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DrumBeat: July 24, 2007
Posted by Leanan on July 24, 2007 - 8:52am
Topic: Miscellaneous
Phil Flynn: You got to love those OPEC softies
The sentiment was almost touching. OPEC is concerned about us and our economic well being. Doesn’t that make you feel good? It almost brought a tear to my eye and a lump to my throat when it was reported that OPEC is concerned about the potential impact of near record oil prices on the world’s economy. Isn’t that just the sweetest thing? The cartel that helped bring the world $76 a barrel oil is now all of a sudden feeling a rush of concern that these prices are a danger. Not that they see any problems right now with the world's economy mind you, but they stand ready to pump more oil if needed. Never mind that some estimate that OPEC production fell last month. That was afterall, the old OPEC. This appears to be a new loving, caring cartel.
Stephen Harper likes to describe Canada as an "energy superpower." It's a catchy claim, but a ridiculous one.Surely an "energy superpower" would be a country that, at the very least, is assertive in taking care of its own energy needs.
Not Canada. Indeed, Canada has been almost negligent in this regard, having surrendered an astonishing degree of control over our energy to the United States in the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Since then, Canada has been more energy pussycat than superpower.
China: More oil reserve bases to be built
China plans to build four levels of crude oil reserves made up of two parts - the government reserve and enterprise storage - according to a source with the nation's largest oil company."The government reserve will be at two levels, a strategic crude oil reserve base by the central government, and an oil reserve base by local governments," an official with PetroChina, who declined to be named, said.
Migrating to New Energy Paradigms Part 2 - The Economic Importance of Crude Oil
Emerging energy paradigms drive technological innovations by entrepreneurs, which, as a consequence of their commercialisation and market penetration drive the world economy.Armed with this understanding, we see that the US's (and Australia's) failure to ratify the Kyoto protocols was life threatening to all of humanity. The core issue had nothing to do with CO2 emissions. The core issue had to do with the march to market of new energy related technological innovations which would drive the world economy. Failure to ratify the Kyoto protocols was an attempt to block the forces of Nature so as to protect the interests of those whose financial interests were dependent on the previous (oil and coal) related energy paradigms.
Labor Disputes and Oil Drill Shortage Cause Problems for Venezuela’s Oil Industry
With oil prices hitting an 11-month high of $78.40 a barrel in London last week, Chavez remains confident, “Oil is going straight to $100 [per barrel]. No one can stop it,” Chávez said yesterday.
Iraq unions vow 'mutiny' over oil law
Iraq's unions say that the draft oil law is a threat and threaten "mutiny" if parliament approves the bill."This law cancels the great achievements of the Iraq people," Subhi Al Badri, head of the Iraqi Federation of Union Councils, told the Al Sharqiyah TV station. He referred specifically to laws that nationalized Iraq's oil sector.
Iraq oil exports to U.S. second lowest in near 4 yrs
Iraq's crude oil shipments to the United States in May fell to the second lowest monthly level in almost four years, the U.S. Energy Department said on Monday.Iraq exported 341,000 barrels of crude oil a day to the U.S. market in May, down 39 percent from the month before.
How Our Fossil Fuel Dependence Is Jeopardizing Our Healthcare System
Our country's dependency on oil and natural gas cannot be overstated. Nowhere is this truer than in our medical system. This means that the looming energy crisis is also a healthcare crisis.
Oil and Gas: Peak Oil Caucus chairs Bartlett, Udall comment on National Petroleum Council report
Last week, the National Petroleum Council released its new report, "Facing the Hard Truths about Energy," stressing the increased development of alternative energy sources in order to meet global energy demand -- a demand that will likely not be met solely through global oil and gas production. During today's E&ETV Event Coverage, Reps. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) and Tom Udall (D-N.M.), co-chairmen of the Congressional Peak Oil Caucus, discuss the NPC report and explain why they believe it hides the truths about global energy.
Book examines how dwindling oil supplies will cause economic crisis
Today, with oil more than $60 a barrel and more than double the price in 2003, “The Coming Economic Collapse” is a book to be read by anyone who is concerned with how the escalating prices of oil and gasoline will affect the future of our economy.
Kissinger’s secret meeting with Putin
America’s preeminence in the world depends to great extent on its ability to control the global economic system. That system requires that the dollar continue to be linked to oil reserves. But everywhere the petrodollar is under attack. The only solution is to control two-thirds of the world’s remaining petroleum -- which is in the Caspian Basin -- and demand payment in dollars.But that plan has failed. The war in Iraq is lost and the longer America stays, the harder the fall will be. Oil will not continue to be traded in petrodollars, the USD will lose its place as the world’s "reserve currency," and America will slide into a long and agonizing economic downturn.
The machinations and secret "shuttle diplomacy" of Kissinger and his cohorts will amount to nothing. The situation is irreversible. Geography is fate.
We need to extend the olive branch to Russia and prepare for the inevitable shifting of world power.
How the Energy Dice Were Loaded
The names of some of the corporate big shots and industry lobbyists who helped shape the deliberations and conclusions of the super-secret Cheney energy task force in 2001 are now beginning to surface, thanks to a former White House aide who provided a list to The Washington Post.It’s interesting to discover that Kenneth Lay, Enron’s chairman, was favored with two audiences. But the rest is sadly familiar. The task force, which developed a national energy policy, had all the time in the world for the big energy producers — some 40 meetings with the oil, gas and coal companies and their trade associations — but barely a moment for environmentalists. It’s hardly surprising that its report favored producers of fossil fuels at the expense of conservation and alternative fuels.
Electricity Showdown in California
California passed two major greenhouse gas laws last year. One mandates reducing CO2 emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 -- perhaps as much as a 40% cut. The other prohibits the renewal of electricity contracts from traditional coal-fired plants. Together, these laws threaten to increase the cost of all forms of energy, making the Golden State less competitive and throwing thousands of Californians out of work.
Interstate Fuels Mountain Economy In Colorado
"Peak oil is a phenomenon where we get to the maximum production rate that the world will ever see, the supply of oil," he said. "Some experts say it's happened already, others say it'll happen sometime between 2010 and 2014. And what that means is, not that oil is going to go away, it just will become very expensive. So I see these things leading toward driving becoming more expensive."You have a combination of things. Not one of them is significant by itself to say we're not going to be driving the way we are today in 2025, but when you take a look at the big picture and all of these things, you really start to wonder if we are going to be traveling the same way we are today."
FedEx cuts fuel surcharge 25% amid soaring energy prices
Logic suggests that FedEx would lose money on this announcement. However, management believes the move will provide them an advantage in the market. Douglas G. Duncan, President and CEO of FedEx Freight said, "By significantly reducing our fuel surcharges, we offer immediate and long-term assistance to shippers who are facing both a challenging economy and volatile fuel prices." Both units update fuel surcharges on a weekly basis based on prices published by the DoE.
Company's environmentally friendly gasification process could potentially unlock oil hidden in U.S. natural resources, and is included among leading unconventional fuel production technologies.
Commodities Report: China's Big Oil Shows Reserve
Conventional wisdom says Chinese oil companies are buying every oil barrel in sight -- no matter where, no matter the cost. Mr. Conventional is sometimes wrong.The parent company of Hong Kong-listed PetroChina, China National Petroleum Corp., turned down a chance to buy a stake in the South American assets of Spanish oil company Repsol YPF SA. People familiar with the proposed deal said CNPC, China's leading oil-and-gas producer by output, feared the wave of nationalization spreading across South America could imperil the return on investment.
Saudi Arabia Hires Sander for Red Sea Oil and Gas Search
Sander Geophysics Arabia, a petroleum explorer, will survey Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coast for oil and gas deposits after winning a contract that may help the world's largest holder of hydrocarbons tap new stocks.
BP profit down, but tops forecasts
BP Plc posted a 1 percent drop in quarterly post-tax profit to $6.087 billion as production fell and refinery outages prevented the oil giant from taking full advantage of near-record refining margins.London-based BP said in a statement that the drop in its second-quarter replacement cost net profit would have been larger had it not been for non-operating gains totaling $741 million, largely from the sale of oil fields and a UK refinery.
Oil drillers Transocean, GlobalSantaFe to merge
Deal will create energy services behemoth.
China’s Shift to Natural Gas Vehicles - Boone Pickens Ahead of the Curve with CNG Fueling Stations
In a recent television interview, Boone Pickens told a reporter he was surprised to discover there were 9,000 buses in China running on natural gas.In an era of worrisome global warming events, it’s hard to argue with a transportation system that has proven to reduce particulate emissions by 95 percent compared to diesel engines and which also reduces carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides by 75 percent and 49 percent, respectively.
Prius sales up 65 percent in Bay Area
The Prius' newfound status reflects the continued greening of Silicon Valley. Rod Diridon, executive director of the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State, and a Prius owner, listed sustained higher gas prices, the availability of car pool lane stickers for solo Prius drivers -- no more are being issued -- and the intelligence of local residents as factors in the Prius' popularity.
Fuel costs forcing charity to turn away patients
To save fuel, volunteer pilot Bill Davidson now packs more than one sick passenger onto his shiny six-seat Piper Malibu airplane when he makes a hospital run.So, on a recent afternoon flight from Houston back to Denton, 19-month-old Marisol Salas, who suffers from a nerve disorder called brachial plexus, sat across from Lenore Kinzenbaw, a 58-year-old woman with breast cancer. Both Marisol and Ms. Kinzenbaw had needed a flight to Houston hospitals for treatment. And Angel Flight – a free Addison-based transportation service provided by pilots flying their own planes and often buying the gas – was their most comfortable and affordable option.
Chile: New Hydro Plant Opens In Region VIII
Hydroelectric plants, upon which Chile relies for a significant part of its electricity production, have been a hot topic of late. Chile’s other principal source of electricity is natural gas, almost all of which comes from neighboring Argentina. Over the past few years, however, Argentina has limited the amount of gas it sends to Chile, creating what many in the media call an energy “crisis.”
Nigeria: Rich in Oil, Dependent On Firewood
It is a paradox of note: the fact that while Nigerians live in the world's sixth-largest oil producer, most of them still rely on wood for their fuel.
Energy Crisis Could Cost Argentina Almost $3.9 Bn This Year
Argentina will have to spend some $3.87 billion this year to confront the country's energy problems, which forced Buenos Aires to ration natural gas and electricity consumption, Spanish news agency EFE has said.
Kenya: Acute Gas Crisis Hits Towns
An acute shortage of liquefied petroleum (cooking) gas has hit major towns countrywide.A Sunday Nation survey yesterday showed that some dealers had not received fresh supplies for the past three months.
Zimbabwe government to take over fuel importation: report
Zimbabwe's government is planning to take over the importation of all fuel in a bid to stop the abuse of foreign currency by private importers, South African public television reported Monday.
India: RIL ready for a fertiliser foray
RIL has proposed to use some of the Krishna-Godavari gas as feedstock bought at market prices. RIL has been facing a huge backlash from fertiliser and power companies over the gas price it is offering them. Now, plans are afoot to take up the challenge by becoming a player itself.
Nigeria: kerosene scarcity will persist, says govt.
Millions of homes in Nigeria are without cooking fuel known as kerosene and the situation will persist for an indefinite time, the government announced here on Monday.
It's tempting to turn to nuclear plants to combat climate change, but alternatives are safer and cheaper.
Energy industry gears up for 'nuclear renaissance'
Twenty years after the Chernobyl disaster poisoned the world's taste for reactors, a French firm is sniffing out fresh uranium supplies in Canada. And the race for nuclear power is back on.
World's largest uranium deposit could light up Paris
In 2006, one quarter of the world's total uranium supply of 39,429 tonnes originated from just three mines in this region about 1,000 kilometers north of Regina: McClean Lake, Rabbit Lake, and McArthur River, which is co-owned by Areva and Canada's Cameco, the world's largest uranium producer.
Quake hits Japanese nuclear plant: a Russian view
The expert dismisses speculation that seismic danger was underestimated when the plant site was chosen: "The Japanese are top-notch professionals, and exacting and pragmatic to the utmost degree in choosing plant sites. It was a mere accident, I think."
Forget the Ethanol Myth - Avoid Biofuel Bubble
Running the numbers on how much land could be put into production for corn-based ethanol makes it clear how little of the fuel could be produced to help curb America's energy gluttony.
Britain's emergency committee meets over worst floods in 60 years
Britain's emergency contingencies committee met Monday night to discuss further measures to combat the worst flooding in 60 years, which Prime Minister Gordon Brown linked to climate change. |
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Humans to blame for global changes in rain: study
Human activities that spur global warming are largely to blame for changes in rainfall patterns over the last century, climate researchers reported on Monday.
Warm Water Creatures May Soon Rule the Oceans
Warm-water sea creatures may one day rule the oceans as their cold-water competitors fail to adapt to climate change.This scenario is suggested by a new study which concludes that a species of Antarctic limpets, a type of small mollusk, can't grow as fast as their limpet cousins in warmer climates. Being introduced to warmer water only stunts the growth of the Antarctic creatures even more.
A new Round-Up has been posted at TOD:Canada.
Water concerns are emerging in North America as the world warms. The US wants a continental approach to water supply, but Canadians disagree. Meanwhile, in parts of England, there's "water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink".
The 'true north' tries to be 'strong and clean', but can't seem to do a proper energy audit. Arctic gas pipelines move a step closer to reality. Power supply in Ontario tightens further, while Cameco discovers uranium in the soil. Can we harness tornado-power next?
The insatiable debt-monster of Wall street spreads from subprime to Alt-A, bond ratings spawn legal action, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac attempt a subprime bail-out. The savings rate stays negative south of the border, as Americans keep borrowing just to stay on the treadmill.
I don't recall where I saw it, but the U.S. Great Lakes basin states have a compact which disallows the export of lake water from the watershed. There is one town that straddles the divide and they have quite the issue dealing with the compact.
Many of these maneuvers depend on the rule of the law and respect for property rights. We know with exacting detail just how little the Bush administration cares for that first bit and a quick look at Zimbabwe shows what happens when things are scarce. A large portion of these rules will simply evaporate in the face of the new reality ... and Canada's provinces will become new U.S. states as soon as survival is at stake.
Hope for the best, plan for the worst.
I tend to have the thought that water is attainable as long as sufficient levels of cheap energy are available. Desalination, distillation, and other methods of treatment can produce good water when it's hard to find otherwise. There are a few areas where water cannot be found at all to be purified, such as the desert, and in those circumstances, we shouldn't be living there to begin with. Where I am, the humidity level is so high, you could get all the water you needed by simply running a dehumidifier and having the captured water go into a sistern. This isn't possible in a desert area, however.
~Durandal (http://www.wtdwtshtf.com/)
As was on the Drum Beat a few days ago:
PARK DISTRICT URGES PUBLIC TO HELP “SAVE OUR LAKE” FROM INDUSTRIAL SLUDGE
BP Whiting refinery vs City of Chicago.
Let the water wars begin!
TOD:Canada Round-Up update:
Oil pipeline accident causes spill in Burnaby, B.C.
Hello TODers,
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/238985
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Canada: Energy pussycat
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The upcoming SPP meeting could be crucial to North America, but I have no idea whether this is the best plan. It would seem that breaking up North America into biosolar watersheds/habitats would make more sense. But feel free to agree/disagree.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Edited to remove the long excerpt. I already posted an excerpt and a link up top.
Thxs Leanan, for the edit,
On another note: from your plethora of Drumbeat keylinks today, I notice the problems in Africa seem to be spreading and cascading blowbacks. From a quick eyeball of the just-updated 2007 info from the CIA Factbook [Life expectancy at birth (years) by country]:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/21...
It is easy to see that this continent's people have their lives foreshortened by 20-30 years compared to much of the rest of the planet. Angola, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe appear to be the worst off.
In response to the long Drumbeat yesterday: if most of your people are dead by their thirties--technology doesn't even have a chance to get rolling, much less hoping to advance it to solve our PO & GW problems.
Assuming the CIA is still around in ten years of postPeak decline & ELM: it will be interesting to see if this rank table has gotten better or worse:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/docs/notesan...
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Life expectancy at birth:
This entry contains the average number of years to be lived by a group of people born in the same year, if mortality at each age remains constant in the future. The entry includes total population as well as the male and female components. Life expectancy at birth is also a measure of overall quality of life in a country and summarizes the mortality at all ages. It can also be thought of as indicating the potential return on investment in human capital and is necessary for the calculation of various actuarial measures.
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If technocornucopia is successful, these numbers should all be much improved in ten years time. My SWAG is that they will be worse. Time will tell.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Hi Totoneila
Lifespans have really increased in the last century. I look at historical land and probate records, and in the US the average lifespan was about 50 a hundred years ago. If you'll look at paleolithic lifespans from archeological sites, I think you'll find that most people lived to about 40. In other words, modern technology has doubled human lifespans through nutrition and medicine. You can see that reflected in region of total collapse anarchy like the Congo.
Another way to think about it: What other animal in a natural state outlives its breeding life?
Bob Ebersole
Bob: Globally, average lifespan increased dramatically up until about 1998. It has since been on a gradual decline.
Actually, the lifespan didn't really get an increase so much as we made a huge impact on Childhood diseases.
Take a look at the life expectancy of someone 50 years old in 1900. It was about 70ish. BUT the life expectancy of a newborn was only 40-50ish.
In 1900 if you made it to 40 or 50 you could expect to live to almost the same age we do now.
We didn't really extend how LONG someone could live, We just increased the number of people reaching adulthood(ie getting rid of whooping cough, and other childhood diseases).
True, although the life expectancy of someone 50 years old today (in a developed nation) would surely be well over 80, so there has been some improvement at the upper end.
Thanks to a lot of expensive geriactric drugs, pace-makers, etc., modern hospitilization and nursing home intervention. This postponement of death isn't getting any cheaper and won't prevail much longer in a declining petroleum regime.
Note on lifespans.
From a purely population point of view, medicine is almost irrelevant (of course, on a personal level you may need medical intervention to survive). The greatest boon to health in our society is clean water, sewerage, food, etc.
If you are considering a downslope in living conditions, then basic hygene and sustenance are your key factors to staying healthy. Childhood and adult diseases killed enormous numbers of people in western countries (1 in 1000 and more per year for some of them) through till the late 1800s/early 1900s, thanks in large part to sewerage systems that were completed in major cities.
"You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created."
Albert Einstein
This (childhood mortality) is in line with research I've seen.
Also the introduction of antibiotics has made a dent.
In recent decades the adoption of foods which have no history of safe consumption (highly processed, GMO, less and less vitamins minerals, high-fructose corn syrup, chemical concoctions) and a reduction in exercise are leading to a reduction in lifespan due to so many people being overweight, obese and getting the slew of diseases that come with such a diet/lifestyle (cancer, autoimmune diseases, CHD, diabetes and more). In particular bypass operations and the ilk do not extend the life of people with CHD (chronic heart disease) and so we'll continue to see lifespan decrease as more people (tr)eat their way to heart attacks. Healthy At 100 is an interesting book about people with a history of long life.
Note that infant mortality took an upturn when doctors got involved in births (partially delt with thanks to Louis Pastour) however, infant mortality is lower when midwives, and not MDs attend the birth (read The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth).
The loss of antibiotics in recent history and the breeding of superbugs by feeding our best antibiotics to animals on unimaginable scales will come home to roost.
A loss of travel speed and distance and less people in general will help with this.
The best thing would be to put a stake into the heart of modern meat production and get people onto a mostly vegetarian/vegan diet.
What evidence is there that it is modern technology that is responsible for the longer lifespans. Can you disentangle "nutrition and medicine" from simple improved hygiene?
And to answer your last question - plenty.
I consider improved hygiene to be medicine. Until the germ theory of disease there was a lot less hygiene.
Look what happened to the population of India after the British cleaned up the water supply.
Bob, polio is an exception to the hygine rule. Polio was known as 'rich kids disease' because it struck so often in the very clean homes of the wealthy. That is also why so much money was poured into a vaccine for polio.
If you can find a copy of 'The River: A Journey To The Source Of HIV And Aids' I believe you will enjoy reading it. I also believe some of the scientists in the search for an oral polio vaccine were involved in an early attempt at population control. Great whodunnit.
Interesting that convincing people to take their drinking water upstream from where they bath and defecate becomes "modern technology."
To the extent that technology is the application of scientific knowledge, and the germ theory of disease is indeed scientific knowledge, then the rest--the actions taken involving implementing mitigation techniques, seem to quite easily fall under the rubric of being a type of practical "technology".
In fact, I do believe that some of these "implementations" I speak of were indeed spurred on by pure, hard, engineering (ie water distribution systems, etc.)
Alas, fire again...
The devil is in the details - or in this case, the context. The discussion was in reference to the wonderful impact of "modern" technology - not just technology in the abstract.
It was modern about 2300 years ago when the Romans installed municipal water systems and municipal sewerage. They also had double doored, meaning inner and outer, hot baths (saunas)and earth tube air conditioning. I don't believe they had germ theory... but they had figured out the concept of clean versus dirty.
shaman,
There were cholera and typhoid fever epidemics in New York and London in the 19th century. They were both big killers in the armies fighting in WWI.
There's a classic history text you might enjoy, called "Rats, Lice and History" about how sanitation changed modern warfare, also read about Typhoid Mary, a chronic carrier of typhoid fever who accidentally infected many people working as a maid.
Another book that's fascinating on the subject is "1491", about the die-offs of the indians in the Americas from various plagues.
Bob Ebersole
oilmanbob,
not clear to me what your point is.
Thanks for the book recommendations, though. R,L&H sounds interesting. I've read 1491, or at least as much as I'm going to. Interesting premise, but kind of week on execution, I thought.
But, so what was it you were trying to demonstrate by observing that disease still exists?
shaman,
My point is, if we get a collapse from running out of energy, our lives will become shorter and more brutish. And if you have a realistic assessment of odds of survival, most of us aren't going to make it.
So, it behooves all of us to work towards a sustainable future, and take care of our population. I have 1 son, and got a vasectomy because I didn't want to add to the population.
I want to see a decent, clean world for my son, and every other child on the planet. I don't want to see armies of child soldiers swarming over the landscape like in the Congo. I don't want to see people so desperate for water because municipal pumps don't work that they drink polluted water. I don't want to see homeless, starving people outside my door. I don't want to shoot someone to protect food for my family. I don't want to see women and men prostituting themselves for a meal, or a place to sleep. I don't want to see climate change refugees streaming into the USA. I don't want to see religeous nuts set uo theocratic states all over the globe
So I will work as hard as I can to preserve a decent future for all of us. We are all in this together, and a hide out in the hills is a fantasy. That's why we have to wake people up and try to save our world.
Sorry for the rant. Bob Ebersole
In general the problem with pre-modern (and post peak oil?) mortality is focussed on the childhood years.
Child mortality is high... but once people survive to adulthood they tend to live "reasonably" long lives.
Don't confuse "average" life length with life expectancy of a person who survives to 15 years of age... two very different things.
oilmanbob, you may be in danger because of specific health conditions, but the general life expectancy for a modern and pre-modern 50 year old may not be that different.... it is childhood that is deadly.
I'd like to offer some solid numbers here, and they are available, but if you hunt around you'll find them. I'm sure that 50 year olds have better life expectancies now than 100 or 200 years ago.... but again the improvement has been much less than the improvement in the average life span, which has increased because of childhood survival rates increasing so dramatically.
Alright, I see where you are coming from. And I think we were just talking at cross purposes. My point earlier was that our health in general is not dependent on modern medicine, though that may be different for individuals with specific problems (especially those with "modern" or "industrial" health problems).
But I look at the coming changes not as descent into some Mad Max world, but as an opportunity to correct the problems of a social and economic system gone astray. I do not see the modern world as something worthy of sustaining, even if climate change threats can be overcome. I am as concerned about the "pollution" to our beings, physical, social, psychological and spiritual as I am about the ecosystem.
I'd urge you to consider that many of those "collapse" scenarios are a reflection of the modern world or of civilization in general, not a necessary aspect of the loss of central authority. For example, homelessness is an issue created by the concept of private property, prostitution occurs where women's role in society is degraded below that of men (which occurs concomitantly with the introduction of agriculture). The rest I will leave to you to imagine. But I will end with this - there are more choices available than just the collapse scenario and the clinging desperately to a technological existence scenario.
Shaman,
We're on the same page. Its going to take a giant attitude shift, a real inventory of our values and what's important to us, and a lot of personal investment in trying to make things work. Fortunately, most people really try to be good people, there's a lot of good in the world. The question is: How do we wake them up?
Bob Ebersole
That wasn't a rant - I think you coherently articulated what many of us on here are thinking.
--
When no-one around you understands
start your own revolution
and cut out the middle man
Mass production/distribution of information via books, radio, etc is what allowwed for the information regarding hygiene to be spread so far and wide.
Nice try, but not accurate. Information about hygiene was spread amongst primarily illiterate populations. While it may have been assisted by modern forms of media, it was not dependent on it.
Right, but how do you think the smarty pants people were able to come up with these ideas?
Take germ theroy for instance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germ_theory_of_disease
I don't think it's a coincidence that the theory did not gain widespread acceptance until the industrial age in England had been going for 100 years. There needed to be developed an entire foundation of higher learning in order for people like John Snow to get to the point where they could figure this stuff out.
I think the reason such things took so long to catch on was in part because people tend to resist new ideas that challenge their world view.
The idea of hygiene, and in particular washing hands, was considered and pushed foremost by a doctor in the 1800s (Dr. Semmelweis). He demonstrated that when he and his staff washed their hands after seeing a patient and moving on to another (something that wasn't done by other doctors) the death rate of patients in his hospital dropped dramatically (birthing mothers was his area of specialty I believe).
What did the medical profession think of this? They poo-pooed the idea and thought it was ridiculous. It took many years for the idea of cleaning ones hands to catch on in the medical profession.
"You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created."
Albert Einstein
Carl Sagan has written quite eloquently on this topic.
Certainly I probably wouldn't be still alive today if it weren't for modern technology (specifically, antibiotics)...nor would my son (well, technically, he would never have been born, as we required significant fertility treatment - so he doesn't really count).
I'm willing to be at least a third of the participants here owe their life to modern medicine.
I'm less than convinced that our nutrition is substantially better now than it was at, say, the start of the 20th Century.