramatically.

This would need to be coupled with attractive incentives for the oil companies to make the staggering investments necessary to increase refining capacity, but that would certainly be a valid action of government to help solve the problem.

This is completely and laughably wrong.

Increase capacity just in time for resources to start running out? Why, a capital idea!

Cycloptichorn

You have no idea if resources are running out or not. What's completely laughable is the pretense you have about this stuff. Didn't I just post an article about all the doom and gloom naysayers through recent history and their conjecture on resources?

So do you expect this transition to happen overnight? I am not sure what people mean when they say stuff like this.

It's not as though we aren't using solar and nuclear power now. We have teams of scientists from various companies and universities working on these things even as we speak.

New nuclear reactors get protested at the very mention of them by the same people decrying the use of fossil fuels. People very much like you.

So, what is it exactly you expect to happen in this transition? Bush to pull an electric car out of his ass and tell people to drive it?