I work for an oil company. Every time I turn around, my industry is scapegoated for high gas prices. Even though people lose their lives each year in this industry to keep the gas flowing, and our profit margins are less than those of many other industries, we are painted as villains out to rip off the public. That is unfortunate. I would say that Democratic politicians are the worst offenders.
It is time to stop pointing fingers, and to start implementing policies that will benefit energy consumers in the long term. Ensuring a steady supply of cheap energy is not the way to do it, as this will cause us to burn through our remaining energy supplies at a faster rate. I believe the root problem is our reluctance to embrace conservation, and unless this is addressed all other solutions are doomed.
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Somehow, I doubt they will use it as it doesn't play into the "poor me, gas is too high" story. :^(
While I basically agree with what you said in your letter, I can almost guarantee that it will either be ignored or given patronizing lip service (....thank you for your interest in.....blah, blah).
Serious conservation is a necessary but not sufficient condition for getting ourselves out of this energy mess. However, pushing conservation is not a great way to get yourself elected or reelected. Just ask Jimmy Carter. The way you do that is to put on that millions-dollar smile and proclaim, "It's morning in America!"
Politicians scapegoat the oil companies because any other course of action would require some imagination and maybe even some sacrifice on the part of the constituents. Maybe the Republicans don't scapegoat as much but then they are in the corporations' pockets. Instead, Frist comes up with "solutions" like $100 rebates. And we actually pay these clowns with our tax dollars? Or, at least Chinese dollars.
The oil companies try to do what all corporations do and that is maximize returns for their shareholders. Big deal.
Maybe the Republicans don't scapegoat as much but then they are in the corporations' pockets.
I agree that the Republicans have their own issues. But in this case, it was the Democratic governors who asked for sad tales about how the high cost of energy has affected us. So, I complied.
I also submitted a question for today's conference call with the governors. I asked when they were going to stop pointing fingers, and get serious about conservation. I also pointed out that claiming ethanol is the answer is incredibly naive.
Of all the people on this board I respect you a lot. But "I would say that Democratic politicians are the worst offenders" and then you go on to say "I asked when they were going to stop pointing fingers". Come on, give me a break, if your statement is to have people "not pointing fingers", it would be best to start at home.
Of all the people on this board I respect you a lot. But "I would say that Democratic politicians are the worst offenders" and then you go on to say "I asked when they were going to stop pointing fingers". Come on, give me a break, if your statement is to have people "not pointing fingers", it would be best to start at home.
I am not sure I understand your point. Both sides are playing politics with a very important issue by blaming everyone by consumers for high gas prices. Dems are pointing fingers at Republicans and at oil companies for the energy crisis. Likewise, Republicans are pointing fingers at environmentalists and Democrats. This is too serious of an issue to play politics with, and I want to bring attention to these games.
If you are saying that I shouldn't be pointing fingers at their finger-pointing, well, I disagree. If enough people ask them to stop finger-pointing and playing politics, maybe they will get serious about addressing core issues. In that way, perhaps I can accomplish something by my finger-pointing. What exactly are they going to accomplish by pointing fingers at oil companies and blaming them for high gas prices?
Sorry to not make my point well. You say that that it is too serious a game for finger-pointing. Yet you have no problem pointing fingers at Democrats. Then you say "If enough people ask them to stop finger-pointing", yet there is no problem with you doing it yourself, as long as it is about Democrats. Hey I could care less about politics, I hate everybody. But if you want to know who screwed the pouch on the energy bill, you would have to look at those in power. Though I am sure it is good for your paycheck, and I don't blame you for that.
Yet you have no problem pointing fingers at Democrats. Then you say "If enough people ask them to stop finger-pointing", yet there is no problem with you doing it yourself, as long as it is about Democrats.
Well, that's your misinterpretation. I am not doing it just at Democrats. I am doing it at any grandstanding and pandering politicians.
But if you want to know who screwed the pouch on the energy bill, you would have to look at those in power.
The problem is both sides. Those not in power are generally not making suggestions that are truly helpful. They are grandstanding and trying to deflect attention from the real problem. Those in power are not pushing policies that are helpful, and I have directed ire at them. It takes a lot of courage to stand up and tackle the root cause, and I see few politicians willing to do it. So, they waste time, while we drive the truck toward the cliff. It ticks me off.
Though I am sure it is good for your paycheck, and I don't blame you for that.
My paycheck has nothing to do with it, and since that's how you view me, I won't be responding to you any further. I joined Big Oil to work on an alternative energy project. I advocate policies that would encourage conservation. How do you suppose that's good for my paycheck?
This seems to be getting very negative, I had no intention of it getting that way. Obviously I completely misinterpreted your opening comments, please forgive me. I will try to reread it an understand your point of view. Everyone tends to look out for place where there bread is buttered on, if you take offense, once again I give my regrets.
This seems to be getting very negative, I had no intention of it getting that way. Obviously I completely misinterpreted your opening comments, please forgive me.
No harm done. I do think you misunderstood my point. I am not just pointing fingers at Democrats. I am pointing fingers at those I believe are politically pandering. This issue is important. When I hear people say we can make gas cheap again by punishing the oil companies or watering down environmental protections, it makes me angry.
I am in a funny position, working for an oil company and supporting conservation and alternative energy. I am constantly surrounded by people on one side hurling names at me like "conservative", and then I have others snarling "liberal" at me. I have been called both in just the past 30 days. I don't really fit well with either party. I prefer most policies of the Democrats (especially with respect to science policy), but I don't like their constant oil company bashing. I understand that they can score political points, but I see it as a cynical ploy that offers no solutions.
Please understand the sincerity in which I apologize for any transgression on my part, I guess I am to old and thick skinned to realize what I am saying.
I am constantly surrounded by people on one side hurling names at me like "conservative", and then I have others snarling "liberal" at me. I have been called both in just the past 30 days. I don't really fit well with either party.
I believe that the cities and states with excellent mass transit, enjoyed by all classes of people, will win. People will want to live in those states and cities as the price of gas goes up and up.
What can we do on a city or state basis to encourage the building of excellent mass transit?
The big issue in Michigan for the governor race this fall is JOBS. How does Michigan convince employers to stay in Michigan and come to Michigan?
I believe that the state needs to provide an alternative way (other than cars) for the workers to get to their jobs. If they don't, the workers will spend way too much of their income on going to and from work.
Employers will soon start using mass transit as one of the reasons in deciding where to locate.
We really aren't building highways. We're mostly just repairing them now.
So much so, that they changed the national Professional Engineer's licensing exam, removing the long-standing question about laying out a cloverleaf interchange in favor of environmental permitting questions. Few engineers lay out new highways now. They just patch the existing ones.
I think that's what the "build public transportation" folk are missing. Since we hit the U.S. peak, we really haven't built much infrastructure at all. We can't afford it. Roads, sewers, power grids...all built 45 to 75 years ago.
We aren't going to be building a bunch of new infrastructure in the post-carbon age. We'll have even less money, and the raw materials will be even scarcer and more expensive.
In Grand Rapids, Michigan, we just opened a great new highway (M6) that goes around the south side of the city. Now the city can expand to the south. You should see all the strip malls being built.
We just approved building a highway from Kalamazoo, Michigan to Indiana...changing a two lane into a divided 4 lane.
So, we are building them around here. But, I agree, we won't be for long.
Oh, we're still building a few highways. And we are expanding capacity, though that is becoming increasingly difficult and more expensive.
But it's nothing like we were doing before.
What really ticks me off is the power grid. A lot of it was built ca. 1930, and it's just not up to handling the modern load. Even after the Blackout of 2003, nobody's doing anything. Our Congresscritters talked about how important it was for the grid to be upgraded for about a week after the event, then dropped it like a hot potato.
Just Dr. Duncan's Olduvai Gorge Theory in action-- more and more grid outages are occurring worldwide. Here is an interesting link discussing how heat-related deaths dwarf deaths from any other disasters. AZ & FL, which have a large % of heat-sensitive elderly, would see skyrocketing death rates if the grid goes down:
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In 2003, a summer heat wave killed between 22,000 and 35,000 people in five European countries. Temperatures soared to 104 degrees Fahrenheit in Paris, and London recorded its first triple-digit Fahrenheit temperature in history.
If a similar heat wave struck the United States, the results would be disastrous, a new study suggests. Urban areas are particularly vulnerable, because dark asphalt and rooftops absorb more solar radiation than natural landscapes, raising nighttime temperatures by as much as five degrees, according to NASA studies.
In order to see the effects of extreme heat events on the United States, the researchers developed models to simulate scenarios analogous to that of Europe's for heat-sensitive urban areas.
"We tried to take the Paris heat wave in 2003 and transpose it onto the climate of five different cities," Kalkstein said. The cities: Detroit, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C.
The results were not cool. The total simulated excess deaths were more than five times the historical summer average, with New York and St. Louis showing the highest numbers.
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The Asphalt Wonderland's tarmac of black death can easily reach 160 deg F during the hottest part of the day. People that have fainted onto peakheat asphalt quickly suffer terrible burns.
Forget simulations. Does anyone still recall the Upper Midwest heat wave of 1995? 106 degrees F. in Chicago, 700 excess deaths (memory) at the County morgue, temps remaining above 90 all night.
Since we're speaking here of infrastructure one of the scariest parts of that heat wave was that as it neared the end, bridges and roads started to buckle. Other bridges were closed as a precaution. A few roofs here and there buckled but I can tell you every roof in the Midwest lost a lot of its lifespan in those 2 weeks.
There are roads in Death Valley and I'm sure they are built tp take what the sun throws at them. If the experience of 1995 led highway engineers to start building for foreseeable climate change there are pigs flying past my window.
One other little worry in a record-breaking heat wave is 'swag' in the transmission lines. Swag is the ammount of extra cable included between two towers to account for contraction and expansion of the line based on temperature. Not enough 'swag' in cold temperatures and the line contracts until it snaps. Too much 'swag' and in hot temperatures it sags enough to short out on objects or ground below. If the temperatures exceed the design specifications of a transmission line by enough it may cause the grid to fail precisely when the electricity demand is the greatest for cooling .....
Grid failure brings up an interesting future consideration. How will the Govt carefully apportion postPeak energy supplies and pricing schemes in future A/C vs Heating survival rates?
Is it better to postPeak hoard the SPR, NG, and Coal for summer A/C to prevent violence and heat-related deaths? Afterall, you can always put on more clothing, move to multiple families/house, or put another log on the fire to stay warm. There is no escaping lethal heat with the grid down; if you don't have a home genset, your screwed.
Or is it better to prevent freezing deaths among the young and accept the high elderly heat-death rate as a logical first result of the Dieoff process? This is how Nature reduces most old animals in drought stricken areas of high heat. [Don't forget grid failure quickly means no lifesaving ice & water too-- ask anyone in a hurricane zone]. Colder climates usually have better water infrastructure and you can hang meat in your shed for safe cold storage. Just don't eat the yellow snow.
Back in '95 the sagging powerlines TN Granny mentions were very conspicuous. I remember discussion of that problem at the time but AFAIK there were no big outages and then it finally got cooler. To this layman's eye it did look near the limit.
The general outlook on global warming is for greater deviations around a somewhat higher temperature mean. So engineers should be preparing roadways or powerlines & everything else to survive higher highs and lower lows. If someone will pay for it. If it can be done at all.
The European heatwave of 2003 was an anomaly at 3 standard deviations. I hope good engineers are ready for something like that. In Switzerland it was 5 standard deviations. No one prepares for that. For some reason things are intrinsically stable or they're not. As global warming moves along these events become more common.
Note to Bob. My sister who'd been in Scottsdale since '73 came to visit in '95 and said she'd never felt heat like we had.
As for Bob's point about violence: when it's really hot people act like dead dogs. Nothing at all happens until it gets cooler.
The other big outcome of Europe 2003 was crop failure. From Spain to Ukraine, every region, every crop. MSM here focussed on trivia like French grand cru vineyards. 70% shortfall in Ukrainian wheat was more important. By and large Europe did OK because they are so far into specialty luxury agriculture and because they have money and because there are stockpiles and a global market. What has happeneed before can happen again. What happened in Europe could happen in North America. Or South Asia. And then there would be no more stockpile.
Having a home generator only helps for a little while, while you have gas. How much do you keep? Doomers seem to have very little imagination to me. And what gets us may be what we have not imagined at all.
There were posts here a few days ago laughing at Stephen Hawking for positing a human exit to other planets. No one seemed to notice his number one big concern was sudden global warming. If hopping the next Pan Am flight to the moon is out of the question my best guess is do what's possible here and now to slow global warming and build community. Standing over your dying generator shotgun in hand will not help you survive.
Katrina was not an anomaly at all. Something like that happens with some predictability down in NOLA every twenty years or so. Global warming or not. Our track record at Scout's motto "Be Prepared" is not good.
Phoenix is building out and out at a record pace where millions of more people will be subject to the possible problem you cite. This will just make the dilemma and the possible result even worse, not to mention increasing demands on the grid, and, unfortunately, coal. Start by stopping growth in places like Phoenix and warning that in the future there may be megadeaths.
Alternatively, only allow development that has enough installed PV to at least take care of enough air conditioning to save lives when needed.
More wood box houses! JC when will we ever look back at the pre-gasoline, pre- eletricity, pre- air conditioning style of house(adobe)for the SW. Thermal Mass - not techy enough for todays people...too bad for us.
The best response ought to be building district cooling networks in dense urban areas and power them with solar heat in realy sunny areas and combined heat and power plants. This makes air conditioning cheaper in those areas and thus attracts people to live in a more resource efficient way. Should be a good investment.
The district cooling networks in my town are motly run on excess district heating capacity from a combined heat and power garbage incineration plant. Its a municipiality owned utility and the combined heat, power and cooling utility is a cash cow for the municipiality budget but most of the incomes are invested in network enlargements and reinvestments in production.
That happened to a guy caught stealing I dunno, a package of cigs or something at a Wal-Mart, he was held down on the hot asphalt and he got burned, couldn't breathe, and died. Even though people in the crowd that gathered begged the security guard to let the guy up, hearing him say he was dying, the security guard held him down until he died.
Yeah, and I'm sure you'd be posting this if he had been caught violating your family. File this one under poorly trained security guards. Nothing else. Some crowd. Glad they were all so willing to see someone die. "They begged." Like they couldn't stop the guy. You make it sound like the My Lai massacre.
We have built that infrastructure...the only problem is it's all in the suburbs. All the new development brought increased infrastructure. I used to live in OFALLON, MO. When I lived there, it was the 2nd fastest growing community in the country. I literally watched farmers sell out and within months, new subs, roads, and even more cars! We don't maintain what we have, we just "Set and forget it."
I think that is a great point about us not building infrastructure. This country is crumbling - NAFTA has loaded up the roads here in NY State with semi trailers going to and from Canada. The interstates are being pulverized in the process - there are sections of the NY Thruway that have the quality of an old farm road and only superficial repairs are made. And this is for a road that is (was) supposed to pay for itself with the tolls collected for the privilege of driving on it.
Our local NPR affiliate ran an article about the repairs needed on the Ohio River locks and dams system. 75% will reach 50 years old in the next few years which is when major overhauls and repairs are needed according the the Army Corps. I wonder if our government has the will to actually get this done and done right, or if they'll just do patch work here and there as the system slowly crumbles. (probably the latter.)
I'm liberal in some ways (environment, foreign policy) but generally conservative in the sense that I generally believe in small government (I know there's a contradiction there and I'm trying to work that out). Anyway, as it seems to me, there's a good financial incentive for America to build up it's infrastructure again besides just the obvious reasons. If we don't spend a dollar on repairing dams or other infrastructure, that dollar will likely just end up buying some piece of plastic junk made in China. Government projects and spending on infrastructure could actually curb our trade deficit by forcing us to spend more of our money here and create jobs.
Well, no one really believes in small government anymore, it's just a matter of what we spend the money on. The truth is we need a government to provide certain things, like building infrastruture. You won't get a cohesive and efficient system if you just expect the private sector to handle it, you need an overarching design.
The problem with the Republicans is their priorities are just terrible. They are using government revenues to give preferential treatment to their favorite corporations. We're also spending way too much money on a military that by and large is useless to us (this is not just Republicans, but they are the worst offenders). Our strategy of trying to police the world while everything falls apart at home is a clear recepie for disaster. Of course, military spending is also greatly another backdoor form of corporate welfare.
Really, we should give welfare to the road builders and construction companies, and get something we actually need the government to provide in the form of infrastructure. We could cut our military spending down to 1/10th of what it is now and we'd still easily be able to repel any attack on this country, which won't happen anyway since we have nukes.
Nagorak,
I guess I consider myself a recovering conservative for exactly the reasons you mention. The democrats, however, are so pathetic that it makes this transition difficult.
Phineas I feel the same way - sure I voted for Bush in 04, but only because the Dems scare me even more, and yes, I realized that means they scare me very much!
The Dem's are on the same program as the Repubs, it's often not even different corp's they're owned by, it's the same ones.
I'm a Conservative in the original sense, you don't spend what you don't have, you mind your own business, etc. I'd like to see the US become like Switzerland, armed to the teeth but absolutely neutral (keep in mind the Swiss are neutral, not pacifist - there's a huge difference). If we "need" outside gas and oil, tough titty, we make do with what we have - who knows, that way maybe we find out gas 'n' oil aren't necessary for a good life all that much. We don't invite half the world's refugees to move here, instead, we encourage 'em to hang the crooks running their own countries instead - and we help in this process by not setting up said crooks in the first place. And so on.
And I'm a big old tree hugger, I guess I'm a Hard Green. The Earth needs only 1 billion humans? No problem, this is do-able, the easiest way is to cut down childbirth, and decrease the population that way - also the process can be eased by going to a lower energy lifestyle - homo sapiens'eses use a lot less energy than homo colossi. Yeah we need the pupfish and the spotted owl and that odd little moth that looks like a stick that landed on my doorway the other day.
So, I'm a conservative yet I stand for almost everything opposite what the modern "conservatives" stand for, and also what modern "liberals" seeem to stand for - it seems to be pushing for 10 billion world population, sacrificing quality of life at the alter of high tech, and setting up a Stalin-in-a-camisole nanny state, Oh yes and still doing everything they can for their favorite corporations esp, the ones they own. The big-L Liberals are just as much a plutocracy as those creepy neocon Kristian Konservatives, hell if they were regular people they'd all go to the same bar and tell jokes and get drunk together on the weekends.
I wonder if there can be a .... Beast/Non-Beast political axis? Beast would mean you drive everywhere, eat ADM and Kraft etc foods, fly all you can, etc. Non-Beast would mean you walk, grow your own food, if you take a vacation you at hitch it or bus it or work your passage on a ship or just take your vacation near home, perhaps you take it on a bike with a set of panniers. And you could have every graduation of course, for instance sadly, the way I live, I'm pretty far towards the Beast pole.
How Have High Energy Costs Affected You?
Here was the sad story that I told them:
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I work for an oil company. Every time I turn around, my industry is scapegoated for high gas prices. Even though people lose their lives each year in this industry to keep the gas flowing, and our profit margins are less than those of many other industries, we are painted as villains out to rip off the public. That is unfortunate. I would say that Democratic politicians are the worst offenders.
It is time to stop pointing fingers, and to start implementing policies that will benefit energy consumers in the long term. Ensuring a steady supply of cheap energy is not the way to do it, as this will cause us to burn through our remaining energy supplies at a faster rate. I believe the root problem is our reluctance to embrace conservation, and unless this is addressed all other solutions are doomed.
----------------
Somehow, I doubt they will use it as it doesn't play into the "poor me, gas is too high" story. :^(
RR
While I basically agree with what you said in your letter, I can almost guarantee that it will either be ignored or given patronizing lip service (....thank you for your interest in.....blah, blah).
Serious conservation is a necessary but not sufficient condition for getting ourselves out of this energy mess. However, pushing conservation is not a great way to get yourself elected or reelected. Just ask Jimmy Carter. The way you do that is to put on that millions-dollar smile and proclaim, "It's morning in America!"
The oil companies try to do what all corporations do and that is maximize returns for their shareholders. Big deal.
I agree that the Republicans have their own issues. But in this case, it was the Democratic governors who asked for sad tales about how the high cost of energy has affected us. So, I complied.
I also submitted a question for today's conference call with the governors. I asked when they were going to stop pointing fingers, and get serious about conservation. I also pointed out that claiming ethanol is the answer is incredibly naive.
RR
Of all the people on this board I respect you a lot. But "I would say that Democratic politicians are the worst offenders" and then you go on to say "I asked when they were going to stop pointing fingers". Come on, give me a break, if your statement is to have people "not pointing fingers", it would be best to start at home.
I am not sure I understand your point. Both sides are playing politics with a very important issue by blaming everyone by consumers for high gas prices. Dems are pointing fingers at Republicans and at oil companies for the energy crisis. Likewise, Republicans are pointing fingers at environmentalists and Democrats. This is too serious of an issue to play politics with, and I want to bring attention to these games.
If you are saying that I shouldn't be pointing fingers at their finger-pointing, well, I disagree. If enough people ask them to stop finger-pointing and playing politics, maybe they will get serious about addressing core issues. In that way, perhaps I can accomplish something by my finger-pointing. What exactly are they going to accomplish by pointing fingers at oil companies and blaming them for high gas prices?
RR
Sorry to not make my point well. You say that that it is too serious a game for finger-pointing. Yet you have no problem pointing fingers at Democrats. Then you say "If enough people ask them to stop finger-pointing", yet there is no problem with you doing it yourself, as long as it is about Democrats. Hey I could care less about politics, I hate everybody. But if you want to know who screwed the pouch on the energy bill, you would have to look at those in power. Though I am sure it is good for your paycheck, and I don't blame you for that.
Well, that's your misinterpretation. I am not doing it just at Democrats. I am doing it at any grandstanding and pandering politicians.
But if you want to know who screwed the pouch on the energy bill, you would have to look at those in power.
The problem is both sides. Those not in power are generally not making suggestions that are truly helpful. They are grandstanding and trying to deflect attention from the real problem. Those in power are not pushing policies that are helpful, and I have directed ire at them. It takes a lot of courage to stand up and tackle the root cause, and I see few politicians willing to do it. So, they waste time, while we drive the truck toward the cliff. It ticks me off.
Though I am sure it is good for your paycheck, and I don't blame you for that.
My paycheck has nothing to do with it, and since that's how you view me, I won't be responding to you any further. I joined Big Oil to work on an alternative energy project. I advocate policies that would encourage conservation. How do you suppose that's good for my paycheck?
RR
This seems to be getting very negative, I had no intention of it getting that way. Obviously I completely misinterpreted your opening comments, please forgive me. I will try to reread it an understand your point of view. Everyone tends to look out for place where there bread is buttered on, if you take offense, once again I give my regrets.
No harm done. I do think you misunderstood my point. I am not just pointing fingers at Democrats. I am pointing fingers at those I believe are politically pandering. This issue is important. When I hear people say we can make gas cheap again by punishing the oil companies or watering down environmental protections, it makes me angry.
I am in a funny position, working for an oil company and supporting conservation and alternative energy. I am constantly surrounded by people on one side hurling names at me like "conservative", and then I have others snarling "liberal" at me. I have been called both in just the past 30 days. I don't really fit well with either party. I prefer most policies of the Democrats (especially with respect to science policy), but I don't like their constant oil company bashing. I understand that they can score political points, but I see it as a cynical ploy that offers no solutions.
RR
Please understand the sincerity in which I apologize for any transgression on my part, I guess I am to old and thick skinned to realize what I am saying.
Libservative! :P
I believe that the cities and states with excellent mass transit, enjoyed by all classes of people, will win. People will want to live in those states and cities as the price of gas goes up and up.
What can we do on a city or state basis to encourage the building of excellent mass transit?
Rick
Is that a good thing?
I believe that the state needs to provide an alternative way (other than cars) for the workers to get to their jobs. If they don't, the workers will spend way too much of their income on going to and from work.
Employers will soon start using mass transit as one of the reasons in deciding where to locate.
Rick
Already, public transportation systems are under strain, in the U.S. and around the world. More passengers won't necessarily be viewed as good thing.
Mass transit that all classes ride
We keep building highways...why not increase mass transit to handle more riders and forget about increasing highway capacity?
Rick
So much so, that they changed the national Professional Engineer's licensing exam, removing the long-standing question about laying out a cloverleaf interchange in favor of environmental permitting questions. Few engineers lay out new highways now. They just patch the existing ones.
I think that's what the "build public transportation" folk are missing. Since we hit the U.S. peak, we really haven't built much infrastructure at all. We can't afford it. Roads, sewers, power grids...all built 45 to 75 years ago.
We aren't going to be building a bunch of new infrastructure in the post-carbon age. We'll have even less money, and the raw materials will be even scarcer and more expensive.
We just approved building a highway from Kalamazoo, Michigan to Indiana...changing a two lane into a divided 4 lane.
So, we are building them around here. But, I agree, we won't be for long.
Rick
But it's nothing like we were doing before.
What really ticks me off is the power grid. A lot of it was built ca. 1930, and it's just not up to handling the modern load. Even after the Blackout of 2003, nobody's doing anything. Our Congresscritters talked about how important it was for the grid to be upgraded for about a week after the event, then dropped it like a hot potato.
If not then, when?
Just Dr. Duncan's Olduvai Gorge Theory in action-- more and more grid outages are occurring worldwide. Here is an interesting link discussing how heat-related deaths dwarf deaths from any other disasters. AZ & FL, which have a large % of heat-sensitive elderly, would see skyrocketing death rates if the grid goes down:
http://tinyurl.com/dysj8
--------------
In 2003, a summer heat wave killed between 22,000 and 35,000 people in five European countries. Temperatures soared to 104 degrees Fahrenheit in Paris, and London recorded its first triple-digit Fahrenheit temperature in history.
If a similar heat wave struck the United States, the results would be disastrous, a new study suggests. Urban areas are particularly vulnerable, because dark asphalt and rooftops absorb more solar radiation than natural landscapes, raising nighttime temperatures by as much as five degrees, according to NASA studies.
In order to see the effects of extreme heat events on the United States, the researchers developed models to simulate scenarios analogous to that of Europe's for heat-sensitive urban areas.
"We tried to take the Paris heat wave in 2003 and transpose it onto the climate of five different cities," Kalkstein said. The cities: Detroit, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C.
The results were not cool. The total simulated excess deaths were more than five times the historical summer average, with New York and St. Louis showing the highest numbers.
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The Asphalt Wonderland's tarmac of black death can easily reach 160 deg F during the hottest part of the day. People that have fainted onto peakheat asphalt quickly suffer terrible burns.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Since we're speaking here of infrastructure one of the scariest parts of that heat wave was that as it neared the end, bridges and roads started to buckle. Other bridges were closed as a precaution. A few roofs here and there buckled but I can tell you every roof in the Midwest lost a lot of its lifespan in those 2 weeks.
There are roads in Death Valley and I'm sure they are built tp take what the sun throws at them. If the experience of 1995 led highway engineers to start building for foreseeable climate change there are pigs flying past my window.
Grid failure brings up an interesting future consideration. How will the Govt carefully apportion postPeak energy supplies and pricing schemes in future A/C vs Heating survival rates?
- Is it better to postPeak hoard the SPR, NG, and Coal for summer A/C to prevent violence and heat-related deaths? Afterall, you can always put on more clothing, move to multiple families/house, or put another log on the fire to stay warm. There is no escaping lethal heat with the grid down; if you don't have a home genset, your screwed.
- Or is it better to prevent freezing deaths among the young and accept the high elderly heat-death rate as a logical first result of the Dieoff process? This is how Nature reduces most old animals in drought stricken areas of high heat. [Don't forget grid failure quickly means no lifesaving ice & water too-- ask anyone in a hurricane zone]. Colder climates usually have better water infrastructure and you can hang meat in your shed for safe cold storage. Just don't eat the yellow snow.
Comments?Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
The general outlook on global warming is for greater deviations around a somewhat higher temperature mean. So engineers should be preparing roadways or powerlines & everything else to survive higher highs and lower lows. If someone will pay for it. If it can be done at all.
The European heatwave of 2003 was an anomaly at 3 standard deviations. I hope good engineers are ready for something like that. In Switzerland it was 5 standard deviations. No one prepares for that. For some reason things are intrinsically stable or they're not. As global warming moves along these events become more common.
Note to Bob. My sister who'd been in Scottsdale since '73 came to visit in '95 and said she'd never felt heat like we had.
As for Bob's point about violence: when it's really hot people act like dead dogs. Nothing at all happens until it gets cooler.
The other big outcome of Europe 2003 was crop failure. From Spain to Ukraine, every region, every crop. MSM here focussed on trivia like French grand cru vineyards. 70% shortfall in Ukrainian wheat was more important. By and large Europe did OK because they are so far into specialty luxury agriculture and because they have money and because there are stockpiles and a global market. What has happeneed before can happen again. What happened in Europe could happen in North America. Or South Asia. And then there would be no more stockpile.
Having a home generator only helps for a little while, while you have gas. How much do you keep? Doomers seem to have very little imagination to me. And what gets us may be what we have not imagined at all.
There were posts here a few days ago laughing at Stephen Hawking for positing a human exit to other planets. No one seemed to notice his number one big concern was sudden global warming. If hopping the next Pan Am flight to the moon is out of the question my best guess is do what's possible here and now to slow global warming and build community. Standing over your dying generator shotgun in hand will not help you survive.
Katrina was not an anomaly at all. Something like that happens with some predictability down in NOLA every twenty years or so. Global warming or not. Our track record at Scout's motto "Be Prepared" is not good.
Alternatively, only allow development that has enough installed PV to at least take care of enough air conditioning to save lives when needed.
The district cooling networks in my town are motly run on excess district heating capacity from a combined heat and power garbage incineration plant. Its a municipiality owned utility and the combined heat, power and cooling utility is a cash cow for the municipiality budget but most of the incomes are invested in network enlargements and reinvestments in production.
Welcome to the future.
I think that is a great point about us not building infrastructure. This country is crumbling - NAFTA has loaded up the roads here in NY State with semi trailers going to and from Canada. The interstates are being pulverized in the process - there are sections of the NY Thruway that have the quality of an old farm road and only superficial repairs are made. And this is for a road that is (was) supposed to pay for itself with the tolls collected for the privilege of driving on it.
I'm liberal in some ways (environment, foreign policy) but generally conservative in the sense that I generally believe in small government (I know there's a contradiction there and I'm trying to work that out). Anyway, as it seems to me, there's a good financial incentive for America to build up it's infrastructure again besides just the obvious reasons. If we don't spend a dollar on repairing dams or other infrastructure, that dollar will likely just end up buying some piece of plastic junk made in China. Government projects and spending on infrastructure could actually curb our trade deficit by forcing us to spend more of our money here and create jobs.
The problem with the Republicans is their priorities are just terrible. They are using government revenues to give preferential treatment to their favorite corporations. We're also spending way too much money on a military that by and large is useless to us (this is not just Republicans, but they are the worst offenders). Our strategy of trying to police the world while everything falls apart at home is a clear recepie for disaster. Of course, military spending is also greatly another backdoor form of corporate welfare.
Really, we should give welfare to the road builders and construction companies, and get something we actually need the government to provide in the form of infrastructure. We could cut our military spending down to 1/10th of what it is now and we'd still easily be able to repel any attack on this country, which won't happen anyway since we have nukes.
I guess I consider myself a recovering conservative for exactly the reasons you mention. The democrats, however, are so pathetic that it makes this transition difficult.
The Dem's are on the same program as the Repubs, it's often not even different corp's they're owned by, it's the same ones.
I'm a Conservative in the original sense, you don't spend what you don't have, you mind your own business, etc. I'd like to see the US become like Switzerland, armed to the teeth but absolutely neutral (keep in mind the Swiss are neutral, not pacifist - there's a huge difference). If we "need" outside gas and oil, tough titty, we make do with what we have - who knows, that way maybe we find out gas 'n' oil aren't necessary for a good life all that much. We don't invite half the world's refugees to move here, instead, we encourage 'em to hang the crooks running their own countries instead - and we help in this process by not setting up said crooks in the first place. And so on.
And I'm a big old tree hugger, I guess I'm a Hard Green. The Earth needs only 1 billion humans? No problem, this is do-able, the easiest way is to cut down childbirth, and decrease the population that way - also the process can be eased by going to a lower energy lifestyle - homo sapiens'eses use a lot less energy than homo colossi. Yeah we need the pupfish and the spotted owl and that odd little moth that looks like a stick that landed on my doorway the other day.
So, I'm a conservative yet I stand for almost everything opposite what the modern "conservatives" stand for, and also what modern "liberals" seeem to stand for - it seems to be pushing for 10 billion world population, sacrificing quality of life at the alter of high tech, and setting up a Stalin-in-a-camisole nanny state, Oh yes and still doing everything they can for their favorite corporations esp, the ones they own. The big-L Liberals are just as much a plutocracy as those creepy neocon Kristian Konservatives, hell if they were regular people they'd all go to the same bar and tell jokes and get drunk together on the weekends.
I wonder if there can be a .... Beast/Non-Beast political axis? Beast would mean you drive everywhere, eat ADM and Kraft etc foods, fly all you can, etc. Non-Beast would mean you walk, grow your own food, if you take a vacation you at hitch it or bus it or work your passage on a ship or just take your vacation near home, perhaps you take it on a bike with a set of panniers. And you could have every graduation of course, for instance sadly, the way I live, I'm pretty far towards the Beast pole.
Antoinetta III