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

On that basis, my analogy is good enough.

georgeob1 wrote:

On that basis, my analogy is good enough.

Well, I'm glad at least you are happy with it.

Diest TKO wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:

Further, those of us pushing for ability to go after our own oil aren't wanting the government to solve or provide anything. All we want is for government to get out of the way so that the free market can function.

Actually you advocating that the government be FORCED to sell it's land. That's not free market, and yes you are asking the government to provide something.

T
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I am advocating a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

We chose not to adopt a feudal system long ago and whatever authority and/or property is entrusted to government to manage is intended for promotion of the common welfare as it all collectively belongs to the people.

It is mega billions of the people's money that the government uses to buy oil elsewhere.

Diest TKO wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:

Further, those of us pushing for ability to go after our own oil aren't wanting the government to solve or provide anything. All we want is for government to get out of the way so that the free market can function.

Actually you advocating that the government be FORCED to sell it's land. That's not free market, and yes you are asking the government to provide something.

Well if you call asking the government to stop stupid and non productive interference in the proper choices of the citizenry, "asking the government to provide something", then I suppose you are right. By a similar logic we could imagine others asking the Nazis to "provide" life for the Jews of Europe by interrupting its systematic murders of them. However, I don't think that is the kind of logic that most of us employ.

OK, but why should the government "Own" and control so many of our material assets? There is nothing in our political tradition or laws that calls for it -- that was Foxfyre's point. That is does so is only an accident of the history of the settlement of the West. There are, apart from national parks and military bases, no extensive government land holdings east of the Mississippi, or along the Pacific coast, where most of our people live. Why do we continue it in the face of the facts that the government has generally done a very poor job in either protecting or developing the land in question?

That you and others believe that all of us should "Change our lifestyles" is not a reason for us to do it. Nor do our laws give you the right to compel us to do so. Human history is filled with stories of the mysery created by the self-appointed reformers of mankind, from religious zealots, to Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Hitler and others. Contemporary environmentalism too often harbors unsettling overtones (and sometimes obvious direct elements) of of this sort of Platonic authoritarianism. (Few note that The Endangered Species Act protects all species but one - homo sapiens.) There are no philosopher kings anywhere, not even among environmentalists. Individual freedom and initiative are far better and more reliable ways to protect both humanity and the environment.

I don't see much factual accuracy or logical consistency in this post of yours Cyclo. I'm not aware, and I seriously doubt that, the oil companies have not been "diligent" in paying the government for their leases on public land or off shore areas - and these are the properties in question here. For off shore leases the payments were determined by auction - a process that optimizes the outcome for the seller, this time the government - not the buyer. So in these cases the lease rates received by the government were "all the market would bear" - not cheap at all. That the percapita share of this among citizens is small is unrelated to the basic transaction involved here.

The public benefit associated with minerals and petroleum extraction is huge - the weath and comforts of the modern world are the direct result. Judged by the efforts put forward by others, who haven't until recently enjoyed them, to duplicate them themselves, they are are enormous.

The pollution associated with mining and petroleum extraction is directly related to contemporary perceptions of the relative harm involved. As times and those perceptions have changed, so have the behaviors of the extraction operators.

In the years just before our entry in WWII President Roosevelt (a "progressive" Democrat) created a Petroleum Board, giving Harold Ickes (the father of the contemporary Democrat strategist) power to operate the petroleum industry as a government monopoly with the sole task of maximizing production - with no regard for either environmental consequences or even the sustainability of the oil fields themselves. This was how we thoughtlessly depleted over half of our national reserves in just a few years.

The truth is that today large sums are spent in cleaning up old mines and most of the funds come from penalties imposed by EPA on the operators. The petroleum industry is notably effective in doing its job with minimal environmental impact. The evonomic value of the product (including its ultimate residue, asphalt) and the flammability of the primary product have a lot to do with their motivation, but the net results benefit all.

We could return to the bucolic, pastoral world you may have in mind, but four billion or so people would have to die to achieve it.

Educate yourself:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/26/business/26oil.html

You should be aware that there are billions of dollars in royalties that haven't been collected, as the Bush administration is not to keen on auditing the gas companies, and didn't really care about the loophole in the Deep Water Royalty Relief Act of 1995 one whit; it took the Dem congress to get anything done on this, and the companies had to be forced to start paying what they knew they owed.

I think it's plainly obvious that the primary benefiter of extracting resources from public lands is not the public, but the companies who are doing the extraction. Exxon-mobil posts billions of dollars of profit per quarter. The American consumer does not benefit from their use of resources as much as the company does; while having oil to power one's car is a Good Thing, it is no different from any other product being available, and certainly isn't a Profit for the average consumer.

I think that you have perfectly displayed the attitude I was talking about; a casual disregard for pollution, which effects everyone regardless of their choice to use oil and gas or not. It is not a trivial thing, it is a real thing, and the various other processes of refining and transporting oil create equal amounts of pollution. I and other environmentalists merely seek to hold those companies who produce the pollution, responsible for cleaning it up; the cost of which should be factored into their cost of production.

Please stop exaggerating, George, nobody is advocating a return to a pastoral life...

Cycloptichorn

The U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) today announced the release of the report "Climate Models: An Assessment of Strengths and Limitations," the 10th in a series of 21 Synthesis and Assessment Products (SAPs) managed by U.S. federal agencies. Developed under the leadership of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), this report, SAP 3.1, describes computer models of the Earth's climate and their ability to simulate current climate change.

"Complex climate models are tools that provide insights and knowledge into how future climate may evolve. To assure that future climate projections are used appropriately, it is crucial to understand what current models can simulate well, and where models need improvements," said David Bader, with DOE's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the coordinating lead author for this SAP report. "This report makes an important contribution in helping to describe and explain the current state of high-end climate modeling for the non-specialist."

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport#report

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Environmental scientist Dr. David W. Schnare, a senior enforcement counsel at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency who has managed EPA's Office of Ground-Water and Drinking Water Economic, Legislative and Policy Analysis Branch, proclaimed his man-made climate skepticism in 2007. "When it comes to global warming, I'm a skeptic because the conclusions about the cause of the apparent warming stand on the shoulders of incredibly uncertain data and models," Schnare wrote on August 10, 2007. "I 'm a Ph.D. environmental scientist. As a scientist, from time-to-time I must also be a skeptic. It's in the nature of the job," he wrote. "The fundamental data set on which the international community has based its models has been challenged and the keepers of the data have had to downward adjust their numbers, the first of several downward adjustments, apparently," Schnare explained. "As a policy matter, one has to be less willing to take extreme actions when data are highly uncertain. So, for this reason alone, I'm also skeptical about governmental responses," he added.

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport#report

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Environmental Economist and global warming co-author Dennis Avery's 2006 book, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years, details the solar-climate link using hundreds of studies from peer reviewed literature and "shows the earth's temperatures following variations in solar intensity through centuries of sunspot records, and finds cycles of sun-linked isotopes in ice and tree rings." "Past climate warmings haven't correlated with CO2 changes. The Antarctic ice cores show that after the last four Ice Ages, the temperatures warmed 800 years before the CO2 levels increased in the atmosphere. The warming produced more CO2 in the atmosphere, not the other way around," said co-author Avery in an April 6, 2007 op-ed. (LINK) Avery also noted that "70% of the warming we have had since 1850 occurred before 1940 and 80% of the human emitted CO2 occurred after 1940, which tells me that the warming before 1940 was by natural cycle. The warming since 1940 -- 2/10 of a degree Celsius -- I will give Al Gore 1/10 [of a degree Celsius], that is all I can give him (for a human contribution to warming) and I don't think that's enough to frighten my school children," Avery said in an April 28, 2007 CBS Chicago TV special "The Truth About Global Warming." (LINK) Avery also explained in an April 25, 2007 op-ed, "We've had no warming at all since 1998." "Remember, too, that each added unit of CO2 has less impact on the climate. The first 40 parts per million (ppm) of human-emitted CO2 added to the atmosphere in the 1940s had as much climate impact as the next 360 ppm," he added.

I dunno Walter. When the climate modelers have not been able to get their climate models using KNOWN data from the past to accurately predict today's climate, why should we think their models predicting future climate have any more credibility?

I dunno Walter. When the climate modelers have not been able to get their climate models using KNOWN data from the past to accurately predict today's climate, why should we think their models predicting future climate have any more credibility?

Quote:

... Developed under the leadership of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), this report, SAP 3.1, describes computer models of the Earth's climate and their ability to simulate current climate change.[...]

From the U.S. Department of Energy: OUR CHANGING PLANET- The U.S. Climate Change Science Program for Fiscal Year 2009

Walter - Foxfyre read the link, and understands it. YOU however, may want to look up the difference between "simulate" and "predict" in mathematical modeling.