<Tuesday Acronym Open Thread...The Oil DrumNo conclusions, just the January numbers and some concern>

175 comments on John Tierney's brilliant energy plan

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tochigi on February 7, 2006 - 1:02pm Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
starting to see a pattern here.
Matt over at LATOC just posted a link to this gem:

But far more important is the understanding that oil is not a natural resource.

In other words, the natural resource is not the "stuff" _ it's the mind of man who is capable of turning "stuff" into something incredibly useful and valuable.

whoowey, TPTB have set their intellectual dobermans onto us. run for cover before they tear you limb from limb!

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Leanan on February 7, 2006 - 1:06pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I've heard that argument carried even farther (often by religious conservatives).  If the "real" natural resource is human ingenuity, then obviously, the more people you have, the better.  Therefore, we should discourage, perhaps even outlaw, birth control so as to increase our "resources" as much as possible.  
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LevinK on February 7, 2006 - 2:05pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
There is also that Murphy's law that states that the Earth total human intellect is a constant value. While the population keeps growing and growing...
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elroy on February 9, 2006 - 7:21am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Damn, everything and anything gets called 'Murphy's law' these days huh ?
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step back on February 9, 2006 - 9:33am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
That only proves Murphy right.
"Whatever" can go wrong, eventually will, even Murphy's Law.
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Engineer-Poet on February 8, 2006 - 7:39am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I can't help but notice that the Nobel prizes in the sciences go overwhelmingly to people who practice the opposite of what those religious conservatives preach.  A nation with huge masses of poor, uneducated peasants and the social regimentation to keep the peace is ill-suited to the exercise of ingenuity.
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jimvj on February 8, 2006 - 12:32pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
There is another sense in which the John Tierney/Betsy Hart pieces are "religious". The Julian Simon cornucopians have faith in their precept that the human mind is above (i.e., not beholden to) physical constraints.

Just as most fervent religious believers would, when circumstances threaten their faith, they have to proclaim their faith ever more loudly.

Much of the economic & ecological history of the 20th century - especially the latter half - can be explained by fact that the world was on the steeply rising part of the global Hubbert curves for fossil fuels. Just as the tectonic theory explained many seemingly disparate phenomena, the Hubbert curve explains the Simon v. Ehrlich wager, the green revolution, population growth, etc.

Of course, human ingenuity is what enabled the growth of fossil fuels; but it remains to be seen whether and how this faith will persist on the Hubbert downslope. But the faithful have to believe & shout out that they believe it will triumph.

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step back on February 8, 2006 - 1:59pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
REQUEST to Prof GOOSE or SS or Yankee:

Now that we have worked up our froth over the John Tierney/Betsy Hart pieces and the other Julian Simon cornucopians, can we open a new thread for Tom Tom Friedman and his desire to be "energy independent"?

(I've always thought only the dead were "energy independent". But obviously Tom Tom has better ideas in his Moby Dick Cheney blow out editorial today in the --where else?-- New York Times --all the news that's fit for delay.)

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Oil CEO on February 13, 2006 - 1:51am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Stop it. There are some people you can't afford to lose. Friedman's posture and intentions are correct. If his method is unpalatable, that can be worked on. This guy is the most widely respected (current)NYT columnist who gets major exposure.

Maureen and Paul wish they could be this guy. Tierney can barely write. Bill Safire should think about coming out of retirement.

Friedman supports a dollar tax on gasoline and has written on the subject. He has pull, maybe more so in a Democratic regime than a Republican one, but whatever. Better to get him on the winning team than to alienate him.

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light299 on February 7, 2006 - 2:07pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Sorry to bring science into this, but oil is obviously a natural resourse. Furthermore, this type of logic depends on one of two assumptions if one is to be convinced that oil scarcity will not be a problem. Either, human ingenuity will discover a better alternative (this approach wins because it circumvents the original topic of the argumend), or human ingenuity will discover better ways to use the oil so we have enough. The first assumption makes the whole argument moot, since you are not arguing with a logical person. The second assumption is just plain wrong. There is only so much energy in a barrel of oil, ethanol...etc. Even if one could harness the rest energy of the individual subatomic components there would be a finite value (though converting mass directly to energy probably would solve the problem).
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step back on February 7, 2006 - 2:27pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Betsy (Minds&) Hart(s of America) continues by explaining:

[T]here is no reason, except for price, for me to cut back on any of this [oil consumption]. (I'm not even going to deal with the "greenhouse gas" argument here.) News flash: We have plenty of oil (and, of course, coal for electricity). Bigger news flash: We'll come up with more when we have to.

... the natural resource is not the "stuff" _ it's the mind of man who is capable of turning "stuff" into something incredibly useful and valuable. Julian Simon was a brilliant economist who made just this point in his book, "The Ultimate Resource" (paperback, 1983). He took on the 1970s doom-and-gloomers, who said we were running out of everything except people. Instead, Simon showed that when we looked at man's amazing mind as the "ultimate" resource, then we could understand that natural resources were essentially limitless. As long as that mind is free, it will come up with answers.

Now you have to ask yourselves:
(Clint Eastwood wants you to)

Why are "they" (the minions of the power elite) even bothering to pump out this black trash? (Poo pooing peak oil.)

The answer is because you TOD readers are having an effect.

You TOD readers are getting the message out. Are you feeling lucky now punks, huh, are you?

Exactly how you guys are getting the message out to the grazing, sleeping sheeple, I'm not sure; but you are. Pat yourselves on the back. Now get back to work.

You are making it onto "their" RADAR screen. Being a major part of SoTuS is being on the RADAR screen.

"They" are starting to get worried. "They" are shelling out bucks to Betsy Hart-o-mine and her ilk to write this Hakunah Mattada stuff and to disseminate it all over the newspapers.

Keep up the good works (as Max Weber would say).

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Will on February 7, 2006 - 2:55pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
That is a very interesting perspective. You are suggesting disinformation.

Although I am inclined to characterize Tierney's and Hart's work as denial, or even ignorance, calling it propaganda is certainly clever. It's a polite way of saying: "liar" isn't it?  

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step back on February 7, 2006 - 3:20pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
"They" get paid for doing their devil's work. More here
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step back on February 7, 2006 - 3:38pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Will asks: It's a polite way of saying: "liar" isn't it?

Senator, you are asking me those hard hard questions.
Thankfully, I am not under oath.
So let me evasively answer you.

No. I'm not calling them "liars".
To be liars (in my book), they would have to have a rational, cognitive understanding that they are disseminating a clear untruth and that people are not interpreting their words as sarcasm.

They are paid political hacks.
They are twisters of the twisted word.
That does not make them "liars".

It's been a while since I looked up Tierney's bacground. IIRC, he was an eco major or a poli sci major or an English major.

One of the hard hard concepts for real-science majors to get, is that your fellow student in college partied hardy. He/she did not have to stay up all night memorizing the periodic table and figuring out how to convert atomic mass into grams per mole. (OK that's too easy --but then again I'm just teasing with the toads.) He or she drank copious amounts of ethanol and learned to worship "geniuses" like tunnel-vision Adam Smith or commodities cornicopians like Julian Simmons. He or she became convinced that Chicken Little will always be wrong. (He's always been wrong before! Sound logic is sound logic.)

There must have been a couple of Chicken Littles pecking away on Easter Island, but the lumber-and-statues mob guys probably whacked 'em. Bad for business you know. That's why you don't read about them Chicken-Littlers in the Easter Island history books.

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philch on February 7, 2006 - 7:55pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
OOO! OOO! To be a fly on the wall (or the gas pump) when the first piece of sky hits his head! No wait! A fly with a camera!
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step back on February 7, 2006 - 9:10pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
NYT will supress that story for 5 years until after the SHTF (another acronym).
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Jack Greene on February 7, 2006 - 11:41pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Step Back

You are pretty sharp, not as good as this site's support staff, but good.

Still, I want to say "bite me".

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step back on February 8, 2006 - 1:55am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
OK. You said it.
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